When Benjamin was born, he didn’t have much in the way of hair, just a tiny layer of fuzz on his head.  Throughout his first year, we anxiously waited for his hair to grow in, which it did, but slowly.  (For some reason, even with just peach fuzz hair, people always assumed he was a girl.  Even when he was wearing blue or brown or gray.)  By his first birthday, he had a respectable, boyish hairdo, but I was so happy to see his hair finally growing that I delayed cutting it until he was nearly 18 months old.

Liam has not had this problem.  Liam was born with hair — moderately thick, dark hair.  I have no idea what happened to all that hair — I guess it either fell out or magically transformed, but somewhere along the way he grew a head full of golden curls.  And again, here I am, with an 18 month old who has never had a hair cut, but for different reasons.  (And most people also assume he’s a girl, but they attribute it to his long hair — from what I’ve seen it seems particularly long by Austrian standards.)

before

I’ve needed to cut Liam’s hair for a while.  It gets in his eyes, for one thing.  But one nice thing about curly hair is that it doesn’t look as long as it is.  When his hair is wet, in the bath, it’s quite long, but as soon as he gets out and it dries, it coils up into springy curls and ends up about half the length.  There is also a practical consideration:  Liam is an enthusiastic eater.  His hair does not escape the side effects of his energetic eating, and that can get really gross.  However, that’s also prevented me, in large part, from cutting his hair sooner.  I wanted to preserve a lock of hair from his first cut, but I didn’t want to keep one coated (however lightly) it whatever he’d recently eaten.  And, since neither just before bed or 6:00 in the morning has never seemed like an attractive time to cut his hair, it just hasn’t gotten done.

Plus, I’ve been terrified of cutting his hair.  With Benjamin, his hair was all different lengths already, and I was just keeping it out of his eyes.  With Liam, I’m intimidated by the curls.  It, too, is all different lengths, but I just don’t know anything about cutting curly hair.  I’ve been afraid to try.  And, to be honest, I know absolutely nothing about any of this anyway, seeing as I’ve never had any training AND I’ve only had my own hair cut about a dozen times ever.  (My poor kids.  I know at least one thing they’ll be discussing with their therapist when they’re older.)

But, it had to be done, so today, Liam got his first hair cut, courtesy of me.

after

It’s really not too bad.  It turns out that cutting curly hair is kind of easy (comparatively).  Exactly because it’s curly, no one is going to be able to see how horribly unevenly I cut it, and curly hair is different all the time — his hair can go from tight curls to loose waves throughout the day, so however it looks one minute, it’ll look different soon.  I really do think it turned out ok.  There is one piece (in the front, of course) that I definitely cut too short.  And there are a few pieces that I didn’t realize were long enough to reach his eyes (nothing like cutting your baby’s hair and finding that he still has hair in his eyes) which I neglected to trim.  And at some point, I’m going to have to work on the back, before it turns into a mullet (a definite concern).

But, as with Benjamin, we both survived the first haircut.  I can see a little more of his face, he has a little less hair in his eyes, and neither one of us got wounded.  I still think most people are going to be surprised to hear he’s a boy, but for now, I’ll count it as a win.

I had a fantastic day today, hiking in the rainy woods of Vienna with my family.

When I think of Vienna as a beautiful place (which I do, often) I mostly think of the gorgeous architecture, or the perfectly manicured palace gardens.  But, Vienna also has a lot of wooded areas, set aside for recreational use with trails and such, but pretty much preserved in their natural, lush, green state — right within the city limits.

We’ve done a little hiking/walking/exploring in the forested areas of the city before, but we’d never really devoted the better part of a day to it.  Today, we did.  We went up to the western part of Vienna, up where the significant hills begin, and investigated some trails we’d seen once before when we rode past on a bus.  We found ourselves on part of the Wanderweg that goes around the whole city of Vienna (although we only covered a small part of that today).

We weren’t really sure what to expect, so we left the stroller, and Bailey, at home.  It turns out that the trails are wide and smooth enough that we could easily have managed the stroller, and Benjamin could have even brought his bike (now we know for next time).

It rained the entire time we were hiking.  It didn’t dampen our spirits and we had a great time.  (A lesson I learned from my dad, growing up, was that it is possible to enjoy the outdoors in any weather, as long as you’re dressed for it.)  We tromped up the hills, slogged through the mud, climbed on tree stumps, splashed in puddles, ate lunch in the rain and even came upon another American, originally from Maine, who was delighted to see our boys in L. L. Bean raincoats.  The woods are full of fresh, new, vibrantly green leafy growth;  in fact, the forest felt very much like one from home at this time of year.  Chasing the boys through the woods and preventing major catastrophe wasn’t relaxing, but it was fantastic.

Benjamin was our trail guide — we let him make the decisions at all of the intersections.  He made different decisions than I would have (I have some paths I’d like to go back and explore in the future) but it was fun to have him be in charge.  It was also fun for both boys to be able to run freely for a few hours — for city dwellers without a yard, it doesn’t happen all that often.

I think we covered about 2 miles of hilly terrain.  Liam walked nearly the entire way, and Benjamin walked (and ran) the whole time.  Then, of course, Liam slept the whole way home, and Benjamin took a long nap after we got home.  We were all glad to get out of our soggy clothes and get all warm and snuggled up.  Our boys were worn out.  So were we.

It was a fun, rainy, hiking Sunday in Vienna.  We got soaked.  We are tired.  We had a great time.

Yesterday afternoon, it started to rain.  Usually, when it rains in Vienna, it just rains a little — a drizzle, not a downpour.  But yesterday was a deluge.  The sound of the rain was incredibly loud on the roof and the windows.  The boys were napping when it started, and it was loud enough that I was worried it would wake them.

After nap time, it evolved into an actual storm, with thunder, lightning and even more rain.  We just don’t get that very often here — we’ve really only had them a handful of times since we’ve been here.  I miss it a little, because a big thunderstorm is almost as good as snow for making you feel all cozy and snuggly (assuming you’re lucky to be home when it happens, and not out in it).

Benjamin did not agree.  As further evidence of the rarity of such storms here, he was completely freaked out.  The first crash of thunder made him gasp and sent him flying across the living room from the futon to the safety of the big chair I was sitting in with Liam.  We all cuddled up together, and after a few minutes, he relaxed.  At home, thunderstorms are a near daily occurrence in the spring and summer, and, before we came here, he was completely accustomed to them.  Now, the sound of thunder is truly foreign to him — I’m not sure he remembers it at all.  I’m certain we’ll all get reacquainted with daily storms when we’re home this summer — something to look forward to!

We’re going home to the US for a visit this summer.  We’re making a stop in Florida to visit with my in-laws and then we’re going to Maryland to see my side of the family.  We’re also taking a family trip to the beach in Delaware.  There will be many opportunities for swimming — Dan’s parents have a pool in their backyard and a condo on the beach, and then, of course, we’ll also be at the beach in Delaware.

I love to swim.  Dan loves to swim.  The kids don’t know how yet.  This stresses me out –a lot.  All of our upcoming water exposure will be a great opportunity to work on teaching the boys to swim, but, of course, it also worries me.  Having two bold, adventurous, exuberant boys (one of whom is also fearless) near water, when they don’t actually know how to handle it, freaks me out.  It literally gives me nightmares.

I know the best protection against the things that I fear is 1) to watch the children 100% of the time whenever they’re near the water 2) to make sure they appreciate (as much as is possible) how seriously they should take themselves around water and 3) to teach them how to swim and float.  We are working on all of these things.

Don’t worry, though — my boys are ready to take on that third part themselves.

The other night in the bathtub, as the water was draining out, Benjamin turned to Liam and said, “Liam!  Let’s practice on our swimming!” and they both flipped over and laid down on their tummies in the tub, side by side, and started kicking and splashing.

I know that this isn’t *actually* functional swim practice, and I’m not lulled into any sense of complacency by it, but it is super cute.  I’ve been explaining to Benjamin that he has to learn how to swim, and that we’re going to be working on it this summer.  He is very diligently working towards that end.  He even practices holding his breath (although he won’t put his face in the water yet — we’ll get there).

We’ll definitely get some swimming practice in this summer (and if we’re really lucky, we’ll get some before that, too).  But my boys are on it.  They’re “practicing on their swimming”. They are so cute.

Liam is at that age.  The age of the head injury.  Other injuries, too, but it’s mostly his poor head that takes the brunt of it.  My dad jokes that this is the age that you’re afraid to take them out in public because you’re worried that someone is going to think you’ve been beating your child.

It’s not that bad (not quite) but he is, for the time being at least, constantly bruised and wounded.  As of this morning, he had bruises on both shins, a scratch on his neck and two bruises on his forehead, one in purple and one in yellow.  And he still has a barely visible, pale, unpigmented line on his forehead from his most recent bad head wound (bad being a relative term — I debated whether he needed urgent care and decided against it, so it wasn’t TOO bad).

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Last week, on Thursday, Benjamin had a crash on his bike.  He’s completely ok.  But, he crashed into the corner of a building.  Into the corner of a STONE building, and the first thing to hit was his head.  He wasn’t going super fast, but he was going fast enough that when he lost control of his bike he traveled about 10 feet without being able to stop and without being able to keep from crashing headfirst into a building.  I think it could have been bad.

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We are all worn out.  We had a lovely day yesterday, but we did too much, we stayed out too long.  That seems to be true of all long weekends — I think I always overestimate what is reasonable to do or accomplish and we end up finishing the weekend completely exhausted with little energy to get through the coming week.  Rather than going into our week refreshed and recharged, we go into the week counting down the minutes until the next weekend.

That’s what today was like.  We all really enjoyed our long (4 day) weekend:  we cleaned the house, we visited with friends, we took a day trip, we hunted for Easter Eggs.  And today, we had no energy left.  We got through our morning pretty well:  B got to school, Dan got to work, Liam & I ran some errands.  But then, nap time was a bust (very short for B and non-existent for Liam, which, oddly seems to be the rule rather than the exception on these days where we’re all so tired) so I threw in the towel and decided that rather than attempt to have a stimulating afternoon of activities and playing together, we were going to have movie afternoon.

“Movie night” in our house is typically at whole-family Friday night affair.  Today, it was just me and the boys, but I did it right — I made popcorn (Benjamin helped me) and then we all snuggled up on the futon together (still set up like a bed from Mina’s visit).  For our “real” movie night, we don’t let the boys wander around or get riled up playing with toys, but today was just “movie afternoon”, so none of the usual rules applied.  Mostly, we got to snuggle together and eat popcorn while we watched “Cars” (which we all could recite from memory, so it doesn’t require a lot of attention).  When the kids played, they still needed a lot of my involvement — their energy levels are really low, which means their tempers are short and they are quick to frustration.  But even so, it was a relatively peaceful day.

Even with an afternoon of no real activity, I’m exhausted.  I hope tomorrow gives me a chance to recuperate.  How long until Friday?

I love the train in Vienna.  We ride the city trains all the time (the strassenbahns, the U-bahns) but the big trains (the ones that go between the cities) are really something special for us.  We’ve ridden the train out of Vienna, past Salzburg and most of the way to Zürich, when we went to Innsbruck, and I loved it — we’ve ridden the train west of Vienna to the beginning of the Alps, to the north nearly to the Czech border, and today, we went south to visit some friends.

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