Between the Years

As mentioned before the days between Christmas and New Year's are called "between the years" around here. Mainly because of the permissive holiday rules almost nobody works. So there's plenty of times for idling and splurging. Our between the years outing was a live orchestral performance of Disney's "Fantasia". Performed by the Munich Symphony Orchestra, which actually features Fred's schoolmate Christina on viola and my grammar school buddy Piet on flute.

Karl was thrilled to be in Munich's largest concert hall for the first time and went into his deep concentration mode before they even started.

Henri also liked it a lot, even though he's not quite yet mastering the deep concentration mode as well as his brother. Afterwards we splurged on a holiday feast with duck and dumplings at a fancy restaurant well known for it's Bavarian-Viennese soul-food cuisine. So today is spent in a rather low-energy mode with thoughts of joining overeaters anonymus.

Tis Is The Season

It is very cute how much excitement Christmas does instill in little boys, so all the adult aversions against faith-based kitsch and over-emotionalized consumer and debauchery culture are hereby overcome (until the boys hit puberty at least). We started christmas eve the classic way with singing and reading. Both Karl and Henri are really into the whole ritual thing and do know the words to quite a few carols by now.

Let's make no mistake though, high-point of the season is of course the unwrapping of presents. Which are preferably action-based and not necessarily pacifist.

I'm kinda into the over-serious assembly spirit that comes with giving boys Playmobil and Lego kits that are rated a bit beyond their age group. We all got to stay up past our bedtimes, despite the fact that we had a substantial drive up to grandma's and grandpa's in Bensheim.

Fred's whole family was there. Which was a full-blast affair, so nobody really expected to have this group-shot work. It was worth the try though (for family non-mebers (clockwise from Kung Fu Karl): Anna Lynn (almost 2), Henri (almost 3), Tomas (almost 6), Max (5), Thora (almost 9)

There was a great walk up the mountain before the celebrations. With some straggling (Anna Lynn having the luxury of being still young enough to be carried by Jessica).

Some old bonds were renewed (Carolin's daughter Thora proudly wrangling Opa's dog Nelson).

Some new bonds were formed.

A castle of course is a great destination, even if it was built in 1910.

There was some toppling of uncles. And finally a semi-coherent group-shot of lots of cousins who are missed very much already. Let's hope it's not until next Christmas that we'll see them.

Merry....

Tree's up and decorated, the singing of songs has started - Christmas, here we come!

Karl's Day Out

Karl had to go to the doctor for his checkup, so after a morning of successful medical chores we met for a mid-day outing in the park. We took his new buttslider (not my word, but the going term for those plastic contraptions you use to, well, slide down a snowy hill on your butt). Believe me, it was way faster than it looks here. We all know the camera substracts 20 mph.

Afterwards there was a slightly exhausted, but nutritious (fries! curry sausage! waffles!) lunch. The real reason for the visit to the Christmas market in the park was of course the play shack Playmobil sets up every year. All the new stuff on tables for everybody. Since we got there too early, but the place was not locked, we had it all to ourselves. Karl's paradise.

And like a seasoned tourist he asked me to take this shot:

Winter

It's gotten cold around here. Which can also be a reason to wear that cool new helmet, even when not operating a vehicle.

Beethoven

Karl cashed in a birthday present from grandpa - tickets for a children's concert of Beethoven pieces played by members of the Munich Philharmonics and some child prodigies at the Nymphenburg Palace.

Highlight was a demonstration of the various instruments during intermission. They let the kids even try them a bit.

Karl decided then and there that he does not want to learn how to play the french horn as originally planned. He'd rather become a ninja. I think it is good make your choices early, so we will enroll him in a shaolin monastery next week.

Another highlight was a singalong of the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's 9th. Yup, this is how we party hard over here in Ger-ma-ny. BAY tow ven. With a capital B.

Nikolaus – The Rest of the Day

One event is chasing the other as usual around Christmas time. So I was off to the Nikolaus festivities at Henris day care.

There was some skepticism concerning the insanely tall Nikolaus guy, but after finding out that he distributes a chocolate St. Nicholas Henri was all game. Just like the Nikolaus impersonator (sorry, kids, but if you're able to read this, you might know already) it was a catholic correct one with miter and hooked staff (the day care is a catholic institution) – at least it was fair trade chocolate though.

We took the train to pick up Karl at Andrians office afterwards which was almost as good as the lovely party. Just way colder.

When we arrived, Karl was not amused. He was still extremely BUSY at work (assembling his Nikolaus Star Wars Lego loot, checking out all new books in the childrens editors office, doing things). It was the first time that Andrian picked him up from kindergarten to take him back to the office and man, was he proud!

Let's call it a day, guys!!!

Nikolaus

'Tis the season to be loot'n - in Germany children put out their boots on the eve of December 5th, because during the night Sankt Nikolaus puts some early Christmas candy and perhaps even a little toy in them. So little shouts of joy filled the kitchen this morning, when the bounty was discovered.

Playmo Boys

Both boys had a cold over the past couple of days and stayed at home from their child care institutions. By now they can occupy themselves pretty well and they only start hitting each other in the evening. Still, they get bored here and there since they're used to the kindergarten entertainment system. But this is when they come up with the best stuff, like putting together all available Playmobil figurines to display them on the bunk bed ladder. (I thought it was a very graphic-designer-y thing to do...)

Weekend Update

It's always good to start the weekend with appropriate headgear. So there we went.

Still - those new kiddie helmets make them look like Navy Seals on patrol. Complimented by their militia-on-a-technical-poses when they chased away all the other kids from their favorite ride at the playground.

Saturday's highpoint was of course the return of our favorite local country band the Poncho Ponys. They played a packed bookstore to present their second album which just came out.

The new album is even better than the first one, which we played literally to death in the past two years. There's great rootsy country playing and a fantastic song catering to little boy humor, which became Henri's favorite already. It's called "Do you know the way to San Flatula" - and yes, that's what it's all about. Fart jokes taken to the max. You can have a listen (courtesy of the band's website of course) - here.

Karl was very much into the show this time. Gone seem the days when he was just sitting there mesmerized, not moving an inch from my lap. He was all in the audience, clapping, singing along, dancing and even playing a little air guitar. We credited his Wednesday afternoon music school.
Henri of course took the concert as immediate inspiration to sing his own "fart song". So there he went.

Mom Is Back

Mom is back! And boy, did we miss her.

Missing Mom

Karl's been missing mom quite badly. He's trying to be tough about it, but sometimes the injustice that days can be long and many and distances far just hits him. But there are cellphones and you can send smiles across the continent.

Henri figured this out as well, so whenever I tell him that we'll send a pic to mom, he's taking a deep breath screaming "Mammaaaaa!" at the top of his lungs. Well, the weekend's just started. And as mentioned before - if you hear any noise, it's just the boys!

Happy Birthday Fred !!!

It's Fred's birthday! Big celebrations going on - midnight champagne, a breakfast with some new artworks by the brothers and a mid-day departure to celebrate in style (adult style that is) with Maria in Barcelona. Henri handled himself very well at the airport, while Karl took it kinda hard that mom will be gone until Monday. After the farewell ceremonies we boys went to the airport's visitors' park. Somehow there's always a touch of Pyongyang whenever Munich displays it's technological history. Especially in weather like this. The boys didn't care. They loved it, especially when the caretaker of the fun machines at the playground came by and let them ride for free quite a few times.

So here we go - despite the plan to take this mean looking motorcycle to Barcelona to see mom, there's a wild boys' weekend ahead of us. If you hear any noise! You know the rest....

Mission Update

On our outing with Oma and Opa we checked on our mission posters. All but one were gone. Nobody has come forward so far to claim the little lost dog. So who's in charge now? That's right. Henri is. We'll give it another three days, then he can pick a name.

Party Weekend

Quite a birthday weekend. Grandma and grandpa actually stayed for a little while, which was a blast. Followed by a Sunday afternoon birthday party. Since all boys that age seem to be very much into agent and science fiction stories and Karl got just enough Playmobil gear that each and every of his (four) guests could operate one of those heavily armed phantasy vehicles, it was of course tome to attack dad!

Followed by some wholesome snacks in wonderful colors. I heard those birthday party buffets have similar effect at that age as the backstage offerings at Studio 54 just around New Year's eve 1978.

They were surprisingly focused on the puppet show Karl staged with me though.

We had rehearsed an elaborate story about Kasperl (the Bavarian jester hero of classic puppet theater) following the hot trail of Räuber Hotzenplotz (another Bavarian childhood hero),who had robbed the king's treasure. Since Karl really wanted to include his new science fiction agent toys, we settled on Kasperl passing through some portal getting lost in space.

Since puppet shows are kinda pushing the envelope of cool we had come up with some sleazy showbiz trickery - audience participation. Whenever Kasperl had mastered another challenge (and there were many) everybody had to scream "Confusion in space!" at the top of their lungs.

The real killer were Fred's "little monsters" though. Each kid was photographed at the beginning of the party and turned into a cutout monster on a stick, which then had a role in the play. Aaah, vanity starts early. When they figured out that they're actually characters with speaking roles (with really deep monstery voices, which have left me hoarse for now), they really got into it. Of course everybody got to keep their monster cut-out in the end.

The party was topped off with a great round of hit-the-pot. Two very tired boys just faded blissfully into sleep upstairs. Ah, the joys of exhaustion.