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This journal is about raising identical twins.One Hundred and Nineteen Month
Previous entriesNote: This page may contain Chinese text in Unicode encoding. Some web browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer 5) can display the text without any user intervention if the fonts are available. Some web browsers (e.g. Netscape) will display the Chinese text only if you switch Character Set under the View menu to Big5 traditional Chinese.
Wednesday, Jun 6, 2007 (9y+10m)
The twins are 9 year and 10 months old today. The twins went to school as usual. On the way to school, mommy asked Joanne to explain why she didn't take shower last night. Joanne responded with total silence. The silence made mommy very mad. Before their left the car, mommy told Joanne that her punishment would be to copy her Chinese homework 100 times.
Her Chinese homework had 300 characters, 100 times meant 30,000 characters. Daddy thought that would take weeks to finish, so it would not be an effective form of punishment. When the punishment became too harsh, the child might totally give up all hope to regain approval from the parents. Desperation would lead to worse behavior. To draw an analogy, a death roll inmate would have not reason to behave. Daddy suggested mommy to give Joanne an option.
When the twins came home from school, mommy offered Joanne an alternate punishment. Alternatively, she could write an apology in Chinese and one in English. She needed to admit her mistakes, apologize for them and promise not to repeat the mistakes. Today's piano practice would be doubled to 1.5 hours. In addition, she would also be grounded for the week and she could not play her DS games this weekend. Joanne picked the latter form. Mommy said that Joanne labored on her apology letters for over two hours, but she finally finished.
After dinner, Terence and his dad came over. He mailed ordered two copies of the Mario Party 8 game for the Wii. We bought one copy from him. Terence and the twins played the new game before bedtime. The twins disappeared into their room was it was their bedtime. Terence finally noticed their absence and ran upstairs to look for them. When he found the twins in bed, he knew he should go home too.
When daddy tucked them in bed, Joanne was as happy as she could be. Her punishment was not over yet, but it was already behind her. She was joking and told daddy the funny song that Kimberly wrote for Jimmy. Both the twins said the song teased Jimmy in a very mean way. Jimmy was named Jimbolina in the song. Daddy suggested Joanne to write the funny song down in her diary. She said she did not like the song to begin with because it was mean and it was not her song.
Thursday, Jun 7, 2007 (9y+10m+1d)
The twins went to school as usual. Jasmine proudly informed mommy that she was in the top three in the science test. Her score was 32 out of 31 because she got a bonus question too. When asked, Joanne said she forgot what her score was. Mommy asked, "Did you flunk?" Joanne reacted with a strong "No!" There was no reason why she would forget her score; she just didn't want to tell. Mommy found out later that Joanne got 27 out of 31.
The twins went to piano lesson in the afternoon. One of the homework assignments was to make up a story that went well with the mood of a piece of music. The teacher commented that Jasmine's story was surprisingly good. Mommy asked if Joanne's was too short because it was only about one third the length of Jasmine's. Joanne immediately defended herself. She said the assignment only asked for one paragraph and she did write one paragraph. The teacher told Joanne that she didn't say hers wasn't good. She only said Jasmine's was exceptionally good.
When daddy reminded Joanne that she was grounded for the weekend, she argued that she was punished, not grounded. I didn't get the difference. But if that was important to her, so be it.
Friday, Jun 8, 2007 (9y+10m+2d)
The twins went to school as usual. The twins took daddy cell phone with them so that could use it after school. They planned to stay late after school to watch the soccer game played by the school team. Their teacher would stay late too, so they were supervised. After the game, the twins called mommy to pick them up. Jasmine said Joanne was busy playing with Ashley and they didn't play attention to the game. Jasmine was very proud because their school team won. Since Joanne didn't even watch the game, I guessed she wouldn't care who won.
In the evening, mommy and the twins went to dinner with Jocelyn's family. Since they preferred early dinner, daddy couldn't join them. They went to their home to play for while after dinner. Daddy came home and cooked some instant noodles. Daddy was half way done when the family came home. The twins wanted to have a few bites of daddy's food because they loved noodles.
The twins practiced piano before going to bed. The twins had been complaining about the piano not sounding right for sometime now. We were glad that they had the ears to tell the difference. We hired a piano tuner to tune our piano today. He was very popular and we had to make the appointment months ahead. When we had the music recital at Ashley's home last year, everyone said their piano was out of tune. Mommy asked them today if they had corrected the problem. No, they didn't think the piano was out of tune. If they couldn't tell the difference, it may not worth the price to have it tuned.
Jasmine played the DS for a little in front of Joanne. Joanne was not jealous. She knew she could not play her game this weekend because of her punishment.
Saturday, Jun 9, 2007 (9y+10m+3d)
Jasmine got up at 9am waking up everyone to get ready. They were going to Jenne's birthday at 11am. Mommy and daddy asked them to get ready on their own. They needed to pack their stuffs for swimming. Mommy dropped them off at 11am. She went to play tennis with Ashley's mom. Daddy joined them at lunch after their tennis game. Ashley's mom went shopping after lunch. Daddy and mommy went to their birthday party to watch them have fun. The party was over at 4pm. We stayed behind to help a little on cleanup.
The twins came home to take shower to wash off the chlorine smell from their swim. We went to Gilroy's outlet shopping center to buy some new shoes. Jasmine picked a new pair of sneakers and Joanne wanted a pair of sandals. Daddy bought a pair of running shoes and a pair of walking shoes. Mommy bought a pair because the color looked good. We had dinner at IN-N-OUT burgers before we came home.
Sunday, Jun 10, 2007 (9y+10m+4d)
Jasmine said Joanne woke her up at 7am to draw pictures. She was too sleepy to get up. They spent the morning reading and drawing in bed.
We went out to lunch with grandma Chui. It turned out that the restaurant we picked was closed on Sunday. The twins voted to have ramen instead. The twins were intrigued by the noodle machine that rolled the dough and shredded it into noodles. After lunch, we drove by the neighborhood when daddy lived 20 some years ago. Daddy pointed out the apartment units where daddy once lived. The first apartment complex daddy lived in had been converted into a gated town home community. Yet, we could see the unit from across a creek. We could see some workers remodeling the place. The visit brought back a lot of memory for daddy and grandma. But that didn't mean a thing to the twins or mommy.
We came home for the twins to practice piano. We picked out the children software we bought for the twins when they were little. We found that they were used much at all. We planned to pass them on to their younger cousins. We also picked out some Pokemon VHS tapes that the twins used to love. They are still in very good shape. We figured the only place that still carried VHS videotapes would be in public library. We planned to donate them to the library if they accept them.
In the late afternoon, mommy took the twins to Stanford shopping mall. They had pizza before coming home. Daddy ate instant noodles for dinner.
Mommy and twins worked on a jigsaw puzzle before going to bed. Joanne asked daddy to sew the torn feet of Pimple. Daddy offered to show her how to use needle and thread, but she said she would just let daddy repair Pimple. She said that everyone in school knew about Wart and Pimple because of their special names.
Monday, Jun 11, 2007 (9y+10m+5d)
The twins went to school as usual. Since this is the last week before the summer break, there is no teaching in school. Joanne said it was field day today. The kids spent the day in the field. Joanne got a face painting of a ladybug on her face. Jasmine didn't get any. Daddy told Jasmine that she should not be too uptight. She should have fun and get a face painting too.
When they came home, they spent time working on their piano homework. They needed to research on the biography and work of some famous musician and compare them.
Tuesday, Jun 12, 2007 (9y+10m+6d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had the cool off period before summer break. After school, they went to Jenna's community pool to swim. After the swim, Kimberly came to our house. She stayed for dinner and overnight. The twins took turns to practice piano. Before bedtime, the kids played Mario Party 8 on the Wii.
Wednesday, Jun 13, 2007 (9y+10m+7d)
The twins went to school as usual. In the afternoon, the twins and Jenna's family went to Rachel's house for a swim. The dads later joined them for dinner. Jenna's dad jumped in the pool to join the kids. Rachel's dad installed a solar heater for the pool last season. The water was very warm at 89°F. The kids soaked in the pool like it was a hot tub. We left at around 9pm after we helped them clean up. It was well past Rachel's bedtime. But since the school was not teaching this week, it might be okay to stay late a little bit.
Thursday, Jun 14, 2007 (9y+10m+8d)
The twins went to school as usual. It was a hot day in the 100°F range. Joanne wore a jacket when she left the classroom because the air conditioning was too cold. Mommy said the car thermometer read 104°F when she picked up the kids. The twins took a nap in the living room because the bedroom upstairs was like an oven. They had piano lesson in the late afternoon.
They forgot to air out the bedroom after sunset. The room was still warm at bedtime though the outside air was very cool. Daddy put two ventilation fans in their room to help draw some cold air into their room.
Friday, Jun 15, 2007 (9y+10m+9d)
The twins went to school on the last day before the summer break. It was only a half-day and they were out at 11am. Mommy took them to see the new Nancy Drew movie. There were 6 girls and one boy in the group. The twins ate half a hot dog during the movie. They went out to have a late lunch after the movie. The kids went to swim in Natasha's community pool in the afternoon.
In the evening, we went out to an Indian buffet for dinner with Ashley and Natasha's family. Though it was a hot day, but the house cooled down quickly after we opened all the windows. The twins went to bed early as soon as the room cooled down.
Saturday, Jun 16, 2007 (9y+10m+10d)
We got up at 9am. We went to Daly City for a Dim Sum brunch with Deanna's family and Albert & Jenny. We spent like 2 hours in the restaurant. We parted our ways after lunch. We came home so the twins could practice piano. At 3pm, we went to the theater to watch "Fantastic Four, the rise of the silver surfer." After the movie, we went grocery shopping for dinner. We went to Benjamin's home for a BBQ dinner. They provided chicken and beef. We provided sea bass steak, some fish, clams and abalone. The dinner was delicious and wonderful. We stayed until 9:30pm. After the twins took shower, they went to bed.
Sunday, Jun 17, 2007 (9y+10m+11d)
The twins dove into our bed on top of daddy in the morning. They yelled, "Happy Father's Day!" No gift though.
Mommy was doing laundry in the morning. Joanne came upstairs to tell mommy the machine stopped. Mommy asked what Joanne did to the machine. Joanne said nothing.
"Did you touch it?"
"Yeah"
"Did you open the door?"
" Yeah"
"Did you stop the machine and wait for the door to unlock before opening it?"
silence.
Mommy thought Joanne had broken the door. Mommy had to unplug the machine to reset the washing cycle or the machine didn't restart.We went to lunch with Terence's family. Daddy asked the twins if they would like to get a PDA type of application software on their DS. Joanne immediately said yes. She said her paper address book was almost full; it would be nice to be able to store the info in their DS. Daddy knew about a piece of free software called DSOrganize, which would be ideal for them.
We then went to visit grandpa. It is Father's Day after all. We watched some TV. The kids played the DS with cousin Natalie. Mommy chatted with her family in the kitchen. We left after dinner. It was dusk when we arrived home. The twins said they liked to go to the park before it turned totally dark. They rode their bikes to the park, daddy walked behind them. In the park, they circle around the baseball field while daddy just walked a much smaller circle in the middle of the field to catch up with them. They played a little in the playground. But Joanne said the bars are rougher than those at the school. Daddy asked them not to play too long to prevent from getting blisters on their palms.
The twins told shower and practice piano before going to bed.
Monday, Jun 18, 2007 (9y+10m+12d)
No more school for the kids for the next two months. They are on their summer break. The twins took a 3-hour tennis class in the morning. Benjamin was in the class too. They liked it a lot. The twins took a nap in the afternoon due to the physical activities earlier.
Daddy worked overtime till 11:30pm. The twins were asleep when daddy came home. Daddy set up the DSOrganize application on their game machine as promised.
Tuesday, Jun 19, 2007 (9y+10m+13d)
Joanne woke up daddy in the morning. She drew a picture using the scribble program in the DSOrganize. The picture has a black background with a stick figure lying in a pool of bright red blood and several arrows point to the body. The text says "Welcome 2 Jojo's vialent world! Ooooo...." "War has been going on for 10 years, Many ended up like ..... This !!!!!!!!!!!! And very few ...... Survived......." Daddy had no idea whey she would draw this type of picture. When daddy asked her why, she said she doesn't know. She may grow up to be an anti-War activist.
They had another session of tennis training today. Mommy played a game of tennis with Ashley's mom when the kids were in class. Again the twins took a nap in the afternoon. They got all prepared for a swim. When they arrived at the pool, it was closed of other private activities. The twins were rather disappointed. Jasmine was reading a book and Joanne was practicing piano when daddy came home from work.
In the evening, Joanne showed daddy the picture that Ashley drew on her DS. It had two persons facing each other. They seemed to be fighting. The text said, "Die" and "No, You die." Daddy was again surprised at the theme of the picture.
Daddy helped the kids to export their contacts list from their Gmail account. Imported the data into the Macintosh Address Book, clean up the entries a little. Exported them into vCard format. Copied the vCards onto their DS so that the DSOrganize address book could use them.
Wednesday, Jun 20, 2007 (9y+10m+14d)
The twins continued their tennis training.
Thursday, Jun 21 2007 (9y+10m+15d)
The twins continued their tennis training. The twins played in the backyard in the afternoon. They took care of their plants in their little garden. Over the school years, they had planted many things include some morning glory and even a corn plant.
Friday, Jun 22, 2007 (9y+10m+16d)
In the morning, a passerby told mommy that he noticed water running from our house into the street since last night. Mommy went into the garden to check. She found out that Jasmine left the garden hose running since yesterday afternoon. Though it was not on at full strength, a lot of water was lost during the more than half a day period. Mommy grounded Jasmine immediately. She couldn't play her DS this weekend. Jasmine also needed to double her piano practice as a punishment. The twins had their last session of their tennis training. They said they like to play tennis this way.
Jenna was with the twins in the afternoon. Ashley was dropped off in the evening. They were having a slumber party with the twins. They played till past 10pm. It was 11pm before they all settled in bed. Jenna fell asleep right away, but Joanne and Ashley kept chatting until midnight. Jasmine said the next morning that she was cold the whole night because Jenna pulled her blanket away and she didn't want to wake her up. Jasmine got a good scolding from daddy and mommy because she should have either come to our bed or find another blanket. Staying in the cold for the whole night could weaken her system. She could get sick if the virus and germs in her body took over.
Saturday, Jun 23, 2007 (9y+10m+17d)
The kids woke up quite early in the morning. The twins prepared breakfast for their friends. They knew how to make toast and cereal etc. They played together until her mom picked up Jenna. They went to play tennis. Ashley stayed with us. We had lunch and then went to Justin's birthday party together. Justin is Valerie's little brother who will go to kindergarten this year. Valerie's cousin Brandon was the other birthday boy, Brandon was 10 year old and his birthday is two days from Justin. They had a bowling birthday party together. The twins are friend of Valerie, but they don't know Brandon that well. Justin is not in the twins' age group. But we were invited regardless. The twins and Ashley had fun playing bowling and they enjoyed the pizza and cake too.
After the birthday party, we went to Ashley's home for BBQ dinner. A couple other families were invited too. In additional to the hosts Ashley and Brandon, the guest kids included our twins, Jenna and her sister Tara, Jasmine W., Ashley's friend Rachel, her brother Jeremy, and little sister Nicole. Before the BBQ started, the dads took the kids to the park in about 10 minute walking distance. The kids had fun and plenty of exercise. The moms stayed behind and started a game of mahjong. When the kids returned from the park, they played games the rest of the party. They had the DS, and the Wii as their choices. While the adults took a break from their Mahjong game after dinner, the kids learned to play the game too.
It was Rachael's first time on the Wii. She picked it up right away and in her first Wii bowling game, she beat everyone with a score pf 187. However, the twins said they didn't like the playing attitude of these two new friends. They said that both Jeremy and Rachel only played the game that they were good at. When they didn't do well at the game, they would say it was boring and tried to prevent others from playing. The enthusiasm on the Wii took a sudden turn when Rachel swung her remote control and hit Ashley on her lips. She hit her so hard that Ashley's lips were slightly swollen afterwards. Rachel was a first time player and she didn't know better how to avoid accident.
The party went on and guests gradually left. Jasmine W. left first though she lives in the neighborhood. Since Jenna and Tara were not night owls, they left with their dad first. Rachael family left at the same time. Mommy and Jenna's mom wanted to finish their mahjong game with the hosts. We were the last to leave. Since Jenna's family lives in our neighborhood, we dropped off Jenna's mom on our way home. The twins fell asleep almost immediately when they got on the car. We woke them up when we got home. They took a shower before going to bed. We told them they could sleep in as much as they like to in the morning.
Sunday, Jun 24, 2007 (9y+10m+18d)
Mommy went out to have breakfast with her friend in the morning. Daddy and the twins stayed in bed until 11am. We went out to lunch with grandma Chui. We then went shopping at Costco. After we dropped off grandma, the twins asked to go to Target to check out the Wii games. We decided not to buy at full price. We may mail order the game later. The twins also like to see the movie Surf's Up. After the movie, we came home for dinner. Daddy cooked ramen and added eggs, shrimps, ham, veggie as toppings. In the evening, the twins practiced piano. Then they helped mommy doing laundry, changed all the bed sheets. And they also started to pick out clothes for a trip we take soon. They went to bed late because they were not tired. Jasmine wanted to swap bed with daddy.
Monday, Jun 25, 2007 (9y+10m+19d)
Ashley came to play tennis with the twins. Jasmine said Ashley couldn't even hit the ball. They then went to Elephant Bar to have lunch. In the afternoon, Jessica came to ask the twins help her set up her R4. After the guests left, mommy took the twins out to dinner at a Japanese restaurant. They brought daddy a take out dinner box. Daddy worked overtime until 9:30pm. The twins stayed up late. Joanne wanted to swap bed with daddy.
Tuesday, Jun 26, 2007 (9y+10m+20d)
Daddy dropped off the twins at Ashley's on the way to work. They played Wario Ware on the Wii. Mommy joined them for lunch. Ashley's mom grilled some meat that was left over from the weekend. In the late afternoon, they went swimming at Ashley's grandma's community pool. Mommy said Jasmine had a real workout by swimming laps. Joanne was more laid back.
They came home for dinner. Jasmine went to bed at 8pm. She said she wasn't feeling well. She woke up at around 9:30pm. Joanne threw a pillow at her to remind her to brush her teeth before going to bed again. That started a pillow fight.
Daddy worked overtime till 10:30pm. The twins ran off bed to greet daddy when daddy came home. They were excited to tell daddy about their fight and their Wii games.
Wednesday, Jun 27, 2007 (9y+10m+21d)
Daddy left home early for an eye doctor appointment. Mommy dropped off the twins with Jenna's mom. She went to do a facial. She later took Jenna & Tara to our house so that they could play on the Wii while their mom spent time packing for their trip to China on Friday. Tara was so involved in her game she begged that we didn't call her mom too soon.
Mommy mail-ordered a Canon Powershot SD8000 IS camera few days ago. It arrived today. Mommy charged up the battery and used the camera right away for some testing. Aunt Jun came visit after dinner. They went out to shop at Valleyfair Mall together. Daddy worked overtime and was home just a few minutes before the family returned.
Thursday, Jun 28, 2007 (9y+10m+22d)
The twins had piano class in the afternoon. In the evening, Patricia family arrived from Taiwan. Mommy went to the airport to pick them up. Daddy came off work early and took the twins to the restaurant to meet the guests. After dinner near the airport, we took them home to stay over. Patricia and Nicholas used to be the twins schoolmates until half way through the second grade. So they had returned to Taiwan for more than two years. The twins and their old friend played till past midnight. Nicholas is currently the Taiwan's Tennis champion in the 10 years old age group. Of course, he beats all of us in Wii Tennis.
Friday, Jun 29, 2007 (9y+10m+23d)
Daddy went to work as usual. Mommy and the twins accompanied our guests to shopping. The twins said they saw a long line of people waiting outside the Apple store to buy the iPhone. It would go on sale starting at 6pm. Then we had dinner at a restaurant with two other families who know Nicholas' family. Daddy came off work early for the dinner gather too. All the families came to our house to chat until mid night. The kids played on the Wii and PS2. Jonathan wanted to watch Star Wars episode III on a portable DVD player on his own.
Saturday, Jun 30, 2007 (9y+10m+24d)
Everyone slept till 11am. Our guests said they seldom slept so well, not even when they were in Taiwan. We went out to have brunch at the local pancake house. We then visited Kevin's house. They have spent the last year remodeling their house. Everyone wanted to check out the result of the hard work. We then gathered at Jocelyn's house to play the Wii. The girls clustered around the TV to watch a DVD of Jolin Tsai's concert that Patricia bought for Jocelyn. Everyone went to a park nearby to have a potluck picnic. Over 10 families were invited. We didn't know most of them because they used to be Patricia's classmates who were 2 grades above Nicholas and the twins. The kids had great time running and playing in the park. The adults chatted and enjoyed the food everyone brought.
After the picnic, we returned to Jocelyn's house to have more games and snacks. We left at around 9pm because our guests had an early flight to Florida in the morning.
Sunday, July 1, 2007 (9y+10m+25d)
Mommy and the guests got up at 4:30am in the morning. The twins also got up to say goodbye to their friends. Daddy slept through the whole thing. Mommy returned to sleep after dropping them off at the airport.
We had lunch with grandma Chui in the afternoon. After we dropped off the twins with Jocelyn's family. Daddy and mommy went to shopping at the Valleyfair Mall. We stopped by the Apple store to get a touch of the iPhone. It was a great and attractive device. If it were not too expensive, we would have considered buying one.
We picked up the twins and came home to rest. Daddy fell asleep on the sofa. Mommy went out to buy take out for dinner. We stayed home the rest of the night. The twins helped daddy wrote captions for some of our photos in the albums that we prepared. It was a good exercise for them to write Chinese.
Monday, July 2, 2007 (9y+10m+26d)
Daddy took a day off from work. We got up at around 9am. We went out to lunch. We came home to rest. Mommy watch Wimbledon on the TV. The twins practiced piano. The day passed uneventfully.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007 (9y+10m+27d)
We got up early in the morning to get ready for our travel. Jenny came to pick us up. She dropped us at the airport. We were on our way to Japan at around 11am. The twins were excited because this is the first time they travel to Asia. They have been to Canada, Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii and Spain. Traveling is no big deal to them. More to come about our Japan tour.
Friday, July 6, 2007 (9y+11m)
The twins are one month from 10 year old.
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started on Aug 2, 2007