Esther's sister and her family went home this morning after breakfast. We had a late breakfast because everyone was taking advantage of the opportunity to sleep in, and Olaf bought a ton of mett which made me very happy. It was fun having them here, and I hope that it's not too long before we visit with them again.

Having Marlene here was especially good for Gustav. Since he’s the oldest child, he doesn’t really have any one else to learn from. With Marlene here, Gustav was watching her intently and wanted to spend every moment possible with her so that he could copy what she did. If Marlene wanted a piece of bread with butter, Gustav wanted a piece of bread with butter. The most important thing, though, is that Gustav decided that he wanted to get himself dressed, since Marlene dresses herself in the morning. It was kind of crazy, because yesterday morning Gustav had decided that he wanted to wear a diaper, not only at home while they were playing but also when they went out to spend the day in Weiden. Not only did he wear the diaper, but he used it as well, which is different than simply wearing it. But then last night Gustav watched Marlene change from her clothes into her pajamas and decided that it was something he could and wanted to do, too. Last night he put his pajamas on and this morning he got dressed all by himself, for the first time ever. This is huge, because he gives us (and by us I really mean Esther) the most trouble when it’s time to get him dressed or ready for bed. Now that he’s shown us he can do it on his own, hopefully she won’t have to fight with him anymore because he doesn’t need our help anyway. As far as his English goes, he mostly says yes instead of ja, and he can count to 2 (because that’s how many scoops of chocolate he’s allowed to put in his cocoa). Lately he’s been leaning his head on my arm and cuddling with me at the dinner table, and the other day he grabbed my hand and held it while he was eating his ice cream. He’s just learning how to draw faces, so his pictures are starting to look a little more like drawings and not just scribbles. He drew a picture today and then handed it to me and said “Das ist fuer deine Mama.” So, Mom, you have a picture from Gustav. He’s precious.


Unlike Gustav, Pauline has turned into a little monster. It's no big surprise, just the typical "Terrible Twos" but she's awful right now. Everything is hers, and even if it's something like your toothbrush, which is completely worthless to her, or your grandmother's antique china, which she knows she's not allowed to have, she insist that you give it to her now and let her keep it until she's done, or it's broken. She throws a huge fit because we won’t let her have olive pits (she doesn’t care about the olive, only the pit) but then when you give her an olive because she’s agreed not to swallow it, she immediately swallows it. If she attempts to do anything and it doesn’t work exactly the way she wants it to her immediate reaction is to scream and yell and be angry with you for not helping, even though she just yelled at you for trying to help. She’s stopped using words to express frustration or anger; she just screams and cries for everything. Now she’s in the habit of not going to sleep at night. She sits in her bed for at least an hour, singing and yelling and crying and pounding on the walls. It’s gotten to the point where I had to go into her room and tell her to knock it off because she was keeping me awake. And then yesterday, within a period of about 2 seconds, she pulled my hair, tried to bite my nose, and stabbed me in the eye with her thumb because she didn’t want me to change her diaper. I could probably go on forever about Pauline right now, but like I said, it’s just typical behavior for her age and it’s really no big surprise. When she’s not being an absolute terror she’s still the cutest thing in the world.

Amelie still continues to follow me around the house. Esther told me the other night that the priorities in Amelie’s life are Olaf, then me, then everyone else. She also said that before I got here Amelie never used to be as concerned about affection as she is now. Not that she was ever ignored or denied affection, just that she was perfectly content to sit in her little bed and hang out. She’s very independent (especially for a dog) and it wasn’t that important to her to sit with her people or cuddle or anything. Now, she follows me around the house, cuddles with me on the floor, puts her face up next to mine on the bed to give me kisses, sits with her head in my lap during dinner, all kinds of sweet little signs of affection.

I forgot to mentionthat last week I had my first full conversation in German with a stranger. Normally when I go places that I have to deal with an issue or people, at some point we end up having to speak in English because I just get lost on certain things. But when I was in Cologne on the 23rd to visit the Christmas markets one last time I needed to go into the bank because I wasn't able to use my cash card. When I say I couldn't use it, I literally mean that it wouldn't even go in the ATM or any other bank machine for that matter. So I had to go into the bank and try to explain what was happening with the card. It actually went really well. I was able to tell him what was wrong, that I had tried to use it in 5 different machines and none of them worked, and I was able to answer all of his questions. The only problem I had was when he asked me for my passport. As important and basic as that is, for some reason I always get confused when someone asks me for my passport. But even then, all he had to do was say passport instead of Pass (I know, there's no reason not to get that one) and everything was fine. It was kinda fun and I was proud of myself. I'm really looking forward to being in a harder language course next time. I just bought myself a German thesaurus to help with my vocabulary, too. I refuse to leave her without feeling comfortable having a conversation with a stranger in German.

Since Santa always comes during the night on Christmas Eve, and in my family we open all of our presents on Christmas Day, I saved my gifts for the family for Friday. I kinda felt like a dick because I didn't have anything for Silke and Gunther, but I completely forgot about it. I was really surprised that Olaf had never seen Christmas Vacation before, because it seems like his kind of movie. But Esther said it's one of her favorite movies so I know they'll enjoy it. Gustav was so funny when he opened the little wooden train that I got him. I bought it at the Weihnachtsmarkt so it didn't come in a box that I could wrap. I found an empty box in the cellar from the thermal saucier that Esther recently bought, so I put it in there. When he unwrapped the box he looked at it and basically said "Hey, cool! Look what I got!" and then he put the box down and went to open the books that my parents had sent for them. He didn't even care that he was given a saucier (or so he thought) rather than a toy or something he'd enjoy. It was really cute. I put the train on his window sill, and I hung Pauline's new mobil on the ceiling to replace the one that I broke. (I don't remember if I wrote about that or not, but a while ago her mobil got caught in my hair and I didn't realize it until I bent over to pick something up and I tore it out of the ceiling.) And of course Esther is excited about all the new muffin recipes she has to try out, so I think I did ok. The cutest thing, though, is that both of the kids love their books probably more than any of their other gifts.

Yesterday Esther's sister Anne and her family were supposed to come to visit, but her daughter, Marlene, was sick and had a sore throat. Johannas still came because he had a concert (he's a professional organ player) in Duesseldorf and didn't want to drive all the way back home to Bielefeld. He's really nice, and he speaks pretty good English. He's funny, too. He had a bandage on the back of his hand and when Esther asked him what happened he said, "Well I punched my wife and ended up injuring myself." It was kinda like when Olaf threw a bottle cap at Esther and when Esther told Gustav that it wasn't a nice thing for Papa to do Olaf replied that normally he just throws the whole bottle. I love their sense of humor.

Anne and Marlene came this afternoon to spend the rest of today and tomorrow here. Anne is the next closest in age to Esther of all her sisters, but I think she's still 14 years older than Esther. Marlene's 6 years old and she just started school last fall. She's cute. Since they all had gifts left to exchange with eachother we gathered around the tree once more to open presents. They gave me a bottle of lotion and a Christmas tree ornament, which was really sweet. I didn't expect them to give me anything at all. Johannas had to go back to Duesseldorf for another concert tonight, so he left shortly after the gift exchange and he won't be back until about 9. We're about to eat fondue again for dinner (yum!) and just hang out for the rest of the night, not really much going on.

Merry Christmas!!!

It's been a long time since I've updated this, and it's not because I've been lazy. Things have been so busy lately with Christmas and everything that by the time I was done with everything I had to do each day I was just too tired to sit down and do this. Now a lot of what's happened the past 4 days has just sort of run together, so be aware that this is not going to be the a very well organized entry.

I guess first I should start with the kids. They've both been so sweet to me lately. Pauline is in the process of getting her last 2 baby teeth so she's been really cranky lately. She keeps whining and crying for no reason, and a lot of the time you can tell that there's no real emotion behind it. Basically she cries for the sake of crying. And instead of asking for help or whatever it is that she needs she just starts screaming and crying, and she won't pause long enough to listen to you when you ask what she wants or tell her to stop screaming so she can talk to you, so it gets a little frustrating sometimes. Last night Pauline was crying almost the entire night. She woke up Gustav because of it, and then neither of them were able to sleep, so Olaf went to the cellar and Esther had to stay in her bed with the kids. I think she only got a total of about 3 hours of sleep last night. And the other day when Esther and I were decorating the Christmas tree late at night, Pauline refused to sleep and just sat in her bed talking to herself and singing, like she does when she's supposed to be taking a nap. She came downstairs to sit with us for a while, and while she was there she crawled up onto the ladder and ended up falling off the ladder and onto her face. Her nose was bleeding pretty bad, and she was screaming (both from pain and shock). Poor little thing. This was the second time in my life that I actually go lightheaded and felt like I was going to pass out at the sight of blood, and I think I know why. It's not the blood itself, because I can donate blood or have blood drawn for tests without any problem. It's blood coming from the head/face. I think that I've had too many traumatic experiences (both my own and those of people I'm close to) involving the head, and when I see someone's head/face bleeding my brain just doesn't want to deal with it. Anyway, she's not as badly bruised as I expected her to be, and it's a little tender but she's ok. The poor little thing looked so sad, though, after she calmed down enough to stop crying. It was pathetic.

The only problem we've had with Gustav, really, is that he still refuses to go to the bathroom when he needs to. He'll dance around and hold himself, but when you ask him to go to the toilet he insists that he doesn't need to. Then, after about the 5th time you've asked and he told you no, he starts crying because he has to pee and demands that you help him. It takes way longer for him to ask for help and dance around and come looking for someone to open the toilet for him than it would take for him to simply open it himself, and a lot of times he ends up peeing in his pants because of it. It's really frustrating. Yesterday Esther told him that if he waits so long and asks for help again that she's going to make him start wearing diapers again, and he said that he wants to wear diapers. I think he's too lazy to go to the bathroom when he really needs to, and that he thinks a diaper is just easier. We haven't been making him wear diapers, but I wouldn't be surprised if Pauline was completely diaper free before Gustav stops having accidents. On the bright side, Gustav is continuing to use English words that he's learning, and this morning when Esther asked if she should put Christmas songs on he said yes, but not the German ones (meaning he wanted to hear her CD of English Christmas songs). That was kind of exciting.

Today was a long and busy day. I had to get up really early to take a shower because Emma was coming to clean at 8 am and I had to be dressed and ready before then. Then this morning I walked Amelie and helped Esther get come things ready for this evening's dinner before breakfast. Silke and Gunther got here at around 1 or so and Silke took the kids to the playground while Gunther took Amelie for her afternoon walk so that Esther, Olaf and I could finish a few things and take a nap before we had to go to church. We had to be at the church by 4:30 (I keep wanting to call it the Holy Mass, but they're Evangelists, not Catholics) and were done by 5:30. What I didn't realize until this evening is that, unlike at home where Santa Claus comes in the middle of the night to deliver presents, here the Christkind/Weihnachtsman (aka "Santa") comes in the evening while everyone is at church. So Esther, Silke and I moved all of the gifts from the cellar to the living room after Olaf and Gunther left to take the kids to the church. When we got there there were basically no seats left, but Silke was able to find a seat, Esther had a seat next to Olaf, and she asked the woman and child sitting next to her if they could squeeze together a little bit to make room for me. It was wierd because the pastor was a woman, and although I know it happens I've never actually seen it before. When we all got home Gustav and Pauline saw their presents under the tree and got really excited. We all opened our presents before we sat down for dinner (fondue!!) but the kids spent most of the time playing with their new play kitchen (which I put together for them last night). Esther was really happy that I was here because after Pauline opened her new pots and pans for the kitchen she was more interested in Gustav's toys, but I was able to divert her attention to the kitchen stuff while Esther put Gustav's toy helicopter together. As for me, I got a ticket to go see FC Koeln play against Dortmund next month, as well as a team scarf, from Esther and Olaf, and Silke and Gunther got me a cat calendar and the new Robbie Williams CD. I haven't given them my gifts yet because I was planning on doing that tomorrow and they're not wrapped yet.

The snow is basically gone now. It kinda sucks because it snowed for 2-3 days, and then right before Christmas (which is typical for this region) the temperature rose and most of the snow is gone. Right now it's raining outside, so there probably won't be any snow left tomorrow. I was so close to having a White Christmas, but no such luck. It will snow again, though, I'm just not sure when.

Today was Amelie's birthday, too. I was planning on getting her a new, larger bed to put in my room but never got the chance to go to the hardware store where I could buy it. Silke bought her a new pillow/blanket for her bed and as soon as we got home from the church and Amelie saw her new bed under the tree she immediately went and fell asleep on it. She's too precious.

Yesterday I bought another little tree to put in my room. I really wanted to use the ornaments that my mom sent that were way too big for my other tiny tree, so I needed to get one a little bigger. It's only about 2 feet tall, and it's an adorable little Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. When the kids saw it they got really excited, and they both brought me a bunch of random items from their rooms as gifts to put under the tree. They're so sweet.

Yesterday morning both of the kids came running into my room at 7:40, pushing these little storage boxes on wheels, wanting to play on my bed. Normally they don't wake me up until 9:30 or 10 when it's time to sit down for breakfast, so this was really early for a weekend. By the end of the day I was so tired, but it was kinda fun having the kids come and play in my room. It was so cold, though, because Esther had opened up all of the windows to air out the house. She told both of the kids to get in their beds and stay under the covers for a couple of minutes until she closed them again, but that only lasted for about 30 seconds before they got up and ran into my room. Little Pauline's hands were freezing, so I told her to crawl under the covers with me. Then, since Pauline was there, Gustav wanted to come in, too. Keep in mind that I only have a twin sized bed, so it was rather crowded, but it was really cute the way they crawled in and cuddled with me.

After breakfast Olaf and I took the kids into Weiden (it's the next town over on the way to Cologne), where the nearest mall is. Olaf had a few things he needed to take care of and I needed to buy a pair of boots that would be better for the snow. The first half of the time Olaf watched the kids and just sort of hung out while I went to go find my boots. I ended up without waterproof boots (the only ones I found that weren't hideous were too big) but they are fur lined and they have a thick sole, so at least the foot part of my shoe stays pretty much above the snow. The second half of the time I took the kids to the book store where this is a little castle that they can climb on and play in while Olaf did his shopping. At one point Pauline started trying to fight with Gustav, and then she tried throwing the children's books and stuffed animals that were on top of the castle. I took everything away from her and she got so angry she just started screaming and crying. Luckily her main problem was that she was tired, not mad, so I was able to just pick her up and hold her to get her calmed down right away. I was so afraid that she was going to cause a huge scene and just get louder and louder, but she didn't.

When we got back the kids were supposed to take a nap but actually spent most of the time playing in my room, which was ok with me. After Esther and Olaf were done napping, Olaf and I again took the kids out to play in the snow with Amelie while Esther started dinner. Amelie is so funny in the snow. She gets super excited when it's snowing, kind of like how Tweek gets all amped up when it rains, only she actually wants to go in the snow. She pounces around in the field, and sticks her nose down to the ground and snorts around in the snow. Every once in a while Olaf would make a little snowball and throw it, but it was kind of sad because it would break apart and when she got to where it landed, Amelie couldn't find it. She gets upset when she can't find the thing that she's supposed to be fetching. The kids were both playing on the sled the whole time, which Olaf was pulling by a rope because there weren't really any hills to play on. At one point Pauline got off the sled and started running, and she stepped right on a patch of ice and fell on the ground. It was kinda funny, but it scared her so she started crying. She also kept taking her gloves off (we must've put them back on at least 6 times) so her hands were freezing and she was upset about that. Then Gustav was playing on the ice, but he fell and smacked the back of his head, so it was time to go home.

For dinner last night Esther made lamb hocks (the ones that I went to the market twice for) and green beans with onion, garlic and bacon. It was so delicious. Fabio had dinner with us, too, because Barbara was sick in bed, and Jorg had work that he needed to do out of the house. He was so funny because I cut some of my lamb into small pieces for Fabio and put it on his plate, and before I was even able to start eating it myself he asked me for more. He was apparently pretty hungry. Esther made banana ice cream with walnuts for dessert (delicious!) and we were just finishing that when Jorg came to pick up Fabio. Then Olaf and I watched the sports show (aka soccer recap) before I went to bed.

Today it snowed almost all day. It was the fourth Advent, which Gustav was really excited about because we got to light the fourth candle on the wreath this morning. Olaf bought croissants along with the rolls at the bakery this morning, so that was a nice treat. At one point during breakfast Gustav asked for the salt, and Esther told him to look at the grinder with the "S" on top, because the S stands for Salz. Then she asked Gustav what other words started with an S, and she really emphasized the "zz"sound to give him a clue. He didn't know, so Esther told him a few others, all with the "zz" sound, and asked him again. Gustav's answer was Schnee, which was really impressive. The S in Schnee doesn't make the "zz" sound because of the "ch" that follows; it's equivalent to our "sh" like shoe. It was pretty cool that he was able to figure that out.

After I walked Amelie Esther and I went to her new office to start building her furniture. It was a little before noon when we got there and it had just started to snow. By the time we left at 2 there was probably about a half inch of snow on the car. I was watching it from her office window, and it was coming down pretty hard for a good part of the time. We had about a million things we had to construct (but what else do expect when it's all from Ikea) but it's basically all done. Tomorrow she and Olaf are going to move her desk from the cellar to her office and do some finishing touches before she starts moving all of her files and books and things. I really like her office, and I think she's going to be so happy once she finally starts working there. For now, though, both she and Olaf are on vacation until January. I don't know yet what that's going to mean in terms of my work and responsibilities, but we'll find out soon enough.

This afternoon the family went to a birthday party for Claudia, Domenic's mom. Amelie still needed an afternoon walk and Esther wasn't entirely sure if I was included in the invitation, so I stayed home. Well, I didn't really stay home. I took Amelie out in the field to walk (I also made a snow angel, because I can), and we were there for about an hour. Then I brought Amelie back home, dried off her feet, and put her in her bed to warm up while I went back outside to walk around. It was snowing the entire time (sometimes snowing pretty hard) and I just couldn't stay inside. I just kinda started wandering in the direction of the train station because I knew there were some things on the way that I really wanted to get pictures of in the snow. As I was passing by the playground I ran across Jorg and Barbara and the boys on their sled. They were on their way over here to ask Gustav and Pauline if they wanted to play in the snow together, but since no one was home they were just going to find a little hill for the boys to sled on. Little David was so adorable in his little snow suit. It really reminded me of Maggie Simpson's little star outfit. He's too precious.

I ended up staying out another hour and a half, just walking around Koenigsdorf. I was all bundled up in my scarf and down jacket, and I was actually quite warm while I was moving around. By the time I got back it was snowing pretty hard, and all to the bald spots in the road where cars had been driving were completely covered in snow. I made a little snowman in the front yard, but the snow is too dry to really make a good one. It's less than a foot tall, but it's still the biggest snowman I've ever made.

I don't care what anybody says, snow is beautiful! It started snowing this evening and it's still going outside. The flakes are a little bit bigger than they were a couple of days ago, and right now everything outside has a blanket of snow on it (except for the bit of sidewalk where the next door neighbor spread salt earlier today). I can't wait until tomorrow morning, when I can take a walk outside and look at the Brauweiler church from the field. It's going to be so awesome in the snow. I have to buy new boots tomorrow, though, because I don't have any that will keep my feet dry and warm.

Yesterday was the Christmas party at Maria's (it was supposed to be last Thursday but she had to postpone it because a friend of hers passed away and she had to go out of town) and it was a blast. I made more of those muffins from the other day, and a whole bunch of yams because Esther cannot get enough of them, and she keeps talking about them. Luckily this time I wasn't the only one eating them; Jorg and his wife Barbara particularly enjoyed them.

The best thing about the party, though, was of course the children. There were 8 kids there total: Gustav and Pauline; Fabio and David; Zaynep, whose about the same age as Pauline; Luis, whose a little younger than Pauline; and Zoe and Anastasia, both around a year old or so. They were all so freaking cute. I think that all of the kids that Maria currently takes care of were there, except for one little girl about Pauline's age named Lena. I got to meet little Luis and Anastasia for the first time, and it was also the first time that I met most of the parents.

Luis attached himself to me fairly early, and at one point I had to trick him into going to the play room so that he would leave the bathroom and I could pee. He had followed me into the restroom before I had the chance to lock the door, and I could not convince him to take the doll buggy outside and wait for me there. I told him that we were going to go to the play room to see his mama, and then about halfway there I turned around and snuck back to the bathroom. At one point I noticed Fabio was dancing around holding himself, so I had him walk to the bathroom with me to go pee. He set up the little child seat, sat down, opened a picture book and that's where he stayed. I asked him if he needed any more help or if he could finish by himself, and he told me that it was ok for me to leave.

Anastisia I think must've been really tired, and she seems to have a little bit of anxiety around a lot of people (particularly strangers). The whole evening she would wander a little way away from her mom, and then pretty soon she'd start crying and running back to her. Although she didn't ever come over to me, there were a few times when, after running back to her mom, she would sit on the floor under the chair and look at me, occasionally with a little smile. At the end of the evening Luis was carrying around a stuffed moose that played jingle bells when you squeezed it's hoof, and when it started playing he would run over to Anastasia (who was sitting in her mom's lap) and hold her hand and start dancing. Then when it stopped he would run over to his dad to ask him to turn it back on and he'd say, "Auf," which actually means off. Every time his dad would correct him and say, "An. An, Luis. Sag mal an." I was laughing so hard, because it was just so cute. The way that he would run over to dance with her was freaking precious, and the whole night she would ask for him or call to him when she didn't know where he was. I was really sad when the party was over, because I could've stayed there with those kids forever.

Today Pauline and I went to the market in Frechen again, but this time for lamb instead of fish. Esther had asked me to buy some lamb in Koenigsdorf yesterday, but she wanted 4 lambhox and they only had 2. So today I went to Frechen because the same people were going to be at the market there today, and I bought 2 more. Pauline wanted me to carry her most of the time, which was really difficult because not only does she weigh like 20 pounds more with all of her heavy winter clothes on, but I was also carrying a pastry and a cup of apple juice that I had bought for her because she was hungry. She was so cute, though. She kept asking me where the fish was and saying that we needed to find the fish. I told her, "We're not buying fish today, Pauline. No fish." She thought she was repeating me when she said, "Ja, nur Fische," which actually means only fish, not no fish.

This evening while I was talking to Lee on Skype both of the kids came running into my room to play and say hi. This was the first time that Gustav has actually come up to sit on my lap while I was on the computer. Both of the kids were sitting on my lap and looking at the little video of themselves in the corner, and they both said hi to Lee. It was really cute because Lee asked a few questions and Gustav actually understood and responded to them. He's picking up on English so fast! They are both so smart and so adorable, I just can't get enough of them.

We have snow!!

It snowed today!! There isn't any snow on the ground anymore because there wasn't that much of it, but it was definitely snowing. When I left the house this morning there were a few tiny little flakes that were floating around, and later on while I was in Cologne it was snowing a little harder. I tried to take pictures of the snow as it started to blanket the ground, but I forgot the memory card for my camera in the computer this morning, and the camera itself doesn't have any internal memory. I was kinda pissed, because it was our first snow and I couldn't even take a picture of it. I don't think that I've ever actually been somewhere while it's snowing, and it was fun. I like being here while it's cold and snowing. It's now official: I cannot and will not live in Southern California for the rest of my life. Now that I've experienced something better, I won't accept monotonous San Diego weather anymore. (Sorry, guys)

The crappy thing about today was that I had to spend basically the entire day trying to retrieve a package from my mom that was being held hostage by German customs. She sent the freaking thing 3 weeks ago, and Saturday in the mail I got a letter saying that I had to bring my passport and the invoice for the purchase of the context of the package to the customs office so that they could charge the appropriate taxes (wtf?). Apparently they thought that I was buying stuff on Ebay and having it sent here from the United States without paying the taxes required by German law. And to make it worse, it wasn't just being held at the airport customs, or the post office or something. It was in BFE and it took me over an hour to get there. I had to take the S12 train from Koenigsdorf past Cologne and get off in Wahn. And, like an idiot, I bought the wrong freaking ticket this morning and ended up with a child's ticket instead of an adult ticket for the train. I nearly shit a brick when they came to check the tickets and pointed that out to me, but luckily I had bought a ticket for 4 rides and they just stamped it a second time to account for the cost difference. Then I had to walk to the bus stop and take the 160 two stops to Kornblumenweg and from there walk another 200 meters to the building. When I got there I had to explain that I didn't buy anything, it was a gift from my mom for the kids. They made me open the package (which, by the way, had been damaged to the point that the protective, padded filling between the layers of the envelope were spilling out all over the place) and tell them the price of its contents. It was 2 children's books! It was such a big pain in my ass for no reason at all, and even the guy who I was dealing with didn't seem to understand why there was any problem or why customs was making me go through all of this crap. Anyway, I got the books and came home and now all is well.

Olaf and Esther went to Ikea tonight at around 6 to buy furniture for Esther's new office. She gets the keys to her office tomorrow, and she didn't have a desk or anything. At some point tomorrow we're going to take all of the new furniture over and she and I can start to get her office set up. She's really excited that she doesn't have to work in the cellar anymore. While they were gone I was responsible for the kids, and there weren't any problems at all. At 6:15 they came upstairs with me to get ready for bed, and even Gustav didn't try to fight with me or run away every 2 seconds to go play with something, or just leave because he's a turd. Then we went downstairs to eat a small dinner and at 6:45 I turned on the TV so the kids could watch their show, Sandmaenchen. Both Gustav and Pauline sat right next to me and in my arms the whole time. After the show we sat at the table so the kids could drink some warm milk before we went upstairs to brush their teeth. I read one of the new books from my mom for their goodnight story, and when it was over Gustav crawled right into bed and turned out his light. Both of the kids were in bed by 7:45 and Gustav was sound asleep before 8. Pauline started crying after a little bit, so I had to get her out of bed and take her downstairs for a little while to make her some more warm milk. She was back in bed and sleeping before 8:45 and there hasn't been a peep from either of them since.

This morning when I got up at 6 am to take Amelie for a walk I took a quick glance at the digital thermometer in the kitchen to see how cold it was outside. The thermometer said 4 degrees, but I figured it had to be wrong because it was colder than that yesterday afternoon. It turns out that it wasn't wrong, I just misread it; it was negative 4 degrees. Everything outside was covered in frost, and the mud in the field was frozen. It was so sparkly and pretty! Yesterday morning when I walked Amelie we broke through the 1/4 inch thick ice that had formed on top of all of the puddles in the field, and by 2:30 in the afternoon many of them had refrozen, or at least turned into slush. This morning the ice was at least 1/2 an inch thick, and at 3 this afternoon it was -0.5 degrees outside. We're supposed to get snow this weekend, and I can't even tell you how excited I am!

Today was also the last day of my language course until next year. We spent the first half of the class going over verbs and stuff, and the second half we just sat around drinking coffee and eating pastries while we talked about whatever. I took some muffins that I baked yesterday evening, and they were delicious. It's a recipe that Ron sent me for muffins that they serve at Mimi's Cafe, but I tweaked it a little bit (both in order to make stupid American volume measurements correspond to standard metric weights and to make it spicier). Esther has asked me to make them again for Maria's Christmas party this Thursday, so I'll probably do that tomorrow. She also wants me to make more of my candied yams because she just can't stop thinking about them. Anyway, I asked my course instructor what his thoughts were in terms of which course I should go into next semester (since things were all screwed up with me not being in the proper course because of when it was offered) and, even though I'm not technically "allowed" to skip the next section (Level A2.2) he said he doesn't see any reason that I can't go ahead to Level B1. That's good, because now I can catch up to where I should be, and when that course ends in April I can jump right into the next one. I'm going to buy the coursebook for the class that I'm skipping just to make sure I don't look like an idiot in January.

The music box that my mom sent for the family (for the second time) arrived today, and it's beautiful. Esther was so happy when she saw it working, and she said that they don't really have such things here in Germany (which is weird, considering that cuckoo clocks were invented here, and the world famous Glockenspiel is in Munich). The kids absolutely love it, and they're both so happy to just sit there and watch the lights and the ice skaters inside. I'm really glad that they get to enjoy it before Christmas.

I feel like almost every day I'm getting closer and closer to the kids. Gustav has started resting his head on my arm during dinner when he gets tired, and they both seem more open (although sometimes still a little reluctant) to accepting my help instead of always needing Esther. I've also heard both of them refer to me as "meine Mandy" which is funny, because they've never heard anyone call me Mandy before. Gustav is also asking me more and more frequently how to say certain things in English. Whereas before he refused to listen to me and didn't want to hear me say anything if it wasn't in German, now he's actually taking the initiative to learn English on his own. Esther told me tonight at dinner that this is the first time ever that someone other than family has been so important to Gustav.

As far as health goes, I'm finally doing better. I can breathe without any trouble, my face doesn't hurt from my sinuses, and my eyes aren't gooey anymore. Right now I look a little sick because the color from my scarf rubbed off on my neck today and now I'm slightly green, but I feel great.

Oh, and Pauline just got 2 new teeth! She was actually the first one to notice them and she pointed them out to Esther last night. She was feeling around inside of her mouth with her tongue, and then she stuck her finger in her mouth to double check before she said, "Mama, sie sind rausgekommt!" (Mama, they came out!) It was really cute, and actually kind of impressive. I've never known a child, especially so young, that was able to recognize that they had new teeth without having first been told so. Today Esther was talking to Olaf on speaker phone with Pauline in her lap, and she asked Pauline "Was ist in dein Mund passiert?" (What happened in your mouth?) Pauline's response, of course, was "ein Penis!" I almost died, and so did Olaf. I swear, she uses that word at least 20 times more frequently than Gustav. Too freaking funny.

Today I went to my first au pair meeting in Cologne. It was a little Christmas celebration where we were all supposed to get together and hang out with the families, and everyone was asked to bring a typical Christmas dish/specialty from their home country. Esther just got slammed with a whole bunch of work this past week, so she had to prepare for an appointment tomorrow morning and couldn't go, but Olaf and the kids went with me. We were there for about 2 hours, and I didn't meet a single other au pair. It kind of felt like being in high school, where everyone has their own little clique and you don't fit into any of them. There were 3 Polish girls who sat together speaking Polish the entire time, 2 girls from Albania who spoke to each other in Albanian the whole time, 2 girls from Madagascar speaking whatever it is that they speak, and then there were the 10 or so girls from Russia/former USSR that sat at one table in their miniskirts speaking Russian and probably talking about their strategies for snagging a husband before they have to go home to their country. I tried saying hello to a few of the girls, and whenever I did I basically just got a smile and a nod, and then they went about doing their own thing. It probably doesn't help that they're all like 18 or 19 and I'm considered an old lady. Nobody ate any of my yams, either, but that's ok because we got to bring them all home and eat them for dinner. It sounds like it was an absolutely horrible experience, but it wasn't so bad. Olaf saw a guy there that he used to work with who has an au pair from Madagascar and they got to catch up a little bit, and I played with the kids most of the time (I was also the only au pair that was playing with the kids). I still plan on going to most of the au pair meetings in the next 6 months because they're going to be doing a lot of really cool/fun things, and maybe as new girls start their tenure the situation will improve.

Pauline choked on her cocoa this morning, and chocolate milk came pouring out of her nose. At first she just sat there silent, looking like a deer in the headlights; she had a completely terrified and yet lifeless look in her eyes. Esther smacked her on the back a couple of times as the milk came out of her nose, and then she started coughing so we at least knew she was breathing. As soon as she was done coughing, she reached out her hand, grabbed a piece of bacon and shoved it in her mouth. Olaf was cracking up, and even Esther was laughing. When she heard them laughing Pauline looked up at them with a huge grin on her face. It was so funny (aside from the brief moment of anxiety because the child was choking) and she was so adorable.

Today the kids (and Olaf) went into Cologne to get their hair cut. They went to the same woman that Esther went to this past Tuesday because that's the only person that cuts Esther's hair the way she likes. Since they were already going to be going that direction, I left with them this morning after breakfast to do a little more exploring in the city.

I first headed toward Huemarkt, which isn't very far at all from Nuemarkt (where I've been dozens of times) but was still a new area to me. It was already 12 when I got there and I was supposed to be meeting back up with Olaf and the kids at 1:15, so I wasn't able to go very far or do a whole lot of wandering, but I saw some things that I want to go get a better look at when I have more time. I somehow managed to miss the Weihnachtsmarkt in Huemarkt, so I'll have to go back and find it before Christmas, but I did find the one at the Schokoladen Museum. So far it's my favorite. It's the Mittelalter Weihnachtsmarkt (Middle Ages Christmas Market) and it was kind of like a mini Renaissance Faire or Medieval Times. Everybody working there was wearing costumes (mostly dressed as peasants) and the shops were selling hand-made items that were produced using methods from the Middle Ages. There was a blacksmith, a leather worker, a pelt shop, all kinds of things. It's the only Weihnachtsmarkt in the city that you have to pay to get into, but I think it was worth the 3 Euro. It just felt so authentic, like maybe that's what the original Weihnachtsmarkts were like.

While I was at the Middle Ages market, this old guy started talking to me at the Maeuseroulett table (Mouse Roulette) because there were some Brits there that asked the woman working the table to speak in English for them (as if it were really that difficult to understand the concept). She was really self-concious about her English, but I told her that she actually did really well. That's when this guy started talking to me, asking me where I came from and what I was doing here, that sort of thing. The funny thing is that he was speaking in a Koelsch dialect, and he was so drunk that he was slurring his words, so for the most part I had no idea what he was saying. I was able to get the idea most of the time, but the rest of the time it was just smile and nod. It's not that he'd be able to tell the difference if I understood him or not. I do know, however, that he told me several derogitory Koelsch terms/jokes about Chinese people. No, I don't remember any of them, so don't ask. Anyway, he bought me a goblet of mead and told me that I have such beautiful dark eyes, and then I left to go meet with Olaf. So there you have it, Mom. My first encounter with a wierdo in Germany.

When I met back up with Olaf and the kids we were at Rudolfplatz, the place where I was on Wednesday that had the fairytale Christmas market. Olaf had the kids in the buggy and tried to steer them away from the carousel before they saw it so that we could look at all of the shops, but it was too late. Olaf knew that one time wasn't going to be enough, so he bought a bunch of tokens for them to ride on the carousel, and they went 7 times. Pauline threw such a fit when he went to take her out of the little car, so Gustav pushed her out. What a helpful brother. Then Gustav saw the chocolate covered bananas and he and Pauline both had to have one. Of course they only ate the chocolate and Olaf and I had to eat the bananas, but it made them happy for a little while. Unfortunately, though, this small group of people walked by and one guy scared the crap out of Pauline and she started crying and screaming. They didn't mean to scare her like that, and it probably wouldn't have been so bad if she wasn't so tired. They thought she was so cute, though, that they tried taking pictures of her, which didn't make her any happier. Olaf just kind of brushed it off and attributed it to the fact that they're Dutch.

Oh, and after passing by a fetish club and a bar that was advertising Frigay celebrations on Friday nights, I remembered about the night that I went out to Rudolfplatz with Barbra and asked Olaf if this was in fact the gay part of town. Olaf's response: Cologne is the gay part of town. Apperently Cologne is like a German San Francisco, and something like 10% of the male population in the city is gay. I had no idea.

For dinner tonight we had the fish that I bought yesterday with Pauline, along with boiled fennel, steamed potatoes and a really yummy sauce that Eshter made. I don't know everything that was in it, but it was a cream based sauce that had spicy Duesseldorfer mustard in it. Then we had homemade chocolate hazelnut ice cream for dessert. I love eating here.

My eyes were really bad when I woke up this morning, but they're doing better now. I took a nice 2 hour nap after I put my eye gel in this morning, so they got some rest and some medicine and now they're finally starting to heal.

It was just me and Pauline all day today. We took Gustav to Kindergarten this morning and then drove straight into Frechen to go to the market. We were supposed to my 1 kilo of this certain type of fish, but it cost 18 Euro and I only had 16. That was fun, trying to find the words to explain that I want up to 16 Euro worth of fish. It wasn't too bad, though. At least I was awake enough this time to think in German. On the way home I asked Pauline if she was hungry and what she wanted to eat, and she said fish. I tried explaining to her that the fish was going to be for dinner and we couldn't eat it because it wasn't cooked. She didn't understand, and kept telling me that she didn't want anything but fish. I knew that it was the word "dinner" that was throwing her off, so I told her it was the English word for Abendessen, and that we couldn't eat the fish until dinner. I asked her if she understood and she said ja, so I asked her again, "Ok, Pauline, what's 'dinner'?" Her response: "Fishe!" She's so sharp!! I started laughing because it was just too cute. I just hope that she doesn't think dinner means fish.

Aside from our little trip into town, there really wasn't a whole lot going on today. Right now the kids are sleeping and Esther and Olaf are at the sauna to relax. I don't know what time they'll be back, but the sauna is open until midnight so they'll probably be there really late. At least the kids aren't giving me any problems tonight. Hopefully my eyes will be even better tomorrow morning, but we'll see.

Today was the last day of actual class in my language course. Our last meeting is next Tuesday but we've already covered all of the material, so it's pretty much just going to be a party. When I got home I told Esther that my eyes had gotten worse, so she called Jorg and he went to the Apotheke to get me an actual prescription for my eyes. The crappy thing about it is that instead of being eye drops, it's a gel that I have to put under my lower eyelid. So in addition to the goo that's coming out of my eyes, I have another layer of goo that's covering my entire eyeball. I can hardly see right now, and it sucks.

After I picked up the kids and came home Jorg came over with his two boys because Fabio wanted to play with Gustav. Esther and Olaf both had a lot of work left to do, so they basically said hi and then left me and Jorg with the 4 kids for the next hour or so. It was really mellow, but fun. And Fabio gave me a little kiss before he left. It was really sweet. Other than that, nothing really interesting happened today. It's probably because I'm more focused on the fact that my eyes hurt and I can't see than anything else.

Now that I finally (sort of) have time to do this, I'm going to just spew as much as I can about the past few days in as little time as possible.

I'll start with Monday, since it was an interesting day. To start things off, I dropped the kids off in the morning because Esther had a busy day. Before we even left the house, Gustav started crying because he was taking his toy ambulance to Kindergarten but the doctor wasn't in it. I went back inside to try to find it while the kids sat in the car, and on the way to the door I slipped on the wooden walkway and fell ( I hate being clumsy) and landed on the same knee I landed on when I screwed up my back at work 3 months ago. Luckily my back hasn't started hurting yet, so hopefully a bruised knee is all I get from that one. Anyway, we didn't find the doctor, so I had to try to calm Gustav down and convince him to pretend that the construction worker that was sitting in the ambulance was a doctor for the day. Then some woman on a horse yelled at me while I was in the woods with Amelie. She said something about not playing with other dogs, and when she was done she asked "Do you understand me?" Nope. I sure don't. So I walked away and don't really give a crap what she said; her dog was the one that wasn't on a leash, not mine. Then, when I got home from picking up the kids, the awkward smell that had been developing in the kitchen over the previous couple of days had gotten to the point where it was almost unbearable. I finally figured out that it was coming from a drainage bucket in the back of the fridge that was filled with this thick, pink, almost gelatinous fluid. The technical support people for the company that made the fridge were worthless (what else is new) and we couldn't remove the bucket without disassembling the entire fridge, so Esther and I had to drain it using paper towels. We later realized that the source of the fluid was the duck that had been defrosting in the fridge on Friday and Saturday; it was fatty raw duck juice. We had to use tons of vinegar to get rid of the smell, but at least it doesn't smell like Amelie shat behind the fridge anymore.

Yesterday was not too bad, at least not until the afternoon. I went to my class in the morning, then came home and vacuumed and did a few things before Jorg came over to visit and ask Esther a financial question. While he was here Esther had him take a look at my throat to see what was going on. The good news is that the swelling is going down and my throat is getting better. The bad news is I have pink eye. It started out just in the right eye, which started getting sore and then within no time at all was gooey and gross, and by the time I woke up this morning it was in both eyes. I swear, I get pink eye way too much. When I went to pick up the kids I took Amelie with me again to walk in the woods, which almost didn't happen. Gustav had an icepack on his head when I got to the Kindergarten because while they were playing on the slide Florian accidentally hit Gustav in the head. It was kinda funny because he got hit in the back of the head, but the icepack was on his forehead. Anyway, he was actually hurt, and he was still kinda crying and wanted to go home, which meant no walk for Amelie. I told him that we had to at least let her out long enough to go to the bathroom and Gustav agreed, if he was allowed to stay in the car. He was sound asleep by the time we even got to the woods, so Pauline and I were able to take Amelie on a decent walk and Gustav never knew the difference.

Today was actually kinda fun. Esther and I planned the day so that all I had to do was walk Amelie in the morning, and then I was free until 8 tonight when she and Olaf were going to go to dinner with Florian's parents. We did this so that I could spend the day in Cologne, checking out the Weihnachtsmarkts. It's kind of hard to explain what a Weihnachtsmarkt is, but it's basically like a Christmas-themed vendor faire. They're a big deal in Germany, and people fly in from other countries to visit them. There are 7 of these markets in Cologne, and I visited 3 of them today. It was a lot of fun because everywhere you look there are lights and Christmas trees and cute little fairy tale buildings. You can buy all sorts of things in these little shops that they set up just for the season, and I was able to get all of my Christmas shopping done today. The only thing that sucked is that my eyes are still pink and tired, and my throat started hurting as the day went on, and it was cold and raining so my knees got really stiff and achey. I went to order a drink from one of the vendors just before I left to head back home, and for the life of me I could not focus well enough to speak German. The first thing that came out of my mouth was, "I'm sorry, but do you speak English?" I couldn't even ask him in German! He spoke perfect English and he was really sweet, but I still feel like an ass.

Pink Eye = The Suck

Yeah, that's right. I got pink eye. I swear I must smear snot all over my pillow at night because I feel like I end up with pink eye every time I get sick. Or maybe my sinuses drain out of my eyeballs since they don't seem to be able to drain anywhere else. Either way, it sucks and I hate it. My eye hurts, and it's gooey, and I can hardly see, so I'm going to go continue watching Lord of the Rings (in German! Totally awesome!) while I go to sleep. Tomorrow I'll have an update on the past few days.

St. Nicolas came and visited us last night. The kids woke up earlier than usual today (about 6) because Gustav wet the bed and started crying. When Esther took Gustav to the bathroom to get cleaned up and changed, he saw his boot sitting outside his bedroom door with candy and presents, and suddenly he wasn't so upset anymore. Esther tried to keep them quiet, but both of the kids came running into my room telling me to look because Nicolas had left something for me, too. They had taken one of my boots from downstairs and filled the bottom of it with walnuts, then put a chocolate St. Nicolas in the heel and decorated it with pine branches. The kids had the same thing, but each of them also had two wrapped gifts. They each got a picture book about Christmas, then Pauline got 2 figurines for her Nativity scene (Mary and "Dear 8 pounds 6 ounces new born infant Jesus") and Gustav got a really cool little wooden nutcracker where you screw in the top and a big wooden bolt crushes the nut in the middle. It worked really well, but unfortunately Gustav isn't a fan of walnuts. He gave the rest to me. Now I understand why my dad always wanted us to wake him up on Christmas morning, even though he'd only been asleep for maybe 2 hours. I was exhausted because I had taken medicine for my cold the night before, but I just couldn't go back to bed. The kids were too excited and if I went back to sleep, I would've missed it.

Exciting news: Gustav said "working" today!!! He had misunderstood the question that I asked him, but he used the word in the right context. He was upstairs in his room playing with his new fire station while Esther was downstairs baking cookies. He was calling for her to come help him, but she couldn't, so I went in to see what was wrong. He had the same look on his face that he gets when something isn't working right, so I asked him, "Is there something that's not working?" He thought I was explaining why I was there and not Esther, so his reply was, "Nein, Mama ist nicht working! Sie muss heute nicht arbeiten!" He used both the German and the English word for working, so clearly he knows what it means. I told Esther and Olaf about it tonight at dinner, and they were really excited. Esther complimented Gustav on how much English he's learning, then asked him what the English words for ja and nein were, and he correctly said yes and no. He couldn't remember the word for Auto, but he did ask what the word for Reifen (tires) was. He's definitely starting to take more of an interest in learning now, as opposed to before when he used to just yell "Nein!" and try to correct me, or just ignore me. I've also been able to get Pauline to say apple and horse, though only when I ask her to repeat after me. She's still learning how to say things in German, so I don't expect her to start spewing English at me. But they're both making progress, and I still haven't been here for a full 2 months. Eshter told me tonight that they're starting to wonder about how hard it's going to be for the kids when I leave. They didn't have that problem with the last au pair, but the kids have already sort of latched on to me.

I also made a painting today. I was planning on doing a lot of nothing today to just rest up and try to get rid of this freaking cold. Esther was going to a painting class with Britta from across the street and Stephanie from a few doors down (Big Jonathan's mom) and a few other women, but one of them wasn't going to make it because she's sick and they asked me to go along instead. It wasn't really a class, it was more like a bunch of people who feel like being artsy getting together in some woman's paint studio/garage and attempting to paint. Most of us had absolutely no idea what we wanted to paint when we got there, so we had to look through a bunch of books and pictures that the woman (her name was Gabi) had to give people ideas. I'm not too big on abstract art, and anything involving people is too complicated, so I chose a picture of cala lilies. It seemed simple enough, and it matches a lot of my things. At first they were worried that I wasn't going to be able to finish within the 3 hours because it was a little difficult/time consuming, but I finished just in time. It's not my favorite painting (and I've only ever done 3) but it's not bad. Now I have to finish the picture of Brauweiler that I started so that it doesn't sit unfinished in the corner of my room.