Still Wobbly

Monchi still topples over, but she's now stable enough to sit in a high chair by herself. Oh, is she pleased to have moved up in the world!

The municipal daycare workers continue to strike, so since Sunday Monchichi has been at Oma's. I'm glad she's well looked after but I can't wait to pick her up this weekend!

Pig and Puck

But Will He Do Dishes?

Pig loves to cook. He's been meddling on the stove for over a year now and as anyone who's seen him eat knows he's just enthusiastic about food in general. As soon as he sees us prepping to make dinner, he'll drag his high chair to the counter to make sure he gets to take part in every step of the process. This is a kid who loves to peel garlic and onions for you. He also knows the proper ratio of rice to water for cooking perfect stovetop basmati. I'm counting the days until he's ready to take over dinner duties Tuesdays and Thursdays...

Fun Sunday!

This morning I got to sleep until 8AM!!! Such a blissful start to my Sunday. Otherwise Mother's Day has always been lowkey around here (I'm sure it'll all be pancakes and roses for me when Monchi is old enough to whip the boys into shape) but it was a really fun day nevertheless. We started by heading to the zoo to get Felix his first annual pass (kids under 4 have free admission), and yes, his famous grimace is now on his one picture ID. Along the way we stopped for the seal feeding show.
This weekend was also the local carneval so we went for a few rides and ice cream. We also visited the monthly flea market and picked up a cool train book and legos for Piggy.

Later in the afternoon Pig got a video break. Check out Monchi's new do, courtesy of some hairstyling fairy from the daycare. Somehow I never would have thought she'd have enough hair for a "fountain". I got this name from the novel The God of Small Things - but is there an official name for this rather embarassing but universal and utilitarian way of getting-hair-out-of-face of little girls?

Back at Work

My first week back at work was nearly perfect: it felt good to get back to my old job, and I spent the week picking up open issues and new assignments, sorting out computer access and swanning around having coffee with colleagues while still managing to make it home every day by 6pm at the latest. On the homefront Monchi and Jochen got on famously...scarily she lived up to his unrealistic expectations that girls are ultimately easier than boys. At the daycare she was also very cooperative in the integration process and will already go nearly full time starting next week - that is if the municiple employees don't go on strike in the next days but that's another story. We even managed to serve a home cooked dinner every night this week. The only fly in the ointment was two aweful nights where she would not go back to sleep...no explanations except one which we could never believe: she wanted even more to eat. In the past six months each time her appetite spikes it usually takes us one or two days before we cop on, because who would have thought this little darling can pack so much away! And poop 3-4 times a day!!

That everything went so well gave me a big confident boost; however, it doesn't change the fact that the day to day routine is truly physically demanding, and that it could be easily derailed by illness or sudden long hours at work. I'm just happy that the two kids adjusted so well to my being out of the house again and amazed that Jochen still had the will to live by the end of the week. Good start!