Weekend snaps/memories

1. Three mommie's on the dancefloor

and a long saturday night.....

2.Still warm from the dryer,

I pulled his sheets tight

around his little bed's mattress.

3. We made a greek dinner

by the time the food was done.

We were full.

4. Domi taught Tyler how to count till three,

with my curlers.

German and English.

4. We bought the turtles a couple of

months before Tyler was born.

When did they get so big?

5. I rocked him in my arms

on the foot of his bed,

singing him to sleep

with one song.

The fab-threesome

I had a moment, while watching Tyler painting a painting for his grandma's birthday. I thought to myself, "My God. He's mine." It's a feeling I have regularly but there's something about the house construction that makes everything feel so... momentous?

It's like... 2years ago? There were only two of us. And two years before that? Just me. In four years I have gone from painting alone and going crazy with acryl colors to fingerpaint and going artsy with my family of three.

We're a family of three, Painting picture feeling like we've been a fab-threesome all along.

The other night I asked my Nana, the matriarch of my mother's side of the family, how it felt to look around at all her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and think "if it wasn't for me... none of these people would be here."...." She thought for a moment before shrugging. "I guess I've never really thought about it," she said. "I just enjoy watching everyone together. It's my happy place."

And even though I only have the experience with my little man, for now, I totally and completely understood.

Beautiful things come in small packages

This is gonna be Tyler's room.

Last week we got the "skyline" window build in.
The first floor now...

Let's hope there will be an "after"!!

"Beautiful things come in small packages," they say and so do I, writing this post from the tiny box that recently and hopefully temporarlly became our bedroom. A room we needed our architectural thinking caps to make work.
We always have been living in way too small places (never at a Trailer before though). We just moved out of our tiny 2room appartment, to move into the Trailer. And I just stare at this old/new house just in front me. IT'S OUR HOME. Pieces of this house are more than 300 years old. Can you believe it?!?! It is a treasure.

I'm always hunting for treasure.
Daydreaming over bigger and better cars and homes, new clothing, shoes, furniture et al.
Because shiny new things sparkle and glow. No scratches from being repeatedly dropped on their faces. No stains.

We live in a world blessed with riches and a society that bribes us with new boxes. It's box cars and box homes and box television sets. And sometimes it's impossible to turn our heads because new cars always smell better. So do new homes, built on the wood of freshly cut trees, with their new bedrooms and clean slate of design ideas. And I just can't believe that we will be moving into one of those new homes. But still I do miss our last tiny place. It was so comfy and we spend our first year with babyboy in there. Just so many awesome times!

We are told from ages young to dream of new life and new homes, to fantasize about the virgin in all her unattainable forms. Because wouldn't it be nice to be the first? The first family to live in the house. To own the car. To leave footprints in the sand.

To feel what has never been touched.
There's a direct correlation between changing identities and changing your home,the place you are living in-- rearranging the same old items in a new and different space.

They say that airplanes aren't safe to fly unless they've flown a thousand miles. And ships are more likely to sink their first day at sea. They say that people can change if they want to. But changing will never change the past and thank God because what a ride that was.

Society teaches us to never be happy with what we have. So to recognize the impulse, and then stop it can enable us to have fuller lives than the person down the street with his new car every two years.

Last night I felt the need to apologize to Domi for being a used car with mileage.

"I'm sorry I'm not the kind of woman who dabs the sides of her mouth with linen napkins."
"You think we'd be together if you were?" Touche.


But just like a marriage, a home, the old chairs from great-grandma etc. old can become new.

How to make a coat-rac

TAA-DAA...

Weekend snaps and more memories

1. We walked down the road, and started at the same time to hum the same melody.
2. He took my hands and we danced all night long, like the dancefloor is ours.
3. We were shocked after we looked at the clock, after we got back to the car.

As I've written (ten-squillion times) before, parenting is tough, marriage even tougher (or any committed relationship, especially when a child's in the mix) but there are times, moments, when "it" kind of melts away... These moments are seldom caught with a camera because... like SNAP! they're gone. Last saturday I had such amazing moments with my hubby.

Chris, we had a great time with you. We will miss you very much over here in Germany.
We liked showing you the world with different eyes again. Thank you for trusting us so much to be your wonderful daughter's god-parents.

On sunday we headed down to our favorite beach. Big minus, hubby wasn't able to come with us. He had to work that's just how he rolls.
(Needles to say, I'm in love.)

We found a clam, it has a shiny pearl inside. No really, we just know it. He was holding our treasure until we got back home.

Taking a look to the other side of the world...
Hope you all making lovely memories with your people

Another milestone

3ooo tiles were waiting for us to put them on the roofSaturday morning a bunch of people we didn't expect crawled out of the woodwork just to help
With their help we got the the roof done in one day.

Thank you so much!

Danke an alle die gekommen sind um uns zu helfen. Es waere unmoeglich gewesen ohne euch.

The train story

Several mornings ago, I awoke to crashing followed by screaming followed by "what are you doing!? You're ruining my bridge! No! That's supposed to... Stop! I just-- Give it back. I was almost... Tyler! Look! I-- You're breaking it! I'm trying to--"

Tyler was laughing. Cracking up, more like, with the demonic little giggle he gets when he's pissing me or his dad off.

Dom was not amused. I could tell by his "No! Stop! No! You...!!!"
When I made it out to the living room, Tyler and Dom were sprawled across the floor, Dom's head in his hands as Tyler's, one by one, knocked over every single bridge.
"Uh-oh," he said. "Uh, oh. Oh no!"

"Tyler," Dom tried to reason. "Can you please stop knocking all the bridges down. Don't you want a track you can play with your trains on? One with great impressive bridges?"
Tyler was laughing again.

"What are you guys doing?" I finally asked.
"Tylie keeps breaking my bridges!"Dom was hunched over, frustrated and defeated.
So I gave Dom a pat on the shoulder and asked Tyler if he would please play nicely with Daddy.
Tyler was giggling manically again as Tyler proceeded to rebuild his smashed empire. I knew it would end badly, so I asked Dom if he wouldn't mind making me some coffee.

"Fine! But don't waste your time trying to build an extension bridge. He'll only knock it over and laugh!"
"Okay. No extension bridge. Got it."
Meanwhile I made myself comfortable next to Tyler and his mine-field of a train set.
"Can mommy play?"
I proceeded to continue where Dom left.
Except for some reason... the bridges. The bridges! They seemed to be calling out to me, whispering, pleading, "build me! BUILD ME! Build me tall and strong!"
I rebuilt the bridges, straightened the tracks until voila! The train was constructed, nary a missing piece.
And then? Then... Tyler stood up and with a giant karate kick, shattered my every dream.
"No, Tyler! Noooooooooooooo..."
"Hahahahahahahahahahaha."
"Please, no! Oh, God! It's.... Just.... TYLER, NOOOOOOOO!"
By the time Dom came back, I was practically in tears.
"He ruined it! You should have seen it! It was perfect and he BROKE IT! I even got the extension bridge back up and everything..." Now I was hunched over, frustrated and defeated.

Tyler was at the table eating his breakfast, reading Green Eggs and Ham, while Dom and I put the finishing touches on our double decker bridge.Voila.

P.S. Pictures tomorrow

Making memories

The pool party

One of my favorite things about watching Tyler grow up is seeing him make friends. Real friends. The kind of friends he will have always, even if time and place and circumstances separate them. The kind of friends he will grow nostalgic for when he thinks of his childhood...

I think back to my first friends and I'm amazed at how much I remember of them.

I love watching Tyler make memories -- his shadow flexing and turning and overlapping the silhouettes of best friends, his very first. Cherished always. Racing into the tide and beyond.

My cool little man

I could not love you more.

.....And I know I will never be as cool as you.