Steph's Munich Madness: Apologies to Stay-at-Home Moms... Your Job is (bleeping) Tough

"Being a big brother is a big responsibility.
I have to rock my bebe when he cries...
and he cries a lot!"

Spent Saturday making food for our Belated Thanksgiving feast with a few "BMW" families/other ex-pats. It was a really pleasant evening. Gerrit had a great time playing with all the older kids and showing off his brother. I looked over to see all the kids surrounding Willem staring, as Gerrit was rocking him and jibber jabbering about his new "Bebe." It was super cute. He also adores Destene's girls and continued to run up to them and yell, "Fly" as he jumped into their arms. By the time we got home, he was worn out.

The three other families we had supper with were all from South Carolina- very southern (religious, well-mannered, friendly, extremely hospitable, and all good cooks and homemakers). That last one really irks me because I'm so "non-domestic" and I'm so inept when it comes to cooking and keeping house. I don't particularly like doing it and I'm not good at it. Maybe I can learn something from these women while out here.

I also realized that I had a bias I didn't realize I had before. I never thought I looked down on homemakers, but somehow when confronted with the idea for myself, I freaked out. Okay, so why is that? Somehow I felt it was okay for "other people" but not me??? How messed up is that? Now I think it's because I somehow (without even realizing it) felt that if you chose to stay home, you were choosing less for your life or couldn't do anything else. Yet these women are all intelligent, articulate, educated women who chose to stay home for their families. So I feel I owe them a huge apology for the preconceived ideas I had about them just because they were "at home." It's comparable to all the people who claim that "People who "can" DO and people who "can't" TEACH" (As if it takes no skill to teach). That is a proclamation I have had to dispute to some with my chosen profession and basically, I realized that I kind of had the same attitude about stay-at-home types. As if it takes no skill to stay home.... WRONG. Being home is freakin HARD work. I knew that before, but I didn't really *KNOW* that until now- now that I'm living it, if you get my drift. Anyway, I can honestly say that this is a lesson I needed to learn (without even knowing I needed to learn it)... and I think I only would have gained this experience by being in Germany right now. So... score one for Munich.

Family Portrait (Check out the "mom" hairdo)

Willem (now 1 month old) in big brother Gerrit's lap

The Turkey Craft. Gerrit ended up discovering marshmallows
and after eating most of his, he was unable to complete his turkey.

Destene's Daughter Loved Holding Willem

All tuckered out

Warning: This next paragraph focuses on potty talk. Not the interesting kind, the parent kind. The kind that only parents would likely appreciate. Consider yourself warned.

Had a lovely brunch Sunday morning at a nearby bakery. I know I'm a "mom" now because two things simply thrilled me today. One, Willem has started showing signs of a smile on his own. Two, Gerrit said he wanted to put his poopy in the potty and say "Bye, Bye." We have just started discussing the potty with him and have started to associate diaper contents with the potty. Gerrit is not a kid who dislikes having an icky full diaper. He doesn't let you know if he's wet or poopy and will be content to sit in a dirty diaper all day if you let him. We thought we would encourage "icky diaper recognition" with the following: When Gerrit has a BM, we've been taking him over to the potty and dumping the diaper contents into the bowl. Then we let him flush it, say goodbye, and wash his hands. The hope was that he would begin to recognize when he had a BM and then start to know the feeling before he actually did it. When he came up to us in the bakery and took us to the bathroom to show us the toilet and say, "Poo Poo in potty" it was a HUGE STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. YEAH YEAH YEAH!!!! Maybe sometime in the next several months I'll only have to change ONE kid's diaper instead of two. :)