I have no New Year’s resolutions but I have a few ordinary ones.

Foremost among them, and the root for all others, is that I will try to be happier. And if that sounds ridiculous to you – how can you just make yourself happier? – then think again, and go visit The Happiness Project. I am not resolving to spend a whole year on mine, not right now, but just try to be happier over the next month or so.

I have somehow ended up in a place where I feel life is all work and no play. I’m not depressed, but neither do I feel like I am having much fun in my life. I feel that I am passively floating along and not enjoying the journey much. I am stagnating. Not only does this make me unhappy, it also makes me snappish and short-tempered, which is not fun for those around me, either.

I feel like my days and nights are full of “musts”, leaving little time or energy for “wants”. By the time both kids are in bed, I usually can’t be bothered to do anything more demanding than surf the web or play on the iPad. I have read only 4 books in the almost 4 months since Adrian was born, and none in the past 5 weeks.

This is not how I want to live, definitely not in the long run (as in, until all existing and future children have reached school age) but not even in the short run (say, until I go back to work).

So I have recently resolved to:

• Read more. Read at least a little bit every evening. Reading always makes me feel good.
• Blog instead of surfing. Unlike surfing, blogging is an active activity, if you’ll excuse the pleonasm. Activity breeds energy, energy breeds more activity, and the passive floating along is replaced with a virtuous spiral.
• Along the same line, do crafts. I’ve mostly done textile crafts before (sewn, knitted, embroidered, etc) so that is probably what I will do now, too. I don’t want it to be too much of a challenge right now, just something that activates both mind and hands, and lets me accomplish something tangible.
• Do some sort of sports. Right now I cannot realistically expect to do anything outside the home, but at least some yoga at home. I suspect that this resolution is going to be the hardest one, because it requires the most energy to get started, so it will be easy to procrastinate each evening.

And in the very short term I have resolved to do (and indeed already done) something about the most energy-sapping part of my days, which is getting the kids to bed. But that’s a separate post.

If I did movie reviews, I’d write a rave review about The Secret of Kells. But I don’t.

This blog has a whole category for books, and none for movies. That’s no accident. Books are much more important to me than movies. If I had to live without movies, I don’t think I’d miss them much. Books, on the other hand, are essential. (So is the internet, for that matter.) And I often have opinions about the books I read, whereas I don’t know enough about the art of making movies to be able to say anything particularly intelligent about them. I don’t think in images, I think in words; I don’t process images as well as I process language.

In the evenings, when both kids are asleep, Eric will often watch a movie or part of some TV series, while I’d rather spend time reading blogs or a book. But I often listen to whatever he watches with half my attention. Sometimes I decide partway through that his movie sounds so interesting that I want to see the rest. And sometimes, very occasionally, I will take the time to watch a whole movie. Even more rarely, I will ask Eric for a particular movie, rather than just “tag along” with whatever he chooses.

I can only recall three movies that I’ve watched from beginning to end during recent months. (I may have seen more but in that case they didn’t make a very strong impression. And watching Ingrid’s “Barbie Rapunzel” with her does NOT count.)

The Secret of Kells, as I said, was wonderful. This one we all watched together on New Year’s Eve, in order to stay awake until midnight, and everyone loved it. It is beautiful, magical, gripping: a fairy tale excellently told.

Babies was one I had wanted to see. Just 4 babies doing their stuff: somehow totally riveting. Perhaps because I have one at home myself? (Review at Salon.com)

How to Train Your Dragon was just plain fun.

Super-Helen is my secret mummy identity. She is just like me, except that she has a lot more patience. She doesn’t get annoyed and frustrated as easily as I do, and can keep calm and behave in a kind and friendly manner even when the kids around her are definitely not.

When things get too much, when Adrian is screaming right next to my head while Ingrid is dragging her feet on the way home, when both are crying for food RIGHT NOW, when I feel like either hitting them or locking them both in the house while I go for a walk… I think to myself, What would Super-Helen do? And usually Super-Helen’s solution works for me, too. The hard part is keeping myself together enough to remember to ask Super-Helen.

I feel curiously unperturbed by this weekend’s bomb attack in Stockholm. And then I feel perturbed for being unperturbed – it happened right here in this city in a central location where I have regularly been. But then the same already happened in London 5 years ago while I was living there. Getting numb, I guess.

And disappointed in humanity, and sad that it should come to this.

I’m having some trouble getting used to the idea of Adrian being allergic to milk. To anything, for that matter. We don’t “do” allergies in our family. Allergies are for other people, for people with bad genes, generally weak constitutions and too-clean homes. But Adrian obviously doesn’t have any bad genes (since he got them from us), and it’s obviously not due to excessive hygiene either (since he had his allergy pretty much from birth).

One of Eric’s siblings has some minor allergies, and nobody on my side has any. When I grew up we knew exactly one allergic kid. I’ve read in various places that (food) allergies are far more common than they used to be. Now I have personal experience of it.

PS: Technically what he has is milk protein intolerance, not allergy – the immune reaction mechanism is different but the end result is the same, he feels bad if I eat dairy products.

Now that I am living without milk, I notice that…

• oat milk is a poor replacement for the real stuff, as is margarine for butter
• I really miss yoghurt, grilled cheese sandwiches, fresh warm bread with melting butter, and creamy sauces
• I am spontaneously eating more nuts and pulses, probably because my organism needs alternative sources of protein
• I never really feel full and sated after a meal – instead I stop eating when I think “surely this ought to be enough”
• I am lugging home lots and lots of juice
• ordinary restaurants have almost nothing on their menus with neither meat nor dairy

Adrian has been so much better during the past two weeks compared to the two preceding weeks, and our lives so much calmer, that I’m continuing for now. In a few weeks it should be time for a provocation – drink a glass of milk and see what happens to him.

Adrian was born at home, just like Ingrid. It was absolutely the right decision for us; everything went very smoothly and I will definitely aim for the same next time (if and when that happens).

I know many people think of choosing home birth as a brave thing to do. And I can sort of understand their point of view… but only in my head, not in my heart. For me, home birth is the easy choice, the alternative that does not require any bravery.

Perhaps it comes down to what you have more confidence in: your body, or the health care system. I know I have a healthy body that can do just about anything a body is supposed to do. It is rarely unwell, has no chronic problems, does not break easily.

Or maybe it’s about being in control. I have an aversion to other people making decisions for me, to not being in control of my own life. I dislike strangers, noise, hassle. A hospital birth would make me nervous and anxious. Machines that go ping, shift changes, strange smells, other mothers giving birth next door – I don’t even want to think about it. A home birth on the other hand is a calm, undisturbed experience.

People mention pain, too. That’s what everybody thinks about first when thinking about giving birth. This birth was definitely an easy one, but of course I made my decision not knowing that, based on how Ingrid’s birth went. And there was pain, of course, but it was never unmanageable. I really don’t know if it was less painful than the average birth, or if I am more tolerant of pain than the average mother, or if it is simply about expectations and perceptions. I accepted that it would hurt and decided to live with it, and not worry more about it.

• I am tired of being pregnant. It is boring and inconvenient. I can barely bend enough at the waist to get my socks and shoes on. I have to go to the loo once an hour, at a guess. I spill food on my clothes because I cannot get close enough to the table. I cannot run with Ingrid. (On the other hand, I float much better than usual, which is nice when we go swimming.)
• I am noticing a turning-inwards. I am less interested than usual in spending time friends and family, or going out to do things. I would rather just do stuff at home, preferably on my own. I am also feeling a drive to get things done, which is why my GTD list is getting leaner while the blog is getting less attention.

I am an underbuyer. When in doubt, it’s easier for me to decide that I don’t really need the whatever-I’m-considering. I’m more likely to feel bad about buying something that I then don’t use, than to feel bad about not buying something that I could have used.

Whenever I have to buy something expensive, I have to overcome a slight internal resistance – even though I know that we need it, and that we can afford it, and that it’s not worth buying a cheaper alternative, because you get what you pay for (most of the time).

Spending money is a little bit easier when it feels like a long-term investment, like a bicycle, or winter boots, or a computer. Even then, though, it takes a bit of an effort. The hardest for me is to buy things that seem frivolous, that I like but don’t really need. One winter scarf is perfectly enough, so even if I see another really pretty one, it’s unlikely that I will buy it.

Or fruit. There is a part of my brain that insists on telling me that apples for 19.90 SEK/kg are perfectly good fruit, though slightly boring, and there is no need to splurge on grapes for 49.90.

Lately, though, I have begun to train myself to ignore that part of the brain. If there’s one thing in my everyday life that I really enjoy, it is simple, fresh, good-quality food. Often when I look back at my day and think about the highlights, it’s the freshly baked bread, or the cereal with fresh strawberries, that comes to mind.

And it’s not like we cannot afford it. For various reasons, we do not spend money on a car, or eating out, or alcohol and cigarettes, or movies and such. We run a not insignificant surplus every month.

So now, when I feel like eating the season’s first Swedish strawberries, 60% more expensive than the Belgian ones, I just do it. (I’ve nothing against Belgians, but their strawberries are a poor substitute for the real thing.) When the veggie stand down at Spånga Square has in-season Pakistani mangoes at exorbitant prices, I barely hesitate. (They keep a few of them in a small box right next to the cashier, with a hand-written sign describing them as “the best fruit in the world”.)

I love having a garden. I love our garden. Even though I don’t spend much time there every day (because our evenings tend to be busy, and because we have no evening sun in the garden), I love having it nearby and around me.

I love being surrounded by greenery rather than houses, cars or people. Looking out through the kitchen window during breakfast and seeing green grass, trees and blooming lilacs. Being met by growing things when leaving the house in the morning, and when coming home in the evening.

I love the quiet. Which is not a direct effect of having a garden, really, but a neighbourhood with gardens mean less dense housing, which in turn means more quiet.

I love the air and the smells. I like to end my day by walking out onto the balcony when brushing my teeth and just inhaling the garden. Just a few moments’ exposure makes a big difference.