Happiness

Luca is generous with his food. He often shares with you the food he just put into his mouth. Notice the red mark on his cheek? Of course, he was painting minutes ago.

The sun is enticing and the wind is mild. Both kids seem to have rested well. Perfect time for an outing.

Because of cold weather, most horses in the neighborhood are kept indoor. But we do see five or six horses. They are more curious about us than we about them - they run over to check on us, sticking their heads over the fence to get a better scrutiny.

"Come in, please!"

What is farfar doing with his magical hat?

"Luca, do you know that farfar made this car for me three years ago? I was sitting in it just like what you're doing right now."
"Really? That's so cool. But can I share your cheerios first? They're so yummy."

First time since we arrived that Luca sits on Farfar's lap.

Malin demonstrates her fantastic training skills with Lucas.

Is farfar thinking about buying the tractor on the newspaper ad? He looks awfully interested in it.

Bravo, Malin!

Art contest: whose cat is the best?

First prize goes to....what do you think?


Artist 1: Farfar

Artist 2: Farmor

Artist 3: Maya

A new day, windy day

Luca gets up at 5am, ready to play. He opens all the kitchen cabinet doors he can reach and checks what's inside. He feeds Felix the cheese and ham he just chewed in his own mouth. Felix is a peculiar cat and he eats cheese, broccoli, and other vegetables. In the past two days, he has grown very fond of Maya and Luca and often follows them around.

As soon as Maya gets up, the house is full of activities and noises. Though Luca sometimes gets frustrated with Maya because she often grabs toys from him, he truly loves his big sister and loves playing with her - no, he's not a follower; he has his own way to play. By 8am, Luca is tired and being put to bed, while Maya goes outside to play with the swing that was set up yesterday. It's quite windy, which makes it seem colder than it actually is. After Luca gets up three hours later, we go out for a walk. But it's so windy that we turn around pretty soon. It's beautiful outside. Trees are budding, little name-unknown wild flowers, most white and purple, are blossoming here and there (they're not everywhere, unlike the summertime), red houses hide behind trees, the newly-plowed fields, with dark, rich soil, promise a productive year ahead.

For dinner, we have meatloaf, potatoes, and vegetables. Farmor is a fantastic chef, as always.

P.S. Mommy is quite jet lagged - actually, not so much from the flying than from Luca's messed-up sleeping.

The second day in Sweden

We have a busy day today.

Maya doesn't get up until almost 10am, which is good because she didn't go to bed until 11pm the night before. She was very excited to see Farfar, Farmor and Malin again, and ate three servings of bolognese at dinner. After dinner, she walked Lucas with Malin and played with Philex, the most friendly cat among the four. Luca slept fairly okay, considering that he barely slept during the flight. He woke up crying several times through the night but after mommy sang his favorite songs to him he fell back to sleep. He gets up at 7am, his usual wake-up time. He's quite grumpy in the beginning, because, I guess, he's still tired and is a bit confused about his whereabouts. But after I take him out for a walk, he is happy. In the past one or two years, Farfar and Farmor have gotten rid of their two horses, the chicken and the geese, and the three pet pigs died, so the farm is less farm-ish than before. Still, Lucas and the four cats keep Maya and Luca busy. 

After a quick lunch, we set up the swing outside the barn. Maya and Luca have a lot of fun running around and playing with the cats. Hopefully the weather will be warmer from now on so we can be outdoor longer. Then Farmar and Farmor have to go to a car service appointment.  After Farfar and farmor are back, Farmor, Maya, Luca and I take a long walk in the neighborhood. Luca sits in the stroller, dressed with three fleece jackets - the weather is much colder than I thought - and wrapped with a blanket, looking like a Britto. Usually he hates to wear a lot of clothes, but this time he doesn't object, though he still refuses to wear a hat. 

Dinner is salmon with white rice. Very tasty. I ask farfar for recipe so I can make it at home. After dinner, farfar goes to the attic and takes down quite a few toys that daddy and malin used to play when they were kids. A rocking horse, small-piece legos, an RV, puzzles and card games. 

Finally both kids fall sleep, after a lot of playing and a long bath.

Flying to Sweden

At 5:45pm on Sat, we embarked on the SAS flight to Copenhagen. 10 hours and 40 minutes direct didn't sound too bad except that Luca barely slept. He fidgeted with the remote control for the entertainment system, he walked up and down the aisles, he stood on the armrest and played peek-a-boo with everyone, he ate (finished three fruit pouches, his newly-found favorite, on one go on one occasion) and drank often...but, of course, he was tired. It was not until daddy made a tent for him with the red blanket that was given to each passenger that he lied down, and not until mommy massaged his tummy and feet for at least 45 minutes that he drifted into sleep. But not for long, even that he occupied two seats by himself - mommy's and maya's. As soon as he woke up, he was like a monkey again. Honestly, I felt a bit sorry for the guy, a very quiet and good-natured man, sitting next to us because Luca kept staring at him like he was a novelty, and kept hitting his elbow during his playing. It was only that much I could do to make Luca behave. But over all, Luca did amazingly. He was happy 95% of the time. Though we regretted that we didn't buy a seat for him - it was too late to get a seat for him when we wanted to do so because the plane was completely full - we weren't sure that it would have helped. Would he sit nicely in the car seat? Would he sleep in it? We doubt. He's that kind of kids who want to be in the center of activities and who don't want to miss a second of fun.

As for Maya, she was easy. She watched the Dinosaur Train dad had bought for her on iPad, she ate the Chinese snacks mommy had bought for her, she did several drawings on her Hello Kitty notebook, she, for half an hour, managed to cosleep with Luca on the two seats peacefully until Luca kicked her off (she didn't complain; she just rubbed her sleepy eyes and went to dad, who sat at the row behind, and for the following couple of hours, she slept on daddy's lap.) She was an angel.

Farfar picked us up at the airport. Farmor was in Rome and wouldn't be back until 21st. Luca fell asleep in the car before we reached the bridge between Copenhagen and malmo, and was still sleeping when we arrived at Farfar and Farmor's house. Daddy wrapped him with a blanket - it was cold, probably 8 or 9 degree - and carried him to the crib farfar and farmor had prepared for him. So nice to see him sleeping peacefully.

How Luca cries

Maya rarely cried when she was at Luca's age. Almost never. She smiled and smiled, and still smiled. The moment she opened her eyes, the moment before she fell asleep.

Luca definitely has more tears stored in his body. When he wakes up, he usually cries - for your attention only because as soon as you appear he stops crying and he would hand you his pacifier as a way to tell you that he's ready to go out and play. If he is really mad or hurt, he cries loud and hard. His whole body tenses, his eyes tightly shut, tears stream down like raindrops.


This photo was taken after Maya took Luca's water bottle and ran away.

Luca is sick

After a week-long fever/coughing, Maya finally went back to school on Tuesday. When I dropped her at school, her friends, especially Ethan B and Vivian, were really happy to see her back, all screaming with joy, "Maya", "Maya". She was like a star. :)

But now Luca is sick. Actually he started to have a running nose on Sunday, the day after daddy left for Europe. On Tuesday, he was coughing a lot. For two nights, he slept poorly, turning and tossing in his crib, bouncing up and down, shaking the crib frames, crying. Both Maya and Luca slept in his room, too, because as soon as Maya knew I was in Luca's room, she would come over. Once I carried Luca out of the crib, trying to calm him down, but it turned out to be a bad idea. He did stop crying, but instead kicked and crawled around, pulled Maya's hair (Maya, of course, cried.) It was messy. Maya covered herself up with a blanket at some point. Amazingly, she fell asleep. It wasn't until daybreak that Luca drifted into sleep -- and that was when I got a little sleep.

Meanwhile Luca is also teething. Teething always bothers him more than what it did to Maya when she was at his age. His cheeks are red from his saliva. The cream hasn't helped much.

For the past several nights, I gave both kids a bath in the evening, hoping to clear up their noses. It's so intense and exhausting (both the kids love water, so there's always a lot of screaming, splashing, toy throwing, etc) that afterwards I had to sit on the floor in Luca's room to regain my breath.

Luca is much better today and falls asleep fairly fast.  Hopefully he'll have a good night of sleep. And hopefully I'll get a good night of sleep myself.

I think about parenthood and motherhood quite a bit these days, and I have new respect for single parents and parents with kids with special needs. There's certain truth in the saying that there are only two kinds of people in the world: those with kids and those without. Parenthood teaches to be humble -- there's so much you don't know and there're so many other parents who have to do so much more --and to be patient. It also teaches you to be kind and generous to your spouse/partner. A lot of times, it's nobody's fault; you're both trying your best and you're both just tired. So don't get angry because the house is messy or dirty dishes have piled up or toys are everywhere. The kids are safe, happy and healthy, that's the most important.

There were moments that I was frustrated and raised my voice ( I have to admit that I did raise my voice quite a lot this week). There were also moments that I had both of them on my lap, reading and singing to them. Nothing has taught me more than being a mom.