Since moving to Germany I have become "that" parent. You know the one. The one who signs up for something and forgets all about it or better yet just doesn't really sign up for things at all.
New friends at school told me to just give it 6 months. In 6 months you will feel settled and then you can step up and help. They were absolutely right. We are coming up on our 6 month anniversary and for the first time I'm starting to feel on top of things. But this process has helped me to understand "those" parents when I had very little understanding or sympathy for them before. I always wondered why there were 18 hundred reminders for things regarding school. Why would someone need so many reminders? I could have used all those reminders here. Here they just assume you've got it. But in Seattle I was very frustrated by the parents who didn't show up for things or didn't seem to be invested. Now I get it. But sadly, I don't really get it. I probably don't know the half of what a lot of families are going through both here and back in the US but I surely do have more empathy and sympathy. For most of the past 6 months I've felt behind the 8 ball. Somehow I've been able to let a lot of this go. I didn't let myself get too bogged down in what I was not doing, about who I was not writing back (sorry to all of you that I owe an email or a text or a call or a letter - in addition to being "that parent" I know I have also become "that friend") Out of self preservation and survival really, I just had to let a lot of that go. I can't even explain why it was all so hard it just was. It is strange though because it wasn't a "that's terrible" hard it was just that everything took 10+ more steps than it took at home. It often felt like I was swimming up stream or walking through quicksand.
Up until now I was the parent who continually forgot to send Benjamin to school with his library books, that forgot to sign reports or permission slips or didn't even know that one of my kids had a huge Thanksgiving feast and parents were supposed to bring in food. I did it for one child but never knew the other one was having a party until he came home and told me that not only did he have a feast but that he rode a bus to another students house and had the feast there. All without my knowing. The best "that" parent came when I had apparently signed up to help clean the class room and I didn't show up because apparently I forgot to put it on my calendar and then the teacher sent out an email to the entire class saying that we really need to do a better job coming in when we sign up for things. There must have been other parents who had forgotten to go in too, right? It was directly to me but a bit passive aggressively it was. Then the other parents wanted to know if the sign up list could be made public so everyone would know their date and guess who was right there signed up with fat letters on the very day the email was sent. Yep, KARRIE RIEMER! Yay, me. Seriously, this was the one area in my life in Seattle I had down. I volunteered, maybe too much, in each of my children's classroom. I definitely wouldn't dream of not showing up when I said I would and I would have most certainly not only known my child was going to a party but I would have hosted it or at least brought in a bunch of stuff for it. But... 6 months, give yourself 6 months they said. And you know, they were right. I'm feeling so much more settled and on top of things. 9 times out of 10 (or more) the kids have their library books on library day, their tests are signed (yes, that is a thing here) their permission slips are signed and I have a chance to redeem myself on the next classroom clean up day. I signed up for March 16th. Here's to hoping I will remember this time. Six months in and things are starting to feel pretty settled and pretty good.
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