Travelogue, Day 6: Turku

Unfortunately, I’d written an entire post and then had it eaten because BloGTK doesn’t have an undo button (and I hadn’t saved, bah), so this is written after the fact. So sue me.

Today Mr. T and I tried very hard to get out bright and early to go to Turku castle. My intent had been to load up our mostly-sturdy umbrella stroller (it’s sort of an umbrella stroller++, as I’ve said before) and the Baby Björn (the best $25 ever spent on Craigslist IMHO) and take Little Guy off to Turku Castle (Turun Linna) with me. We’ve done lots of stuff like this before – stroller as far as we can take it, and then fold up the stroller, strap it on to my back (it has a special strap for this) and Torsten onto my front and we’re totally mobile.

So that was my plan – before I changed Torsten’s diaper yesterday morning. I was putting the new one on and fastening the tabs when I noticed his little pudgy baby thighs were a funny color on the inside. A greenish/bluish/not very Torstenish color.

Hmm, I thought – did his new green crocodile outfit bleed onto him?

Nah, the shorts aren’t that green.

I looked a little closer, and realized he was bruised.

My cute, snuggly, soft, sweet little baby had bruises on this thighs.

Interruption for note to readers: STOP PANICKING. THE BABY IS FINE. NOTHING BAD HAPPENED. LET ME REPEAT, THE BABY IS FINE AND NO ONE DID ANYTHING BAD TO HIM. We now return you to your regularly scheduled travel post.

Now, let me say this – Little Guy spends pretty much all his time with us, so I knew no one had been abusing him. At first I thought about how Christian turns him upside sometimes by his legs, but never with any force, and I’ve never heard Torsten squeal in anything but abject delight at that. So no, it wasn’t that.

Then I remembered – yesterday’s nature walk in the Björn. Little guy was bounced up and down in it like usual, but unlike usual, he’s now at about the limit of the Björn height and weight ranges (he’s within both, but it’s not like they give you a curve with height vs. weight showing where on it to stop putting the baby in it. Torsten seemed fine while he was in it, but it’s clearly where the thing supports him between the legs.

Well, damn. First of all, little T got hurt, and I hate that. Not badly, but still… bah. Secondly, my little system of getting us around non-stroller-friendly places without having to carry a very squirmy, curious little boy and breaking my back was foiled. I so should have brought our Storchenwiege… damn.

So there was no way, obviously, I was going to continue to cause little Baby Monster damage, so instead, we continued without.

Let me just give a piece of advice, which you can ignore if you’re a SuperMom, which I am not: if you are travelling alone with your baby and are planning to take in tourist sights, especially medieval ones, um, think really hard first.

I should know better – I was majoring in history, with a lot of emphasis on the middle ages, back in the day (before I dropped out of college). I knew it would be tough, but I had no idea how much my back would hate me. Bah.

(It wasn’t really so bad, except for the bit about my back, which kind of sucked…)

Now, the castle is nice. Small, but nice. Normally, I’d pay attention to all of the historical details, but with a baby on hand, well, you do different things. So while I know the castle was important for the Finns trying to protect themselves from the evil conquering Swedes back when Turku was the capital (Turku is apparently the oldest city in Finland, but as it was also the victim of the worst fire in Scandinavian history or something in the 1800′s, there’s not so much of the old stuff left I gather), I can’t say I really know a whole lot more specific detail.

Which you might think was a bad thing, but actually…

One of the best things about being a parent is seeing things from a little person’s point of view. Torsten loved the spiraling stone and brick passageways and staircases, and dark rooms with bright light filtering through small windows. I’ve been in more impressive castles, but this was actually a lot of fun. Your average little child doesn’t know exactly what he’s looking at, and neither did I (well, ok, I could read enough of the Swedish on things to know I was in the Queen’s dressing chamber, or the King’s hall, or whatever – it pays to study a bunch of Germanic languages, I tell you!), but when something looks cool, the kid enjoys it, and as a parent, so do you.

Except for the meltdown at the beginning of our entrance to the castle where he was really ticked off that he had to choose between playing with the stroller wheels and walking around the castle with Mama, and the meltdown at the end where he was all ticked about getting into the stroller, we did well. I didn’t get to go into the museum, but who cares… Mr. T learned a lot about how to build his castle for when he takes over the world, and I enjoyed the walkthrough, even though climbing stairs in a castle with 10 kilos of SuperTorsten is a bit rough.

After that, except for the usual strawberry purchase and grocery shopping, we’d had it, and we went home and napped.

Finland is actually pretty sticky, warm and humid right now, and my body is accustomed to the combination of altitude and semi-arid climate Denver enjoys in the heat, so I’m rather miserable and sweaty in the afternoons, and T and I both just pass out.

Tomorrow: laundry and, maybe, if I’m lucky, WiFi? (The laundry place is supposed to have WiFi – we’ll see…)