Sharing is good?

"Sharing is good!" I once heard my uncle explain to my then five year old cousin. That sentence has been rolling around in the back of my head for at least 25 years now. I don't like to share, I'll tell you that right now. So how can I teach my kids something I don't really believe in?

Sharing sucks. Especially when it comes to your kids or worse, your husband. They just ruin your nice stuff anyway, so why give them access to it in the first place?

Take for instance Poptarts. Strawberry filled, frosted Poptarts, to be exact. Are there, really, any other kind worth eating? Okay, granted for the last few years, I've been on a health kick, and have forced my family to eat an organic, low-animal product, low processed food diet. But come on, sometimes you just need something totally junky to make it through the day.

So when I had the chance to buy a box of Poptarts while visiting the US, I jumped on it. I can get them here, I know. But they go for like 5€ for a six pack (or the equivalent of roughly $6,000,000.00, give or take). I bought them, and put them in the pantry, thinking no one would touch them because (1) they don't know what they are and (2) it's OUR pantry, you can't find ANYTHING in there.

So imagine my surprise, my rage, my utter loss of control, when Sweet Papa comes in to the room with a half eaten piece of strawberry filled goodness in his mouth saying, "This tastes like cardboard. Do you want the other one?" If I wasn't in bed with my new laptop on my lap, phone in my ear, and tax papers strewn all over, I would have leaped up and strangled him. Instead I just started screaming in my phone, "What are you doing? Are you eating my Poptarts? You, you, you, you can't touch those. Those are sacred! Those are sacred!" I thought I was going to cry. Not only did he eat one of my Poptarts, he made a whole pack - he sacrificed two, TWO! Poptarts that I had been saving for the right moment to savor in peace, in quiet, alone with my thoughts.

And then the incredible happened. I hear Kiki from the other room saying, "I don't like it either!"

What? How many did he make? What was he thinking? Doesn't he know? How could he not know? We've been married 14 years. How could he not know he's not supposed to touch my stuff???!!!

"How many did you make?" I shrieked.

"Just two packs."

"Just two packs? Just two packs??!!! It's only a 6 pack. That means we only have 2 left. And we don't fly back home for another 2 months! How could you do this to me? What were you thinking?"

I started walking around the room waving my hands in the air screaming, "How? What? Oh my God! Why do you do things like this?" All the while still on the phone with my sister saying to her, "Can you believe it? He ate my Poptarts! He ate my Poptarts!" She didn't seemed phased. She tried to talk me out of buying them in the first place. She was alright with the two family-sized jars of high fructose corn syrup infused grape jelly, and the 60 pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and she even helped procure the 10 boxes of Girl Scout cookies for me. But Poptarts, I guess, crossed some kind of a line for her.

This, of course, was not the first time something like this has happened. But I've learned to stash my good stuff away (in my closet, above the 3 feet line, or in a cupboard, behind the first row of uninteresting looking healthy food). I buy two sets of art supplies - one for me to cherish, one for my kids to destroy, luckily Sweet Papa isn't interested in creating art (unless you can eat it).

But sometimes, when I'm busy or tired, I get careless. It only takes a second. Leave your artwork or tax papers on the table and run to lower the heat on the pot of spaghetti boiling over on the stove and come back to find a layer of thick red paint on your dining table, sofa, carpet, window, cat, child's face, child's butt (because they tried to wipe it off), child's shirt (because they tried to wipe it off again), child's arms and legs (because wiping it off seemed like so much fun).

After three kids and a husband, there's just no place for sacredness. I grab the plates away from Sweet Papa and Kiki and eat every last crumb I could find, and glance over at Bugsy to see if he wants any because he's the only one who understands how good they really are. He slowly retreats in fear and politely says "No, thank you."

I take the remaining packets out of the cupboard and bring them to the safety of my clothes closet. Squint my eyes, pinch my lips together and flash Sweet Papa that "Don't you EVER touch my stuff again" look. He just pours himself a glass of milk, puts on his headphones and loses himself in a game of World of Tanks. The kids go back to watching the Disney channel, and I think by now my sister has hung up on me.

Payback

This is dedicated to my new baby niece (not technically a niece since she's my cousin's daughter, but in my family, if a person is younger than you, they are a niece or nephew and if they are older than you, they are your aunt or uncle, but then I had one kid try and call me "Aji" (grandmother) because I am cousins with their father's mother who is technically considered my sister because our fathers are brothers - but then I was like "no way, dude, I am NOBODY's Aji! I am WAY too young for that kind of responsibility).

This is a story about PAYBACK. 

Something happened to me a while ago that brought me to knees, and nearly made me crumble. Kiki didn't want to go to Hort (afterschool care). And she was adamant about it. Not sure what started it. Not even sure what ended it. But it was dreadful. Now, it may not seem all that bad to you, but to me it was tragic.

Over here, for first and second graders, school ends, on some days at 11:10. Yep that's right, 11 freakin' 10! School starts at 8:00, and it takes about 10 minutes to walk back home after dropping her off, and 10 minutes to walk back to pick her up. So that gives me 2 hours and 50 minutes to shower, eat breakfast, look for jobs, write cover letters, translate them to German (get my proofs back from Sweet Papa claiming that my grammar sucks), create project proposals, make all my job related calls and hope people don't call back when my kids are home and I have to try and sound professional while using gestures and hand signals to threaten my kids to leave the room and be quiet.

To be fair to the German school system... No wait, this system sucks. Kiki gets out at 11:10 twice a week, 12:15 twice a week, and one day a week she gets out at 1:00! Hurray! 4 hours of freedom! I just might get time to get some groceries without a kid demanding everything from cookies to Hello Kitty printed toilet paper, or worse yet, a kid who HAS to poop just at the point where your shopping cart is full and you're behind 15 people, including the old guy at the front who is trying to pay for beer and candy with pennies!

When I took her out of Hort for a week, Bugsy said I was too easy on her. He's right. I never would have given in to him. I think he tried, but I was so sleep deprived overwhelmed with the two younger ones that I couldn't give in to him. Plus he made friends and learned the language way faster than he would have being home with me speaking English and watching TV all day. Yeah, I guess I could have planned better and taken them to the playground in between nap time (which changed daily or sometimes never happened) and cooked nutritious meals for them (without groceries because I had to leave them at the store and get my kid to the nearest clean toilet before the poopy came out only to find that it was a false alarm, and to later find said poopy on my living room floor an hour later because it was the exciting part of The Lion King and they couldn't get off the couch to get to the bathroom on time). Sorry, mama.

But Bugsy was different. He's stubborn, but at some point he'll cave. It might take a while, but he'll give in eventually. Fifi, pretty much will find the adventure in anything, and only needs a few minutes to warm up to an idea. And when not, she can easily be bought off with a bar of chocolate. Kiki, though, I have met my match with that one. She is more stubborn than me and Sweet Papa put together. She will stick to her guns on everything. She. Will. Not. Budge.

It's terrible. At first, I thought this, for sure, was a trait she got from her dad (which he got from his mom - but that's another story altogether). But apparently, according to my cousin (different cousin than the one that had the baby - this one lives in India and therefore has much larger gene pool to study) my family is famous for its stubbornness! Famous!

This wasn't just about not wanting to go to Hort or school (which came later). This was about PAYBACK. When I was in first grade, my mom got a call from the school nurse EVERY SINGLE Monday morning saying, "Mrs. Vernekar, your little daughter has a tummy ache." as my mom continued to remind me for years afterwards trying to imitate the nurses' southern accent while speaking with her own Indian intonation.

What had I done to my mom all those years? Was I really that bad? Was I really that annoying? When I first found I was pregnant with Bugsy and was feeling weird and nauseous, my mom laughed and said to me "Guuuuuuudd. I hope he gets you!" What? What kind of sympathy was that from my own loving mother? What had I done to that woman? I mean besides the weight gain, lack of sleep, interruption of her college studies, pulling her hair while she was learning how to drive, slapping her in the face when she tried to sing us to sleep, and the worst - scratching her precious two-year old prince of a son in the face whenever he came near her. I was a tiger!

Then it occurred to me. All my kids got the worst traits, not just from me, but from Sweet Papa, AND all of our siblings! It's not survival of the fittest. It's survival of the most annoying! Bugsy and Fifi got the non-stop talking gene from both our sisters (a double whammy). Fifi got the gotta-be-friends-with-everyone-gene from my sister. Kiki got the must-fill-my-pockets-with-leaves-and-other-random-trash from my brother (although to be fair, he only collects leaves, seriously, borrow one of his jackets and you'll see what I mean). Fifi most definitely got the shoe-lovin' gene from my sister-in-law (really? you want to wear your sparkly but flimsy sandals on a 2 hour hike?). Luckily Bugsy and Kiki got the night owl gene from us, but Fifi didn't. She's the only morning person in the family, which was hell for me until we re-programmed her so I could get some sleep. 

So, Baby M, although your mom was the cutest baby ever, and she claims, right now, that you are a calm baby, I know what your uncles are like, and I can't even imagine what you might be getting from your father's side.  Be careful what you do to your mom and dad in the next 20 or 30 years, because it'll all come full circle when you have kids of your own (or when you're asked to babysit my grandkids).

Temptation and Sabotage

Well, we survived a week of detox, kind of.  And when I mean "we" I mean "me and the kids." Sweet Papa was not about to play along with my silly ideas. That's probably why he's been able to keep up his sweet personality after being married for over 12 years to a tyrant.
Fifi: Hey mom, is today the last day of the thing?
Sweet Papa: Oh, you mean the Torture?
I must say that the one thing that became increasingly clear to me was that Sweet Papa shows every sign of being addicted to sugar. The first day of the "Cleanse" Sweet P starts the day off with his usual cup of coffee and 2-3 cubes of sugar. As soon as he was out of the kitchen I proceeded to hide all the refined sugar, candy, cookies, and other foods with processed sugars or high fructose corn syrup - you know, by putting them BEHIND other things in the cabinet. I can't believe he couldn't find them for a week.
The first day was pretty smooth. The kids and I rode our bikes down to a local farmer who sells produce on Saturday mornings. It was so awesome. Never knew cauliflower was sweet before. Finally had some decent sweet corn in the country. One thing I realized was that I spent the entire day cooking or doing some kind of physical exercise with the kids, because they don't move unless you move with them. It was exhausting.
The second day we had to defrost our freezer. Which meant we had to end up eating whatever was inside, including shrimp, ground beef, and the frozen cheesecake that I thought I could hide for another week.  Luckily it had apples in it, so when S.P. starts to dish it out, Fifi says she doesn't want any. S.P. can't believe this, and insists she tries it. I'm like, hello, this is sabotage, don't MAKE her eat the cake. It's bad enough he slipped Kiki an extra slice when I went to the bathroom, and who knows how many Bugsy got. 
Thursday was rough. I was exhausted. I'd been baking bread (which is so easy and really fun if you have all the time in the world and no deadlines to face) and trying to find things too cook beside spaghetti and meat sauce, and trying to keep Bugsy active. But I came down with a cold, and everyone was on my nerves. So Sweet Papa did the sweet thing, and took the girls to the hardware store with him to get them out of my hair. But first they had to stop to get ice cream to sabotage things even further.
We'd been pretty good about not going overboard. I substituted banana milkshakes for ice cream shakes (one banana, a cup of milk, and if you want, any assortment of other fruits - the frozen kind work really well, and I added a teaspoon of malted milk because I love strawberry malts). Used Agave instead of sugar, and made their chocolate milk with cocoa powder and agave juice. Bugsy was not about to try to substitute anything for his beloved strawberry flavored milk, so he drank it plain. We really don't eat a lot of crappy foods, so it really wasn't that big of a change.
But for some reason it was just too much for Sweet Papa. Here's the proof: he sent me this link yesterday: 

Where does he find this stuff? Oh, and the remix video is pretty funny too:

Watch out! Mama's taking over!

Nothin' like a good ole body cleanse to get your summer vacation going. 

For the first time in a long time, I will have total control of everything my family eats and every physical activity they do for 2 full weeks (2 1/2 for the kids). So I'm taking charge. We are cutting out white sugar and all processed foods and synthetic ingredients, and whatever else I feel like cutting out (including my morning Latte Machiatto) for as long as we can take it. We're going substitute things like (gasp!) running around outside, and playing games that involve more than just your retinas and fingertips to move, for the TV and computer. I'm drinking my last beer as I write this, I may need another.

Sound outrageous? Sound inhumane? I have 2 obese people in my immediate family (not me) and coming from a long line of people teased for their skinniness, I refuse to allow this behavior to continue under my watch. Besides, they spent their first week off of school with Sweet Papa and Oma, so you know a detox is in order.

our Saviour?

First stop: grocery store to get a healthier replacement for white cane sugar Picked up an extra large bottle of Agave: Bio (hell) Agaven Dicksaft. Roughly translated: you will be going through hell on this diet and this juice (saft) will make you fat (dick).  I don't know if this is really a better alternative than sugar, but I'm not going the artificial sweetener route, and the other alternative  - sepia? stevia? stevejobsia? is banned in some countries, and well, when I went to the local store, this was staring me in the face like a gift from God.  Bugsy, of course wanted to get 2 bottles, just to make sure we had enough.


So far the kids have been fine with the idea, even curious, asking questions like "Can we watch TV? It doesn't have sugar in it." And "Can we have our last Nutella bread?" (on their last day without sugar), but since there was no bread, they settled for a Nutella banana, which turned into raiding the Nutella jar with their fingers and eventually spreading it all over my dining table. At least that'll hopefully keep anyone else from wanting to eat the rest.

Sweet Papa's reaction was a bit different. His last week long cleanse lasted until he got home from work the first day.  His first reaction was total shock that I would even consider doing something like this. Since he's generally too lazy to prepare meals or get groceries, he knows he's dependent on me for food. His second thought - I'm going on vacation! Third thought - two weeks is just too long. We'll see. We may not make it through the first day. But at least the kids are going to realize that maybe going to day care and letting mommy go to work, may not just be such a bad thing after all.

Of Mice und mein Mann

We have cats. 3 of them. Well, 2 ½, since one prefers our neighbor over us and just comes over occasionally for lunch and to poop in our bike shed. We got the first one 10 years ago. My husband warned me back then not to take it in. I knew he was an animal lover, but I didn't know to what extent. I should have listened.

A couple of neighbor's kids found a kitten and were holding it in a cardboard box. She was all black, with a tuft of white fur under her chin, and big eyes. Soooo cute.

- Hey, Sweet Papa, they caught a kitten! Come see!

- If I look at it, I'm going to have to keep it.

- Oh, come on, take a look!

Famous last words. 

We kept her. And her fleas. And her death threats on my newborn son. 

Then we kept her friends. And their fleas. And we paid for their shots, collars, flea medication, de-worming medication, operations, kennel charges, car carriers, airplane pet carriers (the large ones meant for dobermans, so they'd be more comfortable on the transatlantic flight), and airfare. Don't even bring up the fact that while the other two were able to go as carry-ons, Cocoa (and yes, I'm using her real name, no need to protect her identity), Cocoa hid under the jacuzzi tub and we couldn't get her out in time for the flight. We ended up buying her a separate ticket and having her fly on her own – don't even ask what it cost me, the wound is still raw.

Well, this story isn't about Cocoa (she deserves a blog all to herself), it's about Baby Meow Meow (BMM for short). Or rather what she dragged in.

One afternoon, not too long ago, she came in with a mouse in her mouth. Generally she only brings in half a mouse, or dead mice, but this time it was whole, and it was still moving, well, twitching. So I managed to separate the two and got the cat away, and locked the dying mouse in the bathroom to die in peace.

I made the mistake of writing Sweet Papa an e-mail letting him know what happened. He suggested I call my friend the vet. Well, she's only technically a vet, she's really a biologist specializing in infectious diseases, but she could work as a vet if she wanted to. Like I could work as a mechanical engineer if I wanted to, but just don't ask me to fix your car. I couldn't reach her, but she told me later I should have let the cat finish the mouse off, because it's just  part of the world's order or something like that.

So when Sweet Papa arrives home from work, he rushes to the bathroom to assess the damage. 4 or 5 hours after I got it away from BMM and it's still alive! Still twitching! Sweet P. immediately gets on the phone. The local vet doesn't take in field mice, but they suggest he try the animal hospital in Dachau! So he calls there, turns out it closes in about 10 minutes, but if he hurries they'll wait for him.

Am I the only sane one here?

I had to go to a meeting, and Fifi wasn't feeling well. So the older two stayed at home while Sweet Papa took Kiki and the twitching mouse to the animal hospital.

Seriously? 

Well, the doctors couldn't save the mouse. But they did give it a shot to put it to sleep. They didn't charge us for it, but they talked Sweet Papa into buying flea collars for the cats to the tune of almost 100 euros. He said he was in an emotionally charged state after holding the twitching mouse in his hands, and would have agreed to anything.

And apparently he hasn't been able to catch Cocoa yet to put the flea collar on her either. Hope he's not trying to save any fleas from an untimely death.