Visitors

So, there was lots of excitement at our house this week. My sister and mom, and my two nephews (J and M) came to Ottawa for a short visit. Kids are always a big attraction for A & E -- and J & M in particular, since they are so good at entertaining them.

The picture at the right was taken this morning, just before everyone left. We're going to miss J and M (and mom and P, too), especially when the girls get bored again with just me and DoT around. Although it's almost September now (wow, time flies) and October and Thanksgiving won't be long after that. We are planning a trip to southern Ontario that weekend. My brother will be visiting from China, and it's a great opportunity to see the whole family again. (Too bad my sister-in-law won't be making the trip too.)

This week we also had a visit from friends -- L and Auntie 'Em. It was great to see them again. We got caught up a bit, but will need to have another longer visit since there's still lots of stuff we didn't get a chance to talk about. Auntie 'Em brought each of the girls "Taggies" which are basically a small, soft toy with a bunch of tags sewn on them. They both love them. I don't know what it is with kids and tags, but they just go for them. L brought two handmade sweaters. They are really beautiful, and look great on them. A couple of other friends have also knit sweaters for the girls and I'm going to take a picture of all of them, and put it on the blog.

Next week, DoT's mom and aunt are coming for a visit, so that will be someone new again for the girls to look at. :-)

Part of the excitement during the visit came from the fact that last night at about 8:30 p.m. our smoke detectors went off. They are hard-wired into the wiring of our house, so we weren't able to just take out the battery. DoT ended up going down to the basement and flipping the circuit. The amazing thing was that the girls had been asleep in their cribs for about 20 minutes before that and neither one of them woke up when the alarm sounded. And the alarm is really, really loud. It's this high piercing sound that I was sure could be heard all around the neighbourhood. But the girls slept right though it. And then, E woke up, for no reason, 20 minutes later. Huh.

The girls were also back to the International Clinic at CHEO this week for their second visit. The results were all in for the blood work and urine and stool samples they'd had done. And everything is good. No problems for either girl -- so that was good news. They did a TB skin test this visit and we will go in to have the results read tomorrow, so hopefully they will pass that with flying colours too.

And on this visit, I wrote down their height and weights, since people always ask me and I can never remember. Anyhow, as of Tuesday, E weighed 17.5 lbs and was 27.25 inches tall. A weighed 19.5 lbs and was 27.5 inches tall. They are still a bit small for their ages, but both are following a normal curve and that's the important thing.

The doctor at the clinic told us what to do to try to encourage them to start crawling. Basically, when they are on their tummies we are to position them so their knees are directly under their hips (ie. get them in the crawl position). We've tried it a couple of times since then, and both girls hate it. So there's lots of yelling involved, and we don't last long until we let them lie down or sit again. Either we're going to have to get used to the yelling, or we're just going to have to accept the fact that they won't be crawling for awhile.

That's it for today. Have a great weekend everyone!

Same old, same old

So, nothing new to report here today. Neither girl is crawling or walking yet, although A is scooting backwards (not on purpose though). If she's on her tummy she can move across the room in a few minutes. But unfortunately she hasn't realized this yet, and so isn't doing it to get to the things she wants. She's still crying for either DoT or I, for that.

Sleep patterns haven't changed much either. Both girls are getting up a couple of times a night, at least. And last night they were both up, in the middle of the night, wide-awake for over an hour (at seperate times, of course). They weren't screaming or anything, like they sometimes do, but they weren't interested in sleeping either. When this happened our first week back we blamed jet-lag. I'm not sure what to blame now. Teething, maybe? Their sleep may be a bit better when we take them into bed with us. Normally DoT takes A into the guest room and I take E into our bed. The girls sleep better, but we don't. Both of them like to flop around a lot in their sleep. :-)

Well, I've got a few more pictures for you....

We've introduced the girls to a few of our favourite things...

Not to worry, it's decaf.

And here are a couple of pictures of them sporting their shades. (So far we've been unsuccessful at getting them to wear either the glasses or hats when out in the sun.)







Well, that's it for today. Have a great weekend!

A week full of doctors

So this week we have been spending a lot of time in doctors' offices. DoT and I both had our 'annual' (okay so we're not actually that regular) physicals this week. Although I still have blood work to get done. My appointment was for 8 a.m., and usually I just go straight to the blood lab after the appointment (it's in the same building). But I made the mistake of having breakfast that morning. I wasn't really hungry, and didn't really want to eat, but every other time I've given blood they've asked me if I've eaten anything and don't want to take blood if I haven't. So, I ate. Well, this year my doctor's decided to include a cholesterol test in the blood work, which means I need to fast for 12 hours before giving the blood sample. So I was thwarted. I'll probably go in first thing tomorrow morning. [By the way, mom, my blood pressure is "perfect" - and that's a quote. Pretty amazing given the recent stress in our lives, eh? Apparently it is only your blood pressure machine that stresses me out. :-) ]

E and A have a "meet and greet" appointment at a pediatrician on Friday (yes, we've been lucky enough to find one who is taking patients). However, I had E in to the pediatrician yesterday. She's had a fever for a couple of days, and it seemed to be getting worse (don't worry, it's nothing serious, and is practically gone today). So I gave the pediatrician's office a call around noon and they got her in later in the day. Dr. Chan (the pediatrician) is very nice, and I'm really thankful he's agreed to add the girls to his client list.

Next week we go back to CHEO for our second visit to the International Adoption Clinic.

Who knows, after all this visiting of doctors, maybe the girls will reach a point when they don't automatically scream when they're in a doctor's office. :-)

A few new pics

Since I have nothing new to tell you, I thought I'd just give you a couple of new pics today. These were taken yesterday, by DoT...


Have you got it straight yet, which twin is which?

These are a few of my favourite things...

Well, it's getting harder and harder to update this blog, mainly because I feel like I'm running out of things to say. I never meant this blog to be only about our adoption, and the antics of A and E, but that's what it's turned into. Maybe at some point I'll be hit with a really insightful topic or thought, and the blog will branch out to include (in the vein of Saturday Night Live of long ago) 'K's Deep Thoughts'. But for now, I have no deep thoughts. And I know most of the people reading this blog are more interested in A and E than in what I have to say, anyhow.

Here are the photos I tried to put on the last blog update. Just a couple of shots of the girls. The first one is DoT and A, and the second is DoT and E.




















Quite awhile ago a friend (Auntie Em) asked us to talk a bit about what the girls do like. (I guess I've been spending most of my blog time talking about what they don't like.) So, here's a short list...

E's favourite things:

• Baby Mum Mums
• fruit (of any kind) and yogurt
• a stuffed doll of a Teletubby (a hand-me-down from my nephews)
• a toy Pooh radio that plays a few different selections
• standing -- it's hard to keep this kid down. She just doesn't like to sit.
• toys that make noise
• and a little multi-coloured ball that was originally Abby's (our cats)

A's favourite things:

• Baby Mum Mums
• music -- favourite song seems to be B-I-N-G-O
• fruit (of any kind) and yogurt
• boucing in her exer-saucer (sometimes)
• toys -- especially musical toys
• bath time
• rolling around
• and the same little multi-coloured ball that was originally Abby's (luckily we have two)

As for other favourites -- well, I'm pretty sure their favourite colours are red and blue -- definitely not pink. :-) They are both also pretty excited about Canada's universal health care system, as evidenced by this picture to the left. (Yes, they received their health cards in the mail late last week. Their Permanent Resident cards and SIN cards should be coming any time now.)

That's it for now. Stay cool everyone, K.

Blood and barbeques...

Catchy title, huh? Okay, so the blood and the barbeque themes are seperate. It's not that we had a bloody incident at a barbeque or anything. Although at the barbeque tonight there was a story relayed to me about one of the women sleepwalking and having her mother wake up to see her standing beside her bed with a butter knife. That would kind of freak you out wouldn't it?

Anyhow, yesterday we took the girls to the International Adoption Clinic at CHEO (the Childrens' Hospital of Eastern Ontario). The clinic will see internationally adopted children four times over the course of a year, if the parents so chose. Yesterday was our first appointment. Let me start off by saying, CHEO is an amazing place. I had heard many times about how great the place is, but it was usually in association with some fundraising event or effort, so I figured 'yeah, yeah, sure'. Well, it truly is a great place. From the moment we walked in it was clear this was a hospital dedicated to kids. Everything is designed for the kids ... from the decorations, to the people working there. I guess it makes sense that anyone chosing to work in a childrens' hospital would be into kids, but I just couldn't believe it. It's really nice to see twenty-something men blowing bubbles and bouncing around trying to get a smile from a kid who's being poked by a needle.

We met with Dr. Hui and two others -- one resident, and one medical student. They spent quite a bit of time talking to us about the girls and our experiences. Dr. Hui also outlined what will take place at the next three visits. They will be checking for all sorts of possible illnesses (from HIV to Hepititus to TB, etc., etc.), and also monitoring their attachment, bonding and development. It is really nice to have a place dedicated specifically to international adoptions. And Dr. Hui is great. He answered our questions and gave us a real comfort level.

After we left Dr. Hui's office, though, we headed off to the blood work lab. Unfortunately, in order to do the tests for the gamit of illnesses, they needed to take lots of blood. E and A did NOT enjoy that part of the visit... and therefore neither did DoT or I. As entertaining as the bubbles were, they could not divert our attention from our screaming children. :-) On the plus side, we needed to get a urine sample from E (A had already provided hers) and the trauma of the blood donation did cause her to empty her bladder, so we were able to take care of it all with one visit. :-)

Tonight we went to a friend's house for a barbeque. It was our first opportunity to go out for a meal with the kids. It went pretty well. Aside from not having as much opportunity to socialize as we may have liked, it was good to see friends again and have a bit of a visit. Our friend has a three-year old daughter (M) who A and E spent a lot of time watching. E and A both seem to like kids a lot. Although M is really cute, so maybe that was it.

Well, that's it for tonight. I was going to leave you with a couple more pictures, since I know how much you like that (that's right, it's all about you...), but for some reason blogger doesn't want to let me. I'll try logging on through my work computer and adding them, but if you don't see pictures you'll know it didn't work.