Last Tuesday In Wedel

Amie's little friend Angelina comes to visit us on a Tuesday, and last week we cycled to the local estuary, where there is a lovely playground, and the kids can paddle in the water and get totally covered in sand.


High climbers, anything Amie does Noah tries to copy. He actually made it to the top all by himself!


After all the climbing it's time for a spot of lunch, but Amie's not so keen to share her grapes.


Amie and Angelina sneaking off to the river...


Noah admiring Angelina's bathing t-shirt

Successful mission

Playing tug of war with Lewis


Amie arrives at the airport, with her suitcase packed. She spent the whole morning walking around with it on her back, even though it was really heavy.. she was so excited to be using it.


Amie and Noah having fun waiting to board the plane at Hamburg airport

We're back from our trip to the UK, and have managed to find a house that we both really liked, in the little market town of Wokingham. We had a look in London in Richmond, and in Windsor, Ascott and a place called Sunningdale... but Workingham seemed to fit our needs best, although it'll be a 50 minute commute for Rich (some peace and quiet and time to read his books I think). Richard's friends Vicky and John bravely put us up during our trip, and I was amazed at how good the kids were. Our friend Caroline, from our old days in Holland who's parents live in Workingham was kind enough to meet up and show us around. It was lovely for Amie to meet Lewis again, they hadn't seen each other for 2 years, but still played like old friends. And I finally got to meet Aidan, Lewis' little brother, who's only a few months younger than Noah. Nana and Pa drove down to look after the children on Friday and Saturday, and it was such a relief to be able to view houses without them both running around and complaining of feeling sick in the car. But in the end we picked the 3rd house we saw on the first day, (I think we viewed 15) so we could have saved ourselves a lot of stress. Just 6 weeks left in Wedel!!!! Yah :)




Higher, Higher

In other news, Amie is home this week from Kindergarten till Thursday because they phoned this morning to say that there was an outbreak of measles. Amie doesn't have 2 vaccinations against it, so she can't go in till Thursday....... will try to find things to do with them both, since I've also no German class to go to either.

Children's Party in Wedel

Amie sitting very still getting her face painted as a butterfly. I'm not sure how effective the end result was, but she certainly seemed pleased with it, so that's all that matters.


SMILE

We were at a Childrens Pary in Burgerpark Wedel today, where we had to queue for an hour for the pony rides, but there was no way Amie or Noah were going to go home without having a go on them. I had to feel sorry for the parents ahead of us who'd also queued for an hour only to have their child scream frantically when put on the pony, and have to be take off after 2 seconds.


Not a great picture, but the only one we have of Amie on the pony (not that we're blaming anyone eh?)


This ones a bit better, probably because Rich wasn't chasing after Noah at the time


I'm not sure what Amie and Noah were doing with these packets of nappeis this morning....


... but it's clear Noah didn't want me to find out.


Having a rest after a hard days fun

Back from London

Emma and I had a great weekend in London, and Rich did a great job looking after the kids (so far as I can tell ;) )


That baldy head belongs to Ralph Finnes, we spotted him in the West End on Saturday night.


A walk in the woods


Amie showing Noah how to use the potty today.......


..but he still gets confused!

He sat on her potty today and said "wee wee", so I took his nappy off him to see what would happen (the answer is, nothing much). I'd rather not start potty training him so young, and with the house move only 8 weeks away, but I guess if he's showing an interest in getting started then it's no harm to encourage him and see how things go. I know a lot of women in my course potty train at 9-12 months, so it's POSSIBLE but I'm just not sure I want the hassel at the moment.




Noah and Upsy Daisy. He seems to use her as a sister substitute when Amie isn't around :)


Amie with her little friend Angelina




Amie and Noah sitting on a rock at the Wilkomm Hof in Wedel

Some new pictures

This has been an interesting week so far. On Monday Amie, Noah and I spent 50 minutes in a broken lift at the trains tation before the technician came and let us out. On the plus side, it was a glass lift, so I didn't feel too clausterphobic... I felt more like a goldfish, it's amazing how many people don't believe you when you tell them the lift is broken, and insist on staring in at you and pressing the buttons... and then give you a flithy look as though you've choosen to block access to the lift for everyone. Thankfully, the kids didn't seem to mind. I spent the whole time 'singing' songs with actions to try to keep them distracted, which resulted in a few dizzy spells.. which I put down to hyperventillation.



Then on Tuesday when I collected Amie, she had blood splashed on her top.. she'd fallen and hit her mouth off a bench.. which has resulted in a very swollen and black top lip... luckily on the inside, so it's not too noticible. The dentist said she was extremly lucky with the angle she fell at.. othewise she would have knocked out or pushed her teeth back into her gum. She's speaking with a bit of a lisp, and is using the whole thing as an excuse to eat ice-cream (got to admire her for that), but otherwise she's fine.


Noah trying out his mother's glasses

Noah hasn't been too well this week. He's had a fever, which I think is linked to his bronchitis (which he's had for months) I've to take him back to the doctor tomorrow, but thankfully today so far he's been fever free, so I hope he's on the mend.


Action shot.. what you don't see is my shouting "Langsam, Langsam" at the top of my lungs, before diving out of the way of an oncoming tree. (I must have missed the "What to say to a run-away donkey" lesson in my German class, but I think I improvised well) Luckily the guy leading managed to stop the donkey in it's tracks, but by the look on Amie's face she rather enjoyed the ride!

Back to the Lakes

We were back in the UK last week. While I was doing a course, Brenda, Amie and Noah were haing fun with Nana and Pa.

Here are 3 of the 60 attempts to get a decent photo of the 4 cousins - not easy!







On one day, Nana and Pa were in charge of babysitting all day, while Mammy and Daddy went to Rob and Julie-Ann's wedding. It was a really nice day, and good to catch up with some old friends.





Helping Nana with the baking


Big hug for Pa


Some shots of us enjoying the sunshine

A lesson learnt..

Darling cherubs of sunshine and delight they may be, but sometimes I’m reminded that kids can be quite ‘orrible (other people’s that is, of course ;). On Friday I went to collect Amie from Kindergarten and one of the workers said something to me in German about Amie’s stomach, and I finally translated in my head that she was saying that one of the children had kicked Amie very hard in the stomach. Now, not to name names, but the kid’s name is Sophie (it’s not like she or her parents are going to be reading this) and she is what I’d term a ‘little brat’. Literally any time I’m there she’s having a tantrum about something and pushing her weight around.. she’s a lot bigger than Amie, and most of the other kids, and at a guess I'd say she's at least 5 years old. From day one I was worried about Amie having a run in with her, but I do also feel sorry for her as she seems to be in the Kindergarten 5 days a week full time, which must be quiet tough on her and she certainly doesn’t seem very happy about it.


Amie and Noah at the Kindermuseum

When I went into the room Amie was sitting on a chair, waterworks in full flow being comforted by one of the staff. She had calmed down a little but when she saw me, indignation and sorrow broke out anew and she sobbed her little heart out telling me that "A big babby kicked me in the tummy". It was hard to explain to Amie why this had happened, but she seemed to come to the conclusion herself that it was an accident and that Sophie didn’t mean any harm. When we were leaving I went up to the girl in question with Amie, and said to her in my best German that Amie was only little and that she wasn’t to hurt her again as it wasn’t very nice. Sophie gave me her sweetest smile and carried on eating her lunch, so we shall see. Amie hasn’t mentioned it since, and I’m hoping that she won’t be too worried going to Kindergarten tomorrow morning.


Amie's favorite chair by far :)

Sometimes I’m amazed at how grown up Amie seems, but then at times like Friday when I see her so upset (and those waterworks I mentioned weren’t just the ones running down her cheeks) I also realise how little she is and how much about the world she has to learn. Even if there are certain things I rather she never had to see, such as the fact that people sometimes can just act plain mean because they feel like it. And that life isn’t like a Disney cartoon, the bad person doesn’t always fall off a cliff never to bother you again. Sometimes you’ve got to just face them day in day out, and there’s not a thing you can do about it but hope that they decide to kick someone else today. Or maybe that's wrong, maybe I should be teaching her if someone picks on you, stand up for yourself? But I don't know, I'll just have to hope that the staff keep a close eye on things. I certainly don't want Amie turning into a bully or aggressive towards other kids... so we shall just have to see how things go.


"Relaxing" on a Sunday morning