It was three years ago this month, as we were living comfortably in San Diego, that Johan told me he was interviewing for a job in Toronto and leaving for the interview in a couple of days. I said "Say what?" and asked him why he hadn't mentioned this interview to me before. He reminded me that just weeks prior, I had told him to quit telling me about all the recruiters/headhunters who would call him from various cities asking him if he'd be interested in a new position. I wasn't interested in moving, so I told him I didn't want to hear about a position in, say, Boston, unless he was absolutely serious about it. He was serious about Toronto. I told him there was probably no way I'd be interested in moving there (where was it, anyways?), but good luck with the interview. One week later, our entire family was on a plane flying to Toronto to check out the city before making a final decision to move. I had a good feeling after the trip, but I still didn't want to move. We had just bought and remodeled our house in San Diego, lived on an amazing street with tons of kids and great neighbors, we had an amazing tight knit church family....why should we leave? We prayed a lot about it. I prayed a lot about it. And when I still had no peace about a decision, I remember what my wise girlfriend, Ella, told me: Maybe I should just submit to my husband's decision. So I did. I told Johan that if this was what he really wanted to do, then I was on board. And you know what? As soon as that happened, my heart totally changed. I WAS on board. I got excited and willing and had no ill feelings about it. We both became unified in knowing this was simply a new phase in our lives that God wanted to take us through. And it's been amazing, and challenging, and we will never be the same because of it.
Fast forward three years to now, and we are about 4 weeks away from meeting Axel's little brother! We have amazing neighbors and are so happy with Axel's school. Axel is in love with pretty much all sports, and is at some time or another involved in hockey, skiing/snowboarding, soccer, baseball, track and field, tennis, basketball, and even golf. I put him in select hockey this year because I was pregnant and knew I wouldn't be able to take him skiing every week like we've done the past two winters. He loves hockey, however, skiing and snowboarding are his favorites. I did sign him up for a performance ski group just 40 minutes from our house on Saturdays, which he loves. After his first day, the ski instructor came up to me with huge eyes and said "that kid belongs in ski racing, he's amazing." I pointed to my belly and said I would love him to be in racing, but with a baby coming, that wasn't going to happen. In any case, my real selfish goal with putting him in an advanced ski group is that soon he'll be as good as or better than both Johan and me, so we can all go skiing together. We already have done that in past seasons, but Axel was always just a little bit slower than us.
So we are now into the six year old phase. I will say that it has gotten steadily easier since he turned three, which was the worst. One amazing thing that happened this year was that Axel became excited about reading and writing, and has become so much better at each. We couldn't even bribe him to do either until he started 1st grade this year. Now he has read all of the latest Dog Man books, and loves trying to re-write them word for word, and draw the photos as well. He also loves art (which I'm happy about :). He loves drawing and painting, and sometimes we do projects together. This year we made our own gingerbread house from scratch.
However, now at 6 years old, there are real conversations, but also real life problems that we talk about, like bullying, the angst and anger that comes from the complexity of relationships that 6 year olds don't totally understand, or kids cursing and calling eachother names. This happens on a regular basis on the playground as competitive boys navigate regulating their own soccer games, rules, teams, etc. Axel pretty much knows all the basic curse words by now from school, and has been called plenty of them, and has used a couple of them himself (as I've been told by his teacher). The first time his teacher told me he'd used the F word at a kid at school, I was so mad I told him we were going home to wash his mouth out with soap then he was going to bed. When I got home, we told Johan about it, and he was so relaxed and nonchalant about it, I started becoming the mean crazy wife. How could he not care?? How was this not a big deal that our six year old was cursing like a sailor at school?? I had to calm myself down first, and we all decided that Axel would have to skip his evening tv time instead of washing his mouth out. "BUT IF YOU EVER SAY THAT WORD AGAIN, it's soap time..." I warned him. It might also help to mention that this happened right after we watched A Christmas Story about Ralphie, who says the F word in front of his dad and gets his mouth washed out with soap, then imagines he goes blind to punish his parents. So Axel did threaten to go blind if I did go through with the mouth washing. But it hasn't happened again, so maybe my threats worked.
But, in general, I feel like, at least Axel, at six years old, is so full of attitude and independent strong will. Go ahead and laugh, because when has he NOT been strong willed and independent. But this is different because he's getting older and actually having to make his own decisions. When the weather is warmer he usually walks to school. But he's not allowed to arrive until a teacher is on yard duty, so we have a set time when he can leave the house. however, one day he decided he wanted to go to school a half hour early because he wanted to be the first one there to play soccer, as the kids normally play before school. I told him it was against the rules because there would be no one there on yard duty, but he fought and fought me. I finally said "Okay, but you're going to get in trouble". I was still in my pajamas so I got dressed and drove to school several minutes later to check on him. Lo and behold, the principal saw him outside the school before hours and made him come in and sit in her office until the yard duty teacher went outside. The teachers all told me what Axel had done and I was so embarrased. But my only response was "this was probably the only way he was going to listen and learn". And it did work, he never did it again. Just today I tried to convince him to put on gloves before going to school because it's -3 C outside and just snowed 6 inches last night. How was he going to play in the snow without gloves? He refused, so I let it be. But I had to tell him that if his fingers get cold, I was not going to drive his gloves to school for him. The same thing goes for wearing socks, or a beanie, or even underwear for crying out loud! We've just had to let certain things go. HOWEVER, he has learned his lesson in refusing to shower. He's gotten a couple of staph infections because of not showering after hockey. Trying to get the kid to bathe or shower when he's not in the mood is like trying to throw a cat in a pool. He'll death grip the nearest doorway or permanent object until you give up because no one is stronger than Axel when he's being forced to do something he doesn't want to do (well, I'm a close second). But after the painful staph infections, we have a little more leverage to get him to shower after hockey. Not every day, but at least after hockey. We can live with that.
Johan has been working super hard this past year. He was put in charge of an Investigational New Drug (IND) application, which includes submitting a cancer drug that his company created to the US FDA to be approved for clinical trials. It's probably added a couple of years onto his life, and he has started to walk crooked and may start to get a twitch in his eye, but they submitted the application before Christmas! So thank goodness, he doesn't have to work through vacations, weekends, evenings, etc anymore. Now we've got him scheduled on a healthy dose of medical pilates, massage, epsom salt baths, chiropractor, and working from home a couple days a week. And it would be amazing to see this application approved. We need more cancer treatments!
I am still working full time as a water resources engineer, but have started working a couple days a week from home to be more comfortable. I have been feeling fabulous this pregnancy. I am honestly not trying to brag, but when you feel so good, you want to tell people about it! It simply has everything to do with the fact that I've been working out a lot (and pretty hard) this pregnancy. I remember friends often telling me that after the first pregnancy, it gets harder because you get older. I'm 38, but I feel better than I did when I was pregnant with Axel at 32. I have realized that being in shape before getting pregnant, and continuing to stay in good shape, is so important to a healthy and relatively easier pregnancy. I'm 36 weeks and can still do 1 minute planks, pushups, sleigh pulls, one-legged squats, etc. I'm especially thankful because last year I hurt my back really bad doing yoga, but I have felt zero back pain this pregancy. It does help that I have an awesome TRX trainer who takes good care of me at my gym, as well as a great masseuse and chiropractor who does active release therapy, which is, thankfully, all covered by our insurance. I did go to see my OB last week and he said it looked like the baby was measuring 3 weeks ahead of schedule. So I'm going in for an ultrasound this week to check. These types of measurements are never totally accurate, but it reminds me that Axel had constantly measured about 1-2 weeks large, and he came 1-1/2 weeks early at 7 lbs 10 oz, so we'll see what happens!
After we moved to Toronto, I started this tradition of baking cakes for my neighbors whenever anyone had a birthday. It's sort of become my hobby, and a way to bless the people around me. It's slowly become more of a passion. For Christmas, Johan bought me a beautiful cake stand and some high quality cake decorating tools. At the same time, I was asked by a neighbor to bake a cake for her in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary. This was my first multi-tiered cake of different sizes, so a bit of a challenge. But it turned out really well! After this cake, I decided maybe it was something I could do while on maternity leave for fun. I wouldn't do it for the money since I don't charge much, but I love baking and love the process of decorating the cake. However, I've checked out local stores and have seen cakes similar to mine on sale for around $300!! They're crazy expensive. Plus, I can't stand store bought cakes. They always have way too much sugar and lack any complex taste. So if any Torontonians ever need a cake, you know who to ask!
Lastly, I have to mention this amazing piece of technology, which I think has changed my/our well-being forever. We got a Roomba. I am one of those people who, if they see dirt and dog hair all over the floor, gets super anxious and I am not at peace. Our house has four levels and there's no way I'm vacuuming that every day. This Roomba goes to work every day and has kept our house in tip top shape. I will admit, I judged them from the beginning. I thought "people who have a Roomba must simply be too lazy to vacuum". Well judge me if you want, I am in zen mode whenever I'm at home sitting on my couch watching the Roomba work, because my socks are no longer covered in tortilla chips and dog hair! Plus, with a baby coming, there's no way I'm vacuuming as often as I'd like. And Axel thinks it's the coolest thing ever. We even named it Roomba Fransson.
Oh, and our baby room is pretty much done! I'm going to add a couple more things to the walls, like some art I just made, and perhaps some little shelves for books next to the glider. But we are as ready as we can be!
