That was a great weekend! Of course we missed Nadja, but knowing that her Grandparents taking care for her gave us the opportunity to enjoy again the hospitality of the Hotel Haferland. A wounderful hotel, family owned with warm hearts. Lovely designed, with nice wellness area, friendly “Haferland ghosts” (the employees) and good food. Excellent food, to be honest. Breakfast as well as dinner menu. Mostly regional recipes, the ingredients from the area, produced organically and prepared very artfully. To cut it short: A perfect weekend to take a deep breath. Well, the bill is nearly as high as for one week holiday in Turkey – only that the weekend at the Haferland provides us more recovery ;-)
Our Grandparents – what would we do without them? Both families help us a lot and make daily live much easier for us. Monday for instance is “Grandma-and-Grandpa-Day”, they collect Nadja at the kindergarten and take care for her in the afternoon. Lea, my 9-years-old nice, is usually also joining (or making? ;-) ) the party. This way Christiane can start relaxed in her working week, organizing her schedule without time pressure. Same applies if Nadja is ill and can or shall not go to the kindergarten. Just one call in the early morning and: “Of course, bring her to us, we nurse her!”.
Christiane’s parents (and brothers and sisters) cross half of Berlin just to see Nadja, to collect her at the kindergarten and to spend the afternoon with her. Or they stay overnight to take Nadja to bed while Christiane and me are going out. My parents live “just around the corner”, half way between our home and the kindergarten. And because both have retired already they can spend a lot of time with her.
Since last friday the “test” was successful – Nadja slept the first night at my parents home – today is premiere: Christiane and me will spend the weekend at the Baltic Sea. First holidays without Nadja. I am used to it from my business trips where I am away two or three days from home. For Christiane it is the first time she is separated from Nadja for 2 days and nights. I hope she can relax as much as Nadja who gets pampered by her Grandparents…
We got some new babies! All right, not exactly “we” but friends of us gave birth to two little ones. Now (nearly) all friends of us are parents, some even with two children.
Of course we already made our “inaugural visits” to the two new babies. All are well, only the parents looked a bit tired. Dirk, the fresh (first time) daddy offered a trade: Some hours of sleep from Nadja in exchange to some hair from his daughter (she was born with full hair).
Nadja could indeed donate one or two hours of daily sleep. It is unbelievable how many hours she sleeps. Looks like the kindergarten is really “exhausting” for her, although she obviously loves it. Probably comparable to our work. We regenerate on the weekend, and so does Nadja. Last sunday she woke up around 9.30 am (after being asleep on Saturday at 7 pm). Allright, maybe she was awake earlier but she made her self felt only at this time. And Christiane said that when she opened the door to Nadjas room, Nadja was cuddling her frog (her favourite soft toy) and let herself fall down into the pillow again – typical signs for “just woke up”. Really unbelievable, isn’t it?
12. Oct 2008, mittags Sunday
Yesterday we enjoyed a lovely day in the garden with beautiful weather. We had to use the sunny day to finish our wood-protection-treatment for the blockhouse and the wood terrace. However there was enough time to relax in the warm sunshine afterwards.
Today we stayed at home. The sky is grey today so it’s a perfect day to get some things done. Fix some loose screws, drill a small hole, remove the unneeded ISDN-modem including the well-laid cable, install the new analogue modem instead.
And for some reason I do not know I got the idea of making a cake today. As we did not consider that idea when doing the weekend-shopping I had to look after a recipe fitting to our “reserves”. Additionally I had to do some “creative” baking. Who said only cooking recipes can be variated? Well, for some reasons (I know) it is a kind of chocolate cake. Let’s see how it taste… ;-)
The time goes by so quickly, it’s October already. Time to share some new pictures of Nadja…
Nearly a month has been gone since my last posting. Unbelievable. It’s ages measured in internet time, isn’t it? Well, what shall I say. My “parental time” took my full attention. And, to be honest: playing with Nadja is much more fun than blogging here;-)
In the meantime we are back to “business as usual”. Or, better, the “new” business as usual: Nadja is in the Kindergarten. She likes it very much. No crying anymore, she smiles when we arrive. And she smiles, when we come to take her home. A real dream girl, still! Christiane is working for three weeks already (of course “only” part-time), and starting last monday I am back in the office as well. This is our new “daily business”: Nadja in the kindergarten from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m., Nani working 30 hours/week and myself… well. I try to keep it below 50 hours. Hopefully my boss does not read this post *smile*
And, not to forget: Nadjas first birthday. But there will be an extra blogpost. Dated back in time ;-)
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There are some new snapshots of Nadja done in the last few days. Enjoy… more you can find here.
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