California with kids - Santa Barbara
I’ve been wanting to put together a post about our California trip since we got back, but I honestly didn’t know where to begin. I decided to split it up, otherwise it would’ve been way too long. We’re starting off with Santa Barbara (and a tiny bit of Solvang)!
We went to the US to visit my husband’s family, and to be honest I wasn’t super excited about this trip at first. The short flights we’ve done in Europe recently were frankly overwhelming. Our toddler decided to use us (mostly YY) as punching bags from take off until about 10 minutes before landing, when he would inevitably pass out - leaving us beaten and a little bit shaken up. As you can imagine, I was therefore a tiny bit intimidated and not exactly looking forward to a 12-hour flight with our adorable little monster(s). Experience so far has taught me to keep my hopes waaay low, so my intention was to go into this trip entirely free of expectations. No plans = no frustration if they don’t work out, right?
Long story short: I’m so glad I was wrong. Because overall, the kids were total champs and we actually got to do a lot. I hadn’t been to the US in 11 years (basically since I moved to Europe), but California has this easy-breezy 90s vibe that felt very familiar and extremely easy to get used to.
View from Shoreline park, as I tried to spot whales and dolphins
For the first two weeks we stayed mainly in Santa Barbara with the in-laws, and it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. My husband grew up in this little slice of paradise, and in the 10 years we’ve been a couple we hadn’t yet gone there together. I jokingly told him that’s because he knew I wouldn’t want to leave… No, seriously. I grew up visiting the US almost every year, but Southern California remained a bit of a beautiful mystery to me. And this trip has left me wanting to discover so much more of it.
The Santa Barbara courthouse
View from the Santa Barbara courthouse
Discovering places is great, but discovering places through food is so much better. Eating in California can be a real treat. Since we’re very much landlocked in Munich and any seafood we can get our hands on is inevitably frozen, I was yearning for some of the fresh stuff.
My favorite restaurant meal in Santa Barbara was hands-down the one at Brophy Bros. It was definitely worth the 20-minute wait with a toddler on full meltdown mode, after he had just accidentally lost his last pacifier on the pier water. My one criticism? The clam chowder isn’t served in sourdough bread. Womp womp.
The cold seafood starter mix from Brophy Bros, which YY and I easily shared as our main dish. In the back, an almost finished plate of clam chowder which S loved and almost made him forget his pacifier.
A heartbroken S after losing his pacifier.
While Brophy Bros’ was the best meal we had, the best overall find for me was without a doubt Blenders In The Grass. This was another mythical place which YY would incessantly tell me about, so I was really looking forward to meeting it in person. The Blenders’ concept is to serve “fresh, quick, nutritious, delicious” shakes, and boy to they deliver. The possibilities are endless. I made it my personal mission to taste a different one every day while we were in Santa Barbara. My favorite? Peanut butter. All. The. Way.
Still speaking of food, I was also finally introduced to Trader Joe’s! And I was genuinely heartbroken to said goodbye to it by the end of the trip. We literally went from a Trader Joe’s to LAX on our way back to Munich.
We found happiness at the Santa Barbara Trader Joe’s
While we’re still on this topic, coffee also counts as food, right? Maybe not with/for the kids, but one of our favorite things in the world is to explore cool coffee shops wherever we go. That’s something I’m not willing to compromise as a mom. We’ve been raising kids in coffee shops since 2017, and this trip to California was no exception. And honestly, Santa Barbara did not disappoint.
Although definitely pricier than what we’re used to in Munich, Handlebar Coffee Roasters is a cycling-inspired coffee shop (if you can’t tell by their name) that has some of the best coffee I’ve ever had. It easily beat every coffee shop we went to in LA. The staff is also very willing to look the other way and not scold you if you must change your baby’s explosive diaper, which I’m honestly grateful for since there were no changing tables in sight (few things are more anxiety-inducing to a parent than a baby covered in poop and no place to change them). Anyhow. To this day, we’re dreaming of their nitro coffee and regret not having brought back more of their cool merch.
The nitro coffee at Handlebar is a true work of art.
Another cool coffee shop is Dune Coffee Roasters, aka The French Press. I wasn’t as into their nitro, but the iced matcha latte was seriously impressive (and yes, I realize I sound very stereotypically true to my generation with that statement).
Cool wall at The French Press on State Street
I know you’re probably here to read more about actually handling kids while traveling, so here we go. Full disclosure: Since we were staying with the in-laws and YY’s sisters were also around, we shamelessly made full use of the support we don’t normally have in Munich. That is to say that for many of these outings, 2 year old S stayed at home for naps and playtime with his slightly older cousin. L on the other hand, who turned 6 months during our trip, was often with us since I was (am) still breastfeeding her full-time. That said, carrying an agreeable, nap-anywhere-anytime 6-month old around is much easier than a toddler. It all changed when we went to LA and had full custody of S once again, though.
That isn’t to say that we didn’t see our son for days. We sure did some fun activities with him too, like going to the Santa Barbara Zoo.
S with his aunt at the zoo, watching the elephants.
We were also in town for the famous “Fiesta”, which between us…. Was probably the most shamelessly cultural-appropriating event I’ve ever attended. I unfortunately really wasn’t very into it (but of course I don’t judge those who are, to each their own). The kids are too young to care about such matters and definitely had fun at the parade, so I guess that’s the silver lining. I’m just not sure I’d personally go back for it.
S covered in confetti at the parade. He had glitter stuck on his scalp for days after this. Our ongoing joke was that he’d go to college with it.
While in Santa Barbara, we also went to the beach - once. But still, I'm happy I got my ocean fix. We went to Hendry’s Beach, which in hindsight wouldn’t have been my first choice since it’s a very much dog-friendly beach. This meant cute doggos running around, but also having a dog run onto our towels and eating our food (while the owners watched, unfazed) as well as peeing all over the sand which our kids would subsequently, inevitably, eat.
S covered in urine-soaked sand
We also had a really great time at the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum. S was legitimately interested, which is a first for us. There are so many cool activities for toddlers, we could’ve easily made it a longer visit (but then again hunger spoke louder). I do wish we’d had more time for the planetarium.
YY and S working hard at the Natural History Museum.
Finally, we also went to Solvang for a day. Have you heard of it (I hadn’t)? It’s the “Danish capital of America”, and it’s incredibly cute, but also very touristy. We found a great little coffee shop, because priorities, and otherwise walked up and down the main street alongside hoards of Chinese tourists. We were only there for a few hours, but I’d love to go back and explore the less touristic corners.
YY has the same picture at the same age!
Up next: Our stay in LA (and short visit to Palm Desert).
An entirely subjective guide to holiday gifts
The holidays are here, hooray!
If you celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas like we do, gift-giving during the holidays can be particularly tricky. I do generally love offering gifts though, so in our family - so far, at least - we’ve been giving S 8 smallish gifts for Hanukkah and one bigger “Christmukkah” one. Since he’s not yet at an age to be picky about what he wants, it’s really up to us to observe and come up with ideas regarding what would be somehow useful for him - which is in any case so much more fun.
We try to stick to the following in order to make it a bit easier to figure out what to give him; and also so that, should we stick to the 8 gifts in the future, the kids know there are rules:
Something he wants
Something he needs
Something to wear
Something to read
Each of these times 2.
Here’s what we’ve gifted him for Hanukkah this year:
A spinning top. Whenever we go to kids’ cafés he goes straight for it. Since it’s a small, inexpensive toy I didn’t see the harm in giving him one, and 6 days later he still loves it, which is a win in my book. Category: Wants.
A donation to Doctors Without Borders. This is something Yann-Yves and I came up with last year and which we’re definitely sticking to in the years to come. I.e., one of the kids’ Hanukkah gifts must be a donation to an NGO or charity of their choice. Until they can choose, we’ll choose for them and make the donation in their names. Category of its own.
A musical book. Our family in Shanghai has introduced us to the wonderful world of musical books last Hanukkah, and S has been obsessed with them ever since. He’s broken/ripped a few of them already, so we can never have too many. Bonus: A “Curious George” book about Hanukkah sent by his auntie in China. Category: Read.
A ball. How exciting! I know. But he didn’t have a ball up to now and this is another kids’ café favorite. Again, small and inexpensive, and a total success. Category: Wants.
Winter boots. He didn’t have any yet and definitely needed them now that he’s walking everywhere. Category: Wear/Needs.
House shoes, ditto as above. Category: Wear/Needs.
A book about Jewish fairytales and legends. This one he’ll only be able to actually appreciate in a few years, but we find it important to start building a cultural library for him (and can’t wait to read him all these stories without him trying to rip the pages off the books!). Bonus - a book about interfaith holidays called “December’s Gift”, also sent by our family in Shanghai. This one made me tear up, as our strength as a family lies above all in love, with a firm foundation of tolerance and multiculturalism. Category: Read.
And finally, a LEGO Duplo set, once again sent by our super thoughtful and generous family. While S is still in a phase where he’s most interested in tearing stuff apart rather than building them up, this gift is definitely going to tickle his motor skills - and I can’t wait to build stuff with him. Category: Needs…?
To be honest, he’s too young for these categories to be clearly defined. He can’t express what he wants yet, and most of what he needs blends in with something to wear since he outgrows his clothes so quickly. But these categories do give us, and relatives, a general guideline when choosing gifts. And, most importantly, they help us prevent raising super spoiled kids and accumulating stuff we/they don’t need.
Now, his Christmas gift is a whole other can of worms. He’s only getting one and we probably won’t be gifting him anything else before his birthday in July, so we’d like to make it count. We’re hesitating between a kid’s table + chairs, a mini kitchen, a little teepee…
Ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Eingewöhnung, or the daycare adaptation period
That raising a kid in Bavaria is fantastic is a well-know undeniable fact, but it definitely has its caveats. Starting off with the most obvious, being that with so many benefits (a cool year of partially paid maternity leave, “family money” paid by the government, almost full coverage of pregnancy and birth-related costs by your public health insurance, to name a few) people are bound to want to start and expand their families.
However, there is simply no room for all these kids at the nursery; so although a daycare spot is your right as a taxpayer in Germany, the reality tends to be different. The real options*, we have sorely learned, are: 1. Settle for something, errm, “less” than what you would like for your kid; 2. Become a stay-at-home parent (most likely mom) until your kid is old enough for Kindergarten; 3. Pay a ridiculous amount for a spot at a private, non-state subsidized daycare. We opted for the latter.
*For foreigners who live in the city center and learned about Kita Finder+ a little late, at least.
Wichtel Akademie is not only a wonderful nursery - it is also, most importantly, the only one that got back to us after close to a year of anxiously sitting on literally dozens of waiting lists, with no luck. And if we could, we would happily pay for S to continue attending it. As it happens, paying monthly 855 euros for up to 6h/day (1400 euros for full-time care!) is out of our financial scope. So he’ll be there for 3 months only, i.e. until mama goes back on maternity leave. We are hoping to find another spot at a daycare somewhere closer to us geographically and financially by January, but for now we have nothing but fingers crossed.
Anyhow, this is all just an introduction to the real topic of this post: the Eingewöhnung.
Let me start off by saying that I’m just happy we’re at the other end of the adaptation period by now. I tried to read up on the topic as much as I could beforehand in order to set the right expectations, but I kept on stumbling upon one annoying truth: it depends entirely on the kid, and there’s no way of really knowing how it will go in advance.
S is pretty detached from us on a daily basis, and since both of us have gone back to work for a few months already (he had been staying with my godmother), I assumed that it would be fine. That’s the issue, though - I could only assume. The instructor at the daycare said it could take anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks (!!). However, based on my motherly assumption, I decided to take “only” 3 weeks off work to accompany S during this period, obviously expecting, praying and hoping for the best.
Before I go on to describe how the weeks went, bear in mind that this is based solely on our experience. I know that different adaptation methods are used at different nurseries, but I am not a professional and S has only been to this one daycare so far, so all I can attest is what we, as a family, have gone through. Please keep that in mind, along with the fact that, obviously, every kid is different.
Week 1
The first week at the first daycare is a big question mark.
Everyone is learning. Your kid is learning to be around other kids, you’re learning to keep away from your kid and let him explore, the caretakers are learning about what’s ok or not for your kid.
With so much learning taking place, it can be utterly frustrating for one as a parent to stay there for a single hour at a time. To top it off, we missed two days due to a public holiday and a last-minute family trip. So after 3 days of sitting there for an hour at a time, anxiety started to consume me, as I wondered whether I’d be able to make it back to work in 3 weeks after all.
Week 2
That’s when it started getting interesting, as I was finally able to step outside for 15-minute increments (15 minutes the first day, 30 minutes the next and so on). S was NOT having it the second day, and part of me was moved by such a display of attention from a baby who is normally quite independent. But then we figured out he was just hungry; every morning since, the caretaker offered him a piece of bread right away and he almost instantly forgot all about me.
By the end of the week, he was at last able to stay a whole hour without me in the room - but I still wondered whether it was realistic to expect this one hour to turn into six by the end of the following week.
Week 3
As I arrived to drop him off on Monday morning, the caretaker announced that she wouldn’t be there for the next two days due a training she was attending, and that therefore I couldn’t bring him in. I nearly lost it. Some of my immediate thoughts (which I translated into a “polite concerned” tone before expressing them to the caretaker in question):
Can’t he just stay with another caretaker??
Couldn’t you have told me this sooner? That means I can’t go back to work next week!!
But we’re paying (a lot) for those days!*
*They promptly reimbursed us for those days after I wrote them a lengthy email.
Alas, the Eingewöhnung, such as most things, is taken very seriously in Germany. He couldn’t in fact stay with another caretaker because he was bonding with this one. It’s very important that he feels comfortable and safe there, and she had become the embodiment of that during his adaptation period. I understand this - but I also can’t help but think that other countries must have a very different (perhaps more abrupt) approach.
When I told her I was concerned about going back to work, she cooly reminded me that it could’ve taken 8 weeks or more and that S was doing exceptionally well at adapting. “Maybe you can delay your return by a day or two, or arrive late”, she very politely suggested. While I am indeed fortunate enough to be employed at a very flexible workplace, I couldn’t help but think “how is this ok?”. How can I be expected to take unpaid time off for 8 weeks or more, or to tell my manager I can’t come in because S’s caretaker had a training to do? I certainly can’t imagine this happening in Brazil or the US (where a 3-month leave is already a luxury), or even in France.
I’m aware that in Germany a lot of women - that is the reality - postpone their return to work from leave until their kid is well-adapted at a nursery. Which is ok, if you can afford it. I, too, could have asked to extend my leave, but that extension would have been unpaid - a luxury we simply cannot afford given the price of the daycare. So how does one solve this? Legitimate question.
Conclusion
For us, it fortunately worked out in the end because A. S is an exceptionally easygoing baby and pretty content as long as he has food and B. Yann-Yves has a flexible schedule that allowed him to accompany S on the two days after I’d gone back to work. So all in all, 3 weeks were in fact enough for us, had it not been the few setbacks.
But as someone who goes about life with a very organized, planned-ahead mindset, the adaptation period left me somewhat exhausted. Not knowing when I’d be able to resume working (and whether I’d have to be that person who postpones work because of this reason) was hard; feeling like I was failing to respect my son’s own time to adapt was harder. S doesn’t care about my responsibilities or expectations - and why should he, when he’s my number 1 priority? This, I guess, is undoubtedly what parenting is about.
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Fellow parents out there, how did you deal with this adaptation period? Is the approach any different where you live? I’m eager to hear your thoughts!
The pursuit of joy
I’ve come to think that my own concept of “joy” has been radically redefined since giving birth, without me even realizing it.
After feeling “off” for a good while, I decided that I desired and deserved help, and started seeing a therapist a few weeks ago. The initial diagnosis: “baby blues”. Postpartum or prenatal, it’s early to say. But one of the very first questions he asked me was “what brings you joy?”. For what felt like the most uncomfortable 5 minutes of my life I sat there under his stare, frantically trying to come up with an answer. The more I thought about it, the more desperate I got to just say something, anything. That feeling stuck with me.
It felt like lately nothing truly brought me “joy”, and I was simply going through the motions of life a day at a time, grateful but unsatisfied, without joy. And even when there was joy, it often came with a side of guilt or regret as it involved being by myself, as opposed to spending precious time with my family.
Back to my therapist and his nagging question - the one and only answer I could come up with was my very last recollection of feeling joyful, which was when I witnessed S’s first steps. He nodded, and came up with an interpretation which nearly blew my mind. Safe for a health issue, which thankfully isn’t S’s case, kids his age inevitably start walking. This didn’t depend on me. S is thriving and will continue to thrive regardless of how inapt I feel as a mother sometimes. Regardless of me needing time for myself to “blow some steam” or simply recharge. He will certainly thrive with me, but also without my ominous presence. This realization lifted an incredible weight off my shoulders - it brought me joy.
Since that personal epiphany I decided to start a joy journal, to try and recognize that there is indeed joy in my life, and to hopefully get to know myself a little better. The list below is a work in progress, and what a massive progress it has been since that initial question:
Grabbing coffee and cake at a cafe (by myself, with my family, with a friend)
The kick I get after my first coffee in the morning
Having one-on-one conversations
Realizing that S is growing and has an independent personality, but still needs me
Walking around with a coffee warming up my hands on a cold day
A clean and organized apartment
Nice-smelling candles
Buying flowers for our home
Making S laugh, without tickling him
Reading a book without wondering at the back of my head whether it’s worth my time
Traveling somewhere I’ve never been before; ideally somewhere where I don’t speak the language
Both unplugging from social media and using it to connect with people
Device-free date nights
Feeling my baby girl move and kick
Daydreaming about moving to Japan with my family
Parenting with YY (something as mundane as drying S together after his bath makes me feel in my element, as if all the decisions I’ve made that got us to this moment were right)
So maybe what brings me joy hasn’t changed that much since becoming a mother, after all - it has expanded. Given my very introspective nature, many of the activities that have always brought me joy involve me being alone. Note: not lonely. I need time to think, to recharge, to reflect. I not only crave; I need time by myself. I often wonder if this is innate to me, or if I’ve become this way due to being an only child (hoping to answer this after some more therapy sessions). What has changed since giving birth was in fact the guilt that I now often feel whenever I do carve out time for myself. And this is what needs to be worked on.
Either way, it is honestly and unfortunately not a feeling that I desire for my children in our super-connected world. Being an introvert is often misinterpreted in both professional and social contexts; one can come off rude, shy, way too serious - all of which are not adjectives that relate to me at all. I do hope my children are happy on their own, but also that they can find joy in constantly being with others, more than their mother does.
Accepting who and how I am has been a very long journey with many ups and downs, and one which I am nowhere near reaching a final destination. But if there’s one thing I’ve recently learned is that the pursuit of joy and the road leading to accepting who I am are interdependent journeys - there is not one without the other.
It’s also a journey that goes beyond being an only child, an expat, an introvert, a mom - all things that I use ad nauseam to define, categorize, and limit myself. Oh, I’m also learning that introverts can be good parents, too, if you’ll allow them a solo cup of coffee from time to time. Through therapy and writing, I am coming to terms that finding time for my own joy while performing my motherly duties isn’t selfishness - it’s self-maintenance, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
