Basketball coach

Since I don't have (and the way it looks like right now, I will never have) kids in Sweden, I don't know what kids do for after school activities over there. And when I think about what I did as a kid, it isn't really helping since it's been awhile.. and things do change... But I do know what American kids can choose when it comes to after school activities - and a lot of it is sports. Sports is a big deal here. And one thing that I will never (or who knows, give me a couple of years) get used to is is these seasonal sports. If you want to play soccer you have to play in fall. If you want to play basketball, you play in winter. If you want to play softball you play in spring. Even though where I live there really are no real seasons to stop you from playing soccer in winter and softball in spring. I don't get it? Why do you have to jam in a whole season in a couple of months and then - nothing? Is it because you want the kids to play all sports (and be crazily busy all through the year)? I remember playing soccer and we did that all year around - and when it was too much snow you played indoors. And when I got older and taller I switched to basketball, which you also played all around the school year.

Oh, well - that's the way you do sports here, I just have to get used to it.

My Daughter finally likes to play basketball - so she is signed up for the basketball league - that will go on between January and March. I like basketball. It's a social sport - you can play it and hang out. You can play it on your own. Or with 3 friends or a whole team. You don't need a field, one backboard is fine. And with her Swedish decent, she will be tall - which comes in handy when you play basketball.

And I'm not sure how it happens - but I'm the assistant basketball coach.... So every Saturday for 2,5 hours, I'm now helping coaching 8 little 2nd Graders figure out how to play basketball. It's a lot of fun - they are so enthusiastic and way too small for their team outfits no one won't be dunking any scores. If judging by the jamboree games last weekend, I'm going to be a rarity - a female assistant coach... Wish me luck!

Happy New Year!

We have decided to repeat last year's success and spend New Year's Eve downtown and watch the fireworks - one at 9 pm and one at midnight. I'm Swedish (or European) at heart - I need the year to go out with some major dynamite explosions. The small "puffs" people randomly throw around on New Year's Eve here doesn't count. It should be loud and big.

Usually New Year's is one of the few days of the year when I really feel home sick (Midsummer Eve is the other) - I miss the fantastic feeling of hitting the streets at midnight and everyone is out, cheering, seeing, hearing, smelling the fireworks. Watching the ball drop in New York on rerun from 3 hours earlier just doesn't do the trick...

But our newly invented tradition is as close as you get to a European New Year's Eve.

I wish all of you a Happy New Year and hope you get to see lots of fireworks!!

English as a second language and grades in Elementary school

Last week we got notice that our Daughter, who is in 1st Grade, has now formally been moved from the ESL status to FEP - meaning going from limited English proficiency to fluent English proficiency. That means that in theory, if you could correlate for age, we have a Daughter that is now better in English than we are. Cool!

All kids (in California, can't speak for the other 49 states) that speak a different language at home are flagged as ESL students and monitored extra in school. This is the Daughter's second screening (since it's her second year in the American school system that starts with Kindergarten at age 5) and she made huge progress the last year. We're so proud of her, handling two languages so very natural, switching back and forth...

We also got her grading, her Grade Progress Report,  for the second period of the school year. Here you get grades from 1st Grade (well, you got "grades" in Kindergarten too, but they were more based on attendance) and I love it!

It's a great way to track what's going on in school and it's still based on a pretty easy scale - N (needs improvement), S (satisfactory), G (good), O (outstanding). For a lot of the "issues" you can't get more than a "G" or "N". You get the grades three times a year and the first and the second time you have a parent-teacher meeting to talk about them.

The Daughter is doing great - and we can also see some of the issues she had. The teacher writes notes on the grade sheet, following up. The kids (at least in our school) are not aware of the grades and it's not something you really talk about as in "you have to improve your grades", but really a good indication of progress.

The grading is not only "subject" based like you're used to in Sweden (or were used to - I know nothing about how grading is done these days - my last encounter with Swedish grading was.... long time ago...). You get an indication on "issues" like "Citizenship" like "respect self and others", "makes responsible choices", and "Work habits" such as "follow directions", "stays on task", and "Area efforts" in areas such as "technology", "visual and performance arts", and "physical education".  My Daughter is "outstanding" at handing in homework (she should thank her mom!) and "satisfactory" in "staying on task". ;-)

Happy New Year!

2010 started out with fireworks - a nice change from the normal, quiet New Year's Eves we've celebrated here (one of the days of the year when I really feel homesick for Europe). This year we moved ourselves to where the fireworks are - and stayed the night downtown for easy access to the fireworks. We think we might make this a traditions - a new year really should start with some major dynamite explosions!

Merry Christmas 2009

The most common Christmas card we get from our American friends is a nice family picture with a printed greeting - the whole family or just the kids. The most common Christmas card we get from our Swedish friends is a painted card with snow and old fashioned Santas and a hand written greeting. I like both versions - it's nice to get Christmas cards.

Our Christmas card this year was done in August when the Daughter suddenly out of the blue drew this picture on our big white board in the office - we took a picture and added words and a frame. And the funny thing is that Santa really assembles the Husband...

(and no - I might live in California like Anna Anka and other Hollywood wifes - but I do not have botox in my lips...).

Online shopping in Sweden

Ok - after very nice comments on my post on finding good reading books below, I decided to focus a couple of hours and update our bookshelves with books in Swedish for the Daughter to read. So I sat down with my laptop, a cup of tea and lots of patience and started cross referencing different Swedish book websites and making a list of books. I decided to make a pretty big order - to last us through the year - and in the end I ordered 21 books. I choose Adlibris - not sure why - it was just one of the sites I had open and they had pretty long and detailed descriptions of the books that I liked.

As usual at checkout, there were a lot of issues with using two addresses - since most of the Swedish websites don't ship internationally (and if they would the shipping cost would be a joke) I have to use two different addresses. If you shop online in the US - you always have the choice of two addresses - the billing address and the shipping address. In Sweden - not so... When trying to get the check out to work - the order page lost my choice of using a credit card to pay and placed the order as "postförskott" - a Swedish way of paying when you pick up the package at the postoffice.

Since I'm sending these books to my brother - I don't want him to have to cash them or mess with money in any way - I want the books to be paid for (it's enough that I'm having him collecting them and carrying them home). But there was no way to go back - the order had been placed. And when I contacted adlibris.se to find a way to solve the problem - there was none... They woulnd't allow me to prepay the order as a bill and they couldn't accept card payments after the order had been placed. Their solution was for me to transfer money to the one who was picking up the order or cancel the order and redo it... So to spend my money on their business - I still had a lot more work to do....

No thank you.

So I cancelled the order and redid the order on Bokus instead.

Why isn't there a Amazon.se...

My Daughter cracked the reading code at 4,5 years, she now at 6 reads fluently (for her level) in both Swedish and English. Since it is so much easier (and cheaper...) to find "Beginning reader" books in English and we have fewer Swedish books - she has tended to read much more English than Swedish lately - a trend we don't like (a 50-50 ratio would be great). But with the start of the weekly Swedish school this September she has gone back to read Swedish much more. Swedish is actually easier to read and she can read longer without getting tired.

So suddenly she has gone through almost all of the "easy to read" Swedish books and I've been desperately trying to go online to see what I can order from Sweden. Books that are made for beginning readers that not necessarily are about football or horse riding. We have a whole box with "beginning reader" books in English - you can find them at your local bookstore - divided by reading level and they usually cost about $3-5. Not hardback books - but hey - they will soon move to a new level - so we don't mind.

I'm used to browse books using online stores such as Amazon.com where you can search and get review, good descriptions and recommendations - and are at total loss at some of the Swedish book sites that seem to lack any decent search function at all. Some books at Bokus.se only have a small picture of the book, it's name and author and price - and that's about it. For the price of buying it and having it shipped over here - that can be pretty bad purchase if you haven't done your research... Seems you have to know what you're looking for - before you go online on Swedish websites.

I'm assuming Swedish children who are beginning readers do read books? Or is the beginning reader an English phenomena? Maybe you just read any regular book that you happen to have in Sweden? Here you do have to learn "sight words" - words that you can never sound out and you just have to learn them. So beginning reader books are focused on different levels of sight words - thus divided into different reading levels. Makes it easier and don't discourage early readers to have a go at reading.

So maybe I'm looking for something that just isn't there in any major extent... But if there was an Amazon.se - I would know for sure...

Example from Bokus.se - the only info about a book... A picture and the
 title and the price... but you can share the info on Facebook and Twitter! ;-)

Exampel from BonnierCarlsen.se... You get 55 pages (!) to click through when you click
their link Books for 6-9 year olds... not even a "Next" or "Previous" function...

Today it happened...

I was going to write a date - in a Swedish text - and suddenly had to stop and think hard... Is today 102009 or 091020... It took me a couple of seconds to get it right (the right way in Swedish (and like most European countries and according to standard...) is 091020 as in year-month-date). I'm I loosing my European heritage! "Ve och fasa"! Why can't the whole world just keep to the standard... 

Found a long discussion on the topic on a Yahoo Answer site - doesn't make the thing more clear - but it was kind of fun to read.

And my Daughter, the little American, is very firm with me "The week starts with Sunday"....

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend is the official start of fall in the US. Every first Monday of September is off and the American people head out to beaches, trails, neighborhoods for adventures and barbecuing. Almost like the Swedish Midsummer, but without the Midsummer pole.

For us it's one of those weekends we tend for forget about. Despite 10 years in the US, it seems it always come unexpectedly. We're just to long weekends in the Spring, but fall in Sweden is just one long stretch of ordinary weeks and no days off.

And working for a Swedish company it's a regular day - nothing special, work as usual. Next year we really should save a vacation day for this day and enjoy this last weekend before fall. That way we will have Midsummer as the long weekend after a long spring and the start of summer, and Labor Day as the long weekend before the long fall and the end of summer. The best of two worlds!

Things I will miss and things I enjoy

Things I will miss from Sweden: magazines! I'm not sure why there is such a difference - but I just love Swedish magazines. I bought them by the dozen when in Sweden. It's not the language... it's just different... more features, more articles... Most women's magazine over here are pure fashion oriented with few features.

Things I enjoy in the US: milk in one gallon jugs! After five weeks with one litre tetras I LOVE being back to our big one gallon jugs, knowing I can pour myself a big glass of milk and not emptying out the stock and these days I actually prefer the American milk taste (yes, they do really differ).

Flags

In Sweden there are official "flag days". They are marked in the calenders and they are usually due to a religious holiday (that no one really celebrates any longer, but sure enjoy the time off work) or a royalty's birthday or name day. You are also free to raise the flag for other reasons - and when in the summer house in Sweden, we usually do on someones birthday. You can't raise the flag before sunrise or before 8 am and you have to take it down before sunset or no later than 9 pm (in Summer the sun sets way later than that). 

Here there are no clear flag rules - at least in the Swedish sense. You'll see flags up 24-7 - and here in California, you usually see two flags on the on the flag post, the US flag on top and the Californian flag underneath. 

I like both ways. I like flags. I wouldn't mind having a flag post in the back yard - but that you never see here. If people put op flags it's usually on a small flagpole attached to the wall of the house. I wonder if there is a rule on flag posts in private back yards?  

Flags at my Daughter's Elementary School last Friday.

American Easter

The main attraction of Easter here if you're a kid is not dressing up as Easter witches but to go on a egg hung and collect egg in a basket that the white Easter Bunny has hidden. We try to combine Swedish and American traditions  - letting the dressed up Easter Witches hunt empty eggs and then the kids get the Swedish paper eggs filled with some candy - after they painted the eggs and done their Easter cards. We have no real relation with the Easter Bunny so we've quietly left him out until required by the kids. 

Easter is a major holiday in Sweden. Well, at least people get a lot of time off work (half Thursday, all Friday and the Monday after Easter Sunday) - not sure people really "celebrate" it. But it's always nice to get off work. Here you wouldn't know it's Easter except the Easter decorations. Thursday and Friday are normal days as is Monday. But Easter Sunday, Påskdagen,  is the big day, the only day of Easter - lots of stores are actually closed (and the only other time that happens is Thanksgiving Day).  

But by then I'm usually done with Easter and egg eating. 

"My flag"

Yesterday my Daughter was finishing a drawing for my step dad who just had his birthday. She decided she wanted to draw a flag post with a flag raised, just like the one we have at the summerhouse in the Stockholm archipelago. 

She started drawing it, and I didn't pay much attention. Then she asked "where do I put the stars?". For a moment I was confused, not knowing what she was talking about. No stars on the flag last time I checked. Then it hit me. "Oh, you're drawing the American flag?", I said. For a moment the Daughter was confused, not knowing what I was talking about. "I'm drawing my flag", she said. 

Of course. If you ask my Daughter, born and raised in California to draw the flag - she will of course draw a red and white striped flag with white stars on a blue rectangle in the corner. Why would she automatically draw a blue flag with a yellow cross as I was assuming? In the end we decided to draw two flags - after all - here in California you see flagpoles with two flags all the time - the American and the California flag (and in the end neither flag was in the "correct" colors - but then, who cares, the point is that there are two flags up for the birthday boy).

But it was yet a reminder that however much I want to answer "Swedish" to the question on what my kids think they "are" - it's not what they would answer. 

So from now on we have two official flags in the house, mixing red, blue, white and yellow. And that's pretty neat too. 

Swedish and English

My son is way more exposed to English than my Daughter was at the same age. Every day he is out playing with the (English speaking) neighbor kids that didn't live here when she was a toddler and he is pretty fluent already despite us always speaking Swedish in the house.

And he is already mixing the langugages the fun way you can only do if you're bilingual.

"Låt mig gå", he'll scream when we pick him up to go inside from playing with his friends or we're stopping him from jumping up the kitchen table or some other height. "Låt mig gå" is his Swedish version of "Let me go". Now when he says "låt mig gå" - he sounds really cute, like a character from a black and white love drama from the 40s. What he means in Swedish is "släpp loss mig".

Mrs Smith

I volunteered in the Daughter's Kindergaten class for the first time two weeks ago. The procedure is that the child introduces her mom or dad to the class and the class then greet the parent who is going to help out. I was so set on being Ms JaCal and got the hick ups when I realized I was to be introduced as Mrs Smith (if that would have been my last name). I almost turned around wondering what other grown-up was in the classroom...

It's not that I don't like the more formal way and the way it gives respect - especially in school - but I have a hard time getting used to it. I'm starting to realize that maybe we should have taught the Daughter to call her bestfriend's mom Ms Emily and not just plain Emily... I don't want her to be known as the rude Swede down the street...

But on the other hand it really feels easier to use "Mrs" or "Mr" than the Swedish eqvivalcence... I wonder what people would think if I would come back to Sweden and start calling people Herr Andersson and Fru Svensson...

Bag or paper?

Speaking of gifts - here is a phenomena I've been thinking about: the different ways to wrap gifts. In Sweden you always wrap your gifts in paper and with ribbon around them. Here you (usually) put your gifts in a bag and "hide" it with tissue paper on top. Meaning that even small gifts can look pretty big.

Aha - wait a minute!

Can that be it? It's a way to make even small gift look big! Or maybe it's because it's way quicker to prepare a gift by using a bag? Or because it's easier? It sure is easier to "wrap" a ball as a gift using a bag (but maybe not as challenging...). It's also way easier to carry your gift in a bag - especially if you have several gifts.

I haven't decided really which way I prefer - the old me prefers a perfectly wrapped package with a nicely tied ribbon. The new me likes throwing tissue around, when trying to find a gift hidden in a bag...

American vs Swedish gift wrapping: 1-1.

"It's winter now"

Today we woke up to cooler temperatures (this week we will only hit the 70s) and the inside temperature was "only" +20C and with the windows open, there was a cool breeze from the +17C outside, coming into the house. It's going to be a beautiful day - with perfect temperatures +23-24C.

My Daughter, sitting at the breakfast table in her shorts and t-shirt, was shivering. "Mom, it's winter now", my little Californian girl told me. "No, I said, you can't really say that actually, but it's starting to become fall", I replied while helping her with a long sleeved sweater. "But winter is when you're cold?", she said.

It's kind of tricky to teach your kid seasons "in theory"... and I still haven't gotten used to that my kids won't have the same meaning fall, winter and spring than I have, growing up in a place on earth where the seasons are clearly noticeable.

Oh, some leaves do turn yellow here and fall off, and come back in spring, and the temperatures drop during winter and we will (hopefully... we have a stage 2 alert) have rain and hit an occasional "freeze" night (meaning temperatures around 0F/36F), but it's just so subtle...

(Picture of "Winter insulated overall" from HannaAndersson.com)

Escalator rules

When I was looking for potential bumper stickers yesterday I found this very Swedish warning sign (I'm not sure why you would want it on your car...). You can see this sign on almost any escalator (don't know the rule behind it - maybe it's mandatory for Swedish escalator to have these signs according to some escalator law).

And it made me think about what's NOT on the sign - strollers. In the US (or I should limit my comments to California, this is a huge country after all), you are never allowed to bring your stroller on an escalator. There are clear instructions and warning signs - "no strollers on escalators" (I'm too lazy to run out to get an example picture and couldn't find one online, but trust me, this is true).

For me, an obviously very irresponsible Swede, I think this is pretty inconvenient. This means I have to run around the mall or airport to find an elevator whenever I happen to have a stroller with me. When you transfer between terminals at O'Hare in Chicago, it takes probably 30 minutes more when you have a stroller and have to stand in line for the elevators than if you would be able to use the escalators.

I do see the point that you should be really careful - it IS tricky to navigate a stroller in an escalator.

Maybe Swedes have a special technique for escalator strolling, or maybe the strollers in Sweden, more resembling smaller cars (and they cost like one), are more safer than the more used umbrella stroller here. Or maybe, for once, Swedes are just a tad more irresponsible when it comes to kids and security (don't ever start a conversation with a Swedish parent about letting your children ride forward facing in a car before the age of 4). I don't know.

On the other hand - it is sort of social to stand in line waiting to get on a elevator with other parents with strollers... and yes of course, you always do some nice American small talking.

But I can admit it here... I have been breaking the rules... There have been occasions when I have used American escalators with my stroller (using my Swedish escalator technique)... being really nervous, thinking I would get caught by some huge, angry security guard. But - so far so good..

More expensiv dollar

The last few weeks the dollar has become more expensive. From being at 5,85 to the Swedish krona in April, today it climbed over 6,11 to the Swedish krona. One Swedish bank thinks the dollar will be at 6,35 SEK within a year.

It's still pretty low historically compared. The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter had a graph of the dollar exchange rate to the Swedish krona the past 5 years. And it's still a good time for friends and family in Europe to come visit! Come on over!

A little list

Two days after coming back to California from my five week summer stay in Sweden - here is a little list ...

I'm happy for...
... drinking huge glasses of California milk from a gallon bottle
... the readily available ice cold, filtered water from the freezer door
... dark nights when sleeping*

I miss...
... view of water - both the places where I have been staying have had great views of water
... the broad variety of yummy bread and hard cheeses
... big toilets bowls...

*I really do like the dark nights... and I'm so surprised I even feel that, being Swedish. Maybe, when you live in Sweden and you've spent winter in almost total darkness and the bright nights sort of grow on you, it makes them easier to adjust to, than when you suddenly arrive in a few weeks before the summer solstice. I mean, it's a fantastic phenomena - but oh, how I enjoy the darkness of night...