Snapshot - Kid's Milestones - 7 months and 3 years

We were hanging out at home on the floor yesterday snapping some pics.  Looking at the first pic below made me realize that I should really jot down some notes on what the kids are up to these days because they've been busy and it's been cool, really cool.

Paul - Just last week you preferred to be hanging out on your back.  Now, you are sitting up alone and that's all you want to do.  Still no teeth, just enough daily drool to fill a kiddie pool.  Your first toy preference?  The  stuffed Tiger you're holding in this picture below.  You enjoy making dinosaur sounds and rocking a little when I sing.   You seem to like pulling your sister's hair now, not so cool.  You like to sleep on your stomach and suck your thumb for comfort as you doze off.  First thing that always takes my breath away looking at you are your eyes, your big blue eyes.  Something about them draws me in every time I look at them and my heart melts a little bit.

Elise - you are so wonderfully smiley.  I didn't know babies could smile so much until you arrived.  You don't want to sit up yet and prefer rather to scoot, roll, and rock.  You are impressively fast and can move far without being able to officially crawl yet but any moment you will be crawling. You have 2 teeth and cute curls by each of your ears.  Whether it's your eyes, head, or body, you are always on the move.  You love the door bouncer, spinning around giggling the whole time.  You don't like sitting but you like to do planks.  Go figure.

You two are on to a new eating routine, solids twice a day now to go with two long naps and four times on the boob, sleeping most of the way through the night with a bit of crying around 5 then drifting back off into la-la land for another couple of hours.  Dinner time is still a work in progress with the two of you being tired and not wanting to let the rest of us eat and chat as we want. 

Lily - It's been a big week for you.  You now sleep in a big girl bed and you're back to peeing and pooping in the potty.  It seems like this time might be it.  You wanting to carry the potty with you on the train to the park to show it off to strangers is my sign that the time has come.  You are hopping on one foot and trying out some new dance moves.  You are getting to know more letters and numbers by sight, more in English than German, but your German is growing really fast.  You are afraid of dogs these days and not so nice to our cats but you are overall very sweet to Paul and Elise and more and more helpful in between some oh so impressive voice-hoarsing meltdowns.

Munich Fun

Settling back into the Munich groove hasn't exactly been smooth but we're getting there.  Finally enjoying the  Swimming Pool across the street from us, can't say enough how well Germany does it with building swim complexes.  We also used our bike trailer for the first time now that the twins are old enough to sit in it to enjoy a picnic in the English Garden.

It's the season of street fests and beer gardens so it's easy to find some kind of fest happening every weekend nearby.  It's just not easy for us to get out of the house to get there but we sure try.

Nate and I made it out for a belated Father's Day celebration last night for some BBQ (Nate was craving spareribs) and then we ventured downtown to listen to some of the open air classical music being played at Odeonsplatz.  They block off the main square for ticket holders but can't block off the music.  We just found our own place to sit nearby.

Off to a good start enjoying the summer in Munich.

I'll leave you with a silly picture of Lily...our lil' Babushka.

June 2012 USA Visit

It felt great to be back in the USA for most of June. It had been over a year for me and besides the obvious reasons of seeing family and friends, I really enjoyed the casual flip flop wearing openly friendly American culture for a little while. I got my fix of small talk in doctor's offices to stores to strangers at the park. I didn't have to work for the eye contact and the returned smile at all. Germans are also friendly but I've got to say that Americans smile much more easily walking by others and I really like that. Maybe Americans are just more open initially, if they see something nice they'll just smile versus keeping it to themselves?

I am having a hard time meeting moms of twins here in Munich and I met 3 moms with twins at a park in Chicago and met a mom with same age 6 month old boy/girl twins at a Portland boutique - got some good twin bonding talk in. I loved shopping where the customer service generally far surpasses Germany and shopping for food was fun again because it was a change of pace- buying a gallon of milk, having a real selection of chips, bulk food section - yes I was quite giddy shopping. The moment we stepped off the plane back in Munich, Nate said that you can be deaf and instantly know you aren't in America anymore. It's nice to be home eating pretzels, riding the bike, and slowly finding our groove again.

A lot has happened in the twins' development in the past month, going from 6 to almost 7 months old now. I definitely realized it more being home starting old habits like feeding in a bouncy chair, setting the playmat out and only putting one blanket down for both of them to play on. No more - they need high chairs now to eat, not as interested in playmat anymore because they are both now more interested in being on their tummies more, and need at least 2 blankets to play on because they are in the "not quite crawling but still moving a lot somehow" stage. They are babbling so much more, discovered their wrists so waving might be coming soon, and so close to sitting unassisted for long periods of time.

Attached the link to our photo album from the trip. Can't say enough how much we loved seeing all of you. So glad it worked out to see so much family in Chicago and Michigan. Portland felt like we just picked up where we left off thanks to great friends and a gorgeous city we know very well.

June 2012 USA Trip Chicago Michigan Portland

Just Some Cute Pics

Just a quick picture/video blog from the last week.  I made a conscious effort to be in more pics not wearing my darn green sweater (and yes, I'm wearing it right now). We're starting to prep for our big Chicago/Portland Trip, leaving already in a week.  REALLY looking forward to seeing everyone.  

Sisterly love.

 Blondies

 Just love both of their poses in this one

Caught them both giggling at the same time during dinner

Lily is 3

Our Big Lil' is now 3 years old.  She loves anything to do with the Wizard of Oz, playing Barbies, "chase me," riding her Scooter, playing Basketball, trying to hop on one foot, eating, climbing trees, and is still our regular little singer.  

We celebrated with a small picnic in the park.   This picture captures the moment so perfectly - Lily's "I'm really happy right now" moment.  

Here are a few more pics from last week. Yup, Lily had an especially good week.

Lily's favorite pastime - eating...in this shot...Birthday blueberry pancakes

Our friend/babysitter Julia came over with all her Barbies and a big Barbie house to play with Lily - Lily was in heaven.

 The one thing Lily asked for consistently was an umbrella.

 Lily even got a visit from her cousin Natalie.

 Opening Grandma and Grandpa's gifts

 Had to include a pic of  Paul and Elise too.  My view of them these days after feedings - so much bigger and holding hands. They are now showing more and more interest in what Lily is up to.  Lily knows how to make Paul giggle now too.  

Blue Eyes, Smiley, and Poopy Pants

I am mom to blue eyes, smiley, and poopy pants aka Lily, Elise, and Paul. Lily knows how to work those blue eyes these days to try and get something, Elise is such a big open mouthed nose scrunching smiler to everyone, and Paul poops all.the.time. Lily is currently miraculously napping which she pretty much gave up since starting Kindergarten, Paul is making high pitched squeals while kicking both his legs in his bouncy chair to help him rock more and Elise and Daddy are enjoying tummy time. It's a very mellow Saturday in the Mather house because the weather sucks.  

Paul and Elise are 5 months old now and their weight and length is exactly the same, just over 15 lbs and 26 inches long.  They nap about 3x a day (30 minutes is the usual but hints of longer ones are popping up) and I get up 1x a night for a feeding.   Elise easily wins the nap award on ease of going down and sleeping longer these days and Paul wins on being a bit more chill when sitting on a lap or bouncy chair.  Elise is all about tummy time from playing to sleeping.  Even when I'm out with them in the stroller, Elise prefer to be on her tummy and push herself up enough to look out of the bassinet smiling. Our pediatrician caught us off guard recommending we start solids immediately only because we'd planned to wait till 6 months like with Lily. Our doctor talked about a 10,000 kid study that resulted in a recommendation to introduce gluten between 4-6 months to lessen the risk of an allergy.  Ok, good enough for us. We started at almost 5 months with rice cereal and it's going just fine.  

Lily is busy being an independent, talkative, strong willed social ham.  Her German is exploding and it's so entertaining to listen to her mix up the languages.  As an early Mom's Day gift, they learned a song to sing that she proudly sang to me today in German...ish.  I wish I could capture some of her Lilyisms these days like when she says "I is" as she's nodding her head while tilted on one side answering a simple question like "are you happy?" or when she does an audible exhale to calm down before trying again to buckle her helmet.  

Tomorrow brings a double dose of celebrating, Mother's Day and our 6 year wedding anniversary.  We asked each other what the biggest surprise of our lives was and we both immediately answered "having 3 kids."  We have had to adapt to quite a bit this last year and not made the time enough to sit back and just enjoy...out of the house...just the two of us....tomorrow we are making the time to do just that.

My guys.  Paul in a sweater vest....just like namesake often is. Hi Opa.  

Elise in her usual position these days

 Ate lunch at a neighborhood beer garden where they have free childcare and a park, very cool.  Yup, we'll probably be summer regulars there.

 Trying to read a book but mostly playing grab the book game.

One Year in Munich

In some ways it feels like we've been here a lot longer, and in some ways it seems like we're brand new in town, but it's been a year since we arrived at Munich Airport with two carts of suitcases, a stroller with an almost two-year old, and two cats with full bladders.

 We've settled into our new city, my new job, our first apartment, and now our second apartment and neighborhood. As I wrote that opening sentence I was almost surprised to recall that Lily wasn't even two when we moved here, since she's now going to school for six hours a day and babbling on and on about any and all subjects. That definitely makes it seem like a long time ago.

We were pretty sure what we were getting ourselves into coming here, and I don't think we were overly surprised by anything except what we saw on that fateful ultrasound in May. I do recall some frustrations those first few weeks and months about poor customer service (or American expectations) and having to jump through a lot of bureaucratic hoops. But now that we're past most of that it feels like pretty smooth sailing. We still wish stores were open on Sunday and that we could buy gallons of milk instead of liters, but these are just minor annoyances at this point. And there are big pluses to living here too, again going back to Lily being in school and the fact that the education system is just set up that way to get three year olds involved in learning and socialization. And while it's not free, it's definitely not at all expensive.

 The big curveball of the first year is well known, but it had such a huge impact on the year that it's impossible to understate. The pregnancy was difficult, between bad morning sickness at first and immobility at the end, and it really affected what we did, from vacation to working out to socializing. But in hindsight we also came over with some unrealistic expectations that we would continue to live like we did during our 3-month stint in 2010, as tourists running around to see the cool sights of the city and area. Even without the pregnancy, doing things like getting Lily involved in German-speaking playgroups was important, and that precluded a lot of excursions. All in all it was a tough first year but I don't think either of us would do anything differently.

 Of course at a milestone like this you want to stop and assess the future, but we really promised ourselves that we would wait until the two year mark to make any decisions about where we want to spend the years beyond that. So you're not getting anything juicy out of me this time...

In keeping with the theme, here's a picture of Lily a year ago at the spring festival and earlier this week at the same festival.