Ouma, ice hockey and jinglebells

We had a visit from my mom, henceforth known as ouma, for ten days at the end of January. It was really good to have her here. I went to work most days, since I had an examination to prepare for, and she and Tracy held the fort. It snowed for all except one day while she was here, and the world was a snowy wonderland. She was a very willing babysitter, and we were able to go skiing together, we went to bible study without Annabel, and even went to a restaurant. It was the first time I have ever seen Springbok meat sold for less than beef. The prices were really obscene, at least by SA standards, but we had a lovely time together. Even Annabel was sad when ouma had left. The whole day after she was gone, Annabel would make these little sighing noises and look sadly out the window. While ouma was here Annabel started learning to hit the little bells that are attached to her mobile. She has subsequently recorded the first track of her upcoming CD, entitled Atmosbellic. If you are interested I can send a small sample of her work...

My friend Lari invited me to go and play ice hockey with him and some friends, like you would get a touch rugby invite in SA. My skating is ok as long as I am going straight forward at a moderate speed. Anything other than that spells difficulty if not disaster. So when you play ice hockey you have to concentrate on what the puck or ball is doing and how the stick is controlling this, which left me with little brain power to control the skating part. Needless to say, I was constantly picking myself up off the ice, and near the end managed to whack my head on the ice. I have a newfound respect for ice hockey players, and can understand some of the anger they display towards their opponents - it must be a way of letting off steam from all those frustrating falls they had while they were learning the game.

Tracy and Sini went pulka sliding again, today is officially Laskiaistiistai - sliding downhill tuesday. The idea is to go downhill on anything that will slide on snow, which is just about anything. Afterwards you are supposed to eat pea soup, sweet buns and hot chocolate. I think it is the Finnish version of festive carnival before the fasting of lent, slightly understated, as with most things Finnish.

Frozen trees and praying

There is a weather phenomenon called 'frozen fog' that we have experienced this last week. Basically I think that fog rolls in from the ocean, much like it does over the Natal midlands, but then gets surprised by a nasty -17 degrees mainland, and goes into shock. Before it has time to wet its proverbials, everything is frozen and it carries on as usual. But whatever it comes into contact with gets covered in a fine layer of ice crystals. When it snows, the trees get these heavy lumps of white on any part that has sufficient surface to hold a bit of weight, but this just coats everything. It is spectacularly beautiful. I sometimes saw white plastic christmas trees in shops in SA, and always wondered at how fake you could get - why not luminous pink or ultramarine, while you are at it. But now I understand that they were trying to copy this.

We have just finished a week of prayer and fasting with our bible study group, and had a great

time praying with our friends. Instead of normal bible study, we spent the evening praying for the group and each other, and then also had a night of prayer on Friday. We really hope that we can do this more regularly, there is no real culture of prayer here, and the church prayer meeting consists of three guys who meet every week.

My mom is coming to visit next week, which we are excited about, since we were not able to go home and see all the other family. We are hoping to make a plan about when we can go soon, but are still waiting on an ID number for Annabel before we can really start thinking about it.

We have been skiing as often as Annabel allows it. Tracy needs to feed her and then go, while I take care of the hour and a half she is away. It is really fun, and we have found some nice tracks around the area we live, through the forest. I was thinking of the scene in the Narnia book last time I went skiing, where the little girl first arrives in Narnia and she comes to a place in the forest where there is a lamppost. It felt like I was in the Narnian forests.

Christmas, New Year and Travels

We have had an amazingly frustrating 4 weeks with regards to our travel plans. Annabel needs a South African ID number and passport, and a Finnish visa/residence permit in order to travel. To get all these things properly would take about 9 months. Unfortunately we had planned to travel to SA, our plane left last week, in fact. But we had hoped that we could get a temporary passport and a quick issue re-entry visa, which, in theory, should take a little more than a week. Unfortunately the embassy sent our application for an ID number a little later than immediately, and then Home Affairs lost the application. This we discovered after Tracy's parents and their friends spent the best part of 3 days on the phone. We found a very helpful man, who discovered that the whole diplomatic bag was lost. So he said that we could re-send the application to him and he would take it down to the ID department personally. So we sent all the documents that the embassy told us to have. He then found that we also need our birth-certificates ??? Isn't Home Affairs the place I should go if I want a re-issued birth certificate? Surely they can check on the system? Anyway, mine is in a box somewhere in Hilton, but we managed to find a copy of Tracy's and sent that off. So now we are waiting to hear from him again if that is enough.

So the short of it is that our trip has been postponed. :(

Sorry if you had planned to see us, we will have to make another plan, there is always room in our flat here...

We spent Christmas eve with Simon and Sini, who cooked us a traditional Finnish Christmas meal, it was truly delicious, and we had a lovely time decorating their tree and chatting. We also went with Willem and Hanna-Leena to a little cottage about 3 hours from here for New Years eve.

We were invited long ago, but thought that we would be flying to SA, so then we re-invited ourselves and joined them on short notice. It was great to get our minds off the dissapointment. We spent lots of time playing board games, sledding and in the sauna. We went from the 90 degrees of the sauna to roll in the snow at -21. I think that is quite an impressive temperature differential. The other friends who we spent time with there grew up in the town. Her family have been farming the same farm since before 1630 - take that Jan van Riebeeck!

It has been truly freezing here since Christmas, with temperatures very rarely going above -10, and as low as -24. We have been cross-country skiing a lot, there are some tracks in the park just over the hill, and you can follow them for kilometers, if you had the fitness. I joined Thomas and some other friends this morning for a lovely ski in a big centre. There are lots of uphills and downhills, and we completed a circuit of about 7 km. Milla has promised to take Tracy soon.

A family pic

We caught Annabel in one of her very happy moments! She gives the biggest smiles when she's fed, got a clean nappy, is not tired and has no tummy troubles... that's at least once a day!

Getting out and about

Tracy's grandfather very generously offered to buy us a pram before Annabel was born, and what a blessing the 4x4 has been! We've pulled it through knee-deep snow, over icy paths, on the trains and busses, and around town. In all situations it seems to manage well, and Annabel sleeps like an angel all cuddled up inside. The lower 2 pics are in the park close to our flat, in which we go walking quite a bit. The last few days, however, there's been A LOT of snow, and the paths haven't been cleared so well. That makes for a very energetic walk for whoever is pushing.

Above is a Christmas market - the outing for that day. The Christmas atmosphere all over the city is quite warm, with loads of lights, and you don't have to go far to find a cup of warm Glogi (spiced fruit juice with raisins and almonds).

Also above, is Annabel parked on the side of a relatively big slope, waiting for mom and dad to have a slide on a Christmas sled :) Below is the evidence... what fun!

And then there were 3...

Annabel is such a treasure!
Some highlights from the first 10 days:
Her first bath at home started wonderfully - she seems to like the water. The basin is a little small though, so not much splashing around yet. After washing her hair and starting with the rest, the bubbles started ... soon there were yellow floaty bits everywhere - all that cleaning gone backwards! She then just got a rinse under the tap. Her next bath was a little less eventful:)

When we left the hospital she'd lost 7.6% of her birth weight, which it still ok and expected. However the midwife suggested we try feeding her every 2-3hrs for a few days, instead of every 4hrs. We did this, her waking through the night, and waited the week for the clinic sister's visit so that she could be weighed again. She said they should pick up about 100g a week, but our little darling has really over-achieved by picking up 400g in 6 days! We can see a little fat roll under her chin developing and her cheeks are much fuller as well. We're feeding her less now!
We managed a little family outing today with the pram - Half an hour walk to the shop and back. We were actually in search for a photo shop to get residence permit for her pics, with no success. I also think we over-did the dressing too, as the 5 layers of junpsuits, sleeping bag and padded carrycot inside the pram toasty kept her in the -2 degrees and chilly wind. She seemed quite happy though, and is still sleeping on the walk, although mostly unwrapped now :) It was really good for mom to get out a bit too as I've been rather flat-bound for the last while.

There've been a rough few days of nigglyness and unhappiness, but she sleeps well at night, so at least we feel we start each day a little fresher. She also has no problems feeding, and mom seems to be a rather good milk provider :)
Dad has spent most of the last week in official offices trying to get all her paperwork sorted out. She's a no-body on paper at this stage, not getting automatic Finnish citizenship, and it taking some time to get registered as a South African.

The birth

Tracy started having medium contractions on Saturday night. This shelved my plans to play on Sunday morning at church, and we waited at home most of the day. During the night it felt like the birth was going to happen any moment, but when morning came, of course, it was not to be yet.

We eventually went to the hospital just after 7 in the evening. Tracy was having really strong contractions at

about 4 minutes apart, but her cervix was slow to open, and the delivery only really started 5.30 on Monday. The pushing stage lasted only about 20 minutes, and did not need any help from the nurses. In fact, through it all Tracy was amazing. She was very calm and relaxed, even in the intense pain of delivery, and the midwife (who was really nice) commented on how well Tracy listened to her, even right at the end.

There were no complications, and Annabel received an Apgar score of 9 - already an overachiever like her mom! Tracy received some second degree tears, and had to be taken to theatre to be sown up, and is currently still a bit sore. She was fine in the hospital, but I think she was running on adrenalin, and coming home has ended all that. No one to ask help now, no one to do the dishes and clean and cook (except me, of course!). The hospital took such good care of us. We were in a room dedicated to us, and ate all our meals over the 3 days there, and had the constant attention of a midwife/nurse specialising in babycare. They helped so much with getting the breastfeeding going and general advice on nappies, washing, sleeping, etc. etc.

Annabel is feeding like her dad - lots, fast and easily. She had a little difficulty to start with, but no problems now. She is also sleeping really well. We have to wake her up for her (now 3 hourly) feeding times, and she has not yet woken us up. She is really calm, and has had a couple of crying sessions because she has been frustrated and over tired, but these have not really lasted longer than 5 minutes.

I am completely overwhelmed by the emotions she awakes in me, I am so proud and humbled, and completely blown away by her.

This last picture is how to dress someone to go out into the Finnish winter. I think her legs end somewhere near the crotch of this suit, but it should last until the end of this winter at least.