Tag Archives: WMAF

Our cute son

Nathan’s 6th Birthday

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Just wow, our tiny little Churchill is now six years old already! That little man will start with elementary school in August, something I have never really thought much about. All the time he was just our little one who goes to kindergarten and now he is so old already. His birthday we celebrated only with the family, taking him earlier out of kindergarten so he could enjoy his special day more. We had some cake, went out for dinner with the kids and of course he got his presents. The “party” with his friends will be next Sunday as another girl in his group has her birthday on the very same day as Nathan so we wanted to split up the parties as some kids are invited to both celebrations. As you can see from the Instagram picture Nathan got a crown at kindergarten full with Minecraft characters. He really loves the game, even though he hasn’t played it untill yesterday (was a present from us for his Nintendo Switch)

So what will be ahead for him and us now? In kindergarten he has his pre-school lessons in preparation for the school time, we send him every Sunday to Mandarin lessons in another city (on hold right now as the Chinese teachers are afraid of the coronavirus) and of course his standard Taekwondo practice twice a week. Right now it is not so different for us but once he starts with school our entire schedule has to be set anew. Kindergarten and school have different starting hours (so one of us has to bring Nathan to school and afterwards Nathalie to kindergarten). However bringing little Nathan to school (by walk) will be only for the first few weeks till he feels safe and sure enough to do it on his own. Back when I went to the very same elementary school we were allowed to go by bicycle starting grade 2 however regulations changed here in Germany and they have to walk until the reach the fourth grade. Oh well, but at least he will have enough fresh air by walking each day as we won’t be those helicopter parents driving their kids to the front gate of the school. What I have to witness every day at kindergarten is already insane with all the cars blocking the streets. Seems that many parents think that their children can’t manage anything on their own anymore these days!

Why the kids grow up so fast?

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Crazy Family, Travels

Nothing New In Germany

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This summer I have not been that forthcoming with crazy stuff from my family. Basically nothing much happened except that worrisome things I wrote about in the past two blog posts. By now all the stress from China has been become just an annoying background noise and we have been only focusing on work and the kids. My dear Chinese mother-in-law is still here in Germany but will leave back to China in the end of August.

Besides the annoying stuff from China we had to manage for three weeks through the kindergarten holidays and thus having both kids with us all day long. For those holidays we had some nice things planned such as trips to the beaches here, traveling on weekends to some cities in the area and such but oh boy, of course the weather had to change to the worse during those three weeks and we had just rain every single day. We only managed to visit Legoland in Billund again and we had semi-good weather with just some minor showers in between. After those holidays were over we managed also a trip to Sankt Peter-Ording here in North Germany where a fantastic beach is located. I must say we had really bad luck with the weather this summer as we only had nice temperature and sunshine on the days we were neck-deep with work.

Now the holidays are over already for a few weeks and something new started for us as Nathalie started kindergarten this week! Little Nathalie aka the Thundergoat can be a difficult little monster so I prepared for the worst when going with her to kindergarten. But for some unknown reason she is a completely different person there. The staff there is super happy with her, she never cries, does whatever they tell her to and is just a little sunshine there. I already told the staff that this little girl they describe can’t be my daughter.

At home we have the usual madness with MIL as describe in the previous post so nothing new from that front. On a personal note I got even nerdier as I picked up during spring again Warhammer 40K after near 20 years away from it. Not writing now anything specific about it but I will have eventually a geek post about my newfound hobby in the upcoming weeks. For now I hope we have some luck in the next weeks with the weather so we can go to Hamburg Zoo again as the last visit there dates back to 2014 when Nathan was just 9 weeks old! This also somehow reminds me that I need to continue editing the last holiday “movie” as I still have tons of material to go through.

 

How has been the weather for you this summer?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore there is also my Instagram account in which from time to time some pictures and short videos might pop up.

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Crazy Family

Troubles in China

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My dear Chinese mother-in-law is staying this summer again with us and by now has been already one month here in Germany. Things have been complicated during this time. No it is not all about her destroying stuff in the apartment or behaving more strange than usual (more about that later). It is due to the health condition of granny in China.

Early this year they found out that granny has cancer and decided not to treat it as nothing would help. Back then MIL took her mother nearly daily to different hospitals to get more checkups and the opinions of various specialists in their field. They all concluded that there was nothing they could do anymore for granny so the family decided to keep it all a secret from her. Sure she knew that it was odd to go to so many doctors but she thought all the time that it was for some basic health checkups and to get something for the swelling on her throat (the lymph knots). MIL took care of everything and her brother tried to help as much as possible besides his full-time job.

MIL and the kids in Hong Kong

Due to all the troubles back in China we were not even sure whether MIL could come this summer to help us or not. In the end they figured that granny still had some more time left and she was doing fine as she was not yet affected by the cancer. Now on the very same day MIL arrived in Germany her mother got very sick and was rushed to the hospital. Thankfully it was just very high fever with the risk of developing a serious lung infection but all was taken care of in the hospital. But with this the real trouble started in form of MIL’s sister. Every single day aunty is sending messages and voice messages complaining how much work she has to do now because granny is/ was in hospital and how MIL could dare to leave them all and come to Germany. Those are not just one or two messages a day but multiple spread over all day and night, all about how much work she has and how hard it is.

Someone is not so sure about the statue

Thing is aunty was in Japan in the beginning when granny was diagnosed and did not come back to China. In fact she even prolonged her stay in Japan by one month all the while MIL and her brother were doing everything for their mother. Aunty also complained that she has to cook so much food now for everyone even though she hasn’t cooked a single dish all the time as uncle is doing that. However aunty is complaining now that his food is not good enough and I quote “disgusting” so now FIL has to bring her the food she ordered from restaurants. By the way the food uncle prepares is pretty good, at least no one else has ever complained and I actually like eating at their place. This all puts a lot of pressure on both MIL and my wife as aunty just won’t stop complaining and kind of puts a hold on our business activities as my wife has to argue all the time with her. Right now MIL is considering flying back to China one month early but that is not set yet and I hope she won’t do that as she is needed very much here.

This blog post wasn’t really anything funny, just something which has been annoying me for the past weeks.

You have a family member behaving in a very annoying way putting constant pressure on others?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore there is also my Instagram account in which from time to time some pictures and short videos might pop up.

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.instagram.com/Crazychinesefamily