The World in Tonevision

Superstitions, tricks and the best iPhone app ever

My default reaction, when faced with any challenge, is to read up on the topic. Always has been, regardless of the topic. Alas, when the challenge is making a baby sleep, the books are little help. It's not that they don't mention it, but at the end of the day all of them really seem to be stating the obvious: that it's not easy to make another person sleep when you want them to, and that what works for one baby might not work for the next one. Thanks for that!

Our lad is a lovely sleeper, once he drifts off properly (midnightish) he's usually no trouble as long as he's fed on demand through the night. Which I find perfectly reasonable, I never can sleep when I'm hungry either. It's just that we'd love for him to drift off at some point earlier than midnightish, so that we can have a little bit of time to ourselves to do grown-up stuff (like play games on our smartphones or have a bath or a sandwhich, that kind of thing). Besides, the last few hours he's up he can sometimes be a bit of a nuisance, probably because he's cranky and overly tired. Not quality time for anyone.

To deal with the unwelcome evening awakeness (which according to my father is a genetic thing the poor little fellow has inherited from yours truly - a comment which always for some reason is followed by a poorly disguised triumphant "serves you right" - sounding giggle) we have developed the very clever tactic of becoming really superstitious. Whenever bedtime doesn't go according to plan (which is pretty much daily, but with different degrees of severity) we try to think what we did that day and never do that again. So far we know the following isn't conductive to an early night:

• Taking him out in the buggy for too long
• Not taking him out in the buggy at all
• Letting him sleep for too long during the day
• Waking him up if he sleeps for too long
• Me eating spicy food
• Me drinking milk
• Me drinking coffee
• Me eating hazelnuts
• Me eating cream cake
• Having company over
• Having an empty house after having company over
• Trying to put him to sleep in a body rather than pajamas

So basically: everything. In the end it's becoming a bit like wearing a special Cesc Fabregas T-shirt or watching the match from a particular pub to make sure Arsenal wins at soccer. Not that anyone does that. Just an example, obviously.

And then we find a trick that works wonders, and are over the moon. Except the next day it doesn't work any more. Gee, we can't get anything past that baby. Very brainy kid. "A-ha!," he seems to be thinking, "last night I fell asleep in this Mei-Tai and woke up alone in the next room. There's a mistake I won't be making again!"

But we have one trick that has worked for three days running now - touch wood- ; this lovely little iPhone app called White Noise. Best 11 kroner spent ever, the little fellow is sleeping right now to the sound of waves crashing in the next room. How long it takes before he figures it out is anyone's guess of course. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the relative quiet and half an hour to write this. Bliss.

New foodblog up and running: Cirka spiselig

I'm anything but a great cook, but (unsurprisingly to anyone who's seen me in real life) I am quite fond of food. All kinds of food, and especially strange-sounding, strange-looking or very sweet and unhealthy food. And sometimes I have to make it, as well. For these reasons it suddenly (in the middle of the night, I might add, probably triggered by the baby not crying) came to me that I needed to start a foodblog. So I did, it can be found here and is written in Norwegian, but as we all know, ask and Google translate shall answer, so there.

I'm not aiming for the advanced stuff here, as the title (translating as more or less edible) or first post (on the proper way to mix orange juice and coca cola) might indicate, but I do have some nice tricks that will make the world a better place. Like how to nuke popcorn correctly or how to make a mean toasted cheese sandwhich. Feel free to check in!

Oh yes: the world cup (or: see how much I care)

Big event, this nordic skiing world cup in Oslo. I guess. There was one in Trondheim in the nineties, which I didn't miss. I remember standing out in the deep snow with a flag and a classmate watching the men's relay event. Waiting, waiting, waiting, then waving the flag for about 1,8 seconds as a skier passed so quickly we could barely make out if they were on the Norwegian team or not. Freezing, waiting some more.

This time, I steered well and truly clear of the whole thing, up to and including staying out of the city centre for the duration. Wheeling around a buggy with a small (well, young) baby in it among crowds of tourists with big rucksacks with flags poking out - poised to take out an eye or two at any given moment - on the tube: Not My Thing. Not unlike skiing itself: also Not My Thing.

I caught some of it on TV though. Not on purpose mind you, but I was flipping through channels and laughing out loud at a picture looking something like this:
and commenting what great television this was, when the picture turned into something like this:

and some ten seconds later, Marit Bjørgen crossed the finish line and took yet another gold medal for Norway (or Trøndelag, if you will). Excellent timing, in less than half a minute I took in all that I would have been interested in seeing had I made a conscious effort to see something. My heart goes out to to those who tried to watch the whole thing.

Now it's over, and people like me are allowed back into the city centre. I plan to celebrate by taking baby Oscar to the cinema. And perhaps sampling the goods from the Ben and Jerry's that opened just in time for the championship.

Chronic Book Buying Syndrome

Yup. Still got it: that compulsion to keep buying books even though the to-be-read-shelves are not being emptied at anywhere near to the pace with which they are being filled up. At a glance, I would say that I have about 2,5 meters of to-be-read shelf waiting for me to finish it.

Does this stop me from browsing bookstores? Or from coming home with a steady stream of new volumes? Afraid not. Booksales are particularly difficult to steer clear of.

It has always been my policy that no matter how limited my budget, my book-budget should be unlimited as far as at all practicable, but after moving house in November I started to entertain a nagging suspicion that maybe, just maybe, there can be too much of even such a fantastic thing as books. However, in my collection is the complete series of Kinsella's Shopoholic books - very educational- and I know that justifying overbuying is mostly a matter of coming up with good reasons why you need stuff. Which should never be a problem.

So todays purchases were completely necessary, for the following reasons:

Barske Ramperim by Gustav Lorentzen: Baby Oscar doesn't have a lot of books yet, and Gustav Lorentzen was one of the great heroes of my childhood. Badass poetry seems to me a much better way to increase the little fellow's cultural capital than the Mozart setting on the babygym (which is in the process of driving me insane, little by little).

Asylsøker: Documentary photography about asylum seekers. Can't have too much documentary or too much photography, and the subject matter is very politically correct to boot.

Måtehold i grådighetens tid (Temperance in the Age of Greed): well, based on all of the above information this should be food for thought and very appropriate for yours truly...

if I can only find the time for reading it.

Not to brag, but...

I am now a professional photographer! I actually sold a picture! After coming across it on flicr, Susan O'Hanlon fine stationery contacted me to ask if they could use my picture "that pink feeling" for a greeting card.

And check this out:

Cards have actually been printed, and hopefully will be on sale in stores in Britain soon! I'm expecting a life in luxury living off the royalties from now on. Ok, maybe not. But who knows, maybe in a year's time there will be enough for a coffee or something similar (actually I got an advance that will amount to quite a lot of cups of coffee. Maybe ten or twenty. So no complaints there!). Doesn't matter, the important thing is now I'm a professional photographer. Check! Next goal: become a published author. Preferably without having to self-publish, but if needs must...