Meditations on a bad day as a mom

Posted on April 15, 2013 by admin

The logical part of my brain knows that I’m not the only mom who has bad days. I don’t mean “the kids watched TV all day and the dishes didn’t get done” bad days, but “I fell apart/cried/screamed at my kids today” bad days or “I feel like a failure as a mother” bad days or “how could I have said that to my kids” bad days. It stands to reason that if I, a kind, loving, caring, attentive, semi-organized, thoughtful mother can have days like that, then most likely the other moms I know who are also kind, loving, caring, attentive, semi-organized and thoughtful must have days like that, too. At least, most of them.

Or maybe it’s only a few. Maybe I’m actually the only one. Although my wiser mind tells me that I can’t be, the fearful part of my brain tells me that I might be. I might be the only one. I might be the only one who doesn’t handle the stress gracefully. The only one who gets overwhelmed. The only one who has ever taken out anger and frustration meant for someone else in the direction of one of my kids. The only one who has ever said anything to one of my kids which shocked me and reduced me to tears. Maybe it’s just me.

But in case it’s not, on this day, which was a tough one for me — on a day when I let my irritation that came from dealing with grown up things come out towards my kids, on a day when I cried when I should have been comforting and when I growled when I should have been patient — I’m going to share some of the things that help me on days like these. I didn’t write them down with the intention of sharing them, I wrote them down with the intention of remembering them. I don’t usually remember these things until after — after I’ve gotten angry, or snapped at the kids, or raised my voice, or imposed an unreasonable consequence, or broken down in tears, or issued a threat instead of choice.

I am a good mom.
I am doing the best I can, and so are my kids.
There is nothing more important than being kind.
I have to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to keep a good attitude.
I am almost never actually angry with the kids. I’m probably actually exhausted/stressed/irritated/frustrated/angry at something else entirely.
This (whatever it is) is only going to last for a moment.
Don’t ruin all the good moments with one crappy one.
NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT than taking good care of my kids. Not chores. Not exercise. Not Dan. Not my to do list. Not philosophy or discipline. Not keeping my temper or behaving “properly” towards other adults. NOTHING.
Whatever I’m in the middle of, I can take a breath and count to 10. Or eat a piece of chocolate. Or drink a cup of coffee. Whatever “it” is will still be there.
Hugs and kisses help almost any situation.
If I keep calm, there might be space for a learning moment here, but if I fall apart, there probably isn’t.

These are the things that I wish I could remember BEFORE. I never think of them until after, and they don’t help as much then. Today was a rough day. I wasn’t the mom that I am capable of being. Tomorrow I’ll get up and try again. Maybe having written them down will help me next time, or maybe it’ll help another mom who has bad days.

Mommy’s sick day

Posted on April 14, 2013 by admin

Ah . . . I remember “sick days”. I remember waking up in the morning, trying to drag myself through my preparation for the day, telling myself to tough it out and finally giving in to the aches, or the fever, or whatever illness had me in its grip. I remember collapsing onto the couch, covering myself in a blanket, putting brain-numbing mid-day TV on and putting in a request for ginger ale or orange juice with Dan before he left for the day. I remember starting to feel better, getting up to accomplish something and quitting halfway through because I wasn’t as “better” as I thought. At the time, I never liked sick days. I was never one to revel in taking a break. I always felt guilty and unsure about whether I was “really sick enough” to be home (even in the face of overwhelming evidence). And I was always worried about what kind of work would be piled up for me when I got back. I never really enjoyed it.

And I never thought I’d think back fondly on those (to my mind) wasted days spent doing nothing and waiting to feel better.

Having a “sick day” as a mom is totally different. You have your own morning routine to drag yourself through, plus (in my case) at least two others’. It doesn’t matter how miserable I feel, diapers have to be changed, meals have to be made, boo-boos need to be tended to. Last week, B got sick with a bad cold, and yesterday Liam & I woke up sick, too. For me, it didn’t start off too badly, but after a night of almost no sleep on Friday (because Liam was up) and less last night (because I couldn’t breathe or get comfortable) I woke up sick, shivery, feverish and miserable this morning.

I’m lucky, because it’s Sunday. No one had to go to school or work, Dan was home all day. I didn’t have any chores to do or errands to run, no tasks to accomplish. But still, life goes on. Dan made our meals, but I watched the kids while he did. (And “watching the kids” doesn’t mean laying on the couch and staring into space — it means racing cars, reading stories, finding lost Legos, dragging stuff out from under the couch and overseeing endless negotiations about who has how much time left with which toy.) I did manage to lay down for half an hour this morning (in my own room!) but I had to come back out when Liam pinched his finger and couldn’t be consoled by anyone else. I got to lay down for an hour while the kids napped (which was AWESOME) and Dan took the boys out to pick up dinner without me (although I was afraid to lay down because I figured I’d be out for the night if I did).

Yes, I’m being whiny and complaining. It’s been a long day. Fingers crossed that I wake up tomorrow feeling chipper and energetic, because tomorrow is back to the work week and life as usual.

Orange juice

Posted on April 13, 2013 by admin

I suspect that the way I eat has been permanently changed by my time here in Austria. The things I eat, the way I shop, the way I think about food have all been affected by seeing the things I eat through a different lens. Food here is simpler, in general. The produce section at the grocery store is smaller, with fewer varieties of things. But the food is more likely to be organic and at least relatively local, and the selection is guaranteed to be more seasonal. There are about 3 varieties of chips at our closest grocery store (which is in our building) and the soda aisle, while sizable, is stocked equally with varieties of sparkling waters and fruit-juice flavored beverages.

Austrians, of course, also have their specialties. I worry I’ll never be able to eat another donut after being spoiled by the Krapfen here. Potato salad from elsewhere is unlikely to measure up. My standards for hot dogs/sausages have been raised. And my travels beyond Austria mean that I’ll never eat spaghetti, a chocolate croissant, or a ham and cheese sandwich, with the same indifference again.

And then there’s the orange juice. It’s not exactly something that’s synonymous with Austria or the Alps, but the orange juice we drink here — all of it — is fresh squeezed. Our corner grocery store has an orange-juice squeezing machine (almost all grocery stores do) and that’s how we get ours. (After a few months of drinking this fresh-squeezed awesomeness, and wondering where it had been all my life, I looked up information on the manufacturing process of typical store-bought orange juice, and I learned a lot. And now I know why it’s not nearly as good.) Of course, the lack of homogenization means that sometimes, we get a bottle that isn’t super lovely — it’s a little sour, or overly sweet — but even that has become comforting, because it actually tastes like oranges. (Hint: in general, it’s not as good when the oranges are out of season. What a concept.)

Today, several of us (myself, Benjamin and Liam) are a bit under the weather, with spring sniffles and sore throats (it figures, on the first decent spring weekend we’ve had) and we stocked up on orange juice. I’ve already enjoyed a couple of bottles today, and I don’t think the loveliness of it will ever cease to impress me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to the processed stuff. I’ve been completely spoiled.

Daylight in the north

Posted on April 12, 2013 by admin

I understand that a lot of people don’t like Daylight Saving Time. Its purpose is rather antiquated, it makes life a bit more complicated, the adjustment period is a pain . . . I even read an article, a few weeks ago, that said heart attacks are more common in the week following the time change. I get it. I, too, have always been of the mindset that we’re going to have a certain number of daylight hours, who cares what time of day they happen?

Living in Vienna, though, I care. I care because my kids are already approaching 6:00 a.m. wake up times, and it’s still April. By June, it’ll be full on daylight here just after 4:30 in the morning. We have blackout curtains in the boys’ room, which help, but the curtains don’t silence the birds or stop little bit of light coming in around the door and window. If not for Daylight Saving Time, my kids would be waking up now just after 5:00 a.m., and the sun would be up just after 3:30 in the morning in June.

Say what you like about Daylight Saving Time, but I’ll take my sunshine at 9:00 p.m. (which I actually find quite lovely) over 4:00 a.m. anytime (well, particularly in June). Living at a more northerly latitude has given me a whole new appreciation for it.

Spring, finally

Posted on April 11, 2013 by admin

I’m afraid to get my hopes up after the seemingly endless winter we had this year, but I think spring has finally arrived in Vienna.

Yesterday, we actually got rained on (I don’t remember the last time we got precipitation that wasn’t snow). And although it was wet and chilly in the morning, by the afternoon, it was nearly 60 degrees outside. And we’ve had more of the strong, steady breeze I’ve learned to associate with springtime in Vienna.

Today, we’re nearly up to 60 again, and all of the temperatures I see on the forecast are actually positive. (In fact, they’re all above 40, and Saturday is supposed to get up to the mid-60s with sun!)

I haven’t seen much evidence of spring around Vienna yet, but I think it’s here. I hope it’s here. I’m ready to enjoy it.

Junior translator

Posted on April 10, 2013 by admin

Shortly after we moved here, we got a well-loved, hand-me-down copy of “Blue Hat, Green Hat”. B loved it. He loved the silly antics of the turkey, and really took to the simple pattern of the story. Soon after we started reading it, he started “reading” along with us, and shortly after that, he started “reading” it on his own.

He got tired of it after a while, but I brought it back out again recently, mostly because I figured Liam was just about the right age for it. Liam loves it as much as B once did. Now B has started spelling and reading the words in the book, and Liam “reads” it to us, too.

Last night, after Liam took a turn “reading” it aloud, B picked it up. Instead of just reading it, he translated the whole thing into German. No kidding.

It might just be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen him do (so far).

The travel “to do” list

Posted on April 9, 2013 by admin

When we first made the decision to move to Austria, we knew that traveling around Europe would be a major priority for our time abroad. How could we live in Vienna and not see Salzburg, Prague, Paris, Venice, London? So we made a list. We each chose the places that were, to our minds, not to be missed, and we planned our vacations for our first two years (at the time, we intended them to be our only two years). Plans changed, things got moved around, but we did manage to visit almost all of the places on our “must see” list in the first two years (everything but Prague) and we got to see a few others, as well.

We didn’t know how much we’d enjoy traveling, though. We weren’t sure it would be worthwhile, when the challenge of traveling with kids was taken into account. But we love it. We’re getting pretty good at it, and we have overwhelmingly enjoyed the experience of traveling with the kids. It’s fantastic, and one of our favorite things about our lifestyle here. Thinking about any of the places we’ve been can make me wistful and sentimental. They’ve all been special experiences.

The only “problem” is, instead of “checking off” places on our travel wish list, our list has grown. A lot. Now that we’ve travelled, and we know that we love it, our enthusiasm has blossomed. We’re less fearful. Our horizons have expanded. We aren’t limited by our previous ideas of what we thought we were capable of. Our list now has over a dozen places that we’d like to go — and that’s just the ones in Europe . . . and doesn’t count the ones we’d like to revisit (which is nearly all of the places we’ve already been). Now we’re facing the reality that we just aren’t going to be able to see them all before our time here is through.

Places become like friends — you visit and you love your time together so much that when you depart, you start counting the moments until you return. And, as with friends, you end up with so many whose company you enjoy that you’re left feeling like it’s always been too long since you’ve seen each other. You never feel “done”. And, making a new friend is a wonderful experience, so that’s always good, too.

And, so it is. We have only so much time, money, energy and flexibility to travel. We just aren’t going to get to see everything on our list in the next year. But that’s ok. Really, it’s a wonderful “problem” to have. We’ve been so fortunate to have been able to see so many beautiful places in Europe, and to have had such amazing adventures in each. Of course that inspires us to want to see more. Of course that leaves us itching to go back and experience our favorites again. They all become pieces of our shared history, and wishes for our future, things to plan for and anticipate and share. Each destination becomes either an old friend to visit or a new friend yet to be met, and they all add to the depth of our experience. The problem isn’t having so many places that I can’t wait to see — the problem is viewing them as items on a list, waiting to be checked off. Now I know — I’ll never be done. Each place I see inspires me to see more.

Single file

Posted on April 8, 2013 by admin

Each culture has its own sense of propriety. So many of the norms I accepted, not just without consideration, but even without even noticing them, are different here. As a general trend, Austrians are more orderly than Americans — quieter, more neatly dressed, more punctual, more respectful of old people and children, more likely to dispose of their trash correctly and less inclined to destroy or deface property. It makes for a very civilized experience. I love it.

But, for all of this organization and civility, they don’t do other things we might expect — they don’t like to wait in lines. While every other cultural characteristic would lead me to believe that they would queue up patiently, it’s really not the case. Waiting in line here and expecting that to pay off when it’s my “turn” is an exercise in futility and frustration. Everyone tries to move up, and a proper line is rarely formed at all — it’s usually just a group milling about, with the most assertive being served first. They really don’t like to wait for anything — encountering a wait at a restaurant is pretty much unheard of. If people arrive, and the restaurant is full, they just go elsewhere.

This same holds true for walking down the sidewalk. On a narrow sidewalk, Americans would tend to walk single file, or to at least fall in to a line when approached from the opposite direction. Austrians walk right alongside the other people they are with, and they don’t line up for anyone (they will walk the oncoming person into the street, rather than go single file — even someone with a stroller or a child). It’s kind of a strange quirk, given how much order and efficiency I see everywhere else.

I’m not critiquing. They’re allowed to have their cultural nuances, of course. Although I find it a little frustrating, from my American perspective, it’s certainly only one odd characteristic out of many fine cultural expectations here. (And certainly, I catch myself doing all kinds of things that are strange or rude by Austrian standards. All the time. It’s pretty much my main activity here.) In general, I find Austria to be a lovely place to live, and the general order and efficiency really appeal to me. That’s how my mind works, too. But although I’m learning to forego the line, just like everyone else here, I still don’t really mind waiting my turn. And since I really do like walking on the sidewalk, I’m going to have to figure that one out, too, I think.

Alpine toys!

Posted on April 7, 2013 by admin

A couple of weeks ago, when we were in Salzburg, we stopped by a little town near our hotel for dinner. On the way back to our car, Benjamin and Liam froze, wide-eyed and completely captivated by a window display of a toy store. As a parent of a 4 year old and a 2 year old, this is nothing new. I was preparing to round them up and herd them back down the sidewalk when I took a closer look at the display.

It was an entire window display scene of Playmobil dolls and toys, all very clearly set in the Alps. And it was fantastically cool.

There were mountain cable cars, perfect little Alpine homes and restaurants, mountain climbers, mountain rescue helicopters, hikers (with the type of walking sticks I’ve only ever seen in this part of Europe), cows with wreaths of flowers, and dolls in dirndls and lederhosen. They all looked just so perfectly Austrian. I’d never really seen anything quite like it. I was as enthralled and giggly as the boys, gazing at the display and discovering tiny details.

After getting home and doing some research, I came to find out that Playmobil is a German company (which I didn’t know, because I was familiar with them in the US, and had never seen any toys which particularly gave away their origins) and that they usually release their toys first in this part of Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, etc.). Then some (but not all) types are released in the rest of the world, including in the US. So, although I’m skeptical that these Alpine toys will ever be released in the US, if they ever are, it won’t be until next year at the earliest.

I’m kind of glad that the shop wasn’t open, because I suspect I would have gone in and gone on a little Austrian toy shopping binge that probably wasn’t necessary. I do think, though, that the boys may receive a few of these for their birthdays, or maybe for Christmas, this year. I think they’re fantastically cute, and I think they’ll probably be a great way of helping the kids hold on to some of the memories of their experiences here. (And, at the very least, Mommy wants to play!)

Austrian anniversary

Posted on April 6, 2013 by admin

So, today is the day — we’ve been here two years. This second anniversary of our arrival here feels like an accomplishment — partly just because we’ve been here two years and have not only survived, but flourished, but also because it was originally our intention to only be here for two years. So, even though we’ve revised that and updated our plans, some part of my brain is still stuck on the idea of, “Ok, it’s been two years! You’re done! Time to go home!”

It’s been two years since we climbed off of the plane, overwhelmed and weary. Very overwhelmed. Nothing says “What did I just do?!?” like arriving in an airport with two small kids, seven suitcases and a dog, being unable to read any signs or remember why you thought this was a good idea in the first place.

I remember collecting our suitcases, piling them up on a luggage cart, and looking around to figure out where we were supposed to pick up Bailey. We didn’t know whether to expect him in a special luggage area, or whether there was a certain counter to go to. Instead, we found him in his crate, set aside, kind of near the baggage claim area. We expected to have to show some paperwork or something to collect him. Nope. We picked him up and moved on.

Our next priority was Customs, where we also prepared to present paperwork and have our things inspected. But no, this is Austria. No paperwork, no inspection, no stopping at all.

We dragged ourselves outside to wait for Dan’s friend, Greg, who had so kindly agreed to meet us at the airport. I got Bailey out of his crate and took him for a quick (and much-needed) walk. It was cold, and raining. I remember thinking again (for the second of at least a dozen times that day) that I was not at all sure this had been a wise decision.

We waited for Greg, and when he arrived, he was so nice and helpful. We packed his car full of all of our things, and drove through Vienna until we found our temporary apartment. Once we figured out which one it was, I remember being freaked out about everything — whether the car was going to be towed, whether our landlord could be trusted to help is carry our things, and whether we were going to be expected to pay for our stay right away (which would have been troublesome because we had no Euros).

I had nothing to worry about, really, I was just freaking out and unaccustomed to being so far out of my element. Our landlord was helpful and nice, we got everything unloaded easily, and the kids were happy to be “home”. Greg very kindly made a trip to the grocery store to buy a few things we’d need to get through that first morning. When he left us his grocery bag so we’d have something to shop with, I almost cried, both because it was nice of him and because it represented, in my mind, how many things I didn’t know about Vienna (I mean, who knew you HAD to bring your own grocery bags?!?).

But we got settled in. We took a collective nap. We watched tv. We got comfortable. We relaxed. I remember being the only one awake, later that evening, while everyone else was napping. I remember looking around our apartment. We were all safe, secure and happy. I didn’t know anything, really, about Vienna, or about what would happen next, but everything was peaceful. I still wasn’t sure we had made the right decision, but I was sure, in that moment, that we were all ok. It was a beginning.

And now, here we are. Two years later, with another year ahead of us. I still get that feeling — the feeling that I’m not sure if we’ve made the right decision, but that, in the moment, we’re all ok. That first day was hard, and there have been other hard days since. There have been days when I’ve wished I could snap my fingers and just be home. But really, this has been wonderful. Fundamentally, I’m incredibly glad that we’re here and that we’re having this adventure. And I’m learning to be ok with being out of my element, with not understanding what’s going on, with trusting people. I’m learning to expect good things to happen. And I’m learning that, as long as we’re all safe, secure and happy, everything is really ok.

A Mommy Abroad

Our big adventure, as a family of three.

Category Archives: Adventure in Vienna