Art

The boys have never been enthusiastic about painting or drawing. Only last fall did Risto's pictures evolve from mindless scribblings to something recognizable. And now he draws wonderful pictures!

So I was surprised on Monday night when Tuomas announced that he wanted to draw. After a couple of minutes he came to me, told me to close my eyes and handed me this:

"That's you, Mom!" I was biting my lip when I asked what the two dots under my head were, but surprisingly they had nothing to do with my breasts, they were my eyes, OF COURSE!!! But Tuomas apparently noticed something unorthodox in the location of the eyes since his next portrait of DH was a more conservative interpretation of the human body:

Then he drew a portrait of Clara (he's really warming up to Clara, saying "thank you" and "I'm sorry") and I asked if he could manage to draw some hair on her head. "No, because she's bald and angry!!!" *giggle-giggle-giggle* That portrait was followed by ones of my parents with hair. And this morning he drew me an airplane. Our Picasso!

Again in Paris

Last time I was in Paris in November I caught a terrible cold. Now I flew to Paris already with a terrible cold, but I'm hoping to leave it here and not take a new one back.

Our whole family has been quite ill during the past three weeks. First Risto and Tuomas were home with Clara for a week due to influenza. A challenge for everybody, but Tuomas was so sick that he was even able to smile to Clara and not just hate her. Since Jaakko got a shot against influenza back in December I hoped that he'd stay healthy, but he started coughing the following week and it was his turn to spend a couple of days home with Clara. She said that being home with just Jaakko was on the other hand easier (he had no one to fight with), but on the other hand more difficult since Jaakko demanded a lot of attention. DH sneezed every now and then and I started getting symptoms last Thursday (but went to the gym anyway, which resulted in the cold getting worse and muscle pain so bad that walking the stairs was more or less painful....yeah, not wise!). The night before flying to Paris Tuomas started crying around midnight and complained that his ears hurt. The pain killers worked for a couple of hours (he 'slept' in our bed, kicking the blanket, I climbed to his bunk bed), but around 5am he started crying (more like screaming) again and DH took him to the doctor. We knew the diagnose: ear infection. It was actually quite good that Tuomas stayed home with Clara again, but now just by himself. Clara said that they had a nice time, Tuomas was very cuddly and cute. Hopefully he'll stop hating her.

So now I'm in Paris, the Mecca of shopping... DH should be grateful that his wife is such a bad shopper. I can't find anything nice, even a 10% discount coupon to Printemps didn't help. I guess -10% isn't really enough of a discount when looking at handbags that are fastened with cables against theft. Well, I did find something nice for DH, but I simply won't spend €200 on a men's shirt (even though he definately is worth it!!) since I wasn't sure he'd like it. The boys will be disappointed that I won't bring them toys or something special, but in my opinion we have enough of toys and stuff and it is also important for them to learn about disappointment (ok, I've bought some goodies...).

Now I'm back in my room at the hotel after a quick meal at a sushi restaurant next door. My cold has not gone away, and I guess I miss the hullabaloo at home since I can't be in a quiet room all by myself (remind me of this when I complain about the noise at home...), the TV is on, something in French, I'm not even watching it. Soon I'll go to bed and continue knitting the hat I started working on the plane.

This time no pictures from Paris, since I left the camera at home. Au revoir!

Ylläs

Tuomas skiing.

Clara and the boys

So, you can only guess who has affected whom... Risto 6, Tuomas 4, Jaakko 2 and Clara 20-something. And their combined mental age?!?!

Education

As previously mentioned, Risto is eagerly waiting for school to start. Once when Risto was talking about going to school, Tuomas informed us that he’ll skip school and go straight to the army (and he wants DH to buy him a real gun…). Risto then corrected his brother:” You can’t go straight to the army. First you have to go to school, then to university, then to the library and after that you’ll go the army!”. Somebody should take our boys to the library before starting school…..