I know I can’t expect a 25-year-old Oxford-educated woman to be my babysitter forever, but is more than 4 months too much to ask? Apparently so.
I knew that I could never get Baby Y into a state-sponsored day care group - the waiting lists were more than two years long around here. I had already signed up with some private day cares when Baby Y was sporting in utero gills and he is still - at 9 months out of the womb - on waiting lists. (Did I mention that private day care costs more than $1000 per month?) Since I still do not have a full time job, I can’t justify - or afford - a full-time come-and-go nanny. My only affordable option is a “Tagesmutter” - literally, “day mother” - who takes care of 5 or 6 kids in her home, and is heavily subsidized by the state.
And, so, off to the relevant government agency I go.
The childcare agency that I needed had “office hours” between never and never:thirty a few time a week. When I arrived, the very nice lady was quick to tell me that there were only two Tagesmutter within a 5 kilometer radius of my house, and it was too bad that I did not live out in the country where Tagesmutter sprout like wildflowers.
I dutifully wrote down the names of the two women in my loosely-defined neighborhood from a bulletin board. (A real live bulletin board! With pins and colored papers and everything. When was the last time you saw a bulletin board not outside of a third grade classroom?)
I contacted one, but she is on vacation. Of course. And so, onto another waiting list I go.
…. squeeze other people’s babies. I had always heard that the Italians LOVE children, but never having had an available child when I backpacked through in my early twenties, I was not able to experience the love first hand. Let me tell you: It’s true.
We packed everything for the one-hour flight, including the awful Munich weather. (April showers bring ... May and June showers? Something is obviously lost in translation.) So we napped all afternoon, and when it was still thunderstorming into the early evening, we decided to eat dinner at the hotel.
Our spring trip to an all-inclusive hotel in the Canary Islands had full seating for a 6:30 dinner. But real Romans were still napping at that un-multiple-godly hour, and there was only one other couple in the dining room. (Remember when eating that early was: So. Lame.?)
We sideled the stroller up to the table. We ordered our appetizer and glass of wine. All of the waitstaff come by to give Baby Y a little foot tickle and tell us about their kids. Halfway through our stuffed artichoke blossoms, our waiter asks if he could show off Baby Y to the kitchen staff so that we could eat without having to take turns. I’m not sure he waited for us to respond before scooping him away and making the rounds. Baby Y soon became promoted to host assistant and greeted the new diners.
It was like that everywhere. I had to change his diaper in a public bathroom, and the toilette lady grabbed him out of my hands before halfway to the diaper station. I took Baby Y with me into the hotel spa’s changing room to get out of my wet bathing suit, and out of nowhere, four Italian ladies swooped in and took him off of my hands.
That has never happened to me here in Germany, but not for lack of desire. I think plenty of Germans would love to squeeze a pudgy infant leg, but here, like in the U.S., there's a "personal space" demarkation line.
I'm of two minds on the "it takes a village" mentality. On the one hand, Baby Y gets to have his cheeks pinched in multiple languages and I can wriggle out of a wet suit without having to have one hand on a wriggling baby. On the other hand, that same village that is always ready to help with the baby, is also always ready to help with advice about the baby, your hair, your clothes, your job and your business.
Which village is best?
I like to complain.
Not only is the water glass half empty, but I'm not even thirsty. Why are you pushing this water on me? And what, you couldn't pour me some more?
Fortunately, my exile in Germany has given me lots to complain about. Which is good, because I was running out. (You could say my complaint glass was half empty).
My biggest complaint has to be not working. It's not the working that I miss, exactly, but knowing that somebody - who has not seen my naked breasts - wanted me for something. These job rejections are worse than dating - I think we have such a nice time on our interview, but they never call again.
But then I got a call from a headhunter who held out just the dimmest glimmer of a whiff of hope of a potential job in another town.
And, instead of feeling the narrowest sliver of excitement, I thought: "Oh no. How could I start working and leave Baby Y behind all day?" This, from someone who had a nanny come when he was three weeks old and is more than happy to deposit him with any willing grandparent, babysitter, friend or passerby.
I understand that this makes me a crazy person who can never be happy. So, in the spirit of dialing down the crazy, I'm trying to find the positive in my situation, since, in reality, I know it won't be like this forever.
The half-full me says I already have all the things that the half-empty me misses:
1. Work: My job search is stressful, time-consuming and giving me agita - just like real job, so, see, I've been working for 2 years now!
2. Life: I can spend all day with handsome young man who flirts with me and loves being naked.
3. Cooking: Baby Y loves my homemade breastmilk. I also make the best formula cocktail on the west side, and can warm up a mean jar of baby food.
4. Money: Because Herr X travels worldwide, I have jars full of international coins totaling at least enough for a bag of gummi bears and a cola lite.
5. Style: My apple- and spit-up spattered tops are an homage to Kandinsky and should grace the covers of Vogue.
This half-full stuff is tiring work. Now I really am thirsty.
Herr X’s big office party was on a Friday night. None of my usual dresses would do: Breastfeeding has turned my already ample bosom into something appropriate only at Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s house; certainly not suitable for an office party in a city where shades of gray are considered fancy.
Deep in the “fat clothes” section of my closet, I found something that wouldn’t poke someone’s eye out and gave me the semblance of a waist. I was all dressed up and, for a change, had somewhere to go.
That afternoon, Herr X discovered that spouses were actually not invited (in his defense, the invitation did not explicitly include me). He offered to stay home, but he deserves a night out, too. So he brushed off his tuxedo, shined up his shoes, gooped up his hair and off he went.
Call me Cinderella. No ball for me.
It turned out to be several hours of speeches and awards, and I was happy to get the sleep anyway. But it once again spotlighted the great divide between Herr X and me: He gets to go out and talk to people — be it at an office party or just at the office — and I get to stay home and talk to myself. I am pretty boring, and Baby Y rarely has anything interesting to discuss.
And that’s not even really it — I can always join a playgroup, and I see my childfree friends when I want to improve my vocabulary beyond goo-goo and ga-ga. It’s the fact that I don’t have my own office party to go to, my own speeches and awards, my own accomplishments (aside from Diaper Change Velocity or Cry Interpretation and Translation). And that, once again and for evermore, I will always be the one who stays behind with the kid(s) while Herr X goes out into the world.
I can’t go to the ball until I finish my chores, and the to-do list is infinite.
"Natural" Childbirth
5/10/10
Being first-time parents, Herr X and I took a childbirth class a few months prior to Baby Y's arrival. There is one woman here in Munich who has cornered the market on English-speaking classes — let's call her "Betty" — and almost every English-speaking couple I know recommended her.
The class took place over (1) eight hours on (2) a Saturday at (3) the Center for Natural Childbirth. Each of these factors should have been a warning to me.
First of all, in a city where everything is closed on Sunday, spending your entire free weekend day not running errands is a huge sacrifice. And most importantly, the emphasis on the word natural in the venue's name seemed to me to push aside decades of societal advancements, from medicine to autonomy to interior decorating.
Betty is a nice, well-meaning American woman in her late 50s, who has taught these classes for more than 20 years. Betty also breastfed each of her children for two years, and the entire family slept together on several mattresses on the floor of their living room until the kids started school. (Her husband, however, kept his study for a retreat. For some reason Betty did not seem to need a room of her own.)
The class began with simple introductions and general questions about childbirth and child rearing. One couple had a baby in breech position and were scheduled for a C-section. "Some women feel that they will be less of a woman if they do not deliver vaginally," Betty noted, "but don't you worry about that. You should still be able to bond with your child."
What. Is. That. Supposed to mean?
I've never had any positive or negative opinion about C-sections, in that they are a medical procedure, refined since Ceasar's time, to prevent infant or mother death. A woman is a woman regardless of how she delivers a child or even if she has a child, and to imply otherwise is irresponsible. What if some poor woman decides against a C-section, now that the seed of doubt has been planted, for fear that she is not living up to the standards of Perfect Motherhood, and is forced to undergo a painful delivery or worse?
Not helpful, Betty.
Even I, a proponent of knock-me-out-and-wake-me-when-it's-over, started to wonder if I, too, would be "less" of a woman if I needed a C-section or an epidural or anything aside from squatting in a field and ripping the umbilical cord with my teeth while the ladies of the village baked my placenta into a pie.
All childbirth is natural. All women are women. The only seed to be planted is the one in your belly, not in your brain.
The Nanny Breakup
4/14/10
I thought that once I got married, I wouldn’t have to date anymore. Meeting all those new people, hoping they like you, hoping you like them, wondering if they’ll call ... who needs it?
Obviously, I do.
My nanny just broke up with me. Over e-mail. (Better than a Post-it, but annoying nonetheless.)
She normally came Wednesday and Friday afternoons and recently started taking Baby Y to one of the two other families for whom she nannied. I didn’t mind sharing her, and I liked that he got to play with other kids. (And by “play,” I mean sit alongside and drool. Although she said that he liked to flirt with the girl half of a set of boy-girl twins one year older than him. Just like his dad, Baby Y prefers his women a little more mature.)
One Tuesday she sent an e-mail saying she wasn’t coming on Wednesday. On Wednesday she said she was booked for the rest of the month. And that’s the last I heard from her. I didn’t even get the “It’s not you, it’s me” speech. But she did let me keep a book on Baby Sign language, so I guess I got a handsome parting gift.
I know this happens all the time, but I thought we had something special. She always said that Baby Y was the best baby she nannied; even though she normally only works during the day, she offered to come in the evening so Herr X and I could go out; and she didn’t even always charge me the full amount because Baby Y was so easy.
Maybe those other families could give her something I couldn’t. (Like making her iron baby clothes. Iron baby clothes? I don’t even iron my own clothes. Does the baby have a job interview?)
I suppose I could call her and find out where it all went wrong, but, just like when I was dating, I prefer simply to dwell on the past without reaching any sort of conclusion. It doesn’t really solve the problem, but it gives me something to complain about for a while.
I’m back on the market for a new nanny now. I know it’s a little soon, but I think I’m ready. I would prefer if my friends would set me up — I don’t mind a blind date — but I’m not afraid to find a nanny online. There are lots of nannies in the sea. Maybe the next one will be “the one.” A girl can dream, can’t she?
I started taking German lessons as soon as we moved to Munich a year ago. Aside from the general difficulties of learning a new language (the genders! the cases! the umlauts!), I am “handicapped” by the fact that everyone else speaks English. And because their English is always going to be better than my German, the conversation continues in English, and my German remains at the same level as Baby Y’s (and he doesn’t even have an accent).
Most Germans are genuinely happy to practice their English on me, and who am I to take that away from them? I like to think that my inability to speak a foreign language is actually a sign of altruism.
The general ease of communication lulls me into the trap of thinking that I am living in, basically, a taller, blonder, more efficient United States, which leads to typical foreigner mistakes: I bought fabric softener instead of detergent; I constantly over-tip; and when I asked for an easy haircut, I ended up with the “Mom.”
I hadn’t had my hair cut since before Baby Y was born, and the time had come. I explained that I wanted something easy to take care of, something I can wear pulled back, since Baby Y grabs fistfuls whenever we play “truffle pig” (snort, snort) on his belly. I didn’t bring a picture, I didn’t really have a clear idea, and I didn’t remember that the word for “bangs” is “pony,” which is why the stylist couldn’t understand why I wanted to keep my “sound that a gun makes” long.
By the time the scissors met a lock of hair just above my ear, it was too late. There was a round brush involved. There may even have been some feathering. And the layers, oh God, the layers.
I now look like a lesbian dressed as Joan Jett for a Melrose Place Halloween party in 1996.
I’ve had bad haircuts before, but this one is fraught with meaning. Did he think that this is the style I deserve because I am now a mother? Am I not allowed to be attractive since I reproduced? Am I required to wear high-waisted jeans and tennis shoes? Wear my glasses on a chain around my neck? Carry snacks in my purse? (OK, I already do that last one. Herr X gets cranky at the IKEA).
Or maybe I just need to learn to speak German. A mom needs to stand her ground. Especially when someone is playing with scissors.
Early Bird Special
2/26/10
I knew it was going to be a bad idea, but I did it anyway. And I was right. It was a bad idea.
Baby Y and I were invited to a potluck dinner at the home of one of our American friends here in Munich. The entrée would be late since it was coming from across town, as the hosts were vegetarian and no one wanted their version of “chicken.”
Knowing I would need to be fresh — or at least awake — past our usual 8 p.m. wind-down, I started to prepare early that morning. I took a nap. I prepared my required hors d’oeuvres. I picked out a special outfit for Baby Y to show off his shapely, diapered backside and well-formed bottle-fed biceps. By 5 p.m. — when Baby Y is usually ready for a nap — I was ready to rumble.
Seemingly, so was Baby Y.
He had been in a snit all day, snitting over from the night before. Waaah, waaah, waaah, he said, while I diapered him. Waaah, waaah, waaah, he continued, as I wrestled on his onesie. Waaah, waaah, waaah, he argued as I pulled on his tiny jeans and laced his soft sneakers.
In addition to looking exactly like Herr X, Baby Y was now sounding exactly like Herr X when he does not want to go somewhere. Do we have to go to their house tonight? Baby Y/Herr X said. Can’t we just stay in? he continued. I’ve been working all day and I have to get up early tomorrow, he argued.
But a night out is a night out and I was determined, all evidence to the contrary, that we would go and have a good time, late bird or no late bird. After all, at two months, Baby Y was still small and portable, like a festive lamp or a clock radio, and should match any decor. I deluded myself into thinking he would fall asleep — angelically, natch — as soon as we arrived, after giggling greetings and perhaps blowing an adorable spit-bubble on cue.
Waaah, waaah, waaah, he said as we walked in the door. Waaah, waaah, waaah, he continued for two hours while dinner began and I sat, starving, in the spare room.
I wanted to be one of those “cool parents” whose life doesn’t change after a baby. I was going to put him on my pre-baby schedule of morning brunch, followed by an afternoon coffee, topped off with a late dinner, interspersed with adult conversation and paid work.
Not happening.
As the special late bird had shown, it’s still the early bird special for me.
The Sound of One Hand Typing
1/6/10
Oh, hello. I didn't see you there. C'mon in. Let me skooch over here. Darn, I lost the latch. Hold on. OK. Welcome! I hope you don't mind if a baby joins us — he's pretty much attached to me most of the day. I've even learned to do a lot of things one-handed. So the answer to the age-old question is: Yes, if one hand types in the forest, it still makes a blog.
I'm Frau X, an International Mom of Mystery (M.O.M). I had a little boy, Baby Y, in late September, and he's at the age where I'm a little teary that he's already outgrown his newborn clothes, but the middle-of-the-night feedings are fueling my fantasies of the day he goes off to college.
We moved from New York to Munich, Germany, pretty much exactly nine months before he was born — it must have been the fresh alpine air — partly for Herr X's job and partly because Herr X's student visa expired. (You know what they say: Necessity is a mother of a reason to move your American wife abroad).
In New York, we lived the life I always wanted: I was a lawyer wearing very high heels. We lived in Manhattan in the tiniest, most expensive apartment you can imagine. We drank rainbow-colored drinks with funny names: the Muddled Banker, the Tortoise's Hair, Bubbles and Chips. We moved fast, fast, fast, and I imagined my motherhood would be the same: 60-hour work weeks, nannies, takeout, weekend infant enrichment classes with all the other over-achievers.
And now we're in Munich. With a baby. I'm not working as an attorney. I can do cartwheels in our corridor. Between pregnancy and nursing, I haven't had any adult beverages in almost a year. You know the life that I had? Well, this is the opposite. And I didn't just slowly dial it down — I slammed on the brakes and went screeching into it. I still have the bends.
So I'm trying to navigate through all of my new beginnings: new country, new language, new baby, new mother, new life. I'm still a little awkward, but soon I'll be able to do it with one hand.
