Just This Weekend

Censorship is an ugly thing.  I sensed the incessant raves about Australia and Australians were becoming tiresome.  But what I say is true.  And by censoring my own observations I am failing to record my first impressions here, failing to let others know how truly good people can be to oneanother and failing to let AUSTRALIANS themselves know how lucky they are.

Mermaids in paradise on the Sunshine Coast

Really, these people (God love 'em) are truly naive.  They honestly can't fathom how good they have it here in comparison with the rest of the world.  Not just the medical and schooling and social services and climate, but the way they treat one another as well.  It's just the way it's done.  It's a bit like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  This truly is paradise.  Before the serpeant.

Goanna

Matthew realising he has just been swimming with a goanna

There's an election coming up and I wouldn't be able to vote even if I were allowed to.  This truly is the best system I have ever seen.  Things work.  Well.  And if you want to whinge about it, absolutely fine, there is always room for improvement.  But it's still by and far the best system I have seen.
There is no right wing as Americans understand it.  Uncle Doug would call em commies and more commies.  But it'd take a really strong Republican to come here and see how well this system works - the medicare and social services - and say no to that peace of mind. 

But whatever it is, Australians are nicer to each other than any other people I have ever met.  They are what Americans would like to be, consider themselves to be, and possibly once were and could be again if they were able to slow down and stop taking themselves too seriously. 

Life is good. 

The Europeans consider this niceness childish naivete.  But they could learn something from it.

There were instances of courtesy and even friendliness in Germany.  But I remember almost every one.  The guy who did offer to help me get the twin stroller into the back of the car.  The lady who didn't cut in front of us in line at Subway.  And...oh darn, there have GOT to be more.

Mostly I remember the stares I got as I tried to negotiate the twin stroller through a crowded bier garten; everyone observing curiously but not one person out of hundreds actually getting up to help move their stuff out of the way.

I remember being the only woman on a business flight from Stuttgart to Paris - NEVER EVER EVER EVER FLY THROUGH CHARLES DE GAULLE  EVER - when I finally just carried 15 month old Andrew AND his stroller down three flights of stairs to get to the plane - with 3 1/2 year old Ryan carrying our bags behind me - while the plane load of men followed meekly behind.

Maybe someone would have helped me if I'd asked.  But they certainly weren't volunteering.

Intrepid explorers at the swimming hole

This comes as no shock to anyone who has ever lived in Europe.  Europeans might not even see anything wrong with it.  (The secret is not to make eye contact.  Without eye contact you can pretend that person next to you doesn't even exist!)  But Australians are absolutely floored.

Let me tell you about my weekend as an example.

On Friday I was in a store with Ian checking out something on the shelves when he dropped my keys.  (Honestly, he can't be trusted to hold onto ANYTHING!)  I've had a sore foot and he's getting heavy so I stalled bending over to pick them up.  I've spent almost a decade in Europe so I really didn't think much of it. 

Until a man came running down the aisle to pick them up for me. 

I felt so lazy I apologised.  "I guess I should be able to pick up my own keys."
"No worries, love, you've got the baby."

From a young man in his 30s.  How tres un-chic of him.

Aussies thinking the intrepid explorers are crazy

On Saturday morning Damon and I were shopping with Ian when an older lady came running across the mall to me.  This didn't shock me at all and I was ready to hand Ian over to this perfect stranger for a cuddle.  All the ladies here want cuddles.  Some just like to smell his head.  (Ah, the pressure to bathe the baby before we hit the shops!)

Instead she bent over to adjust my top.  I had been breastfeeding Ian (discretely, but IN PUBLIC!) just a short while before and my belly was still showing. 

"There you go, love.  I've been there myself."

And off she went.

The view.  Somewhere Sunshine Coast-ish.

Saturday afternoon I was again out shopping with Ian when it started to pour.  Making casual conversation, I asked him how it is we were going to manage an umbrella, the grocery cart and keeping him dry, when a man in his late 40s came over to us and offered to help us to our car. 

This are not just random occurrences.  This is what happens here.

And the only people in the world who are luckier than the Australians themselves are the people who've come here from other places and know how rare this is and how lucky we are to be here.

In Any Language

For those of you who see Aidan and Matthew regularly, you will have no problem identifying the twin on the left from the twin on the right. It's amazing how two beings conceived, carried and born at the same time can look so different. Besides both being boys. And there will be no comparisons made there.

All jokes aside, I feel really lucky to have been blessed with twins. I'm an adventurer at heart, a seeker of change, and I honestly wouldn't have missed this special adventure for the world.

How many people get to experience this?

Twins are special. They light up a room and make people smile. In any language.

When they are first born, you are aware of being center stage, but the feeling fades as they get older. You forget the the three ring circus because, well, they're just your kids and the three ring circus part has become old hat by now.

So that it really does come as a surprise when they light up a room and make people smile.

Yes. Yes. GERMANS TOO! I'm telling you, I can take center stage at the Breuni Mall any day. Young mothers - two year old in the stroller and newborn in the Baby Bjorn, looking slightly harassed and totally exhausted by their own ordeal - walk by and almost cross themselves when they see my four lined up on the bench eating their icecreams. You see them counting. "One. Two. Three. Good Lord, that poor woman has FOUR of them!" They run on quickly, afraid my fertility might be contagious!

But I get plenty of comments and pats on the heads too. Comments for me. Pats for the kids. Men too. Okay the men DID used to cross to the other side of the mall when they saw me coming - eight months pregnant and one kid on each hand - but those were the younger businessmen. Like they thought I was going to walk up and pin the blame on them. "Congratulations. You've just won yourself a full-grown family!" Quick. Run. Hide.

But the older men - 50s or so - get a big kick out of us. Let's face it. The boys match. All three of them. We look good. The three ring circus on its best behavior.

People used to try to hook me up with other twin moms too. I remember one time, I was feeling particularly grumpy about the lack of double-stroller access to Ryan's ballet class and running after two one-year olds heading in separate directions. And a very well-intentioned lady mentioned getting me together with her friend with twins. And I thought - "yeah great - this is what we really need. Two of us with FOUR one year olds. You suck. What a crappy idea."

But I was tired. She meant well.

(For the record, now that the boys are older, we ARE hooking up with more twin moms; we have two sets of twins that make up the four man T-ball team so far and there are a couple at the local pool. Seems they can't stand to stay inside either!)

Being center stage can get old. Especially when everyone else knows a better way to do it. Like they did with THEIR twins, right?! Don't go there. I have never been given advice by a twin mom - or offered any myself. Other than: WHATEVER WORKS FOR YOU. Twin moms don't judge.

But it can be fun too. Like the time in Mallorca when the boys were 10 weeks old and all we heard were shouts of "gemelos". They couldn't believe we were there with TWO newborns. Like it was any easier at home than at the beach.

And in Italy, when we took the kids out biking, me bringing up the rear with the 10 month old twins in a tandem bike carrier. You'd hear. "Uno. Duo. Gemelli. Gemelli." The circus was in town.

It's sneakier now that the twins are older and dressing themselves. Their sense of fashion is entirely different. So that you leave folks guessing as to how close in age those two really are. As if I intentionally gave birth to two beings three months apart somehow. (All that worry about whether you dress em alike or not; c'mon, they wear what they wear and sooner or later they choose on their own anyway and end up wearing a spiderman costume or police outfit most days of the week.)

So that it's more and more fun to see them becoming individuals.

My children are great.

Sometimes it just takes a stranger's smile to remind me of how lucky I really am.

We Don't Really Want To See Them Either

I remember reading twenty years ago in a travel article on Europe that if you wanted to visit Germany with your children, the best place to go was...Switzerland. Honestly, it said, the Germans do not like children, go spend your time - and money -somewhere where you won't feel like a leper for walking through the door with creatures under the age of 30. (MAYBE a mature 25 in some more tolerant circles.) You know - the whole children should be seen and not heard philosophy of our grandparents generation.

But we were on our way to visit Kat and Tim - and two year old Sam - in Munich this week, friends from our grad school days who were currently living in Albania and were now only 3 hours away by car. The opportunity was too good to pass up. We left the older two with my parents, who were also visiting from the U.S., piled Aidan and Matthew into the car, and had an amazingly pleasant trip - they both slept for almost 2 hours and woke up just as we were entering Munich around 12:30. Really too good to be true.

We were so psyched to be travelling light.

Kat and Tim - and Sam - were staying in a beautiful guest house on the outskirts of Munich, within walking distance to the zoo, really perfect for a two year old. In any other country. Us walking in with two MORE two year olds was more than the landlady could take. I swear, she was outraged just at the sight of us.

I was honestly shocked at the hostility. Since I speak German fluently, I'd forgotten how condescending SOME Germans can be to foreigners. (And to be fair, most are exceptionally friendly to Americans, speaking English and helping out when they see someone looking like they need it.) But this lady was pissed that we had the nerve, the absolute gall, to bring children into her home.

It was unpardonable and she took the offensive immediately. She rudely asked my husband to move our car off her space. The request was not unexpected, parking is ALWAYS an issue here, but the tone was inexcusable. And this was someone who earned her living in the hospitality industry! I obviously use the term loosely - any tourist magazine can tell you that Germany has a barely existent service industry. She followed Damon to the front door - like he was an errant schoolboy - and then waited on the front steps to make sure he did as he was told.

Kat and I sat in the garden watching the boys run around the lawn, while the men when to pick up some sandwich materials for lunch. Well - this was too much. "You are going to have to be be quiet. Will this be a problem?", she swooped down upon us to ask. Kat was used to the treatment - let's face it, this is how Germany earns its reputation - but I couldn't resist. "Well, since we are having a conversation, absolute quiet IS going to be a problem." I replied. "Well, I can't have those babies crying here, " she retorted and I promised her, that as two year olds I could guarantee that there would be absolutely no tears or tantrums all afternoon. Did she notice my sarcasm? She certainly noticed the comment I ostensibly directed at Kat as she turned to leave. "I see you've been experiencing German hospitality firsthand." I really couldn't resist.

After a thorough discussion in German - where I explained that her request was more than reasonable and that we would certainly respect it, but that it was her tone I had taken offense to -she went back to serving the man on the neighboring patio, bringing him two or three courses for lunch, pouring his tea, probably also cutting his meat for him and tucking in his napkin under his chin. Obviously her husband. No kidding. The elderly man with the suberservient, overly indulgent younger wife, the beautiful, immaculately tended garden you weren't allowed to use, even the little Schnauzer running around all our legs- all you needed was a son coming through the back door in his SS uniform, and the picture of old Germany was complete.

I don't like to play the Nazi card, but sometimes it just fits so perfectly. And I do wonder. The couple was definitely part of the generation known as "Nachkriegsgeneration", or kids born after the war. The husband might have been a child during the war. I can imagine they didn't have a warm and fuzzy "Sound of Music" childhood either. Life sucked. Kids were a burden. It's a lost generation really.

Later she chased me down and yelled at me AGAIN about keeping the kids out of the flower beds - while I was in the process of doing exactly that. (What did she think I was doing, giving them instructions on how to best go about pulling up a tulip?!) I couldn't help but think about the story of the Selfish Giant written by Hans Christian Andersen. (Who must have had some experience in this area himself.) The giant chases the children out of his beautiful garden, eventually building a huge wall to keep them out, and without the children, winter and cold move into the garden. Spring doesn't return until the children discover a hole in the wall and come back in to play.

I'm not saying that everyone has to love children. And I am the first to say that there are some places that should be off limits to children - I don't want to go to a fancy resturaunt or theater surrounded by noisy, snotty- nosed kids either. But what is life without some joy and laughter? What is the beauty of a garden - the cold, sterile beauty of a well-tended flower bed - without the occasion to enjoy it?

I feel sorry for the wicked witch. She was born at a time without joy and laughter -at a time when even children, or especially children, had no joy and laughter. At a time when there was a wall around the garden. All she has is her tulip bed and her routine, cold, sterile existence. A wasted life - only because she was not able to grow beyond the limited confines of what she knows. Kat asssumed she had no children, but I see the greater horror. She has two. Two who she has raised with the same emphasis on self-preservation, on taking care of one's own little corner, without thought to a greater good or to anyone besides themeselves.

But I digress. I'm tired of discussions on the German psyche - and I'm tired of everyone tracing it back to WWII. It's been 60 years. Get over it and move on. It's okay to say hello to your neighbors; it's okay to trust again. It's safe again to smile. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall." But that's a different fairy tale.

So we headed to the Munich zoo - so full of children and of parents obviously enjoying their children - that it was a different world altogether. Here we fit in. And this is Germany too - a small, fragile bud amidst the sterile tulip gardens. And this is the Germany that will win in the end. As the tulip gardens fade, the children grow. The angry old couple is left to their solitude as the rest of us procreate - into a better tomorrow.