In June, we’re going to a wedding on the East Coast. The farthest that Eleanor and Miranda have traveled from their place of birth is 40 miles, so 3000 miles will be quite a challenge. I searched all over the Internet for information on traveling with twins, but there wasn’t anything very helpful, so we’re just going to have to play it by ear. Just like the blog entry I wrote during the pregnancy about what to bring to the hospital, this is a list of what we’re going to bring for airplane travel, which we will revisit after the whole trip to see how many mistakes we made.

Booking the flight:

1. Daytime flights only, arriving at a reasonable evening time, no red-eyes.
2. Four seats. Two for us, two for their car seats. Airlines allow infants to not have a seat, which means they sit in their parent’s lap the whole flight, but since Bernard and I would like to eat and go to the bathroom, we bought four seats.
3. Car seats cannot block anyone’s access to the aisle. This means that they need to be in the innermost seat. Because we’re flying an airplane that has three seats on each side and the aisle in between, the seating arrangement has to be baby, baby, parent, aisle, parent. We could have done baby at the window and parent in the middle and get two rows one behind the other, but given the number of times we’ll be getting up, we’d feel very sorry for the people in the aisle seats next to us.

Getting onto the plane:

1. If the kids still fit into their infant car seats, we’ll bring them in the car seats in the Double Snap-n-Go, then Bernard and I will each have a duffel and a backpack. Then we’ll check the Snap-n-Go at the gate and carry them in their infant car seats onto the plane. Easy.
2. If they don’t fit in their infant car seats, we’ll have to bring the Britax Marathon, which is the Barcalounger of all car seats. We’ll put both Marathons, the duffel bags, and our backpacks onto a luggage cart and wear the kids on our backs. Then, after we check in the duffel bags, we’ll have to figure out someway to bring two Marathons, the kids, and our backpacks to the gate and onto the plane. I have no idea how we’re going to do this. And I have a sinking feeling that Eleanor is already past the 21 pound, 27 inch weight and height limit of the Snugride. Any suggestions?

Sleeping on the plane:

This is going to be hell. We’ve succesfully trained our kids to sleep only in the cribs, not the swing, stroller, car seat, or in our arms. Now we’re going on a six-hour flight where the only choice for their naps will be their car seats or our laps. We’ll bring their blankets and stuffed animals from home to give them something familiar. And we’re considering handing out free earplugs for the nearby passengers, given the amount of crying and fussing I’m expecting. Or slip the kids a little Benadryl–bad mom!

Eating on the plane:

1. Four bottles
2. Four bottles worth of ready-to-feed formula. This will be easier than bottles in a cooler, which we’d have to find some way to warm.
3. Cheerios
4. Baby food. Given how messy the kids are at mealtime, the idea of feeding them on the plane makes me laugh. Maybe they’ll be better at finger foods by June, and we won’t have to bring all the pureed stuff. Then we can bring tupperware containers of pasta, veggies, bits of chicken etc. But then we’ll need a cooler anyway. Sigh. Maybe we can consider those Gerber “Graduates”–sealed packets of finger foods which look kind of gross.
5. Spoons
6. Baby cups for their water

Entertaining them on the plane:

The ideal distraction is something that they like playing with that is quiet. So no singing or music toy that repeats itself over and over. So far, we’ve come up with toilet paper roll, paper towels, straps made of webbing–they love putting these everyday items in their mouths.

Diapers and clean-up on the airplane:

1. Plenty of diapers and wipes
2. Burp-cloths
3. Bibs
4. Lots of Purell hand-sanitizer
5. Bottles of water to wipe their faces
6. Two extra outfits each for food, spit-up, and poop accidents
7. Portable changing pad
8. Plastic bags

Sleeping in the hotel:

1. We’ve arranged to have two cribs at the hotel.
2. We’re bringing their “Ultimate Crib Sheets” because that’s what they’re used to sleeping on and they’re waterproof, thus protecting the hotel crib mattresses from any “accidents”.
3. Their sleeping buddies from home. The duck for Miranda and the bunny for Eleanor.
4. Their Hello Kitty blankets from home
5. Earplugs for me since they’ve been sleeping in their own room since two months of age, and I’m used to not hearing all the noises they make while sleeping.

This is what their duck and bunny look like on their Hello Kitty blanket. Miranda’s is on the left; Eleanor’s is on the right.

Clothes etc.:

1. Jackets
2. Hats
3. Undershirts and onesies
4. Fancy dresses for the wedding–I really don’t feel like going shopping for these dresses which they’re only going to wear once, but I guess they can’t go to the wedding in jeans.
5. Jeans and other pants
6. Shirts
7. Shorts? Will it be that warm?
8. Shoes
9. Socks
10. Sleepers

Other supplies:

1. Bottle brush
2. Dish detergent
3. Ziploc bags
4. Quilted multi-use pads
5. Desitin
6. Aquaphor
7. Baby comb
8. Baby shampoo
9. Baby washcloths
10. ERGO baby carrier
11. Baby nail clippers
12. Log sheets–yes, we still track every bottle and every poop
13. Sunscreen
14. Insect repellent
15. Secure-me-seat

Stuff we’ll end up buying there:

1. More diapers and wipes
2. More ready-to-feed formula
3. More baby food in general

I was talking to Anna the other day about a video that they posted of Kali crawling, and I realized that we never did capture a video of our girls crawling. They started crawling some time last month and while they aren’t zooming around everywhere, their coordination has been improving. Yesterday, I took the opportunity to set down both Miranda and Eleanor at one end of the room, and moved to the other end. The idea was to see who could get to me faster.

[If you can’t see the Flash player above, you can download the video in XviD format: XviD (892 KB).]

Unfortunately, Miranda couldn’t be bothered to race Eleanor. She was more interested in something she noticed on the floor.

We have a plastic foot stool in our family room. We used to use it to get things at the top of our closet, but recently, I’ve just been putting one foot on it while I sit on the sofa and I feed either Miranda or Eleanor–it helps in keeping them a bit more upright. Earlier this month, Eleanor discovered the stool while playing. It has a ribbed top for traction, and she found the surface interesting to play with. Soon afterwards, she pulled herself up to a standing position.

Two days later, on the 13th, Miranda repeated the same trick. I think that with her, she was trying to reach for the bottle I had left on the stool.

They’ve gotten pretty good at pulling themselves up with the stool in the past couple of weeks, and they climb on us now whenever we’re on the ground with them. They have no ability to move anywhere while standing like this (i.e., no “cruising”), but for now they seem to enjoy their improved view.

Miranda gets a rash on her face a couple times a week. You can see it on the eight-month picture of the two of them. Despite being a pediatrician, I’m not sure if the rash is eczema or irritant contact dermatitis. If it is contact dermatitis, we’re not sure what the irritant is. She often licks her lips, but that only explains the rash around her mouth. Sometimes the rash goes up to her cheeks. She could have eczema, especially given that there are a lot of allergies on both sides of the family. She doesn’t scratch the rash though, which you usually see with eczema, and she doesn’t have the rash anywhere else on her body.

Either way, there’s really only two main things to do about it:

• moisturize like heck
• reduce any possible trigger

We slather Miranda’s face with Aquaphor every day after her bath, and sometimes I’ll put some on in the middle of the day. This is why her face and bangs appear greasy in some of our pictures.

As for triggers, we use “hypoallergenic” everything, including laundry detergent and baby shampoo. The other big category is foods, which has been more difficult. We considered stopping all solids, but Miranda loves solid foods, and is starting to drink less milk during the day anyway. So we decided to eliminate the most allergenic foods, at least for the next week or so, see if her rash improves, and then slowly reintroduce them.

Here’s a list of foods we’ve eliminated from her diet: wheat (bread, noodles, cookies, biscuits, crackers), soybean (tofu), fish, nuts, egg, corn, citrus (grapefruit, orange, lemon), onion, cabbage, berries, pork, tomatoes, spices, peas.

Doing this elimination diet has made me realize that everything has wheat in it, like mixed cereal, and all the baby cookies that Miranda loves. I miss giving Miranda boiled egg yolk in the mornings too. She loved the interesting texture and would always give me a big smile with egg yolk crumbling out of her mouth. Anyway, now she’s mostly eating barley cereal and different fruits and vegetables. This weekend we really wanted to give her some kind of finger food, since she loves picking up little bits (see the blog entry “Miranda AKA Roomba“), so we cheated on the diet and gave her Cheerios. The good thing about Cheerios is that it’s made out of oat flour, but the last ingredient is wheat starch, so it’s still a no-no for the truly wheat allergic.

I don’t think we’re going to find that she’s allergic to any particular food, but it’s probably a good idea to be careful with what we give her. Also, I didn’t mention any medication for her face, which essentially consists of steroid creams, but the face isn’t a great place for the cream, especially since she licks around her lips and rubs her eyes. I figure as long as she doesn’t scratch her face, she doesn’t really need any medication.

Now that both Miranda and Eleanor are crawling, we really need to keep an eye on them. Eleanor has been known to crawl out of the room (looking back to check on us every now and then), and Miranda crawls off the foam letters to examine the rug we have underneath. She’s especially fascinated with little pieces of lint that she finds. She’ll carefully try grasping it, and when she finally picks up the piece of lint, it goes right into her mouth. I bet if we let her continue, she’d clean our whole rug!

We try to make sure she doesn’t eat too much lint each day. The other day, she was on the floor and tried to pick up and eat a tiny spider–fortunately it was too fast for her.

This past weekend, Albert and Erin came out to California. Erin was coming out to meet our parents, so we all got together on Saturday for lunch. We brought with us the superyard, the set of foam interlocking letters that we use on the floor, and a bag of toys. While we were eating, the girls were in my parents’ family room on the letters, playing with their toys, and fenced in. They did okay for quite some time, but towards the end of lunch, they started calling for us.

We all played with them for a little bit. Miranda seemed to especially like Erin’s curly hair.

A little later, when Eleanor started getting tired, we put her into a Pack n Play that we also brought with us (there’s a reason we bought a minivan…). Miranda wasn’t tired because she slept on our drive. Eleanor didn’t want to sleep though–she just sat up and cried. And cried and cried. Normally, when we put Eleanor down for a nap, she cries for a bit, but we ignore her and she goes to sleep. She didn’t this time. She got all drenched in sweat and everyone sat around looking at Agnes and me a little uncomfortably. We went to get Eleanor and we pretty much packed up everything and left soon after that. We have two theories on why Eleanor didn’t sleep:

• The Pack n Play is unfamiliar to Eleanor as a place to take a nap. The girls haven’t stayed with Agnes’ parents overnight for quite some time and so she hasn’t been in the Pack n Play for a while
• The Pack n Play was set up in a spot where she could still see some of us. Our guess is that if she can see someone, she will keep on trying to get that person to come over to pick her up, instead of going to sleep. We’ve seen this happen when we put her in her crib and then stand around where she can see us.

The second theory is most likely correct. We just hope we didn’t come across as mean to our kids for letting Eleanor cry so long.

Erin and Albert came to stay with us on Monday night so they could catch an early flight out of LAX. Unfortunately, we also had a friend flying in from Singapore and we met up with him for dinner. By the time we got home, it was past our girls’ bedtime, so Erin and Albert had only a little bit of time with the girls before they were ready for bed.

We enjoyed meeting Erin, but we had so little time to spend with the two of them. Hopefully we’ll see more of the two of them soon.

As of April 18th, Miranda and Eleanor have a new cousin, Dylan. Dylan is Jared’s younger brother. Dylan was 8 lbs, 2 oz at birth, and 20 inches long. I think my mom is heading out to help out Suephy and Ed next week. You can see pictures here.

To Miranda and Eleanor–you’re no longer the youngest grandchildren!

No, I’m not talking about new shoes for the girls. They don’t stand yet and so they don’t get shoes. Once they can stand, our daycare requires that we bring shoes, but no shoes for now. I’m talking about new shoes for me.

I’ve been wearing the same pair of black shoes to work five days a week for about four years. This is through travel to Columbus, Atlanta, and Chicago. They’re a pair of ecco shoes and they’re quite comfortable, but this winter I noticed that they’re starting to wear through. The sole of the right shoe is cracked and when it rains, water seeps all the way through and I end up with damp socks. I’ve started bringing an extra pair of socks to work on rainy days.

For a little over three months I’ve been saying that I need new shoes. We tried going shopping for shoes on January 26th, the last day that Agnes’ parents took the girls to their house for the night, but I didn’t end up finding anything I liked that day. Since that time, the girls have been with us every evening and every weekend, so it’s been hard to get out shoe shopping. Either we all make a trip out of it and we bring the girls to the shoe store, or I leave the girls with Agnes for an hour or two. There isn’t really a problem in Agnes taking care of the girls for a couple of hours, but I just felt guilty going shoe shopping when I can also be helping to take care of the kids.

Anyway, for the past three months, I’ve continued to wear these shoes with a cracked sole. I tried to put duct tape on the sole to keep water out, but that didn’t really work. Also, people at work looked at me funny. I also considered getting some shoe goo, but I never quite made it out to the store to look for some. Finally, today we all went out for a shoe shopping outing and I got a new pair of shoes. They’re the first pair of slip-on shoes that I’ve had in quite a long time–I wanted shoes that don’t have laces so that I can manage to put on my shoes while holding Eleanor and Miranda when I pick them up from daycare. They’re pretty comfortable, and I hope they last a good long time.

A lot has been happening over the past month and we’ve just posted the pictures.

This month, both Miranda and Eleanor have been more mobile. They both picked up the ability to scoot around on their stomachs in kind of a military crawl. Just a few days ago, Eleanor seemed to figure out how to get around on hands and knees in a much more traditional baby crawl. It takes more balance and coordination to move alternating limbs. We can’t leave them playing in the family room any more–they start heading for the TV, or the sofa, or the piano, and inevitably get stuck.

Miranda picked up a new smile where she scrunches her face up to the point where we’re not sure she can still see. Eleanor tried to learn to whistle (though she only manages the faintest tone). Eleanor has also been playing with her consonant sounds. She’ll absent-mindedly go “deh deh deh deh deh deh…” for quite some time.

Eleanor can push herself into a sitting position and we often find her sitting in her crib. We haven’t seen Miranda get up into a sitting position on her own yet, but she somehow still pulled down her crib mobile again. She shouldn’t have been able to reach it. Miranda has learned to sit well enough that we don’t worry so much that she’ll suddenly fall backwards.

Both of them started hitting blocks together with one in each hand. Eleanor will drop her blocks and start clapping, too. Unfortunately, Eleanor also has an unhealthy fascination with pools of spit-up. Miranda will still occasionally bring something up and Eleanor’s instantly there, putting her hand in it.

Miranda has still been the one who is more adventurous with her food. She likes eating these small plus-shaped puffs of corn that we picked up at the store. She doesn’t have the dexterity to get the puffs into her mouth consistently, so she’ll pick one up, smear her palm around her face and sometimes it’ll get into her mouth. If the puff just sticks to her cheek, she’ll just reach for another one. Though Miranda doesn’t have teeth yet, the puffs dissolve in her mouth and she’s visibly working her jaw to chew it. Eleanor is generally suspicious of food that doesn’t come in a bottle, but lately she’s been warming to it.

The girls are now two-thirds of a year old. They play on their own for longer periods, but they also require a more watchful eye to make sure that they’re doing okay. We’ll post more pictures in another month.

Back when the girls were six months old, we introduced them to rice cereal. Last month, we added bananas, apples, and peas. This month, we’ve continued with the vegetables and more grains, green beans, squash, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, and barley. All this time, Miranda has been pretty enthusiastic about everything. She regularly finishes a 2.5 ounce container of Gerber baby food twice a day.

We’ve hinted in past updates, though, that Eleanor has not been so gung-ho. In fact, after initially being okay with some rice cereal, she started clamping her mouth shut. She would crack her lips open just a tiny bit to blow outward, sending anything on the spoon spattering away. We decided not to stress about it, and so we just offered different kinds of food every now and then. Generally we got the same reaction. Every now and then, we would sneak a spoon into her mouth while she wasn’t diligent about keeping her mouth shut, but this would result in crying, and drooling, and not swallowing, and then the food would all run out of her mouth onto her bib. Eleanor seems to particularly not like apples. Even though I’m pretty sure they’re sweet, she reacted as if they were really tart.

A couple of weeks ago, Agnes’ mom was able to feed Eleanor about a teaspoon of something (about 0.5 ounces). She was using our Gerber baby spoons and just barely got any food on it. Then she would play with Eleanor, make smacking noises with her lips, and tried to entertain her. Eventually, she would get the spoon into Eleanor’s mouth and Eleanor would swallow the food without all the crying and fussing. Feeding Eleanor like this takes quite a long time, but Agnes’ mom is a patient person.

Since that time, we’ve gotten mixed results. Sometimes Eleanor will eat about a teaspoon, sometimes she won’t eat anything at all. The people at our daycare were getting the same inconsistent results. Since she’s not eating her solids consistently, Eleanor has been getting hungry in the evenings. We’ve started adding a fifth bottle at the end of the day to give her another two or three ounces of formula, for a total of almost ten ounces before she goes to sleep (that’s a lot, for those who don’t have a sense of these amounts).

Finally, today I was feeding Eleanor some squash, and she didn’t seem to mind it at all. She was opening her mouth on her own to take more from the spoon. She liked grabbing the spoon and putting it in her mouth herself (though I kept a hold of it to make sure she didn’t gag herself with the spoon, or drop it). She ended up eating about 3/4 of the jar of baby food, which is quite amazing. She repeated her performance later in the day with another half-jar of squash. The only downside is that the food really gets everywhere. It was all over her hands and face, her high chair, and her outfit. Then she grabbed her ear with her squash-covered hand. It took quite a lot of wiping to get her clean again before I continued her meal with her bottle.

Anyway, we’re hopeful that this was some kind of a breakthrough with Eleanor finally eating her solids, but I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.