Category: Family

I discovered a new word in German last week: faulenzen. It means to do a whole lot of nothing. We could use a verb like that in English (I nothing, she nothings…). This word was very applicable for us this weekend.

When I was in the depth of misery last week, my sister-in-law, Susi, suggested: “Why don’t you just give up. Everyone tends to be happier.” Hmmmmm. So basically that is what I did this weekend…give up.

“I want some pasta.”
“For breakfast?”
“Ya!”, (or maybe ‘Ja!’)

O.K.

—

“I want to watch Kleiner Dodo.”
“How do you ask nicely?”
“Please may I watch Kleiner Dodo?”

No problem.

“Do you want to come and watch with me?”
O.K.

—

“Sweetie, do you want to get dressed and go to the Spielplatz?”
“NO!”

Fine, we’ll stay inside all day.

—

“Can I eat it (eggs) with my fingers?”
Go to town blue-eyes.

—

This was pretty much how things went for 48 hours. Luckily the tot did get some fresh air as Rebecca piped up Saturday afternoon: “I’ll take Annie out with me for €10.” Sold!! Rebecca was hoping to catch a school soccer game, thus the hilarious dressing up of Annie in a soccer shirt (sorry that it is blurry, but just had to include it.). The game didn’t work out, but they had fun at the playground and then shared some decadent torte while Mommy watched the Kremlin Open.

Of course now I have to try to clean up the mess from two days of outright sloth before Markus gets home. But overall it was worth it. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t live this way most of the time, but it sure is a good tactic in times of crisis.

(Thought I published this on Friday. Oh well…here you go. I’ll have another one up today.)

I have been trying to start this post every day for a week. I’ve been waiting for things to become less depressive before exposing my life again to friends and family, but that might be a bit of a wait.

This last couple of weeks have been hell…HELL. Rebecca was sick…like cleaning puke up off the floor sick. Day 15 of waking up between 4:30 and 5:00 with Annie. (I read a funny post on Dooce where she was talking about her mean, mean baby who cried all the time. I’m starting to relate and think Annie is just starting to expressing some inherent cruel nature where she will torture her mother until death.) The neo-Nazi daycare (perhaps I shouldn’t joke about that in Austria) wouldn’t let Annie spend the afternoon, even when Annie fell asleep in childcare-provider Gabby’s arms. So Annie had a 10 minute nap that day and was just a treat for the rest of the afternoon. (It has only been 3 days that I have been allowed to keep Annie in daycare full time.) And yesterday I came down with the family cold (Markus has been tasked with smuggling great quantities of ColdFx into Austria.)

I finally realized how much I’ve taken my friends for granted, since I always have had so many everywhere I have lived (no more…you are all getting Christmas cards this year for sure.) I am quite lonely. And Markus has changed his return date from the 11th to the 13th, and also may be returning to Canada mid-November; I have suggested he pull an AbeBooks Christmas party special and only stay 3 days plus travel. We’ll see.

But I guess that there are going to be rough times in life with such a big change…some crap about appreciating the great moments or something.

The last couple of days Markus’ sister has tried to rescue me by inviting us over to her place, which has certainly helped. To prove to myself that there still is good in the world, I took this sweet picture of the cousins.

So what is good? German classes are very interesting, although it will be many months before I am able to express more complicated sentiments than your average toddler. (I was talking to our friend, Beth, whose daughter Haley has been in Eastern Europe for several months. Haley hit the nail on the head when she proclaimed she felt like a genius after returning to Canada, since she could actually formulate complicated, coherent and grammatically correct sentences.)

I continue to be in awe of the natural beauty in Innsbruck. The leaves have started turning on the mountainside and Rebecca called me to the window about a week ago to see one of the most brilliant deep red sunsets ever.

And on the cute daughter front, Annie can now have real (albeit short) conversations with people over the phone, which is so sweet to listen to. Especially the multiple goodbyes: Tshüs, Chow, Bis später, Bye! A little Sound of Music re-enactment.

And I am going to try to go away next weekend for some recovery. Salzburg is about a 2-hour train ride away and is on my list of places to see, so that is a likely destination. And visiting high school friend, Maria, in Antwerp is definitely on the horizon so I can see a friendly face. (Although I shouldn’t put it that way; Austrians are incredibly friendly and kind…I just don’t know what they are saying.)

Next time…more pictures, less complaining.

“Yes, my sweet. He’ll be there a bit longer.”

This is how our last couple of mornings began. Annie clomps (loud hardwood floors) into my bedroom, asks about Dad and proclaims: “I’m hungry. Get up!” Nice. At 5:30 in the morning as an extra special treat.

The first 4 days have actually gone pretty well. I’m surprised I think this, given that, in that time, Rebecca had the flu, then I had the flu (luckily for both of us it was pretty mild and only last 24 hours) and currently Annie has a cold. (To be expected with the start of a new daycare.) Opa helped out with daycare drop-off and pick-up duties last week, and we made it through the first weekend without too much trouble. Luckily I was sick on Friday, so just slept for 4 hours while Annie was at Kindergruppe. If I had been sick on the weekend…Yikes!

After a wee chat about the 12-hour computer marathon on Saturday, Rebecca made up and for it by taking Annie out for 2 hours on Sunday to the park and a treat at the bakery. Very sweet sister.

I’ve also caved in on a few things. The first is painting, which I’ve been very reluctant to do, as Annie has already had lovely episodes of colouring on every page in a book, walking around marking clothes with a felt pen, etc., etc. I managed by laying down garbage bags and stripping Annie down to her diaper. As expected, she really enjoyed it!

And during a trip to a toy store, I bought her a stroller for her baby doll. She always likes these, but there was one at daycare in Canada so we wanted to make it a special treat for there. Well, I think I’m already regretting that decision. We went for a walk on Sunday and it took us 20 minutes to go 2 blocks because she wanted to walk with the stroller. After much frustration and lots of tears (because Annie was tired but didn’t want to let go), I put Annie in her stroller holding onto the baby stroller in her lap. Sheesh. However, it was pretty hilarious last night when Annie climbed into the baby stroller and asked me to push her.

We also usually only allow bubbles outside, but made an exception and blew some in the bath. This worked quite well, as Annie was already covered in soapy water so the bubbles didn’t pop when they landed on her skin. She ended up with a dozen bubbles all over her. No picture, but it was pretty cute!

Markus doesn’t have a return ticket yet, but hopefully only 10 or so days to go. (I really, really don’t know how my friends whose husbands are pilots or in the Navy manage. I guess you just get through). And next week should be easier still as Annie can start to go to daycare for full days instead of just the mornings. So far she loves it, so another blessing.

o

Here is a picture of Annie sleeping (having her nap at Star Lake this summer). I’ve included it here as evidence that she does, in fact, sleep.

However, that wasn’t the case at 4:45 this morning. It is now 6:45 and after 2 hours of trying to put her back to sleep, then encouraging her to play on her own, and then finally getting up and colouring together on her easel, I’ve succumbed and turned on the Kleine Dodo DVD about a little monkey. At least it is in German so I can pretend it is educational.

So I thought I should write about some of the things I love about Annie…it is important to remember these things at times like this.

First of all, I’m having so much fun observing Annie’s love of language. The other day I asked her to schooch over so I could snuggle with her on the bed. Well, that was the favourite word for days. “Schooch over Mommy…I’m going to schooch over…Diego (Susi’s dog) schooch off my foot.” I bought Annie some sand toys and she asked what one of them was. I went blank for a second, so I called it a ‘digger’ before I pulled ‘hoe’ out of my addled brain. I must have said hoe eighteen time, and digger only once. But let’s face it, digger is much more fun to say. So digger it is ever more. And there are some words that I don’t even want to correct because they are so cute (probably not the best parenting advice, but there you go.) “Sunscream” just cracks me up every time she says it.

I also love listening to Annie reading books. She mashes up words she remembers from the story, with pictures she sees on the page, with other events in her life and reads the whole story out loud. Sometimes I recognize my intonations, which makes me chuckle. Every book starts with “Once upon a time”, which is interesting since I don’t actually think she owns any books that start with that traditional phrase. Must be a daycare thing.

My heart is warmed when Annie sends back one of my phrased at me. I found some desired raspberries in the fridge and received a “Good job Mommy” as my reward. I’m sure there will be lots of words that I will regret forever when a future teenage Annie starts talking back, so I’ll enjoy it while I can.

Ah, now that I am writing it I could go on and on. I’m feeling much better. Just one last thing then. Of couse my favourite Annie moment is when we are snuggling at bedtime saying our goodnights to all of the important people in her life. At the end, I kiss her and say “I love you Annie” and she says “I love you Mommy” right back.

As this third week in Innsbruck comes to a close, many things are falling into place. The little things (hair appliances, special skin care products, etc.) are wonderfully easy to come by; shopping and dining out appear to be an art form in this small city. I haven’t braved shoe shopping yet, but as I couldn’t find any in Victoria, it won’t be much of a change if that is a problem. And Munich (where there are lots of tall Germans who have, I’m hoping, big feet) is as easy to access (2 hours by train) as Vancouver, so same same. Scrapbooking supplies continue to elude me, but I haven’t given up yet. And paper and stickers ship easily when ordered online.

Most importantly, details are shaping up on the big three: apartment, daycare and computer. I’ll start with the computer. I made the leap and bought a MacBook. Everyone I know who has a Mac loves it, so thought I’d check it out. So far so good. Well, sort of. Our internet provider, T-mobile, sold us a package with a modem that didn’t include Mac software. You have to download it from the internet. Which you can’t access because you have no connection. Nice. Markus, my knight in shining armor, figured it out for me after several attempts and a few curses. So here I am catching up with friends and family and blog on my light, fast and sleek new computer. I couldn’t figure out how to make the Safari browser full-screen, so switched to Firefox (hard to believe that I worked in IT for 6 years, but there you go.)

We have verbally committed to an apartment. Of course, there are pros and cons to the place we choose. Big, big pro is that it is right downtown…above a 3 minute walk from The Hotel. That means Rebecca’s high school, my German school, Annie’s daycare and Markus’ work will all be within easy walking distance (daycare is the farthest away at about a 15 minute walk, or very short bike or streetcar ride.) After the almost hour round trip to Teri’s to drop Annie off, this is a dream! Other plus is that it has enough rooms. Actually finding an apartment in the downtown core with a configuration for 3 separate bedrooms plus a living room is rare. And it is in a fairly new building so is clean and bright and modern. (One of the rooms I think was intended as a dining room, but whatever.)

The cons start with, of course, the bathroom. Back in Canada I said I would put my foot down about having  2 bathrooms. But even as I said it, I had a feeling that this was going to be a foot I’d have to go ahead and pick right back up. Europeans just don’t have the obsession with bathrooms that us, sane, North American’s do. I think it is a case of not knowing what you are missing until you have it. Oh, if they only knew. Anyway, one tiny room with toilet and sink and one slightly larger room with bathtub, sink and space for washer/dryer it is. The bedrooms are quite large, so we are going to compromise by setting Rebecca and I up in our bedrooms with hair dryers and make-up mirrors so that the bathroom will only be used for bathing. We’ll see how long I last before complaining here. Don’t bet on this one folks.

Another sort of con is that there isn’t a ton of natural light. It is on the top floor (oh, that is a big plus as it is quieter, no one is above us and only offices below us so we don’t have to feel bad about Stompin’ Annie running across the hardwood) and has some slanted walls due to the grade of the roof. This cuts into some of the 1600 sq. feet. of space due to low ceilings and also means that the windows are really more like slanted skylights with no view. Views from even the second or third floor can be amazing in this town, as all of the view is looking up to the mountains, and I was hoping for at least a view from one window. Oh well…not a crisis.

But overall I think it will work for the family as well as for any guests that we have. Already Rebecca’s Mom and Katherine are coming to stay over Christmas, as well as our friends Renata and Ryan. Very exciting!

Daycare will start on the 22nd, as mentioned before. (I talk about daycare far too much; poor Annie is going to have crisis when she reads this in a few years. I love you, Annie, more than the air I breath, but I just am not good as a 24/7 caregiver. And frankly, you are dying to get together with other kids, so it is for the best.)

So overall with some luck, some determination and Markus’ patience, we are stating to make a real home here in Innsbruck. How grateful I am.