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This journal is about raising identical twins.The Twenty Fifth Month
Previous entries
Friday, Aug 6, 1999 (24m+0d)
Today is the twins two year old birthday.Couple of daddy's high school teachers visited the US. A group of high school alumni in the Bay Area decided to buy the teachers a dinner, and created an opportunity for a reunion. The teachers looked only slightly aged after 21 years, but I am sure we looked all different to them because we lost much hair and doubled our age during that period. We walked down the memory lane together recalling names and images of many people that we knew over half of our lifetime before. We talked about many former classmates who have since become high ranking Hong Kong government officials, or reputable barristors, or famous doctors. Such topic sure can trigger one's mid-life crisis.
Mommy knew the twins would never be patient enough to sit still while we talked about old times, so she took the twins to Bonnie's house for dinner instead of joining us. CW is out of town for two weeks. Bonnie is alone with her kids in a big house. I think it is just natural for two lonely wives to get together for dinner :-)
Bonnie bought the twins a birthday cake. Addison, Deanna, and two mommies celebrated the twins birthday without me. :-( Mommy said the twins didn't know how to blow out the candles.
We decided not to throw a big party like last year and we would just share a birthday cake with the family on Sunday.
Saturday, Aug 7, 1999 (24m+1d)
Mommy went shopping at Valley Fair Mall while the twins took their afternoon nap. Daddy waited in the car and caught up on some readings under the shade of the trees in the parking lot. The 2-way family radios we bought for the Clear Lake trip last month came in very handy at the shopping mall.Pat T. came back to the US after over two years in Hong Kong. She got married and now moved to LA with her husband. She came to the Bay Area just to see her old friends. Of course she was eager to see our twins because they were not even born when she left over two years ago. We had dinner with her, Angel and Betsy at Kioku.
After dinner, we visited Jane, Denis and their baby Jonathan.
Sunday, Aug 8, 1999 (24m+2d)
We attended the weekly Gymboree play program class in the morning. The twins are more at ease at Gymboree because mommy takes them there on every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday too. Besides, mommy had lunch with different people each day last week, i.e. the twins were seeing different faces all week long. Jasmine even starts to play with the teacher now. The twins used to shy away from the teacher because she speaks with a very loud voice. And at the end of the session, Jasmine is often the first kid running to the exit to get the Gymbo stamp on her hands and feet.We picked up Aunt Tina's family on our way to Grandma Ling's place. We had lunch at Oakland chinatown. After lunch, Aunt Tina and mommy went shopping at Esprit outlet store in San Francisco while daddy and twins stayed at Grandma Ling's place. The twins were so energetic that I could not force them to take their afternoon nap until 5pm. Jasmine fell asleep first after much crying. By the time Joanne went to sleep, mommy was already back from shopping.
We took out the birthday cake after dinner, we sang the birthday song, and the twins blew out the candles with just one blow. I am sure that the rehearsal two days ago helped a lot. They opened the gifts after we finished the cake. We gave them a set of 4 Teletubies dolls. The first thing they do with the dolls was to squeeze their tummies. They were a little disappointed when nothing happened. Most of their other toys either squeal or talk when squeezed. Nevertheless, they loved the dolls because they are tubbies' fans.
Wednesday, Aug 11, 1999 (24m+5d)
Bonnie had a day off from work, mommy took the twins and joined her shopping spree in San Francisco.
Friday, Aug 13, 1999 (24m+7d)
We had lunch with Kioko. She now works in San Jose commuting from Concord everyday. We have not seen her family for over 6 months. We talked about getting together for dinner.
Saturday, Aug 14, 1999 (24m+8d)
Kioko, Jim and their kids Miki and JR (Koichi) came to visit and we had dinner at Hot Pot City in Milpitas. The twins let Jim hold them right away taking no time for warm up. On the contrary, they don't let Kioko touch them much later. Miki shared her Pikachu toy with the twins at the restaurant.We went home and had dessert. Jim and Kioko gave the twins a battery-powered Pooh Bear who blows bubbles. The twins stood in front of the machine to let the bubbles fly on their face. They laughed in joy. They see bubbles every time at Gymboree, but still they never get tired of anything that flies. JR was very energetic and he ran around the house by himself while Miki and the twins stayed in the family room with the adults. There is a obvious difference between girls and boys. They stayed till 10:30pm before heading back to Concord.
Sunday, Aug 15, 1999 (24m+9d)
We went to the weekly Gymboree class in the morning.We hired someone to look at the Feng Shui of our house. She suggested we rearrange several things in our house to improve the harmony of our living area. Unlike many Feng Shui experts, she doesn't recommend spending money on remodeling the house or buying superstitious icons to put in the house.
We had dinner at Kioku Sushi. We sat in a booth and the two families next to our booth had boys at around 4 years old. These boys kept turning around and climbing on the seat's back to look at our twins. I am not sure if they were curious because they had never seen twins or if they were just curious of girls in general.
Monday, Aug 16, 1999 (24m+10d)
Mommy gets muscle ache from some cleaning chores. She asked Grandma Ling to help out on housework for couple of days. She arrived in the afternoon.
Tuesday, Aug 17, 1999 (24m+11d)
Mommy and Grandma Ling took the twins to Gymboree around noon and went grocery shopping afterwards. Grandma was excited to take care of the twins. She wanted to do everything, cleaning the house, cooking, bathing the twins, feeding the twins ... Of course, mommy welcomes the break.Despite mommy telling grandma to take it easy on the chores, she over exerted herself. She was so exhausted that she needed to go to bed right after dinner.
Wednesday, Aug 18, 1999 (24m+12d)
Grandma Ling and mommy took the twins to the Great Mall, just for the sake of going out. Aunt Tina came around dinnertime to give grandma a ride back home.
Thursday, Aug 19, 1999 (24m+13d)
Mommy took the twins to visit Sunny and Cynthia. Jasmine is jealous, she cries when mommy holds Cynthia. Joanne doesn't seem to care, "go ahead, hold any baby you want."
Saturday, Aug 21, 1999 (24m+15d)
Jenny came to visit our twins, she brought many gifts. Those are belated birthday gifts for the twins from mommy's friends in Oakland. There were several sets of new clothes and a full set of teletubies dolls. These dolls are more fancy than those we gave the twins. When the twins squeeze the dolls tummies or pull the arm, they play some electronic music. Now the twins have two sets of teletubies dolls, we can leave 4 in the car and 4 in the house.It was a very hot day. Mommy and Jenny took the twins to Stanford Shopping Center after lunch. Daddy stayed home to take care of some personal business. In the evening, we went to Kioku Sushi for dinner.
Sunday, Aug 22, 1999 (24m+16d)
The twins woke up early, we could hear them play in their room. They even sang in their own "language". Both mommy and daddy got lazy and decided to sleep in and skip the Gymboree class this week. Mommy will make it up during the weekday.Wil'n'Lil called us for lunch. We met them at their house and we went to Miyaki in Cupertino for bentos. The twins let William hold them at first sight, but didn't let Lillian touched them until after lunch. It seems that the twins discriminate by gender. They gave Jim and Kioko the same treatment last week.
It was a very hot day again. We sat and chatted in their house after lunch while we had ice cream and fresh fruits. The twins were happy playing in the house and by now they played with Lillian quite happily. We spent couple hours in the afternoon to look at some open houses in the neighborhood.
We left Wil'n'Lil and had dinner on our own. We had some fast food at a Taiwanese restaurant. It was still sunny and very hot when we got home. So we took the twins to have a dip in the community pool for about half and hour. After we bathed the babies, we watched some TV and went to bed early.
I had a upset stomach and didn't fall asleep until 3am. In the next morning, I had to take Grandma Chui to an surgery to remove the cataract in her left eye. It was very tiring day because of the sleepless night before.
It has been almost 5 months since grandma had her eye surgery on her right eye. The doctor said her lens replacement and the healing in the first surgery went very well, but her vision deteriated a few weeks after the surgery due to fluid imbalance at the back of her eye, which affected her retina. She has seen a retina specialist for the past 4 months but he couldn't find the cause and cure. We hope it won't happen again on her left eye.
Wednesday, Aug 25, 1999 (24m+19d)
Mommy needed to renew her driver license and she took the twins along to the DMV. After the renewal, they walked across the parking lot to a lagoon close to the DMV office. They fed a bag of crackers to the ducks in the lagoon. One of the mama ducks came out of the water and pecked the cracker off from Jasmine's hand. Jasmine was scared for a moment, but she resumed the feeding by hiding halfway behind mommy. Joanne was not attacked and fed the ducks leisurely. She even took a couple of bite on each cracker before throwing it to the water.Mommy let Jasmine run around in the bathroom without diaper. Hoping that she would sit on the potty. She ended up peeing on the vinyl floor.
Both twins' butts are red probably due to the acidity/alkaline in their urine. They get the redness depending on what they've eaten earlier. We have found that they have the rash problem whenever they eat asparagus, cantaloupe or Cantonese style noodles, which usually served with Won Ton soup.
Thursday, Aug 26, 1999 (24m+20d)
Mommy invited Sunny and Jane to our house for lunch. Sunny and her baby Cynthia had to cancel at the last minute. Jane brought her baby Jonathan.Today is our 4th wedding anniversary. I have to work overtime on a critical software problem reported by a major customer. No celebration today, since mommy got her anniversary gift a while ago, she is not complaining. We will try to make it up later.
Friday, Aug 27, 1999 (24m+21d)
The twins vocalized a lot recently, but we just don't understand their language. For example, they call the gold fish cheese crackers as "wewe" and they call water "doedoe". That is definitely not Cantonese or English. Joanne often sang in her language and out of tune. The beat sounds like "Twinkle twinkle litter star", but I cannot really make out the melody.
Saturday, Aug 28, 1999 (24m+22d)
We have lunch with Kenny, Betsy, Ronald, Angel, Cindy, Denis and Jane. Denis brought their two months old Jonathan. Angel brought her 2½ year old nephew Jonathan too.Both Jonathans were very quiet. Our twins were more interested in the baby Jonathan. They stood next to the baby carrier and held the baby's tiny hands. The older Jonathan was very shy. Toward the end of the lunch, our twins approached him and offered him their teletubbies dolls. Under our suggestion, the twins gave everyone hugs and kisses. The shy Jonathan was embarrassed by the kisses.
Sharleen's neighbor Sonja and Bill held a pool/BBQ party in their backyard. There were already 5 to 6 families with their babies finishing their lunch when we arrived at around 2pm. We weren't too late because they were just started to get wet. Sonja's Lauren was 8 weeks premature at birth. She is one year old now and is smaller in size than Sharleen's 9 months old Claire. Lauren loves to make splashes in the water. Poon was in the water with Claire while Sharleen stayed dry and took photos for us. Claire wasn't very excited about the dip. Sharleen said it was probably because Claire afternoon nap is overdue.
There was couple of tiny water falls over the swimming pool. I passed the twins under the water falls. They weren't very happy to get water poured over their heads. However, my philosophy is that they won't learn how to swim under they feel comfortable getting their hair wet.
The other families left early, they could just walk away without changing because they live nearby. Sharleen's and our family left at around 4:30pm after we dried off the babies and ourselves.
We had dinner with Kenny, Betsy, Cindy, Ronald, Evon and Dick at Golden Island Restaurant. Kenny knows the chef and we ordered some very delicious dishes. The bill was not cheap though.
The twins became restless near the end, so mommy took them out for a walk outside the restaurant. They behaved well afterwards. They were friendly to Evon and Ronald because they got to played with their cell phones and fancy wrist watches. Jasmine volunteered a kiss to Evon, but Joanne did it only when asked to.
We stayed and chatted at the table after dinner, we spent over 2½ hours in the restaurant. Before we said goodbye, the twins gave everyone a kiss on the cheek.
Sunday, Aug 29, 1999 (24m+23d)
We took the twins to Gymboree. They haven't gone there for over a week. Jasmine had a tug of war with a younger boy when he wanted to grab a ball off her hands. Jasmine didn't yield. She get enough practice with Joanne, she just wouldn't let go.After lunch, daddy went to the office to work overtime while the babies went home for their nap. Mommy called at around 4:30pm saying that she heard loud voice from the baby monitor for over 20 minutes. When she checked on the babies, she found that Joanne was soundly asleep. It was Jasmine all along trying to wake up Joanne by shouting and yelling. Joanne simply ignored her.
Tuesday, Aug 31, 1999 (24m+5d)
The twins slept in until 11am. They weren't especially exhausted the day before, so we cannot explain why the long sleep. Mommy decided not to disturb their sleep and had to miss the Gymboree class today.To make up for the missed activity, we took the twins to the park before dinner. We have not gone to the park for weeks and the twins were very excited. We had to cut short our trip when the temperature dropped rapidly at dusk. By the time that the twins reached home, their hands were cold as ice. We just hope they won't get sick because of that.
After we bathed the twins, we used to rub creamy baby oil on them to seal in the moisture. Recently we developed some games with the cream for them. We put dabs of cream on their palms and fingers and ask them to rub on each other. Jasmine would rub the cream on Joanne's back and her own belly. Joanne only rubs on herself. They would come back for more and more cream.
We also put several drops of cream into the water. Since the cream is made of baby oil, they just float around on the water surface. The twins would make it a game to catch the drops out of the water. They would laugh and giggle when the drops slip through their fingers. Once they caught a drop of cream, they would smear it on their belly. Usually by the end of the bath, the water would be milky with all the cream that dissolved. It is not a waste because the twins sit in the water and soak up the baby oil while they bathe. We still rub a little bit more on them before they come out.
Wednesday, Sept 1, 1999 (24m+26d)
Mommy took the twins to Gymboree play program again as usual. On the way back, just before the car entered the garage, Mommy heard Joanne making a gagging sound, then she found Joanne covered with vomit. Mommy had to clean up the stinky mess in her clothes and car seat.Joanne doesn't show any sign of illness. Her skin color looked healthy, body temperature was normal, she was in happy mood. Joanne and Jasmine ate the same food in the morning. If the food had problem, Jasmine would have some response too. Another possibility is the cold temperature they exposed to yesterday. After ruling out other possibilities, we suspect she probably put something in her mouth that induced the vomit. Joanne still has her life-long habit of sucking on loose threads she pulls out of clothing, toys etc.
Because of the mess, they got an early bath before having their afternoon nap. Joanne wore her usual lovely smile before falling asleep. It only took them one minute to fall asleep, they must be very tired.
We went back to Gymboree in the evening for the open house for their new Music program. The open house let parents and kids try out for free the new Gymboree play programs, which focus around music. The twins participated quite enthusiastically in many activities such as matching and dancing to the music beats, fetching noise makers, such as bells, rattles etc. to shake along to music. At one point, the teacher held a toy microphone and sang couple of musical notes into it. Then she asked the kids around her to repeat the same notes into the fake microphone. Many kids volunteered and each got applause from the adults. Jasmine was almost the first one out there, but she ran back several times when her turn was up. At last, she repeated the sound into the microphone and she was so excited that she ran back and dragged Joanne out to the teacher. Obviously, she wanted to do it again with Joanne. Unfortunately, Joanne didn't make a sound.
We had a late dinner after the class.
Thursday, Sept 2, 1999 (24m+27d)
Jasmine was crying in the morning, when I checked on them Joanne was sitting on the bed quietly. The first thing I noticed was a stench in the room and there were dried vomit in Joanne's bed. Looks like Joanne threw up again last night in her sleep and she actually slept on top of the mess till morning. If she had cried, we would have taken care of the mess before it all dried up. Again, mommy had a lot of washing to do.Joanne looked fine and happy, though she only ate half the milk from her bottle this morning. Besides the poor appetite, she did not have other symptoms. We will observe for another day before calling the doctor.
Friday, Sept 3, 1999 (24m+28d)
Joanne recovers from her diarrhea. Mommy took the twins to shopping.Before her afternoon nap, Jasmine threw up. Unlike Joanne, she only puked slimy mucus, and she cried in pain after each puke. Looks like vomiting with an empty stomach is worse than with a full one. We called the doctor office, the advisory nurse told us that they get a lot of calls on vomiting and diarrhea recently. There is a virus going around in the area. She advised us to hold all fatty food including milk, keep feeding her small amount of clear fluid to keep her hydrated and let the diarrhea run its course. She will get better once her system is purged.
We had arranged a special dinner a few days in advance for our 4th anniversary celebration. By dinnertime, Jasmine seemed to be fine, so we didn't cancel our plan. At the dinner, both kids did just fine. We refrained from feeding Jasmine, and she didn't have appetite anyway. We symbolically put something on Jasmine's plate so that she wouldn't be jealous of what Joanne was having.
Saturday, Sept 4, 1999 (24m+29d)
Jasmine stopped puking, but minor diarrhea continues.We cancelled our trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. And we stayed home all day long.
Sunday, Sept 5, 1999 (24m+30d)
Jasmine recovered. We cancelled the weekly Gymboree class today, we didn't want to spread the virus to other kids. Though we suspect the twins picked up the virus from one of the Gymboree class last week.We went to Kelley Park in San Jose. We rode the train on the mini-railroad around the park. We then went shopping at San Francisco Chinatown. Then we let the kids play at Macy's in Union Square. They found a display stand with children sunglasses. They had a lot of fun trying each and every one and shuttled back and forth between the stand and the mirror.
After dinner, we went to have an elevator ride at the Westin St. Francis hotel. The elevators run on the outside of the building and they moved very fast. In a few seconds we were at 30th floor and looking down at San Francisco's skyline. A moment later, we were on ground floor. Mommy was dizzy by the ride, so we left despite the twins wanting to do it again. After we came out of the elevator, Joanne lied on the floor refusing to leave. We had to take her by force.
We then went to the atrium in Hyatt Regency Hotel. We sat by the windows and ordered some drinks and a fruit plate. The twins had fun running around, eating and drinking while we listened to the live piano music in the hotel lobby. Joanne hit her head on one of the sofa table at the lobby, almost at the same place where Jasmine did about three months ago. We knew it was time to leave and where to avoid next time.
Monday, Sept 6, 1999 (25m)
The twins are 25 month old today.Both mommy and Grandma Chui got the stomach flu from the twins. Mommy got minor diarrhea only while grandma got a major hit with both diarrhea and vomiting. We all stayed home despite today is the Labor Day holiday.
Cousin Natalie got a hamster yesterday (in lieu of the puppy she wanted), and she was eager to bring it to show it off to our twins. The twins was over the cage while the hamster moved suddenly. Jasmine was so scared that she ran and cried in mommy's lap. Joanne was not scared, but she did not show much interest of the hamster either.
Come to think of it, their family should not have visited us today because we were ill. I hope they won't catch the stomach bug from us.
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started on Sept 16, 1999