Tandoori Viking

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Some serious practicing here...

Here we go!

Look, no hands!

And the second idea of today :)

Oh, they put me in Jennifers bed?!

Ammmm....

gotta have.....

.... a big bite of her bed :)

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Thanks, grandmother!

As promised, here are the results of Eriks nurses visit. His hearing test was performed with good results. His development is good and he weights 9910g and is 71cm tall. Our nurse noticed that he is very verbal with a great variety of expressions :)

I got a wonderful parcel today - from my mother. She has knitted new winter hats for Erik and Jennifer, a throat warmer for Jenni and socks for both kids. Jennifer was so so happy!

Look, mom, there is a boll on the top of my hat!

Yeah! New socks too!

Ready for the winter!
A funny fact: when I was little, I used to have a hat like this, only with other colors :)

Sunday, September 2, 2012

8 months!

Erik with grandpa'

Our big boy is getting bigger! Happy 8 months birthday, Erik!

Erik still has his good appetite, which is very much appreciated by his mother. The only time he eats poorly is when he is teething. He has just got his teeth nr 3 and, of course, there is more to come. I believe, nr 4 is just days away.
Our little Viking now also can clap his hands. It is adorable and so so cute. Of course, he can not do it on command yet but he does it very often and seems to like it :)
Standing is the "in" activity right now. He tries to take small baby steps aswell as we hold his hands. As it comes to crawling, he has learned how to move around his own angle and also how to move backwards. But he is not raising up on his knees yet. So stange, since Jennifer crawled when she was 6 months and was already standing up against furniture at his age. But believe me, it is totally ok that he takes it easy. I love that he doesn't hurry with his development like Jenni did. Especially since I don't get to experience this again with a new baby.
Erik has a wide assortment of different sounds. He says "bababa", "tatatata" and "nänänä". But the only one which is annoying is the sound he makes with his throat sometimes, especially at nights when he sleeps. It is a very loud high pitch inhaling-sound. We have spoken about it with his pediatric doctor aswell as our friend/doctor who has ears, nose and throat as her speciality. It is probably laryngomalacy, meaning that Eriks throat tissue, cartilage, is a bit soft yet. This phenomena is supposed to dissapear soon but it makes sleeping next to him a challenge. Both of us, but especially Agne, wake up when he makes this noise and for my dear hubby it is often hard to fall back asleep. My brain seems to kind of "sort it out" as a familiar sound that doesn't need my attention and obviously, I am sometimes able to sleep through it.

Double up with afternoon naps

Erik really loves to be around our fury friends and they are loving him back :)

I just love this picture :D

Tomorrow it is time to visit our nurse again. It will be interesting to see whether Erik will join the 10kg club already. I will return with news :)

Our little girl has now been totally nappy free in 1 week! I am so happy for it and I believe, so is she. Of course, we do have accidents but far from every day.
Jennifer got her very first face painting the other day. I kind of thought that she would back off from getting it but she really wanted to be a tiger and loved it. Also, washing it of in the evening was performed with no tears involved.

Our little tiger prompted on sitting in a baby chair at grandpa´s as she was having a snack.
She knows that her daddy used the same chair when he was small!

Jennifer had her second haircut past week. She has not had much hair ever since she was born and it has been growing very slowly - especially her bangs. Still, since her first haircut in Mumbai in January, it had grown enough for needing some loving and tender care after the summer. She was so good, watching "Shaun the Sheep" on my iPhone, just like in Mumbai (her request).

Jenni has kind of disliked toothbrushing and even though she perfectly understands that this is something that must be done every morning and evening, she has been running away, trying to make it a game (so we hopefully would forget about it). The other day, I told her we have to find the 4 tooth-trolls in her mouth so they won't dig holes in her teeth. So now she really loves it. :) We have named her tooth-trolls Pelle, Pia, Kalle and Kajsa and I'm hunting them around with the toothbrush. In every corner of the mouth I finally get one of them and take them out, telling them not to come back into Jennifers mouth. But they are back each time we brush :) Next week we will visit her dentist and she really looks forward to it thanks to us looking at the dentist room pictures and speaking about the chair, lamp and the dentist who wants to count her teeth. Hopefully tooth-trolls have not made any holes in her teeth and the dentist will give her a high five for being such a good girl.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Speaking of India...

Yesterday, as we were walking home from Jennifers daycare, she wanted to talk about how we flew to India, what we did, saw and the people she met. I was so amazed about how much she remembers. She spoke even about Taj Mahal, which she saw when she was 14 months! She said she misses India, our surrogate, N, dr's Yash and Sudhir aswell as Amit and Heena. And Silky, the kids group teacher from the Lakeside Chalet. When we arrived back home, she insisted on a "dot in her forehead". And, she brought her favourite bathtube ducks and called them Roshan and Sidhi. :)
Today, walking the same road, she said "Mommy," - "Yes?" - "India. I like India. And I miss dr. Yash. I want to go to dr. Yash. Not to dr. Sudhir. To dr. Yash. And play with dr. Sudhir". Back home, she prompted me on showing her pictures from our last trip. Amazing, how many details and feelings she remembers and tells me about when she looks at those photos. Both me and Agne kind of thought that she was to small to be able to remember this fabulous adventure we took her on but, I believe, we were wrong. She is such a smart little girl, developing so much each day, really. Her vocabulary is great, she speaks clearly and is very good at expressing her feelings and intuitive about others emotions. This week, when the daycare opened again after summer break, Jennifer went there for the first time without diapers. It works great and she quickly learned to tell the teachers when she needs to go to bathroom. :) She only has a diaper during nighttime now.

Trying on daddy's boxing gloves .)

The only thing Jennifer does not do so well is eating. On that point she is just like I was. She just does not have that big appetite and tends to prefer proteins and veggies, not carbs that are more rich in energy. Everybody says, kids grow so much during the summer but I really didn't believe she had done so. As I put on her pants for going to the daycare this monday, after 4 weeks at home, I got a view like this:

WOW! When I looked at her closer, her legs really had grown a lot!

Agne has started working again and is at the moment in Spain on a job conference. I was kind of spoilt during the summer, having him around most of the time so the first days without him made me missing him like crazy. Despite that, I have had a good routine for managing both kids well. Ever since Erik started to sit by himself, he is so much easier to deal with and to entertain. Jennifer too finds him more fun and tries to play with him :)

Our happy little boy is doing good. He still has 2 teeth, eats and sleeps well. He sits well and loves to play, reacts clearly on his name, loves to play pickaboo. No signs of wanting to crawl, yet, but he's more happy to lay on his tummy and can turn around in order to get a toy further away from him.

I have managed to program him to take his first nap as we walk at 10:30AM to pick up Jennifer from daycare. The second nap is coordinated with Jennifers afternoon nap at 2PM. Also at nights, Jennifer goes to bed at 8PM, whichafter Erik gets his evening cereal and goes to bed aswell. This has given me the whole new oportunity to do some very needed workout. During Agne's vacation I finally could start going out for running again. Wonderful but boy, was I in bad shape at the beginning.

I tried to weigh Erik at home the other day. According to it, he weights whooping 9,7 kg!

At the sea with grandfather. Jennfier loves to join him in his fishing boat along with daddy and see the eel

That's all, folks! Thank you so much for reading and following.

Bessie loves to lay down close by when Erik is out
and playing

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Look who...

can sit really well :)

Our little doctor also gave Agne a free ear checkup today. This girl most certainly knows what to do with an orthoscope... :)

Having fun at my father-in-law's tonight; us and my sister-in-law aka "Lala" as Jennifer calls her

Friday, August 3, 2012

7 months, Estonia and back

Happy 7 month birthday, our treasure!

We have had a great week in Estonia. As I've told earlier, this is the country where I grew up and lived until I was 18 years and finished college. My parents still live there, as the most of my family - besides my sister who also lives in Sweden nowadays. Last time I visited Estonia was 2008, before I got pregnant with Jennifer. So it was definitely about time to go back. The first visit for both of my children. Yes, MY children! The day before we left, I received a letter from the court confirming that I now have custody of Erik aswell. I am his mother also in the eye of the law. With this, our whole process has come to its end. It took 6 months. I am so happy and humble.

Our trip to Estonia was wonderful and way to short. But still, we managed to meet some fantastic persons and do some fun stuff. I'll tell you in pictures :)

It all began with that our dear friends - Joyris and Lars with their kids arrived from Gothenburg. They stayed in our house and took care of our animals during our trip.

As they took care of our kids, I managed to do some gardening before we left

This photo is taken at Copenhagen airport just before boarding. Erik had had a meal and Jennifer made sure he had a good zip of water before we departed :)