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Archives for December 2008

I survived the holidays!

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Though I have to say that the holidays as such weren’t the real problem. Not even when my brilliant plan of de-stressing our Christmas celebration (on Christmas Eve as is traditional in German) by making the traditional Christmas dinner a Christmas lunch before putting up and decorating the tree afterwards, and opening the presents in the afternoon instead of in the evening when everybody is cranky and tired, went wrong because the wood stove acted up, and our Christmas lunch was three hours late. (I have to say that at least these days we know how to handle a crisis like this: when you realize that nothing is going right, let everybody have a sandwich.)

The holidays also weren’t the problem when on Christmas day we decided to have goose leg with red cabbage and my husband said that we needed to have potato dumplings with that. I keep forgetting because in the Northern part of Germany where I grew up people don’t eat dumplings much. Usually when we make dumplings we buy them almost finished, you just have to boil them, but this time I had to try and make potato dumplings from scratch. They didn’t taste that awful but the next time I try this I will put more flour in so that they actually stay dumpling shaped when cooked.

I don’t exactly know why but this year’s Advent was the most stressful I ever had. First there was my husband’s pneumonia which left him weak for weeks. Since he didn’t have a fever, and since my son and I had been coughing for weeks too we thought he just had a bad cough, and he didn’t went to see the doctor until just before Christmas. Of course he didn’t stop teaching (that’s the joy of being self-employed, you never stop working if you can stay upright, and still possess all your limbs). While my husband was mostly out of commission my son had the ongoing waxing and waning coughing-sneezing-tummy aching-fever having-malady. That added a bit of excitement to the last two weeks before Christmas because we never knew if he would be fit to go to the kindergarten Christmas thing, where the children did a play, or his own birthday party.

I didn’t feel that well myself, I had been coughing for six weeks at that point, and just when I felt almost human again (and hoped to maybe be able to sing again some time in the future) I got the next cold. On top of that I had to be Santa’s little helper and organized all the presents we gave anybody for Christmas, and all the presents anybody gave my son for his birthday and Christmas. I also wrapped them all, baked three batches of cupcakes, and organized my son’s birthday party which left me totally drained after having spent the entire afternoon thinking that now I knew why everybody always tells me that my son is so well-behaved and quiet – it’s the truth. And that doesn’t mean that my son really is that quiet, it’s only that all the other children are less well-behaved and much, much louder.

The party seems to have been a success with everybody, except for me and my son who told me that he doesn’t want to have a party next year. He was suffering from the noise and chaos almost as much as me.

I can tell that I was stressed out beyond what I’m used to at this time of year by the fact that my period was ten days late, something that never ever happened before. (No, never, not even when I got pregnant.) Of course that just added another layer of stress to these days, the whole panicking if I could be pregnant in spite of birth control, the buying of pregnancy tests, and the wondering if the tests could be wrongly negative, or what I should do if I were pregnant. So that in he midst of thinking about what games to play with my son’s friends I wondered if I knew anybody who wanted to get rid of their baby stuff, and whether my marriage would survive a second child.

As I said before, I’m not really sure what stressed me out so much but I think that it might have been the sheer amount of tiny organizational detail. I promise that I haven’t been a perfectionist about Christmas. This year I didn’t even put up the Advent decorations. I didn’t bake Christmas cookies.

The only things I might do better next year is:

  • Next year when I order my son’s presents in mid-October I’ll wrap them right away.
  • Instead of baking the cupcakes four to five days in advance and freezing them I will bake them at the beginning of November.
  • I will buy the special birthday candles sometime in January and put them away for next year.
  • I won’t volunteer to play guitar at the Christmas party. (That was my way of avoiding to have to act in the play the parents did for the children. Instead of meeting with the other parents three or four times I only had to play the songs through once before the event.)
  • I will make an appointment for my husband to get a flu shot in September.
  • I hereby give up the notion of baking Christmas cookies. Not even the ones I bought all the ingredients for in December 2007.
  • I will make hair dresser and beautician appointments in November.
  • I will make a list of games to play, and what to do at my son’s birthday party in November too.

Since Christmas I have been sitting and recuperating. At first I was at a point where I was too tired to knit but since the weekend I have been improving, started a new intricate shawl project, and might even do some housework. (Well, I already cleaned a bathroom for the first time in ages but I have great hopes for the future.)
I still don’t have to teach until next week so I hope to get some time for contemplation. I hope your holidays were peaceful and happy.

(I just re-read my list of things to do next year, and you know what that list means? It means I will have both a stressful November and December. Or maybe not. I’ll give it a try anyways.)

Dear son, it’s your sixth birthday

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Dear son,

again, I’m not even mentioning your name in this letter, and I’m writing it in English which you can’t yet understand. But then, you can’t read German either, and you’ll probably be grateful to me that I didn’t make your adventures in diapers (back when you still wore them, and my blog was called “diapers and music”) google-able for your future friends and enemies.

You turned six today yesterday. A birthday that was only slightly less looked forward to than your fifth. It was overshadowed by the importance of becoming a “Vorschulkind” (entering the last year of kindergarten before elementary school), and of losing your first tooth on St. Niklas day, and therefore earning the privilege of pocket money.

This year wasn’t easy for all of us. Last winter you were happily part of a group of friends who played together every day at kindergarten, and you finally had found a best friend who liked much the same things as you. His mother told me that she saw you circling the sandbox over and over, talking and talking like old men taking a walk together. You dreamed up adventures, you wanted to go to the north pole in a sledge pulled by a unicorn, and reach the stars in a rocket that you built yourself. Then came the time when all of you realized that your friends wouldn’t be with you in kindergarten forever. That they would be going to school in the summer and you wouldn’t. In preparation for that you began to bicker, and quarrel, and what had been an easy and safe situation grew complicated.

During the summer I almost thought you were depressed. We fought a lot, about every day, you were angry at everything and everybody, and then, suddenly you’d turn around and be really needy. For the first time ever in your whole life you didn’t want to let me go in the mornings. Where all your life you had been waving goodbye to me with a happy smile and the certainty to see me again after work, now, you would cling to me and plead, “Mama, don’t go, stay with me.” You’re very much torn between your desire to grow and become independent, and your desire to be small and cared for. I have tried to help you feeling safe and loved, to hug you often, and to tell you how much I love you.

Over the past year you have grown 7 cm but you have only gained one pound. (I’m not worried, though, you’re looking fine and healthy.) Since spring you have been growing out your hair, you wanted it to grow long. You also wanted to dye it black but I think kindergarteners shouldn’t dye their hair, sorry.. I liked the way you looked with your wild golden curls. Yesterday, when I tried to tame your mane a bit to stop your hair from falling into your eyes you said you no longer wanted long hair. Because your grandmother doesn’t like it. Now you have a haircut that’s shorter but not the crew cut you had before. You’re lucky, I have never ever cut anybody’s hair with scissors. I’d say for that it looks really good.

Again, you have learned so much. Whenever I talk to your kindergarten teacher she is full of praise for your knowledge, and interest, for the way you treat the other children, and your language skills. It was a surprise for all of us when you had the impression that you weren’t doing well at the “Vorschule”. You thought it was only you who had to struggle a bit with this concept of sitting still for twenty minutes, drawing what you were told, doing things that could be “right” or “wrong” in the end.

I have to confess that I always expected you to do well in an “academic” setting. As you do. Gaining knowledge, learning, thinking, and remembering is easy for you. I love that. The thing that comes as a surprise to me is the fact that in addition to that you are so popular among your peers. I can hardly enter the kindergarten building without somebody asking me if their son or daughter can have a playdate with you. As somebody who always had troubles fitting in I hope you appreciate how precious a gift that is. Interestingly, when I ask you about your day you typically tell me about the times someone was not so nice, or something didn’t go as planned. You rarely talk about the fact that everybody wanted to play with you.

While you talk endlessly you don’t talk much about the things that happened during the day, or the people you spent time with. Again, this isn’t something I would have expected. You’re telling me all about your visions for projects, things you want to do, or buy, places you’ll go but I always feel a bit weird when your friend’s mothers come to me saying, “My child talks about your child all the time! They spend so much time together!” Well, I didn’t hear anything. (It might be a bit mean to say that my child talks about my child all the time, too.)

Still you’re not an inconsiderate person. The other day when you had a friend over, a friend who doesn’t like to draw pictures, you told him, “Just keep on drawing, you’ll get better in no time.” and “When I started kindergarten I couldn’t draw either and then I drew, and drew, and drew, and now I’m so good at this.” and in the end, “This is quite good. See, you can learn this.” I fear that teaching is another things you have inherited from your parents.

I really love that you have started learning a musical instrument, even if recorder is not your favorite thing in the world. Every time I force you to practice you like it in the end. The thing I don’t have to force you to do is playing drums. Your father has borrowed a drum set, and we are both filled with pride to the brim every single time you sit down to play. For somebody who is not quite six, and who never had drum lessons (well, apart from the informal ones you get from your father) you’re really good.

But the thing that you like the most, again, is drawing pictures, and building things out of cardboard and glue.

Every day I’m telling you that I love you so that you don’t forget it, and it’s really nice to see that you’re doing the same thing. That, even though you’re very manly nowadays, and reserve your fantasies of fairies and bunnies for your private moments at home, you still think it’s not unmanly to hug your friends, and the people you love.

I wish you a very happy year as a six-year-old, may your last year of kindergarten be merry and bright, and your transition to elementary school smooth, and uneventful. Happy birthday, my son!

Meeting bloggers and drinking beer

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It has been a full week since I spent an evening in the big city to meet other bloggers. Frau Kaltmamsell asked us because a blogger from Berlin came visiting, and wanted to skip a business dinner in order to meet Munich bloggers. I, of course, was the first one to say yes because, well, meeting bloggers, for beer, and my mother-in-law was free to babysit. (In case you’re wondering why I’m mentioning beer that often Frau Kaltmamsell’s post announcing the meeting had been titled “Bloggerbierchen in München am Donnerstag” which means “blogger beer (um, a small one) in Munich on Thursday”.)

As usual with these things I was very nervous beforehand, and also couldn’t stop thinking about what to wear. As usual I wore the same thing I always wear, in this case the new turtleneck I had made (sorry, still no pictures), jeans, and boots. And lipstick. And perfume. Also, as usual I left home way too early because every time I ask my mother-in-law to look after my son for something in the evening I feel weird staying at home after she fetched him from kindergarten at 4 p.m. It is as if everybody is just waiting for me to leave.

I had vague plans to sit in a café and write a bit but ended up wandering the streets until I was only half an hour too early for the meeting. The cafè/bar/bistro where we were supposed to meet is located in a part of town where I only have been once before (for a job interview 18 years ago; I didn’t get the job and was glad about it). I left the subway station and immediately was confused about where to go. Interestingly the house numbers weren’t progressing in any logical way. So I went first in one direction only to end up in a place that didn’t look like there would be a café, and when I turned back to look elsewhere there was Frau Kaltmamsell walking in the direction I had just abandoned. I wasn’t entirely sure if it really was her (what if I had approached a total stranger asking “Are you Frau Kaltmamsell?”) so I chickened out and let her pass me, only to follow her. Because that’s entirely not weird, letting strangers pass, and then follow them, ahem. At the next corner she came to the same conclusion I had reached before her, that this was the wrong direction, and turned around. I think you would be proud of me because at this point I approached her saying; “I’m Susanne.” I’m still happy that it really was her. So both of us looked for the café and found it in the direction I would have looked first if I hadn’t been so concerned with street numbers.

(If you wonder why I knew her but she didn’t know me, I happened to attend two blog readings where she read something. Usually it’s easier for someone in the audience to recognize a speaker on the podium than the other way around.)

The bistro/café thing was medium nice, we only chose it because it was near the hotel were the bloggers from Berlin stayed. There were seven of us: Frau Kaltmamsell, Creezy and Wolf from Berlin, Sabine, Nicole, and Volker (sadly without public blog as far as I can see). We talked and talked and talked until Nicole reminded us that some people have to get up in the morning (well, me too but then I’m used to sleep deprivation by now).

We talked about the difference between German and English-speaking blogs (Germans comment less and think they are very clever, English-speaking bloggers comment more, mostly “Awesome!”), between Munich and Berlin bloggers (there is no blogger community in Munich), language (why you shouldn’t say “Pölter” when speaking to a Bavarian (Pölter is Westphalian and means nightgown), wine (there is Chinese wine, apparently, and it’s good, only I didn’t catch its name because at that moment my beer arrived and there was no more wine talk (I was the only one drinking beer, by the way)). It was a very nice evening, all in all. I might have talked a little too much but then I always do, there seems to be no way around it. (As you might already have noticed.)

November Just Posts

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Welcome again to our monthly roundtable bringing together posts about social justice in the parenting blogosphere.

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For more than a year now I have been greeting you in this way on the tenth of every month. Every month we have been gathering links and posts and issues to be presented in this space. It all started two years ago when all of a sudden Jen and Mad decided to have a social justice wedding of blogs. To celebrate they put together a list of posts dealing with social justice, and then it became a monthly event.
The Just Posts have expanded, and dwindled, some time ago Hel and I were asked to act as co-hosts to represent the continents we live on (and I still can’t get my head wrapped around the concept of me being the “European ambassador” of the Just Post roundtable).
I still feel very honored to be part of this, an effort to build a parenting blogger community with interests beyond poop. Nevertheless it has become harder and harder to make room for this sort of commitment in my life. Like Mad says, I too don’t spend my whole time in front of the computer reading and writing blogs anymore.
Still, I’d rather see us making a clean cut than dwindle away into nothingness because of neglect. And who knows, maybe somebody will step up and continue the tradition and the Just Posts will go on.
The Just Posts are proof that blogging can change things, and most important of all, people. I know that what began as a whimsical “wedding” two years ago has changed me and my life considerably. Nothing can take that away.
So, in keeping with the tradition there will be some kind of celebration next month for the last issue of the Just Post roundtable. You might want to think about how to celebrate this occasion in style.
Until then, here are this month’s findings:
Alejna with Making history and The bittersweetness of pants

Billie with Public Defenders under siege in Miami..and everywhere

Bipolarlawyercook with The guiltiest day of the year

Bon with The morning after

Chani with Don’t let them take what’s yours and Waging peace: Proposition 8

Defiant Muse with My hope for you and Equality for all

Em with What about this crisis? and Triple bottom line (TBL)

Emily with photos of a rally and Flying the banner

Emily with Resisting the urge

Erika with Equality is equality

Flutter with Helicopters make him cry

Girlgriot with Tannin’, Tommin’ and getting merry like Christmas

Gwen with A Hard Truth. A Soft Landing

Holly with Part of the main and Yes we can improve the health of our communities

Janet with Everything is connected and Something else for you to do

Jen with Turn of a phrase, mail call and A day like any other

Josh with What would it take, my brother?

Kyla with Heavy

Letters from Usedom with My African children

Mad with 1,385

Maggie, dammit with What are you Contributing with all that hate? and Violence Unsilenced

Magpie with Repurposed: hat and blankets

Mary with The Veterans

Monkeys on the roof with Summer cold

Mother Woman with Let them eat change

Neil with Another argument for gay marriage

Ngorobob House with Food for thought, mostly

Reya with The yin and yang of it all

Tanis with It’s true: You can’t put a price on stupidity

Zoom at KnitNut with Harm reduction in the context of real life

the dear readers:
Alejna
Hele
Hetha
Holly
Jess
Mary
Mayberry Mom
Sin

And, as always, please go over to Mad and Jen’s places too, and see what they have to say. Thank you.

In lieu of a real post

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Sorry to let you hang for so long but just in the next 2 1/2 hours I should: take a shower, exercise, go grocery shopping, do taxes, write a real blog post, write a story for tonight’s writing group meeting, cook, and eat lunch. Add to that that both my son and my son are somewhat sickly, and I’m not feeling all that well …

So, I went to the blogger meeting, and had a lot of fun (and will write something about it soon), and since then I have been a bit overwhelmed by real life.

I just wanted to add that you should please send me your links for the Just Post roundtable but then I realized that the deadline was yesterday. Oops. If you have a link to an interesting post you wrote or read, though, I’m sure we’ll be able to squeeze it in anyhow.

6 random things about me

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I have been so slow to do this meme that I have been tagged twice for it. First by Holly, and then by Katinka. Apparently there are rules. I’m all for rules, so here they are (I’m lifting them from Holly’s blog which is called “Cold Spaghetti”, an awesome blog title):

1. Link to the person who tagged you.

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Write six random things about yourself.

4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.

5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.

6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

So, I’ve followed rule 1 and 2 already. So far so good. (Ha! I’ve managed to use the word “so” three times in two sentences without making it extremely awkward!) I had a feeling that I already have done some “random things about me”-posts, and a quick search tells me there seems to be a “random things about me”-inflation going on because it was 8 random things about me in August 2007, and 7 random things about me in December 2007. Now it’s only six. And I always love reading what people are writing about themselves, randomly.

  1. Just today I did find out why I’m blogging less and have the feeling that I don’t accomplish anything. Today I spent two hours getting my son to go to bed (and stay there), and I also talked to my husband for three hours. Three hours! No wonder we both have the feeling that somehow we don’t have enough time. On the other hand the time we spend talking is well spent. We have been feeling closer, and happier. We have been taking the time to look at the things we have in common instead of looking at how different we are.
  2. For the last weeks I have spent much more time and energy thinking about the fact that I feel too fat than I feel comfortable admitting even to myself. This has not led to weight loss, I have gained another pound. I’m a bit sick of the whole thing (which I might have mentioned before). I’m hoping for my renewed enthusiasm for exercise. Maybe I can exercise while talking to my husband.
  3. I will be meeting a handful of local bloggers on Thursday. Immediately after leaving a comment saying that I will attend (after a lengthy conference with my mother-in-law detailing the logistics of her day and my son’s day, and everybody in the family), I started panicking and wondering what to wear. Which is really pathetic because in the end I’ll wear the same thing I always wear. Only I do have a new turtleneck. (Which is funny because in my random things post from last December I lamented the lack of a “very classy and elegant turtleneck sweater” made of thick wool. Guess what I finished two days ago? A classy, elegant, thick, woolen turtleneck in red.
  4. Leaving a comment on Frau Kaltmamsell’s blog regarding the meeting led to an immediate spike in blog traffic on my own blog. While that’s nice it’s always a bit weird when people coming from a very witty German blog reach my blog only to be greeted by a post called “Hail the gauge swatch!”. My guess is that most of them won’t come back, and that even people who might have been both interested in the content, and willing to read something in English, nevertheless will have felt the strong need for a personal translator. (When I told my husband about that particular post, the only word he could understand without an explanation at first sight was “the”.)
  5. While I love knitting, and haven’t been doing much else these past, ahem, months or so, I have the feeling that I’m using it to retreat into my very own fiber cocoon. And while sitting quiet, and doing something meditative with my hands that helps keeping me and my family warm is really appropriate for the season, it might be time to do other things as well.
  6. It’s only December 2nd but already I feel as if my head is spinning. I have to make three batches of muffins, and at least one batch of cookies for the kindergarten Christmas party, my son’s birthday party in kindergarten, and his birthday party at home. I have to buy a scooter, a satchel, and several other assorted birthday, and Christmas gifts for my son. (My son not so conveniently chose to be born exactly one week before Christmas, just like most of my husband’s family whose birthdays fall between December 13th and January 20th.) I don’t have anything for my parents yet, and just today I realized that the universe doesn’t end with my son’s presents, there are other people to consider as well. Also this year I will have to attend then kindergarten Christmas party alone because my husband found that re-scheduling those particular four students that he teaches on Wednesday afternoons was impossible. I, on the other hand, managed to find a way to move four students elsewhere and will be rushing from teaching to Christmas party in festive attire (cross your fingers for me that I can wear the new sweater with the red skirt, otherwise I will have to wear jeans), with guitar, sheet music, two dozen muffins, and a music stand in tow.

Now I’ll have to tag six people. Um. It’s not that I don’t know six bloggers, it isn’t even that I’m not interested in reading six random things about them, but please, it’s almost midnight, and I’ll have to get up at seven. How about everyone who wants to do a six things about me post just does it and says so in the comments? Please? And anybody who doesn’t have a blog like “luzilla” can leave six random things in the comments. That would be cool.