Week 2

We stayed for lunch today and it went really well. He liked the food which is always helpful and sat nice and ate the whole time. Skye on the other hand was constantly showing off her high pitches. My ears are ringing all the time now.

Overall today was successful. But they did a few activities he's never seen before and he was a bit unsure as they had the two groups mixed all day and he's only been there when they have been separated. So he was looking for me a bit more today, which is understandable.

None of the two girls he's been playing with where there today so he was playing with the wee boy who is his age and they were hoping would become friends with him. So the teachers were very happy to see them getting along great.

After lunch he wanted to stay and play more but it was time for us to head and hopefully he'll keep looking forward to going there tomorrow morning.

Xx

Day 4

On Friday morning we all woke up shattered. I was seriously considering phoning the nursery and tell them we couldn't make it and just stay at home and rest. Especially since I knew it would be an intense weekend with visitors and daddy home. But we managed to get ready and went down.

On Fridays it's fewer kids so they mix the age groups and Lance got to play with some of the older kids aswell. They also spent most of the time outside, which I think helped Lance as it's not as intense then. He was tired though and we went home half an hour earlier. He was ready to go and did not put up any sort of resistance. But he's not asked me once if we could go home or said that he didn't want to go, which I'm very happy about.

I'm well impressed with him this week and every day I've seen a difference in how he interacts with them all and is warming up to the other kids.

Let's hope we can continue on this note next week when we will start staying a bit longer and I will start leaving for certain periods of time.

Xx

Day 3

Today was a good day. The staff was one man short but you honestly couldn't tell. I was trying to help out when I could and ended up reading stories for 20 minutes.

Lance found a new friend today and I could hear her telling Lance how they did certain things and helping him understand. He was listening intently but I could tell he was a bit frustrated when he couldn't communicate his thoughts and feelings back to her.

We left pretty sharp today. Lance was so tired he even laid down on the ground for a wee rest when we were playing outside.

Skye was a wee trooper today. She got up at 6 and never managed another nap before we left and it was past 10 by the time I managed to put her in her pram. Totally exhausted and out like a light.

So a good day, hopefully more of those to come.

Xx

Day 2

We all woke up tired. But I noticed Lance was still exhausted from yesterday, he is usually super happy and playful in the morning. Today he woke up and everything I did was wrong and life seemed a bit harder. But he bit the bullet and fought through the two hours at nursery. Right when I said we were leaving he wanted picked up and told me he was tired and wanted to sleep.

I kept an extra eye on him today as I know when he's tired he snaps a lot quicker than usual. So a part from a few pushes and a few "NO"'s it went better than I expected.

He is not too bothered if he's not in the same room as me and he seems to feel secure with the staff already which is a big relief. The only time he asked for me was when they were dressing him to go out to play. He is very particular in how he wants everything. (socks pulled up, jeans tucked in the boots, scarf and hat on) so of course this will take a few tries before they get to know him.

I hope he starts feeling comfortable around the kids soon aswell and not so threatened. They have all been nice to him so far and they seem like a good group of kids and they are all pretty content with each other.

He seems drawn to the younger kids and he plays really well with them. In particular one wee girl who is two. They played together for the whole hour we were outside. So cute 😍.

Xx

Day 1 of nursery

It's only 1 o'clock and I'm already emotionally drained.

After a rough night with two unsettled kids we headed to Lance's nursery to start the schooling in process. Lance was excited, I was excited but nervous. He recognised the place straight away and started playing well with the kids. After a while they were 4-5 kids playing with the train tracks and he got very protective over the trains that were "his", so he started dishing out punches.

I feel almost sick and riddled with guilt and embarrassment when he does that. I hate violence and I hate that he hurts other kids. Thankfully the teacher help me tell him off and we spoke about it afterwards. It's always been the biggest struggle for me and I'm so glad they will help tackle this now.

After that incident everything went smoothly, he blended in well with the other kids and listened to the teachers. We ended the session with playing outside, which is Lance's favourite and he found two wee friends to play with.

When it was time to head he came up to me and said that he was tired but he wanted to come back tomorrow and play. What more can I ask?

After that we went to burger king for a quick lunch and he had two ✌ burgers 😱. When it was time to leave the tiredness came over him again and he had a massive meltdown in the restaurant and halfway home until he finally fell asleep.

When we were almost home a car pulled out right in front of me at a crossing and I had to slam on the breaks and steer the car into another road to avoid a collision. Of course by that point I was pretty drained already so the tears started flooding and heart was thumping. Just so thankful we didn't actually hit the car and we are all fine.

So I'm sitting blogging in the car while they are both sleeping and trying to gather some strength for the rest of the day.

Xx

Sweden update

It has now been two months since we moved and I thought maybe it's time to look back and reflect a bit.

Time has flown by and not at the same time. The kids settled into our rental house really quickly and so did we. It's a great wee wooden cabin in a quiet and family friendly community. The house is perfect for us right now but we are hoping to one day own a house again.

Lance loves being outside playing, the garden is fenced off so I can just watch him through the windows if I need to go in and get dinner ready. That was definitely something we were missing at our old house. The garden wasn't safe for children to play in.

He's been given a place at nursery so he'll start in 3 weeks. 15 hours a week. Will be great for him and will give me and Skye some quality time together. Lance loved his playgroup in Scotland so I'm hoping he will settle in just as well here.

So the every day life has been a smooth transition and the kids have adapted great. It's the paperwork and registration into the system that seems to be taking forever. Dealing with governments are a complete nightmare and nobody seems to know what you need just what you don't need and that they are definitely the wrong person to help. So I've been passed around departments for months trying to figure out what it is I need to ask for. I eventually had a breakthrough on Monday after 2 hours on the phone. But the paperwork I need will take 9 weeks to issue.  So another few months to go.

In the meantime I'll focus on the kids and we also have a holiday to menorca coming up, which we are all looking forward to.

We are just back from a week in the mountains where we've been skiing and boarding and enjoyed some family time in the snow.

Tonight it's time for some me time. A two hour yoga class that will hopefully help relieve some stress and tension. I'm really looking forward to it.

Over and out!
Xx

Belgium

We have now spent 5 days in Belgium so we could spend some family time before kicking off our new life in Sweden. It also means we can all travel up together.

It's not been too bad staying in a studio apartment, but I would not be able to do this for much longer 😂. Obviously with us all being in the one room, we all go to sleep at the same time including Skye and Lance. So there's been no down time. However it's been so nice to have a taste of a "normal" life. Having an extra pair of hands every evening and night has been so nice. I could really get used to that.
I will probably have to wait another few months for that to happen though, but it's definitely one of the goals.

I'm so excited to go to Sweden tomorrow and move into our new home. I can't wait for Lance to be reunited with his toys, teddies and other things that reminds him of home. He's been such a wee trooper through all of this and I just hope we will settle in quickly and feel at home.

I can definitely see its getting to him some days. The way he's acting up and gets angry for no reason. I just try to keep communicating with him and explain what's going on. Sometimes it helps, other times it's just a matter of riding out the storm.

Skye is growing so fast now. I just realised that she's almost grown a hole size in the last 3 weeks. She's also almost sitting unaided. I can't believe she'll be 5 months soon.

It might be busy times but at least we are together.

Xx

It is time 🔑

Tomorrow I'm handing the keys over to the new owner of the house. It's strange knowing that someone else is going to make it their home and probably going to make a lot of changes to it. We will never set foot in the house that was our home again. It's crazy how attached you get to the place you live in. But when I look back I realise it was ones a new, strange and unfamiliar place to us and I know we can make any place our home.

Our things arrived in Sweden and it's all waiting for us to come and reunite with it. We now have a house to rent until we find a house we want to buy. It's so nice knowing that we have somewhere to land and settle in. It was a huge weight lifted of my shoulders when I got the call. I am very excited about it and I honestly can't wait to see it.

This must be what bittersweet feels like for real. It's hard saying goodbye and at the same time look forward to what's to come. Everyone who knows me knows that I don't do goodbyes, only see you laters. Because we will and we fully intend to visit as much as we can. Relationships are what you make them. If there's something I've learned from moving around and living far away from friends and family is that it's not about quantity it's all about the quality and how you treasure and treat your relationships with people whether it be family or friends.

So tomorrow we close the door, literally, to that chapter of our lives and move forward.

Xx

The 7 Ps

Life is about to change! We are now spending our last night in our first house and will move out tomorrow. In 5 days time we'll be loading our furniture and boxes of stuff onto a trailer. A week later we will be catching our flight to go start our new chapter.

It's scary, exciting, freeing and stressful. Not knowing what the next year, month or week will bring is so much scarier when you have kids. I'm excited to be able to start fresh and we can build the life we want together and hopefully grow even closer as a family.

In the next few days it's all about the 7 Ps (proper prior preparation prevents pish poor performance). Every hour has an agenda and it's crunch time to get everything packed, binned or sold and the house emptied. Thankfully we have amazing family who are helping out with babysitting so I can hopefully get it all done.

I've been trying to prepare Lance for what is about to happen. Sometimes it seems like he's taking it all in and understands and other times he looks very confused. But hopefully we can take it step by step and tomorrow he will be saying goodbye to the house and I won't bring him back if I can avoid it. I think it would be hard for him to see the house empty but it might just be me.

I'm just sitting on the couch taking it all in, feeling a bit sad to leave our lovely home. But I know we are doing the right thing taking a chance in life. Otherwise we would always wonder what could've been.

Xx