sleepy toes

Clara:

Oscar:

Still sleepy, but already wanting to play "cooking":

I love this series of Oscar and Tanja, there are about 40 photos in the total series, and so many of them are priceless!  My brother always bugged me that I stuck my tongue out when I was concentrating...

This is not a yipiyuk.  But if there wasn't already such a thing as a yipiyuk, I think that would be a good name for this beasty:

We found out today that Clara didn't get into the bilingual school we had hoped she could go to.  The kids were chosen by lottery, and in Clara's group ("German" speakers with a non German parent) there were 57 kids vying for 12 places.  Clara took the news really well, though, because if she goes to a regular German school she plans "to help the teacher teach the other kids English".

The kids are VERY excited that Grandma and Grandpa are coming next week.  The Easter trip made a huge impression on Oscar, and every day he asks us if we can take a train to see Oma.  Or, if not Oma, then to take a train to see Opa!  He was very happy to see his babysitter Christina "Nina!" this afternoon, and he's saying simple 2-3 word sentences fairly often now.

Last night Clara told us that we had to get to Kita early next morning, because her group was going "somewhere".  Right before bed she remembered that they were going to a special aquarium where the fish swim over top of you.  We didn't know about this, but she was totally sure about it, so we got to Kita early.  It turned out the trip is next Wednesday...

Normally I drop off Oscar first, because Clara "always wants to know if he cries or not".  (Oscar loves going to Kita, but he gets upset at the drop off about half the time.)  Today, because I wanted to make sure we were on time for the trip I took Clara first.  Oscar FREAKED OUT when I carried him up the steps to Clara's part of the Kita, and it wasn't until we were already upstairs that I realized what the problem was - he thought he had to go to Clara's side!  As soon as I told him that we were just dropping off Clara first and then I'd take him to Katrin and Petra (his teachers) he calmed down, and sat happily next to Clara on the bench.

The kids play really well together these days.  They love to cuddle and hold hands, and we're having a lot less problems with Oscar taking toys away from Clara, pulling hair, or biting (he still does all of them, but not as much).  It's hard to believe how much Oscar has developed since our ski trip three months ago.  He's so much more independent, sleeps so much better, plays so much better, and communicates so easily in comparison!

Oscar is crazy about trains right now, so we've been taking advantage of a nearby playground that's close to the train tracks.  About every three minutes Oscar gets to jump up and point out the newest train that's rolling past.  Oscar loves playing in the sand, so we're really looking forward to being on the beach this summer!

Clara has a lot of fantastic insights, and is very curious about how everything works.  I sometimes find myself in a weird situation, because I don't really know how, or how much, to explain to her about certain things.  On a walk home last Saturday we paused by a simple temporary Holocaust memorial, where all of the names of "our neighbors" that were deported were listed, along with their home address.  It was horrifying to see the hundreds and hundreds of names paired up with street addresses within a few blocks of our house - houses that we walk past every day.  It was hard to figure out exactly what to say so that she could understand it on some age appropriate level, and the woman crying next to us and my choking up while I tried to talk didn't make it any easier.

As a lighter example of the same problem, Clara asked me whether two male or two female animals could have a baby together.  I struggled to figure out how to answer her "science/sexuality" question while at the same time leaving the door open to future understanding how it is that some of our friends live in two mommy or two daddy households. Luckily she was REALLY interested when I told her that some frogs can reproduce asexually, and she told Tanja all about it as soon as we got home.  She also liked when I quized her on whether, for example, hedgehogs and rabbits could have babies together, and I think she quized Tanja later that evening.

Clara asks a lot of "why" questions, enough to drive me crazy sometimes.  I just keep wishing she'd one day ask me why the sky is blue, because I could go on and on and on about Rayleigh scattering!  But no.  My kid has to ask why the number "9" is "nine"?  Why?  I don't know. Ask your Mom.  Or better yet, ask your Oma (who's a mathematician) or Opa (who's a philosopher).