Last weekend we partook in the great German gingerbread house tradition. I picked up a kit at the bakery that included all of the pieces-- even the figurines of the witch, Hansel, and Gretel.
The directions on the back of the box only make sense AFTER you put the thing together, or, well, if you had building these things all your life.
First, you have to make the "glue"-- a mix of egg whites, sugar, and a little vinegar. "Whip until it is very foamy"--- uh-huh.
Then it seems really impossible that the house is actually going to stay together, but you have to have faith! Even though it takes about a day for the egg whites to dry out and become hard, the stickiness will keep the thing from collapsing.
(Check out the Blues Explosion Dance Party Below!)
St. Nikolaus Day. Yes, We hid a present in Liam's shoes and put them outside the door. No, we did not remember to do it before he woke up in the morning. Ha ha! Babies don't know the difference anyway.
On the way to daycare, we saw St. Niklaus outside the bakery and he gave us a packet of cookies. Of course, I forgot to take a picture. And at daycare Liam got a piece of chocolate ("co-co-la") and another book! St. Nikolaus must be a librarian in his spare time. Or a dentist.
One of the advantages of having children is that one can pursue one's broken and abandoned dreams through them, pushing them to succeed in the arena of one's greatest failure, and sending them blindly down paths that one was too timid to take in one's own youth.
For example, Sarah and I have always wanted to have a goat farm, but for one reason or another, it has just never worked out. Could this be the reason that our weekend excursions with Liam are so often agro-centric?
This past weekend was no exception, as we ventured out to Krewelshof which, aside from being a working goat farm, boasts the #1 restaurant in Lohmar (out of 4).
Behold the tower of gourds:
For some reason Liam saw the need to poke each of the pumpkins that had rolled off of the pyramid.
Ohhhhhkaaaaaaay....
Luckily we got there in time to see the spectacle of this animatronic, pneumatic creepy music playing thing, before it was locked up for the day:
I don't know if Flight of the Bumblebee was ever meant to be played on the accordion and tuba, but these ladies went to town, and things got pretty avant garde in a few places.
They had rabbit hutches, which Liam enjoyed, and where he met a girl that spoke his own language:
Ok, enough of the good, clean fun. Now to return to the dark side of this post: Falconry.
Just a man and his bird. His bird that is a merciless killer. No offense to conventional hunters, but the best you can say in your case is that you had more or less good aim. But ask a falconer how he got his dinner: "I told a bird to do it, and it did what I said". Now that is bad-ass.
Alas, I never had the chance to see if I have what it takes to be a falconer, but perhaps my son....
Conveniently, on the very day we visited Krewelshof, there was a falconer in residence. Imagine that.
Unfortunately, the guy gave a first impression that did not exactly inspire confidence:
I did learn one valuable lesson from him. Do NOT stand directly behind a nervous eagle. Trust me.
Things got a little better when he got the falcon out:
For some reason he encouraged the children to smell the falcon, I did not partake. Liam was also a little too small to put on the glove and hold it, but there is always next time. At first he seemed interested:
But in the end, he seemed generally non-plussed:
Never mind, he's still getting a falcon gauntlet for his next birthday.
Walking through the night with our cool lanterns. Apparently just for the fun of it and not to actually partake of any St. Martin's activities. Poo on you, Koeln.de
But the lanterns are cool, huh?
He's kissing the chicken comb.
We gave him his Weckmann when we got home, but he mostly just carried it around. I guess he's just not used to eating food that looks like people.
Hair a little too long and James Blunty?
Whoa! And this seems to be the haircut that I am able to do. I'm afraid other styles are beyond my abilities...
Might you be wondering what I do when Liam is cute and I don't have our camera? (The camera with whom we are fighting at the moment. Bad camera! It lost our pictures for St. Martin's Day! Liam touched a horse... well, the horse kind of touched him. And all of our beautiful chicken lantern pictures, now you will have to see the ones we took today when we tried to go to a St. Martin's thing in some day care near us, but it turned out that there was nothing happening. We weren't the only ones standing around with lanterns in the dark, at least.)
On All Saints' Day in the park.
At Kaffee Brause in the neighborhood-- home of the "Kinder Cappuccino", ie foamy milk in an espresso cup. And oh my heavens, he sat there in his chair and spooned up every last bit of foamy goodness,
Playing in the leaves with some older girls.
Apparently the only way he will eat broccoli is if he rips a bit off by himself. Very self-sufficient, this kid.
Liam wants to say so much-- in addition to the ubiquitous "turtle, turtle", he is now very seriously pointing to pictures and things and repeating after me when I tell him the name. Beetles, Zebras, Monkey, Cupcakes, Tea-- he LOVES to smell tea. He points at our tea shelf and loudly sniffs, and when I reach up to get a container of tea he bounds up and down in his chair, grinning wildly.
The season fo Karneval started on Friday, but we just went about our day as usual. The 11/11 is quite a strange day. Some people dress up and drunkenly roam certain designated streets, while others go about their normal days. The "celebrators" are mostly college students, but some older folks --- the die-hard Kölnern--- also join in, and you meet everyone on the metro. Liam was vaguely interested in the costumes,but that's about it.
The holiday that I am excited to celebrate is
ST. MARTIN'S!
I have to put it on my list of things that I love about Germany. Children carry lanterns, and meet in groups (usually the neighborhood day-care , pre-school, or elementary school) to act out the story of St. Martin. During the performance, the kids who are watching eat Weckmann, a little brioche-y kind of bread made in the shape of a person. Then, and I#ve heard conflicting reports on this so maybe it varies between regions and neighborhoods, you walk around your neighborhood singing the St. Martin's songs and receiving candy from businesses.
But why don't I let You Tube explain it for me?
And here is an example of the performance the kids do:
Hi there. It's a shame that when Liam gets really interesting, I have less and less time to blog. I've cleverly combined a piece of directing/choreography with my research module at school, but I'm still devoting a LOT of time to it. I've set myself a mountainous reading list---and then the rehearsals start. Anyway, on to our Liam!
He's like a little tornado ripping through the apartment everyday. Well, that's not quite right, more like a bulldozer. It's a slow and systematic destruction.
He sleeps with a small soft baby that he calls ba-ba.
After initially waving in a rather grown-up fashion, he's now doing that baby finger wave. He tends to say bye bye (actually "tschüß") everytime we finish doing something as well as to say goodbye to people. Of course, I tell him to say bye bye to something I don't want him to have anymore. Go figure!
His favorite words are cheese, juice, tschüß, tooth and cheers!--- at least I think those are different words. They sound REALLY similar.
He loves liverwurst. I have to ration it.
Here's the Baby:
And here is his New Winter Hat! (this is what I can do when I don't have school work at night. I have a pretty cool sweater planned, but I have to also work in the evenings again... hmmmm.)
RAWR.
New Painting. Good thing we have lots of blank wall space.
Liam eats breakfast just like papa! (I guess Jer doesn't like his picture taken at 6:30am.)
You may have heard allusions to Liam's vertical locomotory ability through different channels, but these events had heretofore been rare and rather short lived (mostly of the step-step---grab, or step-step--plonk variety). So, not really easy to document for our audience, and really, let's be honest, not too impressive anyway.
But, today is a new day, and apparently we have a new Liam. A Liam that walks around like it's no big deal. Yes, his gait may be reminiscent of that of a muppet dinosaur, but he is our muppet dinosaur and we are proud.
So, remember when I went to teach a workshop and Liam was 7 weeks old? I just found the photographs-- taken by the excellent dance photographer Günter Krämmer. I ran into him a few weeks ago when I did Alles Was Tanzt again, and I was looking for photos of that, but instead I was transplanted back to a magical moment when I could minuet on stage during a dress rehearsal in full costume with a (only moderately ridiculous) wreath of flowers in my hair and Liam sleeping in my arms. Kind of delicious, no?
(and someone needs to give that poor girl a petticoat)
