Eins, Schwein, Drei, Vier...

The Polizei struck again when we attempted to go to the Mercedes museum in downtown Stuttgart. We noticed the traffic was horrible but it wasn't until we saw hordes of people wearing red and white that we realized there must be a big Fussball game going on. As we drove, the Polizei, in full riot gear no less- these people take their Fussball seriously, started blocking off roads. Unfortunately for us, the museum was right next to the stadium so one by one all of the access roads were blocked off until it was clear that there was going to be no trip to the Mercedes museum that day. What to do? It just so happens that right next door, but still accessible, was the Schweine Museum.

Yes sir, the world's largest pig museum just happens to be right there in Stuttgart, boasting more than 46,000 little (and big) piggies. This is the pig outside the entrance sporting the crest of the Stuttgart Fussball team. And why wouldn't he? Fussball is good for business. How many other hapless travelers have been turned away from downtown by the Fussball traffic and driven into the waiting parking lot of the Schweine Museum?

Disturbingly enough, the Schweine Museum is one of the places where I took the most pictures in Germany. It wasn't because it was incredibly beautiful or because it was the most fascinating or informative but more along the lines of, "if I don't take a picture of this, no one is going to believe me." I mean, we should have known this was an odd place when the giant piggy bank bus parked outside tried to eat us.

But like characters in a horror film, we just didn't know when to walk away. We walked in and gave them our Euros. Really, I think they should let you in for free and then charge money to get out. I would have given them a lot more money to let me out that to let me in. It all started innocently enough. There were piggy pieces of art...

...and piggy signs...

...and a photo of a cute Police Piggy.

There were Lego pigs...

...and rooms full of piggy banks...

...and room and room and rooms of puny porcelain pigs.

That alone, is kind of creepy. I mean, who spends their hours and days carefully arranging endless pig sculptures in tiny wooden boxes on the wall? Was there some sort of caretaker who stalked the hallways and ensured that every pig was in its place? In addition to itty bitty pigs, there were also large pigs. Pigs that you just wanted to sit on because they were just the right size. So we did, at least the ones that did not say "nicht sitzen".

Chiara is unaware that she will need therapy in the future. In fact, I'm wondering if the curator of the pig museum is also a psychologist trying to drum up business.

"Who's a good yellow piggy?"
Then things took a distinctly creepy turn. First there was the interesting but slightly odd piggy table.

There was something off-putting about it so I turned around, only to see the evil twin pigs laughing at me.

Yeah, that's not scary. As we walked around, it became clear that the Schweine Museum had every quality of a house of horrors, just piggy style. There were rooms where the lights didn't work and we had to use the lights on our phones to peer into the glass encased exhibits. Stuffed boars were leaping out at us in the dark. There was a room dedicated to the processing of piggy parts with scary rusty rendering machines and delightful displays like this one.

Yes, that is a porcelain pig sausage casing holder so you can be reminded of exactly where your sausage came from. Side note: the Germans sure love their pig products. Most restaurant offerings involved pork, pork sausage, ham and/or bacon. I ordered a cordon bleu at a little cafe one day only to realize that there is a reason we call it chicken cordon bleu in the States. In Germany, it is pork filled with ham and cheese. Somehow that just seemed wrong. Pig stuffed with... more pig. Anyway, moving on... There was another room with specimens in jars, real dead pig parts.
Pig skin (not a football),

pig skeleton,

and of course the two-headed taxidermied pig.

Awesome. Then, there was a part of the museum that was so disturbing that I didn't take any pictures and wished I had never seen it. The exhibit was called, or at least this is what the English translation read, "The Horny Pig". This blog is rated PG, so that is all I will say except that I was frankly aghast that so many distasteful porcelain pig sculptures existed and that there were multiples of the same thing which means they must have been mass produced. Why is there a market for such a thing? Just... wow.
Perhaps to offset "The Horny Pig" there was also a display entitled "The Divine Pig" dedicated to pigs in religion. There was this not-at-all creepy depiction of evil spirits being cast into a herd of swine.

Yes, that is a pile of dead pigs at the bottom of the ocean.
 I have no idea what this zebra boar and shattered glass is all about. Perhaps, the disturbing imagery is supposed to help you find religion, to seek deliverance from a higher power. I know it made me cling to my faith a little tighter.

Opposite the divine pigs were prehistoric pigs, or at least pig-like reptiles.

I especially enjoyed the giant squid pig. The creepiness didn't stop there though. I think the curators must have made a checklist of what to include for maximum unease among guests.
Funeral pyre of stuffed pigs in a mirrored room?

Check.
Extremely large pig head that is also the world with evil look staring down from high on the wall?

Check.
Rusted metal pig frozen in terror?

Check.
Cyborg pig that wants to rule the world?

Check.
Robot pig that is laughing at your feeble attempts to escape?

Check.
Pig masks that will haunt your dreams forever?

Check.
We did manage to find our way out of the Schweine Museum and we joked about what we saw for the rest of the day but truthfully I think we were all a little scarred by the experience. I ordered vegetarian pasta and salad for dinner. Keine Schweine for me, thanks.

Liched by Lichtenstein

Apparently, despite me loving Germany, Germany did not love me. Almost daily our original plans were foiled by traffic, accidents, emergencies at the Army base which required Joe's attention or just that really old guy on the road in front of us who made us miss the last tour of the day wherever we were headed. The first of these mishaps happened on our way to Schloss Lichtenstein.
The castle is perched on a crag high in the Swabian Alps. On approach from the road, it looks impossibly high.

Normally, this height thing wouldn't be an issue because there is a handy road with switchbacks that you drive up and then park in a delightful parking lot right next to the castle. However, this road was blocked off when we arrived by no less than two Polizei, one ambulance and two helicopters. Apparently there had been a motorcycle accident. Joe is of the opinion that the Germans tend to overdo it a bit when it comes to number of first responders. Anyway, Joe was confident that even a small accident like the one that happened would result in hours of road closure so we parked the car in a random parking lot on the side of the road and decided to hike up to the castle. It wasn't a long hike, the trailhead said 2km, but it was straight up. My calves thank you Schloss Lichtenstein.

The original castle was built around 1200 but after being destroyed twice in the 14th century, it was given up as a loss. The ruins are still pretty cool though.

Anyway, no one did anything with the property until 1802 when King Frederick I of Wurttemburg decided he would like to shoot stuff in the area and built a hunting lodge. The King passed the land on to his nephew who was apparently a reader and a bit of a romantic. He read Wilhelm Hauff's novel Lichtenstein and decided he needed to rebuild the castle to match the historical novel set in the Swabian Alps. So, if it looks like a castle from a fairy tale that's because it kind of is.

Dominika and I are sporting our new shades from H&M Her. That poor purse went everywhere with me and carried two jackets for the constantly changing temperatures.

I loved exploring all the nooks and crannies of the battlements and walls. Joe is "Dadding it up" in his glasses and baby sling. Oh yeah. How did my little brothers get so much bigger than me?

The tour of the inside was pretty fabulous but no pictures were allowed. There was an impressive array of armor and weaponry spanning from the medieval ages to the 19th century. One of my favorite things was a huge blunderbuss which required three people to wield. There was also a drinking room with many beautiful glasses and steins but also a champagne glass so tall, that it also required three people to use it. So practical. I thought it was interesting that the dining hall had an adjacent musician's chamber with vents that allowed the music to come in, but the musicians were hidden from view. No unsightly violinist was going to spoil the Duke's dinner. Come now.
It was fun to think that Lichtenstein is life imitating art, which was imitating life in the first place. So in essence, castle Lichtenstein is imitating itself. Whoa. I need go think deeply about that.

Deutschland

So, two weeks ago I had the good fortune to be able to visit my brother and his wife and their adorable baby in Germany. When I say "good fortune" I mean that I am lucky enough to have an extremely supportive husband who wants me to be able to travel even if it means a week-long separation and I am lucky enough to have a mother with a bad enough memory that she allowed me to fly her out to watch our boys despite the fact that they nearly drove her to insanity when she watched them last year. At any rate, I was able to go and I had a wonderful time. As you can imagine, I have a gazillion pictures which I will share over several posts, but for this first post here are some things I loved about Germany that just didn't fit anywhere else.
#1 My cute niece

Honestly, I would travel half-way across the world just to see that face. Wouldn't you?

#2 The food

So, I was a very bad tourist and did not take any pictures of the amazing food I ate, but I did take a picture of this Rhabarbersaft aka rhubarb juice that I LOVED. Other things I particularly enjoyed, all the fresh breads served with fresh meats and cheeses for breakfast, Maultaschen, crepes with banana and Nutella, fresh pastas and Spatzle and some pretty fabulous Eis. Since we ate in a fair number of Biergartens, I did try some of the nonalcholic brews. I didn't hate them, but I'm not sure I will be needing my own Stein anytime soon.

#3 Summer Bobsledding

Need I say more? A ski-lift pulls you to the top in your own little metal sled and then you fly down the mountain in a metal chute at kind of terrifying speeds. We went again and again and again.... Oh, and there were no helmets and no insurance waivers. We aren't in Kansas anymore Toto.

#4 Rittersport Chocolates

The chocolate bars say on the back "Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut." Translation: "Square. Practical. Good." Can anything be more German? We went to the chocolate store and little museum on site at the factory.

I loved these Easter chocolate molds from the early 20th century. I've never seen chocolate deer for sale in the states.

This is the skylight between the Rittersport store and the Rittersport Kunstmuseum. Because, every chocolate factory needs its own art museum onsite. Apparently the factory workers in Europe are far more cultured than those in North America. The Kunstmuseum had a large collection of modern art which was, disappointingly, NOT chocolate themed.

#5 Haribo Gummibaren

These were already our favorite gummy bears and when I say "our" I mostly mean "Marc's" but they taste even better in Germany. It probably has to do with freshness. Some of the restaurants we ate at had a little bowl of Gummibaren instead of dinner mints. This reminded me of eating at Marc's house for the first time on a date. Marc's dad poured a large pile of gummy bears on my plate in a gesture of goodwill. Unfortunately, they were not Haribo gummy bears and I thought I would have to eat them all in order not to offend. Luckily, Marc came to my rescue. That man is a gummy eating machine. My hero.

#6. Legoland? 

So, we didn't actually go IN Legoland because we stumbled on it by accident late in the day and they still wanted 41 Euros to come in. Boo. But, just seeing the giant Legos outside of the park and hearing the "Everything is Awesome" song sung auf Deutsch made me a little giddy.

 "Alles ist super!"

#7 the Bodensee

We visited the Bodensee on my last day in Germany.

It was gorgeous...

...and charming...

...and pretty much perfect. 

When I think of Germany, this is how I will picture it.

Thank you for a beautiful week Joe and Dominika.

A Brief History of Time...

...specifically the last six months in the Ricks household. I keep a file on my phone of funny things the boys do or thoughts that I have that I might want to include in a blog post. Unfortunately, more often than not these do not get developed into a full blog post due to time and laziness and children. As I read over these little notes, I realized that maybe what I need is a twitter account. These little snippets are like small windows into my life. So, here are my notes that I never published from the recent past. In other words, this is my life in 140 characters or less.* **
*Mostly 140 characters are less
** With some side notes and embellishments

David John: Today we learned about taste bugs.
Me: Taste buds?
David John: No, bugs. They are on your tongue. They taste things for you.

At gymnastics, my child is the one seeing if his head can fit in the center of the octagonal mat while everyone else is doing handstands.

The best way to get a baby to eat something is to first throw it in the garbage. Then, he will dig it out and eat it.

"Mom, I will take this chapstick to gymnastics in case I run out of that smell."

Benjamin: I need a thing!
Me: What thing?
Benjamin: The thing I can't find! The thing for the other things!*
*It turns out he wanted a plastic container for his legos. He was super frustrated that I didn't immediately know what he was talking about.

Being a good wife means I can hear what my husband says, replace all the nouns and verbs and figure out what he actually means.

"One little mommy jumping on the bed, she fell off and bumped her head! Uh oh! That was my only mommy! I mean, that was my last mommy."*
*What? I had predecessors?!?!? How long did they last?

Me: Okay guys, we have time to do a quiet activity. (All the boys go down to the basement.)
Gabe: Hey guys, who wants to rock out in a band?!?

The only thing worse that running late with children is being early.

A truck in the parking lot suddenly shot backwards and almost killed us, but we're okay. As my child said, "At least we didn't catch any diseases."

My wrist is now too fat for candy bracelets. I think that's a sign. Maybe I should stop eating them?

My purse was lost. When I found it I was worried that someone may stolen my credit cards but then I realized that it would be impossible to find a credit card in the depths of my purse. Now where are my keys?

We gave our boys cards with pictures of temples to look at during the sacrament at church. We hoped it would help them be reverent. Instead, they made up a game called "Castle of Doom" complete with loud sound effects.

Overheard: "We have all the hot dogs in the world, so no one can defeat us! Bwahahaha!"

"It smells like barf..... or cheesecake."

"Are these balloons filled with floatium?"

My son is singing a self-composed musical about a violent triangle between Spider Man, an astronaut, and a soldier.

While cleaning out the couch cushions we discovered year-old raisins and pieces of pasta. Tobias wanted to eat them.
Me: No, Tobias. That is yucky.
Tobias: No yucky! Bite.
He ate them anyway.

"Um, mom? Should we be getting a new baby? Our one makes a lot of messes."

Benjamin's Fourth

Our Jami turned four on April 1st. When he was born on April Fools Day we knew we were in for some trouble and he has definitely been a challenge but he's a cute challenge.

On his birthday, we made monster birthday cupcakes courtesy of a kit that Grandma sent.

He also opened many birthday presents from friends and family. He's a fun kid to give things to because he's so joyful in his reactions.

Grandma sent some party favors which included slinkys for everyone. It turns out that slinkys make for really fun pictures. Certainly the boys had a blast.

Anyone else think these guys look like they should be in Westside Story? Totally Jets.

Watch out birthday boy!

Since it was his birthday, we even let him take a few pictures so that Marc and I could have a photo with our party hats on. Not too shabby buddy.

Later in the month, Benjamin had his birthday walk at his Montessori preschool. It's a very cute little ceremony where the child lays out a sunshine and the months of the year on the floor and then the child walks around the sun for each year of his life and the teacher reads something about the child about each year.

At the end, he gets to blow out a candle and serve a special snack to the class.

I love the facial expressions of the kids in the background. Blowing out that candle is dangerous and exciting or totally boring depending on who you look at.

Benjamin loves preschool and seems to be well-loved by his classmates. The only complaint from the teachers is that he is a bit absent minded. Since I teach music at the school, I often just take Benjamin home with me when I'm done instead of waiting for the end of the day. One time, I timed how long it took for him to get his shoes on after I asked him to get ready to go. After twelve minutes, I had to interrupt a dramatic play happening between his two shoes and his mittens so that we could go home. Benjamin can entertain himself for hours with just about any object and his imagination.

Benjamin is a hugger. He lives for hugs and gives them out generously. He is well-loved by teachers, friends and grocery store clerks alike. People often say, "Thank you! You just made my day!" and he lights up. I guess that is the upside of him being very unaware of personal space, it makes him less inhibited to show his affection. Of course, it also means that sometimes he is a little too up close and personal when he's talking to you.

Another specialty of four-year-old Benjamin is the question, "Right Mama?" He can tack on this question to the end of any sentence. Some days, I think every sentence ends with "right Mama?"
"My name's Benjamin, right Mama?" "And I'm a boy, right Mama?" "And Tobias is my brother, right mama?"

Sometimes my brain shuts off when too many "Right Mama?"s are asked I start automatically replying, "mmmhmm". This lands me in trouble when I snap back to reality and process everything I just agreed to for the last five minutes. The most memorable of these half-stupor conversations was in the van with Benjamin and Tobias driving to the rec center. Benjamin had asked several questions that were obvious like, "Our van is blue, right Mama?" "There's a fly in the van, right Mama?" "We don't like flies, right Mama?" That's about when I tuned out, which is too bad because things got interesting. "And flies can eat a whole car, right Mama?" "Mmmhmm." "They just take one bite at a time, right Mama?" "Mmmhmm." "They take one bite, right Mama?" "Mmmhmm." "And then another bite, right Mama?" "Yes, honey." "And then another bite, right Mama?" "What?" "And then gulp! The car is all gone! Right, Mama?" "Wait! No, no no no. Flies do not eat cars." I looked back to see Tobias with a very concerned face.

Marc has been working with Benjamin on trying to reduce the number of "Right Mama?"s he uses. When Marc is home, sometimes Benjamin gets into a "Right Dada?" conversation but not nearly as often. He said a very self-aware thing when Marc was talking to him about not saying it so much. Benjamin explained, "I think when I say 'Right Mama?' it means I need attention." Roger that little buddy. I'll try to be more attentive. You deserve it. You're cute and smart and creative and I love you. Happy Birthday Benjamin.

A Room of Their Own

I did something crazy. I let my 7-year-olds paint their room, or at least one wall of it. I thought if they could make the space truly their own then they might be more inclined to keep it clean. That part hasn't panned out just yet, but I think it actually turned out pretty cool. Of course, this means we can't move now. Ever. I'm thinking the mural does not have, um, resale appeal.

First, I had the boys do some concept art. They decided on a space theme. Elijah drew some aliens and Gabriel drew an adorable rocket.

I took these pictures and copied them as accurately as possible but at a much larger scale onto their wall. I was not smart during this process and did not take mid-project pictures but I'm sure you can imagine the hours and stress involved in painting a wall with an army of small children as helpers. Anyway, this is the finished project:

Pretty cool right? I am feeling like an awesome mom right now. The twins chose all of the colors used in painting. Gabriel is calling his rocket, "The Space Carrot". Edging that black in around all of those bright colors was tough going. The Earth and moon are my part of the project made out of corkboard that I spray painted. Now they have a place to hang up their artwork when the fridge is too full.

The boys loved doing this and now they want to paint their whole desk area with a jungle theme. While I'm down with that in theory, it might take me a few lightyears to recover from this experience before I'm willing to do any child-assisted painting again. For now, they can enjoy "spacing out" in their room and I can give myself a pat on the back every time I see our handiwork. It's out of this world.