Mondays..

Today I'm having a "case of the Mondays" as it would be called....

I'll start off by saying that I've been having trouble with my cell phone. It is over 2 years old, and we all know 2-3 years is the life expectancy of a modern cell phone. So it has been acting funny lately, like not showing the time, for example.

I set my alarm on my cell phone last night, like always.

I woke up on my own at 07.30 this morning. Half an hour later than Leia and I were supposed to get up to make it to daycare on time. And I woke up very, very tired and with a horrible headache. I wake Leia up and we have breakfast. I decide to drive illegally to daycare, giving us an extra 20-30 minutes to get ready, instead of walking.

I "jump" in the shower, only to find cold water. Then I became angry and realized the pellet burner probably ran out of pellets to use. Then I remembered that the last time I refilled it was on Friday, and it was probably very empty. So I took a semi-fast cold shower and then it took me forever to get ready afterwards.

Since the pellet machine had no pellets to use, that meant there was no warm water for the furnaces all night, and the house was freezing. [Since we were in such a rush, I didn't get a chance to refill and restart the pellet machine until after I got home from taking Leia.]

Clean the frost off the car and warm it up and defrost it so I can see to drive, and we finally made it to daycare. Luckily Leia was a perfect angel this morning, which made the horrible morning go a little faster.

We ended up making it only a little late to daycare.

Destined to be a nerd.

Bad comedians.

Ugh.. I hate bad comedians. Their job is to make us laugh, and if they can't then they shouldn't be a comedian!! I watched a bit of a Swedish stand-up comedy show and there was a Canadian guest-comedian tonight. And he wasn't funny at all. It was more painful if anything.

Ehhh.. but we are all doing well I suppose. :)

Fredrik hopes to be done with a majority of the sanitation project this week. If all goes as planned, he'll be finished with what he is working on and then he'll start taking off Mondays. :)

We're trying to figure out what we are going to do this summer for Fredrik's vacation. Or for part of it at least. :)

They ended up hiring the guy Fredrik was hoping for. He is 25 or something like that, and lives in the town where they work. He and Fredrik worked at the same place before, and Fredrik even thinks that the guy took over his job when he left! He also likes fishing and he is a computer nerd. :P The only bad thing is that he is single and doesn't have a family. But hopefully he and Fredrik will get along well. :)

The bad thing is is that the guy is currently working in Norway. And they have a 3 month notice for leaving a job. So if things go as planned, he won't start until May.... Which leaves Fredrik alone until then. But we're thinking that those in charge my try to work something out with his bosses so that he can leave earlier.


Hmmm..

Not much happening with me.. :P

Leia made this today:

Valentine yum-yum.

Our yummy dessert yesterday:





My delicious brownie with ice cream inbetween, drizzled with Hershey's chocolate of course. :) A yummy dessert for two; Fredrik loved it!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Last night Fredrik and I had a movie night! Once a month we wait until Leia has gone to bed and we get a pizza and watch a movie we've been wanting to see. :) We enjoy it.

And today is Valentine's Day. Every year it gets a little bigger in Sweden, but it isn't nearly as celebrated as it is in the US. In the US there are... expectations for Valentine's Day that don't exist in Sweden. (And I sorta hope they never do.) Although there is something intriguing about receiving nice jewelry for Valentine's Day... ;) :D

I got Fredrik 2 seasons on DVD of the British TV series "Extras." Hilarious show!

Yesterday I got some roses. :) Fredrik suggested that we go to Karlstad today and go to IKEA. And that we could also have lunch at Subway (there are a few here and there in Sweden, but few and very, very far between).

First we went to a baby store and Leia tried out a big-girl potty:





She LOVES her toilet and she carries it around the house.. :D

Then we went to a small mall area and had lunch. The stores there were mostly clothes stores (like always), so there wasn't too much to look at otherwise. They did have a Toys-R-Us nearby, but we didn't try it out, after lunch and the mall, we were already getting tired.. :D (We had also done lots of grocery shopping in the morning before we left for Karlstad.)

Then we went to IKEA and looked around and bought a few things. Leia checking out some bookshelves:





We bought some sheets for our bed, candles of course, and more mixing bowls like the ones we already have. So that was my Valentine's present: going to IKEA. :)


Leia's vocabulary has increased tremendously.
She now says:
- Uh-oh
- Tack / tacktack (= thank you)
- Mamma
- Pappa
- Daddee
- Mommee
- apple
- nana ("banana")
- bear
- 'ouch ("couch")
- hejpo ("hej då") = bye (and she waves)
- hejhej (and she shakes your hand)
- dat ("katt")
- brrrrr (with her mouth closed) (= "moooo")
- pumpa/pampa ("lampa") = lamp
- min (= mine)

She'll try to say almost everything, but sometimes she just can't say it. The words above are common words that she says now at any time. Which is.. fantastic for a bilingual child her age! (She was 16 months old yesterday!)

I'm making a yum-yum treat for Fredrik and I tonight. A yummy desert. Now I'm going to finish that and watch a few episodes of his new DVDs! :)

Happy Valentine's Day! Hope everyone had a wonderful day with their loved one(s). :)

Cold hearted?

Octuplets' mom seeks online donations

(CNN) -- Nadya Suleman, the single mother of newborn octuplets, is using the Internet to help support her family of 14 children. She's started a Web site seeking donations.

The Web site features pictures of a rainbow, child's blocks and all eight of Suleman's newborns. Also prominently displayed on the Web site is a prompt for visitors to make a donation, noting that the "proud mother of 14" accepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and PayPal.

Suleman, 33, had the octuplets through fertility treatments, despite already having six young children and no clear source of income.

Suleman said she plans to go back to college to pursue a degree in counseling, NBC reported. She also said all 14 children have the same biological father, a sperm donor whom she described as a friend.

Maybe I'm being cold hearted, but.. does she really deserve donations?!

Unemployed. Single. Already has 6 children, and on purpose has 8 more... and then has the nerve to ask other people to fund her and her children's survival??

Please.....

Moment of truth.

I cried last Thursday when I left Leia at daycare.. :T

It came quite unexpectedly. I felt a little silly and realized that I really miss her when I leave her. She is so much fun to have around and now since I have no school or work things to work on now - that I get pretty lonely when she is at daycare. It didn't help that right before that, when they said "Say goodbye to Mommy," that she turned around and ran to me with arms stretched and wanted in my lap - and didn't want me to leave. Then I left and didn't get but 4 feet from the daycare and started tearing-up.

I've had difficulty trying to figure out what to do with my time now. I have a "little" volunteer pet-project that I'm working on for the moment. So that is keeping me busy. But that will eventually come to an end and then I don't know what I'm going to do.. :T

I've decided: No more school.
I started school when I was 4. I've gone to school continuously, since then, for the last 25 years of my life. I'm finished.
Having said that, I know I'll probably end up back at school before too long.......

So I don't know what to do.. :/ :(
It makes me want to keep Leia home all the time with me. Then I try to remind myself that she is going so that she can interact with other children and adults, not just so that I have time to myself or to get things done.


Talking about interactions:
Fredrik stayed home from work this morning because he had to take his work car in for its scheduled check-up.

So he got to take Leia to daycare this morning. :) Which is good for both of them. :) I made him ask them if she interacts well with the other children, since we had the nose-biting incident. I wanted to make sure she is kind and behaves well. They said she is very good, for the interaction this age group has with each other.

One of them had mentioned to me though, that Leia has a little best friend at daycare. :)) The little girl, Elenor. She is maybe 2 months older than Leia. Elenor has now also learned how to say Leia's name and she always asks for her and they are always together. :)

It was really nice having Fredrik home from work today. He didn't go in until 11. So we had a little (quite) time to ourselves.


There is no way I would take Leia from her daycare time. She is learning so much so quickly. I was just going through words and I said "apple" and she just said it right after me as if she's been saying it for years. She also now says "baaanana" or "bnana." :)) She also says "apa" (ape). She tries to say "couch" but it comes out as "ouch." :)) If there is a word that you say that she can't repeat, she will make the same amount of pretend noises in the same amount of syllables with the same tone. :)

Her climbing has gone full-force. She will soon be able to pull herself up onto the couch, which we aren't encouraging her to learn. :P We are ignoring it at the moment.

But that is enough for tonight.. :P
Just about 21.30 and I am getting tired.


Leia's favorite place to read her books.
It takes her a good 5 minutes to get situated in the space, so that her butt fits and she can open her book.

Mommy's ballerina.

Apple!

Leia has been saying "apple." :)))

And when Fredrik says "äpple" in Swedish, she says "apple" in English more clearly and slowly. To correct him I guess? :) he he

Mio.

Yesterday we took a short walk down the road to Mio, a Swedish chain furniture store. (The only furniture store in Åmål?)







We love looking at the couches, as we are always looking for new ones. We really want new couches, but then we have to move the TV and we can't since there is no electricity in the living room. We're thinking about having an electrician come and give us an estimate on how much it would cost to run wires to the room and/or how complicated it would be. But that is a future problem after we get the fireplace fixed this Spring.


When we came home, we built a snowman!