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Whew!

It started when Annie and best friend Chloe couldn’t get into the same swim class in May. The only June class that worked was an intensive, three-times-per-week course.

At the same time, Annie’s dance class was putting on their year-end performance. Two very long dress rehearsals and then four evening performances over a couple of weekends were scheduled.

Added to that I realized that there was only 4 weeks left until we departed for the whole summer to Canada. Annie is a very late bloomer in the night-time no-diaper department, as she is a deep, deep sleeper. But I just dreaded the thought of hauling diapers for our insanely scheduled trip — 2 days in Vancouver, 4 in Victoria, one full day travelling to Savary Island, two days on Savary, one full day travelling to Vancouver, one night in Vancouver and then off to Manitoba for a month — so I threw weaning off diapers into the mix.

And of course there was the regular round of Kindergarten, hikes and outings, play dates, etc., plus my work. It was a crazy, crazy June. Annie pulled through it all with only a few over-the-top tired and cranky days, which were solved by some marathon afternoon naps. She even slept in until 7:30 one morning!

In the end, Annie is swimming fairly well now…up to a few minutes without water wings and swimming several seconds under the water. She enjoyed performing, although I have to say, Markus and I weren’t overly impressed with the show. Since I put my mom through 13 years of dancing, I’m not sure whether to thank her for putting up with the crappy shows, or thank my dance teachers for doing a better job. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. And Annie is making it most nights without a diaper, although she isn’t allowed to drink anything after 5:00 p.m., which is difficult for my thirsty girl.

So we are beat in this little house. I’m really hoping that once I hit Manitoba there will be some recovery time. Finger’s crossed!

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On an unrelated, untimely note…at the beginning of the month I gave Annie a card blank, 3 letters and a big box of supplies, and suggested she make a Father’s Day card. I came back a little while later and saw the result:

I’m so impressed! Sweet arrangement of the butterflies, good balance of sticker placement, and using the reverse of the punched paper is an advanced crafting technique, for sure. What I was most astonished by was the restraint. I’d put out a dozen punches, glitter glue, sparkly gel pens, a big stack of coloured paper and a bowl full of stickers among other things. Let me tell you, a year ago there wouldn’t have been any white-space left on the card. (O.K., so we need to work a wee bit on which way is up with the letter “D”, but minor point.) I foresee some awesome crafting together for years to come.

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Finally Five

Dear Annie,

Yesterday you asked how old you would be in three weeks. Five, I said. Awwwwww, you moaned, deeply disappointed. You just turned five! Where’s the rush??

You were very, very excited about the party, of course, asking for weeks how many sleeps until you are five. You wanted a costume party, which was fine with me…as long as we just invited girls. (Costumes mean indoors, boys mean outdoors.) The day before we finished the unicorn cupcakes, (cupcakes with ice-cream cones covered in melted white chocolate and sprinkles, filled with gummy bears over a cupcake–everything coloured a very healthy pink, of course) blew up balloons, and created the photo corner.

The next morning started with a surprise…a new costume and fairy wings from the Vancouver Samsons left at the foot of your bed to wake up to. I heard your squeals of delight and then you came down the stairs, hair a mess, dresses up like Lillifee.

We opened presents from the family on the bed. So many great gifts and beautiful cards.

After breakfast we finished getting ready for the party. I managed to get your hair brushed, but no luck on the tights or shoes.

The party went quite well, despite the unfortunate weather. The guest started arriving right on time, decked out in lots of pink and glitter and fairy wings.

The party got off to a good start with crafting. Some children started by making beaded bracelets, while other decorated their butterflies. (I had bought cardboard butterflies instead of goodie bags, and painted them all white–2 coats!) With oodles of stickers, gel markers and glitter glue, the guests had fun decorating them.

Since it rained the whole time, sadly, we set up an indoor picnic to have lunch and the cupcakes.

Games were next. I had really planned on at least an hour outside on the trampoline (all the girls brought other clothes), so I kind of ran out of indoor games. Luckily one of the mom’s helped me out with suggestions and we made it through the three hours.

The last 15 minutes I just put on some music for dancing. Always a good standby with this group.

Annie 5th Birthday Party from Hillary Samson on Vimeo.

As the guests were leaving the sun finally came out, so parents stood around chatting as their girls bounced a few times on the trampoline. You had a great time and there were almost no tears, so I’m calling it a success!

Last year I really struggled to think of you as four, but this year five seems about right. You have made such a huge leap in your independence, skills, and confidence the last few months, it seemed so strange to say that you were only 4 years old when people asked.

Five is already starting out with lots of adventures. We went for four days to a family hotel (blog post to come), you are starting to really enjoy your new roller blades, and your class sang a song about Goldilocks and the Three Bears for the year-end performance…and you were Goldilocks! So confident walking across the stage, being just where you were suppose to be the whole time. Amazing, my love.

This next year, like every year of your life so far, is sure to be full of lots of adventures and lots of changes. I look forward to every minute of it.

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Will You Be My Friend?

She comes home from playgrounds, the swimming pool, face bright and excited. “I made three friends today.” It is her measure of a successful day.

We are at one of the adventure pools, about 45 minutes outside of town. It is late, after work, over the dinner hour, and there aren’t many children around. I am sitting in a lounge chair, watching her climb up, up, up the spiral staircase to the big loopy slide. I watch her shadow through the blue plastic until she swoops out into the shallow water at the end. She loves it.

I need a friend, she says to me. We walk to the baby pool full of tots, mostly younger than her. She walks up to a couple of girls, “Are you my friend” she says, although I know this more from experience than hearing, as I hang back to let her make her own way. She comes back into the main pool area. “No one is my friend.” Oh well, I say. Let’s go back to the slide.

She waits at the end until a couple of older children tumble out the mouth of the slide. She has to tilt her head way, way, up to look at them. “Do you want to be my friend?” The oldest one, maybe 14, gives me a confused look out of the corner of her eye and then waves her hand as she good-naturedly says the German equivalent of “come on.” The teenager looks pleased, the way an older cousin feels generous to include a little one in her play. I give them a smile and then pretend to read my book. The big ones leave after only a few minutes.

She stands by my lounger as a mom and two girls walk towards some near-by chairs. I tell her to wait just a minute, let them get settled. But they pack up their things up and walk towards the showers.

Now she has found someone more her age, maybe a year or two older. They jump into the big pool and I hurry to bring her a noodle, as we are letting her go without water wings. The two play for a while, but then her new friend moves over to other older girls, kids obviously known. She tags along, trying to show off her skills in riding the noodle, laughs too loud, saying look at me. I offer to swim with her, but she says no, wants to only play with the children. I see her follow the group over to the the indoor/outdoor pool, and my throat starts to tighten, tears come to my eyes. This girl is going to get her heart broken a thousand times, a thousand ways. I dread it but know it can’t be avoided.

The older girls swim under the plastic curtain to play in the outdoor pool with a ball, but it is cold out today, the water not heated enough because of the warm weather the day before. She hangs back, staying indoors.

I walk over, seeing her floating in the water, staring after the other girls. By the time I start to walk down the steps into the pool she turns around and comes to me, devastated. Her tears overflow and her face crumples. “No one wants to be my friend” she sobs. I know love. It’s just that they are older. It happens. I go to get Dad and they play together for a while. They walk back towards me and she still has red eyes, is sucking on a finger. And my girl who always looks so grown up to me these days seems tiny, fragile, hardly more than a toddler.

We go to the pool-side restaurant and let her order ice cream and french fries. I don’t know what to say or what the lesson is here. I was never like this, this fearless child whose adventures aren’t complete unless they are spent laughing with friends. I say, “some days you will meet lots of friends, some days none. That is just the way it is. Next time maybe we can bring a friend.” She nods, already feeling better from the treats.

We go back to the big slide. She pushes off first and then I follow her, chasing her and trying to catch up. We are laughing, our voices echoing in the covered tube. She waits for me at the bottom and we both have trouble catching our breath. One more time, I say, but that turns into three more trips until we are both shivering.

We shower and dry hair and head out to the car. She is awake most of the trip home, staring out the window as we wind through the mountains, falling asleep just at the end. Dad carries her in, tucks her into our bed, brings her water. Not much later I too am tired and lie down beside her. I stroke her hair, listen to her steady deep-sleep breathing, whisper in her ear how much I love her.

I never knew that being a parent meant going through the pain and heartache of childhood all over again. I thought I would be more of an observer, more of a shoulder to lean on, someone stronger who would always be there with words of wisdom. I was wrong.

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…and a crappy day

Glad I did the post yesterday, as I sure wouldn’t have felt like it after this day. Grrrr. The stars and moons were just not aligned in my favour.

Annie has been in a bratty “no” stage the last few weeks. Nothing serious, but every time I try to brush hair or teeth or try to get her dressed she says no or runs away. It doesn’t last long…about as long as it takes me to threaten a consequence…but the daily irritation of it sometimes wears at me. Like this morning. I threw the hairbrush on the ground and told her she was not being helpful, which of course made her cry. We got through it and then she was back to her cheery self in a few minutes. I then looked at the clock and saw this ordeal had made us almost late, (Annie’s Kindergarten goes to gymnastics on Monday morning and they leave for the bus punctually) which made me yell at her again, as there isn’t much in this world that makes me more crazy than being late. Now Annie was really upset, as she was not misbehaving at that moment and she has a highly developed sense of injustice. I stormed out of the house not even asking Markus if he wanted a ride to work.

By the time I buckled Annie into the car I was feeling mighty guilty and apologized. Though her sobs she said, “You don’t have to yell. It hurts my ears. You only have to say ‘I’m getting sick of this’ in a normal voice.” Oh boy did I feel like Mother of the year.

Mondays are supposed to be a bigger work day for me, but I was less than productive. (Luckily I can make up the hours later in the week, but life is just better if I have a good chunk done Monday and Tuesday.) I then had to drop something off downtown and so paid for parking. I thought I might as well use the time on the meter to go to the post office, even though it wasn’t that close. Half way there I realized my new shoes were maybe not quite as comfortable as I thought they were in the store. As I winced my way into the post office door, I looked in my purse and realized I’d left the letter in the car. (And it was a hand-made card, which you would think would buy me a bit of good karma.)

Hobbled back to the car to pick up Annie and took her to the first class of her swim lesson, only to discover the company offering them had made a mistake and registered me without my friend Margriet’s child, Chloe. This is a problem as the class is twice a week and I had planned on Margriet and I trading off taking the girls so we could both get our work done. Tomorrow we have to go to the office and try to figure it out, taking more time out of my work week.

As I say, grrrrrrr. Of course, I know these are all minor irritants. As Annie often reminds me, “It’s not the end of the world.” But I can sure manage to whip myself into a right frenzy at times.

Happily by the afternoon Annie had forgiven me, we played some games, and then had a nice book read and snuggle. Hopefully writing this post will clear some of my bad juju and I can move on tomorrow. I’ll let you know.

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A Lovely Week

The last week and a bit has been really, well, nice. Not thrilling or exciting or eventful. (Actually, I’m kind of done with eventful for a while), but just lovely.

My birthday on the 20th was so sweet. Annie and Markus brought me coffee and presents in bed, singing me a rousing chorus of the Happy Birthday. I had a relaxing day at home, mostly crafting birthday and Mother’s Day cards. After Kindergarten I brought home a friend for Annie to play with. I actually made the play date last week, totally forgetting it was my birthday…clearly this is not a big event in my life anymore. But these days it is usually easier with 2 than 1, so it all worked out.

We then dropped Annie off for an overnight with Chloe (Margriet’s present to me) and Markus and I went out for one of the best dinner’s I’ve had in Innsbruck.

Heading out for a birthday dinner.
Markus was taking pictures of me so Annie, of course, had to do some posing on her own.

The restaurant is called Chez Nico, and the owner is a French chef living in Innsbruck with his Austrian wife. There are only 12 seats in the whole restaurant. About a year ago he changed his menu to be vegetarian. I’m usually up for a good vegetarian meal anyway, but this was seriously fantastic. I even got a bit drunk on the wine course pairings, which doesn’t happen often these days. A great meal, time with Markus and Annie, and many phone calls, cards, emails and Facebook posts from friends and family made it a special day.

On Saturday I took Annie up to a family meet-up with the Innsbruck expat group. I’m starting to really enjoy their company. Such interesting stories about how people ended up here! The Easter bunny showed up and there was a big egg hunt. They actually hide colored boiled eggs here, but Annie just finds them and then passes them along to someone else; she sticks to the chocolate and gummy bears as keepers. It was beautiful weather and a great way to start the Easter weekend.

Sunday was our Easter egg hunt, of course.

After the chocolate-eating fest we went for a long bike ride. Markus kept me to flat ground, which my knees and lungs appreciated. We sat on a restaurant patio and had a light lunch while Annie played in the playground.

Markus had to pop into the cafe on Monday for something, so brought home the chocolate egg a friend brought from Italy. Apparently, so Markus claims, this is standard fare for Italian kids.

Ridiculous! Thank goodness it wasn’t filled with anything. At least the chocolate is decent so we are all pitching in to finish it off before…I don’t know…next Easter?

Besides that we have been enjoying our yard and the sunny warm weather this last week.

Markus is crazy busy in May with a bunch of catering (thank goodness) and hopefully a hopping cafe (at least on sunny days), so this was very nice that we got to spend some longer periods of time together…eating lots and lots of chocolate.

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Zugspitze

Annie and Markus went for what I’m pretty sure is the last ski of the season on Sunday. (With our string of 20+ degree days, I’m done with skiing so enjoyed a blissful day at home alone.) This prompted me to record one of our interesting adventures this winter, which got lost in the dearth of posts the last few months. (Can something get lost in a dearth?) Anyhoo…

One Sunday we drove out to Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany. (Not, Markus was quick to point out, even close to the highest point in Austria.) Our season ski passes let us go on the cable car for free, but we had to pay for skiing. I chose to sit it out and spend a few hours enjoying the view.

It really is a long way up.

We started here.

And then went up…

…and up…

…and up…

…and up…

…and up.

At the top are several restaurants, shops, a small museum focused on the history of mountain climbing and lots and lots of massive picture windows and viewing platforms.

Annie and Markus bought their ski passes and went on there way.

Zugspitze: highest mountain and highest ski region in Germany.

The reason that our ski passes didn’t work is that the cable car is in Austria but the ski region is in Germany; the boarder runs right through the mountain peak. So if you go out one of the doors you leave Austria…

…and enter Germany.

Even after almost three years here I still think the proximity of all these countries to each other is so cool.

Just into Germany there is an old restaurant (closed when we were there.) Here is the door:

Wait a minute; what does that sign say?


That’s right. Built in 1897. 3000 meters up a mountain. Maybe it doesn’t compare to the pyramids, but I’m still mighty impressed.

This 14 foot high, gilded iron cross was erected on the mountain’s summit in 1851, hauled up there on foot as the first cable car wasn’t built until 1926.

I’m not sure what drives people to explore, discover and build in the most unlikely of places. But I’m glad they do, as I had an awesome day.

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Update

The thing about taking an extended blogging vacation (no, not vacation…stress/laziness-related work stoppage?) is that when you start again you feel the need to fill the masses of readers (all 6 of you) in on what has been going on. So not to balk at convention, here we go.

A few months ago I started to really feel like I wanted to work more. One of those deep down feelings. Why I didn’t also realize what was coming is poor foresight, since after 40 years the one thing I know about myself for sure is that I am an amazing manifestor of work. Although this is in no way related to being able to manifest money (odd that), as soon as I think “more work”, “new job” or “I’m bored” something comes along. The last 2 years, despite verbally bemoaning my unemployed/work eligibility status, I didn’t have to dig very deep to realize that I actually wasn’t interested or ready to work due to a large and exhausting list of reasons.

So.

This time, when that thought passed my consciousness, I knew it was the real deal. Fast forward a few weeks. Friend Lesli offers me a retainer for 20 hours a month to be her business manager. Pug Pharm gets a few hundred thou in funding so I sign-up with them 60 hours a month to start. Another former boss and friend starts a business and needs her website written. Despite two previous rejections, a friend at Swarovski prompts me to send in my resume to the Director responsible for online communications, and I have an interview for an (on paper) well-matched position (more on that in a sec), plus two positions for English-speaking jobs at a local non-profit (SOS Kinderdorf) get sent to me. Whew! (Reminds me of a story I once read about a rainmaker who did his thing after several months of drought and down came a massive flood of water. He commented he could make it rain, but had no control over the volume.)

And I’m still doing some shopping, laundry and the occasional lunch shift at the cafe.  All with Annie in Kindergarten 20 hours per week.

So what is the fall-out of all this? Firstly, I’m totally loving my contract work. Being involved with a new venture when it isn’t primarily your money at risk is fun. (Being involved in a new venture when your own money is at risk is stressful.)

I’ve also been thinking a lot about what it would look like if I worked full-time right now. In summary, it wouldn’t be pretty. Families with children here don’t have 2 full-time working parents (or one full-time working single parent) unless there is another family member to step in. (It is the 1950’s here in Austria, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before.) So Annie would pretty much be the only child at Kindervilla (of about 100 children) to be there full-time. And believe me, she would notice. (The word “unfair” gets a lot of play these days.)

Plus the cafe is picking up again (a very good thing!), which means Markus is working a zillion hours a week. (A 12-hour day is a shortish day, with at least 2 or 3 long days of 17+ hours.) So Annie literally would have no parent around most of the week. The fact that my (overly judgmental) response to my friend telling me daycare in San Francisco was 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (to 10:00 p.m. and on Saturdays if pre-arranged) was “why bother having kids then?” does indicate that this doesn’t jive with my parenting belief system.

And don’t get me started on what happens once she goes to the first grade. School is over here for the day at 11:45. 11:45!!!!

Not to mention a full-time job would mean giving up my contracts, which as I mentioned, I’m loving.

So it was with this ambiguity that I got gussied up and went to the interview for Manager of Online Communications at the headquarters of the multi-national, multi-billion dollar, family-owned Swarovski empire. The job description was for a manager responsible for a team of four to work on the strategy and implementation for all online, mobile, and social networking communications. Very similar to my last job at AbeBooks plus some things I’m doing at Pug Pharm.

Ah assumptions. You would think in my middle-ageness I would have learned better. I sent my resume in English, the director answered me with an email in English, the admin assistant booked the meeting with me in English, the job posting (which was in German) stated that perfect written and spoken English was required…you don’t need to be a genius to see where this is going.

The incredibly hip, pleasant and obviously smart director gave long explanations of the position in his (thank goodness High) German, to which I had to concentrate so hard to follow that when he was done my brain was ready to explode so that I would give  insightful and relevant comments like “interesting!” or “good idea!”. Blink, blink, stare, stare. I don’t know whether I’m more embarrassed for myself or my poor friend who actually recommended me.

That was just a few days ago, so I’m going to let that sit for a while before doing anything else on the work front. In the meantime, I sent out my first set of invoices for the contract work, which felt pretty good after two years of not financially contributing to the family.

In other news…as mentioned, the cafe is picking up. Yeah! The franchise owner helped Markus out with a spring patio-opening celebration where they handed out 5,000 tulips to near-by office workers and people on the street. See photos here. And since the weather has been lovely the last 10 days, people have been making good use of the outdoor seating. That plus a good run of catering events means sales in March are double what they were in January.

And Annie is, well, Annie…..

That’s a wrap for this update. Here’s hoping this is the restart to something more regular.

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Light at the End of the Tunnel?

I’ve been a bit wary to post this update…I still retain a bit of that childhood fear of jinxing things.

I’ve been feeling more positive about our financial future the last few weeks, contrary to any actual evidence. It just felt like better things to come were in the air. But then last Friday did seem like a concrete turn around, as we had a great day at the cafe and then officially secured the catering contract for the Provincial government. This was the first of two things that have to happen for us to make this new business work; the second is a strong summer season….so only time will tell on that one.

I also have a three-month retainer from Lesli for her business management. It is only 5 hours a week, but it is steady work and I enjoy it greatly and maybe can build from there.

Keep your fingers crossed and thumbs pressed (die Daumen drücken) that these are positive signs of things to come!

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It Had to Happen Sometime

I’ve been so over growing Annie’s hair for a while now, but just hadn’t made the time to get it cut. And speaking of time…was it ever!

Friday was the day. I gave a nod to my alternative (flaky?) side and had it cut when the moon was waxing, and to my practical side by heading to the mall where cut, blow-dry and the cutest round-the-nape-of-the-neck braid was only €13.

Annie sat quietly smiling through the whole thing (because she isn’t, you know, two) and of course loved the results.

Before the event

Scraggly
Hair up....
...and cut!
Muuuuuuuch better

Likin' it
Yeah, I'm never going to be able to do that.
Oooooo

And dance!
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Sleep schedules…not just for babies?

Our downstairs neighbour must think he is living in a house with vampires. Not the sleep-in-coffins kind, but the don’t-ever-sleep kind.

There are very few hours of the day when someone isn’t awake in this house. Annie, of course, covers the morning shift nicely. She is supposed to stay in her room until 6:00 a.m., even if she is awake. Although she is getting better at doing this, let’s just say that doesn’t always happen.

Markus has recently had two employees quit on him with no notice, and so the last few months has had many days in the cafe with long hours (like 14 to 16 hours in a day). When he does shut down early he often crashes asleep as soon as he gets home (7 or 8 in the evening), and then of course is up in the middle of the night for a few hours.

Last week I was insanely tired (found out I was battling an infection, again) and had a string of nights where I read Annie her books but then fell asleep myself while snuggling with her. So, being an adult and not actually needing 12 hours of sleep, by 3 a.m. or so I was awake for the day.

I was hoping that this week would be better. Maruks actually had two days off and we had a big, fantastic ski day on Saturday. I went for a walk on Sunday while Markus and Annie hit the adventure pool for several hours, so the exercise thing was covered. And I found a movie in English on t.v. last night so went to bed at an adult-approved hour. Yet here it is , 5 a.m., and I’m sipping my Gano and writing in my blog. I hear Annie in her room crashing about, obviously awake too. Markus will be up any minute as he, understandably, didn’t feel like doing his bookkeeping on a Sunday night and needs to finish it before going to the cafe.

I wonder if Dr. Ferber has any advice for 41-year olds.