SKYNI

There is always a first time for everything…so I have some to add to my collection

1. First time I will be painting the house.

2. First time I will be mowing a lawn

3. First time I pulled weeds from the garden. ( i have a giant blister to prove for it.)

4. First time I made a rhubarb pie using rhubarb from my very own garden.

5. First time I see tulips growing in my own garden.

It has been a tiring week as there are so many things we need to take care of. Spring is here and we have no excuse now for not taking care of things we need to repair around the house. We need to fix a new kitchen floor, tidy up the garden and paint the entire house. It will be one really busy summer.

but before the hard work, Nicke and I will take a short break to Prague (another first for me too).

It is really hard work to maintain a garden.

Sad to say, my swedish is still not very good. There have been some improvements but I won’t say that i can hold a decent conversation in Swedish. I think the Swedes are most kind. They will readily switch to English once they see my ‘blank’ blur look.

So, I have asked Nichlas to speak swedish to me at home. The thing is I have been tuning out everytime he speaks in Swedish for the past 7 years. (ok…maybe when he speak english also =) So, it is extremely difficult to tune in again and pay attention to what he is saying. Anyway, we keep going back to English every time we speak.

Most of my classmates from my Swedish class have to find opportunities to practice speaking in Swedish. My teacher says that I have no excuse since min man (my husband) is Swede.

I was told that Linn is already speaking Swedish with a Stockholm accent. My accent, the Swedes can tell is a foreigner trying to speak swedish.

So until next tme…Hej Då! Have a great weekend and for all my Singaporean friends…choose wisely on Elections Day tomorrow.

I guess that is how I will describe the weather for the past few days. We were hoping that the weather remains sunny and cool but it has been simply wet and cold for the past few days.

Our guests from London, Lee Lin, Vince and cutie James were maybe not so lucky to see the 4 seasons during their stay. We had a nice and bright weekend but on Tuesday, we had a sudden ”bout” of snow. Excuse me, there should be no snow in May right?

It is also really difficult to get the kids to bed these days. How do you explain to them when they asked why they should go to bed when it is still bright outside. Jonathan said ‘Mummy, it is not night time yet. We cannot go to bed’.

This reminds me, I better go fix the black out blinds in the kids’ room.

After spending a night with Shay and Karin, we drove another hour to Göteborgs to visit Nicke’s friend from his university days. We stayed at Erik’s place for 2 nights in their very nice apartment in Göteborgs (Sweden’s second largest city).

It was simply wonderful and after clearing our garden for more than a week, it was really great to relax in their apartment. (makes me regret choosing a house over an apartment).

We had great wine and food, spent an entire day at Sweden’s best amusement park, Liseberg. The kids had a great time. In fact, they did not want to go home and had prefered if we left them there with Erik and Linnea and their 3 beautiful kids.

Over the Easter long weekend, we took a really long 6 hours drive to Orust to visit Karin and Shay, friends from Singapore. They moved back to Sweden 2 years ago and have been living in their beautiful summer cottage in Orust with their 2 children Matteo and Bianca.

It was a nice visit and my first stay in a small summer cottage out in the wilderness. We had a great time reminiscing the good times in Singapore and what we missed most. The scenery is simply fantastic and this is what Karin moved back to Sweden for…to enjoy the great nature and outdoors. I agree that it is breathtaking but i think it is a little too harsh for my city conditioned body and mind.

Do you know that the Swedes eat the most candy in the world during Easter? I am fully convinced this is true looking at the amount of candies the children get. Here is Dante (our nephew) with the Easter eggs he received one evening before Easter.

Jon and Linn are so sick of the candies that they actually returned them to me!!!

Spring time in Sweden is really beautiful. Pretty flowers line up on the fields and they appear everywhere. What’s not to like? The temperature can be quite nice during the day around 15 degrees when the sun is out!

Our biggest task is to tend to the garden now. I am totally clueless when it comes to gardening. I cannot tell between grass, moss and weeds. So, we have a lot to figure out in the garden. For the Swedes…this must be the happiest time in the year for them. They are out there pottering away, taking care of their gardens, growing new plants and even vegetables. Nicke and I are just figuring out what to do and the stuff we need to buy like garden furniture, tools and equipment for the garden, lawnmower and BBQ pits…and the list goes on and on. No one employs the service of a gardener here. For many Swedes, home improvement and gardening are their favourite hobbies. You can even rent some small plots of land here for gardening if you do not have your own garden.

Thank goodness my mother in law came to our rescue. She really helped us to fix the garden. We discovered we have some berries bushes, rhubarb plants and all kinds of flowers. She advised us to wait and see what will grow in the next couple of weeks. Which makes it quite mysterious and interesting.

So we are really looking foward to spending more time in our garden and having some outdoor fun. Do come join us!

Our little boy has been sick for almost a week now. He was nursing a cold before the weekend and after our trip to Helsingborgs, his cold is back in full force. Maybe it was just too much excitement over the weekend.

It is difficult when Jonathan falls sick because he cannot tell us exactly where it hurts and how he is feeling. He only tells us that he has a fever and that he wants to go to bed.

In some strange ways, he is more ‘normal” when he is sick. He behaves well, listens and is responsive. Today when I rejected his plea for another lego box at the Toyshop, he was clearly upset and had tears in his eyes. After whining for 5 minutes, he calmed down and quietly followed me home.

We drove to the South of Sweden (Skåne-Helsingborgs) last weekend to visit Nicke’s old friend, Christopher. The 6 hours drive was pleasant and the kids were relatively well behaved. Thank you iPad!

We stayed in a very nice summer cottage, courtesy of our friends Per and Sharon from Singapore. They bought this beautiful summer cottage just next to the sea. The kids had a wonderful time and it was nice to be out in the sun again. But would be great if it is alittle warmer..We had a great time with Christopher, Guang Lu (wife) and Anton (baby)

Helsingborgs is just 1.5 hours away from Denmark. We will go there again this summer after our stopover at Jonathan’s dreamland – Legoland!

These days, I keep falling asleep with the kids when I put them to bed. It is a really bad habit because the kids want me to sleep with them all the time now.

Both kids want me to sleep next to them. But I can only go to Jon after Linn falls asleep because she claims that she will cry if I don’t sleep with her first.

I put her claim to a test last night and my goodness, did she cry! She cried so loud for half an hour that the whole neighbourhood must have wondered what we have done to her. Nicke and I pretended to sleep and switched off our lights in our room. She simply switched on our huge bright ceiling light to let us know that she will not give up. I lost the battle and brought her back to her bed. You should see the smile on her face and she kissed me continuously like I am some kind of doll!!!

This morning, when I was taking my time to finish my breakfast, she started the ‘kitchen timer’ just like what I do every morning to get them to finish their breakfast quickly!

What a monster!

It has been a really tough week. I could really need a drink tonight. Linn was sick on Monday and Jon has been sick since yesterday. You can never predict with kids.

I guess that comes with parenthood. It’s like when you choose to have kids, you also signed your life away giving the kids first priority to everything.

Sometimes I think of going back to work. But how is this going to be possible if they keep falling sick every week and there is already so much to do at home.

Being a full time mum is the hardest role I have todate. I am so glad that there is no ‘report card’ at the end of the day!

I had a good lesson with my new swedish teacher this morning.

Me : What is ‘Face’ in Swedish?
Teacher : Err….Ansikte
Me : Ok…Ansikte
Teacher : Nej.Titta på mig. Du måste säga An..sik..te. (No, look at me, you must say ..An..sik..te)
Me : Kan du prata med mig? (Can you talk to me?)
Teacher : Du kan fråga mig i Engelska? (You can ask me in English)

My 3 year old is quite a good teacher you know?

It is really strange with kids. One minute they can be jumping up and down and the next minute they can be as sick as a puppy. That is what happened to Linn yesterday.

We just left home and stepped into a cafe for a quick lunch. The kids were in high spirits. Suddenly, Linn said to me calmly that she needs to go out of the restaurant to ‘spit’. I followed her to the door and once outside, she did a Merlion.

Of course, we had to go home immediately. We were going to attend an exhibition for World Autism Day and a kids disco party in the evening. We spent the whole day at home nursing the little one instead.

and I thought spring is here? It is back to 1 degree!

It has been a long long winter and we are really glad to see the coming of Spring. The snow is slowly but surely disappearing and we are finally see the grass on the ground. The day is also getting longer. It gets bright now at 5 am and sun sets after 6 pm.

We brought the kids out for a walk today. It is a beautiful day with the sun shining but the chilly winds are unbearable. It is extremely cold at 3 degrees. We are starting to see more people out on the streets. I thought it was funny when I first met our new neighbour (who lives next door to us) in November and he told me ‘See you in Summer’. Now I understand why.

It will get better…let’s really hope so.

I had a very interesting chat with my mother-in-law the other day. She was telling me that she finds it difficult to understand how Asians can ‘óut-source’ parenting, leave the kids in the hands of maids and spend so little time with the children. After having lived here for 8 months, I understand why she thinks this way.

In Singapore, we have to work very hard to keep our jobs as it is so important to provide for the family. Unlike Sweden where there are strong labour laws and unions to protect the interests of the employees, we don’t have many laws to protect us in Singapore. Hence, we need to protect our jobs, meet those tight deadlines at the expense of spending less time with the children.

In Sweden, employees can walk out of their jobs at 4 pm in the afternoon, and no one will say anything negative. The company understands the need to pick up the kids from the childcare before 5 pm and they trust that the employees will be efficient in delivering their work. It is a different work culture in Singapore. You are expected to take good care of your own family affairs and not let them interfere with your work performance. It will look really strange if you leave at 4 pm everyday and like a friend of mine put it, your colleagues may think you are taking half day off!

Of course all parents love their children but sometimes the way we in Asia show it is being able to provide for many things like new toys, good food, tuition classes, overseas holidays, nice accommodation and car…i.e give them ‘a good life”. Hence we work even harder to be able to provide for our children…all the way till they finish their university education (if they can survive the tough education system). It all sounds materialistic but we live in a different world with different forces, demands and expectations.

Although the Swedes pay crazy taxes, they have very good medical and work benefits. Every child receive additional cash (SGD 250) from the government every month till they are 18. Employees who take time off work to look after the kids will also be paid by the government. Employees will still receive their monthly wages, up to one year, if they lose their jobs. Education is free and children under 18 need not pay for any dental and medical consultation. So maybe this explains why Swedish kids are ranked second happiest children in the world. (the first is Denmark).

I wonder what the Swedes think of our foreign maids leaving their families to work overseas for a few years. I think there is no right and wrong. But there is no doubt that we are all driven to provide for our children.

We have seen some progress with Jonathan in the past few months. He is more vocal these days with Swedish.

The AutismCenter here have been working on him indirectly. Unlike the Singapore’s system where they trained Jonathan every other day for 2-3 hours, the Autismcenter here believes in training the parents and teachers. The consultant shows us how to engage Jonathan and set goals for the parents and shadow teacher. We need to work on Jonathan 15 hours a week with exercises. The consultant meet with the child, parents and teacher once every 2 weeks to check on Jonathan’s progress and make any changes to the goals.

Jonathan’s shadow teacher has been working very hard on him and we do see good progress with him. The other children in school are also very nice to Jonathan and Jonathan doesn’t seem to mind school so much. Everytime I asked him what he did in school, his response was standard …’Jag lekar’ (I play) He also enjoyed all the outings in the school and they have been to a few museums, theater, plays and parks etc.

He is also starting to show some emotions. The other day when Linn accused Jonathan for hitting her, he told me with tears in his eyes that he did not. We believed him of course!

We only hope that we can help him develop to his full potential. We are still at the start of this life-long journey.

I am still hoping to find his other interests and not just Star Wars and Lego. 🙂

The following is a definition of Fika according to Wikipedia….

Fika is a social institution in Sweden it means having a break, most often a coffeebreak, with one’s colleagues, friends, date, or family. This practice of taking a break, typically with a cinnamon roll or some cookies, or sometimes a smorgas or a fruit on the side, is central to Swedish life, and is regularly enjoyed even by the government.

I must say that I am really starting to like the Swedish Fika…specially the cinnamon roll (kanelbulle), chocolate cake and cookies. I used to think they are very simple and not like the sort of cakes you get in our Singapore High Tea. But the swedish deserts really grow on you. ….literally as you can get addicted to it and put on weight from eating too much of it. But I love it!

We attended Elín’s confirmation during the weekend and there was a really great party after that ending with swedish fika (all homemade) at its very best! It was truly amazing!

One morning, in my frustration to get Linn to dress up, I have to use a bribe. I told her that if she behaves and dress up quickly, she will get 5 pretzels sticks (her favourite) from me.

She kept quiet for a while and walked around the room. She then came back and said.

‘No..I want 10 sticks and Jonathan gets only the short (broken) ones!’