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.