Day 90 - Sandbox

• Heidrun talked to Florian's nursery teacher today. She said that Florian might be above average intelligent. Well, I guess he is, since he seems a lot better in maths than his peer group. So we should get him tested and see if he is gifted. What I don't know yet is: even if he is, what should we do with that information? Being a parent is full of questions sometimes.
  
• Florian played with two other kids who were visiting us today. They had a lot of fun and were mostly running around barefooted which children really seem to like.
  
• We went to the playground in the afternoon and Matthias was playing in the sandbox. There he did his usual routine: pour water into the sand, create a lot of mud, eat most of it although we tell him not to, then get himself as dirty as possible.
  
• Matthias was too tired too sleep again this evening. That's a really weird thing, when toddlers are tired (as in really tired) they can't sleep and cry a lot because they are too tired. Doesn't make any sense to you? Well, to me neither, but trust me, that's the way it is.
• Lunch & Dinner: Chinese chicken and vegetables.
  

Day 89 - The Force is with Matthias

• Today was the last time for me to go to moms and todds and I had the "honor" of doing the handicraft. So I prepared a book with a Chinese story and an Origami boat on a river with fish in it. You have to teach some Asian culture :)
• Matthias was all whiny today which is quite annoying. I wish as an adult you could do that at work :) "You've got a new task. Finish this by tomorrow!" "Waah, I don't want to, cry, cry, cry"
• In the afternoon Matthias played with a Han Solo and Emperor figurine. He then used the Emperor to smash a bug in the garden. He actually asked what had happened to the bug because I guess he didn't really intend to kill it. I told him that the Emperor used the Force. That seemed to have confused him a bit.
• Then he found a Mario plush toy (you know the Italian plumber) and insisted on it being a Jesus toy. So now we know: Jesus is an Italian plumber with a moustache. "Itsa me, Jesus!"
  
• Florian really loves "Mensch ärgere dich nicht" a German board game. He actually likes it that much that he now plays it against himself sometimes :)
• Lunch & Dinner: Chinese style "Schnitzel" and vegetables.
  

Day 88 - Cars and carts

• Florian lost his key chain Eiffel tower he got in Paris twice(!) today
  
• Matthias fell asleep on a swing(!) at the playground
  
• When we went to the airport yesterday Florian had to pee very urgently on the motorway. We asked him if he could hold out for another 10 minutes and he answered yes. About 10 seconds later he said: "No!!! I can't wait any longer!"
  
• I built a cart thing for our garden hose today. It was quite difficult because while I was working on it, Matthias stole half of the parts and hid them in the garden (for example under freshly cut gras)
  
• Our neighbours bought a convertible BMW. That was very exciting for Florian to watch. He of course also would like me to purchase either a sports car and/or a convertible. I've told him that this wouldn't very practicle with 3 kids, but he still wants one.
  
• Matthias went to his daycare today. He inisted on it, because she also has got a rabbit like in Paris.
• Lunch & Dinner: Chicken
  

Day 81 to 87 - Paris

• We spent the last week on a trip in Paris. There we stayed at a house of friends of ours who also have two kids (two daughters 4 1/2 and 2 years old). It was very nice and relaxing and we all really enjoyed ourselves.
• Florian started dealing with negative numbers. Surprisingly he also found out that ordering is reversed. He told me one day that -2 is bigger than -5 because everything is reversed with "minus numbers". Pretty cool, isn't it.
• Florian wanted to do two things in Paris: 1) Go up the Eiffel tower, 2) Go to Disneyland.
  
• On our first day we went up the Eiffel tower up to the highest platform. This was very cool since I also haven't been up there yet. Unfortunately the weather wasn't that good so the view was a bit foggy. Florian was very excited since he knows it from Ratatouille :) Anyway there were a LOT of people queueing for it, the tickets are quite expensive and when you go there: do NOT bring your pushchair. Still, it was worth it. Florian was very happy and all four kids got ice cream afterwards.
• On our second day we went to "La cite des enfants" a children's museum. Since the session we wanted to go to was already full we booked for the afternoon. While waiting the kids played in an indoor play area at Quick (a French fast food chain) and we had a look at some other exhibits at La Villette. One thing was a submarine. Matthias always said: "Look there is a black plane! When is it going to take off?" Even after explaining it he didn't believe us that it's not a plane. In the end he found a compromise: "A submarine is a plane". The funny thing on a playground in Paris is that there are nearly no 100% caucasian kids as the city is so international. That's very nice.
  
• In Paris the current craze among youngsters it Tektonik, quite similar to Krocha. Mehdi (the father of Meline and Claire, the two girls) taught his daughters how to dance Tektonik. So I guess a) teenagers dress and dance crazily everywhere and b) fathers do stupid things to their children everywhere :)
• Nicolas Sarkozy is quite a funny president, at least for outsiders :) He is living a luxury life with a new model wife and swearing at the public. He's even known as "President Bling-Bling" in France.
  
• The room we slept in was one of the girl's room. So the walls and curtains were pink and we had Lion King bedclothes :) Originally the room was intended for Matthias and Florian but Florian said he won't sleep in a pink room. Matthias just remarked on the bed clothes that Lion King 5 doesn't exist because we had characters from Lion King 2 on the sheets. That's actually something that really bothers him: why Lion King stops after the third film, because five is his favourite number.
• Third day: Disneyland. Our friends lent us their car to get there and gave us a lot of insider info about where to park and where to buy tickets, which easily saved us an hour of time. Haunted mansion was one of Florian's favourite attractions. He assured me inside that he wasn't scared and only held me tightly because he wanted to cuddle. At Thunder mountain we queued for one hour and when we finally got to the end the "adventure was interrupted due to technical reasons". After 30 more minutes waiting we left because Florian needed to pee and they still hadn't fixed it, so that was the end of the "adventure" :( Matthias was too small for Disneyland. He was scared at nearly every attraction even at the Lion King musical.
• Our friends had a plastic lion that immediately turned into Matthias' favourite French animal becaus he carried it around nearly without any interruption for the whole week.
• IKEA unites. At the house they had many similar furniture, plates, cups, etc. One particular thing were coloured plastic boxes for storing toys. Matthias recognized a red one where we keep the plastic animals in at home and said: "Look there are animals inside" When I opened it unfortunately they didn't have any in there :)
• Meline and Claire got along very well with Florian and Matthias. So even when kids don't speak the same language they can find ways to communicate.
• Marie France (the mother of the girls) had bought a rabbit for them. Matthias fell in love with the rabbit and always wanted to hold, feed or carress it. I think we have to buy a rabbit as well now.
• Traffic in Paris is a lot worse than in Vienna but then they have more inhabitants in one city than the whole of Austria.
• On the last evening we had a barbecue where other couples with kids came over. Funny enough all couples were mixed with one partner being Asian. After dinner we parked all kids in front of the TV watching Lion King. Television really is magic as all of them were quiet and glued to the screen (even ours who didn't understand French, but I guess knew the story well enough).
• Today back in Baden we spent a nice afternoon in the garden as the weather was very sunny and hot.
  

Day 80 - Wildlife

• Matthias slept until 9.15 today because he hit himself during the night while sleeping and woke up from it and couldn't sleep again for ages.
• For lunch we went to Heidrun's parents. Matthias had only soup, Florian had only chips! Then in the afternoon Matthias spent time with grandpa playing with an electrical train which he loves because he can just sit there and watch it :)
• I helped my sister in law together with her boyfriend and dad carry down her collection of cactuses from inside to the garden where they stay during summer. She has some really huge ones, and they are mean (as in spikey)!
• My sister in law and Alex her boyfriend are going to Africa in May. During lunch she asked what you actually do when you need to pee in the night as you have to leave the tent and there could be potentially dangerous animals (you know lions, scorpions, etc.) outside. As you can imagine Alex and I had a ton of very considerate and useful advice for her :)
• Lunch: Chicken with Whiskey sauce, Dinner: Leftovers
  

Day 79 - Maths

• Florian dressed himself in a shirt and cords today. He entered our room with his shirt only buttoned at the bottom and kind of looked like Brad Pitt but washed too hot so he'd shrunk.
• Today when cuddling in the morning the kids were fighting for the "spot at the sun" which was Heidrun's left side for some reason. When she had enought she went downstairs. Matthias cried: "The spot at the sun must stay here!"
• Matthias was running around on his high chair during breakfast and throwing toys on the ground. He then asked his brother to pick it up for him. We asked Matthias: "Who threw it on the ground?" "Me" "So who should also pick it up?" "The brother"
• Florian was enjoing maths again today. He managed to produce the correct result for 30/2 which is quite impressive. Then Heidrun told him about a standardised test for elderly people where they have to calculate 7+7, then 7+7+7 and so on until the make a fault. Florian didn't really get it and started: "So I have to calculate 7+7+7+7+7+7+7+...?" Then I explained square roots to him which quite fascinated him, even if he didn't really understand the concept I guess. In the evening he asked me: "What's the bone of 10?" "What?, Oh you mean root :)"
• Then I completely embarassed myself in the evening when Florian said: "4*4 = 8+8" and I replied "No, it isn't, oh wait, ... it actually is"
• Lunch: At my moms place (fish, chicken, duck), Dinner: Chicken, Fish
  

Day 78 - Antique machinery

• We played in the garden today, Matthias brought a lot of his toys and some of the neighbour chilrden joined in. Now the white horse is MIA! Panick, the white horse was always his favourite animal and we've already replaced it once because he had lost it. He was quite desperate and we could only console him with his goose. Tomorrow we have to buy a new one.
• When we watched Ratatouille (again) Ego the restaurant critic is writing on a typewriter. Florian asked what kind of machine this is :) It's kind of funny how many things the kids nowadays won't know anymore. Anyway, Heidrun explained it as an old fashioned PC.
• Florian was at a friends birthday party. It was a pirate party and all participating kids were dressed up as pirates. Very cool, he even got his own personalised pirate T-shirt as a gift.
• We had a guy come over for our attic windows, since we need some kind of blinds up there as it gets scorching hot in summer. Will be another couple of hundred €uros to spend :(

Day 77 - Tourette

• The white goose definitely is Matthias new favourite animal. This morning he went to his daycare mom holding it in his hand. She told me that he hasn't let go of it the whole morning, so that's about 3 hours!
• When I picked up Florian from nursery I noticed that he was wearing two different socks. One got a new hole and he had bruised his knee and added another hole to his trousers. It seems the wild years have started. Well at least he's not skateboarding yet.
• Today Heidrun and the kids played travelling to Paris. Florian is very cute because he also packed a suitcase for his brother. Then Florian pretended that he's dad and we are the children. So it was payback time :) "Are we there yet? I'm bored. I'm hungry! I'm thirsty! I need to pee. Why are we going to Paris? ..." After arrival Heidrun explained to Florian what Disneyland looks like. When she reached the part with "It's a small world" she started to sing the song. Florian said: "Shit, stop singing!"
• In general I think that Florian actually has a serious disease called Tourette Syndrome since he is swearing a lot and sometimes has seizures. Often he says things like "Fart shit chicken poo" and once he was holding a full cup of milk and suddenly screamed "Waaah" and spilled half of the milk onto table, chair and floor. When I told Heidrun that I suspect that Florian is sick she said "No, that disease is called five year old." Well I guess she should know since she's the doctor in the family.
• Our neighbour's daughter today actually disagreed that Heidrun is a doctor because she said: "No, she isn't a doctor, she's pregnant!"
• Lunch: Fish, aubergine. Dinner: Asparagus, pork chops.
  

Day 76 - Garlic

• During breakfast Matthias was feeding a plastic goose he'd put on the table with his porridge :)
• At nursery today two girls were wearing the same matching "Hello Kitty" T-shirt/jeans combo. Quite astounding that even at that age children are already fashion conscious.
• Had another dance session with Matthias. Today he asked me: "Papa, why do we always dance?" "Well, because it's fun, do you like it?" "Yes!!!". When he asked what music was playing I explaine that it's the Pet Shop Boys. He replied "Ketchup boys?"
  
• Yesterday evening the kids watched the end of "The Beauty and the Beast". Matthias told me about it today: "Then the beast like Belle! And the girl liked the beast!" "Was that nice?" "Yes." "So who do you like?" "Papa!" That's nice :)
• When I went shopping I was surprised that all the garlic in the supermarket originated from China. I told Heidrun and she said that she had read that actually 95% of all the garlic eaten worldwide was grown in China!!! That's weird, doesn't it grow anywhere else? At least there is only a very small chance of meeting Vampires in China I guess. EDIT: "Only" about 75% of the world's garlic are grown in China according to Wikipedia.
  
• Lunch: Noodles with cheese and smoked pork. Dinner: McDonalds.
  

Day 75 - Tank competition

• In the morning we were at playgroup again and Matthias spent one hour there eating buttered bread and nuts!
  
• We played Lego tank comparison today. Each of us builds a tank out of Lego and Heidrun then has to judge which is the coolest tank. Matthias lost, because his tank was just a heap of random Lego parts bolted onto each other. Nice touch though was that Jesus Franz was the tank driver. I came in second with my tank design because I had a watchdog (should anyone approach the tank) and a Lego sheep as regrowing resource of wool for clothing when it got cold and the tank crew needs jumpers. Florians tank won as it could fly had a radar and cannons, lots of cannons.
• Somehow today we mentioned the city of Budapest today. Matthias misheard it and kept saying Bruderpest to Florian which is very funny since that means "brother plague" translated to English.
• Florian turns into a royal: Today when he wanted to play something alone with Heidrun he told Matthias and me: "They are allowed to leave." "Oh, thanks your highness."
• Lunch: Fish, Dinner: Pizza
  

Day 74 - Nuts

• I've fixed our doorbell today that has been broken for 4 days now. Slowly I'm turning into DIY king.
• I've bought some nuts for Matthias today because he really loves nuts. I explained all the different types to him and when I gave him a walnut he said that he likes whale nuts :)
• Florian came home with a bruise in his face from nursery but wouldn't tell how he got it.
• In the afternoon the grandparents took care of the kids and I had something to do for work in Vienna.
  
• Lunch & Dinner: Chicken with pepper, fried cucumber
  

Days 71 & 72 & 73 - Children's farm

• I'm not getting lazy, but we've been on a children's farm for a long weekend.
  
• Matthias went to bed with a blue and a black toy car in his hands. In the morning the black one was missing and he immediately asked me to find it. I replied that google toy opens at 9am and therefore I can't help him.
• When taking a shower in the morning suddenly Florian came in and asked me to open the milk for him because mom is too weak to open it. So I opened the milk with shampoo on my head and in my eyes.
• Then when we all had breakfast Matthias was practicing hip hop again while eating.
• The kids each have a toy gecko which is very elastic, when Matthias passed a loose silicone sealing of a shop window on the street he pulled it and excitingly told me: "Look a gecko!"
• Matthias now applies "gold" to all colours. He wanted me to look for his golden toy motor bike. Since the kids have a green, a red and a cream/silver one I asked him which one he is looking for - the golden one. So I brought the cream on since he had the red one in his hands - it was the wrong one. "No, no, not this one, it's upstairs next to my bed!" And really there was the green - aka golden - bike.
• After we arrived at the farm the kids looked at all the animals (cows, pigs, frogs, rabbits, etc.) Matthias was very excited, Florian not really. Matthias' favourite animals were the pig and the frogs.
  
• On Saturday morning I woke up with Matthias sitting on my face with his full nappies and jumping up and down, Florian practicing Kung Fu next to me in bed, then they played hide and seek and Matthias complained about a hole in his pyjamas (which is why he had undressed before jumping onto my face).
• Matthias packed his rubber sword for the farm. When Florian asked where his is, Matthias said: "It's MIA!!"
• Florian tried to feed pure chilly powder as candy to Matthias. Luckily we could stop him, before he could give any to his brother.
• We did some indoor rock climbing with the kids on Saturday when the weather was bad. Florian really loved that and was actually quite good at it.
  
• For German speakers only: Florian uses "Oida" a lot recently, so I asked him: "Florian, warum redest du wie ein Prolo?" Florian: "Ich red halt wie Han Solo!"
• Another German only: Matthias sagt Hünen statt Hühner. Er fragte immer: "Gemma in den Hünenstall, zu den goldenen Hünen?" Heidrun: "Wow, da tät ich auch hingehn" :)
  
• Modern times: In our appartment at the farm the kids had a desk with a chair in their room. Matthias asked why they have a computer chair in their room. I told him that actually in the past those tables were called desks and that not always there was a computer on it. But he's right, because on every desk in our house there actually is a computer on it :)
• Today in the morning Florian asked for opposite nouns again. When I tried to convince him that this doesn't make sense with nouns but only with adjectives I asked him: "For example what's the opposite of curtain?" He replied: "Lamp, because a curtain takes light away and a lamp adds it." Ok, I have to admit that he got a point there.
• In the afternoon today on our way back we stopped by the Jurassic Island dinosaur park in Traismauer. It's kind of like a theme park except that it's rather boring and a complete rip off, but the kids like it there so I guess it's worth it.
• When we asked Florian what he liked most about the short trip he said: "The table football at our hotel" :)
  
• Lunches and dinners: Nothing remarkable except for one very interesting lunch at a Pizzeria after the rock climbing. First of all the Pizza was the worst I've had in my life, but I should've guessed since the owners were Austrian and the whole pub looked more like a typical Austrian "Beisl". Most interesting was the decoration, because not only did they have posters of half naked women on the wall as well as the obligatory sports trophies that all rural Austrian pubs use to decorate their interior with. No, they also had a poster of a completely naked girl spreading her legs and pulling apart her - you know what - with her fingers!
  

Day 70 - Hulk

• In the morning Matthias, Florian and I played: Ninja, Mother Mary and Mr. Jesus Franz against The Incredible Hulk. That was quite funny. We used small puppets to play that and we substituted Hulk with a frog in a suit, the Ninja was some prince figurine and Mary and Franz were from a nativity manger Matthias got for Christmas (which still is his favourite Christmas present until now). Franz by the way is one of the kings, it's just that he asked me one day what his name is (during his name everything phase) and I replied Franz out of impuls. Now he is convinced that the guy a) is Mr. Jesus and b) is named Franz.
• Matthias doesn't say Incredible Hulk but rather Dangerous Hulk :)
  
• Matthias: "Big cars have big tires"
• Matthias went to his nursing mom this morning. He goes there every thursday for 3 hours and really likes her. Today he asked why he has to go there and I told him because it's thursday. He doesn't have a clue what thursday is of course but now he always asks when there is another of those thursdays. He took Mary and Franz with him when we went there and wore his new beige shoes. For some reason he says that the beige shoes are stronger and that you can do stronger stuff with them. WTF?!
• In the afternoon we had guests over at our house, when they left we asked our kids: "do you want to say bye bye?" Florian: "No" Me: "Oh boy, children are always sooo polite" Florian: "What does polite mean?" Me: "See, that's the problem"
• Lunch and Dinner: Noodles in soup
  

Day 69 - Cinderella

• Florian is experimenting with language, rhyming was a big topic and today it was opposites. Unfortunately he didn't get it that opposites normally don't work well with nouns. So he asked me things like, what's the opposite of house, what's the opposite of chair, what's the opposite of poo?
• Florian likes to go through our rubbish. Sometimes he simply opens the bin or recycling paper basket and announces: "I'll have a look at our rubbish." That's quite weird behaviour I assume and it makes things like throwing away old and/or broken toys very hard as you can guess.
• Matthias was a royal pain in the a#* the whole morning when outside he wanted to go inside, when inside he wanted to go outside again, ...
• In the afternoon we played in the garden since the weather was gorgeous. The neighbour twins were also outside and screaming some random stuff that Matthias always repeated. The best one was: Twins: "Cinderella!!!" Matthias: "A gorilla!!!" Twins: "Cinderella!!!" Matthias: "A gorilla!!!" and so on.
• Lunch and Dinner: Beans, asparagus, chicken soup.
• Evening entertainment: Ratatouille, during which I fell asleep. First time in a long time that I've slept 12 hours straight.
  

Day 68 - The trampoline incident

• Matthias peed on and through the trampoline today. (We have a trampoline in our living room which is not very nice to look at for decorative purposes but the children have a lot of fun jumping around on it).
  
• This reminds of another trampoline incident last summer which was more or less the worst poo accident in my history as a father. Matthias was jumping around naked on the trampoline, Heidrun was sleeping upstairs. Then suddenly he stopped jumping and I noticed on his face what was going to happen. So I rushed to get some nappies and tried to hold them up to his butt. Unfortunately some had already dropped onto the trampoline and was slowly starting to diffuse through the net. I couldn't do anything about that because I had to hold up the nappies for the rest. Then when I thought he had finished I ran to the front door to dispose of the nappies and then wipe up the rest from the trampoline and floor. During the run I didn't notice that I had leaked part of the brown stuff on the floor, worse it was in front of the living room door so when I opened it I made a nice, smelly quarter circle on the ground. I closed the nappies quickly and put them into the garden. Running back, Matthias - still not done - was now standing on the carpet and pooing on it. My sister in law who was visiting just arrived and came in through the terrace door and asked me if I need any help, Heidrun came downstairs and asked what the hell was going on. End of story.
• Florian and Matthias were really playing with each other nicely in the supermarket in the afternoon. Florian was pushing (or actually racing) his brother through the aisles in the trolley. He bumped into a tower of oil bottles and some flowers, but otherwise there were no major accidents. In the end Florian was so excited that he forgot that he needed the toilet and peed himself which he doesn't like at all so he started crying.
  
• Lunch and Dinner: Noodles.
  

Day 67 - Fashion

• Kids got up super late again. Oh, I can still remember the times at school when I was the same, getting up was always the hardest. Actually it still is :) I've read in recent news that it's genetically predetermined whether one prefers to get up early or late.
  
• In the afternoon we went clothes and shoes shopping for the kids. That's a good test for patience. Florian needed two jumpers and it took ages until we could find any that were "cool" enough. Matthias needed a new pair of shoes but was not at all interested in that because they had bobby cars in the shoe shop so he was riding around on one all the time and I had to chase him through the whole store so he would try on a pair. Then he didn't want to walk in them but wanted to stay on the car. So I had to force him off the car and run away with it with him running after me crying. After a couple of meters we decided that the pair was ok because he could follow me at a decent speed.
• I caught Matthias during the day stuffing toys into his nappies again :) That must be a phase all kids go through, Florian used to put paper clips into his nappies.
• Entertainment: Ratatouille
  
• Lunch: Chicken with onions and aubergine, Dinner: Pizza and carrot soup.

Day 66 - Too much food

• Yesterday Matthias was looking quite poorly all day and sometimes trying to scratch something at his bottom. So we thought that he maybe was getting sick. In the evening when we changed his nappies we found the following inside: one plastic gecko, one plastic cat, three plastic stars the size of a two euro coin!!! No wonder he wasn't feeling well, he must have put the stuff inside during the day for whatever reason and then forgot them. After the toys were removed he was all happy again :)
• In the morning when Florian came into our bed he headbutted me into my teeth and I got a bleeding lip from that. Life with kids is dangerous, kind of like street fighting!
  
• Today we went for a brunch in a posh hotel for Heidrun's dad's 65th birthday. It was VERY nice and we all ate far too much. Best thing is that they have a playroom there where you can park your children with a nanny!
• In the evening we had friends over at our place for dinner, so we went more or less directly from brunch to dinner, kind of like a brunner. Now I'm full, I will never eat food again ...
• Brunner: Sushi, nougat dumplings, fish, asparagus, lamb, various dim sum, chicken, aubergine, antipasti, salmon, caviar, cheese, grapes, watermelon, kiwi, jiaozi, etc.
  

Day 65 - Human table

• More penis follow up: Heidrun told Florian about the baby penis inside her and that once it's born she'll finally be free of male genitals once and for all. Florian simply said: "I'll always have mine." Seems that part is really important for male humans :)
• Matthias was looking for a pig in the trees when visiting the grandparents. Don't ask me how he got the idea that he would actually find one up there.
• Heidrun belly now is already big enough that she can use it to put stuff on it. Today she proudly put a cup of tea on top of it and announced: "Look now it's big enough!" So she has turned into a human bar finally (When she was pregnant with Florian she used to put a bedside lamp on her belly so she could read because the bedside table was too far).
• Matthias peed on the floor again. Heidrun wanted to teach him that he should announce it before, so she asked him: "Did you know that it's going to come?" "Yes." "So what do you say when you know you have to pee?" "Thank you?" "(Laughing), no not that, what do you say?" "Please?" "No, you say 'I need to go to the toilet'!"
• Today we passed a girl from Florian's nursery on the street. Heidrun asked him what her name is. He said: "... Didshee ..." "What her name is Didshee?!" "No, did she have a round or a long face?"
• Lunch: Soup and smoked ham, Dinner: Schnitzel and chips

Day 64 - Babes and Boobs

• Took another photo in my series "Bab(i)es and Boobs" pt1, pt2.
• Matthias: "Papa, that's too loud!!" Me: "What's too loud?" M: "Your mouth!"
• Matthias was looking for Heidrun's penis again today. She finally found a solution and told him that currently she actually got one inside her, attached to his future baby brother. Matthias was satisfied and replied: "Well then."
• Heidrun changed Matthias' nappies outside the train station today. Matthias asked her: "Why does my willy feel cold now?"
• A wheel from one of the kids' toy trucks came off. Matthias tried to repair it with a measure tape, not very effective, but at least a try :)
  
• Continued watching "The Beauty and the Beast". I remembered that we had seen the musical in the past which was nicely done actually.
  
• In the evening Florian came running to me panting with mouth open, tongue hanging out and his toothbrush in his hand because he wanted me to brush his teeth. I asked him if he is a dog. Matthias immediately joined in and shouted: "I am a cat!!"
• Lunch: Kebap, Dinner: Strawberries
  

Day 63 - MIA

• Florian did some more calculataions today and since we never taught him how to write numbers he simply copies them from the printed numbers he has seen. Today he tried to write the number 6 twice and ended up writing a 9 which he thought was very funny. He told me and said that I should write that in my blog! Interesting how children nowadays grow up with words like that, in the future I guess you have to explain what a diary is with "Oh you know it's like an old fashioned blog, but on paper in a book"
• Today when I was on the toilet Matthias was looking for me, so I shouted that if he needs anything he could find me on the toilet. Unfortunately he looked in the upstairs bathroom instead of downstairs even though he had seen me leave in that direction and got completely desperate and started crying really badly. When I finally reached him he was completely terrified that I had disappeared, poor little fellow.
• We are still looking for the black horse. Today he asked my: "Papa, why is the black horse em eye aye?" I didn't get it in the beginning and asked him what the hell he meant until I got it finally :) - Yesterday when I was quite annoyed by that search I had told Matthias that the horse is simply MIA.
  
• We played hide and seek in the afternoon, in the beginning Florian found me really fast, but then during the fourth round I suddenly stayed in my hiding place for about ten minutes until I finally gave up and came out asking "Where are you? I was not that hard to find?" Florian: "I had to go poo all of a sudden, so I went to the toilet"
• Lunch: Schnitzel, Dinner: Spaghetti
  

Day 62 - Worst case scenario

• What's bad: changing baby nappies after they've pooed. What's worse: changing them when they have diarrhoea. What's worst: having them poo on your arm while you are in the middle of changing when they have diarrhoea. Guess what happened today ...
  
• Matthias is stuffing wood pieces into the rails of our window shutters. Everyday we have to check now before we close them in the evening. Yesterday I forgot and the shutter was screwed up in the morning, they will break eventually I guess.
• The kids got up very late at 8.30 in the morning since they haven't adjusted to daylight savings time yet. I wonder how that'll work once they go to school, since it starts at 7.30 here in Baden. That'll be a nightmare, since even at 8.30 I had to kick them out of bed and then had to put up with two super grumpy children during breakfast.
• Matthias has infinite confidence in me, he asks a lot of questions as you might have noticed. Today I finally ran out of answers and asked him: "How should I know, do you really think that I know everything in this world?!?!" ... "Yes"
• When dealing with toddlers you often have the urge to simply say "shut up!" all the time. E.g. Matthias had a tiny tiny injury on his thumb (basically unnoticeable), "oh it hurts" "oh make it go away" "where?" "here!" "ok, do you want a plaster?" "yes" "this one?" "yes" giving him a yellow plaster "why didn't I get a red plaster?" "you wanted a yellow one" "now I want a red one!" ... "shut up!"
• I have the theory that grandparents are visually impaired. Why? Because e.g. my mom, every time she sees the kids she thinks that they have grown. I mean if that were really true in the frequency she mentions it, they'd both be 190cm by now.
  
• I got "The Beauty and the Beast" on DVD from a friend as a present for the kids. So slowly I'm getting some real variety into our evening entertainment program :) When asked where the movie came from I told them that it's from Aurore, the friend from work with dark hair. Matthias immediately replied that this is not possible because Scar from Lion King has dark hair and Mufasa has red hair. I then tried to explain to him that more than one person in this world can have the same hair colour. Florian also got really confused saying: "Oh I remember your colleague with dark red hair" me: "It's brown. You know, just forget about the hair colour."
  
• Lunch: Schnitzel, Dinner: Schnitzel and fried beans
  

Day 61 - April Fool!

• Florian did a lot of April Fool's jokes today which were mostly half funny (stuff like "Joshua is my friend again - haha, April fool! There is a spider on your shoulder - haha, April fool!"), but at least he got me very often. He also wanted me to make some, but of course that doesn't work that way.
• Matthias says gold to the color grey. That's quite funny because he ends up saying things like: "I want to wear my golden tights." "Why does the dinosaur have golden feet?".
• Matthias recently keeps asking why Heidrun has no penis. He is really inistent on that topic :) He also asked when God will turn her into a man!
• Still looking for the black horse. Horse, horse, where are you? One of Florian's April fool's jokes was actually telling Matthias that a brown cat was actually the black horse :) Best thing is: Matthias believed him for about an hour!
  
• Matthias wanted to paint with wax crayons today. I let him but most of it ended up in his face because he started to paint that instead of the paper I gave him.
• Our neighbours have two blond twin daughters who today invited Florian over to play with them, first he said that this is an April fool's joke and that he doesn't believe them. After a while they all came over to our place and one of the girls was complaining that Florian was always spanking her. Now imagine the whole thing 20 years later: getting invited to blond twin neighbours for some spanking action :)
• After a while the brother of the twins came over as well so all together five kids ended up in our house. The destructive power reached a similar level to a nuclear explosion.
  
• Matthias started singing along to German hip hop, very funny - he was running around singing: "Was geht, was geht, ich sags dir ganz konkret!"
• Went out in the evening to a Thai restaurant and seeing a weird Korean movie.
  
• Lunch: Fried rice, Dinner: Fried cucumber and fried rice, me: Thai noodles