It was supposed to be a simple exercise — exchanging a pair of Kai’s shoes for a bigger size.  The store was all the way across town, and we already had one errand to run in the morning.  Which leads us to a simple fact.  Journeys out of the home going over one hour, and definitely over 2 hours, need to accommodate the calls the nature.  And for Kai, this particular journey was beyond the safety zone.  Which started off with clamoring for food during changing subways, and slowly degraded from there.  But we finally made it to the shop with a very nice shopkeeper who was happy to change the shoes for the right size and even let us use the facilities for the necessary functions. It seemed like all the hard teamwork paid off well.

However, it turns out that while Chika had packed and extra undershirt just in case, Kai was in need of  full wardrobe change. And as much as it was hard to bear buying brand new boutique clothes in the middle of the season (yes, the full retail), you had to just take a laugh at the humor of it all — Chika even joked that it was Kai’s plan all along.  So my wife was happy, my son was happy, and at the end of it all, I was happy too.

P.S. Just a word of advice — I HIGHLY recommend the Japanese style nightshirts.  Easy on/off, and as they are looser fitting around the bottom you can avoid the pressurized explosions which seem to be occurring with the more tightly fitted tops.  You can check them out here or check out this example:

Familiar Newborn Wear

Since we had only know Chika was pregnant for a few days just before we flew over to Berlin to look for apartments, we hadn’t switched over fully into parent mode.  Having lived in New York, Tokyo, London between the two of us, life on public transport was a way of life.  So we decided over the nicer apartment and neighborhood over the carpark.

Now the reality has sunk in with Kai onboard.  Yet, we are managing not too badly thanks to Berlin’s excellent transport system.  It’s not 100% perfect all the time, but in general more often than not there are working elevators in all the U-Bahn and S-Bahn stations (in fact I think I’ve never been to an S-Bahn station without elevators).  Thus, we can navigate the city without having to carry the Bugaboo up and down the stairs.

The pass fares are the cheapest I’ve seen — 72 euros for a full month, which includes bringing a guest after 8 and on weekends.  Or if you are more flexible, 36 euros for a month if you leave after 10am.  And it’s based on a checker system — there are no turnstiles anywhere, but you might be asked by someone along the journey for your ticket.  This is HUGE, because frankly baby carriages and turnstiles do not get along at all.

And on top of all this, it’s timed with German efficiency.  Just plug your start and end destination into bvg.de and you will get very efficient routings and timing to your destination.  And it works almost too well — sometimes you wish things were a minute or 2 later with Kai around.

We may move into car mode at some point, but for now we are happily enjoying being the eco-friendly city travelers.

There are some things that are just part of life.  And for most of us non-millionaires, this includes IKEA.  But today was the first 3-some visit with Kai.  Overall, most of the things were the same as usual.  We snacked at the cafe, got frustrated with out of stock items, pondered whether to buy the couch or not (partly because it’s not just buying it, its getting it home and up to the apartment).  But today we also discovered the nursing room.  In fact, it was almost like walking into a little kiddy showroom, complete with item names and price tags!  Actually, I think its a great idea — bringing the advertising model to things that we need.

Unfortunately, we left right as Kai was waking up and didn’t make a second visit.  I think he liked the room as well and could have used “one for the road”.  But don’t worry Kai, I’m sure we’ll be back.

So one thing for a strategic planner like myself which is hard to accept: your ability to control timing and execution with a baby is significantly impaired.  We had planned to go to the US Consulate this morning to sort out Kai’s passport and other things.  To make a long and boring story short, I probably needed to add an extra hour of buffer in the morning to get to where we needed to be on time.

Luckily, it wasn’t mission critical (no international travel tomorrow or anything) so Chika and I took the opportunity of Kai sleeping in his car seat (after 30 minutes of waiting for a taxi that never showed) to have coffee and cake at our local bio cafe.  Maybe Kai is helping us to stop and spend some time on each other, rather than just being drones in the geo-political paper work machine.

One of the amazing things about our new life in Berlin is easy access to restaurants.   I when I said easy, I meant it.  Herr Rossi is a fantastic Sicilian run restaurant right across the street.  Which means that in less than 5 minutes we can be back with Kai in the apartment.  So with peace of mind, we went for a farewell dinner with Megumi and Yukie, reserving the couch in the back (to facilitate a quick feed if needed).  While Kai didn’t sleep the whole way through, between the 4 of us there were enough hands to keep Kai occupied as the rest ate.  And ate well we did — it was my 4th time eating there, and it has yet to disappoint.

This was not Kai’s first concert, in fact we had gone to see Sir Simon Brattle and the Berlin Philharmonic a few months back (an amazing performance).  But since it was inside the womb, maybe we can’t count that.

Taking advantage of the Tuesday lunchtime concert series, Kai got to bring his very own comfort lounge to the performance — a philharmonic drive in!  It wasn’t Sir Simon Brattle this time though, so I think we’ll need to see how we can sneak Kai into a proper performance.

Babies like to eat.   Wolfson’s like to eat.  Wolfson babies like to eat.  A lot.

Which means that Chika has more than a full time job on her hands.  We now are into full swing on the breast-feeding side, so our midwife gave the OK to begin using the bottle.

The good news is that hopefully this will give Chika a needed break now and then, and spread the work around (Grandma Yukie taking on this one here).   It still requires plenty of additional work (the human body has a built in warming mechanism and can be served on-demand, while refrigerated bottles need prep time).  Plus it’s still the extra work of getting it into bottles in the first place.

All in all, the good news is that for the 10-30 minutes that Kai is eating, he is generally happy, peaceful and quiet.  I think that is the favorite word combo in this household.

Traveling +1 is not just a matter of arithmetic.  It becomes a logistics exercise.  To take the buggy (and where can you park it) or go with the sling (and how do you eat while wearing an infant on your chest) become part of the equation.

Luckily Kai was extremely cooperative today.  Chika had deposited him into the sling (yes, he is there hiding under Chika’s custom convertible Japanese outerwear) and all through the journey there, the 1 1/2 hour brunch, and the journey home he either slept or cuddled awake with mom.

Do we pursue onwards with new found courage, or is it just a unstable condition waiting to explode?