Category: Family

We were at cousin Lili’s birthday dinner tonight. She had asked for a Friendship Book so we gave her one covered with horses, which are her current passion. All of the children share around Friendship Books here in Austria, writing about likes and dislikes and favourite things. It has been a tradition for decades.

It was a very nice, relaxing time with the family.We had a casual dinner of different fishes on toast, and Lili really liked her gift.

I also learned two interesting things about Annie. One is that she likes smoked salmon. This makes me very happy as, although high in sodium, it is very good for Omega-3 oils. More salmon means less trying to remember to add the flax to Annie’s cereal in the morning.

The other concerns a story I already told on this blog about how Annie pushed me out the door the night she slept over at Oma’s and Opa’s. I was a proud Mama, thinking how independent my girl was and how much she loved and wanted to play with her grandparents. So today I got the real story. The second that she had shuffled Markus and I out the door, she looked up at Opa with her big blue eyes and said, “May I have an ice-cream?” She knows I’m somewhat restrictive about sugar (compared to Austrian’s anyway, who must have the highest consumption of sweets in the world) and wasn’t going to risk asking this while I was in the room. That girl. It is going to be a fine line I will need to teach her to walk between getting what you want out of the world, which is a great thing, and manipulating the people around you. Not so great. I think I have some work ahead on this.

The few nights ago when I was reading Annie a story, I switched up some of the words. Like “If you give a pig some ketchup…” instead of “pancake.” She would laugh and tell me the right answer.

Tonight she asked if I could read her a “teasing book”. It took me a few seconds, but I realized this game of substituting words was what she wanted. We read and she corrected my “teasing” and had a good laugh. I have a feeling that we’ll be reading books like this for quite some time to come.

I’m under the weather today, so dipped into Twitter to get an idea for a post. It totally made me laugh, as today’s suggestion is “How did you end up where you’re living right now? What factors will help you choose the next place you live?” Besides being a virtual shrine to Annie, this blog is pretty much all about where I live, how I ended up here, and where I might be going next. Or at least, where I might be going next plays large in my mind, even though I may not write about it as often.

Followers and friends have as much information from this blog about how I ended up in beautiful Innsbruck as I do, so I won’t go into that. So what factors will determine where next we live?

To start, somewhere that I feel comfortable. I think I’ve had enough adventure and life growth experiences for a bit.  Also somewhere both Markus and I can easily work. I’m sure I could find some job here, but when I think of looking for a great career, it gets confusing fast with work visas, language issues, and childcare choices. This part of Innsbruck sometimes feels like it is back in the 1950’s, as I can’t think of a single family with young children where both parents work full-time. It just isn’t really done here, so the system is not well set-up for full-day care.

Obviously I’m not moving anywhere where English or German is not the main language. At 41 my brain is tired and slow and clearly not up to this foreign-language thing.

Markus would need to be able to find a great opportunity, and Annie would need a solid school system for this next phase of her life. (I’m pretty sure home schooling would kill us both!)

Overall, I really think most likely we will either stay here or move back to the West Coast of Canada. I just don’t see us starting totally from scratch with friends and community at this point. Never say never, of course, but that is what my sense is at the moment. In any case, we are here for at least 2 more years until Markus can give the cafe a real chance. After that, well, you’ll know as soon as I do!

This evening Markus was home for dinner, which doesn’t happen every night. I made a chicken, rice and broccoli and we all had fun eating together.

Annie was complaining about the chicken (she would rather just eat the skin), so Markus made her close her eyes, open her mouth and he put some food in, which she ate. Then she asked to play this game more. Mystery Food is a game that Markus and Rebecca used to play, and it is fun seeing it all come around again.

Annie had a grape, a radish, some balsamic vinegar and a candy. For Markus’ turn Annie and I gave him a slice of lemon, an alcohol-filled chocolate, and raisins. I’m the wimp of the family, so they were nice to me with only an orange slice and a spoonful of Nutella.

As an adult, when she thinks back to being a child, I’m sure it is these simple times and experiences that Annie will always remember. And that makes me very, very happy.

I was reading a Dooce post about a television series centered around Americans house-hunting in a foreign country. One episode’s couple were looking at an upper-floor apartment in Paris and, seeing that there were no screens on the window, asked how to keep their child from falling to his death. The real estate agent said to them, you tell him not to jump out the window and he will not jump out the window. As expected, there ensued a long conversation on the post comments about whether or not Americans overprotect their children.

This is something I struggle with almost daily. There is no doubt that parents here are much less controlling with their children. Small children ride a bike, take the bus, or walk to school on their own. Teenagers from about 13 or 14-years-old spend Saturday night walking around the city center until well past midnight. And parents talk to each other (and smoke, of course) on the playground, letting their children go off and play by themselves. When I mention that I have a running anxiousness in my brain, always looking around the corner for where the next lurker is hiding ready to steal Annie, they look at me like I’m nuts.

Sometimes it gets stupid. The culmination was when I saw a man, his child of about 6 on the back of his bike, neither of them wearing helmets, talking on a cellphone, running a red light. Super. My friend, Nicole, and I have an automatic response when we see this type of thing: “safety third!”Austria’s unofficial motto. Lack of fences around dangerous areas, no helmets, construction going on millimeters from pedestrians.

I guess a less paternalistic attitude could lead to children being more independent and able to solve their own problems. And I am more relaxed about always keeping an eye on Annie than I used to be (although that could just be a function of her getting older.) But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to adopt the 1950’s attitude of kicking the kids out the door and telling them to be home in time for dinner. And frankly, I’m O.K. with that. Although I guess we’ll see how it goes when she is the only child wearing a bike helmet in her school. I see some heated fights in our future…but hopefully no trips to the emergency ward. A good trade, I say.