a supermom's thoughts ...

Back to the real world

2008-03-26T14:33:00.002Z

If you check on my blog regularly, you might think that this little supermom hasn't been doing much thinking lately ... the truth is that this little supermom hasn't been much of a supermom at all lately, but she's been taking a break and been a sloppy'n-lazy-mom.

But good news, I'm getting back into the supermom-gear, and will be posting updates, stories and pictures again. All in due time though, don't want to rush things, all in due time.

Happy birthday Már!

2007-12-10T10:44:00.000Z

It's Már's birthday today! (born in 1975, you do the math!)

The family woke up early to have chocolate-banana-bread for breakfast and watch the birthday boy open his presents, before heading to work/play school. Tonight I'm cooking lamb for Már and a few of his friends.

Cha-, cha-, cha-, changes ...

2007-12-10T10:18:00.001Z

Early this year I decided to become a stay-at-home-mom for a while, while I was winding down from too much work and excitement. It had come as a great shock to me when I came home from a long theater project, that I felt like I was coming home to a house of strangers. I felt like I had to get to know Már and the kids from scratch, it didn't feel good. So I took a break, I stayed at home, took care of the home, the kids, got everything back on track and the way I wanted it ... I also took the time to rethink my priorities in life and after these months of stopping and reflecting on myself and my life, I have decided to take a dramatic turn in life. I'm going to change professions!

I am applying to become an air traffic controller, if I fit the criteria and am accepted to the job, I'll start by taking a course in February, my training then starts in the fall, and I'll get my first rights a year later. I'm really excited about this decision and am really keeping my fingers crossed for the next few weeks.

Tomorrow a friend of mine, who is an air traffic controller, is going to let me watch him at work for a part of his shift, I can't wait!

News

2007-11-04T18:24:00.001Z

Úlfrún

She said her name for the first time today, finally. Up until now she's always been "mamma". She saw a picture of herself and said OOofrooo ... were content with that, it's progress.

Halloween

Yesterday we had a Halloween party at our house, we invited a bunch of kids, decorated the apartment, put on costumes and served gross food ... it was great! We served worms (cut up spaghetti), spiders (cut and fried hot-dogs (they curl up into spiders/octipuses)), crocodile eyes (Swedish meatballs) and thick vampire's blood (spaghetti sauce) ... the kid's loved it. We're definitely making this an annual thing at our house!

Play school

Úlfrún's adjustment to play school is going just wonderfully, and she's loving it ... finally somebody else to play with during the daytime besides her mother ... and of course, Garpur is there, so when the kids go out to play in the afternoon, he takes care of her, helps her on the slide and so on!

Cycling

2007-10-10T10:09:00.000Z

Már and I bought our selves new bikes a few weeks ago. Our old bikes were bought as cheaply as possible 3 years ago, Már's got stolen and mine is rusted through after standing outside from time to time, last winter. Junk! This week we got our new expensive mountain bikes ready to ride, and yesterday I rode mine to the physiotherapist's, with Úlfrún on the back of it. Man, are our bikes ever nice to ride. My bike is extra large, for my long legs ... ahhh, it's wonderful, I feel like it's been custom made for me.

After the hour long ride back and forth to my appointment yesterday, I decided to ride the bike for an hour in the evening as well, alone. I felt like I was 17 years old again, when I used to ride out to the ocean at the tip of Grótta to think alone, or across town to the home of the guy's I fancied to slip them poetic letters through the mail-box.

Már was the only guy who ever answered my letters!

Play school

2007-10-08T14:18:00.000Z

Úlfrún will start to go to play school in two weeks time. I know she will be thrilled because every day when I take her with me to pick up Garpur from play school, I have to drag her out. She already knows a lot of the kids and staff there .. but most importantly, Garpur is there, her idol!

One day when a reading session turned into a photo session

2007-10-07T14:19:00.000Z

Bead work

2007-10-07T14:14:00.000Z

Garpur doing bead work at home, on a calm autumn after noon

And of course Úlfrún doing bead work as well

Busy schedule

2007-10-02T09:25:00.000Z

Our schedule is always getting more and more busy, I've had to make a family-times table for our fridge in order not to forget anything:

Every Monday and Thursday morning, Úlfrún and I go to meet other stay-at-home moms and their little kids at a local playground, no matter what the weather is like ... I needed something to break up the week for Úlfrún socially, so I found these women on the internet who were all home alone with small children, we've managed to meet regularly twice a week for a few weeks now, playing in the sandbox, on the swings, slide ... oh, it's wonderful, even when it's raining!

Every Monday and Wednesday after play school, I take Garpur to his swimming lessons in a school close to his play school. These lessons are run by a very old and respected sports team (KR) and taught by a great coach and his assistant. There are only eight kids in each group, so they get so much attention, and Garpur learns so fast, it's amazing to see the progress form week to week. He´s swimming with a cork and frog-feet across the deep end of the pool now!

Every Friday afternoon, I try to pick Garpur up early from play school, and drive with the kids to Mosfellsdalur to my parents place. It's the day of the week when my mom's not working and we spend some time together inside or in the freedom of Inga amma and Róbert afi's property in the country side.

Every Monday evening I'm planning to go to belly dance lessons. For the last two Mondays I've gone and basically just watched because of my back pain, but soon I hope to be able to join in.

On Tuesday and Thursday evenings Már and I go to karate practices, of course, Már has been going alone to these recently, because of my back, but I'm sure that'll be fixed soon. Edda, our favorite babysitter in the world, comes and takes care of the kids when Már and I go to karate together. On Saturdays, in the middle of the day, there's a third practice, which Már takes advantage of, in stead of my belly dance practice on Mondays.

On Saturday noons, I often teach maternity belly dancing at a yoga center close by.

On Sunday mornings, I meet a group of women who originally met on the internet because we were all due to deliver babies in March 2006, we've kept in touch, and now we've started meeting with all our kids and let them play and run around at my karate club (when it's not in karate-use). We've made such good friends, that we're even going on a "women's only" weekend-trip to Denmark together in two weeks time, we've rented a house in Copenhagen with a hot tub ... I can't wait!

And last but not least, every other Tuesday (or Wednesday) night, I meet up with my "saumaklúbbur" (group of friends who pretend to meet because of craft projects, but actually just meet to talk, eat and gossip)

It's amazing how much free time we do have together as a family though, despite the fact that we're this busy, but I think it's mostly due to the fact that because I'm working as a housewife now, most of the housework is out of the way when we're all together. It's great and it works out wonderfully!

Body news

2007-09-27T16:47:00.000Z

My body hasn't been very cooperative to me this year. It started off with the knee problem when I started practicing karate in the spring, then that got better during the summer, but then less than a week after we got home from Canada my back went.

My back hurt a little when I did certain moves, such as sit down, stand up, get up from a lying position etc. It gradually got worse and worse, until I could hardly move without feeling a lot of pain, just reaching for a pen was bad. Eventually I went to see my physiotherapist, she checked me out thoroughly. Her conclusion was that my right hipbone was loose, and had twisted forwards, away from the spine. I have gone to see her three times now, I'm doing stretching and strengthening exercises daily at home and I seem to be getting better. For a while I wasn't allowed to sit in deep positions, like in a car seat or on a couch, and I knelt at the dinner table and in front of the computer. Now I think it's just a matter of a few days before I'm back to normal.

This has completely thrown all the ideas I had, about doing a lot of exercising and getting into great shape, out the window. I'm registered to be practicing karate at least twice a week, and belly dancing at least once, and we just bought ourselves new bikes ... but maybe after the middle of October.

The important thing is that I'm getting better, it really sucks to have a malfunctioning body ... I'm valuing my good health much more now than I ever have before!

Pictures from many events this summer

2007-09-26T02:32:00.001Z

This should buy me some time ... lets just say that pictures say more than a thousand words, shall we?

In England at Vala amma's

Úlfrún finds her ears

The springtrip to a farm with Garpur's playschool

Photography by Garpur in a moving bus

Garpur and his class performing at the playschool's summer festival

Hiking "on top of" Siglufjörður

A flower we saw on our hike

A five year old birthday boy

Some of the birthday boy's photography in his party

Úlfrún, when she lost her balance for a few weeks

At the Reykjavik beach

Swimming in the (cold) ocean, at the Reykjavik beach

Garpur delivering the neighborhood mail when the postman failed to

Most of the Berman/Elias clan in Kanada

Mother and daughter in a family party at Tony's in Kanada

Garpur and Sonja clicked together right away

More of Garpur's photography

At the cottage

Úlfrún took care of the flies

Már windsurfing

Már waterskiing

Már waterskiing

Surfing, the Stina style

Hiking in the cottage woods

One of several species caught and observed on the trip

Swimming in the warm lake

Freedom

Home sweet home

I feel so loved!

2007-09-25T16:54:00.000Z

I thought that NO ONE was reading my blog anymore, well that wouldn't surprise me really, where I hardly ever do blog anymore ... but I just found ALL the comments that people have been
putting on my site for months. Apparently I'm supposed to approve them manually as they come ... nobody told me!
It's a great feeling reading them all together, I feel so loved!

"New" komments:
June 2007
June 2007
June 2007
May 2007
May 2007
March 2007
February 2007
December 2006
November 2006
November 2006
November 2006
September 2006
August 2006

I know, I know, I'm waaaaaay overdue to write something about the kids ... I'm still going through the photos from all our holidays this year ... and other photos that I've promised to put here earlier, I'm just so busy, being a hardworking stay-at-home-mom (cough, cough). It'll come, it'll come!

Maternity belly dancing for yoga students

2007-06-08T11:51:00.000Z

I'm so excited about a class I'll be teaching in June. An instructor from a yoga center, contacted me and asked me if I would like to try out teaching pregnant yoga students, maternity belly dancing on Saturdays in June ... I'm thrilled about the idea!

I can't wait to try it out. The first class will be with the yoga instructor .... I have to start preparing for the class .... júúúhhhúúúúúú!

Drivers license

2007-06-08T10:37:00.000Z

Yesterday I got my permanent drivers license sent in the mail from the Icelandic police department. So two years ago I got my temporary license, and now, after having renewed it, it'll last me until on my birthday, the year 2048 ... freaky!

Play school

2007-06-07T21:37:00.000Z

Play school is almost over for Garpur for the summer soon, because Már and I have decided to give him a long summer break.

The last month or so has been very eventful at Barónsborg, with the annual trip to a farm and the school's summer festival. The festival was last weekend and each class sang for all the parents outside in the school's garden. It was great, and Garpur made us so proud when he actually sang with the rest of the kids in his class and actually led the singing!!! Up until now he hasn't been too keen on singing, so this was a big character change we were seeing.

I have a few great photo's from these events of our kids and Davíð's kids which I'll put in here soon!

The younge escape artist

2007-06-07T21:19:00.000Z

More about Úlfrún.

Last weekend Már went out to do some work in the garden. He went out the basement door of the house and left it open because he needed to be able to go in and out of the house a lot. I didn't know that the basement door was open, so I let Úlfrún play in the hallway, as I do quite often (to practise her stair balance awareness!). Már didn't know that I often let her play in the hallway. Time passes and I send Garpur out to do some small chore.. he comes back panicking, because he found Úlfrún barefoot, in her diaper and bodysuit, holding a paint brush (she must have found somewhere on the way), on the sidewalk in front of our house, ready to cross the road.

We freaked out, well to be honest, I freaked out.

Two days later Már pops out to put calcium on our lawn, but because he´s only planning to be a short time outside, he leaves the basement door open. I make sure that the door upstairs is closed ... but that doesn't stop Úlfrún! Because the door of our apartment isn't locked, she opens it and strolls out through the basement without anyone noticing. In a while I notice the awkward silence in the apartment. When I couldn't find Úlfrún right away, my first reaction was to run out and into the street to see if she was there. She was! She was in the middle of the street, running down the road towards the crossroads of Stangarholt and Skipholt, and she was almost there!!! I ran after her and carried her back kicking and screaming her little wet socks off.

I wonder what she'll be like as a teenager?

Girls will be girls!

2007-06-07T19:54:00.000Z

Úlfrún is a girl, there will be no doubting this.

Every morning when Már and I finally get ourselves out of bed, Úlfrún has usually already emptied all her drawers of her clothes, tried them all out as various kinds of scarfs, before littering them all over our top floor.

When Garpur, Úlfrún and I went shopping yesterday, she screeched and laughed like crazy when we passed a shelf full of dolls and teddy bears. The closer we went to the shelf, the more she turned up the volume of her noise making. I let her look at the dolls and teddy bears. Úlfrún was in heaven, she grabbed one doll after the other, hugged them and kissed the, before throwing them in a pile on the floor and grabbing the next one ...

... Garpur never behaved this way when he was her age, he was too busy pointing out all the motorcycles and airplanes he saw!!!

Laser-toe

2007-06-07T19:42:00.000Z

Last night I went to karate practice ... and forgot to relax and take it easy in class. We were practicing "kumite" (free form fighting) ... and I ended up fracturing my toe!

Today, at the end of my physiotherapy session, I got special laser treatment for my toe to reduce the swelling. I thought it was hysterical, sitting there in my physiotherapist's office and having her point a laser pen at my toe. My "injury"!

Physiotherapy

2007-06-04T13:03:00.000Z

I've started seeing a physiotherapist twice a week now. It's kind of nice having someone really care about your body and help you fix it!

Back in the days when I was graduating from art school, I decided to start practicing karate again after a few month long break, having gained a few kilos and wanting to get back into shape. My knees and hips were always killing me after exercises. I decided that I must have arthritis, so I went to the doctors to get a cure for my imagined arthritis, and she laughed at me. She told me, after examining me a little, that I was too heavy for the amount of effort I was making my body go through, so I had swelling around my joints. The cure: she told me to rest and loose weight!
That was when I stopped practicing karate, and a few months later I started practicing belly dancing in stead.

Now, six years later I have the same problem when I'm starting to practice karate again. My joints ache a lot after intense practicing, especially karate. At first I tried to solve things by myself by going swimming and trying to strengthen my knee-area by doing a few laps every other morning without using my arms ... but the pain just got worse. Finally a karate-instructor recommended that I see a physiotherapist. My physiotherapist is wonderful, she has taken so much time into studying my knees, watching me move, giving me all sorts of treatment. After examining me she explained where exactly the pain is coming from. It's not actually in the joints them selves, it's my thigh-muscles, where the muscles gather together over the knee and fasten under the knee ... that's where I have massive swelling. And the best way to solve the problem is not to loose weight (all though it probably wouldn't do any harm), but to strengthen my thighs alongside therapy to decrease the swelling.

I'm very excited about this process of healing and getting stronger, because I can feel that it's working. And I love having a physiotherapist care so much about my thighs!!!

New name

2007-06-03T09:48:00.000Z

Due to my new job, I've changed the name of my blog!

Too much choice, too little time to do it ALL.

2007-06-03T02:47:00.000Z

Tonight Már introduced me to TED, the conference in California where 1000 experts and geniuses come together every year and talk about their great ideas. Már selected a few really interesting talks for me to watch on their website ... and that's what I did for basically the whole evening.
One of these talks I watched was with a Barry Schwartz (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/93) about "the paradox of choice", how much simpler things are when you only have one or a few things to choose between, and how complicated and frustrating life gets and unhappy people get when they have too many choices to make. I loved his talk and thought he was absolutely right, when there are few things to choose between your expectations are low so you are sometimes pleasantly surprised, but when you're confronted with too many choices your expectations are set higher and are more often disappointed ... so even though the choices we make when we have a lot to choose from, are better than when we have little to choose from, we're more likely to be unhappy with our choice because our expectations were set so high!

After having spent the whole evening watching geniuses talk passionately about their interests, I started browsing the web for my own interests. I stumbled across sites with belly dancing in Iceland, I read almost everything there is to read about it, watched all the Icelandic belly dance videos on u-tube ... and more ...
I got so excited about belly dancing that I just wanted to jump up and sign up at Magadanshúsið again.

But then I remembered that there are things in the way of me doing that. There is karate. I love karate, I've only just started practicing it again and I don't ever want to stop doing karate, I even want to become a karate instructor one day. Then I also remembered that I waiting to get to try out salsa at SalsaIceland, I really want to try it out, I'm sure I'll like it and have a lot of fun learning it. Then there's also Tribal belly dance. When I went to see Josy's last belly dance show, I fell in love with Rositsa's tribal belly dancing ... then there's always the guest belly dance teachers at Kramhúsið, I have yet to try learning with them, I've always wanted to ... and I also would love to take up couples dancing with Már again, that was a lot of fun and we were always planning to try going to the group "Komið að dansa" together.

Too many exciting choices are my problem, it doesn't matter what choice I make, I'll always be disappointed that I didn't make all the other ones as well!!!

The Housewife

2007-05-31T08:35:00.000Z

Since I don't have a project lined up for me for a while now, and a summer ahead that involves a lot of traveling for the family, I've decided to become a housewife for the summer, and have Úlfrún at home with me. This is the first time I actually decide to do housework in an organized manner. I've come to realize that being a housewife is considerably more difficult than I had imagined. For an instance, the work hours are crazy! A housewife never gets her guilt-free rest ... I work with Úlfrún playing around my feet, there are no coffee-breaks, meals are work because I'm feeding Úlfrún as well as myself, and as soon as she takes her nap in the day that's when I really fold up my sleeves and to use the time well to work. When evening comes, I'm still at work, cooking, cleaning, putting the kids to bed, etc. It isn't until I have karate practices that I can really take a break!

I heard some time ago, that out of a wide selection of professions, housewives are by far the hardest workers ... I believe that now!

Romeo Dallaire

2007-05-30T23:31:00.000Z

Tonight there was a tv-program about the Canadian General, Romeo Dallaire, and his visit to Rwanda, on the 10 year anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda.

The show was completely mind-blowing, the ignorance of the rest of the world during that time towards the situation there and the images of people being slaughtered are stuck in my mind now. These images join older ones I still haven't gotten over. I remember seeing images of children's heads on sticks in the streets of Rwanda on the news when I was sixteen years old. I cried then, and I cry now.

I just can't believe how horrible people can let themselves become ...

10 year anniversary!

2007-05-24T11:52:00.000Z

Last night Már and I had a 10 year dating anniversary ... I think it's amazing that it has been so long since we first hooked up. Now, ten years, two university degrees, two apartments, two kids and one car later, here we still are, hanging on tightly!!!

Lifechanger

2007-05-18T03:43:00.000Z

Boy oh boy, has our life ever changed over the last couple of weeks ... we finally bought our first car!!!

It's amazing how much time a car can save you if you need to go to several places in the same day. I guess this is something that most people realize earlier in life than me, but hey, I've been quite happy without a car until we bought ours ... I guess it's true what they say, ignorance IS bliss!

I'm now a proud Skoda-owner .. (Skódi ljóti!)