Elijah tries to give Rowan a hug, Rowan wants nothing to do with it. The bad part is that they were so cute before I whipped the camera out giving each other hugs.

Sorry to be so lazy (yet again) with my blog. I have been so busy knitting and creating my knitting blog, that this blog has fallen to the wayside. Not to fear, it will always be around, just not updated as much as I would like!

I forgot to mention an incident that happened last week. I was in the kitchen reading my email when it was kind of quiet in the living room. I thought nothing of it since the boys were busy playing with their toys and are sometimes quiet. Then I heard lots of laughing and what I thought was them playing with water. They sometimes turn their water cup upside down and whatever water was in there is usually smeared around. I casually make it to the living room and I see two little boys, spreading blue fingerpaint all over the floor!!! The damage wasn’t too bad, and when I said “don’t touch anything”, they really listened. They managed to knock over the fingerpaints, which caused a couple of the container caps to crack, and made it easy for them to open. I had to wash their hands and feet, lock them in their room, then clean up the mess. I wasn’t sure how to clean it up, but luckily, this is kids fingerpaint, made especially easy to clean up. It took a lot of paper towels and then I had to wash their chair cover since it got all over that. Luckily, they didn’t roll on the couch or start smearing on the walls. Then I had to put them in the shower to give them a good washing. It was a lot of work to clean it all up, but it was my fault.

Last Saturday we went to an open house at a kindergarten a couple of blocks away from us. It is actually our first choice since it’s really close and montessori. They have 6 places free and are looking for boys, so we have a good chance. We all really liked it there, it’s a little stand alone house with a small garden attached. We didn’t meet the main teachers, but we did meet some parents and the helpers. Most of them were nice, I didn’t like one of the parents, but luckily her child will be going to regular school in September and won’t be involved with the kindergarten. We went over to fill out an application and usually it’s a form asking all the regular information - name, address, kids, info on kids, etc. But this one was 3 pages, asking IN GERMAN about what is important to us in a school, what we expect, all kinds of stuff. We took it home and worked on it. Riki wasn’t home on Saturday, so I called our friend Angelika and she helped us out a lot. I ran the application back to the school before the open house ended. After I dropped it off, I realized I didn’t ask when we would hear back from them, so I went back inside and got an answer. Then I walked out again, and realized that they didn’t ask for any contact information at all. The woman was still holding mine, and I told her about it and she seemed kind of surprised that there was no place to put contact info. All those questions, and none of them asked for the important things. Maybe it’s a test to see if the parents are detail oriented??? Keep your fingers crossed that they will call us! The boys really liked the place, but they seem to like all the kindergartens we go to. They really are on their best behavior and is so interested in all the toys.

Today, we went to another Kindergarten and it wasn’t an open house, but for us to see it in action. It was kind of weird because I thought it would be more interview style, but we just went in, the kids played, we asked a few questions, but they didn’t ask anything about us. The place was small, but they only have 12 kids, so it’s adequate. We spoke almost completely in German, and it went well. We understood everything, but had some trouble speaking. The teacher understood us though. While Michael was playing with the kids (ours and 2 others), I was talking to one of the parents of the kids. She was very nice and friendly and it’s too bad that she won’t be there next year since her daughter is going to regular school. Her sister lives on Kauai and she’s been there twice. I don’t think I’ve met a German who has been to Hawaii. For sun, they usually go to Spain, not far like Hawaii. So we talked about Hawaii and that was fun. Again, the boys did really well, Elijah had a tiny tantrum, but it was ok. I’m not sure what we need to do next, as I thought this was an interview but clearly it wasn’t. I guess I’ll just email them and see. The only downside to this one is that they are kind of far from us. Totally bike-able and u-bahn-able, but not as close as the other.

We have another “infoabend” to go to this week, for another kindergarten. It will be completely in German, don’t know how much we’ll understand. But as we need to apply to at least 15 places, we’ll have to do it. It is good for us though since we need the practice.

The boys are really cranking it up with their language. Rowan now says “done” when he finishes his meals, he used to just get up and play and come back and maybe eat more. One of their favorite things to do is look at books, adult and kids books, and point out whatever they know. The love looking at Michael’s climbing magazines and they point out the sky, water, “daddy”, “mommy”, cars, whatever. It is so awesome! They are getting more comfortable with 2 words like “Mommy’s glasses” or “Daddy’s shoes”. They still don’t refer to themselves and they don’t quite get the yes/no questions. They usually answer NO or repeat what I say as a YES.

Elijah is getting very opinionated with things, and sometimes it surprises us at what upsets him. I now give him a choice of shirts to wear (poor Rowan almost always gets the cast aways), and he picks out his pants. He never wants his socks taken off when he takes his shoes off, but he will take them off in his sleep. He saw his old jacket from a year ago (the yellow one) and refuses to wear the bigger one and then he complains that the sleeves are too short. Elijah is always willing to give kisses though and he can be so sweet. Today when we had to go to the Kindergarten he threw the biggest tantrum because he didn’t want the pants he was wearing and he didn’t want to put on his shoes. I tried giving him some time to calm down, but then it was really getting late and I had to push him. Finally I ended up bribing him with 2 PEZ pellets and he was fine.

Today while I was making their lunch, Elijah wanted to drive his new bike into the kitchen and I told him no bikes in the kitchen. Then he said “why?” and that took me by surprise! I told him that I was making his lunch and it would be in the way, then he backed up and went on his merry way. He never said “why” again (yet), so I wonder if it was just a fluke. I guess we need to watch what we say now! We even started spelling things like p-o-p-t-a-r-t-s.

They are also getting more independent. They can mostly eat by themselves. There are some things that I still feed them, especially if they’re not wearing bibs. I bought these plastic food catcher things and they are AWESOME! Easy to clean and they catch a lot of stuff that our other bibs didn’t catch.

This past weekend was our junk food weekend. We usually don’t eat junk food in Munich, maybe once every two weeks or so. But this weekend we were lazy and went to McDonalds. I even got each of the boys a happy meal with chicken nuggets. They loved it and sat very nicely and ate their food even when it was total chaos around them. We were really impressed with how well they behaved. After that, we were supposed to go grocery shopping, but ended up at Toys R Us. We got them new bobby bikes to replace their bobby cars, which they have outgrown. It’s more upright and shorter than the laufrad that I got for them for Chirstmas. They LOVE those bikes! It’s great because it’s quieter than the cars. We also got them this awesome Thomas the Train electronic set. I saw one at my friend Lynn’s house in Hawaii and I thought it was the coolest thing. This little battery powered motor goes around a track doing all sorts of cool stuff. I took a video of it and I’ll post it soon. It’s such a cool toy, both Michael and I sat there for a good 15 minutes and just stared. The boys love it too. We have it up on the dining table and they are not allowed to take it down. They sit really nicely in their chairs and watch it go around and around. Rowan is especially good at not touching but Elijah just can’t stand not touching sometimes.

Here is their new Thomas The Train set:

On Sunday morning, we went to this cool place called Jogoli Fantastic Playland. It was great and the boys loved it. It can get kinda rowdy with the older kids, but it’s so big that it doesn’t become a real problem. We had a few accidents. There’s a big slide that goes really fast and Rowan went down first. He loved it, then Elijah went down next. I was watching Elijah go down and noticed that Rowan was starting to climb up. Rowan saw Elijah coming very quickly toward him and he started to back up but not in time and they collided. I came down next and had to really try hard to go down slowly. Both boys were screaming their heads off, but they were ok. They still liked it and went down several times after that. Jogoli is really awesome, it’s only 10 euros for 2 hours and they don’t charge for adults! The boys were so sad to leave, but we’ll be back here again. We met our friends Steve and De and their boys there and it was nice to chat with them too.

Sunday evening we met the Knipples at Pizza Hut for dinner. It was a little chaotic with 9 people, but it went fairly smoothly. I think I’m officially sick of pizza now.

I went to stich n bitch afterwards, it was a big group this time and met some new people. I’m going to try and go to the German one to get in my German practice too.

Elijah loves to talk into the microphone. But he doesn’t really talk, he does a “puh, dyuh dyuh dyuh dyuh”. It’s almost like he thinks that’s the only thing you’re supposed to say, everything is not “appropriate” for the microphone.

The boys found some shredded newspaper in a delivery today and took it all out and spread it everywhere. They had so much fun, and mom had “fun” cleaning it up.