please don't squeeze the Charmin!

German toilet paper sucks. I mean, it's just terrible. No matter how cheap or expensive, 2-, 3- or 4-ply, it's inevitably too rough and not absorbent enough. In the U.S., I've found plenty of brands that have satisfied my needs. By no means am I someone who needs the most expensive, fluffy, 12-ply, wipes-your-ass-for-you, next-generation toilet paper. But come on, a little softness wouldn't be out of line. And also? When the paper isn't really absorbent, you gotta wipe and repeat. And if the paper in question is rough as well, that isn't really fun, yanno?

Well, after Marie was born, Toffi bought some Charmin for me since he figured I'd be extra-sensitive in those parts. It was a fantastic idea, and we continued to buy it after that most of the time. Now I've taken it to the next level by announcing to him, quite matter-of-factly, that I do not intend to ever buy any brand of toilet paper other than Charmin so long as we live in Germany. I don't care if it's expensive, environmentally unfriendly or even that it's made by Procter and Gamble. Hell, I wouldn't care if Satan himself made those rolls. I simply refuse to pay too much money to wipe my ass with what amounts to cleverly packaged sandpaper ever again. And now it seems as though Marie has followed my example.

Seriously, Marie should do commercials for Charmin, 'cuz whenever we buy it, she loves to play with the package. Usually it just involves holding it on her lap and tugging at the handy plastic strap. But today, she tried something new. Holding the package by the strap, she let it hang out of the stroller, just barely dragging on the ground. She did this all the way home, happy as a clam. Y'all shoulda seen the looks we got. This girl's a crowd pleaser.

mark your calendars

Marie said her first word today! I mean, apart from "Mama" and a word I suspect is her current rendition of "Papa!"

What's the word, you ask?

Well, you non-German speakers will be slightly confused when I say it was "zart."

Zart is pronounced "tsart" and means, depending on the context, either gentle or delicate.

Perhaps this seems like a strange first word, but it's not that surprising, actually. You see, whenever we give Oko a treat that he's allowed to take from our hands, we tell him he has to take it "very gently," or "ganz zart," so he doesn't snatch it from us. In turn, we have taught Marie to give Oko little treats as well. She thinks it's great comedy when she successfully gives him a morsel of whatever she's supposed to be eating. And when this happens, we tell Oko repeatedly, "ganz zart," since we definitely don't want him to get the idea that he can snatch anything from Marie. Likewise, when Marie wants to pet Oko, we tell her, "ganz zart," so that she doesn't grab him by the fur and twist and pull (which is something I doubt Oko would tolerate for long). So all told, "zart" is a word Marie hears quite a lot.

Toffi informed me that she had said it several times this morning after he said it while supervising a Marie-Oko interaction. Then, she spent the rest of the day saying it.

Now I'm just wondering when the first English word will come.

Oh, and more on the unmitigated f***tard who pissed me off yesterday coming soon.

question

Ok guys, give it to me straight. I can take it. Do I have a big neon sign above my head, visible to all but myself, that lights up with the words, "Go ahead. Pick on me. Bitch at me. Butt into my life and tell me exactly what you think I'm doing wrong. It won't take much to get under my skin?" 'Cuz if I do, that would explain a lot. And if I don't, what the hell is it about me that attracts all the idiots having bad days that want to let it out on a perfect stranger?

Happy Mother's Day!

It's a little late, but I didn't want to let the day go by without wishing all the moms in my life (and that includes those of you whom I don't know personally) a wonderful, wonderful day. Mine was lovely, complete with roses and sleeping in and Skyping with my parents so they could see Marie's latest trick: waving hello and goodbye.

strange things afoot in the park

Since the weather here has been thoroughly non-German lately and thus, summery, we've spent some time at the park over the past couple days. The Volkspark Friedrichshain is always full of characters, but sometimes things just get weird.

Two days ago, we came across this sight:
Really, I just don't know what to say about that.

And then today, as we were leaving the park, we walked past a bus stop and suddenly heard a loud *THUD!* followed quickly by a *YELP!*

Now, Germans can be kind of overachieving when it comes to neatness and cleanliness. Toffi and I have actually seen normal(-looking) citizens drive around with cleaning products and paper towels to clean the public post boxes. And while we were pretty taken aback by the sight, we weren't totally surprised. It isn't really hard to imagine a middle-aged German couple griping about how dingy mailboxes have become and how upright citizens wouldn't have stood for it 20 years ago. So it really only takes one more step (and some serious OCD) to get to the point where these people decide to take matters into their own hands and finally set things right. Righteous indignation is a powerful motivator, apparently.

Aaaaanyway, so German public property tends to be kept quite orderly and clean. Including bus stops. And in this case, it turns out the glass panes of the bus shelter were so damn clean, Oko didn't see the glass and ran right smack into it. Hence, the *THUD!* of his head ramming the glass and his *YELP!* of pain and surprise. I felt horrible for him. I'm sure trotting head-first into a solid pane of glass is pretty painful. Plus, Oko obviously didn't know what hit him. But it was also so damn funny that I couldn't contain my laughter. Neither could Toffi, nor the girl waiting at the bus stop, who was probably wondering whether our dog was stupid, senile or just a pot-head.

on a lighter note...

Okay, so now that I've FINALLY gotten Marie to sleep and before she's awake AGAIN, I'm going to tell you about something hilarious that happened today.

Actually, it started last night, when I couldn't find the reading light that I had been using for the past few evenings (I stole it from Toffi). I searched the bedroom superficially, but quickly gave up because I just wanted to sleep and Marie was already crying anyway. Some time this afternoon, I remembered it was missing and started looking again. It was a frustrating enterprise, as Marie and Toffi were playing on the bed at the time, and Toffi was trying to help me look by looking in places I had already searched. I've been tense and over-wrought recently and have had a tendency to pick fights over nothing, and this afternoon was no exception. Things were escalating to argument level when we called a truce and gave up the hunt. "It's probably in Marie's special drawer, anyway," Toffi said.

We have this little cart in our kitchen that has mesh wire drawers and rolls in under the counter top. Marie loves to stand in front of the cart and fiddle with the wire mesh and stick toys through the little holes. A few weeks ago, I found one of her little drumsticks (she takes it with her all over the apartment) in the drawer next to the dish towels. And it's happened once or twice since then. We've also found her carrot rattle in there before. It was conceivable that Marie had been playing in the bedroom and taken the reading light with her on her further explorations. So I went into the kitchen and looked. Sure enough, there it was:

The reading light is the little black rectangle on the left side of the second drawer. It sort of looks like a cell phone. I burst out laughing when I saw this and called Toffi into the kitchen to show him. The argument was forgotten, and now we know: next time something is missing, check Marie's special drawer.

barely alive

Right now I feel like belting Pearl Jam's "Alive" at the top of my lungs, but I'm simply too tired. We're still in hell over here, so stay tuned for more details on our agonies.

Be assured, we are okay. We are alive; we are not seriously ill; the sky isn't falling on top of us. Toffi and I are just tired and frustrated that we have been robbed of our baby-free* evenings for the past several days.

* To be fair, our evenings haven't been baby-free for eleven months, but I'm using the term loosely to include having at least 2 hours to ourselves in which we can slouch on the sofa and watch mind-numbing television together.

job qualifications

Being a parent is not easy. Anyone who says it is, is lying. There are some days, however, when it is so hard it makes you wonder if you're cut out for it.

These past two nights have been HELL, people. Marie has a cold, complete with a runny/stuffy nose and a low-grade fever (She caught it from Toffi, and it remains to be seen whether I get it too or not.). She also has a diaper rash. She is on the verge of learning to walk, and her body seems to need to practice it at all hours, even when she is asleep (Yesterday, she actually stood on her own for over a minute several times!). And she's teething, BIG TIME. I'm serious. I have bite marks on my knuckles from over 48 hours ago, and her shirt is constantly soaking wet from the leaky faucet that is her mouth. Put this all together, and you have the perfect storm.

Marie was in bed last night at 7:30, a reasonable time. It didn't even take that long for her to fall asleep. But then she was up at 8:15, 8:45, 9:15. After going in to her the third time, I said screw this, and had Toffi turn out all the lights in the living room and turn down the volume on the TV so that we could just barely hear it. I rocked her, bounced her, and finally nursed her to sleep. When she was deeply asleep, I settled down into an arm chair and ate some chocolate with her on my lap. Everything seemed fine until Toffi accidentally brushed a button on his laptop, suddenly turning the volume waaaaay up. Marie was up, screaming, inconsolable. And it took over an hour to get her settled again. Even then, it was only a light, fussing sleep. We all went to bed, and she finally settled down into a deep sleep around 1sh. At 4:15 it was over, and I spent the rest of the night switching her back and forth between breasts. She was half asleep most of the time, but any attempt on my part to free my nipple from her grasp so that I could get some rest, too, was futile. Toffi got up with her at 7:30, leaving me to sleep for a couple hours.

And if you think that sounds rough, you'll hardly be able to believe that it was actually better than the night before. Because that night, I didn't get any sleep at all. This is really one of those times when I wonder whether I have what it takes to provide for another human being. Deep down, I know I do, but sleep deprivation and a hurting baby don't exactly boost my confidence.