Monthly Archives: June 2012

The sound of silence

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We’ve had guests at Casa Svendsen for the past three weeks, and it’s been maaaah-velous! It’s always a pleasure to have friends and family around in Gran Canaria, and this past visit was no exception. Good times, good weather, good food and (too much…) good wine. Now our guests have sadly departed, and the house is eerily quiet again before the next entourage arrives in July.

I’m too exhausted and lazy to actually post anything of substance today, most likely the result of the torturous “Calima” heat wave we’re trying to survive this week. Besides that,  I’m busy dis-organizing all the things we properly organized and placed away over the past week. The house looked great with everything properly in its own place, but I can’t find a damn thing anywhere. So I’m going back to our happy little land of haphazard organization and will just hope for the best.

In lieu of actual substance, here are a few photos of Per Christian and his recent landmark days of excitement:

Hope everyone is staying cool and dry during these hot summer months!

I’m not sure how this happened…

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The Svendsen family has three people in it – two adults and one 14-month old child.

And yet, somehow, this is what our toothbrush container looks like in the bathroom:

And no, we don’t have any visitors at the moment.

It all started innocently enough. I read somewhere that you should start brushing your child’s teeth as soon as they pop through. So, being an inexperienced mother that blindly follows any and all parenting advice, I went out and bought some brightly-colored mini brushes for my son’s mini teeth.

He hates them. He took one look at them, pushed them violently away from his face, and that was that.

However, as I reported here, Per Christian loves hangin’ in the bathroom with us in the mornings. And he loves Pappa’s adult-sized blue toothbrush. Not Mommy’s pink one, and not the cute mini green ones I bought especially for him. Nope, just Pappa’s plain old blue one. He literally screams and cries out for it anytime he’s even close to our bathroom.

So, being an inexperienced mother that loves a bit of quiet during her bathroom time, I’ve started letting him crawl all over the house with Pappa’s blue toothbrush. Maybe he’s teething and like the texture of that brush, maybe he’s already developed a God complex about his father and wants whatever he has. Maybe he’s just 14 months old and a mystery.

Whatever.

He’s happy, Mommy can pee in peace and now Pappa needs a new toothbrush.

All of which leads me to another CFM moment at Carrefour yesterday, standing in the aisle with hundreds of toothbrushes, trying to buy a new toothbrush for Pappa.

“Hmmm… if Per Christian sees Pappa with a new toothbrush, he’ll want that one instead of the blue one. So the new one should look similar to the blue one. But not too similar, because Pappa is color blind and needs something he can tell apart from the blue one being dragged around the house.

And here’s another little mini one with different colors on it – maybe Per Christian will go for that one rather than the green ones I got him earlier. If I just find him the right color or shape or size, he’ll love his own toothbrush and all my feelings of maternal insecurity will be washed away and I will be a Truly Successful Mother…“

Seriously folks, I’m soooooo thrilled I got my MBA in order to figure out these life challenges.

The end of the story is that we all have new toothbrushes, but Per Christian still only has eyes for Pappa’s old blue toothbrush. So that stays around for now and our toothbrush container looks like we’re a happy family of seven (although all with perfectly-manicured dentures).

Oh, and that new, brightly-colored mini brush I bought him?

Fogetaboutit, yo….

I fear this means that in 30 years some woman will scream at my son for wearing t-shirts with holes in them and refusing to throw them away, and his response will be that they’re “broken in” and comfortable.

Opening day

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There comes a time in every hotelier family’s life when all of a sudden – after weeks or even months of long working hours, late evenings and work-filled weekends – after all that, finally, finally things become very, very good.

(Cue Etta James belting out “At Last”…)

That day for Family Svendsen came June 1st when Pappa Per’s resort in Gran Canaria finally opened its doors and accepted its first guests. Per Christian and I packed our bags and our swim trunks and left the house and all our cares behind. Why yes, we’d love to spend a weekend in this superior oceanfront suite with pool and playground below, thank you very much…

One of the perks of marrying someone in the hotel business are weekends away at their hotel. We didn’t even leave our little town of Arguineguin, but it felt like we were on holiday anyway. Breakfast, lunch and dinner all served at your leisure, drinks by the pool or up on the rooftop, someone stopping by to clean your room and empty your diaper trash every morning, endless hours of amusement for active 14-month-olds, jumping from one pool to the next and back again…

And best of all for all us mommies in the audience – a baby monitor that works while you’re sunning by the pool and junior is napping upstairs!!!

Now that’s what I call a holiday.

Below are my rough, completely non-professional photos of the newly-opened Radisson Blu Resort, Gran Canaria. Of course, we’re completely biased in our views since we’re related to the manager and all, but for me and little Per Christian, it was everything we’ve been hoping for – life is good!