Waking the baby

Posted on August 20, 2011 by admin

I laugh when I read information about how much little kids and babies are “supposed” to sleep. My children never got those memos. When he was a baby, Benjamin hardly ever slept for more than 2 or 3 hours in a row. He’d sleep for a few hours at night, and then he’d get up, I’d feed him, and Dan & I would take turns walking with him for an hour or two (or more) until he finally went to sleep, and then he got up 2 or 3 hours later and we did it all again. This isn’t abnormal for a newborn’s first few months, but this went on through and beyond his first birthday (and it had gotten old well before that). He started sleeping through the night reliably sometime between 18 months and 2 years, but he didn’t nap for more than 20 minutes at a time until this past spring, after we moved here. Now, he’s a sleeping champ — sleeps about 9 hours at night, and another hour or two (sometimes more!) during the early afternoon.

Liam is an excellent nighttime sleeper, and has been since he was about 4 months old. He often needs to have his pacifier replaced a few times per night, but other than that, he very rarely wakes all the way up and almost never needs to be fed or cuddled with at night (and I don’t think we’ve ever walked him to sleep). However, he takes after his big brother when it comes to naps. As a newborn, he was a great napper — he would sleep 2-3 hours each morning. It was nice, when he first came home, because it gave me an opportunity to spend a few uninterrupted hours with Benjamin every day, which helped to ease the transition from only child to big brother. But, since we’ve been here, he’s been off naps completely. Most days, he doesn’t take a nap at all. At all. Not once. All day long. If he does nap, it’s maybe 20 minutes long, and only if I hold him. And then, it’s likely that Benjamin will wake him up “by accident” (or occasionally, actually accidentally). The rare occassions when I can get him down for 10 or 20 minutes during the day are a thrill and a relief — I love my babies, but getting a few minutes of a break is lovely.

Three weeks ago, I started taking German class three days a week. I’ve tweaked the schedule to figure out the best time to leave the house, and generally settled on starting to get everyone ready about 9:45 in the morning. This past week, Liam has decided to drift off into a deep nap at 9:30. But just on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This Friday, I actually had to wake him up in order to get out of the house in time to make it to class.

My class is over in about 10 days, but shortly after that, Benjamin starts preschool. Here’s hoping that Liam’s new nap habit can survive the changes, and that he doesn’t take to napping right when I need to leave to pick B up from school. Nothing is worse than having to wake a napping baby, except having to wake one that doesn’t usually nap.

Telling time

Posted on August 19, 2011 by admin

Today, in my German class, we worked on telling time. (Actually, we worked on reporting the time and understanding it when someone else tells us — the ability to actually tell time was assumed.)

There are a variety of conventions used, most of which I found to be fairly complicated — some are used by all German speakers, but a few were specific to Austria. What I found particularly interesting is that after (and including) quarter past the hour, they orient everything to the hour that is coming, rather than the hour that has passed. For example, you’d say it’s “half eleven” when it’s 10:30. You’d say it’s “three quarters six” at 5:45 (i.e., three quarters of the hour towards 6:00). At 8:15, you could either say a quarter after 8:00 or “quarter nine” (a quarter of an hour towards 9:00).

As our teacher said, after a quarter past the hour, that hour is history — old news. They look ahead to what’s coming, not what’s already happened. They also ask the time (literally) as “How late is it?” When I consider that the Austrians are the most punctual people I’ve ever been around, this all seems to make a lot of sense. They aren’t stuck on where they’re coming from, they’re looking to where they’re going.

Finances

Posted on August 18, 2011 by admin

I know that it’s supposed to be impolite to discuss finances, but, in the interest of frankness, money has been pretty tight here lately. Financially, things should be better here than they were at home, but we weren’t counting on carrying the expense of our condo at home for as long as we have. (In retrospect, I have no idea WHY we weren’t counting on that, but we weren’t.) We’ve burned through our liquid savings and used up the line of credit extended to us by the bank here in Austria. It had gotten to the point where we planning to quit grocery shopping and see if we could live off of just what we had on our kitchen shelves between now and Dan’s next pay day (which only comes once a month).

I am aware that relative to many, we’re still doing fantastically. Our bills are all current, we’re feeding ourselves and our kids good food every day, until recently we went out to eat regularly and we’ve had enough cash on hand for small splurges like the movies and coffee from Starbucks. And, yeah, we’re basically on an extended vacation in Europe. We’re not suffering, by any means. But that doesn’t change the fact that the money flowing out is more than the money flowing in right now. We can’t tweak our budget to cover our enormous house payment/condo fee at home in addition to all of our expenses here. It’s uncomfortable and can be overwhelming.

But, things are changing. For the short term, we’ve been able to get a loan from the bank with very reasonable terms, and for the middle term (do people say that?) we have gotten two offers on the condo in the last couple of days. If those don’t go through, we’re going to give up and rent it.

Hmm.

So, I started writing this still feeling pretty stressed about our financial situation. I guess nothing helps perspective like sharing it: now I feel rather spoiled. “Oh dear, we can’t eat out anymore. We can’t go on vacation elsewhere in Europe! We might have to eat what we have in our kitchen! (Gasp!) I might not be able to go to Starbucks for my coffee!”

Ok. Never mind.

Fluent

Posted on August 17, 2011 by admin

I speak one language. I took 7 years of middle school/high school/college French, and my comprehension is ok, but my ability to speak is pretty poor. I understand some Spanish, just from having heard a lot of it (and because you can make educated guesses on a lot of the nouns if your French vocabulary is decent). I’m just starting to learn German. I can sign the alphabet in American Sign Language and I can code in a variety of programming languages. That’s it. Actually, I feel pretty good about it.

I was, therefore, incredibly impressed today when ordering coffee at Starbucks. The person in front of me ordered in German, and the barista taking the order spoke in such quick and fluid Austrian-accented German that I was thinking, “Uh-oh. She sounds like she might be one of those few Austrian Starbucks baristas who doesn’t actually speak English, so I hope my German is ok and the other baristas haven’t just been humoring me.”

I step up, order in German, she smiles, and replies in perfect English (as they often do). “Whew”, I think,” I got to use my German, but she’ll understand me if I have to correct/add anything. Great!” Then I remembered that I was going to order a brownie, blurt that out in English, and she smiles, gives me my total in English, and all is well.

Then, the person behind me steps up and says, “Bonjour!” and proceeds to order in (surprise!) French. To which the barista replies in perfect (as far as I can tell) French, responding to questions, corrections and several specific requests.

Damn. I can’t do that. I’m totally impressed. And humbled. And grateful for the Austrian educational system, which lets me get by with my 30 words of poorly spoken un-articled German. Danke!

Double translation

Posted on August 16, 2011 by admin

I knew, of course, that there would be a language barrier when I moved here. (The fact that the only thing I knew how to say in German was “Gesundheit” before getting on the plane was a small clue.) I’m really very fortunate: as far as I can tell, most people here study at least some English at school. Under the age of about 40, the vast majority of people I encounter do speak at least a little English. But, I didn’t know that there would be an additional barrier — the fact that I speak American English and not British English, which is what they study.

Whenever I am fortunate enough to come upon someone who does speak English, I still have to remember that an elevator is a lift, a diaper is a nappy, an apartment is a flat, a binky/paci is a dummy, a boo-boo is an owie, a bathroom is a wc . . . I know there are more that I’m not thinking of. (There are many, many, many of these . . . ) It may not seem like a lot, but it adds to the language gymnastics I have to do in my head.

Recently, at a restaurant, I was looking for a place to change Benjamin’s diaper. I tried, unsuccessfully, to ask in German, and resorted to English. I asked three people where I could find a bathroom, and did it have a place to change a diaper. I got blank stares. So, I tried asking if I needed to take the elevator down a floor to get there. More blank stares. They called someone over to help this poor, confused, English speaking crazy woman and I repeated my question to the new arrival. He understood, and upon hearing his explanation (in English) all three of the original guys said, “Oh!” in unison. It wasn’t the English that was the problem, it was the American-ish.

Super helper

Posted on August 15, 2011 by admin

Today began my third week of German class. I go three days per week, and the first four times I had class my mom was here, so getting there was relatively easy (for me). All I had to do was get her set up with the things she needed for the boys, get myself ready, and get there. Travelling alone is pretty easy — I can take stairs or escalator, I can sit in any open seat on the train (or even stand, in a relatively small space), I don’t tend to drop a lot of things, and I walk pretty fast (especially for someone fairly short-legged).

Last week, my mom went home, and reality set in. Wednesday of last week I started getting the kids ready an hour and a half before my class started. I made it, but barely. So, on Friday, I allowed an extra 15 minutes of prep time . . . and got to the UN to drop off the kids at exactly the same time as Wednesday. (I have no idea how that happens — it’s some law of space/time I missed during my collegiate studies.) I wasn’t late either time, but I’d rather be early than late, and the level of stress I experience when I’m running late tends to make me irritable, which makes me unpleasant to be around, which is no fun for my kids. So, it’s just better to skip it.

So, today, I was going to be early! I had a plan to get started getting everyone ready to go a full two hours before class time. I had visions of being an hour (or more) early to class and feeling very silly, but I was going to do it anyway. Just before “getting ready time” was about to start, I thought I’d feed Liam, just so he’d be full and happy before we needed to leave . . . and he fell asleep, in my arms. Liam is a wonderful, sweet baby who sleeps so well at night, and not at all during the day. He’s not much of a napper, except for occasionally when we’re out and he’ll sleep in the stroller. He was so sweet and so soundly asleep that I couldn’t bring myself to wake him. So, I put Nick, Jr. on for Benjamin and just held Liam while he slept. For 40 minutes. At which point, I was starting to stress about potentially being very late to German class, so I decided that any potential benefit Liam was getting from his nap was about to be outweighed by me being stressed out while we got ready to go. I (very gently) woke him up and started getting ready to go.

We made it, easily. We got ready to leave the house (changed both diapers, got all three of us dressed) in just less than 20 minutes (which may be a record). We got to have a leisurely walk to the train and no stress on the way. All because Benjamin helped me out a TON while we were getting ready. He was cooperative about his diaper change and about getting dressed, he “watched Liam” (who was in his exersaucer — I swear I don’t actually ask my 3 year old to watch my 10 month old) while I got dressed and helped me get toys together for Liam while I got him dressed. It was amazing.

Benjamin is an amazing kid, anyway (if I do say so myself) but his capacity to truly help in such grown up ways is astounding to me. I don’t know if he’s just naturally able to be more mature and responsible at times than I’d ever expect, or whether some flaw in my parenting of him has created this capacity before he should have it. It isn’t always like this — there are plenty of times where his antics run counter to my mission du jour. But today, he was my super helper (and he has been many times before).

Exterminated

Posted on August 14, 2011 by admin

The holocaust is the proverbial “elephant in the room” here in Austria. This is where it happened, not very long ago. There are people who are here who lived through it. It isn’t abstract and it isn’t distant. I’m not an expert, and I don’t claim or pretend to really understand what it must be like for those who were touched more directly by it. But I am finding myself more affected by it, more aware of it, living here than I ever have been before.

People here don’t talk about it, from what I’ve heard. I haven’t had a chance to have many deep conversations with Austrians, but as I understand, the subject is pretty much verboten. It’s even more of a sensitive subject here than in other parts of Europe. A month or so ago, I was joined at my Starbucks table one weekend by a quintet of Jewish American tourists. I had open seats at my table, and they joined me and we talked for quite a while about their trip — Austria was the last of a series of countries they visited on what they described as a “holocaust tour”. All 5 were older, and retired — two were from Bethesda, Maryland (very near where I grew up). They had been to Germany and Poland (and maybe elsewhere, but I forget) on their trip and said that nowhere had they gotten a worse reaction to their questions about the holocaust than they did in Austria. Their tour guide flatly refused to talk about it, and got quite angry when they persisted.

Walking around, enjoying Vienna, I admit that the holocaust is not front of mind for me. This place feels so beautiful and peaceful. It isn’t the first thing I think about. It wasn’t in the top ten things I thought about when I decided to move here. But, it’s here — it’s present.

Shortly after arriving here, we spent a Sunday with a colleague of Dan’s and his family, outside of Vienna. They came and picked us up and brought us to their home. We spent the afternoon with them, had lunch, the kids played and even had an Easter Egg hunt. At one point, we had wandered down to the end of their driveway and Ada, the wife and mother of the family, was showing me the landmarks of their town. She pointed out a former synagogue across the street — she said people would often come and draw it, or photograph it. It’s a lovely building. I asked if she knew why it was a “former” synagogue. “Well, after the war, no one came back.”

Oh. OH. Oh, dear God.

I looked at the building, turned around, looked at my kids, playing in the yard, and found I couldn’t breathe. This happened HERE. It was so present in that moment — the enormity, the immediacy, the reality — that I couldn’t absorb it. My brain locked up for a second and then switched channels, to something less terrifying and reprehensible.

But, it’s still here.

Yesterday, we saw the memorial to the Austrian Jews killed during World War II. We didn’t make a point to go — we happened upon it on the way home from the movies. On the ground, at the base of the tomb dedicated to the victims, it says that 65,000 Austrian Jews were killed during the holocaust. Sixty five thousand PEOPLE. Killed. Murdered. And that’s just from Austria, a country about the size of South Carolina.

I’m not sure there’s a way to truly process this kind of information. How many people do you think you know? Have ever met? 65,000? Unlikely. So, that’s everyone you’ve ever met, gone. And not in a force of nature or act of God. Not from disease. And not in an instant. People did this, on purpose, over time, to each other. Here — it happened here. Entire families, entire communities, gone. They didn’t come back.

That building that used to be a synagogue isn’t now. The moms, the dads, the brothers, the sisters, the grandparents, the friends, the children, the babies. No one came back.

No wonder they don’t want to talk about it. I can barely think about it. My brain keeps trying to change the channel.

Sleepover Saturday

Posted on August 13, 2011 by admin

Last week, when my mom was visiting, she and Benjamin had a sleepover in the living room. It made me a little jealous, so tonight, Benjamin and I are having one too. Although I don’t know how well either of us will sleep, I’m really looking forward to the chance to curl up with my wonderful baby (who already isn’t really a baby) and have a camp out/sleepover.

It’s already been a great day — we took the boys to see their first movie since we’ve been here (Liam’s first ever). It was really fun, although we probably won’t repeat it for a while. (Liam got charged full kid’s ticket price of 9 Euro, making it a rather expensive adventure.) I think we’ll probably wait to take Liam again until he’ll actually appreciate it and not sleep through most of it. That said, of the four children in the movie theater, he was by far not the most disruptive, so it was a success.

A movie and a sleepover in the same day — sounds like a good Saturday!

Minding my own business

Posted on August 12, 2011 by admin

People in Austria are very forthcoming with their disapproval — be it stares, scowls or comments. This seems to be especially true when it comes to kids and dogs. If you’re out with a dog or a small child, it’s open season for opinions. This is actually relatively true at home, too (more so with kids than with dogs) and it starts as soon as you’re visibly pregnant — other people (typically, but not always, women older than yourself) will confront you with advice about everything from your beverage of choice to your choice of footwear to prognostications on the sex of the baby. I remember the frustration of being confronted by complete strangers about my choices or behavior when I was pregnant with Benjamin, and thinking that it would go away once he was born. It didn’t — and now it’s followed me to Europe!

But, here, I don’t care so much. I don’t understand what they’re saying anyway.

On my way home from German class today, on the train, with both kids, I noticed an older woman who was scowling and who looked generally disgruntled. When I got off the train at our stop, I proceeded to the elevator. Waiting for it to arrive, this same woman came up and said something to me in German. She wasn’t angry or overly confrontational, but she did seem stern and grumpy. Taken by surprise, I didn’t catch a single word, so I asked (in German!) for her to repeat herself. She did, more slowly, and the only words I caught were “children”, “seat” (maybe “sitting”?) and “street car”. (I imagine she actually meant train.) I told her I only speak a tiny bit of German, so she repeated herself again, more slowly and more loudly. I still didn’t get it, so I nodded and smiled and got on the elevator.

I have no idea what she was saying. It might have been something very nice, and she’s just a stern looking person. She might have been admonishing the other passengers for not giving up their seats so I could sit on the train. But I suspect she was telling me I ought to sit down on the train with my kids (which, I would love to do, but for logistical reasons isn’t something I can do when I travel with both kids together — I won’t leave Liam in the stroller parked next to the door, and I won’t let Benjamin sit in a seat out of my reach, so if the seat immediately adjacent to where I’m standing isn’t available, Benjamin & I both stand).

If I’d been able to understand her, I would have either gotten defensive or agreed out of politeness — but either way, it would have stayed with me all day. I would have been justifying myself in my mind, and feeling grumpy and bitter that she dared say anything. Regardless of how confident I was in my own opinion, her words would have stuck with me, for the rest of day or even longer.

But, here, I’m immune. I don’t know what she said, so I can only obsess about it so much. I can try to imagine what she was saying, but I really don’t have enough information to even make an educated guess. So, I let it go. It doessn’t stick to me. The truth is, there’s no reason I shouldn’t feel exactly the same way if I do understand what the other person is saying. I’m doing the best I can, and, if someone offers me new information, I have the option of changing my behavior in the future. The judgements of a stranger should carry no weight. I’ve figured out how to feel that way, finally: fail to understand the criticism in the first place.

Perspective

Posted on August 11, 2011 by admin

The changes I’m experiencing here happen slowly. In a given moment, I usually feel like I’m still pretty much the clueless, overwhelmed fish-out-of-water I was when I got here in April. But really, things have changed.

I went out this evening, just to take a break, after Dan got home from work. I walked to the bakery on the next block and picked out a doughnut that I wanted, ordered in German, actually got what I had asked for, paid in Euros (and even understood the price when the guy behind the counter said it) and waved goodbye when I was leaving, because I go in there a lot, and this was the guy who is the most helpful to me when my German fails me.

I walked down the street to the Starbucks and got a coffee. I didn’t bother to order in German there, because no one seems to mind, and “Grande Decaf Caramel Macchiato” is Italienglish anyway. I picked a spot outside, read my book and walked home. I didn’t need to consult a map or check any street signs. I’m able to move through the crowds like someone who knows where she’s going . . . because I do.

I’m learning a little German, and I’m learning my way around. It gets a little better all the time.

In fact, if you could have shown the me of 4 months ago a preview of my little adventure today, I think I would be impressed and pleased that things were going so well. So, I think that’s exactly what I’ll be: impressed and pleased. Go me.

A Mommy Abroad

Our big adventure, as a family of three.

Category Archives: Adventure in Vienna