where do i
begin???
we have had no internet in
nearly 2
weeks so
we have been completely disconnected from everyone and everything at home.
for the most part, we are finally starting to feel a little more comfortable here, but not without a few funny/embarrassing mixups along the way. i have a few stories and then i will post some pictures of the girls. calla is growing like a weed. she's still our little peanut though. but she's finally getting some rolls in her legs and starting to have a round little belly. her eyes are always wide open. we used to say she had dime eyes, but now we say she has quarters. her eyes are huge! she's smiling like crazy now, which is so fun to see. ruby refers to her only by her nickname- "birdie" or "bird". we honestly don't think she even knows that her sister's name is actually calla, not bird.
so a few stories to catch everyone up on some of the highlights of our new life in germany:
mcdonald's: we took a trip to ikea and i saw mcdonalds when we were leaving. i hadn't really eaten anything beside toast and pasta since we had been in germany and i was starving, so we decided to go. wyatt is a nervous wreck whenever he has to try to speak to german people, as we don't know this language even a little bit. so, he asked if i would drive through the drive-thru so i could order for us. how hard could it be? it's mcdonald's. everything will be in english on the menu, right? so we went and sure enough, the menu was all in english. easy. until i ordered. the woman working didn't speak a word of english and i don't speak a word of german. she was trying to tell me that since mcdonald's has been in germany for 40 years, every customer gets a free big mac with each meal ordered. she kept saying big mac? big mac? big mac? i kept repeating our order. english? nein. deutsch? no. more laughs. finally she went and got someone who spoke a few words of english to help us get through this 15 minute drive-thru ordeal with a line up of cars behind us. my hands were sweating. wyatt was covering his eyes. but we made it!
water for birdie's bottles: the water here is weird! first of all, when you go to restaurant, there is no water. you have to order it. when you do, they ask if you would like gas (fizzy water)? or no gas (flat water)? there is no ice involved, ever. so finding bottled water for birdie's bottles has been quite the chore. i have been to several grocery stores here and they all have different brands of water so once you find one that works well for bottles, you never can seem to find it again. so here i am in the store, translator in hand, typing in the words on the bottle and looking for the words "flat, still, natural, no-fizz, etc." on the bottles. once i think i have found one that will work, i shake the bottle. no bubbles? sounds great. buy a case because we go through it so quickly making bottles all day long. after tasting and then going through a full case of the red pack of ja! brand flat water, we were set and knew that we could always find this brand and it was working well for us. so we finished that case, i went to the same store, and bought the same red pack of ja! brand water. i didn't try this one before i made bottles for 2 reasons: the first being that we had just finished a case of the EXACT same brand, which i had tried. and the second was that i had mistakenly bought fizzy water, by the case, at least 3 times already, so we were sticking to fizzy water and saving the flat for the girls. two days into the new case of water, birdie was acting a little different. spitting up a little more, extra burpy, and just seemed uncomfortable. (i'm sure you can see where this story is going...) so, i took a sip of the water i had been using for her bottles and sure enough, i thought i was the worst mom in the world. i was horrified. i was almost in tears. calla had been drinking somewhat carbonated formula for 2 days. wyatt was traveling. should i just keep this a secret? not even tell wyatt? this was obviously an honest mistake, but oh my gosh my baby has been drinking carbonated formula. i should take a picture of the countless brands of water in our kitchen. it's comical. i decided that this was actually pretty funny, as it was a harmless mistake and she's ok. but, now we buy "baby wasser" which is made specifically for bottles. if only i knew about this before she was drinking bubbly formula!!
meat: ruby doesn't like it. even in america. the only meat she eats without gagging is ironically just kids meat-chicken nuggets and hot dogs. but not just any hot dogs. she only eats hebrew national kosher, no by-product or weird chemicals, nitrate-free hot dogs. when i asked wyatt to try to find hot dogs here so at least we could get some protein in her diet and keep her diet as much like home as possible, he did his best. when we got here, there was a giant jar filled with 10-inch long hot dogs floating in water on the counter. not in the fridge! NOT A CHANCE. now, i'm not trying to offend german people or their food, but there was no way that i would feed ruby something that i would absolutely never taste! so, this is probably healthier for her as she doesn't get her twice a week hot dog while we are living here. now we just have more hard boiled eggs for breakfast instead :)
it continues to be so fun for us to watch the kids here. obviously calla is too little to notice any difference in life here, but ruby is very perceptive and we have noticed when she sees differences. wyatt bought her a few toys that she has at home from the toys r us here for her to play with when we arrived. they had one of her favorites, the fisher price mailbox! so he had that waiting for us when we got here. when we opened it up, she knew exactly what to do to hear the post-woman sing her song, "when you're up you're up, and when you're down you're down, but when you're only half-way up, you're neither up nor down." well, obviously the mailbox here sings in german. she put the flag up on the mailbox and was getting ready to dance to her song and you should have seen the confusion on her little face! it was priceless. she made her confused face, held her arms up in her confused way, shrugged her shoulders and started dancing. when we leave the grocery store and the employee says danke or ciao, ruby automatically says ciao right back. how easy it is for little kids to adjust! she's way more brave than i am, as i'm so self-conscious that i might pronounce something wrong that i end up smiling and nodding way more than attempting to say something in german. but not ruby! she tries to repeat it all!
well, that was a little catch-up, but i have plenty more stories that i will post soon. i'm going to upload some pictures later today, as well. we miss everyone at home so much, but we feel so lucky that we get to experience this with our family! we sure miss bella and penny too, but know that between my parents and nene, they are very well taken care of! until next time...ciao!
