random pictures

Busy days

The most beautiful bride and in many ways my first baby.

Things are good - just busy. Last week-end Martin and I left the kids with my sister and went to Ambra's wedding - I used to look after Ambra some 24 years ago and we always liked each other a lot. Nowadays my kids adore her and her husband Christoffer - they live close and are in many aspects the definition of cool in our lives, only partly due to the fantastic parties they arrange - next up is Halloween. Martin and I had lots of fun at the wedding and Sunday was spent recovering. Gosh we are old! And Cara spent Friday afternoon hanging out at Ambra and Chris' place reading alternative magazines, watching star trek, cooking and eating. Somehow the extended family is really working out. And right now Viktor is downstairs for the first time playing with a little boy in the house. Life is good here at the moment.

Viktor is a proud schoolboy. Cara is developing integrity and independence. Sigge is growing exponentially and is a pure delight. But I am tired - Siggis had his second vaccination on Tuesday, developed a pretty brutal response and had swollen, tender thighs and a fever for a good three days - not sure what they use for adjuvants but I think they might be overdoing it a little. With that Sigge kept waking up through the nights and Martin is wonderful in all ways but somehow I do the nights better - and I was working in the clinic and at the Psoriasis association and trying to fix some things in the lab Wed-Fri. With a cold. I was getting a little stressed over my work situation - and then it dawned on me that I have another 30 years to work - this week will not matter too much. Don't think I have pictures of the kids to share - will look for them later.

autumn air

Mornings are getting crisp and cold, just a matter of time until the trees turns red and autumn is here. I love this time of the year, time for work to start up properly, long dark evenings with a good book and tea and candles, autumn clothes and autumn food. Sigges first autumn. Life is a little confusing at the moment - we need to get into a new rhythm but I am not sure if 25% in the clinic, 25% in the lab and 50% with Sigge is going to be very harmonic - somehow I always seem to be in the wrong place. The first milky haze is over though and I always think clearer in the autumn, wonder if it has anything to do with the crispness of the air.

I look at pictures from this summer and it has been one of the best summers this far - but it is also nice it is coming to an end. And now I need to write a few applications - five kids here on a Saturday night and only one of them asleep my chances of working are unknown.

parental meeting

Little smörisar to be. I do love the kids school, I love that the teachers tell us to teach the kiddies to eat properly, tie their shoe laces, work with school stuff. At the same time I feel a little worried over all the changes in the school and wonder if it is really sane that an 86 year old should run our school. and it felt a little too cosy with the head being at the same funeral as my godmother the other week, in the parents I found an old school mate from high school, two classmates form the same school, a friend of a classmate, a sister of another classmate from ME, a collegue from Karolinska. or they found me. I was busy trying to keep Sigge happy - the time of bringing him to meetings is just gone - odd, he is so nice during casual lunches but as soon as he feels my attention is elsewhere he becomes active and noisy.

a little school-star

Viktor is such a little engineer and loved to play with mirrors and prisms to make colours on a white wall. Starting school was just perfect, he enjoys all the boys and they are like a little flock of mostly blond boys running in and out of school every day. And Viktor loves it. Makes me feel a little guilty for dumping Cara in a completely foreign environment in Melbourne when she started - but she is also very happy at the moment so I guess it ended well.

Not sure this shared parental leave experiment is going to work out - it is a little messy with people thinking we are available when we are on parental leave - meetings always turns out to be on the wrong days. So we get tired and run off and love each other instead - above a tired day at the Turrell exhibition - will post a couple of pictures from there - wonderful in Järna, a very alternative Rudolf Steiner inspired place south of Stockholm, they have a hospital too and one of the merriest day as a PhD student was when my department of microbiologists and immunologists had a kick-off there - the discussion re vaccinations were truly entertaining. Two worlds and a clash of gods. This time we just had good food and enjoyed the art - Viktor is very into vegetarism at the moment whereas Cara rolls her eyes if there is no meat. If she had it her way she would only have the meat and eats her food according to the tastiness - least tasty first and the best (ie meat) last. And to our relief this place catered for all tastes ad Cara had a mountain of meat and Viktor a heap of salad. We try to cater for all tastes at home and tell Vik he can just skip the meat and eat the rest if he wants to go veggie. And that is as big as our real problems are at the moment, life is pretty sweet in our little baby-bubble.

metamorphism

We followed the metamorphism from larvae to cocoon to butterfly and it was magic to watch the birth of a butterfly in our flat - all larvae made it to butterflies and they ate the sugary water and lavender we prepared and it was all like a David Attenborough film, excellent present from Mum. And then it was time to say goodbye and let the butterflies loose - I was hoping they would stick around our balcony but they are truly gone.
And despite the current Star Wars passion I think this present brought on the biggest smiles in Viktor - although I am biased against the whole Star Wars hysteria. Note the gap - Viktor lost his third tooth recently - and when preparing for the tooth-fairy he found the second tooth that Martin lost behind his bed trying to exchange the tooth for money a few weeks ago. We are so bad at these things - so we told Vik to leave both teeth under the bed to see if he could get twice the going rate for teeth - and forgot the whole things - only to be woken up by Viktor in tears at 5 am - "the tooth fairy didn't come for my tooth" - nothing makes me feel as bad a parent as when I forget things that are important for the kids and irrelevant for us. It all ended well - with a long story on how the tooth fairy probably had to return to Neverland to get more cash.
Cara also underwent metamorphism dying her hair. Above with Viktor at a James Turrell exhibition out of town (excellent, will come back to that)
here a tired morning before school. Cara's red hair is fantastic and I hesitated a lot to let her die it black. But then I thought there are more important battles in life and hair grows back. And when it was done I realised this is just how I imagined Martin's daughter - it is like the red was a bit of a mistake in the genetic setup and now she looks the way she was supposed to. Very odd. Surely black will be followed by green and purple at some stage. and that will be fine too. I am just happy to be part of the metamorphism of children's development.

random

we start the washing machine and Sigge is spell-bound. Perfect when cooking.
porridge. everywhere.
so many variations on the same theme.

Back home

We survived my three weeks of full-time work. All of us. Sigge grew a lot and after a lot of dribbling and chewing we found two teeth. My little baby suddenly rolls from back to belly and has found a way to slide down his baby sitter to get his feet on the floor and the slides across the kitchen floor. And the boy laughs a lot and talks and eats porridge and some veggies. Today I brought Sigge to the lab to an informal seminar and realised the time of bringing him to work has passed - the student was doing a great job presenting data and Sigge saw the competition for my attention and started answering back - aoieeeo, a grrrrrr oiiiii aooooo - makes the most exciting presentation challenging. As soon as we were done Sigge relaxed into deep sleep - and then spent the rest of the day refusing the pram. And then Victor was knackered after the first full week in school and cracked it on the way home and Martin is arranging a bike race all week-end and Sigge shouted all afternoon for some reason - maybe more teeth coming, maybe the existential trauma of having had to share my attention with others. Cara saved the day when she came home with a plant she bought Martin for his Birthday. Might celebrate martin later this week-end but it seems he is pretty busy. All normal part of the parental experience but today was the first time I counted months until we have the right of day-care.