New Year realizations

Zoe was playing a pretend game where she was visiting with her doll. Her play is often now done in English, which she has finally realized that I speak and understand too. "I'm visiting you here in Copenhagen", Zoe said, and as the most natural thing in the world added: "we live in New York". I laughed and asked her if she knew how much longer we were going to stay here and she held up a full hand, "this many days". I corrected and told her we were going back to Stockholm in just three days, something she was excited to hear.

The conversation made me ponder (yet again) of the way Zoe is growing up with several homes, several cities and countries, several languages. She adapts easily and seem very much at home at my parent's place (which is the only continuous home she has known) but she also longs for being at home with me, which I like to see as her main home. I hope that I can provide for a secure childhood by being a stable person and make sure she has stable people in her life (in addition to her parents), like her uncles and my girlfriends, not to forget the obvious people like her grandparents and her family on her dad's side. But I have several friends who grew up in many different countries due to their parent's job relocations and their candid portrayals and sometimes psychological issues are not solely positive. The talk about issues of having no roots, of being the odd one out always, and not being able to have deep relationships. I sometimes wonder how I can do this to Zoe? I know that having a base, both culturally and geographically is core for a happy and secure childhood, at least the books say so. On the other hand, I don't socialize with anyone from my childhood apart from family; my best friend I met in high school. The only reason we are still friends today is that we (particularly her) were diligently writing letters to each other across the Atlantic for the three years I spent in college in Florida after graduation (yep, I'm that old, the internet was not readily available to us). But one thing is people, another thing is place. How much does place mean for growing up? How much does stable friends mean? Are friendships more valuable when they wane themselves as opposed to being interrupted through forced separation? Perhaps not in the overall picture but a disruption is never healthy for kids. I often recount Zoe's explanation of why things were okay when I was hating my job a couple of months ago: "But mom, I don't work, I go to daycare and I really like my daycare". It was that simple in her world. And it made me suck it up and realize that I might hate my job occasionally but Zoe's happiness is just as important to my happiness.

After playing visiting Zoe went back to her normal story telling and singing and dancing. I comforted myself with us going back on Tuesday after a very successful long long holiday at my parents house where we all got along brilliantly. Hopefully that will be a good memory for her too.

Trilingual conversations

Zoe was called in for her three year check-up at the so-called "BVC", the child health center that does all the checkups, vaccinations etc. from pregnancy through the daycare years here in Sweden. I got a few questionnaires to fill in in advance but I couldn't really do that because they asked about Zoe's language skills in Swedish. I thought she was due for another shot and I explained this for her but it turned out this was purely a developmental evaluation.

Zoe was difficult to coerce into the examination room when it was our turn because of all the exciting new toys in the waiting room, but after being promised stickers she reluctantly followed. I explained in my accented Swedish that we were Danish but that she also spoke English because of her dad and because she is in English speaking Daycare. In fact I was very curious as to how much she was going to understand because it was obvious that the nurse was not about to switch language. Instead she did what many people do when encountering people not fluent in the language spoken: She slowed down and spoke oddly loudly and articulated. To me. And she continued to dumb down each piece of information as we went along, to the effect of me having to do my best to hide my irritation and put on a fake smile. "No we don't do an MMR vaccination at this point *here in Sweden*", she repeated three times after I explained why Zoe was pointing in her arm and saying "stik, stik [poke, poke]". In fact she talked a lot about how things were going on *in Sweden* as if I was fallen down from the sky just minutes earlier.

Meanwhile Zoe did an impressive job at her test. The nurse had a few picture cards and she asked in Swedish Zoe which one you can eat. Zoe quickly pointed at the apple even though eat is a different word in Danish from Swedish. She also pointed at the card with the car when asked which one you can "go/drive with" [åka med], a Swedish expression that is not translatable to neither Danish or English. When she was asked what you can do with a ball, she hesitated and did a throwing motion while mouthing "throw". I could see she knew that word was the wrong one but she couldn't find the Danish/Swedish one. She kept doing the throwing motion and looking at me for hints. I asked her in Danish and that triggered the 'correct' answer: "kaste!", which is luckily the same in Swedish.

She was excited to be measured (101 cm) and weighed (15.6 kg) and carefully picked out her sticker afterwards. I laughed when the nurse asked if I had any concerns about her language and tried to joke about how of course I was worried about her actually becoming fluent in all the languages, but the nurse took this concern to be lack of knowledge on my part and resumed to give me a long and slow lecture on the importance of me always speaking Danish to her, and her dad always speaking English (where I again tried to joke that this is the only language he knows, but merely got a snort here) and then she will easily be fluent in all three languages. I wondered how any parent of a three year old trilingual child would never have researched these things and would really consider this information as new and useful at this point. But the nurse probably sees all kinds of people and had a hard time judging education level.

But what really bothered me was the slow, enunciating talk, which I recognize from many other native speakers (of all languages) when talking to people with accents. The division between understanding and the ability to express oneself in a language is often great, particularly for Swedish/Danish. Adjusting the language ends up seeming like they think you are a bit dumb and is deeply frustrating for someone trying to learn a language. But then again, who says I'm trying to learn Swedish.

Hungover mom

One reason why I love my job is because it is so flexible. After a fun night out celebrating a friend's successful PhD defense on Monday, I could stay home all day, picking up Zoe in the afternoon and just do nothing at night (okay, I'm also lucky that I have no immediate upcoming deadlines). She watched a few Pocoyo episodes too much for her own good but I could rest my head.

Today I'm working in a cafe trying to stitch together my next trip to a conference, in fact the main conference within my field. It looks like I will have to bring Zoe and then take a day off in the middle of the conference to fly Zoe to Copenhagen, flying back to the conference at night. Luckily I have enough frequent flyer miles that it can pay for most the cost. Part of me thinks this is insane but another part can see no other choice. I want at least part of a child-free conference where I can have fun and party (but hopefully not as much as the other night) but I also need to limit the child-care that I am asking for. Let's hope it will work and when I am in the middle of it, it probably won't be that bad. Zoe certainly has the flying down by now and probably won't mind flying three times in a week. 

Friends around the world

The other morning when Zoe and I had breakfast as usual, her sitting on the kitchen counter and me standing within reach of my espresso machine she got a bit sad. "Milly", she just said and I knew she was missing her new friend in Paris. Yeah, Emily is in Paris, I said and tried to comfort her. "Far away, Milly far away", Zoe said and I said yes, Zoe you have friends around the world. She then went into naming the long list of her friends, which surprised me not only because it included grandma and my aunt who often looks after her when we are in Copenhagen, but because it was extensive and clear and included people from very different realms or her life. I got tears in my eyes thinking about what I'm doing to my daughter providing her with friends around the world but at the same time keeping her from seeing them regularly.

Today my eyes teared up again when I got an email from a dear friend in the US who we will be staying with for our upcoming trip. Because I got friends around the world too and I tend to forget during the dark and biting cold snowy days in Stockholm where I feel alone in a country I never wanted to live in and in a city where they speak a silly language I'm not good at. My friend reminded me that I am not alone at all. It is a side effect of the semi-nomadic lifestyle I have had since I moved to the US to go to college almost two decades ago. Since then I have not stayed in one country for more than three to four years at a time, and although I have been back and forth, I have not been going back the same place (I have lived in Florida and north and southern California almost equally). But more importantly, a research career like mine fosters friendships across distance, through collaboration and mutual intense conference experiences; some of my closest friends I have never lived in the same country as. The benefit is that I am always welcome places around the world (and I do take advantage of that, vice versa, my friends are *always* welcome at my place) but the downside is that I can't just see them and calling is complicated due to different timezones. Besides, seeing someone is completely different from calling. It means that I sometimes forget that I am valued and loved by these friends who seem so remote. So occasionally I need a reminder.

I also needed a reminder to do something I should have done long time ago: Go to Copenhagen without Zoe *only* to see my friends. Despite all the moving around my three best friends are still in Copenhagen, they simply never left. They have put up with my sporadic calling and demanding social schedule when I am finally there ("I can see you Wednesday between 5pm and 7pm") for 10 plus years. And magically they stuck. I owe them big for that because they are still the girlfriends I turn to when I have a broken heart, when I'm frustrated about work and when I argue with my parents. They are also the first ones I told that I was pregnant with Zoe and they are the first ones to know good news in terms of jobs and big moves. I hope they see me a bit the same way but I also know they have closer friends themselves because distance is complicated. Which is why I feel stupid not having done this before. So in less than two weeks I'll be on a train to Copenhagen without Zoe and I'm already planning each hour of friendship time.

Trilingual me

As I have described before Zoe is growing up trilingual, except of course ironically she is strongest in Danish and English, because she is in an English speaking daycare and the only one who actually speaks Swedish to her is our Swedish friend and her occasional babysitter. In fact I am very happy to hear just how much Danish she picked up when we spent two weeks there over Christmas. She still mixes the languages and always says 'not' and 'like' in English. "Zoe not like fyrværkeri" [fireworks] was a classic around new years. I'm very aware that her lack in Swedish reflects my attitude to that language, a language that I should easily be able to master, but which I genuinely hate speaking (I don't mind reading it so much, I don't articulate words in my head, I merely comprehend them and move on).

Working in a cafe after chores in the morning, I wondered how my Swedish aversion in combination with our international lifestyle will prevent Zoe from learning any Swedish of significance. But they are not helping us. At this Södermalm cafe they serve the food, calling out the dishes in English. People switch to English when I attempt to speak Swedish with the statement that I have an American accent. I'm still utterly useless in Swedish small talk and it is not getting any better, I mainly just keep quiet. If I can't even do trilingual myself, how am I to expect that Zoe will? I have hired a Swedish tutor to try to learn a bit more and get more confidence. I'm meeting her next Monday for the first time and she seemed nice on the phone. "I can already tell now what we need to work with you on" she said in a teacherly tone. I look forward to that. Perhaps Zoe should join me.

Looking for Coffee

And then I found myself sitting in Marks and Spencer's* cafe, having a cappuccino and a lemon muffin, British music in the speakers, looking out over the buzzing and messy Shanghai streets. Having survived the first week in China without pretty much any coffee at all, I needed this break. Not only for the caffeine and pretty interior fix but to get back into my western easy-life bubble that I realized even more apparently now that I belong to. Having travelled to India and China the past month reminded me and accentuated my knowledge that I am among the few privileged people in this world. I can afford everything but also have a built in right to be here in this sub-part or upper-class area of the world that is Shanghai right now. I have never been ignorant of my own privilege as some westerners, even as an adult my thoughts frequently turn to how my particular situation would look from another person's perspective, in a less privileged situation. How would I deal with a limited set of resources that we take for granted, like electricity and water? How would I have known about infant care if all the information I had was from the other mothers in the village? (I'm not saying that China or India is specifically this, but exemplifying characteristics of 'less privileged' as I view it)  I knew what China looked like before going here, yet I was positively surprised about the infrastructure, the kindness of people and the availability of goods (and yes I mean availability in terms of affordability too, for the people who make a couple of dollars per day). But just as these people who live their life on limited resources and in a tight-knit community of settled cultural customs very foreign to me, just as they don't even dream of stepping inside Marks and Spencers, let alone having a cup of coffee, I find it difficult to walk around and immerse myself in their cultural customs, social structure and simply their neighborhoods. If I don't focus and keep my eyes and ears constantly open, people surprise me with their honking (tooting a horn here, and in India for that matter, means "I'm behind you, watch out" not "Get the h*** out of the way, you idiot" as in northern Europe and the US), they surprise me with their invitations into the shops and offend me by approaching me unsolicited. I constantly have to have an open mind and interpret little actions anew instead of going with my solidly established western social norms. And this is tiring. Exhausting. I am perfectly capable of having a week without coffee, I'm not addicted to the caffein. But I am addicted to my social culture just like most of the people here are settled into theirs.

The other cup of decent coffee I had in China

Tonight I will be flying to Taiwan for our last university visit and then I'm off home to Stockholm. I can't wait to see Zoe in Copenhagen on Friday where she will have been dropped off.

*Marks and Spencer's is the essential traditional solid middle class department store.

10 questions about Zoe and Louise's travels

I have collected a set of questions that one who enters this blog might ask. It also contains hidden advise if you travel with a baby or toddler yourself.

1. Do we travel alone?
Well, no we travel with each other. But yes, not only since I split from Zoe's dad, but also before this: When we lived in the US I frequently took Zoe to work meetings and occasionally overseas travel. Her and I also didn't always go back from holiday in Europe at the same time as her dad.

2. What is the best tool for traveling?
The baby carrier, hands down. I have a Beco Gemini and it has saved me millions of times during short layovers, long walks (now that she can walk) and for having her sleep in.

3. Why do we travel so much?
Apart from living in a completely different country from 1. where I am from, 2. where Zoe was born, 3. where her dad is from and 4. where all of my close family lives (none of these countries being the same), I travel a lot for work. A lot is about 6-10 times per year. Add to that family visits.

4. Does Zoe have her own frequent flier card?
Yes, Euro bonus on Scandinavian because this is the main airline we fly between Stockholm and Copenhagen where most of our family lives.

5. Has Zoe ever been in the cockpit?
No, but if the door is open when we enter she waves at the pilots. When we leave she always says "bye bye airplane" and waves back at it.

6. Does Zoe walk through the security metal detector herself?
Yes, and she has done that since she was about 20 months old. I taught her to wait until I turn around and ask her to come through. She always wants to be 'touched' too and we often have to ask the nice security lady to do a little pat down for Zoe.

7. Does Zoe misbehave when flying?
Generally no, but once as we were boarding the plane, she walked straight over to the air bridge control panel and grabbed the joy stick to the surprise of me and several other passengers. Turns out the controls are on and working when you board. Who should have known? Nobody got hurt. Other people's kids open the car door by accident while driving. My kid moves the air bridge.

8. Worst plane trip memory?
A recent one where Zoe ran away as we were checking in our luggage. I caught her but was so upset that I shook her and yelled at her until she started wailing and we sat down on the floor in the middle of the airport and both cried and hugged for 5 minutes. Not my proudest moment.

9. Best plane trip memory?
All the trips where Zoe, straight after take off, leans against me and falls asleep.

10. Crazy coordination memory?
When I bought an actual plane ticket for my mom so she could come through security to pick up Zoe in Copenhagen airport where I had a very short layover on my way from Stockholm to Munich. Zoe's dad was away too and this was our only option for 3 days' babysitting. Problem is that now Zoe looks for grandma every time we disembark in Copenhagen. 

How to dress a 2 year old (with an international sense of fashion)

One of the things that happens when moving from country to country and you end up living in 4 different countries (we are not counting cities here) within a decade is that you develop a fairly international fashion sense and know where to get what types of clothes. I get my basics from the US (Banana Republic makes great dress pants and Anne Taylor has jackets that fit me well) and my more hip and expensive clothing from Denmark. I buy accessories such as scarfs in Sweden but generally they have similar stuff to Denmark, just more expensive. I love Ted Baker and Paul Smith, which I always buy in the UK, occasionally in Heathrow when I have the time. I never buy shoes in the UK because of the rubbish quality there and in fact I have bought 80 % of my shoes from a tiny little independent store in Copenhagen called Scarpa for over 10 years. They cost a fortune but they last both in terms of fashion and quality for at least three years. They are worth every penny (or every øre).

Zoe has been well-dressed from her first day outside my belly; my best friend introduced me to Petit Bateau her first christmas, leading to an addiction of high quality French underwear and onesies. But here is what I discovered with Zoe her first few months: Baby clothes doesn't last three seasons, in fact the first few pieces lasted about a month, then two months and finally after her first year, it might now last six months. Babies grow fast. And technically clothes last much longer than their little growing arms can fit into it, leading me to discover the only environmentally friendly option: 2nd hand clothes. As a parent it is your responsibility to make sure your child wears at least 50% reused clothes and that all the clothes that can be worn again are passed on to an appropriate source, that be the thrift shop or your friend who has a baby one year younger than yours.

In the US I was an avid fan of ThredUp (who btw have chanced their concept since I moved), an online trading resource for children's clothes and even toys. I got some of my best clothes from there and got great reviews for my own. When moving to Sweden I discovered their core secondhand resources: Blocket and Tradera. Blocket is the local Craigslist type resource where you go pick up the goods, which is great for larger items such as snowsuits etc. and Tradera is basically Ebay in Swedish. On Tradera there is an unspoken friendliness among moms who buy and sell: it is almost like a club where we transfer money through bank accounts instead of the dreaded paypal, and where everyone knows that if you take a week or two before sending or paying you are not a bad Ebayer, you are simply a super-busy mom.

Zoe's shoes however, like mine, I also buy in Denmark. For some reason Sweden has not caught on to high quality children shoes and although I am not against second hand shoes per se, it is rare that I can actually find some that fit Zoe well and are suitable for what I'm looking for. Last weekend when I picked her up from a week at grandmothers, we went shopping for her winter boots. I ended up with a fashionable pair of Sofie Snoor boots in black for the steep price of $165. I know that sounds crazy but they are not only gorgeous, I also know that these are the ones she will be wearing October through March every single day. Playing outside every day. I rather want to know that these fit her perfectly, are warm enough and will not break, than to gamble and buy cheap ones where I might have to replace them once or even twice during the winter.

So my international clothes shopping routines are clearly being transferred to Zoe as well, with the addition that she wears a lot of "preloved" clothes. Oh, and her Petit Bateau underwear I get shipped from an online store in the UK because it is cheaper than buying them here in Sweden. For some reason there are not much underwear available in the secondhand stores or online. Wonder why.

Staycation

This past week has been sort of an involuntary staycation for Zoe and I. As I have mentioned before, I have moved to a separate apartment and Mark and I are not living together at the moment. This also means that we are not having any holiday together but instead have done separate things, with and without Zoe. I have therefore been on my own with Zoe in Stockholm for most of this week without daycare since Zoe's is not starting her new place before Monday. Mark is traveling with some friends. It has been a lot of fun but also stressful. Stressful because I have a lot of work in terms of papers that are due very soon, both accepted, semi-accepted and brand new papers, but with an energized toddler, work is out of the question; when she finally sleeps at night, I'm so exhausted that I can barely clean the kitchen. But also stressful because when Mark out-of-town, I am very alone here in Stockholm where I have barely made casual friends yet. I admit that much of this is my own fault, I try to socialize but honestly, my Swedish is not fit for girlfriend talk and the English speaking people I have met so far have mainly been stay-at-home wives who have followed their (sometimes Swedish) husband here and I don't feel I have a lot in common with them. I do have a few Swedish colleagues that I speak English with and whom I would consider friends. But they are on holiday this week. So Zoe and I developed a routine for doing toddler-focused activities morning and afternoon, and for me to have coffee and relax during her mid-day nap so I didn't go mad from spending 24/7 with my lovely but quite demanding daughter.

Zoe stamping my ticket at the tram museum

Wednesday for example we went to the Tram Museum where they have a little train the kids (with adults) can ride and I knew she loved it, so I showed up early enough to get early tickets (half an hour into opening hours the next available train times are usually 3 hours in the future. Good luck entertaining kids for that long in a museum). And today we went to the Postal Museum that had a special kids-section open in where she could paint her own postcard, send it off to grandmother (they actually gave us stamps!) and play in a special kids sized postal car. She was a darling all day despite having slept two hours less than normal, perhaps because I spoiled her with two ice creams and a lollypop.

But today was the last day. Tomorrow her dad is back and will take her in the afternoon where I hopefully will be able to finish one of my papers. And then vacation is over.

A polite baby

With Zoe having three language around her, she is a bit behind in actually talking. I was aware that was often the case with bi/trilingual children but then I had also read that this is a myth: Children differ widely when it comes to language development and the presence of more than one language is not always affecting it. However, when I'm around children close to Zoe in age, I am realizing that she is indeed quite behind. Other children already talks in sentences and use a wide vocabulary where Zoe mainly says one word at a time and adds her own babbling. Her pronunciation is quite bad, she says 'tom' instead of 'come' although when I ask her what it is called, she will correct herself. One upside is that she is extremely good in understanding what is being said to her, not only does she listen attentively but she has continuously surprised me with how she understands complex issues. For example she remembers if I promise her something after a specific activity and she has a large (understanding) vocabulary of things and directions (i.e. "Zoe can you get the purple pillow that is under the desk in your room?" means that she will run in and get the purple pillow that I had ended up storing alongside a blanket under the desk in her room).

Most recently though the one thing I have noticed is how modeling works. I have never told Zoe to say thank you, please or anything of that kind. Yet, she has picked up the most hilarious politeness in many daily situations. The first one I noticed was one she must have learned in daycare. At first I was puzzled by her saying "happy-peas" repeatedly. She seemed to say it if she couldn't open a door or open a box by herself. Then I listened and realized that she says "help me please", skipping the l's. The second politeness is simply saying thanks when ever she is handed something. It was not until I realized that  we tend to do that when she hands us something that I understood how she picked it up. But it is very nice to hear her say it, particularly when she is given something by others. And I have never even asked her to say thank you in these cases. Finally, a politeness she has picked up the last few days is to say "no thanks" when she refuses something. It is often hilarious to listen to and it is impossible to argue with a kid who says, in the most mild tone, "no thanks" when you offer her a healthy snack.

Interestingly though, and this is where the three languages and the polite baby are not always smoothly interacting, she will mix the languages even within one sentence. For example since she can't say 'thanks' yet, she uses the Danish and Swedish 'tak'. "No tak" and "mor, happy peas!" are common expressions. She is picking up the fact that there are different languages that is used with different people though and consistency is paying off. If I repeat what she said (in English) to me in Danish, she switches smoothly. Mark tells me the same thing happens when he is in charge but since he doesn't speak Danish, he has to guess more often than not what she actually means. This results in extreme miscommunication such as her telling him she wants to go out with the stroller and him thinking she wants to eat lunch. Perhaps that will be a motivation for her to start talking more clearly very soon.

Where are we going?

One morning a couple of weeks ago, Zoe woke up and decided to pack. She took our little car suitcase (that she think is her own, despite me sometimes traveling with it myself) and started pulling her clothes down from the shelf, putting it inside. When she thought she had enough she zipped it up and pulled it through the living room into the hallway. There she put on her sandals and took down the keys from the hook, which she can reach herself. She then asked me to take her jacket and sun hat down, which I did and she put both on by herself. Then she 'unlocked' the front door with the keys (it was already unlocked), opened the door and said 'bye bye mommy', while pulling the suitcase out to the stairwell. At this point I had to stop her because fact was that we were not going anywhere that day, and I was seriously worried she was going to try to pull the suitcase down the stairs. But she cried as I explained that we were not going flying or even by train, this was a regular daycare day. It took me a few minutes to make this clear but finally she calmed down and we continued our regular morning routine.

Zoe leaving again

Although this might seem like a fun morning game, I felt guilty and sad because I knew exactly why she was leaving and why she thought this was just one of our routine travels: a week before this, I had moved out from our family home, into a small apartment close by, without Mark. I had taken Zoe with me but she would also go back and stay with Mark for a few days in a row. This might come as a surprise and I have not been very open about our difficult situation, not here, not to anyone in real life apart from my closest friends. But fact is that we have had serious relationship problems since we moved to Sweden, problems that got worse over the winter and culminated in April. It took me a long time to talk to Mark about how unhappy I have been with my situation and how much I felt he was not considering this or even realizing this, but it only took me a couple of weeks from then, till I decided to move out. I felt this was the only way I could gain back the independence that I had given up and missed sorely after we moved to Sweden. It was never my choice to move here in the first place and my work situation was horrible, but at the same time I didn't feel that Mark took this serious. My lack of integration and engagement with swedish people and the language is clear evidence of this. In some ways I didn't feel this place was real.

Moving a 2 year old for the 4th time in her life feels tough but splitting up her parents feels terrible. The guilt sucks me in every time Zoe wants something and I give in very quickly. She mainly sleeps in my double bed where I stroke her hair until she falls asleep instead of putting her in her travel crib and let her fall asleep on her own, which she used to do. I let her decide if we should eat inside at the table or outside on the balcony, even if that means moving mid-meal. But apart from her thinking we travel and move every week, she seems to deal with it well. She has not had any temper tantrums out of the ordinary and she does not cry and ask for me (or her daddy) at night. And Mark and I are amicable and settled on doing this in a way that she is the least affected by. We have two rules: One rule is that we make sure to do something all three of us one day a week. Today for example, I came over with breakfast and we went for a long walk through the city, after which we went for early dinner at a nice italian place. We went back and I gave Zoe a bath before Mark put her to bed. Rule number two is that we are working towards staying together, not splitting up. I might have needed to be by myself for a while, be independent and have my own life, but neither of us really wants out. We are planning a date next week and I hope that will lead to more couple stuff and eventually me moving back in. I try to stay optimistic. But right now, Zoe is of the belief that we move every 4-6 months because that is all she knows.

Learning to speak two languages

Zoe is so far just bilingual. I speak Danish to her and her dad speaks English to her; she seems to understand both equally well. She attends an English speaking daycare so she is only exposed to Swedish when she interacts with our occasional babysitter and the few Swedish friends we have here. Obviously we will have to make sure she learns Swedish at one point but so far this has worked out well. Since Mark speaks neither Danish, nor Swedish, English is also our home language so I reckon Zoe hears approximately 80 percent English and 20 percent Danish in her everyday life. She now has a speaking vocabulary of around 10-20 words depending on how you count.

One of the things I am most proud of is that her 6th word was "bog", Danish for book. She even says it more clear than any of her other words. Her previous ones were simply mama, dada, baba, aye and no. Not that these are easy to decipher, mama means both mom, mommy's milk and food. Baba means baby but also anything childlike such as dolls, strollers she sees on the street (okay, which probably have a baba in them) and herself. But more specifically, her first words were non-language specific (except for no, which is only English). Even the word for more, "mere" in Danish was some mix, sounding more like "mar". But as she is getting better and picking up more words, very likely in daycare, it is clear that her understanding of language is that we ourselves decide what to call something and that there is no problem in that. She knows that I call it "øre", "næse", "mund", but when I ask her to say it, she says ear, nose, mouth (well more like eaaa, nos and mau). She observes that we use words specific to us, and which she understands, so she simply selects the words she wants to use. It is the meaning that is important, not the actual word.

Like any toddler she says hilarious things, particularly if you ask her mother. My favorite is her utterly surprising exclamation "oh no!" whenever something goes slightly wrong. And things go wrong all the time in her world. She drops a piece of cucumber on the floor (oh no!), she finds a damaged tile on the staircase up to our apartment (oh no!) or she can't find her doll before bedtime ("Zoe, where is your doll?" Oh no!). In fact I have the suspicion that it also means "I don't know" in specific situations. Of all the peculiarities she says, this is the one I hope she keeps the longest because it has such cheer childish innocence to it.

Okay, and then finally, I'm not proud that her 7th word was "mør", smør, which is butter in Danish. She loves her bread with butter in the morning and when I look away she runs her finger through the butter and eats it straight up. If I ask her why there are holes in the butter she looks puzzled at me with her big blue eyes and throws out her arms: Oh no!

Real life

Something that comes to mind on days where I go to work on 4 1/2 hours sleep because I stayed up past midnight correcting student exams and Zoe woke me up at 5, is how my lifestyle makes my life unreal. Moving country every 2-4 years makes it difficult to think of anywhere as 'real life'. After walking around in a daze today I realized that I have not been thinking of my life in Stockholm as something serious, something real yet. Perhaps due to my rather complex work situation (which needs a full blog post) but probably more importantly because I am not able to (refuse to?) completely understand the language and hence what goes on around me (what people talk about on the subway, what the tabloids say and which politicians are in power), I don't engage. I feel that this is just a game, a temporary thing, something that doesn't really concern me. Ironically I feel very much home in my academic field. I have really close friends who live around the world, (even one or two here) I am passionate about that environment and community. I also have close friends outside the field that do not live here. But walking around in the streets, interacting with strangers in shops, cafes and my gym, I don't feel the 'realness'. And I haven't for a while.

The US was as unreal as this, people would speak a language I am fluent in and I enjoyed small talk as much as the next American. I have a fairly American accent (with a mix of Scottish) so I didn't stick out the way I do here. But I often got to a certain place where the cultural differences caught up on me and meant that I could not emphasize any further with the people I was talking to. I simply could not understand their eagerness to repeat themselves, to talk about irrelevant issues or to talk about themselves as much as some tend to do. Again, don't get me wrong, I am not generalizing about Americans, they come as differently as other nationalities, but the basic cultural differences between me and them, made me realize that my life there was unreal or at least not grounded in a settled notion of everyday life.

One of the reasons it feels unreal is of course that many of my loved ones, including my family, are far away and not easy to talk to due to time difference and diverging schedules. The fact that these people cannot understand my everyday life as I do, means that they cannot advise me in normal matters (like bureaucratic issues or language specific concerns) and that I feel even more removed from them. I think I end up choosing to stay attached to people instead of places, which in return makes my everyday life feel so unreal. I make people in my life important, no matter where, in what time zone they are. Or perhaps it is just the 4 1/2 hours of sleep talking and I will feel perfectly real in my own life tomorrow.

It was never meant to be like this

When I have a rough day, a straining hour or even just a bad moment with Zoe, like loosing my temper on a subway platform, I often think that it was never meant to be like this. Parenthood was never meant to be a single or even duo person chore. The good old saying "it takes a village" echos in my ears as I wonder where my support network is. Because having my lifestyle and career means that there might be many supporters but none next door. I have several close friends that I could call up at any hour of the day (and I do occasionally); I have wonderful family who even visits often, but all these people all are between 1 and 10 hours flight away and have been since Zoe was born. When I hit my head badly on the kitchen sink last night and the thought flashed through my mind that I might need stitches (not that it was that bad of a bruise but one's mind does tend to wander towards the extreme) the only one I could think of to call to look after sleeping Zoe was a younger male friend of ours who lives 10 minutes away. Not a close friend, not someone who have ever looked after Zoe or any other kids for that matter, but someone who Mark goes drinking with and who works in the same research center as we do. We have colleagues, but none whose phone number I have, or who lives within any proper distance. There is no village.

Modern parenthood is very independent and lonely in its structure and we tend to pay people to do the chores that was done by extended family and neighbors in "the good old days". This has become even more apparent now that we don't have an arsenal of payed people in our household anymore (well at least a nanny, a cleaning lady and an occasional babysitter seemed like an arsenal when we now only have one busy occasional evening sitter). Scandinavian daycare and wage levels plus our general financial situation means this is no longer an option.  When Zoe was sick two weeks ago and Mark's board meeting overlapped with my teaching I called an emergency nanny service. I left a sick toddler with a stranger and paid her a considerable amount of money to go to work. She was my village.

I keep reminding myself that this is how things are; I have made a choice to live like this, I have decided that I can do that. Even when I scream at Zoe because I just can't take her crying for the 5th day in a row while I am in the shower and there is nobody to distract her and she got tired of Pingu, I try tell myself that it is okay because it was never meant to be like this. I am in an extreme situation. And perhaps one day soon there will be a bit more of a village.

Perpetual expat

I really like The Minimalist Mom and tend to follow her blog. At the moment she is living in the UK as a Canadian expat. Her account of differences in lifestyle and experiences made me ponder about my own situation. I consider myself a perpetual expat, never really being quite integrated into the culture where I live, yet not feeling at home in the country I grew up in anymore. Since I turned 18 I have lived in four countries apart from my own. The bulk part has of course been the US where I spent roughly 10 years, split between Florida (2 1/2 years) and California (southern, northern and southern again). Second comes Scotland where I lived for 2 1/2 years and now Sweden where I have spent a couple of summers and now live permanently. Well, as permanently as a perpetual expat can live somewhere because I don't expect we will be here for more than 4-5 years but who knows?

What this means, and which is why I felt sadly detached from minimalist mom's account, was that she considers her Canadian home habits and setup as the basis of her comparison. I found myself longing to have such basis, to have a 'default' country, but even Denmark where I grew up has changed so much that I have a hard time proclaiming it to be 'the best country in the world', something I was completely sure of when I moved to Florida to go to college almost 20 years ago. Instead I compare in circles, bringing out advantages from one country and culture and putting down other chacteristics. I am always the first one of my European friends to defend Americans because as a stereotypical mass they have a bad reputation here. And I am always the first one to criticize the Swedish passive aggressiveness as a way of dealing with fellow train passengers and fellow supermarket shoppers. But I always defend the Swedish social system over American disparity and I truly believe that Sweden is a better place to be a parent than the US.

It is tempting for me to say that I don't feel at home anyplace anymore but that is not true. I have learned to make myself at home in a strange setting. It also helps having a partner and now a family. It is not about things, even the special ones like the pillow your grandmother knitted or the clock you inherited from your uncle. It is about getting to know a new apartment and a new neighborhood so you can get around without looking at a map. It is about finding that cafe nearby where the staff says hi third time you show up with your laptop and ask for the internet password. And it is about getting to know where the nutella and the mango chutney is in the grocery store. When you got these things down, home is slowly forming and living in a new place becomes comfortable. I used to say that "home is a hard place to find"; I have realized that is it not about finding home but instead creating one. And I seem to get better and better at it.

Moving Challenges

This week I am in a frenzy of trying to make our new apartment into a home or at least a place where we can live in from this Friday on. Our temporary lease is up and our new apartment is ours. Mark picked up the keys on the 22nd when Zoe and I were in Copenhagen and yesterday, after we had flown back the evening before, we entered our new home together. Our situation presents several challenges since we are not getting our half container of furniture and stuff (read: books and kitchenware) before the end of January. This means that that we will be living rather minimalistic, sleeping on an air mattress, sitting on pillows on the floor and eating off a borrowed table (thanks Jacob!). Today I went to Ikea to get some minimal level of kitchen utensils. I felt really silly buying things that I already have in a container somewhere on the Atlantic ocean. But I am not doing badly because when in Copenhagen I dug through my old stuff and found my inherited silverware which I brought back with me (yes, I have real heirloom silverware, forks, knives, a teapot and for some odd reason a million teaspoons. My grandparents must have had many people over for tea all the time).

 I also brought my old European sized Vipp bin that my brother had borrowed for half a decade. So for the next month we will drink espresso from my new posh espresso maker (my lovely husband's Christmas present to me), eat with real silver and enjoy throwing trash in a posh trash can. All while sitting on plastic chairs, eating one-pot meals like risotto and stews by candle light.

Accounting

Today I opened an account in my fourth country. On Wednesday I will then have debit and credit cards in 4 countries, Denmark, the UK, USA and Sweden. I also have personal security numbers in each country, which is necessary in order to get bank accounts in three of these (UK is an exception, instead they require a vast amount of paperwork including "proof of address", which usually presents a catch 22 of getting official letters sent to your address when you don't have an account yet). When I asked to apply for an actual credit card as well they questioned me if I really wanted that? Did I not just want a debit card? In the US they throw credit after you, continuously sending you offers for company affiliated credit cards where you earn points: frequent flyer miles, retail points and even coffee points. Here you don't get any points at all but instead a dirty look from your banker.

I am really looking forward to have an actual Swedish card to pay with in the shops. One of the major problems with having money and cards in 4 different countries is that you occasionally (well, often) have to pay with a card foreign to the country you are in. For US cards this is a challenge. On average they close off my card after about 6 transactions in another country. Then I have to call my US bank and tell them that I did indeed travel (like I do 5-8 times per year) and used my card in a foreign country. Then they lecture me that I need to call them up in advance and I agree, knowing that I am never going to do this because 1. between packing and planning a trip, who has the time to call your bank? 2. half the times they have not closed off at least one of my cards making payments perfectly possible. 3. Really? (Mark once had a rant at a banker over the phone questioning why they just couldn't write a note on our cards that we travel often.) But I guess if I had called them up this time I would have been spared the embarrassment of having both my US cards rejected while trying to explain in my broken Swedish that "US banks hates other countries and therefore closed off my cards" (that was as nuanced as I got). The 25 year old clueless store clerk just looked at me like I was the biggest crook trying to pay with cards with no credit. Or worse, cards that weren't mine. So I really look forward to have my own card, at least if that gets rejected it is because I am genuinely out of money and I can only blame myself.