We are now back in China, since 4th of January. Quite a long time has passed since the last diary update and there is a simple explanation to that: we have twins! I am now trying to write this with one baby on my arm (so I have only one hand available, which is not uncommon...) and the other one is still sleeping in the stroller.

The babies are fine and growing well! Measurements as of 13/1:

They are now round and nice and as babies should be! Ella's von Rosen-skena was removed the day before returning to Shanghai and according to the doctor she should be all fine now.

The month in Sweden without Anders went well - far better than I anticipated. There were mainly just two things that made life with twins complicated: 1) If you change on one you can not get the other one if he is crying, but he will have to wait. 2) Grocery shopping. Either you go with the stroller and then you can only fit a basked upon it, which is filled rather fast with items, or you can go by car and bring the car seats into the store. Then you place one seat inside the trolley and carry the other one. You then place the groceries around the baby in the car seat in the trolley and you can not have groceries falling down on him (always him because he is heaviest) so you are once again limited in how much you can buy. Then there is another interesting part: How do you carry two car seats and one heavy plastic bag with groceries? Well easy you think, just put the car seat over your arm and carry the bag in your hand. Well it is quite heavy to carry a bag filled with milk and juice etc in the hand of a bent arm... As you can see, even the easiest task gets complicated with twins!

Well, I survived, but it was good to get Anders back again. He arrived on the night to Christmas eve and we went to my sister's house to celebrate. It was a weird Christmas. The babies were crying and crying and for the very first time I sat during the opening of the presents and felt hungry! Note for non-Swedes: The Swedish Christmas dinner is about eating a lot of different food - Gluttony really - and I was hungry afterwards!

The last days in Sweden were spent sorting and organising everything and giving back the things we had lent (A big thank you to Stensiö for the baby basket!) and sending a lot of things to our cottage and mainly getting things ready for our return to China.

The flight back went fine, but we were first placed on the outer seats of a row of 4, but we managed to swap places with the poor persons sitting in the middle. Apparantly the flight the night before had not had all toilets working so a lot of people were rescheduled to our flight instead. The babies behaved even better than at home, so that was nice. Anders carried Gabriel in a BabyBjörn and I Ella in the shawl.

There is an expression among twin parents called " twin tourism". It means that totally unknown people might approach you and start asking you questions as if you were long time friends. From if the twins are identical to how the delivery was...and that is maybe something you usually don't share with strangers... I have not experienced this myself, but you do get strange reactions from people. E.g. I was sitting in a café in Stockholm with some friends and some girls arrived to the table at the side. I fed first Gabriel and then Ella and then suddenly I heard: "My god, it is two of them!!" loud and clear from the other table! :-) Then the question, is it twins? This is a very common reaction, even though maybe not as loud usually. Many has reacted in the same way when discovering that I had two babies lying together in the single stroller I used in Sweden. Quite funny actually. At least that is how I see it now. Maybe I too will become tired of it in a couple of years.

Here in China everyone seams to love children. I have a big twin stroller, which is like waking around with a battleship: It is big and heavy to master. First people look, wondering what I have there, then they pass or pass by and they turn their heads to have a look inside and then they see it is two babies and instantly you hear the exaltation in the voice to their friend and I am totally convinced the talk goes like this: - Ahh, did you see? It is twins!!! 2 babies!!! Although my Chinese is poor so I can not really be sure...

When carrying Ella in the shawl in the plane she was totally covered, so I got a lot of odd looks and quite many who wondered what I had there, but then when showing them her little face everyone just smiled big at me. The customs person who asked what it was we brought with us (car seat + breast-feeding bag) had some difficulties understanding what it was, since his English was not very good, until I showed him I was carrying a baby. Then there was no problem at all and I could instantly pass through customs.

Twins in China is called: lóng fèng tái which means Dragon & Fenix and where tái means baby. As you can understand having twins is something very good!! Also girl-boy is better than boy-girl, since when writing the Chinese signs for it the combination of girl-boy makes up another sign that means something else that is very good. Anders is getting a lot of admiration and pats on the back for having twins - what a masculine man he is!

Settling in Shanghai went well. I did not really know how I was going to react when arriving here, since I had spent more time in Sweden this autumn than in Shanghai, but already when walking out from the airplane I felt I was home. It was so great to be back. The babies suffered from jetlag for a week and we suffered a little due to that, but it is great to be back home in the house. I am trying to get the house more in order. We still lack some furniture to make it really nice to live here, but we now have a comfortable sofa and two new chest of drawers, so we are slowly getting there. We also have a lot of new dvd's so if anyone wonders how Anders spent the time without me this autumn you can guess. ;-)

We have bought the Baby Einstein dvd's and they are great. We are not so sure they really make the babies more intelligent, but they do amuse them, so they keep calm for 20 minutes, which means Anders and I sometimes can have breakfast together and sitting down. Wow!! Ella and I was watching Singin' in the Rain yesterday and Baby Einstein really must look out for Gene Kelly - he is definitely a threat. Ella truly liked him!

Gabriel has started to grab things and today he managed to grab the tail of the tiger hanging from the babysitter and put it in his mouth, so he is getting into the tasting period apparantly. Both Ella & Gabriel smile and follow you with their eyes and they have steady bodies, so they are developing as 3.5 months old, although in some areas you can notice they are younger, due to the 7 weeks they missed out. Ella is more talkative than Gabriel and she is also the musical one. She loves music and tells you (protest) when the music box stops playing. Gabriel is on and off, happy and then totally devastated, while Ella is happy and happy and sometimes angry instead. She is mainly a more content child than Gabriel is.

A big thank you to all for all the nice gifts!!