Wednesday family day

Augie is home from dagis on Wednesdays now (we can only have him there 30 hours per week, so we're doing four longer days rather than five shorter days), so James is taking paternity leave on those days and we're having family time. Today we went to a park in the morning and then the public transportation museum in the afternoon. Everyone is appropriately worn out!

Watching a backhoe digging at a construction site:

Eating his creation:

 Hmmm, not so tasty:

Demonstrating his quick-chop technique:

Taking a ride at the transport museum (Spårvägsmuseet):

Testing out Dai Dai's side of the stroller:

Lincoln Park Conservatory

(After this post, I'll be done playing catch-up!).

On a wintry spring day in Chicago, Augie, James and I went to the Lincoln Park Conservatory to get a much-needed infusion of green. My uncles took me here years and years ago (I think!), and it was such a pleasure to return.

I know this is out of focus, but I love that little smile:

My favorite fern, the maidenhair:

Little explorer:

Like son, like father:

Oh, how I miss all that shaggy hair!

Just inspecting the water lines and drainage systems:

While I'm at it, might as well check Baba's teeth:

Definitely gonna need some work done:

Friday with my baby

As a stay-at-home mom, the weekend isn't all that different from the week for me. But I still feel a sort of relief when Friday afternoon rolls around - we have the weekend to look forward to, James is home with us, and we can spend some family time together exploring Stockholm, making new friends, or just hanging out on the couch.

It was a big week for Augie - I'm sure he's ready for the weekend, too! He went to preschool three days. You know what else he did that was great? He peed in his potty twice! I'm not wholly sure whether it was coincidence or if he did it on purpose, but either way, we think it's a really big deal. We've been slowly potty teaching him -- no emphasis on outcome, but taking him to sit on the potty regularly and using words and signs to let him know when he's pottying. So it was either dumb luck, or we made the teeniest bit of progress this week.

Augie and I headed into town to the go the Music and Theater Museum again. While he had fun banging on the instruments, he had even more fun pushing the button that opens and closes the doors between the exhibits. In fact, that's probably the only thing he remembers about today.

What will I remember about today? Other than thoroughly enjoying trudging through Stockholm in the rain so Augie could take a late-afternoon nap? Snuggling with and singing to my baby.

Music and Theatre Museum

I took Augie to the Music and Theatre Museum this afternoon, as I'd read that it has an instrument room that's great for kids to explore. Augie certainly enjoyed making noise!

The traditional "wheel with metal piece on stringy-thing" instrument:

This was fantastic. It looks a bit like an organ, but the tube on the left is air that's piped in. Whenever you pull one of the knobs toward you, air flows through the wooden pipe. He loved this:

He sort of enjoyed this, but it didn't make enough noise for him:

It's the weekend! We're going to explore some towns/neighborhoods where we might want to live. We've been dragging Augie along to very un-fun things this week (the tax board, the bank), so maybe we'll give him a break and go do something fun. 

Naturhistoriska riksmuseet

This afternoon we took Augie to the Stockholm's natural history museum, convenient located right across the street from us. He had just as much fun exploring different textures of flooring as he did trying to climb over large metallic animals. I think he had a great time.