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This journal is about raising identical twins.Thirty First Month
Previous entriesNote: This page contains Chinese text in Big5 encoding.
Sunday, Feb 6, 2000 (30m)
The twins are two and a half year old today.We went north to pay the New Year visit to mommy's families. We had lunch with Jenny, Marianne and Ken. There were Chinese Lion dancers downstairs outside the restaurant. I took the twins to watch the lion dance from the balcony. But the twins did not like it too much; they covered their ears the whole time. Certainly, they don't like the loud noise from the drums, cymbals and firecrackers.
We had dinner with mommy's families before returning home. Ken and Emily brought baby Matthew to the restaurant too. He was much bigger than last time we saw him.
Monday, Feb 7, 2000 (30m+1d)
It's still my day off for the New Year.Since we are not sure the twins will be admitted to the Challenger School yet, we drove around the neighborhood to take quick tours of some of the Montessori schools (link1, link2). We heard that they are good schools too but have a different philosophy towards children's learning process from that of the Challenger Schools. We had a hot pot dinner at Cafe Ophelia. We were out on the road for over 10 hours today.
Joanne has a habit to cry and nag for mommy to stay in the room with her at bedtime. It is quite a struggle every night. Tonight, Jasmine jumped on bed, tugged in and made snoring sound right away. Daddy told Joanne that Jasmine was nice for falling asleep so fast. Jasmine immediately broke into laughter, got up and gave me a big grin on her face. She tricked daddy and mommy and she was happy about it. Jasmine likes to mimic my snoring and she said "���R�a" (it's just like daddy.) I'm flattered!
Friday, Feb 11, 2000 (30m+5d)
Daddy had been working long hours all week.
Saturday, Feb 12, 2000 (30m+6d)
We had lunch with CW's family and Wil'n'Lil. Addison was kind enough to share his motorized Pikachu doll with the twins. That kept the twins occupied for quite some time. After lunch, Lillian suggested we go see some model homes in the SilverCreek area in South San Jose. Though none of us were really looking for a house, we liked to get some decoration and floor plan ideas from those million dollar houses that we cannot afford. The twins enjoyed playing with the toys used for decoration in the children's rooms. The twins also joined Deanna to jump on the beds. They were nice enough to take off their shoes before climbing on the beds, because they learned long ago that shoes are not allowed in bed. That required us to put on their shoes whenever we moved from one room to the next, from one model home to the next.We went our separate ways after the house tours. We then went to the Eastridge Mall nearby to check out the vacuum cleaners at Sears. We found a small train-ride in the center of the mall. The twins went crazy and wanted to ride. With a nod of approval from mommy, the twins dashed to the train even before we paid for the tickets. They were reluctant to get off after the train had stopped. When mommy met them at the exit, Jasmine excitedly told mommy "��choo-choo�}��" (train ride, happy!). Mommy couldn't refuse to let them ride one more time. Joanne wanted the third round, but it was getting late, so we left the train despite Joanne's crying. Mommy mentioned that daddy would get her a balloon. She stopped crying almost instantly.
We shopped at Stride Rite for two new pairs of sneakers for the twins. Jasmine has almost outgrown her 6.5s and Joanne's 6s is getting tight too. We bought two pairs of 7.5s with multi-color LED lights that flash with each step. The shoes should be about the right size in a month or so. They cost over $80 and may perhaps last just a few months.
We left the mall when it closed at 8pm. The twins fell asleep right away in the car on the return trip. We bought some takeout food and ate at home.
Sunday, Feb 13, 2000 (30m+7d)
It was raining heavily today. We dropped off the twins at Grandma Ling's place. Daddy and mommy went to see Disney's Fantasia 2000 (DVD|VHS) at Sony's IMAX Theater in San Francisco. The 2:30pm show was sold out and we had to wait for the 4:30pm show. Before show time, we went shopping at Old Navy nearby. The wait and $12 tickets were well worthwhile. The animation and music in the movie was wonderful and the 80'x100' IMAX screen with the 12000 watts sound system is quite an experience all by itself.After the movie, we had dinner at Isobune in San Francisco Japantown.
Monday, Feb 14, 2000 (30m+8d)
Mommy told Debbie and Melinda about the train ride at Eastridge Mall. They decided to take the twins, Kendrick and Alan to the train ride. The twins were not as enthusiastic as two days ago, but they still enjoyed the ride. Kendrick on the other hand didn't enjoy the ride at all. So Debbie took him to ride the carousel. Our twins as usual refused to ride on any of the horses. So mommy put the twins on the sleigh and rode on a horse near by to demonstrate how fun to ride the horse. The twins still were not interested. We put them on the carousel when they were little, perhaps they were not ready at the time and the scary moments never wore off.We went out for dinner to celebrate the Valentine's Day. Mommy bought several Valentine's balloons completed with hearts and roses pattern. The twins broke them within 30 minutes of getting their hands on them. They let the balloons rose too close to the light fixture on the ceiling and popped them with the heat from the light bulbs. The twins said "�j�n�~��" (scared to death) and laughed at the loud popping noise.
Friday, Feb 18, 2000 (30m+12d)
Mommy and the twins went shopping with Debbie at the Gilroy Outlets. She found two pairs of sneakers at the Stride Rite store. The sneakers are almost the same as those we paid $80 for last week, same brand, same look, the only difference is the color and pattern. Instead of pink trimmings, these have green and purple trims. Mommy bought the shoes at the outlet store and returned the pink shoes for a refund. We saved over $50 (60+%) by taking a different color. The twins even like the new color better than pink. The pairs of Nike they are wearing now are pink and they probably are bored by the color already.The twins tried on the sneaker in front of the mirror in our bedroom and Joanne didn't let us turn on the light so they could see the flashing LED better.
Saturday, Feb 19, 2000 (20m+13d)
Despite a Saturday, we woke up early in the morning and took off towards the High Sierra Mountains. By 11am, we were at Boreal Ski Area on Highway 80. We took out the sled and headed for the Snow Playland area. Mommy and the twins ran down the slope on the sled. At the bottom of the sledding lane, a Boreal employee told then that we couldn't use our own sled there. Instead, we had to use the snow dishes provided and we had to pay $10 each dish.Mommy and twins left behind to play with the snow while daddy dragged the sled back to the car. When daddy returned with the money, mommy and twins had already built an eight-inch heap of snow, which mommy called a snowman. Since we didn't bring along a scoop to dig into packed snow, the twins were helping out by picking up chunks of snow under the trees nearby. Mommy then decorated it with couple of tiny pinecones as the eyes and some pine needles as the hair and a twig as the nose. The twins said "�֥Y����" (ugly, scared) and suggested mommy to make another one.
After we'd taken some pictures and videotaping, we went to rent the snow dishes, but we were told that they were out of them and we had to wait for someone to return them. It was just the middle of the day and there was no sign of anyone leaving soon. We wanted to spend the $20, but they didn't let us. Instead of waiting indefinitely, we decided to go to a Sno-Park.
We arrived at Yuba Gap about 15 minutes later. We pulled the kids up the slope and ran down several times. The snow in the Sno-Park was natural, ungroomed and unpacked. We sank our feet knee deep into the snow whenever we stepped on the wrong spot. There were a lot of potholes on the slope and the sled rides were quite bumpy. In addition, the place was packed with many kids doing snow tubing, and they had no control over where the tubes go and often bumped into other people on the slope. We saw several old folks got knocked off their feet by those speeding inner tubes. It was a dangerous place with such a crowd.
Due to the thin air at high attitude, and our lack of regular exercise, we were out of breath after climbing the slopes for a while. Fortunately, the twins told us they were sleepy and they didn't want to continue. We woke up the twins early today and they didn't get back to sleep on the trip up the mountain, hence they wanted their afternoon nap early. Even with sleepy eyes, Jasmine still stopped to watch a family building a snow Pikachu. We got back to the car, change their clothes and fed them before heading downhill. We left at a bit before 4pm. The twins slept well on the way.
We were in Sacramento area sometime after 5pm. We heard that the former owner of Kioku Restaurant opened another business two years ago in Rancho Cordova, a suburb of Sacramento. We decided to try out Samurai Sushi at Hazel and Hwy 50. We arrived at the restaurant before the twins woke up. So we backtracked our way and stopped at Naturwood Home Furnishings, a huge Furniture store we saw just a few doors down the same road. We took turns to take a quick tour of the store. We like the furniture there, too bad the store is far from home.
We went to the restaurant when the twins woke up. We had a very satisfying dinner. The restaurant is much bigger and better than Kioku Sushi. And the place was packed with customers too. Looks like the owner took with him the legacy of his original restaurant to Sacramento. On the other hand, Kioku Sushi didn't keep up with its original reputation.
We were home at about half past nine, which ended the one-day trip to the snow. We found that the trip was not too difficult to do. Perhaps we would do it again before the end of the season. We probably should pick a weekday next time to avoid the crowd.
Hing and Lucy paid us a visit at night. They bought the twins a pair of Mickey and Minnie in Russian costume. We showed them the video footage of today's trip. They had to watch it several times because the twins kept requesting reruns.
Time flies fast. Lucy is already at the end of the second trimester of her pregnancy. Henry and Shelly's baby should have been born by now. Peter and Yulin's baby should be due this week. Simon and Michelle will have theirs this year too. Looks like many dragon babies are lining up for the year of Dragon. Expect a minor baby boom in the Chinese community this year.
Sunday, Feb 20, 2000 (30m+14d)
During the uphill trip yesterday, the twins refused to go back to sleep so we let them have their milk bottles in their car seats. They must have followed each other's playful acts and opened the bottles and both soaked their clothes and car seats. Fortunately we brought extra clothing in case they might get wet by the melted snow. They got the change of warm and dry clothes before we reached the foothill. However, the car seats soaked with milk would start to stink in a day or two. Mommy washed the seat covers last night and today the twins are stranded at home until the seat covers are completely dried. I guess it is a penalty they deserve for their naughty actions. Anyway, it was windy and rainy outside. They would not have gone out even if the seats were dry.Daddy worked overtime at the office. Mommy called and put Jasmine on the phone. Jasmine loudly sang her "Daddy song". Mommy said Jasmine created a song by singing "Mommy, mommy, mom, mommy..." to the tune of "Twinkle twinkle star". Mommy suggested her to sing about daddy too and she sang "Daddy, daddy, dad, daddy..." just as good. Of course, she was happy to repeat the song for daddy on the phone. Joanne got the idea and she could sing the song too. They still cannot sing any song with the original lyrics, but they are quite good at the melody and rhythm of several songs including "Twinkle twinkle star", Barney's "I love you, you love me", and "Happy birthday to you".
Monday, Feb 21, 2000 (30m+15d)
Today is the President's Day holiday. Daddy spent the morning with the twins. We went out for lunch and then went to a park to play on the swings and slides. In mid afternoon, the twins took a nap and daddy went back to the office to work overtime.
Tuesday, Feb 22, 2000 (30m+16d)
Debbie and Melinda brought their kids Kendrick and Alan over and bought lunch too. When they left, the twins wanted to go too. They are used to going out together whenever they visit. It was a disappointment to the twins when mommy refused to go out in the rain.
Thursday, Feb 24, 2000 (30m+18d)
Couple weeks ago, we have noticed Joanne have her lower left second molar on her lower left jaw. When we first saw it, it was already fully exposed. We guess it had been out for quite some time, we just didn't see it earlier. Joanne still has three second-molars to grow; Jasmine still has four.The twins have very good appetite in the past week or so and they grew more than an inch. They used to be just as tall as the dresser in our bedroom. Now they are more than an inch taller than it is. I believe they now measure 34 and 1/4 inch. I guess the eating spree last week does add up.
Friday, Feb 25, 2000 (30m+19d)
For months, the twins follow a nightly ritual to go back to their bedroom before being tucked in. They have several choices to go across the hallway:
- Lifted by daddy and "fly" like Superman to their room.
- Sitting high on top of daddy's head.
- Carried on daddy or mommy's back.
- Carried on daddy or mommy's front.
They get the first two choices only when daddy is around at night. When daddy is working overtime in the office, they would say mommy is tired and excuse mommy from the two more strenuous options.
Mommy out-smarted the twin recently and invented a new way she called the "Barney march". She copied what they saw on the Barney videotape. She would march in front and the twins would march behind her giggling and laughing to their own room. For the past two weeks, daddy also led the Barney march and was relieved from the nightly chore of carrying them to their room. Mommy's ingenious invention saved our aching backs.
Another thing that the twins learned from Barney is the big hug. We encourage them to give big hug to grandpa, Grandma Ling and other people. They seem to enjoy it too.
Saturday, Feb 26, 2000 (30m+20d)
We dropped off the twins at Grandma Ling's place. And we went to watch the movie "The whole nine yards" (DVD|VHS). We had dinner at Korea House in San Francisco Japantown before picking up the twins.
Sunday, Feb 27, 2000 (30m+21d)
We drove by Aunt Tina's place yesterday, and the twins recognized the house and wanted to see Cousin Natalie. We told them it was too late and we promised we would stop by today. As promised, we bought takeout and had lunch at Aunt Tina's place.The twins are very good at telling places from the rear seat windows of the car. When we took the twins to the Gymboree classes months ago, they would say "Geebo" before the car turned into the parking lot. They always say "back home" when we are a few blocks away from home. They also recognize daddy's office, Grandma Ling, great-grandma and Aunt Tina's house. Of course they also recognize Debbie and Melinda's house where they go often. Judging from Joanne's reaction in last visit to the doctor office, they can tell the doctor office too from a far distance.
After lunch, we went to TriCity Sporting Goods. We bought a couple of parkas for the twins. They would definitely out-grow their old jackets by next winter. We wanted to buy bigger jackets during the post-season sales. Otherwise, they would cost us a lot if we buy them just before our snow trip next year. There were many tents set up as floor samples in the store, the twins had a great time playing hide and seek inside the tents.
We had a Vietnamese dinner with Wil'n'Lil.
Monday, Feb 28, 2000 (30m+22d)
Despite our efforts to defer it, the inevitable finally happens. Joanne can consistently open doors from the inside. It won't take long before she can open from the outside too. She just needs to figure out when to push.Both twins had once in awhile managed to open the doors by luck, but never consistently until now. The doorknobs in our house are all spherical. The knobs need a quarter turn to open. The twins' palms are too small to make such turn. Sometimes, they turned the knob, but they didn't push or pull at the right time, the knob slipped and returned to the original position and the door remained closed, just the way we wanted it.
The doors had served as effective boundaries to keep the kids where they belong. We purposely refrained ourselves from showing the twins how to open the doors, because we don't want them to come out of the room on their own. Besides, we don't want any accident with fingers, which tends to happen when kids play with doors. But the twins observed and learned on their own. They figured out how to operate the sliding door to our bathroom months ago. It was just a matter of time to figure out the knobs too.
Debbie told us that Kendrick could move from room to room at will because the doors in their house use lever bars instead of knobs. They are often startled when Kendrick stands in front of their bed when they open their eyes in the morning.
Joanne opened the door of their room this morning. Both twins stood outside our bedroom knocking on the door. When we let them in, it didn't take long to find out who opened the door because Joanne was enthusiastically praising herself for a job well done. Once they figure out how to open the door from outside, our twins will startle us by our bedside in the morning very soon.
Tuesday, Feb 29, 2000 (30m+23d)
Today is a very special leap day.A leap day like today only comes once every 400 years. In fact, today is the first leap day of its kind in the US history because the US did not adopt the Gregorian calendar system until 1752. Even in known history of mankind, this kind of leap day occurred only once before in the year 1600 after the Gregorian system was setup.
The rules for leap years were set by Pope Gregory in 1582 as follows:
- If the year is divisible by 4, then it is a leap (bissextile) year
- except, if the year is also divisible by 100, then it is not a leap year
- except, if the year is also divisible by 400, then it is a leap year again.
The reason for all these complicated rules is to adjust the number of days in a year so that the seasons won't drift over time. The earth goes around the sun and hence the seasons repeat every 365.2422 days. There are 365 days in a regular year. By adding one leap day every 4 years, we add 0.25 day to 365, which bring it closer to the actually length of the year. But 365.25 over compensated the value of 365.2422. So by removing one leap day every 100 years, we take out 0.01 day to get 365.24 days. But then the second adjustment is still off by 0.0022 days. So the last rule add back a leap day every 400 years or 0.0025 days to make the average length of a year to 365.2425 days. Even with this adjustment, there is still a 0.0003 days difference, i.e. the seasons will shift 3 days in every 10000 years. I don't believe I will live that long to feel the changes in the seasons.
Despite the astronomical significance of the day, it was just a regular day for the twins.
Friday, Mar 3, 2000 (30m+26d)
Daddy took a day off from work. We got up early in the morning and headed for the High Sierra again. We arrived at Boreal at around 11am. We rented two snow discs and played in the sledding lanes. The slopes were almost empty. The twins initially rode with us. They were so excited after the first run downhill, they kept saying "�h�@��" (one more time). Joanne told daddy "�n���}��" (had fun, happy).After several runs, we decided to take a break and play in the snow. This time, mommy was prepared and brought along some sandbox tools. The twins helped to snap the snow on the snowman. The twins remembered the snow Pikachu they saw two weeks ago and asked for one. So we sculpted a Pikachu out of the heap of snow. The twins didn't comment on the ugliness of the snowman this time, obviously we've improved.
After building the snow Pikachu, we moved to a gentler slope and let them ride the discs on their own. After just one solo run, they no longer let us ride with them. They even carried their own discs and ran uphill. When mommy suggested we should rest for lunch, the twins firmly said "No!"
The sledding slopes are half-pipes shaped by machines. The concave surface kind of guides where the snow discs will go. And at the bottom of the slope is a curved-up area that slows down the sledders into a gradual stop. It was pretty safe compared to the Sno-park that we went to two weeks ago.
While our twins were having fun, a group of teenagers moved from their lane to ours. They formed a train of 5 to 10 people. Each person on a disc grabs the legs of the person behind. When the sled train came down the slope, it swept side to side. Individual sledder almost guarantees to come down the middle of the lane. However, a train of sledders comes wildly and uncontrollably. For the safety of our twins, we surrendered our lane to the gang of teenagers and moved to the lane they came from.
It was a mistake to change lane without wondering why those teenagers gave up their lane in the first place. It turned out that some snowboarders among the group had carved a path in the snow that went towards a snow ramp. They used the ramp to take their snowboard air-borne for big-air jumps. Without knowing the condition of the half pipe, mommy and Jasmine went down the slope and the ramp sent them up two feet in the air before falling flat on the snow. No one was injured but Jasmine cried in fear because of the fall. After seeing their fall, I aborted the mission and slid down the slope slowly by dragging my feet in the snow. Joanne did not like the boring slow descent and cried. We learned a lesson that we should never go down a slope without seeing the path made by someone else.
We figured it is time for our lunch break and we had lunch at the ski lodge. After lunch, the twins were eager to get back to the slopes. Jasmine forgot about the big-air fall already and had great fun going up and down the slope.
Another incident happened in the afternoon. Jasmine was standing in the middle of the sledding lane after she got off her snow disc. I was about 15 feet uphill from her. When I heard some yelling, I turned around and saw a small kids about five years old speeding towards us. I knew I could not reach Jasmine in time, so I squatted down a little and tried to catch the speeding kid. The kid swept me off my feet, continued on and knocked down Jasmine. Jasmine cried like hell though she seems to be fine when I checked on her. She stopped crying when I gave her a hug. I figured she would not stop crying if she was hurt. I couldn't imagine what would happen if the kid hit Jasmine at full speed. The second lesson of the day, we must move to the side as fast as possible.
The twins resumed sledding. But Jasmine refused to continue after couple more runs. Joanne, on the other hand, could not get enough. She got several more runs until it was 15 minute past the closing time. After we returned the rental discs, we headed back home. The twins slept well on the return trip. We arrived at the Bay Area before 8pm. We had dinner before returning home.
When we showed the video footage to the twins, they wanted to watch it over again several times.
Saturday, Mar 4, 2000 (30m+27d)
The twins knocked on our door in the morning. Looks like we can no longer sleep in during the weekend. We had lunch with Jenny. After lunch we took the twins to the playground at Fremont Central Park. The place is packed with kids. We had to stand in line for the swings. They had a long nap afterwards.They asked to see the sledding video again. They laughed when they saw themselves going down the slopes.
Jasmine's lower left second molar is starting to show.
Sunday, Mar 5, 2000 (30m+28d)
The twins knocked on our door again in the morning. We stayed home all day long. The twins asked to see the sledding video again. Their laughter and enthusiasm have not reduced yet.
Monday, Mar 6, 2000 (31m)
The twins are 31 months old today.As usual, they knocked on our door in the morning. Looks like we can throw away our alarm clock.
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started on Mar 8, 2000