Morgan

I am so not a morning person.

In grad school, I usually slept from 3am until about 11, then got up and got ready for my first class, which started at 3.  I went to the gym at 10 or 11 at night.  And this totally worked for me.  And even after I joined the real world and had to be at work 8ish, I always stayed up too late with a book I couldn't put down and then slept until noon on Saturdays.

And then I had kids.

It really wasn't that bad when they were babies.  Both of mine went back to sleep pretty much immediately when presented with a warm body to sleep on, like so. 

Phoebe at about 6 weeks old

But eventually they stopped sleeping 14 hours a day, and instead of snoozing cozily would start pulling my hair.  And then investigating the bedside table.  And then drawing on the wall. (Growing up is so wonderful.)  So, I've had to drag myself out of bed.

Still, I'm not as energetic as a bored toddler or a hungry baby in the mornings, so often everyone will still end up in my bed in the morning as I doze through a bottle or a little bit of iPhone time.  And sometime everyone will drift off, and it's lovely and cozy.  If nothing else, it's a close, intimate time with my kids, that I know will change when they become teenagers and they themselves can sleep until noon.  But until then, I have this:

 Now, how old do they have to be before I can train them to bring me coffee in bed?

Das Kinder

Sorry I haven't been posting more regularly but...there's not that much to talk about.

The rush of the first few weeks is over.  I've figured out public transport, where the grocery stores and drug stores are, and the locations of close to a dozen playgrounds.  I've figured out the twister game required to get the double stroller into our elevator.  And I've (kinda) made a few friends.

(Note: I don't have everything figured out.  I tried to order a cold coffee last week at the coffeeshop I was working at, and got one with alcohol in it.  I think I had translated kirsch to its literal meaning of cherry, rather than the liquor.  I wouldn't mind this, if I wasn't actually trying to get things done.  But it will probably make my cover letters more entertaining to read!)

Things are improving over here.  Phoebe is definitly calming down.*  We've managed to generally restrain paci use to just the house, she's smiled and played with another little girl at the playground, and last night she let us shut her door when we left.  Granted, she was still up at o'dark thirty, in bed with us and kicking me in the head, but I do know it's getting better.  Also, we finally got in touch with the right person to order blackout curtains for her room.  That should make a difference with the early wakings.  Inshallah.

And we got her pink sheets, which created much happiness.  If something that little can make her that happy, hey, I'll take it.

So, here's a few shots of smiling Phoebe:

 I'm glad to have them.  She's so much fun when she's not miserable!  Lately, "Pop! Goes the Weasel" has been a huge hit, getting oceans of giggles every time she jumps for "pop."  Also "John the Rabbit" from Music Together has been a hit.  I was so happy to find the MT classes here -- we did some in the States, and had the CD, so at least some of the songs were familiar to her.  The first time we went, her eyes went as wide as saucers to hear something that SHE KNEW.  I think it was the beginning of things turning around, actually.

She starts "kiga" on Monday.  It's a local preschool, all in German.  I expect that the first week or two are going to be hard, but overall being around kids/having that kind of structure is going to be SO good for her.  She's already heard a good deal of German, so I hope she picks it up quickly...

And Miss Matilda is doing well.  Um, too well for my taste, actually...

Yeah.  The baby gates should get here next Wednesday in the HHE...the cats are not thrilled with this situation either.

In general, she's still a sweet, happy baby.  Well, not so happy in the middle of the night when she's in hysterics because her (*^@$) teeth won't come all the way in, but so much of the time she's just delightful.  We go to a baby group with the Vienna Baby Club every week, and she has fun eye-gouging the other babies (I've decided eye-gouging for babies is kind of like butt-sniffing for dogs.  It identifies individuals and establishes hierarchy.  Or something.)   It's fun, and I'm glad I have that time to spend one-on-one with her and enjoy her giggling.  Phoebe, with her worries right now, takes a lot of attention, and I want to make sure Matilda gets her full measure, too.

 All in all, they're beautiful, wonderful girls and I love them both to pieces.  Although not so much before 7am.


*Although still a work in progress.  The hysterics last night were about Miss M's bath seat. Birdie had climbed into it this morning and gotten thoroughly stuck, requiring two of us to get her out. Tonight, she was TOTALLY hysterical at the idea of going into the bathroom while it was there, even though we promised it was for Miss M. She even got in bed, under the covers, closed her eyes, and started singing her bedtime songs to herself. We eventually finished bathing Miss M, and while she was being pajamaed, Birdie took the bath seat out of the tub on her own, put it in the hall, and got into the bathtub with her diaper still on. Oy vay.

Moving Day!!!

We really get tons of beautiful, natural light in the living room

Moving Day!!!

Dan and I got back from our poor, pathetic excuse of a 5th anniversary get-away, fortuitously aligned with the Deracho thunderstorm in DC, and started packing the house on July 1 (Coincidently, three years to the week from when we moved in).  Since then, life has been boxes and moving, first to temp housing in the US and then in suburbian Vienna.  Now, finally, we have been allowed in our new, freshly painted, renovated, downtown Vienna apartment, where we get to spent another three years in (eventual) box-free bliss. 

It is so heartening to be HOME.  Our UAB was waiting for us, so Dan and I are now sleeping on our own pillows, with our own sheets and coverlet that make the room feel a little more like ours. Poor Phoebe is still without a duvet, due to circumstances mentioned in the last post, but at least she has more of her own toys.  We have our own pots, pans, and plates in the kitchen, and the crowning glory, INTERNET THAT WORKS.  Now, it's still all white walls and mostly bare floors, but it's a huge step forward.

That said, it does look a little bit like a bomb went off...

When toys explode....

Oh.  And there are no closets.  None.  We are transforming a superfluous 1/2 bath (across the hall from a full bath, as we really don't need (inshallah) four toilets in a 1300  square foot apartment) into some kind of storage space, and there are shelves in the laundry...well, room would be an overstatement... -- but that's it.  If you've ever felt like you don't have enough clothes, move to the land of the Ikea wardrobe.  That will solve that problem quickly.  Also, I boggle at the idea of putting in "modern" sinks, with exposed plumbing and no cabinets, in an apartment with no closets.  Right now, all of the spare towels are living on the shelf under my nightstand, but this is not sustainable for three years.

Wardrobes are far superior for hide'n'seek

"Hi Mommy! I found Narnia!"

And we got the green furniture again.  Seriously, what State Department karma do I have that I get the green furniture TWICE? (Those who have worked with me, please don't answer that publicly!)

But still...I like this place.  It's in an old building, with high ceilings and pretty molded "eyebrows" on the exterior.  Our view from the living room is pretty amazing, with one ornate church steeple in the middle of the block, and Stephansdom visible to the far left.  All the rooms get lovely natural light.  The kitchen is big enough, and the living space is honestly pretty huge.  It just FEELS right, like a place we could really live.  I know that I'm still in the falling-in-love stage of expat life, but it's so much nicer than the temp housing.  So much. 

Poor Phoebe, though -- I wish I could explain to her, truely get through, that this is it.  We're not moving again (in a timeframe she can conceive of).  This is HOME -- all of her things will be here, all of our things will be here, and this is a place we'll come back to again and again.  I think she's still afraid that she's going to live a nomadic existence for the rest of her days; six weeks is a much bigger chunk of her life than it is of ours!  And I think she still fears that one day she'll wake up and we'll be gone.  I mean, one day she woke up and her house and friends were all gone, right?  So, to a toddler, I can see that being totally logical.

I hope the fact we now have a playground across the street and a short connection to the zoo will be a start to making things better.  We have had some fun lately -- last weekend, Dan and I took her to the pool, from which she had to be forceably extracted when she started turning purple.

Note Phoebe on the far right; the pigeon is on the far left.

And yesterday, even with the trauma of the actual move, we were able to have a nice evening eating brats along the canal.  She had a blast chasing pigeons in Schwedenplatz and then eating ice cream (after which we considered dunking her in the canal).  I know there's a long way to go before home is really home for all of us, but we'll get there.

The sins of the father (and mother)

My poor, sweet, little girl.

Before July, Phoebe was a very happy preschooler.  She had preschool and then camp, with teachers she adored, friends she talked about at home, and even MUSIC CLASS.  An adoring nanny.  Monday playgroups.  Sunday swimming lessons with Daddy, and a water table in the backyard.  More friends than she could count (literally, since it was more than eleven or twelve).

And then she got yanked to Ohio without warning.  Returned to Fairlawn, in the midst of boxes.  Then to a tiny temporary apartment, stuck on an airplane, and has now spent two weeks in a suburban, barely-furnished temporary apartment, living out of suitcases.

I know she'll love Vienna once we get settled.  Our final apartment has a park across the street, with a really cool playground.  We'll take public transport on a regular basis, including the beloved red buses.  There are SO many things here for kids to do, from the zoo to the beaches at the Alte Donaue.  And, eventually, we'll find a preschool for her, we'll meet more kids her age, and the rest of her life will arrive by boat and air and we'll slowly put it back together.  (Still, TRSNS peeps, I am going to cry a bit when you guys all post about starting back at school.)

7 month old siblings are not the world's best playmates.  Or teeter-totter mates.

But right now, life is tough.  We're living on a welcome kit and our suitcases -- and even two big suitcases mostly filled with toys doesn't go THAT far.  Our apartment is temporary, and it really feels that way.  Half the rooms have no furniture in them, there's no carpets, rugs, or anything on the walls, and it's not fully air conditioned.  Given that it's been in the high 80s, that makes sleeping suck. Her room, for some unknown reason, has her bed in it along with another unmade twin bed and bunk beds, also with bare mattress.  It is NOT friendly looking.  And, in a total Mommy Fail, the box that was supposed to be Mailed (so we'd get it Right Away) that had HER pillow and coverlet and a few favored books and stuffed animals, went into STORAGE.  So we won't see it for three years.  I'm pretty traumatized by this, and I'm not even two.

And while there are a lot of cool things to do here, most of them are kind of hard right now.  We're doing steady rotations of the three playgrounds near us, but to get anywhere else it pretty much involves bus+tram or U Bahn, and is a good 40 minutes one-way.  With the heat and two kids' nap schedules, this makes DOING stuff, getting out and away and a real change of scenery, hard to do.  We're all going a little nuts in this horrid temporary place, claustrophobic from lack of friends and lack of car.  And Phoebe seems to bear the brunt of it.


It was Dan and I's decision to come here, to live this life style and offer her all of these "advantages."  She didn't.  She would be PERFECTLY happy at home, speaking one language, going to her preschool.  We took her away from that and drug her over here, believing we knew what was best.  But the poor bug...she hasn't been sleeping well (which means we haven't either - it's 10:54pm and she's still up) and the TROUBLE she is getting into, just to get attention.

If you've ever tried to carry a boneless toddler when they don't want to go...

Seriously, if you get an international phone call with the heavy breathing of a small kid on the other end of it, that would be her.  Basically, when Phoebe's not happy, nobody's happy.   Seeing her push her dolly around in circles, singing to herself, is sweet...but not when I realize how much of that is boredom for her.  Watching her try to use my deodorant, get her own milk out of the fridge for her dolly's bottle, and disassembling the bathroom plumbing doesn't even have the side benefit of being cute.

I hope it turns around soon.  I love my little girl, and I really want this move to be the fun for her we envisioned.

Pretty Little Things

Vienna is really pretty.

And I mean, REALLY.

Moscow was cool.  You'd be driving somewhere and you'd catch a glimpse of St. Basil's at the skyline, and it'd be all bright colors against a gray sky.   And while Addis wasn't particularly beautiful, it had its moments (I loved the jacarandas), and the countryside was really lovely.

But seriously, Vienna blows them away.  First of all, it's CLEAN. The tapwater tastes amazing.  The Danube may be a little dubious in color (the whole Blue Danube thing is CLEARLY just a good PR job), the air is nice, and it's such a verdant place.

For example -- this is the view from Dan's office, on the 37th floor.  Tough work, huh?

 But it's more than that.  So many of the places just have the warmth of time to them -- roofs that are green with age, public building built with funds that a democratic government could never manage to appropriate today.  The streets are mixed between pavement and cobblestone, even out of the city center.  There are random wrought-iron balconies.  This is just a random bit of the 9th District, where Mom and I were transferring from the bus to the tram.  It's still pretty.

And it's GREEN.  There are just so many parks, everywhere you turn.  The main, tourist ones, but  just our neighborhood has two parks, with playgrounds, ponds, and swimming pools. We went to the zoo last week, which is located on the grounds of a huge palace (Schonbrun, the Versailles of Austria).  We only saw the edges of them, but the formal gardens...it's just amazing.  Huge. Lots of them, and people USE them, to lay out, to play, to have picnics. Cool feeling.

Even out here in the suburbs, it's pretty -- I took the girls on a walk, and then came up on a view all of a sudden, out over the Vienna Woods.  Ten points to anyone who can figure out what the castle-y thingy is in the distance. 

So, while I have a lot of adjusting to do, at least I'm doing it in a lovely place.  

Oh, and another lovely thing: 

Ice coffee here isn't a coffee with ice.  It's a coffee with ice cream.  I have had worse surprises.

Washington nach Wien, Part 2

Continued...

Soon, we were airborn.  And soon, Matilda was asleep.  Turns out that when you put a baby in their car seat at bedtime and put them on a white-noise, slightly vibrating plane, it knocks them out.

  That was a dozen sorts of awesome, because it left two of us to deal with Phoebe.  All things said and done, she did a great job (the Lufthansa entertainment system also gets props, for containing "The Garuffelo, which was watched about 87 times).  Unfortunately, white noise or not, there was no way Phoebe was going to sleep during dinner service, wine service (gotta love European airlines), and duty-free service.  Finally, 3+ hours into a flight that was less than 7 hours, they finally dimmed the lights.  Dan fell asleep, and then I did, and as I was nodding off I noticed Phoebe still peering around like a curious meerkat.  Thankfully, by the time Matilda woke me up two hours later, she was deeply and totally out.

I'm very thankful the plane was only about half full, for two main reasons:  One, I could ask for an extra breakfast, since it suddenly kicked in I hadn't eaten a lot in the last 24 hours.  Secondly, if there had been someone sitting in front of Phoebe, I probably would have gone bankrupt buying them drinks as she kicked....kicked...kicked the back of the seat the whole time.

For those of you in the Foreign Service, you probably know Frankfurt Airport well.  Very well.  Almost biblically so.  I've heard the joke that even God transfers Frankfurt to get to heaven. It's a big, busy airport, and Lufthansa goes to a LOT of places, some of them quite obscure.  So I've been there before, and I've had some marathons to try and catch a change of plane.  Plus, this time, we were entering the Schengen Zone, which meant we had to go through passport control and security.  Honestly, with all the baggage pictured in the last post, why Dan and I agreed to take the flight with connections is a matter for our defense lawyers in the criminal insanity plea.  But we did, and somehow manage to finagle the two cats into one seat on the stroller.  I had a baby on my front and a backpack on my back, and Dan had two carseats around his shoulder and another backpack.  The diaper bag and briefcase were shoved under the stroller, where a tired and bewildered Phoebe sat.  Yes, truly, we did it.  Many thanks to the kind women at security, who were in a totally different class than the TSA morons.

At the Austrian check-in desk, we offloaded the car seats and double stroller through to Vienna, and had a really nice short flight, with Matilda on our laps and Phoebe looking out the window.  We arrived, found our sponsor, didn't find the double stroller, wrote up a thing at Austrian, got the kids cleaned up a bit, and finally made it to our temporary housing out in the 'burbs.  I think it ended up being a bit under 16 hours, door to door.

God bless the iPad.

The worst part of the whole thing?  There was no alcohol waiting in the house when we got there.  THE HORROR, PEOPLE.

A Little Light in the Darkness

We're in temporary housing right now.  It's a big, empty house waaaaay out in the suburbs (does have some pretty views of the Vienna Woods up the street, though).  To get downtown, it's about a two block walk to the bus stop, a 15-20 minute bus ride, and then you can transfer to the U-Bahn or trams to get places in the city center.  So, it's an undertaking.  And while there is a store and some other things around us, they involve trekking up and down a pretty steep hill (sherpa and yak rental optional). It's not easy to go out to dinner, for instance, and "not easy" becomes a special type of hell when it involves small children, who are not easy to take out to dinner in the first place.

There has been a moment in every overseas move when I realize how far away I am.  From a sight seen out the airplane window, to the delight of speaking a foreign language outside the classroom for the first time and being understood, and this time, just thinking about the fact that my old hairdresser was a 9 hour flight away and that I had to find someone new, in a place with little language.  It's amazing what can overwhelm you.  Anyway, this moment hit me late in the dark of night last night, and was compounded both by our isolation and by the fact that I really don't know anyone here.  I haven't been in language training with anyone; I'm not going to the office to meet people like I did before.  It's very different than my other posts, and waking up in the morning and facing a day of no one to talk to but the kids is really staggering. (I'd have lost my marbles by now if Mom wasn't here.  Thank you.)

The only way out is through.  And it takes hard work, sometimes, to settle yourself in.  You have to find people, meet with them, reach out to them, talk to them again and again.  Sometimes this is easy (toddler math: two toddlers are not twice as difficult as one toddler, and the mess of one toddler can, if sufficiently motivated, be greater than the mess of ten).  Sometimes it's not; people, including kids, can take a lot of mental energy from me, and it's hard to go out when I'd really rather be curled up with my book.  But putting out the energy to go see people and invite people over when I might not have really want to is what has helped make such good friends and networks back home, and I'm hoping the same holds true here. 

So, today Mom and I set off, one stroller, one baby carrier, one diaper back, one baby, and one toddler in tow.  First off was the bus; easily found, but Phoebe, who had been VERY excited about going on a red bus, broke down crying, and we got scolded by the driver for getting in the wrong door with the stroller.  So, some drama.  We took that to the tram, which was a lot of fun -- we were FINALLY out of the suburbs, and beginning to see some of the Vienna landmarks I'd been reading about: the lacy Votivkirche, the Parliament building, the Opera, and even a side of the Hofburg, as we made our way to the Burggarten, where the Vienna Babies Club was having a meet-up that day.

It's been 60-ish and raining since we got here.  While the 60-ish part was great, after all the heat in DC, the rain had been hard with Phoebe.  Now it was 75, sunny, no humidity, and we were in a beautiful green park, fenced to the busy Ring Road behind us.  We found the baby group, pulled up a blanket, and I sat down to talk while Matilda engaged in some mutual eye-gouging with other babies.  Mom took Phoebe to get some good running and exploring in around in:

As well as lounging on the statue of an emperor who probably would have had her executed for her cheek.

 

Getting home proved to be something of a challenge, as (logically), the Schottentor bus station was located two blocks from the Schottentor U-Bahn, and around a corner.  We walked around for, oh, a good half-hour, with Phoebe snoozing in the stroller and myself with a 19-lb baby strapped to my chest.  Anyway, we made it home in one piece, refreshed for the weather, the feeling of finally seeing the "mythical" Vienna, and for me, having laid down that first tiny bit of a foundation that will hopefully make this someday feel like home.

Someday = week before packout, of course.

Washington nach Wien

Hi, all. We're here and survived.

Moving day started with four hours of sleep (me) and two hours (Dan). Everything ran late the day of, as seems to be typical of us...but packing up the last minute stuff has always been hard, and apparently it's even harder when you add the kids' last minute stuff. Also, Austrian Airways let me check my two kids, ages 2.5 and 7 months, in online, but for some reason wouldn't let Dan or myself check in.  When I called them to see what was going on, I was told that children weren't allowed to check in without a guardian...sigh.  No kidding?  And yet, there it was.

Oh, and I was also told, rather snippily, that if I had just booked on Austrian instead of United, then I wouldn't be having this problem.  Right.  I'll let the government know about that and I'm sure they'll end the Fly America Act immediately and act in a sensible manner.  Get right on that.  Great reintroduction to European customer service, however!

We had planned on getting to the airport by 3 for a 5:30 flight, with Katie bringing the kids about a half-hour later.  That way, they wouldn't have to stand in line with us to check luggage and argue about seats.  However, due to lateness and taxi issues, we didn't leave for the airport until almost 3:30.  We figured we'd still be fine, since Dulles is pretty close to us.  And THEN, we hit the worst accident I've ever seen on the toll road.  The airport access road was completely blocked off, with traffic funneled on to the already-jammed toll road.  It ended up taking us something like an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the airport, and yes, we missed out flight.

So.  The frighteningly efficient (or is it frightening and efficient?) people at Lufthansa let us chose whether to go thru Frankfurt, or wait till tomorrow's flight.  Since Dan and I were already a little traumatized by the work it took to get to the airport (and getting 6 suitcases to with +/- 1lb of 50lbs), we decided to just go.  Even though I've heard the foreign service rumor that even God transits Frankfurt to get to heaven.

Cats, kids, and car seats not pictured.

The kids are with Katie, and running even later.  I finished up at the ticket counter while Dan waited outside, getting evil looks from a Lufthansa manager who looked a little like an attractive version of Frau Farbissina from Austin Powers.  We finally get the kids and end up on a mad sprint through the airport, complete with carseats, terrified and pissed off cats, and Phoebe having a breakdown when TSA tried to get her to separate from Dan to go through security when I was stuck on the other side, holding a cat who was trying to climb my neck.  It was fun times.

We had so many carry-ons that the flight purser kept trying to get me to check something, so we didn't have to deal with it at the other end.  Given how tired I was, I finally gave in and let him take the suitcase with a change of clothes and the girls' blankets (being a European carrier, they had actually provided them for us).  Then I sat down and got settled, and Dan asked me where the passports were.  Instead of being in his briefcase, as I had though, he had put them in...say it with me now...the suitcase I had just checked.

Yeah.

Thank God the flight was delayed because of weather.  I have no idea if they would have held it to get our passports back or not, nor do I have any idea what we would have done on arrival in Frankfurt, where you have to go thru customs to enter the EU.  The bag, of course, was checked through to Vienna.  In the end, they did get them back.  And it says something about the level of stress I was under to not even fully realize what a big deal this could have been until, oh, today.

While we were waiting to take off, I looked out the window, and noticed the Austrian Airlines direct flight that we had missed sitting right next to us.  We left before they did.

To be continued....

Downsizing

3700 square feet.  That is, by any stretch of the imagination, too much room for a family of four.  We realize that, and there are rooms that aren't used very much at all.  That said, EVERY room in this house has come in handy at some point of another.  It has also come with banishment to the suburbs, the nearest grocery store three miles away, very few walking destinations, and the need for two cars.

So when we got our housing assignment in Vienna, we were really excited.  Within a ten minute walk of three U-Bahn lines.  8 minutes to St. Stephan's Cathedral in the heart of Vienna.  Less than a mile to the Hapsburg.  A half an hour to walk to the Prater and the famous Riesen Rad.  A grocery store across the store, and two others a 5 minute walk away.  It's urban living in a style that DC can't even get CLOSE to.  And the view -- I mean, really.

It's so European, it's just ridiculous.

But -- our new place is 1300 square feet.  Just a bit more than a third of our current house.

Now, mind you, this isn't a bad thing.  As I mentioned, we have rooms that hardly ever get used. This will help us keep our crap (and God, do the kids ever acquire crap) limited, and we'll use a space where we're all together more often.  The main worry, in my mind, is the guest bedroom.  Because, you know, we WANT you to visit.  We just don't want you to have to sleep in something that's closer to a walk-in closet than the guest suite we currently have.  Also, if I DO end up getting an MA/MBA during our time there, I need someplace to study that the kids can be shut out of.

The housing people gave us blueprints, but unfortunately, you can't actually read the dimensions on them. So, this picture is really all we have to go on, as to what the guest room/my office will look like -- just so you know what you're getting into if you do decide to come visit.