"I can't tell you what to do. No one can. But as the mother of two children, I can tell you what most moms will: that mothering is absurdly hard and profoundly sweet. Like the best thing you ever did. Like if you think you want to have a baby,…
611 Posts Written by
Audrey Camp
Audrey Camp is an American writer living in Oslo, Norway with her husband and daughter. Her work has appeared in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies.
Advent Calendar Love
Holidays are here again. Jonathan and I just spent four days in Malmö, Sweden celebrating an expat Thanksgiving with friends. We hopped the DFDS overnight ferry home yesterday and enjoyed a buffet dinner full of Scandinavian holiday classics (ribbe, meatballs, potatoes, gravy, etc.). Pulling into Oslo this morning, we found…
On Knowing the Sex
Either way, for this child, I was already wishing for a warm heart, a curious nature, a quick wit, a thirst for adventure, and enough courage and empathy to stand up for himself/herself, as well as for others. I was already wishing for a love of books, a best…
Symptoms
In September, I couldn't tell anyone. It was just me alone in my home nursing a headache and crying over TV commercials, wondering how I could talk Jonathan into allowing me to name the child myself. Not because I don't like the names he picks out (Thor Fjellbjørn?), but because…
Papa Quote: He Will Need This
In honor of Farsdag (Father's Day) in Norway--which happened last weekend, and I missed it--I thought I'd post something sweet and pensive about fatherhood, written by a poet friend of mine. "Practice Makes Permanence: The other night I held my son in my arms and we exchanged a gaze that…
Silence: Notes on My First Quaker Meeting
Silence warmed the room. I considered my hands, my boots, the fibers of my jeans, the stacks of paper on shelves in the anteroom across from me. I counted books and meditated on paintings and faded photographs in frames on the walls. Without a clock in sight, I willingly lost…
Svangerskapet: Maternity Shopping in Oslo
Turns out, there aren't that many maternity shopping options in Oslo. This is strange to me because the culture here is extremely supportive of pregnant women in every other capacity. Also, because women wait longer to have kids in Norway, the women shopping for these clothes are interested in looking…
Banana Bread and Celebrity Babies
I don't actually care about celebrity babies any more than I care about regular old commoner babies, who I've historically not cared about much either. Yet, I see that Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher have welcomed a baby girl into the world , and I click. What the what? There is…