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This journal is about raising identical twins.One Hundred and Tenth Month
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Wednesday, Sep 6, 2006 (9y+1m)
The twins are 9 year and 1 month old today. The twins went to school as usual. They finished homework early because it was a "back to school night" for the parents. Mommy dropped off the twins at Benjamin's house before attending the teacher-parent meeting. Basically the teachers introduced themselves to the parents and presented the teaching plans for the rest of the year.Daddy worked overtime as usual. The family were back home when daddy returned. The twins were very enthusiastic about doing calligraphy when the teacher gave that as exercise. They were excited about cursive writing when it was first introduced to them, now artistic stylish calligraphy interested them too.
Thursday, Sep 7, 2006 (9y+1m+1d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had their piano lesson in the afternoon. The teacher gave them extra 45 minutes to catch up on their progress. They worked on homework and calligraphy before daddy came home. Daddy worked overtime again, but yet came home when the twins were getting ready for bed.
Friday, Sep 8, 2006 (9y+1m+2d)
The twins went to school as usual. In the afternoon, they went to Rachael's home for a swim. Jenna's family arrived late, hence prolonged the gathering. So the twins swam longer than mommy planned for. They ordered pizza for dinner. Daddy worked overtime and didn't came home until 10pm. The twins were still practicing piano and reading. Jasmine was reading the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the second time. We have not seen the movie, Jasmine asked if we could rent the movie for her.
Saturday, Sep 9, 2006 (9y+1m+3d)
The twins got up in the morning to practice piano. Mommy spent some time watching the US Open tennis match. We went out to lunch with grandma Chui and aunt Elaine. The twins went to swim with Benjamin in mid afternoon. We left their pool at 5pm.In the car, mommy were talking to daddy about one of the parents in school. Katherine's dad is Taiwanese and her mom is Australian. They divorced recently. The twins added that Katherine cried every time she mentioned her parents. The twins only knew about their divorce, but they didn't know the whole story why Katherine would cry so sadly. The truth was that Katherine's dad had turned into a woman through some kind of sex change operation. It had become a top topic of gossip recently because many moms said this new face on campus was more attractive and feminine than many other moms there.
After the twins took shower, we went to Blackberry Farm's picnic ground. Jocelyn's family invited us to the local Community Services BBQ and auction. The BBQ was prepared by a local firefighters association. We didn't bid in the auction, but couple of the items were quite interesting. One was a ride for two in the local sheriff helicopter when they were on duty call. It would be interesting for people who liked police work or riding on helicopter. The other one was a private studio tour for 5 people at the DreamWorks animation studio. The package includes dinner and souvenirs from the studio, probably an action figure from one of DreamWorks cartoons such as Shrek or Over the Hedge. The winner bid was over $600 which was too high for us.
After we left the BBQ, Jocelyn's family came to our house to play for a while. The girls played on the computers. Jonathan wanted to watch Shrek 2. His dad said Jonathan watched that DVD many times at home already. But since it was his favorite movie, we watched with him. After the guests left and the twins went to bed, mommy caught up on some US Open tennis matches we recorded earlier.
Sunday, Sep 10, 2006 (9y+1m+4d)
Both twins didn't practice their piano seriously. They simply went through the routines sloppily. Mommy sat next to them to demand a good performance. They got a good scolding when they didn't play well. Jasmine sobbed, but Joanne didn't.We had lunch at home and watched the US Open final matches. Jasmine W. and her mom came to our house after lunch. The moms stayed home to watch the final match of the US Open: Roger Federer vs. Andy Roddick. At 2pm, daddy took the three girls to watch the movie The Ant Bully in IMAX 3D. The closet IMAX theater was 40 miles away. The drive was about 45 minutes. The kids enjoyed the movie very much and all said the 3D effects were much much stronger than those in Monster House 3D. On our way back, we were stuck in a traffic jam on the highway due to an accident that blocked 3 lanes out of 4. The return trip took more than 90 minutes. The girls said they didn't mind the delay because they could play longer before saying goodbye to each other. The girls wanted to have dinner together. But since Jasmine W's dad just returned from a two week long business trip this afternoon, we decided to let them have some family time together. Daddy dropped off Jasmine with her parents, then picked up some takeout food before returning home. The kids said they were tired on the way home. Daddy asked them to take a nap. They tried to stay up. The last time they asked how long before getting home was estimated to be 7 minutes by the navigation system. They didn't last that 7 minutes. When we pulled into the garage, both twins were asleep. Jasmine woke up a few minutes later. We let Joanne took her nap in the car for another 15 minutes before waking her up for dinner. After dinner, we ate some watermelon and watched some US OPEN tennis matches we recorded yesterday.
The twins moved one of the night-lights from the living room into their bedroom a few weeks ago, Daddy asked them why they would need a night-light. They have been sleeping in the dark for the past 9 years, they would not need the light in their bedroom. Joanne said she was okay without it. Jasmine said she needed it because she had nightmares recently.
Monday, Sep 11, 2006 (9y+1m+5d)
It was the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack on US soil. We talked about that briefly with the twins. We felt that they were old enough to be aware of the evils in the world.They went to school as usual. Daddy worked overtime, but returned home before the twins went to bed. As daddy opened the door, Joanne rushed to the door with the telephone in her hand. She said she was actually calling daddy's office. Joanne had been the only girl who came to the door to greet daddy. Jasmine's never done that for whatever reasons. I just hope daddy is still welcome by Jasmine.
When daddy went upstairs to give them goodnight kisses. they were playing UNO. Daddy asked if they were out of their mind to play UNO when mommy asked them to go to bed. They explained that they thought the game would be short. In the game of UNO, one can keep drawing from the deck forecer, hence the game theoretically is open ended. They packed up and went to bed right away.
Tuesday, Sep 12, 2006 (9y+1m+6d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had piano class in the afternoon. Mommy changed their class time from Thursday to Tuesday because Thursday is usually busy day for the twins because weekly homework due on Friday. Daddy worked overtime again, but returned home before the twins went to bed. Joanne opened up a 5 months old email in her mailbox today. It was a link to a website on paper crafts. Joanne loved the new discovery and printed out a Jack-O-Lantern to build. She started the project, but wanted daddy to help her.
Wednesday, Sep 13, 2006 (9y+1m+7d)
The twins went to school as usual. Daddy worked overtime again. When daddy came home, they were practicing piano. Joanne put together a paper Jack-O-Lantern. But it was not very well made. She wanted daddy to do one for comparison. Daddy completed the project after the twins went to bed.
Thursday, Sep 14, 2006 (9y+1m+8d)
The twins got up early because Joanne had an orthodontist appointment in the morning. Mommy dropped off Jasmine at school first and took Joanne to the dental appointment. The dentist took the mold of Joanne's mouth and a retainer would be ready in a month. Mommy did an impromptu inspection on their homework. Jasmine's homework was okay. But mommy disliked Jasmine's handwriting. She had to erase her work and repeat some because her handwriting was too ugly. Joanne's handwriting was very tidy and neat. Mommy said Joanne's progress on her homework was too slow. Probably because of her neat and tidy handwriting. She hurried up on her work. Joanne not only caught up on this week's homework, she completed next week's too. They had spare time to do some reading after dinner too.Jasmine called daddy at work to asked some computer questions, she also asked when daddy would come home. When daddy opened the door, Jasmine ran to the door to greet daddy. It was a surprise because it was not her style. I wrote about Jasmine not welcoming daddy just few days ago and now she changed. I wondered whether she read this journal though I didn't think so.
Friday, Sep 15, 2006 (9y+1m+9d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had a play day at home in the afternoon. Karyssa, Kimberley & Rachael were invited to our house for a play day. Jasmine W. came to play with the twins too. Since Jasmine W. was not in the same school as the other kids, she made new friends with the twins' three other classmates. We bought take-out food for dinner. Since Rachel's dad was a vegetarian, we cooked some veggi dishes for him to cover his needs. The kids had a great time playing together.
Saturday, Sep 16, 2006 (9y+1m+10d)
Jasmine picked the yellow eyed penguins for her paper art project. She said since daddy helped Joanne with her Jack-O-Lanterns and Japanese Snow Stoats projects, she also needed help too.The twins had swimming class in the afternoon. Benjamin's parents signed him up for the swimming class too. However, he was disappointed when he found out that his parents signed him up with a different coach. So he swam in the same pool in the same hour with his friends, but in a different area of the pool.
Jasmine W's day was all booked up. She had art class before the swimming class and she had a Chinese class right after swimming. She and her mom couldn't join us at lunch afterward. We had lunch with Ashley's and Benjamin's family.
We said goodbye to the swimming classmates and went home. After a little rest, mommy took the family to the driving range to play golf. The twins liked hitting the golf balls though they couldn't hit very far, neither could daddy nor mommy. The twins had played hockey style miniature golf many times, but this was their first time to play real golf. Since we didn't play on the greens, practicing on the driving range was only semi-real golf. Nevertheless, the twins said they loved playing golf and asked mommy to play more in the future. It was an expensive sport because it cost 10 cents to hit each ball. Twenty dollars went very fast, though not very far in terms of yardage.
Evon and Ronald joined us at the driving range. They brought along their tea-cup size Yorkshire Terrier. The breeder said this kind of dogs would not exceed three pounds even when fully grown. The twins dropped their clubs and played with "Baby" instead.
We went to a ramen place for dinner afterward. It served very authentic Japanese ramen at a very expensive price. Ramen is usually about $8 in this area and this place is charging $10 to $13 a bowl. If you order a la carte, the price can add up much faster too. Its clientele was mostly Japanese because we heard a lot of Japanese conversations among the customers. Looks like Japanese people in the US still spend according to Tokyo living standards. When we got home, we spent more time building the paper craft projects.
Sunday, Sep 17, 2006 (9y+1m+11d)
The twins woke up daddy in the morning, they needed help on their paper craft projects. While daddy and the twins worked on paper crafts, mommy stayed in bed in the morning. Jasmine asked daddy to cook her a boiled egg. She took some left-over chicken wings from the fridge into the microwave oven and prepared breakfast for us. They also practiced piano later when mommy supervised them.We discovered some poppy seed size tiny black droppings on the hardwood floor yesterday. After we cleaned them up, more showed up mysterously this morning. Daddy set up a microscope to look at the area closely. We found out that one of the black spots on the floor was actually not dropping, but a tiny pin hole responsible for the droppings. While the family was watching the hole under a microscope, more droppings were pushed out of the hole. On some occasions, we even saw something wagging a tail inside the pin hole. Though we couldn't see what was actually in there, we guessed it was some kind of wood boring worm. It could be termite too, but termite droppings were supposed to be hexagonal in shape. The droppings we found were shaped like jelly beans under the microscope. After we spent enough time in observing, we sprayed some inserticide into the hole and no more droppings came out for the rest of the day. Joanne said the living thing under the floor creeped her out. She said it gave her chills. When daddy gave her a hug to warm her up, she had goosebumps all over her arms. We would need to hire some pest control expert to inspect the house for other problems.
We ate more left-over for lunch. Jasmine W's art class yesterday reminded us that daddy had not given the twins an art class for a long time. In last art class, we worked on a color wheel by mixing different proportion of primary colors. We also mixed various amount of black and white to get different shades of variety of colors. Today, we spent time learning sketching. Daddy showed them how to use the pencil and the thumb to measure the various parts of the picture to keep the sketch in correct proportions. The exercise was to create an outline of correct shape. However, both twins were too impatient and started drawing the details before the outline was done. When daddy showed them where their mistakes were, they had a lot of erasing to do despite much efforts already went in the detailed work. They were a little frustrated when the pictures didn't turn out right. Jasmine commented that sketching was boring and she liked painting better. Daddy reminded them that if the outline were no good, the painting wouldn't look good either. The lesson was over when the twins lost interest after producing an okay looking outline of the target object.
Daddy went upstairs to take a nap. The twins took out the colorful modeling clay and started doing Tamagotchi figurines. The twins based their designs on the pictures of the characters found on the Tamagotchi website. They both took a nap before dinner. When daddy woke up from the afternoon nap, the twins showed daddy a couple dozens of clay figurines. The twins emphasized that these were made in 3D despite they were only based on pictures.
Mommy didn't cook, so we went out to dinner in a restaurant. The restaurant screwed up our orders, their excuse was that the computer printer jammed and the kitchen didn't receive our orders. Due to the screw up, our dinner took longer than we would like to. When we returned home, it was 9:30pm already.
Earlier in the afternoon, Jasmine made mommy very mad because she took her nap in the same pants she wore to the golf course yesterday. Mommy said that Jasmine played with the dog, sat on the grass and even kneeled on the ground outside of the ramen restaurant in the same pair of pants. The pants were too dirty to go into the bed. Jasmine had to change the linens and start a load of laundry before the night was over. Since mommy was mad at her, daddy and Joanne helped Jasmine complete the tasks after dinner.
Mommy helped the twins floss their teeth because they were not doing it right on their own. Jasmine told on Joanne because Joanne was not using the electric toothbrush as she was told to. The twins went to bed tonight with a much cleaner mouth than usual.
Monday, Sep 18, 2006 (9y+1m+12d)
The twins returned to school after the weekend. They had PE lesson in school today. Joanne said she needed to bring a bottle of Gatarade because she was super thirty after last PE class. Daddy worked overtime again, but still returned home early enough to see the twins.
Tuesday, Sep 19, 2006 (9y+1m+13d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had piano lesson after school. Daddy worked overtime again. When daddy came home, Jasmine wanted daddy to help her use the copier to enlarge the penguin paper craft by 200%. She was very happy because the penuins would be 6" tall and easier to construct than the original one. Daddy had to go to work early the next morning. Daddy went to bed earlier than the twins for a change. Joanne helped daddy set up the alarm clock.
Wednesday, Sep 20, 2006 (9y+1m+14d)
Daddy got up at 5am and reached the office at 6am. The twins were still in bed when daddy was at work. The twins went to school as usual. The twins had PE class at school again.Daddy left work at 6pm. The twins were glad to see daddy home so early. Daddy went to bed well before the twins did again.
Thursday, Sep 21, 2006 (9y+1m+15d)
The twins are 3333 days old today. Daddy got up at 5am and reached the office at 6am. The twins were still in bed when daddy was at work. The twins went to school as usual. They had computer lab today and they used the Internet to research their projects. In the evening, Rachael stopped by our house after her piano lesson. She didn't get her homework from her teachers. Her mom wanted to get a copy from Joanne.Daddy came home at around 7pm. Rachael's mom said it was time to go home. When we went upstairs to look for the kids, they were nowhere in sight. After looking into every possible hiding space, we found them hiding in a closet. After dinner, Jasmine worked on her penguins while Joanne practiced piano. They rotated afterward.
Daddy heard from the news today about a voluntary test some highschool kids took in California. The test was to check the school kids' readiness for college. The result was disappointing in my opinion, only 25% of highschool students were proficient in college level English, and 50% were proficient in college level math. I would expect a higher percentage. California's school system is not ranked very high among other states in the nation.
Friday, Sep 22, 2006 (9y+1m+16d)
The twins went to school as usual. The twins had a tennis lesson in the afternoon. Jasmine W. and Ashley and their moms came to our home for a playday and stayed for dinner. The adults played a game of mahjong after dinner. The kids stayed for a sleep over party.
Saturday, Sep 23, 2006 (9y+1m+17d)
The kids got up in the middle of the night for some cereal. They spilled cherrio all over the kitchen floor, but they cleaned up before returning to bed. The kids woke up at 8am in the morning and they came downstairs to play on their own. They had cereal and chocolate milk as breakfast.Jasmine's mom came to pick her up around lunch time. She brought a pizza for lunch. After the kids finished a light lunch, the kids went to their swimming class. We took Ashley to the pool. Her daddy and Brandon waited for her there. After swimming class, we had lunch together. We all went to the public library after that. The twins needed to borrow some books on California geography for their research report. Mommy couldn't find her library card, so we just put the books on hold.
The twins had great fun taking funny distorted pictures using the Photo Booth software on the iMac. They were flipping through the pictures in sync with the melody they hummed. Daddy got an idea. Daddy captured the music when they played it on a MIDI piano. The twins wanted to substitute the music with an electronic voice using GarageBand because it sounded cuter than piano. Daddy imported their music into iMovie and edited the photos into a slideshow. The twins wanted to share the funny slideshow on youtube because they couldn't stop laughing whenever they watched it. So here it is.
Big Nose Craziness
Joanne is in dark pink, Jasmine in light pink
Sunday, Sep 24, 2006 (9y+1m+18d)
We stayed home in the morning. We went to the public library again when it opened in the afternoon. Mommy found a library card, but it turned out to be a cancelled card. After spending sometime with the librarian to figure out what was wrong with the card, mommy discovered another card at the bottom of her wallet.We went to the driving range to play golf with Evon. Ronald brought their puppy along. The twins played with the puppy instead. Later in the evening, we went to dinner with Christophers family at a Japanese restaurant.
Monday, Sep 25, 2006 (9y+1m+19d)
Daddy went to work at 6am. The twins went back to school as usual.
Tuesday, Sep 26, 2006 (9y+1m+20d)
Daddy went to work at 6am. The twins went to school as usual. They had piano class in the afternoon. One of the black molly died. Mommy bought a gold fish to take its place. Terence's parents went to see a concert. They dropped off Terence with us in the evening. Jasmine W. and her mom brought mommy a birthday cake in advance. We cut the cake after dinner. Daddy went to bed early before Terence left.
Wednesday, Sep 27, 2006 (9y+1m+21d)
Daddy went to work at 6am. The twins went to school as usual. Jasmine finished her research report on the four geographic regions of California. The report covered the Coastal region, Mountain region, Central valley and Desert region. The teacher marked up her first draft. She typed it in the computer. She printed it out after daddy helped her format it nicely.
Thursday, Sep 28, 2006 (9y+1m+22d)
Daddy went to work at 6am. Joanne finished her research report yesterday too, but the teacher didn't returned the markup until today. Joanne typed up the report on the computer in the afternoon. Daddy helped her format it nicely before printing it out.
Friday, Sep 29, 2006 (9y+1m+23d)
The twins had no school today. It was a staff learning day at school. Daddy's work schedule returned to normal because the training class finally over after 6 long days. Mommy and twins requested not to be disturbed in the morning.The twins had a tennis class in the afternoon. Jasmine W. came to our house to sleep over. Her mom went to Las Vegas with her girl friend for the weekend.
The girls set up a tent in the middle of the living room using some ropes and a bedsheet. They wanted to sleep under the tent overnight. Jasmine complained about Joanne and Jasmine W. disturbing her sleep by whispering to each other. In the middle of the night, they returned to their beds because they worried the tent would collapse.
Saturday, Sep 30, 2006 (9y+1m+24d)
The tent was still standing when they got up early in the morning to play. The girls fetched cereal and milk for breakfast on their own.Mommy went out to play tennis with Rachael's mom in the morning. Daddy stayed home to make French toasts for the kids. The girls watched some TV and Naruto before putting on their swim suit and sun screen. They went to their swimming class in the afternoon. After the swim, Ashley's family went to lunch with us at a Shanghainese restaurant. Ashely's mom needed to spend an hour in the classroom to prepare some material for her class. We all followed her to the kids' school. The classroom was the twins' second grade classroom. They could still find Nicholas' photo on the teacher's desk. The kids played on the Internet using the school's computers. We left Jasmine W. with Ashley's family so that she could follow them home. They lived very close to each other so that her dad didn't have to pick her up from our home.
After we came home, daddy went upstairs for a nap. Evon dropped off "Baby Micky" with the twins. She and mommy went to practice golf at the driving range. The twins got to play with the puppy for an hour before they returned. They woke up daddy to help them take care of the puppy because it ran around the house curiously.
We went out to dinner with Kenny, Betsy, Ronald, Evon and her sister. The adults continued chatting after dinner. The twins were tired and wanted to go home. Evon's sister saw our twins for the first time and she praised the kids for being well behavior despite they were eager to go home. The twins stayed awake until we got home.
Sunday, Oct 1, 2006 (9y+1m+25d)
We stayed in bed until very late. The twins climbed into our bed for a cozy family "get-together". We went out to lunch with grandma Chui. Daddy went to Home Depot and Orchard Supply Hardware store to buy some air filters for the furnance. Jasmine asked daddy to buy a spare battery for her Tamagotchi because she gave hers to Ashley. When daddy came home, daddy changed the water of the fish tub too. Since one of the fish died last week, we wanted to make sure the water was refreshed.In the evening, we went to dinner with several families. Since today is the Chinese National day, the whole China is on holiday. It is known as the "Golden Week" for tourism. William and Lillian came back from Hong Kong for a visit. We had 12 adults at one table and 8 kids at another. The kids played on their own while the adults had a long chat after dinner.
Monday, Oct 2, 2006 (9y+1m+26d)
The twins went to school as usual. Mommy went to play golf with Lillian, William, and Jenny in the morning. Joanne went to the orthodontist to get her retainer fitting. She would wear it for the next 8 months to correct her inward bite. The only time she would take it off was for eating. Joanne already managed to put it on and take it out without mommy's help. The retainer would be adjusted once a month until the two front teeth returned to normal position.
Tuesday, Oct 3, 2006 (9y+1m+27d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had piano lesson in the afternoon.
Wednesday, Oct 4, 2006 (9y+1m+28d)
The twins went to school as usual. Nothing specical today, Daddy worked overtime as usual. When daddy came home, the twins were drawing Naruto pictures in the playroom. Evidently they had already finished all their homework and piano practice.
Thursday, Oct 5, 2006 (9y+1m+29d)
The twins went to school as usual. Daddy worked overtime as usual. When daddy came home, the twins were tracing Naruto pictures with a desk lamp under the glass coffee table. Jasmine said she lost a tooth yesterday, but she forget to put it under the pillow for the tooth fairy. When daddy went upstairs to tuck them in, Jasmine was bouncing her head up and down on her pillow. She said that if she keep bouncing like that all night long, the tooth fairy could not do her job. Joanne added that since they have a night light in the room, the tooth fairy could not sneak into the room.
Friday, Oct 6, 2006 (9y+2m)
The twins are 9 year and 2 months old.
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started on Oct 10, 2006