Amoosh What?

"Yay! We're here...I am ready to EAT!"

"What? No bread? I'm STARVING!"

"Stoked my food is here! And they're FRENCH french fries...delicious!"

Gnocchi with hazelnut oil, champignons, etc.

"It's our anniversary and we brought the camera. Would you mind taking a picture?"

Yesterday, Matt and I celebrated our FIFTH wedding anniversary. We both feel like it's been a loooong time that we've been married, okay just kidding...it's gone by so fast! Mark and Brenda came down to babysit, which was awesome for Claire and for us! Matt and I were gone from 4 to 10...that's a long date and we don't usually even go on short dates! Let me detail it a little more...

The evening (okay late afternoon) started out with an "are you serious?" when I asked Matt to grab the camera. We have a big DSLR which is a little annoying to haul around, but captures Claire instantly unlike a smaller camera. We've been pondering also getting a pocket size camera to take out on occasions like this, but for last night, it was the big honker.

First, we to the movie Super 8. Matt loves going to movies. I don't. It's not that I don't like seeing movies, I would just rather rent them because I'm stingy and would rather spend $8 on a really good lunch from my favorite cafe, La Mie. But, I went to the movie with Matt out of LOVE. (Cheesy, I know! And hey, it was a good movie that I'd recommend...and, they wouldn't have taken my theatre gift certificate at La Mie anyway.)

Next, we were suppose to go out to eat. We tried to make reservations for about 45 minutes after the movie ended, but alas, they were already booked. Who are these people that call and make a reservation so early? I mean c'mon, we made them on our way to the movie theatre...that should have been early enough!

So, since we had to wait another two hours, whiny Matt showed up. But, he went to the Arts Festival with me out of LOVE. And, after a few minutes even had a great attitude about it! We walked around and admired art that we can't afford, he got a beer, I got a sugary refreshing lemonade, and we had a great time. We both agreed that this kink in our plans...i.e., the Arts Festival, was much enjoyed!

So back to next, we are heading out to eat at a fancy pants newish restaurant in town! It's a place we'd not normally go, but we had a "Merry Christmas!" gift certificate from Aunt Chris. She does a great job getting us gifts that we would never splurge on for ourselves! We ordered what we thought looked good off the menu, though we didn't completely understand it. Cranky Matt was back now, because this guy gets that way when he's hungry and has nothing to eat. My friend Theresa is the same way. :) Her husband and I have been known to tease them both about it...just a little. All Matt wanted was a basket of bread, but I guess they don't serve that in fancy French restaurants.

Much to our relief, food showed up! It was our "amoo(insert jibberish here)"...our amoo what?, we thought. "Salmon tartar" (with some sort of white creamy condiment that I didn't catch again), announced our waiter proudly. It looked raw. I asked the waiter. "It's salmon TARTAR" he repeated, this time more clearly. (Translation: Didn't you hear me the first time?) We understood at this point that tartar must mean raw. I went to the hostess, who had menus to look at, and, thinking she was a little less intimidating (20ish year old girl), showed her what I ordered, and asked her to double check to be sure that this was not my appetizer. Pregnant women cannot eat raw seafood, I explained. It was not my appetizer...whew!

For those of you who are as confused as were were with the "amoosh boosh", here's what Wikipedia has to say.

An amuse-bouche [amyzbuʃ] or amuse-gueule [amyzɡœl] is a single, bite-sized hors d’œuvre.^[1] Amuse-bouche are different from appetizers in that they are not ordered from a menu by patrons, but, when served, are done so according to the chef's selection alone. These, often accompanied by a complementing wine, are served as an excitement of taste buds both to prepare the guest for the meal and to offer a glimpse into the chef's approach to cooking.

The term is French, literally translated to "mouth amuser". The plural form is amuse-bouche or amuse-bouches.

There's a little glimpse into our evening celebrating five years! Our meal finished off wonderfully...the server even brought me delicious carrot-ginger soup once he heard from the hostess that I couldn't eat the original amuse-bouche. For the main course, I had the gnocchi and Matt had a steak with fries. We finished it off with a dessert amuse-bouche (probably actually has a different name) and rich molten chocolate cake and ice cream with caramel. It was fun being out of our comfort zone and treating ourselves to an extra special date! We had great food and fabulous converstion. Happy five years to us! Thank you to all those who made this marriage and this evening possible. :)

Steel Trap Mind

If Claire's anything like her Omi and Grandma Diekema, she'll have a steel trap mind. My mom can remember birthdays and dates like it's none of her business! Lately, Claire has really been showing us how much she remembers of what's happening around her.

Yesterday, we were reading a book that had "der Schwimmreifen" (literally, swim tire, but imagine an inflatable swim ring) in it, which she told me reminded her of Onkel Alex. Several weeks ago, we took Onkel Alex's Fahrradreifen (bike tires) back home for him after Matt had repaired them. It took me a minute to figure out why she was thinking of Onkel Alex, but man, once I did, I thought she had a great memory!

Today, we're reading the same book and we saw "das Klebeband" (tape). I reminded her of rolling the tape down the driveway into the street and then crossing the street to get the tape and do it again. Then I asked Claire with whom she played this game. She told me "Tante" and was exactly right! They played this fun (and don't worry, it's safe, they looked both ways each time before crossing on our very quiet street - "Schau mal Rechts. Kommt da jemand? Nein. Schau mal Links. Kommt da jemand? Nein. Jetzt duerfen wir ueberqueren.") game a couple weeks ago when Tante visited us!

Here's what I found most impressive. She was sitting on the potty today and we were reading books while we were waiting for...something...to...happen. I would say the beginning of the two sentence or two part rhyme and leave the last rhyming word off to see if she could get it. She did so well!

"Draussen ist es kalt und grau. Drinnen gibt es gleich ______ ."

She said kao (Kakao=hot cocoa)!

"Wenn Emma laut zum Essen ruft, gibt es Rappelpamp mit ______."

She said Luf (Luft=air)!

"Wer sitzt lange auf dem Klo? Emma mit dem nackten ____."

She said Po (Po=bum)!

"Alle sitzen in der Runde quietschvergnuegt zur Abend______."

She said stunde (Abendstunde=evening hours, literally)!

"Emma will nach draussen gehen, denn da ist so viel zu ____."

Here she said guck, but it's suppose to be sehen. Both mean to look/see, but I'm thinking she didn't really know this well enough to interchange them here.

Now, I'm the mom and I'm suppose to be enamored with my daughter, and obviously we've read this book a lot. But, isn't that cool?!?

*Disclaimer: Sorry for all you English-only speakers! Many of my posts have to do with what Claire is saying in German, because that's what I hear from her, and that's what I'm most proud of because she's obviously growing up with virtually everyone else speaking English to her and I'm putting forth a lot of effort to pass on to her a language and culture that I love. It makes all my insecurities about my lack of certain language abilities, and raising her non-native bilingually, seem less when I see her doing so well and developing in German just like she is in English! Believe it or not, as confident as I seem in this language journey, it's actually just confidence that I have the DRIVE to do it and move forward. It's definitely not that I think I'm so great in German! On a lighter note, the rhymes really don't translate well in this book...well, rhymes and jokes don't really translate at all. You'll have to petition Matt for his SECOND post of the life of this blog if you want to hear about her English development. ;) Or, maybe, just maybe, I'll have to brag about her English someday too! :)

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to the best Daddy for my girl!

Claire and I were driving earlier this week and were having a conversation about Daddy, considering we hadn't seen him in a few days and were missing him. Not even thinking Father's Day was coming up, I was telling her how great of a Daddy she has because he's so fun, such a hard worker, and almost always in a good mood. She agreed with me by replying "mein Daddy," (my Daddy) which I think is so sweet because with that one little word before his name, she's claiming him as her own! :) He really is the best and believe me, he's all hers!

As Promised...

"I've got this."

"Claire, we've got to use two hands. Take it back nice and easy now."

"Keep your eye on the ball and connect."

"And follow through. Look at that shot!"

Onkel Alex got Claire a set of golf clubs for Christmas. She likes to hit the ball around on her own, but he came down in January for her first set of lessons. Alex isn't a pro, but he's pretty good. He will be able to teach her a lot for a while, then she'll start whipping his butt on the course! Watch out Alex! ;)

Prayer

About two weeks ago, we had finished praying before bed and Claire just kept on going. She must have said all the names that she could think of. In fact, it went something like this (on February 22nd - I recorded it).

Ooke (Luke)

Omi

Opa

Omi

Opa

ach (Zach)

Ellie

Omi

Opa

Dada

Flugzeug (As we heard an airplane fly overhead.)

Flugzeug

Flugzeug

Here are some others, not listed above, that she talks about without prompting.

Mama

Claire

Grandma

Grandpa

Matt

Sage

Ross (though other men sometimes get called Ross...for example, Mark, across the street, was Ross yesterday)

Brian (same story)

Amber ("Anner")

Anna

Theresa ("Teesa")

Norah ("Noah")

Cory (neighbor boy)

She can also name lots of other people with reminders and all the kids at daycare. In fact, Lisa said that one day last month she was going around and saying "Hi xxx" accurately to everyone there! Amazing girl! :)

For the Record...

Claire is such a talker! The past week or so, she answers many of our questions with "ja" or as Matt says, "yea." We'll also get a "nein" here and there. For example, yesterday when I asked her if we should give her pancake to Speedy, the neighbor dog, because he clearly wanted to eat it. :)

Here is the list of newer words (within the last month or two) that I can think of right now of what she says on her own without prompting. Many are nouns, but she's also got a few verbs in there and even an adjective or two! These are in no particular order, but I'm just recording them as they come to me. Also, most of the words I'm recording are in German, but I'm sure she has an English arsonry as well. However, I think she already knows that she uses German with me, so that's usually what I hear unless she doesn't have a German equivalent. (Language researchers, feel free to disagree with me on this one. These are just my observations.) Disclaimer: This is probably not as interesting for you unless you're madly in love with Claire like us (Omi, Grandma, Opa, Grandpa?) but I want to do this for our own records, especially because I love language development!

Tuer (door)

auf (up)

aus (off)

besser (better)

Duerst (thirst)

Wasser (water)

Milch (milk)

Hunger (Let me guess, you can get this one? 35% of words are cognates in German & English...it may sound a little different, but it's very close!)

Essen (eat)

schreien (scream - Claire likes to scream!)

gehen (go)
Bauch (stomach)
Arme (Got it?)
Nase (nose)
Feet (Yes, that's already English.)

Beine (legs)
Mund (mouth - Don't confuse this with moon!)
Augen (eyes)
Ohren (ears)

purse/Tasche

Pancake

schaukeln (swing/rock - We saw the pendulum of a clock the other day and she noticed it was schaukeling! Good job Schneckele...you're generalizing! :))

dirty

Haende (hands)

waschen (wash)

Bus

Auto

Ball

Buch (book)

Vogel/bird

draussen (outside)

aus (out)

rein (in)

Haus/house

Decke (blanket)

Nudeln (noodles)

kochen (cook)

Gabel (fork)

Loeffel (spoon)

Messer (knife)

Amen

Staubsauger (vacuum cleaner)

Mond (moon)

Sterne (stars)

suchen (to look for something)

finden (find)

steigen (climb)

Ni-Night

yellow (for any color!)

window

Maus (mouse)

Baum (tree)

"Bit du?" (Bist du? - (Where) are you?)

Buddy (Opas Hund - dog)

Now, if you got through that list and you're still reading, congratulations! I know I don't have all of them, but this paints a good picture at least.

And for reading so long, you now get a cute story. Lately Claire talks a lot about "Mond, Opa, Vogel" (seeing the moon with Opa and seeing a bird and if prompted, also a squirrel - Eichhoerchen). Last week we were coming home and I pulled into the garage only to hear Claire say "baum" (tree). I told her that there were a lot of trees outside. She told me "see"..."baum"..."maus." I was putting two and two together and realized she saw a 'mouse' in the tree while looking out the back window. It was actually a squirrel, but Eichhoernchen is a really tough word to say. She understands it, but can't say it. So anyway I asked her if she saw a squirrel in the tree and she was so excited I had figured out what she was trying to tell me. I was also just in awe because I'm thinking, man, my 19 month year old just communicated to me that she saw a squirrel in the tree, and that's a pretty big step, especially without any gestures! Oh the wonders of development! I love her! :)

Maybe someday I'll get around to posting some pictures on here. That would mean we have to start taking them...hmmm, better get to it!

Friends

Claire continues to amaze me at what all she understands and words she picks up on. This week, after coming home from Lisa's, I asked her "Was hast du heute gemacht? Was hast du mit deinen Freunden gemacht?" (What did you do today? What did you do with your friends?) To this she replied "Anna, Sage." Now it's clear she didn't know exactly what I was asking and that I was referring to her daycare friends (Sage is with her all day, but Anna goes to a different school.), but the fact of the matter is she knew I was asking about her friends and she knows that her friends are Anna and Sage. Then again, yesterday, I said something or other about her "Freunden" and she told me their names once more. Technically, Anna and Sage are her Freundinnen, but we'll let the gender changes slide at this age. :) She also still points to the doors where we displayed our friends' Christmas cards and looks for Anna, Sage, and others. Maybe we should have left them up for several months. :)