Österreich

It always seems like I have so much to say as I'm falling asleep thinking about writing, but then when I have the time to sit down, nothing comes to mind. Today Tara took a 45 min. nap as we were walking from the train station to our hotel in Salzburg, so that might have something to do with it.
The picture is Tara and I, I swear :) It has been about 2C, so 35'ish F, kinda cold, but manageable thanks to everyone who gave T their old snowsuits

If Innsbruck and Salzburg are representative of Austria as a whole, well I'd live here. We've been up the side of a mountain, one on which 3-4 yr olds were skiing cliff side hills like they're gonna be in the olympics next year, seen a few castles, taken many walks in old towns and done a tiny bit of shopping, mostly window. Right now our search focus is a kugelbahn, a marble cascading track toy, and maternity pants that are not 6 inches too long.
We had a very nice Christmas Eve, Germans celebrate starting at around 4PM on the 24th, with the lighting of the tree, have dinner and then do presents. We managed to find one of the only two or three places to eat dinner, and they closed at 6P, we had traditional Tirol dishes. Nate had a meat and potato dish with a sunnyside up egg on top. Tara got the best ravioli we've ever had, made in house and stuffed with spinach, chopped fine with great spices and not a lick of cheese (how nice for me!) Actually now that I'm in the second trimester I've been able to eat a bit of dairy, hot chocolate is top on my list. We spent Christmas walking around town, it was lightly snowing the whole day, we took a 2.5 hr nap and relaxed and then went and listened to the choir play in the square, Nate has taken to Gluwein, and Tara and I either share tee or heise schokolade.
Walking around European old towns is wonderfully relaxing, they close the street to cars during the day, so we can let Tara run, however if you've seen any of our pictures you can see that she usually chooses the mommy back or the daddy backpack over strolling on her own.

A two year old

So we had Tara's second birthday party and it was quite fun and almost overwhelming. We only had six kids over, for two 2-yr olds birthday, but that was enough. Tara and her friend Momo from next door share a birthday and were both born around 7P in their respective time zones. One is a perfect little angel, and one is, well, overwhelming at times (his mother will verify this :) )
It was fun this year, Nate's birthday was on Thursday, and our neighbor has the same birthday, so we hosted a dinner with cake on Nates birthday, and then on Saturday we hosted afternoon tea for Tara's party. Tara asked to go upstairs after about an hour into her party, I think having that many kids around is overwhelming when you are not used to little boys throwing things, parents having fun and actually talking, and everyone playing with all your toys. I bought playdough for the kids to play with during the party, and thank god we did not have time to take it out. I totally underestimate what a little boy would do with such a thing. I am quite lucky to have ended up with a first child who is very easy going, I had a disscussion with a neighbor tonight about how hard a difficult first child is when you have no idea what to do with a kid in the fisrt place. No wonder second children or usually more outgoing, friendly and generally at ease. It is really hard to figure out what they need sometimes.
So it has been snowing here everyday except two, one of which we just had freezing rain instead, since the beginning of December. So we go out in it a couple of times each day, long enough for Tara to get cold, 10 min's, and ask to go 'home'. We only go out to the parking lot, so I guess she associates the word 'home' with 'inside' and not the surroundings. Today she stood in the parking lot and would not come with me, she was repeating a word, which ment something she needed, but I had absolutely no idea what she was saying, it was difficult, but we were outside and one of my rules is that when we are outside, she walks, I do not carry her. So I just walked up the path and waited, she called and I called back and then she came running. I wonder what she was trying to tell me, hopefully she'll figure out a sign that gets the point across next time.
Having a two yr. old is pretty much the same as having a 1 1/2 yr old. There are a few more tantrums, but they are so cute. It goes a little something like this: She wants something, I say nein,, or give her some other option, she whines, I stop paying attention to her whining, she lays on the floor or on a chair for like 30 seconds and wails, there are sometimes tears involved, but not too often, and then I ask her if she wants to do a puzzle or read a book and she comes running over smiling. We really lucked out with this one, her spriit is at peace and is generally in a happy place.
Her vocabulary is budding and now she enunciates many of those words that all sounded the same a few weeks ago. Her work on learning her colors is coming now that we are playing with playdough and window crayons all day. She still switches blue and green as well as yellow and red, but she still knows the signs and always gets those right. As for home, we really miss it and now that we've passed the halfway mark I am thinking more and more about when we get to return.
How about a switch to food, does anyone else freek out when all their kid will eat all day for a few days, is yogurt? At least it is healthy, but geez, a few peas would not hurt you! We've been going through a series of yogurt for every meal, or else refusing dinner and only accepting cereal. I know I like cereal for dinner sometimes, but I thought that craving started in college.
Well it has been a very fun first half of December, one more birthday, my sisters, to come and then it is x-mas. We're going to go to Innsbruck, Austria. We are very quickly running out of time to see Europe, so this will take care of southern germany too. I don't think we'll get to all the places we'd hoped, but everywhere we've gone so far has been wonderful. Which takes me to one last story for the evening. One of T's favorite games is pulling the suitcase around the house saying "Pawis, pawis, mommy, daddy, Tawa" I ask her what she packed and sometimes we just go with the shirts on our back and sometimes we bring her babies along. It has been three months and she is still infatuated, I think she'll be studying abroad as soon as she is able.