Insy winsy spider

On Friday Elias "walked" with his little push car for the first time. When I have put him in front of it before he has always gone down on his knees and tried to suck the handle. But now he does actually take a few steps with it! Very exciting.

Yesterday we had some great weather and we spent a lot of time in the garden weeding. Elias still is a bit suspicious of the "great outdoors" and when put on a blanket he just sits there. Quite nice for us though, we can actually get some work done and not chase him around the garden. ;-)

Elias likes the swing now by the way, and this is how cute he is sitting in it!


Yesterday we had a bit of drama here in the house. A towel had been hanging out on the terrace and we had brought it in. Elias was sitting next to it and all of a sudden Dave shouted "oh my god". On the towel was a huge spider, the biggest I have ever seen in Sweden. My hero Dave managed to kill it and we could all relax. I wonder if the climate change have anything to do with the size of that bugger... Bloody global warming!

I hope you have seen the new photo album - April & May..

Driving drama

Another week is coming to an end and it has been a really nice one. On Monday we went to the open nursery, on Tuesday we met up with Lisa and Theo and went for a walk in the sunshine. On Wednesday we went to Uppsala to meet the people form our parent group. We went for a walk around an outdoor zoo and had lunch together. It was great to see them all.
Unfortunatelly we had a bit of bad luck on the way home. North of Stockholm the road got congested and after a while I realised we weren't moving at all. I phoned David to find out what was going on and after a while he had found out that there had been an accident and the road was actually closed off a bit ahead of us. Elias had been asleep up until now but after a while of standing still he woke up and quite soon he was getting very upset. The traffic was hardly moving at all but after maybe 40 minutes we had gotten to the next exit and I managed to get off the motorway. Dave agreed to quit work early, take the train to Solna (where we were stuck) and we would try to find another route home. Luckily I had a bit of extra food for Elias so he was ok. We did manage to get home in the end but what normally take 1 hour had taken us 4... I really hate bad traffic and with a baby in the car it's just a nightmare..

Sunshine and shopping

We have had a very nice weekend, on Saturday our friends Pelle and Sofia came around with their baby daughter Maja, 10 weeks. She was so small and cute. Elias behaved like a star and showed off his crawling and standing skills.

We had been told the weather would be nice this weekend but the Saturday was quite cloudy, but on Sunday we had great weather. I spent most of the day shopping though, a bit of bad timing but it had to be done! I managed to find quite a lot of the things I wanted and Dave and Elias had had a nice time together. Apparently Elias had actually liked to go on the swings in the park. When we have tried before he hasn't liked it which has been a bit of a shame. In the afternoon we also took him outside to play on the lawn. We were a bit worried about all the stuff he would probably try to eat, but it turned out that he was very sceptical about the grass. He didn't move at all and as soon as his fingers touched the grass he shivered with discomfort. I guess it was a bit new and strange to him. He will probably like it soon and start munching on the grass and dirt...

Quick Note

I thought I would do a quick post, mainly to shock Vickan.

Not much to report except that I am getting nervous about my paternity leave. It is relentlessly drawing closer and closer like a steamroller. But believe it or not I am looking forward to it too. Elias is a lovely boy and fun to be with. He has a good sense of humour when he is not hungry. It is funny when he wants to play "chase". Somehow he manages to tell me he wants to play without words. He starts to crawl away, then turns back toward me grinning and silent. Then he creeps forward a little more and then looks back again. Then I start to crawl after him making growling sounds and he squeals and giggles and starts trying to get away.

Yesterday we had a deer in our back garden. I could not get the camera in time unfortunately. Vickan thinks the deer will steal all our apples later in the year.

The other day I saw a woodpecker pecking in the tree just a few metres from our back door. I failed to get to the camera in time then as well, so you'll just have to believe me!

10-month checkup

Today we have been to the clinic for Elias' 10-month check-up. They measured and weighed him as usual but also had a doctor checking a few medical things and if he is developing like he should.

Everything was fine. Heart and lungs sounded fine, his belly was ok and hips and joints were good to. She checked if he masters the pincer grip (which he does) and if he bangs two blocks together. The banging took a while for him to show, he just wanted to throw the blocks on the floor ;-) He did show off banging blocks together before we left so she was pleased. I asked if we should worry about the fact that he still doesn't roll over when he is on his back but the doctor thought nothing of it since he both crawls and stands up against furniture and tries to walk alongside them.

Another thing he has started to do lately is to clap his hands and wave. Extremely cute of course! If we have the telly on and there is clapping he joins in!

Garden work

At Easter we got quite a lot of snow, enough for David to build a snow man (or a replica of one of the soldiers in the terracotta army?)

We had almost a week of proper winter and a few days it was really cold, I think the coldest we had was -13 during the night. At the end of last week it started thawing and by the weekend all snow was gone and it was really warm and sunny. On Saturday Dave went grocesry shopping with Elias on his own (a practice run) and in the afternoon Anna and Jacob came round for a visit. It was so nice to see them. We do miss all our friends in Uppsala!

On Sunday I was tempted to go into town and have a fika with my cousin but the weather was so nice so I decided to take the opportunity to do some garden work. Therese actually came here and helped too! ;-) We pruned the apple tree - loads of fun!! Not that we really knew what we were doing, but I think we did a good job. I do think a few more brances need to be chopped off though.. We also raked quite a lot of leaves while Dave took care of Elias and served us lunch on the patio for the first time.. Unfortunatelly we didn't take a before and after picture of the tree, but here is a picture of Dave's melted snow soldier and in the background is the tree before the pruning. I will make sure to take an after picture soon (as I am sure you are all Very interested)

Since the last entry me and Elias have also met up with my friend Lisa and her 4 week old boy Theo. Lisa and I got to know each other -98 in Stuttgart when we were both exchange students and since then we have been in touch on and off. When I sent out our new address to my whole address book she replied and it turns out she lives about 1.5 km from here!! It is great to be in touch with here again, just a shame I am soon going back to work! It is amazing to see Theo and think that Elias was that small once.. Hard to believe..