Roblog

I finally posted some new pictures of my twin daughters on my web site. You can see them here and here.

I wish the iPhoto HTML export options wasn't so limited and so slow. I may just have to write my own export process with Applescript.

We got some free tickets to the Comets game last night from my brother-in-law's family. It was the twins' third Comets game. Strolling around the Compaq Center with the two babies strapped to our fronts always makes for a sight, but I'm always interested to see how they behave in strange environments.

Amanda was interested in the activity, but got quiet as the evening wore on. She definitely looked like she'd rather be sleeping. Elena caught a second wind shortly after the game started; from then on she was either happily playful or squirmily active. She found out how fun it is to crawl from one seat to another.

We left at halftime mostly because Elena was not happy with sitting still anymore. They were both content in the car ride home and didn't get to bed until 9:20!

We had an eventful weekend. Here's a rundown (long).

The girls had their 18-month doctor's visit today. No shots! But Amanda's head size finally got to the pediatrician - she said that they ought to take some x-rays of her head. We are mildly amused since she has no symptoms except for a big head, but I suppose it's better to err on the side of caution.

I imagine the radiologist's analysis would be something like: "Yep, she's got a big head."

We recently signed up for a "Mother's Day Out" program at Donna's church so that she could have one day a week to herself. The applications were quite elaborate, bringing back memories of college applications. There was even an essay part! Well, not an essay, but it asked to write a paragraph describing the child.

This was disturbingly difficult. I had a hard time describing them without comparing them. That seems like a cardinal sin for a parent of a twin: they are not defined by each other but by their own unique attributes. The exercise showed me I need to do a better job of appreciating them as individuals rather than as part of a pair.

Donna worked on this a while and came up with some lovely descriptions of them without using the words "more than". They are reproduced below.

Amanda spoke her first sentence yesterday! I was not there, but Donna and Kate were witnesses. She said "Read this." She said it twice, so it didn't appear to be random.

We also are working to schedule an appointment for her with a pediatric neurologist. After seeing her xrays, her pediatrician decided that there may be some seams in her skull that have fused prematurely and are causing her head to be shaped funny. We think there's little chance this is something serious, but I suppose it's better to err on the side of caution.

It looks like I'll be able to get a copy of these xrays. I'll post them for all to see when I have the copies.

We had a comedy of errors of our own when we tried to go to see an evening showing of Much Ado About Nothing at the Miller Outdoor Theater in Hermann Park on Friday.

During my recent vacation up to Pennsylvania to let my Mom visit with her granddaughters, we finally got official word that my sister is engaged! Her fiancee, Brian, proposed in Savannah, Georgia, on their way back up from Florida with a moving truck filled with stuff from my grandmother's house.

One surprise was that they asked me, Donna, and the girls to be in the wedding! I'll get to be a groomsman, Donna will be a bridesmaid, and the twins will be two-and-a-half-year-old flower girls. My sister, Rebecca, is a kindergarten teacher, so she has realistic expectations of how they will be able to perform in their role. She has insisted that all she expects from them is to look cute in their flower girl dresses. That, I am confident, they can do.

Coincidentally, Dave Barry just had a column about his daughter being a three-year-old flower girl. I'm going to send a copy of this article to everyone in my family.

I am so exited about the wedding! We all like Brian, and the wedding will take place in a very pretty valley at my (and my sister's) high school. We may decide to drive to the wedding instead of fly, since we want to get our daughters used to long driving trips as a family. Someday, we'll drive to the northeast to see the trees in the fall.

Yesterday, I had to stay at work late because a server we use (or used to) was being moved. This meant that I wouldn't get home until after the twins' bedtime (although, coincidentally, I left later than normal for work that morning because of an off-site morning meeting I had to go to). So instead of depriving me of time with my daughters, Donna and the twins picked me up at work to go out for pizza, then returned to the office to hang out for a while (until I had to actually work).

We went to Fuzzy's pizza in the Rice Village after several calls to other local (and closer) pizza parlors revealed that they had no high chairs. The restaurant was empty, but the menu was big and the pizza was good. The girls ate like champs, which is always nice to see and not uncommon.

Returning to my office building, we let the girls explore the empty 17th floor. They enjoyed playing with all my desk toys, and pressing buttons on the keyboards the could reach, but they really had fun when they discovered they could run up and down the hallways! I got some really cute action shots of them running around. It's so much fun to see them having a good time. I hope they can come visit again someday soon.

Oh, and the stuff I did at work went fine. I got back home in time to see all of the second half of Dallas' surprising Monday Night Football win over the Giants. It may have been the first time I ever truly rooted for the Cowboys.

It's amazing how some coughing can really throw a wrench into our life. Last Thursday, Elena started coughing. She seemed fine otherwise, except for the runny nose that she's had off and on the the past 3 weeks. That night, though, she had awful-sounding, uncontrollable, croup-type coughs that kept her up until about 3:30. I even went into the bathroom with the shower on hot in the hopes that the steam would help ease her cough. It didn't seem to. She eventaully got to sleep after Donna drove her around in the car for an hour and a half.

Although she, and we, finally got to sleep late Thursday (early Friday!), that was enough to force me to take Friday off. Not only to catch up on our sleep but also to take them to the doctor, since Amanda had a slight, but dry, cough as well. Their pediatrician found no evidence of infection in the lungs, so we just have to worry about treating the symptoms.

We got some different medicine (and one prescription, which is opaque, pastel-purple, and the consistency of honey) to add to our arsenal of cough suppressants, which we have given to each of them just about every evening since then. It seems to help, but only one night in the past 5 have they both slept through the night. Which means we've slept through the night only once in the past 5 nights.

On several of those nights, we've let them sleep later, since the coughing is worse when they lay down, so we are reluctant to disturb them if they are sleeping well. But the days they sleep in (one day it was almost 8:00 before we got them!), they do not nap. I hope they aren't finished with naps yet.

Today is Amanda's big head appointment. I'm looking forward to hear what the pediatric neurologist has to say with anticipated amusement.

Amanda's visit with the pediatric neurologist was yesterday. He examined her, her history, and the xrays and did not see anything alarming. But at the same time, he could not explain Amanda's "clinically" large head (she is above the 97th percentile for head size, although she does not look abnormal). So he recommended a CT scan which would be able to rule out hydrocephalus (excessive fluid on the brain).

We haven't decided whether to go with the doctor's recommendation or not. Of course, we want to be vary careful and conservative concerning our daughter's health. But it's just hard to believe something is wrong with her when she has no other symptoms. And the CT scan isn't simple: she'll have to be given general anesthetic for the 2-minute scan, which means she can't eat anything for 6 hours beforehand as well as incurring risks inherent to anesthesia.

Also, her twin sister, who apparently does not have a dangerously large head, has a head circumference 0.25" less than Amanda. That seems like it's such a small difference that either Elena should be checked too or it indicates that large heads are just a Reid trait (according to the data, both girls have heads larger than the average 3-year-old).

Maybe we'll ask our parents if large heads runs in our families, since none of us are hydrocephalitic.

Of course, if we do end up getting the CT scan, I'll try to get a hold of the images, and I'll post them here.

We've decided to get the CT scan for Amanda. The anesthetic she'll take is oral, and I would hate to for her to develop symptoms of something that we could have detected earlier. We'll see when Donna's parents can come and babysit Elena during the procedure.

But for the record, Donna was in the 90th percentile for head size when she was their age. My head size records could not be located.

I can finally say that Amanda's head is big, but healthy. Her CT scan showed that her abnormally large head was not due to excessive fluid on the brain. That was our opinion when the big head saga started, but I suppose we had to have $1500 worth of clinical examinations to know for sure.

I may spend another $10 so I can get a copy of the CT scan images on a CD. It would be a good addition to her baby book.

Elena is sick today. We were all up at 4:00 today because she woke up with a fever of 103.2°. Her fever rose to 104° later today, so Donna took her into the doctor. It's just a virus, apparently, so we can just treat the symptoms. She's been understandably fussy and uncomfortable, but a seriously runny nose is her only other symptom.

We can finally say Elena is over the flu. She had it for a full week! That is the longest she has ever been sick. She still has a cough and a copiously running nose, but no fever for 24 hours!

Amanda is still sick, though. She first started getting sick on Saturday, so she is allowed an extra two days to be sick. Tomorrow is her last day, hopefully. Already she is showing signs of getting better (she only woke up 3 times last night, and not at all between 10:00 and 3:45).

I am mostly better, too. I stayed at home Monday and Tuesday because I had a fever, aches, and congestion. Now I just have a mild cough and a reduced appetite. It will be nice when we're all better again.

Elena is starting to put trailing consonants, or at least multiple syllables, in her words. This is making it easier to understand her, although on occasion she will now put in extra syllables in some phrases: "Where did Daddy go?" which she has traditionally said as "Whe Da-da go?" sometimes now sounds like "Whe Da-da-da-da-go-go-go?"

Amanda, though, is sticking to the "initial consonant and initial vowel" method. This makes it hard to know what she's saying. At the sink, Amanda said "Doh Boo". Donna had no idea what this meant (understandably) until we noticed the page of stickers with "Dora" and "Boots" on them just past the sink.

An institent "Doh" while pointing at the table also had us confused. After we incorrectly guessed several times, Amanda said "Doh. Whoo-whoo.", which was her obvious sound of a dog barking. And yes, there was a small plastic Lego dog under the paper on the table. That was actually sort of neat in that she tried an alternate method of communicating. I like it when they're little problem solvers!

They both actually like saying the complete words "ham" and "hum", which they say with a British accent ("hahm" instead of "hehm") and a very long "mmmmm".

Amanda had a stomach bug last night. She threw up in her crib at 9:00 PM and her last "dry heave" was at 5:20 AM. It made for a long night both for her and her parents. Thankfully, she is in a pretty good mood this morning, except for being a little tired, so with any luck she is over the worst part. She has drunk water and had a little toast this morning without any ill effects.

If no one is sick tonight, I plan on being in bed at 8:05 PM. Hmmm - that sounds good already.

I have posted 30 new pictures to my web site. Go check em out!

Donna, the ever-organized woman that she is, made a list of items we need to pack to travel with the twins. We do this every time, so she figured that we should create one we can reuse the next time we travel. Makes sense to me! So here it is.

I have discovered at least one purpose for my blog - to tell how often my daughters get sick. It appears that Amanda is catching a cold, and Elena is showing signs as well. So, here it is recorded in my online journal so that I can look back and say, "Wow, do toddlers get sick a lot!"

The girls' second birthday was yesterday. Their party, which will be dog-themed and include several other toddlers, will be this coming weekend. For their actual birthday, we made them pancakes (their favorite breakfast) and gave them their presents from us: socks, a broom, highchair for a doll, and a Play-Doh pack. They like opening presents now and usually want to play with the contents right then. It was fun watching them enjoy their gifts.

We got a new dishwasher today, which mostly completes all of the recent household problems we've had. I still need to finish the front door and get the car's tail light fixed.

My work has been quite busy recently, and it looks to continue that way for several months. That's fine with me. It's a new project and I'm excited to be a part of it. Someday, I'll have some experiences to share. But for now, it just means that this blog and further PHP website stuff will slow down as I will have less free time to work on them.

I saw an unusual search term that someone used to find my website: "victorious peanuts". In fact, if you type these words into Google, my site is the first one returned!

Don't ask me why someone was searching for "victorious peanuts".

I love taking the twins to the Children's Zoo section of the Houston Zoo. There are no boards at stroller-eye level so they can see all the animals, and they love petting the goats and sheep in the petting zoo.

But this past weekend I took the twins to the zoo by myself to give Donna some quiet time at home. I discovered that the bathroom facilities had several minor problems, in contrast to the well-designed and friendly Children's zoo area.

OK. Elena is sick for real this time. The last time I mentioned Elena was sick, it turned out that she wasn't. Her nose was running a little. But now, with a 104° fever, we can say she is officially sick. Thankfully, it appears to be affecting the sinuses only, so she's coughing with a runny nose. We'll take care of Elena while we wait for her sister to get sick.

I have some new twins pictures uploaded! Only 2 weeks late.

The batch of pictures is momentous because I was able to use my new Applescript method I mentioned to get the pictures up on my website. Read on to hear all the technical and gory details.

Amanda has typically been very unhappy about getting her hair washed because she doesn't like to get water or shampoo in her eyes. I don't blame her. So we try to be very careful about keeping the water out of her eyes when we rinse the shampoo out.

The way we do this requires two people: one person to support her as she leans back, face-up in the water, and the other to take a cup of water and rinse her hair. We call this "tippy" because we have to tip her back into the water so that when we pour the water on her hair it runs away from her face into the tub. Donna holds her while I pour the water.

This has been very successful. Almost too much so, because now we have to make sure we don't say it's time for "tippy" before we're ready, else Amanda might lean back right away into the tub. She'll even ask for "tippy" before we start the shampoo.

We do the same thing with Elena, but she typically is not as sensitive to water in her eyes.

I've got some new pictures uploaded to my website. You can find them here: The Reid Twins: Mar - Apr 2004

It took me a while to get these uploaded because I had to tweak the program that uploads my pictures to account for a change in the way I was recording the picture collections in the database. Now I should be back to easy uploading.

This is my 100th entry in my weblog. It took me 11 months to get this far, which is about 1 entry every 3 days. That is about the right pace, I think. It also serves as a good title for this entry, as there is no connecting thread to the notes I am about to post.

My daughters, now 2 years and 4 months old, talk a lot. They will speak in complete sentences, although their diction is not very clear.

But sometimes, they just say things differently. My favorite is how they say "Come on." Elena says "Koi yan" and Amanda says "Pun". It makes me curious as to how they decided that was "come on." Are they interpreting what they hear differently, or are their mouths not able to make the sounds they intend? Do they really think they are saying "come on?" No matter the reason, it's pretty darn cute.

The latest "Awwww-that-is-so-adorable" moment with the twins:

Last night when I put Amanda in her crib, she said "Good night sweet, little Daddy." Not to be left out, Elena then said "Good night sweet, little Mommy." It was awfully precious. I guess we say that sometimes when we put them to bed, but I hadn't really noticed.

They talk quite a lot now. It doesn't really seem that unusual to me, but they are almost always the most talkative children when I see them with their peers. That does not bode well for my phone bill when they are teenagers!

As promised, there are now some new pictures of the twins from the previous two months. Some of them I've posted before as part of other collections.

By the way, our gas is back on. I had an extra hot shower this morning just because I could.

The girls have been saying something that sounds like "little father Daddy" but it was hard to say what, exactly. We could never tell from context what might make sense. But I just realized that they have been saying "little flower Daddy" since they were recently flower girls at my sister's wedding. I guess they figure since they are flower girls, I must be a flower Daddy. I haven't corrected them.

I was really looking forward to the girls' involvement in Halloween this year. I figured at 2.75 years old, they would be old enough to enjoy dressing up in their costumes and really enjoy getting all that candy. Donna made them some princess costumes, which they tried on beforehand.

I imagined they would excitedly get on their princess costumes and immediately start playing in them (running around and twirling). We would then announce it was trick-or-treat time. They would dash to the door, and we'd lead them from house to house, where they'd knock, look cute, and get candy. We'd all come home and put away most the the candy, while they ate some gleefully.

Amanda: camera, no tirck-or treating
Elena: two houses

Amanda wasn't eating much of anything Friday evening. Like myself, she is sensitive to a lack of protein, so I was continually to try to get her to eat something for dinner to try to help her mood (she was rather fussy). I was not successful, and she went through the evening cranky and without eating much of anything.

That, night, she threw up in her crib. It has been working through her system since and today is beginning to resume her normal appetite.

It struck me how I thought the lack of eating was the cause and not the effect of Amanda's problems. I didn't really give much thought ot the possibility she might be sick. She didn't really have any other symptoms besides being a little fussy, but Amanda sometimes feels that way just on a normal day. It was a good lesson for me as a parent to always try to be observant and not to be so quick to jump to conclusions.

Today will be the first day my daughters have ever ridden in "my car." I drive what used to be Donna's 1992 Saturn SL. I suppose it is still hers technically, but I am its driver about 97% of the time. It has no air conditioning, so I really try to avoid driving it in the summer.

We just got some booster seats as a transition from the car seats they have in our primary car (2002 Honda Accord). The old car seats are in the Honda, but the new seats are in my car. I will be picking them up at a friend's house after work. They are pretty exited to be able to ride in my car.

These new seats are quite a bit different from the old ones. These aren't securely tethered to the car. They mostly are just a booster seat the girls can sit on while they are buckled in like a normal person. The seats are good from 30 to 100 pounds, so in theory they could use these seats until they don't need car seats any more.

It feels like one of the big transitions from being a baby to being a child. I hope I don't get all misty-eyed when I pick them up today. Probably not. It's just a car seat.

Potty Training is in full force at our house and has been for several long months. We seem to have turned a corner, though. Elena does not need a diaper at night, and yesterday they both took off their pants to go to the bathroom in the potty. For non-parents, this may not sound very exciting, but to us it shows that they can anticipate the event, and hold it, to actually do all the steps.

Another milestone: last night at 3:30 AM Amanda woke up (and woke me up) because she needed to go to the potty. She did, and then we both went back to bed. That was exciting for the Potty Training milestone, but not so thrilling to get up at 3:30 to participate in it.

Hence, we will start looking for some beds to replace their cribs. The cribs have been great. They are still in fantastic condition and they both like them. But they'll need beds they can get out of themselves without needing wake up their sleepy parents.

The girls got some stuffed bunny rabbits as their prize at the neighborhood Easter egg hunt this past weekend. Amanda's is white with mottled purple areas on it. Elena's is a cross-hatched pink (that can record and play back about 5 seconds of sound).

Shortly upon returning home from the hunt, Amanda announced that her bunny was named "Polkadot". I thought that was a cute name for a bunny, even if this particular bunny did not have any polkadots on it. Elena decided her bunny's name was "Fink," perhaps becuase it's a fuzzy pink bunny.

This is the first time I am aware of that they have taken the initiatve to name any of their stuffed animals. All of their other favorite stuffed animals are referenced by their description rather than a name. It's rather cute, but I"m biased.

Amanda has had some trouble recently getting to sleep. She cries and screams if we turn the light off, even though there is a night light in the room. Once or twice, keeping the light on calmed her down (even if neither her nor Elena got to sleep right away when we did so). Starting about 5 days ago, though, when the light was on it seemed to keep both of them up for hours. Elena woudl really prefer not to have the light on at bedtime.

I would turn the light off and negotiate with Amanda as to why the room was safe and that she didn't have to be scared. Her rebuttal, unchanged no matter what point we made, was "But I'm still scary!". Holding her, walking her around the house, reading her a story ... everything we tried just seemed to prolong the crying and not avoid it.

Finally, Monday night (after literally banging my head against the wall), Donna devised a strategy to deal with it. We would leave the light off and put up with the screaming and crying to help her train herself to put herself to sleep. But before we left the room, we would explain to her what she can do to keep from feeling so scared. We asked Elena what she did when she felt scared, and she said she covered up with her blanket. Donna is also keeping them up during the day (no naps!) to make sure they are tired enough to go to sleep at 8:00 PM.

Monday night was bad. She cried for about 20 minutes before falling asleep. That is always hard to bear. Last night, it only lasted about 20 seconds. Hopefully, tonight will be equally uneventful.

It seems I've had several bedtime-related entries recently (BTW - Amanda is going to sleep without complaint - except for just now when a "bumblebee" was in her crib), and today's is no exception.

We bought the girls' new beds last night. They should be delivered next Tuesday. They had a blast running around the furniture store (Fingers) climbing on the beds. Elena seemed partial to the Buzz Lightyear one. Even waiting in the "order processing and payment" area was fun for them, since there was an older girl (7 years old?) waiting there to that they could chase.

At first, I was worried that the girls might react adversely to moving into a bed from their cribs. They like their cribs - they can jump in them safely (always fun) and drape a blanket over them and you have an instant tent! So I wanted to make sure they started hearing that their cribs would be going away. They've been pretty underwhelmed about that event. Maybe the cribs don't mean as much to them as I thought.

The new beds for the girls arrived yesterday. Donna had gotten one of the cribs disassembled and out of their room when the delivery truck showed up to deliver the beds, but they helped with the second one. It wasn't long before the new beds were all assembled and in place.

The girls enjoyed playing on them all day (mostly they played "sleep"), so I was a little worried if they would be able to go to sleep easily. As it turns out, perhaps aided by the fact they didn't get a nap yesterday, they went to sleep quite quickly. When I went to bed, I couldn't help but to peek in on them: Amanda was curled up on the sheet but without covers holding her pillow, and Elena was under the covers on her tummy with her arms spread wide (hugging the bed?). Neither woke up during the night.

I thought they might decide to make up on their own and get out of bed this morning, but they didn't. We went in their room at 6:33 AM to wake them up. We found Amanda asleep on the floor next to her bed! I don't know if she fell out and didn't cry, or climbed out (asleep or awake). She said she didn't cry but "pretended to cry". She didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that she was on the floor, at any rate. We can get her some bedrails if she needs them.

Amanda draws a lot nowadays. Usually it's either people or letters (what she writes often looks like Hawaiian). Sometimes, the people she draws are crying, and have very obvious tears:

When I see these pictures, I usually think of the tests psychologists conduct on children who have had traumatic events in their lives. They often use drawings to try to coax the emotional states of the children out of them. I look at these drawings with people (usually it's herself) with copius tears flowing down their faces, and wonder what conculsions a psychologist might be tempted to draw from that.

It's just a phase, though. Already she's more often drawing "spiders" with dozens of legs than tearful people.

The girls' first week of school ended yesterday. Each day, they have appeared more and more tired afterwards. It's only 3 hours, but it must be very stimulating.

Yesterday, they fell asleep in front of the TV at 5:00 PM and would not wake up. I carried them to bed, and both stayed asleep.

Until 3:00 AM, that is. They both woke up refreshed and invigorated then. Donna took the 3:00 to 5:00 shift, and I took the 5:00 to 7:00 shift this morning. Not the best way to start a Friday, I would say.

We moved from Daylight Saving Time last Sunday, but my daughters are still waking up at 6:30 AM CDT, which is 5:30 AM now, even though we are now putting them to bed at 9:00 PM CDT (8:00 PM CST - one hour later). I was really hoping they'd decide to shift their schedules and sleep in, at least until 6:00.

I must say, though, they are going right to sleep at night.

Donna had a conference to go to today, so I arranged to arrive late to work and drop the kids off at school. I generally consider myself a very competent parent, but I must say trying to make sure everything was OK for their day at school was a little stressful.

Getting them up and fed is no problem. Amanda wakes up before 6:00 AM anyway and generally eats right away. Elena gets up before 7:00 AM (usually), although I had to remind her to eat breakfast (she ate very little, but she does that sometimes).

Getting the dressed is a little more tricky. Amanda picked out this fluffy dress that's really a costume (it matches the dress her American Girl doll has). I got to help Elena select her clothes, so she's in a pair of jeans and T-shirt.

Packing their lunches was something I hardly ever do. I packed a sandwich (of their own choosing: Elena asked for a ham sandwich cut into triangles, and Amanda asked for a peanut butter sandwich cut into rectangles), a fruit (Elena: grapes, Amanda: strawberries), and something crunchy (goldfish). I hope they don't expect a dessert, since I didn't pack that.

Next is getting them to school. That was no problem, but I had to ask for guidance from Amanda and Elena as to what to do with all their stuff. I also needed to drop off their car seats so that Donna could take them back in her car.

My one gaffe (that I know of) is with regards to extended care. They will need to stay in school later than normal so that Donna can pick them up after her conference. I mentioned this to Amanda, along with the fact they might nap during this time, and she asked if I brought their sleep mats. I did not. I didn't even think about this. The funny thing is, if I had told the girls about this sooner, they might have reminded me about their mats and I could have brought them. As it is, I hope there will be some gym mat or blanket they can rest on during nap time.

We had a really full and fun Easter weekend.

On Saturday, we took advantage of the not-yet-searingly-hot temperatures and went to the Hermann Park for a picnic lunch. It was windy, but very pleasant in the shade.

Long entry follows...

As we re-applied to the Mothers Day Out program at my wife's church, we were asked to write a short biography about each of our daughters. This was the same assignment we had two years ago, so it's interesting to compare the one from back than with the updated one.

Donna wrote the following and submitted it to the school.

Elena

Elena is cheerful and easygoing. She usually wears a smile and seems to be quite empathetic. She likes to dance and loves to do multimedia art projects. For example, she recently designed a convincing 3D "superman" with shapes she cut and glued from scrap paper. Her superhero even has a cape made from toilet paper. Elena has a long attention span and will give anything a try.

Amanda

Amanda responds well to routine and often prefers her own company to that of other children. She slowly warns up to new activities and new people, but then can be very affectionate and loyal. Amanda has a great memory and likes to learn new poems and songs. She would like to read and write independently. A quick hug or tickle can really lift her mood.