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This journal is about raising identical twins.Twenty Eighth Month
Previous entriesNote: This page contains Chinese text in Big5 encoding.
Saturday, Nov 6, 1999 (27m)
The twins are 27 months old today.Joanne still has a slight fever around 99° to 100°F, but she ate and played well. We went out for lunch, then visited a crystal shop called De Gallerie. They carry some very beautiful crystals in store though their website does not show much. Crystal collection is one of my hobbies, see my home page about my collection. After we did some fast shopping, we went home early to let Joanne have more rest.
Sunday, Nov 7, 1999 (27m+1d)
We went to Grandma Ling's place. Mommy went with Aunt Tina to shop for some Chinese herbs in San Francisco Chinatown. Daddy stayed behind to take care of the babies with help from grandma and great-grandma. The twins took a long afternoon nap. The day was uneventful.Recently, Joanne enjoys playing the game of Jenga (the players each pulls a wooden block from a stack and puts it on the top without collapsing the stack.) Joanne is the patient player who would carefully move the blocks, though she cheats by using the other hand to keep the stack steady. Jasmine on the other hand is the game spoiler, she would slam down the stack with a sweep of her hand, and then she laughs herself silly.
Joanne demanded to play the game before bedtime. Being a sick child, her wish was granted with no question asked. When Jasmine ruined the game, Joanne was so mad that she pushed her away and said "�f�f��", which means little sister go away. When I told her it was bedtime, she raised her index finger and said "�@��", which means one (more) time. This was the first time we heard her say the phrase. In fact, we never taught her that purposely. She must have picked up the phrase from other context. Of course, I could not turn down her request because she communicated her wish so well.
Tuesday, Nov 9, 1999 (27m+3d)
Joanne has almost recovered from her flu, but she still had a little thick mucus from her nose. The twins visited the doctor office for their 27 months well check. Joanne started crying and had her palms cupped over her ears when the car pulled into the parking lot. She was scared of the doctor visit because her experience last Thursday. Jasmine cried as hard as Joanne did.Joanne weighed 20 lb. 8 oz.
Jasmine weighed 21 lb. 2 oz.
both measured 33½ inch in length.After a lot of crying, the doctor checked each baby and found everything fine, the next scheduled visit is at 42 months.
The babies are very good at recognizing places from the car windows. They would say Bobo as the car entered the Gymboree parking lot. They would say daddy as the car entered my company's parking lot. Obviously, they would not forget the doctor office from now on.
When they were infants, Joanne mostly lost to Jasmine in a toy-grabbing match. Not in recent year, Joanne always grabs from Jasmine and makes her cry. Whatever in Jasmine's hands, Joanne wants it and then throws it away. She becomes the bully of the house. The problem is that she doesn't listen to us, she just turns away when we scold her.
Wednesday, Nov 10, 1999 (27m+4d)
Daddy caught the flu from Joanne. I had cough, fever, muscle and head aches. The flu shot I got on Monday did not help.
Thursday, Nov 11, 1999 (27m+5d)
Daddy's condition worsens. Jasmine had a fever of 99°F in the evening, but she was still very happy and active. We hope she holds better than Joanne and daddy.
Sunday, Nov 13, 1999 (27m+7d)
Jasmine didn't really catch the flu, she recovered in no time at all. Though Joanne and I are recovering from the flu, we still got the cough. I stayed home for the past two days. The twins stayed home with me while mommy preferred to get out of the house to do some shopping around.
Friday, Nov 19, 1999 (27m+13d)
Feeling odd today?
There is a reason. Today is the last totally odd day in our lifetime. The date is 1999/11/19, notice all the digits in the date are odd number. The next totally odd day is 3111/1/1, which is over 1000 years in the future though we will get many mixed odd/even days in between.On the other end of the extreme, the next totally even day is 2000/2/2, and we will get a lot of those in the coming years, but we have not had any totally even day since 888/8/28. Honestly, not many people in history got to experience this type of once in a lifetime switch-over from totally odd to totally even. :-)
Not much changed this week. Joanne still coughs once in a while. In the past few days, the twins "talked" a lot before they fell asleep at night. Though we cannot tell for sure, but we guess Jasmine made most of the noises. Sometimes, they stayed up for another hour after we turned off the light. They wake up later in the morning because of the activity at night.
The fall season has arrived. The temperature drops quite low at night. We already have the oil-filled radiator type electric heater turned on in the kids' room. We keep the temperature rather low, the heater is just to ensure it wouldn't get too cold. Every morning, we find Joanne tightly wrapped in her comforter, even when she is sweating. Jasmine on the other hand kicks off her cover most of the time. Jasmine seems to be stronger in terms of fighting off sickness.
Saturday, Nov 20, 1999 (27m+14d)
Daddy stayed home all day. Mommy took the twins out shopping and picked up the birthday cake for Jenny.We threw a birthday party for mommy's high school buddy Jenny. We invited Jenny's friends to a hot-pot dinner at our place. We paid for the cake while everyone else chipped in for the dinner.
The guests arrived at around 3pm. Christine brought her boy friend Daniel. Irene brought her boy friend Tom. Sara brought her husband Simon, her sister Grace. Connie brought her 6 month old Cynthia. Anita brought Lori and 14-month boy Nathan. Including Jenny and our family, there were 12 adults, 5 kids and 2 babies-to-be (both Connie and Sara are pregnant) in the party.
Lori played with the twins while her little brother was toddling around the house. He is a fun kid, he doesn't need any attention from the adults or other kids. While everyone was busy preparing dinner, chatting, I spent some time scanning the baby pictures for the web site. Two new pages were added to the photo album,
The party was over at around 10pm. The twins didn't take their afternoon naps, we put them in bed right away skipping bath for the night.
Sunday, Nov 21, 1999 (27m+15d)
We got up in the morning, fed, bathed and changed the kids before heading to Claire's first birthday party. We picked up the birthday cake for Poon and Sharleen on our way there. We were the first to arrive. After we dropped off the cake, we decided to take the twins to the nearby store to kill some time. We let the twins ride on the coin-operated Bat Mobile outside the store. There was also a coin-operated horse next to the mobile, but the twins refused to ride it. They said "����" (they were scared of it).We returned to the party almost an hour later. Half of the guests had arrived. We had lunch and then let the twins loose in the house. Among the guests there were several babies just a few months old, and there were also several kids 6 to 7 year old, but none was in our twins' age. However, our twins were not bored, they kept themselves busy playing with Claire's seemingly endless supply of toys.
We left before 5pm and the twins each got a balloon and some toys from Sharleen. We had dinner before returning home.
Monday, Nov 22, 1999 (27m+16d)
Melinda brought her 19 months boy Alan to visit the twins. While mommy was showing Melinda the photo album, the three kids played together. But they played in silence. I think our twins should play with older kids so that they would speak more.
Tuesday, Nov 23, 1999 (27m+17d)
Mommy went to the doctor office for a corn on her toe. Her primary physician needs to look at it before referring to a foot doctor. Since no one baby-sits the twins, she had to bring them along. The twins clung on to mommy and cried as if they were the ones seeing the doctor. The twins seem to have developed a doctor-phobia since the last two visits.
Wednesday, Nov 24, 1999 (27m+18d)
Mommy had a foot doctor appointment today and daddy took a day off in case mommy could not drive after a foot surgery. Of course the other reason is that the Thanksgiving long weekend starts tomorrow. It would be nice to have a 5 days long weekend.Grandma Ling also comes to help baby-sit the twins. We have a rare chance to go see a movie. We saw the new Agent 007, James Bond movie "The World Is Not Enough" (DVD|VHS) in the afternoon.
After the movie, we went to the foot doctor office to check on mommy's corn on the foot. It turned out not a corn, but a wart (i.e. a virus infection.) The doctor prescribed either a freeze treatment or a laser surgery. The laser surgery would take at least 45 minutes and required rescheduling another visit. Meanwhile the freeze treatment could be done right away. Mommy could not bear the pain any longer because she had already waited two weeks to get this appointment. Her wart on the toe was frozen three times with a swab with liquid nitrogen for 60 seconds each time. Mommy's toe got the cold burn and it was as painful as burnt by fire. Her toe later got a blister from the burn.
In our absence for almost half a day, the twins behaved very well.
In the evening, daddy went to a dinner gathering with high school friends. A high school teacher was visiting from Hong Kong.
Thursday, Nov 25, 1999 (27m+19d)
Today is the Thanksgiving Holiday.We didn't go out. Aunt Tina, Uncle Ivan, Cousin Natalie and Grandma Ling had Thanksgiving dinner at our place. We didn't follow tradition, instead of having turkey, we had prime rib and lobster tails.
Friday, Nov 26, 1999 (27m+20d)
We had lunch with Elizabeth, Steve and their kids Lori and Harrison in Palo Alto, then we went window shopping at Stanford Shopping Center. All the kids enjoyed the Warner Brothers and Disney Store. We took a break at the McDonalds and the kids went into the PlayPlace and had a sweaty work out.We went to Wil'n'Lil's place for dinner. They also invited Lillian's high school friend Amy and her husband Henry. After dinner, Lillian and mommy played with the twins while the rest played Mahjong. I have not played a real game for years, though I had some practice at Yahoo! Game site recently.
Saturday, Nov 27, 1999 (27m+21d)
We visited Jim and Kioko and their kids Miki and JR (Koichi) at their new home in Martinez. We then went out to dinner at Outback steak house. The steaks were delicious and the Australian style decoration made it kind of special. After dinner, we went loitering in the Sun Valley Mall. The twins had a great time riding the glass elevator there and waved to mommy at the Christmas tree below. Since Jim is an early bird, he looked quite tired at the mall, so we decided to leave early at around 9:30pm.
Sunday, Nov 28, 1999 (27m+22d)
We had lunch at the Great Mall. Then we loitered around in the mall. When it was time to go, daddy went to the far end of the mall to get the car while mommy and the twins proceeded to the closest exit. When my car approached them at the rendezvous in the parking lot, mommy told the twins to be careful of the car. Joanne immediately gave Jasmine a big bear hug from behind and held her steady. They know how to take care of each other.
Wednesday, Dec 1, 1999 (27m+25d)
Mommy's wart on her toe fell off with the blister. Looks like the freeze treatment was successful.
Friday, Dec 3, 1999 (27m+27d)
It was an uneventful week for the twins, but a busy week at work for daddy. Mommy took the twins to Grandma Ling so that she could go to an Andy Lau (�B�w��) Concert. They will stay overnight while daddy worked overtime in the office.
Saturday, Dec 4, 1999 (27m+28d)
Mommy left the twins with Grandma Ling and great-grandma and went shopping in San Francisco with Jenny. Daddy worked overtime in the office. Mommy and twins returned home after dinner.Grandma fed the twins fish meat during dinner. Despite their effort to pick all the bones out, Joanne was able to pick out a tiny fish bone from her month. It is an advantage of being a slow eater, her tongue can separate the inedible parts. When we were kids, we learned our lessons with fish bone lodged in our throat for eating too fast. Of course, we would try our best to prevent such accident. However, I believe teaching them how to do it right is much better than doing it for them. The twins already knew how to blow on food to cool it down before putting it in their months. They also learned and enjoyed to munch on a chicken wing drumette (bone on) a few months back. They are pretty good in handling food, but we still worry about choking by small items such as grapes.
A friend of mine gave up the pleasure of eating nutritious fish just because he was pinned by a bone when he was a kid. In my opinion, fish is the best meat available, giving it up is an overkill. What a big punishment for such a small mistake!
Sunday, Dec 5, 1999 (27m+29d)
We had lunch out. Then the twins and daddy took an afternoon nap in the car while mommy went grocery shopping. We watched couple of movies on DVD for the evening.
Monday, Dec 6, 1999 (28m)
The twins are twenty eight month old today.
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started on Dec 19, 1999