Roseola!

I love picnics. I think it's so much fun to eat outside, and was so looking forward to bringing Béla to the park to eat this summer. What fun we would have! And so, one beautiful Saturday afternoon, Jeremi and I packed up lots of yummy food, and headed out to the park to enjoy it in the shade of a tree.

As we set up, it became clear that Béla was not excited to get to run around in the park, and didn't really even want to play with his toys. He had only been out on grass without shoes a few times at this point, as it had been really wet, so we thought he was still being weird about touching the grass (which he was at first). But he didn't really even want to sit on the blanket either. In fact, he mostly wanted to sit curled up next to one of us, although it was a very hot day. And so we started to eat, with Béla perched on his papa's lap. It was really cute, so I tried to get a nice photo of them together, with Béla smiling.
And I tried again (but here he looks even more sad)...

...and again...
...and again...
...and again. No smiles, but a couple of half-hearted attempts at eating. And attempts are all that we got, really. He barely ate, despite the choice of tasty food that we'd brought with us.

Oh well, we decided, he must just not like eating outside. (Right, because that's the most logical explanation. Silly rationalizing parents!) Then he wanted to nurse, and after much fussing and crying, fell asleep. We finished our picnic with him sleeping in the stroller, and walked on home. When he woke up from his nap, he had a high fever, and suddenly his lack of enjoyment at the picnic made much more sense.

He had no other symptoms (no cough, runny nose, etc.), so we were pretty sure it was going to be another urinary tract infection, which was really bad news, as then it might mean that he had a congenital problem that, in the worst case, might even require surgery. (After more than one UTI with boys, they often start doing testing, which in and of itself is unpleasant, let alone the treatment.) He had a fever again on Sunday, which we treated with acetaminophen when it got to 40 C, which meant that he felt well enough to help Jeremi install the baby gate on the door to the balcony.
Little did he realize he was building his own jail cell! (Yes, that's a wrench in his mouth.)
Béla is lots of help.
He was barely eating, and mostly just wanted to nurse and cuddle. There was lots of quiet play, and many fewer smiles than usual.
On Monday we brought him in to the doctor, with a bag to collect a urine sample already on him. (Unfortunately there wasn't any pee in it when we got there, so Jeremi had to run back later with the sample. In fact, he had to run back twice, as they were closed from 12:00-4:00, which we hadn't realized.) Once they tested the sample, the good news came back: no UTI! Hooray! The doctor mentioned that it could also be this very common "three day fever" (a direct translation from the German name), which is simply three days of high fever followed by a painless rash. And so we waited, with our poor feverish baby. Here is is sleeping on my lap after falling asleep while nursing, fighting the good fight against whatever virus is attacking him.
The pictures from this 3-4 days are really heartbreaking. There isn't a smile to be seen. But here he is sitting at his new little table. When we visited the daycare he'll be going to, the woman asked us if he was used to sitting on a chair, as that's how the kids there eat their meals. We didn't have any little furniture, so we got him a little table and chair set, which is really cute. And of course he did fine with the chair!
He and the cat, surveying their new prison. You can tell he's not feeling 100% here, because he's only half a meter from the cat and is making no attempt to grab her tail or "pet" her. (We managed to teach him not to pull on her fur anymore, but now he "pets" her with an open hand in a rather robust manner. She's the most patient cat in the world.)
And finally, the rash appeared. It's hard to see here, but there were tiny red dots all over his chest, and a few on his arms, legs and face.
On the back it's a bit more clear. It was a very classic presentation of Roseola, a.k.a. sixth disease, a.k.a. exanthema subitum, a.k.a. roseola infantum, a.k.a. baby measles, a.k.a. three-day-fever.
Once the rash appeared they're supposed to feel better right away, but it was a couple of days before he was really back to normal. In fact, I'd say he got his full energy and appetite back while we were waiting at the Mannheim train station at around 5:00 in the morning on our trip-from-hell to Paris, which took 12 hours longer than it should have. But I'll save that for the next post!

the Weinmeile, 2010

Ah yes, another year, another Weinmeile! This was my third time at the wine festival that takes place in the wine region north of Jena every Pentacost, though last year I was pregnant, so it hardly counts. We went with our friends Calin and Susanne, who made the wise decision to start in Naumburg so that we were able to negotiate the walk from the train station to the first booth in daylight while completely sober, as it's along the side of a minor highway, which you have to cross without traffic lights.

The weather couldn't have been more perfect, and it was one of the nicest days we'd had yet that year, and there were lots of groups of people at the train station that morning, heading up for the day just like us. Here are Béla and I on the train.

This is from the first stop of the day, where they had this cute little paper garland of bunches of grapes.


Here Calin is practicing his high-five technique with Béla, which was a big hit.
There was a group at a nearby table who heard us speaking English, and I think assumed that we were tourists (which we were, sort of...). They all had the pottery snail shells that many people wear on strings around their necks, in order to drink wine from them. The woman had two spares this year (they're stamped with "Weinmeile 2010"), and she kindly gave them to us. Here you can see Béla checking it out.

Here we are at what I think was our second stop of the day, where Béla is enjoying the grape stuffed in his mouth. One of the common snacks sold at this event is skewers of alternating grapes and cubes of cheese, which are pretty well his two favourite things.
Enjoying the scenery, walking from winery to winery...
...and the view across the field of the city of Naumburg, with its famous cathedral clearly visible.

Ah, nap time!

It was hard to get a picture that did it justice, but the road was really packed with pedestrians. So many people out to enjoy the perfect weather and the lovely wine.
The next stop was winery Hey, which we hadn't visited in previous years, but which was recommended by our friend Barbara, who had worked there during the Weinmeile a couple of times. It was set back a bit from the main road, but worth the walk in...
Béla slept through the whole time at the Hey winery, which was a shame for him, as he missed the delicious pork picatta and asparagus!
Here's one of the funny-shaped barrels on display along the way, with the poster from this year's Weinmeile, complete with map, posted on it. The barrels are oval so that they can be rolled, but don't easily roll away.
Here we are just breaking out of the trees to go along the biggest section of vines, where the big "Saale Unstrut Wein" sign is, and where there are sample vines along the left of the different varieties of grapes grown in the region, which is fun when visiting in the fall, for grape-tasting.

Here you can see the sign in the upper right (like the "Hollywood" sign, but a bit smaller).
It being only May, the vines weren't so impressive yet, but in a couple of months (i.e. now, because I'm so late writing this), it's another story.

Later in the evening - Béla was asleep again, and the sky was growing darker. Here we're passing by the sign for Saalhäuser, so we were almost at the end. What we discovered was that although you can go either way on the Weinmeile, pretty well all the big late night parties are toward the other end, where we started, by Naumburg. It was okay that we missed the big parties this year though, as we really needed to catch the last train back, and Béla may not have been up to the big party.

We did manage to find one last place open in Bad Kösen though, so we were able to have one last bottle of wine on our way to the train station.
I like this picture because both of us are wearing shirts that match our eyes. (I think his eyes are a bit browner now, but still not fully determined.)
And finally, he was out for the night, clutching his shell to make sure it didn't get away. He was a champ - really, the easiest and happiest baby all day long. At each place we took him out of the stroller (when he was awake) to let him move around a little so he didn't feel like he was cooped up all day, and he really seemed to enjoy the whole day. In the end we were out with him for 14 hours, and it was a complete success. (Easiest baby ever!)
And us, at the end of a perfect day, being a bit silly while waiting for the train. As you might be able to guess, Susanne took most of the pictures, which is why she's not in so many of them. Thanks, Susanne! You're much better at documenting our lives than we are!
I'm already looking forward the the 2011 Weinmeile!

Weinmeile practice

A few weeks after Männertag comes Pentacost (or Pfingsten in German), which gives us a holiday on the Monday. It's also the weekend during which the annual wine festival in the region north of here takes place, the Saale-Unstrut Weinmeile. (You may remember blog posts from the first one, when I went with just Calin and Susanne as Jeremi was in Canada, and we got incredibly drunk and got into trouble on the train on the way home, or last year when I went with Jeremi and my friend from Belleville, Pam, when we got rained on and Pam drove her bike into mine, causing me to fall while six months pregnant. Always a good time!)

We were already looking forward to the Weinmeile this year, but I was a bit concerned, because it seems that I can no longer drink red wine. At Christmas I could, but sometime this spring something changed, such that when I have 1-2 glasses of red wine with supper, I wake up with a brutal hangover. I can still drink beer, but it's really not worth it to drink wine. I wasn't sure about white wine though, which is what we usually drink at the Weinmeile, because it's what they grow best in this region, so we thought it was best to do a practice run before drinking several glasses of wine and then wanting to die the next day.

We had just wanted to buy a bottle of wine the weekend before and have it with supper, but we forgot to add it to the grocery list, and it was Sunday so everything was closed. But bars and restaurants aren't closed, so we did our own little Jena pub crawl, going to a few different places over the afternoon and having some food and a glass of wine at each. It was so much fun, and Béla really enjoyed it too!

We only got pictures at one bar, the Grüne Tanne (which was described in the last post as well). Here he is, after crawling away, almost onto the road. (Not to worry, we were watching, and there's very little traffic on this street.
And a close-up, to show how darn cute he is. You can still see some of the bruise on his right cheek from the fall on Männertag.

Sitting at his papa's feet, which makes him look tiny (or perhaps makes Jeremi look like a giant?).
A good time was had by all. And best of all, I woke up Monday morning feeling fine. White wine is officially okay, and the Weinmeile was a go! (More on that shortly.)

Männertag

Ahh, Männertag. I was trying to get the blog up to date in chronological order, and was waiting for Jeremi to write this post, as he was actually there, but found that it was creating a bit of a bottleneck. As such, I've decided to go ahead and write the blog post for him, just so I can catch up a bit, and maybe be only one month behind...

Männertag means "men's day", and it's sometimes also called "Vatertag" (fathers' day) or Christi Himmelfahrt (the day of Christ's ascension). It's a holiday here, on the Thursday something like 40 days after Easter. It's a holiday in all of Germany I think (some are only for some states, mostly depending on whether the state is predominantly Catholic or Protestant), but in some regions (including ours, and I think mostly in the former East), it's celebrated in a peculiar way. Rather than being like a North American Father's Day, where dads spend time with their families, the men go hiking in the woods and get hammered. They sometimes bring along wagons filled with beer (mini-kegs are often on sale around then), and there are even special belts that hold a couple dozen mini bottles of Schnapps (which just mean booze here, nothing sweet).

Last year Jeremi stayed home with a pregnant wife, and we just hung out and had a lazy day. This year, he got to celebrate like a real Thüringer, going out with (from left to right) Christian, Calin, and Dennis, for a day of walking and drinking.
The other three got a lift up to Calin's place in the morning (at 10:15), where they had a giant brunch before setting out on their hiking and drinking. This shows the lazy foreign influence of the group (Calin is Dutch and Jeremi is Canadian), as often German men here meet up around 8:30 to start drinking for the day. I'm just inferring from the scenery (as I was at home with the baby), but this looks like they were still up in Cospeda, on the Windknollen, having one of the early beers of the day.
From there they must have walked to the next bar (these pictures may not be in chronological order - remember, I'm writing about something I didn't participate in). One nice thing about hiking around here is that there's a bar on the top of every other hill, so there's always a reward when you make it to the top. (Raw wilderness it's not.) On Männertag they're all open early, with the grills fired up, and often have specials like whole roasted pigs to feed the hungry and drunken men.
Here they're at the Papiermühle, the local brew pub, which is at the bottom of the hill leading to Cospeda. Shockingly, I see some women in the background of this photo!

That's more like it, this is mostly men (some with matching hats, probably to make it easier to find each other when they lose someone unconscious on the side of the trail later).
Prost! (Like "cheers" in German.)

I can't be sure, but based on the light fixture in this picture, I think they might be at the bar on top of Jenzig, the biggest hill in Jena, on the other side of the river.


Meanwhile, while they were out drinking, I was home with Béla, busy baking a cake and preparing a Greek salad in preparation for a BBQ that night. I went over to meet up with the other wives and girlfriends at Dennis and Jule's place around 5:00, while we waited for the men to show up. Around 6:00 they called and said they'd be half an hour, and an hour and a half later they actually arrived. The evening was lots of fun, though Béla had a pretty good fall onto a bookshelf and got a big bruise on his cheek. He was fine after a few minutes of crying, but it looked pretty bad.

Here they're at the Grüne Tanne, an old bar just on the East side of the Camsdorfer bridge in Jena. (It's the bar at which the first fraternity was formed, and it's still the official bar of this fraternity. On the weekends we sometimes see old men wearing the sashes and hats of the fraternity going in in the afternoon. Fraternities are something different here than in the US, and they sometimes involve sword fighting and initiation rites involving facial scars, which are officially banned, but still sometimes happen. Weird, in any case.)
Finally, a picture of all four of them!
I'm not sure what's going on here, but it looks like Jeremi is going for Dennis's nipple...
On to the next place?
Alas, we didn't get any pictures of the end of the evening, but we had a lot of fun. Christian and his girlfriend Carmen hadn't seen Béla since he was four weeks old, so they could hardly believe it was the same baby. Dennis and Jule have a little girl, Nele, who was just over 2, and who weighed the same amount as Béla. She's just on the smaller end of normal, and he's on the bigger end, but it was still pretty funny. (They also had the same size feet, but she's way taller than him.) I'm sorry we didn't get a picture of him coming home. It was a bit cool, and we hadn't brought a hat for him, so he borrowed Nele's hat, which is like a little pink raspberry. Super cute, but super girly. Alas, we didn't get a photo. Perhaps he'll thank us for that later.