Bananas in Pajamas

We bought Myrna some new pjs when we were in Seattle, but it wasn't until last week that it was cool enough to wear them to bed. We were happy to see that they still fit, and have provided Myrna with lots of fun hearing the skid-free rubber feet squeak as she walks.
Here she is at our pre-8 am photo shoot, carefully navigating down the stairs without hands. The last of the July photos are on her July Album.

A Long Weekend in Köln

We spent last weekend in the sun and heat visiting Köln. We definitely got a little nostalgic for all our favorite German treats. We stayed close by to Kaffeebaum (which was not on summer holiday) and made our way through the coffee selections. Even Myrna enjoyed herself there, as Anna gave her a creamsicle (after which clever Myrna led us back behind the counter to find another). Here's Myrna enjoying a glass of bubbly water after some ice cream in the Altstadt.

Other favorites included plum cake, only just barely in season. Here's Myrna asleep and oblivious as we enjoy some cake.

Other nap-time treats were enjoyed at Päffgen Brauerei. Remember when our blog looked like this?


We also had some new treats, now that we had a toddler in tow. We'd always seen the fountain on the Rhein, but hadn't ever used it before. It was a huge hit!

Myrna also reminded us of the many uses of staircases in art galleries while we were at our friend Noa's exhibition.

One of Myrna's new things lately is sharing and giving gifts. When we go the park, other day-care-acclimated parents marvel at Myrna's friendly overtures of shovels and sticks to other children. And that sounds all cute and such, but Sunday she "gifted" someone with a dead fly. This all went down when we were at a video shoot for our friend Latanya's music video.

But they say you can't go home again, and of course a lot of things in Köln had changed. We couldn't get any Belgian beer, due to the closure of the gourmet Belgian supermarket chain. Other favorite restaurants had changed management. Even the English school I used to teach in had moved. Things change... Returning to Stockholm, though, the baby ducklings in the pond behind our building were just as tiny and fuzzy as we'd left them, and we were glad that at least things didn't change that fast.

4th of July

I've never been one for big 4th of July celebrations, and I don't think I ever attended one of the enormous fireworks shows until I was taking a bunch of math campers. But, we got invited to the American Club of Sweden's 4th of July Picnic, so we thought we'd jump right on into the celebration. It also didn't hurt that we're in the midst of a sunny and hot run of weather, so after a morning cup of coffee at Drop, we headed just north of the city to Lidingö to hit the beach. This was Myrna's first beach trip, but as a beach is a giant sandbox, she was as happy as a clam.
Her favorite activity was running into the water to fill a bucket, which she would bring ashore and dump on herself.
The breeze from the sea kept us nice and cool (though we'll see if we all got tricked into sunburns despite the sunscreen).

We had fun playing with our toddler clan and meeting people who, get this, don't have kids (or at least not toddlers). No fireworks for us though - seeing as it doesn't get dark here until way too late.

More pictures from the weekend and the beach are on Myrna's July Picasa Page - and see below (the previous post) for Chris's account of hiking with four toddlers.

Tyresta National Park

From Myrna - July 2010

Despite my best intentions, at bottom I'm a creature of routine. When we moved to Stockholm I vowed museums, beaches, field trips. Instead, Myrna rarely gets further from home than the nearest playground. At least I can take comfort in the fact that the story's the same with plenty of other parents.

So when a friend had the initiative to propose a light stroller-hike through the Tyresta National Park (about 20km outside of Stockholm), the idea caught on quick. Myrna and I headed out around 8am on Friday, and before long we'd assembled a four-stroller caravan of dads and toddlers. The excursion wasn't without hiccups. My research on transportation was less rigorous than, say, Kelly's might've been, and we all missed a connecting bus that only ran once an hour. We also didn't plan for the problem of loading four strollers onto a single bus. And I lost a book I was in the middle of reading. But eventually we were walking through the woods on a gorgeous sunny day. We played on a see-saw, inspected a dragonfly, found a corkscrew ramp, checked out Lamborghini tractors, and petted a couple ponies. The kids ran around, traded snacks, and napped in shifts; the dads talked soccer, big game safaris, and global economics. It was an altogether nice time. For some reason, though, I only took my camera out once.

These are a few of my favorite things

Sandboxes (in the courtyard of our new apartment, as well as a very fun slide)
Trampolines in public parks (though perhaps not with other kids - she's not quite sure what to do when other kids want to play on the same toys as her)


Cell phones still, and she inherited a new toy one too.


Ducks! Good thing there is a duck pond near by.

And dress up! We recently learned that our friend Davis likes to dress up as a ladybug. Myrna isn't so interested in "cute" dress up clothes, like tutu's - instead she's going for the WWF look:

Jet Setter (a bit updated)

Wow, more than a month since our last post.... To be fair, we've been quite busy, with a move literally the day before we set off to the US. Sadly, we never quite get to see everyone we want to on our whirlwind trips to the west coast, but it was fun all the same. Myrna was a rockstar plane traveler and took jet lag in stride. We had a great time meeting her cousin Isaac in person for the first time.

And speaking of Isaac, this morning she came running into the bedroom from the kitchen just at the words of "there are new pictures of Isaac."

Myrna also got to meet her great-grandmother for the first time (Kelly's Oma).

As well as the Beno clan from Green Bay

We had a good afternoon with Douglas, Kim and Davis. It was fun seeing the two of them together.
I'm sure the photos we have say much more than anything I can write. So I'll just direct you to Myrna's June Picasa album - at least half the photos were taken by others (all the good ones that is). Any other pictures would be greatly appreciated!

Myrna at 18 months

On Thursday Myrna turned 18 months. We shared some ice cream cones with her to celebrate. We'll continue the fun this weekend (hopefully in the sun), all the way through Monday when she gets her 18 month check-up. Don't think she'll consider the shots a celebration.

Spring has Sprung

At last the spring has started (or so we hope). We were in for quite a treat today as the sun came out and the Swedes flocked to the parks and water to soak up every last ray of sun. We took a walk to Vurma for an afternoon fika, which Myrna just loved (well maybe not the coffee, but the walk and the running around).

On the way home we saw some ducks - which right now are on the top of Myrna's Favorite Animal list. Here she is showing her dad the ducks:
and the squat helps her get an even better view

She even tried to get close, but had no luck


We just were really on a roll with photos today. Lots more - including her happy in her crib and showing off her new chair climbing skills - are on her May picasa page.

Flock of Seagulls

I came fairly close to snorting cereal out of my mouth, when Chris seriously told Myrna that there would be no auditions for Flock of Seagulls at the breakfast table. She had applied some cereal to her hair in an attempt to recreate this do.

Sadly, we didn't get a shot of her rendition. Though we did start a new May photo album, which (for now) only contains civilized photos.

Tasting at Drop

This weekend we went out for coffee - what a surprise. Two trips to Drop Coffee, in fact. Saturday we had the pleasure of meeting Samuli from Estate Coffee in Copenhagen. He brought six different coffees for us to try - and here's another shocker, we loved the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. It was lots of fun - informative and tasty, of course. Myrna took over the cafe, like she was in charge there. Oscar even gave her a few coffee beans to play with (little did she know that she was getting a treat from one of the top baristas in Sweden).

As Saturday's tasting was a special event, we had to return on Sunday. Chris had taken the 6 a.m. wake up with Myrna shift, so we were happy to plan our coffee excursion during her nap time. She slept and we properly caffeinated ourselves. A lovely weekend all around.