It’s almost Christmas??!

Since I last updated this thing, I have returned to Germany, got hired and fired (ask if you want the story, I just don’t think it’s good form to have it out there on the internet), dealt with an exploding toilet, “quit” the choir, had a sick kid, got sick myself, celebrated Thanksgiving with friends, Fabian celebrated his birthday, got a Christmas tree, discovered we are living with a mouse, Emma became a cookie and chocolate addict (thank you, Advent), and now it is the fourth Sunday in Advent and I can’t believe it is just two days until Christmas.

***

First, a good laugh. When I still had a job, one morning the toilet got stopped up and since we had to leave, we decided to deal with it later. At work (a nursery), two children were out sick with hand-foot-mouth disease, which is highly infectious and starts with a fever and gives you itchy red spots on your hands, feet, and in/around your mouth (more on this later). Fabian picked Emma up and we meet up after work to ride the tram home together. I was stressed because I hadn’t seen Emma all day, and she had a 4-hour nap in the afternoon, so I was debating whether or not I should go to yoga; Fabian convinced me I should. Halfway through class my phone tells me I got a SMS, and when I checked after class, it was Fabian saying, “call before you leave, we have a situation.” And what is that situation, you ask? Turns out that as Fabian was plunging the toilet, the water found an exit all over the outdoor entryway. There was a small lake of smelly shit water standing outside. Fabian called his dad to help fix the plumbing/cleaning, Fabian’s mom and sister entertained Emma. When I got home, everything was more or less OK, but it still smelled outside. After dinner, some kohlrabi-ginger soup that gave Fabian a belly ache, I gave Emma a bath, and of COURSE she poops in the tub. It was one hell of a day.

***

Emma and I have been sick pretty constantly since we returned to Germany in October after our stint in the US this summer. We’ve had constant sniffles and coughs, then, back in November, Emma got a urinary tract infection, which was pretty serious until we figured out what it was because she was vomiting, had a high fever, wasn’t eating, was totally lethargic, and only wanted to sleep. Then she got antibiotics and perked right up. Thank goodness. Two weeks later, I had the 24-hour stomach flu, and it was a very “happy” Thanksgiving for me.

We had planned a Thanksgiving get-together with our friends for the last Saturday in November. Thursday night, I started vomiting, and wasn’t feeling better until after a trip to the doctor where I got an IV to help replenish my fluid levels, since I hadn’t been able to keep anything down. Friday I still felt nauseas, but I could at least eat small portions. Saturday was particularly rough since we had all the food and cooking smells in the house. I was glad that I could go pick-up friends from various train/tram stations and get out of the smelly house for a little while. Sadly, it was a lack-luster party for me, I fell asleep when putting Emma to bed around 7:30p. In hindsight, I feel bad that I didn’t really get to visit with my friends. I hope I’ll get to see them again soon.

***

Next, Fabian celebrated his 26th birthday! I gave him a crepe pan and made him an apron, he was pretty excited, and the next day we ate crepes!! Sadly, it was a weird day and didn’t feel all that festive. Fortunately we could do a bit more celebrating the following weekend for Nikolaustag (Nikolaus came to Fabian’s parent’s house and we had a raclette dinner!), and that made his birthday celebration feel happier.



Thinking about Nikolaustag brings me to Emma’s cookie and chocolate obsession. Every day Emma gets a wooden Haba toy in her Adventskalandar (thank you, Henriette!), except on the 6th and 24th, for Nokolaustag and Christmas Eve; those two days she gets chocolate. So, we started the morning with two chocolate Santa’s, one in her calendar, one in her boot. the one from her calendar was gone in an instant, because we didn’t know that she could open the foil wrapper. Before I knew what was going on, the Santa from the boot was open and half eaten! Then she sat up tall in her highchair demanding more “La-da!” (from the German, Schokolade).

Moving on to the cookies: Fabian has been baking so many Christmas cookies, and Emma got to help out a lot. She snuck a bunch of cookie dough, and of course got to sample the finished product. During the month of December, Emma has asked for/demanded cookies at least once a day, if not more! Now we have to spell out C-O-O-K-I-E whenever we talk about them so as not to get her started on a cookie rampage.

***

On the 16th of December, we bought our first Christmas tree! Even though this will be our third Christmas, we haven’t had the chance to get our own tree. First, while I was pregnant, we were living in Passau and visited his family for two weeks around the holidays. Second, we were in the US for a month between December and January, and having a tree would have been dumb. So, finally, this year, we could have our own tree! :) Emma has only sort of “discovered” it, thankfully, so we haven’t had tree-catastrophes.

***

Last weekend, Emma had a particularly late night, and Fabian and I stayed up until 2a doing miscellaneous nonsense on our computers. I got up to brush my teeth and go to the bathroom before finally sleeping, and when I was in the bathroom, a mouse darted out from underneath the sink cabinet making a beeline for the door (which was closed). Until then, Fabian and I had both “seen” the ghost mouse, but this time we really knew that she was there. I called for Fabian to come help me catch it, but she was too clever for us and we still have a mouse somewhere in the house. We are sort of thinking about getting a cat, but in this exact moment, I am not convinced it’s a good idea, because having a pet means more financial obligations, and right now that just isn’t an option for us.

***

I almost forgot! Remember that Hand-Foot-Mouth disease I mentioned earlier? Well it made its way to our daycare and the week before break 5 of the 7 children got it, Emma included. And because she loves me so much, she gave it to me! !%/§$. It was like chicken pox but only on my hands and feet. My case was definitely worse than Emma's, but she was such a monster it was obvious she was sick, too.

***

With all the Christmas spirit in the air, Emma has picked up (we think at the Kindergruppe), some songs, namely O Tannenbaum and Jingle Bells. Emma will demand us to, “Sing! Singen! Singen!” until we properly start up with '”O Tannenbaum,” then she joins in with “O Tammenoun!” It’s incredibly cute. Two days ago she started the same thing with “Jungle Balls,” which took me a minute… We have a video of her singing her own song that you can check out, if you are interested/haven’t already seen it.

***

The last thing I can tell you is that we started potty training yesterday. I made Emma a pair of crotchless pants so that she wouldn’t have to run around half naked in December; it’s a bit chilly, you know?! We are borrowing some training pants from a friend, and so far it’s not so bad! Emma is starting to figure it out. :)

***

So, that brings us pretty up-to-date. I haven’t had any motivation to do much of anything since I got fired, especially since there is a lot of drama surrounding it. However, I have applied for a few jobs and apprenticeships, and I hope something will pan out because right now I am feeling like the most useless person in Germany. I have no reason to be here. I hope that you are doing better than I am, and that you are enjoying the holiday season!

Until next time…

A great big American FAMILY VACATION: Chicago!

If I could describe the three-week vacation with my in-laws in one word, it would be “intense." But, intense in a good way!

Day 1
Fabian and I had a big agenda to get his family acclimated to the time zone/see as much cool stuff as you can see in four days in the Windy City.

The Boxheimer’s flight landed around 11:00a, and Fabian, Emma, and I met them at the airport. I drove back with all of the suitcases, and Fabian took them on the L back to my parent’s house. Back at the house, we had planned for a big lunch of sweet potato macaroni and cheese, but no one was as hungry as we’d anticipated, so instead of having a big lunch, we snacked then started off to see some of the city!

We started by taking a scenic bus ride to the free zoo. Everyone was moving slowly, and instead of seeing too many animals, we cut through the nature preserve and walked to the beach. My mother-in-law took a quick nap on the sand while we dipped our toes in the lake, and afterwards we walked through a different part of the zoo to find a good bus to get back to my parent’s house. It doesn’t sound like a big day, but when it feels like midnight when it is only 4:00p, it messes with you! It was also stupidly humid, which didn’t help. Everyone (me included!!) was kind of useless.

Back at the house we dined on Chicago-style deep dish pizza, then called it a night around 9:00p.

Day 2
The next day, we planned to take his family to Lincoln Square, Chicago’s German neighborhood. Hilarious, right? Fortunately there is more to Lincoln Square than Schnitzel and Bratwürste—it’s a very pretty area of the city. We stopped at the toy store where Emma got a ball, we had lunch at Café Selmarie (which is absolutely delicious every time!), and we walked through the residential area behind the shopping street.

Next, we took the brown line downtown. I think that the brown line has one of the best views of the city, so we rode through the loop to Jeweler’s Row, and walked to Millennium Park to wait for my parents, who were going to join us.

We walked around Millennium Park for a while, then made our way south to the Buckingham Fountain.

By the time we were finished sightseeing it was just about dinner time, so we walked to the train to head back home. We had been out since about 10a, and by the end of the day I think it is fair to say that everyone was just plain pooped!

Day 3
It would have been cruel to continue at such a strenuous pace for a third day in a row, so we had a slightly slower day and took an architecture tour on the river.

As soon as I heard the guide start talking, I knew it would be hard for my in-laws to understand much (he was talking ridiculously fast), but everyone enjoyed the views. I was excited to learn more about my city, even though I was frustrated with Emma for half the tour.

After the tour, we had lunch outside at the Corner Bakery. This place is FULL OF PIGEONS. Seriously, I know we have a pigeon problem, like, everywhere, but this was just out of control! Emma dropped a piece of bread, and there were at least five birds going after the bread. And really, it wasn’t just a problem at our table. (Ok, I’m done now.)

Next, we meandered in the direction of Navy Pier. At the pier, we had some of the most expensive ice cream I’ve eaten, we didn’t ride the Ferris wheel like we had thought about, and we didn’t actually spend a lot of time there. Everyone was pretty done and ready to sit inside in the cool and just relax. So, we went home.

Day 4
The last day we were in Chicago, I went with Fabian and my father-in-law to pick-up the rental car at the airport (a huge 7-person Dodge Durango, this thing was a boat!), so that we could all drive to the Chicago Botanic Gardens.

The day at the botanic gardens was probably my favorite, not just because there was a lot of space where Emma could safely walk around and explore. The gardens are just beautiful, and extremely well planned.

The gardens had a cool exhibit with model trains running on a track through a wooden floral version of the United States. Each landmark was exquisite, and unfortunately I wasn’t with it enough to take many pictures, but here’s one for you to get an idea…

It was such a relaxing day, complete with a picnic lunch under the shade of some willow trees.

Day 5
This was a travel day. We drove from Chicago to Nashville, stopping in the Illinois Amish country along the way. I know that visiting the Amish was entertaining for my in-laws, but I had a hard time getting into it. For me, it was just a tourist trap in middle-of-nowhere Illinois; so I am glad they enjoyed the weirdness of it all. :)

The rest of June, July, and a little bit of August: Part 2

I feel pretty good about getting through some of this!

July
We arrived in Chicago just in time for my feelings of happy vacation to kick in. Naturally I started working downtown the next day…

July was incredibly stressful. Not only was I working at ACRL (a nice arrangement with two days in the office, and the rest of the week at home), but Fabian was also working on writing a paper due at the beginning of the next semester. With us both working so intensely, we barely had time to do anything else or spend time with each other. Emma’s daytime nap was premium working time for both of us. 

In addition to all that, we helped my parents get rid of TONS of old stuff that was just sitting taking up space. Part of that involved convincing them to get rid of the old smelly sofa and buy a new sofa bed, my main argument was that then they would actually have space for four more people to sleep in the already crowded house. It was a success, new sofa—epic sauce.

Despite having to do so much work, we did manage to squeeze in some vacation time. We went to the beach to see fireworks for Independence Day; drove to Madison for a day to randomly visit an old friend; many, many trips to the beach (hooray!!); a few visits to the zoo; and an early anniversary date night.

Emma grew, learned some new words, and made some new friends. I signed her up for the Chicago summer reading program, and we read lots of books together, and went to a few different places for story time. Emma took a little bit of time to get into story time, but by the end of each one she was having a blast.

I also did a bunch of yoga. One of my friends teaches yoga in Chicago, so I went to that studio and took her classes. I didn’t know just how much I would enjoy yoga—it's challenging, relaxing, anti-stress, and fun all rolled into one. What’s not to love? I was doing so well…

Lastly, I celebrated my 26th birthday, but more about that later. Fabian baked me a red current cake—delicious!!!!

All in all, not a bad July.

August
At the very beginning of August, I had a birthday party to celebrate my 26th. The last time I had any sort of birthday party with friends was long ago, and I enjoyed having the opportunity to visit with everyone, especially an old friend whom I haven’t seen in about… six years? And, a welcome visit from our Austrian friend. :)

After the party, we had three days to get everything together before Fabian’s parents and sibs arrived…!

The rest of June, July, and a little bit of August: Part 1

The time I posted was a week before I flew to the US for the summer. Since then, I have been intensely busy, traveling all over, spending lots of time with family and friends, and going to bed ready to pass out just about every day! Now I finally have a chance to make up for some lost time.

June
About  ten days before we were going to fly to the US, we met some of my family friends for a day in Freiburg. Never mind packing for a four-month trip, we had people to see! The day was overcast and a little bit humid, but it was still a nice day to be walking around. 

Fabian and I drove the hour and a half to Freiburg in the morning so that we could have some time in the morning to do some sightseeing. The city is quite beautiful and we enjoyed the walk; Emma enjoyed chasing the pigeons—with Papa’s help, of course.

It was so much fun to catch up with Bob and Laura over a potato lunch at the aptly named Kartoffelhaus (potato house) restaurant. I thought it was particularly awesome that they detoured north so that we could visit. :)

After lunch we all walked around together for about an hour, and Emma let us all know who the boss was. At the time, Emma could only walk with help, and she wanted to walk, and she led us all around town.  I mean really, how could we refuse when she looked SO HAPPY?!!

***

With four days until departure, we had one ridiculous day when all hell broke loose. I had been having tooth pain for a few days, which I’d been ignoring, but that morning when I was brushing my teeth, I lost a filling from a different tooth! So now I had to call the dentist and was able to get an emergency appointment 1.5 hours later.

It turns out that the tooth that had been hurting for a few days was just from my gums being slightly inflamed. The dentist gave me some sort of awfully bitter tasting medicine where I had the most pain, then took impressions to replace the old plastic filling with a porcelain filling. Two hours and almost 500€ later, and my teeth were fixed.

When we got home, I was going inside to grab the stack of newspapers to fold so that I could deliver them, and heard this strange noise that sounded like something between static and crackling and after investigating the noise, I discovered that we had water leaking from a random place in the middle of the ceiling. Fabian looked at it, called his dad, his dad drilled a hole into the ceiling to see what was going on, and before you knew it, a big fat chunk of ceiling was on the living room floor and our flat smelled like moldy concrete.

The ceiling had stopped leaking, and the mess was cleaned up, and we just had to realize we weren’t going to deal with it in the few days before we left.

A few weeks after the fact, we learned that the ceiling had been repaired and the wall repainted.  I am curious to see how it all looks when we get back to Germany.

***

It wasn’t the same crazy day, but sometime in that same week we learned that Fabian’s great aunt was diagnosed with cancer. We visited in the last few days before we left just in case we wouldn’t see her again. As of August, she is still around, but not doing well.

***

When I had booked the tickets to go to the US, I made a mistake with the dates and instead of flying together, Fabian and I were flying one day after each other, so I had a nice 10-hour flight alone with Emma to look forward to.

When we were at the airport, one of the airline employees was very excited to tell us that the flight was overbooked, and would we consider volunteering to fly the next day? They offered a 900€ voucher and one night at a hotel—heck yes I’d volunteer. I waited with Emma by the ticket counter until the very last minute, but it didn’t end up working out. If one more person had shown up for the flight, I could have flown the next day. Oh well, I’d already psyched myself up for it, and I was actually relieved that I didn’t have to think about getting ready for the flight all over again. So, Emma and I flew together. (She is such a good traveller!) The only hard part was that I had to keep waking her up to switch planes/get in the car/whatever, and she was so unhappy to be woken up… We crashed at Sarah’s house in Nashville and hung out until Fabian arrived the next day.

***

We had a good time in Nashville. I got to meet my niece for the first time; Emma started walking all by herself; and I had some much needed quality sister time.

Emma was super cute with Kira. Every time Emma poked her cousin, Kira made noises! It was a long game of cause and effect. Emma learned how to say Kira (Kee-a, which has recently been transformed into Kee-ga) and baby, and understood that Kira was littler than she, and was therefore the baby. This was also the time when Emma discovered the dishwasher, and she was excited to “help” me put dishes away in the mornings (which meant that I had to quickly stack dishes as she handed them to me while ensuring nothing went splat on the floor).

Because Emma started walking on her own, we went to buy her a pair of shoes. Oh boy was that a drama! Emma has a harder time with most males who encroach into her personal space (Opa, Grandpa, and uncles included), and of course the man at the shoe store had to measure her feet. One might think he was trying to chop off her foot instead of merely holding it up to the size measurement thing. After getting her calmed down from shrieking and wailing, the woman measured her foot, and we FINALLY knew what size she needed. We tried on one pair of sandals that were adorable, but made Emma walk like a duck (she really looked uncomfortable), and settled on a pair of Stride Rite shoes because she moved well in them. 

I also started to fulfill my promise to myself that I would start doing some yoga to help with depression problems. I squeezed in three yoga sessions into the two weeks I was in Nashville, and felt very good about that.

My mom drove down to Nashville at the end of June to pick us up and take us all back to Chicago.

Little dance mouse

Emma absolutely LOVES music, and she is almost always a cutie and will dance along. Fabian is less thrilled with this video, but he's given his blessing to have it posted all over the internet. Good man.

Baby dance mouse from Erica Wilfong on Vimeo.

Long overdue

I know that I haven’t written anything since March. This update is long overdue.  I haven’t been feeling like myself and I haven’t had the motivation to write anything to anybody.

April went fast, and I felt drained by the end of the month. I was swamped with work, and Fabian had a few projects for school. In the miniscule amount of free time we had, we did a little bit of traveling in the region; I finished the sewing project I’d been meaning to do; Emma started talking (her first word was “banana”); and I joined a choir.

May also went fast, and poorly. Emma had her first real accident (stood up and whacked her face on the corner of a bench), we’ve had four days with sunshine and I still need to wear a jacket—in MAY, and to top it all, I lost my job. Sweet. At least my Mother’s Day was nice.

That little bit of travel
We had a nice weekend daytrip to Bensheim and Heppenheim. It was a Saturday, shops closed early, it was rainy and sunny, and we didn’t do a lot except wander aimlessly. We agree that Bensheim is nicer than Heppenheim.

We had a weird experience at a café in Heppenheim: for the first time, we felt unwelcome in a restaurant because we had a baby with us. They had a highchair, so you would think they expect a child customer now and then, but they gave us a glare when we walked upstairs, and couldn’t believe that we needed a place to change Emma. We left, went back to the car and headed to Bensheim 3 km away, because we couldn’t deal with ending the day on such a sour note.

Fortunately, Bensheim was much more fun. After a torrential rainstorm, the sun came out and we had a lovely jaunt around the city, Emma practiced walking, and then we had a second cup of coffee and a slice of cake at a much happier café where the waitress doted on Emma.

Sewing project
After I made the sofa cover, I bought fabric online through Etsy to make pillow covers. The fabric sat in a cabinet for almost five months before I did anything with it. Ta da!

Emma
It feels like everyday Emma is doing something new. She’s mastered a stacking toy, she can walk with help, she climbs up and down stairs (which took her all of 3 minutes to figure out). After mama and papa, her first word was banana, and she has added Nase (nose) and Baum (tree) to her vocabulary. EVERYONE ASKED and now I can say, she speaks more German than English. 

Emma’s personality has continued to emerge—she is such a little ham! :D When she is tired, she will lay down on the carpet and look all cute and stuff. She gets enthusiastic about feeding you, and won’t stop shoving food at your face until you eat it. Handfuls of grass are the best toy when we can play outside. She likes to feed the bunnies.

Networking
At the end of April, I took over as organizer for a parents/playdates Meetup group I was part of. The original organizer’s children are in school now and she didn’t want to continue paying for it. Nobody wanted to pick-up the leadership role, and at 5 days until close, I decided to take it over for a few months to see what happens.

After I organized a meetup at my house, one woman wrote me and said she lived in the next neighborhood over, and we should meet. So we did, and now Emma and I both have new friends that live seven minutes away, and the new friendships have been excellent for both of us.

New project
I’d had this idea in the back of my mind for a while, and I finally implement it. I have changed Emma’s diaper on the bathroom floor of many restaurants and cafés because there weren’t kid-friendly facilities. I know, I know, Germany is old, and old buildings, etc. But, my idea was to create a list of the restaurants and cafés that DO have amenities for children.  So, www.kidfriendlyin.de was born.

I have had a few setbacks though—I’m in the middle of rebuilding the website AGAIN. Ugh!! The first time I was frustrated with the way things were linked and had to recreate pages using a different template.  The second time I had a lovely fatal error and lost the entire site, so I switched CMS and am working  of through it. So. Tedious.

Losing the job
I was working as an independent contractor for five months, then last Friday, out of the blue, I get an email that says I should hold off on everything for a few weeks until bossman can get his ducks in a row. I think it boils down to the fact that he doesn’t really do email, and since I’m not there to talk to, he couldn’t manage the project.

On one hand, I was relieved, because doing a job with zero feedback was stressful because I didn’t know if I was on the right track. On the other hand, I felt screwed over that I had no inkling that it was coming.

Farherschein
I’ve lived in Germany for almost two years. I was supposed to exchange my Illinois drivers license for a German license after the first six months, but that just didn’t happen. So, I finally did it! I have a mean looking picture, and I will pick it up next week.

Summer plans
Big news, we are coming to the US this summer, and we will be in Chicago for the month of July. Emma and I will be in Nashville in September. If you want to visit, please start making plans, I am already getting very busy. :(

 

Emma certainly knows how to get comfy and pass out. I feel like that too, practically every day! :D Here’s hoping June is better. Good night y’alls.

Springtime kohlrabi pasta

It’s technically spring (even though today was only 5° C, WTH?!), and we want to start eating spring-like food.

This recipe for kohlrabi pasta is originally from the German Kitchen Gods cooking blog, and I’ve translated it here for you:

4 servings
Total time 30 minutes
725 calories/portion

Ingredients
350 g green tagliatelle pasta (though regular white pasta tastes good too!)
2 young kohlrabi (circa 200 g)
2 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
1 bunch of spring (green) onions
30 g pine nuts
3 tablespoons olive oil
200 ml vegetable broth
250 g cream
80 g grated Pecorino cheese
Salt
Pepper

Directions
1. Start boiling salted water for pasta (and once boiling cook pasta as usual).

2. Peel kohlrabi then cut into long, thin slices; slice shallots; dice peeled garlic; finely slice spring onions.

3. Roast pine nuts in a dry pan until lightly browned (takes less than five minutes).

4. Heat oil in a big pan, then braise shallots and garlic. Add kohlrabi to the pan, and let cook for 2 minutes. Add the vegetable broth, let cook for 5 minutes, or until half of it has boiled away. Add cream to pan and let cook for another 5 minutes until light and creamy.

5. Mix in the spring onions and pine nuts. Salt and pepper to taste.

6. Combine pasta and kohlrabi sauce. Serve with Pecorino cheese grated on top.

Our notes about the recipe
We didn’t use green pasta, and we didn’t add shallots. It is still delicious and fresh. :)

Enjoy!!

Delicious oven fajitas… Mmmm!

Thanks to Fabian’s affinity for finding weird food blogs, we found a recipe for oven fajitas on the Budget Bytes blog. We made these fajitas for the first time today, and I would highly recommend them! The recipe is simple and tasty. We used a premixed “Texas” seasoning (it’s what you can get in Germany!) instead of mixing our own. Also, chicken is not THAT cheap here.

Happy 1st birthday, Emma!

I suck at keeping up with this blog. I hope that I can be better now that I am only working one job!

The months of February and March have been intense. On top of working two jobs, and being a full-time Mama, I took an intensive Deutsch B1.1 course, which was five days a week for a month! Then, the course ended, Fabian got sick, Emma had a birthday, and now I’m sort of recovered?

I was sick the last three days of my German course—I wrote the reading comprehension test (badly), then my teacher sent me home. I guess I looked really bad. I know I felt awful! When I got home, I discovered I had a small fever, then the next two days I had intense head aches. Two days later, Fabian notices some sort of rash on his chest, and when it started hurting him, he went to the doctor and found out he has shingles (herpes zoster), caused by the same virus that gives children the chicken pox.

So yea, shingles are fun. Fabian has been in a lot of pain for most of the last week and a half. The doctor said they were probably brought on by stress, which makes sense. It is a little bit funny, because we had just decided not to get Emma vaccinated against the chicken pox, and we still didn't vaccinate her against it even though Fabian has shingles… fortunately Emma isn't showing any signs of the chicken pox, and Fabian is past the contagious part. So, we are probably in the clear.

***

In other news, Emma started walking (sort of)! She has a small push wagon that she got after Christmas, and the day before her birthday, she started walking with it back and forth across the room for 30  minutes! Since then, she's gotten steadier with it, and now practices balancing herself when she stands. It is so cool! We bought her a pair of leather-soled shoes as a sort of congratulations. :)

She hasn’t figured out how to change directions, so she just keeps going until she runs into a piece of furniture. Then, she looks confused why she can’t go and lifts her feet like she’s walking in place. It’s cute and funny!

***

Emma’s first birthday was a lot of fun, but holy cow, children’s birthday parties are STRESSFUL!!

We originally thought we would have a nice birthday brunch at 11, but two weeks before her birthday, Fabian’s dad asked if he could grill. Who are we to turn down a barbecue?! The weather didn’t quite cooperate (so cold!), but we still grilled, and it was delicious. Fabian made tasty cucumber and chickpea salads, and we made rhubarb chutney and apple barbecue sauce to go with the meat. Mmmmm! (For the record, Emma was not a fan of the chickpea salad.)

The most stressful part of the party was opening presents. Emma was already tired because she didn’t nap well in the morning, and by the time 2:00p rolled around, she was pretty done. We also had a 3.5-year-old at the party, who was intent on “helping” Emma open presents. Cute, but overwhelming.

Emma had her own smash cake. At first, she didn’t know what to do with it, but Oma helped her out by scooping a big fingerful of frosting and sticking it in Emma’s mouth. About 20 seconds later, Emma was all over the cake!

I really wonder what she thought about the day. Randomly given a cake, tons of presents and attention? If I didn’t know what was going on, I know I would be confused.

***

One of the coolest presents Emma received was a hand-made riding toy.

***

A few random bits to tie up this post:

• Emma got her 7th tooth, and the 8th is almost here! Right now it’s a nice whitish lump sitting just under her gums.
• Emma makes funny noises by flipping her lip with her finger (bl-ub, bl-ub, bl-ub). Cuter is when she smiles because the noise is so silly!
• Transitioning to solid foods is a real commitment. I didn’t realize how challenging it could be to create a diet for someone else!
• I am slowly adding recipes to this blog. We have a lot of good ones, and it’s a shame to keep them to myself. :)

That’s all I’ve got for tonight. I hope to write again soon!

Banana Smash Cake

I don't normally care if Emma has bites of cake now and then, but I didn't want to deal with a sugar-high tired baby on her birthday. So... I went all granola and made a healthy banana smash cake. This cake is pretty delicious and tastes like banana bread!

We used a 9" cake pan, and gave Emma a quarter of the cake (double layered!). We cut the rest of the cake into small pieces.

For frosting, I'd seen a recipe for a healthy cream cheese frosting to make, but when I was frosting the cake (10 minutes before the party started) I couldn't find it, so I improvised:

• 1 package Philadelphia cream cheese
• Add enough apple sauce to make it creamy
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• A few pinches of sugar (enough to make it vaugely sweet)

Mix, and voila! Enough for a goopy frosting job on Emma's piece and then some. :)

Chickpea Salad

We enjoy Lite Bite's chickpea and dill salad. It is super easy to prepare, and tastes very refreshing!

Apple Barbecue Sauce

We also made this delicious barbecue sauce for Emma's birthday. The recipe from Effilee is in German, and I've translated it here for you.

Ingredients:
2 medium-sized sour apples
100 ml ketchup
1 tsp brown sugar
Juice from 2 lemons
Salt
Pepper
Paprika powder
Garlic
Cinnamon powder
Cayenne pepper

Directions:
1. Peel and dice the apples, and place them in a pot with a little water over a low flame. Cook until soft (like making apple sauce)
2. Add the ketchup, sugar, and spices (to taste) into the cooked apples.
3. Puree with a mixer.

Our notes on this recipe:

• You only need juice from half a lemon. If you want it more lemony, then add more. But slowly!
• We used two big apples
• The barbecue sauce tastes much better after letting it sit overnight. 
• Recipe filled one jar (something a little smaller than .5 L size)
• Total cooking time was long. The apples took forever to become soft!

Rhubarb chutney

Food52.com has a delicious recipe for rhubarb chutney (original recipe here) that we made for Emma's birthday party.

A few notes about the recipe:

• Total time with preperation and cooking was about an hour
• The chutney tasted exponentially better the next day
• We did not get the full 1.5 pints (not a big deal, just worth noting)
• We used a different canning method (boil jars, screw on lids, turn upside down to create seal, let cool)

A weekend in the Netherlands

We were half way through our trip in the US when we decided we would go to the Netherlands for a few days after returning to Germany, and after a day back in Heidelberg, we started planning a trip for the following weekend! Everything was very spontaneous and not well planned, but it was a lot more fun that way. :)

First, we coordinated with the Erasmus friends we knew living in the Netherlands, then figured out we could meet them both in the same region, and booked a room on www.airbnb.com in den Haag. The flaw in our plan was expecting that we could take Fabian’s grandma’s car for the weekend. Two days before the trip, Fabian’s dad said we shouldn’t take the car because the locks don’t work well and  it wasn’t good to drive it in the snow (it’s an older car, and it does make weird noises sometimes…), so we should look for train tickets. Well. the train was going to cost about 350€, and I said to rent a car for a fraction of the price instead!

Day 1: We woke up at ass o’clock to finish packing, then Fabian went to pick-up the rental car. The first thing he says when he gets back is, "There was a problem with our reservation and we didn’t get a car." My reaction was “WHAT??!!!” until I realized that he was just pulling my leg. But there really was a problem with the reservation—they didn’t have the car we reserved, so they gave us a BMW 320. Ha! At first, we both felt a little bit ridiculous, but after 100 km it was just fun. It was definitely the fanciest car I’ve been in.
We set off, realizing an hour in that we forgot to bring our Christmas money, and had no cash. Oops! We also didn’t have a map, and only had directions to the house we were staying at, but not to Delft, which we were going to visit on the way. However, as luck would have it, we were in a fancy BMW and navigation was included! Crisis averted.

Emma was really happy in the car, even though she is a bit big for her car seat (we need to hurry up and buy the bigger size!). I was worried she was uncomfortable, but she was able to sleep for a few hours and didn’t complain too loudly, so I guess it was okay.

***

We started our vacation with a visit to Delft. Delft is a smaller city (~100k people) in southeast Netherlands. Fabian had picked a random parking lot vaguely near the center from the navigation thing, and we drove a very roundabout way through the city through really small curvy streets to get there.



Emma was very excited to get out of the car and see something, and we decided to find a cafe where we could enjoy a coffee and cake to kick-off our vacation.

I was concentrating on keeping Emma occupied so she wouldn’t start crying, and Fabian was on the lookout for a cafe. We passed seven or so before I just picked one (Thuis In) because Emma was getting too heavy. The cafe was a funny split-level place with the kitchen in the lower level, bakery on the main level, and a few tables on the upper level. The cafe man greeted us then asked what he could get for us. We said we wanted to stay for coffee, and he said, “Okay, I have some toys your baby can play with if you want to sit upstairs.” Fabian was amazed! (He is used to being greeted with disdain when entering bakeries/cafes with small children in Germany.) So, after five hours in the car, Emma finally had her chance to crawl around and unwind. We ordered cappuccinos, Fabian picked out some funny cakes, and we sat in the cafe for an hour.

We walked around Delft for two hours and saw some interesting/strange/pretty things including  a hobo snowman, and posts lining a public square that looked like swastikas from the top (awkward!). The city is quite gorgeous, and looks especially beautiful at night all lit up.



Eventually, we left Delft and drove to Den Haag, and had a relatively easy time finding our host’s flat. We had a hard time figuring out where to park though, and had to wait for the guy to come downstairs to show us where to go.

Our airbnb hosts were a very nice Iranian family. They were very welcoming, and enjoyed playing with Emma. :)

***

Day 2: Our second day in the Netherlands we explored Den Haag. We had a late start—I was up for three hours at 3:30a because of a stuffy nose and the whole not being able to breathe made it hard to continue sleeping. We weren’t out of the house until after 11:30a and set off for a very cold walk to the central station to meet Matea and Krzysztof. (They live in the northern part of the Netherlands, but were coming to the south for a day to visit some Polish friends, and since we were there at the same time, we all hung out together.)

We met up around 12:30p, and decided it was very cold and their friends took us to a funny bar/restaurant called Pavlov, where we had tea and sandwiches. Emma was happy to be out of her snow suit and was jumping around for a while. She did take a nap before we left the restaurant, which made me very happy since she was acting cranky and exhausted.

After lunch, we walked around in the center, made our way to the Escher Museum (he’s the guy with the crazy perspective art and tessellations). The museum was cool, and on the top floor there was an interactive exhibit with lots of space for Emma to crawl around. The security woman was entertained until we were in the regular exhibit area and Emma was babbling very loudly, so I went to the coat check area to wait for everyone else.

Next, we continued walking in the cold, which wouldn’t have been so bad if the wind wasn’t as extreme. We saw the castle, then the group split up because Emma needed to sleep again and it just wasn’t working to stay outside anymore.



We stopped in a cafe so I could feed Emma, she passed out, and we walked around looking for a place to eat dinner. We ended up at a Mexican restaurant (NL has amazingly delicious Mexican food compared to a lot I’ve had in Europe!), and Fabian was getting frustrated going out for dinner with Emma because she was waking up and it was becoming an ordeal. But, the waiters were all smiling at Emma and waving as they passed, and it wasn’t a big deal at all. We enjoyed a delicious dinner complete with yummy and overpriced cocktails.

***

Day 3: We had big plans for our last day in the Netherlands. First we wanted to see the coast, then we were going to Rotterdam to see Robbie. We left our hosts around 10:00a, and drove to Monster to see the coast, and a windmill.

The closer we got to the coast, the windier it became, and by the time we walked from our car to the becah, I  couldn’t feel my face, legs, hands, or neck. I’m extremely glad that I had a sleeping Emma in the carrier with a big blanket around her to save her from the wind. But, I think she was still effected because she woke up to scream a few times after there was an extra strong gust of wind. Before the wind it was –4° C (25° F), and I don’t know what the temperature was with a wind chill… All I can say is that it was FREAKING COLD!

From Monster, we drove to Rotterdam. We arrived in Rotterdam at the Park and Ride around noon, then took the train to the central station. The original plan was that we would walk around for an hour and a half before meeting Robbie, but it was snowing, windy, and extra gross, so we stayed in the train station and had coffee and tea, and funny ham and cheese sandwiches (extra cheesy, topped with cheese).



We met Robbie, and he took us around Rotterdam to a cool restaurant (De Machinist) where we tried kroket, to Delftshaven, the historic part of Rotterdam that survived WWII (and I saw a second windmill!), the cube houses, and to a fun marine-themed restaurant where we had drinks and Dutch pancakes. Mmm!



Robbie tried SO HARD to win Emma over, and he came so close! She is still very cautious of people she’s never met, which is a good thing, but it can be so frustrating for our friends/family who want to give Emma some love and she’s not at all interested.  This picture was after Robbie tried holding Emma, and she crawled right back into Papa’s lap…



After pancakes, we went our separate ways and went back to the car to start driving to Heidelberg.

***

I had a great time visiting friends in the Netherlands, and I definitely want to go back when it is warmer (I’ve only been to NL in January), so I can see tulips, and, of course, more windmills!

After this visit, I am very curious to learn a bit more about the Dutch language. It is a crazy combination of German and English, and I find it fun to listen to. Matea was telling us a little bit about her Dutch-learning experience, and said that you really have to think.

For example, counting to ten, it sounds more German, but then there are 5, 7, and 10 that sound more English (that Dutch ‘ij’ combination makes a similar sound to an English i): 

Dutch	een, twee, drie, vier, vijf, zes, zeven, acht, negen, tien
English	one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten

Dutch	een, twee, drie, vier, vijf, zes, zeven, acht, negen, tien
German	eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, zehn

Anyway, off my linguist rant. I had a wonderful time, and hope to visit the Netherlands again soon!