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Sophie’s nap routine: we lie in her bed, snuggling, chatting about the day, until we get to the part of the day that is, “And now we’re taking a nap.” Then I tell her “shhh” and “nighty-night.” Sometimes that’s all it takes. Usually, Sophie insists on getting up for some milk. Then we get up for a “night-night walk” in the sling, slowly circling our monotonous apartment complex, singing lullabies, swaying in the sling, listening to the calming sound of my flip-flops (no matter how cold it is, I wear flip-flops for night-night walking). Sophie eventually sways to sleep on my shoulder, and then she allows me to unlock the apartment doors, ease her out of the sling and onto the bed, still asleep.
This whole routine takes at least 30 minutes.
Yesterday, it took more than 90 minutes.
Lull to sleep already, dammit! That’s what I found myself thinking. Calm down already! Stop your chattering, stop jumping out of bed, just stop this foolishness and let yourself be soothed to sleep! I was actually angry at Sophie. I keep telling her that the sooner she sleeps, the sooner she can wake up and go have more adventures — but this is complex logic to explain to a girl who just turned two. I tell her that every growing girl needs naps, in order to grow as big and strong and smart as she is, but I think that explanation is wearing thin, too. Sophie has been asking to return to “church key” (King’s College Chapel). I have been wanting to return to the Fitzwilliam Museum too. We haven’t had a chance, all week, because parks (which are vital) and housekeeping and all this nap rigmarole eats up our whole day.
When I really can’t soothe her, then I leave her alone, since my presence isn’t calming. She gets up, sobbing, opening her door, seeking me out. I carry her back to bed. She gets up, sobbing, opening her door, seeking me out. I carry her back to bed again. We repeat this. It is never pleasant. Yesterday, we repeated it more than twelve times. I was not feeling gentle about carrying her back to bed, by the eighth or ninth time. She wasn’t feeling gentle either. She started hitting my face. It was ugly.
We finally took a second night-night walk, and ran into a sobbing three-year-old who was vocalizing what I was feeling. Sophie loaned him her blankie, which he promptly covered in snot. Comforting that snotty, howling 3-year-old stranger — and his mother — ended up comforting both of us. Still, they turned down our invitation to come over for tea. We’ll never see them again.
Sophie and I went home alone, and, yesterday, I gave up on trying to get Sophie to nap.
Today she was so tired she went to sleep in 10 minutes and napped for almost 3 hours. She really does need a daily nap. If only she understood that as well as I do.
I’m going away this weekend. Maybe Sophie and I just need a break from each other. I hope so, because I don’t know how much longer I can keep up this terrible nap fight.
Sophie strums a melodic vent in our apartment, announces, “I violin man. Throw change.” So I scatter coins at her feet, just like her favorite sidewalk busker.
Later, she will watch in fascination as I use a screwdriver to unscrew the vent, to retrieve the coins she has posted there while I was cooking dinner.
Sophie dances to a Kurdish guitar, called Saz, gorgeously. She turns a chaotic visit to our Turkish neighbors into a moment to treasure. The two youngest children dance, the older two settle down, the Saz thrums wonderfully, the rain pours down outside.
Sophie cleans the park. I am finally British enough to remember to bring a rag to the park on rainy days, to wipe the slide dry. Sophie then attempts to wipe everything clean, full of self-importance at her imagined usefulness.
Sophie got her first-ever haircut and behaved beautifully, mesmerized by the woman in the next salon-chair, who was having highlights put in, with all the foil and fuss that entails. I had been worried, because Cambridge doesn’t seem to have the kids’-only salons that exist in Southern California, but I shouldn’t have worried. Sophie takes her cues from the others around her, so she was a model of decorum. She got a subtly stylish cut. Now she keeps asking, “More haircut, please?”
Sophie decides that she can’t abide the word, “ready,” so, from now on, I must just say, “set, go.”
Sophie asks me to tell her, “What’s Sophie doing?” so many hundreds of times each day that I start to occasionally answer, “What’s Sophie doing? You’re endlessly asking, ‘What’s Sophie doing?’”
I have started using the brand of dishwashing liquid that is supplied “By Appointment to Her Majesty the Queen.” It turns out that I like the queen’s taste in dish-soap. Ben likes her taste in marmalade. That may epitomize our summer in Britain: domestic yet foreign.
Sophie is getting better at avoiding the bullies in the park.
Sophie starts singing duets with me, when she rides on her bikeseat on the back of my bike. Her “singing” may be better called caterwauling, but I think her shouted nonsense syllables harmonize quite well with my own singing.
And my first niece was born an ocean away in upstate New York. Welcome to the world, Nora!
Here are our adventures of this morning:
Sophie made me a lot of pretend-tea while I made her breakfast, did the dishes, did the laundry, tidied up.
When I finally dragged her away from her tea-set (and from jumping on her bed), Sophie befriended another American girl at what Sophie calls Red Park, and what everyone else calls the playground at Christ’s Pieces.
Then she got hungry, after gobbling all the cheese and bananas we had brought with us, so we went to the central outdoor market and Sophie ate a croissant, from the middle first, while walking down her favorite cobble-stone alley. I wished I had a camera.
King’s College Chapel was finally open for visitors at a time when we visited. This was our third attempt at seeing this famous chapel (Sophie’s nap schedule doesn’t coincide with tourist visiting hours), and I was glad we had kept trying, because it was worth the wait to see that soaring ceiling — massive yet somehow delicate — and the stupendously large stained-glass windows, and everywhere carved dragon mascots that Sophie called dogs.
Even better, Sophie noticed an old-fashioned skeleton key under a tree outside the chapel. When we gave the key to the chapel-guards, they were so grateful to get their key back that they let us in without the $7 admission charge.
Sophie sat in the majestic college courtyard finishing her croissant. Then Sophie perched in a stone nook that looked several hundred years old. She walked up and down the marble stairs to King’s College senate chambers, playing peek-a-boo with the banisters, unwilling to move beyond those five fascinating marble steps. I think she liked those five steps more than the whole chapel.
On the bike-ride home, we passed violin-man. Sophie is in awe of this man who plays violin jigs on the sidewalk. Her awe is the old-fashioned kind: she is open-mouthed, mesmerized, nearly paralyzed by her admiration for him. He feels badly that he terrifies her, but it’s not exactly terror, it’s awe. Sophie keeps asking to listen to one more song. Today, she asked to get down from the bike, but as I placed her on the ground, I accidentally toppled the bike over on top of her. Eight people must have stopped to help. I was shaken, but Sophie wasn’t seriously injured. In fact, she was simply shaken out of her awe. She got up and danced three jigs, on the sidewalk in front of violin-man. Foot-stomping, hand-clapping, toe-clapping jigs, which were adorable, except for her addition of the yoga move “downward dog” to her dance repertoire.
Sophie danced barefoot, because, it turns out, even in Britain, some days are too hot to wear galoshes.
Dear Sophie,
You are changing so quickly, I don’t think I can possibly record all the delightful things you do now, before you grow and change again into newer charming habits. Nevertheless, I’m going to try to describe you now, so that later you can read this and know what you were like at 26 months – and so that I won’t forget.
You know just what to do at every crosswalk, but I still recite to you at every curb: “Stop, hold my hand, look both ways, then go.” You are tempted to run, when I say “go,” or at least gallop, but you are starting to accept my explanation that it’s actually safest to walk when crossing the street. I love that you are beginning to listen to my explanations (though I don’t know how much you understand). I love holding your hand, and I also love that, once we’re across the street, you are eager to let go of my hand, to independently explore the paving stones or ladybugs or whatever else you discover.
Lately you’ve been pausing at the top of the playground slide in order to announce, “Car coming.” I don’t know what you want me to do, then. I say, “Stop, look both ways, hold my hand, then go” but sometimes you still sit at the top of the slide, and still say, “Car coming.”
Two days ago, the big kids, Rudy and Oliver, were playing around the corner. They’re five years old. You ran to visit them, then waited at the very tip of the curb, obediently, oh so patiently. There are hardly any cars on this street, but you know the rule about curbs, and I love that. Then, when I reached you to help you cross the street, you asked me, “No hand, please?” You didn’t want to hold my hand, just this one time, because you didn’t want the big kids to see how little you still are. So we crossed the street, side by side, not holding hands, except invisibly.
I was bursting with pride, you know? I love your sense of safety AND your sense of independence. I love your social instincts and I love that we can trust each other enough to hold hands invisibly.
When you read this, you might not understand what the big deal is, but you still can’t zip a zipper, or count to three (you’re close to that achievement, but you tend to think the numbers one and five are interchangeable). You can’t tell the difference between the question, “How old are you?” and the question “How are you?” To both those questions, you consistently answer, “Two!” It’s adorable.
You like to “do yogurt,” which is how you pronounce doing yoga. You’re eager to do a handstand – and soon you’re going to be better than I am at handstands, because you have no fear, and you have an amazingly good sense about physicality. You recently figured out how to pump your legs, on the swing, but you prefer for me to push you while making funny faces.
You just learned to climb the ladders at the playground. You’re good at clinking glasses and saying, “Cheers,” but you can’t really use a spoon or fork, yet, and you worry about messes. When you’re with a younger friend who can’t yet walk, you crawl, too, out of your incredible empathy.
It’s still hard to understand your words, sometimes. “I wanna see kiz!” you say. You want a kiss? we ask. “No, I wanna see Kizz.” You want to see Kate? “No, I wanna see KIZZ.” Chloe? Whose name possibly sounds like Kizz? “I wanna see Kizz!” you repeat, close to tears, frustrated at not being understood. Then it clicks and we finally understand: you want to see the big kids who live around the corner, Rudy and Oliver, your newest friends.
You want to pour Tabasco on your food whenever we do, but I think you know that we only pretend to pour it on your food. I think you notice, but you accept it.
You like to ask me, “What’s that?” and “What are you doing, Momma?” again and again, seeking to understand the world and learn new words. You haven’t yet learned to ask, “Why?” but I am looking forward to it when you do.
We went to evensong tonight at a cathedral that is 1000 years old. From my Episcopalian childhood, I remembered vespers as a 20-minute ceremony almost entirely in song, so I thought Sophie might enjoy it. But this evensong was almost a full eucharist. Sophie barely lasted through the first lesson reading. She didn’t understand the need to be quiet or the reason why I wouldn’t more actively help her move the prayer cushions into a pillow-fort. We had to leave before the first song, due to Sophie’s fussing, but as soon as she heard the choir began the psalm that followed the first lesson, she calmed down and sat in my lap, sitting in the doorway outside the chapel, mesmerized.
Then, as she was going to bed tonight, she told her baby-doll that she would take her to “eensong,” which would require “shhhh”. She asked me to sing an evensong. None of our ordinary lullabies would do. (Frankly, I’m getting bored of our ordinary lullabies, too, but I thought Sophie’s attention-span was longer than mine.) I reached down into my memory and came up with “Allelulia, Christ our passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the peace, allelulia.” My childhood choirmaster, Mr. Wright, composed the tune I know best for these words that we sang almost every Sunday. It’s probably wrong to sing it outside of the communion ceremony, but it didn’t matter, Sophie loved it tonight. She requested extra allelulias.
No other church-song lullabies would do. Not “Silent Night,” not “Swing low sweet chariot,” nothing that wasn’t in the style of the psalm she had heard this evening, with its long sustained notes and odd harmonics. How odd is that? My 2-year-old can distinguish styles of sacred music. Either that or she really likes to hear me sing “Allelulia, Christ our passover….” That was what put her to sleep tonight. Too bad I never memorized any other psalm tunes. But, I guess, it’s lucky for her that I have even that one psalm-style chant in my memory.
There’s nothing like hanging out with children to make me humble about my knowledge. Yesterday, Sophie asked me what thunder was, and the best answer I could come up with was, “It’s clouds banging together, way up high.” Where does thunder come from? What is the tune of any other psalm? I can recall fragments of words (yea though I walk through the valley, who doesn’t remember that? but who can sing it?). I can picture the odd circle notation for psalm-singing, so different from other musical writing — but I can’t put it together. Fortunately, Soph was happy with lots of “Allelulia, Christ our passover.” She was happy to hear about the clouds banging together, too.
I had thought I would have a few more years before my child made me aware of my own ignorance. I actually like that it’s coming this soon. There’s a passage in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek where Annie Dillard writes that our goal in life should be to sail out to the horizon of what we can comprehend, but that some of us don’t ever get that far, some of us forget to look round in wonder, some of us just play pinochle in the bottom of the boat.
Sophie isn’t playing pinochle. She is far too busy jumping in every puddle and examining every snail, soaking in every new discovery, including psalm-singing, in a way that makes me better understand Annie Dillard’s goal for every pilgrim.
I hadn’t really thought about how gruesome most European art is for a two-year-old. At the museum yesterday, we rushed Sophie past all those crucified Christs, hoping she wouldn’t notice them, but she stopped at one of the battle-scenes, announcing, “Horsie boo-boo. Uh-oh. Momma kiss it?”
Sophie believes that Momma’s kisses can cure everything.
She wanted me to kiss the sad-looking sculptures, too, not just the battle paintings. When we finally got to the happier Impressionist pictures of flowers and water, she declared it messy.
She did enjoy the tiled floor though.
Sophie at the fair.
Sophie’s new best friend, Henry, has started telling people that he has a new sister named Sophie. They’re adorable together. Today, they chased each other around the giant cathedral at Ely. It’s got an extraordinary nave — that hollowed-out atrium at the center of a church — that seemed as tall as an eight-story building. Henry’s mother and I chatted about how many people must have died building those towers, while our children played tag around the carved marble pillars. Sophie leapt from one stone floor-tile to another, but she wouldn’t sit still for the noon-time Lord’s Prayer. She and Henry ran off through a 12th-century wooden door, eventually ending up in the cozy nook of Saint Ethelwold’s Chapel, were they were less intimidated by any vast vaulted ceiling, and could play safely until they discovered the glass candle-holders tucked underneath Ethelwold’s alter. So we led them outside, where they ran across what had been a medieval vineyard, down to their real goal: a playground. We spent the rest of the outing on the swings and slide.
We had tried to sit the kids down for brass-rubbing before we gave up on touring the Cathedral, but it was mostly Moms who did the rubbing. The whole atmosphere only rubbed off on Sophie once we were herding her out the Cathedral’s side-entrance. Some music had started playing, and Sophie was flinging her arms in the air, hopping, jumping, leaping to accompany the organ. That is travel with children.
The one sight that slowed the kids down was an electric winch which was hauling a plastic bag of six wooden chairs from the ground floor to the first balcony. Sophie and Henry stood in awe of that winch. In this elaborate church, filled with astounding art from 1081 till modern times, what my child really stopped to watch was the workmen moving chairs. And it was fascinating.
It’s not just single words that separate British English from American English. Diaper, stroller, barrette, cookie: none of the basic nursery words are the same in Britain and America, but it’s easy enough to learn to say nappy and push-chair and hair-slide. What is harder is the unspoken language.
Outside of pubs, I think British people are reluctant to chat with strangers. When they do attempt to chat while sober, their conversation is stiff: “What brings you here? What does your husband do? Hmmm. And what do you do? Hmmm.” I answer their questions, but I’m already bored, uninterested in asking any questions of them. Back in California, the questions would be more open-ended, with more follow-up reaction. More about ideas and the present-moment than about official job-titles. The British, I think, don’t know how to make small-talk bigger.
Sophie is also bewildered by the social behavior of British children, not because they speak stiltedly but because they play rough. She stands at the top of the slide, waiting for her turn, and they push her aside, barreling down ahead of her. She stands aghast, watching kids play-wrestle in a way that clearly hurts. She just opens her mouth in surprise every time someone grabs her ball right out of her hands. She is entirely unsure how to reason with such rudeness, other than waiting for the other child’s parent to intervene – but British parents don’t intervene. I’m starting to wonder how much is admirable independence for children and how much is just lazy parenting. I realize that I’m making giant generalizations here about a diverse country, and I am sure that there are plenty of exceptions, but Ben, too, returns from every trip to the playground declaring, “Wow, those British kids play rough.”
Sophie stands next to the single-person merry-go-round (in British English, it’s called a round-about), patiently waiting for her turn, and the wait is so long that I have to announce that everyone will now get a ten-second turn. I start counting down to mark off each turn: “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blast-off! Now it’s the turn of the girl with the cats on her shirt. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blast-off! Now it’s Sophie’s turn. 10, 9, 8…” This is typical behavior for a California playground, but over here it’s a novelty. Having such close parental supervision is so exciting that the little Brits crowd around, lining up for their chance to get a count-down. It’s a temporary suspension of the chaos of most of their playground play. They welcome it. I think I spend at least a half-hour of every day simply counting backwards from 10. I think the other kids’ parents think I’m insane.
So Sophie’s new friends here are Turkish, South African, and American. Not British. This is parochial of us, I know, but it’s easiest to be friends with Americans (or Turks – that’s the one exception to relieve my guilt at my narrow-mindedness). They’re the ones who talk about ideas and they’re the ones who encourage their children to take turns and play gently.
The Brits seem to think it’s really cute that Sophie says please and thank-you, hello and good-bye. They look at me in surprise when I let Sophie walk freely outside (not on one of those kid-leashes), trusting her to stop and hold my hand before stepping onto any street. In America (at least in my liberal upper-middle-class corner of California) that’s ordinary behavior for a two-year-old. Here it’s extraordinary. The Brits keep saying, “Bless her! Bless her little heart.” I don’t know how to answer “Bless her,” but, more than that, I don’t know how to help Sophie play with children who don’t understand “please” or “bye-bye” or not to run into the street. So we ignore the British bullies and instead, play alone.
We’ve started going to the park where expats congregate. “Choo-Choo Park,” Sophie calls it, because it has a large wooden train she can climb on. Jesus Green is its official name. There, Sophie can play happily with Henry, who is a sweet three-year-old from Milwaukee. Henry has a little brother who takes morning naps, but Sophie doesn’t understand that Henry won’t be at Choo-Choo Park until 11 am. This morning, we arrived at the park at 8 am (I couldn’t delay Sophie any longer, not even to visit the horsies with hats), and Sophie ran in, exclaiming, “Where Henry? Henry hiding?”
Henry returns to Milwaukee next week, and I’m not sure how Sophie will take that blow. Fortunately, we have also met Katie, an almost-two-year-old from New Jersey. There’s also Siwan (the Turkish South African).
Despite those new friends, Sophie looks in the mirror and tells me that she can see Mila (her best friend from back home). She tells me that I’m Tori (Mila’s mom). She wedges herself into a seat she has created next to her bed and announces that she’s on an airplane, going home. She also calls this apartment her house, of course, and she’ll miss it when we leave – but right now, she misses kids who know how to share. And I miss the kind of parents who teach their kids to share.
Punting on the River Cam.
Climbing the stairs at the Fitzwilliam Museum.
And exploring a field that’s unlike anything in Southern California.
Ain’t she cute?
And her Dad takes darn good photos.
