Happy wheezer

Elias has had a cough for a bit more than a week and on the weekend he was quite snotty. Nothing to worry about though. The night between Monday and Tuesday he slept pretty bad but seemed pretty ok in the morning. Then Dave called me around 2 in the afternoon and said that maybe we should have someone look at him because his breathing was quite heavy. He had called an information service before and she had adviced him to go to the hospital, mainly for our peace of mind.

When I got home I was pretty chocked at how heavy his breathing was. He sounded short of breath and was making a wheezing noice. Elias was quite grumpy and we were worried and stressed but after a bit of confusion we had gotten our stuff together and went to the hospital. When we got there we didn't quite know where to go and ended up parking at the wrong end of the site and had to walk pretty far (we had forgotten the push chair of course). When we signed Elias in the nurse immediately could hear that his breathing didn't sound very good and we were sent in to the childrens unit. There they checked his oxygen saturation level to see if he was getting enough air. Then a doctor came and listened to his chest. She said he was what they call a "happy wheezer", that is a baby that has problems breathing but isn't really affected by it. He had been playing and eating as normal all day. She wanted to give him some medicine to improve his breathing and we were sent to another room for that. He had to breathe in the medicine for 30 seconds through a mask and he really hated it. It was quite heartbreaking but at least we knew it would make him better. This was repeated again after 15 minutes and then after maybe 30 minutes the doctor came back to listen to him again. She thought he sounded better but wanted to give him another round of medicine so the whole procedure was repeated again. Breathe in the medicine for 30 seconds, wait 15 minutes and repeat.

While we were waiting for the doctor to come and listen to him again a clown came and visited us. Elias was really mesmerised by her. She sang a bit to him and it was really nice. Then the doctor came back and she thought he sounded good enough for us to go home. The next day a nurse would call and if Elias was worse again she would come to our house and have a look at him. Dave thought he was a lot better yesterday so she didn't come but they agreed that she would call again today and see how Elias is getting on.

Finally...

I have finally manged to take a picture of Elias walking with his little push cart. He loves it! Especially to walk around in the garden is fun..
It was actually pretty difficult to get a good picture, I guess because he is walking sooo fast..

One thing he does a lot now is to point at things and say "da". We think he is trying to say either "titta" (look) or "där/there".. Or maybe he is just saying da.

In case you wonder...

If you have looked at our pictures and wondered what the heck this





is, I can tell you that it is a Japanese snack.





Last time Luke and Yoko visited us we got little bags of snacks. Most of them very tasty and nice, but the little fishes we aren't so sure about. We haven't actually dared to try one yet... Would you?

Bored at work

I have now worked for a week and unfortunatelly I am quite bored. I don't have a project so I have to make up meaningful things to do to pass the time - not very easy. My guess is that they probably won't find a project for me before the summer so I just have to brace myself.

Anyway, Dave's first week at home with Elias seems to have been very nice. They went to the open nursery a few times, came in to Stockholm and had lunch with me one day and so on. The weather last week was great as well so they were out in the garden quite a bit.

We have had a very intensive weekend as well. On Saturday I was gone all day for a hen night. It was really fun and included a kidnapping of the bride, a near death experience 14 metres up in a tree, a few hours at a spa and a nice dinner. On Sunday it was yet another busy day. Around noon Elias and I went to meet up with some of my girl friends and their kids. The oldest is maybe 7 years and the youngest was 6 weeks. After a semi-relaxed picknick (it is hard to have time to sit down and talk with loads of kids running away to play ;-) ) we drove home to our house. The girls of course wanted to inspect our new house. The weather was amazing and we spent the whole afternoon on the patio. The play house was a big hit with the kids and the grown ups liked the big house too.. Dave did a grand job grilling hotdogs and chicken and we had a great time. The girls left around 6 ish and by then Elias was exhausted. He hadn't slept much during the day and when I put him to bed at 7 I think he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. I was almost as tired as him and went to bed at 9.30.

Back to work..

It is quite hard to believe, but tomorrow I am going back to work again. It is amazing how fast these 11 ½ months have passed since I started my maternity leave. Dave has been off work since Thursday becasue there has been a bank holiday and it has been so nice to have a bit of extra time together. In these 4 days we have

* managed to test the bbq for the first time
* showed off the house to my old daymum
* bought and tried a lawn mower (battery)
* been to Maya's 2nd birthday party
* made a trip into town and the modern museum of art. Elias first museum experience and he behaved very well.

Apart from those things we have also done some work in the garden. The lawn is unfortunatelly full of dandeloins, there must be thousands of them. Tonight we bought a special tool for removing them that works pretty well but leaves the lawn looking like a swiss cheese...

Ok, that's all from me for this time, better go and pack my bag for tomorrow!