October Photo Dump

October was a month of excitement. Finn and Elena have been spending lots of time together usually walking (strollering) and occasionally playing together at either one's house.

Food has proven exciting for Finn as well. He has discovered the American love of Italian food moving spaghetti and lasagna to the top of his favorites list. Beans and rice as fun for smearing on your head.

Fancy toys were ignored for the wonders of things hung from the inside of a laundry basket. The "magic box" has provided endless minutes of entertainment.

Finn's new found mobility put him on more equal round with the cats. He holds their toy and shakes it, but is arms aren't long enough to really have it work right. He can approach the cats and has touched them a couple times so they have learned to walk a slightly larger radius around the boy when passing.

It looks like the top tooth teeth will make an entrance very soon. All the warning signs are here. We are worried that he may be dehydrating since he loses about a quart of drool per hour.

Enjoy the snaps!

Mr. Turtle Crawls

Finn dressed up as a turtle for the big Holloween festivities this year. We also dressed him up as a turtle for our own enjoyment. Here's a video of him in ation. You can see he is still turtle slow trying to move around, but is cute the whole time.

We also went down to Foutain Square with our neighbors to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown". It was finally cold and autumnal; overnight lows about 37 degrees. Covered in layers of cloth and foam padding, the kids hardly noticed. We were glad that the cold drinks they normally serve were supplemented by hot chocolate. Little Elena, the hot chick, was Finn's date.

Finn was very into the show, being out after dark, and all the kids running around. When we got back he went right to sleep and stayed asleep until 8:30 this morning. 12 HOURS! That treat is much welcomed after the tricks of the last couple days. If that is the result, there is ikely to be more crawling, costumes, and cimena in the future.

Why I so rarely post blog entries

and never get to bed before 11:30.


My life has been a good example of Murphy's Law lately. The things that go wrong for me are minor, but they still add up to an explanation for the title of this post. Take today, for example. Beach was at hockey practice tonight, as he has been many nights over the past few weeks. Finn was happily splashing in his bath when he stopped, screwed up his face, grunted, and just like that we had poopy bath water, complete with undigested corn. I was really hoping we could get him potty-trained without having to deal with this, but that just wasn't in the cards. I grabbed Finn out of the tub and plopped him in Beach's sink to rinse him off, noticing how dirty the sink was. Sidenote: Beach, why is your sink so much dirtier than mine? I clean them at the same time. Anyway, if Beach had been home, I would have told him to clean up the tub and the sink while I took care of Finn. But, since Beach was not home, that stuff had to wait. So, after Finn was cleaned up, diapered, pajama-ed, fed, teeth-brushed, read to, and sleeping away soundly, I went back to the dirty work. Once the poop-water was out of sight, I scrubbed down the tub. After I was done, I thought, I should just clean the rest of the bathroom while I've got all the cleaning stuff out (even though it's already 9:30 - starting to see the problem here?) As I was cleaning the toilet, I accidentally mixed a bleach cleaner with some other cleaner and created some fantastic fumes. When the lightheadedness had passed, I grabbed the bottle of Tilex for the sinks and the cap came off, spilling most of the contents on the floor, into the cats' water dish, and all over my pants. Now I want to yell, except Beach isn't home to be the target, and I can't even blame him for the loose cap, since I was probably the last one who used the Tilex. So, I take off the pants and wash them, wipe the stinging chemicals off my legs, and finish up the bathroom. Then it's on to the kitchen, where I've left a whole day's worth of dishes and Finn has left half of his dinner on the floor. I clean up the kitchen and make my way back to the bedroom at 10:30. But not before pouring myself a glass of wine. In a plastic cup - just in case. And that is why I rarely write blog entries.

Oh yeah, and all night I was wondering what smelled like puke. Turns out it was me, from when Finn vomited his mango dessert on me when I got him out of the tub.

But things aren't all bad - in fact, we've had an exciting week around here. Everyone's mobile - Beach has a new car, and Finn has figured out how to crawl. He's not a speed-demon yet, but he's shown improvement in the short 28 hours that have passed since he first made his way five feet across his room to grab a bottle of baby lotion (this is the thing that motivates him to go further than he's ever gone before?). I'm sure glad I moved all of our guns, knives, drugs, and rat poison into a baby-proof cabinet this week.

More photos of car and bloody head

For those that are into that sort of thing, you can see the inside of my head and more wreckage in this photo set.

We decided to get a new car

I was driving to work in my little Civic coupe yesterday and stopped for a bus at a bus stop. There were two other cars ahead of me who also stopped behind the bus. After waiting for a few seconds and then was rammed from behind by a giant Ford Explorer who seemingly never even slowed down.

My car was pushed forward about 20 feet ending up with my hood under the pick-up truck ahead of me. That truck was also pushed forward and hit the car in front of him. Altogether, there were 4 cars damaged, but the bus was not hit. The firemen had to pry apart my car from the one that hit me.

On the inside of the car, some large piece of plastic flew forward and hit me in the back of my head and landed in the passenger's seat. It cut the back of my head pretty good, one cut of 2-3 inches and another about 1 inch long. I have pictures if you would want to see. I was leaning forward when I was hit, so my body flung back into the seat that is permanently stuck in a reclined position now. I then bounced forward against the seat belt causing bruising to my hip and shoulder. I seemed to have a mild concussion too, but nothing too bad.

The driver was a woman without a driver's licence or insurance. She also spoke very little English. My insurance will cover my car and medical bills, so I'm OK that way too. The police issued a ticket for driving without a licence or insurance, but said that they could not arrest her because they did not see her driving.

When the fire department came the guy asked it I needed to go to the hospital. I said that I couldn't see the cut on the back of my head and asked what he thought. He said that the bleeding was stopped and I could just go to an urgent care center to get a stitch or maybe just a butterfly bandage.

When we got to my doctor's office, both the RN and the doctor were surprised that they didn't say I should go to the hospital. They also said that it shouldn't be up to person who just suffered head trauma to make a decision like that. Pretty good point. They ended up putting 4 stitches in the smaller cut and one long running stitch in the longer one.

So today we are off to look for a new car. Probably another Civic. They seem to be a pretty safe car.

Visit back to Wisconsin

My cousins Chuck and Andi came out to visit Wisconsin so we decided to take the weekend trip up again to see them. We enjoyed a lazy Columbus Day weekend watching the Badgers and the Packers lose. Biscuit the dog (seen above) seemed to exemplify the laziness.

Yes, it was Columbus Day. If you're not a government employee you probably had no reason to know. Lanny even still had school.

This trip marked the last time we need to stop to pay the Illinois tolls. We ordered an I-pass and can now drive straight through the tolls. The tolls are even less for I-pass holders. Hoo-ray.

We had a fun time and can't wait to go back up for Thanksgiving. The photos are here.

Back in Germany?

Big beers, outdoor eating, sausages, Bavarian flags waving the breeze...Am I back in Der Vaterland? Nein! We're at the Hofbrauhaus Kentucky. We scooted on our bikes across the river and had a dinner out a couple weeks back. Outdoor dining is good with the boy since he tends to throw food on the ground. There's less guilt if that's outside. While there, Finn had his first meat, a slow roasted chicken. While in German this would have been called a Hänchen or little chicken. It was delicious in any language.

We also started swimming lessons. Finn learned to have water in is face and, to a lesser degree, in his lungs. A fun time was had by all.

The final big event of the weekend was the Bengals party at Fountain Square. Finn asked to get his picture taken with the Bengals. I thought it was cheesy, but I acquiesced. Too bad the Bengals are no good. At least the Packers are doing well.

Not many pictures, but what we do have is here.

New New Blog Revealed

Ok, I changed it. I admit that it wasn't optimal.

New Name/Look Revealed!

Firmly back home in Cincinnati, the Strangers in a Deutschland title seemed not as applicable. Though I still stand that it was a great title for us, especialy pre-Finn. The new name maintains some literary reference as well as the geographical reference, but brings it into today's mise en scène.

With the new title, a new look. Perhaps it will change again, but I like it as a starting position.

The blog is dead! Long live the blog!