I know this is written in August, but since summer is slipping through our fingers, before it all slipped too far away, I wanted to post a bit about our happenings / happy little nothings to remember from July.
+ Whenever there's a change of seasons, I find myself always reflecting on the past and getting hopeful about the future. Here in Finland, mandated formal schooling begins in a few years. This has been a bit of a blessing, since the pressures to enroll Eowyn into school are mostly nonexistent. It's already odd that Eowyn wasn't in päiväkoti (daycare/preschool) ages ago, so I have my explanation down for that one pretty effortlessly. Because of all this, I'm excited for our little home learning system we have going on. With Elias being absolutely fantastic about getting out and about, adventures have become absolutely doable. This has brought a ridiculous amount of freedom and routine to our days. Practically all last year, getting out was an idea that caused me to break out in a dreadful sweat. Now if we're not out by 9:30, Elias is bringing me his shoes and climbing in the stroller.
Basically we just buy a lot of croissants. So, I'm teaching Eowyn about the most important things in life.
This whole process of moving here has allowed me to own quite a bit of my parenting choices. Back stateside, I would have done what the culture around me dictated. Being forced to intentionally make decisions and have limited resources to rely on has had and will have pretty drastic impacts on the rest of my kids upbringing. I'll forever be thankful to Finland for giving me the space and lacking the easy answers. I get to be the mom I want to be, a concept I wouldn't have thought about so intentionally had I not been forced into realizing that the script could be blank.
+ Speaking of being thankful to Finland, this summer has been absolutely beautiful. Apparently it started off rainy, but we were back stateside for that. We've had beautiful days here. Everyone is making their way back from their summer cottage, so now things are really getting fun with events and cute new stores opening up. I think August/Early September is the absolute best days of Finland.
+ Eowyn and Elias are entering new stages of playing together. Namely, they actually are figuring out how to do it well. Today we even had a solid 3 minutes of 'sharing.' They were passing a baby back and forth, rocking her and laughing. "We're sharing mama! We're sharing!!!" Slow and steady and we'll have these two thick as thieves. :)
+This girl has returned to her old love of running. Only to find my feet have grown considerably! With each kid, I've gained a shoe size. After a week of running and having numbness in my feet, I'm happy to report the too tight shoes from yesteryear have been donated and some spiffy spacious ones have been adopted.
+ Life is in a good season right now. Ben is still doing his usual working overtime, but now I'm getting pretty used to making it out and about on our own. The adventures have been really sweet, filled with finding bugs and playing at parks. While previous summers, I felt like I was missing out on the beautiful weather, this year we have seized all that this Finnish summer will give us!
The only downfall to all of this is that any event we go to, Eowyn is convinced Ben won't be there. Before, we always waited for him to have an open weekend day to check out new things. Now that we are seeing that this is sort of silly, we're going ahead and doing these adventures with just us three. The problem lies when talking about bigger adventures, like talking about trips in planes. She assumes her dad won't be in attendance. Hopefully it will all click soon enough and she'll understand that dad comes with us on BIG adventures, and the little ones we scout out on our own.
There's a joke in this company about "Fast (the company name) Widows." Basically meaning that the spouses to the employees often must function spouse-less. I've heard it now 20+ times, at every site we've been at, so I'm realizing it's a cultural thing with Ben's work. We're working towards figuring out a life balance that works for us. But, it certainly has been tricky.
+ I found a new bakery with seriously amazing baked goods! It's close to a park near us, so I get to grab a chai, grab some Finnish pulla, and hit up the playground in the center of town. It's one of my favorite, easy ways of getting out with the kids. Plus, this particular playground seems to attract fellow English speakers. Eowyn can understand her little 'mends' and the frustrations are less. All around win.
+ Eowyn officially knows how to work my camera phone. In fact, I asked her to take a picture of me and Eli and she decided to take a bunch. These were in the slew of snapshots and I just love that she took them. It's in the blood, this love for photography. She even 'pretends' to take pictures of flowers. Mental snapshots. Then she happily reports about the 'beetiful picher" she captured. Four year olds are just something.
+ Speaking of photography, I finally sat down and created a site to hold all of my client photos. While some date a ways back, I'm excited to keep adding to the portraits as time allows. I'm taking on a few clients FOR FREE to add more to my publishable portfolio. So, if you're interested in family/maternity/engagement/newborn/anniversary pictures, live in the Helsinki area, and are keen on letting me capture a bit of that beauty you carry, please contact me. In the meantime, check out the site!
To view click here: www.brittanysprague.com
All that to say, this summer has been filled with sweet and a few wild adventures. We're dreaming of the future and chasing light.
Hope your summer, as it wraps up, is filled with rest and a few adventures of your own.
Cheers! and as always, thanks for reading.
Love your website! Beautiful. That's one of my dreams :)
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