Winning the Pants Battle

We're not big on clothing around the house, however we do have to put on pants if we want to go anywhere. The Beckley in me won't allow pajamas as clothing. One little Biggs in particular, requires a lot of incentive to get out the door. In addition to parks, these are our usual lures to "blow the stink off".

Sweet Treats: Ice Cream and Donuts

Our first visitor in Berlin, Ms Neysa Bell, found Oak & Ice. We instantly liked the vibe of the place and the kid area was a perk. I later met the owner who told me he fashioned the cafe after Portland's famous Salt & Straw. 

I took Hugo here on one of our Mommy dates after he started back at Kita without Crosby last August.

The teachers at Kita told me he was harassing the babies at Kita and thought that it was due to some subconscious jealousy of Carmen. After watching Hugo with Carmen during this current wave of Corona preschool closure, what once perhaps was jealousy, I would say is actually just baby love. An excerpt from a recent morning snuggle conversation:

Hugo: "I want two babies. Carmen and another baby."

Crosby: "I want a 100 babies."

Hugo: "Is the baby store open?"

Mommy: "No, it's closed." 

Our rule used to be that we did not have ice cream at home so that we would at least leave the house to go to one of the ten ice cream shops, 20 locations if you count that the convenience stores also have ice cream and the grocery store across the street, within a three block radius of our house. As of this writing, my current favorite ice cream is Dodo gelato up at the top of the map. Papa gave us an ice cream maker for Christmas, so now it's just crazy around here. Ice cream* all the time. 

Avocado Ice Cream = Breakfast of Champions

She insists on feeding herself. 

*Lot's of yogurt and not much sugar in these recipes = Mommy's revenge ice cream.  

Favorite Bakery: Zeit für Brot

The advantage of having kids that wake up early, is we beat the lines at our favorite Bougie bakery. Zeit für Brot is famous for their cinnamon rolls or schneke which we learned means snail from this post. 

Throwback to the days where dining inside was an option and Hugo was not mobile.

Fast Food: Burgers and Fried Chicken

We probably eat fast food once a week. Again, the "ice cream rule" applies here too, we rarely have fried food at home; we have to leave the house for that. Being Biggs, of course we have a spreadsheet ranking of all the restaurants around our house. When we first moved here we ate a lot of döners which is meat carved off a spit with veggies in delicious bread. Döners are to Germany as the burrito is to the USA.  Something similar to döner exists in Turkey but in a wrap instead of bread, just like tacos evolved into burritos in the USA. There are at least ten döner options within a couple blocks of our house.

This one isn't our favorite, but it was open at 10 am, which is too late for avoiding lines at Zeit für Brot.

Once finding a solid burger at Burgermeister, most other options faded away.

Hugo "Check out meine Burger" Biggs

The Pizza Next Door

There is literally a pizza restaurant in our building, but there is also one across the street which is both cheaper and more friendly. We lazily ordered online from across the street and realized the mark-up to be 20% if we don't pick it up. Thus, we put this pizza guy to work.

Getting Outfitted: The Tailor

One of the pleasant surprises of moving here is the affordability and proximity of a great tailor. As a point of reference, it costs $7 and less than a week to get a pair of pants hemmed. Once I figured this out, I started bringing our closest tailor all sorts of random projects - like sewing a bunny tail back on this gem:

Or sewing in side stretchy panels into Carmen's outfit and shortening Hugo's tail:

I forgot to put this crowd pleaser on the map - the butcher that gives away free sausages for the kids. It's one shop north of Zeit für Brot. 

Another new favorite that I accidentally cropped out off the map - kaisersmarm (cut-up pancakes with fruit compote) and schnitzel available for pick-up right by Kollwitz Saturday market.

Throwback to two weeks ago when we were aloud to meet with another family for Kaisersmarm:

A new lockdown started today where we can only meet with one other single person. Sigh.

Something for Everyone: Bubble Tea

I know bubble tea was cool almost 20 years ago, but for me it's making a come back. Our local bubble tea place also has blue ice cream (for the boys) AND waffles (for Carmen). 

Just put on our snowsuits and we're ice cream ready.

They have a Sunday special of a hot dog in a waffle which we must try sometime soon, but we usually end up at our next local on Sundays....  

Sunday Food Trucks: A Sabbath Saver

Sundays are our "no-plan, no-cook, no-real clothes until Zoom church" day. They also used to be the day we didn't leave the house, but we found that one little Biggs needs to move around to preserve everyone's sanity. The Sunday Food Trucks are an easy option for both food and movement. 

We look forward to the days we can take family and friends to our favorite places around our hood and...ahem... also recruit them to assist in the pants battle.  

Dodim: Baby walkers and more

Corona has limited my ability to pawn, I mean -share- my baby, with the world. Before I had kids, I always wanted to hold babies, but most new parents were not keen to hand them over. I made a vow that if I were lucky enough to have babies, they would get passed around. I had many a new acquaintance tell me that holding Crosby or Hugo was the best part of their day. In corona our baby sharing was limited - but we went for quality not quantity. 

One day I pawned Carmen off on our upstairs neighbors who we now call the Dodim. Dodim means uncles in Hebrew. Sometimes the stars aligned for Carmen to join on one of their three daily dog walks. 

The first walk, I completely underdressed her (whoops) but she came back pink and happy.

We then started having a special baby carrier sized for the Dodim so we'd be ready for a quick pick-up.

Carmen still has a lot to learn about being gentle around dogs, and I have a lot to learn about photography. #blurrybutyougetthepoint

We also stashed Hugo and Carmen with them for Crosby's first day of school celebration. 

The first day of school is a Saturday for first graders. Usually it's a big celebration but with corona, only parents were aloud to attend. Crosby didn't mind the undecided attention. The cone he's holding is also a German school tradition - a Schultüte. Typically parents put in school supplies but after spending hours putting together the list below from the school, I just loaded it with squirt guns instead. #sometimesIamacoolmom

I learned some new vocabulary words. All you need to know is there are over 40 items on this list, and none are available at one store.

Anywho, Carmen also went to hang out with them on Halloween so we could really focus on the trick-or-treating:

Niv is shown here, attempting to keep Carmen. I can't blame him, she makes a great heater.

We've since celebrated some holidays together when we were aloud to meet - Hanukkah, Christmas Eve, and most recently a Seder. 

The little rascal helped herself to the Matzah sprinkle balls. And can you blame her?

Parks Galore

When chatting with my brother Tyler the other day, we got on the topic of parks around our house. I tried to explain how parks work here, but a visual is much easier. There used to be an awesome website highlighting all the amazing options, but it seems to be down. Here's the link in case it goes live again.

As a reference, Paul's face is where we live. To walk to the top park - Armin - right by the Kita would take about 20 minutes, and the Buttbreaker in the SW corner also 20 minutes. Because we have the ultimate bike set-up, we only walk if it is less than 10 minutes.

Before Corona-time, I'd tell you I'm not a park person as they usually don't check the box of fun for parents and adults. When school was going and life was normal there wasn't a lot of time to go to parks. Paul would maybe take the kids out on one of the weekend days while I had some downtime. I subscribe to the French parenting motto of "Kids play, parents talk" or if I'm by myself "Kids play, Mommy exercises". But enter Corona...and you'll find me (or one of our awesome babysitters) at one of these locations.

Armin Platz

With half day school, this is a regular hang-out after I pick Ella and Crosby up from school. They do have some breaks in half-day school, but a little more running around is always good. We pick-up Hugo and then Ella practices her babysitting skills.

This park also helped Crosby hone his climbing skills back in his Kita days. These amazing climbing structures would never fly in the USA. Another reason we're thankful to be here in this phase of parenting.

I don't even know park

Paul went to Mauerpark with the kids (the big green area with three parks). When I went to meet-up with him, he said to follow his face on google maps because he'd never even been to this park before. (Many people think it's weird that Paul and I have trackers on each other, but we think it's handy.)

Anywho on the way to 'I don't know this park', we ran into Crosby's bestie and ended the night eating burgers. Unplanned hang outs are my favorite. 

Hugo gets pretty grabby when he's tired or injured. Thankfully Carmen is tough. This happened 5 minutes later:

I convinced Nicole to ride next to a sleeping Hugo.

Dining all fresco - the only way to dine these days. We use the back child-seat as a high chair for Carmen and the boys sit in the bike bench when there isn't a big enough bench for all of us.

Mauerpark

Mauer means wall in German. This is where you'll see us posed next to graffiti walls, rollerblading, and sledding. 

(truthfully though, there's so much graffiti in this town it could be anywhere - including our front door.)

I can't resist showing off Hugo's amazing skating tricks - the roller skate somersault.

This new park just opened in time for Corona. 

Lots of climbing opportunities for "Free Solo Jr"

To the right you can see another one of my favorite German park features - inlayed trampolines.

Train/Corner Park at Kollwitzplatz

Throwback to life with two kids and no Corona.

On Thursdays and Saturdays you can find us at Kollwitzplatz for the market. On Saturday we come for the Quarkballs:

Quarkballs put donut holes to shame. So fluffy, so good.

More quarkballs on the go... the corner park in the background.

Saturday is a much bigger market with more food but Thursday is less busy.

Pirate ship Park AKA Helmholzpark

In addition to having an awesome pirate ship, this park also has a wide-open space for lighting fireworks or rollerblading. A note on the former, NYE gets crazy with fireworks that aren't legal in the US - roman candles and bottle rockets to name a few. Apparently the very dedicated also go to Poland to pick-up even more illegal fireworks, which I can't really imagine. Suffice it to say, NYE in Berlin is not a place of peace and quiet.

We also used to roller-blade here until Mauerpark got even more amazing and paved.

OK, this might seem like false advertising because this isn't actually Helmholz. But, Helmholz does have two tables as do many other parks. Berlin = Ping Pong Paradise

Buttbreaker AKA Arkona

This park has a market on Fridays - so Mommy is there for food and shopping while the kids run around. We took one of Crosby's school friends on a playdate. Here they are posing for their first album cover.

Crosby nicknamed this "buttbreaker" because the slide has a very sudden drop at the end. This park was recently rebuilt but the buttbreaker remains.

Circus Park

This is a new favorite. For starters, it has a bench with tables. Deluxe. Secondly, it's by our new favorite breakfast grab and go - Brekkie 44. 

Brioche egg sandwich with choice of bacon, ham, avocado. So delicious.

Thirdly, our friend Val has circus skills:

Finally, it's got direct sun:

Parents are talking, kids are playing, and Val is chasing after kids/taking photos of us. ha! A note about the outfit - this is my winter cold look. Gold hat and boots, blue boys' Large onesie. Like the little boys, I may or may not be wearing PJs underneath.

I left a couple park descriptions out. So many parks, so little time.