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This journal is about raising identical twins.One Hundred Eighteenth Month
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Sunday, May 6, 2007 (9y+9m)
The twins are nine and three quarter year old today.
The twins got up early and read books in their bed. Jasmine complained that Joanne was reading aloud and bothered her. But daddy said it would be a nice idea to read to each other so that they could practice pronunciation and articulation. Jasmine told daddy that Joanne slept in the gap between their beds again. Daddy told Joanne that the confined space of the gap would restrict her growth and she might grow up like the 2-dimensional Paper Mario. Joanne has been ignoring daddy advice for a long time. Hopefully the 2 dimensional scare tactics would stop her from sleeping in the gap.
The twins pulled out some old photos from the computer. Jasmine said she hated the bangs she wore. They looked ugly on her.
We went out to lunch with grandma Chui and aunt Elaine. After lunch, we dropped off the twins at Pei-Ling's house. She had her 10-year-old birthday party. They played with water balloons and water guns. They got all wet but they were well prepared for it. Before we left the house in the morning, the twins already put on sun block lotion and packed a change of dry clothes with them. The twins said the boys were too violent and one of them threw a rock and hit the birthday girl on the head. We picked them up after the party at 5:30pm.
We went out to dinner in a Mediterranean cuisine restaurant, we found out it was a Lebanese restaurant only after we had started to order the food. We seldom have this kind of food with the twins. The twins loved the pita bread and the hummus. The Shish Kabob and Lamb couscous tasted great. After Jasmine tried a sip of daddy's yogurt drink, she made a face and said she wanted to puke. The yogurt drink was sour and salty. I think it would be more palatable if it were sweet. We all ate a lot until we couldn't eat any more. One of the orders didn't come because the waitress misheard us and didn't write it down. We asked her not to correct the mistake because we would not be able to finish it. The twins asked us to pack the leftover pita bread because they like it a lot.
We stopped by mommy's high school friend Ellen's home after dinner. They had been remodeling their house for the past year or so. They came to our house to see our remodeled kitchen for ideas. We have not seen their result until today. They said they borrow a lot of same idea from us. The island in the middle of the kitchen and the lights hanging over the island were almost identical to ours except for the choice colors. They did a lot of the work on their own and their workmanship was very good too. For example, they put crown molding on all their ceilings. They even built the fireplace mantelshelf by themselves. We were surprised that they learned the carpentry skills so well.
We came home at around 9pm. The twins took turn practice piano and took shower before going to bed.
Monday, May 7, 2007 (9y+9m+1d)
The twins went to school as usual. Joanne had a little runny nose. Mommy thought she might not have kept herself warm after playing the water games in Pei-Ling's birthday party. Mommy sent her to school regardless. After they came home from school, the twins wanted to take a nap. It was a hot day today, high at 87°F. The twins were all sweaty in bed.
They woke up at dinnertime. They practiced piano and did their homework after dinner.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007 (9y+9m+2d)
The twins went to school as usual. Joanne visited her orthodontist in the afternoon. He said Joanne needed to wear her retainer more often because her progress was too slow. She usually just wore it during her sleep. She now needed to wear it during school hours too.
Daddy ordered a 2GB microSD car for the twins' R4 for the DS. It was below $15 after discount and rebate. The offer was only good for one purchase, so we only bought one. Joanne agreed that Jasmine could take the new 2G bytes memory card. And she would take Jasmine's 512M Byte card. So how she would have 1.5G bytes in total. Joanne said she would use her extra half-gigabytes to store MP3 songs for her DS. Jasmine was excited about the new 2GB memory card and she opened the package before daddy came home. Daddy helped her to transfer all her files from the old chip to the new. Daddy also added more MP3 songs and family photos to her new chip. Jasmine certainly knew how to do it on her own, but the twins were not allowed to touch the DS on a school day.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007 (9y+9m+3d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went out to have an afternoon snack with Ben's family.
Thursday, May 10, 2007 (9y+9m+4d)
The twins went to school as usual. They didn't have their piano lesson this week because the teacher was still on her performance tour. The twins still practiced with the assignment their teacher gave them. Daddy asked the twins to try out the Japanese lessons on the computer. They tried over the weekend. Today, they told daddy that they were too busy with their homework and piano practice, so they didn't spend much time on learning the Japanese. Daddy loaded a Japanese dictionary onto their Nintendo DS. They were all interested in trying out the software. Mommy gave them special permission to use the DS today because the dictionary was not a video game.
Friday, May 11, 2007 (9y+9m+5d)
The twins went to school as usual. They stayed with Ashley after school. They went out together for dinner. Daddy went to an ex-coworker's memorial service. She passed away last month after a surgery complication. She was a wonderful person and everyone still remembered her after 15 years. Many ex-coworkers came together for a reunion to celebrate her life.
Daddy babysat the twins when mommy went out to deliver a baby shower gift to Ms Dong. Before mommy left the house, she ordered the twins to practice piano and take shower. Daddy reminded them to practice piano over and over again. They just didn't take it seriously. When mommy came home, they were not done with their assignment. Mommy was very mad and grounded them on the spot. They lost their DS privilege for the weekend. They didn't utter a word of objection because they knew why they were punished.
Saturday, May 12, 2007 (9y+9m+6d)
Mommy went to play tennis in the morning. Daddy fried some eggs for the twins as breakfast. Joanne practiced piano in the morning. We went out to lunch with Christopher and Terence's family. We came home in the afternoon so the twins could practice piano. Daddy and mommy took a nap.
We went out to dinner with aunt Elaine and grandma Chui. The restaurant was packed with people for Mother's day dinner. We waited for over an hour before we got a table. At the end of dinner, mommy told the twins that they were not grounded any more because they behaved well today. Daddy told them that they were still on probation even when mommy placed them on parole. Jasmine immediately pulled out her DS from her purse. Joanne regretted that she didn't bring hers.
When we came home after dinner, the twins were glad to receive some Miis from Claire's family. Several of our friends were able to buy a Nintendo Wii after the supply started to pick up. Claire's family was the first to join our Wii friends' circle. Before they went to bed, the twins gave a Mother's day gift to mommy. They were the projects they did at school. The teachers asked them to write a poem in a scroll of paper.
Sunday, May 13, 2007 (9y+9m+7d)
It is Mother's day. We picked up some takeout food in preparation for dinner. We went to grandma Ling's place for lunch. We found that grandma and grandpa have bought a 32" HDTV a month ago. They did not subscribe to satellite nor cable service. But the reception off the air was very good. The picture was crystal clear. The snowy and ghostly images are no longer there. Since the TV was only 32" size, even regular channels appear very sharp. At such small size, HDTV channels make no much difference because picture flaws only show when enlarged. Daddy spent the afternoon watching the new TV. The twins played their DS games with cousin Natalie. Natalie recently bought a DS Lite too. We were wondering why she did that while her DS still work fine. Cousin Samantha did the same too. So both Natalie and Samantha each own two DS consoles. Looked like Nintendo got a big winner. Not only the DS console sold well initially. People upgraded to the DS Lite to get the brighter screen despite the games play in an identical way.
The mother's day dinner was like a family reunion gathering too. Great grandma, grandma, aunt Tina, and mommy were the three moms in the family. We came home after the dinner. The twins took a nap on the way home. They practice piano and took shower before going to bed.
Monday, May 14, 2007 (9y+9m+8d)
The twins had no school today. It was the teachers' learning day. Ashley came to our house while her mom returned to school for the "learning". Brandon went to Mrs. Dong's home to play with Calvin instead.
The three families, Ashley's Calvin's and ours went to lunch together. Jasmine said Calvin was very noisy today. Ashley and the twins worked on their homework. They spent time make a book with their own writing and illustrations. They did calligraphy too. Their projects looked really nice.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007 (9y+9m+9d)
The twins were 9 year, 9 month and 9 day old. The twins returned to school after a 3-day weekend. The day ran as usual.
Daddy told the twins we would have a visitor from New York the next day. The twins knew uncle Oscar because they have met him several times. The twins said they didn't remember who he was. Daddy dug up the digital photos from our East Coast trip back in 2004. We also found some photos when Oscar and his wife visited us in California. The twins said they remembered how they tied up Oscar using a bathrobe belt.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007 (9y+9m+10d)
The twins went to school as usual. They practiced piano and did homework in the afternoon as usual.
In the evening, Oscar came to our house for dinner before leaving for New York on a redeye flight. The twins didn't tie him up this time because they were busy with their homework. We figured that he needed extra time to return the rental car and go through the airport security, so he went to the airport soon after dinner to avoid any rush.
In the evening, the twins had spare time to play some games on the computer. When Jasmine was practicing piano, daddy showed Joanne the secret move in Wii Bowling that generated an earthquake that knockdown all the pins. Joanne was so excited and wanted to repeat it, but failed. Jasmine wanted to see what the commotion was about. Since the special trick only worked in the 10th frame, it took quite a while to get there and we had to bowling all 10 frames to get to it. After a couple trial and failure, it was time to go to bed. Instead daddy showed them the youtube video on that trick, they laughed like crazy when they saw all the pins fell down in unison. Joanne wanted to share the clip with all her friends.
Thursday, May 17, 2007 (9y+9m+11d)
The twins went to school as usual. Their school had an ice cream social and open house in the evening. Daddy took off from work early to attend the event. The students each got a free ice cream. All others had to pay 50 cents for the ice cream. After the ice cream social in the first hour, the classrooms were opened for the parents to see their kids school projects and work. We have seen some of their homework when they worked on them at home. But many of the in-class projects were new to us. The twins were quite excited to show their work to let us know what they accomplished at school. The open house lasted for another hour before the school closed.
Daddy had a late dinner after coming home. The twins and mommy had their second dinner because the light meal they had before the event was not enough. They showered, practiced piano and continued on their homework before going to bed.
Friday, May 18, 2007 (9y+9m+12d)
The twins went to school as usual. When they came home from school, they went to the garden to plant their seeds. They told mommy that was educational. Mommy sat in the family room until they came back inside. Mommy told them to clean all the dirt from their feet before coming. They went to take a shower. They sang in the showers. It was a sign that we got two very happy babies.
Then mommy went to take a nap while the twins practiced piano. They played the Wii trying to reproduce the Wii bowling trick they saw on youtube. They hid their bedroom and played the DS after dinner. Jasmine played the Nintendogs, which she had abandoned ever since they got the R4. Joanne used the Voice Chat Client to chat with some strangers. When daddy walked in their room, Joanne hid her DS under her blanket. She didn't take it out until daddy guessed correctly what she was doing. Daddy gave her permission to continue under the condition that she would not give out any personal info and she had to stop as soon as any indecent thing showed up.
Saturday, May 19, 2007 (9y+9m+13d)
We stayed in bed whole morning. The twins were pillow fighting when Jasmine answered the phone. When Jasmine got hit, Joanne said "Bobby". Jasmine explained that Joanne said Bobby instead of sorry because she was wearing her retainer.
We went out to lunch with grandma Chui and aunt Elaine. After lunch, we went to shopping for a gift. Then we went to San Leandro for a house warming party. It was also a reunion for mommy's high school friends. Most of the children of her friends were very young at preschool age. The twins were the oldest in the party. The next was Kingsley at age 7; he was the only boy there. The youngest was only 13 months old. After the BBQ, the twins went to the family room and played their DS. Kingsley also had a DS and it didn't take long before they played together. Of course, the twins were not playing with the little girls. We left the party at around 11pm.
Sunday, May 20, 2007 (9y+9m+14d)
We stayed in bed most of the morning. The twins were up reading their books. They practiced piano before we went out to lunch. After lunch, daddy went to the office to work overtime. Mommy grounded the twins because Joanne didn't wear her retainer as instructed. The twins spent their time on something else instead of playing on their DS. Jasmine continued to read her books on Narnia. Joanne spent her time playing on the computer instead.
Mommy took the twins to see Kimberly's performance in her church's choir. Kimberly was a very good singer and she had a solo part in the performance.
The twins came home and practiced piano one more round to make up for yesterday's absence. The twins played on the computer before going to bed.
Monday, May 21, 2007 (9y+9m+15d)
The twins went to school as usual. Everything ran as normal. Joanne said she felt her front teeth had moved out a little after she started to wear the retainer more often. That was a good sign. The orthodontist would not complain about the lack of progress again in the next visit.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 (9y+9m+16d)
The twins went to school as usual. The twins told daddy that mommy forgot it was a Tuesday. They came out of school early on Tuesday but mommy picked them up late today.
At bedtime, Joanne asked daddy to turn on the humidifier because she had nose bleed several times recently.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007 (9y+9m+17d)
Jasmine's lunch account at school was out of money. Mommy gave Jasmine $20 in the car on their way home yesterday so that she could prepare the deposit envelope. Jasmine was running around the house this morning to look for the envelope. She said that she brought it into the house yesterday. She questioned if mommy threw away the envelope as recycled paper. Mommy blamed her for not saving the money in her school backpack. Mother and child were arguing all morning about the lost money. Joanne didn't say a thing.
The twins went to school as usual. On the way home, Joanne confessed that she hid the money under the dining table to trick Jasmine. Mommy asked her why she didn't say a thing in the morning, when mommy and Jasmine was searching the house for it. Joanne said she forgot about the envelope. We could not confirm if Joanne was really so absent-minded or she couldn't find the right moment to reveal the truth.
When they got home, Jasmine kept wiping her nose. She asked, "Mommy, am I sick?" Jasmine's best friend Ashley had been coughing recently. Ashley's mom caught pneumonia last week. Since Jasmine and Ashley were attached like a set of Siamese twins whenever they met, she probably caught some germs from Ashley. Another possibility was the humidifier might have brought back some dormant germs when we turned it on yesterday. Mommy sent the twins to bed after they finished homework. No matter what it was, the extra rest should help them recover from it.
The twins took their nap until daddy came home from work. After dinner, the twins practiced piano.
Thursday, May 24, 2007 (9y+9m+18d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to piano lesson in the afternoon. The piano teacher has returned from her performance tour. The twins resumed their lessons after a long hiatus. They had practiced on their own and worked on homework assigned by the teacher few weeks ago. Jasmine was still sick but she managed to get through the lesson.
Friday, May 25, 2007 (9y+9m+19d)
The twins went to school as usual. The teacher called to inform mommy that Jasmine should go home to rest. Jasmine was ill enough to be noticeable by the teacher. Mommy picked up both twins 90 minutes before the end of school. They took a nap in the afternoon.
After they woke up, the twins requested to dine out. When daddy came home, we went to a late dinner at a Japanese restaurant. The twins practiced piano before they went to bed.
Saturday, May 26, 2007 (9y+9m+20d)
We stayed in bed until the last minute. Christopher and Joie were dropped off at our place in the morning. When we were all ready, we went to Terence's birthday in a country club their family joined recently. Christopher's parents joined us later after they have run some errands in the morning. Claire's family and another family joined the party too. We were treated a nice lunch at the clubhouse first. We sang happy birthday to Terence after lunch. Then we gathered by the swimming pool side to spend the afternoon. The kids first went play tennis for a while. Then the kids played in the water for a few hours. After they dried themselves, they went back to play tennis again.
We left the place together before 7pm. We went to a Chinese restaurant nearby and had a great dinner. Terence's family insisted to treat us the dinner too.
Throughout the day, the kids took regular breaks to play with their DS. Jasmine didn't bring hers because mommy punished her. When mommy asked her to practice piano last night, Jasmine complained that she was too tired to do it. We knew her tiredness was due to her recent sickness. Her stuffy nose bothered Jasmine since couple days ago. Mommy asked her why she never complained being tired when she played her DS. She should stop playing the DS until she was not tired anymore.
Sunday, May 27, 2007 (9y+9m+21d)
We went to see Shrek the third in the late morning. We picked up Benjamin on our way to the theater. We met Jocelyn's family inside the theater. After the movie, we went to lunch in a dim sum restaurant nearby. Benjamin's parents joined us too. Jasmine had a sore throat and she signed to Benjamin instead of speaking. Benjamin asked, "Why are you talking to me?" Even Joanne was getting a runny nose today. So both were on the verge of getting ill.
We came home after the lunch so that the twins could practice piano. Daddy took a nap on the sofa.
In the late afternoon, we went to Benjamin's home for dinner. The kids want to swim in the community pool next to Ben's house. Mommy asked the twins if they wanted to skip the swimming because both of them were getting sick. They insisted they wanted to swim. Ben's pool was in a shade. The water was very cold because it was not hot in the past few days. The kids still wanted to swim in cold water. They said they could keep warm if they didn't stop moving. Ben was the first one coming out of the water because he got a cramp in his big toe. He said that he got that when the water was cold. He was shivering even when he was sitting under the sun wrapped in a towel. He said he still wanted to get back into the water when his toe got better. Benjamin skipped his water polo lesson today because the twins came over to swim with him. His daddy told me to go in for a hot shower because his shivering meant he might not have enough energy reserve in his body. The twins didn't shiver despite the cold water. Jasmine got out of the water as soon as Benjamin decided to go for the hot shower. Joanne reluctantly decided to come out too because it was no fun to stay in the water by herself.
After the kids took their hot shower, they played their DS until dinner was ready. Ben's dad did BBQ chicken and mushrooms. Mommy also prepared some Kabobs with cubes of New York steak. It turned out that both were extremely delicious and tender. The New York steak was so good that it tasted better than what we usually got from a restaurant. We had the BBQ dinner on the y deck in their backyard.
After we cleanup the yard after dinner, we had dessert inside the house. We played bowling on the Wii for a while. Benjamin's sister was less than two year old and she was excited with the Wii game. When her daddy held her hand to help her use the Wii remote to bowl, she was laughing in joy. She would be playing the game on her own in no time. We left before 10pm. When we got home, we sent the twins to bed right away hoping a good rest would help them recover sooner.
Monday, May 28, 2007 (9y+9m+22d)
It is Memorial Day Holiday. The twins had no school. Daddy didn't need to work either. We went to lunch with Terence family. Then we came home so that the twins could practice piano. Daddy took a nap on the sofa. Terence came in the late afternoon to play the DS games with the twins. They left at dinnertime because they had an earlier engagement with friends.
The twins craved for noodles. So we looked up the Internet to find a good noodle restaurant. We picked a restaurant based on other users' review. We tried the restaurant for the first time and it was just okay. We watched some TV before the twins went to bed.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007 (9y+9m+23d)
The twins returned to school after a 3-day long weekend. Daddy returned to work as usual too. Nothing much happened. Jasmine still had a few cough. Joanne still had a little runny nose.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 (9y+9m+24d)
Daddy had an early meeting at work. The twins were still in bed when daddy left home. The twins went to school as usual. Everything ran as usual.
The twins continued to do their homework after dinner. However, mommy was upset with them because the twins got the homework before the long week. Instead of starting on it during the weekend, they started yesterday. They could have spread the workload over 5 days, but they rushed in two. Mommy was upset because they should not have spent all their time on the DS games.
Before bedtime, Joanne did some knitting in bed. She said she was making a scarf. Jasmine said she tried before but she never learned how to do it. Joanne said she didn't know how to do the finishing step to lock the frayed end.
Thursday, May 31, 2007 (9y+9m+25d)
The twins went to school as usual. The rest of the day was just routine. The twins had piano in the afternoon.
Friday, Jun 1, 2007 (9y+9m+26d)
The twins went to school as usual. They stayed to watch the school team play soccer. Jenna's mom called mommy after the game to offer the twins a ride home. Mommy took a break from the pick up duty.
Mommy baked lasagna for dinner. It was ready-to-bake package from Costco. The twins liked it a lot and mommy saved a lot of work too.
Saturday, Jun 2, 2007 (9y+9m+27d)
We stayed home all day. Daddy attempted to repair the sprinkler timer and valves in the backyard. There seemed to be a short circuit somewhere because have of the valves stopped working. Daddy spent the day between working in the backyard and shopping for parts in the hardware stores.
Daddy bought some dumplings on the way home as dinner. The twins played the DS all day long. We required them to take occasional break.
Sunday, Jun 3, 2007 (9y+9m+28d)
We went to lunch with grandma Chui. The twins went to Abby's birthday party. Abby is Ashley's nickname. They used the community clubhouse near Natasha's family. They played Tennis in the afternoon. Daddy stayed home fixing the sprinkler timer in the backyard.
They ordered pizza for dinner. Daddy joined them in the evening. The kids went to the pool after dinner. They went between the pool and the Jacuzzi. The pool was heated though it was much cooler than the Jacuzzi. It was dusk when we left the party. We were home at around 9pm.
In the goodie bags they got from Abby's birthday party, they each got a stuffed animal frog with colored dots. Jasmine named her green dotted frog Wart and Joanne name hers Pimple. She said it was because of the pink dots on the frog's body.
Monday, Jun 4, 2007 (9y+9m+29d)
The twins went to school as usual. When they came home, Jasmine said she was not feeling well. She felt dizzy and wanted to throw up. Mommy sent her to bed. She took a nap the whole afternoon. Joanne didn't sleep. At dinner, Jasmine's appetite was quite good. It was good sign that she may have already recovered. She practiced piano after dinner. Joanne practiced her phrases making exercise with mommy. The exercise was to pronounce a Chinese character from a list and use it in a phrase. They have 3 pages to go through and each page had 100 Chinese characters.
Tuesday, Jun 5, 2007 (9y+9m+30d)
The twins went to school as usual. They practiced piano and did homework after school. Joanne saw her orthodontist this afternoon. After they came home, mommy dropped off the twins at Ben's home. She brought them dinner bento from a Japanese market too. She had a dinner engagement to Cornell's mom and other friends. Betsy came to the Bay Area on a business trip for a few days. She called for a dinner gathering before she returned to Sacramento.
Daddy picked up the twins on the way home from work. The twins went upstairs to shower when daddy had a late dinner. At bedtime, Jasmine revealed a secret to daddy. She said Joanne didn't take her shower tonight. After daddy tucked them in, Jasmine revealed another secret to daddy. She said Joanne didn't take her shower last night either. When she said Joanne didn't take her shower the night before last, Joanne protested. She took shower after Abby's birthday party. She said she would not take shower tomorrow night either. Daddy told her that she needed to take care of her hygiene properly. Mommy didn't returned until 11:30pm when the twins were sound asleep.
When daddy told mommy about Joanne, mommy said Joanne was very easy going. She really didn't care much about how other people talked about her. So when she didn't protest against what Jasmine said, it didn't mean Jasmine was right. Mommy knew for a fact that Joanne took her shower yesterday afternoon when Jasmine took her nap. Mommy said Jasmine was the gossipy type. She often told on other people even though she was not sure about all the facts.
Wednesday, Jun 6, 2007 (9y+10m)
The twins are 9 year and 10 months old today.
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started on Jun 7, 2007