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At long last, Gabriel is the proud owner of a pocket knife! To date, he still has all 10 digits.

Another September has come and gone. I can already feel the days getting shorter and the light is definitely beginning to wane. Always a month of transition, September has been particularly difficult for me the past five years because the fourteenth of the month marks the untimely death of my father.

Although that day was particularly hard (something about hitting the five-year anniversary made this year worse than the last few for me), September also marks another major milestone in my life: the anniversary of the day I became a mother–Gabriel’s birthday. So after trying unsuccessfully to put a coherent post together on my feelings about the loss of my father for nearly three weeks, I’m going to bag the sad middle of the month and move straight on to the happy ending

I’ve already weighed in on G’s super-star birthday party, but since the craziness of the party last week, I’ve had more time to reflect on the little man himself and on the journey we’ve undertaken together.

I talked  a lot about the changes that have taken place in our lives since Lily was born in her birthday post, so I won’t repeat that chronology here. I will, however, point out how Gabriel and I are alike in some ways when it comes to the tremendous change of the overseas move. Like his mama, Gabriel styles himself as someone up for any adventure. Also like his mama, he sometimes panics once he starts to realize the full implications of  said adventure.

Early indications that our boy would love the move to Finland!

That means this past year in Helsinki has been full of ups and downs. The ups have included him learning to snow shoe and cross-country ski, and finally living somewhere that has adequate snowfall for his insatiable sledding needs. They have also included him forming friendships with people from literally all over the world.

He has also proven himself to be quite a traveler. Finally old enough to begin to appreciate museums, history, and architecture, he has seen the best of what Paris has to offer and has also seen a fair bit of Norway.

This summer he visited his first real castle (Windsor), and began to appreciate how much older things are here in Europe than they are in Colorado. Although his understanding of how old things are is imperfect (as one would likely expect from a seven-year-old), he is starting to understand more complex concepts from revolutions to evolution, and that is really a lot of fun to watch.

His reading and his ability to play more complex games like Battleship, Chinese Checkers, and chess, have really exploded this year.  And he’s unstoppable in the math department, where he constantly amazes me with his ability to add and subtract and now multiply (I swear, I didn’t teach him any of this!).

Little Dreamer...

Every time that he proves to me how mature and wise he is, he also reminds me that he’s still a little boy, and a dreamer at that. I think that makes the chaos of our day-to-day life a little challenging for him. Having both children in school five days a week means a hectic schedule, especially when we’re adding play dates, beach time, and soon, outdoor snow play to the routine.

Part of being a dreamer is that sometimes the fantasy world in your head can sometimes skew your view of reality. This manifests quite a bit on the play ground, where he often sees the play battles that boys inevitably start as a matter of life and death. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve had to take a stick from him that was being used as a weapon. Each time he explains how he is defending his base/castle/fort, protecting his sister, or, to use my own words, fighting the tyranny of the universe, and each time I remind him that playing war and actually being at war are two different things.

He’s still a boy who likes to spend his precious weekend mornings lounging in his pajamas (also like his mama), to the extent that he even opted out of Saturday morning football with his best pals because he didn’t want to have to get up and get out of the house early on a Saturday morning. I have to say I didn’t argue this particular point.

From peaceful infant to warrior child...

But instead, I’ll leave you with this photo of him as a newborn and say that even though he’s nearly wearing the same size shoe as I am, even though he is huge and bright and inquisitive and hyper-active, this image of his tiny self sleeping is what I see every time I look at him. And that’s not going to change in another seven years, or possibly even in seventy.

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Gabriel's first day of kindergarten in Colorado, August 2010

I’ve never been one of those moms who cried at milestones. I’ve looked forward to the first solid food, the first steps, the first loose tooth, and even the first day of school. It’s hard not to be excited when your kids are absolutely desperate to escape you and each otherover the moon at the thought of seeing their friends after nearly two months of traveling.

But something’s just a bit different this year. Not only are we 6,000 miles away from where this picture was taken on Gabriel’s first day of kindergarten in Colorado last year, but this year, Lily starts school too. That’s right. As of 8:45 this morning, I’m sort of an empty-nester. The International School doesn’t have a half day option for kindergarten, so Lily will be joining Gabriel at school five full days per week. Besides catching up on the 800 blog posts I’ve been meaning to write about our amazing summer, I’m a bit at loose ends. Maybe it’s because the kids have been with me pretty much around the clock since early June. Maybe it’s because it seems impossible to me that my baby is actually a five year old who managed to lose her first tooth and teach herself to read this summer. And did I mention that’s she’s grown?

Lily checking out her kindergarten's book nook....

Here she is at Kindergarten orientation, just as calm and grown-up as can be. You can read my thoughts on Lily turning five to learn more about what a challenging kid she can sometimes be, but suffice it to say Matt & I are both shocked AND thrilled that Lily has grown up to be such a resilient, adaptable little girl. It’s not like we haven’t thrown a lot at her with this move to Finland from different foods to learning the ropes of public transportation to jumping right into a Finnish preschool, as Gabriel enjoyed the relative familiarity of International School.

Gabriel, as always, amazes me with bursts of maturity that give me a glimpse of the big boy struggling to emerge. Today, as I walked them in to school, he assured me that I could just drop them off at the curb and that he’d walk his sister to her class so she didn’t get lost. My heart melted just a little bit, but Lily also squeezed my hand, her unspoken request that I stay with her for just a few minutes before sending her off to her first day of school.

And that’s the fine balance of parenting, isn’t it: Knowing when to let go and also recognizing when hanging on for just a few more minutes will give them the little boost they need to make it the rest of the way on their own.

Gabriel & Lily about to head to their first day of school, 2011

So I’ll totally get back to writing those blog posts and working on the novel and all those Big Important Things I always seem to worry about. But not today. Today, I’m going to hang out, enjoy the peace and quiet, and reflect a bit on the last seven years (seven years!) of my parenting journey. Truth be told, I think I’m the one who hit the milestone today…

The kids (and mama) enjoying the beach after their first half day of school

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Lily's first bath at home a few days after her birth...

Tomorrow, my “baby” girl will be five years old. Five years since my father told me I needed to hurry up and have this baby because his flight home was booked for only a few days after the conversation.

Five years since I squatted down to pick some asparagus on May 7 after days of on-again, off-again labor, only to stand up and say emphatically, “time to go to the hospital!” Five years since I became a mother of two.

A lot has happened in those five years.
We lost my Dad just a few short months after Lily was born. We learned to live in a state of almost constant sleep deprivation and grief. We learned how hard it is to chase a fledgling toddler with a cranky baby in tow. We learned about all the amazing ways said toddler could devise to torment and wake up his baby sister, but also how much our hearts could expand when he made her laugh.

Lily's preferred outfit at age 1

We built a house in Lyons, decorated it, put down roots both literal and metaphorical, made amazing friends, and then said goodbye a few years later to return to Europe for the third time, this time to Finland. We said good-bye to Sun Microsystems after more than a decade. We endured one of the worst wintersin recent history in Helsinki, only to come out on the other side and realize that six months out of the year this is the most beautiful place on the planet.

Lily & her cousin holding hands

And through it all, Lily grew and changed. Convinced that she needed a fourth (fifth, sixth, seventh?) trimester, Lily entered the world screaming. No one else but Mommy would do, even when Mommy was tired, grieving, and fantasizing about running off to Tahiti. I became an expert with slings, mastering everything from cooking to shopping to trips to the toilet with Lily hanging on to me like a baby lemur. I learned that some babies (Gabriel) nursed and slept on a schedule and some babies (Lily) just didn’t, no matter what you tried. I read every fussy baby book on the planet and never found anything that worked except time, patience, and flexibility, oh yeah, and nursing (really the only thing that ever worked for anything!).

Lily & I napping on her second birthday

Then one day, it got easier. It happened so gradually that I can’t pinpoint the date. Lily moved from our bed to Gabriel’s sometime around her second birthday and sleep started to become a regular occurrence instead of a rarity (not without trials and backslides, of course). I started to exercise again, and felt a bit like I was emerging from a fog.

She still challenged us every chance that she got. She cut her hair into a horrendous mullet (twice), refused to have her hair washed, wouldn’t wear seasonally-appropriate clothes, and managed to terrorize us on so many shopping trips (either hiding/running away or having a major meltdown) that we learned to shop only when she was in preschool, or when we could divide and conquer.

But she was also prone to fits of entirely contagious giggles and could charm even the most hard-hearted. And did I mention she has ninja tendencies? Although girlie to the core when it comes to clothes, toys, and movies, she has also snatched a full-grown water snake and multiple tadpoles out of the river, can catch toads in no-time flat and has out-maneuvered children three times her age in pursuit of grasshoppers. She likes to get dirty more than any girlie girl I know. She gets that, and her temper, and her drama, and her way with animals from her mama.

She also gets her crazy from her mama!

She gets her looks and her stature, thank goodness, from her father. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her grow up to be a super model, an astro-physicist, a bar-tender, an actress, a princess (yes, with the recent royal wedding hoopla, she has decided that marrying a prince is high on her list of life goals. I can live with that), or anything else she decided she wanted to do. I recently told a friend that Lily came to me in a dream when I was pregnant with her and told me what her name would be. My friend thought that was entirely believable given her personality, and I do too.

She and Gabriel, at 19 months apart, are almost more like twins than siblings. They’ve shared a room–first at my insistence and then at their own–for three years now. This is the first year that they’ve been at different schools and there have been almost daily complaints from both of them for most of the school term, although Lily has been amazingly effective at insinuating herself into Gabriel’s class whenever she gets the chance. They annoy each other to no end, but when it counts, they’re loyal, and I’ve seen each of them risk physical and/or emotional pain to defend the other in a tough situation.

Lily & Gabriel - partners in crime

As hard as it’s been for them to be at different schools this year (and as relieved as I am that they’ll both be at ISH next year!), I think it’s been good for Lily to come into her own without Gabriel. He may be the quieter of the two, but he’s also very smart and bossy and Lily is often quite pleased to follow along, leaving him to do the planning and masterminding. This year, she’s had to figure things out on her own, and we’ve seen so many changes in her in such a short time.

Lily on her 3rd birthday - She always did love a costume!

First, she’s more or less lost the speech impediment that worried us quite a bit when she was first learning to talk. Saying R is still difficult for her, but she speaks very clearly otherwise, and her vocabulary is expanding. Now, in addition to English, in includes some French and Finnish, which is one of the many things we hoped for when we moved to Helsinki. This past week, when a new child started at Lily’s school, the mother mistook Lily for a Finn and spoke to her in Finnish. She was astonished to discover that Lily was American when Lily answered her Finnish question in perfect American English. Lily claims even now that Susannah was speaking English to her (she must have been, Mommy, because I understood what she said!), but the fact is that she understands more Finnish than I do, despite all of my lessons and study, just by being around Finnish children three days a week.

Lily on her 4th birthday, post traumatic hair cut!

Although I think her fiery temper will always be a part of her personality, she’s outgrown the fits and tantrums that left us wondering what was wrong with her and if she’d ever be a happy-go-lucky little girl. Now she’s that and more. She’s full of kisses and hugs and love. She loves to dance and twirl and dress up like a princess. She draws pictures of people laughing when she’s happy and people crying when she’s sad. She tries to pet every animal she encounters, even occasionally wild ones. She still checks every flower she sees for fairies, and is sure that some day she’s going to move fast enough to find one.

Out of the four of us, I think Lily has adjusted to life in Finland with the most ease. You could argue that it’s because she’s the youngest, but I think the volatility of her younger years has made her more resilient than most. She not only adjusted to a new school in a new country, but one where most of the children spoke a completely alien language (although the teachers all speak English and conduct class in English). She has had to do more public transport schlepping around due to the inconvenient location of her school than has Gabriel. She’s had to do more shopping and errands with me on the days that she’s not at school. She’s been more likely to throw a loud fit (something Finnish children almost never do) on the bus/tram/train, but also more likely to charm the Finns with her antics. If this expat life continues much longer, I can imagine a time when it will be the only thing Lily remembers and that both excites and terrifies me.

So tomorrow she is five. This week has been one of birthday mania. Obsessed with presents, cupcakes, and party-planning, Lily has counted down each day to her birthday with obsessive fervor (and with some heated arguments about whether we count her birthday itself as we count down!). I’m honestly surprised that she went to sleep tonight–she’s vibrating with excitement. As usual, these big milestones are exciting for the children and bittersweet for the parents. Getting to know her and being her parent has been more challenging and surprising than I ever would have guessed when I daydreamed of her before her birth. Mother-daughter relationships are always complex, always loaded with projection and deeper meaning, and ours may be even more so because of our specific, and very similar, personalities and temperaments. I guess it makes sense, then, that Lily’s birthday falls on Mother’s Day this year. Because her turning five is a huge step, for her and for her mama.

My "baby" on her last day as a four-year-old

Continue reading »]]> Misunderstandings are a part of expat life. Language barriers, cultural differences, and a desire to attribute meaning when sometimes there is none–all of these are experienced on a regular basis. Such was the case when I posted the following in my post, Easter in Finland:

Of course, it wouldn’t be a holiday in Finland without it’s own special pastry or bun, and Easter is no exception. These buns are like an elephant ear–crispy and covered with powdered sugar. They’re our least favorite so far, especially since they’re competing with the yummy raspberry jam in the Runbergintartut (in celebration of the birth of Finland’s most famous poet) and the cream filling of the Mardi Gras pastry (Laskia pulla). Once we complete our first year here, I’ll have to report back on the highlights of this year of pastries!

I should have been suspicious when I couldn’t locate the Finnish name for this delicious little sweetie. Googling “Finnish Easter Pastry” and every variant thereof yielded no name whatsoever. That’s because, in Finland at least, there is no special bun to commemorate Jesus’s execution & subsequent resurrection. Sorry, Jesus. These elephant ear-like concoctions are actually for Vappu (May Day/Labor Day), which occurs this weekend. Easter is late this year–just a week before Vappu–so it was certainly an honest mistake.

So tippaleipa are one of the traditional foods eaten at Vappu, along with salmon leek pie, potato salad, sausages, rosettis, other picnic fare, and a mildly-fermented home-made mead-like drink called sima. Named after that famous patroness of those with rabies (wtf??), Saint Walpurga, it seems to me like Vappu has become a bit of a catch-all for spring celebrations in Finland.

Students in their overalls & hats, selling magazines during Vappu

First, likely because it corresponds so closely with the end of exams in Finland, Vappu is a celebration of the end of the academic year. As such, students are out in the streets wearing festive overalls (which also came out for the annual sled-fest on Mardi Gras) & sailor caps (the equivalent of our mortar-board in the US) and trying to sell you a student publication for about 10 Euros that I heard from Finnish friends is filled with bawdy student-humor. Part of the reason the above photo is so shoddy is because I didn’t want to get too close for fear of feeling obligated to buy one of these publications in exchange for the photo!

I can only imagine how she feels about her impending "washing"

Vappu is also Finland’s equivalent of Labor Day and has long been a time for the proletariat to express their discontent with marches, speeches, and apparently with ceremonial pissing on the gates of the Russian Embassy. So many Finns come to piss on this beautiful building that I’ve been warned to keep the windows closed this weekend lest our flat, which is less than a block from the embassy, be inundated with the smell of urine. You can read more about why Finns might feel compelled to urinate on a diplomatic building here, but I think it’s very fitting both because of the chosen target and the means by which the Finns have given voice to their lingering anger.

At any rate, students, leftists, and just about everyone else celebrates Vappu with a picnic in the local park. Our local park, Kaivopuisto, happens to be the favored place to be if you’re in Helsinki and we’ve been warned that it will be filled with picnic blankets early in the day, and drunks later on. They are already selling mylar balloons for the children, funny hats and sunglasses for adults, and lots of streamers and other things that I believe are going to lend a carnival atmosphere to the day, weather-permitting. It seems to me like places in warmer climes are able to do this type of celebrating at Carnival/Mardi Gras, but the Finns are relegated to celebrating on May Day simply because it takes that long for this place to thaw out. Regardless, I am looking forward to celebrating with a bit of sparkling wine and a stroll through Kaivopuisto, and will get as many photos of the festivities as I can with hopes of sharing them here.

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Gabriel & Lily on the first day of school this year

Like many American parents, I spent a great deal of time the past two years completely freaking out worrying about sending my children to school. Public school? Broken, underfunded, full of bullies, a little scary. Private school? Long commute, overpriced, not feasible, full of rich kids & drugs, a little scary. Home school? Holy shit. Lots of fear there too (Am I good enough/patient enough to do it? How will I get them social interaction? How will I have a life?!).

At the time I had no idea that I’d be taking the easy way out of this debate by moving to Finland two months into Gabriel’s first year of school. The school was already chosen (most of Nokia’s expat families send their children to the International School of Helsinki, Nokia foots the bill, it’s one of the few options for English-speaking children, and they had a spot for Gabriel.). Whew!

I literally didn’t have more time to dwell on it, so a week after we arrived, off he went. I’m not usually a person who can just let go of a decision like that, but I did out of necessity. And over the past four months, we’ve been fairly happy with the school. Gabriel’s teacher is an angel sent from heaven with abundant patience, an amazing ability to keep 11 rather spirited little boys (and 2 lovely girls) engaged, and a real understanding of the age and its challenges. Although with that ratio alone the class is better staffed than Gabriel’s elementary school back home, his teacher here has a full-time aid who is equally as wonderful.

But other than these warm-fuzzy feelings, I didn’t have much to go on in terms of what was different about this school. Until today. This morning I attended a presentation on the International Baccalaureate approach to assessment in the Primary Years Programme (elementary school). My high school had an IB diploma, but my primary memory of the program was that I’d have to give up my music classes to complete it, so I passed. I knew relatively little about what the program meant for young children or how it was different from other systems.

Today I learned that instead of being graded on academic achievement (can you count from 1-100, do your times tables, recognize X number of site words, diagram a sentence, all while sitting criss-cross applesauce and not causing trouble), a child in an IB program is evaluated based on a more holistic list of qualities that they cultivate on an individual basis:

• inquirers
• knowledgeable
• thinkers
• communicators
• principled
• open-minded
• caring
• risk-takers
• balanced
• reflective

Although there is standardized testing in grades 3, 5, 7, & 9, it is not the emphasis of the curriculum in quite the same way that it has become in the United States. Instead, IB schools put the emphasis on learning by doing, letting the children participate in defining the rubrics used to evaluate their work, and finding ways of engaging each child in the learning process.

This resonates so much with me that I could hardly contain myself during the talk. Not only does the above list include just about everything I want for my children (except unconditional love & boundless happiness, of course), but to achieve evaluation at this level of depth, the teacher has to actually know and understand each individual child in a way that was sadly impossible at our public school in Colorado, where class size alone would inhibit the process.

Next week, I have my first parent-teacher conference with a twist. Instead of the teacher talking to me about Gabriel, Gabriel is going to present his work to me. We’ve set aside 60-90 minutes for the talk, which should give us plenty of time to reflect on his last four months. It’s easy for me to see that he is thriving, but it will be nice for him to be able to show off his work, and I find myself looking very much forward to it, and to his continued participation in this school and others like it when we move on from Helsinki.

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Considering what a huge role travel has played in my life, it was with a surprising amount of trepidation that I booked our Winter Break tickets to Paris. Trying to live in a foreign country with a four- and a six-year-old somehow felt less daunting to me than trying to enjoy a vacation in a foreign city, especially when that city is one that holds so much meaning for Matt & I.

We were pleasantly surprised, however, and have some tips to share with regards to visiting Paris with children in tow.Let me say up-front that Disney played no part in this trip. We didn’t even tell the children that there was a Disneyland Paris. We wanted them to experience the art, architecture, and food in our favorite city. I’m not saying we’ll never go to Disney, but we were able to have a fun and educational trip without it!

My first bit of advice concerns lodging. The Paris Metro is extremely convenient in terms of the location of stops and how you can basically get anywhere in town in two changes or less. That said, it is very crowded, not the safest place to be in Paris, and a little difficult to navigate with two children who are ogling everything from the buskers to the homeless people to the decorations/advertising. So I would suggest resisting the temptation to stay in a cheaper hotel that is outside city-center.

We stayed at the Crowne Plaza Paris Republique and were able to find a sweet off-season deal that made it fairly reasonable. The rooms are small and a bit dated, but clean, and the concierge service is amazing. The restaurants on site are good, if expensive, and it’s literally on Place de la Republique, giving you good access to Le Marais, a quick hop down to Ile de la Cité via Hôtel de Ville. This is by no means the only choice of hotels in the area–there are many to choose from, especially in the Rive Gauche/Le Marais area that would be less expensive and just as convenient, but we ended up happy with our choice.

Because we wanted to see so much of the city in our five days in Paris, we bought Paris Visite travel cards that allowed us unlimited use of the Metro and bus system. We never ended up taking the bus because we are more familiar with the Metro, but I definitely think the passes were worth the price. Knowing that we could hop the Metro back to the hotel at any time, and that we could duck down underground if the weather turned bad or if the children were tired of walking, allowed us to venture farther than we might have otherwise. The passes are available in 1, 2, 3 or 5 days, and work on the regional train system (RER) as well as the Metro/bus.

Our best find, however, was definitely the Paris Museum Pass. Available in 2, 4, or 6 day increments, this pass gets you in to just about every museum in Paris. The best part is that you can avoid the enormous lines at the Louvre & Musée d’Orsay and walk right in the doors for the groups & pre-booked tickets. The day we were at the Musée d’Orsay, it was raining hard and the line was at least an hour long, so if we hadn’t had the passes, we probably would have had to skip the museum.

We were able to buy the travel cards & museum cards together at a discount and have them delivered directly to our hotel, but you can also have them mailed to you, or can even buy them in Paris, depending on how far in advance you’re booking.

Eating in Paris is an amazing experience, but it’s not cheap. Just a simple breakfast of tartine (baguette with butter & jam), juice, and hot chocolate/coffee was somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-9 Euros per person, and if you want eggs (my kids always want eggs), it’s 8-12 Euros. Lunches on the cheap will still be in the 10-12 Euro per person range and that’s assuming a sandwich, no dessert, and no wine. Let’s face it, it’s Paris, you want the dessert, and the wine, so budget a bit more and enjoy! The best way we’ve found to save money is to each out for lunch and eat simple for dinner. This is a tradition we started on an amazing trip to Southern France with my sisters 10 years ago and we continued it on this trip.

Dinners were usually composed of whatever we picked up at the corner market/boulangerie/cheese shop: a couple of small aged goat cheeses, a baguette, a bottle of wine, and some fruit. We split a couple of pastries for dessert, and we were set. One night we did eat out at Pizza Pino, which was literally 150m down from our hotel and has delicious and reasonably-priced pizza & salads. I will admit that we’ve lucked out with this approach because both of our children are adventure cheese eaters and will eat cheese that is blue/stinky/aged without batting an eye. If your children are pickier, make sure you get some milder cheese for them, or pick up a brie baguette from one of the many street-side venders early in the day and save it for dinner.

I was really impressed with how much we fit in during our 5 days, but have to shame-facedly admit that we skipped the Louvre. Matt & I have been there numerous times, and although we set aside the whole day Monday to tour the Louvre, when we woke up Monday it was brilliantly sunny and warm, so we decided to wander around outside instead. I’m glad we did, and promise we will take the children another time. Here’s our itinerary, with notes on things that were particularly interesting to our children:

Day 1
We arrived mid-day, so we checked in to the hotel and jumped on the Metro to Hôtel de Ville. The square in front of Hôtel de Ville had ice-skating and a carousel going while we were there, so it was a visual feast and a great place for the kids to form their first impressions of Paris. From there, we walked across the bridge to Ile de la Cité. The first site of Notre Dame, even from the back side, was really special. The kids were in awe, and we hadn’t even begun to show them around. We headed to Ile St. Louis for crepes and also picked up bread, cheese, fruit, and wine for dinner.

We ended up just window shopping and letting the kids play at the small playground on the south side of Notre Dame, but you could easily add a visit to the interior of Notre Dame and/or St. Chapelle here if the children aren’t too antsy.

Day 2

We visited Musée Cluny to see La Dame et la Licorne (the lady & the unicorn tapestries), the Roman baths, and some statuary that had been recovered during various renovations of buildings throughout the city. Both smaller and less crowded than some of the other museums, this was a great place to start with the children. They loved the tapestries, the statues, and also the jewels & ornamentation on all the religious reliquaries that are housed here.

Next we visited Musée d’Orsay. The statue garden on the main floor is really wonderful for children and our museum pass kept us out of the long line to get in. After the museum, we went to see the Eiffel Tower. It was probably the only thing Gabriel could identify as Parisian before our trip and both children were excited to see it, although they quickly took up puddle stomping once we got to the park at the base of the tower and were more entertained by that than anything else.

Day 3

A trip to Versailles will almost definitely be worth the price of the Museum Pass–man, have ticket prices gone up since I was last in Paris 10 years ago! We took the RER out to Versailles and spent the day there (Note that the travel card won’t get you all the way to Versailles, but I think our round-trip RER tickets were 15 Euros for all four of us). They have added golf carts and small trains to help you get around the gardens, but be sure to bring your driver’s license if you want to rent the golf carts. We didn’t have either of ours, so we ended up on the little train, which wasn’t bad. The kids loved running through the hedge gardens and seeing the fountains, but were also surprisingly interested in the ornate furniture and decorations in the Chateau.

Day 4
OK, this is the day we would have gone to the Louvre, but wandered around instead. We walked up the canal, playing on the numerous playgrounds that line the promenade, took the metro down to St. Michel on the Rive Gauche for lunch, wandered some more, and ended up in Notre Dame. The stained glass was really stunning due to the sun, so I was glad we stopped. We wrapped up the day by taking a tour on the Batobus up and down the Seine because the kids were tired of walking. It is a really neat way to see the city, especially with little ones that can’t walk all day long without getting over-tired.

Day 5
Our final day in Paris was probably the kids’ favorite, but definitely not ours. We visited the Musée de l’Armée in the morning. The kids loved the cannons, machine guns, military costumes, and old videos, but it was a sobering experience for Matt & I, because each gallery basically walks you through a year of each of the two World Wars. You can also see Napoleon’s tomb at Les Invalides, which is part of the Musée de l’Armée complex, and that is definitely worth seeing. After lunch, we visited the Musée des Arts Decoratifs to see a special exhibit on toys that the children really enjoyed. It was a museum I’d never visited, so I was happy to get to see it even if looking at vintage Pokemon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wasn’t my favorite cultural experience of the week.

All in all, we saw more of Paris than I thought we would, and enjoyed more good French food than I thought we’d be able to. It wasn’t exactly a budget trip, but it was the best vacation I’ve ever taken with the kids, and that’s saying something.

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If this is broad daylight in the wintertime, can you see why I'm feeling a little SAD?

What I should also have accounted for during this particular dark winter is that I would be experiencing culture shock, dealing with the rest of my family’s culture shock, and dealing with SAD all in one fairly concentrated period of time. Uh oh. The good news is that I’ve made it through the shortest day without killing anyone. The bad news is that I’ve been sleeping 10 hours a night, carb loading, and feeling downright sluggish most of the (very short) day.

We bought the Philips Wake-Up light, which provides the 10,000 lumens necessary to qualify it as light therapy, so I thought I was being fairly proactive. I also bought nice fish oil & Vitamin D supplements, although I have to admit that I haven’t been taking them (d’oh!). I’ve even been adding more fish to our diet in hopes of replicating the well-being-despite-the-dark that the Icelandic people enjoy (posited to also be due to Vitamin D & fish oil a plenty).

However, I learned today that I haven’t been using the wake-up light correctly. Across the room on our dresser, the light is enough to wake us up, but not nearly close enough to me to impact my circadian rhythms. Additionally, I’m supposed to be exposed to the light for at least 30 minutes each morning around the time I want to wake up. I guess that proves that light therapy isn’t just a psychosomatic phenomenon, because if it was, I’d be feeling better by now and I’m really not.

In addition to light therapy, the Mayo Clinic suggests getting outside and exercising, as well as taking an Omega-3 supplement, in their article on SAD. I guess I need to start actually taking those supplements I purchased! A recent Helsinki newspaper article on SAD seconds those recommendations and adds a third: a week’s vacation somewhere sunny (boy could I use that right now–do you think health insurance would cover it?!). Of course, it also says only 1% of Finns truly suffer from SAD and claims that what 10-30% of Finns actually suffer from is a milder form of SAD they’re calling sub-syndromal SAD where you just get fat and sleepy for a few months, and possibly feel down in the dumps, but do not need serious counseling or antidepressants.

So, as a little bit of an experiment, I’ll document how well my regime of supplements (DHA & Vitamin D), a daily walk in what little daylight there is, a daily 30-minute dose of the light therapy light, and some additional exercise combats my sub-syndromal SAD over the next month. I’m guessing that the biggest factor in the anticipated mood improvement will be that extra 2-3 minutes of daylight we’re gaining each day, but we’ll see. If I feel significantly better next week, I’m probably going to cast my lot with the vitamins and light box…Next year, perhaps I’ll be able to report on whether a tropical mid-winter vacation makes an impact too!

What about you? Do you suffer from the winter blues? How do you deal with it?

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Country Mouse headed to the big city...

Growing Up – Definitely Country Mouse

I grew up in strip mall hell the suburbs of Indianapolis. It is by far the biggest city I’ve ever lived in, and (apologies to all my Hoosier friends & relations) my least favorite out of the places I’ve lived. Part of that is undoubtedly reflective of a young person’s desire to get the hell out of Dodge after graduation, but part of it is definitely that Indy is just not my style. For a big city, it has miserable public transportation, and many of the urban renewal initiatives that have, thankfully, taken place occurred long after I left. And despite being in the city most of the time, most of my happiest childhood memories took place on a farm a few hours outside the city, where we spent many weekends when I was growing up.

My first true metropolitan experience came when I ventured to Strasbourg, France, for a semester abroad. At just under half a million people in the greater metro area, Strasbourg is tiny, but as the seat of the European Parliament, and straddling, as it does geographically & culturally, both France & Germany, it was my first introduction to city life. I could walk nearly everywhere I needed to go for day-to-day living, and could hop a tram or bus to venture further in the city, or a train to make the ever-more-frequent trips to Nancy that became part of my life in France. I got to know the local drunks who lived in the bus shelter outside my apartment, and who got me out of a scrape or two in my time there. I learned to shop in increments that were easy to carry on foot and up the four flights of stairs to my apartment. I got used to having options beyond seeing a movie on the weekend as dance, opera, theater and other cultural events were added to my repertoire.

But then it was back to small-town Indiana to finish up college and off to another university town for my then-fiances’ graduate school. Again, small town life suited me. And again, when it was time to move to Colorado, we chose locations (first Superior, then Lafayette) that were smaller, off the beaten path. We moved to Windsor, England, and found the perfect balance of a small town (~30,000 people) that was close enough to have us in downtown London in half an hour by train. In addition to rekindling our love of art, culture, and the culinary delights that a city like London provides, our desire to travel, to easily jump to Paris or Venice or somewhere new entirely, cemented in our psyches.

However, it was also in England that I really discovered my love of gardening, so when we returned to the US and started looking for a bigger house than our little bungalow in Lafayette, we took what some considered a drastic step in moving to Lyons, a town of about 2,000 people. A place where I could raise children in an intimate community. A place where I could garden to my heart’s content in a big new yard and an easily-accessible community garden plot. A place with its own culture–the culture of bluegrass, the great outdoors, the river, the mountains.

And I loved life in Lyons. I loved running into people I knew every time I went to the local coffee shop, went to the park, or went for a run. I loved that we could walk across town in 20 minutes or so, and that we could walk to open space in 5 minutes. The tight-knit community meant that everyone was in everyone else’s business, but in a good way–a way in which this extroverted country mouse thrived.

And then we got restless…

But then last year, Matt & I both felt a little malaise. An amazing trip to Seoul in February stirred up my wanderlust, and two years of job insecurity, layoffs, and uncertainty tainted our feelings about our nice new house and the nice big mortgage that came with it. So now this country mouse finds herself in an actual city for the first time ever. It’s small for a capital city, just over half a million in Helsinki itself and just over a million in the metropolitan area created by Helsinki, Espoo, & Vantaa, and the downtown area is definitely smaller than Boulder, just with twice as many people.

First impressions of life in the city

As with all things, there are positives and negatives. The population density instantly drops the carbon footprint of our family (although admittedly our numerous flights to and from the US have probably killed a baby seal or two). The municipal compost & avid recycling program helps that effort, as does not having a car and relying on walking, cycling, tram, bus, and Metro. And living green is important to us.

Living simply has also increased in importance to us recently, and downsizing our house, yard, and cars plays into that effort. We estimate that we offloaded close to 30% of our stuff when we moved. Moving away from the land of Target & Wal-Mart and to the land of the dreaded 23% Value-Added Tax (VAT) will hopefully help us remember to think carefully about our purchases and avoid the accumulation of stuff that we don’t need or love.

And don’t get me started on the cultural offerings. As if moving into a very international community (our flat is in the embassy district and Gabriel’s school boasts more than 30 nationalities) wasn’t enough, Helsinki is close enough for a weekend trip to several other countries (Sweden, Estonia, & Russia being the most easily accessible). We know relatively little about Finland too, which makes it that much more foreign and mysterious to us.

But carrying groceries in howling winds and sub-zero temperatures is indisputably a drag. Missing the bus and really having no way to make-up the time, therefore coming late to school pickup or drop-off is equally annoying. Tiny washing machines, tiny antique elevators (have I ever mentioned that I’m mildly claustrophobic), being unable to navigate by the sun/mountains/water due to all the freaking tall buildings (some of you have witnessed first-hand my inability to navigate without these natural signs), and dogs that piss endlessly in the snow piles that I have to walk by every single day all make the list of annoyances.

I’d forgotten, since my time in England, the gorgeous shop windows at the holidays. And the beauty of the symmetrical Christmas lights adorning city center. The joy of watching the streets slip by on the tram without having to pay attention to traffic had slipped my mind. So I guess I’m a hybrid, or a chameleon, or something, because I think I can thrive in this new life in the city. And exposing the children to all of this, so that they can, in some far-off distant future decide if they’d like to be country mice or city mice…I suspect that’s the real reward.

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You'd think we moved to a cold country or something. All those coats for 4 people???

As with most things, my sense of adventure won out over the doubts and I got on the plane. I’m not yet qualified to make any grand pronouncements on Helsinki, yet, but here are a few of my first impressions:

• We need warmer socks. We obviously stocked up on coats & hats/mittens are in plentiful supply due to my knitting fetish, but regular-weight cotton socks are not going to cut it. It wasn’t even very cold today (probably low 40s and plenty of sun while it lasted), and my feet were cold, which means Lily’s feet were like ice.
• Even though we’re in Finland, common sense still applies. I already kvetched about my laundry experiences on Facebook, but applying a little common sense would have helped with that load of jeans that took 2 hours to dry. Namely that the tiny little lint trap that barely accumulated any lint should have clued me in to the fact that there was a great big lint trap on the door that had an inch-thick layer of lint on it. Removing that (after a long laugh with Matt) helped the clothes dry a little more quickly.
• Glogg is awesome. This fruit drink spiced with star anise and cinnamon is warmed and either mixed with wine or taken by itself. Either way, it is delicious, and a great way to warm up after a brisk walk.
• I don’t know any Finnish, and this is a problem. Yes, everyone speaks English, but I’m starting to get annoyed that I can’t read any of the signs on historical monuments or labels on food at the store. You can bet that I’ll be asking our relocation agent about when I can begin language lessons tomorrow when we meet tomorrow.
• My food preferences are going to take a little research to replicate here in Finland. Although Matt has done a great job of figuring out the milks & cheeses so that we don’t end up with whipping cream on our cereal or fat-free cheese on the kids’ sandwiches, we have not yet figured out where the best places are to buy organic, or better yet, local. I am hopeful though–we got a flier on the door this week advertising what appears to be an organic vegetable & fish CSA (it seems that the guy who runs this lives in our building). At this time of year, the veggies are mainly root crops (potatoes, carrots, beets, jerusalem artichokes & parsnips), but the prices seem really good. As for the fish, does anyone have thoughts on cooking perch? And oh, how I miss Ann’s awesome eggs. *Sniff*

Tomorrow, I get access to our bank account, register with the government so that I can get my Finnish ID number (which enables me to get discounted bus passes, national healthcare, and other public services that I hope very much will include a rec center/gym like it did in England!), get a Finnish SIM card for my mobile phone, and get to walk through the apartment & collect the keys!

Considering that there are no light fixtures, window dressings, or rugs, I think my first trip to Ikea will be happening really, really soon. I’ll save that until at least next week though, because the kids will be starting school next Monday!

Continue reading »]]> Yesterday, the kids & I flew to Helsinki to meet Matt. That means I was solo parenting for the kids’ first international flight, and that I had to deal with baggage, customs, and a 3+ hour layover in Frankfurt without assistance (beyond the lovely staff of Lufthansa, who were quite helpful).

The kids were fabulous. So fabulous, in fact, that the woman sitting next to me across the aisle said I should write a book about traveling with children since I’d obviously figured it out! I’m chalking this up to beginner’s luck and hoping I’m not ruing her comment in another few days when we fly home. And yet, despite encountering no major meltdowns with the children, I realized that traveling with children, even well-behaved children, is different.

My typical plan on any international flight is to blend in and not draw attention to myself. Not only has that been a safety mechanism as an American traveling in the post-9/11 world, but it’s something I tend to do in response to seeing one too many rude American tourist screaming about the lack of Diet Coke, Budweiser, American customer service, air conditioning, ice in their drink, etc. (that’s just to name a few of the more ridiculously-rude incidents I’ve witnessed in my travels).

This is nearly impossible to accomplish when traveling with two children. I’m louder than I’d like because I’m constantly calling out to them to stay close (can you imagine losing them in an airport as huge and crowded as Frankfurt???). They’re louder than I’d like because they’re small children. And they stick out because they’re walking around looking moon-eyed at everything because they’ve pretty much never been to a big city or in big, crowded places, and there’s lot to look at. Oh, and they stick out because Lily never met a stranger, so she talks to every person she meets, whether they understand English or not.

After arriving in a new city, I like to combat jet lag and get to know a place by walking around. This, too, breaks down when you’re traveling with children. My kids tend to be good walkers, but as good as they were yesterday, they were awake for several hours in the middle of the night (to be expected–I was awake too, and for longer than they were!), which means that they were fairly tired. So we ended up doing a combination of walking around and taking the tram, which at least allowed us to see the city above ground, even if it is harder to orient because of all the turns.

I’m also rather stingy on potty breaks or really any breaks at all. Other than meals, where I love to try to whatever off-the-beaten path restaurants seem most likely to provide the traditional foods of the region, I like to go, go, go all day long. I’m not a go sit on the beach for vacation type of girl. I once had a single day to tour the Louvre while Matt was in a business meeting. So I started when the museum opened and was ushered out at close more than 8 hours later. I walked the heels off of my shoes that day, literally.

What I realized this evening, when I brought my exhausted children home after nearly 6 hours of touring around Helsinki is that things are going to be different than the days when Matt & I toured Europe together. I have more responsibilities now, and I have two children who lack both the stamina and the attention spam required for the type of traveling I used to do. So I need to reset my expectations a bit, and go with the flow. Blending in is not going to happen, especially since it appears that Finnish children are as quiet and reserved as their parents (yes, we terrorized the natives at the playground already this afternoon). It will probably take me a lot longer to learn my way around Helsinki, and I won’t get to spend 8 straight hours in the Louvre next time we’re in Paris. Each sight-seeing day will likely involve a stop at a play ground, a lot of extra potty breaks, and less traditional foods than I’d normally like. But we can do it.