The last month: Constructing our own little nest

Ever take a course in college where you paid attention in class, took decent notes, studied a fair amount, and then got to the test and realized that it was asking you questions you weren’t prepared for? Questions that you could tell were similar to what you studied, but that really weren’t really covered well in the reading? And then you start sweating?

Well, that’s what I feel is about to happen to Kate and me. And Pecos.

And this dog too.
We’ve been living in a perpetual state of preparation for the past few weeks. We’ve read books and articles; watched youtube videos of births, breathing techniques, and diaper changing; and put so many pieces of Ikea furniture together I’m surprised there’s no trademarked logo outside our apartment.
And just when I think we’re as prepared as we’re going to get, I ask something EXTREMELY dumb, like, “Seriously. Does she really need this many diapers?” Or “What do you mean babies don’t need pillows?”

Well, thankfully we still have a month left to prepare. And we have a lot to do in that month.

We have three baby showers in the next two weeks. One of them is tonight, at Jay and Linda’s new house, here: We have to sell our car.

We have to rent a car for two weeks while we wait on the guy whose car we promised to buy to get HIS new car.

I have to stop pretending to be a cardboard robot.
We have to finish transitioning to our fall and winter clothing

We have to ensure we’ve turned our breech baby

We have to complete setting up the baby’s room, including sanding, painting, and constructing a few more items. Here’s what it looks like now, which isn’t bad. But is only 75 percent complete.
I have to go to Baltimore for a week for work.

We have to go to Ikea a few more times, just to ensure there’s nothing there we didn’t buy yet.

And I have to get rid of my rash. Don’t ask. Here’s me wearing 1001 patches of substances people are allergic to to determine if my rash is allergy-based. (It wasn’t).
Hopefully, just as we’re finishing up with the last of these items (probably the sanding, painting, and constructing part), we’ll be completely prepared for the test of a lifetime. Probably not, though. Cardboard robot no like study.

Germany's face - a jogging hulk in 1985

Someone with too much time on their hands.

Someone with too much time on their hands and a joint.

Copenhagen and northern Germany

We finally did it. (Yay!) When we crossed the border into Denmark last Thursday, Kate, Pecos, and I officially visited all nine countries bordering Germany.

OK, so it’s a small victory. But you have to understand that those damn Danes are such a nuisance to visit, as we can’t fly there cheaply and it’s so damn far away. Because of that, I dragged Kate and Pecos into the car for another long ass car trip. But it was totally worth it.

Here's Pec and I at the Little Mermaid, in Copenhagen.

For those keeping track, our current country count is now:

• Me: 42 (9 new ones since moving here)
• Kate: 31 (25 new ones since moving here)
• Pecos: 13 (11 new ones since moving here)
• Elizabeth (in-utero … yup, I’m counting them): 12

In Western Europe, I still have the following countries to visit: Portugal, Norway and Andorra. Kate has Norway, Lichtenstein and Andorra,

Pecos will always be hopelessly in last place.
So, to get back to the point of this blog, our drive to Denmark (and northern Germany) was predicated on a few things:

1) To see Denmark (apparently Germany’s hardest to visit border country) and home to some magnificent cheese and Hamlet
2) To vacation in Copenhagen (more cheese … and ice cream)
3) To visit the island of Sylt, allegedly the “St. Tropez of the North,” and see what all the buzz was about
4) To eat lots of fish

We also spent a night in Hamburg on the way up and a night in Germany’s renowned port city of Lübeck on the way back. Here’s a digest of our Danish digression:

Hamburg – the Disneyland of smut: Hamburg is more than a hooker’s haven. It also has tons of sex shops, strip clubs, and neon lights in the shape of boobies. But what it lacks in refinement (assuming you’re calling inadequately garmented foreign females roaming the streets after dark “unrefined”), it makes up for in industriousness, fashionable cosmopolitan neighborhoods, and beautifully natural parks, trails, and lakes.

And it always has a fishy smell.

We did a walking tour, saw a few old churches, and dropped in on a number of spots we visited last April when we were here for a weeklong class. In all, Hamburg is a brilliant city that we’ll gladly revisit.
Sylt – to boldly go where no non-German has gone before: I’ve heard SOOO many good things about this unapologetically upmarket beach resort on Germany’s North Sea coast, but, now that I think of it, only from Germans. It seems as if all of Germany drank some sort of Sylt-is-cool kool aid because we didn’t hear a single non-German. Just weird grunts of laughter coming from Kate watching Pecos frolick on the beach.
And, to answer my earlier inquiry about what the buzz was about, we couldn’t really tell. It was August, but it was cold and windy. And the famous seafood place (Gosch) sold mostly fried sea fare (like a German Long John Silver’s).

Sure it had white, sandy beaches, some neat beachy flora, and Pecos LOVED it, but in general, I’m not rushing to get back. Copenhagen: Storybook streets, Nordic nosh: What a fantastic city. It was small enough to walk through the entire city, but large enough to be an actual metropolis with a working subway and distinct communities.
The people were all blond and fit (think Vikings) and they all spoke English with a cute British accent, which seems to be the norm in Scandinavia. Their word for “hi” is also “hi,” which I thought was great.

OK, back to the city: It had lots of old sights (which I won’t bore you with) and water or tinkling fountains around every corner. It also had a few breathtaking green and leafy parks which Pecos seemed to enjoy.But best and weirdest of all was Tivoli Gardens, a 150-year-old “pleasure garden” smack in the center of the city, rife with amusement rides, restaurants, theaters, and tall, blond Danes eating soft ice cream slathered in chocolate.The ice cream looked too tasty to pass up, so we ordered a small for Kate and a medium for me.

Although I never thought I’d say this: It was too much ice cream. It didn’t look like a lot – maybe the small would be a “medium” in the states and my medium would have been a “large.” But it was so thick and lacking any sort of typical soft-ice-cream “air” that mine probably weighed close to a half-a-pound.

So, sadly, we both ended up throwing out perfectly good (and tasty) ice cream. At least I thought it was tasty. It certainly wasn’t as sweet as regular ice cream – but that made it all the more appealing and natural (as “natural” as ice cream can be) to me. Sorry, no pictures. Instead, here's Kate in what appears to be Iran.

Lübeck – a haven of havens:

After taking an incredibly expensive 30-minute ferry over from Denmark ($100), we arrived in Lübeck, which is a city … uh, yeah. It’s a city. We didn’t know anything about this place other than it had an old city gate (which was very neat, as far as old city gates go) and was home to the biggest marzipan manufacturer in Germany.

So, our first few stops were, of course, to see the gate and buy some marzipan. Here’s Kate at the gate (late for her date because she ate so much on her plate).
What we liked most about the city, though, was all the water. It’s a harbor town, but it’s on an island and it has a bevy of rivers and canals flowing nearby. So, everywhere you turn, there’s … an old guy fishing. Here we are laughing about that discovery.
Although Pecos didn’t get to go swimming, he enjoyed it too, as it had a series of parks lining the rivers.

And that’s it. It was probably our last road trip with the Ka and perhaps the last one pre-baby. But the places were great, the fish was amazing (even though I didn’t have any fish in Hamburg, I feel like I did), the ice cream was appreciatively vast and tasty, and we all now have another country under our belts. Next big adventure … selling the car.

Berlin: Germany’s Chicago (and we liked it just as much)

As Kate mentioned, we were just in Berlin for a three-day conference I had to go to. And although the conference bored me to tears at times, Kate and I managed to have a good time before and after, shopping, riding the U-Bahn, playing in the Tiergarten, and noticing many, many similarities between this city and our previous home of Chicago.

But before I get to my thesis on the similarities between the cities, here are a few pictures:

Here's pregnant Kate at the Brandenburger Gate.

Here’s Pecos enjoying the Tiergarten. Here’s Pecos testifying his love for the city in a cute and undersized Berlin shirt (which is really for Elizabeth).
And here’s Pecos and I enjoying Sanssouci, the summer palace of Frederick the Great.
OK, now on to my treatise on the parallel correspondence of Berlin and Chicago. They’re similar in:

• Size (about 3.4 million)
• Metropolitan location (very far away from other similarly-sized metropolises)
• Climate (temperate and wet – and cold in the winter)
• Terrain (flat and grassy)
• Reason for commercial growth (inland harbor / shipping)
• Agricultural land use (cereals production)
• Dominant architectural style (Bauhaus)

Oh, and their flags have similar layouts.

Chicago

Berlin

To belabor the point and make you all completely aware of how much excess thought I’ve given this, here are some more similarities, with Berlin listed first and Chicago listed second. (Please let me know if you found this interesting or insanely dorky - or both).

• Mascot/icon: Bear/ Cubs
• Secret organization: Stasi / Mafia
• Significant amount of immigrants with the largest population in the country: Turks / Poles
• Popular cuisines influenced by these large ethnic minorities: Currywurst / Polish dog
• Historical damage: World War II (destroyed 60 percent of the city) / Great fire of 1871 (destroyed a third of the city)
• Significant division: East-West (divided by a wall) and North-South (divided by Madison St.)
• Nuclear physicists who practiced there: Einstein (Humboldt) / Fermi (U of Chicago)
• Politicians who started here that changed the world: Hitler / Obama (ok, give it a few months)

And here we are at Madison St. ... oops. Or The Wall. I'm not sure.

Baby on the Brain

As you've probably noticed, my posts of late have been baby-centric. There still are other things going on in our lives (work, Pecos, socializing, traveling), but preparing for Elizabeth's arrival certainly dominates my thoughts. It's also dominated our past few weekends. So, I am here to present to you a few of the things we've accomplished.

1) We have sold the KA and bought a new car, kind of. Specifically, we have a buyer and we've picked a car to buy, though there won't be any exchange of autos or cash until the middle of September. Our new car is a 2005 Ford Focus Wagon that looks something like this. We're happy with the deal we got and to have the extra space. Driving a station wagon is going to really make me feel like a grown-up.

2) We have started putting together the nursery/guest bedroom. We've spent a lot of time in the past two weekends rearranging our two bedrooms, building a crib, and putting together a dresser. The whole apartment is in a bit of a transition with boxes in the hallway and furniture strewn about. Eventually we'll have order again, but right now it feels a bit like chaos. Pecos has spent a fair amount of time hiding out, but he seems to be fine with all of the changes and hasn't acted out at all . . . well, except for that time he tried to bite Elizabeth!

Actually, he's yawning, but he certainly looks ferocious.

3) Speaking of Pecos, today we took him out for a crash course in walking with a stroller. He did a lot better than expected and was able to walk on a loose leash next to the stroller. I'm sure we'll make him practice a few more times before Elizabeth arrives.

4) I have grown even bigger. The picture below is from when I was 28 weeks, which was last week. I can't believe that at the end of this week, I'll hit 30-weeks. The time is going by so quickly.

I'm still feeling pretty good. I've been a bit more tired than usual, and I am now taking an iron supplement that has occasional wars with my breakfast cereal, but all-in-all, I've got nothing to complain about.

For those of you not-so-baby-minded, you are in luck. Soon there will be some non-baby posts for you to read. We have trips to Berlin and Copenhagen in the next two weeks. We're taking advantage of our last few-weeks of kid-free travel.

And of course, here's Pecos looking cute on a hike last weekend.

A Month's Worth of Thoughts

As is my style, I can start this post with an apology about my infrequent posting, but I'll spare you. We all know I am no where near the monster blogger that Justin is.

As Pecos alluded to in his post, I was in the States for most of July. As always, it was wonderful being home, and I was far busier than I predicted I would be. Of course, a lot of this busy-ness involved shopping for the baby with some very generous grandmothers-to-be. You can see the booty below. And don't worry, I'm not really crazy. Not all of this clothing is for a wee babe, it's just all for her first year. Justin seems to think we have enough, I think not. When I asked Justin to pick out some favorite pieces he picked out the two below. The first one is clearly a favorite because Elizabeth can represent Ward-style. Of course, if you follow baseball, you might think she's representing Washington Nationals-style, and that's okay too. Can you believe there is clothing with dachshunds on it for baby girls? I could not. When Liz found this beauty, I about died, and then I think Mom and Liz almost died of embarrassment as I rejoiced to the Gymboree gods. Too cute. Expect future pictures of Elizabeth sporting this while posing with Pecos.Here is Pecos modeling the piece he picked out as his favorite. I think the bib suits him and if he ever becomes a drolly dog, I'm sure Elizabeth will lone it to him.Okay, enough about baby clothing. I do understand that there is more to having a baby than cute clothing emblazoned with images of dogs. We've been preparing with lots of research and the latest points of focus are cars and cribs (we'll be sad to say goodbye to the Ka, but it's just too small). Researching car seats almost killed me. I'm glad that task is completed.

Since we are so festively preparing for her arrival, I should confirm that all is still well with Elizabeth. I had an appointment with an OB when I was home just because I wasn't going to be able to see my doctor here for awhile. The OB is a friend of my father's, and I certainly got some special treatment in the form of a very extensive ultrasound. I was very lucky that my dad got to witness the ultrasound and watch Elizabeth wiggling around. She spent a fair amount of time trying to get her thumb into her mouth. As you can see below, she eventually succeeded. More important than being cute, everything else with her checked out perfectly normal.I also went to see my doctor here in Germany this week, and again, all is going well with both Elizabeth and myself. Here's a profile shot from that appointment.
Today marks my last day in the second trimester, tomorrow, at 27 weeks, I enter the third. I've been feeling really good, but I'm starting to worry about how my back is going to feel in a few weeks. My torso is just not very long and this baby has to grow from the almost two pounds she is now to six plus pounds. Hopefully all the weightlifting I've done over the years (and a special emphasis on my core for the past year) will pay off.

For Carole's viewing pleasure, here is my belly at 24 weeks. I'll take another picture at 28 weeks and try to post it more promptly.I am now, undeniably, pregnant and wearing maternity clothing full time. Well, honestly, since I'm a work-from-home slob, I'm in gym clothing most of the day, and boxers borrowed from Justin for most of the night. All of my "real" pants now have elasticized waists, I just don't wear them very often.To wrap up, being in the States was great. It's always wonderful to get to spend a big chunk of time with my family and it's very hard to leave them to come back. Of course, knowing Justin and Pecos are here waiting for me makes it a bit easier.