A Fig in Sweden Portland

mom mob

Every mom in Älmhult was at the new Lindex store opening on Friday at 11 a.m. Seriously, people left work for this. This is big news for our little town. Lindex has the cutest stuff for kids at great prices. And stuff for moms, too. Dads are out of luck.

This is probably not a good thing for our budget. I am such a sucker for little dresses. Since Sophie now has plenty of clothes to get her through the summer, I am shopping for next year. And for my nieces and nephews.  :)

I like the graphical stuff best...

baby cafe

One of the churches in town has a "baby cafe" every Wednesday from 1-3 – for mommies and babies up to a year old. I was a little intimidated about going, but luckily Anna agreed to let me tag along with her so I could see what it was all about.

It was really cool! On one side of the room are a bunch of mats for the kids to play on. On the other are fika tables for the mommies to chat. In the beginning there is a bunch of singing, which we missed today because we arrived a bit late.

Sophie really enjoyed looking at all the other babies. She seems really interested to look at the world around her. I took her to an Earth Day event yesterday in the sling and she quietly listened to two different speakers. She was just looking at the lights and all the people around me. She was totally happy just watching what was happening.

She's the best.

Here she is rolling around the floor with her buddy Lucas.

squirrel sighting!

Perhaps only my dad can appreciate this blog posting. And, well, maybe Tilly too. The big news is that we saw a squirrel during our walk yesterday! A whole family, in fact. I think it may have been the first squirrel I've seen in Sweden. Tilly didn't know what to do... been almost three years since she hunted them on a daily basis.

As you can sort of see (sorry... it's the camera on my phone zoomed to the max), the squirrels here look more reddish-brown and have tufted ears.

sassy sophie

I snapped these as we were getting the little diva ready for our morning walk today. Our girl's got some sass with a capital 's.'

vad heter hunden?

Tilly doesn't get as much attention as she used to. I think she knew the moment we walked in with Sophie that she was bumped down a rung. But she's still the star when we go for our morning walk. We pass by a daycare – the one we hope Sophie will go to – and you can hear the kids screaming as soon as they catch a glimpse of Tilly. "Hund! hund!" That's the Swedish word for dog. Often they come running up to the fence and ask,"Vad heter hunden?" "Tilly," I say. "Tilly?," they repeat with some bewilderment. I guess it's not a common Swedish name for a dog.

I've already admitted that my Swedish isn't very good. Well, Lewis' is worse. And sometimes the kids aren't asking Tilly's name, they are asking what kind of dog she is or if they can pet Tilly. Lewis, having no clue what the kids are asking, always just responds, "Tilly." Hee hee.

Every day we take the same route at the same time and see the same people along the way. All of us with our routines. To them, I'm the girl with the red stroller who has her dog off the leash.  Her well-behaved dog.

It's Tilly's hour to shine.

rub a dub dub

That was Sophie at the beginning of baby massage class today.

And here she is at the end...

So I'd say it works! She liked it a lot in the beginning. I think JP is right... babies like to be naked. She was all smiles while I was massaging her feet and legs. Sophie and I go to baby massage every other week, with about seven other mommies and babies. The class is in Swedish, but I can follow along since she shows us how to do all the moves on that doll you see in the picture. And we have an instruction book.

I wish my Swedish was better because it's a mommy group as well, where people can talk about issues they are having. I understand some of it, but not enough to really take part in the discussion. Last week, the entire class time was spent talking about how our deliveries went. I think I may have been the only one who got an epidural if I understood correctly. (!!!)

Luckily, my mommy friend Anna and I plan to get together regularly. She's the one I met at the health clinic who found me on the Internet. Even though we barely know each other, I already feel really comfortable with her... like we've known each other much longer. It's really nice. We got together last week for a walk and then she came back to our house for lunch. This week I'll meet her on her side of town for a walk in the forest and lunch at her place. Her boy, Lucas, is 2 months older than Sophie. It's great because I can see what Sophie will be doing soon and get some tips from Anna on good toys, activities, etc. Especially when it comes to the Swedish stuff I don't know much about.

beach daze

The thermometer has been cracking the 10-degree-celsius mark lately and I'm already dreaming of the days I can take Sophie to the beach. Our IKEA News brochure arrived this morning with a cool beach umbrella-type contraption that will be perfect at keeping the sun (and wind) away from the girl. I think we just might have to do a little shopping today. :)

traces

I love these little signs of Sophie throughout the house. I find her socks wedged between the sofa cushions on an almost daily basis.

Daddy will be home from Greece in 23 minutes!!

the tax man

We were all enjoying a quiet Sunday night at home (all of us except Lewis, who is still in Greece working on a class project) when chaos struck.

I was nursing Sophie when all of a sudden the doorbell rang. Immediately, Tilly went berserk. And I must have been startled a little, and jerked slightly, because then Sophie lost it and started hysterically screaming. Meanwhile the doorbell kept ringing and Tilly kept barking. It was 3 minutes of pandemonium. I ran to the door with a screaming Sophie in my arms but nobody was there. Then I noticed some dude coming around to the back door. I opened it and asked, "Can I help you?"  The dude explained that he was from Radiotjänst, otherwise known as the TV tax people. Sophie erupted once again with her hysterical screaming. She's never cried like that before and I was really flustered. I told him I couldn't deal with this right now and asked if he could come back.

It took Sophie probably another 15 minutes to calm down enough so she could finish eating. I was so upset that she had become so upset. This protective, mama-lion instinct kicked in, and I think I really could have ripped that guy's head off.

Anyway, back to the TV tax. In Sweden, you have to pay a tax just for having a TV. Why on Earth they do not charge this tax through your cable subscription is beyond me. Instead it's on your honor to pay it. Our American "welcome family" had warned us about the TV tax people when we moved here. They told us how they avoided paying it for years because the people didn't know English and they kind of played dumb about it. So we decided to play dumb too. And it worked up until last night.

Radiotjänst has inspectors that go door to door to register people's TVs. By law they are not allowed inside your home to see if you have a TV. So, theoretically, if the TV is upstairs in a back room, there is no way Radiotjänst can prove that you have a TV. Our TV is in plain view from the sidewalk, so there is no getting around the fact that we have a TV when visiting our house.

The annual TV tax is about 2000 kronor or about $350. A pretty hefty tax! The main reason they collect it is to fund two Swedish public television channels, which we obviously don't watch. But we knew that paying the tax is the right thing to do and that if Radiotjänst contacted us we would pay it.

The guy came back about an hour and a half later, and I gave him all the info he needed. We get our first bill in 2 weeks.

It's a little ridiculous to complain about paying it. Taxes are paying me to stay home with Sophie and take walks in the forest every day. :)

a jr. pain in the butt

I told you I had officially changed my name to Lewis'. And that it was "easy peasy." Well, I called the Swedish government today to check on the status since I need to change it in my U.S. passport as soon as I get the papers. Calling the Swedish government is no simple task because they often do not speak English, and, well, my Swedish still stinks. So I called the office where I handed in the papers. They sent me to an office in Kristianstad that handles names. She told me that my husband is a "Jr" and that I may not be able to take his name because they can't separate his last name from the Jr. She said she sent my papers to another office that handles names in Simrishamn, so I had to talk to them. This woman spoke zero English, so I'm sure I sounded COMPLETELY ridiculous. In fact, after we got off the phone I realized I was using the wrong word for "think" the entire time.

I tried to explain to her that the Jr is not part of the last name... "inte efternamn" I kept saying. And then I started just spewing a bunch of Americans' names with the Jr – John F. Kennedy Jr. being the most famous. She said she understood but that's not how Swedish law works. I guess we're lucky Sophie somehow avoided this nonsense and has the correct last name, sans the Jr.

Luckily there appears to be a workaround for me. I have to change my name in my U.S. passport first and then show the Swedes. I sent my marriage certificate and application to the embassy in Stockholm yesterday, so hopefully this will be the end of this fiasco. Especially since I already have plane tickets booked in my new name!!

first date

Sophie had her first date yesterday with a nice, handsome Swede named Dennis. He even made a move to hold her hand. Very cute.

It was my first mommy date, as well, with Dennis' mom, Sara, and Eva and her little girl, Simone. It was so great to see them and chat about mom stuff.  Then we went over to visit my coworkers at IKEA. It was fun to be back. Seemed exactly the same... like I had never left. Except now I'm a mom carrying my baby down the hall!

I have my next playdate with a woman I met at the baby health clinic. Lewis and I chatted with her one day while we were waiting for our appointment. Amazingly she tracked me down using Google, and found this blog. I got an email from her over the weekend and was totally shocked. Yay for Google and blogs! This blog also reunited me with my best friend growing up. I had been trying to find her for 10 years or more. So at least some really good things have come out of all my ramblings. :)