Kitty’s Place

We are home from Finland and settled back to an almost normal routine. This has been a nice vacation.

We were up at 5 am on Tuesday morning and headed to Stockholm to get onto the cruise ship. We went with Viking Lines on the Isabella. It was an 11 hour cruise that went from Stockholm to Mariehemn (Åland)to Åbo(Finland). We got a cabin (B2P) so there was somewhere to wind down for the kidlet. He loved the cruise but for him the best part was putting coins in the slot machines and winning. *laugh*

Once we docked we made our way to the Ramada in Turku. We crashed for the night and were up early for breakfast. The food on the ship was ok but the food at the hotel was just wonderful.

We caught the bus to Moominworld about 0920. The kidlet was just excited to be on a bus that had Moomin painted on it and did not really understand we were going to see Moomin for real. Moomin is a children’s book/comic/video/cartoon character from stories written by a finnish author. We have a video that the kidlet watches almost daily and he is often heard humming the theme song under his breath throughout the day. So imagine his shock when we saw the first life size, moving, Moomin character called Hemulen. Kidlet stood transfixed and his eyes got big. He could not even move and began to motion with one little finger for the Moomin to come to him. Finally he began to run and threw his arms around Hemulen. This was repeated for Moomintroll, Moominmama and Moominpapa. The day there was just delightful. It is organized in a way that little kids can get around the entire park without being totally worn out. We even made the boat trip across to Adventure Island. We got back to the hotel about 1700 and turned on the tv only to see the sad news that Tove Jansson, the creator of Moomin had died. Dinner at the hotel was great and then we hit the hay again.

We were up for an early breakfast and back on board a cruise ship bound for home at 0845. We came back on the Amorella. We were pretty much drained but the kidlet was wound up like a top. He ran and played and just had kid fun. We followed at a slower pace, tax free shopped and tried to keep up. By the time we got back to Stockholm and then drove home, it was another long day. The kidlet fell asleep in the car and his dad carried him in and popped him in bed, where he stayed without moving till morning.

So the traveling part of our vacation is over for another year. We are likely going to go to Stockholm tomorrow and then will try to make it to the Canada Day picnic in Solna on Sunday. We are looking at getting a new computer and will check it out tomorrow as well. It is back to work Monday for my SO and it will also be his first day at the new job.

Right now though it is time to go to bed and try to get caught up. *laugh* Vacations really are fun.

I want to get my hands on the children’s book of rules. Curiosity makes me wonder if there is one of these and what it includes.

Is there a rule that sick kids have to come to mom’s side of the bed to throw up on her? One that says if they crawl into bed at 4 am it is mandatory to then sleep crossways so mom and dad are hugging the edge of the queen size bed? Most of all is there a rule in there that says all things must be blamed on Mjau? *laugh*

This morning the kidlet woke me up with kisses. He came to tell me something that dad had said to him. Of course all I got from the story was “pappa said …..”. He was a bear last night and refused to go to bed. Finally he fell asleep in the big chair, snuggled with his dad, about 11 pm. I figured he would be horrid this morning but he was a sweetheart instead.

Breakfast time …. “hunnybunny, will you ask dad if he wants bacon and eggs please”. Sound of little feet running to the bedroom and an incredibly loud voice from such a little fellow “PAPPA, MAMMA SAYS …..” I go and ask him myself and while I am in the bedroom I hear a chair being dragged across the kitchen floor. The kidlet is up at the counter ready to cook. First we put on the coffee. Kidlet wants to put the coffee into the filter without first putting filter in coffee maker. Then he picks out a demispoon to measure said coffee. We choose a larger spoon and he starts to measure. First spoon is heaping, second has two grains of coffee and so it goes. At one point he turns around to see what the cat is doing and spills a spoonful of coffee onto the counter and floor. He looks at mom and then the cat and says in a stern voice “Mjau, babble babble …” Poor cat is clueless to why she is being scolded.

Coffee is brewing, bacon is cooking and now it is time to make eggs. Kidlet has already picked up two eggs and banged them on the counter causing the inevitable cracking of them. So we start with those and mom shows kidlet how to crack eggs and pour into bowl. As she is doing this she knows that one morning next week he is going to get out of bed early and do this on his own, on the floor. *laugh*

Eggs cooking and table being set. Kidlet, who has a great sense of humour at 2 1/2, puts out the cutlery but instead of putting at knife and fork at each place, he sets the table for 6 by putting one utensil at each place, giggling in delight the entire time he is doing it.

Breakfast was a wonderful meal needless to say. *smile* Kidlet was thrilled that he cooked it and pointed it out more than once. So even if there are rules in that book that make mom crazy, they are balanced out by the ones that make mom laugh and thank the powers that be that we have this kidlet to make our life complete.

Friday was midsommarafton and Saturday was midsommardagen. I read somewhere recently that the reason for this particularly swedish way of arranging holidays is that if you celebrate the occasion the evening before the actual day, then you have the day to recuperate. *smile* That makes sense.

We celebrated midsommar in a basically traditional way. We went to Sigtuna, the oldest town in Sweden, to see them raising the maypole. We stayed to watch the dancing and singing around the maypole until the kidlet got bored and then had a long leisurely walk around Sigtuna. It is a lovely town and I enjoy wandering there. We were with my sambo’s family and after our long walk we headed back to their home for dinner.

Dinner included the traditional herring, potatoes, sour cream and chives. In addition we had barbecued ham steak and salmon steaks. Dessert of course was fresh strawberries and whipped cream (with ice cream too). Since they do not drink in this family there was not the traditional schnapps (sp?). Once we were home though and the kidlet had been settled into bed for the night we had a glass of champagne.

Midsommardagen was a quiet one. I did laundry and my sambo went out and picked up our tickets for our trip to Finland next week. Other than that we stayed home and had a quiet family day. Those are always nice.

We are home from our trip to Sundsvall. It was fun. We left here Tuesday morning after packing food, clothes, dog and kidlet into the car. It is about 350 km north of where we live and it took about 6 hours to get there. We stop often with the kidlet as he gets bored on long car trips. We had lunch at Gävle then the rest of the stops were at rest stops that had places for the kidlet to play.

We stayed at a place called Bergeforsparkens Camping for two nights. Nice cabin, clean and quiet and about 15 minutes drive from where we were planning on doing the “tourist” thing. *laugh* We arrived there for dinner Tuesday and after unpacking and eating we wandered about and let the kidlet run and play.

Wednesday we went into Sundsvall in the morning and spent the day admiring old buildings, wandering the museum, gazing on old churches and even checking out some summer homes for sale. We went from the city centre to the IKANO complex, the largest shopping mall in northern Sweden. I am not a real shopper but it was fun there since we avoided clothing stores and such and focused on places that the kidlet would enjoy. He was really quite good. We had lunch at a cafe in the Kulturmagasinet and he chatted to people and generally had a good time being sociable. After shopping we went out for dinner outside Timra and then went back to the cottage to relax.

Thursday morning we were up early and packed up again. We headed back to Sundsvall and spent some time on Norra Berget (north hill). There were walking trails, a small petting zoo and lots of old buildings to look at. We left from there and headed south, stopping in a rest area to eat lunch. Then we made a side trip to look at one of the summer homes we had checked out at the real estate office. That was a lovely little jaunt. It reminded me very much of the area around Avoca, the place in Quebec that mom came from and where we used to go in the summers. With all our stops and detours, the trip home took about 8 hours. I think that was the best part. *smile* Much as it is fun to travel, I love being home.

This weekend is midsummer and next week we will be doing more vacation stuff. If it stays sunny, I will be so tanned. Ok .. ok, I will be so red and peeling. *laugh* All in all it has been a good first week of vacation and I am looking forward to the rest of it.

Just taking a break from cleaning. It is a rainy Sunday and my SO and the kidlet have gone to visit with farmor and farfar. It is so much easier to clean with the kidlet out from underfoot. He likes to help and does things like knock over the bucket of water trying to get the mop wet or dismantles the vacuum cleaner and we end up with dust and dirt all over again. I love having him about but when it is time to do a real deep down cleaning, just me and a good CD are the best combination.

Was thinking today about a recent incident. People here are more open about asking questions that people in Canada would think but not ever ask. When we had the business there was a customer who we saw often. I knew he was curious about our relationship but he never said a word until the day I said if he came with some papers and we were not open, he could leave them in our home mailbox since we lived upstairs. It was like a signal and he burst out with “So you ARE a couple, I have been wondering!” *laugh* Here people have no qualms about asking personal questions. We were out in a social setting and one of the people there kept looking back and forth at the two of us. Finally he just asked how old I was. I quipped “old”. So he asked what old was, since he was 45 and I looked like I was close to that age. *laugh* I said I was 43 (I have never had any age issues .. so far *smile*). Then he asked how old was my sambo and when I said 24, he said he thought he was about that age. He also asked how long we had been a couple and if our son was ours together. At first I found those types of questions very intrusive, but now I have been asked those same thing so many times I just answer them. It isn’t as if they don’t offer the same info back. I have been told about how old people are, what education they have, how many children, what type of relationship they are in. I even had a woman ask me why I had waited until 40 to have our son … had there been medical problems or did I just put career first.

It seemed odd at first that people who are pegged as reserved would be so blunt. But as I get to know people here I realize that while they are reserved, they are also more often comfortable in themselves and because of that they feel others are too. So what my cultural upbringing sees as intrusive, they just see as being interested in another person. What a fun world we live in, where there are constantly new things to learn and understand.

Break time is over … back to the cleaning. *grin*

We have a day of sunshine. I wonder if this is the day of summer in Sweden. *laugh*

It is such a treat to be the normal happy me again. We were up early (although I slept through the alarm and barely got breakfast ready before the working man had to leave) and out into the sun. Spent the bulk of the morning at öppna förskolan. The kidlet has made a new friend, a little 4 year old boy. They ran, played “tennis” and had great fun, since we had an outside day today. His mom and I have had short little conversations so far, in swedish. She seems like a nice lady.

When we got home there was a card in the mail to let me know there was a parcel waiting at the post office. I love packages! This was some used books I bought from a woman through a mailing list for people looking for english reading material here in Sweden. At last it is beginning to look like I live here, there are books. *smile*

We should have shopped today for a birthday gift for T, but the kidlet had had enough by the time lunch was over. So we watched Mumin (yet again) and played with his puzzles and then he had a nap. I have part of the gift already and we can get the rest tomorrow. We will skip playgroup and go shopping instead. He will be thrilled since that means a trip on the bus.

The sun and warm weather was a wonderful surprise. We have been out twice with the dog for long strolls just so we could bask in the sun.

Just one more day of work for my sambo and then he is on vacation for two weeks. I am looking forward to him taking the kidlet off for a few hours so I can do things like clean the outside of the windows and scrub under furniture that normally does not get moved. In theory it sounds good to be at home, you can clean every day and keep ahead of things. In practice, as fast as I clean in one room, the kidlet is messing in another. So I can’t even attempt large cleaning tasks with him about.

We have been discussing a couple of days away and then doing day trips to see local things that I haven’t yet. Stockholm is one place I have not seen. Have made a few train trips to specific destinations but have yet to sightsee there. It will be great fun to see more of Sweden and write it here.

That is the kidlet’s favourite phrase. He is constantly asking but can never say what it is he is looking for, when asked he will just spread his hands apart, look bewildered and repeat the phrase.

This morning I am wondering the same. Where is the sun? Yesterday it was out in full blinding splendor but today it is hiding.

I had a headache that would just not quit. It started last Thursday and just plagued my days, one of those pre-migraine things. When I woke up yesterday it had progressed to migraine. Unfortunately for me it was the day I was to make the trip to Stockholm and get started with my little part time cleaning job. So out into the sunlight with these photo sensitive eyes squinting. It took 2 hours door to door. Bus - train - subway. The kidlet loved the trip.

We got to the place we were going and by then the headache was full blown. We walked through what the job entailed, checked cleaning supplies and made a trip out to get what was needed to complete the stocking of the cleaning cart. All those years as an RN working night shift are paying off, since we were the cleaners too on night shift, I know about all that stuff. *laugh* I did some of the cleaning as well and gave them all the info they need for their records. My SO’s uncle was the person I was dealing with since the woman in charge was on vacation.

He was the person who got to entertain the kidlet while I was cleaning and he enjoyed that. This family just love the kidlet to pieces and I have no qualms leaving him with any of them for a few hours. In the future I will do the cleaning on weekends though and the kidlet will stay home with dad. After I had been there about 3 1/2 hours he came out and said he was leaving and would drive us home.

So into the car and off home. I was feeling a wreck and wondered if I would live to get home. He dropped us off and I managed to get into the house and coat off before I was sick. It took 3 tries to keep down some Gravol but finally it started to work. I threw together food, literally and then managed to eat a bit before I went to bed. Thank goodness my SO did not work late. I could not have managed the mother thing any longer than I did.

Once I was in bed the kidlet came in and read me a story. He is too funny. His dad came in too and stayed a few minutes until the pills finally let me get to sleep. 12 hours later I woke to a a dull ache behind my eyes and a horridly messy apartment to clean. The headache has thankfully gone and I hope that it will not return for a year or two. *laugh*

I have been investigated in the past for this and they are just migraines. Luckily they are rare and I think this one was brought on by stress. We have 2 weeks vacation when my SO finishes work Friday and I think it will do us all good.

My what a depressing journal entry. There are good parts in though. I have a job now, the kidlet got a train trip and today is a new, albeit unsunny, day. So off to tackle the mess that has accumulated over the past couple of days and then to school for summer school SFI.

It was a very uneventful weekend. Day four with a monster headache and I am fed up with it. I think it is just plain stress related but knowing that has not made it go away. *smile*

Have done mega thinking over the weekend. My Ibo’s mom called on Thursday night after they dropped the kidlet home. She wanted to know if I had spoken to A about the medical course in the fall. I said yes but I had decided I will not take it because I don’t want to put the kidlet in day care. She said that I should phone and find out how much daycare would cost and when I could get him in for half days then. She also pointed out that since I will be starting my cleaning job, that money could be used towards daycare. I had spent the bulk of Thursday in tears over my dad and was not in any mood or shape to argue. So I said sure I would phone, that half days might not be too bad, that yes I need to learn swedish more quickly.

I have thought about this ever since. If I am going to put the kidlet in daycare then I think it would be better to move back to Canada and do it there. Why pay out for daycare here when the most I get out of it is to learn the language more quickly? If I am going to give up spending time with my child when he is little, I would be better off to be doing it in my own country where I can work and make much more money at my profession than I ever will make here in Sweden.

Of course I won’t do that. I can’t take him away from his dad. It was ok when the kidlet was 3 months old and his dad came back to Sweden for work and we ended up being apart 15 months before we got here. Then he was too little to miss his dad. Now it would be a disaster. Just the 4 weeks we were in Canada on vacation, the kidlet started waking in the night and getting up to search for his dad. So I can’t separate them.

So there will be no daycare and I will continue with the evening class once a week. If other people are unhappy with this .. so be it. This is my decision. Ibo has left it up to me and I have decided once and for all. Maybe in another year when the kidlet is older I will feel differently about daycare. For now I am going to continue being a mom on a full time basis and enjoy every minute of it.

We had a very nice time last night. I first went to class and from there walked to the bar and met up with the group.

In class we learned to sing Sweden’s National song, since it was the National day. That was rather nice although I likely will never remember the words. I still get confused when I sing O Canada. *laugh* We had cake with our coffee and nice goodbyes to the teachers. Just two summer school classes next week and then I am on my own until August.

I had no idea where the bar was but I did know it was close to the bank. So when I got to the bank I called my SO and got further directions (yes me, who could never see the sense of cell phones, now use mine regularly). I actually got to the door as I hung up, so finding it was no problem but do you think I could find the group when I got inside? Nope. I looked around and around and was getting flustered when I heard a *meow meow* and there they all were at the table just inside the door where I would have tripped over them if I had stepped in any further. *laugh* I am sure they thought I was a dunce and who knows what they thought of the fact that meowing is what got my attention. *laugh* Well, if your name is Kitty … you learn to respond to that.

Anyway they were a very nice group. Friendly and funny. They spoke swedish among themselves and english to me. I tried to follow the conversation but as the evening wore on and everyone kind of paired off conversationally (there were 9 of us), I just got overwhelmed with all that swedish input. *smile* As long as they were talking computers I could kind of keep up and when they were discussing learning to drive and the road test, I had no problems. But then they got talking politics and I was lost. In time I will get that too though. I was raised to be politically aware and informed and have been slowly learning how the system works here.

I was surprised that most all of the music was songs in english and lots of 70’s stuff. It was a nice distraction when my head got to spinning over all the swedish. I actually spoke some swedish and was understood .. that was a nice bonus. If I can speak more often to strangers in swedish then maybe it won’t be so difficult to speak it with family here. It is all a confidence thing at this point.

About 2300 I looked out the window and saw it was getting to look like twilight and was again amazed at the long days here. We left soon after that and walked home. It was fun and I hope we can go out again like this.

It was very strange this morning to wake up without the kidlet here. I called about 0900 and he and farfar were going out to do yardwork, so I have had a quiet morning with no interruptions while cleaning. Quite a change from the usual “MAMMA” that I hear at regular intervals all day here. *smile*

This afternoon farfar called to let me know that they were having a fun day. Had been to the mall and McDonalds as well as doing the yardwork. As much as I miss having the kidlet here, I am glad he is spending time with his paternal grandfather. I have fond memories of the time I spent with my grandparents. Since the kidlet will likely have only vague memories of my dad and was not even thought of when my mom died, I really want him to build up those childhood memories with farmor and farfar.

We are going out tonight! That makes this a red letter day. *smile*

It is Sweden’s National Day today (Flag Day). The kidlet and I manufactured a nice paper flag at öppna förskolan this morning. It was fun and he especially loved the gluing part. I have a feeling he would have been a paste eater if he had gone to school back in those old days. *laugh*

When my sambo comes home from work we will drop off said kidlet at farmor och farfar’s, where he will be spending the night. I will get dropped off at school since this is our last night of regular SFI until August. From there we will meet up with a group of my SO’s friends and do some bar hopping.

Where I come from, couples have common friends and rarely go out without each other. Here in Sweden it is the norm to have your own group of friends and there is not much mixing between them and family. This group are people who my sambo has worked with in his two previous jobs and they get together 4 or 5 times a year. It has just been unfortunate timing that has led to the fact that this is the first time I will actually get to go along after 15 months here in Sweden.

We were supposed to go together with the group on a cruise at Easter. But my dad was failing so quickly that I decided to book my trip home early and consequently was not able to go on the cruise. I was beginning to think it was never going to happen that we would get out as a couple with them. So when my sambo said Monday that they were going to be going out tonight I was thrilled. Of course I am not good in social situations where there a large number of people and the fact that I still have a limited vocabulary of swedish, makes this a bit scary. But I still think it is going to be great fun and since I have not been out to a bar here either, it will be exciting and new as well.