Dragon Face

A few months ago, Myrna found a plastic dragon toy in the sand box. She was really scared at first, but immediately grasped onto the face of the dragon. Since then, if you ask for a "dragon face," she'll immediately show you her impression. Sometimes she takes it so far that she is shaking while she is doing it. Here she is in a new rendition of one of her favorite songs:

Ridiculous?

One of Myrna's favorite day-time activities is removing each pair of shoes from the shoe rack, trying them on, and strutting around the apartment. She's not at all discriminatory, as she's chosen my smelly old running shoes plenty of times. The only important thing is that the two shoes form a pair. I guess I should be thankful that she's helping me break in the new pair.

Skansen

The day after the race, Myrna, my parents and I gave Chris six hours of undisturbed quiet and headed over to Skansen, the first open air museum and zoo. The idea is to give you a glimpse of pre-industrial Swedish life, and there are houses you can go in to see potters and glass blowers at work. But the real treat for us was watching Myrna trek through the park.

This was a "bike" to her

She wasn't quite sure what to make of the horse, but when one of the riders told her she could pet the horse, she answered with a very stern "no!"

She had a similar timid reaction to the petting zoo goats, but I maintain that she was scared more of the kids all trying to pet the goats, than the goats themselves. As soon as she found an unoccupied window into the goat hut, she was fascinated with them. And, in fact, yesterday's word of the day was "goat." Seals being fed fish was also pretty impressive.


She, really though, liked the statues of the animals that you could climb on better than the animals themselves, as seen with the pig and the bear.



We did get to hear and see some of the traditional Swedish singing and dancing. I've never seen Myrna so seriously watching anything.

More photos of September are finally up on her Picasa album, and we'll try to write more about the last week too.

A Tour of the City in 108 Minutes

With all the visitors, we are finally getting a chance to see some of the highlights of the city. My parents have spent the last ten days with us, which gave us the perfect excuse for lots of fun outings. Of course, you have quite a different view when you are chasing a toddler around, but she does look cute in pictures so it balances out.

As expected, Stockholm has lots of tours - Hop-On-Hop-Off busses, boat tours sailing through all the islands of Stockholm, walking tours based solely on Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, etc. But the tour I enjoyed this weekend required only a pair of running shoes - the Stockholm Half Marathon - with a scenic route hitting most of the sites. At the end of June, after getting a little lost trying to run around our island (a feat that I admit is very difficult to do, since in theory to run around an island, all you need to do is make sure you are next to the water), I thought it could be fun and possible to train for the 13.1 miles in 9 weeks. The one caveat is that I pretty much hadn't been running with any consistancy since Myrna's arrival, but still mentally thought that I could run a half marathon given four weeks notice. So, I got busy training, hoping I could sneak out in the morning before Myrna woke up, letting Chris sleep, a fleeting thought that worked only about 1 in 10 times. But, we some how all made it work, and I felt ready for the big day.


I wasn't so thrilled about the 4 pm Saturday start time. But I had a great cheering squad, as my parents were still in town (to date they have been at every 1/2 and full marathon I've raced in, traveling to Portland, San Diego and Boston and now Stockholm). Myrna stayed occupied by watching the runners and playing with a balloon.

The rain and wind thankfully stayed away, and I finished the race in 1:48:45 - not my fastest time, but not my slowest time either, so I was happy. I think I can even claim the spot of "Top American Woman Finisher" if I read the results correctly. Though, I felt completely Swedish as I enjoyed the post-race Bulle (basically a cinnamon roll), and it never tasted so good.

Strutting her stuff

Last weekend we bought Myrna her first foul weather rain set - a staple here in Stockholm because, after all, why let a little rainfall prevent your kid from playing outside at least 3 hours a day? Myrna was so excited she tried to sprint out of the store in them. Since it's been paid for and made it home, she's put the pants on numerous times, even over her pajamas. And sometimes they even make it outside to tromp through the puddles.