Oma is for grandma

This little boy has found the answer to every question … believe it or not.

Little m (so not to be confused with our eldest daughter M … hmm, I’ll have to work out some consistent system of naming our children while at the same time protecting their privacy, so until I figure out something really good I might just copy what I’ve seen some other people do and just call them girl5, girl3 and boy2).

So anyway boy2 has found the answer to the ultimate question of life.

He’s playing the ‘why’-game with us at the moment. Common conversations with him look something like that:

Michael: “Daddy is going to buy some bread.”

boy2: “Why?”

“because we’re out of bread”

“Why?”

“because we ate it all up”

“Why?”

“because we were hungry”

“Why?”

“because we used up energy”

… you can see where this is going?

I bet you can’t because whenever we run out of answers for our curious little boy he provides them himself: “Cause the tiger eats it!”

Now there you’ve got it, the tiger ate it up. Whatever you want to know about or whatever you’re looking for, you can stop worrying because the tiger ate it!!!

Not having a car has it’s ups and downs.

Living right next door to Europe’s largest skating path (which is also open to bike riders) is one of the good sides of being confined to bikes.

Little E is not to be deterred. She was back on her bike in full shape and rode with us for 18kms through the countryside to get to our hostel (then another 2kms and of course we had to get back as well … so she managed extremely well … after all she’s not even 4 yet)

The next day we did a little more exploring and rode to another village to have lunch there. We had a wonderful time relaxing in the quiet villages, where really the only thing going on is the hustle of all the skaters and bike riders coming past … some more serious than others.

I just thought it’s wonderful to be able to ride without having to worry about cars. It’s perfectly safe and smooth riding and has allowed our kids to become very good bike riders at quite an early age (though I guess they’re not very good swimmers by Aussie standards

poor E had a bike accident this week.

She’s been doing incredibly well riding her big bike without training wheels and all but I guess accidents are part of learning.

Well the little girl wanted to scratch herself and forgot that she hadn’t learned to ride one-handed so she just crashed straight into the wall that was next to us.

Luckily, she didn’t hurt anything exept the lip but that caught the full impact of the crash and looks accordingly. But getting to eat ice-cream to cool the swollen thing isn’t bad.

… we have at the dinner table.

Michael said to E: “Please eat up your dessert … ahhmm I mean salad.”

E in response combined with big giggles: “Daddy said “dessert” to my salad.”

M getting involved: “Why did you say “dessert” to her salad?”

Michael: “No, I called her salad “dessert” and said it to E …(under his breath) I’m not talking to a salad.”

M again: “Why did you call her “Sally”?”

This might be a sure sign for you that we’re slowly loosing it, I guess all this moving around does take it’s toll

Recently, I was contacted by an organisation called International Medical Corps (also known as IMC) asking me to support a project of theirs. At first I was very sceptical with so much fraudulent emails around and people promising the unachievable. But after a bit of research on my part (like most people would these days I went to Wikipedia and read about IMC there) I think I can support their plea and post about their project in the hope that more people find out about it.

And this is what it’s all about, IMC has got a project called “Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children” and this is some information from their press release:

Hunger and malnutrition kill more people in the world than HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria combined. As food prices rise, this funding is even more critical. More people are being driven deeper into poverty trying to afford basic staples. Many have nothing to eat at all.

For severely malnourished children, we offer a step-by-step treatment program that gives them what they need to recover, including nutrient-dense food supplements like the peanut-based product, Plumpy’Nut. Our comprehensive monitoring system saves more than 90 percent of children being treated in our feeding centers.

And this is where we come in, American Express has donated $1.5Million dollars to be given to an Aid Organisation. So if IMC wins the vote of the American Express card holders, they’ll receive this money. So if you’ve got an American Express credit card then you can decide where you’d like your financial institution to invest their money.