A little while ago, we were having dinner and we gave Miranda some pieces of tofu to eat. Miranda loves tofu. We’ve learned to buy the firm kind so that it’s not as big of a mess as it might be. We also decided to add a little bit of soy sauce to it.

Anyway, we put a bunch of food on Miranda’s plate and then went to give Eleanor her food. In the mean time, Miranda decided that the tofu looked enough like blocks that she thought they should be stacked. She made these two nice stacks out of her four pieces of tofu.

She looked quite pleased with herself, and then she ate the tofu.

In the month or so leading up to Miranda and Eleanor’s birthday, Agnes and I started thinking about the toys we liked as children. One of the toys that we recalled was something that you pushed back and forth and these small balls in a plastic dome would pop up as the wheels rolled. I couldn’t think of what the thing was supposed to be. An abstract lawn mower? A vacuum machine?

A little later, I was talking to Albert about toys and he said that he saw a “Corn Popper” push toy and asked if I remembered it. I guess it’s a corn popper–because everyone knows that you push along a popcorn popper…

Albert bought two of these corn poppers for Miranda and Eleanor. Miranda took to it right away, though she could initially only push it when she had both hands up in the air (even though she needs only one hand to push it). Eleanor didn’t seem that interested. In the two weeks since we got these corn poppers, Miranda has figured out how to push it without raising her other hand, and Eleanor has learned to play with it.

Here’s a video of Miranda from the first day we got the corn poppers.

[If you can’t see the Flash player above, you can download the video in XviD format: XviD (825 KB).]

Yesterday we finally had a party for Miranda and Eleanor’s first birthday. It was a little late, considering their birthday was on the 2nd, but things were pretty busy this past month. The plan was to give our kids breakfast, head down to Irvine, and let them nap in the car. Agnes’ mom would watch them while we worked on some of the preparations, and then they would take a good afternoon nap at 2:30PM before going to the party at a local park at 5:00PM.

Everything seemed to be going to plan. We had one small mixup where it looked like there were no more available tables at the park, but ultimately we found one and Agnes’ dad sat at the table to reserve it for us. Finally, I drove out and picked up the food and balloons, and then came back to Agnes’ parents’ house to pick up the girls. They were still sleeping. Soon, it was 5:00 and they were still sleeping. We waited, and at 5:30 they were still sleeping.

Finally, Eleanor started to stir, and we picked up Miranda as well. We got them changed, and we went over to the park where most of the guests were waiting.

Everyone was excited to see the kids. We gave them each a biscuit and a cup of juice, and everyone else sat down to eat. We didn’t do anything fancy for the food–we brought two family meals from El Pollo Loco with a bunch of sides, Agnes’ mom made a salad, Agnes’ cousin brought the drinks, and we had a whole ice chest full of food for Miranda and Eleanor.

From left to right, here are Miranda, Eleanor, Jasmine, Jean, Agnes’ mom, and Chris.

Here’s my mom feeding Eleanor some mashed potatoes and gravy. I think Miranda ate more of it. Both of them had a tiny bit of the chicken, but it’s still pretty tough for them to chew on chicken.

Then it was time for cake! You might not be able to see it clearly, but in this picture, Eleanor is holding a corn cob that she nibbled and Miranda is holding a slice of peach (Eleanor didn’t want her slice of peach). The cake itself had two candles–one for each of them. This is their first birthday, though, not their second.

Agnes did the cutting. Miranda seemed quite interested.

Miranda had her first taste of cake. She seemed to like it okay, but mostly she went back to eating her peach. Eleanor liked the cake as well.

When it came time to leave, we packed everything up. Agnes’ dad gave the girls some red envelopes. Eleanor crumpled up her envelope while Miranda took a bite out of hers. Later on, we took the money out, and we put the equivalent amount into their college savings accounts.

We managed to get everything back into our minivan, and we headed home.

Right after we got onto the road, I thought something sounded funny, but I couldn’t quite tell what it was. All I could see when I looked behind me was the balloons. I had forgotten to close the trunk of our car! That monkey balloon in the upper left corner of the trunk had disappeared.

We made it the rest of the way home safely, and the remaining balloons are sitting in the corner of Miranda and Eleanor’s room (not over their cribs). A quick bath, a final night time bottle, a quick book, and our girls were off to sleep. The long afternoon nap turned out to be quite good luck–the girls were in the best of moods during the whole party.

Our kids had their one-year appointment and sad to say, they are underweight and have crossed three major percentile lines over their last two visits. At six months of age, they were 50th to 75th percentile for weight. Now, Eleanor is at the 15th percentile, and Miranda is at the 5th percentile. In pediatrics, we call this “failure to thrive”.

Failure to thrive is often psychosocial, and when you see a patient who is “FTT”, you look first to the parents, i.e. is this child being neglected? All I can say is, it is really weird being on the other side. I know Bernard and I were being judged by the pediatrician, since I do it all the time at work. You look for maternal depression, poor parent-child interaction, inappropriate feeding practices, like, the belief that cholesterol is bad for the baby. In the child, you look for apathy and poor development, skin problems (from vitamin deficiencies), poor hygiene, dirty clothes, and badly neglected diaper rashes. I don’t think we demonstrated any of the above, but I definitely heard, “Spend more time with your kids” twice.

Failure to thrive has biologic causes which are poor cardiac, lung, or gastrointestinal function. Also, neurologic, genetic, kidney, and endocrine disorders can account for it as well. Our pediatrician did mention that we may have to do a workup in the future for the biologic causes of failure to thrive. This involves blood, urine, and stool studies at first, then, more expensive tests later.

Personally, I know why our kids aren’t gaining weight, and I don’t think we’ll need any of the tests for failure to thrive. I blame myself and daycare. Our kids started daycare at six months, and since then, they’ve been sick at least once a month for the last six months. Also, daycare exhausts them. When I pick them up, they are keeling over, and I barely have time to feed them dinner, give them a bath, and put them in bed. This is why they go to sleep before 7pm and wake up the next morning at 6am. Also, I am lousy at making food for them. Their contact sheets at daycare often say “refused food from home”.

Well, things will have to change. We have a “weight check” in four weeks, i.e. “we’re weighing your kids in a month and they better have gained weight”. Sigh. I can’t believe our kids have to have a weight check. When we have patients who fail weight checks, we admit them to the hospital and stuff them with food and watch them turn into plump, happy kids. This proves that the failure to thrive was psychosocial and not biologic. Then we call Child Protective Services. Okay, I know I’m going overboard. I guess we’re not too worried because the kids just don’t look thin–they have fat cheeks and lots of fat folds in their legs.

Anyway, one major change we’ll have to make is they need to eat more fattening foods. At Failure to Thrive Clinic (yes, we have a weekly clinic where we see all the FTT kids), they teach the parents how to add butter and heavy cream to all the kid’s food. I’m serious. Today, my kids refused the raw tofu and steamed broccoli I sent them to daycare with, so starting tomorrow, they get all their food with cheese sauce and butter.

Part of my anxiety is that I always feel like an inadequate mom when it comes to making their food. When Bernard and I were childless, we would come home from work, say, “What do you feel like eating?”, then go to the grocery store and make something from scratch. We would never plan ahead. Our freezer was always empty because we only ate fresh food. Now, cooking for the kids takes an inordinate amount of planning. Last weekend, I made some meatballs for the kids and froze them. I took them out and put them in the refrigerator to defrost them on Monday night. Now it’s Thursday and they’re still frozen solid! I have no idea how to defrost food from the freezer. Do people use the microwave? Soak the tupperware of frozen food in water? Help!

Today we had our one year doctor’s appointment. Miranda is now 29 inches tall and 17 lbs, 13 ounces. Eleanor is 30 inches and 18 lbs, 12 ounces. Our pediatrician didn’t seem too concerned, but she did seem to emphasize that Miranda and Eleanor need to gain more weight. Their weight percentile has been dropping quite a bit since six months and our pediatrician wanted us to focus on helping them gain more weight. We’re supposed to come back for another measurement in four to six weeks.

Besides the weight question, the doctor’s appointment seemed to go fine. Developmentally, they seem fine. They had a couple of shots today, including the one for chicken pox. We thought Eleanor and Miranda seemed more fussy than usual after this shot, but we may be imagining it.

Anyway, throughout the rest of the day it was clear that our thoughts were in what we need to change about how and what we feed our kids. I think part of relative lack of weight gain is that Miranda and Eleanor have been transitioning away from formula to whole milk, as well as starting to reduce the number of bottles they have in a day. They are also not quite making up for it in the solids that they eat. Tonight, I fed Eleanor most of two jars of baby food (peas & rice and most of a jar of turkey), as well as some cheese. At the end, Eleanor raised her arms to say that she was done eating and refused to take any more. I think that should be enough for a dinner, but Agnes and I probably need to do a little more thinking. Agnes will be writing more on her thoughts on this topic.

As Eleanor and Miranda’s birthday approached, several people asked me “Can you believe it’s been a year already?” I have to honestly say yes. A year ago, I was trying to change two tiny diapers every three hours and learn how to soothe our newborn girls. I remember asking a nurse how she managed to soothe Miranda who was so upset and frustrated that she couldn’t eat. So much has happened in the last year that makes that time seem so long ago.

Agnes and I have had to adjust our schedules quite a bit since the girls were born. I don’t think we’ve gone out to eat for dinner at all in the past year, and we definitely haven’t been out to the movie theater–the last movie we saw was Batman Begins, a few weeks before Miranda and Eleanor were born. We start each day with a two hour routine before the girls are dropped off at daycare, and we end each night with a solid hour and a half of cleanup and preparation for the next day. I’ve been so tired during my one hour drive from work that I’ve started to give myself repeated hard stinging slaps across my face to keep awake. I try avoid lining up with someone in the next lane when I’m slapping myself since I’m sure I would get some strange looks. I could wait a couple hours at work, get more done, and have a twenty minute commute instead, but then I would miss seeing Miranda and Eleanor before they sleep. Also, I would be leaving Agnes alone to juggle the girls.

As far as kids go, I think Eleanor and Miranda have been relatively good babies. They don’t get into much trouble, they play by themselves fairly well, and they tend to be pretty happy. We have had a few scares though. Back during Memorial Day weekend, we were at Agnes’ cousin’s house, and Eleanor and Miranda were playing with a number of new toys. I was sitting with Eleanor, who was playing with a toy cash register. Miranda started to get upset at something and I took my eyes off of Eleanor for a moment. During that brief time, Eleanor figured out how to open the toy cash register and grabbed a few coins that happened to be inside. By the time I noticed, Eleanor already had a quarter in her mouth and a dime in her hand. I grabbed Eleanor, scooped the quarter out of her mouth, and took the dime away from her. Luckily Eleanor tends to keep things in her mouth a long time before she swallows, or we would have been off to the emergency room to make sure the quarter successfully made its way out.

We also had a scare with Miranda. I had just finished reading an article about how a number of parents let their kids fall on their heads from a hotel bed while the parents were busy unpacking. We then took a trip to Massachusetts for Peggy and Sean’s wedding, and our first night there we were all sitting on the hotel bed. I reached over to grab our camera, and at that instant, Miranda decided she was going to flop backwards. Unfortunately, she was at the edge of the bed. I saw what was happening and caught her just as she was going over backwards. Miranda seemed startled for a moment, but then continued playing. Nothing bad happened as a result from either of these instances, but it’s a good reminder that it’s so easy for our kids to run into problems.

It hasn’t all been chores, lack of sleep, and scares though. I really love being around our girls. I check in on them at night before I go to sleep and occasionally untangle either Eleanor or Miranda’s limbs from the crib or their blankets. I like that Eleanor likes to hand her toys to me. I like that Miranda and I can roll a ball back and forth. I like that when I’m lying on the ground, Eleanor will crawl over and pull up my shirt to check out what’s underneath. I like watching Miranda move a piece of food all around her mouth as she’s trying to figure out how to mash it with just her gums, tongue, and front teeth. She gets such a serious expression on her face for a moment, and then she lights up with a smile. I really like the big smiles both of them give us.

For Miranda and Eleanor’s birthday, we prepared photo albums of our immediate relatives that the girls should know. We gave these albums to the girls yesterday and pointed out each picture and reminded them who everyone was. We’re also pulling together the first year of this blog into a single bound book. I’ve been copying over all of the blog entries and all of the comments into one big file which we’re going to send to lulu’s for printing and binding. If you want to add a note to the girls, please feel free to add a comment in the next day or two. Then, we’ll have everything printed so Miranda and Eleanor can look back at this time when they’re quite a bit older.

July was a tough month. I was chief resident on the adult neurology ward, which meant 24/7 calls. On average, I would get four calls a night, scattered between 8pm and 5am. Lots of interrupted sleep, and busy days with new interns to guide. July is the beginning of the academic year for medicine, so there are a lot of new doctors taking care of the patients.

What did this mean for Eleanor and Miranda? Basically, they had to deal with a grumpy mom all last month. And now, it’s their first birthday.

I’m trying to think of something insightful to say about motherhood, but in reality, you just do what you have to do. Everyday. It’s kind of a grind really. But while you’re grinding away, you try to be alert for those great moments where you feel like you’re actually connecting with your kid.

Here are some of my favorite moments with Miranda and Eleanor:

Miranda often has a kind of slightly frowning stare, and she isn’t that cuddly, but one night, about two months ago, I was holding her and absentmindedly patting her back. I must have stopped, because she suddenly looked up at me and started patting my chest. I resumed patting her back, and she snuggled in closer. Then, as an experiment, I stopped patting her back again, and she looked up, made a small sound in protest, and patted my chest again. Wow! Communication that doesn’t consist of crying is great, I thought.

Some of the best moments with Eleanor are with music. She definitely grooves to any good songs like the “Miffy” theme, “Twinkle Twinkle”, “Do Re Mi”. Initially, she would sway to the music, but since she started standing, she also wiggles her butt.

So how long are we going to keep blogging? I’m not sure, but someday, when this time in our lives is a hazy memory, it’ll be nice to look back and see all the fine details.

We’re finally at the one year mark! The girls just had their birthday today, though we’re going to wait until next weekend to have their birthday party. We have photos up for the past month.

This month we have more pictures of the girls smiling where you can see the teeth that they cut last month. Eleanor also added a second top tooth, so now they each have four teeth. We’ve started wiping down their teeth with moistened gauze before Miranda and Eleanor go to sleep. We have to keep those teeth healthy!

The girls have both been continuing with their solids. Miranda is still better at eating solids. Eleanor doesn’t chew quite as well, and she ends up with a mouth full of food. Eleanor also really looks forward to her bedtime bottle, whereas Miranda has completely lost interest in it. Miranda is down to two bottles a day. Eleanor has three.

Miranda learned to (kind of) throw this month. We’ll toss a small ball to her and she’ll pick it up. Then she’ll swing her arm and let go the ball. Most of the time, it goes almost straight down and then dribbles over to us. Still, it’s clear she’s trying to throw–she just doesn’t have the timing quite down yet. We can still toss a ball back and forth in this way though. I tried it with Eleanor, but she just comes over to me to hand me the ball.

We haven’t been diligently teaching our girls sign language, but they have still picked up a few signs. When we ask if they’re done eating, Eleanor and Miranda will raise their hands above their head. They may not quite understand that it’s a question. They may just be raising their hands above their head. They also do a baby-sign language sign for “more” when we ask if they want more food. We think they have more of an idea what this sign means.

Both Eleanor and Miranda have been putting together more complex strings of sounds, but they haven’t produced anything intelligible yet. We can ask them questions about where something is, and they know how to point at a few things (a fish on a throw pillow, various body parts, a picture of a flower, etc.). They seem to enjoy us talking to them.

We haven’t been doing as much walking this month as in the past. Miranda still seems to be the one more interested in walking, but when I try switching to holding just one of her hands, she comes to a stop and sits down.

As before, Eleanor and Miranda continue to be pretty interested in what each other are doing. They’ll each come over to play with whatever toy the other one is playing with. This leads to quite a bit of pulling at the same toy. Eleanor will screech. Miranda will continue to hold on with quite a bit of determination. If Miranda loses out, she’ll flop onto the ground and start crying softly. Eleanor will stay upright, but cry more loudly. Most of the time, we try to intervene before it reaches this point.

Hopefully with next month’s pictures we’ll be able to show Eleanor and Miranda’s birthday party. We’re planning a small get-together at a nice park. No inflatable castle. No ball room. We’ll probably have cake. We can do something bigger when they understand what’s going on.