A year from today

I can't believe it but it has already been a year since we saw our daughter's face for the first time. It seems like yesterday... And what a year it has been! Not only the surprising news that we had to travel just 4 weeks later but I could never imagined how our lives would change so much (for the better!) being parents for the first time. I really must say that we have got the most beautiful and smartest daughter there is in the world! She has been an easy little girl to handle, sleeping all through the nights, eating what we feed her, easy to amuse, is healthy and strong and developing accordingly. She is very curious and interested in what we do and is so happy when we let her participate in the daily routines. We can already see how she copies us and you can't do anything but smile at and with her. Linnea is very fond of books and short stories and loves to have her father read for her. She knows 11 letters and looks for them in books and newspapers. Her favorite, and the first one to know, is "O". A very famous Swedish home styling company has huge letters on their walls. You guessed it; IKEA. One day we drove by the IKEA close to us and suddenly there was a loud "Aaaaaaaa" from the back seat.

In the beginning of next year we plan to get her into daycare. We have one just across the street, it would be very convenient if there was room for her there. By the end of this week we will probably know. Right now we split the maternity leave between us, which gives us both some time to spend at home with Linnea. First days back at work after 9 month absence I felt a bit jealous of her father for being able to stay at home with her but there is nothing better than coming home from work to a smiling little girl who runs to the door to welcome you and give you a big hug! I now know how it must have felt for her father who was working full time during the first 6 months of our parenthood.

Please have a look at these lovely photos of our darling Linnea. From April and forward.

Spring is here and Linnea is legally ours!

Spring is really here and today we had 15 C outside, it feels like heaven. Crocus, tulips and daffodils are on their way in our flower beds, although we have a hare in the surroundings who thinks our garden is a smorgasbord. I've seen him running through our garden at night, he has to be careful or he will end up on our dinner table...

We bought a lot of shoes while in China but they are still too big for Linnea's feet so we had to go shoe shopping the other day. Which she didn't find too funny. She cried her heart out as soon as the shop assistant showed the tape measure to find out which size she needed. We ended up buying a pair of shoes in the size I assumed she would use and when we got home we had to bribe her with a cracker and she let us put the new shoes on. They fit perfectly and she walked around proudly in the house the entire afternoon in her new shoes.

Today we received the final adoption acceptance from court and we are now Linnea's legally parents! Now we can apply for her Swedish name and get a passport and so on. My sister in Vancouver is about to move to a new apartment and I really want to go and visit her! Now we can but we think the long flight is just too much for Linnea, perhaps later this year.

This weekend we got daylight saving-time and it hasn't affected Linnea very much, we still go by our feeding and sleeping schedule as before. She has two new teeth and another one on it's way but her mood hasn't changed much because of this. Perhaps she drools a little bit more but that's all. A couple of weeks ago we went to the pediatrician to get the vaccin cocktail Linnea needed and they told us Linnea may get a fever and be a bit cranky in the afternoon. We were quite surprised to see that Linnea's reaction to this vaccination was just the opposite; it was as if they had given her some kind of speed, she has never been more alert and ran around laughing and smiling the rest of the day. In total, she is happy and smiling most of the day, she loves to sit in her car seat, she smiles and waves at people in the grocery store, she loves to take a bath and splash water all over us while laughing out loud, she loves to eat whatever we feed her and she falls asleep calmly in the evening. What more can we ask for?

Time for dinner, see you later!

Water under the bridge

We are still alive, no matter what...

Days literaly fly by and our darling Linnea is making huge progress. She walks on her own, has 2 new teeth and can bite really hard on things like your index finger if you happen to put it in her mouth, knows what the cow sounds like, "uuuu", and the car, "bbmmm", and for some reason "mum" is the same for porridge, food or banana... Do I look like porridge?? We have stopped feeding her formula and she seems fine with that. Our nurse at the child health centre told us formula isn't needed when she's eating ordinary food and if she wakes up in the middle of the night it's not because she's hungry.


Last weekend we went to see my mother and my sister and her family. Everything went smoothly and she enjoyed playing with her cousins and even let aunt Charlotte hold her a couple of times. The car ride for 4 hours went quite well except for her being a little upset for having to sit strapped to her car seat for so long. If she could she would have eaten a ton of crackers in the car but finally I had to say no.


Since my last blogg Linneas paternal grand parents have been here for a 3-day-visit. Linnea just loved dancing with Grandma to Frank Sinatra in the living room. We and Grandpa bought a webcam and now we can say hello via the Internet as often as we like. Linnea seems to recognize them and waves at the screen as we talk to them via webcam. I'm trying to persuade my sister in Vancouver to get a cam aswell, they will only see each other once a year around Christmas and that's a pity and too rarely. We e-mail photos as often as we can but it's not the same.


Also since my last blogg we have met with our SW and next there is the social welfare board meeting where they will approve our adoption and get the approval sent to court and then Linnea will be a Swedish citizen.


We have put Linnea in line for day nursery. We have a day nursery just across the street and some of the neighbour's kids are there aswell. We hope to get her in there for January 2008 and hope she will be ready for it.


When we met Linnea for the the first time she hade the most beautiful Chinese dress on her. She had been car sick and we didn't want to take a photo of her messed up like that. We had the dress washed at the hotel and brought it home with us in a zip bag and then put it away in her closet. Last week I suddenly remembered the dress and we had to take a picture of her in it before she's grown too much. Here is our princess and her dress and I can tell you she looks a lot happier today than she did in December...


Take care and Linnea says "Hi" to all our friends around the world!

Our darling is now 1 year old!

We have now been at home for a little more than 3 weeks and we have got the most perfect little daughter. She has taken a few steps of her own, she still crawls fast and loves her toys. She also seems to know we are her parents and looks for us when on her own on the kitchen floor playing. Last night she crawled from our home office to the TV-room on her own, me in one room and her dad in the other, for a few moments she couldn't see any of us but still knew we would be there when she got there. We have managed to introduce some kind of feeding and sleeping schedule. Linnea (which is her Swedish name) still eats like a horse but goes to sleep at various times at night, we try to get her in bed at 8:30 PM latest. Sometimes she wakes up after an hour but she is easily calmed and usually goes back to sleep. Depending on the time for her last meal we sometimes have to feed her during the night, a bottle of formula is gone within seconds...

Last week our darling turned 1! Some friends, who also travelled with us to China to get their baby, came over for some birthday cake. The girls had much fun playing with all toys and we got the time to talk to some other grown-ups than ourselves. It nice to see that Linnea seems to recognize the dad in that family, I guess we will see them a lot in the future, they are the closest living friends from our China trip.

This week we made a quick visit to DH's hometown to say hi to Linnea's paternal relatives. Her great grandmother turned 92 and was so happy so see us and Linnea. The stay with her grandparents went by without any major difficulties, she seems to like her grandmother but was a bit reserved against her grandfather and aunt. We installed a webcam last week to be able to keep in touch visually and perhaps it's easier for her to remember who they are as we're about 600 km apart and won't be able to visit that often. We now have my mother and sister with family left to visit, we will go there in a few weeks.

Linnea was car sick a couple of times when going on day trips by bus in China. We were a bit worried that she would be sick going by car also when we got home but so far she likes to sit in her carseat. She often falls asleep on the way to the supermarket or somewhere else, tomorrow DH gets back to work and I really really hope she will like to sit in the back seat on her own while I'm driving (not because of my driving, thank you!) if we have to go somewhere when we're alone. We can't have her in the front seat due to the airbag, in the other (older) car there is no airbag in the passenger seat, perhaps I have to use that one with her.

We have been to see the doctor for something called "Tropical examination". They took some blood samples, pee sample, poo sample (...) and saliva sample. From blood samples they will find out if her vaccination chart is correct, perhaps she will need some extra shots but we won't know until next week. Poo sample is to eliminate salmonella and worms. She is now 74.5 cms and 8.235 kgs. We will have a home visit from the child health centre next week, our SW came to see us first week at home. I guess it's just about checking our living standards and to see how we have prepared our house for the baby, nothing to worry about. I guess.

It's no understatement to say that our lives have turned upside down since we became parents. Nothing is what it used to be but it's all for the better. OK, sleeping in weekends is just a dream right now. Taking a shower when beeing home alone with Linnea is out of the question. Linnea really loves to take a bath but hasn't been introduced to the shower yet. Another good thing is that our meals follow her schedule and we can sit together at the kitchen table (which we have realized is now too small) and eat. There is also not that much time to spend by the computer, that's why my blogg hasn't been updated for a few weeks. Sorry for that but I hope I will be able to catch up when we get her sleeping more regular.

We're back!

We're back home after the most amazing journey we've ever made! China is a fantastic country with fantastic people. We have seen just a tiny fraction of the country but have met a lot friendly and warm people, our guide Julie and local guide Monica were terrific!

On Dec 13th we met our little FuQi for the first time. Our daughter was the last to arrive to the hotel after all the other 9 girls had met their forever-families. We were told she had had 5 hours by train and was a bit delayed so we went down to grab some dinner in the hotel restaurant. Our guide came to get us after 6 PM and told us she had arrived. We went up to 11th floor and there she was with her nanny and the SWI director outside the elevators. The walk back to our room seemed to last for ages but once we got in there they handed her over to me. She looked at me curiously and then at DH who was recording. She had been a bit carsick in the taxi to the hotel but who bothered?? We exchanged gifts and then they all left. That same evening there were some paper work to be done so we washed her off and put on some clean clothes. She sat in my lap quitely and played with my necklace and leaned against my chest during the following hours, some of our new friend's babies cried loudly but she just sat there looking at me and her new dad and the other people. The next day we went to Civil Affairs and the Notary office and after that we were legally parents in China.

She is the most adoring baby girl! She smiles a lot, laughs out loud when we are too silly or tickles her tummy and she eats like a horse, just show her a spoon and she opens her mouth widely. She drinks Swedish formula and eats Swedish porridge and food as she had always done. She is very fond of both of us and loves to play with her new toys in her room or in the kitchen. She crawls fast and stands up against a chair or a bed or against our legs. She walks holding our hands and has taken a step or two by herself. Perhaps she'll be walking for her birthday in two weeks!

We brought a BabyBjörn to China and she just loved to sit in it! The Chinese people looked at all of us long-nosed Swedes where most dads carried their babies in these strange harnesses. When putting a formula bottle in her mouth while walking around they couldn't believe their eyes!

The city of Nanchang is like any medium big city. There was a supermarket not far from the hotel where we could buy all necessities like water and diapers. We went on some day trips to a park, to the Teng Wang Ge pagoda and to a porcelain store. After a week we went back to Beijing.

Beijing is a very big city and a very crowded city. Lots and lots of cars, congestions at any time of the day, extremely dry air and weather like we are used to at this time of the year. We visited the Summer Palace, the Tianmen Square and of course the Great Wall, on the most memorable Christmas Eve you can ever have! The weather this day was sunny and clear and the view was lovely! In the evening we gathered in the hotel restaurant to have some dinner all together, we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve in Sweden and one of our new friend's daughter turned 1 year this day. In the hotel there were also another group from Sweden, they had been in Guangdong to meet their babies. All Swedes sat next to each other and it was the best party ever!

The flight back home to Europe was quiet and calm. Our daughter slept 7 of th 10 hours it took us to get to Copenhagen. Then we had to transfer to a flight to Stockholm and she fell a sleep again, so did I.

We are still a bit jet-lagged but are coping quite well. She sleeps from about 8 PM to 4 AM but hopefully we will get her to wake up a bit later further on...

Her Swedish name will be Linnea, which also is the name of the province flower (Linnea Borealis) of my home province. Her middle name will be Qi, which means "unbelievable happiness".

We are so happy for her and think we have been perfectly matched! Thank you CCAA!

We wish you all a Happy New Year!

TA today!

Today our agency called to inform us about our TA, it has arrived at the agency but there is not enough time to mail it to us. One original TA is kept at the CCAA and we will receive our copy when we get there. They told us to go ahead with our preliminary flight plans to Beijing and travel agency confirmed booking later today. We will have e-tickets but FuQi's is an ordinary paper ticket and has to be mailed to us, it will arrive tomorrow.

Last weekend we changed the money we will need for hotels and domestic flights in China and also for shopping. We bought most of our currency in USD travel checks but also some cash yuan. There will be no time for gift shopping for the SWI or their nannies so we have to go shopping again this Sunday. Magnus put together the new chest of drawers for FuQi's room and I filled it with her clothes. Some of the outfits we bought will be too big for her now so she will be well dressed for a long time. Perhaps too many pink outfits though... On her list to Santa this year she wrote "clothes, but not pink ones"... OK, I wrote her list this year :)

We picked up her stroller this Tuesday. It was in two pieces, easy to assembly. It looks great and I drove around in the living room to test it. Neighbours must think I'm crazy... We bought a highchair at IKEA and some formula bottles in the baby's store. Perhaps she don't like formula, it didn't say in the report we got with the referral. It says she eats milk and cereal, rice porridge, pork bone soup, vegetable purée and fruit purée. I hope she will like nachos :)

Tomorrow is my last day at work for 8 months. We will have our annual Christmas party in the evening and it will be a nice way to end this year. My colleagues say I'm welcome to visit as long as I bring FuQi and some cake. I guess they mean homemade cake and sure hope there will be some time to bake, I just love to bake! There are still saffron buns in the freezer, perhaps because we haven't got the time to relax and take a cup of coffee and some buns at the moment... We really need to start packing now...

I don't plan to bring a lap top to China so perhaps this will be my last post before traveling to China to meet FuQi. In that case I will tell you all about out trip and our first meeting after we get back on Dec 27.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and hope you will check out my blog later!

Working on FuQi's room

This week didn't start very well. I had to leave work with a terrible cold on Tuesday and barely managed to get myself into bed. DH Magnus left for work and I slept and wiped my nose most of the afternoon and evening. Yesterday M moved our home office into the walk-in-closet all by himself and I cheered him from the TV sofa. Today I finally could lift my head from the pillow and we painted the room in 1 ½ hour! It looks really great, just the pale pink colour I had imagined and we put some toys in there to make it more cosy for the moment. Tomorrow we will buy a chest of drawers and then we can put all of her clothes in her new room. We will also organize the bed, a bed to sit on and read or just play in. She will have her crib in our bedroom to start with. My sister and nieces let us have their play stove and a couple of friends brought a rocking horse and a doll stroller. We have tons of stuffed teddies and animals ready but will not put all in her room at once, we don't know how she will react to them.

Today we went shopping for diapers, formula, canned food and such items. Some dishes look really tasty, some don't, but they sound good :) I guess her mom and dad will have to try her food eventually. I'm not sure all of our neighbours know we're adopting but today they must have got it, the diaper pack was huge and it's logo was enormous! "Did you see the couple in no. 3? They brought a couple of diaper packs in from the car, what will they use them for, they don't have any kids!" Yet!! Our kitchen window is facing the street and we can watch all neighbours drive by on their way to work and so on. I guess some of them will crash into our fence once they see our little FuQi at the table. We will keep our camera close by, ready to take a picture...

We haven't started packing yet but we'll have to any day. I bought some Pack-Mates from the Internet and I really hope they will do their job. We plan to take one suitcase each and if we do some heavy shopping in China we'll buy a new bag there. The weather in Beijing seems to be kind of the same weather we have here but Jiangxi is warmer. I'll bring my anorak and some warm sweaters so I can choose how many layers I need. I've heard the Great Wall use to be very windy.

Still waiting for TA but hopefully they will show up soon.