I’m sitting at a cafe with my infant daughter. I feel like a monster of productivity, having successfully left the house twice in one day, eaten actual meals, and avoided being covered in poo (for the time being).
Elizabeth is the daughter, three months old. She sleeps in the stroller I thought I would never use. As a non-parent, I had overlooked its function as a laptop/sweater/blanket/grocery/diaperbag-carrier, and had no understanding of the speed at which it knocks out a fussy baby.
The last three months have been a time of great change. I am clocking in at about one life lesson every three hours.
Recently I’ve learned:
- To type fast and not muck about with formatting while the baby’s napping. Editing is not for parents.
- If you can afford it, fresh fruit is always a worthwhile purchase.
- That you can’t go for a walk in my neighborhood without tripping over a stroller or a border collie.
- Sweden makes awesome baby equipment (Jané: the 4×4 truck of strollers)
- If you join a clan and are online regularly at 3am, you can make lots of friends in Finland, and Norway.
- Other Scandinavians mock Swedes out of some obscure national rivalry. The punchline of every joke is inevitably “Svensk”. If you understand this, please let me know.
Right, that’s it for now. Elizabear is waking up and we’ve got some major walking to do.
You’ll use strollers *LONG* past the time you “need” to use strollers– you’ve already figured out why. Touring Beijing? The kid can walk most of the time, and the stroller will hold the food, the water, the sweaters, the coats, some more food, the maps, the guide books, the camera bag, the sunblock, spare clothes, the all important card with the name in Chinese of your hotel. When the kid gets tired, you shift things around, drop the kid in, it goes to sleep and you pile things around it. It will all fit. Not to worry. And no one will wonder why you have a six year old AND a stroller. It’s like carry on luggage, only better, because it doubles as a child bed AND it holds way more than a carry on suitcase AND it rolls a lot better over the cobblestones and other non-flat pavement.
As for Swedish, this is not a secret. All our cars (eight or nine at last count) are Swedish. Our fireplace is Swedish. Our dishwasher is Swedish. Our clothes washer and clothes dryer are both Swedish. My chainsaw is Swedish. Even my now-seldom-used turntable is Swedish. Swedes make great stuff.
Oh, and all Europeans make fun of all other Europeans. The French call Belgians “French Fry Eaters” (which has to make more sense in French than in English. The English make fun of the French. The Swiss are too busy sneering at all non-Swiss to be bothered to make fun of them. It’s all just a local pastime for Europeans.
Told you that you would use the stroller.