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.

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.

Birka - Where the Swedish Vikings Began

Last year, for Jon's 30th birthday, I planned a nice weekend getaway to the mountains in Chattanooga.  We went hiking, ate steak and potatoes and had a relaxing time with 4 month old Calvin.  This year, I wanted to "Viking-it-up" a bit and give Jon a complete viking experience.  I baked a not-so-attractive Viking cake (nothing on Pinterest or Google was of any help), gave him a book that promises details on the "violent history of the vikings" and planned a day trip to Birka, Sweden's original Viking city (700-900 AD).

Like Swedes do, we watched the weather and tried to pick the best day possible for this trip.  We had heard that "there isn't much to Birka..." so we weren't expecting

Medieval times

When our friends from CA came to visit us, Eric and Erica, we were excited for some super fun medieval/viking fun.  Eric has been watching Game of Thrones on HBO and was super pumped to see some of the landscape in person.  Having never seen Game of Thrones, we were just excited to show Stockholm and some of the neighboring areas to our friends.

Eric and Erica are professional travelers and

A First Birthday for a Little Viking

I think he matched the picture dead on!

I had been brainstorming Calvin's first birthday party for what seemed like months.  I even blogged about it previously here and detailed out the decorations and various ideas.  Sweden doesn't have any "big box" stores like Toys R Us, Target, Walmart, etc, so finding decorations and simple things like paper plates and cups turned into a 4 week scavenger hunt around Stockholm.



To complete the viking theme, I needed some blue and yellow streamers, plates, and a Happy Birthday banner (in English).  We also needed to find appropriate viking helmets, swords and a dragon.

Super cute dragon and defensive gear

Jon wanted to make sure that Calvin wasn't the only viking in town, so we headed to Gamla Stan to find him an accompanying Viking t-shirt that was befitting a proud papa.  I think we were successful.

I did order the Knight's Castle Play Tent but we decided to make a venue switch at the last moment and hold the party at the nearby park since the weather was so beautiful (~50F and sunny).  It ended up being a good switch since the kids were able to take a nap in their strollers and Calvin was able to convince his Pepere to take him down the slide once or twice.

Cute castle that never left our living room

3 little vikings and their mammas

Slaying dragons is exhausting! 

Eyeballing the slide...

Alessandro was ready to party!

 The only real hiccup, if you can even call it that, was that Calvin decided to take a nap halfway through his own party.  This kind of ground the festivities to a halt as you can't cut the cake until the birthday boy has made his first birthday wish.  Some guests had to leave early as you can't wait forever for a one year old to wake up from his nap, but I made sure that everyone looked at the famous dragon cake before they left.

The cake came out better than I could have planned.  This was mostly due to the obligatory "practice" cake that Jon had requested earlier.  During Sam's visit, we scouted out all of the best Swedish candy substitutes for an American recipe and I had her smuggle in some Fruit Rollups for the dragon wings and flamed tongue.  Thankfully she thought ahead and also brought some food coloring or I would have had to conjure up a DIY food dye.  Joann was also on hand to help me frost the dragon which was really helpful since I had forgotten much of what I had learned from the first dragon.  *Note, the cut sides of the cake should face down on the plate to avoid getting crumbs in the frosting.*  It's things like this that you learn with practice.  Fortunately, I'll have many more birthdays to hone my skills.

It was a beautiful day and Calvin was ready to smash into some cake once he woke up from his nap.  He played with his buddy Alessandro for a while and then we all went home to play in the knight's castle.  I couldn't have asked for a more perfect party for my special boy.

Sigtuna -- a trip to a viking town

We have been exploring Stockholm and have actually ventured beyond the city limits and explored a few of the neighboring towns.  Mostly because we want to see more of Sweden but also because we are in the death spiral search for a "proper suburb" to live in post our corporate housing stint.  Our distaste for the suburbs mainly revolves around the necessity to drive EVERYWHERE.  We have really gotten used to walking to the grocery store every day, post office, etc.  We aren't worried about the restaurant scene since we don't really go out to eat anymore since Calvin is not only loud but enjoys throwing his food, so that's not a real consideration.

In our search for a non-suburb-non-Stockholm town, we found Sigtuna, a viking village!  This could be really promising!  Who wouldn't want to live in the oldest town in Sweden complete with rune stones from the 9th century!  Jon and I loaded up Calvin for the day and headed up north on the T-bana.  Take us as far north as you can T!  We went to the most northern stop and hopped on a bus to Sigtuna.  We got off the bus 30 long, Calvin-shriek filled minutes, onto a cobble stone street with 15 other tourists from Stockholm.  We looked around and sadly discovered that there wasn't much to see.  There was one street with cute buildings that was pedestrian only.  Being a Sunday, nothing was open except two cafes and the Sigtuna Museum.  Some of the bead shops looked cute but mostly quiet and slightly boring. (P.S. we went to Sigtuna on Feb 26th, not the date of this post).

Determined to make the most of our trip, we started exploring.  Sigtuna is situated on the northern part of beautiful Lake Mälaren (that spans down to Stockholm) and this part of the lake was still solidly frozen.  People were strapping on skates and skating on the plowed portions of the lake.  We saw a large group of people with backpacks on skating away.  It looked akin to a large hiking group heading out on a trail.  The sun was out which made the cold weather bearable as it was far below freezing.

Off on a skate on the lake

After enjoying the sun and the lake, we ventured towards the older viking ruins and churches built in the 16th century ("new" churches).  Since it was a viking town, most of the original buildings were destroyed by age, fire and other viking awesomeness.  Needless to say, it is still pretty neat to walk around buildings that were built hundreds of years before America was founded.

The Sigtuna Museum is not really worth visiting.  Aside from a few random viking artifacts and a reproduction of what the town looked like a few hundred years ago, it's really too small to capture your attention for longer than 10 minutes (and that included the time it took us to take off our coats).  The people were extremely nice and a woman in period costume practiced her English with me for a solid 12 minutes.  Of course, Calvin is always a conversation starter so we talked about him for a while.

We explored some of the old churches and ventured in where we could.  I kept having flashbacks to the movie Willow and expected a crow to fly over cawing a warning message that "they're coming, cawww, they're coming!" or something.  If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about.  It just had that cold, barren feel and still felt very much like a castle (even though it was a church).  I kept doing the crow's voice but Jon hadn't seen the movie and just thought I was acting weird again.

St Olofs Church ruin

St Pers church ruin

Checking out a rune stone

Warning: "Falling stones"

"Willoowwww!"

The viking rune stones were interesting -- mostly because the sign next to them provided a descriptive paragraph in Swedish and then one line in English saying, "This rune is hastily drawn and contains many misspellings."  Really?  That's what it says in Swedish too? I doubt it.  I really need to learn SWEDISH. AHH.

We spent some time in a nice cafe, enjoying an absolutely delicious meal of pasta and chili.  It was the perfect fix for a really cold day.  We finished the day walking by the lake again and Jon picked up some deep fried waffles and hot chocolate.  He ventured onto the very frozen lake "just to see" but freaked out a bit when it started crackling near the stairs.

It really was a beautiful day and despite it being a solid hour commute outside of Stockholm, we had a very fun time.  The lake was beautiful in the winter and I can only imagine how wonderful it is in the summer.  Its so nice to see people enjoying it regardless of the weather.  So many people in the States only venture out when the weather is "nice" and warm.  If the Swedes stayed inside all winter, they would need much larger houses.  Winter here is long but fortunately, most days, its also beautiful.

new sport -- ice sailing!

Planning a Viking Themed Birthday Party

Since we live in Sweden, we thought that a Viking themed 1st birthday for Calvin would be super fun.  There are tons of viking gifts and souvenirs in Gamla Stan so finding the right supplies shouldn't be too difficult.  This little cute hat is available at Etsy.

Calvin's birthday is also a very special time of year for the Swedes.  It is Walpurgis Eve and all of Sweden celebrates the coming of spring by lighting huge bonfires and singing.  Winter is really long and dark here, so the warmth and light of the fire takes the chill out of the night air.  Everyone has May 1st off from work as a national holiday and continue to celebrate the coming of spring and the King's birthday.

My sister-in-law gave me the great tip to check out blogs for 1st birthday themes.  However, either viking themed parties aren't that big or nobody blogs about them.  The few blogs I did find had great ideas for older kids (5-7 years) and not too much for babies.  I know that Calvin will just look and crawl around the house so there is no need to plan activities, but I can't help but get caught up in the glitz and glamor of planning his party.

For location, since it'll still be chilly out, I think we're going to host it at our house, clear out the living room of extraneous furniture and decorate the room with a Knight's Castle Play Tent, Inflatable 30-Inch Dragon,viking ship and blue and yellow streamers.

I also found this great website to make a fire breathing dragon cake.  The instructions look fairly easy and I might be a fool into thinking that I can actually do this.  I'll post pictures of my dragon cake when it's finished.  Naturally, Jon is insisting that we do 1-2 practice cakes first.  You don't want to attempt a dragon cake on the first go-round!  I'll also make a smaller cake for Calvin to smash!

Do we need utensils?  I don't think the vikings did!  If you have any other cute ideas, feel free to send them my way!