Joking

I have recently been really losing it. During our Skype sessions, I hardly get a look on when Number One Son is saying hello and running back to TV or computer, depending on which gadget Archaeologist Husband or Number One Son is calling or taking a call. I have seen Daleks roaming a Minecraft area while chatting on a mobile phone, spitting a flash of blond hair in a school uniform quickly running back and forth from the computer to the TV / tablet and been shown long shots of our cat (returned) instead of our son. Aren't modern communications wonderful?

Well, on the up side, I and Archaeologist Husband can chat more, even if it has been lately rather much on house improvements and different jobs coming and going. Although now when I have been paid again, I am supposed to get romantic again and take Archaeologist Husband out... These are no hints but disguised demands. He really likes his Italian food in our local restaurant. It has been voted the best in the East Midlands or Britain or something

Number One Son is not only running away from any skyping device but also starting increasingly finding the kind of things funny the little boys find funny. I have heard quite a lot of 'I am only joking' remark together with a lot of laughter. I have also taken to the habit of pulling faces in order to make him stop and pay some attention to my calls. On the other hand, last summer's infrequent comments about bums on some information boards on Roman baths have changed to the shows of a lot of naked torso when pyjama should go on. Luckily he still listens when I am reading in the evenings - when I have a possibility. The later bed times mean that due to the time difference I cannot always hang around to do skyping but have to do other matters. Or just be an old lady and go to sleep.

'I can see clearly now'

Snow in Leicester (photo: AH via Instagram)

Or more accurately, Archaeologist Husband and Number One Son can now see me! I went to Claes Ohlson in the city centre in Stockholm and bought an external web cam. It just seems that the one on my laptop does not work and the work computer at the University as a desktop does not have such a feature. Now I have a shiny new web cam and microphone all in one. And it worked! Just a pity that the lure of the Minecraft videos on YouTube seem to overpower my son. Mummy is something mundane as the Minecraft rocks. Or anything else from Japanese animated videos to the weird merge of Transformers and dinosaurs available on Netflix.

I do enjoy visual things myself, so I can enjoy my son. However, this also means that my son is growing and having his own ideas. Even if he misses me and says so over Skype, he has now his own ideas and interests and parents are not so crucial and central to his life. He had also been kept away from the television for almost whole day, since it was a Finnish Saturday School day. Instead of any computer games or videos, he was happily running around with other kids.

This week there has been snow in the East Midlands. I could marvel photos on Facebook. However, now in Stockholm I am surrounded by the stuff and degrees minus are my reality again. It is funny. The outdoors temperature is feeling natural and coming from my backbone, but the nice, warm Scandinavian heating and proper insulation feels hot now after so many years in UK...

Here we go again!

The winter wonderland just outside Stockholm

And suddenly Christmas is over and I am back in Stockholm. Again I will try to work around the one-hour time difference and remember that most days this means that I may be able to skype only at 7pm. While waiting to find a proper room, this is actually made easier by excellent wifi in the youth hostel I am staying. I have to hope that the common 'living room' will be relatively empty all the time, so I can try to mobile skype from there. The room I share with three other persons seem to be unlike skyping location in the evening, considering that two of the other three are also working, not holidaying, in Stockholm.

Naturally, my new contract coincides the steep intensification of Archaeologist Husband's workload. After a year or two of very slim pickings, suddenly, the archaeological units just cannot get enough of him and he is booked and working flat for a couple of months ahead now. Thus, Number One Son will learn to love after school club and all his friends there. We are extremely lucky that his school does have the facility. The other primary school in the village does not.

Today I paid quite a while pondering about Number One Son. Indirectly, though. We had the first properly chilly day in the East Midlands recently and I just realised how tatty his winter coat looked. Therefore, I was wondering around the January sales in the hope that I would find something blue as wished for. No, but a really exciting black coat with a fake fur round the hood with a bat logo on the chest. Not really Batman, but quite cool nevertheless. Now a couple of weeks and then he will get the coat for those expected cold days in February.

From Holiday back to School

Suddenly, it was all over. I was in the mummy duty for the last two days of school holidays. On Monday we went swimming and then on Tuesday to the city centre to see dinosaurs. Having a meal in McDonalds is as important as anything else, but Number One Son was deeply disappointed, when the toy in the Happy Meal was no toy at all, but a cup. It may have Snoopy and Woodstock on it, but it is still just a functional cup. More for the parents that one!

On the way back we saw children from the other primary school in our village come back from school in their reddish jumpers. In Number One Son's school Tuesday was a teachers' training day, so we could still roam free. Not that the weather was so good, but at least we could walk on New Walk without rain.

Now it is in a way back to the old routine. Partly, since I am heading back to Sweden with slightly blinded eyes. I do not have a room to rent, yet, and I can only book a return flight when I know better. There are things to do and plan. However, at home, Beavers have started again and we did the Finnish Saturday School yesterday. Number One Son's everyday is back to normal.

In development terms Number One Son is leaping ahead again. For the first time ever, he was freewillingly asking about Finnish language. They must have spoken about languages at school, since he first asked about Spanish, though. In any case, he wanted to know what a Minecraft pick axe is in Finnish. It is 'hakku' but he could not remember it the next day. He asked, though! :-D

No toddler, a little boy

It is clear that this blog will shortly be renamed and will become 'Two archaeologists and a tweenie'. Number One Son has clearly stepped up in his development and shows amazing early teenager tantrum skills. This may be down to the sheer business from my part and the amount of Minecrafting that goes on both on computer and on YouTube. It is amazing how popular those videos about adults and children playing Minecraft and commenting what they are doing are. It is also good and father and son have a common hobby. Nevertheless, what the Tweenie needs is a good run in the park. However, over the New Year holidays the park has been much quieter than normally.

In communication, Number One Son has improved lately so much. We can hear happy bubbling or humming from his room in the morning, when he is explaining the latest adventures of The Doctor and the Tardis among the Daleks. Alternatively, he is singing some little tunes, sometimes making them up in his own head. Such improvement was almost unimaginable a year ago.

Now it begins to time to go and spend time with my son, not just blogging about him. We have school holiday project to do...

One family member is happy after returning

Playful Christmas

The end of the school term and the start of holidays present a small dilemma for those of us with kids whose work life is defined self-employment or research - to spend time with the children or buy extra childcare. Our situation has been in a continuous flux in recent months and even if the future looks safer than in ages, we did not think about the matters. Thus, even if there were things to do, it made more sense to go exploring Disney shop in the city centre and swimming. After all, I will vanish to Sweden again for periods in the near future.

My personal finances are still in a pitiful state, but at least I will be paid in January. Thus, I was a Scrooge again and Number One Son could marvel Father Christmas in the shopping centre from a distance. The reality was I did not much fancy to go inside a plastic bubble with fake snow flaking on me either. Just wandering around the toy shops in leisure was enough fun to my mind.

Luckily, Archaeologist Husband has a better financial position, so he together with lovely relatives and a certain godless father kept Number One Son in marvellous toys. He got different Lego, a globe, a book about Minecraft with the marvellous Stampy and a book about Angry Birds and dinosaurs. The latter two are the real winning formulas to get Number One Son reading!

However, during our fusion Christmas, my Christmas Eve was not perfect. The visit from Number One Son's friends was a happy and joyful one, but my gingerbreads were rubbish and the dinner with meatloaf, inspired by Finnish foods, worked against him. He ended up feeling sick, but luckily the British Christmas Day meal cooked by Archaeologist Husband remedied any food issues.

Honey, I lost the cat

This week's blog could be called 'The Confessions of a Bad Wife 5', since I managed to approach the matter of noticing that our family cat had wanted to reclaim her freedom after her spay operation and had done a runner with the same thoughtful care I approach Archaeologist Husband's birthday. I waited to 'late' 9.30am on a Sunday morning, before sending a text to poor cat lover who was on a well-deserved round tour of Yorkshire, attending a book launch on Friday in Hayton and seeing friends in Saltaire near Bradford on Satuday. He was about to attend the Theoretical Archaeology Group conference in his alma mater at Bradford, just waiting for his bestman and friend to appear. Instead of just swigging the beer, he had a wife making him panicky about the cat with stitches.

The cat had made her plead for freedom either by running from behind me out when I opened the door on Saturday evening to Number One Son returning from his panto trip or escaping from an open utility room window while the tumble dryer was on. I tried to keep the door closed, but it tends to pop open on its own. Either or, I had dismissed the miaows early on Sunday morning by the cat being behind the door on the landing. To my horror, later, I could not find the cat in the house. Nor there was any cat to nibble the cat food outside the following night when I thought to make sure the cat will be fed. The owners of Frank, a cat that often comes to our garden had not seen her nor any of the neighbours I and Number One Son rang doorbell of on Monday evening. The food went untouched for a second night and my desperation level grew. The cat had clear stitches that could have caught by any bramble and she might have been bleeding somewhere in horrible cold and rainy weather.

I have never intentionally had pets, so Archaeologist Husband's talk about microchipping and pet insurances did not stay long in my consciousness. However, now I learned all too much about the local RSCPA and the third party they use for reuniting lost pets with their owners and was looking for microchipping details. As indicated by the pet insurance papers, I visited duly the vet - something I have never done - to inform her about the missing cat and getting the chip number (naturally, I found the papers a day later). I created a poster Archaeologist Husband took around the block after returning earlier on Wednesday from the TAG than anticipated (it turned out he had new work coming in...). Naturally, the cat reappeared exactly after he had cancelled the appointment for taking out the stitches.

Yes, she came back. At 3.15 am or so on Friday morning I heard faint miaowing outside. She was back and so hungry that we wonder if she had been locked somewhere for days. The following morning a couple of cars had returned to the garages nearby, so a returning worker on a work trip may have opened a door that had been closed on Sunday. The stitches were healing just fine and her hair was as shiny as before. Now Number One Son was not sad any more. He had been seeing bad dreams about big roads and been sobbing in his dreams. Suddenly, all is fine for Christmas again - and I was not to blame for eternity.

The best 'Snoopy as a vulture' pose (photos: AH)