all those photos

When me and W landed in Sweden after a good 15 hours of traveling and not much sleep my mom picked us up at the airport and told me that I have 6 boxes (big boxes) waiting for me in my old bedroom (which by the way is not kept the same way I left it, my mom called me about 2 months after I moved out and told me she converted my room into an office) for me to go through. Yeah yeah yeah I said, I'll do it later. I didn't do it later at all actually, I left it for the second last day I was in the country.

I opened the first box and discovered a whole lot of photos. There were photos of me and my friends in school and me and ex-boyfriends and all the crazy people I met while living in hostels in England and while traveling. There were framed photos that used to hang on my walls and be in my bookshelves, there were photo albums I made with my own comments on the photos scribbled in silver pen on the black background. There were photos of my dad as a baby that my farmor gave me a while back and some photos of my mom when she was young. I spent most part of that day looking at old photos and remembering when they were taken and remembering the people in them and realizing how many of those people in those photos that I no longer know, that I haven't seen in years, that I can't remember their names.

There was this one photo in particular that really opened a floodgate of memories and feelings. It's a picture of me all dressed up at a party with this guy N that I barely knew at the time but had a huge crush on in time we grew to have quite a complicated relationship but not when that photo was taken. It was all new and I was so young and it felt so important what I felt for him at that time. I remember really wanting a picture of him and me and practically bribing one of our mutual friends to take my camera and force us to get in the picture together so it wouldn't seem like my idea. I was so happy to have that picture and I treasured it, I used to take it with me everywhere.

I also found the photos from the first three months I spent with my husband, only he wasn't my husband then. You can see some of those photos here. There are photos from my leaving party as I was leaving London and him to go back to Sweden to study music management. There are photos of me and E and M and all the fun we had during our time in London, there are photos of the tiny studio apartment me and E shared and of the bars we worked in. M met her J around the same time I met my J and they are still going strong and their little girl N is W's future wife.

There are photos of us roaming London, lovely London. It reminds me of the summer I was unemployed and living off my husband. We lived in this lovely house in Camden, it had 4 bedrooms and we were always at least 8 people sharing it. It was on this cobbled stoned little road just off Camden Road and I spent my days walking around London. J worked in Notting Hill so some days I used to steal his CD Walkman and walk there. I still can't listen to Postal Service without it bringing me back to warm summer days, walking along Hyde Park to Notting Hill.

I also found my old school photos, there were classphotos from ninth grade and this awkward photo of me and my then best friend J and this boy from our class that I barely knew. We all look very uncomfortable.

I ended up not doing more than two boxes all together cause it just took too long going through all those photos. Next time I go I have 4 more boxes waiting for me, maybe there is another one full of photos and memories, I kind of hope so.

The trip in pictures

Looking cute!

Sleeping on the plane across the Atlantic.

Being pushed around by the future wife...

Hanging out with auntie E.

Playing with the future wife and the future mother-in-law and auntie E.

Finding treasures at "rum för barn" (a room for kids) at the culture house.

Snowball fight!

Too busy watching "Howl's moving castle" to say goodbye to godmother I. Notice the W sized armchair.

the reason

I'm back! But I have yet to write about the trip. I'm sorry about that but I do have a good reason. Behold the cheek!


No I have not been beaten by J. I have simply been manhandled by my dentist. I returned home on Monday with a serious jet lag and a tooth ache so I made my way to the dentist Tuesday and had the troublemaker removed. It now hurts way more than it did before and my brain is porridge due to pain and medication and lack of food. I'll hopefully be back to some state of normalcy by the weekend so I promise I'll write about the trip then.

For now I'll just have to live with looking like me on the right side and looking like Rumer Willis on the left.

Off.

Tomorrow is the big day. Me and W are taking the plane to go see mormor for 10 days or so. It's a long trip and I have been stressing and packing like a mad person over the last week to get everything right. The hardest part is entertainment for the little guy. I am packing an ipod with movies and music and books and some toys. and lots of snacks.

So I just thought I'd let you know I might not update very frequently at all while I'm away since I tend to be very busy when I'm gone. But I promise I'll write a long post about the trip when I'm back again.

So behave yourselves!

Awesome!

If anyone of you have a little superhero at home just like I do, you might want to check this out. The lovely people over at "little window shoppe" are having a competition where you can win not just one but 2 awesome capes for your little superhero and his or her partner in crime.

Now don't go getting your hopes up since I am planning on winning this one myself but I guess you could always sign up for a chance to win anyways.

Check it out
http://littlewindowshoppe.com/win-a-superhero-cape-from-plum-pear-apple

School, Work and Gastro

W is sick again. He has gastro... nice. He started throwing up at 5.20 this morning and is not keeping anything down

this is how my blog started two days ago when I was supposed to write it. Then he threw up again, and again and my will to write just disappeared. Poor little tot threw up so many times I lost count until he finally fell asleep at 10.30.
Since then he's been better, still not fully himself and he's got some poop issues I won't talk about here.

Honestly, I haven't really felt like blogging this past week. I just started taking this university course on the internet (It's a distance course from Luleå Tekniska Universitet) and I started working on my project to take over the licensing business in Sweden. So I've been busy to say the least. I am also worrying a whole heaping lot about the fact that one of my book that I need for my course is not here yet and I'm supposed to hand in a report on the first 4 chapters of that book by Monday lunch. Great.
At least I got the first chapter of my other book. My mom bought it for me in Sweden and photographed the first chapter and sent me the pics so I could read it myself. I guess that's copyright infringement but I have no intentions on sharing the photos with anyone else and all the intentions of passing this course so I don't care. If I haven't mentioned it before I'm studying comparative politics. It's very interesting so far.

I contacted my first potential licensing "client" yesterday. It took me forever to get my e-mail to sound decent. My Swedish is clearly a lot worse than I thought it would be. Which doesn't bode well for my reports I have to do for school. Nothing says potential politics mayor as a report full of swenglish and grammar mistakes.

Well it's back to the books for me so I'll leave you with the cutest guitar hero you've ever seen!

frostbites

It's too cold. Only one song comes to mind.

Temptation season.

Today me and J and W went out for muffins and hot chocolate right after lunch, and before lunch we watched a bit of Monsters Inc. This might seem like a nice thing to do, and it is, but it's also something I never would have done last summer. I have noticed lately that all the principles I had and all the ideas I stood by before becoming a parent and in the first year of motherhood are slowly slipping away.

It started when I got pregnant really. I gave up everything harmful. I didn't have any coffee, hot chocolate, tea with caffeine, not a sip of anything alcoholic and no fast-food. J was a complete food nazi during my pregnancy and refused to give in to any of my cravings and made sure I didn't overindulge ("You're eating for two not like two"). As a result I was healthy and only gained 10 kg (25 lbs) during my pregnancy and I had lost it all, and more, by the time W was 4 months old. All the while I was breast feeding, which I did for 15 months, I kept it up. I didn't have any of the above mentioned things when I fed him and if I had a glass of wine I made sure W got to drink from my reserve of bottled pumped milk. I had it quite easy with the breast feeding. I had so much milk and pumping was easy so I had a big reserve in the freezer.

I talked big about my kid not watching any TV before the age of 2, and having no chocolate or candy of any sorts until he was at least 3 or 4. I would never give him fast food or let him eat macaroni and cheese from a box. I didn't want him to drink juice and I flat out refused to give him any formula of any sorts (he was given Välling instead which is an oat based beverage for young children).

It all went well, we made it through summer and fall and winter and summer and then something happened. Maybe it was the fact that I started working and J was alone with him in the mornings and took him to the boulangerie and gave him a chocolate chip cookie (he thought it was raisins). Or maybe it was that W was bigger and had more personality and curiosity and wanted what I was having. Or maybe it was that visit to McDonalds after I had my ct scan. Whatever it was it was the beginning of a downward spiral of all my values and big talk.

It started slow with W watching Feist on Sesame Street on Youtube with J. Then we started looking into what else we could watch and in the beginning of December, to get into the Christmas spirit, we started watching the Advent Calendar and the Grinch. *

Then came the cold and there is just nothing like hot chocolate on a cold cold day so it was a little sip here and another little one there. The juice was probably the first to go, when it was too hot in the summer and he refused to drink water, juice seemed like a good idea. And the macaroni and cheese is just so very practical when you have a fussy eater and no time. At least I give him an organic option and I mix in vegetables in there so it's not all bad. **

The candy I kind of sort of still stand by, but he's allowed cookies and he did eat a lot of dough over the holiday season. The fast food I blame J for. We were going out to see the cousins and we had to have lunch on the way and J wanted to go to Harvey's cause it's less bad then McD but then the Harvey's had closed so McD it was and it was good. The food came fast and there were apple slices and orange juice for W and he got a toy and he was happy. So we went again, and again until I finally said enough. Now we're having a fast food free year unless it's very special circumstances like a very long car ride somewhere.

Sometimes I get angry with myself for slacking so much with all of these things I had decided to be strict about. But I find that winter makes it harder to resist temptation. I mean we would never sit in and watch a movie in the afternoon in summer, and hot chocolate in summer is less tempting. Damn winter ruining my good intentions! And it's bloody cold too. -16°C (3.2°F) right now and tomorrow a high of -27°C (-16.6°F) or something equally cold. So here is a little something to warm your heart!

In my awesome winter cosy knitted shirt with the blankie of course.

Playing with Grand-Papa.


Gotta keep those toes warm.
After playing in the snow. Rosy red cheeks!

*I talk more about this here.

**I just learned to make my own mac and cheese so there will be no more boxes unless I have no time at all.

Snow

We've been out playing in the snow, here are some pictures.


At the cousins house outside Montreal.



With two of the three cousins F and L.


Hanging out in the snow.


Yesterday at Park LaFontaine. Very unhappy little boy.


Close up
So pretty.

Making snow angels.

1 is better than 2!

Me and W in the morning, lots of cuddles.

For the last three days I have had 2 kids. I had W as usual and I had his "cousin" L. L isn't really W's cousin, he's J's mother's cousin's son (or something to that effect) but since L's mom is close in age to J they grew up as cousins. Therefor L, being 6 months younger than W, is W's cousin.

Scoot, scoot, scoot!

It's crazy what difference 6 months does at this age. W is almost 19 months now and L just turned 1 on December 25th. I know W was always ahead of the curve and he was pretty strong and sturdy right from the get go and I don't remember him ever being so fragile and weak as L is. L can stand up but he just doesn't, when we try his legs just gives way under him and he sits right back down again. He doesn't crawl but scoots around on his bum, which is very cute actually, especially when W is copying him and they scoot alongside each other.

Holding hands while watching TV.

Having L around also made me realize how much personality our little ones have right from the get go and how different they are.
I guess you can say I've been blessed with the most awesome and fantastic little boy in the whole wide world. He is strong, he has cried but it was always for a reason and never for any real extended period or time, he's funny, he's a quick learner. He is good with food, people, animals and other kids. He's easy to bring along with you, he even handles trans-Atlantic flights with stop-overs (he's a pain but I've seen a lot worse on those flights). He sleeps good (knocking hard on wood), he loves reading and he's very cute.

I'll make a great older brother one day. I can do the feeding of the baby already!

L is not the same as W at all. It's somewhat weird the way he holds himself and what he can and cannot do. It's like he's developed all of his fine motor skills but skipped over the gross motor skills. He doesn't hold on to things or people for one which is what I think is the root to why he's not standing up. I mean he's not gonna go from sitting to standing without holding on to something. He doesn't seem to be able to get up to sitting from lying down either but I can be wrong about that one, I found that it was just easier to help him then to let him cry long enough to see if he could do it by himself. Now I'm sure he's probably gonna start doing the standing and the walking soon enough, certain kids are just late, but what baffles me is how good his fine motor skills are. That kid can handle a spoon like an adult. W can't handle the spoon as well as L can and he's got 6 months on him. In another way it's weird because L clearly has the brain of a one year old but he lacks the skills to perform the tasks he want's to do, so he gets frustrated and whines and cries.

Playing in the tub. Splish splash!

This is obviously not his fault, since he's just a tiny little baby still, but it makes it less pleasant to care for him when he whines. It didn't really help that he was with us for 3 hours longer than originally planned on the last day and that W had a fever of 39.9°C (that's 103.8°F).

Standing up with a bit of help...

Poor little thing has really dry skin too but I showed his mom what products we use on W and after 3 days his skin was so much better so I thought I'd share my skin care advice with you too.

If you or your baby has dry or sensitive or irritated skin you should use A-Derma. It's a French company and they use Rhealba oats in their cleansers and creams and that stuff is great. For W I use the soap free gel cleanser for hair and body in the A-Derma pediatrics line, then I moisturise his entire body and face with A-Derma Exomega cream and if he gets any kind of diaper redness or rash or very ry cheeks for instance, I use the A-Derma pediatrics Dermalibour stick on it and it's gone in 24 hours. Here in Quebec you can buy all those products conviently at Jean-Coutu.

W with a very high fever, resting on the floor.

Now I'm off to prep for dinner.