This is the first of my new blog series about various things that do and don’t work for me, particularly in relation to babies and baby products. I wanted to get this one posted first because it has been the best and most important thing we have discovered about parenting a newborn.

Coming from Australia, I expected to swaddle my baby and was very surprised to learn that it is not the done thing in Norway. It’s considered old-fashioned and some people believe it both restricts the baby’s freedom and hinders its development (both points are nonsense as far as I’m concerned).

Anyway, I had to order swaddling blankets from the UK (and I will post about the actual blankets later) because they are just not available here in Norway.

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I have never wanted this to become another boring baby-related blog, so don’t fear that I will never post anything but baby gush. However, in the eight weeks since I had my little Ella, we have tried any number of different baby products, parenting techniques, advice and so on… some of which have worked and others which were not worth the money/effort/pain etc. Originally I thought I would just list these in a single post, but when I started thinking about all the things I could talk about, I realised that I didn’t have the time or energy to review everything in one post. So a new category for this blog was born; what works, what doesn’t.

As I get time (ha ha) I will add blog entries about all the weird and wonderful things I have bought (and where I bought them, since it was usually online) or tired and let you know what worked or didn’t work, and why. Bear in mind that I am totally aware that every baby is different, and what works (or doesn’t) for us may be completely irrelevant for you and your baby. But it might amuse you to read about my adventures into motherhood anyway. In any case, there are a lot of products that I found after lots of research that I wished I had known about from the start, and I’d like to share these with you.

Watch this space!

On Tuesday the 18th of May, 2010, my beautiful baby girl, Ella Sofia, made her entrance into the world. I have been too busy staring adoringly at her to post until now, and am just taking a moment to make this announcement before getting back to the serious business of cooing at my baby girl. More details soon.

In an effort to do something useful besides sit around being uncomfortable and impatient, I decided last night I was finally going to finish organizing our DVDs into a database. A while back I bought some great software called Movie Collector (from collectorz.com) which is essentially a movie/DVD cataloging tool. I also bought a barcode scanner to make the process easier, so all I had to do was scan each barcode, and download the details for each DVD from the central database. The level of detail for each DVD title is impressive, including such information as region codes, thumbnail images of the cover/s, running time, release year, director, actors, plot summary… you name it. Read the rest of this entry »

I am now halfway through my third week of maternity leave and have to admit to severe boredom and impatience. I’m not officially due until Monday, which also happens not only to be Norway’s national day, but also both Chris’ and my late grandfathers’ birthdays. So of course everyone is hoping that our little Blobbette chooses to arrive that day, but personally I’d be pretty happy to see her before that. The waiting around is a killer.

If one more person says any of the following unhelpful comments, I’m going to smack them:

• “First babies are always late”
• “Not long to go now, eh?”
• “Enjoy the quiet while you still can!”
• “You should get lots of sleep. You won’t get any for the next five years!”
• “Wow, you’re getting big!”

You get the idea. A little advice for anyone thinking of making any of these comments or similar variants to a 9-months-pregnant woman: Keep it to yourself. We don’t want to hear it! Seriously. Read the rest of this entry »

After almost a year of searching, one loss to forkjøpsrett, one loss to indecisive, greedy sellers, price peak after price peak, we finally have a new apartment. And despite the frustration and tension we have been through, I can honestly say I think we have found our dream apartment. It was renovated just last year, and it needs nothing done at all. It’s just perfect and I absolutely love it.

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