It’s been too long since I blogged and I don’t know where to start… V and I are back in Sweden after a month in Spain. Life in Brussels seems so far away but we will be going back on the 22nd January. This first week in Sweden has mostly been about getting 100% healthy, as both V and I got sick the last two weeks in Spain.
A summary of the last month:
- Cultural differences: in Spain people are worried about babies getting cold, in Sweden it is important that the baby doesn’t get too hot
- Husband and father took holidays to work in the family business – not always popular with the wife…
- Small baby, big virus! V got bronchiolitis / rs-virus infection and had to spend 3 days in the hospital in Spain. Then I got the cold of the century. And O and I got a stomach virus that “only” lasted about 12 hours but it was very aggressive. Plus V and I got eye infections
- Eye infections are called “cold eye” in Spanish and people think it is due to being exposed to cold air.
- V got a new cousin on New Year’s Eve – his name starts with M, just like his parents’ and brother’s and all whose birthdays just happen to be in December as well!
- V’s two cousins, 8-year old M and 5-year old M (not siblings! just realised that V’s three cousins, three grandparents, two uncles and one aunt have names starting with M plus his first family name!) loved their little cousin even if 5-year old M was a tad jealous of the attention her mother gave him…
- If you want me to keep a secret, let me know that it is a secret!! Too many secrets to be kept from parents-in-law and various “siblings-in-law”…
- Temperatures ranged from 16 degrees to -3 in Spain. An exceptionally warm Xmas, both in Spain and in Sweden
- I never got around to bake the safran buns with marzipan, despite Millan publishing her recipe and I buying all the ingredients
- My German sister-in-law and I have three languages in common – Swedish, English and Spanish but we speak mostly Spanish to each other.
- No internet connection for a month was very frustrating!
- I discovered that with digital TV you can switch to VO (versión original, i.e undubbed version) and / or subtitles (in Spanish) when watching American films and tv-series
- Baby V is no longer so small, he gained 1 kg in 18 days. Fortunately his growth has slowed down a little since then!
- Security staff in Copenhagen airport definitely the friendliest, Brussels airport staff quite nice as well and Charleroi third. Madrid Barajas’ staff the most unfriendly and unhelpful with a mother travelling alone with a baby.
- Scaninavian airlines the most baby friendly airline! Both price-wise and service-wise.
- “Ajo” was the most popular word during our stay in Spain. Spanish children “have to” learn this word first as it contains a very important sound in the Spanish language. I claimed that most of the time when V “said” “ajo”, it was just a sound he happened to make and it would be more of a challenge to teach him to say “jamón” or “Jorge”
- People thought that it was cute that V wears “un pantalón”, i.e real trousers… Eh? Well, many Spanish babies wear old-fashioned knitted stockings, with or without a “faldón” (skirt), also boys!
- A baby has to use a pacifier, according to O’s sister and a random woman in the hospital. I am not anti-pacifier but I don’t understand why we have to force V when he doesn’t want one and seems to be doing perfectly ok without it! He sometimes sucks his fingers but it is not a real habit (yet) and I am not too worried…
The baby is wearing real trousers!?
Photos and more posts will follow soon!
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