Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Going swimmingly

We weren't planning to break the bank on this trip, but since the hotel in Arosa came highly recommended by at least a couple of friends--and since Gretchen is worth every penny--we broke the bank anyway. There were a lot of reasons it was worth it (service, location, atmosphere) and some that it wasn't (food only so-so), but possibly the best thing about the hotel was...the swimming pool. If we hadn't have wanted to get out and enjoy the snow and sun, we could have easily spent the entire day at the pool soaking in the relaxation, the beautiful mountain views and the free tea and coffee...



Best invention ever?

One of the downsides of Baby refusing to take a bottle, or even to be on a very predictable feeding schedule, is that we aren't able to go out without her despite many offers from friends to give us a short break. (When Baby needs the boob...well, there's pretty much just one person who can help with that.) As a result, we've gone seven months without going on a date...luckily we're able to enjoy talking over dinner after she goes to bed at night, but one of our great pleasures in life has always been going out for a nice dinner, and that's one of those things that went by the wayside when parenthood came along.

So, all hail the baby phone! As an alternative to bringing our wireless baby monitor with us (which wouldn't work very well in the hotel anyway), the hotel had a system where you keep an open line between the phone in your room and the front desk, and if they hear any crying they come and get you. We had friends who had raved about it, and despite our initial trepidation it was great. We still can't believe we had three consecutive dinners without having to soothe a crying or restless Baby, pick up toys from the floor every 30 seconds, etc. And despite Baby being difficult every night, to her credit she always saved her difficulties for after we got back upstairs from dinner. Viva la baby phone!

Like night and day

So, we're back from Arosa and it was truly several days of highs and lows. It started well with a beautiful 4-hour train ride and Baby in high spirits.



We arrived in Arosa to find ample sun and snow, and were pleased to find that we had a beautiful view from our balcony.



It was shaping up to be a wonderful few days, and to top it all off we were able to enjoy our first date without Baby since her arrival last June (more on that later). But then the first night, Baby woke up crying hysterically. And kept waking up. All night long. If we were at home we might let her cry it out, but in a hotel it seemed rude to the other guests, so we did whatever we could to quiet her--constant breastfeeding (boy, are my nipples sore), letting her sleep in our bed, you name it...by the next morning, we felt like we did in the first weeks after her birth. We figured it had to be the altitude and that she'd soon have it out of her system. (I grew up going to the mountains and never noticed the altitude, but in the past 5 years or so I've started to have a sleepless night when I first get to the mountains, so maybe it's the same for her?)

So the next day we were too wrecked to do very much, but we did get out for a walk down to the village and it was as beautiful as the previous day.



We expected a much better second night, so when we found ourselves watching television with a wide-awake giggling Baby at 1:00am (thank God for live classical music on the Swiss Italian TV station) and fighting hysterics the rest of the night, well, let's just say that wasn't exactly what we had in mind for a relaxing getaway. By the next day, she was once again in a good mood but we were at our wits' end. We had one more full day left, but at that point it was almost a foregone conclusion that we should cut our trip short and return home to try and restore a sense of normalcy. Maybe it was the sun outside our window, or perhaps it was the long nap all three of us took that morning, but we decided we would stick it out and try to have a good last day instead of returning home with our tails between our legs.

In the end, staying was the best thing we could have done. At the recommendation of the concierge, we took a bus up to a restaurant with a gorgeous sunny terrace, then took a leisurely walk back to, and through, the village.



To top it all off, we had an excellent birthday dinner at a Thai restaurant in the hotel (we were fully prepared to be disappointed by Thai food in a small town in the Swiss Alps, but it was actually really good and had just the right slow-burn-that-stays-with-you-but-doesn't-quite-leave-you-short-of-breath level of spiciness), and the hotel gave Gretchen a very tasty birthday cake. And while Baby still got up every hour that night, she at least wasn't as hysterical as the nights before.

So, the bottom line? Despite not being able to ski and feeling like we'd been over by a snowcat (or as they call, them here, Pistenbully) for most of our visit, we're now big fans of Arosa and are especially glad we didn't leave early, even if Baby will make us pay the price for the next few days...

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

By coincidence, Baby happened to get an outfit from a friend that was identical to the one she wore on the day she came home from the hospital. It was really striking to look back and see how much she's grown since then...

Birthday girl

Since Tuesday is Gretchen's birthday--I'll do the gentlemanly thing and not say how old young she'll be--I decided that her present would be a trip up to the mountains (how convenient for me!). So tomorrow morning we leave for a few days in Arosa, a little town in Eastern Switzerland. I'm excited to see a new part of Switzerland (Gretchen at least went to nearby Davos a few years ago, whereas I've never been to the Graubünden), and Gretchen is excited that our hotel evidently has a beautiful pool. We're not sure to what extent we will or won't be able to ski with Baby, but it almost doesn't matter--just relaxing in the mountains is good enough. Hopefully our camera will actually work this time...

Friday, January 26, 2007

A fun evening

All's well that ends well, but this is how I spent my Wednesday PM:

3:30pm - Board plane in Valencia
3:40pm - Scheduled departure for Munich
3:45pm - Pilot announces at least 45-minute delay due to snow in Munich
4:45pm - Depart Valencia
6:00pm - Scheduled arrival in Munich (instead flying over France or Italy)
7:00pm - Land in snowy/windy Munich
7:15pm - Bus from plane arrives at terminal, which resembles the fall of Saigon with all the cancelled and delayed flights
7:40pm - Scheduled departure for flight to Basel, which amazingly is listed as being on-time
7:50pm - Board tiny propeller plane in Munich
8:00pm - Pilot announces delay of at least 2 hours (!) due to snow, with no option of returning to the terminal
8:30pm - Flight attendants serve food and drinks to soothe the angry masses
10:00pm - Pilot announces delay of at least 45 more minutes
10:50pm - Plane moves--are we taking off?
10:55pm - Plane stops--gotta get de-iced first
11:00pm - Takeoff--yeah!!
12:15am - Arrive in snowy Basel
12:25am - No taxis available. It's cold and snowing, and I'm dressed for Spain, not Switzerland.
12:30am - Taxi finally arrives just as hypothermia begins to set in
12:50am - Arrive home

Overall I was actually lucky--I really wondered if I would even get out of Valencia, let alone make it home (my money was on having to spend the night in Munich). As much as I like that I get to see new and interesting places on trips from time to time, rest assured that there is a dark underbelly to business travel...

Guess who's seven months old?


And getting cuter every day...

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

It's snowing!




First of all, I hate this new blogger format. I don't know exactly what the changes are, but I know we have a new way of blogging and I haven't had Kirk explain it to me yet (he's the boss when it comes to all things blog-related). So... I can't figure out how to move these pictures within the post. Oh well, here's the text anyway. Hopefully you can figure out how I wanted it to be formatted.

This is what I woke up to this morning, and now, several hours later, it's still snowing! How ironic that the first snow of the season arrived on a day when Kirk is out of town, which means that I had the pleasure of bundling up Baby first thing this morning in order to talk Grady for a walk. Not that she seemed to mind. In fact, she was sort giggling. As usual, Grady was thrilled to see the snow. Most of all he likes to stop and eat it. Yum... tasty snow. I love snow, and I have to admit that it's absolutely beautiful today. But I've realized that navigating through the snow with a baby is not easy! This morning I opted for the Baby Bjorn, hoping I wouldn't lose my balance and slip on the snow (your center of gravity is a bit off when lugging 18+ pounds of baby on your front). Later in the day, we tested out the stroller's "snow tires" when we ventured out with a friend to our favorite neighborhood cafe for lunch. Note to self: this stroller does NOT do well in snow! Please take note of my giant Michelin Man jacket. It's the best for snow and cold. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Kirk makes it home from Spain tonight as scheduled. He's connecting through Munich, which has also gotten a lot of snow, and I know there have been problems at the Basel airport today as well.


Sunday, January 21, 2007

Adios

After a nice little lull in travel, I'm off tomorrow for a few days of meetings in Valencia, Spain. As much as I love Spain, I probably won't have time to explore, and I'll of course miss my girls, so I'll be looking forward to getting back soon.

Shameless hucksters

We're now officially big fans of Waterstone's books in London and feel inclined to put in a good word for them. Why, you might ask? Well, back in November when we were in London, we stopped into a Waterstone's on Oxford Street and bought a bunch of books. We threw the bag in our suitcase and were dismayed when we got back to Basel to see that the cashier had not put a few books we had bought from the Roger Hargreaves' Mr Men and Little Miss series. The books only cost about 2 pounds (about $4) each so it wasn't the end of the world, but we nevertheless sent a letter to the store explaining the situation and asking that they either send the books to us or refund the cost, not really expecting to ever hear back from them. Imagine our surprise, then, when last week we got an envelope in the mail containing "Little Miss Stubborn" and "Little Miss Curious" (for Baby) and "Mr Happy" (gift for a friend). It would have been the easiest thing in the world for them to either blame us for not checking the bag before leaving London or ignore our letter entirely, so we were really impressed that they actually took the time to rectify their initial mistake. Needless to say, next time we're in London we'll be sure to give our book-buying business to Waterstone's...

Don't go changing

By the way, we just switched to the new-and-supposedly-improved Blogger, so things may look a little strange while we figure it out...

Boooooorrrrrrrriiiiiinnnnnggggg

We (obviously) haven't been blogging much lately. I wish I could say it's because we've been much too busy for such mundane things as blogging, but well...that would be a lie. We have been thinking lots of Big Thoughts lately, but nothing worth blogging about (yet). Otherwise, there's only so much you can say about a daily routine that revolves around either work (me) or Baby's naps, feedings and bowel movements (Gretchen). I suppose we could have written about last weekend's expat blogger get-together in Basel, but since others beat us to the punch, and since Baby's nap schedule made us the first to leave, there really wasn't much to add (except to say that it couldn't have been a nicer group). And I suppose I could write about how I'm completely sucked into the first season of Arrested Development, which is hysterical. But at the end of the day, we're just not very interesting at the moment.

Geez, I'm putting myself to sleep just writing this...

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

All grown up

Remember Baby's first date? This was back when Baby was only 7 weeks old.



Here they are again, same two babies, but this time she's 6.5 months old! Now they can play together. Or at least next to each other. I noticed yesterday, while she was "playing" with a couple of her friends, that Baby tends to be a bit greedy with all the toys. Oh boy, just what I needed... more proof that she's her mother's daughter.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

The taxman cometh

Just for the record, no one has ever offered us a sweet tax deal like this...was it something we did? Actually, now I understand why they play so much Phil Collins on the radio here--I'll bet as part of his tax deal that he agreed not to make any Swiss radio stations pay him royalties. (Although that doesn't explain all the Bryan Adams...I swear, between the music on the radio and the teen style sometimes you'd think it's eternally 1983 here.)

How life changes, part 273

A typical mid-day email exchange a year or so ago might involve where we should take our next trip, whether or not we should make dinner reservations for the weekend, etc. By contrast, yesterday in the space of about 10 minutes Gretchen emailed me to tell me about a poop (by Baby, not Gretchen) that was of such epic proportions that she (again Baby, not Gretchen) had to immediately go into the bathtub, while I emailed Gretchen to reassure her that I successfully returned the breast pump to the pharmacy without any problems. Try not to be too jealous...

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Just some stuff

Boy, that sure is an enticing title for a blog post, don't you think? As you may have noticed, I haven't been doing much blogging lately. Just hasn't been a high priority, and to be honest, I just don't enjoy it that much anymore. I often think of things I want to say, but then when it comes time to actually get on the computer and pull up Blogger, I usually find something else more interesting to do with the few minutes I have while Baby is sleeping. Thankfully, Kirk still seems to enjoy blogging, so at least we're keeping Expatter alive!

So here are a few random things that I have to say about life these days.

1) There are few things in life that I hate more than getting shots. But now I have found one of those things: watching my daughter get shots! She had had 6 month check-up last week, which means she had to get two shots. After the doctor finished the exam, the two nurses/receptionists who work in the office came in together. I held Baby's hands while she laid on the exam table, the "nice" ladies flashed a toy in front of her face to distract her, and then... OUCH! Two shots at the same time, one in each leg! Then lots of screams, then the "nice" ladies leave, then I feel very bad for my crying baby.

2) We learned at her check-up that she now weighs about 18 pounds. She's a big girl. I know this already because my back is breaking every time I try carrying her in the Baby Bjorn. But I don't want to give up the Baby Bjorn, because she loves it and it's a great way to walk Grady and Baby at the same time. I dread the day I have to pack it away.

3) I'm TOTALLY addicted to Grey's Anatomy! Grandma Caril (Kirk's Mom) brought me the season 1 DVD during her last visit, and now I've borrowed season 2 from a friend here in Basel. LOVE IT. It's like my little escape from baby world every evening. Kirk just laughs, because I can hardly wait to turn it on after dinner, but seriously, it's a great show!

4) I think Switzerland is finally starting to recognize the value of convenience. You can now do your grocery shopping online. I've ordered a couple times from Migros "Le Shop", and it's great. I don't buy produce or meat or really any food items through them, but I've used it to buy all the big stuff like bottled water, laundry detergent, diapers, etc. All the kinds of things that don't easily fit in the bottom of the baby stroller. An added bonus: Migros sells beer and wine through their online shop even though they don't sell it in their stores. Very interesting.

5) Baby has a new talent. She can now successfully put her toes in her mouth from two different positions: while lying on her back (pulling toes toward mouth), and while sitting up (bending over in order to place mouth on feet). I'm such a proud Mom. Isn't it amazing how flexible babies are?

6) Thankfully, introducing Baby to solids has gone far better than introducing a bottle. Well, I should clarify. Introducing mushy pears has gone well. She's not really digging carrots or sweet potatoes. I'll keep trying. As for the bottle, we're taking a break. I have a few new sippy cups and I think I'll work on those instead. Sometimes I fear I may be nursing this baby until she's in kindergarten.

7) Continuing on the subject of solid foods for Baby... Kirk mentioned his pear dance. Every time I try feeding her I find myself making up really silly songs like "Swiss pears taste so good" and then I sing the same thing in German (or what I think might be the German translation). Then I think about that Seinfeld episode in which Elaine had to spoon-feed her old man boyfriend who had a stroke and could no longer talk or feed himself. She sang to him something like this: "Yankee bean, yankee bean, I like my yankee beans". Do you remember it?

8) Why do all Swiss people ask me if Baby is a girl or a boy even when she's dressed totally in pink? I understand that it's often hard to tell babies apart, but when they're wearing only pink?! I can't tell you how often I hear this question: "Ein Mädeli?" (the Swiss word for little girl). Even more fun is when they ask if she's a boy, which in Swiss German is "Bub". Yes, that's right, it's pronounced "boob". The other day an electrician was working in our apartment and, after seeing our precious baby, he told me that he has a 9-month old Bub at home. So sorry.

9) They are now showing "Deal or No Deal" on German TV. I have never seen this show in the US, but I've heard about it and know that it's been a huge success. Let me tell you that it is a really stupid show. But I'll admit to you that I get totally sucked in every time it's on! This is not in English, mind you, but German. I think it's the same concept as at home, and even includes the same music and graphics, etc. But the host is German, the contestants are German, the ladies with the suitcases are German, and the Banker is German. Despite all of this, the host still says "Deal or no deal?" to the contestants after the banker makes an offer. His accent is really funny and I laugh every time.

That's all for now. I'm off to take Baby to the zoo.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Randomness

Not much time for blogging these days, but three completely random lunchtime thoughts:

(1) In addition to my mid-life acne crisis, today I have a very twitchy eyeball.

(2) Oh, how life changes. THEN: looking at the blog from this time last year, we were traveling to Rome, Paris, Madrid, Wengen and Amsterdam, and just generally trying to maximise our pre-baby lives. NOW: Fast forward to last night, when I found myself doing a "pear dance" and generally acting like a giddy high-school cheerleader to try to get Baby to eat her pureed pears (which she did, by the way).

(3) One of the things that sometimes gets on our nerves is how cranky people are here. It's especially noticeable on the trams, where you get on and look around and everyone is either staring blankly at you or scowling. I'm hardly the stereotypical chipper American, but even I sometimes just want to say to everyone "would it kill you to smile just a little bit?" after absorbing the negative energy on the trams. Well evidently we're not alone--Gretchen came across an article the other day announcing that the local tram company is embarking on a campaign to try to get people to smile more on the trams. It's one thing to ask people to keep the trams clean (which they do)--asking them to smile may just be a step too far. But Godspeed, I say...

Monday, January 08, 2007

Zizou

Do you ever get one of those pre-zits? You know, where you don't have a full-blown pimple (yet), but instead you have kind of a vague reddish bump that really hurts when you touch it so you know it's likely to become a monster zit? Well, I've got one of those now--right in the middle of my forehead. Call me Cyclops.

Now, a quick digression. One of our many nicknames for Baby is "Zizou". (Pop culture reference: Zizou is the popular nickname for world-famous French footballer Zinedine Zidane). See, Baby was born during the World Cup, around the time of Zidane's infamous head-butt of an obnoxious Italian footballer. Anyway, the reason we call her Zizou isn't because of her football skills (which we're certain exist but remain untapped while she tries to first figure out how to roll over), but rather because she has a tendency to head-butt whomever is carrying her.

Maybe you can guess where I'm going with this. Tonight when I got home from work I was holding Baby before bedtime, and sure enough she gave me a head-butt...directly onto my painful Cyclops forehead pre-zit. Pain immediately radiated around the entire top of my head, but it's not like I could get mad at her for it or anything. Meanwhile, by tomorrow I expect this thing that is slowly emerging on my forehead will begin to frighten small children and old ladies...

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Grady goes AWOL

Last night we lost our dog.

Gretchen was cooking dinner and commented that Grady must be really tired because he wasn't in the kitchen and usually he wants to be wherever the food is. So I went to check his dog bed and the guest bed (the two places he spends 98% of his time when not trying to beg for food), but he was nowhere to be found. We started freaking out because he's not the type to disappear, and our place isn't especially easy for him to escape. After some panicked running around, Gretchen finally found him downstairs--which you have to leave our apartment to reach--in our laundry room with the door closed, happily devouring a bag of dog food he had torn into. Another bag of dog food that I had emptied earlier and left in the laundry room was in the bathroom on the other side of the basement.

Perplexed, we tried to reconstruct the scene of the crime. About a half-hour earlier I had gone upstairs for no more than 30 seconds to leave a note for our landlords, but since I left the front door open Grady seems to have used that tiny window of opportunity to escape. We figure he got downstairs, came across the empty bag of dog food (which was probably what he smelled that compelled him to go downstairs in the first place), and most likely put his head into it, whereupon the bag got stuck on his head and he wandered blindly around the basement until he was able to get it off his head in the bathroom. (We have no evidence to support this, but having seen him get his head stuck in numerous bags in the house--always a treat to watch, by the way--it's the best we can come up with.) From there, he probably found the other bag of food in the laundry room. It's quite a sturdy sealed plastic bag, so he had to do some serious chewing to try to get into it, and our guess is that while working at it his tail swung the door closed. Luckily we think we got to him before he ate too much (Gretchen once had a co-worker whose black lab got into a food bag and ate at least 15 pounds of food and had to have emergency surgery). Not that the resulting diarrhea, indigestion and anxiety (for him, I mean) is very fun, but at least he should be back to normal soon and we're just happy we wasn't genuinely lost. Hopefully from now on he'll concentrate his energies instead on waiting for Baby to start dropping food on the floor...

Her mother's girl

Of all the things we miss about home, very high on Gretchen's list would be Diet Coke. It turns out it tastes slightly different in each country and she doesn't especially like the version here, but since she's addicted accustomed to her daily dose, she still buys it. As it turns out, Baby may have an affinity for it as well...

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

On the clock

Well, it's official--we're going home sometime around the end of March.

Not that it's a surprise; after all, I've known all along that my contract was expiring this spring and that my employer back home was expecting (even if not eagerly anticipating) my return. But since I went through the formality of submitting my resignation today, it's all starting to feel more real. Or unreal. Or surreal. All of the above.

Making it even more complicated is that there was actually a possibility we could have stayed. A really good job opportunity happened to arise recently, and unbeknownst to friends both here and back home (until now, that is), I decided to throw my hat in the ring but didn't want to make a big deal of it. It's not that we were looking to stay--as a matter of fact, we were doing a lot of soul-searching about whether I would even take the job if it were offered because we didn't know if we would want to raise Baby so far from family and friends--but it was at least something we had to consider. To make a long story short and put a positive spin on it, we were spared having to make what would have been an incredibly tough and emotional decision. (In other words, I didn't get the job.) But as long as it was even a long-shot possibility, it was hard to focus our minds on getting ready to return.

So now we know that we're going back, and in most ways we're really excited about that. In particular, we have friends and family who we haven't seen in several years and who haven't yet met Baby (and in some cases they have babies of their own who we haven't met). For that matter, I expect we'll both have lots more to say about other things we're looking forward to upon our return. But I also expect that we're going to experience the full gamut of emotions over the next few months as we prepare to leave our expat lives behind and mourn some of the things we'll miss about life here. So I wouldn't be surprised if the blog becomes a bit manic-depressive during our remaining months as we swing between the excitement of going home, the stress of planning our move, and the sadness of leaving.

Monday, January 01, 2007

I heart vacation

While spending a few days in Venice over Christmas was a real treat, it was equally nice to have a few days of down time at home after getting back. Despite all of us having colds over the long weekend, we still managed to squeeze in a nice lunch with The Big Finn and Mrs TBF, neither of whom we had seen in ages...



...Gretchen got a haircut, which Baby got to watch...



...Baby tried solid food (mashed carrots) for the first time, about which she seemed to have mixed feelings...



...and we got together for brunch with friends Jeff and Marlis...



...wait a second, did I say I had a few days of down time? Forget that--I'm exhausted! It must be time to get back to work tomorrow.