Our typical day

Our living room window

 I talked with my mom today, and she suggested that I resurrect this poor old blog of mine with a post about how we typically spend our days. That seems like a pretty harmless (and easy!) idea to me, so here it is. 

6:30 - 7:00 Mary wakes up, starts getting ready, puts oatmeal on the stove.

7:00 - 8:00 Sebastian and Bruno awake with sleepy eyes, loads of energy, and needs galore.

7:30 - 9:00 Breakfast, getting the kids dressed and Bruno’s diaper changed. The boys try to avoid all three of these in order to maximize their play time. Cody leaves the house between 8:00 and 8:15.

The entryway. The bathroom is on the right. Clearly Bruno likes this area...

9:00 - 11:00 This is always our outside time. And almost always at least an hour of it is playtime for the boys. We go to the Volkspark down the street most days where they ride their bikes and play on the playground. Occasionally when I need to run errands in the city, we will play at Osiander (a bookstore very similar to Barnes & Noble) where they have a train table, and will stop at the park in the city. The library is a particularly good option on rainy days. And if I’m feeling particularly lazy, and have nothing important to do that day, we’ll go to “the circle” outside our apartment and play with soccer balls, sticks, and tennis racquets. However we do that less and less as the boys are starting to outgrow that space with dreams of bike rides, parks with sand, etc. etc.

Headed to the library. To the left is the park, and to the right is the way to the city.

The library! Lots of awesome books and room to roam free. I love this place.

If the weather is bad and we don't want to go out, we can go to this room down the hall to get our of the apartment. It is filled with lovely plants and has wonderful light. Plus lots of friends come in and out to say "hallo" on their way to and from the building.

LEFT: A nook the boys found on campus. This building houses the chapel, offices, and library. RIGHT: Our living room. 

11:00 - 12:00 We go to the grocery almost daily and get food for the day. I normally limit myself to 5 items so that shopping isn’t tiresome for the boys, and so that I can manage the boys and our items on the walk home. We recently bought a tricycle for Bruno with a parent-handle, so most days we take the boys bikes to the grocery. Occasionally I take Bruno in the Ergo carrier. 

12:00 - 12:30 Lunch time! Bread, peanut butter, bell peppers, cucumbers, grapes, and applesauce are in our rotation.

12:30 - 13:00 Bruno goes down for his nap, and Sebastian plays quietly while I clean up from lunch.

13:00 - 15:30 Seb and mama chill! We have a quiet time, which means we rest in my and Cody’s bed. Seb falls asleep most days, and since I’ve been sick, I do to! If Seb isn’t feeling sleep, he watches a movie on my computer, and then plays more until Bruno wakes up.

15:30 - 16:30 Bruno wakes up during this time, and the boys generally play while I get supper ready. Sometimes we do laundry, or if we need something at the grocery and didn’t make it earlier in the day, we go during this time.

16:30 By far the most anticipated time of the day. Cody comes home and buzzes our apartment. Oh if only I could capture the scene that ensues! Bruno jumps so violently when he hears the buzzer that I think he’s going to start wailing, but instead he scrambles with every ounce of energy he can summon (and that’s a lot!) and runs to the door. Sebastian gets to answer the intercom phone, and then we buzz daddy in. The boys hightail it down the hall, and the rest is history. Well, not really.

16:30 - 18:00 We eat supper early, so it’s often on the table when Cody comes home, and if not then, soon after. 

18:00 - 19:30 After supper, Cody gives the boys a bath, feeds them their bedtime snack of yogurt, and reads them a couple stories. During this time I clean up from supper, sweep the floor, start laundry, and get their room ready for sleep. 

19:30-20:00 The boys are in bed! Often, there is more work to be done, so we finish our tasks, sometimes watch a movie or TV show (as much in German as possible), and climb into our futon bed (yes, I just said futon!) much much too late.

On Tuesday mornings we go to Krabbelgruppe (literally “crawling group”), which is our equivalent of a moms meetup). We sing songs with the kids and eat breakfast, which is always soft pretzels, coffee, tea, and some sort of fresh fruit served on pretty china. After the children are done eating, the moms chat (in German!!) and the kids do some sort of art project and play. The culmination of the morning for the kids is when they bring the Bobby Cars out of the closest, and they speed up and down the hallways while the moms get everything ready to go home. Bobby Cars are seriously “a thing” here. 

Soon Sebastian will start Kindergarten, and I will update a bit on that as we get into the swing of things. Kindergarten in Germany starts at age three, and for the youngest children it’s their equivalent of American preschool. He will go 3 mornings a week to start, and ideally we’ll keep it at that number. It’s an Evangelical Kindergarten, so he will be learning Bible stories, doing crafts, and playing a lot. Every Friday they have an excursion day where they go to a nearby forest to explore. Sebastian is thrilled to be starting in the Kindergarten, and he’s very ready to learn German. We are so thankful for this opportunity for him to learn. 

And that turned out to be a lot longer than I had planned, but I suppose I was due for an update. Much love to our family and friends reading this. We miss you dearly.

Hope you liked that, Mom.