New Due Date Estimate

Dinner at the Indian Restaurant in Neufahrn

Monday
When I finally posted on Sunday, I had a lot of people write assuming I had gone into labor since I had not written in a few days. I just figured I'd start posting every few days now as things have begun to slow down a bit, and we're not accomplishing nearly as much in any given day as we did when first arriving. So no... no baby yet. I just didn't think I had enough interesting details to post something EVERY day.

I had another visit with the gynecologist today, who again said that I am not dilated and the baby doesn't look to be coming any time in the immediate future. Surprise, surprise. She did say that my cervix was very soft and that she could manually dilate me to two or three centimeters but didn't see the point because 1. it would be painful and 2. if my body wasn't ready to actually go into labor, it wouldn't help. Then I'd just be walking around for a few more days/weeks dilated and even more uncomfortable without contractions. Fun. If things don't progress on their own before Monday, l will go see her again and maybe she'll have better news for me then.
After my appointment, I met Regina & William in Munich. We walked around looking at double-strollers with big fat wheels to use in the snow. I was all set to get a double stroller in the U.S. and I had done plenty of research on the type I wanted. When I got here, I was informed of one thing I HADN'T thought about... snow. I was told I need big tires to get through the snow, or pushing a stroller would be unbearable. So we looked around at various models and my search starts again. I think I'll check out ebay for a used one at this point. We also purchased a winter coat for me, and some thick warm socks for Gerrit and me. It's not cold enough for any of that yet, but I'd rather have it now BEFORE I need it.

While we were out Regina made a few comments about disliking most Americans. I'm sure this is due to stereotypes. Obviously stereotypes exist because there are tons of people who live up to them. So I pointed out to Regina that Americans aren't the only ones who have labeled stereotypes. I also requested that every time she came up with a stereotype for an American, that she try to come up with one for a German, for perspective.

By the way, I still have no clue when our cargo will arrive, but I'm thinking my mom will likely be here before both baby AND cargo.

Entrance to ESO

Tuesday
We signed a contract with the Tagesmutter today. We're paying 80 Euro per month for ten hours a week, which I think is a pretty good deal. We likely won't actually be sending Gerrit there for a full ten hours per week, but it ended up being cheaper per hour to contract for ten hours per week than it was for six hours per week. If we send the second baby there too, he will be half off so- only 40 Euro extra per month. We pay monthly whether we send them or not, and we pay even when there are holidays and she is on vacation (4 weeks out of the year). I still feel this is a good deal, though. In Pasadena the cheapest full time In-Home Day Care I found was $600 per month, and that was for the super scary In-Home Day Cares with 12 children. While I know there are good In-Home facilities, the ones I toured in the Altadena were pretty frightening, and I would never want to send my kids there unless I absolutely had no choice in the matter. This gal is much better, and she's likely only taking two to three kids, plus her own son.

Gerrit and Jenny's son, Jan.
(Jenny is Gerrit's Tagesmutter)

Okay, so I'm amending my due date... again. I'm now changing it to October 23rd because that is the day we found out that our cargo is scheduled to be delivered to our house here in Neufahrn. This, of course, means that I will likely go into labor that same day, and we will need to call someone else over to stay at our house while they deliver the cargo. Hopefully I'm wrong and he'll come earlier, but that is my prediction. The good thing (at least for me, anyway) is that my mom is arriving on the 21st. We planned it that way assuming the baby would already be here, but it looks like she may actually be present for the delivery, after all. I was so sure that Gerrit would be late and he came early. Then I was absolutely convinced this baby would be early, but since his due date is this Thursday the 18th, it looks like I'm wrong on both counts. Go figure!

We went to IKEA (again). This time it was for a piece of furniture we can use to hide the cat's litter box. It's similar to all the fancy furniture that you buy through pet stores or online shops that hide your litter box inside. They usually have a hole for the cat to walk into, but it's not so obvious as having a giant litter box in the middle of the room. I saw the idea on IKEA Hacker, this cool website I found that makes all sorts of contraptions from inexpensive IKEA junk. The thing we're creating should be much cheaper than buying one of those fancy ones. Here is a picture of what it will hopefully look like when we're finished.

Hopefully our final product will look at least as good as this one.
The daily IKEA trip requires the daily IKEA photo

Gerrit is an experienced IKEA shopper, too

"Ahhhh... a well-deserved ice cream after
putting up with my mom and dad's IKEA fixation."