Wave

Spring seems to take over Sweden like a massive, irrepressible wave that sweeps over the country in a week or less. The change seems to happen overnight. Sad, empty trees burst into beautiful balls of light green happiness; the constant darkness of winter is replaced with sunshine burning through the bedroom windows at 4 a.m.; tulips pop out of the ground, lilacs bloom and the grass grows so long we actually have to mow it.

In just about one week.

And now that change is complete. It’s not exactly warm (only around 65 on most days), but the sun is shining and the streets of our neighbourhood are always filled with playing children. For his part, Nicholas comes home from his daycare and refuses to go into the house. He gets out of the car and heads straight for the playground, regardless of whether it’s pouring rain, and despite the fact that he’s often not wearing any shoes (I usually take them off to keep my car seats somewhat clean).

Playground or bust!

The end of school is approaching, which I think has infected Lucas’s brain with an attitude of “who cares”, as in “who cares about cleaning my room, mom? It’s almost summer!” and “who cares about that approaching bus mom? School’s ending soon!”… all this despite the fact that he’s upset that school’s ending and he won’t get much time with his friends for ten weeks.

For Matthew, the end of school will mark the end of one chapter in his life and the start of a new one. In just a few days, he’ll graduate from elementary school, having accomplished so much in the past few years. I’ll enumerate his many amazing achievements… when we get there. I don’t want to think about how my first little boy is quickly growing up.

In the meantime, celebrate life and celebrate each other!

Happy thoughts

Lucas: Mom, do you know what one of the best presents in the world is?

Me: No, hon. What?

Lucas: Friendship!

And then a few seconds later...

Lucas: And another is birth!

Springy spring spring

Our days are growing longer (drove home at 10 last night and it was still "dusk"), the trees are a beautiful shade of new green, and we are spending hours and hours outside... it's not too warm (probably around 60 most of the time), but after the long, dark winter, it seriously doesn't matter. Spring makes me happy, so I wanted to share a happy video of Nick and his dad having a grand time.

Nicholas's obsession at the moment is with shoes -- shoes, shoes and more shoes. He is crazy-in-love with his shoes. One pair of shoes in particular are his favorite. He wakes up in the morning, comes downstairs, and the first thing he does is finds his shoes. Here you can see him (later in the day) conniving Lucas into putting them on for him. Isn't Lucas just a great big brother?


If these shoes aren't available, he'll put on any available pair -- which could be his own rain boots, or Steen's flip-flops or my gym shoes. Doesn't matter. Any shoes are better than no shoes, I guess.

In addition to his repetoire of girls' names (Alva and Amanda), Nick has started making animal sounds. He's made it to "dog", as you'll see in this clip. Note that here Matthew is showing off his excellent big-brother skills. He reads for Nicholas nearly every day.

I guess if we decide to own a cow with a girl's name at some point, he'll be able to let us know who he's talking about. Learning how to say other, perhaps more useful, words doesn't interest him... like "food", or "water", or "poopy diaper".... no no, that would be boring, mom!

His other new interest is yoga. Don't ask me where he got this from. Maybe Matt's in on the act?