Due to some positive and a lot of quite negative developments, I am a little behind with my birthday sewing. Luckily, I managed to finish the dresses I wanted to make in time.

The Birthday Dress

Fabric: Robert Kaufman

Dress option number II, just in case

Fabric: Riley Blake

Again, my favourite pattern ;)

Fabric: Kate Spain

Ahem. The pictures make me realize I should probably iron the dresses a little before our Bean puts them on.

Our Bean’s third birthday is on Friday. There’s a lot to be prepared for her big day yet. We will have family over, too, so the whole affair will involve a lot of baking, cooking and general prepping.

On the 13th, we’ll have a nice breakfast at home and then spend a good part of the day at the Berlin Zoo. Our Bean should have some time to play with her new toys while I make lasagna, salad and our daughter’s current favorite dessert, which for some reason is called ‘Scottish Dream’.

The Lad swears he has never encountered such a thing in Bonnie Scotland. It’s delicious, in any case. Frozen raspberries and chopped peaches are topped with a mix of yogurt, whipped cream and vanilla sugar. A little sprinkle of brown sugar rounds off this very yummy dessert.

My father will be here in a few days, too. I hope that things will be ok with him. We haven’t spoken in a little while, unfortunately. He hurt me quite some when I called him, very much in need of some fatherly emotional support – he was just unable to empathize, which left me in tears and feeling very miserable. There are quite a few sad, stressful and scary things going on for me/us right now, which I can’t yet go into detail about, because I have the feeling that putting everything here would just make me feel more stressed out and defeated. So for the time being, I will just focus on our Bean’s birthday and hope against hope that at least some of those worries will smooth out – somehow.

We’re still here, although quite busy and a tad stressed out – as usual. Our Bean just unexpectedly spent four days in hospital, after she had some sort of seizure during sports at Kita. Apparently, she just collapsed, her eyes rolled back in her head and she twitched. She came to shortly after and cried for quite a while. In between things, I was called. As quickly as I could, I first contacted our pediatrician, who advised me to take the Bean to a hospital right away, then I threw some clothes, nappies and wipes together and picked my little one up at Kita. She was relatively pale, but at that point quietly and happily involved in some crafting. I quickly got her dressed and drove to the hospital.

Meanwhile, I had called the Lad and let him know what had happened. He dropped everything and came to be with us at the hospital. My littlest one was so brave. When they poked her with needles, she just looked at me with tear filled eyes and said ‘Mommy, hurt!’, but otherwise did not make a peep – which surprised nurse and doctor, who were prepared to hold her down for the procedure. I know I am supposed to display strength and radiate calm in situations such as this one, but I just can’t. I always cry along with her, I just can’t seem to contain myself.

A little later on, our Bean was transferred to a different, more specialized hospital. The Lad went with her in the ambulance and I went home to pack more stuff and then drove to be with them again. For various reasons, it wasn’t possible for me to stay at the hospital with our Bean, which just tore me apart. I felt utterly terrible about it all. Of course, the Lad was with her instead, but I still feel like I abandoned her when she needed me. It broke my heart when the Lad called me late one night, with our Bean sobbing in the background. She was crying for me and only calmed down when I talked to her on the phone for a bit and promised lots of huggles from Mommy for the next day.

For a little while, our Bean was hooked up to a few machines and had to stay in her bed. Trying to keep a generally very active almost 3 year old still, was…somewhat tricky. We had to switch on the TV in the room quite often to distract her, which I personally just don’t feel good about. As she wouldn’t really let herself be entertained any other way for long, however, TV seemed to be the only solution.

Eventually, our Bean was released from hospital, as all test results up to that point had come back fine. We are still waiting for the results of a sleep deprivation EEG, but we are hoping that there won’t be an issue. We were given diazepam for the Bean, which we are to administer if she should ever have a seizure (lasting longer than two minutes) again. I am very, very much hoping there will not be any need for that.

Because of our hospital stay, we could not go to my Dad’s house to celebrate his 70th birthday and also had to come up with a last minute Easter plan. In the end, we coloured only a few eggs and went to my aunt’s allotment here in the city. We had a little Easter egg hunt for our Bean and her cousin. The weather was beautiful and our Bean very much enjoyed the stay in the garden, so at least we could make Easter nice for her.

After our day at the allotment, the Lad and I tried to come up with alternative ways of spending our weekends once the warmer weather hits properly – overcrowded, loud playgrounds are really just…miserable. And besides that, there’s not much else in our vicinity.  So we’ve now decided to buy a one year ticket for the Berlin Zoo and the Britzer Garten.

Both of these places we’ll have to drive to, but it’s definitely worth it, considering just how boring and uneventful a summer in the city can get. Also, my aunt told me she would give us a key for her allotment, so we’ll be able to spend some weekends at her garden, which comes complete with a little sandbox and an inflatable pool for our Bean. We are very much looking forward to nice, relaxing days in the garden. And barbecues, of course.

Meanwhile, my work has effectively put a stop to my studying. I will officially start studying again next week and just hope that it will work out as I hope this time around. My plans have been announced to my boss, so I am hoping there won’t be any more incredibly urgent last minute translation work assigned to me. I have some serious catching up to do and absolutely need to get my Educational Science exams done very soon. I am so ready to put uni behind me!

I apologize for the randomness of this post – I just felt I wanted to pop in quickly and say hi, so this is what you get

I’ll be off to take care of work and birthday planning for our littlest. I can’t believe she’ll be three years old very soon!

I can’t believe how long it’s been since my last post (thanks for checking in on me, Kris *smooches*). Things are just crazy around these parts. To give you an idea, here’s what my days look like at the moment:

6:30 am: Get up. Get Munchkin ready for Kita. Make sure daily blog post for work was actually published when it was supposed to be. Potentially put on a load of laundry. Have a shower at lightning speed.

7:45 am – 2 pm: The Lad leaves for work and takes our Bean to Kita along the way. Sit down and work. Try and squeeze in a micro lunch break somewhere. Fail to do that more often than not.

2:15 pm – 6 pm: Pick up our littlest from Kita. Spend a few hours with my daughter among constant interruptions from work. Be unable to pay proper attention to  Munchkin and end up completely stressed out. Proceed to feel like the worst mother in the entire world. Yearn to spend quality time with my little girl. Dinner, story time and then bedtime for the Munchkin.

7 pm – 1 or 2 am: Work. Stagger to bed when eyes will no longer focus.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

My original plan of studying throughout the day has failed miserably so far. There’s also no cooking, no cleaning, no paperwork done. I don’t get the time to craft with my child or just go outside and play with her. Time with the Lad? Yeah, not so much. He works long hours and when he comes home, I need to work. No sewing, no time for myself, complete isolation from friends.

If I may be frank with you: I am very unhappy right now. Work is just too  much. I couldn’t even say that at least my studies are progressing. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be anything I could do to change my current situation. For one, we do need the (very, very little) money that I am making. For another, at this point, I very much need to have this particular job listed on my CV. This job is actually beneficial to me, if only on paper. I really can’t think about this any further right now. I have done a lot of crying recently.

Meanwhile, the Munchkin’s third birthday is approaching  and I hope I will get a little time to focus on that properly very soon. She has requested a Hello Kitty cake and a teddy bear as a gift. We shall see what we can do about that. At least three of her presents have already been bought (a wooden doll’s house, a sturdy CD radio and the requested teddy bear).

There are so many things I would like to write about, but for now, the Munchkin is demanding my attention – she’s off Kita at the moment, since she’s had a fever for the past two days. What a shame that the only proper snuggle time I get with my little girl is when she’s ill (and even that was interrupted by work yesterday). Oy. Hopefully my next post will be a bit more cheerful.

Well, January has passed in a fevered rush – quite literally. I still haven’t quite recovered yet, so I get to sit in our bed, sip tea and rest, while the Lad cleans the dreadfully neglected apartment and takes care of the Bean.

Our Munchkin was the first one to be hit – she had a fever of circa 41 degrees Celsisus (105.8 Fahrenheit) for ten consecutive days. We went to the doctor’s with her after day four and he could not really see anything wrong with the Bean besides the fever, so we were to wait a little while longer. Three more days passed and she still had the fever. Back at the doctor’s, he now saw that both of her ears were quite badly infected along with her sinuses, so he had to prescribe an antibiotic. Two days into the treatment, the Bean was still complaining of bad ear pain, so I continued to do what I’d done during the long time of fever – I administered Nurofen.

The Munchkin is due to go back to Kita tomorrow, after being home for over two weeks. Before all this started, she’d had maybe three healthy days at Kita after she’d caught the first bout of illness and had to stay home for quite a while.

Sadly, our Bean even missed the very first birthday party she was invited to – a fancy dress party hosted by one of her Kita friends. I’d put together a little angel costume, hoping she’d be able to go.

Sorry about the poor picture, I absolutely cannot be moved to do any editing or some such strenuous thing.

In between things, the Lad got ill with the same kind of virus and was off work for an entire week, which in itself is unheard of. So for a while, I took care of both the Lad and the Munchkin and felt very lucky not to have been hit myself.

My first exam scheduled for January had to be cancelled, of course. This is something I feel very uncomfortable about, but there was absolutely and positively no way for me to do any studying or get enough rest to properly prepare, with both of my loved ones needing attention both during the day and throughout the night.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky I’m still a student these days, as I am  positive no employer would have liked to see me off work for the most part of a month.

Anyway, the Lad eventually went back to work and I was home alone with our sick Munchkin once more. I had a job interview scheduled for a day when she was, unexpectedly to us, still ill. Luckily, it turned out I could take her with me, so I didn’t have to call off the whole thing. On the day of the interview, I felt incredibly, ridiculously cold and shivery, but attributed all that to my general nervousness concerning the interview. Somehow, I managed to get the interview over and done with without making a complete ass of myself, acquired the long-desired raisin roll for the Bean and went home.

On the following day, I got an email telling me I got the job. If I hadn’t been unable to move at that point I would surely have done a happy dance. This weird virus had completely drained all energy from me and left me feeling like someone had parked a bus on me. Everything hurt. My sinuses were blocked, my throat was extremely raw and my uvula had decided to swell to roughly four times its original size, thereby making it impossible for me to even swallow water. Every time I tried to sit up or walk, I immediately got so dizzy I just laid back down. Unavoidable trips to the bathroom were executed on a carefully developed technique which involved crawling on all fours.

I actually spent the first two days of my sickness crying, mostly. I felt very, very much alone. The Lad couldn’t take time off work after he’d just been ill himself for an entire week, so I was left alone at home with our Bean, who of course did not really understand what was going on. She did come up to me several times, took my face into her little hands and sweetly asked me ‘what’s wong?’, but unfortunately didn’t see why a sick Mommy couldn’t play or otherwise entertain her. In the end it got so bad that I put on the BBC’s children’s channel for her. Our aim was not to let the Bean watch TV until she is about seven years old – for various reasons. Yeah. That plan smiled at me and smugly deserted the field when I was unable to walk around and just needed to lie and rest, with a sick, yet active toddler to take care of and without any kind of family around who could come and help out in any way.

I feel intensely guilty about using the TV to entertain my little girl, even though I really don’t know how I could otherwise have handled the situation. She, on the other hand, loved it – the Bean sung, danced and did ‘Yogo’ exercises along with the people on the various shows and was very interested in pretty much all of it. Now that I can move around again, there is no more TV and she asks for it very regularly. Explaining to her that she got to watch TV because we found ourselves in an unusual situation did not really help matters. I’ll see how this goes once she’s back at Kita.

Tommorow, once our Bean is at Kita and the Lad at work, I will contact my new employer and see when they want to start training me. Other than that, I’ll just have to see that I somehow get organized – I need to catch up on an entire month of studying, household chores and sewing. I am very much hoping that my job situation will allow me to do everything I need to do and maybe even some of the stuff I want to do.

Preparations for our dinner later today have been finished. Traditionally, we either have Fondue or Raclette on ‘Silvester’. We’ve chosen to make the latter this year, so I spent a lot of time today preparing various food things. Here’s what we’ll have along with the cheese:

• Small Frikadellen (or teeny tiny burgers, for you English speaking folks)
• Chicken breast (marinating in a mixture of olive oil, garlic, various herbs and spices as I type)
• King prawns (also marinated)
• Baby potatoes
• Mixed veg (zucchini, peppers, green peas, tomatoes, baby sweetcorn)
• Mushrooms ( Stuffed with cream cheese & sundried tomatoes)
• rolls
• Dipping sauces (three of them: garlic, onion and raspberry jelly)

• Dessert ‘Beerentraum’ (Frozen raspberries, meringue, whipped cream)
• Chocolate cupcakes

Every year I am suprised at just how much time it actually takes to chop and prepare all of that.  The results are worth it, however, and sitting together for a while longer than usual, creating your own combinations out of the various foods is just lovely.

Now the New Year is really just around the corner – though I am resolved not to have resolutions, I am still hoping that some things will work out in 2011. First and foremost, I want to finish my studies – I have to and want to have university behind me for various reasons. Also, we very much need to make better use of what little family time we have. I need to remind myself that complaining about not having enough of said family time isn’t changing anything and instead focus on making the best out of what we do have.

Lastly, I’d like to leave you with some Christmas pictures. It’s almost unbelievable how busy we were sewing, crafting, baking and preparing all things Christmas right until the very last minute – it was almost too much to bear. I have resolved to start even earlier with everything in the next year.

It was all worth it in the end, of course.  Our little Bean was so excited! She told everyone who would listen how Santa came and had the cookies and milk (and the reindeers had their carrots) that she put out for him on Christmas Eve. Our Munchkin was very careful not to disturb Santa and the elves while they were arranging presents.

Trying to have a bit of my German traditions mixed in with the Lad’s Scottish Christmas traditions seems to be working out fine. I personally almost prefer the celebrations on Christmas Day, I have to admit. It’s much less formal, much more relaxed than our German Christmas Eve celebrations. We had a beautiful breakfast, sat around in our jammies and had a lovely dinner of leg of lamb, red cabbage and yorkshire pudding later on in the day. I tried something new for dessert and it turned out quite lovely – something made with Quark, white chocolate and mandarines. I will definitely make that again.

Where was I? Ah yes, pictures! I have to attend to our Bean now – the kids around here have already broken out the fireworks – loud pops ricochet in between the buildings and amplify all sounds. Every time something goes off, my littlest comes running to me, crying.

I wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Christmas Cookies, made with the Munchkin’s assistance

Christmas decorations

Our Bean even has some put up in her kitchen

The advent calendar I made for the Lad. I couldn’t really take a good picture of the whole thing and the colours come out all wrong, but here you go.

More Loops were made

A simple Christmas dress for the Munchkin

Our speckled gingerbread house. Don’t ask. I am not sure what happened.

This year’s tree

December 6th: St. Nikolaus was here!

Later on in the month, Santa paid a visit, too.

Oh my. The LEDs have to go. Seriously. Fortunately, Santa did not seem to be too bothered by the spaceship glow.

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Just quickly popping in to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! We’ve been ridiculously busy over the last few weeks – sewing, baking and general Christmas preparations completely ate up all of our time. I thought I’d gotten an early start with everything, but boy, was I ever wrong! Anyhow, we’re only now able to relax a little and will hopefully be able to enjoy some much needed quality time as a family. I hope you’re all enjoying wonderful holidays and are surrounded by much, much Love!

After seeing it on this blog, I just had to make one:

It’ll find a new home with a lovely lady very soon. I should probably have waited to catch some daylight for proper pictures, but there you go.

The Loop is very soft and comfortable – I think I shall be making a few more in the near future.

Edit: The original pictures of my first Loop seem to have disappeared, but I didn’t want to leave the space blank, so I put up more recent Loop pictures. The second pic shows one just like my first one on the right. The Loops shown here were made for my aunt, a friend of mine and our Bean’s teachers.

Hey guys! Long time no see.

Just want to try out some new logos for the site – watch this space.

1. 2.

The cortisone treatment is wearing on and I still find myself unable to get any kind of proper rest. The clock to my left informs me it is 2 am. Whenever I, slightly shocked, realize yet again just how very, very little sleep I have gotten since I started taking all those pills, a part of me marvels at the complexity of the human structure.

I do not feel tired and I cannot seem to wrap my brain around how incredibly much I have achieved in the time I would have otherwise spent sleeping. It’s somewhat scary, actually. On the one hand, I am suffering quite a few of the side effects commonly associated with cortisone and I am terrified of potential long-term consequences. On the other hand, however, a few things have actually improved for me and that in itself is even more terrifying for different reasons. Unfortunately I am afraid I cannot report increased hearing capabilities among said improvements. One can only hope.

In other news, I have now officially joined the unemployed masses. Indeed, I have finally been bullied into leaving my company of almost five years. Recent negotiations with my bosses were focused around what the company can ‘offer’ me as a young mother of one while our economy finds itself in the crapper.

Nothing much, it would seem, because surely, I would not ‘feel satisfied’ to do basic office tasks after previously working as a counselor and translator? Also, since I am physically unable to work ‘late afternoons and evenings’, aka outside Kita hours, there is really nothing anyone could ‘offer’ me. Pardon my overuse of what may seem like random quotation marks, my head is still reeling from the weird phone conversation that in the end led to my premature goodbyes as far as my work is concerned. I was offered a rather laughable severance payment and I took it. No more of this crap. Oh, country of mine! Do you seriously wonder why your birthrate is declining? I scoff at this never ending lament!

On a slightly brighter note, my professor of Educational Science has finally approved my exam topics, so hooray! In your face, stagnation and frustration – and it only took  about two months to obtain a reply to my emails. German university system at its finest.

While we are on the cheerful topic of the bitterness I currently feel about my homeland, I went ahead and changed our ‘About Us’ page a teensy bit, just to clarify how our particular Berlin connection came into existence. All for you, Isabelle, of course.

Very well then, let’s give this sleep thing another try.

Our neighbours have been treated to an extra dose of daily screams lately – courtesy of the Munchkin. Whenever she’s lying on her belly, she pulls her legs towards her belly, pushes her little butt up in the air and sort of pushes or slides forward a tiny bit. This technique does not yet quite seem to yield the required results, so our Munchkin gets annoyed quickly and voices her displeasure. I know this is all part of the learning process, but I still find it a bit sad that she’s trying so hard and not quite managing to get anywhere. Anyway, I am assuming she will get a handle on the crawling business soon enough. Which reminds me that we need to start baby proofing the apartment – a tremendously tedious task in our tiny and cluttered living space.

Tomorrow we’ll have our U5 examination (the six to seven months general examination). I’m always a bit anxious before these appointments, feeling like a test could potentially be failed – can Munchkin do everything she’s supposed to be doing at her age? Is she properly developed? She’s also supposed to get the next round of shots in the course of this appointment, but I am not so sure it’s going to happen. Her temperature has been relatively high for the last few weeks and we haven’t really been able determine the cause of that. The last doctor we went to said it’s possible that she just generally has a higher core temperature, but he said it needed to be checked out – as soon as she’ll have a temperature of over 38 degrees Celsius for three days in a row, we’ll be back at his practice to check her blood and urine.

By the end of her sixth month, Munchkin will try solid food for the first time. I really want to cook for her myself – I think parsnips will be the veg of choice. I am reading a very good book on baby nutrition and hope I’ll do everything right in that department. I might be overthinking things sometimes, but I’d rather be overly obsessing about these things than to make the wrong decisions right from the start.

Geez, time is flying by so incredibly fast – I can’t believe our Munchkin is six months old already! Next year in August, she will be attending a creche, a situation I am very much struggling with. If money did not dictate my decision there, I would not yet give my little girl into childcare. I just can’t imagine not to have my Munchkin around me all the time – ever since she was born, she’s been with me. The Laddie has taken her for a walk without me once or twice so far and I could never fully relax when he did. I just really want to be with her, no matter how stressful things can be sometimes. Soon enough, she won’t want to be around me all the time, so while I can, I must take advantage of the fact that so far she can’t even crawl away from me and my hugs, cuddles and kisses.

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