sunshine +++

Ok, I haven't forgotten to write here, I just haven't. We are on a little mini-vacation in the south of Sweden and I haven't touched a computer in days. Pretty good if I do say so myself, and I do. We are in a very nice place right now and enjoying things a lot. The tempo is a little slow for my taste, but is probably better for me than I know. :) The boys are a little up and down. Charlie took a turn for the better today and is in a top mood. It really helps how they are doing. We have had a lot of great food and company and I will give a few more details later.

thursday night ... pre-weekend

Jonna came home with candy today. She met a contact at a record company and may be doing business with them. He asked her what kind of music she liked and just loaded her up, so now I am listening to Chris Cornell solo album "Carry On" ... so far it is so so.. Maybe it is one of those albums that grows on you. We will have to see. It is really nice to turn off the TV and have music on. Just feels better.

This weekend is going to be busy, Friday and Sunday are pretty laid back, but we are going to a wedding on Saturday. Food and drink and conversation without the kids.. and a sleep in morning.... muhahahahha. If you have been reading, you know I love my kids, but you gotta get away. You got to miss them sometimes and keep your perspective. I keep coming back to it, but perspective is everything.. oy my brain is mush, I am going to do some other stuff and go to bed before this gets out of hand.

shock

Well I was right, my body is in shock, I actually rode the bike home. Now I am in pre-pain. I am just a little sore, and very tired. I know on the other hand that tomorrow, I feel the true meaning of pain. I have a little education in physical training and I have learned that you should start slowly and build up. If I know this why don't I do it. The list of things that I know I should do compared to what I actually do is frightening. Maybe I should start compiling it. :) I wonder how it would compare to yours.

It was a rough night with the boys. Charlie was way off and was crying most of the evening. I can handle a lot of stuff. Crying is my soft spot, I can't handle it. I get stressed out and just want to run away, I don't want to deal with it, but you can't tell a 1,5 year old to shut up and get over it. Well you can, but I promise that you wouldn't feel very good afterwards. No running away, no hiding you just have to take it. Crying = tired, both me and the kid. Dylan was in a good mood for the most part. He is at a really nice stage. Easy to communicate with, funnier than anyone besides me should be. I guess that was my balance for tonight, Charlie = Difficult : Dylan = Easy. Me ..... still tired. Good night.

less than an hour

OK, I did it and it took less than an hour. I am not starting a new life, I am not recreating myself. I am just trying to build one good habit for my body. I cycled to work. 20 kilometers, less than an hour. I don't think I will be cycling home tonight. That would probably send my body into shock, I will probably take the bus and the opportunity to sleep. I get of f at 2-2:30 today so I can pick up the boys. I hope it went OK for Jonna and the Drop.

The Drop

now I am sitting on the bus without a heart. I just left mine, crying, clinging, alone in a room full of people. Charlie isn't taking the drop off that well. He cries just at the sight of the daycare door. He knows that we are going to leave him there. Without an explanation. Without any justifiable reason as far as he is concerned. How can I tell him about the bills, about the need to work in order to support our happy little family. I know he will learn to like daycare. Dylan is the complete opposite. He ran down to daycare from the house. "raka spåret pappa!" ("straight there, pappa") His mom taught him that. Then he revs up his motor and runs down to daycare. When was the last time you revved up your motor before you ran. It is a special age. You are old enough to run, but not aware enough to know that only your dad thinks you are the coolest thing on two feet when you rev up your motor. That is how I started my day. With yin och yang, up and down. Positive and Negative. It is going to take me a few hours to find the balance in this situation.

rock stars

We all have our heroes, people we look up to, want to be like or wish we had their skills. These figures change as time goes by. I know this is sappy, trust me, but right now my heroes are my kids. Dylan walks into a party and "Here's Dylan!". You just have to respect that. I do at least. Before I had kids I thought about all the stuff I was going to teach them. The biggest surprise is every thing they have to teach me.

Today is an at home with the boys Monday for me. It was a really good day. I had bought a little pool for them yesterday. It is amazing how much fun you can have with a 10 dollar plastic pool and some water. I should have bought a bigger model so there was room for me. Dylan kept asking if I was going to swim. He likes for everyone to participate. Of course everyone doesn't always include Charlie, actually it excludes him most of the time. I don't really know if I should feel sorry for Dylan or be happy for him. Charlie is a definite personality.

You might think that the cracker is just in his mouth for a minute,

but if you keep your eye on the background and on the cracker...

you will see that not once does it leave his mouth. If that doesn't make him a hero, you need to adjust your priorities. :)

blah blah blah

I have more trouble coming up with titles to these little moments blogging than I do typing away letting the bs flow. I have always shared all the superficial details with everyone I know, probably wearing out ears left and right, even though no one ever complains. At least not directly to me. Anyway, we are on sunday, the weekend is moving right along and it is a nice weekend.

Friday night we grilled out with friends. One of those get togethers with 6 families and 10 kids, all under the age of 5 except for an 8 year old. Keeps everyone busy, there isn't any real time to sit and just let things move along, the kids make sure of that. Don't misunderstand me, it was really good, relaxing as it can possibly be these days. I had made cheesecake ice cream that we had with fresh strawberries. Jonna said it was as good as or maybe better than Ben and Jerry's, she really knows how to give a compliment.

Saturday was intense. Jonna was at a bachelorette party. Me and the boys. We were taking it kind of slow when Df called and asked if we wanted to go swimming. Then I tried to kick it up a gear and get us out of the house. It is like being the head clown of a three clown circus. No one was cooperating, not even me. I couldn't find anything. In the end, sweaty but without yelling, we made it out of the house. In to the car and off to swim. The first place we went to was a bust. No good place for the kids to get into, so back into the cars and on the road again. I was afraid that Charlie was going to fall asleep before we got to the next place and could eat. Bingo, was I right or was I right.. sleeping like a sweaty little kid in the back of the car. Carefully into the wagon with him, the only thing worse than him sleeping early is him waking up after 15 minutes ( in the end he only slept like 30-40 minutes anyway). Then down to the little swimming area. It was good, lots of people, kids everywhere. We ate a little pasta salad compliments of Df and Sf. Dylan ate the usual amount which isn't much, and his cousin Tf followed suit, much to Sf's consternation. Tf usually eats really well, but Dylan is a really bad influence when it comes to that. After lunch and a "swim", mud pies and peeing on the beach (Charlie, not me). We had an ice-cream and headed of home for nap time. Dylan crashed hard in the car, Charlie had already slept 30 minutes, so he felt no need to sleep and make my life easy.

After Dylan slept we headed of to Rn, Vn, Kn and the new son Vkn. They are a great family, very relaxed and a lot of fun to hang out with Rn is great with kids, there just isn't two ways about it. He is a big kid himself, and can outplay the little ones. Fh och As with their daughter J were over to. All of them are a real pleasure to be around. The food was excellent. Entrecote steak and Fresh potatoes with Feta cheese melted around. A green salad and some really good bread. I was driving so it was water for me, but the beer cans looked really really good. Oh, well. Rn was unbelievably popular when he came out with enough ice-cream for 20 kids for the 4 kids to share. Dylan's comment was that he always always wanted to come to Rn and Vn. "Jag vill alltid alltid komma hit" ("I want to always always come here.") Then it was time to head home, Charlie was getting tired falling down and just a mess. Busted his nose on the floor so there was blood. Not fun, cleaned up a little bit and then dumped him and Dylan in the car. We were home about a quarter to 8. It had been a really good day, the only downside was that Jonna wasn't with, but you can't have everything.

I leave today for another post, you can read that one later if you still have the energy after this one. :)

hope your weekend has been as good as mine is.

routines

It is difficult to find the balance of routines and excitement. Lets be honest routines are not exciting, they are safe, they are the easy way. How do we find the balance, between safe and routine and unexpected and exciting. It seems that a lot of kids really do well with routines and don't handle too many surprises really well, yet at the same time they can get board really quick if you aren't careful. Balance has never been my strong point, I am an extremist. That is the way it works with me. On or off. Today we almost had a really good balance. Picked up early at daycare. Then we went and were on the swings for a little while. After that we started up the sprinkler. Dylan is the sprinkler king. He loves it. Charlie, while he loves to swim in a baby pool could really have skipped the sprinkler. After that we made dinner and cleaned up and then back outside for more play. This is where we lost the balance, once it was time to come in and get cleaned up for the evening, Charlie lost it. Nothing could please him. Dylan jumped in the bath for some more water time and I ended up sitting on the floor with Charlie for 20-25minutes to calm him down. After that he drank his formula and was ready to go. Bedtime was quick and easy. All in all a really good evening, not perfectly balanced, but fun, a lot of fun.

nice day

Today was a good day. There isn't two ways around it. I got up early with the boys. Breakfast and a little goofin and then time to trade with Jonna. She got up had breakfast and hung out with the boys and made some plans for the day. We went to a nature reserve about 10 minutes from our home. It is a little place down by the water that is really great. They have a few animals. Pigs, horses, cows and sheep, not to forget the hens and the rabbits. Dylan can hang out and watch the pigs for ever, he really loves the pigs :) .. anyway, we met friends there. It was a lot of fun, looking at the animals, having a picnic, and Dylan and I even took a swim. It was 23C/74F in the air and 10C/50F in the water. Pretty cold, but really refreshing. Once we got home we basically had time to change before we went over to Sf and Df for dinner. Sf had her birthday yesterday, so we got treated to some really good food. Grilled Salmon and Chicken and a couscous salad that was really good. Sf had made a Tiramisú for dessert it was really good. I wasn't alone in eating two pieces. Here I am now stuck on the couch, essentially unable to get off of it. There is no hope of tomorrow being as good a day, it is a workday. Bleh.. I'd rather be at home thanks.

a cup of coffee and two sleeping angels...

It is 13:30, i have just sat down to enjoy a cup of coffee and drop a line to the world. Both boys are sleeping and as all children, they sleep like angels, deep and relaxed.

This is the second Monday off with the boys, but the first one where I have a work week behind me. It is nice to be at home, especially with the nice weather. Work is going well. It is a little bit of a twilight zone for me, I don't have the same outlook on life that I had before. I want to be with my family and friends more than before, if that is possible. That is the way it is. We will see how it goes.
We took a trip to a used store for baby stuff, we need a "ståbräda" standingboard? I have no idea what it is called in English, you hook it onto the baby wagon so the bigger kid can stand up and ride along. Anyway the 2ND hand store was under renovation, so we are still without. Then we drove out to the Plantagen to check on a willow bush, but they didn't sell it. Oh well, you can't win all the time. Going to have to do some checking around.

I gotta go an wake up Dylan now, not fun, but he can't sleep too long now, or he will be up until 10 tonight, not fair to Jonna since she gets to put them to bed tonight.



We are keeping a really easy pace. Slow day,