Living the good life

We have been really living large here in north Wales, especially taking advantage of the available babysitters Nain and Taid (Grandma and Grandpa in Welsh)! Rhiannon has been going on long walks everyday with Taid Trefor down the road and over the style into the nearby meadow where lots of mama and baby sheep live. Here they are walking down the road -- Rhiannon is the light colored speck and Taid is camouflaged by his brown jacket.We have been able to meet up with more family and friends, such as Auntie Eirlys (holding Tryfan below)And Auntie Mary, who drove all the way up from Aberwystwyth in mid-Wales with her husband Harvey just to see us for the day!We also squeezed in some time at the pub in Betws-y-Coed where we enjoyed a late lunch after shopping. Rhiannon ate lots of rice, cucumbers, red peppers and chips and had a grand time climbing around the booth we sat in.
We also visited with our friends Bleddyn and Geri and their two sons, Ceiro and Meilir. Ceiro is 3 years old and was being very sweet by pushing Rhiannon around on his tractor.
Then they did very fast laps around the kitchen table on little animal wheeliesAfter the kids are in bed, Rhodri and I have been able to sneak out alone! We have been out to dinner, out to see a movie ("Juno"), and out to visit friends. Too bad we only have 1 full day left!

Reuniting

We were so happy to see the Lewis' on Thursday when we arrived! Rhodri's sister Nia and her son Gabriel (18 months old) came up from Cardiff to Llandudno so that we could see them too. Here is Nain Beryl and Auntie Nia meeting Tryfan for the first time. He was all smiles for them!Nain and little Tryfs in the Conservatory room of the house
Auntie Nia reading a Welsh book to Gabriel and Rhiannon
Rhiannon and Gabriel ("Gabbie") throwing refridgerator magnets out the catflap in the kitchen verrrrry early in the morning!
We went for a walk on Friday in search of sheep and horses. Here are Rhiannon and Gabriel laughing at Auntie Nia as she made loud sheep noises next to a field full of mama and baby sheep.
We found horses too, and only a short walk from the Lewis house. I bet we will be making this walk again in coming days because there was a lot of excitement about the horses!Tryfan slept in the Ergo for the entire expedition and it was a gorgeous day, though the wind was very cold
Meeting Auntie Jane from across the street. Tryfan really liked her scarf
Gabriel on Taid Trefor's lap, Tryfan on Auntie Nia's lap, Nain Beryl, and Rhodri with Rhiannon

Made it to Wales!

Hurray! We made it to the Lewis homeland on Thursday afternoon. The taxi came at 6am, we got on the train to the airport and had a good flight to Manchester without too much drama in our row of seats.
Here is the Minx being VERY minxie at the airport in Oslo. I had packed her ladybug backpack full of surprises and she was so eager to sit and open it before we got on the plane.Very exciting to be the first ones to board the plane in Oslo
Row 21 DEF
After we reunited with our baggage, we hired a car and drove to north Wales, arriving at ~12:30pm. The kids fell asleep just as we were nearing the end of the 1+ hour drive (of course).
There was a bit of drama NEXT to row 21 though! A man was walking towards the toilet at the back and he collapsed right next to us with his head hitting the floor in a very loud THUNK. Rhodri immediately jumped in to help -- eventually the guy came around (turned out to be an ear infection and low blood pressure) but the paramedics met the plane as soon as we landed. Anyway, Rhodri's help earned the family a free meal courtesy of SAS Airlines!

Baggy baggy

We are off tomorrow to go see Nain and Taid Lewis in north Wales! Yippiee! We have been looking so forward to this day. Before we go, though, I thought I would post this photo of Rhiannon and Sofie jumping in Rhiannon's crib last Sunday. For some reason, Rhiannon calls this jumping-in-the-crib business "baggy baggy". Weird.

Cycling to France

The other day, Tryfan was rolling around on his Winnie-the-Pooh blanket and Rhiannon laid down to join the fun. Tryfs likes to wiggle his legs in the air and then move them like he is on a bicycle. Nain Beryl (Rhodri's mother) calls it "cycling to France" so we call it that too :-)
Here are the two cyclists caught mid-cycle:

Demonic lamb song

Here is a demonic version of Rhiannon singing "Baa Baa Lille Lam" (Baa Baa Little Lamb)

Usually, this is such a sweet little song! Its a different tune and different words than "Baa Baa Black Sheep". This is the one Norwegian song that I know, having learned it from my friend Elin. The translated words are:
Baa baa little lamb
Have you any wool?
Yes, yes dear child
My whole body is full
Sunday's best for mother and
Sunday's best for father and
Two pairs of tights
For little tiny brother

Double trouble

You know a day is going to be good when it starts out with music by the Great One! Jimmy Buffett is the best for Saturday morning "let's get dressed and GO" tunes. We decided to go to Sandvika first thing after breakfast for some shopping and then a walk on the icy fjord beach with Bentley. Success! It turned out to be a gorgeous day for doing this and Bentley had a grand time racing across the icy flats and then skid-sliding to a stop. Both kids took naps and then we walked to a cafe for lunch before heading home.
In the afternoon, Rhodri went into Oslo to watch more of the Six Nations Rugby while we stayed home. My friend Candice and her twin 3-year-olds, Sophia and Shaun, came over to enjoy the afternoon. They are from Trinidad and live here in Asker and the father, Chris, works with us. Rhiannon did a good job of sharing her toys and being mostly sweet. Here they are eating rice cakes with cream cheese and kicking the toy chest:

Our little roller

He bidged! He bodged! He boodged! Today is the day!
(forgive me if you don't get the reference to the Winnie-the-Pooh record that I used to listen to describing the day when Pooh gets unstuck from Rabbit's House)
Anyway, our little Tryfan is now a roller! He rolled over from his back to his front on Sunday night when I was putting Rhiannon to bed and Rhodri was hanging out with Tryfs in the bathroom.

It sounds weird to hang out in the bathroom, but its one of our favorite places to be because it is quite a small cozy room where we can all squeeze in (usually with at least one of us in the bathtub) and most importantly, it has warm heated floor tiles! So quite often Tryfan finds himself laying on a towel on the warm bathroom floor looking up at the side of the bathtub, underneath the sink and next to the toilet.

I wasn't there when it happened, but Rhodri said that he was so pleased ("chuffed" was the actual word that he used) with himself that he let out a little giggle as he was able to get his rolled-on arm out from under him and prop himself up on his tummy. Since then, he wants to practice rolling all the time.
Here he is in action:

Equal opportunities

One of our Norwegian colleagues who has older children gave us a bunch of clothes, shoes and books recently. One of the books is called "My first thousand words" (in Norwegian), and Rhiannon loves studying it. It's a really big book that has different scenes on each two-page spread..."the kitchen", "the grocery store", "the doctor", etc. I was quite amused to see that in "the kitchen", the Daddy is one doing the dishes while shouting over his shoulder for one of the kids to clean up the spilled milk and let the cat go outside. Then in "the living room", it is the Daddy that is hoovering while the Mama is nowhere to be seen. Best of all, I like "the grocery store" scene where the Daddy is carrying a baby in a front-carry pack and directing the other two small children to pick out some onions for the shopping cart! I thought that for sure it would be written by a female, but actually it is by one female and one male - good job promoting equal opportunities!

Hoovering

Rhiannon has a new favorite thing to do! Rhodri calls it hoovering rather than vacuuming, and hoovering is much more fun to say (and therefore do)! She looks so angelic in this footage with the overexposed light reflecting off her white doggie shirt...

The rest of us

Today was the first rugby match of the "Six Nations Rugby Cup" and Wales were playing England. This meant that Rhodri planned on going into downtown Oslo to watch the match inside a pub, and the rest of us needed to fend for ourselves. He left at 1:45pm and wasn't expected home before 9pm. At first I felt sorry for myself, but it was a gorgeous afternoon so I pulled myself out of the slump and mobilized the troops. We went outside and stomped around the fresh snow for the last hour of daylight. Here is Tryfan looking up at me from the Ergo baby carrier.We threw snowballs for Bentley to jump up and catch even though Rhiannon refused to wear her mittens.
Then when we came back inside, Rhiannon and I played with silk scarves and danced to the Hokey Pokey and other favorites.
We also listened to the album "Free to be...you and me", which is a compilation of songs, stories and poems by 1970's era musicians and celebrities. I listened to that record so much when I was growing up that I still remember exactly where the record skipped or got stuck when we listened to the CD yesterday. Some of the hits include Parents are people, Brothers and sisters, When we grow up and so many other great pieces. As I was holding Rhiannon and dancing around singing and waving scarves, tears came to my eyes because I am so grateful to be a Mama (and not just because I get to dance, sing and wave scarves)

PS. Wales ended up beating England, 25-19!

Little red devil

Today was the Carneval celebration at Rhiannon's barnehage so everyone came dressed in a costume. Rhiannon came as a little red devil, her costume complete with a cape and a tail but no pitchfork. She didn't want to take it off when it was bedtime tonight!
Here are some of her little buddies - there were lots of princesses and tigers but only one little red devil
Here is our Friday night pizza dinner scene. I asked Rhiannon to hold up the cucumber she was eating and she actually did it!

Row row row

Rhiannon loves to sit on Tryfan's feet and play "Row the boat", although she is not singing in this video. I guess Tryfs doesn't mind having his big sister sit on his feet. This poor chair is totally warped now though, since Rhiannon sits on it everyday.

Out on the town

Last night was the annual Company dinner, held at a hotel in downtown Oslo. I have been preparing for a couple of weeks by lining up a babysitter well in advance and also pumping enough milk to be able to leave Tryfan for a long evening. Things didn't really go according to plan on this night, but it could have been a lot worse! To start with, the hot water in our house stopped (this happened after my shower but before Rhodri's). Then Rhiannon took an extra long time to go to bed. Then I couldn't find my wallet or my fancy cardigan sweater (both of which I found eventually). All of this meant that we were very late in leaving the house -- the event started at 7pm and we didn't leave until 7:30pm.

But we picked up our friends Patrick and Sarah and made it just as people were sitting down for the opening speech. It turned out to be a nice meal and it was good to see a lot of the people that were there, but we were happy to leave a couple of hours early. The event ended at 2:30am and we left at 12:30am, so we put in a good effort, but we needed to get home to Tryfan.

Our babysitter must have forgotten (or confused the translation from English) that Tryfan needs to have milk every few hours! She must have panicked when he started crying and tried to console him in other ways when all the little guy wanted was some milk. So the frozen milk was still in the freezer and the bottle was untouched. Poor little guy! I don't think it caused permanent damage though, because he was his normal smiley self all day today. But anyway, the best thing about this night was that I got to wear a very foofie (yes that's a word!) turquoise blue feather thingy in my hair, which I would never otherwise wear. But I had the phrase "if not now, when?" going round in my head so I did. Too bad its not too visible in the photo above.

Trundling along

Its been a long week with not too much excitement going on. But that's okay! Its nice to just trundle along doing normal things sometimes, especially when one gets to enjoy the company of a few close friends. Yesterday I felt just a little bit out-of-phase with the rest of life, so after our morning walk I sought refuge at my friend Elin's house. Her youngest daughter Johanne turned 3 months yesterday so we celebrated by finishing the gingerbread cookies from Christmas and drinking tea. Johanne and Tryfan looked so cute together on the floorRhiannon has been talking a lot more and she loves to sing and dance. But since I know American kid songs and Rhodri knows Welsh kid songs and Rhiannon knows Norwegian kid songs...we seldom sing together EXCEPT in the car on the way to/from the house when we listen to the Canadian folk singer Stompin' Tom Connors. Our favorite song is "Bud the Spud" which goes a little something like this...
It's Bud the Spud! from the bright red mud
Rollin' down the highway smiling
The spuds are big on the back of Bud's rig
They're from Prince Edward Island
They're from Prince Edward Island

3 months old!

Today our little Tryfan is 3 months old! He is so strong - he can nearly sit up by himself and he holds his head up so well. He continues to be a calm, happy, and hungry little guy.

The early part of this week was filled with leisurely activities that took up all of the daytime hours on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday -- meeting other Mamas at nearby cafes, going to "Baby Cinema" (a daytime showing of a current film that is only for parents and their infants, the idea being that new parents can watch a film without having to worry about their baby disturbing others), and going on the usual walks with Elin and Bentley and the babies. Then on Thursday, my good friend "Ginge" and his wife Pascale flew over from France to stay with us for the weekend! Here are Ginge, Tryfan and Pascale at my favorite Vollen Bakeri this afternoon:This morning (ok, it was technically afternoon but it felt like morning), we went up to Semsvannet but all the roads and paths were SO slippy that we aborted our plan to walk around the lake with Bentley. That's when we decided to head to Vollen Bakeri while Rhodri and Rhiannon took naps at home.Of course, Tryfan just adores Rhiannon these days. Every chance she gets, Rhiannon tries to sit on the end of Tryf's chair (where his feet are) and play/ sing "Row the boat" with him. This activity is usually interrupted by one of us trying to make her be gentle and not hurt him, but Tryfan has stars in his eyes and just laughs and squeals with joy when Rhiannon is close to him.
Rhiannon is not wearing pants in the above picture because she is still going through her "take all the clothes off" phase. But can you see the googlie eyes of adoration in little Tryfan?

Another Christmas party?

Norwegians sure know how to stretch out a holiday. Christmas goes from mid-November through the end of January, and I am not exaggerating! The only time that there are no Christmas parties is between ~ December 18 and January 2 because that's when everyone should be with their families. Since most venues get booked up quickly for the early December parties, some groups have to schedule their parties in November or January. Last night was the Schlumberger Children's Christmas party, held at a nearby hotel. Rhiannon saw 2 of her buddies from barnehage so she spent the whole party running, jumping and dancing with them. Here she is with Christian:
And with Sofia (not her best buddy Sofie, but still a good friend because as soon as Rhiannon saw her, she ran over and gave a big hug):Here is part of the action that the evening involved -- holding hands and going around the Christmas tree while doing 'Hokey-Pokey' type moves and singing Norwegian songs -- quite hilarious to watch! We brought nice shoes for Rhiannon to wear, but of course she insisted on wearing her snow boots.

Christmas party action

The Schlumberger Children's Christmas party was from 4:30 - 7:30pm. We left just before the 7pm Santa appearance because we were already late for Rhiannon's 7pm bedtime by then (and because her being given candy by Santa and then us having to take it away is just unneeded trouble). But there was a jolly entertainer man (accompanied by a stoic keyboardist) who sang and performed magic tricks the entire time!
Here are a few seconds of the action:

(Rhiannon is the one jumping in the middle of the crowd with her 2 buddies.)

Passport photo

The other thing I did this week is apply for Tryfan's passport. We applied for a British passport rather than an American one on the advice of our neighbor who said that it will take less time for a British one to come through than an American one. So I took this photo of Tryfan thinking that I could use it, but in the end I went to a photographer and paid 100 NOK (~$20) to get them taken properly. But it is such a cute photo, I thought I would share!

Dentist visit

I can't believe I am saying this, but I had the greatest dentist visit this week! My appointment was at 1:00pm so I arrived at 12:55pm, got into the dentist chair at exactly 1:00pm and was back outside in the fresh air by 1:20pm after having two x-rays done as well as a thorough cleaning. Our dentist has a computer monitor right over the chair and surround sound speakers, so during my 20 minutes, I watched part of a Phil Collins concert from 1986 (his choice) while my teeth got pressure washed. He took two x-rays and displayed the results on the screen so we could look together as he adjusted the contrast ratio to highlight different features. And when he got out the tool to clean between the gums and teeth, he turned down the [rather loud] Phil Collins music to tell me that "the next few minutes will cause pain to you" -- no sugar coatings here! I love the Norwegian bluntness sometimes.

Slightly new routine

This week we have been back into a routine and it is so nice. We have had intermittent snow and rain, so walking conditions have been less-than-ideal because the ground is either really slippy or else really slushy. But we cope. Our routine has been to take Rhodri and Rhiannon to work/ barnehage respectively, then take Bentley for a walk with my friend Elin and her baby Johanne. And then, a new twist: some days I go to the gym after the walk. I have never been a gym person, always preferring to exercise outside by running or biking. BUT, given the present constraints (baby, winter conditions), it makes more sense to go to the gym.

And so I join all the other economically-inactive people (mostly women and senior citizens) who go to the gym during weekday late morning time! Our gym (the main one in Asker) provides free child care from 6 weeks of age, so its very easy to just walk over there with Tryfan [hopefully asleep] in the stroller, park the stroller in the child care room, and go work out. Then afterwards, I sit in the lobby in a comfy arm chair and nurse him while drinking free warm beverages and socializing with the other women nursing their babies and drinking free warm beverages. By the time we get home it is midday or later and so we eat lunch and then do laundry, start thinking about what to cook for dinner, etc.

Bentley likes it too since he gets to scamper in the snow everyday. I haven't posted a picture of our first baby in quite awhile so here he is!

Entertainment

Tryfan has become so interactive these past few days. He smiles and coos and laughs when someone makes eye contact with him. We have been calling him "Smiley Guy" and Rhiannon especially likes to play with and entertain him.

(If that look from Tryfan towards the end of the video isn't a "Please save me!" look, I don't know what is!)

Short but eventful week

Here is Rhiannon's class picture -- can you find her amongst all the other blond kids?
Its been a short but eventful week. Rhiannon was happy to be back at barnehage, but she got into a fight with another kid in her class (we don't know who) on Thursday and ended up getting bit on the shoulder. So now she has a big bruise on her shoulder but no teeth marks. I'd hate to see what the other kid looks like.

Then on Friday, we heard that she led 3 other kids in taking off all their clothes and hiding in the playhouse (which is indoors)! Taking off all her clothes (+ diaper) has been a favorite recent activity of Rhiannon's, so we weren't too surprised to hear that she had done this at school. It is kind of funny that she was the ringleader, coercing some other kids to participate though-- a true Lewis! Once the teachers found the 4 naked kids in the playhouse, of course they put all the clothes back on. But then about 10 minutes later...4 naked kids back in the playhouse! After this happened a third time within the hour, the kids were dressed up in their snowsuits and sent out to play.

Happy New Year 2008!

Woo hoo! Happy New Year, everyone!

We spent the last evening of 2007 at our friends Michael and Charlotte's house with their kids William (5) and Victoria (3) and another family. We arrived at 5pm and planned to leave around 8 pm so as to not disrupt Rhiannon's bedtime too much. Well, THAT plan went out the window! We ended up staying until 11:40 pm because Rhiannon was having such a good time. But by the end she was so very tired and we changed her into her "Nev jammies" (pajamas that Nev gave her) for the drive home. Here she is ready to leave but sipping some [pretend] tea first: Bentley had a really good time with lots of attention from the 2 boys. He got to sniff their cat, Choco, but was afraid of her so kept his distance. He did not like it when fireworks went off, though, and they seemed to do that every few minutes all evening. When this happened, he would run around barking and trying to act brave.
We enjoyed a superb traditional New Year's Eve feast prepared by Charlotte (middle of the photo below) of "pinnekjott" (salted and dried lamb ribs), homemade sausage, swede, potatoes, cabbage and more. Here are (clockwise from l): Rolf-Erik, Bentley, Charlotte, William, Victoria, Braage, Ragnhilde, Michael, Tryfan, Rhodri and Rhiannon.After dinner, Rhiannon hung out with the big kids downstairs in the playroom. I peeked down there to find that she was busy eating candy while sitting on a rocking horse. I didn't even try to stop her, although we were not that thrilled about the candy. Oh well...special occasion and all that. She periodically came upstairs to try and get someone to go with her to find the kitty (who was hiding somewhere upstairs). The night just flew by and all of a sudden it was the 11 o'clock hour and we wanted to get home before midnight. That didn't really happen, but it was quite a drive home because we were surrounded by fireworks exploding.

Fireworks are legal here, so everyone (except us) seemed to have plenty to set off. We got to Asker at about 11:55pm. The view from the roundabout crossing left over the E18 freeway affords a fabulous view back to the downtown Oslo area and especially the Holmenkollen ski jump. As we drove through this, the entire skyline of Oslo was alive with exploding color, so we decided to not go straight home but instead to drive to a nearby overlook. I took this video, but of course it doesn't do the scene justice; the view north-east to Oslo from Asker along the fjord was simply amazing with thousands of fireworks going off simultaneously.



Once we got home, however, it was less fun. We found that our cozy little 'hood was filled with drunk, rude, firework-crazy Norwegians that we didn't recognize and who were lighting fireworks on the path from our parking spot to the house. Rhiannon had been asleep in the car but woke up because of the very loud and far-too-close explosions, which Rhodri and I had to dodge in order to get safely into the house. Bentley was of course barking his heart out in a vain effort to protect us! And poor little Tryfan didn't know what to think so his eyes were just as big as saucers and his fingers in his mouth for comfort! Eventually we all fell asleep but not until 1am or so. Anyway, it was a night to remember :-)

Twirling & whistling with a new haircut

Rhiannon got a haircut this week, and it was only successful because of our friends Lisa and Isabella who posted a video of Isabella and Elke (both 2 years old) dancing to "Round and Round the Mulberry Bush". Rhiannon loves watching this video and singing along, so I modified the song to go "This is the way we trim our hair, trim our hair.." and she happily let me trim her hair! Anyway, here she is playing in her crib in her new favorite dress from Aunt Libby...



We have had a good week here with not that much activity. We went for a great walk on Dec 26th when the sky was clear and we had a few inches of snow everywhere. Since then, the snow was melted by warm rain and we enjoyed laying low with our friends.

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful Christmas Day! Rhiannon's gift to us was that she slept in until 08:10 am! When she woke up, she wanted to wear the red Christmas hat which was way too small for her but made her look even more like a pixie.
We had a relaxing morning of opening presents and talking to Rhodri's family on the web cam, and then we headed over to our friends Sarah and Patrick's house. They have 3 kids aged 7, 5 and 18 months and they also have a dog, so we were quite a full and chaotic house (we brought Bentley of course)! We brought the turkey with stuffing and sausage, a sweet potato casserole, and a raspberry-apple pie, and they provided everything else. Here is Rhiannon on the digger-excavator that she loved playing with at their house:
The mandatory family photo
We stayed at their house all day - from noon until 7:45 pm - and it was so wonderful. It was so nice to do whatever we wanted to and to share the kid-chaos with our friends without worrying about spilled juice or broken tree ornaments. We did learn that Rhiannon loves eating ham. She sat quietly at the dinner table munching on piece after piece of gammon ham, with a few carrots interspersed.

It started snowing sometime in the afternoon so by the time we drove home we had about an inch, and by the next morning we had a couple of inches. A wonderful Christmas Day!

Christmas Eve

Well, we didn't get quite enough sub-zero thoughts to stop the snow from melting on Dec 24th, but the snow came back yesterday afternoon for a late white Christmas...more on that later!
Christmas Eve is when it all happens here in Norway. This is the day that everyone opens presents and has family come over for big festive meals. However, since we didn't have any family coming to see us and we were not planning on going anywhere, we simply had a lovely relaxing day. First we delivered homemade cookies and fudge to our neighbors, which was an effort well received! (I guess this is not Norsk tradition). We also opened some presents so that we would not be too overwhelmed the next day (that was our excuse anyway!). Here is the Minx wearing her new purple cozy hat and her favorite sweater.Here is a funny picture of a typical scene in our house -- nursing, reading, eating tangerines and sandwiches altogether in the "Favorite chair" (formerly known as "Daddy's chair")
Rhodri and I spent Christmas Eve-ning in the kitchen -- each donning aprons, calling our parents on the phone to ask advice on various cooking issues, listening to Christmas music, and enjoying the thoroughly mellow lovely evening. Tryfan was awake for all of this, just sitting in his lounge chair and watching us...
BUT THEN all hell broke loose!
Tryfs started crying out of the blue, so I picked him up to discover that he had a huge poo blowout up his backside. We turned off the cooking burners and took him up to the bath. He was most unhappy about the whole ordeal, and his crying woke Rhiannon up. Rhodri went in to deal with her and found her butt naked standing in her crib and saying "pee!!". It turns out that she had taken everything off and peed the bed (and her blanket and her doll and her clothes!). So Rhodri changed the sheets and got Rhiannon dressed again while I finished bathing Tryfan and calming him down with some milk. Then, as quickly as it had started, the episode was over and we were back down in the kitchen cooking again. The whole ordeal lasted 18 minutes but it was quite funny in retrospect.

White pre-Christmas

It is so white and pretty here right now, and we were thinking that we would get to have a white Christmas, but the forecast is for warmer temperatures and RAIN. Ugh. Here are some photos of the beauty while it is here. We went for a Sunday afternoon drive today and stopped by our friend Jamie's house. This is the view from his dining room...We drove past the Prince and Princess' house in Asker and their driveway looked so pretty with the white trees lining it.More trees...
If you are reading this, please send us some nice sub-zero (Celsius) thoughts please so that the warm rain doesn't rinse away this winter beauty!