Daily Jamie

Honey, I'm... What The?

Every now and then since I've been on maternity leave, The Swede has come home from work unexpectedly early.  It's always a nice surprise.  I'm usually doing something very normal like cleaning or playing with Jamie or changing a diaper.  Today I was doing this.  Or, more accurately, we were doing this, because it was absolutely, one hundred percent Jamie's idea, sweartogod.  The Swede was like, "Ah... yeah." And I was more than a little embarrassed that I was caught red-handed and Jamie pink-footed.

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Ridin' Bikes

I have a new favorite pastime.  The Swede got me a bike for my third Swediversary back in July and we just recently got it pimped out with a child seat and helmet.  Our little family has been taking evening rides around Kungsängen when the weather is nice and I swear, I feel like I'm cycling through the dreams of my early twenties.  THIS is what I've always wanted.

Daily Jamie

Voice Recognition

When I was pregnant my mom sent a bunch of books for the new baby.  Some of them I had requested, others she picked out herself.  One of her picks was a recordable version of "On The Night You Were Born".  She had recorded her voice reading the book to her future grand baby and the minute I opened it and heard I burst into tears.  I haven't dared to open it since, expecting a similar meltdown, but today Jamie got it out and started flipping through the pages and totally recognized grandma's voice.  He was grinning from ear to ear.  I imagine that this was more the scenario she had in mind when she recorded it than sending her daughter into a tearful homesick episode.  And I was so thrilled that he was so thrilled that I didn't shed a single tear.

Daily Jamie

Big Boy's First Day

"On Monday, Axel, Jamie, and Noel are starting. Welcome!"

Today was Jamie's first day at preschool.  I know.  Insanity, right?  Since he was born just yesterday and all.  We have had a glorious, fun-filled thirteen months together the awesomeness of which I never could have imagined before he came along.  I am not ready.  Jamie, however, totally is.  He loves meeting new people, playing with new toys, and exploring new places.  Preschool, therefore, is where it's at.  This first week I'll be there with him, getting him "schooled in" as they say, and getting both of us comfortable with the idea of not being together all the time.  This is futile in my case, as it will never be okay (especially since he fell on his face this morning and busted his lip in a big way), and he was a little clingier than usual, but I feel confident that he will be very happy there.  So just, you know, wish ME luck with this big transition.

No Daily Jamie Today

Sorry, Mom! We were too busy playing with him to remember to take a picture.

On The Town

The Swede and I got hotted up, dropped Jamie off at Mama and Papa Swede's, and headed in to the city last night. We had cocktails at a sky bar and then went to one of those swanky restaurants where the tables are packed together so that you're nearly rubbing shoulders with your neighbors. I felt very cool, very cosmopolitan, very aware that I was sitting extremely close to a stranger. The food was out of control delicious and we sat there for hours before hitting the bricks and moving on to the next spot, a bar where we met up with Johanna and Christer who were out celebrating their anniversary. We ended the evening with a glass of champers at a club happening enough to make me feel old and uncool, but very much in love with my husband and thankful for the fabulous night he showed me.

Daily Jamie

The Fisherman's Family

I bet you thought all the fishing competitions happen in the winter, right? I mean, if all your knowledge of fishing competitions was based on this blog, anyway. Well guess what? You were wrong. Today Papa Swede's fishing club, which is now also The Swede's (Have a mentioned that he's in the board now? Yeah, he's kind of a big deal.), hosted a competition in our very own Kungsängen. The Swede, of course, was all over it and invited Jamie and me to tag along. And we did, all along the coastline for a few hours on probably the nicest day this year. While I don't typically get too enthused about these things, I must admit that today was fabulous.

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Cuddle Food

When I was a kid, my grandparents had a basement full of awesome stuff.  Tons of cool dress-up clothes, jewelry and wigs, toys and books, and a plush fried egg (by the way, Grandma, don't throw that thing out in your basement organizing extravaganza because it is apparently very rare and worth A LOT).  Oh, and who can forget that dusty old bottle of Zima.  I'm pretty sure that's still there, actually, unless one of my cousins finally gave in to The Dare.  Anyway, I don't know what it was about that egg, but my cousins and siblings and I couldn't get enough of that thing.  I mean, I wouldn't necessarily have ever spent one-hundred and ten dollars on it or anything, but we did really enjoy that egg.  So when I was flipping through the Ikea catalog a while back and saw these adorable plush veggies, I began awaiting the day when Jamie would be old enough to play with them.  And today was that day.  He hasn't seen them yet and I can't wait to show them to him when he gets up tomorrow.  He'd better handle them with kid gloves, though, 'cause in thirty-five years, taking into account inflation, these could be worth millions.

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Backpack shopping.  We picked the blue.

Double Trouble

Okay, so technically it wouldn't even be possible, what with Jamie being only seven months older than Ossian, but I got a taste of what it would be like to be the mother of Irish twins today.  Holding Ossian in my lap (carefully, very carefully... I would hate to bust a kid who didn't belong to me) with Jamie alternating between tugging on my shirt and poking O's eye out, I was grateful to only have the one.

Daily Jamie

Mobile Crêpes

We've passed this trailer and the crépes sign on the road near our summer cabin at least thirty times in the past year and on Saturday we finally stopped.  Gurra and Gunilla were along for the weekend and treated Mama and Papa Swede, Jamie, The Swede and I to a truly delightful lunch experience.

The three folks making and serving the crépes from inside the trailer were actually French and spoke Swedish with accents about a thousand times cooler than my own.  They were wearing fun vintage clothes and were having a great time serving the dozens of folks who were there.  

I've never seen anything like it.  The food was so good and the whole atmosphere so whimsical that I can't wait to go back.  Or open up my own out of Sarianne and Magnus's trailer.  

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Afternoon At Erin's

We just left Erin's place after spending the afternoon hanging with her and Ossian. Our time there was chock full of awesomeness, precisely as I had anticipated. She made Jamie and me a delicious smoothie with her new VitaMix, hiding all kinds of nutrition in it and then lacing it with peanut butter so we wouldn't taste it. Jamie got to try out some new fun toys, including the ever-tolerant little Ossian, and we were even able to squeeze in some time on the swings outside before the rain began. Now we're on the train heading to the cabin, having already had a sweet start to the weekend.

Daily Jamie

The Penthouse Has Perks

Okay, I want to preface this by saying that I love, love, love our home.  The Swede is on the realty websites regularly looking for the next big move, just because it is a common Swedish pastime, but we're all quite happy where we are.  I do, however, sometimes miss apartment living.  I can't explain it, really.  I don't have anything against grass and it's great for Jamie to have a yard to play in and cozy to actually see our neighbors from time to time.  I guess it's not "the dream" or whatever, but ever since my first apartment in Little Italy, Cleveland I've always imagined that I'd be perfectly content living in an apartment till the end of my days.  Now, again, I love our current home and expect that the next time we do move it will be into another house, but I couldn't help but feel a slight pang of longing when Linda and I went out on her balcony today. 

Daily Jamie

On Poorly-Timed Naps

Note to Jamie: don't fall asleep because you will totally miss the gelato stop and the photo shoot.

Daily Jamie

You Spin Me Right Round

This afternoon, Jamie and I went to visit Petra and Jason.  We ate lunch and enjoyed a cup of coffee while Jamie stuffed small things down his gullet (Petra and Thomas are in the sweet spot where their kids are either too big or too small to try to choke themselves so their place isn't as baby proofed as ours needs to be) then headed outside to check out the new playground in their neighborhood.  We plopped Jamie onto the merry-go-round and spun it around while he held on for dear life.  I swear, it was barely crawling.  Petra suggested we give it a whirl, though, and it felt so fast from on top of the ride I thought we were all going to fly off.  Sorry for putting you through that, Jamie boy.  I now have a much better understanding of centrifugal force.

Swimming With The Big Fish

Just wanted to let you know I'm guest blogging over at Sarianne's blog today.

Daily Jamie

Pre Preschool

Ohmygoodness, we were SO grown up today.  The Swede and I had an introductory meeting at Jamie's preschool.  We had to act super serious and adult so that they would think we were good parents.  It was not easy.  The place was great, by the way, and I feel really good about Jamie starting there in a couple of weeks.  For his part, since it was just information for parents, we left Jamie at Mama Swede's preschool during the meeting.  When we picked him up he was like, "Whatever, Mom and Papa, I'm just gonna keep on playing with these other fun people."  My broken heart aside, I'm pretty sure that's a good sign.

Daily Jamie

Pride On Three

Yesterday The Swede cycled ninety-five kilometers.  That's fifty-nine miles.  That's far.  It's, like, further than I even want to drive, frankly.  Why would he do such a thing, you may wonder?  Well, all of the most macho guys from work decided to compete in this year's Cykelvasa, a mountain bike race that covers the same track as the legendary Vasaloppet.  The Swede did not win, but he also did not train even one second.  The night before he left, I actually begged him not to do it.  He assured me that he'd quit if his bad knee started acting up.  And then he showed me what was what by finishing the darn thing.

Daily Jamie

Vintage Damara

My grandma was cleaning out her basement and came across my photo albums, which I had left there four years ago when I moved to Nashville.  Grandma gave them to my mom, who took out the photos she thought I'd like to keep and brought them when we met last week.  There were a lot from my cheerleading days, plenty of super old school ones of me and my siblings, and LOADS of awkwardness.  If you think I'm uncool now, well, first, you'd be dead wrong and second, you should have seen me during high school.  Yikes.  Anyway, this picture of my big brother and me is a family favorite.  Probably because I'm not biting him.  It's usually pretty hard for me to see any of myself or The Swede in Jamie (he really doesn't look a heck of a lot like either of us, does he?) but last week, when I saw this again for the first time in years, I had to admit that there's a heaping spoonful of my genetics in that little rascal after all.

Daily Jamie

Does it make me a conceited jerk if I think this person I helped create is the most fantastic person on the planet?  No?  Just a mom?  Okay, good.

Daily Jamie

Unfortunately, I can't figure out the problem with this video.  It wasn't really that cute anyway, promise.

Please pardon the cranky tears, but I thought you'd like to see this.

Daily Jamie

Swim Fail

We're at the cabin and the weather has been rainy, though I must admit the cooler temperatures are welcome after those two weeks in Hades...er, America. The clouds cleared for a bit this afternoon, though, so we decided to take the short walk to the lake and take a dip. No sooner had we gotten halfway than it began to pour. We ran to a tent that was still up after midsummer in a nearby clearing to wait out the worst of it before we would continue on our mission. Then there was lightning, and since it's not a good idea to swim during a lightning storm and the rain showed no sign of letting up, we were forced to walk home in a downpour. So we at least looked like we went swimming.

Daily Jamie

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