It's becoming more and more important to find "no"-free zones for Myrna. At home in our apartment, most of what she wants to do is strictly forbidden, or just impossible without the help of parents reluctant to spend more than a minute hoisting her up to flip a lightswitch on and off. And if, say, we take her to a café, as we regularly do, her every move is answered with a firm reprimand. Simply put, this makes her crazy. To counter all this negativity, we try to get her to a park or an indoor play space as often as we can, so she can run around and scream and grab at things without reminder of abilities that don't yet equal the strength of her will.
Today I'd planned a trip to the Spårvägsmuseet, Stockholm's transportation museum. But let's be honest, that was more for me than Myrna. Pack a room with a century's worth of buses and trolleys and subway cars into a room, and I'm there. I wasn't sure if there'd be much for Myrna to do there, but it turned out to be an ideal "no"-free zone - complete with dark corridors and push-buttons and levers and exposed cable and not a little dirt.
We were there for over three hours, and Myrna spent most of that time racing through old buses and trams, crawling up stairs, climbing onto seats, smacking windshields, and generally enjoying the echo of her own noise.
Probably due to the snow pounding down outside (c'mon, Stockholm, it's late April already!), the museum was mobbed with daycare groups, and one pack of five preschool kids took quite a shine to Myrna. She was a bit overwhelmed by the attention, and understandably so. What started as stroking hair and admiring shoes rapidly advanced to hugs and kisses on the forehead. The whole pack bearing down on her all at once, Myrna fell over a couple times , but she was a good sport. The kids knew enough English to say "Hello" and "Bye-bye, see you!," but I think that may have been it, because they repeated those two things over and over each time our paths crossed. But then, if you asked them, they'd probably tell you that all I said was "Hej, hej" and "Adjö."
There's also a toy museum housed in the back of the transport museum. We checked that out too, but it mainly consisted of display cases of vintage toys, and that wasn't as interesting for Myrna. (And, if I may say so, I can outshine their collection of Star Wars action figures any day.) She'd worn herself out, and napped on the next bus we climbed into - the route 66 we took back home.
