At the lake

Next up we went to visit grandma and grandpa at their new abode. They traded in the city home for a permanent beach location in Carl Larson's neighborhood. It's a fun place with terrific view and limitless opportunities to get into trouble. While there a few observations were made:

1) Grandpa makes a mess cooking so he has to do it outside.

2) Grandma's the greatest babysitter. She even volun-teered for the overnight shift while mom and I took a jaunt to the capitol for a rare evening of silence and Shiraz. Thanks, grandma!

3) Mowing the yard has an unfair bad rap.

4) Playing ball will be way more fun when you can run on your own.

While in Sundborn, our friends from Copenhagen trekked north for a visit. Having been frequent visitors to this site since it's inception, it was nice to introduce baby M in person. Seeing them was, as always, a boatload of fun.

Snacking with grandma

The peach puff tour of 2007 continued with grandma being introduced to the delicious morsel.

It was almost eleven months since last they saw each other.

At that time he looked like this:

Snacking with Anna

Aunt Anna was kind enough to pick us up at the airport and give us a stately ride to Sandviken.














M reciprocated by introducing her to peach flavored Puffs.







If you watch carefully you may be able to detect a certain family resem-blance...















Continuing the royal treatment... Tommy was kind enough to drive us around and guide to some good meals.
And Albin shared his car collection which was very timely because nowadays everything M gets his hands on turns into a car - wheels or no wheels.

Jetlag

We live in an age of mobility. I think I was 18 before I set foot in an airplane. Baby M was introduced to the skies at less than a 14th of that age.

Flying went amazingly well. I'm sure the tubes in his ears helped make the air pressure changes easier on him than on anyone else in the 757. It also helped that the flight took off right around his bed time. He was asnooze by the time we hit cruising altitude!

M slept through most of the flight woke up to find it was mid-day in Stockholm - right in time for fond reunions with Grandma, Grandpa and aunt Anna.

After spending his first day in Sweden he went to bed around 8 local time (with no protests!). We went to bed temporarily feeling qualified to write a handbook in traveling with small children.

At 11 at night he was wide awake and ready to play! It was a very long shift from 11 to 4 when he was finally out. The concept of bedtime can be tricky to explain to a toddler. It doesn't get any easier when the sun rises at 2 in the morning.

More on the trip tomorrow.

Ps. If you ever find yourself wondering how a bull might feel strolling through a china shop... try carrying a car seat through the airport!