Laowai

Waking up to snow for the first time this winter. And trying out new boots.

No I’m not homesick* – I mean we are staying home with a sick Bea. She was up Tuesday night throwing up. Uhg. I have been so lucky that she has hardly ever been sick like that. She spent the day Wednesday on the couch watching lots of Peppa Pig and napping in Mommy’s bed. Now I think her fever is gone this morning and she ate a normal breakfast. 

 

Claire is close to sitting up by herself. But she still has not gotten the hang of eating food. 

*OK so I am a little homesick – except it’s not really homesick since I am home now. Let’s just say I’m counting the days until I can be with family.

There’s always a day, each year, when I realize how close Christmas is and I suddenly get excited about all the things that come along with it.

Today was that day. The bus driver gave Bea this funny little angel. He said something that I couldn’t understand and then placed it on the seat next to Bea. It looks like it’s made from a small empty cream container. 

When we got home from running errands I felt inspired to put up some of our Christmas decorations. Bea was excited to hang paper hearts on all the doors and cupboards.

This is the only tree we will be having around this year. But that’s OK. 

I’ve been working on Christmas cards little by little.

The stores are full of pretty chocolates and cookies and the gray sky looks like it could give us our first snow any minute. So bring on the holidays we are ready!

We can now cross another Swiss experience off our list. We have had raclette. What is raclette? It’s melted cheese of course.

You get yourself a raclette grill at your local brocki (like Goodwill). Then go to the grocery store and choose a package of pre-cut raclette cheese. Take it home and prepare the traditional accompaniments: boiled little potatoes, pearl onions and little pickles. Then you plug in your raclette grill and wait ’till it’s nice and hot, put a chunk of cheese on one of the little trays and insert it into the grill to melt. When you hear some sizzling and bubbling your cheese is ready. Use your special raclette spatula to scrape the cheese off the tray and pour it over your potatoes. Sprinkle with a little raclette spice – and try not to burn your mouth when you dig in. Mmmmm. 

Yes, there is some history to this tradition that I could mention and I probably, maybe, likely didn’t make it very authentically. But really – it’s all about the cheese – the melted cheese.

The raclette maker is an early Christmas gift for Brian. He loooooves melted cheese. And our Bea has come a long way from being pouty about the fact that they don’t sell orange cheese in Switzerland. She ate the raclette cheese right up. Yes, we are so very proud when our daughter eats a whole meal of cheese. The only thing that would make her meal more complete would be some Swiss chocolate.

But wait – we skipped the swiss chocolate for dessert and combined our meal with an oh so American dessert. They don’t sell canned pumpkin here so I made a pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkin. It turned out surprisingly well. 

Bea helped whip the cream.

And – doesn’t my table look nice. It’s thanks to the new Christmas runner and matching napkins that my Mom-in-law made for me.

Finally we got around to showing Daddy the pool in our town. It’s a nice pool with a great kiddie area. We are used to going on Thursday afternoons when they have the pool warmed up for babies. The warm pool is so relaxing – we go with our little friend Owain and his mom Liz. Liz and I can just sit there in the warmth and chat while the kids play like happy little fish. Each time we go Claire kicks her little legs in the water until she spontaneously falls asleep.

The weekends are a little different. The first thing I noticed was that the place was full of dads with their kids. And of course the pool was not so warm. So even though it would have been nice for Brian to experience the relaxing warm water – we had a great time.

When Grandma and Grandpa C. were here they took a liking to the vineyards that are near our home. Doug was interested in the growing methods and it’s just a beautiful area for a stroll. So whenever we call Doug asks about the vineyard.

Here’s our update: The grapes are long gone, of course. They’ve moved some sheep into some areas to graze. The grape leaves make the hills a little golden. We saw the donkeys and the chickens ran out from the other side of their pen to greet us. Looks like they’ve cut a few of the older apple tees down. And one of the horses was getting a wash today.

I put Claire and Bea in our bike trailer (you can push it like a stroller too).

We’ve discovered that a ride in the bike trailer puts Bea to sleep every time. And now I guess we know it does the trick for Claire too.

6 months old

So I still have our little emergency on my mind. I am so thankful that Claire is fine. I guess I was traumatized by seeing her poor little body crumpled up on the pavement. And then the worry and guilt that I felt as we quickly walked to the hospital. It’s a small trauma with a happy ending, but I guess it will be engraved on my mind for a while. 

Now Brian keeps making jokes when Claire drools or yells like a loony – he says she is showing the effects of being dropped on her head. Very funny Brian. 

And now to continue my Mom-in-law’s tradition of photographing kid’s injuries here is Claire with her scraped up nose.

Here she is with Daddy

Meow!