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.

Business trip

Anthony is away for a couple of days of business trip within the company.

You can already feel the energy around the house being different. I don't like being away from Anthony for too long, not that we are super dependent on each other, just a way we are, a bit clingy and loving each other. ;p

Alexander and I started off our day, as usual, with breakfast and the regular breakfast panic he gets whenever he discovers that I'm making it in the kitchen.
I then decided that we were going to call Alexander's grandfather/moffa, my father and have a random chat.
Alexander LOVED that idea and kept talking to his moffa for a long long while, he was telling moffa all about blankets (which is a new favorite word "blanket/ganket") his pappa and "go go go" and all kinds of things that comes out of my son's mouth.
My father seemed to enjoy the phone conversation for as long as it lasted.

Not much else is going on, Alexander is constantly learning new words and exploring the world as he can. He got new diapers that are working out okay for us (he's a very active kid and the regular ones are a bit .. they tend to fall off, not hang on too well. ). Alexander is currently taking his morning nap right now.
Tomorrow we might get a visitor, Brandi, Anthony's boss's wife, that will be fun, she's a nice and fun girl and she loves Alexander. I don't have a whole lot to offer since we're lacking a bit on stuff at home but I'll see about whipping up something in all, even if it's just pancakes.

Weather is turning more winter'ish here, atleast for here, that is, colder, a little rainy and soon things might start freezing up a bit. I kind of miss the north-swedish winters, where there is ALOT of snow and a dry air around it. I HATE wet winters.. they are cold and a pain in the ass.
Not to mention the weather in Missouri is extremely random. EXTREMELY.
One day it's cold and could be snowing. Next day it's +20 c and there's no trace of snow ever existing. The day after that it's raining and cold again.
One can go insane for less.

I'm sleepy.

and all is well

We got it, we fought it and came out victorious.

And yeah, I got it too for a short period of time.

Having the swine-flu is just .. not fun at all! Surprise!
The first day when I really had it, it felt like I had a all-round fever, though my temp was shown as normal, though a bit warm but not high enough for a fever. It hurt EVERYWHERE. For atleast 12 hours I was completely useless, I was in so much pain (mainly my head and then the rest of my body) I couldn't concentrate on sitting up, even less keeping my eyes open or talk to my son, it hurt so bad.
I had to have Anthony come home during his lunch break and change Alexander's diaper while I was laying on the floor, barely conscious.
The day after I was able to stay up and stand up. That was cool, so only a day of utter horrible pain and a couple of others of hazy daze and by that I mean everything felt like it was wrapped around a thick fog, I was only half-there.
However, I recovered pretty quickly from the h1n1 flu, so that's pretty cool.
I used to have shit for an immunity system, after I got pregnant with Alexander, it's like it got built up like superman, I'm rarely sick now days and for the short period of time I had THE swine flu, yikes and wow.. normally, I would feel the after effect for many months to come after the initial main hurt days.
But yeah.. my new immunity system, it's like it's always should have been from the start! I love it! Could also be that I have a pretty good motivator to keep me up and going... yes, I'm talking about my son.
Other than getting over the dreadful swine flu from mexico, there hasn't been much going on.. Alexander and Anthony are at a state-run clinic right now for 1 year old vaccination, hopefully they will come home soon.
We've pretty much just rested up since the last time I wrote here, trying to fully get rid of this thing, once for all, the only thing that haunts me right now are various nausea attacks (I didn't eat much during my flu and I have a hard time getting back into the right eating pattern right now) and some stuffy noses.
Amazingly, Anthony did not catch the flu at all, but his immunity system is rock solid, it's frightening and intimidating, I'm partially jealous but I also think when we had a baby together I got pieces of it for my own body.. which is pretty cool!
:D
As for Alexander, how is he doing in general right now?
He's back to his old strong self, playing, talking like there is no tomorrow and loving the noise of his own voice, very independent boy as well, enjoys playing on his own alot and wants to try about everything I bring on.

Today Anthony brought home some lunch from Sonic's. A great big burger (no mustard, no pickles are my standard choice, I hate mustard and pickles on my burgers), tater tots (for swedes: rusti/sma potatisknoddar, tank potatisbullar som du gor iordning i ugnen och ater med lingonsylt.) and a BIG coke to go with.
Usually I think Sonic's food are a bit dry'ish but this burger was DIVINE! It was the most delicious burger I've had in awhile.
About one fourth (1/4) went into Alexander's mouth and disappeared forever and around 6 of my tots as well, he didn't have any of my coke (thank god, I was hoping to not introduce him into soda in his first year.. or second, maybe third, we'll see.). He absolutely LOVED the burger, he could not get enough.
Prior to us sharing my burger, he had a full bowl of cereal (thickened to a porridge kind of substance) mixed with pureed peaches. Needless to say, when we were done eating, he was very very VERY full, his stomach was tightened out like the skin on a drum. He was very happy and satisfied though but insisted on tasting my straw (from my drink.).
I don't ever think I've seen him reject any kind of food, I'm so glad he's not a picky eater, so very glad. He seems to like about anything and everything.

Anthony and Alexander just came home, apparently he only cried a little bit and struggled as they put the needless in but stopped instantly when Anthony offered comfort. The nurse complimented how good he was being. He's always been very good at the doctors office or whenever we are out in general, never making a fuss unless he's been hungry, but not even then, he waits patiently till we get home, then all hell can break loose (though most of the time, never.).


And now for something completely else.

So there is this person, I'm not telling gender nor name, age etc.
This person goes to a fairly priviliged school, fairly fameous and fairly money consuming, in a very high end area of this country, rich people a plenty!
This person gets alot of A's as they go through classes...
Now, here's where this clashes with me and bare with me..
This person is a bumbling idiot. IDIOT.
Seems to have no concept of themselves, like they lived in a silver plated cushioned bubble, no realistic expectations or goals, nor do they seem to understand how the world actually work nor feel the need to find out either.

.. WHAT?
I do not compute this.
Obviously reality is going to catch up eventually and give them a hard cold slap in the face, but I just don't understand how someone can live like this, get straight A's and still.. it just doesn't make much sense!

Oh well.

well.. how about that.

Ladies and Gentlemen.

We have the Swine flu. THE swine flu. H1N1. the FUCKING swine flu of all diseases.


WHAT IN THE FUCK!?

I could seriously kill the step-childrens mother. I want to put my hands around her neck and press, press, press.
I'm furious. Utterly furious. Actually .. I'm more than that, I'm not even sure there's a word for what I'm feeling like right now.

How can any one be so irresponsible with children and not even noticing when they are sick and then when they are, have them move around other people. Fucking irresponsible.


Now, Alexander being a little guy under the year of 2, is in a risk group of getting pneumonia (lungimflammation) which can be very dangerous. Very dangerous.

However, Alexander being a very strong boy with no genetical diseases in the background (as far as we know), the risk of him dying like a fly with this disease is not as big.

My son has the swine-flu..

SWINE FLU.

(and yeah, we got medication for him to try to prevent a possible development of pneumonia)

My sick pup

Another late'ish update.
Weekend came and went, kids were here, coughing, wheezing and sneezing.. as usual and had their baby brother join the club with coughing without covering their mouths and kissing on him.

in short.
Alexander is sick, very sick. Somewhat high fever (not high enough for hospital, but high enough that he only wants to sleep and whimpers in his sleep. ), a runny green/yellow nose and consistent coughing.
The first day of not feeling too well before the fever really broke out, we were out sitting in the livingroom, I suspected him not feeling too well since he didn't feel like playing at all and decided to cuddling up with blankets instead.





This is my poor sick boy, not feeling well at all..

This morning he threw up all of his bottled cereal (valling) and wasn't feeling good at all. I'm trying to keep him hydrated (ger honom vatska/vatten/mjolk/etc) and well rested, but if the situation is still the same tomorrow or gets worse in a couple of hours, you bet your ass we will go to the hospital.

This is problematic. It seems that pretty much every time, or every other time the kids visit and have some kind of illness, it goes directly to Alexander (used to be me all the time but I'm not catching it as easily now days as before) who in turn gets sick.
It gives me conflicts on the inside..

Anthony (my husband) should be able to see his other kids alot, every weekend if possible, as much as possible to have a good bond and relationship with them.
However, when they do come every weekend, sick and contagious, ever single time which in turn is pawed off on us.
I don't want that.
I mean, I like them (love when they're not little hellions) alot, but I don't want them here if they are going to be sick every time and we get it in turn.. every time. I have a little guy to protect and Anthony is a working man, he can't stay away from his job for long every year, especially not if he gets pawed off a sickness every weekend.
It's not their fault per say. They are not being taken care of well, if they were they wouldn't be sick as often as they are, but they are the ones suffering (other than us) from it, especially if they're not allowed to come here as often as they should.
It's utterly utterly frustrating.
They need to be here, but in short, I don't want them here if they even have a small persistent cough, mainly because I know where and what it leads to.
It just pisses me off so bad.

Story of the blanket Alexander got in his mouth.

When Alexander was a baby baby and a new born his paternal grandmother (farmor) gave him this blanket. I don't remember the exact moment, could it have been in the hospital after I gave birth to him? I don't remember! ugh, I feel bad now.
He's had a on and off relationship with that blanket since he's been growing up to be such a big boy, however, in the last couple of months he's only had that blanket as a sleeping blanket, sleeping with other blankets have been difficult, it worked after awhile but difficult.
This fussy white blanket has now become THE comfort blanket.
When he's sad, tired or feeling sick, this is the blanket to snuggle. He'll put it in his mouth and fall asleep that way, holding it in his mouth.
Even though I feel sad seeing him in this state, it's still very adorably cute seeing him with his blanket, in his mouth. It's truly HIS comfort blanket.

Though whenever he gets better, I better give the blanket a washing. It's wet from saliva and full of dried and wet snot right now.

Also, I hate feeling nauseas from laughing, during the evening.
(weird message huh?)

progress!

Yeah.. again, busy busy busy!


However, we've had some interesting progress in the last couple of days, starting last Wednesday.

Alexander took his first step, without holding on to anything!
Then he fell down on his butt and laughed and clapped. I was so proud I could burst. He got up again soon enough and tried to take a step again in which he succeeded to do, then he stood there giggling, utterly proud of himself and clapping and then falling down on his butt from losing his balance.

So very proud. The very second day he tried to make two steps. His best right now (friday) is 3 steps and standing up and catching himself from falling.
He's taken alot of tumbling and falls, even bumped himself on the head in the crib, on the bars, however, he's very determined to do this and he seem to have alot of fun as well.

Khaled came after three days, like I predicted! So.. *coughs* TOLD YOU SO.
He's getting us a new bed for christmas and birthday present (both mine and Anthony's birthday and christmas) which is very appriciated seeing how our current one is shit and breaking as we speak (I think I can hear the springs popping out and through the fabric holding it barely together.).
Khaled and Amina came to stay the night from thursday to friday. We ended up playing Monopoly (world edition) at the later part of the night.. the game lasted what felt like forever, but I think it was 3 hours at most. For once I wasn't the first one to get killed off and I did fairly well.. even though a bit enhanced later on for the sake of laughter.
It was alot of fun, very relaxed and I would love to do it again soon. I actually enjoy playing board games alot, believe it or not.
It was interesting, Anthony and Khaled was out getting sodas at Anthony's office, me and Amina was left sitting there just semi-watching stuff on tv and she started a conversation with me. This was happiness to me, I'm usually the one to start any kind of conversation with her, she tends to be a little reserved around me (or people in general.). I feel she's feeling a bit more relaxed around me, this makes me very happy, I want to be the best big sister I can be for her.


Vaccination shots postponed up until this upcoming monday, 1.45 pm.

Some minor family drama during the afternoon today, like an ex-wife who thinks she can do whatever without respecting our requests and schedules.
Very annoying. Without going into it too much right now as I'm not feeling too hot. I think it might be due to some stress, lack of sleep and just general exhaustion right now.

I think I might be a professional at stressing myself sick, just a thought.

For those who care, I updated the /Alexander picture folder with some new pictures of the 12 months old big boy. There's been less and less pictures lately, I've noticed.. I really wanted to try to get a picture of him trying to walk but it's hard, the camera is too loud for me to sneak one and every time he hears it, he turns around, sits down and starts posing with a smile.
Yeah yeah, show off.

Kids are here now for the first time for 2-3 weeks. No idea, lost count. Of course they were full and high on sugar when they got here, forgot that I told them to keep it down (Alexander was napping) 3 seconds after I told them.
Again, the ex-wife caused quite some annoyance with their Halloween costumes (or possibly lack of and then too much). Their facial make up was raw (not mixed out with water/oil) so we had to literally SCRUB it off, giving all three baths and scrub more.. and guess what, there are still left overs. Really cheap costumes (I can forgive that, though she has a shit ton of money from scamming the goverment and demanding child support with back pay.). But the facial make up.. god I could choke a bitch.
Especially around the girls make up. Her hair .. it doesn't even feel natural anymore, not even after a bath and a shampoo rinse. When she got here it was stiff and very dry, think both mousse and hair spray and atleast 5 minutes of both treatments... Oh and the cherry on the top was all the facial glitter.. in her eyes, on her entire body (she was wearing a costume and full attire of clothes over it. Why the FUCK? would she need glitter all over her body?) and worst of all, the bottom of her hair and on her skull. WTF? Not everything would wash away either and brushing through her hair.. I felt bad because I had to pull and tear, otherwise the hairbrush would get stuck. She was supposed to be an angel.. or fairy, or angel fairy, I couldn't tell with the cheap nylon wings. She was dressed in white and had a very badly made halo anyhow.
The boys were dressed as spider-man. Yes. Both of them. Spider-man normal and spider-man black costume (symbiot for the comic readers). Of course since she knows just about everything about spider-man and what he looks like, the boys had the facial make up of not spider-man, but rather paint all over their face and then something that I guess was supposed to resemble cobweb (spindelnat). Not resembling spider-man at all. As a matter of fact, the only thing spider-man about it was the cheaply made store bought costumes.
After much scrubbing and scrubbing.. one boy who was wearing the black costume and black face has black lines around his face and on the bottom of his hair, around his eyes and ears and in his nose. Needless to say, not pretty.
The other boy wearing the red costume and red face looks like he's been to Sahara desert for 6 hours, unprotected from the sun and then gotten beat up by someone strong. Think really red sunburn that won't come off.
Why she felt to rub raw facial make up on their eyelids .. is beyond me, but she did.

Anyway, like I said earlier (I think) I don't feel so awesome so I'm going to go and sit down and nto do anything for a bit, thus this entry stops.... here.

Blog drought

Yeah, it's a little blog dry around here, I've mostly been busy with raising my son, but not enough of important stuff to blog about.
Alexander was supposed to get vaccinated by due to paper-neglect on our side (we couldn't find the necessary vaccination card) we have to postpone this, since it's absolutely super serial that they have the vaccination card and the River Side pediatrician office won't give it to us for free.. unless we wait till friday (if we want it today, we'll have to pay out 125 dollars! Fucking retarded country. )
So we have to reschedule till next week.. hopefully.
Sucks. I wanted it done today so we could be over with it, it's going to be fairly painful and around 14 shots of vaccination (they wanted to do it all at the same time).
I say better get it over with already and try to move on while comforting to the poor 1 year old who's most likely going to get scarred by the experience.

My brother in law claimed saturday that he would come visit today (monday), but who knows, he'll give us a time and show up around 3 hours up to 3 days later. So eh.

Today is a bit of teeth grinding day.

Frustration.

the failure

It is with a heavy heart I have to admit to a wrong I've made.

I misspelled pallbearer which is the real word for people carrying the casket during a funeral.
I spelled it as "pole bearer".
This is wrong.

It is Pallbearer, plur. Pallbearers.


That is all.

Part Deux. .. I think!

As we were on our way from the graveyard (I think I forgot to mention this) I was given a beautiful branch of 4 pink lilies on it (I took pictures of it) that came from the casket flower arrangement. Amina was the one to walk up towards the casket and grab a flower, a white rose for herself and a pink lily for us.
This is something I don't remember us doing in Sweden. I remember the lowering of the casket, a flower arrangement still on it and then us throwing down roses to go with before walking off. Maybe I should ask my mom about it, my memory was a bit fussy from around that time, I do remember crying when throwing down my rose. Here people are allowed to take flowers from the flower arrangement, it seems? I do believe it was the priest who asked us to do so if we felt that way.
We walk back to the car, all three of us, I look at the tombstones around us, some dated back to 1800 century, others mid 1900's. I feel sad and a strange feeling of peace at the same time. Alexander is exhausted, he's been up since 7 AM, it's around 12.00 right now, he hasn't had his morning nap nor a bottle in over 4 hours (I ususally feed him within 4 hours and he takes naps, he's a fairly active child). His bottom is wet'ish but not insanely so, I just feel the moisture going through his pants. He needs a new diaper.
My husband was still against going to grandpa's place and staying there for awhile, but I'm very convincing that our son needs to eat and get a new diaper, otherwise the ride home will be one from hell. Anthony feels convinced enough and we head our way back to granpa's house. As we arrive our poor exhausted son is sound asleep, we get out, it's slightly raining still.
Another detail I forgot to mention, during the whole ceremony at the graveyard, it was lightly raining and you could hear the thunder we had in Sedalia far away in the background, strangely fitting and very peaceful in a sense.
I gently release our son from the seatbelts and gently wake him up, we grab our diaper bag and start moving towards the front door. By the gate we are greeted by a tiny tiny black kitten with a pink necklace around it's neck. She.. or he! Is a very affectionate kitten, she wants to be petted, Alexander starts waking up for real when he sees another fuzzy animal. I grab the kitten around it's body and bring it up for Alexander to pat, he smiles a wide smile and pats it gently, the kitten gets excited and starts purring like mad, climbs up on my shoulder and starts stroking it's body up against my neck, head and Alexander's whole body, it even went to a point where the kitten was standing on Alexander almost smothering him with it's body. I see now why newly parents are supposed to watch their kids around cats!
After awhile of snuggling, I hand over the cat to Anthony (I think I did anyway, I can't recall this specific moment that well) and we go inside, Alexander needs a new diaper bad.
Have the routine, both of us, I whip out diapers, wipes and do a quick switch. Poor boy is tired but still awake, he is not a person to miss out on things + he is hungry. More people start streaming in.
I have Anthony help me feed our son, prepping food and juice for him.
As our son is done eating and we have plates filled with food, ourselves, of course we have to share with a already-full-Alexander. Good lawd this boy can eat food and he will do it well! He eats anything and everything that we are going to eat. He was eating baked beans, pulled pork, potato and macaroni salad. It's all and well.
Time goes, we're done eating, people are coming up to us to greet us, people are crowding granpa, he doesn't seem to like it much. He is not exactly much of a people person and is said to hate crowds even more than I do (and I HATE crowds).
Most of the people there I've seen atleast once, some never talk to me, others swarm around us to meet and greet the one year old big boy and the 28 year old big man. (No, not fat. Just their birthday.) Some of my favorite relatives are there, some of my least favorite relatives as well. I was really glad no real fights broke out as there are quite a bit of drama in this family, even as far as restraining orders against each other.. so yeah. I'm glad everyone could act civil during the time spent in grandpa's house and during the ceremony.
The Priest, Johnny wants to go and comfort grandpa, he doesn't want to talk to the priest at all and tells him that pretty straight up "I don't want to talk to you!" which brought on some smirks from the people around.
During my grandfather's (on my side) funeral, I remember us all going to a rented hall-place like facility (byggnad) and had catered food.
Most of this was home-made food, home baked stuff, except for some store-bought things.
We get to the dessert (efteratt). Anthony tries to scout out some nut-free yummies for me. My devouted husband. <3
He managed to find something I'm going to describe as a pineapple cake, but it could've also been orange, I couldn't define the flavor very well. Then two cookies made out of molasses (molass, mjukt vegitariskt fett).
I offer Alexander (who's chanting "mmm!!! mmm!!" since he's bottomless and is never fed any food. Ever.) some cookie, I tell him to take a small bite so he doesn't choke on all the sugary goodness. He almost takes half the cookie.
I feed him pieces which he happily eats, then the second cookie which was more or less meant for me and me alone, I hold it in one hand and Alexander in my other (on my lap). I didn't even manage to take a bit and my cookie was stolen.. by Alexander, he snatched it out of my hand and shoved it into his mouth!! Brat.
B.R.A.T.
This delighted and amused aunts and other relatives around him. A one year old baby eating cookies and being utterly excited about it! How cute!
Needless to say, he got fed cookies for the rest of the visit by aunts and his own nana/fammo.
After an hour or two people starts going home, not even having a polite bone in their body to go and say good bye to their grandfather or cleaning up after themselves. I can't believe my eyes and inside I'm boiling, they just came here to eat free food and joke around. It's an after wake for the love of something.
Anthony has decided that we are, as a matter of fact, staying behind, hanging out with the closer relatives that we enjoy being around and help out cleaning. We get some left overs to bring home as well, a bucked of potato salad and some beans and pulled pork. Yummy!
Most of the people are gone and things have calmed down a little bit, even grandpa seemed more or less relieved over this. The mood is better in general.
Ellen, her sister Kathy, a family friend named Marlena, granpa and Dean are there, along with the three of us. This is usually the people I enjoy alot to be around, throw in Lisa and Mike and we are set! ;p
Kathy, Marlena och Ellen take it up on themselves to clean and spoil the ever living shit out of Alexander. Anthony and I start packing up and keeping granpa company every now and then, helping him up with various needs.
Some plants have to go since no one in the house are willing to care for them for a longer while, plus there are cats living there. We are graced with two plants, two plants which my mother actually grew when I lived at her house in Boden.
I don't know their name, but one is vine that climbs if positioned right (right now it's just hanging in one of our corners in the livingroom) and the other one is a small plant of a exotic'ish tree. Each branch out'ing have 8 leaves on it.
I guess I'll take some pictures of them some time, hopefully I'll make them survive as well, as I managed for a full year with the plants we got when Alexander was born.
Alot of people commented on how beautiful of a child Alexander was with his golden curls and bright blue eyes that could pierce through anybody. He handled the situation well but no one was really allowed to touch him, atleast not when I was around and could see it (or rather, him seeing me.)
I was, however, allowed to hand him over to his Nana/Fammo/Ellen for awhile while going to the bathroom without him making a fuss, I was very proud.
All in all, I felt it was a good day, though started out sad. But alot of things came to light and we got to meet some family we don't see that often, which I always find it's good.
On our ride back home our son passed out again after a long eventful day, which was good. He really needed it. Though when I tried to put him in bed and by the time we reached the crib, he was fully awake again.. figures, he's such a light sleeper.

My left arm hurt so bad, I had to drug myself up on some heavy painkillers and resting for awhile before I was going to tackle doing a small apple-cinnamon-brown sugar cake at home, to celebrate the two's birthday.
Our family friend "uncle Rob" came over and we had a general good time, playing games, eating cake and just hanging about. Alexander went to bed fairly early, which I didn't mind. I joined him 2-3 hours later while the guys were staying up for a longer period of time, playing games.

so what's left?
We were left with the experience that our son loves animals and cookies, that family will spoil him rotten.
The funeral in all was pretty calm and nice, well sad but it didn't go overboard. It was a diffrent experience for me.
Some family members are selfish assholes, others are filled with kindness and warmth. But that's pretty much how a family should be, right?
Though the birthday of the two male figures that I love the most in my life, could've started off a little bit better.

One funeral and a birthday for two.

Two birthday(s) and one funeral.

oh wow.. where to start.. hmm

7.00 AM (in the morning) We get up and get ready.. as I'm waking Alexander up to change his diaper and have him drink a bottle of baby cereal (valling.) I hear it's raining outside.. and now to add insult to injury (yeah, it's not fun standing out in a cemetery (kyrkogard) with a 1 year old, in the rain, with an umbrella, that's a wrestling match with a outcome that is pretty much lose in any way you can look at it.) It starts thundering with pretty wild flashes of lightning. WOOHOOO!!
Ususally I LOVE this kind of weather. I LOVE IT.
Today is a sad day, today we are supposed to stand in a cemetery, listening to cermony for quite some time, watching a casket being lowered to the ground. I have a one year old generally wild/happy boy which I'm going to have to carry most of the time since he's in a extremely shy phase lately and only being in the arms of his mother can calm him enough that he won't scream bloody murder. Today cannot rain and thunder. ESPECIALLY not when I'm holding a 1 year old baby boy.
With much unhappy feelings I pack up the possible things I think we need (hairbrush, some extra clothes, diapers, baby food and juice, som general things. I was going to bring a toy for Alexander but due to being pressed for time, I forgot.).
Anthony sprints to the car with Alexander in his arms to escape the pouring hosed-like (vattenslang) rain. I put on my clothes, make sure the lights are turned off and everything is in order before it's my turn to sprint. Lightning everywhere! To the cool effect of it being purple over here. Yes our lightning is purple, unlike in sweden where it's usually just white or slightly yellow'ish.
As we start driving through the town to get to the highway to Warsaw (missouri) the rain pours down HARD and we can barely see through the glass window. I'm thinking all kinds of unhappy thoughts. Shit shit shit shit shit shit please stop! please stop!
A couple of miles outside of town, the rain calms down, but not before I get to see the lightning strike down atleast on 3 diffrent occasions followed by large bangs to go with. That was actually pretty cool!
The car ride is fairly quiet down to warsaw, Alexander is playing a little bit in the backseat, I'm trying to cheer my husband up by just rambling (smaprata och svamla) I am worried.
It's both my husband's and son's birthday and it will begin with a funeral. It's my son's first birthday, I don't want it to ever be associated with this, it's kind of sad. It always will, but I'm hoping most people will rather remember her fondly (my grandmother in law) than thinking of the sadness from the funeral.
We arrive in Warsaw at my mother-in-law's place. Anthony goes first to greet people and then to grab a smoke (yes, he started with that filthy habit again, hopefully it will be a short one.) I grab Alexander, we say hi to the dogs first, Rusty and Max. Alexander is a bit newly awake and tired, still and is shy but curious as this is his first concious meeting with an animal. Last time he was up close with an animal he was too young to care or understand that they are living beings with their own wills.
We go inside only to greet aunt Amina (faster) popop Dean (styvfarfar). Alexander turns from sleepy-shy to extremely shy! Good lawd. If they even dared to look at him, he'd cling on to me faster than speed racer and nearly strangle me in the process of holding my neck hard with his tiny arms.
We all nod at each other and agree that today is a sucky day. Amina has to go directly to school after the funeral cermony as they are in the middle of doing midterms (viktiga terminprov som utgor halften av betygen i skolan). Anthony had decided that we were going home directly after, which I'm very muchly against. First off, our son would be very VERY hungry after the cermony since the eating schedule falls in on it being before-lunch meal/brunch an hour after the cermony starts. Second, he would badly need a new diaper since it's been 4 hours since he had his last one and if anything, my son pisses like a horse. Seriously. I've had diapers falling apart from being too wet from pee. So yeah.. Dean would have to be there for Ellen as it was her mother being burried, we all had pretty busy schedules ahead of us.
All of the sudden, one of the house cats (Ginger) is laying on the floor infront of me, I bend down with Alexander, introducing each other and patting her, this makes her all lovey dovey and starts to purr. Alexander wakes up and gets very excited. He MUST touch her!
I show him how to gently pat her in which he complies (forstar) and pats her gently. She gets up and starts stroking herself against my leg, Alexander gets excited +++!! He dives down (which prompts me to instantly put him down on the floor otherwise I'm going to drop him and that's not good!) and starts crawling after the poor cat who is circulating my legs, though when she discovers she is being, in fact, hunted, she gets a little nervous and tries to escape the speedy crawling boy on four. He chases her giggling till she jumps up on a couch after rounding a corner, thus out smarting him now (just you wait Ginger, he will grow big enough to walk, run and climb up on a couch to reach you!). I hear him call for me and I pick him up, I notice Anthony outside and we go to see what's up. We talk for a little bit and all of the sudden the dogs walks up to us again, Alexander being very awake after the wonderful interaction with the cat, falls instantly in love with the dogs!
Max being the most affective one comes up against Alexander (who is now standing on the porch, holding my leg) and sniffs him while wagging (vifta) his tail. Alexander applies his recently taught action of petting a pet! He pets Max, he hugs Max and he wants to kiss Max! (I put a stop to that before any lips were touched on both parts. Max is an outdoor dog, I don't really care for my son kissing Max at the moment)
Anthony decides to go and talk to Dean for a bit and walks off, dogs following him merrily (gladligen) Alexander starts breathing fast and looks at me with wild eyes, he MUST go with them! He must see and pet the dogs! He breathes fast and starts diving towards the flooring of the porch to crawl after then, thinking the wood on the porch is pretty cold, I grab his hand to let him walk (as well as practice on it). He runs. I'm clumsily trying to keep up with him. His legs are almost spinning from trying to run to the dogs. He's very excited! His first interaction with big dogs that are soft and responding to his actions.
We go around the corner and see the dogs again, in which he lets out a happy cry, loud enough for Max to notice and come and say hi to him, they play for a little bit before Anthony decides it's time to go.
We drive up to my grandfather-in-law's house. Alexander is in an excellent mood, he's talking the entire way there, most likely about his meet and greet with the dogs, he usually talks about something exciting that happen to him (he uses the same word he decides they are called when he talks about his previous experience). We meet some relatives and my mother-in-law, Ellen. Alexander turns into instant and extremely shy again, no one is allowed to look at him, even less hold him or talk to him again (well, other than me and Anthony)
Amina joins us after awhile, Alexander actually let her look at him without burying his body into mine, this is progress! Even more so when Alexander is actually brave enough to climb down from my lap and stand near me, walk a little bit along the couch we were sitting on and interact with my grandfather-in-law. He's not happy, he is burying his wife today, his wife of 71 years. But he still manage to put on a brave smile for the innocent happy but shy little boy. He's not happy though. He gets helped getting changed into a suit and we are off to the funeral home.

Anthony get's more and more depressed, he was very fond of his grandmother, they used to call each other and just talk for the love of it. I knew they were very fond of each other. Hell, I was very fond of Mary, too.
Anthony is one of the pole bearers (kistbarare). A heavy duty both physically and mentally.
We arrive at the funeral home (begravningshem.).
Now, I would like to bring up a quick description of what we do in Sweden. Usually.
We gather up at a funeral hall, get the body who's in the casket, often surrounded by flowers, then we go to church to have a ceremony hold, often live music (the organ/orgel and someone singing). A priest hold his/hers speech, maybe someone is holding another speech, some poems and gospels (psalm) are sung. Then it's out with the casket and a funeral train to the graveyard, where another speech or three are held, possibly some singing and the casket is lowered to the bottom as the priest throws in some dirt, followed by a speech, all the guests, closest family throws in roses which lands on the casket, next to and sometimes under. Then the grave diggers starts filling up the hole and everyone walks off... and drives to a catered hall or some family home where everyone eats good foods and talks about fond memories of that person.
Atleast, that's how I've had the funerals I've been to. I'm going to guess it's a norm in Sweden.

This funeral was a bit different.
No church, we didn't get to see the casket being lowered down, nor did anyone throw down flowers.
At the funeral home we got about 30-20 minutes of seeing other people, the casket was up on an altar like place in a larger room with something that could be described as church benches. The casket was surrounded by plants and flowers sent by family and companies showing their sympathy (yes, my husband's company sent the family a beautiful plant to show their sympathy and support for our family. A very very sweet thing.)
You could almost describe this room as a very small church, without a priest altar and a large amount of religious tokes and icons. It was all a very silent place, a place to be silent and show their respect, cry and miss the person being buried.

Alexander got a little impatient at the funeral home so I decided to bring him out, see some family members and look at paintings to occupy him with.
After about 5 minutes, it was time. People walked out the door, I stood outside in the half-rain (it came and dripped a little bit, not a full scaled rain but just a couple of drops here and there, very fitting actually) before moving closer to the door and my more immediate family . Me and Alexander placed us behind Ellen and Amina. Alexander even gave Nana Ellen a reassuring pat on the back of her shoulder. The pole bearers came out and carried the flower decorated casket to the funeral car (likbilen). Then it was off to the graveyard.

It was a long line of cars, our family is big. Some people had the nerve (not related, just random people) to cut us off in the car line or idiotically drive through it to hit another road. Show some respect you damn assholes.
We had a police car escorting us the entire way to the grave yard. He stopped a bunch of cars at the more crowded high way so we could be let through. I felt a small drop of "In your face. Show some respect, assholes." satisfaction.
We arrive and gathered at a tented area where the casket is supposed to be. Anthony and I part, he walks up towards the funeral car together with the other pole bearers and me and Alexander joins Amina to walk up towards the grave site. I notice some tombstones (gravstenar) that dated back as far as 1855. That was pretty cool. So far back. As we walked up towards the hill, yes, she was buried on a hill, which is strangely fitting for her, I pass by some smaller stones on the ground, they are also tombstones, however, they are marked with "unknown" (Okand.). It kind of cut my heart a little bit, how sad. There are bodies buried here but no one knows who they are... just "unknown".
Everyone gathers around, me and Amina sticks close together. Alexander is enjoying watching all the people, though shy. The casket is being put to place on the lowering lines and Anthony joins us, standing behind Dean, who is standing behind Ellen who is sitting down with the rest of her siblings (syskon).
The ceremony starts. The family priest Johnny talks well about Mary, people are crying. Alexander is acting beautifully, I could have not been prouder. He is very quiet, happy, hugging and trying to comfort his father and aunt Amina, he tries to silently play with them, also reach for one of Anthony's cousin who is unaware of this action. I try to stop him as I notice this said cousin is noticeably sad.
Johnny talks very fondly of his memories with Mary. In between the speeches music is being played. All picked out by Mary when she was in the hospital. The woman planned her own funeral.
First we get to listen to Amazing Grace. A man is singing it. It's a very beautiful song, one of the few religiously christian songs I actually enjoy.
Another speech and then we get to hear Johnny Cash sing about time being a beast, consuming your life regardless of you wanting it or not. Very fitting. Another awkward speech is made by a priest-nephew of Mary's. It was a rather awkward speech and it felt like he just wanted to do it just because then he could claim the fame of doing so. It felt very.. attention seeking. Not my cup of tea. Another song is played, this one is about Jesus. Some preaching were told (go and seek jesus, put your faith in him etc.) Again, not my cup of tea, but I respect the ones enough who does it.
I notice my sister in law is very sad, as is my husband. During the whole time while holding Alexander, I pat both my sister in law and husband on their backs and hold them, while juggling Alexander. Yes this was very hard but I'd like to think I atleast managed to bring some comfort in my actions. Not to mention it later killed my left arm from shoulder to hand (I carry Alexander on my left, all the time.)
At one point we were supposed to hold hands with each other as the priest held a prayer towards Mary, wishing her well in the arms of god and that he would care for her. I held Amina's hand, I held Anthony's hand and I had Alexander balancing on my arm. Yes, that was interesting to say atleast.
To be honest, I held in a little bit of crying during really sad parts. I held it in because I was keeping Alexander from getting nervous and worried. I had to be brave for him.
Not once during the ceremony did he ever make a fuss or cry. Another kid from some part of the family had to be escorted away for a bit for being too loud, but no, Alexander is mr. Perfect for some awesome reason. :D
Hell Yeah I'm bragging!
The ceremony ends and everyone or the ones who feels up to it are to go to my grandfather in law's house and eat and discuss their memories of Mary. The priest will come along too, to talk to people, give comfort to my grandfather in law.
As we're standing on the grave site, I decide to hand over Alexander to Anthony and give Granpa (just gonna call him that now) a warming sympathetic hug. He's very sad, it was a nice ceremony but it doesn't hold much comfort.
Then he does something that nearly shocked me a little bit, well, in a sense not but still since I've heard stories about him being a man not showing much emotions. He is crying and when we hug he holds me extra tight.
I haven't seen anyone else hug him, only shake his hand or pat his shoulder, I think it was very needed.
We leave the grave yard and I have Anthony tell me good memories of Mary as I'm telling him my best experiences with her.
It's a sad but with a smile of nostalgia car ride to granpa's, now only, house in Warsaw.

I'm going to continue with the rest tomorrow, for now I'm going to go and rest my hands, they are hurty and swollen and my left shoulder is still busted from juggling Alexander, Anthony and Amina.
G'night for now.

Reflections 2

So birthday x2 and a funeral, both on the same day! wtf life?

Alexander and Anthony's birthday is on the day their great grandmother (reg grandma) is being earthed.
Talk about a happy first (and 28th) birthday. Good thing atleast one of them won't have to remember it. :\
Things are a little bit different here than in Sweden when it comes to funerals, atleast in this family. They try to do this as quick as possible, 3 days after the death of a person, no big food event (catering) and this family doesn't even want a church ceremony before earthing the casket. My grandmother-in-law didn't want any flowers either, she'd rather you donated those money for something good instead, like her local church, which isn't a bad idea, I'm in no way a believer, but I do believe in good of others, that church and pastor did alot of good to alot of people. The pastor stuck by her side for atleast 2-3 hours every day since she got sick, till she died. I believe that gave her alot of spiritual support she needed before letting go.

On to some happier things.
I keep noticing every day how much smarter my son is than I initially thought. He really is. He understands so much than I ever could imagine.
Yesterday we went to subway to get us a sandwich meal and in the restaurant itself there were ceiling fans rotating, providing a cool breeze in a other hot restaurant. As we were standing in line, telling the staff what we wanted on our subs, Alexander noticed the fans in the ceiling. It fascinated him, he started talking to me about it.. in his own lingo that is, then he forcibly turned my head towards the ceiling and pointed at them.
I was very impressed by this. Amazingly so.
Another instance was when were watching the famous tv-series Scrubs (comedy about med-school students that turns into doctors, main characters involves a white guy called JD (John Dorian) and his best friend, a black surgeon called Christopher Turk). The episode we were watching is called "My Musical" which is about a patient who hears everyone around her singing (a physical or mental problem? Is for the staff of the hospital to solve) Most of the episode everyone breaks out in musical show tune singing. I really enjoy that episode since I'm all gay for musicals and show tunes.
They get up to a point where they sing a song about poop/shit/bajs/excrement (it's very standard for hospitals to check poop for traces of illness).
Now to add in a little bit of background info. Alexander got a giant stuffy of Winnie the Pooh (Nalle Puh). He absolutely loves this stuffy and attacks it with hugging, kissing, biting and general wrestling, they're about equally tall in height but "Pooh Bear" as I call him is wider and softer.
As the cast of Scrubs starts singing "Everything comes down to poo~!" Alexander slides down my lap and crawls up to Winnie the Pooh and starts wrestling and kissing him! This was hilariously cute.
He had actually listened to the lyrics of the song and thought they were singing about his "poo". And to make sure it wasn't an accident or just a spur of the moment thing, I did the very same thing again, put the song on a couple of hours later when he was doing something else and Anthony was in the room. Same result.
To me that's amazing. I, myself, never really listened to lyrics in songs till I was around 10 years old, if at that. I was more of the musical kind, whereas I liked the instruments and rhythm more.
My son also understand the concept of being sleepy, whereas if you ask him if he's a sleepy boy, he'll rub his left eye with his left hand.
He understand the concept of changing diapers and will gladly hold and help you during diaper change. He's also more than happy to provide me with kisses on demand, understanding commands like "Can mamma have a kiss-kiss?" or "thank you" after a kiss received.
He also instantly gets whenever I'm cooking. Since he's got a bottomless stomach, he'll go "mmmmmm!!! mmmm!!! mmmmmmmm!!!" which means "Gimmegimmegimmegimmegimme! I wanna taste!".
He's got names for all his stuffies that he understands and I could go on forever on how smart I find it, or rather how surprised I am over how much he understands now.
Though, maybe the coolest aspect of this is:
He understands both English and Swedish. I can transition between the two languages and he understands equally much.

How's that for insane?

And then the fight was finally over

How fitting my previous post was about the subject I'm bringing up now.

I've been slacking with the blog, I've been busy and just not in the mood nor had the time or right moment to sit down and write.

6.30'ish this morning, give or take, Mary McLaughlin passed away in her sleep after a couple of week's worth of fighting, though being sleep induced with various strong drugs.
Her body and mind couldn't take it anymore and she finally let go.
I wish she will rest in peace and have everything she needed to be resolved, to be resolved.
She will be greatly missed.
All the blankets or stuffed animals she made for us, will be taken care of gently and we will always keep our memories of her fondly in our hearts.

My first memory:
My boyfriend and fiancee at the time brought me to see the family in Warsaw (Missouri). We first went to see my mother-in-law. It was all nice, she was very laid back and relaxed, I was almost a little intimidated by this, was she observing me to see what kind of a skanky ho that had trapped her son this time? I didn't talk much and was kind of shy, trying to as polite as I could and hold my own.
After the visit we decided to head back but not before meeting the grandparents-in-law. As I entered the house both were awake and up, watching tv, one of the court shows, a divorce court, maybe. I don't remember exactly but I remember the stern voices of the judge (female) and the gavel hitting against the little round wood thingy.
My fiancee introduced me and I was greeted with a very warm smile from my grandmother-in-law, Mary. It made me feel very very VERY comfortable.
The thing with me is: that I generally don't care for old people, I've had ALOT of bad run ins with the elderly. I've been an outsider most of my life, I've enjoyed it more when people leave me alone to my own devices. In most cases of old people they have been conservative with very old conservative views and for some reason seen me as a servant? at the time, in which it has clashed quite a bit as I rather wanted to be left alone. It's just been alot of clashes and me trying to avoid old people in general. I know. Weird huh?
I haven't exactly had the social grace either as I was growing up. Maybe I was taught wrong how to act respectfully towards the elderly.. but I think it's a two way thing as well.
To stay on the subject.
I was very comfortable by this warm smile, she made a quick little interview and we talked for a bit before we had to go. It made me feel instant welcomed, I even let some of my guard down.
I got to have 2 years with her. My only regret is that there weren't more.
I got to bake and use her kitchen, I waddled around when I was very muchly pregnant in her home and we talked about various way to make pregnancy comfortable, she knew a bunch, but I'd imagine so, she did have 11 children (some of which, unfortunately, she outlived).
She LOVED seeing Alexander when he was finally born, holding him and cuddling him. She made him a TON of blankets which she crocheted (virkade).
I have this one memory of Alexander being around 2-3 months old, it was before he gave up breastfeeding on his own, we brought him over after had hung out at my mother-in-law's for awhile. Mary held him in her arms while me and Anthony sat on the couch, talking to her.. All of the sudden Alexander tried to breastfeed on Mary. It was kind of funny watching him trying to go for her chest, we all had a good laugh about that.
We had a common enemy we freely liked to gossip about: the ex-wife (not mentioning any names hrhrhr, like it's hard to figure out).
In the end, I think she was pretty comfortable around me, liked me. I hope atleast.
I hope she felt comfortable enough to leave her grandson in my care and great grandsons and great granddaughter.

And you know what grandma Mary? I'm going to do my best to take care of them. Remember the cinnamon buns I made that you liked so much? The kids are going to grow up on those along with the other foods and breads I make.

We're going to miss you. A lot.

Your legacy will live on, through your children and grandchildren.

Sunday

Cont. from last post.

Sunday came along, the morning was pretty calm, we woke up in a good time, had enough time to have breakfast, play quietly for a bit (well, as quiet as the twins and the girl can be, which is not much.) Alexander didn't have the chance for a morning nap as we had a carriage (My younger sister-in-law and her car) waiting for us to take us to Warsaw (Missouri) to see the kids "Nana" (fammo/farmor).
The ride down was very enjoyable, me and my sister in law made small talk while girl A and Alexander, sitting in the backseat were playing happily with each other. Unfortunately, I think this was the most relaxing I had that day.

When we got there, to my mother in law's place, oh god.. it was like everything the kids ever known about etiquette, respecting others and their stuff, keeping their voices down, thinking before speaking etc. EVERYTHING was blown away into non-existence. Worse than the previous day.
What the hell happen? were they still high on sugar from previous day and it had been made worse over the night? what the HELL?!
They were running wild and could not be held down, nor did they listen. It was chaotic and very muchly headache inducing.
Their nana/Fammo had gifts out for them, to celebrate the yesterday's birthday, which made it worse, paper, bags, plastic wrappings ALL over the place, noises, screaming etc. Rude comments and bad attitude. WTF?
Alexander was a little nervous around his fammo, as soon as she took him he started crying and started reaching for me for dear life, clinging onto me hard, almost choking me in the process. She was then not allowed to look at him for the reminder of the upcoming 2-3 hours, god forbid if she saw him eat her food!
But after a little while he warmed up and let her feed him, putting pieces of chicken in his mouth which he ate like a big boy. Did I mention that he didn't have any kind of baby food during that visit? I did not? Well he didn't! He ate human food! and human food only! Coupled with a cup of milk. Rotisserie (grillad) chicken, mashed potatoes, asparagus and some salad (tomato, lettuce, cucumber etc). He ate it all! I was such a proud mama. :D
Eventually I got to eat a little bit, myself. My beloved husband managed to put together a plate for me while I fed our son, of course, when he was done and I was supposed to eat he didn't want me to eat. He wanted me to pick him up and hold him forever so no one could look at him or possibly pick him up and hold him, no one that wasn't either me or Anthony.
So yeah, that wasn't fun. A whiny clingy baby clinging and pulling at your pants while you're standing up, trying to eat.
The kids kept going while and at one point we felt we had enough and had to pull back home. We had come to a point where the kids wouldn't listen at all and would keep getting themselves in trouble.
We decided to stop by my grandparents-in-law's place before going home. Just for a couple of seconds..

...
This is a little harder to write.
My grandmother-in-law, earlier this summer started to become very ill, she's a very old woman who's been through a fairly rich and hard life, 11 children, house wife etc. Earlier this summer her body is starting to shut down, piece by piece, she's been clinically dead a couple of times and put on IV's with various drugs and whatnot. So the situation with her is not ideal.
When I got to know her she was fairly good and healthy'ish for her age and problems (diabetes and regular old age problems), this was 2 years ago, we made a connection and bond with each other. I like her alot, needless to say. She's knitted and crocheted countless things and blankets for us and Alexander. She LOVES Alexander.

When we got inside their house, in their dark livingroom, is a hospital bed (just like the one I was in when I had Alexander, a little bit more stripped down though), sitting on a chair close to the bed and by a desk was a live-in-nurse, to make sure the drugs she had to have were in order, an IV into my grandmother-in-law who was laying, sleeping in the hospital bed.
She had noticeably lost a lot of weight. Her once round face was very thin now and she seemed like she was heavily drugged and deep in sleep.
Her system is shutting down and there's nothing no one can do other than making it comfortable for her. So yeah.. it was definitely tough watching her like that.
We made sure to greet my grandfather-in-law, see that he was okay, he's suffering as well, his wife laying there, dying. :\
No one lives forever, but it's still tough.
We've been preparing for this for months but I don't think we can ever be truly prepared for it.
The only thing I can hope for is for it to be painless and calm.
Alot of people are going to take it hard after it's done, she was very muchly the matriarch of this family.
We got home and the kids got punished for their bad behaviors both at nana's and at our grandparents place.
The evening went on calmly and now it's monday.
The kids are back with their idiot of a mother (who can't raise them for shit nor cares to do so) and me and Alexander are just about done with breakfast, I'm writing this blog while he's supposed to take his first nap.

Life huh?

Saturday

Saturday was.. well.. chaotic and fun. But I guess that comes with the territory (TERRORtory) of children.
It was a loooong wait for the kids till 3 PM and they made sure to make it feel even longer with whining, mischief and not getting along, getting in trouble etc. Which made the morning, till noon pretty painful for everybody in the apartment.
I was cleaning up in general, watching the kids and decorating the giant carrot cake with self-made green and blue cream cheese frosting (not the yucky american frosting one, thank gawd. Made this myself, so I could control the sugar levels, myself.)
Made a typical star like pattern with the cheese, green-blue-green-blue meeting up in the middle >< <-- like that. Followed by glitter sugar gel which I made in various whirls, criss crosses and dots.
The only kid that could hold himself from making mischief and getting himself in trouble, of course, was Alexander, huge shock there. He was happily taking naps and playing quietly on his own or with us.
2 pm came around and the kids started to get REALLY impatient, so we ended up feeding them with nacho-hot dip with corn chips, I got a milder version as I cannot handle anything remotely spicy. That would atleast keep them occupied for another 20 minutes.

FINALLY our guests arrived, my husband's boss/manager and his wife B (a good friend of mine now :D I like her alot, she's a very cheery lady! )
The kids couldn't hold themselves any longer and we completely lost control over them, they were all over the place, bombarding the guests with questions and clinging on them (Alexander kept his distance, he's in a phase where anyone who isn't his mother or father touches him, he'll cry like someone is telling him bad names and attempting to poke him with a knife at the same time).
I felt I had to save them in any kind of way so they could actually sit down (P and B) and relax and manage to take in what kind of situation they were in. Anthony provided them with some dip and chips and I prepped the cake with candles and final touches, taking out a cake knife (a regular spatula, we do not have any cake knives yet!) and plates etc.
Lit the candles, brought the cake out and had the twins blow the candles (yes, there was one for Alexander, he never had the chance to even look at it, the boys were all over that cake! He'll get a chance on his real birthday though, we still have the candles)
We forgot to sing, but I doubt they even noticed, they were high on everything around them, it was like they created energy out of nothing and then blew it all over the place. I rushed out and handed Manager P the gifts him and his wife had brought, being polite I had him start.
The boys got a ambulance and a Firetruck which make noises if you press on buttons on the side, this is all and wonderful and horribly annoying (as they always press the buttons and break the toys within 10 seconds.) This is also their 3 pair of firetrucks and ambulances.. yes they've had 3 of them now, almost the same brand (the two previous ones were of the same brand) and they've managed to break them in some kind of way.
Alexander got what he loves, Tonka-trucks. Chuck the Tonka Truck. He LOVES them, like I said, colorful cars with faces on them. popular brand.

I got out our gifts:
The boys: Two radio controlled cars (we had no batteries at the time though and Anthony had to almost dive down at them instantly to keep the boys from instantly breaking them) and two figurines of Spider man and Batman , which of course they broke instantly... they started dismembering them on purpose ("Look! I took his hand off! Daddy! How do I get his head off?!!") wtf guys?
The older girl: A mermaid barbie. She loved it and made sure everyone got a close look, half an inch from their faces.
Alexander: Alexander got another two tonka cars (a blue and a purple one with yellow flames on it's side, muscle cars in kiddy form) and a Lion-walker, basically you can turn it into a mobile with wheels (you sit on it and pushes off with your feet to get anywhere) or you can put up a handle and walk with it, press it's nose and it makes noise and talks. Alexander LOVES it. He constantly presses on the nose, dances with the music, kisses the lion and presses on the nose again.. rinse and repeat.
The party broke out into a tickle-fest, the kids got tickled and everyone laughed and had fun. The cake was awesome, it managed to keep itself moist during the night in the fridge (I had no doubts about that v_v, also, it was a carrot cake), the frosting made it even more awesome, especially as I had put in diffrent amounts of sugar into the frosting (blue and green) so the green one was a bit less sweet and more cream cheese sour while the blue one was sweeter.
As the evening rolled along and our guests left, the mood slowed down and and it became calmer, which was very well needed. Alexander held out quite a long while without taking a nap and took a really looooong nap after our guests left. I had to take a small one, too, my head was pounding pretty bad.
The kids got oatmeal for dinner, since we had nothing out thawed and barely had any energy at all to cook something that required more than one ingredient, not like they seemed to mind. As soon as their heads touched their pillows, they passed out like there was an on and off button on them.

Will continue about Sunday in next entry!

Zombie Walk in Kansas City

So they're having a Zombie Walk in Kansas City! Sweet.. only it's tomorrow, it's going to problaby snow over there, it's 2 hours away and we have a childrens party tomorrow! <_>
so yeah, I won't be going this year. :x

Today I have to:
*Sanetize kitchen, livingroom and bedroom (clean the remainers)
*Bake a huge ass carrot cake
*Decorate
*loads of laundry to wash
and just make it generally nice! woof.
I did all the gift wrapping last night, which is nice. Boys get two toys each from us (Alexander, too, though technically he got 3) and Alyssa gets one (since she was in the UK during her birthday).

It's a 5 day project! Or so it feels! :x
Anyway, I better get to it.
Sunday we're going to Warsaw to greet the family, haven't seen them in awhile.
Our grandmother Mary isn't doing well, might be it (yes. It.) soon. Sad to say, but I think most of us are pretty prepared, it's been going down for awhile now, hopefully it won't go as with my grandfather, having a funeral too close to christmas, kind of puts a damper on the mood for a couple of years on ward.

It'll problaby be a little while until I post again since this weekend will be FULL of various events (party and going away).
I hope everyone's doing fine!

Till next time.

more and more like his father

My son is starting to look more and more like his father, it's uncanny, even acting the same.
They both love turning over and letting me mess/rub their backs and just snuggle in bed while watching tv.

This morning, while watching Jerry Springer and eating his bottle of baby cereal (valling.) he turned to me, stopped eating for a second and gave me a dead serious look and said "gadadawaba" and then proceeded to eat and watch Springer.
I wonder what he meant by that, he looked so serious while doing so.
It would be awesome to know how a thought process of a developing baby works.

Alexander is going to the doctor tomorrow for a small check up since I have bronchitis, just to make sure he hasn't got it as well.
His birthday is getting closer, as am I (as in getting to terms with it.).

I'm currently on antibiotics to fight this bronchitis infection in my body, I'm starting to notice the effects of the medication, I have less slime trying to choke me, my cough is treated by delsym right now (Delsym had the most gay commercial running on tv awhile ago, very patriotic with the american flag waving in the wind and people going "YEAH! Delsym! OH YEAH AMERIKUH!").
I'm on my second day to D-day on cleaning the apartment up for the birthday party on saturday. I guess I will sweep and mop in the kitchen today, I also need to do something about the bathroom.

Tonight on tv it's both mythbusters and America's next top model.. both shows I hate and love at the same time.
I find Mythbusters interesting and what they do useful in many cases! But I HATE HATE HATE how they laid out the show, it never fails to give me a headache, it's very flashy whenever switching teams and experiments, nor does it spare on the rerunning of scenes, the music is nauseating (yeah, I don't like slow-wailing desert music guitars). And all in all, I end up with a headache. Sucks. :\
I love watching tv with my husband and he LOVES mythbusters.

America's Next Top Model.
I strongly dislike Tyra Banks who's bat shit insane, a narcissist (on a very high scale) and very open about preferring her own black race.
The racism part can be discussed with a lenghty debate and I'll problaby get into it at some later part.
The drama is a bit much in this show and it's the same thing every round/season, the girls go in there and expect to be friends with each other and then get shocked when someone is actually trying to win the competition.
However, the parts I do love though are the photo shoots, make overs, the clothes and compositions of pictures they make. I LOVE it. Artsy all the way.

Oh well

13 days left till Alexander is turning 1.

Oh yeah, last sunday? or monday, some day anyway that's not today! We were semi-watching tv while keeping an eye on our playing son, he climbed up and started to cruise the table till a Tonka truck commercial came on (a toy brand he just loves playing with, colorful trucks and cars with smiling faces on them). He froze and watched the commercial with great interest. He really loves those Tonka trucks. Which makes it easier to get him a present for his birthday.

:D

peacock

Lately I've been drawing on colored construction papers (black, grey, two blues, one green, yellow, red, orange, pink and purple, too)

I made a peacock, however, the scan came out waaaay too dark. Like insanely.. the orange didn't stand out as much as I wanted it to.

so I fiddled around in Photoshop. :p
Yeah, I know, cheating.


add a little gaussian blur for effect!

Yeah, I cheat alot ._.

enjoy!


okay.. here's the original.. ._.

enjoys.

Last one. I swear!


Closer to the original in real life where the orange kind of pops out on the picture, a friend of mine taught me to use levels in photoshop to fix up the color and lightning a bit. Levels.


levels.. yeah, I'm totally going to forget about it atleast 10 minutes after posting this.
:D

some updates

Well.. today I went to the ER for my now 4 week illness. I spent about 3-5 hours there in all. Yey.

Here's a little funny thinker:
I've been advocating social health care and how much I miss the swedish one, it may not be the best in the world but it did suffice well enough and keeps most of us swedes alive.
Whenever I advocate social health care and how nice it is to have, I always get the same respons from most americans "Yeah, but whenever you go to the ER or need help with a surgery, you will have to wait hours and years".
Here's the irony: Whenever I've had the need to visit the clinic for a check up on something in Sweden I've only had to wait around 20 minutes in the waiting room, sometimes up to 45 minutes if it's crowded.
Today at the ER, I was number two of the list of being called in to see the current doctor (of three) on jour, I sat 2 hours in the waiting room before I got called in and seated on a bed where I had to wait another 45 minutes before a nurse came in and had a small interview with me.
Another 20 or so minutes before the actual doctor came and asked me the very same questions the nurse did. He then opted me for a chest x-ray scan and left..
After another 30-40 minutes another nurse came along with a robe, told me to strip my upper body down and wear the robe instead, she helped me put it on as it had to be tied in the back.
The hospital is freezing cold and I wasn't even allowed to wear my bra. I got a warm blanket to cover myself up with.
After ANOTHER 30-40 minutes of waiting a nurse comes by with a wheel chair (god forbid if I were to walk) and takes me to the x-ray room, they scan me in two diffrent position, I get rolled back to my room and have another 20-30 minutes of waiting for the doctor, he tells me I have bronchitis ({medicin} bronkit, luftrörskatarr (substantiv). Goody. He tells me he's going to write out antibiotics and some cough medication for me and then I can leave.
I'm left alone, again, for another 20 minutes before a nurse comes by with my recipes and sends me on my way.
Of course, since I'm not on insurance again, this will cost us astronomical amounts of money, since the US health care money system is running wild, the tylenol I got (x2) and that didn't even work! most likely will cost us atleast $100 for both. Which is insane. Hell the warm blanket I got to borrow problaby cost as well.

The irony being, while in Sweden I get sent in most of the time within an hour, here I have to WAIT and WAIT and WAIT and wait some more for a long long long time and then pay out of my nose for the service I received.
Yes. I miss Swedish health care like it's no one else's buisness. I really do.
I don't miss the cranky swedish nurses/doctors, atleast here they will greet you with a smile and make small talk which helps immensely to make you feel comfortable.. but the waiting.

Well, atleast we know what's wrong with me now and how to cure it. Yay. Tomorrow Alexander is visiting a doctor as well as there's highly likely he got the same as me. We've both been sick equally long now and pretty much have the same symptoms.

16 days left till his first birthday :j

I'm excited and scared.

Various thoughts and updates

So, me and my hubby watched the latest Star Trek movie last night. Wow.
Not bad! Maybe even awesome enough to get me into the star trek fandom. Who to like more..? Picard or Kirk? Both have their awesome charms.
Why I love the flirty slightly comical but with a really sweet side to him- characters, I really do love the highly respectable, wise and adventerous one, too.
Oh, the battle of my own fandomship.

As usual, every morning, when I read aftonbladet.se I find another article about Anna Anka (married to Paul Anka, for your english-non-swedish readers (long story short, she's a polish woman sweden adopted from an orphanage, grew up swedish and into a total slut, married Paul Anka, had kids, cut her connections with her swedish family and lives the life of the totally spoiled hollywood wife. Made a few statements that made Sweden gasp in shock.))
Anyway, going on, apparently she cut up her ties with Sweden completely now, deannounced her citizenship and is strictly american now (according to her).
I feel that was a silly decision of her, double citizenship owns. She has also made statements that she loves Sweden (in which the next second says she hates it) and regards her family important (her adoptive mother has never met her grandchildren). She then claimed she cut all ties with Sweden and is going to leave the country in a couple of days only to never ever return ever again! wait what? Bipolar much? Which I think is a very good possibility of her being, she's made alot of statements and claims only to contradict them later on and the way she acts out on. It just fits the whole bi-polar thing.
Even with double citizenship, I would never ever think of cutting ties with Sweden, my heritage and family. I've grown up with certain values and I'm going to keep them as I think they are sane and good, I'm also teaching them onto my own kid. I love the concept of "jantelagen", while I do agree it's a bit much in Sweden as it makes us into a bit of spoiled sissies, it's a very good basic thing to teach your kids, to have respect for one and another (along with nature).
I love being able to walk into a forest/field/anywhere without feeling like I'm trespassing. However, I feel that at the same time it makes us a bit meak in real life (outside of school). I'm not saying that people should fence in their forests and fields, but I would like for us to teach out in schools a bit about competition in real life, to climb the corporate ladder (if you're into corporate jobs) and to be competetive. I don't see this as bad, I see it as healthy. And yeah, it's possibly I've adopted this view from the american one. I'm not saying we shouldn't respect each other but merely that we need to face reality when it comes outside of school, it's a race and you need to be able to elbow your way through to make it.

Right now I'm in a bit of a drawing-dry out. I cannot come up with anything I'm happy with if I'm trying or not trying. It's very annoying.
I WANT to draw but I just can't create anything I'm happy with.

On another topic, I've started having breakfast with Alexander during the morning, we both enjoy this alot. ALOT. I get a peaceful moment watching as my son eats his cut up buttered bread pieces, quietly.
This is our breakfast:
Alexander: Half a slice of bread (cinnamon raisin) buttered up and cut into pieces (so he can pick them up and chew up before choking), some baby snacks (think little rice puffed stars with some flavor to them) and a cup of baby juice (juicy juice, right now we are doing red berries (raspberries and strawberries, in a couple of days it's going to be apple and then milk)).
Me: A cup of tea, a slice or two of the cinnamon raisin bread.
This is so enjoyable, I just love these moments so much, I get filled with this inner peace, my son is acting like a big boy and I'm just loving it.
On the topic of Alexander as well, I noticed something (or rather I have been noticing but just shrugged it off as I was busy) for several months now, my son laid off sucking on his pacifier, we bought him new ones as the one he had (and liked) was getting old and wasn't right for his age (the manufacturer said that you shouldn't go over 3 months with that pacifier). So his father cut it up and put it in the trash. Ever since he laid off pacifiers in all. He just doesn't have any interests in them anymore and what's even better! He's not substituting the loss of pacifiers with his hands or toys. It's wonderful and I feel very proud over him coping so well.

On saturday, me, Alexander and his father/my husband are having a breakfast date on Golden Corall (www.goldencorall.com). I can't wait, I've only had lunch and dinner there, so far. I just love the idea of eat-as-much-as-you-want-buffet. As for breakfast.. wonder what they got? Tea? Juice? fruit salad? pancakes? and so forth, plus it will be an adventure for Alexander as well, he get to sit in a high chair and eat people food! :D I'm excited by this (Yes, this excites me, this is my life right now, these little things excites me ;p ).

Before I round up this entry, I would like to take the moment to congratulate my 2nd step-sister down the line. It's her birthday and she's turning teenager (soon!). She can certainly act the part atleast.
so.. in Swedish.

Grattis Julia, pa din fodelsedag. Manga halsningar fran familjen Benner.