Happy New Year!!

For this post I stole an idea from my favorite blogger Girls Gone Child's Rebecca Woolf.

In 2008 I spent the first hours of the new year hugging my sleeping 6 month old baby since he was the only one celebrating with me since J had to work.
I watched my baby say his first word, take his first steps, celebrate his first birthday, make his first joke and, one scary night, struggle to breath in a hospital bed.
I flew to Sweden twice, had my mom over twice, had my friend Emma visit for the first time.
I went to Ottawa and saw the parliament.
I laughed, I cried, I loved, I fought.
I made a new friend (Julie) and became closer to some other friends.
I worked as a dialogue editor (my first paying job doing sound editing!)
I celebrated my 26th birthday and my 4th wedding anniversary

I can't say that 2008 was a great year... it's been a pretty rough year actually. Not with W, with him this year has been fantastic with all the new things he's learned and the person he's growing into. But me and J had our most difficult year so far as a couple. We fought more than ever and I thinks it's in many parts due to the pressure of parenthood and not spending as much quality time together just the two of us as we should. But things are looking better already so I have hopes for 2009 to be a great year.

I hope you all had a fantastic year and that 2009 will be even better.


Happy New Year!

A hairy issue.

check out my cool bird that I can barely see through my hair


If you've ever seen any photos of my little man you've probably noticed his hair. My W has long, luscious hair (for an 18 month old at least) and has never ever in his life had a haircut. Me and J toy with the idea of getting his mane shaped up a bit sometimes but we always decide against the scissors. Why you may ask... well there are many reasons.

1) I like the fact that you can still see the slight change in colour at the tips of his hair that was the black hair he was born with and I can't bear to cut it off.

2) He looks awesome and supercute in his long hair

3) We always said that if we had a little boy we would keep his hair long at first cause it's cute and we really don't like the short "boy haircuts" all the other little boys are sporting.

Hanging out on the toilet with my hair in half a ponytail



On the other hand there are some arguments against our decision too...

1) I can't remember all the times people have called him a girl and looked shocked to find out he's a boy.

2) It's in his eyes all the time and he has now made a habit of running his arms over his face to try to get rid of the hair.

3) I have to resort to putting his hair up with bobby pins and hair ties so he can eat.

with daddy and all my hair in the ponytail



Maybe we're making the wrong decision with keeping his hair long... but did I mention he's sooooo very cute with his long locks!

My mom said to me today that she hopes I don't take him out with his hair in a ponytail. I told her of course not, it's only for at home so he can be more comfortable. Does this mean that as soon as we leave the house my son has to be uncomfortable just because I can't bear cutting of his hair that he was born with?

on the toilet again so cute. guess the red shirt doesn't help the "I'm a boy" cause


Maybe I am a selfish and superficial mom after all... who knew.

I threw in a photo of W dressed like an otter too because he was tooooo cute at the Biodome. Even though I swear never to go there again during school holidays we had a pretty good time. Especially at the interactive part at the end for kids under 7 where you could dress up as said otter or beaver or Inuit.

Look at me! I'm an otter and I caught two birds!!

Hanging out in the nook under the stairs in the new playroom/guestroom/potential bedroom.





Opening gifts with mommy on Christmas morning





F with the worst Santa ever at the Christmas party with the family.




At the party, hanging out by the gifts.





After opening gifts on Christmas morning...





W's new playroom/guestroom/ potential room if he ever gets a sibling





Wearing Daddy's ugly Christmas sweater. He looks a little like he should be in the Harry Potter films. He loves the sweater, he points to the bears and says nanne (Nalle in Swedish is teddy bear)






In his new and improved bedroom.

Merry Christmas

I hope you all enjoyed your holiday whichever one you celebrated. We had a good Christmas this year, I promise I'll write a long post about it tomorrow when I have some more time. I'll tell you all about the party, the presents and the getting lost in Verdun part.

I just wanted to wish you all a happy holiday season.

Well this is one of the 3 million posts I attempted to write over the holiday and then got interrupted before I had a chance to post it. This past week has been madness. I've baked for 50 plus people (with the help of my lovely niece F) and I cooked, entertained, partied and gotten lost. And we opened many gifts, so many in fact that W didn't want to open some after a while, he was too overwhelmed. He's pretty happy with his new toys now though, and with his new room.

I'll post some photos of the madness tonight after W's gone to bed. So later everyone!

holiday blues

I started the day today by crying a little. Don't get me wrong I love the holidays and everything about Christmas but it also reminds me of how far away from my family I am. On top of all that emotional stuff W no longer loves me the best. He is now a daddy's boy through and through. He does not want to be with me if Daddy's around and when Daddy leaves he asks for him constantly. My afternoons and evenings now consists of me saying "Daddy's at work, Honey, he'll be back again tomorrow once you wake up" and "Daddy misses you too baby"

I love my Daddy...




It's really not that I don't love that W loves his Daddy as much as his Daddy loves him, but it's hard not to feel rejected when he cries and reaches for Daddy as soon as I try to cuddle him.

To make matters worse he has recently started hitting me too. Not by accident or anything, no. He will pick up a hard item, such as a book, phone (how very Naomi Campbell of him) or a toy and struggle to get it up to my face and then hit me with it. When me and J tell him "No! We do not hit, you have to be gentle with Mamma" he laughs and hits me again.


... and my Daddy loves me!


He did all of this first thing in the morning today and on top of me already feeling homesick and overwhelmed with Christmas prep and worries over how the actual party will turn out, I started crying... which made W cry. So this morning was not a good morning.

So do any of you have any advice? How do I deal with my 18 month old rejecting me and hitting me with hard stuff??

18 months

Happy 18 month birthday W.

I love you.

Thank you for bringing so much joy into my life.

Lucia

13Th of December is Lucia so this past Saturday, but since we're not in Sweden right now we celebrated Lucia on Sunday with the Swedish Club of Montreal. It's very nice to get together with all the other displaced Swedes and drink glögg and eat lussekatter and pepparkakor Then dance around the Christmas tree and meet Santa and of course see the main event... Lucia. All the kids in the Swedish school did the Lucia procession and it was adorable. I had goosebumps all over and I can't wait for W to be 3 so he can be a part of the whole thing. Here are some pics

Covered in paint...

This week I've been a busy busy bee. I'm preparing for W's Christmas present. This year he's getting a room. Not a new bedroom, he already has one of those, but a play/relaxing/guest room. It's right across the hall from his bedroom and I've just finished painting it the same lovely pale blue as his room. We were debating other colours but since we failed so miserably with the original colour (hospital green anyone?) we decided to play it safe. I am currently watching paint dry, which is boring! Well the idea is to fix the room up and then tie a ribbon around the door with a big bow and let W open it in the morning of the 24Th (his Grand-Papa needs to sleep in there that evening so it's gotta be in the morning). It's very exciting.

Exciting enough for me to make another trip to IKEA and spend a smaller fortune on all the new stuff for his room and his bedroom. We currently have about 40 cm of snow and the road conditions are appalling, so we were slipping and sliding our way to IKEA and during the odd 3 hours we were there the snow packed up on the car again so I had to dig it out again before leaving.

Speaking of road conditions, me and W were going to a Christmas party last night. It's usually a 20 minute drive but since some little punk decided to prank the University of Montreal in Quebec by setting off a couple of firecrackers so people thought guns were being fired, it took us and hour and a half to get there. Luckily we weren't the last people to arrive, it seemed everyone got stuck in traffic because of the police perimeter around the university. Even a couple of the hosts were late. The party was fun though.

Now I shall return to my painting, I think the paint is finally dry enough for a second layer.

On Santa's lap

So I mentioned earlier I took W to the mall and made him sit on Santa's lap so we could have cute Christmas pictures. Well here it is.



In other news, we got 25 cm of snow over the last couple of days so I decided to buy a sleigh for W. Turns out he doesn't like the sleigh at all. He screamed bloody murder and trashed around until I gave in and let him get out of it. Then I did everything I could to make him like it. I tried to get him to pull me, I let him drag it empty I even let him sit in it and hit my legs with it so I jumped around screaming in pain (he usually loves that and laughs every time it happens) but nothing. He hated the sleigh so much he actually cried a river when I carried him and dragged the empty sleigh behind us. He wanted me to let it go and just leave it there. Hopefully he'll like it better next time we try it cause I'm sick and tired of dragging the big stroller up and down the stairs and push it through the snow.

This afternoon we're going to an office Christmas party so Joyeux Noël!

no faith

We've had a busy week so I'll attempt to sum it up. First I had to go to the doctor on Monday for blood tests. I had some done a little while back when we first saw our family doctor and she found too much of something, that I can't remember what it was called. So I had to have more tests done and these ones came back good so all good right. But she called me back on Tuesdays with some other results and she wants me to have this horrible painful test done and I'm pretty sure I don't need it. The thing is I have no faith in my doctor. I usually have lots of faith in doctors, like I trust my ob-gyn and my sons pediatrician completely, but my family doctor I don't trust at all.

It all started when we first went to see her for our first health evaluation back in October. I was sick at the time with a pretty clear case of strep throat, I've had strep throat many many many times in the past so I'm pretty good at self diagnosing. She took a look in my throat but decided that I needed a culture taken and told me I'd get the results in 3-5 days. I already had over 39°C fever and was in a lot of pain but she told me she could do nothing for me until she had the results. That was bad thing #1.

Bad thing #2 was that she does not listen to me or she can't understand me... I don't know which one it is. I live in Quebec which is pretty French and I don't really speak French so sometimes I struggle to make myself understood but I try to make sure that doctors at least understand me cause it's pretty important. I have an IUD and I had some issues with it this summer where it moved and I had to have ultrasounds done to locate it again and stuff but it's all good but you can't see it during a regular exam anymore. I told the doctor this twice before the exam and she still during the exam told me with a concerned look that she could not see the IUD so I had to explain this again. I don't like having to repeat myself over and over again, especially not when it's important.

Bad thing #3 the day after I saw the doctor the first time I had to go to a walk in clinic cause I was so sick and I actually ended up in the emergency room a couple of days later cause I had over 40°C fever for over a week and an eye infection and a case of bronchitis on top of my strep throat. My doctor had not found anything wrong with me. I also had x-rays done and they found a mass in my lung so I then had a CT scan done. It's all good but I still think my doctor should have not dismissed me so fast.

Bad thing #4 when I called her to discuss the options for the results she wants me to have a painful test done for, she refused to listen to me or offer me any options to the test. The test is basically a cancer test and she told me not to worry cause I don't have cancer. Then why do I need to do a painful cancer test?

I do not like her at all and I trust nothing she says so I think I'm going to give up my spot with her and try to find another doctor cause I really see no point in going to see a doctor I will second guess all the time and then seek a second opinion. That's just a waste of resources.

No on to W. He had his 18 months shots on Wednesday and those shots always makes him sick so he's now had a fever for a couple of days.
We went to see Santa on Friday with W and he got to sit on Santa's lap and we got photos of them and it was awfully cute. I'll write more about it tomorrow, now I have TV to attend to.

Weekend

so another weekend gone. This one was filled with a farm visit and crazy stop at a horrible huge department store, fights about food and a trip downtown to check out some books and some christmas decorations.
Sunday was also first of advent so we lit one candle and I enjoyed some glögg and pepparkakor.

So lets talk about the farm. I found this farm online that's pretty close to where we live (only about half an hour by car) they have lots of different animals and they grow organic vegetables which they also sell there. It's on the west tip of the island of Montreal so there are beaches around and a nice forest you can walk around in and stuff. So we went there Saturday morning to look at the animals since W really love animals. The weather was perfect, not to cold and very sunny and almost all the animals were inside the barn so they were all easy to see for W and he could pet some of them. They had ducks, hens, bunnies, horses, ponies, donkeys, cows, sheep and lambs (so cute!), goats and emus. W was so excited and was running around the barn making animal noises and pointing and petting. It was great. We spent about an hour there and then made our way to the department store for food and some shopping.

The department store was packed with angry people, the food was bad and the whole experience was very unpleasant. I broke out in hives half way through. I break out in hives all the time for the weirdest reasons, like change in humidity levels, abrupt change in temperature and sometimes when I get stressed. It's easily fixed by taking some allergy meds but it's still a pain in the bumbum. So we went home.

Yesterday we cleaned the apartment and started fixing up the guest room. Then we went downtown and as soon as we got into the mall W started going "choo choo, choo choo" cause he remembered that there's a big train in there as part of the christmas decoration. Downtown was nice and a good time was had by all.

This week is so far looking a lot less busy then last week so maybe we will all have some time to relax before the real holiday madness begins. Maybe I'll repaint the guest room and get all the decorations up. We'll see.

loved

I was on a play date today with my friends and fellow Swedes. It was very nice as usual and I'm really happy to have them here. I've known them for a little over a year now and their kids are amazing and I love them and they love mine. There is something overwhelming to me about the feeling that comes over me when other people love my child. It's a mixture of pride, love and happiness and it just fills me so completely. I love my child so much and to see other people love him feels like confirmation that he's great and fantastic and amazing and it makes me happy to know that other people see it.

W is pretty mellow when he plays with other kids, he's not really the hitting or biting kind with other kids. He keeps that for me (oh joy). He's not the best at sharing but he does occasionally give toys to the other kids he plays with and he doesn't really mind other kids snatching toys out of his hands. He's also very vocal right now, picking up new words left, right and center. He also knows all the animal sounds like I think I've mentioned before here.

It's always good hanging out with other Swedes, we can bitch about how everything is better in Sweden and our kids actually get to hear real Swedish being spoken, not just what I say to him which is pretty limited to "in the mouth", "NOT in the mouth", "NO don't do that", "Very good, you're so smart" and "Let's change your diaper".

Now I'm going to stop avoiding my Wii fit and try to get in shape.

Back to my roots... sort of

Today i got to spend the day with lovely Julie. She had a big birthday this week so she took the week off work and me and W got to steal her for a day. We picked her up this morning and headed off towards IKEA. I love IKEA, IKEA is like home... sort of... it's Swedish and most of my furniture are from IKEA.
Anyway, more on my love for IKEA later (I've already said IKEA 6 times in this post).

As we're getting off the island of Montreal and on to the highway the car starts making this weird noise. My car makes weird noises all the time and it's mostly leaves stuck in the ventilation system so I wasn't too worried. But the noise was very weird though. It sounded a bit like a cat playing with a plastic bag in the back of the car. So we're driving along not paying too much attention to the noise when the car behind us pulls up next to us and starts gesticulating to us pointing down and telling us to slow down. So we slow down and I get a bit worried. I look for the nearest exit, which is no where near enough, and get off the highway. I stop as soon as I can and get out and run around the car but I can't see anything so I look under the car and lo and behold a big rusty piece of metal is hanging loose under the car dragging the ground on one side. Julie is out at this point too looking and she thinks it's my muffler that's on the floor but it's not it's something else. I don't know what though so I decide to do what I always do when the car breaks, I call my hubby. J is not answering though so I call my sister-in-law, she not answering either so I have to make my own decision.

Luckily right next to where we're standing there's a gas station and garage so we drive there and I go in and say "Something fell off my car underneath" They tell me to get in the garage and they raise the car up and we see that it's the cover for the gas tank that's loose. The mechanic tells me it's not serious and just takes it off completely, after struggling a bit with the rusty bolts, and sends us on our way. This little debacle only set me back 15 dollar so that makes it the cheapest car issue to date, though I'm sure we'll have to replace that piece at some point which should make it a lot more pricey.

So on to IKEA, did I mention I love IKEA? They have candy, and glögg, and pepparkakor and cheap good furniture. I can not go to IKEA and not spend money but I did show some restraint today and only got a few things. We'll be going back after Christmas when we're gonna get all the stuff we need to start making W's big boy room and a make over for the guest room/ cat room which will be transformed into a cosy play area. I'm very exited about these changes and I spent a lot of time online searching for ideas how to make a tiny and cramped room with no window into a great relaxing space.

Speaking of relaxing, I shall now go play some guitar hero.

look this way!

Today I just wanted to take the opportunity to promote my friend Adam Heldring who is just releasing his album this weekend coming. You should all check him out here
His music is great and he's a really sweet, cool and smart guy so you should all support him.

family

Today was all about family. I packed up my little family in the car and away we drove to my extended family. We spent the afternoon with Grand-Papa, Matante Marilou, Uncle Stef and cousins Fadia, Lia and Noah. It was very nice.
We're a very international family with me being Swedish, hubby French-Canadian and Uncle Stef is from New Zeeland. We try to incorporate all the different traditions of holidays into our celebrations and it usually turn out really nice. All the kids are at least bilingual and in the case of Wilh, even trilingual.

It's nice spending time with family, the nieces and nephew are growing so much and it's so much fun spending time with them watching them grow into their own little people. See them interact with Wilh and watch him admire his cousins. He loves Lia, he was hugging her all day today and every girl he sees he calls Lia. It's one of his favorite words. He also started saying Daddy properly this week and he gets the word right too. He says daddy and points do daddy or when daddy leaves he holds his hands up palms facing up and says daddy meaning daddy gone. He's getting so much more verbal these days he actually uses language to communicate and he uses words along with gestures to make himself understood. It's great. I love that he one morning was a bit cold so he said "brrrr" while hugging his chest and shaking a bit so I would cuddle him under the blanket.

I've read a bit about multilingualism and we were a bit worried that his language skills would take longer to develop due to the many different languages he has to learn but so far so good. He understands Swedish very well, he understands French pretty well but his English comprehension is not as good. We read a lot of books in English though so I'm sure he'll pick up on it soon enough.

He's so amazing and fantastic and I feel so privileged to spend so much time with him, watching him learn.

4 years of marriage

4 years ago tomorrow... in a small ceremony, in the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas, we were married. We eloped to Las Vegas from London where we were living at the time, it was November and rainy and cold in London so we thought that the 4 days we were spending in Vegas (the only days I could get off work) would be nice and hot... we were wrong. The dessert was colder than it had been in 20 years or something the day we arrived and it was raining.
We arrived around midday after an 11 hour flight already tired. We had set the date for the wedding on the 22 of November and the 21st when we arrived was a Sunday. We checked in to our hotel (The Bellagio) and then decided to make our way to city hall to get our marriage license. We tried walking but it turned out that Las Vegas is much bigger than we thought and the cold and the rain and the jet lag was not helping so we got a cab. The cab driver was insane. He started asking us lots of questions and when we told him we were getting married he insisted on driving us to this nice chapel he knew, that would give us a good price, once we got our license. We declined his offer and insisted on paying for the cab before going inside so he wouldn't wait for us like he was insisting on doing. Inside as we were getting all the papers signed and talking to the clerk the driver actually comes inside to check on our progress. We were getting a bit freaked out by this guy so we told him to leave and once we got out we told him we were going to walk back to see Las Vegas. He looked at us in complete disbelief and I can understand since the rain was heavy and it was very cold outside. We started walking and as soon as we were out of sight we jumped in the first taxi we saw. Unfortunately this was not the only crazy taxi driver we encountered on our trip.

The second crazy taxi driver I didn't actually meet myself only my then future hubby had the pleasure of his company. We were getting married in the evening at 7.30 p.m. and I was getting dressed at the church so hubby wouldn't see me in my dress before the ceremony. I had already got my hair and make-up done so all I had to do was put on the dress. So we get to the church and I go to the changing room while hubby is sorting out the papers and paying for everything. I'm almost done when hubby knocks on the door and tells me he forgot the marriage license on the bed at the hotel where he put it so he wouldn't forget. So he's rushing back to the Bellagio to get it so we can get married. The 20 minutes he was gone were the longest ones in my life, I was sure he just took off and left me at the altar and I was freaking out. For hubby the story is a bit more exciting. He's running back towards the hotel and tries to flag down a taxi as he goes but there are no taxis to be found but he does find a limo and knocks on the window and offers to pay the guy twenty bucks if he'll drive him to the Bellagio. The driver agrees and drops him off. He rushes upstairs grabs the papers and rushes back down again. Outside the line up for the taxis is huge so he shouts to everyone. "I'M GETTING MARRIED IN 5 MINUTES I NEED TO GET IN THE NEXT TAXI PLEASE!" Everyone starts cheering and clapping and he gets to jump the cue and gets in the taxi. The taxi driver starts asking lots of questions like where he's from and stuff and my hubby is answering while repeatedly asking the driver to hurry up. The driver misunderstands my hubby when he says he lives in London but he's really from Canada, he thinks hubby is British so he starts quizzing him on British history and the royal family. Everytime hubby doesn't get an answer right he slows down to explain it to him. At the church he locks the doors and won't let hubby out until he finished explaining something about King Henry or something. When he's finally let out he goes back in to finish the paper work and then a couple of minutes later I get a knock on the door and the lady tells me to go up to the church.

I have a very vivid memory of that walk, which I did all by myself, it was so cold I could see my breath and my heels were very high and when I got in hubby was already at the front waiting for me with the priest. It was very intense and the commitment felt a lot more real and serious than I thought it would. My only regret from that day is that the photographer didn't get a full body photo of us.

...and yes the candles in the back are fake.

So here are a couple of photos of me and hubby.



The day we met May 25th 2003.




The first couple of months of being in love.




Our first anniversary on top of the Empire State Building in New York




Halloween 2006 I'm Marie Antoinette and I'm 7 weeks pregnant or so and hubby is King Louis.




Around our second anniversary and I'm pregnant.




With the newest member of the family when he was only 3 weeks old.




Third anniversary and Wilhelm's baptism in Sweden



On top of Mount Royal earlier this year.



The best thing to ever come out of this marriage.

biodome

Me and Wilhelm went to the Biodome today. The Biodome is a nature museum which has 4 different ecosystems with real animals roaming the different parts. There is the Tropical forest with the big parrots, the ibis birds and all the other kinds I can't remember and the cool fishes and bats and the cute tiny monkeys they have three kinds black & white, black and golden ones.
Laurentian Forrest with otters (they were both out and playing today and they were super cute), a beaver, porcupines and birds.
St Lawrence Marine has two different sections
- The huge aquarium with huge fish and swimming birds and a shark and stuff.
- The top of the aquarium with the birds and the starfish and the giant 8 kg lobster.
The Arctic with the puffin birds and other birds.
The Antarctic with the penguins.

I could spend all day looking at the penguins and the big aquarium and Wilh really used to like it but not today. He ran around like a mad person and refused to sit still and enjoy the animals. I think his favorite part today was the big green parrots in the tropic and the two cute otters in the Laurentians.

All in all a good outing though.
Tomorrow is mine and hubby's 4th wedding anniversary so I'll be posting some photos.

Are there any other places around that I should check out that I don't know about. I have a lot of time to do interesting things with Wilh these days.

holiday shopping

Since I'm not working right now and the prospects of job finding in my field for the hours I'm available are slim this holiday season might turn out a little less extravagant than previous years. In a way I think it's good. It will force us to find special, unique and tailored presents for everyone instead of going for quantity. So in the last couple of days I've been doing a bit of research on what would be the perfect gift for our nieces and nephew, 8,5 and 3 respectively.

Hubby found the perfect gift for the 3 year old boy and is pretty clear on what he wants to give the 8 year old since she's his favorite and Godchild. That leaves the 5 year old. I just read this post on Babble and unfortunately it sums her up quite well. Not by intention of course her parents do an awesome job at making sure she's got everything she wants and needs and she lacks nothing. The problem with her is more that she's so easy going and sweet and funny and great that she likes everything you give her and nothing stands out like a perfect gift. She's just happy to be the recipient of presents in a way. On her birthday a couple of months ago we went shopping for her gift the whole family together and she got this play cottage thing with lots of extras and she was just amazed that all those things were for her. Actually come to think of it he case is not very similar to the Babble article after all. She's just difficult to shop for.

For the oldest girl it's easy she's so mature and she knows what she likes, I'm planning on getting her to read the Famous Five series cause I think she'll like it: She enjoys reading and practicing her piano and playing her video games and snowboarding of course. The younger girl doesn't have any real hobbies yet and even though she likes snowboarding too she's more into pretend play and she has this fantastic mind that can just think up the most amazing scenarios. This is a fantastic thing to have since it rarely leaves her bored and she can play anywhere with ease but it's hard to buy something that will... help her with this or make it better or...

I don't know what we'll end up getting her but I think I'll throw at least one Dr. Seuss book in there that she can read by herself cause if there's anything that can trigger your imagination it's a Dr. Seuss book.

As for Wilhelm I just don't know, but I'm sure I'll find the perfect gift for my perfect little man.

the leg warmer hug

There's this ad on TV that I've seen a couple of times. I can't remember what it's for or what I'm supposed to want to buy, so it's probably not a very effective ad. Anyway in the ad they show all these different hugs that different people will give you once they've opened their presents this holiday season. One of those hugs is the leg warmer where two kids hug their dad's legs while he tries to walk around. Today I was the recipient of a very extended and whiny leg warmer hug.

We had an appointment at the pediatrician this morning since Wilh was hospitalized last weekend. the appointment was at 11.45 so we had to leave home by 11ish to get there on time. I was planning on making Wilh nap between 9.30 and 11 so he would be nice and rested and pleasant at the doctors office, unfortunately Wilh is no longer a blob that just does what I want him to, he now has his own ideas. Today those ideas were, amongst others, to wake up at 5 a.m. and scream for 45 minutes and then go back to sleep until 8, refuse to nap in the morning, fall asleep in the car 5 minutes from the pediatricians office, refuse to nap in the afternoon, falling asleep in the stroller while I was running errands for 20 minutes, waking up cranky and refusing to be anywhere but in my arms.

I had a friend over that I haven't seen in a month and a half or so and we were baking lussekatter (don't know what it is, then look it up) I'll tell you that it's very hard baking with a baby in your arms and when said baby refuses to play with Julie then it's even harder and the few moments I needed both my hands and had to put him on the floor he wrapped his little arms around my leg and held on tight. I don't know what got into him, he usually likes Julie, he even played with her for a little bit alone before he fell asleep while I was out moving the car. Eventually he calmed down enough to play a bit with us while the dough was resting and then he helped shaping lussekatterna.

Well back to the health update. Wilh still has stuff in his lungs and was given more medicine and we have to take him back in 2 weeks.

Question: Wilhelm doesn't like milk, how do I get him to drink it? I've tried regular milk and soy milk and he just won't have any of it. Any tricks I should know about? Also when will he stop saying "no" to everything?

I love Dr. Seuss...

...and so does Wilhelm. We read Seuss books every day. Right now my favorite is "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish" but it changes from week to week.
He likes "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish" too and when we get to the page with "here are some who likes to run
they run for fun in the hot hot sun

oh me, oh my
oh me, oh my
what a lot of funny things go by"

He takes his pacifier out and says meomy meomy and laughs, it's great.

Speaking of the pacifier (or napp like we call it) we've been slowly weening him off it for the last couple of months and right now he only uses it for naps and nighttime. This has been rather easy so far, I ask him for the napp and he gives it to me and we put it on the shelf and wave bye bye every time he wakes up. But now since he's been sick things have been a bit different around here. He now asks for the napp during the day and has full on meltdowns when he can't have it.

Luckily his attachment to the napp is not as strong as the attachment to the blanket. He has a little giraffe blanket I bought for him when he was little and I realized that the big "Linus-blanket" I bought for him was not convenient to carry around everywhere. It used to have dotted velvet on the back but that is long gone now and even thinking of washing it is a no go. He will not go anywhere without it and if you try to put it down so he can eat or something he will cry cry cry until he gets it back. He doesn't have the blanket all the time but he doesn't like it being put away in a bag or in the bed or in the stroller, every time I try to pack it he will promptly unpack it again and if it doesn't come loose when he tugs on it he will cry until it's given to him. It's a real love affair he's got going with that blanket.

Wilhelm loves the blanket, the napp, Dr. Seuss, mamma, papa, mormor, grand-maman, grand-papan, matante and his cousins above all other things.

a long and scary night

I know it's been a while since I wrote anything here. I'd like to say I've been busy but I don't know if that's really true. Anyways. I guess I haven't had anything important to say.

Yesterday my baby was diagnosed with pneumonia and got started on antibiotics. Later in the afternoon he started breathing super fast. Like he's just been out running laps and his fever went up to 39.4°c so I took him to St Justine children's hospital. There we got to go straight to the triage and then got moved instantly to observation. We spent 4 and a half hour in observation while Wilhelm was given 5 rounds of asthma inhaler treatment as well as cortisone. He also had to do more x-rays. Then the doctor sat with us for 10 minutes just watching Wilh breath, since his breathing was still very fast we got admitted to the respiratory bloc in the hospital and then the night from hell began.

We got to our room just before 10 p.m. Wilh usually goes to bed at 7 p.m. so he was already exhausted. I finally managed to speak to my hubby and told him to get his ass to the hospital asap cause the nurses were bugging me to go downstairs to do the admission and leave Wilh alone upstairs with an orderly. I was not going to leave my 16 month old, sick baby with some stranger for anything, he already have issues with me leaving him even if he's with his dad. I rocked Wilh to sleep and refused to put him down in the prison style crib provided just in case they'd force me to do the admission if he was sleeping. An hour later or so my hubby showed up and did the admission and got the update of what had happened up until that point. Then the first of what felt like a million interruptions of Wilh's sleep came.

We had a special nurse come every 2 hours to give Wilh his asthma inhaler.The asthma inhaler is a torture device in Wilh's eyes and he will do anything to get away from it. He was given 4 doses every 2 hours and it was horrible, he's scream and cry and kick and hit every time. I had a couple of the poor nurses be very surprised by how strong he is even with a high fever, breathing difficulties and after being rudely awoken.

About half an hour after the inhaler came the general well being and temperature check. Every 2 hours or so all night.

Then the resident showed up and she was very nice. She evaluated him and decided to put an IV on him and to give his antibiotics intravenous. She also told us that Wilh's symptoms were that of an asthma crises and that they would treat him for both pneumonia and asthma crises. Hubby got into a discussion on the topic of which causes which bronchilitus causing asthma or asthma causing bronchilitus...

After she left the team came to put the IV in and I have never felt so helpless in my entire life. They held him down and it took forever and his poor little hand was bleeding and they put this cardboard thing under his wrist and hand and taped his hand and wrist to his so he couldn't move it at all. Then they wrapped the whole thing in a towel which they also taped to his hand. It looked like he broke his hand and was wearing a cast. It was so sad to see him try to do things with just one hand. Poor lilla bus bus.

Me and hubby go no sleep, maybe 3 hours all together and Wilh didn't get much more, poor baby. He was so tired and feverish when the morning came. He didn't eat anything. Then there were more checks and treatments and then the head of paediatrics came by and did an evaluation of Wilh and told us he didn't think bus had pneumonia at all and that he would speak to the radiologist to get an expert opinion. The radiologist agreed with the paediatrician that Wilh did not in fact have pneumonia but rather a partially collapsed lung caused by a viral infection and an asthma crisis. Apparently this is good news. Wilh got taken off the antibiotics and got prescribed and anti inflammatory liquid for his airways and lungs and we got sent home.

We got back here at 3.30 p.m. 23 hours after we left for the hospital. Very tired. Wilh fell asleep at 6.30 and I think we'll follow him shortly.

Pictures from the hospital will follow later.

"Now it's time to go to sleep
so we will sleep with our pet zeep
Today was good today is gone
tomorrow is another one
Every day from here to there
funny things are everywhere"
-Dr. Seuss

I am a lion hear me roar

I have a boy, bus, he's almost fifteen months old and lovely. He did all of his firsts quite early so far. He was turning by four months, sitting by six and standing up holding onto things at 7 months. He started talking saying mamma and daddy and titta (Swedish for look) and dedans (French for inside) all in that order. Then he learned to roar like a lion.

Bus, like most other kids, love animals. He could spend a whole day just looking through his books with pictures of animals. He loves books too especially if there are animals inside. He can do most of the animal sounds, like meow like a cat, woof like a dog, neigh like a horse and all other common animal sounds, but that's not all. No that's not all. He can also roar like a lion, sound like an elephant, like a fish, like a bunny and like a gorilla. It's quite impressive, even though some less enthusiastic and child loving people may say the sounds are all very similar, but there is a downside. Ever since the animal sounds started really take off my lovely son has stopped the talking. He no longer says titta or dedans or any of the other things he used to say. He still occasionally say mamma or mat (food in Swedish) or daddy but nothing else.

Maybe it's just the age he's at right now but I think he actually enjoy me saying no to him. He likes it when I shake my head, he thinks it's funny, so he does things that he knows I will say no to just so I'll shake my head. He even shakes his head too and laugh and when he laughs you can't be angry with him. How do I get him to understand no and not think it's funny?

He started spending his mornings with his daddy this week since I had to start working again. I think it's good for both of them, so my hubby will have a more active role in the everyday care taking of bus and so that bus will get to know his daddy and to learn some more French. I miss him though. I miss both of them. Not only do I have to work so I can't hang out with bus all day but my hubby works when I'm not working so I don't get to see him very much. It's a big change and I'm not sure I like it.

Enough whining and back to the issue at hand, my son turning into a lion. Hubby had this theory about the lack of words and the amount of animal sounds. He recons it's because we're raising bus tri-lingual, Swedish, French and English, so the only things that are the same no matter what language is the animal sounds. So by bus using animal sounds everyone understands him and everyone speaks the same. It's an interesting theory, but I'm not sure I believe it. bus is surely not the first kid to be raised tri-lingual so if others have managed before I'm sure he will too, he's a clever boy.

A couple of weeks ago we did this study at the UQAM (Université de Québec á Montréal) where bus had to listen to Russian to see how he responded to the language and if he could pick up on certain structures in the language after only hearing it for ten minutes. It was interesting even though bus wasn't too cooperative, I had to wrestle with him to keep him in the chair he was supposed to sit in. We're going to get a copy of the results of the study in a year or so.

Soon it's Halloween, guess what bus will be dressed up as!
I am a lion, hear me roar!

my little helper

Today we made blueberry muffins me and bus. I pulled a small stepladder up to the counter so he could reach. He loved it he was playing with the measuring cups and all the little pots. Then he got to lick the spoon and he was very happy.