Dearest Torsten,

Mama has really sucked the last few months and didn’t finish her seven- or eight-month updates. Part of this is because we were in Europe with minimal internet access, but most of it is because I’ve been just so busy with a certain Mr. T to get them finished. I’m not going to try to take too many bits and pieces from what I did write, because it seems a bit silly now, but what I can say is you have blossomed since my last letter to you.

Surprise!

Seriously – wow, have things changed. Two months ago, you were only sort of able to roll around and rotate on the ground to get to things, and it was mostly random. Even at eight months, when we were just leaving for Europe, you seemed to be only minutes from crawling, but still hadn’t managed to get any forward momentum.

But then… then Mama took off to London for five days. And when I came back, you came crawling across your grandparents’ floor, squealing with delight that it was Mama and that you could get to her all by yourself.

And then, oh boy, was it ever on.

(If there’s no more text showing after this, click on “Read more” below (if it appears) or the link to the original post to continue reading this entry…)

Now you zip across the room, pull yourself up on whatever is convenient, and walk around cruising the furniture, often forgetting to hold on and giggling the whole way. You pull things down to see how they work (you are obsessed with wheels and all things mechanical), you shake things if they won’t move and are in your way, and you use anything you can find to pull yourself up on if you are inclined to stand (such as Mama’s hair and her nose). You walk with help and get better every day with it, and are often to be found walking around your crib staring at the sleepy adults in the early morning, smiling your huge beautiful smile when you see we’re awake and reaching up to be picked up for a hug. You squeal with delight at that first morning snuggle, and while I hate getting up, I absolutely love your joy.

You’re no longer our little baby – in fact, you look a whole lot like a two-year old in size, and people go nuts when they realize you’re not even a year. It’s all genetics, so we’re not worried, but you are a big guy.

A big cute guy, I might add.

Cutie pie

Still, you’re in the 95th+ percentile for everything but weight (you’re still, regardless of what your fat-obsessed grandmother in her expert medical opinion has decided, right at the 50th percentile of the CDC height vs. weight curve, and you are perrrfectly healthy!), but completely proportional, so people just don’t believe you’re only nine months old. It makes buying clothes hard, and it’s sad because you physically outgrow age-appropriate toys too quickly (the beloved jumperoo had to go when we returned from Europe), but otherwise, except for Mama’s back, your height isn’t an issue at all. Look at it this way – you can ride roller coasters with Mama way before the other kids

You also have a knack for charming the ladies that I fear will come back and bite us. Not only do grandmothers everywhere gravitate toward you (regardless of where they come from or who they are, I might add – you got a run-by kissing from some weird old woman in the Dortmund train station that seriously freaked Mama out), but all the little girls (and quite a few of the little boys) think you’re awesome just because of your pretty big eyes and really want you to play, even though you don’t know how to chase and run and play with them yet.

Whee, Papa!

Truth be told, I know I’m biased, but you are a beautiful little guy, and that makes me a little creeped by some of the people who decide they simply must be near you (especially on the bus – weird old men who are fascinated by you are not cordially invited to sit next to me). I understand the compulsion though – you’re not only cute, but you have a bright, sunny, hilarious personality, and you laugh with your whole heart, even when it’s just because a couple of ladies near you are having a conversation. It’s amazing to see people who mean to be dour and removed walk past you and break into smiles in spite of themselves. It’s really cool, actually, and it makes me miss you so much when you’re not around, even when I’m desperate for a break.

Let’s see… what else… You’re still teething, although those bottom teeth are finally on their way in. Papa and I were in no hurry to see you have teeth – we both got ours quite late – but you’ve been in pain for months, and those guys have been slow to come in. Soon you’ll have Teeth of Chomping™ (+2,+2), and I suspect we’ll all be happier for it, even if miserable for you counts as a good day for many other babies’ countenances.

Teething cookies rock!

You took your first big trip ever in July and August as well, flying from Denver to Munich to Helsinki, and then taking the train all over northern Europe before flying back to the U.S. You did amazingly well (and on the way back, much better than Mama and Papa did), and all I can say is that you appear to be a Travel Baby. You charmed all of the Lufthansa staff (and by the way, to anyone who has to fly overseas with a baby, fly Lufthansa and ask for a bassinet/seats in the infant row – the staff were amazing to us and the bassinet was a lifesaver, unlike the situation and staff at United…), slept almost the whole way overseas, flirted with other babies on the plane, and generally enjoyed yourself everywhere. You did look a little overwhelmed sometimes, but for the most part, you were great – and I think you had a great time. I certainly had a great time with you, and the German relatives appear to all be in love with you, which is great – the more love you get, the better How could anyone not love you?

Torsten sleeping with a seal at Tante Ulli's

So much has gone on that it’s hard to remember it all. You love to talk and sing, especially when the stroller is going over bumpy ground. You sing “la la la la la la” when you’re happy, shake your head and say “nonononono or neinneinneinneinnein” (or variations thereof) when you don’t want something or are being silly, and have said “Yes” at least once when I told you you couldn’t have something you wanted. “Mamamamama” has been a constant staple for a while now, and increasingly actually means me (or occasionally something else you want), and “bababababa” sometimes means Papa, sometimes means bottle, and sometimes means nothing at all. Given that you’re growing up bilingual, I’m sure there’s a lot I won’t notice as easily, but that’s fine, the German half is Papa’s job Not that we’re expecting words yet anyway, but it’s still cool

The best talking story of course is when one of Oma’s friends asked if she could steal you and take you home and you shook your head and said a very clear, “Nein!”. I doubt you understood what she said, but I think you did realize she was going to pick you up. She’s a nice lady and all, but she can’t have you

You are truly a sweet bundle of personality now, and you have a very funny sense of humor. You know how to make us laugh, and you delight in doing it. You also know how to let us know when something doesn’t suit you, even if you sometimes let us know that by crying at something that doesn’t directly impact you (like, for example, the ceiling fan not moving – you only do this when you’re very tired, but it’s still funny).

Torsten does his Bam-Bam impression (sorry, Patrick)

Looking back at your pictures, a lot has happened in the last three months.

We celebrated your first Father’s Day:

Making the Papa's Day Cake

Happy Papa's Day!

And Papa had a whole week away from us, which exhausted us both:

Torsten, passed out in the jumperoo

You went from pushing up and rolling just a little on the floor at six months…

Torsten, almost crawling - but not quite

To scooting all over the floor at around eight months…

Scootin' Torsten

To sitting up all on your own and crawling at nine months.

Torsten sitting, nine months

You occasionally try to feed yourself while Mama’s back is turned,

Torsten shows Mama how one really does eating right

and you want to eat whatever we eat.

Torsten attacks a plum (with no teeth)

Mmmmm popsicles...

You love, love, love to read books (especially Rainbow Rob, which makes you squeal with glee), and you can now turn the pages for Mama with a little help.

Torsten and Mama read Rainbow Rob in Munich airport

You and Mama have stormed your first castle…

Torsten and Mama at Turku Castle

Torsten, storming Turku castle

Torsten, storming Turku castle

Taken your first long-distance train rides…

Torsten and Papa on the train to Turku

Sailed on a big boat in the ocean…

Torsten and Papa on the ferry to Sweden

Torsten and Mama on the ferry to Sweden

Torsten and Mama on the ferry to Sweden

Torsten and Christian on the ferry

Gone swimming (sort of) in a Swedish lake…

Torsten takes a swim at Claudi's

Visited Mama’s faaaaavorite park in her faaaaaavorite city in the world…

Torsten in the Vondelpark

Travelled the world…

Torsten and Papa on the plane to Munich

Torsten at the bus stop in Turku

Torsten attacking Moonintroll, Naantali

Torsten, crashed out at Frankfurt airport reading Papa's iX article

And basically become a huge, wonderful little boy who almost isn’t a baby anymore.

Give me a hug, Mama!

My old au-pair friend Anna, whose middle child just turned eight, told me not to blink.

I can totally see where she’s coming from.

Torsten and Mama in the late-night sun shadow in Finland

I love you!

- Mama

And now that Mr. T is almost nine months old (?!!??!!) and we’re back from Europe, I am about to dip my toes back in to being a professional X, Y and Z again.

I am not, in any sense, prepared to give up being Mommy at home with Torsten, but since many of the things I do can be done either from home or part-time (and all of them privately, if I so choose), I will soon be firing up the old brain and integrating some work (some combination of programming, writing and teaching – you didn’t think I got that CELTA for nothing, did you? ) into my weekly schedule.

We’ve always planned that I’d start working on getting this together once we got back from abroad, but now that we’re really back and Christian has Torsten for the day, I’m finally sitting down over a cup of coffee to work out the details, and I must say it feels pretty good. At the moment it’s low-pressure while I work things out, but it’s still nice to be on the path.

More on this as things come together…

I’m writing mostly on the fly here on my trusty Asus Eee PC, a little laptop with a small half-screen running Linux (in this case, eeeXubuntu), and screen-size combined with lack of time to proofread and reword things leads to some pretty heinous violations of the English language.

I say this just so that you trusty readers understand that I know some of what I’ve been writing is pretty sloppy – I just don’t have a whole lot of time to fix it at the moment, and with a snuggly Torsten, it’s likely that I never will.

My little perfectionistic self will just have to learn to live with it

I am drinking a beer. At 10:42 am. The beer is also about an hour late. Maybe two or three.

I do not drink beer in the morning. Seriously. Ever.

However…

After a totally uneventful trip from Stockholm to Copenhagen last night, I was pretty well convinced we’d have a smooth start to the morning.

HAH HAH BLOODY HAH.

So.

We stayed last night at the Danhostel Copenhagen Downtown, a newish hostel (in that it is new in its incarnation as a hostel) in an oldish building (in that the faded and scratched up signs in the elevator betray it as a former university building used to house the faculty of archeology) in a rather scenic part of town very close to Tivoli (home of Reptilicus!!!) and the main train station (home, as I understand it, to pickpockets and drug dealers behind the station).

Not all of these parenthetical facts are important, but some of them are.

The hostel advertised itself as some sort of weird art-and-culture hostel,
hosting artists-in-residence and having its own cafe and bar where people from all different backgrounds could meet or whatever. I didn’t really care except that I thought it might be noisy, because what we really needed was a cheap(ish – this is Scandinavia) place to stay where we could catch our 7:42 am train to Hamburg. The “art” aspect, outside of some strange figures painted on the walls of the stairs, seemed mostly absent. We think we found it this morning, but cannot be sure (more on that later).

The hostel’s elevator was old and scary, the rooms were mostly clean, and the bathrooms were very, very poorly designed. Check-in was at the bar next door, though this was not clearly labelled, and our window looked out over a scenic courtyard filled with dumpsters and bicycles (situational “art”? we still couldn’t tell…), and it was a good six steps up to get into the scary elevator box of doom, a typical old elevator with a push door to the outside, and inner door that closes behind it. (Note: I don’t mind these elevators at all, but I do mind them when they have a sort of Alfred Hitchcock quality to them…)

To be honest, our night there was uneventful. We were able to find some baby formula which seemed a lot more pleasant for Torsten, we went for a short walk in the neighborhood in the (yay!) rain, and we got to sleep at a reasonable hour after some ice cream. (As an aside, it’s sort of fortunate that we never bothered to get Danish kroner, because it kept me from sitting downstairs drinking beer and writing instead of getting some sleep, etc.)

The morning wasn’t all that eventful, either – we got up at the buttcrack of dawn to shower, pack up, and get Torsten ready, and had intended to be out by around 6:15 am until we discovered that our train for Hamburg left the train station at 7:42 instead of 7:16 as I may or may not have told Christian (I vote for “not” ), so we probably got out of the room closer to 6:50, which was way more time than we needed to walk to the station, even with all our stuff.

You totally know where this is going, but you totally still won’t believe it.

Christian went into management mode when we were carrying bedding/baby/baggage out, which is generally fine with me, since I usually push Torsten and carry some of the lighter baggage, and he pulls the heavy diaper bag and the RED SUITCASE OF DOOM™ along with his laptop and backpack. He sent Torsten and I down with a few light bags to await his trips down the elevator and watch over our stuff.

<BEGIN PERFORMANCE ART PIECE>

Torsten and I arrived downstairs without incident, rolling out of Ye Verye Verye Olde Elevatore Thingie and down the stairs to await husband and stuff.

Time: 7:06 – Progress: Excellent.

Noise, from above, echoing down the stairs…

Krista???

Shout, up the stairs

Yup?

From above…

I’m stuck…

From below…

Um… what do you mean, stuck?

No answer… no answer…

…

I went next door to the bar, having figured out the elevator was stuck, and not, you know, Christian in a doorway or something. I’ve been stuck in elevators before – usually there’s just a key and the thing gets unlocked and someone lets you out (and you step up or down, depending on where it’s stuck), so I figured… well, crap, we’ll have to run a little, but we’ll make it still without too much stress.

(Note to former UNO students: when I speak lightly of being stuck in elevators, I am NOT SPEAKING OF BIENVILLE HALL. Thank you for your patience.)

Anyhow, I thought… eh, we’ll be on our way soon.

HAH. BLOODY. HAH.

Apparently, Danish law requires that a trained specialist come unlock the
elevator. So the staff call the guy, have no idea when he’ll get there, and the waiting begins.

Time: 7:15 – Progress: Suckfest.

Elevator guy has been contacted, but no answer on when he’ll get there. Staff member comes to offer me coffee in building with elevator and asks where we are going so she can look up train times for subsequent trains. I let her know we are travelling on a specific ticket for a specific train, and can’t just hop the next one. She looks worried and offers me coffee again next door if I want it.

Meanwhile, Christian is trapped in the elevator enjoying the high pitched whining of a motor spinning and going berzerk, which may or may not be better than being stuck listening to Barry Manilow in an elevator.

Time: 7:20 – Progress: AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaargh.

Christian asks me (from above, echoing down the stairwell) to take his laptop next door and look up the next train. Initially I refuse, but I’m nervous standing there with the baby, so I go over to do it and then realize I need the root password for his machine, so I can’t do it anyway. And I’m not going back to ask, because the “entrance” to the “cafe” is really just a slab of rock they sort of half-assed stuck in front of the doorway to make a step, and pulling a stroller up it isn’t very easy.

Staff member calls again to tell dude to hurry and informs me he’ll be there in five minutes. She then offers to call us a cab to be paid for on their tab so that we can make our train. I let her know we have no car seat with us, so this might be a problem. She says she’ll call to find out.

Meanwhile, I begin to internally freak out that something will happen to
husband next door stuck in Ancient Elevator of Deathly Delights™. I also worry both about that and the fact that we’ll have no kroner to pay the driver if he doesn’t take credit cards.

There is a lot of worry to go around.

And during all of this, Christian is trapped in the elevator enjoying the high pitched whining of a motor spinning and going berzerk, which is probably not better than being stuck listening to Barry Manilow in an elevator.

Time: 7:25 – Progress:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAArgh.

Torsten is being awesome, in spite of Mama’s fear about the Pleistocene Elevator which has swallowed Papa whole. I become resigned to the fact that we’re probably going to have to buy new train tickets, since we now officially have 17 minutes to be on board our train, and as far as I know, neither the technician nor the cab are there.

The frown comes out in spades, and I play with the baby, because I love him and don’t want him scared too.

Apparently, baby without car seat in cab is fine, which should scare me, but I know it’s a five minute drive. I will feel guilty about this later even though everyone is fine.

Christian, however, is not so fine, being trapped in the elevator enjoying the high pitched whining of a motor spinning and going berzerk, which is starting to sound a lot like being stuck listening to Barry Manilow in an elevator, if Barry Manilow’s naughty bits were caught in a vice.

Time: 7:30 – Progress: Freedom! Also
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Husband appears downstairs in front of the door with bags just as cab arrives.

Great relief. Also huge stress and major doubt that we can catch the train.

Time: 7:35 – Progress: Und los geht’s!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA… ah, you get the idea…

Bags are piled into cab, and husband insists stroller will not fit in trunk even though driver insists. Finally driver tells us he’ll get fined if we have it in the car, we put it in the trunk, and we are on our way with driver driving carefully, baby on my lap held tightly in back, and Christian in front seat. Driver says it only takes five minutes to get to train station (he says this at 7:33), so we’ll be fine.

Yeah, um, fine, except Copenhagen is a big train station, we don’t know what track the train is on, and we have a Torsten, so I can’t really use stairs and escalators.

Time: 7:41 – Progress: OHHHHHHH
SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTT!!!!!!!!!

Inside the train station with all bags and the baby. First, we find our track on the TV monitor. Then we are RUNNING, and of course go the wrong way to our track. Correcting course, Christian screams “OUT OF THE WAY!’ as he barrels down the escalator to our track with the RED SUITCASE OF DOOM™. Woman moves out of the way and waits for crazy woman running behind him with baby carriage. I decide to say screw it and take Torsten down on the escalator.

Christian wedges RED SUITCASE OF DOOM™ into train car doorway so train cannot leave without wife and child (though Danish train personnel will later be discovered to be child-friendly), and at 7:42, Torsten and I are on the train.

*****************

Now, as to this ferry ride, about 3 hours in, where I am drinking beer – it has now been discovered that the train is broken and we are accruing delay because this ICE is now only running on one engine (and passengers have been freaking out thinking the train is on fire, which it is not), but nevertheless, we have made our train.

Unfortunately, this new technical difficuty means we will miss the 15-minute-window we had to meet up with Christian’s other cousin in Hamburg, but we are on our damned train.

***********************

Later…

Fast forward to our next train in Hamburg. Said broken train, which has stopped many times, is ending its journey in Hamburg because it is so messed up. It was supposed to arrive at 12:16. It eventually gets into the station at 13:40.

Our connecting ICE to Wuppertal leaves at 13:46.

Run, run, run.

Because, you know, we arrive on track 6 or something, and we’re leaving on track 14.

Why?

Because that’s life.

Run, run, run.

Pant, pant, pant.

Pant, pant, pant.

We made this train too, and got to endure some woman giving us nasty looks every time we talked to/played with Torsten for the whole trip. I really wanted to stare her down, but, eh… she was scary.

Fortunately, the last leg of our trip was uneventful, and we got in to Wuppertal without incident, but holy crap.

<END PERFORMANCE ART PIECE>

Torsten was fine during the whole thing, mind you. Not to say the few completely-unfriendly-to-children Germans on our trains were fine, but Torsten didn’t care, and the Danish train dude came and yelled at people who were trying to tell us it was a quiet area when it was not (many of whom were complete dicks and are the reason Germany is known as the least child-friendly country in Europe.). Thank you, train people of Denmark.)

Anyhow, we’re in Wuppertal, everyone is safe, I am tired and packing and doing laundry for my trip tomorrow, and Christian is not allowed to go near anything mechanical again ever. (Btw, the thing that was broken? Just a belt that allowed the inner door to open and close. Stupid belt.)

As an aside, I can totally recommend the staff of the hostel we stayed in – they worked really hard to get us to the airport – but seriously?

Stay away from the damned hostel itself.

Whee.

The only excitement at all so far is that apparently the Swedish baby formula we just bought for Torsten isn’t quite what we thought it was (though it does the trick for the most part), and little Mr. T has gas. We’ll remedy this soon.

Oh, and Torsten’s picked up more women. Seriously. Women of all ages seem unable to resist The Small Monster of Doom&tm;.

That’s pretty much it. You may now go back to your regular reading….

It’s a cruise ship, and a lot of people take the night trip to get plastered without paying the heavy Scandinavian taxes on alcohol. This leads to a weird juxtaposition of extremely clean cabins (that are being checked into during the day), and the smell of vomit and human waste from the cabins that are still being cleaned. It’s very odd.

Our room (we figured with a baby, a day cabin – very very cheap – was an excellent idea for naps and a home base, and this has turned out to be right. Also, for the truly masochistic, it is a place to watch that stupid Scooby-Doo movie overdubbed in German on the TV station) is not big enough to swing a cat in, but it serves its purpose, and it is clean. That the vacuum WC in the room makes the entire room smell insanely foul every time the door is opened lessens its goodness, but aside from that just-washed Bourbon Street in the morning smell (I’m not speaking theoretically here – Bridget and my buddy Margo, who worked with me on Bourbon street (in a shop, people – the strip bar was across the street (and next door, and down the street, and, well, anyhow…)) could certainly vouch for that strange smelly combination of rotting meat, urine and feces that continously freshly debauched places like Bourbon Street have the next morning.), it’s ok.

The view between Turku and Stockholm is really lovely – it’s archipelago all the way, as far as I can tell (two hour nap with Torsten in the middle excepted), and the forest-covered rocky islands jutting out from the water are impressive.

Torsten seems as impressed as he does with anything new, and I am getting some time to myself throughout the day as a break from the week courtesy of SuperChristian (who is I think immensely enjoying his time with his son, but I do recognize that it is also work to care for him). Torsten has apparently acquired more girlfriends in the children’s play area, which is, quite frankly, no surprise, but still funny.

And Christian is wonderful about getting both Torsten and I out to look at the sea – I have realized on this trip that somehow, in the course of years of reluctant solo travelling, I have become a solo traveller. By this, I mean that when I am alone somewhere new, I try to experience as much as possible, lots of things becoming challenges to overcome my shyness (you don’t believe I’m shy, I know, everyone says that, and that’s fine – I’m pleased to have you fooled), and I’ve become pretty competent at being a solo explorer.

In doing that, I guess I find myself out of my comfort zone exploring with others, although I must say Christian and I have made an excellent travelling team in the past, so it’s not about him at all.

Anyway, he’s good at getting me out of my comfort zone, which also means T gets to see and experience all he can. All good.

But anyhow, I’m a little less outgoing with the baby due to practicalities, and C challenges me to go out and do things with them both, and it’s all very good.

So we’ve spent some time together out on the sea, and I’ve gotten some writing time to myself, and I’m now sitting in a ship bar where an old Swedish dude is doing a passable version of Simon and Garfunkel tunes but slurring the words he doesn’t know, which is what me singing Marco Borsato must sound like, except my singing is less passable

I won’t tell him I speak native English when I drop him a tip, though. I’m not evil.

Besides, I’ve had two beers, and given that 1) I haven’t really been drinking much since before I got pregnant with Torsten, and 2) European beers have a much higher alcohol content, I am waaaaaay too relaxed for evil mischief.

I think.

(Besides, this guy has had to deal with drunk Swedes carrying their girlfriends through the bar over their shoulders and a guy running through with a shopping cart full of tax-free beer, popping wheelies with it in front of him and singing…)

Ok, so my tipsy butt needs to go through the vomit-scented hallways (ah, so graphic, I know) to meet the husband and the superbaby back at our room – I’m nice and relaxed, so I suspect they’ll be happy to see me.

Gah… these completely plastered Swedes are hilarious. I enjoy my drunken Danish friends, but these drunken Swedes? They scare me…

(ROFL… the dude is now singing Clapton’s “Cocaine”, so it’s clearly time for me to go… the Swedes are getting restless…)

This post is brought to you courtesy of high-alcohol Scandinavian beer.

We’ve waited a week for this – we live in Denver, where there are generally more than 300 days of sunshine a year, and we miss the rain. We’ve been so stoked for “crappy” northern European rainy weather that Finland had been something of a disappointment so far – the newspaper we read on the plane was complaining about Helsinki’s lousy cool and rainy weather this year, and coming from our brick oven of a house in a dry climate during a basically rainless summer, it sounded heavenly.

But nooooo… none of that for us. We got sun, sun, and more sun. The first full day we were here, I got a worse sunburn than I’ve ever gotten in Denver, and there’s a mile more atmosphere here to protect me. I was totally cherry red. I had to go buy some serious sunscreen for freakin’ Finland.

And now… on our last day in Finland… there’s this delicious full-throttle downpour. I can see it from my window. I can smell it through the screen. It is calling my name, taunting me.

And why am I watching from my window, you might ask? Why am I not outside, revelling in the glory of this mini-storm?

I’ll give you a hint: it has two syllables, starts with a T, is napping, just got back from a long day at Moominworld, and rhymes with Roarsten. (RARRRR)

Little guy is napping. And neither rain nor hail nor sleet nor snow will interrupt a Torsten nap.

I’ll bet my husband is outside right now dancing in it, if his conference is over. And preparing to gloat.

I should probably be napping myself. Today, I packed Mr. T and I up and headed out to Moominworld in Naantali for a fun-filled adventure in a foreign theme park for little kids involving characters I’d never heard of before. It looked interesting, it was only 16km away, and it had good reviews, so I figured… eh, what the Hell.

We caught the city bus out there instead of the special “Moominbus” which stops at all the local hotels – the Moomins are a huge deal to the Finns, so I can only guess that the hotels are packed with Finnish (or Swedish – more on that later) kids from other places dying to see their favorite cartoon world brought to reality. We could have taken a boat as well, but that was two hours and required reservations, so seriously, a 16km ride?

City. Bus. Thank you very much.

Now, first of all, we get on this bus at the baby carriage door, and the driver (who sort of looked like an evil thug) keeps staring at me. I think… hrm, maybe I’m supposed to pay since this goes to another town. So I wait and wait and wait to pay, and then something happens with some Japanese tourists and he starts driving, and I figure eh… whatever, and take Torsten back to sit down. I figured he’d yell at me if I were supposed to pay.

Well, about halfway through the trip, the other baby carriage that was on the bus gets off, and he starts babbling at what might have been me, but I couldn’t understand him and my back was to him getting Torsten resettled, so I didn’t know. Bad American tourist, I know, and I would have worried much more about it pre-baby, but seriously, I can only worry so much. He hadn’t as much as gestured to me yet.

So finally we get off in Naantali, and it’s then that he starts babbling at either me or the Japanese tourists, I have no idea which (and neither do they, none of us speaking Finnish), so I think, ok, if he’s trying to get me to pay, that’s fine, I’ll let him know I can’t understand and we can try to sort things out. I have absolutely no problem with paying if it’s required, I just didn’t know if this bus was different from other local buses in Turku, since it seems to run just like every other Turku bus. N.B. I had tried to sort this out earlier in the day, but couldn’t for the life of me find the bus office – it’s well-hidden – and so I figured T and I would sort it out on the bus. Bah.

So I tell him I can’t understand, and rather than have to try to explain to the tourist – gestures would have been easy enough – he just waved me away.

I felt bad, but… he wasn’t willing to try. I don’t in any sense ever expect that people in a foreign country speak my language or any other language I speak – that’s an arrogance I don’t buy into at all. But normally, one can get by with gestures, pictures, a few “international” words, and a cheesy grin. I feel bad when I don’t speak the local language, but I didn’t even have time to learn a few phrases in Finnish before we left, and there’s no chance of me understanding it, for the most part, with no longer exposure.

When I came back, of course, I caught the driver (a different one – friendly and not thug-like) on his lunch break and asked him how much for me and the baby – he clearly understood the question, but couldn’t answer, and so through some gestures, we confirmed that it was €4,80, I paid, and we were on our way. No Finnish, no English, no Swedish, no problem.

Anyway. Back to Moominworld (Muuminmaailma, which on my first day here I thought had something to do with a mailman (which seemed very, very strange to me, given that English and Finnish have absolutely nothing in common) until I realized what Muumi referred to). Moominworld is to Finns what I imagine a Smurf theme park, complete with Smurf theater productions, a forest filled with Gargamel and Azrael and the Smurf Village and Smurfs wandering around, Smurf stories etc., would be to the Belgians (As an aside, Peyo was Belgian, and my first overseas flight with the now bankrupt Sabena – the former Belgian national airline – was on a plane with a Smurf on it, as I recall). The thing is, though, if I’d gone to a Smurf theme park, I’d totally be into it, because Americans my age (and people from lots of other countries) totally know their Smurfs.

(Though, as an aside, I was puzzled to discover while au pairing in Holland that there’s an episode where Smurfs – if I remember this correctly – bite each other on the ass and pass on this disease that makes them turn purple and make some funny noise. I somehow don’t think that one was shown in Victorian America, presuming what I just said is not entirely apocryphal…)

Anyway, so this was not a Smurf theme park. Because I totally know that the Smurfs were created by Gargamel for some nefarious purpose – making gold or something, I think – and that they are led by Papa Smurf on adventures and that Smurfette is a dumb blonde. (No offense to blondes – I know a lot of smart blondes, and some idiotic brunettes and redheads, so it’s nothing personal. Smurfette is a dumb blonde.) I know they live in little mushroom huts, and that there’s a particular piano piece that they play every time there’s a danger scene/chase by a composer I never remember.

I do not, however, know where the Hell Moomins came from. Well, ok, there was this person named Tove Jannsen or something, who created these allegedly much-beloved guys, but I don’t know their background story. They sort of look like snow-white hippos bred with horses, and there is a Moominpappa, a Moominmamma, and Moomintroll, and some other assorted characters (Joxter or something is one of them, a whimsical guy in a hat who appears to live in a tent in the forest). Someday I will find out what the deal is – someday when I have internet access – but that day is not today.

So imagine, if you will, that you’d never heard of the Smurfs, and you were dropped in Smurf World (which probably does exist, and if it does, tell me, because I’ll swing by while I’m in Belgium, maybe, if I get sick of Belgian beer). You don’t know the story, and none of the plays are in your language (though there is some stuff in English to be read), and your child is really too small to enjoy the general storybook quality of the place, so it’s like… huh. I’ll bet this is really cool if you’re Belgian or have a three-year-old, but I am not and I don’t, so, eh, huh. Or, in the case of the Moomins, Finnish or Swedish. Or a Finn who speaks Swedish. You get my drift.

It could have been a letdown, and it sort of was, but… actually, it was a worthwhile trip. Naantali is on the sea, and Moominworld is on an island that you walk across a bridge to which is covered in forest. Torsten really enjoyed seeing the sea and boats, and Little Guy loves trees. He really liked the music and plays, even though they were in Finnish (and the one I intended to see in Swedish was not, I realized, when the guy used the word “Vesi” for water instead of “Vatten”, which scares the crap out of me, because I don’t speak Swedish either), and he loved seeing the little kids, and for some reason, he really really liked the Moomins. He giggled and squealed at them, and he kissed and bit and tugged on his new plush Moomin (it’s a theme park – you know what its purpose is before you go there) all the way home on the bus. He is sleeping with it now.

He loves his Moomin.

His Moomin is better than Mama.

He wakes up, I hand him the Moomin, and he goes back to sleep.

It’s cute, but frightening. The Finns have apparently invented a cross-linguistic baby-control device that looks like an albino hippo horse. (Btw, I have no idea which Moomin it is – I got one with no distinguishing accessories that he could eat/choke on.) I’m pretty sure there’s some nefarious purpose involved, like keeping the Swedes and the Russians from ever dreaming about trying to invade again, or possibly stopping Monty Python from singing about them, but in any event, Torsten likes `em.

Anyway, what’s neat is that the woods on the island are exactly the sort of woods you imagine Hansel and Gretel being lost in, or the Smurfs living in, or whatever, and they aren’t planned like most scenery at U.S. theme parks. It’s the woods that were on the island to begin with, I’m sure, and they’re full of moss-covered rocks and the usual stuff. Great fairy tale setting, and you can totally see where trolls and other fairy tale characters came from. They seem to fit. In the park, there are two story trails (and some other stuff for bigger kids that I didn’t bother with because I had a baby in a stroller who could not be put in the Björn for obvious reasons) which have witches in huts and mazes and waterfalls and lighthouses over the actual sea and all sorts of things which are part of a story, and all of it is done along a wooden-planked walkway through the woods which is also fit for strollers if you’re fit enough to push up and down hills.

For Torsten and I, for the most part, it was a really nice nature walk with occasional views of the sea and a few things to look at that he could appreciate. There was even a swimming beach, though I didn’t take T into the water because I think Christian and I want to take Torsten into the sea together, and I didn’t want to do it alone today (Torsten was a bit cranky, so it could have been tough with all our crap, etc.). We did sit and watch the sea, though, and he was totally into it – no surprise there – and we got a nice walk through the woods out of it.

But really, for Torsten, it was about seeing the Moomins walking around and most especially the shows. He thought the shows were great. Apparently he understood something I didn’t, because I was like uh? Oh, something about a water mill, and a weird grey character who was more than vaguely phallic-looking who had a name similar to a professor I once had, which kept throwing me off. Well, ok, I learned that Moominpappa came from an orphanage and went off on adventures and apparently made the lady who ran the orphanage mad, but I didn’t get the rest, or what it had to do with a water mill. Sorry, Finns. Torsten gets it, and that’s what counts, no?

Moominworld, if you’re in Turku, would be awesome if you had a three or four year old, and there’s apparently an adventure island for older kids, so I’m totally not knocking the Moomins, though that Mayor McPhallus character still creeps me out – but if you have a pre-verbal baby and you’re alone, unless the nature is worth it for you and your kid likes watching shows (the only TV our kid ever sees is Olbermann – well, that and Bernd das Brot sketches on YouTube – and the occasional Doctor Who episode when being fed to sleep – so dancing and singing characters are totally new to him), I’d skip it, really.

We enjoyed it, and given that we spent so many days in Turku, it was a good thing to do, but I still wish I’d seen the cathedral and the archeological museum. But it felt good to do something that was specifically for Torsten to enjoy, even if it’s bloody expensive if you don’t earn your money in euros…

So anyway, that was our last day in Turku, and in Finland as a whole. Sorry, Karen, but I find I take far fewer pictures of sights when I’m toting the little guy around, so when I finally get them posted, you may be disappointed. But Torsten and I have definitely enjoyed, as Rick Steves always recommends, living as temporary locals (to some extent), and I find I quite like Finland in general.

Tomorrow we board the all-day ferry from Turku to Stockholm, where we’ll stay with Christian’s cousins for a few days. I’ve never met them, but I hear they’re excited to meet Torsten, and I’m always happy when there’s more family for him to meet. He’s such a loveable baby

And now there’s nothing left of my storm but the drip drip drip of the trees in the forest outside the window. Moomintorsten is still asleep, and it will be time for his Papa to return soon, so I think that’s it for today. Tomorrow, we leave at something like 5:30 am to get on a series of buses down to the harbor, so it’s gonna be a looooong day…

Hah.

Lunch was ably accomplished, at least – the lunch buffet was pretty yummy, and Christian (who’d come along to spread the burden of laundry and childcare) and I ate pretty well. It’s somewhere between homestyle and cafeteria, and was a nice break from the usual meat/cheese/fruit from the grocery store.

Laundry did happen, but given that the washing machine instructions were only in Finnish (no Swedish to help this time!), some of my guesses about where washing powder went were a bit off, so one load got washed without soap (but in very hot water, as intended, so we’ll live). Fortunately, I did manage to figure out some of the labels, so I didn’t wash everything on the delicate setting or anything, but I did display my incompetence in getting the machine to start by not closing the doors adequately. Go me…

And WiFi? Well, the staff was very helpful, but it was hard to communicate with the lady behind the counter, and the network password she gave us didn’t work, even trying the usual range of geek tricks, so… no WiFi. Boo.

Grumpiness hit its peak too, which sucked – a lot of it was misunderstanding, some of it stress, and whatever, but everything appears to be ok now.

Finnish is driving me nuts, not because I can’t pull it apart, but because I’m starting to. This is the way my brain works – sometimes I like it, sometimes I’m resigned to it, but even before I did grad work in linguistics, my brain seems to work overtime to parse strange language. I all of a sudden am acquiring really weird (mostly written, sadly) vocabulary without intent or English equivalents, and found myself figuring out agreement rules (no comment as to their validity, btw) based upon the back of the shampoo bottle in the shower the other day. Christian thinks it’s funny, but it’s very odd to find yourself in a position to observe your own brain’s quirks. Enough about that – I don’t claim to suddenly be able to speak Finnish – but it’s always pleasing to know that I could probably pick it up with enough time and motivation.

Anyhow, I think the grumpiness problem is waning after some talking, and tomorrow Torsten and I will have a Torsten Day by going to a Finnish amusement park. Should be interesting…

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…)

Christian’s back off to Helsinki for the day to give a talk, and I decided that Torsten and I would see the city today, but take it easy in getting out the door. T’s morning nap was too short, and I decided that yesterday he’d not gotten enough physical activity, so we stayed in to give him a chance to roll around and pseudocrawl while I cleaned up and organized the room a bit, since it was largely chaotic (giving rise to grumping all around when having to find Torsten stuff in the middle of the night). He was having an extremely hard time of it for some reason, which I suspect is teething again, since some cool baby food, some Baby Orajel, and then the bottle sent him off to a hard, hard sleep.

We’ve suspected teething for some time now, but there are still no teeth. I read, though, that they can often feel those little guys coming in for quite some time before they actually come up, and there is some redness and swollenness involved here, so I think that’s what it is. He has drool-rash now as well (and other rash at the other end, which apparently can be the same thing, but it sucks, because now is a miserable time for him to have diaper rash…), so I guess we probably have some more fun ahead of us.

Our late start meant we didn’t see a whole lot today, but that really doesn’t matter. Except for a trip to Naantali and Moominworld for Torsten (which scares me, frankly), there’s nothing we really plan to do for sure here, and the place we’re staying is so pleasant outside that except for a couple of things in town I’d like to see, I’m not going to feel too bad if we don’t do much. Traveling with baby – and, this week, that’s basically traveling alone with baby – is a whole different story than traveling without one. T is fortunately curious and likes to watch the world go by (and trains arrive and depart, and people walking around, etc.), but I do feel bad on days where he’s mostly in the stroller. Little Guy’s body is on the verge of taking off around the block without him, so I do like to see him get the chance to move and squirm and wiggle. Fortunately, our setup here in the room which has effectively given him a makeshift crib with our two beds, the wall, and the suitcase at the sides has also given him something of a play area, so that helps, but still, sightseeing can be tough on the baby, methinks, especially a baby this big whose body needs space to stretch.

So we went into town to do some grocery shopping and for me to grab some free WiFi for a few minutes, and then came back here for a little nature walk around the hostel, ending with Torsten and I enjoying the fresh cool evening air and sunshine (this is Scandinavia in summer – even now, at 10:30 pm, I could easily read a book outside) while riding on one of the porch swings at the hostel, cuddling and not saying a thing, just enjoying the weather. It was glorious. Little guy kept leaning his head back on my shoulder to look up at the sky, closing his eyes and smiling, and then turning his head to give me a big open-mouthed kiss on the cheek, turning back to smile again. My Torsten is the best.

It’s a good thing I have these nice moments with T, because otherwise I still apparently haven’t gotten past the Grumptacular Mood of Doom ™, which seems to come and go the last few days. It’s probably mostly jet-lag and baby exhaustion, but I hate it when I’m grumpy. It always makes me think I’m turning into my mother, which better not happen, because I think I’ve had at least ten friends (plus one husband) over the years who I’ve made promise to shoot me if that happens… Part of it is the whole thing of raising a child without a village, to abuse Hillary Clinton’s metaphor. Except for two hours a week at church, one or both of us is taking care of Torsten, with no breaks from babysitters or parents or friends. (N.B. I’ve been loathe to mention this fact ever, lest it trigger one of my estranged family members to yet again attempt to contact me, in spite of very clear instructions to the contrary – so if you’re one of them, don’t. This is not an invitation into my life, and I am totally allowed to talk about my life without worrying about what people who are not in it think about it. In Jeebus’ name, Amen.) Practically speaking, what it means is that we’re both exhausted. Christian works full-time (and as anyone in academia can tell you, full-time may be spending a lot of time working at home in your underwear, but it’s much more than 40 hours a week either way) and pulls some baby duty in spite of it, and I’m taking care of Torsten full time, including the super-early-morning shift, so that often by the time Christian comes home, I’ve already been taking care of the baby for 12+ hours and I totally need a break. In the end, it usually means that we’ve both been working our asses off, there’s still more to be done, neither of us has the energy for it, and neither one of us can believe we’re this tired without someone not having pulled their weight. Which is not true, of course, but when you’re that tired, who cares about what makes sense?

Of course I wish we were near family that could be involved in his life, and in doing so might help out a little bit, but in one case, that’s simply not possible with distance, and in the other, that’s simply not possible, period. (It’s that old saying, “You can pick you friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your family”, or something like that, and sometimes you just have to accept that and go with it.) We do, of course, have friends in Denver, and some of them might even be willing and eager to take the baby for a few hours every so often so that we could have couple time, but I guess we just haven’t gotten to that point yet, and it’s wearing us a little thin. I guess since I’ll probably return to work part-time in the not-too-distant future, we’ll have to face it sooner rather than later.

Anyhow, this is supposed to be travel-related, right? Well, ok then – the thing is, here in Turku, Christian is at the conference most of the day (or, like today, in Helsinki), so I have the day alone with the baby, which I do enjoy, but then I’m tired in the evening, so I find myself being a complete ass when C mentions staying late to do social stuff, which is totally part of these things (but which I recall him saying he’d skip), because I’ve soooo had it. And that’s totally not Torsten’s fault – he’s a joyous and wonderful little boy! – but let me tell you that there’s a really good reason that there are so many mommy-bloggers out there; being the primary caregiver is a lot of work, and no one’s ever going to give you credit for it, so you totally need the community of other women for support.

And let me tell you, I never thought I’d hear myself utter the words “need the community of other women for support” without some negation in there. *shiver*

But it’s not C’s fault – the conference and his talks are part of his job, a job I for so many years wanted myself before I got so jaded with it, and he’s doing what he can. I’m sure when we move on to Sweden and both of us can work and play together with Torsten (which he adores beyond all things), we’ll be fine. Like I said, it’s no one’s fault, but there’s so much work for two people alone with no support system in general, and traveling in particular (and we have loads of respect for single mothers who do this on their own without losing their minds, believe me), that it’s easy to lose perspective because you’re freaking tired and emotionally drained.

And I say this loving being a Mama. Seriously. I love my little red-headed snugglemonster more than you can believe, and I know he’s a blessing. I’d have him all over again, so don’t get me wrong.

I don’t mean to make this sound like we’re not having fun – we totally are – it’s just that I’ve been grumpy and that’s basically why, and I hate it.

Anyhow, all that aside, I think pictures are a few days off – I need to get time to sort through them on a full-sized laptop screen. And I now know where to get free WiFi, but it’s just an issue of getting to it with the baby.