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.
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.
