16.01.2026 
========== 
What a night... Junior was seemingly hit with
some incarnation of a nasty gastrointestinal bug and spend the
bigger part of the night vomiting. I cannot recall how often we
changed his clothes, our clothes, the bed sheets...  luckily he did
drink between the vomiting so we at least had not to fear THAT much
that everything gets out of control. About 04:00 in the morning
the vomiting stopped, we spend the following three to four hours
somewhat asleep but carefully listening to any weird sound that
may come from Junior.

In the morning my wife called in for paternal sick leave at her
job and i just took a day off in anticipation of a day filled with
caring for a sick and possibly vomiting child. But the moment he
did wake up he was fine, fresh as he would have slept the whole
night and happy that both parents stay at home to play with him.
Just to be sure we did a short visit at our local doctor but after
a short examination of Junior he told us that everything is ok.

17.01.2026 
========== 
Sleeping through the night without being
waked up by junior vomiting is a luxury i like to indulge more in.
Really.

On other news: I really feel like living in a deja-Vu. I remember
it like it was yesterday that i stood in the protest against the
Iraq war, back in the early 2000s. I remember how i hated the US
back then. I mean, there is always some dictator invading some
other country, there is always someone who wants what is not his.
But back then, for me, for a man grown up in the 80s in western
Germany, the US always were the good guys. Yeah, i already knew
back then that there were dark taints on that white vest, but it
always felt that it was more the outlier, not the norm... bad people
worming their way to positions of influence to do their dark deed.
But Iraq somehow felt different, it felt like a form of betrayal,
like the US used their image as the "Good Guys" to lure people into
following them into an unjust war. Back then we had a chancellor
that clearly said: "No, we will not follow you where you are going".
That gave me hope and confidence.

Today, this feeling of betrayal is returning. With Trump trying to
"acquire" Greenland and now trying to pressure the EU in agreeing
with tariffs it is now clear where the US as a nation stands. My
personal hate for the country USA is returning with a passion. My
wife, being Vietnamese, had always her own special views on the
US. Today she said something that i personally think is absolutely
true: "The US needs to get a bloody nose again, to get humiliated
at the face of the world by another tiny nation again. The hubris
that they can take what they want is something that has to be beaten
out of another generation". My wife is normally very, very apolitical
and calm... but in this regard i have to completely agree with her.