MicroblogMondays: Language, and “Mama”

Bunny and Okra are 10 months old.  They hear Cantonese majority of the day with me and my mom being their primary caregivers.  I read and sing to them in English but tag on descriptions of the pictures in Cantonese.  Cantonese nursery rhymes are also occasionally part of the repertoire.  Recently they have shown signs of understanding our words.  The first word that Bunny clearly showed understanding of was “giraffe” in Cantonese, which is a term consisting of three characters. One day I asked her in Cantonese “Where is the giraffe?” She turned around and looked at the location of the correct animal. I thought it was a fluke and asked again. Her correct rate came out to be about 75%.  She DOES know.  From then on it has been an exciting new world of discovering the babies’ new receptive language skills.  Bunny understands when I asked where Baba (daddy in Cantonese) is or where the car is.  She looks out the window for both (since the babies often stand by the window with their faces pressing on the glass watching Bob’s car pull in the driveway).  She also recognizes the word “PoPo” for grandma.  At first when I asked Okra the same things he had no reaction. About a week later he suddenly turned his head to look at the elephant and the giraffe on the wall when the question was asked. Looks like he’s catching up with his sister.

Both babies have been babbling a lot.  The babbles are all the generic dada, mama, baba, wawa, and a bunch of vowels all mixed together.  I do think that Bunny has her “words”, or strings of sounds to which she has assigned meanings.  Whenever she is hungry, she says “Mehhhhh” in desperation.  She says the same consonant and vowel combination when she sees us eat and wants some of our food.  The other day she looked at Bob’s water cup and said “Waaaaa”.  Both kids actually call out “Mamama” or just “Maaaaaaa” in desperation especially in the middle of the night when they wake up and only want me.  I don’t know if I’d count those as a real “mama” as I don’t know if they were just yelling in desperation or truly did know the sounds meant me, their mom.

Until one day.  I was swiffering while speaking on the phone.  Bunny was standing in her baby jail holding onto the bars and staring at my actions intently.  I continued talking while cleaning the floor.  Suddenly, she looked me in my eyes, said “Mama”, and then gave me the biggest beaming smile ever.  She called me “Mama”!  Intentionally! For the first time!  I was in shock and immediately told the person on the other line, my close friend and former coworker who is also a speech language pathologist, how amazing it was that Bunny all of a sudden called me while not being desperate for something.

This exciting new development makes my heart sing.  The babies clearly know who their mother is and are attached to me.  But to hear my own child call me “mama” for the first time for real is out of this world amazing.  It doesn’t erase all the pains from the long infertility struggles but it does help me to focus on my blessings especially during those recent crazy, tiring, sleepless, teething nights when both babies cry for their mama.

I can’t wait for them to talk!

MicroblogMondays: Birthday

My birthday this year was about two weeks ago.  It officially marked the first birthday in my life that was spent with my babies.  The last few years my birthday wish was all for us to have a take home baby.  Every single time a birthday candle was placed in front of me, my wish was the same.  It is so amazing to me that this wish has come true.  Bob was in the middle of the last two weeks of his bonding leave.  When he asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, the first thing that came to my mind was to show the babies my favorite animal: giraffe.  After the babies’ first nap, we drove 10 minutes to the zoo.  We bought membership since I foresee myself taking the very mobile babies to the zoo often so we have some place fun to go.  We fed the babies right in front of the safari animals.  Looking at the giraffes up close while feeding the babies was amazing:

We strolled around looking at monkeys, hippos, rhinos, penguins, tigers, lions, etc. until the babies fell asleep in the stroller.  We walked all over so that they could nap well.   Unfortunately, at the end of the trip, I discovered that the necklace given by my in-laws this year as my wedding present fell off from my neck.  I backtracked our steps for 30 minutes but couldn’t locate the necklace.  I left my contact info with the office but still haven’t heard back.  I am so tremendously sad about losing that one thing that my in-laws gave me.  This necklace had a S-hook clasp.  It kind of fell off one time prior but fortunately I caught it.  So the clasp itself wasn’t too secure.  But still, I was the one who lost it and I feel so bad.

After the babies went to bed, we headed out for a late dinner.  I am so appreciative of my mom for being there to watch the kids.  A nice simple Japanese dinner was enough to make my heart sing:

This was the simple joy of having a quiet dinner with my husband on my birthday knowing that our babies were sleeping safely and soundly at home.  It was a truly satisfying birthday.

MicroblogMondays: Strong Dad

The babies are 10 months now. Time just goes by so fast. Okra, my very sweet boy, used to be the champion formula drinker. After starting solids, his formula intake has tanked and he has also been experiencing constipation problems. We only feed him food that would help move things along but poor baby boy has visibly slimmed down and hasn’t gained any weight. He’s still heavy and still kind of chunky but it is not like before. On the other hand, Bunny who used to have problems with her formula all of a sudden took an interest in her bottles. For many days in a row her daily intake surpasses Okra’s. Despite being active all day long, her cheeks started to expand and her thighs are stronger and thicker. She feels much heavier to lift these days. I don’t carry the two of them at the same time anymore, but dad does. Here are the three of them:

Sometimes I’m just glad that I could stand back without having to hold anyone heavy. Hahahaha.

MicroblogMondays: Monkey

Instead of Bunny, my baby girl should’ve been nicknamed Monkey. She has proven herself to be the active one ever since she was a tiny baby. Now that she can crawl, stand, and cruise, it is even more evident how physically strong she is. Just a week ago, I found her half hanging on her brother’s highchair kneeling while being strapped in her own. These are the Ikea highchairs that have the waist belt only. Needless to say, I was half scared to death and was determined to put her in a highchair with a five point harness. Fortunately someone in my parents of multiples group posted these two very old but very functional highchairs up for grabs. They have five point harnesses and can also be folded and put away. The timing was just perfect and nobody had claimed them yet. Bunny now definitely has no way to escape from her new old highchair unless she knows how to push the middle button to unbuckle herself. So far, the only safe places to leave the twins are their cribs, the pack n play, and the baby jail (play yard) in the living room. However, two days ago Bunny showed us what she is capable of. When I was tending to her brother, she was standing in the corner of her crib. Suddenly, I found her hanging half of her upper body with her armpits over the top of the crib corner. Her legs and her feet were wrapping around the slats about half way up the crib. I was too stunned to even take a photo. We hurried her down but she did it at least one more time. Then yesterday, this happened :

Bunny figured out a way to climb up the pack n play half way as well. She is only 9 months old. I have seen friends with babies that are climbers. I just never thought that we’d have one in the house. And I would’ve never guessed that baby girl would be the one. I shudder to think about what lies ahead of me when she is even stronger. She is just so resourceful and her upper body strength and core strength are tremendous. One of the moms in my moms of twins group asked if Bob and I were climbers when we were babies. I was taken aback a little by this question. I haven’t told anyone in this group about donor eggs. And I don’t know if I will. But I totally felt like a fraud when she asked that question. Bob said, just answer the question directly and nothing else. Nope neither one of us was a climber, which is the truth. At these moments, I do think about our donor who was a soccer player and a coach. I believe Bunny inherited her physical agility. I’m proud of my little girl and her determination. You watch her eyes and you see that her brain is working on solving the problems. When she wants to reach something, she’ll do everything to figure it out. I too have that kind of determination but at these moments I can’t help but think that her tenacity (and physicality) was not contributed by my DNA. It does make me a little sad. But at the same time it is so exciting to see her learn and become more and more her own person. I feel so honored and privileged to be the mother of this amazing little girl. I can’t wait to see how she’ll turn out. And I definitely see gymnastics class in the future. I just hope that ER visits won’t be a part of our life.

MicroblogMondays: Roughhousing

Our 9-month-olds can now crawl and cruise while holding on furniture.  We are in the middle of hiring a handyman to mount the fences and the gates.  The one fence that we purchased was to fence off the fireplace and the TV.  We hadn’t mounted the fence because I prefer to use screws longer than the ones provided in the box.  Bunny, who started crawling first, repeatedly crawled over to the fence and shake it.  She has the talent of going to all the forbidden places, turning around with a grin, and giving you a glance to see if you are watching her.  I got so tired of removing her from that fence over and over again. One day I had enough of it and converted the fence into a play yard.  It has enough room for both babies and two adults plus a bunch of toy to be in it.  The babies like the play yard okay.  However, once the novelty wore off, they started protesting when we put them in and would arch their backs and try to hang on to you.  Some days they are good and stay in the baby jail for a while playing by themselves.  However, it has become a little dangerous for Okra, our baby boy, when he is left in there with his sister.  Bunny never stops.  She is ALWAYS on the go.  The two of them have started taking each other’s toys about a month or two ago.  That is fine.  They will learn to sort it out.  Bunny usually wins, but sometimes Okra wins too.  But, Bunny is a little aggressive with her play recently.  While in the baby jail, she’d crawl behind Okra, take his shirt from the back or hold onto his shoulders, and shake him semi-violently.  He hates it and would start crying for help.  She also grabs his hair at times and puts her hands on his face.  He sometimes fights back but most of the time just looks so helpless with his sister being so rough with him.  She also sometimes pins him on the floor and put her whole weight on him.  I had been waiting for them to play together and to witness their twin love.  I didn’t expect to see one beating up the other and I definitely didn’t expect to see Bunny being the aggressor.  I intervene and try to teach Bunny when it becomes dangerous but I think letting them sort it out is better.  I hope that my poor baby boy will learn to fend for himself one day so I don’t have to always separate the two of them out.  And I hope that as my baby girl matures she knows and understands that this is not a nice way to play.  I can already see trouble coming in the future……