Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Some Final Thoughts
Perhaps it was obvious from my lack of commitment to this blog, but I was never wholly committed to establishing a life for myself here in Stockholm. I never did become particularly Swedish or even Swede-ish. See, in the back of my mind, I knew there was a very strong possibility that we would not be staying in Stockholm for the full five years of my husband's work contract. In fact, although I didn't tell anyone this, I knew there was a strong possibility we would be staying for barely one year. There was always that voice saying, "Do you really need to learn Swedish if you'll be moving again in a few months? What's the point in looking for a job? Who needs new friends that you'll be saying good-bye to soon, anyway?" But because the possibility was only that, and not a certainty, I couldn't risk treating our first year in Sweden like our only year in Sweden. If I had, I certainly wouldn't have wasted any time looking for a job, I doubt I would have done any Swedish lessons, and O probably wouldn't have gone to preschool at all. But because our situation was uncertain until June, it made sense to hedge my bets. I just ended up doing everything rather half-heartedly, though ironically my Swedish teacher wanted me to take the exam for promotion to the next level. Thank goodness I don't have to do that now. Stockholm has been wonderful in many ways, but I am looking forward to the next chapter. I'll be in an Anglophone country again, where it should be easier for me to find a job, and where I'll be immersed in a culture with which I'm already familiar. I still have a couple more months left in Sweden--we'll be leaving just as the weather starts turning again, when the days begin to get shorter and shorter. The timing couldn't be better!
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Spring, with Snowsuits
It's officially spring. The days are much longer (the sun is setting around 8 pm now), tables and chairs have appeared on the sidewalks, flowers are everywhere (in pots or vases--nothing's coming up out of the ground), we celebrated Easter. But it's still COLD. Probably in the high 20s or low 30s when I take O to school in the morning, but then it warms up to somewhere in the low 40s which feels practically balmy after all these months. I am super jealous of everyone in warmer climes, whose Instagram photos make everything look so... warm. But I am trying to be positive and am looking forward to many good things coming up. Friends are coming to our place this weekend for a long overdue visit (these are the Swedish friends with the two daughters; should be interesting to see how O shares his stuff), then other friends from DC who now live in London will be coming at the beginning of May, followed by two big visits from our families over the summer. And somewhere in there, the three of us are renting a tiny 19th-century cottage near a lake for a whole week. As weird as it sounds given that O is 2.5 years old, it will be our first real vacation alone as a family (unless you count the 24 hours we chose to spend in Oxford last December on our way to Christmas in Wales, but I don't). I'm trying not to get too excited about it because there's the very real possibility that the weather will be terrible, or O won't be able to sleep well, or we'll run out of things to do after Day 3. Anyway, I'm still excited and am telling myself it will work out.
And as part of my new resolution to be (uncharacteristically) more positive, I thought I should record some things I'm actually feeling good about. If this kind of thing makes you gag (as it usually does for me), then feel free to click away now to dogs balancing stupid things on their heads or whatever else it is that people look at on the internet besides the obvious.
Ok, I'm feeling good about:
Making french toast for breakfast on the weekends. I've vowed to start a new tradition of making a "fun" cooked breakfast once at least every other weekend, but realized that french toast was the only thing I really knew how to make without a mix. (Other than bacon and eggs, but O won't eat it.) But last weekend we went to a mega supermarket that had an American aisle, which means I'm now the proud owner of some sketchy-looking American pancake mix.
Owen's preschool. I had my doubts, but it seems like he's finally really happy there. I've seen him light up when he sees his favorite teacher and he's very sweet with all of them, and it's definitely teaching him skills that would be difficult for me to provide him with. S and I even decided to turn down an offer of a place at an English school that looked pretty amazing, because we didn't think it was amazing enough to justify taking him away from a place he likes and putting him through the transition all over again.
Learning Swedish. I can actually see the progress I've made, which is really encouraging. There hasn't been a crazy huge leap, but I understand more when I try to read the newspaper and I definitely catch more words on the radio and tv than I used to (but listening comprehension is still super hard for me). I can also communicate in broken Swedish with the one teacher in O's group who doesn't know English or Spanish, and when he first started I really couldn't make myself understood with her at all. I still find it very difficult, but it doesn't feel quite so impossible.
Doing fun things around Stockholm with my husband and kid. Sometimes this is just going to the playground a couple of blocks away. Sometimes it's going to a part of the city we've never seen before. Sometimes it's all about going back to Skansen because they constantly have new things there, like all the Easter activities. (By the way, Easter here? Totally reminds me of Halloween. Tons of candy, kids dressed up in costumes and face paint, vaguely creepy decorations of twigs with feathers stuck on them, a game that involves smashing eggs.)
What am I not feeling so good about? The difficulty of finding a job. I've decided it only makes sense now to look for a job starting this fall since the summer is going to be quite packed with visitors and our own travels, so we'll see how that goes. And by then my Swedish should be better, so hopefully that will help, too.
And as part of my new resolution to be (uncharacteristically) more positive, I thought I should record some things I'm actually feeling good about. If this kind of thing makes you gag (as it usually does for me), then feel free to click away now to dogs balancing stupid things on their heads or whatever else it is that people look at on the internet besides the obvious.
Ok, I'm feeling good about:
Making french toast for breakfast on the weekends. I've vowed to start a new tradition of making a "fun" cooked breakfast once at least every other weekend, but realized that french toast was the only thing I really knew how to make without a mix. (Other than bacon and eggs, but O won't eat it.) But last weekend we went to a mega supermarket that had an American aisle, which means I'm now the proud owner of some sketchy-looking American pancake mix.
Owen's preschool. I had my doubts, but it seems like he's finally really happy there. I've seen him light up when he sees his favorite teacher and he's very sweet with all of them, and it's definitely teaching him skills that would be difficult for me to provide him with. S and I even decided to turn down an offer of a place at an English school that looked pretty amazing, because we didn't think it was amazing enough to justify taking him away from a place he likes and putting him through the transition all over again.
Learning Swedish. I can actually see the progress I've made, which is really encouraging. There hasn't been a crazy huge leap, but I understand more when I try to read the newspaper and I definitely catch more words on the radio and tv than I used to (but listening comprehension is still super hard for me). I can also communicate in broken Swedish with the one teacher in O's group who doesn't know English or Spanish, and when he first started I really couldn't make myself understood with her at all. I still find it very difficult, but it doesn't feel quite so impossible.
Doing fun things around Stockholm with my husband and kid. Sometimes this is just going to the playground a couple of blocks away. Sometimes it's going to a part of the city we've never seen before. Sometimes it's all about going back to Skansen because they constantly have new things there, like all the Easter activities. (By the way, Easter here? Totally reminds me of Halloween. Tons of candy, kids dressed up in costumes and face paint, vaguely creepy decorations of twigs with feathers stuck on them, a game that involves smashing eggs.)
What am I not feeling so good about? The difficulty of finding a job. I've decided it only makes sense now to look for a job starting this fall since the summer is going to be quite packed with visitors and our own travels, so we'll see how that goes. And by then my Swedish should be better, so hopefully that will help, too.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
All The Single Mommies
As I've mentioned before, S is an academic. I'm a lapsed academic. He is an assistant professor who loves what he does, whereas I got my Ph.D. because I came to hate my cubicle job and Yale was willing to give me money to read, write, study languages and travel abroad. My point is, S is one of those academics who publishes steadily and attends conferences regularly, not just because he has to, but because he likes it. There is one conference in particular that is a huge annual gathering of everyone in the field, and it is held in a different American city each spring. He is there right now, and has been away on the East Coast since last Wednesday. He does not return until this Friday. That means that I will have been a single parent to a two-year-old for TEN DAYS STRAIGHT.
I know, ten days is nothing when you think about all the single parents who do this for years and years. But when you're used to having someone share in all the logistics of making a household run and in helping with the childcare, and that person disappears for a week and a half, it means suddenly having to figure out a new system with no back up. Obviously I've been alone with O before, but this is the longest stretch and this is the first time he's at an age where he can be difficult. I think if I spoke to almost any other parent of a 2.5-year-old kid, they would think that O is incredibly easy and laid-back. But you have to understand how much easier and more laid-back he used to be! He is now doing totally normal-for-this-age things like trying to get his way and having screaming tantrums, etc. Needless to say, I was very nervous about how things would go.
Overall, though, it's been pretty great. (I'm probably jinxing myself by writing that when it's only Tuesday.) Yes, it's harder because now I have to do absolutely everything by myself: the cooking, grocery shopping, laundry, dishes, garbage, cleaning, playing and entertaining, diapers, bath time, bedtime routine, getting up if O wakes up crying in the middle of the night, dealing with tantrums and discipline. But fortunately he's at school now, which means I can get a lot done during the day. A couple of days before S left, O had been throwing fits about having to take a bath (S always gives him a bath when he's home) and I was terrified that I'd have to let him go ten days without bathing because he wouldn't let me get him into the tub. I mean, if S was having a hard time, what was I going to do? Our first night alone was tough (I heard at least one "Daddy do it," to which I had to respond that Daddy wasn't there--gulp), but after the first couple of days we both got used to the new routine. (I even managed to survive the news on Thursday that Owen was BITTEN by another child at preschool. He still has the teeth marks on his face, but seems to have forgotten it even happened.)
Even the weekend was good. I had wondered how that would go since those are the days when O gets to spend tons of time with his dad, and I also wondered how hard it would be without school taking up a huge chunk of the day. It actually turned out really well, though. I made us French toast with strawberries for breakfast (I'm trying to start a tradition of one cooked breakfast on the weekend, at least twice a month.) We went to a park in the morning, which was very crowded despite the icy conditions, and ran into twins from O's preschool who were there with their dad. It was funny because I was trying to follow along in Swedish at first but as soon as the dad remembered who O was (at first he thought his name was Noah, who's another kid in the class), he immediately switched into English with no acknowledgment of the fact that he'd just been speaking a completely different language. And on the walk home we ran into another dad and his daughter whom we'd met at open preschool back in the day. It was the first time I ever felt as though our neighborhood was, well, like a neighborhood, where you actually run into people you know. Sunday was more boring. Our big expedition was to the supermarket, but I think it's fun for O because child-centric Sweden has mini-shopping carts for children to push so he was pushing his around the store and helping me put things in it. He's really good about it and wasn't trying to intentionally ram into shelves or people or treating it like a toy. Otherwise we just hung out at home.
It's funny how quickly I went from dreading this whole experience and kind of hating it at the beginning to enjoying the time with O and getting to do whatever I want. (Example: S is not a fan of O pushing the mini-shopping cart because he thinks it slows everything down too much. Sigh. Another example: I'm eating way more pasta and junk food than normal.) Don't get me wrong; we are looking forward to having S back at the end of the week. But it's given me confidence that this is something I can do and that I don't need to freak out before the next long conference.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Talar du svenska?
Now that O is in school, I've somewhat halfheartedly been trying to look for a job. I say that my search is half-hearted because, realistically speaking, it's necessary to know at least some Swedish in order to get a job here unless you are a scientist like my husband, or in business or IT, or willing to work behind the scenes in a factory, hotel, restaurant, etc (and even then you probably need to know a little Swedish). Jobs for school teachers require certification, even in private schools, and besides, the international schools are looking for someone with a working knowledge of Swedish as well. It makes sense. I'm living in Sweden, after all. Several weeks ago I found one advertisement for a job as a copy editor at a video game company that did not require Swedish, but I think it was pretty clear from my application that I know nothing about video games. I was politely informed that I had not been selected for an interview. I'm slowly sending out copies of my CV to different schools in the hopes that they might need a tutor or assistant teacher, and that certification will not be necessary for such a job.
In the meantime, the only thing I can really do to improve my prospects is learn Swedish. I began my classes about three or four weeks ago through a program called SFI, or Swedish for Immigrants. These classes are completely free and you can actually receive a cash bonus if you pass the final exam within a set period of time. At the moment I'm feeling pessimistic about being able to get my hands on that money, but who knows. Anyway, I had to trek down to the headquarters and take a placement test to determine which class I would be attending. (There are levels A-D, and the ultimate goal is passing the 3D exam.) I waited with my number for about 20 minutes, was called into an office, a Swedish man asked me a question in Swedish, I looked at him blankly, he repeated in English, "Do you speak any Swedish?" and I told him, "No." That was the extent of my evaluation. Imagine my surprise when I was placed into Class 3C. Apparently A is for people who have had no schooling at all, B is for people who have had some schooling and C is for people who have completed high school. Presumably D is for people who already know a little Swedish.
The class has been better than I expected, though it is a little strange to feel as though I'm back in high school again. Roll is taken, recess is held (the class is three hours long), people quickly form cliques. We practice dialogues in pairs, introducing ourselves over and over again, talking about our daily schedule to practice telling the time as well as using different verbs, and we have even enacted doctor/patient scenarios to learn the parts of the body and various ways to describe illnesses and pains.
Our class could be the basis for a really bad '80s sitcom. There's the kooky, middle-aged hippie teacher who insists on broadly acting out or drawing every vocabulary word, and who pigeon-holes her students. (When I told her I'd have to miss a couple of classes, she asked if I was going to China. I told her that I wasn't actually from China despite my Chinese name, to which she responded, "Oh, were you adopted in Sweden?" Hmm, adopted at the age of 33? Or adopted as a child yet having to learn Swedish from SFI instead of within my hypothetical Swedish family?) There's my classroom partner, a waitress and part-time nanny from Poland who has ambitions of getting her MBA, who also looks like she could be a model. We are the only two in the class nerdy enough to consistently choose seats right in the center front row. I don't know enough about everyone else in the class, but they're from all over (Colombia, France, Turkey, Serbia, Russia, Czech Republic, China--real China) and I'm sure they all have interesting back stories. Wasn't there a show just like this about adult immigrants learning English?
I do think I'm learning a lot in the class, plus there is the added bonus of thinking about pedagogical techniques as I observe the teachers. Seeing how things are done here could be useful if I ever manage to get a job teaching language again.
In the meantime, the only thing I can really do to improve my prospects is learn Swedish. I began my classes about three or four weeks ago through a program called SFI, or Swedish for Immigrants. These classes are completely free and you can actually receive a cash bonus if you pass the final exam within a set period of time. At the moment I'm feeling pessimistic about being able to get my hands on that money, but who knows. Anyway, I had to trek down to the headquarters and take a placement test to determine which class I would be attending. (There are levels A-D, and the ultimate goal is passing the 3D exam.) I waited with my number for about 20 minutes, was called into an office, a Swedish man asked me a question in Swedish, I looked at him blankly, he repeated in English, "Do you speak any Swedish?" and I told him, "No." That was the extent of my evaluation. Imagine my surprise when I was placed into Class 3C. Apparently A is for people who have had no schooling at all, B is for people who have had some schooling and C is for people who have completed high school. Presumably D is for people who already know a little Swedish.
The class has been better than I expected, though it is a little strange to feel as though I'm back in high school again. Roll is taken, recess is held (the class is three hours long), people quickly form cliques. We practice dialogues in pairs, introducing ourselves over and over again, talking about our daily schedule to practice telling the time as well as using different verbs, and we have even enacted doctor/patient scenarios to learn the parts of the body and various ways to describe illnesses and pains.
Our class could be the basis for a really bad '80s sitcom. There's the kooky, middle-aged hippie teacher who insists on broadly acting out or drawing every vocabulary word, and who pigeon-holes her students. (When I told her I'd have to miss a couple of classes, she asked if I was going to China. I told her that I wasn't actually from China despite my Chinese name, to which she responded, "Oh, were you adopted in Sweden?" Hmm, adopted at the age of 33? Or adopted as a child yet having to learn Swedish from SFI instead of within my hypothetical Swedish family?) There's my classroom partner, a waitress and part-time nanny from Poland who has ambitions of getting her MBA, who also looks like she could be a model. We are the only two in the class nerdy enough to consistently choose seats right in the center front row. I don't know enough about everyone else in the class, but they're from all over (Colombia, France, Turkey, Serbia, Russia, Czech Republic, China--real China) and I'm sure they all have interesting back stories. Wasn't there a show just like this about adult immigrants learning English?
I do think I'm learning a lot in the class, plus there is the added bonus of thinking about pedagogical techniques as I observe the teachers. Seeing how things are done here could be useful if I ever manage to get a job teaching language again.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Preschool in Sweden: Everything You've Heard Is True
As I type this, O is currently at preschool for the first time without me. A couple of weeks ago we were told that he had received a place at our 3rd choice school. All three of us went to visit the school twice to meet teachers and see the facilities (to be honest, my first impression was not so great, but I liked it better on the second visit), before making our decision. We decided to accept the place while staying on the wait lists for our top two choices as well as the English schools. (By accepting our #3 choice, we are automatically removed from the queues for the two bottom schools on our priority list.) It turns out, however, that we were actually very, very lucky in getting a place at this school because it is not only extremely close to us, with good facilities, but O's main teacher speaks excellent English and another teacher who is part of his group speaks Spanish as her first language. There is also a little girl whose father speaks English with her, and a little boy whose mother speaks Spanish with him, so O is not going to feel completely lost.
I'm feeling much more confident about the preschool decision after having spent the first three days there with him. It is the policy here (at least with the state schools) that a parent or guardian accompany the child for the entire day of school during the first three days. I sat with him in the song circle, stood nearby as he played with different toys, changed his diapers, helped with his food (but I was much more hands off than I usually am at home, and I realized that both S and I have been spoiling him WAY too much), was right next to him on the floor at nap time, etc. I was completely immersed in the preschool experience (so much so that other children were coming up to me for assistance or comfort!) and had the opportunity to see exactly how the day is structured.
I had been worried that preschools here might be lacking in structure. I know that the emphasis is on play, but I had wondered whether unstructured free play was all there was to it, with adults around just to make sure the children didn't hurt themselves. There is definitely a structure and routine to the way things are done, and I was quite impressed with what I saw (and am just going to trust that it wasn't something put on only for my benefit!). O is attending from 9 to 3 pm five days a week, which probably sounds like a lot, but in a way it seemed easier to make the adjustment right from the beginning instead of gradually easing him into a longer and longer day. There is free play either inside or outdoors in the morning, with a little snack of fruit. After the snack, the children play inside and choose what they want to play with, but the teacher might suggest painting or modelling clay or the sand box (most of the children do the suggested activity, but some of them do their own thing--guess where O falls) and while this wasn't done during the time I was there, they also work on "projects" some days. They might play with water and make observations about, for example, what happens if you put water in a funnel, or through a sieve. A recent project was imitating something they had read about in a book: a group of hippos built a diving board. The children spent time constructing different towers and diving boards out of foam blocks and having toy hippos jump off them.
Then they sit in a circle for singing (and probably usually stories, too--I think that might have been skipped for the benefit of me and O) before having scheduled diaper changing/potty time and hand washing for lunch. THEN, the children all sit down in little chairs around little tables and are given real cutlery, plates and glasses and, depending on the food, either serve themselves or wait to be served from communal dishes in the center of the table. The school has its own on-site chef who prepares organic food, and everyone is expected to eat the same thing (the teachers all eat with the children, and I did as well). The first day we had pasta with a sausage stew to go over it and side salads of beets and cabbage. Day 2 was tomato lentil soup (the children did not dish this out themselves) and bread. Day 3 was salmon with dill sauce, boiled potatoes, and fresh tomatoes and cucumbers on the side. My son ate NONE of it apart from the bread that came with the soup. But he really impressed me by being willing to eat the bread himself instead of having me tear it up into smaller pieces for him, and also by trying to drink out of his glass (he drinks from a straw at home). It was incredible seeing all these other two-year-olds using their knives and forks, drinking from glasses, eating very grown up food. Of course, the majority have been attending preschool since they were one and are used to this, but still. It made me realize how much I'd underestimated O, because I half expected him to throw a fit at the lunch table. His teacher assured me that it's common for kids not to eat anything at first, but they start to pay attention to all the other children around them and eventually try copying them. Right now it seems as though it would be a miracle if O picked up a fork and started eating salmon.
After eating, the children take their dishes over to a cart where they scrape leftover food into the garbage, stack plates and glasses, and drop their cutlery into a little container of soapy water. Until school, I don't think O had ever in his life cleaned up after a meal. Then it's nap time. Each child has a plastic box to store a pillow, blanket, stuffed animal and pacifier. (Pacifier use here has surprised me. In the US, we as parents are encouraged to get rid of the pacifier as soon as possible, but here the very same two-year-olds who appear so grown up are still extremely attached to their pacifiers and they don't seem to be dropped until kids are three if not older.) I expected that it would be difficult for O to fall asleep. Nothing was familiar (to make it more exciting and special, we let O pick out a new pillow, new blanket, and new animal specifically for school) and he'd never really slept outside of a crib or his stroller. On each of the three days, he was asleep within ten minutes and was the last one to wake up. Seriously, all of the other children were awake and playing and making lots of noise, and he was dead to the world. I had to wake him up myself on two of the days, and I wonder how he will adjust to the shorter nap. At home he is used to sleeping for 2-3 hours, but most of the kids at school only nap for an hour.
More free play after nap time (yesterday one of the teachers put on music and the kids were dancing and playing instruments, and O LOVED that), another potty/diaper break, then it's time for the afternoon snack. Poor O. Because he refused to try any of the lunch food, he absolutely inhaled the snacks in the afternoon and I fear he was taking much more than his fair share. I hope it will balance out and that he'll come around to trying the food at lunch. Then a little more playing after snack, then it's time to go.
Overall he did really, really well and seemed to like it, and I think he'll learn so much from school. Not book learning (the teacher specifically told me that they don't do that--things like numbers and counting come up in songs and stories, but they don't just practice numbers and letters), but learning how to interact with other people and learning to try new things that seem challenging but that I know he can do.
So, it's taken me quite a while to write all this and I still haven't received a call from the school, so I'm going to take that as a good sign. Do you know that he didn't even cry when I said good-bye to him this morning? Too excited about playing with the fun toys that we don't have at home. I hope he'll continue to be that excited about school!
I'm feeling much more confident about the preschool decision after having spent the first three days there with him. It is the policy here (at least with the state schools) that a parent or guardian accompany the child for the entire day of school during the first three days. I sat with him in the song circle, stood nearby as he played with different toys, changed his diapers, helped with his food (but I was much more hands off than I usually am at home, and I realized that both S and I have been spoiling him WAY too much), was right next to him on the floor at nap time, etc. I was completely immersed in the preschool experience (so much so that other children were coming up to me for assistance or comfort!) and had the opportunity to see exactly how the day is structured.
I had been worried that preschools here might be lacking in structure. I know that the emphasis is on play, but I had wondered whether unstructured free play was all there was to it, with adults around just to make sure the children didn't hurt themselves. There is definitely a structure and routine to the way things are done, and I was quite impressed with what I saw (and am just going to trust that it wasn't something put on only for my benefit!). O is attending from 9 to 3 pm five days a week, which probably sounds like a lot, but in a way it seemed easier to make the adjustment right from the beginning instead of gradually easing him into a longer and longer day. There is free play either inside or outdoors in the morning, with a little snack of fruit. After the snack, the children play inside and choose what they want to play with, but the teacher might suggest painting or modelling clay or the sand box (most of the children do the suggested activity, but some of them do their own thing--guess where O falls) and while this wasn't done during the time I was there, they also work on "projects" some days. They might play with water and make observations about, for example, what happens if you put water in a funnel, or through a sieve. A recent project was imitating something they had read about in a book: a group of hippos built a diving board. The children spent time constructing different towers and diving boards out of foam blocks and having toy hippos jump off them.
Then they sit in a circle for singing (and probably usually stories, too--I think that might have been skipped for the benefit of me and O) before having scheduled diaper changing/potty time and hand washing for lunch. THEN, the children all sit down in little chairs around little tables and are given real cutlery, plates and glasses and, depending on the food, either serve themselves or wait to be served from communal dishes in the center of the table. The school has its own on-site chef who prepares organic food, and everyone is expected to eat the same thing (the teachers all eat with the children, and I did as well). The first day we had pasta with a sausage stew to go over it and side salads of beets and cabbage. Day 2 was tomato lentil soup (the children did not dish this out themselves) and bread. Day 3 was salmon with dill sauce, boiled potatoes, and fresh tomatoes and cucumbers on the side. My son ate NONE of it apart from the bread that came with the soup. But he really impressed me by being willing to eat the bread himself instead of having me tear it up into smaller pieces for him, and also by trying to drink out of his glass (he drinks from a straw at home). It was incredible seeing all these other two-year-olds using their knives and forks, drinking from glasses, eating very grown up food. Of course, the majority have been attending preschool since they were one and are used to this, but still. It made me realize how much I'd underestimated O, because I half expected him to throw a fit at the lunch table. His teacher assured me that it's common for kids not to eat anything at first, but they start to pay attention to all the other children around them and eventually try copying them. Right now it seems as though it would be a miracle if O picked up a fork and started eating salmon.
After eating, the children take their dishes over to a cart where they scrape leftover food into the garbage, stack plates and glasses, and drop their cutlery into a little container of soapy water. Until school, I don't think O had ever in his life cleaned up after a meal. Then it's nap time. Each child has a plastic box to store a pillow, blanket, stuffed animal and pacifier. (Pacifier use here has surprised me. In the US, we as parents are encouraged to get rid of the pacifier as soon as possible, but here the very same two-year-olds who appear so grown up are still extremely attached to their pacifiers and they don't seem to be dropped until kids are three if not older.) I expected that it would be difficult for O to fall asleep. Nothing was familiar (to make it more exciting and special, we let O pick out a new pillow, new blanket, and new animal specifically for school) and he'd never really slept outside of a crib or his stroller. On each of the three days, he was asleep within ten minutes and was the last one to wake up. Seriously, all of the other children were awake and playing and making lots of noise, and he was dead to the world. I had to wake him up myself on two of the days, and I wonder how he will adjust to the shorter nap. At home he is used to sleeping for 2-3 hours, but most of the kids at school only nap for an hour.
More free play after nap time (yesterday one of the teachers put on music and the kids were dancing and playing instruments, and O LOVED that), another potty/diaper break, then it's time for the afternoon snack. Poor O. Because he refused to try any of the lunch food, he absolutely inhaled the snacks in the afternoon and I fear he was taking much more than his fair share. I hope it will balance out and that he'll come around to trying the food at lunch. Then a little more playing after snack, then it's time to go.
Overall he did really, really well and seemed to like it, and I think he'll learn so much from school. Not book learning (the teacher specifically told me that they don't do that--things like numbers and counting come up in songs and stories, but they don't just practice numbers and letters), but learning how to interact with other people and learning to try new things that seem challenging but that I know he can do.
So, it's taken me quite a while to write all this and I still haven't received a call from the school, so I'm going to take that as a good sign. Do you know that he didn't even cry when I said good-bye to him this morning? Too excited about playing with the fun toys that we don't have at home. I hope he'll continue to be that excited about school!
Friday, January 18, 2013
They're Lovin' It
More than anything else, I'm beginning to believe that this blog just exists to expose all my ridiculous stereotypes about Swedish people. You know, They like cheesy music. They love blonde wood. They are all beautiful in a vaguely elfin way. And I always thought the Swedes were superior to Americans when it came to the food they ate. I believed they cooked more, ate more healthy foods like fish and vegetables and berries and spelt, and paid attention to the environmental impact of what they ate.
So it was to my great surprise that I discovered how insanely popular McDonald's is here. At least, the McDonald's near the public library a few blocks from my apartment. Now, I should provide some context. We lived even closer to a McDonald's back when we lived in Washington, DC, in Dupont Circle. We would occasionally grab lunch or dinner to go from there if we were in the mood for burgers, but more often than not we would hit up Five Guys. (McDonald's was, for me at least, much more about the fries than the burger.) We never, ever, ever ate in the restaurant. It would have been too depressing. Perhaps it was the incongruous location of this particular branch smack dab in the middle of a yuppie/hipster neighborhood, but very few people ate there. Yes, you would see construction workers, police officers, apartment supers in uniform, nannies pushing strollers, etc, coming out with their lunch to go. You would see angry women with picket signs marching around outside the entrance. But inside, actually sitting at the tables, were usually either senior citizens who didn't seem to have anywhere else to be, and who weren't going to be ejected by the staff, and people who may or may not have been homeless. I never asked, but I have a feeling that none of the parents I hung out with would ever be caught dead in that McDonald's. For me, it's still tasty and it's still something I enjoy eating once in a while and yes, you can think I'm disgusting, but you should see the other crap I eat. I get the impression that most American yuppie types, especially ones with toddlers, shun McDonald's and keep their children away from it. Only organic veggie burgers and oven-baked sweet potato wedges for precious Harper!
But back to Sweden. I assumed that if this was how McDonald's was viewed in Washington, then it would be the same if not more so in Stockholm. But no! I started seeing lots of kids walking around one weekend with similar-looking balloons and I was wondering if someone was handing them out for free on some corner. But then I was able to get a closer look at one, and realized it was a McDonald's balloon! These kids had all eaten at McDonald's! Another day, I looked in the big plate glass windows of the McDonald's by the library, and not only were there tons of kids in there, but there were also people who looked like white-collar cubicle workers all sitting at the counter facing the window, eating their Big Macs while wearing business-casual clothing. It's a completely different feel here. There is no obvious stigma to eating at McDonald's. Office workers seem to eat there the way they'd eat at a Chipotle or Subway or Panera in the States. And families flock there like it's Applebee's, only way cheaper.
I'm not quite sure what to make of all this. I suppose it shows that I know nothing about the Swedes' relationship to food, or anything else. If it were just about letting their children choose where to eat, I would get it. Kids here have more of a say than they do in the States. But all those single adults choosing it over, say, the falafel place directly next-door indicates that there's something else going on. Could it be that I was right all this time and McDonald's is indeed delicious?
So it was to my great surprise that I discovered how insanely popular McDonald's is here. At least, the McDonald's near the public library a few blocks from my apartment. Now, I should provide some context. We lived even closer to a McDonald's back when we lived in Washington, DC, in Dupont Circle. We would occasionally grab lunch or dinner to go from there if we were in the mood for burgers, but more often than not we would hit up Five Guys. (McDonald's was, for me at least, much more about the fries than the burger.) We never, ever, ever ate in the restaurant. It would have been too depressing. Perhaps it was the incongruous location of this particular branch smack dab in the middle of a yuppie/hipster neighborhood, but very few people ate there. Yes, you would see construction workers, police officers, apartment supers in uniform, nannies pushing strollers, etc, coming out with their lunch to go. You would see angry women with picket signs marching around outside the entrance. But inside, actually sitting at the tables, were usually either senior citizens who didn't seem to have anywhere else to be, and who weren't going to be ejected by the staff, and people who may or may not have been homeless. I never asked, but I have a feeling that none of the parents I hung out with would ever be caught dead in that McDonald's. For me, it's still tasty and it's still something I enjoy eating once in a while and yes, you can think I'm disgusting, but you should see the other crap I eat. I get the impression that most American yuppie types, especially ones with toddlers, shun McDonald's and keep their children away from it. Only organic veggie burgers and oven-baked sweet potato wedges for precious Harper!
But back to Sweden. I assumed that if this was how McDonald's was viewed in Washington, then it would be the same if not more so in Stockholm. But no! I started seeing lots of kids walking around one weekend with similar-looking balloons and I was wondering if someone was handing them out for free on some corner. But then I was able to get a closer look at one, and realized it was a McDonald's balloon! These kids had all eaten at McDonald's! Another day, I looked in the big plate glass windows of the McDonald's by the library, and not only were there tons of kids in there, but there were also people who looked like white-collar cubicle workers all sitting at the counter facing the window, eating their Big Macs while wearing business-casual clothing. It's a completely different feel here. There is no obvious stigma to eating at McDonald's. Office workers seem to eat there the way they'd eat at a Chipotle or Subway or Panera in the States. And families flock there like it's Applebee's, only way cheaper.
I'm not quite sure what to make of all this. I suppose it shows that I know nothing about the Swedes' relationship to food, or anything else. If it were just about letting their children choose where to eat, I would get it. Kids here have more of a say than they do in the States. But all those single adults choosing it over, say, the falafel place directly next-door indicates that there's something else going on. Could it be that I was right all this time and McDonald's is indeed delicious?
Monday, January 14, 2013
(Open) Preschool
When I first learned last year that we would be moving to Stockholm, I wasn't exactly thrilled. The winters are long, dark and freezing. The language is foreign. The food isn't quite my cup of tea. Nevertheless, one aspect of living in Sweden fascinated me, and that was its mythic stature as a world leader in childcare and in the treatment of working parents. In general, children are a huge focus of Swedish culture and I imagine that all the Swedish child-haters out there (if they exist) must just grin and bear it. Seriously, almost every stroller you see on the street is enormous, and you just have to get out of the way or risk being knocked down. (In all fairness, I often heard people in the States mutter about the size of my jogging stroller, so I do understand why people like big strollers. They're much more comfortable to use for parent and child when it's the primary means of transportation for your kid all over the city. Here, O's stroller seems pretty average if not downright streamlined.) A parent who pushes a stroller onto a city bus does so for free. There are elevators and extra-wide gates in the subway stations. There's a playground every three blocks or so. And there are the preschools.
Let's talk about Open Preschool first, since that's what I've had the most experience with. These free government-run preschools are all over the city (I can think of two within walking distance of my building) and they are essentially playgroups open to everybody. You don't have to sign up in advance. There is literally an open-door policy. The only rule is that parents have to accompany their children the entire time. It's not a childcare service, but is instead a resource for stay-at-home parents who want their children to interact with other children, and who want to be able to interact with other parents.
The one I've been to the most has a little playground out front (that is open to everyone, including kids in actual paying preschools) and inside the building is a small kitchen and dining area where you can prepare food for your child, with the majority of the building given over to the play areas. There's the typical play kitchen with food, dolls, cars and trucks, construction toys, animals, etc. There are also structured activities like storytelling and crafts, which are run by an employee of the preschool. For example, O and I (emphasis on the "I") made Christmas cards one week, and another week we participated in a little procession with singing and candles for Santa Lucia Day. I like the fact that there's no commitment, and that we can attend other Open Preschools if we want to, or just not go at all if we don't feel like it.
As for proper preschool, I've actually just submitted some applications for O. We applied a long time ago for one especially popular bilingual English-Swedish school and have heard nothing, so I'm assuming we are way down on the wait list. I've just applied for another independent bilingual school whose reputation isn't as great, but it's right next to S's workplace, so we'll see whether that works out. Finally, I filled in the application for the public preschools, which are all Swedish language (eeks!). You choose five schools and rank them in order of preference, then wait to be matched with one. And if all your chosen ones are super popular, you might get matched with a school that's not even on your list. Now, I don't actually have a job yet or anything, but I was advised to go ahead and apply for more schools (I'd just been waiting on that one popular bilingual school) because the wait time, even for the public schools, can be months so it would not be good to have a job offer and not even have started the process of applying for more schools.
The cost of the independent and public schools is exactly the same, the only difference being the curriculum and the application process. And that cost is insanely low compared to what I believe it is in the States. (I don't actually know since we never bothered to look up this kind of thing.) The cost is a very low percentage of your income, up to a certain maximum (so even the millionaires are paying very little), and I believe the maximum for part-time preschool is something like $150/month and for full-time, $200/month. Yeah...
We'll have to see how things end up working out for us. Fingers crossed one of the bilingual schools comes through, otherwise here's hoping for our number one pick for the public schools.
Let's talk about Open Preschool first, since that's what I've had the most experience with. These free government-run preschools are all over the city (I can think of two within walking distance of my building) and they are essentially playgroups open to everybody. You don't have to sign up in advance. There is literally an open-door policy. The only rule is that parents have to accompany their children the entire time. It's not a childcare service, but is instead a resource for stay-at-home parents who want their children to interact with other children, and who want to be able to interact with other parents.
The one I've been to the most has a little playground out front (that is open to everyone, including kids in actual paying preschools) and inside the building is a small kitchen and dining area where you can prepare food for your child, with the majority of the building given over to the play areas. There's the typical play kitchen with food, dolls, cars and trucks, construction toys, animals, etc. There are also structured activities like storytelling and crafts, which are run by an employee of the preschool. For example, O and I (emphasis on the "I") made Christmas cards one week, and another week we participated in a little procession with singing and candles for Santa Lucia Day. I like the fact that there's no commitment, and that we can attend other Open Preschools if we want to, or just not go at all if we don't feel like it.
As for proper preschool, I've actually just submitted some applications for O. We applied a long time ago for one especially popular bilingual English-Swedish school and have heard nothing, so I'm assuming we are way down on the wait list. I've just applied for another independent bilingual school whose reputation isn't as great, but it's right next to S's workplace, so we'll see whether that works out. Finally, I filled in the application for the public preschools, which are all Swedish language (eeks!). You choose five schools and rank them in order of preference, then wait to be matched with one. And if all your chosen ones are super popular, you might get matched with a school that's not even on your list. Now, I don't actually have a job yet or anything, but I was advised to go ahead and apply for more schools (I'd just been waiting on that one popular bilingual school) because the wait time, even for the public schools, can be months so it would not be good to have a job offer and not even have started the process of applying for more schools.
The cost of the independent and public schools is exactly the same, the only difference being the curriculum and the application process. And that cost is insanely low compared to what I believe it is in the States. (I don't actually know since we never bothered to look up this kind of thing.) The cost is a very low percentage of your income, up to a certain maximum (so even the millionaires are paying very little), and I believe the maximum for part-time preschool is something like $150/month and for full-time, $200/month. Yeah...
We'll have to see how things end up working out for us. Fingers crossed one of the bilingual schools comes through, otherwise here's hoping for our number one pick for the public schools.
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