I’ve lived abroad before, so I knew to expect culture shock (though not necessarily what to expect from culture shock this time around), but it actually took a long time for it to really get its hooks into me.

I have better moments and worse ones, like everyone else, and I generally don’t find it completely overwhelming, but there are days when it just throws me to the ground.

Those days are mercifully (and surprisingly) few.

What I thought was going to be most different this time around was the fact, whenever it dawned on me, that this wasn’t a trip, or an extended stay, or an exchange year. I thought that what would really smack me upside the head was the permanence of the whole situation.

Sometimes it does, but that isn’t what really has the power to blow my day.

No, what’s really different, and what really has the power to make me feel like the (legal) alien I am, is mommyhood.

Motherhood brings everyone who finds herself in the role to her knees at one point or another. I am always surprised at how much of my general stress and frustration is shared by the best mothers I know (and this is a tremendous relief, I must say), but mothering abroad has an extra special set of challenges that go above and beyond whatever you face at home.

No, really, it does.

Kids aren’t raised in your host country the way they are at home, and everyone knows that upfront, but I think what I wasn’t prepared for was the fact that some of most difficult cultural things for even the most flexible of expats to let go of are child-rearing habits and beliefs. Those are, after all, part of how we transmit our culture and knowledge and an inherent part of how we all ensure our children grow up safe and well in our own cultures. And those seedlings of how we pass on right and wrong (and, I am not kidding, hot and cold and healthy and sick and …) are so ingrained in us that compromising on them is truly painful.

Not that I think they should always be compromised on, or even often, to be frank. But one thing I would speculate is universally true is that the pushback from host cultures will be stronger in this area than almost any other. Most cultures expect miracles from mothers and hold them to higher standards than with almost any other societal role – if your host culture’s ideas about what is ok and what is not ok are vastly different from your own, you can expect people to do what they can to try to correct you.

N.B. This is a multi-page post – click below to read more

First of all, can we have a big WOO HOO for Mama, who is finally caught up with her Torsten posts?

I thought we could. Woo hoo!

Of course, if I asked you to say, “Woo hoo, Mama!” right now, you would in fact say “Woo hoo, Mama!”, which is great, except that you are asleep and I want to keep it that way.

In any event, you are one busy kid these days.

You are obsessed with Mama and Papa’s computers, especially if they are on and you are not supposed to be touching them. Mama has taken to running TuxType for you so that you can at least productively destroy my keyboard (and also, she likes to hear you say, “Tux eat fish? `licious??” while she’s making breakfast), but you are something of a chaos machine these days, and you are just as likely to pitch my mouse (repeatedly) across the room to assess its aerodynamic properties as you are to use it to do something bad to whatever program I am running (and you have figured out that there is a correlation between what you do with the mouse and what happens on the screen, so we are in trouble).

Torsten takes over Mama's machine

Using this mouse as a telepathic amplification device, Torsten pwns Mama's machine...

This week started with the usual mundane household nonsense, but quickly progressed back to stress and havoc because 1) Mama found a job, and 2) Mama found childcare for you. It’s enough to make anyone a little dizzy.

Like father, like son...

Our last weeks have been mostly filled with paperwork and errands and starting the orientation phase with the Tagesmutter (“Day Mother”, which is a home daycare worker, though ours actually works for the neighborhood help office of the city C and I work in, so it’s a bit more regulated), but that’s been enough to throw a wrench into our routine.

Still, you’ve handled it all beautifully, even the few hours a morning you’ve had to spend away from Mama the last two weeks. You’re a good kid.

How can anyone resist that smile?

You’re also learning things at the speed of light. One day you’re interested in screwdrivers (and in fact, if you see them and aren’t allowed to play with them, you’ll cry, “screwdrivers!” mournfully, as if you’re long-lost buddies with the toolbox and a cruel world is keeping you apart), and the next you’ve figured out how to unlock the cabinet doors by yourself. Your speech has absolutely exploded, and you’re asking for things in full sentences and trying to explain complex ideas to us. You amaze me every single day.

Papa and Torsten set up the new bicycle seat for use on Mama's bike too

Torsten checks Papa's handiwork

Torsten issues directions

Torsten shows Papa how it's done

Working together

He looks about six here... *sigh*

Big helper

Finishing touches

You’ve also started to pretend a lot, which is fun to see. You really like to play with Mama and Papa, and you have definite ideas about how it’s going to proceed.

In control of the Torstentown railroad

In the middle of it all

Plotting...

Sadly, the local residents did not have enough infrastructure dollars to prepare for Hurricane Torsten and paid the ultimate price

You’re full of silliness and goodness, which is good, because those two-year-old tantrums you’re working up to can be heinous. The smiles keep balance in the universe

Mama's Funny Bunny

Still, we do spend a lot of the day doing the same old things.

Here is your old friend, the washer, for example.You know that this screen, at the moment, says, “Four-Oh!” (which is also our house number, which is how you know it), that the thing in the upper right is a “key! lock?”, and that the thing next to the key is, “Lunch! `Tatoes?”, which makes me laugh every time you say it.

The thing to the left of the key is apparently "Lunch... `Tatoes!"

You know lots of other things, of course. You’re starting to learn colors, and so one of the ways I keep you from inviting yourself into the neighbor ladies’ houses (you’ve done this before) is to tell you we live in the apartment building with the blue door and the 40. We have a grand old time walking through our apartment complex with you telling me what color doors you see, and when it’s a blue one, you try to tell me what house number it is (which you do get right sometimes!!!), and I try very hard to convince you that you don’t live at the neighbor’s houses and that you shouldn’t push the buttons.

Or at least I did, because in the last week or so, if I ask you a question like, “Is that house with the brown door Torsten’s house?”, you’ll look at me as if I’m that poor, simple-minded Mama you just can’t take out in public, shake you’re head sagely, and say, “Nooooo…” (“Silly Mama” implied purely by tone). There’s complicated stuff brewing in that brain of yours, kiddo…

Mr. Know-It-All

Now, one of your favorite things is watching the washing machine (or “round-and-round”, as you call it, even though you are perfectly capable of saying and have often said “washing machine”), and so we spend a few minutes each day doing that. Well, we did, until you figured out how to disengage the safety mechanism, so now you watch it from the comfort of my lap.

Favorite activities: Watching the "Round-and-Round" and sabotaging the safety system on the washing machine

We load the dishwasher together, and read books together, and watch the train pass together if we’re near the tracks, and really, it had started to feel as if we had a routine of sorts going.

But now… now we’ll have to find a new routine. You really seem okay with it, and after seeing you with the other kids at the Tagesmutter, I think you actually really need it. This time, I think Mama’s going to be the one who has a little bit of a rough time letting go.

Kisses for Muumi are always welcome...

Fortunately, I know that at the end of the day, I’ll have my Boo Boo Bear back to give me hugs and kisses.

Torsten loves Moomintroll more than he loves the rest of us combined

Even if that Boo Boo Bear is very creative about now having to go to bed these days… you’ve started to learn the words to the James Taylor songs I’ve sung you ever since you were a baby, and are starting to ask for them specifically, you’ll spend 20 minutes saying, out of the blue, “Funny bunny!” and then laughing so contagiously that I have to cover my face so that you don’t know I’m laughing too, and you want endless back and tummy rubbing.

This has been worse the last week, of course, when you and Papa and I all had the swine flu and Mama was terrified something was going to happen to you; I figured you deserved all the back and tummy rubs you could get while you were sick, but you know what? You deserve them when you’re not, too, and most of the time you get them, even though I know you’re stalling. You’ll be two in a month, and my baby is turning into a big boy. Maybe Mama still needs the tummy rubs too

I love you very much, my little guy. I’m sorry if this isn’t the best letter ever, but I had a lot of catching up to do.

Love,

Mama