The last child in the woods

In Canada, I started a forest project at Jura and Nori's school. What started as a walk in the woods beside the school, slowly grew into a inquiry based outdoor science curriculum, thanks to the amazing teachers who let me be a part of their classroom.

We started to explore a trail at the edge of the school ground, called Swordfern Trail. Over the course of a year, 140 grade 1 and 2 kids slowly made this patch of forest their own. They learned the names of the trees on the trail and what ecosystem those trees were a part of. We looked for fungi and used a (crude) determination table as a puzzle to find the names of the mushrooms we found on the trail. I talked to them about the web of life and how even on that short stretch of trail each organism had it's role in the ecosystem. Outside of the science periods, the teachers took their groups to the same trail to have the kids inspired by their surroundings and write beautiful poems. We built fairy houses with the bounty of the woods

The children's curiosity was sparked and I got more questions than I ever could answer. The trail transformed from a path that some kids used to walk to school on to a part of the forest that they "knew". Probably the best part was when the grade 3 students the next year asked for "play time" in the woods as the last thing we did for the science program before I left for Norway. Seventy-two kids running wild in the woods for an hour, climbing logs, building dams in streams, finding treasures and trying very hard to get "lost" ;-) 

In Canada, this was something relatively new. It felt like I had finely found a little niche for myself where I could use my biological knowledge in a way to teach outside of the regular "sit-at-a-table-and-repeat-after-me-way". If we had stayed in Canada, I would have explored my options to obtain some form of teaching degree and turn what I had been doing on a voluntary basis into a real, grown-up job. 

Alas. We moved to Norway. And in Norway, outdoor education has been a substantial part of the elementary school curriculum for ages. Which, of course, is awesome. Jura and Nori have had 3 "friluftsdagen" so far (they have gone to school for only 1.5 months now!) where they do exactly what those grade 3 kids did...but instead of 1 hour, they do it all day! So aside from the language barrier preventing me from trying to become some sort of outdoor education teacher, it's not exactly as if what I have to offer has any "niche-value" around here. Bummer. Then again, at least my girls get to experience the benefits of outdoor education firsthand! And over the past couple of weeks, even I got to experience some :-) 

Eluin in particular is the lucky duck. Because the barnehagen (that's what Norway's amazing daycares are called) in our town had no spot for Eluin available, she started at a barnehagen the next town over. This barnehagen has a strong focus on outdoor education. In fact, they even have an outdoor pedagogue who oversees all things outdoorsy. How cool is that?! Their school is at the edge of a beautiful forest and they take regular trips into the woods. Also, next to their school yard, there is a part of the forest that has been turned into a play-climbing-forest for the kids. I know. I want to go to school there, too!

Aside from the regular school-life, they also go on "outdoor weeks" twice a year (I think). They pick a place in the woods near one of the "wooden shelters with firepits" you find in the woods here everywhere. And they stay there. All week. Even if the weather is, well, Norwegian. Eluin got to experience her first outdoor week two weeks ago. She had an awesome time! Everyday she came home smelling like a smoked potato, full of stories about sawing tree trunks and swinging on rope swings and, on her first day, she even brought home an invisible troll friend named Lars that she had found in the woods. Over the week, her independence and feeling of freedom in the woods grew even more. 

It was during this week that I decided to be bold and ask if the teachers perhaps needed some extra hands... Of course they did not need any extra hands, but they were polite enough to let this outdoor education groupie sniff up some of the good stuff. And, really, those couple of hours are amongst the best hours I have had in Norway so far! First off, I felt for the first time that I was conversing with people at the same level, in Norwegian no less! Two-to-four year olds are apparently right at my level of Norwegian language proficiency. By which I by no means am implying that I understood everything the kids said to me. But kids are a lot less awkward about using crude sign language to make themselves understood, so it still felt as if I was engaging in true conversation.  

What struck me most was that the kids hardly needed any motivation or guidance in their activities. Every now and then a teacher would suggest something, like try out the zip line, and all munchkins would trundle after said teacher to wait their turn on the zip line. But for the most part, they were just, well, playing. With whatever they found lying around. Figuring out their own ways to cooperate, turning logs into trains or horses and just having a good time. They never, ever got bored. And they were so independent! 

I had already noticed that new found independence in Eluin before she had her outdoor week, though. She actually freaked me out one of the first times we went on a family hike together after she had started school. It was the beginning of autumn and the woods were filled with berries of every imaginable kind. Of course, I pointed out the blueberry bushes to the girls and suggested we would take a break to snack some. When I looked at Eluin, I saw her mouth was already stained blue. Oh boy. So, I asked her what berries she had been snacking on, and she pointed to several bushes. Not all of them blueberries. Rats. I looked at the other bushes she had pointed out and racked my brains to see if I could come up with the name of the plants she was pointing at, and whether they were poisonous, but of course drew a blank. I decided to push the memory of Jura having food poisoning and projectile vomiting for 48 hours straight to the back of my mind and just told Eluin not to eat any more berries, unless she asked me if she could eat them. To which she muttered: "Fine...but everybody at my school eats them...but you don't go to my school, so you don't know..." A couple minutes later, I found her picking some heart-shaped leaves instead and munch on them. What the peep? Did I not just tell her not to eat anything unless she asked me? No, I had not. I had in fact told her not to eat any more BERRIES, unless she asked me. I had said nothing about leaves, because, well, it had not crossed my mind she would. But there she was, eating leaves and giving me a look of utter disdain that I told her that I wanted her to stop eating things. She rolled her eyes at me and said: "But mom, EVERYBODY at my school eats these. Even the teachers. They say it is ok. Try one!" So I did. And decided from that moment on to ask Eluin about anything outdoorsy. I mean, with all the fires they build at school, she's probably better at building a fire than either of her non-outdoorsy parents...

Last Tuesday, I got a chance to get a glimpse of what they do at Eluin's school. They had organized a parent meeting and in the invitation they mentioned that part of it would be outside. And that we had to bring the same 'tour-backpack' that our kids bring and to dress for the weather. Unfortunately, Menno was not able to join due to a deadline at work. Because it said to dress for the weather, I decided not to be stubborn and to wear the only piece of outdoor clothing I owned. My ski pants. It had been kind of chilly, so I combined it with my down jacket, my hat and my fingerless gloves. Menno took one look at me and asked if I was planning to go on an arctic expedition. Haha. Very funny. I just tried to be in Rome and do as the Romans. Even though it did leave me wondering that if this was my outfit for a walk in the woods on a night in September, what on earth I would wear on a night in December?!

The first part of the evening was a talk about the school and general information about things that were coming up. At least, that's what I think it was about ;-) After that, the parents were divided into groups and were assigned one teacher who was the leader of the group. In the woods around the school, they had set up different stations to explain different parts of the school's philosophy. Best. Parent night. Ever.

The group of parents I was in was really nice. They were joking and laughing with the teacher. It was so nice to be in a group of adults again that had fun together! Forget about what they say about Norwegians being stand-offish and quiet, these people were a hoot! If only I could understand what they were laughing about... ;-)

The first station we visited was hosted by the "special pedagogue" who, as I understood it, works with kids in small groups to, amongst others, deal with language issues. Like little Eluin learning Norwegian. He explained what he did by focusing on one word (in our case "bil" = car) and talking about all the things you can think of around "car". Anything ranging form the fact that it starts with a "b" and is one syllable to what it does (drive), what it sounds like, what colour it has and different brands of cars. So cool! I immediately figured that this was something I needed to do with the girls at home, as part of our quest to master the Norwegian language. Such a great way to go beyond the tedium of learning one word at a time. In fact, it might even be a good format for Menno and myself to use for learning Norwegian, but instead of "bil" we would put something like "health insurance" in the middle...

After this, we walked over to the next station, where 2 teachers gave us insight in the benefits of unstructured outdoor play in the form of a role play involving a log. Pretending to be kids, they turned the log into a boat, found sticks to turn into fishing rods and used collaboration to get the log from the place it was at, where there was obviously no fish, into open sea. They explained to us how parents usually like open places, but how for kids the density of the forest gives a lot more opportunity for play and games. And again, I was able to understand what they were talking about!

The third station was at the edge of the little lake that is close to the school. I knew that the school had canoes and that they sometimes took the kids on a little canoe trip on the lake (I know, this school is just AWESOME!). Darkness was falling as we stood on the edge of the lake and the scenery was just breath-taking. Whether it was that my brain had reached its limit for absorbing Norwegian or that this particular teacher spoke quite a strong dialect, I don't know, but I had a hard time following what he was saying. So I just enjoyed the scenery. I snapped back to attention when he held up a life jacket and one of the other parents took it. Cool! We might be going on a little trip ourselves! So, when he held up the next life jacket, I grabbed it. The other parent was putting it on, so I decided to put mine on as well. There were three parents and a teacher, so we paired up and climbed into a canoe. As I stepped into the canoe, though, I realized that I had no idea whatsoever what the plan was. I had not paid attention to the instructions. Darn. Why do I always get myself in this kind of situations?! Apparently we were going for a little tour on the lake, because we got pushed off shore and so I started paddling. Had the teacher explained anything on how to paddle? No idea... I mean, I have gone kayaking and canoeing before, but I was either on my own or the one in the back doing the steering and the main part of the paddling, because the one up front was a kid. Being in a canoe with two adults, this quickly turned into a team building exercise with the added challenge of a language barrier. Thankfully, the dad in the back was really kind and we even managed to win the race back to the shore! Probably because the other boat was not aware that we were racing them, but still.

Being on the water makes me hungry, so hurray for the next station being the "food" station. While eating Italian vegetable soup (yum) and drinking coffee, we listened to a story about the importance of good, nutritious food and lightweight thermos bottles to make sure our kids' backpacks did not weigh too much while they were on tours. The barnehagen offers hot lunch three days a week and I was tempted to ask if they had ever considered writing a cookbook. All I ever heard from Eluin when I asked what she had for lunch was: "So-and-so...and it was SO GOOD!!!" Thanks to the cooks at barnehagen, we in our family got introduced to typical Norwegian staples as mackerel in tomato sauce and the weird sweet-and-sour-cheese (Eluin does not eat it, but she told me a lot of kids in her class eat it, so I decided to be brave and try it...and now I am hooked!). They even ate chanterelle mushrooms that their teacher picked in the forest one day! And they cooked lamb in a fire pit which they covered up with earth...  Talk about the pedagogical value of having children eat a variety of food in a group setting, so they all try new stuff because the person sitting next to them does too :-)

As I was digesting (pun intended) the talk about food, we walked over to the last station. The teachers in charge of that station had put up a little tent in the woods and all parents in the group before us were huddled inside. So, our group waited outside and I asked the teacher who was the leader of the group whether this kind of barnehagen was normal in Norway. It's not the mainstream kind of barnehagen, but because of the location of this barnehagen, it seemed only fitting to have such a focus on the outdoors. I think they are doing an amazing job, not just on the outdoors stuff, but basically at every level they care for and teach Eluin. And hearing how this is not the standard, I truly feel we got lucky in having no spot at our "own" barnehagen and being bumped one village over.

Soon it was time for us to crawl into the tent. I wondered what we could possibly learn more that night, but when I saw the bag of clothes I knew... This was the Tent of Bad News. Well, ok, it was the Tent of Appropriate Clothing for the Weather, but in my case, this could only spell bad news. And I was right. Now, don't get me wrong, I truly understand the need for kids to be warm and comfortable, especially if you take them outside for longer periods of time. And I also get that Norwegian weather calls for a larger variety in attire than Haarlem or Vancouver did. I even get that there is a certain correlation between the price of a piece of clothing and it's quality. But boohoo us... It turned out that the wardrobe I got Eluin was just her late-summer-early-fall wardrobe. I still needed more. Lots more. Darn. The past couple of months we have been scraping by (scraping is part of the expression for living from paycheck to paycheck because of all the peanut butter he has scraped out of jars over the past couple of months (it's the only thing he eats on sandwiches these days)). With our house in Holland still not transferred to the new owners, we have had to pay the mortgage on our home in Holland on top of our rent here. I really want my girl to be warm, but for now I just have to cross my fingers that the bad weather does not set in until mid October when our house is finally sold.

Once we got to the winter attire, with extra thick park dresses, I could see black spots in front of my eyes. I was just wondering whether it would be too awkward to put my head between my knees and thus keep from hyperventilating, when I heard the teacher say that although this particular snowsuit costs about 2000 kroner (~$330 CAD) it at least lasts for up to three children. In broken Norwegian, I groaned: "But Eluin already IS my third child..." But once I had said that, and as I listened to another parent explain to me that you could buy them second hand and they would still be good quality, one word flashed through my mind...

...TWINS! Twins. Twins would be the solution for the dilemma of investing in new, high quality outdoor clothing for Eluin! If we had twins, as indeed Jura and Nori are desperately hoping for in the highly improbable case of me ever getting pregnant again, that would solve the problem! We would have three kids that can use the fancy snow pants which lasts at least three kids. And, added bonus, if we apply soon enough, perhaps those two could go to this amazing barnehagen, too!

On Norwegian bureaucracy...

It's no secret that I do not take pleasure in, nor have any talent for, the bureaucratic, form-filling, official part of life. But after our second Trans-Atlantic move, both Menno and I have at least some experience with dealing with red tape in another country. So, we were less concerned about the daunting task of becoming "official persons" in Norway then we were when we moved to Canada. We found out quickly, though, that this confidence was in fact hubris in it's most concentrated form...

Whether it was the notion that Norway, although not part of the European Union, still counted as Europe, or whether Canadian customer service had tricked us into thinking we were seasoned form fillers, I still don't know. I do know, however, that our confidence crashed hard and fast after only a couple of weeks in Norway. Due to our moving schedule, it was Menno's confidence to crash first. He told me about his struggles during numerous phone calls over the months that I was in Holland with the girls, but as I was at that point knee-deep in my own murky-house-selling-situation, I did not fully grasp the severity of the situation. Plus, I also thought that with all beginnings being hard, it was actually nice to have Menno as a test case to become a Norwegian official person. So that when the girls and I finally made it up North, we could use Menno's experience to navigate around the pitfalls and potholes of newcomer issues.

Again. Hubris.

The first step for me and the girls was to get "our number". In Norway, the number of numbers is called the Fødselsnummer. One obtains this by first going to the police to get a number that allows you to be in Norway (of course if you are not a European citizen, you have to fill in a shitload of forms to get the right immigration papers, but this did not apply to us). Once you have the police number, you go to the tax office to apply for your Fødselsnummer. This Fødselsnummer will then grant you access to all things official. One should not lose it, because you can only obtain it once. The paper should be kept at home at all times. Except for the times that you have to bring it to official institutions. And no, knowing the number by heart is not enough. Only problem is that you never know what official institution will need the official Fødselsnummer paper, so you take it with you more often than one with my knack for misplacing things feels comfortable with...

Anyhow, the girls and I successfully went through step one and two of obtaining our Fødselsnummer. Step three would only consist of us receiving our numbers in the mail in about 2 weeks time. Now, any time indication given by a Norwegian official institution is actually a word for a completely random number of days that have but one defining feature; the number of days will be more than the number of days indicated in the time indication.

The arrival of our Fødselsnummers was highly anticipated, because it would unlock doors to services like our family's healthcare and signing up for the girls' schools. After four weeks, we finally received the first sign that our papers might be on their way. A sign in the form of a notification from Post Nord (the Norwegian postal service) that there was important post for Rachel Spanjers which could not be delivered to our post box, because Rachel Spanjers was not yet registered on any Norwegian address. The notification told us our options to register me as a post-worthy entity in Norway. But guess what? That's right. In order to register myself at our address, I needed my Fødselsnummer. Which was currently on its way to us. By post. In fact, the particular enveloppe that prompted Post Nord to send us the notification that mail to Rachel Spanjers was undeliverable, might very well be the enveloppe containing the letter with my Fødselsnummer. Please tell us, Mr Heller? Do we have a Catch 22 situation on our hands here?

In the end we managed to receive our Fødselsnummer enveloppe and emboldened by this I decided to go all out and deal with some other stuff. Like, say, register myself as a job seeker. (So far an unsuccessful endeavour, but there will be a blog post about my adventures in job seeking land, soon!) Register for child support. And open a bank account, so the child support could be deposited in my account, giving me a semblance of "pay" for the fact that I keep my kids alive until bedtime every day.

After our struggle with The Post, I was happily surprised when Menno informed me that banks in Norway are very much automated. Lots of internet banking and the likes. Sweet, that makes things a lot easier, right? Right. Think again...

When I walked into the bank to open my bank account, I was met by a rather stern looking, middle aged lady. I told her right away that I had just moved to Norway and that I spoke little English. To which her eyes narrowed slightly in suspicion and she continued on in Norwegian. Perhaps a little slower than she had spoken before, but I am not entirely sure about that. After filling in some forms, though, I left the premises with the impression that I had actually succeeded in opening a bank account...either that, or I had joined in a hedgefund.

The first sign of successful account application came by old fashioned mail. Turns out I needed to fill in a couple more forms. And, as an extra bonus, I received a link to an English file containing the terms and conditions for opening an account at the bank. So no hedgefund, whew... Some time later, I received three separate text messages from the bank. One to inform me that I should download 2 apps and two with no less than three passwords. "Great", I thought, "the cyber scam artists have found me before I even received my bank card..." So, I decided to forget about those texts until I got some sort of proof that it was no hoax. Which came yet a couple of days later in the form of a text message that informed me that my bank card was on it's way via regular mail and should be there in a couple of days. A week later, that card indeed showed up (more than a month after I went to the bank to open my account).

Giddy with excitement about the prospect that if I should ever come in possession of some kroner to call my own, I could actually keep them somewhere safe, I looked for the information on where to find my PIN code for my card. And that's when things got really complicated. The letter accompanying my bankcard informed me I could find my PIN code on my own personal, yet to be created, page on the bank's website. At which point I decided to consult Menno. He had, after all, supposedly gone through all the same steps when he got his bank account. So, he asked me if I had received any text messages. Well, sir, as a matter of fact I had!

Proudly I showed him the text messages (all in Norwegian, of course) and started downloading the suggested apps on my phone. Meanwhile, Menno got onto the bank's website, to get me started. But no matter how hard we tried, I could not log on with any of the codes provided. They were all "ulopt" it seemed (expired). So, that left me with little choice but to go back to the bank to get some help in person.

Back at the bank, I was met, again, by a stern-looking, middle-aged lady. Drat. This did not bode well. Call me prejudiced and judgmental, but in matters of online banking, I'd much rather deal with a 20-year-old geeky Steve Jobbs look-a-like. Instead, this librarian-lady asked me what she could do for me. I informed her in my best Norwegian (again, my mention that I spoke little Norwegian got only a cocked eyebrow in response) that apparently my passwords were "ulopt". So, she walked me over to a computer at the branch and asked me to show her wether I had indeed downloaded the apps. She then told me to go to the bank's website, click on log-in and start the process. However, my codes did not work (told you so). So, she took me to a little office and made sure that I was who I said I was, before ordering a new set of passwords. She then explained to me in rapid Norwegian the multiple steps, all involving passwords, to get online and happening at the bank. Without waiting for me to give any indication of having actually understood her ramblings, she told me to delete all the text messages I had received so far from the bank, so as not to have any mix ups when the new codes arrived.

So I did. And retreated to the waiting area, while Mrs. McGonagall helped out some other sorry souls. Once I received the text messages, I proceeded to the computers to try out my new codes! Alas... One code still appeared to be AWOL. So now what? The lady who had helped me out was now helping other customers and did not give me as much as a sideways glance. Still, I was missing a code and giving up so close to my goal would be very sad... Heeding all warnings about never disturbing a working librarian, I cleared my throat and waved at her with an apologetic smile plastered over my face. And hurray! She came over!

I told her that I was still missing one of my codes. I showed her what I meant, taking her through the various steps in my log-in process. Whenever I had to type in a password, she demurely looked the other way, lest she should see, memorize and be tempted to use my passwords again to, well, steal the zero kroner that were in my account ;-) I mentally crossed "becoming a bank employee" off my list of possible jobs in Norway for the sole reason that I simply would not be able to control my curiosity impulse in the way this lady had just demonstrated. Arriving at the bottleneck step with the missing pass code, the lady asked me to show her my text messages again. She asked if I had ever received a pass code that consisted of letters as well as numbers. I told her I had. But that I had deleted that text message half an hour ago as per her orders. She did an eye roll, told me to wait in the waiting area and ordered yet another new password for me.

The code arrived and I was finally able to log on, retrieve my pin code and start using my bank card! Too bad I had received a text message from Menno in the meantime, suggesting I would order BankID på mobil as well. This option would make online banking a lot easier, according to Menno. So I decided to go ahead and order that function, too. I felt like a true virtuoso behind the computer at the bank, clicking and typing in passwords like nobody's business! Bustin' the dope moves in online banking, ha!

Until I came to the part where I had to fill in my email address. Shoot. Now, as some of you know, the Norwegian alphabet has 3 extra letters. The å, the ø and the æ. Of course, that means that you need keyboard space to put those extra letters somewhere. I get that. But guess what symbol got kicked off the keyboard to make room for one of the above? Take a guess. Dingdong, you've got it! The @ is nowhere to be found on the Norwegian keyboard! Because who ever uses that symbol anyway, right?!

So there I was, again, trying to get the attention of my favourite middle-aged lady. I bowed my head in shame and told her the reason I asked her over, was because I could not find the @. She smiled and told me that this was an easy problem to solve. She pressed some random keys and came up with ~. She frowned, pressed another random key combination and came up with ‡. At this point, I was looking around for a hidden camera, I was sure someone was taking the piss out of me! After coming up with $, € and —, we finally made it to @ and I was able to complete my application for whatever it was that Menno said would make my online banking life easier...Right...

Now, I apologize if this blog post was tedious to read. I tried to pick out the more absurd-but-hilarious stories to convey my daily struggles with Norwegian bureaucracy. I am sorry to say that most of them are just absurd and/or tedious, though. Perhaps in a later blog post, I will try to shed some light as to where things get particularly hairy for a foreigner trying to navigate it's way through the Norwegian system, but for now I will just promise that my next blog post will be a lot more uplifting!

Ok, Norway, how are we doing...?

Dear Norway,

It's been a while since I first crossed your border with the intention to build a new life here. Almost three months ago, actually. And I thought it would be a good time to have a little chat about where we're at. You and me, I mean. I don't necessarily expect an answer from your side, with you being such a big country and all that, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to let you know where I stand.

Slowly but surely the initial Canada-blues are wearing off. They have far from disappeared, but I have come to the conclusion that my feelings about Canada are getting in the way of me getting to know you. It truly serves no purpose to keep comparing you to Canada, other than to make me feel miserable. I know this, because I have basically done exactly that for the first two months. And no, you hardly ever came out as the winning country in my comparison. Which is not surprising when you take into account that I left some rather irreplaceable features in my life behind in Canada. The best friends I ever had for instance. My girls' amazing, innovative school. My volunteer career, Costco, the dog beach and Green Leaf Sushi. Just to name a few...

However, that does not mean that I would not be able to like you! Because if I stop comparing, I can take your, well, your everything at face value. And once I made that switch, I realized you had a lot to offer! And that I had been behaving like a sullen, sulking teenager whose phone was taken away by her parents. Now I realize that the phone will still be there whenever I need it (aka when I have saved enough money to fly back for a holiday) and also that my phone won't care one bit if I go and enjoy myself without it. Does that metaphor still make sense? I don't know, but then neither do my feelings most of the time.

Instead of writing a more standard list of pro's and cons, I decided to share with you my list of quirks and funs. That sounds a lot nicer, hey? Also, you can decide for yourself whether a topic falls under "quirk" or "fun", because often, it is a bit of both! In this particular blog I probably only have room for one fun-quirk, but over the next couple of weeks I will write some more blogs to add to the list.

Hope you enjoy it! And again, sorry for the rough start...

Med vennlig hilsen,

Roos

It's cool to be wool!

No fibre is more ubiquitous in Norway than wool. To the point that I was able to locate the woollen underwear in the supermarket before I was able to locate the cheerios. Heck, I was even able to find the knitting books in the supermarket before I found the cheerios! Those of you familiar with my knitting fetish can probably guess how utterly thrilled I am to have landed in the land of wool. To live in a country where knitting is not only considered the favourite pastime while waiting for their kids to finish band practice, but where my knitting may actually be an essential skill in improving our family's survival chances during the winter. Knit up, tally-ho!

I never once imagined, though, that there would come a time in my life where I would have at least one full load of wool-laundry per week. Or that 95% of that laundry would be pink for that matter! But here, I seem to have both! When we arrived at the start of summer, there was little reason to wear our thermal underwear, but that changed quickly come August. And with Eluin in barnehagen, there is no escaping the woollen long johns anymore!

At the end of the first full week of Eluin at barnehage, we were kindly requested to make sure that Eluin had enough woollen undergarments to have her going to school in wool everyday, as well as at least one change of wool. Sweet sheeps, that is a lot of wool! Ms. Baba Black-Sheep has her work cut out for her here! And of course Ms Baba deserves a fair wage for the shedding of her coat, so the request from the barnehagen was rather pricey... Luckily, I know finn.no like the back of my hand and in no time I had found a sweet grandma who was selling off some of her granddaughter's hand-me-wools. Added benefit was that I did not have to worry about Eluin making any stains that would not get out, because all garments had a nice selection of those already. Unfortunately, I was not able to get the iron-in-name-tags of the previous owners out, so I just added Eluin's to the mix. If she ever develops multiple personality disorder, at least we know exactly when it started...

With Eluin taken care of, it was only a couple of days before the weather changed to subarctic and Nori and I started wearing wool, too. Now, in Canada I had already bought some woollen undershirts and thermo underwear at Costco. They have since been Nori's preferred type of clothing and I like them, too, when things get chilly. However, Jura turns into Ms. Itchy-and-Scratchy and Menno is simply too cool for wool. That's right, we'll talk to them again in a couple of months. If they have not died of exposure in the meantime, that is.

In all honesty, though, I don't the same love for wool as Nori does. Frankly, I need a distraction not to feel the itch for the first 15 minutes I am wearing my woollen undershirts. Even the garments that are supposedly made of fibre exclusively harvested from the underbellies of newborn lambs still give me the itch. After about 15 minutes, though, it's not that bad anymore and I relish in the warmth of my little sheepy. There is really nothing that makes you warm, without overheating, like wool.

However, there is a catch... And one that I have yet to find a solution for. Because the woollen undergarments (I love the 1920's feel of that word!) I got, are exactly that; undergarments. They are thin to the point of see-through and more formfitting than I would find comfortable in normal clothing. As such, I wear my woollen shirt as a baselayer, on top of which I add a normal shirt or sweater. Which is great when you are indoors and sitting on a couch. Or outdoors and sitting on a couch. That works, too.

The trouble begins, however, when I engage in exercise. As soon as I do and start generating some actual body heat, things go haywire under my top layer. Whether it is the transpiration or mere temperature, I don't know, but the result is that all of a sudden this nice cosy sheep I am wearing, turns itself into a porcupine. The itch is BACK, with a vengeance this time! So imagine me climbing a hill in the forest or going for a run and all of a sudden feeling like I am breaking out in hives. The kind of skin-tingling, spiders-crawling-all-over kind of itch. Like the little lamb I'm wearing has tried telling me sotto voce before, but now has no choice but to make me physically feel how much she needs to breathe and run free in the meadow again!

I so far have deduced that that is the problem. Apparently the layer I wear over top prevents the little sheepy from breathing, because as soon as I strip said layer off, the itch subsides and I feel comfortably toasty again...except for one small detail. I am basically now walking around in my underwear. With the right angle of lighting, one can not only see the colour of my bra, but pretty much every dimple in whatever body-part that is supposedly covered by wool. So now what? I know I need to wear wool. It is really comfortable and the warmth is surpassed by any other garment I own. The two younger girls are totally fine when just wearing their wools and long-johns for at least a couple more years.

But how does this work for adults?! Do I layer with more wool on top? I have seen ladies wearing woollen shirts that look like half-zip fleece vests. Or just a woollen jumper over top. Is that my future? If so, no problem, just hand me my knitting needles. But I also see ladies wearing normal clothing on top of their thermo-shirts...how do they do that? And, am I right in thinking that it is not-done to just wear a woollen baselayer shirt in public if you get too hot, or do Norwegians actually not care as much about these sorts of things once in the woods and overheated? Or perhaps I am just the only one who ever experiences the increased itch once my body starts to heat up... If that is the case, I probably just need to wait for winter, at which point my body will no longer heat up. Problem solved!

Heal the world (on Michael Jackson and the cool police)

One afternoon, shortly after we moved to Norway, I got into the car to drive to the supermarket for our weekly groceries. Indulging in the luxury of actually being On My Own in the car, without kids requesting to listen to the same audiobook yet again, I cranked the radio to full power. After another incomprehensible commercial on Radio Norge, a new song started. Heal the world. By Michael Jackson.

And that's where it started. Listening to Michael Jackson's 90's voice, I started to cry. I cried for my internet-friend who was making memories with her daughter who was terminally ill (talk about healing the world, hunh?). I cried for my friend whom I had talked to on the phone that week. Her family had come out on the losing side of a power struggle in their church. A power struggle that they had worked so hard at to defuse, sharing love and compassion to counteract the power play. I cried for the world being on fire, so desperately in need of a 2016 version of the song that was playing. And I cried over Michael Jackson.

Halfway through the song, the crying had turned into a chest clenching, throat catching, snot pouring blubberfest. At that point I should have pulled over and wait for my breakdown to pass. Instead I plowed on along the deserted mountain road, kindly asking the herd of moose lurking in the forest to please not cross the road! At that stage, I would not have known what hit me until me and my cute little yellow car had been turned into a giant tin of Norwegian liverpostei. I cried and cried and sang along at the top of my voice, wishing somehow that just singing about healing the world would actually do some good.

Of course another song came on after that and, as usually happens when something hits you that hard out of the blue, there is nothing like a Lady Gaga song to make you wonder why on earth you let such a tear-jerky-song get to you in the first place. However, this time that rhetorical question kept begging for an answer. In particular the part of me crying over Michael Jackson. And although I usually just write about all the trouble I get into just leading my day-to-day life, I feel compelled to share with you the outcome of my weeks of soul searching following this particular car ride.

The reason I cried over Michael Jackson, was because I felt I had not given him the credits he deserved for the artist he was. And yes, I know, he could not have cared less about my opinion of him. Yet in my own personal sphere, the acknowledgment of Michael Jackson being truly the King of Pop, was a biggie. It traced right back to my high school years and all the coming-of-age anxiety that came with that.

Although I had already encountered the power of the masses during my elementary school years (oh the bullying...), it wasn't until high school that something cracked and I became aware of how my own behaviour, style, thoughts, music I listened to, clothes I wore, books I read and boys I fancied shaped my image and thus how people perceived me. Or even what they could hold me accountable for. Looking back, I wish that crack had never happened. And not just because I would have allowed myself to appreciate Michael Jackson's music.

I realized that from that "crack" onwards, I had been worried about the cool police. The entity that I have never been able to put my finger on, but who spoke through my peers and sometimes even my friends. The one that made me feel stupid and shallow for liking something. And out of that came the fear of being associated with something. Because pretty soon I figured that the cool police did not only care for the direct implications of taste-in-whatever, but also about what that taste would mean for the group I belonged in. Try explaining your love for "Heal the world" to a 15-year-old who is desperately trying to be an alternative rock chick that lives for Pearl Jam and Sylvia Plath. It just doesn't fit. Because the realm of Heal the world would at best be the nerdy cousin who still had posters lining his wall of Michael Jackson. With Bubbles, for crying out loud!

The only person who was apparently immune to this kind of teenage-angst was my dear friend from high school who grew up to be the only erudite person my generation ever produced (and in this erudite is a compliment and only used for lack of a better word). I still love him dearly for fostering my spirit and mind in that godforsaken period that was my high school years.

One would hope that the cool police is a figment of a teenager's imagination. Or that I was/am just particularly vulnerable for "what other people think of me". That hardly anybody else cares to judge themselves by the mere standard of "what other people think".

But somehow, I doubt that.

For in the years after leaving high school, the cool police was still there. Even if it branched out into different departments. Such as the department of Slutty-and-Prude for example. Boy, there was just no winning there.

The force of the whatever-police hit me hard again once I became pregnant. Holy smokes! I think parenting has been by far the most deeply entrenched pissing contest I have ever been in. From the moment my daughter was born it seems I have been playing defence. Between the sleep-training-formula-feeding-police and the attachment-parenting-police there is just no middle ground to be a vulnerable mom looking for a way to deal with this amazingly scary new life you are given. Why do we do this to ourselves?! Why do some people feel the need to play the parenting-police and tell me that I should follow the rules (of whatever parenting craze this person belongs to) instead of looking at me and my child and just TALK with me. And for goodness sake share their stories of not-knowing-what-to-do with me...

It took me weeks to turn the above into a slightly coherent story. To make up my mind about why I cried so hard that afternoon. Thinking about "the police" has made me realize that "the police" is omnipresent and comes in many different shapes and sizes. My dear friend clearly ran in to the God police at church, a group of people who apparently thought they could speak for the lord and hurt my friend in the process. I know I have run into the Organic-Produce-police, the education-police and the body-image police more times than I can count. And I am just tired of weighing my own feelings against what I think other people will think of me. And I realize that as much as I would like to blame the police, I can only blame myself.

So I have decided to stop. Coming to a new country has given me an excellent opportunity to shake off the police once and for all. I am no longer going to assume that anything I do will immediately result in a cascade of opinion forming in another person's head, thus placing me in a cubicle that I may not belong in. They will find out soon enough that I probably don't fit anyway ;-) But what is more, I have decided to switch of my own police as well. I will no longer let my ideas of what it means to wear/buy/like/read something cloud my impression of someone. From now on, I will try to appreciate people at face value. Because the other option has left me bitter and scared. And if there is any possibility of me starting to save at least part of my little world, it is by embracing people, rather than trying to make sense of them using "the police".

Now the only thing I have to be vigilant about is that I do not turn into the "give-no-heed-to-the-police"police myself...