Book Report: The Orchid and the Dandelion

I have a lot of thoughts about this book:

So many in-fact that I left the kids with Paul for two nights to wrap my brain around the concepts. Val is in Tenerife for two months, so I'm back to the tranquility of her kid-free apartment. I think she made a real interior decorating mistake when she opted to de-Ikea-fy but you be the judge.

vs

Anywho, I stumbled upon this book - depending on your world view - from an answer to prayer or an Amazon that knows me better than I know myself. The basic premise of this book is that 80% of children are dandelions. These are the kids that can survive pretty much anywhere. The other roughly 20% are orchids. Orchids need exactly the right temperature, humidity, nutrients, etc to thrive. When orchids are planted in the "right soil" they are even more successful and healthy than their dandelion counterparts. However, an orchid under the "wrong conditions" wilts. 

The book outlined research findings of different animal studies in captivity - rats and monkeys - as well as controlled laboratory studies with feral animals - pre-schoolers and kindergarteners. I do think that animal studies give a level of credibility in weeding out bias. However, the studies did make the book longer than potentially necessary. He also weaves in some antidotal stories of working as a bush doctor. While interesting, those vignettes could also be skimmed.

I thought this book would mostly be about emotional health, but the bulk of the research used respiratory illnesses as a metric for health. The researchers look at kids' cortisol levels, ie the stress hormone, along with children's external stressors and frequency of respiratory illnesses to draw up conclusions.

This is the point where my beloved blog readers are like, "hey haven't you all been sick with various forms of illnesses since International Women's Day 2022?" Yes. So yes, my orchid is wilting. Also, said orchid lives in close proximity to two dandelions so hence the high illnesses across the board. 

Yikes. So does the book say what to do to reverse course? Not really, because there aren't easy fixes. Just like my enneagram four kid, there is no changing. The goal is not to turn an orchid into a dandelion. I, as the parent, have to change the conditions. This to my dandelion-self sounds like coddling or worse - becoming the lawnmower parent.  

The gardening analogies hit home as my mother and grandmother were both florists. Most of my memories of my mom growing up were in the supermarket, the car, or the garden. She always had all sorts of gardening projects in the works. My entire garden in Portland - which she helped plant - died the summer she died. Likely it was because I was neglecting it with all the visits down to Eugene. In any case, I declared that hence forth I would never garden again.

But, guess what? I have an orchid kid who likes gardening. Specifically this kid is a goat, and no basil plant is safe. This book was telling me, "you don't get to declare what kind of parent you get to be. You will garden. You will have to do hard things to make this work". 

It's clear what I'm doing - throwing this kid into social situations that aren't working - is just withering my orchid. My next clear step is calling around Berlin to get my orchid into "Ergotherapie" which could be most closely translated to occupational therapy. As far as I can understand, this kind of therapy helps kids try new sensory experiences in comfortable social situations. And yes, it's paid for through health insurance.  

Like most of my suggested reading list, this book isn’t for most people in my orbit. Most of you are in my life because you are more compassionate and understanding than I am. You likely already accommodate for the orchids in your life. But me, I need the combination of medical research and personal backstory to move me to change.

This book is ultimately a love letter to the author's orchid sister who experienced many highs and lows before taking her own life at 53. The author essentially devoted his entire life's work to figuring out what went wrong and then wrote the book for people like me. In the wake of my likely orchid uncle's death, I've grappled with many of these same questions. This book was a hopeful reminder that my little orchid's future can be different.  

Girls' Road Trip

Family friends can be tricky. Growing up, I remember not totally jiving with the kids of my parents’ friends with notable exceptions - hi Mimi! As such, when the Biglets click with the kids of our adult friends - we try and make the connections happen. Carmen is obsessed with my friend Amy’s kids. For this reason, when Amy asked if we wanted to do a couple night girls’ trip - we were in.

Amy found two places - an airbnb with an option to milk cows or a family resort with half-board.  As this Onion article confirms, it isn’t a vacation if I have to cook. Amy isn't accustomed to such laziness but as I found on the trip - she and the girls are ready for anything. 

We started the trip during nap time. This detail is totally unnecessary to include but look how cute they are:

One down.

Two down. Cassidy is awake, but my photography skills just keep you guessing.

Our meals looked like this:

Leah stuffing her face while the 'big girls' were varying levels of distracted. 

Our entertainment looked like this:

I actually took the time to "do" Carmen's hair and she "did" Cassidy's hair while Leah went down for a nap.

Lots of hand holding to get around. 

The hotel had my favorite amenity:

I've never seen one of these popcorn machines outside of Germany. It even plays music while you wait for the popcorn to pop.

In addition to an indoor pool, an indoor play structure, and an outdoor swimming lake (only in the summer), there was live music and/or a DJ at night. This hotel being outside Berlin, the music was very unfortunately mostly Schlager. For those unfamiliar with German 'hits', this is the most famous song.  You can likely watch that video without sound to get the Schlager gist without the nausea. I always say dancing to bad music is a good test of your skills. 

I did a little demo of my go-to middle-school break dancing moves. The girls were quick studies.

Carmen and I were planning on having a little stay-cation next week with the boys going skiing in Italy. But with our buddies not joining, Carmen and I are coming along for the ride. I'm hoping my little dancer will continue to do this post ski lessons:

So we can spend our evenings doing this:

Thanks Amy for planning and executing a get-away during an otherwise long Christmas break! It's a special trip for daughters like Carmen and me, who don't have sisters, to get a taste of the sister magic.

Crosby is 10!

In Germany it's bad luck to wish people happy birthday or celebrate before the actual day. But, it's good for my sanity to do things on a schedule that works for me. As such, when the forecast called for snow last week, it also called for an early birthday adventure. Crosby and his friend Noah came home early from school to play in the snow, break a piñata, and eat hamburgers at Five Guys.

Crosby was home sick yesterday with the virus that knocked out 18 of 25 of the kids at the Kita. Lots of this at our house the last eight days (but who's counting).

For entertainment, we snuggled-up on the couch and looked at the photos when Crosby was born.

I mean, look how much fun we're having.

Part of my goal this academic year is to talk to Crosby about puberty in solidarity with the girls his age. The majority of the girls in his class have to deal with all sorts of hormonal changes while the boys get to blissfully trade Pokémon cards and run around carefree for another couple years. 

The conversations are still awkward. He likely isn't the understanding dude to his girl classmates that I would hope. But, we started the conversation before Crosby was totally mortified about learning about puberty with this mom. I can recommend these books: Guy Stuff and It's So Amazing. 

Crosby found the juxtaposition of Paul's excitement and my agony at his birth funny. We watched birth videos before his siblings were born, so the gruesome personal photos were not a shock. I'm thankful to seemingly have thread the awkward needle of sharing a meaningful experience with him while he was moderately interested. Next year will likely be too late. We went out to lunch at his favorite Japanese restaurant directly after seeing the photos. For the record, no one was too traumatized to eat. 

Technically Cros was healthy enough to go to school today. I scheduled a doctor's appointment to check his previously broken elbow (which is healing nicely) for this morning to give him a more relaxed birthday start. When the nurse saw it was his birthday she wrote him a sick note for the whole day. The day off might be his favorite birthday present. Our afternoon cake outing was the cherry on top.

Thank you to all the people who reached out to wish a happy birthday to the man who started the happy chaos at Team Biggs. 

This man is well loved.

Broken in Berlin

Our ski buddy, Lucjan, blew out his knee two weeks before a planned repeat of:

We have a bit of experience figuring out what to do after our few weeks with a broken elbow. The first thing we needed to do was find a different summer camp option for Crosby as rock climbing was a no-go. Julia at circularium thinks up the most amazing projects. Crosby came home with a treasure trove of slime, pottery, snow globe, and a belly full of delicious food. 

Another great place in our hood is Calliope. Crosby took a two day coding course at Calliope over the summer.

Crosby presented his "nerf-machine 2000". Nerf means annoying. 

Another place we've walked by a bunch, mostly just to laugh at the "Kinder Labor" sign on the window, is Entdeckum. The website conveys that they do not specialize in child labor, but rather building robots. The timing hasn't worked out for our family, but the idea is cool. 

Our favorite museums are:

• The Video Game Museum 
• The Future Museum (free)
• The Communication Museum 
• The Technical Museum
• Anything on free Museum Sunday 

I'm thankful we made it to this museum on a non-exploding day. 

I really enjoy going to factory museums. Thankfully Crosby wasn't injured long enough for me to search one out. A friend recommended a tortilla factory but sadly it already closed. 

The other tricky part of the injury equation was entertaining Crosby during the Hofpause or "recess". I ordered comic books on Medimops. Our current go-to are escape room books. 

I would estimate Crosby was entertained for eight hours with this one book. (Arriving on Monday morning at Sir Lucjan's house.)

We did a lot of walking to find ice cream and bubble tea which obviously doesn't work for a bum knee. Being injured is no fun. Hang in there Lucjan! 

Diary of a Wimpy Parent

Every parent of an early reader knows that the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series is amazing. But what most parents don’t know is the inspiring back story. I learned that and more in this gem. 

The kids don’t love the who is/who was? books as much as I do. However, they do like snuggling and listening to me read. We got through this book in one sitting.

Jeff Kinney had to wrestle for years before he saw any success. As readers, we love those kind of stories. But as humans, we want to skip all the struggle part. Currently, I don’t want to struggle through raising my own “wimpy” kids. We've got three very different flavors requiring three different parenting styles. I am currently aging in hyperspeed over this one.

I've had serious déjà vu researching enneagram four kids. My musician college boyfriend also liked to "sit in his sad feelings." Before I'd come over to his apartment to hang out, he'd listen to mopey music. I'd be like, "Why? The world seems hard enough without sitting in the sad stuff." 

Side note: My readers are like, "Hold up, aren't you the queen of reading all the sad books?" Yes, because end-of-life topics are direct and truthful. That writing style speaks to my eight personality. I digress..

While said boyfriend was a lovely person, the eight/four combo was not working on a few levels. We had a tortuous break-up. But guess what? I can't break up with my kid.

Also not unlike romantic partners, I can't change my four kid. I've spent the last six months trying and failing quite spectacularly. Like many life fails, I should have known better. But I needed my bestie to point it out on a recent exasperated phone call. 

Generally speaking, I feel like I'm not the right person for this parenting job. I often tell Paul that I’m failing at a job I can’t quit. Pre-kids, I generally tried to avoid irrational people. Now I voluntarily live with three irrational people. I have a shockingly low frustration tolerance. As a child, I wasn't allowed to be angry. As an adult, haven't figured out how to tame the beast. 

On my best days, I'm calm and a good listener. On my worst days, I launch into irate uninspiring pep-talks about "how life is never going to get any easier so you should find a way to make it work."  On one hand, it feels disrespectful to my kid to try and turn this child of God into something more "agreeable." On the other, what kind of preparation is this for life if I am overly accommodating 

Thankfully Germany prevails again, providing free family counseling around the corner of our house to help us get a vision. We had our first meeting about a different kid last week. We will have a meeting on this kid in a couple weeks. In the mean time, we are in the struggle phase of this story. 

Chocolate Recycling Tips

I realized I left out a couple blog goals from my penultimate post. 

Convince Dudu to come visit:

Waiting until we live somewhere where skiing is a 20 minute bus-ride away is also acceptable.

Write book reports:

Ashley, dream sister in-law, turned me on to Emily Henry. No pun intended. I finished People we Meet on Vacation and will be starting this once my parenting books become less pressing or I just need a mental break.

Share "depression era wife" (Paul's label) or "new-sustainable era spouse" (my label) tips:

That brings me to this post - I'll be talking about chocolate recycling. Every Christmas we receive approximately 20 chocolate Santas. 

While Hugo from a young age showed adeptness at finishing one - there is a limit.

These are my favorite recipes:

Granola Balls - The recipe is for bars but balls are just easier.

Brownies - Sub for chocolate chips.

Hot Chocolate - I just winged it on this one. Scoop of unsweetened cocoa powder, half a Santa for sweetness, and any kind of milk on the stovetop. 

As I've mentioned before, another option to use up ingredients is just to give them to us, and then I'll remix them for you and/or live stream my kids happily eating said remixes.

Thanks Gen for the cookies to bribe inspire the littles to get out the door.

Thanks Val for the food markers to avoid breakfast burrito spice surprises.

Thanks Diana for sending us home with so many post-party leftovers.

Thanks Niv for the chicken to make schnitzel. 

The first stop for extra ingredients might be our freezer. But the last stop will be our bellies. 

Be careful what you wish for

Our holiday season got off to a seemingly rough start with a RIF - reduction in force - at Paul’s job. Seven percent of the company - half of Paul’s team including Paul - were on the chopping block.  I was totally surprised as Germany does not have a hire and fire culture like the US.

I’d fantasized about Paul being on “garden leave” but between jobs - maybe over the summer? While two weeks is the standard notice time in the US, in Germany it is three months. If an employee is leaving to a non-competing business sometimes said person will work those last three months. However, if going to work for a competitor this three months is “garden leave”. AKA you get paid for three months without going into the office. It turns out actually garden leave around the holidays is also a good time.

Paul knew a RIF was a possibility. As such, he started working on permanent residence paperwork with our relocation company to get a visa that wouldn’t be tied to employment. I was on the “citizenship or bust” wagon but that process will take at least two years, so we likely needed a stopgap. 

As (bad) luck would have it, Paul got laid off two weeks before the permanent residence appointment at the foreigners department. While it is not unheard of to get a permanent residence card while not employed, it isn’t a great way to convince a country to let you stay. 

Lots of fancy footwork later, our relocation company managed to help us get an EU permanent residence permit. This is a step-up from German permanent residence in that now we can live anywhere in the EU. Freedom of movement was one of top reasons we were looking at citizenship. With the EU permanent residence permit we have that flexibility sooner than we thought possible. Which brings me to Innsbruck… 

Innsbruck on paper looks like the perfect place - small university town with six mountains a ski bus away. Also, an international public school just opened. The biggest hang-up - it’s in Austria.

Crosby has the biggest aversion to change. As luck would have it, his birthday is coming up and he requested a ski trip. He wanted to bring a friend but that is pushing the limits of how we do birthdays. I convinced him to go with just me.

I was having all sorts of trouble threading the needle with ski school, hotel, train accessibility, etc. The train to Innsbruck from Berlin is 6.5 hours with one connection in Munich. Arriving into a cute town with mountains all around is magical.

We walked to our hotel, left the bags, and head to get ski rentals.

While walking to the hotel Cros spotted a roof top bar. He declared a fear of heights but was distracted by his love of fancy. 

The snow was good enough for government, as was Crosby’s ski school.

We even got an Apfel Strudel for lunch because…Austria.

Emoji face.

We did a couple more runs before the lifts closed for the day. Cut to Crosby totally wilting. When we got to our room he had the chills. He didn’t eat dinner. At 7:05 he was sawing logs.

Crosby had a hacking cough when we got here. Illogically I thought that meant that he couldn’t get any other illness. False. Somehow he managed to get a stomach bug. So, the next day I returned the rentals, gave away our ski tickets to some very happy people, and enjoyed a quiet hotel room recovery day. 

Appropriate shirt for the day.

Cros was super bummed to miss a day of skiing. TBD if we sneak in another Spring trip as a bit of a make-up.

We already have a plan to see Innsbruck in summer with Paul’s parents. We’ll be staying in the same hotel I stayed in with my family for Christmas 1988.

I remember calling it the “Growly Bear”. Grauër Bär isn't too far off. 

The thought of moving is horrifying. If we claim to build our life around relationships, it feels crazy to just move somewhere where we don’t know a soul. But the allure of living in a friendly city with family fun built in, especially as the teen years quickly approach, is very enticing. 

While fumbling with Crosby’s and my rental gear on the bus, a friendly dad offered to walk me to the rental shop. He was riding the bus into town with his oldest 20 year-old son. He happened to also have three kids. I asked if he had any tips for the teenage years. He laughed and said, “well it’s nice to live in a community where my kids can do competative sports.”

My New Year’s resolution, like most years, is to get more sleep. Thinking about a move just makes me want to do this.

As such, a move to Innsbruck is not in our immediate plans. Paul’s got a new job to sort out. I need to help Hugo transition to school. And as we’ve seen our life in the last couple months, everything is totally going according to plan.