Away

It seems that in the last week, we have had every weather under the sun, -7 on Friday morning and +9 this morning, and 16 degrees when I left work! 23 degrees difference in a couple of days. We've had snow, slush, rain and sun. This morning when I took Vera to nursery, the sun was out and if I'm not mistaken, I could smell spring! :-)
I know it's early, but it somehow feels lighter and warmer and now that January is very neary over, we're heading in the right direction.

We were away at the weekend. Secret location but all to be revealed soon!
We stayed in a hotel and Vera behaved impeccably all weekend. She was good as gold in the car up, about 2,5 hrs drive, slept for a bit but mainly down to a constant stream of Postman Pat episodes.
She ate well and slept well and was in a great mood. She had great fun running between the hotel reception area and the restaurant/bar delivering brochures to daddy (which mummy had to sneak back when she wasnt looking). I also used to love brochures and things when I was little and used to clear ICA of them and  all rabattkuponger that I could find (discount coupons) to my mum's sheer delight. Not!

On Saturday we went for a snowy and slushy walk, which was hard work with a non Scandinavian pram. When we got back Mark had got Vera a little treat, a Postman Pat van, complete with Pat and Jess the cat. Vera was delighted and has been playing with it non stop since.

She is very aware of what's going on around her, points and names cars and buses as well as helicopters on TV ("copter"). She also stood up and declared to the whole hotel bar that she was doing a "poo-poo". Funny!

At nursery they had been out collecting snails yesterday, for a bug hotel. Apart from that they do a lot of painting, walks and apparently she had been cuddling her friend Jonathan!

Vera and I have been reading "Vem kommer nu", a first birthday present from the Backlund-Bartholomew family, which Vera loves. She gets very upset when the characters are crying and shouts "kying", "kying", "kying"

 Vera and her present from daddy, her Postman Pat van

 Vera having a pasta salad snack in the hotel lobby/bar

 Snack break after our wintery walk

 Hotel breakfast!

Vera loves wearing our hats!

Snow!

We've had a wonderful weekend playing in and enjoying the snow! Mark borrowed a sled (? pulka) from a neighbour and Vera had such a ball on the  Saturday. On Sunday we played more in the snow and in the afternoon we built a snow man. We called him Mr Parsnip (Herr Palsternacka), since I had used my last carrot for my roast chicken and only had parsnips left.

The rest of the weekend was the usual bubble of cooking, baking, hanging out and watching tv/films - Nanny McPhee for the 3rd or 4th time on TV.

Addenbrookes

Vera in the waiting room at Addenbrookes

Vera and I went to Addenbrookes this morning for a routine check up of her strawberry mark, in Dr Burrow's outpatient clinic.
As her strawberry mark is significantly smaller and lighter, the consultant was very pleased and felt that there was no need to continue seeing Vera, which I agree with. She did want a photo taken of the strawberry mark though, to complete the files and her treatment. I said that I would be more than happy for her and the hospital wanted to share the photos with any parents who might find it useful to see how the mark develops and regresses. To be honest, I dont even think about Vera's strawberry mark any more, but there was a time when I did a lot and when people's stupid questions and remarks used to upset me.

Vera has started using two word sentences and says things like "cuddle baby" (her doll). She also knows that daddy is callled "Mak" and mamma "Tees" and that she is Vera "e-a".
She got weighed at the hospital and she is 13,7 kilos on the 90% percentile, so tall and heavy for her age :-)

Cold

Mark's away and we've had a busy day, Vera and I. Minus 7 this morning, probably a record for here for as far as I can remember, but beautiful frosty landscapes this morning and today.

Big accident again today on the A14, not in my direction but re-routed traffic lead to long delays. I hate these roads and all the traffic. And people driving like idiots and not respecting weather, visibility and traffic conditions. Enough ranting.

After dinner, bath and bottle, Vera and I snuggled up under a blanket with doggie and baby (the doll) and watched this clip 5 times:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=505819052773774

and giggled lots!

Domesticated

We were meant to have gone away for the weekend, but instead had a lovely domesticated one, with a water leak thrown in. No not in the house, but rather in the street so engineers from Cambridge Water were randomly digging large holes in the street for 36 hours solid until they finally stopped at 5am this morning. No doubt the Victorian pipes playing up again.

We've had a lovely one though, with some of my favourite pastimes, family, cooking, baking, film, walks, music etc.

Mark has been doing a bit of DIY while I've been holding fort in the kitchen, including defrosting the freezer.

Today it's been colder, around zero, so Vera and I wrapped up warm and walked to the play ground, the swings were less interesting today, instead it was up and done the slide, umpteen times. She's fearless and would happily go head first if you weren't there to stop her.

We said hello to some of the local horses on the way back and once home had some fika with apple muffins followed by some dancing to warm up. Vera seem to be rather taken by One Direction and Olly Murs, along with millions other girls.


She's recently started to walk up to us with her armes stretched up, saying "cuddles", "cuddles" with increasing volume until you lift her up.

We also measured her height on Saturday, and she's 86 cm, on the 90th+ percentile, so quite tall for her age I believe

Speech wise (in English) she says "copter" (helicopter),  "pasta", "milk", "elephant", "hot", "cold" and many more. She knows most of her animals although what she says sometimes needs deciphering. Horses for example tend to be "neeeeigh" or "clop-eti-clop"

*

Outside the bedrooom window at midnight, luckily they're all gone now.

Vera dancing and refreshing with some water.

 Vera on the slide

 Climbing in the playground

 Wearning her punk's not dead t-shirt from auntie Terese in London

busy with daddy. Thanks mormor and morfar for all the new Duplo!

Vardag

We're slowly getting back into a routine, both diet wise (for Vera and us!) and nursery/work. We've had a nice weekend, with some well needed house work and clearing up. We're planning to put our house on the market soon, so it's a case of touching up and de-cluttering (I'm hopeless, I'm a hoarder!).
Mark is strict though which is good :)

2013 will be one of big change and as soon as we have more details, you will be the first to know!

Vera is continuing to chat, run around as well as test the boundaries. We had another tantrum on Saturday morning in Scotsdales at the check outs, which was interesting! Before that we'd had a great time looking at all the fish in the fish tanks. Many are at floor level and they even have built a little platform for the children so that they can see all the exotic fish. Vera ran around shouting "What's thaaaaat! What's thaaaaat!" - super excited!

Anna, thank you so much for the comment to my previous blog post, very useful reading. It'll be a challenge for me to find the right balance between chosing the right battles, setting boundaries and letting Vera figure stuff out for herself. But that's the exciting journey we're on! Thanks again - I may pick your brains later!

On Sunday we met Ana, Mark and Ariane for lunch, and as always, it was great to catch up. Mark H has the patient of a saint and played with Vera and got many laughs in return. Ariane is thriving and is a gorgeous, healthy baby and a good "napper". Still light as a feather compared to Vera!

There seems to be an issue in uploading photos at the moment, so I'll add some when I can

Independence

Vera is growing in both body and mind. We need to measure her, but she is definately growing taller and heavier! Her speech is rapidly improving and she will often mimic what we can say and attempts "ceiling", "floor" "tak" (ceiling in Swedish), "wall", head", "knee", "toes", "water", "milk/molk".

She is "feeding" her dolls and loves to wear my, and anyone elses shoes. Part of growing up is also testing boundaries and in the last couple of weeks, she's had a couple of proper temper tantrums. Usually it's triggered by the fact that she can't have something. As we were landing in Birmingham she threw a tantrum as she couldnt have my mug. This morning, she didnt want to take off her pyjamas and got very angry and threw herself about on the floor crying.
I try to console her and distract her, but sometimes it seems best to leave her and just let her "work through it". Any tips from the more experienced parents out there?

Christmas and New Year

so we're back from Ireland and as always when writing one of these summary blog posts it is so difficult to remember everything and everyone. What is true is that we've had such a great time and are so priviledged to have such a wonderful family.

We flew out from Birmingham on Saturday 22nd and it was a leisulrly drive, quiet airport and an ok flight to Dublin. We picked up our hire car and drove the two hours down to Clogher, Kilmore near Carrick-on-Shannon to stay a week with Nana Olivia and Grandad Joe.

We spent Christmas Day with Pat, Ken, Sarah, Kathy, Jackie and Ciara and had a lovely meal. We've also had lots of visitors to the house, Vera playing with all her cousins and meeting all of Mark's siblings.

It was so lovely to see Vera wih all her Irish family and interacting with all her cousins. Some of my favourite memories include Vera doing Irish dancing with Grace and Luke.Well, Vera was just spinning around in the middle when Grace and Luke were dancing around on the floor.

She had such a great time running after and playing with her older cousins and got so many cuddles and attention from the oldest cousins, grandparents, aunties and uncles.

We spent New Year's Eve in Dublin and stayed with Aoife and Derek in their beautiful new house in Cabra. We drove up at around lunch time and had an early dinner in a lovely pub called Mulligans.
http://www.lmulligangrocer.com/#!

After Vera had gone to bed, we had drinks, snacks and a catch up with friends. So lovely to see everyone!

 We flew back today and apart from a proper toddler tantrum/hissy fit on the last ten minutes of the flight, Vera has been a great traveller!

 With auntie Ruth

 With my cousins:Luke and Grace (top) and Ciara (bottom)

 Grandad Joe and cousin Jackie

 Cuddle with auntie Pat

 Looking at the chickens with Luke and Grace

 With Nana

 With uncle Enda

 Cousin Kym

 Cousins Emily and Julie

 Laura, Rachel, Julie, Grace, Lily, Emily, Vera, Joe, Luke and Kym

Vera and mamma: New Year's Eve, Dublin