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?

A room of one's own

One of the 'features' of my new apartment is that Zoe has her own room. The apartment is tiny and I sleep in the living room but Zoe has a small room of her own, a concept that she already loves. There is an open space between her room and the kitchen, done obviously to get light into the small internal kitchen and where I was a bit worried about this at first (how do I make coffee at night without waking her up?), it has shown to be one of the best features in the apartment. She enjoys playing in her own room knowing that I can peek down at her and knowing that I am right there. When I fetch a glass of water for her at night she does not run after me because she can see me open the fridge and I can say hi while pouring it. Okay, I don't make coffee (I have a noisy espresso maker) at night anymore, but I do wash dishes and boil water for tea. She sleeps fairly heavily and so far I haven't accidentally woken her up.


I prioritized decorating her room over my own (well, getting a sofa bed was a fairly big priority, for almost three weeks I slept on a borrowed mattress on the floor) and I think it is almost there. When my mom was here a couple of weeks ago she bought a roll of wrapping paper with the Mumins on and stuck directly on the wall. Eventually I want actual picture frames for the posters I bought in Ann Arbor last week when I was there for a research meeting. And the rug desperately needs a non-slip plastic sheet underneath so we don't slide in it all the time. But these things are details. For now Zoe has a wonderful room of her own.

Grandma to the rescue

This morning I screamed at Zoe because we were late for daycare (very late) and she needed her diaper changed but wouldn't lie still, probably because her tummy hurt. It was yet another stressful morning where she woke up late after having been awake for the two neat hours between 2am and 4am, like the other nights, leaving me a zombie when my alarm went off at 6.45am. Experiencing one of the low points of my 19 months of motherhood, I lost my temper with her in desperation to get her to lie still, but oddly enough she didn't get scared, she didn't cry harder. She just looked at me with a puzzled look, wondering why I was yelling so loud when she was right there. We eventually managed to get out the door and walk the extra blocks to another subway entrance where the elevator was surely working, opposite our local entrance where the elevator had been out of order for two days. After dropping off a crying tired toddler, I had to compose myself in front of the daycare director when I passed by her office on my way out, but burst out crying as soon as I had the front door to the daycare behind me. On my way to work, after having collected myself I called my mom with the pretense to ask how the Lucia dress was going. She asked how Zoe was and I started sobbing again. "I don't know how I am going to manage, she doesn't sleep at night and she is still not eating much. Mark is coming back Sunday but until then I am just on my own". My mom paused. "Do you want me to go and get a plane ticket to come up there", she said inquisitively. "Yes", I whined. And this is why grandma is coming on the first plane to Stockholm tomorrow, with a Lucia dress size 86 and a roll of marzipan (a Danish Christmas delight).

Letting the baby sleep outside

One of the things that my mother worried about when she came to visit me in California, while I was 36 weeks pregnant, was where the baby would nap. She was worried that the balcony was too noisy and the little court yard only had a small window that I couldn't see out from the living room. I said I would think about it and try and solve that. Not at one moment did I question that the baby would be napping outside like a proper Scandinavian baby. When Zoe was born I forgot she was Danish and let her nap in the bassinet inside, next to our bed or the bassinet in the living room or, as happens with most newborns, on top of my chest. We went to Stockholm when she was only 3 1/2 weeks old and for my 3 months maternity leave here, she napped in her lie-flat pram when I was taking my daily walks, just as all other Scandinavian babies. Returning to the US I never tried to recreate the outdoor napping, mainly because it was too hot in Southern California and it was too difficult to for her to actually fall asleep outside.

In fact, I never thought much about the cultural differences between baby napping before I read this blog post about letting your baby sleep outdoors (or Americans' reluctancy to do so). I have thought a lot about other cultural differences such as lie-flat sleeping vs. car seat sleeping (I am still convinced that Americans are breeding a generation of people with serious back problems when they get older) and baby-carrying (as in a soft-structured carrier or wrap) vs. logging your baby around in a car seat and stroller. But for some reason in the US I simply adopted the US standard of letting the baby nap in her crib, in her room.

So when we got back to Stockholm this time, I was really happy to see that Zoe has not only started liking her stroller more, or should I say, at all, she also falls asleep in it and likes to snuggle up inside her little foot muff (which is its proper name, but a complete misnomer since this covers her up to her ears), lying flat in her stroller and nap. I usually go to a cafe and leave her sleeping outside so she doesn't get to hot from all the clothes and today she slept a record of 2 hours and 15 minutes. The blog post above wonders how Scandinavians can just leave their babies outside and having experienced motherhood from both worlds I see where she is coming from. I would never leave my baby outside in the US, simply because infrastructures such as buildings, paths, roads and pavements are bigger, there is more space between window and entrance, and there is no appropriate place to put a stroller. Here in Stockholm on the other hand I was able to place the stroller 4 inches from the window, sit down about two meters from the window, watching if Zoe's feet moved. The atmosphere is one of friendliness, there are 100 of parents out and about, dads and moms, and there is always someone with an acknowledging smile. There is a sense of 'us' not 'me and them' and I have the confidence that if Zoe cried and I didn't hear her, someone would pop in and ask whose baby it was. As for the blogger's rather unimaginative question to how to dress the baby for sleeping in the cold weather I just have to ask if she has never been out herself in cold weather? Clothing my dear, clothing and some more clothing.