Tagged: offspring

24
Oct
2011

MARVELOUS CARVERS

How many more years will I get to enjoy this part of Halloween WITH my kids? Martin is nearly 14, Karin 12…time flies so fast and when I look back at all the years of jack o’lanterns I can’t help but hope there are still a lot more in our future. This was the first time that I handed everything to the kids: spoons, knives, bags, ideas and let them have at it. I helped out with the hard parts and stuck knives and tiny teeth cuts here and there but mostly they did it all from start to finish....

04
Jul
2011

AMERICAN STYLE

Yesterday, we were all-American…even those of us who don’t come from the United States. We had our annual Independence Day BBQ hosted by the AWC at a lovely location on the shore of Ringsjön (a member’s home). Thanks to the high level of moisture content in the air, Barky had a great time playing Humidity Hair From Hell plus I had a red red nose (from the allergy-treatment aftermath (so no photos of me, ahem). There were hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill and watermelon slices and red/white/blue berry desserts, but alas, I didn’t have time to make deviled eggs...

23
May
2011

CAPTURED

There’s nothing nicer than going for a walk in May. The lilacs are blooming, the lupines are blooming, the rapeseed is glowing. The weedy edges of the meadows are leggy and exploding; and wisps float on the sunshine-filled air. A blackbird trills ahead of us; a hedge is filled with sparrows fluttering and busily rustling. Beech hedges shine in the sunlight and everyone we meet is smiling. A new neighbor’s brand-new puppy gambols in the dandelions. At first, the kids didn’t really want to go for the walk, but they warmed up to the idea. 🙂 Do I HAVE to...

21
May
2011

RAPTURE

I think I’m blessed as a mother. It’s a pleasure to me, most of the time, to be around my children, to look at them and to hear what they have to say. As someone who, as a young woman, never particularly wanted children, and was pretty miserable through pregnancy, it’s sometimes boggling to me to look upon my progeny and realize how lucky I am. They’re beautiful. Both physically and mentally. They’re well-proportioned, sleek of skin and formed just right. They’re healthy and strong and their eyes shine, their teeth are straight and everything functions just as it should....

18
Apr
2011

MY WORK HERE IS DONE

We have been asked to cat-sit for our across-the-street neighbors this weekend, but due to allergies and preference we will be taking care of the cats in their house instead of bringing them over to ours. Cats seem to be much more place-sensitive when it comes to this kind of thing; dogs, it seems, are more particular to people. It’s embarrassing to admit I can’t remember the wife’s name. She’s really nice, and I know her husband is named Håkan and her little boy is named Jonathan. The cats are named Nadja and Alice and they are simply lovely, and...

30
Jan
2011

IF YOU PAY PEANUTS, YOU GET MONKEYS*

Karin is obsessed with earning money right now…she wants to earn enough for a Playstation 3, which we’ve refused to buy, since we already have a Wii and PC games galore and they each have DS to boot. We had a Playstation 2, bought used from a friend of ours, for awhile 2 years ago, until it broke, but I already feel like the kids spend enough time playing games on the various screens in the house (including their phones) and don’t see the need for yet another game console. A couple of years ago, we decided it was time...

24
Aug
2010

IN WHICH BAD THINGS ARE MADE UP FOR BY GOOD THINGS

This has been kind of a stressful week…it’s week 2 of 3 of Anders being gone. So far, I’ve had to deal with my son’s Xtreme After-Party Vomit Splatterpalooza in the middle of the night on Saturday (too much cake & excitement, apparently, as I know he wasn’t sneaking the Slushie Margaritas) and my daughter’s spillage of Compound W ALL OVER THE MIDDLE of the living room chair. AAGH. On the plus side I’m inordinately proud of myself: first because I didn’t throw up as well during the horrendous clean-up aftermath and second because I didn’t strangle Karin, especially since...

14
Aug
2010

STARS & (ZIGZAGGY) STRIPES

Two days ago we had a rattle-bang thunderstorm come and sit on our heads right as evening was falling. Karin is scared of thunder, though I think part of it is just attention-getting, and I keep trying to coax her out of it, because thunderstorms are, mostly, awesome (in the true sense of the word), even when they’re frightening. The thunder kept rumbling and the lightning kept flashing up around the house like an enormous strobe light. Karin and I got blankets and went out on the porch. We moved the two chairs together, facing each other, and then she...

05
Aug
2010

THE KIDS OF SUMMER

Martin’s eyes squinch up when he smiles so that they nearly disappear; mine do the same thing. I must have taken a dozen shots of them from one side and the other and I couldn’t get any of him with his eyes open and smiling simultaneously. This is the summer when Martin suddenly shot up and caught up to me in height; he’ll have passed me before the equinox. This is the summer when my feet became the smallest in the family. The summer when Martin’s voice dropped an octave and Karin started putting her hair up with barrettes and...

25
Apr
2010

NO ENTERTAINMENT IS SO CHEAP AS READING; NOR ANY PLEASURE SO LASTING*

When the kids were little, we read to them nearly every night, as part of the bedtime routine. Sometimes Anders would read to them both, sometimes I would, and sometimes each of us would be reading to one child. They picked the books, from the several shelves of picture books we had: English books sent to us from my mom, birthday present books, much-loved and somewhat battered copies from my own collection of children’s books, and Swedish books purchased monthly from the 2 mail-order book clubs we belonged to then: Go’Boken and Bonniers Barnbokklubb. Most of the latter are long-gone...

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