Monday

After 24 hours of rain Mats had to work hard to put the rubbish on fire at our summer house. He had promised hot dogs, so he couldn't give up, and he's efforts payed of after almost an hour.
Caroline, Uffa (Mats brother) and Maja (Olivia's cousin) came to visit us. It was very nice to see them, but unfortunately it was so cold and damp we had to spend most of the time indoors - where it was at least a few degrees warmer.
Vera-Mei found a lot of new toys and was in a good mood.
Maja had grown a lot since we saw her last time, and her hair is really long now.
Olivia with the beautiful smile!

Olivia and Uffa.
When we left the summer house in the afternoon, suddenly the sky was blue! I, Granny, Olivia and Vera-Mei went to see some Granny's friends for a short visit. They have sheep and the first two little lambs were born the other day. Olivia was thrilled, but a little scared. Vera-Mei was in chock, as it seemed, not impressed at all.
Olivia wants to go back another day, she wants to bottle feed the lambs. We'll see how that goes, as Olivia thought she was safest when held by me or Granny.

... who wasn't afraid at all, not even when mummy Sheep complained loudly as Granny lifted the white baby lamb.


Mats is back in Sevenoaks, he left at 5 am this morning. He will be back Friday night, gepending of the outcome of our correspondence with the British Embassy regarding Vera-Mei's visa application. Fingers crossed!

Happy Easter

We spent Good Friday at the summer house, tidying up in the garden. The girls are very helpful. Unfortunately the camera battery needed loading so I couldn't take any pictures when Mats set the dry grass on fire later on ... it was a thrill.
A new golfer is born. If you ask dad.
Olivia's second cousin Oscar came with his dad Jesper to visit us yesterday. Oscar is one day younger than Olivia. When they have met before they haven't been interested in each others company, but yesterday they played very nicely together. Promising for the summer!
Dancing to The Muppet Show.
By the way, Olivia will have another second cousin tomorrow when Christian and Gwenn at Mauritius will have their second baby by Cesarean!


Olivia loves eggs.


We had a treasure hunt in the garden. Olivia found the Easter egg very fast and finished the sweets even faster.
Daddy helped her, of course.
It took Vera a while to understand she needed to blow in the whistle.
Learning to use a jo-jo.
Happy Easter!
I think Vera-Mei will also be a daddy's girl, just like Olivia. Vera follows Mats around the house like a little puppy and cries every time he leaves the house.
Being a mum is definitely ungrateful sometimes!

We expected Simon with Leon and Gideon for Easter dinner yesterday, but Leon fell ill and they stayed at home. It was a disappointment of course, but we had a nice evening anyway. Olivia stayed up late at went to see the big Easter fire.

Skärtorsdag

The girls were excited when they found dad n the bedroom this morning. We are now looking forward to a relaxing Easter. We will spend quite a lot of time in the summer house, tidying up in the garden and soaking up the sunshine. Mats also wants to play golf and I want to go to Kallbadhuset, a place where you heat yourself up in the sauna while over viewing the sea, and then cool down by jumping in to it. The colder the better - unfortunately I missed the ice this winter!
Vera-Mei now says Pappa, titta, tavla and upp, and very often där. (Dad, look, picture, up, and there)

Olivia and Granny baked this lovely cinnamon buns yesterday.
Watching The Muppet Show on the computer.

Today

Another beautiful day with lots of smiles. We tried the local playgroup (Öppna förskolan) and both girls enjoyed it. But now it's time to prepare supper so you have to look at the pictures to see what we have been up to!

Lazy days

We made it in to People's Daily, the number one voice of the Chinese government! The story is about outstanding bars in Beijing, and JO Waldner's bar is one of them. Our family isn't mentioned, the text only says "The Swedish play table tennis at the W Bar". But it's a great memory anyway! I would have been very surprised if they mentioned we were in China to adopt, I really didn't think they would publish the picture at all. But here we are: Granny Gunilla, Olivia and Mats (and Fang, Mats' Chinese colleague).

The wonderful weather continues. The girls and I enjoy playing on the beach ...

... in the garden ...
and at our summer house.

Mats returned from Finland on Thursday evening. He worked from home on Friday, and Olivia and Vera were very happy to have him around. We also went to the driving range for a short visit. Olivia impresses everyone. Mats wants her to start taking golf lessons this summer. I'm afraid the fun will go if it's made to serious, but on the other hand she likes structured playing and exercising. We'll see.

Vera also tried to hit golf balls, but she finds it easier to throw them out on the field. Clever girl!

Olivia's best this week:

Granny, you have to stand in front of me when pushing me on the swing, otherwise you can't see my beautiful smile!

Olivia is still very jealous and tries all sorts of things to get all the attention (but I think she already gets most of the attention and I feel bad for not having the time to concentrate on Vera, and at the same time I feel bad for not being able to giving Olivia everything she wants - maybe cloning isn't a bad idea after all). This is a completely new side of Olivia which we haven't seen before. Her latest trick is refusing to eat. Well, she isn't starving so we let her stay hungry until the next meal. But most of the time the girls play nicely together and enjoy each others company.

Olivia is also a very protective big sister and very proud. She often enjoys being the big girl, especially when she is allowed to stay up one hour longer every evening.

I think everything will be easier when we come back to Sevenoaks and Olivia can go to school and see her friends as before. She misses her friends a lot, Sam in particular.

Vera-Mei talks a lot, but most of it is totally impossible to understand. I think she is practising the sounds and rhythm of the Swedish language. She can say "Titta", "Där", "Lampa", (look, there, lamp) but understands much more. I think she will start talking a lot more soon. I also hope she will start telling me when she needs the loo - as I wrote before, she seems to be toilet trained but we always have to guess when it's time. When it's warmer we will take her out of nappies when in the garden and see what happens.

Vera-Mei still cries angrily every time we put her to bed, but without the midday nap she falls asleep in a few minutes. She still cries during the night, but not as many times and I think she stops quicker. It's nice to have Mats here, so we can share the calming down duty.

Mats will go to Sevenoaks this afternoon, and return here on Thursday. We keep our fingers crossed that the nice weather continues - we want to spend Easter in our summer house.

Sunshine adn more sunshine

The lovely pre-summer weather continues and the girls enjoy playing outside all day long.

They play in the sand pit, go on the swings, we visit playgrounds and go to the beach. I appreciate the easy access to the nature here in Sweden. The children get dirty incredibly fast and the washing machine is full every second day - just as it's supposed to be.

Today Vera-Mei received her Swedish personnummer, so she is officially a person here in Sweden. We can now apply for the re-adoption - I will do it tomorrow. Vera-Mei has also done the medical check-up for adoptive children today. It's so hard to do the blood tests! I almost start to cry myself. Anyway, it's good to have all the tests taken and within a few weeks we will know for sure everything is fine with her.

Olivia is still very jealous, but the girls enjoy each others company very much and play nicely together a lot of the time. I have stopped Vera's mid day nap. She is very tired now, - I will put her down at 6.30 pm, but this means she will cry angrily for five minutes every night instead of one hour two times a day - better for everyone. She keeps her good mood all afternoon, until she sees the pyjamas - she really doesn't want to go to bed!

Well, time to get the girls out of the bathtub!

Spring and night terrors

We have had a couple of lovely days here in Varberg. The weather is fantastic, Vera-Mei is all smiles and happy (as long as it's only the closest family) and Olivia slowly comprehends that she will need to share mummy with little sister.
Yesterday we went out to the summer house. If the beautiful spring weather continues we will stay there over Easter.
Today Olivia and I went to Hoppis och skuttis, a gymnastic class for parents and children together. The difference between UK and Sweden became so clear: Here we were supposed to work out together, play and have fun, because they think three to five year olds are much to young to do classes on their own. In UK the parents are not allowed in the classes when the children have turned three, and it is so much discipline and very serious. After ten minutes Olivia asked me "Mum, why are we here" - she didn't see the point with the exercise and free dancing! This makes me worried. I want her to play a few more years, but she will probably start school in September.
Anyway, the whole family went to the beach and had a picnic in the afternoon, and then we met Olivia's cousins Leon and Gideon for a short play date.
Now it's time to put the girls to bed. Both Mats, myself and my mum have colds and feel very tired. I'm glad the summer time begins tomorrow, it helps our jet lag. We still wake up at five-six am.
I have also done some research about night terrors (nattskräck). I think that's what Vera has at night. The first hysterical cry normally starts when she has been asleep a few hours and often returns several times through the night. She cries for about ten minutes and won't be calmed down, sometimes with her eyes open, and then suddenly stops and just points to the bed and falls asleep immediately. Night terrors often start when there are changes in small children's lifes plus when their normal sleep pattern is disturbed - well, that fits quite good. Hopefully the attacks will be fewer soon.
Happy weekend!

Sista dygnet

The girls are playing in Granny's garden, the sun is shining and we are very happy - even though Vera-Mei had constant nightmares and kept us all awake most of the night. Poor girl, she sounds so sad when she is sobbing in her sleep. One wonders what makes her so upset, if she is grieving, or afraid all this new will disappear, or if hard memories haunt her in her dreams. She calms down only when we carry her and cuddle her. It's very nice and promising she lets us comfort her, but I feel sleep deprived, both from this and the jet lag.
Here are the pictures I promised yesterday.
The evening before we left - all the girls dressed up in their new silk dresses for group and family photos.
The Karlssons.
Final Chinese dinner on Tuesday evening.

On the plane to Copenhagen.
Finally a smiling girl!
Our lovely daughters.
We arrived in Gothenburg at 8.50 pm. Waiting for the missing suitcases, we received them yesterday afternoon.

Back home in Sweden!

It's now half past eight and we have been awake since 5am - not to bad, I was worried we'd all be up at 2am.
The trip home went great. We managed to feed the girls and put them to sleep before the adults' food was served and enjoyed two meals without disturbance! Our adoption friends were very impressed, but I have to admit this was mostly luck. But it's a long journey and we were all very tired when we finally landed in Gothenburg. Granny's partner Douglas and our very good friend Gunnar met us at the airport. They had borrowed children's car seats for the girls (first safe journey in a couple of weeks) and a small trailer for the suitcases. The last wasn't necessary, as only Granny's suitcase and one buggy arrived with our flight. The rest was stuck in Copenhagen. Very irritating, after such a long trip you really want a nice shower, a toothbrush and some clean clothes! Hopefully the suitcases will be delivered here within a few hours.
Douglas served champagne in the car and we were all very happy to be on Swedish ground. Wow, we did it again! Adoption is such a long process both emotionally and practically, and the relief when you're finally back home with a wonderful child is indescribable.
Vera-Mei was awake almost all the way to Varberg and looked at the surroundings with big eyes. She said "Dä!" "Dä", baby-Swedish for There, There!. Yesterday was also the big break through for her, she is now all smiles and laughing all the time, and she says Mamamamamama, and giggles happily.
I will post pictures as soon as we find a way to transport the files from Mats laptop to Granny's computer, which I am using now. We can't connect the laptop to the Internet here.
Thank you so much all of you who have followed our amazing journey to bring little sister home! Thanks for all the nice comments - they make me very happy! I intend to continue blogging from Sweden, but maybe not every day, it will be difficult to find the time as I will be alone with two children all day.
Next week we will register Vera-Mei for a Swedish "personnummer", meet our social worker, apply for the re-adoption and do Vera's medical examination. When all this is done it's time to apply for a British visa. Wish us good luck, please!

Pa nastan svensk mark

We went to the Swedish table tennis player JO Waldner's restaurant yesterday. In the rest of the world you can always say Abba and people understand you're from Sweden, but in China you need to say JO Waldner.
The slogan is "Probably the best Swedish food in China". Well, it was okay, but some more salt and pepper made it even better.
Olivia tried out the table tennis. Notice the man with the camera in the right corner of the photo. He's a photographer from People's daily, the newspaper which is the number one voice of the government in China. They will publish a story about the restaurant on Saturday, and have promised to send me a copy if Olivia appears on a picture. But I doubt the want to write about adoption, and they have to if they don't intend to lie.
Kottbullar, Wallenbergare, Biff Rydberg, Pyttipanna och halstrad lax smakade got efter tva veckor i Kina.


Olivia is practising egg and spoon race.
Learning to use the fork.
We tried the football game as well.
Olivia didn't reach so Mrs Fang, Mats Chinese colleague, helped her.
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Today Granny, I and Olivia have been on a Hutong-tour by rickshaw. It was interesting but very cold. I forgot the camera, so no photos. We went with our adoption group and visited a local market, the home of an "ordinary man" and a nursery. The nursery was for children from four years old and more like a boarding school, the children live there Monday to Thursday. They eat and play in the classroom and sleep in a dormitory. The reason the stay both days and nights is the parents want the children to develop their independence.
How different we look at things!
Now both the sleeping beauties have woken up from their nap and want my attention.
Tomorrow: Sweden!