Getting into the swing of things...maybe?

Lucy is now 6 months old and I'm finally, finally, finally, starting to feel like we have a somewhat predictable rhythm. How come nobody told me that it would take 6 months to adjust to having 2 kids? Where was the warning? Come on, experienced moms, give a lady a heads up or something!

Within those 6 months, Jon was gone for a full 13 days and I was on my own - juggling both kids solo. It was actually quite nice, believe it or not. It turns out that I mostly do all of it on my own anyway as Jon gets home after their bedtime. There was also less laundry to do since I didn't really change my outfits all that often and there wasn't another adult generating a mess (or expecting a real meal).

Some things I learned while on my own:

• Nobody judges you for eating a dinner of chicken nuggets and french fries - seriously, why make 2 separate dinners?
• You can go to bed at 8:30pm or as soon as the kids are down
• Going to the bathroom with the door open is a requirement
• You really can balance two kids on your lap in the rocking chair

The only thing I really missed was a truly reciprocal adult conversation in the evenings and an extra hand in the mornings. Calvin is famous for leaving my questions unanswered or if he does respond, it is often nonsensical or just "good" to every question.

Me: Calvin, are you hungry?
Calvin: Good
Me: Do you want a peanut butter sandwich?
Calvin: Good

I only ran into a few snags where I seriously wish I could clone myself. For instance, Lucy would be nursing herself back down to sleep around 5:30am and I would hear Calvin shouting, "Mama, can you hear me? Mama, can you HEAR ME?!?" with increasing intensity and volume. This happened almost every morning. So, I'd get Lucy back asleep and slowly sneak out of bed to go in and cuddle Calvin for another hour.

Before Jon left, he hypothesized that I would finish the wine we had in the fridge. Uhh, I didn't need to touch the stuff but I did drink ALL of the COFFEE. I drank a coffee press pot (4 cups) a day and zero glasses of wine. No bedtime was "too early" for me and I frequently crashed out at 9pm.

In honor of all of the single moms and married moms with partners who travel, I raise my 3x reheated mug of coffee to you in honor of your hard work. It's not easy doing it solo but you do get 100% of the cuddles in return.

Top 10 Technologies for ex-pats

We have a lot of folks moving abroad for short or long stints, so I figured I would finally put up this blog that I had written 90% of 2 years ago…..

1)      VPN – ESSENTIAL to pretend you are still in the states – really enables a lot of the other things on this list (google voice, Netflix, hulu, SEC football game of the week, etc)

2)      Skype – One of the hardest part of this move was taking Calvin away from all of his family.  While it hasn’t been a perfect replacement obviously, we have been able to have regularly scheduled video calls with both of our parents, and have also had video calls with a number of friends, aunts/uncles, siblings and all four sets of our grandparents.  Being able to see folks regularly (and have them see Calvin and us) is great – both for us and for them (if I may make some assumptions)

3)      Google Voice – When we aren’t able to set up a full skype-date, we can randomly call our ‘merican peoples.  When I was working on a project a year ago, I had put $10 on my Gmail calling account.  Once we got out here, we realized that it was only $0.01 per minute for calling home.  So whether its surprising our grandparents with a call to their cell phone, or calling some buddies after I’ve had my drink on for a bit (and they are having a late lunch), its nice to be able to make an improvised phone call.

4)      Google Maps – We still use maps – but street signs aren’t always the most visible things in the world, and there isn’t a big blue arrow constantly updating itself like it is on my phone.   We had an off-site the other week and afterwards my boss tried to give me directions on how to get home – instead of listening to him, I just pulled up my map and started telling him what my options were.  And then when Lis and I start exploring and get completely lost – we can always find ourselves pretty quickly.

5)      Google Translate – I get forwarded a lot of emails, receive a lot of mail and look at a lot of forms – all in Swedish. 

6)      Google Chrome – translates things automatically for you!

7)      Hulu/Netflix/amazon video/HBO to go – especially with the vpn, its like you never left

8)      Viber  – once you convince folks to download it, you text like you would if you lived 5 minutes away from each other.  Just turn it to silent at night….

9)      Twitter – keeps me up to date on basic US news

10)  NFL Gamepass / MLB package / SEC game of the week – most if not all major sports have ex-pat packages now that you can ONLY access if you are out of the country.  Not exactly going to the sports bar down the street, but you don’t NEED to miss a game if you plan a head a bit

An Extremely Difficult Task: Letting Go

We all have something we should let go of, don't we? Some thing or activity that just adds one extra thing to our plate. It could be letting go of the clutter, the waste, the schtuff. Whatever it is, it has this death grip on you and you just can't...let...go. It causes undue stress in the background of your life and you don't even realize how much it weighs you down until you release it and feel yourself immensely relieved.

I let something go yesterday. Even though it wasn't huge, it had reduced me to a scary mascara teary mess at 9pm last night. It was a work project that had been requiring 2+ hours of my time everyday for the past 6 weeks. I rejoined the project when Lucy was 3 months old after returning from my maternity leave thinking I could balance it all.

I CAN DO IT ALL! I AM WONDER WOMAN! And I did do it all at first, but then work was really starting to impact my quality time with Lucy. I am a Mom who Works from Home and I put those words in that order specifically. I am not a Working at Home Mother (mother being last). My children come before my work. That was a decision I made back in October 2011 when we decided to move to Sweden to accomplish just this.

I don't like not being focused on my work or my children and I felt as if I couldn't focus on either. If I'm in my kids' world, I want to play with them and breathe them in. They change so quickly that it's impossible to hold onto anything they do for very long.

At work I want to be a professional and provide high quality work - which I felt was suffering greatly due to my divided and diluted attention. So I didn't quit my job entirely, but I removed an unnecessary chunk off my plate. I let it go. I allowed myself to admit that not being a part of this phase of this particular project wasn't the end of the world. I don't have to do it ALL. Life was getting too hectic. I needed to simplify. 

Letting go was difficult for me because I had to admit that I was afraid of not being included and not being relevant to the team. I felt I had to prove my value and my worth immediately upon returning from maternity leave. But it wasn't the right move at the right time. I was the square peg jamming myself into the round hole and it just wasn't working.

After conversations with my colleagues and my boss, they were all extremely supportive and understanding. It made me wonder why I hadn't come to this realization sooner. Why was I willingly allowing myself to become so stressed by this?

The answer: I feel privileged to be able to work from home and had accepted that I have to work long hours at night to compensate for such flexibility. I was thinking, "Well, at least I get to see her during the day," instead of, "This really isn't what I want for my life right now. This isn't working."

I'm not perfect and I'm open to self-improvement. I will take this as a lesson learned to evaluate my work-life balance regularly and make decisions based on reality instead of some made-up compromise that I MUST endure. I know that I will continue to struggle with letting go but I'm on my way towards making better decisions with my family in mind.

Basically, more of this:

Been there, done that - the joy of experienced parenting

When Calvin was born, I experienced all of the typical first time mom worries.  I was concerned with leaving him with someone else whenever I had to go to work. I tracked his physical and mental development and stressed about reaching milestones.  I wasn't particularly high strung - I'm still a fairly laid back parent - but that nagging sense of "am I doing it right?" was always on my mind.

Now that I've "been there and done that," my experience with Lucy is completely different.  I am even more relaxed with her than I was with Calvin.  Lucy isn't rolling over? That's ok. She will eventually.  "Is she eating enough?"  That question has actually NEVER even crossed my mind.  The absolute freedom from all of the worry I had with Calvin is extremely liberating. I learned that whatever I did with Calvin didn't damage him in the slightest, so I'm OK. Kids are plastic and resilient. It is difficult to do anything too wrong at this point. This is the warm fuzzy time when they can just be babies.

It is an absolute joy experiencing parenthood the first time around. Everything is new and fascinating and even though things aren't "new" with Lucy, it is almost even more enjoyable because I can relax and let her set the pace for her own development.  I know she will eventually sleep through the night just like Calvin did and she will discover the world in her own way.  I know what is coming - the belly laughs, crawling and walking. The nonstop movement that keeps me on my toes and on high alert for falling books and toys.  There is no need to rush into all of that because it'll all be here in two blinks.

Part of the great part about having multiple children is that I am still experiencing the "newness" with Calvin while simultaneously relaxing in my experienced parenting bliss with Lucy.  I am still learning how to coax him into eating more protein and begging him to sit on the potty.  I am still blindly figuring it all out with him as he paves the way into unexplored toddlerhood territory.

Most surprising of all, is that I get to watch them experience life together as siblings. Calvin adores Lucy.  He must kiss and hug her goodnight as part of his bedtime routine. It warms my heart to see them together and to watch them bond so early on.

So for now, I'm going to take a lesson from what Lucy has taught me and I won't stress anymore about whether he will be potty trained this summer or next. It'll happen eventually, just like everything always does. I'm just going to relax with my cup of coffee and watch Lucy sleep.

The Snow Globe Effect

Last Christmas, Mother Sweden pulled out all of the stops and gave us a lot of snow that created the perfect magic to get everyone into the Christmas spirit.  It was lucky that my parents were there to experience the beauty themselves.  The snow hanging on the branches of the trees made it feel like we were walking in a snow globe that had just been lightly shaken and all of the glittery snowflakes had just settled down again.  The woods were quiet except for the crunching of our boots. We kept marveling at how beautiful it was and I called it the "Snow Globe Effect."

This Christmas we had weather that was rainy and consistently in the 40s and gave us the overall blah feeling.  Though the weather didn't help put us in the Christmas spirit, Stockholm still dresses up for the occasion and we hit up the Christmas markets and the NK store windows.

So, here we are in January and we finally, finally, have snow in Stockholm that is suitable for sledding.  Yesterday as I was walking Calvin to school, these huge flakes started falling and I just sighed and thought, "here's the snow globe feeling I've been waiting for!"  Calvin looked at me and says confusedly, "It's Christmas? It's not Christmas..."  No, it's not Christmas but it finally feels like it.  Hope you can enjoy the snow globe effect where you are this winter!