danieljohnson

I wrote earlier about the kids reactions to the baby. Apparently Daniel told everybody at the daycare about the baby the day after he found out. Since then Daniel calls the baby his baby. He's talking about the future a lot and every other sentence starts with a "When my baby is born..." And they end with "when my baby hurts himself, I will give him a hug". Or "when my baby walks into a wall, he can hug my teddybear". I'm hoping there won't be that many accidents as Daniel predicts...He has asked at least every other day if the baby is going to be born tomorrow. We keep telling him that the baby is due in the summer. And since our winter at the moment isn't a real winter, Daniel chooses to think that the summer is just around the corner or translated to 4½ year old language - tomorrow.

Daniel seemes also very proud about the fact that he will be a big brother. He said to me that "When my baby is born and I become a big brother we don't need Nicholas anymore." I asked him where Nicholas is going to go then. And Daniel explained to me that he is going to move out. Somehow I'm not convinced that Nicholas, 14 yrs old, is moving out any time soon. But then again Daniel might know something I don't...

Daniel and I have a couple of different routines for mornings at this household.
1. I wake up Daniel, he gets really mad because I wake him up, I put his clothes on while ducking for sharp kicks and mentally closing my ears for screams. I carry him downstairs to the bathroom. He pees, I brush his teeth, he hugs his teddy bear and we go out the door. By the time he gets his boots on or in the car at the latest, he's usually in a good mood. I'm in a bad mood from nagging at Daniel.
 2. I wake up Daniel. He starts humming the Star Wars Darth Vader-theme. I help him put his clothes on, I carry him downstairs to the bathroom. He pees, I brush his teeth, he hugs hus teddy bear and we go out the door. By the time.....well, you get the picture. I'm in a good mood.
Somehow Marc seemes to be able to get Daniel up in a good mood way more often than I do.
 But then we get to the daycare. On a good morning we're on time. Unfortunately, we have more not so good mornings than good mornings. But every time we get in, we take Daniels shoes off and walk through the daycare to his section. Daniel pulls his hat over his face and I tell the teacher that I left Daniel at home today. We go to Daniels section and he takes his hat off and giggles because nobody saw him. We go back after we load off all his stuff to his shelf and Daniel "surprises" the teacher by showing up from behind me. This has been just as fun every single morning since it started about six months ago... But just as long he's happy, I'm happy and am willing to do this same thing every time we go to daycare. Doesn't seem to be that big of a sacrifice...

We had some friends and family over yesterday for Christmas gift day, since we are going to be in Finland over Christmas. Marc and I told everybody that we're having a baby in July :-) Funny how the kids react differently. Nicholas, 14 yrs, almost choked on the piece of chocolate he was eating and was staring at one spot on a wall after that for a while. Clearly not the most positive news at that point. His first question was:" Where is IT going to sleep?!"
Daniel, 4½ yrs, ran over to me and asked if I had a baby in my tummy. I said yes. His first question was:"Are you joking?" His second question was:"May I see?"

Christmas is getting closer and we've been talking about Santa quite a bit. Most of the time Santa comes up when we talk about toys that Daniel wants but is so not going to get before Christmas. Whenever Daniel tells us that he wants a certain toy, we tell him that we'll write a wish list and send it to Santa. We have also said the classic you have to be nice to get christmas gifts and that naughty kids don't get any. That works for about five minutes and then he's back to not listening again...


Anyways. Last week the Santa stuff came up again. Daniel wanted something and I told him about the wish list and being nice. We got home and Daniel wanted to write a letter. He found a piece of paper and  a pen and drew some lines on the paper. Then he folded the paper, put his jacket, hat and shoes on and went outside to put "the letter" in our mailbox. He came back inside, closed the door and said that now the maiman has been here. So back he goes and gets the letter from the mailbox. According to Daniel the letter was for me. He opened it and read:" I love you so much. We are best friends. Buy something now. Daniel"

One day, when we got home from daycare we were talking about looking at something. Daniel said that he couldn't because of astridtigamism. I had to ask him at least three times what he said and still couln't get it. Finally I asked him what it meant. He said that when you have astridtigamism there's somehing wrong with your eyes and that you need glasses. He was talking about astigmatism. (That I happen to have myself and should have understood directly). We asked him how he knew the word and he said that he learned it from a book at daycare. What a smart boy!

Daniel wakes up just about every night and wakes me up just as many times. When does this end? I don't even remember the last time Nicholas woke us up in the middle of the night for something. That doesn't mean anything though since he's thirteen and I don't remember what I did yesterday anyways or what my middle name is.But the other night we got woken up by Daniel shouting "OH NO!" So I went to his room to see what the matter was and found Daniel standing on his bed staring at the matress and a big wet spot on it. Usually when this happens he just whines and doesn't say what the matter is. This time he pointed at it and he also wanted new, clean jammies and a towel to sleep on. He got to sleep in our bed instead. I was way too tired to fix his bed...

We visited Tuuri in Finland last summer. There's this big mall type of thing created by Keskinen brothers literally in the middle of freaking nowhere. Daniel was naturally bored out of his mind. I on the other hand spent way too much money. It's a good thing my mother was there and paid for lunch, so we lived to tell about it... Daniels aunt Heli - my sister- was there too for good company. The horse shoe is some kind of symbol for the place and the only fun thing according to Daniel together with the wishing well. I don't know if it's because he's a kid or the fact that he's a boy that he doesn't get the beauty and fun of shopping. A combination of the two maybe... He didn't get to make a wish either cause I spent all my money... Evil, I know. But a valuable lesson in how to not spend your money on silly things like wishing wells. It's way better to buy bowls and socks and cds and wine bottle openers. Right? Am I convincing anyone? Just trying to make myself feel better about the stupid wishing well...And yes, next summer when we go there again, we WILL  toss a coin in the wishing well and make a wish.

Daniels older brother Nicholas has (finally) started school again after the summer break. We were talking about his first days back at school at the dinner table just the other day. He was telling in his teenage kind of way what they had done and what he thought about it. Teenage way means that you get three words at the tops out of him voluntarily, after that you have to start asking questions to get the whole story. His thoughts were either "good" or "I don't know". Anyways, he said they had been working in teams and got different assignments through the day. They were supposed to make a team song and jump long jump and that kind of stuff. One assignment was to come up with a name for the team. Since he's a teenager I had to ask him what the name was. Before he could answer Daniel blurted out "Brats" (snorungar på svenska). Funny!