Glamorous Weekend

Darn (I love 40s euphemisms for four-letter-words), I forgot to bring the camera on Saturday. So there's neither proof that Karl and I went to the barber (other than his snazzy new haircut), nor that we went to see the Poncho Ponys again. Karl's favorite Country Swing band (well, the only one he knows). Again he wanted to sit on my lap in the back again, following the show in a strange trance of mesmerized focus. He didn't even want to drink the orange fizz I bought him. But now he can recite the set list in correct order and also tell me, which of the four sing which song. True pop fandom.

Saturday night Fred and I went out. Our boss is going into retirement by the end of the year, so the company threw him a quite glamorous party, dinner, speeches, booze and celebrities included. Karl took a photo of us before we went out.



And then Albert took a picture of the about to retire editor mingling with the most glamorous girls of the party.



Sunday we all went to the birthday party of Karl's best buddy (he does have a few best buddies, there's no hierarchy in the affections of boys yet at that age) Ferdinand, who turned three as well. Amelie threw quite a great party, with the obligatory doubled catering for kids and their adult company. There was games of hit-the-pot (kind of a German version of the Pinata, just that the Pinata doesn't break... Ferdinand is of course the chap in the light blue shirt next to Amelie).



Karl was of course perusing the library of the house. Later on he joined the game of sword fighting and jousting though, when all his peers turned into the mighty knights of sugar high (I think Amelie was medium excited about our gift for Ferdinand - a sword and a shield made of rubber, which you can still use to do some damage to household items and fellow knights).



Henri got a kick out of an apartment full of kids. Here you see him giving away Karl's hiding place, when the older boys played hide-and-seek with Ferdinand's dad Benny (I tried to come up with some lame pun involving Benny and the Jets... I guess that would be - Benny and the brats? I'm sure I'm not the first one to come up with that one). Anyway. Sure was a fantastic weekend.

Snow!

And there's lots of it.



Karl insisted that he was a penguin and therefore allowed to lie in the snow. That's probably some Pingu reference he's making there.



Henri on the other hand couldn't do anything because he was bundled up so tightly.

Eight Months

I know, I'm really late with this one, but between the poor winter light and a little boy who is getting ready to walk I had a hard time taking a picture of him in all his glory. But here it is! From now on there are going to be a bunch of accessories (toys and things) on the monthly pic photos though.

Sunday Shift

I had my monthly Sunday shift today (no pity required, those Sunday shifts add up and combined with the semi-communist German labor laws enable you to take 10 weeks of vacations in one single year! Alright, enough bragging, and yes, I did save some vacation time up from last year....). My favorite part of any Sunday shift is of course, if Fred and the boys come by to pick me up. Today the last round of work was cheerfully interrupted by the sounds of a one-boy search party yelling out commands to the rest of the posse where to locate Papa! After having located me Karl went on to search the hallways and offices for more survivors of a strenuous working holiday. In the process he did manage to search and destroy some gummy bears at Eva's office. Meanwhile Henri produced his greatest hits of pouts and smirks. We have the slight suspicion he already knows about the effects of his velvety blue eyes. Well, he must think, if you can melt them here, you can melt them anywhere. And might very well be right about it.

Admire The Fire

I guess most boys Karl's age have some sort of obsession with fire engines, fire fighters and fire in general. So naturally he was thrilled when I took him to a neighborhood winter bonfire after kindergarten pick-up. Since it was a pretty big and loud fire it seemed he also understood that fire is potentially dangerous. So we didn't stay too long and went back home where he could play safe and sound with his fire truck.

Der Fotograf war da

The photographer came! Yes, a professional photographer taking the obligatory annual group shot of Karl's Kindergarten unit the "Sonnengruppe" (sun group), adding some neat individual portraits with some swell frames. Didn't know that those types of photographers are still around. Well, I think just for the camp value they should become subsidized, if they'd fall on hard times due to all those new crowdsourceable new media technologies.



And you can't blame this man for lack of effort. He even brought a backdrop and props. Though, Karl is sitting deep in the forest here in his fancy red slippers? Fooled 'ya, huh?!



And just for good measure, so Karl doesn't curse us for posting just embarassing photos of him, here's Henri in another classic kiddo pose - porridge-smeared baby lookin' happy. Well it was some mighty fine porridge.

Belatedly posting the visit of Onkel Ritz

Finally I convinced my camera to give up some images of the visit of our best man and main man in New York Onkel Ritz, as he is known by Karl. Who actually sometimes points to posters of a current advertising campaign for affordable cellphone rates that feature a statue of liberty to tell us that this is where Bruno and Onkel Ritz live. Oh geography, it is a piece of cake. So Rich was here a couple of weeks back. We took him to some of our favorite spots like the park, the museum and of especially the Wildpark Poing (and yes, they also included some more adultous places like a couple of restaurants and a show of amazing New Orleans funkateer Trombone Shorty at a great club, but those are not what this blog is about). Poing actually has some pretty great animals, as you might know from posts in the past. Karl was definitely having the best time, being out with the boys.





And of course inbetween all the great nature education there's a this great playground, which not only features a motorbike swing.



There's also diggers with electro motors so you can really dig and you don't even have to put money into it, so you can go on forever. Anyway, as Karl put it - when is Onkel Ritz coming back?!



Photos of digger, bike, bear and boar courtesy of Onkel Ritz.

Circus In Town

One of the kindergarten head sisters – Sister Veronika – had her birthday on Monday and since for her giving is of course better than receiving, she gave us a ticket for the famous Circus Roncalli.



I approached going to the circus with both boys by myself as a self-experiment and I have to admit it was exhausting, but it went much better than expected. We only lost a bag of popcorn, no other major incidents or hissy fits. It was just really warm with those two little fidgets both sitting on my lap.



Yes, Karl is a spoiled brat this week. And he enjoys it. He also got a replacement bag of popcorn (which I ate later).



Henri grew out of the bike trailer baby sling and is now proudly sitting in there like one of the big kids.

3 (the party)

Big party (with admittedly a rather meager photographic output... hey, YOU be Diane twiddlin' Arbus while wrangling an apartment full of three year olds and their accompanying toddler sibilings). Karl's new pirate saber was not just his favorite present, but also the most popular, so there was many a fight over his prized new weapon (shown here in one of the many action scenes of this afternoon and below in the fleeting and short-lived posession of his friend Ferdinand who actually showed up in style i.e. pirate garb).



This year Karl really got the royal birthday treat. There was a happy birthday garland hanging over the door to his kindergarten and he got to wear a crown (I do suspect a sleeper cell of royalists in his group now....maybe that "sun group" thing actually doesn't relate to the happiest of all celestial bodies, but to the illusion of grandeur of regents long gone?).

Fred really made his day all perfect. Including a buffet of foods exclusively tailored to the taste of 3 year olds (chocolate-banana-muffins, pear cake, a bundt cake layered with m&ms, pretzels and just to give the visiting moms the feeling this ain't just a crack house for sugar addicts some carrot and cucumber sticks, which according to Karl go great with gummy bears). Here you see Karl's friend Theo very much enjoying the culinary experience of an afternoon at Karl's. And yes, the pirate theme was taken very seriously. I have the feeling they'll all be back (sorry Luisa, Julian, Flora, Johan and their moms plus Opa Paul for not including you in the post visually, but as mentioned before....). Well, perfection is what you expect from a birthday with it's own corporate ID (see last post). And a perfect day it was.

3

Happy birthday to Karl! I can't believe he's three years old now. What a fantastic ride it has been.



Here he is: riding around the house with a bright yellow scooter, a kazoo in his mouth and a saber in his hand. For a couple of days now he has been super excited about his big day and – as you can see – loved every single one of his gifts.

This afternoon his oiginal baby massage group buddys will come over for some cake eating and noise making. It's not really anything pirate themed but I couldn't resist:

Last Swimming Class

Yesterday was our last day of baby swimming classes. Unfortunately I failed to take any pictures, but let me tell you that Henri truely enjoyed it. His constant body tension for once comes in handy – I just have to hold him with one fingertip and he floats like a Michael Phelps. Another positive side effect is that afterwards he's totally knocked out and goes to sleep just like he's actually supposed to do. See:

Munich Holiday

This is actually just a postscriptum about yesterday's great disappointment of not getting tickets to see the insides of the Nymphenburg Palace. Luckily today was one of those strange medieval catholic holidays that are only observed in the State of Bavaria (the somber All Saints, kind of a Day of the Dead without the fun and the skull candy, but with a statewide mandatory dancing ban from midnight to midnight), so I was off. Not Fred, who works on more international terms. So while the nanny took off with Henri, Karl and I went back to the palace. After roaming the massive suites and rooms of the palace Karl was trying out how a full frontal sword attack works (it works, your opponent topples over). And since there's also our Museum of Natural History on the Palace grounds (kind of an Eastern European mini-version of the original in New York) as well as the Botanical Gardens, we pretty much got lost in Nymphenburg today. Even though he claimed the sword play the highpoint of his day, I think the large cacti and the Mexico wing of the big glasshouse were his favorites. Fred confirmed that earlier visits to the museum and the glasshouse were met with great enthusiasm and a definite resistance to leaving the tropical premises.

Munich Sunday

It was one of those fall days with those wild skies that basically inspired all of Baroque painting. So of course we had to go to a Baroque castle. Nymphenburg Palace is just a short drive from our place. It got a great straight tree (and mansion)-lined channel leading up to it, splendorous gardens.

Karl was not in the mood for a family photo, even though I really like to have images of my fab3 around me at the office. He did enjoy taking the wheel (well, that steering bar thing) of his brother's pram and take him for a wild ride.



He also liked to get chased across the bridge over the very calm waters of the Nymphenburg channels.



The day ended as gloriously. With a brotherly bath time (first) and a steak dinner.



The one person who seemed to enjoy a foursome day even more than me seemed to be Henri. Boy, did he have a ball today. Giggles galore (yes, the water is purple, yours aint? Better get with it, it's definitely very 21st century boys style).