Notes from a trailing spouse

They’re calling from the kindergarten. Again. My son has been crying non-stop since morning. Again. I stop whatever important stuff I am doing and go to pick him up. Again.

It’s been like this for several weeks. Every morning we leave our house all happy and joyful about our new life here. The living room is big enough to run around and play football in, our landlords downstairs give us Czech chocolate and piškóty every time we pass by their door (as long as we say prosím), and we even have a small garden which just about fits a bluewhaly huge trampoline. And that’s really cool. Every morning we go out on our street, Nad hradním vodojemem, just like we did in Oslo, me deep in an intricate story about some kind of monsters or strange animals, him laughing on my shoulders.

And every morning we walk up the hill behind our house and stop for a few moments at a bench with a view of more houses than you can count, even if you are two years old. Especially if you are two years old. And every morning he taps me on my ear and goes, ozelot. Tell me about the ozelots.

And every morning I do. Once upon a time there were two ozelots deep in the jungle of Guatemala, or Belize, or Paraguay, or some such country. One ozelot was big and the other was small, and every day they went out hunting in the jungle of Guatemala or Belize or Paraguay, and every day they sang ozelot songs about their ozelot life in their ozelot jungle, where the snakes had unicorn eyes and the monkeys played football with watermelons. And every day they came back from their hunt with chocolate or piškóty or a very special kind of ranbow flavored cornflakes banana.

But one day the little ozelot got lost. He went out on his own to find a lego beetle and didn’t find his way back and the big ozelot was so sad and so worried and sang and shouted and cried from every tree and in every bush and from every mountain top and under every water fall, baby ozelot where are you? Where are you! Riding a giraffe? Playing chess with a turtle? Dancing with a hyena? Where are you, baby ozelot! Where are you!

And then, my son says, every day.

And then, I say every day, the big ozelot found the small ozelot and they were very very happy. The end. But here we are at the kindergarten. I’m sure today will be a good day. And I slide him down from my shoulders.

Eh, he sighs softly, every day, his eyes moist.

Yes yes, you’ll be fine, I say.

No, he says, his eyes watery.

And yet, every day I push him in, force his hands off me, hand him over to a more or less bilingual Czech woman, and leave him there.

I am an adult. I have important work to do. And it’s probably good for him.

I walk over the hill, pass the ozelot bench, go down to Nad hradním vodojemem, into our house — and do all the important stuff very very importantly.

***

I am walking over a hill in Prague at lunchtime. I pass a bench and see more roofs towards the horizon than there are trees in the jungle in Costa Rica or Brazil or Colombia. In a tiny garden just under me there is a bluewhaly huge trampoline, and in that house on Nad hradním vodojemem, probably, they have Czech chocolate and piškóty which they give to everyone who can say prosím. And that’s really cool.

A two year old boy who can say prosím sits on my shoulders.

The baby ozelot, he says and taps my on my ear.

He’ll be fine, I say. He’ll be fine.

The two year old sighs softly. And then he laughs. Again.