Author Archives: Prosecco & Pampers

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About Prosecco & Pampers

An American mother and Norwegian father, living abroad in Istanbul and raising one small boy who obviously runs the show. Three years into the game, we're still trying to find a happy medium between our pre-baby Prosecco days and our recently-departed Pamper days. It's not always a successful combination, but it's certainly never dull.

Postpartum

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My little blog has been unusually quiet of late, I know this.

I could blame my writing void on the hoards of visitors we’ve shuffled through Casa Svendsen this summer, which would be entirely true. Or I could blame it on a case of writer’s block that even mediocre bloggers like myself seem to feel we’re entitled to on occasion. And that would be true as well. Writing is like exercise or sex – the longer you go without it, the easier it becomes to go without it.

But the truth is, quite lamely, that I’ve just been lazy. And maybe a bit down. Down and lazy, that’s me in a nutshell these days.

The entire Svendsen family loves, loves, loves having visitors and friends and laughter all around us. When it’s there, we’re happy. When it’s gone, we’re sad. When it’s there for the entire summer and then suddenly disappears… we’re inconsolable.

It reminds me of my mental state shortly after Per Christian was born. I was completely overwhelmed by the demands of a tiny, little meatloaf and the end of my former everyday life as I knew it to be. I didn’t even know where to begin. I don’t mean to make light of postpartum depression, it’s an evil and scary monster that I wouldn’t want to ever meet again. But it created in me the same empty feeling – the same inability to get off my ass and move – that I’ve been feeling since our house emptied out last week.

The only remedy to de-tox from the high of having so many visitors (and a hubby on vacation!) constantly around is to slowly inch back into my usual routine and schedule of daily life. All the mundane everyday tasks that were pushed aside now have to be dealt with — exercise, finances, meal planning, language studies, writing, entertaining my son myself since there aren’t any kids around anymore.

I start small and add a little bit more each day until I’m back on track with my “usual” life. And then I start enjoying the little moments that I would have missed with so many other people to look after — walking slowly with Per Christian into town for no reason at all (and marvel at how well our former meatloaf is actually walking!), cooking a down home country (but not guest-worthy) meal of spaghetti and meatballs, curling up in bed with my husband and watching old reruns of The West Wing…

So my strategy is working and I’m slowly coming out of my postpartum departure blues to enjoy life on the island once again. But in the meantime, who wants to book their next holiday at Casa Svendsen???? The guest room is open and I hear the management is very accommodating!

Viva Espana!

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Unless you live under or rock (or in the United States), you’re probably aware that Spain just won the 2012 European Championships in football last night. At any other time, this would have been a really exciting time to be living in Spain. We would have danced in the streets and blown our horns and made mayhem until 5am like the rest of our neighbors.

However, with a little one asleep upstairs and still too young to absorb such things, we instead opened the doors wide, cheered on the passers-by and took in all the celebrations from afar.

Casa Svendsen was infused with football mania all weekend long, including little Per Christian chasing his mini football around with his wobbly walking legs, and also his Uncle PFA doning an Italy supporter shirt just to arouse a bit of heckling at the local pub.

Per Christian practicing his ball skills:

He shoots…. he scores….. GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLL!

We did pay tribute to the sport earlier in the day at the Maspalomas park, a blessed bit of green paradise on our dry, volcanic island.

Such skill! Such focused determination….

Uncle PFA gave his big brother a run for his money on the pitch:

Go Team Svendsen!

Hope everyone had a great weekend — Viva Espana!

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!

Weekend agenda

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We do usually try to get out of the house on the weekends. We go for a drive in the mountains, or out to a new place for lunch, or down to the beach for a bit of sun and sand and topless bikini gazing (and it ain’t always pretty, fellas…).

But sometimes, we all prefer to just lounge around the house and read a good book:

Psssst… Hey, Per Christian…. the book is upside down, silly chap!

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

Two (+) years and counting

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To my Dear Husband,

Remember those days in that faraway land when we first met and were insanely crazy about each other? Remember how we spent the nights without sleeping – just talking and loving and laughing with friends and dancing in our underwear in the living room?

Yeah, those were good days.

Remember how we were separated for a year when I was studying in England? Remember all those joyous reunions and tearful farewells at LHR? Remember all the good friends we made among my classmates and how you became a part of the extended Oxford family? Remember how you supported me during my moments of self-doubt and celebrated me during my moments of victory?

Yeah, those were good days too.

Remember the days we’ve had all over Norway – in Stavanger and Oslo and Bergen and Fevik? How we’ve always crowded too many friends into apartments that were much too small? Remember our shrimp parties and taco parties and sushi parties and Thanksgiving feasts and 17th May brunches and champagne for no reason at all?

Yeah, those were definitely good days.

Remember when you knelt down on your knee at Lake Como and asked me to marry you? Remember how I answered, “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes…“? Remember how we gathered our friends and family in Amalfi to hear us both say, “I do.“? Do you remember the view out our window on our first morning as a married couple?

Oh, wow, such good days.

Remember when I called you from Stavanger and told you I was pregnant? And the first time you felt your son kick inside of me? Remember when Per Christian was born and you held him in your arms and looked up at me with tears in your eyes? Remember when you climbed into my hospital bed and we took our first photo as the Svendsen family?

My-oh-my, is it even possible to have so many good days?

To my dear husband, partner, friend, lover and fellow parent on our second wedding anniversary… I remember all these days and so many more.

And I’m still insanely crazy about you.

With all my love,
Your Wife.

Poking a snake

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Since Pappa S is working 15-hour days opening his hotel, I find myself with a lot of solitary time in the evenings. Our miniature meatloaf goes to bed around 6-6:30 every night (I know, I know, everyone hates me….), so there are still several hours to kill before I can reasonably permit myself to go to bed as well.

I’m not complaining, I enjoy a quiet night alone just as much as every other full-time mother. I have a couple different options of how to spend my time – take a look and see if you can figure out which one should not be included on future lists if I want to preserve what little sanity I have left:

  1. Reading – I go through books as quickly as a French chef goes through butter. I thought I’d have less time to read after our baby was born, but it turns out it’s quite the opposite. Every guest that visits us is instructed to bring me their latest reading treasures, and I’m not picky about the genre. If you enjoyed it, pay it forward and send it my way.
  2. Graboid – I discovered this online streaming service a few years ago as a way to keep up with American television while living abroad. I may be far away, but I still need my weekly dose of Grey’s Anatomy every now and then. When I’m home alone in the evenings, I watch the really trashy shows that I can’t admit to in real life (hellooooo, Bachelor/Bachelorette/Bachelor Pad). I’m so ashamed.
  3. Cooking – All my friends know that I’m a fanatic list-maker. And without a regular job in Gran Canaria to occupy my brain and list-making mania, I do the only other reasonable thing you could expect… I plan meals. I make lists of ingredients. I take Per Christian to the market during the day. I buy ingredients and cross them off my list. And then I cook all night because our refrigerator is overflowing and needs to be emptied. So if Pappa S isn’t at home in the evenings, you can find me either in the kitchen cooking or else making another list somewhere. (And, yes, I realize this sounds slightly sad and pathetic to all my fellow MBA colleagues out there, but I promise you’ll enjoy a full stomach whenever you visit Casa Svendsen.)
  4. Blogging – I have more than one post on here that was written in a cloudy haze of solitary red wine drinking (present post included). Probably not a great idea, but I do notice that those posts tend to get more hits than the soberly-written ones. Go figure.
  5. Look at Old Photos and Videos of Per Christian – This one is definitely the kicker. Right as Pappa S and I have decided that we’re perfectly content with our little threesome and feel no need to repeat the experience, I do something stupid like watch old baby videos. The problem is that they’re just soooo cute, it makes me want to do it all over again. Uh oh…..

So, yeah, of all five items above, the last one is the most likely to send me flying over the cookoo’s nest. Of course these videos make me nostalgic for baby-hood; they capture all the wonderful giggles and first-time movements of our own freshly-minted human being. We don’t have any videos of late-night feedings or screaming sessions. There are no videos of mommy slurping coffee with her hair standing on end after a sleepless night. There are no videos of me scouring the internet for answers to why my baby won’t sleep/eat/poop/sleep. They’re all good times, and they make my uterus scream out for a repeat.

So I think it’s best that I stick to drunken blogging and trashy television on my nights alone. We really are a happy little threesome over here – and I even have the videos to prove it.

17 Mai, take two

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I posted here about last year’s 17th of May holiday in Norway. Per Christian was just over 6 weeks old and was dressed like a drunken sailor. We had a fantastic brunch with a large group of friends in Oslo, and we got to enjoy everyone’s traditional bunad costumes.

One year later, and my-oh-my how things have changed!

Pappa S is at work today – there’s no holiday here in Spain, and especially if you’re opening a hotel in two weeks. I’ve spent the morning in my pajamas, and I have no plans of changing in the near future. Per Christian is movin’ and grovin’ a lot more than he did last year, when he spent the day sleeping on various shoulders and pieces of furniture.

Here are a few more changes I’ve noticed since this day last year:

Our friends’ terrace in Oslo has been replaced by our own terrace in Gran Canaria:

Last year’s sailor hat has been generously donated to a furry little friend:

Our Norwegian brunch has been replaced by an intimate breakfast of fruit and Cheerios:

And a day off from work has been replaced by a day of laundry:

However, despite all these changes, our little sailor has still managed to wear some semi-appropriate Norwegian attire this morning:

Gratulerer med 17th Mai, Norge!

Style by PC

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For all us boy mommies out there, you know we have limited clothing options for our miniature men. Baby stores are filled with dresses of all shapes and sizes for the little ladies, but there are usually slim pickin’s for the fellas in our lives.

But I don’t really mind. Because me, I love me some baby boy overalls. Per Christian may haunt me later in life for forcing such style choices upon him, but that’s for future consideration. For right now, it’s hot, hot HOT in Gran Canaria, and my son is riding out our heat wave in the little boy style I love best:

 

*** NOTE : My son has a mysterious shoe fetish. As in… he is obsessed with pulling all the shoes off the shoe rack. All the time, every morning, without fail. Shoes belong on the floor, Mommy, not on the shoe rack. Duh….