2011: Love

To celebrate the five year anniversary of my blog, for five days I am reposting one of my favourite posts from each year.

In 2011, after weeks of waiting, Felix was born and changed everything. I will never forget the day of his birth. My grandparents visited, all the way from Australia. We stuck around in Norway just long enough to taste the first hint of spring, before disappearing to America for six months. We did some awesome trips, and I had a blast visiting a blog-friend in Seattle. Michael took some pretty great photos. We capped the year of with sunshine and family in Australia. But this is my favourite post of all.
                                                                                                    

September 2011: Love

Last week you turned seven months old. And I just love you so much. (Though sometimes I am ragged with tiredness and just want someone else to take you for an hour.) I feed you to sleep for most of your sleeps. And when you fall asleep, I just gaze at you, your lashes and your soft cheeks. You are so beautiful. Michael took these photos at a lake in Montana. Usually you are too distracted to feed when we are out anywhere, but this time you were hungry, and relaxed, and you fed for a long time, making sure I kept looking at you.

You can sit like a pro now. You are nowhere near crawling, but you have grown adept at sort of launching yourself from sitting towards the direction you would like to go. You are also very good at letting me know what you think about things. Tonight after your bath we read a book together, and you were having a fabulous time chewing and scratching and whacking it. Then I could see you were tired so I said ok, lets go to sleep now, and you smiled at me so sweetly. Then I started putting you in your sleeping bag and you cried with such bitter disappointment and rage, before snuggling in for your evening feed and drifting off to sleep.

At the moment you love to click you tongue, blow raspberries, and shake your head rapidly from side to side. I tried it, and it actually makes the world look quite funny – I wonder if you do it for the thrill of it, as well as to show us how clever you are. You love when I sing ‘open, shut them’ and ‘insy winsy spider’.

This morning we walked along the river, and stopped in the coffee shop before storytime at the library. This is pretty much routine, and a good one. Since you’ve gotten into eating solids you don’t need to feed as much when we’re out, but you seemed to want it. I realised you hadn’t had any since 5.30, and it was nearly 10, so we cuddled together in the corner of the sofa and you fed for a long time. I guess it felt special because normally when we’re out you have about two sips and then wriggle around to see if you’re missing anything. But walking over to the library, both of us satisfied with our morning drink, I just felt so happy.

 

Happy New Year!

I have been looking back at the snow-filled posts of last December, and this year is so different for us! (Apparently the winter in Norway is much milder this year anyway, so we haven’t actually missed out on much snow after all.)

2011 has been busy and brilliant as predicted. We have traveled to some amazing places, met some excellent people and weathered some sleepless nights,

but the most wondrous thing has been seeing our little guy grow up before our very eyes.

We are enjoying our two months in the sun before we go back to Norway to resume everyday life. I imagine that will be an adventure in itself with an almost one year old on board. To all my regular readers – thanks so much for stopping by and sharing the journey – I really appreciate having you around. We wish you all the very best for 2012!

 

Go West

In the weeks before we left Norway to come to America, Michael listened to ‘Go West‘ as he walked to work every day. Going west was an adventure, with wonderful parts and difficult parts. It is strange, in the days before we leave here, to be in a place which so soon will only exist for us as memories. I think Michael’s favourite part of being here was all the photo opportunities. The images take on lives of their own, often more resonant with suggestiveness than the moments themselves had been. The dogs panting at the Interstate Oasis, the fierce red rock of Moab, the cross-hatched textures of earth in the Kennecot Copper Mine, and the mountain-tops, lakes and deep forests of the Glacier National Park. Below the fold are images that didn’t make it into earlier posts – a montage of doorways, cars, characters, creatures, and, always, the open road.

 

Seattle

I just got back from the most beautiful week in Seattle. It was just Felix and me – Michael had to go to Norway for the week so I thought we’d have an adventure rather than sit around in Idaho Falls on our own. And what an adventure it was.

We stayed with my blogfriend Rain from Rainblissed. She and her family made us so welcome that didn’t feel strange at all to turn up at the doorstep of people we’d never met in the flesh before! I felt very proud of Felix and myself for navigating the airports on our own.

We caught the ferry over to Bainbridge Island with Rain and her son Arthur, and stumbled upon a very picturesque pumpkin patch. We frequented some seriously good coffee shops and bookshops, and some fun neighbourhoods and parks. We saw dinosaurs in the Burke Museum next to the University – I liked the tricerotops head but Felix was more interested in the wooden benches in the foyer.

Felix and I caught the bus downtown a couple of days and had a great time at the Pikeplace markets, the crumpet shop and the spiffy new library (Felix appreciated the kids play area, I appreciated the hot chocolate).

I also tried a total of five delicious chocolate cakes. On our last night Rain took us to the delightful Cafe Flora, where I had possibly the most delicious vegetarian meal I had ever eaten – the spectacular Portabello Wellington.

I loved Seattle. All the water gives it space to breathe and it was just so wonderful being in a big city again.

More than anything, though, it was just so special to spend that time with Rain and her family. After being a little overwhelmed to start with Felix had a ball of a time – he loved Arthur’s antics and Gaius’s friendly smiles, and after a couple of days was even happy for Rain to hold him (he’s much pickier about that than he used to be!). He was beside himself with excitement every time he glimpsed their sweet black cat and even managed to pat her once. All the new-to-him toys went down pretty well too. I really hope they visit us in Norway one day. We returned home refreshed and nourished – and not just from all the chocolate cake.

 

So far in Seattle

Felix’s first ride on a ferry, his first ride on a bus, his first ride in a horse-drawn carriage, his first pumpkin patch (and mine, for that matter), and his first time ever falling asleep in his sling. He was zonked. We’re having an awesome time. I’ve got some great photos but might have to wait before I get back before I post them.

 

North

We drove a long way north, almost to the Canadian border, to the Glacier National Park.

The mountains, flowers and lakes were stunning

and there were little critters at every turn

(and bigger critters too).

There were seriously big creatures, bears, but we didn’t see any. I didn’t mind. But it made everything just a little bit spooky, knowing there were bears around. There were signs everywhere advising caution, and saying people had been killed in this park. I felt alright in the big open areas, but we did a couple of short walks along some remote lakes off the main tourist trail. The forest was so dense that a bear could have been three feet away and you might not have known it. Apparently a grizzly bear can kill a moose with a single swipe. And I had very precious cargo.

The whole place felt very wild. Like a whole world with its own laws and inhabitants getting on with things. We were only visitors. The deer eyed us calmly.

The squirrel scampered away with its nut.

At Logan pass, the rangers had a telescope out for visitors to look through. I observed the exact same conversation several times (and participated in it once). ‘Is there a bear?’ ‘No, there are Bighorn sheep on the mountain over there.’ ‘Oh’. With the naked eye you could barely pick out the white dots of the sheep’s tails. Disappointed, but unable to resist a telescope, we looked anyway. ‘Oh! Oh wow!’ Because the Bighorn sheep were stunning, sitting completely still, munching sagely – five of them, like statues, like ancient gods.

 

Boise

This morning we drove for four hours past nothing much to get to Boise, the capital of Idaho. At one point we stopped to give Felix a cuddle and a little yellow plane flew past to say hello.

Boise (pronounced Boy-zee) is gorgeous. One of the most livable cities I have ever seen. It reminds us a little of Christchurch. We feel like civilized people again (Idaho Falls is a bit of a scrap-heap in comparison). 

There are coffee shops and interesting shops and buildings and restaurants at every turn, and one of the loveliest things is that the streets are fairly narrow and the blocks really quite small, so walking around is easy and pleasurable.

Felix had a fabulous afternoon lolling around in his stroller and chilling with his parents in various coffee shops. When we stopped for pizza for dinner, he had a great time chewing on a crust. Michael has a conference here for three days and I am so so excited about exploring the place.

 

Felix explores

 

Salt Lake City

We’ve had such a nice weekend. The weather wasn’t really up for paragliding, so we thought hard about Felix-friendly activities, and kicked off the weekend with a visit to Cabela’s – an outdoor and hunting store that has its own aquarium and displays of stuffed animals, and everything is big (go on, click on that link, you know you want to). We put Felix in the sling so he could have a look around. He liked watching the fish, and was pretty impressed with the mooses and the bears.

We then thought we’d go for a walk in the mountains but it was a bit cold.

So we decided to eat cake instead. (The Coffee Garden was fabulous – thanks for the tip, Rainblissed!)

We then wandered around the 9th and 9th district, and fell madly in love with all the sweet, strange, decrepit houses, the tangled cottage gardens and the tall tall trees.

 

Here

Well, we made it. Halden-Oslo (2 hours drive), Oslo-Newark (8 hours), transit 4 hours, Newark-Denver (5 and a half hours), transit about two hours including a mad dash from one end of the terminal to the other lugging Felix in his carseat, Denver-Idaho falls (1 hour). The above photo shows us in Newark airport, happy that the bulk of the flying was over. It was a bit of an effort, complicated by the fact that Michael was coming down with a cold, but overall it went pretty smoothly. Felix was an absolute star, either sleeping or being generally agreeable. The planes didn’t have basinets but he had his own seat, so we strapped in his carseat, which worked quite well. He didn’t seem to mind take-off and landing. At one point there was a lot of turbulence and he looked over at me with concern, but I gave him a big smile and he started to laugh. He also discovered cartoons. He could not believe his eyes.

Felix airlines.

Yesterday we unpacked, and introduced Felix to two great American institutions: IHOP (International House of Pancakes) and Walmart. Walmart is enormous, but as everyone is also pushing around enormous trolleys, you are constantly trying to get out of people’s way. We need to buy a kettle. Walmart seems to stock everything except for kettles, so for the moment we are making do with a saucepan. I found some coffee, but couldn’t find teabags anywhere. Eventually Michael asked someone. The teabags are located next to the soft drinks. It’s funny how different cultures classify food and drink so differently. I remember being astonished that the Co-op in Norway shelved the cans of tuna next to the jam.

There are a lot of parking spaces. Actually, if you were to be unkind, you could describe the place as a giant parking lot, studded with over-sized concrete buildings housing fast food chains or superstores. But there are snow-streaked mountains in the distance. And from what I remember (we were here for a couple of days last year), the town centre is pedestrian-friendly and quite nice. I guess it’s not very far away. We just have to wait till our American ‘stroller’ arrives in the post (there was no way our Swedish pram would have fit on the plane, and Felix is happy in a sling for a while but not indefinitely). There is a Barnes and Noble bookshop in walking distance which I intend to frequent. I think it’s time to patch-up my knowledge of American literature.

Our apartment is spacious and comfortable. I am glad we have our Norwegian life to go back to, but we are definitely up for this adventure!