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.