Gramps

 There have been a lot of tears in our home this past week.

The world has lost a very good, kind, compassionate man; and heaven has gained a valiant angel.

It came quite unexpectedly as Gramps was young, healthy, active and vibrant at the beginning of summer.  Even once the doctors found cancer they said it was slow-growing and treatable.  Then each additional update was more concerning. D was leaving for the airport to fly from Korea to Canada to visit Gramps when we heard he had died.

I didn’t grow up spending summers with Gramps on the farm like my husband did; but from the moment I first met Gramps, I was his family.  He was a protector and a nurturer.  He would bend over backwards to be able to help or support us in anyway.  We always felt loved and cared for by Gramps.

Last summer we went to “the farm” in Canada to visit Grams & Gramps and for our kids to experience all the things my husband enjoyed there as a child.

We flew into (Great Falls, MT), an airport about 3 hours from the farm.  And we arrived in the middle of the night.  Guess who was parked at the curb in his suburban waiting for us when we arrived?  Yep.  Gramps.  He had brought pillows, blankets, snacks and a DVD for the kids to be comfortable on the long drive.  He was worried about D and I being tired, so he drove the whole way.  I think we arrived at the farm around 4 am.

Often there are quite a few family members at the farm, but it was just us, D’s mum and Grams & Gramps.  This was pretty special because it meant our kids spent all their time interacting and making memories with Grams & Gramps.

21 Weeks Pregnant with the Twins

Gramps was the first person on D’s side that we told about the pregnancy.  We were outside the stable, readying the horses to ride and Gramps offered to saddle one up for me.  D said, “she can’t ride because she’s pregnant.”  Then Gramps stopped what he was doing and looked at me with a big grin declaring, “well is that so.”  He was doubly pleased to hear it was twins.  I told Gramps, “I’m sure you could tell just by looking at me.”  He generously said something along the lines of, “No, you just look like you’ve been enjoying a little ice cream after dinner….like we all should.”  (Gramps is a huge proponent of ice cream.  He had a deep freezer dedicated to it.  When you are around Gramps you always have delicious “double churned” chocolate ice creams. He also will make you a green smoothie every morning, with a huge straw so you can slurp up all the goodies like mini chocolate chips and sun flower seeds or pine nuts.)

She was scared to feed the horse but Gramps gently, tenderly, patiently showed her how fun it could be.

Eating Gram’s famous dough babies

See that sad little girl in the above picture.  Normally she loves dirt in any form so her dad pelted her relentlessly with mudballs. She was not a fan (although surprisingly her brother who abhors getting dirty had a grand old time.)  While daddy and brother were laughing and rolling in the mud; Gramps put his arm around this little lady. led her into the water, and while she continued WAILING he pulled off her muddy shirt, rinsed it in the water, and with the utmost care and tenderness, gently wiped all the mud off her while telling her a story.  (Look at the splash in the right corner, D is still firing…)

Every day at the farm, Gramps and Bradshaw would go out horseback riding for several hours.  They’d come in around lunch time, get some water and within minutes Bradshaw would be begging Gramps to go out and ride the horses with him “just a little more.”  Gramps usually would sit in his comfy recliner with the massage pad, take a quick nap, and they’d be back out on the horses.  Gramps sure made a cowboy out of Bradshaw!

Tonight B was crying that he will never see Gramps again.  He is so sad that he will never get to ride horses with him again.

We told B to not forget how he feels.  It’s hard when you love someone so much because then when you are away from them you miss them so much.  When we think of how VERY BADLY we want to see them again and be with them again we are motivated to work hard to get to heaven.

B:  but that’s SOOOO much work.  It’s too hard.  What if I can’t do it?  …then I will never see him again (he begins crying harder.)

US:  Yeah, It is hard.  It is work.  But it is totally doable. You CAN do it!  Jesus made it so that everyone CAN do it. Jesus made it possible.

B: I know.  …..you know if Jesus didn’t [make it possible], no one would be able to go there.  We’re pretty lucky he did that for us.

Twins: 7 Months

[Better a little reflection, than none at all.]

Right around the twins 7-month birthday, we took the family to Hong Kong and Bali.  As we passed through customs in the Hong Kong airport, one of the airport staff took a scanner gun and from a few feet away pointed at each of the children.  It beeped while aimed at their heads, then she said, “no fever, you may pass through.”  We had never come across this health precaution in any airport before.  Then I began hearing murmurs about Avian Flu and seeing dozens of huge signs stating the symptoms to watch for.  Long story short, we were in HK 24 hours and by the time we leave Bonnie had all the symptoms (raging fever, cold, etc.) we debated going on to Bali.  She was sicker there.  Then it blew up and the next morning she bit me really hard while nursing.  Voila.  Her first tooth had popped through!  I had a good cry over saying goodbye to her gummy smile of babyhood.

Colt has the beginning of his first tooth in the same spot.

While nursing, Bonnie loves to explore my face–Helen Keller style.  She will grab a fistful of my cheek, pull on my bottom lip, hook a finger inside my cheek, stick her fingers up my nostrils.  But she is also really sweet.  Tracing my face and patting me with her soft little hands.

Every day, strangers make faces and silly sounds and wave excitedly at the babies. The babies stare back blankly without moving a muscle.  Then one day, Colt extended his little chubby arm and very slow twisted his wrist back and forth in a wave.  {I love these first discoveries!}  He has practiced a lot since then and Bonnie has begun waving as well.  We cheer when they do it and they seem to be aware and proud of themselves.

Colt is more verbal than Bonnie.  Long ago he said “da-da.”  Several weeks ago he began cooing, “Ma-ma.”  I know it’s babbling but the way he look at me so intently with his face full of light makes my heart rocket up into the galaxies.

Mobility:  Bonnie seems to be on the cusp of crawling.  She comfortable rolls either directions and can push-up and rock back and forth.  Colt still hates tummy time and screams into the rug after a few minutes.  He cannot roll either direction.  At the end of the day his neck always seems to hurt him and he can’t hold his head upright (he’ll be hunched over with his chin in his chest.)  It’s sad.  I hope it’s okay developmentally.

Twins: 6.5 Months

Since the twins came home from the hospital they have been sleeping together in a travel crib.  Last week, Colt kept crying out at night. I’d pop up to check on them and both babies would be sound asleep with placid looks on their faces.  I figured baby CoCo was having bad dreams UNTIL I happened to see Bonnie roll-over, whack him in the face, and roll back!

Bonnie has become increasingly mobile and often thrashes around while she is falling asleep (she has a signature move.  The one where you are laying on your back and whip your legs under you to pop up to standing.)  Poor Colt often receives a beating from his sister without being able to roll away or even put his hands up to shield his face!! So we bought a second-hand crib and while it’s bittersweet to have them apart, they seem to be sleeping much more peacefully.

Bonnie has developed a few tricks.  If we say “KISS!” she’ll press a big, open guppie mouth against your face.  (The smell of her face and mouth and kiss is so sweet and her little mouth so soft.)

Tongue/Lip Ties

Off and on since birth I have worried that Bonnie has a lip tie.  Her latch, while correct, is SO DIFFERENT from Colt’s.  It’s like she has a beak and chomps instead of sucking.

While he latch is stronger than Colt’s, it’s much less effective.  She rarely drains the milk on her side, like Colt does easily.

In the early months, every time we nursed she would throw her head back and wail.  She seemed to get frustrated after a 15 seconds. She has never been a long nurser.  It was Bonnie’s norm.

But I’ve kept experimenting with her, and around 5 months or so I discovered some tricks to compensate for her latch/sucking and those occasional successes are LIKE GOLD!  She never stops wiggling when she’s awake so it was shocking to see her after a full feed—she was completely relaxed despite being wide awake; she was laying on the bed, not stirring, with a contented grin on her face.

It doesn’t always work (and it’s a lot of extra work that comes at the cost of my other baby wailing for me the entire 30-40 minutes) but it’s an improvement!

I’ve asked at a couple of medical centers but they either didn’t know what it was or didn’t know how to help me.  Breastfeeding is not very common in Korea.  The older generation seems to think it is unhealthy and unsanitary.  But there is a HUGE movement in Seoul to encourage breastfeeding and many more mamas are.  Part of that movement includes government mandated “Baby Rooms” (also called “Suckle Rooms.”)  I have been spoiled by the beautiful, comfortable “Baby Rooms” found in subway stations, parks, malls, etc.  And because nursing isn’t common, I have the rooms all to myself!

As I’ve continued to research tongue-ties I discovered that clipping the tongue tie is (or was?) illegal in Korea.  Parents believed it would help their children speak English more without an accent and so they would rush out to get their babies/preschoolers tongues clipped without any medical necessity.

 

Bonnie and Colt continue to be as different as the sun and the sea.  Nursing is a social event for Colt and he likes my undivided attention.  If one of the big kids comes into the room to ask a question, he will stop nursing, lay back and patiently wait for them to leave before resuming.  Even if I pull out my cell phone, he will stop nursing and wait for me to finish before continuing.

He is a social man and will occasionally detach, tell and animated story and the moment the last syllable is out, he’ll go right back to nursing.  It’s like he just needed to get that tidbit of information off his chest.

Well most of the Colt stories are about food. I was in church after sacrament and I was chatting in the overflow with Colt on my lap.  He was grinning at the friend and mid-conversation decided he was hungry and dive-bombed my shirt with great accuracy.

When Colt is laying down and crying, all of his tears run into his ears, forming little pools.

Twins: 4.5 months old

The twins did soooooo well sleeping through the night for 4+ weeks that we decided to officially move them out of our room and into the nursery.  (Good job twinsies!)

We must’ve jinxed it.

They went from FANTASTIC sleepers to waking up 5-6 times at night (now take that number and multiple it by two.)

I didn’t see it coming, so when they woke up during the night I though it was a fluke and would only feed one baby before groggily plodding back to bed.  45 minutes later the other baby would wake crying.

At least I could nap during the day, right?  Wrong.  They were tag-teaming me even then!  I wasn’t being diligent about their schedule so one would wake from a nap RIGHT as the other was falling asleep.

It’s a vicious cycle. I think I went 10 days without more than an hour of consecutive sleep, day or night.

One of these night, D was working late and wouldn’t be home until long after everyone was asleep.  It had been a rough afternoon/evening of sass and fighting from the big kids, although I’d fed them dinner I’d never gotten a chance to eat and was starving.  I hadn’t eaten because the babies were off schedule and angry screaming in unison.  (Sounds funny but it sends my stress levels through the roof.)  I was trying to keep my voice steady as I sang the nighttime lullabies and do the normal cheery routine as if they weren’t balling their eyes out but it looked like a long night ahead and tears kept dripping off my face.  At this moment, Kimchi snuck out of bed for water and saw me crying and ran up and threw his arms around my neck. “Tomorrow, Mom, I want to be so much better.”   

So, what caused the sleepless-ness?  All sorts of sickness raged through our family in the past month (stomach flu?  headcold?).  Pollution has been up which causes labored breathing for Colt.  They both have the constant drool and hot swollen gums indicative of teething.  Bonnie had an episode of night terror.  Our neighbors septic blockage seeped into our place in the middle of the night causing disruption.  The list goes on and on but I think it was just a growth spurt.

I believe if they don’t get enough calories during the day they will wake up during the night to get in extra feeds. And the twins woke up starving!

D and I talked about introducing food or supplementing with formula.  The thought of them being hungry makes me feel awful.  I know there’s a limit on how much my body can do for them. Right now it’s providing 100% of the sustenance to sustain 35 lbs worth of babies.

Anyway, a few days into the sleepless nights, we moved them back into our bedroom.  We made a battle plan. I fed them more frequently during the day and made an extra effort to get in full feeds.

The last two nights (March 20th and March 21st) they’ve sleep through the night (mostly–8:30pm to 5:30, then they’ll go back to sleep until 8am.)  SO GREAT!!   I hope this means they getting adequate nutrition.  I’m still apprehensive about it.

And, I am still extremely exhausted.  (I unloaded and put away an entire dishwasher’s worth of dirty dishes.  They’re all mixed in now.)  So very sleepy.  G’night blogosphere.

Tales of Tofu (4 years old)

Never underestimate the determination of a 4-year-old.  She asked to watch part of a movie (Frozen.)  I said, yes but that she needed to clear dinner dishes from the table first. Well, I was in my own world nursing the babies on the couch.  Then I hear the sound of the dishwasher starting.  (She had cleared the table, scrubbed the dishes out, loaded them along with the rest in the sink into the dishwasher, pulled out the soap from under the sink, untwisted the child-proof lid, filled the spot and started the dishwasher.)  Then she set my laptop up beside the TV, found the HDMI cord, hooked up the laptop up to the TV, entered my password on the laptop, found the file and started it,

Tofu is gassy and potent, poor girl.  My sister Lindy was riding on the bus with Tofu when Tofu had some sbd gas.  The smell hit Lindy right as Tofu, without guile, says “what is that AMAZING smell?!!!”

We frequently have friends stop by asking if Tofu wants to come over for a playdate.  Most of the time, she will tell them no, that she wants to stay home with her babies.  A few months ago when the babies started smiling she came home from a playdate and ran in asking, “How many smiles did I miss?”  Me: “Just a couple.” Tofu, on the verge of tears, “I shouldn’t have gone!!!”  Another time, one of the neighbor boys was over and Tofu squealed in excitement, “Let’s play with the babies!!”  The boy looks at the babies laying on the playmat and says, “Nah, I have one of those at home.”

[Sidenote] One lesson that the kids have really taken to heart is that babies are wanted and treasured in our family.  There has been no formal (or even intentional) teaching of this lesson but I think it has been a side-effect of the way we think and talk and pray about family members.  Sort of an osmosis of the feelings of our hearts.

• Kimchi: “I’m going to get married when I’m 18!”
• D: “Well, you can’t go on a mission then, you start missions at 18.”
• Kimchi: “Okay, I’m going to get married when I’m 19!”
• D: “Well a mission takes 2 years, you’d be in the middle of your mission.”
• Kimchi: “Okay, 20.  I’ll finish my mission and get married at 20.”
• Me: “Kimchi, why do you want to get married so quickly?”
• Kimchi: “Babies.  I want to get married and have my own babies so badly.”

Haha.  Surely we need to swing that pendulum back and find some balance for him to carpe diem his own babyhood/childhood, but he has a tender heart and overflowing affection for the babies.

Along the same vein, Tofu and I are together 24-7.  She is my best little friend and a marvelous companion.  For better for worse, her little world is consumed with things from my bucket of responsibilities and I find her sweet little voice saying things like, “Wow Mom, you pumped all that milk?!  You are magical!  I am so proud of you.  That makes me so happy.”  (I’ve also caught her many times rubbing lansinol on her little chest buttons and stuffing nursing pads down her shirt.)  

While she is incredibly responsible in many areas she continues to keep us on our toes and regularly visit the ER.  In one week, she drank mouthwash and cleaning solution.  (Chugged it like milk.)  Luckily, in both scenarios I was prompted to go check on her at that very moment.  Luckily, she is fine.

She’s also been doing some zany things at night: sleepwalking through the dark apartment for long periods of time and one night she rolled back and forth across the wood floor in our bedroom for over an hour.

D and Tofu were walking down an alley near our house going to pick-up take-out. A gaggle of women in their mid-twenties stop to gush over Tofu (happens a lot here, I had multiple people, other patients, taking videos of the twins at the doctor’s office.)  D said to Tofu, “those ladies said you are very pretty.”  Tofu responded with, “Yeah, I know.  Everybody really likes me.”

Vocabulary by Tofu:

• pinkie: a combination of “pink” and “binkie”; all pacifiers are called “pinkies.”
• comspolsion.  Ex: Oh no, baby Bonnie’s diaper comsploded all up her back!
• satchamated:  Ex: Her diapers is really satchamated; we should change it

Baby Colt’s name is really difficult for non-English speakers.  (At one hospital his records are under “Cott” and at another hospital they are under “Cort.”  I told the reception that it is “C-O-L-T,  L as in the word LOVE.”  The response was, “Yes, Airl as in Royve.”  Can’t argue that!  Seriously, I’m lucky so many people speak my language, when I speak none of theirs yet I am presumptuous enough to try to find the nuances of my language in their country. i recognize my arrogance and the absurdity.  For what it’s worth I’m so grateful for the sacrifices so many have made to learn English and that we can be so comfortable here.)  Anyway, Tofu hears me say a lot, “Colt means boy horse.”  She loves playing puppy and naturally she came up and asked me, “is there a name for a girl dog?”

Plans:  we are hoping to find and enroll her in gymnastics.

Ramblings on sleep and poop.

D was gone on a business trip right around the twin’s 3 month “birthday.”  Before he left, I was apprehensive about him leaving because evenings with the twins were still challenging.

During the day, the babies had a pretty predictable, consistent schedule and would go down for naps without fussing. Evenings were a different story.  The evenings unfurled without a plan or schedule, which worked fine when they were tiny but around two months of age, the evenings became frightful.  I could feel it coming on as the sky darkened.  The babies would cry because they were EXHAUSTED so we’d put them in their beds and they’d cry even harder without falling asleep.  When they actually did fall asleep they’d wake 15 minutes later crying again!  It was so stressful I felt like my insides were being wrung.  This cycle repeated from about 8pm to 11pm.  (My sister Lindy can attest to how awful it was because she was here at the peak of it.)

Anyway, I was nervous to face that solo. BUT the business trip turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I was forced to face it!  My two ideas were to:

1. establish a bedtime routine (and I love the phrase, “start as you intend to continue”–in other words, I knew the routine had to be short and simple) and
2. to put them to bed earlier, before they became over-tired.

I planned on the plan not working and continuing to experiment but–BOOM!–the first try worked!!  And suddenly the evenings were calm and tear-free!  (And I’m pretty sure the babies were saying, “Thank you Mommy!!  Finally you understood what we were saying!)  The days were already great so when the nights fell into place–life with twins became so doable.

• The twins started off sleeping 11p-6:30a (that was when the evening schedule was still bad.)
• Then the twins began sleeping 9p-6:30a (that was when a bedtime routine was implemented)
• Now they are consistently sleeping 9p-8a

How the twins have changed since last month:

While D was on his business trip, baby Bonnie began rolling over and baby Colt laughed for the first time.  Three months old is a big deal!

Of course they’ve grown. Colt is 17+ lbs.  Bonnie is 15 lbs. 8 oz.  They seemed to jump from wearing 3-month clothing to wearing 9-12 month clothing.  Today baby Bonnie is wearing an outfit Tofu wore when she was walking.

Baby Bonnie is amazingly mobile for 3 months.  Each time I go to get her up from her nap she’s rotated and in a difference part of the bed with an arm or leg through the slats of the crib.  I thought I was going loco(!) until I watched her scoot through the play mat and out across the wood floor.  She repeatedly digs in her heels and pushes off. 

Baby Bonnie has also become fascinated with Colt’s face.  It is by far her favorite thing to look at.  She will scan the room until she finds him.  Colt doesn’t really seem to be aware of baby Bonnie. (Although, they sleep with a blanket rolled in between them so they don’t knock heads.  One night I pulled out that blanket roll to re-roll it and Colt looked to the right and almost jumped out the crib he was so startled by seeing baby Bonnie’s little.  His eyes were bugging out of his face, “What?!  How long has she been there?”)

Also, Baby Bonnie fasted from going #2.  It had been 4 days and I was worrying but she hadn’t shown any signs of discomfort.  On Sundays at church, I get to catch up with my twin-mom friend.  She has boy-girl twins exactly a month older than Colt and Bonnie.  She was inspired when she asked me, “has either baby stopped pooping?” She went on to tell me her daughter just stopped “going” right around 3 months.  She lives on base and has access to military medical care so she took her daughter to a pediatrician who said up to 14 days can be normal, even for babies who are EBF!!!! Who knew?! 

Baby Bonnie has become more content.  Baby Colt has become a lot more fussy.  So they reversed roles.

Things that make twins easier than they could be otherwise:

All the obvious things: when they nap, when they nap at the same time, when they entertain themselves, when D is home, having the crock pot make dinner.  Keeping a record of WHEN they eat and sleep so that when they are fussy I can anticipate what they need.

The twins are heavy sleepers.  Colt naps in a travel crib in the middle of the living room. Even with the vacuum or blender going or a house full of kids, jumping and screaming on the trampoline a few feet from his face, he stays asleep.  Bonnie sleeps in the nursery but the door is open and we can go about normal life without worrying about her waking.    

My mom.  Just talking to her on the phone will refill my emotional energy tank.  She is a fantastic listener, non-judgmental, cheerful and empowering.  I’m so lucky to be her daughter.

My neighbor Elexis.  I found myself telling someone, “she’s one of the most Christian people I know!”  Then I couldn’t stop laughing at myself.  Because she’s an observant Jew (head covered, only eats kosher, follows Shabbis laws, etc.)  I was using the term “Christian” like “magnanimous,” because they are synonyms to me. I see her everyday.  She keeps my sanity in check when I don’t get out.  She takes Huey to the playground.  She sits with the babies most days while I go to meet Bradshaw from the school bus. 

Things that make having twins hard:

All the obvious things.  Double the work. Even worse; double, triple, quadruple the mommy-guilt.  Even when I am being the perfect, sing-songy, affectionate, attentive mom to one baby; there’s always the other baby that I feel like I’m totally neglecting. I tried to trick them into thinking they were getting personal attention by laying them cheek-to-cheek, but baby Bonnie is a grabber.  (Poor Colt has had his wee hairs pulled and his eyes gouged a few too many times.)  I used to dance around the house with both of them but at a combined 33 lbs, my back is starting to hurt and they’re so floppy it’s now too risky to balance both.   I worry that one or the other will have long-term consequences from not being held enough.  (It was incredibly nice when my sister Lindy was here.  Both babies were loved 24-7.)

Not having a pediatrician.  There is no such thing as “well-baby” visits in Korea.  (There are still immunizations but they take place at a clinic.  Five-minutes in and out.)   There are so many things I miss about having a pediatrician; for example, twins tend to have more health issues, I wish I knew how they are doing developmentally!!!  And it would give me great peace of mind if there was one doctor/practice that knew my babies and kept their medical history and we could go there every time I worried about a cold, an ear infection, torticollis, the works.

Not having a car.  Four little people to keep track of, two of which cannot walk, and it is bitterly cold outside.  Granted, we’re in a city with public transportation.  We learned the hard way that my double stroller fits through the front door on the bus, but not the exit door.  (Panic!)  Bus.  Most things aren’t within walking distance. By foot.  Taxi’s are ideal, but the they’re hybrid.  They are great for the environment, but there’s no trunk space for a stroller.  Taxi.  So subway it is!!  We don’t live off a main line, so we need to plan on 2 hours rt transit most places.  Deep breath.

Things I would have done differently if I started over with newborn twins:

I would have acquired a hospital-grade pump before the babies arrived, in case they couldn’t nurse.  The hospital told me they would have one available I could rent but they didn’t.  I think most of my low milk supply issues can be attributed to waiting too many days to begin pumping.  I’m still exclusively breast-feeding but each day threatens to be the last.  (I attained my previous goals.  Hooray, hooray!!!  My new goal is to make it to 6 months.)

I would have had them take naps in the same crib from the beginning.  I wanted them to nap so badly that I put them in separate places to sleep.  Baby Bonnie in the crib in the nursery; baby Colt in the travel crib in the middle of the living room. (Sounds like a game of Clue, right?)  Now, if I combined them, I think they wouldn’t fall asleep together.  They have totally different sleep styles.  Baby Colt loves his binkie and needs to be swaddled.  Give him those two things and he’s out within 60 seconds.  Baby Bonnie doesn’t take a binkie, goes unswaddled, and often lays in bed for twenty minutes talking and looking at the mobile before falling asleep.  Also, baby Colt seems to wake up, look around and go back to sleep several times during his naps.  It is his norm.  I love that both of them go down easily for a nap.  Would that change if I put them in the crib together?  Would it lose the magic?  I wish I’d put in the effort to have them napping together from the start.

Tofu the Model

Here’s the story for those who have asked:

We heard that Korean clothing companies like to hire foreigners as models.  I thought, “that could be so cool for my daughter!”  A friend at church gave us the number of a modeling agent but warned us that it could be months before they call.  They call sporadically when your child fits a particular role.  Well time ran away with me and suddenly it was right before the twins were due.  My mom arrived to help with the babies and I mentioned regretting never pursuing that opportunity for Tofu.

My mom suggested I go ahead and email the agent and maybe, just maybe, she’d get a job while my mom was in town.  On Sunday night I emailed the agent a few pictures.  Monday morning at 9 am the agent called asking if one of her clients could come asap to meet Tofu and do a clothes fitting.  She got the job; her first photo shoot was two days later.

Since then “Tofu” has modeled every week (sometimes twice a week).  First my mom went with her, then my sister Lindy, now since we know (and really like) the agent, Tofu goes by herself with the agent.

For most shoots, the agent picks her up around 1:30 and brings her back around 4pm.  “Tofu” loves it so far and on modeling days she asks me every 5 minutes if it’s time for modeling yet.  Her agent is fantastic with kids and brings lots of toys and treats.  Plus, she loves playing with the other kids.

It’s a wild goose chase trying to track down the catalogs when I don’t speak Korean (I’ve only gotten ONE so far) but here are a few recent ones:

Skarbarn (click on collections)

CanKids (click on Stylebook)

Jelispoon (click on her outfits, they are hyperlinks to additional pictures)

Random memories of the Twins 2nd Month of Life…

Sometime in early December, Baby Colt woke from his sleep ravenously hungry and cried.  A real, loud cry.  This was the first time (around 5 or 6 weeks) that we had ever heard him really cry.  WE WERE OVERJOYED!  From birth he had been weak, sluggish, languid.  But that first cry in early December we thought, “yep.  This boy is going to be just fine.”

Around 6 or 7 weeks, their eyelashes began sprouting.

Also around 6 or 7 weeks, baby Colt became a flirting machine.  If he is awake, he is normally giving you million-dollar smiles and is very conversational.  Baby Bonnie’s smiles are a little harder to earn (stomach pain) but every bit as delightful.

At 1.5 months, Colt was 14 lbs and baby Bonnie was 13 pounds.  I was very happy because I work hard and sleep little to feed them.  Then I got food poisoning.  I didn’t realize what it was until I was very sick and had been nursing the babies all along.  In the following days, the babies had awful vomiting and diarrhea and lost weight.  At 2 months, they weighed just less than they had at 1.5 months.  It was an awful blow for me.  It seems silly, but I work so hard to nurse twins between recurrent mastitis, blebs, very short windows of sleep between night feedings, and constant milk supply issues (almost every day, I wonder if I will have any milk to nurse the following day.)  Anyway, so to hear that they hadn’t gained ANY weight in half a month was very discouraging.

Baby Colt still is an extremely chill kid.  He has a natural schedule that goes like this: he eats, then he smiles and coos at us for a while (when the twins are in the right mood they chortle and sing arias back-n-forth to each other) and then I lay him in his crib and he’ll fuss for a minute or two and then he’s out for the next 1.5-2 hours until I wake him to eat.  However, the babies rarely do the same thing at the same time.  Haha!  Bonnie-belle (the most common nickname for her these days) sleeps very little and wakes easily.  She also has become a very agitated nurser, rarely nursing for more than 2 minutes without going stiff and beet red and screaming.  We’re trying to figure it out and in the meantime I’m pumping.  She takes bottles very well.  She has always been the teeny one and the FIREBALL! She has never given us reason to worry health-wise until just recently.  We took the babies in for routine immunizations at the beginning of January, the doctor sent us to the ER of a larger hospital.  Baby Bonnie had a lot of unpleasant tests and home heart monitoring.  She has premature ventricular contractions.  Sometimes the AV Node sends it’s electrical impulse and sometimes it doesn’t. She is asymptomatic and only requires continued monitoring to make sure the frequency doesn’t increase.  It was a big scare and put things in perspective for us.  We are very relieved that she is going to be fine.

As I write this (January 23rd, 2014) the babies are 2.5 months old.  In their lives thus far, I have been deliciously indulgent as a mom.  I have held them while they sleep. and slept cuddled up with them in my bed.  We’ve had little-to-no schedule. I haven’t gone grocery shopping or to church.  They’ve rarely been more than an arms reach away from me.  I nurse on demand (which I love) and use nursing also to comfort them.  I’ve never let them cry except a handful of times when one twin is waiting for the other twin to finish nursing (and it was awful!)  I rarely get out of my pajamas and wear the same clothes for days.  I eat as much as I want of whatever I want.  (I’ve never dieted or restricted myself with food but right now I am straight-up gluttonous.)  We have dessert every night, sometimes 3 or 4 kinds. Anyway, I wish this life of being centered on my babies and spending my days staring at them could go on and on forever; but for their sake, I know we need to have a bit more of consistency and scheduling.  The most crucial part is sleep training (ie learning to fall asleep on their own, in their own crib) before they get old enough to really fight it.  I don’t like this part…but I love them enough to think a little more long term.  I’ll let you know how it goes!

One year older and wiser too…

It used to be that before blowing out the candles we sang Happy Birthday (English) and Las Mañanitas (Spanish). Since moving to Seoul, we’ve added 생일 (Korean) and now Kimchi is insisting on Mandarin.

We made a freezer paper shirt for D.

Kimchi was pensive about what to make for his dad. I saw him cutting up cardboard. He made a new laptop since D’s has malfunctioning.

What’s going on?

baby girl

All of their clothes are shrinking…

baby boy

their skinny frog-legs have disappeared…

MY BABIES ARE GROWING!!

At one month old, Baby Girl weighs 9.5 lbs and Baby Boy weighs 10 lbs.!!!! Baby Boy’s weight gain is especially celebratory considering he started with a feeding tube and could only handle a teaspoon of milk at a time.  In the 3 weeks he’s been nursing, he has gained a pound a week.  Hooray!!

Although they are twins they are very different from each other in developmental age, appearance and personality.  

Developmental Age:

We brought them home from the hospital on November 11th; they were 6 days old.  The day we brought them home was also our first day with Baby Boy.  (Prior to that, he had been in an isolette with machines and wires attached to him.  We could watch him through the glass during visiting hours–a 30 minute window each afternoon.)  Baby boy  had low muscle-tone and lacked reflexes.  He couldn’t suck and swallow to nurse.  His digestive system was immature.  He had no vision and stared right through our faces (I cried several times worrying that he had been blinded by the oxygen concentration in the NICU.)  Whereas, Baby Girl seemed to be half his size but she was an fierce nurser, held her head up, gave us sustained eye contact and even traced movement from the day we met her.

Baby Girl’s Appearance & Personality: 

She reminds me of a toy baby doll because she has a stiff little body and small features with large glassy eyes.  Her facial features, head size and even bone structure are petite.  She is incredibly beautiful to me.  Between the two babies, she is the squeaky wheel.  She is awesome at exercising her lungs and vocal chords.  She’s very alert.  The kids and I all imitate the face she makes when nursing because it’s hilarious.  (She scrunches up her nose and furrows her eyebrows and narrows her eyes like she’s challenging a toro.)  She does clever things like patting me on the back when I’m burping her.  She has a teeny little rosebud mouth and I usually say “AHHHH” to get her to open her mouth bigger.  Now, she has started saying, “AH AH AH” when she wants to eat.

Baby Boy’s Appearance & Personality

Baby boy is a cuddle bug!  He used to whimper in his sleep when we first brought him home from the NICU.  But the ratio of whimpers to smiles gradually reversed.  Now he gives us lots of big, goofy open-mouthed grins.  When I burp him he roots and ends up giving me wet, sucky kisses on my cheek and neck. My sweet boy.  He is chill as a cucumber.  He rarely cries.  If he’s awake at night, he just lays in crib, wide-eyed looking around.  For anyone, who feels intimidated by babies, this is definitely the one to start with.  Plus, something about holding him is extremely therapeutic.

It’s been a sleepless month as comes with the territory.  It’s also been one of the best months of our lives.