Rosy Cheeks of Autumn

Wasn't there a jazz standard by that title? Sung by Ella Fitzgerald? There should've been. After the mellow breezes of late summer fall came in with brisk gusts of mountain cold. Not that this would deter a young man who thought the metereological challenges that used to bring down whole Viking clans of Western Scandinavia was like the bestest summer vacation ever.



Well, life is a breeze, if you get to go to the greatest Kindergarten for miles around. For starters - you can use your newly acquired social skills to talk other kids out of their digger. Well, they're wearing winter hats and it's not even October yet. Just because their mothers told them? Sissies. No match.

Munich Blues

Karl got himself a blues harp and his brother got 'em devil's eyes. Alright. Lame attempt at getting all Robert Johnson-y on the boys. So here it is, one of those photos your kids will hate you for by the time they hit puberty.

Green Day

And then there are the moments when all the playground bravado, the terrible two terrors, the smartypants cracks and the lil' boy charms melt away into the fetal position misery of bone churning nausea and fever, when those rapid-fire questions stop and only the big blue eyes in that greenish little face ask the silent universal question - why?! Well, nothing a few strategic naps, a couple of new books, a pack of pretzel sticks and an early evening bowl of piping hot "pirate soup" (no really, only pirates can eat this) can't cure. But it does remind you how little that big boy still is.

When Henri Met Evi, Part II

Just as cute as back in July.

Six Months

That's half a year! It's once again incredible and amazing how fast these little creatures turn into their own personalities and learn all these new things in no time. Even though sleeping is not one of them.



And: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OMI!

Double The Fun

Omi has left the building and will be missed greatly. Not only could both boys bounce on her lap, but she also managed to convince Henri that food is great. Thank you for all the help!



He ate a full glass of parsnip puree today! In no time! I hope I can follow up on this.



His table manners still need some improvement though.



In the afternoon Karl said he wanted to go to the Oktoberfest, so off we went. No, we never intended to actually go there, but just wanted to catch a glimpse of the action. I actually just wanted to confirm my suspicion: it's horrible. After five minutes Karl threw a hissy fit and yelled that he wanted to leave, which we did right away. Then, when we had left, he wanted to go back, but I could tell him that he will go with his kindergarten class on Tuesday. I have no clue how they handle a bunch of kids in a place like that, but I believe and hope they know what they're doing. And maybe I'll also write Karl my cell phone number on his arm with a Sharpie...



Is Karl sitting on top of his brother here? Yes. Does he mind? No.

To Beer Or Not To Beer

If you can't manage to leave town during Oktoberfest (like other people), it is utterly important to stay in your neighborhood and keep a low profile. With the traditional tapping of the first barrel of beer the worlds greatest party of idiots (as I call it) has started today, but the only person doing anything Oktoberfest related by eating a Lebkuchen heart was Karl.

In The Name Of Love

Omi is in town to help me out a bit while Andrian is having a good time in New York. Guess who's totally thrilled to show his grandmother around the hood?



Little Mr. Grumpy is still working hard on his crawling skills. I don't know where he got this ambition from.



Wondering about the posting title? Yes! Amelie and I went to the U2 concert. It was awesome.

Solid Desaster

Doesn't this look like Henri totally enjoyed his first solid food in shape of pureed parsnips? Well, he didn't. It took about 40 minutes to get him to eat two teaspoons of it. Way to go...

Lost Weekend

There is something to be said about a weekend lost in the slouching towards nowhere mode of hanging around the neighborhood. Since Henri prematurely discovered the joys of crawling, he is now able to explore even more of the world through the sensations of taste. Sunday morning he tried soil, grass and weeds. Seemed to like it.



Karl in the meantime took the running fountain as proof that contrary to our tales of fall and nearing winter it is still summer and thus foot- and outerwear can be disposed off on a whim.



Lunchtime was spent at our favorite weekend cafe. The one with a shelf full of current newspapers and magazines and a kid's lounge staffed with lovely young ladies entertaining young boys and girls with a room full of toys, books and crayons. Karl is already a beloved regular (whenever I call on busy weekends to make a lunch reservation I actually have to tell them I'm the father of Karl so they know who I am). He made friends with the proprietor, his grad school age daughter and of course with all of the aforementioned ladies.



Henri of course can't quite keep up with the crowd of rambunctious neighborhood kids. He did his best though to at least do some hollering.

Back home Fred tried out the iPad my paper gave me to try out (they think I know stuff in the digital world, because I have both a facebook and a twitter account, little do they know that my main digital activity is actually chronicling the silly endeavors of two little boys). I like this picture, because it looks as if Karl's already pestering Fred with some digital native edge. He did figure out how to swipe and do stuff quite swiftly though.



More excitement coming up though. Karl's Kindergarten that he started last week is taking his whole class to the Oktoberfest. Funny how outside influences start to shape our young man's mind. He already started to use some Bavarian word he sure didn't get from us. In other news - our babysitting agency assigned us a 19 year old Swedish girl. No, it's not a lame 70s joke, but Henri's new daytime entertainment. So from next week on I will not be allowed to enter the home premises during Fred's working hours.

Easy Afternoons

I'm keeping our afternoon activities to a minimum these days since Karl has enough to cope with at kindergarten. So after pick-up we just paid ice cream selling Frau Fingerle a visit, climbed some rocks and threw pebbles in the river.



He looks a little beat, right? But he's doing really well and seems to be making friends already. Apparently a girl called Emma is on kitchen duty together with him this week. She's – as he put it – very nice. Hm.



I wasn't kidding when I mentioned the garbage truck in my last post. Today Karl let Henri have it for inspection.

Commando Crawl

Henri has started crawling. This means that the days of leaving my mug of piping hot coffee on the floor are over. His brother does not approve either since now none of his toys are safe anymore. He's still trying to take them out of Henris reach though argumenting that they all have tiny little parts that could be swallowed by a baby. Even the gigantic garbage truck. Especially the gigantic garbage truck.

Touring Bavaria

It was one of those glorious Indian Summer days, so off we went. We finally went to the Franz Marc Museum in Kochel, dedicated to the expressionist painter and founding member of the Blauer Reiter group. Turned out to be quite magnificent, located right next to the Kochelsee (Lake Kochel). After puttering around the beach and seeing the impressive expressionist collection (lame strange pun intended) we had some classic cofee and cake on the terrace of the very pleasant Blaue Reiter restaurant with Fred and the boys staging a brief impression of a typical day at the home rodeo.



And no, Henri doesn't always look like a member of the World Junior Wrestling Federation. Just sometimes. Mostly he melts our hearts with his velvet eyes.

Vacation Flashback

We sure miss our freewheeling days in Scandinavia. That suburbia by the beach idyll included.



Something to be said about a house with a garden. So we expanded our search profile on the real estate websites accordingly (well, they're less real estate websites then depressometers, since this town here makes your piggybank look rather anorexic).

We also miss the Scandinavian road life, hanging with friends and walking the Swedish cliffs.



We noticed that this is one of the few photos we have of our whole family. I guess that's part of digital culture.



So here we had our last lunch on this fabulous trip.



Returning to our beach house we noticed that Fred had booked us instinctively on Denmark's hippest surf beach. Well, once a hipster.... Winds picked up so much though that the classic surfers left and the wind and kite surfers took over.



The boys sure loved the weeks of unscheduled lounging, outdoors lite and non-stop parental attention.



Karl tried to get over his bookish self and gave sports a try. Henri launched some more and major charme offensives.



We sure gotta look hard to find a place again that's so much fun even if weather kinda sucks. Well, it's not that we live in the rust belt. So we can't complain (see next post).

New Start

Yes, we're back from Denmark. There's no vacationing left for us in 2010, but we had a great time. Of course with two little kids you have to say goodbye to the idea of coming home well rested, but that's just fine.



We made another stop in Berlin on our way back and Maria, mother of Paule and Eva Lia, got us to stay at the awesome and brand new Cosmo Hotel. In this photo we're trying our best to be like Nido magazine cover models in our bright white gazillion thread count sheets.



The biggest news back here in Munich is naturally the start of Karls kindergarten year. Today was his first day and he did – according to kindergarten teacher Frau Keppeler – amazingly well. He only stayed for two hours, but still: what a release. When we came back home it was pretty obvious though, that he's struggeling a bit with all those new experiences and people in his life. There was a lot more hugging and cuddling. No complaints here – more hugs is something I can totally live with.