After all of our guests left Tanja flew to California to give a talk at a conference. Her trip was relatively grueling, she didn't give herself any time to relax while there, basically she just flew in, give her talk, and flew out. The travel time to California from Berlin is pretty brutal, so I think she actually spent more time in a state of transit than in the state of California!
Since this was Tanja's first extended trip away from Clara (and me!) I wanted to do something nice to keep Clara distracted and happy. So the day before Tanja left Clara and I took the train up to Stralsund.
We had told Clara many times before we left that Tanja was going away, and Clara was going with Daddy to Stralsund. But when we finally went to the train station Tanja took Clara to our seat while I got my bike stowed on the train. And Clara FREAKED OUT! Finally, when I had the bike stowed and came to the seat Clara calmed down, and when Tanja left she was fine. The only way we understand this is that Clara knew she was supposed to go to Stralsund, and that Mommy wasn't coming. So if Daddy wasn't on the train with her and Mommy was leaving then she was going to be all alone! Of course we can't be sure if that's what she was thinking, but it kind of makes sense.
In any case, Clara did really really well without Tanja, which was probably helped along because of all the fun she was having! Here is Clara picking tiny flowers for Oma:
And at the beach at Zingst:
Clara had a great time at the beach, and even ventured into the relatively cool water! She especially liked getting water from the sea and then pouring it out onto the dry sand, I think that's probably what she's doing in that picture. After a very quickly over few days in Stralsund it was time to head home and pick up Mommy at the airport!
In Berlin at many bus stations there are signs showing how long until the next busses come. For some reason the bus that Clara and I were waiting for was stuck at "15 minutes" for at least ten minutes, and then crawled through the remaining minutes much slower than it should have. I didn't think Clara would enjoy just sitting and waiting, so I decided to try to kill some time by taking her for a walk in her stroller. Clara was having none of that! She got really upset, crying and yelling and trying to get out, and as soon as I went back to the bus stop everything was ok! She knew that we were going to go see Mommy, and that we needed to take the bus to get there! So if I was taking her somewhere else then she wasn't going to get to see Mommy!
When we finally got to the airport and Clara found her Mommy she was basically speechless. She just looked at Tanja, and then gave her the little rose that she had brought for her Mommy. Then she took my big rose and gave it to Mommy too. Then, after a bit she wanted up to Mommy, and she gave Tanja a HUGE hug! It lasted a long time, and then she asked for me and gave me a big hug too! It was really really sweet, and Clara was clearly glad that we were all together again.
The next week Opa came to visit. Clara's Kita is closed for three weeks for summer holidays, so our plan was for Opa to come in the first week, go to Stralsund in the second week (now), and have Oma come to Berlin in the third week! Here are three photos from last week in Berlin, first dancing at the prospect of going outside:
Next, having a rest on a park bench with Mommy and Opa.
Finally, riding the caterpillar with no hands!
And with that we're basically caught up! There is one really nice video, that unfortunately I don't have access to here in Stralsund, that I'll post next week. To close up, here are some recent kitty photos. Chester admiring the roses:
Chester doing his very best impression of a cat in a sink:
lolchester:
And just to be sure Louie isn't left out, both cats hiding from something (the heat? Thunderstorm? Clara? Construction noise?) under the bed:
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