Dear Mackenzie: Oh how you make us laugh
Dear Mackenzie,
Today you are now 28 months old. You are such an amazing little person and so very funny. You make us laugh all the time.
You are talking nearly nonstop and even though we mostly speak English around you, you still manage to throw out a bunch of things in German. Apparently you’re listening to everything around you very intently! Some of your favorite phrases right now are: “Bye bye! See you later!!” “Oi.” “Wazzup!” and “Tschüß.”
You also still love to name off everything around you when you get bored. It’s funny to watch you point and look at things and just rattle off a bunch of words. And you also love to throw in a few signs still just to make it all interesting.
You are absolutely hysterical when you are tired and adore to be tickled and have raspberries blown on your belly then. You run around like a little crazy person, babbling and not being still for more than a millisecond. In particular, you really love your little musical toolbench from Oma & Opa and will play the 30 second song in that thing over and over while you dance around.
You love to pick out your meals in the morning, and have figured out that breakfast is in the morning and lunch in the middle of the day. Some days you eat like a horse and other days a bird. But if you stick a piece of chicken in your hand, you’re certain to polish it off quickly.
You now think that every store we go in is going to offer you candy — and you’re pretty much always right. And if it’s not candy, it’s some other sort of food. I guess it’s no wonder you don’t want to eat so much at home when you consider all the other goodies you’re constantly having thrown at you.
You have mastered climbing the wooden ladder and rope ladder at the playground but you are not an ambi-turner and still go the long way around the slide to get back to the ladder. Thankfully the weather has been getting nicer and warmer, so I see a lot of play sessions at the playgrounds around us in our future.
When we watch certain shows on TV where there is a band playing music, you bring me the Wii guitar and you play the drums. If there is no drummer, you play the guitar yourself. A love of music is definitely in your blood.
If Feist comes on Sesame Street singing “1-2-3-4″ you run out of the room saying, “Oh wait– 4.” And then you bring back the little magnetic number four from your chalkboard set and dance along with her.
Books are still a big hit, and you love your 30-piece Ravensburger puzzles. You’ve actually gotten to the point where you can put them together almost entirely on your own…clearly the makers know nothing when they say the puzzles are for kids 3 and older.
You have developed a serious fly phobia. There was a horse fly in the house a few weeks ago and it landed on your head for about a second. That was apparently an amazingly traumatic experience for you and now any time that you hear a fly (God forbid you actually see it) you start freaking out. You run out of the room, calling for me and holding your hands over you ears. Needless to say, I’ve become vigilant about killing any fly that decides to grace us with its presence.
You are so in love with Ayla and animals in general. You lay all over Ayla, brush her for hours, poke her, prod her…and Ayla just lays there through it all. There are only a few instances when she’s finally had enough and heads to the mud room for some peace and quiet. You want to cuddle and pet every dog, cat, rabbit, sheep and other creature that we come across, even after they’ve run away from you terrified.
You’re very independent and play by yourself all the time. It certainly makes my life a lot easier when I have work to do on the computer or around the farm. And of course, you help all the time too.
When we have visitors to the farm around your bedtime, they MUST come upstairs and go through the bedtime ritual with us. I don’t know if you’re actually trying to wrap them around your little finger by doing this, but it’s totally working.
You are just a generally good natured, sweet child. And of course you have your meltdown moments that can be trying, but somehow you’re still funny through it all.
Keep being yourself, little darlin’.
Mommy
Tiffany is an American who has been living in Germany with her husband since 2001. The two are self-proclaimed "Self-Reliant Yuppies" who are in their early-30's and bought an 1830's farmhouse several years ago, which they have been turning into a more sustainable and green dream house. Two cats, a Newfie and their 2 year old daughter enjoy the adventure with them. Tiffany enjoys cooking, rock climbing, lux-camping trying to turn her black thumbs green and taking road trips. Visit the 
Both my children were born in Japan and were heavily exposed to the Japanese language since my wife’s younger sister, who spoke no English, lived with us. I was concerned that their English abilities would suffer so I brought the subject up with their pediatrician.
The good doctor told me that the language absorbing ability of children is amazing and if my children were to hear nothing but English from me and Japanese from my wife and sister-in-law and on top of that we were to hire a German nanny who spoke only the German language we would end up with trilingual children.
We didn’t keep the Japanese up with them and now, as adults, they retain very little of that language.
On a humorous note many of the dependent children who lived off-base associated with Japanese children in their play and picked up the language quite easily. It always amused me to see an American adult in a local market using his three or four year old child as a translator.
Oh my sweet child…Mackie is as much a treasure as you were at that age! You ruled the houses…the boat and essentially our world revolved around you. You were the reason we had dogs, cats and a few other critters that wandered up. Music was a huge part of you life being that your parents and grandfathers all sang…I know Stefan was musical as a young person…she is following in the footsteps. As time goes by, I am certain she will have the knowledge of banking and investments…an enormous gift for her future.
Your blogs keep me updated with all the “dailyness” of your lives…that God for the Internet.
Miss you with all my being.
Love,
Mom
Oh so sweet!