Update

News from May

May is coming to an end, so now is a good time to tell briefly(?) what happened this month and what plans we have for next month.

On May Day, we were at a May Day matinee with my family, it's a May Day concert. This is a long tradition in my family, my mother has been going to these concerts since she was a child and it was important that Jordan would get in the tradition right away. Jordan was wearing baby ear protection at the concert and I'd say it went pretty well! That makes me the only one in the family who couldn't stay for the whole concert as a baby, but had to be taken outside to calm down :D. After the concert, we went to May Day brunch with our friends, and in the later that night I went to my little sister's house.

After May Day I finally got back to working out! First I started doing yoga and then I got a gym membership and now I've been going to the gym several times a week. I was so tired when I was pregnant that I didn't exercise much, and after giving birth I tried to be careful with the surgical wound. Then, when the wound started to get better, it took a while to get back to the working out routine, but now I've started and the feeling is great! It's pretty weird to be in gym classes that used to be too easy for me and find that now I can't even do them to the fullest, but on the other hand, it's somehow much easier to be kind to yourself when you're recovering from childbirth. I know that my body has been through a lot and everything it can do right now at the gym class should be considered a victory and besides, progress happens every week. I was also able to join a postnatal yoga course even though it had already started, and we have a really nice group there and good exercises, e.g. for the pelvic floor muscles. I think it's smart to also do recovery training after giving birth, and not just go straight to lifting iron at the gym (not that I'm lifting a lot of iron right now :D).

On the Saturday after May Day, my sister, niece and I had a "Brunch and Soap Day", where we made our own soap. The idea started from the fact that I wanted to make breast milk soap, instructions and pictures of our soaps can be found here. The next day I got to celebrate my first Mother's Day and Eerikki was once again so thoughtful, you can find the Mother's Day post here.

The following Saturday we had a date night and went to the movies at Riviera in Kallio. We have a date night maybe three times a month where my mom or my sister and nephew come babysit Jordan for a few hours and we go out to eat. This time we decided to go to movies and the only movie theaters we ever go to are Riviera and Maxim. I think they are so great because they also serve food and wine there, I never go to regular movie theaters anymore. The movie was just ok, but the evening was great.

On Sunday, after Jordan's baby swim class, we had brunch with my book club (the book was My Friend Anna) and that same evening we left with Eerikki and Jordan on a cruise to Stockholm. We had decided to only do one activity in Stockholm and so we visited the Abba museum. It was definitely a place worth visiting! I sang in the museum's karaoke booth with Eerikki and Jordan as my background dancers and went on the stage to sing with holograms. We also found a wonderful lunch spot right next to the museum. With the experience of two trips, I can say that cruises with a baby are really fun. This time Jordan was already sleeping in his own bed and during the day he took his naps in the stroller. One day Eerikki walked around the deck with the stroller trying to get Jordan to fall sleep and said that a few people started looking at him with a smile when he passed them with the stroller for maybe the twentieth time :D

We returned home from the cruise on Tuesday and went to see my mother's choir performance in Kallio in the evening. Then came Saturday and my "varpajaiset", it's a party you have to celebrate the fact that you've had a baby. I had decided a long time ago that I wanted to have Varpajaiset event though in the recent decades it's been usually the men who've had them. I've read that Varpajaiset was originally a women's party, which is easy to believe as we're the ones who carry the baby and give birth to it. Since I'm not ready to be away from Jordan for a whole night, we held my Varpajaiset at our place. Eerikki took care of Jordan and I was able to be near him, but still spend the evening with my friends. I wanted to do a poker night and luckily people got excited about the idea. The theme was Monte Carlo and I dressed in all white to match the theme. Eerikki also dressed festively, he acted as our bartender and waiter, and Jordan was also supposed to wear a tuxedo shirt and a bow tie, but the preparations took so long that in the end we didn't want to go through any extra effort anymore and so he was just in all-white clothes. My phone's camera had broken, and I hadn't managed to send it in for service, so my niece was lovely and took pictures of the evening.

The weather was so pretty in Helsinki this week that we had a terrace lunch with Eerikki and Jordan every day this week. On Tuesday, we went to see my nephew's floor ball team's final game of the season where he was awarded the MVP of his team! I was especially proud when after the award was presented, it was mentioned what a good teammate he is to everyone off the field as well.

Tomorrow Eerikki and I are going to his friend's wedding, and I have to admit that I'm a little nervous about how it will go. Eerikki's good friend got married in the middle of February and since you couldn't bring children there (which I understand very well!), we had to think a little creatively about how we could both participate. Eerikki was the bestman, so it was obvious that he would go, but it was important that I could go too, after all, it was Jordan's godparents getting married, not some random acquaintances. In the end because the wedding venue was so close to us, I had to be apart from Jordan for one set of couple of hours and then another of about five hours. I did feel guilty about those five hours for at least a month, even though he was with a very familiar person, my mother, either sleeping in the stroller or at home, i.e. in a familiar place. This time the wedding is in Espoo, but it doesn't start until 4 p.m. and Jordan is already a few days short of six months, so I thought that with the travel times, I can be at the wedding for six hours - without feeling guilty later on. I would like to clarify that of course I could stay for the whole wedding if Eerikki returned home to Jordan, but the groom is Eerikki's friend, whom I don't know very well so it makes sense that it's him who stays. Anyway, I don't miss dancing all night, but I miss wearing something other than sweatpants and meeting new people. And I love weddings, of course! It's no accident that I started as a wedding blogger, I still love weddings!

On Sunday we thought we'd ask our friends to come over for a barbecue and to watch the Finns in the hockey final, if we get to the final game. We've been watching a lot of hockey recently, both the World Cup and the NHL... whenever I can stay awake.

This month, Jordan has learned a few new things like sitting up and crawling. He's also discovered a very loud voice that sounds like what I imagine flying dinosaurs used to sound like. This guarantees a very relaxing work environment 😄.

We don't have anything specific planned for June yet, everything is so different when you have a baby. Eerikki asked one day if I had thought about Midsummer yet, because he had thought that we could spend it with my family. Don't get me wrong, my family and I are close and we see them a lot, but I don't think a couple of years ago that would have been his number one plan for Midsummer. 😀 I think the idea is great! They are fun company and really eager to take care of Jordan. We can get a little time with our hands free of the baby and no one minds if Jordan has to be put in for a nap in the middle of a meal or our plans need to be modified to suit the baby.

Jordan will continue with baby swimming through June and I will continue with postnatal yoga until the beginning of June. Midsummer plans have been made, but otherwise June is still quite unplanned. I haven't decided when I'll take my vacation yet, but since I can make the decision on a day's notice, I'll probably decide at the last minute.

Those were our main events for May. I'll try to get my phone's camera fixed soon and practice using my camera so I can get more pictures soon!

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