Ain't no party like a crawfish party

“Lis, when this is done, I’ll officially be a swede.  And have proven myself a man. But you better step away.  When this gets opened, the smell could induce labor” [EDITOR NOTE - THIS ALL OCCURRED AND WAS WRITTEN IN SEPTEMBER, PRE-LUCY]

…

In Atlanta, the fall was all about festivals – whether they were food fests, art fests, or wine/beer fests, every weekend could be spent celebrating something.  Here it’s different.  They still have seasonal parties most weekends, but they are more informal neighborhood affairs – usually involving seafood and schnapps. Lots and lots of schnapps. 

Our first party this year was a neighborhood Swedish crawfish fest.  We had heard about this for a long time now, but last year the plans just never came together.  Our new neighborhood gets together every year for one  though, so we were excited to be a part of it.  When the invitation first got put in our mailbox, we weren’t sure the details.  Do we give money to someone to get the supplies?  Who has a pot big enough for the whole neighborhood? Then we found out that it was more of a potluck style – everyone gets their own food ready at home, and shows up with their dinner and just eat together.  We knew that Swedish crawfish would be a little different than what we were used to – instead of Cajun seasoning, they would use dill (obviously), and instead of being a one-pot dish, they would be cold (weird).  They are also served with cheese pie, boiled potatoes, and bread.   That sounded like a good plan, but we wanted to play up our American-ness a bit so we reached out to some of our N’awlins family and friends for recipe recommendations. 

Day of the party, we looked outside and the neighbors had set up a HUGE tent with 3-4 tables underneath.  Maybe 20+ people all together. We were the last ones ready, so we showed up with a huge steaming bowl overflowing with corn, potatoes, Andouille, and crawfish. Lis also made a batch of her (now) world famous Cajun cornbread.  Everything was FANTASTIC.  Neighbors kept walking by asking to trade for some of our crawfish – which we were happy to do.  The cornbread was easily the biggest hit of the night, everyone loved it. Every few minutes, people would take a break from cold dill crawfish to sing a song and have a group schnapps.  Good times all around. 

Once dinner was over, Lis took Calvin inside to get him ready for bed.  One of our friends asked if I needed to head in as well – Lis could kind of see where the night was going and said it was probably best if I hung out as long as possible.  So now my job was to make friends, and make friends the only way I know how – through large quantities of booze.

Once the sun went down  and the crawfish were put away, the schnapps and beers managed to stay on the table.    A lot of the adults were still out, and kids were out until way past midnight.  This fact (and that the folks not outside were probably sleeping) did NOT deter the party from quickly turning into a discussion on the finer points of Scandinavian death metal.  After a few more hours of “networking” and being told that I “was not made of sugar, thatj’s for damn sure” (I think that was a compliment), I decided to go to bed on the couch downstairs because calvin was waking up very, very shortly.

One thing I had FORGOTTEN about evidently was that at some point that night we had agreed and set a date for me to become fully Swedish.  Not only did we set a date, but we put it into our phones.

I only remembered this two weeks later. 

(Part II – Surstromming coming soon!)

Handbollen!

Every Tuesday night now, I imagine myself as Yao Ming, Ichiro or one of the baseball players from Latin America that barely speaks any English.  I’ve read about these players for years, how the teams bring in translators for them, but that they basically go through practice without every REALLY knowing what the coach is yelling about, or what their teammates are saying.  They just go out and do their jobs, knowing that they’ve played long enough and are talented enough to figure out what is needed.

So I guess that is where my imagination gets a little ahead of me.  Because I’ve never actually played Handbollen before…nor ever seen a full game…and my teammates have played since they were 9.

So for 8 to 10 years.

This began when my neighbor last year asked me to play in the local “innebandy” (floor hockey)  pickup game held at the school gym 10 feet from our house.  We would get together once a week (if we had enough players), show up, run around and be out of there within an hour.  In the winter when you don’t really want to exercise outside at all, this was HUGE.  I really enjoyed playing and it was fun, casual atmosphere.  Most of the guys were a few years older than me, so I could out-hustle them to make up for my lack of hockey skills. And they didn’t mind when I missed the ball completely on my slapshot, because they know I was just learning.

When we moved out to Åkersberga, I wanted to find something similar. But for some reason, all I found were “official” clubs.   I emailed the innebandy league, the handball league and the basketball league.  I found nothing that was “casual” enough for me.  Eventually, my coworker called and used some magic Swedish words and told me that the Handball club would practice on Tuesday night – 8pm. He also said that it wasn’t a pick-up league – that it was Division 4.  I had no idea what that meant, and I’ve never played handball, but Sweden is one of the best in the world at it, and so it was shown on the Olympics a lot last year.  I remembered a little of the game, so obviously I would be a natural at this one.

As I said, last year it was just 6-8 middle-aged guys showing up and playing hockey.  When I showed up for my first practice, there was a coach and 12 guys already stretching and jogging.  The first practice started off with about 10 minutes of running, then another 10 minutes of focused running, with a final 10 minutes of really fast running.  All directed by a coach’s whistle.  Not exactly the informal thing I was thinking. 

We then switched to drills.  Which were all in Swedish.  The coach gave a 5 minute explanation of what we were all supposed to do, then looked at me and kind of shrugged.  I agreed that no explanation was necessary and jumped to the back of the line – I would be able to figure it out by following everyone else.

Some of the other weird parts of that first practice were that they use sticky wax on their hands.  There is a big vat of pine tar type stuff that you dip a few fingers into to get a better grip on the ball.  That DOES NOT come off and I almost had to sleep in my contacts that night for fear of poisoning my eyes.  As opposed to innebandy, I was not the on the faster side of the age curve here – I made the horrible mistake of asking one of the guys how old everyone was – he let me know that he was 19, the guy on my left was 17 but that some of the guys were probably in their mid-20’s. And they were all fast and in shape. Also, practice was not the 60 minutes in and out that I was used to, this went a full 90, with the last 15 spent doing more running. 

The guys were all nice – definitely (most likely) all younger than me, and spoke Swedish 100% of the time, but this was good.  It was actually one of the few times since we’ve been out here that people don’t switch to English automatically.  I might actually get a chance to learn Swedish from them.

We’ve had a few practices now and my learning curve is moving in the right direction – I’ve almost gotten close to not taking anything OFF the table.  Another few weeks and maybe I’ll actually add something, but we’ll see. So far I  would not be recruited to the national team yet, but well on my way. 

We have had two games so far – and because they are Division IV, they are actually against other cities.  So weird.  Last week was a home game, and I was ready to show Lisa and Calvin how handbollen was played!  I had prepped lisa that I would like just be sitting on the bench for the game as I had just figured out how to run and catch the ball.  We get there and I realize that everyone else has official jerseys…when I ask the coach he says that they only have 10 spots on the whole team, so it might be best if I watch this one from the stands.  A little embarrassing probably, but it was good to actually see an actual handball game.  And I could tell Lis and Calvin what was going on ( a little bit at least).  It was also the first time I’d seen Åkersberga play against other teams.  The first game we saw was the 15 yr old girl game.  These girls were possibly the most ruthlessly efficient team I have ever seen in any sport ever. EVER.  They were a combination of rick pitino-style full court press with oregon’s no huddle offense.  They literally made girls on the other team cry.  Watching them, I was pretty sure I would have been further down on their depth chart than the team I was playing with.  I asked one fo the guys and evidently this team is one of the best in the country.  Then we watched our game get started – and I felt a lot better about myself.  The other team were more what I was expecting, older, a little out of shape, just having fun.  I definitely could have played with those guys no problem.  Needless to say, our team KILLED them.  They were doing no-look passes, fast breaking constantly and just overall playing a class above.  That’s when I realized that I hadn’t just decided to walk on to a regular handball team – I’d basically walked on to the Alabama crimson tide of Swedish division 4 handball. 

So now my goal is to keep playing, reduce the mistakes, and start to get a better feel for the flow of the game.  I’m still convinced that I’m going to be a stud at this game, it might just take a few more months and bruises than I had anticipated.  Maybe a better goal would be to suit up for one game this season….

(UPDATE – I WROTE THIS THE DAY BEFORE LUCY WAS BORN.  I HAVEN’T BEEN BACK SINCE…SO TBD I GUESS)

Just when I thought you couldn't possibly be any dumber…

I never expected to be thinking about Jim Carrey’s Dumb and Dumber character as I wizzed around semi’s in rural Sweden during a torrential downpour and 5 hours after the sun went down, but it happens.  And it’s a small miracle that I have the most patient wife, mother and children in the world who decided not to strangle me when we figured out what had gone wrong.

I’m sure that we will have another post about this weekend sometime soon, explaining how we ended up on a really fun weekend getaway to Småland (southern Sweden) with both kids, Lisa and my mom who had come in town earlier in the week.  But until that part gets posted, showing pictures from the Crystal factory, the moose park and the Baltic / renaissance castle, I figured it was best to get this part out in the open.

Traditional swedish McD's before our road trip - look at those smiles!

We had planned on wrapping up our mini-trip right after lunch, driving the 5+hrs back to northern Stockholm and being home in time for Calvin’s bedtime and some Patriots football.  All was going well as we started driving north on E22 around 1:30pm.  Lucy was asleep, Lisa was reading some stories to Calvin and Grandma was checking out the Swedish countryside.  The route back from Kalmar was taking us through some nice rural areas on smaller roads with some really pretty forest/farm views, and everyone was doing great. 

About 2+hrs in, I start thinking about filling up the gas tank, while Lisa is thinking about how Lucy has been filling up her diaper.  Calvin had just fallen asleep, so we decided to stop when we got to the city of Norrkoping an hour away.  That would give him time to get a little nap, while still being within the window for diaper changes / gas top off.  It was also the only “turn” on the map as we went from E22 to E4 on into Stockholm.  As we get closer to our pit stop, the sun is starting to disappear and the rain clouds gather above us.  To make the turn onto E4, we have to cycle through 1-2 rotaries, and then pull up at an exit to take care of our business.  We move quickly and get back onto E4 before Calvin has woken up – this has been a perfect stop.  And only two more hours to go!

The next part of the trip goes great – we are laughing and chatting, passing bags of chips and drinks around overall having a blast.  Calvin is still asleep – which is great because he has a tendency to get car sick, so the longer he can sleep the better.  With about an hour to go, he wakes up, looks around to realize he is STILL in the car and says that he doesn’t feel great.  We quickly pull over to let him get some fresh air while we explain to him that the sooner we get in the car, the sooner we’ll be home – we are SO close now. 

Then we hit the road, except that the signs to the highway are wrong.  Not sure how it happened, but the sign to Stockholm seemed like it was taking us the OPPOSITE way that we had been going previously.  

We probably had gotten turned around at the gas station after one too many rotaries, but just to be sure, Lisa checked her phone – “weird, my phone’s GPS is all whacky.  This says we have another 3hrs to drive!”

At this point, I was starting to realize that it was a mighty strange coincidence that BOTH the Swedish signs would be wrong AND Lisa’s phone would be off, so I pulled over to the next rest stop.  With bated breath  I checked my phone and realized that, rather than

Instead of being HERE….

We were HERE…

I felt ill

No idea* how we had ended up going the wrong way on the highway – FOR OVER AN HOUR, but there we were.  In Jonkoping.  3 MORE HOURS away from home.  In the pitch black.  In a torrential downpour.  With a toddler who had been perfect, but was now embarked on a 8hr road trip and was prone to car sickness.  With a baby who hadn’t been cuddled all day (due to the car seat) after not having been put down for the previous three weeks of her life. 

(*explanations I came up with over the next three hours - no direction signs on the highways (i.e. no North, South, East or West), not driving often so having no idea of the major cities and their geographies, blaming rain/darkness....so nothing great.  we are open to suggestions)

Luckily, as I said, everyone was really great about it.  When Grandma and Lisa went for a “we have 3 more hours in the car” bathroom trip, I had a heart to heart with Calvin and Lucy, and they took it well. Then we got going and Lis gave me a shoulder rub while mom worked on keeping everything in perspective.

So we drove, and drove and drove.  Calvin slept for a little bit more.  Then got sick a bit, but at that point it was just icing on the cake.  The good thing about all the signage being in kilometers, is that they drop a lot faster than miles, so you really felt like you were making progress.

I don’t know if it was my fiery internal rage-driven tunnel vision, the redbull I chugged, or the great company, but we made it home much quicker than I would have expected.  I’m not sure how Lisa was able to juggle both kids on the backseat for 8 HOURS, but she did fantastic.  And we did it all without anyone raising their voice once!

I’m not positive, but I think this might be even more impressive than delivering Lucy on the hallway floor….

An Accidental Homebirthing Experience - Lucy's story

"You know... not everything we do needs to be extraordinary..." Jonathan said this to me as he was loading me into the back of the ambulance outside of our house while I held our newly born daughter in my arms.

We never intended on having a home birth.  Our plan was always to head into the hospital as soon as my contractions were 5 minutes apart, lasting for 1 minute, for 1 hour (basically the 5-1-1 rule).  There are people who do plan on birthing at home and they have a midwife on call and a general plan for emergency back ups in case something goes wrong.  Some women seek out home births because they feel more comfortable in their familiar surroundings or because they want more control over the environment.  There are the rare occasions we all hear about where a woman doesn't make it to the hospital in time and has to give birth in the back of the car on the highway or in the back of an ambulance.  For most people, this is a "worst case scenario" and it freaks people out. Rightly so.  Not being in control of your situation can be a scary thing and most people have zero experience delivering babies.  Shockingly,  WE ended up being one of those families who didn't make it to the hospital, or even out our front door, because we underestimated well...everything.

A Father's Guide to Accidental Home Births - A Three Step Plan

After the crazy events of the past weekend, I realized that it would have really helped me to have read a guide on a father’s perspective during an accidental homebirth.  So, knowing I would feel guilty if anyone else ended up in the same predicament without me passing along my new knowledge, below are my simple steps to a perfect home birth -

1)      Let the mother do 99.99999999% of it with you having a supporting role at best (Lis nailed this part obviously)

2)      CATCH THE BABY

Do This

Not This

3)      Hand the baby back to it’s mother and now RUN. Run around in a panic like a maniac.  Call 911 (or 112 depending on your locale). Run upstairs, run downstairs, offer the mother bandaids and stuffed animals.  Run outside to look for the ambulance.  Run back inside without finding it.  Run upstairs again.  Take the dog outside to a neighbor’s – get distracted because you think you hear an ambulance and run back with the dog.  Check on the baby and mother.  Run back outside to actually drop the dog off.  Lose your shoes on the run back into the house. Meet the EMT’s and jump into the ambulance and ride off with your baby!

Mr. Midwife over here cutting the cord (now that that EMT's arrived)

Lis did a FANTASTIC job for that 99.99999999%

Congratulations dads– you’ve nailed it and now you can also begin to bask in all the glory. 

It's official - I was the named midwife / doctor  who delivered Lucy!

(ps - also, feel free to start believing you are now a doctor / midwife and bragging incessantly.)  

Toddler Bed Transition - the latest in parental punishment

Toddler beds look so cute, in theory.  Then, when you actually have to use them in practice, they look like parental torture devices.

We have/had a good sleeper for 2 years.  For the first 6-7 months of his life, Calvin fought sleeping hardcore and I was willing to go along with it because he was my "baby."  After 7 months of sleeping 3 hours/night and trying to nurse him back to sleep, I threw in the towel and we consulted books and the internet on how to convince our child that sleep was oh so sweet.  We did 8 nights of some exhausted derivative of "cry it out" and whatever happened,  transformed our horrible sleeper into a fantastic nap and sleep-lover.  Calvin would pull himself towards his crib at night, put his head down and say "night night!"  We would close the door and walk out. Easy peasy.  We did that for about 2 years.  And then...

...comes baby #2.  At some point, your toddler needs to leave the crib.  "But we are all so happy with him in the crib! He loves it and he sleeps so well!" pointed out my ever-observant husband.   Yeah, but you know what? I'm NOT buying another crib for our new baby when we have a perfectly good one sitting there and when we already have a toddler bed, sitting empty.  I wasn't about to put any pressure on Calvin to transition.  I was going to let it be up to him completely.   The baby can sleep in the bassinet for a few months, so Calvin would still have time after the baby arrived for his crib.  No pressure on anyone.  However, he did something I wasn't planning on and made the leap himself...

One night I asked him, "Calvin, do you want to sleep in the crib or the big boy bed in the other room?"  "Big boy bed!"  Ok...he chose this.  He wants this.  Or so I thought...

Flash forward 5 nights now and our previously simple routine of "night night!" and lights out, has turned into a re-do of the toddler version of crying it out.  It takes 1-1.5 hours to get him to go to sleep now, regardless of our method.  FORTUNATELY, and let me emphasize this greatly, he does NOT get out of his bed.  Most articles are how to keep your child in bed, but we don't have that issue.  We have the scream-for-hours-on-end issue.   I think the only reason why he doesn't get out is because Jon met him at the door when he opened it the FIRST time ever and that set the tone early on. Even still, the hours of crying are extremely difficult to endure.  And we aren't the only ones to struggle with toddler sleep.

So for now, we are rubbing his back, reading books in the dark in soft voices, putting on white noise AND a music box, (Edelweiss), and nothing seems to work.  The only thing that does work is letting him scream, "Momma momma momma!" for about 45 mins-1 hour and he is so exhausted that I can sit there with my hand on his back for 8 minutes and he passes out.  Again, he has to be exhausted and emotionally drained.  Everything else is not working.

Tips? Anyone?  We had hoped to only have one screaming child in our house at a time but it's looking like we may have two.  How long did it take your toddler to transition? TELL ME YOUR SECRETS!

Passport Update: Munich, Germany + Bavaria -- a surprise birthday adventure!

Once upon a time in a faraway land there was a tiny kingdom, peaceful, prosperous, and rich in romance and tradition."

Those are the opening words to the classic fairytale, Cinderella.  As a little girl, my "princess phase" lasted about 7 or 8 years before I discovered that wearing dresses in an upstate NY winter was neither comfortable nor practical.  After that point, I traded in my dresses for jeans and pursued bike riding, tree climbing and snow fort building with my brother in a vain attempt to win and keep his attention.  I was never super girly in high school or college and I'm still learning how to apply makeup in a semi-competent way.

First grade Halloween party, 1990

But sometimes, old, forgotten about wishes DO come true.  Dave and Joann were in town in April to celebrate Calvin's second birthday when another gift bag comes out of nowhere and Jon tells me to open it.  Inside was a Cinderella DVD and a card telling me to pack my bags because we were headed to the castle that inspired Walt Disney to create his own Cinderella castle.  What?!?! Really!?  I was floored!  I had added Neuschwanstein castle to my "hope to see it someday" bucket list a few years ago after one of my Facebook friends posted pictures of it to her profile.  It's a beautiful, if not crazily inspired, castle nestled within the Bavarian Alps in Germany.  Since it isn't the easiest place to get to, I figured that it was one of those places that I would just never get to see (sigh).  Not only had my wonderful husband planned an amazing trip, but we would get to travel toddler-free (i.e.,  much faster and easier).  Dave and Joann would get some great bonding time with Calvin and we would have a few romantic days to ourselves.  What a great surprise 30th birthday present!

We hopped on a quick plane ride to Munich and rented a car to set out for Bavaria.  Jon was the first to drive on the Autobahn and was a little nervous with the high speeds.  We haven't driven in over a year so getting behind the wheel again on a highway with competent, high performance drivers and vehicles, was a bit daunting.  

Stockholm's Endless Summer

Our first summer in Stockholm was cold, gray and rainy and had depressingly shifted to fall weather by the end of July.  We wore light fall-weather jackets pretty much every day or kept them in the bottom of the stroller "just in case."  This year has been a complete 180 in comparison and it has been magnificent!  We have thoroughly enjoyed 70-74F weather from end of May-present.  While our friends and family in the NE region have been complaining about heat waves and our Atlanta friends have seen record rainfall, we've been out enjoying the sunshine and beautiful weather.  I'm not going to lie - a slightly evil laugh bubbles up inside every time I see people complain about the weather on Facebook.  It's not often that we have weather superiority over our friends and family and I've been relishing every moment.

It's been gorgeous outside, which has made it great for me and Calvin during the day.  His dagis closed early June and his new dagis didn't start until September 8th, so we had a looong four months of full-time parenting.  It's great that he had the summer off and I love spending time with him, but he is demanding and requires a lot of different activities every day.  Fortunately he loves exploring the woods and with the weather in our favor, we were able to do lots of walking, swimming and playing at the playgrounds.

The beginnings of spring weather - April 20

Flower picking - May 26

Hot pool days in June!

July blueberry picking

August gorgeousness

We really took advantage of the entire season this year - as soon as it was marginally sunny and nice out, we were out and about.  Considering there was still snow on the ground in April, we really launched into spring and summer quickly and luckily the good times have lasted!

Three cheers to Stockholm's Endless Summer - may the beautiful weather last as long as possible!

Calvin and Daddy's Excellent Adventure

The child’s screams echoed throughout the airplane.  Passengers were giving each other looks that said “ wow, that parent can’t control their kid – what are they doing taking a toddler on a trans-atlantic airplane flight??”.  Flight attendants tried unsuccessfully to bribe the child with crayons and coloring books.  There was nothing they could do…

At the same time, I looked at Calvin, happily watching Ice Age on the in-seat screen and thought again of how lucky I had been so far and how good of a boy he had been.  I also reminded myself of the 4 as-yet-unseen matchbox cars I had hidden in my bag just in case I ended up in the same predicament.

And so began our 2 week trip to ‘merica!

Five things nobody will tell you - pregnancy the second time around

In the third trimester, it is often easy to complain about the physical aches and pains of pregnancy, but that's what everyone goes through.  I'm here to tell you about all of the things that people either DON'T tell you about pregnancy after you've already had a kid, (because they think you're a pro and you've been through it before) OR because you honestly don't hear what they say as you're too busy chasing after your toddler to let anything informative sink in.

I'm pretty sure when I was pregnant with Calvin, my manager at work said to me, "Enjoy putting your feet up at the end of each work day during this pregnancy, because it's the last pregnancy you will ever 'enjoy.'"  She had a point and was only hinting at some of the fun surprises I'd discover the second time around.


All that fatigue, nausea, and food aversion you experience in the first trimester, yeah those still happen only now you have a guaranteed 6am wake up call... your oldest child

It's true, I can admit it - I had it so easy with Calvin that I barely knew I was pregnant during the entire first trimester.  Go ahead and hate on me, I can take it.  It was easy the first time around but this second pregnancy I got walloped with 3 weeks of nausea followed by 3 months of food aversions.  The nausea was the worst (always is, right?) and there is nothing worse than bending over to pick up 33 toy cars off the floor and truly believing you are going to throw up at any moment.  Not only do you have to chase around your toddler while feeling completely gross, tired and sick, but then your favorite foods (like coffee) are completely ruined.  I couldn't drink coffee anymore - it tasted like soy sauce. Seriously?  I never experienced food aversions before -- it's no fun having all of your favorite foods immediately seem repulsive.

Your first child will step, jump, pounce and attack your belly

It's a good thing there is extra cushioning already built in (or building) to protect this baby because Calvin frequently decides it's fun to jump on me, like old times.  I was reassured by my midwife that the little one is completely safe inside, but it still freaks you out a bit when it happens.  I had to teach Calvin to be careful and to respect my new "state" and not deliberately climb on me.

The first-born still wants to be held, carried and cuddled

This one depends on the age span between pregnancies, but in general, if you have your kids close together in age, this will hold up.

When this new baby is born, Calvin and his sister will be 2.5 years apart.  That's a pretty healthy age span and means that Calvin is fairly independent and can do things on his own... for the most part.  Thankfully, he listens to instructions, but he still requires periodic carrying and demands lots of snuggling. After consistently refusing to ride in his stroller, I decided that a shoulder carry was my best non-stroller option as my belly was preventing my usual hip-carry hold.  I can't tell you the number of looks I received from strangers as they watched me trudge up the steep hill to my house with a 2 year old on my shoulders and my very pregnant belly sticking out.  

Second/third trimester kicks, rolls and jabs are now painful

I remember feeling Calvin's kicks and hiccups with fond memories.  "Oh, isn't that sweet? S/he is moving around again."  This time around, it is downright painful and uncomfortable 99% of the time.  "OH MY GOD! Is this a human being or a wild beast inside my belly?!?! Owwww! Get out from under my ribs!"   I'm not sure why or how, but this has been verified by other seasoned moms -- those lovely little kicks and punches you experienced with baby #1 are 5x more painful in subsequent pregnancies.

You care much much less

I mean this in the nicest way possible but it still has to be said.  Maybe this isn't something that nobody will tell you, but it is something that still caught be my surprise.  I'm not even really paying attention to this pregnancy.  I mean, I am -- I'm still taking weekly belly pictures -- but that's about it.  Thankfully my pregnancy app reminds me of each milestone because I'm too busy chasing Calvin, working or cleaning the house to think much about how large my baby's legs are or what her lungs are doing at the moment.  With pregnancy #1, I was enthralled in every detail. I read all of the books and watched informative documentaries.  The silver lining to already "neglecting" my second born in-utero, is that I'm much less stressed out. I'm not thinking about all of the things that could go wrong so I'm enjoying this in a different way.

...all that I've said above, I still have it pretty easy.  I'm very lucky that even though this pregnancy isn't as smooth sailing as my first, I don't have any major complications or issues.  Calvin is super independent and happy to play on his own, as long as I am watching ("Momma come! Come here Momma!'.  He has adjusted to me not carrying him as much as I used to (because I simply cannot do it) and he is getting excited to meet his baby sister.

I'm sure there will be many things that I will learn once the baby is born that nobody could prepare me for.  I am looking forward to see how our family dynamics change with the introduction of a new personality.  More fun times ahead!

The Liebster Award

Our blog has been nominated for the Liebster Award by Anna, who writes a super cute blog about being a parent and all of the wonderful things associated with new babies, The Baby Bump Diaries.  Thank you Anna for passing along this award in an effort to help people discover new blogs.

The Liebster Award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. So, what is a Liebster?  The meaning: Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome. Isn't that sweet? Blogging is about building a community and it's a great way to connect with other bloggers and help spread the word about newer bloggers/blogs.

Here are the rules for receiving the award:

1. Answer the 11 Liebster questions given to you by the nominee before you
2. Link back to the person who nominated you
3. Pick up to 11 bloggers with under 200 followers to nominate
4. Come up with 11 questions for your nominees to answer
5. Notify the nominees

Since Jon occasionally writes for this blog too so you get 2 answers for each question. Aren't y'all lucky?  I didn't let Jon see my answers to these questions so his answers aren't influenced AT ALL by mine.

Questions:

1. What has your favorite motherhood/fatherhood moment been (thus far)?
Lisa: Oh there are so many moments it is impossible to have just one favorite.  I will say that one of my

Gotland - the adventure continues

Visby, the City of Roses...and sheep

We have been to Gotland before, mostly Visby, with the Missildines last summer. It was one of the few places in the world where Jon and I both said, "We definitely want to come back here. It is just too beautiful to see only once."  So when the opportunity arose for Samantha and I to take a mini-vacation within her vacation, I suggested Gotland and she jumped at the chance.

Gotland is an island in the Baltic off of the eastern coast of Sweden and it takes about 3 hours by high speed ferry to get there.  You can book almost everything on the website destinationgotland.se and your whole trip will be covered -- transfers, ferry rides, rental car, hotel, etc.  If you are already in the Arlanda area, it might make sense to just book a flight directly.  Flights are about 40 mins long and start around $300 versus a 3 hour ferry ride around $150 including bus transfer.  Either way, it is a very nice vacation destination from Stockholm.

Gotland is rich in history and is considered to be the homeland of the Goths.  We rented a car and drove all around the island - checking out the various coasts and small towns from north to south.  We discovered the amazingly foreign looking chalk formations in Fårö and saw numerous windmill farms, stone ships, and lots of horses, sheep and cows.  Some towns are more industrial in nature and could/should be avoided (yes, I'm looking at you, Slite) if cement factories are not your idea of an ideal vacation destination.  However, for the most part, many of the small towns on Gotland had little roads to explore and beautiful sites to discover - all perfect for picnicking.

It is amazing to stand in front of a stone ship and realize that those stones were placed there by the vikings' ancestors 2,000-4,000 years ago. I mean, what else have you seen (or touched) that dates back to the Bronze Age?   There are over 350 stone ships on Gotland and we stumbled across 5 of them without really trying.  Not much is known about stone ships - other than they may be burial sites to equip the dead with everything they'll need on their journey to the underworld, but their actual function remains unconfirmed by archeologists.  It is still fun to stand there and ponder the reasons why these stones were placed there and to just marvel that they have lasted for so long in their original configurations.



Our day in Fårö was one of pure exploration.  We drove down this tiny gravel road along the Langhammar nature reserve and just stopped at every location that featured rauks or chalk formations (by erosion).  We stopped frequently to take pictures of these Ice Age stone monoliths.  The resulting landscape was strangely foreign and unique.  Bessie played the part of an adventurous mountain goat and loved running up and down these tiny cliffs.  The water was shallow in this area and was perfect for wading.

Ferry to Faro

Looks kind of like a face, right?

Bessie loved it!

 

We didn't spend much time in Visby - mostly because we were out and about exploring the entire island, but I did manage to take Sam "beyond the wall" and show her the beautiful entrance gate with reconstructed portcullis.

Personally, I always feel like a princess when walking around Visby and I let my imagination take over as I explore the medieval walled city.  It's not a UNESCO World Heritage Site for no reason - the place is beautiful and is well preserved. Afterwards, Sam did admit to feeling a bit like a character from Game of Thrones.  We both agreed that it would be the perfect place for a Renaissance Fair.  After doing some googling, it turns out that Visby DOES host a medieval week - or fair like no other August 4-11. We just missed it by a week! Who knew?? Maybe next time...

Both of my trips to Gotland were during the low season with very little tourists and I must say, I highly enjoyed having the entire city of Visby and island of Gotland to myself.  We bypassed the ferry lane that had Disney-line-like signs of, "The drive from this point to the ferry is 1.5 hours" since there were no other cars on the road.  We were spoiled and frequently stopped at beaches that were completely deserted.  We could let Bessie run free and explore as we wanted.

By far it was the most relaxing vacation I have had in a long time. We had no scheduled time or agenda for the entire 3.5 days there. I love Calvin to pieces but to be able to go back to sleep if I wanted was the most luxurious freedom ever.  Sam and I were able to completely unplug from our phones and computers and just focus on sitting on the beach and watching the waves.  I wouldn't trade one minute of it for anything and neither of us wanted to leave when it was time to head back on the ferry.

We were fortunate to have gorgeous weather (72F, sunny and breezy) and eek out some more true summer days at the end of the season.  Visby literally pulls in the flags and shuts down the last week in August and they made it clear the main tourist season was over. You can never replicate an experience twice in a row, but so far we have been 2 for 2 for unforgettable experiences in Gotland.  In my book, those odds are tough to beat.