Step By Step!

About a month ago, I had Chris get some New Kids on the Block, just so I could have Step by Step for Myrna's first steps (that and to relive my junior high years). Myrna has taken a step or two totally on her own a few times now - though I don't think Chris and I have seen the same steps, and they have not been documented. She has been having fun with her little wagon and on Christmas Eve she was looking so cute, we had quite a bit of fun with the video camera. On Christmas Day, when she was napping, we spent that quality alone time uploading, editing and blogging (see below for her Christmas Eve dinner and her December album for more festive photos).



Big apologies to those in Germany - as this video is blocked there due to copyright issues (though not anywhere else - very odd).

Squash All Beef!

We've come full circle on Myrna's tastes. At the beginning of the summer, squash was the first food that Myrna emphatically and consistently rejected. Be it puréed butternut from a jar or baked zucchini from the garden, squash in all its forms was her sworn enemy.

Nowadays, though, it's a rare food that our growing girl turns down. For dinner last night we topped a pizza with butternut squash and chèvre cheese, and set a plate of cubed squash aside for Myrn. We had to refill it midway through the meal.

Christingle Carols

Sunday afternoon we visited St. Peter & St. Sigfrid's for the Children's Christingle Carols - a simple and imaginative telling of the Christmas story for (English speaking) kids with Christmas Carols. Myrna was interested in sitting on our laps for about 5 minutes before she was crawling down the aisle - a great preview of our cross Atlantic journey in a few weeks. The service ended with each kid getting a Christingle (bonus points to anyone who knows what this is)
After the service she got to meet her first Father Christmas (the church definitely has more British English than American). She wasn't quite sure what to make of it
As Myrna nodded off on the bus, we thought we could fit in a quick shopping trip. Unfortunately the Swedish H&M equivalent of "Santa Baby" foiled our plans, and we could only convince her to be civil for a moment. I did, however, manage to get a new hat and mittens, and am now a proud owner of legwarmers.

Playing in the Snow!

We headed outside Saturday morning for some snow playing. Myrna had been out once earlier this week with her dad, but since there were no pics of that outing, we had to do another. We were outside for about as long as it took to bundle her on up, but I think she found it amusing.

The snow had started falling again just as we got inside, so we timed our play time just perfectly. The foot of snow we have hasn't slowed down the city much at all. Parents are more likely to be pulling their kids in sleds, but we're not ready to trade in our stroller for a sled quite yet. We do, though, have a new snow plow:

There's no doubt that we'll be having a beautiful White Christmas! More pictures of playing in the snow and playing indoors are on Myrna's December Picasa Page.

The First Snow

All weekend the weather report kept predicting snowfall during the night. We did have a few flurries, but there was never anything on the ground in the morning. Today, though, we woke up to a beautiful dusting, followed by snowfall all morning. Myrna even got a chance to play in the snow (though by the time she and Chris got out, the snowfall had stopped). After slipping and sliding to the bus stop this morning, I'm now totally over the snow.

On a completely unrelated subject. If you were wondering what you should do with those Apple stickers that come with your mac....

Myrna's new toy box, that looks just like her dad's red-covered MacBook! One of two things will happen - she'll find that she loves the toy box more than her dad's laptop, or more likely, she'll think that anything with the Apple logo is hers.

UPDATE: A day later, we've got quite a bit more than a dusting.

Celebrations

It's been three straight days of partying and celebrating here in Stockholm. The festivities started Wednesday night with the First Annual KTH Math Dept Dessert Contest. Myrna helped Chris and I judge eleven gourmet desserts and entertain my colleagues, whom she hadn't yet met. After a shy start, the award-winning Zebra cake put a smile on her face and sugar through her veins, and by the end of the night she was flirting with everyone. She did miss out on tasting the top prize, as there was a bit of whiskey in it (though that might have countered the sugar nicely....) We sadly forgot our camera, so the chocolate-faced Myrna with a spoon in each hand went undocumented.

Thursday the town was in high gear for the Nobel Prize Awards ceremony. The extravagent red-carpet affair, documented extensively in the newspapers probably didn't even enter the news radar of the US, who was busy reporting only on Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, which is the one not awarded in Stockholm, but rather Oslo. I sadly didn't manage to swing a ticket.

Friday morning just after 6 am, Myrna and I headed to KTH for the St Lucia Ceremony. December 13 (St Lucia Day) falls on a Sunday, so all the (morning) celebrations were held on Friday. We joined at least a hundred people at the university library for morning treats; Myrna helped me eat a St Lucia roll and shoved finger-fulls of raisins out of my Glögg and into her mouth. As the choir processed through the library, we managed to suddenly be sitting in the front row for their 20 minute show. Myrna, who had yet to fall back asleep, was particularly mesmerized by the singing and candles. Unfortunately, capturing her expression on camera was completely out of the realm. We got back home at about the time I would be leaving for work - but after breakfast it was off to Ikea for us to pick up some Christmas decorations and play with the toys.

Steppin' on Up

Pig took a big step yesterday and offered to soothe little Myrna by acting as a cuddle replacement for her mother. We're all so proud.
Quite a big difference from last year

End of November Stats

November has ended and the stats are in: 17.5 = number of hours of sunlight in Stockholm in all of November. This is uncommon, though, making it one of the "gloomiest" Novembers - but we were none the wiser, and didn't notice it much. (I'm squinting as I write this - sun is streaming into my office and I don't dare close the blinds to miss out on it.)

In other news, Myrna saw her first Swedish nurse. Her full physical (with shots) will be in a few weeks, but we did get an update on her stats:
Weight = 8.45 kg (18.6 lbs); Height = 74 cm (29.1 in); Head Circumference = 45 cm (17.7").

So, she's steadily growing and moving ever so slightly up in the percentile chart (around the 50th in height and head, and hovering just over the 10th in weight). For those of you that like charts, see below (and click on it for a larger view).

Fog at the end of November

We've had a pretty laidback day today. I woke up early to have a Skype chat with my family, seizing on a holiday opportunity to find them all in one room at the same time. Later on, Kelly, Myrna, and I stepped out to enjoy a rare blue sky, strolling onto Södermalm for, yes, coffee. Any time we wander more than a few blocks from home, we invariably succumb to the allure of Drop Coffee's warm embrace. But as we'd just been there yesterday, today we decided to stop into Melqvist for something more on the espresso side of things. Also, incredibly delicious cardamon rolls.


Shortly after returning home for lunch, we couldn't see the sky, much less the neighbors. A beautiful blanket of fog had rolled in. It's probably still hanging heavy out there now but, now that it's 3:45, it's too dark to tell.

More photos in the Picasa album, including this one:

Celebrating Birthday #1!

Friday was Myrna's big day. We spent the morning tearing the apartment up, as usual. Her interest in her morning nap was non-existent, so we finally left for lunch. Thankfully she fell asleep in her stroller and stayed napping while Chris and I enjoyed a celebratory lunch. Then it was off to English playgroup - something I had yet to see. She had lots of fun crawling through her tube.Song time started off with "Happy Birthday" and continued with some funny British renditions of nursery rhyme songs (during which Myrna was more interested in crawling into the middle of the circle than sitting on her parents' lap like the other kids). After singing, Myrna begged some snacks off of other kids, and then we headed back home.

For dinner, we didn't do anything fancy, instead making one of our winter staples - a vegetable barley soup - that Myrna's happy to eat as well. After a little more playing, it was time for Myrna's birthday treat - her own (small) bowl of ice cream.

Of course she's grown up so much in the last year. More photos of her big day are on her November Picasa page.

Happy Birthday Myrna!

Four cribs in four apartments in four cities in three countries. But with two consistently loving parents, I guess it wasn't too bad for her for the first year. The second year can only get easier, right? More about Myrna's big day later - but for now we're off to celebrate!

Time Out!

On our first visit to the Stockholm library, Myrna got the board book version of Olivia. It quickly replaced the The Very Hungry Caterpillar as her favorite book - she absolutely loves it. There is one part that really makes her smile. Olivia goes to the museum with her mother and brother, and stares at her favorite Degas painting of ballerinas for a long time. "But there is one painting she just doesn't get (a Jackson Pollack) 'I could do that in five minutes' she says. As soon as she gets home she gives it a try." Myrna gets a little grin at this point, but the real fun starts when she turns the page and sees a paint covered pouting Olivia sitting alone on the stairs with the two words "Time out."
Myrna cackles hysterically at this page, always flipping to it. Even if she's reading the book alone and we hear her laughing, we always know what part she's at. We're not quite sure what to make of it. Either she can't wait to start her own abstract expressionism or she likes to see pigs in trouble.

Play Time!

We're quickly familiarizing ourselves with the many play grounds of Stockholm. Probably because of the long winter, there are many indoor places to take kids for playtime. The first place we visited was the Stadsmuseum, that has a special play room for kids. Myrna is a huge fan of the rubber herring they have there, especially when she can take them out of the bucket (taking objects out of their container is her favorite activity - and she empties her dresser at least three times a day).
Myrna and her dad have also been attending an English-speaking playgroup on Friday afternoons. Myrna has no fear when it comes to crawling through ten foot long tubes, even if she collides with kids twice her size in the middle. The best part of playtime away from the apartment is that there is not so much "no" time (no enticing power cords laying about) and watching her interact with other kids. She still has to be reminded to be gentle, but she does like to give other kids hugs and see what they're doing. We've been lucky that she saves the bites for her parents (she will come over to hug and nibble on us periodically before returning to "safe" play with other children).

A Case Of The Giggles

I have no idea what's so funny here.

I think the resolution on this video is sufficiently low to cover up the copious amounts of food she lovingly smeared all over herself just before this was taken. A new November album is also up, and here is a link to our coffee tasting last week (yes, we're drinking coffee out of champagne glasses)!

Our own Swedish Chef

Here's Myrna making meatballs followed by spaghetti and donuts (or at least that's what's happening in the audio track; the originals can be found on a youtube search, but I didn't want to distract from the main act).

I'm a big fan of the sitting and scooting act she does in the last clip.

How does that work?

That is one of the world's smallest dishwashers (about the size of a large microwave) - but it works perfectly for us and amuses Myrna to no end. In fact she sat there for a whole 2 minutes staring at it - and that was 2 minutes she wasn't spending taking out all the towels and tupperware.

We also just posted the last of the October pics on her October album.

Words

For about the last month Myrna's favorite word has been "Dada." Not directed at anyone, but a fun word to say, while clapping her hands and smiling. Imagine my surprise when "Mom" entered in the fold this week. But it only comes as a long whine - "Muuuhm " - when she wants something. I still say she's not associating any particular person to this shrill vocal outburst - but I suppose I should get used to the whine.

What to do with an extra hour

We observed the end of Day Light Savings today. This is one observance I've always enjoyed - not only did you get an extra hour of sleep on Sunday morning, but that also meant that it would be light for a while in the mornings - my favorite time to run. Well, Myrna decided to abstain from such a practice and was wide awake and ready to play at the new 6:30 a.m. (to be fair, she hasn't quite grasped the concept of sleeping a little later on the weekends either) - so much for that "extra hour of sleep."

After four and a half hours of play and breakfast and more play, she was ready for her nap, and I could enjoy my "extra hour" and finally unpack my running gear, which still was in ziplock bags from the move. My last run had been over three weeks ago in Freiburg - where it was warm - shorts and t-shirt weather. I was reminded again that we missed the gradual change of seasons as I bundled up in my winter running wear (which certainly won't be enough for winter here).

As we've mentioned before, we live on Reimersholme, a tiny island just off the northwest end of Södermalm. I started the run crossing the short bridge on to Södermalm and then quickly crossing another bridge to get on the neighboring Långholmen island. Långholmen once housed a prison (Sweden's largest of the time) but now the prison is a hotel and restaurant and the island is mostly one big park. It was lovely seeing our apartment from the other side of the water. However, after about 12 minutes I had completed my perimeter tour, so I needed a new direction.

I opted for the north end of Södermalm. Chris, Myrna and I had walked along the water there, so I at least knew there was a walking path. This route took me east along the water and I could enjoy views of beautiful buildings slightly obscured by the drizzle and clouds. Across the water first was Kungsholmen and then the small island Gamla Stan (the old town). Even though my Tunnelbana stops at Gamla Stan everyday, I've yet to see the historical old town - but it was an outing enjoyed by Myrna and her dad last week.


View Stockholm Run in a larger map

Not feeling too adventurous, I took the same route home, returning to Reimersholme. We've been learning a little history about our island (thanks to the Lonely Planet): in the 19th Century the prisoners at Långholmen built a textile factory on Reimersholme. In 1879 a young industrialist by the name of Lars Olsson Smith took over the building and developed a new kind of vodka he called 'Absolut Rent Brännvin,' the obvious ancestor to what today is Absolut Vodka. But he wasn't happy just to have a better tasting vodka - he wanted to break the city of Stockholm's monopoly on selling it. Conveniently Reimersholme wasn't part of Stockholm city limits then, so he could just sell the stuff here (and to add insult to injury, he offered Stockholmers a free ferry ride to come buy his product). Now, there is no place to buy Absolut on our island (all alcoholic beverages must be bought in the state controlled stores) and there certainly was no Absolut Gift Basket given to us as a welcome gift.

Settling In?

It hasn't been easy acclimating ourselves to our new city. Mostly because just after we moved into our apartment, there was a dispute with our landlord and her landlord. Long story short, we had to move. We're now in Reimersholme, a tiny island just off of Södermalm. I suppose we never really will get totally settled, as each day we have to move books, computers, movies, etc. up a few inches as Myrna figures out how to reach them.

We're slowly starting to explore the city. Yesterday we picked up three travel guides of Stockholm at the beautiful library (thanks to Myrna - the only one of us able to get a library card). We hope to soon check out some of the parts of the city that we see in the majestic view from our 7th story apartment. We do, though, have the coffee offerings closer to home fairly well staked out, and already have many a favorite.

And now that it's the 18th of the month, let's do an October Picasa page of our little cutie.

Dear Old Stockholm

One train, one plane, and one automobile, and we (and our five suitcases) arrive in Stockholm Wednesday night - Myrna chalking a sixth country to her travel journal, and adding a fourth city to her running list of homes. We're far from settled at this point, but we have learned a thing or two about our new environs.

Today we spent a decent chunk of the day sipping coffee, so I'll start with that. It looks like our thirst for robust coffee will be well-satisfied here. We took a quick ferry over to the Södermalm area, where we enjoyed fine cups of manually-filtered drip and, later, aeropressed coffee. In addition to coffee, we've also looked into food, and found that we can buy Cheerios for Myrna to snack on - something we couldn't track down in Germany. The grocery shopping experience, in general, seems closer to the American experience than we've known in Germany. While that means we can buy taco shells on a Sunday, it also means a boost in pricing scale. €1,19 wedges of brie, we already miss you! Also, you can only buy 3.2 beer at the supermarket. But we did spot, of all things, a Lidl, and loaded up on a few of our favorite deutsche staples.

On the matter of climate, suffice it to say that our Alsatian summer has come to a close, which means more time-consuming bundling of the baby. It also, though, means breaking out some of the winter clothes she hadn't been able to wear before. And it's not arctic or anything - we still have about eleven hours of daylight per day. At this point I should have a photo or two to share of something particular to the city, but we haven't really taken any yet. Next week perhaps....

In Myrna news, she's got two little teeth now, and takes every opportunity to use them. They feel like jagged bits of gravel on your arm, a sensation I'm treated to regularly. I also hear them clicking against toys, bowls, etc. intermittently throughout the day. She's also beginning to climb onto furniture all by herself. This has just begun in the last day or so, but we had a little preview while packing our luggage back in Freiburg....

Kinderplatz

As our time here in Freiburg comes to an end, we are trying to make the most of all our favorite treats and places. One of Myrna's favorite activities is visiting the new neighborhood Kinderplatz. Renovated just this summer, it's a mix of old and new playground equipment, but this isn't your standard American playground - the big toys they have there are reminiscent of our youth, the ones now been deemed "dangerous." Not only that, but there's a big water pump for use in making sand castles, plus a massive toy with pulleys, sieves, and dangling chains where you can transport sand and, if you want, sifting through it for, uh, rocks I guess - crazy.
Myrna isn't quite big enough to enjoy it all, but she tries. At first she liked standing in the sand. Then one day she and I were there alone, and I let her sit in the sand. The next time she and Chris went, there was no turning back from sitting and crawling and generally getting dirty in the sand. Sometimes sand gets eaten, but this is generally discouraged. She makes a new friend now and again, but she seems a little unsure what she's supposed to do with other kids, and tends to focus more on their moms. She did, however, once climb up a little boy to try to get at his toy cell phone.
Most trips to the playground are Dad and Myrna only, while I'm at work. But this weekend the sunny weather held and we all had a fun outing at the park. (More photos are also on her September Picassa Page.)

Jamaica Cake

For serious, this is something we are going to miss - the Jamaica cake from our local bakery. It's full of bananas and sealed with a marzipan cover - sugar rush here we come.

Myrna 9.0.0 - Now with Vertical Orientation

Blogging - or just checking email - has become significantly more difficult this week. Unless you plan to stand on the dining room table holding your laptop in the air, Myrna's maniacal smile will soon appear beside your screen, followed by much mashing on the keys. Barring that, she'll just fall over and conk her head on something hard, forcing you to stop what you're doing and comfort her, which more or less accomplishes her mission anyway. Books, iPods, sandwiches, and cameras are all similarly attractive. In the video below, however, she's mercifully chosen a low-hanging, kid-safe toy as her goal.

The message we're getting from her right now is that the whole apartment, and everything in it, is hers to manhandle, chew on, or hit as she pleases. This includes her mother, whose hair is pulled, nose twisted, and face generally batted all too regularly. I'm wishfully attempting to instill in her some sense of the word "gentle." I also explain to her several times each day, and entirely in vain, that just because she sees something doesn't entitle her to have it, and shouldn't always inspire her to climb up items of furniture beyond her means. There's been a lot of crying, and a lot of growling - and it hasn't been easy for Myrna either.

It is, however, definitely fun to see how self-sufficient her mobility has become, and also interesting to watch her figure out her newly expanded environment. I'm hoping, though, that we'll soon get to see her learn that open drawers make unbelievably poor supports. This video of her doing some speedy "cruising" (no relation to the Al Pacino film) is, however, injury-free.


For whatever reason, there was less monkey business today, and it made for quite a lovely day. The summer suddenly seems to be over for Freiburg, and Myrn and I wore sweaters and shoes indoors the whole day. Myrna loves her sneakers (a gift from Brian and Iman that she's finally grown into, and which you can almost see in the photo), because they make her stomps louder, which she informs me is hilarious. She spent a good thirty minutes chasing an empty juice bottle out of the kitchen and around the apartment, which I now see came to an end under the couch. Mostly, though, she just ate. In addition to plenty of milk, she ate bananas and baby cereal, corn flakes, pureed fruit, cottage cheese, nectarine, toast, corn flakes again, more banana, pasta and parsnips, and finally some more corn flakes. Her solid food intake has probably tripled this month. Admittedly, a good deal of it ends up on the floor. She compensates, though, by following the food into her mouth with her whole hand to, y'know, make sure it makes it home safe. Anyway, you'll see a bit of this in the kinda messy video below.

In spite of all her moving about, we have managed to snap a few great pictures. Her September Picasa Album is now up and running. Kelly's a big fan of this picture - just because it looks exactly like every photo taken of her in a dance costume from age 4 to 14.

A Visit from the Grandparents

We've all had a fun-filled, busy week. Myrna got a visit from her grandparents and awed them with all her new tricks. They arrived last week, with a bag full of scavenger hunt items in tow, as we'd persuaded them to bring over winter clothes, a new ipod, peanut butter and the next wave of Myrna-sized clothes that she had received as gifts. Myrna took the company in stride, and after a few days she stopped with the "are you still here?" looks. She became more and more comfortable over the course of the week and, by the end, she was really thriving on the attention. But even on the first morning, she just needed to check that her parents were still around, before settling in and enjoying some morning coffee with her grandmother.
We had fun touring around the Freiburg Altstadt - taking them to the Markthalle for lunch, where Chris has his night job as "Die Swinger"
We ended the tour at the Schloßberg Biergarten with a panoramic view of the whole city, and Myrna showed us all just how powerful she is (she finds that this is best accomplished by standing on a table and roaring).
The next day Chancellor Angela Merkel was in town, so we left the crowds of Freiburg and headed to Colmar, France for some general sight seeing.
Later in the weekend, we made another getaway, enjoying a small hike in the Schwarzwald.
Myrna had her first bike ride along the Dreisam River on Sunday, thanks in part to her grandfather who pulled her. She seemed pretty excited to get in, but maybe it was just too exciting, as she slept the entire ride.
The last adventure was to Bern, Switzerland - Myrna, Chris and my first trip to Switzerland. The trip doubled as a chance for us to visit the Swedish Embassy to pick up our new residence permits.
We quickly learned that Bern is not included in "Europe on 10 USD (or EUR) a Day," but we enjoyed the sun and the scenery all the same.

Not only did Myrna get a week of double (or triple) attention, but she started so many new things. Her proficient stomach-flop has now been replaced with a real deal up-on-all-fours crawl. She's also pulling herself up with any piece of furniture or person she can get her hands on. She has perfected the art of being a doll at restaurants, eating at the table with the adults, and she learned how to steal her mothers bread, inhaling even the hard heel of the loaf. Too much stuff to write about, so we'll leave you instead with a new photo album of our week, where you actually might see a picture or two that don't include Myrna.

I Scream For Ice Cream

Myrna's getting grabby. She's learned to climb, which has greatly improved her reach, and completely changed the landscape of the livingroom for her. Now she can pull toys off the shelf, though they tend to fall onto her head. We've had to remove all the magazines from the coffee table, and now just place junk mail there for her to find and destroy. Laptop chargers, a continued attraction for her, have nowhere to hide, but they do get their revenge. Our Mac chargers use magnetic connectors, the idea being that, if you trip over a cord, the charger will disconnect rather than yanking your laptop off the table. But this also means that small people who use stretched cords as climbing supports end up kissing the carpet.

All of this has meant further childproofing around the house. We've felt the real toll, however, on our regular ice cream runs. We've become pretty friendly with an ice cream joint maybe a ten minute walk from our place. Conveniently enough, it's next door to our regular source for diapers and baby food, so we find ourselves lining up for cones at least three times a week. From time to time, I've let Myrna sample some. This week, though, there hasn't been much choice in the matter. Thursday, Kelly carried Myrna in the Baby Björn. We got our cones and, after her longing stares went ignored, Myrna attacked Kelly's ice cream with a two handed grab - gripping the cone with her right, and smearing ice cream with her left. Then, each time Kelly went for a bite, Myrn pulled forcefully at her wrist, so that she could get a taste first. And by "taste," I mean ravenous, greedy chomp, each bite approached with the fear that it might be her last. It'd be one thing if this was, say, banana ice cream. But Kelly was eating ginger caramel ice cream, and Myrna couldn't get enough. Today I got the same treatment. I was able to keep my ice cream out of Myrna's immediate reach, but the tugs on my arm were stern and surprisingly powerful. I held her off until the screaming began. It was clear that she felt she some claim on my two scoops.  As the picture can attest, she won this battle. 

Sunday Ads

My two favorite parts of the Sunday newspaper are the crossword puzzle and the ads. They are Myrna's too. We keep her away from our current crossword (not quite from the Sunday newspaper, but from the NYT Sunday Crossword book), but yesterday we let her indulge in the ads.


In answer to the Rolling Stones' question "Who wants yesterday's paper?" Myrna answers with a resounding "ME!"

9 Months

Myrna hit the 9 month mark yesterday on the 20th of August. I'm a big fan of fractional birthdays though it is only with Myrna that I can really get anyone else interested (nobody wished me a "Happy 1/6th Birthday" the day before, nor did I wish Chris a "Happy 5/12 Anniversary") . Time really flies, and she continuously is doing new things. She loves standing and now will crawl around the apartment to find us (or to find something more exciting than us). She has almost even grown out of all her 3 month onesies, and we've been happy that she can sport all her 6 month summer clothes now.

It's been really hot here (maybe not quite as hot as Seattle, but 90s and humid and absolutely no air conditioning anywhere), so there has been a few days of diaper napping in front of the fan.
Although she's certainly not the biggest 9 month old baby on the block, look at how much she's grown.
That's her a week old, when she had to be under heating lamps when her clothes were removed. Skinny baby she is no longer! More pics of her in her new summer outfits and her diligent reading of her dad's Film Comment are on her August Picasa Page.

Back in Köln

We spent a lovely long weekend back in Köln (the first since we left at the end of February). We left beautiful sunny Freiburg, for a rainy Köln Wednesday, but that was ok because we were ready to visit our much missed coffee shop, Kaffeebaum.
We were so sad, when we learned that it was closed for a long summer holiday. Fortunately, they opened back up on Saturday (our last day there) so we were able to properly enjoy four cups of coffee and load up on beans (one kilo at that). But the rest of our favorite places were open - including the kid's consignment shop Lollipop, where we quickly spent the money we had waiting for us from selling clothes in February on new winter clothes for Myrna. We're super excited for her to sport this coat in Stockholm, at which time she hopefully will have grown into it.
We stayed in quite a lovely apartment, that among other things, had sparkling clean floors, and Myrna spent most of her time at the apartment crawling and sliding around.
We also saw friends and Chris caught a few shows at C/O Pop - a large musical festival in the city that he was writing about. He learned that he really isn't a club kid that can stay up all night, returning home at 5:30 am.
And just because we love train excitement - we got some first hand knowledge about medical emergencies on DB trains, after the car seat fell off the luggage rack and hit me and Myrna on the head. Thankfully there was no detour to a hospital in Mannheim.

August

It's August, and we finally got around to starting a new Picasa Album for the month. See all the mischief Myrna is up to - attacking crosswords, crawling under couches, etc. Last night at 9:30 she had a spurt of energy as she discovered that she can crawl out of the living room, down the hall and into her own room. She was on a tear.

All Smiles

It's virtually impossible to get a candid photo of Myrna these days. She has keen ears for the camera's start-up chirp and whirring zoom mechanism, and promptly strikes a sunny pose. I've effectively taken this picture a dozen times this week.

I can safely say that she didn't inherit this from me...