20 Months – Settling in – temporarily

Dear Super T,

Boy, was this month one for the record books.

It did not start out easy, of course, since it started out with you feeling like you’d been dropped on another planet. Your bed was different (Papa’s and Tante Conni’s amd Oma’s old baby bed, in fact, and it was one you could get into and out of on your own), your room was different (still in the same room with Mama and Papa, but bigger, more Torsten-friendly, and looking suspiciously like Opa-and-Oma’s attic), and there were these two people you didn’t know very well suddenly very present in your lives. The last bit thrilled you to bits, but all the change was a bit much.

It started, though, with one of your first forays into Opa and Oma’s backyard.

It was, in fact, on our first day in Germany.

Papa had promised Mama that since she’d taken you alone to Germany and spent almost a full week taking care of you alone before that, that she was going to get a full 24 hours where no one was going to bother her after we got to Wuppertal.

This plan did not take into account the fact that you might fall off their back step on the first day and break one of your front teeth.

Now that you’ve got a few more teeth and we’ve all had some time to get used to it, it’s not such a big thing, but at the time, Mama and Papa were devastated. You were remarkably chilled-out about it, though your lip was bleeding and you were poking it with your tongue a lot, and in the end, the dentist said it was all right, even if it looked less-than-appealing, and that at your age, we couldn’t do much about it anyway.

I admit it – once we knew you were ok, Papa and I couldn’t avoid thinking how sad it was that this happened to our beautiful little guy. But you’re beautiful anyway, and now it kind of adds character. (Pictures will have to wait until a later post – there are some at 22 and 23 months, but we didn’t get a good shot of it until then)

The first couple of weeks in Wuppertal involved a lot of Torsten-gets-to-know-and-play-with-Opa-and-Oma time, Mama readjustment time (I had a lot of internal trouble for reasons that shouldn’t matter to you, but the important bit is that it meant that Mama was not always in great spirits at first), and Torsten-gets-to-go-to-a-lot-of-awesome-German-playgrounds time, which was nothing but good for you.

You are, after this month at Oma and Opa’s, wild about your grandparents, and that makes me nothing but happy. I know that with distance, it would have hard for you to be this close to them, and they seem to be thrilled to have a Torsten as a grandchild they can see more often. (They should be – everyone should want Torsten as a grandchild! (not everyone gets to, but that’s another story…)) But it is not easy for parents to move into the grandparents’ house (nor is it easy for the grandparents, and they provided us with a safe haven which was a wonderful place for you, for which I am profoundly grateful. We could not have done this move without them), and it was a fairly stressful time. Papa was still waiting on pins-and-needles to find out if the job prospects we’d been crossing our fingers for would come through, and Mama was still feeling a little bit out-of-place, and mostly, we were just killing time hoping for word and waiting for some talks and interviews Papa had.

And at first, it was tough for you too. You stopped really eating, and certainly not by yourself, you went back on the bottle you were almost through with when we were in Denver, and you were definitely clingier. It was ok – we’d expected a lot of this kind of stuff – but it was hard to watch. But you did eventually adjust, and you were always excited to see Opa and Oma (who I think you found a little overwhelming at first, but remember, you’d been almost exclusively with Mama and Papa at that point), so it all worked out.

Unfortunately, our only pictures of these few weeks come from the end of the month, but that was the exciting part anyway.

See, Papa had an interview in Austria. And at around the same time, he was going to find out about whether he would get a grant which could have landed him anywhere in Germany, and one of the places he was strongly considering was Munich. Since he had to go to Austria anyway, and since Mama really didn’t want the two of us to stay alone in Wuppertal for several days, we decided we’d all go to Austria, you and I would tour the town where Papa was interviewing, and then we’d all come to Munich to have a look around (if Papa got the grant and was going to consider Munich seriously, we would have some more information to decide with, and if he didn’t, we’d have gotten a nice couple of days in Munich – win win ).

And so the three of us packed ourselves onto a train and discovered the miracle of… The Kleinkindabteil (Small children’s compartment).

Oh, the Kleinkindabteil… it was the most wonderful thing ever. Now, I have since learned that on most trains it is not this wonderful, and that it’s particularly wonderful on trains going between Germany and Austria, but still… It rocked.

See, we were dreading a long ride with a toddler who wanted to move, and when we made seat reservations, there was this “Kleinkindabteil” preference field we could check. And practically speaking, what it meant was that for the vast majority of the trip, you, me, and Papa had a compartment all to ourselves where you could run around and play without a) destroying the train, and b) getting lost or hurt.

It was wonderful. I mean, it had a rocking motorcycle for your climbing pleasure, and seats you could move up and down…

It made you very happy

You played…

Mama dreamt of wine…

You were very very silly…

We napped…

And then we were there. St. Poelten was quite lovely, and the view from our hotel wasn’t bad, either…

You and I walked around and enjoyed our day, but it wasn’t really enough time to get to see that much of a very old, nice city.

One day, two nights, and then… we were off to Munich. (No, Mama didn’t take tourist pictures there either, sorry)

You have a great time in hotel rooms – don’t ask me why, except that there are a lot of doors to open and shut and buttons to push and new things to explore, so it was all ok with you.

And when I say new buttons to push, nothing, and I repeat nothing, beats the toilet…

You never had access to the toilet in our house in Denver, and now that you know how to flush them, you just… can’t… stop.

We really enjoyed Munich; the only downside was that you were a bit sick, coughing at night until your tummy decided to return your dinner, but we weren’t too worried, and you were lively enough during the day.

Papa was suitably impressed by his potential new workplace, you and I took a nice trip to Garching to see about the housing situation near the Research Center, and mostly, you and I just enjoyed trains.

And then Papa found an awesome playground near the Theresienweise, which was happy for all.

You rode a motorcycle…

And swung on one of the big-boy swings you’ve been using all month in Europe…

And Papa took a nap…

And you guys played with sand…

It was really lovely.

Of course, then you decided Mama should ride a motorcycle, and Mama cannot refuse you anything…

Then some older boy wanted to come along and play with you. Now, I don’t know why this is, but older children are always wanting to play with you, and by older, I mean much older. Boys, girls, it doesn’t matter… Torsten Monster is fun for all!

At first it was just swinging, but this is Germany, and so the football had to appear sometime…

You actually played, and Mama had a great time watching – and laughing.

Yes, we decided we liked Munich very much indeed.

It doesn’t seem like a bad place at all for you to grow up, and that’s a very happy thing.

Of course, now, at the end of the month, that you seemed so settled, you know we were going to throw a wrench into the works, but that comes next month…

Love you,

Mama