T and S: The M Family

It's not exactly easy to make friends in Munich. But we became good friends with the M family before they moved back to the USA. They have three little girls and we loved hanging out with them. These are from our last playdate the day before they left Munich.

Okay, not quite. These are before their last day. Their Baby A (a few months older than Pippa) snuggled T. Quite a rare (and happy) occasion for T to get a snuggle from a baby because Pippa is not a snuggler for either of us.

The two older girls were playing with a set of play keys and kept "locking" T up in a cage. Pretty sure the arm that appears to be coming out of T's head is one of the older girls attempting to lock him up.

And these are from their last Sunday in Munich. I love that they are all wearing traditional Bavarian dirndls. I know these photos are all incredibly similar, but I feel like they really show how it is - especially the interaction between Pippa and the M family's middle girl.

Now THESE are from their last day in Munich. We met at the Laim S-bahn, picked up some popsicles and spaghetti (for the deer, of course!) and headed to Hirschgarten.

We started at the splash pad area. Pippa was pretty fearless and I wish I would have brought my swimming suit. C'est la vie. I was surprised at how steady on her feet in the water Baby A was because she hadn't been walking very long.

The older girls got tired of the splash pad so we moved on to feeding the deer spaghetti. No idea who first found out the deer like uncooked spaghetti, but they do.

S.M. (the lovely mom of these cute girls) is so impressive to me. She had THREE girls and seemed totally fearless in taking them all over the city and seeing and doing so many things. Lately I've been a bit whiny because we've had to take public transit to church the last month and it seems to take forever and it's always raining or dreadfully hot. But then I remember the M family took public transit to church for almost six months. And they were almost never late!

The oldest girl (in the green skirt) would stick the spaghetti through the fence and as soon as a deer grabbed it she would jump back. It was adorable.

The middle girl REALLY wanted to feed a baby deer and finally one came over!

Pippa slept on me in the carrier while everyone else fed the deer.

Then we headed over to the playground. This little girlie biffed it hard and cut her chin. But she cheered up and was ready to play again surprisingly fast.

The baby and Pippa are a bit different personality wise. Pippa always wants to follow the big kids and play with them and this little one is happy to play by herself most of the time.

I'm so glad I'm friends with S.M., an experienced mom. It's probably typical first time mom stuff, but I was reluctant to put Pippa down in the sand or take her to the playground when she wasn't really mobile, just sitting and scooching a bit. But S.M. just put Baby A right down in the sand and let her go to town. She took her kids out to the playground in the rain. She let them play in the water feature and get dirty. None of these things were a big deal to her. And so I did the same things with Pippa learned that it's not a big deal. I'm very glad I learned these things (relatively) early in my mothering career.

The playground had kind of a African / tropical theme. German playgrounds are much more adventurous. Pretty sure the USA ones are going to seem tame / boring by comparison.

Baby A LOVES swinging. Germany isn't big on baby swings, so when you find a park that has one it's kind of a deal.

We put both babies in the swing at the same time.

Pippa was having a lovely time, but Baby A wasn't so keen on sharing... She gives Pippa the evil eye, but Pippa is too busy living it up to notice.

Baby A winds up...

And POW! It was all rather humorous and Pippa wasn't hurt.

The girl on the right LOVED to get up in Pippa's grill all. the. time. And Pippa LOVED it.

This is how we roll at the playground.

Every single playground in Germany has sand. I think it's one of Germany's quirky laws. Like how you can't homeschool and pillows are considered passive weapons.

Pippa went over to play with S.M. and Baby A totally got jealous and posessive. It was really cute.

When we first moved here Pippa and Baby A were pretty close to the same size, but clearly Pippa hasn't grown nearly as much as Baby A!

When we left we took the same S-bahn train. The M family got off a few stops before us and it was rough. I really had to hold back tears. We miss them so much. They weren't just our favorite Munich people, they are some of our favorite people period. Maybe one day we can live in the same city again...