Baby Countwown

One week and one day left, or maybe a little less. BabyGirl#2 dropped and I am starting to thin out. I though something was going on since yesterday I could hardly move and today I feel like I can go work out. Maybe I should so I can really get things going. It finally stopped raining so I am thinking a walk around the neighborhood after work would be a good idea.

Mothers day gift guide for the Scandinavian American Mom

Mothers day in Sweden is the last Sunday in may and here in the US it's the second Sunday in may. In our family we never made a big deal of it, and I think that is common in most Swedish families. Here in the US it seem so be a much bigger event. Personally I would be happy with some good chocolate (not Hershy's - but that's a different post) and time for a nice hot bath (but not now - 9 months pregnant I am way too hot already). When the kids get older I would probably value something they make more than an expensive gift.

But if you would like to get you Scandinavian mom some Scandinavian presents for mothers day I have put together two gift guides.

Low budget guide:

1. Bjorn borg shoulderbag - $24.99 @ http://www.bjornborg.com

2. Marimekko Unikki tray small - $29.00 @ http://www.alwaysmod.com

3. Heart charm - $30.00 @ Pandora

4. Marimekko Rakastaa Coin Purse - $28.00 @ http://www.alwaysmod.com

5.  Birgit Throw - $34.99 @ IKEA

Mid-High Budget Guide:

1. Kuala Lumpur Hobo Bag - $100.00 @ http://www.eccousa.com

2. Peridont hook earrings - $290.00 @ Pandora

3. Marimekko Pieni Unikko Tote Bag - $89.00 @ http://www.alwaysmod.com

4. Jewlery Tree - $63.37 @ http://www.scandinaviandesigncenter.com

5. Georg Jensen White Daisy Pendant - $220.00 @ http://www.fjorn.com

Back to normal sleeping habits

Last week LL learned how to open doors by herself, specifically her bedroom door. I actually think she was opening her closet door for about a month before then. So for 4 or 5 days straight she would get out of bed and run in to our bedroom after we put her to bed. For us it has been important that she sleeps in her own bed at night so that we can get a good night sleep too, so when she would come in our room we picked her up and put her back in her bed without interacting with her or looking at her. JJ was of course the one who had to put her back in bed since I am rather large at this point and my back hurts. Each night it would go on for at least an hour and a half and I think two of the nights we gave up and put the pack n play up in her room so that she could go to sleep in that.

Sunday night after putting her back in bed for an hour straight – so probably around 30 times – JJ didn’t pick her up right away when she came in our room. He just looked at me and rolled his eyes. LL then proceeded to start walking back to her room, turn around facing us again, bend her knees and slap then with both hands and said “Comon dada!”. It wasn’t until then we realized how much of a game this was to her and how fun she thought it was. JJ and I could not help but start laughing and this was the one of the night we got the pack n play out.

The next day I went out and purchased those spinning doorknob covers so she can’t come out and now things are back to normal. For the most part she even sleeps through the thunder that wakes up the rest of the house. I’m so glad it worked so that I didn’t have to make the pack n play a permanent solution or buy a new crib. I really like her bed and she says she does too. It’s the MINNEN (memories) extendable bed frame from IKEA. It is perfect for a two year old since you can keep it really sort so that she does not have to feel like she sleeps in an ocean.

Our Easter Decorations

Although not much, I did do a little bit of easter decorating this year. I have some Swedish influences with feathers and chickens, and we colored some eggs. LL was scared of coloring eggs for some reason - maybe she thought I was going to make her eat them. Although a little while afterwards she ate half a hardboiled egg that her daddy was trying to eat.

We had a good holiday weekend except for two things. First it rained all weekend, second LL figured out how to open her bedroom door so she kept getting out of bed when we would put her to sleep. I actually got Friday of work which I haven't had in any of my previous jobs. I did do a little too much cleaning up and organizing that Friday so my back hurt the rest of the weekend - I am so done being pregnant. Only 1 week and 4 days left to my due date (not that I'm counting).

Scandinavian Cribs

So now that I have given you some insight to what a Scandinavian Cradles looks like - lets look at some Scandinavian cribs. We have an IKEA Gulliver crib that I really liked for LL. I especially liked that in was convertible and you could take the side of. But a lot of these are even more convetible that that (and have a much higher price tag). I love the design of these cribs.

1. IKEA Gulliver Crib

2. Leander Crib

3. The Danish SEBRA Kili crib

4. STOKKE Sleepi

Lovie / Snuttefilt / Blankie

Does your baby have a favorite blankie. LL does. She didn't get attached to it until she was over a year, so I didn't pay much attention to what she had. Her blankie is a pink giraffe from Carter's that someone gave me as a baby shower present.

So when it came time to buy something for BabyGirl#2 I decided to look around a little bit. I came across this really cool retro print blankies at Swedish "Duktiga Annika". It is made with several different types of fabric in bright colors so the baby can use her senses.

I also really like these retro print bib's by "Duktiga Annika".

Since I can't get them in the US we ended up with a lamby blankie from Apple Park. Very cute but not very Scandinavian.

Conversation with LL

Have I mentioned my little LL just turned two a few days ago? I have to say she is a very smart little two year old - although I might be biased. Yesterday she told me a story about what happened at daycare:

One of the boys (she told me the name but I am not going to repeat it) gave her a booboo on the chin so she started crying because it hurt. The little boy got in trouble and had to go to time out and sit over by the wall because he was a bad boy. He needs to be nice!

She told me all of that in the car ride home without me having to probe for the information. The only thing I asked her was where she got her booboo since we were in the car and I couldn't see where she was pointing. When I was getting her out of the car she added that I needed to kiss her chin to make it feel better. She later repeated most of the story to JJ (after bragging about her pink dress that I put on her for the dinner party we were going too).

Why keep chaining table in baby's room?

From what I can understand most Americans keep their baby changing table in the baby's room. This is something I still don't really understand. Why would you want to keep all the smelly diapers in the baby's room? And what if you have a blowout and the baby gets dirty everywhere, or pees while you are changing him or her? And yes, I know about diaper pails - we have a diaper genie and I would not like to be without it. I ran out of bags last week and it was two days before I had time to get new bags, and that was not fun. But let's face it - it does not eliminate odors or bacteria.

When we had LL I wanted the chaining table in the bathroom. But I couldn't find one that was practical to have in there. I wanted to get the space saving changing table from IKEA above, but they were sold out every time I was there so I ended up with a "classic" American style table like the one below. I did keep it in the LL's nursery at first, but eventually moved it in to the bathroom where it belongs. There I can clean her of properly since I have easy access to running water. Sure - the wipes are very practical and convenient, and we use those most of the time. But if baby needs a good cleaning it is easy to do. There is very little room to use the toilet in the bathroom now, but it is so much nicer to keep the smell of dirty diapers in there where we can just close the door!

Decorating for Swedish Easter

Swedes celebrate Easter is very different way then American. A few of the things that are typical to a Swedish easter, many Americans would probably think is really strange but this post is more about Swedish decorating during the Easter holidays.

Dressing up as "Easter Witches" (Påskkärring) - The Swedish Easter traditions reminds me more of the American Halloween. It is said in Swedish folk lore that the witches fly on brooms to Blockula to meet the devil around Easter and their black magic is especially powerful during the Easter week. At Easter Swedish kids dress up as "Easter Witches" with a long skirt and apron and an paint their faces. They then walk around to neighbors houses to hand out Easter cards in hopes of getting some candy in return. The "Easter Witches" are also used for decoration around the home.

Swedes decorate their homes with "Easter Twigs". It is usually birch twigs that they bring inside a couple of weeks before easter so that it has time to sprout some leafs. The twigs were once used to whip people on Fat Tuesday, but have been brought in to the homes as decoration. The twigs are decorated with ornaments much like a Christmas tree, only with eggs and chickens instead.

Colorful feathers are also used for decoration. This tradition started more than 150 years ago and the feathers were meant for just that - decoration.

Chicken are frequently used for decorating around the house and everywhere else.

Daffodils are also used for decoration. These usually bloom from April to May and have received the name "Easter Lily" in Sweden.

The "Easter Rooster" is another traditional decoration. The hen has a much stronger connection to religion than most of the other items used for decoration. It related back to Jesus' prediction during the last supper that he would be betrayed three times before the rooster would crow on good Friday morning.

Similarly to American culture, Swedes paint eggs for Easter. Swedes eat a lot of eggs during easter because they  was not allowed to eat them during lent, so when lent was over there were a lot of eggs to eat.

As a gift on easter children usually get a small egg filled with candy. There are larger baskets available, but I always felt that was more of a Danish tradition (or maybe that was because my parents were frugal and din't want to buy us large gifts).

What about the easter bunny and easter egg hunts? The easter bunny does make an appearance in modern Swedish easter. It was "imported" from Germany in recent years and so was the easter egg hunt. But it is not a very wide spread tradition and I don't recall ever going on an egg hunt or hear of anyone else that did growing up.

Vintage Looking Bibs

When we vistied my parents last fall they had a few square bibs that I used when I was a baby. They were such good bibs so I was very excited to see these bib's by Smafolk at ittikid. Although they are not vintage, they do have a very vintage look.

New Swedish Language Learning Opportunities

I haven't been as good at talking Swedish to LL lately. I keep making excuses, but that's all they are. The fact is JJ will start to pick up words as LL does, so it doesn't matter if he understands or not. Yesterday LL walked up to him and asked for "Mer ost" and JJ just looked at me. I didn't register for me that she was asking for "more cheese" in Swedish so JJ had to ask me what she wanted. right now her favorite snack is cheese, especially the Red Babybell Cheese that she calls "Red ost". Maybe we need to work on learning our colors in Swedish next.

This week LL has started to ask what things are so this provides a whole new opportunity for me to teach her Swedish. I just have to remember to tell her in Swedish. Our pediatrician told me she talks like a three year old at her two year old checkup.

IKEA Leka Circus (Play Circus)

My mother-ni-law wanted to take LL to the Circus a month ago and I said that she probably wouldn't get much out of it since she is only 2. This is true, but I think in reality I just want to take her myself sometime. I know I have been to a circus, but I don't really remember going so it would be a fun experience for me too. Seeing these new toys from IKEA made me think of it. I wish they would have had these when we were there a few weeks ago.

Baby Cradels

We din't have a cradle for LL, and I don't think we are going to get one for BabyGirl#2 either. But I do need something to put her down in while I am downstairs. I am thinking I'll end up getting a Moses basket, but have  come across all these beautiful Scandinavian cradles, including the BabyBjörn cradle I introduced you to before. If I had an unlimited budget I would probably get one. But for now I will stick with my Scandinavian IKEA crib.

1. The Danish Leander cradle.

2. The BabyBjörn Harmony cradle.

3. The So-Ro cradle by Norweigan So-Ro.

4. Swing Low, by Danish designer Søren Ulrik Petersen.

5. The Mawok cradle.

6. The Classic Vagga cradle, by Swedish designer Lindvall.

Vincent Shoes Closing US Operations

Vincent shoes is a very popular Swedish shoe brand and very loved, but they have not managed to make it in the US. They are closing down and for US here in the US I guess that is both good and bad. The good part is that we get to buy their high quality shoes at very low prices. Check out their website for some good deals. I received some discount codes in my email box as part of their newsletter about a week ago, so sign up for that. Cool Mom also featured them on their blog recently with a coupon code.

Almost Full Term

So… tomorrow will be 36 weeks. That means if I go into labor they won’t stop it and we will finally have our little girl here. But I have a lot of plans before then so I am hoping it will take a little while. On the other hand I am done being pregnant so it would be fine if it was tomorrow. I have had a cold that just won’t go away for about 3 or 4 weeks now and I am feeling really tired. My back is a lot better since I quit doing a lot of the housework. The place will just have to be a mess until I have this baby or until JJ decides he can’t take it anymore. At least the maids are coming Monday so it will be clean but messy.

LL’s birthday is next week. We were going to have a small party this weekend, but haven’t invited anyone so it will have to move to next weekend. It will be a small party, but we still have to invite a few people. I have her presents sitting on the dining room table in clear view so I want to give them to her soon.

I have actually made some progress in the nursery. The crib is finally up and I put all the bedding in there. I had to move the curtain rod down a little because the new curtain is shorter than the old one and didn’t really fit. I didn’t want to spend an extra $25 for an additional 20 inches when I only needed two. I will take some pictures as I get it more cleaned up this weekend.

Comfortable in Geggamoja

I noticed that Vyssan Lull recently added some spring/summer items from Swedish Geggamoja to their collection. I was first introduced to the brand when LL was born, and think it is absolutely fantastic so wanted to tell you a little bit about it. The name does not really have any meaning, other than being really fun to say. They mix classic stripes in fun colors with the Scandinavian minimalist style for a perfect look in organic cotton. The best thing about the few things we have are that they are so comfortable. LL has grown out of everything we have (except for the blankie), but I would make her wear it a lot.

Scandinavian Hairclips

I discovered this giveaway by Lilla Hairclips on babble's Family Style blog a little to late, but wanted to introduce you to Lilla Hairclips anyway. Lilla is Swedish for little, and these hairclips are inspired by the Scandinavian clean lines and vibrant colors. Right now you can get 20% of for easter (find the code on their front page). When I put hairclips or bows in my little girls hair (soon to be the big girl in the house, except for mommy of course), they usually come off within 5 minutes, and then she asks me to put it back in. So I try to avoid it. but her hair is getting longer, and all the clips I have are actually mine and usually metallic or black, so not too much fun for LL. Lilla's hairclips and headbands are hand crafted, with very unique ribbons and fabric using non toxic adhesives and certified led free. Lilla is based in the US.

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I also discovered some really fun Scandinavian hairclips on Etsy this week. It is from KajaDesign and she makes outfits and these cute hair clips and bows in retro style using some of the Scandinavian characters I grew up with and other retro styled fabric. She is based in Sweden and will ship to the US for a very reasonable price. To get to know the maker of these cute clips you can check out her blog here.