Sweden's 2nd silver!

Sweden received their 2nd medal today in men's cycling! Gustav Larsson came in 2nd place and received a silver medal.

Parent group.

I managed to talk Fredrik into going to our parent group meeting last night. He didn't want to go and see the other people in the group. And I figured that no one would show up besides us and that no one would remember what happened at the baby café 2-3 months ago anyways. He agreed, so we decided to go. Yesterday morning at 09.30 I received a call from Stefan, one of the workers at the family central building (where they have the midwives and BVC nurses, etc) and he said that the meeting was cancelled because of illness and that it would be rescheduled.

Leia is still fighting with eating. :/ Each mealtime is different. It is either bad or really bad. But at least sometimes she gets a little more food than other times. She will hold her food in her mouth for a long time too, and not swallow. Not sure what that is about. :/ :)

During Fredrik's 4 week vacation, everyone else had their vacation, too ... so there wasn't too much stuff for him to catch-up on.

I think we might try to go this evening and order the chair. We will have to pick color once we get there. Certain types of material have certain colors. So we have to narrow down with both options at the same time.

No rain today for once. :) So I got to mess a little with the outdoor plants while Leia slept this morning.

Okay, now Leia wants to play with her Mommy. :)
More soon!

Feeling lonely.

Fredrik went back to work today. And I miss him terribly. :(
Leia and I haven't been by ourselves in 2 months. :/ And before that, Fredrik had Pappa-leave on Mondays, and he had so many extra holiday-days that he was home almost a whole week or two before my parents showed up. So it will take some getting used to.

Leia is sleeping now. :) Like clockwork, she has her 9 AM nap. And she'll sleep for usually about 2 hours. Then she sleeps around 14-14.30, and sleeps almost another 2 hours.

She's.. become strangely difficult the last few weeks. :/ Annoyingly difficult. It seems as if she is going through her "terrible two's."

She spits her food. It is for entertainment purposes on her part. And it is difficult to teach an almost 10 month old that you aren't supposed to do that. She does it with food she likes and dislikes, and even when she is hungry. So it is just to be defiant. So, we give her 2 warnings and explain why she can't spit her food and then the 3rd time we take her food away and tell her she can't have any more. Tough for a 10 month old? :/ We don't know what else to do about it. It causes her to get a bit cranky and grumpy before the next meal time. But hopefully she will get out of it quickly enough. :/

She is worse with Fredrik. She will eat more with me before she starts to spit, and she listens better when I tell her to not do it. She won't eat at all with him: with a spoon or her bottle. :/ With the bottle she starts screaming and screaming. :/ No idea why. So it is annoying for all of us. :/

Her 3 top teeth are coming in more and more. :) She looks very silly. :) I don't think she likes them, though. :/
She has been pretty cranky lately, so we hope that it is because of the teeth.

She gets very, very angry at things, even her toys.
This morning she was holding two plastic toy coins, and she was trying to do something with them, even though I have no idea what she was trying to do, but she kept screaming at them. She would hold one in each hand, and then put them both in the same hand, and wait and then she would scream at them and throw them on the floor. :/ NO idea what that was about, but she gets.. very frustrated very easily and she has a horrible temper. :/ Especially if she doesn't get what she wants.

She likes to throw things on the floor as hard as she can. :/ :) A new passtime. She will also point the remote control at the TV and push the buttons to change the channels. She knows which ones to press, and she will watch the TV and watch the picture change. She will hold telephones up to her ear. If you say "where's Leia?" she will pull the closets cloth over her head to play peek-a-boo. And if there is no cloth nearby, she will just throw her arms over her head. :) She turns the pages in her books like a pro and she loves to sit and look at them. When she even gets really into it she will sit at each page and touch different things with her fingers.

She hasn't started walking yet, but she has taken a few steps here and there. :) We also think she is frustrated that she can't walk.

She HATES the gate in the living room - it is her nemisis. She makes a "run" for it if you forget and leave it open, and if you walk in and she sees you close it she starts to scream.

I just hope this is the peak of her "terrible twos" and that she gets better with her temper.. :/

Some pictures from the past week:

Watching Mommy blow-dry her hair. She sat there until she started eating the ficus leaves, then I had to move her.



She's also learned how to take her shirt off by herself. Here she is with one arm out of her sleeve.


We went to Säffle last week to look at a furniture store. Needless to say it was if we had walked into a Persian flea market.. :/ :)) The furniture.. was oversized and very dark. Most everything was used, even if it didn't say so on the tag. We wouldn't have cared to have gotten a used, but there was nothing there for our needs.

But while in Säffle we went to Lindex. We have decided that that is where we will go from now on to buy any baby clothes for Leia. The brand they have here in town is Name It (formerly known as EXIT). It is a Danish brand and very expensive. But that is all they have here, so we were stuck with it. But the drive to Säffle isn't very far, so now we will buy more reasonably priced clothes there. I hate buying such expensive baby clothes that she is going to get so dirty and will use for such a short amount of time. They also now have a KappAhl, which has very reasonably priced children's clothing.


Leia didn't get any clothes on this trip, but she got a cute, green frog. :)



A view of those new teeth.

Anniversary dinner in Åmål with Mamma, Pappa, Farmor o Farfar.







A very tired Leia.

She didn't want to wake up. :/ :))



It has been raining non-stop for almost all last week. It comes and goes and it has been a little cold. We are still very anxious for Fall.

Fredrik is back at work. He wasn't TOO excited to return. :)) He wants more vacation of course. :) It will just take him a couple of days to get back into what he's missed and then I think it will be better. :) He only received 3 work calls during his 4 weeks of vacation! And two of those calls were during his last week. :)

That is all for now.. :P I need to do some dishes and pick up a little of her toys so that I can walk around the living room without killing myself.. :P :)

A silver for Sweden.

Sweden received their first medal today. :) A silver in women's cycling from Emma Johansson. I don't think anyone even thought that she would come in the top 3, so everyone is very proud and happy. :)

I always like to post about the Swedish medals because those in the US might not get to see so much of it on the news. You don't get to see so much coverage of other country's medal winnings in the US. There usually aren't many Swedish medals, definitely not compared to the amount the US pulls in, so I think it is fun to share. :)

New chair.

We are trying to find a new chair to fit this space in the upstairs hallway:



We found this one at MIO. We both really like it and we hope to get it. Fredrik was a little unsure of the size, that it would be too big for the area, but I think we've decided that it will be okay. Now we just have to decide type of material and color.





I started posting this at 19.00, but Fredrik was putting Leia to bed and that didn't go so well. :/ But more about that later. :P

5th Anniversary.

Today is our 5th wedding anniversary. :) We don't have much planned for today. Farmor and Farfar will be here soon. And we hope to go eat somewhere nice (all of us).

Today is also Carie's wedding anniversary, but it is their 6th. :)

Okay, now I have to go feed a very, very, very cranky baby. :P :/

More later!

Messmör.

So I know I haven't been the best at blogging lately. :/ And I apologize. :/ We've been busy and very tired. Leia's new teeth are making her cranky and we've been trying to paint and get things fixed or cleaned or thrown away. We've been trying to plan a get together with some new friends. :)

Here is Leia eating some messmör. :) It is.. butter and milk. :) It is a beige colored butter but very soft. Reminds me of peanut butter, the same texture and consistency. But it is just butter and milk. It has lots of iron and calcium. Great to eat if you are constipated. (For babies and cats, too.) Leia loves the stuff, just like Pappa. I hate it. :/ I've tried it several times but I just don't like it. :/ (Just like how most Swedes hate peanut butter.) It is an acquired taste. To me.. it smells like fish and tastes a little sweet. :/ Nasty. :P

We will soon be heading to Säffle to try to find a chair to buy for upstairs in the hallway. A bigger, more comfortable chair. That room can only be a sitting room, so we want to make it into an office type room. We looked at MIO yesterday and we found one option we liked, but there is a furniture store in Säffle that we want to look at.

I'll try to post more this afternoon or evening, when I have time, to update a little on how things are. :)

So tired.

I have been so tired the last few days. :/ Don't know what is wrong with me. :/ I'm sleeping really well at night, but am exhausted anyways, and easily take a nap in the morning when Leia is sleeping. First insomnia, and now completely dead..?? Argh..! Make up your mind!

Caesar is presently sleeping in the stairs to the cellar. :) It is very nice and cool and quite (and dark). He got shut in there when I shut the door, and he decided to just stay and enjoy the opportunity. :)




Leia's teeth are much more visible now. :) Her front right and the one to its right are very visible, the front left tooth is still a bit hidden. But they are huge!! The teeth are so big. Nothing at all like the little baby teeth on the bottom.

She has taken more steps. :) Pappa has finally seen her take her steps, so he agrees that she is trying to walk. :) She'll try it once, and only once and then she gets angry if you want her to try again. Sometimes she'll stand there and just lean forward, sometimes she will try to hop with both feet forward, and then everynow and then she will take a step or two. :) She even tried crawling backwards the other day.

It is so great having Pappa home. :) We are enjoying our family time together. :) I've got to clean lots in the kitchen. And we hope to soon put up a new shelf that we got for the upstairs bathroom.

Leia playing with a ball from "Aunt" Angelica:






Leia LOVES pillows. We decided we need to have a room that is padded on the floor and walls and fill it with pillows and just let her play in there. :/ :)



Leia will say "Mamma" and "da da." :)
She loves to "sing" "If You're Happy and You Know It." Except she wants to stomp her feet all the time even when you are supposed to clap. :)


Yesterday we went on a nice walk:




Oh yeah.. and Leia likes to look down her shirt, too.


Even though it ended up raining while we were out:




Lots of fun to look at the water collecting on the stroller cover.


Her personality is still developing so much.
She has a horrible, horrible temper. She will start screaming with tears if you tell her "no" or move her from some place she shouldn't be. She has learned to spit food out of her mouth. And she'll only eat other food than fruit if it is masked (completely covered) with fruit. It used to not be a problem.. but now she is getting picky I suppose. So I am making most all of Leia's baby food.. and I cover it in a banana-yoghurt mixture that I make that she is very fond of. Disgusting, I know, but it works and she is getting all her vegetables.

She is sleeping very well during the day, but fighting at night now.
She'll sleep 3-5 hours during the day, but usually won't be asleep before 20.00. But then she isn't waking up until around 07.00. So, I suppose we shouldn't be complaining too much. ;)

It has been raining a lot today. Which was needed, but a bad storm is on its way.

Farmor and Farfar are coming over tomorrow.
Farfar hopes to help Fredrik with a container in the cellar that has old oil in it. We don't use it, obviously, so we want to get rid of it so we have more room down there, especially to store pellets during the Winter.

We've just been cleaning and spending time together and going on walks and all that fun stuff. :) We went grocery shopping today for a few things and I think there were more Norwegians and Germans in the store than Swedes.

Trying to touch both ends of the TV at the same time.

Teething and sleeping.

Leia's been a little difficult to put to sleep lately. Another tooth poked through today. :) So we can see 2 more, and then the other one is going to poke through any day now. :) So now she has 4 teeth. :) The 2 bottom and one front middle (her left), and then one on the side (right). :) It is making her very cranky and she won't eat anything. (Favoring her left side.) And she is very constipated. She still isn't drooling at all.

She has been difficult and cranky but we are dealing with it as best we can. :) Thank goodness for the orajel because that has helped her be happier during the day when she doesn't want to play. Just a bit on her top gums and then she will play and be happier. So it is truly some great stuff. We've been giving some baby tylenol to help with her slight fever. (The tylenol is about out, though - so Mormor is going to have to send some more!) :))

That stuff is.. fantastic. I'm just glad that we have someone to send us those few things from the US that we can't get here in Sweden.

No pictures today. :P

The weather.. gah.. it is warm. :/ Every day it says "Rain." But it never rains. :/ Or "cloudy." And it is never cloudy. Not one cloud in the sky today. We need the rain. :/

Now it is a bit late, so soon it is bedtime. :P