Nanny Problems: A dead Mouse

     It was a lovely summer day and Emily and I were outside playing princess. I wasn't technically working, but Christa was in the shower and Emily wanted to play with me, so of course I went outside with her.

Emi runs in the corner to hide from me when she stops:"Komm mal Steffie, hier, schnell! Crok mal was ich gefunden hab!!" Come Steffie here fast! Look what I found! I come running over. "A dead mouse!" She replies enthusiastically. "No Emi, don't touch, back away from that". I told her. I'm thinking: Ew. Gross. I really hope Christa doesn't ask me to pick this up. Emi is so intrigued. "I don't want to touch it, I just want to look". So she hovers over it. "Poor, poor mouse". She repeats. I'm incredibly grossed out. I don't see why Emi wants to stare at it, but she really seems to like the thing. Next thing I know, she has a flower in her hand. One by one, she starts picking the petals off and throwing them over the mouse. She was so somber about it. It was pretty sweet, I have to say.

When she was done throwing flowers over it, she says to me, "Steffie, go get mommy. She can start the grill up and we can cook it and eat it."

Erhm. Excuse me. "No, Emi, we can't eat the mouse".

"I don't mean now," she said, "I mean later. For dinner". 

I stop. Now, my German's pretty okay, but there's just some concepts and words I have trouble expressing. I start to think and put together the words I do know, and I think it came out something like this: "Emi, your not allowed eat mice. They are dirty and have a lot of bacteria on top of them. If you eat them, you would get sick."

Either I drastically butchered my German, Or she didn't believe me.

"Don't worry," she tells me, "Mommy will make it yummy".

Some might say my patience is running a little dry, but at this moment I admitted defeat. "Let's go get your mommy and show her. I bet she wants to see".

"Yayyyyy!!!!" exclaimed Emi.

So off we went, into the bathroom, to get a very surprised Christa. In her towel and all, she came outside to get rid of our dead little friend, and I was a very happy girl.

P.S. We didn't have mice for dinner.

Nanny Problems: The Laughing Stock of the Zoo

After eight months in Munich, I decided: Germans just don't laugh. We've watched funny movies together, we've heard jokes, we've seen police officers give tickets with their fly down: and nothing. Just me, sitting there, living up to the American Stereotype as the single person loudly cracking their head off. I've learned to adjust. If I find something funny, I usually just quietly giggle to myself. So when I went to the zoo, I wasn't expecting anything different.

I'm an Au Pair. I make less in a month than my boyfriend spends on the average weekend out. It's a little depressing. Luckily, as a native english speaker, there are many opportunities for me to make a little extra cash watching other people's children. One of which, is a nice half German half American family with two young boys.

I get a call early Tuesday morning that both the mother and the father were very sick, and asked if I could take the 2 year old the the zoo for a few hours so they could sleep. Now, I love this family, but the mother is a little bit overprotective to say the least. No judgement, just a statement of fact. When I arrived, she had a bag waiting for me with all the things I needed for the day. As I'm pulling things out, I get to the bottom of the bag, and low and behold-- a leash. Yes my friends, I was going to be one of those parents with their children on a leash. Thankfully, it was a nice one with a little monkey on the back (I'm trying to think positively). Internally, a part of me died a little bit, but I was happy thinking: It's okay. The Germans are very reserved and non nosey people. No one will say anything. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Monkey leash

We start walking around the zoo. We're seeing zebras and giraffes-- the little boy was having a great time. I start to notice people pointing and whispering, but I kind of just figured they were looking at the animals. We enter the monkey exhibit. The boy and I walking around watching the monkeys, and we start to hear, "oh my gosh do you see that kid? what is he a dog?" I roll my eyes. I hear a little giggling--figure its nothing. The kid and I stand still because he sees some monkeys he really likes. We're looking and having a great time. One male monkey starts chasing a female monkey around the cage. A big crowd starts to form. The monkey then mounts the female monkey, and they start having monkey sex!! Everyone is pointing and laughing.. and so are we! I look around, to try to join in the fun, when I realize--no one is pointing at the monkeys.. they are pointing at me!! There we are, in the middle of watching monkey sex, and I am the laughing stock of the zoo. I was humiliated.

We left the exhibit and started walking to see something else. Then I really started to pick up on it. Kids were pointing and laughing--parents alike! Right in the middle of a giraffe pooping--people were laughing at us. It was terrible. I have never been so happy to leave the zoo in my entire life.

Lesson learned. I was wrong. Turns out, Germans do know how to laugh.

Nanny Problems: Lessons about kids and the word "urgent"

Now, I'm 24 year old. I not old, but I'm not exactly young. It's been awhile since my mom picked out my outfit, tied my shoes, did my laundry or changed my diaper. I've known for some time how to use the toilet, and haven't gone in my pants for at least a week! I don't mean to brag or nothing, but I can tell when I need to use the bathroom about thirty to fourty-five minutes before I actually have to go. I guess this is one of those things you forget to appreciate as you get older, because life was not always so easy.

Here's the thing with kids. When they say they have to go to the bathroom, they mean, they have to go to the bathroom. Right now. Right then. EMERGENCY. Doesn't matter who you're with, doesn't matter where you have to be. When they gotta go, they gotta go.

As previously mentioned, everyday Filippo and I journey the thirty minute ride to his ice-skating with the u-bahn. We leave from school, where there is a bathroom, and go straight there, where there is also a bathroom. There are, however, no bathrooms on the u-bahn, and no bathrooms on the seven minute walk from the u-bahn station to Olympic Park.

For the third time today, along our journey, Filippo stops me and says, "Mimi, I have to go." and I ask him, "Can you hold it?" and he says, "No." I calmly explain to him that we are only a three minute walk from a bathroom, if he could just wait until then, he could use the toilet. With the most frantic look on his face, he starts to cry. "Mimi, I don't want to go in my pants!", he wailed. I asked him, "Filippo, if you had to go so badly, why didn't you tell me sooner? Remember last time? You have to tell me before you're going go in your pants so I can find a toilet." He starts to cry harder. "I have to go right now!" Not knowing what to do, I look around me. I ask myself: What would Tracy Jordan do? There's no bush, no fence, no mason jars. Just cars, and one thin tree. I mean, the kid doesn't want to pee his pants. Frankly, I don't want him to pee his pants either... That'd be so gross. So, having exhausted all other options, I give him the nod, and, in the middle barrier of the Auto Bahn, he runs behind the thin tree, drops his pants, and let it all loose.

Crisis averted.