zauber-a

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

16 Months

Darling, darling Georgie,
in just a few hours, you will be 16 months old, despite my 'best' efforts. Yes, I seem to be doing all I can to make sure you don't make it to 16 months, as I tipped you from a sled last week and watched as you fell down the stairs this afternoon. Being serious now, you are scaring me sick with your inherited clumsiness (I'm so sorry!!!). You used to be so careful and cautious, you waited until you knew you could do it, before you did anything. Now, now you fly through the apartment with no brakes on. You've spent numerous mornings literally flying over the uneven doorsteps in our apartment and landing on your face - something you do not enjoy. You slide down the MARBLE stairs on your stomach and trip in your shoes. You trot as fast as you can and your feet fly out from under you. You dance so hard that you topple over. There is a new bruise on your legs every night when I get you ready for bed. Maybe it will pass. I hope it will pass.

Sixteen months has brought us a dancing fiend. You hear music of any kind, sung, instrumental, sung with instruments or just people chanting, and you are bopping, swaying, clapping and turning circles. Sometimes, you can't even wait for the music to start before you start dancing, even if that means you haven't quite stood up from where you were on your knees to push a music-button (yes, you dance with your little bum up in the air).

Words are few and far between. You used to say 'kitty' but that has morphed into 'katze' and you refer to every animal (and sometimes people) as 'katze'. You call your Daddy 'dada' and you refer to me as 'dada' as well. You say 'hi' and wave when no one is in the room. You have stopped saying 'georgia'.

I think maybe there is no time for words to develop because you are so busy building finger-dexterity (and falling on your face). You can screw the lid onto a bottle (but not off) you can stack blocks to a tower as tall as yourself, you can put the rings back on the ring-toy, and if shown the right shape hole, you can now place shapes in the holes. You stopped eating with your fingers, and insist on having a spoon or fork. That really just results in more food in your lap and the floor than in your tummy...and you love to sort, especially my stamps.

One last mention before I go to bed: you are mischeivous and a stinker. You know when you are doing something 'forbidden', and you look up to see if you're being watched, whether it's climbing onto a chair and standing, or pulling daddy's red bull cans out of the cabinet. If it is something you really want to do, you get mad and start thrashing out at everything nearby, including pulling your own hair and slapping your own face. You have a will and you aim to have your way as well! Spunk, I call it, and we'll leave it at that.

love you baby,
and I'm so so so so sorry you fell down the stairs today.

Posted at 10:20 pm by zauber-a
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Friday, January 26, 2007

Snow

Okay, so it is only just after 9pm and I am exhausted. I was seriously considering going to bed, but I told a friend I would be updating tonight, so I'd better update!

The reason I'm tired? Went out for dinner (Indian) last night and didn't get home until late. So yah, it's my own fault, but it was worth it.

Georgia is sick. Her little nose is so stuffed, she can't breathe at night and when I got home last night, she was burning up and tossing and turning and almost moaning. Sven was in with her, but all he was doing was stroking and soothing. So I got up, got the baby tylenol and dosed her. She slept until 7:30am.

She's been up crying once tonight already, Sven went in and hasn't come out. Probably fell asleep...

She's actually been a gem the past two days. Hardly whined, did a good job of playing by herself and just being pleasant. She likes to pull out my stamp drawer and distribute stamps all over the apartment. As long as none end up in the garbage, I'm okay with that. So she did that while I worked at printing out layouts for a couple albums. It's so fun to have the layouts printed and IN albums for looking at. I even caught Sven flipping through Georgia's album the other day on his own (you know, without my prodding: LOOK, LOOK).

Then I had to take pictures while she was standing at the side door looking onto the snow-covered balcony. See the pictures HERE. And i actually really love the very wintery lighting. I played around with the photo above and gave it a 'fall colors' filter, which brightened it up a lot, but took away the feeling of cold and winter, so I took it off again. Because you know what, it IS cold and wintery!!

Speaking of winter - Georgia did go out on the sled this week. I bundled her up on Wednesday morning and got out the sled and the seat back and put it all together, only to find out that the seat back is too modern for the sled and does not fit. So Georgia had to ride with no back support and balance herself, which worked up to a point...I then talked to Sven, who told me I needed to wax the runners because they were rusty. The sled ran wonderfully. I was surprised at how easily it slid along behind me, and Georgia actually sat and babbled for a bit, before the very bitter wind started biting off her cheeks, at which point she cried. So we turned around and went the other direction. At some point, we got going too fast, took a slight curve and Georgia went tumbling off into the snow. After that, the fun was over and she refused to ride another step.

Maybe we can go out again with Sven tomorrow and get pictures...

On Thursday, she charmed everyone at playgroup by dancing up a storm when we sang out three songs...

Happy weekend!

EARWORM: Er ist der Oran-Utang, von Wunga-Wonga-Wald...

Currently reading:
The Big Over Easy: A Nursery Crime
By Jasper Fforde

Posted at 09:23 pm by zauber-a
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Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Still Trying...

Will I never have a functional internet again? I've written one blog entry tonight already and it disappeared without a trace. So this will be quick.

Georgia says "hi" from finally-snowy-Munich. We almost didn't go to sport today, but as you can see by her snowpants, we did end up going. We got a ride from Jeannette.

Best news in list form:

Cynthia had her baby on Dec. 5th (great day for a birthday, eh Mom?) and I FINALLY got to talk to her, for the first time in 1.5 years!!! or two? this evening. It was fabulous. Now I just need to see a picture of little Felix and hear about his stats. I heard all about Mom's, now what about Felix? length, weight, hair color etc. Spill, Cynthia!
We are getting a new internet connection - are changing providers. It is ordered but will take up to 3 (if not more) before it all works.
Nearly done with the big project and not quite tired of it.
Georgia is saying: 'Da-DAAAAAAAAAAA!' at the top of her lungs when she wants Sven, or when he walks in the door evenings - sweet. Not so sweet is the fact that she is no longer sleeping nights. having trouble falling asleep and then waking up every hour....

Okay, if there is more, it's jumped out of my head and I don't care, I'm getting this published before I lose internet AGAIN And then getting myself in BED!

Posted at 11:54 pm by zauber-a
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Monday, January 15, 2007

Decorating...

So I mentioned in my last entry that I am tired of living in a dorm, right? But that there isn't too much I can do about it. So I did what I could and decided for starters, I was going to finally give up on my broken picasso that has been in the garage since we moved in 3.5 years ago...and hang something new on the wall above the couch. I had Sven's full support too, I just had to remind him that he hates that blank wall (and he does). So we went to Ikea for some of those 50cm x 50cm frames in the light light light wood. I wanted three to hang right above the couch. How did I know I needed three? Because it's an Ikea couch and Ikea frames, it always fits...I was very disappointed when we arrived at Ikea that Friday (the day after we returned to Germany) and discovered they were sold out of that particular frame!!!! No! I found two, but not the third. So I had to wait. And in the meantime, I realized that that 50cm frame had a spot for a 29cm picture and that was just a little too big for printing out at home as I had planned.

Now everything is okay. I would send out and get pictures printed, and by the time they arrived here in Munich, I would also have the third frame and be able to hang them all.

The pictures were ordered that night, but they did not arrive until a week later, one day after we bought the last frame for them and the day we left for Radtstadt. Boo.

No matter. I now have the pictures and the frames and I hung them this morning. check it out:

Do you not just love the pictures I chose? Because once I realized just how big the frames were, and how perfectly a layout would fit in them, I knew I had to put layouts in them. Fluff layouts, you know? Pure eye candy. And Stacy had made me three gorgeous layouts before Christmas that had to go in there. Okay, admittedly, they don't fit perfectly, I resized them and everything, but they still came back too big for the frames, so the edges of the layouts are hidden. Not so cool. And although I love the last layout, it doesn't really fit with the others, as it is 1., not pink and 2., the pictures are black and white. Not Stacy's fault! So I looked into getting a different one printed, but that won't be here until next Friday most likely, and I might not like it when I get it, as I just made it purely with the thought that it should be PINK! and stand out in the white frame. Here's a preview:

so I basically just used a template and chose my own papers (colors) and pictures etc. Because really, I just wanted something fast to put in that last frame and finally have my project finished. So there it is. And then you know what I did? I actually got out my huge photo paper and went to print it out. Printer ran out of ink about 1/8th through though, and Georgia came out with a green face. So much for that. So I had to place another order, and this time, well this time I went ahead and ordered a lot of layouts. And when they come, they are going in G's album and she will finally, finally have some layouts to look at off the computer!

So anyway, that was that project. I have two more projects: to finally hang the shelf above our bed and put the pastel frames Kylene gave me for Christmas on them (the pictures are already in them) and to hang the 3 smaller square frames from Ikea above the second couch (this couch is purple people, I said dorm, did I not?) next to the painting already up there (yes, I did have one painting up, and two little frames with those silly Ikea animal postcards in them, which means two holes in the wall already I have to somehow hide, or fill...) but in order to do that, I have to wait for the prints I ordered to come, because the darn things are 12cm x 12cm, not a size I have lying around and I decided they should feature Santorini, because those are gorgeous pics, right?

One last photo, this one is for Kylene, because she had asked me whether or not I still had that vase. Of course I do, it's an awesome vase! And then just for the general public: the red folding table. It matches the green and blue folding tables I also have. Green next to the brown couch,blue is in the computer room being used to hold junk - i mean stuff! See what I mean? 1 purple couch + 1 brown couch + 1 red folding table + 1 green folding table + mismatched woods in the bookcases, coffee table and TV furniture = Dorm! Or at least, not the grown up world I'd like to think I belong to.

Ooh, and let's not talk about the corner of the living room that has been taken over by baby. Two huge toy crates and more toys spilling out into the main living room, the hallway, the bedroom, kitchen...you walk into any room in the house and you will probably find a baby toy. Nevermind the fact that I am the queen of clutter...I'll never have one of those fancy pottery barn living rooms/bedrooms, just because I cannot control the clutter!

Okay. 2:30! Georgia should be up soon and then I think we need to go on a walk or she might bang the walls down, plus I left an Email to Kylene open, but unfinished. So maybe I should get on that.

Toodles!

Currently reading:
Girl in Hyacinth Blue
By Susan Vreeland

Posted at 02:23 pm by zauber-a
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Sunday, January 14, 2007

The Eventful Trip Home...

The flight home was in the evening, Seattle to San Francisco and then on to Munich. So we had the slightest hope that Georgia might sleep. Wet trudged on to the plane in Seattle all the way to out seats in the nearly-last-row, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as we got a 3-seat row to ourselves. Once we were on and buckled in, we asked for a child seatbelt. Hm. United doesn't HAVE them? Okay. Whatever. Guess where Georgia spent the ENTIRE flight? on the floor, leaning into the middle seat. Turns out, she wasn't restless, but had burning-butt-syndrom. Here's where I lose the mommy-of-the-year award. When we got on the plane and I had Georgia in my lap, I noticed she had filled her diaper and mentioned it to Sven, who was sitting in the aisle. He gave me a LOOK and I didn't press the issue. I should have pressed the issue. I didn't. I hoped that since it was only a 2 hour flight and didn't smell too strongly, it would be okay to leave her until we got to the airport and could change her on a stationary table.

I should have guessed something was wrong when she started screaming bloody murder the second we made her sit on our laps for landing. She screamed until she was blue in the face and hysterical and when getting off the plane, I tried carrying her on my hip and she squirmed and continued to scream. Were any bells ringing in my head? No. At least I knew to change her immediately, while Sven sighed and huffed at the delay, I took her into a very public bathroom with a changing table in the middle of everything and got busy.

Georgia started screaming the minute I opened her diaper, and me, thinking she was being her typical stubborn self when it came to diaper-changing, told her to "shush, I'd be done in a minute..." as I wiped clean and saw BLOOD on the wipe? Oh yes. This wonderful mommy had neglected her baby who had literally pooped hot poop and then been forced to sit in it for over 2 hours. Her poor skin was torn and bleeding. So I smeared her good with the diaper rash cream I had in the changing bag (just ONE tube mind you, due to the new liquid safety requirements..) and took her out to Sven.

Moving right along with a happier baby and an exhausted, upset Mommy. We have no idea where to go. We've never been to San Francisco before and our gate is named "international gate". Great. Now when we were checking in in Seattle, they were unable to check us through to Munich, so we had to recheck in SF. The horror of this? It was about an hour before the flight left and we found ourselves at the main check-in counters with a line out the DOOR. People and more people with bags upon bags upon bags and here we are with an irritable bleedy baby and no bags and we have to stand in this line? I coudln't handle it. I left Sven and Georgia in that awful line and stood in the much-shorter-business-class-line and hoped. Shortly after, I was at the counter and begging, and it paid off! I waved Sven down and the wonderful lady at business class checked us in and we were on our way.

Our seats however, could not be helped. We were in the almost-last-row (I'm thinking it's opodo, need to have a talk with that company) in the middle of the middle. Yes. That's the middle two seats of a 4-seat row. Sick-to-my-stomach, I started the begging-thing again. The flight attendant nicely told me that I should ask my seat-neighbor to switch and if that didn't work, she'd do her best. My seat-neighbor soon appeared, a kid! A NICE kid! A kid who thought he was switching an aisle for an aisle and only realized what he had done after agreeing to do it. But he did. And so we got a middle and an aisle seat and good thing too, because Georgia, when sleeping with her head on Sven's lap, stretches out over my lap with her feet in the aisle. That would have been nice in the middle two seats...

Next bonus: no one sat in front of Sven so she could kick the seat to her heart's content and it stayed upright. The guy in front of me leaned his seat back as soon as he possibly could. CRUSH.

Ah yes, and this plane, this very new plane, had a second floor for bathrooms. You walked up to the middle, down a flight of stairs and there were about five bathrooms, all of them with a flip-down changing table. Bonus, because just as soon as the flight started, Georgia and I were on our way down to clean up yet another poopy diaper. She started screaming the minute I laid her down, so I gave her the tube of diaper cream to play with while I cleaned her up. She wouldn't be soothed and in one of her many moments of frustrated anger, threw the tube and I watched is sail through the air and fall right into the hole of the toilet, gone forever. SWISH! It didn't even hit the rim. That meant, that her bum stayed burny and bloody so I was rather upset with myself and her for that moment of stupidity.

After that came the hours of surprise and bliss. Georgia fell asleep and STAYED asleep for a good 4+ hours of the flight. So I slept some. And all was good until we landed in Munich the evening of the following day we had left Seattle.

The problem came with the non-arrival of our 5th bag. We waited and waited and waited, but the very smallest (though not lightest) of our bags refused to come. So we went home without it. This bag had Georgia's Elmo phone, a phone she plays with at least ten times every day. It also had my iTunes gift card and my brand new 300GB external hard drive that I was planning on installing the MINUTE I got home, so I could download lots and lots and lots of digital kits and maybe even scrap some...Don't ask me why I put a hdd in a checked piece of luggage. In retrospect, I realize just how dumb that was, and will (probably) never do it again.

And that my friends, was our trip home. We pretty much went to bed immediately, though we didn't get a decent night's sleep until um, yesterday. Yep. It took literally nine days and nights for the jetlag to wear off and I think we have all been exhausted since we got back. Georgia, poor confused baby, was awake at 11pm-2am and then again around 3am or 4am for a few hours, every night, up twice and frustrated at her inability to sleep. Then she'd sleep 4 or more hours in the afternoons, and I slept right along with her...

So. that's enough of the flight story. I'd include pictures, but I refuse to open up photoshop and use up system resources right now because I am uploading photos to pixum, photos that I will be getting developed at 30cmx30cm. Quite a few of them in fact. For Georgia's book. Yes, I am finally printing out her layouts and putting them in an album. I have 5 now, but 3 of those are framed and waiting to go up on the wall in the living room and were only tests anyway. Tonight however, I pulled up about 5 of the first layouts of her life and then started throwing in some of my random favorites...Eventually, I will get them all printed/developed and in her album. I will! Just need to keep an eye out for the specials on poster-size prints.

Anyway. The program has crashed on me about four times today already, but is now about 80% done so there is no way I will open Photoshop and edit pictures to share on my blog. I do wish it would hurry though, I'm tired!

Posted at 11:02 pm by zauber-a
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Thursday, January 11, 2007

random...

just killing time this morning, because Georgia insisted on waking up (and NOT going back to sleep) at about 10 to 6am...and came across this blogthings. I usually do them and think, "whatever" but this morning, despite having trouble finding the right answers (I am not a school-person) I got the following answer:

Your Scholastic Strength Is Deep Thinking

You aren't afraid to delve head first into a difficult subject, with mastery as your goal.
You are talented at adapting, motivating others, managing resources, and analyzing risk.

You should major in:

Philosophy
Music
Theology
Art
History
Foreign language

What Should You Major In?

and had to blog it. In case you didn't know, I majored in German Studies.

Posted at 07:56 am by zauber-a
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Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Miss Mousie & Miss Mae

Okay, so I am actually supposed to be getting MIL's birthday present taken care of, but it has to do with pictures and so I'm getting distracted, looking through the pics we took while in Seattle. So even though I owe a blog entry about the trip (and that is well-worth blogging) and am possibly catching a cold, and am beyond tired (but can't sleep), I am blogging a totally random entry instead.

So this series of pictures just nearly made me fall out of my chair tonight. I was just flipping through quickly, looking for anything useable and I come to Georgia cuddling with Miss Mousie (I won Miss Mousie in a church bazar drawing or something when I was in gradeschool, in Arizona). Sweet, huh, how she's all up hugging her. And then I turned to the next picture and saw the smile, see it? See that mischeivious smile? Yah, me too. And as soon as I saw it, I remembered just what was going on when we took these pictures. Miss Mae had been told again and again, NOT to remove Miss Mousie's glasses, including about 2 minutes before these pictures were taken. So what did she do? When she moved towards Miss Mousie and heard "no..." she "tricked" us by giving Miss Mousie some loving instead and then while we were "oohing" and "ahing" over how sweet she was, standing there hugging Miss Mousie in her onesie with a very full diaper...she grinned, grabbed the glasses and took off...

That brings us to picture number three. You can see the speed of the whole event through the very very fuzziness of the picture...ah. My Georgie.

Hope that gave you a laugh!!

Posted at 11:23 pm by zauber-a
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Monday, January 08, 2007

The Perfect Shoes...

And I don't even like shoes that much. You know, the whole finding ones that fit, aren't ugly and don't hurt your feet...because that's all I want them for. But then I got these pants and they were so long and they were dragging on the ground and sometimes, sometimes that is okay, but not when it's a pair of lovely slacks. So when Sven said: "let's go pick out your birthday present..." I agreed to go get shoes, and guess what: even found the perfect ones...in the wrong size. I was disappointed because heck, I really ended up liking those boots! The gal at the store offered to call other stores and find out if they had my size, but I stupidly turned her down, thinking I'd have no time to run around to different stores when we were leaving for Munich the next day. Couldn't get them out of my head though, and since I didn't have three days to think on it (mom and Kylene's rule) I went home, looked up the shoes and then the store where I wanted them, and started calling. Luck for me, first try was a hit. So Kylene and I drove out to Totem Lake that evening and I came home with my birthday boots and we had the most amazing chocolate cake from Costco, 4 layers of chocolate with fudge filling and scraped chocolate all along the sides...heaven. You could literally only eat a sliver of it before your stomach rebelled. Really sad that it came that last night and we only had time FOR one piece...and dumb me never got around to getting a picture.

After cake, I *had* to open Kylene's present because she had wrapped it and well, why not? Very cool embosser from williams-sonoma that I can use to emboss every one of my books while Sven is away in Russia...

Anyway. That's it from me for now. Just a quick happy birthday to me, oh yah, and we arrived safely, though not without a few twists...

Posted at 07:10 am by zauber-a
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Sunday, December 31, 2006

The Firehouse Cafe

Due to unexpected sunshine yesterday, we decided against the movies and went to the zoo, despite freezing temperatures (I swear it's colder this year in Seattle than in Munich). And since we've been taking pictures of zoo animals ever since we got that very first camera, we decided against them yesterday (or if you want to get technical, I did). That did not stop me from lugging the camera around my neck all day though, and good thing too, or we might have missed this (picture on right). You see, we kept her home yesterday so she'd take a nice nap and be rested...but it backfired and she was just grumpy. So we took her to the zoo and she held out through the whole freezing trip and died when we got in the car. Only, we were frozen through and since we wer ein Kylene's neighborhood and apparently the best cafe for chai lattes is in her neighborhood, so of course we went. Mom wanted to stay in the car and let Georgia continue to sleep, but I (rightly) guessed that she would just keep on sleeping, even if we took her out. She did. So we put her in an armchair and every customer who came in, stopped, stared and giggled, and then exclaimed at how adorable she was.

She did not wake up until we left and put her back in the carseat.

Now another thing, check out her hat. That was a present from Auntie Kylene and after she figured out that it was a kitty hat, she loved it and when she sees it, she says: kitty! Which leads into a bit of news that i have kept to myself, Georgia can say a few words and guess what her first word seems to have been? "Kitty" Yup my baby loves kitties. Maybe her Daddy will finally get a clue and let us get one! And her other two first words were: "Georgia" and "hi". Okay, well only "hi" actually sounds like "hi", the other two are hilarious but untypable.

So anyway. Before things go poof on me again, I'm sending you to flickr for a few more zooish pictures and signing out!

clicky With Grandma at the Zoo clicky

oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Currently reading:
My Sister's Keeper: A Novel
By Jodi Picoult

Posted at 11:14 pm by zauber-a
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Saturday, December 30, 2006

when blogging hates you

So I'm up until nearly 1am last night, trying to get that last blog entry up and working when I not only lose the internet, my browsers all crash one after the other until it won't even let me edit the entry anymore and everything I had written after a certain point, was gone. So I gave up. And that is why the last entry ends so abruptly.

Whatever. New day. Sun is shining, internet is once again working from two computers, I am going to finish uploading pictures and even stick a few in here, thereby sticking my tongue out at the powers-that-be who were trying to keep this blog pictureless last night!

So anyway, here goes:

Posted at 06:28 pm by zauber-a
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