The doll pram

The nicest doll pram

"A happy mom is a good mom", I thought, as the train left the Broadway-Lafayette platform to take me the last two stops to Delancey Street. That's what they say. So although I was missing Zoe to bits, and had even bought her an upscale Corolle doll-pram, partly out of guilt, I knew that this was okay. Two weeks in New York was just what I needed, right now. I was returning to my temporary home on the lower east side from work-related duties, meetings with colleagues, and I had several planned non-work activities for later this week: yoga with a friend, buying a purse for another friend back in Stockholm and coffee with a third friend. All essential New York things. What I had not planned, however, was to be woken up 2am in the morning by a couple of partying girls screaming "a rat!, a rat!" but this was a minor detail.

The nicest winter jacket

Zoe had been less than happy about me leaving and the last weekend her and I had been running around, desperately trying to find a proper winter jacket for her, preferably affordable to me, in exchange for the H&M jacket with the broken zipper. Quality winter clothes in Sweden (the country where there is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothes, also when it's -15 C) does not come below 1000 Skr (~$150) from new and this was exactly the price tag of the Noa Noa coat that Zoe fell in love with. I stood there, looking at how it fit her snugly, looking at the price tag. "Okay Zoe, but then I can't afford to buy you that doll pram that you have asked that I take home from New York", I said. Zoe resolutely took of the coat and hung it back. Then she didn't want it. She rather wanted to freeze. We left and as she took her nap in the stroller I trailed the Swedish websites for a used winter jacket in her size.

Now, I was in New York and the jacket situation had been resolved by her dad buying the jacket for her, but she was clearly still worried about the exchange I had offered, because I received a worried phone call from her one day (proceeded by her dad texting me "Zoe wants to call you right now!". "Mor, you remember, you remember, you remember", she stuttered in Danish, almost out of breath. "Remember you said you would buy the doll pram for me?" I reassured her that I was going to the toy store the very next day and taking it home with me. "Tak tak", she said in a tone as if I had passed her the milk. The pram was now waiting by my suitcase in my NY apartment ready to be packed down. It made me feel slightly better that I could bring home something material that I knew was making her happy, alongside my own happiness.