Archive for the ‘Emma’ Category
Protected: Continuing the Fun in Oslo
Friday, August 8th, 2008Protected: Walking Practice
Saturday, July 12th, 2008Protected: Word of the Week
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008Protected: Conquering the Castle
Friday, June 20th, 2008Cheerleaders for the Day
Saturday, June 14th, 2008Dave was running the Nordmarka Skogs (Forest) Marathon today so Emma and I were required to act as cheerleaders. It turned out to be a really fun day so we’d both be happy to do it again. We were in a better state than Dave at the end of it as well.
Oh No, No O
Monday, June 9th, 2008We drove over to the end of Maridalsvannet for the Nydalten event, run by Nydalens OK on Sunday. It was another scorcher of a day and the assembly field was smallish and shadeless. The focus of the day was on the Trimtex Cup, a series of races for juniors. They were having a Chasing Sprint and were just finishing the prologue when we arrived. Possibly because of the style of their races but maybe also because of the small number of entries, the start block for the rest of us was pretty short. Consequently, we ended up with 80 minutes between Dave’s start (first) and mine, with mine being right at the end of the normal people. With Dave’s course being 10.5km and hilly and the start being 2km away, it was always unlikely to work. In the end, he was out over 100 minutes so I didn’t have a hope of getting there, not that I felt much like it after a couple of hours of entertaining Emma in a hot and dusty car park.
Swimming with Tadpoles
Saturday, June 7th, 2008It’s been a blindingly sunny week again here in Oslo and Emma and I have been taking advantage of it. Thursday and Friday saw us outside most of the day, with a trip to Sognsvann on Thursday with a friend and her daughter and a swim in Bantjern with some more friends and babies on Friday afternoon. The swim was brilliant, with my Norwegian friend estimating the water temperature at about 20 degrees. Emma has taken to the outdoor life very well and had a great time climbing over roots and rocks on the lake shores both days. She’s not quite as keen on the water. Obviously it’s attractive looking as she crawls over to it at great speed, but when she’s got her hands wet she generally moves backwards. I think it’s still a bit too cold for her.
Anyway, the tadpoles … There were lots of fairly big tadpoles swimming about in Bantjern - not something I’ve seen before but it’s always been later when I’ve been lake-swimming.
Apparently it’s going to cool down a bit next week and might even rain. I think I’m ready for it as everything seems hard work in the heat and the marathon training is best not mentioned!
Real Nappy Update
Sunday, June 1st, 2008Emma has now grown out of her second size of Tommee Tippee nappies so I’ve had to update our stock. As ever, it was a long and complex process choosing which ones to buy, followed by some random button clicking at the end when I actually placed the order. All of them have pros and cons and however well-written the information is it’s very hard to tell what’s going to fit your baby’s bottom best. In the end, I plumped for a Flexitot and aBamboozle (both by Totsbots) and a motherease Sandy (see kittykins, a very friendly nappy shop with lots of details of the nappies they sell). All have been worn once and seemed to work. The Flexitot is a lovely nappy and I’d buy more of those if I had a chance, the only downside being it uses velcro (which for some reason all nappy websites call applix). I’ve bought poppered versions of the other two as velcro tends to get a bit fluffy after a few washes and then starts to curl. As for nappy nippers, …
Sunny Oslo
Thursday, May 8th, 2008Today Oslo was the warmest capital city in Europe, so I was told by a reliable souce (our landlord!). It’s certainly warm here, even at quarter past eight in the evening. Emma has continued to sample the great outdoors and we’ve managed another two runs in the running buggy this week.
It’s good to see Emma enjoying the running buggy so much. She sits with her head out, looking from side to side and exclaiming when we see a dog, a bird, a buggy, another child, a bus, a motorbike, a bike, … However, 40 minutes was enough today and I don’t want to push it. To thank her for being so patient, we ended at the playground in Frognerparken. There’s an amazing castle-shaped climbing frame which is brilliant for the over 3s and a great sandpit with small climbing frame that’s more Emma’s size. We were in the sandpit for getting on for an hour this morning. Then a walk round the park while she had a sleep before a picnic on the grass. She loved it all.
Buggy Running
Sunday, May 4th, 2008I’ve restarted my marathon training so Emma and I braved the Nordmarka with the running buggy this morning for a long run. I managed 80 minutes running, she managed 30 mins sleeping so everyone was happy. There was still some snow on the tracks, which being pretty old was quite slippy. We could cope with little patches but when it got more extensive we had to turn round. That meant the run was a bit stop start and didn’t have a nice satisfying loop. The buggy worked fine except on the really rocky stuff, where the front wheel seemed to work itself a bit loose, but that may just have been me not putting it together properly.
Most importantly, we ended near a playground so Emma could have a play in a sandpit and a go on a swing before we caught the T-bane home. That meant both of us enjoyed our morning out and felt we’d got a good dose of sunshine. Hopefully the weather will hold for the rest of the week so we can do a few more running trips out.