AdventureDad

Quick poll, how many consecutive weeks (days?) have your mother in law stayed with you? My Mexican MIL is her for 6 weeks on vacation to hang out with her grandkids. I get along great with her and having her this long is no problem, she’s even been here 3 months a couple of times. She’s great with children and also gives us a nice perspective on our kids, especially our daughter. The hyper acitve one with occasional ADHD like behavior who can’t sit still.

My dad has this very annoying habit of never throwing anything away. It’s kind of a disease. His garage is filled with old vacuum motors, broken coffeemakers, rubber bands found all over the world, and even a dentist drill from his 30+ years as a top notch dentist. I would be more harsh but the fact is he can fix or put together anything. A house, car, lawn mower, toy, washing machine or anything else you can imagine. Clothes are also saved forever, something I’m very grateful for today.

An extensive survey by McGill University (McGill University (2008, May 6). Breastfeeding Associated With Increased Intelligence, Study Suggests) concludes that breastfed children have a higher IQ than bottle fed kids. Children who were breastfed exclusively for at least three months had better intelligence scores later in life than those who received formula, according to the largest study on the subject.

Pedophile centers like Belgium and Netherlands are bad but Austria seems to have even larger problems. It’s impossible to understand how a father could sexually abuse his daughter while keeping her locked in the basement for 24 years and forcing her to give birth to 7 children. What happened, how did this beautiful place become a symbol of the most horrible crime imaginable?

Exciting things are happening in the AdventureDad household. My daughter is making great progress, not only has she learned how to read cute picture books and make duck noises, she can apparently read blogs as well. I can draw no other conclusion after what happened since my post about living with ADHD like behavior. My daughter has decided to give me a break, and a hug, every now and then which has made my life so much easier.

I’ve had a great week with the kids but unfortunately the week ended tragically and made my own issues seem painfully irrelevant. I’m not exaggerating when saying the whole country is in chock over the murder of Engla, a 10-year old girl with her whole life in front of her. She was biking home alone when a stranger killed her. A nightmare for every parent but thankfully very rare in Sweden.

What do you mean, there is no crime scene tape in your living room? My son is a big fan of police, firemen, ambulances, and doctors. We finished off this fabulous week by a two hour visit at our local fire station where there was open house. We scaled every firetruck and ambulance available and chatted with the nice firemen. To my sons delight, I managed to bring back some crime scene tape which is something I’m starting to regret.

sn’t it kind of touching when parents argue about what’s best for their child? It just shows they really care about their child and the future. They fight because they passionately believe they know the best path to take. Like these two parents out of Denver who fought about which gang their 4-year old should join. Crips or the Westside Ballers. Both fine choices IMHO.

Winter makes parenting so much easier. Kids have a blast in the snow and time seems to pass quickly. It’s been a nice winter in northern Sweden with some great skiing but winter in Stockholm has been lame. Since my kids love snow I’ve had to be creative and use the little snow available. This has meant sometimes riding on grass barely covered by snow and also many visits to the ski slope a few minutes walk away where artificial snow is made during colder days.