Blend in with the natives--Fail (repost)

Blend in with the natives--FAIL

I have lived in a few different countries (*yawn* oh, so cultured), and I have to say that German culture is the most similar to my own. There are no weird facial expressions to decipher, no awkward moments when one of us laughs at something the other doesn't think of as humor, no clear division in the type of clothes we wear(uh, at least when I wear my nice clothes there is no division). We have the language barrier of course but other than the other differences seem very small.

Today, however, I was reminded that I am very much a foreigner. Sigh. The fact that we have so much in common only makes my gaffes embarrassing instead of expected.

So, Soapy's kindergarten had a shindig planned for today. I thought I was tracking what was going on.The theme was "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." The kids were going to dance and sing. The older kids were going to put on a mini play and the adults were to bring  treats. I signed up to bring a chocolate cake. Then I saw the sign up sheet asking what what Soapy would be dressed up as, a beetle, a flower, or a bee. She wanted to be a flower (note: she always wants to be a flower), so I signed her up for that--then I began freaking out a bit.

I learned something about myself this week. Not only am I terrible at making things like costumes, I get really really stressed out about the whole thing. It's really funny, because I have so many resources at my fingertips, courtesy of Google. And flower costumes are not hard. But still. It's ridiculous how much I fretted. I may have wrung my hands once or twice.

Turns out, I was totally stressing about the wrong thing.

No one cared about the costumes. Some parents just put their kids in brightly colored t-shirts and called them flowers. FYI after my hard work, Soapy's would have actually been really cute except for some language barrier issues:

1) I thought the event would be inside so I let Soapy be a little purple pansy in a short sleeve purple t-shirt. Language barrier. It was outside. But it's cold outside so she was a little purple pansy in a brown hoodie. No big deal.

Here's the best picture you're going to get of her in her costume. She's sucking her finger because she's nervous.

2) I thought we were supposed to be there at two to get ready. Language barrier strikes again. It turns out,the whole thing started at two, so instead of being able to carefully staple some large petals into her elastic belt, I just tucked them in and hoped for the best as they led her out in to the dance area. Little bit bigger deal. Most of them fell out during her dance, specifically during the crawling part (seriously, why did they have a crawling part?). Oh well. It only took me hours to put that together. I was pretty proud of Soapy though. I had to wake her up from her nap and she was feeling kind of nervous and grumpy. Despite her costume falling apart around her she carried on remarkably well. Especially considering her dance partner was the same boy her bit her on her first week of school.

Notice how she continues even while having to hold a fallen petal in her hand. I think it confused the boy.

Check out the biter's angry/freaky expression.

A few petals later...

Soapy did awesome, and was super cute. I loved that once she found me in the crowd and saw me smiling she brightened up completely. There are some moments of being a mother that make me feel so terrific. Making costumes, not so much. Being there for a nervous Sophie...definitely a good moment.

Anyway, back to me, it turns out that all along I should have been concerned about the cake. I didn't think much about the cake before I made it. I made Better Than Sex Cake. It's a delicious cake. But it's not a fancy cake--I was way out of my league. It turns out these were cakes to be sold by the slice for MONEY. Here are some pictures I took of the cake table I saw when I went to drop off my cake:

 



We had to leave early to get to a birthday party, but I sneaked in to take some pictures of the dessert table so I could post them on this blog. I wanted you to see the juxtaposition of my cake next to the others...but mine wasn't even out. Ha! So I don't have a picture of my cake, but the general feeling of it was like this. Except mine was adorned with aluminum foil and Pyrex. The saddest thing is that out of politeness I couldn't just take it back, and out of politeness they couldn't just give it back so...I'm pretty sure my cake got thrown out and they will return my Pyrex (and probably the aluminum foil as well because this is Germany and we RECYCLE EVERYTHING), and tell me it was lovely. Dang it. Chris and I were cracking up all this evening though, and wishing we could eat that tasty, ugly cake.

Finally, here's a picture of Jojo, just because she's a cute kid. She kept yelling "Hooray Soapy!" through the whole thing.