A long weekend

We’re at the tail-end of a beautiful long weekend. Today the week-long heat-wave has slowly evaporated, but we certainly made the most of it, and spent plenty of time eating, playing and bathing outside with some excellent friends.

It was so lovely to have some time off with not only good weather, but a Felix healthy enough to enjoy it properly. Here he is galloping around the trampoline.

 
Today we bought a new oven. I am in love. Excuse me while I wax lyrical. We needed a new one because our old one was too small for our kitchen – both too narrow for the spot and too low for the bench. The new one fits perfectly and has induction hot-plates which are an utter revelation to me. So much better than our old ordinary electric ones – my heavy frying pan heated up in an instant, rather than ten minutes, and I managed to saute the mushrooms perfectly without burning the garlic. Not to mention the fact that food doesn’t fall down the side of the oven any more and the handles of the saucepans don’t bump into the bench-top.

Recently I’ve been on a bit of a novel-reading binge. If I open my novel the minute Felix falls asleep, I can recreate the illusion of being able to lose myself in a book for hours and hours. It’s been quite nice. I read the last two books in the Stieg Larsson trilogy. It had taken me about six months to get into The Girl Who Played with Fire, as the first sixty pages or so annoyed me no end. But once I got past them I actually got hooked and enjoyed them immensely. The story and the characters are larger than life but in the end I found them very likable.

From there I jumped headlong into We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver…

But now this blog post has to stop because my early morning is catching up with me and I need to go to bed. I’ll tell you what I thought about it later.

 

Fragments

A very good weekend. So lovely to have Michael around. Felix seemed more relaxed too. I’m learning to read his signals a little better – when he wants to play on the floor, when he wants to lie back in his basinet and coo at his lion before nodding off to sleep. Much more relaxing than rocking him asleep in my arms and putting him down only to have him wake up five minutes later, over and over. I sort of miss the amount of cuddles that entailed, though. Will have to make sure he still gets plenty of cuddles. But it’s strange – sometimes he does just want to lie down, and if you cuddle him he gets distressed, which you think you have to solve by more cuddles, etc etc. Not to say he doesn’t love his cuddles, but he needs breaks from them too. You just have to catch him at the right time and put him down before he gets distressed, because once he is distressed, he doesn’t want to go down. And of course I pick him up again if he tells me he’s not happy! Although everyone tells me that babies keep changing – you think you have them figured out and then the rules change. So we’ll see…

This morning we went for a drive in the sunshine, past all the melting lakes. Many of them are still frozen enough to ski over, and even to drive little tractors over. Felix liked the car trip but was a little grumpy when we stopped for our thermos of coffee. I think it was too bright for him. When the sun comes out here it’s clear and cold and piercing and gets inside your head. He’s had a long sleep this afternoon and I tidied up, prepared spinach cannelloni with enough leftovers to last me a few days (Michael is away for four days this week), baked some brownies and put two loads of washing on. Michael’s been catching up on some work upstairs. It’s strange what having a baby does to the time you have to yourself – such a pressure to use it productively! I even tried to sit down and relax instead of making the brownies but couldn’t bring myself to… And now I write and write as he snuffles in his basinet. He will wake up soon. I think. He’s a little unpredictable. I don’t need a nap today because he slept like a champion last night – 9.30-5am, and then 6-8. I woke up at 3 anyway, bursting with milk.

So much learning and rearranging. I am tempted to rush things when he is asleep but I consciously relax my shoulders, breathe. Try to make the tasks that need to be done part of my time for myself rather than something that gets in the way of it. And I hope I will find time soon for other kinds of writing and reading and thinking, in the moments between things. But I am not in a hurry. In some ways I had felt I had run out of things to write about before he was born. I think he will change that. Change everything.

I love him so much. I love his sage satisfaction when he lifts his head from a feed. I love the warmth of his small body in my arms. His dark blue eyes that look straight at me, or over my shoulder at something I cannot see. His uncomplicated delight at coloured blocks jangling above him. I even love the way he kicks his legs in frustration (as long as it doesn’t go on for too long). He is a strange and beautiful creature.

 

This one’s for Nanna

Now that the little man loves to play on the floor where it’s a bit colder, Nanna (his other great-grandmother)’s cardigans are coming into their own.

He really really loves his koala. He talks to him. And knocks him over. In the photo above the penguin’s already been got. Agh he’s growing up so fast! All the little suits that fit him perfectly last week are now too short…

 

Playtime

I was foreseeing another morning of pacing the floorboards, rocking him in my arms, until I realized he wanted to be on the floor, kicking his legs around and whacking his koala. Much better.

 

Forty weeks

I have been meaning to write this post for a while but have been a little distracted. But I want to record what this past week or so has felt like before it all becomes distant history! So… last week it finally began to sink in that there’s going to be a baby around here pretty soon. I got really excited. And realised there was still a couple of things I needed, which prompted a shopping spree. So I bought some bedlinen, for me and for him (thought I’d better get myself a single duvet in case he comes into bed with me and I don’t want to smother him – recently we’ve been using a double duvet each). I bought a chest of drawers. I bought cloths to use on the changing-mat, and some blankets. And then I saw a couple of cute cute cute suits in rainbow colours with lions and mooses and mushrooms on them, and we didn’t need any more clothes but I couldn’t help but buy them. I restrained myself from buying the light-brown furry coat with bear ears. And then I regretted my restraint and went back to get it anyway. I gave it a hug.

I had some friends over on Friday night and made home-made pizza. It was delicious.

Then, over the weekend, the spring-cleaning bug set in. I did loads and loads of washing. I put all his clothes away in the chest of drawers. I moved most of my books from my office to the spare room. I threw stuff away. On Monday I tidied the spare room for mum. I made up the bed for her. I thoroughly cleaned and re-arranged the bathroom. Today I finished the vacuuming and hid in the cupboards everything I couldn’t work out how to throw away. I had a midwife appointment then picked up Mum from the station. So nice to see her. She arrived with a bag stuffed full of gifts from Australia, including the most gorgeous teddybear from my brother and his girlfriend. (And we love all the other presents too!) So, yeah, still pretty excited.

Mostly I feel very healthy, although my belly is starting to feel like a balloon fit to burst.

Michael says waiting and waiting is the most boring thing in the world. He has been fixing door handles and rehanging the fridge door and moving the kitchen light-switch from the hall to the kitchen.

The midwife says everything looks perfect. She says to rest and to eat. So tomorrow, I will try to quell the excitement and get some rest, just in case he comes sooner rather than later. Who knows?

 

Breakfast with new teapot, for Stephanie

And new egg-cup, but don’t tell Michael. I’ve actually been wanting a proper egg-cup for ages, so that’s ok. They come from my favourite shop in the oversized Swedish shopping centre that perches on the border to Norway. It’s the iittala outlet, which is a Finnish company that produces crockery. They’ve recently brought this Swedish range in too, Hoganas (with a couple of funny Swedish letters in there that my keyboard isn’t equipped for). They have a whole new range, so they are selling the old one off half price. The new teapots were pretty gorgeous too, but four times as expensive, and I love the simplicity of this old one, its balance, its sheen, its wooden lid, and its beautiful big handle, perfect for fitting your whole hand inside. Now I just have to restrain myself from going back and buying up all the mugs and plates and bowls…

 

Shopping!

No, not for baby clothes – but thanks for the advice!

I just had my first entirely frivolous Friday off in ages. After a delightfully slow morning I went shopping in Sweden. I bought not one but two pairs of winter boots. Although I have already lived through seven northern winters (that’s if you include the English ones, which don’t really compare to Norwegian ones but are difficult enough for antipodeans), I have never bought winter boots. This is due to a general frugality when it comes to buying clothing (and especially shoes), and to a general attitude of ‘making do’. (I’m not sure this is particularly admirable, it’s related to a habit of reading books but not attending to practicalities.) But the shoes I have worn practically every day for the past three years now have cracked soles and let the water in. And tying the laces to my hiking boots was getting increasingly difficult due to a certain little being taking up space around my middle. Anyway, now I have one pair of uber-practical ‘snow fun’ boots which will be suitable for ploughing snow from our driveway, outdoor activities at the kindergarten, and any kind of walking when the weather is treacherous. And another pair of nice warm boots that aren’t quite so hard wearing but much kinder on the eye (and very easy to put on) that I can wear on the days that it doesn’t resemble Antarctica out there. So I’m pretty pleased with myself really.

I also bought a cutting board thing to help me cut fabric in straight lines. Last night I finally got around to pulling out the sewing machine Mum bought me for my birthday. I am starting on a couple of very simple projects to try and get the hang of it. (I don’t think I’ve touched a sewing machine since I was about 10.) And last night I realised I’ll never get my seams straight if I don’t cut the fabric straight. So. Problem solved, I hope. (And I bought a couple of other bits and bobs to help me finish my first projects…)

Last but not least, I bought a cornflower blue Swedish teapot. It is beautiful. I have missed having a teapot. There is a kind of promise in teapots. Of friendship and warmth, of giving time and space to being together. I used to drink tea from teapots with my girlfriends in Adelaide. This teapot is the perfect size, not for a huge gathering, but for two or three. I’m sure it has a happy life ahead of it. It makes me calm just to look at it.

 

28 Weeks

That makes me third trimester, right? I’m quite pleased about that, as it feels I’ve been pregnant forever. Spring, summer, autumn… And winter arrived with a thud this week. Yesterday there was a veritable snow storm, complete with howling winds. The snow needed clearing from the driveway this morning. Today it was calm, but still snowed most of the day. The kittens are intrigued. At least black cats are very visible in all that white!

It’s a good thing I took a photo of our bright yellow beech tree last week, as now it’s pretty much lost all its needles and reverted into a very spindly miserable brown thing indeed.

I have had a head cold for what also feels like forever. At least eight weeks. It took a turn for the worse last weekend. I was nearly ready to call the doctor in my frustration, but I worked out it’s probably not one cold but at least three overlapping ones (the cost of working in a kindergarten), so I don’t suppose there’ll be much she can do. My voice has been AWOL since Sunday and I’ve been hacking my lungs out, but I feel marginally better this afternoon. They’ve reduced my hours by 50% at work – the benefits of living in a highly taxed but family (and pregnancy) friendly place like Norway – so hopefully that will help me recover. I’ve been exhausted.

Michael has gone to Germany so I have the place to myself for a few days. I lit the fire this evening. We bought a reverse cycle air-conditioning unit a couple of months back, and it’s been a life-saver, but for once the place wasn’t heating up to my liking. At least we have plenty of wood! It still feels a little strange to live in a place like this where surviving the winter has a whole different meaning. As I got the fire going (very easily thanks to Michael’s foresight in ordering and stacking the wood, collecting bags of kindling, and chopping some of the logs into little bits for fire-starters), I couldn’t help but think back over the generations of Norwegians who have survived here. The families who have lived in this house over the past ninety years. And even before that. Imagine living in Norway during the Middle Ages! The whole summer must have been one careful preparation… And I live in the south, where it’s pretty mild. I shudder to think about how they survived up north.

Meanwhile, in the kindergarten, we bundle the babbies up in hats and scarves and blankets and gloves and woolen suits, and put them out in their prams to sleep in the snow. Even the little eight month old. I still can’t quite believe it but they don’t seem to mind.

Speaking of preparation… Twelve weeks until my due date doesn’t feel like very long at all. It’s funny to think that the little creature who whacks me from the inside occasionally but aside from that hardly makes his presence felt and seems pretty happy in there will all of a sudden require a lot more attention. And stuff. Like clothes to wear and nappies and blankets and somewhere to sleep. And very warm clothes in case we ever need to take it outside (or upstairs for that matter). We really haven’t got very much ready yet. We ordered a pram a couple of weeks ago, so that should be ready soon. One of my colleagues says I can go through her baby stuff and borrow a car seat and some other things, so I need to do that shortly.

And then I suppose we need to work out exactly what else we need and start getting hold of it. I had a bit of a look in a baby shop yesterday. It frustrates me that all the boy’s clothes are blue. But despite my best intentions, I find it hard to come at buying the suit with the pink squirrels on it. (Why shouldn’t he have pink squirrels?) Besides, I haven’t met the little creature yet, how do I know what will suit him? Michael’s mum gave me a very cute little pair of overalls with owls on it, but I’m afraid it will probably be too small. It says 0-1 month, but it’s size 46, and I think European baby sizes are basically how big the baby is meant to be in centimetres. Given that the average new born baby is 50cm, and Michael and I are both in the 95th percentile for height, I think it’s unlikely that we’ll get a little one… The smallest clothes I saw in the shop yesterday were 56, which is probably a safer bet… Advice anyone?

Anyway, I guess we’ll work it out! There’s lots of little things I want to get done around the house too over the next couple of months. I think I need a list. The fire is lovely, by the way.

 

Happy birthday Grandma!

It was my grandma’s 81st birthday yesterday. I even remembered to call her. (It helps that it’s Guy Fawkes day: remember remember the 5th of November.) Anyway, I’m glad you had a nice day Grandma and that everything is going so well for you. I thought of you as I heated up my soup for lunch yesterday. I miss being able to drop in to your place for lunch! (My Grandma has a pretty much open house policy for family members. If you turn up around midday you get lunch. She even gives us keys so we can raid her chocolate biscuit stash even when she’s not home.) And even though she’s on the other side of the globe, she insisted on buying me new curtains – proper curtains, with lining – to help keep us warm this winter. Here’s a shot of them. I love them. I wish she could come around for a cup of tea.

In other news, I’ve been writing and writing and the big siberian larch outside my window is turning brown. Michael thinks it looks pretty depressing, but in the sun (which has finally returned after two weeks of rain) it lights up like a birthday candle.

 

New template

What do you think? I moved across to wordpress from blogger about two and a half years ago, when I moved to Norway from the UK, with only nine months left of my thesis to write. It felt like a new home deserved a new configuration of my online space. I’ve used the same template since then. I like the old template a lot, but what I don’t like is how it navigated the archives. This template is much better for browsing past entries and photographs…

In other news… We have new curtains!!! (Thanks grandma!) I’ll take a photo when we’ve got them all up. We put up the first set on the weekend. I ironed them first. I’ve never ironed curtains before. That was an eye opener. After ironing what felt like forever I was only a third of the way through. I love them though. I can’t wait to get the rest of them done.

About ten days ago it was freezing for a whole week, a couple of days not climbing about minus five before lunch time. And then it snowed, just when we’d planned to drive up to Oslo for the day. The journey was impossible on our summer tyres, and all the garages were booked out because everyone suddenly wanted their tyres changed, so Michael had a go at them. It was going great until one of the screw heads broke off. Which meant we were stranded for a week until we managed to get a garage to fix it. As soon as we got it back the temperature climbed to ten degrees and it’s rained ever since. At least we’re ready for winter when he decides to show up again.

We did make it up to Oslo in the end, a week after we had first planned. It was quite stressful but strangely entertaining. I’ll tell you about it another time.

Over the Halloween weekend we were inundated with little Norwegian witches and goblins who made off with all our chocolate. A sad thing, I’m telling you. We should have got Mermos to scare them away.

The belly is getting bigger and bigger, and the little monster kicks frequently, which is most reassuring. I’ve managed to reduce my hours at work thanks to the generosity of the Norwegian system, which is very lovely indeed. My eleven weeks left of work suddenly feels a lot less daunting. I dragged myself off to the pool tonight for the first time in weeks and felt like a very slow very heavy fish.