Random Story

That is what is going on in the room next to me. Isn’t it adorable?

We had been having a “discussion” about whether or not Kilian was going to allow me to change him, as he had recently pooped. Yes, it actually needs to be a discussion, because Kilian is freakishly strong for a two-year-old and if he is not convinced that his diaper needs changing, my pathetic attempts just end poorly.

Kilian was adamant that he did not want to be changed, no matter what I offered as a reward (Kilian, you can finish listening to that really annoying CD about a crawling ladybug! Kilian, you can have some cashews! Kilian, for the love of god, you smell terrible, let me change you! – Okay, so maybe I didn’t actually say the last one.)

When asked why he did not want to be changed, I was promptly told that he was angry. When asked why he was angry, I was given the simple response that he was angry because he was angry. When told that he was smelly and asked if he wanted to continue smelling and having poop in his diaper, he replied with a confident, albeit surprising, yes. There was simply no way out of this one.

My final attempt at coercion was that I simply do not play with stinky kids, and since he was choosing to continue stinking, he had to leave the kitchen and go somewhere else. I was hoping he would go upstairs to try play with Hannah, who would also promptly tell him he couldn’t play with her because he stank. After that, he normally comes and asks to be changed.

However, he decided to go into the living room. I waited a couple minutes for him to get bored and come ask to be changed. Instead, it just got really quiet and I walked around the corner to find him curled up on the armchair asleep.

I added the blanket though. Just because he still smells doesn’t mean he should be cold.

New photos on the flickr, from the first real snowfall of the year, Berlin, and a couple from my attempt at cooking Thanksgiving dinner last Saturday. The results from the dinner were about 50/50: The chicken (no turkey, because I really did not want to saddle them with that many leftovers) and the sweet potatoes came out amazing, while the gravy and stuffing were about mediocre. Of course, this was my first time making everything except the turkey/chicken, and the stuffing was from scratch, so i feel like it came out pretty well, all things considered.

And by the end of it, Anna and I had split an entire bottle of wine between the two of us, which always adds to a festive spirit.

Bis gleich!

– Amanda

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An Explanation

Hey all,

Sorry there’s been this huge break. I’ve been hitting what I think could be thought of as the puberty stage of my time here, where things are all awkward and painful and full of acne, but ultimately comes out okay if you can just get through it. To overextend the metaphor, I’d say I’m hitting around 16 or 17 years old now, so we’re just about through the woods.

Which is also a way to explain why I haven’t been posting. Unsurprisingly, moving in with a family of strangers as a live in employee is not exactly the easiest transition one can go through, with a lot of frustration coming from adapting to communicating and living with these people that you don’t know or really care about yet. When I started this blog, I promised myself that I wouldn’t dedicate time to bitching about my family -either the parents or the children – in this forum, mostly because, not gonna lie, I worried they would find it.

And had I a normal job, bitching would be totally on the line. It would probably be a daily feature. But the thing is, I live with these people. I know way too much about my bosses and I worry that that in my vitriol I would divulge things to the world at large that really have no place in public. And these are not bad people – on the contrary, I consider myself ridiculously lucky, having gossiped with other au pairs about our families – it’s just that we’re new to each other and need to learn how to live together. However, this does not mean that I haven’t shared my vitriol in more private settings, just that I’m not going to do it here.

And so I haven’t been posting. Because if I did, it would just turn to spite and then to violations of privacy and trust. At the moment, I’m at the end of what has probably been my best week here, but just having hit on a Thing that needs Discussion. But things are starting to fall in place and feel the way they should. Anna and I had a pretty significant talk last week, which clarified the role that she would like me to play in the family and thankfully it lined up with what I had hoped. It did not however, line up with what I had been reading from cues, which is why we were having trouble. But after The Talk, I’m actually starting to feel like part of the family now. Now that I know what I can and should do, things are going much more smoothly. The homesickness has magically started to evaporate and I’m starting to feel more at home, which is a big relief. At the same time, I think I’ve pretty much decided that after this year, I am going back to the States again, at least for a while. I miss a lot about home and it will be nice to be able to focus on this year without having to worry about finding a way to legally stay here the next. And I mean, I know people do the illegal thing? But I don’t think I’m up for that.

Pictures from my trip to Vienna a few weeks ago are posted on my flickr and I will be posting pictures from Berlin in a few days. Also coming will be descriptions of the trips as, as usual, the pictures by themselves don’t really say much.

Bis dann!

– Amanda

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