Shenanigans in the backyard on the nicest day so far this spring.
My favorite part of this series is watching how August gets engaged and starts jumping with us:
Friday, April 10, 2015
Silliness with cousins
I still have a lot of photos of August and Leif and the cousins to share, even though they left a week ago. I have a feeling it will take a while to get them all posted.
Shenanigans in the backyard on the nicest day so far this spring.
My favorite part of this series is watching how August gets engaged and starts jumping with us:
Shenanigans in the backyard on the nicest day so far this spring.
My favorite part of this series is watching how August gets engaged and starts jumping with us:
August at the Air Zoo
So, we're supposed to be back home in Stockholm now, but we missed our flight (James's flight from Portland to Chicago was delayed 5 hours, arriving just after our international flight left). So we have another few days in Kalamazoo, as the first flight we could get back home is on Monday.
Last week Grandma and Grandpa took all the kiddos (and Uncle Ben) to the Air Zoo while I drove to Indiana to visit my dear friend Sabrina.
Going on the Ferris wheel with Uncle Ben and Gwenn:
Just running around:
Last week Grandma and Grandpa took all the kiddos (and Uncle Ben) to the Air Zoo while I drove to Indiana to visit my dear friend Sabrina.
Going on the Ferris wheel with Uncle Ben and Gwenn:
Just running around:
Monday, April 6, 2015
Happy Easter!
On Sunday morning, we did a little Easter egg hunt with August. Grandma gave him a basket, I hid the eggs, and off he went. He had so much fun finding eggs, and then just as much fun eating the chocolate and stuffing the coins into his pocket.
August hasn't yet learned that chocolate melts in your hand if you grip it too tightly.
The day before Easter we went to my Aunt Jill's house, where my cousins and their kids did an Easter egg hunt.
Here's August hunting for Easter eggs:
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Cousin time
Both boys, and especially August, are enjoying their time with cousins. Ben and his kids left today, but we'll have more time with my cousins and their kids in the next few days.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Cousin love
We're in Michigan visiting my family, and we're so busy with kids--and exhausted from the flight and jet lag--that blogging hasn't really been on my mind. But I'll try to get a few pictures up in the next week anyway.
Friday, March 27, 2015
It's ours!
It's true, it's final, it's official: the apartment is ours! The keys are ours! The mortgage debt is ours!
We learned when we went out there this week that the whole complex is heated with geothermal heating, and all the water is pumped in from the sea and desalinated on site. We'll start moving (slowly) after we return from the US mid-April, with the intention of being out there full time by the beginning of May. August will start at his new dagis (a Waldorf preschool) on May 5.
Even Leif is excited:
Here's a video walkthrough, replete with construction noise:
Beautiful wood floors, marble windowsills:
Pretty much all the white space you see out the windows is water:
We learned when we went out there this week that the whole complex is heated with geothermal heating, and all the water is pumped in from the sea and desalinated on site. We'll start moving (slowly) after we return from the US mid-April, with the intention of being out there full time by the beginning of May. August will start at his new dagis (a Waldorf preschool) on May 5.
Even Leif is excited:
Here's a video walkthrough, replete with construction noise:
Beautiful wood floors, marble windowsills:
Fresh appliances that no one has ever used before!
Pretty much all the white space you see out the windows is water:
Thursday, March 26, 2015
You look like a happy mama
I was walking home from the furniture store with Leif this morning when a kind-looking, middle-aged man walking towards us said something in Swedish. "Jag pratar inte svenska!" (I don't speak Swedish) I replied as he passed by, and he said, in English, "You look like a happy mama. That makes me happy!" I kept walking, he kept walking, and the encounter was over.
My first thought was, How un-Swedish of him to say something (kind!) to a stranger! My second thought was, Well, yeah! He's right. At the exact moment he said that to me I was fantasizing about couches (we bought one!), but I am, in fact, very contented with my life as a mama. With my babies. With these boys who fill my days and nights with wonder and joy, poop and snot, contended sighs and tiny voices.
And it helps - oh, how it helps! - that Leif's sleep has miraculously, instantly improved! The night I wrote bemoaning the situation, it changed. Three overnight wake-ups instead of five; last night Leif did two four-hour stretches of sleep. He's connecting his sleep cycles and I'm finally completing sleep cycles! Here's hoping this trend continues even through our intentional travel next week....
My first thought was, How un-Swedish of him to say something (kind!) to a stranger! My second thought was, Well, yeah! He's right. At the exact moment he said that to me I was fantasizing about couches (we bought one!), but I am, in fact, very contented with my life as a mama. With my babies. With these boys who fill my days and nights with wonder and joy, poop and snot, contended sighs and tiny voices.
And it helps - oh, how it helps! - that Leif's sleep has miraculously, instantly improved! The night I wrote bemoaning the situation, it changed. Three overnight wake-ups instead of five; last night Leif did two four-hour stretches of sleep. He's connecting his sleep cycles and I'm finally completing sleep cycles! Here's hoping this trend continues even through our intentional travel next week....
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
The puddle jumper and my sleep travails
Let's just start with something cute.
Oh, guys. This sleep thing. It's so rough right now. I've mentioned it before, and I'll belabor the point -- I'm not sleeping, but I am losing my mind.
Like clockwork, Leif wakes up every two hours at night (except when he wakes up every hour!). Which means that after waking up myself, feeding him, going to the bathroom, and getting back to bed, I sleep about 1.75 hours at a time until early morning (4ish), at which point Leif usually wakes every hour until August gets up and demands my presence in the kitchen at 6. It doesn't matter what time I go to bed or what time I turn of screens - I just can't get enough sleep. I can't even complete a single sleep cycle!
And I'm feeling it. I'm moody and exhausted, yes, but more insidiously, I just can't quite get things right. I forget times and dates. I miss (obvious) details. I can't remember the word I was looking for - and sometimes the word is as obvious as "knife" and I have to say something like, "the long thing you use at dinner on your plate" (that really happened). Simply put, I cannot be trusted with anything, much less anything important. And blogging feels almost entirely out of the question.
We don't know why Leif is waking so much - whether he's genuinely hungry that often, or doesn't know how to connect his sleep cycles, or he's cold, or his teeth hurt, or he'd prefer the sound of rain falling on a tin roof to the "summer rain" white noise we play for him - or if it's all of these things. Maybe he's just out to sabotage my sanity.
The irony is that we've put way more effort into teaching him how to sleep on his own than we ever did with August, and it turns out August was a better sleeper. Leif can put himself to sleep for some naps and he used to do it regularly for bedtime at night. I've been working on helping him learn how to get himself all the way to sleep rather than always nursing him to sleep, as we did with August, or rocking, walking, bouncing, or holding him until he's asleep. Sometimes he's fine on his own, sometimes he needs the tiniest bit of help (by which I mean I lie down next to him and he takes my face into his hands with the grip of death, lets out a contented sigh, and falls asleep), and sometimes it's a more involved process. But there's no doubt that he's actually getting good at getting himself to sleep with minimal parental involvement.
After our travels to the US, we're going to take strategic action. We don't know quite what the strategy will be, but we've got to do something.
So, here's your puddle jumper:
The spectators:
The poser:
Oh, guys. This sleep thing. It's so rough right now. I've mentioned it before, and I'll belabor the point -- I'm not sleeping, but I am losing my mind.
Like clockwork, Leif wakes up every two hours at night (except when he wakes up every hour!). Which means that after waking up myself, feeding him, going to the bathroom, and getting back to bed, I sleep about 1.75 hours at a time until early morning (4ish), at which point Leif usually wakes every hour until August gets up and demands my presence in the kitchen at 6. It doesn't matter what time I go to bed or what time I turn of screens - I just can't get enough sleep. I can't even complete a single sleep cycle!
And I'm feeling it. I'm moody and exhausted, yes, but more insidiously, I just can't quite get things right. I forget times and dates. I miss (obvious) details. I can't remember the word I was looking for - and sometimes the word is as obvious as "knife" and I have to say something like, "the long thing you use at dinner on your plate" (that really happened). Simply put, I cannot be trusted with anything, much less anything important. And blogging feels almost entirely out of the question.
We don't know why Leif is waking so much - whether he's genuinely hungry that often, or doesn't know how to connect his sleep cycles, or he's cold, or his teeth hurt, or he'd prefer the sound of rain falling on a tin roof to the "summer rain" white noise we play for him - or if it's all of these things. Maybe he's just out to sabotage my sanity.
The irony is that we've put way more effort into teaching him how to sleep on his own than we ever did with August, and it turns out August was a better sleeper. Leif can put himself to sleep for some naps and he used to do it regularly for bedtime at night. I've been working on helping him learn how to get himself all the way to sleep rather than always nursing him to sleep, as we did with August, or rocking, walking, bouncing, or holding him until he's asleep. Sometimes he's fine on his own, sometimes he needs the tiniest bit of help (by which I mean I lie down next to him and he takes my face into his hands with the grip of death, lets out a contented sigh, and falls asleep), and sometimes it's a more involved process. But there's no doubt that he's actually getting good at getting himself to sleep with minimal parental involvement.
After our travels to the US, we're going to take strategic action. We don't know quite what the strategy will be, but we've got to do something.
So, here's your puddle jumper:
The spectators:
The poser:
Friday, March 20, 2015
Captain Chaos and the Hooded Dumpling
James is away in Berlin for a couple days, and I'm flying solo with the wee bairns (credit to Joshua). I'm mostly exhausted, but that's nothing new, right? He'll be home in the morning, so I only have about twelve more hours of musical beds to play.
One of James's best friends is in town with his wife, and they were gracious enough to bring takeout over this evening (gluten-free pizza) and play with August while I helped Leif go to sleep. It's nice to have old friends here.
August loves riding bikes and peddles furiously when he has an open pitch. It's a bit terrifying to watch, but he's actually quite good at steering and (narrowly) avoiding obstacles and collisions.
This little one has spent a lot of time in his stroller as we do dagis pick-up, and he's getting better with waiting patiently outside while I'm in getting August dressed to come home. If you can zoom in on this first picture, you can just make out his new teeth!
One of James's best friends is in town with his wife, and they were gracious enough to bring takeout over this evening (gluten-free pizza) and play with August while I helped Leif go to sleep. It's nice to have old friends here.
August loves riding bikes and peddles furiously when he has an open pitch. It's a bit terrifying to watch, but he's actually quite good at steering and (narrowly) avoiding obstacles and collisions.
This little one has spent a lot of time in his stroller as we do dagis pick-up, and he's getting better with waiting patiently outside while I'm in getting August dressed to come home. If you can zoom in on this first picture, you can just make out his new teeth!
Thursday, March 19, 2015
August
Sorry I've been delinquent.... So very tired.
In these pictures, August was enraptured watching a tractor pick up, haul, and dump leaves into a dumpster.
In these pictures, August was enraptured watching a tractor pick up, haul, and dump leaves into a dumpster.
Monday, March 16, 2015
Cafe baby
I'm so behind on my posts - I have pictures from the last two weeks that I keep meaning to post but never get to (mortgage and taxes, finding a new preschool, etc.). James and I had lunch together two weeks ago and took this little guy with us:
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