Tagged: offspring

13
Jun
2013

ANOTHER (SCHOOL) YEAR GONE

I can’t even look at my children sometimes without boggling. They’re both taller than I am and it’s happened so fast. Martin will be 16 in December. I just asked him how old he was and when he gave me a very sarcastic, “I’m FIFTEEN”, I said, “That can’t be right.” Time flies, yes, it does. They both had their last day of school yesterday and when I said I was probably going to go to Martin’s if they were at the same time, Karin got all upset and said no one loved her. So I was relieved to find...

09
Dec
2012

BIRTHDAY BOY

Friday was Martin’s birthday…his fifteenth. Normally I don’t think of 15 as being any sort of “special” birthday…it’s just another year past 14. It’s not the first time he’s in double digits or the first teen or a legal milestone like 18 or 21. But here in Sweden it’s both the age of consent and the age of criminal responsibility, meaning that 15-year-olds are old enough to have sex and also to be punished for any crimes they might commit, though I’m not sure if the punishments are equal in severity to what a legal adult might receive. Martin called...

15
Nov
2012

DARK DAYS

I’m feeling the lack of light these days; after nearly 16 years here perhaps I shouldn’t rule out the very real possibility of seasonal affective disorder, though I still manage to peel myself out of bed each morning when the alarm rings. Even with the clock bumped back an hour recently, the constant cloud cover means that it’s dark in the morning when I rise and dark already in the early evening when I leave the office. I’m not depressed, just a bit down. Today when I drove home from work, after picking up Martin at school, we took the...

04
Nov
2012

WRITIN’ SOMETHIN’

So much for NaBloPoMo this year…it’s already the fourth and there’s no way I’ll manage now, especially with going to London for 3 days this week. What’s on my mind lately? So much disjointed stuff, that I really feel as if I have no control over anything. Work has been so completely crazy that I can’t decide if I’m more relieved or stressed to be gone for 3 days this week. Last week, since the kids were on fall break, and I didn’t have to drive anyone home from school, I ended up working late every night. Thursday I worked...

24
May
2012

SUDDENLY, SUMMER

Suddenly, it’s summer. Nearly a week of it so far and no end in sight that I’ve heard…and don’t tell me if so; I’m loving this seemingly endless sunshine. Suddenly, the grass is long and rippling along the roadsides, the white flat wheels of Queen’s Anne Lace have bloomed and every other bush and tree sports lilacs in every shade of ecstasy: white, lavender, pink, purple. The chestnut candles are glowing, white and pearly pink. The starry lupine leaves have sprouted and the flowering stalks are rising and calling: summer, summer, summer! If I could slow it down, I would....

12
Apr
2012

AT LEAST I DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT GIVING THE BIRDS & BEES TALK

We have been watching Season 1 of Game of Thrones on Swedish TV, and it’s on at 10 p.m. on Wednesday nights. I read all the books (except the latest, which I JUST got) ages ago, and remembered very sketchily what happens. I was all excited to watch it and I figured the kids would like it too, because well, the books were really good and they both like fantasy stories and it’s quite engaging what with all the interesting characters and what not…and why in the world would they put this acclaimed series on at 10 p.m.?! Crazy. It’s...

26
Dec
2011

WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

One thing that I love to do when giving gifts is to shock the recipient into speechlessness. It’s not very easy to do, and it takes a lot of hard work and observation and sometimes sheer audacity and unexpectedness. Anders and I have done a pretty good job of it the past few years when it’s come to the kids’ Christmas gifts. But with a gift they NEVER expected, from parents who have always said, “No way, save your money, those are too expensive,” we managed to shock the both of them into complete speechlessness this year. Everything else they...

30
Nov
2011

OUR MOM

Someone suggested that Martin and Karin write an Our Mom post like the ones I did about them. I will plan on doing one about Anders sometime, but he’s a lot more private than I am so I have to check with him first. 🙂 So, here is My Martin and My Karin about ME! —– Our mom is very weird 🙂 Our mom is veeery *cough* funny 🙂 Our mom embarrasses us by singing when our friends are here. Our mom is loving and caring, most of the time… 😉 Our mom wishes Karin would play Wordfeud with her...

16
Nov
2011

ROLE MODELING

I’ve been going through a million bazillion CDs of photos from the past million bazillion years for a couple of projects I’m in the middle of and I’m not even halfway done, but I found these 2 today and they made me laugh: We have a family tradition of rabbit ears and moose antlers behind people’s heads in photos (which my mom HATES), but I sure missed the placement on this one! 😀

12
Nov
2011

FINE FEATHERS

Why is it every time I take my kids to the mall with a specific purpose in mind…this time: Father’s Day gifts and a baptism present, I end up spending 3x what I planned on because I get hijacked by things my kids suddenly remember that they need? Only this time, it was ME suddenly remembering that if we needed a baptism gift, that meant we were going to be at a baptism. A formal event. In a church. Where I would be winning Mother of the Year awards along with the disapproving glances shot my way, engendered by the...

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