Home in Four Steps

The routine daily pick up round after work. Ten to three (o'clock), start with Leo.

Step one: Enter nursery and peep round the corner, check the monkey out. He might be listening to a story, singing a song, shouting excitedly over a match at sound memory, or be earning praise at tidy-up time. He finds mummy, comes running for a big hug and starts looking for his coat and hat, ready to shoot... except recently, where he's taken to giving me a big grin and staying exactly where he is. Monkey. The crying child is Milo, who's taken to howling as soon as he sees me. There are some likely explanations but they all sound like poor excuses.... Is it me?


Step 2: Coat, hat, waterbottle... all ready to go. "Mummz le's go. Where Tara?" (Gone are the days when he caled her Lala. Sad, so sad.) My, that's a tired child I'm picking up today. Every day. It what happens when little people ("I a little person!") don't go to sleep when asked to by their parents and refuse to sleep at nursery.


Step 3: Get him to sit down in car/pushchair and ply him with food. Gotta run. We have fifteen minutes for a way that takes, well, fifteen minutes.


Step 4: Ah! He's out. As discussed above, the side effects of poor sleeping habits. One down, one to go.


The other kid!
Step one: Collect from school gates (classroom door, to be precise) after having swept round the corner in the last of my fifteen minutes. Who's the last mum to pick up? Why, me. Of course.


Step 2: Question time. "Is anything special happening today?" "Do I have friends visiting?" "Did you bring me any treats?" On average, my answers are no, no, no and no. The last no to any other question she might ask. And I was the last mum... totally unsatisfactoty, all of it.


Step 3: Woo-hoo! We're walking a stretch of the way with a friend! Hand in hand, running off in search of puddles to jump in to - to maternal screams of NOTSOFASTGIIIIIRLS!!! from behind, and WHATDOYOUTHINKYOUREDOININGRUNNINGOFFLIKETHIS!!



Step 4: Aaaannd we're home. There are pictures of Tara diligently bent over some level 15 reading, but let's face the truth. TV. The unbearable attraction thereof. Some more Barbie, Barney, Tinkerbelle, a documentary or two about this animal or that, Tara takes them all. I fix up some snack, she helps herself to another apple, and it's two out of two kids out.


A little breather, a cup of tea, a sneaky biscuit from the secret cupboard. Then Leo wakes up tearfully and Tara is pried off the telly, and we're on to step one of The Evening Madness.

Abacadab!

"Look Mummy! I Harry Potter! Where 'tick?"

Leo's found a pointy hat, Leo's found some glasses... my, Leo is Harry Potter! And he knows it!
He's sat with us through a two-week marathon, a little bit of magic every night. Take two grown ups engrossed in teenage telly and mix in one little tired tearful boy at the top of the stairs calling out to Mummy, "Leo watchin teeeeveeee Mummy! I watchin teeeeveee?" Nobody gets in between my and my teenage fun, so there he is, snuggled up to me and joining us right in the first proper dark and scary bit. "I don't liiiike it," he wimpers, "Mummy I don't liiiike it!"
"Me neither," I lie and refuse to bring him back to bed, just because that's a half hour exercise at this time of day and, I repeat, nothing gets in between me and Harry Potter.
Enter Professor Dumbledore to save the day, and the night: "Leo, look! He looks just like Father Christmas!" Leo is very very very fond of Favver Friffmiff. Leo, easily impressed and very excited now: "Mummy! I think is Favver Friffmiff! Look! Favver Friffmiff!"

So, a few days, a hat and some glasses later, we find him a chopstick (which seems a remotely better choice than the pointed barbeqeue skewer he is after), make him a very happy Mr. Potter and get abacadab'ed left right and center. Abacadab! I get poked in the behind. Abacadab! I get poked in the tummy! Abacadab! Leo is crying because his magic 'tick mysteriously disappeared.

"ABACADAB!"

Abacadab! Hat and glasses mysteriously disappear off Leo and reappear on Tara. Bless... Tara knows nothing of Harry P, other than that it is scary and she will not be allowed to watch it until she is at least 18. Leo, meanwhile, secures another hat, another 'tick and keeps poking at everything that presents itself.

Abacadab! Off to bed... part eight out the way and both Leo and I are serously sleep deprived.

"Mummy I'm Harry Potter now."

(Ah the fun that can be had with teenage entertainment! Twilight next.*)

* NEVER!

The tmarto anb The oring, or, The Tomato and the Orange (or, Not Really!)

onw fagee day a pepo went to the pleygrawnd
She went to the swing theen she thrayd and thrayd and thrayd to get an it
atlarst she cold har mum
she swingd and swingd
at was tuym to go hom and on the wy she went to get sweets
an the wy she met har fhrind

Picture of the author
(who shows remarkable similarities to the hero of the story in her preferences for spare time activities)

... So much for trying to get Tara involved in writing the blog... Might want to think of a different approach...

Happy New Year, 2012

A happy new year to all of you - and us - and may it be a prosperous one too! Please remeber us if you win the lottery. (Wouldn't that be nice.)

Last official picture of 2011

Leo slept right through the noise with which 2012 was welcomed in rural Germany, but Tara opened her eyes with the first whoosh of the fireworks, to be welcomed by her slightly disoriented (tired!) mother into the year 2013. Ahem. We adjusted eventually.

First official picture of 2012

Hello Tara, welcome to 2012. I think you had a good 2011, except perhaps the trouble with your baby teeth which just will not end - in fact where it come to those, I would just like to fast forward to 2020. Fingers crossed that that will come to end this year. This year, you will be participating in your first dance school performance - I'm looking forward to it, but I'm not sure how many more you'll attend. You like your dancing but you're not passionate about going to your classes. Mind you, you're not keep on the idea of joining a karate club (or some such) with either of your parents either, although I'd been planning that for any girl of mine since long before you were born.
I asked you what you would like to do this year, and you have asked that we start going swimming like we meant to a few weeks ago, so swimming it will be his year. Let's see if I can teach you, or maybe Opa in the summer (cause he taught me an eternity ago)... One target for a 5-year-old is enough, isn't it? I'm still too caught up making it through the busy days to think any further for you, although it would be great (for you) if we could manage to set up more playdates with your friends - you're just a people girl. Here's the one scene that says it all: You came into a huge room full of fab toys (vehicles, puzzles, books, lego, play dough, paints, kitchen and equipment and lots more), canned it all and sighed, "I'm boooored." Your playmates were all having a nap and that, to you, means that all the toys are good for nothing. I'm amazed, but taking note respectfully. And luckily, at home we have at least our Leo, who is about to drop napping altogether and loves you, the same toys as you do when you have company.
And maybe this year we're ready for the Spanish Club? We'll see. Happy 2012, my girl.

Ey, Leo? I think the only wish you made when I gave you the sparklers, was, "More?"
The things you could not get enough of in 2011: Candles (called "Happy-Happies"), climbing, balls, babies, particularly Baby Mona, the park and the play park, cats ("naum-naums"), dogs ("wawas") birds ("piepieps") and chocolate (until the overkill in December). You went from angelic baby to little talking monkey, and where, in the first half of the year, all your nursery staff were awed by how much loving attention you paid to the new babies in your group, I've just now had to sign the first "Incident Form" to acknowledge that you pushed another child over. Totally amazing what a cheeky, spirited little man you've become, with a repertoire of facial expressions to match the attitude.
I'm sure you got enough cuddles, kisses, love and admiration in 2012; not a day has gone by without a dozen remarks along the he's-so-cute line (and boy, was it cute when you came back with a teensy "I so cute"!). More of this in 2012!
No need for any plans for you, my boy, we'll just take every day as it comes, keep watching in awe as you grow, pick up the damage (from destroyed playmobil scenes, walls of the dolls house pushed over, tipped-over Christmas trees, armies of tipped over drinks and the like) and throw in some "choo-choo twains", some scootering in the summer and as much time spent outdoors as feasible at all. Happy 2012, my monkey, and if we could keep away from the pushing of friends, thank you.

Loving siblings but, uhm, somewhat different personalities!

Us gown ups, well, we have some modest hopes for 2012: that it will, in 12 months, have been The Year in which Things Got Easier. Wouldn't that be nice... Leo sleeping through the night... in his own cot... house finished down to the last paint job... more decent proper cooked meals on the table... in time... fitness levels upped... Alex back to the gym... weight lost... nothing ambitious you see.

A relaxed, healthy, happy and successful 2012.
And without further ado, on to The Family Photo of 2012:

Family Photo 2012

January 2, 2012. We are looking forward (not!) to driving back to the ferry and all the way across the channel to England after a lovely few days with M, K, E and Baby M in L (which followed a fabulous Christmas "at home" in Wunstorf).
Well equipped with towels and bags in case anyone feels like throwing up (like on the way out), and stocked to the roof with Pflaumenmuss, herbal cough teas, other can-only-be-had-in-Germany essentials and presents galore.
And here's The Truth: 8 years in, England feels like home. English breakfast tastes better than German breakfast. Christmas cards, English style, are as basic a requirement as a front door, and although German sized bedrooms are a delight (like, at least three times bigger than Tara's) and German playgrounds and indoor pools are way superior, this really feels like we are going home. Eight years and one's own house do make a difference.
We've got a lot of growing (and me, shrinking) to do this year. (By which I do not mean increasing the number of family members!)