I just realized that it's been a while since I wrote in my blog about my two beautiful babes, Miss Mia and Baby Li. Lord knows, we've been spending a lot of time inside these days what with there not being a sun anymore and everything....Most afternoons we go to the Marheinke Markthalle, the indoor market about a ten minute walk from our apartment. It's a bit pricey of course, but you can get great produce there and a decent cheap lunch at one of the many food stands. They also have an ice cream place (gold star from the girls) and a toy stand with lots of cheap goodies (double gold stars from the girls). Mia especially loves it there. On any given afternoon I might say to her, "Mia, do you want to go to the library/museum/playground/zoo?" to which she'll inevitably answer, "No mama, I just want to go to the Markthalle."
One of her new favorite games is to roll this jumbo silver marble, which I bought for her at (you guessed it) the toy stand, down the stairs and across the hall. She's very careful not to get in anyone's way and there's plenty of room, but she (or rather I) still get some scowls from the sour puss Germans. I'm sure I'll get Berliner Schnauze about it someday (Berliner big mouth- I SO need to write a post about this...) but I already know what my answer will be: Eine kinderunfreundliche Kultur ist eine tote Kultur."A culture unfriendly to children is a dead culture.
Besides irritating Germans with her child-like frivolity (a lot of Germans, or at least Berliners, still most definitely believe in the virtue to be seen not heard and of course kept on a short leash....), Miss Mia is also very much in love with her stuffed duck, LuLee, which she chose out herself from a thrift store in Oakland. That he's a duck is no coincidence considering that she was obsessed with this vintage cartoon of the Ugly Duckling for a good four months.
The first time she saw it she came to me and burst into tears. "Mama, nobody loves that little duck. He was all alone." For weeks afterward she was obsessed with the good mama versus the bad mama and how important it is to keep your babies warm and safe, pretty heavy stuff for a three year old. But she's such a sensitive little soul. And a good mama to her little duck I must say. She actually lost him today on the way zum Bäcker with daddy. Jasper re-traced his steps while Mia got frantic, but no LuLee anywhere. Finally, he saw a woman who lives at the home for the handicapped on Blücherstrasse where the duck was lost and for some reason he had a hunch. He asked her if she had seen the duck and, low and behold, she pulled it out of her purse. Later Mia told me: "Mama, that lady was so nice. My duck was all alone and she took such good care of him. She kept him warm and safe."
While Mia is sensitive and sometimes thin-skinned, Baby Li is a gregarious little creature that just lets everything roll off her back (and also doesn't take her mama's scolding the least bit seriously...) I often call Mia my little cloud while Lilly is my little mountain. Solid. Compact. Jolly enough to constantly make even Berliners smile. She looks quite a bit like I did as a child and I love to dress her up in vintage dresses I find on my thrifting escapades. This little cherry red rick rack number is exactly like something I would have worn circa 1976.
While Lilly also likes watching the Ugly Duckling, it doesn't have the same effect on her as it does on Mia. Mostly these days she likes to watch these cartoons we found about Ganesha and Krishna on YouTube (god bless YouTube!) Really great stories. I love what brats the Hindu gods sometimes are, not to mention the fabulous Indian accent and turns of phrase. The two videos below are her two current favorites.
(I'm not sure why Brahaman's two hot young daughters were any good for "settling the burning sensation" in Ganesha's body, but maybe you have to be a god to understand these things.)
(Hmm...That snake also has four hot young wives. Maybe they are onto something.)
In addition to being schooled in Hindu mythology, Lilly seems to have her first pre-school crush. The lucky lad is the new one in the group, a Lebanese boy named Malikikin. Lilly literally called his name in her sleep a few nights ago and since then says several times a day: "Malikikin is a nice boy." Ah, young love.
Well, I better be off to bed as it's quite late. Tomorrow we might bake cookies again with the vintage cookie cutters I bought from the shop the Pink Cobweb when I was in California. I'm pretty sure I had that pig when I was a kid. The others in the set include Humpty Dumpty (both Mia and Lilly went through a huge Humpty phase, though it has died down a bit), Jack and Jill, a windmill and lamb and a rather sinister looking clown. I remember how much I loved using cookie cutters when I was a kid and how beautiful the cookies always were. A few days ago the three of us put on our aprons from another etsy shop, Boojiboo, and started baking. I never realized how hard it actually is to use cookie cutters. Jack and Jill looked like monstrous blobs and Humpty was hardly recognizable. But the cookies still tasted good and the girls had fun. Come to think of it, that's all that really matters.
So I learned a lot of valuable lessons today. Lesson Number One: Do not take a small child who is already potty trained to a museum where the bathroom is far away from the exhibits not to mention two floors down in the basement when you already know said child has a case of the runs. Lesson Number Two: You will become your parents. I always hated telling my dad I had to go to the bathroom when we were in the car on long road trips between California and Arizona because his inevitable, irritated question was always "Why didn't you go the last time?" But today, when Miss Mia told me she had to go diarrhea I rushed her and little Little Li across the museum and into the elevator as fast as their little toddler legs could carry them. Once we finally got to the bathroom she told me she didn't have to go anymore. We took the elevator back up and started looking at the dinosaurs only to have her tell me ten minutes later that she had to go. I scolded her. "Why didn't you go the last time?" I said. This time she really did have to go, so how can I blame her (and yes, in case you're wondering, we did make it on time.) Lesson Number Three: When you are trying to wean a child who is very adamant about not being weaned as in screaming, flailing limbs, pawing at your chest, etc. do not, I repeat, do not wear that cute little vintage dress that you can not zip up or down by yourself in case giving in is simply the best solution. Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity has probably figured out the museum I went to was the beloved Naturkunde Museum, i.e. Museum of Natural History. (you can click here to read a post I wrote about it in May). And yes, even with all these lessons being learned I still has time to snap a few photos and contemplate on why exactly it is that I'm so fascinated by dead things. ;)
Today I went with the fam on a little Sunday outing to Volkspark Friedrichhain. Volkspark Friedrichhain is a large park in former East Berlin. Although Friedrichhain is a neighborhood in East Berlin, the park seems to be in Prenzlauerberg and has a more Prezlauerberg-ish crowd (big difference between F'hain and P'berg for sure...) I've never actually been able to figure out why this is. Maybe part of the park is in Friedrichhain and the other in Prenzlauerberg? Hmm...I guess it's time to pull out the map.
Anyway, one thing I know for sure is that we entered the park at the Märchenbrunnen (Fairy Tale Fountain.) I've always loved the Märchenbrunnen. It has just that right touch of grandiose kitsch I love so much. Not only that, it was also a popular gay cruising area in and even before the GDR (maybe it still is?) I also read a Bernie Gunter mystery where they found a body there that had been mutilated in a particularly gruesome way. I really recommend those books by the way. They are by the English writer Philip Kerr and, besides being great hard-boiled mysteries, they really give you a feel for what it must have been like to be a German who detested the Nazis but felt helpless against the madness that was all around you... Miss Mia was there as was Baby Li, though she seems to have decided to go through the terrible twos a little bit early, so the photo below is pretty much the only one I was able to take of her. At some point I left a very cranky Baby Li with her daddy and went off to get Miss Mia a light pink, Hello Kitty ice cream (marshmallow flavored, of course! ;) ) I love how she looks here like eating ice cream is serious business. And isn't her dress so adorable and so tres 60s? I thrifted it a while ago at the Goodwill on Fillmore in S.F. and just now it finally fits her. It was funny to be in Prenzlauerberg because it is SO different than Kreuzberg, though both areas have definitely been experiencing a baby boom for a while. I'm generalizing of course, but most mothers in Kreuzberg are largely left wing feminists passionate about saving the environment. They'd be happy to wear a burlap sack as long as it was made out of organic cotton. In other words, long on hippie, short on glamour. The mothers in Prenzlauerberg, however, wear wedge heels, 200 Euro jeans and designer, white lace blouses. It's hippie versus urban yuppie or, to put it in Bay Area terms, Berkeley versus the Marina. I really don't fit into either category but, for the day, it was nice to at least see something different.
People often argue about gender roles and if they are learned or if they are inherent. If you give a boy flowers instead of guns will he grow up to be more gentle? I don't really have much to say about boys since I don't have any, but I do know that Miss Mia is definitely Girly-by-Nature.
I myself was "girly" as a child in that I loved pink pleated dresses and patent leather mary janes and continued to wear them long after most other girls had already switched over to Jordache Jeans. At the same time I also loved to dig in the mud, climb trees and collect worms. I didn't see why there was any reason I couldn't do this all decked out in Gunne Sax lace.
But I was definitely encouraged to be girly by my grandmother. If either my sister or I had been tomboys she would have been extremely disappointed. As for Miss Mia, I haven't encouraged her to be that way, she just always has been. I'll never forget when she dragged me into a shoe store when she could barely talk (let alone walk) and insisted we get a pair of gold glitter ballerina flats or she wouldn't leave the store.
I haven't encouraged her, but I certainly do have fun with it. I got a vintage 1950s Bakelite nail set and we regularly give each other manicures. She also seems to have a good eye: when we went thrifting together in San Francisco a couple of months ago I wanted to get her this boring-ass teddy bear sweater but she said: "No, mama. This." and pulled off the rack this adorable vintage white and blue polka dot little number that looks like a 1960s tennis dress. No lie.
It was no real surprise then that she LOVED these hair clips my sister sent her, no doubt bought in some little Mexican store in the Mission. When we opened the box Mia said, "Oh my goodness (don't know where she got that one, because I swear like a sailor ;) ) Mama, it's princess crowns." We then put all of them in her hair and she spent several minutes admiring herself in the mirror. As you can see, I also added a few to my hair, albeit more moderately. Only Baby Li wasn't particularly interested. So far she doesn't seem to be as interested in the girly stuff, though she is obsessed with shoes. But white tennis shoes with purple stripes not pink unicorn ballerina slippers. Parenting. What never ending fun. ;)
There's not much in life that makes me feel happier than going for a long walk with my family when the weather is nice and my camera is around my neck. Photography is the perfect way to capture moments in a thousandth of a second; in this case, simple moments from everyday life that made me happy. Here are a few of them I captured today:
Urban macro shots. I take these obsessively. Rusted locks, broken down doors, crumbling walls....I don't really know why, but somehow they always speak to me.
I love that Miss Mia and Little Li got to blow their first dandelion seeds into the air today and that Miss Mia called them blow flowers (a direct translation of the German word, Pustenblumen). I also love that, up close, dandelions look almost like some eerie sea creature.
I loved running in an inevitable construction site because it reminded me that, in Berlin, das Leben ist immer eine Baustelle. Jasper and I tried, but for the life of us we could not remember what once stood there.
I love the fresh green of the leaves and these delicate white blossoms because spring is a time to bloom and burst from that long, lethargic winter slumber.
I love the retro Alpine Kitsch of the Almdudler logo. Almdudler is an herbal soft drink from Austria which is refreshing and delicious. For a long time you could only buy it at Austrian restaurants, but this billboard seems to promise that soon it might catch on other places.
I loved stumbling across the Max Taut Bau and peeking in the windows because he is one of my favorite architects hands down.
I loved that it's always still so great to come home. Schönes Wochenende. :)
What exactly is it I love about Hasenheide so much? Certainly it's not the drug dealers who haunt every entrance, though if you're not in the market for hashish they pretty much leave you alone. No, I think what I really love is that this park has room for just about everyone. Hipsters sit along side Lebanese families. Öko Muttis (Granola mommies) pack their babies in Kinder Caravans attached to the back of their bikes....
...there are children of all ages, including yipsters, my own word for young, student-y hipsters, the kind who are most likely to be wearing those terrible plastic frame 80s sunglasses, the guys with so much gel in their hair you wonder how many bugs they trap a day (yes, as you can see there is still a Berlin Fashion Police side of me lingering somewhere in the cattier side of my soul. ;) )
This being Neukölln (or at least partially) there are also plenty of those eccentric 50-something bachelors who like to wear lime green tank tops while cruising on their bikes to which they've added mirrors and an old ghetto blaster (always attached with several layers of duct tape), blasting Elvis or country music as they ride on by. I don't know why that neighborhood has so many strange old guys like that, but all I can say is viva la Neukölln!
Even the tres punky look of this bull in the new petting zoo is by no means out of place....
April was much kinder on us today, so we went for a leisurely stroll in the park with all these different mixes of people.
Miss Mia and Baby Li both waited very patiently...
...for daddy to return from the imbiss with.....
"hot dogs".
Yum!
Of course, both Jasper and I busied ourselves with taking photographs....
...and having fun, but what else is new?
Eventually we headed for home, the babies and Jasper to Akku's for soccer and me home so I could write this blog post for you. Schönes Wochenende. :)
I just realized that it's been a while since I wrote in my blog about my two beautiful babes, Miss Mia and Baby Li. Lord knows, we've been spending a lot of time inside these days what with there not being a sun anymore and everything....Most afternoons we go to the Marheinke Markthalle, the indoor market about a ten minute walk from our apartment. It's a bit pricey of course, but you can get great produce there and a decent cheap lunch at one of the many food stands. They also have an ice cream place (gold star from the girls) and a toy stand with lots of cheap goodies (double gold stars from the girls). Mia especially loves it there. On any given afternoon I might say to her, "Mia, do you want to go to the library/museum/playground/zoo?" to which she'll inevitably answer, "No mama, I just want to go to the Markthalle."
One of her new favorite games is to roll this jumbo silver marble, which I bought for her at (you guessed it) the toy stand, down the stairs and across the hall. She's very careful not to get in anyone's way and there's plenty of room, but she (or rather I) still get some scowls from the sour puss Germans. I'm sure I'll get Berliner Schnauze about it someday (Berliner big mouth- I SO need to write a post about this...) but I already know what my answer will be: Eine kinderunfreundliche Kultur ist eine tote Kultur." A culture unfriendly to children is a dead culture.
Besides irritating Germans with her child-like frivolity (a lot of Germans, or at least Berliners, still most definitely believe in the virtue to be seen not heard and of course kept on a short leash....), Miss Mia is also very much in love with her stuffed duck, LuLee, which she chose out herself from a thrift store in Oakland. That he's a duck is no coincidence considering that she was obsessed with this vintage cartoon of the Ugly Duckling for a good four months.
While Mia is sensitive and sometimes thin-skinned, Baby Li is a gregarious little creature that just lets everything roll off her back (and also doesn't take her mama's scolding the least bit seriously...) I often call Mia my little cloud while Lilly is my little mountain. Solid. Compact. Jolly enough to constantly make even Berliners smile. She looks quite a bit like I did as a child and I love to dress her up in vintage dresses I find on my thrifting escapades. This little cherry red rick rack number is exactly like something I would have worn circa 1976.
While Lilly also likes watching the Ugly Duckling, it doesn't have the same effect on her as it does on Mia. Mostly these days she likes to watch these cartoons we found about Ganesha and Krishna on YouTube (god bless YouTube!) Really great stories. I love what brats the Hindu gods sometimes are, not to mention the fabulous Indian accent and turns of phrase. The two videos below are her two current favorites.
Well, I better be off to bed as it's quite late. Tomorrow we might bake cookies again with the vintage cookie cutters I bought from the shop the Pink Cobweb when I was in California. I'm pretty sure I had that pig when I was a kid. The others in the set include Humpty Dumpty (both Mia and Lilly went through a huge Humpty phase, though it has died down a bit), Jack and Jill, a windmill and lamb and a rather sinister looking clown. I remember how much I loved using cookie cutters when I was a kid and how beautiful the cookies always were. A few days ago the three of us put on our aprons from another etsy shop, Boojiboo, and started baking. I never realized how hard it actually is to use cookie cutters. Jack and Jill looked like monstrous blobs and Humpty was hardly recognizable. But the cookies still tasted good and the girls had fun. Come to think of it, that's all that really matters.
