5 MONTHS - 29 Nov. 2010

Wow, how time still flies, I can't believe Liva & Laia are already 5 months old! And they are such sweet girls!! They laugh loads, Liva still struggles a bit with laughing out loud and normally ends up squealing with delight instead. They are extremely ticklish so it's easy to make them laugh.
Laia can turn over from her back to her belly, and no longer enjoys laying on her back - she wants to be on her belly all the time now. If it was up to her, she'd be sitting and standing but though she's clearly eager she can't do either without help. Neither can Liva. Liva loves grabbing things - she can pick up fallen things, and takes anything we offer her without problems.
Eating with a spoon is going OK, I've been "cheating" a lot and have been bottle-feeding them instead. It's just too difficult when I have to spoon feed both of them on my own. Yesterday Albert spoon-fed Liva while I cheated and bottle-fed Laia. But when she realized her sister was eating with a spoon, she refused to take the bottle and did great with a spoon. Actually, she normally always does great - Liva was the first to learn, but somehow forgot again. Laia took a bit longer, but now that she's learned it she's really good at eating with a spoon.
They make loads of sounds, even say real words such as "hej", "hola", "ja" and "Laia" (we are aware that they have no idea what they're saying!), and have recently started talking a bit with each other - they will mimick each other's sounds or take turns making sounds. They have also started smiling when they look at each other, but clearly still don't quite know what to do with this other person who's always there.
They also smile when they look at us, it's a wonderful feeling! When they sit on our laps with their backs to us, they turn up their heads and smile at our face. They smile and giggle when we kiss them, and half open their mouth when trying to return the kisses.
Laia loves Tatanka and he loves her! Liva doesn't care much for the cats, Tomahawk doesn't care much for the girls.

I'm also doing good, I've completely recovered by now - except for my body. I'm sooooooooooooooooooo fed up with being "fat". I know I'm not fat as such, but I'm fat compared to how I like to be. I still can't fit my regular pants and only wear skirts or maternity pants, it's sad! One day I managed to squeeze myself into my normal pants, and though I thought I had managed to hide my bulging stomach, Albert looked at me with panick written all over his face and asked whether I was pregnant again. Great, I haven't tried to wear my normal pants since!! And I refuse to buy new pants just because I'm too fat to wear the ones I have.
But when I look at our girls I don't regret for 1 second having gone through all this! They are such sweet girls and both Albert and I love them with all our heart!!

Liva & Laia

ALMOST 5 MONTHS - 28 Nov. 2010

A wonderful, wonderful weekend is coming to an end! On Fridays Albert finishes work early, this Friday the four of us went to a mall when he came home. After a while there we went home, fed the girls, bathed them, put them to bed, lit candles in the whole apartment and had a wonderful, quiet evening together.
Saturday morning we moved the girls' bed out of our bedroom into their own room. From now on they sleep in their own room, but for now still in the same bed. They're almost too big to share a bed, but since they'll have to share in December in Denmark we'll wait until January with putting them in seperate beds.
We then went to a Christmas bazaar at the Scandinavian club where we hung up a sign that we are looking for somebody to take care of the girls a few hours a week from January, hopefully we'll get some replies on that. After the bazaar we went to Rabassa, a shop with everything you could wish for for your baby in top quality. Since I know the owners quite well, we get "VIP" service and prices. We bought some things for the girls, went for coffee and a sandwich, and walked around Barcelona. Liva & Laia were in baby carriers on our bellies, dressed in a suit that made them look like polar bears. Everybody looked at them, many people made comments. I'm used to it and manage to ignore most of the looks and comments, but Albert isn't used to it at all and was chocked at the behavior of people - it seriously feels like we are aliens or something straight out of a circus!! But at least all the looks and comments are always positive, and we bring a smile to most people's faces, so it's OK.
Saturday afternoon my mother-in-law came over to take care of Liva & Laia while Albert cleaned the apartment and I cooked a 3-course meal. We had a friend over for dinner, and it was nice though it got quite late. I have no idea what we would have done without my mother-in-law and our dishwasher! :)
Sunday morning Albert went to vote for the Catalan parliament, buy bread, and get me a coffee. Around noon my father-in-law came over for lunch and in the afternoon my mother-in-law, brother-in-law and his children all came over for coffee and cake. My sister-in-law is majorly pregnant and due in 5 days, so she stayed at home. It was a nice afternoon, Liva & Laia were so sweet and happy and charmed everybody. When everybody had left we cleaned up a bit, thanked god for the dishwasher once again, fed the girls, put them to bed and collapsed on the couch. Now I'll go get my massage from Albert, relax in front of the TV with my wonderful husband for a while, and go to bed. I will cuddle Albert as much as I can, and tell him how wonderful he is!! And tomorrow our little girls will be 5 months old....

ALMOST 5 MONTHS - 26 Nov. 2010

Laia rolled over from her back to her tummy today!! They have both been rolling over from tummy to back for a while, but never the other way. I wasn't even expecting it, they were on their playmat and Laia grabbed hold of one of the dangling toys. Next thing I know she had rolled over using the toy to help her. I praised her bigtime, then put her back on her tummy - she tried rolling over without the help of the toy but couldn't do it, so I helped a bit. She clearly enjoyed it, and got really mad when I put her back on her belly. I helped her roll over again, and she stayed on her belly for a really long time. Clever girl! :)

21 WEEKS - 24 Nov. 2010

AAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I CAN'T TAKE ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The girls just don't stop crying!! They are whiny all morning coz they're tired, I put them to bed and they start kicking their legs, waving their arms and screaming hysterically. It happened 3 times yesterday, they'd scream hysterically for about 5minutes until they eventually passed out. At the moment they've been screaming for about 15 minutes, when I go into their room it just gets worse. I refuse to take them out of bed again, they are sooooo tired and shouldn't learn that they'll get their way by screaming.
The hardest part is that it's been like this for 3 days now, and I'm alone with them all the time. Albert has more important things to do - Monday he called me from work to let me know he'd be home late, he had to get his hair cut. Great, I get to feed 2 crying girls who are still struggeling with learning how to eat with a spoon. Yesterday I fed them on my own as well, though after 25 minutes I gave up with the spoon and poured the porridge into bottles.
And anyways, Albert doesn't want to have anything to do with the girls when they are like this because "I can't stand babies when they act like that". Well, neither can I but somebody has to deal with them. That someone then turns out to be me... The other day Albert told me that taking care of the girls is my job, that's why I get paid for being at home with them. This is the lowest salary I've ever earned in my life - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with hardly any help - and no holidays!!
I hope this stops soon and that it's only because Laia has a cold and she works up Liva too with her crying. Thank god we're going to Denmark in 10 days and my parents will be there to help. I really don't know what to do anymore. And just to point out how bad it is, both girls have been crying all the time while I've been writing this, and are still crying... I'll go in there now and try to calm them down a bit, but I am so losing my patience with them that I'm not sure I can calm them down........

21 WEEKS - 23 Nov. 2010

Laia is fine. She had a regular cold and fever, no big deal. Liva woke up while they were at the ER and wouldn't go back to sleep, I guess she couldn't sleep without her sister. They've never slept apart before... Laia had a fever on and off all day yesterday and no fever today. She's been quite whiny, though, and it's starting to get to me. This afternoon Liva started getting whiny too, so I had two crying girls most of the afternoon. It drives me nuts, we're really soooo lucky that they are normally easy, happy, good girls, coz I would NEVER have survived 2 crying girls!

Today I had a meeting with my boss, from January I start working again. We agreed that I'll work 15 hours/week all from home! :) Beside that I've taken on some classes, and I have translation projects coming in. So basically I can be at home with the girls during the day and work in the evenings and at weekends when Albert is home. In September they'll start in day care, then I'll go back to work for real - though not full-time, I don't want my kids in an institution for 8-9 hours/day! This was just the solution we had hoped for, so we are of course happy!

ALMOST 21 WEEKS - 21 Nov. 2010

We have a sick child!! Poor Laia has a temperature of 38.2, Albert is at the ER with her now.
It started yesterday, we noticed she was quite hot and sleepy, so we took her temperature. It was at 37.4. An hour or so later we took it again, 37.6. When she reached 37.8 we called the doctor - we've never had a sick child before, neither of us knew what to do... It was Saturday so we couldn't get a hold of our regular pediatrician, we had to call the emergency doctor. She recommended some medication which Albert went out to buy, and we've been giving it to her over the past 24 hours. She seems OK, she's hot and sleeps a lot, but she eats fine and smiles, even laughs sometimes.
Before putting the girls to bed today, I took Laia's temeprature again, 38.2.... Albert panicks quicker than me, he wanted to take her to the ER straight away. I said it would probably be better for her to sleep. But 3 hours later she woke up and was whimpering. After an hour of trying to calm her - her temperature was at 37.9 - Albert called the emergency doctors again. They said to take her to the ER, because having a fever for 24 hours when she's been taking medication which should reduce it, is not a good sign. Of course we didn't want to wake up Liva, poor girl, so Albert is at the ER with Laia while I'm at home. Though I'm sure she's OK and that it's "just" a regular flu, I can't help worrying. My poor baby!!!!

ALMOST 20 WEEKS - 14 Nov. 2010

All week we've been feeding the girls porridge, on Friday I started using only a spoon, no more bottles. They're doing OK, Liva is quite good and eats most of what she's given. Laia struggles and spits out about as much as she manages to swallow. But it seems to work quite well, they eat around 18:00-18:15 (by then they're so hungry and tired we can't keep them waiting any longer), and are put to bed about 1 hour later. They still wake up early mornings and want a bottle, anytime between 5:00 and 6:00. When they wake up at 5:00 they eat and go back to sleep, when they wake up 5:30 or later they don't go back to sleep... So I definitely prefer feeding them at 5:00 and sleeping another couple of hours. Hopefully we can soon feed them at 19:00 instead if 18-ish like now, then they should be able to sleep through the night.

Today I went walking in the park with the girls, and saw loads of pregnant ladies or ladies breastfeeding their baby. And it made me realize how happy I am that those times are over for me! I absolutely hated being pregnant!! I felt sick for 9 months, didn't feel like eating most things, and most things I felt like eating I wasn't allowed to eat. My belly was huge and constantly in the way, I couldn't sleep at night, I could hardly walk towards the end, I didn't leave the house for almost 2 months.
Though I enjoyed breastfeeding - the almost 4 months it lasted - I am just so happy that the girls are older now. They are so much fun to be around now, they laugh when we play with them or tickle them, they look into ours eyes and smile, they make face expressions, they mimick our sounds and expressions, they cry when I get mad at them (doesn't happen often, but happens), they are just loads of fun now. They can almost sit up, they are much easier to dress and undress because they "help" - bend their arms and legs etc. I really don't miss the time when they were jsut small babies, eating, sleeping and pooping all the time. I love them more and more every day, and the way they look at Albert and me and smile makes me believe that they know who we are, and that they love us, too. They are my little miracles!! :)

19 WEEKS - 9 Nov. 2010

So, we gave the girls porridge last night. What a laugh!! They had barely slept all day, fell asleep around 17:00 and were woken up 18:15. That's the time they're normally put to bed, so they were completely confused. They hadn't eaten since 14:30, and when they finally got to eat it was a whole new thing. At first we tried with spoons, but that was really difficult for them. Since they were so hungry and so tired, we decided to put the porridge in a bottle and let them drink it. That worked quite well, they seemed to like it. Afterwards, around 19:30, we put the girls to bed. When we went to bed, we didn't wake them up - how weird, first time in more than 4 months that we didn't have to feed the girls before going to bed. They slept until 4:15 this morning, ate a regular bottle and slept until 7:15. Wow, I hadn't expected it to work!!:)
Today Albert came home from work late, so I had to feed them on my own. After trying various options, I eventually ended up giving Liva a new bottle especially for porridge which I bought earlier today, and Laia another bottle which we made yesterday, where we cut the whole quite big. It took me 1 hour to feed them 120 ml.... By the time I was done, Albert was home. We put on their pyjamas and put them to bed at 19:30, they went straight to sleep. It'll be interesting to see how long they sleep tonight.
The best part about not having to feed them at midnight is that I can go to bed whenever I want! Going to bed early was pretty pointless when I had to wake up around midnight anyway, but now I can go to bed whenever and just sleep. Nice!! So I'll go and have Albert give me the massage he's promised me, and then go to bed.

ALMOST 19 WEEKS - 8 Nov. 2010

Another doctor's appointment today. The girls are just as they are supposed to be, the doctor was very impressed at their size. And she said they were beautiful, sweet, happy and healthy - just like 2 little princesses. We were sooo proud! :)
Liva weighs 6750 gr. and is 65 cm tall, Laia weighs 6440 gr and is 64 cm tall.
We get to start with porridge today, but we have to change their entire schedule. After the clock changed, the girls have been going to sleep around 18:30 every day. We still wake them up around midnight to feed them, and they sleep until around 5, eat and sleep until about 7:30. Now we have to give them porridge around 19:00 and let them sleep through the night. Supposedly they'll sleep until the following morning. Hmmmm, we'll see about that....

ALMOST 19 WEEKS - 7 Nov. 2010

Today is Albert's birthday and we've spent the whole weekend celebrating! Well, kind of... Friday afternoon we all 4 went out after Albert came home from work. The girls hadn't been out all day since there were people here building up cupboards in our livingroom, something we've been dreaming about the entire year we've lived here.
Saturday morning Iaia came to take care of the girls while Albert and I went to the center. We did some shopping, then went to the Boqueria and bought a huge, expensive steak. Before leaving home, Albert had taken our bed apart and we had thrown it away since we've bought a new one. They called while we were in the center that they were coming to put it up. We rushed home, and by the time we got there, the new bed was already broken... The people who were supposed to put it up broke the head board - and no, it's not from Ikea..... They asked us if we wanted it anyway, which of course we didn't, and without the headboard they couldn't put up the bed. So we're now sleeping on our madras on the floor, fun....
Saturday evening, after putting the girls to bed, we cooked the steak from the boqueria along with salad, bread and a great wine. What a dinner! :)
This morning, after giving Albert his presents, we went out on the street - the Pope is in Barcelona and since he passed right by our house we couldn't really miss it... I'm not catholic and neither of us is religious, but seeing the Pope when he passes right by the house is a must. Afterwards we bought breakfast to take home, had a super relaxing day until the afternoon. We took the girls out for a walk, then went to my brother-in-law's house where there was a small family celebration for Albert. Then home, bathe the girls, put them to bed and wait for my mother-in-law. When she came over we went out for sushi. Poor woman, all she seems to do lately is babysit her grandchildren. But she says she enjoys it, we're assuming she's telling the truth.

18 WEEKS - 1 Nov. 2010

A 3-day weekend is coming to an end, and it's been a lovely 3 days! Saturday morning we took the girls to a playground for the first time. Since Laia loves "playing wild", and Liva is starting to quite enjoy it too, we decided to try the swings with them. We had expected Laia to love it and Liva to be a bit more hesitant, we were wrong! Liva laughed and laughed whereas Laia wasn't sure whether she should laugh or cry - we took her out of the swing before she could make up her mind. Since they're only 4 months old, we didn't stay long at the playground, and we didn't try out any of the other things there. We'll wait another few months before we do it again.

Today we went into town, and I wanted to have lunch. Most of the places we wanted to go to we couldn't get into with the stroller, so in the end we went to a Sirian restaurant - great food!! Just as we entered the restaurant, the girls woke up, and Albert was sure we should forget all about going in. But I convinced him to give it a try, and see how the girls would behave. Normally they are good girls, we had food for them, and there's no reason why they should cause any trouble. On the other hand, if they get bored they can be quite embarrasing... But they were sooooo good, we were so proud of them. They ate (well, drank, they still only get milk), and for the rest of the time they sat quietly in their stroller. Liva was tired and was half asleep most of the time, Laia was in a great mood and sat giggeling to herself. When we touched her or talked to her she laughed and laughed. For being only 4 months old, they are such good girls! We have really been very, very lucky!!
They sleep really well now, have been doing so for about 6 weeks. We put them to bed around 19:00 and they go straight to sleep, no problems at all. Laia sometimes wakes up, but all she wants is her dummy and a kiss, then she'll go right back to sleep. At midnight we feed them and then they sleep until 6-ish. Well, not today since the time has changed and we're now on wintertime. They woke up at 4:15 and wanted food, and instead of sleeping until 8:00 like they normally do, they of course woke up at 7:00. It has been a loooooong day today, that 1 hour changes our whole schedule, and it just makes the day seem much longer. So, I'm off to bed and hope the girls will sleep longer tomorrow!