Back to the Lessons

I took a break from my Norwegian language lessons a few weeks before Elliot arrived, so it's been a while since I've had any formal training.

Husband is fluent* and really wants Elliot to have at least the beginnings of the language, as do I.

So we've been working on it.

And by "we" I mean Elliot and me.

Especially now, as we figure out where we will be for the next few years, I think it's really important to work on our Norwegian language skills.

If we're going to continue to be here, I need to up my game from the basic I know now.

If we're going to be head off to parts unknown, then I need to have a little bit more so Husband and I can have a "secret" language in public situations.**

And there are all sorts of theories about language and infant brains, so it can only be good.

We have been working on it together, with Husband's guidance.

Husband speaks to Elliot in Norwegian on a regular basis and we all read books together.***

In Leksikon for de aller minste (Lexicon for the smallest), we've been learning word order, vocabulary and the the seasons.

Snow

In the winter, it snows.

The snow is cold and white.

Robin****thinks it's fun with snow.

In Æsj! Det er Ekkelt, Bert (Ugh! It's Disgusting, Bert) we've been learning about appropriate behavior.

If Bert saw that the cat tee-tee'd in the flower-bed, Bert also tee-tee'd in the flower-bed.

Then all cried: Ugh! It's Disgusting, Bert!

In Min Store Dyrebok, (My Big Animal Book), we've been working on our animals.*****

You can guess the animals, but the non-animal words are:

On the farm.

I love to eat and mess. Who am I?

I say kykeliky! Who am I?

But just to get some extra practice, we stopped by the local library and perused the children's books.

There were the usual English translations of familiar classics, which are helpful to compare the English to the Norwegian copies. In most of them even the cadence is the same, which must be a challenge for the translator.

Then there are the ones that are a bit service-y******..."Thomas Goes to the Doctor," which is exactly as you might imagine it is.

And even a bit more service-y..."A Mother and Father to Gabriel," which explains how adopted children come to Norway, specifically a little boy named Gabriel.

Then I saw one that takes service-y to an even higher level, called When Momma and Pappa Drink. I picked it up out of a bit of morbid curiosity, but also thinking there would be good words. And really, as I flipped through the pictures, I just wanted to know what happened. Surely there must be a bit of redemption somewhere in it.

So I went home and Husband read it to me, and I will tell it to you....

There are two children, Mette and Mads. Their mom works in a bakery and their dad is a mechanic. Sometimes the family comes home and he is passed out on the sofa.
Or they have to go pick him up at the bar.
The kids often don't do well in school because they are tired.
In the summer they go to their cabin.
Their dad's buddies come over with coolers of booze and the adults stay up late and are loud.

The kids try to think of nice things, but really they'd like to go back to school.
The end.

I'm not sure the little man is ready for that one quite yet.

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*He would say he's not, but that is only because he's modest and may have a little bit of a hard time reading classic novels. But he can conduct business and fool servers in restaurants. Then I blow his cover.

**And by "public", I mean places like the mall and family dinners. In either case, sometimes it is unavoidably necessary to comment on the situation at hand, though often I would prefer the conversation to stay between Husband and me. Also, we would never be overt about it. Not only would that be exclusive and rude, you never know who may understand.

***By read together, I mean Husband reads to us. Elliot and I listen.

****Robin is the fox. He's the star of the book.

*****When Husband reads, I make the animal sounds. It's big fun.

******This is not to say there are not other kinds of children's book in Norway. There are. This post is not about those kinds of books.

Mmmmm Mmmmm

I hate being told what to do.

I am all for solicited advice and I regularly look to competent people for ideas, but in the end, I am fairly confident in my own intelligence, reasoning and research skills.

So usually, after a bit, I can figure out exactly what I would like to do.

Norway and I have butted heads on more than one occasion regarding this issue.

It and I had difference of opinion on how I would like to deliver our baby. I lost (and miserably).*

I would’ve liked a bit more choice on whether or not I intended to breastfeed.**

And now Norway is forcing me to make Elliot’s baby food.

I am annoyed.

Not that I wouldn’t have wanted to whip up all of his meals,*** but it’s just another thing I do not have much choice about and it bugs me.

I knew that eventually I would have to figure out how to feed the little man "real food."

So I read up on the first foods, which are the simple ones (carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, etc…), which tend to be the least likely to cause allergies. I learned that you give them one at a time for several days in a row to make sure that if there is an allergic reaction you can pinpoint the culprit. Also that there are several things that no baby should have until at least the first year (strawberries, nuts, honey, etc…) because they can cause major allergies later on…

So then I went to the store, a large grocery store called Ultra, particularly popular with the expat community because it imports American goods.****

This is what I found when I went looking for the baby food.

I've cruised down that aisle before, of course--that's where the diapers are, too. But I've never paid much attention other than, "Yep, there's some food."

But that's it. In a town full of babies.

No joke.

You cannot swing cat without hitting a baby.

Promise.

And in the first foods...

That was it. Look closely. There is one single food. The rest are a mix, some of which include strawberries, too.

For a country that is occasionally called a Nanny State*****, they are putting a lot of trust in me.

Given a choice, I would eat a diet that consisted solely of appetizers culled from the left side of restaurant menus and the Whole Foods prepared food section, key lime pie, cheese, chocolate popsicles and the occasional steak.

To trust me to adequately prepare and serve my baby nutritious food is asking alot.

Clearly I can barely feed the adults in the house.******

I am trying though.

I started with a sweet potato.

Baked it in the oven.

Whirled it in the blender with some milk.
Froze the concoction into cubes.
And served it up.

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*Seriously folks. There is no need to discuss, but suffice to say…No matter how long we live here, I will NEVER have a baby in this entire country again. And just head off any extraneous comments...this is not a comment on socialized medicine, by the way. This is a comment on my lady parts and how I would like for them to be treated---with drugs if you must know. It's just my choice. If anyone reading this has a different opinion on ladyparts, that's all good. I have no opinions on anyone else's ladyparts but my own.

**I probably would have anyway, but the societal pressure is enormous. Also there are exactly three kinds of formula, which are fairly expensive. Again, I am so glad I am breastfeeding (health, convenience, etc…) but would have liked much, much less pressure.

***I kid. I would have been all about the Gerber. No joke. I read the labels. It’s just the ingredients and water. That’s good enough for me. (And it was good enough for me. I ate it. My sister ate it. Everyone I know ate it, including several healthy little niece and nephew people who were running all around BigD’s house a few weeks ago.)

****Most of which are clustered on one-half of an aisle. The shelves are crammed with all sorts of goods, most of which change weekly. On any given week, you can find six-packs of Cherry Coke, Twizzlers, generic brand stuffing and cans of pumpkin. It's random, as if it just fell off the back of a truck.

*****Without going into too much detail, Norway taxes the hell out of certain things (along with all of the rest of the things) like alcohol and cigarettes to discourage their use. And recently a bill was put forth to add an extra tax to fatty food. This is not real discouragement. It is in fact encouragement to pack ones suitcase full of booze and smokes whenever traveling cross-borders.

******This is a slight exaggeration. I actually do cook, often using recipes. And the results are usually pretty good. And as the BigD said once, "Of course you can cook. You can read, can't you?" The difference is that it is food for fully grown adults. It is also by choice.

Not a Picture of Husband: Time Traveler

This may seem like a photo of Husband about to step on the train between terminals in the Chicago airport.

It's not.*

Look closely and you'll realize that it is really a photo of one of a species of people called "Time Travelers."**

During our time in the US, we saw many of these clustered in the Sacramento area, usually hailing from the year 1984. You can tell these by their crimped hair, acid washed jeans and electric blue eyeshadow. This specimen was on our plane from Sacramento to Chicago.

I don't know what happened to her after this.***

Into the wilds of the Midwest, I suppose.

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*Though I often blog in this manner (to wit: Strollers and Nice), I've never named it, but have now decided it's going to be a feature. Keep your eyes peeled for it....

**Also, this is not mean, in case you were thinking that it was. This Time Traveler was owning it. She did not care what year it was, her bangs were high and she was working it. It was really borderline awesome. Or, I suppose, "Rad."

***I do know what happened to us. We got home and have been sick and jet-lagged and generally discombobulated since. And by "we" I mean mainly Elliot, so that affects all of us. It's been quiet awhile around here, but there will be more posts, soon.

Traveling and Coming Home

Before I begin, let's be clear on a few things.

Overall, Elliot was a great traveler on the big trip.

He chilled in airports from Stavanger...

to Copenhagen...
to Sacramento...

(And all parts in between...)

And while, occasionally he'd rather play underneath the plane's bassinet than sleep in it, other than one minor incident*, he was calm and sweet during every single one of the nine plane trips.

And for the most part he played or slept in his car seat.**

(Though often it was because he had good company on the way.)

(Big D/Nee Nee may not have the chops or a full command of the lyrics, but she has the enthusiasm. You've gotta love it. We all did, especially Elliot.)

And, when necessary he chilled so we could have dinners.

As long as we made sure he had lots of wiggle time, he slept pretty much anywhere...

If there were no cribs, we made him soft beds on the floor beside us...

Or underneath tables out of the way...***
He chilled in various strollers...Awake...
And asleep.

He spent hours strapped to my chest.

And helped with the luggage...
And he loved it.****

Husband and I planned for weeks how we could make the travel easy on Elliot and manageable for us. We (probably over)packed toys and clothes for every climate. We brought his familiar blankets and did the math of the time zones. We thought of almost every single thing, except one...

Jet lag.

For Husband and me, jet lag is merely an inconvenience. We just add in a day or two for readjusting sleep when we get home, but the trip to/from California***** is particularly difficult due to the nine-hour time difference.

But for Elliot, it's been brutal. He's pretty confused about whether it's day or night. We can't keep him up for very long because if he wants to sleep, he'll just slump over and at a certain point, it just gets to feel like we are being mean.******

So during the night, he thinks it's time to hang out. We do not. This difference in opinion has made for some challenging overnights thus far.

Also, he has a cold. Not a big cold. And not the swine flu. Just a bit of traveling funk that has settled in his little nose. This does not help.

So to answer the question: Yep, Elliot is an awesome traveler.

Coming home'r?

Not so much.

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*In retrospect, the incident was much more minor than it felt at the time.

On the last long haul flight, going from Chicago to Copenhagen, Elliot was cooked. It was 10pm--in that time zone--he had been dozing, the plane was hot and as we were loading up, he decided he had HAD it.

For about ten minutes (Husband says seven) he screamed. And when I say screamed, I mean a world class Elliot scream, with just enough breaks inbetween to catch his breath. Within close enough range, eardrum can bleed, dogs howl and small children cower. And if you didn't know him, you may think a life threatening aneurysm is imminent.

Also, we were sitting in Economy Extra, which for those unfamiliar with SAS, are the sweet seats, just a wee bit smaller than in Business (which is really First Class). So everyone around us, including us of course had shelled out extra dough (or kroner) for a nice comfy ride.

And let me tell you, a few of them were not so kind, which I can sort of understand.

But we (Husband and I) were apologetic and doing everything we could to calm him.

(Elliot could not have cared less. Rude baby.)

But then he calmed. The moment passed and he slept for most of rest of the nine hours.

And the one especially assy couple who glared at me for the entire ten/seven minutes spent the rest of the nine hours talking loudly, flipping their lights on and off and making snarky comments. Nine hours. Seriously.

I hate them.

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**Once he cried for about two hours on a drive in Sonoma, but it was windy and cold when he got out of the car, he'd been in the car a LONG time and the view was not great from where he was sitting. Really, I felt almost the same way.

The second time he cried in the car seat was on a lightless stretch of road called 985 which is the highway leading from the north side of Atlanta on the way to Big D's house. He had been asleep and woke up in pitch black dark and he screamed.

Husband thinks it was because he was cooked from a day of traveling (Sacramento to Atlanta, then a drive to BigD's),

I think it was because he'd never been in the full darkness. His entire life, up until that point, had been in spring/summer Scandinavia, during the time of 23 hour sunlight. And even in California where we'd been for the first ten days of his American tour were much like home...he'd been sleeping in rooms with either a nightlight or sunshine creeping underneath the shades. Then one day he wakes up in pitch black full darkness.

Scary.

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***This photo was taken from Andrea and Deena's apartment in San Francisco. There are earthquakes there. So sleeping under a table=comfort and safety.

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****More strangers than I can count, commented, "Ohhhhhhh That's a happy baby." And he is.

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*****To/from Georgia is not nearly as bad because it's only six time zones, which makes more difference than you would think.

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******This is Stavanger, not Guantanamo Bay.

We're Back

As a friend of mine said "One of these people is very tired. And one of these people has no plans to let her sleep."

I'll be posting about Elliot's Debut World Tour in a day or so. Suffice to say, it was full of good visits, fried foods and not one bit of rain.

And now that we're back, I realize that I planned for everything except how to deal with a jet-lagged baby.

More to come...

Packing

On the way home...