Taking the plane to school

On the Amtrak going to Northern California, looking out at the hilly green landscape I tried to plan the next four month in even more details. As much as I'm excited about my new job and the thought about never having to be apart from Zoe for more than a week, I'm also realistic. It will be hard. I'll be tired and I'll be missing meetings, missing friends, trying to write that brilliant paper on my one hour flight and have breakfast in the lounge more than I care (their coffee is not that good). But it wasn't until I bought (and wow, it's easy for me to buy plane tickets with my mobile Scandinavian Airlines app) a plane ticket for me and Zoe to fly from Copenhagen to Stockholm, early one October morning so she can make it for school that day, that it dawned upon me the reality of this: My daughter, Flybaby, will be taking the plane to school. If we catch the first 6:15am plane from Copenhagen, we can just make it for 8:30am, being probably 15 minutes late. But I have a work dinner the previous evening, so we have no choice. It's not just my life that will be chopped into pieces of different settings and countries, it is also Zoe's. I hope that I'll be able to support her and comfort her if it is all too much one day, and I hope that I will be relaxed enough to just let things (and plane tickets) go if she needs to take it easy.

I arrived at my California destination and rolled my little suitcase out to my hotel. Later on, Zoe's dad texted me telling she misses me. My heart broke in two and I had to comfort myself with with the fact that in 10 days we will be reunited. Meanwhile I have a committee meeting to run, six big boxes of stuff to pack, one lecture to write and a couple of flights to take back. 

Zoe not like flying

Zoe recently got original Boing stickers sent
from a friend of mine who actually works
at Boing. She was overly excited and our
bathroom now has an airplane theme.

This morning I had a conversation with Zoe about traveling. I told her we were going to her grandma's place soon and she asked if we were going to fly or take the train. "Good", she said when I told her we were taking the train, "I like the train, I don't like the plane because it says BOOOMMM". Her gesture was unmistakably serious but I couldn't help laughing a bit inside. "And on the train you can watch the iPad, not on the plane", she continued and I had to agree with her. The short hour it takes to go from Stockholm to Copenhagen is not really enough to take out the iPad and do anything significantly with. She has said it to me before, that she doesn't like the plane anymore, but it also highlights her lack of time perception. It takes 5 hours of train ride to get to Copenhagen but it doesn't bother her as long as we have things to do such as playing with the iPad. I guess I have saved its price manyfold already in cheaper travel (she is a full price ticket on the plane, but free on the train so even if the train is slightly more expensive, it makes sense). So there you go. Flybaby is over flying.

Choo Choo

Zoe and I took the train back to Stockholm today, after almost a week in Copenhagen. It was a vacation for Zoe but part working and part duty for me since I had an important doctors appointment too. It was an uneventful and easy 5 hour journey where Zoe watched Dora ("On television, Mom", as opposed to the game) through the iPad tethering from my iPhone. I had to by 99 Skr's worth of more data, but she was happy and I got through half a magazine, 4 pages in "How to be a Woman" by Caitlin Moran, and 7 pages of internal work papers describing how to do career development meetings with my "subordinates". When she got tired she asked me curiously and a bit timid: "Mom, are we allowed to sleep on the floor?" I asked her where we were and after thinking it through she got excited and explained: "We are on the train, so we can sleep on the floor! When we are on the plane we are not allowed to sleep on the floor, but we are not on the plane". I nodded and down she went, with duvet, doll and iPad. Opposite most passengers who laugh when the flight attendants announce that "Passengers are not allowed to sleep on the floor", Zoe had taken this very seriously. Perhaps because she actually fits on the floor and given the chance, likes to cuddle up and take her nap there. I had to position my bag between her and the aisle to be sure people wouldn't accidentally step on her hair.

Our flight down to Copenhagen almost a week ago had been equally uneventful. I didn't have much luggage and with the fast track lane to security and her knowing the ins and out of the process, the main issue on the whole trip was that Zoe wanted chips and the flight attendant had to come back with them, which was a long, long wait for her. She saw grandma through the big exit doors from the baggage claim and ran ahead of me, over to hug her. I got the plane tickets on the voucher that I got earlier this summer for giving up my seat flying to Milan. In the end that was a good deal. On the train Zoe is free but she is a full fare ticket on the plane. This means that Copenhagen is increasingly being visited by train, helped along with an iPad and 3G internet. Oh, and it wasn't too bad either that my mom had provided us with a large packed lunch. Fly baby is also a Train baby.

Sleeping all the way to Copenhagen

Though I have taken my fair share of sleeper trains with mixed experiences (too hot, too cold, too rumbling to sleep, getting up at 3 am to go through immigration), I have always thought this would be fun to do with Zoe. And as I was booking our journey to Copenhagen for the summer holiday, I found fairly decently priced tickets, with the caveat that where Zoe is usually free of cost on the regular train, she cost a 'bed' on this one. I splashed out anyway and thought about it as a fun experience and one that actually fitted this exact journey well: I needed to work all of Thursday but really wanted to be in Copenhagen by Friday morning when my brother and his wife arrived from India. 1300 Skr for oneway tickets in our own little cabin. Not bad.

I picked up Zoe from daycare and immediately told her the surprise: Now we go home, pack our bags and take a taxi to catch a train where we will sleep. When we wake up we will be in… Malmo... (then we take a quick 40 min train to Copenhagen, I quickly added) Zoe was her usually excited self: Now? She asked, Now go see Mormor? Yes, almost now. On the way home we stopped in a new noodle restaurant that deserves a shout-out for its yummy noodles, fair prices, kid-menu and amazing play room: Noodles Mama. We managed to kill the two hours needed.

The train left at 9:30pm, a bit on the late side for Zoe but she was a darling due to all the excitement and graciously held the door for the family entering the train carriage after us, leaving me to haul our luggage down the long hall way. We found our three layered bunk-bed compartment and settled down. Luckily the higher beds had good support for the sides to prevent people from falling out. Still, I wasn't comfortable letting Zoe go up on the top one. I had imagined her sleeping in the lower one and me in the middle one but it was clear that we could fit together in one; besides, the lower one had a hard back cushion that took at least a quarter of the bed width away. We went to brush our teeth in the hallway bathroom which was surprisingly clean. Zoe tossed and turned and pulled the curtain to look out the window three times, insisting on me going down to pick up her doll that she had forgotten in her bag. How could she sleep without? Finally around 10:30 she feel asleep and I decided that I needed my Zs as well. After all the main problem with this train was that it was only 8 hours, barely enough for a full night's sleep. We would get kicked off at 5:40am.

The other problem is that the normal journey is actually only 5 hours. This means that the sleeper train chuckles along at a cow's pace and take lots of breaks. They artificially make it 8 hours for people to get a good night's sleep. I woke up many times as the train halted to a stop and as faster trains rushed by with lightening speed right next to us. But Zoe slept like a baby. And when I had gotten up and dressed around 5:15, she was hard to wake up. She finally sat up and I dressed her in bed. "Come on", I said as she dragged her rucksack down to the exit door. "We need to get off and get on the other train". The other train left from a platform a short walk away, but a walk that was very long for a very tired 3 year old. Zoe sat down and cried at one point but I managed to get her up again. I couldn't carry her because of our big suitcase and two other smaller bags I had to carry too.

We got on the next train and ended up at the local station at my parents'. Both of which were not about to pick us up at 7am, so we walked the 10 minutes home, this time with Zoe being more energetic now that she could see the end of the journey. She told her grand parents with excitement in her voice of the sleeping train and I hope this is not the last time we have been on such travel adventure. Flying does get a bit old sometimes, doesn't it?

Home sweet home

Yesterday one of the final pieces of my apartment puzzle fell into place: I was accepted by the housing association of the apartment where I'm living and which I'm buying directly from the owner. Housing in Stockholm is complicated to say the least and to have a stable home one must buy. Or be extremely well-connected to get one of the few exclusive rental places that are available. Getting accepted was a bit tricky because they decided initially to reject me on the grounds that they couldn't see I had had an income when looking at my tax papers from 2011. Which is of course true because I didn't live in Sweden in 2011. So after not contacting me for extra information or even notifying me but instead sending a physical letter to the owner who was on holiday I finally got them on the phone, explained and within 20 minutes of having sent them my employment contract, I was accepted as a member. I still wonder what the board members were thinking if they were thinking anything at any point before seeing my employment contract. How would I have gotten a mortgage without any income? But it finally seems that I will be able to sign a contract for my own apartment within the next couple of days.

This good news coincided with me being in Copenhagen to work with a colleague on research and give a talk on a my work. It was nice to be among friends and nice to see old colleagues again. But it wasn't before the train home that I started reflecting; my days had been packed and planned from the start to the end. I had managed one impromptu lunch with a newly acquainted colleague, one unscheduled coffee with a amazingly sweet new friend but every other minute had been scheduled from before I arrived. As much as I enjoy even planned socializing I really miss the kind of spontaneity that characterized my social life before, what you can have in the city you live in. For ten years my social life in Copenhagen has been pre-scheduled from I arrive because otherwise I won't get to see the people I want to, and often I still don't get to see the people I want to. Getting on the train, I sat down for the first time in four days and relaxed. Wondering what I was going to do on the five hour train journey back. Read a magazine. Write on my funding proposal. Eat chocolate. Sit and stare out the window listening to Anya Marina. With five hours on my hands I managed all of them. I reached Stockholm, and (almost) my home sweet home just past midnight.

Cheep fare, expensive ride

When returning from my partly involuntary vacation in Copenhagen (mixed in with a very voluntary midsummer celebration at my dear dear friend's summerhouse), I for some odd reason had chosen to take Zoe on the train. If it was the 250 kr ticket (vs. a 1200 kr flight) or the wishful thinking that she would sleep for most of it I'm not sure, but already one hour into it I would gladly have paid another thousand for a flight.

The problem for the next 13 years is that Zoe is a full fare on the plane but free on the train. This makes a set of train tickets, which would usually be slightly more expensive than a flight, approximately half price of flying between Copenhagen and Stockholm. Especially for the next 3 years where Zoe still is not able to fly by herself. When checking return journeys for this trip I had even found an extremely cheep train ticket because it would take us into Stockholm's central station as late as 15 minutes to midnight. Thinking that this would give me one hour of waking Zoe and 4 hours of sleeping Zoe I booked them. Except I forgot that when my lovely, regularly sleeping daughter stays with her grandmother for a week, her sleeping schedule will more likely resemble a teenagers with late nights and no naps. When I boarded the train at 6.30 pm it was with the most cheerful, awake, excited toddler who sat down in her seat, reading a book, eating cucumbers and almonds. After about an hour though it was an overtired, cheeky monkey, who wanted to run up and down the aisle that crawled all over me. She kept hitting me with her 'baaaang', not hard but also not appropriate and I had to tell her sternly that it is not nice to hit one's mom. Around this time people around me started asking the conductor if there were available seats in the quiet compartment. Others just looked for seats further away themselves. I took Zoe for a long walk through the train and we went back to the little bistro where I had a cup of coffee (to keep up with Zoe's energy) and she had a bag of cheese doodles that they conveniently place in child's height for her to pick out herself. Suddenly she started crying and wanted to go back to our seats, possibly because we had left her doll there but possibly also because tired kids do unpredictable things. I tried to coerce her into lying with her head in my lap and fall asleep but she could not find rest. She muzzled around for two hours while I managed to stay fairly calm despite her playing with the armrest, constantly popping her head above the seat to say hey to very uninterested people behind us and trying to get comfortable. Finally, at 10 pm, her eyes lowered and she fell asleep.

At the central station I surprised myself even more by packing up and rolling out our car suitcase and several bags while being able to carry a sleeping Zoe out of the train. There she woke up and wide-eyed walked with me while I told her what we had to do. We had to get up from the tracks, take a taxi and get in and up the stairs to our apartment. She did everything with amazing skills and easily fell asleep again in her own bed. All while I wrote down a couple of notes to myself in my head: "Do not take the train again any time soon, even if it looks like a good idea at the time".

Subway panic

It was a very strange day because both Mark and I had late afternoon meetings and after some discussion I had agreed to cancel mine and go pick up Zoe from daycare. However, as I was preparing to leave he walked past my desk (we work on the same floor a few days a week) and said cheerfully that he would be happy to pick her up since his meeting had ended early. I considered going back to my student assignments for a quarter of a second but then suggested we go pick her up together. We have only done this once or twice, when Zoe started daycare 6 months ago.

Zoe was squealing from joy when she saw the both of us and we were all happily chatting on the subway back. At one point Mark suggested that we should go to an outdoor cafe not too far away from us, to celebrate the nice weather and that we had picked her up early. This meant that we needed to board a different, more populated train, at the central station where we changed. It was packed to the last square inch and as I squeezed into one compartment, Mark took Zoe in her stroller through another set of entry doors to the train. Or so I thought. As the train left the station, I saw Mark and Zoe standing on the platform mouthing to me that they would see me at the next station. Note that I always put my bag into Zoe's stroller so I now had nothing other than a lip balm in my pocket. No cell phone, no wallet. No problem, I thought, and got off at the next station so I could wait for them. Here I watched a mother with a toddler in hand and a pram trying to enter the now even more full train. Suddenly the train doors beeped and the doors closed WITH HER PRAM INSIDE THE TRAIN. The mother started screaming and as I was the first one to understand what was happening, I ran over to knock on the doors, mouthing that they should pull the emergency brake. Luckily the people inside did after a couple of seconds' driving and the train came to a halt, the doors opening so the mother could go inside to her pram. At this time I had noticed that she had her baby on her chest in a carrier. Thank god.

When the emergency brake is pulled on a train it takes a while before it can leave again. This was 10 very long minutes where I waited for the next train to come in. I boarded but couldn't immediately see Zoe and Mark. Then I saw a green stroller canopy and pushed myself through to the next compartment. Zoe was distraught and had cried ever since she realized the train had taken me but not them. Apparently they had experienced exactly the same thing except Mark had been able to pull Zoe out: the driver had closed the doors right on the stroller, scaring Zoe. She lightened up fairly quickly and we went to the cafe and I had two glasses of white wine. I can't wait till August where we will have a place in a daycare two blocks from our house. No more strollers in rush hour subways. Oh, and Mark called the subway security next day and reported the driver.

Running mommy

Stockholm Subway: We live by Mariatorget (red line), work by
Kista (blue line) and Zoe's daycare is by Stadshagen (blue line)

If you see a woman running in the subway, to the train, between the trains and up again, that would be me. As I have talked about before, Zoe has a wonderful daycare but one that is now two times three subway stations away, which includes a quite long walk between trains at the central station, not to mention the several escalator/elevator rides down and up. Door to door it is half an hour, with a toddler in tow it is more like 40 minutes from the first attempt to put her snowsuit on, until she has her "home shoes" on (a Scandinavian must). The only good part about this setup (apart from the wonderful daycare with great staff) is that it is sort of on the way to work, meaning if we take the 'long' way to work, it is by one of the stations where the train stops (and of course Mark and I are lucky to work in the same building right now). But it still annoys me that I have to spend so much time in transport. Yesterday, for example I got my hair done at a boutique salon near home, which at the time of booking seemed like a good idea, but it turned out Mark had late meetings and I had to pick up Zoe. I have perfected the technique of the home-to-daycare journey from knowing exactly what train I can catch when I see the information board upstairs and I know exactly how fast I have to run between the two platforms to catch which train. I also know exactly which end of the train I need to be in and I even know which car, which door to get in the morning so I can go straight into the elevator with Zoe in the stroller without having to walk on the crowded platform. I get incredible annoyed when perfectly capable people take the elevator up from the platform, filling it up so I have to wait with Zoe in the stroller and I have no problem pushing my way through the long rolling pavement that separates the two platforms I have to change between on the central station. As a mom you suddenly realize how precious time is and daytime is extremely valuable to me. If I am not working I want to spend time with Zoe, not in the subway (and I particularly don't want to spend time in the subway with Zoe). So I guess that is why I run.

A low point of motherhood

Yesterday afternoon during rush hour, a mother stood on the subway platform, with a completely hysterical, screaming, leg-kicking toddler in a stroller, trying to break free of the harness. The mother screamed back at the toddler and shook her out of frustration until the mother started crying herself. It was a horrific sight, except of course that this mother was me and the toddler was Zoe.

I had attended the preschool's first birthday party in the afternoon that included 'champagne', cake and chips, some of which Zoe had eaten. As we left she wanted to take a balloon, but they were tied to the wall and I said no. This started her first fit but I got her into the stroller with the promise of a snack (I often give her snacks on the way home, on good days fruit and less good days raisins or crackers and on really bad days chocolate. It eases up the 40 minute commute). She chewed away on a sesame cracker and off we went. As we entered the first train she started wanting to get out of the stroller and this is where I made my first mistake. I let her. She was standing holding on to the stroller but still toppled over when the train left each station. I carried her out at the main station and explained to her while we sat on a bench that if she wanted to walk to the other train (a 3 minute walk to another platform), she had to hold my hand the whole time. She did but the walk took more like 10 minutes. The elevators were busy but as we approached the new platform I realized that I could not have her out of her stroller here because this is a very busy and narrow platform. When the elevator stopped I wedged it open with the stroller and put Zoe back in. She was not happy. She wanted up. And I wanted to be home. I had already had a long day at work, spent good quality time in a ridiculous teaching meeting and had planned on taking Zoe to the hair dresser on the way home. She screamed and screamed and arched her back like I had never seen before. I kept trying to talk to her, "Zoe bee, you have to sit in the stroller, it is very dangerous to be on the platform". I let a train pass by because I couldn't face going into an overfilled compartment with a screaming and kicking toddler. I talked to her but had to hold her down, I was worried she would be able to free herself of the harness (and god forbid run somewhere I didn't want to think of). And this is where I lost my temper and screamed back at my little stubborn daughter, to please please stop it. She obviously didn't like that and just cried louder. I finally wedged her into the next train, tearful and guilty of loosing it when I was the adult who should be in charge of the situation. She continued crying loud the remaining 3 stations and didn't pause until we were in the elevator riding up from the platform. "Zoe", I started explaining, "you are too little to walk on your own when we take the train. When you turn two you can walk on your own. But you are too little right now". She nodded and answered her clear "Aye" (she is half Scottish after all) as if she understood every word that I said. Okay mom, now I understand.

When we got in, I only took off my shoes before I broke down crying on the bed, hammering the pillows to get rid of all my frustrations. Zoe looked bewildered at me and then resolutely went up and pointed at my chest. "Ma ma?", she asked. Could she have some milk? She sure could.

Wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round...

Here in London, Zoe and I go on a lot of public transportation and I am proud to say I am learning to navigate the underground with a stroller. The trick is to know which stations have elevators and escalators and look helpless at the ones that don't, prompting a nice fellow passenger to help. In the beginning I would still carry her in the Beco or my wrap if we were not going out for long but she is 22 pounds/10 kg now and walking far with her is tough. She has never been a fan of her stroller, (which is one of the main reasons I have always carried her so much) she simply doesn't like to sit still and be driven around, which leads me to look enviously at all the calm or sleeping babies in the strollers around town. How do they do it? Do they drug the babies? Do they bribe them? Zoe might sit without complaining if we are walking through a particularly interesting area with many people, but as soon as I get into a train or bus, she wants up: "Bah? Bah?", she says, pulling her buckle and pointing down.

I had a particularly long train ride to Cambridge yesterday, one I do not want to repeat any time soon. The train we were supposed to catch was cancelled due to unavailable drivers (that's actually what the sign said) so we ended up on a completely full train where, even though I walked all the way up front, each and every single seat was taken. I pushed the stroller inside the train and prepared myself to stand up when a woman at the window graciously offered me her seat. Zoe promptly smiled and padded her on the head when she sat down on the floor in the hallway. Luckily our seat was around two women who clearly had children on their own because they smiled and paid her the right amount of attention, but diagonally across from us was an elderly lady with thin black hair who was not going to be Zoe's friend. She looked a bit at her when she reached out her hands but she huffed loudly when Zoe accidentally dropped a lime wedge (after taking it out of the plastic cup with fruit, biting in to it and making the funniest sour face), which bounced off the lady's stocking clad leg. I apologized but the lady just starred out the window, clearly upset. As I tried to give Zoe a bit of milk from a carton with a straw, something we have just recently started, Zoe squeezed the carton spilling a bit of milk, also on the woman's stockings. I thought she was going to have a fit at me, the irresponsible mother who let her baby eat on the train, but she just huffed louder, still not looking at us, which made the mother across give me an acknowledging look. She knew I was trying my best. I was relieved when we finally reached Cambridge and managed to carry Zoe on my arm, while pulling out the stroller where I put her in, to her loud screams.

So taking Zoe on public transportation is not my favorite activity but after learning a few tricks I am getting better. One trick is to always take the bus rather than the underground and then take her out of her stroller and on my lap for the ride. She often gets rowdy and difficult to hold because she wants down so she can run around, which is obviously not an option on neither a bus nor a train. I found that she likes my singing so I sing quietly into her ear: "The wheels on the bus goes round and round, round and round, round and round..." So far so good.