To show or not to show - to show

So, I don't smile on command. But I certainly do smile. A lot. Like when we have fun after breakfast.

Or when I actually want to show off my front teeth.

To show or not to show - not to show

I have two brand new front teeth, but I'm not so keen to open up for the camera. Smiling on command is just not my thing:

No! A little bit, maybe... But no teeth!

Teamwork

Fixing the house is something we do together. My role is to oversee the work, check the quality and durability of the result, schedule breaks and make sure no one skips (my) lunch. In other words, in our team, I'm the boss.

In the kitchen

I have my own cabinette in the kitchen. A child-friendly one, filled with colored plastic bowls and plates and with some sort of advice that prevents the door from slamming my fingers when I lean on it. Yet, I'm very tempted by all those things that are not stored in my cabinette, but rather carefully kept out of my reach. Like knives. And scissors. And food. And china. And, well, more or less everything but crude plastics.

Big, brown lawn

The more we ignore the garden, the drier the lawn gets and the easier it is to mow. And I think hay tastes almost as good as green grass. So even if the grass is literally greener on the other side of the fence, with a house to renovate and lots of just hanging out to do, no other action than abandonment of the garden could be justified.

As if!

They say they take me for a walk, to watch baby animals at the Ottenby farm. But let me tell you, it's the other way around. I let them use me as an excuse to go there themselves. I gather that is what kids do up until the age of three or so.

Oh, so it is some sort of costume party after all!?

At Swedish midsummer, parents bring their children (and cameras) to open fields, where (in most places) old people with white hair and folklore dresses have spent weeks organizing traditional midsummer celebrations with midsummer poles, tombolas and coffee with home made strawberry cake.

People put flowers in their hair and dance around the midsummer pole to the tones of traditional (children's) songs. In this picture we're dancing "Små grodorna", during which people jump around as little frogs. The grown-ups jump too. I danced with mom......and with dad.At Swedish midsummer, it's always raining, no matter how beautiful the weather has been before or will be after. That's part of the deal. Yet, everyone has always planned for bbq at night, after having had pickled herring for lunch. Failure rate tends to be quite high.
At today's celebration, I made friends with a cute dog. But I didn't really like it when he licked me in the face. I think his tooth-brushing habits may have been a bit irregular.

Midsummer = costume party?

As you can see, I go dressed as an older and not quite as edgy version of myself. Cool! No? Swedish midsummer does not imply costume party? Well, then why...? Ok, in that case my parents just have a really weird sense of humor! But hey, so do I, so I'm game.

Nine months and showing off

As earlier mentioned, I figured out the secret behind standing on my own yesterday. Today, I've refined the technique enough to refind an almost lost balance. It's a new level of difficulty, but being nine, I master it (quite) well!

Back in swing

Searching for network... found. Browser searching for webpage... found. Yay! We're connected! Thanks, Tre!

There are other pics I would have published as well:

1. Pics of my latest trick, which I actually picked up here at the library: how to stand without holding on to anything.
2. Pics of dad and me high-fiveing.
Or perhaps just one photo showing both tricks at once.
But you will have to wait until the Internet operator Tre has identified and fixed the technical problem that right now keeps us isolated in the middle of a very pretty nowhere.

No Internet connection

Wondering why there are no new pics? Like on me in a swing on the playground, or playing in front of the house, which looks like a patch-work as we're trying out new colors for it? Well, our Internet broke down on Thursday, and there is still no sign of re-establishment of the connection. As soon as there is, I will be back. (This written from a library in Färjestaden.)

Side by side 2

But however much I love helping out at home and socializing with mom and dad, I really miss my Manila friends. You know, sometimes you just want to hang with someone your own size, who shares your perspectives of life. Thank God, Catha and Björn brought me a teddy bear when they came to visit (funnily enough, Björn's namesake). Teddy Björn is kind enough to step in when there are no kids around.

And to be fair, we do have a lot of fun together!

Side by side 1

These days, I prefer not being too far away from mom and/or dad. Thus, when mom organizes books at the top of the shelf, I organize the ones at the bottom. Our systems differ a bit. Hers has something to do with the names of the authors, mine is based more on the logics of senses and on the fact that there is a lot of unused floor space that could and should be conquered. Yes, side by side is a phrase I really praise. This implies I get to see a lot of mom's and dad's knees.

Öland by foot

"Enough!", said the parents. "No more sanding and painting and fixing for a while now. Let's just lean back and enjoy that it's summer!" I didn't disagree, but even if I would have, I'm not sure they would have listened. (They, unfairly I must add, don't think that I'm not as big a contributor to the renovation of the house as they are. Despite the fact that I polish the floors with my own body day in and day out!) Anyway, said and done, the tools have been shelved and Deuter Kid Comfort III (the new German super baby carrier) has been brought out. The first hike went to Näsby Café for ice cream and then back again. Just 5 kilometers in each direction, but mom still claimed she needed stretching afterwards!

In the foreground: us boys and the Deuter Kid Comfort III. In the background, a classic Ölandese windmill.

Skinny dipping or The first feel of Swedish beach life

After Stockholm, we drove down to Luckerstad to visit Grandma. The weather was loooovely, so we went for a swim in Vättern, which is Sweden's second largest and by far deepest lake. Mom and dad thought it was too cold to go swimming, but I thought the temperature was just right. On the beach, I discovered a new and very tasty diet: sand. I can't believe I haven't been served that before!

Grandma's dog, Ellie, is cute. I love to touch her and sing to her, but alas, I have a feeling the love is not returned. Everytime I come close, she runs away and the only way for me to get close to her is to ask Grandma to tell her to stay. Then she does, but not very happily.

Grandma played with me in the water. And dad too. But mom didn't think it was hot enough even for a little dip. Chicken!

I, on the other hand, went in for a second dip, and a third. When we left the beach, the skin on my feet was all wrinkly and I had collected enough pebbles to fill my pants AND the car. That's summer at its best.

Sweet Stockholm - the ego version

On the Swedish National Day, we did what Swedes usually do in the summer, if the weather is nice and the company good - we went for a pic nic by the sea. The company consisted of Pelle, Cilla, mom, dad and Pelle and Cilla's friends Johan and Tove. It was nice, but I would have liked it even better if we hadn't chosen to stay on the cliffs. Now the grown-ups got all hoppy as soon as I tried to get anywhere on my own.I was all dressed up in ironed shirt and all. Actually, I would have prefered the pretty owl shirt. But as I consume more or less one shirt per meal these days, and I had worn that shirt for lunch, that was not an option.On the Saturday, I had dinner at Carl-Gustaf, August and Hugo's house. Ok, their parents Ulrika and Urban live there as well, and ok, mom and dad where with me. But being surrounded by three big boys (5,5, 3 and 1,5 years old), I couldn't really have cared less about the whereabouts of the grown-ups. It's August on the picture.

Sweet Stockholm - the official version

Officially, I'm a Stockholmer. Thus, I find it quite appropriate that I finally got to visit the city. And, man, did I get to see the official, postcardy version! The first two nights we stayed with Pelle and Cilla in Solna, where I got to see Pernilla Wahlgren (as Swedish as it gets, they say) give a National Day performance. And after that, we stayed in Gamla Stan (definitely as Stockholm as it gets) in Niklas and Emely's apartment, where mom and dad used to live. (It's the house to the left in the picture.)I went to visit dad's colleagues in Rosenbad, where the Prime Minister also has his office. (I didn't get to see him, though. But mom and dad did, when they went to the Government Offices biannual party on Thursday. I spent that evening with Kia and Niklas instead.)When I went to the Foreign Ministry with mom, I met with loads and loads of people. Most of them mom's colleagues, but also the Swedish Crown Princess Victoria, who's been in the diplomatic training program this year. I would probably have been more prone to greeting her back, had she been wearing some eye-catching diamonds or rubies or ametists or something, like on the picture below. But as she wasn't, I was more interested in some women who'd been accessorizing more.

Means of transportation

This is my vehicle of preference. The shopping cart has been a favorit for a while now, and if it were up to me, we'd go to the super market (or Ikea for that matter) every day. Nothing beats the feeling of independence and excitement (on (the right side of) the verge of fear) that comes from riding high up from the floor, almost on my own and surrounded by almost nothing.

However, this is the vehicle I get to spend the most time in. I don't say I hate the car, I even have my own, mysteriously colored, chair in it. But it's a bit monotomous and I tend to fall asleep.

Visual update

Mom and dad haven't been very helpful at all with my blog updates lately. And as I'm not allowed to work on the computor on my own, the result has been a prolonged silence. My humble apologies for this.

Please find below a quick run-through of the past three weeks:

A day or two after we got to Öland (the island on the Swedish east coast where our house is), Theodor from Örnsköldsvik (where dad grew up) came to visit with his parents Kalle and Helena. Theo is a month and a half older than I am, so he had a lot of things to teach me. Such as how to have a big meal of baby food. I was all ears (and mouth), because big babies take big bites.

I had a hunch something was going to happen to the floors of our house, so I took the opportunity to crawl around as much as I could. Theo joined me, of course.Oh, how right I was in my suspicions! As soon as our visitors had left, the house was taken over by a monster mashine, which sounded like an aeroplane engine, turned the house into one big dust bin and which dad walked around with for days to end. When he had peeled off the top layer of all floors but one (where all the furniture where piled on top of each other), mom brought in the manual sander and then the laque paint. I was banned from the house for more than a week. Good thing mom's aunt Kina let me (well, us) stay in her house, across the road from ours during the fixing frenzie! Not only does that house look nice inside, it also has a lovely garden, which, to the great distress of my parets, inspires tasting flowers of a multitude of colors. Here I am amongst the red, pink, white and blue delicacies, but believe you me, there are others as well! (By the way, now all but one floors in our house look really nice, so now we've moved back. And we have flowers too in our garden. Lots of small white and yellow ones. And although dad claims they are weeds, they are both pretty and tasty!) Älsklingsmorbror Gustav (translates to favorit maternal uncle Gustav) came by for the weekend. I got to spend some precious alone-time with his when mom, dad and Kina where out playing golf. It seemed we all enjoyed that arrangement.From whom I have my long eyelashes? I'm not really sure. Not from mom at least, and not from dad, that's for sure. But I might wery well have them from dad's mom (her's are lovely) or from mom's dad (his are long and even the same color as mine). And both aunt Petra and aunt Kia have them. Whoever I have to thank, I do. Having eyelashes to bat is always an asset. Today (June 6) is the Swedish national day and where better celebrate that than in Stockholm. It's my first visit to what used to be my parents home for a long long time before I was born. I'll tell you all about the trip when we return. This much I can say already, though: it's so hot that the hat is left at home and the shorts have been brought out. Feels almost like back in the Philippines!