Mirror, mirror, on the wall Oh yes, Hannes just loves the mirror. I will walk to the mirror, and hold Hannes on my shoulder so that he's facing the mirror, but I am not. He will then look at his reflection for a second or two, and then burst out laughing. What's really interesting, though, is that right after that he buries his face into my arm - as if he was too shy to look at himself.
Voulez-vous je suis le Jacque Chirac? When I was a little boy, I couldn't say R properly. I couldn't even pronounce S, which was pretty damn shame, considering my name was - surprisingly - Risto. My parents made me feel better by saying that it didn't matter that I couldn't say a proper, rolling Finnish R. "You can speak perfect French later on, don'tcha worry about a thing, son." (Actually, they never called me "son.")
Unfortunately, there aren't too many rolling r's in the one word of French I managed to mutter last time I was in Paris. "Un ... one of those things", pointing to a croissant.
The funny thing is that Hannes gets a big kick out of us speaking French to him. He laughs and laughs and just can't get enough of our yapping. Only, since I still can't speak French, I just mumble meaningless sentences, such as "je suis jacques chirac et comme ci comme ca, c'est la vie oui oui."
Mister Mom Jessica is on sick leave now, inasmuch as you can take sick leave from maternity leave. It sounds as unreal as it is; Jessica can't take a leave from being Hannes's mother. What it means is that when she is on her sick leave, she can save up her maternity leave days for later.
It also means that I am on a four-week paternal leave now. For those of you who think that government takes care of us all in Finland, I can just say that it is basically an unpaid leave of absence from work, but I will get about 50 percent of my pay from the "government." (No need to go into details which part of the G pays that compensation).
It feels good to be at home, it really feels like that's exactly where I need to be now. It'll be fun, too, we can do whatever we want and there are no meetings, no schedules, no projects to take care of.
Hopefully there will be more time for me to write this blog as well.
Dad knows best When I was a little kid, I though my Dad had the biggest forearms in the world. And that was cool. I kept looking at my own 6-year-old-forearms wondering whether I could ever, in a million years, have forearms that thick. To be absolutely honest, I was still looking at my forearms at the age of 16 and wondered about the same thing.
And just for the record: no, my Dad is not or was not the strongest man in the world.
I was thinking of that one particular time at the sauna when my Dad showed me that he couldn't get his fingers around his wrist this morning when Hannes grabbed my hand. His hand was so small and finally my forearms seemed ... not huge, but just, um, solid. A man's arms.
Genius! I think Hannes is a genius. Right now, as I am writing this entry, he's sitting in his baby sitter with his "gym" (colorful plastic things that make noises) above him. He holds one piece in his left hand and spins the little ball inside the piece with his write hand. And makes mental notes about how it works AND he gives us the color commentary as well. He's been doing that for about 20 consecuive minutes now.
While holding his head up all by himself.
You just don't think of him as a genius because he's wearing diapers and has a bald spot in the back of his head for all the lying down he does. But he may be thinking something smart all that time. He might.
Look who's talking There are two clichés about babies that I would like to shoot down. One, "babies grow so fast, every day is such a unique experience" and two, "it doesn't matter whether it's a boy or a girl, as long as s/he's healthy."
I am always pretty skeptical about clichés so call me cynical if you want. (Keeping that in mind, isn't "i hate clichés" the ultimate cliché?)
So, when Hannes was born, I really wanted to shoot down those two. But I couldn't. I can't. And now I don't want to. Now I repeat those two sentences to all my friends right after, "what a nice day."
I mean, Hannes grows every day, and he makes new discoveries every day, and I would really want to be with him when he makes those discoveries. The other day, he "found" his hand. He was waving his hands like a madman - again - when he all of a sudden stopped, pulled his hand right in front of his face and examined his hand, first visually, then tasting it. Then he looked at me doing a standing ovation. Today, he started to "talk." And I am pretty sure his first words were: "Standing ovation? Pour moi?"
Two: it really doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl, and as the most loyal of my readers (thanks Jessica, thanks Mom, Dad, thanks Pinseri) remember, we really thought we'd bring a baby girl home. Hilda. So, when he made his grand entré into our world about three months ago, the first thing I checked was that he was ok. And then, whether it was a boy or a Hilda. And I fell in love the very second I could see anything from behind the big hospital bed.
The first three months have been quite overwhelming, in every way imaginable. But I wouldn't trade them for anything.
Tunnel at the end of the light Have you ever got lost? Ever got lost in a city, like Paris, where the streets aren't straight so that you end up walking in circles even when you think you're going right towards your hotel. What makes it even more frustrating is the fact that you can see the Eiffel Tower all along and still can't navigate right. Ever been in that situation?
Ever driven a car in a blizzard? At night? You know how the snowflakes flying against the windshield start to look like stars in "Star Wars" when they hit warp speed. Everything gets weird and skewed. You know for a fact that you're only going 30 kmph, but your brain is telling you you're going warp speed.
That's where we're at, it seems like. We're driving the streets of Paris in a blizzard at night.
We have lots of food with us, so don't you worry about us. We'll get there. Hannes, Jessica and I.
Be my Valentine My plan worked out perfectly. I got up at 6.45 and I am pretty sure Jessica thought I got up to take care of Hannes. Which I did, but I also made breakfast and wrapped up Jessica's present.
I am pretty damn proud of the present: it was a tiny notebook that I had painted red. It is Jessica's Happy Book. On each page I wrote something to be happy about. Like, you know, the usual: "Remember Paris?", "VEGAS, BABY!", "My hairy guy loves me," an outline of my hand etc. So, that whenever she feels a little down or depressed, she can pull that thing out of her pocket, open it on a random page and there is something that reminds her of all the reasons she can be happy for.
Oh, I also booked a hotel room for us in Tampere this weekend. A suite with a sauna. Yeah, baby!
PS. Hannes did sing parts of "Happy birthday," too
Tomorrow, tomorrow In about seven hours, I will try to get up and make some breakfast, put it all on a tray and carry it back to the bedroom. Then I will pick Hannes up, and lay him on my pillow, next to Jessica. If everything goes really well, Hannes will wake up, too, and join me in my "Happy birthday, Jessica" song.
But of course, I can't plan on that.
Tomorrow is Jessica's first birthday as Hannes's mother. This is the first time I have picked up a card that would be from me and Hannes, something I thought he would like to give his mother. I know he likes teddy bears so I chose a card witha teddy bear on it. I wrote "Happy birthday, Mom" on it, and signed it "Hannes."
Tomorrow is Jessica's day. (And yes, I just love the fact it also happens to be Valentine's Day but not because I would get away with it by getting her one present, au contraire, amigo). Tomorrow will be a great day. No bogeyman, no stress, no screaming babies, no panic about the future, no thinking about the day after tomorrow. And according to a tradition in Jessi's family, the birthday baby gets to choose what we will have for dinner. (Couscous and goat cheese).
Home alone Is it Tuesday? Please tell me it's Tuesday today. It's been eight days since Jessica and Hannes flew to Stockholm, and two days since I last saw them. And something weird happened during the first four days I didn't see them every day.
1) Minutes had more than 60 seconds.
2) Hours had more than 60 minutes.
3) There were more than 24 hours in a day.
4) Hannes became a big boy, with big diapers, who can roll from his tummy to his back. On purpose!
5) Hannes started to sleep all through the night, with the personal record being 11-to-8.
6) And I really missed Jessica, her laugh, her keeping me focused, her quiet chatting with Hannes in the bathroom, our talks and our walks.
7) Our bed seemed awfully big.
And these last two days, well, I have been busy vacuuming and cleaning up the house. I did spend four days alone there.
But today is Tuesday, and Hannes and Jessica will be coming home.
Good looks and crooked smile Hannes just charms everybody. And everybody says he looks like me. And, um, I can't believe I just wrote those two sentences right next to each other. My point is not that I just walk around this planet and charm people. Please. Really. Stop laughing.
What I was going to say was that it feels pretty weird to hear people say that Hannes is a "mini Risto." For one, I can't see so much of myself in him. Number two, there are moments when I think he is a spitting image of Jessica. And three, all my life, people have told me that I look just like my Dad. And it isn't always easy to break free from that, you know?
And yet it feels sooooooo good to hear that Hannes looks like me. So, if you've never met me, well, this is what I look like:
Hello, is this the Guinness Book of Records? The other day, as I was sitting here by the kitchen table that I bought from IKEA almost seven years ago and working on a memo to somebody important, I woke up to Jessica's scream. She yelled, "oh my God, my God, God, God, God" so many times that I knew it was something serious. So I ran into the bedroom and I see Hannes covered in his own vomit.
And I mean covered. Not just a little puke on the cheeks, which is pretty normal for any Finn, let alone a two-month old little guy. "It was unreal, I heard something from his bed so I turned to look and all I could see was this fountain of puke. I mean, it came straught up from his mouth, at least a half a meter," Jessica explained to me while we rushed into the bathroom.
Hannes threw up a little more, this time not defying the laws of gravity, and he landed his vomit on Jessica. She was the one holding Hannes, I was working the towel. We looked at each other, both with our own very-bad-case scenarios, I am sure. Then we turned to look at Hannes who lifted his head from Jessica's chest - and smiled. He just smiled as if nothing had happened.
So, we just smiled as well.
There is something about throwing up that I just think is a little scary. It seems so .. unnatural in a way. Anyway, it was our first incident at home. It felt good to get worried about Hannes, and even better to realize it was for nothing.
PS. The winner of the "Hannes Weight Watch" bet is "Godfather" who was closest with his 6102g. Hannes weighs 6275 g and is 59 cm long. Godfather, let's hope Hannes doesn't weigh 15 kg when you come to collect your prize.
