Doctors in Germany

I finally went to a doctor for the first time since Lilly was 6 weeks old. What a different experience here than at home! This doctor is the same one I had found for David. She's female, 40 years old, and fluent in English. There's such a difference in the attitude that doctors in Germany have compared with doctors in the U.S. I believe it has to do with the health care system differences, although I would have to explore that a little more to be sure.

Dr. P answers her email! She sent me (over a year ago) recommendations for a pediatrician. She is the one who came to get me out of the waiting room. And even though she was at least 35 minutes late today, she still spent twenty minutes with me and set up three appointments with me (necessary since I haven't had anything preventive done in over two years). I finally figured out that doctors go by Herr and Frau here instead of by their professional position. (Wouldn't it be funny if I required everyone to call me Analyst Alexander all the time?) In my opinion, they're just more down to earth here than at home. And she is not my only data point.

The other day, I was having dinner with some girlfriends (most of whom were new to me), and one of them noticed that her doctor was at the table next to us. He came and sat down with us for a minute and chatted jovially. He told her he was watching her! Lol. It's a very interesting dynamic here that I'm somewhat grateful for. Usually seeing a doctor is stressful enough, but here it would be worse because of the language barrier at the front desk (everywhere) and the difficulty in getting there (I took the bus to make it easy on myself). The down-to-Earth attitude of most of the doctors here at least alleviated part of that stress. Yay for German doctors, and especially the one I met today!

On another note, we had a lovely little birthday party for the twins yesterday.  I had them invite five friends each, and then I invited one more because I wanted her parents to stop by, too.  Of the 11 kids we invited, 7 showed up. It turns out that my cowboy theme was a good idea.  I was able to get some cute cowboy hats from Amazon. Then, much to my delight, a local chain discounted some ponies at a very high discount. Plus, I decided to do a "torn paper" craft and build a cactus for a "pin the flower on the cactus game". Torn paper was a craft I found last year at this time for kids at my work Christmas party. (Torn paper Christmas trees.) I consider it a Pinterest success! I used foam and glue sticks for the flowers, and some of the children liked them so much that they took their flowers home with them.

One little boy was so shy that his mom decided to stay. Thank God!  Her translation proved to be invaluable.  I'm sure we would have gotten by, but her help made it a lot less stressful for me.  What a sweetheart! We sent home treat bags (plus the cowboy hats) with "gold dust" (yellow gum), "rocks" (jelly beans"), and balloons. I wanted to include sheriff's badges, but the cowboy hats were pricey enough, and the sheriff's badges were pretty chintzy, so I didn't get them. I wanted to buy enough horses for everyone, but the store only had 4. So we had "door prizes."

It was a fun party, and fun to finally get to interact with some Germans, who were very sweet all around. Perhaps their public presence is different from their private presence. Or perhaps the parents at the twins' school are just a little more easy-going. Who knows? Regardless, it was a good time.

Next up for me, I have to make 40 cupcakes without icing and figure out how to take them to the twins' school.  It was nice that we didn't have to invite all of the kids in the classes to the birthday party.  I can't imagine this place with 20 additional kids (or more) running around. For Alex's birthday, we have to invite the entire class. He doesn't really care for one boy and asked, "Why do I have to invite T--?" I'm hoping that less than half will show up! He wants to have a Jurassic World themed party, even though he hasn't seen the movie. I guess that's fine?

He's really happy I gave him some Pokemon cards.