I just want to let all of you know that today at twenty to twelve our second son Frode was born. He was 52 cm long and weighed 3805 g. Everything went well even if the drive there got a bit adventurous in the snow, but we made it in time.
Susanna and our son are doing fine and are now resting.
Here is a picture of them:
Last Saturday our daughter had her fifth birthday. It was a nice summer day this time, good for us as we had her kindergarten class over for a party in the afternoon.
It’s amazing how fast time flies. It feels like it wasn’t that long ago we were at the hospital in Stockholm enjoying our little miracle. Now she is so big, knows so many things and is learning and becoming more independent every day. That day back then was a nice day too. It wasn’t as warm as now though.
Here are some of the neighbourhood kids bicycling along the lake. (Ours is the one with the flag).
That leads me to my next rambling, on Sunday we went to the beach. It isn’t quite common to go to the beach to enjoy the sun and the sea mid-September here in Sweden. This year it is possible though. (It was even warmer today). The water was a bit chilly but in the sun it was nice and even when a cloud (there were a few sadly) covered it, it was still nice enough not to drape oneself in towels or clothes like so many times during Swedish summers.
Today was a very special day. And no, it wasn’t the fact that I’m back at work after more than a year of parental leave that made it special.
Today we saw Püff for the first time. Püff is scheduled to be born in the beginning of January and will be our third kid.
Here is a picture from the ultrasound. We are looking forward to become a family of five!
I just have to tell you about our garden. We had a bit more time to put into it because I was at home with the kids. So we got it looking really good.
Now we are earning the reward for the hard work. Today we gathered all this food in our garden. (Sure the work effort to get plums isn’t that much, basically just gathering them before they all fall to the ground).
Today we collected squash, plums, blackberries, beetroots, two kinds of onions, potatoes, parsley, dill and carrots. It’s such a joy to have all these good things to gather in the garden.
How can dinner be anything other than good?
Sorry I started eating before I took the picture, it was just so good. Almost everything came from our garden, just the meet and the small stuff you can’t see isn’t home grown.
I just have to tell you all like the proud father I am: My daughter now knows how to bicycle all by her herself. For a week or so she has known how to bicycle with the little exception of that she couldn’t start herself. Today our evening walk started the same way as most, I held her to start and then she was off. When we were almost home again, she didn’t want to wait for us to catch up with her so she tried to start herself and did. Back home she waited for us at the entrance to the driveway, she wanted to show us how she had started herself and she did. So now she knows how to bicycle, from start to stop.
Here is a picture of her on the way last week.
Today six years ago she said yes! I did too and we were wed. Time really flies. She is really something, wonderful to live with, great to have by my side. I’m so happy and lucky that it is us.
So the sixth wedding day is the sugar wedding, at least in Sweden or the English tradition. I like that.
Here she is.
We celebrated today by going to the movies and tea after without our kids. It’s the first time we have done something like this since our son was born.
Last Thursday our son should have had his first swimming class. We had our daughter at swimming classes back when we still lived in Stockholm and before our son was born here in Höör too. Inconveniently he got a bad cold with a slight fever too, so no swimming for him. We had promised our daughter to go swimming at the same time though so that had to be honoured.
So I went with her to the sports-centre so she would get some water time. It was really great, just me and her. We enjoyed both the big pool, she swam 25 meters (with a floating device) and the kids’ pool, were we played. I dived all the way across; she mostly jumped from the edge.
After the pool we went to one of the pizza places we have in Höör. It is nice to sometimes do something special like that. Having conversations with a four-year old is a lot more rewarding than with a smaller kid. Interesting things are going on in her head now. Even though I try to be attentive to what she is saying normally it’s not that easy to zoom out after a while in the everyday setting, especially when there is another kid, wife or other person trying to get your attention too.
I did it. Today everything was right. Our son didn’t sleep before it was too short for him to sleep before we have to pick up his sister from preschool. It was dry outside and I was in the mood. So I packed our son in the trailer for the bicycle and off we went, to pick up his sister by bicycle.
I had checked the route and it gave me a hint that it wouldn’t be easy. Back and forth along the small backroads, I won’t take the main road, it’s not safe. It should be about 8 km, and more than 50 meters up and down. It turned out to be a bit longer and the last part the wind came straight against me.
Our daughter was happy that I picked her up with the bicycle. Her brother slept on the way there. On the way home I had some time to make pictures.
We live in an electricity producing area; there are wind turbines all over the place.
As I got a bit tired I had to make a few short brakes, just to rest my legs and arms.
Just before we come home I have to lift/drag all of us across this old stone wall. It is hard to imagine that I can get both bicycle and trailer through the shrubs behind the wall, but the path is wide enough.
Doing the pickup this way made the day feel shorter. (A good thing when one has to entertain a 1 and a 4 year old kid). It was fun to actually go somewhere and not just going back and forth along our little road we live at. I just love bicycling.
On the downside I realised in how bad shape I am. Okay, the wind was against me, but 8.5 km in just short of 40 minutes, that’s not good. I will have to do this on a regular basis to get back in to some kind of shape again. It would do me good. So I will try to do it at least once a week, as long as it isn’t raining, I’m comfortable that way and dirt roads just aren’t fun to be on when wet. I won’t do it with too much snow either, who knows how well the snow is cleared off the small backroads.
Now I will try to sleep, my legs are killing me.
We have now lived in our house for more than one and a half year. The house has a nice balcony on the west side with a beautiful view of the fields and woods (and lake if you know where to look) around our house. Already when we bought it we saw the potential of calm evenings on the balcony just sitting, chatting and having a nice glass of wine.
Tonight we finally did it. And for the occasion we used the Schorndorfer sparkling wine we got from our relatives during our summer Germany tour. It was just as nice as we thought it would be. (And we can sit there without a baby monitor as the window to the bedroom is not too far away and open so we hear them that way).
This is just one of the things that start coming into order now. Until this summer we have had a bit of chaos in the house and garden but now things are starting to come together. Books have been organised (there are probably more than thousand to sort out) into some kind of order, plans for the garden are made, windows are being fixed, tiles on the roof that were broken been replaced and many more things. Sure some of the fixing will never end but it has started.
The reason we inaugurated the balcony now was that one thing on our list was to clean off the moss from it and impregnate it with new oil was done this week and now it is a much nicer place. And that the kids went to bed early enough for us not to be dead tired.
This place is just such a great place to live. This year we are enjoying the fruits (so far strawberries, cherries, blackberries and plums, later apples) and some vegetables too (radishes, tomatoes, broad beans, potatoes and some red onions). The children have plenty of outdoor space to play, with our sandbox, the swings and the small children’s house that is under construction but well playable. We even got a hammock, but I’ve got to repair it now as it was old and the strings broke after a few uses.
Here are some pictures forms our place:
Our garden, with the fence to keep out rabbits and dears on the left.
The playhouse, hammock and sand box, chill and fun for parents and kids.
This green island is our home; the house is just about visible on the left.
short walk from our place you get to the lake, were sunsets like this one can be enjoyed (or swimming and canoeing weather dependent).
Five years ago she said YES. The best person in my life stood beside me at the altar and said yes. It was wonderful then. It is wonderful now! It has been wonderful between then and now.
Imagine that this great woman found me! And what a journey we are on. Life with her is a ride better than any you could find.
Susanna you are the best thing that has happened to me. You are the Milky Way on the clear winter sky. The soft breeze at the beach. I love to hear your voice. I just long to see you every time I’m away from you.
We have already been through many things. Made some big changes together, enjoyed life, worked our way through difficulties and had two great kids. I’m looking forward to all the things that are to come.
Today we are celebrating our wooden wedding. The traditional gift would have been silverware. I doubt that we need more silverware. Life is a dream with you. Sometimes I wonder when I will wake up. Then I realise that this is all very real. I just hope I cherish it as much as I should.
This autumn has been crazy. We all have been under a lot of stress here at home and I’ve been working much and traveling with work too.
Anyhow…
sometime this summer we decided we need a break this autumn. We want to see our friends and family in Stockholm some time again. So we planned to take a week off in November to go there and visit everybody. We had no clue of how hard times were ahead of us.
Then time flew. Like it always does. We hadn’t planned anything real and one weekend when we just realised it was all too much. We need some time as a family, just the four of us. So just before we had planned to book the tickets to Stockholm we decided not to. We started looking for an alternative. Staying home was not an option as there are so many things to do here so I wouldn’t have been a vacation that way.
Last week we did it. We left our little house in Skåne for a smaller house on Lolland, that’s a Danish island not too far away. Five nights away doesn’t seem like much, but it did great! I think the best part of it was that there was no internet there and as we are cheap we didn’t pay for roaming on our phones either. We had all the time together. Except for a few short trips to the village to get groceries, trips that would have been so much longer and trickier taking the kids along.
We played games. Sat in front of the fireplace. Enjoyed each other’s company. Relaxed in the bubblepool and sauna, no really it was relaxing, even the time my three year old was in it with me. Made some simple food, it tasted great. Got fresh bread from the baker a few mornings. Had a walk on the beach. Made a trip to the zoo and to Germany.
Not everything was perfect. I wish we hadn’t gotten colds, except Susanna, she was spared. I wish we had started cleaning out the place an hour earlier this morning. We made it out before the owner came though. I wish I had understood how the fire stove worked, now it was a bit of an ordeal to get it burning. (Maybe the wood was a bit too wet).
In total it was great! I always have said that the best time for vacation is in November. Even staying in this area of ever grey weather is better with a break than just chugging along. Just have a break. I warmly recommend it and my family does it too.
Sorry all of you friends in Stockholm that would have loved to see us. Most of you didn’t know what you missed as we hadn’t made appointments yet. There will be another time. We just don’t know when.
Sometimes I do crazy things. Like today. I biked to work. All the way. It ended up being 58 km. I took a wrong turn at least twice. The entire trip took me 2 hours and 45 minutes. Not too bad as I haven’t biked much this last year. Now I only have to get the bicycle back home.
I love biking to work. It’s so liberating. I get to enjoy the great outdoors in the morning. Sunrise is a wonderful thing. Today it was hidden in the clouds, but the clouds left and the sun started to shine.
I just live too far from work to do it on a regular basis. I won’t bike when the weather is bad or if I already biked once that week. It would just take too much of my free time. But if I do it twice a month I should be satisfied.
Now the bike will get some new parts, a bunch of the gears just don’t work anymore and the chain is stretched. Then it will be an even more pleasurable experience.
In the beginning of the year I wrote about the fact that we are expecting our second child. This time the working name is Poff. Poff is due on the 8th of June, or at least somewhere around that day.
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 was a nice and warm day. It is so nice walking back to the train station from work when the temperature is 12°C, birds are singing and the wind is from the back.
Then I saw something that made me really happy:
The first spring leafs. I’m so happy to see them. This is so much earlier than I’m used to from Stockholm. The last couple of days Facebook was been swamped with pictures of snow. Sure we haven’t had super spring weather here either, but it didn’t get cold, only windy and some rain.
This is something I have been looking forward to moving to Skåne!
2013 was an amazing year. As it started I didn’t know what it would hold for us. I had a few expectations, but they are dwarfed by what actually happened.
(See my post from the 10th of January last year: http://blog.wolfmaier.se/wolfie217/2013/01/10/new-year-what-will-you-bring/)
Here are the points that I thought of as certain last year:
“
“
Little did I know then that some of the things on the list would be bigger, more altering than I thought.
We had already been thinking of making the move when I wrote this, but nothing was planned. So now to what actually happened:
But the biggest things that happen were not thought of:
We made the move, leaving our home in Stockholm for a new one in Skåne, first in Höör, then in our house in Gamla Bo.
This leads me up to the headline question: 2014 – A year to remember?
It definitely will be. We will have our second kid; that is really big. We have been looking forward to have at least one more kid, but as things dragged along it wasn’t easy for me at least. I wanted the kids to be closer in age. One just has no say in how fast things go. Now there won’t be too long between them, just a little less than three years and that is fine, it was just longer than I hoped for.
I don’t know how our daughter will react to Poff arriving but I think she will become a great big sister. She already talks about the little little baby living in mom.
I do know that Poff will be born into a nice home.
By the way, Poff comes from the fact that at some point a friend of ours called Susanna and me Piff and Puff, as the chipmunks in Donald duck. Our daughter had the working name of Paff before she was borne.
Now we just have to get the home in order. We have had my parents here for Christmas and New Year and they have helped us a great deal, making our home liveable. There are still plenty of things to be done until some real ordinary life will show up, many boxes to be unpacked, lamps fixed (they have to stay at the apartment until it is clean; we keep it until the last of January). Curtains and pictures on the walls might take a longer time.
Owning a house is much more an ongoing project than renting a place. The list of what is to do will grow faster than we can check things off.
Back to the question, now a few points to remember from 2014 that we already know:
There will probably be a few more things. It won’t be an ordinary year. It will just not be the life changer that 2013 has been.
(And we do have a guest room).
Today our daughter turned two. It has been an amazing trip. I don’t have words for how blessed we are with her. We celebrated her both yesterday and today, yesterday it was with some relatives, today it was just us as a family.
It is wonderful to see how she is growing up and learning new things by the day. We start to understand more and more of what she says. Her sentences are getting longer. She is playing with her things, letting them having long conversations.
Today we had the possibility to skype with both my brother and my parents so they could wish her happy birthday too. It is great what technology can do, making it possible to sit face to face and still be in different cities or on different continents.
Here are a few pictures from the celebrations:
Our daughter dancing away at the zoo.
Four generations, from Oldemor (great grandmother in Danish) to our daughter.
Now this tricycle moved here, it’s a good mode of transport to the playground.
Going down the slide is great fun.
We have now lived here in Höör over one month. Time has gone really fast. We have had plenty to do. But now things are getting to some kind of normal. And then it all will change again when I start working in three weeks from now.
The apartment is getting into shape. We only have a dozen of boxes left to unpack and they are mainly things that belong into our children’s room. (That room also houses all the empty boxes, 179 so far). That doesn’t mean that the room is not used yet, our daughter uses it all the time as we have made her a little desk there where she can paint. We also put most of her toys in the room, leaving the rest of the apartment less of a mess.
Susanna is getting into her “new” job, just the way it was planned. The days are not that much longer than in Stockholm, though she starts earlier to get home in time for dinner. Traveling by train is also much more pleasant for her than traveling by underground. We visited her at her job once and had lunch at the Malmö festival.
Living in a small town so far has had mostly pros:
Living in Höör gives a few extra pros:
There are some cons to though:
We have also started with looking for a more permanent place again. So far we have looked at five (if you read this after Sunday afternoon six). We now have plenty of time to find the right place. But it is so hard. One place hade everything but was located too far out so that we would have to take the car for 10 minutes just to get to the closest store. Even the closest bus stop was three kilometres away. One other place had a beautiful garden. Just a little bit too beautiful, we don’t need a garden that takes all our free time to take care of. We want one that is practical and where we can grow our vegetables and have some chicken in the future. Basically a big grass lawn with a few trees would be perfect, not an intricate sculptured garden with bushes, ponds and flowerbeds that want plenty of attention to not look unkept.
The last couple of days we have been to Åland. For you who don’t know, Åland is an archipelago and region of Finland that is situated between mainland Finland and Sweden.
We felt like we needed to get some break from our moving business. And as a cruise and visit to Åland is a bit trickier from Skåne we decided it was time to go there.
We enjoyed two 5½ hour cruises, on the way there with a huge breakfast and on the way back with the buffet. Our daughter enjoyed the playroom and the ocean of balls.
We spent two nights and one day on the island, seeing some sights and enjoying the beach in Mariehamn. We also pampered ourselves with good food and massages.
Here are a few pictures from the trip:
Our daughter’s first time on a big ship. And the staple of Roslagskulla church, just across the road where I went to kindergarten.
We went to the open air museum of Jan Karlsgården. The swallows were not shy at all.
The flag (Åland has its own) and a few of the other things we did and saw.
On the way back. Our car parked on the car deck. One of the places we went to, to watch the big boat as kids, just a few kilometres from where I grew up. The modern skyline of Kista. Our daughter getting to sleep after a long day. On such a day it mus t be wonderful to be on a boat like the little sailboat we met.
As you might have seen, we will be moving to Skåne before the end of July. That is a big change for me. I have all my adult life lived in Stockholm (and Solna, but that was even closer to downtown Stockholm than where we live now). Before that I grew up close to Stockholm, coming here when I was 3½ years old.
Stockholm is my home. I know the city fairly well after 5 years of working as a bus driver. The last couple of years I have been less and less in the downtown area though. I started working in Solna in 2008, making in unnecessary to go into the downtown area to get to work. As Susanna and me hooked up there were even less trips into town, as I didn’t meet with friends in town as much as before. Now that I have a kid it’s only on special occasions that I actually get into the centre, like tomorrow when there is a wedding we will go to. Living in the western suburbs is easy; there are very few everyday things that can’t be done here.
I do have a lot of friends here. I will miss them all. Some of them more than others. I think that will be the biggest change. Up until now the friends that moved away were in some way just leaving my life. If I didn’t make an effort or they didn’t do it either they would just drift away into the one card a year type of friends. I don’t want it to be like that, but somehow when you have a family it’s a lot easier to stay in touch with the people you regularly meet anyway.
Now we will be the ones moving away. It’s a different feeling. For me anyway. For the friends that stay behind probably not. I will try to make an effort to stay in touch. We will have a guestroom so if you pass Höör you can stay the night. (Just let us know a few days ahead so that not all of our friends show up on the 17th October). We will try to meet with as many of you as possible before we leave but everything went kind of fast so there is not that much time and we do need to pack and organise our things too. (This time we’ll try to get rid of some stuff that we definitely won’t need).
There are a few other things I will miss leaving Stockholm.
The water: I think this is Stockholm’s best feature. Just like today when I went on a bike ride with my daughter to Drottningholm to have an ice cream. The water makes it all so much nicer.
Our view: We just have a lovely view where we live. The place we are moving to doesn’t have a view. We don’t know where we will live later; maybe there will be a view there. We just don’t know.
Our apartment: It’s really nice.
My parents: They are still living here. And who knows if we ever will convince them of following our footsteps to the south?
Our church: The church I have been a part of since 1996 or was it 1997? I started doing sound in 1999 and am still doing it. It has been a second home for me and it contains many of my friends and memories.
All the places with memories: There are so many places with memories here. Sure, some of them are bad and I won’t mind not seeing these places as much, but there are so many good memories that are connected to places here. And when I see a Bus nr 4 I just remember how it was driving down Odengatan early in the morning, as most people still slept. Or when I pass Tranebergsbron and I remember the first of November when it became so slippery that people pushed the cars over the top one by one. (Sure some people don’t have that as a good memory I guess). When I jog down Bergslagsvägen I remember the times I drove to my friends at Tempus for some games of just fellowship. Or when I pass Tomteboda I remember the sunrises over Stockholm that were so beautiful after a late night of work or partying.
I will come back to Stockholm every now and then for sure. As long as my parents live here probably often. It will not be the same thing though.
I will get new memories. There will be new things that I love about the place I live. (Just check in the old part of my blog).
Now I have got start sorting out old broken shoes. I shall not move broken shoes!
Today was a beautiful day, just as all of you who went outside in Stockholm already know. We, that is my daughter and I went for a walk in the afternoon, mainly to get some groceries, like most days. As it was warm I thought of carrying her on my shoulders instead of the sling. (I did bring the sling just in case though).
On the way home I let her walk along the path through the forest by herself. She really enjoys it now, not long sections but still.
As I wasn’t in any kind of hurry I let her explore the surroundings. She skipped along and once every now and then she stopped to pick up a stone. She didn’t keep them, just picked them up, looked at them and carried them until she found a new one.
After a while doing this it hit me. She was enjoying little things. Literarily. She was enjoying picking up small stones from the side of the path. Most of them spread out during winter to keep it safe to walk. Stones that had ended up outside the path for no good. (The stones on the path had been brushed up earlier this week). But they still had reason. To make my girl happy exploring.
As these thoughts came to me I decided to get down to her level. Just to see some other little things. And sure enough, the stones are pretty; they have all kinds of colours and shapes. Some are mashed into the dirt so that one has to dig them out to get them; others are stuck in the asphalt.
And there are more little things going on this time of year:
All these are little things. But they are important. And if I hadn’t taken the time to take the walk home in my daughters pace, I doubt I would have thought about any of them. But they made this day so much richer.
Today Susanna and I have been married for three years. It has been three lovely years. The best years of my life for sure.
Three years since she said Yes! I think it was one of the best moments in my life. But actually every moment after has been better as it was a moment with her.
Sharing the good, sharing the bad, sharing the sad, sharing the funny and just sharing life and life has given us our daughter and plenty of great times.
Here is a picture from that day. And one more recent.
As winter came back the joys of winter returned too.
The first is that it’s not as dark anymore. The snow lights up everything.
The second is that it is fun to play in the snow, especially with my daughter. Last Thursday my brother and I had some time on the slope next to our house with her. Going down the hill with and without my daughter is great fun.
Here is a short film of us going down the slope.
[embedit snippet=”fun-in-the-snow”]
The third this is the sound that walking on snow makes on a cold day, like today. It’s a kind of squeaking or crunching noise. It has to be below -5°C.
The forth thing is the fog over the lake on a cold morning after a ship has passed by and broken the ice.
Bicycling in the snow is the fifth. I really like it. It’s just a bit tricky when it is snowing. I did bike 17 km with the trailer last Tuesday. (For you who weren’t in Stockholm that day, it snowed more than 20 cm that day). My daughter has a swimming class and I had made up my mind to go by bicycle as I like that more. On the way there I had a real workout. On the way back it became a bit too much, so I had to stop and get some food. My daughter seemed to enjoy it though. (She slept on the way home). That’s how the bicycle and trailer looked like at the stop:
