They wear me out!!!

I've heard that some women fantasize being in bed with more than 1 male. I should be lucky then, sharing my bed at least with 2 every night, Sunday mornings with 4. But these males just wear me out!!! Last night Risto ran (yes, he was in a hurry) to our bed. The thunder had scared him. He's like a windmill when he sleeps. You'll never know if you're hit with an arm or a leg. More often he sneaks to our bed that you don't even notice him until you're hit in the face with a heel.

Tuomas, on the other hand (you have also five fingers...hah-hah), comes quietly to my side of the bed, tells me he needs to go to the bathroom, goes to the bathroom (usually doesn't flush...) and comes back and snuggles. I call him my "kainalo kananen" which translates (without the alliteration, of course) as a little armpit chicken, well a chicken that snuggles under your arm. I guess he won't like that nick name when he's a bit older. Last three nights our chicken has turned into an angry rooster, screaming for half an hour usually after midnight. And when I mean screaming I mean SCREAMING. I'm surprised his brothers don't wake up. Last night I had to take him downstairs to calm down. He's usually half asleep and it takes him a while to wake up and then a longer while to stop screaming. And the reason for this? Last night he said that his leg/foot hurt and he needed to go to the bathroom. Should I also let my family and half the neighbourhood know when I need to go to the bathroom.... But this leads to the fact that I'm dead tired. Going to bed after 11PM, reading for a while, calming down screaming boys in the middle of the night, sleeping restlessly and waking up at 6:30 AM latest, going to work, picking the boys up, cooking "Don't put asparagus in the pie!!! I won't eat that!!!! SCREAMING", brushing teeth, cleaning the kitchen, sitting down for a nano-second, laundry, going to bed around 11PM, reading for a while, being punched between the ribs by a five year old but strong knee, waking up 5 AM to hear the 5 year old knee and rest of the body play with Legos...... Luckily I have DH to carry the load with me!!! How do single moms do it! I have the chance (yeah, lucky me) to be a single mom today and tomorrow since DH is on a business trip. Have pity on me.....

Spring party

Tuomas' group at the day care had their party yesterday morning. We had been warned beforehand by the teachers that Tuomas had refused any co-operation. He didn't want to dance, let alone wear somekind of a "stupid" outfit. He's very outgoing but in new situations very shy. It was a shock to him to see so many people in the room they had practiced for their spring party.Tuomas did a 180 and his teacher had to persuade him to sit on the bench next to the "fairies".

"I don't like this one bit". His face lightened up when he finally saw us. But he didn't dance nor sing. Good for you, Tuomas, for having a will of your own!

Last Saturday was in Risto's opinion "the best day of my world". I cut his hair. Or actually shaved it from the sides..... he looks like a leukemia patient, but he just loves his new style. It'll grow back. I remembered that he has his spring party today, but only after having shaved half of his head. Oh well! Tuomas had fun watching "cut from there, Mom!" but very clearly expressed that he did not want the same style.
Our punk rocker.

Risto's spring party. Risto is in a Swedish language immersion group, so all the songs they sang were in Swedish. Risto is the one holding the yellow man. Half of Risto's group are pre-schoolers who're leaving the day care for school. I was holding back my tears when their teacher held a speech to them, saying good-bye, wishing them good luck in school and life, too. Risto will be in that position in a year and I doubt I'll be able to hold back my tears then.

Flowers

I finally planted some flowers. The huge pots are actually plastic, believe me or not! Both have pink Mårbacka pelargoniums and ivy.

This one is right next to our front door. I'm betting that before Midsummer Tuomas has ripped it to pieces in one of his tantrums "I'll break it with a hammer and tear it down and smash it into pieces and...and... and...." . The cast iron dog has a brush on its back to be used to clean your shoes (hardly ever used for that purpose). When I bought it a couple of years back I asked Risto what should we name it. "Rainbow" was his answer. Hmm.... it's not that colourful.

This welcomes our guests and gives the neighbours something to bump into when they drive past in their cars. BTW, our house number is easy to remember: we're 5 and "A" as in ape house! Welcome!
I planted a white and a blue clematis next to the apple tree. Hopefully they'll climb up quickly to make the poor tree look better. I moved two lavenders next to the clematis to give them some sort of shade.

Apple blossoms are so beautiful.
I don't like this plant (vuorenkilpi in Finnish, I guess, and I'm too lazy to look up the English/Latin name). It's one of the first flowers to bloom in the spring, but the rest of the summer all you get is the big, green, waxy leaves. It's not my favourite, but I guess the flowers are quite beautiful when looked at close range.

Lost skills

When was the last time you did a summersault, threw a cartwheel or did a handstand?

I tried to do a summersault last summer. I started with the mental part "put your chin to your chest, curl your back and make yourself into a soft ball and let it roll" and landed flat on my back. It hurt!!! Besides it made me feel dizzy.

Risto is quite good at summersaults. I told him that he could try doing a cartwheel, since he's so good at summersault. Of course I had to show him how to do it "now lift your legs straight high up into the air" I said before doing somekind of a weird combination of a summersault/cartwheel/something. I couldn't get my legs up!!! And I felt dizzy again!

The same thing happened with the handstand, but I finally (after about 15 tries) managed to get my legs up. But I played it safe and did it against the wall. But felt dizzy again and like an elephant.

Looks easy. Chin to your chest and GO!

I could do this just a couple of years back... or was it decades. I honestly think I should practice this with the boys this summer. It can't be that difficult!!!!

Risto doing (or trying to do) a handstand against the wall. I his opinion it was too easy, so he didn't do it properly.

"But hey, Mom! This is more difficult to do this way when you climb up the wall and do the handstand this way!" Yeah, right. Lately he's been testing my motherhood by calling me stupid everytime I refuse to do things his way, mostly refusing to buy stuff. "No, I won't subscribe to Donald Duck magazine now. The previous ones are mostly ripped or stuffed into the book shelf. And no, I won't buy you a skate board either. Too dangerous for you and especially for you little brothers. No, trampoline is out of the question." "Stupid mom!" he tells me. Actually it's been Tuomas who's been more keen on getting a trampoline:"Mom, I give you two choices. Either buy a trampoline or something we can climb on!". Wow, I have a choice!!!!!

One Red Dot

Joanne and Eric, our American grandparents, gave us this wonderful book a few years back. Like it says on the cover, it's a pop-up book for children of all ages. It's almost hypnotic. The idea is to find one red dot on each page.

On the back cover it warns that it's not suitable for children under 3. It is quite tempting to rip the pop-ups.
Three burning baskets.... and one red dot!
One perplexing puzzle box... and one red dot.

This book gave me an idea for our home. Each room should have one red dot. Something that draws your attention in a positive way, not like an acne spot. It started in the living room after Christmas. The room looked colourless and dull after we took the Christmas tree out. It needed something green! We had a long discussion, DH and I, about the red pot, but I managed to convince him of the color choice. He did admit that it looks good. But the poor palm tree doesn't. This picture was taken a month ago and now the poor thing looks even worse. Somehow thinking about watering it doesn't help....

One red dot in our living room.

The next red dot was placed in the kitchen. We asked a carpenter near Auntie P to build us a shelf for our cook books and stuff. I wanted it to be bright red (surprise, surprise), but this time DH said a very firm "no". It's easier to move a flower pot (or accidentally break it) if you don't like it, but a shelf screwed to the wall is another thing. Besides it was me who put it up. So, this blue shelf is the red dot of our kitchen.

You've probably seen those black board walls in magazines with menus, names of wines, herbs written on them in beautiful handwriting. This is far from it.

The idea for my (oops, our) next red dot I got from the blogosphere and DH kindly ordered it from here. This time it's red.
I think it looks great next to the stairs. I wish I would remember to obey the command!
This chair was also bought from the carpenter near Auntie P's. We didn't exactly need another chair, but it was sooooo comfortable that I wanted it. DH said it out loud before I even had the chance to open my mouth:"If you're thinking of painting it red, forget it!" But I want it to be "a red dot", something that draws your attention. I'm picturing lime green or pale pink (totally not my colour!). What do you say?

Pets and home

We share a pet with the whole neighbourhood. It announces its whereabouts by knocking on the street lamp hood. A woodpecker (I'm not an ornitologist so it's just a woodpecker to me)! Last spring, our first spring in our house, it took me a while to find out where the noise came from. But I understand from another neighbour that it's not nice to have him wake you up every morning very early.

Woody.


Woody at work.

Last year we were in Scotland beginning of May (this means I haven't seen my fridge magnet friends for a year!!!) and we missed the blooming of the cherry trees (cherry.... well somekind of an ornamental cherry). This how they looked on May 2 with our guest house in the back.

And this was last night, May 7. Our neighbour was so happy for us to see them in bloom this year. They look very beautiful.

Bicycling

It was one of the very last days of March when Tuomas (then 3y2m old) asked very politely if I could take the "small wheels" off his bike. I did and off he went. The next day he bicycled over 30 m without any help from me! The only thing that needed practicing was breaking using the pedals and not his feet. He practiced and did learn. Now we can bicycle to the grocery store and back (2 km) without any trouble. Tuomas is an on/off person, also in biking. He either pedals fast or breaks very hard as you can see from the back tire of his bike: I'm surprised if it doesn't burst before June!This is our "sugar cube". The apple tree on the right was moved last summer just when the heat wave started. We had the parking place made bigger and the tree had to be removed. Moving a big tree is always a risk (especially if it hasn't been prepared for it at all) and the poor thing was in ICU all summer (we could see it in our water bill). It looks that it has survived :-) against all odds. Our gardener (sounds posh, doesn't it!), Liisa, my friends sister, is coming by later this week to give an expert's opinion on it. But it isn't completely dead!

The yard looks nice and tidy enough. Ok, zoom out and what you see is "the battle field" as our next door neighbours call it!

Actully, in my eyes, it doesn't look too bad. I've seen it worse!

Decorating

Decorating 0ur home is something I don't do much of. Keeping it more or less (usually less) clean is enough of work. Actually we have asked our friend Outi to re-design our livingroom. I'm hoping to see a change in it. We just haven't had the time to sit down together.

But this is what I did in our guest bathroom! I copied the idea of the golden frame on the mirror from Schiphol airport ladies' bathroom. Just a simple golden frame attached to the mirror so that when you wash your hands you can see yourself in the frame (that is, if you're the same height as me!).

From the mirror you can see a mask that is located just above the toilet bowl itself and the first thing you see opening the door. There was an article in Helsingin Sanomat back in August about a little shop that sells genuine masks from Venice. It took me over 6 months to get to down-town Helsinki, but I finally did in April. And I just had to have one. Not cheap, but definately cheaper than a flight to Venice (and the shopkeeper said that the masks are a lot more expensive there!). Hand made, not plastic with a "Made in China" sticker in the back.

Jaakko started to cry when I put the mask on my face. I admit that it is scary and has a vicious look. But have a look at Casanova!

Put away, give away, throw away

I don't like to throw things away, especially if it is something somebody some day could use. That's why I feel like our house is full of crap, things we don't use but things I don't want to throw away in the bin. And lately I've been too occupied with... life... that I haven't had time/energy to arrange a "give away".

But these cabinets have been sitting under our stairs for over a year now and I want to get rid of them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the, they're clean, unused, but the wrong size for our house.

I got them from a friend of mine. They installed new cabinets into their bedroom, but the measurements had gone wrong. They got the new ones and these are the ones that are the wrong size. She gave them to me, since I thought I could use them.

But I didn't, wrong size for us, too. I'm giving them away. They're actually supposed to be put horizontally (width 80cm, height 30cm, depth 57cm). They're really heavy, i.e. good stuff, not IKEA quality that breaks into pieces if you move them.

Since I got them for free, I'm giving them for free for the first one to leave a comment and pick them up from Espoo. I'm sure somebody out there in the blogosphere will find use for them!
Two cabinets side by side.

Fire and speed

Sunday night, the night before Wappu, Uncle J promised Risto that he could light the bonfire. Or that's how Risto interpreted it. In his imagination they would ride the ATV and a horse simultaneously, through some gasoline and firecrackers and there would be a huge explosion. Uncle J did his very best to give Risto new, wild ideas. Naturally it ended in tears, since the cruel mother of the demolition man told him that it was completely out of the question. The compromise was that Risto could supervise and save Uncle J if something went wrong. And of course he had to wear appropriate protective clothing. The goggles were ok, but I think the raincoat buttoned up wrongly was more flammable than his normal clothing. Risto and Uncle J before the blast.

Demolition man.

The beautiful bonfire. Everything went well despite one firecracker flying in the wrong direction.

Risto's ladyfriend on the left, her brother in blue, Risto, me kneeling down next to Tuomas, Tuomas' ladyfriend Sari, Auntie P, girls from the neighbour (who usually saddled the horses for us), Uncle J in yellow and Pasi in blue.

Balloons and doughnuts

This is what Wappu is all about, at least for children. Balloons and doughnuts.

Risto. It was a perfect Wappu weekend for him. He loved to play with the dogs, take them for a walk in the "ghost forest", Auntie P made delicious doughnuts, he rode the ATV with Uncle J, I took him riding, he was allowed to shoot with Pasi's shotgun (just a blank) and DH took him and Tuomas swimming.

Tuomas. He was scared of the dogs. Especially the small ones "teased" him. Funny how Risto and him react so differently to the dogs.

Jaakko. At what age do we stop to enjoy balloons so much? I'm scared of them, I hate the sound of them bursting.

Jaakko. Is it good or what?

Tuomas. Slightly annoyed for some reason. Maybe he was upset that Sari wasn't sitting next to him.

Risto loves being photographed.

Animals, friends and first loves

What is is people that when they see a camera they make a face? Well, I have to admit that I do it, too. Anu "put this in your blog" is Auntie P's neighbour, a kennel owner. Uncle J's labrador Hex is from her kennel. Uncle J and Auntie P have also 3 Islandic horses Lysingur, Rodi and Gloi and two Jack Russel terriers (mother and daughter) Aino-Inkeri and Alli Manninen. Photo: DH
Would you buy a dog from this woman? I actually would, but I'm sure she wouldn't sell me one! Anu and her husband Pasi breed working dogs and use them for hunting, too. They are very careful about to whom they sell their dogs. It's amazing to see their dogs at work, to see they joy and energy. Very far from the over-fed couch potato labradors!

I went riding with Anu and Pasi, and with a new a acquaintance, Sari. Sari is also Auntie P's neighbour. Tuomas fell in love with Sari, always asking where she is. This might have something to do with the box of Bob the Builder candies he got from her. But Risto's love for Anu and Pasi's daughter was something else. He kept talking about his "lady friend", which was appropriate since she's almost 4 years older. But they did play nicely together.

Photo: Anu
Me on Rodi who did not want to stay still.

Photo: Anu
Sari riding first on Gloi, then Pasi on Lysingur and then me on Rodi.

The horses look so nice and calm, but they are full of energy and a will of their own.

Hail Caesar! Bwrw cesair!

I love making the most stupid mnenomics (I new word I learned, hopefully using it correctly) to remember things. Bwrw cesair is Welsh meaning to hail (sataa rakeita in Finnish), that leads to hail Caesar. So easy to remember! It did bwrw cesair during the weekend, as you can see in Jaakko's hat! Jaakko at Auntie P's. Poor boy, he had a fever and the third night there was very restless. I had to take him to the doctor the next day. I knew it was his ears. Antibiotics for his ear infection. This was only his third one. At his age (1y5m) Tuomas and Risto had had numerous infections and tubes in their ear drums twice plus adenoidectomy. In addition to this Risto had tonsillectomy in March. So Jaakko isn't doing too bad. Should be grateful that they are as healthy as they are.

Before and after

Before and after pictures are so fun. It's always nice to compare and see the progress (or regress). Risto rode an ATV (all-terrain vehicle, mönkijä) with Auntie P's husband, Uncle J, and his face go quite muddy. I asked him to wash his face. Before washing. Slightly muddy face. The picture is out of focus, I know.

After washing his face. I should've been more specific and said:"Don't just wet your hands and wipe your face with them. And look in the mirror!"

After. Oh boy, there are 3 of these monkeys in our home.

At Auntie P's I'm always given the opportunity to rest. But what does an exhausted working mother of 3 boys do. Take a nap? No, she has to knit!!! I finished the Sophie bag I started 2 weeks ago, but I made it deliberately bigger with the increases every 20 rows instead of 10. The yarn is from Pirtin kehräämö.This is the bag before felting. My over-enthusiastic boys helping.

Before felting. There is a balloon inside the bag. I knit also a flap on the opening. I plan to fasten with a magnetic snap.

Before felting with the balloon inside.

Usually it takes 2-3 rounds in the washer at 40-60C. I turned my back and Jaakko turned the temperature dial to 90C, almost boiling water. No need for any extra rounds in the washer. Well, I washed it when we got back home. In the first wash there was a yellow rug, too, and the bag ended up being covered in yellow lint. I ran a knife across the whole surface and the braided handle and wanted to give it one more wash to get the surface better.

Finished. Uncle J asked an odd question:"What are you going to do with the bag?" DO? The whole process gave me something to do, should the bag have a function already?!? Good heavens, it's just been born!