The only parenting life hack is grandparents

We owe a debt of gratitude to my parents for helping facilitate this move. We stayed with them for two weeks before flying to Norway. They are keeping both our cars. And most recently, they came here for three weeks with my brother Andrew to help care for Annalise while Gavin was traveling with youths.

Having some extra adults around provided a nice break from the progressively more desperate activities Gavin and I relied on to occupy our child. I very much appreciate their enthusiasm and creativity as grandparents. Annalise absolutely loves them!

My dad, who Annalise calls Baba, is the only person whose energy-level matches hers. He’s always up for climbing on a jungle gym or being the jungle gym.

My mom, who Annalise has named Mugga, has a knack for knowing what will capture her interest. While Mugga was visiting, Annalise mastered cutting with scissors and learned to play memory games. Mugga knocked it out of the park with this doctor kit.

My brother Andrew’s love of music has rubbed off on Annalise. Every night after her shower, she plays “guitar” with the shower wand.

With my parents in town to babysit, I was able to go out with Andrew a couple of nights to listen to music. We saw Sigrid, who grew up in nearby Ålesund, but the biggest highlight was seeing him perform two songs from his upcoming record at a local open mic night. Here’s the video on his Youtube channel.

One added benefit of their visit was that all this activity makes Annalise sleep like a rock.

There’s a lot we could share from their visit, but two experiences really stand out.

Trøndelag Food Festival

Trondheim hosts the region’s biggest food festival every summer. We attended it in 2017, and at that time I was struck by how no produce was for sale, considering it was August. This time was different — in the kids’ section, one vendor had created a plot of dirt where children could “harvest” and eat a carrot. There was no other produce.

Other than that, it was literally 90% reindeer products. Reindeer burgers. Reindeer sausage. Reindeer cheese. Reindeer jerky. Pulled reindeer sandwiches. And pelts.

The other 10% was bear burgers.

There was a kids play area adjacent to the food festival, complete with a mini ski jump. Annalise was deemed too young.

Dad and Andrew dove into the food with tremendous enthusiasm. Annalise loved how all the booths had samples. Mom was a good sport but drew the line at reindeer ice cream. Nevertheless, we went back twice.

Åre, Sweden

We have been wanting to see how well Annalise would do on trips around Scandinavia, and what better time than when the adult-to-child ratio was 4:1. Åre is Scandinavia’s alpine capital; it’s mostly known for its world-class downhill skiing, but it has outdoor activities year-round. It is a 2.5 hour train ride from Trondheim. Gavin and I took a ski trip there in 2018.

On our own, Gavin and I travel pretty easily and under some circumstances will still stay in hostels. Not so with a toddler: lodging priorities include 1) a separate space for her to sleep (we don’t want to lie still in the dark beginning at her 7:15 bedtime), 2) a location reachable by backpack, and 3) amenities to occupy her if she’s too tired to go out. Thus, we picked an up-market hotel attached to the train station with an indoor waterpark. We now highly recommend the Holiday Club chain of family resorts in Sweden and Finland.

The trip was a great success! Annalise loved the train ride and the cable car. We loved the spectacular scenery. I hope we’ll do more travel with her this year.

Thanks for the visit Mugga, Baba, and Uncle Andrew! We love you!