And Lulu wasn't the only one to enjoy her dessert!
And here's the video!
Apologies on the video quality--it was really bright sunlight and the video didn't turn out as well as I had hoped!
10 June 2012
Lulu at Lunch
Lulu loved her sour cherry Windbeutel that she shared with Daddy at lunch yesterday!
And Lulu wasn't the only one to enjoy her dessert!
And here's the video!
Apologies on the video quality--it was really bright sunlight and the video didn't turn out as well as I had hoped!
And Lulu wasn't the only one to enjoy her dessert!
And here's the video!
Apologies on the video quality--it was really bright sunlight and the video didn't turn out as well as I had hoped!
07 June 2012
Spaziergang im Wald
Lulu joined Oma and Opa for a walk through the woods (Wald) yesterday afternoon. The weather wasn't cooperating very well--it was a light drizzle for most of the afternoon. And someone refused to take a nap before Oma and Opa arrived and then promptly fell asleep in the car on the way there. So, we let her sleep for about 30 minutes before she reluctantly woke herself up and then was cranky. Very cranky.
Our walk ended up being a big loop back around to the car, but rather than getting in, we crossed the road and walked a little bit up another trail on the other side. That trail led to a playground in the middle of the forest (??!) and Lulu had some fun on the swing and thought the slide was going to be fun until she discovered it was wet from the rain.
It's all over the place here in Germany. Lulu had a brief encounter with it at the Zoo in Nürnberg and now knows not to touch the "ouchy plant."
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| at least we got to look at these beauties while we waited in the car |
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| someone was dragged, kicking and screaming, at the beginning of her walk |
After about 3 minutes and a long hug from Mom, Lulu calmed down enough that she really enjoyed the walk through the woods. And it was a beautiful walk--there were sandstone cliffs and bridges and large, leafy trees. Once we got underneath the forest canopy, we didn't even notice the drizzle because the canopy was so thick.
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| I feel like I should be reciting Robert Frost's poetry right about now.... |
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| She was actually yelling, "Don't take my picture!" but I snapped it anyway |
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| making sure Mom was keeping up |
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| sandstone cliffs and a bridge |
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| No matter where you are, you're never that far away from civilization in Germany |
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| Opa checking out the swing (check out the oak tree in the background) |
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| Lulu testing out the swing herself |
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| unhappy with wet slides! |
Next to the playground was a huge, old oak tree. And I mean, really, really BIG!
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| The Schnittlinger Eiche (named after the town nearby, Schnittling) |
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| about 450 years old trunk circumference 20 feet Height 101 feet Kronenumfang - ?? (I think branch distribution?) 370 feet |
And while this is not the greatest picture, those of you who have spent summers playing by the creek in Taos will recognize this plant:
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| Hello, my old friend, stinging nettle! |
06 June 2012
05 June 2012
Playtime
Pretty much any time is an opportunity to play in Lulu's eyes. I thought the grandparents back home might enjoy seeing someone playing with her "family" of shampoo bottles. The big one is Mommy and the little ones are Babies.
04 June 2012
Kinderarzt
One of the not-so-highlights of Lulu's trip to Germany has been the recurrence of her urinary tract infection from earlier in May. When the symptoms first showed up the day after we landed, they were intermittent and I was hopeful that it was just some general travel-related crankiness. But as the weekend progressed, her symptoms got worse and worse and definitely NOT intermittent.
To complicate matters, our first weekend also coincided with Pfingsten, a major German holiday. (Pfingsten is Pentecost and Germany takes the Monday after off as an official state holiday) So, the earliest I could call to get a doctor's appointment for her was on Tuesday, a full four days after the first onset of her symptoms. I called that morning and was able to get her an appointment for that afternoon at a pediatrician in Roth, the next largest town to where we are staying in Abenberg.
The pediatrician's office was like what you would expect--there was a nice waiting room with plenty of toys for the children to play with:
The pediatrician had her give a urine sample to culture and gave me a prescription for chamomile concentrate to put in her sitzbaths (2x daily) and some special cream to put on once she was nice and dry after her baths. She did a quick ultrasound of her kidneys and bladder and said that everything appeared to be fine with them at least. She also wanted us to come back in two days to see if Lulu was any better.
Um, yeah. I was NOT happy with that news because I knew she had a UTI and needed antibiotics, stat.
And in the meantime, Lulu's symptoms got worse. There were multiple episodes of her wetting her pants, the floor, and me due to her reluctance to go to the bathroom because it hurt or her inability to control going to the bathroom. Yeah, not fun. At all.
So, I was very relieved to go back on Thursday afternoon and have my diagnosis confirmed when the pediatrician said, "Her urine is very bad." So, we finally got the antibiotics that she needed, a week after her infection came back. Lulu is to take her antibiotics three times a day for 7 days and then come back in 3 days after that to give another urine sample to see if her infection is truly gone.
This coincides with our departure for Italy, so I guess we will be checking out of our ferienwohnung, going into Roth to the pediatrician's office and then (hopefully!) getting on the road to Florence.
In the meantime, Lulu is getting her antibiotics religiously, three times a day, and eating plenty of yogurt in an attempt to keep her digestive system from getting completely out of whack. Walter looked up the antibiotics she was prescribed on the NIH's website and they appear to be effective for battling UTIs.
So, please keep your fingers crossed, everyone!
To complicate matters, our first weekend also coincided with Pfingsten, a major German holiday. (Pfingsten is Pentecost and Germany takes the Monday after off as an official state holiday) So, the earliest I could call to get a doctor's appointment for her was on Tuesday, a full four days after the first onset of her symptoms. I called that morning and was able to get her an appointment for that afternoon at a pediatrician in Roth, the next largest town to where we are staying in Abenberg.
The pediatrician's office was like what you would expect--there was a nice waiting room with plenty of toys for the children to play with:
The pediatrician had her give a urine sample to culture and gave me a prescription for chamomile concentrate to put in her sitzbaths (2x daily) and some special cream to put on once she was nice and dry after her baths. She did a quick ultrasound of her kidneys and bladder and said that everything appeared to be fine with them at least. She also wanted us to come back in two days to see if Lulu was any better.
Um, yeah. I was NOT happy with that news because I knew she had a UTI and needed antibiotics, stat.
And in the meantime, Lulu's symptoms got worse. There were multiple episodes of her wetting her pants, the floor, and me due to her reluctance to go to the bathroom because it hurt or her inability to control going to the bathroom. Yeah, not fun. At all.
So, I was very relieved to go back on Thursday afternoon and have my diagnosis confirmed when the pediatrician said, "Her urine is very bad." So, we finally got the antibiotics that she needed, a week after her infection came back. Lulu is to take her antibiotics three times a day for 7 days and then come back in 3 days after that to give another urine sample to see if her infection is truly gone.
This coincides with our departure for Italy, so I guess we will be checking out of our ferienwohnung, going into Roth to the pediatrician's office and then (hopefully!) getting on the road to Florence.
In the meantime, Lulu is getting her antibiotics religiously, three times a day, and eating plenty of yogurt in an attempt to keep her digestive system from getting completely out of whack. Walter looked up the antibiotics she was prescribed on the NIH's website and they appear to be effective for battling UTIs.
So, please keep your fingers crossed, everyone!
03 June 2012
Lulu in Nürnberg (so far)
I've been posting more travel-oriented posts over at my other blog, so this is just a Lulu-centric post to catch everyone up on our trip thus far:
Lulu had a good flight across the Atlantic--if you call not sleeping AT ALL a good flight? But, she was entertained by the in-flight videos and didn't make a lot of noise to disturb the other passengers (who were sleeping). I blame her lack of sleep on the German woman behind us who chose to read with her light on for most of the flight, so it never got truly dark enough for Lulu to fall asleep.
In spite of the sleep issue, she was a good sport for the rest of our journey as I navigated us through German customs and the Frankfurt Air/Rail Terminal to our high-speed train to Nürnberg.
It's taken a while for her to fall into a regular routine here in Germany. The first several nights were NOT fun, I will confess. She woke up around 3-4am and wanted to play...and this was after a rough night of sleeping with a toddler (getting kicked in the face by her feet, pushed off the bed, etc). Mornings are generally not too bad--she sleeps until around 8am and then gets up and wants to watch cartoons. (The ferienwohnung/apt we rented has cable, so she gets three different channels of children's programming).
The naptime issue has been a difficult one though. She definitely still needs a nap, but travel schedules are NOT nap-friendly. It's hard to take a 1-2 hour break in the middle of the day to let her sleep. It means either not getting going until early afternoon (i.e., wasting the morning) or trying to ride out her cranky behavior for the rest of the afternoon if I want to get an early start to the day. Neither option is a great one. It's for this reason that I insisted to Walter that he had to bring the hiking backpack thingie with him when he comes. She likes to ride in it (and more importantly, she likes to sleep in it!), and having him carry her in it will allow us to have a better touristy schedule.
The hard part about taking a small child to Europe in the summer is the evenings--it doesn't really get dark here until close to 10pm. Luckily, our ferienwohnung has "rollers" otherwise known as metal hurricane shutters to those of you in the US. They are like metal Roman shades that pull down on the outside of the window and make the room *completely* dark. Almost every German house has them. Needless to say, these have made my life much easier!
Some of the highlights of Lulu's trip so far have been...
She has also enjoyed a couple of playdates....
Lulu had a good flight across the Atlantic--if you call not sleeping AT ALL a good flight? But, she was entertained by the in-flight videos and didn't make a lot of noise to disturb the other passengers (who were sleeping). I blame her lack of sleep on the German woman behind us who chose to read with her light on for most of the flight, so it never got truly dark enough for Lulu to fall asleep.
In spite of the sleep issue, she was a good sport for the rest of our journey as I navigated us through German customs and the Frankfurt Air/Rail Terminal to our high-speed train to Nürnberg.
It's taken a while for her to fall into a regular routine here in Germany. The first several nights were NOT fun, I will confess. She woke up around 3-4am and wanted to play...and this was after a rough night of sleeping with a toddler (getting kicked in the face by her feet, pushed off the bed, etc). Mornings are generally not too bad--she sleeps until around 8am and then gets up and wants to watch cartoons. (The ferienwohnung/apt we rented has cable, so she gets three different channels of children's programming).
The naptime issue has been a difficult one though. She definitely still needs a nap, but travel schedules are NOT nap-friendly. It's hard to take a 1-2 hour break in the middle of the day to let her sleep. It means either not getting going until early afternoon (i.e., wasting the morning) or trying to ride out her cranky behavior for the rest of the afternoon if I want to get an early start to the day. Neither option is a great one. It's for this reason that I insisted to Walter that he had to bring the hiking backpack thingie with him when he comes. She likes to ride in it (and more importantly, she likes to sleep in it!), and having him carry her in it will allow us to have a better touristy schedule.
The hard part about taking a small child to Europe in the summer is the evenings--it doesn't really get dark here until close to 10pm. Luckily, our ferienwohnung has "rollers" otherwise known as metal hurricane shutters to those of you in the US. They are like metal Roman shades that pull down on the outside of the window and make the room *completely* dark. Almost every German house has them. Needless to say, these have made my life much easier!
Some of the highlights of Lulu's trip so far have been...
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| enjoying the dolphin and seal show at the Nürnberg Zoo |
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| riding the Alien spaceship coin ride (also at the Zoo) |
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| meeting new friends at the petting zoo section of the Zoo |
She has also enjoyed a couple of playdates....
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| Fabian and Julian belong to the family who owns the ferienwohnung where we're staying |
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| the boys played a bit rough, but she held her own |
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| Lego Duplos with Opa |
And she has enjoyed treats that she doesn't normally get at home....
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| like eating *real* Nürnberger lebkuchen |
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| don't those look delicious?? |
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| and getting to eat dinner in front of the TV as she watches German cartoons with Mama... |
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