I will admit it: I love Facebook. I thought I would hate it and so I avoided joining for some time. Some time ago, I had tried My Space and thought it was horrible, so I was expecting something similar. But I love it! Why do I love it? Well, I am really far away from lots of people that I love. And the time difference makes telephone calls kind of complicated. So I love getting up every morning and checking to see what my friends were up to the day before. I love that I get to see when my brother puts a new cabinet in his kitchen, how my niece changes month for month, what my silly little nephew is up to, how my friends' kids are growing in leaps and bounds. And at the same time, I can share photos of the Bean, ask questions like "who is using cloth diapers?" and "do you give your baby a pacifier?" or just plan a trip to Ikea with my friend. For these reasons, I have come to love Facebook.
At the same time, I find Facebook difficult. Often, I wrestle with whether or not to comment on a post. When there are already 10 comments on a photo saying "cute!" should I make it 11? Is it meaningful to that person that I comment?
Or my most current struggle - when someone makes a statement that you just can't agree with or writes something that you personally find to be offensive, is it necessary to comment? Or could it just be damaging to the relationship, especially because that person can't hear the tone in your voice as you're commenting and might misinterpret your words? Or what if you do comment and then they respond to your comment in such a way that you feel offended and the relationship suffers? Is it worth it? But what if you don't comment, because of said doubts and then just have this feeling like you missed a chance to tell them something that's important to you. That not commenting leaves an elephant in the room that you just can't get past. That your relationship with that person is affected by your not commenting and they will never even know what happened.
What do you think?
24 March 2010
19 March 2010
Stripes
Marc and I finally finished painting the toilet. Well, not the toilet itself, but the room that the toilet is in. It took an entire week and here's why (well, here's why plus we have a 5 month old who wants to play and doesn't take very long naps...).
The initial plan was to paint the wall behind the toilet and the wall across from it the blue color. The side walls were going to be solid yellow. But as I was painting the side walls, I decided that the contrast was too extreme. Plus, I couldn't get clean edges on the walls, so the transitions looked bad. After looking around online for ideas (faux paint treatments, etc....), I decided that stripes were in order.
Oh my goodness was it a lot of work! Measuring, taping, painting over the tape to get clean lines and then doing the actual painting. But I am happy with the result.
The tiles on the wall were painted at some point and the paint has begun chipping away. Plus, the tiles are nice. So the next project is to remove the paint from the tile.
Oh and I really, really want a new toilet.....
The initial plan was to paint the wall behind the toilet and the wall across from it the blue color. The side walls were going to be solid yellow. But as I was painting the side walls, I decided that the contrast was too extreme. Plus, I couldn't get clean edges on the walls, so the transitions looked bad. After looking around online for ideas (faux paint treatments, etc....), I decided that stripes were in order.
Oh my goodness was it a lot of work! Measuring, taping, painting over the tape to get clean lines and then doing the actual painting. But I am happy with the result.
The tiles on the wall were painted at some point and the paint has begun chipping away. Plus, the tiles are nice. So the next project is to remove the paint from the tile.
Oh and I really, really want a new toilet.....
17 March 2010
Zwergensprache
Zwergensprache is the name of Noah's sign language class. The literal translation is midget language. In German, it's not uncommon to refer to kids as midgets (Zwerg), without intending to offend any vertically challenged individuals.
No worries, Noah passed the hearing test they administered in the hospital. We're taking a sign language course because babies who learn sign language can communicate long before they can speak. And, babies who learn sign language can generally speak earlier and have a larger vocabulary than their peers.
Of course, we're not intending to learn fluent sign language. Sign language is an independent language with as many words as we have in the English or German language. I took American Sign Lanuage for one semester in college and I have to honestly say that it was much more complicated than I expected it to be. And on top of that, every country has their own sign language. And then there are even regional differences, just as there are in the spoken language. Noah is learning signs from German Sign Language. If he did encounter a deaf person, they would understand his signs.
The intention is that Noah learns a few basic signs, such as "eat", "more", "drink" and "milk." This will help him to communicate his needs and hopefully spare him some frustration of us not understanding what he wants. And the course is a lot of fun, using songs and finger games to teach the babies the signs.
The course teacher has 2 daughters who are 4 years and nine months old. She told us yesterday that she first thought that sign language was unnecessary for babies, that it was some American fad. When her first daughter was 9 months old, she would point at objects as if she wanted them. Her mom would offer her the object that she thought the little girl wanted. But somehow, she always grabbed the wrong thing. And this was very frustrating to the little girl, who would then throw herself on the floor and bang her fists on the ground. That was when she decided to start with sign language, which made communicating with her daughter much easier.
We hope that it will have the same effect for Noah. It will probably take 2-3 months before he starts using signs and his usage of signs will definitely be dependent on our discipline in using the signs with him.
We shall see......
No worries, Noah passed the hearing test they administered in the hospital. We're taking a sign language course because babies who learn sign language can communicate long before they can speak. And, babies who learn sign language can generally speak earlier and have a larger vocabulary than their peers.
Of course, we're not intending to learn fluent sign language. Sign language is an independent language with as many words as we have in the English or German language. I took American Sign Lanuage for one semester in college and I have to honestly say that it was much more complicated than I expected it to be. And on top of that, every country has their own sign language. And then there are even regional differences, just as there are in the spoken language. Noah is learning signs from German Sign Language. If he did encounter a deaf person, they would understand his signs.
The intention is that Noah learns a few basic signs, such as "eat", "more", "drink" and "milk." This will help him to communicate his needs and hopefully spare him some frustration of us not understanding what he wants. And the course is a lot of fun, using songs and finger games to teach the babies the signs.
The course teacher has 2 daughters who are 4 years and nine months old. She told us yesterday that she first thought that sign language was unnecessary for babies, that it was some American fad. When her first daughter was 9 months old, she would point at objects as if she wanted them. Her mom would offer her the object that she thought the little girl wanted. But somehow, she always grabbed the wrong thing. And this was very frustrating to the little girl, who would then throw herself on the floor and bang her fists on the ground. That was when she decided to start with sign language, which made communicating with her daughter much easier.
We hope that it will have the same effect for Noah. It will probably take 2-3 months before he starts using signs and his usage of signs will definitely be dependent on our discipline in using the signs with him.
We shall see......
11 March 2010
Randomness
Noah is teething. For several weeks now, I thought he might be, but just wasn't sure. He drools buckets and chews on anything he can get in his mouth. Recently, he was so tired and almost asleep, when he started crying again. Then he seemed to settle down to sleep, but then started crying again. This happened every 30 seconds or so and is not typical behavior for him. So I put some teething gel on his gums and suddenly he was out. This has happened a couple of times now. I can't feel any teeth, so it will be interesting to see how long this continues and which tooth/teeth actually come(s) in.
I want to make these cookies. We have some friends coming over on Saturday and if I can find molasses tomorrow, then I will make them for this weekend. Why is molasses hard to find in Germany? My brother-in-law, the Baker, said "that stuff is gross, only Americans would use it." Hmmmph. We'll see if he gets any of my cookies.....
I'm thinking about making one of these Brain Boxes for myself. Only I can't find the pretty index cards and dividers like she used. But I really do think it would help to keep me on track with housework. And maybe give me a little extra motivation.
I'm in the process of painting the toilet. But I don't think I like the color combination. *sigh* I'm going to try stripes on one wall and hope this will help me to feel like the two colors do mesh....the potential of a repaint is looming.....
We started a 6 month Wii challenge with friends of ours. She's so little, her challenge is to gain weight (seems like it'd be a nice problem to have....). For the rest of us or people-who-recently-had-a-baby (when does that stop counting as an excuse??), we have to LOSE. Our goal is to lose 22 pounds in the 6 months. I'm down about 2.5 pounds. So far, so good.
And finally, will winter EVER end? Spring provided a glimpse of it's sunshiny self, but now it's snowing cats and dogs! Tomorrow is supposed to be 40 and partly sunny, but then it's back to snow/rain on Saturday and Sunday. I have had ENOUGH!
I want to make these cookies. We have some friends coming over on Saturday and if I can find molasses tomorrow, then I will make them for this weekend. Why is molasses hard to find in Germany? My brother-in-law, the Baker, said "that stuff is gross, only Americans would use it." Hmmmph. We'll see if he gets any of my cookies.....
I'm thinking about making one of these Brain Boxes for myself. Only I can't find the pretty index cards and dividers like she used. But I really do think it would help to keep me on track with housework. And maybe give me a little extra motivation.
I'm in the process of painting the toilet. But I don't think I like the color combination. *sigh* I'm going to try stripes on one wall and hope this will help me to feel like the two colors do mesh....the potential of a repaint is looming.....
We started a 6 month Wii challenge with friends of ours. She's so little, her challenge is to gain weight (seems like it'd be a nice problem to have....). For the rest of us or people-who-recently-had-a-baby (when does that stop counting as an excuse??), we have to LOSE. Our goal is to lose 22 pounds in the 6 months. I'm down about 2.5 pounds. So far, so good.
And finally, will winter EVER end? Spring provided a glimpse of it's sunshiny self, but now it's snowing cats and dogs! Tomorrow is supposed to be 40 and partly sunny, but then it's back to snow/rain on Saturday and Sunday. I have had ENOUGH!
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