So today we were prompted to get out of the house and go to Toys R Us/Babies R Us for several reasons today. 1. We are in search of Soy formula as we tried the US kind and it seemed to work best for him and we cant find it at the regular grocery store. 2. Air France still owes us a stroller that we need to hurry before our reimbursment runs out and 3. We wanted to find a store an a/c! Well, after two Babies R Us stores we struck out on finding AC in either place nor did we find any Soy formula. We did get to look at a lot of strollers though. A picture is attached at the wide range of options parents in Europe have to choose from. (If you will remember my post a couple months ago about stroller envy.)
So we also ended up learning a couple little cultural lessons in the process of fulfilling our 3 above mentioned objectives.
1) As we knew already before, Europeans, and Germans in particular seem to be far more open and not so uptight as Americans in regards to sex and sexuality. Our first evidence of this was the fact that you can watch porn on public television late at night with no privacy codes required. Clue number two we discovered at Toys R Us in the children's book section. Andrew and I were looking for some books that had lots of pictures and words that would help us continue with our German language learning process. He came across a book called "Woher die kleiner kinder kommen?" translated into English "Where do babies come from?" Ok, so you might be thinking, yes, we have some books like these in the US, maybe you wouldn't find them at Toys R Us, but still, they are out there. So we started to look through the book and found first that it was a book that you see the picture and then you lift a flap to see what is "inside" or "under" the picture. The first couple seens were to tell the difference between a boy and a girl. So there is a picture of a little girl with clothes on and then a picture with a little boy with clothes on. Then you lift up the flap of their shorts and skirt and you see the anatomically correct gender differences for each. The next page has a picture of a door with a little kid standing in front of it about to open the door. The text says something to the effect of "what are mommy and daddy doing?" Then you open the flap and it actually shows mommy and daddy on a bed "doing it". The opposite page shows mommy and daddy in full naked frontals and then you live of the flap of their private parts to see their internal reproductive organs. The rest of the book kinda goes on to continue how you might actually find an American book to contain things like the mommy's tummy showing the baby inside, etc and the developing stages of the fetus. Does show the mom giving birth with an up close shot. So needless to say, I was a little surprised. I'm still not sure if it was because I disagree with having that discriptive of a book available in a toy store to anyone or that I was just shocked because I grew up in the ever protective American environment where sex and babies was taboo and the dreaded discussion by every parent. Anyways, I took pictures of the book to because I didn't think some people would believe me, but didn't feel comfortable posting it on a public blog, (insert all the comments you'd like on me being a prude, lol) But if you are interested, you can email me and I'll send them and if I know who you are (aka won't be sending them to strangers) then I won't think you are a pervert :)
2) Germans are way into strollers, and I think Europe for all that because many of the strollers came with tags that are EU certified. We think we found a winner for us though and wish that we had waited till moving over here to begin with to buy a stroller, or in our case we were actually gifted one. But I love me the European strollers, though, they are expensive, but I guess when it comes to the comfort of your kids (and I'm sure there is also some European medical theories and what not that go along with the design of said strollers) its worth the money. We even saw a dolly stroller in the toy aisle that looked more high tech than the American umbrella strollers you are used to seeing for kid dolls. These are the pictures that will be posted :)
3) The way the Germans teach their kids to ride a bike is awesome. A friend mentioned to me that they have these bikes with no peddles but I had never seen them before until this trip. The object is to get the kids to push with their feet then coast and get used to balancing on the two wheels but then able to put their feet down when they didn't feel stable anymore. It helps them get the feel for balance without becoming dependent on training wheels and then they can move to a regular bike more easily. I think its genius! Here are some pictures.
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