I Like To Move It, Move It...

A friend of mine used this song in her Facebook status yesterday and I have been singing it since...

So, you're welcome! ;)

Baby is not yet turning or crawling, but she is definitely moving:

Three minutes on the play mat and she is out...

*****
Vaikka Baby ei vielä osaa kääntyä tai ryömiä, liikkeessä hän on kuitenkin! 

The Perfect, Lazy Weekend

Sometimes the only thing you need is some lazy time with your family. That's what our weekend was all about.

On Saturday, we had slow breakfast and played with Fräulein. After the family nap time, we went out for shopping.

We enjoyed our Saturday dinner out in a restaurant. Well, to be honest, we went to Burger King. But at least we were more happy with the choice of the venue than some of the other customers seemed to be. Although we felt ourselves a bit underdressed in this company:

If only I had been brave enough to photograph the expression on her face...

Sunday was the perfect, crisp autumn day. So what would have been a better way to spend it than going out to the playground. As Herr Welle travels a lot, I could clearly see how Fräulein enjoyed having her daddy around and playing with her for the whole two days.

****
Viikonloppumme oli ihanan rauhallinen. Päikkäreitä, shoppailua, ulkoilua. Ja lauantaipäivällinen Burger Kingissä, missä tunsimme olomme vähän alipukeutuneiksi ;)

Cat And Mouse

When It Is Suddenly Very Quiet...

78 baby-wipes all over the floor
(no, I didn't count them)

Ready, Set, Go!

My daughter has find her a new favorite way to pass time. She takes my finger and walks me through our long hall back to our study. There she pulls me down and indicates she wants to tumble with me. I guess she got this idea, while her grandma was visiting us. The guest bed is not there anymore, but we do the tumbling on the carpet.

After she is finished with this, she goes to the door on all fours and looks over her shoulder. She has this 'are you ready for a challenge' expression on her face. Then we race back to the living room crawling, both of us.

This can be done SEVERAL times a day.

Let me add that the hall is quite long and there are stone tiles on the floor.

The result? Well, the competition is usually quite tight, but more visible result can be found in my knees...

Being a Hausfrau can be quite painful ;)

Playground Review Part 1: Wiesbaden Northwest

There are quite many playgrounds for children here in Wiesbaden. You can find information about some of them from Spielplatznet, but I thought I could do my own review from the perspective of a smaller child. As there are so many playgrounds, I will divide this review to geographical areas. I will start with the northwest part of the town (officially part of Wiesbaden Nordost, which I don't totally understand...), so I'll cover the playgrounds in Neroberg and Nerotal going from the valley upwards. The grading scale is from 0 to 5 cookies.

NEROTAL  

This really is a nice playground for small children! The playground is quite compact and the surroundings are peaceful.

There are following equipment on the playground:

- Jungle gym with slide

- Wide seesaw, nice for small children

- Tunnel

- Spring riders

- Sandpit, well, actually most of the other equipment are placed in sand, but you can easily make sand cakes there

- Climbing blocks

If there were also a swing or a roundabout, this playground would get five cookies. But as a positive addition to this playground, there is also a bond in the Nerotal park, where you can feed ducks.


DAMBACHTAL  

On Dambachtal there is a small playground. It has the very basic equipment, and judging from the many layers of leaves on the ground, I think it is not on the city's maintenance list. However, this is very quiet and nice place for small children.

- Slide
- Sandpit, if you can find the sand under the leaves
- Spring rider
- Swings

TRÄNKWEG / IDSTEINER STRAßE  

There are two playgrounds on Tränkweg. The other one is placed by the intersection of Idsteiner Straße. When we went to visit the playground on review purposes, the city workers were blowing the leaves there. My daughter thought that was the most exciting thing there, although we weren't really able to test any equipment because of all the dust.

- Swings
- Sandpit
- Slide

I think there has been a jungle gym in this park before, but it was now gone. Although this playground is close to two roads, it is on the edge of the forest and therefore quite peaceful. A plus point for small children is that you can see a lot of dogs passing this playground. On the other hand, there are acorns in the ground, and those quite easily found their way to baby's mouth...

TRÄNKWEG   

The other playground on Tränkweg is by the spring. The surroundings are peaceful, but the playground is more widely spread. Also most of the equipment are more suitable for older children. 

- Swings

- Spring riders

- Roundabout, where also the smallest children can spin by themselves

- Ditch for playing with water. This is the speciality of this playground, but a bit too dangerous for a one-year-old. And there is no bridge over the ditch, so if you want to move your buggy from the swings to the roundabout, you have to go by the road

- Jungle gym over the ditch, only for older children

- Sandpit

- Robe for sliding for older children

MINI-KLETTERPARK ON NEROBERG  

This playground gets only crumbs from me, because it is not designed for very small children. As it is like a Kletterwald for children, there is only a jungle gym. I guess this playground is great for children older than two years, but for someone who can barely walk, there isn't much to do. Unfortunately, I have only one photo, in which part of the playground equipment can be seen, but it is not worth it to climb all the way up there just to take a photo...