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In the past month, Lara and Gloria have learned to learn. They try to copy and repeat everything we do. Lara surprised me by grabbing a brush and pulling it through her hair and Gloria, still short on hair, tries to put on her shoes. They haven't yet learned to eat with a spoon, but they've tried to feed us.

They both understand simple sentences. If I ask where the second shoe is, they'll go and get it. If I tell them lunch is ready, they'll both come running and try to push the high chairs towards the table. If we tell them we'll go for a walk, they run to the door. If we do as much as mention cookies, they'll point at the bag and insist on having one.

Lara is still the more reserved one of the two. Faced with something new, she'll first watch from a distance. Gloria has no such hesitations. Last week, I childproofed the balcony. Lara, who was up first, saw the open door and froze. She stood motionless, staring at the balcony for a full 10 minutes. Then Gloria woke up, came running while yelling "Da,da" - and stumbled over the door sill, landing on her belly. Lara then followed her, very carefully.

Now that spring is coming and the girls are walking well, we've been to the playground several times. Initially Lara and Gloria just sat there, staring at the other children. But meanwhile they have both made some contacts with other children, though not without looking at me every other minute to see if I approve. Gloria, as you can guess, is the more social one. She'll walk around with her big red bucket and offer it to others, smiling brightly. She's 15 months and has at least 3 admirers already, all older boys who give her toys, help her to walk, or even carry her around. (The boys too look at me every other minute to see if I approve.) Lara and I, we watch our little social butterfly, and build sand castles.

From my perspective, the playground is a new arena too. Weekdays, the adult population is exclusively female and comes in two layers of generations, either the mothers or the grandmothers. They talk about their children and pretty much nothing but their children, unless you want to count pregnancies separately. After some initial mistakes, I now bring a book, paper, or a magazine with me to hide behind.

Another piece of news from the past month is that I finally finished the review on the minimal length in quantum gravity that I've been working on since last year. It's now on the arXiv. The first 10 pages should be understandable for pretty much everybody, and the first half should be accessible also for undergraduates. So if you were wondering what I'm doing these days besides running after my daughters, have a look at my review.

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Lara and Gloria are now walking well, and have learned to run too. We have bought them their first pair of shoes, size 21, and took them for a first walk outside. This month has brought more firsts. The girls have been swimming the first time, they have been to a playground the first time, and they have made their first encounter with salt, which they didn't seem to mind.

Confronted with new information, environments, or people, Lara is generally more reserved than Gloria. Lara will watch from a safe distance for a while before she splashes in the water, stomps on the sand, or pulls on grandma's necklace. Gloria is faster to warm up. On the other hand, Lara falls noticeably less often and if she does, is less likely to hurt herself.

Teeth-wise the girls are still months behind. On the average, I read, babies have their first tooth between 4 and 7 months. Ours had their first tooth in their 12th month. Now at 14 months, they have both 6 front teeth that are half out, and still no molars. They can bite off cookies, but they can't chew.

The most remarkable development this month has been the communication. Lara and Gloria both have learned how to work well with pointing and a single word, "Da", which might mean "lift me up", "put me down", "give me this" or "make this work". Gloria is especially expressive. If she sees as much as a spoonful of vegetables come into her direction, she hits the spoon and sends it flying, then points at the dessert and commands "Da." Lara often comes to me with a scarf and wants me to wrap it around her head.

Most of the time, the girls are playing with each other nicely. They do sometimes steal each other's toys, but they also offer toys to each other. When Gloria cries, Lara tries to give her a pacifier. If that doesn't work, Lara begins to cry too.

Their parents have meanwhile reason to celebrate. After more than a year of fight, the German authorities have finally revised their decision that we're not eligible for child benefits, and now we receive the standard rate. Since we're paying rent for two apartments, one in Germany and one in Sweden, this has come as much of a relief for us.

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Our two lovely girls have learned to walk!



Gloria has fallen in love with a plush moose that I bought at the Stockholm airport. When I was pregnant, I gave it to Stefan "for practice," and since then the moose has patiently waited for its cue. It came when Gloria learned to point with her index finger. If her Swedish friend is in sight, she excitedly points and says "Da! Da! Da!" and, if one lets her, she takes the plush moose everywhere.

Lara has learned to drink with a straw, but my efforts to teach Gloria the same have so far been futile. Gloria is generally more picky with things that go into her mouth; she clearly doesn't like vegetables, and every other day refuses to drink juice. On the upside, she has learned that cardboard isn't edible, a lesson that I hope Lara learns before she has eaten up all picture books. We upgraded Lara to the next cloths size; she is now noticeably taller than her sister.

Next week, the babies are scheduled for the meningococcal vaccination, and then we're through with the first round of all the standard vaccinations: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, streptococcus pneumoniae, haemophilus influenzae type b, hepatitis b, measles, mumps, rubella and varicella.

I am always shocked when I read about parents who aren't vaccinating their children. I thought that's a problem which exists only in the USA, but our pediatrician puzzled me last year by beginning our first appointment with a forward defense against arguments we hadn't intended to lead.

After some reading, I learned that about 3-5% of Germans believe vaccinations are unnecessary or harmful. UNICEF estimates that in 2009 in Germany the national coverage with the first measles vaccination was 96%. In the USA it was 92%. The basic reproduction number R of measles is estimated to be 12-18. Measles are one of the most contagious diseases known. The percentage of people that have to be immune to prevent a spread of the infection is roughly 1-1/R, for measles that's more than 93%; for mumps and rubella about 80%. However, not everybody who is vaccinated becomes immune.

Too few people know that the reason why the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination is repeated at least once is not that an individual's immunization is improved, but that in at least 5% of all cases the vaccination fails entirely. Our pediatrician said, 5% is what the vaccine producers are claiming, what he sees in practice is 20-30%. One of the probable reasons is that the MMR vaccine has to be kept cold, and any mistake along the delivery line makes the vaccine ineffective. The follow-up vaccination is supposed to bring down the failure rate, 1-(5/100)(5/100) > 0.99, or so the idea. But more realistically 0.96 (1-(20/100)(20/100)) ≈ 92% in Germany, or ≈ 88% in the USA.

And so, measles are far from going extinct and smaller outbreaks still happen. Sadly enough, even in Germany, people still die from measles. The case reported in the article is particularly tragic: A young boy, whose parents refused vaccination, fell sick with measles and, in the doctor's waiting room, infected 6 children, some too young to have been vaccinated; one died.

Ah, I am lecturing again, even though this was supposed to be a family-update post, sorry ;o)

So back on topic, Gloria and Lara had only mild side-effects from the vaccinations. We have exchanged the backward facing baby car seats with forward facing seats, and the girls can now enjoy watching the cars go by, while we can enjoy watching the babies watching. I didn't know how much I hated the backward facing seats till they were gone.

And I should stop referring to Lara and Gloria as "the babies" because they are now officially toddlers.

Happy Birthday, Lara and Gloria

Today, Lara and Gloria are one year old!

In this year, they have more than tripled their birth weight and they have grown more than 50%. In terms of growth, Lara is still ahead of her sister, meanwhile 2cm taller and 2 pounds heavier. In an amazing demonstration of neural network growth, the girls have learned to smile, to laugh, to hold their head, to turn around, to grab and to pick up crumbles. They have learned to eat from a spoon, to crawl, to sit up, and to stand. They have been through all vowels and are currently working their way through the consonants. They like to take and give toys, and as of lately have learned to throw them. They have both made the first stumbling step, but still deem crawling safer.

Lara has meanwhile two teeth and has found out that grinding them makes her daddy draw funny faces. Gloria has one tooth and now discovers all the possible ways to make noise with it, like running it up and down the bed posts or biting on cups.

It is interesting that while the girls are very different in character, they have made all developmental steps almost simultaneously. If one of them learned something new, the other would soon follow. The one exception is that before Lara could crawl, she had a phase of moving by rolling sideward that Gloria entirely skipped.

Every month, somebody told us the worst is yet to come. The worst are the first three months because they don't sleep through the night. The worst are months four to six because they sleep less during the day but can't yet use any toys, so want to be entertained around the clock. But wait, the worst are months six to nine because they get mobile and you can no longer just put them somewhere and go about your own business. Months nine to twelve are the worst because they get teeth and there goes your night rest. Now that the first year comes to an end, we've been told 12 to 18 months are the worst, because they start to walk and you can't leave them alone for a second. And just wait till they start talking!

As for me, the worst were month -3 to 0, everything after delivery was a vast improvement; I clearly wasn't constructed to carry around 17kg excess weight.

Still, this year has been very exhausting to say the least. We changed an estimated 5000 diapers, picked up pacifiers 20000 times, and our commuting from Heidelberg to Stockholm and my occasional conference attendance has been organizationally challenging. Scientifically, it went better than expected, in that I did manage to write two proposals (one of which was meanwhile declined however), gave a few talks, am organizing a workshop, and did indeed publish a paper. For me, the main problem working from home is the difficulty staying in touch with colleagues, which is also why there are some papers in the pipe that are not making much progress.

Stefan and I, we have been fighting now for more than a year with various institutions in Germany and Sweden for our parental benefits. Just in time for Christmas, we received good news: three quarters of what Stefan applied for has been approved. The problem with the remaining quarter is a fundamental incompatibility between counting in German and Swedish. The Germans count the months of parental benefits starting with the day the child is born (i.e. the 29th in our case); the Swedes count from the 21st on. In addition, the Germans count a month of leave as "taken" even if only one day has been taken. Based on this, they have calculated that for us the year 2011 has 13 months, and we've applied for one month in excess since we mistakenly assumed the year has 12 months.

We still haven't seen a single cent child allowance.

We have also encountered an ambitious local photographer, who has plastered the town with advertisements for "baby-shooting," and whom you have to thank for the creative arrangement in the below photo.



PS: You find some little videos here.

PPS: For birthday greetings more material than words, on Lara and Gloria's Amazon wishlist you can find what the girls will need in the coming months.

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Lara and Gloria are now 11 months old. They can both stand, on wobbly knees, though most of the time they insist on holding onto the furniture. Lara has half of a first tooth and a second in the making, and Gloria's first tooth is just about visible. I of course have dutifully brushed Lara's halftooth with pink toothpaste, which she seems to find very amusing. The babies have both suffered through their first cold, luckily a mild version, and have learned to nibble on bread and cookies.

 It is interesting to see how different the girls are, even though they share not only the same parents, but also a room, clothes and toys. Lara is now a few centimeters taller and also an estimated two pounds heavier than Gloria. (We'll know more precisely at their next doctor's visit, which is in 2 weeks.) When Gloria falls, she inevitably starts crying dramatically until you pick her up. When Lara falls, she might make some surprised sound, though not always, and just move on. She does however occasionally start crying just because her sister cries. Gloria sucks her thumb (the left one), day and night; Lara never does. Lara does however gnaw on the bedposts with her half tooth.

 Trying to change Lara's cloths has become a fight because she kicks, throws towels and cloths around, and tries to grab everything close enough. If you pull her away or turn her back around, she laughs and tries even harder. Gloria is one charmingly smiling baby on the changing table, as long as she has her rubber ducky to suck on. But try to take the ducky away...

I meanwhile am fighting once again with the paperwork. Not only are my Swedish parental benefits running out on Tuesday, but the Germans are refusing to pay Stefan's parental benefits. After a lot of calls and letters, it turned out that they seem to have misread one of the Swedish documents I sent them and thought the amount I got for 5 months was for one month, then concluded we're too rich to apply for benefits in Germany. Now they want more paperwork, that I have to rout to Sweden and back. For that and some other reasons I am somewhat stressed out in these darkest weeks of the year, so excuse the lack of originality on this blog. Finally, Lara sends her greetings:
 

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Lara and Gloria are now 10 months old. They can both stand as long as they have something to hold on to, and they take little steps along the walls. Yesterday Lara dared to take her hands off the table and surprised herself by standing, wobbly, but all on her own.

The babies' first visit at the dentist featured a doctor informing us that they don't yet have teeth and got us two tiny toothbrushes and a booklet that promises to explain everything you ever wanted to know about baby's teeth - as long as you speak Swedish. Since Lara prefers my thumb over her own, I can testify the first tooth is now well on its way, but we're still waiting for it to see the light of the day.

Recently, the little ones have developed an interest in books and chewed to pieces Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code," and Stefan has taken on the task of teaching the babies some physics. Since a week or so, Gloria takes delight in bringing her toys to us, just to take them back immediately. It becomes increasingly noticeable that the girls now understand quite a few words, especially the essentials yes, no, good, bad, come, play, milk, daddy.

Lara and Gloria have coped well with the flights to and from Stockholm, much better than Superdaddy who has developed a contact allergy to Scandinavian Airlines SAS. The Lufthansa-end of the trip in Frankfurt is flawlessly family friendly. The SAS-end in Arlanda is a complete disaster. Despite the twin stroller being clearly marked for 'Delivery at Gate' it ended up on the oversized baggage belt and Stefan had to carry the baggage, the baby seat and the two girls through the airport, much to the amusement of SAS staff.

Upon inquiry, we learned that in the late 19th century a 73 year old labor union member strained an ankle when lifting a bag tagged as gate claim. Or so. Ever since then, employees at Arlanda airport refuse to bring anything exceeding 7kg to the gate, including strollers. Not that anybody bothered to inform us about that or offered any help. We for certain will have reason to celebrate if Lufthansa takes over SAS as rumors say.

Yes, parenthood changes you. I for example have developed the unfortunate habit of looking into stranger's noses to see if there's something in need of being picked out. Stefan meanwhile has worked on a theory of snot clumping according to which the size of a snot does not depend on the nose. He's now collecting data ;o)

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Lara and Gloria are now 9 months old, and it's time again for our monthly baby update. The girls are now both crawling well. Lara has learned to sit up on her own and Gloria knows how to pull herself up and stand on her feet. She's been doing that since 2 weeks already, but only now has she learned how to get back down in any other way than just letting go and falling backwards on her head. There's no day the babies don't get new scratches or bruises and they are relentlessly curious. The other day they escaped from the baby-safe part of the room and happily chewed on our passports.

When they are not sleeping or crying, they are babbling most of the time. For a few days in a row they pick a favorite syllable that they then repeat endlessly. Presently, Gloria is commenting everything with na-na-na, and Lara is practicing dadn-dadn. I've speculated she's echoing Stefan's "Was mascht Du dadn?" (What are you doing there? Saarland-style). On Monday we took them to the institute and they were duly impressed by the guy next door drawing Feynman-diagrams on the whiteboard, though more interesting still they found all the cables under my desk together with the occasional woodlouse that we evidently host down there.

I always thought babies typically swallow or choke on everything small enough to fit into their mouth. It turns out though the very little ones put things in their mouth but don't swallow. In fact, at this point ours still refuse to eat anything that's not smoothly mashed. They'll just push it around in their mouth for a little and then spit out. (It's called the "gag reflex" and should vanish by 7-9 months. You better not leave your baby alone with the combustion engine anyway.)

Neither Lara nor Gloria have teeth yet. That has not deterred the Swedish health authorities from assigning us dentists' appointment. It's not like they ask you to come, no, they just send a letter with a time, date, and location you have to appear. We actually missed the first two appointments. I then called them and tried to convey the information that the girls don't even have teeth for the dentist to look at, but to no avail. I'm picturing a long corridor with offices where Swedish doctors sit and cross out names of patients that didn't show up for their appointments, or belatedly notice the body part they wanted to examine is missing. But at least we know where our taxes are going. (The same health authorities that require amputees to prove every other year that the missing part hasn't regrown. Still better than no health insurance...)

Stefan was sent a list of gadgets the modern father needs to have, for example the full color, high-def, video monitoring system, that allows you to check on your babies by Skype, or a cry analyzer. But the gadget that I would really like to have is a diaper with an integrated microchip that sends a note to my BlackBerry when the diaper is full, and a number attached to it. It's somewhat degrading to having to push my nose onto baby-butts in order to examine the matter, and Stefan's nose evidently isn't up to the task. The German comedian Michael Mittermeier aptly referred to the nose-on-butt procedure as "the shit-check." Which reminds me, I should really write the report on that paper now...

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I am back in Germany and happily reunited with the family. Time might not exist and its passage be an illusion, but the babies are growing irrespective, and our arrow of time points towards baby gates. Lara and Gloria are now 8 months old. They spent the previous week, that I was away for the FQXi conference, with Stefan at their grandma's place. It is difficult to say if they missed me during my absence or if they recognize me upon coming back. They do however clearly recognize our apartment and their own beds. Lara for example had found a way to lie in the corner of her bed in exactly the right angle that she could just look out through the door and onto the corridor - a position she immediately resumed.

The girls are now both moving around by doing the army crawl and Gloria has made first attempts to crawl on her knees. At present, she seems to be aiming at a career as breakdancer, standing on hands and the toes of one foot, turning around chasing the other foot, sometimes slipping and bumping on her head. Interestingly enough, Gloria has completely skipped the phase of moving around by rolling sidewards that Lara has had. Gloria meanwhile has learned how to clap her hands, which she does with enthusiasm. They can now both grab a pacifier and put them into their own mouth and if Lara is in a good mood, she'll try to put it into your mouth.

The babies are both fascinated by all things shiny and tiny and stringy and I've had the somewhat belated insight that the purpose of baby toys is not to entertain the baby but to distract the baby from mommy's toys till it's old enough to realize that pulling on a cable isn't always a good idea.

Our rapid throughput of clothes has been slowing down and we've childproofed the apartment as far as possible. However, in 2 weeks we're packing bags and going back to Stockholm where I will be working while Stefan is on parental leave. So, we'll have to childproof a second apartment and that with the difficulty that we can't remove items or drill into walls because the items aren't ours and the walls are solid concrete.

But, hey, we'll manage somehow. Baby reading this month is an article on "Baby Power" in SciAm Mind according to which mommy brains sprout new neurons, and body chemistry changes towards higher risk taking and better memory performance, at least when it comes to tracking down food. If you are a rat that is. The same article also informs us "that (human) mothers are more likely to rate their infant's odors as pleasant, compared with nonmothers" (Look, an English compound noun! And it's not my making!). Maybe I'm an aberration but, prolactin or not, shit still smells like shit to me. Spiegel Online informs us that we're supposed to train baby's concentration skills by the age of one (at the latest), but then Parents don't matter that much at least when it comes to the child's education and income, and the Globe and Mail reports that striving to be supermom is correlated with depression. So maybe we'll wait with teaching the babies differential geometry on complex spaces for some more while.

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Lara and Gloria are now 7 months old. During the last month, they have made remarkable progress. Both can now roll over either which way, and they also move around by pushing and pulling. They have not yet managed to crawl, but since last week they can get on all fours, and I figure it's a matter of days till they put one knee in front of the other and say good-bye to immobility. They still need a little support to sit, but they do better every day.

While the twins haven't paid any attention to each other during the first months, now they don't pay attention to anything else. Gloria doesn't take any note of me if Lara is in the room, and Lara loses all interest in lunch if Gloria laughs next door. The easiest way to stop Gloria from crying is to place her next to her sister. However, if one leaves them unattended they often scratch and hit each other. I too am covered with bruises (but hey, it rattles if I hit mommy's head!), scratches (how do you cut nails on a hand that's always in motion?), and the occasional love bite that Lara produces by furiously sucking on my upper arm (yes, it is very tasty). Gloria is still magically attracted to cables, and Lara has made several attempts to tear down the curtains.

Lara and Gloria are now at German lesson 26: da-da, ch-ch, dei-dei-dei, aga-a-gaga. It is funny that they make all these sounds but haven't yet attempted to use them for communication. They just look at us with big eyes when we speak and remain completely silent. Though they seem to understand a few words like Ja, Nein, Gut, Milch. They also clearly notice if I speak English rather than German.

For the parental reading, this month I've enjoyed Ingrid Wickelgren's article "The Miracle of Birth is that Most of Us Figure Out How to Mother - More or Less." Quoting research that shows some brain is useful for parenting too, she writes:

"To take care of a baby's needs, mom needs to be able to juggle tasks, to prioritize on the fly, rapidly, repeatedly and without a lot of downtime... Mothering tests your attention span, ability to plan, prioritize, organize and reason as much as does a day at the office."

Well, it somewhat depends on what you used to do in that office of course. But yeah, I suppose some organization skills come in handy for raising twins. I won't lie to you though, singing children's rhymes isn't quite as intellectually stimulating as going with your colleague through the new computation. But Gloria always laughs when I read to her the titles of new papers on the arXiv.

On the downside, the Globe and Mail reported the other day on "Divorce, depression: The ugly side of twins," summing up "the infant treadmill":

"Cry. Breastfeed. Bottle-feed. Burp. Breast pump. Diaper. Swaddle. Ninety minutes of baby maintenance, then 90 minutes of trying to stay on top of sleep and domestic chores, then repeat. And so on."

Oh, wait, they forgot cleaning the bottles, doing the laundry, picking up baby because she's been spitting all over herself, washing baby, changing her clothes, changing bed sheets, putting baby back into bed, putting bottles into sterilizer, put laundry into dryer, take the other baby out of bed because she's been spitting... Indeed, that's pretty much how we spent the first months. But it gets better and thanks, we're all doing just fine.

You can also disregard all the above words and just watch the below video. And if you think they're cute, don't forget they'll get cuter for two more months, so check back ;-)


PS: Oh, and please excuse the green thing in the video. New software and I haven't yet really figured out how it works.

Getting cuter by the day...

If you've been wondering what age babies are the cutest, there's a scientific answer to that. Yes, there is. In the year 1979, Katherine A. Hildebrandt and Hiram E. Fitzgerald from the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University published the results of their study on "Adults' Perceptions of Infant Sex and Cuteness."

A totally representative group of about 200 American college students of child psychology were shown 60 chromatic photographs of infant faces: 5 male and 5 female each for six age levels (3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 months). The babies were photographed by a professional photographer under controlled conditions when their facial expressions were judged to be relatively neutral, and the infants' shoulders were covered with a gray cape to hide clothing.

The study participants were instructed to rate the photos on a 5-point scale of cuteness (1: not very cute, 2: less cute than average, 3: average cuteness, 4: more cute than average, 5: very cute). The average rating was 2.75, ie somewhat less than averagely cute. The authors write that it's probably the selection of photos with neutral facial expressions and the grey cape which accounted for the students' overall perception as slightly less cute than average. And here's the plot of the results:
So, female cuteness peaks at 9 months.

For the above rating the participants were not told the gender of the child, but asked to guess it, which provided a 'perceived gender' assignment to each photo. In a second experiment, the participants were told a gender which however was randomly picked. It turned out that an infant perceived to be male but labeled female was perceived to be less cute than if it was labeled male. Thus the authors conclude that cuter infants are more likely to be perceived as female, and cuteness expectations are higher on females.

Partly related, Gloria just woke up:

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So we're back in Germany. For the next months, I'm on parental leave again and Stefan works 9 to 5. Lara and Gloria are now almost 6 months old. They can now both roll over from back to belly, though not the other way round, and they've discovered their feet which make good toys that don't fall out of reach. They can grab and hold things, give them from one hand to the other, and bang them not only in their own but also in other people's faces. They can meanwhile eat quite well from a spoon, though they try to grab the spoon which makes feeding inevitably a mess.

Lara entertains us with a large variety of funny sounds ranging from moo-moo over uee-wee to fffff. The latter is particularly amusing when executed with a mouth full of mashed carrots. Gloria too finds distraction in her 5 minutes older sister and often turns to look at her or rolls into her direction. If Lara burps, Gloria laughs. Lara's hair finally seems to start growing, and it turns out to be lighter than it was at birth. Her eye color on the other hand is turning more brownish by the day. Gloria is still blue eyed and has a hint of blond hair.



Yes, my life has become very pink.

The girls now sleep reasonably well at night, but are more demanding during the day. Lara in particular manages to move around without actually being able to crawl and then gets stuck in all sorts of impossible positions. Gloria apparently loves to chew on cables, and it's good she doesn't have teeth yet. In the coming weeks, we'll have to childproof the apartment.

I have, to my great delight, meanwhile received parental benefits from the Swedish Försäkringskassan, at least for a couple of months, after I managed to convincingly explain I'm indeed still insured with them. The problem seems to have been caused by some EU agreement that assigns me to a German health insurance during my stay here. On the Swedish side however the health and social insurance are both in the domain of the same institution, so they seem to have concluded I'm back in Germany for good, never mind that I'm paying taxes in Sweden. Now they have some difficultly figuring out how many days I'm eligible for since Stefan doesn't live in Sweden. The Germans on the other hand have so far refused to pay a single cent of Stefan's benefits since they don't know what the Swedes will pay for me. The bottomline is we're still sitting on piles of paperwork and money is short. We've also learned of several people who've had similar difficulties which is both comforting and frustrating.

Our Saab's oil leak caused us some more headache than anticipated. Here in Germany we were told the broken part, some rusty hose, would have to be shipped from Sweden. Since we were on the way to Sweden anyway, we contacted some repair place there after arrival just to be told that Saab has only one warehouse for spare parts left, which is in Nyköping, and the part we need is out of stock. They could put in an order for fourhundredsomething Euro, and it might come in anything between next month or never. The car making more insulted noises by the day, I had the great idea to Google for 'Saab spare parts' in Swedish. Two days later I picked the part up from the post office; it came to about 25 Euro. To my amazement, it was indeed the right part and it's being replaced right now. Lesson learned: If you need a spare part for your car, buy it online yourself and bring it to your dealer.

Weather here in Germany is brilliant, 36 Grad, Es wird immer heisser, Es ist Sommer! and the women's soccer world cup has just begun.

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Lara and Gloria are now five months old. They have made a lot of progress in coordinating their movements. They can now grab and hold things, including other peoples' noses and glasses, and they try to hold their bottles and spoons. We've bought some first picture books and they look with big eyes at the images while Stefan and I practice Swedish vocabulary: En elefant, två körsbär, tre ballonger, fyra muffins... Yesterday, Gloria rolled over for the first time.

Stefan makes an admirable stay-at-home daddy, who has even taken on the pretty much futile task of folding my T-shirts and pairing my socks. I meanwhile am back sitting in seminars, talking physics over coffee, sorting though piles of papers. Unfortunately, I still seem to spend a lot of time on the phone with the social insurance who still hasn't paid a single cent of my parental benefits. It turned out that they mistakenly believed I had moved out of country. The good news of the week is that I received a letter confirming I am indeed still insured with them and hope now things will finally be sorted out. It's about time since my account balance has been monotonically decreasing since October and the pain at the pump is substantial.

If you're a parent it is almost unavoidable that friends send you all sorts of baby-related information. Here are some of the more interesting articles that I came across: If your baby sleeps more than usual, expect a growth spurt, Statistically, mothers of twins live longer than other moms (it's a correlation, not a causation), for women with jobs that require a high skill level, having children significantly reduces their average lifetime income, and Nature Jobs reports that the gender divide in physics spans the globe:

"Balancing motherhood and work continues to be the biggest career challenge for women. Carola Meyer, an investigator at the Peter Grünberg Institute in Jülich, Germany, and vice speaker of the German Physical Society's gender-equality working group, says that although institutes and funding bodies provide career breaks for people who wish to have children, such schemes don't necessarily ease the balancing act. Women hold 17% of the 42 positions at her institute — a relatively large proportion, says Meyer. Yet all are under 40 and have no children. Those who want to rise within the scientific community can't consider having children until they are established, she says."

That stinks like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let me clean up the stink by a quotation from the (otherwise cute but unremarkable) movie "Little Miss Sunshine" (that I watched on a flight on the way to some conference):

"Do what you love, and fuck the rest."

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I am flying to Toronto on the weekend and will be visiting Perimeter Institute the coming two weeks. Since Superdaddy will be terribly busy and need all four hands for cleaning baby butts, and I'll be jetlagged and otherwise try to figure out what to write in the visit report, you're facing a slow time on this blog. When I'm back, Stefan, the babies, and I will pack our bags for we are spending 6 weeks in Stockholm so I can go back to work, at least temporarily.

Lara and Gloria are now exactly four months old. They are holding their heads well and grab everything that comes sufficiently close to their nose. They are also both trying to roll over, but haven't really managed yet. Lara is still the talker and Gloria is ceaseless in her daily workout. It seems that whenever I look at her, she's frantically waving her arms and kicking her legs. We've made some first attempts at spoonfeeding and were reminded that beta carotene is not water soluble.


The babies' paperwork is adding up. They're now registered also with the Swedish tax offices and have their own person-numbers. It turns out I'll have to apply for their residency in Sweden, so more forms waiting to be filled out. For the flight to Sweden, the girls got their own passport for which we had to get biometric photos. Even the babies manage to look like criminals on these photos.

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Lara and Gloria are now almost three months old. They have doubled their birth weight and grown in and out of the newborn cloths. Gloria is smiling generously at all and everybody while Lara's smiles are reserved for special occasions. Stefan and I are glad they now make some sounds other than crying; their "ouee" and "agooh" are music to my tinnitus.

The girls can now almost hold their head, and they have begun to take note of the mobiles above their beds. Gloria spends hours waving around with her arms and kicking into the air, hoping to hit something. Lara happily talks to the wooden bees and butterflies above her head. Interestingly enough, the babies hardly take note of each other. When we put them both in the playpen, they completely ignore their sibling. They pay more attention to about everything else than they pay to their sister.

Responsibility hits you in funny ways. The other day it occurred to me with some months delay I should probably wash the babies behind their ears. If I don't do it, who will? And then there was the day when I misplaced the baby. I went to see if they're all right and found one bed empty. Since it was unlikely the baby had learned to walk while I wasn't looking, I probably took her someplace and then forgot. I checked the big bed and the babyseat and the playpen before I remembered I put her on the couch, where she was still sleeping peacefully. (But don't tell my husband.)

Stefan and I, we have meanwhile organized our lives with the babies pretty well, though we are still short on sleep. It didn't help that Europe switched to summer time yesterday. Today, Lara and Gloria seem a little confused that breakfast is so early. And I have learned to type two-handed while balancing a baby on my forearms.

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The German Winter is making place for Spring's first green, and our two lovely girls are now almost two months old. Lara and Gloria have outgrown the newborn diapers and we've sorted out the first set of clothes that got too tight. They have learned to suck on their fingers and are starting to focus on things. Since last week, Gloria is smiling generously while Lara prefers to stick out her tongue. At present they can neither grab nor hold any toys, and the only thing they seem to recognize are faces and milk bottles. They also haven't yet shown any intention of sleeping through the night

It has become apparent that the sisters are very different in character. Gloria is easily bored and wants to be entertained. Lara is content lying in her bed listening to music and playing with her fingers. Since neither Stefan nor I can recall the lyrics of children's songs and can't hold any tune anyway, the babies have an iPod player introducing them to essentials of German Culture. My favorite lullaby is clearly Kleine Taschenlampe Brenn (Glow, little flashlight) and the other day I caught Stefan humming La Le Lu while stuffing laundry into the machine. I've also rediscoverd forgotten childhood gems, such as Hey Wicky and Pippi Langstrumpf. Lara and Gloria both like Maja the Bee, but can't stand Captain Future.

The girls have made their first encounters with babysitters, and I am stunned by the variety of skin problems babies can have and by the amount of recommended alleged remedies. We meanwhile have a large selection of bottles, lotions and cremes for one or the other purpose that goes on this or that body part.

Meanwhile, I am still fighting with the health insurance. Every time I think I've finally filled out all forms and sent them all documents, I find another letter in our mailbox with another form or request for documents. The amount of paperwork that a pregnancy generates is simply amazing. The babies have also received their first mail ever: From the revenue office assigning them a tax number.