Splish Splashy

You might think that the bottle of Lysol in the background is a prop put there by Angie to get readers to think that we actually clean. No, Peter was just that dirty :-)

You'll notice a missing entry for Saturday. This was Karin and Lutz's wedding and by the end of the night, let me just say I was not in any condition to write.

The wedding was really great. We strategically planned physical activities for the boys for several hours before the ceremony to ensure David would be napping when we were in the church. Large open spaces create echoes which apparently anger little David. He tends to yell and scream back at his own voice increasingly until he passes out or we take him outside.

Our master plan worked and David slept through most of the ceremony. He woke up at the end, just in time to help throw flowers at the bride. Most of the other children were throwing the petals down in front of the bride and groom as they left the church - David, however, tried his hardest to pelt the happy couple in the head. Luckily, his aim was not on. Peter was absolutely great during the entire ceremony. At one point, we did have to play a silent game of paper, scissors, rock to keep him entertained. Yes, the game was for him, not me. But I won, so ha.

The reception was also great. Super weather, great atmosphere, and of course free beer. The kids ran around feeding goats, petting ponies and practicing archery. Yes, archery. It was supervised, but drinking and archery? Peter got to shoot a few arrows and managed not to kill anything, so it was fun for everyone.

Dinner was excellent and the many games that Angie and Kika organized kept everyone entertained. At one point, Peter decided to join in for a game of musical chairs, with a twist. Instead of grabbing a chair when the music stopped, everyone had a task to perform and then they had to race back to their seat. The first task was to find a woman's left shoe. At this point, everyone playing jumped up and began frantically racing about - except Peter. He was obviously not expecting such a comotion and began freaking out. In the end, everyone had returned to their chair waving a woman's shoe except Peter, who was shaking and crying. Perhaps we should have explained that game to him first.

After putting the kids to bed, I spent the remaining hours of the night ensuring that the early hours of the next day would be as painful as possible. Dark sunglasses, aspirin, coffee and earplugs could describe a few remedies to my condition the following morning. The boys, on the other hand, woke up in a happy mood. Angie and David slept nose to nose and both opened their eyes at the same time. Angie said 'Good morning', to which David replied 'I love you, too'. David is alway good at getting to the meaning behind the words.

The drive home was much better, traffic-wise. We made it home in just under five hours and promptly chucked the animals in the bath to get hosed down. As you can see, Peter seemed to enjoy this. His smile quickly faded when I asked him if he could run and get me one of Mama's left shoes.
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[David refused to sit long enough for Ladder Talk today]
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: When we woke up and were sleeping at the hotel.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: When David said 'Peter got pinched, Peter go pinched'.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: To go with you to the playground.

Spelunker this!

Some people might look at this picture and think I am prematurely preparing our young hooligans for a life of street living. Believe me; this has crossed my mind on several occasions.

Others might see this as an early introduction to boxing, although by now both of my boys have the basic understanding of ducking and jabbing. Trust me.

For Peter and David, this was simply a morning exploration of the new caves that Papa built using a few leftover boxes from the move and an incredible wit and intellect that would make Einstein jealous. ‘Eee ekwals emcee skwared’ – ooh, real brain-breaking stuff, geniac. Sounds more like one notch above ga-ga goo-goo, if you ask me, which you didn’t, and you can see how much that has affected my caring level. Braniac, schmaniac.

I started the spelunkering adventure out of an urgent need to keep the boys preoccupied while Angie and I packed and got ready for our trip. We were going away for the weekend to attend a friend’s wedding. Or was it a funeral? Shit, I get those confused all the time.

One is when your pain and suffering ends one day and you enjoy ever-lasting happiness; the other is when you enjoy one happy day and then have ever-lasting pain and suffering. Ok, I am not good with details, but I know for sure that at the hotel, there is no sofa to which I could be kicked.

The ride itself was hell. For me, for Angie, for the boys, and for the ten gazillion truckers stuck in traffic who were forced to honk their horns every time Peter made his ‘honking’ sign. It was cute, say, for the first five hours.

After being stuck in the car for seven hours, let me just put it mildly and say the boys were slightly wound up.

Picture a champagne bottle that has been juggled for an hour by an angry clown. I know, they are all angry, but in my book, they have every right to be. Then imagine that pissed off clown, who may have been drinking just a little, throwing that bottle as hard as he could, thinking for some reason that the bottle was a boomerang. Nearby, some recovering hard-core junkie in the withdrawal stages of rehab happens to catch the bottle as he is practicing to break the world’s record for pogo jumping on a trampoline. In the words of another famous junkie, ‘I’m all shook up, uh-huh’. Thanks, Elvis.

We got to our final destination just at the moment when pogo-jumping freak-boy was developing a bad case of the jitters. The new electronic-sliding doors of our family van opened and two very pumped up midgets hit the pavement running. If you could harness that energy, I am quite certain that nuclear power would no longer be needed.

We hadn't eaten dinner, but Karin's Mom was nice enough to invite us over for original Thüringer bratwurst sandwiches. They were delicious, but Christoph had just fallen asleep and our boys were starting to literally bounce against the walls, so I took them out to a nearby energy park to let them burn.

Hotel La Goat was nice, in an oh-my-god-even-my-college-years-weren’t-this-bad kind of way. The boys didn’t seem to mind, though. After going to the kitchen and asking for a spatula, I was able to scrap them off of the ceiling long enough to get them tucked into their temporary beds.

As I finish writing this, they are snoring away in their strange beds. By ‘they’, I of course mean Angie. It may very well be that the other two beauties are snoring, but there is absolutely no way of confirming this. It would be like asking if the noise you hear is the Boeing 747 parked in your bedroom or the two portable fans in the other room. I should probably repeat – there is no sofa to which I could be kicked.

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1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: When I go'ed with you to the playground and when I had some multivitamin.
David: When I stay with Peter and the elbow song.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: When we don't brought the football to play - I can't kick.
David: I not want Ladder Talk - I want to sleep.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: To go to Karin and Christoph and Lutz to their house but actually we are going to their wedding.
David: No - yes. Wedding.

The PeDa Mobile

I thought it would be funny to superglue magnets to Peter and David's hands and back and then ask them to stand next to our new car. It was.

Our new car is a Peugeot 807. David loves it because of the Peugeot logo - 'I like lion'. The only thing that could have made it better would be if we had gotten it in red. Peter loves it because he no longer has to stick his legs behind his head to fit in his car seat. Angie is happy because now IKEA runs will be all that much easier. I dig it the most because of the extra space. Did you SEE the back?? Do you realize how many kegs will fit back there!

The boys picked me up at the train station today. We went to our local Chinese restaurant which has a big aquarium. The boys love it but never seem to eat because they are so worried that they will not bang on the glass and scare the shit out of the fish enough if they waste any time eating.

David's new game is called 'dragon'. This is a fun one. He is unable to make any noises that remotely sound like a dragon, fire, or breathing. Instead of your typical 'fire-breathing dragon', David's is a 'spitting dragon who laughs its ass off after spraying you with David spittle'. He sticks his tongue out and seconds later it's like you are sitting front row at a Gallagher show during the Sledge-O-Matic routine. Yuck.

We picked up the new car after dinner. Within 2 minutes, the boys had almost broken one of the sun screens and David came damn close to shutting the sliding door on himself. The car dealer started to break out into a sweat and his eye started twitching - and not the funny kind of twitching. This told me two things. First, he does not have children. Second, we needed to go.

On the way home, the boys wanted to stop for a milkshake. Yeah, ok, sure. Why don't I just give you guys a couple jugs of oil to juggle over the new seats? Destructo Dave was still determined to make his mark on the car, though. More specifically, it was the back of Angie's seat. As we turned down our street, I heard him scream 'I a dragon, Papa'. Yuck.
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1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: When I go'ed to the train station and saw you. That was the best part.
David: When I saw Koko look what I can.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: When I got cough.
David: When I saugi and Peter.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: To go to the Marie and Sebastian downstairs.
David: I like Lion King.