Veronica and Sven’s Baby Diary

Christmas is over and, boy, wasn’t it eventful.  We were all set for everyone to come over to our house, food was organized and the house was clean.  Then, on Christmas Eve, Sven and I both came down with gastro… again :(  We must have been very, very bad last year to get given gastro for Christmas.  So after a crap-tacular night of a special kind of festivities and very little sleep (especially after having to get up to crying children three times too) we were convinced to still have Christmas at our house.  In the morning, Simon and Holly had a ball opening up all their presents from us and Santa.  Well, Holly had fun once she worked out how to get it started, and Simon had fun playing with the paper and various bits of boxes.  Then Guy, Anita, my Mum, Klas and Sheila come around for lunch and the rest of the day. 

Since Christmas we’ve been trying to get our act together to go camping.  We went out and bought a tent and a whole bunch of camping supplies.  We’d planned on going up to Fraser Island but since there’s currently a cyclone watch in the area and they’re evacuating all campers off the island it’s probably not the place for us after all.  Sven thinks that it’s the perfect time to go though since there’ll be plenty of free campsites.  So, at this stage, we’re aiming to go somewhere (not sure where yet) around the end of January. 

To be sure we’d have enough room for both children and all our junk, the tent we bought is about as big as small house.  I’m not kidding.  It’s got three rooms plus an enclosed annex.  Since we hadn’t actually seen it popped up (only similar ones, but not the actual one we bought) I wanted to make sure we could put it together and that it was what we were after before we actually set off on our trip.  So, without much hesitation on my part, I started setting up the tent in the dining room inside the house (since it was raining outside).  I unrolled it then started with the Holy Crap!’s as I realised just how big it was… right before I realised I’d only unrolled half of it!  After I had spent probably an hour trying to get it manoeuvred in the dining room to fit, moving furniature that was getting in the way and banging poles into the wall (while Simon ‘helped’), I gave up, rolled it back up and took it downstairs.  It filled our entire back patio area diagonally.  That said though, I was able to pop it up (mostly) by myself and pack it away again all within an hour.

Here are some pics although they’re taken with a funny lens so they’re a bit distorted.

Yippee!  We’re all on holidays now for the Christmas/New Year period.  We’re planning on spending lots of time doing lots of things and getting out and about.  Today we spent the day out at King Island at Cleaveland where there’s this cool sand bar that you can walk on and that leads out to a little island during low tides.  We took along Sven’s old surf ski and bought Holly a life jacket and set out trying to paddle in the extremely low water (it was heading towards low tide when we arrived) with Holly balanced on top and refusing to go in the water.  Sven managed to make it a good distance across to part of the sand bar but I was no where near as well balanced (having not had much practice before) and kept getting wobbled around by the tidal currents under the surf ski.  It was a lovely morning and lots of fun.

Simon is continuing to grow at a rapid pace.  He’s into size 1 clothing already and is horrifying me daily by the fact he seems determined to walk soon.  He’s managing to pull him self up on various things until  he’s standing and, if the object isn’t bolted down, he’ll push it across the room walking.  It’s ever so slow at this stage but that’s only a matter of time.  He’s not quite at the stage of standing unsupported yet either but I don’t think that’s far off either as he’s been letting go more and more often so he’s obviously getting confident.

I’ve been back at work now for 3 months and I certainly feel settled back in.  I’m supposed to be working 3 days a week but I’ve been working 4 in the lead up to a major milestone on the project that we had last week.  I’m not sure whether now’s the time to go back 4 days permanently or not yet since I miss the children terribly and feel like I never get to play with them anymore.  I’m lucky that I’ve been kept so busy at work that I don’t really have time to worry about them while I’m there.

 Oh!  And last week Holly participated in her first Christmas concert.  She got up on stage with all the other children from her class at daycare and sang carols.  She was so adorable!  I was so amazed at how great she really was - she knew the words and hand actions and wasn’t phased by the mass of people watching her.  Here are a couple of snaps, including one of Holly and her friend Isaac (he’s completely besotted by Holly but she doesn’t seem overly interested in being anything more than friends).

For the very first time since Sven and I were married we have a Christmas tree!  Last night we all helped decorate it - Holly was very good at fetching the decorations to be hung but didn’t want to do it herself, and Simon was very good at picking up any ornaments we happened to drop.  It’s lovely to sit here with the twinkling Christmas lights for company

This morning while Holly and Simon were still having fun with the decorations I made a few videos for you all, so here they are.

Hooray, we finally have an awning on Simon’s bedroom window!

And while I’m putting up photos, here’s one of Holly on the phone to Mummy during breakfast this morning

Simon and I were rejected by daycare!  I was just on my way out, after dropping Holly and Simon off on Tuesday morning, when the centre director came running out after me.  I’d mentioned that Simon was a bit off his bottle, and had supplied some Bonjela for an apparent “blister” on his tongue.  It turns out that another baby in Simon’s group had had hand-foot-and-mouth disease (not related to Foot and Mouth Disease, let me just say), so I took Simon off home and had Veronica book us in to the doctor.

It seems that our poor little Simon does indeed have a mild case of HFAMD, and has been off his bottle (though Veronica had success coating the teat with Bonjela first!), but more than happy to wolf down his solid foods.  Oh well, there’s no treatment other than Baby Panadol, local anaesthetics, and sympathy, so we’ll just have to wait for him to feel a bit better.

Fast asleep! Yes, it is possible to have Holly sit still for thirty seconds - just wait until she’s asleep

I’ve just asked Holly what I should write about Simon.  Our conversation follows:

Who is Simon?

Holly’s his sister, I’m his sister, Daddy! 

So if you’re his sister, what is he to you?

He’s my brother!

I see!  Can you tell me some more about Simon please?

He’s growing… he’s growing into a big boy.  Daddy, you are a big boy too, and Simon is a little boy.  Simon Jasper Abrahamsson.  Siiiimon.  Jass  Perr.  Ayyyyyy Braaaaaa Hammmm Sommmm. 

Abrahamsson?

AbrahamSSOM!

AbrahamSSON?

Abrahamsson! 

… some dinner discussion removed…

Would you like to say anything about Mummy?

She’s Jasper Abrahamsson!  That’s Simon’s name.

So, what’s Mummy’s name?

She’s Veronica Maree Abrahamsson! 

And what’s your name, Holly?

Holly Juniper Maree Abrahamsson!

As of this morning, Simon can crawl quickly!  Last night, it would still have taken him ten minutes to cross the room.  This morning, he was doing it in about ten seconds!  I would write more, but Holly needs more food, and my laptop battery is about dead - I’ll have to add some comments later!

Here’s a moment for you that is absolutely priceless. 

Sven and I were ushering Holly off to bed when she decided to pack away her books all by herself before bed.  So we watched and patiently waited while she gathered her three heaviest and largest books into a single pile, then somehow carried them over to the bookcase and stowed them away.  Sven was so impressed that he picked her up, cuddled her close and said something along the lines of “That was wonderful Holly! You’re such a sweet, sweet girl!”…. which was immediately followed by Holly doing a GIANT burp right into his ear.  Hahahaha!  :)  We both tried not to laugh and Sven handed Holly over to me after he finished his cuddle, at which point she said to me proudly “That was a big burp, wasn’t it?!”

She certainly takes after my side of the family.

Yes, miracles do occur: this week we’re finally finished with the bathroom!  Hooray!!!!!!! 

Just to remind you what it looked like before (the green-walled one was when we first moved in before I painted it):

And after:

We’re so very, very happy with the new bathroom.  It’s actually a little scary to look back at the original photos and think of the horrible tiles ripping at your knees.  The new one is lovely to be in, especially the shower.  While we didn’t do anything to change the layout it seems as though there’s so much more space.  The bath and vanity are both narrower and the shower is bigger.  Overall it’s become a happy place in the house.

Next on the agenda is to get the front sliding doors fixed/replaced, and to get an awning for the window in Simon’s room as his room is getting to 30 degrees with the curtains closed and fans on some afternoons. 

In other news, I’m back at work now.  Just part-time for the moment, with 4 days in the next few months after we find our groove.  Maybe some time later I’ll go back full-time but I don’t think there’s much hurry and I like having at least one day at home with the children.  Holly and Simon have taken to my return to work with no problems.  They’re both still going to daycare two days and Sven’s Mum, Sheila, looks after them on the other day.  Work has been really easy to get back in to.  In a lot of ways it’s like I haven’t been gone.  I’m digging a massive hole for myself by giving myself lots of work but I’d rather be busy and productive than bored with nothing to do there.  Most of the people that I used to chat to all day have moved on too, and I’m sitting away from the rest of my team but I’m really enjoying the company of my new colleagues.

On that note, here are some happy snaps from over the weekend when Holly and Simon’s great-grandparents (Marty’s parents) came to visit.

Holly is getting much better at identifying emotions.  She’s frequently asking “Are you sad, Mummy?” and we’ve taught her to say “I’m frustrated!” when she’s having trouble with something and is on the verge of having a tanty (sometimes it works, other times we have to remind her).  Anyway, Sven decided to see if she could pull the appropriate face for an emotion and here is what we got…

“Show us your happy face”:

“Show us your sad face”:

“Show us your scared face”:

The last one cracked us both up when she first did it.  She wasn’t holding anything at the time and she pretended to bite her nails on both hands and go “oooooh!”  I have no idea who taught it to her but it wasn’t either of us :)  So cute!

In other news, the bathroom is all but finished.  We’re using it for baths now but we’re waiting for me to finish painting the ceiling, door and door frame before we can have showers (don’t want to steam up the room too much).  The builder only has to put some kind of face plate in front of the doorways so they look nicer and put the handles on the vanity and we’re all done!  I can barely believe it. 

Oh yeah, turned out the vanity didn’t come with any handles so I had to go back to the annoying bathroom shop and get some more.  They didn’t have any in stock so they had to order more in (despite the fact I thought I was staring at, at least, two dozen of them on vanities on display).  Got them home and found they’d only given us ten screws for the eight handles and, not only that, they were the wrong length anyway.  Now we’ve got a further problem that we’re having trouble finding screws that fit so that’s why we’re leaving it for the builder to work out

Only two weeks left until I have to go back to work.  Please refer back to the “Show us your sad face” photo above.

And here’s a cute pic of Simon (please note the stack of blocks in mid-air to his left - good timing).

Today Holly had her very first swimming lesson!  It was very exciting and Holly was really good.  I was a bit unsure about how she’d go as she kicks up such a stink at times trying to give her a bath or shower (she doesn’t like getting her face wet).  But when it came time to do it and everyone else was doing it too she went ahead and stuck her face in the water and blew bubbles.  She even walked across a floating mat and jumped into the water for me to catch her!  It was so inspiring I looked into having classes myself but alas they’re a bit too expensive for us at the moment.

Holly’s just starting into a new phase, something I’m sure anyone who’s come across small children will be familiar with, the “why?” phase.  Suddenly she’s asking “why are you doing that Mummy?” about things that we’ve done everyday for ages.  Unfortunatley, she loves getting an answer so she asks the same question over and over.  Heehee

Simon’s going really well.  He’s 6 months old now and, during our quick holiday up to Cairns the other week, popped out another tooth.  He also has started daycare on Tuesday of last week and the girls there all love him.  He smiled all day and went to sleep with no problems.  When he woke up after his morning sleep they didn’t know who it was because he hadn’t cried until that point.  And yesterday when I took him in for his 6-month vaccinations the doctor didn’t even bother to weigh or measure him, he just said “I have NO concern about his growth” heehee

The bathroom renovations are still moving at a snail’s pace.  I’ve started painting the ceiling and door frames (only the top coats to go) but we’re still waiting on the builder to come back and fix a few things and put the doors back on.  I gave up waiting for everything to be finished though and once the plumbing and electricals were finished I quickly cleaned up the bathroom as best I could and gave the children A BATH!!!!  How exciting!  We can’t have a shower ourselves yet until two days after I’ve finished painting (so the anti-mould paint can set properly).

I’ll post up some photos once I’ve finished painting… they’re not to different to the last ones Sven posted.