Here we have young Simon and Aron writing a letter on the wii to Santa.. or something. It’s not really specified who is the recipient but its a tradition here for them to comandeer a computer and write up a small piece of text. Neither of them can read, or write of course but that doesn’t stop them.

By the way, if you want a penpal it can be arranged for you to send emails to Aron, that he can reply to with the wii. He would love it!  Just let me know in the comments below and I promise you a steady (if slightly cryptic) correspondence.

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Here you have a typical morning at casa Gumucio Bergström. The kids normally wake up sometime between 5 and 6 am and the day gradually starts for kids and adults with the help of gruel and coffee respectively. Simon is currently on low-fiber high-fat diet, and no its not Atkins, its because doctors orders because he hasn’t been gaining weight like he should lately. Free play, kids morning television and breakfast then goes on until around after 8am.

At 9 am its time for Arons daycare, a short 5 minute walk away, so we take the double stroller pictured above. Simon normally falls asleep during this trip, making it the ideal start for any excursions by bus or car. You may notice that the stroller is actually meant to have the smallest kid in the back seat, well both Aron and Simon agrees that this way is much more fun. Simon can enjoy the scenery and Aron gets to pilot the train/bus/boat from his driver seat.

After leaving Aron at daycare I have Simon for myself for 6 whole hours, he is an excellent partner for adventure as everything big or small is greeted with the same enthusiasm.

It’s fun to play isn’t it?

We took a stop by the studio with the little kids, since we were playing in a nearby park anyway and it started to rain. Turned out Aron is now big enough to really enjoy being around instruments. I heard about that they have been playing musical games at kindgarten, that now became obvious as he immediately claimed the guitar on the wall as his own.

The resulting beautiful music was recorded, mixed and mastered on the trusty Zoom R16. Aron ends the set full of confidence with “That was a good song! It’s fun to play isn’t it?”

Simon was a good sport and enjoyed chewing cables and tormenting various percussion instruments while me and Aron were jamming.

AronSpelar by Perseid

December was such a cramped month, that I haven’t had the chance to blog about this before. The 13:th of december 2009, we baptised Simon Alexander Gumucio Bergström!

Three babies were getting baptised during the ceremony that took place in the church of Helga Trefaldighet, a sweet little chapel from the 11:th century.  Aron was a champion and sat with us at the front the whole time without making a scene. December is a difficult month, and Simon can count many relatives that live outside of town, but to our great joy almost everybody could attend,  making this a great party.

The speech the priest held was great. Patrik is a old friend and so knew we were in safe hands, among the highlights in the speech was when it covered how being baptized is like recieving the fingerprint of god, much like the church itself in one of its pillars actually holds a clear fingerprint from a worker, dating from when it was built, literally ages ago. It also got humurous when the audience was asked to keep a special place in their hearts for the children being baptised: To send them a mail once in a while, and why not join their groups on facebook?

We were also allowed to enjoy beautiful solo singing from Gabriel, accompanied by Anders Dillmar, the same instrumentalist that played at our wedding.

After the ceremony we gathered for a little coffee and cookies, from Magnus, Susanna and Gabriel we also got a preview from the musical City of Angels to offer our guests.

Thank you all!

First of all, to all parents that has kids that sleep normally. Be thankful for the blessing you have recieved! When I talk to friends that tell me their kids have always gone to sleep at 8pm and then slept peacefully to 8am I am always undecided if I should congratulate them or give them a punch in the face.

I’m starting to write this at 20.20 after putting little prince Aron to sleep. All his life he has been suffering from insomnia of some kind, making both himself and us suffer the consequences. So this weekend we took it upon ourselves to try to change this behaviour.  Since we have a second little baby coming in just a few weeks this is a “now or never” type of situation.

There was two things we needed to change, first he is very used to going to sleep with a bottle of gruel. Without this he cannot sleep. Secondly  ever since he started sleeping in his own room he has been coming to our bed around midnight and slept the rest of his night there. Now with a new baby on its way the prospect of having a wild 2-year old in bed also is not a very appealing one.

So for the past three nights we have been taking turns in sleeping in his room, the idea is that he wakes up, and when one of us is around he find the situation secure enough so he can fall asleep again in his own bed. Eventually he will just fall asleep again without us around.

Today is the third day of the treatment, and it  is the day where results are said to be starting to show. They are!  This morning it was like the sound of music when the first words he said were “Look at the bird! look at the bird!”, he was commenting on the animals on his curtain and forgetting to cry for his mother.

This evening he himself took the initiative to hit the sack, not forgetting of course to put in an appeal to sleep in the BIG bed. But you could already tell by his face that he said it as a joke, not expecting it to really happen.  Lots of work remain of course for this to cement into a real habit, but results are already showing and this is a very happy day.

In other news we visited the hospital today, its right next to the park so we checked out were they keep the ambulances. As we were peeking through the garage door glass, an Ambulance arrived!  And the driver asked if we wanted to enter the ambulance and ride with it into the garage. We climbed aboard and the staff took the time to show him how the vehicle looked inside. It took Aron almost an hour to find words to describe the impact it had on him. It was the topic of conversation for the rest of the day.  ”Spännande åka ambulass!”

http://martin.gumucio.com/fam/ppl/y/u/YUO8TOO1NHU8WG2RBT.html

With cake and champagne (for the older children..), we took up a little table in the sun where the kids could run freely and the grownups talk more or less calmly. Many friends and family joined us and Aron could well have been entirely without toys before this party, since there was a veritable flood of trinkets, toys, and adorable books for him. Extra fun was also the presence of the many other kids. Aron is a bit rough now, never late to push och pinch people of his own size, but the party managed to pass without great incidents.

Thanks to all of you who were there and made our evening a great one. Aron got so many impressions that it was very hard for him to go to sleep.  

Photos by Gabriel, here is the full gallery