A Summer day

If you’re one of those persons who are fed up with people talking about their babies, or you just want to only read about web developing, you should stop reading now. Othwerwise, please read on and let me share something from my weekend.

It goes without saying that Saturday morning, after two weeks of intensive sun here in Sweden, it was cloudy when I got up (why wouldn’t it be clody, when i finally had some time to go out). We did some things inside for a while, like putting up paintings and pictures on the wall, but then I suggested that we get out and take a short walk to get some air. Fredrika (my girlfriend) and Emilia (my eleven-months old daughter) seemed to be up for the idea, so out we went.

Emilia was put in the stroller and we walked around the hill where we live and past the nearby golf course and its driving range. I found some range balls that Emilia and I played around with, and she found it hilarious!
Then, as we turned into the steep climb up to the hill again, I turned to Fredrika and said:

Aren’t you happy now that I suggested that we go for a walk?

The moment I uttered those words, the sky literally opened. Straight away, the rain was pouring down with such intensity it actually hurt when it hit your body. I managed to get the small roof over Emilia and the umbrella to protect her from the “sun”, and then I sprinted uphill with her to get home. After me and Fredrika running through the rain for some minutes, we got to the house. We were drenched, and all the fabric in our clothes were so wet it had become see-through, no matter the original color.

After that, the rest of the day the weather switched schizophrenically between shining sun and pouring rain; as soon as I tried to go out, I could feel driplets falling on me again. I decided to spend the rest of the day inside.

So, instead I was just playing around with Emilia. It’s hard, if not impossible, to describe how amazing it is to have a child. It doesn’t matter how hard a day has been, how many narrow minded or just plain evil people I’ve met; when I come home and see her smile all my troubles are gone. She’s been walking for a couple of weeks now, and is currently trashing around, totally fearless.

She has this little book with pictures of animals, and being the pedagogic father I am (read: try to be), I point to the pictures and make the sound of that animal: Cow – Muu, etc. But then came the tricky part: what in the hell kind of sound does a hedgehog make???!!!

I quickly browsed past that page and continued with my excellent sheep and horse impressions. Emilia is the reason I want to live, she’s my everything. πŸ™‚

2 Comments

  • Chris says:

    I had exactly the same problem with my daughter recently with the hedgehog… Hedgehogs are the nightmare of fathers πŸ™‚ Hedgehogs should be banned from books!

    What I did was to create a sound out of nowhere, trying to sound convincing. And the good thing with children is that she believed me and found my sound quite normal. I must remember it for the next time now…

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Chris,

    Ha ha! πŸ™‚

    Good work!

    And yes, when there are animal sounds that I'm not really a 100% sure about, it's hard to reproduce that exact sound the next time we read the book. Also, does my girlfriend think the animals sound the way I do, when she reads the book to her?

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