I’m going to make a new attempt at keeping up daily journal-style posts, prompted by this post.

Visited colleagues at the office. Seems that they miss me; there was some disappointment when I reminded them that I won’t be back until mid-May.

I visited once before, I think Adrian was maybe a month old then. There’s a lot more of him to show off now: he smiles and looks at people and all that. He was at his best behaviour, he really liked having all that crowd around him. The crowd admired his funky Stokke Xplory stroller and watched with bafflement as I put him to sleep in a sling.

He barely slept all day, 20 minutes on the way home from nursery in the morning, 30 minutes in the sling at home, 30 minutes in the sling at the office, and then 15 minutes on the way home from nursery in the afternoon. So exhausted was he that he fell asleep for the night at a quarter to six.

In the evening Ingrid watched me play Plants vs. Zombies on the iPad. She apparently found it really exciting, commented, shouted out warnings when new bucket-wearing zombies appeared, had opinions on my choice of plants etc.

Adrian’s bedtime totally collided with dinner-preparing time, so we had leftover curry with noodles.

A reasonably typical day for us, apart from Ingrid’s fever (which is rare) and the movie-watching (which we only do on Fridays). All times rounded to the nearest quarter-hour.

Around 1:00 Feed Adrian
Around 4:00 Feed Adrian
5:45 Adrian wakes. Pop in dummy a few times.
6:30 All asleep again.
7:00 Alarm goes off. Turn on light, start waking Ingrid.
7:15 Adrian wakes; Eric takes care of him while Ingrid joins me for a shower. Both get dressed.
7:30 Feed Adrian while reading for Ingrid.
7:45 Start making breakfast. Ingrid eats some cereal (Kellogg’s Special K, on top of which she pours raspberry juice while drinking milk on the side) while I make porridge (oats, and half a small apple from our own apple tree). The builders arrive.
8:00 Eat breakfast. Adrian sits in his bouncy chair, with a blanket protecting him from the draught while the builders walk in and out with their stuff.
8:15 Eric leaves for work. I clean up the kitchen while Ingrid finishes eating.
8:30 Brush teeth, brush Ingrid’s hair and teeth, change Adrian’s nappy, tie him in the sling, where he falls asleep almost instantly. All get dressed for going out. A snowsuit for Ingrid, a babywearing coat from Mamajacket for me. Woolly hats and mittens all around.
8:45 Leave for preschool. It has snowed a lot during the night so we take the sledge.
9:00 Drop Ingrid off at preschool. Unpack spare clothes for her. Head home.
9:15 Sweep the night’s snow off the stairs.
9:30 Take notes for blog post. Check email. Read a few blog posts.
9:45 Adrian wakes and cries. Feed Adrian while reading a book.
10:00 Talk to Adrian. He seems bored. Put Adrian down on his play mat. Rescue our rubber boots from the snow on the balcony. Take photos of what the builders are doing. Turn Adrian on his front. Fold and put away laundry. Change nappy.
10:30 Adrian cries. Seems tired. Put on the sling and pop in the dummy; Adrian falls asleep. Fold more laundry.
10:45 Put on outerwear again.
11:00 Out for grocery shopping.
11:45 Home again. Take off clothes. Prepare lunch (leftover broccoli soup and wort bread, a part of Swedish Christmas traditions).
12:00 Eat lunch while reading The Economist from week before last, and watching birds feed outside the kitchen window.
12:15 Unpack groceries. Put away stuff that’s lying around. Do the dishes from breakfast and lunch (those that don’t go in the dishwasher). Eat some apples.
12:30 Tradera (Swedish Ebay): bid on some nursing tops, leave feedback on bought items
12:45 Back up my web site. Other admin.
13:00 Adrian wakes and expresses his dissatisfaction. Nurse while reading.
13:30 Adrian on play mat. Clean floor in temporary hallway. Roast some nuts. Admin.
14:00 Adrian throws up. Move him to bouncy chair. Pick up stuff around the house. Change poopy nappy.
14:15 Whimpers from Adrian. Put him in the sling; he falls asleep. Pay some bills.
14:30 Read online newspapers and Facebook.
14:45 Get dressed to go pick up Ingrid.
15:00 Preschool. Find Ingrid, help her get dressed. Feels feverish and looks very tired.
15:30 Home. Take off clothes, put away. Prepare for fredagsmys – get snacks and choose a movie.
15:45 Fredagsmys begins.
16:15 The last builder leaves.
16:30 Adrian awake and unhappy. Nurse.
16:45 Crying. Nappy change. Sling. Sort of falls asleep.
17:00 Not asleep after all.
17:15 Fredagsmys movie ends. Take Adrian out of sling.
17:30 Into the sling again. Falls asleep this time. Sing some songs with Ingrid.
17:45 Make dinner.
18:15 Adrian wakes and cries. Ingrid goes to the toilet and gets her clothes slightly wet, very upset. Lots of drama. Get new clothes for Ingrid.
18:30 Everybody gets food. Nurse Adrian while trying to eat with one hand. Occasionally console Ingrid. Everybody feels better.
19:00 Ingrid wants to go to bed. Brush her teeth. Go upstairs, take Adrian and his bouncy chair with us. Read story for both, during which Adrian miraculously stays quiet. Then Adrian starts complaining. Put Adrian to bed, too. Then shuttle traffic between Ingrid’s bed (where she holds my arm) and Adrian’s (where I pop in the dummy).
19:15 Ingrid asleep. Sit with Adrian.
19:30 Adrian mostly asleep. Go downstairs, clean up the kitchen, with occasional trips back up to pop in the dummy.
19:45 Sit another while with Adrian. Take notes for blog. Eric comes home.
20:00 Read the rest of my news sites and RSS feeds, check email. More trips upstairs.
20:15 Browse the forums at www.sjalbarn.se.
20:45 Register Adrian in the city’s child care queue system
21:00 Read
22:00 Brush teeth
22:15 Watch Chuck over Eric’s shoulder
22:30 Change nappy and feed Adrian in bed. He falls asleep again.
22:45 Eric takes Ingrid to the toilet. She’s all sweaty and feverish and comes to our bed. Adrian wakes again, dummy-popping ensues.
23:15 All asleep.

Three things that help me get things done despite a cranky baby and a needy four-year-old:

• Baby slings. A lot of time that I would otherwise spend on getting Adrian to sleep, or keeping him upright after a feed, I can now use for other things. Also they make me more mobile: when I want to go out, I don’t need to time my movements around his sleep times.
• A shopping trolley is an excellent complement to slings. It may not be the most stylish accessory but it is immensely useful. The little old ladies know what they’re doing! We bought one from IKEA for 159:- and it’s been perfect. It takes 20 kg I think, I’m a bit unsure about the exact number but more than I would ever want to drag home. I use it for grocery shopping, but also take it when I need to run errands in the city, both for the stuff we need to take with us (nappies etc) and for any purchases.

• A task list for every day, with the 3–4 things I absolutely want to get done that day. The tasks can range from the very short – “call to make appointment with doctor” – to longer things like “buy mittens for Ingrid”.

  This shortlist helps me focus, and helps me plan my day: without it some things never get done because I only remember them at the most inappropriate time. I am mostly reminded of Ingrid’s need for mittens when I’m going out with her, or just coming home, but if I am going to buy new ones, it needs to happen during the day.

  The list also helps me avoid the feeling that I do nothing but breastfeed, burp and change nappies all day long. I can look back after what feels like a totally improductive day and see that I have nevertheless crossed three things off my list.

One small for the kitchen table, one large for the front entrance. Design by Ingrid, carving by myself.

Parental leave is called föräldraledighet in Swedish. The first part, förälder, means parent. The second, ledighet, generally means leisure or holiday. It has overtones of freedom, of time off. Of course reality is nothing like that. Eric likes to refer to it as “parental service” instead.

I don’t know where the time is going, but it definitely feels like two children take more than twice the time as one. There is more to be done, and less time to do it. I seem to recall a certain amount of leisure when I was at home with Ingrid as a baby. Now there are nursery hours to keep, errands to run, and busy evenings trying to juggle the needs of two children at the same time. I am glad that Ingrid is as old as she is, and as sensible as she is – this would be a lot harder otherwise.

Speaking of clothes sizing… here we have two baby bodies, both size 56, i.e. supposed to fit a baby that is 56 cm long. No age-based fuzzy sizing like in some places, we’re talking hard measurements here!

And the reality?

We invited our next-next-door neighbours for coffee and cake this afternoon. Their younger daughter is in Ingrid’s group at nursery, and we’re hoping that they will become friends, once they are old enough to actually make friends, and spend lots of time playing together.

Since Ingrid was familiar with both the girl and her parents (and probably the older sister as well), she was not at all shy with them, as she normally is with guests. Instead she started showing off: someone mentioned singing, and she burst into song (“Nyss så träffade jag en krokodil”) followed by another song and then another, and she very much enjoyed the attention.

There wasn’t much playing together this time. In fact there wasn’t much playing at all: instead they spent a lot of time listening to the mother reading, and some time eating (and aping each others’ monkeying around at the table) and drawing. Ingrid was a bit possessive about her stuff, reminding us that the pens were hers, and the jigsaw puzzle that the other girl looked at, but she didn’t object to others using her stuff.

The guests left at 5, after about 2 hours. Ingrid fell asleep a quarter past 6, which is, I think, the earliest she’s ever gone to sleep without being ill. All this socializing must have really exhausted her. Now I hope she won’t wake at 6 tomorrow morning.

The one thing I miss from my pre-child days are the lazy Sundays. The days when I felt like doing nothing much at all – perhaps because the weather was gray and wet, or because I was tired, or just because. Days I spent in the sofa, reading, only occasionally getting up for a quick meal.

Now with Ingrid there’s no chance of more than 10 minutes of peace and quiet, unless she’s asleep, or Eric and Ingrid both leave the house. Otherwise she’s always wanting me to read a book, play with her, watch Miffy with her, endlessly. If I insist that I want to rest, she tells me she wants to rest too, and lies next to me on the sofa – for all of a minute, after which she gets restless. She’s not fond of lazy do-nothing Sundays. I guess it’s something one learns to appreciate after a certain age.

… I went through the last two bank statements (6 months’ worth of transactions), the pile of DVDs on my desk, about 50 blog posts from the “to process” list, and a few loose papers.

In other news, Ingrid’s finally well again but had her crankiest, whingiest day in recent memory. Nothing was good, everything was no no no. Probably because she hasn’t had a proper meal since Monday… When she gets too hungry, she gets stuck in a vicious circle: her mood becomes so unstable and contrarian that she will even say no to food, just because she’s in a bad mood. This time a handful of grapes broke the circle and after that she was as happy as ever.

We had our work Christmas dinner yesterday, at a nice old manor house, with everyone’s partners and everything. It was interesting (but not exactly surprising) to see that the colleagues who I enjoy talking to, also had partners I enjoyed talking to, and the colleagues I’d never felt a connection with had partners I couldn’t connect to either.

I think we (Eric and I) managed to prove to everyone that we are incurably odd, since we decided to walk home from the party, even though it’s about a half-hour walk and it was raining a bit. But after 3 hours of sitting and stuffing ourselves we really felt a need for some fresh air and exercise. The Swedish smorgasbord-style Christmas dinners almost seem to be designed to make everyone eat too much.

Ingrid was at home watching Teletubbies with my mum. Her last time with a babysitter was almost a year ago, and we were a bit unsure about how it would go. In the end it went as smoothly as anyone could wish. She didn’t even ask for us, not even when it was time to go to bed. I warned her in advance that grandma would come for a visit and mummy would go out and Ingrid would stay at home. The first time, a few days before, she didn’t like the idea much at all: big teary eyes and trembling lower lip. The second time, the day before, she looked a bit cross and said she wanted to come with me. The closer we got, the less she cared, and by the time I was about to leave she didn’t even care enough to come to the window to wave me good-bye. So to all those who claim that children need to be left early on with babysitters in order to train them, and that all this co-sleeping and babywearing and liberal cuddling will cause trouble later, I just say “hah!”.