Some Sad Good-byes

It felt like all we did today was say good-bye. I guess it’s inevitable, but it still hurts. Kaleb said, “If I could just bring all my friends with me to America… but then all of Norway couldn’t fit in our house.” He was pretty sad when I picked him up from Toben’s house. Three other chums from school were there playing so he gave them all a hug and said he’d see them in eight months. I’m sure they won’t miss him as much as he’ll miss them. They still all have each other. All Kaleb will have are neighbor dogs and the occasional play date with a friend. I tried to cheer him up by reminding him his friend Timothy will be coming over this week for a sleepover. It seemed to help a little as he began to reminisce about their “Secret Boy’s Society” and all the mischief they secretly plan to pull on us when he comes over, but I know he will still really miss his pals here.

Kaleb and I went together over to Tobias’ house so we could both say goodbye to that family. They are already checking out ticket prices to come visit us next summer. Tobias is going to come home with us in June next year and then his parents will come later and bring him back with them, so he’s got a big summer to look forward to. He’s an easy kid to have around so we are excited to have him around.

I drove out to my friend Sandra’s house this afternoon to meet her new little miracle. Karl Alexander came home from the hospital earlier than expected as he was born seven weeks early (see photo). He isn’t even supposed to be born for another month but already he’s doing incredibly well and looks like any other healthy newborn. But that baby had a lot of prayer surrounding him – both coming and going and everything in between. I prayed for Sandra when she flew to Latvia to conceive through in-vitro (because she’s 45 the Norwegian health care system won’t pay for such procedures). We even babysat her dog over Christmas while they were gone. She’s been trying for ten years to have a baby and has tried in-vitro many times. She’s gotten pregnant several times but miscarried time and time again, even up to five months. But this time she made it. She had twins at first, and lost one early on but the other one held tight. Then her water broke nine and a half weeks before her due date. She was admitted to the hospital and sent me a text message while we were on vacation letting me know what was happening. I prayed for her several times a day that the baby would hold fast as they wanted it to stay in as long as possible. After two weeks and three days, she developed an infection so they gave her a c-section (a rarity here), and unbelievably, little Karl Alexander is as healthy and perfect as can be. I’ve never seen so many answered prayers all wrapped up in one little bundle. So it was a sweet good-bye to Sandra, knowing when I see her again, Karl Alexander will probably be crawling all over the place. I can’t wait to watch that kid grow up. His parents are about as “gob-smacked” as it comes (Sandra is from England and that’s the word they use for “completely overwhelmed.”) I feel particularly attached to this kid because of all the prayers I’ve said for him so it was a good day for me to finally meet him even if the “hello” and “good-bye” were so close together.

After dinner tonight I drove out to say good-bye to My Pal Vestina. Now that was a tough one. She’s doing very well in her “salon” school and I was so impressed with the big report she’s already written in Norwegian. She was a much better student than I in learning Norwegian. But, I was able to impress her nonetheless with some of my wits by fixing her computer so she could print. Her old boyfriend accidentally deleted all the printer drivers off her laptop so she couldn’t print a thing, and she really needs to print now that she has a report due on Monday. Some of my old computer knowledge came back to me and I found a new driver on the internet, installed it in under five minutes and she was up and running. I think she thought that was as much a miracle as I thought Karl Alexander was today. She’s had several friends try to help her out, but none were successful – even the ones that are “very good” with computers. She thinks I’m a genius. Tee hee. So now she is happy and productive and swears she will miss me like crazy. I’m a bit worried she’ll be living elsewhere when I return, so that makes the good-bye all the more difficult for me but we both agreed we were good for each other and are thankful we are now friends.

Kory didn’t say goodbye to anyone today as he was flat on his back for most of the day, which was a good thing. He did sit a little longer at the dinner table tonight as he’s trying to see how long he can hold out in a chair before it becomes intolerable. Dr. Odd thinks if he takes enough pain pills and drinks enough red wine – he’ll make it home just fine. I think I might need to do the same.

Vanilla Sauce

Our boxes were supposed to arrive today in Oslo, but we didn’t hear a thing. Not good. I was hoping to have Kaleb’s school supplies before school actually started, but it doesn’t look like the boxes will make it by Wednesday unless there is another miracle in the works. I guess I should expect one, eh?

Turid and Hege walked over this morning so we got to take them to “our” beach and have a picnic lunch. In all the year’s they have lived here, they had never been down to that beach so it was fun to expand their horizons and share the beauty with them. It was a gorgeous day to be by the water. (In the photo, Kaleb is pretending to be headless and Kory is pretending to be fishing.) Yesterday it rained all day – heavy rain – so today the air was crisp and clean and the sky seemed extra blue. On the way back we picked lots of blueberries so when we got to our place, we had fresh blueberries with Vanilla Sauce poured over the top.

There is nothing in our world that you can compare with Vanilla Sauce. It’s something the whole of Norway is crazy about and as Turid says, “The blueberries are just an excuse to have Vanilla Sauce.” Actually, anything is an excuse to have Vanilla Sauce – they put it on everything! The most popular food items are jello, fresh, frozen or canned fruit, chocolate pudding or ice cream. In every house in the whole of Norway, you will find Piano brand “Vaniljesaus.” Even at the neighborhood grocery store they have our equivalent of a salad bar, but with different chunks of fruit and the “dressing” is Vanilla Sauce. I’ve yet to see a vegetable salad bar anywhere.

I can understand the craze, that stuff is good! It tastes like the custard inside a donut, only with more vanilla flavor, and it’s real runny. It’s made from whole milk, cream, sugar and powdered vanilla (of course). We’ve had it many, many times over the years as it’s a common after dinner treat (not really dessert however, because dessert is usually a fancy cake of some kind, served later with coffee.) Tine (pronounced “Tina”), a Norwegian company, makes Vanilla Sauce and on the front of the carton it says “original recipe since 1971.” Turid thinks that’s about when the craze started. She said as a kid there was a rum flavored sauce that was used on many things, but once the vanilla flavor hit the stores, it became a national sensation – for 37 years now. (Should have bought stock in that company, I guess.)

I was thinking about the whole vanilla situation the other day and I’m wondering if the reason they have vanilla in a powered form is because our liquid vanilla at home is alcohol based. Norwegians tax alcohol so much, they must have been in a quandary as to what to do about vanilla extract. If they taxed it the way they tax one can of beer (which sells for $13 by the way), no one could afford their precious Vanilla Sauce and there would surely be a revolt similar to The Boston Tea Party. Making their vanilla into a powder solves the whole problem and keeps all the alcoholics from drinking up their national supply of vanilla. Who knows. It’s fun to try and second guess the politics of Norway.

Kaleb and I sat and tried to read a children’s book in Norwegian today. We’re going to have a contest as to who can learn the language the quickest. (I think my Norske school starts next week.) Everyone entering the country between the ages of 16 and 55 is obligated to take 250 hours of language lessons – for free. (America could learn a thing or two from Norway about that one.) I guess I’ll have to thank the alcohol drinkers of this country for that, as I’m sure some of the exorbanite taxes they pay filter down to pay for my free Norwegian lessons. Tusen Takk. (Thousand thanks.)