But I LOVE grilled cheese sandwiches....

You Are a Ham Sandwich

You are quiet, understated, and a great comfort to all of your friends. Over time, you have proven yourself as loyal and steadfast. And you are by no means boring. You do well in any situation - from fancy to laid back. Your best friend: The Turkey Sandwich Your mortal enemy: The Grilled Cheese Sandwich

What Kind of Sandwich Are You?

I think Ive spent too much time playing with these silly quizzes. I just found one that told me that Ryan "wasn't marriage material and I should dump him immediately because he's never going to commit." We've been married for 9 years in November, so I guess he's done a good job fooling me into at least thinking he's marriage material.....

Guten tag.

Ich Heisse Jenn. (My name is Jenn.)

Ich komme aus New Mexico. (I come from New Mexico.)

Ich wohne in Deutchland. (I live in Germany; actually, I said the name of my village, but you don't get that information here)

I think I repeated these sentences at least 100 times yesterday, along with the attendant question to pass the game on to my neighbor on either side and I still had to look at my notes this morning to type them out. I DO know the names, home states and villages of every other person in the class. While that's nice to know, I don't think it was the point of the exercise. Language is just NOT my strong suit. I especially learned that the German umlaut is not a noise that I'm able to make. She worked with me for an extraordinarily long time (much to my chagrin, since this is all conducted as a group exercise with everyone watching) and I just couldn't get it. The class was conducted entirely in German, no English allowed (ok, except our snide comments to each other, including the time when I was asked a simple question, my mind went blank and I loudly exclaimed that my brain was going to explode, and the entire class erupted in laughter. I need to learn that phrase in German, I suppose).

I did learn both of the following sentences VERY well:

Ich weiss nicht!
Keine ahnung!

Both translate roughly to "I don't know!"

I also realized that my name is unpronounceable as intended in German. German's don't make the "J" sound like we do (it's a "y" sound instead), nor do they have an equivalent to our "W" as it's a "V" noise here. So, it's no wonder that people look at me oddly when I introduce myself; I have a name that just doesn't translate (although, I've been told repeatedly that Kathryn is a good German name....). I also learned the German phonetic alphabet, so that should go a long way toward helping clear up that problem as time goes on.

Yesterday afternoon Katy and I went to check out a new Child Development Center. She's suddenly developed a severe aversion to the one she's currently attending; it's to the point that they've had to call me and ask me to come back and pick her up early. Tomorrow I'm going to go with her (to the center she's been attending up until now) and stay the entire time she stays to observe; but since I have a doctor's appointment next week, we needed an alternate plan. There's another facility that's only a few minutes from where my appointment will be, but it tends to be full most of the time (luckily, they have an opening around the time of my appointment). As is typical with the military, the centers all look about the same. We observed the two classrooms for a few minutes and Katy "clicked" with one of them and even asked to get down and play. She had a gaggle of little girls surrounding her, eager to play with the "new girl"; it was very cute. We're going to keep working on the current center with me going along, but at least there's an alternative to get us through next week. As a "treat" for being good while we looked at the new classroom we stopped at a new park on the way home. This one was very quiet and she was the only kid there, but she still had a good time.



She really got a kick out of the shadows the swing was making.





And finally, we stayed home from play group today. I feel the start of a cold coming on and Katy didn't sleep well and has a slight runny nose, so she's probably got it too. Cross your fingers that taking the adenoids out was the answer and she doesn't get an ear infection again. Without fail, she usually gets a new ear infection about 5 days after we finish a set of antibiotics. Today is day 5, so this cold couldn't have come with worse timing.

As a treat, for lunch she got one of my personal favorites, peanut butter and nutella sandwich! Yum!!! It was messy since she insisted on pulling the pieces of bread apart and eating each bit individually.



That's one happy girl!

What color are you?

I just ran across this on another blog I read from time to time and thought it was interesting.

So, this is me, apparently:

You Are a Blue Crayon

Your world is colored in calm, understated, deep colors. You are a loyal person, and the truest friend anyone could hope to find. On the inside, you tend to be emotional and even a bit moody. However, you know that people depend on you. So you put on a strong front. Your color wheel opposite is orange. Orange people may be opinionated, but you feel they lack the depth to truly understand what they're saying.

What Color Crayon Are You?

What color are you?

Ring Around the Rosie...

Ryan runs for his unit's cross country team. So, every Tuesday evening he's off at a race. Katy and I try to go as often as we can to cheer and run around too. We usually bring a "picnic" dinner, there's a collection of kids right around Katy's age, and people bring their dogs, so there's plenty to entertain her before, during and after the race.

Last night Ryan was sitting on the ground stretching. Katy had JUST been sitting on his lap but had wandered away. Something gave her a small scare and she came flying back to where she thought Ryan SHOULD be. Unfortunately, she missed and ended up giving a huge bear hug to the legs of another man, who was shocked, but at least slightly amused. Ryan said something to her to remind her that he was next to her which made her look up, realize that this wasn't Daddy and petrified her even more. The problem was, the legs seemed so familiar to her that she couldn't or wouldn't let go. It took a while to get her straightened out and the poor thing was looking around warily afterwards. She realized that ALL of these people were wearing shorts and had somewhat similar legs.

After the race we were standing at the finish line congratulating people (Ryan came in third overall if you're curious) when Katy spied another girl her size. They were BOTH overjoyed to see each other; like old friends. Katy has this new obsession with playing "Ring Around the Rosie." I have a video of us all playing from a few weeks ago but can't get it to load over here. In fact, in another breakthrough moment the other night she walked up and grabbed one hand from each of us and started to tug. She was ready to play, NOW! I'm loving these new communication skills! In similar fashion, she grabbed this other little girls hands so they could play.



They were both pretty pleased by the event.



The problem is, Katy's favorite part is the "we all fall down!" line. When we play with her at home she usually can't get past the first line before she gets so excited that she falls down right then and there. Not a big deal normally except we were outside and it had been raining.



This is why I have so few light-colored clothes. They get worn once and I can never get the stains out again. But, she had a good time, so I suppose that's all that counts.



It's MY turn to go back to school. Tonight I officially start taking German classes. I'm nervous and excited. I'm a visual learner, so I think that having a textbook will be a big help to me. Think good thoughts and wish me luck!

For those that are worried, the following is more than an hour drive from us so it didn't affect us at all.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20716605/

I found it especially difficult to leave Katy at "school" today. It took me a long time to realize why. Today was just not the day to be apart. I was trying to put on a brave face and pretend that today was any other normal day. It's not.

I found a decent Youtube slide show with many of the images we associate with 9-11.

First day of gymnastics class!

I snapped these first two pictures before we left because I didn't want to be one of "those parents" that was hovering with a camera being a sappy goof about my child going to her first day of gymnastics (yes, I had to convince her to leave her butterfly balloon home again. She's still entirely smitten). I figured that I could just write about the experience afterwards.





It turned out that once I got around to pulling out my camera I was the last one to do it (glad I actually packed it). Some parents were a bit sillier about it than me and were chronicling every second of the event quite loudly.

We arrived a little late due to an unfortunately timed diaper issue. Hey, when you've got to go you've got to go! The group starts with "stretching exercises" with all the kids sitting in their parents lap (or next to them if they're big enough) on colored squares. Katy wasn't sure that was for her and wanted to explore. I had quite the time keeping her close and trying to convince her to at least try what the instructor was telling us to do (some of it she's just not able to do yet, and that's fine too).

Katy wasn't the youngest one there, but she was one of about 3 kids that looked a whole lot smaller and less coordinated than the rest (the class is open to kids aged 18 months to 3 years, so she's definitely on the early end of that). I'm assuming she'll start to "blend" with the crowd as the year progresses and then be a "big kid" next year.

They finally pulled out the parachute, which Katy loved. The parents would hold it up while the kids ran underneath to "touch their favorite color." Katy enjoyed running underneath and spinning around but didn't quite understand the coming back out concept so we could move on. I spent a lot of time dragging her back out of things, much to her dismay.

After our "stretching" time was over the kids were released to play anywhere they liked in the gym. This was fun! The floor was bouncy, which made it even more fun.





They put up a lot of soft structures for the kids to climb on and over.



She's a little young for this but apparently wasn't daunted.



Nor here....







This was a neat thing that all the kids universally loved to climb through. Here's the approach....



The fun part for me was that Katy actually did it all by herself.







The trampoline was a big hit as well. She looks like such a "big kid" to me in this photo.



Finally, crawling through the tunnels.



Katy also managed to walk the balance beam with some good precision (obviously, I was helping with that one). I put her on the regular one first because she was curious and she managed a few steps before she fell off (holding onto my hand, of course). They also had a toddler beam that was wider and she LOVED being able to master that one.

This should be fun! I'm glad that I get to participate for a few years. I stuck around in the lobby for a few minutes to wait and meet a friend whose daughter is in the 11 class (ours lets out at 10:15) and watched the parents of the 3-5 year group as they were told they'd have to wait in the lobby. No adults allowed in that class. There were a lot of sad faces pressed up against the glass and I was thankful to not be one of those yet.

Night Terrors.

Ugh, Katy has developed night terrors. Neither Ryan nor I had them (although, my sister did). They are no fun at all.Luckily, last nights episode occurred just as we were turning off the TV to head to bed anyway. It just wasn't the nice, relaxing way we had intended to head upstairs. Instead, it was a race to pick up a child that was screaming like she was being eaten alive. Of course, as soon as it was over she settled back down and seems to have no recollection of it at all.

If it's not one thing.....