By the lake

We finally saw the sun today; unfortunately it had clouded over by the time we were ready to go play outside. We went walking anyway, around the lake towards Baba's office.

Baby bed head

We haven't been taking many pictures lately. Maybe it's because we see the sun only once every few weeks, and even then, only for a few hours. I think James and I are both feeling a bit drained from the lack of light - though it doesn't seem to have affected Augie at all. The days are getting longer, of course, but when the sky is constantly overcast, you just don't get that much-needed dose of feel-good sunlight. And when everything's always dim and cold, I'm not inspired to take out the camera.

But sometimes Augie tries to take some selfies. These are Baba-assisted, after he played with the phone camera on his own for a bit (we also have a few shots of the floor).

Vasa boy

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a few days; it was a full week, and I've been extremely tired in the evenings. Let me share a picture, and then I'll tell you all that happened this week (if I can remember it all!).

Our friend Joe turned up Monday morning for a two-day visit. He was our first visitor in Stockholm, and it was nice to have a friend around for a couple days. While he was here, we went to the Vasa Museum and ate dinner at a delicious vegetarian buffet. Joe left us for Prague on Wednesday morning.

But on Monday morning, we also received our personnummer(s) in the mail! This means we can do things that real people do, like open a bank account, get a mortgage, go to the doctor, enroll in Swedish classes, etc. I was shocked at how efficient the whole process was. We put in our application about ten days previous, and were told we'd have to wait 4-6 weeks. We called the tax agency last Friday afternoon to ask if they could expedite our applications, and we were given the direct number to the man handling our case. I called him to (politely) ask if he could speed things up (for reasons we'll get to in a future post), he said yes, and we hung up. I figured we'd have another week. Lo and behold, we got our letters in the mail on Monday! Meaning that he processed our applications immediately after he got off the phone with me and put our numbers in the mail!

Can you imagine calling the IRS after submitting an application for something, getting the direct number of the person handling your case, and then getting your result the next business day? Yeah, me neither.

Thursday afternoon we went back to the tax board with our personnummers to get ID cards. It was quite a hassle - you have to pay for the IDs somewhere else and then bring your receipt back, and they had misspelled the Elliott in me and Augie's names, so we had to do a whole runaround to get that fixed before doing the IDs - but all the employees were SO helpful and friendly, and they went out of their way to take care of us. I've never been treated so well at a government agency. It was as if they were pleased to be doing their jobs.

Two other good things happened this week: 1) we learned that there's probably space for Augie at the local preschool, so we may start taking him a few hours/days per week! I am so excited about this; I truly can't imagine what it would be like to have a couple hours a week to myself and I am almost manically clinging to this possibility. Expect big changes to the blog and to my overall sanity if this works out. 2) I've begun conversations with a woman to open a Music Together center here in Stockholm! It still feels like a far-off possibility, but it's very exciting to think about.

At last - time to crash on the couch. After all this week's activity, I need some serious screen time.

Loving him

Loving him is so easy. There are all the kisses he gives us, the hugs, the laughs, the jokes he tells. The way he laughs at all our jokes. The way, if you're sitting on the floor, he walks up behind you, reaches his arms around your back and lays his head on your neck. The way he reads the freight train book when he sits on the potty. The way he climbs onto the couch and looks around, so pleased. The way he plays peekaboo with his technicolor blanket. The way he slurps milk from a cup. The way he climbs on my back or stomach when I practice yoga. The way he sighs in his sleep. The way, after his 5am feeding, that he lies in bed between us, eyes half open, giving us both a kiss before fluttering back to sleep...

Our first visitor

We have our first visitor to Stockholm! A friend from our California days, Joe, is passing through and spending a few nights with us. To welcome him, Augie sat down and read him a story.

Pappa!

In my post the other day, I shed a particularly unkind (albeit deserved) light on Stockholmers. I'd like to amend that to note that the individual Swedes we've met and had personal conversations with are almost all kind, charming, and friendly. We've received many invitations to people's homes for lunch or dinner, we've been given toys, a fantastic stroller blanket, and a winter suit, and James has been heartily welcomed at work. So I want to clarify that I'm not saying that everyone here is terrible; it seems that there's a distinct split between how Stockholmers treat strangers and how they treat friends. We've met so many kind, hospitable, and fascinating people through James's work, and we are grateful for that wonderful network of international friends and colleagues.

Something else that I quite appreciate about Swedish society is how active both parents are in raising the children. From what I can gather, it seems that the mother usually takes the first year of parental leave to be at home with the baby, and the father takes the remaining 5-7 months. I cannot imagine, anywhere else in the world, fathers being so encouraged and committed - and expected! - to raise babies.

Nor can I imagine anywhere else in the world where would you find a slick, glossy magazine called "Daddy"!

How cool are Stockholm's children's libraries?

Eating his first whole pear, sporting some serious bedhead:

Kindness

Something wonderful happened yesterday. Augie and I were on the train to Täby Centrum (to find the one grocery store in Stockholm that sells baby food made entirely of vegetables!), and as we neared our stop, I stood up and pushed the stroller towards the door. A woman was standing in front of us. As the doors opened she turned to me, smiled, and said, "Can I help you?" (well, actually she said, "Kan jag hjälpa dig?"). "Yes, please!", I answered, and she picked up the front end of the stroller and helped us climb off the train. She set the stroller down, smiled again, and turned and walked away.

This small act of kindness will come as no surprise to most Americans; it's common sense and basic good manners to help people who look like they could use a little help, most especially mothers trying to do anything at all with a baby in tow. But here in Sweden, that type of kind offering is almost unheard of. I don't know if it's Swedes in general or Stockholmers in particular, but people here are rude. A more common occurrence is that someone will step in front of the stroller to get on or off the subway before me (going so far as to bump into me if I'm in the way, even if I was standing there first), and a Stockholmer will almost never step aside to give you space on the sidewalk. No one has ever held a door open for me in this city. The other day I was trying to exit a department store with two sets of double doors, so I turned the stroller around and backed into the first door, pushing it open with my back and trying to pull Augie through. A woman was entering the store at the same time, so I waited for her to walk through the second set of doors. Rather than holding the door open for me so I could get me and the baby out, she actually rushed around in front of me so that she could get through the door the stroller was holding open before it shut.

I wonder if I will ever get over the general rudeness here, or if I will eventually just accept it as the way people are.

So, back to the wonderful moment yesterday: I was deeply touched that a strange stopped to help me maneuver the stroller down the train stairs. And she smiled! I am grateful to her, and I hope there are more like her out there.

The mall we took the train to yesterday had a large kids' room, where I found this super-fun swing to put Augie in. He loved it!

Sunrise and selfies

Yesterday was the 1-year anniversary of this blog! I made my first post on January 28, 2013, on Augie's 2-month birthday. (Which means that Augie reached 14 months yesterday). I've loved having a record of our little life together, and being able to share our life with you, dear friends and family spread so far around the world (we have regular hits from California, Michigan, New Jersey, England, Australia, and Hong Kong -- wow!).

If I'm being honest, I have to admit that I wish my posts were more thoughtful, that I shared more of the thoughts and feelings and experiences going on here in Augieland; I won't make excuses, I'll just say that it's hard, and that my better self hopes to write more thoughtful, more engaging, and funnier posts in the coming year. It may mean fewer posts, but if so, I promise they'll be better.

At this time of year, we get up before the sun does; on the rare day when it's not cloudy, we get to watch the sun rise:

After dinner yesterday Augie got his hands on my phone and somehow got the camera going, and then he took his first selfies:

Okay, I helped with this one:

Self-imposed exile

While we were skyping with my parents the other day, Augie put himself in time out. 

Attached at the chest

Augie has transitioned to one nap a day now, but it's still difficult for him to make it through the morning to naptime. Some days he's okay for the long morning stretch, other days he's obviously tired and needs to go to sleep. I've been hoping that he would stretch that nap to be at least 2 hours long, so that he can make it through the long afternoon (and I can have some personal time), but so far he's only taking 1.25 hour naps.

This morning we went walking to run a few errands around campus. Just as we were heading home, Augie fell asleep. Augie's getting big and I won't be able to carry him in the Ergo much longer, so these moments are priceless to me.

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. 

Baby-Baba time

We've been having more family time here in Stockholm, thanks to a more laid-back work environment (made possible by a society that values family, made possible by the great socialist mother state). James is able to be home every day at a reasonable hour (always before 5), so we have time to play games together in the kitchen. After dinner, we usually even have time to sit down together on the couch and relax while plays near us. We think it's so important that he see us relaxing and calmly enjoying each other's company (that means me not shouting at James!), and taking time out of our day to just be together. We really didn't do that in Princeton, only a little bit on the weekends. It's nice. I think we're all a little bit happier.

I'm pretty sure he's not a baby anymore...

I know, I know - I've been saying this for weeks, probably months. But yesterday I took a couple pictures of Augie (the ones below), and when I uploaded them to the computer, I didn't see my baby in them - I saw a little boy.

These photos especially made me see him anew: