Category: Family

Today we were wiped out: Ana and myself of course, the kids were bouncy as usual. Unfortunately it was another pretty cold day with -6 C around noon and we stayed inside quite a bit. We watched ‘Aliens in the Attic’ which was okay but not really great either. Afterwards we had a yummy lentil lunch which took me out for a while — dosing off on the sofa — but afterwards the beautiful sunshine tricked me and I bundled up the 3 kids and went with them for a ‘parque and muffin’ trip. The Brackett school playground was of course deserted but we got out and played ‘Bodenmonster’ and ran up the hill once and down again. The Bodenmonster game consists mainly of me growling and trying to catch the kids while they are on the playground installation and I am not supposed to mount. This kept us busy for quite a while until I noted that Gisele’s hand were freezing. So we packed up and went to Jam’n Java where everybody got a muffin and a hot chocolate. It was obvious that the kids still had not had enough active playtime because they were all over the place in the coffee shop. Gisele and Ivan did not really finish their muffins (Ivan really had a chocolate chips scone, which was not as good as he had thought) but Markus went all the way. When we were driving back home Markus asked where we were going and mentioned that he would love to go to Chipotle. I asked him ‘Are you really still hungry?’ and he replied ‘YES’ ecstaticly.

When we got home I sat down at the computer and again stared at the frogs in my desktop. A while ago Markus and I were browsing the web for cool frog pictures. We stored Markus’ favorite pictures and finally today, as it is very cold outside we sat down and posted them in our blog. The top favorit is of course orange and black, Markus favorit colors. It is a poison dart frog.

Of course I also looked through the Web and found together with Ivan his favorit frogs. They are not all that different, meaning they are exotic frogs, but the colors do differ and reflect more of what Ivan considers cool colors.

While Ana is cooking lunch I am supposed to watch Blake. He is sitting here in front of me on his little chair and I am watching the little man. He is not happy when his hat gets over his eyes o I decided to take off the head.
I am sitting here in t-shirt on my favorite seat, legs up on the ottoman, it cannot be too cold for Blake. It could maybe be a little too loud as Van Morison is playing for me a wonderful set of songs… ‘Best of Van Morison’ or something like it. Anyway it is awesome. Ana also made me a lemon-green tea which is surprisingly good, too. Blake dosed of for a few minutes but is now searching, probably reminded by some feeling of emptiness in his stomach. Luckily our lunch is just cooking and Ana has come by to make Blake happy.

Now will have to convince my older children to come with me and cleanup the play room …. one of my ‘honey do’ duties as I just being instructed.
Looking at the pictures I find this one from yesterday night, me and Blake, and noticed that my hair is really getting long. Hmmm, but winter ain’t over yet.

Blake today passes the four weeks and he is doing very well. He has almost lot all his yellowish skin color and his eyes are almost white as well. He is also already following what is going on to some extend. He can look at something and stay focused.

When he is sitting on his little rocking chair he seems to be watching the least interesting part of the chair, not the flashing lights or the wonderful little goldfish inside the turquoise fluid…., he looks at the blank metal structure (as he is becoming an MIT educated engineer, it is the most obvious thing to watch of course). He loves to take a bath with me and he also enjoys bonding with his Papi.

His brothers and his sister love him very much and always want to take him, just for a minute 🙂 Ana and I are very happy that this part works out so well this far.

Just as a little update on everybody else, here are the most remarkable things to remember: Markus is still not excited about his pre-school experience, but he does now go there without a big scene in front of the Fidelity Building. Once in the past it was so bad that a policemen at the scene helped struggling Ana. He took Markus in his arms and carried him into the building. It left an impression, Markus got all quiet and watched the policeman attentively, just a little scared. Good he did not hit him 🙂 as you remember Markus hands sit pretty loose.

Markus is going to the bathroom by himself, but he is having some issues. Wiping can turn into disaster and he does not call for help, at times he does not get his pants down quickly enough and a distinctive smell of urine clouds him as he does not tell anybody about his little mishaps. Sometimes he tries to fix them himself (you will find the damp clothes in a corner of the wardrobe) other times he leaves his clothes on saying it is not so bad: ‘Das ist nur ein bisschen, das ist nicht schlimm Papi’. But don’t get me wrong here, he is an adorable little happy fellow speeding around on his race track through the entire first floor (kitchen-living room-sun room-living room-entry-dining room-kitchen and so on).

Gisele on the other hand is a sweet girl, completely different from the boys. She loves to drink tea with her mum or even with Papi, but at times she throws a fit and that with all her forces. She has definitively a dark side: her voice becomes very dark and full and she screams with every fiber of her body, getting all stiff, clenching her fists and throwing herself on the floor. It can go on for a while. My best way to get her out of it is to let her be for a while and then giving her to opportunity to snap out of it by offering her the favorite pillow…. often it works, sometimes not.

Ivan is doing great all together. He is the oldest and most reliable. He does not need help with pretty much anything. He likes to go to school and the teachers in Kindergarten love him, pretty much as they did in Geneva. The homework though does not excite him too much — _boring_. Also it seems that he has a slightly week stomach. He has been having some troubles at times and vomits at nights (well correlated with excessive eating).

Today we spent our last day with Grosi before she went back to Germany. We did the usual driver service for Ivan and Markus and meanwhile Gisele stayed home with mommy and Blake. We also had a quick run to the shoe store on the schedule to get grosi a new pair of healthy shoes. After some good lunch and a slow afternoon we packed the bag and got the last round of kisses and I dropped my mom at the airport. She was worried about the automatic check-in but as she had to check in her bag it was not necessary to use the automatic check-in. So I got her smoothly on her trip.

Back at home, Ana and I quickly realized we were back to zone defense with just two instead of three. When I brought the kids to bed I took a poll to figure out what the kids thought about grosi’s stay. They all said that it was great that she was here 🙂 though their favorite activities with grosi were different: Gisele loved the extended Animal Bingo sessions with grosi and the phantastic ‘tela bagels’, Markus loved the baking and the construction of ‘Kugelbahnen’ and finally Ivan enjoyed baking cupcakes, watch TV with grosi and play in the playroom upstairs with grosi.

So it sounds like that we need grosi back pretty soon. Ana and I were of course also thrilled as we could just breath a little easier with anything we were doing the last few weeks.

Today we enjoyed the last Sunday with Grosi here in Arlington. We went shopping for a jacket for Grosi, some shirts for my father, a fountain pen for Angela and well for anything nice we could find to improve our house.
First we went to Burlington Mall just to look through the fountain pen collections for Angela and Ana found a nice one. We also quickly checked through Potterybarn to see whether there are any interesting furniture, after being lucky yesterday in the Outlet Mall in Wrentham with a wonderful leather Ottoman, made from the same leather as the sofas and seats (fits perfectly between our two seats in the living room). We found a nice little side table which would have fit nicely at the entrance, but they were not sure whether they had it and finally as I was not 100% convinced either we did not buy it. At some point though we need to cleanup that corner as the gloves and hats for the kids need a place, as well as Ana’s handbags which are dangling from the pantry, ready to fall at the slightest touch.
Anyway the kids started to decay and we quickly left and drove to the Freshpond mall to have lunch at Chipotle. It was great as usual but I was surprised how much the kids ate. They usually are happy with one burrito bowl but this time they also ate a large fraction of Grosi’s soft tacos…. she did not complain and we had a good snack after we came home, but that was later.
After Chipotle we went to TJMax and hunted down some jacket for Grosi and two shirts for my father. I got myself three PJ pants which should saturate my needs for PJs for the next 5-10 years 🙂 . I also wanted to get some cigars, but forgot that the store was closed on Sundays. We ended up having the kids watch some movies while they we went shopping and looking after the kids in a round robin surveillance scheme. It made me think of Ana with four kids all alone while I am in Europe.
After all business was concluded we finally made our way home and had a relaxing ‘merendola’ where the kids again put away amazing amounts of food. I am wondering where they put the food. Well, to be honest, with Gisele I got the idea after I cleaned her heavily filled diaper twice.
Before getting out the Leapster and the Didj we did play a round of ‘Fang Mich’ where Ivan tried to catch the five mice I was running…. he was complaining that I was to quick, loved it!

Later in the evening we enjoyed one of the best classical recordings of the century: Beethoven’s Triple Concert by Richter, Rostropovich and Oistrakh under the conduction of von Karajan. The night was completed with the Mondschein Sonate from my all time favorite played by Friedrich Gulda. It is a pleasure to be able to listen to all of those wonderful recordings.

Yesterday we had another relatively slow day. After the usual breakfast ceremony we figured that it would be best to give the mother a rest with Blake and that we would pack up the kids and do something, like going to a playground or going shopping etc.
Ana approved of my shopping list and off we (mum and I) went with the kids to drive to the Shaws in Belmont, along Pleasant Street.
When we arrived a light snow fall started, small, fine snow flakes, but we were not yet really alarmed. We got our shopping done comfortably, letting the kids do some searching and finding and got to the register, where of course some woman had purchased something nobody knew the price off and got stuck for a while. After the price was determined and we got our stuff through the register we stepped outside in the intense snow fall. The streets had already about 1-2 cm of snow on them and it was clear that we would not get up our driveway. We made another short stop at the TJMax to buy a toaster and I found a nice A-B-C rug for the kids and two sheet sets for our bed, which we really needed quite urgently, but no toaster. By now the streets had more like 3-4 cm of snow and we only gave the driveway a half-hearted shot. Of course we got stuck and finally left the car on the street.
We carried up the rug and some groceries and I dropped them off inside. Afterwards I cleaned up the driveway, which was pretty quick, using my new shovel technique. I brought up the car and emptied the remaining groceries. It continued to snow while we where getting lunch and had our usual early afternoon routine, with ‘grosi’ taking a nap and me selecting and printing more photos for the family album.
Later I noticed that we had forgotten to get wine and champagne to start the new year in style. I went off to buy some in the little Woburn mall (the one with the Whole Foods Market) after having cleaned the driveway, again. It was an interesting ride as the streets were not yet cleaned and it was continuing to snow. I got down the driveway fine and also got down the hill quite fine but after getting my 2 bottles and wine and Italian prosecco I had to continue uphill…. I just barely made it with advanced sliding techniques. When I was back it was 17:20 which was well in time for the central European new year. I got myself a good cigar and started to to the final shoveling of the premises. The city had also decided that it had stopped snowing which I concluded from the snow trucks finally plowing all roads around our house.
I got in right in time to connect our big TV with the computer which was sending directly from the ‘Plaza d’Espagna’ in Madrid the bells to the new year. Ana and my mother had prepared the grapes and we ate them as prescribed one with each toll of the bell until we had all twelve eaten. The kids were not yet really into it but they have some time to get used to it. Of course we opened our prosecco right after the bells and had a good sip, kisses and best wishes.
We called around through skype/phone and found Robin, Nacho, Pup …. it was fun and the new age of high connectivity seems to be hitting the ‘older’ generations. It is a lot of fun!!

Time flies and Blake is already at home fro more than 24 hours. Today at 13:00 we had a doctor’s appointment with Blake at MIT in Cambridge. Ana had a bad night, of course, and Mum and I dressed the kids had breakfast with them and went to the playground at Brackett (the one with the long slide). Before going there we check out the roman catholic church of Saint Agnes. The path according to google.maps is about 1.2 miles (~1.9 km, 23 min walk). Mum thought that she could walk there easily. We will drive her of course if it is cold or she does not like the exercise.

After the short trip to St. Agnes we continued to the playground and noted that the place was completely deserted. After we got out of the car we quickly understood why: It was amazingly cold (at least -8 C) and there was a stiff wind blowing over the playground which is right on top of a little hill. Even with a very decent wrapping of everybody and some running we were not able to stay longer then 20 mins when everybody was glad to get back into the car. We decided it would be a great day to enjoy the jungle book from Walt Disney, which we did.

Ana had meanwhile recovered well and gotten some Zzzzs to help her over the rest of the day. We let the kids watch the movie and minded our own business for a while. Cleaning the kitchen, printing some photographs and reading e-mail.  Jodie came by and left us a pre-cooked dinner — spaghetti with cheese to be just put into the oven — how nice of her. At 12:15 we got everybody ready to drive to MIT medical, where we arrived in time for our appointment with Blake. Blake is in excellent shape, he had turned slightly yellowish, as babies usually do in the first days, but otherwise everything was fine. The little murmuring heart noise the pediatrician heart on the first visit was also gone, as expected.

For lunch we went to Chipotle which has recently taken over the first spot in kid preferences over McDonald. The lunch was great, with the usual complications of who wants what 🙂

Afterwards we went home, Mum got a good rest, the kids played Didj, Leapster and dressed the dolls. A relaxed afternoon everybody minding their own business without much interference of conflicts. I have to say, having your own house, which has lots of room for minding ones own business is fantastic and keeps family peace. In the course of the afternoon I finished a large fraction of the photo album for my parents and I made some nice photos like the one below of our FOUR kids.

Here is the short description of our little quartet.

This morning my alarm watch went off at 7:38 and I got up between Markus and Ivan which had cuddled with me a good fraction of the night. We had the cleaning crew come in this morning at 8 and after setting them up and getting the kids dressed, Mum and I put them into the car and went out to Jam’n Java to enjoy a royal breakfast. It was awesome: great orange juice, muffins, cinnamon swirls and croissants.

As we were planning to pick up Ana and Blake around 11:00-12:30 we needed to ‘do some time’. I took Mum and the kids to MIT. We got out of the car and at a -7 C with gusty winds we were very glad to get onto the infinite corridor inside the main building. The kids enjoyed the big white board for some serious drawings while Mum and I got a great espresso out of our machine at the office. Finally we walked back through the gusty winds to the car and made our way to the hospital. Ana was already ready for about an hour (since 10:00) and was not very happy with my choice of clothes for Blake, as I did not have any serious jacket for our new family member. Anyway, he got into the warm car through the 30m walk in the cold just fine.

Each of the kids brought a little present for Blake and they were all very excited to see finally see him in person. They had seen him on my video and the photos from the delivery, and they really loved him. They all received a little present from Blake when we arrived home an were very very happy. So, this time it looks like we have succeeded in setting up the family extension properly. As a small reminder, that did not come over well at all with Markus when Gisele was born.

We prepared our bed room to make sure that Ana can smoothly deal with Blake. I also cleaned up my act in our bedroom and the office, just for the hack of it, I guess. So, we are now all home, Ana feels great and everybody had a great rest of the day. A little siesta, a late little afternoon coffee and some good conversations.

I am a proud father again: Blake Unai Lothar is born. Mom and baby are in terrific shape. See for yourself at http://cpausmit.dyndns.org/~paus/baby/blake/blake-unai-lothar.html