A Short Story about Manners

I loathe it when the short people* try to order me around.

I was a babysitter for years before I had children and the little screams of "MILK!!" or "Give me _____!" drove me bananas.  So pretty much from birth, we've worked on "please," "thank you" and "wait your turn."

Elliot is pretty good about it all and is starting to have nice little manners.

But for the past few months, he's been saying "How are you doing?", which sounds an awful lot like "How you doin'?"

I'll say "Fine, thank you," then ask him how he's doing and he'll say "Yeh."

It drives me bananas.**

So we talked about how a much nicer answer is "Fine, thank you."  And he's been pretty good with it.

He gets the reasoning and the appropriate time to use the phrase, but lately he's been a little off in his elocution. ***  And it's fine with me because I talk to him all the time and understand almost everything that he says.  It all sounds pretty normal to my ears.

This morning, as I'm making Elliot's breakfast,**** Husband is walking through the kitchen as he's getting ready to leave for work.

Elliot says, "Mama, how you doing?"

I reply, "Fine, thank you," then I ask him how he's doing and he replies.

Husband starts laughing and asks if I am listening.

Apparently, to the untrained ear, Elliot's reply doesn't sound so much like "Fine, thank you" as it does "F@#@ you."

Oh well.






*By this I mean children, not midgets with bad manners.

 **Not only for the "Yeh," but also for the Jersey Shore-ness of it all.

***He's still little, not quite two.  So he still has a little trouble with some of the pronunciations.

****Putting waffles in the toaster. 

Here's what's been going on...

Lots has been happening over the past few months since my last regular posts.*  


But before I get started again, I want to keep things a bit in order, here's the catch-up on the past few months----you can either read the bits or scroll through like a sort of flip book.  Some of the topics I've been thinking on and will revisit in the future, others are just bits....


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I've been culling.**


One of the items in the photo below went to Goodwill, the other stayed, just in case of emergencies.  Can you guess which one?  It all depends on whether or not you think it is more likely that my future self may one day:

a) work in a suited up corporate environment 

b) stay out all night dancing

I also went through boxes and boxes of papers, letters and one menu from a restaurant I frequented in college. I even found a handful of notes from my sixth grade bully.***

Elliot learned lots of things, like drinking from a cup,****  

Escape...

And all about fish...

We took family photos.

Elliot turned one. 

Husband and I went on our first trip away. He can drive with his eyes closed.  Yes, he is that good.

We flew to Key West where I was appalled by some of the sights, but enjoyed the chocolate covered Key Lime Pie anyway.

Husband stuck mainly to the more conventional seafood. 

Elliot and I went to the beach with the Jackalope and his mom.

We went to the Easter Beer Hunt.  

Elliot scored three pieces of chocolate and three beers. 

We went to a birthday luau pig roast.   It was awesome.  Seriously awesome. 

I got to try a bit from each section of the pig.  Even the brain.***** I have a new appreciation for pork. 

And somewhere along the way, I got pregnant.****** Two will arrive in late October.

See you next week...

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*And I want to get back to it.  It's good for me---it gives me a few minutes of amusement and creativity for myself, much like I imagine it is for a non-professional ballerina.  They may still work out just to keep their muscles in shape and to revisit their skills, but it's not what they do anymore.  That's probably the most concrete way I can explain it.  I like to write.  I used to be a journalist and probably one day I will be again, but in the meantime, I like to try to keep it all a little bit in shape...

**Everything happened so quickly when Husband and I got married and moved that I didn't go through anything.  It either went with us or went into storage here. So I've had LOTS to cull through, including giving more than half my clothes to the Goodwill. 

***I don't know why I kept them, but I'm glad I did.  Twenty-five years past, I have a much better perspective on the whole experience.

****This is a big deal.

*****It tastes a bit like savory marshmallow.

****** This is a big part of the reason for my absence.  We're really, really excited. (Well Husband and I are.  I'm not sure Elliot gets it yet.) But overall, we've been busy and I've been TIRED.  I feel better now.  And by Two, I mean that's its name in the meantime, not the actual number of babies.

A Short Story Involving Cake*

Today is Husband's birthday.  

He is now a number that I cannot tell you, but it's a good round one. 

Husband is not an easy birthday boy.  

He half-heartedly pretends that he would rather than we skip it all together, but really does like it when we celebrate just a little bit. 

Four years ago today was the first time that we celebrated together.  He and I had a been dating about four months and we were pretty serious about each other, so of course I was going to do something to celebrate the day.**

I started with asking about what kind of cake he would like. I am firm believer that it is massively important to blow out candles on the actual day, for luck, one to grow on, etc...

He said it didn't matter.  And of course it did, so I asked what I thought were questions that would lead to the correct answer:

• What is your favorite cake?
• What is your favorite dessert?
• What did your mom make for you every single year for your birthday party?
• If you were starving and the only place to eat within a thousand miles only served sweets and all kinds of them, what would you order?
• If you were famous and I was a reporter for Teen Beat magazine tasked with writing your fan page, what would go into the blank space next to "On my birthday, I like...?"

All of these were met with blank stares, but he was thinking.

Finally he said, "I'd really like a chocolate loaf."***

Of course, having gleaned this bit of information, I was not going to comment on it at all.  I just promised  that on the appropriate day, I would deliver a chocolate loaf.  

But the thing is, there is no such thing***.

So I called Kathleen, who knows everything.  She cooks and bakes and really, foodwise, her only fault is that she is a vegetarian.****  

And we thought and thought and poured through her myriad cookbooks and scrawled notes and recipes lying about her kitchen.  

There was not one loaf cake anywhere.  

And no, I wasn't going to call (One Day Would Be) Husband and ask.  He made his request with such authority, that clearly it was a thing and we couldn't find it. 

So we kept looking. 

Finally, we decided that it must be another name for Chocolate Pound Cake, which is much more challenging to make than you would suspect.  And we didn't have all the exact ingredients nor did we have an exact recipe, but because dear Kathleen is a pro, we just decided to dump some chocolate into the mix.

In retrospect that may have not been the best idea because by the next evening, the chocolate loaf had hardened to a consistency closer to a rock than a cake.  

But dear (One Day Would Be) Husband chomped through several pieces and (pretended) to love every bite of it. 

It turns out that Chocolate Loaf Cake was another name for a familiar kind of cake.   What he really meant was a chocolate cake sans frosting, which, I suppose if you look at it in the strictest definition, that is exactly what it is. 

So the next year and every year since, that is exactly what he gets.

Tonight, we're going to have a little tiny family birthday party, which is exactly what Husband wanted.  

But this weekend, we were at the BigD's house picking up some things.  And she loves birthdays, so she planned a little birthday breakfast brunch for Husband and it went just like this...

Elliot and I played...

While Claudia rapped cooking instructions to BigD...

Elliot showed his toys to Bill...

Then it was time to eat...

Claudia sat across from me...

And Elliot and I sat across from Claudia...

Then we all sang and BigD cut the (cheese)cake...

And then we had a family picture...

Then Elliot and I took turns eating cake...

Mmmmm Mmmmm Good....

The end.

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*This weekend, I ran into a regular reader of this blog...And she said, "So when are you going to be blogging again." I started to explain that I had been blogging, a little.  She interrupted and said, "I know, I know, your stuff hasn't arrived, but that's not why I read you.  I read you for the funny stories, when will you post more of those?"  I was a bit stung and didn't even bother to explain while I've been feeling a bit funny lately, I hadn't been feeling all that amusing.  I told Husband about it and of course he made me feel better and got me thinking about things. And along with a few other thoughts, I decided that today I would try to post a funny story, because she's been one of my longest readers.  And she's not the only reader.  There is actually a pretty respectable number of people just like you who click here every single day.  And if you are one of the ones who comes around for the funny stories, I'm working on it. This is my best effort for the day and they'll be back again soon.  

**I've found that birthdays can be fraught with danger.  There is always a history of how things should or should not be done and that coupled with new(ish) dating can equal all sorts of conundrum-like situations.

***Oh my gosh!  I promise you that four years ago, these were not the answers I got from google.  There must have been a chocolate loaf trend since then.  No joke.  This would have made my life soooooo much easier. 

****I kid, I kid.  I do love some steak though.

Naw

We've been back in the United States for about six weeks now and (almost*) every single conversation I've had has started with, "So are you guys settled into your house yet?"

And the answer is, "No.  Thanks so much for asking, but we are not."

See this photo?

This photo was taken in the guest/man room in our apartment in Stavanger the day before the movers came to load everything into the giant container, which would then be put onto a cargo ship.  And then, one day, four to six weeks afterward, that ship would pull into a port in Savannah, Georgia, where then it would clear customs and then be put onto a truck and one day show up at our house in Atlanta.

That should have happened last week.

That did not.

Not one of those boxes in the photo in are in our house. Neither are any of the other boxes, filled with all our things that we thought were vital enough to send over to Norway and then send back to the United States.  Those boxes are in the country, still stuffed into the giant container that transported them across Europe and then the Atlantic Ocean.

But they are stuck in Savannah.

We've been flagged by the US Customs Authority for a random search.  Of. Every. Single. Box. And. Every. Single. Item. In. Every. Single. Box. In. Our. Container.

Much like the random searches going through airport security, we've been pulled aside.

And I am not against searches.  I was in New York when all of that happened, so (within reason) I am all for doing what needs to be done to keep everyone safe.

But, along with the annoyance of it all, pulling us for a random search does not make good sense.

Seriously.

First of all, Husband and I have been wracking our brains to think of what could have caused an alarm to the security force.  There's no contraband in the shipment.  We did not smuggle any explosives, pickled herring, dirt from a potato field or a live sheep from the meadows near the beach.  We claimed every piece of baby furniture and the vast majority of the clothes we bought over the two years.

Also, we did not pack it ourselves.  The goods were packed by a company, hired by Husband's employer, whose sole job was to pack our possessions securely while making sure all the international import/export/customs laws were followed.

And Husband called our relocation handler yesterday who said, "I have no information about why your container was flagged.  I also don't know when it will show up, as it might be a queue. And we shouldn't ask any questions.  Not only do they not have to give us any information, they don't like to be asked."

And again, I am not against any searches.  I really do believe that, within reason, the government should do what is necessary to keep us all safe.

I do question whether or not it is the best use of time and resources, man and financial to search a family consisting of a couple and an infant**, relocating from Norway***, completing an expat contract****, packed by a vetted moving company*****.

And no matter how I go over it, I am thinking, "Nope."

But that's how it is.  So, until the U.S. Customs Authority is done pawing through our stuff, we'll just be hanging out, with our six suitcases and giant new television.******




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*My mom (BigD), my sister and my sister-in-law, along with a few others, do not ask this question anymore.  Also, I talk to the three of them almost every day. So there's that.

**None of whom have any sort of negative record, credit, criminal or otherwise.

***Not known to be a hotbed of insurgency.

****With one of the world's largest companies.

*****This is their bidness.

******Which is slightly trashy, if you think about it. We have practically no furniture(don't worry, we have some things from my old apartment, toys and several boxes random things) but we have a  television, not as giant as Wendy's who happens to have the largest television I've ever seen outside of a sports bar, but I love it all.  Really, it could only be tackier if we took the wheels off the cars and parked them in the front yard.

We're back and no H is not my middle name

It's been more than three weeks* since my last blog post, and to be fair that one was pretty weak.**

(This is currently how we eat dinner.  We have no table yet and the pizza is frozen.  We are hobos.  Hobos with wine*** and nice chairs, but hobos nonetheless.)

Yesterday the plumber came and finished the repairs.  Over the past few days, we've had most of the cast iron pipes replaced as well as all the piping in the kitchen replaced, the damage which was found by the crew replacing our furnace and all the dusty dusty ductwork underneath the house.

I mention that because while it sounds boring (and it is) those pipes and ductwork, I suspect, are our anniversary trip.  Yep, a first-time-traveling-sans-the-little-man trip to somewhere that does not allow children**** may now be stuffed underneath the floorboards in the crawlspace.

But things are getting done, but it's been a transition.

Right now, as I type this, I am sitting in what most likely (in the not too distant future) will be the man-room*****/office.

I am surrounded by boxes, many of which are labeled "BOOKS/PAPERS."

When we got engaged, things started moving ultra-fast, so we could get all hitched up and move overseas.

In the process, (almost)Husband went to Norway to start work for a few weeks.

I packed up my apartment and moved things.  We were in such a hurry (packing, wedding planning, etc...) that, instead of sorting through much of it, I just tossed it into boxes and put it all into storage, intending to deal with it when we moved back.

In retrospect this may not have been the best idea, at least not completely.

I really don't need all those paperbacks including that unread copy of The Tao of Pooh, given to me by suitor whose name has long been forgotten, mainly because after that gift, there were no further dates.  But also because I abhor the vast majority of cartoon characters and especially loathe ones that lisp.******

But I do have every single one of my reporter's notebooks******* as well.

And on the top of the pile in one of the boxes was one of them with the notes from one of my favorite moments, in which I was confused with a major deity.

It was late in the evening in a nightclub in New York, after an award show. My intended interviewee was a southern rapper redneck type, who is not actually one bit Southern, but has perfected the redneck act to a tee. At the time, he was rumored to be engaged to a large bosomed actress, who once favored red swimsuits and had always favored musician types.  My orders were to ask him about the wedding plans, to get any detail at all.

The club was dark and smoky.  The music was at top volume and every conversation varied between shouting and speaking close into each other's ear.  My target interviewee was well into his bottle and had commanded the deejay booth.********

I walked up and it went something like this:

ECD:  Hi

SouthernRapperRedneck:  Hey darlin.'  What's your name?

ECD:  I'm Elizabeth from NameOfMagazine. I just wanted to come over and say congratulations about your engagement.

SRR: Uh.  Thanks.

ECD:  (I am not quite sure exactly what I said here, I scribbled "Chatter about wedding, etc...")

SRR:  That's none of your f***in' business. Get the f*** out of here.

ECD:  Well, alright, thanks so much.

And I turn to leave. I asked the questions.  He declined to comment.  So at that point I consider that part of the evening done. Oddly enough, SRR does not. He grabs my upper arm, holding me tightly enough that I cannot move.

SRR:  Seriously, get the f*** out of here.

ECD:  I would sir, but you're holding onto me.

SRR:  Who do you think you are!!?!!  Jesus H. Christ!!?!!

ECD: No sir, I don't.

SRR: Smartass!  Seriously, get the f*** out of here.

ECD:  I would sir, but you're holding onto me.

SRR:  Who do you think you are!!?!!  Jesus H. Christ!!?!!

ECD: No sir, I don't.

SRR: Smartass! Seriously, get the f*** out of here.

This went on for a few minutes, in varying forms.

He got more irate, I got calmer and more amused.

Then his manager pried his fingers off me.

And while I did not get the details of the upcoming nuptials, I did have a hand shaped bruise on my upper arm for the next week or so.

And I had forgotten that until I just read it again and I still think it's funny.

So that's something.

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*Or thereabouts. I could figure out the exact number of days but that would require me to find a calendar, count the days, etc... and I just don't care enough to do that, and really, I'll bet you don't care enough either...

**Hilarious, but weak. 

***Dear PC Police, Let me explain. First of all, I think most hobos tend to have wine, so that's apropos. But I do not mean to be insensitive to the plight of legitimate hobos, both past and perhaps present, I merely mean to identify somewhat with the act of carrying around all of one's possessions on one's back, or in one's suitcase, if you will.  Sincerely, Elizabeth

****Listen, there's no offense meant and we adore our little guy (and also many of the children we know), but to be clear, we adore our little guy.  If we're going to spend some cash to go traveling without him for a few days, we don't really want to hang out with strangers' children.  

*****I suspect that if you are married and are reading this post, the term "man room" needs no explanation.

******Yeah, yeah, yeah...but even in light of this shocking fact, it's pretty likely that Elliot will have a pretty alright childhood anyway. 

*******Except for the drawerful from my last semi-fulltime job.  One morning I came in, sat at my desk, opened my drawer and found it completely empty.  The mail clerk, misunderstanding a request to clean out some old file cabinets, dumped out three of my key drawers, including files, notes, tapes, a calendar from that current month and all of my personal items.  I spent the rest of that day, not reporting, but climbing through the three dumpsters in the bowels of the AJC building.  No kidding.  It was two years' worth of notes and ideas, including loads of interviews I had conducted for upcoming stories.  It was a BIG deal. And so I dumpster dove, all in vain.  I did not find one of my own things, but I did find really interesting unshredded expense reports.  These did not make the experience worthwhile, but did make for some interesting reading.

********Hey, don't judge.  This was a publicity event.  The famous people who were there were mainly B-list and below and were clamoring for ink. Every single one of their publicists knew exactly which magazines were sending reporters and to a certain extent, what the content of the questions could be...And also, to be fair, I saw SRR perform at another magazine's celebration about a year later.  He killed.  No joke, it was an awesome show.  I did not interview him that time, so I cannot say for sure if he was still confusing reporters with deities or if it was just a one-time event.

Babies and Goats

I just showed this clip* to Elliot.

Now he wants a pet goat for Christmas, which really I am sort of okay with...


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*It's "Babies: A Documentary" and no, he doesn't watch tv all the time.

Happy Thanksgiving, Peoples!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.*

(This is Husband's Turkey Day card.)

I love Thanksgiving.  It's a day of good food eaten with people you love unemcumbered by present pressure.  There is usually some kind of drama, as there is when people are in big groups, but that drama almost always gets worked out and becomes a funny memory.  Mainly, to me, it's all about taking a minute to be grateful for all the good things.

Also, I LOVE the fried turkey**, next to key lime pie, it's my very favorite food in the world.  Seriously.

But in years when I haven't made it Georgia for the holiday, I've had some great ones as well.

My sister and I were guests of LisaD's family Thanksgiving in Brooklyn the morning after we spent happy, chilly hours watching the Macy's balloons getting blown up next to the Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side.  I hosted a friends' Thanksgiving in my tiny apartment in the West Village complete with a champage fountain.  And this year is going to be great, too.

Husband, Elliot and I have been invited to have Thanksgiving at our best friends' home here in Stavanger.  It's happening tomorrow night and there will be the requisite turkey*** and ham and best of all, assorted goodies and important ingredients imported all the way from Denver, smuggled**** in a suitcase carried by an American who has come all the thousands of miles for a real Norwegian-style holiday.

We couldn't be more excited about it.

But tonight, we're having our own little family Thanksgiving---not with turkey, but with Asian BBQ'd pork and cheesy potatoes.  The dishes may not be the "appropriate" ones, but the thankfulness for our good things and happiness is all there.


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*That, and other peoples' birthdays.

**If you're not familiar with it, imagine this:
Take a thawed turkey and a special turkey hypodermic needle.  Then shoot the turkey full of buttery cajun goodness all underneath its turkey skin.  Then drop it into boiling peanut oil. Remove it from the oil about 45 minutes later and enjoy its cajun, buttery goodness.  And also enjoy the fact that it's less calories and more healthy than the turkeys cooked in the oven for hours and hours.  Seriously.  (AMENDED---I actually looked it up.  According to the American Dietetic Association, with the skin on, fried turkey has two more fat grams than the same serving size of conventionally prepared turkey.  Take the skin off and it's less because very little of the peanut oil soaks in...Of course there are lots of mitigating factors...ie the amount of butter you inject but that is often a wash because a conventional turkey is rubbed with it and then soaks in it for hours.  Also fried turkey is not dry and is extra tasty, so there's that....)

***Not fried, but prepared by an Englishman who knows what he's doing.  Don't be sad for me, I'll get the fried goodness at Christmas, so all is well in my world.

****If you are the custom authorities reading this, don't believe a word.  I made it all up.  So pass along, nothing to see here.

Norway is safe, but...

Let’s be clear.  Norway is a safe country with really low crime rates.*

(This is our dear Lillie.  She sweet and friendly and looks much much scarier than she is actually is...unless she senses some sort of danger to her people.  Then, if you are the dangerous one, trust me, she is too.)

When we went to Spain, we forgot and left some accessible windows open. A few weeks earlier, our car, filled with baby stuff and our stroller, was left unlocked and parked on the street in front of our house the entire six weeks we were in the United States this summer. 

Husband has lived in Stavanger a total of almost six years and other than one incident with his wallet has never experienced any sort of incident.**

In the almost two years, I’ve lived here, other than some parking tickets and working on immigration papers, I’ve only had two incidents with the police. 

The first was when I was about 14 months*** pregnant.  At the time we lived across the street from a mosque and on the holy days, dozens of cars would illegally park, many directly in front of our house.  It was cold and snowy and I worried about not only where to park, but then tromping up our hill, big and pregnant and wearing slippery shoes.

I pulled up next to the police car parked at the bottom of the hill, explained how pregnant I was in case he couldn’t see.  Then I asked if he could do something about all the cars, particularly the ones parked in front of my house. 

He said, “I don’t do that.” 

And I replied, “Well what do you do?”****

The second time was yesterday when Husband and I went to the police.  We intended to either make a complaint or report a crime.

It all started on Tuesday morning.  I was running up and down the stairs straightening up before the cleaners arrived.*****  Elliot was safely deposited in his playpen and the dogs were laying about downstairs.  All of a sudden, on a run upstairs, the dogs went NUTS, barking their heads off. 

I went downstairs to check on it and told them both to sit down.  Milo went to his corner, but Lillie got even more agitated, placed herself in front of the door, kept barking and bared her teeth.  

That when I noticed the big man-shaped shape through the frosted glass in the door. 

I stood there for a moment intending to open the door and ask if I could help him or what he was doing just lurking about on the doorstep.  But then I thought that it might be the wild boys who live in one apartment downstairs wanting to talk to Husband about the trashcans or maybe the Mormons in the other apartment.  Both are kind and harmless, but I didn’t have time for either, so I ignored it.

Also, the shape never rang the doorbell or knocked, so it really made me a bit nervous.  What if something happened to me and Elliot was in the house?  And a host of other sorts of bad thoughts, etc…. crossed my mind.

And while I was standing there, pondering these things, the shape receded and footsteps thumped down the stairs.  I leaned out the front window to see who it was. It wasn’t one man, there were three men, all dressed in jeans and ski-ish jackets and they were big.  And I couldn't understand the language except for one bit: “Hun er americansk”******

And then I forgot about it.  The cleaner arrived.  I put the dogs up and out of the way and Elliot and I went to meet our friend Jenny at a baby store.  She is pregnant and Elliot was helping her peruse the merchandise, by sitting in things like baby cages and strollers when my phone rang.

It was the cleaner coordinator who said that that police had just come into our house.  The woman cleaning was startled, but also worried because they were looking for me.

The door was left unlocked because the cleaner was going in and out.  And the cleaner had gone around the corner to the kitchen to get something.  

When she walked back around, there were two big men standing there, in our living room.  

Everyone involved jumped.  

And the men asked if she was the woman who lived there.   They flashed some sort of badge, said they were the police and were looking for me.

Standing in the baby store, I panicked a bit and called Husband to make sure he was okay.  

Once that was established I told him what happened.  We catalogued my list of offenses and determined that other than a parking ticket that isn’t even due yet, I’m pretty much in the clear.

He called the police to figure out why the officers came to our house.  

Also why they walked right into our house.*******  

They had no record of it. At all. But asked us to check back.

So overnight, the more we thought about it, the more we were worried about it.  

If those men weren’t police, that’s one scary thing.  

If those men were police, what were they doing just walking in our house?

So Husband, Elliot and I went to the police.  And as Husband put it, “We are here to either register a complaint or a crime.”********

And they had no record of any police coming by our house for any reason at all.

So people, lock your doors.

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*According to NationMaster, if you look at just burglaries per capita, Norway has just 1.15 per 1000 people,  which ranks 38 out of 40. As a comparison, the United States is 7 times higher per capita… In case you are interested, you can find more Norwegian crime stats here

 and here and here.

**He left a door unlocked in our first apartment when he was walking the dogs.  The next morning his wallet was gone from the table beside the door.  He canceled the credit cards and was in the process of reapplying for a passport.  A few days later, a man knocked on the door and returned it with everything intact and in place save the 200NOK cash that was inside.  We’re pretty sure it was the thief, but really, that’s what you get for living next door to a drug house.  We didn’t realize it when we moved in and moved out soon after.

***It felt that way, trust.

****Perhaps I was a bit snippy, but really it’s so safe here, you rarely see police anywhere.  No joke.

*****Don’t judge. The thought of cleaning bathrooms grosses me out beyond belief and we are not even dirty people.

******She is American.

*******This is a whole other issue.  No one should just walk into my house, ever, unless I know you and think it’s okay, even if you’re a police officer.  The very thought just is WRONG.

********Related to the point above, if it had been the police, we would have also would have wanted to report a complaint AND a crime.

Happy Halloween, peoples

There's not much in the way of festivals or trick or treating in these parts, and I haven't seen one carved pumpkin.* 

But Elliot's cousin Jack gave him a great costume.  

And it's Elliot's very first Halloween, so we stuffed him in it.  

And he loved it. 

But today we didn't really have anywhere to go Halloween-y**, but we did have to go to the grocery store***, so we dressed the little man up and went there.

I'm pretty sure he didn't know the difference.

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*At least not in our neighborhood, dang it.  There probably are somewhere else in the country, just not around where I am sitting right now.

**Husband and I were invited to a party. This is us last year.  We couldn't top it, so we're staying home.  Also, it's hard (and expensive) to get babysitters.

***This was also a lesson on why I will never ever let him eat candy given out in a public place.  Not only was it not wrapped, there was one kid who ran his fingers through the whole pile (and I am pretty sure he licked them, too.)

Countryside, Wild People and a Lack of High Chairs

All sorts of things have been happening these days, but there are very few of them I can talk about just yet, so in the meantime, here are a few things I've been thinking about...

1) Norway's countryside can be incredibly beautiful.

Every week, Elliot and I go to meet with our moms and babies group.  This week we went out to a place called Kvernaland, which is about 30-45 minutes from where we live.  The first time we went there, we were about two hours late because I couldn't find our way there.*

This time, I couldn't find our way back. I took a left when I should have taken a right or maybe the other way around.  

In any case, we ended up in a place called Tu, which is so small that it only gets two letters and most likely you will never go there either unless of course you are lost as well.

So we just enjoyed the view for a bit....

(These photos do not do justice at all.  Imagine that you can actually see the rich blues and clear whites and strong greens.  Also, please imagine my car windows are clean.  That would be great, too.)

2) Sometimes I pretend to lament that Elliot is so mobile and energetic and wild, but I don't mean it at all. 

I love the fact that he is curious and funny and looks like he's growing into a sweet, slightly headstrong little person. 

I also love that he is starting to understand "No."

But all that said....

3) We will never again go for a family lunch at a place that doesn't have high chairs.

*The first time out, the problem was that I wasn't going far enough.  And on this second time, we got home by trusting that eventually there would be a sign for the highway.  There are probably some life lessons in those two sentences.  I will leave that to you.

Every single day

I plan things.  

So does Elliot.

Those two  plans do not necessarily mesh.