Raising identical twin girls (26th month)

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This journal is about raising identical twins.
The Twenty Sixth Month
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Monday, Sept 6, 1999 (25m)
The twins are 25 month old today.

Tuesday, Sept 7, 1999 (25m+1d)
Mommy took the twins to Gymboree and then shopped at Costco.
Recently when we send the twins to bed at night, Joanne would stand on the bed and just stares at the pillow. We'd have to wrestle her down in the bed to tug her in. At the moment we leave the room and close the door, she would start crying. We tried a lot of things, we tried talking and reasoning with her, but she won't stop unless we stay on her side. We usually don't yield to her demand and let her cry for 5 minutes in bed before she gets tired and falls asleep. This annoying new habit started just a few days ago after mommy slept in their room for one night when they were sick with the stomach flu. Joanne took it for granted that mommy would sleep in their room every night. And she thinks crying is the ticket to anything she wants. On the contrary, Jasmine goes to bed quietly every night and pays no attention to Joanne's tantrum.
Recently Joanne is getting very cranky. Whenever she cries, she cries very loudly at the top of her lungs. And she screams and shouts next to mommy's ears if she didn't get what she wants. Sometimes her eyes stare at a far distance and she ignores anything blocking her sight. She seems to be in a trance for half a minute and wouldn't respond to us no matter what we do. I hope this is not a symptom of a more serious problem brewing in her little mind.

Wednesday, Sept 8, 1999 (25m+2d)
The twins asked for BoBo (Gymbo) and refused to finish lunch. When mommy put them in the car, they chanted for BoBo and clapped their tiny hands to applaud mommy's obedience. Mommy would take the twins to Gymboree as often as possible anyway, but the "hunger strike" is a bit too much. I think the twins are getting spoiled.

Friday, Sept 10, 1999 (25m+4d)
I worked overtime for the past two days. I could only spend 15 minutes with the twins each morning before I left for the office. Not much to write about since I didn't see them much.

Saturday, Sept 11, 1999 (25m+5d)
Mommy took the twins to Aunt Tina's while I worked overtime at the office. I was supposed to join the family for dinner after work. On the way, the car suddenly stalled. I was unable to contact mommy from the pay phone. Instead I had to get a ride home from a friend. The car was left on the roadside. After finding out my stranded situation, they went to dinner without me. After dinner, we went back to the stalled car and called AAA for towing service. The car was towed to the repair shop's parking lot and left there until the shop open in Monday morning. The twins had a fun ride with us without knowing daddy's car was in trouble.

Sunday, Sept 12, 1999 (25m+6d)
We went to the weekly Gymboree class, then we had lunch in Oakland. We went to Toys R Us in Emeryville and let the twins have some fun there with the toys. We bought a colorful potty for the twins. The white one at home does not seem to be attractive enough for them. On the way out, we tried to put the twins in the coin operated motorized rocking ride near the exit of the store. The twins were scared of Toys R Us' mascot: Geoffrey the giraffe and refused to take the ride. They usually love those motorized ride outside Wal*Mart and other supermarkets. We saved couple of quarters this time.
We left the twins with Grandma Ling and went grocery shopping in Chinatown. The twins waved goodbye to us when we both went out the door. We were worried that the twins would nag to come with us. Grandma said both twins were very well behaved and they had their afternoon nap when asked to.
We watched a video movie after dinner and then we headed home.

Monday, Sept 13, 1999 (25m+7d)
Jasmine likes the new color potty. She actually asked to have her pants and diaper taken off to sit on the potty for over 15 minutes. Though she didn't actually poop or piss in it, it was a good start. Joanne just sat for couple of seconds with her pants on and then moved on to other activities. The old white potty, though just next to the new one, didn't get much attention from the twins.
My car was in the shop. So I had to drive mommy's minivan to work, i.e. mommy and the twins were stranded at home. They could not go to Gymboree today.
The repair shop was busy today and they could not check out my car until the afternoon. In late afternoon, they called me and told me that the distributor bearing ceased, which caused the engine to stop. It was a big relief for me, because I thought the timing belt was broken, which would cost over a thousand dollars to repair. It turns out that the bad bearing is a well-known problem for my model year and actually Honda has a goodwill warranty to cover all the repair work. I called Honda and found out that they will reimburse my entire repair cost. It was bad news for mommy and the twins because they could not go out for another day.
I worked overtime again today. However, the twins were still awake and babbling loudly in their beds when I went home. So I went in and gave them a good night kiss and told them to shut up and sleep. They obeyed.

Tuesday, Sept 14, 1999 (25m+8d)
The twins stayed home because daddy took the minivan to work again. I paid off the repair bill and left the car in the shop's parking lot. Obviously one person could not drive away two cars at the same time.
After dinner, we went to pick up the car. The twins seemed to enjoy the outing after a full day at home.

Wednesday, Sept 15, 1999 (25m+9d)
Mommy took the twins to shop at Costco. Afterwards, they stopped outside the airport to watch the airplanes. The twins are always excited about airplanes, whenever they see a plane in the sky no matter how high and small it appears, they would point and yell "機機"(gay gay), which is their way of saying "飛機"(fay gay) or "flying machine" in Cantonese.
The twins sometimes would scold each other. Jasmine would say "姐姐跩跩" (jey jey yai yai) and Joanne would say "妹妹跩跩" (mui mui yai yai), which in Cantonese means "big sister, naughty" and "little sister, naughty" respectively. Jasmine says it when Joanne did something bad such as throwing a toy around, spilling food or drink on the carpet etc. Joanne on the other hand uses it more when she does not like Jasmine or after losing a fight. Joanne would say it with a loud angry voice and a straight face, just like mommy would do. In my opinion, Joanne deserves the scolding more because she is defiant while Jasmine is more obedient and seems to understand what is right and what is wrong.
I worked overtime again tonight.

Thursday, Sept 16, 1999 (25m+10d)
Joanne had a diaper leak and wetted her bed, created a lot of laundry work for mommy.
Mommy took the twins to the local library. They have a story-telling hour every Thursday morning. The twins went duck feeding afterward at the pond behind the library.

Saturday, Sept 18, 1999 (25m+12d)
Daddy worked overtime at the office. Didn't know what happened to the twins.

Sunday, Sept 19, 1999 (25m+13d)
We skipped the Gymboree class today. At around noon, we went to Lambert and Sandy's house warming plus anniversary party. Sandy's and her sister Candy are twins. Though they've never found out if they are genetically identical, they look so much alike that there is no doubt about it in my opinion. Candy was excited about the twins and tried to hold them as we walked in, Joanne cried hysterically to "scare" her off. After half an hour, they were warmed up enough that they were willing to sit in other people's lap. Candy finally got to hold the twins. Joanne played with Candy for a long time.
When it was time for their afternoon nap, we put the twins in the car and drove around the neighborhood. The twins fell asleep within a few blocks from where we started. We returned to Lambert's place, park the car in the shade and let the twins sleep in the car for over an hour. When they woke up, we went back in the house. At this time, most of the guests have already left. While the adults were chatting, I heard Joanne babbling at Sandy's piano. She pressed the keys and "sing" with the notes. I quietly signaled Sandy over to look at her future student. Sandy is an experienced piano teacher. You can find out more about her music studio at http://www.ideareality.com. We left around dinnertime.
We joined Ronald, Evon and Dick for dinner. We chatted in the restaurant for a long time after dinner. The twins were running around the tables and played with their toys. Since the restaurant was not very crowd, we stayed until almost 10pm.

Monday, Sept 20, 1999 (25m+14d)
When mommy took the twins to the Gymboree class, the new teacher told mommy that she couldn't take two kids to the class by herself because of liability issue. She then said she has another class on Tuesday designed for twins, the twins can come to that class instead. If Gymboree is concerned about liability and worried that one parent cannot take care of two kids in class, then how can they ignore the same concern in the twin class? Mommy was very upset because the teacher was being inconsistent about such policy. Besides, mommy has been taking the twins to the class all by herself for the past two months, nobody complains until today. She thinks this teacher is just giving her a hard time or simply trying to divert more students to her other class.

Tuesday, Sept 21, 1999 (25m+15d)
Mommy is not in the mood to return to Gymboree because of the incident yesterday.
For many nights, when we put the twins in bed, they refused to lie down. They wanted to stay up longer. Instead of wrestling with the babies or yielding to their unacceptable demand, we compromised by letting them sit in the bed, tell them they can sit there as long as they want to. We then kiss them good night, turn off the light and close the door. We usually hear them babbling to each other of another 15 minutes before the silence. I guess sitting in pitch darkness is no fun at all. They figure it is better off lying down and have a good night sleep.

Wednesday, Sept 22, 1999 (25m+16d)
The twins are 777 days old. We should have tried the slot machines in a casino.
Mommy taught the twins a game that they can play with each other. They stand at each end of a bench and they would roll a cylinder back and forth. Jasmine refused to play the game tonight. Joanne couldn't take the rejection. She wept and sobbed loudly for over half an hour. Tears poured down her face and her eyes were all swollen. We hugged her, kissed her, soothed her, reasoned with her, she just would not stop crying. We asked Jasmine to play with Joanne, she just firmly replied "no".

Thursday, Sept 23, 1999 (25m+17d)
Before dinner, we took the twins to the park. I brought Jasmine a dandelion seed cluster. She blew it off and started looking for more. Both twins gave up the climbing and sliding and went for dandelion hunting. They plucked away all the dandelions in sight. On the way home, we pointed the twins' attention to our shadows cast by the street lamps. They suddenly became so enthusiastic about it. Apparently, they had never paid attention to the shadows before. On Disney Channel's "Bear in the big blue house" every morning, they watch a character called "Shadow". The bear sings a song to summon the shadow in each episode. The twins quickly associated our shadows with the character in the show and they repeatedly calling shadow's name. Obviously, they just had a "Eureka" experience.
I watched the twins playing happily, so I sneakingly took out the camcorder. As soon as Jasmine saw the camcorder, she nagged for a play back. The twins enjoy watching their own video footage whenever I take out the camcorder. I tried to reason with Jasmine that it was not a good time for a playback because mommy was watching TV. But she just cried tearfully to nag for it. I ended up taping 15 minutes of nagging and crying instead of the playful moments I tried to capture initially. When I asked her if she wanted to see her own ugly crying face on the TV, she stopped for a moment and nodded. This type of response is what makes parents forget about all the hard work and headaches. That is part of the joy of parenting.

Saturday, Sept 25, 1999 (25m+19d)
We met with Wil'n'Lil around lunchtime. Lillian suggested we visit the Filoli estate (the mansion seen on TV's Dynasty) after lunch. A roofer was working on their roof, so we waited till the workers were done before going out to lunch. We arrived at the gate at 2:10pm. The gate was closed for the day. We were off just by 10 minutes. We stopped by the Crystal Springs Reservoir near Woodside at Hwy 92 and 280. We took out the stroller and push the twins to the trail at the reservoir. When we started, the twins just woke up from their afternoon nap. We walked about a mile before turning back. The trail around the reservoir is so long that it would make more sense to ride a bike than pushing a baby stroller. On the way back, the twins wanted to walk on their own and they helped pushing the stroller too.

Sunday, Sept 26, 1999 (25m+20d)
We went to Gymboree in the morning. We then left the twins at Grandma Ling's place, and rushed across the bay to San Francisco to attend mommy's friend Jenny Shaw's wedding. After the ceremony, we went window shopping in San Francisco. It is a rare occasion that we don't have to lug along the twins. We then rushed back to Oakland to attend the wedding banquet.
We picked up the twins at 10pm. The twins were dancing with joy when they saw us. Grandma said the twins behaved very well during our 10 hours absence. They played happily with grandpa and Aunt Jun, and didn't seem to miss us a bit.

Monday, Sept 27, 1999 (25m+21d)
Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Michelle came to visit from Hong Kong. Daddy went to the airport to pick them up. When we arrived home we found that Jasmine was coughing with a runny nose and a light fever. Mommy said a kid was coughing at Jasmine's face yesterday at Gymboree. It is possible that she caught the bug from that kid. Jasmine was very cranky, she cried tearfully from time to time. Joanne was very nice, she just watched Jasmine silently.
Ronnie and Michelle took the BART to San Francisco. Uncle Ronnie has done this several times, so he knows his way around many tourist attractions by the cable cars and buses.

Tuesday, Sept 28, 1999 (25m+22d)
Daddy took the rest of the week off to use up the overflowing vacation day balance at work, and to spend some time with the twins and Uncle Ronnie. We celebrated Grandma Chui's birthday today. It was a day filled with shopping, eating locally.
After dinner, we had the cake at home. When the twins saw the candle on the cake, they wanted to blow it even though they were strapped down far from it.

Wednesday, Sept 29, 1999 (25m+23d)
Jasmine's fever is gone, though the coughing persists.
The whole family went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was the first-time visit for the twins, Ronnie, Michelle and Grandma Chui. We were all amazed by all the wonderful sea life especially the hypnotically drifting jelly fishes, the playful sea otters and the rapidly changing skin pattern on the cuttlefishes.
The twins liked the 50'x13' window to the outer bay tank. They stood in front of the huge window and kept pointing at the sharks and the sea turtles and enthusiastically calling their names "魚魚,龜龜" in Cantonese. They recognized them because those are the bathtub toys they play with everyday. While the twins were watching the fishes, we sat at the back of the exhibit hall. The twins appeared as two tiny silhouettes in the sea-blue background of swimming fishes. When a school of tuna fishes swan behind the twins, the first thought I had was how tiny our twins were compared to the fishes, the second thought was of course yummy maguru sashimi.
Joanne enjoyed the aquarium trip more than Jasmine. Jasmine was not 100% recovered from her illness and she was scared early on when a big fish dashed towards her. Jasmine had already started her afternoon nap before we left the aquarium.
We then went to the nearby beautiful Carmel. By the time we got to Carmel Plaza, most stores were closing their doors for the day. Mommy, Ronnie and Michelle went in the mall while the twins continued their afternoon nap, daddy and grandma waited in the car.
We then moved on to the Carmel beach to see the Pacific Ocean. It was very foggy, we could barely see the water from the parking lot. The twins woke up about this time, so we took them to the beach. Mommy held Jasmine and walked into the wet sand, the occasional surf washed up to mommy's ankles. Daddy stayed on dry sand with Joanne, trying to capture some video footage. Jasmine was not very excited about the white water and sand, she refused to let go of mommy. When we were heading back towards the parking lot, Joanne was willing to get off daddy and walked on the sand by herself. Every time an ocean breaker pounded on the beach, Joanne turned around, pointed at the white water and exclaimed "Whoa!" It was funny when she did that in sync with the rhythm of the waves.
We had dinner at Village Corner, a Mediterranean Bistro in Carmel. We were all exhausted when we got home.

Thursday, Sept 30, 1999 (25m+24d)
We dropped off Aunt Michelle at the airport, she had to leave early because she didn't have as many vacation days as Uncle Ronnie. We spent couple hours with the twins at the airport, had lunch by the windows, watched the airplanes take off, rode the people mover (conveyor belt) in the terminal. We then went to San Francisco, did some shopping and had dinner in Japantown before returning home. Daddy got a sore throat; must have caught the bug from Jasmine.

Friday, Oct 1, 1999 (25m+25d)
It was Aunt Elaine's turn to spend the day with Uncle Ronnie and Grandma Chui. Daddy was getting sicker with the cough. The twins and we stayed home all day long. We walked to the park in the late afternoon. Haven't done much today, just relaxed.

Saturday, Oct 2, 1999 (25m+26d)
I dropped off Uncle Ronnie and Grandma Chui at the airport for a trip to Calgary, Canada. While they were waiting at the airport, I went to a trail near the bay shore and rollerbladed for an hour. I would say the exercise was "breath-taking" especially with my coughing and a stuffed nose. I went back to the airport just in time to say good bye to Uncle Ronnie and grandma at the gate to the plane.
Grandma had not seen her sister for many years ever since her sister immigrated to Canada. They both had returned to Hong Kong several times, but not at the same time, so they didn't have chance to see each other over the years. This trip is mainly for a reunion.
The twins were home all day today.

Sunday, Oct 3, 1999 (25m+27d)
Jasmine was not 100% recovered yet, we didn't want to spread the germs back to Gymboree so we decided to skip class today. The twins stayed home with mommy all day. I was really sick with the cough, headache etc. I stayed in bed almost the entire day.

Monday, Oct 4, 1999 (25m+28d)
A weeklong vacation ended on a sour note. I returned to work, not refreshed, but half dead. I went back to the office, cleaned up the work waiting for my attention for the past week, left early and went back to bed.
Joanne developed a terrible rash when she woke up from her afternoon nap. She looked like a leopard. She was still a happy kid, she even laughed at herself at the mirror. The doctor office was already closed at the time. Since she didn't have other symptoms, we didn't call the emergency number. Instead mommy called Bonnie to ask about her experience with Addison's rash recently. We believed Joanne got hives.

Tuesday, Oct 5, 1999 (25m+29d)
We called the doctor office early in the morning. We were told that the rash was most likely caused by an allergic reaction. The doctor prescribed Benadryl/Allergy and asked us to call again if her symptoms worsened.
Ronnie and Grandma Chui came back from Canada early in the morning. I went to the airport to pick them up despite my own poor health. My condition worsened and I had to call in sick for the day. I got more rest in bed.
Joanne's rash responded quite well to Benadryl. It disappeared totally within an hour. When the medication wore off, the rash came back again, though not as serious as before. We continued the Benadryl treatment.

Wednesday, Oct 6, 1999 (26m)
The twins are 26 month old today
I dropped off Uncle Ronnie at the airport before I returned to work. He returned to Hong Kong. After five round trips to the airport in the past two weeks, I'd swear I wouldn't go to the airport for a while.
Joanne started to cough at night, though her rash was all gone by now. From my reading, hives can be caused by allergy, but it can also be a reaction to some infection. We were not sure if the rash was a prelude to the cough or she got both symptoms independently.

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started on Oct 12, 1999