Oma is for grandma

You might have noticed that I’ve been absent from this space for quite some time now. Well here’s the beautiful reason why:

So, visiting the internet or paying my computer any attention whatsoever has dropped right of my list of priorities (and things are probably going to stay that way for a while to come).

Right now I’ve got 3 wonderful reasons why I’ll stay away and they are 3, one-and-a-half and 2 weeks old.

Don’t we all love to be agreed with? Well, I do!

I love it when I read something in the papers that I can agree with or that supports my point of view (so much about forming an unbiased opinion with the help of the media … hahaha)

I read an article in the SMH the other day by Wendy Harmer. And here is someone that agrees with me. I have found another example for a person who’s regretted not having more children like I explained in my previous post “you’re kidding!”.

I find it terribly refreshing to read the following words in today’s world where children aren’t valued and people look at you strangely when you keep going after two:

I had two children late in life and I regret I didn’t have four. My children regret it, too. They look at photos of me and my three siblings and love to fantasise about what it would have been like to have two more live-in playmates, just as I look back at photos of my father’s seven brothers and sisters and like to imagine.

After explaining how many people stopped after two children to support the ideal of “zero population growth” in order to make the world more sustainable, she concludes her article by saying:

So by all means let’s make our cities environmentally sustainable, but not at the expense of family size. We need to encourage the next generation to have more children than we do now, and to have them earlier.

Otherwise parents will have to play with their kids - and no one wants to be crawling into a cubby house with 50-year-old knees.

Believe me, I know.

Coming from a comedian the article was laced with humour. I have found it such an enjoyable and refreshing read … but maybe that’s because she backs my cause?!

Go and read it here if you’re interested!

This is the reaction I got from my GP (family doctor) when I went to see her a little while ago.

I went to see her to confirm a pregnancy … our third, I might need to add. I know that this isn’t a very child friendly society, that lots of people think one or two children is plenty (should you bother to have any at all) and I am aware that some people even think you don’t know how not to fall pregnant if you still have more children after your second. Strange that it has never occurred to these people that some people would choose to have more children, because they like “large” families (not that I would call 3 or 4 children an incredibly large family).

My doctor isn’t really that type of person, or at least I wouldn’t have thought her this type of person, so maybe her reaction was more to the spacing of our children. I suppose they’re rather close in age for today’s liking, but we like it this way. Our first daughter was nearly 20 months, when our second daughter was born and our second daughter will be 20 months when this next little person comes into the world. Nothing wrong with that to me!

So more for my own benefit than anybody else’s I wanted to record our reasons for having more children and having them “so close”. Don’t feel you have to keep reading, it might get a bit boring now.

• I grew up with one sibling only (I’ve got an older brother) and I thought that as a child this was pretty boring. If my brother didn’t want to play with me there was no-one else to play with.
• My brother and I fought a lot and while this might be normal for siblings I think that it can be intensified by the fact that there’s no other distraction. We were always sitting on top of each other like this old nagging couple, with the difference that we hadn’t even chosen each other in the first place. I guess I’ve got this little theory that in larger families you can find another playmate and come back to the other one when the black clouds have cleared instead of worsening the tension by being in each others face.
• Most people who grew up with more siblings really loved it. Kids love being with other kids and to them it’s like a permanent sleep-over. I have never heard any of them say “I wish I’d have less siblings”.
• Similarly, when speaking to parents I’ve never heard any of them say “I wish I’d have less children” whereas I have often heard that people wished they’d had more. Many people stop after two cause it just seems like a practical thing to do, it might have been the normal thing at the time and it certainly seems just too hard at the time (to come back for more while there’s two little people in the house already).
• I know that I’m quite clucky, I love kids. Yet I could see myself easily stopping after two because I do find looking after two little ones incredibly hard work. And I don’t think I’d have more once those two are a bit older. As much as I love this stage, I think once moved on from here I wouldn’t like to come back to it. And then in 10 years time I’d be the one saying “I wish I’d have more children”. I do not want to have to regret.
• Therefore, while we’re already right in the whole baby and toddler stage, we though it’d be best to stay there for a little longer and then all move on together. Sure, we’re preparing ourselves for a few mad years but after that we’ll have the long-term enjoyment of a nice-size family … Well that’s the theory anyway

Michael and I have just finished listening to “The Secret Garden”. We absolutely loved it. The story was so enchanting, it made me laugh out loud as well as cry. And the reading was extremely well done.

Actually I can only encourage you to go to Librivox and download the book for free (and totally legally). The lady who read the book, Kara Shallenberg, did such a good job that I even felt inspired possibly to start a weekly podcast, where I read a book … I’m reading a book for Librivox at the moment and I’m really enjoying reading out loud as well as the technical fiddling afterwards. What do you think?

Well anyway, I’m going off topic. We then wanted to watch the movie just to finish the whole thing off nicely and were really looking forward to it, since we’ve enjoyed the book so much. But we should have known better not to trust Hollywood to do justice to a book. I have to admit that it’d be a pretty tough task to condense a whole book into 102min and maybe they’ve done as well as is to be expected, but I was extremely disappointed. The film is missing the suspense of the book. Honestly, at its best it’s a poor summary of the book with even important bits changed and (I should have known it) a love story added into it. That was probably most off-putting. Why turn an innocent children’s book into some romance?

So any of you who don’t know the book yet: go read it. It is absolutely beautiful BUT do not watch the movie, it is a let-down.

One thing that I used to always enjoy during the weeks of Advent was my Advent calendar (or count-down calender as some people call it). I can remember, as a child excitedly rushing into the kitchen first thing in the morning to open the next door on my calendar and see what was behind (and we only ever had pictures, no chocolate, and still it was such an exciting thing that made Advent very special to me).

I still like the idea of an Advent calendar. It helps to look forward to Christmas and gives all of December a festive and special atmosphere.

This week I went to the post office to pick up a huge parcel and found the most amazing Advent calendar ever inside (thank you Amelie and Christian*). Now we’re having fun trying to fill it with little things like baking ingredients (ginger for our gingerbread nativity), concert tickets, dried fruit, a bit of chocolate, little craft things etc. We’re having fun and M is circling the thing dying to be able to open the first door.

*der Richtigkeit halber soll natürlich Herr und Frau Treyde an dieser Stelle besonders gedankt sein!! Vielen Dank an sie für ihre Großzügikeit.