Most of you should have figured out it was an April Fool’s joke. We are NOT having twins, only one baby girl. I sent out an email this morning to my collegues, and everybody believed it and sent back congratulations. At that point I started to feel a little bit bad, but it was still damn funny!!

Sorry also to the people who commented on this blog. Tom’s comment was weird. So at first he thought it was a joke, but he still believed it… eh? Susan seems to have caught on. Anyway, this will be the only twins joke I’ll be able to do. Happy April Fool’s Day!!

We didnt want to announce it yet, but I think it’s time now. We are having twin girls! We are very excited about it but also very scared. Luckily we live in a country where we can afford help. With twins everything in our apartment seems small. And I don’t even want to think of when we go out… We’ll deal with that problem when it comes up. I wonder how Logan will react to his his little sisters.

UPDATE: April Fool’s!!

I hope you had a good end of the year, because I sure didn’t. After a very nice family Christmas, I had a terrible end of the year.

On 27th I had to take Becky to the hospital because she vomited all previous night due to food poisoning. She got IV for basically the whole day. After I got back I also took Logan to another hospital, because he had a fever of 40 degrees. Luckily they’re both fine now.

In the meantime I found out that I made a huge mistake at work, and lost some important data. On a scale of 1-5 where 5 is the worst case, this was a 4.

Then this Monday I came to work thinking that I would have a slower day, instead I had the worst working day of my life. My system was down for 6 hours, and I kept running around and stressing about it for the whole day. Then I had come in on New Year’s morning and work a couple more hours.

I really hope the rest of the year will be smoother, hopefully the arrival of my daughter will change things for the better.

Anyway, I wish everyone a Happy 2008!

This was our first family Christmas and it was real fun. Last year Logan was too young, but this time we had the tree and decorations, we had a nice catered dinner (I had so much to eat!) and then we opened presents. Mostly we watched Logan open his presents, he was obviously at the center of the attention. Here are some photos:

I hope you all had a nice Christmas too, Happy Holidays!!

It’s been a while since I blogged here because not a lot has happened in the last few months. Logan is growing everyday. I have uploaded a few photos on my Flickr account, so go there and have a look. Here’s one:

Things are going to change though, because Becky and I are expecting a second baby!! We just found out that it’s going to be a girl, so we are very very excited! She is due next June, which makes her 2 years younger than Logan. We couldn’t have asked for better timing.

We are now looking at names for our baby girl, please feel free to leave a comment with some suggestions.

Like father, like son.

Next week we will be in Sanya, in the Hainan Island here in China. This is our first holiday in China, we usually go in other countries. We will be back on Aug 5th, but I will try to post while we are there.

In the meantime here are some new photos from July. If you can’t see them click here.

Two weeks ago we took Logan to Kidtown, an indoor place in Puxi where parents can take their kids and let them play while they sit and chat or read books or do other things.

We went with a fellow Lamaze Class couple and their daughter, I think Logan had a very good time. They have many different scenarios to play with: hospital, market, police station, theater etc… all with their little toys that look like the real thing.

They also had small cars that Logan really enjoyed, and that I had to push around. But it was all worth it. It costed 120RMB for the three of us, so it’s not cheap. Plus it is very far from our place, so I don’t think we’ll be back there very often. But it was a good day.

Following are some photos from that day. If you can’t see them click here.

I got this idea from my uncle Decio. He took 12 photos from the first twelve months of my cousin Jacopo and put them together in a frame. Every time I walked past that frame on their wall I would stop and look at it with fascination.

Here is the digital version of Logan’s first 12 months.

One day I will also print this out and hang it in our apartment.

A few weeks ago Logan started to stand by himself, and now he is almost ready to walk. Two days ago I saw him take his first 3 steps, and last night I managed to record his further steps. I am a proud father.

We’ve been back for a week now and I feel we’re back to our normal daily routine. The flight back was the worst in my life. First of all we were all sick with flu. We kept sneezing and blowing our noses.

But the landing was the worst for me. Usually the pressure makes your ears uncomfortable.  This time it was painful. I was in constant pain for 15-20 mins for each landing (we had to transfer in Hong Kong). And once there was another pain in my forehead, as if I was being electrocuted. Luckily that one only lasted 15 secs, otherwise I think I would have died.

Logan was actually pretty good on the plane. In fact, on the plane from HK to SH there was another couple with twin sisters. They were a little older than Logan, maybe 18-24 months. One of them slept the entire flight (about 3 hours), the other cried the entire flight! She was just so uncomfortable. I felt so bad for them, and also glad that Logan wasn’t that bad.

When we finally entered our apartment we felt a little bit disoriented. We knew it was our home, but it also felt foreign, almost unrecognizable, even though nothing changed. But we quickly got used to it.

On Mon I went to work very sick, luckily I wasn’t very busy. Then I had to take two days of sick leave and stay home to recover.

I must admit I did not want to come back, but now that we’re back in the rhythm I like my life. It’s a little hard to leave in the morning, especially when Logan smiles at me and wants me to hold him!

I can hardly believe it, but it’s already been 5 weeks, and tomorrow (in a few hours) we’ll be taking the plane back to Shanghai.

It’ s been both relaxing and busy, but it was all good. I got to bond with my son everyday 24/7, which was both tiring and  fulfilling. I am glad I had this opportunity to spend so much time with Logan and Becky.

These last two weeks have been busy and we are now sick, all three of us. First Logan had fever and cough, we even took him to the doctor. He seems to be better now, but he’s still coughing pretty hard. We tried to avoid crowded places, but he still had his ups and downs:

And now Becky and I both have the flu and cough. Becky in particular has a splitting headache, which is not very good for tomorrow’s travel.

Even though Logan was sick, he still improved a lot and can now stand up on his own, without leaning on anything:

Next week I’ll be back at work, and it’s gonna be hard, after 5 weeks of vacations. Wish me luck!

Last week we were in Taipei and it was the busiest time we’ve had yet. First of all we were living in Becky’s relative place, which is very far from the center, so everyday we spent about 2-3 hours on transportation.

We also got to see a lot of people, mostly Becky’s old classmates. Can you believe that she’s still in touch with her primary classmates? Even after she left the country for so many years, she’s still in touch with them.

And then Logan finally got to meet with my mother. It was a short but nice visit, which hopefully will prompt my mom to follow this blog closely, or at least my photos!

And here they are:

More here.

We’ve been living in Hsin Chu for the past few weeks, and we’re fast approaching the midway through our holiday. Once we’re past that, we will start to dread having to go back to Shanghai.

Tomorrow we’ll be going to Taipei and stay there for a few days. I won’t have connection, so I’ll be out of touch for a few days.

We are now in Palau, a very beautiful place with plenty of beach. That’s what we like, but haven’t been able to go to a beach since Becky was pregnant. Now we are finally in a beach resort and… it’s raining:

But it doesn’t matter, we’re still happy and relaxed.

The view from our room is just beautiful:

We are now in Taiwan, and the trip went better than expected. First we took a plane to Hong Kong:

This is the bassinette that they gave us. Logan only stayed in it for a few minutes, and then he was bored:

But he was very good on the plane. He was always moving, but he didn’t cry much. Only when he bumped his head. Then we arrived in Hong Kong airport:

One hour later we got on to another plane to Taipei. Later that night we finally got to Taiwan:

And here we are, on the street of Taiwan:

I finally have pictures of a place other than our apartment in Shanghai. So boring! My Flickr Stream is now more varied. Check it closely for more pictures!

Today we are leaving Shanghai for 5 weeks. This has to do with taxes, so my company is giving us 5 weeks of paid leave. We will be mostly in Taiwan, though we will go to Palau for a few days just to finally see the beach.

We are worried about the flight, Logan will probably be fussy on the plane. I just can’t wait to land. I will keep blogging here, and you can also reach me via e-mail. See you on the other side.

We got Logan his own little house: