Happy Birthday Rossini! Happy Leap Year!

"Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life."  Daniel Francois Auber.

Mother In Law's Malade Imaginaire

Mother-in-Law’s Malade Imaginaire

I don’t know why but my mother in law has two rather strange habits, one is that she is a clean freak –but since I hate cleaning, I’ve grown to embrace this quality. The second is that she is a hypochondriac! Everytime we eat anything, she seems to have a ‘reaction’ worthy of hours of notation and discussion preferably at the dinner table. Not to mention the hours she spends finding problems with her skin, hands,feet, and other useful organs. This never stops her from changing her diet or all of her overly strong detergents-that is because imho, most of these malfunctions, disfunctions and disagreeable diseases entertain her. It is her hobby. Being from a family, with (thank God) reasonably good health and an insistence upon it…I was brought up to just wait as any unpleasantness should pass and if not go to the doctors and get rid of it a.s.a.p.-certainly not to discuss it publicly and in regards to anything involving the stomach – do not go into detailed description to the point of nauseating strangers again PARTICULARLY AT THE SUPPER TABLE! But hey, that’s just me…

Anyway, since this sort of mindset has –I think-helped my family retain good health for centuries, I intend to breed it into our child HOWEVER, every time I leave for a few hours my MIL has a new upset that she has inflicted upon the baby. Usually it’s a long and terribly exciting tale of any gas that she may have had through out the day with colorful phrases and descriptions- you can imagine how I enjoy hearing these. (baby- I apologize if you read this one day and I have embarrassed you). Recently, upon returning from our Malta trip she notified us that the baby had ‘diarrhea’ –which seemed amazing since she’s 9months old and has NEVER had diarrhea and in fact has never vomited (something which I think is an amazing achievement for a 9mth old). It’s not that I’m saying she is immortal or her time for colds and flu like any baby will not come and go,…but I don’t really want her to inherit this fixation on illness. I think I’d much rather have her take up reading or tennis or maybe art history…but only time will tell if hypochondria, too is a communicable disease!

Buggie Free Zone

Buggie Free Zone
As you might know, we are apartment hunting in London. So, the baby and I have been pounding the pavement for months (literally) trying to find a place, except for the amazing amount of non-stroller/handicap friendly staircases in London, I can’t complain because I’m convinced I’ve been burning the baby fat (and I’ll be really peaved if I find out otherwise). However, yesterday the MIL was in town and I had a chance to view a property sans stroller! I actually had to think of how I could get there because walking with out the stroller seemed so foreign to me!

Strangely, the estate agent was a mom too and said to me, she remembered she’d gotten to a point where you don’t remember how to walk with out the stroller. It just throws you… I wonder if anybody else out there has ever had this feeling?

Cry Freedom

Cry Freedom
So, this weekend was our first entire weekend away from the baby (and the first time I spent even one night with out her in the same room). Needless to say,after packing and moving, traveling, living in terribly overpriced terribly ‘delicate’ (read breakable) Chelsea short term flat and spending the last TWO months of my life courting real estate agents while pushing baby, stroller, multiple property printouts, maps with makeshift attached carseat dragging from bottom of buggy…I was rather exhausted and between this and post-pregnancy looking more like one of Stalin's camp refugees! The good news was that my darling husband surprised me with an exotic weekend away, the bad news was that like with many husbands I had to insist on him coming up with this surprise. However, it turned out delightfully well. We went to Malta and stayed in a five star hotel, which was Marvellous. I was very proud of myself since I waited until atleast an hour had passed and I was on the bus to the airport before my first ‘check in’ call on the grandparents,whom I have realized I have living in fear of me on how to handle,carry, treat and feed the baby---just as it should be! That last comment if said allowed would have been said in lighthearted jest but let’s face it ‘nothing is ever said in jest’…

Anyway, even though we were exhausted and I was desperate to just sleep. I have had this on going sleep dep headache for I don’t know how long…
Two things seemed to stop us from getting the much needed sleep…one being that my husband is part Scottish, which means that since he’d paid for breakfast, we would be awake to eat it-even if it was doomsday! A true Scotsman never wears anything under his kilt-but that might be because he doesn’t want anything coming between him and his wallet!!! So, both days my ‘lie in’ seemed to have us up at 9am UK time! However, it wasn’t entirely his fault –the second problem was that I’ve never been to Malta and it’s FULL of important history and architecture-sadly, most of it someone else’s. Modern Malta seems to consist of people who were too rough to stay in Sicily. However, I should take that back because they were all generally polite and nice to us (even with out a baby-which many of you may know is the key to getting immediate generosity and kindness from almost all Italians and/or Mexicans).

There’s a little problem I have that no matter how tired I get, I don’t want to miss anything. Every time I go to a film festival, I find myself thinking tomorrow I’ll sleep in/go to bed early and the next thing I know I’m marching down to the first screening or tagging along for that elusive perfect party I might miss!

In the end though – I must say, Malta was wonderful and it turns out so was the baby. We still suffered from slight parental dependency and did need to check throughout the day but she was fine. I don’t know how people used to survive with out cell phones! When we came back she was happy and exhausted from an intense weekend of grandparents/baby lov-a-thon and thank God, we both took the next day off for rest –so in the end I got my rest. Now, if only I could convince my mother in law to stop coming up with new illnesses the baby might have...as she notified us that during our absence she (the baby who's never thrown up) must have had a dodgy tummy since she only ate a normal supper?!

Blog on the Wed

Blog on the Wed

So, for the last year, I have been looking forward to attending one of my best friends weddings. She’s Austrian and had planned a beautiful multi-ceremony and wedding feast in a gorgeous historical castle in the Wood Quarters of Austria. It was to be our first trip on the airplane with the baby, except SURPRISE! My husband just got hired for his new job in London and would be flying in a few days later…so, just the two of us, our two bags, a car seat and a terrible cheap stroller we bought last minute at Argos(ask me why he bought it there- I told him, everything I’ve ever bought there has broken). This stroller didn’t break though because I threw it out with great joie de vivre before we moved from Switzerland. Had we not been in a country full of clean freak informers, I would have most enjoyed throwing it from the balcony or rolling over it with the car a few times first…

So, back to the trip. To get to our fabulously glamourous fun time away, we (again read baby and me) had to take a cab to the airport, check –in, walk to the plane, be attached with a special seatbelt on the plane, we were not allowed to take said stroller on board and it was not waiting for us upon arrival…so, we (read I) got our luggage, pushed luggage trolley and stroller simultaneously through customs and out to lobby while holding a wiggly LOUD baby. We then met our friend Petra, who took us in her car to the train station, then we went through the same routine to get on and off the train, then FINALLY we were met at the station in nowhere (a.k.a. Moldau) Austria by my Tante Hilde and finally driven to her home, where all I wanted to do was sleep..or perhaps cry softly in a corner. However, because it is the woodquarters and people are REALLY REALLY wonderful. There were lots of people waiting to see us and catch up and feed us and –you get the drift. Finally, Gracie who hadn’t slept all day-she seems to have my fear of missing anything gene-finally she seemed to want to go to sleep. But because it was a strange place(or so I thought) our ‘angel’ who usually sleeps beautifully through the night, woke repeatedly on an hourly basis and woke extra early for some ‘quality time’ with mommy! You can imagine I was slightly tired at this point. Sadly, this continued for the two days till my husband came. I thought this would make things better and finally she slept through the night. I didn’t know what had come over her!

Then the day of the wedding, she started crying and crying and crying –through both civil and religious ceremony and through the salad course, fish course, game course and all of the desert courses (hey, I told you it was an Austrian wedding-it’s just not a proper Austrian wedding without a few desert courses or atleast a few entre-course chocolate opportunities!!!). Anyway, she wore us out and we finally gave in and left the wedding before the dancing had even begun – I couldn’t take it. On the way home,I thought what has happened to my angel baby? Is this the future? Is this a cruel phase? We got to the hotel and again she woke every hour screaming! We kept thinking –is it the new place? New cot? Is she too cold? Too hot? Too freaked from new surroundings? Are we moving her around too much?

We somewhat apologetically said ‘goodbye’ to our hosts and drove to Vienna. As I sat in the airport and watched what I thought to be Paul’s plane flying back to London, I looked down and saw IT staring back at me sharply...there IT was! A toothy little grin coming from our baby! She had a tooth! A perfect pearly lovely little ‘toofy’!!!! And she was showing it off to me!

Post notice-since she’s the first child, we tend to get carried away with everything –so after immediately interrupting my husband’s take off by calling with the news I’ll admit I tried to photo the tooth with my phone but common decency must have stopped us because the baby refused to show her ‘toof’ to the telephone.

Electric Cine-mom

Electric Cinem-mom
Today I had one of the weirdest experiences of my life (and this is coming from someone who’s attended Cato Kailin’s birthday party and met her gay sugardaddy while crashing the Golden Globes…). The baby and I went to the movies at ‘Electric Scream’. Every Monday, the Electric Cinema on Portobello Rd. has a three o’clock show for mommies and babies. Now, watching a movie in English with English subtitles to cover the screams emitted by the audience wasn’t too weird (in fact, it's trick I do at home), although watching it in an old fashioned theatre with a bar and trying to get one’s stroller which was somewhere deep in what was a makeshift buggieparking lot-that was weird. But the true weirdness started when as I walked toward the theatre, noticing that I was tailing…what was at first sight a few strollers and then grew into a large throng of strollers and then looking behind me and seeing there was a million mom march going on behind me!!! THAT WAS WEIRD! If you haven’t experienced this and you have a child, I would very much advise that you try it…if only for the surreal and fellini-esque quality of the experience.

It was like being in one of those Armageddon/zombie films where all of the zombies are taking over the streets marching towards civilization. Portobello Rd., which on weekends is full of tourists, was almost completely empty aside from the mom parade! Not only behind me, but once inside the long line at the ticket office and the usher offering to park your strollers in the back area that had obviously been evacuated in order to be filled like an underground valet parking area –every kind of buggy known to man wedged up cheek and jawl with one another! The only hindrance was wondering if I should have tipped the usher –for getting my double parked stroller during baby’s mid-movie meltdown

Mommy MacGuiver

Mommy MacGuiver
Today I realized that being a Mom is the closest thing to being MacGuiver. Whilst sitting at the Real Estate Agents waiting for an appointment, he said ‘oh, I’m sorry I forgot your spoon for that coffee’ and I said, ‘oh no problem, I used the baby spoon I always carry’. Earlier, the baby spoon had not only fed the baby but also amused her as a toy in the car and soothed her as a teething ring in the office. I then opened my bag to make an appointment on my ‘mom palm’ (z22-it’s fab-just a calendar, contacts and memos –none of the other ‘extras’ which no one I know actually uses). The ‘mom palm’ was attached in my very expensive looking wallet with Velcro-though you couldn’t see it. Why did I have Velcro see my earlier genius-proving blog. I then needed to hold some books together that didn’t fit under the pram. Voila, I used some of the extra yarn I’d bought to keep those mittens and shoes from vanishing …now if only I could find a way to keep her little winter hat on…

Sock Hop

Sock Hop
Girls, I am a GENIUS! You heard it here first –velcro! That’s right, I bought Velcro because whoever invented baby shoes and baby socks is the devil’s apprentice and a woman hater!!!! The dang things fall off every five minutes and when they aren’t naturally falling off-I’ve discovered my ‘little angel’ has a way of utilizing the stroller to get them off!
So -- VELCRO on the inside of the shoes will stick to the tights (still not 100% with the socks – but I think that’s because I have a very determined child). It’s days like these, I feel like I might be getting ahead just a little.

blog out the noise

Blog out the Noise
Before having a baby, I was a part of the film world,a sundance regular, a self named ‘indi-wood princess, essentially a film snob. I would watch not only foreign movies but only foreign movies such as ‘italian-fifties only’ or ‘scandinavia-only if it’s new Denmark, old Sweden and those two Finnish brother’. I would rather have chewed my own liver out of my body than watch anything with the initials J.Lo in it and the thought of paying for any movie much less one with Jim Carry –chinese water torture first please…

HOWEVER, now that I have a baby and the attention span of flea (ADD is nothing compared to mommy amnesia), I am not only in desperate need of cheap light hearted entertainment…I find I will not only watch, but love anything which anyone might refer to as ‘retarded’. Formulaic Romance story, light hearted yet completely contrived comedies where I already know what all the jokes will be before the roll of the intro credits – FANTASTIC! The more the merrier. Yesterday, I PAID to watch a film with Queen Latifa! Not to dis’ the Queen, because I like her but not as much as say Bette Davis or Liv Ullmann! But IN MOMMYVISION….She gets my Oscar vote! Recently, I even watched the entirety of Sara Jessica Parkers films…and I’d highly recommend them to anyone with an under 2.

Losing my foothold

So when we were in San Remo, I was THRILLED to discover an amazing shoe store (Shoe Stock -it's full of Monagasque taxdodgers). Having been shoe deprived and living la vida suissa, it was almost overwhelming to see beautiful shoe after beautiful shoe going for only 30 Euros. Needless to say, I had a fight with my husband because I took so long, he decided to go for a wine with the baby to see if I'd notice..and you know what? I didn't and it was Fabulous! Although, I think what peaked him was when I mentioned I needed to go again the next day.

It's funny because I'm not really a shoefreak, I mean I grew up with Cubans and nobody loves shoes,manicures or nameplate necklaces for their quincienera more than these girls...so relatively, I'm normal. Hey, feet are feet and they need clothes too.

Recently, however, since my shape has developed (what a lovely way to describe post-birth chubbies- I shall also be going by my rapstar name,'Baby Fat' from now on)....I have been spending money on jewelry and shoes because I realize that they in theory won't need altering as my body (hopefully) alters (and in my dreamworld 'spirals' would be the word) downward. However,during our trip I was SLIGHTLY PERTURBED to realize that indeed EVEN MY FEET ARE FATTER! As if it wasn't enough carrying the 'hunk of burning love'tire, now I am FAT FOOTED! And the worst part is - I've gone over the boundary. I've entered the over40s! All my life, I've been 39/40 (in clothes and shoes -except Chanel, but Karl Lagerfeld is a bitch in miniaturizing everything - personally, I blame the Japanese)...

Anyway, yes - I almost did the Homer Simpson 'screech' when the salesperson said oh you're wearing size 42! 42! 42! That's an age or an address! That is not my foot size! Only Drag queens wear size 42?! Even the olympic gals from 'the eastern block' didn't wear size 42! I'm hoping that maybe it's like my clothes thing, my size grows in cheaper stores (despite Chanel) usually I'm a 4-6 in Ann Taylor but in Conways I become a 12...but MY FEET! I'm having midlife FOOT SPREAD!

Then I remembered that my mother had been a size 6 shoe when I first knew her but somehow over the years, she's become an 8-even 8 1/2 and I realized maybe she's been holding onto the old 6 shoe past her prime, she's probably been an eight for years. My mother is actually so vain that she may actually have been lying not only about her age but her shoe size for years and what good has it done her? Well, an awful lot actually, three husbands and many world tours later...perhaps I should just keep buying 40s and hobble for the best. More so, what happens after the second child - I'm going to have to go the Big and Fat Footed Ladies Store?! I'll have to resort to catalogues named 'large and lovely loafers' or 'heels with big appeal' and everybody knows those catalogues only sell the really ugly plastic shoes that even the Swiss don't buy.

Actually since the world is getting taller, I've decided large shoes is the next big investment hit! Bigger than the pet rock and even bigger than my idea about spray-on tan for your dog (which I still think is a sleeper hit for the gofugyourself.com crowd).

schwyzerland

So, I'm thinking of writing a book called 'the Arogance and the Ignorance'. It would be about my time in Switzerland.

Did you know that there are people in Switzerland, who believe that the reason pampers cost 5x what they do in Germany is because Pampers actually makes a higher quality diaper for CH. There are also people (we're talking a large percentage of the population) who believe that large companies like Max Mara and Armani, use cheaper fabrics in Italy and use special better quality more expensive fabrics for the identical clothing in Switzerland, which is again why it costs usually 3x more minimum than in Italy. Haven't they sort of noticed...the Italians are rather famous for being well dressed...and the Swiss are...not.


Did you know that Customs here charges you whatever they feel like which has no relevance to the price of the product you buy outside their country...hmm,sounds more like a corrupt Latin America or African dictatorship you say...indeed.

Did you know that there are no laws protecting women from being paid less than men here. That it is perfectly legal to fire a woman for being pregnant here. That the local town hall has to approve of your childs name (mainly that it doesn't have the mothers and fathers last name) before you can use it. That birth certificates from CH run out every 6 months -ofcourse, because only foreigners need and will pay for them!

It is considered a normal practice to expect people to include a photo, age and gender information on their resumes when submitted but also marital status! In this country, women did not receive the right to vote till 1974 but in Appenzeller, they did not receive the right to vote until 1994!!!! Only 8% of the Swiss go to College (yes,that's less than some 'lesser developed nations').

And my latest grip, is I think the main reason the Swiss don't want to join the EU is that they'd have to pay money to re-do all the public buildings to actually be handicap/stroller accessable. There are entire trainstations and government buildings with only stairs. Even my PEDIATRICIANS office is at the top of a hill, with stairs and an elevator that doesn't fit any strollers!!! Why do I go to him, because they are all like that!

What I don't get is- WHY DO THESE WOMEN PUT UP WITH IT?! Stand up for your rights GIRLS! Everywhere in the world has flaws, but the weird thing about CH is that everyone thinks it's absolutely perfect! Why would you ever want to leave stepford...

Another day, another town....

Today was another day of unsurety. My husband and I still have no idea where we will be living in literally the next month! Well, we do now...but not until after 3pm today. It's London. I'm pretty sure of it.

Knowing that my time in CH could be scarce, my immediate reaction was to attempt to internalize everything Zurich and to become introspective of our time here. I had a marvellous afternoon with my friend, BvK and her son JvK and as they ran off and played in the park, I took a moment to bask in the soft summer sun and notice how it glistened on Lake Zurich, knowing that it was not a sight I would be able to enjoy much longer. Thinking how nice it was here...

Then, as I attempted to walk to the museum...I was reminded of the strangeness of this country. The museum was only open 3 days a week and only from 1-5 (in a country where everything claims to be open, 8-12 or 2-6). I then saw two old swiss bitties -well, I thought they were bitties but a more accurate word would just include the bit** part.

In another incident of suffering from being an American abroad, I was not only polite but nice to them. Foolish choice. It's funny, people always rag on Americans for disinterest in the world or being wary of strangers...but the truth be told, we're the ones you'll see smiling at you on the tube. We're the ones, you'll see innocently trying to chat with locals or attempting to see all of the monuments on the tourist blog. Many Europeans make fun of us for it, but growing up in a country and taking pride in ignoring it's culture (a.k.a being british and never seeing the british museum, being swiss and barely speaking one real language) is a far worse crime than trying to stuff your 2weeks holiday with every sight you can see a la 'If it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium'.

Those of you who know me (which I hope is everyone reading), know I was miserable our last time in London but my time in Zurich has been so depressing and disenfranchising despite my TRYING SO HARD...that I've hit a point where I feel like well, I might as well be lonely,empty and depressed in a town where we make lots of cash! I begin to wonder if I'll ever be a non-depressive person again. To think- I always thought I was so Polyana. I also remember thinking I was an over-achiever with a killer resume, but my time in Zurich and London have reduced me to feelings of worthlessness and alienation.

I also wonder if I can train myself to not be friendly and polite, since I begin to think that the people who get ahead...for instance, Jackie Kennedy or Grace Kelly, were people who were not interested in being nice to other people and the meaner they were, the more they got...but then, I think, yes, but that goes against my Christian ideals and I want to make this a better place..
and then, I think, well heck, look what they did to Christ?! Do I want that, but then because I have this bizarre pre-programming to do the right thing (okay, except with sharing chocolate), I find I can't be mean even if I try.... caddy maybe, but not mean.

The other day, I tried this novel idea of NOT smiling at people but I actually think it takes more energy to not smile at them than to smile...and I wonder how much energy the people who actually stare and scowl must use..I imagine it's immense. It's no wonder the two old hags at the Museum were so trim, infact borderline anorexic?! Maybe they were just starving for love...and a sandwich!

blog-on-mom

Thank God! She's sleeping...

It's just exhausting. Having a baby is exhausting, but it's a different kind of exhausting than non-baby owners can relate to. It's not a stay-up for days, lock yourself in the library cramming for exams exhausted, it's not a rave until dawn and go get a greasy breakfast exhausted,it's certainly not like the have sex instead of sleep all night exhausted... it's just a continual zombielike state.

Yesterday was a golden shiny day. We went to Basel with the 'Swisswives club' and did all the things you'd see in a chic flick EXCEPT with a baby. So, there was lots of fun shopping but since I'm now back to my college fighting weight, I didn't much want to try anything on...and we couldn't get into the shops with a stroller or there were only stairs in the shops and no changing rooms (in a country where having children is a woman's only life goal?!).

We then had a WONDERFUL artisanal meal in the Andreas Square, but as I found myself circling the square with the stroller, again and again praying that the terrible teether would nod off...well, the meal tasted better after all the excercise, I just would have liked to have enjoyed it in more than 4.2 minutes.

Before leaving, we went to Martha's for some swiss teething cookies, which sadly all of us mom's would never give to our kids because there's far too much sugar -but boy are we getting addicted to them! It was so fun to sit at Martha's and having a good girl chat...well, what I heard of it, since we were approaching meltdown and it was roll the stroller time again.

Finally, after anchoring onto a few very slim trams with the strollers and running for dear life to catch the train and fighting our way onto the train and watching petrified as the stroller with baby slept in the hall area. I slumped into my chair and my friend Sonya said 'boy, I am just so tired. Are you tired too?' I said, 'No, I'm in the momzone. It's an alter-reality only other moms know about....

Luzerne's losses....

Today, I awoke to my headache. We're old friends, the headache and I. The headache has been visiting off and on for quite a few months now, probably due to the fact that I am suffering from that illness known as temporary insanity- or being a mother to a small baby.

Being a mother requires great levels of responsibilty and...babywipes. Well, a few other things...but one of the preparations no one ever seems to mention (aside from the humiliations derived from the process of child birth), is that with motherhood comes paranoia. Yes, one worries over everything. Despite having lived in New York and survived Los Angeles, I have never been a big worrier...atleast not the neurotic kind. However, motherhood has brought me all sorts of new issues to fixate on...checking the sleeping baby's chest for breath, checking the bassinet for the sleeping baby, is the baby cold, too hot, comfortable, still breathing? Should I have sung to her? Have we read enough today? Is she getting enough foreign language influence? Is there too much foreign language influence?

I think most parents worry over how much the baby eats or doesn't and how often the baby has bowel movements and the texture of those movements. However, since the baby seems to be eating enough and seems to go regularly, I'm not too bothered nor terribly interested. In fact, I'm convinced this is how many people manage to convince their children they have bad stomachs or allergies, by fixating on nothing!

What worries me much more is.. what the baby's angle will be to get a scholarship to college and if we can afford prep school, too...and if prep school is actually bad for you! Okay, she's only four months old...but with the competitive chinese infiltration of the American school system and now the UK universities are charging!!! Am I worrying too early? I'd bet the people reading this would be split on the answer!

Well, enough ranting - hmm, between the baby's nap and ranting, the headache seems to have taken a sebatical! I'm not telling anyone I'm blogging till I can read and edit these clearly- that should be when G is 21! Ciao for now! A