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This journal is about raising identical twins.Nineteenth month
Previous entries
Saturday, Feb 6, 1999 (18m+0d)
The twins are 1½ year old today.CW invited us to his house for a hot pot dinner. Before we went to the party, I went for a hair cut, according to tradition, getting ready for Chinese New Year next week. Mommy went to get dessert for the dinner. The twins took a long nap in the car while we ran our errand.
We arrived early at CW's house so the twins could warm up to the new environment. Addison and Deanna were well prepared and had toys ready for our twins to play with. Alan L., Wendy, and Valerie; Raymond C., Winnie; Raymond T.; Peter L., Yulin; Poon F., Lin K. were invited too. Including CW's and our family, there were 14 adults and 5 kids. The house is so big that the kids had a lot of room to run around despite the big party.
We chatted and played games after dinner. The party ended at around 11pm.
Sunday, Feb 7, 1999 (18m+1d)
We went to my coworker Carmen K.'s Chinese New Year party in Fremont. Many Chinese coworkers and family were invited. In addition to Carmen's James & Angella, there were many other kids in the party, including Claudia's Jessica, Ko's Nikki, Annie's Justin & GongJiao's elder daughter. We arrived late, the house was packed with people when we entered. The twins were so nervous that they clung to us like a Koala. Later on, Jasmine was willing to run around by herself, Joanne still clung to us. Carmen asked Angella to perform a piano recital in the living room. The twins watched so intensely that they didn't move a bit during the performance. Afterwards, the twins wanted to sit at the piano and played with the keys.The twins became fussy past their afternoon nap time, so we left the party early at around 2:30pm. The twins fell asleep once they got back in their car seats. Mommy went shopping while I waited in the car and listened to the radio. We were home at around 4:30pm.
Thursday, Feb 11, 1999 (18m+5d)
Took the twins to the doctor office for the 18 month physical checkup. The twins' growth curves, though still under the 5th percentile, swung upward - a good sign.
They each weigh 17 lb. 14 oz.
Joanne is 30 inch long, Jasmine is 30¼ inch long.Both are very healthy, everything is fine. The doctor said kids in bilingual family pick up language later than other kids because they have twice as much to absorb and process, but they have higher capacity to learn the 3rd or the 4th language in the future. She told us not to worry about the kids not talking yet.
The next scheduled check up is at 27 month (9 months from now). But the doctor wants to check their weight and language development again in 4 months.
Friday, Feb 12, 1999 (18m+6d)
Day 555!
Saturday, Feb 13, 1999 (18m+7d)
It was a busy day today. We went out with CW's family from noon till late night. We started with lunch, then we went to Oakland to have a tour of the senior apartment for CW's mom. A 90+ year of lady was nice enough to show some of us her apartment. We then went to Oakland China town to check out the Chinese new year street fair. We watched the lion dance and some kids doing martial arts demonstration.We had afternoon tea, then we headed across the bay to FAO Schwarz in San Francisco. The twins and CW's kids were so excited in the toy store that they stopped at each aisle to check out the toys. The lowlight of the day was that we found out our car was scratched by a careless driver in the parking garage. Since we used the valet parking, the garage attendant took down the information from the other driver. It is still a hassle to go through the repair even if the damage is covered by her insurance.
We then had dinner at Harbor Village and we went to Hyatt's Regency's hotel lobby for a drink. There were live jazz band playing in the lobby, the kids played near us while we chatted. We left at around 11pm and the twins fell asleep as soon as we put them in the car seats.
Sunday, Feb 14, 1999 (18m+8d)
Took the twins to visit the in-laws. We had dinner with my wife's family. The twins were shy today and refused to go near other relatives. After dinner we went to Ken's house to see their wedding pictures. We headed home at around 10:30pm.
Monday, Feb 15, 1999 (18m+9d)
Today is the President's day holiday. I went to the office to work overtime.Today is also the eve of Chinese new year. We went out to have dinner. It is a Chinese tradition to have a reunion dinner with family members on the new year eve.
Tuesday, Feb 16, 1999 (18m+10d)
Chinese New year day. Twins received good wishes and "lucky money" in red envelops from grandma Chui and parents as soon as they got up.I didn't take off from work, I returned to office as usual.
Wednesday, Feb 17, 1999 (18m+11d)
When I gave a piece of fruit to Jasmine, she would say "Jeh Jeh" (big sister in Cantonese) and asked for another piece. She then would go to Joanne and hand her the other piece.We showed the twins how to use a finger tooth brush, they enjoy sticking it in their mouth and brush the front teeth. One time, Joanne got one tooth brush in her mouth and handed the other one to Jasmine. Jasmine didn't want it, Joanne cried (probably felt rejected.)
Joanne sometimes clenched her teeth and hits Jasmine's forehead repeatedly with the palm of her hand. Seems like she needs to vent her rage and frustration through violence. Jasmine may snatch Joanne's toys, but we have never seen her hitting Joanne. In fact, Jasmine frequently hugs and kisses Joanne.
We used to rock the twins to sleep every night. Since the twins now understand what we say, we changed their nighttime ritual starting earlier this week. We just put them in the crib and told them that they should fall asleep on their own. On the first few nights, Joanne refused and got up to grab our clothes. She cried at the top of her lungs refusing to let us leave the room. Jasmine on the other hand, lied quietly on her crib and watched Joanne's struggle with us.
We put Joanne down and simple left the room and closed the door. She cried for about 5 minutes the first night before falling asleep. Both babies slept through the night despite Joanne's commotion. When we went in their room in the morning, if one baby was still sleeping, the other one would put the index finger in front of the mouth and say Shhhhhhh. Need not to say, they learned the gesture from mommy.
Joanne repeated the same struggle every night, but the duration of her crying shorten everyday. She cried for about 2 minutes on the second night, 1 minute on the third night, 30 seconds on the fourth. And by the fifth night, she symbolically cried, but shut up as soon as the door was closed. The weeklong training finally paid off. On the contrary, Jasmine understood and did exactly what we asked her to do in the beginning without the need for the weeklong training.
Thursday, Feb 18, 1999 (18m+12d)
Jasmine was playing on our bed, she fell off the bed and hit the edge of the nightstand with her cheek at the corner of her mouth. No one saw how she fell, but the red swollen right cheek unmistakably told us what happened. We tried to massage her cheek to improve the circulation to the wound. She cried a couple of minutes and returned to play as normal.Later that night, Joanne was playing on our bed, she tripped on the comforter and fell forehead first to the carpet. I saw her fall, but I was too far away to grab her. Her forehead got a slight abrasion wound. She cried a few minutes and returned to play as normal.
The twins had been skillfully climbing up and down our bed and sofa for months now. These were the first accidents. There is probably no way to stop them from climbing up to our bed because it has already been part of their routine daily activities. However, we will need to stop them from playing too rough on the bed.
Friday, Feb 19, 1999 (18m+13d)
Jasmine's bruise on her cheek turned black and blue, it is at the corner of her mouth, it looks like a dirty food stain from a distance. We kept trying to wipe her mouth, until we remembered it was not a stain.Joanne's abrasion on her forehead harden and turns brown. Her bang covers the spot, so it is not visible unless we comb aside the hair.
Saturday, Feb 20, 1999 (18m+14d)
We went out for a lunch gathering with several families. Simon and Annie brought Jocelyn, Carolyn and four month old Kristen. Jacky and Carmen brought Terrence and Erwin. Together with William and Lillian and our family, we squeezed 15 people at the table. All kids got from the adults "lucky money" in red envelops for the Chinese new year.After lunch, we lingered at the new year street fair just outside the restaurant. I got the twins some free helium balloons from the vendors. While we were in the square, we saw couple of kids standing at a corner waiting for their parents. Jasmine had two balloons in her hands, I asked her to give one to the kids. She didn't even hesitate, she just walked over and handed the small kid one of her balloons. The other kid stared at me with a terrified look and didn't take Jasmine's offer. I didn't want to scare the kid, so I didn't go any closer. Even though the offer was not accepted, the gesture counts, I was happy that Jasmine was so generous.
Simon's family had prior engagement, so they left us. The rest of us continued the gathering at William and Lillian's home. Hing and Lucy later joined us for dinner. After dinner, we returned to William's place one more time to play some games. Some played the Chinese game "TinGow", some played "Uno" and the board game "Sequence". The twins played around for awhile before we rocked them to sleep in their baby carriers. With the babies out of our ways, we continued to party until one o'clock in the morning.
Sunday, Feb 21, 1999 (18m+15d)
We slept in because of the party last night. In the afternoon, we went to the in-laws and fulfilled our traditional new year obligation to visit, pay respects and say good luck wishes to the elder relatives. Of course, the twins received their share of the "lucky money" from the older generation.
Thursday, Feb 25, 1999 (18m+19d)
For several mornings in a row, when mommy went to get the babies in the morning, she found Joanne missing from her crib. Instead she found Joanne in Jasmine's crib. The two cribs are placed back to back with the gates facing outside. The railing of the crib is at the babies' shoulder height. We could not figure out what happened, so we asked Joanne how she got into Jasmine's crib. We put both babies back to their own crib and simply told Joanne "Show us." Joanne hesitated initially, but when she saw us waiting at the crib side. She performed her act one more time. She kicked her feet up to reach the top of the railing, with both hands grabbing the railing and simply pulled herself up. When she was on top of the railing, she reached for the head board of Jasmine's crib for extra support and then she rolled into Jasmine's crib. She gave herself an applause while we told her "No No No".Though climbing over the fence into the other crib is not extremely dangerous, we still want to discourage her. In case she got off on the wrong side of the crib, she would be injured. We switched the cribs for the twins. It seems to work because Joanne stopped climbing back to her old crib.
The nightstands on the side of our bed are also as tall as the twins' shoulders. The twins pulled a similar stunt by climbing up the nightstands. We yelled at them to stop this behavior. They might get hurt if they fall or the nightstand tips over.
Saturday, Feb 27, 1999 (18m+21d)
Daddy went to the office to work overtime.In the eventing, we were invited to William's place for dinner. King & Maggie were invited too. We had dinner and chatted. After King & Maeggie left at 10pm, we continued till midnight.
Sunday, Feb 28, 1999 (18m+22d)
We picked up aunt Tina and cousin Natalie and headed to San Francisco's Fort Mason Center. We went to an Orchid Exposition organized by the San Francisco Orchid Society. The $10/adult admission fee was not really worthwhile because we were laymen and we could not even name a single species of orchid. Nevertheless, the flowers were beautiful.We stopped at the Japan town afterwards for some shopping and we headed back to Fremont for dinner.
The twins were tired after the all day trip. We put them in bed at 10pm.
Monday, Mar 1, 1999 (18m+23d)
We checked the twins' mouths for new teeth. Jasmine now has 8 front teeth and 4 molars (upper, lower, left, right, one each). Joanne only has the upper and lower left molars.
The score: Joanne 10, Jasmine 12.We found Jasmine in Joanne's crib in the morning this time. Looks like both twins tried their best to get away from Joanne's crib. We checked the mattress, we found no problem.
Wednesday, Mar 3, 1999 (18m+25d)
We found Joanne back in her own crib despite the switching. There goes the theory of getting away from Joanne's crib. Looks like they just jumped the fence to play together and fell asleep afterward.The twins said "Dad, Dad" to me via the telephone for the first time. They did not understand there is a person on the other end of the phone line before. They usually just listened and never responded to the voice on the telephone. Now they do.
Saturday, Mar 6, 1999 (19m+0d)
The twins are 19 month old today.
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started on Mar 7, 1999