Glad Mors Dag! Happy Mothers' Day!

Mothers' Day falls on the last Sunday of May in Sweden, unlike in Singapore where it is on the first Sunday of May. For the past few years, hubby and kiddos have been treating me like a queen on Mothers' Day and like always, I am the queen today!

Hubby actually came home yesterday with flowers for me. He helped a neighbour to fix her DVD player and to show her appreciation, she allowed him to pick some flowers from her garden. So he came home happily with a bunch of pretty flowers which he arranged in a vase.

Not bad for a first-timer!

I woke up this morning with kiddos singing "Tussilago Song". Tussilago (or coltsfoot in English) is a kind of weed which pops up everywhere during summer.

The song sings about summer is here and wild flowers growing everywhere and how pretty it is. Kinda weird song to sing on Mothers' Day but it is always nice to wake up to the sweet voices of kiddos singing and not fighting.

Hubby walked behind them carrying my breakfast tray. Breakfast in bed, yoohoo!

Having princess cake for breakfast feels a little wrong but it's Mothers' Day! ^_^ I got a box of chocolate (which is almost like a tradition from my hubby!)and handmade "cards" from Jovan and Angel.

Jovan's is the one on the left and Angel is the one on the right. Ivan contributed his bit of creativity too. If you look really closely on Angels picture, you can see 2 red hearts! So sweet!

After breakfast, I was just lazing around, watching tv with Ivan, reading newspaper and surfing a little. Around lunch time, hubby was trying to get Ivan to take his afternoon nap and asked me to go to bed for awhile - I know! I'm a lucky woman! A short while later, hubby came in with little Ivan fast asleep. He put him in his crib and told me that he would be taking Jovan and Angel out. So I continued lazing in bed, yippee!

A couple of hours later, they were back with my lunch!

I felt guilty because I had MacDonald's and they had hotdogs in Ikea...

After lunch, kiddos went out to play while hubby and I sat on the balcony drinking lemonade and enjoying some cozy moments with Ivan walking around, picking up leaves which were blown onto our balcony and throwing them out of the balcony....(sorry neighbour! We are teaching him not to do that, hopefully he'll learn soon!)

Around 6pm, hubby presented me with more presents! He also made coffee so we can have with the cake.


I got a cake stand which I have always wanted but didn't buy because we don't need it. He also bought me a cake spade to serve cake with and a book. I've always like to read but nowadays it feels difficult to sit down with a book and enjoy some quiet moments by myself. Here's another look at the cake stand.


And my favorite princess cake!



As a mother, I think I have not done a good enough job. I should have more patience in explaining stuffs to them, I should spend more time individually with Jovan and Angel and chat with them more, I should cook healthier food for the family. I'm not sure if it'll makes me a better mother if I can achieve all of the above, parenting is a life-long learning process, we all learn through experiences and mistakes.

As a wife, I think I have done an average job, there are a lot of areas which I can improve. Thankfully I have a very understanding and caring husband which I will never take for granted.

Baby, thank you for another relax and cozy Mothers' Day. I really appreciate all that you've done for me and for the kids. I will try my best to improve myself to be the supporting and caring wife you deserve.

Sneak peak of baby Strömbäck!

We went for our first ultrasound scan today at Storken. And here is the world's sneak peak of baby Strömbäck.



The dark part of the image is the amniotic fluid and there we have baby Strömbäck lying comfortably and safe inside.

Hubby was so cute! Despite being a father of 3 and having gone through a full process of our pregnancy with Ivan about 2 years ago, he still asked, "Is the black part...the baby?" *Faint* I had to fight to not laugh out loud...

The baby started kicking and stretching a few minutes after we started the scan. It is just amazing to see this tiny human moving inside! My eyes welled up a little, didn't expect myself to be so moved, after all I have already 3! But all mothers will agree that every pregnancy experience is different. I have been having constant headache since the beginning of this pregnancy till now. Hopefully it will go away after the first trimester once my hormones start settling down a little. It's not so fun to have this pounding headache and deal with 2 fighting kids and an active toddler, it's actually quite a challenge!

My morning sickness is starting to get better but my sense of smell and taste is still super-enhanced. Sometimes I would tell hubby that something I'm eating taste like plastic or frozen and he would give me his "what-are-you-talking-about-you-have-had-this-a-million-times!" look. Yeap, it's amazing how much you can tell from the face of your spouse after being married for some time...

Oh well, pregnant women are entitled to complain about everything and anything and hubby has learnt to respond to every complaints I have by giving me this "oh-you-poor-thing" look and asking,"Can I get you anything?" Come to think of it, he has always been giving in to me and indulging me pregnant or not, he's a great husband, I'm lucky!

Sleepy Prince

It is very often that Jovan wakes up suddenly and starts crying or talking (most of the time both) after he goes to bed. We have been trying very hard to really figure out why he does that but to no avail. Nowadays we spend more time trying different ways to get him to wake up from his dreamy state - I won't say that it works all the time, there are good and bad days.

The strange thing is that whenever we're sleeping over somewhere else or they have a sleepover at grandma's place, he doesn't wake up at all! That start us thinking that maybe it has to do with their room, so we re-arranged, getting them to talk about if there is anything they don't like about the room and make it really cosy for them - it doesn't work.

Last night, he was up again for one of his many "night adventures". He woke up, turned on the light in his room (while Angel is fast asleep), walked out to the hallway and started crying like it's the end of the world. I was holding Ivan who has just fallen asleep and I really didn't want him to wake up! I told Jovan in what I hoped to be a calm voice to turn off the light and go back to bed. He didn't react at all... Somehow he will cry harder when he hears my voice but he'll stop quite fast when Lars is talking to him. I guess I need to command more respect, I'm too much a softie, especially when it comes to kiddos.

At this time, Lars came out from the room, walked up to Jovan and told him to go and pee. Jovan went, peed and came out from the toilet.

"Jovan, you cannot turn on the light because Angel is sleeping, okay?"

"Ok."

"Everything is ok now. Turn off the light in your room and go to bed."

"Ok."

Jovan turned off the light in their room, closed the door and looked at daddy.

Daddy looked down at Jovan, still using the calm and patient voice.

"Okay...you need to be on the other side of the door before you close it."

Jovan gave daddy a small smile, "Ok".

Good News!

We went to the midwife today for our 1st pre-natal checkup! I have been feeling really lousy for the past few months and I started feeling worse several weeks ago. When I miss my period, several thoughts went through my mind,"Is there something wrong with my body?", "Is my menstruation cycle changing now that I'm getting older?" and of course,"Am I pregnant?" After mulling over these for about 1 week, I decided to do a pregnancy test, hoping for good news, and thus, dispelling the suspicion that there may be something wrong with my body. I called hubby while he was at the doctor with Jovan (Jovan got an ear infection again...), and asked if it would be ok for him to pick up a test kit when he was at the pharmacy. 20 minutes later, they were back and hubby gave me the test kit and said,"ok, go do it now."


And yes, we got a positive result!

Hubby was really excited and was just bursting with joy and wanted to tell almost everybody. But after some discussion, we both agreed that we should wait till we have been to the midwife before we make the announcement (I think we were both had doubt if the test is correct, coz it was April's Fool Day that day!).

For the past 3 weeks, hubby has had problem trying to keep this secret. He would ask me,"Do you want to tell mom now?", "Don't you feel like you want to tell mom?", "Can I tell xxx?", "I can't tell xxx yet right?".

I, on the other hand, still couldn't believe that we're going to have a baby! We took some time before we get Ivan and after Ivan, we have been planning for another one but nothing much was happening. So I was walking around, looking at my tummy, still can't believe it is finally happening! Hubby started to tease me when I commented that I've put on weight (something which I say every now and then),"What if we find out that you're not pregnant?". And he started to repeat this almost everyday to the point where I am really getting annoyed.

Last night, he repeated this again. So I asked him,"Do you want me to be NOT pregnant? Why are you repeating this so often?" He looked a little surprised that I got annoyed because I usually quite good-natured with teasing or joking. "No, I believe that you're pregnant! It's just that you seem to have problem believing that you are." And he has stopped teasing from then on. ^_^

Today at the midwife, she estimated that the baby is about 8 weeks old and the expected delivery date is around beginning of December. How nice if this little one shares the same birth month as daddy!

Pappa pappa...

Ivan has recently discovered the slot on the door for the postman to slot in all our mails. A few weeks ago, he was lifting up the flap, position his little face beneath the flap (so he can see through the opening) and shouting,"mamma, mamma, mamma" It must be really loud in the stairway, especially since it echoed... My neighbours must all be thinking that the poor baby is being left all alone at home, but the truth is I was indoor with him! After several times of dragging him away from the door, I thought I seemed to have re channeled his focus somewhere else. The stairway was quiet for a few days...

Several days later, he was playing near the door when the postman dropped in our mails. The mails landed on top of him but he didn't jumped or got scared. Instead he picked up the mails and pushed them out of the slot! The postman (well, it was a lady that day) was still outside, probably slotting mails into our neighbour's letter hole, picked up the mail, looked through the slot at him and smiled,"Don't you want your mail today?" and push it back to him. Ivan smiled at her and happily brought the mail to me. I didn't even dare to apologise to the postlady, so embarrassing!

This week, he started lifting up the flap but this time he was shouting for pappa... Now my neighbours are probably gonna call the police for suspected child abuse... *sigh*

Update on hubby's Chinese name

I'm typing this post with Ivan sleeping on my lap and I have one arm cradling him, so I'm left with the other to type. Being a "one-finger" blogger drives me crazy, it takes forever to try to find those keys. It's funny how my brain works better when I'm typing with both hands.

I was skyping my mom the other day and we were talking about hubby's Chinese name. She asked,"Why pick the surname that sounds like die? Die die die. No good lah! He can take my surname." What a brilliant idea! 陈 (Chen)is so much easier for him. When I talked to him about it that night, he pronounced Chen perfectly! Yippee! Then we went on to try the second and third word one at a time. He was pretty good that night, he got the pronouciation almost correct!

I was all geared up and then I went,"Try to say them all together!" Hubby with big confidence in his face, smile and said in his usual cool manner,"陈 she young."

We need more practise.

Hubby got a real Chinese name!

Hubby finally got a real Chinese name, with surname and all! Thanks to my super best friend's best friend, who is now also my friend! (wow... getting complicating...) I must say that she is really good. I have requirements for my hubby's name (as always) - it has to reflect his personality, has a positive meaning and doesn't sound strange, i.e. not easy for others (people like me...) to give a nickname.

My friend suggested 戴旭阳. 戴 is adopted from a actor whom I like due to his puppy eyes, 戴阳天 (wow, their names are similar too! like brothers!) 旭阳 means rising sun. This suits him well. He is energetic and positive and is the sunshine of my life! Now we've got a good name, I have a challenging task on hand, to teach him to say and pronounce it correctly...

I started teaching the kids so that they can repeat it to him every now and then and help him to practise. Next I introduced him to his new Chinese name and explain the meaning. He likes it and is eager to say it. So I went,"戴旭阳, dai xu yang." I explain to him the 4 different intonations of the Chinese characters and try to help him to get the right tone.

Hubby ask,"like thigh?" "No baby, it's dai." "Die?" "No! Not die, DAI." "Ok, let try the next character. Xu." "Su?" "No, xu." "She?" "well close, she but you say it harder." "SHE?!" "Harder, not louder...." "Last character is yang." "Young?" "Good! but flatter." "young..." "Flatter not softer..."

Hubby said,"But baby, is this correct? Die she young? I sounds like I'm cursing someone to die young! That doesn't sound good..." I thought it may be a good idea to bang my head against the wall....

We'll continue to practise till hubby is good in saying his name and then like my super best friends said, we'll have the final challenge left - to teach him how to write....