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8.8.06

Aaah! My entry under ’occupation’ on all these forms should be ’bureaucrat’s work provider’, Sweden still ceases to surprise me with its bureaucratic, rules and regulations (which they can break/ make mistakes about if they want, but oh no, you citizens must accept will be followed to the letter with NO flexibility (even if it is non-sensical to follow them).
Yes I am referring to how the first day of DH’s leave has had to be spent on the phone to the tax office (which also registers births to make sure those little babes pay their taxes). As we want Hafsah’s surname to be the same as her siblings (which is spelt differently to her parent’s surnames, which was in order to ease correct pronunciation, the number of times: ‘no my name is not Mrs ***’)
Now if you’re still following me, the Swedish tax office say they will only change if we get some form of evidence from British consulate, and British consulate say they can only issue a birth certificate with the same surname as given by the thus mentioned tax office, we are stuck in the middle, as well as in the country as cannot get passport without Swedish documents, unless we give in and call her by the original spelling. Anyway our last ditch hope is to appeal on the grounds that child number 3 was in exactly the same situation as Hafsah (i.e. born in Sweden) and then there were no problems. (One Swedish bureaucrat said they must have made a mistake last time!) The immigration department also made a mistake about my MIL’s visa fees and didn’t realise until the third time she got her visa extension.

Other stress yesterday was Hafsah’s ENT appointment. I don’t know if it was because she is a girl or what, but I just got all tearful and had to leave the room when the doctor was going to put the tube down her nose, so DH had to hold her while I ran off, seriously holding back the tears. In the end my DH said it wasn’t so bad. It was just they said she WILL cry and then I knew this was not going to pleasant for her Alhamdulillah it only seems to be that her epiglottis has some floppy tissue, but they had to check there were no tumours etc.
I had been sceptical as to whether I should let her go through the procedure and I did double check with the doctor if she really had to have this done. Afterwards I realised that it probably was a good idea as if a tumour had been missed, then it could have been v. dangerous.
Hafsah also had her Health visitor check recently with a different lady as the normal one was on holiday. It was vaccination time and she asked me at least three times if I agreed for her to have them, to the point where I was wondering if they were going to give her something controversial (like the MMR) but I knew that the other 3 had had them with no problems. I think it was down to my dodgy Swedish and she just wanted to check I had understood. She had to give the jab in her thigh and the health visitor was surprised at how strong her legs were, maybe down to the extra training she did when in the womb. She now also raises her head up quite steadily when on her tummy, as well as being stable enough to go front ways in the baby Bjorn sling now. She also has started examining her hands and often has her hand and arm in a sort of Highland fling position with little finger stretched right out. She is also getting a little extra training from M. who’s taught her the movements for prayers, and most recently how to do breastroke kick (with accompanying Swedish phrases) Finally Hafsah’s latest habit is to suck in her bottom lip, she really is a toothless wonder !
Sleeping pattern is sort of, sleeps around 10 pm wake around 3 or 4 and then again around 7 or 8 depending if another child has woken the house up. Did try to feed her before I went to bed so that she can go for longer but that means I don’t get my wake up call for Fajr so I think I’ll stick at her 10 ish pm feed and hope her maturing sleep patterns coincide with Fajr getting later and later as Autumn progresses. Anyhow I still have at least one other human alarm clock to request assistance on toilet, milk, juice supplies. ! I read today that it’s the first 4-5 hours of deep sleep which can keep you going. If they are disturbed, then you’re in trouble. I also read (I think in Penelope Leach) that its not the number of hours missed but the fact that your sleep pattern is disturbed (i.e. you are woken up when not ready for it) that makes you feel so zombified. I am starting to get sleep-obsessed again, but it is something that impacts on the rest of your day.

Picked the first 2 blackberries the other day (literally the first ones as all the rest were green or light pink) and it is a bit early for them at the nice little park nearby (lilla skogen = little wood). They were very tasty and I hope we can find more. H determined not to let me have a sit down and needed assistance on the bars which were different heights so he learnt ‘medium-sized’ today. H also has been saying recently ‘on Sunday’ = ‘another day’, not sure why he chose Sunday?
Went back to doing the dreaded clocks/telling the time. S hates it and I was trying to explain the potential usefulness of it. However when I thought about it, how necessary is it for him to know this right now, when he is still not yet independent and relies on me to get him to places on time (which he knows I’m not too good at- one thing to improve on) . So really we are just going over it because we have to as part of the curriculum before he starts class 3. The other confusing thing is the way time is described in Swedish, and I had to check my Swedish books myself. E.g. for half past 2 you say ‘halv 3’ i.e. half an hour before 3. twenty five to is equivalent of ‘5 before half past in Swedish. Most of the work we’re having to do for year 3 he finds quite boring ,either because he’s picked it up from general discussion, or because it just does not interest him. The problem is he has to learn the more specific vocabulary in Swedish. A few subjects can spark interest and I wish we had time to follow them up rather than just skim over the surface of many areas. E.g. the chapter on spring today did bring up some interesting questions about eggs hatching and how they keep warm etc, which had come up just the other day as S thought there must be a chick growing inside the eggs we get from the shop, or they could get growing if we warmed the egg up.
M is as always, can say his ‘s' quite well if reminded but difficult to generalise. H able to imitate M as in ‘yeth’ for ‘yes’ so I hope I don’t have two on my hands to ‘treat’..