Made in Reykjavik: Don´t forget!

It is amazing how quickly time goes when you have little people living with you. They learn and grow so quickly you can sometimes see changes over the course of a few hours. When I come home from work, Finn looks bigger, more alert, and smarter than he did when I left him in the morning. Elsa is learning so quickly that she is picking up new words, songs, and jokes everyday. I can look at pictures from just three years ago. How different life was then!

What amazes me even more than how fast they grow is how quickly I can forget what everyday life is like with a baby of a certain age. One benefit of having little babes so close together is that Finnur serves as a constant reminder of what it is like to live life mothering a tiny baby and Elsa gives me some idea of what I will be dealing with in a year´s time when Finn will be her age...

For instance...

Finn has started to crawl and pull himself up to standing. I forgot how many sharp and extremely dangerous corners all of a sudden pop out of nowhere. Coffee tables, bookshelves, closets...not to mention sockets, and doors you can open over your little chubby hands. I forgot how you have to sit with a little baby while it cries and cries and then finds its pacifier and eventually calms itself down at night. I forgot the panicky feeling that comes the first time your baby pulls himself up in the bathtub and slips a tiny bit on the edge before catching himself...looking up at you worried. He wants you to tell him if he is okay or not, because he can´t tell for himself yet.

SO. Because I don´t want to forget. Now, at 22 months, Elsa is a parrot. She repeats absolutely everything you say, which is sometimes lovely, like when she says the sunset is ´GORGEOUS!´ but sometimes not so nice, like when she says, ´OH SHEET!´ when you drop something on the ground. She can sing the ABCs (the playschool ladies say that sometime she keeps the other kids awake at naptime, because she likes to keep singing). She enjoys puzzles, and is very good at playing by herself for some while. She uses the toilet on her own every once in a while. She takes one nap a day, usually for an hour and a half or so. Finnur Atli, at almost 8 months old, is growing like crazy...He has been has one big ole tooth on bottom and two coming in on top. There is a purple, ugly lump on his bottom gum where the next one is coming, but it is taking its sweet time. He is drooly. He chews on everything. Last night for the first time in his whole life, he slept all night without waking up to drink. He still woke up to cry a bunch, but didn´t eat until 7am. Sadly, now we know he is capable...

And, Tumi has uploaded the videos he made for each kiddo around their first Christmas to youtube...Elsa´s and Finnur´s. They are pretty fantastic :)

Finnur Atli visiting Elsa in the early morning hours