Looks Like We Made It: An Easter Story

Growing up, Easter morning was almost as big of a deal for the kids in my family as Christmas morning. My parents created an elaborate treasure hunt with clues throughout the house leading us to Easter baskets and chocolate. Since moving to Berlin three years ago, 2013 was our first Easter in the city as a family—we normally travel during this time—and Lennon was finally old enough for a proper Easter hunt. 

The morning started off early—5:30am early—with a note from the Easter Bunny and a chocolate rabbit placed strategically near where we'd suspected he'd awake—in our bed. Behind the note was a clue as to where Lennon could find his next Easter surprise—from Mr. Bunny, of course. The clue came in the form of a printed photo of a location Lennon frequents in our apartment, making it simple for him to know where to look.

On the edge of the bathtub, Lennon found a papier-mâché egg with Easter stickers inside, along with another clue.

Atop his play kitchen, was a new cooking and eating play set. Though another clue was included here, he became a bit distracted at this juncture.

His final clue brought him to his bedroom where he found a new bed for his baby doll. We're hoping to make him into a little Papa before his sister arrives in June. So far he’s playing along nicely.

Later that day, we would be visiting several of Lennon's friends and I wanted to bring something special for each of them. I made five small Easter baskets with a few goodies inside. For the baskets, I purchased this pattern but modified the handles and some of the construction to make it more Easter basket-like. I used my handy printable fabric to make the name plaques on the front. The linen and dotted fabric was purchased from IKEA—of all places—and the orange and white rick-rack was a market stall find. 

Each child received two decorated sugar cookies inside their homemade basket. After much trial and disappointment over the years with sugar cookies I tried this recipe entitled 'The Best Sugar Cookies.' They lived up to their name! An organic chocolate bunny lolly made by Alnatura was also included.

The tutorial for the carrots can be found here—it's free! Along with the dotted fabric from IKEA and the market stall rick-rack, the green check fabric I used for the carrot tops was also found at the market, on an enormously wide bolt. Just one meter yielded so much that I've already made big plans for the leftovers.

The padded baskets came in handy later for egg hunting with Lennon's buddy Otis.

In the afternoon, we made our way to Kreuzberg for a family supper with more of Lennon's little buddies and their parents. Lennon had been gifted a beautiful, mint condition vintage suit, circa 1950s, by my Mother, purchased from an Etsy seller. I couldn't wait for him to don it as his Easter outfit. With the absence of an authentic 1950s boys button down shirt, Lennon wore a white long sleeve onesie from H&M underneath and I made him a coordinating neckerchief from leftover vintage yardage and mini rick-rack, which sweetened the whole look.

For supper with friends, I made an asparagus quiche and a carrot cake. Other folks had made lasagna, salad, and homemade bread. Our hosts made lamb and a pear tart—so much good food and really wonderful people.  

I pushed myself beyond my energy level this Easter making sure I created the type of day I really wanted my family to experience, but it was absolutely worth it. I’ve been taking extra naps ever since to make up for it. My stamina is just not the same in the third trimester. Fortunately, I'm currently on maternity leave from my PhD program, which I'll be writing more about in the months to come. Taking this leave has lifted a tremendous weight off my shoulders and has allowed this pregnant mother to do just what she desires at this exact moment: focus on being a mom.

40 Days of Birthday: Day Thirty-Two

“I hate writing. I love having written.” –Dorothy Parker

It’s been a struggle lately, friends. Between feeling yucky—though recovering—and a busier than normal schedule, my 40 Days of Birthday have taken on more of the challenging end of their bargain. With less than ten days left, I’m desperately clinging to the wonder of this enterprise; not giving up. Today’s main Birth-Day activity was to meet with my PhD advisor regarding some new ideas I have about my dissertation. Pure magic, no?

In truth, It’s rare I get to see my advisor, which makes it rather special when I do. She’s high profile in her field and has a lot on her plate at all times, which always makes me hesitant to bother her unless I have a big question. I had submitted a brief draft of an abstract outlining ideas for my potential new course of action yesterday. In our meeting, she graciously and without any condescension tore my ideas to shreds. I expected nothing less and knew the draft was premature in regard to where I was in my research. I actually was hoping to hear brutal commentary that might help change my course toward more clarity. I was also hoping secretly that she would say my new ideas were brilliant, but one out of two ain’t bad. The best part of the meeting was that she connected me with a Post-Doctoral student named Daniela who works in the Theatre Studies building. Daniela gave me a schedule of upcoming seminars and colloquiums, many of which are conducted in English. I never wanted to bother my advisor with the basic questions like, “How do I get involved?” or “how do I meet other students? I feel isolated,” but today I’m glad I did.

The second half of this Birth-Day began in the evening when we had our friend and neighbor, Kelly, over for dinner. Her husband Aaron is out of town and we reckoned she might enjoy the company and home cooked meal. Her baby monitor is also able to carry its signal throughout the building so she put little Otis to bed upstairs and dined with us downstairs. Nicholas made wonderful roasted chicken legs and root vegetables and we sat around drinking and talking until way past our bedtimes. 

Source for the image of Dorothy Parker found here.

40 Days of Birthday: Day Eleven

Nicholas went with Lennon to Kita today so I could stay home and get some research done. As it happens, I’m in the process of re-writing my dissertation proposal, having discovered through my first term of research that what I’m after needs refining. It feels like I’m starting at the beginning. On the other hand, writing—articulating—something, in this case a proposal, is easier than the rabbit holes I tend to wander down when doing academic research.

I missed my guys this morning but was actually very productive. After Lennon’s nap, I was ready to party. Naturally, we headed to the Berlin Zoo. The zoo grounds are beautiful: the landscaping and architecture seem to retain much of their original 19th century charm. We took note of all of the well-dressed families and their high-end strollers as we approached, then questioned it no further when it cost us €23 to enter.

The big-ticket elephants and rhinoceros are right up front, as you enter. Their size alone held Lennon’s attention. Some of the smaller animals were harder for him to distinguish from the small children crowding around to see them. He still is far more fascinated with people, it seems. He was rapt in the Monkey House—they were nearly his exact size and were performing many of the same things he likes to do. We noted the similarities in the throwing of food when finished with a meal.

Like so many people, I have mixed feelings about zoos: I question their ethics yet feel highly nostalgic toward them. While I let nostalgia take over today, there were some dark zoo moments, particularly in the Cat House.

Checking in, I’ll admit that the farther I move from my actual birthday the harder it becomes to wake with a sense of ‘special’ everyday. This confession does not signify defeat, however. Just past a quarter of the way through my Birth-Days, I need a little pick-me-up. I have no idea how this will happen, but I’ve made my request to the cosmos.

Tantrum

When I come against an obstacle I find that there’s a pattern of steps I follow to find resolution. Shamefully, the most important of these seems to be one where I behave badly. I throw a fit. Once that phase is over, however, I accept my fate with aplomb and move forward. It’s necessary, however, for me to resist, like antibodies fighting a virus, in order to emerge stronger and healthier on the other side.

I performed an embarrassing, new mom tantrum a few weeks after Lennon was born. We were struggling with breastfeeding and he wasn’t gaining the recommended amount of weight. I was nursing for what seemed like every second of the day and yet it had little affect. The diagnosis was that my milk supply was low and I would need to start using a breast milk pump if breastfeeding was to continue. To increase my supply, I was meant to pump milk from my breasts several times a day for about ten minutes a session. This would provide extra milk for Lennon and fool my body into producing more milk to meet the increased, albeit manufactured, demand. I was already thoroughly exhausted and the idea of nursing this other, mechanical baby in addition to my newborn brought me to tears. This exhaustion was compounded by the new, overwhelming responsibility of trying to provide my baby with the healthiest and highest quality of everything. I was beholden to go forward with whatever it would take to make breastfeeding work even though every molecule of my sleep deprived self wanted to scream, “This is not what I signed up for! I want a refund!” I nearly said those exact words to my very patient midwife, asking her,

“Do nursing mothers just never leave the house? Do they never leave the couch? Do they live their lives as nursing machines? How in the hell do they do this?”

What I wanted and naively expected to hear from her were cushioned words allowing me to give up, saying that it wasn’t all that important to breast feed, and that no one would ever expect anyone to go through anything approaching such burdensome nonsense. Instead, she calmly answered, “We just do it.”

Right.

The next day, I rented a breast milk pump and began the process of increasing my supply and feeding my baby so he would gain the weight he needed. I really fought against the difficulty of it all, though. I fought until I didn’t recognize what I was fighting against. I fought until I looked foolish—until there was nothing left to do but the hard thing itself and be happy about it.

Last week I wrote about how I had buoyed myself up from having suffered the rejection of not being awarded the DAAD scholarship. Tragically, I failed to take my own advice. The next day I discovered that the wound was deeper than three days time and a pep talk could heal. I sat in the kitchen and explained to Nicholas all the reasons why not getting the DAAD scholarship meant that I should not pursue a PhD:

Firstly, I’m not a real academic. I attended a conference last May with other Performance Studies PhDs and discovered that I was way out of my league. They all seemed so well read in Performance theory where I’m primarily a practitioner, still learning how to slog through academic language. What business have I writing a dissertation? Twice now my project has not been awarded funding. Maybe this is a sign. Also, wouldn’t it just be so much easier, nice-n-tidy, and generally more leisurely to go back to the familiar ground of teaching theatre in a K-8th grade environment? I could leave behind the uncomfortable, knee-deep discussions of Performance theory and elevator-pitch explanations of my dissertation. Teaching grade school would also be a more Lennon-gentle route, being able to maintain clear, daytime hours with a family friendly vacation schedule. But the most penultimate reason to throw in the towel, I explained, was that I had tried to call my advisor that day and her secretary said she was very busy and would not be able to meet with me for a while. She’d be happy to send me some other funding opportunities via email, but a one-on-one would not be possible right now. I knew I was on my own with my research, that’s how PhDs are done in Germany, but at this moment I really needed my advisor—a woman of great importance in the Performance Studies world—to bolster my confidence. She hadn’t the time. Bad timing, woman of great importance. Having presented my case, I asked my husband how I could ever overcome such incredible odds? How could I continue with this PhD scheme and its difficult trajectory? The path of least resistance was surely a more sensible route. Certainly there are many who would agree with me that I just don’t have what it takes to be an academic. Nicholas listened and then said, “You can do it, Schatz.”

Fine.

I opened a book of performance theory, grabbed my highlighter, and began reading. I bought a ticket for a play by a company I’d wanted to investigate. I started to do it. Later that day, I visited the little bowl on my desk filled with fifty curled strips of paper. On each strip is one of Nancy Sathre-Vogel’s ‘50 Lessons I Wish I had Learned Earlier.’ If you’ve read more than one of my posts, you may have noted my passion for lists. About a month ago, I had printed out Ms. Sathre-Vogel’s list, cut each item from the page, and placed them in a bowl on my desk to pull from if I needed guidance. The Tao of My Desk, if you will. I glanced at the snow-white curls on top and decided to sink my hand deep to collect my fortune. The lesson I fished that day said:

47. If it were easy everyone would do it.