For our Kindermusik class, the boys got a couple of new harmonicas and they immediately liked it!

This morning we went to the playground with Riki and Frederik and it was ok. Elijah managed to throw some sand on some poor baby, I’m just happy he didn’t bite him! Also, on our way back home, Rowan took off running while I was talking to Riki and I had to chase him down. They have been so good about holding hands while on the street, I didn’t expect that to happen. Then I realized that as I was chasing Rowan, I wasn’t keeping track of Elijah…jeez, fun with twins. Luckily, Elijah thought it was a game and ran after me. BTW, Riki said that my German is improving. She’s prolly just sayin’.

The boys have discovered “Pocky”. If you don’t know what that is, it is a pretzel covered in a thin layer of chocolate. It’s made in Japan and we could find it everywhere in Seattle and Hawaii. I haven’t found a place that has it here yet. I took a few out today since they were seeming a little down. I’m trying to teach them new words, even if it is just them copying what I say. Most times they don’t even bother and just stare at me like I’m crazy, but today I asked “Who want’s Pocky?” and I prompted them to say “MEEEEE!”. Silence. Then I asked them again “Who wants Pocky?” and then Rowan said really loud “MEEEEEE!” I thought that was so funny and cute.

In the afternoon, I had a babysitter and met Michael for lunch. I didn’t have to run any other errands, so I just came back home and took a nap. Still nocturnal.

I went to the dentist today because I’ve had some sensitivity in one tooth and I noticed that when I touched a certain area, it would hurt. I thought for sure I had rotten teeth. Well, I do have something but it is so small that he said it’s better if I leave it alone. Since when he fills it he has to make it bigger, he said that it’s just better to wait it out and use sensitive toothpaste. Hmpf.

This evening I worked on the widget. Ran into problems, did workarounds, then ran into other problems, backed changes out, tried other things, and I’m still not done. So frustrating! But I’ve also learned a lot and made really good progress on it, even though it sounds like I didn’t. I haven’t even tackled things like cross browser issues. I mean, who uses anything other than IE? ;)

Here are the boys “coloring” with crayons. Rowan likes to hide or eat them and Elijah likes to hoard them and then throw them across the table.

Today we went to the health club again. This time I took an aquarobics class. It was hard! Lots of arm/shoulder work. Trying to keep up with the teacher is really hard, since she has gravity, she can keep to the beat better, but with the water it slows you down. Hopefully I’ll get the hang of it soon. At least I’m mostly underwater so no one can laugh. The boys did better today in the childcare. One of the workers said “can we borrow Michael sometimes?”

Then in the evening, I had to go back to get my “vitality check”. BTW, this was the first time I drove somewhere completely by myself (in Germany, of course). Anyhoo, it turns out that they scheduled someone else in my place so I couldn’t do it. I think they just knew that I didn’t want to get on that scale and told how overweight I am. Also, the guy that they scheduled me with didn’t speak any English, so he got someone else to help me out. His name was Richard and he was really nice. We made a plan that was pretty good, but since it’s going to be so crazy for the next couple of weeks, I can’t really do it. I know, excuses, excuses.

Michael also had his vitality check later in the evening. His one went smoothly, and he got lots of good information about his “real” age. Now I’m really dreading going to get those tests done.

Once again, I stayed up late working on my plugin, with some success. One time I lost network access while uploading a file and I lost my work! It was devastating, but in total I think I lost only about an hour of time. Will I ever get a normal sleep schedule?

I woke up really sore today, that WoYo class must’ve done more than I thought. Especially my shoulders and stomach areas.

This morning Michael got a late start and so he got to visit with the boys a little while. When he left, he said “ok, I’m going to go to work” and Elijah stopped in his tracks and ran away and cried! That’s new. Usually they throw themselves at whichever adult is closest and scream. He has been running to corners and crying the last couple of days (when he’s upset), don’t know why this behavior started. Seems more “toddler-like” for some reason. Rowan ran to the door and watched him leave and cried and cried. So I had two of them really upset for several minutes. They are really attached to their dad. Geez, I don’t get this kind of drama when I leave…

I had a babysitter today so I could go out and run my errands. I met Michael for lunch and then had to go grocery shopping and what not. After I came back, I started on my new project of created a WordPress plugin that will create a “flickr like” badge using smugmug rss feeds. I was surprised that something like that doesn’t already exist. There are existing tools that do parts of what needs to be done, so I’ll put them together. The problem is that smugmug doesn’t have square thumbnails so I have to custom craft that. We’ll see how it goes.

I have been concerned about the boys not talking for awhile and so I think we decided today to go to a doctor to get evaluated. There are several factors contributing to their lateness - being twins, being boys, being in a foreign country. But I have heard that speech therapists work wonders with kids and the sooner we get started the better. Or at the very least, the visit to the doctor will put my “they’re so behind!” fears to rest. Now to figure out how to do that…

I also talked to the apartment management again today and they told me that they found an apartment for us to stay in, instead of a hotel. I think that will work a lot better for us and I’m glad that it wasn’t a problem. The only thing is that I’ll have to move while Michael is not here. I’m not doing the physical moving, but just getting all the crap together will be no fun. It will be interesting living in a different area for a little while. It’s not too far, but it’s closer to shopping. Let’s hope it has internet.

Worked all night on the widget with some success! If I get this done, it will be really popular tool amonst smugmug/wordpress users!

This morning we got up early, fed and packed up the boys and went to the health club. I decided to try the “WoYo” class - Workout Yoga. Michael stayed with the boys and played in the play area.

Walking into a class not knowing what you’re doing or what to expect is a strange experience. I was really scared of being picked out and asked a question and not know what was going on. But I followed what everyone else was doing, grabbed the blocks, straps, ball, blanket, and mat that everyone else had. There were a couple of surprising things, one was that there was probably equal numbers of men to women in the class and also the teacher was a man. In the mornings, the gym is filled with older people and mothers. I did ok overall, just followed everyone else. I didn’t really feel like I “worked out” though. There were some tough poses, but mostly doable. There was one that I couldn’t do at all because the block was too high for me. The teacher did ask me a question, but I could understand and answer, which was cool. “Does it hurt?” answer “yes”. haha!

Michael, on the other hand, had a pretty stressful time with the boys. They were quite shocked to see so many kids in the play area and that kind of freaked them out. Rowan did ok, but Elijah almost bit a couple of the other kids! Eegads! Luckily, Michael was watching very closely. Elijah even pushed a girl down, but the little lass got up and pushed him back. Good for her! They were also overwhelmed by older kids telling them things in German and not understanding anything. We’re so worried now about leaving them with other kids. We’ll see, hopefully it will get better next time.

In the afternoon, I went over to the apartment management to talk to them about the lame hotel. The lady there was a new one that I haven’t talked to and she was kind of upset that we were making “extra” demands. I told her that all this was ok with the “big boss” and then she said “so it is _our_ job to find you a place?” and I was like “well, we have kids and need certain things”. I felt so bad *again* for asking for more, but we do need a kitchen. She said she will call me later. Michael was so mad that I’m getting this kind of treatment! I’m sure it will all work out for the best.

Riki came by today and bought mudpants for the boys as an early birthday present! They are really good for the playground so they don’t get so dirty when the weather isn’t the best. Now I have to get some boots.

Today was my sleep in day. Michael got up early and took care of the boys while I slept the morning away. I think i’m just nocturnal. Maybe I’m still on Hawaii time? I don’t think so because I was doing this before I went there.

In the afternoon, we had pancakes for lunch. Mmmm…. I still have to learn when to turn pancakes over and how hot to make the stove. Sometimes it comes out too gooey or too dry. But it’s a big family hit.

After that, we went down to Elixia and signed our life away with the membership. We found out that childcare wasn’t included, but it was only 1 euro per child per day. So no big deal. We like the child care area much better than the other club, so we signed up. Michael played with the boys and I worked out on the treadmill. They have “techno gym” treadmills and they are really nice! They have a TV built in with all kinds of controls. It actually might be really good for my German! I listened to my iPod, but watched Jerry McGuire. Next time I’ll watch TV. I’m planning to do more classes than just being on the treadmill though. Tomorrow I’m going to try the “WoYo” class, which is Workout Yoga. Hope I can muddle through it.

Then in the evening we went up to visit Riki and Arne and stayed a long time. Michael talked with Arne about Canada stuff, since they’re going on a trip soon, and I talked with Riki about working again. I realized that I’m procrastinating getting my resume together because I’m so afraid of failure. Afraid of looking stupid in an interview or not meeting expectations on the job. I know it’s really dumb but at MS, I always felt constantly stupid since everyone around me was so smart and knew so much more than I did. And maybe since I haven’t worked in awhile the fears are more amplified. I know if I do work full-time again, it would have to be in web development. I love it so much and I could do that forever. But for part-time work, I’m willing to be a lab monkey or do manual testing, whatever. The talk was good for me, and it did change my attitude to “just try it and see what happens”. Why am I so afraid to look stupid in front of Germans??? Geez!

Well, I finally bit the bullet and moved away from Blogger and onto WordPress. It is a lot of fun customizing things and adding plugins! But it’s also a lot of work. Today I continued yesterdays plow through site migration and made it live this evening. Then I had a thought that I could move the videos to this page too, and then just “tag” it with “video” and it will be just like the other page. What I didn’t know is that the importer to WordPress doesn’t import object/embedded links!!! Arrrgh! So I basically had to import BY HAND the video entries. But, everything is here, all in one place! The layout is quite similar to the old site, except there’s a new box on the right side that lists the categories. I’ve been tagging my posts with different categories so that one topic is easy to find within the multitude of stuff. You can also easily find stuff with the search feature.

By the way PLEASE UPDATE YOUR FEEDS! With WordPress, they don’t use the traditional xml file, so if you’re still subscribed to the old one, the posts won’t show up in Bloglines or whatever you use.

Please, dear readers, don’t be afraid to comment! :) All bad comments will have to be deleted though. haha. I kid you not.

It was just me and the boys today and they were pretty good. Except for Elijah biting Rowan a couple times. We went to MiniMal in the afternoon to pick up some groceries but other than that, we just hung out at home. Rowan is now saying water (oh-wa) and banana (anana). He did say banana before, but not with any consistency. Now he’s pretty darn consistent with it.

Michael came home fairly early, they didn’t have as great of a time as they had hoped, but at least he went and spent some time with Mat. We haven’t seen him in a long time since he’s been so busy with work and with wedding plans. Can’t believe he’s finally getting married!

Elijah rearranges Rowan’s apples and pears

Here is another video with Rowan saying “car” and “go go” (as in the book “Go Dogs, Go!”