The best duo

Aren't we the cutest father-son duo in the world? My mum is watching us hypnoticed and wishes that we had a bigger sofa so she could join us for an afternoon-nap.
What would Bollea say about this?

Mums and dads

My mum picked up on my provoking words in the last blog. "Housekeeping duties". She did NOT like this.
Although not always in practice, she is a theoretical feminist and can get quite upset if someone suggests that the sexes have certain roles...not considering the biological ones of course.
Last week, by suggestion of one of her mum-friends, she bought a book by one of the greatest italian neuro-psichiatrist of infancy, Bollea, hoping to learn a trick or two to shape me into a good person. Well, the author was born in 1913, and times have changed since he was at his best, but she didn't expect a such an old-fashioned and male chauvinistic book. My mum says that if she substitutes the words father and mother with parents then she doesn't dislike the book, but I could see smoke coming out of her nostrils when she read some of the chapters of the book.
I'll give you some examples:

It may seem a paradox, but fathers normally play better with their children than the mother. In fact, they normally play with them in their spare time, whereas the mothers can only play with them between their housekeeping duties: and this is a fundamental difference. Therefore, I invite the mothers to let the children help them with the housekeeping...

Wouldn't it have been nicer to invite the fathers to help (as if it wasn't as much their role) with the housekeeping, so that the mums had some spare time to dedicate to play with their children?
Another example:
It is important for children to take part in some sport activity. They can choose the sport of their father, other relatives , or friends.

And what about the sport of the mother?

...for this reason it is better that the child looks at the school as a part of the paternal sphere, so that the mother can remain the person with whom they can share their delusions and frustrations, asking her for help...

For your information Dr. Bollea, my mum prefers playing with me than having her linen ironed and the house spot-free, I might choose to take part in one of the many sports-activities that my mum used to participate in, and maybe my mum will even help me with things at school and not just remain a chest to recieve all my lamental. And maybe my dad will let me help him clean the house or will listen to my frustration about school...!
Do you think that this Bollea guy will cause my mum to grow up a small feminst? Or is Bollea right and my mum living in a daydream?

Me & my toy

After my last blog my mum woke a bit up and decided to take some photos of me with my favorite toy at the moment. I can play with it for up to half an hour at a time, and recently I learnt to grab it and put it in my mouth. It tastes, well (this one is for you mum...) dust -I think my mum is ignoring her housekeeping duties in order to play with me :)

photo-opportunities

If you go regularly on the website where my parents put the photos of me you understand that I'm the offer of excessive photographing! But my parents take all these photos so that family and friends that are far away can watch my development. This week my father is in France and my mum is the only one responsible for the photographing, and what does she do? Has she photographed my great improvement in coordinating my hands, or my ability to grab things and put in my mouth? Or has she photographed my eagerness to sit (even if I still need help to remain sitting), or did she photograph my neverending smile? Nothing of the sort. The only two times this week that she has photographed me was when I was asleep! I know that it didn't happen that often...I've had a bit of a problem falling asleep during the day lately (although in this moment I am asleep in my bed -where I fell asleep by myself after lying there awake for half an hour!! Now that pleased my mum alot).
I'll comment on these two photo-opportunities!

This first photo was taken a few days ago. My mum had taken me down to the centre for a walk and I fell asleep. When we came home I continued sleeping. My mum didn't take off my outdoor clothes when we came home and she swallowed her lunch in 3 seconds, hoping I wouldn't wake up too soon, but I slept for another 2 hours. I don't know why I managed this time, but maybe the warm clothes and the fetal position I assume in the car seat reminded me of my time in the womb, and made me sleep so well





This second photo was taken after my mum had taken my out for a walk in the kangaroo-bag one evening. I had only done a couple of power-naps that day, and honestly I was a bit exhausted. So after an hour-long walk I was still asleep when we came home and my mum just losened the kangaroo-bag (you can see one half of it under me) and let me sleep fully dressed on the bed, where I continued to sleep for one hour.

Besides showing me sleeping, these photos also remind you of the obsession that my mum has with my sleep. This week she is even making a chart every day with my sleep-pattern, in order to try to understand if there is more regularity to my behaviour than previously thought. I'm not really interested in her findings, I'll just continue doing as I like -and my mum knows it too, sooner or later I'll be more regular!

Falling asleep

My parents love to take me out for a walk. They say it's good for me to breath in the fresh air (never mind the pollution!!) and to stay where there is daylight, and although they can't wait for me to be more interactive on these walks, then lets face the fact that one of the reasons they bring me out is to get me to sleep. I know this, for when they make comments on the walk it is usually something like:

He slept from the moment we left our street! (and they smile happily!)
or
The witch in number 27 pointed at him and laughed just after we came outside with the results that he stayed awake (with eyes wide open) for an hour, it wasn't until I'd done the usual circle twice, that he fell asleep!

Another hint is that if my parents have problem putting me to bed during the day, they dress me up to go out either in the pram or the kangaroo-bag. I'm not complaining, for actually I do like these excursions, and I do sleep extremily well on these occasions, but I was just wondering whether problems to fall asleep (I suffer from it quite often) was something that is common in the animal world!
My mum hasn't had many animals in her life, so she is not a good resource of information, but she hasn't heard of monkeys that carry their little ones in their arms like my dad does on this picture to make them fall asleep-but then again she has never been to africa and wouldn't know how monkeys behave out in the wild! Also, she can't recall hearing a dog or a cat singing a lullaby for half an hour in order to get their puppies or kitten to sleep -in fact they just seem to fall asleep all the time, wherever they are, so why is it that young human babies have these problems with falling asleep? Is it related to our brain-activity or is it a problem that has been created by the modern society? Did babies have these same problems 200 years ago? I'm curious to know the answers to these thoughts!

Recently I've found a new way to fall asleep. I talk to the giraffe and the insect on my bumper. I know they are not real animals, but I like to pat them and talk to them before falling asleep, and it makes me feel secure to know that they are there when I fall asleep and that they will still be there when I wake up :) And my parents are happy that I can do this, for it saves them a lot of problems trying to get me to sleep, and shows that I do after all have the ability to fall asleep by myself...although I don't use that so often...but I know that they hope I will do it more often soon!

Last exam

Today FINALLY we did the last exam at the hospital. No, silly, I haven't started school yet, it's not that kind of exam, but a medical control. Babies that are born in Italy, well, at least those born in Lombardia -ok, at least those in Pavia, have to do a series of controls to see if they are ok in the first few months of their lives. More or less every week since the end of january my mum has brought me to do these controls. There have been 2 ultrasounds of the hips, 2 ultrasounds of my back, an electrocardiogram, 1 month control in neonatologia, vaccination, 2 months control at my baby-doctor...and well, is that all? My parents are glad that the doctors of Pavia control us babies so well, but they are a bit exhausted of the organization. Why can't I for example just go once and have all these controls done in one go (except maybe the one and two month control which you cannot do in one go) ? Every time my mum has to fight to find a parking at the hospital, then even if the visit is scheduled months ahead you have to wait for up to an hour for your turn, and then maybe the personal is talking on the phone with their mother while they are supposed to be visiting you! Then a young baby has limited time where it can stay calm and doesn't ask to eat...but somehow all these visits seem to end with my mum, along with all the other mums having to breastfeed me and or walk around with me to distract me or keep me from getting nervous!
I want to give you two examples of how difficult a visit like this can be for the nerves of a new mother and the baby.
Well, first example is the prescription example. In italy, if you want to go to a specialist of have an exam in the hospital you have to bring a prescription -which in turn has to be made by your private doctor. Even if it's the hospital personnel that books the control for you while you've just been born and are still in hospital, the exam is obligatory and a part of a national screening-scheeme, you still have to bring a prescription. When I went to do the ultrasound of the hips the first time, my mum had gone to my doctor to get the prescription a couple of days earlier, but she didn't notice that instead of writing ultrasound he wrote X-ray. So when I came to the hospital to do the ultrasound the prescription was no good and although it would have been enough to cancel X-ray and write ultraound, by hand -it had to be done by my doctor -and no one else! This meant that my mum had to call the doctor (not an easy task) and get an appointment that same morning, put me in the car, go to the doctor in the other end of town, get the new prescription, go back to the hospital (again fighting to find a parking space) and bring the correct prescription. Just as good that I'm an excellent baby that doesn't complain too much, and don't mind beeing fed in unfamiliar waiting rooms of hospitals or doctor's office. I was however exhaustd in the end and somewhere between the doctor's office and the second time in hospital I fell asleep and didn't wake up for a couple of hours...so maybe my mum actually did other rounds in town before I woke up!!!
The second example I want to give you is from the electrocardiogram control. This is an exam that has been obligatory for all babies born in italy (well at least pavia) the last 5 years. Here's the scene. My mum brought me to the hospital at 8 o'clock in the morning. Luckily it was soon my turn, so she brought me into the examination-room where I was dressed naked and the doctor put a lot of electordes on my torso, legs and hands. I had never been in a room like that before, and being an exploratore I kept looking around. This was bad news for the doctor who ordered my mum to calm me down! But I was calm like the ocean, I was just looking around. But no, that was not good enough, and after several failed attempt to get the exam done the doctor sent my mum out in the corridor to calm me down. "Feed him! " was the advice she gave my mum. So off we were into the corridor, where a dozen of other mum's were waiting, all with milk-tanks or bottles out for feeding or calming down their puppies or trying to get them to stop their hickup or to stop histerical crying, -the perfect environment to calm a baby. I wasn't really hungry, but my mum tried to feed me anyway, when that didn't calm me she put me in the kangaroo-bag and carried me around the hospital corridors. Once in a while the doctor passed to check if I was calm enough, but I never was -who would be when you still have a million electrodes hanging from your body and a lot of crying babies around you? My mum actually wondered how calm I'd have to be to satisfy the calm-criteria of the hospital, would sleeping do or was dead the limit? Finally this circus got me so tired that I fell asleep. "Now there's a calm baby" said the doctor next time she passed, and invited my mum to enter into the examination room. But the moment the doctor had attached all the electrodes again to her machine I woke up to my mum's and mainly the doctor's despair and started looking around. "Try feeding him here" said the doctor, for obviously I was no longer calm enough for the control. My mum wasn't sure that she was joking, but having spent more than an hour trying to calm me down she was desperate to get me out of there, so she pulled out one of the milk-tanks, bent over the table where I was lying all connected up with electrodes and fed me. It had a magical effect and I was calm enough (although not sleeping) for the doctor to complete the exam. When I was back out in the corridor of crying babies and my mum had to wait for the results of the exam I simply fell asleep and slept like a stone until we were back home.
I'm glad I only had to go there once, but think about the people that work there and have to participate in this circus every day!
But as I said above, I've done the last of the programmed exams! Now I just have to go for a checkup with my doctor and repeat the vaccination and that's it. We've managed.

Crib

This weekend my parents finally decided that it was time that I started sleeping in my own crib (until now I've slept in the pram). Actually, they've been thinking this for several weeks, as they've watched me outgrow completely the pram (it was a question of human rights that I got to move to the crib), but they never got around to actually assemble my crib so that I could start using it.
I don't know why they assembled it this weekend, but now I've been sleeping in it for a couple of days. The collegues of my mum gave me some money to buy a bumpers-set for the bed, so my parents went to buy one on saturday. They found a lovely colonnial set with giraffe-insect design -you can see it on the picture. I love the bumpers and continue to try and touch the animal-figures that are on it as if they were real animals. My parents were glad I liked it -i.e. until the first time I tried to sleep in the bed during daytime. Then they found out that as I'm so easily stimulated by my surroundings, the lovely animal-figures might turn out to be the enimy of my sleep!
As you might know, the sleep-pattern of small babies is rather delicate, where light and profound sleep alternate. During the light sleep we even open our eyes, and if we find that we are not hungry, wet, cold or something else is bothering us, then we may just go on sleeping -otherwise we wake up, and scream out to our parents so they come and do exactly what we need them to do. This sleep-pattern is a survival mechanism for us, for if we slept profoundly for hours, like adults do, we would not be fed and taken care of as much as we need. But why am I explaining this to you? well, during the light part of the sleeping cycle I open my eyes, and if I see the giraffe or the insect I get oh-so-happy and try to touch it, and then suddenly I'm wide awake and -no more sleeping for me even if I'm terribly tired and continue to rub my eyes and soon get rather irritated. Yesterday I would have done only a couple of 30 minutes power-naps if my parents hadn't brought me out repeatedly to sleep either in the pram or in the kangaroo-bag and last night was a return to my infant days with a 3+3+1+1 pattern. My mum is a bit desperate about it I think. She has decided to give me one week to get used to the new bed and if I continue to wake up the first time I go through the light cycle, then she might have to cover my lovely little friends, the giraffe and the insect with a white blanket!

But not to despair my mum, remember that the reason why you could lend me your fingers to write this blog today is that for the first time I've slept for one hour in the crib...until now the record was 35 minutes! Maybe tomorrow I'll do 2 hours (...or maybe not)! As always I don't give any guarantees for the future, but this shows that everything is possible, as long as one insists!


note added a couple of hours later...After waking up and looking for some minutes at the design of the bumper Oscar fell asleep again and is now well into the THIRD hour of un-interrupted sleeping in his crib..
maybe his sleep has made friends with the giraffe and the insect -hope so!
signed: happy mother

Birthdays

Today is my aunt-Raggy's in Iceland birthday...
tomorrow my father turns 40,
and, well, today I'm 11 weeks old.
So happy birthday to all these great people.
Oscar

Screams

If you've read my last few blogs you might get the idea that I was a baby that never created any problems -and you wouldn't be far from the truth. Normally I'm quite good. I can stay awake for a couple of hours and play and produce smiles continuosly. But I also have my moments of anger, hungry and boredom -and in these moments I use my voice! And what a voice, now that I've learnt to use it so well!
One of the moments when my parents can be sure I use the voice is when they're dressing me to go out. Maybe I was in a fantastic good mood until they decided to dress me, and then all of a sudden I change into a screaming baby. BAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Our neighbours (which I think that must all lead a rather uninteresting lives) pay good attention to my screams and report them to my mum when they meet her outside -as if it makes my mum happy to hear that people as far as 5 houses away could hear her son complaining when he was getting dressed! First they give me compliments say that it's wonderful how I sleep in the pram, then they add "but we could hear him when you brought him outside this morning".
Well, I am a baby, and babies don't have many other ways to communicate (And I do hate to get dressed), why would they have to let my mum know that they heard? My dad says that it is to show their affection and that they are interested in us. But my mum wonders if she should reply sometimes and say, "speaking of that, I heard you and your wife quarreling yesterday -what a refreshing little fight, eh! but I'm glad that you are calm like the ocean today!". But she doesn't, and instead she just enjoys the compliments, ignores the rest- smiles to them and looks forward to the warmer days when we can just sneak out without all the neighbourhood knowing about it!

Dreams

Every night I have the same dream. I dream that I wake up hungry, but before I can do anything about it, a fairy comes to me. She is dressed in white, her hair is white, her embrace is warm and she doesn't seem to touch ground as she brings me into the living room where she gives me warm milk to drink. I feel so relaxed in her arms that soon I fall asleep again. Next time I wake up she is no longer there, but I know that I'll only have to wait for the next night to come to see her again.
My mum tells me that there is an army of fairies in the dream-world that are responsible for the wellbeing of little boys like me during the night. Each of them is dedicated to one baby making sure that they are warm and well fed and that their dreams are sweat. She has warned me not to speak to my fairy or look her in the eyes, for else she might become scared and not show up in my dreams the following night. I wouldn't want to scare away my little fairy, so I try not to do this. But sometimes I manage to strap a hair or two from her as I'm drinking, and when I wake up in the morning the hair is still in my fist -which makes me wonder if I had been dreaming at all!

Ray of Sunshine

If you are wondering why my mum calls me her Ray of Sunshine (Solargeislann sinn) then take a look at this photo! I'm not saying that I smile and laugh all the time, but I do quite a lot of it, especially when my parents are playing with me and in general my smile is never far away.
And in case you have something to say about my hairdo, then my disrespectful mum is responsible for it. After taking the bath one evening, she stroked my head while breastfeeding me, and as a consequence I woke up like this in the morning. Of course I knew nothing about it, but my mum ran to get the camera when she saw me, so I suspected there was something particular about me that morning. Anyway, it made her laugh, and if it makes your mood good seeing me on this picture, then I'd say that my mission is accomplished.
Big hugs, Oscar

Tuscany

I've just come back from a short visit down to Tuscany to visit my grandparents. My parents have been planning to go there for some time but finally they decided that the visit couldn't wait, so they filled the car with all my stuff (amazing how many things are needed for a small person like me) and rushed down to Arezzo on saturday morning. I fell asleep just as we left Pavia, and hardly opened my eyes until Val d'Arno, which is between Firenze and Arezzo. 5 km before the exit to Arezzo I started to be hungry -but my mum managed to distract me so that she didn't have to pull out the milk-tanks until we arrived to my grandparent's house. We can safely say that this first really long drive went very well. My grandparents were very surprised to see us (well, it was a surprise visit), and of course I was the center of the attention for the rest of the weekend.
I have just started to realize the existence of "persons", so even if I'd seen my grandparents many times before, I was very suspectful when they took me in their arms, and didn't really feel completely safe unless I could see either my dad or my mum. This made my parents both happy and worried. Happy because it manifested the fact that I know them and that I feel safe and well in their presence. Worried because they think that maybe I will be too attached to them and scared of other people. The remidy, they say, is that all of you come to visit us, so that I get more used to having people around me :)
My parents used the opportunity and took a lot of photos of me (not that they hadn't done that before also...sigh) while we were with my grandparents. We even went on a photographic-safari in my grandparent's garden, where the trees and flowers are in full blossom, even if spring is not supposed to start (officially i.e.) for another week. I was in a rather bad mood on this safari, but my parents have a strange sense of humour and rather than waiting until I was in a good mood they took the photos anyway. You can see one of them here in the blog.
The drive back to Pavia went rather well also. I was awake most of the time, I started to cry for food just after we passed Bologna (who wouldn't...Bologna is one of the culinary-capital's of italy, and one gets hungry just to hear the name!), so my parents stopped at the service-station in Modena where I got my dinner.
I think that we can safely go on other long trips soon -although I don't guarantee that I'll behave so well next time!

Just before finishing I'd like to remind you of my mum's away-from Iceland anniversery. Yesterday it was 10 years since she took the plane to England with two suitcases and the idea to go abroad for a year. Here we are, 10 years and 3 countries later, and although my mum wouldn't mind at all being in Iceland -especially now that I've been born- then my parents have no immediate plans of moving there. But let's hope that we go there this summer to visit friends and family and so that I can breath in the fantastic clean air and enjoy the beauty of my mother-land. My mum thinks it's also important for me to go there if I'm to grow up a viking!!

Bless bless

Sleeping

Daginn
The subject that tops my mum's list of conversation-themes is sleeping. And it's not just her. Other mothers that she meets are also very interested in the subject -even mums that we meet when we are outside walking, those that we don't know at all, they always stop for a talk that can go something like this:
Ciao
Ciao
A boy or a girl
A boy
How big he is!!! How old is he?
2 months
And does he sleep during the night?
...and that’s it..they’ve found a common interest and the conversation is on to a track that it can follow for a long time. I figure that it takes on average 23 seconds to arrive to this subject, and my mum never seems to be exhausted of talking about this. But then again, I do give her something to talk about. The first month I woke up at least every 3 hours, sometimes more often, during the night, I was just that hungry! Then on the first of February I decided to start to sleep 5 hours after the last breastfeeding of the evening, and 10 days later I did 6 hours for the first time. My mum was extremely pleased, for this meant that also she could sleep through the night...but only if I made life so simple for her. My mum thinks that I must be one of the most irregular babies in the world, for my sleep-pattern is so irregular that my parents never know what to expect. One night I might do 6+3 (hours of sleep between breastfeeding), then 4+4, for then to do 3+3+2, 3+4+1, 4.5+3+2, 6+3, 6+2+1. So my mum gives me a small lecture every evening about good night sleep and then she is off to bed immediately when I go to sleep hoping that I'll do the marvellous 6 hours. I don't really know why I'm so irregular...I'm also irregular during the day. One explanation might be that when the stork brought me, and gave me my character (they do that don't they?) he mixed up a bit the shipment and gave all the regularity to my room-mate in hospital -Francesca- whereas I got all the irregularity! Francesca must be the most regular baby in history. From when she was born she sleeps 5-6 hours without interruption during the night. At 3 weeks she skipped the breastfeeding during the night and started sleeping from 11 pm to 7 am. Now she has skipped the last feeding of the evening (doing only the total of FOUR feedings during the whole day...I do 7!) so she sleeps from 8-7. During the day she eats at a higly regular 4 hours interval, and is a marvellous calm and beautiful baby! My mum gets green of envy when she meets Francesca's mum. To be honest, I wouldn't mind being a bit more like Francesca, but it's just that I'm always soooo hungry! But at least my mum is very happy of how efficient I am while breastfeeding. After the initial “hanging-on-to-the-milk-tanks” for hours on end, I’ve started to feed in about 7 minutes, then it takes me a couple of minutes to fall asleep, then my mum waits until the “arm-trial” is successful (she lifts up my arm and if it’s sleeping, then I’m deep sleeping, if not, she waits a couple of minutes more before re-trying), and then I’m off to bed. So her night-feeding are rather short!

Day-sleeping is another subject that interests my mum, but she has less opportunity to talk about. Sometimes I have a bit of problem sleeping during the day, but that is because I love to play with my mum and to examine my surroundings and sometimes I get so overstimulated that I just can’t fall asleep and my parents have to play all kinds of tricks to get me to fall asleep. Some days they just don’t manage at all, and I stay awake for hours. Then I get a bit irritated. Sometimes I fall asleep but wake up again very soon, but sometimes I sleep for hours after they put me to bed. My parents still haven’t figured out what makes the difference, they just accept that sometimes they are doomed to fail. Recently my parents have started to try to let me fall asleep by myself. Then they wait until I’m very tired, put me to bed and then wait and see if I can fall asleep without them playing their tricks. Sometimes I do, but I get so easily involved in examining my surroundings that often I end up wide-awake. Once, only once, did I fall asleep while playing with my mum. She was so surprised that she ran to get the camera, so here you have a picture of me, lying on my parents bed where I’d been playing with my mum when Morfeus came to hug me, and I slept for a good hour.

And before leaving you, here is the top 5 list of where and how I like to fall asleep.

1. At the end of a lovely breastfeeding
2. In my parents arms
3. In the car
4. In the carrycot when my parents take me on long walks
5. In the kangaroo-bag
Nighty-night....

Clothes

Ciao
Why has no one thought of starting a baby-clothes rental? It would be very convenient for everyone -you would always have clothes the right size and you wouldn't feel that you were wasting money on clothes that one can only use for a couple of weeks. Maybe my mum should start the business when she wants to go back to work! She could add maternity-clothes and nightgowns for the hospital to the rental agency!

I thought about this just now, when my mum was going through my clothes, putting away clothes that I've outgrown and putting in evidence those that I still haven't used but that will soon fit me. She has to do this job quite often, for else the risk is that I will outgrow some clothes before I even start using them.
As you may know I was born 49 cm, but now I'm 60 cm -and there is a lot of difference in that. My parents didn't know which size baby they were expecting, so the clothes they brought for me to the hospital made me disappear in textiles. When the nurses complained about it, my dad went and bought a couple of pyjamas that were the right size. Then when the milk-tanks got full and I could start eating a lot, I began to grow, and when I was 2 weeks old I couldn't wear any more the clothes that my dad had bought for me. Some days ago my mum tried to dress me in one of my (or her!) favourite sweaters from my early days, and it looked like a T-shirt on me, rather ridiculous! And sometimes my mum makes me wear pyjamas that are definately too little for me, I can hardly stretch my legs in them, but she feels that it would be a waste not to use them just a littttle bit longer. I just hope it doesn't block my growth to wear clothes that feel that tight!

But it's also difficult to understand the size of cloths. On some labels it's written that the piece is made for 1-2 months old babies, or 2-4 months old, but what on earth does that mean? My cousins in Iceland were born around 5 kg, but I also know some 2 months old babies that are weighing less, so how can people know which size to take? A lot of people gave me clothes that were meant for 3 months old babies, and some of these I have already outgrown -so either I'm huge or the producer have to rethink their labelling system.
The strangest label that my mum has seen so far however was on a french garment where it was written that the size was 60 cm in France and 62 cm in Germany. HOW CAN THAT BE? I know that the meter is in paris, and that German babies might be bigger than french...but I fail to see logic in the labeling!
Yet another thing about clothes are the buttons. I would reccomend to all producers of baby-clothes to number all the buttons on the pyjamas to make it easier for clumsy parents to button them up, especially when they are doing it at 3 in the night! My mum is extremily clumsy and somehow never seems to get things right the first time round. Sometimes it irritates me a lot when she has to redo everything, and all I want to do is go back to sleep, so a numbering system would be very much appreciated.
And since I've started suggesting things: how about elastic back on jackets so that it's easier to put the arms in the sleeves? or caps that don't fall over your eyes all the time and block your sight? And socks that don't fall off by themselves?
Any other suggestions?

Absent

Ciao
I know I had promised to write more often, but "our" (!!) internet connection has been very unstable the last couple of months, and it always seems that it's off when my mum has time to lend me her fingers to write.
But things are going quite well over here. I'm growing like a mushroom, I'm already over 6 kg and around 60 cm. My doctor was very pleased at my 2months control and asked my mum if she gave me the reindeer-milk to drink! I've started "chatting" alot, and my mum spends hours with me exercising the vowels. I'm very good on the AAAAs and EEEEs, and sometimes UUUs and have learnt how to put the mouth in position to say OOO, but still I don't get the right sound! But I love to imitate my mum and she seems to be pleased with me. I've also started trying (on my own) to use consonants, they are far more fun, and sometimes during the night my mum wakes up to my exercises. She says that I sound like an old car when I'm exercising...!! I've also started laughing, and I smile a lot, for I see how happy it makes my parents when I smile to them -sometimes the three of us just communicate with smiles and laughters, it is so much easier than the talking thing, and a smile can really say it all :)

Outside the spring is arriving. I can tell because the temperature is getting warmer, the trees are blossoming and the priest has started to visit the neighborhood to bless the houses -with the consequences that people spend days cleaning their houses, for they don't want the priest to bless also the dirt that has accumulated during the winter !! My mum normally doesn't let the priest bless her flat -well, she doesn't really forbid him to do that, he can bless all he wants, but she doesn't really see the necessity of going around doing the blessing-thing, can't he just do it once and for all at the sunday-mass? My mum's colleagues tell her that the blessing-visits are also a way for the priest to collect some money, for people pay him for blessing the houses! Some priests are even so economically minded that they visit the farms several times, first to bless the house, then to bless the animals, and then to bless the crop....!
With the spring comes even more outdoor-time. My parents bring me on long walks and I've started to know the neighbourhood by heart. I'm normally very good on these walks, but it sometimes happens that I'm hungry (or warm...my mum is doing some empirical learning, one day e.g. she found out that a child should NOT be covered in wool when it's 20°C outside) or just bored...then I do let them know that I'm not happy and they hurry with me home :)

Anyway, I don't have time to write more now, but lets hope (see, no more promises to be broken) that I can write more often in the future.
Big hugs,
Oscar

Exercises!

Every time I'm awake and in a good mood, my mum makes me do various exercises! Some of them I like a lot, others not at all -I guess it's a question of taste! But my mum is a testa dura and insists on making me do even the exercises I don't like -over and over again!
The reason for all these exercises is that I tend to keep my head to the left (it wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the fact that my parents are rather left-winged, what do you think?). My parents thought it was all rather sweet -that I had my favourite position while sleeping in bed. But my doctor noticed this immediately and said that if this trend wasn't corrected soon I risked getting torcicollis...and I wouldn't like to have something with such a terrible name, so I play along...!

But rather than fighting the torcicollis, I prefer imagining that I'm preparing for the olympics in 2024...it is much more motivating for a young boy! My mum read recently that Denmark is planning to apply for the Olympics in 2024, and as the danes are sometimes considered to be the italians of scandinavia I believe I would be very much at home there!!

But should I compete for Iceland or Italy?

Give me the real thing - please !

I know I don't have great experience of the world, but one thing is sure...

I DON'T LIKE FAKE THINGS !

Last week my parents made an attempt to fool me, and put some of my mum's milk in a bottle and tried to feed me! I don't know what made them think I would accept it, but for curiosity's sake I drank a little bit -just to see what it was like, and boy it sucked (..and I didn't!!). It tasted plastic! In the end I refuted to drink the milk and waited patiently until I was offered the real thing, and then I drank as if I was being offered the last drops of milk on earth! My parents were a bit sad, for my they were planning to give my mum a "feeding-break" once in a while and allow my dad to feed me, but I will be difficult to convince!!

If this is not enough, then my parents did a second atempt to fool me! They had decided not to give me the "pacifier", but then after I had pulled on my mum's nipples once too often one evening she went and bought one to keep in case of an "emergency"! Then one day when I was a little bit nervous and my mum's nipples were becoming a bit soar she decided to try to use it. First try: I spit it out. Second try, I spit it out -it might be made of real cauccio, but who cares, it doesn't compare to the milk-tank bottons I'm used to! In the end my mum tried to keep the pacifier in my mouth for a minute, and to try to please her I started to suck on it, but it created a vacum in my stomach and finally when I managed to spit this horrible thing out of my mouth it pulled out the contents of my stomach (a lot of fresh milk) -in other words, I vomited all over myself..and my mum! That should teach them not to try to fool me in the future!

I don't know which other tricks my parents are planning to play on me...but be alert...I'm not so easily fooled!

I'm back!!!

Is there still someone out there that reads this blog?

Well, time is passing and I haven’t really been good at updating you on my adventures as promised, it’s more than a month since the last blog, I’m 6 weeks old now and there is A LOT to tell. If I tell you that my excuse is that I’ve been extremely busy you might not believe me –a newborn baby doesn’t do much more than drink milk, sleep and cause an ecological disaster by filling diaper after diaper of waste-material. But all of these things do take time, and I’ve used it quite well, for I’m already well over 5 kg and the clothes I wore as a newborn no longer fit me!

But how have I passed this time? Quite well I’d say. It’s been a learning time both for me and for my parents –and I learn very quickly.

One of the first things that I learnt was that if I used my vocal cords it draws the attention of my parents.

If I use the vocal cords at a low volume and intensity, my parents will come to my crib, look at me and see if all is ok. Sometimes they even stand behind the crib, thinking that I can’t see them (but I do see them from the corner of my eyes) and check on me –they want to be sure to know that I’m ok. This way I also check that they’re still around and that they are alert on my well-being.

If I use my vocal cords at a higher volume my parents will come up to the crib, maybe even touch me or babble something incomprehensible and if I put the tone even higher they will pick me up from the crib and carry me around for some time –now that’s fun :)

If I then continue using the vocal cords at a high tone my mum will pull out one of her milk-tanks and feed me. This was a very useful thing to learn!

In the beginning, when I was learning how the milk-tank-thingy worked I could even call for the milk-tank every hour!!! That was great!!
cry->milk->rest, cry->milk-> rest- and so on…
but my mum had an exhausted face in the end…and well, my stomach could only take so much milk, so I decided to change technique and started to pass longer time feeding and then take a good rest in between…in this phase I would hang on to the milk-tank even for hours! sucking every now and again. That was extremely convenient for me, for if I was thirsty the product was at hand -but my mum complained that I was mutilating her nipples and I could see pain in her eyes every time I attached to the milk-tank. Well, and honestly, hanging on to the milk-tank forever is only fun for so long…so once again I decided to change the technique and started to drink more efficiently and regularly. This is working well both for me and for my mum who makes sure to smile to me every time I attach to the milk-tanks!

Another important lesson was to recognize my parents. This was not difficult at all! My mum is the lady with the milk tank, the one that comes running when I use my vocal cords at a high intensity. She speaks Icelandic to me, makes funny faces (and noises) and sings a lot for me –I kind of like it even if often she is completely out of tune and I suspect that she makes up the lyrics as she goes along…for suspiciously many of the songs are about a young boy named Oscar!! My mum is also the person that is responsible for my gymnastics (I’ll tell you about that later). My dad is the guy that during the first few weeks of my life stepped in after I had fed on the milk-tanks, and he was the major diaper-changer the first 3 weeks of my life. He is great! He carries me around and speaks to me (in italian of course) with a voice that is so calming and relaxing that I don’t understand why they don’t bottle it and sell it for peace-purposes around the world!!! I can’t resist and fall asleep most of the time when I’m in my dad’s arms. When I was 3 weeks old my dad started working again –he has even passed some days in Austria and one week in France lately, so I’ve seen less of him than before, but it just means that I’m even happier when he’s around J

Before I finish this blog-session I must touch on an argument that a lot of people, well, everyone that has seen me so far, talks about: whom do I look like!

My family in Iceland says that I look like my mum when she was newborn (or even like my maternal grand-dad), for despite her now blond looks, she had black hair (and a lot of it) when she was born and her face was quite similar to mine. But my family in Tuscany says that I also look like my dad when he was newborn –for his facial features (including the now prominent nose) were much more like mine when he was a toddle.

So I’m supposed to look like both my parents…how on earth is that possible? Am I supposed to believe that two people like my parents, that are so different from each other today, were so similar when they were newborn!!! Come on!!! But then some people say that I just look very much like myself, and I like that. Then time will just tell how I develop –towards my Viking- or Etruscan-roots! Or maybe I’ll just continue to be a mix!!

Well, it’s feeding time for me now, so I better stop writing…but I promise to come by more often and update you on my adventures. I still haven’t told you about my gymnastics, all the controls that I’ve done, and well, about life in general!

Big hugs to all of you…well, and remember to check on my photos, my parents are quite good at updating them… adios

Photos

Hello Everyone
My parents have put some photos of me on a website: http://rut-valgardsdottir.magix.net/
Look for an album called OSCAR (on the left site of the page) and you can see some of my fabulous expressions. My parents will try to update this site once in a while to let you see the development of my features.
Big hugs, Oscar

My birth

I've been planning for some time to tell you about my first few days, but my life has been very busy lately, with the breastfeeding, sleeping and learning to know my parents, so there has been little time left for blogging!
Anyway, as you already know, I was born on the 29th of december 2006 -more precisely at 11.41 in the morning. The birth was not exactly as I had planned it, for as you may remember I had been in the breech position for almost 2 months -despite moxa for one month and an attempt to turn me with ECV.
Rather than calling it breech position I like to call it the divers position! Or if you prefer a more technical term: the reverse pike position. In case of the diver, this position lasts only a fraction of a second, but in my case I kept it for a couple of months, imagining that I was flying through the air, towards the surface of the water in the swimming-pool.
When the diver approaches the surface of the water he should keep his legs extended upward while straightening his torso and pointing his head straight down towards the water, then swinging his arms with the whole body so they remain over the head and end up pointing towards the water before entering the water in a vertical position. And this is exactly what I had planned to do, in due time!!! But a week before the due date, my parents went to the hospital where again the doctors tried to convince me to turn doing another attempt to do the ECV. This time there were 2 doctors, pushing my mum's belly hoping that I would give in...but I didn't realize how close I was to the water, so I preferred to remain breech!
What happened next was beyond my control. My mum was brought into the blocco parto where women go to deliver the babies, and she was prepared for the birth. The atmosphere was really relaxing, and as the doctor injected the anastetics in my mum's spine, she was laughing and joking with a group of midwifes. Once the anestetics had started to work, everything went really quickly, Dr. Angela Iasci cut the skin of my mum, pushed away membranes and muscles, cut the uterus and in less than two minutes I was out of the belly! What a shock. I started crying the moment I was out, and got an immediate AGPAR score of 10.
So how was the birth for my parents? My mum was present, obviously, and was lead through the operation by 2 doctors that explained everything that happened. It was like having a nice chat with old friends. When the uterus had been cut my mum was asked if she wanted to see my birth... she wouldn't have missed it for the life! The sheets that blocked my mum's view of the operation were removed for a moment and she could see me being pulled out of her belly, at the same time she could feel a suction feeling as her belly was emptied. She immediately started crying of happiness, and when, a moment later I got to touch her face, she was still crying.
My dad was not allowed to be present during the operation, but he got to see me very soon. One of the midwifes was equipped with a polaroid camera, and the moment I was out of my mum's belly she snapped a photo of me and brought it immediately to my dad who saw the photo delveope before his eyes. To see me materialize on the polaroid sheet was almost as if he was seeing me being born! A moment later the midwife brought another photo to my dad, this time of me touching my mum's face. Shortly after I was rolled passed my dad as I was brought to the neonatologia. At that time he was exploding with pride.
After the operation was finished, my mum was kept under observation for an hour before being rolled into her room where she and my dad stayed for a couple of hours waiting to see me.
I don't know who was more emotional, me or them when we finally got to see each other. My parents kissed me and hugged me and explored my face and features trying to understand who I'm looking like and they told me in million ways how much they loved me. I was offered my mum's breast immediately and started sucking right away, even if there was nothing to have the first time. This was soon to change, and already the second time I was breastfed the colostrum had arrived. Less than three days later, on the magical first night of the year, the milk finally arrived, and my breakfast, lunch, dinners and snakcs were secured for the months to come!
I celabrated the new year in the hospital with my parents and other neo-parents and newborn babies. The nurses had brought cakes and spumante (on the picture you can see my dad opening the bottle at midnight) and there was a happy little crowd that cheered for the new year and for the health of everyone present. I doubt that my parents will ever have a happier new-year's eve than this.
As I'm healthy and my mum recovered very quickly from the cesarean section, we got to go home from the hospital on the 1st of january. A fantastic way to start a new year.
How things have been since I'm home will have to wait for the next blog, but I can tell you that so far
LIFE IS SIMPLY WONDERFUL