Growing up

We had a semi-productive Monday. We did things that were fun, like rearranging furniture, but not things that we needed to do...

First, we took an authentic 60s chair from Fabian’s grandma, and needed a better place for it until it gets reupholstered, and second, I said enough was enough, and the crib had to move! I wanted free access on my side of the bed again. The problem was, where to put Emma’s bed?! We live in a 2-room (1br) flat, and there isn’t a whole lot of extra space. Fortunately, we are in his grandma’s basement, which means free storage! So, things got shifted around, the desk in the bedroom (aka the dumping ground) got kicked out and into the basement. Next, it was goodbye crib, and hello big-girl bed. So we assembled the kid’s bed frame that one of our neighbors gifted us last year.

Emma was having so much fun watching and helping us. One of us left the basement door open when we were going back and forth, then all of a sudden I hear Emma sounding distressed from somewhere, and when I found her, she was stamping her feet at the top of the stairs (which lead to Fabian’s grandma’s kitchen), looking very upset about the fact that she couldn’t descend by herself. She was also covered in cobwebs from exploring--it was SO funny and cute! :)

So, naturally, the first thing she did was jump on her new bed.

Going to bed was the usual hassle, but she was relatively willing to sleep in “her” bed. Big win! She slept okay, but kept waking herself up coughing. Everything was fine until we were in bed, almost asleep, and hear a big thud. Emma had rolled out of bed! I got right up to see if she was fine, and she was just sitting there trying to get comfortable on the big polar bear pillow we’d laid out to catch such falls. She was still half asleep, and in the end I just took her back with me.

I didn’t realize JUST how much extra space the crib had afforded us! Emma spent a half an hour tossing and turning, kicking Fabian in the face, laying on my head, trying to get comfortable. She was so squirmy I was paranoid she would fall out of our bed, much higher and with nothing to soften the fall.

She didn’t fall out of bed. But, after I woke up this morning she was comfortable laying with her legs completely dangling over the side of the bed. When I tried moving her back into the bed, she wriggled back, but left one foot up… This morning I turned that mini crib so that the long side was against the bed, and I’m hoping that will help keep her off the floor tonight.

So, there you have it: Emma’s “room.” That chair on the left is the one from his grandma, which I am going to make marvelous!

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.

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…

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!!

***

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…)

***

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. :)

***

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!

Chair restoration project, part 1

One thing Fabian and I are doing is preparing for our move out of his parents house. His grandma offered to give us a bunch of old furniture; some of it is nice, some is not quite our style, and some is just really old and ratty looking—like the set of kitchen chairs.

Enter old, vintage chairs.

In their original state, the chairs look a bit sad. The chairs had a horribly faded red tweed seat that was covered with an equally sad looking piece of light yellow fabric. After popping the seats out, the first step was sanding each chair.



After sanding the chairs, I got to paint them with a nice coat of primer.



Next, the chair gets the first coat of epic green paint.



Then, a second coat, and they’re ready for some seats. I simply loved working with the green paint!! It was SO much fun!

***

Moving along, I started working on the chair seats. First, I destroyed the old cushions, which were literally made out of straw and animal fur. The dust storm I created when tearing the seats apart was really disgusting.



I have cut the foam and fabric that I will use for the cushions, but I haven’t been able to get my hands on a staple gun to put them together yet.



Right now the great chair fiasco is about 80% complete. All the chairs have been sanded, primed, and painted green. Three chairs need a second coat of color, the fourth chair needs to be spot checked. I have the seats ready to assemble. I am just waiting on some good weather to get things moving again!