Missouri in Mazury

Growing up with a bike-obsessed dad, I learned to also enjoy bike rides. Now that it's warming up and B's got his balance more or less under control, we've also started biking together. B has a balance bike here, which he loves riding. In the past two weeks he's started to enjoy riding with other kids, watching them race and balance. Now that I have my first Polish bike EVER, he also insists that I hop on my bike and ride around outside with him - which is what we did today. We rode around on the side roads outside - him on his balance bike and mama on her bike. After a while, he noticed his helmet sitting in the kid seat attached to my bike, and we rode around on my bike for a bit. Then he decided he missed his bike and that he also wanted to ride in puddles, so we parted ways. The puddle was deeper than expected a few feet further along, so we had to run inside for a costume change. Hopefully it warms up soon so we can go on longer bike ri...

I learned a new phrase this week, thanks to the moms in that mom group mentioned in my previous post. It literally translates to "buttery butter", but means "tautology" in English. That's not quite the best translation, since the words are different registers, so maybe something like "talking out of your ass" is a better description. Either way, the Polish version is better. Now, here's how I learned this wonderful phrase! As mentioned in the post before this one, I signed up for an event comprising of local moms. I was excited to meet some new people who live nearby. The group itself is called "K Moms" - K being the city I'm located in. The event was called "Meeting of Moms in K". You'd think that most of the moms would be located in K, right? Sorry, nope! Most who are attending the event are located in W, which is 35 minutes northeast of K (for reference, I'm located 15 minutes from the event location in K). Ok...

I've been here for a while, but have yet to find women nearby who I'd consider friends. For most, the roles of men and women are very clearly defined: women take care of the home and family; men go to work and do manly things. There's no grey area, and I don't really fit into the mold of the typical village woman. I've been waiting and searching for someone (my age!!!) in the villages and small towns nearby to prove my observations as incorrect. I don't define myself as just a wife and mom, although my family is important to me. I also like talking about things like languages, history, books, sewing, travelling, and  Buffy the Vampire Slayer . I can be the typical woman, but it's not really my style. I can sew (when I'm in the mood): I sometimes cook (varying degrees of success, sometimes there's a need for a fire extinguisher): Side note: I also like putting my kid to work! Recently I've turned to Facebook to find like-minded pe...

I feel so inadequate. All the stay at home moms here have blogs. What am I supposed to do? Just watch my kid and work?! No way, I need to re-start this blog thing. Because when I write it totally makes sense and things. And who else am I going to whine to? My husband? Friends? THE INTERNETS!!!! So here's a story: The mailman is afraid of me. We live in an old schoolhouse (Prussian) turned into six apartments (one is empty). Our apartment has its own entryway, so we have a mailbox there. But, there's this big thing called "theft" here, and if anyone delivers anything larger than a letter (which goes into the letterbox on the door - we had to buy that because the mailman kept whining, but that's another story), then it has to be delivered to an actual person. Anyway, I guess the mailman is sick of me and my foreignness (although last time he told me my Polish is much improved, because I said the word "tutaj" without an accent, I guess). Now inste...