Eat Your Browns

"Go on, just try a little bit."

"No fank you."

"Go on! It's nice! You like it!"

"NO! Will inte! Will har den här!"

"You've finished all of that, there's no more. Come on, try this."

"No! NO!"

"Look, here's just a little tiny bit on a fork. Put that in your mouth and taste it."

"BLERGHHH NOO ARRRGH WAAAAAAA"

This would be an entirely standard mealtime conversation with any toddler, certainly, And therefore unremarkable, bar the facts that

• I'm offering F chocolate cake 
• She wants to have more boiled carrots instead

There is no pleasing some people.

The Lessons of January

F is getting stroppier by the second. Her favourite words at the moment are:

• No! 
• Inte!
• Stop it!

And her least favourite things at the moment are:

• Not getting what she wants on demand
• Getting what she wants on demand
• Not knowing what she wants 

Last week was her birthday. The tally of tantrums got too many for me (F currently counts by saying "en, två, many" which is about right), but included such classics as her cousin V being offered some birthday cake, Daddy sitting next to her on the sofa and anybody looking at her new toy cars.

This is tiring. Ignoring the tantrums, which are at least mercifully short-lived on the whole, takes the shine off my otherwise cynically blackened sunny disposition. When your daughter is as likely to respond to an offer of play, food or attention with room-engulfing mood disintegrations, its hard to know what to do with your time.

We all have terrible colds on top of this. which hasn't helped. And it's either raining, snowing or the middle of the night in Gothenburg right now, adding seasonal cabin fever to the stew. Why on earth I think this is a good time to press ahead with potty training, I've no idea.

J: Would you like to sit on the potty?

F: No! Inte! Vill ha en bottle of milk!

J: That's not on offer right now.

(Mummy, who is in the bathroom getting ready for work, moves the potty a quarter of an inch with her foot as she moves past)

F: NOOOOOO! Det är min potty!

(Divers alarums)

V was doing the run-up to an opening night over the weekend, Dagis will not accept a child who is either febrile or was febrile yesterday, I've been at tantrum ground zero for five days. We tried combating the cough and fever with medicine. F has learned that medicine tastes vile and can be spat vigorously out. When I started coughing the day after, she nodded wisely and suggested I have some medicine for it.

As an aside, Dagis is getting on my wick at the moment. (This is not hard, all tantrums and no sleep make Wick a long chap, and it's hard to stay off him.) One of the teachers insists on speaking English to F although we've said we prefer them not to. Fair enough, F's Swinglish probably means that's needed. But having tasked us to weaned her off her dummy (about 90% done although she still sleeps with it) and in a rather patronising 'we know best' manner I might add, F seems to have it every time we pick her up. I don't know if this is mere testament to just how stroppy F is or whether they just need a kick in the pants, but there's a parent teacher night coming up soon and I'm looking forward to snarling all through it.

Anyway, after five days in a row of being home to take care of F and her hacking cough, I'm fairly rock-bottom-y. Back in class today, I fell asleep on the tram on the way in, whilst doing a writing exercise and then on the tram home. Snoozing before, during and after a lesson is not indicative of a ready-to-learn state.

Immediately afterwards, I picked F up and took her home and she helped me cook dinner. Egg fried rice with beef, which she was very excited about until I added her beloved plain rice to the wok, at which point she wanted a bottle of milk instead. Once I'd finished ignoring this volte face and eaten my food, I made the bottle of milk, at which point she got into bed and wanted a night night story instead. Once I'd got her into pyjamas, cleaned her face and teeth and read a book (twice) to her, she wanted to get up and play instead. Once I'd put her back to bed, turned out the light, sung to her and said goodnight, I got to listen to a steadily cresendo of "daddy daddy daddy" for an hour and half, culminating in a shriek, then a surprisingly polite and calm request for the bottle of milk again.

I mean, ever get the impression you're being played?

Taking Steps

"Right, okay, if you're not going to put your toys away, you can sit on this chair until you decide to behave." I think I probably threw a "young lady" in there somewhere for good measure, just in case I wasn't sounding enough like a huffy teacher.

F is generally pretty biddable, but had decided the collection of toy ketchup bottles she'd brought to the loo this morning was going to stay there unless I wanted to move them. When I disagreed, we had a battle of wills for the next hour. Fifteen minutes of screaming reduced me to trying the only parenting trick I know, which of course I learned from obnoxious junk TV.

Supernanny was actually on TLC earlier, bullying some grotesque American family for your entertainment. Look, the program (all programs ever on TLC, in fact) seems to say - your family isn't this insanely screwed up. So you must be good people and should feel good about yourselves. Stay tuned, Burkina Faso's Celebrity Next Top Wig Maker coming up next!

Seeing the show at least reminded me that I was doing the Naughty Step thing right, anyway. I wasn't convinced. Not least because we live in a flat and don't have any steps, the corner chair in Mummy and Daddy's room had to suffice. It was the most boring place I could find, although I did have to remove three Scandinavian-knit jumpers, a replica viking sword and a giant yoga ball from it first. What an interesting house we have.

F went through every classic manipulation she could find: -

• Telling Daddy to go and clear the toys away for her
• Turning entirely boneless with rage and sliding off the Chair like a paralyzed eel
• Stopping crying and until I came to look at her again, then picking up where she'd left off
• Getting off the Naughty Chair to play chess* when I wasn't looking
• Claiming she actually quite liked the Naughty Chair and was going to stay there indefinitely
• Playing with a nearby clock until it was removed (I didn't think of it as interesting enough to remove it in advance)

I left her to it for the most part. Which is hard. Basically, I don't really care about the toys. It's the principles at stake! I told you to do this one tiny thing, little daughter, and now I shall put us both through emotional hell until you concede I was right! It's for your own good! It certainly wasn't for mine, I'll tell you that. If F could see how much guilty remorse I was having to mask by hiding in the next room, anxiously Googling the authentic method of the Naughty Step, she'd have cracked me in minutes.

I went back in to try and start a reasonable conversation in the occasional lulls. Which would go fine until I reintroduced the whole sorry 'pick up your toys' thing, and then we'd be back to square one and redoubled weeping. But after a mere hour of fairly continuous wailing, she suddenly tried a new tack. Earnest smiles through the grubby tears:

"Feya be happy now, cuddle daddy."

"Oh good!" I said, and then suspiciously added "so will you pick up the toys?" because I wasn't born yesterday.

"Yes. Cuddle cuddle."

Maybe the day before yesterday. She'll have worked out how to beat this new parental ploy in a week or two, doubtless. But I'm chalking this round up to me.

*Her opening moves consist of throwing everything she can't get to work or doesn't like the look of off the board and then holding up the King and chanting his name proudly, which I believe is called George Osbourne's Gambit.

2014 Calendar

Happy New Year! Hope you had good ones. 

By way of a slightly late annual review, here is a selection of pictures of F doing F-type things all through 2014. She ages at a rate of about half a month per picture. I've got too much of a headcold (and too much post-Jul gastric sluggishness) to write more at the moment, but expect business as usual throughout the coming year. 

 

 

Advent

Holidays! Finally. Dagis finishes up by sending F home with a fresh set of heavy colds, and the cheery Jul announcement that we may all have lice by now.

As my school term finished with a national test, the relentlessly depressing grey of the Gothenburg winter suddenly bloomed into festive market season. Glittering stars everywhere, musical neon windmills and whalesong tree decorations in Brunsparken, Santa hats for all. Tomte hats, sorry. Although tomtarna are also the elfish helpers here, which I find confusing even if they do wear the same hats.

"Is Santa coming to visit you at Christmas, F?"

"Yeah."

"What's he going to do?"

"Bing pents. Feya vill ha en car." F's Swinglish is more and more fluent. I can't tell if she's trying to say the Swedish - jag vill ha (I want to have) or the rather more oracular English "I will have", but the end result is likely the same.

-

We have tickets for the Opera's Luciatorget. Well, I'm getting in because I'm performing. F and V have seats as a result. Let's say tickets, it's easier.

I'm reading a translation of a classic Swedish Jul poem, Tomten. Not technically Santa or any of his elves in this context, but an older sprite rather like a house elf. The one Coke stole the whole Santa look from, in fact. We don't have them in the UK, so there's no equivalent. This has made the translation difficult. So difficult in fact that the original translator has basically given up in places, and abandoned niceties like rhyme or actual meaning. I spent four hours trying to improve on it the previous night.

While I stand in the wings, theatre staff dancing round me in polar bear costumes, V is dancing an entirely different dance in the auditorium. F is high on gingerbread, handed out free in the lobby beforehand, and sits still for about three minutes before wanting to run all round the theatre shouting excitedly. When I see them after the show, F is still doing this (although it rapidly degenerates into crying because the queue for the saffron buns is too long) and V looks like she's run a marathon.

I get my chance the following day, during Hagakyrkans Lucia concert. Actual tickets this time, courtesy of Mormor, who won them in a lotto at the christmas market where we accidentally stole the wheel of cheese. Long story, obviously.

Haga is the church we were married in, it's got a lovely old-fashioned wooden interior. The pews have little doors at the ends. F likes little doors. You can say "bye bye!" to pappa and close them behind you, then shout "hej hej!" when you come back in. A breezy church lady whisks past us smiling and stops, as though incidentally, to mention that there's a fully loaded creche room just off the nave where you can take restless children. I'm sure it's coincidence. I'm sure F didn't open the pew door into her shin.

When the lights dim and the candles come up, and the ethereal choir of white-gowned children float down the aisle singing Santa Lucia, F stills and points, and silently bobs about to get a good view of the Lucia Train as it passes. I am an embodiment of glowing paternal pride. Fifteen seconds later she's screaming in the face of a toddler in the pew behind her, who has dropped his toy cow next to her and has the temerity to want it back. We spend the rest of the concert driving wooden cars up and down the wheelchair access ramp out back.

-

V has booked us an overnight boat trip to Denmark to mark the beginning of her holidays! It's the middle of the week, the ferry is nearly empty, and F has the rule of the play area.

Although the plastic slide and Harry Potter Lego display are big favourites, the main attraction is the skiing arcade game in the middle of the games room. F stands on the skis, slapping the flashing buttons and saying Oo. Until mummy pays for her to have a go, then she skidaddles dismissively. V dutifully attempts the race in her stead and comes 5th. Out of five.

The ferry marks F's most conscious introduction to restaurant eating yet. She is very impressed with the buffet. You can see her thinking 'I get to choose what I want? And I don't have to eat the rest?' Mainly salad with a token sausage, followed by a large tub of Mr Whippy from the ice cream station, then.

After the ferry comes the swimming. The hotel in Frederikshamn has a huge pirate-themed water park, complete with tropical thunder storms, an outdoor whirlpool and a giant waterslide you ride inflatable rafts down. Also, because luck is fickle, two coachloads of teenagers trying to pull each other in the bubble spa.

F plays very happily for two hours in the kids area, which features a spurting whale fountain that looks cute until you realise it's hopelessly beached and not going to live long. We try her in the shallows of the wave pool, but by then she's tired, and an ill-timed thunderous wave storm puts her off.

She shares our hotel room very happily. Also all of mummy's chips in the restaurant. We were worried she'd be restless, but she's all played out after the water park and ferry trip. This does mean we have to go to bed at 1900 too. It's been a while since I did that; after an hour of sleep, I get up and go and read downstairs in the lobby (Brian Aldiss, Greybeard, very good) until I'm tired enough to sleep properly.

The morning after she eschews more swimming for lying in the cot between our beds, watching Cars on the iPad and eating cashews from a can. Between that, the breakfast buffet and the Julbord on the ferry home, she settles into a hotel lifestyle pretty fast.

Two days later, I'm kicked off the computer. "Pappa go kitchen. Cook! Feya hungy," she tells me. This is mostly a ruse so she can play on my spinning office chair, but she follows it up by standing in the kitchen door and setting out the menu.

"Ish ingers! Peas! Vill ha glass a milk." Sweets to follow, easy on the going easy. Have it sent up to the penthouse, put it on my bill.

-

Currently, with the official Swedish Christmas now three and a half hours away, we are sprawled on the floor after a day of cleaning. Well, V is. I'm helpfully writing about it instead. F's main present is being assembled, and the screws don't fit properly. Glue bottles, assorted ratchets and impatience are accumulating around us, under the fixed stares of a half-dozen painted tomtar. The pastry crust on my mince pie is as ragged as our tempers, there are two kilos of meatballs to fry tomorrow morning before the family arrives and there's nowhere left to hang any washing.

Ho ho ho.

Eat Your Heart Out, Peter Pan

Slowly, we sink into the depths of winter.

Around half four on a cold, if not bitterly so, saturday, F and I are playing at Plikta, the big playpark in Slottskogen. The light is gone, so the park is floodlit and increasinly deserted. Occasional joggers go by, helicopters sometimes rush overhead on the way to the nearby hospital (which F loves) and the usual muffled city noises fill the night.

But the park itself feels somwhat chill. Too much blackness and not enough children running about playing - a playpark can be sinister in such conditions. F is not done with the swings yet, however, so I hold on a little longer.

She won't wear her gloves, although her hands are pink and cold. It's not below freezing, quite a mild night compared to the rest of the week in fact, even if the rising night makes it seem colder. We are, however, the last people there.

Playgroup is a mixed blessing, I have been thinking. F has breakfast and dinner with us during the week, but little more than that. She is tired by the end of a week of dagis. Midweek she's pretty happy to arrive there, reciting the names of her teachers and friends. She waved me off before I had a chance to last week, rushing off to push a toy pram about without a lookback.

But by Thursday or Friday, the smiles are faded, replaced with the blank look of someone who knows she can't do much to change the day ahead and will have to suffer through it. Saturday and Sunday are good, we can catch up and play. Then on Monday she looks mournful when we leave her again. She tried to climb the bars of the sandpit the other morning, in fact, giving us a desperate sad smile as she asked us to come and play with her this time.

Oh, wee lady, you just wait until school starts. Or a job. I often hear my fellow European immigrants complaining that Swedish schools don't get children ready fast enough, that they let them play for too long. Bloody Protestant work ethic, it makes me think. Why not just get them to stitch shoes if you're so hell-bent on getting them industrious? Let them play. Plenty of time to work later, and having nine-to-five daycare away from the family is quite work enough when you aren't even two.

Anyway - this is why I've stayed longer than I meant to at Plikta, and why we're the last ones at the roundabout in the gathered dusk.

Good old parental guilt, it's a highly horsepowered engine. F at this moment is eschewing the various equipment of the park and has settled on a good old-fashioned slope, which she is practising running up and down. But as she turns her back on the floodlight pole at the top of the slope, she becomes first dismayed, then angry.

"Pappa! Pappa! No! NoaaAA!"

"What is it, lovely? What's the matter?"

"Feya vill noha sadow!" she wails dramatically, pointing and hopping from foot to foot. "Pappa tah bot!"

She's doing this because stretched out in front of her, stark and deep, is her shadow. And she wants none of it, and because she can't shake it off, she'd like me to take it away. At least she's given up on the moon for the moment, not that this is an easier ask.

Much as I'd like to remove them, life is full of shadows. I settle for getting her to turn back to the light, so at least the apparent pit at her feet is not distressing her, and then we go home and have pasta.

Det är Årstiden

Christmas is coming.

Glowing stars hang in the windows. Red candles and tableclothes adorn the kitchen. Two large crates of faux pine branches, Viennese baubles and tomte-themed placemats lurk in the corners of the room, ready to take pride of place towards the other end of advent. I have Pa Rupapum Pum repeating on me like an auditory turkey curry.

Several years back, V bought me a musical stocking. It has a jingle-belled Rudolph, who wiggles and sings 'Merry Christmas' when you press the button in his arm. Not the 'Merry Christmas' you and I know and love, a version that goes to the tune of Lulu's 'Shout'. It has lyrics like 'Don't forget the milk and cookies, don't forget to bring all the presents to my house now', truly capturing the modern spirit of Christmas yours for only £7.99, order now for an free mince pie themed coaster set.

F knows how to turn it on. Shout? I certainly tried. Still can't drown the bloody thing out.

Advent calendars are far too boring and normal for Sweden. We've nailed a doll to the wall. It's got lots of pockets and loops on it, one for every day of Advent, which can be filled with appropriate goodies. It's a great thing, a new Christmas tradition for the family. V and I were very over-excited as we filled it and hung it up.

F is also very excited, although also quite cross.

"Car!" she said, spotting a nice red plastic racing car tied to pocket number one with green ribbon. "Tack Nissa!" and then she ran about playing with it very cheerfully.

She came back within five minutes. "Plane!" she said, spotting a nice plastic biplane. V and I chuckled indulgently to each other at her avarice, and then explained Advent again.

"No, you only get one pocket a day. The plane is for another time."

Good old 'another time'. With 'not right now' and 'maybe later', the principle hours of the Neverland Clock. F was appropriately appalled at this chronological invention and had a suitable tantrum at being balked, only soothed when she got to run the racing car over Daddy's face for a bit.

The doll is called Nissa. Later on, after the fifteen minutes of low winter sun gave way to icy darkness, we began to realise that it's all very well having snug and cozy lights through the flat. But the flickering candles also give Nissa a sinister cast. like a vaguely Yuleish Slender Man. Twice I've caught myself checking she isn't getting taller.

Or nearer. Uh-oh ho ho.