It's been a while and kids have grown. They let us sleep in, they are able to go to the kitchen and find food for themselves when they are hungry between meals, leading to fewer random meltdowns. We have found a bedtime routine that is more of a family moment than a nuisance. They change their clothes and wash their teeth, pick out stories and then we read stories and sit by the bedside until they fall asleep. Every other day is my turn to read stories and kids are super cute - they giggle, dramatically react to the story, tell me about their day and their dreams. Liisa, who is able to fall over her own feet in the middle of a harmless lawn, shows me her new bruises and tells me "I wish I wasn't so clumsy". Siiri asks for a good night hug, which is a nice development, because she used to stiffen up and wiggle away from physical signs of affection.
The best part about the kids, aside from them being healthy, is that they play together. They whisper their secret plans and they team up. Yesterday they were both being fake dramatic over everything for one goal: going to the beach. "Mom, lets go to beach!". I said, "Lets not, it's really windy and not very warm." Then Siiri was laying on the couch (indoors!) saying "It's sooo warm!" and Liisa threw her eyes up to the ceiling, "Mom, it's really too hot in here, we have to go to the beach!". After a couple of hours of this, and them playing indoors and outside, there was a moment when I asked them to come to the garden with me, but they tried giving me an ultimatum: only if we also go to the beach. I looked outside - super windy - and I looked at the kids, who were melting away from the 'heat'. I reacted with equal fake drama, "Heeeey, it's not very warm and it's so windy, where did you get your beach idea?" and Liisa fessed up: "It was Siiri's plan!". Siiri giggled as if to say: it was worth a try.
The garden is excellent. It's so big that I never manage to do everything that "needs" to be done and in stead I just do everything that I want to do. I no longer make plans to get something done because I'm not very good at predicting how long something might take and I might end up disappointed. I take my tools with me and I go to the garden - sometimes I dig up plants, sometimes I propagate black currants just to see how it's done, sometimes I pre-germinate seeds and plant them side by side with dry seeds to see if there's a difference in seedling survival. I always have something unfinished in the garden - my most recent project is a flowerbed of a size that could pass for a small city garden.
The new flowerbed will be 2 or 3 times bigger than this flowerbed only for herbs.
With a garden as big as we have, I really don't have to choose what I can fit here and one of my flaws is that I don't like to choose; I want it all! I'm really unrealistic in that sense. It applies to my life in general - I want a garden and a good job and cute kids and a wonderful husband and hobbies and travel and new experiences. It also applies to the garden: I want to grow everything that I possibly could grow, partly because I am greedy and I want fresh greenhouse tomatoes and apples picked straight from the tree and partly because I want to see how different kinds of plants grow. I have learned more about general plant biology within the three years in the garden than during my PhD studies. By the way, I defended my PhD two years ago.
As I don't have to choose, I grow pears, apples, sweet cherries, sour cherries, black currants, red currants, white currants, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, asparagus, groundcherry, bell pepper, plums, strawberries, raspberries, green peas, beans, garlic, onion, potatoes, countless herbs and several other things I forgot to mention or don't know how to translate. I have built 6 raised beds (1x3 m) and I have dug up a lot of ground to grow even more. Not to mention my flower beds with countless perennials, including roses, hostas and daylilies.
I dug this flowerbed last year. Now it's too full and I need a new one.
The location of the house has become somewhat troublesome. It is still okay to drive to Tartu as it takes 20-25 minutes to drive to Siiri's school, however, neither me nor Erkki works in Tartu anymore. Liisa is still in kindergarten, which is another 10-15 minutes drive so we don't always take Liisa there and let her play at home. And by play, I mean: watch Youtube on iPad. During the summer both kids are at home and we don't take them to town unless we need to. They don't get as much social interaction with other children as kids who live in the city and can walk to their friends homes. However, even in our previous home we had to arrange all such meeting because Siiri's friends didn't live that close to the rental apartment either and it was in the middle of the city with lots of traffic. And then we had to arrange even the moments when children went outside, which is very different here.
Siiri and Liisa still have a lot of time when they choose to play with the computer, phone, or iPad, and we donõ't restrict that, but they also have plenty of moments when they just run outside to snack on fresh greenhouse cucumbers, pick wild strawberries that grow in the wild parts of our garden, ride their bicycles or hide out in the playhouse. They are calm and content and very well-behaved most of the time.
Even with the stress of tremendously increased home workload, from mowing to pruning, me and Erkki are getting along as good as ever. We recently celebrated 10 years of marriage and 14 years of being a couple and we spend evenings together watching carefully chosen series on Netflix. We don't spend as much time together as we used to, especially because of our work schedules, however, when he calls to say he's on his way home, I have only positive emotions.
Also, after I defended my PhD, I basically got my dream job. The location is far away and it's not always easy, but it's really cool! That's a longer story and I won't get to it now.
With all this going on I'm kind of afraid to really say how things are. If I really spell out that my life is as perfect as I ever could have hoped for, will I jinx it? Lets hope not because things really are too good to be true. When I write a blog post, I'm being honest and I describe an aspect of my life the way I sense it, keeping in mind how it might seem from outside and I've been reluctant to really write what my life is like now: with a considerate and smart husband, cute and clever daughters, warm and comfortable house in the middle of a crop field, interesting job, a large garden and a pear orchard. Sometimes people have some disaster and they say "I never knew what I had until...", and here I am thinking "I know what I have and it's too good to be true. I wonder what disaster will ruin it." Three years later, still no disaster, so I might as well write a blog post.
" and then they're like, "uhuh. 
". To them it's obvious that I'm in way over my head but I still think gardening is amazing. Before the winter, I got my never-pruned-before jungle of grapes pruned, I got my wildly overgrown strawberries ready for the winter and I got all the trees protected from rabbits, who are otherwise sooo cute and adorable but in the winter they're nasty hungry destroyers who gladly eat fruit tree bark and kill the trees for an afternoon meal. Kind of reminds me of 
Let me illustrate:
Actually I am still missing many that I just HAVE TO have in my garden! Like corn. It's not really a staple food in Estonia and I've barely ever eaten corn that didn't come out of a can. But imagine I could just pick some out of the garden and just bake it and eat it. 
Perfect! Some of the seeds were bought over the years of dreaming of gardening while living in an apartment but I was never really good at window-sill gardening. Some of the seeds were given as gifts. I am also really fascinated with different varieties. Like why plant 10 x regular red tomato when I can plant cherry tomatoes and yellow tomatoes as well. And I spent a good evening or two picking out the perfect variety of cucumber to grow in the greenhouse. It's almost embarrassing to say, but the sweet paprika is just something that the store clerk gave me and I said, that looks good, and then I put it in the pile.
It is of course possible that after a kilo (~2 pounds) of peas, a kilo of strawberries and a couple of rhubarb pies the kids will get bored with all that and we'll be up to our knees in fresh produce that no one wants to eat. But then we can a) make the birds very happy, b) tell relatives who live in apartments with children, to come and gorge on fresh organic home-grown produce, and c) throw it in compost. So next year we'll have more compost and we'll know to grow less food. 
Then I also have to analyze the data from those ROS measurements. Perhaps after that. 
I'd really rather live in an apartment than see the family be destroyed for a few apple trees. But the thought of raising the kids in an apartment also made me sad. And I really-really-really wanted to plant some herbs and black currants. Sigh.
Then there was a small and quite new house very close to the city - but when we had a builder see it, he told us that the quality is horrible! But at least we were suddenly looking at houses! Yay! Houses with real gardens with real grass and real trees. Then more expensive houses, because we didn't like the quality of the cheaper ones. Then we tried increasing the price limit even more but still nothing great. After many disappointments we gave up.
and YAY! GARDEN! YAY! FOREST! CAN WE START MOVING RIGHT NOW? 
and then get my coat and get in my car. I'm cheerfully humming on my way to Liisa's kindergarten. hmmm-hmm...
In 10 minutes I get there and find Liisa. She cheers and rushed to hug me while saying, "Mommy!". Aww, so cute. "Come on Liisa, lets get you dressed, let's go pick up Siiri. She says, "NO", laughes and starts climbing around, while I say things like, "Oh Liisa, we really should get going. Here, look, there's a cat picture here, come here, watch the cat, let me help you with the sweater.." "NO"
she suddenly yells and happily runs away again. I get too warm and kind of dehydrated in my coat and increasingly annoyed. She's kind of being cute too, so I fool myself into imagining that it's cute in stead of annoying as hell (Plus it would look really bad if I lost my temper in the kindergarten). It takes about 10-40 minutes before we can step out. I never know how long it will be. Usually by the time we walk out the door, it's been about 40 minutes since I left work
and when she sees a tree twig on the ground that she really likes she will go and get it and try to touch all floor tiles with the twig. Then it breaks, she is sad, "Mommy, this" and shows so I could fix it. We find a new twig. We reach the car and she won't get it. In stead she walks back to where she could see the moon so she could go and wave some more. "Bye moon. Bye". Time it ticking by, Siiri is waiting for us. I'm starting to get annoyed. "Come on Liisa. Either you get in the car or I will lift you in your seat myself." She agrees to get in but won't be happy until I have also buckled in her stuffed lion and given her a rock that she saw on the floor of the car (some trophy from an earlier car trip). Finally, we're moving. It has now been nearly 50 minutes.
when I try to pick her up or take her hand so it takes a couple of minutes to convince her to walk back. We get back to Siiri who is again playing with her zipper but now has half a leg in her pants. I think "OH MY GOD!!!!!", but numb down my reactions, I grab Liisa under my arm, hold her put while she tries to wriggle away and run for the door and I help Siiri get dressed with one hand. Yes, she's almost five and although I'm actually more angry at Liisa, I have run out of patience and there is no more cute mother-daughter conversation. We get out the door but getting Liisa back into the car is even worse than the last time.
The brown syrup can also be bought in the store but I would like my recipe not to depend on a certain product that might disappear from the stores at any time. I'm sure the heated syrup method is traditional in some other countries as well but I haven't seen any modern recipe with heated syrup originating from any other country than Estonia. Here it is common knowledge that gingerbread cookies are done with caramelized syrup. Just mixing flour, sugar, butter, and spices would not qualify as more than a gingerbread-flavored cookie. 
Orange zest is not often used but it's really good. 
Or so I thought until I decided that it's a defeatist attitude that robs me of having a life besides being a mommy.
That means I have even less spare time but it's totally worth it. I spend less time with my kids and I felt guilty about it for a little while until I realized that I'd be setting a really bad example for them if I didn't do what I believed was the right thing to do. I want to raise them to be strong and brave and when they have a goal, I want them to be determined and I want them to believe that their life is mostly in their own hands (except if their goal is to win at a lottery, in which case I'd hope they give up quickly). So if I believe that a woman shouldn't give up everything to just babysit and cook, then what kind of an example am I setting by spending all my evenings either babysitting my own kids or cooking for them. 
Making time for sports and hobbies is not easy but it definitely makes me feel better about myself. Going to the gym seems to do good things with my concentration and inspiration as well which makes creative work easier but it also takes away time, especially because my workouts can't all be in the evening so the pros and cons even out. It's good for health anyway.
We can't even hire a nanny for such an illness (too contageous) and Erkki has been busy at work so I've been at home with the kids. No work, no gym. Okay, I work in the evening when it's possible but it really has me envying people who can just do their job and feel good about it. It's starting to feel like an invisible prison. I have the car keys in my bag pocket, the car is visible from the window, I just really want to try this experiment with these plants are are in the exactly the right size. No one else is using the microscope, I have my solutions ready, I could just go and do the experiment, but I can't! I can't leave the apartment. I'm just stuck here putting away toys, totally aware of the work that is expected of me, work that even I expect from myself. I'm not really to kind of person to spontaneously go to the store because of a random craving but it feels horrible to know that I couldn't go even if I wanted. 
That's what I keep telling myself. I'M IN PRISON, but at least it's cute! And when I tell myself they are well-behaved, I completely leave out Liisa's personality. Behaving well and being sane are totally different things. Let me explain.
. She giggles maniacally, lies down on the backrest and as I approach, she (still smiling) closes her eyes blissfully and starts breathing heavily as if pretending to be asleep. I put her on the floor and she walks straight towards the bookshelf. One day she discovered that she's able to climb on the kitchen table using a much more challenging (=dangerous) route than simply using the chair for simple climbing. She somehow pulls herself up from the side, adjusts herself to a sitting position and laughs with anticipation how I plan to stop her. There is no stopping her. Fortunately she still follows some rules and when I tell her to stop outside home she usually listens or lets me stop her from doing anything really dangerous. Basically it's a game for her to act insane. I don't even dare to imagine how this trait of hers will manifest itself when she's in her teens.
She hates anything resembling jam so much that she will leave her favorite part of the cake uneaten if it's even touched a cooked piece of apple. She has happily eaten uncooked fruit as long as I remember and access to berries is very seasonal anyway.
If she really thinks she will eat jam when she's 4 years old, she actually might, but I will not believe it until I see it! I made a mental note to remember her bold statement but I also decided not to remind her of it because I wouldn't want her to force herself to eat anything just to keep her word.
She was thoughtful while chewing but she ate it and asked for more. I helped her put more and more jam on her plate and she ate all of it. 
Today in the morning Siiri said that she now eats jam and only wants jam on her porridge. She actually ate the jam first, then added more jam and ate that too. Wow.