Leif is a big brother!

We've been telling Leif since the beginning of May that "this is the month when Baby Brother is going to come out of Mom's tummy," and we've all been in great suspense waiting and wondering when exactly Baby Bro would decide to emerge. I had been feeling weird off and on for weeks (very different from the end of my pregnancy with Leif, when I felt fine right up until my due date and beyond), and finally, four days before his due date, baby brother Bjorn Stefan decided it was time to get out of the womb AND FAST!

Since I don't anticipate being able to keep up multiple blogs while raising two kidlings, the dramatic story of Bjorn's entrance into the world, as well as the continuing adventures of big brother Leif, will be told on our new family blog, gaalswykipedia.blogspot.com. For now, I will limit myself to posting a picture of Leif meeting his baby brother at the hospital. So far, Leif seems pretty enthused about being a big brother, for which we are grateful (and hope it continues!).

Our little speller

Aaron has gotten in the habit of spelling out a couple of words on the wall of the tub using Leif's foam bath letters whenever he gives Leif a bath. To our surprise, some of the words seem to have actually stuck in Leif's memory, even when he seemed much more absorbed in his splashing around than in paying attention to Daddy's spelling lesson. We can only hope he's still this interested in spelling once he's in elementary school and faces years of weekly spelling tests! Or are those a thing of the past, now that kids can just learn to type when they're in preschool and use spell-check??

2nd birthday video

As usual, I have fallen quite behind on sorting through our video clips of Leif and posting the best ones. Here is one taken back in February, on Leif's second birthday. We were amused by his running commentary on what he was putting on or taking off this peg board toy, particularly things like, "Take off green one; put on NEW green one!" It does not take much to amuse this two-year-old.

First weekend away

At the end of March, Leif underwent a rite of passage: his first full weekend away from Mom and Dad. In this case, it didn't involve him even leaving his own house, since we were the ones to go away. While Aaron and I flew out to northern California to attend the wedding of my lovely and amazing friend Annie, Leif's lovely and amazing grandparents were kind enough to come and stay with him (Granny G. taking the first day's shift, Grandma and Grandpa B. the second). Everyone did well -- Leif weathered our absence with few qualms since he was having so much fun with his grandparents (plus Auntie Sarah on Saturday afternoon), and we were able to relax and enjoy the wedding festivities knowing our little boy was in the best possible hands. He did seem pretty darn happy to see us when we got back on Sunday night, though -- we were greeted with a lot of excited arm flapping and repeated exclamations of "Mom home! Dad home!", followed shortly thereafter by a blunt directive aimed at Grandma and Grandpa B.: "Grandma, Grandpa go outside!" As we finished getting Leif ready to go to bed, he kept staring at us as though he couldn't quite believe we were really there. We were very happy to be reunited with him, as well, after a few days apart. We're also glad Leif (and his grandparents) had this "practice" weekend to help prepare us all for the mystery date in May when Aaron and I will have to suddenly disappear and head off to the hospital for a couple of days to deliver Leif's baby brother!

Below are a few pictures from the weekend as Aaron and I experienced it. Although Leif wasn't with us in person, we couldn't help but keep imitating the funny two-year-old things we imagined he would have said if he had been with us, so he was always there in spirit.

Annie and her very lucky guy, Jeff!


The lovely bride with 33-weeks-pregnant me. (Just in case, I had brought a note from my midwives along on the trip indicating I was approved to travel through 36 weeks, but no one batted an eye at me and my basketball belly boarding the plane.)


The wedding was in Marin County near Sausalito, but we did have time for one brief side trip into San Francisco to visit the Legion of Honor art museum. What had started off as an extremely rainy, windy, chilly morning cleared up by early afternoon and we got to enjoy a beautiful view as we left the museum.


Legion of Honor

Birthday season

In addition to Leif's birthday, we are lucky to have a string of family birthdays in February through early April to help us through what are usually the last, painful weeks of winter -- although with our early thaw this year, March was a lot more pleasant than it usually is. Leif and I missed celebrating Auntie Sarah's birthday in early February because he was sick, but we enjoyed getting together with family for Great-Aunt Mirja's special day in mid-March, a joint celebration of Grandpaw G. and Aaron's birthdays the following week, and Grandpa B.'s birthday in early April. I don't have too many photos to commemorate the occasions, but below are a couple!

Two zold!

...which is Leif-speak for TWO YEARS OLD! Happy birthday, Leif!


We had a very enjoyable party at our house on Leif's birthday with all of our in-town relatives (the usual suspects: Granny & Grandpaw G., Grandma & Grandpa B., Uncle Erik, Aunt Tami, & Cousin Vivian, Great-Aunt Mirja, and Auntie Sarah). Auntie Sarah arrived with a bunch of car-themed helium balloons which were (and continue to be) a huge hit with the birthday boy. Leif was very taken with all of his birthday gifts and seemed to enjoy the new kind of "muffin" that his mom had prepared for the occasion: chocolate cupcakes (which he continues to refer to as "cupcake muffins"), and especially the whipped cream that accompanied them. But most of all, he delighted in having so much attention showered on him by so many loving relatives all at once. It was fun to see how he reacted to everything now that he sort of gets what birthdays are about (much more so than last year, in any case). Thank you to everyone for coming to celebrate Leif's birthday with us!

Cousin Rachel

Aunt Jess and Cousin Rachel came to Minnesota to visit for a couple of weeks in February. Unfortunately, Leif was sick for the first week they were here, so we didn't get to see them as much as we had hoped. We eventually made it over to St. Paul to meet them for a fun afternoon/evening outing to the Children's Museum and Cossetta's, and out to Cottage Grove for a family meal and playtime with golden retrievers at Granny and Grandpaw G.'s house. The picture above and the videos below were all taken on the last night of Jessica and Rachel's trip, when they (along with Auntie Sarah, Granny, and Grandpaw) came over to our house for dinner.

One of the surest ways to get Leif and Rachel into the same frame for a photo or a video is to start reading a book!



Leif has not been persuaded to hug either of his cousins yet, but he is (usually) OK with giving them high fives.

Zen cars

In mid-December, I posted the following comment about Leif and his obsession with Matchbox cars on Facebook: "Watching Leif slowly rolling his Matchbox vehicles around (and around and around and around) on a tabletop is like watching someone rake their mini Zen garden. He is totally serene and at one with his kahs, kucks, and vans." A few weeks later, I finally managed to get a video illustrating this (which was easier said than done, since if Leif notices that he is being videotaped he often stops doing whatever he had been doing and stares at the camera instead). I'd estimate that Leif has spent at LEAST an hour (in total, spread out over the course of each day) most days of the week for the past several months doing exactly what you see in this video, and to my amazement, he has yet to tire of it. I envy his single-minded dedication to his favorite pastime -- it is more than I can muster these days!

Giggling climber

Leif has continued to earn his reputation as a little monkey boy (both an avid climber and a great lover of bananas) this winter. First he figured out how to climb up from the floor to the top of his changing table without any assistance, and not long thereafter he discovered that by grabbing onto the sheet or blankets on top of our bed he could pull himself up just enough to get a toe-hold on the bed rail and from there, push up until he could get a knee up on top of the bed. Needless to say, he found this new skill very satisfying, not to mention entertaining, and it required quite a bit of joyful repetition that night when he first figured out he could do it (which is when this video was taken).

Toddler bowling

A while back, Auntie Sarah gave Leif just about the most fun toy ever: a plastic bowling set. In Leif's world, bowling involves first throwing the ball at the pins (while standing almost directly over them), and then immediately running toward any pins that may remain standing and kicking them over with your feet. As you can see in this video, it's a VERY fun game that merits many, many rounds of "Again, please!" Thanks again to Auntie Sarah for all the good times bowling (past and future).

Mid-winter ducks

We've been enjoying the abnormally warm weather this winter -- a stark contrast to last winter, when there were something like seven snow emergencies declared in Minneapolis and Leif and I spent what felt like six solid months indoors. One afternoon in early February, usually one of the most bitterly cold weeks of the year, we enjoyed a two-hour walk outside, making the full circuit of the neighborhood, first down to Lake Harriet to see the ducks swimming in the patch of open water near the shore and then over to Pershing Park to play on the non-snowy playground. We topped it off by meeting Aaron at the bus stop on our way back from the park just as he was arriving home from work. Nothing more exciting than seeing Dad get off the city bus!