Those of you who have been to our house know that the living room has been transformed into what I call “Baby Central”. As you can see, the coffee table is full of baby supplies, including the changing pad and the Bumbo seat. Yes, we serve drinks to guests right next to where we do diaper changes.

Now that Eleanor is turning, we wanted to give them more space to move around. So today, we got rid of the coffee table and put down a set of foam alphabet squares on which the girls can play. Now, we’re going to have to figure out where to put all the supplies. In both pictures, Miranda is in the foreground.

During our trip down to LA, we were finally able to meet the twins–after reading so much about them growing up in this very blog. We had made certain assumptions about what each twin would be like, and were eager to see what the twins were really like.

So, we got to Torrance early to try to have breakfast before Albert had to leave for New York. Eleanor was awake then, so she was the one we met first. Eleanor was very responsive to people–we were both able to pick her up and she didn’t mind playing/laughing with us. We played for a while with the kids until Jon and Frances showed up. We realized that it’s MUCH more fun to meet the kids in person than online–and we compared them in terms of size, skin tone and demeanor. Eleanor looks much different in person than in the pictures, and when holding her, she was heavier and taller than Kali. Four weeks makes quite a difference. We also found out that Eleanor turned over for the first time the day before, so that was a big achievement! Right before we left for IHOP, Bern woke up Miranda–and she was still sleepy-eyed as we all drove to the restaurant.

The wait wasn’t bad–for a brunch at IHOP next to the Del Amo mall the day after Christmas! Too bad Albert had to take off for the airport before we had a chance to sit down and eat together. As in “Goodwill Hunting,” he had to go see about a girl. The three girls behaved very well as we ordered, ate and caught up on Jon’s work, life with kids, and updates on other friends. Miranda sat in her car seat most of the time, but when she did come out and join us, she just quietly hung out at the table looking around at everyone, and she also didn’t seem to mind being held by anyone. Eleanor sat on Agnes’ lap most of the time, and she seemed to enjoy the music around her, while we had Kali in the bjorn as we ate breakfast.

After breakfast, we went back to Bern & Agnes’ house to hang out. It was interesting to compare notes about how we raised our kids. We noted that the twins are very easy going and friendly: Miranda is very mellow, while Eleanor is the interactive one. Mind you, this was contrary to our expectations based on the blog. We thought Miranda would be the outgoing/active one while Eleanor would be the pensive one. We also thought that Miranda looked a bit like Jack (of Terry & Anne fame) from certain angles, while Eleanor has Agnes’ eyes. Eleanor “talked” (cooed) more than Miranda, and seemed to like face to face interaction, as opposed to Miranda who liked to look around the room. Miranda also has a softer voice, but Bern told us that she can cry a lot louder. After a couple of hours, it became fairly easy to tell the twins apart based on looks and personalities.

(From Bernard: Kali is watching Miranda drink from a bottle.)

When it came to feedings, we were also amazed that they are taking 6 oz bottles at a time — much different from Kali nowadays (we were so jealous!). Of course, we made Kali watch and take copious notes about bottle feeding, hoping that it would help. Of course, in addition to bottle feeding, we also got a good perspective on what it means to “spit-up” after feeding. Miranda was very generous in giving us a couple of demonstrations….leading to 2 baths that day.

Also, having the twins pooping once every 2 days sounded real attractive too (as opposed to 2-4 times a day for Kali). We alternated putting the girls to bed (and we must admit the twins have REALLY cool mobiles!), but Eleanor was in a very playful — and non-sleepy — mood. Even fully swaddled in bed, Eleanor stared and laughed at the mobile for a good 15-20 minutes before closing her eyes. We were amazed how easily they were put down to sleep, too.

We talked and talked until we realized at 3 pm that we hadn’t had lunch. We made a quick run to the Greek restaurant while the girls were asleep. We watched as Bern and Agnes fed the twins, changed their diapers, and then were able to gulp down their food afterwards (apparently necessity breeds efficiency).

It was hard to say goodbye, but we had to meet some friends down at Irvine. Before we left, we had the 3 girls sit together for a photo session. It was pretty hilarious posing them holding hands, trying to get their attention. We got a good appreciation of how hard Bern and Agnes had to work to get the twins to pose for pictures — as it was nearly impossible to get all 3 focusing at once.

(From Bernard: That’s Miranda on the left, Kali in the middle and Eleanor on the right.)

Having said that, we haven’t tried to use the TV to focus their attention. We know that both Eleanor and Kali will get fixated when the TV’s on.

(From Bernard: That’s Eleanor lounging on the sofa.)

Anyways, it was a great visit to see how well Bern and Agnes are doing with the twins. They have done a great job — and the twins are great babies. Can’t wait to see the twins grow up and have the girls play together!Shane and Anna (as guest bloggers)

Shane, Anna and Kali came down to LA for Christmas. It had been quite some time since we’d seen Shane and Anna. We haven’t traveled anywhere since the twins were born, and so we hadn’t met Kali yet. Kali’s about a month younger than our twins.

Kali looks pretty much like her pictures on Shane and Anna’s site. She’s adorable. She smiles pretty easily and seems pretty sociable (wonder where she gets that from), but she also seems to often furrow her eyebrows in a look of concentration. Kali has a big preference for standing up, rather than sitting. We often have our girls sit on our laps, but Kali would have none of it. She wanted to stand.

On the day after Christmas, Shane, Anna, Kali, Jon and Frances dropped by. The plan was for all of us to go to IHOP for breakfast and be done in time for Albert to leave for the airport.

When everyone arrived at our house, we all had to see each other’s babies. Here’s a picture of Jon and Shane with Kali. Kali loves to be way up high.

Unfortunately, by the time we got to IHOP, we were running late. Albert had to leave for the airport before we were even seated. I hope he was able to get some food at the airport since he missed breakfast with us.

Here’s a picture of Frances playing with Miranda. Miranda sat quietly in her carseat for pretty much our entire breakfast, but she wanted some attention right at the end.

Jon and Frances had to head out somewhere right after breakfast, but Shane, Anna and Kali were able to come back to our house to hang out for a while. It was really nice seeing everyone. With our girls, it’s hard for us to get out there to see people that we try to keep in touch with. I think we’re going to have to try a couple of trips over the next year.

Conveniently, my family celebrates Christmas on Christmas day and Bernard’s family celebrates it on Christmas Eve. This year, my cousin Jean hosted our family for Christmas dinner. (She also had us over for Thanksgiving.) We were pretty tired from shuttling the girls everywhere this holiday season, but we had a good time anyway.

Here’s Eleanor in her red Christmas outfit.

Eleanor also turned over for the first time. She ended up with one arm pinned under her. She hasn’t quite figured out that she needs to keep turning in order to get that arm free.

Miranda was pretty tired and so she slept for much of the day. When she woke up later on, we each had a baby in our arms and so we didn’t get a chance to take a picture of her.

Agnes, the girls and I spent Christmas Eve with my family. Suephy, Ed and Jared flew in from Atlanta. Albert was out here from New York. We didn’t have a lot planned. We were all going to meet up at my parents’ place in the afternoon, hang out until dinner and then open gifts in the evening.

When we got to our parents’ place, Suephy, Ed and Jared hadn’t shown up yet. They had taken a nap at the hotel and then they were going to head out to a nearby park. We decided to join them, and since it was nearing sunset, we decided to put hats on Eleanor and Miranda to keep them warm.

Eleanor didn’t seem to like her hat. She made this face pretty much the whole time we were at the park.

Miranda didn’t seem to mind as much. Her hat had nice ear flaps to keep her ears warm.

Jared enjoyed the park. There were swings, slides, monkey bars and a castle surrounded by rocks that he could climb on. We stayed there until the sun set and when we told Jared it was time to go, he asked, “Why?”

“Because it’s dark.”

“But there are lights,” was his logical reply.

We let him swing a little longer and then we started to leave. Jared noticed that none of the other kids were around any more and understood that they had all gone home because it was dark.

Once home, we fed Eleanor and Miranda, and put them in the Pack n Play to sleep. Miranda is on the left side of the picture. Eleanor is on the right.

They don’t fit in the Pack n Play very well any more. They didn’t sleep very well either. Eleanor has been learning to roll over and one side effect of her attempts is that she often ends up rotating ninety degrees from where she started. This put her feet right at Miranda’s head and she woke up Miranda by kicking her in the face. Miranda responded by screaming and crying, which startled Eleanor and made her kick more.

We had them switch sides since Eleanor only turns in one direction and tried to have them sleep some more. Agnes, Albert and I were constantly going back to soothe the two of them during dinner.

After dinner, we opened presents. I know it was just Christmas Eve, but in our family we’ve always opened our gifts after dinner on Christmas Eve.

One of the things that Jared had asked for this Christmas was a red guitar. Albert did a lot of shopping and eventually found this red guitar for Jared. It was just his size, and it looked perfect. Then, when Jared tried strumming it, we found that the guitar had batteries and that it would launch into these bursts of loud acid rock. It was quite loud and jarring. Ed and Suephy had a look of surprise and horror. My dad and Agnes were in tears, laughing. Jared’s comment was “I don’t like it.” Fortunately, it was easy enough to remove the batteries and Jared continued to play with the guitar for the rest of the evening.

Finally, we took a family photo, and packed up the girls to head back home.

In the top row are Ed, Jared, and Suephy. The second row is Albert, my mom and dad. Agnes and I are in front, holding Eleanor and Miranda, respectively.

For those of you who don’t know, Agnes and I went to the same high school, and we have a few friends that we try to see every now and then. For whatever reason, it’s been a little while since we’ve all gotten together though. This year, as we started to see who could make it to dinner, we realized we would have quite a large group. There would be ten adults and seven(!) kids. Some time in the past three or so years, I guess we all started to have kids. It was great seeing everyone — even though we all had to keep an eye on our kids as we tried to talk to each other.

At the end of dinner, we took a nice group picture of all of us (except for Andrew, who’s in Singapore — sorry you couldn’t make it!).

I thought it would be easier to say who everyone was if we also had an outline of everyone.

In the picture we have: 1. Kim, 2. Mark, 3. Grant, 4. Jennifer, 5. Penny, 6. Brian, 7. Agnes, 8. Miranda, 9. Bernard, 10. Eleanor, 11. Kameran, 12. Ameer, 13. Gana, 14. Sarina, 15. Olivia, 16. Teresa, 17. Eric.

We really should get together more often since most of us live here in Southern California, but it’ll probably be next Christmas before we all see each other again. By that time, most of the kids will be walking. That’s going to be quite a busy get together.

This weekend we went to three holiday parties with the girls. I think it was more stressful for Bernard and me than for them; needless to say, the Chen family is exhausted. Up until this weekend, we had been getting the girls onto a pretty regular schedule. They would be in bed by 7 pm, and usually only get up once between 7 pm and 7 am to eat. For those of you who read the blog entry “Sleeping Through the Night”, the update is that we no longer wake them up up at 11 pm for a feeding. We felt that was a little cruel, and often, they would be too sleepy to eat, even after a bath. Now, we let them naturally wake up when they need to; however, we do tend to wait until we hear both of them crying before we pick them up. Essentially, we let one of them wake up the other one; that way, we don’t have to deal with two separate awakenings at night. Their middle of the night feeding is usually around midnight or 1 am.

This weekend, their schedule went out the window because the holiday parties were at night. Friday’s party was the Department of Neurology, Saturday’s party was the Pediatric department, and today’s party was a neighborhood party in Irvine where my parents live. It was the first time that the girls had ever been around large groups of people. Unfortunately, being up past their bedtime made them more cranky than usual, but I think everyone really enjoyed seeing them. The girls seemed a little anxious, especially because there were so many new faces to look at. They don’t really have stranger anxiety yet, but they definitely prefer the familiar. Also, we learned that Eleanor is sensitive to loud voices, high-pitched voices, and foreign smells. At the Neurology party, poor Jessica’s husband (Jess is one of my co-residents) was getting along really well with Eleanor when she suddenly had a meltdown because the loud karaoke started and she realized she was really hungry. Today, she had another fit with her paternal grandfather, we think, because he smells like garlic (he eats raw garlic for health reasons).

Overall, they must have been introduced to about fifty new people this weekend. We learned that they aren’t the most outgoing babies, but that they aren’t overly shy either. Today was the first time they wore long pants too.

That’s Miranda on the left. Eleanor is on the right.

We had been using a bathtub that Annie gave us since the girls were born. It works fairly well and after the first couple of baths, Eleanor and Miranda have really learned to like their baths. At the end of their baths, we pull the drain and start pouring warm water over them. Eleanor lifts up her chin so that the water washes up to her neck and she looks really content. Unfortunately, the bathtub has been getting a little small. This is Miranda in our original tub:

Last week we just felt that the girls were getting a little too cramped and so we looked around for a new tub. We ended up buying the Primo Eurobath. It’s quite large. Infants can sit on one side of the tub, and when they’re a little older, toddlers can sit on the other side. The girls loved it immediately. Instead of having their legs all squished up, they have plenty of room to stretch out. Eleanor does a bit of a bicycle kick to splash in the water. Miranda does more of a frog kick. Here’s a picture of Eleanor in the new tub:

The only drawback of this larger tub is that we don’t have a great place to put it when it’s not in use, but we’ll figure that out. We’re hoping the girls will like their new bathtub for a good long time. Next, we need to get them some rubber duckies.

We took the girls to their four-month doctor’s visit today. Everything checked out normal. Both Eleanor and Miranda weigh exactly the same amount — 14 pounds, 8 ounces. In all previous weighings, Miranda has been a little heavier. Eleanor has maintained her half inch difference in height, though. Miranda is 24 3/4 inches. Eleanor is 25 1/4 inches.

Between now and their next appointment at six months, we should be seeing a little more stability in sitting, a continuation of producing more sounds, and an increase in their intake until we reach something like 35-40 ounces in a day. At that point, somewhere between five and seven months, we should consider introducing the first solids. At the end of the doctor’s visit, the girls got their shots. They were good, and didn’t cry very much.

We forgot to bring our camera to the girls’ two-month visit, but we thought it would be fun to look at what the girls look like now as compared to an earlier visit when they were two weeks old. This is them at two weeks. The black thing on their tummies is the stub from the umbilical cord. They were practically swimming in their newborn-sized diapers.

And this is what they looked like today:

Obviously, they’ve grown. It’s also much more apparent to me now how orange they looked at two weeks — they were still catching up in being able to process the bilirubin from their systems. Now, they’re nice fat, pink babies.

For reference, in both pictures, Miranda is on the left; Eleanor is on the right.

Eleanor and Miranda turned four months old this past Friday. Over the past month, the girls have been making a bigger variety of noises, and they’ve been much more eager to interact with us. They love it when we smile at them, and they beam right back. They’re getting better at lifting their heads during tummy time, and Eleanor has even started twisting as if she wanted to roll over. The girls wore their first dresses this Thanksgiving. We posted photos of the past month.

On Monday, the girls go in for their four month doctor’s appointment. They’ll get weighed and measured and get another set of shots. We’ll report back after that about how big they are.