Ice Skating - Day 2

Ellie was so excited about ice skating that she wanted to head back to the park for more.  We were feeling pretty Swedish with our big blue Ikea bag holding all the skating gear.  Ellie’s goal for the day was, “I want to do it all by myself.”  She had several practice runs holding on and then became braver, wanting to do it by herself.  It was amazing how much further she could go today than yesterday without falling.  She and Daddy even went around the whole rink together twice; part of the way holding hands and partly by herself.  It is so much fun to watch her discover new things that she can do. 

Look!  I can do it!

New favorite activity - climbing the snow pile left by the zamboni.

Ice Skating

After a fairly lazy morning, thank you David for letting me sleep in, we headed to Vasaparken to try out ice skating.   Ellie was so excited.  She loves the idea.  After getting all geared up with skates and a bike helmet, she was ready to go.  She was very surprised how slippery the ice was.   Within two steps, David fell for the first and only time of the day.  I think it was actually a good thing he fell first because it took the pressure off of Ellie.  They started with David supporting Ellie under both elbows.  Soon she wanted to try just holding hands like she saw some of the other children doing.  Before long with started wanting to try without holding on.  So far she is just taking a few steps but doing an awesome job of learning to balance.  After about ½ an hour her legs were done.  We then headed to McDonalds for lunch, Ellie’s choice. 

Daddy wipes out first!

Getting started!

Getting braver.

Rest Day

Because Ellie ran a fever last night and had a really runny nose this morning, she had to stay home from dagis (preschool).  I don’t think she was too sad because it was supposed to be her first day by herself.  She had a great lazy day which she probably needed since we have had such a busy week.  I was able to get caught up on some household things that haven’t gotten done this week.  I am still not sure how people who work fulltime get anything done.  Our fun project of the day was painting with stamps.  Ellie had used paint with stamps at the carnival and when she saw some at the store Wednesday wanted to get them.  She had so much fun playing with different colors and ways of stamping.

After naptime, Ellie was feeling much better.  One of David’s coworkers had let him a pair of ice-skates for Ellie.  Now he just needed a pair of skates.  Stadium was having a sale of adult skates so off shopping we went.  I couldn’t believe we found him a pair for under $30.   They are all set to go skating tomorrow.  I can’t wait until next year to join them.  After shopping, we splurged and went to Pizza Hut for dinner.  David has wanted “American-style” pizza for a while but didn’t get any over Christmas.  A supreme pan pizza really hit the spot.  I think Ellie is becoming a thin crust girl.  She really seems to prefer the Swedish style pizza. 

Dagis - Day 2

Today was day two of dagis for Ellie.  She was less excited this morning because she knew that I would not be staying with her the whole day.  Today was a day for an outing.  The class walked to a nearby park about 7 blocks away.  The kids do such a great job of holding hands and staying together.  They each get bright green/yellow vest to wear with the name of the preschool and the phone number on it.  Ellie looked so cute in her vest.  They played at the park for about 40 minutes and then walked back to school.  Ellie has really bonded with one of the teacher assistants, Isabelle.  For about an hour in the morning, I sat in the corner and watched and Ellie played.  She kept coming over to try to get me to play and it was so hard to say no.  They had music playing for a while which she loved because she was able to dance.  Watching 6 preschoolers dance to “Oh Mickey” (in Swedish) was so funny!

After lunch, it was time for Ellie to have a trial without me in the room.  There were quite a few tears but finally I was able to head to the break room and let her stay by herself.  She did a good job.  Her logic is kicking in though.  She reasoning is, “You have stayed to play two days with me.  You can stay every day.  My teacher won’t mind.”  When we talked about the other kids parents not being there her response was, “I can’t help they don’t want to stay and play.”  Hopefully we can get her psyched up to try this by herself.  After nap, she woke up with a fever of 101 and really congested.  Her first preschool illness, let the merry-go-round begin. 

Field trip to the park

Climbing with Ms. Isabelle

Looking cute in the preschool trip vest.

Is it break time yet?

Swedish lessons and Midwife Appointment

It is day two of Swedish lessons.   Today we worked on numbers, ages, years and relationship words.  In Sweden, the word for Daddy is Papa.  Ellie has already run into this a dagis and is a little confused by the concept.  We have been talking about how Chloe has different words for her grandparents like “nana”, and  I think that has helped some.  The really interesting part of the relationship words I think is the words they have for grandparents.  Your mom’s mother is your “mormor.”  You mom’s dad is your “morfar.”  Dad’s mom is your “farmor”  and Dad’s dad is your “farfar.”  Not sure Ellie will adopt these terms but that sound better than “my Alabama grandma/papa”  and “my SC grandma/papa”  which is how she differentiates now.  After class a group of us went to the train station for pizza.  It sounds like a strange place for pizza but they have excellent pizza and it is right across from Electrolux which makes it easy for the guys. 

 Joannah, Angie, Ellie and I went craft shopping after lunch.  Ellie found some stamps and paints she just had to have.  She loved stamping at the Electrolux carnival and has been eager to try it again.  Ellie and I then met up with David for a midwife appointment.  I had gained a pound and the baby was measuring good.  My BP (100/58) and blood sugar were both in good ranges.  Our midwife also helped us find a pediatrician for Ellie and the baby.  In Sweden well care and sick care are delivered separately.  We will go to one clinic for all of the well care appointments and see the equivalent of a nurse practitioner.  If Ellie is sick there is a separate clinic that we can go to or afterhours they will see her at the ER. 

After the appointment, Ellie and I headed back to the station to catch the train home.  After waiting about 15 minutes we discovered that the green line was down.  Thankfully we were not far from T-centralan.  We were able to walk there and catch the blue line to Friedemsplan and then a bus to St. Eriksplan.  It amazes me how organized everything is when part of the trains system goes down.  They always have a backup in place very quickly. 

First Day of Dagis

Today was Ellie’s first day of dagis (daycare/preschool).  She was so excited to finally be starting.  She even woke up early.  We took the train to Odenplan and walked the block to her school.  They start the morning by playing outside in all types of weather.  Drop-off starts as early as 7:45 and they play outside until 9:45.  Ellie will be going from 9-2 normally.  She spent the morning play time making snow birthday cakes.   After playtime they headed upstairs for snack.  The snack was either apple and/or banana.  Ellie ate ½ of an apple and ½ a banana.  Then it was time for art.  They drew with crayons and then used paint to paint over their drawings.  I was sent for tea to begin the process of Ellie feeling comfortable by herself with the class.  Art was followed by free play and then circle time.   Lunch was a fish in dill cream sauce, rice and cabbage salad.  Ellie ate everything on her plate and went back for seconds of salad.  After lunch, they settled in to read books aloud.  Then it was time for more free play.  Ellie did puzzles, played memory with some of the other children, drew pictures, looked at books, and played train and checkout.  Afternoon snack is served about 2pm.  It was buttered bread with cheese.  Then it was back out to the courtyard for more outside play time.

She was so tired at the end of the day.  She really had a fun day though.  After a great nap for Ellie, we went to Hard Rock Café, Stockholm to celebrate David’s successful oral defense and Ellie’s first day of dagis. 

Making Snow Birthday cakes

Ellie's Artwork - Bottem Left by the door handle

Ready to head out to her first day of dagis.

All bundled up with Fairy in hand to ease jitters.

Swedish Lessons

Today was David and my first day of Swedish lessons.  Electrolux is providing lessons for all of the expats and their wives.  Classes will be twice a week and be immersion style with little to no English being spoken.  Because Ellie is not in preschool yet and all the babysitters I know are in class with me, I thought I would have to miss the first few classes.  However, David’s coworkers told him just to let her come in and hang out with them.  We packed her a bag of activities and snacks.  She thought she was such a big girl to be able to sit at Daddy’s desk. It was so strange to get her settled at David’s desk and walk off and people not think it was strange.  While not an everyday occurrence, kids do show up at work with their parents from time to time when childcare falls through.   Mr. Robert let her watch a movie on his iPhone.  After class, she was still sitting happily at his desk eating her snack and playing.  Hopefully, his coworkers were not lying when they said she had behaved well. 

Class is going to be very entertaining.  Because of the large number of participants, we have two classes. They split the husbands and wives up so it will be interesting to see the difference in the way the classes are taught.  I love my teacher she is awesome.  I hope by the time the class is over I will have a basic ability to communicate in Swedish.

Tonight was David’s oral defense.  Because of the difficulty in trying to get the committee all together,  It ended up being scheduled for 6:30pm EST, which was 12:30 AM for David.  It was quite a nerve racking evening for me.  I can’t imagine what David was going through.  I knew he was well prepared and would do wonderful but the waiting was so hard.  He went back to Electrolux to be able to use a landline and have a speakerphone.  Both the presentation and question and answer session went well.  During the question and answer session he had a security guard stop by to check his badge.  That would have thrown me for a loop but he just kept on going.  Once he got home, he called the family to let them know he was now “Dr. House”.   We are all so proud of him and can’t wait to start planning our trip to Phoenix, AZ for graduation. 

Playing at Daddy's Desk

Food, movies, coloring book and V-reader....what else does a girl need!

Sledding

We were back at the park today.  Ellie really loves going to the park with Daddy.  He is so much more fun to play with than mommy.  Today we remembered to take her little sled.  She has figured out how to crawl up with hill without sliding back down but cannot carry her sled with her yet.  David patiently carried it back up about a million times.  I sat at the top of the hill to help her on and give her a push off.  She loved flying down the hill.  Toward the end she was even playing with add a spin at the bottom of the hill.  She played a little on the equipment but for the most part all she wanted to do was sled. 

Kid's Book Club

The English Bookshop hosted its first story time for children ages 2-6 today.  The books they read were “My Dad” and “My Mum” by Anthony Browne.   After the reading, they had supplies there for the kids to make a book of their own about their mom or dad.  Ellie really enjoyed hearing the stories and then getting to do an art project especially since it involved painting. 

Ellie then wanted to head to the park for a little play time.  Ellie never ceases to amaze me with everything she thinks needs to go to the park: the laydown stroller with as many babies as we will let her have at least two purses, toys for the babies and one cannot forget “snacks” for her kids (the imaginary ones).  Once at the park, Ellie had a great time running up and down the small hills.  The trampoline has so much snow under it right now it doesn’t bounce.  After a while she noticed were some kids had smoothed a path for sliding down the icy hill and she just had to try it.  She loved it.  She can’t climb up the big hill by herself yet but she can come down without a problem.  David was great at helping her get up.  We will have to remember to bring her sled next time.   I am sure she would love it. 

Ellie and Princess Baby on the train

Kid's book club

Making our own books about Mom and Dad

Sliding down the hill

Ice adds a new dimension  to the balance beam!

Dagis

Since Ellie is starting school next week, we are going to meet with her teacher to find out what dagis (preschool) will be like.  Our appointment was at noon and David was able to join us so he could see where she would be.  We could walk to her school, about 8 blocks, but it is one block from the train and Ellie loves the idea of being able to take the train to school like Daddy takes the train to work.  We may do some walking when the weather warms up in the spring.  Her teacher Ms. Cissi is really nice.   They will start the day outside for the first hour or so.  Then they go upstairs for snack time.  After snack there is an organized activity, followed by circle time.  After lunch in the lunch room, they have reading time.  Reading time is followed by free play.  Then it is afternoon snack time and back outside to play until pick up.   They have a theme that they work on each semester.  This semester they are working on friends and feelings.  After touring the school, we went to lunch with daddy. 

Playing in the transportation center

The reading corner

Art, snack and game areas

Book Club

The English bookshop in Gamla Stan hosts a book club once a month.  This month the book was “The Slap”.  It was a very interesting book but not one I would have probably read had I not been encouraged too.  There is a Tuesday group and a Wednesday group.  The Wednesday group was quite interesting.  There were four of us in addition to the shop owner: a man from England who is married to a Swede and has three girls, a Swedish lady, a master’s student/nanny from North Carolina and myself.  It made for a interesting group.  Swedish law forbids any and all spanking or hitting of a child.   Having a Swede in the group for her perspective on the book made for quite a lively discussion. 

Photo Crawl and Football

David went on a photo crawl this afternoon with some of the guys from work.  The walked around Stockholm and took some really great pictures.  David had so much fun playing with his camera and trying out new settings.  That evening we met a group in Gamla Stan at O’Learys (an Irish pub) to watch the Bear’s game.  Jason is from Chicago and a hug Bears fan.  Ellie and I stayed for the first half before heading home.  Between the great burger, friends, and American football, it was a great night.   * Photos to be added when David converts them from raw.

Carnival

Each January, a group at Electrolux hosts a carnival for the families.  The proceeds from the carnival support the Latvia Children’s Home here in Sweden.  One of the past CEO’s of Electrolux supported this charity and upon leaving Electrolux set up a foundation (Livslust Friends of Electrolux) to continue the support.  This foundation actually hosts the event and Electrolux matches the funds they raise each year.  They did an amazing job with the variety of activities that were planned and the lunch that was served.  Ellie’s favorite activity was trying to catch fish.  They had an interactive mat on the floor with fish swimming around.   When the children would crawl over the mat the fish would swim away and the water would look like you were splashing through it.  Ellie also loved painting stamps and using them to make a t-shirt.  They also had a trampoline for jumping, a pirate play, face painting, a clown making balloon animals, and traditional Swedish singing and dancing around the Christmas tree.  There were even more activities for the 6-12 year old kids including lots of Nintedo games, bull riding, snowboarding, a rock wall, and bungee jumping.

Trying to catch fish

Ellie wanted a balloon airplane.

Dancing around the Christmas tree.

Boucing around

Ellie loved painting stamps and making her shirt.

Auburn Tigers

David and I were up at 2:30 AM to watch the Auburn Tigers take on the Oregon Ducks.  It was a really exciting game with a final score of 19-22 Tigers!  The game finished up at 6 AM just in time for David to shower and head to work.  Ellie woke up in time to see the last two minutes and the game winning field goal!  Congratulations to the National Champions!  War Eagle!

Anxiously awaiting the kick....

and its good!

A New Grocery Store

I had an appointment with the midwife today.  Everything looked good.  The baby’s heart rate was in the 150’s.  I was glad to hear that they don’t routinely do the glucose tolerance screening test in Sweden.  Instead they do a finger stick every other appointment to monitor blood sugar. 

After the appointment Ellie and I went to Daglivens at Fridhemsplan.  It is a huge grocery store inside the train station.  Ellie was excited that it had an escalator.  While exploring we found that they have an international section.  We found Jiffy corn muffin mix, icing, Stovetop stuffing, Kraft mac and cheese and Libby’s canned pumpkin.   It was great to just see familiar brands.  We even bought some corn muffin mix to have for dinner one night.  

Everything is still very icy here.  We are enjoying the warmer temperatures but Ellie does not like the ice at all.  She has fallen twice.  Hopefully, she will figure out how to walk on the ice soon. 

Butterfly House

Stockholm is melting.  It is 3C today and everything is beginning to thaw out.  What a mess.  However, it still feels pretty cold.  David found a butterfly house for us to visit today.  We had our second successfully bus trip.  The bus stop was at the gates of a beautiful park.  We saw quite a few people sledding and cross country skiing.  The butterfly museum was amazing.  Not only was it 25 C and humid but there were lots of beautiful butterflies and flowers.  It was like being in South Carolina in the summer!  Mixed in were tanks of fish, snails and iguanas.  Birds were flying throughout the butterfly house and there was a large cage with parrots.  Ellie had a great time exploring the different paths and spotting butterflies just like Fancy Nancy. 

Outside it is starting to melt...

My favorite flower!

Stopping for a quick snack.

One of the fish ponds.

Ellie really loved the fish!

Junibacken

It’s above freezing!!!!!  It is scary that I am so excited about that development.   Today was a day for exploring Junibacken.  Junibacken is a children’s museum that was developed around the writing of Astrid Lindgren, the author of Pippi Longstockings and other works for children.  Ellie had a wonderful time playing there.  There are three main areas.  One is a play room with a stage, maze, pirate ship and a miniature town.  In the town you can go in the shops and run the cash register, weigh produce and sale goods.  The pirate ship had a wheel for steering and a slide with lots of places to climb.  This was one of Ellie’s favorite places.   There was also an area that was a model of Villa Villekulla (sp), Pippi’s house.  The third area was probably the best.  While the parents waited in line for the train, kids could run around and play in different “magical” spaces.  Once on the train you were able to see scenes from 6 of Astrid Lindgren series as you heard a narration written by Astrid herself.   It was an amazing adventure. 

Look!  I am taller than the buildings.

A boat my size.

Watch out for the construction crew!

Pretty as a picture!

Pippi's Horse

Game Night

We had quite a relaxing day.  David was off, due to a bridge day between the holiday and weekend.   Sweden has about 10 days that they label as bridge days.  There purpose is to bridge the gap between a Tuesday or Thursday holiday to give you a four day weekend.  The last of our luggage arrived.   It was like Christmas again since we couldn’t remember everything that was in the bag.  We attempted to make a cheese ball.  We couldn’t find onion flakes, just onion powder so it turned out more like a spread but tasted the same as normal.   We did however find a cracker that is almost but not quite a Ritz.   It is the closest thing to an American cracker that we have found.  David discovered a bakery across the street from the apartment.  Now we know where to get cakes from.  We found a really yummy layered chocolate custard cake to take with us to game night. 

After naptime it was off to Angie and John’s apartment for game night.  She had also invited her friend Ida (pronounced Eda) and her dog Wilson (pronounced Vilson).  Eda is the first Swedish person that I have really spent time with in a small relaxed setting.  Thank goodness for Google.  Her English was wonderful (She even corrected some of our English) but it was interesting the words that were different enough that she didn’t know (ie midwife = barnmorska).  In Swedish barn is child but morska is only a word with it is with barn.  There was also much confusion over moose and elk.   A moose in Swedish is älg (which sounds a lot like elk).  We had a great time playing farkle and pippi memo (memory). 

Ellie required lots of jewelry for game night.

John, Ida, and Angie cutting the cake.

Time for Pippi Memo

Epiphany

Epiphany is a bank holiday in Sweden.  I still am surprised by the number of “church” holidays that are bank holidays in a culture that does not believe in organized religion.   But hey, David gets the day off so I am all for it.   Ellie had a much better night but the week must have caught up with us.  David slept in until 10am which is so unusual and woke us up about 10:30.  After a quick breakfast, we decided to head down to Gamla Stan to explore.  Right as we were leaving the snow start falling fast and thick.  It was beautiful.  Unfortunately, the camera just couldn’t capture it.  We ended up with about 6 inches in 3 hours.  Gamla Stan was beautiful in the snow.  While we were poking around, we found another craft store that appears to specialize in needlework (cross-stitch, embroidery etc.)  They were closed for the holiday but I will have to go back and check it out one day. 

Ellie enjoying her new "windshield"!

Although you can't tell the snow if falling fast.  The ducks and geese were enjoying the water and the frozen "bank".

January 4th

Ellie hasn’t gotten the hang of time changes yet.  She was up for 4 hours last night confused about why she wasn’t tired.  Hopefully this won’t last as long as it did in October.  Between the cold I finally caught from Ellie and the lack of sleep I spent the morning curled up on the couch.  Ellie was an angel playing on the floor beside me.  She even got out her new doctor kit to take my temp and blood pressure and give me a few shots to make me feel better.  She really loves using the stethoscope to listen to the baby’s heart.  David surprised Ellie at lunch time by coming home with McDonalds.  

Ellie's first laydown stroller outing

Back to work for David.  I have no idea how he made it through the day.  Outside of a little more unpacking and cleaning, they only thing Ellie and I accomplished was a run to the grocery store.  She was so excited to take her laydown stroller for its inaugural run.  She got everybody ready to go: paci baby, bath baby and princess baby.  She looks so cute pushing the stroller since she isn’t much taller that the stroller is.  I was surprised how much easier it was to push through the snow.  She is still getting the hang of making it go the right direction since she is having trouble seeing where she is going.  It was so much fun to watch how excited she was.  She even enjoyed using the basket under the stroller to help get some of our groceries home.