Dyeing Easter Eggs

Myrna is a huge fan of "white eggs" - that is, hard boiled eggs minus most of the yolk. It's one of her favorite lunch requests, and so we were very excited to dye some Easter eggs with her. She was only a little cautious at first


And, as expected, she wanted to whack the egg with her spoon. But she quickly got the hang of it


Only one egg escaped the dye (landing on her high chair). Fortunately, it didn't break, or make a mess. And, lunch time was lots of fun, this time with a green egg.

Jumping on the Couch

Myrna's favorite post-bath activity is to jump on the couch. Be sure not to miss the roll of the eyes at the very beginning.

Spring Jacket

Today was our second or maybe third sunny day of the year. You can see spring on the lawns and smell it in the air, but feeling it on your goose-bumped skin is still largely a matter of faith. It's an alluring fantasy, though, and as we were heading out to the backyard sandbox this afternoon, I grabbed the polka-dotted blue jacket (a gift from Aunt Lisa) that Myrna wore in fairer weather last year, to at least see if it still fit. It did, and she was so thrilled that there was no chance of taking it off her.

"Remember this one! With Grandma Grandpa. Myrna little baby. With Dad's grandparents too."

Something along those lines, anyway. Myrna loves to look at photos from last summer/fall's visits from both her sets of grandparents, and this jacket features heavily in those photo sets.

Her excitement hardly abated once we were outside in the sandbox, and she informed anyone who'd listen that "Myrna wearing spring jacket!"

Was it actually spring jacket weather? Maybe so earlier in the day, but I was freezing. Myrna, however, reported that her hands were not cold, that she didn't need to go in, and would stay outside for "a little bit longer."

Meeting Bridget in Uppsala

We've been in Sweden how long now? and still haven't been outside of Stockholm (and its suburbs). We thought we should actually check one other Scandinavian city off the list, and headed 40 miles north to Uppsala.

The real impetus of the trip was to go to the Bror Hjorths Hus for a special exhibition of Pija Lindenbaum's illustrations. For those of you not up on your Swedish children's illustrators, Pija Lindenbaum is the author and illustrator of one of Myrna's favorites, a series of books about a little girl name Bridget (or Gittan, in Swedish). And I admit, Chris and I have become fans too. We also were missing the good old days in Germany, where we'd just hop on a train and spend a day or two exploring a new city.

As expected, the exhibit was a hit. There were lots of dress up clothes, though Myrna was "a little bit scared" of the dresses, and instead insisted that I was the one to wear the scarves, tiaras and tutus, and she would stick with shoes, a necklace and a purse (which she then wore for a bit to look at the paintings).


Since it was an exhibit aimed at kids, all the paintings were nicely placed at "kid height," and sturdily anchored to the walls. We missed getting this on video, but Myrna definitely did a good job describing this painting:

"The moose brothers are drinking out of the toilet. Disgusting!"

After a tasty lunch (with lemonade), we headed down to the basement, for some watercolor painting. Myrna, of course, was much more interested in wetting the brush and mixing the paints, than actually getting paint on the paper.


It wasn't so cold, and we spent some time walking around town. Also some chasing, and quite a bit of not-really-walking-at-all. And we were regularly reminded of the fact that Myrna is a two-year-old, and one who has nearly perfected the art of tantrum-throwing. Just when we were beginning to think that our plan to spend the afternoon in Uppsala was overly ambitious, though, we happened upon some sort of kayak race in the city canals. I realize that may sound pretty tame, but it was actually pretty intense. The merger of several waterways made for some powerful rapids and even a small waterfall. And, just to make it interesting, there was an obstacle course. We sat along the water and watched this for a while, and Myrna was enthralled. It consumed enough of the afternoon that we were able to finish off the day with a visit to the cathedral and a pub dinner. After the busy day, she fell asleep waiting for our return train.

Spring Cleaning

In between a trip to coffee, gourmet ice cream and playing with Alexander Alan, Myrna found a kid sized broom along the gallery strip on Södermalm.
She certainly was going to make sure there was no snow gravel left lying about on the sidewalk.

The Airport

I was a bit slow getting unpacked from my quick jaunt to Philly, and left my suitcase for Myrna to find. It was all for the best, since she has been entertained for two days straight, "going to the airport." She packs the bag, wheels it around, and announces where the airport is, so we can join her. Most importantly, she looks just about as ridiculous as we do, when all three of us go to the airport.

Going Postal at the Postal Mueseum

Last weekend we checked out the Post Museum. The key attraction is that on weekends they open up the kids area (normally only open for school groups during the week). Myrna first worked on a postcard. She's really into painting right now, so she had a blast.

Then it was on to the mail room. If we knew she was so good at filling out customs forms, we would have been sending gifts to the US ages ago.

The kids room closed an hour before the rest of the museum, and seeing as Chris and I hadn't seen any of the exhibitions, we were ready to explore. As we get done with the last one, Myrna eyes the back entrance to the museum cafe, and immediately has it in her mind that we are going to go get a juice. Chris and I had already had a great coffee date while Myrna napped before the musuem, but I was feeling a little indulgent, and let Myrna pull us in to get a "juice." Imagine our surprise, when we find out that the museum cafe has one of the best Belgian beer selections in town, thanks to an owner who just really likes beer. So, we had a completely unexpected Tripel Karmeliet (on tap) and Myrna excitedly gulped down her pear juice.

Guess we really now do need to think twice before telling Myrna that it's not treat time.

"Funny looking baby"

Myrna really likes to look at photos of babies and kids. This morning we were looking through a very old picasa album from Myrna's first trip to the US, two years ago (about 3 1/2 months old).


The conversation went something like this:
Me: "Do you know who that is?"
Myrna: Blank stare
Me: "It's Isaac's Dad"
Myrna quickly runs over to the refrigerator, takes down the Christmas card from Eric, Christina and Isaac, and returns saying "Isaac's Dad!" and agrees that the picture on the computer is also "Issac's Dad"
Me: "Is that Isaac with him?"
Myrna looks at Christmas card, looks at screen.
Myrna: " "No, that's not baby Isaac... That's funny looking baby"
Me: "Yes Myrna, you were a very funny looking baby"

February in one fell swoop

As Aaron pointed out, we've fallen a bit behind this month. But I'm using the excuse that February is such a short month to justify the measly number of posts. So we'll just settle for one mega-update.

Myrna is a chatterbox. She narrates everything, and it's our job to put the pieces together and figure out what she might be saying. Favorite words are "delicious" (like the lasagna I made from scratch last week), "disgusting" (thankfully not referring to food we serve her, but to Moose Brothers drinking out of the toilet) and "ridiculous" (referring to anything we do). She has picked up a few Swedish words (probably more than we know, but our Swedish vocabulary is limited to about 4 words). But more entertaining is the British English she's learning. She is fully aware that Lizzy has different words for things, and Myrna to add a twist to her daily routines by enjoying a snack of biscuits or riding in her pram or pushchair. Myrna knows I'm no fan of the word "nappy," but likes to remind me that "Lizzy calls a diaper 'nappy.'" Speaking of annoying reminders, every time Chris helps her into her coat he's warned, "not like at Elliot's house," referring to a one-time incident over a month ago when Chris caught her chin in the zipper.

After a "package" came from her Grandparents with a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD and a Percy train, we took a trip to Ikea, specifically to buy her some train tracks from Ikea's line of Biro knock-offs. She's spent the last week enthralled with the train set. It's kept her so busy that I think we even had two mornings without Charlie and Lola. I'm slow to learn about the curvature of the train tracks (I didn't grow up with any) and I'm really good at forming a closed loop, only to have one or two tracks not in the configuration. Pretty soon, we'll be turning this in to a good math problem.


The trains haven't replaced the blocks. Recently they have been cookies (baking paper was necessary for that one), sometimes they can be baby strollers, and then there's the usual "churches" and "houses." It's fun to see the world through her eyes - all her "houses" are clusters of vertical apartment buildings. As most kids, there are some things she picks up on and you wish she might just forget about. The other weekend we were coming home on the bus and Chris and I were amazed with the long line of people waiting outside the System Bolaget (Sweden's State-operated liquor store). It was 10 minutes to two on a Saturday, which meant there was only 10 minutes left to buy your beer and wine before Monday. Later that afternoon Myrna was playing with her blocks, lining them up as she often does and then declaring them to be a "System line." She frequently now wants help making a "System."


That's at least some of February in a nutshell. We might hit 30 degrees today, a pleasant surprise after a few weeks of single digit (F) degrees and a snow storm in which a foot of snow came overnight and shut the entire city down by canceling all the buses (though the subway still ran).

A Tour of Winter Sports

Yesterday we spent the day with our good friends Sam and Elliot, who made sure that we got a handful of winter sports checked off our "To Do in Stockholm" list. They recently moved to Bromma, just south-west of the city center, and the water way connecting them to Stockholm is one thick sheet of ice (see above photo). Myrna started with a sled ride to get to the skating track
As Elliot took a little snooze, Myrna got to try a few rounds of skiing.
She really enjoyed it - especially the sticks - and loved saying "Myrna skiing!!!"
Behind her, you can see the skating track. It is just a small part of the track that starts in Uppsala and ends in Stockholm, for a big race in a few weeks. (The race is 80 km long, about 50 miles). As it was a beautiful sunny weekend, there were lots of people out. It just happened that Chris and I have the same shoe size as Sam and his wife, so we got to try on some skates for a bit, and pretend to ice skate, while little kids skated circles around us. There, however, was no photographic evidence of such.