Happy 10th Birthday 3Po and Jammy!

Ten years ago, two little boys entered my life.  I was nervous, scared, unprepared, unsure.  The year that followed was one of the most difficult of my life.  But I wouldn't trade that year, or my boys, for all the riches on earth.  They were exactly what we needed to make our family complete!

Holiday birthdays often get lost in all the celebrations, and that has certainly been the case for 3Po and Jammy on my blog -- but not this time.  I haven't posted anything since Christmas (I think that's my longest dry spell ever) but I was determined to give their double-digit birthday the acknowledgement it deserves.  So I'm delaying the 2013 Highlights posts, the Ski Trip posts, the Family Game Night posts, the New Year's Resolutions posts and all the other posts I have planned in my head.  Those can wait.  What can't wait is my message for 3Po and Jammy:  

Happy Birthday, Boys.  These last ten years have been a wild, wonderful ride.  I'm not going to dwell on all the twin cliches -- double trouble, twice blessed -- even though they're true.  The chances of having identical twins are about 0.4%, or 1 in 250, but the chances of having both of you were one in a million.  Your daddy and I definitely won the lottery when we had you!

To celebrate 3Po and Jammy's 10th birthday, here are 10 fun facts about their birth:

Halloween Costume Watch 2013: Students from The Four Houses of Hogwarts

I'm so excited to be doing a family group costume once again for Halloween 2013! The first and last time I managed to pull it off was in 2007, when we all dressed as pirates.  Then the kids got older and started decided for themselves what costumes they wanted (so inconvenient!).  Fortunately, this year the boys have discovered Harry Potter, and I was only too happy to join them as a Hogwarts student!  

Halloween Costumewatch 2012: Evil Jester (part 2)

Finally, Jammy consented to have his photo taken! I've been bugging him for weeks to try it on and pose in it, but he resisted until this morning's school Halloween parade.  Better late than never!

Separate kids, separate parties

3Po and Jammy are 8 now, and this year marks a very special first: they'll be holding separate birthday parties, with different themes, different activities, different food and different guests. Having one party per child is practically given when you've got singletons, but when you're a twin, you have to share a birthday, and sharing a party is so much easier. When boy-girl twins get older, it's natural for them to have different interests and friends of their own gender, so splitting up parties is a much easier and more natural progression. 3Po and Jammy, though, are identical twins who happen to have identical interests and almost identical friends, so having separate parties is a Big Deal.

Don't be Seven

It's difficult to believe that seven years ago today I was lying in a hospital room with two tiny babies lying beside me. At the time, I was numb with pain and exhaustion, and paralyzed with fear at the prospect of taking care of two tiny boys (note: my use of the word tiny is relative, because the boys were 6 lbs. 10 oz. and 7 lbs. 4 oz., and after carrying over 14 pounds of baby, I was much happier to have them out than in). The Pea was 2 years, 9 months old, and as girly as a girl could be. I didn't feel capable of taking care of one boy, let alone two.

I won't lie to you: the second half of the pregnancy and the first year was difficult, both physically, mentally and emotionally. I often joke to people that I erased it from my memory, and the only thing that stood out was how quickly I wanted that first year to be over and done with.

Soccer, Don't Stop!

3Po's and Jammy's soccer league season ended last weekend, and there's more than a vacancy in our Monday, Wednesday and Saturday schedules -- there's a a hole in our heart. Okay, that's overdramatizing, but 3Po and Jammy are really are going to miss those practices and games. The soccer bug has bitten them hard, and they're really sad about not being part of a team any more. Getting a shiny trophy and a snazzy pin at the last game (which, to add insult to injury, was canceled due to the rain) was small consolation for the prospect of being deprived of soccer games throughout the winter.

Siblings on a Plane

This post originally appeared on July 19, 2006 on the Silicon Valley Moms Blog. I'm reposting it here in its original form.


"Snakes on a Plane", the Samuel L. Jackson film that has created so much buzz on the Internet, opens August 18th. If you happen to be flying to England on July 18th, you might catch a preview of this movie; only instead of snakes, it might just be 3 rambunctious children.

I'm flying to England with my three children all by myself. Most people who know about this tell me I'm crazy. But I've actually done it before. When the twins were 3 months old and my daughter was almost 3, I took them to spend 1 month at my parents' home in Manila. My husband did not come with us. I made the outward journey with my mother, and I flew back to the US with the 3 kids by myself. It was a 16-hour flight with 1 stopover, almost 24 hours door-to-door, and I survived. So I figure, I can do it again, right?

I have everything planned. At the airport, I will ask whether my husband can accompany me all the way to the boarding gate (apparently the policy on this varies by airline and airport). Failing that, I will ask for assistance through the security area. I will stack the carseats on the double stroller and wheel it to the gate while my children walk beside me. I will be using toddler leashes on my twins, and they will have a bracelet or sticker with my name and cellphone number in case they get lost. On the plane, I am hoping they will spend approx. 1 hour eating, 1 hour walking around, 2 hours watching movies, and 5 hours sleeping. They will each have a backpack with their loveys, a toy, a book, a snack and a sippy cup. My backpack will have extra surprise toys, diapers, snacks, wipes, and toiletries. My MP3 is loaded up with their favorite songs and books-on-tape. I will ask a stewardess for help if I need to go to the bathroom. Finally, I will pack a bottle of Benadryl in case one of them simply will not sleep and I get desperate.

I have a sinking feeling that nothing will go according to plan. The only flights we have taken since our trip to Manila have been less than 2 hours, short enough to keep them occupied for the duration of the flight, and we have always had a 1:1 ratio of kids to adults. So I really don't know how things will go this time, but I am expecting the worst. About 1 month ago, I took them on a 1-hr train ride, as sort of a test run. They loved it, but I didn't expect my son to freak out when the train went into the tunnels. I also didn't expect him to get bored after 15 minutes and say, "Mama, I want to get off". I can see it now, 6 hours into the flight, when all is dark, somewhere above the Atlantic -- "Mama, it's dark, I want to get off the plane". What do I do then?

I'm not really worried about my daughter; she has always been a great traveller. But my twins are a different story. When I flew from Manila to SF, they were just cute, inanimate bundles. They were taken out of their carseats only to be fed, changed or soothed. Kind stewardesses and fellow passengers were only too glad to help pick them up and hold them. Having identical twins added to the cuteness factor. Nowadays, my twins are cuter than ever. However, they are like the Energizer Bunny, they just keep going and going. They are active 2.5 year old boys and it's just not in their nature to keep still. I have no idea how I am going to keep them in their seats for a 10-hour flight. I can only keep them strapped in their carseats for so long; at some point they will struggle, scream, or heaven forbid, start kicking the seat in front of them. Then I will have to release my little snakes to terrorize the entire plane. What do I do when one of them wants to head for the cockpit and the other one wants to head for the galley?

My faith in humankind tells me that there will still be kind people who will offer to help. Of course there will also be normal people who will silently (or not so silently) grit their teeth when the yelling starts. To everyone on the plane, I offer my sincere thanks and apologies in advance. I've heard stories of parents passing out chocolates and earplugs to their seatmates; maybe I should do that too.

We arrive at Heathrow on July 19 at 1PM. Hopefully my kids will have slept for at least 5 hours. Somehow, I will have to get my groggy self, 3 groggy kids, 3 carseats, 2 suitcases and 1 double stroller past customs and into the welcoming arms of my in-laws. Hopefully it will all have a Hollywood-type happy ending.

Photo Hunt: Balance

You don't get much more balance in a photo than this: two sets of identical twins, two sexes, in matching yellow outfits (in fact, if 3Po hadn't insisted on hamming it up, we'd have had identical expressions on all 4 faces). On our last day in Manila the kids and I attended an extended family reunion, and we ran into these little ladies. They're daughters of a cousin of mine, and they're about 6 months older than 3Po and Jammy.


Here's the last time these four were in a photo together:
The girls are already looking identical, but at this point 3Po and Jammy looked so different from each other that Alfie and I were seriously doubting their identical diagnosis. We paid $200 to get a full DNA analysis, which of gave us the result: identical. We should have saved our money, because two month after this photo was taken we couldn't tell one boy from the other.

Feel free to leave links to your own Photo Hunt entries below. And for more balancing acts, click here.

Wordless Wednesday: Ugly Babies

A couple of nights ago we saw Ricky Gervais on Conan O'Brien's late-night talk show, promoting his upcoming movie, The Invention of Lying. It's set in a world where people are incapable of lying, so they say things like "Yes, that dress makes you look fat", and "Your baby is so ugly, it's like a little rat".

Let's pretend we're in Ricky Gervais' Land of Truth. Aren't my babies the tiniest, cutest little bundles you ever saw?

It's ok. You don't have to answer.

I have never thought newborn babies are cute, although I did make an exception for my own kids. I swear, it must be all those maternal hormones that keeps mothers believing their children are the most gorgeous things in all the earth. And it's a good thing, too......


... because in a couple of months, they will be.


And they still are.

Behind the Scenes from A Byte out of Life

The Silicon Valley Moms Group and Yahoo! Video have come up with another Byte out of Life segment. This week's topic is all about Who's Following You on Twitter. It's a hilarious video featuring two of my favorite SV Mom bloggers, Jane and Beth. They look so natural on camera!

Speaking of natural, as you know from my recent Office Max experience, when it comes to the camera, nothing is as it seems. Watching this latest video reminded of me of the one I filmed with Linda and Akemi about twins and kindergarten (it debuted last week; you can still watch it here on A Byte Out of Life). I never did get around to doing posting on that here (I did do a post about it on Bonggamom Finds), so I thought I'd take a cue from my Office Max posts and give everyone a Byte of Out of Life, Behind the Camera.

First up, here's Sheila, Linsey and Myrna dishing up about kids and technology on another Byte out of Life video. When I saw how pretty they looked, I immediately wished I had put on anything other than my pair of jeans (Yes, they are my best pair, but they're still jeans. Oh well, I am a mom and that's what moms wear). They taped their segment immediately before we taped ours, so I was able to catch them on the set. Except in this case, we didn't have an actual set. We filmed at SV Mom co-founder Jill's mother's house, which is so beautiful, indoors and out, that nothing needed to be added to make it camera-ready.

I mean, come on, just look at that bougainvillea! It's like a team of gardeners worked for weeks to get it blooming just in time for the taping. The pink flowers make the perfect accent to the stucco arch, and the perfect frame for Akemi's lovely face.

Just like with Office Max, we didn't have a formal script, but we each had our own talking points and we more or less knew what we were going to say. Occasionally we had to do a retake because we flubbed our lines, or our mikes needed readjusting, or we had to cut taping while a plane flew overhead, but on the whole things moved pretty smoothly.

The series is produced by The Go-To Mom, Kimberley Clayton Blaine, who's an SV Mom herself. Here she is holding up something that looks like a car sunshade (I'm sure anyone who's into photography will have a more technical name for it) to diffuse the afternoon sunshine.

Our final segment was completely impromptu; Kimberly had us talk about anything and everything we wanted. We ended up talking about "twin skin", of all things. That's the bit of loose skin that hangs over our bellybutton -- a souvenir from our twin pregnancy that will never ever go away. Jill took this cute photo of the three of us and posted it on Twitpic. We all look great, especially since our twin skin isn't showing at all. It was a great experience and I feel really lucky that I was selected to be a part of it!

Birth Story, Part Two (and Three)

Reading Mark Sloan's wonderful book, Birth Day (this month's pick for the SV Moms Book Club)reminded me that I still haven't gotten around to writing out 3Po and Jammy's birth story. That's the curse of the younger child, I suppose; I remember giving birth to The Pea in great detail because she was the first, and it was such a life-transforming experience. In my defense, I only posted The Pea's birth story when she turned 6, so I'm actually ahead in posting this second -- and third -- birth story.

I have to admit that my memories are much hazier with my second labor and delivery. Thank goodness I wrote down some brief notes in the boys' baby books, so I do have a timeline:

December 30, 2003
09:00 AM-- Admitted to the hospital for induction of labor. I was 2 cm dilated.
10:00 AM-- Rupture of waters. I was put on a pitocin drip.
01:20 PM-- 3 cm dilated.
02:15 PM-- 4 cm dilated, epidural administered.
03:15 PM-- 5 cm dilated.
04:30 PM-- 10 cm dilated. I was wheeled into an operating room for the delivery.
05:25 PM-- Baby A (Jammy) arrives.
05:45 PM-- Baby B (3Po) arrives.

Beyond that, I have a bag of memories interspersed through different points in that timeline. First and foremost was the impression of how different this labor and delivery was from my first one. I didn't particularly enjoy my first pregnancy, but the were so many other factors. I was exhausted, working full time with a toddler at home and a husband out of work. There were the inherent added risk of a multiple pregnancy and the prospect of premature delivery. And there was the scare of a series of abnormal ultrasounds (that's the subject for another post) and worried of how we would cope with twin boys. So we checked into the hospital for our scheduled induction already pretty exhausted from the last 38 weeks.

With all that, I'm so happy that everything went so much quicker this time around -- 8 hours instead of 27! The labor part was so much more pleasant. Uneventful, even. I basically sat or laid in bed and waited, and as soon as my labor pains started getting bad, they got the epidural in. The decision to have an epidural was an easy one; I decided not to use up my strength getting through labor and save it for all the future sleepless nights. With the pitocin drip and all those fetal monitors strapped to me, it sure wasn't going to be a natural birth anyway. I do remember feeling slightly sad at having to be hooked up to so many machines and having to lie flat on my back, like a sick patient instead of a laboring woman, but I felt it was what I had to do to make sure that my babies were born healthy.

Once I was fully dilated, I was wheeled to an operating room instead of having the delivery right in my room. Instead of just a doctor and nurse, there was a whole team of medical professionals assembled: three labor and delivery nurses, the anethesiologist, two neonatal nurses, and the obstetrician. By the way, that's Alfie in the photo, not the obstetrician. Again, the high-risk twin thing; once Baby A is born, there's no telling what Baby B will do with all that newfound space. Baby B could have suddenly turned breech, or gone into distress halfway thru Baby A's delivery, or whatever. All the extra precautions were there to make sure they could perform an emergency C-section to deliver one or both babies. It's not uncommon; in fact, I'm the only twin mom I know who delivered both babies vaginally.

Looking at that timeline, I'm amazed that there was a whole hour between entering the operating room and actually delivering Jammy. Time seemed to go by so quickly. I remember feeling silly being asked to bear down and push, because that epidural had really deadened me below the waist. I remember lifting my leg with my hands and watching it flop down uselessly. I kept pinching my thigh but couldn't feel a thing. They must not have used as much anesthetic with The Pea, because I could move and feel my legs (and let me tell you, I felt the Pea travelling each and every one of those last few inches of my birth canal, down to the crowning and the tearing). I just pretended I needed to poop, and lo and behold, Jammy came out after 3 pushes.

One down, one to go. 3Po took his sweet time and eventually had to be coaxed out with a vacuum extractor. He came out twenty minutes later, and just like that, we were a family of five.

Isn't it weird how different they looked at birth? 3Po (on the left) was rosy and plump at 7 lb. 5 oz., with very light, wispy brown hair. Jammy (on the right) was tiny (6 lbs. 10 oz.) and wrinkled and pale, with very dark, tufty hair (we nicknamed him Gollum in his first three weeks of life). We thought the ultrasound technicians must have made a mistake when they said these were identical twins.


*Warning*!! Scroll down at your own risk -- the photo you are about to see is Yuccky with a capital Y. If it totally grosses you out and convinces you never to return to this blog again, well, just be glad I didn't post the close-up.







Sorry, guys. It isn't a birth story unless you've got a disgusting birth photo. Alfie took this photo of the placenta while our obstetrician was checking it to confirm zygosity. The boys did share a single placenta, which made it almost certain they were monozygotic (identical), despite the difference in size and appearance. And we did a DNA test later on, which confirmed it.
(On a side note, upon checking the placenta, our obstetrician realized that Jammy's umbilical cord had been attached to the fetal membrane rather than to the placenta itself, which is supposedly a risky thing. I'm sure Mark Sloan, the author of Birth Day, could explain in his clear, humorous way what exactly a fetal membrane is, and why the umbilical cord shouldn't be attaching itself to it, but I like to think of Jammy hanging on by his fingernails for 38 weeks. Maybe that's why Jammy ended up so much smaller and shivelled-looking than 3Po).


Of course, three months later, we realized we could have saved ourselves the $150 for the DNA test. As countless relatives, friends and strangers will attest, they are identical. In fact, to this day I have no idea which boy is which in the photo below.


And I'm happy to say that their looks have improved somewhat in the five years since.


When I look at them today, so robust and healthy, I feel truly blessed that everything went so smoothly and we ended up with two happy, healthy boys. They have truly completed our family and I couldn't imagine life without them.



Click here to read more posts inspired by Birth Day.

Size Matters

Being a twin must be a mixed blessing; on the one hand, you always have a playmate, but on the other hand people are always comparing you to your twin, which can make for some intense competition. 3Po and Jammy are best friends, but they also fight constantly, and are always trying to out-do the other. Alfie and I like to stress that each of our kids are good at different things. Still, the competition continues....

3Po: No Jammy, that's not right!
Jammy: Yes it is.
3Po: No, it's not, and I know it. I have 1 inch more brain than you, because I'm 1 inch taller.

You can't really argue with that, but Jammy was unfazed. His reply: Yes, but our heads are the same size.

Twins in Space

From the party clothes of yesteryear to the party clothes of today.... here are 3Po and Jammy a couple of years back, all dressed up to party as Stitch the Space Alien. Never mind that the costumes are sized for a six-year old; they loved putting the costumes on and parading around anyway.

Here they are again in their Stitch costumes, trick-or-treating last October. See how the padded kneecaps are now right where they're supposed to be? That's two years, people, two years of zooming around, fighting other aliens and scaring earthlings. Not a bad investment!

For more photos of space objects, click here.

Photo Hunters: Hats

No explanation necessary for this photo. The only question is, is it one hat or two?


For more hats, click here.

Say what?

It has been almost 2 years since 3Po and Jammy finished with their speech therapy. Their pronounciation has improved to the point where strangers understand almost everything they say. Of course, there are still some occasions when Alfie or I will ask them to repeat the same word or phrase over and over because they sound like they're talking in twin-language again. But those times are coming fewer and farther between.

In fact, I'm a bit teary-eyed over the prospect of them entering kindergarten and losing their part-English, part-Filipino, all-Bostonian accent ("pah-ty", "cah"). And I'm not looking forward to the day when they can pronounce these words perfectly:

Ooth
Storm--trooter
Kinsplode
Bovver
Hipuccs
Wu-cuz
Yego

Who can guess what these words are?

Photo Hunt: Reflection

For this week's Photo Hunters post, I decided to use an old photo because it's one of my absolute favorite photos of 3Po and Jammy. Can you guess which one(s) is(are) real and which one(s) is(are) a reflection?


For more reflections, click here.

We heart baby dolls

As far as photo quality goes, this one ranks with the lowest of the low, probably the worst of all my Love Thursday posts. But I couldn't resist featuring it. Alfie's parents recently bought a vintage motorcycle model and the boys were thrilled to find that it was just the right size for their baby dolls, Pansy (in the pink suit) and Jane (on the motorbike). The motorcycle is not a toy, but Alfie let Pansy and Jane ride for 5 precious minutes each.

Yes, 3Po and CleanBoy play with dolls (they used to belong to The Pea but she gave them up so that all 3 could play dollies together). They dress them and serve them tea and make them speak in baby voices to each other and generally love them to death. And I couldn't be happier. It shows they are loving and nurturing human beings. Hopefully the way they treat these dolls will be the way they treat kittens, babies, and other people later on in life.

For more expressions of love, click here.

A little Quid Pro Bro

Sharing is not something that comes easily to children, least of all my twins. You'd think they've had enough practice by now; they've had to share practically everything since birth. I guess the desire to have something to call your own is intensified when people have a hard time thinking of you as a separate entity.

But one sunny morning they found themselves with an vanilla ice-cream sandwich and a strawberry ice-cream bar. And, unprompted, they began saying to each other, "Do you want a bite of my ice-cream"?

I wish I could take credit for this delightful exchange. I may have to put it down to love of ice cream.... and dare I hope, possibly love for each other?

For more expressions of love, click here.

One of these things is not like the other...

They look alike, but one of these 3 boys is actually different. Can you guess which one (and why)? To the first 5 (US-based) people who guess correctly, I'll mail you 2 coupons for free Boca Burgers! My first blog giveaway has not had any takers so far :( .... so if you guess correctly, you can have 2 coupons if you want them.

For more different things, click here. BTW, I've posted this week's Photo Hunt entry extra-early because we're spending the weekend in Vegas... it's Alfie's birthday and we're going to party!

Too many birthdays

CleanBoy and 3Po had 2 parties and 2 cakes this year. The first was held in Manila with family, on their actual birthday,



and the second was with their schoolfriends after we got back home.


After all, I thought, they are 2 separate individuals, so if they're going to share a birthday and a cake, why not give them 2 parties? I didn't realize that CleanBoy saw it quite differently:

Me (after the second party): CleanBoy, how old are you now?
CleanBoy: Five.
Me: No, four.
CleanBoy: No, five.
Me: No, four.
CleanBoy: No, I'm five!! In Manila I turned four, and now after this party, I'm five!