Ohh trouble!

It has been a lot time since I blogged about the updates on our girls. As I typed, they were destroying a paper back story book. One of them torn a page accidentally and both found very fun to tear each page off and then tear each page up. I found it was awfully quiet over there at the corner of the coach. But the time I discovered the destruction of the book, it was too late. What did I do? Well, might as well let them go on. If I were to stop them now and there would be two screaming and crying babies. I chose to let them continue the event while I got a few minutes to blog.

The girls loved to climb after they mastered walking. They were climbing onto their highchairs despite we put them not to and put them into the penalty box. You could tell them were so proud of their new discovered skill and they were fearless. Both of them managed to climb up the highchairs and turned around to sit on it then climb back down. They also liked to climb onto their trains and cars and stood right on it like the acrobat doing balance act. They certainly experienced the accomplishment when they successfully stood up high. You could see them looking for audience for their performance. I tried to keep a straight face when I saw them and told them to get down to avoid falling. Inside of me, I could not help cracking up and being excited for their new development.

What else they did to get themselves in trouble? Tip-toeing to reach to the dinning room table to get the stuff at the edge of the table. Trust me, they almost pull the plates matt off with plates, bowls and folks. They successfully retrieved newspaper, mail, wallets off the table. Now, they were challenging the sole table which was even taller than the dinning room table.

They had this little chair from their cousin a month ago. They at first would only ignored it then sat on it. Now, they have been using it as a stepping stool to get up to the sofa. They were thinking and planning. First they put the chair right up the sofa then one leg stepped onto it to elevate their body, arms grabbed onto the sofa cushion, the other leg reached the top of the sofa, arms pulled and their little body hopped onto the sofa. They did it quick!

That is it for now!

good girls

When Gong Gong left today, I asked the girls "say bye bye" with a hand wave. Normally, they would only waved their hands but today, "bye bye" with the hand wave, said EY and HY. Wow, good girls. I gave them two big kisses.

"Please give mama the orange" requested by me after we read a book together, more like reading two pages then EY closed the book and put it on the side. They first looked at me and I pointed across the room, repeated the request " give mama the orange, please, girls."

Both girls got up and walked across the room towards the orange toy. The orange toy was hiding next to a chair. HY was ahead but she walked right past it and wondered where it went. EY came up behind HY and saw the orange toy. She picked it up, walked back and handed me the orange toy proudly! I was so thrilled. HY walked back with a big smile as well. She was proud for sister as well. Of course I rewarded my good girls big fat kisses on the cheeks. Loooooooove it!

Gong Gong is here! Play time outside!

Gong Gong is how our girls would call my dad. It means grandfather in Cantonese. Three days out of the week, Gong Gong comes over to help me take care of the girls so that I could do some house tour. They have a routine with Gong Gong. After eating yogurt in the morning, Gong Gong takes the gilrs to the neighborhood park to play. Swing, then slide then playing on the grass. They always have the whole park to themselves. The other kids don't come out until the afternoon.

After all the activities, they get tired and Gong Gong strolls them back and they usually falls in asleep in the stroller. After lunch, Gong Gong takes out one more time. This time they only run around the park and watched other kids to play. It is too hard for Gong Gong to keep track of the girls while there are other kids there. Then, after they got tired, nap time again.

Gong Gong leaves around 4pm every time to avoid traffic. HY always cries and walks towards the door when Gong Gong leaves. EY clings onto my legs instead. They are so used to the routine and when Gong Gong says let's put shoes on and go to the park, the girls get very excited and cooperate to get shoes on and strap into the strollers.

Weekends we don't have the same routine, they usually gets fuzzier and we call that "melt down", haha!

marching around silly pinguins

We called our girls all sorts of funny names. Lately WY liked to call them little monkeys because they started to walk a lot like us. And believe or not, they wanted to run badly also. However, I thought they walked more like a pinguins. It was easier to maintain balance to spread out the distance of the two feet. So, instead of walking like us adult, toes pointing straight ahead at the direction we were heading to, the girls would point their toes 45 degree outwards with two legs spacing half foot out. Their little steps were only about a size of their feet. They did quick steps just like the pinguins. Ohh, with their big and round bellies, and liking to flap their arms, how could you not think about pinguins when you saw them walk?!

They marched around the house to investigate what was going on other than their play house and cars. They loved to go into the "forbiden" rooms - our bedroom and the bathrooms. Those rooms were not child proof and they got themselves in trouble easily. There was one time when both of them invaded the bathroom while I was washing my hands. I caught HY first because she was leading the invasion. I relocated her to the living room and turned back for EY. I thought EY would wander around her bath toys but she didn't. She was all the way at the end of the bath room where the toilet tissue holder was. Of course, you could imagine. She managed to unroll half roll of the toilet paper in less than 30 seconds. She did make a nice pile on the floor though.

Those silly pinguins wanted to run also but every time they tried, they fell. Need more practice. Then, I really need to run after them :-)

EY did it too!

After HY's exciting walking practice yesterday, Gong gong was determined to get EY to do it also. But EY enjoyed walking with help all day and would not let go. Gong gong gave up. It took a while for HY to warm up and finally at noon time she decided to practice again. HY pushed herself up from the floor, balanced, then, a small step forward, another step, one more, and more... She took off and walked all the way to the other side of the room. Both me and my dad were cheering her up of course.

EY saw how HY did it and she got excited as well. She pushed herself up just like HY and started to walk. She followed HY and kept on going. We cheered even louder. EY got so happy and proud of herself, she kept on giggling as she walked. After about 15 steps, she landed on her butt then she turned around with a big smile. I rushed over to give her big hugs and kisses. EY did it too! Wow, I was so proud of my girls. They started walking!

Since then, we found two little people walking around the house. They all of a sudden seemed taller. I still found it strange to see them walk. I was so used to them crawling around. They only crawled if they wanted to be picked up or when they were fuzzy. Otherwise, they seemed to prefer walking :-)

45 steps forward

My dad helped the girls to practice walking every time he came over to baby sit the girls. It was fun to hear gong-gong cheering the girls on. Gong gong could count out loud "one, two, three" in Chinese for the girls if they tried to take a step forward.

Last week I heard my dad counting and the numbers were in 20s. I was curious whether he was counting as the girls walked. I went over and HY was walking and Gong gong was counting for her. Wow, 31, 32, ..40, wow, I had my mouth wide open and same as HY who was excited and proud of herself. 43, 44, 45! HY finally lost her balance and landed on her butt. We were all so excited for her and her accomplishment. We gave her a big big hug and many kisses on her cheek. She knew she did a good job also because you could see her proud smile on her face and her eyes were lit up! Good job, HY! You did 45 steps forward on your own!

Sleeping poses

Back then when the girls were still in my tummy, the ultrasound pictures showed HY sucking her thumb and EY facing down. In those pictures, HY showed a big cheek and round forehead. We could never take a glance at EY's face because she was always sleeping on her tummy and buried her head in my uterus muscles. The way they were positioned didn't change since month 4th of my pregnancy and at the end, they still maintained the same position. Not enough room to rotate at all, I imagined. Well, I thought that has affected their head shapes. HY got plenty of room on the top and EY liked to squeeze her head into my muscles. So, HY got a pretty round and long head and EY got flat head. Though the ped doc might say that was because how they slept. However, I thought differently. The way they slept was determined by how their head shapes were and how they positioned their heads comfortably.

Guess how they sleep now. HY sucks her thumb to fall in asleep and EY sleeps on her stomach and landed on one side of her cheeks. How funny! They looked exactly like how they were in my tummy! Love it!

more walking practice

We have been practicing walking by holding both of their hands or they pushed the cars with both hands. Today I made HY practice walking only allowing her to grab onto my finger with one hand. At first, she was scared and wanted to grab my other hand. I encouraged her to try and she wiggled her body a bit to gain balance and went ahead to walk. Wow, I was surprised how ready she was. She started a bit slow but quickly she got the rhythm down, left foot, right foot, left, then right... She did ready well and I was impressed. She failed a couple of times when she walked a bit too fast and landed forward on my tummy. She complaint a bit then got back up to continue. She seemed to enjoy this way of walking very much. Love to see the big smile that she was giving herself.

Of course EY had to go through the same training, hehe. She was always excited with new things that we made her do. As usually, after she walked a couple of steps with one hand holding, she thought it was so fun and she started to dance by swinging her body and butt to the left and right and quickly she lost balance. She sat back onto her butt and got distracted by the little wooden duck on the side and decided to go get the duck instead. I guessed we had to try some more later :-P

HY's first step

Yesterday we took the girls to nursery during Sunday service the very first time. WY attended the service and I stayed with the girls.

There were other kids around playing. It took them sometime to warm up. As usual, HY was the one started to play with the toys and crawled towards other kids. After seeing HY playing, EY let go of my jacket which she was holding tightly in her fists.

The other kids were all older and they were able to walk. HY kept on watching the girl who was just 6 months older than her. That little girl walked around HY and then walked away but kept on looking at HY and EY.

I asked HY whether she wanted to practice walking since there was carpet. HY stood up holding onto my hands and started to walk. She walked well holding my hands. Then, I gently pushed her little fingers away and see whether she could walk forward. It happened so fast that she couldn't stop her pace while her hands were free in the air. "one, two!" She did it! Quickly, she got hold of my hands and laughed!

Practice standing

Our girls have been practicing standing on their own without support. They usually did that without noticing themselves. They would be standing by the car or busy zoo then they got busy with grabbing new toys, they let go of the car or the busy zoo. They were standing for a few minutes then they realized they were free standing. They would hurry to sit back down before they lost balance.

Sometimes we tried to encourage them to stand on their own by letting go of their little hands. HY would stand straight with her head slightly up with a big smile. You could tell she was proud of herself about the standing without help. After 15 seconds of so, she would stick her butt back to land on the floor then she looked at us for cheers. Of course we gave her another round of cheering. EY would stand and rotate her upper body around as if she was dancing. She would also wave her arms in the air and had a big big smile on her face - her classic smile, wrinkle the nose, open her mouth as wide as it could be! She usually got so excited and forgot to balance herself and felt forward into my arms. How funny!

It was just matter of days that these girls would be walking!

Teething

We think EY must be teething because today she was sucking the empty bottle all day - off time was eating time, nap time and exercise time. Otherwise, she was holding it all the time. If I took it away, she would protest and refused to behave. Of course I gave in. Just let her have the bottle if that helped her feel better during the teething time. She was relatively quiet all day because she was busy sucking air out of the bottle and didn't bother to fight with sister HY. She felt in asleep easy during nap time because she sucked and sucked and got tired and fell in asleep. I hope she would get sick of it soon. I tried to give her the pacifier but she didn't like it. She went back to the bottle. Well, we can't wait to see EY's new teeth :-)

"Vandalizing" the kitchen cabinet

There was one cabinet in the kitchen filled with the girls no longer used bottles, frozen food trays, bottle caps, paper bibs, ect. One of the baby center article mentioned it would help to satisfy their curiosity by allowing them to open one kitchen cabinet which filled with safe for children stuff. Well, it surely helped. They girls would go over to the kitchen to vandalize the cabinet. They sure took everything that they would reach out of the cabinet and examined every single piece of it and then left them all over the floor.

WY and I always had paper towels on our hand to wipe after the girls' drooling on the floor. Guess what, the girls learned how to wipe the floor. They took one of the paper bibs out of the package and started to wipe the floor. That was hilarious. They wanted to be our little helpers :-)

Most of the time that they would just stay with that cabinet because they knew that they were allowed to have excess to it. Not the rest of the cabinet. EY and HY always could not stop their curiosity and attempted to open the cabinet under the sink. I had to tell them no, and got them out of the kitchen. I also needed to deepen my voice when I called their names so that they would know they were in trouble. Guess what, they did know. When I had a straight face on calling them to stop crossing the limit, they would smile and made their "hehe" sound trying to be sweet to make it up. Man, little babies, they already knew!

Play house

The girls got a few new toys for their birthday. One of their favorites was the play house. There was a little door bell in the front and they quickly learned how to press it. It was so cute when they said on the little seats inside the play house. They loved to kick the seats while sitting and laughed. The play house fit them perfectly. Not too big and not too small. They had plenty room to move around and passed each other. They could stand inside and hold onto the house. That really encouraged them to stand up and walk with support. They loved to stand in front of the window slot and play peek-a-poo with me. They even figured out how to open and close the door after they entered or exited. They also liked to throw some blocks or plastic vegetables inside the house to make loud noises. So much fun with the play house :-)

sucking the empty bottle

It was strange that both EY and HY started to suck the empty bottles after they finished their bottles. At first, I thought they wanted more milk and I would refit the bottle for them. But, they didn't want the milk, they purposely not to till the bottle so that they were just sucking air. EY did a lot more than HY. I think HY did it because she saw EY doing it. Anyway, EY has been sucking the same empty bottle for the past hour and she was still doing it. Maybe she liked the sound of sucking air out of the bottle?!

What's in your mouth, EY?

It has been a real battle about EY picking up the smallest dirt on the floor or rug. From smallest size of 1/4of a rice grain to largest size of a piece of tissue paper, as long as she found it on the floor, she put right into her mouth. We have to watch her every time she became quiet, because, when she was quiet, often, she was concentrating to pick up the dirt or garbage, or trying to figure it out whether to swallow her new snack or not. Maybe she was hungry, not really, we could just fed her and she refused the food from the bowl and found herself some other "food" to eat.

In averge, I had to use my fingers to get the surprised food out of her mouth. She learned to bite her gum together tight not to allow my finger to grab the dirt. Sometimes she got mad and just bit my fingers. She didn't have any teeth yet so it hurt a bit. I hope I don't have to do that when she has teeth!

Yes, we vacuum and wipe the floor daily now but she still finds goodies somewhere who knows how :-(

new home

It has been a while since I last blogged. Yes, we have moved. Our new place has a big family room and our girls love crawling all over it. They crawl very fast now. Each crawling step forward was solid. They banged their hands on the floor very hard while they crawled. That made a loud and rythmatic marching sound as they raced towards something. They were fast now. Once they wanted to get to something, they took off and they arrived to the target so fast that sometimes I was not able to interfere on time.

They could stand up while holding onto funitures. Sometime this weekend, both of them were stable enough to stand on their own letting go of their hands. So, hopefully, they could walk soon.

They have been sharing a twin mattress together since we moved. They adjusted to the new home very well. It was funny that they liked to cuttle and kiss each other before they slept. Despite they screamed, yelled, pinched, and pulled each other during the day, at bed time, they were very sweet to each other. They put one leg on each other's body and grabed each other's face towards their own face. One of them would get sleep first and got into the sleeping mode. I usually had to stop the cuddling so that they would have some space to fall in asleep. After a couple of hours, when we checked on them, they usually rolled back to next to each other. Sometimes I would fine EY holding HY's leg while she was sleeping and HY was sucking her finger as usual. It was so cute and funny to watch :-)

Diving seals

On the third night, we got two baby seals full with energy when it was bed time. EY quickly learned that HY was having fun diving off the mattress and her escaping game was exciting. While she was sleepy, she struggled to be awake and joined her sister HY to the fun adventure.

They laughed when they landed the pillows off the mattress and chocked up in laughter while they raced each other to the door. Since they both were awake, I kept the bedroom door closed. They got up and started the banging on the door. They loved the loud sound that it made and they got supper excited. At once point I was concerned that they might fall backwards standing because they were just way too hyper.

I grabbed them by under their arm pits and dropped them back onto the mattress when I saw no ends to the door banging. They were kicking and screaming in the air and once they touched the mattress, they were in action again. They regained their balance by getting back on their tummy then looked around for the edge of the mattress. HY was the first one started to crawl towards "the water". Then, diving into the pillows, paddling to navigate among the pillows and finally slipped off and onto the carpet. Here came EY after seeing what HY did. Even though it was just her second escape attempt, she was quite efficient. Within 5 seconds, she got down as well. HY already started her attack towards the door and EY closely followed. They would paused to look back to see whether I was after them. Even though I kept quite and didn't make a move, they speed up as if I was tracing after them. These two baby sea seals were just so funny.

Laughter and banging of the door went on for 30 minutes, finally they were tired. Once they showed sign of sleepiness, I moved them back to the mattress and they fell in asleep. I fell in asleep next to them as well. After all, it was tiring to put them to bed. The routine was not working for me. Got to think of something to slow them down to get into the sleeping mood.

Too much fun, don't want to sleep!

The first night, the girls were able to fall in asleep pretty soon on their new bed because it was way passed their bedtime after we set everything up.

The second night, EY was able to fall in asleep after a few rolling back and forth. But HY seemed to have tons of energy left and she just wanted to play. I put her down and she quickly rolled onto her tummy and crawled towards the edge of the mattress. At first, she kinda lost her balance by crawling into the landing pillows. Her face with the very moist lips landed first then her two hands. She was surprised by the softness and unevenness of the surface that she got to so she paused to make sure she didn't fall. After a few seconds, she figured she was stable then she pushed her legs forward. Now, she got her legs hanging on the mattress and hands and face on the lower landing pillows. Just like a sea seal, she paddled her legs and arms to "swim" down to the floor. At one point, her head was so heavy and she simply slide down the top of the pillow. Once her face hit the carpet, she knew she successfully got down to the "water". She crawled out of the mattress area as fast as she could like I was after her (I was just sitting there and watching to see where this little sea seal was going). She headed straight towards the door. I wondered whether she would crawl outside if the door was open. So, I got up and tried to pass her to open the door for her. She thought I was playing catch with her. She was giggling and speeding up to rush to the door. Of course I got there first and open the door and she crawled straight out with out hesitation.

WY and grandparents were in the living room talking. When HY crawled out into the living room, everyone was surprised and HY was so proud of herself for her "successful escape".

You thought she would be tired then and would go to sleep soon. Yes, but, not after three more escaping attempts then she finally rubbed her eyes and sucked her thumb to sleep. During her second escaping attempt, I didn't open the door for her. Once she arrived the door and it was not open, she got up and started banging on it. EY got woken up so I opened the door to let her exit to ensure the sleeping beauty was not disturbed.

By the time HY got tired and fell in asleep, I was beaten up as well! A very good night sleep for both of us :-)

eating snack

Remember I mentioned how silly they were when they tried to put the snack in their mouth but ending up sucking and eating their whole hand? I proudly announced that they have mastered that skill this week.

This was how HY did it. She used the right thumb and the second right finger to pick up the snack piece, then, moved towards her mouth, then, she let go of it so that the snack would land on the middle of her hand. Then, she slowly moved her hand across her face until the snack dropped into her mouth. She learned not to let lose the hand until she felt the snack in their mouth. I gave her a cheer after each success.

EY used the left thumb and the left second finger to pick up the snack and then rotated her wrist to put the snack in her mouth. Her success rate was not as high as HY because she didn't have any safety net to ensure the snack piece from falling off her tongue and fingers. She manged to get in a couple of more tries :-)

share a bed again

We let the girls share a twin mattress after 6 months of them sleeping in their own crib. They loved it. They loved to cuddle each other. They both liked to roll next to each other and put their little face on each other. The firs night, they rolled all this end to the other end then back. They rolled into each other, then, giggle then rolled away. They learned to get off the mattress by crawling and rolling but not getting back onto the mattress. It would normally take 15 minutes for them to play with each other before they got tired and felt in asleep. Guess what we found? They fell in asleep with their backs leaning on each other. Two hours later, HY had rotated 90 degree and she was holding EY's leg for comfort. And, EY's nose was on HY's tummy. That was so so funny!

HY rotated a lot through out the night. Sometimes we found her in different sleeping positions every hour. There was one night she woke up found herself way far from the mattress and of course woke us up to help her to find her way back. EY was doing something funny as well. She had to lean onto a pillow or her sister or one of us to fall in asleep. Once she did, she would not change. But, once she woke up, she would be looking for sister. Tonight after hearing a cry from the room, I went to check on them. I couldn't find EY at her usual spot. It was dark in the room and I could tell she was not on the mattress and she was not at the among the landing pillows at the end of her side of the mattress. Where did she go? She was crying and standing next to HY who was in deep sleep at the other side of the mattress. EY managed to got off the mattress, and, walked passed all the landing pillows to get to HY.

I hope they would learn to sleep through the night soon now they sleep next to each other and keep each other company. At least that's my hope, hehe.

new bed

Ever since the girls mastered the skill of getting up from lying down position to sitting up and standing up, every time we put them down, they would stand up and shake the crib. They got way too excited and didn't want to sleep. EY refused to lay down. When she woke up in the middle of the night, she would cry and cry and shake and shake. Somehow HY learned that from EY so we would have two crying babies standing in their cribs refusing to go back down to sleep.

Yes, they ended up in our bed for a couple of weeks or longer. I could barely rest when the babies were next to me. They threw their arms right on your chest in the middle of the night. They got up and dropped their little heavy head right on your eye socket. They pulled your air like it was their toys. They kicked your tummy and back that you had no room to avoid.

Yes, a queen size bed could not fit four! We decided to buy them a mattress. A twin mattress. When they get older, we'll buy them a bunk bed. For now, they sleep on a mattress.

Two sick birds

Both girls got sick last Monday. That was why I didn't have time to blog at all. HY had high fever and developed a pneumonia. Later the week EY came down with a high fever as well.

Fever, coughing, fuzziness, throwing up, crying - also meant a lot of holding, walking, and feeding. It was harder than when they were 1 month old because we were not used to getting up to feed them every 2 hours any more. They were 2 hours off schedule of each other so I felt like I just finished one and finally laid down and the second one woke up. When they were younger, we set their schedule. When they were sick, they set our schedule :-P We called in my dad two days last week and today to help taking them to the doctor and holding them. Yeah, another pair of hands were very very helpful!

HY is sick again

It has been three days that HY started to have a temperature. At first I thought it was because of her teething. But, the fever went up to 104 degree and she was throwing up, I called the doc at night and a nurse called back saying that she likely had a stomach virus which called the high temperature. We should just try to keep her hydrated and give her Tylenol if the fever is above 102.

Today is the third day and her temperature is not going away. At least it was between 101 and 102. I gave her Tylenol when it was above 101.5. She looked very very week with higher than 101 degree. She threw up when I gave her the Tylenol last night. She gagged because of the sweetness. She could not take pedialyte because it was too sweet as well. So, I decided to dilute the Tylenol with water before giving to her. She took it OK that way. Poor little baby had glossy eyes and warmed body. She was too weak to play with sister. In the morning she was better but by the afternoon she was just tired. It hurts to see her being sick.

What was the hardest part of parent hood? Not the lack of sleep, the helplessness that comes with your child or children's illness was the hardest. That leads to the sleepless nights and endless worries until she recovers then you can breath, eat, sleep and live normal again.

So, please pray for little HY. Thank you.

4 people in one Queen size bed

I could not imagine how four of us fit into this little queen size bed. By 4am, EY got her leg on top of HY's face! Half an hour later, EY got her big head hammer onto my eye, ouch! After that, she tried to grab HY's face. I was up every 20 minutes or so to make sure my comforter was not on the girls.

Didn't I say no babies in my bed before they came out of me?
Didn't I say I would sleep train them?
Didn't I say...?
Didn't I seem to be a tough mom who could handle the sleep training?
Didn't I.........?

Everything is out of the window. When they woke up at night, they stood up and shake the crib so hard that we were afraid that they would break the crib and jumped off the crib. We didn't want one of them woke up the other one then both of us had to get up. We were too tired to hold them to walk them back to sleep. So, we put them between us and they fell in asleep right away usually. Now what? I don't know.

Didn't I say no babies in my bed? I didn't know how4 people could possibly fit in our little queen size bed. Well, now I know :-(

One benefit: their little precious faces are so cute and you just could not resist!

La la lalala

The girls have been babbling a lot now a days. One of their new words is "la, la, la". I always sang them the Lullaby song but I forgot the lyrics. So, I sang the whole song with just "la, la, la" in the Lullaby melody. The girls picked up that word and sometimes they could start talking and the whole sentence was composed of one word - La, la, la lala.

There was one time WY caught EY started to say "la lala, lala la" when the music turned on. He was so excited and told me that EY was singing. She looked like she was singing with her hands waving, except she only made one tone out of the Lala lala lalalala... monotone, hehe. That was so cute though :-)

shopping cart

We have been very busy with shopping stuff for the new place these two weeks. We had to take the girls everywhere we went. They didn't like their car seats no more. They screamed their lungs out every time we put them in the car seats. HY even arched her back so hard that I could not put seat belt on her. I had to wait for two to three minutes until she got tired of arching then took a seat then I could bugle her down. As soon as the car engine was stopped, they would start to cry and push the seat belt to try to escape. We could not use the double stroller with the car seats lately because they protested badly. Well, holding them would be tough to shop as well. We finally broke down and let them sit in the front of the shopping cart.

Surprisingly, they really enjoyed it. We had to use two shopping cart and at times when WY had to go to look for something, I had to push to empty shopping carts with two babies on it. It was very funny. Well, they did well. One day we spent 6 hours in the mall and they had their milk, solid and milk again on the shopping carts. WY said why would people bring stroller when the shopping cart worked so well. I told him that not every kid liked to sit on the shopping cart and not every mom liked to push the shopping cart across the mall like a stroller. When we tried to eat lunch at TK noodle in the mall, they refused to let us to take the shopping carts into the restaurant despite the fact that they only had one high chair for us. Well, we ended up eating in the food court instead, yes, with babies sitting on the Sears shopping carts . Apparently, we were the only people pushing babies with the sears shopping cart cruising the entire mall. Hahaha. We felt fine with it. It was quite convenient. As long as the girls still enjoy the shopping carts, we would do it again!

High Chair time!

Five months ago, we attempted to get the girls to sit on the high chairs to eat. Well, they didn't seem to like it and they ended up scream at us and we changed to sitting on the sofa or exersaucer at feeding time. We were supposed to get them to learn to feed themselves with hands two months ago but it would be so much to clean so we just delayed the training. Now, seeing the girls putting every toy in their mouths, I figure they are ready for the "training".

We gave the high chair another try. This time around, we lowered the chair to the lowest setting and put the feeding trays on. As usual, they loved banging on any surface. The tray was perfect for the bang bang bang. We fed them only solid on the high chair.

After each meal, we put the puff pieces on their trays one at a time to let them learn to feed themselves. They recognized the puff pieces so they immediately grabbed it with their hands. They used to grab the piece and rolled it into the middle of their hand. Then, they stuck the whole hand in their mouth to try to eat the piece. It was very hilarious when they tried very hard to eat the piece but ended up just licking their own fist. The puff piece was still stuck in the middle of the fist. They would get frustrated because they knew they were not tasting the puff. I would try to help them if I could to move the piece out of their hand into their mouth after they did a few attempts.

Now, they tried to use two fingers to pick up the puff, then quickly smashed it onto their mouths. Fifty percent of their attempts were good. They got the puff into their mouths and we gave them a cheer to encourage them to repeat the successful act. Fifty percent of the time they still rolled the puff piece into the middle of their palms and not able to dislodge it into their mouth. Often they didn't realize where the puff was. They didn't bother to look for it or check their hands. Even though the puff was still in their hands, they couldn't feel it, I guess. They thought they lost it so they banged onto the tray for more. I didn't want to let the puff fall onto the ground and go to waste, so, I picked it up from their hand and put it back onto the tray to allow them to try again. They were also amazed that I got them a "new" piece without reaching to the can. Mama's magic!

Today we let them try picking up rice and little noodle pieces and that was not a good idea. The rice and noodles ended up off the tray, on the floor sticking to their bibs and fingers and pants. Messy, messy messy! It was just easier to just feed them. But, they have to learn. Man, I guess I have a lot of cleaning up to do!

HY is teething

Yeah, we see some signs of HY's teeth coming out. Started two weeks ago, HY drooled so much that we had to change her bibs frequently because she would get it soaking wet in 2 hours. Last week, there was a white spot on the lower gum and now it started to become more like a white line. There was another right spot started to show. Right in the middle of the lower gum, a crease started to form. wow, I think HY is teething. Can't wait to see those white little teeth to sprout out.

EY started to drool like HY this week. So, hopefully her teeth would come out soon. Yes, I will get the camera ready to catch those little teeth when they are out!

grandma and the girls were loving it!

grandma finally arrived this afternoon and she was so excited to see her grand daughters. It only took 5 minutes for HY and EY to warm up to her. After feeding the girls, I had to fold all the laundry on our bed. So, grandma helped to entertain both girls. She had one girl on each of her thigh, sitting on a plastic stool in front of the window, allowing the girls to look out the windows. The girls loved to look out the windows. They were giggling and banging both hands onto the ledge as they were playing drums. Grandma and the girls were loving it! All I could hear was laughters :-)

kiss the mirror

Lately the girls spurred up their interest in mirrors again. They would crawl towards the mirror and sat there to play. They would stare at themselves and talk to the little person in their. Not sure that they know the little person was themselves. Today, EY started to talk to her image at first, then, she started to kiss her own image of the mirror. She made such an interesting noise when she did that and I couldn't help looking over and wondered what she was up to. I got next to her and asked her to kiss me and she smiled but then turned back to the mirror and started to breath her warm breath to make the mirror foggy. Then, her little tongue stuck out and saliva was all over the surface of the mirror. OK, I had enough of observation and time to interfere. End of the scene.

The girls' favorite book

In My Den is the girls' favorite book. It goes " In my den I roll in soft, warm earth, I put down leaves and pinecones, I look outside for twigs, then I curl up on my cozy bed...with my family!"

Don't know why the girls love it so much. Maybe because of there was a clothe bear in the book and they loved to pull on it. It fitted into their little fists perfectly. Every time they were fuzzy and we couldn't calm them down, we took out the book and read to them with exciting, dramatic and high pitch voice, they would get quiet and sat down to listen. Once we got to the last page where the bear was at, they would launch an attack to the bear. Specially EY, she got so excited that she would breath so hard and loud like a poppy begging for a bone :-P

WY usually did a better job reading the book because he was more animated and the girls just love it. He usually had to read three times to satisfy the two little audience.

sound effects and fun speeches

Our girls definitely discovered their own voices and how effective they could be by screaming or crying. Sometimes my ears really hurt when they were doing their duvets. Their separation anxiety showed no signs of improving. It seemed to be 5 feet was their limit in terms how far we could be away from them. If one of them discovered me or WY walked away, she would start crying, loud and high pitch cries, with frequent coughing sound in between, indicated that they were crying so hard that they were not able to catch their breath. The other one didn't need to spot where we were and how far we have gone, she automatically joined the "singing" to double the intensity and volume of the cries. This strong sound effects certainly shorten WY and mine restroom break because if they started the cry, it would take some effort to calm them back down.

HY has been blabling her way all day and I thought that she already picked up my trait - talking to oneself. After each meal, that was HY's self discussion session. It was funny to listen and watch. She was talking continuously with a quite serious expression on her face. She usually had a toy in her hand while she talked. She didn't seem to bother to engage her sister in her speech because often time her sister would adventure out somewhere else in the house. As she talked, she would look up at me at times and I would agree with whatever she was talking about and nodded my head. Then, she nodded as well and continued with her fun speech.

HY is sick

HY is sick. She has been throwing up since 3pm today. She was hungry but her stomach was not tolerating any food, no milk, no solid, not even pedialyte this afternoon and evening.

We let her ate one bite of banana and that was the reaction her stomach was giving. No more banana for HY from now on. My fault. It happened to her before and I was thinking she was too young then and now she might be able to tolerate it. After one bite of it, she gagged and we stopped giving her more. But, one bite was enough to get her stomach upset and poor girl is suffering. She wanted to play but she was too tired and had no energy. She just rested in my arms and watched sister play. Finally she felt in asleep.

Jesus I pray that you will put your healing hands on HY and heal her quickly and my active little bird will become energetic again when she wakes up in the morning. Please help her to keep the food down and regain her strength. Thank you Jesus! In Jesus name I pray, AMEN!

Mama, ma ma, ma, ma...

At night, EY often woke up at her crawling position and cried "eh,eh, eh..." and we would wait for a few minutes to see whether she could fall back in asleep on her own. If not, before she raised the volume of her cry, one of us would get up and comfort her to get her go back to sleep. If she didn't cry too loud and sounded tired, good chance that she could fall back into sleep. Lately, we tried to encourage her to sooth herself back to sleep and without waking HY.

Last night, waken up from my dream, I clearly heard EY calling me "Mama, ma, ma, ma, ma...". I was going to wait to see whether she could go back to sleep. When she kept on crying out saying "ma, ma, ma..." and I was not able to resist her calling and got up right away. Did she learn that I am mama and WY is baba? WY didn't get up because EY was calling "mama". Man, she really got me.

hand stand practice

EY has done her handstand practice for two days now. She usually did it with the assistant of some interesting "tools".

First practice scene. I arrived after hearing EY's few sharp screaming "ah, ah, ah, ah..." it was consisting off short but high pitch vocalization which usually meant that she was in trouble. EY managed to rotate the carseat 90 degrees and dived into it. She was doing her hand stand in the car seat: hands pushing down onto the bottle of the car seat, trying to avoid her face landing on her own hand and her legs successfully hanging in the air. She tried to let go of one hand to flap in the air hoping to regain balance and got back onto her foot. Failed. Well, I rushed over and pulled her out of the car seat and she was a bit shocked still by her own act.

Second practice scene. WY and I arrived also after EY's calling of help "ah, ah, ah, ah..." with a shaking voice this time. EY this time chose the stool to practice the hand stand. There was a horizontal wood piece between the legs of the stool. Somehow EY managed to dive her body above that wood between the legs of the stool and landed her hands on the floor with her waist supported by the horizontal wood piece and her legs in the air with pointed toes. Her face was read and she was trapped. WY and I laughed as we carefully extracted her out of the wood cage where she was hanging upside down. Guess what, after she came out of it, she was smiling! I asked her what was so funny and she just gave me a big blink to thank us for the rescuing.

Third scene. EY tried to push over the boxes that we used to block off the kitchen entrance. Instead, she bended over so much that she lost balance and got her feet hanging in the air and hands in the air with her tummy pressing onto the boxes. That happened right in front of my eyes so I stopped her continuation of possible dangerous hand stand act.

What do you think? She will be good for gymnastic in the future since she is finding ways to practice hand stand now :-P

it was a funny ending

Here was the scene:
HY was playing with my cell phone on one side of the sofa. EY's attention was caught by the beep beep sound of the cell phone. EY crawled over to reach for the phone with no fear. HY raised phone over her head, passed it to the other hand, dropped it back down then lifted it up again. She got very good at avoiding EY's grabbing attacks. At the same time, she "ahh-- ahh!" at EY. EY could only use one hand to try to get the phone so she was not as fast as HY. After a few unsuccessful attempts, EY decided to sit down right in front of HY and used both of the hands - one to block HY's receiving hand, and the other one to reach for the phone. This time, she got to the phone fast. Once she got a hold of the phone, she pulled it out of HY's hand - she was that strong, ohh yeah!

During the whole time, HY was tensed and frustrated. EY was happy that she succeeded. She flipped the phone back and couldn't hold her giggling in. I couldn't hold my laughs any neither because they were just fun to watch. I laughed with EY. HY heard both of us laughing, so, she laughed, too. She forgot that she lost the phone and she thought it must be funny because mama and sister were both laughing. I just cracked up by HY. She was so cute. She was laughing after losing her toy! Babies, happy babies!

cruising progress

Both girls were able to cruise holding onto something. EY was very efficient with her cruising from this side of the room to the other side alone the sofa. HY was a bit slower but she could do it if she liked to. They both master a new trick while they were cruising. They were able to bend down to retrieve an object on the floor while one hand was holding onto the sofa or a chair. At first they would dangle their hands and stick out their butt to see whether they could reach it. If they could not, then, they would bend their knees a bit and curve their waist to the side to grab the target. They had to work on how to avoid pushing on each other if one needed to pass the other. I usually would hear HY crying while EY nearly pushed HY off the support structure. HY would be fighting to keep herself in balance with one hand holding on and the other hand trying to block EY. I guess crawling on the floor to pass sister was not an option for EY yet. Or, they just liked to push and got physical with each other. Or, it was part of fun :-)

"ah!"

I was on my computer checking my e-mails and all of a sudden I was interrupted by the back and forth "ah!" "ah!" by these two babies. They were sitting face to face on the floor. In HY's hand, there were her favorite cups pressed onto her body. HY was leaning forward staring straight into EY's eyes. There she went "ah!" - sharp, short, loud and high pitch. Her mouth was slightly open with the lips tense up as if there were teeth and the teeth would be tightly clenched. Here went EY "ah!" back at HY - sharp, high pitch as well but slightly longer sound and ended a bit deep. EY was in a ready to attack posture with her legs half in the air.

Have you ever seen the "Whale rider" movie? Part of the training the young boys had to learn was to stick out their tongue at the same time making a loud noise to scream off their enemy. The girls reminded me about that. HY was trying to scare off EY when she saw EY about to take her toys. It did work. EY didn't make her move but instead she "ah" HY back. They went on with the "ah, ah, ah" for at least 2 minutes. It was hilarious to see the facial expression of the girls. They were serious and tense! They were just babies and they knew how to try to threaten the component. "Ah!" - the special defense.

HY is crawling forward!!!!!!

Yes, it has been a while since EY could explore the room on her own and leaving sister HY sitting alone and watched. HY was always teased by grandparents on not trying to crawl and crying for help instead. It was always a funny picture that EY would crawl around HY to search for HY's toy and then take off to her other adventure. Both of them would cry for different reasons. HY would cry for help to get to where sister was and EY would cry because she failed or hurt herself.

Well, today, HY tried to change from sitting to crawling position to get to her blue cup. She was able to reach in her semi-crawling position. She was able to get on her all four to reach out. I was wondering whether she could actually crawl if she had to. So, I took HY's blue cup from her hand and placed it further away from her. At first she tried to reach and she was still short about 10 inches. She looked at me to see whether I was going to help her. I sat back and told her that she could get it herself. I turned to look at sister instead. HY carefully, slowly got on her all four, then, crawled forward with one leg pushing only. Two steps of crawling, she was able to reach the blue cup. The leg she was not using to push was still bent in away that she could sit her butt onto it to help her change back to sitting position. I was so thrilled. I gave her a big kiss and clapped to cheer her up. She knew she did well. She smile, very big one.

Of course, I wanted to make sure that was not by luck, haha. I repeated the act of placing her blue cup away from her. Yes, she did it again! I jumped up and downs after that. Haha, I wanted her to practice more, so, again, I took the blue cup from her. This time, she screamed at as if she was saying what's wrong with you, mama, give me the blue cup back. I am not going to sweat my back off to crawl to get it back. You took it from me so give it back to me. At first I was like "HY, try again, you need to practice." but she gave me a very very mad look and screamed sharply, not crying, so, I gave her the blue cup back and gave her a break.

But you know what, she was playing with the blue cup and she decided to practice her throwing object technique, then, she threw her blue cup away. Well, in order to get it, she ended up crawling again to get her blue cup back.

I think she is really attached to the blue cup now. I may need to buy one set of cups just in case if we loss this one and we'll have a back-up.

Anyway, HY is crawling forward and mama is so so excited for her!

peek-a-poo

Once a week WY would vacuum the living room. I would take the girls inside the bedroom to avoid the loud noise and dust. Play time in the crib! Our favorite!

I sat them face to face in HY's crib. I have bought them this small teethe blankets w/ pacifier attachment for bedtime hoping that would help them find the pacifier at night. Well, it didn't help and we weeded off their pacifiers instead. But, they were still fun to play with. I put one of them covering EY's head. HY thought it was funny that EY's head was covered by the blanket so she giggled. EY used both hands grabbed and pulled off the blanket (8"x10"). As she uncovered her face, I said "peek-a-poo" and EY knew it was a game that we were playing so she had a big smile on her face with her little tongue sticking out. She was also expecting some fun reaction from us once we saw her face. HY was anticipating EY's removing the blanket act by smiling and staring at EY. Once the blanket was off, HY cracked up and they looked at each other in their eyes and giggled. EY said "ya-yee" a high pitch but soft sound and gave HY a big and sweet blink. HY replied "ya- yee-yee", also high pitch but very soft and gentle sound back to EY, of course, she returned the sweet blink. Aw, you should see them react with each other, so so cute and sweet. Once a while they would give me that special treatment but not often. It seemed to just between them two.

Well, EY got a good respond, so, she lifted up the little blanket in front of her face, a pause, then, quickly put it back down. HY was being a good audience and she laughed as EY did that. EY giggled at herself for doing such a wonderful peek-a-poo with sister. Wow, I had so much fun just looking and helping to say peek-a-poo as they took turn to uncover themselves.

cruiser!

Last week friend at church asked me whether the girls were able to cruise yet. I didn't know what cruising meant for a baby. She said when they were able to walk holding onto furniture or other stuff other than your hands, they became cruisers.

EY became a cruiser today! She got up on her own holding onto the couch and walked from one end to the other end. Or, she cruised from one end to the other end! She got really good at it.

Sometimes she fell and hit her forehead on things but she didn't cry too long. I guess I could try to ignore the few scratches on our fearless explorer's forehead after seeing what she has accomplished. I think I am more scared than she is.

4am practice session

Did I share that EY and HY both could pulled themselves up holding onto something? Yes, EY got some excited about her new accomplishment and she explored every standing thing to see whether she could hold onto to pull up to stand. Her favorite was the crib. She could get up in 5 seconds from lying down to standing up in the crib. Well, my less favorite part was that she liked to practice her standing and crawling in the crib at bedtime and at 4am or 5am in the morning. It was hard to get her to fall in asleep in the crib. I had to leave her in our bed where she could not crawl because of the bedding and could not stand up because of nothing to hold onto. After a few minutes battling to crawl or stand, she got tired and started to flip then I transferred her back to her crib to continue dosing off. But, the 4-5 am session was hard. We couldn't calm this active player to go back to sleep. One day I gave up wrestling her down to bed to sleep. Instead, I stood there for 1 hour to watch her doing her crawling, climbing, pulling, standing and laughing. She was quite excited and proud of herself. Finally, she got tired and let go of the crib to rub her eyes. I helped her to get down and she fell in asleep in 5 seconds.

HY has been trying to pull herself up more and more. She had relatively safer approach than EY. She tried and if she couldn't, then, she sat back down and tried later. She got very good at kneeling. HY soon will be like sister practicing her new techniques and then they both play at 4am. Not looking forward the 4am standing in the crib session.

"NO TV" traning

We were advised by a child development profession friend that we should limit their TV time. Instead, encourage them to play more on the floor. It was hard to do so because the TV helped to distract them so that I could do something else without watching them. The first day without TV last Monday, they had to adjust. They were forced to play on the floor and move around to kill time. Because of no TV, HY was bored and she fell in asleep on the floor on her own while she was playing. It was a good nap for HY. Because of the nap, she didn't get too fuzzy. She kept on playing after the nap.

EY has mastered her crawling during the very same no TV week. She no longer did her rolling over or flipping over. Once a while she still pushed backwards but majority of the time, she was able to get onto her all four -- hands and knees on the floor, tummy off the ground. At first she was tumbling down after each crawl step. After a week, she mastered it and she could just take off to different corner of the house.

HY was willing to spend more time lying down on the floor instead of just sitting. She would try to get on her all four to crawl forward. But, her legs were not strong enough to get her tummy off the ground. She could crawl one step then fell back on her tummy. Her usual tactic towards grandparents was to cry and look with her sad face with no tears to signal grandparents to pick her up and put her closer to where the toy was. Of course I knew that was her trick and I told her that she was doing great and I looked somewhere else. When she knew she had to do it on her own, she tried and tried and screamed a bit, then tried again. She somehow pushed her body to rotate 360 degree and in the process of her rotation, she moved closer to the toy. I had no idea how she figured out that way. It could be just random success. Only if she could repeat that, then it means she really came up with the solution. Otherwise, pure luck, haha.

It was hard not the turn on the TV while the girls were awake. We only watched TV after the girls went to sleep. But, we did it! Even grand parents were cooperating when we told them not to watch TV while the girls around. And, we were glad that we tried and the girls now are more active moving around.

Attack and defense

It was always fun to see the two girls playing together. You can see how they learned about each other and developed new ways to "attack" and "defend".

Most of the time, they sat side by side or facing each other. EY as usual, had interest in whatever HY was playing. EY had this look on her face that once she wanted to get something: her eyes like a radar targetting the object without a blink and her mouth formed a "O" shape, her neck sticking out and action! HY must learned EY's get-ready-action look and she attempted to defend her toy. She would pass the toy from the hand closer to EY to the other hand. EY moved quickly by letting go of her ground support and flew her body at HY to attack. HY got distracted by sister's closeness and did not know what to do. Did EY wanted a hug or kiss or she wanted the toy? Just a little hesitation, EY pulled down HY's arm and reached her target. Once she got the target object, quickly, EY pulled her body back and sat back up. She didn't blink once, mouth remained the "O" shape throughout the attack and retrieve.

New defense from HY yesterday. When she smell the interest of EY on her toy, she passed the toy onto the further hand, then, pushed onto the ground with the available hand to rotate her body so that she would sat her back towards EY. She was using her back to block off EY to protect her toy. That defense move was working and EY didn't know how to get to HY's front and have the open access to the toy again. She was thinking though. She attempted to reach from the back but of course HY easily got away by extending her arm to further the toy from EY.

Well, I am curious what's EY's next move to break the defense from HY. Haha.

Here comes the cries

Well, as we expected, HY's reaction to EY taking her toys has progressively gotten vocal. Remember a few weeks ago, when EY took HY's toy, HY would just look for something else to play. She didn't seem to care much. Last week, when similar situation happened, HY would make a deep loud noise to protest EY's action. She still allowed EY to take the toy. Well, EY didn't seem to care. She paused because of HY's loud noise, then, she carried on examining her new possession.

At the end of last week, HY finally made a move to try to take back the toy after she lost it with a scream to scold EY for her action. EY always had a strong grip on the toys so even HY got a hold of the toy again, she couldn't snap it out of EY's hand. Then, if there were other toys around, HY would pick up another toy to play. Once EY saw HY playing with a different toy, EY wanted to take that, too. It was funny that HY seemed to know that was what EY would do and she snatched her 1st toy back while EY was distracted trying to take her 2nd toy. Once EY got the 2nd toy, she realized that HY had the 1st toy back. This time, EY learned to not to give away what she had while she was getting the 2nd one. One hand verses two hands, HY seemed to be able to defend her possession this time.

Yesterday, HY really wanted her toy back from EY because there was nothing else to play. She attempted but she couldn't even get closed to it because EY turned her body around to protect her toy. HY was frustrated and she screamed and cried out for help. That was the first time that HY cried after losing her toy. I gave her a different toy and she was OK. EY glanced at what I gave HY and didn't seem to show much interest. Good, HY would be able to enjoy it for a while before EY changed her mind :-P

nodding

HY did something this week. She was nodding her head on her own. At first she was testing out that motion. After we imitated her by nodding our heads and saying "YES, YES, YES", she thought it was funny to nod her head. Then, she kept on doing it. She did it while she was siting, while she was crawling and while she was watching TV. Best of all, she always had a big smile when she nodded :-))

multitasking

Our girls are very good at multitasking. When they drink milk, left hand holding a toy and knocking on the milk bottle to make music, right hand with a different toy swinging in the air as if the toy was dancing and flying. And, they are watching TV spout at the same time. Ohh yeah, that's the only way they'll finish their milk without making us do circus moves - one arm with a sitting baby and the other hand holding the milk bottle up and standing on our feet. Why can't they just eat then play? Hehe, sometimes I can't just eat and not talk. So, can't ask them not to multitask, I guess :-P

mobile babies

This week, HY was finally willing to be on her tummy and rolled around at times to reach her favorite toys. We spread out the toys around so that the girls would be motivated to crawl. HY used to be very content with the toy in front of her. Lately, she noticed the other "toys" like the swing, the pack N play, the sofa, the chair, the remote controls, the car seats and she moved out of her comfort zone to explore. I was happy to see her able to get into her crawling position from sitting up pose without falling. She started to get in the trouble of being stuck underneath the sofa because she started to crawl backwards like EY.

EY mastered her crawling backwards and rolling around. She was efficient with those two ways of her mobility. She was strong enough to push up her body above the floor with her arms and legs. That was a sign that she might be ready to crawl forward! She liked the TV remote control a lot, not any remote controls, just the TV one. I put that in front of her where she could not reach without crawling 4-5 steps. She looked at the remote and pushed up her body and one hand forward, one leg forward, then, the body, then the other hand, finally, the last leg! She crawled one step. She was doing it slowly and trembled a bit at the last push. But, she did it. She was not distracted by the first step of sucess, she kept on going and pushed forward! After three moves, she dived herself onto the floor towards the remote and reach her hand out. YES! She got it! My dad and I were watching and we gave her a big applause for that. Next, I made her repeat the act and recorded it with the camera for WY. Yeah, good job EY!

Orange

The girls were always curious with what I was eating. They moved their lids like they were eating. Everyday, I eat my oranges in front of them. I love oranges as many of my friends know. I hope my girls like it too. The girls still don't have any teeth out yet. Their doctor said either me or WY must have our teeth late that why they still didn't have a single tooth out. But they seemed to know how to gum the food before downing it. So, after peeling off the divider clear skin of the orange slice, I pitched out a small piece of the orange to feed it to HY. HY was ready for this new fruit. Immediately, she gummed it and used her tongue to move the food around in her mouth. Her eye brows were slightly curve as if she was thinking hard. Wow, she was trying to taste the new food. EY saw HY got the orange, she opened her mouth and arms towards my hand, making a sound of "hoo, hoo, hoo.." signaling me that she wanted some also. I gave EY a small piece of orange and she was just chewing it with her gum and you could see the excitement on her face. Before I could decide to give them more or not, HY was kicking her legs and extended her hands towards the orange.

I am glad that my girls enjoy the orange like I do :-)

the sock test

One day I came home, grandma made a statement saying EY being smarter than HY. I asked how she came to that conclusion because they were awfully young to be compared that way. Here came the sock test. Grandma and Grandpa demonstrated "THE SOCK TEST".

Grandma first put one of the girls' sock on EY's head. EY noticed something was on her head so she looked up to see whether she could see what that was. By looking up, her head tilted and the sock felt off.

Then, Grandma put the same sock on HY's head. HY glanced at Grandma w/a puzzled look then went on playing with her toys and let the sock on sitting on her head.

"You see, HY didn't know there was a sock and EY knew it. EY is smarter. Hahaha..."
"Hmm... I don't think that proved EY smarter than HY but OK, they seemed to react to things differently. "

In my head I was just glad that the girls didn't understand what grandparents were saying. I didn't think HY liked that statement, haha.

Well, almost one month later, here I showed WY the sock test. I put their little sock on HY's head and HY knew something was there right away. She didn't look up but she used her little hand tried to grab it off instead. After a few attempts, she did successfully. Now, EY's turn. I put the same sock the same way on EY's head. Guess what, she knew it, too and she grabbed it off with her hands, too.

Yeah, two smart girls. They both passed the sock test! Better show Grandma Grandpa this week : -)

Live Shrimp!

In Chinese saying "acting like a live shrimp" describes someone can't sit still and move one's legs and arms around very quickly like a live shrimp in the water.

Haha, lately, I have been using this term on EY. EY got this strong kicks of her legs that she could escape our of my hands when I held her and jumped somewhere. For example, when I bathed her, once she laid down in the tub, her legs kicked the water in a fast and regular pattern as if she have learned how to swim and she was doing the frog kick style. Her kicks were so strong that her bath tub was shaking up. She was so excited and had her mouth wide open and looked at me "Mama, water is so fun. Look at me, I am swimming. " Of course, I could barely hold her in place to clean her. Once we put her on the changing table, she started her kicks again. This time was in the air. With her flapping arms, she thought she could fly! Ohh, trust me, I sweet just to keep her on the table not flying off somewhere. Her last famous kick was when we held her up in the air. She kicked and laughed and if we landed her on a hard surface, she would have jumped so high and escaped our hands. Now, we learned from grandma, we gave EY and HY a toy to hold onto so that they would be occupied and not to escape and increase the difficulty of the simple task - diaper changing.

HY had her live shrimp moments as well. Her move was to arch backwards if she was put down to sit or she had enough food. She waved her hands very fast across her face and no spoons or face cloth would escape that quick swift - creating a big mess on her clothes.

Now, do you understand the term "live shrimp" more?

We gave up sleep train for now

Already?! Yes, it seems to not be productive for both babies and parents at this point. We got even lazier than before. I just put EY in between us in our bed. When she cried, then, we didn't have to leave the bed, either put the pacifier in her mouth or gave her a few strokes to help her back to sleep.

Yeah, not just for the convenience, when you woke up, seeing the girls playing next to you was so so heart melting. They seemed to know that we were sleeping, so, they just played on their own with the pillow cases or the bedding. "they"? Yes, by 4am in the morning, HY would end up in our bed also. Yes, all four of us in a queen size bed, very cozy. Their little cute faces were specially cute after they woke up and relaxed. Their faces were glowing with those red cheeks and sparkling eyes. HY always had a sweet smile and soft look on her face. On the other hand, EY would have an exciting expression when she saw us waking up.

Yes, yes, in my head I was telling myself that we can not do it all the time because they will get used to sleeping in our bed and not be able to sleep in their own bed. What's called a temptation? This is definitely one of them! Need to go back to the RIGHT WAY again!

No sleep training tonight

After two nights of screaming and listening to the screaming, WY and I were mentally exhausted and the girls were physically strained. HY had a big vomit episode today and her tummy must be not feeling well. So, we decided to take a break tonight. No sleep training! Yeah! Two girls both went back to their own bed in the room to sleep and I did my house work in the kitchen after they slept. It was nice to know that no heart breaking cries in my ears tonight. The trade off, I might need to get up 2-3 times during the night. What's better?

ma ma ma...

During the second night sleep training, EY cried out "ma ma ma..." the very first time. Ohh... It was so hard to resist the temptation of picking her up!

HY today cried out "ma ma ma..." while I walked to the kitchen to make their milk. They noticed the new words "da da da and ma ma ma" and they used it in different time. I didn't think they understood the meaning of those words yet but they will soon. Every time they made the sound "da da da", WY and I would point at WY. When they cried for "ma ma ma" and I would talk to them " Ma ma is here, not going anywhere. Ma ma is right here."

HY talked to herself a lot while playing. "Da da da da, da da da, da da" all in different tone. That was the little language of her own. Lately, she has been using her tongue to make funny noises and being entertained by her own sound.

EY lately had a new kind of laugh. She wrinkled her nose, squinted her eyes and opened then closed her mouth quickly with a loud "HA". That was it. It almost was like the fake smile we adult would make. Ohh, yeah, I am sure she picked that up from her Da Da :-P

2nd night of sleep training

It started well with EY. After a bath, HY fell in asleep as usual on her own sucking her thumb. EY cried for about 15 minutes then she fell in asleep as well. The bath helped them relaxed. About 10pm, EY woke up and got onto her tummy. 5 minutes later, she fell in asleep on her tummy position. I repositioned her back to her side. She seemed to like to sleep on her side.

1pm, HY woke up and noticed she was not in her bed and she couldn't fall back in asleep as usual. We gave her some time to try but she would not stop crying. Her cry in the living room actually woke EY up who was in the bedroom with me. They were echoing each others' cry and they didn't seem to want to give up. 30 minutes passed. Finally, HY was picked up by WY and had a big big burp then she quite down. EY stopped and fell in deep sleep as soon as HY stopped crying.

It was a bit easier but the real challenge: Will they ever learn to fall back in asleep after they wake up during the night without crying? If not, one cries and the other wakes up and cries at the same time, I am not sure how that will go if we don't intervene.

Sleep training for twins is not the same as sleep training for individual babies. It is more than double the work:-P

sleep training

Well, after 9 months of lack of sleep and the "strong suggestion" from our Ped doc, we decided to sleep train EY - no pacifier and no holding, she should learn to fall in asleep on her own.

EY normally could fall in asleep sucking a pacifier no problem. But, once she fell in asleep, the pacifier would fall out of her mouth. Then, when she woke up in the middle of the night, she could not go back to sleep because she had nothing to suck on. We would get up 3-4 times to help her find the pacifier and put in her mouth throughout the night. Otherwise, when she woke up, she cried and woke up sister HY. If there was no loud noise, HY would be able to sleep through the night usually. If she was woke up, sometimes she got mad and refused to go back to sleep on her own.

It was not easy. EY woke up at 11pm and I didn't pick her up. We had put HY in the living room so that she would not be bothered by EY's cries. I told EY that she needed to go back to sleep and mama would be next to her. We prayed for her that Jesus would bless her sleep so soft and deep. EY kept on crying, crying and crying. She got up and tried to pull herself up holding onto the crib. I had to put her back down to her back at least five times.

After 75 minutes, EY finally was too tired and she cried herself to sleep. Every 10 minutes or so, she still woke up and screamed a few times and then back to sleep. Then, it was every hour, she woke up and cried a few times and then she went back to sleep on her own. It was not easy 75 minutes. I was constantly praying for EY that God would calm her down and help her. Every loud cry she made, I wanted to give up and just picked her up. By praying to God, I was able to hang in there and allow EY to learn to sleep on her own. It was hard to let go and not jump in to help. Thankfully, I had peace from God and so did EY. She did it! I was so so proud of her!

That was the first night!

Change of position

It was new that EY and HY were able to change their playing position.

About three days ago, EY were rolling around the room to explore. Once she got to the busy zoo toy, where she could hold onto something, she was so brave that she attempted to pull herself up. Sometimes she could actually stood up by pulling onto the top of busy zoo and lift up those chubby legs. Sometime she ended up in kneeling position. If she couldn't get up there, then, she would settle with a sitting pose instead. She even was able to get to her butt and sit up from a crawling position. That was pretty cool. I used to help her sit up if she cried. Now, I tried to encourage her to sit up on her own instead. But when I was next to her, she preferred the help over trying. So, now, I watched her in a distance to allow her to figure things out.

HY didn't quite like crawling but she was the expert on standing. Often after she stood there for fifteen minutes, she would turn around and talked to me and bent her legs at the same time to signal me to help her sit down. Today, she slowly lowered her upper body while bending her knees. By holding tight onto the busy zoo toy, she was able to land her butt on the floor safely without falling.

Let me have yours, HY!

I tried to put one toy in each of their hands once they sat down and left plenty of toys in front of them in case they got bored with what they were playing. Well, yes, EY got bored right away with what she had and she glanced at HY's toy. HY was playing with the book and she banged on it to make sound. Sometimes she tried to grab the pictures and only found that nothing ended up in her hands. And, she tried and tried a few times with a few pictures then she decided to flip the pages. EY leaned forward, with both her hands, she snatched the book from HY's hand. EY had a very firm grip on the book and when HY tried to retrieve her book, she couldn't get it out of EY's hand. EY seemed to know how to protect her possession by turning her body away from HY and HY would not be able to reach the book again.

I saw what was happening so I gave HY another book. HY was happy to get another book so she gave up getting the other book from EY. Well, EY saw HY got another book, she turned back towards HY, dropped what was in her hand, and reached out and once again successfully grabbed the book and pulled it out of HY's hand. Haha, EY was fast. Well, HY looked at EY, no expression on her face, not mad, nor happy, and observed what EY was doing with her book. A minute later, she noticed her old book in front of EY was available, she bent forward until her butt almost up in the air and she would barely maintained her balance without falling forward. She was able to get a hold with that book and took it back to play.

Well, EY saw HY had another book, realized that was the book she left. She now wanted it from HY again. She dropped what she had and approached HY. haha, this could go on for a few rounds until EY decided to hold both books in her hands and HY would look up to me for help.

Occasionally they would screamed at each other during the battle of grabbing toys. As long as no one broke out in tears, it remained entertaining to us. We'll see when things change around.

Where are you going, EY?

Here is the "conversation" WY had with EY:

"EY, this way, come to Baba." WY waving at EY who was in her crawling position between the sofa and WY's reading chair. EY looked at WY and smiled and started to push and move.

"EY, where are you going? Baba is this way, over here, please come here, I'll hold you if you come." Well, EY was trying her best to push with her arms and kick her legs. She was moving, just in a wrong direction. She couldn't crawl forward but she could push backwards. She wanted to go forward but she was going backwards instead. She thought she was moving because she still got a big smile on her face looking at Baba.

"EY, what's under the sofa? you are going into the sofa? Can you fit? your butt won't fit, don't try, come back out? Ohh mine, you are able to got your butt in? Don't go in more, you'll hit your head? Opps, you can't move? Here, this way, push yourself out, come on, this way! Wait, wait, wait, let me help you out." WY had to rescue EY because she managed to push her body underneath the sofa and got her butt stuck and not able to move neither way. She was quite confused on what was happening and the corners of her lips were starting to point downwards which meant she was about to scream and cry. That was when WY went to get her out of trouble.

Yes, that's EY's adventure lately pushing backwards. It was just funny how she didn't seem to know she was going further away from us or she just simply wanted to stay away:-)

Share!

When I put a toy between the girls, they used to just look at them and maybe one of them would grab it and play with it while sister would just look or play with other stuff. This week, the girls seemed to be interested in the same toy. If I gave HY a toy, HY would hold onto it and flipped it around to check it out then maybe she would put it into her mouth to taste it. Before she could complete her examination by looking, EY would lean forward and grab the toy out of HY's hand. HY would try to take it back but EY had a stronger gripe of the toy and she would turn her body to the opposite side of HY so that HY couldn't reach. EY so far was the winner on taking possession of toys. Right now, HY didn't cry after losing the toy. She would try to get it back but if she failed a few attempts, then, she would just look for other things to play. There was only one time she looked at me and gave me sad face and blinked her big eyes then I intervened. I told EY to share with HY. "Let's share. " Then, I took the toy back and put it in between them so that HY would have a chance to get the toy and play with it. EY was fast. The moment the toy was taken from her, her eyes were following it and as soon as I put it down. She reached out and got it again. Then, I would let her play with it for a bit then took it from her to give it to HY. Before I knew it, EY had the toy back in her hands in no time.

Ohh yeah, this is the new concept to the girls. "Share!" "Let's share." I hope they learn to share early in their lives because I don't know how to be fair and make them share. God has to teach me that. Growing up as an only child didn't help on this part. I didn't remember that I learned to share my stuff with others until elementary school. No one needed me to share the toys with when I was little. It will be very different for our girls :-P

The swing in the park

We took the girls out to the neighborhood park last weekend. They enjoyed looking at other kids running around and making all kind of noises. They did attract some attention due to the double stroller. I think soon when we change to a regular double stroller, people won't be able to tell that they are twins unless I dress them the same :-P

The girls have been sitting on the swing at home almost since they were born. Since they could sit up well, we let them try the real swing. The bowl of the swing was too big for them. Their little bodies only filled one third of the bowl. It didn't matter. The girls loved the swing motion as they used to it at home. They leaned forward with their chests onto the bowl of the swing and one hand held onto the bowl and one hand grabbed onto the chain. They were quite stable on the swing surprisingly. We didn't swing them too high worry that they would lose balance and tip over. HY loved it and she had a big smile on her face as we pushed her up. EY enjoyed it but she was more distracted by other kids who were running around and screaming. She was curious about what was going on around her than the swing itself.

It was almost sunset and the sunlight landed on their fussy hair which finally started to grow. Their hair was so short that they were standing up in the top of their heads but very soft. The sun light gave them a glow and that just made them look like angels! They are my lovely angels!

push "ur....ahh:

Now the girls have been eating solid for a couple of months, their by product is getting less runny and more chunky. That means they have to really push them out, haha. Sorry this may sound gross, but, their pushing facial expressions are very funny.

They would bend their lower back, straighten their legs, extend and harden their neck, open mouth midway, allow the drools to fall freely, stare straight ahead with their slight red and watery eyes, hold her breath and make the sound of "ur.... ahh, ur...ahh" at their throat. Imagine that every time they put on that face, we couldn't help laughing and look away to try to give them some privacy. When they were done, they would look up at you with a big relief on their face and continued on their fun activities.

who is more independent?

Our girls are turning 9 months old soon. They are just more and more fun to play with. Also, they require for a lot of attention. It becomes clear to us that HY prefers our presence all the time and EY is OK to sit there and play on her own for a while. Despite the fact that I hate to make a specific statement about that, HY has tired out their grandparents and us when she refuses to sit by herself but insists being held or helped to stand. I feel bad that she cries for attention and I try my best to be there but then I have no time to even eat or drink or go to the bathroom. Their grandparents for sure give in to her then complain about her every time, haha. They praise EY because she is relatively lower maintenance. I hope HY will get better later otherwise she is asking to be the less favorite one in grandparents' eyes :-)

However, HY is the friendly one when it comes to hang out with their uncles and aunties. HY is OK with unfamiliar faces as long as we are around after her warm up. She will be OK to be held by an auntie or uncle. EY takes longer to warm up. She is scared of being held other than us. She prefers to sit next to us and she gives you her stare.

So, who is more independent? I don't have the answer. It depends on the situation. But, who cries more for attention during the day, is HY :-P. Who cries more for attention at night during sleep, is EY :-P

Conclusion: They need our attention ALL THE TIME - Day and Night!

standing up

I might have blogged about this already, but, HY was able to stand holding on to the coach or busy zoo toy and the slat of the crib on her own. She could not last too long but she was able to maintain her balance for a minute or so. She prefers standing over sitting or laying down. It has been a problem because we couldn't feed her food too well while she was standing. And, we got tired bending over to support her by her arm pits. EY was able to stand as well, but she didn't have a strong preference like HY. EY got very efficient with her rolling around on the floor. She now would get into her crawling position but she didn't know how to use her legs to push forward yet. She pushed her body above the ground and ready to move forward. Maybe EY would start crawling very soon and HY may skip crawling and learned how to walk first.

DA DA DADADA...

Yes, HY started to say DA DA DADADA. Hahaha, I don't think she knew what it meant but it meant a whole lot to her daddy. HY lately has been very dependent such as she would prefer being standing with help over sitting on her own. When she cried for us to hold her up standing, she said "Dadada-dada-dadada". That was the first word she said other than the "cooing sound".

Time to lower the crib mattress again:-)

The crib is becoming more fun than just a sleeping place. HY loved to stand by the slat and held onto it so that she could stand. Of course I put my arms around her just in case she let go of the slat and fell. Even though I was prepared, sometimes, she was just too fast to catch and fell on her side. Luckily she didn't hit her head. Since I was right there and picked her right up, she didn't cry. EY loved to roll and flip around inside the crib. We could find her 90 degrees away from her original position. She loved to peek through the slats of the crib to see where sister, Dada and Mama were at. She would curve her back backwards to look at our bed so much that she could make a half circle with her body.

Yesterday, I put the girls at there own crib and let them sit face to face. They thought that was so funny that they could see each other between the slats. They were just cracking up looking at each other. EY was so excited that she also pulled down the bumper. HY was grabbing onto the slat and even pulled her bottom off the crib mattress! Wow, I was impressed how strong these girls were. Soon, they could pull themselves up in the crib! Time to lower the mattress again!

refuse to sit

The girls have mastered this new technique lately to avoid being put down on their bottom. Arching their backs and kept their legs straight. You would think how strong can a little baby be. Well, they managed to got everyone to give in not putting them down sitting up. They also learned if they didn't want to be in the exer-saucer, when they were lift up to put into the exer-saucer, they would curl up their legs so that we couldn't thread their legs through the seats and they would end up standing on the seat instead of sitting. Then, we were forced to lift them back out of the exer-saucer. That act had made grandpa very frustrated and mad. Grandpa couldn't get them to sit in the exer-saucer and his back was hurting holding them up in the air and tried to figure out what to do. Well, I guess we have more than a handful to deal with now!

Growing and changing

HY used to like her space and she would pull back if we stuck our faces too closed to hers. She would avoid your eyes if you were too closed to her. For a while I thought she might have significant amount of hyperopia because she would prefer distance and dislike things were closed to her.

EY used to be the quiet one who sat there to welcome everything with her innocent and warm smile. She didn't mind that you got your face right up to hers. She would just give you a big blink and stare at your nose or eyes, not forgetting to give you a friendly smile.

Well, the girls were growing and changing. Well, HY became quite sensual. Not only she didn't mind us getting very closed to her face, she loved it. When you stuck your face up against hers, she would closed her eyes and relaxed and prepared to feel your skin rubbing on her face. She would rub her forehead into your cheek and made a soft sound that she was expressing her enjoyment. She would put her little warm hand on your face and gave you a gentle brush.

It was funny that when I put EY next to HY side by side and with their shoulders touching , they would look at each other and made that special soft sound, then, closed their eyes and leaned on each others' head with their own head. When they felt the touch of the skin, they would rub their forehead back and forth on each others' face and head. Then, one of them would fall forward into her sister's arms. The remain sitting sister would pat her sister's head and face with her cute little chubby hand. Most of the time I would interfere at this point in case their little fingers ended up into eyes or nose or mouths. "space" I called. They would heard me and paused and I took the hands off the sister's head.

They loved to be kissed, specially a big one on their face and neck. They always giggled when you made loud noises kissing them. When you kissed them on their forehead, they would give you a sweet blink with a sweet soft sound back to thank you for the love. Ohh, I just love kissing and hugging my two babies!

EY was a lot more active now than before. She would roll around on the floor and couldn't sit still. HY would to stand on her feet and refused to sit. Ohh well, they are really changing everyday!

What is that?

Our girls became very curious about everything. They tried to grab anything is near them, such as each others bibs, sister's head and clothes, sister's feet, mama's legs, mama's toes, dada's pants, mama's hair specially. They also paid very strong interest in what WY and I ate. At first they would just stared at the food. We would explained to them what it was. When there was no sign that we were going to let them have a bite, they tried to escape our arms to attack the food with their own little hands. You could see the eager and determination in their eyes. They couldn't wait to eat the real food, I guess. Or, they just wanted to play with it. Who knows what?! It was just fun to see them stopping playing with their toy and turned to us and observed how we ate and tried to have a grab of it.

The New Toy - Soft book

The girls must be teething -- they have been biting on everything, toys, fingers (theirs and mine), pillows, blankets, stuff animals, books, whatever they could get a hold off. So, I bought them a new toy, a soft book.

I put it a bit further away from them so that they could not just reach out to it sitting where they were. Their attention immediately were captured by this new toy. While EY was attempting to reach the toy bending her body extremely flat, HY dived forth-ward and landed her cheek in front of the soft book. Quickly, she rolled onto her back and grabbed the soft book and started to play with it. EY could only watch since HY got the book. EY was sitting by HY's legs and looking at the book eagerly with her little mouth open, breathing heavily "hu, hu, hu", arms open in the air pointing at HY.

HY didn't quiet know how to handle the book. She flipped it around and around and all of a sudden the book felt out of her hand and landed by her toes. Wow, as soon as the soft book fell out of HY's hands, EY was ready to take process of it. She immediately grabbed the book and pressed onto the pages to make noises. She was so happy!

HY knew she lost the book. She turned around and looked at sister play and just sucked onto her fingers for comfort. She attempted a few times to reach out to the book but EY had a good grip on it. HY even tried pulling EY's arm but EY was stronger and brushed her hand off right away.

After EY played with the soft book for a while, poor HY was just watching. I told EY to share with HY and took the book from EY and put in front of them again, to give HY a chance to reach the book. Well, EY was fast! She got to it again! Well, I should have bought two of them, saying to myself :-P

rolling and pushing

I put the toys purposely further away from where the girls were sitting. For a whole day, they were just staring at them. HY attempted once to reach out to the toys by rolling her body. But, it seemed like she only did it by accident. Since she fell on her side and she took advantage of if and rolled to the toys. EY was in her safe position, sitting steadily and looking at the mirror and toys. She attempted to reach forwards to the toys but not any risky attempts.

EY all of a sudden became quite adventurous yesterday and today. She let go of her usual safe pose. Instead, she took a fall into the pillow behind her, then, rolled onto her tummy to get off the pillow. With another rolling over, she was on her back lying on the floor. Now the toys were just right at her finger tips. She enjoyed rolling so much that she actually ignored the toys and kept on rolling on the floor. She was practicing and perfecting her new skills. I laid down on the floor at the edge of the blanket so that she would not roll out of the blanket. She used me as a target and rolled into me from where she was. She certainly felt mission accomplished when her head landed into my face:-) Yes, you can tell, she got a big smile on her face, just 1 cm away from my glasses :-P

EY continued her adventure on her new abilities. She pushed her body up and her tummy was off the floor. Wow, she got stronger! She kicked her legs a few times and pushed -- backwards! She moved! She pushed herself to move backwards!

It will be just matter of time that they will start crawling! Ohh mine!

Body massage

When we put the girls down in bed, they didn't want to sleep yet. They felt tired but they were enjoying being held by us after a long day of waiting (Other than Sunday, there was only one of us at home taking care of the girls. So, we couldn't hold them most of the time. They played on the exer-saucer or sat on the floor during the day. After work, WY and I finally could hold them in our arms and had played time after their meal.) But, their bedtime came soon after the fast feeding and there were tons of things to be done after they went to bed. So, we tried to get the girls to bed before 9pm.

To calm the girls down, we tried to give them a body massage. We opened our hands flat onto their shoulders and put slight pressure onto their shoulders, then, maintained the pressure as we moved our hands from their shoulders to toes, smoothing their legs; then, we started again from the shoulder down to the tips of their fingers. At first they didn't know what we were doing, rather quickly, they paused their cries and relaxed, and let their body to be straight, then, quiet down, smiled and enjoyed the massage! They certainly knew how to be pampered!

However, they loved it so much when we stopped the massage, they usually cried for some more :-P

Silly game time

Giggle time was me playing silly for the girls and they laughed and laughed.

They sat on the floor and got bored playing their toys. Here came mama. I laid down in front of them with my back towards them. Quickly, I turned around and made a silly face at them. They cracked up and laughed. Before they stopped laughing, I turned my back at them again and kept my body still and not to move a bit. One of them was anticipating me turning around and she stopped laughing and got ready for the next round of laugh. The other one still thought I was funny or something, couldn't stop laughing. Of course, when I turned around in a sudden, they broke out in laughter. They got so excited that they kicked their legs and sticking their little tongues out and arms in the air! Then, I started to laugh too because of their funny expressions and laughter.

We could play this game over and over again for 30 mins and they would keep on laughing! I loved those high pitch laughter they made. That was priceless!

Sick time :-(

I didn't have time to blog at all in the past two weeks because both girls were sick. They caught a stomach bug at 2 months of age when they kept on throwing up, had a rash and green diarrhea. We didn't know if they were gassy and had their poo changed as they grew up until HY had broken out into a rash all over her body, then, we took them to the doctor. Well, not much the doctor could do. They eventually got better on their own in a few days. They were just more gassy and we had to burp them more otherwise they spit up a large amount of milk. We only fed them breatmilk then.

Two Saturdays ago, I was driving to work. WY kept on calling me. He usually would not call while I was at work unless something that he needed to tell me. Finally I parked my car and called him back. He said HY had a fever of 102. What?! I was worried. I noticed she had a stuffy nose last night sleeping but I thought it could also be her heavy breathing. It turned out they both caught RSV. Well, our sleepless nights began -- yes, all four of us.

It was hard for all of us. The girls had a lot of post nasal congestion and they kept on coughing if they laid down to sleep. It was not comfortable and difficult to breath if you were chocking by your postnasal drip and you needed to breath through your mouth. So, our girls were so fuzzy if we put them down to sleep. The first night, HY had such a high fever and she was so tired, she cried and slept and cried. She didn't want to eat, neither. I woke her up every 4 hours to give her Tylenol. By the next day, her fever was down below 100.

EY started later than HY but EY had more severe symptoms. EY's fever was up at 101 even though we gave her Tylenol. She had so much post nasal drip that she would not let me put her down at all. I ended up holding her up right all night, yes, all night! One of my arms would fall in asleep because of lack of movement and her heavy head. I had to switch her to the other side of my shoulder. Poor girl, every time I moved, she woke up and cried and coughed. She was tired, not comfortable and feeling ill and not able to sleep. I didn't know how I pulled it off. I remembered looking at the clock in the living room and counting down the hours to sunrise, then to 7am.

WY didn't get much sleep neither. He had to take care of HY in our bedroom who woke up on and off every 1-2 hours and he had to walk her back to sleep.

The second night, both of them couldn't sleep on their back. After holding them till 1am, both of us were exhausted. An idea popped up my head. Remembered WY's brother used to push a stroller around the house to get CaY to fall in asleep. Let's try that. I set up the double stroller and put both of them in it. It worked! 5 minutes into it, both of them stopped crying and dozing off. I slowed down the pace gradually. Finally, they sounded sleep, with loud snoring. I brought out my blanket and slept on the sofa in case of the girls woke up and I could get to the kitchen quickly to push the stroller.

It was good that finally I could lay down to rest a bit. I was hoping they would sleep at least 2-3 hours in the stroller. Well, one of them woke up after 1 hour and I got up to push the stroller. Quickly, 2 mins, she fell back in asleep. I went back to my sofa and felt in asleep right away. I thought I slept for 4 hours but when I was awaken by the next cry, looking at the clock, it was just one hour later. As time went on, the girls woke up more frequently probably because they needed to stretch their bodies and they couldn't in the stroller.

Finally, the morning come...

Milk Time!

Usually we fed them milk on the coach, with a pillow support their back at a 45 degree angle. They would sit then lean back and open their mouths and the bottles in. They would try to grab the bottles, not holding it, but bang on it with their little hands. When I was alone feeding both girls, I put a pillow on top of their bodies to support the bottles. It worked when they just focused on drinking. Lately, both of them were bangging the pillow and the bottles got moved. I would tell them please not move the bottles but as you know they just kept on doing it. They seemed to like the sound the pillow was making when they striked on it. 'Well, as long as they were drinking the milk, I was OK with the additional noise :-P

HY lately had a very relaxed and lazy pose when she drank her milk. She used her right hand holding onto her right toes in the air, leaning her body on her left side. Her left arm was supporting her body to remain balance to drink from the bottle. EY was too busy bangging on the pillow with her hands, both hands, as if she was playing drums. Multi-taskers!