A Hard Day's Morning

Whew, it's been a long couple of hours shopping. Sure hope I got something good.

This may be my blog, but I nominate Dad for Best Performance in a Supporting Role. Especially while I nap.

Duckspotting

Dad said it was duck's weather outside, so I made him take me duckspotting. He was right: we probably saw a hundred of the things, especially if geese count double and swans triple. Too bad it was raining the whole time.

Non-Toxic Does Not Mean Edible

The red one is pretty, but the purple one had better mouth feel.

A lot like glue

Müsli with yogurt has great hang time. Sure makes getting it onto the spoon easier.

Getting it out of the hair, not so much.

Lower shelves are there for a reason

If Dad wants to get all passive-aggressive and not feed me when I'm hungry, I can be passive-aggressive and rummage around in the pantry for dried fruit. Hey Dad, here's another date I need pitted. Kthxbai.

Mah bucket has rocks

I went out on the Spree river, but they made me give the boat back at the end of the trip. And I've never had a pony. But I have a backup plan:

(To the tune of "If I Had a Boat," by Lyle Lovett.)

If I saw some rocks, I'd swipe them from the planter.
And if I had a bucket, I'd fill it with my rocks.
And we could all together
Sit out on the terrace
Playing with my bucket and my rocks.

Mums and Bumps

We crashed Berlin's version of the Toytown Accidental Hausfrauen lunch. It's called Mums and Bumps. I dibs Mum!

The mum-and-bump cafe has a play area in the back with lots of toys. Attention restauranteurs: this is a much better investment than high chairs.

Bear, Ball, and Door

I'm trying not to make Mom and Dad learn too many words all at once, but some things in this hotel are so common I just have to name them. Beya, bah, doh.

Bikeless, tourless bike tour

Our planned bicycle tour of Berlin hit a few snags. No bike trailer, no baby helmet, Dutch cargo bike too big, baby seat too high. So instead, we took a walking tour of Friedrichstraße. Dad wanted to get dinner and a brown ale at Potsdamerplatz, but then, Dad doesn't care if he misses his afternoon nap. When you're good to Baby, Baby's good to you... and Dad was not good to Baby.

Berlin has ducks

Dad and I spent the day at the zoo. Berlin ducks are a lot uglier than the ones in Munich, but I'd rather have a Berliner at my back in a bar brawl.

Hamper scamper

I hear Berlin is a party town, so I stayed up way past bedtime carousing with the waiters at Cafe Einstein. On my return to the hotel I was welcomed by the biggest, cushiest travel bed I've ever seen. It's comfy, but for some reason I get nervous every time I see a housekeeper walk by with an armload of laundry.

Just flew in from Munich

And boy, are my arms tired. (Mom says I haven't used that joke for more than a year. Don't ask me; I can hardly remember what Dad told me not to do five minutes ago.)

We're supposedly here in Berlin for Mom's work conference, but everyone I see just wants to play with the projection soccer game.

Ready for takeoff

We're at the airport, shopping for an airplane to fly to Berlin, and I totally dibs this one. But Dad says I can't have it because the flight attendant can't get the drinks trolley down the center aisle.

Quality time with Mom

Dad's off partying with his choir. I hear they're bringing down the house at some joint called the "Gasteig".

Meanwhile I'm home sick, plying Mom for acetaminophen and ibuprofen as often as she'll fall for it.

I don't feel so good

Fever. Sick. I'd send it back to Yash, but not until I get my acetaminophen.

Hot hot hot

Over 90 indoors. Yash must have let out some of that California heat wave when he was here.

But they left behind the tattoo machine

Bye bye, Uncle Henhuh, Massi Santosh, Anya and Yash. It was great having you. Hope you enjoyed being had.

Holland flames out

Spain wins. World Cup is over for the next 4 years. Now maybe Dad won't be so strict about early bedtimes anymore.

Choo choo to Moo Moo

Traveling back to Munich. More practice walking on a moving train. I'm working on reading at the same time, because Mom won't let me chew gum.

Mind the Gap

Mom says this gap between my front teeth is a family tradition. All I know is, it's handy for holding straws and whistling for my pony.

Darn, still no pony.

Down Down Down

How do you get down from a mountain? You don't; you get down from a duck.

Or you take a 90-minute "easy 10-minute stroll" halfway in stifling heat, then grab some lunch and hop a cable car the rest of the way. Take that, Grand Old Duke of York.

For some reason I want to go a-wandering

No skiing down in town, so we climbed into a metal box and got hauled 1000 meters up a cable to see what conditions were like at the peak.

The base looks a little thin here, too. Hey Dad, can we go over to those mountains instead?

Work It

Background: Pension Johanna, Kitzbühel
Back row, left to right: Yash, Uncle Henhuh, Massi Santosh, Frau Trine Pension-Johanna, Mom, me, Dad, Herr Fritz Pension-Johanna, Klaus, Katia, Chirine, Maya.
Front row, right to left: Anya.

One building, 8 adults, and 5 kids under 4. Does Uncle Henhuh know how to wrangle cats in front of a camera, or what?

Germany flames out

Dad snuck out of the room around bedtime and came back later all mopey. I guess Anya and Yash's good luck ran out.

Seeing Schwarz

The Schwarzsee is a giant pool where people splash around with no cobblestone landscaping, no fountains, and no heated water jets. What's more, it's too big to swim from the middle to the side and has no gutter to cling to, no safety fence, no depth markers, and no shallow end. And it's full of animals leaving who knows what in the water... er, maybe I shouldn't go there.

All I can think is that people come here to trawl for liability claims.

Sub-Compact

The big car left, but Anya and Yash were nice enough to give me a lift.

The Hills are Alive

Woah — how'd we end up where we were heading? Kitzbühel must be pretty amazed too: they brought out the brass band to welcome us.

Schloss Nymphenburg

Second stop: Schloss Nymphenburg gardens. Also not on the way to Kitzbühel, I note.

You're not convincing me this is a princess castle, either. If I'd known it was famed for its Gallery of Beauties, I'd have dressed nicer for my portrait. Oh well, it all looks like the inside of a hat to me.

Olympiaturm

First stop: Olympiaturm. This tower looms over my neighborhood, but this is the first time I've loomed too. Hey, that's my house over there!

This isn't exactly on the way to Kitzbühel... has Uncle Henhuh been navigating again?

On the Road Again

Who shrank my carseat? This is nowhere near as comfy as a Daddy Saddle.

Uncle Henhuh has a friend in Kitzbühel, Austria, so we're all heading there for the weekend. I hear they have great skiing!

Madness Regens

Today we set out to show Anya the princess castle at Schloss Neuschwanstein, about 3 hours southwest of here, which somehow meant taking trains north to Ingolstadt and Regensburg and then going home. Regensburg has a castle too, which we adroitly avoided by visiting the town hall and dungeon for a couple of hours.

Uncle Henhuh's navigation skills are beyond me, but it's still fun to practice walking on a moving train.

Zoo crew

With four adults and three kids in the house, it's getting to be a zoo around here. So I figured a trip to the real zoo would be instructive.

Dad wants me to pick up some feeding habits from the goats in the petting zoo, but I can't reach the vending-machine chute even on my hind legs. Plus, those green pellets are hard on the gums.

Yash doesn't feel so good

Yash must have brought California's hot weather with him, because I can feel it radiating from his head. The doctor says the heat wave should break in a day or two. Meanwhile he gets to have lots of yummy acetaminophen. No fair!

Jet lag is for wimps

Since Anya and Yash haven't gotten their Munich legs yet, I only took them to the playground today. Come play, Anya! Anya?

Cousincidence

Munich is celebrating today: my cousins came to visit! So many people turned out to welcome them at the airport that a big-screen TV had to be set up in the courtyard between the terminals. Since it was there anyway, before Anya and Yash showed up somebody got it to show the Germany-Argentina World Cup game. My cousins are good luck, too. Germany won!

A sentence!

Mom and Dad are surprisingly good with words. I say book, and they read me the book. I say milk, and they give me a bottle of milk to drink. I say chocolate, and they feed me a cracker. OK, they still have some learning to do.

But I'm starting to worry that we'll have problems down the road if milk needs something other than to be drunk, or a book needs something other than to be read. I can invent new words for warm milk and mop milk and find book and everything else, but Mom and Dad can only learn so much.

So I came up with a brilliant plan: I'll use words in combination. I started out with read plus book. We'll have a celebration when Mom and Dad successfully parse chocolate bath.