Vienna

We've recently arrived home from a week in Vienna visiting Chloe's Grandparents (well, half of them anyway!)    I was semi-dreading the journey over what with it being 7 hours of transit time due to a 3hour stop-over at Heathrow.  I had only just recovered from a horrendous stomach bug two days before - sincere apologies to Alex's cousin for repeatedly vomiting in his car for the 10 hour drive from Coventry to Edinburgh, but that's another story - and was still feeling fatigued. To improve matters, Alex came down with said bug on the day we were flying out, luckily he wasn't as badly affected as I had been but I'm sure it still wasn't fun for him.  Still, the journey was relatively uneventful and I am definitely glad we decided to fly with Austrian Airlines rather than Ryan air, even if it did mean a stop-over.  you'd have to pay me to fly with those budget airlines with a toddler in tow.  We arrived late Saturday evening and settled Chloe into bed then hit the sack ourselves. 

On Tuesday we went into town. I snapped this pic of Chloe, content in the Boba Carrier, a marked contrast to her opinion of the framed carrier Alex's parents used to use when they were kids!

content...

....and not so much.

We and made our way to the Haus des Meeres, an Aquarium built in a converted Nazi flak tower with a viewing platform at it's top, giving stunning views over Vienna. 

Around it's top is an art piece by Lawrence Wiener. A memorial against war and fascism, it reads "Smashed to Pieces...(In the Still of the Night)" in both English and German.

The aquarium was hot inside, and I mean hot!  Notice how Chloe is rocking her pink jeans and wife-beater look.

Ok, I know Spider Crabs are called Spider Crabs, and I suppose there had to be a reason for that but holy shit!  I would crap myself if I came across one of those babies in an underwater cave.  kinda hard to grasp scale here but these babies can reach 12ft from claw to claw!

Leaving terrifying crustaceans behind, autumn is a beautiful time to go for a walk in Vienna, the trees are beautiful shades of yellow and orange all around.  Chloe got to play in her first little pile of leaves.

Soon after, Uncle Mark also got to experience a first as well, Niece-wearing!

Chloe isn't so impressed with Mark's "pose"

In fact, there were lots of "firsts" on the holiday.  We spent one day in Oberlaa at the Thermal Baths and Chloe went swimming.  We weren't sure how it would go down with her but she loved it.  Suited up in her frilly swimsuit and arm floaties she was good to go.  She delighted in being thrown up in the air and splashing down into the pool, being thrown from one person to another, jumping off the side into our arms.  Really, she is quite fearless.  This brave streak could be bad as she gets older.  I might age prematurely.  Anyone who knows what my cousin Alexa was like as a child will know what I'm talking about!

On Friday I went into the centre of town to meet up with a Babywearing friend who recently moved to Vienna.  Spent a lovely morning having lattes and chattering about wraps, amongst other things.  Then to my great excitement (it obviously doesn't take much these days...) I went into my first wrap shop!  Did I manage not to buy one?  What do you think?

Stephansdom, the main Cathedral in Vienna

On our last day Chloe went round to visit a neighbour and met her first rabbit, a fearsome creature to be sure.

After she recovered we went for a walk in the Donau Park, home to the soaring Donau Tower, more beautiful foliage and a playground that Chloe decidedly did not want to play in. 

Hitching another ride with Uncle Mark

Ooh, is that a new wrap?

Yes, sitting on concrete is more fun than playing on swings.

Grandma & Grandpa Eros

After a stroll through the park we ascended the tower, had a walk around the viewing terrace, then had coffee and cake in the revolving restaurant.  Chloe definitely has a sweet tooth.

A lovely trip, which was almost topped off by being bumped up to Business Class (or the slightly less impressive sounding Flexible Economy Class as it was called) on the flight home, but not quite.  We were seated in front of the dividing curtain and got excited at the prospect of being given free food (remember the good old days when you never had to question if you'd be fed or not on a plane?), only to hear that "We will be operating a full meal service to our Flexible Economy passengers, which on this plane are those passengers seated in rows 1-5".  We were in row 6.  

I couldn't describe it any better if I tried.

"Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."

~ Elizabeth Stone

"To Travel Is To Possess The World"

One of my great passions before Chloe came along was undoubtedly travel.  I've been lucky enough to have had some lovely holidays since she was born but going on holiday and going travelling are very different things to me. South East Asia was a particularly loved destination and I'm still enthralled by it every time I go.  I admit, there are times when I do wish I could pack up my rucksack and head off for a few months.  I think what I find hardest is not being able to see myself going back any time in the near future.  It isn't so much that I feel weighed down with a child, in fact if we could afford it I'd go to Asia with her without hesitation.  Well, ok getting through a 13hour flight might give me some hesitation!  But that isn't possible just now and I suspect by the time we are financially able to go we might have another baby to tend to.  So thinking forward to having the time and the money seems a very long way away.  I know it is a passion worth hanging on to though, and I hope it is one that I can nurture in my children.  I am always inspired when I read this excerpt by Burton Holmes, The World's Greatest Traveler:

To Travel Is To Possess The World.

These words I have set down in many an autograph collector’s book.  They are, I think, true words. I know that through travel I have possessed the world more completely, more satisfyingly than if I had acquired the whole earth by purchase or by conquest. There is no implication of selfishness in the kind of possession of which I speak. Whoever possesses the world through travel takes nought from any man. No one is the poorer because you have made the whole world yours.

You have gained everything, but you are no monopolist. The wealth is there for all to share. It is not yours alone. You may invite all men and women to travel with you in imagination and they too may feel that they, like you, are rich in vivid mental pictures of places worth going to, of people worth knowing, of things that are world famous.

I have tried to convey to others with the spoken word the enthusiasm for travel that has been mine. I have done my best to make my hearers see the things that have thrilled me in the course of my more than sixty years of travel.

Now I am asked to do this without the aid of pictures glowing on a screen, without the help of the spoken words which can be made to mean as much by a shading of a tone or the stress of an inflection. Now I am at work with nothing but a sheet of paper and a pen to help me re-create the atmosphere of “otherwhere,” to help me make real to those who have not seen, the things which I have seen and can still see so vividly with the mind’s eye.

Word pictures are hard to paint. We are told that “words are the only things that last forever.” Therefore words should be the most durable pigments with which to paint pictures of the things that have seemed worthwhile, the things that have become one’s property, in the sense in which travel endows one with a title deed to the entire world.

One great advantage of possessing the world through travel is that one may enjoy all the satisfaction of possession without the responsibilities of ownership. Now, in days when our most valuable assets become or threaten to become our most crushing liabilities, it is good to contemplate property which cannot depreciate but must increase in value, property which cannot be taxed by federal government, or state or city authorities, property which calls for no repairs or alterations.

Everything from real estate to diamond tiaras has had its vaunted worth reduced to pitiful and sometimes complete inconsequence. Stocks, bonds, and all manner of gilt-edged, beautifully engraved certificates of value, to secure which we have slaved and saved and denied ourselves the joys of travel, may sink in worth to such a point that it will seem absurd to pay the rental charges on a safe deposit box.

The only things which are still worth what they have cost me are my travel memories, the mind-pictures of places which I have been hoarding like a happy miser for more than half a century.

I have done my best to convey with “word pictures” the things I have seen and can still see. I have been aided by all the increasing wonders and beauties of photography. I still recall with pleasure my first camera, a heavy clumsy box with six double holders for 4×5 glass plates purchased in 1883 with my life savings of $10.00.

In the past I have reproached myself for my extravagance, my lack of foresight, for my disregard of proper provision for the future. My wise friends saved and economised, went without things they wanted, denied themselves the costlier pleasures of the table, the bouquet of vintage wines and the, to me, supreme joy of going places and seeing things.

And now where are we? We, they and I, are all at the same dead-end of life’s highway. They are weighted down by all the leaden burdens of their golden hopes gone wrong. They have their memories, but these are memories of wise, dull and frugal days of piling up with hard earned dollars in safe places where those dollars would increase and multiply and be there to console for all the pleasures that their owners had denied themselves and all the fun that they had missed.

I, too, have nothing but my memories but I would not exchange my memories for theirs. I have a secret treasure upon which I can draw at will. I can bring forth, on the darkest day, bright diamonds of remembered joys, diamonds whose many facets reflect some happy dream come true, a small ambition gratified, a long-sought sensation, caught and savoured to the full, a little journey made, an expedition carried to success, several circumnavigations of the world accomplished.

Yes, it has been a good life. And it is good to rest, with nearly all of one’s dreams realized. Dreams of going, seeing and doing most of the things that seemed worthwhile – good to know that I have, in my own way, possessed the world.

- Burton Holmes 1953

International Babywearing Week

This week, Oct 10th-17th, is International Babywearing Week, no doubt unheard of outside of the babywearing community but it is happening all the same!  I was asked to write a guest blog post for the Natural Mamas Forum blog celebrating babywearing.  I really enjoyed writing it so I hope you will enjoy reading it.  Here is a link to the post.  

A Sensitive Subject

I was torn about whether or not to write about this, its appropriateness for a blog that is generally light-hearted.  But this blog is also an outlet for me, and a record of our family life, so why sweep something significant under the carpet?  I'm not posting this out of a desire for sympathy, I don't need or want that.  I understand this may be a sensitive issue for some people and I don't write this with the intention of causing any upset - there is no obligation to continue reading if this is a difficult subject for you.

...........................................................................................................................

I recently had a miscarriage.  Some people know about it, most people didn't even know that I was pregnant.  I wasn't that far along, only 7 weeks or so.  But I knew that I was pregnant, it was real to me.  I had none of the usual symptoms of pregnancy, no morning sickness or tender breasts but that in itself didn't worry me, I'd had none of those symptoms with Chloe. Something niggled at me though, gave me cause for concern.  I was worried.  I've been reading a novel by Anne Michaels called The Winter Vault, in it, a pregnant woman's baby dies inside her.  She thinks, "My body is a grave", I read that and wept.  I had a terrible feeling that I would know what that felt like.  Intuition?  Coincidence?  I don't know.  

Chloe had caught Hand, Foot & Mouth disease a few weeks earlier and I had been warned by the Dr that if I caught it, there was the possibility of miscarriage or foetal defects.  I never had any outwards signs of the disease, but I worried that I could have been asymptomatic yet still have caught it.  I've also had an ongoing, intermittent issue since Chloe's birth that gave me cause for concern.  I thought it could affect my pregnancy.  I went to the Doctor because I was worried.  The Dr tried to reassure me that nothing was likely to be causing problems, she conferred with another Dr and then told me that they weren't concerned.  I told them that I appreciated that they weren't concerned, but I was.  That, whether it was rational or not, I was scared that my baby was dead or slowly dying inside me.  She could see I was scared, barely holding back tears, so she said she would phone a gynecologist for their opinion.  The hospital phoned me back a few hours later and asked me to go in for a scan the next day.    

The Pregnancy Support Centre is the part of the hospital you visit in the event of early pregnancy issues.  It is just through a door off the main obstetrics triage waiting room, and what a different world it is in there.  The comfy chairs, the soft multi-coloured lighting, the piles of magazines and the tea and coffee making facilities are in stark contrast to the austere fluorescent waiting room outside.  All designed to be comforting and soothing.  Ironically, once the scan was booked I had stopped worrying so much.  My brain was split 50:50.  I had been telling Alex that they no doubt just booked me in for a "reassurance scan".  Half of me thought that's just what it would be, the other half thought it could end up being far from reassuring.  Unfortunately the latter half was right.  As soon as I saw the image on the screen I knew.  There wasn't enough growth.  They couldn't tell me there and then that the pregnancy wasn't viable, I'd have to go back a week later for another scan to confirm.  There was a possibility I would miscarry in the mean time.  I didn't hold out any hope.  I cried, I was terribly sad but not at all surprised.  I had known, somehow.  I think I came to terms with it that night after the scan. When I actually started to miscarry I felt sad, but mostly I felt that I just wanted my body to get it over with.  Does that sound heartless?

There's really nothing you can do to prevent a miscarriage that early on.  From the start there was probably nothing that could have made a difference.  Most likely it was a genetic defect and the embryo never could have developed.  Or maybe I did get Hand, Foot & Mouth - the timing certainly fits, but I could hardly have avoided it.  It isn't as if I could have kept away from my own child.  Sometimes you are just unlucky.  There's no other way of thinking about it.   I feel like not only did I lose this pregnancy, I lost my naivety.  I never worried much about my pregnancy with Chloe, I never knew just how common miscarriages are.  And they are common.  I'm a worrier by nature so this kind of knowledge is not a good thing for me.  Sometimes you can know too much.  When I get pregnant again I'm not going to feel that wonderful excitement, I'm going to worry instead.  It makes me sad, it feels like another thing that I'll have lost.

Another thing I seem to have lost is my broodiness.  I was dead set on having another baby, and the sooner, the better.  Now I'm not so sure.  I don't feel that desperate urge at the moment.  I love the time I spend with Chloe, the one-to-one attention I can give her.  I keep thinking that when I am pregnant it won't be so easy, and with another baby I certainly won't be able to devote so much of myself to her like I do now.  I enjoy the closeness we have right now and don't want to loose that.  Perhaps it is just my hormones telling me to give my body a break for a while, that I need to recover both physically and emotionally.  I am certainly not ready to go through another miscarriage in the near future.  It is no more likely than before that I will have any problems next time around, but you can never rule it out.  I need some time to deal with this.  I think I am fine about it, but it is early days and who can tell so early on just how fine they are? I know it could have been far worse, and I know many women have gone through significantly worse losses than I have, I feel deeply sorry for anyone who has.  But that doesn't take away from my own experience.  Because, no matter how early it happened in the pregnancy, it was still a loss to me.  It still hurts. 

Frocktober

So I've been joining in on a little something that's been going on at the Natural Mamas Forum that I read a lot.  The idea is to wear a skirt or a dress every day for the month of October, or Frocktober as it has be dubbed.  This is something that puts me way out of my comfort zone, being that my daily attire generally consists of jeans.  I admit, it wouldn't have been quite so challenging in the heat of the summer, but Edinburgh in October?  That's a whole different kettle of fish!  

Funnily enough, footwear has become my major sticking point.  I can do sandals, no problem at all - but it's bloody cold and wet out.  I can do heels - for about 10 minutes.  I have my biker boots but I'm just not feeling them without jeans.  So far my Minnetonka Moccasins have been a life-saver but they aren't so supportive for my high arches.  I am in a quandary. I think some shopping may have to occur. 

I have found it very interesting, and challenging too.  I've been digging out pieces I haven't worn for yonks, putting together outfits I've never worn before.  Getting to know my more feminine side.  It's not all good though - no longer can I have a bad day and just chuck on a "safe" outfit - it's back to multiple outfit changes and fits of self-consciousness.

No matter, I've stuck it out for a week, I'm not going to promise to last the month but I'll give it a shot.  Here are a few of the outfits so far:

Wish me luck with the rest of the month!

It Runs in the Family (After Skipping a Generation)

I've noticed that in the last few days Chloe keeps doing this:

She just bends down and stays in that position for 5 seconds or so, gets up and repeats it.  I find her doing it all over the place.  I'm not sure what it is all about.  Is she just trying to show me up?  I mean, I am the least flexible person I know.  I really should take up Yoga.  Maybe that's what she's trying to tell me.  I'm not sure I could face it though.  Seriously, could you face telling the Yoga teacher that you are taking it up because your 14month old daughter can do a better Downward-Facing Dog than you can??