A Merry Christmas Was Had By Everyone

Christmas came and went, and with it brought one chocolate Nikolaus, two granddads, three lamb shanks, and many many presents. For photographic evidence for some of this, please see below:

One of the first presents, a petrol tanker from Uncle Sven and Auntie Corina:

Crayoning and playdohing after breakfast:

Hoovering Opa (new hoover, just like Mummy's and Mama's):

And hoovering (very popular present) the new train set:

And a whole chocolate Nikolaus all for myself, and NONE for you!

Christmas Tree

Against all German tradition, we put up our Christmas tree last weekend.

The tree had literally come off the back of a lorry - a couple with impenetrable Bavarian accents selling them from door to door, and Carla picked the bestest of the lot. The new tree stand was the latest model by market-leaders Krinner, and can take trees up to 2.7 m high! The decorations were a mixture of ancient (bought by my mother), old (bought by us / given as presents over the past years) and newly purchased from our local IKEA. Very ecclectic, to say the least.

It was a true family occasion, Grandma and Mummy decorating the tree in colour co-ordinated red and green, Mama trying to get her favourite purple / multi-colour kitsch items (including beloved surfing Santa) on the tree, Granddad Dave sitting in the armchair, keeping out of the firing line, and Max doing the sensible thing ie sleeping in bed.

In the end Mama, all in a huff, hung 'her' decorative items on a line strung out along the bookshelves (much laughed at by everyone else).

The next morning Max woke up and thought he'd gone to heaven: A tree! In his house! With lots of lovely things on it! Including Santas (Nikolaus... ave it)! Having been told not to touch the tree, he moved his chair right in front of it to have a really good look. Of course, that didn't last very long and to date a number of items have been moved / removed / lost / broken / caused tantrums, but it is a great success. See for yourself:

Happy Birthday, Max!

Today is Max's 2nd birthday, and not only did he get lots of presents and cards, his most favourite grandma 'suddenly' appeared in the house! He seems a bit serious, but that's just the look of concentration on his face.

Psycho Stuff

So why is it that I am so psycho when it comes to Max's eating? Why do I feel like tearing my hair out when he is just being a normal toddler and pushing boundaries, being independent, exerting control over me, the world and everything? I go mental, he goes mental. He doesn't eat. I eat the left-overs. Mealtime over. He gets skinny. I get fat. I am moody. Wife gets beaten up. Everyone is miserable. What's it all about?

First possibility - my milk didn't come in for him during the first week of his life, he got really skinny and we had to stuff him full of formula every ten seconds to make sure they didn't admit him to hospital and feed him with a drip. Guess there is a whole heap of guilt / unworthy mother / not a proper woman feelings linked to this experience (two whole years ago) that are still hanging around inside. I was such a militant 'breast is best' advocate and then when it didn't work, there was serious brow-beating. Felt really heart-breaking at the time and it's probably about time I got over it.

Second possibility - we spent so many years trying to get pregnant (4.5 actually) that, when Max eventually did come along, I had built up such an idealised image of motherhood, what sort of mother I would be (Birkenstock-donning, breast-feeding, sling-wearing, baby-massaging) and what sort of a child mine would be (co-sleeping, no-dummy-in-sight, early-talking, early-walking, bi-lingual, and most of all an unfussy foodie like me) that I couldn't help but be disappointed and disillusioned.

Third possibility - I just can't accept that toddlers eat not for enjoyment, fun, company, greed and sheer love of grub but for sustenance and as quickly as possible so they can go back to their toys and books and everything else that is just way more interesting than eating.

Sure there might be a bit more to it than that - sometimes feeling a bit lonely here with my, as yet, rather under-developed support network - but I guess that is the crux of it. Not so complicated really. Thanks to all my old school and Facebook chums for helping me see the light this time.

Oh, and thanks to my dearest wife for putting up with my moods. Can't guarantee there won't be more black cloud evenings but, for now, I feel as though I can deal with the times when my little monster chooses to throw my delicious dishes back in my face (fortunately, we have, provisionally, left behind the phase of literally having dinner thrown up the wall).

You've seen the pictures. The boy is big, tall and healthy. What IS my problem?

Big House but No Space

So how does this work then? This house is roughly double the size of our little Victorian terrace in Addlestone i.e. twice, yes, twice the amount of space and yet, we somehow still live in a bloody tip?

My dearest wife says it's because I relegated her stupid dark wood dresser thing to the cellar and that's where we used to store everything? Must have been like the cupboard in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe then for all the piles of crap hanging around here to have fitted in it. Besides, the house is all nice light wood - how could we keep that old relic in here casting a cloud over our sunshine beech?

Dearest wife also says that it's because she used to do the filing and now she works in an office (novel experience for her), she doesn't have time anymore. True enough but that must mean that it's now my job and I don't have a clue about any of these bits of paper and besides, if I had known it was suddenly my responsibility, I might have started to half organise the piles before the piles became even more tottery and the drawers even more stuffed with 6 more months of god only knows what!

Maybe we do really just need a sideboard. Another piece of furniture to jam pack full of random pieces of paper. And where the hell is my P45 anyway???