slow postings...

this fall has been somewhat difficult for me. I had a run in with a depression. And I also found myself totally and utterly absorbed by the Twilight-fever. I have finished reading the books for the second time and I had promised myself I would sit down and try to put into words what I would like to say about this fall once that was done. But now when I'm here all I really want to do is to pick up book one and start right over again. Now this is not a good idea since I have already neglected my school work enough and I should really focus on my work situation.
I am still not ready to put down in words what's going on so I guess if anyone is still reading this you will have to be patient a little while longer.

the anniversary post

Today it's 5 years since we said our vows in that chapel in Las Vegas.

fell apart

I fell apart this weekend.
Came apart at the seems and just cried.
I'm slowly putting myself together again.
Thanks to the beautiful people in my life.





I realize that this is not the real video but I could not embed the original so you guys can go check it out here

coma

I'm finally snapping out of my Twilight coma that I've been in for the last week and a bit. I'll post more once I'm fully detached!

music

today I'm listening to this...




I hope you all enjoy it.

I guess I have Vampire Diaries to thank for wanting to listen to this but that's ok. It's my guilty pleasure to watch Ian Somerhalder shirtless dancing to a cover of this.

September in a week - Part 7 of 7

Last part of my 7 part series.
At L's party W practiced his "So long boys ptrrrrrrr"

His Grand-Papa brought a box of wood and it was a big hit.

It just goes to show how entertained a 2 year old can be with a cardboard box and some pieces of wood.

W also got his first try at beating the piñata to death!

So this is it. This was our September. A month that will always be remembered as the day W got more or less potty trained and discovered his love for puddles and his daycare lady.

September in a week - Part 6 of 7

We went to the library and I managed to snap a photo of my boys before the security guard told me off. They looked so cute watching "Mary Poppins" while waiting for me to get my first ever Canadian library card!

We bought W's halloween suit, doesn't he look adorable!

We went to W's cousin L's 6th birthday party and W spent the time eating candy off cupcakes and playing with his cousin N's toys.

and looking cute...

Last part tomorrow. Make sure to tune in!

September in a week - Part 5 of 7

The last couple of weeks of September was quite wet so W got to use his splash clothes.

And boy did he splash!

Too cute!

And splash...

Too wet to go out too cold to play ball? Not for us it isn't!

September in a week - Part 4 of 7

When we didn't sit in fire engines we sat on rocks!

And played with more trucks.

And phoned Grand-Maman and Mormor!

And cuddled while waiting for the cake for the "Bonne Fête Grand-Papa" like W said. W also discovered his love for puzzles.

Part 5 tomorrow.

September in a week - Part 3 of 7

We bought a nice red fire engine for W and he spent all day every day in there. Sitting on his cussion eating snacks and watching "Cars" with all of his toy trucks lined up inside.

We also went to the Jean-Talon market and found a real forklift that W just had to sit in!

I have to admit I was snapping these photos with a disapproving looks whilst saying "please babe, get him off of there before he figures out how to start that thing!"

Next part tomorrow!

September in a week - Part 2 of 7

W spent the last warm days of the year playing with trucks in the park.

He also spent a special, alone, day with Pappa in which they went to the library!

Tune in tomorrow for part 3!

September in a week - Part 1 of 7

September feels like a month when not much happened. But then when I actually stop and think about it a lot happened.
W used his splash pants for the first time and spent a couple of days with his daycare teacher. And we played and laughed and loved and fought and ran and walked and...

...we played with trucks, trucks and more trucks!

We borrowed trucks from the local daycare and lined them all up and then threw tantrums when we had to return them all.

We enjoyed the sun in our stairs.

And chocolatines in the mornings!

This is part one of a photo series of our September, tune in over the next days for more photos and captions!

sadness

I always find autumn a little bit sad.
The leaves changing colour and then falling down,
the temperature dropping,
the cold creeping in.

This year it seems a little bit extra sad.
It feels full of change,
W leaving for daycare some mornings,
me searching for work.

Autumn is the time when sadness fills me.
Because the distance to my family seems further,
the mornings are darker,
the weather wetter.

It always feels like the beginning of the end.
The end of the year,
another year full of moments that, as much as I try,
I can't hold on to.

I feel like I am loosing my grip,
on my love,
on my baby,
on myself.

Let myself cry,
my tears hidden by the rain,
watching the beauty,
in the shift in season.

Preparing for the winter.
The cold, harsh,
endlessly long,
winter.

Maybe it's just the music,
the sad notes,
the beauty in the melody,
the perfect words.


you tell me...


Thank you Rebecca at Girls Gone Child for introducing me to this wonderful song that has, so far, stirred up all of the emotions I had hid deep down inside.

the potty training update

I can't remember how much I've written about the potty training here and I am way to lazy to go through my archives to find out. So I'll just do a quick recap.

look at me diaper free in the park!


Riding my bike diaper free!


We started the potty training on W a couple of weeks ago. The first little while it was an uphill battle with me sitting him on the toilet and him holding it in until he got off the toilet and then he's pee on the floor. That went on for a bit and I was feeling very discouraged.
Then one day he started peeing in the bathtub so I told him no we don't pee in the bath and I picked him up and put him on the toilet and he peed there so I gave lots of praise and stickers and clapping and stuff. He was very excited and for the next week or so he peed on the potty at least once every day and we only had a few accidents on the floor.

Det finns inget dåligt väder, bara dåliga kläder!

For the past week or so he has barely worn diapers at all during the time he's awake and we've only had two accidents on the floor and a lot of pee pee and poo poo on the potty. Yesterday I even took him to the park for a little over an hour without a diaper and today we went out splashing in the puddles diaper-less too! And no accidents.

Happy in the rain.

Even when he wears a diaper these days he very rarely pees in it he just kind of holds it in until I put him on the potty.

All that water and no accidents!

Next step is to get him to go on the potty by himself without me putting him there but one step at a time.

it all happened so fast

Tomorrow my tiny little baby (who's already closing in on two and a half) will do his first ever half day of our daycare solution. He will be picked up at 9 am and be returned in time for lunch. I think I'm fine with it but I'm not sure. I have never left him with a stranger like that before and I have met T (his Montessori teacher who is awesome and great) and W loves her and I'm sure she'll take good care of him but regardless I feel scared.

Me and J have been fighting a lot about this these past few days out of stress and fear and stuff. It all happened so fast and lets face it I don't have a job yet so do we really need daycare 3 days a week? Well in all honesty we don't but if we don't take this opportunity now it will most likely go away and I think it will be good for W to spend some time with other kids and another person who's not me or J or family. We might just end up paying for 3 days but sending him 2.

Tomorrow is the day my little man will go off on his own and spend some hours away from us for the first time and I'm sure I will cry a little.

work in progress

I have this post I have been trying to write for about a week now and it just doesn't come together the way I want it to so I will have to keep you hanging for a little while longer.

In other news we have solved our daycare situation and it's great. I will tell you more about it as it gets more solid.

that's it for now. While you wait I suggest you go check out one of the following sites.

for all your gossip needs

for everything kids and babies

for a laugh

one of those days

The other day me and W had one of those days, you know the ones... where your kid wakes up at 5 am, then is impossible all day because he's tired.
Well we had one of those days.
W woke up at 5 am we got up tried to make the morning nice by going and getting croissants and W cried the whole way and wanted to be carried (he weighs 17 kg which is about 37 lbs).
Then he didn't want to eat...

Tantrum!

We went out for a walk on Mont-Royal since the street was blocked of to traffic and W ran all the way. At every street crossing when I asked him to hold my hand to cross...

Tantrum!

Come lunchtime he was so tired he was barely able to focus his eyes so he cried until I put him down for his nap. A short 1h 45 minutes later he woke up again and started crying straight away for no reason. When I finally got him calm and fed him a snack I decided we needed to go out for a bit. I wanted to give W a chance to try out his tricycle properly since he is a bit finicky about it. I took him and the tricycle to the schoolyard down the block and let him loose.

He did not want to sit on the bike.

He dragged the poor bike around the schoolyard on it's side and managed to scratch it up pretty badly and he insisted on trying to tip it over on its side just to say "Look Mamma it fell!" and "Wake up tricycle!". After a little while I had enough of his destructive ways with the trike and told him to at least try to ride it.

Tantrum!

Then he tried to escape out of the schoolyard and on to the street. I told him no and closed the gate.

Tantrum!

Then he decided that his primary mode of transportation should no longer be walking upright but instead walking on his knees and thereby scratching up the knees of his jeans and the tops of his shoes. When I told him to please, pretty, pretty, please don't do that...

Tantrum!

We were having one of those days when there is just not enough patience in the world and the two year old is simply terribly two and impossible.

August part 3

Here's the third and final part of the August three part series...

At the end of the month we decided to rediscover our city so me, J and W walked down to the Old Port in Montreal. It's is so beautiful down there and every time I go I end up wondering why I don't go all the time. W skipped and ran and played and took huge steps and tiny steps and Iron Giant steps while we walked along the waterfront.

Stopping only to look at the boats. We found a giant yacht from South Africa in one of the harbors.

We walked around Park LaFontaine and when W got difficult I put him on my shoulders and we trotted along the tree lined paths. We stopped for picnic by the playground and W and J fed nuts to a squirrel that got a little to unafraid of us for my taste. We found a hurt bird and tried to call the SPCA to help it only to find out that they don't serve our part of the city.

We took beautiful J with us and walked up Mount Royal and looked at the view of our beautiful city. After we visited the Saint-Laurent street market and the kid POP festival.

August was all in all a beautiful month and that is probably the reason why I didn't blog much.

August part 2

Here's part two in my three part series on August...

...the day came when we once again visited Kenzo our hairdresser. W know Kenzo very well and he loves Kenzo or he at least jokes about loving Kenzo when his Grand-Maman plays a game with him where she says "Amour..." and all of her grand-kids answer "Grand-Maman!" well all but W who on most days will answer "Amour Kenzo!" So off to Kenzo we went and told him to cut it off! And he did. Well not all of it he left some in the front successfully giving W the same haircut that the guy I had a crush on when I was 10 had.

Over the summer our tap in the bathroom broke leaving us with either constantly running cold water or no cold water at all until J's dad W's Grand-Papa came to our rescue. W was very willing to help out so three generations of men/boys spent an evening fixing the tap.

We also took J with us to the park a couple of times here we are in the Old-Port playing away.

W is showing off all of his new awesome fall clothes because the last week or so of August was surprisingly cool especially compared to the 35-45°C (95-113°F) we had to put up with for the first half.

August also saw the return of some old friend and somewhat new friends and the beginning of school.

continued tomorrow with the final part of the series.

August part 1

In an attempt to make up for not posting more frequently I have made a three part series about the month of August that I will be posting for the next three days. So here's part one...

Upon returning from a wonderful holiday in Sweden we attended W's cousin F's 9th birthday party. We played with water, ate cake and had lots of fun.

We also spent a lot of time in the park, every day pretty much. We stole other people's sand toys, had ours stolen and endured horrific tantrums every time while leaving. We even had a man in the street telling W to "Listen to your mother" (he said "Écoute ta Maman" but since I presume most of you don't speak la langue Français I translated it for you) when he was wailing and kicking me. W took no notice and continued his cries for lastbil lastbil (truck truck) meaning the toy truck that he had stolen from a kid in the park.

W also found a nice cat at the park and the nice cat climbed trees so W wanted to climb trees too. He climbed a couple but it was too hard so we had to settle for a lamp post since it has a nice ledge you can balance on.
We also enjoyed lots of ice-cream and belly laughs and wind through our hair until...
continued tomorrow in part 2

oh great

It's back to school time for many out there, me included. I start taking two more courses at university on Monday; Political theory and Community democracy. I just got all my schedules and most of it looks doable except for one thing. My Political Theory course has an exam end of October that I will do at home. You get to download the exam at a certain hour and you then have 5 hours from them to complete it. Sound good? It does sound good until you see the time. I am studying at a university in Sweden. The course is a distance course so I can do all of it from here and I'm not required to show up for any classes they all show up online. The exam they want me to take is available to download at 9 am Swedish time. Canada is 6 hours behind Sweden so for me that means it's available to download at 3 am an need to be finished before 10 am.
This is not good.
Granted I might get some peace and quiet while writing the exam seeing it's so early and everyone will be sleeping but I doubt my brain actually functions at that hour.
I wrote my teacher and asked if there is anything I can do about this so we'll see how it'll work out. I'll keep you posted.
We've been busy been around here lately rediscovering our city dealing with the embarrassment that is the car and generally spending hours and hours in the park but today it's raining.
I am the caretaker of a budgie this weekend so I have to go and feed it and give it new water and that bird hates me. It's probably because I smell like cats... can birds smell things? They don't have a nose... I don't know. The bird hates me anyways.

Beautiful weather

Lately we've been treated to lovely weather. The temperature has dropped and the sun is shining so me and W has been spending all our time outdoors.
Yesterday me, W and J went to the old port and today me, W and another J walked up Mont-Royal.

Rude people with dogs

This post is really all about me complaining about that horrid bitch (yes I said it) of a woman with her big black dog.
Yesterday morning I took W to the park, we went to the little playground park on the corner of our street because the sky was looking a bit threatening. Once there I unpacked W's sand toys by a bench right at the entrance of the park and we started making sand castles. Right in the middle of the sand castle making this huge black dog comes running up to the entrance of the park and pees on the fence about a meter away from me and W. I get annoyed for many reasons.
-One there is a huge f*cking dog about a meter away from me and my child and it's not on a leach.
-Two it's peeing in the sand in the playground.
-Three the owner sees this and does nothing about it.
-Four did I mention it's loose and really near my child?
The dog then runs away and finds two other big loose dogs to play with on the grass next to the playground. They play and growl and bark and jump and chase each other around. I keep a close eye on them since I don't want a huge dog biting my child or jumping on him or anything of that sort. I am also preparing myself to kick the stupid dog if it does choose to come close to us.
The owners appears to be having a grand time laughing and watching their dogs and don't seem to notice that I am fuming or that their dogs are chasing each other in the sand and running in between me and W. Then the big black dog needs to pee again and he chooses to do so on the little playhouse in the sand in the park. I get furious and start complaining loudly about it being disgusting and get your f*cking dog out of the sand and the playground and put it on a lead or something. The owner ignores me and the huge sign saying she's now broken the law and should receive a 300$ fine if I could only find out her name and call the police or city and complain.
After a little while she finally seem to notice my complaining and they all pack up their dogs and leave rather quickly.

Now I am not a dog hater in any way I actually like dogs a lot and I would probably have one if J liked dogs too. But I do hate dog owners who think that their dogs are so cute and adorable that no one will mind if they pee on the playground. Much like I hate parents who think their kids are so adorable that no one will mind if they empty your bag at the playground and eat all your kids snack or steal your kids toys from his hands. I like dog owner and parents who treat others with respect and that take their dogs to the dog park (there are about a million of them in Montreal) and teach their kids not to touch other peoples things without asking first.
Now is that too much to ask of people?


On a different note Happy Birthday to my little brother S (the one to the left) 13 today!


I thought I'd throw in one of W and J at F's birthday party too.

Too hot to do anything else

Embarrassing

Montreal is boiling hot these days. The temperature hovers around 30°C (86°F) but with the humidex it feels more like 40 (104). J had Thursday and Friday off this week so we took the opportunity to deal with the car. I don't know if I told you I was stopped by the police last week because my car is registered to J and well he doesn't have a license. So Thursday morning we made our way down to the SAAQ which is the society of automobile insurance of Quebec (I would write that in French if I could only figure out how to spell it) which is not to be confused with the SAQ which is the society of alcohol in Quebec (the alcohol store) to do an ownership transfer. Since we're married and since I'm not buying the car from him (I paid for it the first time around and it was only due to other reasons he's the owner) there would be no fees for this service.
At the SAAQ we got a grumpy lady who rolled her eyes at every question we asked and seemed very annoyed that we didn't know what number the odometer on the car was. After filling in some papers and signing here and there and everywhere and paying up the difference until the registration needs to be renewed in November she hands us a new license plate and sends us on our merry way. A new license plate. When I asked why I was told because. So when we got home we realized that we now need to deal with the parking sticker asap since it has the license plate number on it and we'll totally get a parking ticket if we don't change it. We decided to deal with all that in the morning and simply just leave the old plate on the car until going up to get the new sticker. Fast forward to Friday morning, as I'm getting W ready to leave J goes out to change the plate on the car. He comes in swearing a few minutes later exclaiming that it's impossible because one of the screws just spins and the other one won't turn at all. I freak out a little because I've already had a run in with the police this month and driving with an expired plate will surely not be good. Not to worry J says we'll get his dad to fix it soon and until then we'll just put the new plate in the back window and put some tape over the old plate. We do this and I have never been more embarrassed to drive my car before. We look like such idiot losers with our plate taped to the inside of the window with the only tape we had which was black electrical tape.

Now I have to make my way out to see J's dad as soon as I can so I can get this fixed because I can't drive around like this for long.

no excuse

W is sick again. Not very sick this time but sick none the less. This makes it 4 viruses in 4 months. He gets sick in the beginning of every month. It's quite something.
W has watched a lot of Pippi Långstrump (Pippi Longstocking to you non-Swedes) lately and he's been talking for the last week about "baka bullar Pippi" which translates to bake cinnamon bunns like Pippi. He even pulled out his dough roller and baked the floor a couple of times so I've been waiting for a rainy day to bake some real ones and let him help. Today is not rainy but since he's sick the park is not really an option so we did it today. The results are yummy. I would have posted photos of the whole thing if I would have had my camera but J forgot it yesterday at W's cousins birthday party. We'll get it back tomorrow... (I hope)
All the baking and the flour on the floor wore my sick little man out so he's now sleeping in mammas säng (Mamma's bed or sometimes Pappa's bed) which he's only allowed to do since he's sick.

Three more photos

Just wanted to post these because they're so cool. My mother-in-law took them when we were on the west coast in Sweden.