Trezor box

Yesterday I looked up from a morning cup of tea and random magazine article and discovered Caroline, naked, in front of me. We’d had a conversation shortly before about how she did indeed have a messy diaper but was not willing to have it changed at the moment. Forewarned I grabbed her less messy appendages and ran to the bathroom sink to give her a quick bath.

Dry and diapered, she became the subject of intense query –

“Did you take off your diaper?“
“Diaper off!“
“Where did you take off your diaper?“
“Diaper off!“
“Where is the diaper now?“
“Okay!“

On the principle that it‘s better to know than to suspect, I looked first at the worst spots I could imagine – our cloth-covered sofa, the white carpets, linen chest and of course, under my pillow. Not finding anything more gruesome than a half eaten apple in the linen chest, we scoured the rest of the flat, Caroline holding my hand and helpfully pointing out the fossilized bread crusts that she had scattered throughout low lying points. But no diaper.

I decided that Caroline would excel as a house safety expert, and that when finally discovered, her hideout would make the perfect spot to secure chocolate or excess cash. I imagined whispering to select friends the secret to our success at eluding robbers – definitely not your underwear drawer, and not even your old maternity clothes box, the one your vacuum cleaner currently uses as a docking station. You’ve got to try...

But then, cleaning up the morning toast and tea bags, I levered our trashcan open and there, nearly neatly wrapped, was the missing diaper. When I showed Caroline the evidence, she matter-of-factly agreed, “Diaper!“ There seemed no question about it and I mourned my imagined hideaway, the trezor box beyond compare. But while I might be a romantic, able to magic missing diapers into swirls of intrigue, Caroline at 2 was a pragmatist, ready to take off her diaper and throw it away too.

Trezor = safe. Also known as sejf.

On the other hand

Today had to climb into my wardrobe to finish up a client phone call. Actual quote: "What was that clanking noise, it sounded just like suit hangers!"

And have you ever been caught by your babysitter stepping out of a cupboard full of coats?

10 reasons I love working at home

1. Don’t have to remember the Czech for “dry clean only and I mean it“
2. Commute relatively danger free (though they do say most traffic accidents happen close to home, hmmm)
3. Can work while waiting for plumber to arrive “sometime on Wednesday“
4. Fingernails stay clean longer (metros add grime to life)
5. Shower better than coffee for inspiration
6. Internet connection all mine!
7. Babysitter’s cooking tastier than mini-mart crocodile sendvic
8. Giant desk wouldn‘t fit in corporate cubicle
9 & 10. Get to experience C’s delight daily when she home from park, wakes up, eats lunch, and I am there.

After a few late late nights out with Caroline, visiting with friends in town for a wedding, tonight I stayed in with her and she fell happily asleep at 8, leaving me with free time and only a little work to finish before I could play.

So play I have, downloading Firefox (recommendable - a little slow on some sites but has instant ease of use, good security, and a better organizational structure than IE) and a nice wikipedia referencing tool put together by Matthew Gertner and Stefan Magdalinski. The tool cleverly indexes pages of your choice, matching terms with wiki topics, and then lays a barely-there interface over those pages so that you can link to the relevant articles. Takes me back to 1994, UNC, and our dreams of where the web would go, sure does.

But the best downloads of the evening are the Beethoven symphonies available on the BBC's website this week. I have headphones on my computer, so I can turn up the music loud and listen without bothering Caroline. Loud so that I can imagine the floor boards humming and smell the rosin, maybe even see the spit under the horns and the worn through soles of everyone's dress black. And now I’m listening to the last movement of the 5th, and they’ve worked through the final theme (the bassoon call at 30:45), climbing from one key to another until they are back at the tonic, and now all the stops are coming out – strings and woodwinds together, horns weaving a triumphant counterpoint until they too join and then only the timpani.

As usual, impossible to write about. But you can listen too! And besides the obvious, try Beethoven’s 2nd, the slow movement is delicious.

Last night I left Will and Caroline eating ham and eggs (or “hemnekks” on the local pub menu) and headed out to dinner. Ladies night, supper club, girls on the town, call it as you wish - we were seven women leaving the kids and husbands at home for a night out. One of my guy friends asked me if we were going to go get wild - head to a bar or a dance club, stay up all night and party till dawn, or at least midnight - but we were really only looking for somewhere we could revel in nice table linen, prosecco and chocolate desserts, and of course, the chance to actually complete a sentence or two.

We met in Aromi, a new restaurant in Prague 2 with an open airy atmosphere that reminds me so much of Charleston, I expected to see shrimp and grits on the menu. The owners renovated an old bar and turned a tiny, cave-dark space into one of the most refreshingly well designed and decorated spaces I’ve seen in Prague. On hot days, they open their double windows wide and let the light and air pour in and that sunshine is a fantastic contrast with the stucco walls and exposed brick doorways, the wide board floors and dark grained tables.

There was no sunlight last night, we’re in the middle of our usual June ice age (50 degrees F and rainy) and Aromi didn’t have grits on the menu, but they did have the best seafood I’ve eaten in the landlocked middle of this continent. Mussels in broth, sardine, scampi, and tuna carpaccio kept me licking my fingers and glorying in the messy juicy experience of eating fresh seafood, untamed by a frying pan. Their salads are good too, and everyone enjoyed the chocolate tarts we divided and passed around, and the biscotti dipped in a honey sweet wine.

Service was slow, and we had to attach one of our bravest members to the elbow of a passing wine steward to get our orders placed. We decided to always ask prices for the specials – they can be surprisingly high – and double checked our bill. The staff had no problem removing the extra bottle of prosecco from our total, once we pointed it out. Ah Prague ;-).

But if you are used to servers who ignore you without the use of strategic foot trippings, and you don’t mind glancing through your bill, we, all seven of us, can heartily recommend it. And the table linen? It was beautiful too.

What it takes to exit house and enter rental car with 2 year old

1. 45 minutes to put above child in diapers. 3 minutes for dress, socks, shoes and hat.
2. 5 minutes (or less) for own preparation, this includes breakfast.
3. One pair of arms to carry car seat (beautifully safe, extraordinarily heavy) to street.
4. Another pair to elbow nudge child out of door, while wielding stroller (empty of course).
5. Good knees for 62 step descent to street, while balancing child and stroller as they alternatively lunge from one step to another.
6. Ability to distract child (desperate to crawl into car seat and offended by father’s attempts to remember how said seat fits into car) while loading “collapsible“ stroller into trunk designed for one bag of groceries and a bottle or two of beer.
7. Sense of humor when you realize that you have remembered to bring backpack with diapers, sippy cup, pretzels and Dr. Seuss, but forgotten your own sunglasses and breakfast bar (to make up for 15 second sip of tea – see 2.).

Filed under: toddler_tales lists

This morning we packed family and food into our rental car and headed out to the ball game. The Prague Post annual softball tournament was in full swing and we were on our way to cheer on Will’s team.

There aren’t many ballparks in the Czech Republic, at least for baseball and softball, and I thought we’d be heading to a soccer field borrowed for the tournament and redressed. But when we arrived we found 5 ball fields, beautifully groomed, lined by trees, and with a new ballpark house at the center, just next to the main stadium. I was impressed that a neighborhood would have such nice facilities, not realizing until later that we were actually admiring one of the biggest clubs in the country.

Much of the action this early was still happening in the parking lot, and we watched as a van unloaded business guys carefully dressed in full baseball regalia. Compared to our team, arrayed in t-shirts and blue jeans, they looked serious, but portly. They trooped off to a practice field and were soon lined up lobbing balls back and forth, punching their gloves and jogging around their small field to warm up, yelling back and forth in English of various accents. Business consultants, I decided.

Further down and away from the stands, our team was at the beginning of a consolation game, so we left the professionals to their warm up and headed over to watch. Caroline enjoyed the walk, down a gravel path that made a satisfying sound as you went. For once she didn't demand a ride, but hung low from our hands and focused on each step, crunch crunch.

Once we got to the dugout C loved the action too, and helped yell in the calls - “ball, ball“ (the pitcher’s mound was a tad far from the plate for unpracticed pitchers). Our team batted deep into the outfield, hit a few home runs and sped around the bases till our 45 minutes was up and it was time to go home, or at least get a beer.

Over the loud speakers Crosby, Stills, Nash sang “There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear.“ Life was playing that Czech-American-worlds-colliding trick on us, and the mix was mighty fine.

The Magic Word

Caroline crib talk : a monologue
"Widja-widja-widja?"
"NO!"
"Please???"
"Ok"
(repeat 5 times)

Filed under: toddler_tales words

Caroline is in her crib, taking a nap. Or rather, she is in her crib, talking to herself and to her bears, discussing the latest paleontology news or whatever toddlers find to babble about during their afternoon “rest times“.

Bump. The chatter subsides. She’s thrown her sippy cup to the floor and has decided to sleep. I mentally sigh with satisfaction, and turn to the NYT for five minutes of news before I get started on some work.

Hi Mommie, breathes a small voice from the doorway, and there she is. Babble babble! she says in excitement. I pick her up and run to our room,
    "Will! She’s out of her crib! Why did you take her out?
But you did, when you put on her pajamas.
    Not me. It must have been you, please tell me it was you!"

Caroline is jubilant. Will and I try to pretend that our lives haven’t just changed.

Filed under: toddler_tales

Dogs as dinosaurs for the under two set

Have you read any Tintin lately? Back in the day when free time wasn’t just an interesting concept to me, and I was on a visit to Switzerland, I would skeddadle down to my favorite French/Italian/German/Romansh bookstore and pick up a Tintin book. In French of course, since it really still is the only language besides English that I can kind of read. I loved Tintin because all the illustrations made it easy to understand – and I only needed to use a dictionary when Captain Haddock started to rant and rave (there are few contexts in which boiled tripe pops readily to mind as a vocabulary word). But today Caroline pulled out Tintin en Amerique and I started to read it to her and quickly got bogged down in Herge’s relentless shoot 'em up version of the U.S. I couldn’t bowdlerize fast enough to convert his ideas of Chicago and the Wild West into something I could enjoy reading to a little kid, and finally we just talked about Tintin’s dog, Milou (Snowy). Look C he’s barking, and look here he’s chasing a cat, and here he is jumping off the cliff after Tintin, but don’t worry, they both grabbed that tree branch so they are okay!

I should have realized that anyone who likes to put on my headphones and listen to the Windows help screen dog bark at her would like to flip through pages of Milou in action. Dogs are the dinosaurs of her almost two year old world, and she’ll talk about them all day. When we go on walks she’ll say woof woof or pejsek very politely to every dog she passes. Fascinated, she may be, but they are still mighty strange to her, and she has rarely gotten close enough to pet a live specimen. Last Sunday a nice dog owner and I tried to arrange a meet and greet for Caroline and his dog. The dog had clearly been through the kid rigamarole before and sat politely panting in the shade, as Caroline darted between me and his tail. When the dog stood to his feet to shake, Caroline quickly swarmed to the top of my head (still don’t know how she did that) using my ears as grips. Five seconds later she was back on the ground trying to talk to the dog again, but by then I thought I’d earned a coffee at our local cafe and the dog had certainly earned his time off for good behavior, so we left dog and owner behind, as C obligingly said bye bye woof bye bye.

Filed under: toddler_tales Tin_Tin language dogs

The ruin of Rosy Hue 039

Last night was not the most restful of nights. Imagine if you will, Caroline’s skill sets laid out like little race cars on a track, all racing toward the finish line of self sufficiency. Then imagine that one of those cars – the ability to strip yourself of all of your clothes AND your diaper – gets way ahead of the cars that represent „dressing one‘s ownself“ and „being interested in telling your parents when you have to pee“. Well, the inevitable outcome to this race happened at midnight last night and it was all (to mix a metaphor) down hill from there. At 5:30, after having spent a restless night with the child sheet-wrestling champion of Prague, I finally drifted off to sleep, vaguely noting that she seemed to be climbing off the bed in pursuit of other entertainment. So so foolish of me to let that mental note expire, unexamined.

Because one hour later Caroline is standing by my ear saying wakeup wakeup, and I’m waking up, but it isn’t wakeup she is saying, it is makeup. And she has certainly covered herself in it, from lips to toes. Apparently Caroline doesn’t have the same lipstick absorbing skin that I have (when I was in my one and only music video they had to finally assign a makeup lady to my lips alone). Once applied, Rosy Hue sticks around. It takes three wash cloths, complete bath tub emersion and at least half a bottle of baby shampoo before C emerges looking somewhat less maroon.

I'm happy to note that even at an early hour we handled ourselves as responsible parents should, asking the important questions: 1. did she eat it? (no makeup in teeth, no saying fooey and rubbing tongue on towel, and actually very little even close to her mouth helped us rule that out) and 2. should we take a picture for posterity? (again no, for vague reasons that had more to do with it being 6:30 in the morning than anything else).

The rest of the day went well, thank you very much. But if I were voting, I'd say that the score for the night came out to Caroline 2, parents 0. And Rosy Hue*, r.i.p.

* name changed to protect the innocent and because the label was absorbed during the course of this morning’s activities

Tut tut it looks like rain

If I ever need an accurate forecast for my weather the next day, I call up Ellen in Zurich and ask her to look out the window and describe what she sees. Sunday (a beautifully sunny day here) Ellen told me it was gray and rainy at her end of the line. Sure enough Monday dawned wet. Now isn't that better than CNN? And Swiss weather just feels fancier.

Anyway, we didn’t mind, as it was Monday and Caroline likes the rain. It means we pull out the umbrellas and leave them to dry after an outing. That’s when she steps into my boots and starts glide stomping through the kitchen hallway wielding an umbrella ala Mary Poppins. Dangerous for the belly button or any thing else that might come in her way, so I send her to our room to look in the mirror and admire herself and her umbrella and sing „tut tut, tut tut“ (it looks like rain).

Filed under: toddler_tales weather words

Sleepless nights and headlamp day

We are about to launch a product for a client of ours, so I'm putting in lots of extra time after hours getting my part ready for the launch. Combine that time with Caroline care, dining out with business partners and every now and then washing some clothes, and well, I'm not getting much sleep. Today I woke up at 5:30 to finish something by 8 and realized: I am so not a morning person. It took a 7:30 cup of tea from Will and a hot shower to uncurl my lip from its grimace of disbelief that I was actually awake at such an ungodly hour.

Of course today was the day that our main babysitter headed to her annual pilgrimage to the spa, our second developed a ticklish throat with a week long doctor's excuse and the third was on a trip home to the border of Poland to pick up a new driver's license. In my sleep-baffled state I predicted it would be a major disaster, but luckily both Caroline and Will rose beautifully to the occasion. Will came home for lunch duty and I pulled C's easel into my office and she drew away (while seated on the potty, she likes multi-tasking). When she got bored with drawing she ran around the house wearing my headlamp and yelling "shadow! shadow!"

She tickles us no end with her toddler talk and we get her to say "Cahline" whenever she will. I also love how she says "Are You?" for "Where are you?" and "is that?" for "What is that?"

Filed under: toddler_tales insomnia

CSS clicks butt

Last night I stayed up until 1:30 hand coding a website for one of our clients. It was the first time in eons that I had done that (combination of needing to finish a project before Monday, our production guy not being available and general cuss‘ed stuborness). We’re doing most of our html using CSS these days, which is new for me and for my antique version of dreamweaver, hence the hand coding. But I love learning something new and after some serious mistakes (and a swift blessing to the saint of htmlers for reminding me to make a copy of all my files) I got into the swing of the thing and by this morning had a rolled out site ready for tomorrow’s show and tell.

It’s even more satisfying because I designed the site myself, and it is a pretty little thing. Our clients asked me for something Mondrianesque, but still somewhat like their old site, and remarkably it worked. When it goes live, I'll post a link.

Here it is: Identity online

Filed under: geeky CSS design