Life Goes Onam

Do you know what Onam is? Do YOU know what pookalam is? Of course not. You are steeped in ignorance and have no education. I, on the other hand, having learned what these things are a week ago, am sophisticated and worldly. Come, little grasshopper. I shall explain.

Our fine hostess, cooking. 

Our little family, as usual, was late getting to their apartment. Really late. 

"Hello, hello! Oh Gof you're all here already. I'm sorry. We are sorry, " I said, coming through the door. 

Alex came in after me. "Sorry, hi everyone. Sorry." We are often sorry, because we are often late. "Hello, and sorry. Sorry. Hello," we said. Actually mostly I said sorry, in hopes of being endearing. Alex is less stupid. But I digress. And so soon, too. 

We were at Nayana and Tamas' home. Nayana and her friend Geetha, who hail from Kerala in India, were celebrating Onam. As sophisticated people know from frantically reading Wikipedia beforehand, this is a Hindu festival that falls around nowish, celebrates the harvest, and involves pookalams and special food. 
By the time Alex and I arrived with Noodle on her push bar tricycle, everyone else was already there. The table was set, and also covered with food (that smelled divine). Everyone leapt to their feet as we came through the door, apparently starving. 

On the floor of the entrance was the pookalam, which I, in my as yet unenlightened state, did not recognize. "What pretty flowers," I said. 

This is a pookalam, you ignoramus. Thanks for the photo, Milica!

"I did the design," said our friend Louise. She is not Indian, but her work looked very authentic to my sophisticated and expert eye. 

"Right, please gather," said Nayana, before my child had time to even clamber down from her tricycle.  All nine of us gathered. Well, 10 if you count the dog. You could almost hear the stomaches rumbling. ("So, so sorry," I whispered.)

She continued: "Now I will tell you all the story. Geetha, I want no interruptions to correct historical inaccuracies." We looked at Geetha. Geetha seemed prepared to correct historical inaccuracies. 

Noodle and the chefs and Onam experts Nayana and Geetha

The story is this. There was once a king called pause for Google search Mahabali who was wonderful and therefore beloved. He was so popular that the "lead God," Google reminds me his name is Vishnu, decided to take action. He disguised himself as a dwarf...

"No, a small boy," Geetha said. 

"...a dwarf or a small boy," said Nayana. "Divergent narratives. In any case he was very small."

"Not all small people are dwarfs," said Louise, who has Views. Often from below.* 

Nayana said, "Anyway..."

So Vishnu disguised as a person of short stature appears in front of the great and good king Mahabali and says he has heard that the king is very charitable, so would he please grant him (little Vishnu) a favor. The king, being lovely, says he of course will. The small person then asks if the King will grant him (the short one) as much land as he can cross in three steps. The King, ever kind, tells the little person that he has short legs so perhaps he'd like to define a slightly larger gift for himself. The little boy/dwarf says no, three steps is fine. 

Team Eaters, minus me, Alex and the Noodle. And the dog.
L-R: Milica, Tamas, Louise and Markus

But, in what theologians are calling "a classic divine bait-and-switch", Vishnu then resumes his leggy god size and proceeds to cross all the earth with his first step and then heaven with the second step. At this juncture, Vishnu helpfully informs the king that pretty much all available surfaces were covered by the first two steps. King Mahabali, a proper bleeding heart if ever there was one, tells Vishnu to then please step on the king's own royal head with the third step. Vishnu triumphantly steps on King Mahabali, pushing him down into the underworld. 

However, because the King is a really good person who worked hard all his life he is allowed to leave for a couple days a year during the harvest festival and check on the folks back home. Apparently the Hindu underworld and the American service industry have similar vacation policies. Anyway, because the people of Kerala love their king so, to this day they welcome him with pookalams and have a giant vegetarian feast to demonstrate how prosperous and happy they are. This is Onam. 

The story over, all nine of us proceeded to the dining table where we descended like locusts upon a vast array of absurdly delicious dishes. 

"If you see anything that looks like a green chilli and you don't like chillies, don't eat it," warned Geetha. 

No chillies in the dessert

"Especially you," Nayana said to our friend Milica. Milica, I learned, was wary of chillies that might be lurking in the curry like tiny, cruel crocodiles. Her caution was based on a recent personal experience.

Milica explained, "I noticed the chilli first because the left side of my face was on fire, so I moved it to the right side, which was on fire, and then I didn't know what to do so I swallowed it. Big mistake. My stomach was like fzzfff..BOOOM." She made a little mushroom cloud with her hands. Upon receipt of this anecdote I started sifting my own plate for suspicious green capsicums. 

I didn't find any, though. It was all so delicious we didn't speak to each other. There were fifteen minutes of determined chomping. 

Pretty much Miss Noodle's favourite food.

And for dessert there was super sweet, cardamom-flavored milky rice dish topped with cashews and raisins that had been fried in butter. It was epic. McNoodle first ate a whole serving and then had half of Alex's. 

How fortifying was this lunch, you ask? 

The Noodle and I came home (Alex had to go somewhere else for work) and this little girl...drumroll please...walked. WALKED! No hands! First one step, then two, and then she was doing six or seven at once before collapsing with laughter. 

So thank you, Nayana, Tamas and Geetha. And thanks, King Mahabali. You are inextricably linked to my little girl's first steps. I hope her legs take her across the earth and the heavens, but I can pretty much promise she'll never step on your head. 

*******
Re: This video, sorry it's vertical (I was scurrying backwards on my butt and somehow failed to turn my phone), and also please excuse my extremely overenthusiastic voice. Best to just turn off the sound on this one, really. 

*I LOVE YOU LOUISE

Of Halloween and Eating Babies

Happy Halloween! More and more Austrian children and drunken young adults celebrate Halloween each year, but alas our baby is a little too young.  I secretly would like nothing more than to dress her up like she's going to an Anne Geddes photo shoot but sadly I couldn't think of a single justification. 

Babies dressed as food. (Actually I think this is
freaking adorable. Costume here.)

Anyway, because Halloween is supposed to be at least a little scary, I thought this would be a good time to bring up the eating of babies. As in, you know, eating babies. 

This is a terrible thought, right? Occasionally you read a story in the newspaper about people who killed and ate a baby and it is the absolute worst crime that there is, the most heart-wrenching:  the murder and cannibalism of a defenceless little muffin. 

A cutesy poopsie muffin that you just want to EAT. 

You see? What is wrong with us? We compare babies to food all the time - pumpkins, cookies, sugar, honey, sweet peas, nuggets, peanuts.  

We're so sick in the head, half the time it's the first thing we talk about when we meet a new baby. As we pretend to gnaw on one of their tiny feet or slurp on a mini-finger, we'll coo and say one of the following: 

"Ooh, I just want to eat that arm!" 

Also dressed as a vegetable.
Well, technically a fruit. You see what I'm saying.
This costume for sale here.

"I want to nibble on her fat little toes!"

"Look at those squishy little cheeks - yum yum." 

"I am going to eat you right up! Yes I am! Yes I am! Num num num num num." 

Where did this come from? Does every culture do this, or do we just need some kind of collective therapy? 

Anyway, this week it became clear to me how deeply ingrained is this habit of equating cute with delicious as I was talking to our niece, who is our buddy and just the sweetest little eight-year-old in the world. We were sitting with the baby between us, and the niece says to me (in German): 

"Ach, she is just so cute I want to EAT HER. You too?"

"Sometimes," I say. I smile at the baby and pretend to chew on  her foot. "Because you're so sweet and delicious, right? Hum num num." 

Um. So cute, so wrong!

The baby giggles.  

"Hahaha," laughs our niece. Then she says, "We can split her. Fifty fifty. The left half for you, the right half for me."

I look up. 

This peanut costume also kind of looks like 

something else that starts with a p that you 

would not dress your child as. Cute kid though.

The site its from has a bunch of food costumes for 

babies. Yum! 

She goes on, "And we'll have her head for breakfast, the middle for lunch, and the feet for dinner. Right? We should save the feet for last. Because they look the most delicious." 

I am horrified. 

"Dude. What are you talking about?" I say to her. "That's sick." 

The niece looks at the baby. "Oh," she says, leaning her sweet head on a fist. "Yeah, true. That is sick." 

And you know, it kind of is. Happy Halloween! 

P.S./Update: You know who probably really eats babies? Fox News. Please see this article about Halloween. It leads with "Finding a Halloween costume that doesn't terrify politically-correct college busybodies could be a challenge this year..." and goes on to quote campus organizations that raised concerns about blackface or dressing in sombreros or as geishas and so on. I actually agree with Fox that half the fun of Halloween is being a little offensive, which is why next year I think I'm going as Fox News. 

Boob: Once More, With Feeling!

Some time in the last two weeks our sprout hit a major developmental milestone when she parted her precious lips and, instead of crying, said, "Goo?" 

Her first sounds sounded vaguely like "hello" ("egh'looooo"), which was cute, and like "boob", which is even better. When she's upset she'll stick out her tiny little lower lip, say "booboobooboob," and drool. From a evolutionary perspective this adorableness is a pretty effective strategy, I have to say. 

Anyway, now we're trying to teach her that the sound "boob" has an actual meaning. 

"Boob?" I'll ask, encouragingly. "Are you hungry?" 

Alex says, "Is it time for a boob party*? Booooobies?" He points. 

I do a suggestive little shimmy. "Booooobs." 

Nava says "boobooboob." 

The cats pee on the floor. 

On one hand she doesn't really get it (it'll be months before she says a real first word and a few more after that before she really means anything she says). On the other hand, when she is unhappy, boob is always the answer so maybe she'll eventually put it together. 

I tried to film her saying "boob," but obviously as soon as I had my phone out she stopped. So here we have a video of me trying to coax her into saying boob, but with no success. The good news is that she makes other cute noises. 

I've read that kids don't remember anything that happens before they can talk (which will make that a dangerous little milestone). That had better be true, because her father and I are basically twelve-year-olds who are allowed to drive and buy candy whenever we want. Oh, and have children. (I'm beginning to realize why the world is in such a state.) Also, in two years Nava is going to walk up to some lady, point and say "BOOBS" and that will be our just deserts. 

____________

* Around here we refer to breastfeeding as "having a boob party," because infantile. When Nava was just a couple of weeks old we went down to the Lainzer Tiergarten for a walk. If you don't know (and if you don't live in Vienna, why would you), it's an enormous (really enormous) park with miles and miles of trail through woods and across meadows. If you like, as we did, you can pretend to enjoy some memorably bland gray food at the Rohrhaus. (Pro Tip: Bring a sandwich). Anyway, while we were there we spent some time eating ice cream on a scenic meadow that was riddled with a whole biology lesson's worth of animal poops. We sat in the sunshine, and confronted for the first time ever with sunshine, Nava freaked out. She continued to freak out all the back across several kilometres of trail and into the car, where she freaked out all the way home. During this time we pleaded and begged with her to relax because a "boob party" was just around the corner ("Think about it logically," as Alex likes to tell her when she is truly falling apart. "Let's analyze this situation together."). And so now we say "boob party". 

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

The big news today is that the Duchess Kate has pushed out a new heir to the British throne.  Well done, Kate. You spent your pregnancy skinny and attractively dressed, and now you've given birth before me. You, Kim Kardashian, my friend A-, and another lady whose pregnancy I've observed from the shadows of Facebook. All of you have babies. I have performance anxiety, is-my-baby-okay anxiety and swollen feet.

So far actual medical intervention is unnecessary. Thus the mature thing to do would be to relax, wait and enjoy what everyone keeps telling me are the last moments I will ever have to myself ever again for the rest of my life ever until we are all dead. 

Instead, I'm proactively implementing a boatload of tricks based on superstition and magical thinking. 

There is a lot of advice out there about how to get things going. In fact, from the moment you are pregnant the Internet tells you that if you so much as sneeze too lustily your baby might detach and fall onto the floor. I therefore avoided large quantities of raspberry leaf tea, rosemary, ginger (the list goes on) for the last nine months. In retrospect, that was stupid. 

It may not be scientific, but since we're talking about home remedies, I think my anecdotal evidence is at least as valuable as your double-blind study. 

It is therefore with great confidence that I can now reveal this list of Things That Do Not Induce Labor. 

1. Sex. People give all kinds of reasons why sex supposedly helps get the ball rolling, ranging from the prostaglandin in semen to all the bouncing to the oxytocin to the belief that orgasms might turn into contractions. It makes so much sense, right? Unfortunately, according to my careful research, this is all nonsense. Total bollocks. 

Sex causes pregnancy (I think, although I may need more data points). It does not end pregnancy. In fact, there is even real science to back up the fact that it doesn't end pregnancy. Sorrow. 

2. Rosemary.  I avoided rosemary tea for the last few months because I had some vague idea that this fine herb, when consumed in big quantities, induces labor. Yesterday I ate a branch of rosemary the size of one those pine boughs that you usually use to decorate your Christmas mantelpiece. Nothing. 

3. Ginger. See above. Also see above for pretty much every herbal tea except, like, lemon and mint. 

4. Magic birth tea made out of cinnamon, cloves, ginger and verbena. I'm on my fourth liter of the stuff, although at this point it's mostly because the bitter flavor is starting to grow on me.  Nary a cramp, though. 

5. Tampons dripped with evening primrose and clove oil. This one's great because the tip was accompanied by a warning to not try this right before I go to bed because "you don't want to have to get right back up an hour later!" I sort of felt like anything this counterintuitive and inconvenient would have to work, but sadly, no. 

6. Walking uphill and downhill. This one, along with "lifting things," is kind of like saying that life causes you to go into labor, which I suppose will always eventually be true.  

7. Eating spicy food. Last night we spent 50 euros on order-in Indian food. Nope. 

8. Trying to induce labor. I think I'm just going to have to give up and go with the flow. Unless medical intervention is necessary (and knock on wood it won't be!), this baby will come when it comes, right? Anyway, my midwife says being really relaxed induces labor....