Coffee from a Cardboard Cup

My great, botox-like forehead kept expanding, and my eyes are a bit puffy today. I look a bit like a Romulan, if you ask me.

I called the doctor to ask if I need to worry about this and was told it is perfectly normal and that the third day usually is the worst with swelling. They could have told me that earlier! I’ve noticed that doctors really don’t like to offer any information in Germany. If you ask, they give you a good answer, but they say it as though it is common wisdom that, for example, my forehead would swell after the surgery.

I am going to put some more ice on my head now…..

Not me, that’s who!! A head wound has some advantages at least until the swelling goes down.

and not quite so sleepy. I ended up staying in the hospital mostly because I was sleepy and a little nauseous sometime around sunset (which is rather late here at the moment). The surgery seems to have gone fine though it is tough to drag details out of my doctor. The Basal cell is gone, and I am left with a huge scar on my head. It is about 10 cm!! The doctor cutely left me a few bangs so I can kind of do a fold-over if I want to try to cover my gaping bald spot.

I learned that hospital food in Germany is just as bad as hospital food in the US. I ate bread with butter and a pretzel for breakfast because everything else on my plate seemed really unappealing. The worst was that they gave me decaf coffee!! I kept drinking the terrible coffee in hopes that it had just a bit of caffeine. It didn’t.

I took a picture of my head this morning, and I haven’t decided whether or not to post it. It is kind of nasty. I’m sure it will look a bit nicer once the stitches come out. If I ever lose my hair, I will have one of the ugliest looking bald heads ever. I have two huge dents and a scar from the car accident when I was four, and not I have a scar on the top running perpendicular to it.

I guess it will be a while before I am working on my headstands again.

In other news, Clair has apparently gone insane because of her new found mobility. She was so wound up when Matthias brought her to see me in the afternoon, and it made me tired just looking at her. She crawls all over the place tying to pull herself up on anything she can reach, including other people’s legs. She worked so hard yesterday that she was sweating and kept going until her legs just gave out from under her. Needless to say, it wasn’t hard for Matthias to get he to bed last night. She slept like a brick.

She is exhausted today and has slept most of the time I have been home. Oma and Opa took her for a ride in her stroller when I got home this morning so I could go sleep more. Now that I am up she is taking a super long nap. I got up around noon and had a great lunch with the in-laws. I love having lunch prepared for me at home!

I have had five surgeries in my life (four of which were to repair my body after car accidents, sadly). After the last one, I decided that it would be really great if I never had to go under general anesthesia ever again. Well, it didn’t quite work out.

Tomorrow, will be number six. It is a ’simple’ procedure, but getting knocked out still bothers me because it makes me feel so helpless. I also hate the feeling of being drugged up. Unless I am administering the drugs, I prefer not to have any! I am fine with pain and recovery (I am quite good at both), but that only comes after the surgery.

Why do I have to got under the knife again? Well, I have to get my scalp repaired after my dermatologist removed a rather larger growth that turned out to be Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC for short). My friend Aparche, who is an awesome dermatologist living in a very sunny place, made a nice analogy describing BCC being like rust on your skin. It kind of stays on the surface, but it needs to be removed before it gets too big (and requires one to get surgery to close the wound properly). Somehow, the analogy makes me feel like an aging boat sitting in the dock.

Another part I don’t like is that I have to stay over night in the hospital. That is the standard procedure when the put you under full anesthesia here. I went home four hours after giving birth, for god’s sake, I should be able to recover from a small head wound at home too! It will give Matthias a nice chance to have an entire day and night with Clair though. His parents are here for backup too, which is really helpful. I also get a night to myself, or at least, a night to spend with some strangers in the same hospital room as me. Given the choice, I’d rather be home. Maybe I can convince the doctor to let me go early.

Anyway, lucky number 6, here I come.

I have been reading a few dad-blogs recently (such as this one), and I have to say I STRONGLY relate to a lot of these dads. Aside from the sports references, I seem to approach child rearing with a similar perspective.

Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. Matthias and I have both noticed the need for a traditional housewife (and now mother, I guess) in our family. I am, apparently, not very good at it; I seem to act more like a stay at home dad according to a few books on research about how heterosexual couples balance chores at home. I get the feeling Matthias may be under the impression that I will somehow transform into the kind of wife who has dinner ready when he gets home from work (or cooks for that matter) and takes care to arrange our social calendar so we are thoughtful of birthdays and special occasions. I do manage to get ‘mom’ points for picking out clothes that match when I dress the baby though - something Matthias, and apparently a lot of dads seem to struggle with.

Given that Matthias has been married to ME all these years, I can’t see where he gets the idea that there is a June Cleaver just waiting to come out of me. Though, bless his heart, it would make things a lot easier for him. Can you imagine having someone to clean your house, do your laundry and shopping, and who has dinner ready and wanting for you, and ALSO cleans up after dinner without bitching about it? Dude, I want that! As I see it, when I start working outside of the house again, I will have a better excuse for not doing a hugely disproportionate amount of housework. At the moment, my excuse is that I hate housework as much as he does, but I still do more than he does because I have a little more free time (I try to be fair about it). When he is overwhelmed at work, I pick up the slack a bit and try to act all ‘wifely’, but it is not our standard arrangement. Clair is the reason I have for not having even more free time (which I would probably still not use to take care of our home), since I see that as my job at the moment. Since she is already starting to become mobile I suspect my free time is going to be decreased even further, it being sucked up by having to keep her from killing herself as she explores the world.

Maybe I make a better husband and father than wife and mother - that’s not a bad thing to be.

PS - case and point, while writing this post, I got distracted and burnt my lunch. This is why I don’t do the cooking around here people!

We had a fun weekend catching up with some old friends. Adrian and Maria, friends from Argentina (via Irvine), were in Munich for a few days with their kids. Denis, from France (also via Irvine), came down and stayed with his cousin in Munich. Christian and Debora, Christian being Denis’ former roommate in Irvine, live in Munich. So Matthias and I hopped on a train and headed down to meet them on Saturday.

I was actually down there Thursday as well to spend some time with Maria and the kids while Adrian worked with some collaborators at the University. Both days were tiring but fun!

It was Clair’s first train ride, and she seemed to enjoy. She seems to enjoy most things, and that’s something we love about her! It was quite warm on Thursday and I carried her in the Ergobaby, so we were sweaty, and my legs were really tired by the end of the day. Clair gave herself a chapped upper lip by constantly licking the sweat off! The carrier had it’s advantages. I didn’t have to worry about maneuvering a stroller through the tight sidewalks and U-bahns in Munich. It was crowded, especially on Saturday, so I liked the compactness of the carrier. Plus, I have to say I got a really good workout carrying that extra 8 Kgs!

Saturday was great. Matthias, Clair and I headed to the hotel and met Denis there along with Adrian and Maria. We talked non-stop most of the time. We helped them get their luggage to the train station as they caught a night train to Italy on Saturday night. We didn’t do much site seeing, which was fine with us. We ate, as we usually do with our friends. We actually at at an Argentinian restaurant near the Rindmarkt. It was definitely pricey, but it was to be expected in that area. It had the advantage of being big enough for two tired toddlers to have some space to move a bit.

After lunch, Christian and Debora came by and we headed toward the Deutsches Museum (the German version of the Smithsonian Air and Space museum in DC). We said goodbye the Adrian, Maria and the kids at a little coffee shop when they headed to the museum . The rest of us chilled out and chatted over coffee for a little while longer.

Our friend Denis is a funny, interesting guy, and he seems to have cousins all over the world. Every time we mention going somewhere, he always says “Oh, I have a cousin there!” One of his useful cousins has a chalet in Austria, so we may be trying to plan a ski vacation with Denis, Christian and Debora this winter! One thing to know about Denis is that he never exercises, but seems to be in better shape than anyone else I have ever met. When he hiked up Mt. Whitney in 2001 with a bunch of friends, he also carried a bag of oranges to the top to hand out to the others (who felt like they were dying from the assent). Needless to say, he is a good person to have around on hikes. It must be in his blood - those Frenchmen! He also brings really good cheeses, chocolate and wine most places he goes and is happy to share with everyone./p>

Until now, Matthias and I haven’t had to buy any clothes for Clair. We had a bunch of things given or donated to us from friends and family. We have hit a bit of a gap in her selection of clothes though. We have a lot of 6-9 month clothes and also some 18-24 month clothes, but we need something to take us between the two size ranges.

She has been wearing her short pants for a while now, and they just slowly get shorter and shorter. Matthias keeps her legs out of the sun by pulling her socks up :-). She is also exploding out of most of her onsies and Pajamas. So, I finally have the chance to get her a few things.

Until now, I have only gotten her a few things on a whim because they were cute. Since most of this shopping was just at random, I don’t really have a good resource for affordable baby clothes in Regensburg (or online, of course). Any moms out there have advice on good kids clothes? I may hit the second hand shop first to see if we can find some fun clothes, but I will probably get a few basics new.

Since I know they can’t get enough

My brother sent me an e-card this morning with this song. I LOVE it! I wish I could embed it, but you have to go to the Hallmark sight if you want to hear it. Very cute - Thanks Marky!