The Lantern Festival

A couple weeks ago was the daycare's annual lantern festival, which is an Austrian tradition that celebrates St. Martin. I really don't know what lanterns have to do with Martin, but let me google that for you. The group that the Noodle and the Nugget are in hosted their celebration at 4.30 pm on a Wednesday, because apparently no one's parents work, and, in a rare change of events, the teachers decided that it would be too cold to let the kids parade outside, so it was hosted in a darkened classroom. 

Indeed it was so dark that all of our photos came out plain black. This means you'll have to rely on the evocative power of the written word. I hear that people can't do that any more, especially millennials, but the readership of this blog is very, very exclusive (hi, mom and dad!). What you do is read the words and just imagine stuff. I believe in you. 

So what is supposed to happen at the lantern festival was that the parents sit on teeny weeny chairs in a big circle, the lights go out, the kids (ages 1 - 3.5) parade in holding paper lanterns (with real candles for everyone aged 2 and up!) singing the Lantern Song. This is followed by the performance of five or six songs and poems. Then punch and a brioche roll for everyone. Hooray! 

What happened instead was like the bar scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Time stopped, nothing made sense, we weren't sure if this was hilarious or frightening. 

Only half of the children actually came in singing, of which only one of them audibly (bless her!). The rest were evenly divided between running to their parents, crying, falling over, or staring stupidly into space. The teachers (bless them!) sang loudly and looked at the children encouragingly, but toddlers have a mulish recalcitrance to perform on command. These ones, in particular, could not have given less of a f***.  

The Nugget, who can't walk very well yet, came and sat on my lap. She did a great job dancing in place and hurling her lamp around, though. 

The Noodle, by contrast, is one of the four "big kids" in the class (>3 years) and was therefore supposed to join in the recitation of a poem (calm down, it had like 12 words) and also play a lead role in a little play that they put down. 

She was not having it. 

"No," she said when her turn came. "Meh. Meh meh mmph," she said, turning her head to the wall.  

"PLEASE," begged the teacher's assistant. "You practiced! You did so well! You can do it."

At these moments it's not clear what the best parenting approach is. I tend to freeze like a deer in headlights. On one hand, she's three. On the other hand, I'm half Chinese. I wasn't sure what the appropriate mix of flexible, supportive, cajoling or threatening (I mean 'ambitious') would be, so I just shuffled through all of them in the space of about 30 seconds.

"That's okay babe, if you're feeling shy you don't have to go. You can stay right here with me. We can sing from here together... But don't you want to go? It looks so fun. I really think you should go. I bet you'd do a great job! Look, your teacher wants you to go. Get up. Go. GO! Come on, just go. Please go? I'd be so happy if you'd go. I'll be so sad if you don't go. Go? No? Okay that's fine, stay right here. Don't even worry about it. You can tell us the poem later. Are you sure you don't want to go?" 

I'm pretty sure this is actually some form of emotional abuse, but never mind. In the end she stayed right next to us all the way until the end of the performance and didn't even really sing along once. My only comforts were the boy (also one of the big kids - YES!) who basically napped next to his mom, and the little girl who zipped around like a caffeinated wasp the whole time, landing on various people's laps. I felt tremendous solidarity with their parents. 

And I remembered the mantra: "Do I really care?" 

Well actually yeah kind of. But whatever. 

By the end of the evening (i.e. 20 minutes after it started), the chairs were no longer in a circle and children were scattered in diverse states of disarray and undress. The parents had lowered their expectations from "I shall take sweet Christmas-y pictures of little Mary and Bobby singing like wee angels" to "I shall keep Mary and Bobby in a holding pattern with their pants on until we can go home". 

Most of the candles in the lanterns had gone out, everyone was talking, and only the two teachers (bless them!) were still trying to hold the whole thing down through the powers of positivity and bloody-minded singing. May they both win the lottery one day, really. Whatever they earn it is not enough.  

And then we all had punch and got the hell out of there as quick as we could. 

Which isn't to say that we aren't totally excited for next year's Lantern Festival. Maybe one day my kids will even participate. I'll light a candle for that. 

The Nugget is One

Two weeks ago our littlest roommate turned one, and happy we are that she is ours. It's hard to believe that it has already been twelve months since this tiny, mewling handful that could barely lift her head slipped into the world*. 

Suuuper excited about turning 1! (Candle man-handled into the cake courtesy of her big sister)

Today she can whisper a few words (Daddy, cats, t'anks, das (this), Mommy, Nara (Nava)). She can gallop on all fours like a tiny bison, hobble along with the aid of a finger and even take a few steps unaided when her hands are full and she forgets that she can't. Who will she be when she grows up? Time will tell, but here are a few early contenders: 

1. The Researcher. The Nugget is serious about understanding everything. She points at objects and names them ("Das, das, das, das, Katze, das, das"). She takes everything apart, empties every drawer, attempts to scale every height, squash herself into every nook, and generally get as many perspectives as possible. The physical world is a wonder that she finally has the wherewithal to explore. 

What happens when I stir Mommy's coffee with a blue marker?  What does it look like if you drop a bowl full of spaghetti from great height? How much toothpaste (fluoride free!) can I eat before someone stops me? What does the toilet brush taste like today? Can I jam my whole shoe in my mouth? Okay but how about now? And now? Yeah but how about...The answer to all these questions, my friend, is "DAS". 

When critical research is interrupted for so-called "safety reasons"

2. The Cat Lady. This child loves our damn cats to death. They, to their eternal credit, haven't mauled her yet. She follows them around like a terrifying floor drone, eats their food, pulls out handfuls of hair, and yanks their tails. 

"No, Nugget, cats are not for hitting. You can pet them nicely, like THIS," we say over and over and to no absolutely avail. She slaps these b****es across the mouth like she's auditioning for a role in The Godfather. It's all love though. 

This face, teaching cats hard lessons since approx. May 2016.

3. The Nerd in a Good Way. You know how in every class, conference or church gathering there's that one dude in the back who finds every shitty PowerPoint joke actually funny, so while everyone else is doing the polite titter he's carrying on like a contested man goose? That's the Nugget. She'll crack up and wave a wee arm in the general direction of whatever's good lately, pointing it out in case you failed to notice. Because water from the faucet...get it? Blocks falling down? Hilarious. The Noodle doing anything? PRICELESS. Nugget's face splits open to reveal four teeth in a sea of gums, she honks away, and the whole world lights up around her. Our little Christmas tree.  

Tricycles are hilarious.

4. The Vacuum Cleaner.  Her big sister, the Noodle, had a babyhood full of vitamins and minerals, steamed vegetables pureed with organic white fish and whole grains. The Nugget, by contrast, gets the baby-friendliest bits of whatever we're having anyway, so basically pizza crusts and the odd lint-covered gummi bear out of her big sister's coat pocket. My husband feels this is justified for the same reason it's cool that we let her fall down a lot: we're making a ninja.  

5. The Enchanted Rainbow Fairy. I guess it's a feature of younger siblings that they are frequently decorated with hair clips, bits of tape, stickers, pieces of Kleenex, neon-colored rubber stamps and other toddler detritus. Plus our apartment has really gone to the dogs since Baby #2 arrived, so there's usually a bunch of lint and fur attached to her, too. The Nugget also loves (*LOVES*) to eat crayons, ideally the washable kind that melt in your mouth and make you look like you have beautiful, enchanted vomit running down your front. She's like a babbling, crawling jack-daw nest. This may sound upsetting,  but you must remember that her father and I looked like this on purpose well into our twenties, and also we are raising a ninja. 

Muffins eating "muffins" (they're cupcakes, Starbucks. Stop lying).

6. The Ninja. This baby will slide down your skylight, pull 85 wetwipes out of the box, unroll three packs of toilet paper, eat all the raisins out of your trail mix and ghost before you even look up from that underwhelming diply.com listicle you shouldn't have been reading anyway ("15 things the Internet crapped out today", e.g). Okay, she's not quite one of those YouTube babies that comes out of the womb bouldering and doing kick flips, but for a one year-old she's pretty good. Anything the Noodle can do, the Nugget will try and achieve, and really it's amazing how rarely she actually gets hurt. For example, instead of just, like, getting down off the couch, she usually chooses to fling herself over the (way taller) armrest and drop to the floor like a wayward teen hopping the swimming pool fence late at night. She makes kind of the same face, too ("Hur hur").  

She doesn't sleep, she strategizes.

7. Whatever She Wants To Be. This exuberant little munchkin pumpkin becomes more and more her own every day in the way she moves, communicates, thinks and feels. What I hope for her this year and for all the rest of her years is that she learns to be always kind, has the insight to figure out what she (really) loves to do -- whether that's art, accounting or (*gulp*) astrology -- and finds the courage to do that with all of her heart. 

Thanks for being around, little Nugget. Our lives would be less without you. 

LOVE

___________________________________________________________________

* And by "slipped into the world" I mean she was born in a fight, because it turned out the lease on her home was running out -- the way it contracted, it was death or the loophole, and mighty small that was too. The poor thing was shoved out like a seed through the tail end of a bird, dropped into the cold. Humans all have to start like this though because otherwise it wouldn't be fair that we have airconditioners and baked goods. 

Noodles and Nuggets – A Visit from the Pacifier Fairy

This morning I was awoken at some terrible hour by the garrulous chirping of my three (!) year old daughter, who rises with and like the sun: early. By contrast, I had been out with a few friends until quite late. Which is why I was now the deserving recipient of this gentle torture.

All I heard at first was a barrage of incoherent cartoon sounds, several octaves higher than the adult ear can possibly comprehend at dawn. It’s like having your ears injected with rainbow bubbles.

“Blibble blibble blip blip bleep! Blibble blip blip!”

“Hrmph,” I said. “Wha?”

“I said good morning mommy. Get up. Get up. Get up,” Noodle said in her sweet little helium voice. And then she scowled. “GET UP RIGHT NOW!”

“Blumph,” I said. “Don’ talk me li’ that. Goway.”

“I have a pretty dress,” she said. I peeled my eyeballs open and tried to focus, which was hard since the child was only six inches from my face. She did have a pretty dress. It was smeared with two varieties of food. Chocolate ice cream was one, I guessed. And…pumpkin? Not pumpkin. She hates pumpkin.

“Your dress is filthy,” I said. “Why are you still wearing this dress? Didn’t Daddy give you pajamas?”

“Hmmm? No, I didn’t want pajamas.” She looked down. “Oh yes my dress is so pretty and really GROSS because because because yesterday I…”

She made a sudden look of great concern. I realized she was wearing a bunch of shitty plastic jewellery. Noodle said: “This dress is reaaaaallly disgusting but it’s very pretty but it’s a BIT disgusting because yesterday because I yesterday in the park I had a because because Daddy bought me an ice cream and now I’m REALLY DIRTY!”

As I processed this, I realized something was scrabbling around with my toes, which were hanging off the edge of the bed. A Chewbacca-like roar, followed by the appearance of a tiny pony-tail. The baby had arrived. She stood up started to pick her way around the edge of the bed, emitting the odd grunt.

“Good morning, sweet pea,” I said.

“Aaaaargh,” said my lovely 10-month old.

“You’re pretty smart for having made it here all by yourself,” I said.

“Aaaargh,” she replied.

“Noodle, I heard that the Schnullerfee (pacifier fairy) came yesterday and took all your pacifiers and left you a present,” I said to the big one, who was wearing a dreadful silver plastic necklace with the face of that blonde chick from Frozen and also some kind of shiny, ultra-crappy beaded bracelet.

“Oh yes the Schnullerfee arrived* when I was at the park and then there was no more schnullers because I am a really big girl now. I don’t NEED a schnuller any more! And I came home and then and then at the stairs there was a PINK present and I carried it up by myself and I held it REALLY straight and I didn’t spill anything and then inside was all of this beautiful STUFF like neckeleckelaces and braceklets and treasures and now I’m so pretty and I cried because I want a schnuller. I want my schnuller!”

She looked downcast. For a moment.

“But I’m a really big girl now and I can’t cry and I have all this beautiful stuff and the Schnullerfee came and when Nugget is big she can’t have a schnuller either but now she is small because she’s still zero years old right Nugget right?”

Nugget, now standing between us, popped her pacifier in her mouth. She looked at the Noodle. Took the pacifier out of her mouth; put it back in. I swear that baby understands more than she lets on.

“I have a lot of beautiful stuff and you don’t but that’s okay don’t cry Nugget,” said Noodle. “I don’t need a Schnuller. I have a neckeckeleckelace. You need a schnuller because you’re a baby.”

Nugget sucked away. Sucka sucka sucka, the sound went.

Noodle grabbed the hem of her truly foul dress and gave a big twirl.

“I’m so pretty,” Noodle said. “Don’t be sad, Nugget, right now you’re just a baby and I’m big and my dress is soooo pretty and I don’t need a schnuller.”

Sucka sucka sucka.  

Twirl twirl twirl.

Sucka sucka.

And then I got up and announced it was time to get ready for nursery, because if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that it is best to nip a brawl in the bud.   

Sisters, sisters

Never were there such devoted sisters

Those who've seen us

know that not a thing could come between us. 

Right?

* Okay so we've been threatening promising the arrival of the Pacifier Fairy for months now, who, legend tells, comes and takes your pacifiers and leaves a present. To avoid having bunny teeth. Yesterday was apparently the day because while Alex (God bless him) was at the park with our babies they LOST Noodle's last best pacifier and so he thought quickly and decided that the Pacifier Fairy had arrived. He conveniently had a pretty pink box of hand-me-down costume fairy jewellry in the car that his coworker had gifted us (God bless her) because her kids are too old for it, and he managed to smuggle the box into our building and leave it where Noodle could find it. Et voila. Well done that man. 

My future is an ideal projection of what I envision now

Just when you think this blog is finally dead, it comes back. Like whack-a-mole. Can't get rid of me, guys. I am now committing to wiping the slate clean, embracing life and getting back to regularly updating this SOB. I feel like this because yesterday I got up early to do an hour of yoga before work, and today I walked to the office at 7 am, so I'm feeling particularly smug and accomplished. The rest of my life is going to be like this. I will drink ginger tea and eat nothing but ethically slaughtered celery. My life is just beginning, and the soundtrack is Om. I am a walking set of affirmations that are individually probably a good idea but collectively fairly fatuous not to say vacuous, but I don't care, because I am pretty. Sooo pretty*. 

Anyway, it's been like three months simce I updated this blog, and I'm going to go ahead and get closure through the powerful medium of a list. 

1. My dad visited. It was awesome, we took pictures, but all he gets is this idiotic post. Sorry dad. I love you. 

2. I was in the US for five weeks. My babies came with me. We stayed with my parents. We hung out with family. It was relaxed and enjoyable and I'd tell you more but it's all water under the bridge, baby. 

3. Three weeks into our Texas visit, Alex came. We left the babies with my sainted parents (LOVE YOU) and met three of our most excellent friends in Mexico City for a long weekend that can be summarized as tacos + mezcal plus that time we each spent well over a hundred bucks on lunch, because I accidentally booked us a table at the 17th best restaurant on planet earth. Whoops. 

Actual worst group photo of all time. Also, the only one.

MUCH better.

4. I went back to work full time about six weeks ago, which is why no blogging. Alex is on baby duty, bless him, and I'm loving work life but trying to juggle my pace and find a rhythm that leaves time for each person in my family and for myself and for my friends and for reading and so on. Y'all know how it is. 

5. Spring came. My nose might be running and I feel like I'm in a fog (damn you, birch pollen!) but it is worth it. 

Onward and upward! My nature is divine! Today is the first day of the rest of my life! I am blessed! And so on. 

*Not that pretty. 

Merry, Happy Everything

The last shreds of wrapping paper have been swept away, the crispy tree was chucked away and the drooping stockings have been folded up until next year. Horrifyingly, most of the chocolate has been eaten. Christmas is definitely over. Heck, it’s a new year (happy new year!). The post-holiday hangover is here in full force.  

Ohai

Usually we celebrate Christmas with my parents, but this year we were on our own.  This is a bummer. On the plus side, the Noodle, who is now two and a half years old, provided enough Christmas spirit for everyone, even my light-one-Hanukah-candle-on-day-three-Baruch-Hashem-Adonai-Elohim-and-fuggedaboutit husband. Because who doesn’t love Christmas?

Indeed it was jingle bells all day, every day from the instant we opened the first window of her little advent calendar. As she said (a lot): “Happy birthday Jesus! Merry Christmas! Santa is coming with PRESENTS.”

Noodling around

The young Banana, who is not yet three months old, was surprisingly disinterested in proceedings. Nonetheless we filled her stocking for the look of the thing, and her big sister ransacked it after her own was empty, so I’m pretty sure we’ve established what will be a tradition for the next few years. And Christmas is all about traditions, right?

 I’m afraid we failed to properly transmit the Real Meaning of Christmas to our children (Giving, right? Or was it redemption. I can never remember), but in our defense it’s difficult to explain to a two year old. 

Skyping with the grandparents on Christmas Day

I thought that for now it would be enough to convey that Christmas is the birthday of Jesus, but even this was kind of a sticking point, because there is zero overlap between that story and the story of Santa, which she of course also learned about. It's a mess. 

You see, Noodle, we are celebrating the birth of Jesus whom we say is the son of God, plus Santa brings us presents, plus also in Austria Baby Jesus is the one who brings the presents. 

Sisters

Noodle and I were reading and singing this picture book of traditional Christmas carols that my mom gave her, and she kept trying to find Santa. She points to Joseph – is this Santa? Nope. The angel – is THIS Santa? Nope. Shepherd? Nope. Other shepherd? King Wencelas? Three kings? Nope, nope and nope, and the camels aren’t reindeer either. 

In addition to the Santa story and the Jesus story, there are a decorative indoor tree and oversized socks. Also diverse numbers: Advent is the 24 days on your calendar, and the five candles in this wreath, but we sing a song about the twelve days of Christmas (side note: why so many birds?) , and also Daddy is into the eight days of Hanukah. 

So yes. All in all, thank goodness for presents. They really tied the season together. 

More soon! xx

After the first snowfall of the season. Happy New Year!