Daily Jamie

I started making a Yoda costume for Jamie to wear to preschool today, but he refused to wear the hat. No point in finishing the outfit, obviously. So here he is wearing his angry dude mask instead.

The Beautiful People

I rode the the train and subway into the city this morning for a course I'm taking to learn Adobe InDesign for work. If there are two things that make me feel like a big girl it's taking public transportation and taking a course for work. Anyway, the central station is packed during rush hour and aside from overwhelming myself with my super cool, cosmopolitan lifestyle, I was totally moved by the reality that it is absolutely true what they say: these Swedes are gorgeous.

Daily Jamie

Haul

I spent my lunch break at Sweden's first Sephora today. It was a twenty-minute drive from work so I didn't have much time to spend there, which meant I was zipping around in a panic trying to see all there was to see. It was missing some of the brands that the American store carries and the selection of the brands they did have wasn't as broad, so that was a little disappointing. Even so, I managed to blow my whole allowance. For the year.

Daily Jamie

The Molsta Group

Everyone in the family here has WhatsApp, an instant messaging application, on their iPhones. A while back we started a group so that we could all communicate with everyone at the same time and in the same place about anything relavent to the family, particularly vis-á-vis the summer cabin. Ever since then my phone has been plinging off the hook. A sample conversation:

Elin: I lost a tooth.

Sarianne: Whoa.

Elin: Yeah.

Mama Swede: Whoa.

Elin: Yeah.

Papa Swede: Whoa.

Elin: Yeah.

Magnus: Whoa.

Elin: Yeah.

The Swede: Whoa.

Elin: Yeah.

That's eleven plings in case you lost count. A few weeks ago, Sarianne taught me how to prevent notifications from the group for a set amount of time so that I could maintain my sanity. Just in time, too, because apparently Julia has discovered the group. Those sixty-five notifications above are every letter in the alphabet plus every emoticon available in its own separate message. Remind me why I got an iPhone again?

Daily Jamie

October 27th

October 28th

King And Queen Of The Jungle Gym

Today Linda brought her girls and met Jamie and me at the play land. Between Jambo's balancing skills and Sukai's exhibitionism, they freakin' ruled the place.

Daily Jamie

Turn, Turn, Turn

I was just getting used to fall when winter showed up unexpectedly last night. It brought along some baggage, namely an impossible baby snowsuit, an icy windshield and a missing scraper, and worst of all, the dreaded soggy paws.

Daily Jamie

The Devil's Jack-o-Lantern

I went to the grocery store on my lunch break today and please look at the nasty, giant, grey pumpkin that greeted me. Look, it's as big as that broad on the left if she were all curled up in terror, like I wanted to be when I saw it. I had to poke it. I was real. Is this supposed to make me want to buy a pumpkin? 'Cause I'm pretty sure all I wanna do is start a Facebook page about boycotting them. As I walked by I muttered (under my breath because my fellow shoppers had obviously already been exposed to enough craziness) "gross" and just then I passed another pumpkin, which reminded me where I was: City Gross. Nuff said.

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Gearing Up For Ghost And Goblins

I popped into the city for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon to run some quick errands. It wasn't even fun, by the way, to stroll the streets of Stockholm minus little Jambo, but things had to get done. Anyway, Drottninggatan, arguably the busiest street in Stockholm, was all decked out for Halloween. In fact, Halloween seems like a much bigger deal this year than in the past few, with many shops carrying costumes and decorations. I'm feeling pressure to make sure Jamie has an awesome costume, something which I'm not entirely certain I'm up for considering that he'd be the only weirdo in his preschool class dressed up. Actually, I may have to do it for that very reason. Better to embarass him now when he doesn't know what embarassment is.

Daily Jamie

Monday Ritual

Our TV watching schedule is a shamefully high priority when the weather cools and it gets dark early. Well, all year, actually, but especially when it's cold out. All the best series start up in the fall and some of our favorites run on Sunday nights in the States so Mondays are big in our house. Recently we've been watching the Swedish sitcom Solsidan over dinner before we take the lappie up to bed and snuggle up for a little Dexter and Homeland. It's heavenly and I love every second. And really, how many people can say they look forward to Mondays?  

Daily Jamie

October 19th

October 20th

October 21st

How Things Work

After work on Friday we headed to the cabin for the weekend. The whole Segersten family was going to be there for the first time in a long while so we were pretty pumped to see everyone. Sarianne and Julia especially didn't disappoint, obviously. Nobody stuck around for long, though, as the Segerstens were going to a Disney movie premier in the city on Saturday and Jamie and I had plans to meet Erin and Ossian at the Tom Tits Experiment. The Swede and his folks stayed behind and chopped wood, as usual. Meanwhile, the boys and Erin and I had an absolute blast running around this gigantic building filled with interesting experiences for all our senses. Jambo was a wild man, splashing in water, making shadows, turning wheels and generally overloading his little baby brain. Erin and I dreamed of the day when both boys would be old enough to really appreciate everything they had to offer and in the meantime appreciated that Ossian can't run away at all and I'm still (slightly) faster than Jamie.

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Verklempt

I'm a simple woman. I get choked up over clam chowder. I can't even be sure that I like it because I'm  so overwhelmed that I found it. Nothing makes me misty like a trip to a new grocery store.

Daily Jamie

Swedish Snuggie

It only took four years, but it's finally made its way to Sweden, albeit with a super lame, uninventive name:The Smart Fleece Blanket With Arms!

Daily Jamie

Dare You

Just look at the cuddliness I came home to today and tell me I'm not the luckiest girl alive.

Daily Jamie

This Weekend

This weekend was one of those ones you feel lasted just long enough. It had enough down time that it didn't fly by and enough running around that we didn't get bored. I had had a ladies night on the books for Saturday night for weeks so The Swede planned to take Jamie to the cabin yesterday but ended up canceling because he didn't feel well. He took one for the team instead and brought us to an awesome mall we'd never been to where they just opened the first Apple store in Sweden. Not a techie myself, I was still very impressed with the place. It felt like the future. The Swede walked out with a new toy to keep him company while I was out with the girls.  Afterward, we went to the play land, just like every other young family in northern Stockholm, apparently. It was wild and The Swede's condition worsened.

Feeling only the slightest bit guilty for leaving an ailing husband at home to put Jamie to bed himself, I hopped the train over to Erin's to pick her up and head into town. We ate at an Asian restaurant called Eat in a hip neighborhood and it was awful. The waiter, the food, the drinks, even the chairs were bad, bad, bad so we popped in at Vapiano, our usual, to end the evening on a high note. And no matter how smoking hot we looked, fellas, half of us are moms so we were on our way home by quarter past eleven.

Then, today, we went to a trade fair of kids products where Sarianne was working over the weekend. It was packed and Jamie hadn't gotten enough of a nap so he was pretty unruly. We plopped him into a baby gymnastics corner and let him go to town and that helped, but his exhaustion put a bit of a damper on the afternoon. I thought it might be a good idea to take him for a walk in the woods, but only succeeded in moving the tantrum out of doors. Nap lesson learned.

Jamie is asleep now, though, so The Swede and I will cap off the weekend with a Sons of Anarchy mini marathon and a slice of chocolate cake. And I'm thinking about a glass of wine, not gonna lie.

Daily Jamie

Quiet Over Here

Oh my goodness, I am the worst. Jamie wasn't allowed at preschool the past two days because he puked on Wednesday night (just in case it had been a contagious tummy bug) so I've been at home with him and it's been super boring. So nothing new to report, lovies, but hopefully it will be an exciting weekend with loads of pictures to be taken and words to be written.

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Tunes

Good music was the theme of my day. It started this morning when I heard James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James"on the radio and continued from there. On Monday night I was hit by a bug that took me out all of Tuesday and required another full day of recovery. Today, that is. Feeling much better, but wiped out, I spent hours crafting my birthday party playlist. Clicking back and forth between YouTube and Spotify, I put together seven hours and two minutes of awesomeness that may rival Barney Stinson's Get Psyched Mix. But all good music isn't party music so a few treasures didn't make the cut. Because they deserve love too, I present Some Of The Prettiest Songs I Know (and The Prettiest Jew I Wish I Knew).

Daily Jamie

October 8th

October 9th

Jamie Kandinsky

Yesterday Jamie came home with his first drawing! Well, his first drawing that made it home in one piece, anyway. And guys, it's a masterpiece. I'm thinking about getting a frame for it because as of right now I cannot imagine my pride fading. Also, I want to imagine, every time I look at it, little Jamie sitting at a table with his friends and teachers and a box of crayons creating this work of art.

Daily Jamie

October 5th

October 6th 

October 7th

Green Luxury

Pardon my disappearance over the weekend; I was out in the country at a wellness retreat that Sarianne won through a contest and which was advertised to us as a luxurious spa weekend. Luxurious it was not. There was nothing spa-like about it. It did happen over the weekend, however. I'll give it that.

The retreat took place at a beautiful, hmm... what shall we call it? Compound, perhaps? At any rate, it was an ecological farm-slash-hotel-slash-restaurant-slash-hippie hangout run by anthrosophists. I can get behind that, sure.

I can also get behind some beginners' yoga, a energizing morning workout, a couple of free nights in a hotel, and goodie bag full of Wedela products. What I CANNOT get behind is smoothies made of, literally, weeds from the compound garden...

...flavorless baked goods, and clear vegetable soup for dinner. I'm pretty excited to weigh myself tomorrow morning, though, since I'm positive I lost several pounds thanks the local eco diet we were forced into.

Food aside, it was actually a lot of fun. I laughed like crazy, as I usually do when in Sarianne's company, and got to sleep in two days in a row and take as long a shower as I wanted. So I guess, actually, it was kind of luxurious after all.