Vilde Rosa; one year old today

Vilde, aka Ninja Baby (because of her tendency to crawl unseen to where ever she can do most mischief) is a charming little troll. She can be devious, even mean, Magne often gets a smack or a scream in the face, and Mette and I get clawed in the face regularly, but usually this is due to tiredness or Magne being pushy in his own way. She is a squat, heavy little thing, much more compact than her brother, but possibly not quite as heavy as Freja was. She likes to play with me, but tends to kick up a fuss with Mette, normal for girls I believe, and she hasn't slept a full night since August 2011.

Its hard to believe sometimes, but I have three children and the youngest is already one year old. I seem to spend a lot of time pondering the significance of this, often when I'm playing with them. How did my life get to this stage so fast I wonder, where are we heading to? Will I see them grow up? What will they be like a decade from now? Can I give them all they need? Love, certainly, but what about security, opportunity, ambition?

I tend to regard them as people first and foremost, not just my kids. Its important I think, not to deliberately impose ones own values. I don't think my parents did that. They more or less let me work that sort of thing out for myself. As long as I did as I was told and didn't misbehave, then there was no real imposition of morality. We were sent to Sunday School, but so were other children in those days and my parents certainly weren't religious. Eventually I discovered that they just wanted us out of the house for a few hours during the week end so they could have sex which is fair enough. Some people sem to think Christianity is bad for your health, but it never bothered me much. I just thought it was tedious.

I once told my RE teacher in High School that I didn't want to do a project about a man who had dedicated his life to helping lepers because that was boring. I was hoping there was some other project I could do, referably something involving Roman soldiers, but no. The RE teacher was a Christian and he went ballistic. How dared I mock the sacrifices made by the leper helper!? I was sent back to my desk in shame, but the truth was, it was boring. I ignored the project, accepting that I'd get a poor grade and spent the class oggling the girl with big breasts who sat behind me (Lovely Rita Johnson, I had such a crush on her, but it was all for nothing).

What I wonder is, could my children become religious perhaps, and if they do, what will I think? They could. It happens.

2012 part deux

Vilde's tyranny has continued and the advantagous hours of 0600 to 2200 were short lived. Last night she kept us up until 3 am. Finally we drugged her with panodil and were able to get a few hours before the other two went to DEFCON1

2012

I finally managed to reach a solution with regards to Vilde. I now go to sleep at 2200 each evening and get up at 0600. This cuts down on my ability to work in the evenings and at night, something I've done since I was eighteen, but gives me loads more energy during the day. Its a nice feeling to get up early and have loads of day light, etc, but the truth is, I also feel a bit like a fish out of water. Furthermore, it just feels wrong to paint figures during the day. Figure painting is a hobby and should really be done in the spare time one has during the evening, but when I have nothing more urgent to do, I usually get on with what ever needs doing for my various gaming projects.

As far as I can work out, I've lost roughly two hours of free time, per day, since Vilde was born. Luckily she just started at day care this week, so for the first time in almost a year, I have that free time during the day.

Subsequently I've slowly, but surely been painting my Africans.

I used to suffer from insomnia

Its 0600 and I've just been woken up, again, by Vilde who stubbornly and consistently refuses to settle down to a full night's sleep. As far as I can recollect, she has been waking up every twenty to thirty minutes and screaming hysterically until either Mette or I (usually me) goes in to comfort her. The end result of this for Mette and I is living with the effects of long term sleep deprivation in a way neither of us experienced with Magne, nor Freja. Effectively I have not slept eight straight hours in the last four months and this constantly being awoken each time I fall asleep means I now have a chronic headache and have been downing pain killers like cocktails every other day.

One two occaisions I have had the chance to catch up on my sleep. Sometimes Mette takes the kids and stays at her parents in Aalborg. When this has happened, I have swung like a pendulum to the opposite extreme and slept as many as eleven hours, awoken with back pains, a stiff neck and the inevitable head ache. Mette has likewise suffered when at her parents, for, as I experienced this christmas, Vilde abhors sleeping any where but at home, and she kept up a prolonged klaxon wail that made sleep impossible. Consequently I slept most of Christmas day and we decided to go home on Boxing day rather than face yet another such traumatic night.

With the children home all Christmas, and neither Mette or I inclined to punish ourselves further by arranging some distractions for them, sheer fatigue alone prohibits any such endeavour, the current holiday feels more like a Siberian prison sentence and my productivity feels equally as forced upon me as if I were one of Stalin's exhiles.

I used to suffer from insomnia so I'm used to unusual sleep patterns, but in those halcyon days I could sleep my mornings away and arise as midday as 'fresh as a sea eagle'. The tyranny of small children however means I get no sleep during the day either, so I survive on short cat naps until sudden catastrophic collapses leave me insensible for five or six hours.

The kids go back to their respective schools and institutues on January 2nd, and Vilde is due to begin day care too. I am fervently hoping that like her siblings before her, day care will eventually force Vilde to adapt to a daily routinue which results in a full night's sleep, both for her and for her parents, because frankly, I'm not sure how much more sleep deprevation I can handle before I malfunction.

Faster than light

Today was one of those days when you know its good to be alive. It rained, then it shone, then it rained again. Brief heavy showers whilst the sun shone. Mette and I drove out to Tilst to look at dull but practical clothing they used to sell at Bilka, but to no avail. The men's section was both tiny and appeared to be stuck in a time warp. Wasted effort. After this, with Vilde creaking from the back seat, we drove to Trøjborg and ordered a new futon. 12 days delivery alas. We drove home and killed an hour in the best possible manner. Chicken sandwiches for lunch and then I went to pick up Freja who was playing Lego Batman at school. She was reluctant, until she learned that since she is learning to tell the time, we were going to buy her a wrist watch. She chose a pink one with little red hearts on the strap, then we stepped next door to the juice bar. She chose pink again. We collected conkers from the parking lot at Klostertorv and when we passed by the cafe, 'Under Masken' we came across the artist Hans Krull who was sitting with two friends, one of whom was Vigo Sommer. Krull had been painting as he often does outside the cafe, which I believe he owns, and I stopped to look at what he'd done. He has his own particular style which I like. He gave me the painting after having asked me my name so he could dedicate and sign it. They were all drunk, but even sober I doubt he'd remember me. It was almost twenty years since last I spoke with him. He said; "Art should be therapy I believe. Art should be free." His friends agreed with him. The woman told me it was a great honour to be given a genuine Krull. She wished he'd give her one. Krull said he would. I said I was sensible of the honour and I shook his hand. It's kind of an ugly picture but I love it anyway. It is a picture of a man's head and Krull thought I looked like the man in the picture he'd painted. Viggo Sommer was one big smile. he'd aged so much, I hardly recognised him until he spoke and then there was the unmistakble voice. Freja sat on the bike seat and watched with the indifference of childish ignorance. "I might as well give them away because no one can afford them anyway" Krull said. I smiled sadly. It was probably true. I would certainly commission him to paint me some figurative art, preferably big woman, if I was rich, but alas, I'm not and probably never will be. We continued on our way to pick up Magne who was over joyed to see us. When we got home, I showed the painting to Mette. Later I read that scientists at CERN have measured neutrino's moving faster than light. I'm not surprised. This probably explains why there is no unified field theory.

moifling soup

Here is an updated image of me and the children for any one who hasn't see this on FB. This picture was taken about six weeks ago.

Vilde and Magne

Heres for those of you who don't have FB. Vilde at two months old and Magne (care of his uncle) at 3 years and 2 months. So far she's shown a fairly easy going nature, with a willingness to smile and even chuckle if provoked. She sleeps easy enough, and loves loud music, especially techno, Gary Numan or such. Right now she's asleep beside me whilst we listen to The Dead Weather's version of 'Are Friends Electric'.

Magne by comparison is not easy. Indeed, he has a tendency to whine a lot and take offence at the slightest provocation. I put this down to his being a boy as I have been told and I now accept, that young boys are far more likely to act his way, especially if they have an older sister. Having said that though, Magne is a mild mannered boy and quite friendly, even with strangers once he's decided they are not dangerous. He does have a 'warriors streak', and does like to pretend to be shooting people, but this is not his game of choice. He would much rather be playing with the vacum cleaner which he looks upon as his personal preserve (and is capable of generating a most amazing amount of noise if prevented). For some unknown reason, he refers to the vacum cleaner as the 'duck'.

moif world update; Vilde one month old

March was a hectic month, with all manner of things happening. Vilde's birth being the most monumentous (though it already feels like it happened several months ago) and the subsequent rearranging of our home to accomidate the family expansion. I have now been moved into the smaller back room to make way for my progeny, and I've spent the last week trying to settle in. This was made all the more difficult by rapid deterioration in my health (I've been bleeding internally now for about five weeks, thanks to the chronic illness I've suffered from since 1993) and Magne contracting chickenpox, and boy did he get it bad!

I actually don't mind moving as the back room is smaller and more 'hyggeligt'. I'm looking forwards to gaming in here, which I hope will be possible despite the fact that the children sleep much closer to where we'll be sitting than they did before.

One thing is for certain, I've now seen all the boxes with my figures, stacked in one great pile and the amount of money represented is not as overwhelming as a lot of people I know from the internet, but its quite an eye opener to me, not least since its about five years since I bothered to take stock and count them all.

Day three and Vilde (pronounced Vil-da) has settled into the standard eat-shit-sleep routine of all babies but shows some interest in her surroundings. Magne has shown very little signs of jealousy and Freja is still at her grandparents. The best news is, since Vilde was born, the sun has been shining strongly. At last!

Vilde Rosa

Born 2nd March at 23:25.
4.1kg.