Almost 1 year old

Just two days ago i.e. on Sunday morning this is how it looked like! Seriously! And tomorrow is April 1st - which of course is a HUGE day in our household because someone is going to be one year old - but, also, this is supposed to be spring!

In all honesty it is now really sunny and pretty warm outside and the sun is melting although the wind is blowing very hard. Last year we had the very first very warm days of spring April 2nd - April 4th. Husband would come to the hospital short sleeved and tell me that it was almost 15 degrees outside. I so wanted to get out and enjoy the sun but come April 5th when Lotta and I did get to go home the weather had shifted and it was again, well, like it usually is in early April.

It's incredible to me that last year exactly at this time Husband and I were sitting side by side in our sofa watching television (a show on Hurtigruten was on) and waiting until it was time to head off to the hospital again. We'd been there in the morning and sent back home to wait. Four hours later we took off and then the next morning our beautiful beautiful baby girl was born.

It's gotten hard to take pictures of Lotta. She moves so fast. But Sunday morning I managed to take these :).

Ps. We're yet again going to go see a house this evening. It's built 1999 and not a detached house but a part of a row house. We decided that it would make more sense financially to look for a row house at this point.

So we have and found a lovely one Sunday but then Monday we found out the the roof is leaking. The one we see today is 15 years newer and on one level (the one from Sunday was on two levels). I don't love it like I loved the Sunday one but it would be a sensible choice and a lot of the things I tend to fall in love with are things we could do ourselves i.e. changing cabinet doors in the kitchen etc.

Also, our child is in the age when things happen and it might not be a bad idea to wait for a while until her artistical endevours turn away from walls and doors :). We'll see, once again.

Hard

I don't often write when I'm upset since at the end of the day being upset subsides pretty fast but what I write stays here. However, today I'm so tired and sad that I thought I'd share it. Not to worry, though, we are all fine. Husband is at work, baby is sleeping and finally without coughing madly and yesterday we signed the papers and our appartment is now sold.

But, Husband's marvellous father found a house in the internet that had huge promise and we had plans to go see it tomorrow. However, late last night it was already sold. Proof enough that the price was right and I'm very angry with myself for not realizing that we should have acted immediately.

This is getting to me. Getting excited about houses and then something happens and it's not it after all. I know I'm too emotional when it comes to house hunting but we are trying to find a home and that is pretty huge, isn't it? Finding an area which is good for Lotta and a house that is well built, feels like a home and is big enough for us and our stuff and preferably even with a lovely lot for Lotta to play in. This is so hard! And I'm starting to feel stupid for not even knowing for sure what I want. I'd like a new house as much as an old house.

The house

It's the weirdest thing. I really was excited about the house in Masku and then, today we went to see if for the second time and all my feelings for it just dwindled. Things just weren't the same anymore. I'd finally red the report on the condition of it yesterday and that had already gotten me less enthusiastic as had taking a closer look at the map. Just behind the house there is a road with heavy traffic and the same applies to the left side of the lot. In real life it just didn't feel safe.

I'm sad and to be honest also relieved because I was thinking that if the house were as nice as I remembered then I'd learn to live with the cars soaring by. Now I don't have to. On the other hand, things just got a whole lot more complicated.

Husband spent the better part of this afternoon searching for a three room appartment for us to rent in antcipation of us not finding what we want before we have to move. The idea of having to rent frustrates me but we are about to make the most expesive investment of our lives when we buy a house so now is not the time to rush things. But you know me, not rushing things is not quite what I'm known for.

It's been our wish to find an old house but now that we've seen quite a few and gotten acquainted with the issues and problems involved we're starting to think that it might not be a bad idea to either try to find a much newer house (i.e. built during this millennium) or even buying a ready made house which then would require finding a lot and quite a bit of other things such sorting our drainage etc.

For now I'm just tired. I know we made the right decision but it's been by now 7 months of looking for a house and it seems that we keep getting back to square one. To this my wise Husband replied that we are much wiser today than we were yesterday and he is of course right. In the immortal words of Scarlet O'Hara: "Tomorrow is another day" :).

News

Can't help but the title News automatically brings to mind "Extra, extra read all about it!" I have a coughing child taking a nap right now but might not be able to write for long. So, the news is that we have accepted an offer for our (or rather Husband's) appartment. We sign the first set of papers on Monday (by law they need my signature, too, since I live here as well). The big day which is when ownership transfers to the new buyer is then April 20th and we need to move by May 25th. Scary and wonderful at the same time.

Scary since we don't yet have a house but wonderful that there are no more open houses!!!!!!! Seriously those were getting to us since we had very little time to just hang together as a family during the weekends. It's scary also because we have to move. We have sooooooo much stuff and especially books! Husband will have a very busy May at work so this is really going to be tough on him and this time around it's much harder to get ourselves organized since the little one needs a lot of attention each day. But we'll make it! We have to :).

Saturday we go for the second time to see a house in Masku we really like - I'm in love with it to be honest - and we're bringing mother-in-law, aunt-in-law, father-in-law and aunt's husband with us. In other words, that house is going to be inspected by six people + Lotta :). I love it but it has reached a tender age of 70 this year and therefore there are quite a number of things to consider. We've seen a report on it's condition (14 pages!) and are ok with what it says but do want more information before putting in an offer for it.

The bank is on board with our plans. We can place an offer immediately if all goes well which is really great. I'm not daring to think that far yet, though, since I really love the house and it'll be so hard to let go if need be. I will but it'll be hard especially since it means we need to do heavy duty house hunting to find one before we have to move from our appartment.

But, still, we know that we are very blessed that a buyer came along right now (construction work starts here in our area in late March and will continue untill November). Now it's time to pray for a new home that'll be safe and sound for our whole family.

Happy birthday LS :)

Remember our congregational baby quartet of 2008? The first one turned one in January and the second one, i.e. LS, had her birthday bash yesterday - and we were invited. It was great fun to see all four together again and their older siblings, too. The oldest of the bunch is in daycare and we don't get to see her that often anymore. We miss seeing her :). She now walks!

Little miss sparkling brown eyes was our host and the birthday girl.

Before leaving to go to the party Lotta apparently felt that it was absolutely necessary to help us clean one of the cd trays...sigh!

Since it was open house again today our weekends are spent cleaning the appartment especially since Lotta's way of cleaning lond of adds to the amount of things that need to be done.

After cd clearance it was time to get to the books. Once she had succesfully drawn them all on the floor it was a good time to start reading one of the Moominbooks she was given by her cousins. Our little chatter box doesn't say words, really, but she will repeat after me "mamma" when I say moominmamma and point to her in the book. She also says maa when I show a cat which is her way of saying "miau" :).

The less amusing thing is that I was wrong about feeling myself again. I did, in fact, for a couple of wonderful hours but unfortunately Lotta's been waking me up twice a night for a while. First at midnight and then around 4 or 5 am. So, both Husband and I are now in the depths of the worst sleep deprivation yet. We're surviving and the little one is happy and healthy but it would be nice to get some more sleep.

In addition, my upper arm and shoulder has gotten infected because the movement of feeding her isn't very ergonomical. This has to do with the fact that I - weird that I am in this regard - really want to sit facing the door and she ends up sitting on my left rather than right. With ibuprofein the infection was starting to heal until I made the error of not taking it anymore (since the shoulder wasn't hurting that much at all). It seems that the infection hadn't yet cleared by then. Now the arm is pretty sore again and since, like every mom, my arms are needed very often this is not good.

But, in comparison to last Sunday it's a thousand times better now. Because it was so painful then we went to the doctor's on Monday and got the advice to take the ibuprofein. Apparently and fortunately it's been investigated that very little of ibuprofein seeps into mother's milk.