I’m sorry, is it now 2012?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Two things that we have not officially said to our family and friends who update themselves on us here. So once again, for good measure, Merry Christmas, and Happy New year!

Brotherly Hugs

I know I’ve been posting lots of pictures of the boys together on Facebook, and that it’s probably getting to be pretty boring viewing, BUT… I can’t help it. I love/can’t believe that they’ve gotten to a stage where they can actually interact with each other. Once Emil started walking, I’d look over at our little play area and kind of do a double take; since when do I live in a house with two little boys — not a toddler and a baby? Somehow, that caught me off guard. Now I’m used to it (kind of) and continue to be fascinated by these two little beings as their personalities develop.

Here they are today after  barnehage. Karel was ”resting” on the couch, and Emil came to join in. Note Emil’s arm around Karel’s neck. Despite being the younger of the two, Emil is starting to treat Karel as a ”kosedyr” (stuffed animal) as opposed to the other way ’round. Karel was happy to have the company, and ordered that an extra blanket ”that Emil Birk likes” be brought over.

I’m not holding my breath that they’re going to be snuggle-buddies forever, or even for very long. I know how the sibling thing works. Thus this need to document it photographically as it happens. I’m sure there will be other things in store for us to make my heart swell and chest contract the way it does seeing the little people I love most show love to each other…but for now, that pretty much tops it.

(For the record, being cute and sweet does not in any way erase the exhaustion these crazies have caused the last weeks…but it does take the edge off.)

Pepperkake Gutta (or Gingerbread Boys)

Let the Christmas baking begin… 

Let it….rain??

Despite the fact that there is still more rain than snow here, we are officially into the advent season. You can tell when the marzipan pigs start showing up in the stores. (I haven’t delved deeply enough into Norwegian history to figure that one out… will keep you posted.) This is also the time of year I get really excited about baking; the time of year that every shopping trip finds butter and parchment paper in my cart. I’m always pretty excited about baking, but at Christmas it’s almost like a job. A fun job that you like,  mind you. (Wait, do those exist?) I mean, there’s a deadline. So there’s a little tiny bit of pressure. Good pressure…

Okay — whatever. I’ve been out of the workforce for so long I’m not even going to pretend that I know what a healthy out-of-home work environment is like. However (big inhale), that is about to change. (aaaaand blow it out).

Job-practice. That’s what I’m doing. Goals = 1) learning Norwegian as applicable to my field and 2) familiarizing with Norwegian work culture. I started last week — 2 days in an assisted living facility here in Steinkjer.

I am skeptical.

Here’s the thing: I am busy when I am at home. You maybe couldn’t tell by the piles of laundry and the dirt on the floor, but I am. I LIKE to be busy, I do. But what I am learning about myself (aren’t you supposed to have your own brain figured out by the time you’re 30? Come on.) is that I also like to determine the soure of my own busy-ness. Or non busy-ness. Huh. Maybe that sentence should have just read ”I like to determine.”

Pretty sure my mom once said to me, ”Kim, you might not like to hear this, but I think you’re going to be happiest when you just have family and can make your own schedule.” Next time anyone sees my mom, give her a ”You Know Your Kid” prize. Sigh.

So. We’re gonna give this a go. I will work through the ridiculously tangled web of emotional-ness that this change is spawning, and we’ll just sit back and enjoy the ride. Well, Bjørn might not enjoy this ride so much. ”Tangled web of emotional-ness” doesn’t really put a husband’s heart at ease. And if it doesn’t work out, plan B involves a coffee and scone selling bakery van. (insert happy sigh of contentment.) Someone needs to be offering these people coffee in the morning since, you know, the only coffee shop in town doesn’t open until ELEVEN. Really, I feel more like it’s  a public service and would just give coffee away.

On the up-side, old ladies say some pretty funny things. I’m easy to please — a couple of one-liners will make a day totally worth it for me.

Yes, yes, as they say here. We shall shall see. Everything in it’s time.

 

Happy Thanksgiving, a bit delayed.

It’s fall here…still. Today I noticed some snow on the hills/mountains (what they are depends on where you’re from) across the fjord, but here in Steinkjer we’re still putting our rain gear to good use. Maybe it’ll snow this weekend, but maybe the weather is working to keep us from hurtling into Christmas-mode in order to remember Thanksgiving.

I kind of forgot today was Thanksgiving, to be honest. We, i.e. the American crew in the Steinkjer area, are having our big Thanksgiving celebration on Sunday, so Sunday has been where my focus is. It was actually a very pleasant suprise to realize that TODAY is the actual, on-the-calendar Thanksgiving Day. It’s always nice to know there’s something special about what might otherwise be an ordinary weekday. To call/text/email people and say ”Happy Thanksgiving!” — how can that not make you smile?

Therefore, I have spent the day thinking about my family in Wauwatosa — about my parents and siblings and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and their kids that will all be there; I’ve been visualizing the Thanksgiving table and all the food. And I’ve been noticing that I’ve been getting a bit choked up when all these thoughts and visions are running through my brain.

I’ve thus spent the day mentally composing my ”what I’m thankful for list,” never really knowing if it would make it so far the typed word…but as long as the kids keep sleeping, there is hope. Here goes:

1) I’m thankful that our first year in a new place is over. That no one drowned in tears or threatened to move out or was hit with a depression that needed more than vitamin supplementation. I’m thankful that the mandatory time to carve out your little niche in a society has been fulfilled. Maybe we don’t have a niche yet, but there’s at least a comfortable indentation.

2) I’m thankful to live in a safe place; not only to live in a safe place, but to realize I’m living in a safe place. What a blessing, what a blessed relief, to not excercise every hour of every day that part of your brain that works to protect your family. I’m thankful to the people of Norway for giving this to us, and for teaching a cynical American how to trust in the common good again.

3) I am thankful for my healthy sons. For imaginative, word-smith, clear-eyed Karel and for climbing, roaring, cuddly Emil. (Emil and Karel’s latest thing is to roar at each other. Emil now makes every toy animal he picks up roar. It’s pretty funny.) I am thankful that even on the days I totally fail as a mom, they are still ours to keep. Toddler hugs and preschooler ”I love you”s are things we never, ever take for granted, still reveling in each one.

4) I am thankful for my partner in this parenting endeavour — and this whole life-navigating endeavour, for that matter. A man who is patient, kind, and just generally nicer than me. And really good at puns. (okay, that part I’m not especially thankful for, but a guy’s gotta have at least one moderately annoying habit.)

5) I am thankful for food: its presence, its availability, its plentiful-ness; that keeping everyone fed is not something we ever have to worry about. Karel is proving that he can subsist on knekkerbrød and cheese, so that’s reassuring too.

6) As always, I/we are thankful for our families. I am thankful to our American family for making such great efforts to see us — we do not take those efforts for granted. I am thankful to have friends in my siblings, who, if they haven’t completely forgotten how I used to hold them in headlocks and just generally be mean, at least refrain from bringing it up. (Usually.) We are thankful for our Norwegian family, whose faces always light up when they see the boys wether it’s the first or the fifth time that month.

7) And…I’m thankful for technology. Every time I skype my mom or chat with a friend on another continent, I marvel a little bit at how easy it is these days to stay connected with loved ones. This Thanksgiving, for example, I was able to talk to my grandma for 20 minutes — not only talk, but see her; I got to talk or at least see everyone who was at the Thanksgiving Day gathering. I even got to see the pies. This is crazy. Miraculous. Both. In this particular instance, a blessing.

Okay, the list could go on and on, but we’ll stop now. Happy Thanksgiving and much love and peace and joy from our grateful hearts to yours.