Aaron & Isaac

Writer's Workshop

Aaron has been doing a unit in class called Writer's Workshop. They capture little moments in life, and work on improving their handwriting and storytelling skills.

Here are some scans from his work. They're in chronological order, and span the first 3 months of the school year.

Surprise!

Pop-pop had a surprise party at work yesterday. I couldn't make it, but the twins were there to celebrate.

The twins and I are moving this month, and I'll be in Israel for Passover, so the blog might be quiet for a bit. Happy Passover!

One-on-one

Amber and I decided to start a monthly "one-on-one" day with the twins. Yesterday was the first such event, and this month I had Aaron (we flipped a coin). Aaron and I went to a Purim Carnival at the JCC, via Costume & Display to get him a fireman's hat.

Photos from Sunday

Twins school photos

After sending a few to relatives, I still have some extra school photos from the twins. I don't have a scan to show you, but believe me, they're cute!

If you want a few, send me your mailing address to joe @ this domain

Snow pictures

The Seattle area got some snow last week. I didn't get any at my place, but there was plenty on the Eastside, so we built snowmen at my parents' place.

Photos are on flickr because uploading to the gallery is broken and I've been looking for an excuse to stop using it because flickr is a much better service.

Hair Goo

The twins kept pointing at my jar of hair goo in the bathroom, so I told them what it was, and opened the little jar for them to feel it. Since all toddlers love yucky-feeling stuff, they were really into it, so I did their hair.

JCC Potluck

Where does the time go? Sorry for the lack of posting. The twins' daycare room had a potluck earlier in the month, you can see some photos from it in the October Album.

At the daycare, they have a plastic kiwi, and one of the twins asked me what it was ("Waz dat?" is one of their favorite phrases). Apparently, they both really liked the word kiwi, because they couldn't stop saying "KEEEE WEEEE", so I bought them one to try. Stupidly, I peeled and cut it before they could get a chance to see it, so when I served it up, telling them it was the famous kee wee, they looked pretty suspiciously at it. They ended up enjoying it a lot anyway.

The twins turn 2 1/2 in a week!

Haircuts

Seattle weather has been too hot for the twins' mop-tops, so I gave them crewcuts yesterday, with help from mom-mom (holding them down and distracting them, mainly). You can see before and after shots in the July album.

Internet phenomenon

I noticed the photo to the right had an abnormally high number of page views (187), so I took a look around the internets, and found that Aaron flashing gang signs has become a small internet phenomenon.

You can see it about halfway down the page on some dude's blog and about 1/4 the way down this myspace profile. Weird.

Update: Geraldine adds some fuel to the fire

Update2: more linkage

Pictures and a knock-knock joke

I added some pictures from my camera phone and from the twins' great-grandparents' visit for Aunt Mindy's graduation (too many possessive nouns!). They're in the new June album.

Aaron told me a knock-knock joke today

Aaron: [hiding inside his closet, which he calls a "gate"] Knock knock.
Me: Who's there?
Aaron: Aaron.
Me: Aaron who?
Aaron: Gate!

Lots of new pictures from March and April

Just put up a bunch of new photos taken by Amber. They begin on the bottom of March, page 2, and continue into April.

Just a reminder that Isaac and Aaron's Birthday Walk is this Sunday. Please donate or sign-up to walk, we're almost at our goal!

Some short videos

• Isaac saying "Ballooooooooon" in the car
• Mothers, lock up your daughters. Aaron can open doors
  
  (For some reason, the boys asked to play in their cribs today. So I hoisted them both into Aaron's crib and they had a ball!)
  
  
• Aaron doing a dance
• Aaron and Isaac "spinning"
• Isaac doing a booty dance on Aaron (while chanting "ooo ahhh ooo")
• And finally, what would playing in the crib be without some fake sleeping?

Trip to LA

Aaron, Isaac, Mom-mom, Pop, Mindy, and I took a trip down to LA last weekend to celebrate our cousin Brandon becoming a Bar Mitzvah. It was the first time I've traveled with the twins, and I now have a lot more respect for Amber taking them to New York by herself.

The twins were really well behaved on the way down, and pretty well behaved on the way back up--partially due to a very understanding flight attendant, who allowed Aaron to play in the galley for a while. But with after 3 days of non-stop noshing, schmoozing, and messed up sleep schedules, I think we were all feeling the same way.

It was great seeing so much of my extended family, some of whom I hadn't seen for many years. I wish we could have spent a whole week down there. Brandon did an excellent job leading services and chanting his Torah portion, he should be very proud.

Pictures, of course, can be found in the new March album.

Aaron can walk too!

By popular demand, here's a video of Aaron walking [3mb .avi] In this one, he's leading a one man band down the streets of Basementville.

As always, let me know if you have trouble viewing it.

All's quiet on the Western front

Sorry for the lack of updates. Since we last spoke, the twins have been hit with a double whammy of cold and flu like symptoms. I won't go into the details, but after catching the flu portion myself, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

Even though they each lost a pound due to decreased appetites and increased...output, the past few weeks have been a time of development for both of them. They're both walking as their primarily form of locomotion, and signs of their increased comprehension of the world around them are abundant. Isaac loves "opposites" and asks to read books about them by name. They also anticipate cues in their favorite books, like touching their lips when we reach the page about lips in The Shape Of Me.

They already have a few catch phrases, such as "all fall down!" and "oh no", and they can mimic almost any word or short sentence we say, even if they don't understand its meaning yet.

In addition to getting their weight back up, we're working on manners (please and thank you), and two word sentences, such as "more juice" (instead of saying "more" and pointing). Every day, they never cease to amaze us with at least one new trick.

I started a February album in the gallery, so far it only has a few pictures in it.

B-boy Swagger

Like any true b-boy, Isaac walks the walk and talks the talk...and then falls down. [3mb .avi]

Boy Scout Expo

Today, my parents and I took the twins to the Boy Scout Expo at Bellevue Square mall. I tried to sign them up, but apparently they're still a little young to join (who knew walking would be a prerequisite?).

They met some friendly animals, played on the tugboat, and kept abreast of current events (as usual).

See the rest of the pictures here (starting at the bottom of the page).

3 Videos

Isaac frustrated by cotton balls glued to his fingers

Mankind discovers use of tools, does a little dance

What it looks like to be tackled by Aaron

update: .3gp is the file extension for the 3gpp format. It's open source and should be playable on most modern video players. I've tested it on Quicktime and Real for Windows. Let me know if you have any problems.

update2: Quicktime users might need to run "Quicktime Updater" to install mpeg4 codecs. Windows users, look for the Updater in your Quicktime folder in the Start menu

Lots and lots of December pictures

Just put an enormous amount of pictures in the December 2004 album. Check 'em out!

Also, I tracked down the comment bug, it's a problem with our web hosting company, who has assured us it's being worked on. Technical details after the jump.

The captcha (or security code image) isn't showing up, so you can't post comments. The image is rendered by a perl cgi using the GD module, presumably making a hash of the numeric value passed in. Trying to directly load the cgi in a browser gives you an internal server error:

line 55./usr/bin/perl: relocation error:
/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/i686-linux/auto/GD/GD.so:
undefined symbol: gdFontGetGiant

So apparently, our host made a change on their end (to GD, perl, or maybe even apache) that broke GD in some way. gdFontGetGiant is some kind of alias to an instance of the GD::Font class, used in this case to set the font size. Do a perldoc on GD if you want to learn more then you'll ever need to know about this powerful graphics library.

update (01/04/05): if you got here via google because you have the same problem, I'm afraid I can't be of much help. My hosting company fixed the problem, saying that all they needed to do was reinstall the latest version of the GD module (v2.17 currently). Hope this helps. If you figure out something else, please let me know and I'll update here for posterity.

update2 (01/06/05): Brian from fatdays.com points out:

For sites like mine that are running CPanel (http://www.cpanel.net/), the root user can solve the problem with GD by SSHing in and running /scripts/cleangd .

Photo Shoot

Photos from the twins' first professional photo shoot are up in the gallery. A big thank you to Caroline for treating us to the shoot. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Here at monozygotic.com, we definitely have a lot to be thankful for.

October

A new month brings new pictures. NSFOM had their twice yearly rummage sale, and we picked up a bunch of great stuff, including a climbing toy (made possible by a grant from the Great-Grandpa foundation).

Developmentally, the twins have been practicing their verbal skills a lot. They've pretty much got the repetition game down. Last night, Aaron was pushing buttons on my parents' answering machine and saying "beep" every time it beeped. And since he's such a stickler for accuracy, he also said "beepbeep" when it beeped twice. They love mimicking my dad, who sings "Ba ba ba, ba Barbara-Ann." The twins are pretty good at keeping up, until the "Barbara-Ann" part throws them off.

Isaac is eating more and becoming less of a picky eater (for now!), which is good since the pediatrician was concerned about his weight (which is so low to begin with since he's a preemie). In fact, he often eats more than his brother, which is no easy feat. Here's how I'd describe their old eating habits: in the time it takes Aaron to shovel an entire handful of macaroni noodles into his mouth, Isaac will have tepidly grabed one noodle only to have it fall in his lap before it gets to his mouth. So you can see how this newfound love for food is a great thing!

New September Pictures

A few recent pictures are up in the gallery. Enjoy!

And a happy (belated) Jewish New Year to all. Have a sweet year and a fun fall season.

Haircuts

I gave the twins their second haircuts ever, and their first crew cuts (or "ballie wheat" as my dad would say). I think they turned out pretty good.

Picnic in the park

We took the twins to the NSFOM picnic last night. I snapped a few photos there and uploaded a few other miscellaneous ones too.

As Amber will probably attest, the twins have never been dirtier after the messy combination of a buffet-style free for all (i.e. stealing food off our plates), and dirt to play around in. It was great catching up with all the parents in the club, and seeing their cute twins too. (ed: and confirming that ours are still cuter)

The twins had been sick (probably from their doctor's visit and/or the vaccines), but they seem to be doing a lot better now. They never got all that sick, symptom-wise, but they were very needy and fussy. At one point Aaron just lied on me and cried, so I invented an improv game where you have to make up new verses to "Hush Little Baby." It turns any frown (baby's or father's) upside down!

Jah!

Here's a 10 second video of Isaac gettin' his groove on to some reggae music.

My phone records video in the 3GPP format. I've gotten it to play in Quickime and Real Player for Windows, but it is an open format.

Hot weekend!

In our attempt to keep cool this weekend, we took the twins to the Greenlake wading pool. A relaxing time was had by all!

In a continuing trend of increased dexterity, Isaac now loves to clap for anything and everything. He also has his own patented dance, that looks a bit like swinging an invisible baseball bat.

Aaron has perfected saying "Hi!" to everyone he meets. We read that children whose first word is Hi are generally outgoing people. Now that they almost have a full mouthful of teeth between them, we've started brushing their teeth at least daily, and we're tapering off their bedtime bottles to reduce the chance of tooth decay. Old habits are hard to break!

July Pictures

I just added a few new pictures from the past two weeks.

The twins are back in Seattle, and they are growing by leaps and bounds! Recently, they've been napping more and eating a lot more solids...two sure signs of a growth spurt.

Developmentally, they're consistently able to repeat simple sounds, and Aaron is already trying out some 2 syllable combinations of gibberish. They've pretty much perfected their crawling, pulling-up, and climbing (stairs, the sofa, whatever). They're working on cruising, and standing solo.

They're still very curious about their surroundings, especially the sounds that different objects and surfaces make when slapped (future drummers?!). They are also getting the hang of object permanence, and helping them develop it has been a great joy. They love to initiate a game of peek-a-boo with whatever objects are handy. Isaac loves to play "How big is Isaac?" (Sooo big!), he will respond by enthusiastically raising his arms up over his head.

Last we checked, Aaron was 19.5 lbs and Isaac was 18. Their time as babies is drawing to a close...it's on to toddlerhood!

Kung fu grip

I had expressed some concern about Aaron's pincer grasp (index finger and thumb). Amber easily allayed my concerns with a few pictures, which I turned into an animated gif. It's below the cut (because it's 500k)...

Shhhh

Shhhh, they're sleeping!

Socks

A few new photos, including a great series of Isaac taking off his socks.

Surprise!!!

I gave myself the best Father's Day present imaginable, and booked a trip to New York to visit Amber and the twins, who are still there for a few more weeks. As the icing on the cake, Grandma Barbara and Great-Grandpa Morty were there on Friday and Saturday...and only one of the two knew I was planning on meeting them there. Guess which one?

For Father's Day, we went out for ice cream, to the park and the beach. It was such a blessing to be able to see Isaac and Aaron this weekend. And a big thank you to Amber's family for housing me over the weekend.

See all the pictures...

Isaac and Aaron's first swim

New photos, including the twins' first swim!

The Wonders of Technology

These pictures are hot off the memory card, they were all taken within the past hour!

Check out Aaron's pearly whites, he's got four of 'em on top now.

June in NY

More fun pictures of the twins in New York, including one of them really really disliking ice.

Twins' first hair cut

The twins got their first hair cut yesterday.

Isaac was a little scared of the clippers but it wasn't anything that giving him a comb to play with couldn't fix.

Awesome!

Even more new pictures from New York!

3 for 3!

Amber comes through again with even more great pictures from NY.

More NY pictures (and a few older ones)

Starting at the bottom of this page, there are a bunch of new pictures from NY, and a few older ones from before Amber and the twins left.

Isaac and Aaron are both sitting up a lot better, and they're working on eating and drinking big boy foods!

NY Pictures

Amber sent me a few pictures from New York. Aaron and Isaac celebrated their 1st birthday on Saturday, featuring birthday cake and many presents.

They're both sitting up now, and they're eating a wider variety of "stage 2" baby foods, and even some table foods. Mac & cheese is their favorite; I guess the apple didn't fall very far from the Mac & cheese tree!

Mixed bag of new pictures

There's a little mixed bag of new pictures up in the gallery.

There are pictures from Passover at Grandma and Grandpa's

From a playdate with the McDaniel twins

From the Little Gym

and a few more.

Old photos from the NICU

Each of the Swedish NICU beds came with a single-use camera that the nurses would use every once in a while. We snapped a few pictures as well, and took the cameras home when the twins left the hospital. There were a few pictures left on each roll, so we took shots here and there over the months, and finally finished them a little while ago.

Here are a few cute ones from the two rolls:

New Pictures

A bunch of new pictures from the past month are up in the gallery.

I tried to take a shot of Aaron that matched an old one I took of him in July. It didn't work out perfect, but here they are side to side...

Here are a few more of my favorites:

yo yo yo

yoo hoo