Baby’s First Christmas

I know, this is chronologically off because I wrote in February. I’ve been working too much and haven’t had a spare minute to do any writing!

We celebrated two Christmases this year, one with each family.

Boxheimer Family Christmas, December 15-16, 2012
We had a nice Christmas Eve dinner with Fabian’s immediate family on the 15th—a delicious salad with goat cheese and mango chutney, followed by stewed meat and vegetables, and two types of knödel (giant dumplings made with potato and bread, respectively), followed by a homemade ice cream dessert. Emma had Pasta Bambini from a jar of baby food, but she didn’t eat very much of it—she was so much more interested in our food!



After dinner, we traded gifts with “wichteln,” which is like Secret Santa. The theme this year was homemade gifts. To play, you roll a dice, and you can only open presents if you roll a 6. Other numbers you pass to the right or left, or trade with someone at the table. We gave a cardboard penguin (from Fabian), and a mosaic of a Dachshund (from me). Lilly got the penguin, and Paul got the mosaic. Fabian got a painted box with different nick-knacks inside (from Henriette), and I got a jar of delicious salted caramel peanuts (from Lilly). Emma got her own wichteln gift, a German baby book.

Next, we had a debate whether we would open presents or not. I was extremely relieved when everyone decided to open presents together, because plan B would have entailed us taking all of the gifts to the US to open there. How were we ever going to get everything in our suitcases?!! The present exchange was very nice, and I think everyone liked their gifts. :)

The next day, we had Christmas Day with the Grandma’s and Great Aunt. More cookies, more cakes, and more chocolate! Coffee was fine, Emma was pretty well behaved, but she did almost knock over a candle… I have to say, my heart stopped for a moment when I saw what was about to happen! Fortunately, the candle righted itself, and no harm done.

After coffee, we opened more presents. Emma got a cute wagon from her Great Grandma, it’s a very nice wooden wagon with a string so she can pull it along with her. She has the right idea for pulling it, but she needs some practice. Right now she can pull the wagon toward her if you give her the string. I think it’s cool, anyway…

Wilfong Family Christmas, December 24-25
My family traditions aren’t so different from German traditions (I do have German roots), and we also celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Our Christmas Eve celebrations started by going to church for an afternoon service. Emma was not at all interested in church, and she only made it through the first 20-minutes before I had to leave with her. We ended up going back to the car, I changed her, fed her, and walked around with her. About 20-minutes later, my mom came outside to keep us company. I was in an incredibly bad mood because I was so looking forward to going to church, to begin the tradition for Emma that is now an essential part of “Christmas” for me as an adult. I didn’t act very nice when my mom came out, but I really was glad that someone else could take an over-tired, whiny baby for a little while.



After church, we drove to Adrienne’s house where Todd was finishing our dinner. Dinner wasn’t quite ready when we arrived, and we had some time to relax and let Emma entertain us. She had just learned she could raise both arms over her head, throw them down, and that everyone would copy her, and she spent a good 30-minutes training us while we waited for dinner.

When dinner was ready, we ate a delicious meal consisting of: salad with raisins and roasted peanuts, a variety of potatoes with a peanut-based sauce, broccoli rabé, lamb with chimichurri sauce, salmon, carrots in carrot sauce (sounds funny, but super delicious and carrot-y), and toasted baguettes, followed by ice cream topped with caramel for dessert. Did I mention that my soon-to-be brother-in-law is a professional chef?? Dinner was awesome!



After dinner, we opened presents. There were an unseemly amount of gifts for Emma and for her new cousin Kira (who then hadn’t been born), and I am not exaggerating when I say that we opened presents for two hours. Everyone was extremely done with presents before we even finished. It was sort of ridiculous, but nice at the same time. True to form, Emma was more interested in the wrapping paper than the gifts themselves… Maybe next year she will figure out her priorities.

Everyone was exhausted and ready for sleep at the end of the day, and we took a tired and cranky Emma home to Sarah’s house. She fell asleep on the way (hooray!) and didn’t wake up when we took her out of the car to carry her into the house (even bigger hooray!).

***

Emma’s first Christmases were a lot of fun, entertaining, and exhausting. I think she picked up on the excitement, and sensed that something special was happening. She was a bit overwhelmed with all of the presents and wrapping paper everywhere. I was glad when the hubbub of Christmas was over as it meant we could sort of return to a more normal schedule and a happier, less exhausted baby.

Emma, the travel diva

We survived the nine hour flight from Frankfurt to Chicago, followed by an eleven hour car ride to Nashville. Emma is an absolute champion traveler!

We left for the airport at 7:00a, and Emma was still sleeping when I started changing her, and woke up enough to have breakfast and get into some warmer clothes for the car ride. She wasn’t very happy about waking up or leaving her warm bed, but after ten minutes in the car she slept again. :) We had excellent traffic and made it to the airport by 8:00a!

At the airport, we were confused and concerned that Fabian’s boarding pass wouldn’t print at the check-in kiosk, and when we asked someone about it, they sent us to the first class/business class check-in desk, which was awesome since we didn’t have to wait in the economy line for three years. The woman at the check-in desk said that the boarding pass didn’t print on purpose so that we would be sent to the short line with the baby. From there, check-in and finding the gate were easy-peasy.

We boarded early, which was incredibly handy since the flight was completely booked. We could find our seats without people getting antsy standing behind us waiting to get all of our shit settled. We sat in the baby row, which came equipped with bassinets! We didn’t end up needing the bassinet, but it was nice to have the option if we wanted it.

The guy who sat next to us was absolutely incredible, no complaints about us getting up like fifteen times during the flight to change/walk with Emma, go to the toilet, etc. Emma was a messy baby and a poop machine on the flight. We know for the next time that we should bring a third change of clothes for Emma…
Emma didn’t really sleep on the plane (only 2 hours), but she was very content and well behaved for the entire flight. Her favorite thing was to look out the window and stare at the clouds. She didn’t have any problems with take-off or landing (except for farting the entire way descending  into Chicago).

After making it to Chicago, we had some sandwiches, visited my aunt, then finally made it to my parents house. Then, we had some down time while we waited for a few friends to come visit before we drove to Nashville for Christmas, and Emma slept for about an hour. Emma was very tired meeting everyone, and cranky, but still made friends. :)

After my friends left, we repacked our suitcases and started driving to Nashville. We were severely jetlagged and could easily sleep in the car. Hooray! Emma slept in her big girl car seat, and everyone was happy. The drive was relatively smooth, and we stopped a few times for changing and eating. Fabian got the 4:30a Denny’s dining experience—nuff said.

After breakfast, I was the primary driver since both of my parents were pooped, and for me it felt like noon. :) We arrived in Nashville around 9:00a, had a lovely afternoon visiting with my sisters, Emma crashed at 4:00p, and we went to bed at like 7:00p.

We all survived ~40 hours of travel, a seven hour time difference, and a car ride with my parents. Hooray!
See you (next year haha!) in Chicago!

(Relaxing after arriving in Nashville)

(Emma was completely passed OUT!)

Thanksgiving and Nikalous

I have been sort of busy these last few weeks, so please excuse me for not posting about Thanksgiving earlier.

This Thanksgiving felt like a total bust. We couldn’t have dinner until Sunday, then two of Fabian’s siblings had/have mono and couldn’t join us for the festivities. Thanksgiving day itself blew chunks—lots of stress and neither Fabian or I were in a good mood. We were able to find almost everything for a traditional dinner, except cranberries. We substituted with jars of Preiselbeeren (I don’t know the translation in English), which tasted pretty similar and are also usually eaten with meat.

Thanksgiving day itself was fine. We hosted Fabian’s parents, brother, grandma, aunt, and a random friend of his aunt. Everyone enjoyed the meal! We even had pumpkin pie, and the new Thanksgiving celebrators couldn’t believe that it was really pumpkin.



After the celebrations, Emma faked us out by pretending she was really going to sleep, and when she woke  up 20 minutes later, Henriette told us we should go walk around Schwetzingen to get out of the house (it was still relatively early), so we did. Emma was in a FANTASTIC mood, and we could leave her sitting n the Kinderwagen while we shared toast Hawaii and drinks. I really couldn’t believe how well she was behaving for us! Such a nice Thanksgiving treat!

***

On December 3, Fabian celebrated his 25th birthday! He got to sleep in a little bit, we went to Schwetzingen for lunch, then had his family over for coffee, glühwein, and cake. Mmm! After everyone left, we had a relaxed evening and had a pizza dinner.

***

Breaking news in Emma-land:

• She likes snow!
• She can climb book cases.
• She can get from laying down to sitting up all by herself.
• She has 6 teeth, and teething suggests more are on the way.
• She’ has finally rediscovered that sleeping is good and enjoyable!!!!
• She can get from sitting to standing by pulling herself up on furniture easy peasy.

***

Yesterday was Nikalous day. In Germany, the tradition is to leave your boot outside and then Nikalous will deliver treats (peanuts, mandarins, chocolate, socks, etc.). My family also celebrates St. Nicholas Day, and we’ve always gotten goodies inside stockings. This year, we had three Nikalous’s stop by!

From her American Nicholas, Emma got a toy cell phone. It makes noise. But, she seems to enjoy throwing it all over. Thanks American Nicholas! Her German Nikalous brought her different jars of fruity baby food, and two pairs of tights! The third Nikalous gave her some hilarious baby leg warmers. :)

Between Fabian and I, we now have more chocolate than we know what to do with, a whole bunch of new socks (yay!), and soooo many peanuts!!!!!

Happy Halloween, and happy St. Martin’s Day.

Emma celebrated her very first Halloween and St. Martin’s Day!

Halloween isn’t a huge tradition in Germany, so I was totally fine with Emma going as “Mommy’s Little Pumpkin”.



St. Martin’s Day is a huge tradition in Germany to celebrate the Roman soldier Martin of Tours who shared his cloak with a beggar. In Germany, children walk through the town/village/city with lanterns o celebrate his kindness.

For her (and my) first St. Martin’s Day (11.11), Henriette and Paul made a papier-mâché lantern for Emma to “carry” through the park. Emma slept through most of the festivities, but I had fun learning a new tradition, and Fabian had fun reminiscing from his childhood. Here are a few pictures from the evening:

On the tram to Luisen Park



Sleeping through the festivities.



Monster lantern at twilight!



With Mama in the dark

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Last, and totally unrelated to this post, Emma has new teeth! :D

Reflections. OH! And, we finally have an oven!

Emma just had her seven month birthday, and I cannot believe how quickly she’s grown!

Two days ago, she was laying down and holding a toy over face. It reminded me of when she was four months old and was really excited about the toys hanging over her play mat. I've also noticed  how clean she is when she eats real food. When she was first eating solids, it was a good day when we didn’t have to give her a full bath immediately after a meal. Now, she only gets a messy chin and hands. She’s also changed what noises she makes. First we had the chicken noises, then the babbling, the grunting, the constant whining, the spitting, and now we’re back to sort-of babbling. She has gone from propped up sitting, to sitting on her own and catching herself to save her head when she topples. Her biggest achievement to date is pulling herself up on the furniture. She can crawl (well,it’s not quite “crawling,” but she is on the move!), and lately I declare victory if I can leave the room for 30 seconds and come back to find her in the same place!

She’s really a fantastic kid.

***

We moved into the flat in July, and we finally have an oven and counter space!  So. This first picture is the sink/refrigerator/stove unit we’ve been using for the past few months. I’m really excited that we FINALLY have a proper place to dry the dishes (we can be lazy again, and let them air dry even if we want to cook. NOVELTY!).



Next, if you are standing next to the sink and looking toward the living room, this is what you see:



And finally (the prize!), the oven and counter! We have bona fide WORKSPACE!!



Eventually we’re going to put a washing machine in that empty space. We’re waiting for the time/motivation to carry over the old washing machine from Fabian’s brother. I think that spot will be empty for a while.

***

So, I am going to try going back to bed now. It is about 2:00a, and I haven’t learned that I can’t sleep until 10:00a and have coffee after 4:00p in the same day…

A jumping/bouncing baby Emma

One of Emma’s newest favorite tricks is to bounce. She pulls this routine for 30-40 minutes at a time, usually when she is SO OVERTIRED and ready for bed, but still too excited to sleep. :) Welcome to my world!

Bouncing Emma from Erica Wilfong on Vimeo.

6 months and (almost) crawling!

Happy 6-month birthday (a little bit late), Emma! My little darling has gotten SO big, and I’m so excited!



Even though you can’t see them in the picture, she already has her first two teeth (bottom), and I dreamt that her next tooth broke the gum line… Maybe I should check when she wakes up. ;) She babbles (la, la, la, ba, ba, ba), which is AWESOME, but it makes her sound even more sad and pathetic when she cries and wails “ma, ma, ma, ma, ma!” And, she is almost crawling! She has the butt-high part figured out, and can sometimes get her entire torso off the floor.



She moves all over the place. When she’s at the edge of the bed, she will try climbing on the night table, and when she isn’t successful, changes directions to hang over the edge of the bed, at which point we grab her and either help her to the floor, or pull her back to the middle of the bed. Even though I love that she is getting mobile, I really miss knowing I could run to the bathroom without worrying that she was going to be into some mischief when I got back.

I’ve been keeping extremely busy. I took on two new freelancing projects, and I reel like I work full-time. The only time I get to work is when a) Fabian is home and can watch Emma, or b) when Emma is napping. Since Fabian is in grad school, he also has a ton of work to do. And, Emma decided that the world is a wonderful and exciting place, and won’t sleep for a long time during the day. Not only is it exhausting, but it means that I am working at every single moment that I am off of baby duty—for an hour or two throughout the day until 11:30p or midnight. (Now do I get a pass for neglecting my blog?)

My German is coming along, and when I took the placement test last week I placed into Deutsch 5 (B1,1) essentially skipping an entire level of classes! I surprised myself testing into B1; I was convinced I’d be in A2,2, but I guess it makes a big difference when you’re exposed to the language all the time. I start German class on October 9th.

My good test results inspired me to make phone calls to make the appointment for Emma’s next check-up (success!), and a dentist appointment for me (failure! The dentist’s receptionist gave up on me when she didn’t understand my name and just said “Ok, bye bye!” so I don’t know if I actually have a dentist' appointment on October 15.).

Lastly, I've been giving serious thought to what I want to do in the next few years. Because we have Emma, and we need to establish ourselves, we don’t have the option to experiment with different jobs/studies to see what we like best. I’ve been toying around with a bunch of ideas, all of which involve some form of higher education in Germany, thus needing me to get to B2 level German really quickly. So far, I am most excited about switching gears completely and entering the medical field. I’ll keep you posted when I decide something.

Carrots, my oh my!

Today’s headline: Emma eats real food, and has a tooth! And almost a second tooth! Woohoooooo!!

The first time Emma had carrots, she was really confused, and not at all convinced that carrots were delicious. However, the second time, she was nothing but enthusiasm!

***

Backtracking to a week before she had carrots, our friend Mari visited, and Emma got to meet another Erasmus Auntie!



Mari was here for a few days, then the Würzburg crew came and hung out. It was ridiculously warm, and we had a barbeque. Emma was absolutely hilarious and attempted to eat Fabian’s sunglasses.

***

In the real world (opposed to my Emma centered universe), I’m struggling to accept being almost friendless, very bored, and constantly stuck in the house. Fabian officially started his Masters in History at the Universität Mannheim, and when he’s gone I play super mom and get an overdose of baby talk, cooing back at Emma, and waiting for naptime when I can get some real work in.

We need to juggle our schedules so that I can take the next German class, which is five days a week in the mornings or evenings. Since Fabian has classes five days a week in both the mornings and evenings, we haven’t figured out how it will work yet. I’m also (still) working on mastering driving stick, and getting my German license is still on the to do list. 

I’m pretty desperate to meet other people and create a network in Germany. Later today we’re going to the “Eltern Kind Café” meeting today for student parents where Fabian studies. Maybe I can make another friend?

***

Back in Emma-land, she can almost sit on her own, and can balance herself using the arches over the play mat. 

When she fell over, she discovered she could eat the mirror…

***

It’s cooling off here, and we started getting Emma ready for the fall. Fabian’s been pretty awesome at finding hats for Emma, and the trend continues with this one!



I’ve decided we must make a trend of amazing hats. And that Emma looks strangely like my sister Adrienne in that picture.

Beach holiday

We went to the beach with Fabian’s family today. It was the first time Emma was at the beach, and she was so stinkin’ cute! She slept in the car on the way to Heddesheim, and when we got there she insisted on riding “explorer style” in her kinderwagen (she’s too big for the bassinet thing, but not quite big enough for the sportwagen thing where she can sit, so we put the sun shield all the way down so she can ride facing forward on her elbows).



Once everyone was settled, I took her over to the water. First, she stood on the wet sand, then tentatively stuck her foot into the water.



The water was a little bit cold, but she giggled and started kicking and splashing.



Then, Fabian came over and took a turn holding her in the water. Fabian adventured with her and stuck her in calf-high! She was less convinced that it was fun, but she was still a happy girl.



When her feet felt a bit too cold, we went back to the shade to play, and Emma entertained us all!





It’s so cool to see Emma experience all these new things for the first time, and I absolutely love it!

Today, I learned that I’m a terrible rower. Fabian’s brother Paul has a raft boat, and I went on the lake with his sister, Lilly. We were beached, and when I finally got us out, I could only successfully paddle in circles… Hilarious!

***

In other news, I’m working on our curtains! I promise to post pictures when they’re finished.

An afternoon in Ladenburg

We went on an afternoon jaunt to Ladenburg this weekend. My birthday is tomorrow, and since we won’t have time to do a whole lot on my actual birthday, we went on the weekend instead.

To get to Ladenburg, we had to take a hilarious river ferry, which cost us 1,20€ each way, and each trip took all of 6 minutes. While we were waiting for the ferry on the way to Ladenburg, we watched a family encouraging a well dressed older woman to get into a canoe and row down the river. Just before the ferry arrived, there was a great big commotion, and we realized that the canoe tipped and the woman fell in! Everyone in her family (well, I don’t actually know if they were her family, but I can assume…) jumped to help, and the disgruntled lady climbed out of the river. I have to say, this woman must have quite a sense of adventure. I quite enjoyed being an onlooker. :)

Ladenburg is a pretty town from the late Middle Ages with history dating to Roman times. We walked around for a few hours, and when we finally decided to sit down for an afternoon coffee and cake, the café was out of cake! I was sorely disappointed, and we ended up at a weird Italian restaurant/ice cream bar and had traditional German “Eiskaffee” (a coffee and vanilla ice cream drink, topped with whipped cream).

It was a nice afternoon, and a fun excursion for my birthday weekend.

Busy, busy!!

So I’ve been  really busy, and neglected my blog. I missed Emma’s 3 and 4 month birthdays, and I finished the chairs and the table. Here’s an update!

Emma at 3 months:



Emma at 4 months:

Her favorite trick is rolling over (back to front), then wiggling her butt and kicking her feet—she’s trying so hard to crawl! She wakes up in the middle of the night to practice rolling over and holding her head high, but she usually gets pretty upset because she’d rather be sleeping; I’d prefer that too since I’m not a fan of waking up six times every night!!

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Next, we finally have a place of our own, even if it’s in the basement of Fabian’s grandma’s house. We now live in a 2 room (1 bedroom) apartment. We spent a bit of time cleaning and painting, and I must give Fabian’s dad a bunch of credit because he was a total champion to help us get things done. (And by help us I mean he took it upon himself to do most of everything…) We did do some painting though, really! I even had a super duper painting outfit. :)



I really wanted to help paint since Fabian’s family has already done so much to help us. So, I was put in charge of painting the edges in between the wall and ceiling.



Fabian helped when I had to stop to feed Emma. He got wicked frustrated!! (I thought it was hilarious, even if that’s not terribly nice of me…)

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I finished the chairs (they all have nice comfy cushions) and I refinished the table! To do the seat cushions, I took some foam, and cut it to the same size as the original seats. Next, I got really handsy with a staple gun, and pulled the fabric nice and tight to create a nice, rounded cushion on top.



Next, I cut the excess fabric to make it look nice on the bottom, and so that you couldn’t see the mess hanging down if you looked at the chair from the front.



And, ta-da! I think it looks pretty damn awesome…



Next, the table: This nice, old table from Fabian’s grandma needed some love. This is what it looked like (sans drawer) when we got it.



And, this is how it looked at the end:



After sanding the table, Fabian’s dad helped me replace the linoleum table top (a thing with old German tables) with extra linoleum he had from a previous table project. If we’d bought our own linoleum we would have chosen a different color, but since it was free, we took it.

I think it looks pretty cool with our chairs. :)

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The first morning we were in the new flat, Fabian made me an amazing pancake breakfast!



I promise, as soon as we’ve finished unpacking and have a presentable space, I’ll share pictures with you.

Till next time!