What kids like. Really.

We concluded our four weeks vacation with a trip to Åbo/Turku, Finland.
It´s easily done from Stockholm, you just take the large ferry (a kind of cruising vessel) and cruise through the Swedish and Finnish archipelago. Absolutely lovlely!

Our main destination was the Moominworld - for you americans reading this: it is a very small theme park. Not at all comparable to Disney World. But it was nice. Lot´s of stuff to do for the kids!

We got to meet some of the characters from the books of theMoomintrolls

The next day we went to a crazy park - the JukuPark for some water fun. And it sure was. I think I rode nine different giant water slopes! But for the kids... Well A has inherit my bathing genes. And that´s not a good thing. He is what you would call... a chicken.

Fun fun fun - in water land!

 

 

V, on the other hand, likes to train his swiming, but now it was too crowded and too much noise for him. He don´t like that. Too many impressions at the same time.


But on the last evening V found his favourite thing on the whole trip. And that was not what you would expect.
We had gone out to eat on a restaurant when V, tired of waiting for his meal, went on a stroll. And found... this:

9 different water slopes? Why? When you could go in the same escalator for more than 9 times?

A rainbow colored escalator!

We went up one time and he was laughing out loud all the way. Then a regular flight of stairs down. And then up. Again. And again. And again.
I lost count after 21.

Funny. We spent a lot of money to visit two parks, to cross the sea, to live in a hotel. But the best thing was an escalator.

Sorry, a rainbow colored escalator. That might explain it.

V and the language

V - now 3 years and 2 months old.

It´s been a while since I wrote something about my son V. Lately, my blog has been mostly about collecting cars, not so much about life with a son with a brain disease.

Partly it´s due to those thrilling episodes about Flash, a real exciting couple of weeks for us Disney Cars diecast fans. And partly it´s because I don´t have the need to write about V so much right now.

When we got the word about his shortage of myelin, his disability and the brain scan - we went into shock. The time after that was a mix of grief, adaptation to this new life we were presented to and acceptance of the new facts of life.

Now things are much less dramatic. Thus I find less things to write about when it comes to V and his life.

But one big change has come to us recently. V has begun to sign. 

He can express himself and he has learned sevral words only during the three weeks of our ongoing vacation (one last week left).

• Eat 
• Hungry
• Wait
• Sour milk
• Sandwich
• Berry
• Apple
• Banana
• Cake
• (Cinnamon) bun
• Grandpa / Grandma
• Play
• Sit
• Fish
• Potato

Yes, it´s a lot of words regarding food, but hey - the boy likes to eat! :)

It was a small revolution when he did his first sign by himself. Now he´s already doing three word sentences like "eat - potato - fish".

As I understand this, we now know that he understands words, he can express words, even combine words.

And the fact that V has better motor skills in his hand than in his mouth (very delicate motor skills needs to be learned to monitor our muths) combined with the fact that both me and my wife and the people that work at V´s daycare center have learned to sign now makes it possible for V to communicate much earlier than if he had to wait for those motor skills to develop in his mouth.

Signing is also seen as a way to motivate speech so we hope that this will help V to learn how to talk faster.

V likes to ape and imitate everything big brother A does (who´s diecast name is ape, how about that?)

Another thing about V is that he now interacts more with his bigger brother A. A is 4,5 years now and they play with toy cars that they sit on and races on all through our house. Laughing out loud. Very loud. Hide and Seek is also something they like to do but V has difficulities to tell who´s looking and who´s hiding...

Progress - now even more visible

I´ve tried to find out how to see what progress I make in a simple and quick way. And what could be more fitting and suitable for such a task than a progress bar?


So let´s try it!


Goals reached:

35 out of 35 Rubber Tires Piston Cup Race Cars collected.

100 %

11 out of 11 Team Chiefs from Cars 1

100 %

 





Goals left:

22 out of 28 Pittys from Cars 1 to collect - 6 left

80 %

10 out of 11 Rubber Tires World Grand Prix Race Cars
from Cars 2 to collect - 1 left

95 %

1 out of 10 Team Chiefs from Cars 2 to collect - 9 left

10 %

1 out of 6 Ultimate Chase Cars from Cars 2 to collect - 5 left

15 %

The sequel

Yeah, this is when you get to know what happened after the cliffhanger that I ended my last post with!

So I got another package with the mail the other day.

 It looks like... maybe two cars?

But wait a minute? Isn´t that...?

 No, not THAT one! Cute, but the OTHER!

Yeah! No??? What?!?! Flash AGAIN? What´s wrong here?


Well... the simple truth is that I got carried away. Overexcited. When I was bidding on the first Falsh on e-bay I got scared, thinking I maybe shouldn´t get it. So I started placing bids on another one as well. Naturally I got both.

But this one was a bargain! The first one costed me USD 86,50 but this one I gor for only 80 bucks!

Still. It´s my second most expensive car. By far.

And. Even more fun. (For you readers that is). I´ve been following this swedish web-site www.playlek.se and subscribed to their newsletter about Flash. Now they finally got some copys to sell. And they offered me one since I´ve subrscibed so early. The price? USD 75 (that includes shipping).

But I think two is enough, right? (And YES, I now, I could have got one for 75 dollar instead two for 166,50...)

The GOOD THING is that... I can now open one of them: (And still have one in mint condition, never opened, soon-to-be-worth-a-millon!)

The other good thing, which my friend Tom pointed out, is that now when I got two of them, both my kids can have one. When they get the collection. If they ever will...

Yeah, I goth this one too!

State of the matter

This is a status report from my garage.  I´ve reached the somewhat respectable number of 130 cars in my collection. Mostly race cars from the first and second film, but also a lot of pittys and quite a few hard to gets.

In my first cabinet I´ve got my cars from the first movie. And some lights. From IKEA. (Yes it´s Sweden folks!)

The second cabinet contains my Cars 2-diecasts. And the Dinoco team with chief, 3 pittys and the King.

Comin´up: A second surprise by US-mail. But this one is crazy... And stupid... And... totally... adorable! It will be here in just a couple of days. I´ll write more then!

(Love those cliffhangers!)

New Lemon

Got it at the mall. Felt good. Lovely made diecast. Good night!

Rare Models!

Check out these cars in  my collection - they are the jewels in my... locker.. in my... garage...
Well. Check it out anyway!