A couple of weekends ago, we took Miranda and Eleanor to the pet store. We have no plans on getting a pet any time soon, but we thought it would be a nice way to show the girls what different animals look like. They’ve seen pictures in some of our books, but we have yet to take them to the zoo. The pet store is also a much easier and quicker outing than a trip to the zoo. As a disclaimer, we didn’t try telling our kids that the pet store was the zoo.

When we got to the pet store, they had a dog and cat adoption thing going on and there were a number of puppies and kittens out in front where people could pet them. Here’s a picture of Agnes showing Eleanor the fourteen-week old kittens.

Once we got inside, we took a look at small mice, fat rats, and a chinchilla. We then made our way over to the bird section where they had a glass-enclosed display of multi-colored parakeets. Miranda seemed fascinated by them.

On the other hand, Eleanor got a little freaked out. Here’s a picture of Eleanor looking at the birds. She was hugging Agnes’ shoulder quite firmly. Our theory is that their sudden movements startle her.

We went into another room with larger birds in cages. Miranda wanted to touch one, but I didn’t know how safe this was, so I moved her away. Eleanor watched from a safe distance and we quickly moved on.

Miranda loved seeing the fish.

Eleanor liked them too.

We moved on to reptiles, and Eleanor seemed to like the toad.

It wasn’t a very long visit to the pet store, but both Agnes and I had tired arms by the time we were done. We didn’t bring in our stroller, and it probably wouldn’t have been much use anyway. Most of the displays are at adult eye-level. Overall, it was a nice trip. I’m sure we’ll have to make it out to the zoo at some point, but for now, the girls seemed pretty happy.

Agnes and I have been pretty busy at work this month. When we looked back over our pictures, we found that we had taken the fewest pictures for a month to date. All the same, we picked a few of the pictures and posted them.

As of today, Eleanor has six teeth (four on top, two on the bottom), and Miranda’s still going strong with just her four teeth. Both of them have been eating better. Eleanor still doesn’t like some Stage 3 baby food, but she’ll generally eat most things we give her. She’s a little suspicious of new foods though. She tends to push her index finger into it first, play with it, and then decide if she’s going to eat it. Eleanor has gotten pretty good at feeding herself with a spoon. She knows how to put it into a bowl of food and scoop it into her mouth. She’s too slow though, and we usually put more food in her mouth with another spoon. Miranda’s spoon skills have been lagging a bit, but she basically eats everything we give her. She has picked up a habit of rubbing her hands in her hair when she’s tired of sitting in her high chair though.

Both Miranda and Eleanor did fine at their last weight check. Miranda is 19 lbs, 8 oz. Eleanor is 19 lbs, 10 oz. That still puts them at only the tenth percentile, but if you plot out their growth curve, it has definitely stabilized as compared to a couple months ago. We attribute their weight stabilization to three things: baby chop suey, cheese, and the fact that I’ve been home to help feed the girls dinner more often recently.

The girls are still not walking on their own. They’ll walk around if you hold one or both of their hands, but they don’t like it if you let go. When we take Eleanor for a walk, she makes a whispered “ta! ta! ta!” sound with each step. Miranda just concentrates really hard.

As for language, both Miranda and Eleanor will point at flowers whenever they see them. Miranda will say “da da!”. Eleanor goes “ba va!”. Neither of them will change what they say when we try to correct them though. It’s so hard to say if any of this counts as a first word. It’s neither English nor Taiwanese, but they definitely have sounds that they use for different things.

This month we started brushing our girls’ teeth. Before this month we used a bit of wet gauze to wipe down their teeth, but we decided it was time to switch to toothbrushes. We don’t use a fluoride toothpaste–just some infant training toothpaste that is safe to swallow. Eleanor hates it. She purses her lips and slowly spits out bubbles while shaking her head back and forth. Miranda will open her mouth, but she doesn’t seem to like it either. They just have to get used to it.

We’ll have more photos in another month.

Disclaimer: Please do not continue if you don’t want to read graphic descriptions of poop.

So Miranda’s bowel regimen worked great. But then we got complacent and stopped the mineral oil and the Benefiber and let her eat a bunch of cheese, and she didn’t poop for three days. I was by myself with the kids that evening when I noticed poor Miranda doing her straining and crying. After 20 minutes of turning all shades of red, I checked her diaper. Nothing. I then decided that she was going to need an enema. I grabbed a glycerin suppository that I had bought earlier “just in case” and took her to the bathroom.

I took off all her clothes, lay her on her side in the bathtub, and squirted in the suppository. Miranda immediately stood up despite all my efforts to keep her down. Then she wanted to play in the bathtub. Still no poop. I then took her out of the bathtub and sat her on the toilet. Now, Miranda has never sat on the toilet before, so the gaping hole that her butt was in terrified her, and she kept squirming off the toilet seat. I then decided that if she wasn’t going to poop, I should at least put a diaper on her. But the diapers were in the other room. So, I lifted her up and started carrying her to the other room. Suddenly, she started crying and I noticed that I was leaving a trail of poop from the bathroom into the family room.

Panicked, I couldn’t decide if I should turn around and go back to the bathroom or keep going to the family room to put on the diaper. Meanwhile, Eleanor was in the family room staring at us, wondering what was going on. Finally, I decided I didn’t want to leave poop over the family room rug, so I turned around and headed back to the bathroom. I put Miranda straight on the toilet where she was able to finish pooping. Then, I heard some laughing and Eleanor appeared at the bathroom door, her knees and hands covered in Miranda’s poop.

I took Miranda off the toilet and stood her at the bathtub and desperately tried to at least clean off Eleanor’s hands. Suddenly, Miranda started crying again, and I turned to find her pooping onto the bathroom floor. I grabbed a bunch of toilet paper and tried to clean off the bathroom floor. When I looked up, Eleanor was laughing again, putting her hand on Miranda’s butt, and smearing the poop everywhere. At this point, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I grabbed Eleanor, cleaned off her hands and moved her to the other end of the bathroom. (I couldn’t put her in the other room because she still had poop on her knees.) I picked up Miranda, wiped her off as best I could and put her in the bathtub. I washed Miranda, brought her to the other room (while gingerly avoiding stepping on poop), dressed her, and gave her her bedtime bottle. I went back to the bathroom, grabbed Eleanor, washed her, and gave her a bottle. Then, while the girls were eating, I took out bleach for the bathroom, and Formula 409 for the hallway floor. I threw everything Eleanor touched or crawled over into a trash bag. Goodbye bathroom toiletries. I had time to clean up everything in the bathroom except the bathtub by the time the girls finished their bottles. Then, teeth-brushing, bedtime story, and bed for the girls. Then, total scrub down of the bathtub with bleach.

I was about to pass-out when Bernard came home. “How was it tonight?” he asked.

We’ve been pretty vigilant with Miranda’s bowel regimen since.