What happened to the prolific poster? Sorry about that. For a few days, I was blogging more than once a day and then, I cut everyone off for a week. That's very unfair to the six people who are addicted to my blog. I love you guys! Thanks for your patronage!
The truth is this: last week was a gray week. Not so much weather-wise, but just Rachel-wise. I couldn't get motivated to do anything. I felt tired and depressed all week. I don't feel like I accomplished a single thing worth mentioning, thus the non-blogging. There are many days when I hate this blog and the fact that I feel like it's not really a true representation of what I'm experiencing. I'm not saying what I really want to say sometimes.
Maybe learning this kind of self-control is good for me. But sometimes it just wears on my last nerve.
Anyway. Last week was made even more happy by the fact that my preschooler decided to have some sort of scatalogical regression session. That's right, for the first time ever, Josiah had an accident in public. And was up several times in the middle of the night having accidents. He has been fine since late last week, when we removed all the trains from his room and started doling them out one at a time as a reward for no accidents. How does this happen? Why would this happen when he's been potty-trained for months? Hans thought maybe it's a growth-spurt, but why would that cause him to have accidents? I contemplated taking him to the doctor, kept asking him if it hurt or anything, but he said no, and he's been fine now for a few days. It's so frustrating. Potty-training is just so mind-blowingly, numbingly frustrating.
Let's hope it's easier with Annika, as every mother-of-a-girl has promised me.
Hans and I didn't do anything on Tuesday. We were going to see Schloss Hohenzollern, but it was extremely foggy and stayed that way the better part of the day. I took Josiah and Annika to school and returned home, where we spent the day watching a lot of "Family Guy" and napping. We did manage to get out and run a bunch of errands onbase and have lunch out, but it was a far cry from what we'd planned. We'll try again soon, promise.
Hans' work schedule has been kind of a bitch, too. It's great that he has four days off, but then he has to work four 12-hour days, two days and two overnights. It's one of two scenarios: he gets up at 4:00 a.m. and wakes me up, or he comes in at 5:15 a.m. and wakes me up. I know, what a selfish wife I am complaining about getting woken up...after all, he's out there defending the country, etc. I hate getting woken up, and Hans is so sweet about it...he goes to sleep on the couch instead of coming into the bed and waking me up more, and moves to the bed when the rest of the family gets up and spills into the living room. He never complains when I pop in and out of the bedroom to shower and get dressed. In short, he does everything in his power to keep from waking me. I'm just such a light sleeper. I blame the children.
We did have a lovely weekend. I know...what a shift in attitude! On Saturday, we took the kids to the Wilhelma Zoo in Stuttgart. What a great zoo! Better than Providence's zoo by a long shot. I was nervous to go on a Saturday, because I figured that it would be very crowded--I've mentioned before that Germans who work really only have Saturday to shop and go to attractions. I figured we'd be dodging people and strollers and elbowing to be able to see the elephants, but...it was blissfully empty. Most of the zoo is outdoors, that may have been why people stayed away. It wasn't cold on Saturday, probably in the upper 30s.
Anyway, the Wilhelma Zoo has been around for a long time, like, longer than Minnesota has been a state. Of course, it's all very modern, with nice habitats for the animals. There was a butterfly and insect house, an Amazon house with crocodiles and toucans flying around (just the toucans, not the crocs!), tons of monkey exhibits, tigers, elephants, giraffes. There was a house with chicks in an incubator hatching from eggs and showing chicks at different ages in pens. I thought that was neat. There was a farm exhibit with cows, donkeys, goats, sheep, turkeys and Annika's favorite: the chickens. Seriously, they had about six pens filled with different varieties of chickens and roosters that had her enthralled. She also liked the penguins, which could get amazingly close to us...so close that when Annika reached down to touch one, it took her mitten!
It was a lovely, sunny, chilly day...we had a perfect time. The kids were good and spent most of the time out of the stroller, which is something I'm encouraging more and more. Except for the fact that we dropped about $50 on a truly crappy lunch of disgusting chicken nuggets and french fries, I was extremely impressed. We'll definitely go again. And pack a lunch.
Unfortunately, there are no pictures, because someone (me) forgot to charge the camera battery. Next time, promise. Oh, and speaking of pictures, I just discovered Snapfish. Hello, I am a slow learner! What a cool site. I just finished building a lovely little picture book for Annika for her birthday. Now I'm uploading pictures for a book for Josiah. I can see myself getting very addicted to making little books, notepads, coffee cups.
Well, I hope you all enjoy this post. Personally, I find a bit lacking, but I'll try to step it up for my next entry!
The truth is this: last week was a gray week. Not so much weather-wise, but just Rachel-wise. I couldn't get motivated to do anything. I felt tired and depressed all week. I don't feel like I accomplished a single thing worth mentioning, thus the non-blogging. There are many days when I hate this blog and the fact that I feel like it's not really a true representation of what I'm experiencing. I'm not saying what I really want to say sometimes.
Maybe learning this kind of self-control is good for me. But sometimes it just wears on my last nerve.
Anyway. Last week was made even more happy by the fact that my preschooler decided to have some sort of scatalogical regression session. That's right, for the first time ever, Josiah had an accident in public. And was up several times in the middle of the night having accidents. He has been fine since late last week, when we removed all the trains from his room and started doling them out one at a time as a reward for no accidents. How does this happen? Why would this happen when he's been potty-trained for months? Hans thought maybe it's a growth-spurt, but why would that cause him to have accidents? I contemplated taking him to the doctor, kept asking him if it hurt or anything, but he said no, and he's been fine now for a few days. It's so frustrating. Potty-training is just so mind-blowingly, numbingly frustrating.
Let's hope it's easier with Annika, as every mother-of-a-girl has promised me.
Hans and I didn't do anything on Tuesday. We were going to see Schloss Hohenzollern, but it was extremely foggy and stayed that way the better part of the day. I took Josiah and Annika to school and returned home, where we spent the day watching a lot of "Family Guy" and napping. We did manage to get out and run a bunch of errands onbase and have lunch out, but it was a far cry from what we'd planned. We'll try again soon, promise.
Hans' work schedule has been kind of a bitch, too. It's great that he has four days off, but then he has to work four 12-hour days, two days and two overnights. It's one of two scenarios: he gets up at 4:00 a.m. and wakes me up, or he comes in at 5:15 a.m. and wakes me up. I know, what a selfish wife I am complaining about getting woken up...after all, he's out there defending the country, etc. I hate getting woken up, and Hans is so sweet about it...he goes to sleep on the couch instead of coming into the bed and waking me up more, and moves to the bed when the rest of the family gets up and spills into the living room. He never complains when I pop in and out of the bedroom to shower and get dressed. In short, he does everything in his power to keep from waking me. I'm just such a light sleeper. I blame the children.
We did have a lovely weekend. I know...what a shift in attitude! On Saturday, we took the kids to the Wilhelma Zoo in Stuttgart. What a great zoo! Better than Providence's zoo by a long shot. I was nervous to go on a Saturday, because I figured that it would be very crowded--I've mentioned before that Germans who work really only have Saturday to shop and go to attractions. I figured we'd be dodging people and strollers and elbowing to be able to see the elephants, but...it was blissfully empty. Most of the zoo is outdoors, that may have been why people stayed away. It wasn't cold on Saturday, probably in the upper 30s.
Anyway, the Wilhelma Zoo has been around for a long time, like, longer than Minnesota has been a state. Of course, it's all very modern, with nice habitats for the animals. There was a butterfly and insect house, an Amazon house with crocodiles and toucans flying around (just the toucans, not the crocs!), tons of monkey exhibits, tigers, elephants, giraffes. There was a house with chicks in an incubator hatching from eggs and showing chicks at different ages in pens. I thought that was neat. There was a farm exhibit with cows, donkeys, goats, sheep, turkeys and Annika's favorite: the chickens. Seriously, they had about six pens filled with different varieties of chickens and roosters that had her enthralled. She also liked the penguins, which could get amazingly close to us...so close that when Annika reached down to touch one, it took her mitten!
It was a lovely, sunny, chilly day...we had a perfect time. The kids were good and spent most of the time out of the stroller, which is something I'm encouraging more and more. Except for the fact that we dropped about $50 on a truly crappy lunch of disgusting chicken nuggets and french fries, I was extremely impressed. We'll definitely go again. And pack a lunch.
Unfortunately, there are no pictures, because someone (me) forgot to charge the camera battery. Next time, promise. Oh, and speaking of pictures, I just discovered Snapfish. Hello, I am a slow learner! What a cool site. I just finished building a lovely little picture book for Annika for her birthday. Now I'm uploading pictures for a book for Josiah. I can see myself getting very addicted to making little books, notepads, coffee cups.
Well, I hope you all enjoy this post. Personally, I find a bit lacking, but I'll try to step it up for my next entry!
Comments
Kiss the angels for me.
I suppose that there is an awful lot to see there, but you don't have to see it all at once. I never have been able to figure out how people can get used to working swing shifts or be sharp. Take care and stay in touch.
I struggle with how to represent myself on my blog too. I can't stand to be all sunshine and sweetness, but am not sure I should be sharing all of my little tragedies either.
I love reading your posts, especially when they are about "nothing" at all...just the everyday mundane details that make up life! Somehow the way you describe them always seems hilarious to me.
So keep it up. I might not get to the blog every day...but I do try!