January 2011

The new year has started, I had my…30 BIRTHDAY (yes, now I’m old, too and today it’s Saturday morning and we’re waiting impatiently for Nika’s work permission as a doctor! It has to be delivered today or next Monday by post and it will mean that Nika can finally start working as a surgeon without further delay!

Busy working!

I can’t believe I haven’t been writing such a long time! We are happily installed in our new home, I’m working my a** off and like in any job, on some days I want to kiss my bosses, on some days I’d like to go Al-Qaida on them, Damian and we are super happy with his daycare mom and guess what:

Nika started to work as study nurse (medical documentation helper) in our hospital!

Last week I started taking part in a Georgian language distance learning course of Malmö university so that I can go on having discussions with our Georgian family and friends in the summer holidays.

Karneval (Mardi gras) is about to come and Germany is still covered under a thick blanket of snow leading to major traffic problems.

Happy New Year!

On the move!

We’ve been super busy these last days! Nika arrived Friday morning, Friday night we started driving to Berchtesgaden in Bavaria where we stayed in a beautiful farmhouse/bead&breakfast so that I could attend an “investigators’ meeting” at the Hotel Intercontinental which was supposed to prepare me for one of the studies which are part of my new job.

Yesterday morning we came back, in the evening I had another “monitoring meeting” in the hospital and today we bought a dishwasher, a microwave and a refrigerator, we had a look at IKEA (first time for Nika) and after my parents returned from their dancing club, we brought the first load of furniture into our new home!

It was already half past ten and Damian was running everywhere and shouting with excitement, so after some time one of hour new neighbours came down to ask as to be a little more quiet because she has to get up at five. I think she was a little angry when she came down in her pyjamas, but when she saw my father who happens to be her orthopedist, she was very friendly So good to be back in the “village”! Actually, Kray is a borough of Essen, the eighth-largest town in Germany, but in Kray you can never get out without meeting people whom you know.

In Cologne, as a student I enjoyed some anonymity – you don’t want anybody to tell your parents when you’re walking home completely drunk after disco, but as my wild days are over and I’ve entered the realms of pampers, LEGO, and infinite responsibility for the wee one, I’m happy that here social contacts are just something that happens effortlessly.

Article about Attachment Parenting

Heather from www.mama-is.com just wrote about a very interesting article from the obstetrician Dr Yehudi Gordon concerned with attachment parenting.

Here it is: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1191263/Dont-work-years–want-happy-baby.html

Well I hope we can turn my starting the job into a success for all of the family. As I won’t have nightshifts, it will be possible to continue nursing when I’m with Damian. I don’t know if I will need to use a breast-pump – I have never been separated from my little boy for more than 5 hours

I think I’ll just buy one next week (of course, after a lot of research to find one which really works) and see what I can do with it. Although he has never drunk milk from a bottle, he drinks water from his sippy-cup and probably his father can give him the milk like that when he starts to be tired and Mami is not there.

I’m getting sad just thinking about that.

On the other hand, I just saw a really nice flat near to the Daycare Mommy, bus stops and our neighbourhoods centre. I’ve already written an e-mail and additionally, I’ll try to catch her tomorrow at the real estate fare in town.

Nika, who is a doctor since Wednesday, will come on July, 3rd and can start to work on his paternal abilities and if he is unlucky, I’ll make him colour the walls and build IKEA-furniture in whatever place I’ll have found till then!

…yes, folks, I’m married to a real doctor now, not just some lousy medical student!

Let’s hope he’ll study German as fervently as he prepared for his exam – but with less swearing, mood swings and chain smoking ))

I have a job!

They called me yesterday and…tatata! I have a job! I will start to work in the Ruhrlandklinik, a hospital specialized in the treatment of lung diseases. I don’t even have to do nightshifts! They’ve recently acquired the status of university hospital and want to put more effort into research and that’s where they need me. How I understood, a big part of my job will be to learn about the clinical tests and perform them precisely enough for clinical studies and to talk with patients in order to include them into the studies.

I can get my dissertation while working there (Professor Teschler said something about 1 – 2 years.) and as they are part of Essen’s big university hospital, I could rotate there for a year and finish my specialization in internal medicine without changing the employer. Sounds almost too good to be true!

The only minus is…I guess I have to work on my knowledge in physics

And I will start to work on July 13th, that means I have less than a month to find a flat!

Job interviews coming

I started writing job applications (two, so far ) and, what I didn’t know, my parents started to tell everybody whom they know that I’m looking for a job.

So, the first job interview I’m going to have comes from the local medical grapevine…after all, Germany is not that different from Georgia

But I also received an e-mail from one of the hospitals to whom I actually gave my application, so I hope my map is ok!

Anyway, I’m quite nervous. I never had a real job interview before! If anyone feels like giving advice, I’d be thankful

 

Today afternoon, I was at Essen’s monthly Continuum-Concept-playgroup and I just loved it! Continuum Concept refers to the book by Jean Liedloff and basically follows the same principles as attachment parenting.

It was just the second time I went to their meetings and there were more moms with children today. I was really happy to meet with moms who think mostly like myself and to whom I don’t have to explain everything what I do (and about whom I don’t think that they are traumatizing their children instead of helping them develop into happy human beings).

As a nice surprise, the twin sister of Ida who suffered with me preparing for and finally giving the last exam was present with her three-months-old daughter and guess what? She’s living in Essen now!

 

News from Georgia aren’t that good, they’re actually getting worse. And strangely, president Saakashvili publicly denies that there’s a crisis…yeah, two months of protest rallies and thousands of people subsequently loosing their jobs in an already poor country is not a crisis, Mr President!

Saakashvili is far far away from being ready to announce new elections and I don’t think anything but that is going to get the opposition off the streets. Great, let’s just ruin that country completely! By the way, in some hospitals Georgian doctors haven’t been paid for the last seven months…

First task accomplished!

I’ve been super busy and tatata… found a daycare-mommy (Tagesmutti) for Damian! A daycare-mom is something like a nanny but somewhat institutionalized and paid via the governmental youth agency. They have gone through a short pedagogical training, are visited regularly by people from the youth agency and can take up to five children, usually toddlers.

I found one which made a really good impression and she’s living nearby, so I hope everything will turn out fine! She was a nurse than had four children, two girls and then two boys. Her oldest daughter just finished school, I’ve already met her. She will go to France as an au-pair soon. The boys are 13 and 14. So, I suppose she has a lot of experience raising children and seemed intelligent, too. That’s important to me – some of the other daycare-moms and kindergarden teachers I met seemed quite dumb and I don’t want someone like that looking after my precious little baby. She cares about only one child more, a five-year-old girl which comes after kindergarden. I think that’s good, she will have a lot of opportunity to care about Damian, do household chores together with him and basically, care about him like about one of her own children. And there is a garden with two rabbits, no big dogs or cats in the house. The house was very well-kept. I can be really messy sometimes, but at least I know what’s lying around and I don’t want Damian playing with other people’s knives, scissors or pesticides. Ok, I suppose I’m super nervous when I let other people watch my boy

We try to do attachment-parenting which means trying to meet the child’s needs, trying to have a good emotional and verbal communication with the child starting at birth and seeing the child as competent to communicate what he/she needs and when he/she needs it (that doesn’t include the need for chocolate, of course ). Attachment-parenting usually involves child-led nursing, child-led weaning and baby-wearing, that means carrying the infant near to your body during the first months and doing your normal grown-up activities (cleaning, cooking, working, meeting friends, eating together) together with the child as much as possible, so that the child can learn from observing what you do.

Unfortunately, in our society it’s usually not possible to take children with you to work (although I spent a lot of time in my parents’ and grandparents’ clinic when I was small) and if you cannot stay at home, it’s important to find people who more or less agree with you on these principles.

One of the daycare-moms I met looked after five toddlers simultaneously and told me proudly, how she made one little boy sleep alone in his crib by letting him cry in there until he had learned that no one will help him out once he is in there. That’s something I definitely don’t agree on! And I don’t want my son to be in a situation like this, but I hope the daycare-mommy which I found doesn’t follow such a black pedagogics-style of parenting. She said to me that she doesn’t plan to take more than two toddlers as she wants to care about the children individually, so I’m quite hopeful everything will work out nicely!

Nika gaprinda, teenage fashion.

As Damian would say, Nika gaprinda, Nika has flown back to Georgia this morning to get back to his studies for the final exam. Damian hasn’t asked about him yet, but I expect him to start looking for him within the next two days. That’s very sad to see the little guy missing his Nikapapa :-(

Hopefully Nika will give his exams and receive his documents without problems created by the “Georgian situation”.

I just checked www.civil.ge, still the same president, still protest rallies going on and on… Ucnobi, singer and brother of the opposition politician Levan Gachechiladze, is trying to mobilize the provinces for a “march on Tbilisi” on May 26th (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRXFossvLVM) Have I mentioned that I’m quite happy to be back in Germany?

My hometown Essen and my especially my quarter Kray haven’t changed a lot in the last years. As I’ve lived in Cologne for 7 years and then in Tbilisi for 2 1/2 years, I am something like a remigrant now.

Of course, after Tbili I noticed that the facades of German houses look very well-kept these days. When I grew up, a lot of houses still had the greyish tinge of the dying coal-mining industry, but by now the mines are closed and the houses are renovated. There is also more urban green, I think that’s very beautiful!

Teenage fashion in Germany and Georgia is quite different. The Georgian boys usually don’t use hair gel and consider it as more suitable for homosexuals. They like to wear striped shirts and sometimes beards or at least they shave once in a few days. There are some youths who attempt to be European-style punks or goths, but their outfit is extremely harmless for European standards. Nevertheless they are kind of suspicious for the keepers of Georgian traditions. Georgia is a country where it’s still possible to be a rebel just by letting your hair grow!

Estimated 70% of girls have very long hair with bangs (we call that “pony” in Germany), are thin and wear high-heeled shoes. I have never seen a Georgian girl with jogging trousers outside the house. Well, I’ve never seen a Georgian girl jogging or doing anything which diminishes your possibility to look elegant in public

Kray is traditionally a worker’s quarter, now with a growing Turkish population. And, as I’m starting to get really tired, I’ll write about Krayian teenage fashion another time!

Paris, Einwandererprobleme und…Vatertag!

Wir haben Nika gestern von Paris abgeholt und er war absolut begeistert – seine erste west-europäische Hauptstadt! Er hat es, obwohl er nur 24 Stunden dort war, wirklich geschafft, die wichtigsten Sehenswürdigkeiten anzuschauen und tolle Fotos zu machen, zum Beispiel vom Eiffelturm, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Sacre coeur, Montmartre…ich habe ein kleines bisschen Sehnsucht bekommen!

Ich war ja vor 11 und 12 Jahren jeweils 2 Wochen zum Schüleraustausch in Paris, eine sehr positive Erfahrung. Ich hatte damals gerade erst ein halbes Jahr lang Französisch gelernt und wurde von meiner Lehrerin gefragt, ob ich nicht mitmachen möchte. Die anderen hatten meist schon in der 7. Klasse mit Französisch begonnen, als ich Latein gewählt hatte. Wahrscheinlich hat mir mein damaliger Aufenthalt in einer französischen Familie die Scheu genommen, mich ungeachtet begrenzter Sprachkenntnisse in einer Fremdsprache zu verständigen.

Anders als Nika jetzt war ich damals allerdings fürs französische Nachtleben zu jung – Nika hat es, nach stundenlanger touristischer Wanderungen, tatsächlich noch in einen Nachtclub geschafft und ist von dort aus direkt zum Flughafen gefahren worden. In welchem Zustand ich ihn dann morgens wieder in Düsseldorf abgeholt habe, kann man sich wohl denken – total kaputt!

Ein kleiner Wermutstropfen sind die Aktivitäten von Nikas Freund in Frankreich. Der war mit den Leistungen des französischen Staates für Asylanten wohl nicht ganz zufrieden und liebäugelt gerade damit, Teilzeit-Kleinkrimineller zu werden bzw. ist es schon. Klar, ein Taschengeld von 200€ ist nicht viel, die gestellte Wohnung war nicht gerade attraktiv und das Essen war auch nicht wie bei Muttern in Georgien – aber dafür eine geregelte Zukunft in Europa leichtfertig aufs Spiel zu setzen, finde ich ganz schön gewagt und irgendwo auch sehr traurig. Denn Nikas Freund ist erst 21 und bis dahin ziemlich behütet aufgewachsen und wenn seine Eltern wüssten, was ihr Sohnemann in der Ferne so treibt, würde sie wahrscheinlich der Schlag treffen. Mein Vater hat heute versucht, Nika zu erklären, dass er seinen Freund unbedingt dazu bringen muss, sich an die Regeln zu halten, auch wenn die “Flics” ihn bis jetzt haben laufen lassen. Hoffentlich sieht er ein, dass er sich auf lange Sicht selbst schadet.

Morgen ist übrigens Vatertag bzw. Christi Himmelfahrt, meine Geschwister kommen aus Bochum und wir wollen mittags im Garten grillen. Damian ist vom Garten meiner Eltern übrigens immer noch total begeistert und steuert jetzt schon selbständig den Sandkasten an, sobald die Tür zum Garten aufgemacht wird.

Zurück in Deutschland: Ausländerbehörde, Wohnung, Kindertagesstätte…Paris?

Nachdem wir letzten Freitag (nach wie üblich langem Flug und kleinen Problemen am Prager Flughafen) in Deutschland angekommen sind, waren wir am Montag bei der Ausländerbehörde, um Nika, der mit einem 3-monatigen “Visum zur Wiedereinreise” nach Deutschland gekommen ist, eine Aufenthaltserlaubnis für ein Jahr zu besorgen. Das klappte auch überraschend unproblematisch – vielleicht lag es daran, dass Nika sich diesmal vorher rasiert hatte?

Heute haben Damian und ich Nika früh am morgen zum Flughafen nach Düsseldorf gebracht, weil er mit seiner neu erhaltenen Schengen-Staaten-weit gültigen Aufenthaltserlaubnis 24 Stunden in Paris verbringen will.

Des weiteren nutzen Damian und ich seine neue Liebe zum Autofahren im neuen Römer-Kindersitz, indem wir wie verrückt durch Essen und Umgebung fahren, um Wohnung, Kindertagesstätte und natürlich auch einen Job für mich zu organisieren.

Wobei es wahrscheinlich erstmal keinen Kindertagesstättenplatz für Damian geben wird, sondern eine Tagesmutti mit maximal 5 zu betreuenden kleinen Kindern. Ich denke, das das für ihn besser sein wird. Bei der Spielgruppe in Tbilisi war es ja auch so, dass er bei mehr als 10 Kindern lieber auf meinem Arm geblieben ist und sich das Ganze von einem sicheren Punkt aus angesehen hat. Zum Mitspielen hatte er bei einer überschaubaren Anzahl Kinder bedeutend mehr Lust.