Wow, is it cold! When I took the dogs out this morning, I was greeted by the first frost of the year and a decided chill in the air. Right now it’s 18°C/64°F inside, and definitely time to fire up the radiators! What sounds really appealing is to build a fire in the woodstove in the “big room” and get all cozy with a book and a cup of hot chocolate. I have a sneaking suspicion that won’t happen, though (not least because we don’t have any firewood).

When we went to town for dinner earlier this week, Olof and I popped in to H&M and bought gloves and I got a winter hat, too. Guess it wasn’t a day too soon. I sent Lydia to school this morning wearing her winter coat for only the third time this fall. It’ll be winter before we know it, kids.

I guess I won’t be going with Olof to town this afternoon like I had planned. I had completely forgotten that Lydia starts her dance class this afternoon and that I’ll need to be here to take her over to that. I don’t know if I’ll have to stay the whole time or not (not that I’d mind too much, but I’ll have the baby with me, and he can get pretty impatient pretty fast sometimes). Either way, it’s only an hour long, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

Oh, I forgot until just now to write about the parents’ meeting we had at Lydia’s school last night. Olof and I were appointed klassföräldrar (Sweden’s version of the “room mother”). I’m both excited and apprehensive. My mom was a room mother when I was in second grade, and I loved it! What causes me apprehension is my lack of Swedish skills (which, okay, aren’t that lacking, but still …) and the fact that there’s a lot of Swedish cultural stuff and school stuff that I don’t know or understand. At least I’ll have Olof to help me, and it should be a learning experience, at any rate.

Speaking of learning experiences, when I went to class on Wednesday, the four of us who moved up to this higher class talked with the teacher a little bit about how the grading works and what the next level is like, and so on. She said that she could tell that we had been educated in our home countries and that we were all pretty good at Swedish, so she thought we might want to try the National Test for the B level of the class in November (we’re in the A level now). I’m not sure if I could pass it yet, but I think I’d have a shot, anyway, and that would be fantastic! The B level is all I need, language-wise, to go to university here. Apparently you don’t have to take the TISUS test if you have SAS-B, which is wonderful! The teacher also told us that the A level was still sort of a basic class and that she worried that having us in the class might raise the level a little higher than she wanted. That was an ego boost!