A baby away from home

debbiekaye19802 Comments
baby feet

I like my life in Austria. I have lots of support. I am happy here. Yet in the months since I had a baby, I have never felt so homesick and alone in my entire life. I have never before questioned my decision so much. The question to move to Austria, you ask, or the question to have a baby? Well… both.

This whole process of having a baby and becoming a mother is an adjustment. It’s much harder when you’re in a different language, a different culture and family is far away. I’m lucky to have great in-laws who are very supportive and respectful. But it doesn’t change the fact that they’re not my parents. My parents haven’t met Sam. They won’t until he’s almost a year old. They’ll have a harder time cultivating a relationship with him. And all the Skype time can’t change that. I’m lucky that hubby is great at taking photos, but sometimes seeing all the pictures of his parents with Sam just makes me sad because it all hits me again.

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(Kind of) Hilarious Australian news articles

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Some news stories are serious – and so they should be. However, there’s nothing like injecting a bit of light-heartedness into a world where reporting only seems to get grimmer and grimmer. And since Aussies are known to enjoy taking the piss, both of themselves and others, here’s a few examples of times when they focused on the lighter side of news.

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I’ll be back – the gruesome story published in my school yearbook way back when

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horror story

When I was in year 9, at the tender age of 14/15, I was big into writing, and at the time, I was deep in my horror writing phase. An old friend from high school recently found a story of mine that had been printed in the yearbook, and I found it so disturbing/funny that I thought I’d share.

It was titled ‘I’ll be back’, which is relevant considering where I live now. And it revolved around a 14/15 year old girl babysitting her two year old sister for the first time. This girl was doing all the standard teenage things you do when you’re babysitting – like calling her friends and watching TV… absolutely not checking on the baby and of course… meditating… for an hour. Which perhaps was the problem… because in that hour someone came into the house and surprise surprise… murdered her baby sister.

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On writing

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kids book

I have loved writing for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories, perhaps also of jealousy, was when a girl in my prep class brought in a ‘book’ she’d written. It was about her dog, flimsy paper stapled together complete with 5 year old drawings. It was impressive for a 5 year old, or at least I thought so. I remember the teacher raving about it. I remember being jealous. And I remember wanting to have my own book. I remember thinking I could do that.

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You know you’re in Austria and not Australia when… you panic about the cheddar

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cheddar cheese

Austria has many different types of special cheese. Glündner Käse, Topfen, the different varieties of Bergkäse, and most of the standard ones you already know. The cheese in Austria is perfectly fine. But when I came here what I missed was cheddar. Didn’t have to be anything special but it had to be cheddar. I grudgingly accepted the Bergkäse and Gouda that wound up in the shopping trolley and passed it off as just another thing I would have to get used to.

Now, Austria is not at the end of the earth. You can absolutely buy cheddar in Austria, and quite easily, just not at the supermarket I was frequenting. So I assumed it wasn’t available.

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German-speaking Debbie & English-speaking Debbie

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austrian strudel

Now that I have been living in Austria for almost ten years and I get around pretty good, it’s come to my attention that there could actually be two of me – German-speaking Debbie and English-speaking Debbie. Because I’ve had people tell me that they notice a difference in my personality when I speak one language or the other. And well… it does make sense.

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You know you’re in Austria and not Australia when… you can’t post a simple letter

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An embarrassingly short time back I had to post a letter. Easy, I thought. I’ll find a mailbox and put it in. It was one of those prepaid deals so I didn’t have to go into the post office to buy a stamp as I usually do.

So one day when I was in the city I headed to the post office because… well there must be a mailbox there. Step one, locating said mailbox, was quite simple – it was in plain sight out the front. Step two, posting the letter… was not so simple. I faffed around for what felt like an eternity, prodding and poking and pulling at the yellow box, until… I simply fled, tears of shame burning my eyes.

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No sweetie, you can’t play with my phone

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smart phone baby phone

Going into this I felt pretty strongly about protecting my kid against things like excessive screen time, obsession with phones, watching television etc. Well, at least the holier than thou part of me wanted to be. Having TV on in the background was ok, I surmised, since that’s the way I grew up, but I don’t want someone showing Sam their screen… because that’s crossing a line… isn’t it? Or maybe it’s just a sign of the changing times.

Because I was conscious of it. I actively tried to limit my phone use when he was ‘aware’. If he was awake we didn’t watch TV, we kept him company. We played with him.

But here’s the thing. A phone is not just something you use to call and text anymore. And even though I actively try not to just grab my phone for no reason, I still pick it up a hell of a lot. In the old days you’d wait for the hourly weather on the radio… now I check the weather app to find out what we need to wear for our walk. If I want to play music, bam, I pick up my phone and open another app. And if I suddenly remember something, I don’t pull out a piece of paper like I used to, I add it to the lists in my phone.

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Dirty poems

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14 years old

As an early teen, I went through a very special phase… writing dirty poems. I don’t know why… I guess that’s just how things manifested when I got curious about things like boys and sex. Now, maybe some 13/14 year olds know a lot about sex… but I certainly was not one of them. My dirty poetry was written with next to no knowledge on the topic, other than what I’d read or seen on television – which was not a large pool to draw from.

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