“You’ve got to get up little monster,” I told Olivia’s sleeping form, a pale toddler in pink with white blond hair like a birthday candle knocked over onto the sheets.  “It’s four in the afternoon.”  Normally I’d use a video to ease her into wakefulness, but today she has fallen asleep mid-Curious-George-movie, so I don’t think it will keep her attention well enough to get her up.  She can be stubborn. 

“I’m taking you and Sam into the garden.” I say, and her face scrunches up.  She begins kicking her blankets in my direction.  She wants to kick me, but she won’t bother opening her crystal blue eyes.

“Nah!  Gah weh!” she screeches, her voice wet.  She’s saying “No!  Go away,” but being half asleep and only two and a half years old undermines the attempt.

I tell Sam to get ready, and I put on my own shoes.  His hair is the color of chestnuts and he has hazel eyes.   I can tell he is happy in his preparations as his head as he bobs along.  When we’re ready I stuff Olivia’s shoes in my backpack along with a few apples, the kids’ water bottles and a book for me.  I pick her up from her warm bed, expecting the worst, but she lays her head on my shoulder without complaint.  We three take the building’s tiny elevator down, and Olivia’s head is up and looking by the time we reach the “garden”:  What an American like me would call a back yard or a courtyard, large by Vienna standards (about 80-90% the size of a football field,) there is a concrete sandbox, a swing set of wood and chain and rubber seats.  There are two park benches, a few huge old trees bearing little metal signs that say they are protected by Vienna’s historical society plus one smaller round tree; perfect for climbing.  The grassy space is bordered in parts by high concrete walls, fences and bushes in others.

I carry Olivia after Sam, who sprints to the climbing tree and back towards us and the sandbox.  She squawks that she wants to run, but she’s still only got socks on her feet.  If I let her run around like this, the socks will be covered with grass stains; possibly sand and mud.  I carry her, kicking wildly, to a bench that stands approximately between the sandbox and the swing set, and sit with her on my lap.  We wrestle as I try to strap sandals over the socks.  It sounds unfair, me being so much bigger than her, but she is brilliant as she twists and locks her feet together in devious combinations.