peeing on the baby

In Germany, when i child is born, the father throws a big party while mother and child are still in the hospital. They have a special name for it in German, which translates literally to "Peeing on the Baby." (Any German reading this, feel free to enlighten the goup on the actual phrase) When i first heard of this ritual about 3 weeks ago or something, my first thought was that these Germans are just plain crazy; they actually pee on the baby?! that cant be good; what purpose does that serve anyway? my mind was put to rest when someone finally explained that that is just the literal translation into English. its really a party to celebrate the birth and rejoice in the happiness of the new father.

Janis was born on 12/6/09 (thats the European way to write the date by the way) at 54 cm and i forget how much he weighed but he and Elisabeth are in good health and come home from the hospital in the next couple of days. Wednesday night was Henrick's Peeing on the Baby party at his house so we all went over there after practice. we drank beers and shots that tasted like Spearmint gum and talked about baseball (standard) and Henrick's new house. It is finally done and they have been living there for a couple weeks now. No one thought he would get it all done before the baby got here but he quieted the naysayers.

Thursday morning was the 2nd day of the Tostedt Real school's baseball "project" at the field. now i put quotations around that because when Bifi told me about this project 2 weeks ago, i figured that he had been working on this for awhile and had some kind of idea about the order of buisness to take place...leave it to me to trust a 15 yr old kid with that kind of responsibility. Needless to say, Bifi had no clue what needed to happen and Tony and I were left to fly by the seat of our pants and make it a constructive day on the fly. There were 30 kids there and not enough gloves and no lefty gloves, so the day started out pretty rough, but we made due the best we could and once we moved into the t-ball game, it was no problem. the talent gap was as wide as the grand canyon and we were just hoping that no one would get hurt by a screamer off the bat of one of the better hitters...it just couldnt be that easy though.

in about the 4th inning, with an hour left in the day, a kid hit a ground ball to the left side of the infield. the girl really wasnt paying too much attention and was caught even more off gaurd when the ball hit a stone or something and jumped up and hit her square in the forehead. when i say square in the forehead, i mean that the ball hit the poor girl and flew straight up in the air. it almost landed a 1-2 combo on its way back down, but she was so dazed and dizzy from the first blow that she teetered out of the way just in time to avoid it. It really was quite funny from my perspective behind the mound, until i saw her swaying back and forth trying to get her balance. then i was a bit concerned. this was the 2nd injury of the day so we decided that we'd had enough casualities and called the game on account of player safety. so as the teacher and students crowded around the girl with the knot growing from her forehead, my first thought was that she needed ice...but i forgot my keys because i was in such a rush that morning so we couldnt get into the sporthouse. so she used the next best thing....are you ready for this...she put a bat on her head. yep a metal bat. i really wish i'd had a camera at that point, it was the first time ive ever seen a bat used for a medical purpose. as the bat would heat up from the warmth of her head, she would turn it or move farther down the barrel to where it was still cool. I guess it worked though, because when they all left i didnt see the knot anymore.

On sunday, Tony and I will be taking Hasi's car and hitting the open road headed for the Netherlands. We're going to where the lights are all red and the coffee shops are the cool place to hang out. talking about a little place called Amsterdam. we will get there sunday evening and return to Dohren on Wednesday in time for practice. We have plans to go see the Heineken brewery, but other than that we are playing this trip by ear. just a couple of americans roaming around the city looking for something to do. I'm sure i'll bring back some great stories and pictures to go with them. this is going to be a great adventure.


A-Ron