The kids over here

 
We had the little man's 4 year checkup today, our first official checkup in Germany. Nils did great - hopped on one foot like a champ, properly identified all the pictures on the vision chart, weighed in at 17 kilos. He named all the colors they asked him to, identified and properly enunciated a slew of pictures, and drew a person.

Actually, there was a problem with the person.

"Draw a person," said the friendly physician's assistant shortly after we got settled in the exam room. Nils pulled a face and poured himself into my lap.

"I don't want to."

He's not a "drawing people" kind of kid. His art, when it is not heavily focused on cutting up paper into tiny pieces and glueing strange things together, is mainly trains, tracks, vehicles, letters, and the occasional ghost. So here we are at the doctor; am I supposed to force him to draw a person?

"Sweetie, just draw a person. Can you draw the head?" I asked, hoping I could help him break down the task into manageable pieces. I got a sad-but-determined shake of the head in response. 

He ended up, after much cajoling and a couple pictures of other things, drawing a blobbish, abstract person. Cool.

Only at the end of the appointment, after the walking on tiptoe and the hearing test, the doctor gave me a stern look. "He needs to draw a person. He did not draw the person properly. Please bring a drawing of a person with you the next time you come to the office."

Really? Really? 

I come across a lot of things like this. You know, a different culture looking at children in a slightly different way.

* I see it when Liv and I go to open gym at our version of the YMCA, and she is the only toddler not running around in a pair of tights. German children must wear tights in the winter. Tights, and apparently only tights. Come on inside! Take off your son's pants! It's tights time! Wait... I'm so confused.

*I see it at Nils's kindergarten (kindergarten being the place you send 3 to 6 year olds) when one little boy falls off a window ledge and spends two days in the hospital. When his parents ask the teachers to create a barrier of some sort, the reply is "the children must learn this on their own. If we put up a barrier, we are keeping them from teaching themselves this lesson." Okay, I actually think that's kind of cool. I also know that German hospitals are really into keeping patients for longer than necessary, so there is more to this story than you might think.

* Again at Nils's kindergarten, there are two beverage options: sparkling water and herbal tea. Nils, back in September when he started, did not drink either of these beverages. Does any three year old drink sparkling water and tea? A teacher approached me a few days after his arrival and asked what we drink at home. "Still water and milk, " I replied, glad that we had solved this mystery together and that my sweet, dehydrated child would now have access to tap water. "Ah," she said with a smile. "He will learn."

(A sidenote here. In October Nils had a small procedure done. No big deal, but he was put out all the same. When the anesthesia wore off and he woke up, we poured him a cup of water from the jug a nurse had placed at his bedside. It was sparkling. Of course.)

*A friend of mine was reading to her daughter in public once, and an older woman approached her. "Don't teach her to read too quickly! It's not good for her." Needless to say, there is no "read aloud to your child 20 minutes a day" campaign here.

All in good fun. I love a lot of things about raising children here. Germans want their children to be independent and autonomous as soon as possible, and I like that. Their kindergartens are also much more low-key than the American counterparts I have seen.

German kids don’t learn to read until they are 7. 7! I read Little House in the Big Woods when I was 6! Nils’s kindergarten has no alphabet on the wall, no “counting to 10” poster posted somewhere prominent.  There is 1 story per day, and oneish art project per week. There aren’t too many toys, either. I looked carefully – there is one doll.  There are no field trips.

The kids are there to socialize. They are there to learn how to function in a group, and how to find their place in it. Teachers are keeping an eye on things, but kids are in charge of sorting out their conflicts more or less alone. There are puzzles and games and toys and such, but they are… props?

Oh good lord, doesn’t that all sound so deliciously German? One doll, a directive to find one’s place in a group, an insistence that a 3 year old solve his own conflict with a 6 year old. (Ve vill not help you!) No, really. Trust me. We love his kindergarten.

What I like the most, I think, is that parents are expected to handle a good deal of the education. You want your kid to take field trips? Take them yourself. The school day ends at 2:30. Want to read more stories? Great. Go get some books. The American / Brooklyn style of schooling would have been great too, but something about this bigger-picture-let's-not-worry-about-the-details German style suits me.  **The alphabet: details!**  It also helps, of course, that I am home right now and can do all those field trips and stories.

Good stuff, I tell you. Good stuff.

Good ones

    
We've been here for seven months, and we still talk about New York. I figured NYC would be a distant memory by now, but Olli and I regularly say things like "Aw, I miss ________" or "do you remember when we ___________? Man, that was great." We make a lot of comparisons, sometimes to the detriment of Frankfurt - say, when I want to run a couple errands on a Sunday and TOO BAD, because nothing is open on Sunday... nothing. Or when I have no energy to make dinner but soldier on, bitterly, because I no longer have 100 delivery options at my fingertips.

Some things catch us off guard though, and give us moments of "you mean life can be like this?" There was a weekend back in late summer, for example. On Saturday we decided to bike to the waaay other end of the metro area, to the Altstadt of Hoechst. Within 15 minutes we were out in the countryside, and after about 30 we came to a perfect spot in the Nidda River to go for a splash. 

Wet clothes and undies flapping in the breeze, nearly naked children safely seated in the bike trailer, we pressed on. We arrived in Hoechst just hungry enough to head straight for the food. You see those tables up ahead? That was the main platz, and we grabbed a spot for Flammkuchen and apple wine. Easy breezy.

The next day, Sunday, we met up with friends in the afternoon to check out this little patch of countryside about 15 to 20 minutes from home. The blackberries were ripe! Someone had seen bushes out there! Bring your tupperware...

The bushes were full and the place was empty. Not another soul to be seen under the quickly darkening sky. We picked and picked, amazed that these bushes were just here, and that we could just sidle up and take what we wanted. Where were the crowds? Where was the struggle? Were we really this close to all this beautiful, open space?

I am not bubbling over with love for Frankfurt every day. We are not steeped in magic here. Some days though, some days are full of simple things that leave us a bit stunned. Can we really live in a city and still do these things? 

These are the good years, aren't they. 

Building

Nils has loved trains for about two and a half years now. Two and a half years! He cannot remember a time he didn't love them.

He loves building things, too. He's been a little builder for a long time now, and he will often slip away to his bedroom, close the door, and build cities and railroads on his rug. (Woe to us all the day Liv learns to open a door.)

Art is a much more recent development here, but he has been "all in" from the day he decided to give the crayons a try. He sits for long periods of time in deep concentration, and I have loved watching his creations go from scribbles to abstract designs to actual things. He drew his first train this weekend. Wheels, cars, smoke, windows... very cool.

Trains, building, drawing; these things often go together. He sweet talked me into giving him a big sheet of wrapping paper today, and when I checked in on him, he had done this:

 Can you see all the tracks colored on the sheet? There's a big, circular train track spinner thing up near the fox, and it leads to the extra tracks he drew and cut out of little pieces of paper. Nothing dramatic, but all by himself! Straight from his imagination!

Gol, I just love this sort of thing. I love, love, LOVE the fact that he goes off by himself and can't stop himself from creating something, that he saw wrapping paper and thought "I can make something awesome out of this!" Aren't three year olds the coolest? I sat next to him this evening, watched him draw more tracks and build more walls along the outer perimeter, and I started thinking about his future. What are the odds that he will stay this way? Will he keep "building", testing, doing, and thinking, or will he lose the spark and stop?

I have some say in this I guess, but I don't think it's a very big one. Encouragement? Example? Limits? A bit of tough love on occasion? Will I be able to figure out the best way to reach him? What other complicated things - things I cannot even imagine right now - will get in the way? 

I sat there next to him tonight, saw how his little footie fire truck pajamas were already getting too small for him, and thought "Sh**********t. This is why they say parenting is so hard, isn't it.

Flowers?

   
I noticed something last week. I was at a funeral, and it was a big-moment-in-your life funeral. It was much more Oliver's big moment in life than mine, but still. Still a big deal. German funerals have a  slightly different protocol than American ones, and I got the rundown just before the service. Approach. Men drop down a handful of dirt, women toss in a handful of flowers. When it was our turn to go up, I approached, flowers in hand, and didn't see any flowers in the burial pit. Okay, I was only the second woman to go forward... had I misunderstood? Had the previous woman misunderstood? Was I supposed to drop these flowers or not?

"Oliver," I whispered. "What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to hold on to these flowers?" His mind on other things, Oliver didn't answer right away.

"Flowers?" I asked in a whisper, feeling strangely frantic. How long could I stand here before people started to get annoyed? Was I doing this wrong? Was I taking away from someone else's moment of reflection?

"Do I drop them in?"

*     *     *

Something similar happened at our wedding. When it came time to do the rings on fingers bit, Oliver put on my ring upside down. There, in another one of those big moments in your life, I was totally distracted. "Wait, it's upside down... no no, never mind. We can just leave it like this."

Do we all do this? Were these two moments in my life just a coincidence? Was I glad, both times, to pull away from the enormity of the moment and focus on something different?

Bike people

    

When we lived in Beijing, Oliver and I bought bicycles. They were dirt cheap and broke down a lot, but they took us everywhere. This wasn't such a big deal for Oliver, since he came from one of the most bike-friendly cities in one of the most bike-friendly countries in the world... but for me? It was something of a revelation.

I had always wanted to be a bike person. I had never wanted it enough though, to go out and make myself into one. I needed a little nudge, and once I had it I was hooked. We biked two hours to a tea market once, just because we could. Bikes! We dodged buses and melted into crowds of cyclists. In the course of my rides to all corners of town, I discovered that biking allowed me to feel like I was a part of every place I traveled through. In cars I have always been impatient and frustrated, wishing I can get to my destination and regretting that I can't connect with any of the things I'm passing. Biking changed all that, and made the journey every bit as desirable as the destination.

When we moved to Canada we bought "real" bikes, and Oliver rode his to work most of the time. I did too once in awhile, but I was back to public transit as my default and cycling as a weekend hobby. New York was even harder, and each baby put a one year hold on any rides we would take.

But then - but then! - we moved here. The babies were kiddos, and the streets were screaming at us. "Get on your bikes!" Grandmothers, families with bike trailers, two year olds (I am not kidding. Two year olds)... everybody was on a bike. The city was set up for it, the streets were safe for it. We decided not to buy a car, and bought a bike trailer instead. And I'm going to try and say this now, though I warn you it may take me a few tries to do it without squealing:

We are bike people!

Oliver rides to work every day, even in torrential downpours. The kids and I ride every day - to the zoo, the pediatrician, playgroup. On the weekends we head out as a foursome, sometimes for a 20-mile trek to a cool Altstadt, and sometimes just 15 minutes down the road to get some currywurst.

The happiness I get from this is multi-layered, and sometimes as I'm flying downhill on a sunny morning with the promise of a good outing before me, layers peel back and I enjoy many of them at once. I am a part of this place! We are keeping things simple! Wheeeee, so fast! My kids think biking is the default!

Will they love it the way I do? They're certainly on their way.

No answers needed, thankfully

    

Two times last week, we were still out on the road when the kiddos started napping. Instead of biking frantically and yelling things like "no sleeping on the road!" and "Nils, poke Liv for me!", I gave up on making it home. We live very close to Frankfurt's largest cemetery, and I decided to pull over and just sort of hang out for awhile.

The cemetery is something of a notable place. Lots of old graves - Schopenhauer's being the best known - and big trees. The kids and I bike through it all the time, and if you don't count the time we saw a bulldozer ripping out gravestones of those whose families no longer pay for upkeep, it's a calming place. 

(I know, right? There is something so deliciously (horrifyingly?) "Germany" about bulldozing graves. Story for another day.)

My favorite spot is the section dedicated to the Second World War. It's right on our bike route, and there is never another soul there. 

This statue, too. The first time I saw it, before I ever looked at a grave and saw "1944", I knew. The slumping shoulders, the grief and guilt and total defeat... this couldn't be about anything else.

There are signs that I could read, but I've never stopped to read them. I like leaving it all a bit of a mystery, and piecing things together as I pass through again and again. The section of Russian and Eastern European names, for example. Was there a battle of Frankfurt? There must have been, why have I never heard of it?

And who leaves the flowers and candles? There is always something when I pass through, and I wonder who remembers who, and who still feels what. What about Elise Zeh? She died at 60 in 1944... who planted the flowers at her grave? No one else has those... is someone still mourning her loss?

I like the fact that I can't come to easy conclusions here. As Nils and Liv napped last Friday, I wandered back and forth in a section of graves for civilians who must have died in an Allied bombing raid. My mind kept wanting to assign labels like "innocent victim" and "evil fascist," but I couldn't. The young couple buried together, he with military honors and she a month after he passed... who were they? Ardent nazis or scared young people with no choices? The 5 year old boy... okay, it's pretty easy to label him "innocent victim". The 80 year old woman: innocent? Informant? Okay, and say she was a racist, fascist, all those terrible things. Do I get to say it was "correct" that she died when her city was bombed? 

Hmm... guessing that one's a bit above my pay grade.

There is a family grave, too. Father, mother and daughter all gone in one day. When I look at it I can't help but remember a trio of memorial stones I saw for a Jewish family.

This is a complicated place, and I am a pretty simple person. I'm going to sigh with relief that it's not my place to decide who deserves what then, and just keep biking through. I think I should also leave some flowers. I could put them at the feet of that statue.

     

Angle of repose

   
We nailed it a couple Wednesdays ago. NAILED it. The day started with a healthy breakfast, then led us to the sunshine of the park. We stopped in a little side field where the kiddos literally ran in circles together, laughing and singing while they picked little white flowers. 

After that we played in the park, got a nice little lunch at the park's outdoor cafe, then came home for Liv's nap. Nils and I sat outside while she slept, drawing and coloring together. He even asked me to read "the artist book" to him, because "I'm an artist, too!" (Oh hey there, book I bought more than 10 years ago, imagining a child would someday say those very words to me!)

When Liv woke up after a really, really long nap, the three of us biked out, again in the sunshine, to Bornheim Mitte for the farmer's market. We bought some fruit and veggies (Mama, get some peppers! I love peppers!), and paused for a sausage. 

After that it was a quick stop at the library for some stories, home, and dinner on the outdoor space. Well fed, the two of them played nicely together:

and went to bed without protest.  Liv waved goodbye as I closed her door, and Nils asked for a few more stories before drifting off himself.

Nailed it.

Oh, and then there are days like today. I'll spare you the details; let's just say there were bodily fluids involved, sibling-on-sibling crime, harsh words, slammed doors (oh, the sass!), aborted trips to the park (rain, our playdate's sudden fever), and a big fat glass of wine at the end of the day. Should it bother me that I drank alone? It doesn't.

In the middle of the worst part of our day I started to think "good lord, what a bad day," but before the thought was even finished I knew it wasn't right. No, today was a day. Just a day.

It's all balancing out for us now. The good and the bad roll at me and I can make them both work. Gone is the despair of last winter, those days I can't use any verb but "slog" to describe, the time I was actually brought to tears by the thought "17 more years? I can't. I can't." Things feel normal now. We sleep at night; that probably helps. Days are hectic but I get to stop every night and have a couple hours to do whatever I want. Ahhh, that feels good. We have fun together. Most days are somewhere between park-flowers-cafe-market-library and the-things-today-which-shall-not-be-named, and that's great. I'm not looking for bliss. I just want to enjoy myself here at my angle of repose. I'm done tumbling now, and it feels good to rest quietly.