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.

Christmas is almost around the corner – how did that happen? There are so many things left to do for me, I don’t really know where to start. I’ve spent the last few days preparing for Christmas in various small ways.

The first, very unpleasant thing I needed to tackle was a talk with my brother in law. I told him in no uncertain terms that Christmas this year will have to be very different from the last few Christmases as far as mood and atmosphere are concerned, or it will have been the last Christmas we can all celebrate together as a family.

Christmas in my family has always been rather awkward, marked by stress, fighting and general hysteria. Ever since my mother died, it’s been less than harmonious and I very much need to change that for my own little family.

After last year’s disaster – which involved my brother in law freaking out and causing a terrible scene – I decided that something had to change. Unfortunately, my brother in law has proven impossible to talk to, so I eventually had to come to the realization that I really only have one option: I need to be aware of what I want and then set about achieving it.

I talked to my father, master of non-confrontation, my sister, mistress of suppression and my brother in law, overlord of fury. I made it very clear that I will NOT tolerate this any longer and that my daughter will not grow up to know Christmas as a dreaded time of year, full of resentment and anger. I want happiness, joy and a general feeling of love and contentment, damn it!

Naturally, my wishes were not very well received. My father, who never seems to be able to take a stand in an argument, but rather chooses to unload unto me when he feels the time is right (thereby always leaving me completely burdened not just with my own sadness, but also his), said he just won’t be there if there’s any argument brewing. My sister figures ignoring whatever happened on the last few Christmases is the best way to go and forever excuses her husband’s conduct, putting the blame anywhere but on him. Finally, my brother in law could absolutely not recall what happened last year, so I gently reminded him how he yelled at me for no reason and then proceeded to lapse into silence on Christmas Eve, alternating between staring at the dinner table and poking at his dinner, complaining about the quality of our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. The Lad, the Munchkin and I left the dinner table very soon after the presents were opened that day, as the atmosphere had gotten too heavy to bear.

Honestly, I am weary of all this. So very, very tired. I have now done what I could. I told each and every one of them I want Christmas to be beautiful and special for our little girl and ourselves and that if there is even any hint of a negative atmosphere brewing, we’ll be leaving, going to our place and spending a nice Christmas by ourselves – just the three of us. We shall see how it goes, but I am absolutely prepared to do whatever it takes. If things go South, we’ll head to our apartment and we will celebrate in our own way. I love my family dearly, but I don’t want to take this kind of thing any longer.

****

This year is the first year that our Bean realizes what’s going on as far as Christmas is concerned. Everyone and everything she sees sporting a red Santa hat and red scarf is ‘Santa Caus’ to her and she happily exclaims ‘Chismas twee’ every time we walk past one of the Christmas displays in the city. When she was born, the Lad started a tradition of buying one Christmas tree ornament per year – for us to use on our trees for now and eventually for the Munchkin to take with her when she leaves home. I love this little tradition. The Lad and the Munchkin have already been out together to buy this year’s ornament, or two of them, rather, a Christmas tree and a star made from white porcelain.

***

As far as Christmas traditions go, I am trying to come up with our own ways to celebrate. We’re combining two traditions, of course, so things are a little bit confusing at this point.

I am not quite sure yet how we will handle things. Decorations will go up around the weekend of the 28th. There will be advent calendars. On December 6th,  St. Nikolaus will come and deposit a little something for the Munchkin, as is his habit. We will craft ornaments, bake cookies, hopefully make a gingerbread house and fruit cake (the Lad would love this, as it reminds him of his home), go on Christmas markets and listen to classic Christmas songs (English, not German ones. Traditional German Christmas music is often so depressing). We celebrate and open Christmas presents on Christmas Eve around here – as it’s the German custom I grew up with, we’ll keep this tradition. Honouring British tradition, we’ll also have presents, cookies, a nice meal, lots of snuggling and spending quality time together on December 25th.

As far as what we’ll tell our Munchkin about Christmas, I think we won’t have to prepare ourselves for that quite yet. We’re getting together around Christmas to celebrate our togetherness, to be even closer as a family, take the opportunity to remember how blessed we are to have each other, to take time out to be with each other and just…be a family. There will be Santa Claus in our house and St. Nikolaus will visit us, too, as I honour the sentiment of this tradition.

I am guessing that we will have to explain Christmas and its origins to our Munchkin sometime next year. Hopefully we will manage to convey everything in such a fashion that she will feel completely free to develop her own ideas and faith in whatever she wants to believe in when the time gets there. All I really want is for her to remember Christmas at home fondly, as a time of warmth, wonder and love.

I am sick. Again. This time around, I am suffering from a mild case of food poisoning, which is lovely, of course. I do not have a very high fever and can still move around, but the whole thing still is somewhat unpleasant. The Munchkin was stuck in the house with me all day yesterday, as I could not even bring her to Kita, due the poor physical state I find myself in. The Lad has a crazy work schedule and isn’t really flexible that way, so he couldn’t help out, either.

Very unexpectedly to me, the Munchkin was such a sweetie about the whole thing. She was in a brilliant mood, chatted to me in her very serious, very sweet way. I love to observe how her language evolves. She even says things like ‘Sit down, please’ very clearly now. One of her favorite phrases is ‘Mommy, weisst Duuuuu?’ which translates to ‘Mommy, you know whaaaaat?’.  It’s quite adorable, although unfortunately, these words are usually followed by an enquiry about her uncle or aunt.

I wish I felt differently about this than I do, but I just can’t ignore how especially my sister treats my daughter a lot of the time. There’s a distinct lack of respect and compassion. They don’t see each other very often, as my sister and brother in law are very busy and when we do meet up, the atmosphere is always strained and awkward, because I constantly try to shield my little girl from what my sister throws at her (and there is so much). Yet the Munchkin loves her auntie and uncle fervently and I am really worried about the influence they have on her.

For example, even now my sister comments on the Munchkin’s eating and tries to regulate it, while simultaneously feeding her things that we do not usually give to her. My sister will openly tell the Munchkin she needs to learn discipline when it comes to eating, calls her a glutton (and thinks she’s being funny when she does) and on the other hand feeds her cookies, hot dogs and the likes when she sees her. This behaviour disgusts me so much and I do not know how to handle it appropriately. It’s been going on for so long…by now I usually just sigh, tell her I do not want her to talk to my child like this and that my daughter can eat as much as she likes of whatever I offer her.

My instincts and natural ability to exercise moderation when it comes to food was shot to bits in my childhood. When my mother died, my grandmother and aunts wanted to console me, in any way they knew how. Suddenly there were rich meals and sweets in abundance, pretty much every day. This is when the problems started. My father never had so much of a sweet tooth and despised having candy or even things like fruit yogurt around the house. He demonized food like that, which eventually led my sister and me to hide things in our respective rooms. This is something we do to this day when we’re at home at our father’s house.

There have always been remarks on general appearance, clothes and weight, judgmental looks and sighs and the very clear message that I am just not ok the way I am. I do NOT want this for my daughter. I do not want her to think of foods in terms of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, do not want to her to feel disciplined and most of all, I don’t EVER want her to think she’s not beautiful and wonderful just the way she is. Besides, so far the Munchkin is doing exactly what you would expect of a healthy child: She eats when she is hungry and she stops when she is full.

My baby is 2 1/2 years old and already my sister is starting to infiltrate her with awkwardness and weirdness as far as food is concerned. The Lad is furious, he wants to be much more aggressive about this than I am. And as always, it’s me….I do not want to take her aunt and uncle away from my baby, even knowing what this kind of weirdness has meant for me. Talking to my sister about this issue is impossible and I have long since given up. She feels she is entitled to talk that way, because in recent years, she has lost a lot of weight and is now considered to be at a healthy weight.

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes. After breakfast yesterday, the Munchkin completely surprised me by sitting at our dinner table with me and crafting for 3 1/2 hours straight – Cutting and ripping paper, gluing things, drawing alternatively with pencils, felt tip markers or crayons. I have never seen her so focused on anything for this long!

She laughed a lot with me, told me stories, asked for music – if you must know, her current favorites include ‘The Elephant Song’ by Eric Herman and ‘The Duck Song’ by Bryant Oden, the latter of which I frequently curse the Lad for -, cooked and baked for me in her kitchen and generally stayed close to me, snuggling and doling out kisses. Considering how much our Bean loves Kita and being outside, I am very grateful for how she handled yesterday.

Today I want to try to get some sewing done and complete the Christmas gift list for our little one – we’re apparently in a transitional phase as far as toys are concerned, she definitely needs more age appropriate stuff. I’ll also need to get some paperwork in order.

Speaking of which, I have finally received the document I needed from my professor. This is great, except he signed it in the wrong place, so I’ve been emailing back and forth with the examinations office until they decided to accept the document from him as an exception to the general rule (because my professor is head of the examinations board). Now I have to add a few more documents to complete my application and then hand in the whole lot at uni as soon as I can, which will hopefully be Friday. I am very glad things are moving along there.

The Munchkin went back to Kita today – I just hope the pickup will go smoothly. Off to the sewing machine!

Hey guys! Long time no see.

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

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