Cinderella

Posted on February 24, 2014 by admin

This past weekend was the IAEA Ball — the one we’ve gone to the last two years. We had tickets, and had planned to go, but we couldn’t. Our two regular babysitters were both busy, so we stayed home. The ball, being many hours long and lasting late into the night, isn’t the kind of thing we could try out a new babysitter for, nor could we just impose on a friend who hadn’t watched the kids before.

So we didn’t go. It’s a bit disappointing, but it’s part of life abroad as a parent. (It’s actually just part of life as a parent in general, but it happens a lot more to us now that we’re far from home.) At home, there’s almost no chance that we would have to skip an important event because we were without a sitter. We have a large family and lots of friends with kids of similar ages — we would have been able to work something out with someone, I’m sure.

Living abroad means getting by with a significantly reduced support structure. I’m incredibly grateful for the support that we DO have here, and appreciative of what we had at home even more than I was when I had it. Both at home and living here, we’ve been truly lucky to have the chance to do some fun, social things that wouldn’t have worked with the kids in tow. This year’s ball just didn’t happen to be one of them. That’s just how it goes.

I used to be afraid

Posted on February 21, 2014 by admin

My natural state is one of efficiency. I like to do things “on the way”, “kill two birds with one stone”, put in a little effort now to save myself a great effort later. When I had kids, I had to learn to put that tendency aside — kids don’t always work that way. Sometimes I have to make two trips to the same shop to prevent turning a single trip into a massive meltdown, or walk right past a shop where I have to run an errand in order to get everyone home in time for lunch. That’s just life as a parent. Sometimes we sacrifice efficiency for everyone’s greater good.

But there’s another way in which I’ve abandoned efficiency since I’ve moved abroad, and it’s less noble. It’s because I was afraid.

I used to go into a shop and always plan out exactly what I needed to say before it was my turn. If I found the person behind the counter was hard to communicate with, or impatient, I might leave without everything I needed. I might go to another shop around the corner, come back another time, or simply do without what I needed. If I had a coupon that I wanted to use, I would plan to ONLY but the thing the coupon was for so as not to complicate my transaction. I would add up the total and have exact change waiting so I didn’t have to understand what the cashier said. I was in a constant state of strategizing what I REALLY needed in order to make things overly simple. I was afraid of trying to do too much, and of getting things wrong. It made my life harder than it needed to be.

But at some point, I got over that. I don’t know when or how it changed. But I went into a shop today, and I didn’t plan out what I was going to say beforehand. When the cashier asked for my order, I unashamedly asked for a moment to decide. I added something to my order after she had rung it up, and then remembered a coupon I wanted to use for just part of my purchase. In short, I had a totally normal transaction which didn’t require stress, strategy or pre-planning.

This wasn’t the first time — I’m sure I’ve been in this mode for a while now. But it was the first time I was really aware of how nonchalant I’ve become. I can go into a bakery or a deli or a grocery store and act just exactly like the slightly distracted, moderately disorganized mom that I am. And, apparently, I can now do it in German.

Night terrors

Posted on February 20, 2014 by admin

Liam gets night terrors. From time to time, he starts screaming in the middle of the night. Sometimes he just screams, sometimes he cries, sometimes he calls out for us. We rush in and find him, still asleep, but appearing to be in awful pain and torment. He thrashes around, grabs at his legs, claws at his arms, wrings his hands. To witness it, you’d be certain that he is at least in the throes of a terrible nightmare, and at worst, suffering an onslaught of pain from a horrible illness.

He is almost impossible to wake from this state. Trying to pick him up intensifies his anguish. Trying to hug or kiss him incites him to lash out violently. Saying his name, turning on the lights, even clapping our hands, all serve no purpose except to upset him even more. When we finally do wake him, he is still upset, but more at being rudely awoken in the middle of the night than anything else — he doesn’t remember being frightened or crying out. Night terrors are apparently completely normal in a child of his age, and he most likely has no idea why, to his mind, his parents randomly wake him some nights full of stress and concern. These night terrors can last 10-20 minutes (although it always feels like hours), but once it’s over, he is usually peacefully asleep again within minutes.

When this first started happening, we were terrified and overwhelmed. We had a screaming, tormented toddler in the middle of the night with nothing we could do to fix him. (We’ve since learned that it’s better NOT to wake him, so we don’t, but it goes against every instinct that I have.) Of course, we went through all the normal parenting worries: is there something wrong with him, is he sick or suffering in some way, how do we help him??? And, honestly, the stress was amplified by the fact that we live in an apartment and we worry about whether we’re waking all of our neighbors when this happens. Knowing that this is a developmentally normal thing (and that there’s nothing we can do about it) allays most of our fears. But I still feel bad about what we’re inflicting on our neighbors.

We don’t have any idea how this affects our neighbors, because no one has ever said anything. No one has ever asked us about it, or complained, but we can’t imagine that they haven’t noticed or that they don’t know which apartment it’s coming from (as an American family with small kids living in a country of exceptionally quiet people, we make more noise than the rest of our building’s residents combined). Since I don’t know what anyone thinks about it (are they quietly seething or patiently understanding?) I worry. I worry that they don’t understand, and one day the Austrian version of child services is going to show up and demand to know what torture we’re inflicting on our kid at 1 in the morning. (And all of this is made worse in the summer months because no one here has air conditioning and everyone sleeps with their windows open.)

It’s another area where cultural norms are different, and it makes them hard to navigate. I hope that my neighbors understand, or even better, that by some trick of architectural acoustics they aren’t particularly bothered by it. But I wonder how I would ever even know what they think about it (and I wonder how Austrian parents would handle the same situation).

Silver medal

Posted on February 19, 2014 by admin

Living outside of the US during the Olympics is a very different experience. This time, we aren’t able to watch most of the events at all (we no longer have cable, so we get all of out TV through iTunes, which is great for everything except live sporting events) so we’re getting most of our information about how things are going from the internet and from the newspapers.

Most of the internet news I read is from the UK, and for newspapers I tend to peruse the headlines and main pictures in the Austrian papers. In both cases, I’ve learned a lot, and I’m much more aware of how skewed of a perspective American Olympic coverage can give.

It was easy to get caught up in the idea of American Olympic dominance when I lived in the US and watched US news coverage of the games. But, that’s in large part because the sports that are focused on are those where Americans are expected to excel. And then, within those sports, the coverage emphasizes American athletes. Back when we had it, we learned that Austrian news coverage focuses on completely different sports. You almost wouldn’t know that figure skating and hockey exist, but the downhill skiing events might as well be the Super Bowl. And when the sports are broadcast on Austrian TV, they generally cover the ENTIRE event. I was surprised to learn how MANY athletes compete in some of the events. The way I’m used to seeing things, it felt like there were a dozen or two athletes competing … not 70-100 (or more). When we would watch the coverage of Men’s Downhill Alpine Skiing, for example, we would watch ALL of the competitors do their runs . . . and then come back for the second run. It would take hours to watch the entire thing — a very different experience from the pieced-together news coverage we were used to seeing at home.

But by far my favorite piece of living in Austria during the Olympics has to do with the way that all of the achievements of the athletes are celebrated. The other day, the top story in the newspaper was of a silver medal won at the Olympics. The very biggest newspaper headline of the day — a silver medal. I like it. I think it’s great that each accomplishment gets its own moment.

(But I really do miss the access to the variety of sports, and the numerous hours of coverage that we had access to in the States. I wish we were getting to watch it!)

Snow envy

Posted on February 18, 2014 by admin

I live in Austria. AUSTRIA. Generally, there are two things that come to mind when I tell people I live here: “The Sound of Music” and snow covered mountains. Vienna, however, is not in the mountains. It’s a relatively hilly city, and we can often SEE snow covered mountains off to the west, but Vienna itself is not mountainous.

Snow on the mountins, off to the west of Vienna (but not here)

It’s also just not very snowy here. Vienna, being on the leeward side of the Alps (which are big and stick up way into the sky) is quite a dry place. All the rain and snow fall on the other side of the mountains (or on top of them). Considering all forms of precipitation (frozen or otherwise) we get just over half as much as my hometown in the US on average throughout the year.

We get plenty of cold here, but not a lot of moisture, which means that Vienna is not the snow-covered winter wonderland that many imagine. This year, we’ve gotten only a few snowy days, and only one of those added up to an inch of snow accumulation. Back at home, meanwhile, they’ve been absolutely inundated, which leaves me in the surprising situation of living in Austria and pining for a Washington, DC winter.

My friends from home think I’m crazy. But I love the snow, and, living here, we’re pretty much immune to any potential negative consequences of it — we don’t have anything to shovel, we don’t have to clear off a car, we don’t have to drive anywhere. For us, living in Vienna, snow just makes everything prettier and gives the kids a chance to play and sled with their friends at school. It would be nice to have at least ONE nice, snowy day this winter.

So far, the only real snow we’ve experienced this year was while we were home in Maryland over Christmas. Everyone at home is pretty well sick of snow while we’re here waiting for our first real snow of the season . . . and waiting, and waiting . . .

Playground Olympics

Posted on February 17, 2014 by admin

Living in Vienna is my first experience of living in any kind of big city. When we lived in Virginia in the US, we lived in a very busy and crowded suburb, but it wasn’t the same as living in an actual city. In a lot of ways, I think that particular suburb had a lot of the worst characteristics of city life (traffic, tons of people, noise, expensive housing) with very few of the redeeming qualities (walkability, sense of neighborhood, culture on your doorstep).

I have, however, both where I grew up and then living in Virginia as an adult, been fortunate to live in very culturally diverse places. Living near Washington, DC does that — with so many people from international diplomatic services, as well as DC being the heart of the American government, there is an environment of cultural and ethnic diversity from around the world and throughout the US itself that’s pretty impressive. Vienna has much the same situation — home to a main office of the UN, there is, by requirement, a vast international community, and, since we live in the very heart of the city, we get to experience the international feeling of a major city that is then amplified by the UN’s existence here.

As such, my kids are growing up in a very international environment. Benjamin’s kindergarten class has kids from at least 5 different countries and Liam’s class has at least 6 nations represented — and each class only has 20 kids.

But school isn’t the only place we see this dynamic. Living in Vienna’s 1st district (the central and oldest part of the city) we encounter this international feeling all the time. It’s entirely common to take a trip to the playground and meet children from all over the world. On one particularly frustrating occasion, B tried repeatedly, in increasingly slow and precise German, to ask another child their name and age. He finally came to me in exasperation, asking why he wasn’t being understood, and after inquiring, it turned out that the child was Russian and spoke no German. (And since we speak no Russian, they were able to play together, but not talk much.) Another time, my two boys befriended two boys of similar age, finally settling on French as their most common language (in which Benjamin can only say “Bonjour” and “Je m’appelle Benjamin” … but it worked).

This weekend, I looked around the playground and realized that there were four families and four different languages and nationalities represented — American, Spanish, Russian and Austrian. This is perfectly normal at our local playground. We’re almost never the only “imported” family there. Watching my kids play with and around other children from all over the world makes me appreciate that of all the international cities we could have ended up in, Vienna is one of the best. My kids are used to hearing other languages all the time, they have the experience of finding a common language and sharing common interests with kids from all over the world. Plus, it’s so much easier to be “foreign” and “different” when you aren’t the only one. I love the international feeling in Vienna, and the variety of kids my boys are exposed to. Every trip to the playground is like our own little kindergarten Olympics.

Our Austrian Valentine’s Days

Posted on February 14, 2014 by admin

Growing up, I was never a big Valentine’s Day person. As a little kid, I liked making the “mailboxes” to collect our Valentines at school, but being a perfectionist, it never quite turned out the way I wanted. As a teenager, I was a perennially grouchy person on Valentine’s Days, because I was always full of unrequited affection for someone or another. Then, as a young adult, even when I was coupled up mid-February, I never quite lost my vestigial semi-bitterness and residual disdain for Valentine’s Day.

Like so many things, I didn’t really start to like it until I was a parent, and then only because I made a choice and an intellectual effort to not pass on this anti-Valentine’s issue to my kids.

Since becoming a mom, I’ve been completely turned around on Valentine’s Day. I actually quite like it now. Since Benjamin’s very first Valentine’s Day, I’ve done a little something for the kids each year — a card, some decorations, or maybe a special treat. Nothing major, just something fun and little to mark the day and say “I love you.” I love doing it for them, and I love seeing them look forward to these little things, and then, by extension, to see them look for sweet little kindnesses to do for us or for each other on Valentine’s Day. They always do. They draw pictures for us or for each other, share their special treats, give extra hugs and kisses, share their toys with more willingness. It’s truly heartwarming, and has completely won me over.

Beyond that, though, Valentine’s Day is not really a children’s holiday here. There are no school parties, no heart shaped cookies, no glittery Valentines handed out, no paper hearts on the walls or windows, no classrooms full of kids wearing red and pink. Absolutely none of it. Adults celebrate Valentine’s Day here — with flowers, chocolates or a dinner out — but it’s really only for grown ups (and even then, not a particularly big deal). My guys were dressed in red for school today, but if anyone else was, it was purely a coincidence. I suspect that will be a bit of culture shock for my boys when we move home — the concept of celebrating Valentine’s Day at school will be weird to them, I expect (much how they feel about dressing up for Halloween at school — when I mentioned that tradition to them the other day, they reacted with skepticism and surprise).

But, as much as all of that would be (and will be) sweet, I’m ok with the way things are here. Valentine’s Day here is very nearly (as far as my kids know) something that only our family does. Our traditions shape the whole of their idea of the day. They see Daddy bring flowers for Mommy, so they want to bring me some, too. They look forward to their homemade cards in the morning, and they draw us hearts and pictures at school. They come home to fresh cookies, and they share them with each other. We all get lots of extra hugs and kisses today, because it’s Valentine’s Day. And I’m very happy about all of it.

Skiing at Hohe Wand

Posted on February 13, 2014 by admin

Last year, we spent 3 beautiful and arduous days in the Austrian Alps, ostensibly skiing. There was, however, a lot less skiing than there was dragging a ton of equipment and two tired kids all around the hills of Alpbach.

But even though B got worn out, tired of walking and more than a little grouchy about the whole endeavor, he came away excited about skiing and enthusiastic for more. (Liam, who we never actually got up on skis, remained neutral to the idea, which was really as much as we could have hoped for. I consider it good fortune that we don’t all break out in hives every time we hear the word “ski”.)

B has been asking to ski again. I’ve been theoretically enthusiastic but practically daunted by the idea of taking something like that on again. With a week off of school and work, though, it felt like the right time.

I was not going to sign up for three days of the kind of effort (and expense) it took for us to not go skiing last time, so I looked into day trip options. Vienna = Austria = Alps … right? The rest of the world might think so, but it’s not really like that. Vienna is IN Austria and many of the Alps are also IN Austria, but Vienna, and the surrounding area, isn’t particularly mountainous. But I did find one promising-looking option: Hohe Wand, which is just outside of Vienna.

So I did my research, we packed up our snow pants, took two U-Bahns and a bus, and an hour later we were there. As it turns out, it is a “high hill”, indeed — just one, though, with a single drag lift and one big (relatively steep) slope down. The snow was man-made (which we expected — Vienna has gotten almost none this year) and it very nearly covered the hill.

They have a nice looking ski school for children, but, being the school holidays, it had been booked up since October, so we were on our own in terms of teaching the kids. Undaunted (and, after last year, fully expecting a day of skiing to be a ton of work) we fueled up with some schnitzel (really), rented skis, boots and helmets for the boys, and got suited up.

We found a quiet and reasonably flat-ish section near the bottom of the hill, off to one side, and began our practice. We pushed the boys up the hill, and then ran back down the little slope with them, over and over, for an hour and a half.

It was the best workout I’d had in a long while. Shortly after we started, B was back in the groove, and he was able to go down quite well on his own. Liam, frustrated that we couldn’t take the lift to the top, took several snowball-making breaks. By the time we (Dan & I) got worn out, though, both boys had made many trips down completely on their own (though often with an impressive, self-induced crash to finish … because it’s FUN). Mission accomplished —

the boys got to ski, and they had a great time. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t as tough as what we attempted last year. Dan & I didn’t manage any skiing of our own, but I imagine that’ll come in future years.

B is already asking to go back. Next time, we’ll sign B up for ski school before we go (they only take kids over 4), and maybe Dan & I can take turns pushing Liam up the hill. It wasn’t ideal, but it was close, easy, and relatively inexpensive. With this place in mind, I’m much more optimistic about our future attempts at skiing.

Skating 2014

Posted on February 12, 2014 by admin

After our ride on the Riesenrad and our resort-like swimming experience, we decided that the next piece of our stay-cation should be something close to home and familiar (also, easier), so we decided to take our first trip of 2014 over to the Wiener Eistraum — the massive temporary skating complex put on at the Rathaus each winter.

It’s a pretty fantastic setup. There are two large skating rinks, connected by a series of iced paths through the trees of the park in front of Vienna’s Rathaus. It’s possible to basically stroll through the park, but on skates. Then there’s a separate area set aside during the day for children to practice their skating (in the evenings during the week, this area is used as curling lanes). The children’s area is free to use, so the only cost is renting skates for the boys. I knew, with it being the school holidays, that the children’s area would be busy (although not too much busier than usual — when school is in session, this area is typically crowded with school groups on field trips), but we hadn’t yet been over to skate this year, and I really wanted to overcome the inertia of being out of the habit.

It’s always a fun activity. The kids love getting their skates on and getting out on the ice. The thing is, I tend to forget that it ALSO is a ton of work and full of drama. Yes, the boys love renting their skates and getting out on the ice. But it’s also a bit frustrating learning a new skill, and there are never quite enough of the practice penguins to go around . . . and an hour of holding up off-balance kids gets exhausting. B does ok. He’s gone skating enough to basically remember what to do, and he has pretty reasonable expectations for himself (probably more realistic than mine). Liam, being littler, gets frustrated more easily. And though I have fond memories of all of our winter skating trips so far in Vienna, in retrospect I think every trip has ended with at least one of the kids angry or in tears (or both).

This was the same. B did well, but he really wore me out (he wanted to practice as much as possible without the penguin, which just meant I had to hold him up most of the time). Liam did well, too, but he did get frustrated and then bored. We stayed less than an hour, but I’m still glad we went. It’s a very special part of winter in Vienna, and I’m glad to start to get ourselves back in the habit of going. It’s on for another month, so hopefully we’ll get more chances to all go together.

I went again yesterday, by myself while the boys were at school. I, too, started with enthusiasm and slightly unrealistic expectations. After about half an hour, my feet and ankles were sore, and I had started to get wobbly from tiring out my muscles. I decided to call it a day before I fell or pulled something. Again, I’m glad I went, and I hope I’ve started myself in the habit of going. I’d like to make the most of the last month of it. But it gave me a lot of sympathy for the boys, and helped to remind me why it’s never quite as easy to go skating as I imagine it will be.

Swimming in February

Posted on February 11, 2014 by admin

Our week of home-grown fun in Vienna continued last week with, of all things, a trip to the pool. We wanted the boys to really enjoy our stay-cation, so we asked them what they wanted to do during our collective week off. Liam’s first choice was the Riesenrad, which we visited on our first day, while B’s chose a trip to the pool, which surprised us (we’d been thinking of, and suggesting, more wintry activities, such as skiing or skating).

I thought, since we were on vacation, that maybe we could find something particularly fun, in terms of swimming, rather than just going to our usual pool where the boys took a few lessons last year. A little poking around online led me to “discover” Dianabad — a very kid-friendly resort-type set up quite close to our apartment (and only two blocks from our first home in Vienna).

It was excellent. At €23, it was a little expensive for a 2 hour visit (which included the time it took us to locate lockers and get changed — never an easy task for a family of four) but it was well worth it. I was very pleasantly surprised by how many fun areas there were, and how each area catered to a different age and swimming skill level. It was basically like a massive indoor water playground, and the kids loved it.

As the boys are not yet good swimmers (although they’d say otherwise) we started in the baby pool, for ages 6 and under. The water was warm and shallow (knee-deep on Liam) but included an easy to negotiate water slide for the little ones. The water was shallow enough that the boys were able to crawl around and splash, immediately getting them back to being comfortable in the water.

They bored of that part pretty quickly, though, so we went on to explore the other areas. In the next level up (in terms of age — for 8 and under), the boys explored a tire swing in the water, a tunnel they could crawl through, another water slide, slightly deeper and cooler water, and huge overhead fountains that sprayed water for a few minutes at a time every so often. They then moved on to the pirate ship area (for 14 and under) with even more slides — this time, the slides landed in water deep enough to be about chest-height on the boys when they were sitting, and which splashed up into their faces when they arrived at the bottom. It was *perfect* for stretching their self-imposed limits just a little at a time, while not putting them into any kind of peril.

They had a fantastic time, and so did we. The variety of activities meant that no one got bored, and each of the boys was able to choose an area that fit their comfort level. In addition to the kids-specific areas, there was also a “river” with floating inner tubes, a massive wave pool (which Liam loved wading through) and an impressively enthusiastic water slide. It was more like being at a water park than it was like “just” going to the pool.

And, because it’s Vienna, things were pretty laid back. Most of the kids over the age of about 8 were only vaguely supervised by their parents, although the behavior of all of the kids was pretty good, and the older ones did a generally good job of watching out for the little ones. Their were only 2 lifeguards on duty for the entire pool, and they were focused on the big wave pool — parents are expected to watch over their littler kids in the children’s areas . . . and they do. And there are fewer rules. Although not running around the pool is a good idea, people weren’t chastised for it. The pools were mostly too shallow for diving (there were no diving boards) and there were signs posted to that effect. I didn’t see anyone dive while we were there. So, we saw a lot of that odd dichotomy that we’ve become accustomed to here — fewer rules, but more sensible behavior; less oversight, and more individual responsibility.

In all, it was a great day. I only regret that I didn’t get a few pictures. (Although, with the European sense of acceptance towards less-clothed children, it probably would have been tough for me to get pictures that didn’t include other people’s half-dressed kids.) My only fear is that with this swimming adventure, we may have set the bar a little high for future swimming trips.

A Mommy Abroad

Our big adventure, as a family of three.

Category Archives: Adventure in Vienna