2010

So far it's been a-okay. Hopefully this year will be better than the previous one.
Kudos to Britnay Murphey who decided to join the army of dead celebrities before the new year.

Let's see, how was our Christmas, birthday and new years? Weeeeell.. I don't really feel like typing a long entry so I'm going to summarize things the best I can.

Before Christmas we ended up cutting Alexander's hair and attending a office Christmas lunch together. It was fun, on both ends.

Christmas Day (We didn't celebrate eve this year as it's not amerrrrikuhn):
It started off .. stressy, things had to be cooked and a apartment had to be cleaned! All at once while keeping an eye on the walking anti-cleaner tornado, Alexander.
However, we did actually start off the morning by giving him a Christmas gift as fit in american culture and Christmas celebration.
He finally got his driving and talking Chuck the Truck he once saw on tv and got completely sucked into it and mesmerized. He LOVED it. He still do, every once in awhile when he's not busy tearing the apartment up (he's up to a lot of no good now days and there's a 50/50% that he will listen to "No!")
Later on when we were about and almost finished with the cooking and done with the cleaning, more guests showed up: Rob (he brought dessert! A cookie and cream pie) and the kids. Having Alexander entertained by his siblings helped a million to finish things up in time... however, I ended up forgetting to boil some potato to the meal so it was kind of poor in that carb area.
We all got to sit down and eat relaxed and relieved it was all done and done with.
.. Till the damn pager started going off (Rob had it but is still a n00b in this area and needs Anthony's help) around 6 PM. This time it wasn't a small problem either, since it was basically a snow storm going on outside, everything in a certain area went down and was uncontactable, which is usually a no-no. Both Anthony and Rob had to head out and didn't get finished until around 9-10 pm that night.
During the time I was quietely cursing and hating the pager for ruining a perfectly good christmas evening while trying to entertain all the kids till bed time.
When Anthony finally came home, all the kids were sleeping and we ended up eating some dessert together before going to bed.

In before my birthday:
Brandi and Price came by and handed out christmas gifts to all the kids, Alexander got a big box of big lego blocks, he LOVES them too. He's a pretty loving guy when it comes to anything it seems. ;p
Something that Alexander ate didn't agree with him and he got sick in the middle of the night and started puking, atleast on 5 different times we had to change his bed sheets along with his own clothes, poor guy didn't end up going to bed until around 5 am.

My Birthday:
In total, I got 6 hours of sleep before Anthony came into the bedroom, asked me to take care of Alexander so he could sleep since he had been up the night prior to my birthday (it actually made me angry) taking care of our SLEEPING son.
It was a pretty frustrating day until Brandi and Price came to pick us up and drove us to Columbia where we went to Olive Garden.
We all ordered different things. I ordered the shrimp risotto, Anthony some marsala beef dish, Brandi had a Chicken Alfredo and Price had a kebab (meat grilled on a stick over here instead of what us swedes are used to whenever we hear that word) with veggies. The service was pretty bad, our waitress kept putting food within a hands distance reach front of Alexander, was slow on serving us drinks and food (there was alot of people there but c'mon, common sense around a baby?)
I made it through one third of my dish, I believe before feeling slightly nauseas, but I thought I was just full from earlier when we had a bit of left over pizza for lunch.
I started to feel really nauseous on our way back from Columbia in the car but thought nothing of it, some natural causes could be the reason of that... little did I know what kind of night and morning after that was awaiting us.
The night I was feeling horrible, nauseous and dizzy. The morning after I made it just in time to the bathroom to go number 2 in two different directions, almost at the same time.
I wasn't the only one, Brandi wasn't feeling to well either and later that night Anthony threw up quite a bit. The only one who made it out fine was Price.
The only things we all had in common was the salad (they had put way too much vinegar in it), the breadsticks and the round plates we had our food on (except for price who had a oval shaped one).
Food poisoning sucks. Sucks so bad.
I'm most likely never wanting to go to a Olive Garden ever again. However, my complaining and filing a complain did bear fruit. They paid back the money Brandi paid for the food and we got an apology both in writing and on the phone.
That's something Sweden (that's how I feel anyhow) do not have. Good customer service.

The days before new years were filled with sick and not feeling well at all because of previous experience.

New Years eve:
Anthony got his last check for the year in and we didn't have much time or actual feel to plan anything extravagant for us to eat and celebrate, plus previous christmas pretty much raped us financially so .. no.
I got some ice cream (cookies and cream) and Anthony got some chips and dip to go with and we celebrated new years infront of the tv, cuddled up together.

As for what we have done so far this year?
Alexander have taught himself to throw temper tantrums (utbrott) Yay! He screams and roars, he'll throw himself on the floor and make a scene. Fun for all of the family.
Anthony redecorated our bedroom and moved furniture around, it's a bit different and I'm still trying to get used to it.
As for myself, I've been trying to keep up with my son and general apartment stuff. I've been very tired and not feeling like doing anything lately, so I haven't ended up doing any special updates.

As for tired, it's been even worse lately, Alexander wakes up crying in the middle of the night for no good reason at all and won't stop unless I get out of bed and comfort him, myself.
So I'm getting very little sleep lately, thus I'm mostly zombie during the weekdays.

I don't think I forgot anything...

updates

My posts have been few and long apart.

Yes, closing in on christmas makes every day a little bit more stressful and little bit more things to do.
Before friday (yeah, not thursday like us swedes do) I have to atleast cook up a catering service buffet, clean, keep my son in check and make sure the gifts are well hidden/wrapped/in boxes etc.
On top of being very very tired during the days.

I will most likely make a picture montage of our dinner table again and post it along with descriptions.

Lately I've been on a drinking-water and water only kick. I can't get enough of it and it feels like I'm constantly thirsty, it's so bad that I'm craving for it. If you haven't been around in the US, I can tell you this: Regular tap water in the USA is awful, horrible, nasty and just pure evil. It's packed with shit that's supposedly good for you but it tastes like bile and sewer water and add some metals in it and there you go. Just pure disgusting. Apparently it's even worse in some other places like mid-florida (my friend used to live there and described the water as brown and tasting like something that would come from a swamp... oh wait! That would explain why!)
...
For those who didn't catch that: Big parts of Mid-Florida = Swamps.

For our faucet, we have a water filter attached to it, every once in awhile (about 3 months) you change the filter to another one and repeat and rinse.
The water coming through the filter doesn't quite hit the spot but it's sufficient for really thirsty moments.

Today was a big day.
The Christmas Office lunch!
Everybody at the office will bring something to the table.
There were cooked beans, mashed potatoes, brisket and pork, countless of various salads (potato, macaroni and cheese, cheese salad etc ) funny enough, none of them had any lettuce or anything green in them! It was a little weird and I felt it was missing, something crisp and refreshing to chew on. Maybe next year on my part.
We brought the exotic gravlax and my grandmother's infamous bread. I love the combination to death and about half the office dare to have some.
American's are not big on fish in general it seems and having raw, cured fish scares the living hell out of some people.
I am however happy that my closest people (Brandi, Price and my husband) had some and enjoyed it.
There was a overabundance of desserts, none I was too fond of, well other than Brandi's chocolate chip cookies, they were easy on me and melt in my mouth. :D
But a lot of the desserts were store bought with a container of cool whip on the side (cool whip = substitute whipped cream. Store bought goods = overly sugary and just yuck.).
Overall it was a really nice lunch, people were generally nice and happy and having a baby around brings out the goo-goo-gaa-gaa in people aka people come up to Alexander and try to make him laugh and smile by talking in baby language and poking his belly.
At one point we decided to let Alexander lose, since he now walks most of the time and he's never walked around freely around the office. This was a HUGE success on both our parts. Alexander LOVED the freedom, he walked the living crap out the place and tried to examine every corner and inch.
When Brandi took us home after we were done being there, the poor guy was so exhausted he fell asleep within 15 minutes of being home.

on another note:
Today we cut Alexander's hair.
No fuss, no mess, just smiles and giggles.
We made the hair cutting into a game and he laughed the entire time we cut his hair, after he got a bath, which he loved.
I'm a little touchy around this subject of his hair cutting, I'm so used to his golden curls and long'ish hair, it was weird and it is weird seeing him with short hair. Of course we took before and after picture which will be uploaded at some near future, whenever I get around to and don't have to stress with Christmas preparations.

Now it's 10.34 pm or in Sweden speak. 22.34 at night.
I'm beat and exhausted. Alexander is still awake but needs to worked on for sleep. Phew.

Have a good one.
Will have to call a bunch of Swedes on Thursday.

Sankta Lucia

Yesterday was Alexander's name day, a couple of days before that (on the 9th) was mine.

My nameday got celebrated when the UPS man showed up with our new bed mattress. Interpret that however you'd like but I can tell you the end result ended up with the two of us sleeping on it anyway.

To celebrate my son's name day, I decided to bake some swedish ginger bread (for the people who doesn't know, Swedish and American ginger bread are very diffrent, our (swedish) are very flavorful and crunchy! American, that I've experienced, are soft and overly sugary to the point where I feel nauseas but not quite like the horrid Twinkey bar.)
So I start baking, reading the recipe and mixing in ingredients as they go, till I get to the "now roll up your dough in aluminum foil and let is sit in the fridge for atleast 24 hours" Doh!
I really shouldn't skim through recipes I've decided I want to do.

But the dough looks fine today and the timing is just right as it is St. Lucia in Sweden today.
I might even sing... later on.. for Alexander, only >_>
We'll see!
Maybe when I serve up the cookies.

My husband decided to go back and try the free 2 week trial on Final Fantasy 11, Online.
For the first time, ever, in my life, I have capable computer.. I could play WoW if I wanted to! It's almost making me cry! I can play games online!
So I'm getting the 2 week free trial as well and we'll see what will happen from on there.
For the curious ones, I made a Mithra Thief. :j

I've been planning to bake "Lussebulla" for awhile, I couldn't last year because.. yeah, new born baby!
This year though!
Even though I can't find any keso/kvarg around here, I'm going to try to use ricotta cheese! It will be interesting and quite the experiment.

Anyway, time to play!

issa been awhile

Yeah, I've been busy lately with Christmas coming up and Alexander getting more and more active. Not to mention the sick that's been walking around our apartment.
Alexander's had a cold (still does) and I haven't been feeling to well (still do) either.

Not much to report, really. More complaining rather than reporting.

I don't really know how to handle my son right now, he's got a real temper, that boy.
And when something doesn't agree with him, like a "No!" for example. He bites. He bites me. He bites hard.
How the hell do you handle that? especially when he doesn't want to let go and saying no aggravates him further. Being persistent? Yes, but my arms and knees are about to look like a Swiss cheese (full of holes for the ones who didn't catch that.)
When the other kids are here, he's an angel, he loves it when they are around to play with him and him with them.
The day after they leave, oh lordy.. Everything is SHIT. He's cranky, angry, foul mood and short fuse (kort stubin).
I'm wondering if he's feeling lonely..
Maybe it's time to work on another sibling or put him in day care.


I think my own mother changed her phone-number and neglected (chose not to) to tell me so, their regular phone is shut off and has been for quite some time now. Which is kind of either assholery or idiocy. Now all my advice-calls (regarding my son) has to go through my father.
x_x

Right now it feels like everything I eat will leave me sick, nauseous and achy (around the stomach area). It's quite annoying since I can't enjoy a proper meal anymore.
I also think I cracked my toe (the one next to the pinky toe) while accidentally banging it against the baby high chair, which has rubber studs on it's feet, making it NOT move around.. so with great force of my foot up against a metal pole.. yeah. My toe hurts and is quite swollen right now.

On a lighter note:
Alexander has taught himself to get up to standing position from the floor without holding on to something. That's quite the improvement along with his walking, he climbs up and down the beds like a professional and everything you say, he will atleast copy every other word.
Smart kid.
Yesterday night, him and his father was staying up a bit longer than I could handle (I went to bed early feeling rather ill. ), without noticing, Anthony fell asleep and Alexander, after awhile decided it was time for a diaper change and a bottle of warm baby cereal. He gently woke his father up and brought him the wipes (who was a bit confused at the time). Anthony declined them, not fully understanding, however, Alexander kept bringing them back to them until his point was made clear.
Very very VERY smart boy, this guy.
We are both very proud.
Smart boy with horrible temper. Hmm sounds like a mix between me and Anthony! About 50/50 one might say!

I'm going to chew on a stick of celery soon and call my father regarding the biting problem, I've just had enough of this.

Thanksgiving came and left

But there are still left overs from the event!

Prepping for a big American holiday event was a handful.
Express cleaning and cooking for many hours on end, that's pretty much how the Thursday, the day of thanksgiving, went, atleast till the guests arrived.

From my previous food list, we excluded the pumpkin pie, it was just too much food for the small amount of us to handle, we're just gonna make one some other day!

I made a small picture collage of all the foods.
I didn't write any names, thought it would be more fun if you all could guess yourself to what is what! (Yeah, I'm really just lazy and exhausted)

I'll give you a match up list though! :

*Kalkon/Turkey (Oh god, was it ever good (and still is!) My husband rubbed on a smokey flavor blend on it's skin, roasted it for a couple of hours in the oven, it was stuffed with veggies in and around it. The flavor is very wild and smokey and ever so wonderful, I just LOVE it. Makes a great sandwhich meat right now.)

*Hasselbackspotatoes (they didn't roast enough in the oven and on the wrong temperature, as we had to put them in with the turkey at the same time, so they were a bit of fail but had a nice crunch to them!)

*cream sauce (the good ol' Swedish meatballs cream brown sauce (cream, soysauce, salt and pepper trick.)went very well with potato and turkey, even more so with strawberry jello for some reason, really balanced it out!)

*Green beans/Haricort verts (They were cooked southern style with bacon and still sitting in the left over boiled water, I love green beans alot so they were already a favorite of mine!)

*Strawberry Jello (With the lack of cranberry sauce, since my husband doesn't care for it, I made strawberry jello instead! It was meant to go with the deserts but I felt I needed to balance all the salty with something a little bit sweet, as for jam and voila, we had a package of strawberry jello in the cabinet)

*Bread (Garlic bread and cresent butter rolls (Americans love their pillsbury butter rolls to go with their food, I've discovered.) nothing special to say about this, the rolls came in a can! That's a bit unusual for us Swedes, they were sticky but easy to bake out when I figured it out.)

*Rob's pasta dish (aw dangit! Forgot to take a picture of it! I knew I forgot something! It was pretty much what I usually cook when I'm feeling like it! Makaronlada for the Swedes. You can, however, see a small piece of it on my dinner plate in the collage)

*Rob's Desert (It was very artificial cream and cherry filling! With some gram crackers (grahamskex), it was good but I couldn't eat too much of it without having a nausea attack coming on! But i did enjoy a cherry desert!)

*kladdkaka/Messy cake! (My sweet sweet messy cake, it didn't turn out bad at all! Very kladdkaka as it should be, served with a bowl of whipped cream for taking.)

The picture itself is fairly big, might take awhile for it to load! (click it for a fuller, bigger version)

The evening went very well and it was fun hanging out with friends and offering them dinners, but I've always liked the role of the hostess (and not in the bad way.).

On the topic of the kids.. sigh.
All of them sick.
Two out of three were on medication this time.
This is getting ridiculous.
2 ear infections and one pink eye, still.
Fuck you, Susan. I can't believe there is no way of putting this woman under a watchful eye from some kind of authority of some kind. Seriously. What can we do? I'm running out of energy and hope and it sucks, they kids are the ones suffering bad from this.
I'm almost suspecting her to have Munchhausen syndrome, only it starts with her not caring for her kids, until they are bad enough they need a doctor and then she can suck up the attention from the doctors for her poor children, who are sick EVERY SINGLE WEEK.

So far everything's gone fine.
Alexander is getting out of his phase and is back to his old happy self.

Oh yeah! The bed! The toddler bed!

The first night we got it and put it together, it was new and exciting. He couldn't sleep on it! He was playing, examining and falling off.
This was not a fun night for mama me. 5 times he fell off the bed when he was starting to fall asleep, pityful cries in the middle of the night woke me up enough to go and hold him for a bit and then put him back to bed.
Second night was just wonderful! It was like he had magically learned from his previous nightly experiences! He slept the night through and didn't fall off.
Third night, the very same and by 4th night he now knows how to get up and down from his own bed, legs first, climbing down and legs up on the mattress when getting up.
I'm so proud of him.
He doesn't even have problems taking naps on it. What a big boy I got. <3
It's funny too, he doesn't even need to lay in our bed as well to fall asleep or wake up or take naps, he's always been very big about this, knowing what is his bed and having hard times falling asleep outside of his bed (other than when he's so sick that he's just too exhausted to care where he's laying).
When the kids were here, he was very prone to show off what a big boy he was as well, he kept coming up to them and playing like a big kid, grabbing a toy and gently watching what they were doing and then trying to do the same. Very sociable. My little boy grew up.
I almost feel a little lonely. ;p
This weekend he barely even took notice of me, or rather, he wasn't as clingly as he usually is. He ignored both me and Anthony, just to hang out with his siblings and play big kid games.

It's been a fairly good weekend and American holiday. I'm happy about it, other than physical pains that both me and Anthony seem to suffer from, big muscle knots and hurty aching backs and necks.
Weird how we both got it, just like that..

hrrrmmm... and thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving here in the great land of the west is coming up, on Thursday to be more exact!
And being married to an American with an American family, we are doing it too!

Lots of preparations are to be made, lots of food to be made!

Today till Thursday we are going to clean, shop (groceries), cook and bake.

We're also having guests!

The Fosters (Anthony's manager and wife) and Yearwood (coworker to Anthony, moved here from Texas recently and we've known him awhile over the internet.)
And this is our table: (this is going to be a knit/knot-party so everyone brings something )

Our side, me and Anthony (and Alexander):
*Turkey (stuffed with squash, zucchini, onion and carrots)
*Hasselbacks potato (Swedish potato dish)
*Green Beans
*Pumpkin Pie (with whipped cream)
*Messy cake (kladdkaka, a sort of chocolate'y brownie, with whipped cream)

Yearwood will bring:
* a pasta oven bake dish
* a fruity cake/pie/quiche

The Fosters will bring:
*drinks (soda, juice etc)


Needless to say, the table will be big and plenty!
The kids will come as well, maybe, if they're all well..

oh yeah, I didn't update about last weekend, they were here...
Remember the previous post's when I complained about them being sick all the time and us getting about everything they have when they come over? Yeah? You do? Great!
This time one of the kids had pink eye! OH JOY! (smittsam ogonimflammation)
By Saturday morning, two of the kids had it and had to be quarantined to one corner of the apartment and little contact with the rest of us. YEY. Fucking Wonderful.
All while their mother were no where to be found, wouldn't answer her phone or return calls.
Yeeeaaaaaaaah... been checking for signs around Alexander's eyes and hoping he didn't get it.
Same with me and Anthony.
Le sigh.

Alexander is going through some sort of phase right now, he's very clingy, gets randomly sad and have bad sleep, wakes up several times during the night, can't get comfortable and sometimes starts crying or just sitting there, talking to half-asleep me (I can never be fully asleep when I know he's stiring around or being awake. Just a habit you get after caring for a baby, having to get up in the middle of the night and change diapers/feed/rearrange/general care)
I'm guessing who's going through a development phase, mentally and physically, me, being the mother and comfort blanket get to take most of the hits here, always holding and carrying.
If I don't hold him, carry him, have him on my lap.. oh dear, all hell breaks lose. Ugh. He doesn't nap well either anymore, about 40 minutes (he usually sleeps around 2-3 hours twice a day).
Takes him about 3 hours for him to get asleep during the night, we have to start around 9-9.30 for him to fall asleep around 11-12.30. Yeah. Not so much fun.
Whatever this phase is, I hope it will pass quickly and I will have my fun loving son back again, also, I want him to go back to being pappa's big boy again, so he can snuggle and play with him without starting to cry and run over to me. x_x
It's .. exhausting to say at least.

Toddler bed.

New bed is ordered and is to arrive some time next week.

Hopefully Alexander will not climb up and out of his crib before then. I'm scared of him climbing up, tipping over and falling to the floor and hurt himself.

He's such a boy, boy.

<== btw, that's his new bed. A Pixar's Cars bed, since he loves cars alot (not just the movie but cars in general).


I'm still nervous.

oh no!

Well.. we've come to THIS.

Oh god.

Our son is 13 months today and we already have to get him a toddler bed. Next step after crib.

Last night, celebrating my husband coming home, we were snuggling in bed and we hear some suspicious noises from the crib along with a giggling little boy to follow, we look over and see how he's climbed up against one of the corners of the crib and trying to climb up further! ARGH!! Panic setting in.
Can't leave him alone in the crib any longer if he's going to climb it.
So a toddler bed it is!
It feels too early but what choices do we have? Put a lid on the crib and have him locked in like an inmate in prison?

So before potty training we get to toddler bed train instead, having him try to stay in bed when it's sleep time.
Wake up in the middle of the night with someone playing on the floor unsupervised? Oh noes. I'm not ready! I think anyhow.

Alexander's made fantastic improvement with talking, he's sucking up words like a sponge and trying to pronounce them as well catching on what comes next in social situations.
This morning, after having his usual morning cereal, he burped which he promptly said "guse me", which is a short version of "excuse me". Very proud mother.


Did I mention it's really nice to have Anthony back home again?
It is.
I missed him alot and I feel a whole lot less paranoid about noises around the house again.

Good stuff.