A little update

Its been a while since I wrote anything on here, so heres an update.
With work things are as always crazy busy, the cases are now going to be manufactured at two different companies and thats a split that makes a lot of sense, and we also see a huge drop in time wasted sitting around waiting for the manufacturer to get their asses in gear. The main issue now is just how to adjust the case to that the band can fit snuggly and precisely and I have found a plan that is being implemented now.  The first cases will go to our wonderful supporters on Kickstarter and to sellers in Europe that hopefully will kick off more sales over there.

The trip to Norway was very nice, it was lengthy compared to my previous trips but it had been two years since my last trip and I think it is important to stay a little when traveling so far, it took us 2 weeks to wake up from the jet-lag.. Norway is rainy, cold, and not much daylight to speak of so there was not much to do besides sleep anyway. We did have some awesome days though and lots of good food.
One of the big events this time was celebrating my grandmothers 90th birthday, which happens to fall on the same day as Christmas. With a new internet connection I hope to see her on Skype and stay updated email, who knows, maybe even Facebook?

One of our best days was visiting my family in Voss. (see images below) We took the train and had a nice journey through winter Norway. Most of my mom's family lives in Voss because my great grand father moved there due to the war in 1940s and this is where he started Sølvsmidja, a silversmith company. We got a tour the new factory and see how they make the jewelry, it was pretty awesome. This was also the first time Heather got to meet my mom's extended family and I think she really enjoyed her time with them. It was pretty clear Heather now is in love with Voss and its safe to say we will be back for more.

Another noteworthy occasion was when the clouds cleared one morning and we decided to go to Ulriken, the 2100ft mountain in Bergen.

We also got to see some of my friends, one of my best friends, Frode, managed to invite 30 people to his house for a big party, just like in the old days, except everyone seemed a bit older/more tired than last time we were all gathered.

Heather flew home one week before Lucia and I so for one full week while Heather slept in her own bed at home Lucia heard nothing but Norwegian. Obviously it was during this week she started picking up a lot of norwegian words, and she still use them randomly. Now she may say a full sentence in english but then one word will be substituted with a norwegian.

On the way home we stopped in London due to a flight mismatch and we got a chance to spend time with our good friend Kelly who now lives in London. We all took a little tour of London and saw the London Eye, closed for maintenance :( and walked down along The Thames. Lucia was super excited to see the London Bridge which she keeps singing about from a TV show called Barney. We had dinner at a pub and it was awesome.

The flight home next morning was OK, but the sleep I planned to have was torpedoed by the ridiculous short childrens shows on the inflight TV, being woken up every 20 minutes makes no one any less tired.

 Overall a great trip, and it is great to be back too!

I will post pictures as they are ready

She's a Talker

It seems like overnight, Lucia has begun talking more and more. 

And more and more. 

And more and more. 

She used to always ask me, "Can you tell me 'bout your day?" and the hilarious thing was she would ask this at like 6:30 a.m. when so far my day had consisted of making coffee and praying it would be ready soon. But most nights either at dinner or when I would rock her to sleep, she would ask me to recount my day in painstaking detail. We started to understand that she very much liked hearing about the sequence of things. So last night I asked her, "Can you tell me 'bout your day?" And she began recounting her day, which started out with, "Benjamin pushed me two times today." Me: he did? Did you push him back (because she often omits that part of the story) ? She said, No. No I dint Mommy. But I did tell him, (and she holds her hands out like she's gesturing) that you have to say you're sorry now." Me: Oh. Is that so? Did he say he was sorry? Her: Yes, he did. 

And it goes on and on and on like this. She's picking up conversations now, not just sentences but entire conversations. It's hilarious, and really makes me love my mom more, as I did the exact same thing, and my mom was also dealing with a 5-year-old at the time. God bless ya mom. 

Add Hummus to the No List

I was so excited to give Lucia hummus on Friday night; it was a hodge-podge kinda dinner where we all ate little things. As "dinner" started, and I use that term loosely because I gorged myself on tortilla chips and guacamole, so I wasn't eating (more), she was chowing away on the hummus. Chip after chip. She loves hummus and was really going to town. Then I noticed it. The lips. When she has an allergic reaction, the ridge of her top lip starts to get redder, so it almost looks like she has chapped lips. Then they started swelling. Then she started coughing, good god. We immediately removed the hummus (duh), gave her 1 tsp of Zyrtec and then followed it up with 1 tsp of Benadryl. A few hours later, we heard her coughing and coughing, so we gave her albuterol. She was already taking Flo-Vent due to a cold. Yesterday she also woke up coughing, so albuterol again. :(

This food allergy thing is a trip; she had that same hummus over Thanksgiving and was absolutely fine. Scary, and it doesn't get any easier each time this happens.

Stickers

Lucia pointed to my estrogen patches  (associated with this effort) on my abdomen today and asked, what are those? I said, those are my stickers. She thought about it for a minute, then said, "Because you were a good girl." Yep, I giggled. Mommy was a good girl and got stickers. Kids are funny.

Home

We're all home, but far from adjusted to California time. Please stand by as we recalibrate.

Happy New Year!

2011 was a mixed bag - so much good but some definite challenges. We were happy to welcome 2012.

That Part Where I Update You About Our Trip

Right. You may be waiting for an update on how our trip is going. Unfortunately, I have been -- well at least Lucia and I have been -- so incredibly jet lagged there’s not much to report. Christmas was amazing, and Pete and I channelled our twentysomething selves to hang out with his cousins until the weeeeee hours of the morning (protip: do not under any circumstances do the math to figure out how much you’re spending at a Norwegian bar. You will be horrified. Best to just realize that when you’re back in the States). So there was some recovering of that, then there was yesterday where I was awake from 2 a.m. to 11 a.m., then slept darn near the whole day. Seriously. Pete tried to wake me up from 12:30 until FOUR p.m. Good god. There went the day. Last night I had some over-the-counter dramamine to knock me out for the night. It worked - I slept until 5:30 a.m. today. Hooray!  

Lucia on the other hand has been almost as challenging to get on a schedule. She’s impossible to rouse after a nap, and cried almost entirely through dinner last night and was so grateful to get back in bed at 7:30, depsite yelling at the top of her lungs: I NOT TIRED MOMMY. Sure, kid. Sure. 

So. Today we have big plans to head to the local mall (the fancy one) and wait for it -- eat Norwegian ice cream. If you haven’t had European ice cream, lemme tell ya, it’s worth the airfare alone, seriously. So creamy and rich. I’m slightly (and less so lately, which is odd) lactose intolerant and am throwing caution to the wind today for some Hennig Olsen Cookies N’ Cream. Oh yes I am. 

I am planning on having approximately 67 cups of coffee to keep myself awake today, then am hitting the dramamine again tonight. Pete’s brother’s girlfriend might stop by later to see Lucia (and us), so that’s fun. My favorite little cafe is not open until Jan. 2, so we’ll have to do that next week. We plan on going to Fløibanen Funicular at some point, which takes you up the hill then you walk back down on this nice walkway. The weather has been super windy and stormy, so despite having our cold weather gear, wind and rain are no fun to brave the elements (in my opinion anyway), which means yet another reason to stay inside. We’re also planning on going back to Ulriken (sans Lucia) which was probably my favorite thing we did last time we were here, but we’re waiting for the weather to improve. 

We’re also heading to the Gingerbread Village at some point, which hey, Wikipedia wrote about! Check it out:

Since 1991, the people of Bergen, Norway, have built a city of gingerbread houses each year before Christmas. Named Pepperkakebyen (Norwegian for “gingerbread city”), it is claimed to be the world’s largest such city.[6] It’s free for every child under the age of 12 to make their own house with the help of their parents. In 2009, the people of Bergen were shocked when the gingerbread city was destroyed in an act of vandalism.[7]

We were there in 2009! It was indeed shocking, but it was cute anyway. A lot of the houses had been rebuilt. 

I hope to have more of an update and photos soon.

Well That Was Awkward

Despite our love of our current daycare, we've been a bit dismayed lately with how aggressive one of the other kids has been with her; i.e. pummeling her on a regular basis. While the one parent (our daycare is run by a couple) intervenes often, we've watched the other Not intervene more than often, and well, that's not good. We rehearsed and rehearsed with her one weekend to tell her the things she could say when the pummeling/aggressive behavior began, i.e. "I don't like that" or "Please stop." This way she could feel empowered rather than us intervening on her behalf. Monday arrived, and when we went to drop her off that morning, the pummeling started almost immediately in front of Pete and I. We pulled her aside and said, remember what we talked about? Remember the things you can say? And our daycare provider had a good chuckle and said, Uh, you know Lucia beats the crap out of (said kid) every day, right?

Um. Awkward. So uh, we changed our tune with Lucia to ehm, also remind her that maybe beating up said kid is uh, not the best thing to do either.

ZZantaclause

In Norway, Christmas, or God Jul (which translates to Good Jule) is celebrated on Christmas Eve. In the past when we were here, Lucia was too young to understand the concept of Santa and what-not. But this year, we knew we had to set the stage so she would 1. know what to expect and 2. be totally convinced Santa brought her gifts to Norway.

Sounds easy, but the past few weeks she's been constantly talking about Santa and how she wanted him to bring her presents to California, not Norway. I explained that because we were going to be in Norway for Christmas, Santa would be coming. And because Norway is closer to the North Pole, he'd be coming on Dec. 24 instead of the 25th.

So the 24th arrived and amidst the fog of jet lag, we managed to only have to threaten her 5-7 times earlier in the day that Santa only brings gifts to good girls who ahem, listen to their mommies and daddies. Shortly before we danced around the Christmas tree, and said goodbye to Uncle Ole Morten, who unfortunately had to "go to work." We told him we'd see him in the morning. Then we danced around the tree, ring around the rosie style, until we heard the doorbell.

IT WAS SANTA!

He arrived decked out with a very long white beard (Funniest comment of the night came from Pete, saying "Looks like a ZZ Top Christmas!") and white shaving cream all over his face to better disguise himself. Lucia immediately was curious: "What's that white stuff on his face?" I told her it was frost, since he came from the North Pole. She replied, "I don't like that." So hilarious.

Santa handed out presents to Lucia and Pete's cousins Thomas (age 5) and Ylva (age 2). They basically freaked out and then it morphed into Opening Presents Frenzy 2011, where all 13 of us lost our minds and opened our presents at once. For some gifts, I have no idea who gave us what but man it was so fun. The living room was a disaster area strewn with paper and we were all exhausted afterwards. The best part of the night, aside from ZZ Top sighting, was when Pete's grandmother, who celebrated her 90th Birthday that night, opened her new iPad and let out a huge gasp of surprise. We hope to be able to teach her to call us on Skype so she can see Lucia a bit more. After we said goodbye to Santa, Uncle Ole Morten luckily returned "from work" and was able to participate in the gift-opening frenzy. Fun!

Hope your Christmas was very Merry!

Of Course They Are

Lucia: Come see my people!
I
Me: what are they doing?

Lucia: having lunch and watching a movie!