16 months and finally, SPRING!

Well, hello there :)
A few little landmarks have been reached, again. On May 2nd, our Little Viking turned 16 months. He is just fantastic. Such a smart little guy. He mimics everything we do and surely tries to say so much. His favourite word is, of course, "mamma" and he repeats it very often. Usually, he calles for me, saying "mamma" whichafter I reply with a "mmmh?" (remember, Swedish is a language with "melody", hence I sound rather joyful with my "boring" answer :-). It was kind of funny the other day, when I noticed that he was sitting and playing, repeating "mamma! - mmmmh?" No need for me to fill in, haha!

As the good weather has arrived (FINALLY!) we have been outside as much as possible. Since my last post, where I was whining about Jennifer not wanting to ride her bicycle, things have really changed! After observing how Jennifer was trying to ride her trike without further success, I decided that we would try a bigger bike with support wheels instead. A couple of hours later she was happily biking and declared clearly that Erik can have the trike now. A perfect solution, truly! Nowadays, Jennifer rides a couple of kilometers every day (she is still so proud when she can show everyone at the daycare how she is going to ride home). Erik is being pushed on his trike and he LOVES it! His legs are still a bit too short to reach the pedals but he is so happy when sitting there, with his helmet on :)

Having fun at the playground

:)

A mouthful of sand was not as tasty as he thought....

A wonderful, wonderful sight and such a joy for Jennifer

enjoying his ride

On May 4th, it was our fantastic surrogate, N's, birthday. On the same day, it was also 2 years since the embryo transfer that resulted in our little miracle. We sent her flowers, dry fruits (the only "gift" she spontanously said that she liked during her pregnancy) and a card with our greetings, of course. Also, our dear friends, who are currently in Mumbai and fresh parents of a little miracle girl, were kind enough to bring a photo book about Eriks first year and some more fresh photos of him for N. I am SO very happy that SI is helping us to keep in touch with N! Our gratitude is huge and we would be sad if there was no possibility to let her know how much we think of her.

While the summer is approaching, I'm thinking more and more about my working situation. I must get back to work in september. I do love my job and my ward, colleagues and my boss deeply and feel a great loyality towards them. But I'm very worried for how everything will be. Due to my husbands frequent business leaves, I could not work more than 50% - if we don't want that our kids would be at the daycare day and night.  Working 50% might sound great for you, but for me this means working almost only at weekends and getting paid less than I get now, during my maternity leave. My economy is so poor already and I would really need a lift here. IF I would get a job with daytime working hours, I could work a lot more - easily 75% or even full time if I want and our children could be at the daycare.  A lot to think about for me here, but I am looking for other alternatives. I have to - even if I love working at the hospital.

Tons of fun at Andy's

It is so fun that the whole family can do things like this now!

How cool am I?

Jennifer is so eager to help Erik take off his shoes and put them
in the right place. Love to see them helping each others!

Soon to be 16 months!

Hi there!

I know, I know. Long time since my last post. Days pass by so quickly and I guess nothing special has happened. Both kids had a cold during and after Easter so we were at home most of the holidays. Now everything is back to normal and we eagerly wait for the warmer weather so the spring can really come and stay - until summer takes over.

Right before Easter, I was to my gynaecologist for a routine check-up, which I must do every 6 months. On February 17th this year it was 3 years since my hysterectomy (due to cervical cancer diagnosed 3 months after Jennifer was born). This means, it's 2 more years to go until I'm free from my diagnosis. Last friday I got my PAP test result aswell and for my great relief, everything was fine. I hate those days between test and results. They really remind me of how I lost my uterus, how sick I was - without even feeling ill. It's still kind of abstract for me. I remember looking at tampon and Always advertisements, thinking how unfair it is that I will never need any of those again. At the same time, I'm happy to be a survivor. And despite the sad story, I'm still a mother of two wonderful children that both are purely ours. It's so amazing, isn't it?  All of you having surrogate babies, I'm sure you understand how this sometimes can overwhealm you: IT IS SO FANTASTIC that our children do exist!

About the children, Erik is a great runner nowadays. He has learned how to safely climb up to the sofa and Jennifers bed - and down. He also gets safely down from our bed, even if it's to high for him in order to climb back up again. Jennifer never has been a climber. She kind of needs to be motivated an pushed to do physical activity like biking on her three-wheeler. She knows how to do it but just doesn't care. Also when it comes to climbing and running at daycare, she rather sits in the sandbox, playing and singing. Erik is not a monster climber either but since he wants to do everything that Jennifer does, he has to appy himself. This way he learns some things much earlier. Also, we might be a bit cooler as parents and let him manage by himself. :)

Right now, Jennifer absolutely loves when we tell her about words she couldn't pronounce properly when she was smaller. It is so cute when she tells us that she couldn't say words like "avocado" saying "cado" instead etc. I guess this theme is kind of exciting now when Erik is learning to speak. He says quite a few words now, in his own way of course, but still!

At the end of March, we still had snow. Here we are, on our way back from
Jennifers daycare

My little chefs :)

 Erik is very facinated by the vacuumer. He often "tells me" which closet it's hidden in and wants me to take it out. when I do so, he loudly demands me to start vacuuming. It's so silly and funny. Especially as Jennifer at the same time runs to her room, shuts the door and plays alone with her Fisher-Price farm until I'm done. She doesn't like noise. But Erik seems to love machines. Even when I'm making fresh carrot/apple juice, he comes running to see what's the "wonderful" sound, haha.

Two Easer bunnies. Jennifer LOVES a facepaint :)

Playing in Jennifers room. Erik most often makes sure there's a big mess.

The luckiest mom!

Sweden - Bangladesh - Sri Lanka - Bangladesh - Sweden

Well, yes, we are back, and so almost 2 weeks already. I was planning to make a blog post for a while ago, but little Hayden's final flight put me in respectful silence (www.rastalesstravelled.com). This little hero really has touched my heart during his short but so intensive life. Not the least, his incredible mother and her wonderful talent for writing has impressed me a lot. Bernadette and your family - you will ALWAYS have a place in my heart! Now, take time to live, love, sleep and heal. Your Mighty Superhero will always be with you, probably guarding his sister from the skies.

Our trip to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka was absolutely wonderful. We had peaceful, happy days together. As my husband is travelling a lot, our family time is from time to time a bit limited. Therefore just being all together was so nice. All 6 flights went very good. We already knew that Jennifer is a very good traveller. She continues to repeat that she wants to become a pilot. But it was pleasant to learn that also her little brother has absolutely no trouble with flying. Our wonderful stuardesses made it also possible for Jennifer to see the cockpit on almost every plane, which was so exciting for her. But most of the time, our kids just slept throgh the flights :)

 In Dhaka, we had wonderful time with my husbands best friends family. We had plenty of pool-time and so-so much relaxation! As the family already had a nanny, they kindly hired one more aaya during our visit so that we had a chance to leave the kids at home and just do things on our own. This almost never happens at home hence it felt both very wierd and fantastic. Most of all, it gave us a possibility to make day trips to places that would either be interesting nor even suitable for children. Dhaka is a megacity and just sitting in a car in order to get out of town could take hours and hours. Some areas were dangerous due to demonstrations and/or hartal. Therefore, it felt great that our children could be safe in our friends apartment in a quite secure area. But for us, those trips were very interesting and pleasant.

My happy little girl had so much fun in the pool

Erik loved this!

Just a normal day in Dhaka traffic

Dhaka river harbour. Stinky but still beautiful!

A river boat

 Erik got his very first haircut in Dhaka. As Jennifer had her first in Mumbai, we thought this would be an interesting place for him so that he won't need to be jelous at his big sister in the future. I used to go to a ladies beauty saloon in the area close to our Dhaka residence. So one day I just brought him with me and asked whether they wanted to give him a nice hairstyle, which they did :)

Yes, I had a bad hair day and yes, I got a haircut too, the day after :))

After a week in Dhaka, both us and our friends family flew to Colombo, Sri Lanka. We had plans of taking the train from Colombo to Galle but as it was getting very late in the afternoon, we decided instead to let a taxi drive us all the way to the very Southern point on this Paradise-like island. We stayed at a hotel at Koggala Beach. It must be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world! Hearing the Indian Ocean sing it's lullaby when we were going to sleep and waking up to it's sound was mighty and still so meditative. Everybody who knows me, knows how keen I am about water and swimming. But these powerful, strong waves of salty, very warm, blue ocean just took my breath away. We stayed at the beach as much as possible, as also our kids had so much fun in the sand.

It's me! Wheeeee!

Just so wonderful!

Could it be more beautiful?

One early morning, we took a cab to Galle in order to join a whale safari. It was a 3-4 hour tour with a great boat belonging to the Sri Lankan Navy. We spotted several blue whales (WOW!!!) and also a group of dolphins. Unfortunately, I have no good pictures of it. But I have a few of us on the tour!

Sunrise over Galle harbour, Sri Lanka

One tired sailor

Happy!

Spotting for whales :)

On our way back to Galle

The same afternoon, we visited a Sea Turtle Hatchery nearby, which was very interesting and exciting, too. It was wonderful for our kids to be able to see those amazing animals. I have always been so facinated by them and it was rather emotional for me to hear how the staff was truly passionated by saving them.

Behind this fence there are hundreds of eggs waiting to hatch. The staff buys eggs from local people who other ways would use them for food. This way they both get help and can save the little miracles from being eaten. As the sea turtles have hatched, they keep them for 5-6 days, so that their shield gets harder and more resistant.

My friend :)

The most amazing thing, seen by my husband and his friend during a late night walk on Koggala beach: a wild sea turtle, who came up in the moonlight in order to lay her eggs. 

We celebrated my husbands 40th birthday on Sri Lanka and had a fantastic day!!!

Back in Dhaka, we had one more week of day trips, relaxing and shopping. It was fabulous, I must say it again. We also had a photographer coming to our friends residence in order to take some photos of our kids. I will make a new post with some of those pics next time.
I'm sitting right now at my kitchen table, listening to the storm rising outside. Plenty of snow is on it's way this night. Knowing this, it really warms my heart that 2 weeks ago I thought that 25 degrees of Celcius in our bedroom in Dhaka was quite cold...

Late night greetings from Dhaka!

We really, really enjoy our trip so far. The flight went very well, our life here is wonderful. Here are a few pictures from today :)

13 months already!

Our Little Viking is walking really good now and clearly prefers this new mode of moving ahead. He manages turning around, carrying things and is about to start running, too. Cute as an apple!!

Yesterday, on his 13-months-day, he got his 4th molar. Which means that he has 12 teeth now. I was truly surprised as I read Jennifers baby book the other day and realized that she had only 8 teeth on her 1st birthday. Erik had 11, still he got his first teeth a good month later than she did. Jennifer was an extremely poor eater, especially when there was another teeth on it's way - which it constantly was. Erik, on the other hand, is an exellent eater and used to pop a new teeth the 18th every month followed by bad sleep and refusing to eat from a spoon for a day or two before the teeth was out.

It is so amazing how kids are different, still so alike. Jennifer was very interested in books, balls and animals, learning to imitate their sounds very early. She also adored Pingu and loved to play simple animal-learning games on my iPhone. Erik looooves everything on wheels. If it rolls, it's fun and brings the "car sound" to his lips. He doesn't care much about books, even though I really try to have book-time with him anyway. He doesn't want to look at the pictures or learn what's on them. I so hope he will discover books some day.
Right now the only thing he likes about books is to open and close them, again and again.

 Balls are fun, too, but he isn't as obsessed about them as Jenni was. Erik is also not that interested in TV, which is actually great.
Erik loves milk. He goes nuts if he sees the milk package on the dinner table and you won't give him his zippy cup fast enough. Jenni doesn't care about milk. She likes "bubble water", allthough she drinks her milk anyway, with a whole lot of pep talk about strong bones, good teeth and growing, cows sending their milk to her etc. etc.
Erik loves bread. Jenni would never finish a sandwich or even a cinnamon bun, if you please. A typical situation at our dinner table is one kid being fussy because she must eat (faster than a snail, please!) and the other one being a drama queen since he is not being fed fast enough. :) But both of them like music, eating fruits, kicking ball, drawing, sledding, playing in water and getting their nails done.

Oh, just getting my weekly manicure

Singing together is an important part of our days

Cute in her hair, Jennifer is showing off her coloring book :)

With his big sister looking so cute in hairclips,
 Erik wanted to have his hair fixed,too. At least Jennifer thought so :)

A couple of weeks ago, Jennifer (3 years) found an anatomy book for kids. It's a book for children about double her age but she insisted on reading it and as a nurse, I couldn't resist it either. So, we looked on all the pictures - you know, the ones with our sceleton, muscles, nervous system, digestive system etc. She was very interested and asked me a LOT. Especially about digestive system and fetal development. I didn't think she'd understand it but she surprised me by explaining it pretty much as it is for daddy afterwards. Next day she wanted to read the book again. And again. Then she started to draw the digestive system. And yesterday she obviously decided it was time to teach her little brother, too. She made a sketch (which, by the way was totally understandable) and wanted him to sit and learn. Talk about her frustration when Erik was just not that interested! Nevertheless, this really made me thinking of how much children can learn and understand if you just let them to.

In January, I've also started to put Erik on the potty after his meals. Here's our potty odyssey aka what to do when mommy is waiting for poop and pee :)

Put rings on a stick...

...watch Pingu

... read (=chew) a book

...drive my car

...eeeee, what more...

... yeeee, make a phone call!!

Outside, it's still cold winter and we try to enjoy it as much as possible. Getting dressed is not our favourite but we try our best.

Continuing on this boring getting-dressed theme, we are happy not to need to dress our kids Micheline-man-style for a while soon. In 10 days, we are leaving the cold Sweden. My husbands best friend is posted at the Swedish Embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and we are going to visit him and his lovely family there. We are so excited and look very much forward to the trip. We are also planning a long weekend to Sri Lanka all together. Our primary plan was to visit Mumbai, but unfortunately there was a big risk that our visas wouldn't be ready and sent back to us on time before we leave. Hence we just didn't dare to take a chance, allthough we are so sad not to be able to meet our very missed and beloved friends in Mumbai - and of course our surrogate, N. I so hope we meet again some day.

On January 7th...

...our Little Viking took his first steps :)
Yesterday he also built a brick tower with 3 bricks. He loves putting things into or upon eachother. He has 11 teeth. Intrestingly, all of his teeth in the left side of lower jaw seem to come a bit later than all of his other teeth. Hence, the last of the first set of molars is missing yet.
Erik loves to sleep while holding my hand. Most of all, he loves to put my hand under his cheek and hold it with both of his hands while falling asleep. Very, very cute but not practical at all when I'm home alone with both children.
He really really loves everything on wheels. He often crawls, rolling a big truck in each hand.
Erik is both a biter and pincher but "fortunately" he does it mostly on mommy who obviously tastes and feels very very good. I'm thinking of pasting myself full of mustard....