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.

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!

Feeling crafty, among other things

I’ve been in creative mode the past two weeks. One project finished, one in progress, and two in the queue!

No. 1: Chalkboard

Status: Complete

So, this project started on a a whim. We were at a craft store in Mannheim with Adrienne and Todd, and Fabian saw contact paper that had a surface similar to a chalk board. We both thought it was cool, and Fabian had been interested in having a chalkboard for a while. A few aisles over, there were plain wooden frames. So, we bought one frame and this contact paper. I was in charge of decorating the frame.

At first, I thought about paint, but I couldn’t decide on colors, or what look I wanted to go for. After looking online for ideas, I decided to decoupage the frame with amazing robot wrapping paper (we found the wrapping paper after Christmas, and I’m thrilled to have it immortalized!).

 

Right now, the chalk board hangs next to Emma’s changing table. When we move, it will go in the kitchen. :)

No. 2: Kitchen chairsStatus: In progress

I have a detailed post in progress about the kitchen chairs, and I will post it as soon as the chairs are complete. But, here’s a sneak preview!


The back story is that we have kitchen chairs from Fabian’s grandma, and they were in desperate need of fixing. I’m hoping to finish them this week!

No. 3: Kitchen table
No. 4: SofaStatus: In queue

The kitchen table and sofa are also a hand-me-downs from Fabian’s grandma. I don’t have any pictures of them yet, but they, like the chairs, need some love to shine. I’m going to use the same process I’m using with the chairs to restore the table, and I’m going to attempt to reupholster a 1960s sleeper sofa.

***

In other news, Emma is getting a lot more interesting! She loves to practice standing (with our help), she coos, giggles, smiles, sucks her hands, kicks like nobody’s business, and is curious about things!
We bought her a play mat with things that hang overhead, and she will sit there and kick while concentrating on the toys above for 20 minutes at a time! It’s really bad, because I can use this time to get other things done, but usually I can’t help myself and I sit to watch her play…


What else has happened recently? Hmm… well, Fabian and I went to see Men in Black 3 (in English), and it was our first “date” since Emma was born. I was almost crying in the car because I didn’t want Emma to miss me too much, but I knew that Fabian’s  mom would take care of Emma. When we came home, Emma was sound asleep and Henriette said Emma was a champion.

We are making a mini weekend vacation to Frankfurt this weekend. Our friend from Canada has a 25 hour layover in Frankfurt on Sunday with her grandma on their way to Russia, and we’re going to meet her and introduce Emma to her Erasmus Auntie Natasha. Then Monday, the three of us go to the US Consulate in Frankfurt to register Emma’s birth, then apply for her US passport, and social security number. She’s a US citizen too! Fortunately it’s not too much paperwork, but it is obnoxiously time consuming and bureaucratic.
Speaking of bureaucratic things, I am practicing driving stick a bit more and I’m going to apply for my German driver’s license by the end of June. It’s great, because Illinois has full reciprocity with Germany, so I don’t have to take any tests (driving/written) as long as I apply for my German license within three years of being in Germany. I think I’m supposed to get it within six months of receiving my German residence permit, but that didn’t happen… All we need to do is get a photograph, translate my Illinois license, and go to a doctor who can verify that I am mentally and physically fit to operate a vehicle. This process certainly beats the 1.500,00 € cost of German driving school.

Emma is almost 3-months-old, and I think her internal schedule is changing. I really can’t say if that’s what her normal schedule is, since we’ve been letting her set her own schedule, but I think she’s sleeping a bit more than she used to. Also exciting, she finally sleeps through (most of) the night! She usually goes to bed between 9:30p and 10:00p, and is content to sleep until 4:00a! Then, she eats for 30 minutes, and sleeps until 7:00a or so. It’s AMAZING not to be woken two or three times in the middle of the night and feed her for an hour each time. The only really hard part is between 7:30p and bed time, because she is obviously tired but desperate to be entertained.

I also discovered that the mei tai-style carrier we received as a gift worked really well until two weeks ago. Emma is at an in between size where she is too big to sit comfortably in the carrier with her legs bent like a little frog, and too small for her legs to come down around the carrier. It’s got to do with the shape of the carrier—it’s a big rectangle, and she isn’t big enough to stretch her legs farther to the sides to wrap around me from the front. One of Henriette’s friends loaned us a Moby carrier, and Emma is now the perfect size to fit in it comfortably with her legs down. With the Moby, the wrap makes an X for her to sit in, and it’s small enough her for her hips. I’m glad to have options, and I think the mei tai will work again in a month or so.
I have an American friend who had her daughter three weeks after Emma was born. She’s going back to work and asked me if I would be willing to nanny her daughter 2-3 days a week. I’ve conditionally agreed, but I asked for a test run first! The thought of spending the day with two super young babies is exhausting, but I think (hope) I am up to the challenge. Maybe it won’t be so bad… I start in two weeks, and I am going to try paying more attention to Emma’s cues so I have an idea of what her schedule is in the hopes that it makes working with two unpredictable infants a smidgen easier.

I’m also taking a post-natal class and baby massage class offered by the midwife who helped us with Emma. The post-natal class is an exercise class to restore good posture after sticking my belly out for 9-months, and to strengthen the muscles that were weakened/pulled out of alignment by the pregnancy (stomach, back, thighs and butt) because of my changing posture. I’ve been really bad about doing my exercises, but Fabian reminds me ten times a day so I will have to do them. The baby massage course has potential to be fun, but the time spans when Emma wants to be sleeping. We made it through the first 30-minutes of class before she dissolved into inconsolable tears from being tired. We spent the second half of class nursing and cuddling. I have five more weeks of classes, I’ll let you know how it goes.

I think that’s all for now!

Baby clothes are such a pain to sew.

First, you pin the pattern to the fabric.

Then, you get schooled by your second mom reminding you to leave extra space on the edges.

Then, you pin like a mad woman poking yourself many times.

The jacket gets a fleece lining and pockets!

The finished product (complete with AWESOME pants)!!

Three days of work, but I think it was well worth it! :)