Annie Valentine

Have you ever met one of those kids who always seems to get stung at the park? That kid who routinely loses the top of his ice cream cone, gets gum on his shoe, can’t keep his hair fixed and always manages to be right at the front of the line when Santa takes his hot cocoa break?

That is Rex (6).

Take Rex’s second day of German school. Not only does he not speak the language and pretend to be a monkey/puppy when he’s nervous (80% of the time), but he’s prone to wardrobe malfunctions.

Harrison hates shorts, so this summer Rex has inherited a slough of slightly larger than necessary “short pants”. On the second day of school he pulled out a pair of Harry’s gray cargo shorts and climbed in. They fell to the floor.

“Here baby,” I said, checking the shorts for an inside draw string. I found it and carefully tied them so they would stay in place. In hindsight, I should have traded them out for something safer, but Rex only started taking the initiative to dress himself unassisted last year and I really don’t want to mess with a good thing.

And so off he went for his second day of German school. In the afternoon I sent Harrison down to pick him up from the bus and walk him back up the hill. As they approached, I could hear a frantic, “Mom! Mommy! You gotta see this!” from Harry.

I looked out over the upstairs balcony at the boys running up the hill, Rex clutching his stomach. He saw me, broke into a grin and stopped to wave.

And his pants fell to his ankles.

We’re not talking about slipping down around his hips, we’re talking about a dead fall to the floor and BAM! There’s Scooby Do. It had been happening all. Day. Long.

Today is Harrison’s second day of school on base. Here’s hoping he has better luck than Rex.

We had a three-day weekend in Garmisch, thanks to Jason’s TDY, and left on Thursday. It was mostly a blast, interspersed with some unfortunate head kicking (June, not me) and a day of nasty rain clouds.

I did not buy this dress. I really really wanted to buy this dress. Instead, we bought the girls traditional Bavarian drindle dresses (I’ll post pictures next week when they wear them for the first time) that cost us nearly a month’s rent. Okay, not quite that much but I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that we didn’t eat much on Saturday.

This would have been the perfect afternoon in a German paddle boat had I not gotten stung by a bee on my ring finger the second I stepped in. Ouch to the tenth power. At least it was me and not one of the kids, they absolutely loved this part of the weekend. We took the boat out on Lake Eibsee. Tons of people were swimming, most of them had clothes on. We did wave to one older couple only to realize that they were both buck naked. They waved back.

We took an amazing hike and got this really cool picture of red tape.

This is right before the storm hit. I think I would have preferred cats and dogs over the rain, it was 50 degrees and pouring buckets. We had to stop and buy me a jacket (I didn’t bring one from Utah and our stuff will never, ever get here) so I had to run in and grab something at C&A. (For the record, Dave Ramsey hates it when I have to make unexpected purchases like that. He doesn’t want me to be cold, but can’t I just run in place or something?) By the time we left Schloss Linderhoff (our only attempt to sight see on Saturday) the kids were all bawling about being cold and wet and I couldn’t feel my hands or feet.

The good news is that we discovered on the way home that McDonald’s here does in fact have a Euro menu! Unfortunately the ones around our air base do not because they know the Americans will pay through the nose for our Pommes and cheeseburgers.

All in all, the kids were pretty darn good on this trip and I’m feeling more and more confident that we can take them out in public without getting arrested. Good thing because we’ve got an 11 day cruise scheduled for November–Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel–and they have to come with us (it was too darn cheap to pass up). I’ve got to get them in shape so no one loses a hand (do they still do that?).

This morning I woke up, gazed at the sparkling sun creeping over the Bavarian Alps and touching our quaint little cabin window, and instantly I was grumpy.

I stomped and frowned my way around the cabin for twenty minutes while Jason got ready. Finally he turned and looked me in the eye. “What’s wrong? We’re in one of the most beautiful places in the world, the kids are happy, the sun is shining and I can’t figure out why you’re being such a sour puss.”

Before I could make up some excuse about my gout or early PMS, my mouth went and told on me. “I FEEL FAT!”

I. Am. So. Lame.

I feel great about myself, I look great, and there is no reason for me to be anything but happy. Therefore I blame the devil himself for planting seeds of irritation in my brain because I’ve had four days of counting my calories right up the scale. Really, we all know that a week of careful calorie consumption and gallons of water and I’ll be right back where I was (which is six pounds away from where I really want to be by Halloween).

The point isn’t how much or little I weigh/eat, it isn’t the time frame or my diet plan or What To Do With My Gluttonous Heart. The point is I’ve fallen for that old trap that keeps me from loving this day and these people around me because I’m all wrapped up in my freaking vanity. The world is beautiful and I’ve got people who love me and two arms and two legs so I can play and hike and fix their hair cute.

I got myself ready and the kids and I took a leisurely stroll around the area (the kids fought the entire time about who got to push the stroller). Jason will be back from his meeting in twenty minutes and this is going to be an amazing day.

That old turkey we call the devil knows just what will tip us in the wrong direction, and if we’re not actively seeking to find the little rays of sunshine in our day he will rain on our parade faster than a flash flood. The trick is shrugging off the blue or black thoughts and running in the other direction as fast as possible.

Bring on the sunshine and mosquitoes, I’ve got my sunscreen and bug spray all ready to go.

Here’s this week’s column.

“Over here in Germany they take their festivals seriously.

We keep hearing tales about the summer German Renaissance festivals and how fun they are, so on Saturday we decided it sounded like the perfect super cheap outing.

We pulled the toy van into the village parking lot (aka big empty field) and climbed out. Two cars down the doors opened and out stepped Robin Hood and his merry girlfriend, complete with bows, arrows and boots that zipped. (I’m not judging, moccasins aren’t my thing either.)

The village was set up in a small field surrounded by shade trees. White tents lined the edges offering everything from animal hides to factory made toys from China. The store keepers had a few more teeth than might have been anticipated, but no reenactment is perfect.

The kids especially loved the “village mouse,” a supposed prince living under an evil spell who’s punishment is an eternity of entertaining the masses with a game of chase the cheese. For one euro you can play “guess the mouse house”. The board game was a round table with numerous row houses lining the entire edge. Players choose a house, put their money on the roof, and wait to see which house the mouse runs to. If he picks your house you win a piece of candy.

Most expensive salt water taffy I’ve ever  heard of (we didn’t win).

At one point we found ourselves in the company of the village lepers. I fished out a 2 Euro coin and gave it to June (3), thinking I was going to teach my children the fine art of being nice to the icky lepers (they were sporting some impressive costume make-up–at least I think it was make-up). She put  in the fellow’s dish and he promptly gave her change for it. I tried to make him to keep the money, but he gave the kids candy instead.

Now my kids love lepers. Jesus has to be happy about that one.

Then there was the sword fighting. What do you get when you cross two middle aged men in full knight costume on a really hot afternoon in August? A really anticlimactic battle where two guys hit each other with “swords” for ten seconds intervals, interspersed with water breaks and village gossip sessions.

Then the real action started. They pulled out styraphome gray noodles for the kids to play “sword fight” with. Oh how Harrison wanted a noodle, but it’s always hard to figure out the rules when the peasant dude is screaming them at you in German. When he saw the signal to “grab a sword now” he rushed with the swarm of children and fought like the dickens to get his hands on one.

He ended up in the most intense tug of war battle I’ve ever seen–it lasted almost 30 seconds. The other kid was significantly larger and perhaps more determined (meaner) and the sword was finally wrenched it out of Harrison’s unwilling hands.

Talk about defeat. My son slumped his shoulders and huffed his way to the car. He walked away with a first hand account of what it feels like to be bested on the battle field.

For the record, I now know why the women always wanted their sons to pick the church: warriors are super moody.”

So we love our house. There’s no doubt that moving to this village has been the catalyst for getting my kids into the German school system, making a few super wonderful friends, and realizing that yes, we really do love living this far off base.

We love it so much that Jason and I have made a really really big crazy decision: we’re gonna buy a house.

Because obviously owning a house in Utah and property in Washington isn’t stressful enough.

In actuality, a lot of civilians decide to buy over here because a) we’re usually here longer than most active duty and b) the long-term investment opportunity is great; when you leave it’s pretty easy to sell and even better to rent it out (especially if it has lots of bedrooms or a big yard).

I swear it was meant to be, within 24 hours of thinking about this and putting out one tentative little feeler we were looking at a home.

Not this one, although it is for sale in our village if you’re looking for a 200 year old fixer-upper.

We were looking at this one.

(I know, he’s super hot, but stop staring at him because he’s mine.)

This baby is gargantuan. Do not be deceived by it’s curbside appearance, that garage alone will hold four cars bumper to bumper. It’s about 4000 square feet with 7 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 2 kitchens (we could eventually rent it out as 2 separate units) and a yard and patio to die for. And did I mention that it’s on a dead end street with a bike path that circles through the woods and ends up at our back gate?

Also we’re getting a killer deal on it.

Don’t get me wrong, if you’re one of those people that has to have a new house, you won’t like this one. For American standards, it’s old. It was built in the mid-80’s but ten years ago it got a new kitchen and new heated floors throughout. The tile isn’t my favorite, but the fireplace and the windows? We’re in love, plus that’s what area rugs are for. Those windows run the length of the house.

The biggest hangup for me has been our wonderful landlords. We love them, they’re so good to us and helpful. I can’t bear the thought of leaving this house without personally finding them an amazing family, someone so wonderful they’ll be glad to be rid of us. I’ve been praying about this all week, to know what to do or where to look. So far I’ve had absolutely no inspiration. I almost sent out an email to someone yesterday but right before I pressed “send” I knew I needed to just…wait.

An hour ago my doorbell rang. It was my beautiful American neighbor, a young mom with three small children who go to kindergarten with Junie and Rex. She lives two houses away but would you believe her basement just busted out with mold? And are we still thinking about moving? Could she maybe look at the house before it goes on the market???!!!

This is not set in ink yet, but I have the feeling the chips are going to fall fast and sure. More pictures to come, we’re taking the kids to see the house tonight.

I got asked by the amazing girls over at the Steal Network to be their Mom Tip Monday gal this week. In case you haven’t used babysteals, kidsteals etc., you are missing out. My SIL got me on to their site during her pregnancy and I love them way more than Dave Ramsey approves of.

Check out my article if you get a second.

Oh, that first field trip.

It was a Saturday, the jet lag had mostly passed, and we decided it was high time we headed into the real world and saw a little more than the commissary.

We opted for Heidelberg, since it was the first place we ventured to seven years ago. There’s a castle, a tram, and a really good creperie that I haven’t been able to get out of my head for over half a decade.

Despite having to trick June into fastening her seat belt and fighting with Rex over which of his beloved stuffed creatures would be allowed on the trip, the ride there was quite pleasant. She got candy and he chose Mouse, a rather detestable white rat he recently earned at Ikea; Mouse has lots to say to us about everything.

Rex loves his animals. They’re real people with real feelings and they go everywhere with him. They’ve been especially important to him these past few weeks, providing a much needed sense of security and friendship.

We parked the car at the base of the hill, hiked the 303 steps to the castle ruins, and spent a leisurely hour roaming around the grounds. The kids were great, no one urinated on the bushes and the girls loved the backpacks.

Of course, life is like a popsicle; it’s meant to melt down. We descended from the castle mount and so did the children’s blood sugar. In the blink of an eye they were starving and I? I didn’t even have a fuzzy breath mint to offer anyone.

After a rather loud and obnoxious public display of hunger, we finally dosed the children with Nutella filled crepes and soda pop and began herding them back to the car just in time to make a fourth bathroom stop.

June and I emerged from the ladies room and waited patiently for the boys so we could head to the car and get ourselves home.

And that’s when it happened.

I looked up and saw Jason and Rex walking toward me and instantly my heart broke. Rex was sobbing. Sobbing like a boy who had just lost his best friend.

Mouse had fallen in the urinal, and much to Rex’s utter horror, Daddy had plucked him out and threw him in the trash.

Daddy killed Mouse.

I have never seen a child cry such a devastated, soul crushing cry. It was as if his world had collapsed and there was nothing left for him but buckets of tears.

He obviously needed the emotional outlet with so much going on, and boy did he let it all out. For two hours in the car we heard, “Daddy killed mouse! Daddy, you’re just a big jerk!! Oh, my beautiful beautiful mouse, he’s gone, he’s gone! sob sob sob!”

Watching Rex mourn his animal was extremely hard for me, even though I knew he would be fine in a day or so. That knowledge didn’t make his sorrow less, and it didn’t stop his pain from bleeding into my own heart. His problem was so teensy in the big scheem of things, but at that moment it was enough to suck all the happy from his little universe.

I bet God feels a lot like that watching us struggle with work and life and family trials. Things that take up months and years of our emotional strength will someday show as nothing more than a personal stepping stone, an opportunity for long-term growth.

It hurt me to watch him hurt like that, even if it was only a little mouse.

I need my things.

We’ve been pushing around the same 12 suitcases since the first week of June and I frequently want to throw them all on the compost heap (Germans are big on recycling).

I have managed to keep up with the laundry (since there’s nothing else to do) but every time I bring up a basket of clean clothes I’m faced, once again, with the realization that THERE IS NO PLACE TO PUT THEM. I used to put them back in the suitcases, but now  simply pull a June–I dump the basket out in the middle of the bedroom and kick the clothes around a little so we can “see them better”.

But at the same time that I dream and watch and wait with baited breath for that lovely moving truck to pull up in front of my house, I tremble and whimper at the thought of them leaving me here, alone, with all that crap to unpack.

I’m bored and busy and don’t seem to accomplish much of anything worth value (with the exception of some homemade applesauce from the eternal apple droppings in the back yard. It was fun for the first two buckets of apples but now I’m feeling a little panicked). There is nothing to do to here and yet I never sit down.

This might be due to the fact that sitting on the couch is kind of like sitting on a sand dune, except here your butt sticks to the plastic. It’s lovely. I find my day is filled with things like sweeping the eternal tile floors and putting away the same basket of toys that the kids routinely dump out and reject.

I don’t know that I’m going to be any happier when it all gets here, but hopefully I’ll at least have a place to sit my weary behind and make a phone call.

Here is this week’s column, it was a painful write.

“Last week we let our German landlords schedule an appointment for Rex (6) and me at the local village elementary school. Despite the language barrier (or because of it), our landlords have convinced us that the German school system here is “super” and we need to put Rex into their version of kindergarten.

Out of curiosity, I agreed to give it a look.

You know that unseen Heavenly forces must be shoving you right along you when all it takes is a short conversation where the only word you understand is “schule” before you find yourself John Hancocking seventeen foreign documents and signing away your child’s educational future.

Your American child. The one who does not speak German.

A few days later my landlord managed to explain that Rex had a doctor’s appointment scheduled with the school’s physician. The part of the conversation that I did not understand was the bit about kindergarten screening.

Apparently Germans like to make sure that kids attending their schools are far enough advanced to refrain from peeing on the tables. Too bad I couldn’t prep Rex for that one.

(For the record, Rex has anxiety. Sometimes it’s debilitating, sometimes it’s hysterical, and we never know what will trigger it.)

The gal in charge of his processing started out by whisking us into a room to wait for the doctor–she spoke very little English. When the doctor came in and told Rex in choppy, halting English to take off all of his clothes and stand in the middle of the room, well…you know that movie Jurassic Park? It was kind of like that; I think Rex thought they were going to eat him.

“MAMA! MAMA! MAMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMA!” That seemed to be the only word he could scream. Also I don’t think I’ve ever hated my name more.

The doctor and the nurse sat and stared at us like we were some kind of American lunatics. Between the language barrier and the phenomenal screaming I couldn’t even stumble through an explanation about his anxiety troubles.

Rex managed to keep his clothing on and the doctor tried to get close enough to listen to his heart (which was obviously beating just fine). Right when the man put the cold stethoscope on his chest Rex let out the most ear splitting wail I have ever heard. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! What is he DOING to me Mommy?!”

I tried to calm him down, “Rex, it’s okay, he’s just listening to your heart–”

“HE BROKE IT! HE BROKE MY HEART! OH, WHAT AM I GOING TO DO? MAMA MAMA MAMA!!!!” In actuality, I think the only thing broken was the poor doctor’s ear drums.

The moment we were away from the doctor (and thanks to a little successful good behavior bribery) Rex calmed down. I was anxious to get out of there, but alas we were herded into another room. And thus commenced the unexpected testing.

It would have been one thing for them to ask my worried little boy–in English–to perform a few simple tricks, but she had to ask him in German. I could feel the sweat trickle down my neck as I watched her bark orders at him. He was trying so hard to understand her and keep it together, my heart broke just watching him.

Oh, how I wanted to run to his rescue. It would have been simple to whisk him into my arms and out to the car, away from the strange words and instructions and harsh looks. I sat on my hands and bit my lip, feeling compelled to let the moment play itself out uninterrupted.

Despite the odds, it worked. I sat and watched my son fumble through the process with unexpected success, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so impressed with one of my children. By the time we left, I could tell he felt pretty proud of himself as well. He had proven to both myself and the German taskmaster that he was both smart and capable; it gave me courage that we’re doing the right thing for him.”

As parents, sometimes we want nothing more than to save our children from the struggle and heartache Life is so determined to inflict on them. I guess, in those rare moments when we get it right, our kids aren’t the only ones who grow.