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This journal is about raising identical twins.Seventeenth month
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Sunday, Dec 6, 1998 (16m)
The twins are 16 months old.We went to Alan and Wendy's for Valerie L's first birthday party. She is around 20 lb., she is heavier despite younger than our twins. The twins and Valerie seem to get along very well. They have met so many times that they are friends now. The twins were not shy to play with Valerie's toys.
Alan's sister Alana also brought her babies. We met her son in Valerie's baby shower. We have not seen her for over a year since then and we didn't know she now has a new daughter. Time flies.
After the party, we went to Uncle Ivan's, mommy's entire family were there, we had a hot pot dinner. We showed the videotape on our Tahoe trip after dinner.
Monday, Dec 7, 1998 (16m+1d)
Unlike Joanne, when we told Jasmine to kiss someone, she would offer the forehead to be kissed. Recently, I told Jasmine forehead, No; lips, Yes. Now she is kissing with her lips when asked to. The twins don't speak yet, but they seem to understand what we say quite well.
Saturday, Dec 12, 1998 (16m+6d)
Early in the week, Jasmine was crying frequently for no apparent reason. She was really in a bad mood and did not even let us hold her. She just wanted to lie on her belly and cry herself to sleep. That only lasted a few days, but we still have not figured out the cause. Perhaps she was teething or something. If she were an adult, her symptoms would have been dismissed as P.M.S. :-)For several nights in a row, Joanne woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning crying. She went back to sleep after a few minutes when we ignored her.
Sunday, Dec 13, 1998 (16m+7d)
We took the twins to Stanford Shopping Center in the afternoon. It was pouring rain and the kids was asleep when we arrived. So mommy went for shopping while daddy stayed with the babies in the car and did some reading. When mommy came back, the twins were awake so we took them to see the Christmas lights and decorations.
Monday, Dec 14, 1998 (16m+8d)
While mommy was doing housework, the twins climbed the stairs to the second floor. They went into their own room, turned on the music. They were "dancing" happily to the music when mommy caught them in the act. To be precise, they were swaying side to side and stamped their little feet.Come to think of it, they had accomplished a complex task. The external speakers were attached to a portable CD player. The twins had to turn on the power to both machines to get the music. Somehow they figured that out.
I believe it was Jasmine's deed because she had seen me turning on the music before. Besides, she is the one who would boldly do anything. Joanne is the more reserved type. She also likes to poke buttons on TV and VCR etc., but she would run away from the 'crime scene' scared whenever something happens.
Friday, Dec 18, 1998 (16m+12d)
The twins had a weight check at the doctor's office. Both weighed 17 lb. 6 oz. The doctor said they are both healthy. Even though they are still under the 5th percentile curve, their weights are now on a upward curve of their own.Jasmine usually drinks a little bit more milk than Joanne, but she does not eat as much solid food as Joanne. They love orange and apple juice, canned mixed fruits, cheerios, noodles, hamburgers, french fries, egg white etc. but they hate egg yolk or anything that sticks to the roof of their mouths. They liked yogurt before, but recently they are not very enthusiastic about it. They like pear too if it is sweet and crunchy, they would hold a wedge in their hands and take a bite now and then while walking around the house.
Joanne loves to see herself in the mirror. Whenever she has new clothes on, or she wears something on her hair, she would go straight to the mirror to smile at herself. Jasmine, on the other hand, will go to the mirror only occasionally.
Jasmine is still the aggressive type. She just snatches whatever she likes from Joanne, and makes her cry. However, Joanne learns to defend herself, she would rotate her body to block Jasmine's "attack" if she sees her coming. But sometimes Jasmine is so fast that Joanne does not even notice the object is missing from her hand.
Auntie Tina baby-sat for us in the evening when we went to my company's Christmas party at the Tech Museum in San Jose.
Saturday, Dec 19, 1998 (16m+13d)
The twins are 500 days old. Unlike the 100th day mark, the 500th day has no significance in any culture. It is just a round number.I was called back to work in the morning to resolve an emergency last minute software problem before a product release.
In the afternoon, we picked up great-grandma and went to Simon & Winnie's place in San Francisco for a dinner gathering. We met two new friends at the party. Johnny is Simon's neighbor and Vivian from Hong Kong is a friend of Johnny's son. The older folks had a game of Mahjong while we played the "Sequence" board game and the twins played with Samantha and her toys. Simon served us two rounds of dinner. First round was with Sushi, Sashimi, Tempura and Unagi Don. The second round was with sauteed portabella mushroom, rib roast and lobster tails. We were all really really full when we had the custard pie for dessert. It was a great, great dinner, but I think Simon had spent a lot on it. The twins took a nap while we continued with our games after dinner. We left before midnight and got home at almost 1am in the morning.
Sunday, Dec 20, 1998 (16m+14d)
According to weather reports on the radio, today is the coldest day of this season. It snowed in some areas around the San Francisco Bay. Mt. Hamilton Road in San Jose was closed due to the snow. My mom saw snow falling near her church in Fremont. However, we didn't see the snow fall when we went to Grandma Ling's place, but there were snow on top of the hills in the area. Since we've seen plenty of snow at Lake Tahoe several weeks ago, we are not that eager to see snow at our door steps. We prefer warmer weather to cold winter.We went to great-grandma's place in the afternoon. Mommy's Cousin Kay and her husband Dave were there. They have moved from Hawaii to California just a few months ago. This was the first time the twins and I met them in person.
Thursday, Dec 24, 1998 (16m+18d)
Joanne recovered from a runny nose she got couple days ago, now it is Jasmine's turn.Today's is a public holiday. Steven and Elizabeth bought us lunch at Tokyo Sushi at Lundy. We took the twins to shopping at Costco after lunch.
Steven and Elizabeth stopped by our house after dinner. Their kids joined us in unwrapping the twins' Christmas gifts. We had some desserts and we showed them the video from our Tahoe trip. The twins watched the video intensely and waved to the babies on screen occasionally. Laurie and Harrison were bored by the video and they left the room to played with each other.
After the tahoe video, Elizabeth wanted to see the earlier video of our twins, so we showed them the video we took in the NICU. When the twins were born, they were tiny and feeble. It is amazing how much the babies have changed in the past 16 months. The twins watched the video with a curious look, they don't know whom daddy and mommy were holding in the video. After the video, we also showed them our recent photos. They left at around 1am.
Friday, Dec 25, 1998 (16m+19d)
Today's the twins' second Christmas. All the shops are closed and it is boring staying home. I went back to the office to work overtime trying to catch up on my projects.Jasmine invented a new game all by herself. She grabs Joanne's shoulders from behind and then pushes her around the room like a toy. (see video clip [1.2 MBytes].) Both babies laugh and giggle while they march around. Then Jasmine would switch place with Joanne, offering her back to be pushed around. Unfortunately, Joanne did not get it, she just went away when Jasmine backed into her.
Saturday, Dec 26, 1998 (16m+20d)
Grandma Ling and grandpa visited. We went shopping in Valley Fair Mall. We ended up purchased nothing despite the after Christmas sales. We had dinner at Golden Island restaurant.
Sunday, Dec 27, 1998 (16m+21d)
We took the twins to look at some new model homes. Most are beyond what we can afford. The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most expensive area in the country in terms of home price. Check out the ranking here.
Thursday, Dec 31, 1998 (16m+25d)
We took the twins to San Jose downtown after dinner to see the "Christmas in the Park" display. The display had been on since the beginning of the month. I believe they are going to disassemble the display after the New Year because the Christmas trees are mostly dried up. The park was filled with odor of urine, I guess it is typical for a public city park because of the homeless people there. My nose is quite sensitive, so it was not a very pleasant trip (at least in terms of smelling) for me. The place was rather dark despite the lights from the Christmas decorations. We didn't take the stroller because we expected the twins to run around on their own. However, the twins were so scared of the place that they grabbed on to us like an octopus (there were totally 8 limbs, though we didn't count the extra head and body :-) We ended up with two aching backs afterwards.Christmas in the Park is an annual San Jose's holiday tradition features over 70 animated displays depicting the Christmas season. A holiday parade & other special activites occur during the month-long exhibit at Plaza de Cesar Chavez.
We stayed up past midnight to watch the New Year countdown on TV. The twins did not want to sleep so we let them play in our room. Well, I guess we can break all the rules on New Year eve.
Friday, Jan 1, 1999 (16m+26d)
Happy New Year! This is the babies' second one.We invited several couples to have a hot pot dinner at our place. Among the guests were Denis & Jane, Lambert & Sandy, and Lucy (Hing didn't come, he was recovering from a cold). For some unknown reasons, the twins refused to be held by Lambert & Sandy. However they were willing to play with Denis & Janes, the twins actually climbed all over them, perhaps they could sense the parenthood aura from them. Jane is due with her own baby in June. We played some games after dinner. It was a sociable night without TV.
Saturday, Jan 2, 1999 (16m+27d)
The twins have been drinking juice from a cup for many months now. We did not let them drink milk from a cup because they took a long time to finish and we worried the milk may spoil before they finish. We now let them drink cold milk from a spill proof cup and they seem to finish milk as fast as juice. We are in the process of retiring the milk bottles though my wife still uses the bottles to feed them when she wants fast results for the first and the last feeding of each day.We took the twins to Stanford Shopping Center. The Nike they have been wearing are tightly fit now, and we worried they might hurt their toes soon. So we bought them new pairs of Nike sneakers in size 4 and retired the size 3.
Sunday, Jan 3, 1999 (16m+28d)
Mommy took the twins to shop with Auntie Tina and Cousin Natalie at the Great Mall. I went to the office to catch up on my projects.
Tuesday, Jan 5, 1999 (16m+30d)
I have spent long hours in the office in the past few days to catch up on my project. I have not seen the twins much in the past few days. When I went home, they were all asleep. I only see them briefly in the morning before I go to work. Mommy cut the twins' hair really short today. They don't look like girls anymore.
Wednesday, Jan 6, 1999 (17m+0d)
The twins are 17 months old today.
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