The elements

Posted on October 7, 2011 by admin

I’ve always considered myself to be an outdoorsy person. I like to be outside. I’m a horseback rider, and have been for over 25 years. I’ve taught riding, on and off for years, too. I like to walk outside, go camping and swim, too. So, it has come as a bit of a shock to me that now, with no outdoor hobbies, I am more in touch with the weather and it’s slight permutations than I ever have been before.

Part of it is our apartment. At home, we lived in a north-facing apartment with windows on only one wall. At both of my last two jobs, before leaving the workforce when Benjamin was born, I rarely even saw outside, and was only out in the weather on my way to or from work. On the other hand, our apartment here has windows on all 4 sides, and a terrace in the middle. I can go outside without leaving my apartment. We don’t have central air, and (ironically) our heat is somewhat centrally controlled by the City of Vienna (I’m still learning about how this works, as it’s just starting to get cold). I’m much more aware of the amount of cloud cover, precipitation and temperature than I ever have been before while indoors, to be sure. Now that Benjamin is in school, I also have an hour long commute to pick him up and bring him home every day.

I don’t have a car, so when I do go out, into the weather, it’s not just a quick dash from door to car, and then from car to school and back. I’m out, walking in the weather (whatever it may be) at least every weekday.

Today was a rainy, cold day in Vienna. It was a major reminder of something I’ve been slowly realizing: I can’t just grit my teeth, “make do” and get through the weather in Vienna (especially the upcoming winter). Today was rough, and it’s October. We just don’t have the equipment. My boys have rain coats, but not enough layering pieces to put underneath when it’s cold and rainy but not so inclement as to pull out the winter parkas. And, their legs are mostly unprotected from the elements (particularly an issue for Liam, who is in the stroller, legs out). Neither of them have rain boots (or, for that matter, snow boots) right now. I don’t own a functional umbrella.

When I first got here, I was surprised by all the “weather gear” I saw. The Viennese seem to have about 12 different kinds of coats, twice that many kinds of footwear, scarves for use in all types of weather (literally — they wear them in July), plus hats, gloves, mittens, balaclavas. They have rain covers as well as snow buntings for their strollers. Their strollers even have holsters for their umbrellas.

Today was a good lesson in outerwear. I wore my raincoat and boots — I was fine. Benjamin wore his raincoat and sneakers — he was ok, but was worried about getting his light-up shoes in the rain puddles, lest it short them out (not something I had thought of?). Poor Liam. I put him in fleece pajamas, to make sure he was snug and covered, and then put his raincoat on top. His clothes got pretty wet, but he stayed dry. Of course, once we went inside the trains and the school, he got overheated in about a second.

It’s only October. I need to get myself equipped.

Six months, part two

Posted on October 6, 2011 by admin

Yesterday, I wrote about having been here for six months, and the homesickness I’m feeling. It’s hard to be away from everyone, to be sure.

But, at the same time, it’s a major accomplishment. Six months ago today, we arrived in Vienna. We had rented a place for 10 days, but had no way to pay for it. We had no Euros, spoke no German and had no phones that would work here. I don’t think I will ever forget the moment we wheeled ourselves, and our stuff, out of the airport and stood on the curb, waiting for Dan’s friend to come and pick us up. It was cold, it was gray. We had ourselves, one stroller, 5 suitcases, 3 backpacks, two kids and a dog.

Damn.

And here we are. We now have a beautiful place, in a wonderful part of the city. We go grocery shopping, we ride the train, we go to the bank. Benjamin goes to school. We all understand a little German, and we’re learning to speak some, too. We’re learning a lot about the culture and customs of Vienna. We’re finding our way, and our place, here in Vienna. We have a really pleasant life here. We’re doing great.

We will probably be here for two years. That means one quarter of our time here has passed. That really motivates me to get out more, to do more, to get us in gear and travel more. No matter how strongly we still often feel like we’ve just arrived (and in many ways, that’s true) marking this milestone reminds me that before I know it, we’ll be packing up and planning to move home. We still have so much to do and see here, and I don’t want to leave Vienna with any regrets.

Living abroad gives you new perspective on the way things can be done, and it gives you true appreciation for great things that you’ve always taken for granted. Whatever the future holds, however long (or short) we stay here, we have been here long enough to be changed by this experience. We are all citizens of the world in a way that we weren’t very recently.

Six months

Posted on October 5, 2011 by admin

Six months ago today, just about now, actually, we were on our way to the airport. Most of my family escorted us — everyone helped us prepare for our trip in some way.

We miss everyone, terribly. We Skype, we email, we text, we call (occasionally), we even write real, actual cards and letters (on paper!) from time to time. But it isn’t the same as being together. It’s really hard being apart. I’ve already started to plan our summer trip home next year — it’ll be the first time we’ll be able to see some of our family, and the first time we’ll all have been together since we left. Liam has spent half of his life in Austria, away from the rest of our family.

I have a truly amazing family. Even though my parents have been divorced for over 20 years, we all get together regularly. For either Thanksgiving or Christmas, just about every year, we manage to get everyone together in the same place. This will be the first time I’ve missed that in a long time. And it’s not just me missing it — it’s painful for me that my boys are missing it, and I know Dan is going to miss being there (he loves holidays with my family).

(You can tell I’m homesick, because it’s the first week of October, and I’m already thinking about Christmas — and I’m not the type to not give Halloween it’s due).

It’s been 6 months since we’ve seen our friends — since we’ve been able to have dinner at one of their houses, meet up at a park, or have a play date.

I can’t believe I’ve been out of the US for 6 months. Prior to coming here, I’d never been out of the US for longer than 4 days at a time.

We are enjoying our Viennese adventure, but that doesn’t make it painless. I am so grateful for the loving family and friends we’ve left at home, and I miss them terribly.

What are you doing?

Posted on October 4, 2011 by admin

Benjamin came out of the tub, just now, walked up to me sitting at the computer and asked, “What are you doing?” “I’m writing my blog.” (He has some sense of what that means — most days I write after he’s in bed, but some days, like today, I write when he’s in the tub and he gets to see me writing when he comes out.)

After nearly six months of religiously daily blog entries, I’ve struggled against writer’s block, I’ve struggled with figuring out which stories to share, where to draw the line at “too much information” and I’ve struggled with divulging some difficult times, in order to make this an honest description of this experience and not an overly optimistic, “everything is great all the time” tale.

I want this to be more than a journal — I try to avoid writing a log or a diary (“today we did this, then this, then this, ate this, went to bed”). I want to capture the ups and the downs — not just of the huge adventure of moving a family of four, with two very small kids, to Europe — but the struggles and joys which make up daily life.

My hope is that writing this lets everyone at home share our journey with us. I want everyone to know that this IS possible — travel with children, even moving abroad, isn’t as daunting or insurmountable as it seems. My children are adaptable, enthusiastic travel companions, and I know their worldview, and mine, is forever broadened for having had this experience. We miss everyone at home, and this adventure, sometimes, is incredibly hard. But, we’re writing an exciting chapter in our lives, and for me, sharing it is an important part of the experience.

The return of the pirate ship balloon

Posted on October 3, 2011 by admin

The day before Liam’s birthday, Benjamin and I purchased a pirate ship balloon that, rather than sailing home with us, sailed away, up into the clouds, on our way home. Benjamin was heartbroken. I was pretty upset myself. I walked all the way back to the shop to see if they had another (they didn’t).

But, I didn’t give up. What to do when you’re trying to find something elusive? To the internet! I found it on Amazon (uninflated, of course) and with a little translation, was able to find it on Amazon Germany, as well. We bought two — just in case.

They arrived today, and Dan took the boys down to the toy shop to see if they would inflate one of them for us. They did. (And now we have another — just in case this one flies out the window, or something, or for some time in the future.)

Benjamin is thrilled. Liam loves it. I feel great about being able to fix my mistake (I’m the one who let the balloon go, accidentally). Dan got to help by getting the new balloon filled. The whole family is happy. I am so grateful we were able to do it.

I know it’s just a little thing. I don’t want my kids growing up thinking that the THING is what’s important. I hope they see the love behind the actions — the effort we went to in order to fix the mistake, and to help Benjamin give his thoughtful gift to Liam. I hope they see the love in the pirate ship balloon. I do.

Picnic and pumpkin cake

Posted on October 2, 2011 by admin

Another beautiful Sunday here in Vienna. The last few weekends have been like this, and each time, we think it’ll probably be the last one.

I’m holding out hope for yet one more, because I was sick again today and missed out on enjoying the beautiful autumn weather. I didn’t leave the house. I didn’t do anything, except sleep and occasionally attempt to keep my children from meeting an early demise.

Dan did a great job of wrangling everyone, but I’m also incredibly grateful for our downstairs neighbor. She called up earlier and invited us all to join her family for a picnic in the park and some of the cake she was baking. I was too sick to go, but Dan and the boys took her up on her offer. From all accounts, they had a great time (and they even brought some cake back for me — yummy!). They ate cake, my neighbor’s oldest daugher played endlessly with Benjamin (and a little with Liam) and Dan got to chat with our neighbor.

It’s always a bummer to be sick. Worse for it to be on the weekend. Worse for it to be on a beautiful day. Worse for it to interfere with plans I have with the kids (we were planning to go to the zoo today). It was really nice that my kids got to get out and enjoy the day, even though I was stuck inside. With any luck, I’ll be feeling better tomorrow! And with an extra bit of luck, next weekend will be beautiful, too.

Lange nacht der Museen

Posted on October 1, 2011 by admin

So, who walked around for 5 hours today, went to 6 different museums, saw Monets, Picassos, Opera costumes, live butterflies, the Austrian State Archives and is now really tired? Me!

Today is the “Night of the Museums” in Austria – for a flat 13 Euro price, you get admission to over 100 museums in Vienna, all of which are open until 1 a.m. (They even have a series of buses to drive you around from museum to museum, also included in the price.) I just found out about it this week, and just yesterday was thinking, “Wow, that would have been cool”, but I couldn’t imagine dragging Liam and Benjamin through museum exhibits that didn’t even open until 6 p.m., and didn’t have the energy to try to make heroic childcare plans. Then, today, my friend Krishana asked if I wanted to join her and some friends, and so I went!

(Dan, ever the good sport, stayed home with the boys and did dinner, bath time, story time and bed time entirely on his own. I am so grateful to have had a little “grown up” time out on my own.)

We went to the State Hall of the Austrian Library, which is beautiful and impressive. We went to the Butterfly House, which was hot and hosted many people and not many butterflies (I don’t know if they were put off by the tremendous influx of visitors wielding flash cameras, or just the late hour, but we only saw about 6 butterflies, and none of them were moving). We went to the Albertina and saw an exhibit of “classical modernism” — a huge exhibit of everything from Monet to Picasso (and in between) donated almost entirely out of a single private collection. We went to the State Opera Museum and looked at beautiful, old opera costumes. We went to the State Archives, which houses tons of historical documents (including, apparently, the first print of Luther’s theses, but after getting caught up, unintentionally, in a long German guided tour, we bailed before actually seeing it). We went to the Schottenstift museum at the 800+ year old church across the street from my apartment (and may have been deemed a security threat, because it’s possible a security guard followed us through a portion of that museum — very strange). We tried to go to the “Third Man” sewer tour, but it was too popular and already booked up by the time we got over to Karlsplatz, and we thought about going to the Demel tour and tasting, but that line was (understandably) very long. There were at least a dozen other places I would have loved to have gone, given infinite time and energy — observatories, train museums, modern art museums, natural history museums, chocolate museums — they had everything!

I had a blast. It was a great way to see some of the more traditional offerings of Vienna, as well as some rather esoteric ones (not sure I would have made a point of seeing the Opera Museum or the State Archives any other time). It was a really fun evening, and we’ll definitely make a point to go next year. (Evidently, in the spring, they do a similar “church night” where the churches in Vienna are open to tours — can’t wait for that, either.) Glad to have been a part of such a fun, Viennese activity, and grateful that I can say I’ve been into a least a few museums since I’ve been here.

Kindermuseum

Posted on September 30, 2011 by admin

As the last part of Liam’s (nearly week-long) birthday celebration, we went to the Zoom Kindermuseum in Vienna today. Dan took the afternoon off and we even picked B up early from school.

Wow. So much fun.

The museum has several different areas, set up for different age groups — we went to the Ocean section, the one for the youngest kids (0-6) and specifically, we went to a “baby session”, meaning no kids older than 3. It was fantastic. There truly are very few places in the world you can set your children down (especially a just-learning-to-walk 1 year old) and really let them go. It was a great experience, for all of us, to be able to do just that.

There were cushions to climb on, toys that made sounds to toss and jangle, a mirrored tunnel, a huge ramp to climb to get upstairs, a big ship’s wheel, a winch and a crane, flags to be put up and down, a ladder to climb down (the only thing Liam couldn’t really traverse on his own) into a shallow room made up like the cabin of a small sailboat, a plank/bridge to walk across, more cushions (made to look like icebergs, in the Greenland section), slides, and a submarine cabin area, complete with switches to flip, buttons to push, cords to plug and unplug.

Benjamin was able to be pretty much autonomous the whole time. Liam required a little more supervision (he did try to plunge head first down into the sailboat part — several times) but even he toddled around very confidently. I’m sure the kids enjoyed their uncommon freedom. But it was also really special for Dan & I as parents — instead of supervising our kids, we really got to play with them. It wasn’t a distinction I was really aware of, but having done something different today, I see how much of my day is spent protecting, rather than enjoying, my kids. It was such an unusual and liberating experience to run and climb with Benjamin, or crawl around with Liam, and be focused on the fun things there were to see and discover instead of worrying about potential peril. I think the only times I said, “No” for an entire hour were when Liam tried to dive into the sailboat and once when Benjamin nearly sat on Liam. (I think my typical “no per hour” rate is in at least the double digits. The only time it’s lower is when they’re sleeping.)

I had a great moment, too, of getting to know my kids a little better. Benjamin had a great time, and he was thrilled with the freedom that he had, but he wanted us right there with him the entire time. He wanted to hold hands while running from one activity to the next, and have me sit with him while we played together. Liam is a different, even as such a little guy. He still wanted us there, but he wasn’t really concerned about it. A few times, I tried to help him with something, and he grunted at me and pushed me away. Already, he’s so independent. He had as much fun as his brother — he crawled and climbed and toddled and explored. I think he had a really good birthday celebration.

After our hour in the “baby session”, it was time to go, and we stopped and got ice cream and sat together in the shade. Then we walked home, through Vienna, on a perfect early fall afternoon. I wouldn’t have changed a thing about it.

It is (still) birthday!

Posted on September 29, 2011 by admin

I’m not sure exactly where it came from, but for years, in my family, we’ve said, “It is birthday!” Well, here in our house, it is still birthday for Liam.

We still have cake, we still have ice cream, we still have balloons. Tomorrow, we’re going to the Children’s Museum to celebrate Liam’s birthday even further. And my lucky, loved little guy is still receiving birthday packages in the mail. I don’t care who you are, it’s great fun to get presents in the mail . . . when you’re a little kid, it’s totally awesome. Yesterday, he got a gift from Grandma, and today he got gifts from his Aunt Mina and from his Topes.

Benjamin hasn’t been left out of this birthday whirlwind, either — he’s been getting “happy big brother” gifts in the mail, too. Benjamin is so thrilled every time we get a package — he wants to help Liam open it up and then “oohs” and “ahhs” about the gift (and then tries to run off with it or stash it away somewhere that Liam won’t easily discover it.) They are both having the best time enjoying this whole birthday week.

I’d really been struggling with the fact that Liam spent his first birthday away from the rest of our family, away from our friends. We’re having a great time here, but I know it would have been different and included a lot more people if we’d been at home. I’m so happy to watch my boys experience the love of a birthday at home, even though we’re so far away. I’m glad it’s still “birthday” here.

Being the little brother

Posted on September 28, 2011 by admin

Liam received a birthday present in the mail today — from his Grandma — two presents, actually: one for him and one for Benjamin. We got the package early today, but waited to open it until Benjamin got home, because I knew how excited he’d be. When I told him, on the way home from school, that we had a package from Grandma waiting for him & Liam, he became a bouncing, whirling ball of 3 year old excitement. When we got home, he didn’t even want to wait until he had taken off his shoes and sweatshirt (for B, this is saying something) — he wanted Liam to open his present!

Of course, Benjamin helped him. The idea was for Liam to decide which one he liked and for Benjamin to have the other. Benjamin decided, before opening the wrapped packages, that the first one would be for Liam and the second would be for him. (I give him MAJOR credit for deciding that the first gift was for Liam.) The gifts were two soft cars from the “Cars” movies. The first one was Mater, and the second one was Lightning McQueen, which worked out very well (I suspect that regardless of the order they’d been opened in, B would have ended up with Lightning McQueen, but as it was, he got to stick to his initial plan). Liam showed no particular preference, so I went with Benjamin’s choice. Liam is very happy with his new truck, and B is happy with this car, and that works out perfectly.

I think, though, as a little brother, you must end up spending a lot of time being the sidekick — Robin to Batman, Mater to Lightning McQueen. And I think that’s fine, for now — Liam is thrilled with his new truck (and I’m sure he would have been thrilled with the car, if it had gone the other way). But there will be a day when Liam doesn’t want Benjamin to choose which toy is his, and there will be a day when Liam prefers to play the hero.

There’s a part of me that dreads that day — there will be fireworks, I know. But, at the same time, I think this is one of the great things about having siblings: it is so much easier to live through that drama as a child instead of having to wait until you’re grown up to discover the world doesn’t turn around the place you stand. It’ll be an interesting day, when it comes to pass.

I am so happy to watch my boys together. Benjamin very sweetly took Liam’s truck into his room and put it in his bed before I put Liam down for his nap today. They played and raced together all afternoon. Liam is so happy to play with his brother — he likes his truck, but I think the best present for him is being able to play cars together with Benjamin. He is a happy little 1 year old.

A Mommy Abroad

Our big adventure, as a family of three.

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