Flashback: July 20-31

During today's trip to Nürnberg it was noted that Samuel is logging an awful lot of travel at a very young age. The question we are currently investigating (in dramatically spaced installments) is: How many miles/kms does Samuel have per day of life? This is, you might be saying, a rerun-ploy as lame as any flashback clip-episode of the Simpsons, but there you have it. As Gian Carol Menotti once wrote: "To this we've come."


Shortly after his one month birthday, Samuel (not Menotti), was still a little guy. But we all loaded up in his uncle Tom's civic and drove to Cleveland for the Young Composers Program where we were teaching teenagers about composing.

With all of the craziness that goes with a week-long camp for teenagers, we all felt relieved that Grandma Betsy came up to help take care of the hungry little beast. The program was quite a success. Quotes from our survey included stuff like "the most fun and exciting week out of the year" and "I did not feel like a sheep like I did at Interlochen." Certainly the most popular part of camp was Grandma Betsy's Snack Hour (TM), where students didn't notice they were being treated like sheep...or they just didn't care.

Boston, MA -> Cleveland, OH (665 miles • 1073 kms)
July 21st Totals: 39 days of life. 665 miles, 17 m/day • 1073 kms, 27 km/tag


After finishing that extravaganza, we piled into the car for another road trip. This time to Louisville, Kentucky, where Peter showed Karola and Sam the house where he grew up. They also took a dip in the pool where he learned to swim, Lakeside:

But the real fun was in seeing our old family friends the Moores, who threw us a great party on July 30th. Many thanks to Beverly, Gerald, Kevin, Jocelyn & Colin for taking such good care of us! And thanks also to all the friends who turned up. If people from that party have photos they can email us, that'd be great!

Cleveland, OH -> Lousiville, KY (370 miles • 596 kms)
July 29th Totals; 47 days of life. 1035 miles, 22m/day • 1669 kms, 36 km/tag

Journeying tomorrow

For what seems like the 97th time, we are taking off on a trip. Tomorrow for Nürnberg for the first orchestra rehearsals of Dunkelrot. You can find some links about the opera at Karola's new web site... [ahem]... NEW Web Site: karolaobermueller.net. Anyway, self-promotion aside, we will be leaving Darmstadt where we have lived, worked, eaten, slept, and peed all over (you can attribute whichever of these to whomever as you see appropriate). Oma&Opa's house has been a very lovely residence, full of good food and many many cakes to coincide with afternoon coffee.

Today we a very nice afternoon with three of Samuel's tanten (Aunts), an onkel and two cousins.

From left to right: Cousin Jakob, Tante Marion, Tante Sabine, Oma Barbara • Opa Volkfried, Cousine Pauline & Tante Margrid.

And of course, Onkle Hartmut:


Here is a close up of that cake: Baumkuchen (Tree Cake) which is tall, hollow and has rings in the cake, like a tree. Unlike a tree's rings, however, these rings do not tell you how many years old the cake is.



If that's not enough (and it probably is), here is a somewhat bizarre 360° view of the garden at Sachsenstraße 18, where such cakes are to be had:

[and you may have to stretch out your browser to the whole thing. Oh well.]

OK, Time for bed! See you soon, hopefully.

3 Months / Back to blogging

Hello everyone! It is very good to be back (unless you didn't notice that we were gone in the first place). We have been on the road and visiting with friends and family. We have been living all kinds of good blog material--so much, in fact, that we haven't had time to blog about it all. So we will be back-posting the last months in flashback segments, basically as a way of covering up for the slow days in the near future.

But back to the day at hand. Sam turns 1/4 today. And how does one celebrate the big one-slash-four? Why, by taking a kinderwagen ride with Oma, of course.


And then you round the day out with a concert.



Incidentally playing recorder for Samuel has a kind of snake-charming effect on him. By which I mean it seems to help him with his poops. I don't know if that's what goes on in snake-charming also, but that's the kind of hypnosis that goes on in our house.

PS The movie from last post has been modified so as to work with Quicktime on PCs. Sorry about that.

Happy One Month!

So we'd like to post a belated post in honor of Samuel's first month of breathing, crying and parent-training. On the day itself (the 13th) we celebrated with a trip to the pediatrician, with the news that the little titan is growing well, which came as no surprise to his parents, who witness his voracious appetite on a daily basis.

But since the appointment was at 8am we had quite a lot of day left for...um...eating, and so on. So we got to play with lots of Samuel's toys. Above, there, he's being tickled by a BedBug from his aforementioned Uncle Tom and playing with his favorite bassinet toys from his Oma Barbara.

And, as predicted we have a ponderously long and dull movie of Samuel exercising in the lovely portable playspace we have on loan from Julie and Jonathan Rohwein. Our friend Harry Connick Jr. stopped by and played a little bit for the occasion.

Postcards from Tom

First, a bit of follow up on last post's meditation upon Samuel's sleeping in this video of the little guy in the first stages of waking up. Short and sweet [the next video may well be long and tedious, so be thankful for the moment]. Incidentally, it is perhaps worth noting that Samuel is not really a "morning person" per se, by which I mean he's not so into waking up. Morning, as might be inferred from the last post, is something of a relative concept in our home right now.

Anyway, moving on. Samuel has started to get visitors.

Our most recent caller was Samuel's uncle, Tom. Fortunately for us, Tom just happens to be a professional photographer in New York. Here are a few of Tom's arresting postcards:

Wow! Many thanks, Tom. Those are beautiful shots!
I guess that's why he gets paid the big bucks.

In Honor of Sleep

So it has indeed been a full week between posts. Many thanks to everyone who has written lovely emails. Sorry if we've not yet written back. But we've been in full-time meal mode here. Samuel has been in a growth spurt and has been eating, eating, eating and then when he finally takes a break he likes to act as though he's hungry. Of course he'll occassionally mix in a good burb or a nice poop. Such are the days here in sunny Cambridge. This is Samuel on a pillow, which is meant to encourage thoughts about sleep. He is actually just between gulps here.

In any case, it seemed like it was probably a good time to pay tribute to those very special moments when Samuel is not eating...when he sleeps. So, for instance, below we see Samuel in his bassinet. Like so much of our cool kid-stuff, it came to us as a lovely blessing from another set of parents--in this case our friends Steve and Yukiko.

Ah! That's so nice! He looks so quiet, peaceful and...um...not hungry. Obviously we're really enjoying this...because of course we don't get to appreciate his sleeping all that much, since by the time he's fallen asleep we tend to be relatively unconscious ourselves.

Samuel through Week #2

Here is a shot of Samuel in his new playspace courtesy of the Rohweins. In addition to being very visually stimulating for S, it is a great place to work on coordination. He has already begun working on hitting and kicking hanging objects. Below P seems to be concerned that these new found abilities will now be practiced upon Papa as well. In any case, we get a look at him in an outfit that originally belonged to his mother. Not that that was SO long ago...


But then there is the more of the meditative side of Mr. Obermüller. Samuel actually means (roughly) "Knowledge of the Divine."

For those who (1) are interested in seeing Samuel's conducting powers, and (2) have a faster internet connection than we do, here are two short videos of him directing some renaissance choral music: Video 1 • Video 2. Tenors, late. Altos, you're sharp. Basses, flat. Sopranos... oh nevermind.

[By the way, both video links work now]