Tate's Germany-isms

'Do you want to take your clothes off?'


The first time I heard this I almost peed on myself laughing so hard.  Sunday night as he and Christian walked into the bathroom he looked at Christian with 100% seriousness with his eyebrows raised and said


"Do you want to take your clothes off?"


Cutest, sweetest thing ever.  Christian was happy to indulge him in the disrobing :)


Monday night at Christian's house got us the same question as I was bringing Tate into the bathroom, Christian right behind us.  But this time he asked me!  And then proceeded to ask...


"Can Mommy and Daddy take their clothes off together?"


Much hemming and hawing and several seconds later I replied that 'Mommy and Daddy don't take their clothes with each other.'  And I skeedaddled.

'I want an Oma popsicle!'

Regina was kind enough to stock her freezer with a couple weeks' worth of popsicles for Tate being sure that none of them were made with orange concentrate.  Tate fell in love with them and constantly wanted one.

"I want an Oma and Opa cookie"

Again Regina hit the jackpot with some egg-free, gluten-free cookies that Tate noshed on the entire time we were there!

"Where's my Daddy?  I want my Daddy."

He fell in love with Christian about 10 times over.  And while amazingly sweet and heart-endearing that he was so taken with this man he has seen 6 times in his life, I constantly worried (and still worry) about how he would do once we left Christian.  I don't want him to miss Christian already.  I know that as he grows up he will miss him, but I just don't want him attached sooner than later.   He hasn't spoken or skyped with Christian since we returned, and he doesn't ask about him or mention him, so I suppose that it's still out of sight, out of mind.  We shall see.

"What's the name of this train, Mommy?"

As my son is an avid Thomas the Tank Engine fan he has more of those trains than I can count.  And each one has a different name.  And we were in a city surrounded by trains and trams and all sorts of train looking motorized vehicles  And each one surely had a name, and I made up a name for all of them.  His favorite was Javier, the big train we rode Frankfurt to Berlin, then back again.  His next favorite was what he called a 'train-bus' who I named Molly.  It was actually a tram.

BIG TRAIN Maxwell!

"Do you want to take your clothes off?"

This bears repeating, not only because he asked it almost every night of Christian at bathtime, but when we were at the beach at the Baltic Sea, Tate made a beeline for the water and then yelled out...

"DO YOU WANT TO TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF?"

"Danke Schoen"

And I made sure he learned 'thank you' in German.