Book Report: Why I Hope to Die at 75

Paul's and my second honeymoon started yesterday! It's off to a bit of a rough start considering Hugo also tested positive for Corona that morning. Twelve days after Crosby, really? Nevertheless, I'm feeling a little nostalgic about when Paul and I got married and wanted to start this post with a humble brag. Paul and I remixed some new additions and some classic lines for some solid vows on our wedding day:

I, Paul, take you, Paige, to be my friend, my lover,

the mother of my children, and my wife.

I stand here today loving what I know of you,

and trusting what I do not yet know.

And, I commit to grow with you through the seasons of life.

In the presence of our family and friends,

I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful partner

in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad,

and in joy as well as in sorrow,

for as long as we both shall live.

The last ten years have included many moments in our lives where we learned things about each other we did not know. This is just one example that happened on our wedding day:

The Scene: Posing with my Grandparents (the day after their 65th wedding anniversary)

Paul: "I hope we are as happy as you two on our 65th wedding anniversary."

Paige to Paul privately: "I don't want to live that long."

Ok, at first glance my comment sounds like a total downer. But, my grandparents got married at 18 and 20. Paul and I were 29 and 33. In 2012, my grandparents were in good health for their mid 80s. But, I really didn't have a vision for how they would be in ten years. My grandfather died of a stroke in 2014. My grandma continues to be the most positive person I have ever met even through being widowed and isolated in covid. She is an inspiration. I am grateful every day for who she has been and continues to be. 

Ok, so there is no real smooth way to transition this into what this blog is really about - Why I Hope to Die at 75  by Ezekiel Emanuel. Ok, technically this isn't a book but rather an article in the Atlantic published in 2014. But man, those Atlantic articles are long and thus a book report. (I have the article as a PDF if you want it. Just ping me.)

I stumbled upon this article from a recent clip on CNN. As one can imagine, reporters continue to follow-up with Dr. Emanuel as he gets closer to 75. He is currently 65 and still agreeing with his article.  Also, he had my ear when he made his position against euthanasia for the many of the same reasons I do not support it.

There were so many things I loved about this article. Mostly, I felt like this article really spoke to me and gave me a vision for my future. Some people, like my Grandma, live gracefully into old age. I don't think that is me. I never thought of the option of picking an age, and at that point switching to palliative care. At 75, Dr. Emanuel will do palliative care or for example repairing a knee that will maintain his quality of life but not prolong it. He is going to forgo preventative treatment like colonoscopies, flu shots, and check-ups. He is leaving the door open for an infection to finish the job, which is usually pretty swift, if it is his time to go.

One place where he kind of lost me was he wants to have a memorial service when he is 75.  We all had the idea to do something similar for my mom at the end of her life and it was just sad. It was too late; no one felt like dancing.  But then I thought about my current strategy on big birthdays; I usually just celebrate our big wedding anniversaries instead. (Ok, ok I celebrate both...and definitely will be doing something for 40 this year.)

Without further ado, God willing, a save the date:

Paige and Paul's Sapphire Wedding Anniversary: Going out with Bang

Date: Fall 2057

Location : TBD

Dress Code: All the Sparkles 

Fair Play Sneak Peak

As my two devoted blog readers know, Paul will be taking another round of paternity leave starting in two days until the end of August. Our original goal of the leave was to have time together as a couple to "make up for lost time" over the nine years (today!) of intensive parenting. We planned on staying in Berlin and enjoying adult time while the kids are at school and then do some family travel.

However, you don't have to read too much between the lines on this blog to know that I've been having a bit of a rough go of home life this last year (albeit with a nice Kur reprieve exactly a year ago). In general, I built a family workflow that is crushing me. With one child it was pretty even - Paul took care of making money and our IT. I took care of everything else.

Moving to Germany tipped the equitable scales. On the positive side, Paul has made big strides on work-life balance. For starters, he was forced to take 25 vacation days (currently bumped to 30). In the last couple years, I asked that instead of working late nights on big projects he work Saturdays and then reclaim them later as flex days. In summary, would say he works about 20% fewer hours than he did in the US. However, this 20% isn't enough to balance out two more kids... kids that are not Crosby's level of chill.

"Yes, I'm happy to sit still and hang out for this photo in this awesome outfit." 

Also, the language barrier means every doctor's appointment, parent meeting, etc requires my assistance. Paul and I agreed to disagree on the importance of speaking German in Germany. German learning was at the bottom of the to-do list. 

But, now Germany's current government coalition is changing the dual citizenship laws so that residents can become German citizens in a shorter amount of time (5 years instead of 8) without giving up home country citizenship. However, like the US, citizens have to pass a citizenship test. And, they also have to speak B1 level German.

Thus, the scope of the parental leave has changed considerably. The overarching goal is to find a more sustainable family rhythm. Which, is likely more the intent of parental leave in the first place. 

Side note:  Before everyone tries to move to Germany, you should know this period is unpaid after a child's first birthday. This unpaid leave is an option for a total of 24 months for each child between the ages of three and eight. Officially this time is for Hugo. So, we still have another few years if we want to do this for Carmen. If/when we take this time for Carmen, we would like to travel. For now we need to calm some chaos before we take the show on the road. 

Paul will be taking intensive German classes with the hope of passing these two citizenship tests before the start of summer. One on hand it feels like a bit of "scope creep" in terms of not spending as much time together. But on the other, I felt especially validated when reading the intro to Fair Play. One of the author's solutions to make her family life more equitable was to jokingly relocate her family somewhere where only her husband speaks the language. I'll do a separate blog post about the book if we have some success. She doesn't suggest taking seven months off to rebalance, but it can't hurt. 

Corona Round 2

Monday January 16 7:00 AM

Crosby: "My leg hurts."

Paige: "That's not a reason not to go to school."

Crosby: "My stomach hurts."

Paige: "Those things don't seem related. Jump in the shower, get your clothes on, and get on the tram to to be at school before 8."

8:07 AM

Call from the school secretary to pick him up. She informed me that there were a few positive kids in Crosby's class.

8:15 AM 

Negative corona test

5:00 PM

Positive corona test

On Tuesday he was feeling totally fine. The rest of us stayed negative despite the fact the kids all sleep in the same room and we all snuggle everyday. This round we had Crosby wear the mask to not get Alla sick.

These family onesies came in real handy this week.

Isolation in Berlin ends with a negative test or after 10 days. He still has a faint positive test so he missed one birthday party yesterday and one today. Either way, the littles are going back to Kita tomorrow. TBD when Cros can go to school.

Our general isolation rhythm is:

Morning: Thirty minutes of exercise:

Animated youtube exercises.

Running laps.

Late Morning: Take the negative tested littles to "blow the stink off". Usually this is a masked supermarket run. Crosby holds down the fort reading on his new Kindle or playing a math video game. 

Nap Time:

Mostly Carmen by herself, but sometimes Hugo or I join. The boys get to do whatever they want with screens....basically for the rest of the day. Although there were a few moments of:

Playtime:

Paul's Christmas present to the kids comes in handy.

Art:

Carmen drew this for our sick neighbor friend.

A rare moment of the boys getting along...sigh.

But really, mostly screens. Thank goodness there are 40 Marvel films. Because we are going a little crazy around here.

Flu with a View

Alternative Working Title: How to Lermoos

This post will both answer the question, "How was Christmas?" and offer some practical tips how to recreate a lovely ski holiday in Lermoos. During our last train to ski adventure to Garmisch Partenkirche, we met another family who was going a few more stops down to Lermoos, Austria. 

Transport: Die Bahn

We spent the four hour train to Munich doing this:

Video games for Cros.

Thor: Ragnarok for the less sensitive members of our family.

We had 30 minutes to transfer in Munich, and then another two hours of a regional train to Lermoos. Last summer there was a train accident on the line from Munich to Lermoos, so we had to jump on another regional train in Garmisch Partenkirche. 

The desks between the seats on the regional train have these handy maps so we could show the kids our trajectory. 

The Gear:

We travel "light" which is to say our ski gear is still at Paul's parents' house in Spokane. 

Clearly Lederhosen makes the cut. 

We had twelve articles of baggage to track:

• Two American sized cabin bags. These would never fly in a European plane, but they fit above the seats in the train
• Two European sized rolling bags for Crosby and Hugo
• Travel duffel backpack with trolley strap. In the future, we'll likely let Carmen just roll her bag instead of having Paul carry it
• Four backpacks 
• One empty brightly colored duffle bag with lunch and space for all of our hats, etc
• Travel stroller
• Large duffle bag - we were trying to avoid bringing a big bag but with rain in the forecast, I wanted to have extra ski clothes for the boys to stay dry

We rented ski gear at the rental place near our hotel. However, it is much better to rent at Mader as they have a ski depot right near the ski school. 

Carmen loves ski gear. The skiing part...well...see below.

The Hotel: Hotel Edelweiss

The view from the train station:

 No google maps needed. Just walk towards the sign.

The other family we met last year stayed at a family pension with breakfast and dinner. However, with climate change and small kids, I knew we needed a place with a pool and/or alternative activity options. The reviews of Edelweiss were accurate when they said, "Best value for your money." Yes, there is a lux family resort next door that will drive your kids to ski lessons and has water slides out of all sides of the building. But, did their staff all dress up in Trachten for the Christmas show? Did Santa visit and give them random stuffed animals?

Just out of frame: a grandpa straight jamming out on the keyboard.

A small beaver attached to a pillow. It's a thing.

The location of the hotel didn't work out so well for ski lessons. There is a lift 200 meters from the hotel, but the ski lessons were a kilometer down the road. The shuffling of kids and gear was a bit of struggle for littler kids. This is the part of the post where the trip diverges into more awesome for some members of the family and less awesome for others.

Ski Lessons: Skischule Lermoos

One of the parts of this trip that was the most difficult/frustrating to figure out was the ski school options. My general feeling is there isn't kids' care at the mountain where you just drop your kids and do what you want for the day. Carmen could only go for two hours, we had to buy additional lunch care for the boys, and then patch it all together. It was neither cheap nor convenient. Also, most people book ski vacations from Saturday - Saturday, so many ski schools don't offer classes on Saturdays as they are a travel day. Our plan was to patch things together for two days until Paul's parents could give some assistance.

On day one, I came to pick-up the kids at noon to find:

A very sad Carmen

A Hugo who didn't want to stop.

Crosby had a bro crush on his Dutch instructor, and was looking forward to being the only person in his group lesson for the afternoon. I took Carmen home for a nap and realized that she felt warm and I wasn't feeling great. Here's where things start to turn...

Cue me being in bed for the next four days with the flu while our friends Shannon, Maciej, and Agata came to bring me various medicinal remedies. Meanwhile, Paul brought me food and watched the kids with his parents. Paul's camera doesn't lie, they had a good holiday. 

Carmen had a quicker recovery. 

OK, I did sneak out for a couple hours before my body stopped working entirely. I don't know if that was a good choice for my physical health, but I think necessary for my mental health.

Photo credit: Shanni

We made it back to Berlin without anyone barfing on the train. Oh yes, we had a round of the barfies starting in Lermoos and ending in Berlin for everyone but Carmen and me. The upside to the flu is that Carmen and I weren't close enough to the boys for the stomach bug. 

Although, while looking through photos, I do see Carmen co-napped while Hugo was getting over barfing and she was getting over the flu. 

So I guess we were a little lucky. I am going to declare victory on this holiday and hope for a healthier 2023.