You know you've lived in Europe too long when...

1. You expect to be in another country if you've spent two hours in a car.
2. Your kid asks you how to say a word in three languages.
3. You learn the Cyrillic alphabet so that you can read the street signs in your favorite spa town (and know what your spam is talking about).
4. You think $4 gas is a good deal.
5. Americans regularly compliment you on your English and ask what country you're from.
6. You catch yourself singing to an oompa beat.
7. You think the New York Times online edition is the hub of American journalism.
8. U.S. politicians are still embarrassing, but then so are everyone else's.
9. You believe everyone has the right to good chocolate at least once a day.
10. You forget your favorite holidays. See below:

Conversation on a conference call to the States, July 7
Julia: Hey guys, so, how are ya’ll doing over there. You just had a holiday didn’t you? Which one was it again?

July, shortly

James keeps getting bigger and bigger. Here he is today, almost grown out of the blue sleeper that swallowed him when he came home three months ago.

The hole outside my window has also gotten bigger and bigger. We suspect they may be digging to China, or at least to the metro.

We celebrated Caroline's birthday (at the end of June) three times in July. As a result, Caroline became a candle blowing-out expert. She says she is a "big 5," now that she's hit 5.07 years old.

Baby life isn't all about crying and spitting up any more. See? J's on his baby playground here. Caroline likes to join him sometimes and pretend she's Gulliver.

Myself, I'm mostly found with a baby draped over one arm, phone in the other. I'm working full time from home and chasing after that elusive thing called sleep.

What are you up to, this side of July?

Card-carrying member of the Antiheliocentric League of Preschoolers

I pick Caroline up to give her a goodnight hug and swirl around the room and think what a grown up girl she is now, almost too heavy for me to carry. Her face comes near to mine in size and her long legs and arms threaten to overturn the raft my arms make carrying her. I know my sense of proportion has changed since the baby was born (he seems big to me too, no longer a newborn now that he’s ten weeks old and 24 inches long), but when I set C down and we talk about school, her teachers and how she tries to listen to them, I guess I know what it feels like to have a big kid in the family.

Then we see the moon peeping through the chimney stacks above the house next door and C says, "Look, it’s the moon! He’s my friend you know, he follows me around when I go outside, and the sun does too. They are my special friends." And I remember that she is still a little girl and if the world might not always seem to revolve around her, at least the sun and the moon still do.

Ahoj matey!

 

Every day Caroline comes home from her summer school with new pirate accoutrements. Hat, sword, map and telescope - she's even added an eye patch to her costume collection. It's all made of paper and tape, but she's convinced the telescope works. She wants to adjust some settings though to make it as powerful as her new yellow binoculars, featured above, one of her best birthday presents.

Here she shows off her binoc technique, she says she's ready to sail the seas with 'glasses' as powerful as these!

Happy Almost Fourth!

 

Maternity Ward Czech

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted. Nothing like working full time with a newborn AND having guests and clients in town. Pshew. It’s not that I haven’t been writing in my head (I do that constantly) but finding time to sit at the computer and type it all out - that’s what I’ve been missing. To ease my way back into the blogging sphere, I thought I’d favor you with a list of handy dandy Czech vocabulary words I put together for a friend of mine who is about to have a baby here. I came up with this list while I was in the hospital, waiting to come home and finally catch up on my sleep, ha.

Why a vocabulary list? The maternity hospitals here are very comfortable and the care excellent, but if you are an English-speaking mother the nurses sometimes shy away from you, or get a bit aggressive and loud (do all cultures have the habit of raising their voices while speaking to mute foreigners?). Having just a few of the same words to bandy about can really relax the atmosphere - especially at, say, 5 in the morning when the nurse needs you to weigh the baby before she goes off her shift and you think she is randomly waking you up for crazy hospital regulation reasons (both would be correct, but I did take comfort in knowing the exact crazy hospital regulation reason).

It's a pretty basic list, but nurses and doctors tend to repeat the same words (thank heavens). I did leave out certain phrases such as: "You don't really expect me to eat THAT do you?" and "Are those really goats mehhing outside my window?" because the answers are self-evident and the sentences long. Any further thoughts on useful words are, as always, welcome.*

* Thanks to Anne over at Tuckova for her editorial advice!

The very basics
můzu mít... = can I have...
je to mozny = is it possible
profen = ibuprofen
led = ice
bolí mě... = I have a pain...
břicho = belly
šití = stitches
hlava = head

Who is who
miminko = baby
malé dítě = baby
kojenec = baby (who is presumably breast feeding)
sestra = nurse
doktor = doctor
maminka = mommy
matka = mother

Words you'll hear in labor
tlač! = push!
contrakce = contraction
dýchat = breathe
dýchání = breathing

Words you'll hear after the baby is born
potrebujete neco = do you need something?
ukašte mi = show me...
kontrolovat = to control, or check
kojeni = breast feeding
krevní tlak = blood pressure
vaha = weight
vážit = to weigh
koupani = bathing
vykoupat miminko = to wash the baby

Your newborn's top 10 to-dos
vytahnout = take in
kojit = suck
škytat = hiccup
krknout = burp
blinkat = spit up
plakat = cry
čurat = pee
dělat bobek* = poop
zívat = yawn
spát = sleep

*I’m not sure how common this phrase is, but it is the parlance in our Czech family.

Other useful odds and ends
záda = back
bok = side
oblečení = clothes
plenky = diapers
prsa = breast
polštář = pillow
porodnice = maternity hospital
očkovací = vaccine
postýlka = crib

A Day for the River

The weather continues beautifully sunny and hot. Today while I work (on babies, contracts and laundry) I'm daydreaming about being out on the river, messing about in a boat. In Prague, paddle boats and row boats are easy to rent, there are several ferries that will take you across the river for the price of a tram ticket, and you can even rent a Chinese junk by the hour. My favorite boat for the river though is a canoe, and my favorite spot for a paddle is in the south, near Cesky Krumlov, where the river is wilder and the banks are closer than the Vltava near Prague.

While I wait for our next trip south though, Caroline and I have a treat in store for us - just in time for the summer, a read through of A Wind in the Willows and life with Ratty and Mole, Toad and Badger. It will be interesting to see what C thinks of a quartet like those fellows!

Books, books, books

One of our friends got married last weekend and we sent Will off to the States for the great event (and to do a little shopping!). To help out while he was gone, two very good friends (one my twin) split up the week and flew over to help out. Not only did they share the baby joggling, they entertained C, helped keep the flat clean and gave me a great excuse to go exploring everyday. Now they are gone and I'm a little lonely. But I do have some compensation in front of me. See the stack? Those are the books that Will brought back with him from the States when he came home yesterday. New reading material, hurrah!!

Wallenstein's Grotto

One of the oddest follies I've seen in the Czech Republic, Wallenstein's grotto stands at the south end of the long gardens enclosed by the Senate building here in Prague. The drips are supposed to be stalactites and stalagmites, but they look more like the walls of a seaside mud castle to me. Just to the right of the wall, you can see an apiary built into a corner of the grotto. We didn't see any of its resident locals, but just outside the mesh, peacocks strutted and yelped, sounding remarkably similar to the grass warden guarding the park from anyone who might dare to step on the lawn (other than the peacocks of course).

Prague Summer Weekend

View from Vysehrad

This weekend, Prague was hot. It was even humid. Most Czechs left for the countryside, but those who did not headed to parks like Vysehrad, in search of green trees and shade, good views and cold beer. We did too, on Sunday. Saturday I toured my twin sister and her family around Mala Strana, exploring the gardens at the foot of the castle. We kept to the less trodden byways and stayed as much in the shade as we could - but we were still nearly melted by the time we got back to our side of the river and home. Below, you can see some of the gardens we passed by and the castle on the hill, plus, very close by, a stream running towards one of the old mills on Kampa island.

What I liked best about being outside all weekend - besides family, beautiful views, pistachio ice cream, a few sips of cold beer and taking lots of pictures...besides all these favorite things, the baby did not cry. I think he likes fresh air. He definitely liked sleeping in Kampa Park.

Door in the wall

I found this door a block away from one of the busiest and high gloss crossroads in Prague - Wensceslas Square and Na Prikope. I like the picture because the door is so designed and ordered, and the wall is not.

Jess, who writes the blog Garish and Tweed and the most useful book reviews I know, issued a challenge the other day. She challenged her readers to check out her friend Kate's blog, red couch fever, (very funny) and try to write a poem in the style of William Carlos Williams' "This is just to say".

I tried my hand at it too - nothing as funny as Kate or Jess's addition to the repertoire, but it sort of summarizes the month I'm living through:

I’m sorry I yelped
When you urped down my shirt
I made your arms flail
And your sweet lips turn pale.
Forgive me -
I know it wasn’t malicious,
just quick
and cold.

Poetry seems to be in the air over here at Kolokolo. I ran out of books to read about a week ago (and when I'm feeding a baby, I need something to read), so I've been overhauling my poetry shelf, pulling out old favorites to see how they hold up to the rigors of a 2 am critic. Besides remembering just how much I like Marianne Moore, I've discovered something else cool too. All that pacing you put in walking a colicky baby? You might feel you'll never have your hands free again to eat a sandwich or fold the swarms of laundry surrounding you, but pacing is great for memorizing poetry. I roar out lines while the baby bellows, I whisper them while I bob him, nearly asleep, on my shoulder.

So far I've memorized one Marianne Moore poem, several William C Williams and e.e. cummings (so easy). Next up is some Donne and Shakespeare. Any suggestions on favorite poems you have memorized, I'd love to hear.

First Walks and Prague Windows

When we took our first walk with baby, I hoped I'd feel more like the girl in the window, and less like the lion...but first walks are first walks. Caroline wept copiously, the baby decided he didn't like pacifiers (he still doesn't) and we kept remembering baby necessities we'd forgotten. Add stitches and benches designed only for the sturdy and it wasn't the most comfortable of outings, but we all survived, and Caroline promised that never again would she leave her bicycle at home when we go out biking on the playground. And not only did I enjoy my first beer of the year - a small beer, very healthy - but I also found the window/door design of lass and leo that seemed just right for the day.

Two weeks later I'm happy to say that we're much more adept at getting out and about, and have in fact just returned from registering J at the US embassy as a citizen (before today, he was a baby without a country). No one tsked at us on the tram for taking a new baby out, we didn't forget anything, and all squalls waited until we reached home.

Safely inside our flat, the baby cried his heart out on my shoulder. Will made coffee and handed me a toasted chicken sandwich and sticky bun for sustenance and I decided that if a fussy baby is in our cards, if he has the grace to sleep through beauracracy and public transportation, if coffee and cinnamon buns are available on occasion, well then, well.

I'm keeping my lion in reserve though. He's still much more like me than the dainty Dresdener lass.

Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne would make mince meat out of these guys

We've entered a new phase of the project outside my window - an earth digging one. I've spent hours watching as the digger politely taps away at the hill and J snuffles on my shoulder. After a few days of this, Caroline and I dug out Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel so we could read about our favorite shovelers again (and marvel at how fast they dug that cellar).

C paid closer attention to the story this time than when she first met the book. When we finished she worried about Mike and Mary Anne, stuck in the cellar for all time. We talked about their friends visiting, and Mike getting out for a walk every now and then. All this talk of walks inspired me to start getting out of the house too, despite an incessantly crying baby and well-meaning ladies who think babies should stay inside until they start kindergarten. But that's a story for tomorrow.