Nilssen Family: March 7 Update

I’m not sure why my life has been so busy lately. It is 12:25 pm on a Monday and I am sitting at the computer eating my lunch. Enjoying a RARE moment of quiet. Soren and Svea are playing a nice quiet game together and are fully entertained by each other. I’ve been able to work on the neverending load of housework for a couple of hours today and I feel like I can blog guilt free at last.

Soren has grown so much in the last month or so. His mental and physical abilities are changing noticeably as he gets ready to turn 4 in a few weeks. His speech is becoming clearer and his sentences more complex. He carefully enunciates words like “tricky” & “electronics” with a clear emphasis on the perfect “ctr” and “tr”. R’s are still imperfect in lots of words (chair=che-ah) but he is improving! He can run faster, throw farther and jump higher than ever before. Soren’s growth has resulted in an increase of energy. I have a hard time wearing him out and his behavior at night is not good when he hasn’t been active during the day. It is a challenge keeping him busy. He is a great companion though and talks my ear off throughout the day. He asks tons of questions and of course, “Why?” is heard 80,000 times a day. In January he moved up to the Sunbeam class in church where he gets to sit through two hours of structured class time. He has adjusted ok. At least once each week he jumps out of his chair and sprints off explosively (usually to hide behind the rolling chalkboard). He is easily corrected and usually does pretty well the rest of the time. He loves singing time and learns the words to the songs quickly. Sometimes he’ll break out a monotone yell and belt out every word of a favorite song. It is annoying but pretty funny.

Svea is also growing up fast. She is so cute! I love this age. I just look at her and get an insatiable urge to squeeze her and give her kisses. She is getting tall and is wearing 24 month and 2 T clothes. Her fine blonde hair is getting long enough to pull into tiny pigtails or to hang messily around her ears. Svea is accident prone. I can’t really remember Soren being this clumsy at this age. Poor thing. She has no fear and I have to watch her all the time to prevent another accident. She is constantly sporting bruises and cuts on different parts of her body. She loves to play on the big kid playground. Her lack of fear is alternately nerve-wracking and fun. She’ll slide down the big tube slide that Soren is still too scared to try and will ride on our shoulders while we are on a hike (something Soren was always too nervous to do). She’ll do anything Soren will do and they have a blast playing together. Svea can run now but still can’t jump. Typically you’ll see her walking at a very fast pace swinging just one arm really fast. On the brain side of development Svea is growing as well. She seems to understand everything I say to her. She can follow a kids TV show now and will sit and watch with Soren while I’m doing dishes. She is learning lots of words that I can understand and some that I still can’t. Things are already better on the communication front. She can tell me if she’s thirsty “Didi” or hungry for a snack “Nah” or if she wants to go “Nigh-Nigh”. Now that she is 18 months she has started attending nursery at church. She is pretty anxious about being left without mom and dad still, but I’m hoping she’ll get over it soon. Right now she will scream inconsolably until she has to be brought to me or Erik.

We thought we’d get a break after Erik’s graduation from ASU in December but no such luck. Erik was called as the Young Men’s president in our ward so he is kept busy with meetings and working with the youth. Although he isn’t training for anything in particular, he still runs 30+ miles a week. He’s maintaining the weight he lost without calorie counting and looks great. Work seems to be a little more stressful than usual but he still works a 10 hours for 4 days schedule with no overtime. We’re still loving having Fridays off. Poor guy can’t get any time to himself because the kids and I pounce on any other spare moment he has.

I’ve been on a two week vacation from exercise since my marathon. I’m back to running again but I’m planning on mixing in more cross training with less running mileage to help keep things interesting. Other than that my life is full of taking care of my family and house. Pretty boring stuff but it keeps me busy! I still play volleyball twice a week and that helps keep me sane. I’m trying to get the kids outside as much as possible so we can drink up the beautiful spring weather we are having. Summer scorch is right around the corner so we’ve got to get our fill of the backyard while we can!

Now here’s a picture and video update to catch up:

Svea’s first pigtails: