Animals and Walking, Naughty and Pottery

"Look, I have an animal!" Claire ran across the hardwood floor, her feet slapping with each step, her forefinger rigid and her eyes fixed on a point on that finger. "It's -- it's a ladybug!"

"Is I gonna get naughty?" Lilah asks often, usually if her sister is in trouble of some sort. We hope not, Lilah, we hope not. "But it's okay!" she will reassure us cheerfully after she has complained in dire tones of something that has happened -- milk spilled on her dress, Cole knocked over, sandal falling off.

Cole is racking up the miles with his walker, careening up and down the long, wide hall and doing laps through the living room. He is delighted with every new accomplishment, with every new place he finds he can clamber up to.

And in case you were wondering, this is how Jane and I look as S-Bahn riding tourists.

 
Heather and I took a trip to Poland yesterday and enjoyed both the time together and the trip very much. The purpose was to go to Polish pottery stores, and Boleslawiec is the place where it's made, so that was our destination. The GPS took us to the town, and then we followed our sometimes-directionally-challenged noses to the pottery stores crowding the streets. Most of them are on the outskirts of the town proper; on industrial streets next to factories and vacant lots, marked with signs painted with "Ceramika" and garish representations of the famous pottery, we entered perhaps ten of these shops, every shelf brimming with blue-rimmed plates, bowls, casseroles, pie plates, pitchers, mugs, and rolling pins, and pottery displays often spilling out onto the floors. We didn't buy much before lunch; we checked out a few stores and kept thinking we had to see everything before we made our decisions. Then we got too hungry to decide anything, and drove into the town center to find a restaurant. Across from the town hall, we found a cafe that served Polish food; two full plates plus a side of traditional Polish pierogies was only twelve Euros. A bakery provided some treats for the road in exchange for a bit of zloty (Polish currency) change I had from one of my purchases. Next stop: more pottery shops! We had seen enough to start having a feel for what we liked and what was a good price, and had given our eyes a palate cleanser from the Polish polka dots while we ate in the cobblestone square. So, we began to make our purchases in earnest; the backseat filled up with paper-wrapped lumps. Around five, we were coming to the end of our day, both by choice and also because the stores were closing (one lady didn't want to ring up our selections because it was past closing time, but Heather convinced her that she wanted our money). We stopped at one last string of stores on our way out of town, but they were all closed, so we set the GPS for home and headed for the Polish highway. We finished listening to a session on "Life and Counseling" with David Powlison, and then continued our varied conversation, hitting on topics from church leadership to marriage to feminism to our upcoming trip to America. It's a gift to be living with a friend for these months in Berlin. The drive home took only two hours (the westbound road in Poland was much better than the east), and the sound of the apartment door unlocking brought little bundles of wild delight racing to the entryway. The children took turns hugging us and telling us bits from their day; there was a phone call for Heather; Grandpa was just getting ready to tell the girls their bedtime story. Back to the bustle of home!