The grass is always greener on the other side. The one you don’t have. The dream one.
Swedes always talk about living in a warmer country, about the joys of a better climate, about the good living we have in South America.
Brazilians always talk about the beauty of snow, the strength of the Scandinavians, the sporty high class living they have in Sweden.
And I’m no different: I love other’s grasses!
I think men who can ski and ice skate the sexiest on the planet. My friends usually laugh when I say that. “yeah, we were born in skis, my dear, so it’s not such a big deal for us”, they say. Whenever my husband comes gliding on ice or skiing like a God from the top of a hill, I just sight and am reminded of why I’ve chosen a Swede to be my husband. Sexyyyyyyyyyyy, stroooooong, invincible!
Well, maybe not quite, but these are the three words which come to my mind whenever I try to feel more like a viking myself.
Yesterday was one of those days. Beautiful, sunny, freezing cold. And I thought: “Sexy, strong, invincibleeeeeee!” , and left home with my three little vikings-in-the-making. Yes, we were going ice-skating. Just mommy, the kids, and nature.
We found a beautiful frozen lake, that was full of people already skating on it. Very important for not-yet-so-viking-mommy: unthinkable to go somewhere where the ice might break. For the true vikings, this is not a problem, as they always go skating with the full safety pack and its most important item: ice pickers, in case you happen to fall into the freezing water, and then, with the strength of your body, push yourself out of the freezing water using your ice pickers. Piece of cake. For a viking, of course. For the wanna-be viking mommy here, the bare thought of maybe falling into the water was enough for canceling our brave plans.
So, lake with lots of people=no chance of falling: the perfect place!
The viking thought followed me throughout the day. When we were going down the hill, carrying a huge bag with helmets (I mean, mommy carrying everything), a backpack with my skate boots, another backpack with warm chocolate and lunch (of course viking-mommy planned a typical viking-lunch on the snow), my ski-pols, and the last bag with the kids skates and mine, all four pairs of those. Ok. One, two, three. Down we go…..down we go…..viking mommy viking mommy…..ten minutes later and some wild desperate screams of “don’t run too far out”, “don’t go out in the ice without mommy”, “don’t eat snow”, “waaaaaaaait for meeeeeeeee”, we got to the lake.
-15 degrees celcious…..nobody but me seemed to care, so I just took of my gloves and started the process of putting the skates on the kids.
20 minutes later I was ready………with the FIRST kid……ok…..mind note: never again bring hockey skates……by the time I was ready with the last kid, my hands had frozen and I had heart piercing pain on my legs for kneeling down for so long…..viking mommy viking mommy…
Then my own skates…..aaaaaaa……the boots were sooooo tight that I almost felt like skating on my socks would be less painful.
viking mommy viking mommy…
We had managed to skate for five minutes together, as a family, when Noah, who is four, started crying and wining he was tired, that he didn’t want to skate anymore, that he hated skating……..to make things better, an elder woman passing by tried to be kind and said that “such a cute little GIRL shouldn’t be lying on the snow and crying like that”. Not even our lunch on the snow helped then. He just refused to skate anymore and I had to drag him back to the bench where we had started. And only that took about 20 minutes, to skate maybe 300m, as I’m not a viking-skater yet.
While I tried to find the other two kids who had gotten tired of waiting for us and disappeared around the lake, Noah managed to bury himself in the snow and get completely wet, which made our process of packing and going back to the car at least as painful as the taking off my boots.
viking mommy viking mommy…
Well, next Saturday we will go back to the lake, but this time, I’ll be sure to bring a pulka, for either carrying all the stuff or Noah, and of course, the most important item of all, my husband, as I realized after the adventure, is the one who will always be the true viking in the family.
On my way to heaven this morning, I mean, one-of-my-favorite-places-on-Earth Saltsjöbaden, I couldn’t understand the butterflies in my stomach. Why? I was on my way to a family shoot, something I’ve done for the last ten years, so why this feeling of extreme excitement?
by Ju
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