Stung

Today elias was stung by a wasp, poor thing. He does not seem to suffer from it much though and is happily playing.

His first mobile

Finally we gave in and bought him his first mobile phone.

Bobby car

Bought a bobby car for elias today. He doesn't quite get it yet but we are sure he will love it eventually...

Mobile test

Thanks for the lovely bird auntie anki!

More new skills

Apart from almost walking Elias has also learnt how to climb stairs. While we were up at my parents he practised it quite a lot and now he can get up most stairs.

Two new teeth erupted while we were up north now making the tooth-count an impressive 5!

Almost walking

Yes, we think it is very close now.. When my sister was here he first started to take a few steps but then it was more like a game. It seemed like he really liked to throw himself on us and we catch him.

The last few days he started to take a few more steps but was still very unstable and unbalanced. Today it seems like he has taken quite a big leap forward though. He both walks to and from us and is more willing to let go and tries to keep his balance.. It will probably still be a while before he is completely confident but he is sure getting there!

A word of warning...

Do not, I repeat NOT put this toy: on your forhead.

Or the result might be this:

More recap

Thought I should continue the recap so no one feels left out! :-)

After mum and dad were here they went down to my sister in Lund and visited her for a few days. Meanwhile we oiled the terrace. It is looking so nice now!
Wednesday a week ago Alison and Russell came and it was so great to see them. We visited Skansen again and managed to see a few more animals this time, including a moose baby. So cute! On Friday Sweden celebrated Midsummer and as always the weather was a bit crappy. In the morning we had some ok weather though and went down to the lake for a picknick. In the evening we had a semi-traditional midsummer meal and some snaps (and songs of course!).
Russell also helped Dave mount our TV on the wall. We think it will stay up.... So now we have re-arranged the room a bit and we think it is for the better. Now we just need to win the lottery so we can afford some new furniture and then it will look spectacular!

Yesterday my sister and the dogs came. She is working today and we are dogsitting. We haven't told her yet, but we are planning to make sure to get the favour returned and go to the cinema or something one night. Moahahaaa. ;-)

A short recap of a long time

So sorry about the lack of blog updates.. Here comes a little recap of all the stuff we have been doing lately.

The Hills visit
Between May 26-30 the Hills family came to visit us. We had a great time and the weather was super. We spent one day at Skansen, one day at the lake, and made a trip to Kaknästornet. We had a great time and we think they liked it too. The previous owners of the house left a big trampoline which was a big hit with the boys (and the adults too).
Dave also appreciated the help he got from Oliver with strengthening the roof of the shed. A few other things got taken care of as well with Oli in the house.

Joyce's visit
Joyce came to visit us between June 2-8 so she was lucky enough to be around for Elias' first birthday! Apart from celebrating Elias we also made a daytrip to Gustavsberg where we looked in a few nice shops selling porcelain and had a nice lunch.


We also saw the smoke from a nearby fire...We had a day at the lake as well where Elias got to try a bit of David's soft ice cream which turned out to be a bit of a mistake. Elias thought it tasted very nice and when there was no more ice cream left he screamed like crazy. We got a few weird looks from people around us..

The Bloms
On Saturday the 7th my mum and dad came, just in time for the birthday party held on Sunday. Dad helped David with the shed roof a bit and sanded the terrace. After they left we oiled it and the terrace now looks better than ever.

On mum and dad's last day here they were very nice and babysat for us while we went to Bwin's summer party.

More pictures

Sorry about the poor rate of updates lately. We have had so much fun with all of our visitors that we haven't had time to update the blog.

I have posted some of the pictures we took while the Hills were here. They can be found in the April&May album. It was a great week with great weather.. Will write more about that and Joyce's visit, and the birthday party, and my parents visit on a boring rainy day in the future.. ;-)

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!

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!