On this my tenth day at work I broke my run of codeless days and wrote about three lines of javascript and three lines of C# (both surrounded by lots of boilerplate so it looked like I’d done more work than I did). And a teeny little html page. All this I sent off to a team of developers somewhere to whom we’ve outsourced the development of the next version of our web site, as an example of how we expect the web site to integrate with our product.

But most of my limited hours at work I spent in meetings or with Outlook, discussing and organizing. Activities like this used take up less than half of my time. Now that (a) work has piled up while I was gone and (b) various one-off things are happening, such as us hiring new staff and offshoring web work and (c) I only work half days, they take up all of my time. Not much to be done about it, I guess.

On the home front, Adrian is happier than he’s ever been. And I, too, feel better than I’ve done in weeks. Everybody is feeling good. And the reason is simple: we all have time for each other. Each afternoon the whole family is at home. Everybody gets the attention they need and want.

I spent the last weeks (or maybe even months) of my time at home in a near-constant state of low-level stress. Alone in charge of one to two kids for about eleven hours every weekday, with Eric at home for an hour in the morning and another hour in the evening. Each afternoon was a three-hour juggling session, trying to get dinner on the table while offering some love and attention to both kids.

The stress sort of crept up on me, so while I noticed it, I wasn’t fully aware of its weight on me. I was irritable much of the time, true. And I wasn’t sleeping very well. And each evening after the kids went to bed I was so exhausted mentally that I couldn’t even find the energy to read a book. But it somehow came to feel normal. Not good, but normal.

Having a stressed-out, irritable mum affected the kids, too, especially Adrian. I think we were both mirroring each other’s frustration, which is why he was mildly dissatisfied so much of the time. Now that I’m feeling better, he is, too.

I suppose that this is as good as everyday life can get (for the foreseeable future). Soon I will work longer days – probably not full load but I will at least get back to my previous 80% – because this is financially untenable in the long run. That still gets me home by 4.30 or so, well in time before someone needs to start cooking dinner, so it will reduce but not totally take away the time we can now spend with the kids in the afternoons. But then in January Eric also goes back to work, full time, and Adrian starts at nursery, and our evenings will again have lots of hurrying and little time for just being with each other.

I will savour this as much as I possibly can, while it lasts.

Today did not feel good. When I came home, Adrian had barely eaten anything since he nursed in the morning, just before 7 o’clock. He therefore fed ravenously when he woke from his nap at around 2. Large infrequent meals bring back his reflux, so he cried and threw up milk for some time afterwards. Then he did the same again at 5. After that he nursed more frequently (at 6, 7 and now again at 9) so he felt better afterwards. I hope tomorrow goes better.

It is such a luxury to have both adults at home during the afternoon and evening. Unhurried dinner preparations, time to spend with both kids, no one feels stressed out or ignored. We can eat dinner slightly earlier, too, which means that the kids aren’s as tired, so mealtime is a lot more relaxed for all of us.

This morning I took Adrian to my workplace, both to get used to the idea of going back to work on Monday, and to show my colleagues what I’ve been doing all this time. Apart from me it’s an all-male team, and all of the guys but one are around 30 and childless. They live very different lives from mine and I don’t think they can relate at all to what it is like to have a baby. It will be interesting to see them become parents (which I think they all will do, sooner or later).

After preschool we took the train to town to buy shoes for Ingrid. It’s a bit crowded on the train in late afternoon, with people heading home from work, but I wanted to get this done before I go back to work. Wait until too late in the season, and you may find that the shoes you want are not available in the right size any more.

Ingrid tried on a pair of sandals with some sort of glittery flowers and liked them. Walked around and confirmed that they were comfortable. Then the shop assistant brought out another pair, with violet hearts that blink as you walk, and as soon as Ingrid had seen those, she said the other ones were not at all comfortable, they hurt her feet! Oh she could absolutely not wear them any more. So we bought sandals with blinky hearts. Whoever invented blinky shoes must surely be a multimillionaire now.

Two more wasps in the kitchen. They must be living in the wall somewhere.

A busy day: it feels like these remaining days are my last chance to get things done at home.

Some more painting of the play house while Adrian slept. Playgroup. Supermarket. Went to the hardware store to see if I could borrow their fan deck of NCS colours. (Unfortunately he answer was no, because they’ve lost too many of those expensive decks, despite taking down folks’ names and numbers.) Weeded and dug through the top layer of soil in two of our planting boxes with strawberries.

Adrian has, in the last few days, started to demand solid food. Previously I’d just put him in his highchair and give him some food when I wanted to eat, so he could get used to the concept, have some fun, and we’d keep each other company. But now he has been fussy and I’ve gone through my checklist (sleep? boredom? breast? nappy?) and then offered him food, and seen him wolf it down. His and my meal schedules are thus no longer in sync, so I’ve spent more time than usual preparing food and cleaning up him and the kitchen afterwards.

I’d planned to take Ingrid shoe shopping after preschool but she was not at all amenable to that. Too hot (it was another hot and sunny day) or too tired or hungry or thirsty, or all of that – in any case she was in a very precarious mood all the way home. Then we put a picnic blanket under the cherry tree, I made us both some smoothies with frozen raspberries and blueberries, bananas, and apple juice, and we relaxed together. She felt much better after that.

I noticed wasps on the kitchen windows on at least five separate occasions, and never in any other part of the house, or near the door. Now I’m wondering if they have a nest somewhere inside the walls there – there are gaps around and beneath the newly installed windows, and they could be coming out of those. If that’s the case we will have to plug those holes quickly.

(Actually I missed one wasps’ nest in my list yesterday – we also found an old, abandoned one above the ceiling of the old veranda. I guess wasps really like our house.)

This morning visited Spånga Gymnasium, the high school just down the road, for Djurexpo, their twice-annual open house day. They have an animal care programme, apparently with a lot of practical work, since they have a proper little zoo on their grounds: everything from hens, rabbits and sheep to snakes, stingrays, and an albino peacock. Ingrid, as usual, had little patience for walking around and looking at stuff. (Much more fun to race a friend round an obstacle of tree stumps.)

Then on to Spånga marknad, the annual spring market down on Spånga Torg. We got some useful information from representatives of the municipal government about the upcoming renovation works for Spånga Torg; a hot dog and ice cream and bouncy castle for Ingrid, tomato plants and honey for me, candy for Eric, and crowds to look at for Adrian. A lovely day for it, all warm and sunny.

Looked through the wallpaper albums with Eric and found some really nice ones. More browsing and, hopefully, decisions tomorrow.

Another night of substandard sleep for Adrian and myself: he woke at five and couldn’t get back into proper sleep afterwards. He almost-slept, but the moment I stopped patting him, he’d start crying and waking. So I patted him, off and on, until 6:40, at which point he woke nevertheless, and Eric got up with him so I could get another hour’s sleep.

Apart from the ongoing crying, likely teething-related, we had a very ordinary Wednesday. Playgroup, supermarket, deep long naps in the stroller.

I started embroidering a flower and butterfly motif on Ingrid’s new jeans. We both thought they looked a bit boring without any decoration, and I’ve been looking for a suitably small crafty project for a while now.

We had snow this morning, as mentioned before, and the weather improved only marginally during the day: a few degrees above freezing, and raining off and on. Yuck.

Nevertheless we went out to Vällingby to return some jeans I bought for Ingrid last week.

On the way out I stopped by the Desigual store in KFem because I like to look at their clothes. Desigual (and Odd Molly, another of my favourites) make lovely clothes that I really really like. I’m normally a “less is more” kind of gal but Desigual’s clothes are so happy that that philosophy goes right out of the window. But I almost never buy any of their clothes. They are always great in all sorts of ways but the colours are not quite right for me. Or they look great on the rack but not on me. Or they really look and feel lovely but they’re impractical or hard to care for – silky tunics that require lots of ironing, or dressy tops that I would rarely find the opportunity to wear. And they are expensive. Really expensive. If they were cheap I might buy them anyway, despite those buts, but not at those prices. And then, today – 30% off all Desigual clothes! And a lovely top that fit me! The first time I’ve found something there that I could not just covet but wear. Even with 30% off it wasn’t exactly cheap but I couldn’t let the opportunity pass.

Adrian is teething AGAIN. (So that’s why he slept so badly and cried so much during the night.) It seems to bother him a lot more than Ingrid’s teeth did. This time, wise after previous experiences, I dosed him with paracetamol as soon as I was sure it was teething, and then ibuprofen in the evening when that dose ran out, so the day didn’t turn out too bad. But good god I am tired of this. If he is to get 16 teeth in about a year (6 months to 18 months of age) and will spend two to three days crying for each of them, that means over 30 days of crying, or about a tenth of that year. I wish he could get them all at once, in a week of serious crying, say, but then it would be over and done with.

Anton the Builder finished installed the new door and window in our bedroom and we moved back in. Now Eric is upstairs preparing Ingrid’s room so Anton can do the same there tomorrow and the day after. The photo here shows the new door (our room) next to the old one (Ingrid’s room): nice-looking solid wood vs. dreary dark veneer over chipboard. Plus the new ones are straight, well made and carefully installed, so they open and close without effort, whereas the current door to Ingrid’s room is so skewed that we have to leave it ajar, or otherwise she wouldn’t be able to get out of the room at night.

Today was Estonian playgroup day. Even though the event itself takes two hours (10 to 12) it takes up well over half of our Sunday. First we have to make sure we don’t dawdle over breakfast. Next I have to either get Adrian to sleep in the sling, or keep him awake until it’s time to leave so he can sleep in the stroller. Then it takes us about an hour to get there (walk/cycle, train, metro, walk). Afterwards, eat a snack (sandwiches from the cafe for Ingrid, packed milk-free sandwiches for me). Then about an hour to get home, usually a bit more since I cannot time it with the train schedule. Finally a late lunch when we get home. By this time it’s usually three o’clock.

Ingrid was in a bad mood on the way home, pretty much from the start. It began with the usual “my legs are tired” and then everything seemed to make things worse. By final part of the journey, walking and cycling home from the station, she was snapping at me all the time.

And then she cycled into me. I could feel her cycling right behind me, almost touching my heel. I don’t know if she wanted to hit me or if she was just seeing how much such snapping at my heels would annoy me. In any case she did cycle onto my foot, and it wasn’t an unfortunate accident. I was totally mad at her, grabbed her bike and carried it home, and declared it off limits for the rest of the day. She, not the least bit repentant, kept yelling at me about how she couldn’t possibly walk home and how she wanted her bike.

The bike curfew (or whatever I should call it) was easy to explain: if she cannot use it sensibly without hurting people around her, she is not allowed to use it.

But what I was really mad about was how she just thought I’d forget about this and be all cuddly and want to hold her hand to comfort her (because she was upset about having to walk). She more or less deliberately runs me over and then she’s the one who wants comforting?

We had a talk about it afterwards. She doesn’t like to talk about upsetting stuff but we did it anyway. I believe that she fundamentally doesn’t “get” empathy yet. She hears that I sound hurt/upset/angry but doesn’t seem to understand how I feel. It’s as if she thought I’m just putting on an act. She doesn’t understand why you should say you’re sorry when you hurt someone. We don’t hurt each other very often at home – she is not a hitter, I don’t hit her, we don’t have many painful accidents – so perhaps she doesn’t get much practice. I know the staff at preschool try to teach the kids to apologize when they’ve hurt each other, which they certainly do with reasonable frequency, but it doesn’t look like she’s gotten the point. She apologizes for ridiculous small accidents – for spilling juice on the table, for dropping a spoon – but not for the big stuff. I explained the purpose of apologies but I’m not sure how much of a difference it can make if basic empathy is lacking.

Sat outside in the warm spring sunshine during Adrian’s morning nap and mended clothes. (A rip in one of Ingrid’s tunics, as well as seams along the bottoms of zippers in one coat and one cardigan and one bath robe.)

Packed away my floor-length fleece skirts, I don’t think I will be needing them again this season. Dug out some thinner trousers more suited for the current weather.

Wrestled my bike and our bicycle trailer out from the garage, over piles of building materials. Installed a baby seat in the trailer. Tried putting Adrian in the seat and realized he wouldn’t fit, even though he’s within the age and size limits, so I had to remove it again.

Cycled, with both kids in the trailer, to Ingrid’s dance-and-play group. The weather was so nice that I really did not want to sit in a stuffy bus. Good workout, with all the hills in this part of the town. This was perhaps overly ambitious for Adrian’s first time – late afternoon, tired baby, first time in weird new contraption – but it worked OK. He was really tired and thus pretty unhappy on the way home but luckily Ingrid was sitting there right next to him and could pop in the dummy whenever he spat it out.

Adrian is sleeping very well during his first two naps but the third, late afternoon one, is a struggle now. He is mostly staying awake for about two and a half hours between naps, so the afternoon nap doesn’t fit into his day any more. He doesn’t get tired until so late that I really don’t want him to nap any more. Then I have to keep him up until it’s time for his night sleep, by which time he is too tired and cannot relax to go to sleep. Kahte vähe, kolme palju – two is too little and three is too much.

In some ways life with children gets easier as they grow up, and in some ways it gets harder. Both Ingrid and Adrian have taken quantum leaps that have made a radical difference to how well our everyday life flows: Ingrid when she got her bike, thereby significantly reducing the endless complaints about tired legs, and Adrian when he learned to sit up on his own, so I can take him with me wherever I go in the house or garden. I am so very grateful for both skills, every single day.