bonnie & jason

Nicholas’ red egg and ginger party

Another weekend chock full of fun. The first order of the day was for Alissa to wear a dress that Bonnie made her for the first time:

What’s the occasion? Nicholas’ red egg and ginger party. It seems like we go to one of these every month these days. I guess we’re just in that phase of our lives. If it’s not a red egg and ginger party, it’s a kiddie birthday party. Soon enough it will be recitals and plays and soccer games. I’m starting to see the genesis of the mid-life crisis! =)

Before I get too far ahead of myself, here are a couple more pictures from the party.



This last one is a 2/3 preview of what I have in store for me. The other preview I got was watching Alissa spend about an hour chasing after all the little boys. Andrew seemed to be particularly fun to chase, probably because he’s closest in age to her. He was also the first boy to kiss her so that might have something to do with it. Of course, he was like 8 months and she was about 4 months or something like that at the time so I’m not sure if that really counts. Regardless, will be interesting to see how all these kids grow up together.

So after a brief rest at home, we made our way down to Deeann and Calvin’s place for a feast of a dinner prepared by Deeann’s aunt and uncle.

Man, such great food! It was like going to a fancy wedding banquet except the food was tastier! After stuffing ourselves while watching the Eagles lose a close game to the Bears (Boo!), we observed Alissa and Abigail play sort of together.

Alissa was really into the pretend tea party. Abigail was amazing with her letters. And otherwise, the two kinda played in parallel. Again, it will be fun watching them grow up together. It’s going to just get more hectic once we throw the twins in the mix along with whomever else happens to be born over the next few years. Remember that game, “Life?” I guess it’s not a game anymore!

My “free” IQ

I got suckered into one of those free IQ tests on Facebook. The test itself was fine albeit suspect in accuracy given there were only like 20 questions you needed to answer. The crappy part was the 3,523 free offers I had to decline before getting my score. I know, I know… people are trying to monetize the internet and all. But really… if it takes me as much time to say no as it does for me to take the stupid test to begin with, I’m just never going to click on any link ever again. Maybe they’ll invent something like Tivo for the internet so you can just skip all the commercials. Anyway, the result is below. (I removed the link to prevent unsuspecting suckers like me from clicking through but if you like free offers, the site is right there.) Again, who knows how accurate these things are… my IQ is probably really low and they just inflate it to get more people to link to their stupid site. Grr…

Alissa has some big news… and some REALLY big news!!!

I have news and I have NEWS. The news is that Bonnie is pregnant again! Yay! We were hoping #2 would come about when Alissa turned two and as it turns out, Alissa will be around 26 months. Now, for the NEWS! It turns out that #2 is actually #2 AND #3. We’re having twins! Can you believe it?! We are still taking it all in.

Since we’ve known for about a month now but haven’t been able to share broadly, I’ve kept a journal on what’s gone through our heads.

Twin Journal
August 1, 2008
July 28, 2008 will now be notable date as the day that rocked our world with the news that Bonnie was pregnant with twins! Here’s the play by play:

Dr. Huang: Let’s take a look… try to relax, you’ll feel some pressure.
Bonnie: *Sharp breath*
Dr. Huang: Uh oh…
Jason: (I don’t like “Uh oh…”)
Dr. Huang: You’re having twins!
Jason and Bonnie: What?! Are you sure?!
Dr. Huang: Do twins run in your family?
Jason: Um no… how did this happen?
– State of shock and disbelief continues for the next few days -

My guess is that this kind of exchange happens with most people when they do not expect to be having twins. We don’t have a genetic predisposition for twins (my mom’s cousin is a twin but as it turns out, it doesn’t matter on the father’s side anyway), we weren’t doing fertility, and finally, we were not thinking we would have more than two kids. So over the last few days we’ve been slowly absorbing the reality, alternately forgetting and remembering that twins are on the way, and alternatively panicking and being super excited about all the things that we need to consider given this big surprise.

We told our immediate family and our best friends already as this secret was too big to keep to ourselves despite being only eight weeks along. Truthfully, I’ve been tempted to tell more people in order to share the excitement, nervousness, angst, and all the other emotions that I occasionally feel the need to offload. However, (so far) we’ve been disciplined and have not broadcast the news. Instead, we’ve spent a lot of time independently googling things like “best strollers for toddler and twins,” “nutrition when carrying twins,” “wiki twins,” and “probability of identical vs. fraternal twins.” We’ve even started batting some names around although we won’t know the sex for quite a while (week 20 I believe.)

As well, Bonnie seems to have more symptoms this time around as apparently happens a lot with twins vs. singletons. Nausea and heartburn are the two most bothersome. Also, although I don’t know this for sure, the fact that we’re having twins may have caused our confusion at the “pee on a stick” phase of our journey. We kept on getting one really strong first line (the test line) with a very faint second line (the control line). Since a “negative” is the absence of the first line but a strong second line, we weren’t quite sure what was going on. Apparently, if you have a lot of the pregnancy hormone, all the dye gets dropped into the first “test” line and there isn’t enough left to make a strong “control” line. We ended up taking three tests to make sure. This one was the most clear one:

Anyway, more to come as we continue down this exciting new adventure! We’re accepting donations on all fronts (diapers, double strollers… tuition) and would also welcome any advice.

August 3, 2008
We had Jeff and Xiao Yi along with Benita, Calvin, Deeann, and Abigail over yesterday for a BBQ. Bonnie did her best to seem like she had a good appetite and successfully evaded some questions from Xiao Yi about whether or not she’s “eating fish.” And we heard from Benita after the fact that Deeann was poking around asking about Bonnie “looking pregnant.”

Otherwise, we’re continuing our research into what we need to do to prepare for twins. Bonnie is doing her best to “eat for three” while taking her prenatal vitamins, folic acid, calcium, and Expecta supplements. Heartburn has been less of an issue lately but the nausea persists. Hopefully it goes away before the second trimester comes around.

August 6, 2008
With news like this, I’m anticipating lots of questions from folks. So here’s a quick FAQ that should take care of some of the items which we were wondering as well as some facts specific to our situation.

1. Do twins run in either of your families?
The short answer is no. Bonnie’s side of the family has no twins that we know of. My mom’s cousin is a twin and he has twin boys, but as it turns out, the father has nothing to do with the chance of having twins. (And I thought I had some kind of super sperm!)

2. If twins don’t run in Bonnie’s family, what are the chances of having twins?
Discounting the effects of fertility treatments (which we were not on, incidentally), the probability of a twin pregnancy is 1 in 89. That rate doubles if the mother is over 35 (which Bonnie is not). However, most of those pregnancies are fraternal twins which, as I mentioned previously, can be influenced by the mother’s genetics. Identical twins are apparently random events that are not influenced by genetics at all. The probability there is about 4 in every 1000 births… much more rare. Taking it to another level, the most common twins are boy/girl fraternal twins at about 40%. The least common are boy/boy identical twins (couldn’t find the percentage).

Interestingly, the probabilities are different for certain ethnic groups. For example, twins in Japan are much more rare. On the flip side, if you’re in Linha Sao Pedro, a tiny Brazilian village, you’re chance of having twins is about 10%! Also, if the mother is vegan, she’s five times less likely to have twins.

3. Do you know the sex and whether or not they’re fraternal or identical?
First, a primer from wikipedia:

fraternal twins = “two fertilized eggs are implanted in the uterine wall at the same time. When two eggs are independently fertilized by two different sperm cells, DZ twins result. The two eggs, or ‘ova’, form two zygotes, hence the terms ‘dizygotic’ and ‘biovular’.”
identical twins = “single egg fertilized to form one zygote (monozygotic) which then divides into two separate embryos.”

We won’t know the sex until the 20 week ultrasound which will be in the beginning of October. At that point, if they’re different sexes, they’re obviously fraternal twins. If they’re the same sex, we may not know ever since many fraternal twins look so much alike that they can pass for identical twins. I believe there may be some clues at the ultrasound that could potentially reveal what they are. For example, if they share one placenta and/or one amniotic sac, then they are identical. However, identical twins can also have their own placenta and amniotic sac in which case it would not be clear if they are identical or fraternal. Confusing, I know. Here’s the wiki if you’re interested in further reading.

4. Were you trying to have twins?
Umm… no. Actually, we had always joked about having twins. Before Alissa was born, Bonnie thought it would be nice to have one pregnancy and get a “two for one” deal so to speak. Then, we saw how much work twins were through my cousin Anna and decided that it was hard enough handling one at a time! We also had been debating about whether we wanted two or three kids at the end of the day. I was in the two camp, Bonnie was in the three camp. But in the first few weeks of this pregnancy, we were both in the two camp since Bonnie was having more nausea and heartburn issues. Who knows if Bonnie would have selectively forgotten those issues later on but for a while there, two was going to be it. Now that we’re having twins, that decision has been made for us and we’re actually both super excited about it! Of course, we’re still nervous at times and there’s a ton to think about, but at the end of the day, we feel very lucky.
On another note, I was joking with Bonnie that our kids reflect what she watches on TV. Before Alissa was born, Bonnie watched a lot of the reality show, “Little People, Big World” which is about Little People parents and their kids. As such, Alissa is in the single digits in terms of percentile height. Lately, she’s been watching a lot of the show “Jon and Kate, plus Eight” which is about a family of twins + sextuplets. And now, we’re having twins. Thankfully, she’s not a fan of the show “Jackass.”

5. Where are you going to put all the kids?
No idea… I’m open to suggestions! Actually, we’re considering expanding the house at some point. Not sure how much it would cost or how we would do it but it’s an option. There’s also the room downstairs that can be turned into a real bedroom but Bonnie isn’t a fan of that idea. For the time being, while the kids are young, I think we can get away with just the one room for a while. We’ll have to see how things go with public vs. private school and a bunch of other factors before we decide what to do.
We’re also glad that we opted for the Honda Pilot vs. the CR-V at this point. Although it may still be a challenge to squeeze them all in the Pilot, we’re far better off than if we had the CR-V. The Lexus will likely get even less mileage than it’s getting now but it will be fine once the kids get older I think. Besides, it’s not like we can afford to switch cars at this point anyway! Worst case scenario, we’ll just pull a Britney Spears and put the kids in our laps. KIDDING!

That’s about all I can think of at the moment. There will probably be additions later on.

August 14, 2008
We have our combination screening (screens for Down syndrome and some other genetic diseases via blood test and ultrasound) tomorrow at SF perinatal. We were there to get the cool 4-D ultrasounds when Alissa was about 20 weeks. (We didn’t do the combined screening with Alissa as it was not as standard a practice as it has now become.)

We’re both a little nervous as well as a little excited. I don’t know if they’re going to be able to tell us the gender or the zygosity (identical or fraternal) but at the very least we should be able to see their size and heartbeat. Assuming everything goes well, we’ll likely start telling more people. The big reveal will be at the big family BBQ August 24th. Bonnie already has the plan on how to break the news. Alissa will be wearing a shirt that says “Big Sister – x2.” It will be interesting to see how people react.

August 15, 2008
Well, our appointment at SF perinatal was fine but apparently, we need to go back in a week because the babies are just a hair under the size that they need to be for the results to be reliable. There are no indications that anything is wrong at this point though. And we were able to see a bunch of things while we were there. For example, both babies are about the same size (about 3.5 cm), and are dichorionic/diamniotic (di/di in medical-speak). In other words, they both have their own placenta and are in their own amniotic sac. Thankfully, di/di twins have less risk of complications so we’re lucky on that front. That doesn’t indicate whether or not they’re fraternal or identical however. (However, given the probabilities for di/di twins, my guess would be fraternal.) Also, it’s still too early to tell the gender. But it was cool to see them move and to see their heartbeats. And finally, last but certainly not least, it’s good to know that there are in fact “only” two!

The technology, as cool as it is, simply doesn’t have enough resolution to create very good 3D (excuse me, 4D) models. In talking with the staff, apparently the machine they were using is just a few months old and the latest and greatest. It’s made by GE and does seem to have some improvements vs. the machine that I remember when we there last for Alissa’s ultrasound. For one thing, it seems quite a bit smaller. Also, we were given a CD with the images and video (formatted for Mac by request even) instead of printouts. Finally, everything seemed to be a bit snappier. Switching views, zooming in and out, going from 3D to 4D, etc. (Sorry for the geekout – back to our regularly scheduled programming…)

So, long story short, so far so good! More to come.

August 20, 2008
We’ve started telling our family and close friends and are looking forward to the big reveal at the family BBQ this weekend with the accompanying blog post (this one). As you would expect, everyone has been very supportive and almost as surprised as we were when finding out about the twins. And it seems like there are babies everywhere! We have three sets of friends who are expecting babies before the end of the year. And another three who just had babies in the last month. Must be something in the water.

Canon 135mm 2.0L

I added another lens to my arsenal with the Canon 135mm 2.0L. It’s one of the sharpest and most highly regarded lenses in the Canon stable and I’ve had my eye on it for quite a while now. I haven’t had a chance to put it through it’s paces yet but here are a couple more of Alissa and her noodles.

Rest assured, many of the pictures I post here in the next couple weeks will be made with this lens though.

Jason’s baby pictures

Some of you may remember the slide show from our wedding reception a few years ago. In that slide show, we had just a few baby pictures. Recently, however, I collected a number of old photo albums from my parents before they moved to Vegas with the intention of scanning in all the images for a digital backup. Well, here’s the first installment of that digital backup with a few teaser images below. Of note… I really look like a girl (ie Alissa) in some of the pictures and my mom used to wear verrrry short skirts. Even around the cold weather of Christmas time.

Alissa and Megan

We went to dim sum with a bunch of Bonnie’s cousins today and I snapped this picture of the two Vickies, Alissa, and Megan (apparently, Megan wasn’t happy with the dan tat or something).

It’s funny how differently babies develop. Megan is a few months younger than Alissa but she has pretty much all her teeth already whereas Alissa still just has four with the others mostly poking out (finally.) On the other hand, Megan just started walking whereas Alissa started walking relatively early on. One thing they have in common, however, is that they are both already solving differential equations and writing epic poems in iambic pentameter. Must be those fancy prenatal vitamins.

Anyway… Bonnie also came across this random picture of the two geniuses so I thought I’d share this one as well. It’s from the annual Wong superbowl party.

This is one of those pictures that we’ll look back on when they’re like, 14, and realize how amazing it is that they ended up going from innocent little babies to pain in the ass teenagers.

Pre-school already?

We’re looking into preschools for Alissa. For those of you who don’t have kids in San Francisco, you probably think we’re crazy to look two years ahead for pre-school. Some would say we’re actually behind. In any case, it turns out that pre-school is not such an easy thing to get into around here. There’s lots of demand for the ones that are good and, as you might expect when demand outstrips supply, they’re not cheap either. Further complicating matters, there are a ton of other variables to consider. There are Montessori schools, co-ops, part-time/full-time, half day/full day, bilingual, proximity, etc.

That said, it’s “just” preschool, right? We don’t want to over-think this. However, as new parents who put a priority on education in a competitive environment, it’s going to be a challenge to balance all the different options. On the other hand, I really shouldn’t complain as it’s not a bad problem to have. Not everyone can afford pre-school in the first place and we continue to feel very lucky that Alissa is healthy and happy.

I’ll conclude with a picture of Alissa when she was about 3 months old. I like it because her expression makes it look like she is concerned about her education as well. Note, her super round face. Also, her hair was still short and sticking up. How time flies!

Lexus IS300 timing belt and water pump change

The Lexus was due for a new timing belt and water pump so I decided to tackle it on my own and save the $400 or so that I would have paid for labor at one of the local independent shops. (I’m a total DIY’er geek too.) There was a pretty good post about how to do it over at my.is and I just wanted to add a couple comments based on my experiences here.

1. The crank bolt is hard to get off, but all you need is a 22mm deep socket and a big cheater bar if you have a manual transmission. Just put it in 5th gear, pull the emergency brake, and pull really hard. One tip is to wrap a pillow in a garbage bag and put it where your cheater bar might hit the fender in case you aren’t able to stop pulling in time.

2. The timing belt tensioner can be compressed with a bench vise, but make sure you put the pin and rubber seal on the right way. I had it backwards the first time which isn’t apparent until you try to put it back in the car.

3. I marked the old timing belt so I knew how many teeth were between the camshaft gears and the crankshaft gear. That helped me put the new one on correctly the first time. (The second time I wasn’t so lucky… see number nine below.)

4. A standard harmonic balancer puller works great to pull the crankshaft pulley. Just make sure you have metric bolts.

5. The PCV valve in my car is threaded on. The replacement one I bought has a grommet instead. Make sure you get the right one for your car.

6. You don’t need to pull the power steering pump like it says in the service manual. You just need to remove the power steering pump bracket out of the way so you can access one of the timing belt cover bolts.

7. I bought the Toyota Extra Long Life coolant. It was friggin’ $23 compared to the Prestone universal kind at $12. I didn’t think it was going to be that much more but oh well… I guess it’s not a big deal if you just change it once every 100,000 miles. (Tip: the parts guys said the “super” long life coolant is the same as the long life, just pre-mixed with water so you don’t have to dilute it yourself.)

8. Make sure you engage the number 2 water bypass pipe when you install the water pump. I missed it the first time and didn’t realize it until I was almost done buttoning it up and realized I had 2 extra nuts that didn’t have a home. Doh! That really sucked as I had to tear everything apart to fix the problem.

9. Make sure your timing belt position stays true after you release the tensioner. (I would release the tensioner before you put anything back on and count the teeth between pulleys again.) I had thought everything was fine until I put the crank pulley back on and found out that I was off by a tooth. Doh! Had to take a few steps back (again) as a result.

What else has Alissa been up to?

It’s been a while since I did any sort of update on Alissa’s developmental progress (other than the standing thing.) So here are some things that we’ve noticed lately (developmental or not).

1. She loves the bathroom. I’m not sure why as it isn’t the first place I would choose to spend my time. Regardless, she makes a beeline for it whenever she notices the door open. Once inside, she either goes for the toilet (ewww), or the sliding shower doors. The shower doors are amusing because they are clear and make a noise when you bang on them (I guess?) The toilet is amusing because it’s disgusting (I guess?) It’s to the point that she’ll stand outside, whine, and bang on the door if you’re inside. (See picture above.)

2. Alissa has developed a new habit where she makes a quick exhale sound and flexes the rest of her body at the same time. It totally reminds me of a kung-fu person getting ready to get punched in the stomach.

3. The raspberry blowing had gone away for a couple weeks but is now back in full force.

4. Alissa is a tease. She’ll make a move indicating she wants you to hold her but as soon as you get close, she turns away back toward the person she’s already in the arms of. She’ll do this multiple times… as if to say “sucker!”

5. She loves her Cheerios, banana puffs, and Veggie Crunchies! I think she would eat them for each of her eight meals of the day. (6:00am breastfeeding, 8:30am solids, 10:00am bottle, noon solids, 1:00 bottle, 4:00 breastfeeding, 6:30 solids, 7:30 bottle.)

6. She has stinky feet… for some reason, it seems the left is stinkier than the right.

7. She doesn’t really play with toys as much as just toss them around the house.

8. She loves bath time but hates getting water in her face.

9. She does not like putting her clothes on.

10. She is entranced by our automatic espresso machine.

11. She’s starting to be able to anticipate things. For example, the other day she was watching me wash the car from the living room window. When she saw I had gone into the garage to grab a towel, Bonnie said she immediately looked expectantly at the door that leads downstairs, thinking I would soon appear.

12. She likes to chew on her sippy cup but does not drink from it.

13. She is becoming very vocal and seems to want to express herself. We think she says, “mama” with a true understanding of the word but can’t be quite sure. It happens most reliably when she’s mad about something and it seems as if she’s calling out for her mama.

14. Her hair is long enough that it actually gets in her eyes a bit. She has the same part to the side that I do and no longer has the bald spot from when she was a newborn.

15. Her two front bottom teeth have come out nicely. Still waiting on those two front upper teeth.

16. She crawls around the house looking for dust balls to chew on. We’ve had to be particularly diligent about Swiffering lately.

17. She loves playing around the open dishwasher.

18. She seems to like to point at things that amuse her.

19. She can do Hi-Five… most of the time.

20. She seems to be a happy and healthy baby. What else can you ask for?

Body Worlds 2 at The Tech Museum

We used part of my vacation day today to visit the Body Worlds 2 exhibit at The Tech Museum in San Jose. I was a little concerned that Alissa was going to freak out about the displays but she barely noticed anything. Actually, she was pretty well behaved for the whole thing as we kept her entertained with Cheerios whenever she got restless.

You’re not supposed to take pictures inside, but I sneaked a few here and there. Sorry for the funny angles and composition… not too bad for shooting blind.

Aside from the pictures I managed to take there were a bunch of other displays that were really cool. All these displays were made possible thanks to plastination, a technique of impregnating body parts with silicone rubber pioneered by German anatomist Gunther von Hagens. The technique itself is almost as interesting as the specimens themselves if you’re a geek like me. If you’re not a geek like me, there’s a good chance this whole idea is rather distasteful which is why I didn’t post too many pictures here. Instead, click here for those of you who are into this kinda thing.

After visiting this particular exhibit, we did a quick tour of the rest of The Tech. We didn’t stay long as it was getting late and Alissa is still too young to appreciate this kind of stuff. But I can definitely see us going back someday when Alissa is old enough to understand the plethora of interactive displays and activities.