happy birthday marta

Sung simultaneously in two languages.

grandma peg

Today is Grandma Peg's 90th birthday. Not everyone lives to be 90. It's quite an achievement, for which we can thank grandma's love of working out with Denise Austin and fondness for fruits and vegetables.

And Grandma has been around for a long time. When Grandma Peg was born, the Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War had just been signed. Woodrow Wilson was president.

Grandma might seem like an artifact, but she comes from a very active generation. Bob Byrd, the oldest member of the US Senate, is one year older. Mike Wallace and Andy Rooney, the sometimes-cranky but still-active journalists from 60 Minutes are also the same age.

Grandma's full name at birth was Margaret Elizabeth Howell Pittman. Her parents, Wilmer Thomas Pittman and Erma Riedel were married in November 1917 in Holy Neck Chapel in Holland, Nansemond County, Virginia. Nansemond County no longer exists -- it was replaced by Suffolk City in the 1970s. See, Grandma has outlived the county of her birth.

Grandma's people had been in Virginia at least since the first Europeans showed up. They came in the 17th Century mostly from England and Wales with a few Irishmen and Dutchmen among them. Over the centuries though, they eked out a living as farmers.


Grandma's father was named "Wilmer," but he went by the name "Tom." (see photo) He was born in 1896 in Gates County, North Carolina. Tom Pittman's family were mostly farmers, but his grandfather, Capt. Hugh Collins, served the Confederate States of America (remember them?) during the American Civil War. Some of Hugh's sons (Tom's uncles) also went on to military careers.

Tom's parents were Wilbur Pittman (1871-1915) and Martha Lydia Collins (1877-1945). Wilbur was the first and only son of Thomas Tayloe Pittman (1849-1929) and Anna Naomi Battle (1834-1873). Anna Naomi died when Wilbur Thomas was an infant. Thomas Tayloe remarried and had more children, and when his second wife died, he remarried again and had even more children. So he became something of a family patriarch. The area around his farm on the Virginia-North Carolina border was known as "Pittmantown."

Wilbur (Peg's grandfather, I know, it gets confusing), married Martha Lydia in November 1893, when they were respectively 22 and 16 years of age. Unsurprisingly, their first daughter, Anna Naomi ("Naomi"), was born the spring of the next year, followed by Wilmer Thomas ("Tom"), Hardy Louise ("Hardy"), and Hugh Bradford ("Bradford").

Wilbur Pittman died in 1915, leaving Tom, the oldest son, at home in North Carolina to run the joint. From there he escaped into marriage with Erma, who had a somewhat different background. Bradford then took over farm duties, though he later joined the military.

Erma Riedel was three years older than Tom Pittman and had attended Elon College in North Carolina -- something of which Grandma Peg is very proud. Erma's father, Robert Riedel, was a German immigrant. He left Sebnitz, on the present-day Czech border, in 1883, with his father Friedrich. Friedrich later returned to Germany, while Robert wound up in Holland, Va., of all places, where he married Margaret Elizabeth ("Betty") Howell -- that's where Grandma Peg gets her name.

Erma was one of six children [Herbert, John, Mirriam Cora ("Minnie"), Erma, Esmond, and Natalie], but only four of them lived into adulthood, and only one of them -- Esmond, also known as "Uncle Prof" because he was a professor -- outlived his parents. Uncle Prof and I were actually around at the same time -- he died in 1980, when I was about six months old.

When Peg's parents, Erma and Tom, were married in November 1917, Erma was 24 and Tom was 21. Grandma says that Robert and Betty Riedel, Erma's parents, disapproved of their college-educated daughter marrying a farmer with limited education. But Erma seems to have been a romantic type. She played organ in church and wrote poetry -- there are a few love poems written by her to Tom in Grandma Peg's house.

I don't know exactly what Tom did for work, but when the US took its Census in January 1920, Tom, Erma, and little Margaret were living in an apartment in Holland and Tom's profession is listed as "barbershop owner." Sadly, Erma became gravely ill the next month. She died in February 1920. Grandma Peg was only 13 months old.

Tom, then 24 years old with a deceased wife and 1-year-old daughter, for awhile split parental duties with his in-laws, Robert and Betty. At some point, though, he decided to pursue a career in the air force. This may have seemed like a natural choice, given his uncles being in the military and the nearby military installations at Norfolk and Portsmouth. Unfortunately, this choice brought him farther and farther away from his daughter, and so Grandma Peg was largely raised by her grandparents Robert and Betty Riedel.

Grandma said that her father had a good sense of humor and a "great laugh." But she also said that they felt a bit like strangers when they were together because they saw each other so little.

Here is a photo, probably from late 1901. It was taken on the steps of the house in Holland, Virginia. The women are wearing black, I think, because Grandma Peg's great-grandfather, William Howell (1834-1901) has recently passed away. From left to right, Mariah Howell -- Grandma Peg's Great Aunt; Jerusha Rawls Howell -- Grandma Peg's great-grandmother, widow of William; Robert Riedel -- Grandma Peg's grandfather; Natalie Riedel; Margaret Elizabeth Howell Riedel -- Grandma Peg's grandmother; Herbert Riedel; Minnie Riedel; Erma Riedel -- Grandma Peg's mother; and Esmond Riedel.

Grandma's Grandfather Robert Riedel has been a very influential person in her life. He was an architect, and she tells stories of how he used to prepare his blueprints in the backyard. He would also received postcards from his siblings in Germany and read them, in German, to the family members when they came, although I am not sure how much of it Grandma understood. To the very end, Robert Riedel would mix his 'v's and 'w's in English, says Grandma. Something like: "Ve had a wery nice time at Wiktor's on Vednesday."

Dad met Robert Riedel too. He died in 1954, and Dad says he remembers this very impressive little old German man. Dad also has an emotional link to Germany because he was stationed there when he was drafted. Maybe he also has this link because of his boyhood contact with his great grandfather.

During her childhood, Grandma also maintained contact with her father and her father's family. Though her father, Tom, was often away because of his military service, her great-grandfather Thomas Tayloe Pittman lived to be 80 years old and so Grandma would go visit him on his farm. She says she remembers he had a big white beard.

Grandma also tells stories of how hot it would be in the Virginia summer -- so hot the candles would melt or the floorboards would buckle. People would use Montgomery Ward or Sears catalogs for toilet paper in the outhouse, or, if all else failed, dried corn cobs. One of her first memories, she says, is of going to Florida with her Grandma Betty when she was about 3 years-old to visit her Great Uncle Charlie Howell (Betty Riedel's brother). Charlie Howell's farm was in some kind of swampy region of central Florida, and at night the mossy trees would --- swooopf! -- disappear into the Earth. It's kind of interesting to know that these stories are almost 90 years old.

**

When Grandma Peg was in high school, she was involved in theater arts. Up until that time, everyone knew her as "Margaret." But after she was in a play called "Peg of My Heart," she said that she decided that she would be called "Peg" from then on.

Marta has been very lucky in that four of her great-grandparents are still alive! In comparison, I only knew one great-grandparent -- Genevieve (Mom's grandma). So, we had an interesting time thinking of nicknames for each of them. Epp's grandparents Karl and Laine are called "Papa and Mama." Mimi's mom is known as "Mimi's Mimi." And Dad's mom goes by "Grandma Peg." Last night, Christmas, we Skyped with the family in Setauket and I was so happy that Marta recognized both Mimi's Mimi and Grandma Peg.

christmas eve

Today is Christmas Eve in Estonia, and in Estonia, like most Lutheran countries, it is the the day when people gather, eat, and even are visited by Santa ... at night.

Now, I know what you are thinking. How can Santa visit in secret when the kids are awake? Isn't it better to go to sleep, therefore leaving Santa plenty of time to deposit presents before the kids wake up, sugerplum visions still dancing in their heads, on the morning of December 25?

Ah, but in Estonia, Christmas Eve is also a time to visit the graves of loved ones and leave candles. Since most people visit the cemeteries at night, Santa Claus -- called "Jõuluvana" here, which basically means "Old Man Christmas" -- has plenty of time to visit the homes of little girls and boys with his sacks of toys.

While Santa was visiting our house -- we left him a key on the front door -- we visited Raadi, a big, very old cemetery in Tartu. Epp has no relatives buried in tartu, so we went for the next best thing, the grave of Lieutenant Julius Kuperjanov, who fell during the Estonian War of Independence in 1919. Here's a video clip of our visit to his tomb, which is something of a national shrine:





When we arrived home, we found at that Santa had indeed paid us a visit while we were away. Among the many gifts was an extra special one -- the Mamma Mia DVD. As mentioned about a thousand times here, this is Marta's favorite movie. She even has her own, child friendly words to the songs. The lyrics to the suggestive "Does Your Mother Know?" in Marta's world are:

You've got to dance like a baby/ All you little babies/ Dancin' like a mother giraffe

Here's Marta opening Mamma Mia:




And here is a clip of Marta dancing like a mother giraffe to "Honey, Honey." Wait for the growl at the end:

musaklubi

Twice a week, Marta has music lessons down the street at "Musaklubi" -- group music lessons for children. Marta already had her first concert with Musaklubi last week, but this week there was another gig at a Christmas fair in Tartu.

This gig was also very special because I figured out that those small holes in our new camera were for a microphone (!) and that I could record both video and audio with a handheld Nikon Coolpix. Anyway, here is the fruit of that discovery.

Marta seems to like music class. When the music teacher showed up, she ran up to her and gave her a big hug.

This song is about a "päkapikk" (elf). Every night over the past few weeks, Marta has put out a slipper, and every morning, the elf has brought her a piece of candy or chocolate. One morning it seemed that the elf had forgot, but it just turned out that chocolate was very deep inside the slipper, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, the teacher, Pille, brought her guitar, but it was too cold to play outdoors and it was going out of tune, so she decided to improvise instead:




This song is about snow. "lumi, lumi, lumi ... lumi on maas" means "snow, snow, snow ... snow is on the ground." If you look closely you can see Anna taking part in the festivities. Obviously, it's hard to play Jean-Luc Godard with a pocketsized digital camera, but I did my best:

christmas in tallinn

Tallinn for us is a very special place. It is where Marta was born, for one, and Marta was born almost five years ago. Still, Marta has a hard time understanding this concept, though I have told her a few times about her place of birth and pointed out the hospital to her.

We were there last weekend for a book fair and a book launch party devoted to three new Petrone Print books. Almost unbelievably, Saturday and Sunday were crisp, sunny days. Tallinn had less snowfall, and it benefited in a way, as the sun reflected off the leaves on the ground in the Old Town.

Our friend Tiia took her son Paul and Marta ice skating at the rink near town hall square, while Epp, Marta, and I, had a few minutes to ourselves to climb Toompea and look around.

Marta is a pretty enthusiastic skater. I personally am not good at all at skating. I went skating once or twice when I was ten and my butt was many different colors of black and blue.

Luckily, they have these little metal guides to help little people skate without falling too much. The line for ice skating was diverse enough. I heard Estonian, of course, but also Russian, German, English, Swedish, and was that Latvian? Compared to Tartu, Tallinn seems really cosmopolitan.

As I have explained before, Marta and Paul have a special dynamic, that can either make them adorable or terribly frustrating depending on how much sleep you have had.

Marta's birthday is at the end of December, Paul's is in March. Incidentally, Tiia is only a month or so younger than I am. I have known Paul for a few years now, and his personality has remained fairly consistent.

For one, he likes Spiderman. A lot. The kid has Spiderman DVDs and a Spiderman costume and perhaps even more Spidey stuff. Guys tend to have a favorite super hero. My brother Ian tends to favor Green Lantern, for example. Also, he's a bit fussy about his toys. If he only knew how Marta and little Anna had touched each one of his toys while he wasn't there at the apartment the first night!

Marta and Paul like to tease each other and compete. If Paul picks up a large rock and chucks it in the road, Marta wants to pick up an even bigger rock and launch it at a car. If Marta walks along a steep ledge, Paul has to try it too. Neither of them listen to me. Paul's father Ahto tried to give me pointers once on speaking with authority to purvey the sense of possible physical harm to the kids without actually doing anything physical. But this failed.

When it comes to the final straw in parenting, I am as nimble as a bouncer. I literally plucked Paul off the ledge by the back of his coat ("Hey?! What are you doing?! Put me down!" he said).; I picked Marta up by her waist, dislodged the rock, and held her off the ground until she forgot all about the stone-throwing contest (suffering some quick kicks to my groin, ai).

I had a dream one night that Paul wanted to go swimming in the Hudson River, and Marta wanted to go with Paul. In my dream I tried to convince them that it was a bad idea (pollution, temperature, strong current) but they went in anyway, and I had to dive in to save them.

I am really a first-time father. I know that older fathers with more or older kids would know how to calm the kids down without use of brute force. I watch them for tips all the time.

Paul and Marta though are also cute. They entertain one another with jokes and stories and playful insults. They discuss familiar movies like, My Neighbor Totoro or Bullerby Lapsed [the Children of Noisy Place in the US]. They also waited for a long time in line to see Santa Claus at the town hall square Christmas market.

Santa told them that if they wanted any gingerbread, they would have to sing. There was total silence from Paul and Marta. I stepped in and suggested that Marta sing Santa the song "Mamma Mia."

Marta then nervously sang, "Mamma mia. Here I go again, my my, how can I resist you." Santa danced in his seat and told the kids that ABBA was his favorite pop band. He then took orders for Christmas and gave them cookies to boot.

marta and riinu

Three photos of Marta and her friend Riinu from today.



Marta and Riinu are in the same gymnastics class after school. Sometimes I take both of them there. But they don't always get along -- there are disagreements over who gets to sit where in the car. One time I also caught them fighting -- over a plastic ring!:



Riinu's family has a summer house in Setomaa, which is an area on the border with Russia. Seto language/dialect is significantly different from standard Estonian. Today in class I tried to teach Riinu some English words. She already knows some from Mamma Mia (the favorite film of all little girls). We then asked Riinu to teach us some Seto language, but she was too shy:

why is he brown?

Here's one of those questions you get asked by an almost five year-old. We were watching YouTube clips of Mamma Mia, and there was the duet between the older, lighter Christine Baranksi and the younger, darker, Philip Michael.

Marta asks: Why is he so brown?

Justin responds: Because he has brown skin.

Marta continues: But he is really brown. Like brown all over.

Justin thinks about how to explain race to a child. Should he take it down the biological route ("you see, we all have this thing called melanin in our skin"), or should he take it down the multicultural route ("all people come with different shapes and colors and sexual orientations and blah blah blah"). But, somewhere inside of me, I could hear Peter Tosh's words ringing out:

No matter where you come from, as long as you are a black man, you are an African/ No mind your nationality, you have got the identity of an African.

So I explained to Marta that the brown man's family came, at some point, from Africa, where the people are mostly brown. Yes, yes, I know that people of European descent, like, say, FW De Klerk, are also Africans, and that brown people, like, say, Barack Obama, are Americans, and so on. But Obama's dad was from Kenya, and De Klerk was of Dutch extraction. So there.

Anyway, Marta seemed to accept this as a plausible explanation. What would you have said?

career opportunities

When Marta was a little baby she was incredibly strong. She even started walking within a few weeks of birth. I would lay on my back in our Valgevase apartment in Tallinn, and Marta would pull herself up with my hands and walk on my chest.

I told Epp that perhaps our daughter was a born athlete, but she scolded me for trying to conjure up a future profession for our daughter. Marta would be free to choose, we would encourage her and give her different experiences and skill sets, but it was up to her whether or not she would be the next Kristina Šmigun or not.

These days though, I am thinking that Marta just must have some kid of outlet for her passionate personality. I would say actress, but actresses seem like troubled people, incapable of finding stability in their lives. Maybe PR would be better? Marta definitely seems like some of the PR people I have met before -- and I mean that only in a good way.

Marta has told us that she would like to be a music teacher. That could be fun too.

Anna, meantime, has just started talking a little. She still mostly says "emme," but the other night she said "mimi" and "papa." I would say "papa" to her, and she would respond "mimi."Then I would say "mimi," and she would answer back "papa."

Based on Anna's main fixations these days, I could easily imagine her spending her days as a baker, tasting different cakes, or as a dentist, because she has a thing for carrying around toothbrushes.

I always thought that dentistry was a miserable existence of sticking your hands in other people's mouths, but my dentist here is very nice and seems pleased with her work.

welcome tuisu

Congratulations to our friends Kärt and Andres who on Nov. 23 welcomed a new daughter, Tuisu.

In case you are wondering Tuisu is a unique name. It is not on the holy list of Estonian name days, and it means "stormy." Kärt's other daughters are Leenu and Tuule. Tuule's name means "windy," so now we know a little windy and stormy.

It was stormy when Tuisu arrived. There was a huge snowstorm here in Estonia. Anyway, welcome Tuisu. There's nothing like a new baby to give you an extra boost in life.

i wanna stay in the jungle

The other day, Marta and I had this discussion in the car:

Marta: I want to get that DVD, the one with the little girl and the bear.

Justin: What little girl and the bear?

Marta: You know, the one that goes, "With just the da da da da da da da da da."

Justin: Huh?

Marta: The one that goes, "with just the da da da da da da da." You know.

Justin: Do you mean the "Bear Necessities?" from Jungle Book?

Marta: Yeah.

Justin: The one with Mowgli and Baloo the bear and Bagheera the panther and Ca the snake?

Marta: Yeah, and the little girl.

Justin: But Mowgli isn't a girl, silly, he's a little boy. Why do you think he doesn't have a shirt on?

Marta: Mowgli is not a boy! She's a girl!

Epp: No, Marta, Mowgli meets a girl at the end of the movie and falls in love. That's why he leaves the jungle. Remember, she is getting water at the stream?

Marta: No, no, no. Mowgli is a girl. I know this.

--
Jungle Book is my favorite Disney movie, because the music is the best. I think Santa might have to bring Mowgli the jungle girl, er boy, to Marta this holiday season.

if 6 was 9

Issipapa Justin is sad that Mitch Mitchell, the drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was found dead in his hotel room in Portland, Ore., this week.

Though Jimi Hendrix died nine years prior to my birth, the music of the Experience reminds me of being a teenager. It's very much young people music: "I have only one burning desire: let me stand next to your fire" and "manic depression has captured my soul: I know what I want but I really don't know how to go about getting it: music, sweet music, I wish I could caress and kiss: manic depression is a frustrating mess."

One JHE tune was called "If six was nine." It's on the Axis: Bold as Love album as well as the Easy Rider soundtrack. It's very relevant because Marta has still to sort her numbers out. She easily grasps the recognizable ones -- she can go from one to five without missing a beat. But she sees six and it sort of reminds her of nine. I tell her that with nine, the circle is on the top, but with six, it's on the bottom. But she is still making this mistake.

Marta has also had trouble with p's and b's and d's. She seems slightly dyslexic ... or something. To tell you the truth, I have no idea what dyslexia is actually like. I know Tom Cruise has it; which may explain why the two of them are so excitable and dramatic. I just know that Marta reverses numbers and has a hard time digesting that "bread" and "dread" are not the same word, though they look pretty similar.

Marta has, however, mastered her name. She can spell her own name, Anna's name, and Epp's name easily. She is making her "J"s backwards though, so my name looks like "Gustin." Marta drew a picture of me in her kindergarten. I was the only daddy drawn by the kids who had a crown and a staff: On top was written "G U S," in the middle was a "t," and at the bottom was an "N." That's me, "King Gustin." It wasn't completely in reverence of me, though. You see, if Issipapa Justin is a king, that means that Marta is a princess.

My approach to handling the six and nine issue will be to keep showing her the numbers, making her write them herself, and maybe trying to do some rudimentary math so that she understands that the symbols actually represent something. And, in the meantime, here is the "If 6 was 9" clip from Easy Rider, for your enjoyment.

patricia

Marta has a favorite doll. Her name is "Patricia." But Marta doesn't call her "Patricia" -- she calls her "Tatricia."

Marta likes to dress up Patricia in different styles of clothing. Sometimes I asked to assist in putting pajamas on Patricia so that she is ready for bedtime.

Usually, though, Patricia's wardrobe is all up to Marta. She'll work very hard and then say, "Look! Look at Tatricia!" Or, "Come Issi! Come fix Tatricia's hair!"

I am really pleased that she is called Patricia, or Tatricia, or Tratisha, or whatever. In the past, Marta's doll names sounded like Star Wars characters. "That's Zodray, Archaya, and Malaya," Marta would say. That's probably one of the reasons I am so fond of Patricia. I can remember her name.

endless night

Jet lag ... sucks. I have managed to reconcile myself already with eesti time. But for children without appointments or obligations, sleep comes whenever it wants to. Marta and Anna take naps during the day and then take extended naps that last from about 7 or 8 pm until 2 in the morning. Then they are up and ready to go again. For the first two days it was Epp who was deprived of sleep. She was very cranky and at times unpleasant to be around because of this. Last night it was my turn. I worked until 1:30 am and was barely asleep when Anna woke up. I took her downstairs to play, but then Marta came down. Then Anna had a caca explosion and Marta was demanding attention and it was just ... messy. I dream of a moment where I sleep as long as I want to, but the problem is that I never do this on work trips because conferences start so goddamn early! If only I could satiate my need for sleep AND wake up before them. That would be a great day.

what it's like

Often people ask me questions about the trip to and fro Estonia. I think they assume it's either a) "monstrously long" or b) "not so bad, I mean you made it here, right?" I would say it's actually somewhere in between, with a lot left up to chance.

I think it actually depends on when you begin counting the journey. It typically starts a day before with a packing ritual and, no matter how hard you try, you always leave something behind.

This time I left behind my antibiotics, because I became somewhat feverish as I tried to repack our bags to make all the stuff we had decided to lug across the ocean fit. I had enough to fill one small bag. My daughters and wife, however, had tons of shit. We're talking wardrobe. And there's no way you can really reduce a girl's wardrobe -- you know that they actually made huge sacrifices -- a pair of shoes there, a scarf here -- to get to their belongings into four or five large suitcases.

Part two of the trip is the journey to the airport. If you are leaving from Tartu, it will take you two to two and a half hours to get to the Tallinn airport. The last time, we drove up early in the AM. There was barely any traffic. This time, when we drove home from Tallinn, I had to deal with the usual kamikazes who think they can pass at all times, even in the face of oncoming traffic! If you leave from Setauket, it takes a little over an hour to get to JFK. This is all of course depending on traffic.

After you get to the airport, check your bags, and get your tickets, producing the correct passports -- Marta and Anna both have dual citizenship -- at the right time. When they leave Estonia, we show the Estonian passports. When they enter and leave the US we show the American ones. When we go through EU customs in Helsinki, we produce the Estonian ones again.

At security, you must remove your shoes and laptops and belts and your kids shoes and fold the stroller and do anything to please the inspectors. This is no easy task. Try taking off your shoe and holding a baby at the same time. It takes talent!

Finally, you get to board the plane. This is the one advantage of having kids with you when you travel -- you get to go first. If you fly out of Tallinn, you take a shuttle to Helsinki airport. The actual flight takes about 10 minutes, but then there's the landing, which takes forever. Planes climb above the clouds, only to cross the tiny Gulf of Finland, and circle to land in Helsinki-Vantaa. On board they serve you a bottled water and a chocolate.

The Helsinki-New York flight is a monster. It's usually full. The food and service is good, and I have no complaints. The last time, it took us 7 hours and 20 minutes to get from point A [New York] to point B [Helsinki]. People think that's long, but it's only an hour and a half more than a flight to the West Coast.

I have taken this flight so many times, I know where all the important points are. Typically, after take off, dinner, toilet, and the first movie, you are nearing Iceland. Anna and Marta usually fall asleep at this point. Another two films and you are closing in on your destination -- maybe over New Hampshire or Sweden.

The winds on the straight between Greenland and Labrador are typically strong, as are the winds off the coast of Norway. If it gets bumpy, you are usually over the coast of Newfoundland or just over Trondheim. The mountains that run down the spine of the Scandinavian peninsula also give you a few bumps. Finally, you circle and land in Helsinki and have to wake up Marta and Anna. If you are like me and you can't sleep on planes, you feel a little tired, but still coherent. It's that second connection to Tallinn that really sucks the life out of you.

Tallinn does have a homey quality from the sky. I can see the zoo and the houses where Epp's aunt lives and the hospital where Marta was born. It is not a foreign place to me. I get the same feeling when we cross the Long Island sound and I can look down and see the tiny cars driving on the Long Island Expressway. It reminds me of the intro to feature presentations HBO used to show in the 80s.

Unlike me, it seems our kids have no anxiety about flying. Anna gets on and she gets off. Marta seems to enjoy it. They have mostly been well behaved on flights. Only one time I had to force Marta to get up from under the seat and she bit me! I had a lump on my arm from where her tiny jaws had attempted to hurt me for making her wear her seat belt.

Issipapa Justin is in charge of luggage and, ultimately, getting us home. This time we went to our friend Tiia's apartment and slept for four hours because I decided I was in no shape to contend with the Estonian kamikaze drivers after a trip that could be calculated to last between 8 and 10 hours. But with a little coffee and some loud Estonian pop music on the radio, I made it down the weary highways of this land until we finally reached Tartu, best described as a European city that was airlifted by UFOs and dropped in the middle of nowhere.

The kids slept in the car too, which means that just when Issipapa Justin wanted to get some rest after a long trip home, they were ready to rock and roll. Ah, ain't this the life! So that's basically what it takes to get from Estonia to New York or vice versa. It demands endurance, but I have done it so many times it doesn't seem so taxing. I am sure the flight to Australia is a whole other experience.

rock obama

What a historic week, eh? Yes, we are Democrats. My grandma Peg is a Democrat, too. According to legend, she got in a heated dispute during the 1936 election. She was for Roosevelt. Her friend was for Alf Landon. They rarely spoke afterwards.

Marta has shown interest in this election. She knew the names of both candidates, "Rock Obama" and "McCain." She even has a song that goes, "rock obama, rock obama, rock obama, rock obama" and so on.

Anna stayed up late with us after Marta finally went to bed to see President-elect Obama's speech in Grant Park. The first election I really remember is the 1988 election between Bush and Dukakis. I have no recollection of Mondale-Ferraro in '84, although I do remember that "where's the beef?" joke being made all the time.

Anna definitely won't remember this election. But at least she has this cool photo of herself, capturing the moment for all time.

sonic youth

Marta told us in the other day that she would like to be a music teacher when she grows up. This idea seems plausible [like all the others].

She is very lucky because I play instruments myself. When I was a kid the "musical" kids tended to have parents who had guitars and pianos and violins lying around the house. Now Marta is one of those kids.

The other night she put the drum rhythm on the keyboard and I played my new acoustic bass guitar. Our first jam session!


The other day I caught Marta "writing down" the music she was making on the keyboard. I looked on the sheet of paper, and there were dozens of little notes on the page.

Maybe I am too proud of my kid, but that seemed like a pretty interesting development. I am not sure if I thought in those concepts when I was the same age. But Marta understood that music could be a) composed on a keyboard and b) written down. Pretty cool, huh!

sunday sauce

When my mother was a little girl she watched her grandmother Maria make sauce every week. Two weeks ago I helped Mom make sauce, except this time, I brought along a pen and some paper to write up an "official recipe" for what a lot of Italian cookbooks call "Sunday gravy."

Let's see if this makes any sense:


Heat stainless steel pot at medium heat.

Wipe inside of pot with vegetable oil.

Add three cloves of chopped garlic and six, small pork neck bones.

[At this point, you may wish to add other meats, like braciola or Italian sausage. Turn and remove once browned.]

Add six cans of tomato sauce -- three puree, three crushed tomato, adding one quarter to one half of a can of water for each can.

Add one quarter of a cup red wine. Add one teaspoon of chopped basil, oregano, and parsley.

Add one table spoon of salt.

Cover.

At this point, you leave the sauce to cook while you prepare the meatballs in a large mixing bowl.

Mix two slices of bread with a half cup of milk. Add three cups of breadcrumbs and two cups of oatmeal. Add four and a quarter pounds of chopped meat.

[Mom used a mix of different chopped meats]

Chop one normal sized onion. Add one tablespoon of onion to the sauce. Add two tablespoons of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper to the bowl and mix.

[After mixing with her hands, Mom hollowed out the center of the mix where she added the following ingredients.]

Add two or three eggs and one quarter of pecorino romano cheese. Mix. Add two ladles of tomato sauce to the meatball mix again. Roll meatballs.

Here is where these two recipes come together.

Add braciola/Italian sausage to the sauce.

Add meatballs to the sauce.

Boil on medium heat for several hours.

It's actually recommended to make "Sunday sauce" on a Saturday afternoon and let it sit over night before serving it. The sauce is quite handy, you can recycle it for use in various pastas as well as for making lasagna.

the life aquatic

Sometime the other morning I was shaving and the sun was coming up over San Diego. I had the Skatalites playing on my laptop. And I realized that my life resembled something out of a Wes Anderson film like The Royal Tenenbaums or The Life Aquatic.

I had always thought these ensemble cast-driven films to be quirky but not similar to reality. But then I considered my own reality.

I am married to a person named Epp who speaks a language only 1 million people in the world can speak. I understand it too. My house is in Tartu. My office is in New York. I am in San Diego, listening to a long dead Jamaican dance group. She's in Key West at Ernest Hemingway's house with our two daughters. My folks are on Long Island with pumpkins and the dog. It's not odd, but it certainly takes time to explain.

What is oddest is that I did not plan it this way. It just sort of happened.

is someone having a baby?

Marta has a unique way of looking at the world. One idea that she has embraced is that ambulances exist for one purpose -- to ferry pregnant ladies to the hospital to deliver their babies.

In New York last weekend, we passed a lot of ambulances making their way at full speed with sirens roaring down the city streets. Each time, Marta would yell into the crowds, "SOMEBODY'S HAVING A BABY!"

Tonight, though, I didn't feel too good and I went to the emergency room. I'm fine, and on antibiotics now, but Marta asked my mom if I was having a baby. She explained to Marta that boys can't have babies. I didn't go in an ambulance, though, so I guess to Marta it all still made sense.

boy girl girl boy

When I started kindergarten 23 long years ago at St. Philip's in Northport, I had my first real experience with "gender" issues.

At least in my memory, I had a fairly asexual childhood. I was free to play with masculine and feminine toys -- Care Bears and Star Wars action figures. To me, there was only a very murky boundary between girl stuff and boy stuff -- and many of my friends were girls.

Little Brooke, Beth, and Joanna and I would sing "ring around the rosy" at the beach -- I had no awkward feelings of being out of place.

At school though, my pretty looks -- similar to Marta's -- and typical early 80s bowl haircut, perhaps even my name "Just-een", invited criticism from guys with more masculine, war-related toys and names like Greg and Mike.

I clearly remember being excommunicated from and ridiculed by this little masculine group for being too girlish. I put up with it for a long time, but even then I was bigger than all the little bullies. One day I told Greg or Mike or whomever that if he called me a girl one more time, I would throw his little 5-year-old butt out the window (our class was on the second floor). Oddly enough, I don't remember hearing anything else out of him. I bet I failed to get a sticker that day at the end of class.

Fast forward two and a half decades and Marta -- who cut her hair off last winter -- is standing in my shoes. Except this time it's Marta that has to deal with little shitheads -- probably named Greg or Mike -- who tell her she looks like a boy!

I've tried to foster an asexual environment for my daughter because, in the end, I think it makes you more open to the world if you are free to pick and choose what clothes to wear or what cartoons to like. It just happens that Marta likes to wear pink dresses and watch cartoons about princesses. And they call her a boy.

Ha. Knowing my daughter, they're lucky her elementary school is only one story high.

everybody's talkin'?

"How many words does she know?" asked a friend. "Mine knows four."

His daughter is a few months younger than Anna. I guess I should feel competitive in these situations, but I can't. I am not sure how many words Anna knows, or that I can pass off as her "vocabulary" in the presence of others.

At this point, she is capable of saying the word "emme" (mommy) when she really desires her mother. At times in the past, she would say the word "õde" (sister). "Sister" is a hard word to say, so I have watered it down to "sissy," but still, no "sissy" from the lips of Anna.

Anna knows the word for "nose" -- "nina" -- and can point to my nose when Epp asks her where it is. She is also familiar with all the funny body parts. Last night, as I lay in bed, she lifted up my shirt and stuck her finger in my bellybutton.

Haunting all situations is the mysterious "adn." We have thought for sometime that "adn" is Anna's way of saying "Justin" -- sort of like j U s T i N -- if you will. But I am told that she says it when I am not around. It's a multipurpose word. When I was a child, I called my father -- John -- "Nin."

Anna, though, is quite communicative. She talks a lot, and when she does talk, she sounds a bit like Porky Pig -- lots of "lada lada lada lada" and "oodle oodle oodle oodle." Those are words too, right?

the conversations couples have

The other day we were in the car with Tiia and Paul. "Paul" is what Marta's name most likely would have been had she been born a fierce viking instead of a sparkly princess. This prompted the following dialogue:

Epp: What do you think we would have named Marta had she been a boy?

Justin: I think we were leaning towards "Paul Martin."

Epp: But Paul is taken. What would we call a boy now?

Tiia: Peeter!

Justin: Peeter sounds nice in Estonian, but in English it gets annoying. Don't touch that Peter. Stop doing that, Peter. It's time to go to bed, Peter. Plus my dad would have some kind of mental breakdown.

Tiia: I don't think Peter sounds bad in English at all.

Justin: Martin sounds bad in English, too. It can never be Martin; it's always "Marty," and, in New York, it's "Mah-ty."

Epp: We'll we have agreed to use family names. If you veto Peeter and Martin, then I veto Sam. What are we left with?

Justin: Well, we are all stocked up on Franks. Is Vincent a name in Estonia?

Epp and Tiia: What name?

Justin: Vincent. It sounds good to yell out a window, "VIN - CENT!"

Epp: I don't think my grandma would even know that one. She'd have to write it down on a sheet of paper just so she could tell the neighbors.

Justin:Well, that's the problem with using family names. There are no Salvatores, Gennaros, or Dominicks in Estonia, are there? You don't know anyone named Dominic, right?

Epp and Tiia: What name?

Justin: Dominic. Dom-i-nic.

Epp: What's Toomas in Italian?

Justin: Tomasso

Epp: Well, what are we left with? Karl? John ... Johannes?

Justin: Well, my grandfather was Jerry, and he had three brothers, George, Robert, and John. How about Georg?

Epp: George as in George Bush? No. What about Fred?

Tiia: Eh.

Justin: Fred sounds like a cool old guy, but I can't imagine him being a cool young guy.

Epp: Tell me about the Fred in your family.

Justin: His father operated a foundry and he was born in Ontario but they moved to Montreal. Somehow he wound up ranching and met my great-grandmother's sister who was in Wild West Shows and moved to New York.

Epp: Her sister?

Justin: Yep. They had two kids; then she died and he married my great-grandma and had five more. Ah, the Irish.

Epp: That happened on both sides of your family?!

Justin: Yes.

Epp: What about Eerik, after my grandfather? Maybe it sounds too Germanic?

Justin: That's the problem with Estonian names. It's all Ragnars and Dagmars.

Epp: I like Fred Erik

Justin: But in English it's one name. Frederik.

Epp: But I like it as two names.

Justin: But it's one name.

Tiia: I don't like Fred, but it sounds nice as Fred Erik.

and so on ...

UPDATE: There is now an official Sarah Palin baby name generator. The mother of Track, Bristol, Piper, Willow, and Trig, has given it her blessing. According to the generator, if she was my mother, my name would be "Stag Tonnage Palin."

marta goes to school

"Anna can come to school too! She can come in my backpack and play with toys while I am at school!"

new babes with interesting names

A lot of babies have popped out this year. May I introduce to you:

Finn Ericksen, born 28 April 2008














Averie Matthews, born 30 July 2008













Tallin Gray, born 22 August 2008














Note how they are all sleeping. Being a newborn is hard work! All of these babies were also a little early. That's funny, because Marta was supposed to be born in January, but she came out December 30, and Anna was due for the last days of July, but was born on July 20. Maybe their due date predictions aren't as precise as we'd like them to be.

one month

So it's been about a month since we last saw Marta at JFK. Despite some pretty heavy emotions prior to our departure, I think we made the right decision. Marta has had hot fun in the summertime in New York.

We speak to Marta almost everyday on the telephone. She seems very busy. So I am not particularly distressed about her being so faraway because I know she is having fun.

Things are quieter around here though. A certain spark is missing. There's no more begging and pleading to get things done. No more temper tantrums. No more unbridled excitement over doing things as mundane as eating ice cream. Marta is the little southern girl in our lives -- she brings storms and sunshine and spice. That's why she was sent to live in our house -- with Justin the stinging scorpion and Epp the crabby crab (and Anna the little pincher).

By the way, I now have a little thing for Annas in my heart. I was looking for a hotel in Helsinki and I found a reasonably priced one called Hotel Anna on Annankatu (Anna Street). I just can't resist staying there. How could I turn down Hotel Anna?

anna and miisu

Anna is such a sweet child. Our cat Miisu (who is actually named Tibu Liisu, but is called Miisu anyway) is also pretty well behaved. Anna likes to play with her toys; Miisu likes to lick herself and lie on the couch.

But the other day Anna took a cassette, walked over to Missu, and *boom* hit the cat on the head. The cat did not return the favor, but instead ran off down the stairs. Miisu is smart enough to know not to mess with my offspring.

Then today, Anna took a plastic Elmo toy and swung it around. Miisu kept a eye out for her, but I think the cat was even surprised when *whack* Anna clocked poor Miisu again in the head.

And the scary part is that Anna was smiling the whole time. She looked like she enjoyed hurting poor little Miisu.

adult tastes

The other day I put my coffee down on the table near Anna. She moved towards the coffee and managed somehow to pick up the very full cup with one hand.

I tried to approach her somewhat smoothly -- no sharp movements to cause her to drop the mug -- but she pulled the coffee closer to her face, tilted it with her shaky little hand, took a sip, and then lowered it back onto the table.

Anna had just had her first taste of coffee.

Two days ago I was painting the barn in Karksi, and someone had the wonderful idea to mix alcohol with work. Perhaps a little booze could ease the pain of all those bug bites that accompany any trip to the countryside?

So I was painting along, and put my half drunk beer on the ground near the ladder. Anna, who was walking independently of Epp, who was watching her and organizing things at the same time, walked over to my beer, picked it up, and before Epp could stop her, took a nice, big gulp of Alexander õlut.

She seemed to enjoy both coffee and beer, which I guess means that she has very adult tastes.

funny

I have talked with Epp about this several times, and we have come to the conclusion that our kids are funny. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, but most times entertaining and humorous.

Marta is funny. She'll get out of the pool, take off her bathing suit, and go riding around the deck on her bike in the nude. Anna, meanwhile, expresses a profound delight for food, she nearly growls when something tastes good.

Both of them were always laughers. I would spin them around and turn them upside down and blow air on their tummies and tickle their feet and make funny faces until they were hysterical with the giggles. They both react well to music; I play guitar around the house. I think I have a video of Marta somewhere break-dancing to hip hop as a toddler. Anna just waves her arms in time with the rhythm of the guitar.

Believe it or not, a lot of the other kids we meet aren't funny. Sometimes they are painfully shy, other times they are pawing at their mother's pant leg for emotional support {typically, boys do this}. Usually they are just normal kids; they mostly keep to themselves. There are also those that are funny in their own ways. I think our kids have some knack for physical comedy, though.

One day I took Marta to get balloons for Anna and Epp's birthday party. The balloon was filled with helium, and Marta was walking around staring up at her balloon when {boom} she knocked over a whole display of razors in the store. Unfortunately, she has inherited my clumsiness, but the truth is that Epp is not exactly graceful either, so she's gotten double the tendency to unintentionally cause catastrophes. Because of the way things are, though, nobody was mad at Marta and her balloon. She just stood there like a cartoon character with a smile on her face and said, "oops!"

Anna gets so excited sometimes that she flails her arms around, hitting the well-wisher in the face. You usually go into kiss her cheek and she laughs and smiles and the {whack} right in the nose. She also has little pinching hands, and she loves to pull on lips and ears. There's a bit of a sadistic side to this; when you pull away in pain, she is usually laughing. She would have made an excellent addition to a Three Stooges routine.

fun times

always running

Ugh. What a few days I have had. Sometimes you think that being a father is tough work. I guess it is; but merely being a human can be tough as well.

Why tough? I feel my brain moves too slow. Or, rather, slower than those around me. One huge question has been whether or not Marta will stay here in New York with my folks for the next two months while we go back to Estonia with Anna and then return for Ian's wedding.

This was not my original idea but it was sort of sold to me as a nice way for Marta to get to know her grandparents and to attend kindergarten where they would teach her things that I can't. So I agreed. It made sense on paper.

Now, two days before we leave, I don't feel good about it, but I am not sure if dragging her back across the ocean is the solution. It's not just this that makes me unhappy with my choices though; I have to come back in September for Ian's wedding, then I have to go on a work-related trip in late October. By the time we get back to our home in Estonia after that trip it will be early November. I wish I could line all of these events and circumstances up and get them done but I can't -- everything is so messy and there are no good solutions.

In this situation, I hate the responsibility of making decisions. Wouldn't everything be easier if someone else made them for me? Because I know that if I make a mistake, it will be my own fault, and if I miss Marta during these two months, I will only be able to blame my decisions or lack of decision making skills. It has come to the point that I feel there is no right decision. There are only two mistakes to make, and I must make one of them. There will be no good feeling at the end.

Over the past month I have been from Helsinki to Vancouver to San Francisco and back to New York. Between now and the time I see Marta again I will have perhaps been to Sweden and Italy. I am feeling exhausted and yet in front of me are whole new challenges I must face down. In my job, nearly every sentence I write must stand up to criticism. There are so many details. And in the mix of that, two months of my daughter's life has just become another detail.

People criticize me because I waste my time doing other things, like blogging. But blogging is a wonderful waste of time because there are few if any consequences. Nothing happens. Isn't that wonderful? In my reality though, I am just disappointed in myself that I have not been able to take on all these questions and come up with answers that suit not only my needs but everyone else's. If that is even possible. It's probably not.

"me" versus "we"

When we moved to Tartu in February 2007, I was worried that Marta would have a hard time switching to Estonian.

The first day at 'lasteaed' (kindergarten), the teachers said she barely spoke any. But by the third day she was telling me "Issi, get up, it's hommik." ('Hommik' means morning)

Over the next half year she essentially learned the hard way that there were two languages. She knows them both, but it takes her some time to switch. When we left her with my parents in late June, early July for a couple of days, she made a hard switch back to English.

But she still makes little mistakes. Actually, only one mistake. She used the Estonian word for "we" ('me' pronounced 'may' for you English speakers).

She'll say things like, "me are going to the movies" or "me saw some butterflies outside." The other night, Marta was swimming after me with Becky. "Watch out," she cried. "Me are evil witches!"

I have tried to correct her many times, but she treats it like a chore. "We saw some butterflies," I will say. "Yes, issi, we saw some butterflies," she'll repeat. But a few minutes later she is telling mimi that "me" did something. And most English speakers don't pick up on it, because it sounds like she is saying 'we.' So they respond to her error and reinforce it.

Anyway, I am sure she'll figure it out eventually. But I feel I have done all I can to fix it.

marta's conversation with her babysitter

Marta: Do you have a sister?

Babysitter: Yes, I have an older sister.

Marta: Where is she?

Babysitter: She's at work.

Marta: Why is she working?

Babysitter: So she can make money to go out with her friends. She also goes to college.

Marta: What's college?

Babysitter: It's a place you go so you can get a job.

Marta: What job?

Babysitter: She wants to be a marine biologist.

Marta: Oh. I have to go poop.

family stories

Every family has its stories. American families, I think, have more of them because many of us honestly do not know our own roots. It's shrouded in mystery because nobody bothered to pass any notes down for posterity.

Not to mention there is no real use for such knowledge, is there? Well, maybe there is. I mean we could all just live for the moment right ... until we died. And then what? Then, maybe posterity matters. And our habits live on. Find any alcoholic and chances are that he comes from a long line of drunks. So the past does matter, doesn't it?

One story in our family regards the origin of my great-grandmother's family, the Petrellises. The Petrones were of Italian origin, that much is clear, but Petrellis is a Greek name, not an Italian one, and grandpa insisted that his mom (at left) was Greek "from an island off the coast of Greece and Albania."

Never one to let any lock lie unpicked in my infinite spare time I found out more about great grandma. It turns out that she wasn't born in Greece but in Italy in 1892. But the village she was born in was not your ordinary Italian village -- it was called San Giorgio Albanese, with the Albanese indicating that it was populated by Albanians, or rather Arbereshe, proto-Albanians who moved there centuries ago before there was an Albania proper.

So, little did anyone know but we are the progeny of a weird Mediterranean ethnic group. The Albanians (who call their own language "Shqip") have their own branch of the Indo-European language tree. The Arbereshe, though, are not really Albanians. They are the descendants of Albanians of the 16th century who have been living in Italy for hundreds of years.

Great Grandma wasn't completely "Arbereshe" though. Her mother was an Italian, while her father carried the Greek surname. But I found it hard to reconcile this idea that the family was Greek with the fact that they lived in a village in the mountains of Calabria with a group of proto-Albanians.

Then I happened up the fact that many of the Albanians that moved to Italy were not exactly Albanians either. They were "Arvanites" -- a Greek ethnic group that happened to share a common archaic Albanian language. The Arvanites were Greek Orthodox and defiantly Greek for centuries, to the point that they deny their connection with Albania, despite their linguistic connection. And a lot of them happened to live in Epirus, on the northwest coast of Greece, where there happen to be some islands.

According to the resources I found, the Arvanites were living in Greece for hundreds of years before they fled to Italy following Ottomon Turk invasions of the region. Now, this was starting to make sense. Great grandma was neither Italian nor Albanian nor Greek. She was all three!

The thought of sword wielding Turks driving my ancestors across the Ionian Sea to the hills of Calabria and the Sila Greca gives this comfortable American blogger shivers. But I am glad they made it, because if they hadn't made it, I wouldn't be here, and neither would Marta or Anna (or Papa for that matter.) So I guess the past does matter, and sometimes it is even interesting.

oh, anna

Sometimes we discuss the nature of our second daughter, Anna, usually using the first, Marta, as some kind of measurement.

The thing is that we know Anna is different, but we are not exactly sure how she is different. She has always had a personality. Even when she was born and she looked at me as if to say, "no big deal, I feel fine" about her birth, she had a personality. But I have a really hard time describing that personality.

These kinds of things are relevant. Marta is a very independent, outgoing, social, excitable child. She's a climber. When she was nine months old, I had to fight her to keep her from trying to climb up the ladder to a bunk bed. She honestly thought she could do it.

Marta also has a highly developed relationship with my Mom (Mimi) and all of her relatives. Mom has been writing me e-mails, saying that she desires to "bond" with Anna in a manner similar to Marta. But I am not sure to the extent Anna is available for bonding. Anna is available for feeding, and for some adventures, but simple hugging will have to pass for bonding for the moment, I think.

Maybe I express these doubts because I am just beginning to bond with our daughter myself. She seems to like the simple things in life. I have a hard time trying to imagine her organizing a group of kids the way Marta can orchestrate a whole gang of children. She doesn't even seem to want my attention. What she wants is a warm bath and some of that good stuff that you are eating. In essence, she seems content.

Sometimes when she sleeps, I am amazed by how cute she is. She has big ruddy cheeks and strawberry blond hair. One friend commenting on a photo inferred that this little blond cherub might have a different father compared to her olive-toned issi. But Anna's long toes look a bit too familiar. And when I look at her sturdy build, it reminds me of old photos from when I was a little baby.

Sturdy she may be, but she loves to be held. So long as the environment around her is interesting, she can nestle on your shoulder and watch the world go by. She also loves the swings at the playground. She is so happy just to do these basic things, like swing and taste new and interesting foods. Anna is nice child. I am glad she decided to come to us.

morning dialogue

This is the conversation I awoke to this morning. For the sake of realistically representing the situation, I will use the actual words that were spoken:

Setting: Our bedroom. It has been raining all night, but despite the weather, the light is streaming through our yellow curtains. Epp lies next to me, Anna is nursing. I am sweaty after taking some Advil the night before, as I was sick all day Tuesday. Marta stirs in the next room and yells out:

Marta: Emme, kas sa tooks mulle barbit! [Mommy, would you bring me my barbie?]

Epp: Ma praegu ei saa tuua. Mine võta ise. [I can't bring it at the moment. Go get it yourself.]

A few moments pass.

Marta: Emme, ma ütlesin, et palun too mulle barbit! [Mommy, I said please bring the barbie to me.]

A few more moments pass.

Marta: Emme, ma olen küsinud kolm korda. Ma hoiatan, kui sa ei too barbit, siis ma saan kurjaks. [Mommy, I have asked three times. I am warning you, if you don't bring me my barbie, then I'll get angry.]

Justin: Ok, ok, I'll go get her barbie.

Justin gets up, looks around the room.

Justin: Where is the barbie, I don't see it?

Anna: Slurp, slurp.

Epp: It's in the cold room.

[Note: we call our front room upstairs the "cold room" because we didn't heat it during the winter]

Justin pulls himself out of bed, walks down the hall, and looks around the cold room, but he can't find barbie anywhere.

Justin: Marta, are you sure your barbie is in here? I can't find her.

Marta enters, climbs onto the bed in the cold room, lifts up a large pillow, and points down.

Marta: There she is!