Elijah does his “Arms Up” and “Bye bye”

Today, again, I am in recovery, so didn’t do anything. Michael left early this morning to go climbing at the gym and I didn’t even hear him leave. I noticed yesterday that Elijah was doing things along with the reading video and I wasn’t sure if it was random or of he was copying. So I said “arms up” and he lifted his arms! WOW! I also taught him “bye bye”. It is so cute! But he doesn’t do it all the time, just when he wants to. He can’t be saying bye to just anybody.

This afternoon Meir came and I went to run some errands. Or I should say I TRIED to run some errands. I wanted to get some hanging file folders since I ran out, but they didn’t have it at Hertie. They did have hanging folders, but it’s not the pocket kind (it looks like a portfolio with the spine part hanging). I was so upset. I also need to get file holders, since I’m not sure those will fit in my file cabinet. I’ll have to find an office supply store around here. I also found the baby equipment area in Hertie’s. It’s was ok. I picked up some child proofing stuff so that they can’t open their dresser drawers. They haven’t slammed their fingers or anything, but they like to open it and pull all the clothes out. It’s quite funny to see what the room looks like after their nap or in the morning.

After that I met Michael and we went over to the Knipple’s to drop off and pick up some movies. It was fun to play with their babies for a little while. One of them, Liam (I think), has a very soft and sad cry. It makes you want to cry too. We only could stay a few minutes because we had dinner reservations at a place around the corner.

The place is called “Tem Thai Cooking” and it is highly recommended by the ToyTown community. We walked right by it at first because it is almost hidden. We went a block too far and found it by looking at the address. It has a nice atmosphere, lots of pillows on the seats and dimly lit. Drinks at German restaurants are very expensive (we learned the hard way). .2L of coke (or pepsi in this case) is 3 euros. You can buy a 1L coke at the store for 1 euro. I heard that that’s where they make their money. Coke costs twice as much as the beer, can you believe that??? Michael mentioned that when he went to the store, he saw some beers for less than a euro. So strange. Anyways, the appetizer was ok (spring rolls), but the main dishes that we got - phad thai and green curry were excellent. I think that has to be the best phad thai I have had, and that’s saying a lot! Both of us cleaned our plates!!! It was a good portion too, not too big and not too small, and left you wanting more (which is always a good thing).

We stopped by the Hauptbahnhof to get a crepe for dessert - the butter and sugar one is oh so delicious! We also had to renew our monthly pass for the trains.

I was supposed to do my run today but I was so tired that I put it off until tomorrow…

Today’s daily video is of Elijah putting his arms up and waving “bye bye”.

Elijah has fun playing with the Learning Drum and Rowan wants to play with the camera.

Today was my recovery day. When I woke up, I was a little stiff but didn’t have as much pain as I thought I would except for my very sore right arm. It was a weird pain, not the usual muscle soreness, maybe a damaged tendon or something, I don’t know. I am able to move my arm around just fine for about 75% of the time, and stuff that requires me to stick my arm out is very painful. I am trying to keep my arm like how I would if it was in a sling. And I’m also using my left arm a lot.

We didn’t go anywhere today, mostly because I just wanted to stay at home. De was possibly going to come over in the afternoon, but she didn’t make it. Us twin moms always try to set a goal to get the kids out but something always comes up. No big deal!

So ever since we got here, we’ve been told by numerous people to get Privathaptflichvesicherung (hope I spelled it right), which is basically personal liability insurance. We had a hard time finding someone, since everyone we asked speaks German or spouse speaks German. On ToyTownMunich (website), someone recommended this guy, Sebastian. I sent him email and we set up an appointment for tonight. It is nice that he can come to our house so that we don’t have to arrange for babysitting.

I had to run to the store for last minute stuff, so Michael entertained the boys and put them to bed. Sebastian came right before I came home, so it was perfect timing. He was a really nice guy and it was great that he is a native English speaker and could explain everything to us. He also deals with other financial things, and we liked the fact that he is a “broker” and works with the financial and insurance companies with plans that fit what we need. We don’t even have to pay him a fee, since he gets his commission directly from the companies we sign up with.

It was interesting talking with him, and we decided to get the liability and renter’s insurance right away and we’re still thinking about accident and long term disability. Michael’s work coverage only covers him to and from work, nothing else. We also are looking into getting extra private dental care, since our insurance covers pretty much nothing. Everything here seems to be nickel-and-dime-ing you. For basics it’s this price, oh, but if you want more, it’s $38 here, $45 there, $67 for that,etc. He also said something interesting about real estate here that the market is actually pretty good, and since interest rates are so low, it’s a good time to buy. That piqued our interest, so now we’re thinking about buying a place. Well, not really, but we’ll keep our eyes open. That’s what we said about moving to Germany and look what happened.

Today’s daily video is of Elijah and how much he loves playing with the drum that Lynn and Rob gave them. Rowan and Elijah both fight over it constantly, it’s one of their favorite toys.

Happy on the slopes with Joe, my instructor for the day

Today was a spectacular day! We started it out the usual, breakfast at 8, arrive at the slopes at 9. We went straight to the long t-bar lift and did a couple runs to get used to the new skis. I immediately felt really good with the skis I had and the longer length really made a difference. I was immediately more confident, and when we had a “race” on the first run, I came down about 3rd out of 10. I was put in the faster group and then we went to the top of the red run (the one we did at the end of yesterday). I was nervous going up, since I had such a horrible time on the T-bar, I made sure I chose someone shorter. It went a whole lot better when I can put the bar under my butt.

We went down and I had a really amazing breakthrough. Everything seemed to be going right, I had excellent rhythm and I was actually enjoying myself and not having to think of all the millions of things you’re supposed to do. It is similar to when I learned the breaststroke, something just “clicked”. I felt really good and the instructor said I looked good too. I was always one of the first ones down (imagine that!) and was always in control and the steepness and speed didn’t bother me. This continued until lunch time and I had a really aggressive mind and wanted to do more and steeper - I got it now!

I couldn’t think much during lunch except for this great breakthrough. I could barely eat anything. We sat at the bar this time and that proved to be the best because we got served in 5 minutes. Yesterday it took them at least 20 minutes. I was so excited to get back out and do more! Times like these are almost an empty happiness because I couldn’t share the moment with Michael. Telling someone about something happy isn’t the same as them actually being there with you.

We went back out and then we started to do jump turns. I did ok, but fell a lot and that broke my confidence as well as wear me out. As the afternoon progressed, I got worse and worse until I couldn’t go down anymore. I now was afraid of doing the harder red run because I was just falling all over the place. I was disappointed in myself, but realized that I do have limits and it’s ok to stop when I’m tired.

Here’s that stair slide
I told you
about last week

We had a great apres-ski at the restaurant and since it’s the 3rd weekenders last day, everyone was dancing outside. It was a lot of fun and sad at the same time since I won’t see these people next week. I think next week will actually be a small group since the largest group (3rd weekenders) are done. A lot of my group won’t be coming because of something or another, so I don’t know how big the group is going to be.

We all went home very satisfied and Joe dropped me off at home so I didn’t have to take the train. I was so excited to tell Michael about my day and he was so happy for me and now wondering if he can keep up! His ski day wasn’t as good as mine, so I think he was a little jealous…

View from the top

This morning we got up on time. It’s hard to not get up (don’t even need an alarm clock), because at 7am you hear stomping up and down the hallways. The floor creaks very loudly. When you have to do something in the room, you make a lot of noise, especially if you have to open the door.

I didn’t know what our 3rd roommate looked like because when I first saw her, she was already in bed, and then this morning when I saw her, I didn’t have my glasses on. I only realized this when I went down to breakfast, so I asked Elsa. There was a girl who I thought it was, and Elsa said “I think so”. But it turned out that it was her.

We got to St. Johann at around 9am, and got ready. We had some “free skiing” time while they set up the poles. I went up once and it felt really good with the longer skis. Then I was kind of confused as to what we were supposed to do and there was a really long line to get up the lift. The surface tow was empty (surprisingly), so they just decided to do the pole exercises at the bottom. All day we did “prepare, pole, up, forward, wait”. I had that playing in my mind all day. After learning the way to do it, we went up the long lift once and came down. Harold asked me to lead a group down since he said I had good rhythm. And what did I do, I had a spectacular fall almost right away. How embarrassing! But the rest of the way I did fine. The next time we came down, we were videoed, to be shown tonight. I was so nervous the whole time, palms sweating and all the lessons going through my head. I stayed back so that I can watch the other people go down and remember things here and there - boot tongue pressure, pole planting, arms out, etc. etc. After going down, people cheered for me, I was hoping that they were doing that because I looked like I did it right. Sometimes you feel like you did it right, but when seeing yourself on video, you look like crap. But, I was glad that I got it over with and we finished the day doing more pole planting exercises. On the last run, Harold took whoever wanted to go up the red run (intermediate), and I was like “ok, let’s try it” and I think a total of 6 of us went up. The t-bar was super long and I went up with Rodrigo, who is tall and I tried to put the t-bar above my butt so that it wouldn’t hurt him. That was a mistake. By the end, it was really hurting me and I was so happy to get off. We had a great view from the top and the run was a little steeper and longer than what we have done so far, and I went into my panic mode, but was able to get down it. I was so happy to be done for the day, ready for dinner!

The platform toilet

This time I was one of the first ones to the shower, mainly because I just grabbed my bag and brought it all in with me. The shower felt good after a long day of skiing! Although I couldn’t enjoy it because you can’t linger since everyone else is waiting for a shower. Dinner was great, I had the chicken again. After dinner we had the videos and my palms were sweating again. All this time I could put it out of my mind. The 3rd weekenders were first, and they all pretty much looked good. Especially Elsa and Vivian, the two speed demons. They just got it down good. Then our group came up and I was second to last. They were pretty harsh with the critisisms so I didn’t want mine to come up. I noticed that they were a lot nicer to the pretty girls, not fair!!! One of them went right before me so I know that I will get hammered. Well, my turn finally came and I did very well, I actually got applause!! The only critisisms that they could give was to have my skis more close together, but that wasn’t something we covered yet, so that didn’t count. Luca (one of the instructors) said that everything that I was supposed to do I did do right. So that made me feel really good, I was so happy! I called Michael and told him the news and that made him happy too! I went to bed very satisfied.

Today we made it on time for baby yoga, and there were only 2 other mothers attending. The boys were still clingy but it was ok. It was pretty fun, but since both boys want to be with me and not with the teacher, we couldn’t do much of the exercises. There was one mother, Maria, who was from California and she has been here about 6 years (she was only supposed to be here 1 year). The other mother is German, but wants to expose her son to English. It was a very nice sized class since we could talk to each other without several emergencies going on at once. We all shared our snacks and everyone brought something different. I felt kind of bad because Rowan insisted on taking big bites of Sophia’s banana.

I was supposed to go over to De’s house this afternoon, but I tried calling and there was no answer. She has 3 kids (1 toddler and a set of 6 mo. twins), so I figured she was either out or busy. I completely understand that! So, I stayed home and made some baby food for the boys and found out that they love avocado, couldn’t get enough of it. I guess the first time they had it was a fluke (I think Rowan threw up).

Michael and the boys went to drop me off at Quidesstrasse UBahn station where we meet for skiing. I introduced them around, but not to everyone because we were busy getting organized with the cars. I said my sad goodbye to them and off we went.

I was lucky to get Joe’s car this time, it wasn’t crowded since there were only 2 people in the back. I was with Joe (UK), Vivian (UK) and Umesh (India). Vivian was a lot of fun to talk to. I talked with her some last weekend and she gave me tips on when to visit Scotland (avoid the midges!). We had a very nice car ride there, and a nice dinner. I was a little bit more assertive talking to folks and that made all the difference. I had a much better time and wasn’t so homesick. I shared a room with Elsa again and this time we had a third roommate, Alicia, who is from Belarus.

I am a little anxious about tomorrow, since we start out going on the big hill with our longer skis. I brought my own boots this time, hopefully that will not put pressure on my shins like the other pair.

It is a rare treat for them to be able to crawl around on the couch!

OK, so no one told me that you can actually make tortillas from scratch. You would think that I would know that but for some reason I didn’t. I found a recipe online a couple of days ago, and then bought the ingredients (remember the flour from yesterday?). All you need is flour, baking powder, salt and water. Pretty cool, eh? It went quite well, even though I had the wrong flour. I later learned that flour here have different numbers. After some research, I learned that I need type 550, and I used type 1050. The numbers reflect how much ash (minerals) there are in the flour. I went ahead and did it anyways. It came out pretty good, even on the first try. I had too much flour for the first tortilla, so it got burnt and stank up the place, but after that, I turned the heat down and it was fine. Michael loved them and ate them with chili. It was almost like naan bread, and the chili was like curry.

Michael came home late today, right before the boys had to go to bed. They were pretty independent today, happily playing with their toys. Every once in awhile I have to break them up because they fight over some toys. Or I should say someone takes a toy from the other. I noticed Rowan still has bite marks, so Elijah is getting more sneaky about biting. I never see it. I do see him grab Rowan, open his mouth, but not actually bite. He butts heads with him, but we do that all the time as a loving gesture, but Elijah tends to do it a bit hard. Rowan is also very sensitive to things, lots of little things will make him cry. Poor baby!

I was going to go to a playdate today, but unfortunately, it fell right when they needed a nap, so I decided to stay home rather than deal with the stress of wrangling two grouchy babies. They are getting really aware now, like they know that the laptop will play teletubbies, and they love their tubby time! I don’t let them watch too much “TV”, maybe a couple of times a week, so they really love it when I get it out. Our main TV is upstairs, so they really don’t get much exposure to it. Also, I don’t want to worry about wires being pulled or it getting knocked over or something.

Rowan is starting to learn how to put things away. He is so cute with the wooden blocks, he will pick one up and put it into another container. Or he will pick some off the floor, then put it in it’s plastic box. Of course that doesn’t stop him from spreading all the rest of them around, but at least it’s a start.

I am also trying to teach them “mommy” by saying all the time. It’s not working. Elijah will say “Danee” and Rowan will just stare at me. Every once in a blue moon one of them will say “mama” and I highly praise them for it, thinking “oooh, they’re learning”, then they go back to the usual. Sigh.

Today’s video is of Rowan and Elijah on the couch. They are so happy that they are somewhere that they usually can’t get to and it feels so nice on their legs and it’s bouncy too.

Update: My Uncle Techan passed away last night (Hawaii time). My sister emailed me the news today.

Michael put Rowan in the walker and it was so cute that I had to video it!