Sophia Elizabeth Bauer is the "younger" of our twin daughters. She was born 25% larger than her "big" sister. She is the also the loud one. She is loud when she is happy and she is loud when she is unhappy. She is the bold explorer and is quick to smile.
2009
21 May 2009 was a big day for us, as it was the day that we learned that we would have two daughters during a routine ultrasound examination.
Zoya had to wait a day to hold our new babies because they needed to be stabilized and she needed to rest up after labor. However, it was a very emotional moment when she held her new daughters for the first time.
After one week of life on the outside, Sophia was breathing completely without any assistance and growing bigger and stronger.
On 19 August, the NICU at the UW Medical Center got swamped with new patients and the girls' incubators got moved into the same cubicle. This was a great opportunity for us as it allowed mom and girls to all get together for a reunion.
By the end of the first week in September, Alexandra and Sophia were no longer inside enclosed incubators and they were regulating their temperature through the use of clothes just like the rest of us.
After six weeks in the hospital, Sophia finally came home on 16 September. My mom had driven up from Nevada to help out, and of course she was eager to hold and play with the girls. Since Sophia was home for a week before Alexandra, she was the center of attention when we were not at the hospital.
Finally, the girls were reunited on 24 September, when Alexandra came home from the hospital. The effect of the extra week at home for Sophia is readily apparent in some of these pictures.
5 October was an important day for the girls as it was the day of their first walk. We simply checked the mail and made a lap through our condo complex, but it was an important milestone and we picked a fabulous autumn day in which to do it.
My sister Shelly was visiting us to help out with the girls, but she flew back to New York state in the afternoon on Halloween. In an effort to include her in our Halloween fun, we dressed the girls up a day early. I was able to find a monkey costume for Alexandra (whose nickname is "monkey"), but I could not find a suitable bear costume for Sophia (our "bear cub"), but I did find a good lady bug costume which worked as her old nickname was "ladybug".
In November 2009, Zoya's friend Lusine came out to stay with us for a couple of weeks and help out with the twins. She was eager and willing to learn about caring from the girls the very moment she came in the door, and she proved to be very helpful. That help was greatly appreciated, especially after I returned to work.
Thanksgiving 2009 was the first Thanksgiving for the Bauer twins. We did invite a few people to come over, but in all cases it turned out that they already had plans and we really did not push that hard as we were looking forward to a nice quiet holiday with just the (new) family. I still prepared the full meal (as can be seen in the photographs above), but for the girls it was pretty much just another day. However, mom and dad were able to squeeze in a few extra moments of much needed rest.
One week before "conventional" Christmas (we observe Christmas on 25 December and 7 January), we decided to break our own rules about the girls' quarantine during the flu season, and we brought them in for professional photographs. The pictures turned out well and the girls did not get sick, so the gamble paid off. However, it was a challenging day, because it was very hot in the studio and while we were trying to shoot, Sophia was very unhappy. I had to keep walking her around (which usually makes her happy) or to let her suck on my finger until the photographer counted to three and then I had to pull my finger out so that the photographer could get the picture before Sophia started crying again. Strangely enough, after we were done with the photo shoot and were sitting around waiting to look at the pictures, Sophia was not only calm... but smiling.
2010
We had always looked forward to the time where we could take the girls to interesting places that they would enjoy. By the Labor Day weekend, we figured that the girls were ready and though the weather was not fabulous for humans, we figured that it would be a good day to see the animals at the Woodland Park Zoo. It turns out that the girls were much more interested in the people and general surroundings than the animals themselves. However, to be fair, there was almost no place that we could park the stroller where the girls could see anything without a bazillion other people standing in the way and after a while w just got tired of holding them up all the time.
We originally wanted to get family portraits done each year around the time of the girls' birthday, but that got derailed somewhat as Zoya was in the hospital with pancreatitis the first time around. So we decided to just delay the pictures a bit. We took advantage of the extra free time that came with the Labor Day weekend and went in for some family portraits.
For the girls' second Christmas, we wanted to get more studio portraits. However, this time around, they were much less cooperative. However, we were able to get a few decent pictures out of the entire shoot.
2011
The girls enjoy our trips to Costco. We try to keep them out of the cold, but they usually enjoy the weather... however, they are not too fond of being put back into the car.
Sophia had her skull surgery in mid-February. She went in on Thursday morning, and was in surgery for five hours. Zoya stayed with her every night and I came in every day. She was ready to go home on Sunday, so we brought in the whole family and waited for the the hospital release her. The girls made the most of the new surroundings.
On most mornings, I get the girls ready to go and into the car, where we usually sit for a few minutes while Zoya finishes up her own preparations for work. On this particular morning, I was watching the girls in the rear view mirror and when I saw them holding hands I did my best to capture the moment with my cell phone.
It is hard to watch over both girls when they are free to move around, so I usually just drive around with them in the car when we are waiting for something (in this case Zoya was having her annual check up). However, I finally broke down and let the girls wait for mama from within the clinic since they had a small waiting area for kids that was relatively easy to "trap" them in.
I am not a "shopper". I generally hate shopping (except online), and I really hate hanging out with somebody when they go shopping... especially when it is for something that is not of particular interest to me (e.g. shopping for women's clothes). As a result, I have always resisted going to the mall with Zoya. Luckily, the arrival of the girls gave me a built in excuse, and now that the girls are old enough I actually enjoy when Zoya goes to the mall as I get to take the girls to someplace "fun". However, trying to keep tabs on two toddlers at the same time can take a toll on me.
At the end of May, Zoya took the girls to visit our relations in Saint Petersberg, Russia. The trip had its challenges, but overall it was a good experience for everyone involved. They returned home in early June.
My mom and sister came to visit us for the girls' second birthday. We try to get formal portraits each year around that time, so we included the entire family in this year's session.
Halloween was a complete bust this year. Since the girls were finally old enough to actually enjoy the holiday, I went to a lot of effort to make sure that I could bring them to the various festivities at work, and then to register them for all of the fun. Even though Halloween was on a Monday, most of the activities at work were scheduled for the previous Friday. On that day, I left work a couple of hours early to pick up the girls at the nanny and dress them up in their costumes and then take them back to work. Unfortunately, neither girl wanted to put on their costume... period. After 30 minutes of consoling, bribing and just about any other tactic I could think of, I finally gave up. For actual Halloween, we came home early, ate dinner quickly and then tried to get the girls into their costumes again. This time, we had limited success (Sophia gladly put her costume on), but Alexandra was kicking and screaming and when we finally gave up trying to dress her, Sophia wanted to take her costume off. In the end, we wound up humoring them by letting them hang out on the stairs (under close supervision)... which for reasons unknown to us, they consider to be a treat.
The girls have always loved music. It started in the womb and in fact, it was one of the things we would use to calm them down when they got too active (and would keep Zoya awake). We decided to take advantage of the kid's series of performances at the Seattle Symphony, and finally took the girls to their first performance. It was not really a symphony, but rather an introduction to music and singing. Either way, the girls generally enjoyed the entire experience.
In addition, watching classical ballet and similar dance videos is something that we let them do on a relatively frequent basis. Most of the time, it gets them up and dancing, but sometimes they just relax while watching a performance (as seen here).
We had gotten a coupon from the JC Penney portrait studio. It offered a pretty substantial discount if we came in before Thanksgiving. We tried three times to get our holiday photos completed before the deadline and we failed all three times. For the first sitting, Alexandra had a rash on her face (she looked like a teenager with acne). For the second session, we had to cancel because it looked like Sophia was coming down with a cold (that turned out to be a false alarm). We actually made it to the studio for the third session, but that ultimately failed because the girls would not cooperate. The best pictures of the day were the ones I took in the waiting area with my cell phone.
At the end of December, we made a fourth attempt to get the holiday photos, and apparently the fourth time was the charm. However, when they created our disc with the photos, they included the photos that there were taken (and we rejected) back in November. With some creative editing on my part, I was able to salvage some of them. I have included all of them here (the originals and the edited and cropped versions).
We had big plans for Thanksgiving, but both girls came down with head colds just before the holiday weekend, so we stayed home. It was the right decision for the girls, but as Zoya and I both caught their colds, it turned out to be the right decision for all of us.
2011 is the third Christmas for the girls, but that is only a technicality. For Christmas 2009, they were still newborns and oblivious to what was going on around them. In 2010 they were more aware that something different was going on, but not much more than that. This year, they were keenly aware of the tree and other changes around the house as part of the holiday season.
Apparently, the trick to good holiday portraits is to have them taken after the holidays. On our fourth attempt to get holiday photos for the year, we finally succeeded (mostly) in getting the girls to cooperate.
2012
We had taken the girls out to restaurants before, and it generally worked out well. With that in mind, we decided to take them with us when we went out to dinner on Valentine's Day this year. It worked out for a little while, but even before our food came out, the girls could not (would not) sit in the booth and it just got worse. So once we got our food, we immediately put it into take out boxes and carted the food and family back home for dinner. The good news is that it was probably the second or third time that we offered the girls some Chinese food, but this time around they really seemed to enjoy it. They are still asking for "Chinese Spaghetti" (chow mein).