Monday, December 15, 2008

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





Friday, December 12, 2008

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.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

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!

Sunday, December 7, 2008

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.

Monday, December 1, 2008

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.

Friday, November 28, 2008

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.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

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.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

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.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

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.

Friday, November 21, 2008

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.