Grugapark

Thursday was a holiday because of the church celebration of the Ascension, and it was randomly also Father's Day in Germany. Chris was working, so I took Daisy to a park in nearby Essen that I'd heard a lot about but never visited called Grugapark. 

It was awesome. I felt like I was at an amusement park or a zoo, a sort of Leisure Park that reminded me of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. People of all ages flocked here, since there were flower gardens, live classical music, athletic fields and courts, surprise playgrounds and pieces of modern art around every corner, and endless fields for picnicking. 

Daisy had a blast. Since I wanted to show Chris what we did that day, I have quite the photo journal of our experiences:

Courageous Daisy on this glider rope

Cool park featuring wooden posts
and ropes

Cute play structure - made in Finland 

Petting zoo

Wading pool (with half-timbered, sodded-roof houses around) 

Waiting in line for her first pony ride

Loving it! 

Sharing an Apfelschorle at the end of the day

This park costs 4 Euros to enter for adults and is free for children under six. If you lived around here and wanted a season pass, it would only be 22 Euros! Although free parks are definitely a hallmark of good civilization, this one offered so much and was so well maintained that I became convinced that having a luxury park requiring a small fee is an asset for any city. Who wants to start one in Atlanta with me? We could import play structures from Finland...

Happy Easter!

Here are some belated pictures of Daisy painting Easter eggs. We were invited to Hanna's family garden on Thursday and had a great, sunny time with the gang. It was even hot enough to let the kids play with the hose and the kiddie pool afterwards. The next day, we went to Paris for the weekend! More pictures of that soon...

It's Like Riding a Bike

Since we're currently agonizing over how much of our stuff we can ship to Atlanta, now is definitely not the time to buy a bike for Daisy. Luckily for us, our friend Trixi wanted to lend us little Konstantin's bike for a short while, since he's graduated to something with pedals.

Daisy loves joining the rest of the 3-year-olds on the continent and riding her Laufrad (training bike). It's not a piece of equipment that I was aware of back in the US, but it's brilliant, right? The kids learn how to balance and to steer this way, and can learn how to pedal separately on a tricycle. Maybe the reason that Europeans are so confident on bicycles is the early maneuvering education!

The pink flowering trees (what are they called?) provided a great backdrop for our morning bike ride yesterday.

When the wind blows, the confetti-like petals make me feel like it's my wedding...

...or that I'm a queen, walking on plush carpet.

More fun with weeds flowers:

Anyway, back to the bike:

It's amazing to watch Daisy learn how to ride this thing. For a few days, all she did was a slow waddle-walk, not even letting herself rest on the seat. But then, it started to click, and each day she gains confidence and experiments with longer stretches of rolling.

She could do this forever - yesterday morning, she "biked" a mile and a half before I reeled her in for lunch. Near our apartment, there's this fun kids' course where Daisy likes to "choose a street."

Well, all these pictures are good, but a video would be better, right? Here's some footage from yesterday with a special bonus song. (The other day, I had her sing some songs for the camera and flipped the viewing screen over so that she could watch herself - that's what she wanted this time, too.) The text of the song, a classic for kids here, is translated something like, "All my duckies swim on their lake, swim on their lake - little heads in the water, little tails in the air." Enjoy!

Video:

Daisy's 3rd Birthday

The Day

The Birthday Girl enjoys her morning tea.

Okay, really enjoys her morning tea.

She is surprised by the decorations we set up the night before, happily exclaiming "oh my goodness!"

She goes to ballet class with her friend, Thea. Miss Kathrin gives her a small gift and the class sings "Happy Birthday" in English to her.

Sometimes I think that ballet class is her favorite part of life itself.

We meet Daddy for lunch and even get an ice cream after.

And we stop at the playground, testing out the swings as a 3-year-old.

5:30 PM - I leave her in the living room while I do dishes, and I come back 10 minutes later to this:

I wake her up right after I take this picture for eating dinner and getting ready for bed.

The next day, we have the party. Daisy has recently been to some other birthday parties, so she is super excited to have her turn. Three kids her own age are there with their families, plus a few friends from Chris' institute.

The party is full of laughter and fun - here's a video collage of the kids at play:

After the party, Daisy tells us that now she's 2 again. We try to correct her, but give up after we realize that, for her, this changing-age thing is all part of the birthday magic: illogical and amazing, like Alice in Wonderland. We're looking forward to another year of learning and growing - and maybe shrinking back again - together. Happy Birthday!

Daisy's Drawings

If Daisy's been quiet for a long time in the other room, I can be pretty sure that she is working on her Magna-Doddle. I wish that they were permanent creations, but photographs of her artwork will have to suffice! It is so fun to watch kids suddenly explode with new skills, and to see the satisfaction it gives them.

There's a perfectionism to her work: if she makes a stray line, say, from a dropped pen, she will instantly swipe the board clean and start over. In some ways, I can't wait for her to learn about "making it into a flower" or something and being more adaptable, but for the most part I admire her commitment to creating the idea that's in her head and accepting no substitutes, even if it means extra work. If she is typical of all kids, then nobody is born lazy; it's learned.

"Krakow," by Daisy

This trip provided a big boost to my Conni books collection. Conni's First Flight was great reading material for the airplane, but not exactly applicable, since it was actually my 30-something-th flight. Since Conni ate spaghetti on the airplane, it was absolutely imperative that I also had spaghetti for dinner. Mama and Dada made it happen, and also sprinkled the rest of the trip with new Conni books!

We got to walk to our hotel along the river, where we visited families of ducks and swans.

On our first night, we walked at the base of Wawel Hill by this iconic "Fire Breathing Dragon." Mama freaked out because, in the pitch dark, we heard a "click click..." and saw...

...this! (It happens every ten minutes or so.) I still talk about that scary dragon.

Walking up to castles is one of the best parts of any trip. Just add an extra hour to however long you were planning on taking to get there.

Noted: Krakow also has pigeons to chase.

I found a sweet Polish friend, and we loved each other for five minutes before we had to say goodbye.

I'm not sure how to describe this, but there was a bed on my train one night. Isn't that awesome???

I brought home one souvenir from Poland: a yellow amber necklace which I love to wear. Mama also got an amber necklace, and we always wear them together.

Cutest Picture Ever

I'm sure there's a contest just waiting to be won with this:

Daisy in Krakow

Rhyme Time

We have built up a fair collection of books by the dynamite duo Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. Our first few were purchased in Scarborough, England. Even if you didn't know that they were British, you would soon find out if you just flipped through a book or two: Monkey is looking for his Mum, George looks very smart in his new trousers, and scarf is supposed to rhyme with laugh. Unfortunately, Daisy lets us read that line only by pronouncing it as larf.

Perhaps Daisy's favorite activity is reciting her books, which are all memorized to various degrees. It did not take long for the catchy Donaldson rhymes to lodge in her brain, and hence our days are paralleled by a constant stream of storytelling. Besides finding Daisy's voice as sweet as Nutella and the rhythm of spoken words as relaxing as Gregorian Chant, I educationally endorse these books because rhyming is a crucial building block of reading and spelling. With these books, the "Willaby Wallaby Waisy, an elephant sat on Daisy" song, and her Rhymes puzzle, I have a tidy literacy unit that comes in handy on rainy days. Have I mentioned that we have our fair share of those?

I caught one of Daisy's recitations on tape a month ago while she was sitting on her potty after a bath. Oh, is she good at stalling before bedtime! If you can look past my clunky editing, along with the shameful dark circles under her eyes and her lack of clothing, I believe that you'll enjoy her artful performance. It's a story about a respectable dad who happens to be a stick, but out in the big wide world, other people and animals find him expendable.

Video:

New Shoes

Since it rains yearlong here, it's high time that Daisy had some rubberboots.

They went on their first outing this morning to a freshly showered playground. Daisy was kind enough to pose for a picture before heading out the door.

And this is what I get when I ask her to smile...

Watch out, it's puddle-jumping time!

Candy from Strangers

My comment about Hansel and Gretel at the end of my last post reminded me of something I've wanted to share for a long time now.

Daisy loves going on errands with me. We visit the Apotheke and they hand her a new rubber ducky that changes colors in the bathtub. We step inside the Fleischerei and they reach over to give her a special slice of meat. The bookstore slips free kids' paperbacks in my bag. The fish stand peeled and cored a free apple for Daisy, and an old-fashioned restaurant surprised her with a bowl of fresh strawberries with cream. She can count on raking in sugar cookies at the tea shop and mini rolls from the bakery, stickers from the train conductors and apricots from the fruit stands.

My German friends dismiss these freebies as marketing ploys - and the strawberries with cream were probably to get her to stop crying, admittedly - but I insist that it displays a cultural appreciation of children. As our dear downstairs neighbor, Frau Pieper, says, "Kinder immer erste," (children always first). The willingness to devote so much attention to children may be because of a lower birthrate here; out of 223 countries in the world, the bottom five according to 2010 CIA estimates are: Germany, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, and Monaco. (By contrast, the United States stands at #151, sandwiched between Netherlands Antilles and New Zealand. See full list here.)

Besides, it's not just the stores that pamper the little darlings. I remember the first time an elderly gentleman pulled a piece of candy out of his pocket to give to Daisy. He was sitting near us on a bench in the mall and enjoyed seeing her run around. (I ended up tossing it a few minutes later.) Last week, a woman in front of me in line at the bakery saw Daisy, turned around to order, and deposited a chocolate croissant in Daisy's lap on the way out. (I let her eat that one - even though the woman never asked me if it was ok).

These German women don't seem to place much stock in what the Mama thinks - I'm new at this, and they're experienced. I became accustomed to strangers tugging down Daisy's pant legs in the winter, frowning when they touched her cold hands. A woman once went to great lengths to clean Daisy's face that still had remnants of her breakfast smoothie on it (boarding a tram together, reeling while taking a tissue out of her purse; dousing with mineral water from her bottle, spilling on the floor of the train; I was allowed to do the actual wiping of Daisy's face. She took the wet, dirty tissue after I was done, though). Recently, while at the pool with Daisy, a friendly woman offered to watch Daisy while I swam a few laps. Although I'm 100% sure that Daisy wouldn't have minded and that the woman was trustworthy, I still could not bring myself to do such a risky thing. Apparently, the community works like this. It's really "taking the village to raise the child," something that I support in concept, but can't quite participate in. It's obviously not my village yet.

At any rate, I have a feeling that Daisy will remember her toddlerhood in Germany as one big, tasty gingerbread house. And I might remember it as learning to accept candy from strangers.

Lessons from a 2-year-old

I can learn a lot from Daisy.

Characteristic of children everywhere, her language is exploding. This middle-class, 21st century girl knows that "C" is for "computer" and "coffee." A toy is starting to be "mine" instead of "Daisy's." When I ask her to pull the plug in the bathtub, she responds with an off-the-cuff, "Oh yeah, sure, I can pull the plug!"

I've noticed little teleological tags that she adds to nouns. For example, she will note that a ladder is for climbing, smack her lips while explaining that a cup of milk is for drinking, and gesture excitedly to a bird that is, always, for chasing.

I smile at this simple 2-year-old worldview, one in which an object has a single purpose. She will outgrow this. By now, we adults can brainstorm a variety of verbs to attach to birds: watching, feeding, imitating, photographing... If pressed, I'm sure I could list 100 bird-verbs.

But sometimes, I like to silence the Creative Brainstorm-er and try to see my surroundings Daisy's way. Let's see, the piano is for playing (but when is the last time I did that?), the crumbs are for cleaning up (oh, don't remind me), and the bills are for paying. If I saw everything this way, I would be as energetic as a toddler, jumping from task to task as my eye wanders. When I take this mindset a step further, I can decide that tantrums are for patience building, rude service people are for forgiving, and homeless people are for helping.

And voila! I am on my way to sainthood and satisfaction; not by reading "The Purpose-Driven Life," but by copying my daughter. A bird is for chasing, after all.

Time for Ballet

Sometimes I think about enrolling Daisy in a kindergarten, which is actually a state-funded preschool for over-3's. Attending a kindergarten would be the best way for Daisy to learn German. I recently looked into a very nice kindergarten in our neighborhood. I had a tour and was impressed by how orderly the materials were arranged and how many rooms the children rotate between.
However, the hours of kindergarten run from 7:00-2:00 every day. Of course, I could consistently be late and early, but it just does not seem like the ideal scenario. First of all, I don't have a job, and day-care, however educational, is not necessary. What would I do during that time? Grocery shop? Blog!?
Another concern is that, though Daisy would learn German, she would struggle to communicate. For example, Daisy is in an wildly possessive stage right now. Yesterday, another toddler touched her buggy and she screamed in outrage, "No, girl, this is Daisy's!" Fascinatingly, this conviction also applies in reverse. Today, she trailed her friend Berenike all around the park, arms outstretched with B's sand toy, reminding - scolding? - "Here's your toy, this is Berenike's..." It's sad to imagine Daisy in a frantic situation like this without an English-speaking moderator to understand her. But it's tragic to imagine Daisy getting used to it, to having this way of life for a year, to imagine inflicting that kind of knock to her self-esteem. I believe that there are gentler ways to learn a new language.

Something that has always made sense is local parent-child groups. Daisy has me, I have a social setting with other parents, and we both have German in surround-sound. Besides our Thursday Spielgruppe, we've been enjoying a Monday forest group. Fridays we're in Dusseldorf for a British "Mums" group. But we have some open days!

Yesterday, we tried out a new Tuesday group: "Mami und Ich" dancing! I expected Daisy to take a while to warm up to the new situation, like she usually does. We discussed the first class a lot the night before and morning of, just like we did for her recent amazing doctor appointment. We read one of her favorite books, "Time for Ballet." We got there early. She wore her "tutu dress" with pink bows in her hair. We were ready.

Contrary to my very realistic expectations, Daisy ran in like it was home. Smiling, laughing, spinning. It was everything she -and I - ever dreamed it could be. The teacher is efficient and bubbly, the music selections are great, we have great props like tambourines with flowing ribbons, scarves, and magic wands, and there's times for the moms to get a work-out, for instance, by prancing with our little darlings on our backs. During a peaceful flute melody, we all paired off and waved big colorful banners up and down. Apparently, Daisy was swept away by the beauty of it all and joined in with a lovely falsetto coo. I think I felt my eyes welling up. She kept up her cooing for the rest of the class, though, a little to my chagrin. But who has the heart to make a 2-year-old stop singing along with the music while she dances? Not Miss Katrin, nor I.

Success! Next on the docket: swimming, music, or gymnastic classes? I'll keep you posted.

"If You're Happy and You Know It..."

"...Then Your Face Will Surely Show it!"