A Fig in Sweden Portland

some moooi for my meeting

Had an all-day meeting today in Helsingborg at the most interesting meeting space: the SHIP building. And, yes, I actually sat in the spider-looking chair pictured below for most of the day. The lamp on the full-size horse (by Dutch design company, Moooi) is supposed to work but was having some technical difficulties when we tried to turn it on.

It was very tough to be away from my girl for 11 hours. At least I had some fun things to look at. (The meeting went well too.)

ja, må hon leva

I meant to add this to my post yesterday. For those of you in the States, this is the traditional Swedish birthday song, "Ja, må du leva." Translation here. Basically it wishes the birthday girl or boy to a long life: "Yes, may you live to a hundred years."

off and running into year 2

As you can see, Sophie had an awesome birthday. There she is playing with her favorite gift, a wooden Brio cart from her buddy Lucas and his parents Anna (my Älmhult mommy friend) and Pär. They really helped make Sophie's day special.

If yesterday was all about reminiscing, today was definitely about looking ahead. Into year two. Wow.

Seeing how she interacted with Lucas made us less apprehensive about daycare, which starts in a week. Sophie and Lucas are in the same class, and we can already see that she is going to go gangbusters being around the kids. She had no fear today. We actually hadn't seen her like that before. At one point she took a few steps on her own without thinking about it.

Happy birthday, muffin! We are in awe of the little girl you are becoming.

the night our lives changed

This time last year – almost to the minute – I was 2 days past my due date and started to feel a weird pain radiating from my back. Sophie (whom we affectionately referred to as Tito) wanted out.

25 hours and 20 minutes later, we met for the first time. And we became a family.

Tomorrow is her big day. Today is ours. I just popped a bottle of Hungarian sparkling chardonnay (Sophie is part Hungarian after all), and Lewis and I toasted to a great year. Since tomorrow's post will be all about strawberry cupcakes and what not, I wanted to post  some things we've noticed about our little monkey during our first year together.

She giggles when she farts. Or when any of us fart.
She screams with excitement when she sees that she's going to get a bath.
She loves looking at herself in the mirror.
She's petite: at her one-year appointment she weighed 8.175kg (18 lbs) and measured 71.5cm (28 inches) long.
She likes to go to sleep at night. When we snap her into her GroBag, she snuggles in and smiles.
She cuddles her ducky. He's her favorite lovey.
She has 6 teeth.
She is afraid of the doctor's office (and specifically shots). The minute we walk in she starts crying.
She is a big fan of avocados.
She is fascinated with cooking and latte-making. And the vacuum cleaner.
She does not like it when we yell at Tilly. And she doesn't like it when Tilly barks.
She tends to sleep on her stomach.
She's a lefty.
She knows she is incredibly loved.

And we feel like the luckiest two people on Earth to have her in our life.

i feel better already

The first election I can remember was in 1976. I rooted for Jimmy.

Sophie won't remember this one, but I felt like we needed to document her participation in this amazing event.

We are beaming with pride. When we woke up this morning, Lewis and I agreed that it felt "different." Just knowing Obama is in charge gives us peace of mind. It also makes us wish we were home right now. Being an expat was a whole lot easier with W at the helm.

mommy

"Mom-meeee, mom-meeee, mom-meeee." I heard it through the baby monitor this morning and went running up the stairs to Sophie's room. I'm coming, baby! Lewis was standing outside the door listening as well. He looked at me and said, "I think she's saying 'mommy'!"

It was her first word. And the best thing I've heard in a long time.

9.5 long hours

When I left work around 5:30 this afternoon, I found myself practically running across the bridge to get  home. I couldn't wait. It struck me as a bit odd since I've been back at work part-time for nearly 3 months. But then I realized that today was the first day I was away for so long – almost 10 straight hours because I had a team lunch and couldn't make my usual trip home.

It was a depressing preview of things to come. Sophie starts daycare in a few weeks. She won't be home when I take my lunch hour. So these 9- to 10-hour separations will become the norm. Lewis is dreading it as well. We keep asking each other if she's too young to be in daycare all day. We've been thinking of how we can trim her time there. Even though we know it will be great for her development to be with the other kids and learn a lot of new things, we're sad that all our quality time with her will be drastically reduced. Right now I am home on Wednesdays and Fridays, and the idea of working 5 days a week feels insane.

In Sweden, parents of young children are allowed to reduce their hours to 80% so they can spend more time with their kids. And, I must say, I am seriously considering exercising my legal right to take Fridays off.

sophie says joyeux noël

I know my last blog post probably left some of you in suspense. A lot changed the day after our accident. The Volvo repair guy fixed up our car well enough so we could drive to Germany the following day. We also rebooked our train tickets to Paris and reconfirmed our rental apartment. Christmas was back on!!

Here are some of the highlights of our trip to the City of Lights with an 11-month-old:

Best Museum Experience: The children's exhibit at the Pompidou Centre. I honestly could have stayed there all afternoon watching Sophie scream with delight as she walked through it holding on to daddy's hands. We realized later that we should have used the video function on the camera to capture it.

Best Way to Get Around the City: The Metro. It was free entertainment for Sophie, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy all the people-watching. She got a bunch of winks back at her, too. I was actually quite proud of her for being so calm in the noisy, chaotic environment of the subway system. It's quite a change from our quiet life in Älmhult.

 
Best Place to Buy Baby Food: La Grande Epicerie de Paris, which is attached to the Bon Marché department store. It was nearly impossible to find the type of organic baby food Sophie eats, until we stumbled upon this place. Also, the French don't seem to feed their babies "gröt" or cereal. Luckily we brought enough with us.

Best Way to Spend the Night: Watching Lewis and Sophie make goofy faces in the mirror of our apartment. It was my favorite moment from the trip. We rented a little studio at the Maison Zen (my second time there), which made staying in Paris and lot easier and more affordable. We ate lunches out and had dinners in.

Best Toy Store: Actually, I was shocked that I did not see very many toys stores in Paris. We ended up splurging on some cute things for Sophie from Habitat. Not Parisian, non. But they really do have great toys. We bought Sophie a few things from Habitat in Lyon before she was born, and now she'll also have this truck (notice the name!!) and an adorable stuffed bunny.

Best Way to Look and Sound Like an Idiot: Speak Swedish. Then Spanish. I studied French for 6 years, but I think more Swedish came out of my mouth during the trip. One time I tried to correct myself, and somehow I blurted something in Spanish. The lady behind the counter at the bakery did not find it amusing. (But I did!)

Best Way to Make Lewis' Heart Stop Momentarily: I bought a cute dress from Comptoir des Cotonniers and showed him the receipt. (Hey, how many chances will I get to go shopping in Paris?!)

I hope you had an equally joyous holiday season!

Boarding the high-speed ICE train in Frankfurt (317 km/h)

Spending Sunday at the Louvre

Stopping at a creperie