Contact.

I finally e-mailed my SPCS teacher last night, and he called me today and we tried to find a good day that we could meet. He doesn't have evening hours like he did last term.. :( So we have to meet during the day. He said his schedule is so very full this term, obviously he has lots of students. But he said that once I get started it shouldn't take me very long or be very difficult. Which is what I am hoping for. I just have to make sure that I remember everything that I learned before summer..... :/ :) And then learn the computer program, and then I think it will be a piece of pie.

We'll meet next Tuesday. Fredrik will come home a little earlier to watch the munchkin'.

Leia barely slept an hour today, by the time I put her in bed, warmed my lunch, ate my lunch and looked at the Internet for a few minutes she had woken up. :( And she wouldn't sleep any more than that. (Her nose was running so much she couldn't breath.) But at least since she only slept an hour today she completely passed out tonight, which is always nice. :) But I didn't manage to get anything done today.. which is always annoying. :/

I managed to vacuum ½ the living room!!! :T

Leia love pillows.
And she "sings" now too.. :/ :)
She will blow bubbles with her saliva while saying "mamma" at the same time..... :/ :)
Monday she stood in the middle of the living room floor, while holding and reading a book.. then I realized that she was pooping too.. :/ :D
And she LOVES bouncing up and down on Mamma and Pappa's bed.

Hmm...
Fredrik had to measure the bottom of the lake in Bengtsfors. A guy came up and they went out on a boat and they did some stuff.. But I guess none of it registered, so he is going to have to come back and they are going to have to do it again..

We have 7 people RSVPed for Leia's birthday party already. :)

Last Thursday Fredrik took some boxes to some friends that are moving. (He did it during the day when he should have been working of course.) :)) He came home with three adorable kitties (non living) that I admired. So they are sitting on our new bookshelves.

We should hopefully be getting our chair that we ordered. :/ They said 4-5 weeks.. Which I hope is soon!

Hmm...
We'll probably be getting rid of some of Leia's things soon. People have some interest in some items. It makes me sad.. Which is probably normal. Better to sell everything instead of keeping it in the cellar.. :/ especially the clothes. Even if we wanted to get pregnant again, the odds aren't very optimistic in our direction. Which is okay, we are very content with our one munchkin'.

Hmm...
Fredrik is trying to find someone to fix the fireplace. He'll hopefully be making some calls tomorrow.

Ehh.. it is late.. :P My head is empty even though I know there are some things I am forgetting.

Last 2 pictures.

Sometimes I go through the first pictures after Leia was born. And it is lots of fun. :) Seeing how much she has grown and changed. But today I looked at the day before she was born, October 12th, and there were 2 pictures in that folder.

These are the last two pictures that I took before Leia was born:




Yes.. :)) Pictures of the stroller. :) I remember that we had all the baby stuff everywhere in the house but we didn't have a baby. :) So I had taken a picture of our anticipation, but never had a chance to post about it.

Leia slept VERY well today. She slept 3hr and 45min..! I had to wake her up, too. So she was a tired baby. Which might have been why she was so grumpy today before her nap. :/ When I woke her up after her nap, she was very, very happy. When I went in to get her, she was sleeping on top of her blanket, facing the wrong direction, and hugging her pink kitty. :)) She kept the kitty and took it downstairs with her. She kept it for her after-nap lunch. I put her in her high chair and she scooted over and sat the kitty beside her.. :D Everynow and then she would take the kitty out and give it a kiss and then hold it out for me to give it a kiss and then she would set it beside her again. :)) She is extremely entertaining. :))

And she can drink through a straw now! It took about 15 seconds to teach her and she loves it. So now we give her juice boxes (with as little added sugar as we can find). But she won't drink juice out of a sippy cup (pipmugg it is called in Swedish?? something like that) and it is just too messy to give it to her in a normal cup right now, so the juice box thing is great. It is something new for her so she thinks it is a real treat when she gets to have it.

Fredrik is sad.. :/ One of Fredrik's workmates might be leaving. :( They are renting their home and they are having a horrible time finding a more permanent place to live. They have.. a zoo of sorts.. :/ :) They have cats and goats and horses, and a pig that lives in the house.. :/ :) But the cats live outside.. :)) But he and Fredrik get along really well and he started working there not that long ago. Their neighbors aren't too happy about the animals and they are having a difficult time finding a place of their own. He has been by the house before and Leia and I got to meet him. We were going to wait until Leia was a little older (next summer) and take her to their house so she could see all the animals, but seems like we might have to do it sooner than that. :/ He and Fredrik get along really well. But if he leaves, it leaves Fredrik as the only measurer they have.. so.. which is good for Fredrik's job. :/ :) They have a problem with keeping workers.. because no one wants to live in this area.. :/ So they might work extra hard to make sure that Fredrik doesn't want to leave too, since now another one is leaving. :/ :)

But now it is way past bedtime. Fredrik and I watched another interesting movie tonight, "Brutal Massacre." A comedy, a fake documentary about a B horror movie being made. It was great. :))

I hate these days. :(

I hate days when Leia is like this. :/
She is having one of her cranky days and ... she just won't stop screaming and crying. She started crying when she woke up and she hasn't stopped.

I hate these days.. Sometimes I just sit down and cry because there is nothing that I can do to help her. She gets cranky and/or angry and she just stays that way all day long. I try to avoid her and stay out of her way. Trying to comfort her or figure out what she wants just makes her angrier. So I try to just let her do her thing and stay out of the way of thrown toys.

But we'll be leaving for our walk soon, and she always loves our walks, so hopefully that will help her be in a better mood!

More fun.

Today was a lazy day. :P We spent the day in playing and watching movies.

We had Fredrik's eye appointment yesterday.. or well.. we were supposed to have had Fredrik's eye appointment yesterday.. :/ :)) We showed up at 13.00.. and the appointment was at 12. :/ :) Oops. He was certain that it was at 1. :/ But they couldn't reschedule him for another 2 weeks. I was able to get my appointment though, which was nice. In Sweden they have a different system of registering eye sight than they do in the US. And the poor woman working had NO idea how to convert the Swedish to the American. :/ She asked if she could keep my paper and then mail it to me in a few days after she figured it out. I told her that that would of course be fine and I feel bad of course, having to make her go through all that work. :/

After that we had Thai for dinner. A nice dinner for my 6 years in Sweden. There isn't much to choose from in our small town of Åmål, but at least we really like the Thai place and we don't mind going there over and over again. :) Chicken with curry and peanut sauce for me. Super yummy!

I got a cute video of Leia today. She was taking toys in and out of a toy box. That is a "big thing" for her now. She likes to empty things and then she puts things back!

A day last week, there were a couple of dirty shirts laying on her bedroom floor. She went to them, picked them up and took them to her laundry hamper and she lifted her arm up over her head (while standing) and dropped them in. :) But then she got angry because she wasn't tall enough to look down in the hamper and see the shirts inside. :/ :)) Now if we could only teach Pappa to do the same !!!

She dusted today! For the first time. :) She took a tissue that we had been using to wipe her nose and she started rubbing it on the coffee table. :) It was very purposeful. She would do each shelf and she was very careful. Fredrik said it really isn't too surprising, with as often as she sees us wiping the kitchen counters.

She is starting to better understand the purpose of things and how things work. Which makes everything so much more fun. :)

After she turns 12 months we'll have an appointment for her 3rd vaccination shot. We hope to weigh her then and measure her, to know how big she has gotten!

I arrived in Sweden...

...6 years ago today!
I have lived almost a fourth of my life in Sweden. :/ :) Seems weird when I think about it like that.

Nothing special planned for today.. except our eye appointments. :/ :)

I didn't have the energy to write yesterday. :/ Fredrik had to go to Trollhättan and he didn't get home until 18.30. So I was tuckered out. :/ Fredrik spent 6 hours in the car yesterday. :/ I hope they pay him extra for driving time, cause that is just.. not fun. :/ :))

Fredrik is sorta sick, but not really. :/ Leia is the same.
I am still sick and I haven't been able to talk for the last few days because of my coughing. Every morning I think that I am getting better (possibly from not having coughed much during the night) ... and then by mid-day I am dead tired, coughing, and producing enough mucus for a small African village. (I know that doesn't make any sense..... But I'm really tired, so you can spare me some liberalism with my writing.)

I have some pictures from our walk yesterday! We took our construction walk and then continued to the park behind her daycare. We sat there and she had some snacks, and I had a cough drop and blew my nose a lot.






You can see plenty of leaves on the ground. They are changing and falling quickly, like it always does in Sweden. Her hands are freezing on the walks.. :/ We have no gloves.. well.. we have no gloves that she will leave on her hands. :/ We are going to either have to get some that are attached to a jacket, or get some that connect and she can't unconnect or something like that.. :/

Leia just brought me her comb so that I can brush her hair. :) She loves having her hair brushed. :)
She has been much better the last couple of days. Less whiny and playing better. So I hope it stays this way!! :)

Fredrik thinks her "haasaahh" is "hejsan" (hello). :/ :) It is as good a guess as any. :/ :) She says it when she sees us walk into a room or something.. so maybe.. :)
She is really good with waving, and she is really good at the hand shaking, too. :)

We ordered some decorations for Leia's birthday party:



We bought it and had it shipped to Mormor + Morfar.. to cut down on import taxes from shopping internationally, which can run to 1/3 of the purchase price.....!!!! Because of course I'm buying a Hello Kitty centerpiece to resell it on to someone else..............

Lately it has been about 9-10 degC (48-50 degF) when we get up in the mornings for breakfast, but today it was 5 degC (41 degF). :/ Ehh.. cold. :/ :))

A definite sign that Leia is back to her normal self.. she is playing perfectly well by herself and letting mommy blog, without coming and trying to steal the mouse or beat the laptop to death. :/ :)

She still isn't walking. :/ She wants to.. but she.. I dunno. :/
She will be in the middle of the floor, and stand with her hands and feet flat on the floor, and then easily go into a standing position and then stand there for a very long time. So long that she even realizes that she is standing there for a long time and is very proud of herself and starts smiling. :) But she won't walk, when she starts to move a leg forward she will just go down on her knees. :/

But now it is time to get on with our normal morning schedule. :) Time for Leia to play in her play pen while Mamma showers.

More later!

"Haasaahh!"

Leia's favorite thing to say is "haasaahh!" We have NO idea what it means. But she LOVES when you repeat it. She will sit (most usually) in her high chair, raise her arm and hand to the ceiling and say "haasaahh!" She doesn't say it, she whispers it. And it is creepy. It is even creepier when she puts both arms in the air.. :/ It means something important, but we haven't figured out what it is yet. :/

She will take her right index finger and point at her left hand palm, and that means that she wants to play with your hands. She likes to take them and clap them and move them around in the air. :/ :)

I'm still sick. Coughing pretty bad today. Fredrik is getting sick. Leia is almost better. I think I'm getting better, but it is lingering.

We are still going on our morning walks. Still doing our "construction walks." They are laying cables under the sidewalks.. so it is a big mess. The stroller tires really need air. They are almost flat.. And we can't find the pump that works. We have pumps, but there is only one that we could find to buy that works. :/ And of course now we can't find it. :/ Going to have to get a new one then I guess. :)

Fredrik isn't looking forward to being sick. He has lots going on at work. He's been measuring for optic cables in Bengtsfors. Tomorrow he has to go to the most northern part of Bengtsfors' township to measure property lines. And then he might have to go 2 hours south of Bengtsfors to Trollhättan to measure some stuff there for a railroad and for a soil analysis. If he has to go to Trollhättan then he will just drive his work car home. He refuses to drive to Bengtsfors and then try to catch a bus home. :/ :) But he won't know until tomorrow morning if he has to go there or not.

We are really considering getting the fireplace fixed. It would be a good investment and help with heating costs during the winter. We contacted someone before. And it is ½ the fireplace that needs to be taken down and rebuilt. But he said that for it to be done better, the whole thing should probably be taken down and rebuilt, and the cost wouldn't be that much different. It would cost 30 000 sek, or 5000$. We contacted the guy last summer, and he said that it would be a few months before he could even come and look at it, and then of course you go on a list. So, who knows how long it would take to get to it.. :/ :) But we think it is going to be the next thing we do with the house.

Today someone came and picked up the old oil tank that we cut out of the cellar. A guy came with a big truck and it had a big arm that crushed the metal is if it was paper, and it took all of like 5 minutes.

Leia is a booger.. like always. Her favorite thing to do is to carry around pillows. She is still impatient with a bad temper. :/ We hope that we can break her from both of them as she gets a little older.








Fredrik's work get together went well yesterday. The meeting was supposed to last 3 hours, but they had a new, organized, female boss.. :) And the meeting only lasted 2 hours. :)))

I've been doing a little Swedish here and there inbtwn washing dishes and doing laundry while Leia sleeps. I still have to start my other class. :/ I keep forgetting to contact the teacher. Ehh.. :/ :)

Hmm.. rainy and cold.. :/ hovering around 9-10 degC (48-50 degF). Always overcast and it is getting darker every day.. Typical Swedish Fall. :) We've been waiting as long as possible to turn the heat on, but I don't think we are going to be able to wait much longer. Hopefully we can get the fireplace fixed. Would be so nice to have it working.. and plenty of wood from the summer house to use. But not so much fun to keep Leia from it.. :/ :))

Fredrik is looking forward to his eye appointment on Saturday. And I have an appointment for a test to renew my American driver's license. Hopefully the woman there won't have any trouble with translating the eye info.. It isn't the same here as in the US. I have had it done once before, when we were living in Nynäshamn (Stockholm), and the guy had no problem with it. He actually thought it was pretty cool that you have to renew your drivers license so often, and that you had to have an eye exam each time. But even though we have such strict rules with our driver's license, you STILL can't transfer an American license for a Swedish license........ Ehh..

:) More soon!

Pulling 02.

Pulling 01.

Not very exciting, but a video from yesterday..
Leia was trying to pull her toy around after her, like Pappa does. She wasn't very good at it, but she kept trying. :/ :))

Early.

Fredrik came home early today to give me a break. I felt a bit guilty about it, but I was really having difficulty keeping up with Leia. :/ She is getting better.. but I am not. :/ :( Her nose wasn't runny at all today. I never knew how difficult it was to get dried, crusted snot off of a baby's nose..... :/ It was like super glue.

Leia and I went on a walk into town this morning. I really didn't want to go, but it was sorta nice to get out even though I wasn't feeling well. Needed to get some stuff: stamps, cheese, apple juice, etc.. We go through so many stamps. :/ It is so expensive sending mail to the US, 11sek, or almost 2 dollars. I think it is 90 cents (5,4sek) to send normal mail to Sweden from the US. Which is the cost of sending a letter within Sweden.

I had some videos to put on today, but I just didn't get to it sorry. :/ I'll try to do it tomorrow. It takes quite a while for them to upload.

Fredrik has a work meeting in Uddevalla tomorrow, which is a couple hours south of here. The meeting should be done about when he would normally finish work, but afterwards they always have a social get-together, have dinner and bowling or something of the sort. He told them he wasn't able to stay after the meeting. Which I also feel bad about. He wants to come home, but he probably won't be home until after Leia is in bed anyways.. :/ :) But it is such a long drive, he doesn't want to come home so late in the evening/night. If I wasn't sick then he would probably definitely stay, as he always does.

She is keeping me drained of energy. :/ Which is also why I think that I'm not getting better. I've been coughing more and sneezing a lot more.

And I've decided that I REALLY want THIS.

Comfy.