Annie and Her City

Well, Annie certainly has come to make Innsbruck her own. We walked to a downtown shopping center this afternoon, and when I blew by the place we sometimes buy ice cream, she looked back at me from her stroller like I was more than a wee bit insane. “What in the world do you think you are doing?” her face read and in a very calculated voice declared, “I want some ice cream.” Später, my love.

Annie frequently points out stores or has a running comment on streets that she is familiar with. I’m glad she is identifying this as her hometown, where she has memories and adventures. Every time we put on her warm boots, she asks if we are going to play in the snow, which obviously isn’t something she has or will experience in beautiful warm Victoria. We all need connections, don’t we?

As to how the temporary single mommyhood is going, I have to say that weekends without Markus are the most difficult for me. We struggled through the morning, as we both are sick and Annie woke up early with a cough and trouble breathing. But then she had a 3 hour nap, which allowed me to have a bath, relax and work a bit more on my soon-to-be late Christmas cards. (You’ll all be fine with a post-Christmas card, right?) Actually, I have no idea how long it takes for mail to get from Austria to Canada, so I might be fine. We’ll see and I’m sure you will report back.

After lunch we went to said shopping mall. I tried their service for the first time where you can drop-off (ditch?) your child for up to 3 hours while shopping. Annie, oddly, had a few tears at first but then saw the doll and stroller and was all “see ya mom”. She didn’t want to leave after 1 1/2 hours when I picked her up. It was a great way to blast through some errands and then have a relaxing cup of hot chocolate. Definitely going to do that again. And since Markus is staying another week in Canada, perhaps we’ll be going back to that mall again, and again, and again…