Wrestling

I think the pink giraffe (Ettan, the first cuddly toy we bought Isolde halfthrough the pregnancy) is winning while Kraken the Octopus (named after Cracken in Pirates of the Caribbean among others) is in a bit of a pickle.



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Morning on the Balcony

It's going to be another warm day but the cool morning (20'C) calls for a blanket. Good for a cuddle too.


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Right Now

Picnic in one of our favourite locations.



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More BlogPresents

Thank you Stella & parents for the cute Ralph Lauren top! It will be perfect now during the summer.


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Happy Midsummer!

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First Diploma

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Sour Dough Hotel

One of my plans for my maternity leave is to bake sour dough bread. Or it was my plan. I haven't started yet but with 4½ months to go so there's still time I guess!

If I already had started a sour dough batch I wouldn't have to worry (?) about who'd take care of it - as you probably know it has to be constantly "fed" flour and water - if we went on holiday, as I could just have it check into the world's first sour dough hotel! At only 200 SEK per week.

According to the owners the "guests" are treated really well during their stay and checking out fat and content, so maybe I should start one and have let it go on vacation right away?!

Dream Bed

This stylish and comfy companion will move in with us soon! Unfortunately not for another 6-8 weeks but...




At the moment - and since the move on 19 May - we're sleeping on pretty thin mattresses on the floor and it's not doing any wonder for a back (read: my shoulders and my neck) that's already a bit stiff from carrying a baby around. We hadn't realised that beds, like sofas, are usually not stocked as they are (semi)customised. If we had known we would have ordered it much sooner - or rather - not sold our old bed before we bought a new one. We could have gone to Ikea of course but for once in our lives we thought we'd buy a "proper" bed. So we're going to buy some extra mattresses to make our make-do bed a bit softer, or try to bring the sofa-bed from Peter's family summer house to town (if its fits in the car). Since my parents are coming to babysit and spend the night when we go to our friends' wedding in July, we need to sort something out anyway as the new bed won't have arrived yet.

New Trend?

Next thing after cupcakes and macaroons must be meringues! In the style of the HelinVoltaire girls!

Or like these:

Presents

Thank you Erik & parents over in Amerikatt for the super cute RL dress! Will be perfect this summer!

Thanks also to my aunt Bicke for the beautiful blanket she's crocheted for Isolde! Her future teddies and dolls will have luxury bedding!

And thank you to my other aunt Kerstin for Pingu (and thanks to your friend for making him)! He's adorable! Thanks also for the angel (not in the picture)!

Ragdoll x2

If you've run out of ideas for children's birthday gifts, here's one where you can light up another's child's life at the same time. Invisible Friend is like Toms one-for-one concept - buy a doll and another doll will be sent to a child somewhere in the world, in this case children who live with their mothers in prisons (yes, unfortunately that's the reality of many children around the world) or in an orphanage. A Swedish woman started the company after having worked in a Thai prison.

Ehum...

I've realised that I probably haven't touched my boobs as much pre-as post-baby. It feels like I'm constantly checking if the nursing pads are properly adjusted in my bra and I don't have any wet spots... I thought the leaking would have stopped by now - I've heard many said that they were fine after two months - but noooo... It's especially uncomfortable wearing a bra when you're sleeping. I will breastfeed for many more months and it is a special moment with your baby, but part of me can't wait until it's over!

I've also realised that I have never talked so much about poo before. And you tend to forget that other people may not be too interested in your baby's bowel movements...

New Horizons

Isolde has experienced the world from new angles,





discovered a new toy,





and jumped up and down with excitement.










We have borrowed the "jumping swing" (or whatever it's called) from my friend Malin. I have a video that I will post later (doesn't work from the iPhone).

Less fun for Isolde this week was yesterday's second set of vaccinations but she wasn't upset for long and didn't get a fever afterwards like last time. Yesterday's check-up also showed Isolde is still on the short side (61 cm) but on track weight-wise (6,610 gr).

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Decisions Decisions

Renovating is mostly fun but it can be rather stressful too. So many choices! Sometimes I wish there was just one shop and once you got there, only one choice. Browsing for wallpaper or tiles (or whatever it is) is fun but the closer you get to decision time the more nervous you become. "What if I choose the 'wrong' one?" You can always redo it of course but it takes money and time.

So we need your help!

On today's menu is wallpaper for our bedroom. We have narrowed it down to four options (plus a few extras).


Option 1

Extravagance from Harlequin (Midbec), close up:



and on the wall:



Option 2

Egerton from Cole & Son's Collection of Flowers:


Option 3

Ludlow from Cole & Son's Archive Traditional Collection. On the wall:


and close up, either in gold on bluish grey or silver on grey:




Option 4

Another way to go is to go for a more "daring" wallpaper (I don't mean completely crazy but one which perhaps will be a bit too much if all walls are wallpapered) on a selected area of the room. Backdrops (fondvägg) are apparently out now so my idea is to wallpaper only the part of the wall just behind the bed. I think I'd want to the whole wall from floor to ceiling, as in the second picture here and not just the headboard as in the first picture.



I wouldn't want our wallpaper to continue up in the ceiling though but I think you get the general idea. The rest of the walls would be painted in white or light colour to match the chosen wallpaper.



The wallpaper I'd choose for if we went for this option is this one, Lilac from Cole & Son's Collection of Flower, either in a brighter or softer version. This wallpaper is pretty pricey so I wouldn't have in the whole room for that reason too. The real wallpaper is much more silvery/metallic than appears on Cole & Son's page.




Some further options
Sudbury from Cole & Son?
Birds or flowers on grey or another flower one or pink flowers from Nordic Blossom?
Modern Classics 2119 from Decor Maison?
Something from Designers Guild Arabella collection?


So, whatcha think??!!

Première

First dinner on the new balcony. Check!

My parents came over today to see the new flat (my mum has seen it once before though but then it was empty and we hadn't moved in yet) and spend a few hours with us. The weather has been gorgeous all week but today was probably the best day, including a very warm evening (and warm morning; breakfast was also had on the balcony). As all Swedes know, even summer evenings often get a bit cool, but tonight we didn't have to wrap up and after our guests left (and Peter had left to go to a party), I sat on the balcony for another couple of hours uploading photos from our various camera (with the baby radio monitoring Isolde sleeping at the other end of the flat).



I tried adding apple to Isolde's oat cereal yesterday and today and it seems to do the trick! She was even trying to eat by herself today when grandma fed her.



Us adults also tried something new today - yellow water melon (image borrowed from Tre tjejer i köket)! I hadn't seen or even heard of it before. I'm not sure what the difference is (and whether it's something natural or cultivated*?) but I think it tasted a bit sweeter. Will definitely by it again.




* Well, most things these days are cultivated but was it cultivated 500 years or one year ago?

Lunch on a Blanket

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Donkey

Now I have seen Bugaboo's double pram IRL - it has started appearing here and there in Stockholm - and I think I may have a second kid soon just so I can get one! ;)

Image borrowed off the Internet

5 Months Today!

At five months Isolde...

- is a very happy and talkative baby. She continues with her "shrieks of joy" to mum's delight...ehum, not! Okay, it's a little fun. She also inhales with a high-pitched sound, like she's going to choke, if that makes sense. She has also added blowing bubbles and making fart sounds to her repertoire. She's doing lots of things with her tongue, sticking it out, twisting it around, exploring it and doing exercises for talking I guess. She "discovered" her lips and tongue at four months and did a lot of funny facial expressions for a while but then "forgot" (or it wasn't fun anymore) until more recently when she started doing new things such as "blurbing" (not sure what else to call it) and twisting her tongue.

- still doesn't like pacifiers and sucks on all fingers instead, sometimes one at a time, sometimes all of them at the same time. The thumb is starting to become a favourite but her index finger is close behind (Peter used to suck on his index finger so maybe that will be her thing too?).

- used to sleep at least 5 hours at night and often 6-7 hours and once in a while 8 or 9 hours but lately she hasn't been sleeping as well, as you know. A typical night she would fall asleep around 22:00 and then sleep until at least 4 or 5 am. Then I'd bring her to our bed and breastfeed in bed and we'd both fall asleep again until the next feed 1-2 hours later. When she was little (or littler, she's still very little!) it was very easy to make her fall asleep again and again until 9 or 10 am when I was ready to get up but these days she's pretty awake by 7ish. So sometimes we get up, have breakfast and play, and then go back to sleep again between 9 and 10, but it depends what our plans are for the rest of the day. Sometimes the mum doesn't get anymore sleep, as she needs to beautify herself ;) but baby sleeps. In terms of the night routine, since she was 3-3½ months old we have tried to get a routine going with a bath (or just a wash, no need for a bath every night) and pajama on, a story or a few songs, feed and then bed. She's meant to fall asleep by herself and not in our arms but it's probably 50-50, which is okay I think. In terms of the recent "bad" sleeping, it varies from night to night. Sometimes she wakes up every two-three hours all night and sometimes she sleeps 5-6 hours to start with and then shorter periods. Peter has been letting me sleep in the mornings, as I take the night shift (and will continue to do so as long as I breastfeed and I'm not the one who goes to work), which I'm really grateful for (and for that I forgive that he forgot Mother's Day...).

- thinks her hands and various toys are fun but her feet even more so (though seems to be losing some of its novelty). Socks don't stay on for too long. She hasn't sucked on her own toes yet though :)

- can sit really well now. It started around four months and two weeks. She wanted to sit up when she was sitting on my lap and I let her practice both on my lap and on the floor. In the beginning she'd sit for 30-45 seconds and then falling more and more forwards but now she can sit for long periods (five minutes or so) and sometimes when she starts to fall she'll put down a hand and stops the fall.

- turns and rolls over. She used to do it sporadically about once or twice a week since she was 3½ months but now it's constantly, also when I put her on her back just after she's been fed and thinks she should stay on her back. Two nights ago she had rolled over in her bed for the first time - we found her sleeping om her tummy, so cute. When she's on her tummy she does push-ups - that's pretty new since a week or two - and has also started always holding herself up on her hands rather than her elbows.

- is really mobile, wants to go forward but can't obviously. She moves around on her play blanket and gets to her toys eventually even if she can't reach them at first. She gets frustrated sometimes if she can't reach.

- has a few favourite games: her mirror buddy of course, the babygym in general and playing peekaboo with herself. The latter is really cute, which means she puts a blankey on her face, removes it, laughs, and over and over again.

- lied on her tummy in the pram today so she could see a bit better (or at least from a new angle). I bet she will only want to do that now...

- has been trying porridge (oat cereal) for a few weeks now but it's not a hit. We just started her on potatoes and carrots and the like too but so far not a hit either. Will use some of the tips I received below - thanks!

- weighed 6,220 gr and was 61 cm tall last time we checked which was about three weeks ago. Tomorrow is our next appointment, including her second vaccination.

- has started wanting to cuddle more but still hasn't really understood what it is about except for when's hungry or upset, when she wants to be close of course.

- likes water so much that at the baby swim lessons she doesn't want to close her mouth when water is poured her and thus was not allowed to dive (it's more like a quick peek under water at this stage) at last week's lesson. She'd rather taste the water :) But this week she got to try it once and she did great!

- likes being read and sung too. It's fun to see how she recognises and favours some rhymes and jingles. In terms of books I'm not sure she has any favourites yet as we're always reading the same two books to her (the others have been packed), but she likes those two at least!

- takes at least two one- or two-hour naps daily and a couple of power naps sometimes but when we went to Peter's family's summer house over the Ascension and National Day weekend she slept much longer (and also a bit better at night). But since there were four - and when Peter's sister and her husband arrived, six - people entertaining her; I can understand it was pretty exhausting :)


These are things all babies do of course but it's very special when it's your own baby doing it - and most important, you are experiencing it all with her - and you feel like she such a cute, clever and amazing child! :)

What's Cooking

Isolde tried potato for the first time today. Not a hit... She's been trying porridge (simple oat based kind) for a week or two and it started well - she opened her mouth wide and even swallowed - but now it's like she's decided it's faul. A bit frustrating but at the same time I know she will eat solids eventually. We have a bit of deadline though. We're attending a wedding in a month's time and it would be good if she had learnt to appreciate porridge by then, for the babysitter's sake, especially since she's not keen on drinking from a bottle (either).



I have also prepared pureed carrot that has also gone into the freezer.

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Sitting Girl

Isolde has been practising sitting a LOT - she doesn't want to do much else - over the last couple of weeks and she's pretty good at it now. After a while she's almost bent double as she's also very interested in her feet right now but then she pulls herself up. She has two very proud parents!










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Dippelidopp

First swim of the year for Peter. Isolde and I stay dry.







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New Car!

Today's highlight: we picked up our new car, a Passat TDI 140. The BMW 5 Touring we inherited when Peter's parents bought a new one has been great - engine power, comfort and security - but in the last one-two years we had to replace the generator and the engine and fix a few other things and by the time we sold it the battery was acting up too, so good riddance really!

I have also wanted a much more environmentally friendly car (and wouldn't have bought a BMW myself). The Passat has a pretty strong engine and runs on diesel - satisfying Peter's driving experience wants - but emits under 120 mg (on average, not always in city traffic though), and so falls under the green car definition.

We chose between Passat and Volvo V50 but realised the bigger Passat was much better for a growing family with car seats and prams and all other stuff children "need". I will miss the space for the handbag that the V50 has though (I know that such a girly thing to say but usually car designers don't think about these things so it's worth pointing out!)!




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Sleep 2

Just because (or thanks to) I wrote that post yesterday, Isolde slept a bit better last night, six hours between 21 and 03 (and after that until 7AM with two more feeds). She was awake for a while around 01 but suck her thumb (loudly) for a while and fell asleep again. But did her mother sleep?! Nooo! I laid there for two hours thinking "I bet she'll wake up soon!". My legs also hurt from walking in high heals at a work reception I attended yesterday afternoon/evening. Even if she's not disturbed by us I'm certainly disturbed by the sounds she makes so separate rooms as soon as possible are probably best.

Regarding the bed routine I forgot to mention yesterday that since she was 3-3 1/2 months old we've been trying to get her to fall asleep by herself instead of in our arms in the evening. It has been semi-successful; it can take everything from 15 minutes to two hours (difficult to "catch" her tiredness right). But since that's not new it shouldn't have caused her recent sleeping problems. So we continue with the evening routine: bath (a few times a week), pajamas on, feed (recently porridge followed by breastmilk), story or singing or both, a last feed and then off to bed. If she happens to fall asleep when I feed her we don't wake her of course but put her down anyway.

From the beginning she's been sleeping in her cot for the first part of the night and then in our bed, and that continues. Sometimes at 3, 4 or 5AM, whenever it is she wakes up, I put her back in her cot after nursing, unless I fall asleep too. But if it's 6AM or later, or the second time she wakes up, she usually stays in our bed. Before she was born I was really against having her in our bed. I was afraid we'd roll on her, and even though other parents said "you won't, and you'll change your mind when the baby is here" I didn't believe them. They were right of course. That said, we all sleep much better in separate beds. This past week I have tried having her sleep more with us but that hasn't helped, she has still woken up every or every other hour, so that isn't it.

Thanks for all your comments below, replies coming!

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Sleep

From being a pretty good sleeper (in the parent definition) Isolde has started waking up several times a night. Since she was two and a half months old (she's now four and a half) she's been sleeping at least five hours straight and on average six-seven hours (sometimes eight-nine hours but that's pretty rare). On a typical night she'd fall asleep at nine or ten o'clock and sleep until four or five in the morning. But for the past week she has gone to bed at nine or ten as usual but then woken up around midnight and then every hour or every other hour for the rest of the night (last night she slept six consecutive hours but that's because she fell asleep at 18:15; she still woke at midnight). A few nights she's been wide awake for two hours in the middle of the night. For the first couple of months of her life it was easy to make her fall asleep again at 6 or 7AM but now she's awake and want to play. That's fine though. We often get up, play for a while, eat breakfast, and then we go back to bed between let's say 8 and 9 or 10 am. Normally that's not a problem (I get enough sleep) but now, with me getting such interrupted sleep (and sometimes being awake for two hours), we have slept even longer in the morning. At the same time or as a result, she's taken longer naps during the day, and now I fear that her daily rhythm is off. I don't know whether to wake her though. Feels like she's still too young for me to try to steer her sleeping except for the evening bedtime but maybe it's time?

I asked our nurse B if the move has upset Isolde but she didn't think so. She said babies are not that sensitive to their environment, not as long as they are still with people (and stuff) they recognise. Isolde did sleep fine for the first three or four days in the new flat though, but maybe it took her a few days to notice new sounds and smells? B thought instead that I'd been stressed (over the move) and had less milk as a result (I have noticed that myself actually but I thought it was my breasts finally being balanced so-to-speak) and that Isolde wakes up at night simply because she's hungry. She ordered me to drink more water (which I have been forgetting lately) and also try to feed her more in the evening. I have followed her advice and my breasts have now re-filled but Isolde is still not sleeping properly... We have started giving her porridge, which I hope will fill her up in the evening... as soon as she gets that she supposed to swallow (so far she's been eating 5 ml/ a table spoon at the most).

My other theory is that she's disturbed by us. We have gone to bed at 11 pm or midnight and soon (up to an hour) after that she wakes up. She's not that sensitive to noise otherwise in the evening (the hoover going or cardboard boxes being dismantled) and we don't turn on lights or make much noise when we go to bed, and it was never a problem at the old flat, but maybe she's disturbed by us turning in bed, snoring (?) or whispering? We still don't have a bed and no blinds in our bedroom so we're sleeping in Isolde's room. Maybe letting her sleep alone would make her sleep better?

All you mothers out there, any advice?! I want this sleeping beauty back!

Fina fisken

On my way home after a nice dinner with Åsa at Pontus' new Seafood bar. It's not that often I'm baby-free - and I've mostly been away during the day so far - so I've been enjoying myself. But we laughed about the fact that we talked quite a lot about our children :)

The food was very good as always. I had a Norwegian fish with a strange-sounding name I can't remember (it starts with u..?).




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Thursday Morning

Isolde is sleeping soundly in the pram after her swimming lesson and I'm relaxing in the sun and writing in Isolde's journal (a bit behind on entries as always).




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To Keep or Not to Keep...

I have a complete set of encyclopaedia (including atlas, three dictionaries and yearbooks from the 1990s) from Bra böcker that I don't know what to do with*. With the Internet and all the sources (reliable as well as as unreliable of course) it holds, I don't really need an encyclopaedia anymore and I would really only keep the set because it "looks good" on the shelf and for the odd-chance it would be worth money in the future (unlikely). The risk of Internet disappearing in the future is virtually non-existent though and even if we for some reason wouldn't live in an information society I could probably buy a set again or go to the library. On the other hand, it could be fun for Isolde to browse through when she's a bit older. I will definitely keep the atlas for that reason.

So what to do?! I need advice, people!



* We did move them to the new flat but they are still in boxes.

Feet & Coffee

An update is in order. The flat is still in a state but we're getting there, albeit slowly. Isolde doesn't let me do much during the day (her four-hours naps are gone; now it's two hours at the most) so most of the unpacking and organising is being done in the evening. The weather has been pretty good so we haven't felt like being inside all day anyway (she sleeps best if we go for a walk at least once a day). At the moment Isolde wants to practice sitting all the time so the babygym and the bouncy chair are not popular right now. I have
bought a bumbo seat so she can sit up while I sit next to her on the floor organising a drawer or similar. She can't (and shouldn't of course) be left alone in the seat though because she stretches her legs and tries to get out of it, clever girl!



The babygym might be back in favour soon though as she has discovered her feet and likes kicking on the danglies when she's not busy trying to take her socks off or holding her toes.






I will post some photos of the flat soon. The balcony is ready and the living room and kitchen are getting there. When I say "get there" I mean it's furnished and most of the clutter is unpacked and put away. We're going to decorate too but we're taking our time choosing wallpaper and paints (and the plan is to completely redo the kitchen later in the year). The bedrooms are a bit empty and we're sleeping on two mattrasses on the floor (need to get to Ikea to buy a new bed!). Our walk-in closets are done too - you can see where my priorities lie! - will take a picture of those too!

Just had some sushi for lunch and now it's time for coffee! Isoldjuls napping so I'd better use the time for something useful (as opposed to blogging :) Speaking of coffee, every day since we moved in I have smelt "kokkaffe", i.e. coffee made on the stove (boil coffee) the way many older people make it, in the stairway. Smells like my grandfather's place somehow even though he doesn't make that way anymore as far as I know. Gives a homely feeling though.

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Grattis mormor!

Trying to get Isolde to pose for her grandmother on her birthday is not an easy task!




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Improvising

I forgot to bring Isolde's sunhat today so her blanket had to step in to do the job. Meet our little nun.







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