Homecoming

I haven't been writing for soo long now, and I have actually started to miss doing it, so her we go again :D

Things are changing in my life - we are on the break of moving, I work at a place I more and more feel is too much for me, and the kids are growing so fast I can't believe it..

As an example of that, I just have to refer one of the conversations I had with my son the other day. I was sitting and chatting with a friend of ours, when he suddenly interrupted, and asked me if I knew that the universe has been created by a huge explotion. "Yes," I answered - "that is a theory". "Then", he continued - "if something exploded, that means that something existed before the universe was created". "I guess", I answered. "But this is something the human mind has no capacity of understanding." He said nothing, but I could almost hear the braincells in his head running around like crazy. The conversation blew my mind. I would never have guessed that a 7-year old would think like that :D

So, life is changing rapidly, and every day is new and adventurous :D So far.

an anecdote

My nephew was baptized Sunday, and the kids were amazing in church - the ceremony lasted for over an hour, and they didn't make me wish I had never had kids :D

I really want to share an anecdote with you, though :D Towards the end of the sermon, everybody who wanted was invited to join the communion. A quite long queue formed along the aisle, and as the priest got on with his duty, Adrian whispered loudly to me "Mom! He gives out biscuits and juice! Does it cost anything?" "No, " I answered him with a chuckel. "Would you like to try?" He couldn't wait, and set off taking his younger cousin with him. "Where are they going?" My mother asked, with a high pitch tone in her voice. "Oh, they wanted to join in and taste the free food they are giving out here" I answered, finding it quite amusing.

Well, that was that :D My mother, truly in a shocked and annoyed state of mind, more or less ordered me to get the two kids back before doing an act of blasphemy. In order to avoid any unwanted trouble later on ;) , I called the kids back to their seats. Adrian was quite irritated, and asked med why he couldn't try the biscuit, since "all" the others ate them. "We were just told that they are out of biscuits," I told him - with a straight face (lying in church must be a not so good thing, I guess,but it was the best I came up with) But anyway, he settled with that, and I fell into a silent discussion with my mother. I noticed with half an eye that the communion was going towards the end, and that the pianist and the woman who had sung got in line to receive their communion, when my son cried out with great annoyment: "MOM!!! YOU WERE WRONG! THEY HAVE MORE BISQUITS AFTER ALL!!!" Needless to say, we got a bit of attention :D

I found the whole scene quite amusing, but my mother found it very stressful. I can't really see what the blasphemy should be. A curious kid who wants to join in is not blasphemy to me. Neither that I would let him get his curiosity silenced is to me blasphemy. If that was an act of blasphemy, then the whole baptism was an act of blasphemy - neither the parents, nor the godparents, carried out the ceremony because of a strong feeling of faith. And we stood in church and promised to teach the baby about Jesus. Now, what is blasphemy, then? The baptism or the curiosity of a kid? You tell me!

Just checking in :D

I just had to add this picture of my beloved Julia :D It was taken at the "hoppeloppeland" which translated in English will be something like "the land of the jumping flees", and in spite of her sincere look, it was truly a fun experience for her. She's at the trampoline in this picture, experiencing how it is to walk on a bouncing surface :D

Tomorrow is the baptizing of my nephew, Nicolas, of 5 months. It will be a fun thing to do, and being one of the godparents adds an extra edge to it :D Let me put in a couple of pictures of him as well, having an important conversation with uncle Sam :

I have had so much to do lately, both at the cantina and at the university. And I am in the middle of writing a huge and for me very important application. It makes me nervous and anxious at the same time, but so much of our future plans are connected to the result of this application that I must write it and write it good :D I won't say anything more about what I am talking about yet, just cross your fingers for me :D

Adrian celebrated carnival at the kindergarten Thursday, and wanted - of course - go as a dinosaur - preferably the Tyrannosaurus Rex. We looked everywhere, not able to find anything resembling a Rex the slightest, and having too little time to try and make something myself, he ended up wearing a spider man suit he had gotten for his birthday. The carnival was supposed to have the theme "carnival of the animals" and I assured him that since spider man was half man half spider, it was a perfectly legitimate costume. Halfway on our way to the kindergarten, I jumped out of the car to go to the cantina. When Sam returned from delivering him, he just laughed. "Adrian didn't even want to go out of the car", he said. "And when I finally got him with me, he didn't want me to leave, just stood there as if he was lost somewhere and couldn't find his way home. I asked him what the matter was,and he mumbled something I didn't understand at all. He had to repeat it 5 times before I got some meaning out of it at all, and he was on the edge of breaking down in tears at this time. What he tried to tell me was that I "had to tell someone that Spider man is half man and half spider". Who? I asked, "just anyone" he answered, quite annoyed."

Sam then got hold of a cow walking by (or a kid dressed out as a cow, but that goes without saying :D), and told him that Spider man is half man and half spider. "I know that!" the cow answered, and ran of. At that point Sam felt his mission had been carried out and wanted to leave. A couple of tearful eyes stopped him, -because kids don't count, he had to tell a grown up :D Sam then asked a mother delivering her spider-daughter if she knew the intriguing fact that Spider man actually is half man half spider. Of course she knew, but this was the wrong kind of grown-up to tell. I don't know where Sam had put his brain that morning - Adrian wanted him to tell one of the grown-ups WORKING in the kindergarten that Spider man is half man half spider, because it was supposed to be a carnival of the animals, and then they had to know that Adrian was dressed as - yes you got it - an animal! In the end, Sam realized this, and went and told one of the women working there, and Adrian the spider-boy - who was just a spider at this special occasion - ran off with a happy smile :D

I had to laugh when Sam told me, but I felt somewhat guilty as well :D I had agreed with Adrian before we went that if nobody understood the ambiguity of Spider man themselves, then I would tell them. I left the car half-way to the kindergarten, and he had probably been in distress ever since - because he had not talked about this with his father :D But luckily everything ended in a happy way :D

Mixed emotions :D

Adrian is going away on a one-night's trip with his grandma, and I'm both worried, sad and proud - all at the same time! It's only for a night, and I think it is great that he wants to (it's the first time he has actually wanted to do something like that without me..) He is starting to feel independent of me, and I love it - and hate it :D Don't get me wrong - I think this is the best thing that could happen, and it is a proof that he is becoming more and more his own person. But I can't help feeling worried - he is going on a trip, what if something happens, and I'm not there to help him? Will his grandma provide for him first in a crisis? (An ugly thought, I know, but never the less it has struck my mind :D ) Will he miss me? I will certainly miss tucking him in tonight :D God - he'll probably have a great time, and talk about his experience forever, but I can't wait to have him back doing just that :D

WOW - This is a first sign for me how it will be when he is a teenager and meets his friends to party :D That's something to look forward to :D

Did the dinosaurs become angels when they died?

"Did the dinosaurs become angels when they died?" My 6 year old son popped the probably long thought for question during dinner and looked at me with anticipating eyes across the dinner table. "Why do you think that?" I asked, in order to win me some more thinking-time:D "Well, most people become angels when they grow old and die" he answered, "so I guess it would be the same for dinosaurs, or wouldn't it?" I couldn't beat the logic in that, so I ended up agreeing that it sounded very plausible indeed. I guess he got the right answer, because after giving me a pleased nod of his head, he turned his attention back to the meal.

The question asked remained with me for some time, though, because it made me realize more than anything that we as parents have a huge job in front of us regarding how we would like to raise our children not only religiously but spiritually as well.. My husband being a Muslim and myself - although being baptized in a catholic church - not really having a feeling of belonging in a religious sense, could create future problems in answering bound to come questions about life, death and not least, God himself. Sam and I have discussed the question of belief for our children a long time before either of them were even born, and we have a mutual understanding of not trying to put them in a religious category, but rather focus on giving them a helping hand in becoming decent, independent and honest human beings. I do believe that it is important for children to grow up with the assurance that if something bad happens, it is for a reason, and that God is watching over them. I am not sure that it is equal important to teach them that one religion is better and more right than another - that would create categories of people with more or less value and that is not something we want for them. But I do now realize that questions concerning what to be a Muslim and what to be a Christian entails, will come, and that we have to be prepared to answer them. I also realize that both Adrian and Julia have to learn more about Islam - if only for their own protection - because so many ignorant people will put THEM in the categories Muslim and foreigner because of their father's origin. Knowledge IS power and the only way we can help them to protect themselves from verbal attacks of others is to provide them with just that. And hopefully we'll manage to do just that.

About the dinosaurs - Adrian is a HUGE fan of these prehistoric and fascinating creatures and has been for quite some time. I think his interest started when he had just turned two, and we went to look at the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in the pre-historical museum in Oslo; he didn't dare to cross the room out of fear that the skeleton should come alive and eat him :D When he was 4 we one day went to the playground by the shore down-town and being a bit shy, he refused the offer to play from a couple of wild boys at approximately the same age. He looked around and focused on a little girl, also the same age, and started to slowly approach her. She saw him, but didn't seem too interested, so he decided to draw her attention towards him by gently whispering "do you want me to tell you something?" with a secret smile. And of course she wanted him to tell her something that seemed to be something exciting as well, and she moved towards him to listen. "Did you know", he continued using the same furtive voice "that the dinosaurs evolved into the birds we see today?" She gave him a perplex look, and moved away showing him that the conversation was over and that he had been turned down. Adrian, on the other side, stood there with a disconcerted look on his face, clearly not understanding neither the rejection nor the disinterest in the breathtaking information he had just handed over to her. It made my mother's heart bleed :D This is hopefully not the way he will try to encounter the other sex when he gets a bit older - I fear that will result in a quite similar experience on his behalf:D I love him to death!

The newcomer :D

This is my first try at having a blog, even a website..So it will be interesting to see wether I will be able to maintain the blog or not :D I sort of see it as a personal experiment, since I never managed to keep a diary when I was a teenager, even if I really wanted to have one.

Let me start by introducing myself:

I am a 33 year old (young) woman (girl:D), living in Oslo, Norway, in a tiny apartment together with the 3 persons who give me everything I need to feel alive in this changing and disturbing world we live in, namely my husband Sam and my two children Adrian and Julia, aged 6 and 1 1/2. I am partly Norwegian, through my father's family, but am born in the States and have German and Austrian origins through my mother. I have - to make the confusion perfect - chosen a lifepartner who originally comes from Iran, but is a norwegian citizen. Together we have managed to get the two greatest accomplishments in our life, namely our two children:

As for my formal background: I have a master's degree in social-anthropology, and work part-time as a teacher at the university of Oslo. My husband works for the postal services, and we also run a cantine together. Let me put in a picture of him as well :D

This is Sam, my best friend and support in life. He is the person I rely upon in every small or big problem I encounter in life, and the person who truely sees me for who I am and what I stand for. Needless to say,I love him dearly.

Ok, I guess this is enough for a start :D I don't know if I will get any comments or visitors at my blog, but that is not my aim either. I feel this is an opportunity for me to express myself in a way I havent tried before, and it is interesting for me to see where this road may lead :D