personal

a special grandfather

I first met my father-in-law three and a half years ago when my soon-to-be wife introduced me to her parents and I explained my desire to marry their daughter. Since then I have felt part of the family and I am so grateful for my parents-in-law including me in their lives, accepting me as their […]

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science lesson

I never thought my baby would teach me science before learning to even speak; I thought I was the one that will finally make good use of all my science education when my son is growing up and needs a conversation partner when it comes to matters of physics and mathematics. Actually studying together after

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a day to grow

Sometimes our son seems to grow more in one day than in a whole month. My wife and I were talking the other day about when we should stop call him baby; of course he is still our little baby (and I guess he will continue to be as long as we live), but we

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young trauma

With eight teeth in his mouth it had become time for our son’s first visit to the dentist. We had a very good image of our chosen dental clinic – it is a children’s only clinic and we had to wait almost two months for our appointment since it is very popular with so many good

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a best friend

Sometimes I am woken up at six am by a little finger poking my face and a voice energetically saying bumbum bumbum, and before I have time to properly realize it is already morning, my son is pulling my arm, urging me to go and open the cupboard where the vacuum cleaner is charging. He

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vaccine

I’ve been dreaming about this day for over a year, wondering how I would feel; would the stress diminish, would my outlook on the future change, would my hope of soon being able to go to Sweden with my family grow? I’ve been dreaming about this day, about writing this blog post, and now when

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now mountain

From our house, the first thing we see in the morning when we open the curtains, and the last ting we see at night while the sun is setting behind the big pine trees growing on a hill next to our house, is Imayama. Imayama, 今山 is a small small mountain close to the sea

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eggs in the garden

In front of our house, we have a little vegetable garden. Or maybe that is a bit too much to say – we are planning to have a vegetable garden; so far we only have one kind of vegetables, two okra plants that my mother-in-law planted for us the first week after we moved in

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the heat is on

I had been looking forward to the Olympics. We were living in Tokyo, pregnant with our baby, applying for tickets, talking about the the joy of sharing the once in a lifetime experience the Olympics are. Then the pandemic came, the Olympics were postponed, we moved to Fukuoka, the pandemic took a turn for the

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a future career

Moving to a new house has meant a lot of IKEA furniture. Coming from Sweden and moreover from a town very close to the first IKEA store, I have grown up with IKEA furniture so using the hex key to assemble a bed or a set of drawers makes me feel like I am back

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battle of wills

When I saw the image of the bicycle on the used items sales site, it was love at first sight. When imagining what bicycle me and our son would be riding around on, a pink ladie’s bike never came to my mind, but seeing this photo took me to a very happy place, and following

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a different midsummer

Being the first summer living in a house with a little garden in Japan, being father of a son having just turned one, I wanted to make a little Swedish imprint in our daily Japanese life and celebrate Midsummer together. Midsummer is a big festivity in Sweden, and apart from eating an drinking, the Midsummer

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