Hello Real Life

This week has zoomed past shockingly fast, as ‘the real life’ has started to emerge. Bjarki started his new daycare on Monday, but only for a couple of hours for the first couple of days, then for slightly longer periods of time every day. Finnur in the meantime started working again, after a month-long summer vacation. He’s stayed at home-base with the two Annas, who have been spending a lot of time together.

Bjarki’s adjustment to daycare has gone quite well this week, and it’s obvious that he’s a ‘daycare-pro’. In fact I suspect that he’s having an easier time than me, since Bjarki’s old daycare was sooo nice and things are done somewhat differently here. For example, some of the teachers have a tendency to call out orders to kids, often in a ‘slightly-sleep-deprived-mom-giving-orders’-tone, which is a departure from the old daycare where I marveled at how the teachers walked to the children and talked to them in a very benign tone about what needed to happen/was happening/shouldn’t be happening.

Another big change is the snack/lunch times. In Bjarki’s old place the kids started serving themselves food and drink last year, and were getting quite good at it. Here the kids get served by the teachers, even when they ask to ‘do it by themselves’ like Bjarki did the other day. They’re also not asked to put away their plates, which isn’t surprising because two out of the three tables in the room are ‘adult height’ so the kids sit on trip-trap chairs, and can’t easily get off the chairs while holding plates or cups (what’s up with that?!).

But even though I shake me head occasionally at the whole thing, Bjarki’s been ever so happy to finally get to ride bikes again (no helmets here!) and explore lots of new toys (cars!!!). By the end of the week he was apparently even interacting somewhat with the other kids. One tricky thing though is that quite a few of the teachers are still on summer vacation, and when they all get back there’ll apparently be a lot of staff rearranging, so right now Bjarki has none of the teachers he’ll have in a few weeks.

I started leaving Bjarki at daycare on Wednesday and spent my time by tending to the rental apartment. I sealed the various bathroom edges, wiped down the kitchen and bedroom cabinets, and painted a bit. Right now, the plan is to move in sometime next week even though the container won’t arrive until the first week of August (and who knows when we’ll get it through customs?!). On Thursday evening we therefore decided to fetch some of of the stuff we left in storage ten years ago.

We’d forgotten just how many boxes we had, so to begin with we just picked out the ones that contained the phone, kitchen stuff and towels. We unpacked those on Friday and today and it’s been a little like Christmas. It’s funny though to meet oneself some 10 years later. Judging by our mug collection I used to drink a lot of tea, and didn’t care very much whether any of the mugs matched. I’m also a little dismayed at my 23 year old self for not cleaning the waffle iron and sandwich grill a little more thoroughly, although the grease came off quite easily today.

We haven’t done a whole lot of socializing, and I hope our Icelandic friends and extended family aren’t offended that we haven’t come calling yet. Once we get a little bit more settled we hope we start having a little extra energy to come and say hi. Getting settled has taken more time and energy than I expected, and we’re not done yet. This next week we need to acquire a car, fridge (anybody have one to lend/sell us that’s less than 165 cm tall?), washer, dryer (we’re lazy) and dishwasher (aka marriage saver). Let the choice anxiety begin!