A brighter day

The Minx is feeling a lot better today. We took the SS Meerkat (our canoe) out for a spin on the fjord with Huw and it was a gorgeous day. The Minx fell asleep towards the end of the ride after a few hours of exploring around the island of Nesoya and having a little picnic lunch on a small island. She was even snoring as we glided through the calm waters.
A gaudy but kind of cool house with loads of statues and a pirate ship!A fancy artistic photo taken by Huw of our first lunching spot
After the journey we had a late snack at the Holmen Fjord Hotel -- one of our favorite places to dine!
Looking a little ragged, but she was very much back to her normal self today.
She also learned a new word recently: "bird". Since we saw quite a few birds on our canoe outing, she got to practice a lot. The way she says it is so cute.

Grocery store fun

We love going grocery shopping at Ultra because they have great shopping carts for the Minx. Ultra is a bit more expensive and not quite walking distance from our house, so we don't go as often but we sure have fun when we do! All of the shopping carts cost 10 Kroners to use (~$1.85) but then you get the money back when you are finished shopping. Such a good idea because you don't see shopping carts in random places around town.

Lots happening this week -- our friend Huw is visiting from Wales and Rhiannon's nursery school is closed (this week and next) so we have not had our normal routine. Our plan was to take turns working -- Rhodri work the morning and me in the afternoon or vice versa -- but this only happened on Monday. Poor Minxie has been not herself this week because she has been feeling under the weather. In fact, most of the past 2 days and nights she has spent curled up on my chest.

Quite a day

Today was a glorious sunny and breezy day, and we sure made the most of it. First, I got up with Rhiannon at 6:30am and we made banana bread while Rhodri slept in (usually I get to sleep in). I know Rhiannon 'helps' with cooking at barnehage, but I haven't really experienced it for myself until today. I also didn't realize that she knows the Norwegian word for cook, which sounds like "kooka". So she was saying "me kooka, Mama kooka" over and over again. She even dug out my apron from the kitchen drawer and wanted help putting it on. Then after a hearty breakfast, our friends Fiona and Karl John with their twin boys Magnus and Finn came over to play. The boys are 2 months younger than Rhiannon and not quite as confident on their feet as she, but they all had a good time playing on the slide, in the sandbox and on the see-saw.
We then ventured out to go pick raspberries, which sounds a lot more fun than it was. By the time we got there, Rhiannon was ready for a nap and the boys were content to hang in the stroller. So Karl John and I picked raspberries while Rhodri and Fiona listened to the farm owner's life story. This guy was 78 years old, spoke excellent English and was very concerned that we pick the raspberries correctly. He gave us several demonstrations of how and how not to pick, including doing a sommersault right in front of us! The sommersault (aka "commando roll") was to explain why we were to start picking at the bottom of the hill and work our way up rather than the reverse. Quite a character.
By the time we had picked enough berries, the kids were restless and ready to leave. Here is Rhiannon, Finn (in the red hair) and Magnus.Rhiannon is communicating that she is "all done" being at this place in the photo below.

Another biking adventure

Its been a long and rainy week. Rhodri was gone Tuesday morning until late Thursday night and we really missed him. Today he took Rhiannon out for another biking adventure but this time invited our friend and colleague Michael and his 2 kids. Here is Rhiannon with Victoria (age 3) settling in for their 2 hour ride.Ready to ride
After the ride, eating cookies on the small couch and sharing toys
Showing off her new umbrella!

Berry patches

Anyone that really knows me knows that I absolutely love picking berries. In this regard, I am not alone in this country of avid berry-pickers! So imagine my delight when I discovered not one but TWO wild berry patches over the past 4 days. The first one on Friday when I was doing an experiment outside behind my office and quite literally stumbled on tiny wild strawberries. Needless to say, my experiment got a bit delayed but not too much since the berries were along the ground and bending over to pick them with my big belly in the way wasn't a whole lot of fun. This made my second berry patch discovery all the better....I found this glorious raspberry patch after breakfast today when I took Bentley out to our communal soccer pitch/ playground for his morning constitutional. My eyes nearly popped out of my head as I blinked in disbelief at the perfectly ripe, easy to reach, delicious raspberries at waist height! The only down side is the occasional stinging nettle plant interspersed with the berry branches, but a handy pair of garden gloves (which I ran back for) relieved this irritation. So how could our neighbors-in-the-know let all these little juicies survive this long? Ha, ha! You see, right now most of Norway is on vacation so our neighborhood is like a ghost town. Raspberries all to myself... I mean "ourselves". I found that the best strategy for harvesting is to go pick berries after meals when I am not too hungry. Rhodri and Rhiannon thank me for this!

Bobby

Rhiannon practices being a bossy older sister to Bentley. Rhodri and I think it is hilarious the way she says "Bobby" when she is calling Bentley.

Buckles and bicycles

This week it rained a lot but today the weather has been fine. We borrowed this bike trailer from our neighbors and Rhodri took Rhiannon in it this afternoon. Passengers are supposed to wear bike helmets and Rhiannon really loves hers, but we figured it would make for awkward sleeping so we put pillows in next to her. When she woke up, she only wanted to play with the buckles next to her and didn't care one bit about the lovely scenery they were passing or the horses they saw or anything. She just worked on clicking the buckles together, which was near impossible with all the jostling that was going on during the ride. But apparently she didn't get frustrated, she just kept working on it.

U-pick strawberries!

We found out that the local strawberry farm has ripe berries now, so we came down for an hour and picked 12 pounds of them, eating along the way (of course). Here is the view of the farm - it was a popular place on this lovely warm Sunday afternoon. Oslofjord is in the background behind the trees.The Minx quickly learned that it was a lot easier to eat straight from the basket rather than looking under leaves. In spite of our diversionary tactics, she managed to scoff a whole lot of berries while we were there.
Rhodri took the Minx on a walk down to the other end of the field while I did some focused harvesting. Here is one of his creative self-takes.

Toot toot!

Rhiannon loves playing with her train set and saying "toot toot!"

Tool time

Although you can't tell from the photos, it rained most of the day so we mostly laid low. But then the sun came out so Rhodri finally brought up the BBQ from the garage. The Minx was already wearing her Carhartt overalls, so she was all set to help.Cheeky smile as she runs off with a screwdriver
Everything is "coooool" (Minx and Daddy clap their hands and then spread them out while saying "cooooool")
The Minx loves playing with the "dwr" (water) from the hose

Bob and other words

The Minx has had some funny ideas lately. She has been insisting on wearing her bike helmet while eating supper. I guess it makes mealtime a bit more fun?Rhiannon is saying a strange mix of words now -- some Norwegian, some Welsh and some English. She uses the Welsh words "dwr" for water, "agar" for open and "hett" for hat. Then she is still saying "Nei" for no (of course), as well as "sae" for look, "ash" for yuck and probably more that we don't recognize yet. In English, she says "toast", "done", "bubbles", "bug" (as in ladybug) and more every day. She is getting really good at mimicking words.

However, her favorite word right now is "Bob". She got this from watching a few episodes of "Byggmester Bob" -- aka "Bob the Builder". This cartoon (in Norwegian) is on early in the morning (i.e. before we parents are fully functioning) and she loves the theme tune. She may be a bit confused though, as she has been calling Bentley "Bobby" and other men she sees (including Grandpa Carl via video link) "Bob"!

Decisions

In preparation for the arrival of #2, I have been investigating the options for birth. We interviewed a homebirth midwife several weeks ago and really liked her. Then I went to visit a new birthing center in downtown Oslo and I was really impressed! The birth center visit was initially a token effort because having a home birth was my preference, but I am so glad I went because this is the option that we are going with. Its a little bit backwards to have a homebirth with the first child and then go to a birthing center for the second, but that is what we will do.

The birthing center is called Føderiket, and it means "give birth richly" or something like that. It was created by a team of midwives -- 5 of the 8 of them are former homebirth midwives -- in order to provide a natural birthing option for low risk pregnancies. The reason that the government agreed to fund Føderiket is because they realized that there is no longer enough statistics or data about what a natural birth involves! Most births (certainly in the USA but also in countries like Norway) involve some kind of medical intervention such as epidural shots, labor induction medication, and cesearian sections, so people are losing touch with actually what is normal for a natural (unmedicated) birth. The 5 year plan for Føderiket is to ramp up to 12 midwives and then be able to provide both pre-natal and birth care at the facility and also homebirth for those who want it by always having 2 midwives available to go attend a homebirth at any time. The facility is in an old brick building which feels more like a house, especially since there is a nice kitchen in it. Each of the birthing rooms has a big jacuzzi bathtub, shower, double-size bed, couch and some other stuff.

So I am excited about this option although I am sad about not being able to give birth at home. Then again it may be better in some ways to go away from the house, leave Rhiannon in the care of her Grandma Debi and Aunt Heidi, and have some time alone with the new baby and Rhodri. That's the plan anyway -- what actually happens might be something completely different!

Italian wedding (what were we thinking?!?)

It sounded like a good idea at the time: the wedding of our Italian friend Roberto on a Friday in June in a village outside of Milan. We found there were 'cheap' flights with RyanAir from Liverpool (closest airport to North Wales) to Milan and then also from Milan to Oslo, so we booked ourselves on this adventure. Indeed, the phrase "Italian wedding" conjures up fine food and wine, dancing and revelry for everybody! In reality, we found that "Italian wedding" meant spending nearly 3 hot sweaty hours inside a Catholic church listening to the christening and then wedding vows (all in Italian, of course) while trying to keep our lively toddler semi-quiet. We sat in the back row of the church with the local bag lady, who had at least 4 plastic shopping bags at her feet as well as the "flower bag" shown in the photo. She left before the ceremony actually started.
There were other babies in the church ceremony as well, so when we saw them, we thought "phew! at least Rhiannon won't be the only one making noise". What we didn't consider was that just as in the Welsh christening ceremony, whenever one of the babies made any kind of noise, the Minx would answer back in a loud voice. So embarrassing! And of course she wanted to get down and explore the aisles and lay on the cool tile floor. We took turns taking Rhiannon outside but she kept wanting to go back in and cause trouble/ make noise! She adored the older boys that were there as well and kept trying to kiss them and hold their hands. Poor boys (who were about 7-8 years old) did their best to ignore her and focus on playing with rocks, but the Minx was still able to get her lips on this one's cheek.
The ceremony was an hour late in starting and the Minx had emptied her supply of pumpkin seeds and dried fruit before the bride showed up!
Finally the gorgeous bride Ana arrived and the 1.5 hour ceremony started
No idea what was going on here, but it was towards the end and everyone else was standing up to take photos so we joined in...
After the ceremony, there was about an hour of photo taking outside the church and then we went to the reception. Finally the Minx got to really run around and eat loads of cantelope, savory pastries and breaded chicken. She fell asleep in her car seat at our feet while we grown-ups were enjoying the multi-course meal. Such a good thing! She slept all the way through the meal and until we left at midnight. Back at the hotel, we survived our 2nd night of malfunctioning air conditioning with the company of at least 2 cockroaches and several trails of ants, but it wasn't pretty. The bugs didn't really surprise or bother us because the Minx had scattered rice krispies, pumpkin seeds and dried fruit all over the floor. Feast time with the Lewis family in town!

Honestly, there were more than a couple of times when Rhodri and I looked at each other and shook our heads "what were we thinking??". But it was really wonderful to see our friend Roberto and to finally meet his bride and their baby Riccardo (4 months), and we also got to reunite with some other friends that we hadn't seen for awhile. Its just that an event like this is awfully hard work when its HOT and you have a demanding, loud toddler. The traveling to and from was really hard work too, so it was extra wonderful to get home on a rainy Saturday afternoon -- one day earlier than planned.

Chasing pigeons

Rhiannon loved chasing pigeons in the village of Cernusco Sul Naviglio, Italy where we went for a wedding on Friday!

Last days in Wales

We were able to visit with some friends Bleddyn and Geri and their two boys Ceiro and Meilyr (all good Welsh names!) before leaving Wales. Ceiro is 1 year older than Rhiannon and he hesitantly shared his blue tractor with her when we came to visit.He wanted to push her really fast around the garden and I think the Minx was a little bit scared because he was really running! Look at her hair flying behind her in the picture below.
We had such a wonderful time in Wales and we were very sad to leave. But we had committed to going to this Italian wedding for the weekend and so we had to say goodbye on Thursday afternoon. The Minx didn't sleep one wink on the airplane but we had a good time looking out the window as we crossed the Alps.

The new green chair

Nain Beryl bought Rhiannon a perfect little chair and she absolutely loves it. Of course, the first thing she wanted to do was to stand on it, which was quickly discouraged. It is light enough for her to carry around so the next thing we knew, she had carried it into the kitchen so she could climb up on it and reach the strawberries. Cheeky little Minx!A good girl sitting down

Tricky language situations

One of the aspects of this tri-lingual situation we are in is that words sound very similar in different languages but have completely different meanings. One example is: "nei" meaning "no" in Norwegian, "Nain" meaning "Grandma" in Welsh, and "nice" or "nine" in English...they all sound very similar. Its tricky because although we try to stick to our respective langauges when talking to Rhiannon, there are times when we end up using the Norwegian word for something because we know she knows what it means. We also end up using alternative words when we don't want her to be confused and think we are saying a similar-sounding word. Like I say, its tricky!
For example, we try not to say "Nice kitty" because it sounds a lot like "Nei, Kitty" which would imply that the Kitty did something wrong. Instead we say "Soft Kitty" or "Good Kitty". And same with calling Rhiannon's grandmother Beryl "Nain" -- although we have been calling her this, Rhiannon has been calling her "Nei" or nothing at all and just looking confused until today. Today she somehow realized that "Nain" is her name and so she slightly changed the pronunciation so that it sounds more similar to "Nan". So interesting!
There are loads of other examples that impact our life...for instance, the Norwegian word for diaper is "bleie" and the British term is "nappy". The Minx tends to act fussy when we say we are going to change her diaper or nappy but when we call it a bleie, she is calm. And we don't say nap (as in taking a nap) because that sounds too much like "nappy" since that makes her act fussy so instead we say "go for a sleep" (I have no idea what it is in Norwegian). Whatever works!

Gabriel's christening

We went to Cousin Gabriel's christening on Sunday and the Minx was fairly good for the 20 minute event. She wasn't quiet and she didn't sit still, but it could have been a lot worse. I gave her some dried fruit to munch on, thinking that would keep her quiet but I forgot that she likes to hum when she eats! Then she blurted out a few unidentifiable words which must have made sense to Gabriel, because he shouted back from the front row! Here she is on Taid Trefor's lap munching and humming away.She enjoyed the Welsh hymn singing part I think
She did NOT enjoy when Uncle Trystan (holding Gabriel on the left) played the organ, especially when he did so while holding her on his lap! Auntie Nia and Uncle Cristian are also pictured below. Rhodri was away at a "Lad's weekend" so thats why he isn't pictured.

"Allooo"

One of Rhiannon's favorite activities lately has been to drive her Princess-Mobile over to the house phone, pick up the handset and say "Allooooo". Even when the phone is nowhere near her, she still enjoys saying "alloooo"

Simple things

We have been enjoying the simple things in life -- spending time with family, smelling the flowers, and going for walks around the neighborhood. Here is the Minx with her Nain Beryl smelling the lavender in the front garden.With Auntie Sioned smiling at someone on the other side of the windowLook at that cheeky smile! As always, trying to discourage Rhiannon from doing certain things (like climbing on the coffee table) results in Rhiannon doing those very things with great glee! She has been wanting to wear her ladybug boots all the time these days

Big day at the farm

Today we decided to visit a local farm where we could see real farm animals and go for tractor rides and all sorts! http://www.foelfarm.co.uk/ is the website for the place we found. Auntie Nia and Uncle Cristian with Cousin Gabriel came with us. Here is Uncle Cristian with Rhiannon on one of the mini tractors.We got to bottle feed some lambs; ride on a trailer pulled by a tractor around a big pasture scattered with cows, sheep and horses; hold a baby bunny rabbit; feed goats and sheep out of our hands; and enjoy some fresh baked cake and tea (after washing our hands!).
Here we are waiting for our turn to bottle feed a lamb - note the skepticism on Minx's face! Gabriel wasn't too impressed either.
The view from inside the tractor-trailer out to the Menai Straits (between mainland Wales and the Isle of Anglesey where we were).
Getting ready to race mini tractors around the field
Enjoying a really nice sandbox with Uncle Cristian

Summer visit to the Grandparents in Wales

We left Asker Wed morning on the 6:58am train to Oslo airport and Rhiannon was really excited to go on the train. It was a long 47 minute journey because the Minx did not want to sit at all. Then she was even more excited to find the deluxe children's play area at the airport!
As soon as the plane took to the air, the Minx and her daddy both fell asleep and it wasn't until we were coming in to land at Manchester airport when they woke up. Perfect! I had brought a whole load of new things for Rhii to play with but we didn't need to open any of them except the pretzels.
She had some pretty good bedhead after her nap
Once we got to North Wales, we had a happy reunion with the family. Rhiannon's cousin Gabriel is visiting as well (up from Cardiff in the south), so we are enjoying a full house! Gabriel is 9 months old and just started crawling so he is an exciting target for Rhiannon, especially since she was reunited with the "Princess-Mobile" that she got at Christmas. She has been zooming around the house, taking breaks to sway to the music that the Princess-Mobile makes. Poor Gabriel has had some close calls with the Minx and its only been 1 day!