Give me the butter and no one's ears bleed.

This morning at the grocery store The Babe wanted to hold a block of butter that I was buying. So I let him. "What's the harm?" I thought. "We're almost done. I'll get it back from him when we check out." Only I forgot to get it back from him when we checked out. I was putting things into the bottom of his cart when I noticed he was still clutching it in his little hands. He was clearly attached. 

"Oh, crap. Now I'm going to have to take it away from him for a minute and there will be screaming," I thought. I swear, for a split second I debated walking out with it. Then I felt like a terrible mother for even thinking about stealing just to avoid a tantrum. The guilt washed over me like a cold hard rain as I pried it from his fingers. I tried to explain that we needed to pay for it and that I would give it right back but I'm pretty sure he totally misunderstood me because he started screaming his head off. I payed for it as quickly as I could while a nice Danish man, who found this all very amusing, tried to calm The Babe by talking to him. It did not help. Transaction done, I handed the butter over to the kid and the  screaming stopped. 

At home I could tell that The Babe was more than just infatuated with his stick o' butter. He wouldn't let go of it to take off his coat. He wouldn't put it down for a snack. When he crawled into bed to take a nap with it, I knew it was love.

My kid is weird. Awesome. But weird.

We have a sofa!

Our living room started out like this:

Because we had no furniture in this space, it was the depository for all the empty boxes. Then we pretty much emptied all the boxes and it was just a big empty space with only The Babe's baby gate/makeshift tent. Why? Because the sofa we bought was on what turned out to be a two month back order! Let me explain. 

Back in January I saw a sweet sale on this here sofa at Ilva:

Nice right? So we swung by the store, which happens to be next to the Ikea in Arhus, to test drive it before plopping down our coin. During the course of the transaction the nice sales lady told us that it was on back order and it wouldn't be delivered until March 8. That's fine, we said. We hadn't even moved into the new digs yet and 6 weeks would give us plenty of time to unpack. Of course we didn't really need 6 weeks to unpack and very quickly got tired of looking at the empty space. Plus we really wanted some place to sit that wasn't a dining chair or the floor. 

Fast forward to the first weekend in March. We had begun the Couch Countdown to its arrival with great excitement. We decided to go ahead and purchase a daybed for our reading nook that folds out into the biggest double we could find for when folks come to visit. Giddy, we journeyed back to the store to see if it was possible to tack another item onto our order so as to avoid paying another obscene delivery fee. No problem, (yea!!!) but (uhoh)...

"The couch you ordered is not scheduled to be in stock until March 22."

MARCH 22 !?! To say we were disappointed is putting it mildly. We had already started daydreaming about lounging on this puppy and the Couch Countdown had begun the week before. We'd already waited 6 weeks, what's two more right? (sigh) So we sucked it up, bought our daybed, went home, and waited another two weeks.

The Saturday before March 22 I called to make sure that it was, in fact, now in stock and going to be delivered. Nope. Not in stock. But they were expecting to be in stock within the next week. And despite fears that our sofa was going to remain in a perpetual state of backordered, it arrived last Thursday. 

unassembled: 

The Babe has been aching to climb things since we moved from Herning. The following was repeated no fewer than 20 times. 

And here she is! 

(pay no attention to the paper on the wall. they're markers for some art a la John and Sherry)

Appropriately the color is London grey.

I am going to tell you a story.

It is a long story about how I met The Boy, we fell in love, we went our separate ways, wandered periodically through each other's lives, and finally found one another again. This time for keeps. It is a story I should've told you a long time ago and a story I should've been telling all along. If you are interested, I'll be releasing a new chapter every Tuesday.

I hope you enjoying reading it as much I enjoy living it. 

A Belle Goes Abroad: I

March 24, 2006

Memphis, 6:50 am

I am so tired, I feel as though I am floating. There was no sleep last night - just a mixture of excited and frantic and happy and just a little scared. I will, of course, pay for this tomorrow. Or today, depending on how you look at it. Or the day after. 

Everything I have is packed into 4 bags. Two of them are with me. Two are not. To have packed so much these last few days, I feel as though I have so little. I feel unprepared for this trip. There are so many people I did not get a chance to say goodbye to. Everything started falling apart at the end and it took a lot of effort to hold it together. 

But I'm here. In Memphis. The first part of my journey is done. Now it's on to Chicago, then Beijing and finally to UB, Mongolia. 

I sat alone at a table in the airport Starbucks drinking a latte and trying to organize my thoughts. The last few days, months, years even were flying through my mind like a movie stuck on rewind. Was I really doing this? Was I really moving the the other side of the world to be with a boy? Was I crazy?

Of course, this wasn't just any boy. It was THE boy.

We'd met  when I was 16. He was 18 and had graduated from my high school the year before we met. We had roamed the same halls, even been involved in a few of the same activities, and yet somehow our paths had not crossed in the two years we matriculated together at good ole SHS. I knew of him, of course, in the same way you know of everyone in a small town. I knew, for example, that he had gone on to the US Naval Academy after graduation. I knew that a serious injury during pleb summer had forced him to resign his commission. And, since becoming good friends with his best friends, I knew he was back.

We were introduced one spring evening at a Burger King. A group of us had decided to congregate there to have dinner before going to see a play (PRIVATE LIVES) at the local university. My friend, K., and I were going through the process of ordering when "the guys" arrived. Three of them I knew well (I was actually crushing pretty hard on one of them at the time) but they'd brought along a forth guy that I only vaguely recognized. "Oh," I thought, "THAT must be who everyone is talking about."

He was tall, but then I'm 5'3", so almost everyone is tall to me. And he was skinny, a combination of a crazy high 18 year old metabolism and the stress of the last year. His hair was thick and dark and cut so short it looked like black velvet. His dark eyes were serious and he carried himself with tension and purpose. He smelled of freshly cut grass. 

My first impression was: nice guy. Tense, but nice. It was not love at first sight. He was going to Texas A&M in the fall and I was going to be a senior. I wasn't interested in getting involved in a long distance relationship or worse - getting involved and then breaking up and then being a big mopey mess for months. Nope. I wasn't interested in doing that. He was persistent, though, in a completely charming way. We went to movies and dinner all within the safety of our little group. He talked friends into coming to my voice recital even though I'm pretty sure none of them were interested in classical music. He even made the guy I had a crush on apologize to me after doing something moderately thoughtless. He was putting in such an effort, and I was becoming more attracted to him with each passing encounter, that I finally agreed to go out on just ONE date with him. We went to a play and after the play we sat in the parking lot just talking for a very long time. He made his case for dating. I made my case for not. His closing argument was one amazingly sweet kiss goodnight that made my toes tingle. 

He won. 

We were inseparable the rest of the summer. Our days were spent working the typical high school/college summer jobs. He worked at the Boy Scout camp. I was doing my thing at a theater camp. He'd appear at my house in the evening and we would spend the rest of the night walking around my neighborhood or sitting in my yard talking and looking up at the stars. You'd think that kids our age would've run out of things to talk about after a while, but we didn't. We talked about our families, our hopes and dreams and disappointments. By the end of the summer I was head over heels in love. 

And then he went away to school.

A little soul baring on a Friday afternoon

I've been thinking a lot lately about our travels and time abroad and life in general. I started this blog 4 years ago as a way to document and share our life and adventures, as well as the many other things that inspire me. While I am a consistent reader of many fine and inspirational blogs, I've not been a very good blogger myself.  I've been so neglectful that I've often thought about shutting this space down.  I could lay blame at the foot of a lot of things, but the truth is it's my own fault. Two frustrating things get in my way: fear and perfectionism.

I am my own worst critic, you see, so I am well aware of how not perfect I am. I see all the imperfections in almost everything that I do and rather than celebrating them as learning experiences, I think of them as failures and try to hide them. I hold myself to such an unachievable high standard that, in my head, I fail before I even begin.  My fear of failing is so great that I often don't even try because what if I don't succeed? I almost never ask myself what if I do? This sort of thinking makes me a painfully slow writer. It takes me eons to mesh out a post. I agonize over every word and phrase. And then when it's out there in the internet ether, I agonize about it's reception. It's my brainchild, after all, and I want it to be liked and what if it's not. These are not good traits to have. In many ways it's paralyzing. (Even now I've spent an embarrassingly long time on these few sentences.)

I've also been thinking about my family and what kind of mom and wife I want to be for them. I know that I am my little boy's first teacher and that he will learn a lot just by watching me be who I am. I feel like, lately, I have not been myself. I feel like I could be more. I could do more. And it frustrates me that I let me get in the way of that. 

It's spring - a time of rebirth and things are about to get a lot more interesting around here. If you visit often, you'll have notices a few changes around here already. There are many more to come. I am determined to get past my issues, to explore my interests, to succeed or fail with gusto, but most of all document this life of ours for our little boy. 

A few years ago I caught an episode of Inside the Actor's Studio with Anthony Hopkins. During the Q&A a student asked him if he ever had any doubts about becoming an actor. He said that yes, he had and that that fear can be good as long as it's not paralyzing. You have to get past it and find courage to do whatever it is you do in life. And then he offered up this quote and it has been with me ever since:

I'm gonna be bold. Good things usually happen when I am. Besides life's too short. I have an amazing life full of wonderful people and experiences and opportunities.  It would be a waste  to be too afraid to really live it. 

We've got the spring fever.

And not in a good way. 


After touring a few potential nursery schools last week for a grand total of two hours, The Babe and I have both come down with some sort of pre school superbug that no amount of vitamin C can tame. The Babe is somewhat manic in his illness. One minute he's happily running around like a crazy person screaming with glee and spinning and laughing despite the fact he can barely breathe, then out of no where he will start crying uncontrollably for hours before FINALLY going to sleep. I, on the other hand, am just generally miserable. Not completely incapacitated, thank goodness. Just gross and so exhausted I don't even have the energy to go outside and enjoy this beautiful warm-ish day. 


So we're taking it easy around here until we are well. 

A sea of daffodils - because flowers make me feel better.

It's spring!

And there are snowdrops in the churchyard to prove it. 

Silent

Usually my days of silence are unintentional, a product of writer's block or a little boy who wants to play or simply not enough time. Tomorrow, though, I'm not blogging on purpose. 

Hug someone you love close this weekend. 

Inspiration from Sweden

My biggest source for Scandinavian design inspiration these days comes from Alvhem Makleri & Interior in Gothenburg, Sweden. They specialize in real estate, interiors, and gorgeousness. Their listings are always so perfectly styled and beautifully photographed. Each picture is like an invitation into someone's lovely little home. 

I love the high back bench /room divider.

That light! Those floors! And look at the tile in the entryway!! And that's just one gorgeous 59 m2 apartment. 59 m2! That's like 635 sq feet in American! It's tiny and yet somehow it feels so spacious - something we're definitely aspiring to here in our hjem...umm...home.  

Wanna know something else they do that I think is genius? They photograph the area around each apartment so you can get a feel for the neighborhood. 

It makes me want to hop on the next ferry to Gothenburg. Umm, maybe when it's warmer. 

Japan

The Boy and I were married is Osaka in 2007, so Japan is very special to us. We've been fairly glued to the news since Friday's earthquake, tsunami, and now very dangerous nuclear situation there. Our hearts ache for and our thoughts and prayers go out to its people. 

Of all the terrifying images to come out of the devastation these past few days, this one is, for us, perhaps the most heartbreaking. This little boy, not much older than our own, having survived the unimaginable horror of a tsunami, is being scanned for something he can neither see nor escape by a man in a strange suit waving a strange and noisy device at him. His world turned upside down, he must be so frightened and confused. It makes me want to grab my son and hold him tight. And I have. Many times. 

Binky-less Pictures

As I was taking The Babe's pictures the other day, I was painfully aware of the binky in his mouth blocking his beautiful face. I tried a few times to take it away, but I could see that that was going to end in tears. Literally. So I settled for smiling eyes instead of a smiling face. 

Today after a nap and some "coco"coaxing (aka M&M's) I was able to snap some shots sans binky. 

And some awesome outtakes.

In this one he's saying "nonose" or "nose".

See him pointing at Winston's nose?

 His face is way out of focus here, but his expression makes me laugh, so I'm ok with it.

Have a happy weekend!

(Cute little British flag doggie doorstop by Cake)

18 Months

My dear sweet little one,

Today you are 18 months old! From now on you are closer to two than you are to one and becoming more my little boy and less my little baby every day. I love watching you learn new things, trying over and over again until you get the result that you want. You are persistent. You are willing to try new things even if they aren't to your taste the first time around or are scary to you. You are brave. You have developed an interesting palate. You will eat almost anything as long as it is alternated with spoonfuls of strawberry yogurt. You are creative. You are a world champion snuggler and when you cuddle with me you like to softly pet my arm. You are sweet and kind. You know when you've done something you probably shouldn't have and you come to tell us that something is wrong. You are conscientious. You love animals, especially dogs and ducks, and while you will go up to say hello, you won't get too close. You are cautious. Your favorite things in the world are cars (you can spot even small ones in a store at 100 paces) and you like to go for walks to point them out. You no longer like holding my hand and so I hover over to make sure you are safe. You are independent. You love having "conversations"and I am surprised by a new word almost everyday. You are smart. You like people. You are friendly. You watch me while I am doing chores and you "pitch in" with sweeping, laundry, and putting away groceries. You are helpful. I am in awe at how fast you are growing up. Everyday with you is a new adventure, a new lesson. You remind me what joy there is in simple things. You teach me patience. You fill my life with joy and love and laughter. 

And I love you all the way to the moon and back. 

Momma

Human Planet

My mom sent me a link to this trailer for a new series airing right now on the BBC called HUMAN PLANET. The cinematography in BBC documentaries is always amazing, but this one looks completely breathtaking. What an amazing, beautiful, diverse, resilient, inventive world we live in.

Thanks for sharing, Mom!

Afternoon Shadows

I snagged this photo yesterday when I took The Babe to the park for his 18 month "photoshoot" with Mommie. It was a beautiful but not very warm day. It's funny how after 3 months of temperatures reaching no higher than the mid- 30's (around 1 C), 43 (6 C) sounds warm. It's not. More pictures from our brief visit to the park on Friday.

Hip Hip Hooray!

It's Pancake Tuesday! What is Pancake Tuesday, you ask? Well, it's also known as Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday. It's your chance to use up all the tasty stuff in your pantry (eggs, butter, sugar, etc.) that you aren't allowed to have during Lent, which begins tomorrow. It's widely celebrated in Europe with slight variations between countries, but largely unknown in the US. Well, at least my part of the US, anyway, where we prefer parades, beads, and libations instead. And a King Cake. In the UK, it's also a chance to get famous people to make funny faces while trying to flip a pancake in the air.

Tonight we'll be celebrating with savory crepes stuffed with ham, spinach, and emmental cheese followed by sweet crepes slathered with Nutella for dessert.  How will you be spending Pancake Tuesday? Any traditions in your neck of the woods?

Blue Skies

After what's felt like an eternity, there are finally blue skies over Vejle! Well, at least until Wednesday.

I hope your weekend was as gloriously sunny as ours!

Phil and Ted's Smart Buggy: An Overdue Review

In October The Boy, The Babe and I hit the road for our Coast to Coast Big Honkin' Home Tour  2010. We started in California, ended in North Carolina and hit 3 states in between. There were 9 airplanes, one train, one trip on the BART, and multiple cars involved in our transportation. With us we carried 3 suitcases of sizes varying from friggin' huge to somewhat manageable, one carry on, a diaper bag, my personal bag, a car seat, and, of course, a very squirmy, adventurous one year old. 

I recognized before the trip began that it was going to be pretty near to impossible to get around airports, manage train transfers, etc. without some way to corral The Babe and so I bought the Phil and Ted's Smart Buggy. (You can read all about our first impressions here.) I'm pretty sure that The Boy thought that I was crazy to buy another piece of gear to haul around, but he smiled and nodded and just went with it. I knew he recognized my brilliance, though, in the San Francisco airport when we were wheeling our way along he said "I had my doubts about this thing, but I am sooo happy we have it."  I felt the warm glow of 'I told you so'.

 The Boy, The Babe enjoying a snack surrounded

by all our crap stuff in the San Francisco airport.

So how did it perform you ask? Smashingly! Here are some highlights of its awesomeness:

• It's light, super fast and easy to fold/unfold. 
• The ride is smooth (on smoother surfaces, of course ). 
• It's so amazingly easy to maneuver that you can steer with one hand, which meant that I could use the other hand to pull some luggage. 
• We were able to toss our coats (which we totally didn't need in the US, but did when we got to Denmark a month later so we had to haul them around) into the basket underneath. 
• And we were able to pack the original seat in the big suitcase. That meant that we could leave the car seat in the car and have a functioning stroller. Sweet!

 All of this was nothing compared to the fact that we hadn't even CONSIDERED how handy this little buggy would be once we got to Denmark and had to wait 3 weeks before our boxes and our Phil and Ted's Sport were delivered (in full disclosure--our Sport is the fire engine red model and named "Big Red", but more about that later). Can you imagine? Three stroller-less weeks? In a new town? When The Babe and I walk everywhere? Yeah. One word: lifesaver.

The Babe waits patiently for the train to Herning

in his buggy.

So, would I recommend this little Smart Buggy? Absolutely! Even though Big Red is still our go to for everyday, The Bug, as I am calling it, is an excellent backup. And if we were never use it again, which is highly unlikely, it's still worth every penny/pence.

She's finally here!

After four months (that's right, I said FOUR!) without a phone, my first new cell in four years finally arrived Tuesday. Getting her was such an ordeal, I feel like she should have a name. I'm thinking of calling her Mirabelle since she's so beautiful and wondrous and shiny. I'll have to tell you the story - once I'm done pushing all her buttons.

Running

I love the pitter patter of my little boy's feet as he runs around the house, squealing with pure joy at how fast those feet can take him. It makes me smile.

A Primary Color Palette

Things are pretty gray around here. Gray sky above. Gray two week old snow below.  Dull gray light all around. Maybe the lack of color is starting to get to me, because I'm kind of starting to like gray. It's like... it's like I'm living in Pleasantville before the discovery of color. I look for it everywhere. A little green shoot poking up from the ground here. Another tiny green bud there. The promise of color. The promise of spring.

Really red, sky blue, and daffodil yellow. Yeah. I'm finding happiness in these colors right now. 

Oh, Oscar

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away where I matriculated with the would be entertainment industry award winners of the future at my alma mater, awards season was a big deal. We'd return from "Winter Break", as it was called, and the film and drama schools would be all buzz with speculation about nominations. Design and production and music would catch the fever shortly thereafter. Favorites films were chosen. Heated debates ensued. And by the time the ceremonies began the whole place was all a twitter with excitement. Think of it as a performing arts school's equivalent to the uber rivalary college football game. Minus the rivalry part. It was a big deal. Even after college I made it a point to try and see all the big nominations: Best Picture, Director, Actor/Actress, Supporting Actor/Actress. It sounds like a lot, but often nominations come from the same 5 or 6 films, most of which I would catch over the course of the year.

That was then. This is now and I haven't seen one single solitary film nominated this year. The last time I went to the movies was in November to see the last Harry Potter. Needless to say, Oscar was not on my radar this year and so he kind of snuck up on me. I woke up yesterday to headlines galore and was thought  "The Oscars were last night? How did I completely miss that?" before I began reading all about the show I missed. Apparently, I didn't miss much. By all accounts the whole thing - from the fashion to who won - was ho hum and predictable. So, here is my (completely unsolicited and uninformed) commentary on this year's Oscars.

Best Picture - I wanted THE KING'S SPEECH to rack up for no other reason than I saw them filming in Greenwich.

Best Director - see above.

Best Actor - see above. Also, it's Colin Firth.

Best Actress - Other than Natalie Portman, who else was nominated? I didn't know, so I figured she was a shoe in to win .

Other than that, I really didn't care about the awards themselves, but I was mildly curious about the fashion on the red carpet. What can I say? I'm a girl. I like pretty dresses and pretty hair and sparkly jewelry. No one really brought it fashion wise for me this year. My favorite of the night had nothing to do with the dress and everything to do with the hair. I remember Michelle Williams from her days as the much loathed Jen Lindley on DAWSON'S CREEK, and to be honest, I haven't seen a single thing that she's done since. But man, can she rock a pixie cut or what? (Mom, do you see this hair cut? You should totally take a picture of it to the salon the next time you go.)

 

Worst dressed for me, more so than Helena Bonham Carter, who you kind of expect to show up looking like a crazy bag lady, or Cate Blanchett, who is probably the only movie star with the ability to pull out the stops with haute couture and I'll not cringe, was Scarlett Johansson. Seriously hated it.

 I thought it was weird that Anne Hathaway and James Franco were given hosting honors this year.  They're actors, after all, and young at that. Hosting the Oscars seemed... outside their skill set. I was pulling for Anne, though, hoping that they would give her something to sing, because the girl has a rockin' voice, but since I can't find it on youtube, I guess my wish was not granted. From what I've been reading, well, it was not a good night for them. Their promos were funny, though. And the introduction with a parody of INCEPTION (also didn't see it) where they travel inside former host Alec Baldwin's mind to prepare to host made me chuckle. There's that, at least.

So if this year's Oscars left a bad taste, I offer Hugh Jackman's BRILLANT opening number from 2009 to cleanse your Oscar palate. Enjoy!

Oh, and congrats to Denmark's IN A BETTER WORLD, which won for best foreign language film!