I’m (Basically) Ready To Be A Mommy

Let’s be honest, I say I’m basically ready to be a mom because I’m missing one important thing in that equation – my own kid. SPOILER ALERT: Suffice it to say, Florian and I quite enjoy our life of leisure and traveling and will keep it that way for a while longer. Besides, who wants to canoe in Norway or hike in Sweden or not drink wine in Paris or scuba in Thailand while pregnant?? Not me, and those are my planned trips over the next few months! I’m ready to be a babysitter mommy is maybe a more accurate description. But I really L-O-V-E other peoples’ babies. They’re so teeny and chubby and easy to dress up, and best of all I give them back when they start to cry! I need to give that kid back at night so I can sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep. I love sleep slightly more than I love other peoples’ kids 🙂

But these last few months I’ve had a crash course in parenting since I’ve now got two new baby nieces, 2 new Zurich babies and about 99% of the other women I know are pregnant!! (Ok, obviously that is an exaggerated statistic but I swear it feels like that when I go to lunch and 4 of 6 girls are pregnant!). I can now do the following things with a baby: change its diapers, burp, bathe, shush, rock, swaddle and feed it, tolerate high-pitched crying, and know when it is crying “just because”, amongst other skills. I also coo and tell them how cute they are and tell them how much I love them and then I speak a little German to ensure they are bi-lingual.

But today is a special day because it’s my niece Lily’s 1-month birthday (BTW, is that a thing? A 1-month birthday?? I think it’s like when I was a teenager and celebrated my six-month anniversary with a boyfriend). To celebrate this momentous occasion, I decided to share these amazing pictures of her adorableness that will absolutely make you smile. Sidenote: my other sister Rachel says Lily looks like me. What do you think? Perhaps a maternity test is in order??? 

I’m (Basically) Ready To Be A Mommy

Let’s be honest, I say I’m basically ready to be a mom because I’m missing one important thing in that equation – my own kid. SPOILER ALERT: Suffice it to say, Florian and I quite enjoy our life of leisure and traveling and will keep it that way for a while longer. Besides, who wants to canoe in Norway or hike in Sweden or not drink wine in Paris or scuba in Thailand while pregnant?? Not me, and those are my planned trips over the next few months! I’m ready to be a babysitter mommy is maybe a more accurate description. But I really L-O-V-E other peoples’ babies. They’re so teeny and chubby and easy to dress up, and best of all I give them back when they start to cry! I need to give that kid back at night so I can sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep. I love sleep slightly more than I love other peoples’ kids 🙂

But these last few months I’ve had a crash course in parenting since I’ve now got two new baby nieces, 2 new Zurich babies and about 99% of the other women I know are pregnant!! (Ok, obviously that is an exaggerated statistic but I swear it feels like that when I go to lunch and 4 of 6 girls are pregnant!). I can now do the following things with a baby: change its diapers, burp, bathe, shush, rock, swaddle and feed it, tolerate high-pitched crying, and know when it is crying “just because”, amongst other skills. I also coo and tell them how cute they are and tell them how much I love them and then I speak a little German to ensure they are bi-lingual.

But today is a special day because it’s my niece Lily’s 1-month birthday (BTW, is that a thing? A 1-month birthday?? I think it’s like when I was a teenager and celebrated my six-month anniversary with a boyfriend). To celebrate this momentous occasion, I decided to share these amazing pictures of her adorableness that will absolutely make you smile. Sidenote: my other sister Rachel says Lily looks like me. What do you think? Perhaps a maternity test is in order??? 

My First Trip to America… as a European

As my plane descended gracefully through the clouds to the beautiful expanse of Manhattan skyscrapers, I excitedly turned to 24E and anxiously rambled “I’m so excited to be home, because I don’t live here anymore. I mean, I just moved to Europe and this is my first time back in the United States since I got married and became a European. Weird, right?!”  True to the nature of my native people, 24E mumbled something along the lines of “that’s nice” and turned her head to pretend to read a magazine. Oh, it feels good to be home, New York!

But you know what doesn’t feel so good? Standing in line for an hour at customs and baggage claim. While you’re sick (how annoying that I would get sick the day I’m about to go on vacation, geez). My best friend Kelly, who was braving the Veterans’ Day  holiday traffic to pick me up at JFK, agreed to meet me at 1pm outside of my terminal. Now that it’s 1:45, I’m thinking she’s dizzy from circling and I’m hoping she hadn’t gotten frustrated and left. So, I’ll just call Kelly and see where she is. Except I don’t have a phone number in the US. No problem, I’ll just  pay the couple of extra bucks and do international roaming because I really need to find Kelly (this is a big airport after all). Oh, except my international phone couldn’t get a signal after 15 minutes of trying.  Still no worries, I’ll just go old skool and use a payphone. Except I don’t have any American change with me to pay the stupid 50 cents it costs to make the call. Why do I all of a sudden feel like a foreigner in my own homeland?

But anybody who knows me knows that I am inordinately lucky about ridiculously dumb things (like guessing the correct amount of jelly beans in a jar), so of course Kelly drives up 3 minutes after I walked outside and apologizes to me for her being so late. Score! And since I’m on NY pace now, after 12 hours of traveling and mild panic attacks from abandonment at the airport, I haven’t even buckled my seat belt before we’re off to a baby furniture store to pick out the crib for Kelly’s baby!! (due in March).  And since making babies is in the air, we called my sister Elana (due in April) because she had a sonogram today in which she was finding out the sex of her baby! Are you dying to know what it is? Well, keep reading because I’m not putting it until the end so you have to finish this article. Mwahaha, that’s evil marketing tactics at their finest. See, I haven’t lost my edge.

So I finally get home to see my parents and check how my dad is feeling. I haven’t written too many personal updates about his health recently, but he’s still been in and out of the hospital with fluid in the lungs. Finally, finally, finally we got the good news earlier today – the doctors seemed to have fixed the root cause of the problem and, after 6 months of complications, he’s finally on the way to real recovery. Go Dad! This is also a huge victory for my mom, who I’m pretty sure if sick of hearing my dad’s whining and having to pour cater to all of his needs. I can imagine after 6 months, the loving and attentive wife thing gets old (love you Florian!).

I thought I would have some transcendtenal moment about the first time I came home to blog about, but I’m sad to say I’ve got nothing philisophical to add to your lives today. I planned for this blog to be interesting., I really did.. but it actually feels completely normal to be here. Maybe because I’ve lived away from NY for 10 years and have grown more-than accustomed to only visiting here? But, you never know, this is just the beginning of a long, shopping-filled journey home – and I’m going to have my 10 year high school reunion next week so that’s sure to create a blog-worthy episode, right?! I may have a breakthrough yet!

So now the only reason you’re actually still reading … I’m going to have a niece! Hairbows and purses and shiny shoes and tutus….. I can’t wait!!!!  Here’s the happy family with their first baby girl outfit for the future Lily Ada Reiser J

My First Trip to America… as a European

As my plane descended gracefully through the clouds to the beautiful expanse of Manhattan skyscrapers, I excitedly turned to 24E and anxiously rambled “I’m so excited to be home, because I don’t live here anymore. I mean, I just moved to Europe and this is my first time back in the United States since I got married and became a European. Weird, right?!”  True to the nature of my native people, 24E mumbled something along the lines of “that’s nice” and turned her head to pretend to read a magazine. Oh, it feels good to be home, New York!

But you know what doesn’t feel so good? Standing in line for an hour at customs and baggage claim. While you’re sick (how annoying that I would get sick the day I’m about to go on vacation, geez). My best friend Kelly, who was braving the Veterans’ Day  holiday traffic to pick me up at JFK, agreed to meet me at 1pm outside of my terminal. Now that it’s 1:45, I’m thinking she’s dizzy from circling and I’m hoping she hadn’t gotten frustrated and left. So, I’ll just call Kelly and see where she is. Except I don’t have a phone number in the US. No problem, I’ll just  pay the couple of extra bucks and do international roaming because I really need to find Kelly (this is a big airport after all). Oh, except my international phone couldn’t get a signal after 15 minutes of trying.  Still no worries, I’ll just go old skool and use a payphone. Except I don’t have any American change with me to pay the stupid 50 cents it costs to make the call. Why do I all of a sudden feel like a foreigner in my own homeland?

But anybody who knows me knows that I am inordinately lucky about ridiculously dumb things (like guessing the correct amount of jelly beans in a jar), so of course Kelly drives up 3 minutes after I walked outside and apologizes to me for her being so late. Score! And since I’m on NY pace now, after 12 hours of traveling and mild panic attacks from abandonment at the airport, I haven’t even buckled my seat belt before we’re off to a baby furniture store to pick out the crib for Kelly’s baby!! (due in March).  And since making babies is in the air, we called my sister Elana (due in April) because she had a sonogram today in which she was finding out the sex of her baby! Are you dying to know what it is? Well, keep reading because I’m not putting it until the end so you have to finish this article. Mwahaha, that’s evil marketing tactics at their finest. See, I haven’t lost my edge.

So I finally get home to see my parents and check how my dad is feeling. I haven’t written too many personal updates about his health recently, but he’s still been in and out of the hospital with fluid in the lungs. Finally, finally, finally we got the good news earlier today – the doctors seemed to have fixed the root cause of the problem and, after 6 months of complications, he’s finally on the way to real recovery. Go Dad! This is also a huge victory for my mom, who I’m pretty sure if sick of hearing my dad’s whining and having to pour cater to all of his needs. I can imagine after 6 months, the loving and attentive wife thing gets old (love you Florian!).

I thought I would have some transcendtenal moment about the first time I came home to blog about, but I’m sad to say I’ve got nothing philisophical to add to your lives today. I planned for this blog to be interesting., I really did.. but it actually feels completely normal to be here. Maybe because I’ve lived away from NY for 10 years and have grown more-than accustomed to only visiting here? But, you never know, this is just the beginning of a long, shopping-filled journey home – and I’m going to have my 10 year high school reunion next week so that’s sure to create a blog-worthy episode, right?! I may have a breakthrough yet!

So now the only reason you’re actually still reading … I’m going to have a niece! Hairbows and purses and shiny shoes and tutus….. I can’t wait!!!!  Here’s the happy family with their first baby girl outfit for the future Lily Ada Reiser J