FALL!

I LOVE fall. Hands down my favorite season. The crispness in the air, the chilly mornings with hot coffee, the disinclination to bundle up completely so that when you go outside you hustle a bit, the atmosphere that college football creates (that I miss so much!) and the coziness of it all.

I'm not sure if it's because it's fall or what but lately I've been feeling pretty great. Or maybe it's been all the recent visitors that I've loved having here. Or the upcoming trip home. Whatever it is, I'm enjoying it. It's another grey, chilly day but since they have just begun I am still in that period where I enjoy them immensely. And maybe it's because I know I can always get in my car and do something that I don't feel so locked up on dreary days anymore.

This weekend JM, LM and I are going to Weltenburg Abbey. There is a little bit of contention as to whether it is the oldest brewery in the world (Weihenstephan Abbey claims the title as well) but it all comes down to the words "oldest continously operational brewery" as Weihenstephan can claim that title but Weltenburg is the oldest brewery based on foundation date (620 A.D. vs 720 A.D.) -- it just had a period of 39 years in the 1800s where it was shut down during the secularization of Bavaria. Weltenburg is on the Danube and it looks so gorgeous, I am excited! And it's only an hour and fifteen minutes away - who could resist!? JM says I'm driving back, but we'll see...

Here's a picture I snapped a few days ago from our balcony:


Fall is good.

New Talents

These days I am quite adept at accomplishing many tasks that use to take me two hands with one hand. Some examples:

1. Typing.
2. Eating (cereal is the hardest, or a baked potato)
3. Tidying.
4. Putting a sweatshirt on (this requires some baby juggling)

I would also like to add that I am usually doing these things with my non dominant hand. Ambidexterity here I come! Who knew that was an added bonus of children? I can also shower in about 3 minutes flat. It's like camping, but everyday (so it really loses its novelty...fast). Additionally, I now consider 4 hours of sleep in a row "a lot" and those who know me will know how strange that must sound coming from me.

My mom arrives sooooon! HOORAY!

Waiting...

(almost) all the things Jeremy loves - Corvettes, the Badgers, now just need the GBP

I wait a lot these days, usually for (or on) one tiny individual. For those that know me, patience has never been my strong suit. It is a virtue I do not care to possess. Like right now, I'm currently waiting for him to wake up so I can feed him and we can leave right after to go do errands. I usually only have about 2 or 3 hours until he's hungry again and with the base being 30 minutes away it doesn't really leave me with a lot of time to actually get things done. It's a pain to leave the house to be quite honest and I prefer to get errands done with someone because having a second person there makes all the difference. Unfortunately there are a few things we need that can't wait till the weekend so I will chance a trip by myself. I am back to driving Stanley as opposed to JM's parents rental car (which was a luxury). It was a manual diesel Ford crossover (basically an SUV on a car body) and so easy to drive - I will miss it.

I don't mind waiting for the LM though, when he's asleep is when I get things done (like taking a shower) and other than the hassle of actually leaving the house he's a very good shopping companion (meaning: he usually sleeps the entire time). He's 'talking' a lot lately and it is, of course, super adorable and he's started to smile too which is equally cute. He's getting big, over 10lbs, and he's grown about 4" too.

PS: "Cutting for Stone" is a really awesome book. I'm about half way done and I'd definitely recommend it. One benefit of waiting a lot: I get a lot of reading done.

Visitors, Present and Future

For the past weekish JM's parents have been here and it has been great. It is so nice to have them here period but the extra people here to watch LM and all the good grandparent stuff they love doing has been super helpful. JM's dad also bought a drill at the OBI (Germany's version of Home Depot) and has been helping us hang stuff left and right. We finally got our cuckoo clock hung up and it makes our house sound so homey with it's charming tick-tock and, of course, cuckoo-ing. Thankfully, we can turn the bird off at night.

Today it's just me and LM (the grandparents just took off for two nights in Budapest - jealous!) and he's currently asleep in his bouncy chair. He's pushing 10lbs these days and fitting into 3 month onesies. He's making all sorts of sounds (happy and otherwise) and sleeping for longer periods of time at night (3.5-4 hrs).

JM's parents are here until the weekend and then my mom arrives early October! LM is enjoying having his oma and opa here and I have no doubt he will enjoy having his grandma here soon too!

It's been gorgeous weather lately - 70s and sunny, very un-German - and yesterday KE and I took LM for a walk in his stroller. He liked it up until the last 5 minutes and then he was ready to be done. Today it's grey and looking to rain but hopefully it reverts back to the unusually nice weather we've been having.

As winter draws nearer and nearer my urge to research plane tickets home grows. I've been keeping an eye on prices and so far they seem pretty standard aka expensive. We'll be home for actual Christmas Day this year and all of us are very much looking forward to being home. It'll be interesting to fly with a baby and by interesting I mean "could be a disaster" but yah gotta do what yah gotta do and we will definitely be home for the holidays.

I just started a new book, "Cutting for Stone" that KE brought over and I literally mean just started (I'm on page five) but so far it is very well written and the synopsis on the back has my interest piqued. I'll let you know what I think.

Things I've Learned

1. Contrary to what many people say about newborns the little man (LM) does not enjoy being wrapped up tight in a blanket. He hates it. He likes he arms and legs to be free to flail about, and he certainly takes every opportunity to move around.
2. He doesn't particularly like to wear pants so often times he's just in a shirt and diaper, or occasionally just his diaper and a blanket.
3. He can scoot out of his blankets at night and then gets upset about it. I've tried to explain to him that he can easily solve this problem himself by not scooting out of them but I don't think he's grasped the idea of cause and effect yet.
4. He gets tired of being held and wants to be on the floor on a blanket sometimes.
5. He makes hilarious faces and noises.

Yesterday he was up from 1130ish to 10pm (with a 30 minute "nap" thrown in there somewhere) and it was awful - he was so cranky by about 6pm. Today he is sleeping more than he usually does, hence my ability to write up this post. But he just woke up so adieu!

The little man

Exciting, adorable, and completely time consuming. And we couldn't be happier.

New Book

SLS, a great friend/old roommate got me Bill Bryson's "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" for my birthday and it is literally laugh out loud funny. The book is about Bryson's return to the US after living in the UK for 20 years and while my abroad experience will never be that long I can definitely relate to many of his feelings. Here is my favorite quote so far:

The many good things about America also took on a bewitching air of novelty. I was as dazzled as any newcomer by the famous ease and convenience of daily life, the giddying abundance of absolutely everything, the boundless friendliness of strangers, the wondrous unfillable vastness of an American basement, the delight of encountering waitresses and other service providers who actually seemed to enjoy their work, the curiously giddying notion that ice is not a luxury item and that rooms can have more than one electrical socket.

As well, there has been the constant, unexpected joy of reencountering all those things I grew up with but had largely forgotten: baseball on the radio, the deeply satisfying 'whoing-bang' slam of a screen door in the summer, insects that glow, sudden run-for-your-life thunderstorms, really big snowfalls, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July, the smell of a skunk from just the distance that you have to sniff the air quizzically and say: "Is that a skunk?", Jell-O with stuff in it, the pleasingly comical sight of oneself in shorts. All that counts for a lot, in a strange way.
::bill bryson

Can't wait to go home again...