time for blog

I'm sure you're all thinking: It's a long time since Oscar last blogged, but he is excused for he is probably just busy helping his parents moving to the new house! But that's not true, not because he's not helping them, but because the moving-business has been delayed by undetermined time because of, let's say, some technical problems that the seller has! The thing doesn't depend at all on us, and all we can do is wait on the sideline that things get resolved. We just hope that we can move before mum's belly becomes too big and before the quicksilver starts boiling in the thermometers! The good side about the delay is that Oscar can continue to go to the kindergarten and "make antibodies" as italians love to say -and to learn to play with other kids, as is my parents' point of view.
Now you might be wondering if I've started to talk about myself in third person, Oscar can continue... But no, I have not, for I'm not Oscar. He has been so busy lately that he has had no time to blog, so I thought I'd step in for once and update you a bit on the situation. I myself am also quite busy, but my errands are more primitive than his, such as swimming, learning the amniotic rhumba (my brother was a master, and now he has become a dansfifl as they say in iceland!), and growing. Oscar on the other hand has been busy fighting an ear-infection, allergic reaction to the antibiotics, learning new words, passing the no-no-phase and playing all day long. I love to hear his voice, and especially I like his laughter. When he laughes it is as if all my cells are laughing as well and I start shaking and kicking so hard that my mum starts wondering what is happening in her uterus. But when he cries it makes me sad, for there is nothing I can do to soothe him. The best time of day, however, is when he is going to sleep and I get to hear his lullaby-toy, that always makes me want to swim around, and soon I fall asleep just like him.
One day a couple of weeks ago Oscar behaved a bit strangely, he didn't want to do his afternoon nap in his bed as usually, but wanted to cuddle with mum and he basically slept from 1-6 in the afternoon wrapped around mum's belly. It was the day before the outbreak of his allergic reaction to the antibiotic, and later my mum thought maybe his sleepiness and longing for an embrace was due to the reaction -but no. That morning, Oscar finally got to know the truth!!! As he had been ill all week, he didn't go to the kindergarten, so when mum and dad went to see the person in the white coat they were forced to take him with them. But since mum had had problems when bringing Oscar with her to the gynecologist a couple of weeks earlier (basically he insisted on sitting in mum's lap while she was being examined!!), they called a friend to stay with Oscar in the waiting room while mum and dad took a look at me through an amazing mirror in the doctor's room. The friend, not knowing that Oscar did not know, started telling him how exciting it all was, what a responasbility it would be to be a big brother and so on...! First he didn't understand anything...it took some time for him to absorb all the news. Then he thought about the cannibalism, the live baby he had seen in mum's belly, and then, adding 2 to 2 he finally got the right answer. Eureka, so that's why mum's belly is growing! Now you can all figure out why he wanted to embrace the belly for the rest of the day!

big hugs to all of you, and many greetings also from mum dad and Oscar
Miss XX Sergiosdottir

Thanks Hàkon

Yesterday was Christmas for me!!! I got a big big parcel from my cousin Hàkon in Iceland. I was really excited when I opened it, and to my great pleasure, the parcel contained loads and loads of icelandic books (which I could have guessed from the weight of the parcel). I was overwhelmed and pulled out the books one by one, each and every one accompanied with an "oooooooooo"! I already had about 50 books, most of them in Icelandic, but I know them all by heart, and it will be nice to dive into the reading of some new stuff.
So thanks again a million times to Hàkon (and to Marìa and Erla and their parents that also contributed to this generous gift).

It's the "NO"-phase, mum!

Mum, don't worry. I know you've been wondering if you have a changeling in the house, but I'm still the same old lovable me, it's just that I'm passing a phase that you might have expected me to pass a bit later. I can't help it -it's here, and maybe it's just better to get it over with. So when I answer NO to all your questions (Oscar, shall we take a bath? Neineineinei; Oscar, now it's time to go to the kindergarten Neineineinei; Oscar, would you like some yogurt Neineineinei...and so on, you get the picture) it's not because I don't want to do these things, it's just that I'm growing up and things happen in a way that even I can't control, as if they'd been written in my program, and all I can do is letting it run and hope for the best. The program that I'm going through now is one where I've started to express my own longings and need to become more independent, and the only way I know to do this is by saying neineinei. I know it can be frustrating, especially when the neineinei is accompanied by crying -desperate crying, or shouting or hitting things with my hands or throwing food around the flat. Even more so when this crying-chorus continues for a looonnnnggg time and in the meantime my supper has become cold and your patience is drying out. But remember that indeed with patience, this period is going to pass, and if you continue to treat me with calm and to reason with me and explain things as you've done so far (I'll forget a couple of episodes when your patience really dried out, e.g. when I bit you in the thigh), it will pass even faster. I've heard the good ladies at kindergarten say that I've changed from their little jewel that was the sweetest kid around -the only one always to eat everything and often asking for a bis, to a birichino capriccioso, so could you please assure even them that I'm not a changeling, and tell them that if they look down under the surface, they can see that even I am suffering this period a bit. I know that all of you can see the same old lovable me between these intense episodes of independence-demostrations. I'm still fun to be with, I laugh and I joke and I never get tired of playing. And when this period is over, I will (hopefully) have learnt to express my longings in a peaceful way and you will forget the whole business.

I always feel that the blog is somewhat naked if I don't add a picture, so here is one, taken a few days ago, and it shows a democratic ending to a war-scene that developed during my neineinei-demostration of independence at dinner. I had been crying a lot (my mum says for half an hour, but I'm not so occupied by the passing of time), and only eaten a few pieces of meat unwillingly and without any gusto. But when my mum turned away one second to reheat my dinner in the microwave, I manged to grab the piece of bone left on her plate -and that's when I started eating with gran gusto! There wasn't even a microscopic piece of meat left on the bone (nor on another bone my mum kindly gave me when I'd finished this one) when I let it down, and later I threw myself over the rice-bowl -until then left to get cold on a corner of the table. In 5 minutes I ate the average one-week's supply of rice for a chinese family of four. I've given you the short version of the happening, but the lesson my mum took from that dinner was: he wants the food presented in the same way as it is presented on my dish, and by the way, it is better if the dish is also the same (I'm too big for these cartoon-decorated baby-dishes), and if you try to interpret well his longings, all is going to go much better. I know my mum isn't going to give into just anything I ask for, she has a bit of a german discipline loaded with rules and good-manner-advice, but she is learning that sometimes the rules can be bent just a little bit to meet my longings -without loosing the principle behind the rule! And so everyone can be happy!
Don't you just love these good endings?

A great feeling!

I thought I'd share with you a great discovery that I've just made. After months and months of walking around in socks or shoes (I'm too young to remember that I passed more or less 6 months last year barefoot!) I decided to take off my socks one day when I was playing at home, and walk barefoot around the house. It wasn't possible to do this during the winter, for the tiles in our house were always far too cold, but now I really wanted to see what it felt like. It was amazing. First it was like when you bite an orange, and you think "my god, can anyone eat something so sour?", the tiles were a bit cold, but once I got used to it, I felt great, and in the end I couldn't stop running barefoot around the house. When you try this, just make sure that you haven't been holding your water-bottle or cup up-side-down and spilling water around the house, for even small pools of water can make the floor more slippery than the ice rink.
This suggestion was offered to you by Oscar

Warning

To you, mums and dads of little babies or future babies, here's an advice: Do not feed your little ones with asparagus while they are still using nappies, especially not at dinner! If you still decide to do it, don't forget that I warned you!
Big hugs, Oscar

War of independence

Lately I've been fighting a war -a war of independence! Actually I've fought a war of independence since the day I was born, and my motto has always been "I'll do it on my own or I wont do it at all!" e.g. when I was learning to walk, I didn't accept being held by the hands while walking, either I walked on my own, or I'd rather just sit down, or crawl. But I've sort of known my limits, and not asked to do things that I knew were far too difficult for me. The past few months, however, I've felt that I've become more and more able to do things, and so I've come to think it's time that I do things on my own! First of all I've learnt to eat on my own with a fork, and although I don't always manage to fish my food with the fork, I don't mind, and just use my fingers instead with the difficult bits. I find the spoon slightly more difficult to handle, things tend to spill out of the spoon before it reaches my mouth, but I insist (rather loudly) on eating e.g. the yogurt or the breakfast cereals without help, and if my parents so much as try to hold the yogurt-box I litterally freak out. The first few times I tried using the spoon by myself were very messy, but I'm getting the grab of it, and here you can see one successful session that my mum managed to catch with her camera.
Later I found out that it was easier to just drink the yogurt, and here you can see how happy I was with this discovery! I'm still perfectioning the method, but I think I might be able to spread it around the world as the new trend!
Here I've only given you culinary-examples of my independence war, but the war goes far beyond this. I'll give you two more examples. First of all I've learnt to clean my nose by myself. I know this sounds trivial, but imagine the benefits for someone that has had a running nose for approximately 5 months! I never blow my nose when my parents are cleaning it, but when I clean it myself I give it a thorough cleaning and blow my nose for at least 2 minutes with a lot of noise and necessary coreography. I've also started blowing the nose of all my stuffed animals, so there can be a real nose-blowing-concert at home.
The last example I'd like to give you is from the playground. At the playground I love the slide, and can use it 10 times in a row and never get tired. I mainly go to 3 different playgrounds in Pavia, and there are slides of different sizes and steepness. The small ones I can climb and slide quite well on my own, but I insist on doing all of them, even the biggest and steepest ones on my own. If my parents try to hold me, I brush away their hands and tell them angrily that I'm a big boy that can handle these things. By some miracle, however, my parents always show up on the right moment when I accidentally sit on my feet or slide down on my stomach, and save me from any major injuries.
I'm wondering if I should soon ask to dress myself as well -but as all my attempts so far to put on my shoes and socks have failed, I think I'll wait just a moment before launcing myself into the getting-dressed world.