Friends

Not much new here, so popping in to show a picture of Edgar’s poker face and cute cousin Tobias.

Fireman in Green (or Micromanaging Therapy)

The kids are finally healthy again – and the heat wave is back on. Upper 30s for today.

At Vince last therapy evaluation they told me Vince does not play role games, but symbol games? OK? What is the difference? Well symbol games are when you have for example a play kitchen and pretend you are cooking. Role games was explained to me as when you have nothing and pretend to be cooking. Sigh. Sometimes the therapists really LOVE to put your kid under a microscope and study every little detail. When I did say that he often pretends to be a lion/dog/cat/tiger/whatever animal they agreed too, but says he only does this when it comes to animals… Sigh again. He likes animals so should that not count for role games? And how many of you knew the difference of the two types of games?

Anyways, these pictures are from yesterday morning:

He dressed himself in rain jacket and wellies (i.e his self-proclaimed Fireman outfit), and then got a phone call on his pretend phone. Role game or Symbol game?

He then climbs a few steps in the stairs and pretends to be at the top of the fireman pole. Role game or Symbol game?

Sliding down the pole sounding like a fire truck. Role game or symbol game?

Landing on the ground and finding the fire in the shoe. Role game or Symbol game?

I don’t know, you tell me.

Long Day

The kids are sick. Both of them. Antibiotics since Sunday. Fun times. At least we are off the heat wave till Thursday when it should be +36 again…

Hot

Big time heat wave over here. Yesterday +35c, today it was +31c by 8 am, and tomorrow the high should be +37c.
As soon as you wake up it is time to shut all windows and pull the blinds down, no AC here .

All you can do is basically go swimming. So that is what we did yesterday, at fab Madeleine’s house.

Edgar is not really loving water outside the bath tub yet.

Vince and Madeleine

Edgar hiding in the shadow

More pics over here (click)

Life

Life is moving along just fine over here. Nothing too exciting going on. Edgar surprises us everyday with doing new little things without having to have any training/therapy at all. Very cool. Vincent is doing great as well. We have some signing time flash cards with the numbers and alphabet. I took them out for the first time last night for bed time, and Vince surprised me by already knowing many of the signs of the alphabet. Once more a lesson to myself never to underestimate my kid!

Edgar pushing Vince around

Vince is really funny when we are driving, today he was pretending to see some ducks and hippos and this was his MAMMA OH NO face.

Aperoler Spritzer

Vince trying the pool

Surfing lessons

Kinder Finder

We were made aware of that Vince is trying to run away at day care. I am not surprised, my kid stops for nothing. I mean NOTHING. This means you have to keep an eye on him 100% of the time. You can not leave him un-attended one second or he takes off. I am not exaggerating. And the thing ‘bye bye mommy is leaving now’ does not work at all either. He happily runs the opposite direction, laughing and without turning around even once.

I was going to post here for advice. Then I came across a really great store today (thanks S.G ), where the owner has a daughter who has DS. We started talking on and she showed me what they use, the Kinder Finder. I had never heard of it before, but I bought one. Basically it is like a watch you put on the child’s wrist. You have a parent unit, similar to a pager. You set the distance that the kid is allowed to be away from you. 8-12m, 15-20m etc. When the child is further away than the set distance an alarm will sound in the parent unit. It also shows in what direction away from the parent unit the child is. I hope it will work. I will keep you updated.

I spent the last 30 minutes reading through the instructions. It also come with charging stations so the batteries never have to be empty. I hope the teachers at kindergarten will be as excited as I am.

Midsommar 2010

This year we did the whole she-bang with Midsummer. Herring, salmon, new potatoes,egg and caviar and shrimp, meatballs, (IKEA Sweden shop helps when living abroad) strawberries, ice cream and of course lots of snaps and drinks. Hosts were the fabulous Molander’s who have the most perfect home! Extra lucky were we as Alexandra, Stefan and Tage drove down all the way from Sweden.
And just like in Sweden, we even had some rain to top it off!

Vince a bit skeptical, but he was SO well behaved. It did help A LOT that the backyard was completely fenced in.

The kids’ table

The adults’ table

Making desert in Anna’s absolutely gorgeous kitchen.

Bookie and Edgar

Vince loving Edgar

Watermelon is def summer food!

Anna tying the flowers into the Midsommarstang

Edgar does need to work on his moves with the girls. Emilie was not impressed at all…

Lea and Vince snacking on dill chips

Midsommarstangen/ The Midsummer Pole

Tage and Vince

One of the few pictures we have of all of us (Mom, Vince was wearing the dark blue pants till he spilled on them)

Alexandra and I

Stockholm Part 2

Other things Stockholm has to offer is Jan Guillou walking around with a big rifle just around the corner from Rosenbad (Swedish Parlament):

It really was him, I was just a bit slow with my camera. Did not want him to shoot at me…

Stockholm

I had some meetings last week in Stockholm and as it was THE royal wedding, I booked my ticket to stay over the weekend. I am so happy I did, as it was truly magical. I scouted out a good place to stand, right below the castle, and all guests had to drive by exactly where I stood which was very neat.

Crown Princess Mary of Denmark arrives

The actual wedding was shown on huge big screens right where I stood

The guards getting ready for the caravan to come carrying Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel

The parade coming down the hill the church in the back ground is where the wedding was held.

Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden

The wedding guests waiting at the castle for the Crown Prince and Princess to arrive from their boat trip across the water.
Crown Princess Mary of Denmark waiving in the background, next to Princess Märta-Louise of Norway, and Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands.

Prince Daniel’s family between the first and second set of flowers

Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway joined Crown Princess Mary of Denmark. Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark is also in the background.

The King and Queen of Sweden

Prince Daniel’s parents and the King and Queen of Sweden, waiting for the bride and groom to arrive from the boat trip.

Prince Daniel and Crown Princess Victoria

Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel waving to the people

Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel waving to the people

Leaving the castle area about 1 hr later

Books

At least he likes books.