Slottskogen

We took the twins to the park in the middle of Gothenburg last Friday.  Jens is now working shifts meaning he has every other Friday off.  We have made a promise to always try and do something special on those Fridays.  So Slottskogen was our first Friday family outing!

Eva enjoyed looking at the sheep and moose, snuggled in the safety of her Daddy's arms:

Emilia not so much, haha, she slept the whole time:

She enjoyed the cafe though - those bubbles of joy were literally exploding!

We rounded our morning off on the swings!  The perfect end to our perfect Friday :)

Life

We took the twins to get their eyes tested on Tuesday. Both are doing well when it comes to close range vision and the Dr even said that Eva is more advanced than normal which is great news.  Emilia however has a weaker eye when it comes to seeing distance and so they will keep checking her.  If there is no improvement then she may need to wear a patch for a couple of hours per day. So they will see her again in February and then we will know more.  Both twins have an increased risk of needing glasses in the future because of the laser surgery they have both had.

So for once, both twins are sleeping at the same time!  I never really know what to do with myself when this happens.  We were are at playgroup this morning and they were both so fantastic.  The teachers did some singing and my brave little Eva left my side (in a room full of about 30 people) and went right in front of them and was clapping along to the music!  Bless her.  She really got into it when they sang one of the songs that Jens always sings to her.  I thought my heart was just going to explode.

This really feels like progress as Eva has been struggling a little bit on those rare occassions I have to leave.  She has been a lot better this week and today was testament to her starting to feel secure again.  I still need to cuddle her to sleep, but she has slept the last two nights in her own bed and hasn't cried when she woke up.  This morning her and Emilia were both stood up in bed when I went in having a chit chat!  Today really is one of those perfect days.

In fact the last few days have felt like perfect days.  I am sure things are about to change again, leaving me with that lost feeling, but I feel like I know what I am doing.  I feel like I know my girls and that they know me.  We are flowing along with life and it is nice.  It is all calm and nice :)  It really does take time to accept the huge life change having children brings.

Eva can walk with the help of her trolley and is now standing up for long periods on her own.  On Tuesday when Irene was here she asked Eva where the cat was in a book and she could point it out.  Today as I was reading the twins a story before naptime, I showed Eva who Oscar was and on the next page asked her "Where is Oscar?" and she pointed to him.  She is doing so well!  She has even given both me and Jens a kiss, sweetheart!

Emilia is also coming on in leaps and bounds.  They are so different and are reaching their milestones when they are ready.  Emilia has mastered the art of feeding herself; her delicate, perfect little fingers can even pick up grains of rice!

She literally bubbles with happiness and really seems to love life. One of her favourite things are books and Emilia can stand up alone for a few seconds at a time.

So, time for a coffee and some chocolate!

May

I was just looking through all our pictures and found this one that I wish I had posted after our trip to Stockholm.  So here it is, it made me smile!

Daddy

I just realised that I haven't mentioned Emilia and Eva's Daddy.  I am not sure how many Dads would happily allow his family to be in another country for 12 days, but for the sake of the twins' relationship with their Grandma and Grandad and as it is something really important to me, he thought it was a good idea.  I think the twins handled being away from their Dad as well as can be expected and the heartfelt reunion at the airport made it all worth it.  I thought Emilia was literally going to burst with happiness and Jens got the privilege of one of Eva's special sweet smiles the second she lay eyes on him (it usually takes quite a lot of work to gain Eva's affections ;)).  During all of this me and my Mum were recovering from the flight, but I think it helped us calm down a little bit.

Jens will always have a soothing effect on me, he is my calm in this crazy child rearing storm.

Back home

So we are back in Sweden after our 2 week England trip.  Apart from our flight home being cancelled, delaying us for a day, everything went pretty smooth.  The flight home was more challenging than the flight there and we will always try and go for a morning flight in future.  My Mum and Dad flew back with us, so I was thinking two adults, three babies, piece of cake!  Little did I know that my Dad wouldn't be allowed to sit with us. BA had allocated us on a row with only 4 oxygen masks and because the flight was full, my Dad got moved up to first class!  So as me and my Mum are trying to amuse two very tired and fussy babies, my Dad got a taste of the the high life.  The only consolation was the coffee that got spilled on him and three bottles of champagne he got as compensation that he gave to me :)  I am glad he got something good, I just wish my Mum had also got a piece of it.  What she got instead was baby Emilia who kept being sick!

My Mum and Dad had really pulled out all the stops for their granddaughters.  Their rooms were beautiful and they had lots of toys from the local car boot to keep them amused.  It was really lovely for me to see how they must have been with me and Toni when we were babies and the whole experience has given me more confidence to be as good of a Mum as I can be.  Baby Eva has been pretty clingy during our stay and most nights she has woken up and needed to sleep the rest of the night with me.  Meaning I couldn't be there for Emilia but my Mum tended to every cry.  There was one night when we were all up at 2 in the morning:

But for the most parts the nights have been pretty calm.  Both of the twins are teething like crazy (Emilia finally cut her second front one when we got home) but as always they are little troopers just getting on with things.

My friend Caroline came for a visit with baby Charlie.  It was so nice to be able to talk about everything with a close friend that has been through something similar.  Baby Charlie spent 2 weeks in intensive care, but now he is doing great and enjoyed meeting his new mini friends!

Here are a few more pictures from our trip:

England

Like I said, our flight went really well and as my girls never cease to amaze me, Emilia slept on me!  She was sitting on my knee and then she kind of wriggled back into a lying down position, turned her head away from me, got stuck into sucking her well loved thumb and joined slumber land.  It was Eva, our sweet gentle soul that kept the whole plane awake! haha.  She wasn't really crying just being very loud.  Another gentle reminder for us to expect the unexpected or perhaps to stop expecting anything at all.  

So  I got to see Toni, Barry and my beautiful little niece Zoe who unfortunately got a fever before she left the states and was struggling with a very nasty cough.  She was a little trooper though and spent lots of time hugging and kissing her cousins and being a cheeky little monkey.  The twins also got to meet most of my extended family and we even had a trip up to Manchester where they got to see their Great Grandad and Nanna for the first time.  It was all really lovey, exhausting but lovely and now I get to bask in all the memories from the past few days that are over, as always, much too quickly.  

Pictures speak a thousand words so here a few that sum up the past week:

Toni and Zoe

At the pub for the first time :) 

At a hotel for the first time meeting Great Grandad, Nanna and Cousin Liam:

Playtime:

Tomorrow

So we leave for England tomorrow!  I am very excited but nervous at the same time.  Hopefully with around the clock help from my Mum and Dad I will have time to write my blog, but in case I don't I wanted to write a quick update as so much as happened.

Eva has 6 teeth now and she has had a real hard time getting them.  She now refuses to sleep unassisted and each time she sleeps she needs to be held tight.  If she wakes up in the night then we have to put her in bed with us.  Mandy was here last night and we were talking about it and she said a phrase which is appparently well known in this crazy baby world "You can't book it".  Meaning no book can say how to deal with this madness and I agree.  Eva has been "text book" for most of her baby life and by that I mean could self soothe and needed very little help from us in getting off to sleep.  We looked for tired signs and as soon as we saw them she was straight into bed.  But then one day it all changed.  We have tried everything, even the horrible method of leaving her to cry.  That didn't work and just left my angel in a state that tore open my heart.  So we are just going with it, if she needs to be held then we will hold her for as long as it takes.

I have not been feeling too great recently and I have just been able to identify why.  When they don't do what I want I feel like a failure, I feel frustrated.  But I need to just accept that they will almost always do the opposite of what I want and use that as my starting point.  Yesterday, as I had a wriggling Eva in my arms and an Emilia in her bed, walking around the sides and shouting "Ahh duh" (the only thing she says!) I thought to myself, what are they stopping me from doing by being awake.  I wanted to sort the laundry and clean the bathroom (riveting stuff), so I put them in the pack and play by the bathroom and left them to play while I did my jobs.  It felt good! Then I tried again, Eva went to sleep, Emilia refused so I put her in her high chair and unloaded the dishwasher.  When I had finished doing what I needed to do I let her play.  When Eva woke up Emilia went down!

(So yet another post that did not get finished or posted! - the flight went really well and as I type this both babies are sleeping at the same time)