Ex Patria

Incomplete knowledge can be fun.... in a three-year-old

Recent conversation between Jacob (3) and I:

Jacob: "High Five!"
We do High Five.
Jacob: "Low Five!"
We do Low Five.
Jacob: "To the side!"
We do to the side.
Jacob: "In the hole!"
I form a hole with my hand, he points his finger.  Before we get anywhere, he looks earnestly at me and says:  "This is the chicken," he wiggles his finger, "and this," he points to my hand, "is the Black Hole."

I actually snorted with amusement.

What you do when the sky falls on your head

I guess you panic.  And I'm not panicking.  Which means the sky is not falling.

We've just lost a few leads on prospective and/or fairly certain short-term/long-term jobs.  The fact that I'm not in panic illustrates the ultimate faith I have in my husband's abilities to find work, and his brilliance, and that someone will see this brilliance and offer him a wonderful job.  Because that's exactly what will happen.

So, there, fate.  Bite me.

(Doug will wince. He's part Irish, and Irish people are superstitious, even if they are not, if you understand what I mean.)

In other news, I finished another project.  Going off on a not complete sequitur, here comes one advantage when your relatives don't read your blog: you're free to talk about them, and to show birthday presents in advance without a care that you might spoil a surprise. 

So my niece is turning 7 in a week, and she'll be celebrating in Florida with her family and my in-laws.  That's entirely wonderful and they will have a great time, I'm sure.  We asked what we could give her as a present and the answer was uninspiring:  Books.

Don't get me wrong, I love books.  I buy a lot of books.  I read a lot of books. But I don't see the little girl in question more than maybe once a year, and I have no idea what she's read and what she likes.  So I had the idea to sew her a summer dress.  She can wear it now as she's in Florida, and she can wear it in two weeks when it gets hot and humid in DC. (Just kidding.)

I chose a very simple design, and a beautiful fabric.  Alan picked out the ribbon that I appliqued on the dress, and voila!  The perfect summer dress.  The nice thing and the bad thing all wrapped up in one: I learned a lot (zippers!) and I had to fudge a bit.  But it turned out like it was intended, and I think it's a nice enough present.

The Phantom

For several years, the Phantom has had Germany's imagination and police force tied up in knots.

We knew she was female, and a criminal of no bounds.  Her DNA has been found in over 40 crime scenes all over Germany and Austria - robberies, drugs, even murders.  And "harmless" stuff like break-ins, car thefts.  Her DNA was found on a toy pistol and on murder victims.  She was everywhere, she was elusive, she seemed invisible.  Even when her partners were arrested, they claimed to have no knowledge of her.  She was the ultimate criminal.  Entire police departments hunted her. 

And then, they found her.

Her story?  She's your average normal person who her neighbors would describe as "normal".  She works in a company that produces cotton swabs.  You know, the cotton swabs that forensic teams use for sample collection?

Yeah.  That's what I thought.

Tonight, Germany is laughing about the phantom that never existed.

My new favorite blog

Check out NEURONDOC's spanky new blog and welcome her to the blogosphere.  I can tell you that she's one of the smartest and funniest women I know and you will thoroughly enjoy her blog. 

Just one thing: if you figure out who she is, don't tell.  Because she's also important, not only to me.

Enjoy!

I also took this opportunity and updated (um, revived) my blogroll.  I have to confess, there is only one German blog and that's a knitting blog.  What this says about me, I don't know.

You may be dressed in pink...

... but you are growing up in a male-dominant household.  That's why cars will always be important in your life.  And the fact that your brother shares his cars willingly with you is a gesture of pure love. And darn me if I can remember where that yellow car comes from.  Other than China, I mean.

Saturday walk

The weather forecast is grim: snow showers, colder temperatures.  So when we had a perfect spring day yesterday, we dragged the boys out for a walk. 

They always complain.  They moan and groan and nearly always manage to spoil my mood and enthusiasm for going on a walk.  They claim they are tired, they are bored, they hate walks, that our walks are always too long...  but then, miraculously, they skip along as soon as we get on our way.  So I bite my tongue and try to be stoic while the complaints rain down on me, pushing kids out the door - knowing that within minutes, I'll have happy kids.  Well, almost always.  Yesterday, Alan had a grumpy day.  I think one is entitled to grumpy days.  He wanted to be left alone, and he very adamantly wanted to be left alone with his Nintendo and not interact with the outside world.  We dragged the grumpy one out nonetheless, and even though his mood didn't brighten much, he did walk lots.  He was mostly half a mile ahead of us and kept to himself but that was okay.

So we walked through town, stopped at the bakery for snacks, visited the fluffy chickens, and then hiked along the path that ultimately leads to Bohemia.  We didn't go quite that far (hah! A pet project of mine - walk all along that path.  500 km or so. Hm.) but we walked for a good two and a half hours. Moods were improved by sunshine and spring flowers, newborn sheep on the pastures and lots and lots of sticks in the woods. (Sticks play an important role in my boys' lives.)

On the way home we stopped at our friends' house for trampoline jumping and coffee and cake. The boys went off bike riding in the school yard, and we enjoyed the sunshine tickling our noses.

Bucolic in the bestest sense.

Spring skies.

More crafty stuff

I'm on a roll. 

See, I always wanted to learn sewing.  In my twenties, I mentioned this to my aunt who is a great seamstress.  She was very discouraging, and back then I was at a place in my life when discouragement would really, you know, discourage me.  Other than today, when it makes me want to do something even more badly.  I'm not sure whether that means I've grown or regressed... but anyhow.  It took me twenty years to get over this and try something more demanding than just patches on jeans or the occasional baby blanket or duvet cover.

The first step was the Fifties Bib. Then I got courageous, or maybe a bit over-ambitious, and I wanted to make this jacket for Leah:

[Burda pattern no. 9780, Picture by Burda]

Why a jacket?  And one with a hood?  Goodness knows.  Maybe it was the ears.  Maybe it was the fact that I'm still waiting for some fabric for the long announced crib set -- I needed something to tide me over the waiting time.  Still, hadn't I mentioned headbands?  Something nice and simple?  I guess I forgot.

So, I had bought this fabulous fabric at the equally fabulous Twins' Garden.  By the way, the owner is super nice and if you want to buy designer fabrics in Germany, I recommend her shop highly.  Very hightly. 

Anyway.

I bought some corduroy in a very nice shade of eggplant and just started.  Things I have learned on the way:

It's that time again

Leah Marie is now sitting up by herself, and she's making ready to crawl.  Rocking herself back and forth on her hands and knees...  Alan was the same age, and he started walking at nine months.  I shudder when I remember those days.  David was later, at 11 and 14 months respectively.  Jacob, even later at 14 and 16 months.  Leah does not want to follow this trend.

Time to baby-proof the house.

(That's cream on her face.  She's getting more teeth - ow! - and is drooling like, well, like Alan.)

Projects, ctd.

Spring is energizing me.

Okay, it's not spring yet.  There is the slightest promise of spring in the air, and that is enough to make me attack some projects I had in the back of my mind.  While I'm waiting for the fabrics for Leah's crib set to arrive, I thought it would be good to, you know, practice sewing.  I've made duvet covers and fixed patches on jeans but I've never actually made something new from scratch that involved more than just a few straight lines.

I think this new-found joy in creation is also due to being close to the sources -- whenever I find I need a special tool or fabric or notion, I can go to the fabric shop in Ostheim and buy it the same day.  I don't have to invest days of hunting for something that might not even be obtainable in a country where I hardly speak the language.  So this is a perfect time to start sewing and to accumulate all the tricks and helpers and tools of the trade.

For my first real project, I decided to make a bib for Leah and after researching, I fell in love with the Fifties Bib, a free pattern by Nicole Mallalieu.

Party

Alan still has problems finding friends -- or so he claims.  When we invited his friends for his birthday party, we ended up with 10 kids - from age 6 to age 12! And what is more important, they all love it.  We put some extra effort into this party, and gave US party favors to make this the talk-about-party of the year.  Well, I don't know whether we've succeeded with that but it was a success.

Partly this was due to the weather gods who smiled upon us - the only dry day with sunshine in a row of dismal days.  The party theme was Pokémon and we set up an obstacle course in the back yard. Running, swinging, carrying Pokéballs on spoons around the shed, up the play structure and down the slide, running and "catching" (slapping) ten printed out Pokémon characters that hung in trees and bushes, crawling through a tunnel (which subsequently gave up its life in this last heroic stand)...  they were all exhausted afterwards.  Just what you want!  Fruit kabobs and juice restored some life, then we played "Feed Pikachu" (beanbag toss) and "Pin the tail on  Pikachu" which were a grand success.  I think those games are unknown to party goers here in Germany.

Cake, and then, the Pinata.  This was the piece de resistence.  We decided to introduce this to Fladungen and since we couldn't find a Pokemon pinata online,  I'd labored over it for a day.  Doug hung it from the balcony over the terrace, we gave them some rules and a hood and a stick -- and the kids totally and undividedly loved it.  Loved it.

We recycled some of the Fasching candy the kids had collected and not even David got suspicious.

I'd call that a success.

Next, in July, David wants a science party.  Now that's a challenge.  Jacob spied the Thomas the Tank engine party supplies I still have from way back when I thought that David would like one (he never got into Thomas, though) and is now quivering with impatience for a "Thomas and Henry and Percy" party. In October. Patience is a virtue...