Sommer, Strand und Sonne - life in Germany and Austria

[LinzerTorte]

A thread for all those living in Germany or Austria, and for anyone else who would like to chat.

Ooh a walk-in fridge does sound good.

One day, when I have a mansion, I will have a walk-in fridge, a walk-in wardrobe and a swimming pool. Oh and a vegetable patch, although you don't need a mansion for one of them!

My blood tests came back ok, so no liver infection here! I think the pains were maybe a bit of bruising on the inside as that is the baby's favourite kicking spot. Who knows!

The weather has finally cooled down here (although it's a bit grey and miserable at the moment, but at least not scorching and humid) and my brother arrives this afternoon for a weekend visit - cue one very happy alligator :o)
We are unfortunately missing a close friend's wedding in the UK this weekend, but hopefully she will send lots of pictures. They are off on a Mediterranean cruise for their honeymoon - sounds amazing!

Good news on the blood tests Later, but sorry to hear you missed out on the wedding - I remember you mentioning it before. We're due to fly over to a christening in England on Thursday, but unfortunately DD2 has come down with a nasty tummy bug. I'm sure she'll be fine by Thursday, but I'm really hoping it doesn't go round the whole family; otherwise, travelling could be a bit of a nightmare.

After a big thunderstorm at the weekend, it's slightly cooler here too. I was looking forward to a child-free morning today as the DDs were supposed to be at a school warm-up week (and KiGa has reopened), but of course DD2 is at home. Must go as she's calling again...

Hey everyone! :) Hope you're all well. I saw that Linzer posted abt dd2's birth :) I meant to get on and tell you all but I've been busy trying to get organised from the move back and then having the baby so soon after we got back.

So here's the story of how it went... (it's a bit long)

Prologue: Once upon a time there was a girl who moved back from Germany 8ish months pregnant with her parents help. It was little stressful and she had lots of BHs on the way, but she and her husband and their dd Moo, enjoyed themselves greatly. (Her parents didn't care for the camping so much so were put up in near by hotels and so it wasn't so bad for them, tho the girl's dad was still a bit of stick in the mud)
They got back to the UK on Aug the 3rd or so and found the house which had been occupied by a supposed house cleaner not as clean as they hoped and filled with lots of stuff which wasn't actually theirs... so frantic nesting started (much to the further chagrin of the girl's father). With things still in a great state of 'not done-ness' they sent the girl's parents back to the States on the 9th via a London bound train with a little worry abt the riots and unrest, but out of necessity.
On the 10th of August the girl and her husband went out shopping for some last baby bits for the hospital bag and looked for a baby bouncer which suited the husband's criteria. With no luck on the bouncer they returned home to their very messy, disorganised house, but with a sigh the girl went to bed when her daughter did at abt 9. The husband stayed up with the promise to clean up some of the mess before coming to bed. At 1.30ish am he came to bed and the girl got up and went to the toilet and brushed her teeth because she had forgotten.

2.26am girl wakes up again realising she's been having some contractions while sleeping. She laid in bed for a while and thought 'oh these are stronger then before and hmmmm I feel a little anxious/panicky. Should I wake dh? nah. The poor guy only just fell asleep.' However after the realisation that the contractions were not stopping and were coming in a rather rhythmic fashion abt every 5 min or so and feeling still a bit panicky I woke him gently. So he got up and called his parents to come over (they were 1.5 hrs away) and we started getting ready to go. We called the MLU to give them a heads up and see where we needed to go and were told we'd be going to the Consultant led unit since we'd not been seen by any midwife over here for ages. We continued to get ready.
We got called back by the Consultant midwife at 3.15 to get more info. While on the phone to them my waters broke and trickled a little. I went to get myself cleaned up. Dh called his parents; they were 20min away. No problem just a little more urgent...going to get Bebe downstairs and we'll leave the moment you get here.
3.20ish waters gushed! while on the bed and suddenly I was hardcore contracting and screaming thru back labor. DH pulled a maternity dress on over my head despite my protests that I wanted nothing on "You cannot go out of the house without covering up a little hun you'll be devastated later." I relented and started down the stairs (in between contractions) while DH threw the bag in the car. Down 5 stairs and I started screaming and felt the need to push (but resisted as much as I could thinking it was similar to last time where I was back laboring for ages but was told not to push yet) Down first full set of steps...DH called ambulance as I was not moving fast enough and apparently screaming the whole way (thinking I'd get pain relief faster). (Hospital is only 7min away driving normal speeds) Half way down the second set of steps the in-laws arrived and suddenly even tho I was trying not to push my body was pushing. Managed to get down the last bit of stairs onto the tile floor. Went down on all fours pretty much unable to move with constant contractions.
There was a (long for me) pause during which I thought OMG am I transitioning??? Surely not tho. It feels just like when I labored for hours with Meg, surely I've got hours to go yet. Dh wanted to get me in the car. "Not going anywhere!" I told him as contractions started again. Started pushing again without 'trying' to. Felt the head and the closeness to crowning. It felt very wrong, feared baby was stuck somehow (it was because I was on all fours and the baby was quite far back)
4.35ish (I'm told) EMS walk in the front door. Stuck G&A in my mouth as I crowned.
4.50 Gwynneth Anne Francis born in full.
5.02 birthed the placenta while the guys were busy with something else. Which set them to joking and laughing that I was really in a hurry.
Midwife arrived 5.20.
(ambulance and midwife got super lost because it's a newer development and not on satnav and apparently DH's directions when they both called other times were not clear enough)

We've had some feeding issues, but those are settling down now and hopefully we can start getting ourselves organised for when dh goes back to work...

Thanks for all the congrats and well wishing. :) It was a very very surreal experience.
I'm jealous abt the summery weather you're all having yet in over there (tho 40's are just a little too high to be fun) hope you're not melting too much xxx

Feel free to PM if you guys want something from over here which you cannot get otherwise. It'd be my pleasure to send stuff out.

I'll be trying to check in occasionally (and maybe seeking a little German language advice as Dh and I plan to keep some contact with the language encase jobs come up again).

Congrats bebe - thats a story to tell her when she's older.

Later - glad the blood tests came back ok. Like your dreams of walk-in everything in your mansion. I dream of having a cook and a cleaner - dh cant cook so its always down to me. Would love to have meals prepared - i'm sure they'd taste better too. .

Linzer - i'm counting the days too till school goes back. The temp here has also dropped - think that kind of Hitze last week makes life unbearable. Will be glad of 20 - 25 this week!

Kitchen comes tomo - way too excited and thro dh's efforts painting it at the weekend, the room is finally ready (and exactly how I imagined it). Roll on tomorrow!

Your new kitchen looks fab, Canella - I'm sure you can't wait until it's up and running again. I would love a new kitchen, but one twice the size of what we have at the moment, which isn't going to happen unless we move house (and I can't see that happening in the next decade or so).

That's quite a birth story, bebe! Glad the feeding issues have sorted themselves out; it makes life so much easier once the feeding has fallen into place.

Have just realised I only have 40 minutes before I need to pick up DS and his friend from KiGa and then on to pick up DD1 and DD2's friend from the school warm-up, and still need to dry and straighten my hair (some days the curly girl method does seem very tempting, Canella!) and cook dinner beforehand. Have had enough of only ever cooking fishfingers and pizza for visiting children, so announced I'm making meatballs today - to a chorus of "what are those?", which doesn't bode well.

Hmmm - wonder if they'll eat the meatballs?

I've sacked off the curlygirl method - my hair just felt like it was on the cusp of being greasy everyday which i'm not used to. And i have way too much hair to fix it everyday.

Surprise, surprise - they didn't. (I allowed myself to feel quite smug as both DD1 and DS ate them, despite never having had meatballs before - and they're not the greatest of eaters.) And the boy came into the kitchen while I was cooking the rest afterwards, took one look and said "urgh". He is starting to get on my nerves a little - he tends to bark instructions at me, e.g. "Apfelsaft!". The other day he shouted "ich brauche eine Semmel!", but when I got them out at breakfast this morning (he and his sister stayed overnight) he asked impatiently "Gibt es nur Semmeln?" (I told him we have cereals too, but couldn't be bothered to explain what Zerealien are and doubt he would have eaten our British ones anyway as none of the DC's friends will eat anything they don't know).

So you have to do your hair every day with the curly girl method? I definitely don't have time for that... when my hair was long and curly, I used to be able to get away with washing it once a week (because it's so dry, it would often start to look better as the week went on and it got slightly greasier!) but I wash it about every three days now. The only problem with running is that the wind and/or humidity make it go really frizzy so I'll use that as an excuse not to go out if I don't have time to wash my hair afterwards!

Hello - we are slowly settling in but the kindergarten/schools situation has taken me a bit by surprise. My elder daughter (3.5 yrs) got a place at a kindergarten (found on internet and DH visited) - just mornings this year which is ok. I feel the kindergarten is too big (140 children) and I think they will get lost in it. So I started to look around and talk to people and my neighbour told me about a really nice kindergarten that both of her children have been to (all good so far) - she then said that her son was now in grundsule and gets home between 11.30am and 1pm - I nearly fell over! She said they can go back after lunch (she does not work so I think that it is why he can't stay for lunch) but it is only "childminding" in the afternoon and no lessons or real supervision. The new kindergarten that I really like is saying the same for lunch - if you do not work they go home for 1.5 hrs and then you can take them back again.

Young children can be lovely (one is 3.5 yrs, other is 2.25 yrs) but I have to confess - I am looking forward to them be out 4 to 4.5 days a week and the thought of them being 7-8 and I am still tied to the house at lunchtime jsut does not appeal to me.

I looked at a Montessori and they told me that as I do not live in the town then I can't apply and another told me I could apply but I would be unlikely to get a place - children from the town being favoured.

All is complicated by how long we think we will live in Germany. i do want the children to learn another language (we are both british) but do not want too many changes of school (eldest DD will have had 1 yr in belgium, 1 yr in current kindergarten, maybe 2 yrs in new kindergarten and then grundschule or equivalent before we probably move when she is 7-8).

sorry that is very long

It's the same here lannook, so you have my sympathies. As much as I like living here, the school hours are not one of my favourite aspects of life in Austria! DD1 (about to start her fourth and final year of primary school) is generally out at 12.45 pm and DD2 (second year) at 11.50 am.

The only thing I haven't come across here is having to take the DC home for lunch and then take them back in the afternoon - if they go to the Hort after school or stay at Kindergarten in the afternoon, they would automatically have lunch there too. I don't send the girls to Hort (only a couple of children per class go) but DS does stay at KiGa until 3 pm to give the DDs the chance to do their homework in peace and the thought of having all three of them home at lunchtime is more than my nerves can cope with.

Hello! Fantastic birth story bebe - lovely name too!

I'm also really looking forward to picking dd up at 11.40 everyday, except on Wednesdays when they do 9-11 in Kindergarten (in Oregon) - you have my sympathies.

I'm so impressed by your running, Linzer!

Glad the blood tests came back ok Later.

Have you got photos of your new kitchen Canella? I can just the one of the old tiles. It's so exciting though. I loved having the bathroom done.

Morning all!
Later hope you're still well, good that the tests were OK and you're resting! Is everything ready?

Linzer well done for trying meatballs even if they didn't all like them! They say you have to try new foods quite a few times before some dc will eat them. Seems a bit of a waste though.

Lanook took me a while aswell to realise what I had ahead of me when I had dc in Germany! I was expecting them to eventually be in school and out of the house from atleast 8.30 to 4pm. If you plan on going back to work you can usually get a hort place for them if the school isn't a ganztagschule but I think it depends on where you live too. In Berlin it didn't seem to be a problem to get a full time place.

Canella good luck today with the kitchen, hope it all goes smoothly!

Bebe congratulations and what an experience that must have been! When are you coming back? Any plans yet?

Yesterday I had real trouble with ds, he can't get back into the routine and doesn't want to do his homework. He'd rather skate around the flat on his waveboard, surf the web on his mobile or just flop on his bed. I can see us having to take the board and mobile away if he carries on. Trying to get him to see reason first but not sure if I'm being too patient with him. He did his French homework then when I checked it and wanted to correct the mistakes he wouldn't listen and said who cares, the teacher can correct it in class!

Took dd to look at a hockey club yesterday too. Didn't know what to expect but it was a very exclusive club with tennis courts and out door pool, fitness room and sauna but the membership was way too expensive. For a dc to play hockey they have to pay 230? a year, but an adult has to join too and that would be 3300? a year - so back to the drawing board with that idea. Have to find a cheaper hockey club.

Jenny, I meant to ask, what are the school hours like in the US? Have you found out yet? Will they get picked up by the school bus?

linzer wow are those some rude kids. My German is ...rubbish... but about a year agO I took up telling kids that '"Das ist nicht nett" ANd "Bei mehr mann musst biitte und danke sagen". I expect I expressed it in Pidgion German but it worked; the kids friends are mostly polite, esp those (over the age of 4) who I would expect to be, ad dd is still a very popular little girl, and her friends never turn down an invite! Germans do generally seem to be thich skinned, and if in doubt I am a strange english woman, the only way I can live here and have the kids round lots is to apply the same rules to others as my own, and I have never had a kid or mum complain :)

Lanook the school and kiga finishing at roughly lunch time is the same across Germany as far as I know, but I assume you are intending to work in some capacity if you want the kids out of the house 4 full days a week - is that just me? But if you are intending not to work when your kids are 7+ what is the problem with making your own kids lunch? _If you are hoping to get back to work apply in good time and you will get a Hort place with lunch. Sorry to speak out of turn if you are aiming to not work and send kids to full day child care but I just don't get expecting others to care for your kids all day if you aren't planning any work outside the home and I am pretty happy I will still get some waking hours with my kids once at school - definitely don't get why anyone would send an under 5 to Kiga full days, but I expect I am odd... If you don't like shorter school days private international schools often offer very long days...

Not looking forward to supervising homework I admit, but think that is a separate issue!

i smashed 2 fingers of my right hand this afternoon and they hurt a lot, can''t sleep, plus have a growth spurting breast fed restless hungry 4 month old, so that is why I am still up saying things I shoulden't!

btw thanks for the birth story bebe and big congratulations, lovely name too :)

Wow, Bebe, what a story! Congratulations!! I hope you are all doing well :)
(Lovely name too, by the way).

Linzer Those kids do sound a little rude! I think 5more is right in that Germans do seem a little more thick-skinned and less bothered with what we would see as essential manners. I was trying to think if I had come across the same, but as my only experience with German children is DH's niece, I can't really say. (Although she does just walk up to her Oma or her parents and say 'Apfelsaft!' as she knows she doesn't have to say please to them -I find it a little odd, but I figure it's not my business. I am the master of the poker face when it comes to her!)

5more I hope your fingers are ok! Have you seen the Dr about them? Sounds painful.

Canella How did it go with the kitchen? Do pop some pictures up when it's done.

Admylin 3 grand a year is madness! I hope you find something cheaper.

The baby's head is quite far down now, so I have perfected the art of the duck waddle over the past few weeks. I'm thinking of glueing on some tail feathers to complete the look :)
This is one of the reasons the Dr thinks he will come early so every time I have a slight twinge I start to wonder whether this is it. Does anyone know how to stop time for a week or so just so I can get myself out of this denial that I am going to have to give birth and actually be responsible for another human being in the very near future?!
On the plus side, DH's dad and brother are coming down with the baby's bedroom furniture this weekend, which is very sweet of them as it saves us a 4 hour round trip - not that I am much use on that side of things at the moment!
Then my mum is coming over next Saturday for a week - her suitcase is so full of baby things she has had to buy a load of vaccum bags just to fit it all in - and she already upgraded her flight so she gets another 10kg luggage allowance!

Hello to anyone I've missed!

That's a far more sensible approach than the passive-aggressive one I usually take, 5more; I'll have to steal that sentence! I usually end up muttering something like "Well, if you could ask for it politely, that might help." But in English, so only my three understand (though it does help vent my frustration). I try not to let him get away with one-word orders, though - I'll either ignore him or just say "Apfel?" back (or something like "Yes, that's an apple") until he can manage a whole sentence. His mother admitted yesterday that she needs to be stricter with him, especially as he'll be starting school next year, but I just bit my tongue. The thing is, she's lovely, doesn't take me for granted at all, is always very grateful when I have her DC over and has my three round a lot as well (the DDs stayed there last night in fact, and she would have had DS too if it wasn't for his allergies) - I just get annoyed by how lax she is with her DC. I do wonder how her DS will cope when he starts school, but he may well have settled down in a year's time I suppose.

admylin I really struggle to get DD1 to do anything school-related as well; she just seems to completely lack motivation. I must admit I often resort to bribery; at the moment, she gets a packet of Spar or Billa stickers (two weeks after the Merkur Aktion finished, two other supermarkets have launched their new sticker collections - it's never ending!) once she's done her piano practice and school work. As she's going to the school warm-up week this week, she doesn't have to do anything else for school, but she did have maths and German Ferienhefte to do earlier in the holidays.

Thankfully DD2 seems to have fully recovered from her stomach bug and none of the rest of us have come down with it, so things are looking good for Thursday. I've almost finished the packing, so am feeling quite organised for once. The only thing DH and I can't agree on is what time to leave for the airport - our sat nav keeps changing its mind as to how long it will take us to get there (it said less than 4 hours the other day, which I can't quite believe) and I think that we should leave eight hours before our flight to allow for eventualities, but DH thinks that's too early. I will make sure I get my way, however, otherwise I'll just be worrying the whole time!

Later Not too sure about how to stop time; I got very impatient towards the end of my first two pregnancies (DS was two weeks early) and just couldn't wait for them to arrive, esp. with DD2 who was a whole day overdue - I don't know how women a week or more overdue cope! It's great that your mum is coming over and bringing so much stuff. I had to get mine to send me emergency parcels over the birth (virtually all the clothes we had to start with were slightly too big, so she knitted some even smaller cardigans and sent some smaller clothes - which was great, even if DD1 did grow out of them within a couple of weeks). Also got my parents to send Infacol as DD1 was quite colicky, but it didn't seem to help much.

Linzer, what time does your dh say you should leave forthe airport? If he says 4 hours before and you say 8 hours, maybe you could compromise and go 6 hours before?! I'm the same as you though, always nervous about making it on time as we missed a flight once because Lufthansa only had 1 check in desk open (Stuttgart airport) for several flights.

Later, sounds like you've got some great help organised, hopefully baby will time it right and your mum will still be here.

5more, hope you got some sleep, a few hours atleast.

The dc coming home for lunch never bothered me when they were small, dd always went back to the afternoon kindergarden to play with her friends, ds never went back as he didn't get on with his Erzieherin. All day school and hort is hard going here though as school starts at 8am and staying until 4pm is exhausting for the dc. Then they never have all the homework done in hort/afternoon school so there's that as well. It's a totally different system to what we are used to and it takes a while to warm up to it!

Awful collective Elternabend at school tonight. Dd's class starts at 6:30 and ds's at 7:30pm but I'm only going to ds's as he has a new class teacher. I couldn't cope with both in one evening and leaving the dc alone from quarter past six to after half past eight isn't that great either.

DH only wants to leave an hour later, so I suppose we could compromise by leaving at 2.30 pm! I can sort of see his POV, as me insisting on leaving at 2 pm means he'll have to leave work an hour earlier than he'd planned. We don't really want to be hanging round Munich airport for hours in the evening with three tired DC either (although I found flying back to the UK at 10 pm far easier than I'd expected as they were too tired to play up much!).

Interesting that DC generally get sent home for lunch if their mothers don't work; I don't think that happens in Austria. DS is the only one of the three who stayed longer in the afternoons; when I used to pick him up at 2 pm, he would complain I was there too early! Now I think he'd be happy to be picked up earlier, esp. as one of his best friends who also used to stay until 3 pm is about to move to another KiGa, but tbh I really need the peace and quiet to help the DDs get on with their homework - and as I can only be guaranteed to get that by sticking him in front of the TV, I'd rather he stayed a bit longer at KiGa. Quite a few children whose mothers don't work stay a few hours longer at KiGa, but it's very unusual to send DC to the Hort if you don't work. I won't be sending the DC so have five more years of at least one child coming home at 11.50 am. It is a pain when I'm busy with work (particularly as urgent jobs tend to arrive late morning/around lunchtime) but work isn't regular enough for me to consider Hort and I don't think I'd want to send them, anyway.

Hope the Elternabend is bearable, admylin! The girls' parents' evenings are one week apart this year so we won't need a babysitter. The parents all had to label their DC's books at DD2's Elternabend last year, which seems like a good use of the time. I've normally got out of parents' evenings by sending DH, but I suppose I really ought to go to discuss when I should go in for the English lessons.

It depends on the dc and the kindergarten I suppose, my dd always wanted to stay longer because her friends were in full time as their mums worked but ds was usually sitting waiting for me to pick him up and couldn't get away quickly enough!

He did his homework yesterday with about half the fuss he made the day before. I hope it's just a question of getting back into the routine. We left his french because it was impossible. He had 6 pictures and had to write a story but neither of us could figure out what was going on! Have to have another go today.

New job offer for dh has been published - this time Ann Arbor in Michigan! I like the idea of that place more than Stanford.

Those picture stories can be a nightmare. DD1 got marked down on one because she'd misinterpreted one of the pictures, but I didn't think it was all that obvious what was going on.

I like the sound of Ann Arbor - not that I know much about the place, and have never even been to Michigan in fact - but it sounds nice! I miss living in the USA in some ways.

The thing about travelling to the airport tomorrow is that I have been conditioned by years of travelling on British Rail and its successors to err on the side of extreme caution when it comes to getting somewhere on time, whereas DH has missed out on that formative experience. Not that we're travelling by train to Munich, although I think trains are probably more reliable than cars (traffic jams, etc.) over here.

I think it depends what time you hit the city areas for Berufsverkehr otherwise Thursday isn't going to be too busy Linzer. Do the Munich schools also go back around now or have they got another week or two?

Just heard from another mum from dd's class about a cheaper hockey club. It's 11km away, that's not too bad I suppose. The other expensive one was 8km away in the other direction though. Anyway, dd can try it if she wants.I'll have to go shopping or take a book with me though as I don't see the point in driving back home and then having to go out to pick her up again.

Just a quickie!! I'm in the middle of cleaning my very beautiful new kitchen!

Linzer - i would err on the side of caution with driving to Munich. I just looked on google maps for a route - will you head towards Passau? Thats the way we came back from holiday and the bit of motorway between Wels and Passau was just tunnel after tunnel and at one point went down into 1 lane which obviously caused a jam. But apart from that it was always moving if a bit slower. (but for us it was better than going via Salzburg which is just one long jam!)

The schools dont go back till the 13th so that shouldnt affect you. Hope you have a fab time. Say hello to the NW of england from me!

Will properly post tom and work out how to add photos (can I do it from my ipod?)

Thanks for that info, Canella; I shall use it to back up my argument! Yes, our route looks to go through Linz, Passau, Deggendorf and Landshut - our sat nav is now telling me it will take 4 hours 10, which seems rather fast as it usually takes us 2 hours to get to Linz and then another 3 hours or more from there to Munich airport.

Not sure about photos as I've never uploaded any from my iPod, but have just been admiring your new kitchen on Facebook - it looks fab.

Hope you manage to find a hockey club for your DD, admylin. I usually wait in the car with a book when DD1 is at her dyslexia lesson as it would take me 30 minutes to drive home and back so it doesn't really seem worth it. It's quite nice to have a chance to read without feeling guilty about it or thinking there's something else I should be getting on with.

Good luck with the airport trip, Linzer!

Admylin Do you think your DH will accept the job offer? How would you feel about moving to the States? Have you lived there before? (Sorry if you've mentioned before, my brain is a bit wobbly at the moment!)

Canella Hope you're enjoying the new kitchen!

Off to pick up my Natal Hypnobirthing CD this morning - although the last thing I need is something to relax me even more. I never thought it was possible to be in this much denial about having a baby. I reckon the panic will kick in at my next Dr's appointment (next Tues) when she does her worried face and says he will be here early. Either that or I will have a complete meltdown when I actually go into labour. For now I'm enjoying the zen :)