Things Are Different This Time Around

Going through this pregnancy has been a different for me too, at least as far as preparation. When Lily was in the oven (or Heino or Stetsi as she was known at that time), I was reading a decent number of books to try to equip myself for what was about to happen to us. They were all useful and I'm glad I did as much reading as I did, but it's been a lot less this time. Most of it is because we've been through labor and delivery and the first weeks and months and years before, so I find myself wondering less about specific things and more about just how crazy the first few days and weeks are going to be, and even though the twin-specific books talk about that, for some reason I just feel like we know what we'll have to do, it's just going to be tough in that moment.

I was wondering about different things to expect during delivery so I was reading about this one day while riding the U-bahn home from work. Things got a bit graphic with the intricate details of C-sections and between that and sitting backwards riding in the dark under the city, I found myself feeling a bit queasy and decided that reading about medical procedures while in motion was not on the list of things I should do.

Our birthing classes start in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately of the six weeks, I already know that I'll miss two while on business trips. What I don't know is how much I'll get out of the four that I can attend, since they'll be in German. I haven't started any classes or particularly focused effort on learning German since arriving almost six months ago, so I can't really hold a conversation about the weather, much less about the act of giving birth. I picture myself sitting in this class madly typing words into my phone's translation app. Oh well, I'm sure we'll manage one way or another once the twins arrive, whether I have a clue what's going on at the hospital or not. As long as two healthy babies end up in my arms I'll be happy.

Ok, I have to include a picture, so here we are yesterday having fun at Oktoberfest. Since before coming here I had no idea what Oktoberfest would be like, I can now compare it to two Portland things... if you take the fair/midway of the Rose Festival combined with the Beer Fest and multiply both by about ten, that might be close. And part of the 10x of the Beer Fest would be to take the tents and turn them into huge semi-permanent buildings that hold about 5,000 people. So yeah, it's a little crazy but it has something for everyone. Including corn on the cob, which for some reason is not common here. I was waiting for it to hit the grocery store all summer and only in the last couple of weeks did I accept that it was just not going to happen. Anyway, this post has taken a 90 degree turn, so I'll just wrap it up here...

Brotzeit and Oktoberfest

I didn't think the nap would already be a hit or miss with a not even 2.5 year old Lily but I have to accept that she won't nap each time I put her down. At least I get quiet time from her most days.

My belly is growing fast these days. I'm getting close to how I looked at the end with Lily and I still have at least a couple months to go. The babies are each weighing almost 2.5 pounds and they are very active which means they hopefully have quite a bit more room to still grow. The other day I mentioned that my butt bone hurt so Lily decided to run over and kiss my butt booboo to make me feel better. So wrong but pretty cute.

It was fun to hear from one of her teachers on Friday that she spoke her first German word at "school." After the morning song, they have Brotzeit which means bread time or morning snack. Apparently Lily yelled "BROTZEIT!" and ran to the other room where her lunch box was and sat right down to eat. Of course her first word would be associated with food.

There is a book of German songs that my grandparents sung to my parents and my parents sang to me and now I sing to Lily. It has been so cool hearing Lily now sing the songs herself. She doesn't know what most of them mean but she can just flip a page and start singing away.



Today was opening day of Oktoberfest. Before the Fest officially opens, there is a parade through Munich mainly of horses pulling kegs of beer from each of the breweries and the workers drinking beer and waving to the crowd in their dirndls and lederhosen. They all end up at the Fest where the Lord-Mayor taps the first keg and the drinking can begin. You can't help but fall in love with a fest where you feel like the outsider if you're not wearing a dirndl or lederhosen. Living in the neighborhood sure draws a different perspective. Nate passed a carriage full or ladies drinking beer in dirndls at 9am on his way to the grocery store and Lily can't go to a park she goes to a couple times a week because there will be too many passed out drunks and men peeing there. There's a good reason for a good downpour after the Fest.

Here's a pic from the parade

School Daze

Ok, it's not really school, but Lily's started to go to a German play group. Her first day was this past Thursday and she was really excited to go, even if she had no idea what she was getting herself into. Since Nicole is due in about three months and will probably need to slow down as the time comes, we thought it was important to get Lily into some kind of non-parent driven activity a few times a week. There's actually a second play group starting in another couple of weeks too and once that's underway she'll be at the "spiel gruppes" four days a week for three hours a day. Oh, and they're German-speaking, so hopefully she'll be picking up more German in a hurry too. Nicole stayed the whole time on Thursday to ease the transition and left Lily alone with the group for about half the time Friday and apparently she did just fine. So the changes continue around here.

Besides going to "school by myself", Lily keeps on changing too. She definitely challenges us a lot these days, but in general she's a really sweet and fun girl. She loves to go to the pool and ride her balance bike, and is constantly singing. Seriously, I think she sings about half the time she's awake. Over the past couple of months she's actually started carrying a tune too, so that's at least nice for our ears. She's definitely a protective little girl though, always making sure no one is using anything that's hers. Including her house. Most of the time we see someone in our apartment building, and sometimes just when we're out around town, she'll say "no go to my house", as in "I don't want that person to go to my house". Not sure where that one came from. Others are a little more obvious, like at the play group they have a snack time (called "brotzeit" which literally translates to "bread time" which I find hilarious) where the kids take out their little snack boxes and chow down. Lily sits between two other kids who of course are curious about what she has, so she sits with one hand covering her food in the box and the other stuffing it into her mouth. Pretty funny.

Here are some pics and video from our past couple of weeks of swimming adventures. Lily saw some other girls jumping from the starting blocks in the lap pool and decided she wanted to do the same thing, but only if Mommy would hold both her hands. The pictures are from today when we went to a great outdoor pool facility a short bike ride from our place. A great kiddie pool, a big play pool with a big slide and a big 50m lap pool. My favorite Munich pool yet, and the weather was so nice we even had a picnic.