Time to board

My office neighbor had wished me a good trip three times before I almost snapped. "It's not a big deal, I'm just going to see my daughter, then I'm back Friday for the meetings. It's like you working from home for one day!" It wasn't even like working from home because I had a three hour meeting with one of my closest colleagues where we managed to write a workshop proposal and discuss a couple of papers that each of us had read recently. But yes, I did have a four hour commute 'home' to Stockholm Wednesday afternoon, just in time to pick up Zoe from school on the later side of 5pm and I did not work on the plane but instead took a nap because I was exhausted from a week-long cold on top of regular work. After a day in school for Zoe, me working 'from home', I picked her up at a regular hour and we headed to the airport. We ate a bit of dinner in the lounge while watching Dumbo together, Zoe crying her eyes out at always, during the scene where the mother is locked up but still manages to sing a lullaby for her cub, rocking the little elephant with her trunk. I comforted Zoe, well-knowing that this scene perfectly illustrates our life and that this is why we watch it and this is why we cry. We arrived at my parents' house past 9pm where my mother was waiting with tea and cookies, but Zoe fell asleep on the couch.

Zoe eating chocolate strawberries in Copenhagen

It is not the actual flying, I explained to my friend, it is the shifting of context that I have to do constantly. I wake up and for a couple of seconds I have to try to figure out where I am. I have to remind myself where I have my things. I have double of everything (well triple if counting my parents' place) but there are just some tings you can't have double of. And shifting context in terms of language and places, makes it hard shifting context when it comes to work. My type of work is already very diverse, I spend one hour preparing teaching, then another writing on a paper and a third in a meeting with colleagues in relation to a new research collaboration, not to mention the hour working on travel claims and planning. This is standard work structure for my kind of position, nothing new there, nothing special about that. But combined with me shifting between three different apartments, two lounges, airplanes and my office actually being the place I spend the most time in total, it is difficult to focus. To retain some sort of structure I go to the same coffee shop in Stockholm every morning after dropping Zoe off, sitting at the very same table, drinking the same type of coffee. It helps a bit. But then I get a notification from my SAS app telling me that I can now check in and I realize that in 24 hours it is time to board again.

Endings and new beginnings

Today was Zoe's last day in the daycare where she started when we arrived in Stockholm last year. Since we lived in one particular area for the first 3 months (in temporary accommodation) the central daycare coordination could only assign us daycare in that area despite us being 100% sure we were moving to a different area in January. Since then, we have therefore commuted 45 minutes each way with two different subways with Zoe in the stroller, often with stressful experiences. We finally got a new public, Swedish daycare offered back in May but after a bit of legwork (i.e. calling, emailing) I got Zoe into a trilingual daycare very close by, which means the language transition will be gentle (her old one was English only) and that she will keep speaking English in her daily life. The last language is French and my sentiment has been, well, she is already surrounded by three languages, why not a fourth?

I picked her up already at 4pm so we had time to say goodbye and pick up all her things. She was in a great mood and I think she understood that this was her last time there. I had bought two presents for her teachers but they were already on holiday so we left them in the office. Zoe was excited to leave (perhaps because I had told her we were going for pizza with daddy) but as we were half way down the path leading to the subway she paused and turned around. "Bye bye, daycare" she said and looked at me for confirmation. Yes, this was bye bye. I felt a bit sentimental myself because this reminds me what we do to our children all the time: give them friends and take them away again. I am still a bit heart broken over our wonderful nanny that we left in California.

She was easy on the subway despite us having to take three different trains due to closure of one of the lines until October (yet another reason I am thrilled not to have this commute anymore) and we got home early enough to have an ice-cream at the big tree-lined square before meeting Mark at the pizza place. Tomorrow morning we fly down to Copenhagen to spend three and a half weeks with my family. It will be really nice for me to have the vacation I need from work, but it will also be intense times, having Zoe around all the time. I look forward to spending a lot of time with her but hope my family will babysit on occasion.

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.