Let Birthday Week Commence!

My actual birthday is not until this Thursday, but long ago Will and I declared that birthdays warranted a full week of commemoration. And so, Birthday Week has begun. Off to an especially good start, too, because Will had a four day weekend. So, there was enough time to do the necessary chores as well as to bum around as much as we wanted. The three main events were 1. eating, 2. working on creating Rachael & Will sized indentations in the new couch, and 3. teaching Edie how to sleep. Success, success, and success.

As for eating, Will made my birthday cake already. Chocolate cinnamon with vanilla frosting. Not too shabby. And together we cooked up homemade pizza and a delicious curry. The curry was so good that I couldn't bring myself to stop eating to nurse Edie, but of course I couldn't bring myself to not nurse Edie either. The result was a couple curry stains on baby's outfit from my shaky fork-wielding hand and two well-fed lasses.

The new couch is sublime. After a brief squabble over how to position it, Will saw the light and I won, and it's now our home base. We rarely plop down on it without a satisfied "ahhhhhh." I admit that I've badly monopolized the chaise. And as soon as Will lactates, I will happily turn over the soft-yet-supportive throne.

Magical No Sleep Baby is making some real headway in the rest department, thanks to our relentless vigilance and persistence. I over-researched the issue, as I tend to do, but it seems to have paid off. For Edie, at least, it's paying off. If Will hears the list of baby drowsy indicators one more time, he may take a night job. She's making up for lost time now, barely able to stay awake for 45 minutes at a time.

We should have added "feed the dogs" as a fourth event, as sadly we realized on Saturday evening that we'd forgotten to buy more kibble. Sadder still, the stores did not reopen until today, Tuesday. Oh well, that's why we have a spare dog, I suppose.

Enjoy the family pics!

Two Months Old! (zwei Monate alte!)

Edie was eight weeks last Friday, but as her Amma rightly pointed out to me, today is her two month birthday. Napping is still our main challenge. It is more than a little hear-breaking, but we try to be tough in order to get our kiddo the rest she so desperately needs and yet so fervently does not want to get. Will and I have turned into jiggling, shushing pod-people. (Not two minutes ago, I caught Will shushing lovingly at Edie's monitor. I have been known to shush passing ambulance sirens.)

A lot has changed in two months! Edie is getting more and more little person-like. Smiles, batting at hanging toys, occasionally squawking at the dogs, and a slowly-improving tummy-time regimen are some of her most notable accomplishments of late.

Here are some pics of Magical No Sleep Baby, as her father adoringly refers to her as, on this, her two month b-day.

Life is not a picnic for Schnoodles

It's been a long time since I've written about the dogs. The little beasts used to be the center of our world, but they've been out-done by a big-eyed, bobbly-headed infant. Life is still pretty good for Billy and Sugar. They get long walks most days in the English Gardens, where they run off leash, making friends and getting filthy. Which leads to the one sad part of their life which is far fewer pets. Grimy creatures that they are, one generally does not want to play with them during anytime when you might need to handle the baby, which is basically all the time.

Billy has adjusted better than Sugar. He's gotten very portly somehow, which has led to a decrease in the number of dogs slow enough to play with at the park. Now that the weather is better, there are more people lounging around in the park than before, which make for far easier targets than those danged fast-moving canines. Billy happened upon a casual picnic of 5 or so friends the other day, so he immediately invited himself to that party. Having a baby strapped to my chest, I am a little slower with chasing him and a lot more reluctant to yell at him. Dog-telepathy failed me again (Billllly...read my mind... I will sell you on eBay if you disrupt the picnic... with no reserve price....). So, by the time I got there, he had trampled their card game and commenced sniffing their snacks. Chanting "excuse me" in German, I try to shoo him, which obviously he thought was a game. I told him that he was a massive idiot, and happily the picnickers spoke enough English to get some amusement out of me insulting my dog. And so, Billy is fat, annoying, and quite proud of both. Judgment day will come once Edie is mobile. Mark my words.

Poor little Sugar isn't faring as well. Delicate thing that she is, we make an effort to cuddle her everyday. But it's not enough for her, and so she spends most of her time scuttling underfoot and cowering. When you coo too much at the baby, Sugar begins to wail. And as icing on her hard-knocks life cake, I stepped on her head at 3 am last night when returning to bed after feeding E. Now she suspects a murder plot. It's quite sad. But we love our little fluff-ball, and she has survived worse, Detroit street-dog that she is. Spring has beckoned green grass, which Sug loves to flip over onto and scrub her back upon. So there are upsides to life. And more good times are ahead, small one.

The latest dog-drama is trying to find someone to watch them while we are in the US for a month this summer. When I lived in Detroit, we were incredibly lucky to have a woman watch them whom they loved easily as much as they love me. I just want someone who I like as a person, is good with the dogs, and has that intangible you'd trust them with anything vibe. Sigh. The bar is a little high. (We miss you, Janelle!!)

So there is the Billy & Sug update, as I know they have fans among those who read this blog. They are still very dear to us, though they've slipped in the priority rankings. If we end up having to leave them home alone this summer, they can get back at us with some poodle version of Risky Business.

Spring has Sprung: Another Mini Album

The weather has been sunny and warm here in Munich. Along with the cheerful weather, we've had a rapidly increasing number of cheerful baby smiles. Social smiles, the experts call them, as these are actually in response to external stimuli. Payday is what moms call them, after many weeks of the hardest work you've ever done without any recognition that the little creature cares one way or another.

The sunshine and 60 deg + days have gotten us out of the house a lot just for the fun of being outside. Yesterday got up to almost 65 so Edie & I went out to meet a friend for coffee shop treats and fresh air. Save for being hunted down by two German women who angrily insisted that my baby was too cold, it was a great time. Two separate German women, I might add. Ahh, learning about new cultures: it's only fun sometimes.

So here are a few pictures to show off the sunny weather and sunny baby!

Arrivederci, Red Couch.

Six years ago, shortly after our wedding, Will and I rented a car, and drove past Chicago to Schaumberg, IL. We checked into a La Quinta Inn and went over our battle plan. The next day, we woke up early, traded the rental car for a U-Haul, and made our way to IKEA. This was the first of many harrowing IKEA trips we would make in our lives, and it was also the most extreme. We furnished 90% of our house from that trip, including a dining table and chairs, bed frame, office furniture, book shelves, and a couch. That couch, the cheapest IKEA has to offer in that regard, was not meant to be our forever couch. But over half a decade later, it remains.

It's been spruced up by a snazzy slip cover, and loved as much as you can love a couch that does not provide the comfort necessary for naps and moves back a few inches if you sit too quickly on it due to its feather-weight craftsmanship. It has provided a measure for our growing family; Will and I fit all right on it together, but over the years it has been made to fit one and then two poodles, and now baby makes five.

Tomorrow our new couch gets delivered. A non-IKEA couch. (Will claims we are on a path to replacing all IKEA furniture with "real" stuff. At this rate, we'll be IKEA-free in 2065.) It is nine feet long, has a chaise on one side, and we got to choose the upholstery. Not slip cover. Upholstery. Growing up feels goooooood today.

Little E Approves of Thai Food; not of Thai Restaurant Bathroom

Here we (baby, mom and Jennifer) are at our first outing to a sit-down restaurant! We dined at the luxurious Yum2Take, a Thai joint near Munich's humongous farmer's market, Viktualienmarkt. Spring has sprung and it was a lovely trip there. Ms. E was an angel during the meal (as angelic as 6 week olds get, anyhow). She gained many admirers. Wise little baby that she is, she did not want me to get spoiled and attached to the notion that such ventures would always be easy. And so we ended our dining experience by E requiring a full wardrobe change in the tiniest (and of course no changing table) bathroom I've ever seen. Small one was none too pleased after this. But I enjoyed some Pad Thai up until then!

First Product Review: The Bubble Roome

Every winter I suffer from really dry hands. Painful, cracking, bleeding hands. And so I'm always looking for a cream that will help. Now with Edie around, my hands are in water much more often to clean off poodle before I touch the baby and to clean off baby before I touch anything. As a result, my hands were so dry that I don't think I had fingerprints up until earlier this week.

My friend Jen brought me a jar of The Bubble Roome's 3 Butter Cream as a gift. I had used it at her house before and loved the smell, and she swears by it. I can say that after three days of regular use, the texture of my skin has totally changed. I have never experienced a hand cream that penetrates so deeply and works so fast. This stuff is phenomenal! And no chemicals or preservatives in it, in case that floats your boat (it surely floats mine). While committing the perfect crime will now be more difficult (fingerprints are back) I am loving the comfort.

This jar was purchased at Shine in downtown Royal Oak - a wonderful, independent store, if you've never been. Otherwise, check out this site for a location near you! http://www.thebubbleroome.com/info/wheretobuy.htm