I know I haven’t posted videos in awhile! Here they are saying their alphabets and get distracted as usual with something so trivial.

Today Elijah has switched from saying “no” to “nein”. The first time he said it, I was surprised, but didn’t show it and he looked at me like he wasn’t sure he knew what it meant. So I made like it was normal and then the rest of the day he substituted “nein” for “no”. They are learning quite a bit from german Teletubbies. Outside of the classes we go to, TV is the only way they will hear native German. I’m kind of worried that they’ll be behind in school because they don’t have the vocabulary like everyone else…

The german words they say so far are - tschuß, danke, heiß, baum, auto, hut, nein, hallo, lecker, probably some others that I’m forgetting.

Elijah also says “essasosoweo”. Can you guess what that means? Extraterrestrial, of course. For some reason, they couldn’t think of an “x” animal, so they put an alien in there and called it an “xtraterestrial”.

I wrote this part awhile ago and just never posted it:

So the antibiotics were working but then I got a cold on my birthday. How about that? So now we are all coughing and hacking and wiping our noses. It’s really terrible when we’re all sick because somehow I need to hold the fort down. But really what happens is that our house gets really messy and stuff piles on stuff. I try to keep on top of dishes and kitchen/living room mess, but when I’m sick, it’s next to impossible. Michael generates way more trash when he’s sick too.

The doctor told me that I could take the antibiotic whenever and doesn’t have to be with food. But whenever I take it on an empty stomach, I feel really sick for about an hour or so. And you would think that I would learn after the first one but no, I do it over and over again. Or I think there’s enough in my stomach but there’s not.

OK, so now back to the future. We are all well again (thank goodness), but I just noticed today that the boys’s noses are runny again and they were coughing a little. When will this end??

We did a lot of things. We went on a family vacation since Michael had a free day off of work and also May 1st was a holiday. We went down to Bolzano and stayed in Oberbozen in a family hotel. It wasn’t nearly as nice as the other one we stayed in last year, but it is way cheaper. It was a lot of stress since there was no babysitting and there wasn’t a whole lot of things to do up on the mountain. We played outside a lot, but when they got tired, we stayed in too. Italian siestas are incredibly irritating and if you thought Germany was bad with their store closing time, Italy is worse. Normal hours are 9-12, 3-6. Yeah, fun. I think down in Bolzano the stores are either open throughout the siestas and a little longer, like until 7pm. We couldn’t really enjoy Bolzano the way we did when we didn’t have kids, but we did manage to have a nice visit with Daniel and his family and also with our artist friend Salvatore Scia Scia. I can’t believe he remembered me! The last time we saw him was 5 years ago. He even remembered that we were from Seattle!

The visit with Daniel and his family was so nice too. We can speak a whole lot more since our German has improved considerably! His mom looks really good, even though her health has gotten worse (she has MS). Poor Daniel though, he had to translate our German/English into Italian for his father and then his brother was really quiet because he just broke up with his girlfriend and was depressed. But that aside, it was good to see them again. We went out to lunch and it was a little chaotic because it was past the boys’s nap time, but we managed to get through it. Elijah is getting really bad about holding my hand (only DAD’s will do) and we’re trying to correct the problem. It’s so embarrassing to have a screaming toddler sitting on the ground.

We also started another class - this one is called spielen learnen. The first hour of the class, there are the parents and the kids and we sing songs and do some kind of activity together like play with blocks or whatever. The boys run around during that part and everyone else is so nicely behaved. The second hour the kids go into another room with a caretaker and the mothers sit in a nearby room to have tea and talk. There is one woman in the class that hates us because Rowan accidentally hurt her daughter’s fingers (her daughter is one of “those” kids that are spoiled rotten and just a big pain). Come on, these are toddlers, stuff like that happens. He didn’t do it on purpose. So, what does she do? When she saw Rowan drinking his water, she grabs the bottle from him and says “that is my daughters!” (in German) and then she turns around and puts it in her bag. Rowan is screaming at this point and I was just speechless as to what she did. I went after her and said “no, that is ours”. She was still mad at this point and made me walk around with her (wouldn’t give us our bottle back) until she found where her daughter left her bottle. So finally she gives it back to us, says something (not an apology) and turns around and leaves. After that, we don’t ever look at each other. Or at least she doesn’t look at me. She is such a horrible person and it reflects in her daughter and how spoiled she is. I don’t even want to go to that class anymore, but I do, because it’s good german practice for me, good separation practice for the boys and it’s something to do.

I’m now practicing saying the ABC’s with the boys. I say the letter and they just repeat. Elijah can do it really fast. Rowan needs a little bit more time, but he’s also saying them on his own. Today he came up to me and said “Y Z”! I was shocked. Elijah has learned the word “come” and will frequently hold the hand and pull the person to wherever he wants you to go. They both also know the word “now” and use it frequently. Now Lala, Now car, Now (insert word here). But they don’t do it in a demanding way, more like a question. Because usually I say “no, we need to clean up toys first”. And they’ll put away one toy. Then they say “now car!” and I’ll say “no, you need to put away xyz.” And then finally they’ll be able to ride their cars.

He still doesn’t want to hold my hand, but he really, really likes holding the hands of other kids. It was really cute because Rowan, Elijah, and Frederik were all walking holding hands. Me and Riki were just laughing. One of the most adorable sights. The boys really enjoy each other’s company. Frederik always is so happy when he sees us and Riki says he’ll knock on their neighbor’s door (it’s in the same position as our door) saying “kris”. And also Elijah says “rerik!”

The other night the boys didn’t go to sleep right away and we were watching a movie. Rowan couldn’t find his blanket so he started crying. I opened the door and Elijah says “hallo mama. hallo dada.” We just laughed, it was too cute.

The boys won’t eat these deli sliced meats without some kind of bravado. So I invented “roll and bite” and amazingly it works. I cut up the slices of meat and put them on the plate then I grab one and say “roooooooooooolllll and bite!” and they both eat it up. Literally and figuratively. And I also discovered that Elijah loves cucumbers.

More words:
eeedoa (indoor), hoot (correct for hat in german), back (bag), koobabur (cucumber), dadit (chocolate), mess!