Schnuffielein

We had a fantastic time in Berlin, and how was our little schnuffie?  He was amazing.  If you are considering taking a 6 month old baby on a pretty significant trip, DO IT!  It helps that during the scary parts (i.e., the plane) he was surrounded by much louder and less happy toddlers, so by comparison, everyone wanted to sit near us.  But really, all in all, he was a great baby and we had a blast.

So what’s up with this schnuffie thing?  My friend who got married’s Mom nicknamed Conor “schnuffie” as soon as she saw him.  It’s a German term of endearment and both Dave and I love it.  We’re not sure what it really means besides, I’m guessing, a small snifflely animal, but it’s just so perfect.  (This is my passive way of asking Carter if he knows what it means!)  ;-) 

We did have one scary incident.  On New Year’s Eve, we went to a party at a restaurant at the bottom of the Brandenburg Gate.  It was way cool because they had blocked off the east side of the gate where the party was and only a few hundred folks were on that side compared to the, oh, 350,000 or so folks on the other side of the gate.  To get to the party, we had to pass through a line of police officers (and can I just ask whether you find that all police uniforms are really scary when they are not your own country?) and show off our “special tickets” to get into the east courtyard under the gate.  As Dave and I noted, it’s the closest we’ve felt to being celebrities in a long time.

We left the New Year’s Party around 12:30 after the fireworks had ended and schnuffie monkey was starting to get tired.  Yes, just starting.  He was the life of the party beforehand and before you accuse us of keeping him up late, it was only our second day there, and it felt like 6 pm to all of us.  So, as we were leaving, we finally understood what our friends were telling us about everyone having fireworks.  Basically, everyone had fireworks.  And they were throwing them up into the crowds, down from the apartment buildings or just shooting them off from the middle of the street.

As I explained to my German friends later, we just don’t do that in the U.S.  In fact, in some states, like North Carolina, it’s illegal for regular folks to have fireworks because when you mix fireworks with alcohol (which is when they are often mixed), you can get some real idiot behavior.  We had decided earlier that I would carry Conor in my sling while Dave pushed the carriage through the masses with fireworks.  Only once did Conor jump at a firecracker that went off at my feet.  And only one street was truly frightening as folks had taken it over and were shooting off fireworks left and right, literally.  And finally, when we arrived back at our flat, a group of kids had taken over the parking lot and were throwing fireworks and shooting off bottle rockets.  Here is when I decided that honey gets more flies than vinegar.  Instead of shouting out something rude, I shouted out in my best French accent “Pardon!”  (It’s sometimes best not to start with English)  And then switching to the one German phrase we used the most “Der Kinder!” as in kindergarten.  (Basically, I’m sure we were shouting Children! when we meant to shout Child! or specifically Baby!  The reason I know this is that when we asked for seats at several restaurants and indicated that we had one Kinder, they often came back in surprise when they seated us and said “Oh, Baby!” and not in a good you-look-hot way) 

So we shouted Kinder! and one of the young men sprang to action and stopped everyone from shooting off more fireworks.  They all stopped, came to admire our Kinder, and helped us into the building.  It turned into one of those really positive moments that you can have on trips.

In fact, we’ve gathered from this trip that Germans are very pro Kinder.  Nearly every place we went, people commented on how cute and well behaved he was.  At least, that’s what we think they said because it was in German and they were smiling.  They could have been calling us pathetic American parents but they were awfully nice about it.

So the best things we bought or took on this trip for our schnuffie:  matching mittens/flippers (pictured above) and shoes, a plastic tent for the stroller, and my boobs.  I’m so glad we bf.  It was so incredibly easy, and boy, let me tell you I’ve gotten over that fear of bfing in public.  Half of Berlin has seen me bf my child, and no one gave a hoot.  I would say that half of Berlin has seen my boobs, but I’ve gotten much better at showing only 1 square inch of skin.  It also helps that Conor has gotten much better at maneuvering into position when he sees the boob coming.  And I have to be honest, schnuffie monkey looked SO CUTE in his coat, hat (Thanks Brian!), flippers and shoes.  I saw people look at him, smile, and point him out to their friends.  He was just that cute.  And I’m not being biased one bit.  Not one iota.  Not one schnuffielein smooching mama second. 

5:45:27 PM