Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Guard Goose

When I got home from picking up dinner and gave The Swede the deets on the giant goose in front of Franco's, he teased me for getting so excited about something so silly. But he didn't see it. Sadly. And sadly, neither did you. But trust me, this bird was magnificent.

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Uneven Trade

Sweden's children are dressed up and out knocking on doors this evening and I am ready. I got six bags of chocolate, greased up the hinges on the front door, and reminded myself to tone down my enthusiasm so that nobody would get freaked out. That went out the window, of course, upon the first pling of our doorbell. They were so cute, you guys! They gave me their little drawings and took one of each kind of candy apiece and said "Glad påsk!" about a dozen times over the course of the transaction. They got chocolate and I got crappy drawings and I still think I came out on top.

Daily Jamie Dyes Eggs

Jamie's half-year-long cold continues this week with the addition of a cough and fever. He had a visit with the doctor this morning who assured us that we had nothing to worry about so we're just going to settle in, continue not working and not going to school, and let the walls close in on us until he's back in form. The past two days were pretty rough on him and he didn't do much of anything, but today his fever had broken and he was in the mood to play. This is where I admire stay-at-home moms because I was at a loss of what to do to entertain him. Sure, we read books and pushed cars and wrestled and practiced our animal sounds and colored, but there's only so much of that one can do in twelve hours. So I came up with the brilliant idea to dye Easter eggs. And it was at least forty-five minutes more brilliant than I had imagined because after we plopped them into the dye, Jamie decided to move them around from color to color and back again, break them open and squish their hard-boiled insides, and splash food-colored water all over the kitchen for, like, over an hour. I couldn't believe it. I mean, it was a disaster to be sure and it took every fiber of my being to keep from wiping everything up the entire time but he loved it and only one piece of blue, vinegary egg white made it into his mouth. I was thinking, at first, that this will go so much more smoothly next year, but really he couldn't have been happier and that was the point.

Daily Jamie

Broken Glass

Oh geez. The Swede has been telling me for approximately, well... exactly as long as I've been letting Jamie play with my iPhone that I was going to regret it. But it really is a much more tenacious piece of equipment than it looks and has held up to dozens of accidental falls and purposeful, frustrated flings alike. My luck ran out today, though, and while everything still functions it totally gives me the creeps to run my fingers over broken glass so I guess I'm going to need to lay down the time (a trip into the city on the dreaded subway or sending it away for who knows how long via post) and a pretty significant chunk of change. And then, when it's fixed, I think I'll uninstall of all Jamie's apps and keep this bad boy outta sight.

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Blog Mingle 2013

When Sarianne asked me if I'd like to join her at a luxurious event for mommy bloggers I was all for it, naturally, but also a little cautious with my expectations. You remember the green luxury weekend from last fall, after all. Well, these twenty-four hours exceeded any expectations I dared to have and more. The event was held at Kolmården's Vildmarkshotell and spa inside northern Europe's biggest zoo. That in and of itself is pretty awesome and I would have been happy to just BE there, but there was so much more the day had to offer. For example, to start with, upon checking into our rooms we were greeted with four goodie bags. The absolute best item in the bags, in my opinion, were these Crocs boat shoes. I am no fan of Crocs whatsoever, but I think we can all agree that these are pretty cute.

The food was plentiful and delicious. I mean, this was just the fika. And I think it's pretty safe to say it was the best fika of my life.

There were a couple of lecturers, Swedish celebs, giveaways, and a mini-fair with booths from the event's sponsors that kept us busy all afternoon. Later, in the early evening, we had a few hours to visit the pool and spa, have a couple of drinks and spend some time getting ready for the night ahead.

We spent the night doing a photo sess (yeah, I decided to part my hair on the other side after Friday's incident), drinking, dining and dancing. And it all couldn't have been more fun. So thanks, Sarianne! This time you nailed it.

Daily Jamie

Poor little Jamie was home with a fever today and not looking his best.

You Should See The Other Bed

I've been waiting for this day for a while now. The time capsule project was coming to a close and I was going to ride up to the copper mine with a couple of colleagues to watch it being set into the ground, to be displayed there for eternity. My alarm went off at 5:15 and I hopped out of bed, excited for the day ahead. Then I reached down to pull my cell phone charger from the wall and slammed my forehead into the head of our bed with all my might. The reverberation shook The Swede awake. "Oh no, is it bleeding?" he asked. "No, I don't think so," I answered. Then drip, drip, dripdripdripdripdrip onto the floor and the bed and my phone and the towel The Swede brought to rescue me with. The bleeding stopped quickly and revealed a pretty major gash right above my eyebrow, which The Swede insisted required medical attention. I would not be going to the copper mine. Two stitches and several hours in the ER later, I was good as new but with a heap of new street cred. In Damara vs. Nordli, the bed may have won, but who came out looking like a bigger badass? Exactly.

Daily Jamie

It Was Easy

Take eight minutes and let Justin rock your body like the old days. I did approximately twenty-seven times today and feel like a much better person because of it.

Daily Jamie

Good As Gold

Please check the Reese's cups my colleague Filip brought back from Cleveland! I gave a few away and then ate the rest over the course of four hours. It hurt, but was totally worth it because I feel really positive about paying Filip's good deed forward to my weight-loss competitors. 

Daily Jamie

Mexi-Can't

We made a discovery on Sunday afternoon. Behind Ikea is a poorly marked, nigh imperceptible Mexican restaurant. We did a loop around the block to pass it again and make sure our eyes weren't deceiving us. I hadn't eaten in forty-eight hours, what with the weekend's illness and all, and couldn't think of a better way to break my fast. So that was Sunday and this is Tuesday and I'm only NOW telling you about this?!?! Well... see... it wasn't that good. I mean, it was by no means bad but it was definitely a letdown. I guess I should have expected that seeing as the menu mentioned that the food was tailored to the Swedish sensibilities, but please, even Swedes love cheese. They can handle a little spice. Um, and where's the rice? And I don't see no beans! Maybe in another four years someone else will come along and get it right. In the meantime I guess I just have to remain satisfied with my annual Stateside feast.

Glamiversary

Sorry, folks, no time for a proper blog post. It's our anniversary and there's a champagne bubble bath to be had. That, and an 8:30 bedtime necessitated by today's 5:15 wake up call.

Daily Jamie

Making Up

Yesterday I was pretty sick with what turned out to be, thank goodness, a twenty-four hour bug. During those hours I only left the couch to go to bed, which made for a pretty boring day for the whole family. I am, of course, where the party's at so when I'm outta commiss the whole place shuts down. I was miraculously totally healthy this morning, so The Swede and I decided to make up for yesterday's lousy parenting with a packed agenda for ol' junior. First, we lovingly tolerated a five o'clock wake up call. Then, when it had opened, we went to Ikea and let Jambo lead the way through the kids' department. We were home in time for his nap, during which I was able to do the week's grocery shopping, getting that out of the way so that when he woke up we could go check out the horses at the local riding school. He was beside himself. It was so nice out that we ended up taking a walk in the woods afterwards, then played outside for a bit when we got home. We ended the day with a Skype with Aunt Selah and a drama-free bedtime. We don't usually pack that much action into an entire weekend so I'm calling this one Mission Accomplished.

Daily Jamie

Eating popsicles with a sick mommy.

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Trick Pony

I'm sure that one of these days my son will become really good at something valuable, but for now I'm just going to brag that he is a totally awesome stacker.

Daily Jamie

Splitsky

It was going to be so much fun. There was a online marketing and eBusiness fair at this lovely structure in Kista and The Swede and I were going to spend the day there. We were going to go to every booth, chat up every vendor, a husband-and-wife team of awesomeness and initiative collecting equally awesome ideas to improve our business. We would have had lunch together there, exchanging notes and shaping plans for our company's future. Then Jamie ralphed all over himself, indeed, all over everything last night. Since someone had to stay home with him today and it was important that both of us attended the fair, we decided to split the day. I took Jamie in the morning, The Swede stayed home with him in the afternoon. My half-day at the fair did yield some pretty awesome ideas, I admit, but I cannot deny it would have been much better with my copilot.

Daily Jamie

Working Late

Some nights we get home from the office, eat dinner, put Jambo to bed, change into our cozies... and participate in an online meeting with our colleagues in Cleveland. That's the Central European Time zone, baby!

Daily Jamie

Melodifestivalen Weekend 2013

This was Melodifestivalen Finale weekend and we did it up! On Friday night Papa Swede stayed home with Jamie and the rest of us went to the live dress rehearsal and while we were split up into four separate groups, we all had fantastic seats. My seat was so good that I even ended up on TV Saturday night during a segment that they had filmed during the dress rehearsal. See? That's me in blue doing a high clap as an artist takes the stage. Maybe I'll get discovered, maybe not. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Afterwards we went dancing at a gay club in the city and didn't get home until 4:00 am. This is not my style and I was wiped out and so thankful that Jamie was staying the night at his grandparents'. Then, on Saturday, we all crowded around the TV and watched my pick - a sweet, unassuming kid with a great song and an even better voice - win. 

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Scenes Of Schlager

Daily Jamie

Hint Of Heat

I was home with Jamie again today and it was no nice that we stayed outside to play after running some errands. We didn't have our snow gear on because we had just been in the car and indoors and it turned out we didn't even need it. Jamie was in jeans and a jacket and I only had a blazer over my sweater and the sun kept us warm for the first time in a long time. I'm not getting my hopes up that winter is even close to over, but it was nice to be reminded of that feeling.

Daily Jamie

Daily Jamie

Unconscious Breakfast

Little Jambo is sick (though don't tell him; he's far too busy playing and running around like a madman) and his preschool has very strict rules about how much time has to pass between his last high temperature or bad tummy episode, so I could be home with him for a while. Today was day two and Jamie just played and I was SO BORED. There wasn't a thing that happened that was worth blogging about. Until, that is, The Swede came home and we talked about how boring my day had been. He commiserated, having stayed home with him last Friday. "The worst part," he said, "is that you think that you're going to have such a great time during his nap. Maybe watch a movie... sleep a little... but really all you end up doing is staring at the wall, coma toast."

P.S. I embarrass myself dozens, if not hundreds, of times a day with Swedish and my loving husband never says anything about it. The Swede's English is so good that moments like this one are a rarity and I'm obviously not as nice as he is.

Daily Jamie

The Biggest Loser

Spring is close enough that I'm starting to think about the fact that none of my warm-weather clothes could possibly still fit. I haven't dared to test this but the jiggle of a jelly roll when I brush my teeth tells me it's true. I'm obviously not the only one feeling this way as all of the adults in The Extended Family Swede decided over the weekend that we'd all better do something about it. So Sarianne, ever the competitor, suggested a six-week contest to see who could lose the biggest percentage of weight. It started today and I'm proud to say that I did awesome, eating my vegetables and egg whites and couscous, but holy cow was I hungry. And now it's the evening and I want some sort of dessert SO BAD but I'm not gonna! No sir! I'm in it to win it. But if the scale hasn't gone down at least eight pounds tomorrow morning, after all this suffering, I'm giving up.

Daily Jamie