Chasing Butterflies Daily

Wanted to collect my social media posts about hyperemesis gravidarum journey #4 in one place. Have a few more specific posts I hope to tackle in individual blog entries but I felt that the shorter posts could make one longer one to remind me why I'm not going through this again. I never thought it would wear me down mentally this much. I know it did every other time when I also felt a million times worse but I seem to chose to forget and I can't do that to myself again, I'm more than blessed enough to have the gift of being mother to four children. WEEK 15 - 10/08 Hyperemesis Gravidarum - severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy - is every bit as glamorous as you might imagine. From pregnancy #1 I've vomited so violently I frequently pee myself... I know I'm not alone but it's hardly something people advertise.  Thing is I've kept a lot of my anger and pain about my pregnancies in. This time I know it's the last time, we're not wondering i...

Want to start by saying this isn't an ad (for now anyway!) and I'm not a brand rep I just want to recommend a few Scandinavian GOTS certified brands that are great for our son with achondroplasia and don't require any modifications despite his shorter limbs. With most clothes I find we have to compromise. It's either short enough in the sleeves but the body shows half his belly or it covers his belly but the sleeves are far too long and slide down when you fold them so you inevitably have to sew them or live with th folding battle. That or go for the t-shirt over long sleeve look, which I don't mind at times but it's nice to have a choice! These brands sell at least one, if not more, models (both tops and bottoms) that have cuffs that are either made to be folded or that sit a bit more snuggly than normal clothes which means they don't slide down despite being a bit too long. The added bonus is that they are all organic and high quality which mea...

  This is a follow up post to the one dedicated to our cocker spaniel whom we sadly said goodbye to in July 2020 (for the original post click HERE) As I mentioned in the previous post I wanted to make keepsakes of our old dog for the kids (and myself!). We weren't in a position to bury him in the garden of our rented property and I didn't feel that keeping his ashes was very personal. We could of course have scattered his ashes but the kids really wanted something tangible to remember him by and then I realised we could give resin art a go. I have never done anything with resin before but thankfully google has lots of information and there are so many youtube videos I won't even bother explaining the entire process. The jist of it is that it's a pretty easy thing to do. You can find the resin mix and hardener on amazon or through other online vendors and silicone molds aren't overly expensive and come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes. This is what I got (pictur...

A few weeks ago we said goodbye to our 15 year and 3 months old cocker spaniel, Nelson. He'd been my dog since I was 15 years old, I had him before meeting my now husband or any of our children arriving on the scene. Despite always knowing that it's part of the deal of having a pet it was a sad moment. We lived in Belgium when we got him as a puppy from an animal shelter (he already had the name Nelson and although we'd picked a new one for him, Nelson just seemed right on him). Nelson was a wonderful companion to me in my teenage years as my mother worked a lot and my parents were splitting up; my father was preparing to move back to Sweden. Nelson moved to Jordan and spent a few years there with my mother and sister as I was between flats and couldn't have him with me. A year after meeting my other half we found a beautiful house with a big garden in the Belgian countryside, in a village called Ottenburg, and Nelson was able to join us.  Around the time of his return ...

When I was about 5-6 years old my dad and I lived in Beijing, China. My mother had been with us our first year there but had returned to Sweden the second year for work. One day my dad and I visited friends - a dad and his daughter, my age, if I remember correctly. Don't think there was anyone else and unsure if the girl was my friend and the reason we visited or if it was my dad's friend and his daughter. In any case we were both going through an age when we were inexplicably interested in cutting the hair and fur off our dolls and animals. One of us had the brilliant idea of locking ourselves in one of the bathrooms while our dads were busy chatting. There were scissors that made it in with us. Then we cut each others (or maybe our own) hair. At the time I had a fringe that I never liked and wanted to grow out, but I was constantly told I could only grow it out when I was responsible enough to keep it out of my eyes with hair clips and bands. I definitely wasn...

This weekend it's midsummer. In Sweden it's a long day and night full of laughter, games, songs, eating and drinking - in many parts of the country the sun doesn't set at all, and where it does it's not for very long. Midsummer's Eve is a huge celebration for Swedes and also the time for lots of traditions. Many of them which are incredibly bizarre. Top two are: our midsummer pole and singing and dancing a song about frogs (små grodorna - the little frogs). I was approached by my eldest's beaver leader to teach the kids a game in Swedish, online of course as we are still in lockdown here in Scotland. But with midsummer looming I asked if it was ok to do a dance instead. This really is one of the most quintessentially Swedish traditions we have along with schnapps songs and smörgåsbords. The song talks about how funny frogs look and then sees children and adults alike imitate frog sounds and jump around. We have a lot of other songs for everyone to ge...

Our primary school kid is getting daily tasks sent to her online from her teacher. One of yesterday's tasks was to make a rainbow to stick in one of our windows. Lots of kids all over the country have been doing it in an attempt to cheer up passers by. I've seen some fantastic drawings as well as a beautiful version where people have cut out lots of hearts in the different colours of the rainbow and then stuck them up in arches in their windows. I decided we should try something a little different as well. We had already done an activity with paper plates earlier in the day (we'd made colour wheels that spun to show white while discussing primary and secondary colours) so it's hardly surprising that my inspiration took me back in that direction again. I got the kids to colour in both sides of 8 plates ( pink, red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, dark blue & purple ). Then I drew spirals on them to make it easier for them to cut the right shape....