It takes a village

One amazing thing about parenting in Iceland is the power of community. A couple of years ago, I started to notice the way people here talk about their choice of neighborhood in relation to parenting, it would always go something like this, "Oh it is so nice to be in (fill in neighborhood) because the kids can go to school at (fill in school) and then play sports together at (fill in neighborhood sports center). It's just so good that they can do things together with their friends outside of school!" The thing is, I heard this about the neighborhood where I live, but I am sure that people say it everywhere. And then I realized how strong a sense of identity comes from the neighborhood (we're not even talking town here, just the borough) Icelanders are raised in. It doesn't take long in the course of conversation to hear where a person was raised. My sense of this at first as an outsider was "that's super weird." After all, when I was a kid, there were friends at school, different friends at dance, different friends across the street, and then the imaginary friends, trees, baby brothers and other playthings. I've never seen this whole neighborhood thing in action before until very recently, and let me tell you...it's fucking awesome. 

For instance, on Friday I was picking up my kids from school. I know a lot of the parents and other kids in the classes, and have had conversations with many of them and talked with their children. In a few cases, playdates after school have morphed into dinner, and I have realized the pure bliss of building friendships with parents of your kids' friends...it's so much fun! So, as I was picking up my kids last Friday, there were all the familiar faces, bundling their little ones and saying goodbye to the teachers, and have a good weekend and all that. Then they started to say, "See you tomorrow!" and I realized that all these small people who are with Elsa in school are also signed up for gymnastics, just like she is. So this is how it goes, you take your kids to gymnastics, and sit and have coffee with the parents. You talk about parenting things (which feels like therapy!) or work or the kids school or things that are on your mind. While chatting, you realize that you actually know a lot of other people who have also dropped off their kids. This place is so small, maybe I have just lived here for enough time that I've acquainted myself with a critical mass of people, and now I always see many people I know when I leave my front door. 

On Saturday morning, I saw all the parents I like from the kids' school, of course...and an old neighbor who was visiting the pool and works at the Nature Conservancy who was once my beloved jogging partner, and a mother of a little girl who was in Finn's old school who owns an organic hair salon downtown, and the neighbor who lives above us at our new house, and a lady I work with...They all know me, and they all know my kids. This sense of community is so new to me, and it's something I really appreciate about living and raising children here, especially when my family is so very far away. 

After gymnastics, we rode the bus back to our house with one of Elsa's best friends and her mom and little brother. We ate sandwiches and played and then took a walk downtown together. It was so much fun! Clearly good for the kids and also good for the mamas....that evening the kids and I watched a movie and ate pizza and then vacuumed the house. On Sunday, we had a visit from Amma and Afi and then another family from school came over to play at our house. It was a cool, rainy fall day so the company was cozy. Then we took a shopping trip with Amma and had dinner at their house with Gunnhildur and Bjorn. It was a very full weekend, everyone was tired and happy when it was over. 

Then there's another thing about this community. It is hard to put a finger on it, but I'll start by saying that it's an easy place to live. I walk the kids to school, which is right next to the local pool, ice-cream shop, bakery, florist and where they are building a new cafe. Just past that is a big sports and community center where the kids will probably have soccer practice and music lessons when they are older. We can hop on a bus and ride for 10 minutes and be in another neighborhood, with an even bigger pool, gym, and sports center (where the kids have gymnastics now). I can walk to my job downtown. The primary school where the kids will go is two blocks away and the middle school is a block beyond that. The University of Iceland is about three blocks in the other direction. Nothing is very far away in Iceland, but something about living on this old quiet cozy street and seeing the same faces at school, on the weekends and getting to know these people makes me so glad that I live here. I am starting to build this sense of neighborhood that I've never had before. I love it. 

I've decided to take a few random pictures of little things I see everyday...trying to piece together an image of life at the moment. They are boring, but I like them...like this little snapshot of my kitchen window...

We took Elsa to her 4 year old well-kid check up. This is how they tested her eyesight...Pirate style!

These two are in constant motion. Pillow fights are a common scene.

Some parents spend money on bath toys for their kids. We made boats out of foil. How many scoops until your boat sinks? What happens if you make the bottom bigger? Oh yea, we know how to have  Friday night.

We also know how to have  Saturday morning!

I call this one: Toddlers scare neighborhood cat while waiting for bus in the beautiful fall

Elsa on a monkey swing while Finnur was in gymnastics (he goes for an hour with the other kids born in 2011, and then she goes after that...quality time with each kid!)

Elsa is an excellent flower hunter

These were on the hill Elsa found to roll down

Walking back to take Elsa's turn at gymnastics

A visit from Hafdis Hanna and little baby Finnur!

The boys...Finnur Atli and Finnur Gunnarsson

Little boy alone with curtains. 

Heading out to conquer the town. Elsa and Johanna are peas in a pod. We think that one will be president and the other prime minister. 

Elsa gives the dinosaur the best ride of his life! Wahoo!

Elsa and Roskva watching the Incredibles...Roskva is so brilliant she doesn't mind that it's in English.  Given the amount she can already speak and how interested she is to learn more, I'm betting she'll be fluent before she starts school...the girl is amazing!

Despite the noise, Finn took a moment to snooze in the middle of the chaos this weekend...with a dino, of course. 

 Little girls have more fun upside-down. You should try it sometime!

Perfectly peaceful boring Tuesday (snoring children included)

It's early on a boring, regular Tuesday morning. I woke up around 6 and made myself some coffee and poked around on Facebook. The kids are snoring. Well, Elsa is snoring. Finn is cuddled up cozy in the middle of my bed. Today in Iceland, the sun will rise around 6:30 and set at about 8:15, but not for long...we loose around 6 and a half minutes of daylight everyday this time of year. In a few weeks, deep winter will be upon us. I feel like eating soup and making pies and snuggling up with a book underneath a warm blanket. I feel like taking a wet walk through the woods and coming inside to warm tea or heady red wine.

The kids and I moved into a new apartment a couple of weeks ago. We have been settling in, and the more time I spend here and make it my own, the more I like it. The kitchen is big and newly done, and the bathtub has been getting a lot of attention from all the members of our little family. The past place we lived had a less-then-adequate-half shower deal...we are all a bit starved for baths!

This week, Elsa will start singing in her first choir ("cutie choir"). I think she will really like it, and I am excited to go to listen to her sing. Maybe I will learn some new Icelandic songs. Then both kids begin gymnastics on Saturday. Elsa did it last year, but it will be Finn's first time. It is a nice way to spend a Saturday morning!

We are in the market for new rain clothes and snow suits and winter boots, and I am remembering that this seems to happen every year: it's September, the kids are bigger, and need new warm clothes.

So those are my thoughts this boring quiet Tuesday morning. Time to get ready for work and waking up kids!

Here they are in our new house before we moved anything in

Finnur Atli and his plumber butt at the Laundromat Cafe, where there is a big playroom for kids. We are frequent guests.

Finn had some warts burned off. It did not go well. We won't do that ever again...poor guy. He is all better now, but it was super gross for a while there.

All bandaged up and ready for an ice cream treat (mostly because Mama and Pabbi needed it after watching the nurse dress his wounds...)

Happy kids at Mokka on Menningarnott ("Culture Day"). Oh, we had culture alright...cocoa culture with waffles. Mmmmm....

Whipped cream boy

Elsa was determined to have some of "That Pink Thing" we waited in line for a very long time, and then she ate the whole thing. Several hours later, as she was running for the toilet (screaming, "I need to poop! Now! I need to poop!") she told me that she thought she probably should not have eaten the whole Pink Thing, because it is not good for her tummy. Smart girl.

We have wonderful upstairs neighbors. There is a girl who is four and a boy who is three...and Fluga (Fly) that dog! Jackpot!

Kids munching on kleinur from the bakery on the next block

New house has good windows for climbing

Making good use of our new bathtub and bubbles!

Johanna came over for a visit!

 Tucker'd out at Harpa. It was a long Saturday afternoon that day.

Happy kids exploring at the park

And playing in the bath!

Elsa drawing pictures to send to Grandma Nancy!

Floodgates

It is weird that people associate spring with rebirth and new beginnings. I guess it isn't that weird, as spring is a time of new buds and fresh growth and baby animals and all that, but at least my impression in Iceland is that each season is the beginning of something new. From the grey and rainy Pacific Northwest, where there are essentially two seasons (rainy and AWESOME!) I am still awestruck and exhilarated when I start to notice the subtle differences that come with life at 60-something degrees North. The light and dark is the most drastic change (it's basically always cold) but the explosions of color in the spring and summer are a deep contrast to the stark barrenness and chill of winter here. Fall has always felt like a time for new beginnings for me, probably because of life on an academic calendar. I think of going back to school, starting a new journey, the opening of a new opportunity. Today feels like that somehow. It's rejuvenating. 

Weather is so closely tied to the Icelandic psyche. It is the single most common way to open a conversation with a loved one or a stranger. It's no surprise, really, in a country that throws bizarre and unbelievable weather events at you, that part of the enduring cultural makeup of the people who have been fool-hearty and stubborn enough to survive here for so many centuries is profound shared connection through climate. It used to be in the olden days that our very survival was literally at the whims of the wind. I am sure that every person who has lived here during the winter (foreigners and Icelanders alike) have at one time thought to themselves, "Why the fuck did the Vikings STAY here?!" Weather could determine if you ate, or if you froze. In particularly aggressive winds, I thank fate that I am not a fisherman, rocking and rolling over high dark and terrifying seas not knowing if I would ever reach land or not. And I thank fate that I live here in a time in history in which there is more than wool, the body heat of livestock living indoors, and burning peat to keep me warm.  

I was granted Icelandic citizenship on July 4th, takk fyrir. Mostly this makes me happy that I will be able to vote in national elections where I have my work, home, and my kids go to school. I will be able to participate in society and have a voice on this issues I care about. And, also, I am ecstatic that I will never have to talk with anyone from the fecking Directorate of fecking Immigration ever a-fecking-gain! Well, not for me at least. Maybe for work. It's not their fault they are absolutely horrible. I would probably be a sour nasty spiteful person if I had that job, too. Bless their hearts. So, I am Icelandic now. I can avoid making eye contact with people I know when we run into one another in public so that we won't be forced to have an awkward conversation when neither one of us has anything to say to one another. It's ok. I don't see you either. I can stock up on black pants and tops and coats and dresses...all clothing, actually. I can die my eyebrows and get a fake tan and insert an almost-too-loud-and-nasal, "Ha?" after every point I make. Ha. Nah. I love them, my new fellow countrymen. They are often way too serious, though. And it's true about the avoiding eye contact thing. Nobody here knows how to handle friendly smiley American. They must all think I am on drugs or something. 

Anyways. Floodgates. In my effort to blog more, because I feel I really do have quite a lot to say. It shouldn't be all that hard to sit down every once in a while and bang out a blog post. If only for posterity, so that when I am old and confused, the internet will have a sliver of information about what life was like so many years ago. What was going on in my messed-up-over-cluttered mind. Why not. 

And now for pictures of the two most adorable children on the planet. 

Go, Bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S! Hotel edition.

Quiet, warm and cozy babes...Makes me want to snuggle up.

Fun with Face paint one otherwise quiet Friday evening

Future World Leaders at Elsa Maria's 4th birthday party....Elsa, Johanna, Katrin Nanna, and Roskva. Take note. These four ladies are going places!

Snacking with Johanna

Car nap!