I have done it once before, one year, when I stayed home with our daughter, now it is time for me to take care of our son and our daughter since she only is in preschool for 15 hours a week.

Preschool started today too, so today was really a day of changes. Our daughter needs more friends to play with than we can provide here at home so preschool it is. We have gotten a place at a really nice preschool in the next village to the south from us so it’s not far away. I’m just missing the bicycle path there; otherwise I would have used the bicycle trailer most days. Now I think I might do it once or twice as I have to take backroads that are more than twice the distance. I just don’t bicycle with my kids along a main road with a speed limit of 90 km/h.

That is just one way this time will be different than last time. Living in a house changes things too. There is always something to do when taking care of kids and household isn’t enough. I doubt I will get bored. I doubt I’ll get many other things done, kids and household has a tendency to be more time-consuming than I anticipate.

Anyhow, if you have your ways by Gamla Bo, give me a call and maybe you can stop by for a cup of tea.

Last Wednesday we went to a second ultrasound. We have a few of those booked due to the fact that Susanna has gotten pregnancy diabetes again. She had it while we were waiting for our daughter too. This time, as we live in a different part of Sweden now, they tested her much earlier for diabetes. Susanna wants to have the child at a certain hospital. So she made up her mind to treat her diabetes with food, rather than with insulin. The hospital where she wants to have our baby doesn’t take women that are treated with insulin.

So now she is eating a very strict diet, basically a LCHF diet. It’s hard. Especially at the holidays like Christmas and Easter right now. She can’t really eat any of the sweet stuff. And she doesn’t. I’m so proud of her.

It does rub of at me too. Most days she doesn’t make different food for me. I don’t mind it at all. I do miss the pasta and rice, but it’s not hard like I expected it. And it does me good.

Here is a picture of Poff:

We are now really getting our house in order. During the last week I have started putting up our paintings on the walls. We haven’t had them up since we left Stockholm. (Okay, we had a few up where there already were nails on the walls in Höör but most of them were stacked away). The house becomes so much more homey with paintings.

The garden is also getting into place. A few weeks ago my parents were here and they helped me build a sandbox for our daughter. The sand we had delivered. It came in a really old truck.

The sand truck:

I have also been digging up a little garden. I don’t know if we will grow much this year. I have started some tomatoes; they will be a bit late though. Susanna wants to grow a few more vegetables. One day in the future we hope to have most of our vegetables during the summer from our garden. That was one of the reasons that we wanted a big plot like we have.

The trees are now starting to get leafs. We have one little tree just by our house that blossomed with small white flowers. We are not quite sure what kind of tree it is but it has long pointy thorns too. Most trees on our plot are birches; we do have a few apple trees, a bunch of cherry trees some beeches, a chestnut tree, some oak trees and some shrubs we don’t really know what they are yet. Oh, and we do have two small spruce trees, they will become Christmas trees as they don’t really fit on our plot.

I’m so happy we have this place. I really love working in the garden. I love hearing all the birds in the morning, especially when I go for my morning run. I love the sunsets from our balcony. The fireplace in the living room. My lovely wife, our daughter and Poff that soon will join us.

We have some wildlife here too. Most are rabbits and moles. We do have a lot of birds. The pheasants are strutting around. Kites roaming the sky in search for some small rodent. Gees living on the field. All the small birds that live around the house. One morning as I ran my round a badger crossed my path. And last weekend, as Susanna and I went to bed far too late we saw deer buck just outside the window. We have rabbits too, but I’m more ambivalent about them as they might make it hard to grow our vegetables.

The full moon the other night: 

Today we went over to the house to clear some things with the previous owners; among other things we decided what things they didn’t need to trash to clear the house. We had talked about the things in the garden shed before. We also knew about the fact that some of the shelves would stay. What we didn’t know that with the house we would be boat owners. Okay it’s just a canoe but still it’s a boat. Some nice surprise there; not only do we live close to the lake, but we have the means to get out onto it.

We will also get one sofa; it will complement our lounge perfectly. We are now in the process of filling our model of the house with furniture, so that we know where to put the things when we move.

Maybe we should be starting packing now? There are still some things to figure out before that, like the fact; can we use the boxes we used in the last move, or will they want the boxes back just during our crazy moving days? We will try to move before Christmas, we just don’t know when we will have time to sleep too. (As I work and our daughter keeps Susanna busy during the day). I can already announce that if anyone feels called to help us with the move (we’ll do it ourselves this time) and needs a break from Christmas shopping, just give us a call. We will probably need help more than once during December.

Our daughter seems to like the house too. Today Susanna showed her the room we are thinking will be hers and she approved of it. And she really loves the stairs. And the cat. But we won’t get the cat.

I haven’t written about this here before: We have decided to move to the south. We have always had a long term plan of owning a house. In Stockholm houses are really expensive. Too expensive for the life we want to live. So we figured out that to own a house we need to find a better way. As we have family in Skåne (Susanna’s parents live here) we thought it would be a good idea to move here. One other thing that makes Skåne a good place to move to is that it’s possible to work there in the professions we have. The move should be made before our daughter would start school.

Last year we visited my aunt. Her husband said one thing that made us think. Start with your dream now. Don’t wait, start now with something simple and work your way up to what you want. In waiting you only loose time. We thought about how this would apply to us: We probably should start to rethink the time frame. During the Christmas-holiday we had time to think. We decided that we should change our time frame a bit. Now the goal is to move to Skåne by the end of August.

This means:

We need jobs in Skåne. (We are working on that).

We need a place to live in Skåne. This is why we went down here this time.

We have during the last week looked at 12 different houses. It’s hard work looking at houses. We have been so fortunate that Susanna’s parents have a good hand with our daughter so they have looked after her the days we had many houses to look at.

After looking at 12 houses we do better know what we want. Five of the houses were really interesting. None of them had all the things we want, but that might be impossible as we have a budget to stick to. Most of them were okay places, but just not for us.

We looked at one house were we would have been owners of 30 meters of E6. (It was hardly a place to bring up kids, living at the edge of heavy traffic). The house wasn’t that nice either.

We looked at one other house where after walking up the stairs I decided it wasn’t really a good idea to be two people on the stairs.

We looked at an odd house in the middle of the forest that really more looked like a big tent and it was filled with cats, (I counted 5 I think), the only thing missing was the crazy cat lady.

We looked at a small house that had a nice plot of land by Rönneå, just that the house was not really a place for a family and needed a lot of work.

We looked at a house with more birdcages than Skansen. It had a pool and I think it was four ponds. The plot was over landscaped, it was nice and all, but just too much.

We looked at a really beautiful house that had a too small plot.

We looked at a simple house that needed plenty of work and was only heated with wood.

Then we looked at five houses that were more interesting.

One nice one with a view of Denmark. It wasn’t possible to see the water between though. It had the rooms we need, a bit small plot, but it will be easy to rent land from the surrounding farmers as they have land that is difficult to use for them. The current owners do this as they have horses.

One small one with a lovely plot of land.

One that we looked at already in January. It was a well-built house, using very little energy. The plot was half in a nature reserve and half outside. Parts of the house had barely been used.

One that was super-cosy. It was small on paper, but the layout was really smart, making it one of the bigger houses despite the numbers. It also had a lovely plot of land. It was just a bit far off, actually in the same neighbourhood as the tent.

And one with a winter lake view. It had a fine but messy piece of land and the house had high ceilings and plenty of bathrooms. And it had rhododendrons. Big rhododendrons, as big as on Roan Mountain, just not as many. Here it would be possible to go swimming, as Ringsjön is close.

Now we have to figure out what we want. When we have our jobs secured we will go on and make an offer, so we have to look at some of the houses again, with help of people that know more of houses than we. I’ll keep you posted…

Some years are just normal years. The last one was that in some way. Normal years are good, they give you time to reflect on life. No real life changing thing happened. As far as I know anyhow. (Some of the life changing things have the tendency to first show themselves after some time).

Will 2013 be a normal year again, or will it bring big change? I don’t know. There are things brewing, but nothing is actually planned.

A few things are more certain:

• I will go back to work. (Just the date is not decided yet).
• Our daughter will turn two. (She actually turns 16 months today).
• We will travel to Skåne a few times, the first trip to see my cousin in law become a priest in the Church of Sweden.
• Our daughter will learn so many more things.

None of these things will qualify this year as non-normal.

I just hope I can make the most of every moment of this year anyway. I have started out good I think. Like today, when I took our daughter for a ride in the bicycle wagon to go shopping despite the snow. (You who know me know that I like bicycling in the snow). After dinner tonight I also took a few rounds down the slope beside our house on the snowracer. I think I might enjoy it more than her, but she likes it too. Now the snow is really fast so we have to turn around the house to not go through the thorn bushes and down the steep slope into the nature reserve (that contains plenty of trees before ending in the lake Mälaren, that isn’t frozen over here so far).

This morning I saw this post on facebook where there were 45 good advices given by a 90 year old lady named Regina Brett. I looked it up, since I liked the advice given and found out it wasn’t a 90 year old lady after all giving the advice and it wasn’t only 45 but five more. But it is good advice anyway so I shared it there, and I share it here too: http://www.reginabrett.com/life_lessons.php

I think I might print them and post them on my board here at home.

The other day as I was bicycling home from church I went by a little group of people that were taking photos. I thought that one of them looked familiar, but she lives a bit away nowadays so I thought it is just someone similar. Then when I glanced through her blog the other day, I recognised a picture taken at the spot I bicycled by. I should have stopped and said hi. (And here is the link to that blogpost: http://litenlisa.blogspot.se/2013/01/en-ovantad-grej.html)

After Susanna proofread this post she said she wanted to show me a thing. We had the book that Regina Brett wrote on the 50 advices standing in our shelf (translated to Swedish). Now I have a new book to read.

Last Friday was a new record though. Susanna had some thing at her work with dinner attached to it. She left right about eight and didn’t come home until half past 11 at night, that’s fifteen and a half hours, more than five hours longer than the longest she has been away from our daughter before. I can’t imagine how that feels. Susanna and our daughter have a special relationship, sure all mothers have that with their kids, but I think Susanna is one of the more attached kinds. I think that is good. That makes for a good caring mother.

This night was also the first time I had to get our daughter to bed by myself. I haven’t done this before. Mainly because Susanna is breastfeeding our daughter to sleep most nights (I think I know of one exception lately where Susanna and our daughter went to bed, but before the breastfeeding started our daughter just fell asleep). I’m not that good at that, due to the lack of milk-producing breast like most other men. The only way I have to get her to sleep is to walk with her in a sling. That was what I did tonight. I’m happy my winter-jacket still is large enough to cover us both as I didn’t want to put on her warm clothes as they would have been too warm in bed, or she might have woken up if I tried to take them off. (I have had that problem during the afternoon nap before).

There are a few things that have happened during this time. Our daughter has finished her second swimming-class, we have gone to the “open preschool” a few times and autumn has given us some really nice days. We did also go to Germany, see previous post, and attend a great wedding of two good friends.

This far I’m not bored or don’t know what to do with the days, actually I’m happy when I have a day without plans, as I get to take long walks with her then. (I could do long walks anyway, like today when I walked over to a friend about 50 minutes away). Walking is relaxing. Walking without direction or goal is even more so.

Now as the days have become short and it’s getting colder there are a few things that have to be done. I’m starting to tick of things of my to-do list, but somehow it’s growing faster. I don’t mind that, it just shows that I find new things I could do. Many of the things on my list aren’t that important and don’t have a deadline. I really don’t like deadlines that much, it is better to take things when the spirit is right, they go so much faster and smoother then.

That’s all for this time, now on to the next month of being at home…

So, now I’ve been home with our daughter for one and a half week. I’m starting to get a hold of things. I’m starting to understand the work involved in entertaining a kid all day. I’m having a hard time thinking of easy and good food, but thanks to some of my readers I still have a few ideas that I can use.

One thing I’m realising is that no day is like the other. One day I’m getting all the signals right and I don’t have to change one used diaper. Other days I’m missing all of them. (She has been using the potty a long time, but for safe we use diapers too). Some days I can eat in peace with her enjoying her food at a comfortable pace without too much a mess, other days she just throws things around, leaving me cleaning the floor, table, three chairs (including hers), wall, windows and sofa. I always have to clean her, sometimes less, sometimes more, then I just put her into the shower.

It is amazing how she has become so much more attached to me. She now comes over to me and wants to be lifted up while I’m cooking even when Susanna is at home. That didn’t happen before. I’m getting stronger in my left arm; it’s kind of tricky to cook with only the right arm free, but doing it with the left is even trickier. I do have to put her down for some task and she does somehow understand it too, but as soon as I’m done with the thing that made me put her down in the first place she’s back between my legs almost trying to climb up.

I thought the hardest thing would be not meeting people all day. And I think it is. I’m trying to get out every day, some days for some shopping, others for some activity (we have her swimming once a week now), or just to go to the playground or to the open preschool. Later, when Susanna is working full time I will come and visit her at work too.

Sleep is a bit of a problem still. I can get her to sleep, but it requires a long walk or bicycle tour. I have to time it right and have to be on the move for at least half an hour. Then she maybe sleeps for one hour, but if I stop it’s not sure that she continues to sleep. Twice she did sleep a while after I got home, but every other time she woke up.

This last weekend was beautiful, so we had a little walk around our house:

As I was writing Susanna was looking at some toy-car-thingy: http://www.swingcar.se/ (She didn’t look at that page I’m sure of, because I couldn’t fine the film she was looking at there. It had a song as soundtrack; see film below; which made me remember a walk I made midsummer 2004. I made a walk in my neighbourhood that night, thinking of how my life was. Back then I was just doing the last parts of my master-thesis. This was a period in my life when I had lost myself. I felt like I wanted to run from everything. I was thinking I should move to a new place and start over. I just knew I wouldn’t get rid of the feeling anyway. It felt hopeless. Still I had many things I was really happy about. I had a few good friends and I really looked forward to visit my brother later that summer.

[embedit snippet=”not-gonna-get-us”]

Here are a few pictures from that walk:

After looking at those pictures I started looking at other old pictures. O have I changed. I showed some of them to Susanna, I think she is really happy I have changed. I’m happy too. I found myself again. Now I have a happy family and the feeling of wanting to run from it all just doesn’t come anymore. I live so much more right here, right now. I think that’s the only way of living taking care of a child.

Some more music reference there if you want:

[embedit snippet=”right-here-right-now”]

I have actually not worked since Wednesday, as I had worked some extra hours during the summer making it possible for me to take Thursday and Friday off. Having four days all three of us was really nice. On Friday we all went into town and had my parents over in the afternoon. They really love being with us, especially our daughter. She likes them too; she brought almost every one of her books to my dad and he read them to her.

On Saturday we did a little excursion to Drottningholm with our bicycles. That is always nice. We looked at the sheep, gees and tourists walking around the park.

Today was the first day I was home with her alone. I didn’t know how it would be. I couldn’t even imagine it before. Would I be able to take care of her in a good way? Would there be time to do all the things I wanted and had to do? Would I be able to comfort her when she was missing her mother? Today it all went fine. I think anyway. And I even had time for a shower. (With my daughter playing with the shower curtain at the same time).

The hardest thing was to comfort her when she was longing for her mother. She walked over to the door and sat down crying for a little while. I picked her up and talked to her, after a few minutes she stopped crying and started playing again.

She is just so cute when she talks her own little language. I wish I knew what she is saying. I think she wishes we knew too.

One thing we didn’t do during the day was taking a nap. She does need a nap during the day. Today she took the nap at 6 in the evening, making it hard for her to get to rest now while I’m writing this.

So this was the first day. Now there will be many more to come. Tomorrow we will go swimming and we will do that a few more Tuesdays. I don’t have that much planned. I should have the dinner of this week planned, but I still lack a vegetarian meal on Thursday, so if you have a good idea that isn’t oven-roasted vegetables give me a hint.

One day you will understand the fuzz about it and enjoy the special things we do for you on your birthday. You might even understand this text if we do some things right. Today you just enjoyed the cake, pancake cake with raspberry jam, strawberries, chocolate and whipped cream, the new toys and your parent attention.

It feels like yesterday, the day when you came. It was a beautiful day, a bit strange, maybe because of the fatigue. I just loved you the moment I saw you, just like I love you today.

At first I didn’t know what to do. I was scared. But then, when I could hold you to my chest all that disappeared. Today a year later you are greater than ever. Now you walk, enjoy food and like moving things to new spots.

I’m so happy you take us on this journey. I couldn’t imagine half the things I have seen happening this year. Some were hard, some fun and some just plain. Still even the plain things are special.

I’m so happy when I get home and I hear your voice, “papapapapa”. When you give things to me, even if it’s a half eaten piece of pasta.

Here are some memories:

When you just were born.

Enjoying our first trip together.

Visiting our relatives in Germany.

Sitting in the bicycle trailer

Eating your birthday cake.

Opening your birthday gift.

And some film too:

A small film form you when you were one half year old.

[embedit snippet=”%c2%bd-year-old-ellinor”]

A film of you walking over to your wagon.

[embedit snippet=”moving-things-on-her-one-year-day”]

I’m so looking forward to being your dad for many years to come and for the time we get together when I’m home taking care of you that starts soon.

(All this is not something I usually like to do on a Saturday morning. I love to sleep in, maybe to ten if possible and then take a slow day).

As I prepared for breakfast, that included taking care of Friday’s dishes due to Friday night laziness I got the urge to bake. But I did have a few more things on my to-do list for the day. I have had this urge a few times the last weeks but I felt this could be the day I actually did it.

So I grabbed the day the best way I could. I started cleaning a bit in the apartment. My part of cleaning the apartment is the bathroom. I don’t like vacuuming and Susanna doesn’t really care for cleaning the bathroom so that comes naturally. (I am the one cleaning the windows too, but that hasn’t happened for more than a year, maybe if I get one more weekend of doing I start with that).

When I was done with that I went shopping. One needs yeast to bake buns.

I started the grill and put Susanna in charge of it, leaving her and our daughter out in the nice weather while I prepared the rest and started baking.

Lunch was good. After lunch I brought down the little tub for our daughter to bath in. She loves bathing!

A friend came over and the buns got ready as I took care of some laundry. Somehow having cloth-diapers result in plenty of laundry.

At this point I felt I was done with the day. We had fresh buns for dinner that was really nice. After dinner our friend left and I just took it easy. As I was sitting in front of the TV in the evening during Susanna’s try to get our daughter to sleep I remembered the flowers so I watered them.

Later Susanna and I watched the first part of a film together. We’ll watch the second half some other day.

Susanna didn’t understand where all my energy came from. Neither do I. Some days are just like that. I wake up and think; “today I’ll do this and that” and I just do it. Most days I just think it, but some days I actually do them. Saturday was a perfect example of that.

Days like that are rare. I did really enjoy it. I did some fun things too. Like baking or playing with our daughter in the water. But the enjoyment came for the entire thing not just the fun things.

Today was busy too. I had sound at church; I start before eight with switching the system on and before I shut it down again it normally is about three thirty in the afternoon. Today we had a toddler’s picnic afterwards. I wasn’t home until just before six.

At that point I was tired. I dozed off in the sofa in front of the TV.

I don’t know what triggers this kind of energy that made me do all these things. I wish I did, because I need to be more effective in my everyday life. If I had weekends like this one every weekend we could look out our windows without thinking about the fact that they are in desperate need of cleaning. There wouldn’t be any shirts hanging in the hall waiting for me to iron them. I would have sold my collection of Donald Duck books a long time ago (the Swedish version). And many other things I need to do.

I will try to rest on the Sundays that I don’t have sound though. I believe that resting is very important. But maybe resting is not just the absent of doing things but the doing of something else. Maybe I find out this week that I really need some rest now. (I do sit in front of a computer all day at work maybe that is resting too).