Simon is learning some new tricks, his vocabulary now includes the following phrases: “No”, “No I dont want” “No I want to walk myself” and so on with variations. We have never so far heard him say “Yes”. In Simons lingo the word for Water and Cold is the same thing. So he can point of puddles and yell “Cold! Cold!” meaning he has spotted water and we should investigate further at once.

Aron revealed his secret identity to us yesterday. Quite unexepectedly it turned out he really is spiderman, and now that we are in the know he runs around the apartment in his spiderman outfit quite freely. Some wall scaling and much jumping has been attempted.

Thats it for this time, on a geeky note it can be added that i’m typing this to you on a bluetooth keyboard connected to the ipad. Fun

Just like all male members of the Gumucio family I was born with Cataracts (Gråstarr) in my both eyes. This has been fine for most of my life, since its in my case was very mild. The diagnosis i got as a child was that I would not have to get surgery until the age of 40.

And now, the moment is upon me! At the tender age of 35 i find myself seeing really really bad. The deterioration started about a year ago and my recent visit to the eye specialist confirmed it. I have about 50% vision on both eyes, and will be getting surgery sometime probably during the next month.

As a positive thinking person, i cannot help but notice several advantages to my current situation:

The people that you try to avoid, you never have to pretend you don’t see them when you meet them on the street, because you don’t see them. This happens to me all the time, and I’m pretty sure that some people in our apartment buildlng have me pegged as some kind of uptight snob that ignore them. This of course is a half-truth at best.

You make new friends. As you wave like an idiot to complete strangers, trying to avoid  situations like the one described above, you are bound to be waving at people that only have a distant similarity to your personal friends or acquaintances. This also happens to me all the time, three times in fact during just past weekend. You can also factor in that I have an exceptional memory for faces, and also frequently say hello to people I haven’t met since kindergarten. They don’t wave back.  Uptight snobs!

The excerpt above is from my long long list of drafts for this blog, I must have written it before my surgery, the text for which is in another draft as it were. Read on for the full story..

I had the good fortune to recieve the eye surgery in August of 2008. In two separate sessions I paid a visit to the company Medoculars office in Östermalm, Stockholm. The first time I was very nervous, but an elderly gentleman in the waiting room told me that I actually had nothing to worry about. I was offered and accepted a mild tranquilizer anyway.  The operation itself is considered a very minor one, since the lens of the eye doesn’t exactly reside in the eye, but in a sack hanging outside the actual eye lobe. No opening of the eye lobe is necessary, only a millimeter-wide hole in aforementioned sack.

The operation itself was quite remarkable. You lay down on the bed and they put a mask over your face, it covers your entire face and then they cut a hole in the mask over your eye, the nurse actually caught a piece of eyelid in her scissors, no harm was done but I freely admit it didn’t help my stress level one bit. The end result of all the setup was that I found myself staring into a bright yellow rectangle of light: The microscope of the surgeon.

In the next phase my old and blurry lens was smashed into a thousand pieces using ultrasound, the effect of this was quite stunning, as the rectangle of light suddenly became completely out of focus.  The surgeon opens a tiny aperture to the lens and sucks out the pieces, the new artificial lens – specially made just for me – is inserted with a syringe and unfolds on its own to fit my eye. All the surgeon has to do now is to make sure the lens is centered and that everything looks ok.  The whole procedure took 10 minutes, after which coffee and a bun was waiting for me in the next room. After recovering from the blinding light of the microscope, I was completely fine and ready for new adventures. Absolutely amazing how easy and completely pain-free the whole process was.

In a side note, when I returned to do the other eye, I realized in the waiting room that I had been sedating the wrong eye, and that the eye I was about to do surgery on was completely au naturelle. Accepting my fate (and another tranquilizer), I decided to rather bite the bullet and let them do the procedure anyway than wait, my theory being that there were almost no sense of pain in the actual eye, and relying solely on the anesthesia I received then and there. My theory was right, it was perfectly fine, but I did feel the surgeon opening my eye.

My status right now is that with progressive glasses, as my new lenses are unable to adjust focus, I see better than I have ever done in my entire life.

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!

It has been almost two weeks and we are in the middle of the new-baby-bubble. The lovely place you go to when you have just recieved a baby. The volume is turned down on everything else. There is however a huge difference this time around that spells Aron. Becoming a big brother at the age of two is not easy! We can tell that Aron is curious and excited about having a baby brother but most of the time he is asking us to make sure that Simon won’t be getting on the way of his plans “little brother can’t play with cars” “little brother can’t sleep in my bed” “little brother can’t eat my sandwich” etc etc.

These two weeks have not been very relaxing as you may imagine, these next days before I go back to work will be all about exercising morning routines. Get the little one fed, give Aron his contact lenses and get Aron to kindergarten AND be at work at 8am. It’s going to be a challenge.

Everyone is in good health but we are all very tired since we only got about 3 hours of sleep during the 24 hour long latency phase.

Thank you all for all the greetings!

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

This great mansion was raised in 1760 to mark the status and give the proper luxurious enviroment for the owner of the Gimo industries. Most of the old industrial buildings are still around and give great scenery for walks. I really recommend this place as a getaway.The food is top-notch and the rooms are great. Every room has a yakuzzi and if you are lucky you get a private sauna as well! The only thing that was odd was that some of the paintings in the great halls probably did not come from the castles previous owners. Mermaids having graphic sex? I think not.

Today on friday we had a social gathering with family and we are in fact going to meet most of that gang again tomorrow for more sociabilities.

After that I hope that easter will give us some time to work on our apartment. Our handyman has promised us he will be ready by the 1:st of May. Lets hope so! The office I am writing in right now features a narrow path of free space, in an ocean of boxes and building supplies, that leads to my desk.

My internet tips for today is the family tree link for our newest member of the family. We met her again today and she is adorable: Isabel Valentina.

http://martin.gumucio.com/fam/ppl/b/4/b433da70f6956faa5a0849bf23c.html