Why is this a problem??

Today we went to the city hall to set up our Familienbuch, something we didn't do when we got married, because we had to flee to Denmark to escape the german bureacracy. I'm not really sure what the purpose of the Familienbuch is, other than to record your marriage and children in one central place. Except that since Nico was already married and has kids, he actually has two family books, which then defeats the purpose of having things in a central place. But anyway...

When we went last time to get my new visa (I'm now allowed to stay for three years and, theoretically, can work), we asked them what we were allowed to name our child. What we want to do is give him Perucci as a last name and Lindenau as a middle name. Using a family name as a middle name is pretty common in the States, but here it is just barely acceptable. She felt that it would cause a lot of confusion for the poor little guy and she suggested that I just simply take my husband's name for myself.

Um...no!

Then today when she was explaining the family book to us, she told me that I still had the option in the future to change my name to Lindenau, if I changed my mind about keeping my own name.

I don't get it! Why is this so complicated? Why is it something I would change my mind about? Why should I stop being Christina Perucci and become Christina Lindenau??? It's so funny that this country has a female chancelor, but their gender politics are so backwards...

Something the Germans do better - mostly

Today we went to Karlotta's Einschulung - her first day of school. And when I say we, I mean, her mother, stepfather, father, stepmother, both sets of grandparents and her godfather. This is a BIG deal.

The day started with us all walking from the house to the church for a brief church service (I'll get to that later). The kids all over the neighborhood are walking to the school with their gigantic backpacks and their Schultuete - a giant paper cone, filled with candy, school supplies and other presents. Karlotta's cone was so heavy, she could hardly carry it. Anyway, after the church service, we walked to the school, where we had a performance from last year's first graders where they sang songs about the alphabet - including one in spanish. Then each child was called up on stage by name to meet their classmates and they went off to their classroom. It was really cute, because they were standing up there, so proud of themselves, but they hadn't actually done anything yet! While the kids were in their classrooms with their new teachers (Karlotta's teacher is named Frau Schoen, which means Mrs. Pretty - how perfect is that!?!? Her first grade teacher is called Mrs. Pretty!!! I love it!), the parents got talked at by the principal. (I have issues with this principal, because last year, he decided that it was okay to teach a class of 7 year olds that when for a woman to have a baby, a man has to...etc. You all know the story as well as I do. The first thing the girls then said to us when we told them that I was pregnant was, "Oh, so then, did you have sex?!?!?!")

Afterwards we went back to the house, where Karlotta opened all her presents and we had a big lunch. She was the star of the day - luckily her older, attention-hogging sister had a regular school day and was not there. And I really found the whole experience to be much better than the way we do it in the States. Nico asked me this morning if I remembered my first school day. Actually, I only remember my first day at Montessori (I think my mom would say it was the whole week), standing outside the school on the stone path, sobbing and begging my mom not to go. But anyway, I just think this ceremony and everything is such a nice transition for them. Then tomorrow they have a "real" school day and then the weekend is here. I love it.

The church service, well, that is just so weird to me. Karlotta goes to a public school, and while the church service was not mandatory, it seemed to me that most of the kids were there. Having grown up in a country where you can't do religious stuff in school, I feel really uncomfortable with this kind of thing.

But otherwise, I think I finally found something that is better here than in the States. Whew - only took me 10 months... oh wait, I forgot about the whole pregnancy/birthing process, that's better here too. I'll write about that next time.