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June 20, 2021

Happy First Father’s Day to my husband! And Happy Father’s Day to all the other dads out there. 

On Friday, we drove to Greenwich to see a specialist at a Children’s Hospital. We got our temperatures checked at the entrance and was sent up to the third floor. We checked in and they told us that only one parent could go in with Lily and the other one had to leave the building. So I went to sit outside on a park bench in their little garden. Her appointment lasted for like 45 minutes cause apparently the doctor wanted to tell Jim in detail about all the stuff it could be even though she was absolutely fine. I didn’t mind, I enjoyed my time spent alone meditating under a tree:) So yes, Lily is ok, nothing to worry about. If she gets any new marks in her face we have to take her back, but these current ones are fine and they may disappear over time.
Jim told me later that the doctor had said that “he was so good with her” and she had sounded surprised. Eh what? That might sound like a complement but no, that’s a pretty bad thing to say. Why is that a surprise? He’s a great parent, it’s his child just as much as mine. Either all the other dads she meet are terrible fathers or her ideas of men is wrong…

Non-alcoholic IPA from Athletic Brewing Co

If everything goes right, we’ll have a house to move into in less than a month. We have already signed the papers, now we are just waiting for inspection and stuff. So in the evening on Friday, we sat on the terrace again and celebrated yet another day with great news. Or, well, Thor was throwing up, pooping blood and didn’t want to eat that day which of course wasn’t great. We think he’s depressed:( Cause now when we have made an even bigger effort this weekend to snuggle, play and include him more he seems happier and he’s eating and he gets excited to go for walks. He still hides under the couch and yells at Jim if he is holding Lily when she’s crying but we have to keep making him feel loved and included. Our little fluffy love♥

Yesterday I didn’t do much. It was quite hot and sticky outside most of the day so Lily and I hung out inside. Other than cleaning up in the apartment, ordering and eating sushi during one of her longer naps, I was pretty much only feeding L and then sat there with her sleeping on top of me basically all day. It’s lovely and hard at the same time.

This morning, Lily woke up at 5 am (Jimmy had apparently changed her diaper 1.5 hour before that but she stayed asleep, so I got a good night sleep). She ate, pooped, I tried to put her back to bed but had to feed more. Eventually she fell asleep and I could put her back in her crib. At 6:15 am I left the three sleeping beauties, ate a banana and made myself a cup of tea. I sat down by the opened balcony door and listened to the birds. A lovely morning. 
After we were done with half of our breakfast, we all decided to go for a walk to the baseball park before it got too hot outside. Thor was happy and Lily took a half an hour nappy.
Jim has mentioned Father’s Day all week, I guess he’s been excited:) To celebrate this day he grilled us some steaks and I made pasta with Swedish béarnaise sauce, a strange combination maybe but we are trying to finish everything we have in the cabinets before moving. That’s why I didn’t get hubby a gift for today cause I don’t want to pack more shit:)

Never seen blue school busses before. They also had pink garbage cans instead of black

This coming week will be yet another busy one. We have a few appointments scheduled, the air conditioner in the car is getting fixed and on Friday it’s Midsummer. It’ll be my 11th year celebrating in America which is a bit weird, I barely remember how it is in Sweden this day anymore haha. And I’m hoping to be able to introduce my friend to Lily next weekend, but first I need my vaccine. 

June 16, 2021

Yesterday, right after I finished writing the last post, Lily got scheduled for an ultrasound at the hospital across the street from us an hour later. We still have to see a specialist to confirm (appointment on Friday) but the ultrasound lady told us that she could not find anything inside her body. Yay! And since we haven’t seen any more birthmarks popping up since she was about three weeks old, I hope it’s nothing to worry about. 

And yesterday we got good news regarding a house, but I will update you about that later, nothing is 100% yet. But things are looking good! 

We have exactly one month to finish off our lives here and we have plenty of stuff to deal with. We need to schedule dentist appointments, I need an orthodontics appointment, Thor needs a spa day and we need to schedule him for x-rays to make sure that the bladder stones hasn’t come back, Lily will see a specialist and then in three weeks she has her two month checkup, Jim apparently needs to get himself a tdap shot (because of the baby) and I need to get my second vaccine shot, I have my postpartum checkup next week, we need to pack our stuff in boxes and start selling the rest of our furniture, I need to send papers to have Lily become a Swedish citizen, plus we have Midsommar, my birthday and Fourth of July to celebrate. Busy 30 days for sure 🙂 

I would also love love love to go to Manhattan one day but that might be too hot for Lily. But I would just love to walk around Central Park with the stroller and maybe sit down on the grass and have a little picnic (aka Lily gets boob). As of yesterday, NYC has lifted most covid restrictions so it would be so lovely to enjoy brunch at an outdoor seating somewhere on either Upper West or Upper East Side. I feel like I need some sort of closure, I need to say goodbye to New York City.
I can’t wait to leave Connecticut, I really don’t feel at home here, but I have started to feel a bit, hmm what should we call it… separation sadness to leave NYC. No, we haven’t lived there in over four years but we’ve been close enough and to not be able to go there unless I fly there and make a whole weekend trip out of it, it’s a bit emotional. I’ve been looking forward to move somewhere warm for such a long time and I really can’t wait for next month! I’m super excited! But, that doesn’t mean I can’t be emotional about leaving. 

It’s nice to be able to feed my child wherever I am at the moment she is hungry, the beauty of breastfeedingAfter she was done eating and had fallen asleep in my arms, I enjoyed a glass of wine to celebrate all the good news.
Such a lovely evening last night. I prefer a bit hotter temperatures but for Lily and Thor’s sake it was perfect:)

June 15, 2021

Hey, what’s up? Days runs by quickly here in our baby bubble. Lily is growing up fast, already over 5 weeks old! We have been searching and searching for a home to buy before we have to move out from here. The weather has been a little colder which allows us to be outside for a little bit every day. We’ve watched some netflix tv-shows. And we’ve been mesmerized by Lily’s cute smiles and attempts of laughing:)

Lily had her one month checkup with the pediatrician on Friday. We were told that everything looks great. She is as of last week cluster feeding which is tough for mamma but she is growing well and that’s all that matters:) So she has gained a pound and she’s about an inch taller which is very good for two weeks.
She has a few birthmarks that we are keeping an eye on but nothing to worry about… or that’s what we were told in the morning during our appointment. The pediatrician then called in the afternoon and said that Lily needs an ultrasound and then need to see a specialist in NYC. She still said that there’s probably nothing to worry about but they want to be sure. Of course this hurts my mamma heart, but I’m trying to not freak out about it or even worry since we don’t know anything yet. I’m sure she’s fine. Hopefully there won’t be any more marks popping up. She has three that I’ve been a little worried about but I’ve been told multiple times that they will probably go away with age and I hope that’s true.

Thor seems a tiny bit depressed which hurts my pommy mommy heart, but we can’t do much other than try to snuggle and play with him whenever we have some time and let him know that he still means a lot to us and that he’s part of this family too. 

I still haven’t done any yoga or dancing since she was born which is a bit sad. I’ve had a few opportunities now but I don’t know about them until it’s too late. Like yesterday for example. She was napping for four hours which is very rare, usually it’s for maybe 10 minutes if even that (that’s why we let her nap for that long). So I never know when I can start a bigger project. Yes, doing yoga is now considered a big project haha, and so is washing my hair:) So instead I try to do things that is easy to leave in the middle of. Yesterday I did laundry (like every day these days), dealt with the enormous mess in the walk-in-closet where we have a lot of the gifts we’ve received, and prepared everything to be able to cook us dinner once she had woken up and been fed. But during 4 hours I could easily have done yoga, done some stuff on the computer and start packing things upstairs into boxes. Oh well.

What else is going on? I’m in a “I want to throw away/donate everything” mood right now but as I’ve been walking around the apartment I can’t seem to find anything to get rid of which annoys me cause I don’t like the amount of stuff we have. Plus I don’t feel like bringing a lot of boxes when we move. 

I think from now on, whenever she is napping, even if it ends up only being for 10 minutes, I’m gonna take the opportunity to move my body, cause I really need it and then during other leftover moments I will pack the apartment:)

It was raining for a few days and I didn’t feel like taking the stroller out to get wet, plus it was really hot outside, so I put Lily in a wrap, grabbed my mask and went for a 6 minute walk on the covered parking lot of our building and then a 15 minute walk up and down the hallway of the apartment floor.
Not much activity haha but at least something:) Just look at this cutie, she melts my ♥
Very few people in Stamford are wearing masks these days. Connecticut has a very high rate of vaccinated people so you are now allowed to walk around, eat at restaurants, enjoy sport etc. without wearing a mask. I keep mine on still since I have a newborn and I haven’t got my second shot yet
The summer art in our city this year seems to be painted pianos, we saw a few of them on our walk to downtown one evening

June 14, 2021

June 10, 2021

One year ago, we found a house that we liked. After emails, phone calls and zoom walkthroughs, we decided to fly down to Florida to see it in person. We loved it but we knew it wouldn’t be easy to buy it, but it seemed like we could maybe buy it in the end of last summer. So, we decided to get pregnant so that we could stay with my awesome doctors and the awesome hospital here, spend a couple of months in the house during winter and then fully move there this summer.

Well, the process of buying this house has been complicated and we gave up a few times. With a growing bump and time running out, we have been looking and looking for other houses, home builders and lots everywhere in the country. Whenever we find something decent that we could consider, it is sold within days or even hours and no builders have time or even respond. Everyone’s buying homes right now, it’s crazy.
And then in March we got our hopes up for the house again. The auction was scheduled for today and we were all set and excited.
But.
Something came up on Wednesday and it now seem too risky. And then yesterday we were told that the auction has been rescheduled. What a joke. One thing after another. So, we are not going to buy it.

This basically means that we are homeless in July unless we buy a home we don’t want or end up renting again. At some point this month, Jim probably has to leave us and try to find somewhere for us to live. 

When we talked about that it was time for us to have a baby back in 2018, I said that I don’t want to add a baby to our lives unless we have a home with a nursery somewhere where baby can hang out on a beach from day one and to swim in a pool looking at palm trees. I know that’s big wishes but that’s what I’ve always wanted and I’ve been very clear about that. Well, Lily arrived during a pandemic (which hasn’t been super fun to deal with for anyone), we don’t plan on buying a beach pass here in Stamford (because A; the beaches here suck and B; we are leaving soon) and we can’t find a home. 

I know I wished for big things and I never expected it to be my husband to grant me those wishes, we are both in this marriage. But I could easily have waited to have a baby until things were looking better in the world and when we would know where to live. Yes, of course I love our little girl and wouldn’t change a thing, but to live in boxes for four months waiting to buy a really great house and then just… womp womp womp. We both went from being super excited to extremely stressed out in one day.

It was an emotional day yesterday. But today we have to try to be positive, optimistic and trust that everything will work out. Sure it sucks to have to spend a bunch of money on a house we don’t really want or rent a whatever place for who knows how long but so be it, we have no time to really think about this. We are moving on.
Wish us good luck!

Here’s two cute pictures to light up the mood:)