Most Germans say they like to camp but the campgrounds they mean are tidy rows of plots for tents and RVs -- discount hotels where they provide nice showers, grocery stores and a full-service snackbar, and you bring your own room.

The Waakhausen Campground is what run-of-the-mill Germans call "nature camping" in the same tone of voice they reserve for our current president. Waakhausen is like everyone else likes it -- a bit rustic, friendly, with a suitable bathroom and one slightly moldy shower stall. Since most Germans hate it, we were there with various hippy-esque German parents and a handful of Dutch lesbians. We made friends with one dude from the WWF and his kids.

Although it seems obvious why, I'm always surprised when the kids make big developmental strides during vacations. It's like they have time to concentrate on the things we've been trying to show them while distracted by the everyday banalities of life. Cy started walking in Illinois. Martha's English appeared in Colorado.

For about a year I've been disappointed that Martha hasn't been able to swing while all her friends go ever higher on the playground. But while I was puttering about in the bathroom or kitchen at the campground, I heard Martha and Sabine talking about how she was suddenly able to propel herself on the swingset. "That's great, Martha, that's great."

I came out to her cruising up and down. Up and down. Every chance she got, she went over to the swingset to practice.

Cy now speaks English with me without it seeming like an inconvenience. This, too, started somewhere on that campground.

I'll probably write a travel piece about the place and Worpswede, a former artist colony. And Cy and I are returning at the end of August for a Männer Wochenende.

Finally, vacation.

Twenty-one years ago, almost to the day, I landed in Oldenburg for a month of language school. I was 16 and it was my first time in Europe. I've been sentimental about the place and always meant to go back, which Sabine supported since she, too, once lived there. So this summer, with airfare to the States too expensive and little time to plan, we figured there was no better time.

We rented an apartment in an old farmhouse outside Oldenburg with horses right in front of the door, fresh eggs gathered by the children and a small if not quite quaint town nearby. I ended up with too much work that prohibited me from relaxing much while forcing fat pictures through a thin cellphone connection.

As soon as we set foot in Oldenburg I wondered what we were doing there. The family I had stayed with moved to southern Germany three years ago and the head of the school died of AIDS more than a decade ago. I had no connection to the place. It was cute but rainy. Bored, we landed in Kaufhof and bought a soccer ball for the kids and a new hat for me. We eventually got in an argument with some 20-somethings about how Cy (a three-year-old) shouldn't lay a finger on their low-rider bikes. He wasn't about to and, guys, they were BICYCLES. I guess it's like John Cusack's character said in Gross Pointe Blank: "You can never go home again, but you can shop there."

On the bright side, Martha lost a second tooth (and apparently swallowed it). Tomorrow I'll tell you about how the three days of camping that followed that were a real vacation.

Working from home with two small children and an employer that doesn't want me to travel, I was aware of the mobility computers and cellphones offered, but I didn't really get it. In April, four years after I bought my last computer -- and with my trusty PC lagging while saving the world from evil in Counter Strike -- I figured it was time to get something new. I was moving into an office and seemed to be occasionally visiting clients, a laptop seemed to make sense as a replacement.

I pulled the trigger on a 15.4" Asus and, days later, went on a business trip. While sitting in my tiny hotel room in Cologne, I got mobility as I checked all my back emails, listened to my music and then watched a movie I had downloaded at home before getting on the plane. I may have been in a different city, but everthing I needed -- all of modern me -- was there at the Hotel Chelsea.

Wow, I thought. Wow.

Then this week, because I had tons of work I should have been doing (read: procrastinating), I decided to see about connecting my beloved SonyEricsson with the Asus per Bluetooth. Of course, it wasn't a problem. Then I got greedy -- could I not only connect the two but actually surf using my mobile as a modem? A little googling told me I needed a data account, so I looked to see what e-plus had to offer. Astonishingly, four hours later I was online via the SonyEricsson (anyone who lives in Europe knows what a wonder it is to alter any type of contract that quickly -- even if it means more revenue for whatever provider).

Three days later and I'm writing this in the kitchen of a converted horse barn in the middle of nowhere, Germany. I can see a shetland pony and foal out the window, I have my music whining through the Asus' speakers and, after Sabine gets the kids in bed, will watch some U.S. TV I downloaded yesterday (Dexter). I already answered a few work emails and, maybe, tomorrow I'll upload some pics from the first days of our vacation.

Mobility.

Being a father isn't always easy. For the kids, you're always second fiddle (incidentally, I quit playing violin because I got tired of being first chair second violins). We were talking about this the other night with Martha and she said: "Dad, I love you but I love Mom just a teensy weensy bit more." She was using the tip of her finger to show how much that teensy weensy bit was.

It was very cute.

Then she told me I was fat.

"But it's OK. I've seen fatter people."

I'm on the board of our daycare, which makes me privy to the crap that goes on there. We have one father who thinks his son is much older and much more capable than he is. It causes a problem because the father will just drop his son off, rather than make sure he's settled and in the nursery.

But I have sympathy. It's a mistake most parents must make. When I look at pictures of my kids they look so much younger and frailer than they do in person. They're easy to over-estimate. Sure they're small people, but really they're just small kids.

Both of them love face painting at the moment. Martha because it makes her prettier and Cy because it brings him closer to the animals he's so fascinated with. Occasionally, we find a really good face-painter.