Month: May 2008

On the phone with Andy she remarked: “I am back from Kärnten at Oma’s house, so when you are all done with your work you better come home too.” (Andy is in SF talking to Google and partying with Ruwan)

Leilani brushed her doll’s teeth. I remarked how good her baby was, how much better than my baby who is the doll’s mommy and asked why that was. Leilani’s answer: “Because I buyed this baby at the store”

“Can I ride a horsie?” “No Leilani, we’ll see Inka tomorrow.” “How about a plastic horsie?”

When we came home from Kärnten we stopped at a “Autobahnraststation” – a restaurant along the freeway for Leilani to go to the bathroom and to eat. She tasted a lot of things that I had piled on the salad bar plate, and did not like anything but the olives (not even beans). I asked her to try the sheeps cheese and she was not too happy, but did as I asked. After a little chewing she grimassed, spat the whole bite into her hand and tried to give it back to me. After disposing the cheese I asked: “Leilani what’s wrong, you usually like sheeps cheese?” she answered: “I only like good Schafskäse (sheeps cheese) not bad Schafskäse”

Hiking on the Kulm with Ingo and Edith, and Leilani falling asleep and being “schlepped” most of the way.

Visiting with Franz:

Mmmmh, chocolate ice cream…. Auntie Inge gave Leilani a big portion and poor Andy had to finish it:

Leilani made a mother’s day gift – Trude did not see it yet:

Yesterday we hiked the Raabklamm, a small gorge carved though some limestone layers by the Raab stream. After a bit of coaxing and promising to tell her stories, Leilani walked almost 2 miles …

… and was really good, stepping over roots and rocks and holding on to ropes and other handholds–and we went through all the adventures of Pippi Longstocking I could remember.

With (l-r) Gerd, Lara the dog, Trude and Gerd’s brother, Ingo (and his wife Edith in the photo above):

After playing in the river, she got too tired and the path became too hard and Andy carried her the rest of the way.

The last of the many foot-bridges across the stream, rebuilt 3 years ago after a flood:

Ladybug:

Leilani’s new pool and boat, just the right size:

And a new Arielle (the little mermaid) bathing suit from Inge and Franz.

Yesterday in the car Leilani was singing – “We are the same, the same, the same, all one sun,” (repeated over and over) I was impressed, since it sounded like one of her self made songs, but probably it is a new age song that she has heard somewhere before.

We are very pleased with Leilani during this visit, not only does she sing very nicely, she also behaves great, is very adventorous and brave, but without being too daring or doing risky things. She also tries any kind of new food we put in front of her (dandelions with garlic, asparagus, various Austrian and Italian dishes) – her usual comment is “Du kochst sehr gut Oma” (You cook very well Grandma). 

Finally, she plays a lot by herself, we realized it’s the first time we can let her play unsupervised in another room and not be worried (the fact that she sings to herself helps us know she hasn’t wandered off). One of her activities is cutting up paper with children’s scissors. She’s always been fascinated by cutting with scissors, I suppose it’s something she saw big children doing. But now she can do it herself, holding the scissors the right way and opening and closing them to cut repeatedly, all the way across a page. She also makes random cuts, reducing a page down to small shapes that she even drops into a bowl instead of on the floor. Andy thinks it’s some sort of self-calming activity, where the concentration helps her be calm, because she’s done it several times for up to 45 minutes late at night when she would otherwise be whiny. Best of all, we’ve figured out to give her colored paper, and then we use all the little pieces to make collage pictures, another activity she likes.

Ever since Leilani was allowed to ride Cookie last year in Ohio she has been talking about wanting to ride a real horsie again.

For a while, the desire (asking and not too much begging) was channeled into the kiddie rides outside of stores (she knows them all: horse at Walmart but it’s broken and we don’t shop there often, fire truck at KMart, even the merry-go-round in ‘Ele’ele from camping nearby twice), and we’ve shamelessly used it as a bribe to make our shopping more pleasant. Ever since we’ve been back in Austria, she’s wanted to ride the horse on the main street, which she remembered the first day we went there. When the jet lag was causing her to wake up cranky and crying in the middle of the night, we used that horse ride to bribe her into going back to sleep. But she must’ve remembered Cookie because she started saying that it was a pretend horse, not a real horse (she really is talking a lot, and talking about her own thoughts, which is really amazing to us parents used to having her only mimic or talk about topics that we introduce). Which led her to ask repeatedly if she could ride a real horse. Today her dream came true (Andy says that sounds like Mommy has been infected by Disney-speak).

Alexandra, a teacher and friend of Jutta has a (big) pony named Inka who does therapy with handicapped children. All of her horses are friendly, very well treated and so well behaved that it was hard to believe.
(Leilani thought she was still leading Inka)

Before one gets to ride, the horse has to be brushed…

…and lead out of the stable.

Then we all went for a walk in the woods. Leilani sat on Inka for at least 45 minutes.

Alexandra and her daughter Lea were very nice about having two crazy American(ized) parents (and one Oma) running around and ahead to take pictures and movies.

Leilani was all smiles at first. Then she got quiet and seemed to be bored—she was definitely tired because she skipped her nap again—but she said she was enjoying it. Towards the end, she got crabby for a second and said she wanted off, but as soon as Mommy was holding her and she realized the ride would be over, she begged to be put back on.

When she was done riding she helped to clean the horse and take the leg guards off and feed Inka some bread.

Leilani needed a lot of room in the plane. But she behaved really well considering we had 4 flights and 3 layovers.

(from previous trip, Leilani got a sticker on her boarding pass)

We were tired, after 2 redeyes and close to 30 hours of travel, but still in good spirits. Leilani had enough energy to stop at the highway restaurant again, the one with the huge slide and indoor playroom.

Gleisdorf is really pretty at this season:

Leilani went into the swimming pool while the bystanders wore pants and jackets:

She still loves all the horsie rides Gleisdorf has to offer. She talked about the horsie not being real, and just a pretend horse though.

Gerd, Andy and Leilani walked Lara (whom she gave the noble title of “my friend the dog”) …

… and Leilani took the opportunity to pick flowers for Oma and Mommy:

At the playground near the Gleisdorfer Volks Schule (elementry school):

Up, up, up we go….

…Ooops…

Andy and Gerd found this pretty chapel while bicycling

“Hoffest” the organic farm Scharler had a fair: Tomato and pepper plants for my mom, and lots of attractions for Leilani:

There are rainbows in Austria as well: