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

Fried brain

They say that multitasking is harmful to the brain. It actually burns away braincells and we can start to suffer from short term memory loss. I am living proof that this is the case. I have never been this forgetful in my life and I've never had to multitask and be 15 steps ahead of the game to this level before. It never stops, no breaks and it's essential for surviving the day without major break downs.

I had to go check on Lance as he's not very well right now and totally forgot that I was even writing this post. Not until now an hour and a half later did I realise that I'd not finished it. This is getting bad. I think I need to try and find some way of slowing down the speed of this. I feel like a total air head right now. Please tell me I'm not alone!

Xx

New normal

It's been 12 days since hubby went back to work and I've been 1 against 2. It's definitely been interesting, exhausting, challenging, busy, overwhelming to say the least. But I've got to say I'm well impressed with myself. I've managed to keep us all fed and alive. So what that we had hot dogs three days in a row and some nights 4 hours sleep is an accomplishment or that some moments I've cried louder than the kids.

It's been a huge adjustment for all of us. Lance has had to learn to share attention and wait for things. We've had good days with lots of quality time while Skye has been sleeping. He's been very helpful in putting stuff away, helping out wherever he safely can. And some more challenging days with tantrums and doing the opposite of what I asked him to do. Testing the boundaries in every way possible. I'm just trying to make sure he knows he is still just as important and special to me.

Skye is healthy and growing each day. She's had to be left in her cot crying while I've dealt with Lance from time to time. It was really tuff and listening to your baby crying for you is heartbreaking. But I realised that Lance deserves for me to be present when I'm helping him and for me to listen to what he's saying, even if it means Skye is on her own for 5 minutes.

So to sum up we are all alive and we are all trying to figure out our new normal!

We take one day at a time, since no two nights are the same.

Xx

Independence and dependence

As we welcomed our baby girl Skye into the family about two weeks ago, life just seemed to speed up. She is a healthy, hungry, sleepy and very loved wee soul. Lance adores her and has been the best big brother since day one. I'm so happy to see him as excited about her as we are.

It's safe to say we have been very busy for the past two weeks and trying to figure out how to get out and stimulate Lance at the same time as enjoying our new family dynamic before their daddy goes back to work.

It's strange how quickly Lance grew up and became so independent and confident. I think it's been a huge boost having both of us home and also him having to entertain himself a bit more with Skye being here. He's also been playing with his cousins more.

So today he went to playgroup on his own for the first time. I was so nervous and walked around with the phone on loud in my hand the whole time. But it turned out he had been playing with all the boys and girls and had had a great time. So now he gets to go by himself two days a week as a start and then maybe more.

I think I'm the one struggling the most to adjust to the new independent wee boy and having a newborn being completely depending on me again. I need to stop and take it all in from time to time, because life doesn't do it for me.

Xx