Wow! You see! Definitely: Chickenpox! E-Book

Manfred Gottert

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 98

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Berlin - Kreuzberg: The sometimes-overwhelmed Dad is handed the baton of parenting time after his son turned one. Not always easy. For either of them! But with a lot of wit and sharpness and smaller and bigger challenges.

Leseprobe

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Appendix

Continued Appendix

Typesetting: Steffen Linke

Editing: Julie Köhler

Reviewing: Pia Yvonne Zang

Translation: Lara von Dehn

Podcast-Reading: Lukas Viernickel

For Finn and Maunzerle, and especially for Susanne.

Chapter 1

There we are, or rather, there I am, standing outside the practice’s door on the second floor, carrying Finn, his nursing bottle, and Mrs. Hansen. In front of us a sign: “Dear patients, everything gets stolen around here. Please lock your stroller and take your valuables with you to the practice.”

Right. Daunted, we turn around and begin the descent without any remark on our part – no, not quite; Finn is blubbering, “Mommy-Mommy.”

Back at the stroller, I notice the nursing bottle on the ground in front of us. Did we actually have two? Is that one even ours? But where is the other one, then? I stoop down to pick up the bottle as well as the bunting bag from the stroller. Finn tries to take advantage of this daring endeavor by tensing up all the muscles of his short, compact body to wield the light switch in the stairwell.

After gathering all utensils and locking the stroller and my bike, we start the second attempt, now holding Finn, the nursing bottle, the bulky bunting bag, my overstuffed backpack, and Mrs. Hansen.

Just when I got through the door at work today, Heike called. The first name ‘Heike’ is not very fitting; it should be ‘Renate’ maybe ‘Elvira’. Definitely not Heike. She’s too skinny and moody for this name, and her hairstyle is so inconspicuous that I can never seem to remember it at all.

Only the glasses. Yes, the glasses, I remember them: Once, VW Polo had a model named Harlekin, and it had differently colored parts. Whenever I see those glasses, I always wonder how many people bought this Volkswagen model and how many of these people were nurses and childcare workers. This style of glasses screams: Why not try something else sometimes?

But I was insistently told not to mess with people like that – it would harm the child. But I had to anyway – in the last three months, I secretly did it twice. The word ‘kindergarten’ is obviously lovely – ‘educational institution’, on the other hand, is not as appropriate. But Heike still doesn’t like to be called a kindergarten teacher.

“YOUR SON HAS CHICKENPOX!!!”

Why on earth is it the case that the species of parents actually get called by their first name all the time?

Everyone. The kindergarten teachers, the other parents, the midwife, the receptionist. Every single one of them. At the age of 44, I’m really over people addressing me with the informal German term ‘Du’. I wonder if the person, who sold Heike her glasses, also addressed her with ‘Du’ while they were softly whispering “pretty and playful” and “so sweet.”

Hard to imagine.

On my bicycle, I dart from Prenzlauer Berg to Kreuzberg. I’ve got to eyeball the poor child together with snippy Heike, chubby Jasmin, and still another employee: “Look here. This one! See!! I’m sure of it, and he has a fever too – 37.7 degrees Celsius.”

This is not the time for confronting her, but 37.7 degrees Celsius is the run-of-the-mill body temperature for this child. Does she not know his sweaty feet and this habit of doing all at the same time that he got from his mother?

That requires a bit more speed and fundamental energy. “Did he eat anything?” I ask concernedly.

“You bet; he was insatiable,” Heike replies determinedly. Well, the usual then, I think, except for one or two little poxes. Without saying anything else, I wrap him up – tights, shirt, shoes, jacket – while Finn keeps trying to either poke out my eyes out or to just check the closing mechanism of my eyelids.

Petra, a receptionist I know very well from the crying therapy, calls to ask me to leave the child in the special cabins outside of the actual practice to quickly come to the registration without Finn.

When we open the practice door, we see a tubelike room with four glass cubicles measuring about one square meter each. Somehow, I get the impression that the pediatric practice has seen better days. The late ‘70s charm still shining through several layers of repainting cannot be denied. That’s undoubtedly due to the effects of the health care crisis. At the end of the tube is a small window overlooking Hermannplatz and Karstadt. Otherwise, there is only the entrance door and the door to the registration desk.

I pick – no, Finn picks the first cabin. While the interior is relatively simple, rather reduced, the pressure inside the cabin is quite unpleasant. There is an exhaust system on the ceiling, possibly to catch Finn’s toxic components right away. Next to it, only one of four halogen spotlights is glowing. But why it is so hot in this box is a mystery to me: To be able to undress without shivering with goosebumps? To provide the cell cultures with the best possible breeding ground? Or just to make the children particularly cranky? Half of the cabin is a maybe 1-meter-high platform coated with a worn plastic cover. Apart from that, there is only room for precisely one stool.

Finn’s patience is already going downhill, and he would prefer to leave, same as I.

Chickenpox is not only an illness, but it also means that I won’t be able to go to work again. Susanne has to see her patients, who can’t be canceled at such short notice. I, on the other hand, tend to have a recession.

I wonder how other late-bearing self-employed people do it. In my case, there is an inversely proportional relationship between Finn’s age and the net profit to be earned. In medical terms, you call that antagonistic when referring to muscles; it may be good for the muscles, but not so much for my general well-being.

I am convinced that the findings of the three pedagogical cognoscenti are correct. However, I would not necessarily exclude rabies as a diagnosis based on the symptoms, such as biting fits and a foaming mouth – or intolerance to his parents.

I put Finn on the worn plastic cover, take off my coat first, then his, and look for food and something to drink in the backpack. Somehow Finn gets off balance and falls to the ground.

Because I have no eyes in the back of my head, I can either get something from the backpack or stop him from suicidal activities. He screams. He decides to walk away without shoes and without permission.

I have to stop him, considering his level of contamination and all the other kids around and the responsibility I have, after all. Not to mention the punctilious Petra at the registration desk. Speaking of Petra, how am I supposed to get from the sauna-like solitary cell to the registration desk? Finn will probably shatter the glass walls of the cubicle in the meantime, or, if that doesn’t work, bite me before I even get the chance to leave. We’ll have to make it through.

Annoyed, I look for the health insurance card in my backpack. Finn screams even more eagerly. I try to focus on my breathing with all my clothes pretty much drenched in sweat while Finn is eating a cigarette butt, he found on the floor. Holding the butt, I chase to the registration desk and wait. Petra is talking with a headset on and nods at me sympathetically. She doesn’t remember me, does she?

About one year prior. The crying therapy, where I was dragged under false pretenses. Finn cried a little in the first weeks, then a lot, and today not much less. But we were responsible young parents, and since osteopathy didn’t do so much for our little golden boy as for the treating woman, and that was: “give as much as you can per treatment.”

We decided to give up and instead – at least that’s what I assumed at the time – tried to explore and optimize his sleep/wake rhythm under professional help. That was more to our liking since we wanted to sleep at night, not just in two-hour intervals. Finn had the unpleasant habit of preparing his nighttime crying by taking an extended nap in the day.

First, we received some sheets to fill out; when does he sleep, when does he cry, when does he eat. I thought it was apparent; he pretty much constantly screamed, rarely slept, and ate without interruption. Susanne thought differently.

Unfortunately, I failed to give her the sheet at 4 o’clock in the morning. We indeed would have agreed then, but the following day her night memory seemed to be entirely erased, and she didn’t think the night was that bad. But how bad the nights were. I noticed these waves of activity when they were just starting to form; something was moving in the bag next to our bed, like from one corner to another with increasing speed. After a few minutes of squirming and twiddling, the vocal cords and his mother made the scene; probably flatulence, and he’s too cold.

Month after month, the child was said to be too cold. I would lie next to him, sweating. One night, I moved out, and we tried to work in shifts; from 11 pm – 5 am, it was the boss’s turn, after which the screaming ray of sunshine was carted to the adjoining room where I was waiting. Sitting on the bouncy ball, I would try to calm the child by stuffing him with the pacifier and emplacing Mrs. Hansen. Except for my back, this bouncing did no harm to anyone.

Once, I illegally attempted to freight the bawling creature along with his soft carrier into the bathroom – during my shift, mind you. But to no avail. One minute later, Susanne came dashing out of her room, which used to be ours, to rescue her precious darling from the unfathomable machinations of his father. It was like in the animal kingdom, right before the male lions eat their cubs. This incident has never been repeated because of the judgment I was put under by every page of professional literature and the entire pregnancy class who deemed my behavior sacrilegious and unacceptable. My failed objection of our parents had let their children scream all night was promptly shattered with, “Well, you see what came of it.”

“How can I help you?” Right, I have different worries now. But whether Petra could actually help me is in doubt.

“It’s about Finn. I called earlier – my goodness, about suspected chickenpox.”

Thanks to the everlasting usage of ‘Du’, I only ever know people by their first name now, too. Petra, Petra, and what else? Even the email provider, the mobile operator, everybody greets you with “Hello Susanne Hansen.” Maybe she calls herself Stankowiak or Hartmann?

Petra’s hair is rigid and short, her appearance quite rigorous. Or do I just think that because of the crying therapy?

Finn was maybe 6 weeks old, and Susanne, Finn, Daddy, and a box of filled-out A4 sheets set off for the first ‘session’.

Like a throne in the center of the therapy room, the treatment couch was surrounded by a few scattered chairs. There were no pictures on the walls. After briefly discussing the completed forms, the procedure began based on some particular method or school. It was not the Prague-Parent-Child-Program, but somewhat more southern, like the ‘Oberpfaffenhofer School’. Babies do not cry because they are bloated, hurting, or hungry – it is all due to the sleep/wake rhythm if I remember correctly.