Toys are supposed to fun but not all toys work they way they were meant to. Today Olivia was playing with  ball that lights up when you throw it on the ground. We thought it had water inside but today when Olivia threw it on the floor, it shattered and oil came out of it and it went all over our wood floors. It smelled like kerosene. We don't know if that is what it was but SCARY! What is that doing in a kid's toy, especially one that is designed to be thrown on the ground. What if she inhaled that or god forbid had it in her mouth? What if it caused a fire...it is flammable and to boot, it is meant to be thrown hard on the ground which does not work well with FLAMMABLE things. Scary, scary, scary!  We bought it here in Germany at Meyer Bucher. If I had the German Product Safety Commission site, I would link it here. So if you are reading this and you have that info, please let me know. Matt plans to go down there and let the book store know that this is not a safe toy to sell, which leads me to my notice to parents.

 

Lots of toys and other household items are being recalled due to serious hazards on things that were made in China. Mattel and Fisher Price both have a lot of things that are being recalled and among many of the toys are the DORA THE EXPLORER figures from Fisher Price, which are being recalled due to LEAD POISONING (sorry, normally do not resort to CAPS but feel it is necessary).  Please check out the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission site and make sure your toys are safe: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prerelaug07.html. Scary! Toys should not be so dangerous. Here is a direct link to the toys being recalled by Fisher Price: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07257.html.

 

Just so we are clear here. Dora is one of the most popular toys on the market for Olivia's age group. Dora is popular not only in America but in Holland, France, Belgium and Germany. Oh and I am guessing probably in Spain too. Nice. You know what else is being recalled due to lead poisoning? Those stackable plastic donut tubes that babies play with...yes folks, babies who put EVERYTHING in their mouths are putting lead painted toys in their mouths.

 

So how do I feel about this? Well I think I agree with my husband here who said we might want to re-think the global market and seriously ask ourselves if saving a buck or two for cheap labor is really worth the risk. Sorry but I have to agree. Not only do these recalls affect our economy but they are also affecting our children's safety. And that is not worth it. I would rather buy less things at a higher price to get better quality. And the thing is I don't think it is entirely China's fault. The companies that sell these things need to seriously work on their health and safety standards. I have half a mind to throw out all the plastic toys we have and to throw out all the Dora dolls, which thankfully weren't on the list. But really the issue is more complicated then that. You see I need my government to work with other governments and to work with international companies to make sure that the products we buy are safe. And now that I question some of the company's products, well as a consumer it is hard for me to trust any of their products. And I am sure I am not alone. So mess with quality, lose consumer trust,  lose money, cause economic problems, hurt children and in the end cause parents to get very upset. Not a good idea. Two words: Fix it. (And what about the poor countries who a) make these products (unsafe) and b) dont have consumer rights or government run comsumer product recall postings?)

 

 

 

Things are better. It didn't rain today like it has for the past week, month, and all summer. And the Kita had a little birthday party thing for me....they are so nice.  It really was so nice of them to make me feel so welcome. They are a good group and like I have said have been more of a home away from home then anything else. They gave me flowers and champagne and painted Olivia's face with Happy Birthday Mommy on her cheek. Olivia made me 4 cards and that was so cute. And Matt gave me new Hausshue (slippers...not sure of spelling...forgive me).

 

There is also some news from Boston and Matt may have an offer extended to him by another group within the same company. It is not what he orginally applied for but the group really liked him and so he did like 9 hours of interviews with other hiring managers and the last person he spoke with at 5:00 p.m. at night wants to talk more. We are keeping our fingers crossed again and should know in 3 days or less what the scoop is.

 

So I guess that is that.

 

Oh and my father-in-law sent me a very nice gift. He sent me a photograph he took of cherries in the rain that I really like. Now I have that in my dinning room and took another painting I had and moved that to over my couch. Hah! Go figure. How silly. We are about to move and I went and hung a new picture. Oh well. Gives me some sort of sense of completion.

 

Have to go get fussy baby. Poor little guy is teething still and so there is still no rest for the weary. Maybe tonight. He did take a nap at the same time as Olivia and I just passed out from exhaustion. He woke up 3 times during a two hour nap but somewhere in there I got a little shut eye. Of course now Olivia will be up later but I guess we all needed the rest. So that is that. 

So my birthday is in two days--no wait, one day.  Not such a big deal. I don't feel my age. Grr. Stupid keyboard..if I am missing letters in my postings it is because the keyboard is not registering them...I am not the best typist or speller but I am not that bad either. Grr. I try to read stuff over sometimes when I am feeling anal or like a perfectionist but lately who has the time?

 

The fact that I am sitting here writing at 1:40 a.m. is not so strange either. I seem to be a bit of an insomniac these days. My baby is teething and my little girl is scared of imaginary bugs (Tonight she totally freaked out that the fuzz from her blanket was on her sheets and was convinced beyond doubt that there were bugs in her bed. So now she is sleeping in my bed again.). Anyways I must be a fool because the baby finally went to sleep again and here I sit.

 

I need to go to sleep now. I know I do. That is the thing with insomnia and stuff. You know you have to slow down. You know you have to relax but the moment you put your head on the pillow your mind can't stop racing and then you crash.  I haven't been able to crash in 5 days. I have gotten 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night for 5 days. I feel a little insane. I am here in Germany. Oh right and I have had only 5 minutes of adult conversation except for the few minutes Matt and I talked and when I called my mom.  I think this week except for when I talked to my mom or Matt, the total amount of English conversation I have had is like a half hour or maybe an hour...that includes hi good morning goodbye thanks and I don't know the word in German and Can you help me? These words are spoken in the comings and goings of daily life walking from my apartment to the Kita, walking to the stores, and saying yes you can use our parking spot to my neighbor who either really means come down sometime or has learned that this is what the English speaking world does when they don't really want people to come down but feel they have to politely make the fake offer. I think I am a bit insane.  I only had two cups of tea today and no coffee but still can't sleep. Oh please let me crash. I am SOOOO tired.

 

(Going to attempt for  third time now to go to sleep. "Let go. Jump in. So what you waiting for?" http://www.imogenheap.co.uk/ sorry song is running through my head. I like her...think it is pretty cool that she is doing her own thing.)

 

I guess I just wanted this day to be over so tomorrow can be a better day. Today sort of sucked. Will do Yoga tomorrow. Yoga. I know I can do it right now but I don't have the energy. Good night.

Well I guess on both accounts things didn't work out. Matt didn't get the job in Boston and I didn't get sleep last night. Matt has others he is looking into and I am sure eventually we will me moving on. For me this trip was really hard because the baby has been going through some serious crying spells due to teething. The baby woke up 4 times last night between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. and he cried and cried. I walked around with him, gave him baby Tylenol and did whatever I could to get him back to sleep. At 2 a.m. when he woke  up for the third time, I was so tired that I walked around for a few minutes and then I had to let him cry. I had to get some sleep. I haven't slept more then 4 hours in the past 5 days and I really needed a little shut eye to deal with my very energetic toddler in the morning. Speaking of my todder, at 4:00 a.m. Olivia got scared and crawled into bed with me. Fortunately she went back to sleep until 7:00 a.m. so I managed to get well, a whole  3 hours of sleep. Brutal. Oh well. C'est la vie!

 

I guess we just have to keep moving forward here. He has other jobs that he has leads on. And eventually the baby will start sleeping again for me (hahaha in another year or two when he gets all his teeth). I think both me and Matt are looking forward to our vacation on the Dutch Coast. We both desperately need some down time and well, we might as well enjoy our time here in Europe while we can. Tomorrow Matt comes back and maybe between the two of us, we can get some rest and relaxation.

 

Olivia has been walking to and from the little Kita with me every day now that Matt is off interviewing in the States. This morning she decided she absolutely had to have her pink butterfly purse and of couse, she absolutely had to put her sunglasses and her truck in it, which is fine wit me. And I decided that every day it is nice enough to put Taylor in my ergonomic baby carrier, that I would. So today it was nice out for a change. The only problem with taking Tylor in the front pack is that I also have to have hands for an umbrella, Olivia's lunch box, a jacket, a pacifier, and of course I need to be able to hold Olivia's hand. Olivia decided on the way there that she could do it all and was about to throw an absolute fit if I didn't let her carry the umbrella, the lunchbox and her jacket. I let her try. She was proudly walking down the street practically yelling at the top of her lungs in English Look Mommy I can hold them all. I am big and I am strong. I thought it was pretty cute. It reminded me of a circus parade or something...the three of us with rattles and pacifiers hanging off my front pack and Olivia with all her bags and an umbrella.

 

Anyway random thoughts. I guess I am trying to keep my mind off of things because we find out soon if we are moving to Boston. Oh and then there is poor Taylor. He is teething...gnawing at everything. Doesn't nap all that well and doesn't sleep at night all that well either. Olivia is not sleeping too good either because of nervousness and confusion--at least I am guessing that is what is going on here. The other day she insisted we save some cookies for her cousin Elizabeth and that we try and go see great grandma to do the Hoky Pokey. No matter what I say or show her she only half understands that they are all in America and not here. She insists all the time that we need to get n a train or a plane RIGHT NOW to go see them so she can play. Breaks my heart. I too am not sleeping all that great because well so many changes. But even with all this going on and the poor thing in pain, Taylor managed to do a half roll: he rolled  from his back to his belly. Olivia and I clapped for him even though he was crying after he did it. Then Olivia did it for him to "show him how." Olivia is really cute. I think she really thinks that he learned how to roll by watching her. And who knows, maybe he did? I mean she shows him all the time the most important things: how to hold forks, eat food, roll on the ground and how to jump. I am proud of both my babies. Now if only we could all get some sleep. So wish me luck to night on both accounts: news about Boston and that I finally get some sleep!

I just finished going through some of the articles in Spirit and Self on Oprah.com (Hey, don't laugh. There are some good things there). Check out Martha Beck's Guide to Avoiding Avoidance. Anyways I realized a few things. One, maybe I have been avoiding being an active contributor to the world at large. I feel like I sort of checked myself out when I quit my job to stay at home after having Olivia. I stopped being involved completely except for all things mom or parenting related. I became sort of an outraged but muted bystander when Bush got re-elected but I did nothing politically to ty and stop it from happening (How did he get re-elected?). I got upset about 911 and Hurricane Katrina but did nothing… well I did donate a few dollars to a relief fund and I bought an emergency pack. Well actually we moved halfway around the world because we felt like maybe we should see what else is out there. I am glad we did but in a way we also checked ourselves out of being American. How did that happen?

 

Then there is the whole I haven't driven a car in almost two years thing. What? That is insane. I hate to admit it but it is true. I haven't driven a car since we moved here to Germany. I forced myself to drive a little in Seattle. I started driving again and then I got here and said no way. People drive so fast here. It is a foreign country. It will take too much time to take driving lessons. They are forcing me to take driving lessons. Ummm Hmmm. Yah. I had and still continue to have lots of excuses. Here is the thing. I don't really need a car to get things done. I can do it all by foot. It is very liberating because well, I have sort of a ridiculous anxiety about driving. So here in lies the reality check number two, which really needs to be number one because I think it takes center stage for me and my life right now. I have not driven a car and therefore I have had to rely on other people to drive me around. I have had to take the backseat to life and be driven around by other people. That is not me. That is not who I am. I have been some sort of inconvenience. What did I sort of just check out of being responsible because of fear of what could happen? That is silly. See I have been in a lot of accidents not all by my doing but the strange thing is some of them were potentially very dangerous catastrophic but somehow it all worked out and no one really got hurt that bad. I have had a fear of driving since I was a little girl. The first accident I was in was when I was five years old and the bus I was on ran into a house (the bus driver had a seizure. We were all okay though somehow).  I can’t believe I am admitting this. I guess it is good.  

 

I seriously do not understand this but for some reason I can get in a car in Worcester, MA and drive with very bad drivers (sorry but there are some very bad drivers there) and I am somehow okay with that. I am okay. Maybe it is because that is where I learned to drive and Iknow what to expect out of the other drivers ( Trust me. Always assume they don't see you and they will cut you off!). But when I think about driving in and around Boston, I seize up with fear. I am not alone. Other people I know refuse to drive in Boston. But the reality is if we move back to Massachusetts and we live outside of Boston, I will have to drive. I mentioned this the other day. But the thing is I get it. I am going to drive.

 

Sometimes I go about pitying myself, and all the while I am being carried on great winds across the sky (An Ojibwa saying refered to in Martha Beck's article, Yes, It Was Awful--Now Please Shut Up. Put All Your Energy Into Your Life's Work.) but I have decided that I need to take contol here and not let that happen. My ridiculousness is over. My silly fears can be thrown to the wind. I am going to grab the reins and drive. I am facing the fact that I have to live my life for right now. Yesterday is over and tomorrow may never come. If I keep saying I am driving and I can drive, then it will be fine. I am not going to take a backseat to life because of some ridiculous fear of what could happen. Yep. Craziness is over. Over and out. Over and out. And you know what, I am looking forward to it. The freedom to go anywhere.

 
 

So we have started to look at apartments in both Seattle and Boston. We are of course really hoping for Boston. Then there is the reality of what we can find—hah!—that won't upset our lifestyle here, meaning it won't be too different. The reality is we are going to have to drive most places. We can't afford to live in a walkable place and the places that are walkable are not safe. OH and we are renting again at least for a year until we can seriously look into buying.

 

So it is a shocker. A reverse culture shocker to see that in fact you do have to drive just about anywhere you live in America. Boston is a walking city. Seattle is also. But we wouldn’t be able to live in Seattle unless Matt wants to commute for 2 hours a day (all the jobs he is getting leads on requires that he drive over bridges and water and then commute in traffic with everyone else for at least an hour a day).

 

Then there is Boston. Oh do I want to move to Boston. I just want to be in the city. I am a city girl through and through. I have spent the last decade or so living in cities. I like the noise of a city. I like the lights and the way the patterns of lights spread out across the sky or on the sidewalk when it rains (forgive me I have lived in some very rainy cities). We like the theatre and all the hustle and bustle of a city. I like how unpredictable it all can be.  For the past ten years I have always lived somewhere where I could walk outside my door to boutiques, coffee, and a local corner grocery store.  But every day we are here there are less and less places available in our price range. I know because like a freak I have been checking the online Boston rental site. Do you know that there are some apartments in Boston, yes RENTALS, for like $15,000 a month--that's not a misprint. No we can't afford that...not even close. It better be painted in gold for that price and come with gourmet food delivered to bed every day. Oh and for that price I had better get some really nice fuzzy slippers, a cashmere robe, and a daily massage. Ah to dream. But seriously the clock is literally ticking away and so are our options.

 

I think I might freak out a little. I know this doesn’t make sense. I wanted to move, right? I wanted to move here to Germany and now I want to move back. I know I am not the most rational person. (Do other people suffer from these problems...these derangements...I can't seem to get with the program...Wait, what is the program? I think I lost that instruction manual.) We are still holding Olivia's spot at the local Kindergarten on the off chance that we aren't moving soon because I just can't think about giving up her spot if we are still here. It is a fantastic Kindergarten. But we aren't going to be here. He has already started making arrangements to get us out of here. I guess I fully admit I don’t know what I want. I want it all. Is that so hard? I want to be in a cool little city so I can walk to the store, the library, or maybe even walk my daughter to pre-school AND I want to be close enough that I can hop in the car to see my family. Is that so hard?

 

Yes, I am preparing myself. I know. It is not so realistic. I have got it.  Anyone who knows me knows I hate to drive. I guess I have always felt like it was me versus the machines. I had a very scary accident when I was 19 and I never really got over it. I made myself drive again after that and I drove for years before moving to Seattle. But then once I moved to Seattle I pretty much hung up my keys and took buses to work and walked. I worked at the University so it made more sense to do that anyway.  But I guess I am going to start driving again and it will be okay.  I haven't driven here in Germany. It was too expensive for me at first and it required me taking like 30 hours of driving lessons. I made excuses for not having the time but really I was a bit scared to get on the Autobahn with everyone going like 180 kilometers or more no joking here (I am not sure exactly how fast that is in mph but it is like 90 or so I think).

 

So that is that. I am not a bad driver…it is the other drivers out there that scare me to death. It is the fact that so many people are so nonchalant about it. Oh it is just a big machine that can kill someone if you don’t look before you back up or if you just take your eyes off the road for a second to do something like search for your lipstick or the cd holder (I have seen other people do this so many times). LA-DEE-LA-DEE-DAH. But other people do it every day. They drive and so shall I. But believe me if you saw some of the drivers in Boston and Worcester you would be scared too. But I guess well, that is that. It is part of life. Driving is part of life. I get it. I am working on it and some how I will manage it.

 

It is strange but or some reason we just never put up anything over our sofa. It is one big empty white space. We kept meaning to hang family photos and even talked about buying a piece of art or something but every Saturday when the time came to hang something up, we just never got around to doing it. Saturdays are the only days we do mass shopping (more than 2 bags of groceries...more than two bags requires you drive instead of walk with bags) because it is the only day that things are open on the weekend and the week is just too busy. And so consequently every Sunday when we aren't allowed to hang things because the drill and hammers make too much noise and you can't by apartment code of honor use drills on Sunday, we both talk about doing it anyway with a childish gleam in our eyes. But in the end we just never hung anything over the couch and it has been this big blank spot just glaring at me.

 

I guess the truth is I just never got settled in here. I never settled into the routines and rythmns that my neighbors all seem to keep. I have one neighbor who gets up the same time every day, goes to the store on foot rain or shine with her two kids at the same time every day, and she gets her dinner on the table at the same time every day and the kids in bed at the same time every day. We hear her on Saturdays mornings coming back after getting all her shopping done and Matt and I often exchange little smirks because we haven't even gotten dressed yet. Another neighbor actualy told me that she has to have her dinner started by 5:15 so they can eat at 6:15 so that kids can be in bed at 7:30 sharp. She means it too. I mean I have seen her getting those kids into bed right on the dot and I have seen the table being cleared at 6:30 right on the dot. We try soooooo hard to get that down. That pattern. And for the most part we eat at the same time and go to bed at the same time but we just aren't like clockwork. We just aren't programmed to get it all down pat. No, like yetersday somehow it was 3:45 p.m. and it was just too late for Olivia to take a nap. We were playing with her activity book, tracing letters, playing school and stuff and then blink it was too late. SO we gave up on the nap and threw both kids in the car. At 4:30 p.m. we pulled out of the driveway. Try as we might somehow diapers have to be changed, faces have to be washed, we can't find the diaper bag even though we keep it in the hallway under the coat rack and no matter what we do, we just don't get out of the house in less than an hour from the time we decide we are leaving. Then when we got to the park, Olivia was sleeping and so was the baby. Hah! Matt and I drove around and talked for 45 minutes and then woke Olivia up so she could play. By the time we made it home, it was 7:30 p.m. My neighbors we getting their kids in bed. We did the walk of shame up to our house and sad as this is, Olivia had Cheerios for dinner. Matt and I ate dinner at 10:00 pm after we got one tired temper tantrum throwing toddler and a very fussy teething baby to bed. But we wanted to bring her to the cool park. Oh well.

 

So about the empty spot on the wall. Well, I have had the blank spot in other places I lived too. When you rent, you know you are going to move again and it sometimes can be demotivating. I wish we could just move back and buy a place but we do have to PLAN for something like that and it takes time. And as I mentioned Matt and I are not the best planners in the world. We are getting better though. The big white space bothers me but I am not going to bother to hang anything now. No, for now, well, I just have to wait until Matt finds out about jobs and we find out where we are moving and then we have to pack it all up again and find some new place to hang our pictures.  But some day I am going to get a house, paint one of the walls red just because I can and hopefully I will get all my pictures hung.

I had this dream the other night that the US government was interrogating us at the gates (not sure what gates, the airport?, the Embassy?...you know place can be a weird thing in dreams). Anyways they weren't going to let us back in to the country. A new part to the Patriot Act had been added and now all expats have to go through some sort of re-entrance exam. This is not true to my knowledge but well it's a dream...And then in the dream they kept asking me over and over why did you go to Germany? Why did you go there? And then they would start yelling things at me in highspeed German and see if my brain was registering them. (I guess my brain was hooked up to one of those electrode brain monitoring things). And I didn't know what they were saying and they kept insisting that I knew something. At one point I broke down and asked to speak to a lawyer. The officers interrogating me said YOU FOOL. YOU CAN'T HAVE A LAWYER. I said it was my right and they said hah! Habeas Corpus (*see below for description) has been suspended and you can be jailed for as long as we want as long as we suspect you are a terrorist. I am not a terrorist. I am not. I insisted. I just don't like what has happened in the Bush Administration. I am a Democrat. I can't be jailed for that, can I? The dream is a bit farfetched and silly. Nightmares and dreams can be that way but well the reality of things is something to think about.

 

The truth is a little scary. The truth is I don't write a lot of my political thoughts in my blog because who knows, maybe they wouldn't let me back in. I mean that is ridiculous right? Paranoia is afterall an American trait. I am just a stay-at-home mom with two kids under three who wants to move back to Boston to be around my family. I guess I realized that the dream is not so far fetched. You do have to be careful. America is a different place. Believe me sometimes I think to myself why are we going back to such a violent place? Why are we going back to a government who failed to help its own people after a devastating disaster hit New Orleans? Or how about all of the lovely things the current administration has done to overturn and even destroy all the steps we have taken in the past fifty years to better the enivironment? The answer is: I love my family and I love my country too. I may not agree with everything all the time but if I want to change it, then I have to be there to change it. Period. Love it or leave it? I don't think so. Only through constructive criticism can true change be made. No, I choose stay and help it. Let's just hope the Democrats don't mess it up this time and we actually get back in office and DO SOMETHING GOOD (for a change).

 

*(This is from About.com http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/rightsandfreedoms/a/habeuscorpus.htm )

"What is a Writ of Habeas Corpus?
A writ of habeas corpus is a judicially enforceable order issued by a court of law to a prison official ordering that a prisoner be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that prisoner had been lawfully imprisoned and, if not, whether he or she should be released from custody. A habeas corpus petition is a petition filed with a court by a person who objects to his own or another's detention or imprisonment. The petition must show that the court ordering the detention or imprisonment made a legal or factual error. The right of habeas corpus is the constitutionally bestowed right of a person to present evidence before a court that he or she has been wrongly imprisoned."

 

(My insert here)

So funny that when you stop trying so hard or when you just stop caring so much, it is then that things start to flow a little more naturally in the every day things of life. I went to the store and then to the Kita all within an hour. In that time, I ran into 3 people I didn't really know that said things to me in German. I understood the full sentences from two of the people and barelly understood anything from the nice old lady I see every once in a while who says things about my children and smiles when I pass her on the street. I am not sure what the nice old lady said but I know it was about the baby and just smiled big in return. Not bad. Two out of three people only spoke in German and I understood them completely. I will take it. LOL. If only I started my experience here that way. If I could do it all over again I totally would have learned MORE German BEFORE coming here. It would have made a lot of sense to do that. Because the thing is once you are living here you are dealing with more than langauge issues...culture shock rocks your world and you don't even know it until several months have passed and you feel totally overwhelmed. So taking the lessons before you go somewhere sure does help. We did about 2 months of lessons twice a week. That was all we could do. We found out about whether he had the job here only 3 months before we moved so naturally we did what we could. And then I should have forced myself to somehow get into the language classes once I put Olivia into the Kita instead of hiring a private tutor who didn't work out. Maybe I should have tried another private tutor but I just gave up for a while. (Hey I was pregnant and tired and still had a very energetic toddler to deal with.)

 

Ah isn't life funny? I am understanding so much more then I thought I would given that I have had so very little formal training in German and now I am getting ready to leave. Hah! And then I had the same lost English word thing happen again today when I was trying to talk to my mom. I found myself translating something from German into direct English. It didn't make sense because it is not how native English speakers would say it. But it was the best I could do because for some reason I just couldn't find the words.  Oh well. I guess that is life.