There has been yet another media storm brewing in Finland this week: to the shock and horror of the nation, it was revealed that Finnish MP's are failing to declare the origins of their campaign contributions (which is deemed illegal by the Finnish law, yet the violation of this law carries no sanctions).
The man in the eye of the storm is Timo Kalli of the Centre Party, but it's not an isolated case - apparently the MPs are protecting the anonymity of their contributors left, right and centre. Obviously, mostly on the right though: a headline from Helsingin Sanomat (link article in Finnish) confirms that "the large bourgeous parties" have the most non-disclosed contributors.
In the past few years, Finland has come out on the top-end in the world-wide (anti?-)corruption survey orchestrated by Transparency International, 'the global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption' as their website informs us.
It would probably take several decades, if not centuries for the the level of corruption in Finland to catch up with the culture of corruption in the poverty-ridden countries of the third world, our faithful Eastern neighbour Russia, or even in my current home country of Ireland, Finland has started a slow slide down a slippery slope on this one.
A story from Helsingin Sanomat from September 2007 points out the following:
Although Finland was again deemed to be one of the least-corrupt countries, Transparency International said that the country’s record has been somewhat blemished as a consequence of some bribery scandals that have surfaced in recent years.
Actually, publicity can have an effect on the results, as perceived corruption levels are assessed primarily by business executives in the countries concerned. The interviewees themselves do not necessarily have any experience of their own with respect to bribery.
In the light of the above quote, I wonder if the week's 'revelations' are just a prelude to exhaustive journalistic investigations, where journalists will trawl through endless piles of the parliament voting records and suchlike to discover the faintest sign of an MP taking a stance that could be seen favouring the very contributors they tried to keep in the shadows.
The good news is that if a Finnish politician would ever be even publically suspected of taking bribes, they would probably not make it back to the parliament on the next round. To semi-quote my old Italian friend Davide, "In Ireland...? This would neevver haaaappen." Irish voters are like lovesick girls with their politicians, just can't kick the pricks out in the hope that they will make up for all their bad deeds, and love and look after them forever.
Disclaimer: I know nothing about the Irish politics and am just repeating what I have heard being said. The allegory is my own though, but not a very original at that.
The evening-edition tabloids and party-biased local papers have of course always existed in the Finnish media, but in general the Finnish journos seem to congratulate themselves for practising good journalist ethics and being generally less trashy than their Central European and British counterparts. However, reading the Helsingin Sanomat recently, the sweet scent of scandal
I'm all for this kind of increase in international media attention. What happens in Finland doesn't necessarily stay in Finland anymore, which in turn increases transparency. Media might scandalise these things to some extent, I'm sure the politicians will try and play the whole thing down, and the critical media reader will be able to find a comfortable middle ground. No-one wants their news ready-chewed, and the educated receiver has to accept partial responsibility of the message.
I'll be following the story from the sidelines, and half-hoping it will plunge out some dirt that will end up on Guardian Online or even the RTE website. I don't even care if the bad news don't travel that far - I have Transparent International on speed dial anyways. seems to creep also on the pages of the high-brown HS, where it is likely to catch the eye of the international media vultures.
Although Kildare can be a wonderful place to live with kids, what with the dozens of kids' soft play centres, the countryside and all sorts of clubs and activities around, you usually have to have at least a fiver in your pocket and a set of wheels beneath you to enjoy most of these. Not anymore!
We've started the World of Stories weekly story time in the Naas Community Library. The story sessions run every Tuesday from 10.30 to 11.30, incorporating stories, books, songs and crafts suitable for kids (and adults!) of all ages.
We are also looking for people who would be interested in joining the group of ladies - us, that is - that are organising the storytelling events. You can participate in storytelling, or in organising the crafts activities for the children. If you are interested, please get in touch at storytimenaas-at-gmail.com.
Right, it's about time I squeezed out a little update on our lives, even if there isn't many people following this blog anymore...
At the moment our weeks are a mundane mix of work and play. Having said that, there are a few things that give the dreary autumn days a bit of a perk. One of our favourite things every week is definitely the weekly coffee mornings (or the mother-toddler group, if you will) at the Sallins Parish Centre. The group runs during school term, every Monday from 10am to 12am, and we've been going there since September.
The weather here has been absolutely abysmal for the last couple of weeks, but the last two days we've seen a bit of sunshine. I don't know why I'm telling you this, but it certainly has improved my mood. Playing outside on the yard with Lukas has become a bit difficult, as he keeps running out of the estate, probably in the hope of trainspotting. We've started walking to the "nearby" playground, but since it's a bit of a trek there, it requires careful planning everytime we go, and if there's dark clouds in the horizon we're guaranteed to get pissed on somewhere along the way.
Today I felt charitable and picked up all the litter left behind by the builders - and I don't mean building waste, but sandwich wrappers, plastic bottles and other lunch hour remains. They had been annoying me for weeks, and I'm glad that it's done, even if no-one else will notice.
My mother bought Lukas a little doll buggy for his night-weaning present, and he absolutely loves the thing. He has a special little panda friend called Biibi (or Be-Be, how ever you want to transliterate the name Lukas himself has given him) whom he pushes around in the buggy like a proud parent. He also frequently changes Biibi's nappy and gives him milk and other foods. He won't go to bed without Biibi and a couple of books, and if we're going away for the weekend, he won't step out the door without knowing Biibi is coming too.
Did I say "if we're going away for the weekend"? Surely I meant "when we are going away for the weekend"! Our weekends have been so busy recently I can't even remember when we spent a weekend at home last, just the three of us. There was the birthday trip to Norn Iron & Giant's Causeway, the Bank Holiday weekend in Clare, the Christening in Limerick, then we had a visit from my brother Antti and finally last weekend we drove out to see Ronan's friend Darren, Edel and his family in Monaghan. Great fun, and we even got to go out for a dinner and a dance last weekend!
This weekend we're staying home, but I'm actually getting to go to theatre for the first time in over 2 years (I think). Nothing too fancy, we're going to see the the Last Days of the Celtic Tiger, the Ross O'Carroll-Kelly play featuring the lovely Miss Lisa Lambe. It's nice to get out, and hopefully the show will be at least somewhat funny. After reading all the books it's hard to imagine someone portraying the character just like I've imagined him, but maybe it's possible to get over that.
There are some photos in Flickr again, have a look! And don't panic about the missing photos, our pro account just ran up and I didn't bother renewing it because I'm sure you've all seen the older photos and we don't add them that much anymore.
We're freshly back from our first trip to Finland this summer. This year, actually, although it's hard to believe.
I flew over last week with Lukas and we stayed a night in Tampere with one of the nearest and dearest of friends of mine that I see way too seldom. After a romantic ride into town in an orange genuine 60's Beetle, some frantic shoe-shopping and a lengthy play at the legendary Pikku Kakkosen Puisto playground, we took the train to Jyvaskyla to join my dear childhood friend Anna's hen party.
It was lovely to see "the girls", ie. the few best friends I had in school, and we even managed to catch up again during the week, just the four of us. We couldn't help noticing there was someone missing from the crowd but I guess that's what sometimes happens - people drift apart, against their will or intentionally. It would be nice to get back in touch with other important people from the past too, but where to start and how?
The first few days in Jyvaskyla were somewhat hectic with Lukas and my sister's kids Sara and Sofia ruling the roost. We managed to cart them to the summer house, load them onto the boat and do a little spin on the lake. Lukas and Sara (who were born only a month apart) soon drifted off to the sweet humming of the motor. After we got back on the shore, they were splashing away in the lukewarm water, Lukas acting the Vesipeto (Water Monster) that he is and trying to actually swim, dive and whatnot.
One thing I miss about Finland (that never thought I would) are the 'Markets. It's not strictly a Finnish institution to build massive hypermarkets outside the city centre, but Jyvaskyla has definitely more than its fair share of those. The attraction for me is that the markets are packed with all things Finnish, and if I got my way, I would air lift all 6 of the 'markets to the field next to our house.
I thought I had managed to avoid going crazy when it comes to shopping, but still Lukas got a full set of Rukka raingear (including dungarees, rain coat and waterproof gloves), authentic Nokian Footwear wellies, Finnish editions of Bob the Builder (Puuha-Pete) and Teletubbies (Teletapit) DVD's. We also managed to cart over a children's table on a Ryanair flight without any extra charge, which I consider our biggest achievement of the week.
The week literally rushed past, and before I knew it, it was Friday afternoon and time to pick up Ronan from the train after he flew into Tampere and made his way to Central Finland. Because his visit was such a short one, it was one packed full with action. My brother collected him from the station and we drove to our summerhouse and headed out on the boat with a couple of his friends. The lads did some wakeboarding while I tried to keep Lukas at bay in the cabin, and after the water sports we drove to Katja's summer house for some sauna, swimming and a dish of excellent quasi-Philipino grub, enjoyed al fresco by the lake, in good company.
On Saturday we had a chance to have a sneak peak of the prospective wedding venue in Uurainen which was very exciting! I was mildly disappointed to see that there was still lots to be done, but overall the place was a positive surprise. The setting is beautiful and I'm sure it will be stunning once the renovations are completed.
The real reason why we were in Uurainen was the cousins' meet-up, which was definitely my highlight of the summer so far. It was great to see all the cousins I grew up with and that are still so close to me. The night was over too quickly, even though Jane, Tarzan and Cheetah (ie. myself and the two cousins closest to me in age) managed to stretch the night far into the following morning. Lots of Mother's Conciliatory Punch was had and lots of karaoke sung, we of course watched the statutory nostalgic slideshow of chilhood photos, performed a play (albeit a little less improvised than in the olden days) and had a post-dusk BBQ.
It was both nice and sad to return home. Lukas and his Mummu are both already missing each other, but luckily they will see each other soon again. I miss everyone too, and I miss how happy we always are in Finland. Luckily we're very happy in Ireland too! I can't wait to go to the summer house in Clare tomorrow, now that the sun is finally out.
Ok, it's about time I made my comeback to the blogging world. No explanations on the silence this time, apart from that I've been busy with my little house-wifey chores...
We've enjoyed life this summer despite the rain levels, unfortunately without wellies since they seem to be unobtainable in the entire Kildare area. What's wrong with all those shoe shop keepers? Lukas got a special present of a gorgeous little Wendy house (leikkimokki in Finnish), which would be perfect for keeping rain - if only he wasn't been banned from going there when it's lashing rain after he was caught drinking rain water from the pretend flower boxes under the windows.
At the start of the month we finally made our way to Edinburgh where we saw the gorgeous Heidi Mae and Oscar, the future heart-breaker. It was really good to be back in the area where we used to live and it all made me miss our life there a little bit. Mainly for the people though, the weather was as crap as here! On the one day it didn't rain we made it to the Gorgie City Farm, where Lukas saw a few sheep and a couple of goats. To our disappointment the place was closing when we arrived and we weren't allowed in the petting zoo, but Lukas seemed happy enough conversing with the sheep and got a bit thoughtful watching a sheep getting sheared.
The thing of the summer for Lukas is definitely the bow-wow. Bow-wow can mean any animal from flies to elephants, and anything in between. The best bow-wows are birds, cats and small birds. Bigger bow-wows that we encounter on daily basis (such as cows and horses) here in the countryside have little effect on him, probably because they're usually so far and somewhat flegmatic. Flies, spiders and other small things are bit scary in real life because they can unexpectedly come very near and even touch him. If any bow-wows (even cats) touch Lukas without his consent, he screams and makes this little barking noise (Ach!), not unlike to the tone we use when telling him off when he's doing something dangerous. I wish I could describe his love of bow-wow more accurately, but you just have to see it live. It's priceless.
The flavour of the week has been the arrival of his first molar teeth in the bottom row. As this coincided with the first week I spent alone at home with Lukas after Ronan started his new job, for a while I though I'd lost my touch and become a bad mother. This morning I was somewhat relieved to notice that it was the teething that had kept him grumpy all week and not his boooring mother.
He's also picked up a few new words lately. For a couple of months now, his vocabulary has consisted of mamm, anna, aiti, dada and night-night (forgive me if I forgot words, we can add them in later). In the last couple of weeks he has also started saying there, out, vaippa/nappy, shoes (or shhhs), puuro/porridge (brrr-oo), bye-bye, apina (monkey) and a couple of other useful words that I just can't think of now.
I would be inclined to say that the fantastic Fisher-Price ABC Zoo game that we play online has helped him to start imitating our words. For about month now he has been imitating the animal sounds and has reached a stage where he can do the right sounds even before they come up on the computer. He definitely knows the sounds monkeys, seals, elephants, tigers/lions, dolphins, camels, yaks/cows, iguanas and rhinos make.
There would be so much to tell but it's too much to try and catch up a month's silence in one post. I'll try and get in a post a week at least now that I have more time in my hands that Ronan's not in the house all the time.
I finally had a few spare minutes yesterday to scan the Telegraph Magazine article, so here's a link to the scanned version:
Talking Point - Do babies really need to eat baby food, asks Christina Hopkinson (Telegraph Magazine Sat 2nd June 2008)
Click the image to enlarge the image so that the text is readable.
It's been very sunny here in Ireland for the last couple of days, and I've been doing my best with the translation projects but there is still a good bit to go on the current project. I'm already looking forward to my friend Tuuli and her family coming over on Monday the 18th and I booked flights to go and visit Kerry, Keiron and their brand new princess in Edinburgh at the start of July!
We're just about to leave the house to meet Denis and Marian for lunch, but that's about all the plans we have for the day. We crashed Stephen and Sorcha's BBQ last night and Lukas had most of the potato wedges they had made for 4 people to share. He loves kicking the ball in their back garden, and always tries to make a run for his freedom down the alleyway on the side of their house.
Lukas got a new red bike from his granny and grandad last week, and we have some video footage of his first rides on it. We need to upload it soon but it's way too sunny to do any more nerdy stuff today than I already have.
Hope you are all well and once again apologies for my absence from the blogging scene! I'll be back as soon as I regain control of my own life again...
A couple of months back I was contacted by freelance writer Christina Hopkinson, who wanted to interview me for the Telegraph Magazine about baby-led weaning. Her article was published in last Saturday's issue of the magazine, and I was very pleased with what she had written both generally on the subject and based on our telephone conversation. I couldn't find the article (not a major piece, just 1-page column) on the Telegraph website, so I'm going to scan it or type it for you to read once I get the paper from Marian.
I never asked her how she found me, but I presume that she had come across the extremely uneventful BLWbaby blog I created last year when we started to wean Lukas onto solids. I was a big fan of baby-led weaning (and still am), and at the time there was very little information about the method. I wanted to put together a resource pack for other mothers like me, looking information about baby-led weaning or BLW. Good intentions and all that, my enthusiasm didn't last too long, because I only had a limited amount of time, I was working hard last summer and I wanted to dedicate my free time for this blog.
For those who have never heard the expression, baby-led weaning means skipping the purees and starting the weaning process with soft finger foods that the babies can manage to chew with their gums. Our experience started off extremely positive, but my arising post-natal depression prompted the healt visitor to advise us to quit BLW and start spooning it in, in order to reduce breastfeeding. Feeling a bit vulnerable, I took her advice but we were adamant that we'd still keep it baby-led and not force the food in.
After a couple of weeks of roughly-mushed dinners and a lot of tears (mostly mine), we decided to go back to the baby-led approach, and things immediately improved. Lukas preferred taking his time and choosing his bits, and I didn't need to worry about him eating enough or finishing his plate. He went back to his normal 3 dirty nappies a day, instead of the incredible 8-a-day routine he slipped into during spoon-feeding.
Anyway, ever since the short spout of spoon-feeding, baby food has not been an issue in our house, so there's very little to write about and that's probably why I haven't gotten round updating the blog. Also, Lukas was also such an easy child to feed that I wasn't sure if I wanted to 'brag' about how well he's eating, because some mothers might not have it so easy.
He's grown up (if you can say that of a 17-month old) to be an athletic, robust and beaming smiling boy. Dinner times are rarely a struggle, and I think we've found a good balance between healthy food and sneaky treats. He can have the occasional sip of juice and the odd chip of chocolate or ice cream (that's when I pretend I'm not looking), but generally he only eats "real" home-cooked food, 3-4 meals plus 2-3 fresh fruit and bread stick snacks a day.
I am convinced that Lukas' diet is in good balance and in line with the food pyramid recommendations. Ok, he's maybe getting slightly more dairy than his fair share, but I believe that cottage cheese and natural yoghurt are better options that having cow's milk straight in the glass.
In my personal life, I have tried to hold back when talking about baby-led weaning. I am worried I might come across too preaching, and besides, I hate when I feel people don't listen to me. Feeding purees to babies is just something too familiar, it's something more than the norm - for my generation of mothers, it's very close to the only option. To me personally BLW makes sense, but I know I don't have the power to convince anyone otherwise, if they don't see the issue in the same light.
I often think how can the same parents be happily feeding their kids baby rice or other starchy food at the tender age of 4 months, not really worried about the long-term damage it might cause to their little tummies, and yet be terrified when someone introduces the idea of giving 7-month-old babies soft-boiled vegetables cut in snack-sized pieces. Having said that, I'd have to concede that I'm the most incoherent of mothers and have nothing against others like me, but in terms of rhetorics I find that sort of argument a bit contradictory. I'm not a very good in voicing my opinions in a neutral way, and looks like my powers don't extend to converting people from purees to BLW, so I'll have to stick to spreading the gospel of breastfeeding.
Speaking of which, I'm breastfeeding Lukas who is now nearly 18 months. The feeding hasn't been dark and depressing for over a year for us, and as of yet we haven't set any definite weaning targets. Lukas gets milk when he indicates he would like some, although if we're out or if I'm doing something else, or if I'm just wearing clothes not very suitable for feeding, I may sometimes direct him to something else equally interesting.
He usually only nurses when he's going "night-night" or when he's terribly, utterly upset like for example after falling on his face, bumping his head or when stuck in heavy traffic for 2 hours, hungry, sweaty and bored. The falling asleep -feeds are only short and last around 10 minutes, the 1-2 night-time feeds usually last less than 2 minutes each, the same as the feeds prompted by something awful. The morning feed is usually the longest, around 20 minutes on-off nursing, depending on his level of alertness and his father's willingness to get up and play with him.
