Baby Magic Tricks and Other Ways to Clean House

I'd say we are officially free of jet lag - finally! Its great that we're all sleeping through now, but I have to say, I will miss those middle of the night family parties in the living room. There was something about them that kind of fit very well with our personalities.

Anyways, the jet lag has been replaced by another mysterious phenomenon: the disappearance of important objects. It started yesterday. I was standing at the supermarket cash register, which, of course, is the baby's cue to start screaming her dang brains out. So I give her my cell phone to play with, and this distracts her long enough for me to pay, pack everything up and get out of the store. I walk around the corner (1 minute) to my apartment, get inside and realize that the phone is gone. I go nuts unpacking the grocery bags, looking in the fridge to see if I mistakingly put it in the egg tray with the eggs (something that wouldn't be totally un-Mama Jens), check all around the stroller, etc. Nowhere. So, I get the baby back in the stroller, and head out to retrace my steps to the supermarket. I walk out of the building and there's this suspicious dude standing right in front of the door with my handy. I say, Hey, great, you found my handy! He looks at me like I'm nuts, so I rephrase, "Did you by any chance find a handy?" No, he says, and puts it in his pocket. I get really irritated and say, "Well, that's funny (you asshole), because I just lost my handy and it looks JUST LIKE THAT!" I was of course banking on the very low odds that this would just be coincidental...that you lose your handy and five minutes later walk outside to look for it and a guy is standing there with the same handy as yours in his hand. Well, after I basically treated him like a first-rate criminal, he shows me his address book. The Fritz's, Harald's, and Stephan's just didn't match up with my Stephanie's, Angela's, and Jennifer's. So, I continued to retrace, heading toward the supermarket, and the phone is simply nowhere to be found. So I figure the dude found it and switched the card out for his. After all this, I call my husband on the regular phone, and he is consulting another friend and we all determine that if he had switched out the card, it wouldn't be ringing when we dialed the number. (E - could you confirm this?) So the dude was off the hook. We kept calling it so it would ring and I retraced my steps again. Nowhere. At that point, the thought actually crossed my mind that maybe my baby ate it. She did seem to be displaying signs of indigestion afterall. Okay, so I called Eplus and locked my card.

And then, today, we're out walking, and I give the baby my sunglasses case to play with. One crossed street and about four steps later, I realize its not in her hand anymore. I look down, behind, around, all over the place...no case. I go back across the street to the point where I gave it to her. No case. I look under every car within a fifty foot range. NO CASE! GONE! VANISHED! POOF! At this point, my husband starts questioning my mental health. Are you sure you gave her a sunglasses case to play with? And then he spells out my lesson: Never give her anything you want to keep anymore. Fair enough.

And on that note, I will consider those two objects the first in a loooooonnnng list of things to get rid of in the next couple of months before we jump the pond. Okay, I know they are small and wouldn't take up space, but still, they are officially symbolic of my personal "Getting Rid Of" launch party. Today was very productive in that regard, We took two rows of books from the bookshelf to St. George's English Bookstore. Then, we got a couple of bags of old Mama Jens winter clothes ready for another second hand store, AND, my older daughter and I set up a stand at a Kinder Trödel Markt at the church across the street. We sold some toys, and lots of children's clothes and it was fun playing "store" with her. I told her the money she earned will be for a new bike when we move to the states.

I already feel lighter.