International dinner...

Ok, ok, someone does read my blog, there are already some comments, and some people that have talked to my mum have said: hey, am I supposed to comment on the blog..ah? Which means they read it but would never comment on it. Anyway, maybe I shouldn't be bothered at all if someone reads this or not...in the end this blog almost serves as a diary also for me so...hey..here I am -happy as ever :)
I must say also that internet IS very useful for us. We search information, read news, and most importantly, we keep in contact with people! My parents have friends all around the globe, and of course half my family is in Iceland - so if today was, say, 25 years ago (come to it..10-15 years back is enough), either my parents would be writing snail-mail-letters every day, or they would loose contact with all those wonderful people. With internet we can keep in touch as if we were all living in the same street. There are no limits to what we can do actually!
Last night for example we had dinner with a friend of my mum that lives in Canada, isn't that awesome?? It was a kind of dinner where it was difficult to exchange food between plates, so to speak -everyone had to bring their own meal (and it really wasn't dinner time in Canada), but it was great. If you've got skype (and can't make it for a real dinner with my family -to which you are kindly invited) then please contact us on skype at dinner time, and we will be happy to share our meal with you.

Is there anyone out there?

No, I'm not looking for aliens. I'm just checking if anyone ever reads this blog. There are never any comments to my writing and I don't have a counter on my site, so how can I know? If no one reads this I might just as well stop writing...so here's my deal: I'll blog once for every comment I get from you...ok? So if you don't hear from me again...it's because I didn't hear from you!!!!!

Less extreme...!

Those who read the past two blogs probably think that we, the "italian-trio", are a bit extreme on certain things. If you know my mum, then you're probably thinking
well, yes, hmmm... they are...!!!
and maybe we are, from a certain point of view -although we are mainly just practicing what my mum calls heilbrigda skynsemi (healthy intelligence!). Only that it is sometimes bloody difficult in practice!
I'll take an example. As you may well know in these modern times, together with the inhabitants of the Linfen-region of China and Ranipet in India, babies are among the world greatest ecological monsters. Before we learn to control our weewee and poopooh we consume/produce several tons of diapers and the experts say that it takes something like 500 years for them to break down in nature!!! I don't think parents in general go around throwing the used diapers in nature -not even curious parents like mine (just to check how long it really takes them to break down), but they don't go around very proud of what they are doing to mother nature either. So, if the parents are a bit aware of these things, like mine are (or were..!!) they do something about it. So how do you think that my parents spent the evening of 28 of december, the day before I was born -their last childfree day for years and years. Candlelit dinner? Cinema? Romantic walk in christmas-decorated Pavia? No, theese geeks spent the evening on internet searching among the offers of re-usable diapers!! Then a couple of days after I was born and was desperate for my parents attention, my mum sent my dad some 80 kilometers away to spend a lot of money (those modern re-usable diapers are not really cheap!) to buy the chosen brand of diapers! Then my mum treated the diapers with some kind of wax to make them softer and dried that thing off with a hairdrier, then she washed them all and hung them to dry in their bedroom (our flat IS small). The thing scared the shit out of my parents when they woke up to my crying during the night, for the diapers looked like 20 dead chicken hanging on a line! The instruction said the diapers would dry in about 8 hours, but with the humid january-weather in Pavia, it took a lot more for them to dry and my mum almost refused to eat chicken after this fearful experience. When finally they dried, my mum folded them up neatly and put them in a big bag, ready to use. To make a long story short, that's exactly where they are still today!!! My mum only made one trial to let me use the diapers. I was 1 months old, and no matter how one-size-fit'em-all these diapers were meant to be, they fitted me just like a king-sized bedsheet would have done!
What's more, they completely blocked my below-hips-mobility and made me look like a pear -and I was NOT ready to face the pear-shape complex yet! You can see it on the photo. On the left I'm using the straitjacket-diaper, on the right I'm using a normal one (I'm only crying on the one on the right because my mum said she would make me wear the re-usable one again!). Just as good they didn't continue to use them, for I wouldn't be the happy crawling-standing-climbing rascal that I am today, if I'd continued to use them!!

After this frightening trial, my mum put the diapers away and planned to try again when I had grown a bit -which I did pretty quickly, but she never gained enough courage for a second try. Sometimes my dad asks my mum what happened to the diapers, and then my mum feels a bit ashamed and a bit guilty, so she says that she is just about to make another try. Then she never does because they take too long time to dry. Or, because our flat is too small to house a bin with dirty diapers waiting to be washed. Or, our flat is so small, and the weather is so unstable that we can't count on drying the diapers outside, and we can't have 20 dead chicken hanging all the time in our bedroom -with the baby and all......and so one (you get the picture?). Each time a new excuse -and my father sees his great investment gone up in smoke -and the last childfree evening for years and years, gone wasted. Let's face it, the ecological-monster-diapers are so handy and simple, that once you get used to using them, there's no going back to the washable ones! I guess my mum would not have made it in the good old boil-the-diapers-in-a-big-pot-on-the-stove days!
So you see, being extreme might be noble and worth a try...but it can be bloody difficult in practice.

P.S.
The diapers are for sale...anyone?

Additives addicted

I didn't finish all I had to say about food-flavouring the other day. You got the message that we don't like vegetables with vanilla flavour. Well, that's only half the story, for a part from the strange combination, it's the fact that they add flavouring at all, that worries us a bit. Why do they do it? In Italy, well, all of Europe, come to think of it, it's forbidden to add colour and food-preservatives to baby-food, but that's it, you can add just whatever else you like to the food (except maybe pesticides or something). And actually, if you want your baby to eat healthy and to stear away from other food-additives, you should not give him food meant for babies, for they are terrific. Next time you go to the supermarket, check the baby-yogurt for example. Read carefully the description of the ingreadients. Almost certainly you will find that most, if not all, contain artificial flavouring (if it's natural flavouring they specify it), extra sugar and if you're lucky...some real fruit and some yogurt.
I don't know if you heard in the news lately that food-additives can cause hyperactivity in children?

“A mix of additives commonly found in children’s foods increases the mean level of hyperactivity,” wrote the researchers, led by Jim Stevenson, a professor of psycology at the University of Southampton. “The finding lends strong support for the case that food additives exacerbate hyperactive behaviors (inattention, impulsivity and overactivity) at least into middle childhood.”

This is no new knowledge, people have known for years that they don't do us any good. There are also indications that food-flavouring can cause worsening of the symptoms for children with Tourette syndrom and there is probably no end to the list of what these additives can do to us.
The only reason that I can find for the producers of baby-food to sell these chemical-cocktails for small babies is making us addicted! Like for smoking..you start smoking before you know it's not good for you -well, or you think that you are going to live forever anyway...or that old age is so unappealing and so far away, that some smoking can not possibly matter -then bang, you grow up, are addicted to the golden dragon and have stained your lungs black on the inside!
Maybe the food-additives are not as bad...but what do we know? If it's possible to eat just normal, natural food...then why shouldn't we?

Vanilla-vegetables

Can I ask you something? Well, I'm a baby and although I've got my ideas about a lot of things, I might not get them right all the time. So here's my dilemma. If you are offered mashed vegetables with some meat for lunch (it might not happen to you often, but imagine being a baby and being offered this practically every day) would you prefer it with the taste of vanilla or just the simple natural vegetable and meat taste?
(please leave a comment to let me know what you think!)
Well, the reason I ask you is that a couple of weeks ago my mum bought the cereals to add to my food. At the supermarket there were only two brands, Nestle and Plasmon, and my mum brought home one box of Rice from Plasmon. On the box it's written that one can use it either to add to the vegetable broth or to milk and since Plasmon advertises a lot on TV (grow up healthy, is their slogan) she thought it was quite a good choice. The surprise came when she added the cereals to my food. First she thought that her nose was playing tricks on her, but then she had no doubt: the rice was vanilla-flavoured! A quick glance on the box revealed that Plasmon had added flavours to the cereal, but not a word about vanilla! My mum was rather disgusted, and wrote a letter to Plasmon to let them know what she thought. After a while the reply came

Dear Mrs. Valgardsdottir
We excuse the late reply to your request, and would like to inform you that vanilla flavour has been added to all our cereals after several taste-trials among a group of our clients, who judged that the taste of the cereals with added vanilla-flavour was better for their babies. Furthermore, the sweet taste helps the babies to get accustomed to more savory tastes during the first steps of weaning.

blablablablabla..! Now let's say that there are parents that prefer vanilla-flavoured vegetables and meat (I would be curious to hear them actually) -but wouldn't it be fair to KNOW what you're buying? Now take a look at the picture of the Plasmon-cereals! Can you see written anywhere that vanilla-flavour has been added? If you buy biscuits from Plasmon you can choose between Vanilla, Chocolate or No-flavour biscuits as clearly evidenced on the box. But if you buy the cereals, you get vanilla...or, well, you buy another brand...which is just what my mum did.

I love IKEA

My dad sometimes says that the first time my mum felt at home in Italy was when he brought her to IKEA. Then she could be the practical scandinavian surrounded by practical scandinavian things!! I'm only half-scandinavian and I've never been to IKEA, but I still love them -for guess what, they know exactly what my tastes are!!! I don't know how they know where I live, but when we had just come back from Iceland they sent me 372 pages of a delicious catalogue. I still can't believe my luck. Page by page I'm tearing apart the catalogue, strapping every sofa or table or whatsnot that's on my way. If it wasn't for the fact that occasionally my mum feeds me with other brochures and journals I would have finished it already. First I thought my mum would say nei nei nei when I started strapping it, but to my surprise she didn't (she only does if I actually try to eat the pages). Then I found out that she has her own copy hidden somewhere (wait till I find that one..!) -she stole it from our neighbours' mailbox, but they are never at home (or not after the police came looking for them this summer), and usually they throw all publicity that comes to their mailbox on the street in front of our house -so, if you ask me, just as good that my mum saved it!

The world is my playground

Ah...life IS beautiful. When I wake up in the morning I play a little in bed and check that my toys have had a good night sleep, then I stand up and look over my parent's bed to see where they are hiding. First I can't see them -but there are strange landscapes under the bedsheets. Then I do my wakeup-call, and tell my parent's how impatient I am to start the day. That does the trick. They never fail to stick their heads out of their bedsheets when I start calling them. Well, at least my mum. My dad is better at hiding. Mum says that he's at someplace called work and I still haven't figured out where that is -which is strange, for our flat is really small. It's just a small hole really.

When my mum comes out of her hiding place I start jumping up and down in my bed, for I'm so excitied -I can't wait to start playing. Usually we start the day by playing a bit in my parent's bed, or maybe my mum reads me a book or two. Then when I start to feel that my stomach is a little empty I go and explore the milk-tanks. I need a lot of energy for all the playing to come. The world (our flat) has become my playground! I figured out how to crawl in the end of july, in Akureyri (boy, was my mum excited) and just a few days later I stood up for the first time. Since then I'm constantly on the move. I crawl, I climb, and have conquered almost every furniture there is in our small flat. My parents bought linoleum flooring (is that what it's called?) with the map of a town, and have covered the floor in the living-room with it. I'm supposed to play mainly there, but it's much more fun climbing the sofa, or under a chair, putting my hands in the VCR or catching things I'm not really supposed to play with -such as the remote control and my mum's cell phone! Why should I stick to the designated area when the rest of the flat is much more fun? When I go to places where I'm not really supposed to be, such as in the kitchen or try to climb the radiator my mum says nei nei nei nei and gives me the worried look. I know what it means, and do stop what I'm doing for a while, but then curiosity has better of me and I continue. Then my mum says again nei Oscar nei, and then she gives me a short lecture on why I can't, it's hot, it's dangerous, it's ullabjakk and so on -as if that makes me any less curious! Well, I'm young, and there is a world out there to discover...!

(Don't) mind the gap..!

I know, I know...! I haven't been blogging enough lately. It's just that I have a tiny problem with a big gap. I didn't blog for about 3 months, and every time I want to restart, this gap of 3 months is proofing to be like a grand canyon that I can't cross! I had planned to tell you all about what I've been up to the last few months, but since I came back home so many things have happened that every day I'm torn by the decision of whether to write about the summer (enough to fill a whole book) or just concentrate on that particular day....and in the end I just don't write anything at all! Would you call this a writer's block or a trivial-dilemma?

But enough is enough...I've decided to never mind the gap (maybe you'll get it in small pieces in the following blogs) and start to tell you what I'm up to these days.

Meez and meez dad

"

Meez and meez mum...

Happy birthday great-grandmother

My only great-grandmother is 80 years old today. I don't really understand how much that is, but hope that I will acquire first hand experience! Me and my parents didn't manage to go to celebrate with her and other relatives in Iceland, but I would like to send her all our best wishes.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY "LANGAMMA"

On the picture you can see me with her in Iceland this summer.