Little Man Swim Pants

A couple weeks ago we took the boys to the indoor swimming pool. It was Brooks's first time to swim in a pool, and can you guess if he liked it or not? OF COURSE he did.....what doesn't Brooks like, except for bedtime? As Euro as we have tried to become, my boys have still not taken to wearing Euro swimming suits. Flashback to the first couple weeks of Brooks's life where I was just a continuous let down of a mother, always forgetting to bring to school with us something important that Chance really needed that day, and this one day it just happened to be his swimsuit for his school swim class. Luckily Linda had an extra one of Mikkel's in her car and let Chance borrow it. I'll never forget him getting into the car after school that day, telling me....."mom, Mikkel's swimsuit was UNDERWEAR. I had to wear UNDERWEAR to my swim class."

But poor Brooks can't object yet, and the Little Man Euro Swim Pants were just too precious to pass up. You can really get the full effect of the tightness here:


We forgot to take pictures that day, so we got out the camera and the little man swim pants this past weekend and starting snapping away. That promped a slewth of family shots. Never fear grandparents, we'll post these to Kodak once we have our computer back and I can Adobe out some imperfections, ahum wrinkles. You know, I am 33 now and that takes a little touch up work.

Herzlich

Best way to learn a new language is clearly to submurge yourself in it. Unfortunately, we'll be leaving here not so fluent but nonetheless, I do tend to learn a word here and there. This past week, I've heard over and over, mostly from old ladies on the street, that Brooks is so "Herzlich". I took this to mean something endearing. I mean how could you not call this face something endearing?


Brooks does have a way with the ladies. He's definitely a flirt and a charmer, and seems to be winning the love of the not so tolerant grumpy old women around here.

I looked up Herzlich on Leo and it came up with the following:

Affectionate
Cordial
Genial
Sincere
Precious
Hearty

So I take from this, they mean he's quite a cute little guy. Hopefully they don't mean he's HEARTY...like a soup would be. He's thick all right but those thighs are so scrumptous.

Evenings around here haven't been so Herzlich. It's Heartbreak Hotel for little man. As soon as you approach the bed, or sing Pappy's best Bye-O-Baby, the back arches and the protests begin. And lately the unconsolable screaming has been going on for upwards of 20 minutes each night. It looks a little like this face:


But in the morning it's back to grins and giggles and the day begins again for the little Herzlich.

Long Overdue Post with No Title and Lots of Random Thoughts

Chance is off two weeks for school Ski holiday, and so we are roughing it at home most of the time. I decided to take the boys to the mall yesterday to get some grocery shopping done (yes, grocery store in mall), actually mostly just to get out of this house. The cold and snow leave us a little pent up and after asking Chance for the 100th time not to jump off the furniture and thud on to the ground, I thought it best to get the blood flowing. First stop was the promised kids hot chocolate at Starbucks upon entering the mall. I'm in line and Chance is out in the middle of the mall where all the chairs are, I look out and he's bouncing on the couch out there, wild as can be. So I come out, remind him that couches are for sitting, and here you go: here's your drink piped full of chocolate that's bound to make you sit still. Maybe I am part of the problem?

Next stop, grocery store. Let's just say I am trying a new approach to parenting....less talk, more action. I let the kid have his wishes to push the cart, and after running in to a bunch of apples and having them go everywhere, I decided that you know I really am going to miss the rude stares of Swiss old people (as if they have never had kids of their own). And boy am I really going to miss online grocery shopping.....and what on earth was I thinking today, not using the online grocery shopping? So speaking of missing Old staring Swiss people, I haven't officially announced that we will be moving back to Texas.....Dallas that is, Flower Mound precisely, on May 1. And I am proud to say that finally I think we are ready. Of course this place is amazing and we are so sad to see our adventure here end, but it's therapeutic to know that we won't be fighting it so much. And it's helpful that we have a contract pending on a great house with a great pool.....

It just so happened a couple weeks ago that the MAN COLD came to our house again, and in the 3 days that Ryan was laying in bed all day, he found us a great house, and soon it will be ours, fingers crossed it all goes well. Lately, with all this house and move stuff going on, let's just say my creative juices have been less than flowin'. They've been confiscated by the house buying police and thrown to the wolves. I decided that before I do anything else tonight, now that the boys are in bed, I must sit down and write. Seems like so many cute things are happening with the boys right now, that I can't let our chaos of a life get in the way of our memories....I mean, how can I tell the boys one day, sorry, I left that part out. Brooks you ate your first bite of food, are almost sitting up, and are such a bundle of joy giggling non-stop.......but I was too busy trying to move this family half way across the world to write it down. So here goes: first breathe woman, the inventory list isn't due for a couple weeks now. But I do apologize, this post is going to be all over the place, so pay attention.

Speaking of inventory list, let me start there. I had a babysitter lined up so that she could entertain the boys a couple days while I plugged away at that awful, daunting task of inventory.....yes, line item after line item: 3 misc glass cups: $10, 8 spoons, 9 forks, 10 knives $50. Moving back home: priceless. Nonetheless this process is very cleansing as I have been throwing out tons of crap we don't use, mismatched socks and gloves, and lots of McD's toys. But since we decided to buy a fabulous new home, I had to call my babysitter and tell her that she has been replaced with a house and a pool (yes, my dreams have come true!) and that if I really want this house to close come March 5th, I better not spend another penny..... So I enlisted Chance to help me with the inventory process this morning. 30 minutes later he came back to me with this in hand.

I mean, how cute can you get. And I can guarantee you he counted every pokemon card.

So, let's start with Chance. Ryan looked at me last night after I told him some story about Chance that I can no longer remember, and said "that kid is really complicated". Complicated he is. One minute he's sweet as a button, the other he's running wild after school not listening to a word I say as I try to get him to put on his shoes so we can please leave the building 20 mintes later. Very often I am the MEANEST mom on earth, actually that's pretty nice compared to some of the things he's said to me lately. And the next minute I am receiving beautiful drawings and notes about how great I am and how much he loves me. My compliant eater has been kidnapped, and I am lucky if he'll eat anything I put in front of him. But on the positive side, he's really blossoming in to a very independent, creative kid. The other day he asked as we were getting out of the car (mind you it's below freezing).....mom I want to dig a hole big enough to bury my basketball. I think to myself that this will go over about as well as it did for my mom when she went out back as a child to dig herself a swimming pool. So I complied thinking he'll be back in in 5 minutes...I mean the kid had on no gloves. But almost an hour later and he was plugging away. Never was able to fit the basketball down in there, but nonetheless he did a pretty good job of maring up the back yard. .

I was shocked when he cleaned all the tools and put them away himself!

He's also a bundle of questions. Several nights ago at dinner the questions were flowing so rapidly tha tI had to write them down. These will definitely be going in this years book:

Why are there so much countries? I wish there would only be Zurich, Texas, Australia, Nigeria and India. Then we could travel quicker and I could see my friends more often. Why cant we just skip ages? Then if we wanted to, Brooks could be 5 and we could play together. Why's magic not for real? Why is God always the boss? If God was born the very first, then how could he be born? Why would a baby ever want to drink water? Do germs feel? Are Sharks real? But dinosaurs are mean and they aren't real? Are sharks really in the ocean? Then I am NEVER swimming in the ocean.

But he loves his brother, and that's an understatement. I heard him whispering to Brooks the other day as he was holding him in his lap loving on him, "There's no life without you Brooks, no life at all". Where does a 6 year old come up with that?



So that's all I can write for now. I mentioned the man cold, and it is back yet again one or two weeks later. So I'm worn out from taking care of 3 kids today, and I best go get myself a drink....

Baby Lama Speaks Out

Nothing Better

CHANCE QUOTE:

"There's nothing in the world better than a baby like Brooks, even Christmas. Now I don't want to say that about God, cause it would hurt his feelings."

Hot Topic of the Day: POO

At school, Chance's class is studying the digestive tract and he's surprisingly come home with lots of very good information. He can also describe just how and where the food goes, from when it enters your mouth, to when (best part), it comes out as POO. He really likes to describe that part, or even draw it....

So today, he must have been thinking about that:

CHANCE: Mom, how do babies come out if they are in your tummy and your tummy can't be opened?

I take a quick moment and decide, well, the truth is always best, right?

ME: Well, Chance, girls have a canal that goes from inside your tummy to in between your legs. So Brooks came out that tube between my legs.

CHANCE: Like poo? OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! BROOKS IS POO, BROOKS IS POO!!!!!!!!!

Milestones

No Books For Me

We started reading books to Chance in the rocking chair at a very young age. I believe it was around 3 months of age that he'd sit in my lap and just stare at the pages as I'd read to him before every naptime and bedtime. At 6 months, we had read so much he was pointing at objects that I would call out. And to this day the boy loves to read, and does it really well.

Now with a second child, I am constantly reminded of their individuality. Brooks associates the rocking chair with going to sleep. The instant you sit him in that chair he starts flailing his hands with anxiety, and smacking his lips, like somebody please find my nuky fast so that I can start to soothe myself about this awful situation. Funny thing is he loves his bed and doesnt mind going to sleep, it's just the anticipation of it.

Ole Chance, is always wanting to be involved and do things for Brooks. Yesterday he asked if he could read books to him and I let him have a go. It went something like this:

Oh That's Sort of Interesting


OH NO, I just realized I am in THIS CHAIR AGAIN

GET ME OUT, NOW

Funny thing was, Chance didnt seem to notice that Brooks was in dire distress. He just kept reading louder and louder as the screams got louder and louder. For a moment, it was so amusing I just sat there and let it happen. And then of course, I rescued the poor child from reading torture. Perhaps we'll try again another day, on the couch.

Morning Choir

Chance and I headed off today to a secret location to partake in a fun local tradition around here.....but we can't tell you cause it'd ruin a Christmas surprise. Nevermind the secret, the important part of the story is that while we were gone Ryan and the little one stayed home. Brooks has become a little more opinionated these days about not really liking the bottle....shame on me for being so lazy to at least prepare one bottle a day. But Ryan convinced him today that a bottle was better than starvation, and so he willingly chugged some formula. When I got home he made it known that I am the beverage of choice. Ryan said that to him, drinking from the bottle is kinda like drinking the New Coke. It's just not quite the original. Sadly I barely remember the New Coke....I was only 8 when it was launched!

This past week we've been a little camera happy, capturing our boys on video with our little camera as much as possible. Too bad on Friday when I ran back in to the apartment quickly to grab it so that I could film some of the school's Diwali festival, that it flew out of my hands, crashed to the floor and now will be forever broken. Hello $400, meet the toilet. Nonetheless I did salvage what was already on the camera and here's the video's we've compiled.

Ryan and I rounded the corner to find Mr. Wiggles himself in full force:

And Brooks has lots to say as well.....He's so cute, he's grown really attached to this little lovey he has and I always find him touching it when he sleeps.

He'd like to tell you about how his first 2 months have been treating him:

ALL My Time

I'm on the tram headed home Saturday afternoon, after being gone for a measly 2 hours to go to the store and hit the gym, and I check my phone to find the message "How far away are you.....boy awake and hungry". I speed home since the milk machine was being beckoned, and arrive to a husband at his whits end and a misbehaving 5 year old, and an awake hungry child. Later in the day Ryan comments "Man, you can't get ANYTHING done around here if you have to hold the baby". And so my story goes. NO, you can't get a lick of nada done around here when the baby is awake, and AWAKE is an understatement.

Let me introduce you to the never sleeping child:


I've gotta give him some credit, at least he sleeps thru the night - for the most part. Really, I can't complain on that end of things, he does wake usually once to eat and have a late night party for an hour or so, but during the day this little guy doesn't want to miss a beat. I wasn't kidding when I used to comment on how active he was ALL day long in the womb. I used to think he must be active but sleeping, like in the REM phase, but now I know the truth. He was awake. I know it.

Today as I was driving thru the amazing forest between our house and the school, admiring all the fall colors that you never get in Texas and feeling like this will be my last real fall ever to see again....(the depression over leaving this place is a whole nother story which I won't get into at the moment for fear of ruining my keyboard over the tears that would fall in to it). The colors are absolutely outstanding. Until living here I thought those colors were just make-believe, just sets of fake leaves on the Pottery Barn shelves. No, they are actually real, and more vivid that you could imagine.



And today, I learned why they actually call it FALL. Cause the leaves FALL off the tree after turning such lovely reds and oranges and yellows. Took me 3 years of living here to figure that out. The leaves blanketed the forest floor and we go to drive thru it. I'm sure they would have crunched when we drove over them had it not been raining. The past few weeks our drive has been enhanced by the fact that the sun shines thru the canopy and ray of light streak across the street as we drive through. Man I am going to miss this place.

So as I am driving in my state of awe, I think about all the times I've been asked by someone that doesn't have kids yet, or by a working mom that's never really stayed home, or by some woman whose kids are older and has apparently been out of touch from the land of kids for a long while....nonetheless someone who has not recently spent time with an infant, "what DO you do with ALL your time". All my time? Are you freaking kidding me? All my time? What time? Have you smelled me lately? I can hardly catch a shower let alone clean this place enough to not trip over stuff as I stumble out of bed in the middle of the night. Shall I again introduce to you the never sleeping child:



ALL my time. It cracks me up thinking about it, and at least for a couple moments in the car today I was laughing at that comment instead of grasping to my last glimpses of a real fall!

Screaming Lama

There's Been a Coup d'Etat against the baby that rides in the car with us. Somewhere between the time that I put Brooks in the car, to when I round the other side and get in, someone must switch him. My little quiet sweet Baby Lama has transformed into a quite a complainer. He still manages to do it in his subtle ways, like moaning, grunting and crying....not scream crying but enough to get his point across that riding in the car twice a day to get big brother to and fro school isn't really his cup of tea. So is the life of the second child!

But on another note he does still maintain most of his Lama like qualities. We've just rounded the 2 month mark and our little Brooks is still sweet, quiet, and peaceful. His requests are so subtle you really have to pay attention and he is very happy just being held and loved on.

He's been having occasional nights of going longer without eating...we're upping it to 5 hours around here which feels to me like heaven. Some mornings he'll have gone longer than that....two in particular I was awakened around 6 to desperate cries of what I thought were I'm hungry right now, get your tired butt in here and feed me so I race out of bed, speed thru the diaper change, and throw him on the feeding pillow and offer him some food...then he just smiles up at me and stares, not really the least bit interested in eating yet, and I think to myself I rushed in here for THIS? You know Brooks, I am much more attractive to baulk and stare and google at late in the morning. Try me. So needless to say this morning when I heard little grunts at 2 and at 4 and at 5, I just pushed the envelope and waited till 6 and still the little man was in no rush to eat. Just happy to see his mommy at her best :)

Come One, Come All......PLEASE!??!!!??

In the last month we've been so lucky to have a flow of Baganz family visitors come over from Texas to help us out. As I've mentioned time and time again, lack of sleep can leave a girl suffering from low brain activity, which still continues to this day. A small reprieve from that was welcomed and very much appreciated, not to mention we were just so happy that Nanny, Pappy and Aunt Beth were able to meet our newest little guy (and see our big one too!).

Aunt Beth came on the tail of a fun trip to Italy. She stopped by here on the way home for a week. We were able to spend a Sunday at Jucker Farms.


The day after our visit there was to be the Kurbis Regata, a race down the little lake there inside massive 400 kilo pumpkins. Not sure that I'd want to be that boatman....or shall I say pumpkin-man, sitting inside a slimy pumpkin in freezing cold lake water, but more power to them. Nonetheless it was great to see how large these pumpkins really were, and it left one wondering if they were given steroids to grow that big.

We spend the day admiring the hundreds of varieties of pumpkins

and had a nice little lunch while Chance played on the playground.

And of course no visit to Jucker is complete without their famous home-pressed apple juice and produce.

Our visit with Beth was really nice in that we usually only see Beth for several hours an occasional evening or two during our visits home, and it's amongst so many other people that we hardly get to spend much time with her. Selfishly we were able to get Beth all to ourselves and it was quite a treat.

And likewise with Nanny and Pappy. It was great to have them both here again, and all to ourselves!. The first day is always so hard having just arrived from 24 hours of travel. Nanny and Pappy went to take naps, and I went out to run errands while they slept. I returned home to find this on the door. I thought Pappy made a cute use of Chance's door sign:

Our week with N&P was layed back and less eventful than most visits. Chance was still on fall break the first half of their visit, so he and Pappy were able to hit the park together for some good one on one time, and even stopped by "their" piano store.


Luckily Ryan was able to take a couple days off work. The boys went ice skating one day - Chance tried it again for the first time this year and really took to liking it.

It's amazing what a year can do - last year it was all tears, this year it was determination. Ryan and his parents also managed to take his parents to see the monastery at Einsiedeln while I stayed home with the boys to have a quiet day. Did I just say that? Do those 2 words actually go in the same sentence together....quiet and 2 boys? Actually to my surprise it was quite a calm day.

Most of all from both visits we so much appreciated the help we received with the baby, especially me every night when I'd get to go to bed early and someone would do the 10:00 feed for me, usually giving me a good 5+ hours of uninterrupted sleep.
The day after N&P left, Ryan looked at me while we were eating dinner and said, who can we wrangle next in to coming over to help us with the 10:00 feed? I say, come one, come all, PLEASE. Sleep is a priceless commodity around here that's for sure. But who can deny this little face when he wakes up hungry in the middle of the night!

A Weekend Away

Brooks and I dropped Chance off at Fall Break Soccer Camp and then headed out for a stroll around the lake and stopped for some groceries on the way home. Brooks was bundled up in his winter baby burrito outfit, great for the cold morning that we were venturing out in to. It kept him snuggly warm and in dreamland until we entered the grocery store, in which I guess the heat from the extreme insulation woke him and by the time we were checking out, we were causing a scene. Swiss don't tend to like noise from crying babies, nor do they know how to refrain themselves from staring or commenting. The checker said something to me directed at the stroller that was making lots of noise, so I grabbed Brooks from it and immediately he was all smiles. But that left me to one handedly load the stroller bottom full of groceries which was not an easy task, not to mention my slowness was now holding up the line. We get outside and I put smiley baby back in the stroller in which he proceeds to scream again. Several attempts to take him out and calm him would always elicit the same response: immediate calm upon being held, immediate screams upon being put in the stroller. It made me laugh cause this past weekend I insisted on bringing our massive stroller to the Schwarzsee, it basically takes up the entire trunk in our tiny car. Ryan tried to convince me that we didn't need to bring it, but I envisioned Brooks in the stroller as we hiked around the lake or up and down the mountains. So Ryan sweetly obliged, and much to my dismay Brooks would of course, only be a happy baby when hiking the lake and down the mountain in the pouch. I'm sure Ryan was secretly cursing me as he had to load that whopper of a stroller back in to the trunk when the weekend was over. So yes, this past weekend we went to the Schwarzsee, a tiny lake in the middle of somewhere....east of Interlaken. Our friends Josh and Katherine that live in Geneva met us there, we had been planning our get together for sometime now. Brooks will soon have a little friend as J&K are expecting a boy in February. Our trip to the lake was much needed to say the least, with all the sleep deprivation and constantness going on at home, and the endless working hours for poor ole Ryan, a weekend away was good timing. Around here I'm getting a taste of what it's like for couples who have one spouse working the day shift and one working the night. You pass in the hallway on your way out the door and that's about life for us right now. We basically see each other sleeping.....Ryan gets home and I am asleep and I get up to work the night shift, and he's asleep. Back to the Schwarzsee...... Saturday morning we headed out in our little red put put....that can barely keep up with the 120 km/hour speed limit. I kept looking down to make sure Ryan really was in 5th gear the engine was screaming so loudly at 117 km/hour. The drive was gorgeous, making me nostalgic and not wanting to move back. How can I leave this place, it's too gorgeous. I don't think I could ever tire of the Swiss scenery, and this time of year it's just striking with all the orange red and brown amongst the super bright green of the grass. It's really indescribable and I just kept telling Ryan over and over how beautiful this place is. We have less than 6 months here and seeing colors like this make it so hard to fathom leaving. Another thing hit me as we were driving: that we have 2 boys now, both in the back seat of our car. I couldnt believe that I now have 2 kids. My family is complete and it's a milestone that seemed so far away, and here we are. I think Im getting old. I really didnt know what to expect, I was silently thinking please oh please let this be just half as nice as the Oeschinensee where we had gone with J&K last summer. Rain followed us in to town and the lake looked small and meager. Despite grave weather we set out for a hike around the lake and with it the skies started to part and the beauty of this place began to reveal itself. Before setting out, Chance got to play in the rocks at the water's edge, building a damn and occasionally throwing a rock at a duck or two when we weren't looking. The 4km path brought us around the lake, thru a little leprechaun forest, past a river and back to our hotel on the waterfront. Along the way Josh and Katerine got to hear me ramble on about all the woahs and wonderfuls about becoming first time parents. We had a nice dinner that evening after a little swim in the indoor pool at the hotel. Brooks was such a trooper thru it all, just happy and easy going. He was staying true to his new name "Baby Lama", named after the comment that the baby osteopath made (who sees babies all day long). Brooks was so hungry at his last appointment but hardly made a fuss about it, and she said he was the most peaceful baby she had seen.....then she said "you know, they say the Dalai Lama was like this as a baby". And hence Brooks' new name "Baby Lama" came to be. Sunday we awoke to my favorite thing of any traveling.....BUFFET BREAKFAST. Then we took the chair lift up the Rigisalp to a great little panorama restaurant where Chance zipcorded on their playground. The boys then set out on monster scooters careening down the mountain. Meanwhile Katherine and I sipped on some delicious anise cinnamon tea that the man talked us in to, supposedly a house special. Katherine had two. They returned back again to the top to have lunch with us and gave us a head start to hike down the mountain. Then they came zooming past us for their second trip down. Down at the bottom we all called it day. We can't wait until February to meet the newest little Bothager. Until then J&K!