Twins, lah?: February 2008

Well, wonders never cease. I've finally started writing again. It's been a very long time, so I'll get right to it. All of us left S'pore for the U.S. the end of October so I could attend my beloved Nana's funeral. Upon her passing, Sean and I decided that the boys and I should go to the states and stay with my mom for November and part of December, until the four of us could be reunited and begin our already-planned December trips visiting family. Sean watched the boys while I attended the funeral, then drove to Atlanta a couple of days later to check in with work there before flying back to S'pore. He flew back to Atlanta the second week in December, briefly visited us and his parents in South Carolina, drove to Atlanta to work for a couple of days, flew to Pittsburgh to attend his grandfather's funeral, flew back to Atlanta, then drove to Warner Robins to meet us before driving to Orlando for a Disney visit. Then we drove back through Warner Robins on our way to South Carolina for Christmas, then to Atlanta for a few days before leaving. Sean was exhausted, and I was exhausted from adjusting the boys' sleeping the first two weeks of November and doing my own traveling with them.

The boys enjoyed playing with their many grandmas and grandpas.
Things they loved:
Being picked up a lot and kissed by grandparents
Watching planes fly overhead in Georgia and Texas
Playing with bubbles with my mom and Sean's mom
"Cleaning" my mom's office and climbing on stacks of paper
Doing laundry, aka using the beep-beep machine
Running around my mom's house with their poppers
Having stroller races with their baby dolls
Climbing on playground equipment in three states
Checking out cool vintage hotrods at a cruise-in
Feeding dogs not-so-secretly from the table
Christmas decorations, especially outdoor lights and indoor trees
Playing the piano with my dad
Dancing to the Stones and Clapton
Watching a cattle drive in Texas
Riding Small World and carousels at Disney and Universal
Hanging out with their friend Sam in Orlando
Playing with real trains during Christmas with Sean's dad
Opening presents
Watching planes take off and land at the many airports we visited
Reading time with grandparents
Wonderful Mexican food in Texas (ok, that's me)

Things they didn't love:
Long plane rides (oh wait, that's me and Sean)
Long sleeves, at first. They hadn't worn long sleeves in months until we returned to the U.S., so they kept pulling at the sleeves, trying to take them off
Stomach viruses causing them to poop like newborns (5 or 6 times in 24 hours for several days!)
Napping for the first couple of days in new places
Getting wet on the One Fish, Two Fish ride at Universal

All right, that's it for a quick summary. We survived the traveling, and spent the first few weeks of January adjusting to Singapore time. I took the opportunity to change them to one nap, dropping the morning nap. This allowed us to join the American Women's Association Tuesday morning playgroup and the Twins Plus every-other-Wednesday playgroup, and to start a gym class on Thursdays. They continue to enjoy Kindermusik on Monday mornings. Sounds like a lot, but they're doing well and socializing with other kids in different settings. The classes are one hour each, and the playgroups are 1 & 1/2 hours, so we're not gone too long, and we still have plenty of fun at home and on our outings around Singapore.

That's all for now. Next up: lots of talking (Graeme's new word today: waffle), funny stuff from Sean, and the many accents of my children.