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 pa
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.
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!!
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.
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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!
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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.
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One of the coolest presents Emma received was a hand-made riding toy.
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A few random bits to tie up this post:
That’s all I’ve got for tonight. I hope to write again soon!
