Teeth!
February through April 2007, Magnus is 7-9 months old

Teething began with restless nightsleep. At first we didn't recognize it for what it was, but seriously increased drooling activity along with alot of biting gave it away - baby did not sleep so well because he was getting teeth! The obvious helper came in a small bottle called "Dentinox", which douses the hurting feeling in the gums, and some nights it would work and he would relax more, and others it didn't work at all.

But there was the big day, and a tiny little tooth saw the light of day in the lower mouth. Very shortly thereafter, number two popped out right next to it.

It took a day after the arrival of the first tooth before I remembered - hey, we gotta start brushing teeth! Quickly, we had to reread the pamflet from the nurse station, and premiere night was a fact. "Magnus? Say aaaaah". Magnus opened his mouth with a trusting look in his eyes. The pamflet had warned that the baby would be wanting to do the brushing himself, but that was not the case to any large extent on that first evening - daddy was allowed to brush most of the time.

The following morning, we forgot to brush teeth. The habit was too new to be remembered right away. But evening#2 showed the second brushing. This time, Magnus was far more active, now he knew what was going on, and he could do it himself! "Hey, gimme that brush, there". It is very cute to see him open his mouth when I ask for it.

By now, brushing teeth was actually quite fun! So fun that we did not want to let go of the toothbrush...

"Good night, Magnus.... err... are you bringing that toothbrush to bed? Can daddy have that now?" Already the next morning I got a funny phone call from Muna. "Magnus did not want to stop brushing his teeth this morning, he just brushed and brushed!!"

"Obviously, there is something new in my mouth, I just haven't figured out what it is yet and what it's doing in there. I can touch it alright. What is that?"

Magnus is happily smiling, showing his new pride to the world while playing

But it feels kinda funny also... Lately, Magnus has taken to make funny thaa-thaa-thaa-sounds while opening and closing his mouth with a funny face as shown above.

Eating is more and more fun for every day. But now with teeth, we gotta have something to chew on, eventhough mama is just giving me porridge.

And no matter how tired I am, in the evenings we have to brush teeth.

With teeth, Magnus has gained the possibility of chewing solid food, and has been given some bread to practice on.

Man-oh-man, do you think there are more of these teeth-things coming? It is so itchy, I just have to chew on everything. Small things or ...

...large things, they all go for the same, I NEED SOMETHING TO CHEW ON!

We had an outbreak of slight fever before the next pair of teeth were revealed, but suddenly there they were also, two front teeth in the upper mouth had seen the light of day. Magnus temporarily found a funny way of smiling - whenever we smiled and showed our teeth to him, he would lay his head backwards, smile broadly like this while making a hissing sound. This funny habit lasted about a week.

Hey, guys, look at me - I have four of these teeth-thingies now !!!

Gimme more to eat on!!!

Mother's day
February 2007, Magnus is 7 months old

It is a cooold morning (-19C), and Magnus and I am getting up early. Well, for Magnus it's not early, but for everyone else it is. Today it's mothers day, and we should give mama a chance to sleep in!

We went through our regular morning routine and made a fire in the living room fireplace, brrr so cold. Then Magnus decides that it is time to nap again... He wants to get up real early, but doesn't last so long. Too cold to sleep outside today, so he's just napping in the stroller inside today.

Meanwhile I was preparing breakfast for mama Muna - first-timer mothersday starring role. Then the card must be prepared. I had planned something very special today.

The big surprise is a highly personalized card. I have bought one of those black-ink-pads. I am sitting with Magnus in my lap, card all prepared, and we want a handprint... Magnus is very concerned about this pad, just looking suspiciously at it, and resisting when I suggest he put his hand in the ink... However, after getting his fingers all black then he gets VERY interested, and just wants to put his fingerprints EVERYWHERE !!

The job is containing the damage, getting approximately one print in the card and limiting the ink stains on couch, clothes, face etc etc. It's a lot harder to get the ink OFF than it was to put it on, but that's probably part of the game. We're scrubbing and scrubbing, and the result is a tolerably clean hand, although it's still possible to see what he's been doing.

After the preparations we went down to the bedroom with the breakfast, to wake her up. With a tiny little help, Magnus held the card and did a great job at giving it mama, who was beaming with joy. Such a card she had never received before. Her first reaction was to open Magnus' hand to inspect the inkiness, but she didn't say anything about it, so I assume my post-cleanup was approved.

Eating breakfast in bed is a challenge when you don't have practice, that's not something we do very often, but with assistance it worked out quite nicely, and Muna was very happy about the start of the mothersday.

We had an otherwise tranquil day inside at home, and we assembled Magnus' babychair that we got in Ikea the day before so he could eat meals together with us at the big table. We also got Magnus this big stuffed hippo that he enjoys to play with, and I'm afraid so does the grown-ups.

Trip to Sweden
January 2007, Magnus is 6.5 months old

In the middle of the winter we took a long weekend and set off to Sweden to visit Mikael, Tezz and Lukas. We started out in the evening on a Thursday, so that Magnus could sleep in the car on the way, and we drove to Karlstad, which is about halfway, to sleep there. Upon arrival, Magnus threw up so much all over himself, never seen it that bad. I wonder if that was carsickness?

We had arranged to get a babybed in the hotel room, but Magnus did not really want to sleep in it, so he ended up in our bed in the end. We had to rearrange the hotel room to make sure he could not fall out of the big bed. It is a weird feeling of being watched by an unknown number of strange people when your baby is crying loudly in a hotel room in the middle of the night...

We had planned to arrive at their house in Linköping by the end of the next workday.

While it was nice to see them again, I had difficulty relating to Lukas this time. To me, it was all Magnus-Magnus-Magnus. This was our first visit after my becoming a father, and a new experience. Neither of the others seemed to have the same problem, and I took great joy in seeing how Mike and Tezz took Magnus into their sphere. I just could not cope with relating to more small kids than my own just yet.


Lukas was very excited to have Magnus around, and wanted to play with him and hug him all the time. Magnus was a bit too small to understand the games, and easily became overrun during the hugs, so the challenge was to steer their games into something that would work for all involved.

...and there was something for everyone. But I really had to think, because Lukas observed a lot and wanted everything Magnus got. If I played with Magnus by throwing him in the air, Lukas would go to his daddy and want to be thrown in the air. And so on.

I was curious to see how nightsleeping would turn out, if the two of them would wake each other up crying. But it went very well, the only anomaly was when Magnus woke early in the morning and Muna went to the bathroom, Lukas woke from the sound of the steps thinking somebody was getting up without him and started crying alot louder than Magnus knew how yet.

It is a bit over 1 years age difference between these two, which is lightyears at this age. The needs are so different. While Magnus is content eating on mama's sleeves in toothless meditation, Lukas is peeling and eating bananas by himself.

But what really warms a parents heart is to see the little ones share. "Here, do you want to borrow my Voffe?"

On the second day we spent some time outside. Magnus borrowed Lukas' primary stroller (we didn't care to bring ours), while Lukas sat in his sports stroller. Mama Tezz had planned snow-sleigh-riding, but Lukas insisted on strolling when he saw his stroller being prepared for Magnus. Fair is fair!

After the stroll, Lukas demonstrated how to dress and play for being outside during winter...

...while papa Micke demonstrated snow angels.

We also had a trip to a neighbouring town to look for new safety-car-seat for Magnus, since these things are much cheaper in Sweden than in Norway. We ended up buying the one we had been looking at in catalogs, the Rolls Royce of carseats; Britax Secura.

Are you sure this is how the fastening mechanism works, daddy?

On Sunday we returned home again, yet again taking a halfway-stop in Karlstad to avoid so long driving stretches. I was thinking through how little contact I had actually had with Lukas during the weekend, and felt bad about it. Next time I would do better!

In the hotel we had chinese takeway eaten on the desk, and Magnus was very happy with the evenings entertainment.

However when time came to go to bed, he remembered that he did absolutely not like to lie alone in that strange babybed. So he just cried until we let him come up into the big bed. But who wants to sleep when there's so much new territory to explore ???