We ate nothing but eggs, so mama's makin some changes

On a completely unrelated note, iTunes is causing me some hormone imbalance. And despite Chris from Apple being overly responsive and well worded,  I am still annoyed and problem is still a problem. Here universe take that.

The reason why as a mother you have to become OCD is this focus on food and what you are feeding your kids. I have no idea how much time I spend thinking about what crap my kids have eaten and then guilting myself over providing it for them and not teaching them to eat QUINOA. Then there is all these celebrity chefs slamming your head about obesity and the importance of healthy eating and then on top of dealing with the crap at work you have to dish yourself crap, because YAH,  frozen pizza has seven spoons of salt, or sugar or whatever preservative in it. Throw into the mix two birthday parties two weekends in a row, where baking occupied the scarce free time, and not only have you not provided reasonable dinners but you also did not spend as much time with kids and your moods have been frantic and you got yourself a killer of a guilt trip.

Even though, you baked some kick ass rainbow cake, which no one ended up eating, mainly because ratio of sugar to rest of the ingredients combined was like 100:1, plus all the food colouring is screaming chemical shitstorm. Who cares about that rainbow cake with six layers, look at my stunning little pumpkin! FOUR YEARS OLD. How did that happen? Oh and the matching cake necklace - BEYOND COOL!

Back to balanced meals. Inability to make a decision on what to have for dinner is also a factor here, so by the time you actually make a decision, cooking it is OUT OF THE QUESTION because ehm, going to the store for ingredients with two hungry and tired kids is worst than the guilt trips I seem to go on regularly. 

And then all of a sudden they started eating... like REAL food, so lack of proper dinner on the table made me feel like I miss out on this narrow opportunity to get some vitamins into them. All of the sudden the palettes are opened to all sorts of crunchy items. Well, OK maybe not ALL sorts but I keep getting surprised that my miss white-carb-and- food-colouring queen and the little mischief heavily following his sisters footsteps start eatingfresh cucumbers and red peppers...and wait for it teeny weeny CORNICHONS...THAT*S PICKLES -  and she refuses to taste mini macaroni because they are not spaghetti. Don't try to reason...lets just focus on the pickles PEOPLE.  

Anyhow, then there was this article someone sent me about reducing the number of decisions you make, since decisions are like physical energy that needs to be conserved during the course of each day. So you need to routinize yourself in order to become better at EVERYTHING, or whatever. Any strategy to eliminating daily decision making over family meals and unleashing my inner OCD freak out is welcome, and taaa-daaaaa, I made a MONTHLY MENU.

From now until end of next month the plan is for our family to have home made dinners, served with deconstruced salads and all...Because  try and push your luck to mix sliced cucumbers and red peppers in the same bowl...touching each other...woman you know our stance on macaroni vs spaghetti. Don't push your luck!

Weekdays are based on short half hour meals or if it takes slightly longer prep can be done the night before, weekends have allowed more elaborate dinners, even as far as planned deserts.  Not only that, shopping list have been made week by week, with a deadline for purchase date in order to stick to the plan.

I may even surprise myself by sticking to the plan. And then I will save all the decision making energy on, I dunno being better at work and stop getting frustrated over lame brains... YIPEEE!

Oh and, just because he is SOOO cute, and so nutty. Its ALRSH wa dat!!!!

They are so sweet when they sleep

I am finding the lack of inspiration out there, I mean real life inspiration which does not involve daily gratitude journals or making glitter embellished gratitude jars with little heart shaped notes on which I will write how grateful I am that today there was no phone call from the principal about the number of soiled diapers. I have a job, and high expectations of myself and I am lazy and get easily distracted and NEVER stick to any of my resolutions or decisions, ahem I am all about AGILITY in retrospect to my own moods and moon phases.And sometimes I have days when I do not feel like digging around for something to be grateful for. I like to be miserable and yell at everyone around me on some days and those days I am grateful that they unconditionally listen to me, love me and laugh at me behing my back.

Really, I came across a pin from a friend yesterday about an online course on being an Abundant Mama. Which inspired me to maybe go out and find something inspiring, well actually more practical, like a parenting guru speech online course, to make me stop yelling, and be more satisfied...but I dunno, the tendency not to finish things may transpose into this and money will be wasted, plus the repetition of the word journaling is oh blah….save me!!!! So what turned a night of searching for an online parenting course, trying to get kids to bed, a lot of love and sprinkles turned possible return to this blog in an attempt to become inspired. It may be a short show people, let's not get our hopes up.

Yes, we grew up a little bit from the last time we hung out in these spaces!

When somebody asks you what it means to be a parent or what is parenting like, you never think that frustrating nights will turn into starjoyexplosion moments which make you daydream the following day in a happy daze of denial that ALL THE WORK IS WORTH IT.

After a long day of playing in the sand and trying to get the kids not to drink rain water collected in the buckets and spades left in the sandpit, trying to get them to eat their dinner and something other than leftover birthday chocolate cake for breakfast, playdoughing for hours and sweeping up the confetti papers from the floor because they make perfect hair for smiley faces, when you get their jammies on and give them their milk and get them to bed and impatiently get to that packet of cookies you have been thinking of stuffing your face with all afternoon. So you take the first bite of the chocolate covered cookie and you hear little footsteps running, as you throwing half of the cookie you are holding at your husband in an attempt to hide it while at the same time you aggressively gesture him to hide them cookies, since, ahem not sharing is caring for the kids teeth....I know I will not be disciplined enough to brush their teeth one more time, so no cookies for babies.

And then the games of get back to beds, and tuck me inns and fake thirst and four more cuddles start, and just when you thought it is safe to go back to the forbidden fruit, and you sink into the couch trying to ignore the mess around you, another door opens, and then the silence......THE SILENCE of knowing a little thing in green and blue Moomin PJs is standing at those doors, just waiting for you to come so you can get a cheeky smile and see the tush run into bed while squicking "MAMA LA-LE MAMA LA-LE". So you play the game again, cuddles, minky, more milk, "munnen"....and then the door across the hallway opens…you hear footsteps tapping towards the room and jumping in the bed, because now they will sleep together, and you foolishly allow it and somewhere have this idea that this decision will bring about return to the cookies and aimlessly looking for things you do not need online, because you have this trace of hope thinking OK THIS TIME , THIS TIME IT WILL WORK, this time they will go to sleep together in the same room, in the same bed. ...I JUST WANTTTT TOOO EAAAATTTT MY COOKIESSSSS.....The 4th time you have to chase them back to bed, you get yourself into bed and get one little head on each shoulder and just surrender. This works with one kid....the other shoulder is now occupied by a small foot accompanied by silly giggles...and you know there is nothing else to do but giggle too....

So nothing works, this little boy is on fire tonight, time for lethimcryitout-plan, but my head can take only a few minutes of hearing dubbed cries from behind closed doors, and next minute I am in his room lifting him up out of his bed, putting on some music and dancing in the dark room because REALLY WHAT ELSE CAN YOU DO??? So you swing and sing and get most precious smiles, giggles and little arms grabbing your shoulder, the internal joy is making you ignore your instanity, and extreme tiredness, and you spin and spin...We get in bed and you get some moments of this, followed by surrender!

Love and sprinkles.

Guilt tripinn...

I am an easily susceptible to guilt trips fool ya'll.

I was sooo determined, so determined to keep it easy with the gifts this year, actually I had every intention and plan to skip it all together with the kids, mainly because they have bucket loads of aunts and uncles and grandparents to fill that gap...but then a conversation with a colleague over his cheesy family Christmas card that was completely off centre,  somehow led me to drag one of the aunts to sit and watch TV at our place and you know be there to ensure the kids are breathing, while we take the guilt trips for a walk at the toy store.

Decisions!!!  Then there is a whole lot of toys which I am all like, damn it that deformed looking Dora would probably loads of fun but it does not go with the decor of our house at all, so yeah not even an option, and lets ensure that the toys are as gender neutral as possible, and lets try and stick away from Disney branded anything, because I dunno, next think you know there may be a lot of dodgy things  int he media about Mickey's past while he cheated on Minnie with underage Pluto...

Oh god look at the size of those boxes I will  need to get rid of so much stuff in order to make space to store all this, I think Little People will need to find a new home (anyone interested??).

And then there is this tulle skirt. Buggy longingly looks at each little girl wearing one, and what seems like plotting a plan to either rip it off someone or give it a little pet. Goddammit I should have learned by now that I cannot have principles on tulle skirts, mainly because they are not really harming the humanity. I could save on a lot of teenage angst if i just get the tulle skirt (I am such a last minute asshole). Yesterday was spent on the phone with a  random customer service worker to please please rush the order through and make one little girl happy with a black (I compromised the style, I was not about to compromise the colour) tulle skirt and one mother very happy 10 years from now. These are long term investments.

Anywhoo, also learned this giving season is that three year olds suck at keeping secrets.
Buggy we have to get a present for Daddy, you have to keep it a secret oh-key-h???
Yes mommy, suprise daddy! Daaaaaaaaaaadddy we got a gift for you, do you want to see it, its just a little bit Christmas.

JUST A LITTLE BIT CHRISTMAS, she is beyond awesome and is so so clever that she is being put into an older group at kindy because she needs more challenging tasks. I am all like hell yeah watch my ego over inflate over having a super clever kid, but then I remembered this speach we had at work a couple of weeks ago about consequences of being great. Like, yes OK she is in need of more challenges than what she gets right now, but you know stepping up a group means that there is this gap which needs to be filled and what is she is over challenged now and starts to become sad, because everyone in the new group she is a year older and in toddler time a year is a whole lotta nerve connections and she struggles to keep up, and what is she does good, or bad or medica, all of these kids will be getting ready for school after the summer, how will she cope with all of them going to first grade and she is being left behind at kindy with unchallenging tasksa year before her brain becomes a chuchu train ready for a whole lotta more than daily play challenges.

Paper, why colour with markers on paper when there is body parts!! Some things never change!

The magic of Christmas

Oh in which universe does this Magical Christmas happen, snuggles and candle rituals and cookie baking and where snow does not turn to a mass weapon of destruction called icy roads, where my shoe collection proves to be totally and utterly useless...


One family member on crutches with unexplainable footanklejointwhateveritis pain, damn it, you will still have to grind my nuts so I can have my cookie baking candle ritual while I marinate myself in cinnamon spice and mandarins to get the Christmas groove on, and you know there is laundry folding, feeding the children, reading them books and incessantly watching endless hours of sesame street and hell you can be in a dilemma on whether you should let your kids be obsessed with Elmo when each days brings another underage sex lawsuit for Kevin Clash. Dilemma people? Are you still letting your kids watch Elmo?

My work threw a Christmas party for the kids in the weekend and Pepperkakebyen visit was inevitable Christmas tradition.

Youngling was on a bender in the weekend and I am still recovering. Oh yes I was at that stage when I got too relaxed and dropped my guard. Oh parenting, it’s a permanent state of non relaxation, which is probably even better since irrational anxiety overtakes any moment of relaxation. So, running after a little dude paying more attention to chiquitas and banging his cheeks into table corners than the overly dramatic and badly dressed magician with cheap tricks is probably better than…I am afraid to speak about any of the anxieties since I do not want to project anything any make it into a reality.

BEBEEEEI - BEEBEEIIII - I be your friend bebeeeiii

Going absolutely bazookas would probably be fine at some random Christmas party, but surrounded by colleagues and their fantastically behaved children was not the time for Baby Boy’s curiosity and stubbornness to shine in its full glory together with the resurrection of clumsiness. I was convinced we were over facial injuries….

Helicopter parenting style aside for a moment and your kid destroys displays at the gingerbread house city, because dude all that candy in my tummy, and if I cannot eat it I will take this display chu chu chu train and destroy it AAAAALLLLL…Must have been a childless person who made a gingerbread city where displays can be within reach of candy deprived toddlers. 7 minutes, 100 kroners lighter and let’s call it a Christmas tradition. I do not want to visit again, I am afraid that the slightest possibility of it being a pleasant visit will be overshadowed by fears of the past.

Hands full....

So basically I have picture proof that my hands are just far too full to do everything...blogging is compromised because most of the time I am reaching to keep this little man out of trouble like this...

You snooze you loose busta!!!

 

Dusting it all off

There is some dust bunnies forming around this blog, I know, but being a working mama, little human beings in your life, sanity and sleep need to be made into a priority.

Sleep, what is sleep? I cannot even count how many times my colleagues hear me say during the day: I am tired. Oh dear, eight o'clock bedtimes do not even seem to do the trick anymore.

I have been struggling over the last month or so  with this work vs. being a mama vs. being a wife vs. being a friend vs. keeping the house clean enough to prevent the development of evil bacterias vs. oh my god when will I wash the laundry, clean clothes pile is seriously in danger of becoming extinct vs. the need to have conversations with friends in which amongst other things I can bitch about how much laundry and house cleaning I have to do vs. not having a breakdown.

Days at work get extended by half an hour, rushing to get the kids into kindy and out of kindy, more travelling at work, makes me really question how ambitious can/want I get in my career at the small- kiddies-life stage without it affecting my stress levels and my output.

I love being succesfull at work, I love getting more responsibility, but all that aside despite everything my kids will always be my prioroty no matter what. Setting a cap on ambition is hard.

Being away from them even for a night in a tiny hallway size hotel room in some random small Norwegian town when you cannot fall asleep because the bed is so horribly uncomfortable gives you a check on how high you are able to reach without compromising either your credibility at work or your family. I need to be  realistic about this. This is not only about satisfying my ego and raising my pay check so I can buy even more uncomfortable shoes.

Ensuring to really utilize the eight hours at work for work is the first thing which makes all of this work. Outsourcing part of  household duties has prooved to greatly help on the morale and dealing with every day stress. A few weeks ago I have realised that  most of the days we come home and then spend time with the kids, get dinner on the table, get them ready for bed, get them to bed and then when everything is quiet and you think you can sit on the couch to breathe a little you notice all the sticky spots on the floor, with a sea of cherrios just waiting to be stepped on and turned into crumbs.
Hello breakdown, I will fight you off with a cleaning lady holding a broom.

Sanity somewhat restored I still have to avoid looking at mirrors in the elevator in the mornings, its probably best I do not realise that I have managed to put only half of make up on. Who cares,  seeing the laundry baskets almost empty this morning gave me giggles and made me excited - screw mascara and eyeliner...I have clean clothes people.

All is good, I am doing all the right things here its just ironing out the finer details. Seeing the kids happy at kindy  is what cements in this entire decision to work,  despite how much I hate the ten minute negotiations  to stay at kindy and then half an hour negotiations to get them to go home.  Morning tears are hard, afternoon tears out of resistance to go home are just annoying but they give me assurance that being at kindy makes them happy. Kindy is awesome, people who look after my kids are awesome and I am grateful for each and every single one of them every day.

...and my shoes are REALLY uncomfortable today!






 

Colouring in

Today I noticed that we went from this

Blue coloured world, filled with pirate ships with air baloons flying parallel accross the sky, upside down rainbows and not much respect for line limitations, to this: 

To respecting line limitations....This is the point where Buggy stopped colouring on, but started colouring in. Colour appropriate and all..

I am (not suprisingly) overly emotional (I may be shedding a tear or ten) over this.

Lessons learned: do not play with guns....

Ok, I need to fix this, because my Mom told me off for swearing too much in this post, and not even asked whether we are  OK, because apparently she could not fugure out what has actually happened, and then a friend sent an e-mail pretty much saying the same. Erm, the friend did not tell me off for swearing to much. Sorry Mum, but I will not remove the swearing...I just have a potty mouth and so be it!!!!

Anyhow, on Friday, as we arrived to the city and parked our car to run some errands, we had a crazy man with a gun in the city drama. Friday was also judgement day for Breivik, and a shooting rampage by a supporter would have not been unexpected. 

I thought my biggest problem yesterday was trying to fit in baking 4 cakes for the fake baptism tomorrow and trying to fit a hairdresser appointment plus oh I do not know...some relaxing time before I turn into a warewolf and start eating some little kids living in my house because I dunno...they tend to WHINE all the time...

But no....as we were walking out of the parking garage, Stefan nonchalantly questioned is that a gun that guy has in his hands and in between him finishing that sentence and me shitting my pants, this dude was pointing the gun at the people on the main square.....and we were mere 2 meters away from him....What do stupid people do? Stupid people follow a man with a gun....

Fuck me I am in a dream and this is not happening, and somehow I prayed to whatever there is to pray to, that he does not do a 180 degree turn and takes us out as well...and then in between praying or whatever he neatly put away the gun into his plastic bag, and then pointed himself towards a corner store on the main square...

Stefan was already on the phone with the cops, while I was still trying to make sense of all this and somewhere in the mess of my thoughts I came up that this experience is my punishment for having a baptism so that Baby Boy's name can be embroidered on a family christening gown, and  could have  something to do with members of the church (not disclosing which) having priority on a waiting list for one of the best schools in Bergen.  I know, and if my opinion proves to be wrong I will burn in hell together with the  rest of us non-Beliebers.

I have no idea what I was thinking, we were standing there and obviously had to ensure (I have no idea why I thought this to be my civil duty) that cops are pointed to the right person, my brain connections are messed up, I must have knocked my head a lot more than Baby Boy as a kid. The gun is neatly tucked away in his little plastic bag, while he is buying some scratchy lottery tickets, and checking his winnings on a garbage bin. Erm, yes, waiting for the cops to get their shit together....Oh boredom... What do you do? Oh I don't know, let me take a picture of the guy. Yes, I am THE nutcase that takes pictures of potential terrorist scratching their lottery tickets....I AM DUMB...and here is the proof....

Like what if he went batshit crazy and killed everyone around him because there was no luck on the scratchy. Oh I am so late for my hairdresser appointment, but I need to stick around here, and take his peeksure!! I don't know which is worse, potentially being part of a terror attack or missing out on having my bangs cut.

Stefan while on the phone confirmed that undercover cops were there and told me to go...As I ran to make up for lost minutes of the appointment, the aftershock of the potential development of all the shibang made me shit my pants and feel guilty over leaving the kids and husband in the hands of undercover cops.

And what if there is now an earthquake and we never get to see my babies and I get buried under a pile of hairdryers and hair straighteners....

I know most of you do not understand this, but heck don't be lazy to use Google Translate. It's an article from local newspaper proving that I AM SOOOO DUMB... Anyhow, the guy was arrested and will be charged, but the gun did not contain "real" bullets. Still, does not make the whole experience any less traumatic....

Whops he did it again!

You know I am just frigging entirely sick of Bergen streets constantly being dug up and re-asphalted or whatever the fuck it is they are doing. Holly crap you finally find your way around and understand all the underground pedestrian crossings and they do something to change the flow and then the way to the emergency room you envisioned in your head is now completely under road works, and your panic attack is preventing you from thinking straight. Is this what the tax money is being spent on, did they not just finish digging out the crap out of this street a  month ago and they are back at it again...Damn it, can someone teleport me to the emergency room right now...

Why is the receptionist in slow motion, and all these people who are waiting in the line in front of me, why are they not seeing my my babies cracked head and are not letting me skip the line, how is anyone else right now more important than US.

How will I explain that Baby Boy managed to climb up on the picnic bench and fall head down first, all while I was standing right next to him. In a moment that I turned around to check on Buggy, he managed to be so unlucky to land head down on a tiny stone, which obviously was sharp enough to cut his head open. At no other place but a kindy playground. Kindy playground I have been most comfortable with letting him run around, since it seemed a perfect fenced environment for over active 16 month old boys who have a tendency to be overly clumsy. Man, how the heck am I suppose to find a new safe zone again!!!

Oh, god I can't look at it, it is like tiny hole in his tiny  head and I just cannot deal with this right now, or ever for that matter. Frozen again...or hot, man that waiting room is so hot, and Baby Boy seems to be over it, since he is walking past everyone in the line and saying hai-hai and flashing his five teeth smile, and oh please do not bang your already banged up head against the glass door.

Some super glue, a little bit of saline and a week of keeping the head dry and we were back to the playround, me trying to exit the bubble and become a normal functioning parent...

This cannot be just normal boy clumsy stuff....

The milk bar has now officially been closed for business...

Here is an interesting fact:

From July 2008, I have either been pregnant or breastfeeding. That is 4 years of my body providing nourishment to bugs, and it is now time for my body to nourish itself. If on average I produced 0.9 of a liter of milk per day, 15 months of breastfeeding Buggy and 16 months of breastfeeding Baby Boy equals to 837 liters of milk. Some breast milk banks pay up to 50 bucks for a liter, in monetary terms this would equal to over 41 thousand American dollars in revenue.

36 hours ago, milk bar closed the doors to its customers.

My head is a bit messed up and I have very very very mixed feelings about it. One minute I feel liberated, and next I am on the verge of breaking in. This is a big thing, my baby is growing and even I feel that he does not need to be dependent on me any more.  The decision was sudden, and came after a night of constant six hours of nursing, and then an afternoon where nursing has stopped being a need, but what felt like was marking of the territory. I was so annoyed, the nonsense had to stop. As I am writing this I am in the dumps over stopping...Hello emotional rollercoaster,  I guess you'll be hanging for a while, please do not cause nausea, I am prone to anxiety induced barfing...

Yesterday to ease the aching boobies, I pumped a little and gave it in a bottle to Baby Boy. Thinking it will be an easy way to get him off the juice, he scrunched up his nose and used the bottle as a missile in frustration. This was good, this is great, this means he does not really enjoy the boobie juice. We can cuddle galore without boobies involved little man, I am always open to that. And then this morning, I did the same and he sucked every single drop out of that bottle and I was all like, oh, maybe I should nurse one last time, I am an evil woman depriving her son of his needs. Husband preformed an early morning intervention which consisted of a guilt trip something along the line: who are you doing this for now, him or yourself, don't you think you send mixed messages if you give him some  boobies now, and then this afternoon you will say no no...and stinking hell he is right, I hate it when he is right....

I am strong, I can do this. I cannot be influenced by a scrunched  up cute little monkey face and little hands ripping at my shirt to get to the goods. He has had it good, and still does. If we believe into sloppy science and some of the research 16 months of breastfeeding has increased his IQ by 2.6 points...That is some kind of advantage in life.

I have enjoyed most of the brestfeeding journey, it IS the best gift you can give you baby. If you can endure chapped nipples, plugged milk ducts, mastitis, it will provide you with an instant shut up button for months on end.  Get educated, the abyss of information online is amazing. Dr Sears and Kelly Mom  have been my go-to places most of the time. Endure the unfamiliar period of getting used to each other and the process and you will be able to breastfeed while standing on your head.  If the websites and books do not convince you,  speaking to someone real , someone who has gone through everything can be the best source of information, and trust me I have gone through EVERYTHING when it comes to boobie juice production: twice. I have been at the giving up end and I have been at the end where I never wanted to stop, with all the ups and downs in between. I had pumped obsessively in fear of losing the milk, I have had fever from plugged milk ducts, but seeing the eye rolling from pleasure both bugs did when  latched on was worth every single minute I was uncomfortable. Speak to me if you need to!

Good bye clickity bras, I shall miss thee....