Catchin Up!

As you can see, I've not blogged in a while!
I've been busy helping Gerhard with administrative & organization needs in his business. I'll be learning more in the upcoming weeks and months to better help him in the office since his mom retires in three weeks.

The highlight of the week was yesterday. I got to babysit Tyler from around noon till 1am! He came over for lunch and then afterwards we went for a walk. We took the stroller with us in order for him to take a nap along the way. We decided to go ahead and walk to his house - next town over - instead of taking my car (which has his 2nd car seat in it). After playing a bit at the little play area in our town, Tyler got settled in the stroller with a snack & his sippy cup & off we went. On our walks, I've got a trick to get him to go to sleep (which I only do after we have left the city & entered the fields), so don't laugh! I sing him a song. We've tried several songs, but there is only one that gets him every time & by the end of the first verse, he is out cold. It is the old hymn "In The Garden". Between Hausen (our town) and Merklingen (his town), there is a bench along the path surrounded by farm land, where I park the stroller & sit down to read for 20 - 10 min since by this point, he has only been asleep for 20 min. After that, we continued on to Merklingen where he usually wakes up due to the traffic & sounds of town. Yesterday however, he continued sleeping another 40 min while I pushed him through a couple of neighborhoods. Once he woke up & had another snack - raisins (YUCK!, but he likes them) and we crossed the main street, stopped off at a bakery for a pretzel, I took him out of the stroller so he could use up some energy by walking. Needless to say, the pace slowed down extremely so he could examine every piece of grass, rock and bush along the way. Well, not every piece of grass, but close. We made it to his house while it was still light outside - Spring is on the way! - so we decided to take Bella out for a walk. I couldn't find her leash & Tyler wouldn't come inside, so I kept rushing in and out since they have a pond in the back yard. Finally, I picked Tyler up, set him inside the door & told him to find Bella's leash. He grunted & walked right over to Bella's toy basket & pulled out the leash! Well, I would have not thought to look there! So, off we went, but this time, no stroller & a very hyper dog. Picture this, we are walking up hill, Bella on the leash pulling one arm practically out of socket while my other arm is stretched in the other direction pulling Tyler along after us. Poor kid had to jog to keep up so after a couple of minutes of that, he jerked my hand away and refused to continue on in such a manner. It was so funny. We did make it over to an open field where Bella was able to run off the leash. Tyler and I chased her, cracking ourselves up while she turned around and ran straight towards us like a bullet getting right up to Tyler's face & turning sharp to not knock him over. His shrills of excitement could probably be heard on the moon! After an hour of that, we finally made it worn out back to the house to start supper. All went well, though he did refuse to sit in his booster seat since he wanted to sit in a kid sized chair at the coffee table to watch Dora the Explorer which he is allowed to watch at dinner time. I just wasn't sure about the sitting situation, but gave in since seemed to be so certain to what he was doing. In the end it worked out fine & he ate all his dinner - with only a few pieces of pretzel thrown to Bella. After dinner he got ready for bed with no problem. Uncle Gerhard stopped by between appointments, so he was excited about that. At 8pm (yeah, a bit later than his 7pm bed time), he went to bed - though it took 5 min. to get Bella settled - she wanted in the bed too. By 8:10 he was out! What a relief - I was sure he would be a little bit more difficult since it was the first time being put to be by someone else, but all that walking & running around with Bella must have done the trick. He was still sleeping when Gerhard came back by and still sleeping when Christie & Roland got home. I've not heard yet how the rest of the night went though.

Well, it is past time for me to be in the kitchen cooking lunch! I hear Gerhard's car door already! Ooops!
HAVE A GREAT DAY EVERYBODY!