A Fig in Sweden

the stuff that matters

There are a lot of things I've been looking forward to doing with Sophie since the moment she was born. Making stuff is very high on that list. Cookies, cakes, paintings, mouse houses, anything. Of course, some things are best left up to her to make on her own (mouse shoebox houses were a personal favorite when I was little.)

For the past few weeks, we've been coloring with crayons. And then on Sunday, as I started to make lingonberry scones, I whipped out the BEKVÄM stool so she could help. Help is a loose term. Her contribution was moving flour from one bowl to the other. She thought it was the greatest thing on Earth. And while flour was being sprayed every which way in the kitchen, I felt the exact same way.

I'm looking forward to many, many more messy hand moments of me and my girl making stuff.

the roaring 20s

Sophie started her 20s today. Months, that is. Which gives me a good excuse to post these very Oilily-esque photos of her. The mish-mash of colors and patterns seems to always work with little girls, doesn't it? We were on our way out to run errands this weekend when I dashed back in and grabbed the camera.

Besides having fun with fashion, here are the other highlights of life with an almost-2-year-old:

• Sophie mimicking our mannerisms. Like saying a long "ummmmmm" at the start of sentences in a conversation and crossing her arms when she has something really important to say.

• Finding her perched on some piece of furniture. She seems to get quite a feeling of satisfaction climbing up on things herself.

• "Playing" Go Fish with her deck of Hello Kitty cards.

• Lots of Sesame Street and Baby Einstein. Lewis and I now sing Bert and Ernie's "La, la, la" song for kicks. La la la ... linoleum!!!

• Lots of love. I don't mean to gloat, but I'm definitely on the receiving end of a lot of hugs and kisses lately. And, believe me, I am milking this mommy's girl time while it lasts.

15 days as a single mom

Tomorrow my two-week adventure into the world of single parenthood ends. Lewis will be back from the U.S., and I'm giddy just thinking about the moment he walks through the door.

It's been a great 2 weeks and a really hard 2 weeks. I felt overwhelmed the first few days figuring out how I was going to shower, get dressed, eat, feed her, get her dressed and drop her off at daycare on time. (I was never late, but my grab-whatever's-clean outfits were a little embarrassing.) Just as I got the hang of it, we both got sick. And then just as she was getting better, she got sick again. Middle-of-the-night fever spikes are no fun to manage on your own. Yet, I feel pretty proud of myself that I did.

More than anything, though, I loved being Mrs. Mom again.

this is the way the ladies ride

My grandmother used to sit me on her lap when I was little, bounce me up and down as if I was riding a horse and sing the following song:

This is the way the ladies ride
Tritty-tritt, tritty-tritt
This is the way the ladies ride
Tritty, tritty-tritt

And this is the way the gentlemen ride
Gallop-a-trot, gallop-a-trot
This is the way the gentlemen ride
Gallop-a, gallop-a-trot

But this is the way the farmer rides
Hobble-y ho, hobble-y ho
This is the way the farmer rides
Hobble-y, hobble-y ho

I remember asking her to do it over and over and over. Now I sing it to Sophie, and she can't get enough of it either.

But today she got her chance to feel the REAL kind of tritty-tritt – on her first pony ride! It was part of the annual festival in town, Älmhult Days. She screamed with excitement as we approached the pony but I'm not sure she was completely comfortable riding it. She had no concept of holding on, which is why I'm basically keeping her on. By the end of it, she was singing songs, though, so I took that as a good sign.

A big thank-you to my friend Anna for letting me tag along with them and for documenting the big event for us.

 

and she don't wanna stop

If the video of Sophie dancing does not automatically appear, you can click here.

yup, she's an IKEA baby

I heard the clinging of glass and knew she had gotten into one of the few non-baby-proofed spots in the house. I walked to the back room to see that she had pulled down all the thick glass candle holders that had lined the windowsill and was putting them back up in a small grouping instead. She was obviously correcting my interior design mistake. Everyone knows that grouping small objects looks much better. :)

thanks for sharing, tilly

All of a sudden the kitchen was empty and quiet. Hmmm, where did she go? My frown quickly turned into a smile when I popped my head into the living room and found her sharing someone's seat.

why am i a worrywart? because history repeats itself.

There is a story I've heard over and over for 30-some-odd years. When I was about 1, and living on an army base in Augusta, Georgia, I was eating a teething biscuit and started choking. My mom swooped me up and held me by my ankles, but it didn't come out. In a panic, she dropped me on the floor (yes, head first) and ran outside to get help. When she came running in, I was happily sitting on the floor eating the rest of my cookie.

As you can imagine, choking is my #1 fear when it comes to Sophie's adventures with eating. It didn't help that she gagged on the littlest lump when she started on solids. So we took it slow. When we had to give her the baby heimlich a few times with Gerber puffs, we started breaking them in half. When she started feeding herself, we just made sure everything was cut up into small pieces. We saw babies younger than her eating big pieces of toast and gigantic pieces of banana. A couple of times we asked ourselves if we were being ridiculous.

Within the last month or two, Sophie's chewing has gotten a lot better. She can now handle holding a whole waffle, piece of pizza or slice of toast in her hand and take small bites. We've even started giving her whole crackers and tortilla chips, after she ate breadsticks with no problem on the cruise to Helsinki.

She was doing just fine. Until today.

Sophie was eating tortilla chips at the table with daddy as I left to drop off the recyclables about a mile down the street. When I came back 15-20 minutes later, Sophie had a big smile on her face but Lewis looked shaken up. Turns out she started choking on a chip as soon as I left. She wasn't breathing. Lewis grabbed her from her chair, placed her on an incline with her head down and, in a panic, pumped her stomach. It wasn't a textbook first aid technique, but it worked. (Baby heimlich is 5 back slaps between the shoulder blades.) She threw up the chip as well as her lunch. And she started breathing. As soon as I heard what happened, I squeezed her as tight as my mom probably squeezed me 38 years ago.

Sometimes it's hard as a parent not to compare your child's development to others and wonder if you're holding them back or babying them (or the opposite). But now I feel more strongly than ever that as Sophie's parent, I know what she's ready for and not ready for better than anyone. And I will never second-guess my gut or my worrywartness again.

when mommy and daddy are away

I had a dentist appointment yesterday near Sophie's school, so I headed over there at 12 to pick her up with daddy. I don't often get to be the pick-her-up-er. I got to do it a couple of weeks ago and wanted to bottle the moment. As soon as she saw me, her face lit up and she came running over. I was beaming.

I was expecting a similar reaction yesterday, which is why I biked like mad to make it there in time. I met Lewis outside, and we walked in together. A few kids were by the door, but there was no sign of Sophie. Then one of her teachers saw us and said she was in the bathroom. "She discovered the faucet," she said. So we walked over and peeked into the bathroom. She and her friend Lucas were turning the faucet on and off, and Sophie was laughing hysterically. She was having the time of her life and wasn't fazed at all that we were there to take her home. In fact, Lewis had to scoop her up to get her to leave.

I admit it... I felt a millisecond of disappointment. But I was smiling to myself the rest of the day thinking about how happy our little goofball is when she's there.

wussat?

That's baby speak for "what's that?" and a phrase that Sophie's been saying *a lot* lately. You know when kids go through the "why?" phase? Well, it's a little like that. Luckily it's absolutely adorable and anything but annoying.

Our answers sometimes crack me up. Like yesterday at the beach, we were walking along the ocean when Sophie pointed to the wall of sand next to us. "Wassat?," she asked. Lewis very accurately replied that it was a "sandbank." (Haha, like just in case she thought it was a sand drift or another type of sand formation.)

Other words/phrases she says now:
• Bless you (when we sneeze)
• Hello
• Thank you
• Down
• No (to everything!)
• Shoes
• Mommy or mama
• Daddy  or dad or da
• Choo-choo (no doubt because we live next to the train tracks)
• Bye-bye
• Titta (Swedish for look)
• Quack, quack; Moooo; and ruff-ruff
• More
• The end (as in the end of a book)
• Uh-oh
• Ee-ii-ee-ii-oo

And then she repeats anything we say. I caught myself saying "crap" the other day and cringed for a moment as I waited for her to repeat it. She didn't... yet.

Perhaps it's because she spent seven straight weeks away from Swedish preschool that her English vocabulary has blossomed. She started back up at her Montessori school this week, and we fully expected a traumatic first day drop-off on Monday. But she ran in giggling and didn't even turn to say bye.

Work has been very slow (most Swedes are still off for the summer), and the sun has been shining. So a few times this week I left the office at 4, and then the three of us headed to the lake beach in town for a couple of hours of splishing and splashing before dinner. Oh if only it could be summer in Älmhult all year...