Counting down

I have been counting down since last Friday. This was our last sushi after dance class. This was our last lazy Saturday morning. This was Zoe's last day at pre-school, this was the last afternoon with the babysitter. This was our last colored lights on Empire State Building (the view from our bedroom window). And today is our last day together before I'll take Zoe to the airport and send her off back to Sweden for two months. I have been teary eyed the whole week and couldn't hold them back when she had to say goodbye to the teachers and her new friends, or when she gave me the heart from the candy necklace with a "this is for you mom, because I like you so much". I almost forgot to give my aunt (who is flying with her) her passports because I have been trying to suppress the eminent departure.

A little candy heart

Zoe is going back to Stockholm to spend the next two months with her dad. Of course she misses him and is looking forward to seeing him and she is excited to see her friends at daycare again too. It was part of the deal I was able to make and she comes back to New York in July where she can go back to the pre-school with her friends and I can take a few days off to spend with her. Although I thought I would be able to go back to Stockholm during these months, bureaucracies and finances have not made it possible. I'm bracing myself for not seeing her at all for two months. I'll skype with her at least once per week and she is flying down to Copenhagen by herself to visit my parents (and keep up with her Danish) at least once. I'm telling myself it is going to be okay.

Zoe dancing on the 'wedding cake'

But one thing is for sure though: these past two months have been the happiest months of my life, hands down. Living in New York, having my dream job, being with Zoe every day and just having this simple and fun everyday life. Getting a pickle on the way from the subway in the evening. Having a playdate with new friends and me getting a bit of adult time. Stumbling upon a book release panel with two of my favorite scholars (and having a babysitter ready for Zoe). Zoe proclaiming that she wants a latte when we walk past a nice coffee shop (and getting her way to the barista's surprise) and her getting on top of the "wedding cake" to do a little spin on the way home late at night. I'm a single mom here more than anywhere else but nothing has phased me, no school closing (I brought Zoe to work), no conferences, no small temper tantrums or no house work (Zoe helps me clean the house and we get groceries delivered) have been of any problems. In fact, where I used to be thrown off by Zoe and her 4-year old behavior sometimes ("I won't leave before I get an ice-cream") and lost my temper, screaming at her and pulling her out, I have not lost my temper here. Not once. Instead I hug her and talk to her and we make up and talk about how we don't want to be mad at each other.

But happy times will come back in July when she returns and we can walk around in the New York heat and get ice-cream every day and play at playgrounds. 

New York (full time working) mom

Today was my first real day as New York full-time working mom. Until now, my parents (who brought her over), have been here helping me out with Zoe and as much as it can be a bit tedious staying four people in a small New York apartment, it has in fact been blissfully easy. Mostly because it has enabled me to go out for the occasional drink late at night when Zoe is asleep, and transitioning into the daycare was taken care of while I could go to work full days. My mom has had several cozy days with her, just playing at home, eating cracker bunnies for breakfast, lunch and dinner, which they both thoroughly enjoyed.

But life must go on and after picking up Zoe at my friend's house (a friend who helped me out in a pinch between me having to stay at work, Zoe not allowed to be at daycare the full day yet and my parents having to catch a flight), my parents took off. It is just me and Zoe now, which is nice but also introduces the reality of being the real New York Full-Time Working Mom.

So between 10:20 and 10:35am today, between answering administrative email and writing on a funding proposal, I managed to grocery shop with delivery in the evening. At 3pm, after a very interesting talk at work about data science, math and journalism, I rushed over to pick up a still sleeping Zoe who had been scarred for life by the noisy Chinese New Year festival show in preschool, and consequently been invited for a playdate by Lisa's parents, since Lisa had apparently comforted and bonded with her. Obviously Zoe's own mom had to work on all day today when parents were invited for 11am (at least in Sweden the Lucia train is at 7:30am to catch the darkness and for parents to catch work hours). But I guess it is not a bad sign that your child is invited for a play date within the first week of her preschool attendance. Then Zoe and I had to hurry over to ballet class, a class Zoe has looked forward to since the end of the previous class two weeks ago. We waited for the subway that would take us to another line but it just didn't come. I cursed the Z and J line a bit and dragged Zoe up to catch a taxi. In the taxi I realized I had the wrong address but when we got off it took me another five minutes to realize that the first address was correct. When we reached the studio it was already ten minutes into class and while Zoe and I threw off her clothes and hurriedly put on her tutu and slippers, I told her to apologize to the teacher and tell her that her mom was terrible in fining her way around Manhattan. Or writing the correct address in her calendar. Next time I'll pick her up at 2:30 and we will have to wait for the subway so the 50$ classes don't turn into 60$ classes each time.

After the dance class I naively asked Zoe what she wanted for dinner. Sushi was the obvious answer and I agreed. Let's find a little place where we can take some sushi home. But Zoe wasn't buying it. "I'm hungry now, I want to sit down". I quickly looked up sushi places around us, partly embarrassing myself because we were virtually on top of three. We walked into one after I had checked that the menu was decently priced but they were not open yet. We crossed to street to yet another place and since that was open we went in and quickly got a seat in the small restaurant. It was very nice and the sushi was as overly priced as a restaurant in Tribeca would be. So there we were, mother and daughter having upscale sushi for dinner on a normal Friday afternoon. It was amazing, both the food and the company. Zoe is old enough that we can have great conversations and she is always fun to chat with. She was telling me about all the new things at preschool. She downed twice the amount of salmon rolls and miso soups as I did. As the waitress took away her empty plate at the end she exclaimed in her cute British accent: "Thank you for the food!" Not one guest in the restaurant did not smile or chuckle. And I thought: "I have the most adorable daughter".

We ran home, catching the red 1 that stops close to our house, just in time for the delivery of the groceries. As I put away the veggies and fruit, Zoe "read" the song that we had written on a piece of paper in the morning. Later before bedtime we played teacher and pupils, she being the teacher and teaching me about boats. "That's a good one", she kept saying in a teacherly voice when I tried to answer her complicated questions of how boats sail and what they are made of. It was clear what they had taught her in preschool these past few days.

My first day as a New York Mom ended up with me having a cup of tea on the couch trying to plan how I'll be able to read at least one article tomorrow while being alone with her. And still live up to the level of activities and quality. Or perhaps it is just a television day tomorrow. I can't be the perfect New York mom every day.

A mochi attitude

Zoe and I pass by a Japanese food/sushi shop every day from daycare and her love for sushi always has her pressing her nose up against window. But since they only serve sushi during lunch we never had any reason to go in. Today she asked herself though and I said why not. She was fascinated by all the sushi ingredients, asking "what's that" to all of it: the sea wheat, the tubed wasabi and the shrimp flavored crackers. I found they had frozen red bean mochi, which I really like, so I picked out a pack and lay on the counter where an elderly Japanese guy was talking in Swedish on the phone. Zoe saw a little stand with key chains, some shaped as soy sauce bottles, others as Mumin characters (!). It was exactly at her eye level and we looked at them together, me prepared to buy her one if she like it. She looked at all of them, and took a magnet down from a display, asking why it was sticky before proceeding to take one of the key chains down, except they were tangled a bit so she was attempting to take the second one over the first one, making the first one almost fall off too. The Japanese man interrupted his phone conversation and grabbed the chains out of her hand, and said very harshly and quite condescending in Swedish: "NO NO, you can't do that, you have to let your mom do that for you". Zoe looked at me and asked what the man said because she still doesn't understand much Swedish. I told her, but decided that I was not going to buy anything from a shop with that attitude towards kids, so I took the mochi back to the freezer while explaining to Zoe that we were leaving. She followed me diligently and quiet out the door but as I walked out the shop the shop keeper yelled after me "You have to look after your child". I almost exploded; I turned around and yelled back in my best Swedish "I did look after her, you idiot". I had been right there. Right next to her, my 3 year old looking at colorful plastic things at her eye level, which she carefully tried to explore. She was not about to knock anything valuable over, she was not misbehaving or in anyway doing something I didn't think was appropriate for a child to do in a shop. As we walked home Zoe said to me "Mom, that was a very stupid man". I agreed, adding that we will never go there again.

Zoe was quickly over it but I mulled over the incident for hours. Since I had no other person to share the story with and move on mentally, I grumbled and coursed over how some people just don't accept kids as real people. And I wondered why the man thought it was a good idea to tell us off and lose a potential customer. Then I thought about the mantra that holding a grudge is like letting someone live rent-free inside your head. I wrote this blog post and moved on.