tuesdays with storks

tuesday morning is one of my favorite times of the week because gabe and i get to go visit my midwife, heike, at the storchenschule (stork school) birth house. this is where gabe was born in april and where we attend classes like baby massage or get acupuncture. on tuesdays it means meeting up with other mamas for "still cafe" (nursing cafe) and is also a time to ask heike questions and get checked by our osteopath, evi. this is definitely the post where my inner hippy shows, so get ready!

heike runs this midwifery practice and birth house from her home in a village near ours. we found her last year after researching natural birth alternatives in our area and i have no doubt that gabe's birth would have been very different if we had gone the hospital route. he was overdue by four days and had a very large head circumference (38 cm), and although my labor was quite short at about five hours, it was intense. gabe took his time passing through my pelvis and it meant i needed to change positions a lot. heike has over thirty years of midwifery experience and knew what was necessary to get him out safely, but after the birth she told us honestly that she hadn't had such an intense labor in the past five years. she guaranteed that in any hospital it would have ended in a cesarean because of gabe's slow progress and large head, but because of her knowledge and confidence in my body i was able to have an unmedicated birth without any interventions. heike works with an osteopath who was also present during the birth. evi helped a lot with my back labor by applying counter pressure and adjusting gabe's skull plates afterwards. his head was so large that he came out looking like an alien, but thanks to her it only took two days for it to look normal. these women were and still are invaluable to our little family and i'm so thankful that god brought them into our lives.

anyway, back to tuesdays: still cafe is between ten and twelve, which makes it very low stress when you happen to be running late or your baby needs to nap first, etc. there are usually between five and fifteen mamas there and we talk or nurse our babies while evi checks for blockaden (blockages). i had never heard of osteopathy before moving to germany, which is ironic since it was apparently founded in the united states. it's sort of a combination of chiropractic adjustment and holistic medicine. i have several friends whose babies had unexplained digestive issues or favored lying on one side that found this therapy helpful, and the krankenkasse (health insurance) usually covers it.

this weekly routine is so important for me, not just because it's a good chance to get advice on practical things or see people but because it means getting out of the house at least once. sometimes just having one reason is enough to coax me out and from there i'm more motivated to do errand running or shopping on the way home. with the darker months fast approaching (i know... what?!) it's good to know that there will still be tuesday mornings to look forward to. xoxo

evi and gabe

visiting oma & opa

daniel and i have been driving down to stay with his parents about once a month since we got married, and now that their first grandchild is here visiting is high on the priority list. on friday we made the three hour trip to their village near ulm and came home sunday evening. daniel has been playing the organ since he was fourteen and still plays in the village churches whenever we're down there. my in laws' house is a quiet place in the country and while he rehearses the songs for sunday i like to drink coffee with his mom or read a book. in the past i was on my phone constantly (and still am a lot of the time!) but i've been trying to be more mindful about the chance to relax for the weekend and unplug. i always come home rested if i've spent the afternoons doing more knitting or reading than facebook scrolling.

on saturday afternoon daniel's mom wanted to do some shopping in town, so i left gabe with his papa to go visit uroma (great grandma) while we were gone. oma bought him a new onesie (here it's called a "body") and a sleep sack. it was a beautiful day and we had ice cream afterwards and talked about the family and her vacation apartments. daniel's dad built their house in 1980 from the ground up and it's massive, so after the four kids moved out they converted the basement and upstairs into small apartments. mostly they have construction workers staying because of the huge train project going on in stuttgart, but there's usually at least one weekend in the month free for us to stay.

for this trip we decided to try going on our first ever date without gabe and thankfully it went really well. i pumped a bottle earlier in the day and laid out pajamas, and other than a few tears at bedtime he did ok. we wanted to go see a movie but there weren't any original versions playing in ulm. (original version, or ov, is the film in the original language without german dubbing) instead we went to a toy store to use a gift card that's been sitting in my wallet for months and then had dinner in ulm next to the danube. gabe made out like a bandit and got a wooden teething ring, a ball, and his first schleich animal. schleich makes the best, cutest, sturdiest little plastic animals and daniel's mom still has some from the 80's that look brand new. they're on the expensive side but the quality is well worth it. the restaurants next to the river were packed but we finally found a spot and enjoyed a few hours alone as husband and wife for the first time since our little one was born. having family to babysit is a blessing and i know that if my family were closer we would probably already be having regular date nights! xoxo

fall in germany

Fall has arrived in Germany! Time to break out the scarves, boots, sweaters, teapots and scone recipes that you've been storing for the colder months! This fall I'm extra excited because the season turned out to be a bit of a bummer last year. Instead of the crisp mornings and transitioning leaves we instead had a long, hot and muggy summer (well into the end of September) that turned into two months of solid rain. After mid-November the German winter took over and it was downhill from there. Interestingly, the spring was also very disappointing. According to my husband normal springtime is very warm and mild with lots of sun and flowers. Compared to springtime back in Washington State (rain) I had been looking forward to it, but instead I apparently brought the Washington weather with me and there was no sun to be had.

Anyway, it looks like this year might turn out better! We've had a few weeks of cooler days, but still with nice sunshine. The leaves are turning beautiful colors and you can smell autumn when you go outside. And of course, as this blog is about Germany, what comes around in September? Oktoberfest! This festival has become so popular that in every major city it's necessary to make a reservation months in advance. We didn't get around to it this year, but Daniel and I will probably celebrate in some way shape or form! However, there are other festivals before Oktoberfest that can be equally fun. One example is the Wurstfest in Bad Dürkheim, where we went last weekend with several friends of ours. Besides the normal festival installments, which include carnival rides, food stands and souvenir shops, there are around 25 tents set up in rows. Each tent belongs to a different winery, and a group of "official judges" (old guys who have the privilege of getting schnockered for free) go to each tent to test the wine quality. We picked one tent at random, grabbed a bench and ordered our wine: A glass that holds 2/3 of a bottle and costs around 5 Euro. I'll tell you, the local wine in Germany is AMAZING! I picked a Gewürztraminer and it was delicious!

Let's hope that fall continues to be as glorious as the last few weeks!

Scarves and Pinterest crafts! Happy fall!

What a deal, eh?

These guys weren't the judges, but they sure were enjoying the wine! The drum set even had cup holders!

Wine buddies!

All you need is love... and wine fests!