The Big Squeeze

Gaia is doing a week's work experience in a midwifery practice and came home today completely traumatised.  The assembly already seated at the lunch table, namely Hedda, Titus and I, was agog.  What could have happened?  I wasn't expecting anything that exciting, as the programme today involved post-natal gymnastics.  It turned out that the midwife - Gaia's mentor - asked all the new mummies to repeat after her: "LIK-LAK-LOK" - sounds innocuous enough, but on LIK they were to squeeze their front bottom muscles together, LAK the back ones, and on LOK the buttocks, as tight as they could.  Poor Gaia, as yet totally unscathed by the explicit terminology and indignity of childbirth.  I rushed to console her but in my eagerness launched into a mini-lecture on the importance of a strong pelvic floor. She left her lunch untouched.

When she had recovered a little, I asked her what she thought of the noble profession.  Apparently the midwife told her that she would do everything she could to put her off the idea, and that midwifery is worse paid than hairdressing.  If we didn't have the baby swimming sessions, we wouldn't even be able to keep our heads above water, she griped.  Let's hope the babies do tomorrow though, as Gaia is on duty and rather concerned about the responsibility of being on hand at the local swimming pool where the latest additions to the local population will be introduced to the delights of floundering around in chlorine with a little water added.  Not to mention a good sprinkling of urine and the odd band-aid.

Hello Sailor

The dreaded Kinderfasching (children's carnival party) is fast approaching.  Some of you may remember my persona from last year, i.e. a female pirate.  If you don't, and even if you do, let me recap: I was dithering - something I do extremely well - for weeks as to what to wear.  At the last minute I snapped up a red and black ensemble complete with eye-patch at my beloved Penny-Markt (I should get commission from that place, although I am still annoyed that they didn't sell spiced biscuit-scented toilet paper last Christmas).  I threw myself into the character heart and soul, having to compensate for the fact that I can't say 'me hearties' and 'pieces of eight' in German by being particularly pirate-like in my behaviour.  Well, within reason, anyway.  I did all the dances and all the moves and encouraged timid children to join in and refereed fights over prizes and stopped people beating each other up when they lost a game.  At home, later, Titus confided to me that 'I think some of the children were scared of you, Mummy'.  Good or bad?  I probably alienated myself from multiple parents within those few short hours.  So this year (having been roped in again when I wasn't looking) I am determined NOT to go as a pirate.  It is easy to find costumes in Germany, but the problem is that many of the women's ones are sexy and short-skirted and I dare say that would not be appropriate for a family function.  Then I could make my own costume, but I have neither the time nor the inclination, so I have just ordered a sailor outfit and am praying it will arrive by Saturday.  Note that I am sticking to the nautical theme.  Quite a few costumes appealed to me, but I feared they might be offensive, e.g. a bavarian maid, or a cow, or a farmer, or a nun.  Disregarding the cow, there are likely to be several real examples of these at the party, and they surely wouldn't appreciate the Brit capering around in a caricature of their valued profession. So a sailor I shall be, and we shall see which children can summon up the courage to go on deck with me and do the hokey-cokey.

What kind of Mr Man are you??

Over the festive period we had more family meals than normal (good for social development, bad for washing up and argument potential).  These days, it is hard to steer Gaia and Hedda away from their current hot topic, geography.  I am all for encouraging my daughters' interest in our planet, but there are only so many times I am happy to list capital cities in Asia or quibble over the GDP of, for example, Lithuania.  All three children love to list the countries to which they have been.  Then rows break out as to whether stopping at a public toilet constitutes actually visiting a country.  I say yes, especially when you have to pay 50 cents per toilet visit to the depressed looking attendant sitting in the corner.  But others beg to differ.

Anyhow, I was looking for a new and exciting subject and chanced upon the Mr Men (who are just emerging here in a new, weirdly translated guise - not sure if they are going to be as popular as they are in the UK).  I am going to assume you know who they are.  Sometime during my adolescence, a 'Little Miss' range was added, presumably with equal opportunities in mind.  I decided it would be fun to consider which one we would all be.  I didn't even have to think about CG.  He would be, indubitably, Mr Doom.  A grey, dome-like body, down-turned mouth and furrowed brow.  The story would entail various parties or festivities being underway when a chill would fall on the room and, without turning round, everyone would sense his presence.  In deep, lugubrious tones he would ask, do I hear laughter in here?  All the kids agreed with me so I must be right.  Even CG looked happy.  For years, my pet name for him has been Voice of Doom.  Despite being the kindest and loveliest man ever, he has the ability to bring you crashing down to earth from whatever cloud of jollity you happen to be floating on.  Don't do that, you'll catch cold.  If you touch that, you'll break it.  Mmm, looks cheap.  Probably won't last long. And the annoying thing?  99% of the time, he is RIGHT!

Moving on, we decided on Little Miss Squirrel for Gaia, as she is always squirrelling things away in her Bermuda Triangle of a bedroom.  Things go in there and never come out, or if they do, they look as if they've been tossed and turned in a tempestuous sea.  Hedda is Little Miss Irrelevant.  Titus, Mr Tantrum.  Nobody could decide whether I should be Little Miss Busy, Internet or Sporty.  I like Multi-Task.  I would have ten arms and in each hand would be a different object.  Neon trainers would be on my feet, and a stick of celery hanging out of my mouth to compensate for the cigarette I would like to smoke, were I less health-conscious.  I would have a perpetually confused expression on my face.  Why am I saying would?

This conversation made a deep impression on me (obviously, or I wouldn't have remembered it).  Since then though, we've been back onto lakes, mountains, flags and capital cities.  And school and work have also intervened, so family lunches are fewer and further between and the house is, I have to admit, much more peaceful.

Dead Trousers

As a bilingual family (which sounds like something special but is actually the result of mere coincidence and a couple of Cupid's arrows) we are often asked how we communicate with each other, to which I reply with neanderthal grunts and moans and the odd bit of thrown pottery.  Ha ha, they say, we mean which language do you speak?  What is your system?  System?  While it is true that we do have a rough framework, the fact of the matter is that when both parents speak both languages, in our case German and English, it is extremely difficult to stick to 'your' language when speaking to the offspring, particularly when all of you are sitting at the dinner table, for instance.  Not only in fun do we end up mix and matching, chucking German words into English sentences and vice versa, or using direct (and wrong) translations - one of my favourites is the German expression 'tote Hose', literally 'dead trousers', meaning there was nothing going on.  And it is nice to liven up the domestic humdrum by coming home from somewhere - let's say one of our fabulous local supermarkets - and reporting that it was dead trousers.  Random visitors will prick up their ears and momentarily wonder at our curious lexical choices, then go back to their guidebook, vowing never to move to the country, if that's what it does to you.

Jesting aside, I am truly a champion of my language, and desire that my children speak it as well as I can, or at least could, before I started getting stuck in the ex-pat quagmire, otherwise entitled forgetting how to talk English proper.  The longer we all live together - and hopefully this happy coexistence will continue for some time to come - the harder it gets to keep us all on the straight and narrow.  Getting impatient with the necessity in English to refer to upper and lower layers specifically - i.e. up there, down there, upstairs, downstairs, on the top, on the bottom etc etc, it is tempting to just use the German oben and unten.  So practical!  But then I find myself asking my kids whether they have brushed their teeth upstairs and downstairs, and they stare back quizzically, as their bathroom is upstairs, as in on the first floor.  And it's not just me.  I distinctly heard CG the other day referring to trousers (uncountable noun in English, singular) as plural in German. (Are you still with me? I'm nearly done.)

Take the German verb 'sagen' - to say.  Once again, practicality prevails.  Sag es mir, they say.  Say it me.  (Purists will argue that 'mir' means 'to me' - let them).  But in English you have to say it to me.  Or, confusingly, you can tell me.  Not tell it me.  Is it any wonder our children are durcheinander?*

Oh, I could go on forever, but luckily for you, I won't, as Eastenders is on in twenty minutes.  In case you are thinking I am unusually verbose this evening, you'd be right.  I am working every spare minute to finish an assignment for my MA, and the forty-year-old brain is getting a horrible shock, actually having to think harder than what kind of washing powder to buy or how far to run.   Goodness me.  But I was so humbled by my first assignment grade (if you really want to know it, contact me privately) that I am spurred on to show that I've got what it takes, even if I do need 10 days to complete a 1000 word essay.  I've really enjoyed writing this post, by the way.  Simply being allowed to put thoughts to screen and not have to back them up with academic references is heaven.


*Confused, or alternatively, 'through one another' - an interesting thought.

Better out than in

As CG has just remarked to me that I have yet to blog this year, I am putting fingers to keyboard immediately.  In my defence, I told him that blogging, or being in the state to do so, is in some way comparable with constipation.  You need time and peace to reflect, and then it will all come out.

I do not suffer from the above affliction, I am pleased to say.  I think very few vegetable fantatics do, but I won't expand on that topic further.  I thought about posting a little happy new 2012 message yesterday but everyone was doing that.  And of course, in Bovinia, the world is ticking by slowly at its normal, cow-meandering-down-the-street tempo.  Nothing has changed.  Only spectacular (and quite dangerous) fireworks marked the end of 2011.  It is one of the contradictions about Germany: such a tidy, ordered country, yet for a couple of days a year, you are allowed to purchase vast amounts of explosive devices, detonate them wherever you like, and leave the street littered with wet pyrotechnical paraphernalia for some poor council worker to come and sweep up the next day.

In our little bilingual, non-Bavarian ghetto, we are girding our loins for the year ahead.  We have reassured our children that the world will not come to an end, contrary to certain forecasts. We have made promises to ourselves and each other, mostly regarding bad moods and temper tantrums, that we may or may not keep.  We are spring-cleaning although winter has only just got going, but only because we forgot to last year.  The Christmas tree is still presiding over the living room but you can see its spirits are lagging.  Had we mistletoe, the berries would be mouldy by now, which is exactly why we don't.  We are about to take our considerable bottle collection to the glass recycling place.  Just waiting for the neighbours to be looking the other way, so it may take a while.

I wish you all a wonderful year. x