As you might have guessed, my silence this last week has been due to the fact that the baby has arrived! In fact, she came just a few hours after I published my last post.
Family
Alternative (and Free) Souvenir Ideas
Slipping away to some exotic or culturally rich location for a vacation is wonderful; bringing home souvenirs from that vacation, which jog travel memories and help the vacation last longer in your mind, is also wonderful. But that doesn’t mean you have to stop at those kitschy, overstuffed bric-a-brac shops and pony up for some mass-produced (and questionably…
Some Pics From Our Trip to Spain
And we’re back! We had such a lovely time in Spain, and now it feels great to be home again. Spain was just what we needed: a break from the dark winter. We got so much sunshine and warmth (except in Granada), and I felt an infusion of energy. I got so much exercise walking everywhere…
A Trick to Making Vacation More Pleasurable
Last winter we went to Portugal for a month. We stayed in a lovely town outside of Lisbon and we found a Swedish school, where we sent August a couple days per week. Some days James and I took turns taking care of the boys so that the other could put in a few hours of work (I…
The Third Trimester of My Third Pregnancy in My (Late) Thirties
(Nota bene: the pictures in this post have almost nothing to do with the content. This is mostly because my husband refuses to take pictures of me, also because I find selfies to be too self-aggrandizing to bother taking any, and because it’s winter in Sweden and the light is shit.) I’m just over 32 weeks into this…
Merry Christmas, and Some Thoughts On Gift Giving
Merry Christmas everyone! How are you celebrating? I hope you’ll be surrounded by loved ones with a tummy full of tasty food. Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, we’re celebrating the traditional Swedish way with our neighbors. In Sweden, Christmas is celebrate on Christmas Eve, julafton. (Our neighbor told me that when she was a girl, she felt so sad for all…
The Underachieving Mom’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide for Tiny Human Boys
This is my first-ever attempt at a gift guide, and I’ll be honest: it’s pretty basic. There are a couple reasons for this: 1) you know your kid better than I do, so you probably know what s/he likes better than I do, so who am I to give advice?; and 2) listing a bunch of stuff…
The Fox and the Bear: Telling Stories
You know how some people, when they hear “tell me a story”, can rattle one off instantly? With no preparation, no outline, nothing? I am definitely not one of those people. When August asked me recently to tell him a story, I had no idea where to begin (or end). I stammered and said, “I don’t…
Happy 4th Birthday, August!
Today my sweet, hilarious, moody, ridiculous, beloved boy August turns 4. When I dropped him off at dagis this morning, most of the other kids and the teachers came to him saying grattis and congratulations. He was enveloped in hugs, and then he lavished dozens and dozens of kisses upon me. What a way to start…
Maternity Leave in Sweden vs the US
In my first post about having kids in Sweden, I laid out the basic benefits of having babies in Sweden: generous parental leave; chances for social connection while home with a baby; affordable, high-quality daycare, and more. Now, I want to lay out a theory I’m developing about the benefits of the generous parental leave policy.