On every 5th of the month, Frau Brüllen asks “What are you actually doing the whole day?”. So here you go – a meticulous insight into one half of our weekend:

5:30am – the little one pipes up…since it is my turn to take the early shift, I try to ignore her and hope that she’ll go back to sleep again

5:33am – after one minute of silence and hope she is back again and I pack my blanket and lurch into her room. As I am still hoping for at least half an hour of sleep,  I try to calm her down in her bed

5:40am – no chance. Maybe it’ll work when I lie down with her in “cuddly corner” (a mattress with lots of pillows that I put on the floor – mainly to make it more comfortable for us parents, hehe).

5:45am – the little one is nuzzling around, but not going back to sleep. I make a note to myself to somehow change her sleeping pattern. Just one daily nap instead of two small ones….or we should put her to bed later….nap…bed…ah, that sounds so good!

5:50am – maybe the little one WOULD go back to sleep if I would let her pinch me. Somehow my arms have a very strong calming effect on her, but she has the bad habit to pinch and scratch which I am desperately trying to break. So I guess I SHOULD stay strong and tell her no if she pinches me…

6:00am – yeah, no, I guess that’s it. We just roam around the cuddly corner and I wallow a bit in self-pity.

6:30am – see who is nuzzling up again and closing her eyes! Victory! If only we would lie a bit more comfortable and not half on the mattress, half on the floor.

7:40am – the beauty of parenthood is that you can sleep in almost every position. Drawback is the back pain that follows an hour of sleep on the floor…But hey, the little one is still snoozing, so I get up and try to have a cup of coffee.

7:45am – while the coffee machine is warming up I putter a bit around. Looking after the flowers on the balcony, filling the dish washer, cleaning the table

7:55am – I sit down with a coffee and decide to participate in the diary blogging today

8:00am – the little one is awake. This time happily awake. Time for her milk bottle (and time for my coffee to get cold).

8:30am – Karsten decides to get up as well and gives me a quick overview over last nights soccer game (Brasil:Colombia). He didn’t watch it neither, but apparently he had used the morning to already read up the news in bed.

8:45am  – I am blogging a bit. In the meantime, the little one fills my coffee cup with her building bricks and the computer mouse.

8:55am – Karsten starts to make breakfast. Originally, Karsten and the little one were starting to make breakfast, but the younger part of the team decides that it’s more fun to run around with her wooden car, making a lot of noise. Good morning neighbours 🙂

9:30am – breakfast is finished. I mentioned that the little one now starts to imitate us and that we should be careful what we do at the dining table. One minute later Karsten puts a mosquito net over his head and plays ghost. Not sure whether he actually ever listens to me or not…Mental output: next Fasnet he wants us to dress up as Moby Dick Trio. I being Ishmael, he being Captain Ahab and the little one being the whale.

10:15am – the little one got a new diaper. I had a nice long shower (I love weekends!!). Karsten had a shower and shaved in honor of the weekend. The little one got another new diaper. And now we are off to check out a nursery school.

11:50am – back home again. The nursery school was good, the little one happily stayed with one of the nurses while we were looking around, and we got a bratwurst (ach, that always makes our German hearts beat faster…). I would really love to give the little one to nursery school one or two mornings a week, simply because I think she would very much enjoy the company of other children. The price list, however, brought us down to earth: around 700 CHF/month for two half-days a week…nothing that we could afford right now.

11:55am – Karsten goes shopping, I prepare lunch. Since it’s already a bit late, I just make spaghetti with small tomatos and parmesan. Strawberries as desesrt. While the water is boiling, the little one and I are playing ball. And reading a book.

12:05pm – the little one is standing in front of her chair, full-throatedly asking for food.

12:10pm – we are having lunch. note to myself: spaghetti are not the most suitable fingerfood. Although it looked really funny when the little one had three short spaghetti sticking to her upper lip. A bit like a blond….ah, well, whatever. In the end, about 1/3 of them have been eaten, the other 2/3rds are spread around the table and the floor. Mixed with water which the little one is trying to drink out of her own cup (surprisingly succesfully most of the times!).

12:30pm – Karsten is back and putting away the stuff he bought. I am cleaning the table. The little one is somewhere inbetween.

12:35pm – after the little one accidentaly drops a glas with pickled ginger, Karsten and I get into a fight who was responsible for it: the person that handed her the glas or the person that didn’t take it away from her….

12:45pm – Karsten and I are good again. The little one brings one book after another.

1pm – I am feeling really tired and I ask Karsten whether i could lie down for some minutes. He asks: “With the little one or without?”. Good joke….

1:20pm – I get up again and decide to have a cup of coffee instead. The little one just fell asleep 5 minutes ago, so both Karsten and I switch on the laptops to get some stuff done.

1:40pm – the little one is awake again…

2:15pm – somehow Karsten got lost in the little one’s room. I guess they are both sleeping on the mattress. Or she is sleeping and he is too afraid to get up because it might wake her. Whatever it is, I had time to sort some bills and other oh-so-important stuff.

2:20pm – both Karsten and the little one are awake again…

2:30pm – the little one and I are on the balcony, planting new flowers. She is a big help, putting the soil into the pots. Then she starts to eat the soil with a spoon. Then she pulls down the fresh laundry. Then she cries a bit theatrically and holds tight to my leg. Then she throws the rest of the soil down the balcony (unfortunately our neighbours from downstairs are sitting on their balcony, so I guess they got quite of soil..).

3pm – Karsten and the little one are blowing soap bubbles while I water the plants.

3:10pm – I decide that its time to go outside!

3:20pm – I decide that its time to go inside because it’s raining!

3:30pm – the little one decide that it’s time to eat again. Banana, blueberries and kiwi.

4:00pm – Karsten decides that it’s time to go outside again. I am trying to make up my mind regarding the music for the ceremony of our upcoming wedding/baptism

4:10pm – Karsten decides that it’s time to go inside again because it’s still raining. I am desperatly trying to finish an Email for the organist while the little one is theatrically clinging to my leg again. (and I am desperatly trying to tell the organist in a diplomatic way that we don’t want the songs to be played too slow…as he is a very old and conservative organist and already denied our wish for “all you need is love” as last song, we fear the worst)

4:25pm – I decide it’s go outside again, this time with waterproofs!

4:30pm until 6pm – the little one and I are working in the garden. I plant salad and cut back the strawberries, the little one joggles with the hand barrow and tries to enter the rasberry bushes. Later, Karsten joins us and takes the little one to the playground in front of our building while I continue working in the garden. At 6pm, it’s time to go inside again and prepare dinner.

6:05pm – I prepare salad (freshly picked…to all the German readers: Pflücksalat has been the greatest thing to sow this year! We have a never ending supply of salad!) and dates filled with parmesan and wrapped in ham (something I always wanted to try). In the meantime, the little one is taking a bath.

6:20pm – The little one is out of the bath and already wearing her pyjama. Karsten tries to fly his indoor helicopter. After 5 seconds, the little one starts crying.

6:30pm – dinner is ready! The dates taste good, but I could use a bit more ham the next time.

6:50pm – the little one and I are reading/looking at her books. In between she is rolling around, making jokes, and clearing out her wardrobe.

6:55pm– Karsten tries the indoor helicopter again. The little one starts crying again.

7:00pm – Karsten shows the little one the indoor helicopter. She grabs it. He says “careful!”. She starts crying again. We are still working on her attitude towards constructive criticism…

7:05pm – the little one and I are cuddling a bit to calm her down. Karsten blows soap bubbles.

7:15pm – I try to clean the flat a bit and tidy up the little one’s room. In the meantime, the little one clears out the clothes she missed half an hour ago.

7:20 pm – the little one is having her evening milk bottle. Afterwards she gets her teeth brushed.

7:35pm – time for the little one to go to bed.

7:45pm – the child is successfully sleeping! Now our evening starts! The kitchen has to be cleaned. At least the toys which are lying in the middle of the floor should be tidied up. There are two big bags of laundry waiting to be folded. When that’s all done, there’s a really good computer game waiting for us. And self-made eggnog from our fridge which we were planning to drink for a long time – we were waiting for a weekend because we are not sure whether it’s still good or not. If it’s not, at least both of us are home tomorrow… Last but not least, there’s a good tv-series waiting to be watched. That’s why I say goodbye now and thanks for the detailed reading of a pretty normal Saturday at our place!