The Bear Affair

About six years ago I went through a phase where I occasionally bought myself stuffed animals. There was a teddy bear from Tchibo, who was so cute I couldn't resist. A stuffed jelly fish from the Monterey Bay Aqaurium. A hot pink handmade bear from the Rixdorf Christmas market. A stuffed Rhino with a red bow tie from Karstadt.....

Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with adults having stuffed animals, but for me and the cool, urban girl image I was cultivating, it was kind of embarassing. At some point each of the stuffed animals got packed away in a bag at the back of my closet. And there they stayed until my first daughter was born.




Of course, Mia was too small for stuffed animals at first (she'll be two in April). But now she loves them. Recently she went through a stage where she especially loved the hot pink handmade bear and would carry him every where with her, maybe because he matched her snow suit perfectly.

Even though she loved him so much, he also seemed to fill her with a lot of anxiety.
She would cry and say "Bear, bear, bear!" even when he was laying right in front of her.

Anyway, after a while the bear started having problems. For one thing, his head started to get loose.
I had to sew it back on once or twice. Then one of his eyes was missing. Mia woke up with him in her arms and immediately noticed the gaping hole on his head. It worried her. "Don't worry. Mama will fix it." I told her.

But I never got a chance. The next day bear simply vanished into thin air. I suppose we might have left him somewhere, but I don't remember taking him out of the house after he lost the eye. My husband and I decided the teddy bear mafia must have gotten him. The poor thing always did have those gambling problems....

This afternoon Baby Li and I posed for pictures with his eye, which I found this morning in Mia's bed.
Little hot pink bear, wherever you are, be at peace.....

My daughter thinks her daddy is a suave black man....

So obviously I find my husband sexy, sweet and attractive but I realize different people have different tastes and not everyone will see things exactly the same way I do. Still, personal tastes aside, I think everyone will agree that my husband is, well, white.

I found it interesting to discover the other day that my daughter can't yet tell the difference. How I know is she was going through our c.d. collection (something she is forbidden to do, so of course, she does it every chance she can get!) when she pulled our a copy of Bobby Womack's Greatest Hits. For anyone who doesn't know what Bobby Womack looks like, here are a few pictures.


She handed me the c.d. cover, pointed at Bobby and said repeatedly, "Daddy, daddy. daddy!" In the picture he looked even more suave and studly than in the pictures above, all decked out un a felt fedora and super tight 70s jeans. "Ok," I thought. "They both wear glasses, they both had a wide, toothy smile (his Hollywood smile, my husband's brother calls it.) Astrologically they are both really watery (my husband and I met in an astrology class, the "real" thing, not the trashy newspaper style...) I guess I can see how she could mix the two of them up.

But then yesterday, whilst raiding our c.d. cabinet yet again, she pulled this one out:




"Daddy, daddy, daddy!" She said as she handed it to me. Which proves she is truly comvinced her daddy is a suave and very fine black man. As for my husband, he is simply flattered. He knows how to take a compliment! :)

My daughter loves mei....

Raising a bi-lingual child is truly an interesting experience. When I first came to Berlin I spent a year baby-sitting a half-American boy who was just a little bit older than my eldest daughter is now. He was very verbal. When I picked him up from pre-school he would say something like "Let's go to the cafe and get some cake." and then turn around and say "We're going to the cafe to get some cake," in perfect German to one of the other mothers. Ok, so it may have been the little kid version of that, but still, his command of both languages was really impressive.

My daughter isn't quite that advanced yet. There are some bi-lingual pre-schools in Berlin, but they are mainly in Prenzlauer Berg in the east or Zehlendorf in the west. But I'm a Kreuzberger at heart and am not going to move to a neighborhood I'm not that crazy about just so my daughter can sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider...Still, it was much to my dismay when she first started to talk and it was only in German even though I talk to her more or less exclusively in English. We spent a month in California over Christmas and it really made a difference. Now it is one of favorite games to come over to you and list off nose, mouth, ear, head...after poking each one.


My favorite words are the words she makes up that are in neither English nor German like, for example, mei. Mei is her word for music, something she likes playing in the background at all times. My mom got her a Wee Sing c.d. for Christmas. Although it was fun to hear little kids singing Five little monkeys and This Old Man at first, by the 20th time I was about ready to tear my hair out. A jazz fan, I started playing Herbie Hancock and Bill Evans instead which, luckily, she so far seems to like just as much as Hickory Dickory Dock. This morning when I was getting her dressed for pre-school she was in a really bad mood. I took a break from trying to force her into her snow suit and put on "You Must Believe in Spring." She immediately calmed down and let out a long sigh. "Mei", she said, with adoration.

A shooting session in the graveyard

Winters in Berlin are tough. Grey skies everyday, frozen dog shit all over the street (frozen if you're lucky that is!), grim faces... A native California girl, I've never liked it even before I had kids. Now that I have two young children, the season is basically unbearable. A double stroller, two sets of snowsuits, no car....Cars are expensive to have in Berlin and since we live in a great urban neighborhood we don't really need one (we can borrow my brother-in-law's if need be...) But still, babies, a heavy stroller, a subway system where nearly NO station has an elevator and only sometimes an escalator (very steep stairs in their place)I almost never leave the neighborhood. I've been keeping myself busy with creative projects so I don't go crazy. Jewelry making, collages, etc. for my two etsy shops. Still, there is a problem with light. In order to post the items I have made to offer them for sale in Schaufenster and Rose, red Rose I have to take photographs. Though lovely, our apartment doesn't get very good light. Many an afternoon I've driven myself crazy taken blurry picture after blurry picture. Occasionally I set up things in the courtyard in the back, but it's not really much fun even if the light is better. Yesterday I had a revelation: I need to take photographs and get out of the house a little bit. Why not go to one of the graveyards nearby? There are two really nice ones (including one where Brahms and Schumann are buried.) When Mia was in pre-school I packed up baby Lilly and headed to the one on Bergmannstrasse. The sun was actually shining and I got some great shots of both the necklace and two collages which was great. Photographs plus small winter outing equals sucess. Hooray!

California

It feels good to be back in California. I've been here since Thursday and each morning after the intial fog has blown off I'm outside, sitting in the sun, like a lizard on a rock. I've been so deprived of sunshine these past Berlin Winter months and now I just can't get enough. The trip is also bitter sweet: my father is very ill with cancer and, since I live a half a world away, this will probably be the last time I will see him alive. So here I am, in a place so aptly called the sunshine state, the warmth of the rays on the skin not always enough to warm my heart....It's great to spend time with my family though and to have baby Mia hang out with them. I swear she now loves my mom more than she loves me! My second child will be here in October and it's so good to know that he/she will have two families, one in the Bay Area and one in Berlin, as baby Mia does. But sad that he/she will never get to know her grandfather. Both of my husband's parents are dead, so this means my children will only have my mom as their single grandparent. But she's great so they have lucked out. Anyway, this entry is a bit personal for this blog, which is more designed to document my creative life. Life is just too busy stirring the creative pot and I am doing nothing creative (though I do plan to get some writing done). Just tanking up on the sun and spending precious moments with my dad....