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Die Kaffeestube Teil 2 - virtual Kaffeeklatsch in Germany and Austria
951 replies
cheaspicks · 22/08/2012 09:57
OP posts:
TheEnglishWomanInTheAttic ·
26/08/2012 17:30
Nutella we got the rabbits when the kids were too young to really have an opinion - DD was about 10 months and the boys not born when we got the first, and the 2nd was an accidental acquisition, although we had been advised by the RSPCA to get him a female companion :) When we go on holidays we ask friends of the kids (and their mums) to look after the rabbits - and now both the families we ask have rabbits too! They are a little bit of a cop out pet as they are less work than dogs (not sure if they are less work than cats). My parents always had dogs and cats, but they over indulge them and feed them rich tit-bits they shouldn't have, leading to them being rather unpleasantly smelly 
so they put me off getting dogs and cats. DD wants a dog though, and we foolishly told her when she was 4 that she could have one when she was 8 - and that is fast approaching now! 
My parents also had chickens and decided it would be "good for" us children to be responsible for them - skidding on frozen chicken sh** in their run on the way to break the ice on their drinking water early on winter mornings before school is an abiding childhood memory I don't relish - I always think "Don't do it" when people think getting a few chickens is a lovely idea!
LinzerTorte ·
27/08/2012 07:13
Aargh, just lost a long post when my battery suddenly died. I don't have time (or the energy) to type it all out again, so a quick summary:
NoHun I know that I'm probably instantly recognisable to anyone who knows me, so just make sure that I don't post anything that I wouldn't mind RL friends or even acquaintances reading. And am just keeping my fingers crossed that my ILs don't discover MN!
Anyway, for those who don't know me, I live in Austria with Austrian DH and our three DC (6, 8 and 10); I've been here for nine years and also lived in Germany for four years.
wanting / Nutella Good luck with the house/flat hunting!
admylin We didn't actually see anything of Hannover as we only spent one full day with our friends and they now live nearer to Nien burg than Hannover. DH and I both thought how English it looked in that area, although our friends didn't think so at all so it's obviously just in comparison with Austria!
EnglishWoman My parents were the exact opposite when it came to pets; we only ever had gerbils and they weren't replaced when they died as the novelty wore off after a few weeks and my mum ended up having to look after them.
Alice Hello, long time no see! You'd be welcome to come over this week if you can get here.
Cake The only time my DH was ever mistaken for an Australian (on a surprisingly regular basis) was when we lived in the USA - and it wasn't because of his accent. 
And the only nursery rhyme etc. he knows is Alle meine Entlein (which I don't remember him ever singing to the DC).
Ploom At least you have English as your family language. If we're all together, the main language is German - I do still use English if I'm addressing the DC directly, but speak German if it's a family discussion. Not unconnected to that, I don't think the DC hear enough English conversation - but am not sure about exposing them to DH's accent more than is absolutely necessary.
awesome I didn't realise Köpenick was so unfriendly; I used to have a good friend there when I was au pairing in Berlin, but I suppose I didn't actually spend a lot of time in Köpenick itself. I came across my fair share of "direct" Germans when we lived there, but it sounds like your experience is far worse.
Bertie Good luck with your visit! I had a look at your thread, but am not much help as I haven't travelled by train in Germany for years. There's definitely a difference between ICE and IC trains, though (ICE are Intercity Express and are much faster); the ICE supplement used to be twice as much as the IC supplement, but that may well have changed.
Antique at your latest postman-related incident!
So much for a quick summary! Really must go as DS has decided he wants to go to KiGa today, much to my surprise; I'd registered him this week, but expected him to want to stay home with the DDs. Apologies to anyone I've missed out!
Ploom ·
27/08/2012 09:01
oh "englishwoman" - that sounds like you've had a rough night 
. Can you not send the older 2 to someone else to play rather than them all coming to you today?? Hope you get some rest. My boys have also not mastered the longer sleeping thing regardless of when they go to bed. DD on the other hand is turning it into an art form - she's not been getting up till 11am!!!!! Its driving me mad cause she doesnt want lunch when we eat cause she's just had breakfast. Think I'm going to wake her in a moment only so that I can reclaim my evenings a bit. Hope you have a good holiday - where are you off to?
linzer - school preparation classes? how did you manage to sell that one to the girls?? Glad ds went to kiga - just one less for a morning makes life a bit easier.
wanting - aw that was sad that the boat trip was no fun for you. Life seems really tricky for you at the moment. How do your dc feel about the possibility about going into german schools? Do they speak any German? Hope you get some good news about schools and flats soon.
admylin - are the school holidays in your area a bit later this year? Your 2 are definite teenagers now if they're looking for extra help to keep awake. When did they start drinking coffee? dd has never shown any interest in tea or coffee despite us drinking them regularly.
nutella - you dont seem to having much luck with flats either. Would be quite stressful to move with a tiny baby in tow - well its always stressful so maybe a portable tiny baby would be a good excuse to get your dh to do it all 
.
As much as I didnt enjoy the heat of last week, I wasnt impressed with our day of non-stop rain yesterday. We didnt go out all day. Thankfully ds2 got a new wii game for his birthday so that and his other birthday presents kept them occupied. But the weather looks better this morning so think the dogs boys need some running about outside today . also need to crack on this week with getting the last bits of school stationary for ds2 and all that ds1 needs. Ds2 needs blackboard pencils 
in green and yellow. Managed to find the yellow one but no one has a green one. But went into another shop in the town where the school is on saturday and the woman said they would order a box since there would obv be 18 or 19 other dc needing one too. Why do the school not think of speaking to the local shops before the write their lists. (this is my only bug bear about schools here - would be happier to give the school 50? and they could buy it all themselves!)
LinzerTorte ·
27/08/2012 10:22
We have food again and, more importantly, I have a coffee. The girls disappeared over to the neighbours as soon as we got home (who phoned up when we were out wanting to know when we'd be back), so it's strangely quiet here... good preparation for school next week (for me!).
Ploom Blackboard pencils are a new one on me; how much writing/drawing on the blackboard are they all going to be doing?!? They seem to introduce something new onto the lists every year just to confuse me, although at least we've never had any problems getting hold of things.
EnglishWoman Sympathies on your broken night, but well done to your DD on her lie-ins! My three have been regularly getting up at between 6 and 7 am throughout the holidays - right up until today, when DS and DD2 didn't get up until nearly 8 am and I had to wake DD1 at 8.15 am. Just typical; the only time we have to be somewhere by a certain time is the only time they lie in!
Re school preparation, DD1's dyslexia tutor has always offered more general lessons in the last three weeks of the holidays, and DD1 does seem to benefit from doing regular work outside school (even if I do complain a lot about the extra work that DH does with her). DD2 is always quite upset that she can't go to DD1's dyslexia lessons and loves being "allowed" to go with her in the summer, although we're rarely here to send them for more than a week (they're going three times this week, for an hour each time). I wouldn't send DD2 if she was on her own but the two of them love going together and I think it's good for DD1 not to go on her own for once (she must see how much extra work DH does with her and how little he normally does with DD2).
It's fairly common for school children here to do Ferienhefte in the summer holidays; we've tried to get the DDs to do a page of German and a page of maths every day, although it's not always realistic. DD2 actually finished her maths book a few weeks ago but as usual, it's a little more difficult to motivate DD1. It generally seems to be recommended to give children the whole of July off and then get them used to doing bits of school work throughout August so that they build up gradually by September. I remember hearing on the radio not long ago that the summer holidays are far too long and children really need to go back to school after seven or eight weeks as otherwise they really struggle with their concentration when they do go back. I can't see the holidays becoming shorter any time soon, though - they're too long in the summer, and too short the rest of the year.
wanting I know exactly how you feel; I remember being driven mad one August when the DC were at home with me for weeks on end, we had nothing planned and there was no one else around (they could have gone to KiGa but, in a moment of madness, I'd decided to enrol them only in July - when we ended up not being here ). Ever since then, I've tried to make sure that I've planned the holidays a bit better and the last few summers have actually gone by really quickly, despite the fact that school is closed for nine weeks.
No need to apologise re the sickness btw; I have no problems reading about it, just wouldn't particularly want to be there!
admylin Yes, I think that having to sit and concentrate all morning will be the biggest challenge here too. Do your DC have a full morning at school straight away or do they build up to it gradually over the week like they do here? (I thought it might be different once they get to secondary school but no, DD1 has one hour on her first day, two hours on her second...)
cheaspicks ·
27/08/2012 13:25
I was about to start writing a post before and then the kitchen fitters rang asking if they could come and photograph the kitchen , so obviously I had to do some remedial cleaning first! They don't know when they'll manage to come, though, so I'll have to keep it clean and tidy all week .
Linzer I also really enjoyed our meet-up last week, even if it wasn't a terribly long one. Maybe we will have to resurrect the Norfolk barn plan .
If it helps you or anyone else to remember my new nn, here's the story behind it: DD was helping me make hoummous last week - putting the ingredients in the food processor and so on, then she ran away when I switched it on because she doesn't like the noise. The next day she was eating the hoummous for lunch and suddenly asked "where are the cheas picks?" I know it's rather bleurgh and un-MNetty to have a cute child story behind one's nn, but I'd been wanting to namechange for a while and couldn't think of anything better!
CakeBump as ploom said, dh speaks English to dd, too, despite not being a native speaker and making some awful mistakes. We intended to do OPOL, but when dd was born dh found himself speaking English to her automatically, so we left it. My IL live in the same town and they've always done a lot of child care, so dd hasn't missed out on German nursery rhymes or ever seemed to be struggling with German. I am surprised that her German still hasn't become better than her English after a year at kiga. I guess as she starts to play co-operatively with the other children she will improve more rapidly.
As EnglishWoman said, it's the best solution for us, in our situation. There are people who believe that each parent must speak their native language or the child's linguistic development will be severely impaired (look on the bilingualism board), but I think the real key is consistency. An American friend of mine took her then 1yo ds to the States for a year (where she spoke German to him to keep it up) and then moved back here (and switched back to English). He has now (age 9) been diagnosed with some sort of language problem, which his speech therapist suspects is related to the multiple moves at a critical stage of language development, but they can't be sure - and he has ADHD as well, so who knows.
Does anyone (admylin, perhaps) know how to harvest coriander seeds? My coriander plants grew amazingly well this summer and now they are covered in seeds. Do I take them off while they are green and dry them somehow, or leave them on the plants for them to dry? I want to re-sow them rather than eat them!
Hello to everyone else!
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TheEnglishWomanInTheAttic ·
27/08/2012 13:42
cheaspicks nns with a story behind them are a good thing, I think this type of thread is not very typical of the rest of mn anyway... I don't think my kids' German is better than their English even now, and DD did 3 years of Kindergarten and a year of school and definitely plays co-operatively :) It is hard to tell though for me, as both DD and DS1 speak better German than I do 
.
I think what language you read to them/ later they read for pleasure in makes a difference, as that is where they get most of their more extensive passive vocabulary - for that reason I wish DH would read to them in German, but he rarely does though they have lots of German books, I just have to hope they'll read novels etc. in German as well as English as they get a bit older, or maybe think of getting a decent German broadsheet or non-trashy "Educational" magazine subscription in German - I have had flyers for the educational type magazines in the past I think but they seem redundant for non readers, might be worth it for DD now or soon though... Any ideas on that Linzer, Admylin, Ploom* or anyone else with school age kids? What do you do to keep your kids German vocabulary expanding beyond the everyday?
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