Archive for January 8th, 2009

Over the holidays, I traveled through Germany and Austria with my husband, son, and mother-in-law. We had a grand time, seeing everything from Raphael’s Madonna of the Meadow to King Ludwig’s fairy tale castle, although we did come close to freezing our tails off. People told me Bavaria was cold. I didn’t believe it. Then I spent hours outside touring with a 20-month-old who refuses to keep his mittens on and I started to understand.

Jasper (my son) was a real trooper. Not only did he survive the 8-hour plane trip each way, his jet lag was no worse than mine, and probably better. He didn’t mind the cold too much. He didn’t protest our long car trips. That said, he did decide to stop eating regular food and instead subsisted on pretzels. Germany has a lot of pretzels, but still.  He also reverted to the bottle instead of the sippy cup, and guzzled milk to the point where I actually had to beg cafes to sell me their coffee milk. Apparently they either don’t drink milk in Germany and Austria, or else they don’t have children (I kind of believe it’s the latter — low birth rates and all).

Traveling with a small child forces you to slow down and take things as they come. For instance, on our last day, we came across a stable and manger display featuring a live camel and sheep. This was not on the agenda, but we stayed there until our hands went numb. Then Jasper screamed when we left the “neigh” (all hoofed critters are “neighs”).

Traveling with a small child also leads you to ask certain questions. As I stood in the Kunsthistorisches museum, the Hapsburgs’ priceless art gallery, looking at all the pictures of Madonna and Child, I started to wonder things. Baby Jesus is seldom wearing clothes in these paintings, even though he is supposed to be God incarnate. Did he not have a fully human GI tract? Last Christmas, my son managed to poop so much and so explosively that it got in his own hair. Did baby Jesus ever poop in his own hair? Did he ever scream for milk when Mary and Joseph took him to the temple, with all the elders turning around to stare at them self-righteously as though they had done something distasteful by breeding? (a man on the flight home walked back to our row and stood there shaking his arms, as if we were supposed to smother the kid or something).

I suspect, of course, that the carol line about “little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes” is far from accurate. The great miracle of Christmas is the idea of this awesome, unknowable power becoming a helpless, screaming infant. One of my favorite painting in the art museum was one by Fra Bartolommeo of little Jesus, looking like a toddler, his fat fingers gripping his mother’s neck.