Aww... sh*t. Bad luck.

Riitta broke her ankle during the Easter. She walks now with crutches and does what she can, but I am trying to take care of maybe too many things: daughter, lectures, a workshop, reading essays, a course about web design for ourselves, dirty laundry, dirty dishes and dinners. Our house is a mess: we gave up cleaning for this week, because there is not enough time. I hate this... if only the next week would came quickly!

More shots from the sea

Easter at sea

Five days at sea, camping temps by night 0 Centigrades. Lots of migrating birds, sunshine and mist. All photographs except the lowest one by A. Lind (she is the friendly face in it).

Icebreaking

Ahh... finally, I am going out to the sea for Easter holidays! Night temps between 0 and 2 Centigrades, days about 6 or 8. Full moon on Thursday.

My kayak and camping gear were in dusty condition. Mice had eaten one of my candles and the back compartment of my double was full of mouse sh*t. Doing 1000 kilometers this year might be just a dream...

Luxembourg and back home

On Thursday my diarrhea vanished and I was lucky enough to fly to Luxembourg. Though I missed Lumi (and called Helsinki several times) it was great fun to enjoy my own privacy, and have a breakfast in peace. of course the Casino people had quite a lot of things scheduled for us! Like, splendid dinners...

The saddest thing was that I noticed, how tired I am, and in bad physical condition. I slept badly in the hotel, was tired most of the time and because I chose not to use elevator, walking the hotel stairs was a real punishment. I miss sea and kayaking badly.

Yup, I got it

Uhh... I got everything, all the works last night: cold shakes, vomiting and diarrhea. Feeling better now, but waiting if Mommy gets all same symptoms. Lumi is OK.

Too many things too little time

When your kid gets ill everything seems to be unfinished, taking too much time, and a nuisance. We tried to leave many things for the next week, but my tax papers, an exhibition in Luxembourg, a visiting curator, bills piling up and lectures just make us grazy. We are irritated and full of anxiety. How can we solve things and get them done, when Lumi needs and gets most of our time?

OK. I know this will take about 3 to 5 days, but knowing it does not help very much. Fortunately, she seems to be better, laughs and tell stories - but I thought the very same thing last evening before she started vomiting. Sigh...

Cabin Fever and Other Diseases... (2)

Midnight. She has vomited over two sets of clean bedsheets in one hour. She does not like drinking water. We will postpone all the stuff we planned to do tomorrow. It is rather interesting to see, how things will go - I have a flight to Luxembourg scheduled for next Thursday and a lecture to give on Wednesday.

Cabin Fever and Other Diseases...

This is the period when flu and other viruses circulate the day nurseries. Lumi vomited yesterday over me, fortunately only once, got abdominal pains and diarrhea today. We stayed home all day, expecting that the symptoms would also strike us adults. We all have a mild flu, especially Lumi, whose little unfortunate world seems to be now full of various nasty bodily fluids.

In the evening she got better, drank lots of water, but she is easily irritated and restless. All I got was serious symptoms of cabin fever, I really want to go out...

Hibernating

Does this need any comments? These photographs remind me about last spring, when we really had difficult time... This image is perhaps one of the most touching photographs I can recall from that period, sleeping together with Lumi [click here].

Party Time

Our Princess has now 10 teeth, she is walking well and she has said her first word: kukka ('flower'). We had about 26 guests and we celebrated two days... [top 5 photographs by Ilpo Päiväläinen, the yellow one by Riitta]

So, now we are celebrating...

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First 365 days

... are over! We are opening a bottle of champagne tonight after Lumi has fallen to sleep.
An update about the birthday party will follow ASAP ;-)
Tired, exhausted, with mixed feelings and quite happy

– us.

At the City's Winter Garden

The kid and her mother visited the Winter garden greenhouses of the Helsinki City. The place is famous for it's palm trees (some of them about 100 years old), and season's decorations (like Easter and Christmas). Place was opened for the public at 1893 and the city bought it in 1907.







































An exciting place, huh? Photographs by mom, Riitta Päiväläinen.

Madonna & child, weird stuff

Wow, our friends noticed that last Christmas we had a very peculiar image in our X-mas present cards. The child in the image, though very rosy-cheeked, was looking exactly like out little Lumi. WEIRD. SCARY. FUNNY.

I did try to get extra information about this kitschy painting from the manufacturer's web site, but in vain! It looks like something from the 1800's, but could also be some retro stuff.

Freezing Cold New Year

We are finally back from the countryside! Riitta had a bit worse period, so we spent quite a lot of time just resting. After two weeks in crispy cold weather some fresh running water, a television set and central heating feel like extraterrestrial wonders. We lost totally electricity 5 days before leaving home, so we were dependent on candles, electric torches, two tile stoves and our huge baking stove in the kitchen. It felt like we were going back to the 1800´s – luckily we have lots of firewood and a very solid model house, built in the 40´s during the war veteran and refugees relocating program. Night temperatures dropped down to -18 Centigrades. Please, click the images [photographs by Riitta Päiväläinen].

SEASON'S GREETINGS!

Aww... Not lot's of sleep, lately! We are training Lumi to sleep without her nightly milk and fall into sleep at her bed. She is lovely as usual, especially in the mornings, and the time she falls into sleep is getting shorter and shorter night by night: yesterday 20 minutes, before that 40 minutes. No crying sessions since the day before! Mummy and daddy are happy...

So, Happy Holidays! We are going to our Grandfather's Old Place for at least two weeks. See you next year!

Frozen countryside, small luxuries

Most of my lectures are over, finally! We did find some time for a short holiday! Inside grandfather's cottage was +3 Celsius, when we arrived, so I did spend a luxurious and silent night heating the tile stoves until 3.30 A.M. with a bottle of classy red wine. No cell phones, no network. We went for a short hike to see a huge swamp area close to us. Everything was frozen. No traffic, no noise...

Afterwards...

The blizzard was great! I really loved horizontally flying snow, but the work the very next day when opening the drive and backyard was pure pain. The snow was humid and heavy. We got about 20 centimetres of it and the garden sheds were also full of snow. Riitta managed to change the tires with the help of a neighbour. I successfully escaped that responsibility and took care of the child and made a leftovers salmon pasta with Greek feta cheese. Hooray for the emancipation!

Busy times, rash, pimples and a blizzard

Sooooooo... this month we've had our first inflammation of the ear, a diaper rash and baby measles (three-day fever). Lots of restless nights.

We opened last Tuesday our show at the Kerava Art Museum and are now in a middle of a blizzard! Lumi's first snow (Lumi = 'snow' in Finnish) came in a quite dramatical way: there is a gale warning today for the seafarers. The wind speeds did hit the national news and some ferries are unable to arrive to ports due heavy northern wind. We've saw even two flashes' blue light in the middle of the horizontally flying snow, believe or not!

The temperatures were also dropping last week. No time for changing winter tires for our car, which means no driving until we have found few free hours for the job... but the car will be buried into snow tomorrow...