Ich habe fünf kinder!

This is a phrase I learnt early (in English it's "I have five children."). It was worth learning quickly to be able to see the whites of the local's eyes grow as they realise. Usually their numbering system for children stops around three with two being the most common numeral. But they are very generous and affectionate towards children and so there would be many worse places than Germany to have a childhood (See the post Karneval! for instance). Must be hard to be a kid in this place. So the next couple of posts will be brief rundowns on the five that I have some hand in ...