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This journal is about raising identical twins.Forty First Month
Previous entriesNote: This page may contain Chinese text in Big5 encoding.
Wednesday, Dec 6, 2000 (3y+4m)
The twins are 40 months old today.
Friday, Dec 8, 2000 (3y+4m+2d)
We had dinner at Hing's. He also invited another family that we had not met before. Pui and Eva's girl is 7 years old and she didn't play with our twins. After dinner, we watched some DVD movies on Hing's new 65 inch wide-screen High Definition TV. Hing said it seem not big enough for the living room. Pui and I didn't hesitate to offer to get rid of the "not-big-enough" TV for him.
Saturday, Dec 9, 2000 (3y+4m+3d)
We had a quick lunch and went to the Jungle Fun & Adventure in San Jose for Valerie's 3rd birthday party. The place lives up to its name. It was so chaotic that it was really a jungle. The place was overcrowded with kids and parents. The bigger kids ran around and shoved younger kids. There was no safeguard on which kid left the premise with which adult. We had to keep an eye on the kids every second. Nevertheless, the twins enjoyed themselves very much.Mommy was busy chatting with other parents. Daddy had to follow the twins through the labyrinth of tunnels and slides. Most of the passages were barely big enough for me to get through. I had my share of strenuous exercise.
Mommy and twins visited the Jungle in San Francisco before on a weekday. It was a much more pleasant experience then.
After we left the party, mommy and Sharleen went shopping at Mitsuwa Supermarket. They had their annual 20% off storewide sale. Poon and Claire took a nap in their car. Daddy and twins took a nap in ours. After they finished shopping, we had dinner at TomiSushi nearby.
Joanne started to have a runny nose.
Sunday, Dec 10, 2000 (3y+4m+4d)
We stayed home most of the day watching Japanese TV drama on VCD. In the late afternoon, we went shopping at Mitsuwa again. Mommy said she didn't spend enough time there yesterday. She didn't want to miss the 20% off sales. We then had a hot pot dinner at Cafe Ophelia.
Monday, Dec 11, 2000 (3y+4m+5d)
Mommy's Cousin Rowena visited from Hong Kong. Mommy and twins went to Winnie's place in San Francisco to bring her to the south bay for some shopping. She stayed overnight with us.
Tuesday, Dec 12, 2000 (3y+4m+6d)
Joanne fully recovered from her runny nose. Mommy took the twins to school in the morning. After school, they went to San Francisco with Rowena for some shopping before returning her to Winnie's place in the afternoon. Mommy and twins returned to home in time for dinner.Mommy asked the twins whom they like the best. Jasmine said mommy. Joanne said she likes herself most. Daddy was not in their lists. But when daddy asked, they said they like daddy too.
The twins both got a zero on their report card from school. When mommy went through the test with them at home, they knew everything on the test. They got zero because they still didn't respond to the teacher's questions.
Wednesday, Dec 13, 2000 (3y+4m+7d)
When mommy was cooking, Jasmine commented "Mmm... Yummy, ��(great)!"
Thursday, Dec 14, 2000 (3y+4m+8d)
Today was the last day of school before the winter break. There was a Christmas celebration at school. Joanne took a photo with Santa. Jasmine took the photo with Santa only when mommy carried her.The kids in the class performed a dance for the parents. Mommy didn't know they had rehearsed for the dance and she was caught by the pleasant surprise. Fortunately, mommy had the camcorder handy so that daddy got to see the performance too.
The twins called daddy at work and said they were grown up now, they were 25. I later found out from mommy that they meant 25 pounds. Jasmine is 36 and a half inches tall. Joanne is a quarter inch shorter.
Friday, Dec 15, 2000 (3y+4m+9d)
Jasmine had a runny nose in the morning.We had dinner with Johnson and Rowena in San Francisco. It was an excuse we created for them to meet. We are not in matchmaking business, but we don't mind a dinner gathering as a side product. The only problem was that it took us 90 minutes to go to San Francisco during commute hour.
We went to the lobby at Hyatt Regency Hotel after dinner. The light decoration in the atrium was spectacular. There was also a miniature town in display under the big sculpture, complete with all Christmas and winter decorations. The twins enjoyed the miniature display and they had fun running around. We ordered some dessert and chatted while watching the outdoor ice-skating rink from the windows. The twins were tired and fell asleep on our way home. When we got home, we transferred them to bed without waking them.
Saturday, Dec 16, 2000 (3y+4m+10d)
We dropped off the twins at Grandma Ling's place. We rendezvoused with mommy's Cousin Kevin, then we car pooled to San Francisco. We met with Rowena and Johnson at the Metreon. Since Kevin was late for over an hour, Johnson and Rowena had lunch first without us. When we arrived, we had lunch and then saw the movie Charlie's Angels. It was not a very good movie in my opinion. After the movie, we had dinner and dessert in the Sunset district before we parted our ways. We picked up the twins and returned home.Rowena left for Hong Kong. Johnson offered to take her to the airport. What a gentleman!
Sunday, Dec 17, 2000 (3y+4m+11d)
Joanne demanded to have her hat while in the car. Mommy said the hat was in the trunk. Joanne asked mommy to stop the car immediately to get the hat for her. Mommy told Joanne she was not stopping the car just for her and asked, "Who do you think you are?" Jasmine commented "�\�Y��� (She is stinky pig)". Everyone broke into laughers.We had lunch with Hing and Lucy in Cupertino Village. We went to Costco to pick up the photos. We then stopped by Hing's house for awhile. We then went shopping for the twins' bikes. There were so many choices and the price ranged from $35 to $135 depending on the safety features and sturdiness. We couldn't make up our mind even though the twins already selected theirs totally based on colors. We walked out without buying any since we were not in a hurry to get one. We had dinner in Mountain View before returning home.
Monday, Dec 18, 2000 (3y+4m+12d)
Mommy planned to take the twins to Debbie's so that they could go together to feed the ducks at the pond nearby. The twins took more than an hour with their lunch. Mommy was mad and told them that the duck feeding was cancelled because they wasted too much time. After the twins finished their lunch, they whispered in mommy's ear that they were done and asked if they could still feed the duck. The answer was no. They stayed home.
Tuesday, Dec 19, 2000 (3y+4m+13d)
Melinda, Debbie and their kids came over for lunch. After lunch, they all went to the park near our home. Joanne rode her tricycle to the park. Alan chased Joanne. Joanne fumbled with her tricycle and pedaled backwards. She together with the tricycle fell down into the sandbox. The fall was more than 12 inches high. Luckily, she wasn't hurt.That reminded us to buy bikes that can only go forward. Some cheaper bikes can go in both directions.
In the afternoon, the twins went to the toy stores and sport goods stores with mommy. It was just another failed attempt to shop for bikes.
Wednesday, Dec 20, 2000 (3y+4m+14d)
The twins joined daddy at lunch. Daddy needs a ride after dropping the minivan at the tire store. One of the tires was worn unevenly and may become a hazard on highway. We had the tire replaced in preparation for the snow trip we planned for next week.We also went out to dinner in the evening. So that daddy could take the minivan home afterwards.
Thursday, Dec 21, 2000 (3y+4m+15d)
Mommy and twins went to have Dim Sum lunch in Cupertino with Sharleen and her family.Daddy went to Costco to buy another DVD player. The one we had JVC could not play CD or VCD recorded in CD-R media. The new Philips 751 model worked quite well. I later find out that this player fails to play about half our VCD collections. DVDs and some CD-Rs work fine. That means I need to return it soon. Kioko stopped by in the evening and brought the twins their Christmas presents.
Friday, Dec 22, 2000 (3y+4m+16d)
The twins are 1234 days old.Mommy and twins went to Stanford Shopping Center with Daisy and Sebastian. Sebastian is one of the twins' classmates. He is quite slim too and his car seat was small enough to squeeze in between the twins' They rode three in a row at the back of the car. The twins looked at each other and laughed.
We went out for dinner at Golden Island Restaurant in celebration of daddy's birthday.
Saturday, Dec 23, 2000 (3y+4m+17d)
Joanne cried in her bed early in the morning. When asked, she said she missed mommy. Mommy asked why she didn't come to mommy's room. She complained Jasmine left without waiting for her.When we talked about the upcoming snow trip, Jasmine said she feared daddy would run her over again. Obviously, she still remembered the incident almost a year ago.
Most adults draw a blank when asked about their childhood memory before age 5 or 6. I always thought it was because children don't have long-term memory before age 5. I am surprised that the twins remembered the sledding accident from over 9 months ago.
While brushing her teeth, Jasmine commented that she used to hate the Tommy (in Rugrats) toothpaste and she liked the Choo-Choo Train toothpaste better back then. I searched the old entries in this journal. I found that the twins stopped using the Orajel toothpaste and switched to the Oral-B toothpaste since June. I was surprised again that she remembered and made comment about things from six months ago.
We dropped off the twins at Grandma Ling's and took the BART to San Francisco for some shopping. We visited the Light Opera Gallery crystal store near Union Square. The crystals and glassware in that store were so beautiful that we couldn't resist buying a couple items.
After dinner at grandma's, we went to see the Christmas lights in Alameda. The whole block on Thompson Avenue between High Street and Fernside Blvd. is furnished with beautiful Christmas decoration every year around this season. It was quite a local attraction. Auntie Tina, Uncle Ivan and Cousin Natalie just drove by and left. We parked the car and let the twins stroll around the block.
Sunday, Dec 24, 2000 (3y+4m+18d)
It was Christmas Eve. We stayed home all day.Joanne and Jasmine not only differ in personality and appearance. They talk differently too. Joanne's speech is more feminine and she adds a lot of dragged-out nasal tone at the end of the sentences. Jasmine's speech is more rough and crude, with less intonation and shorter syllables. Recently the twins picked up quite a lot of Cantonese speech characteristics from the cartoons they watched. They added a lot of "�� (laa)", "�� (maa)", "�{ (wo)", "�r (aaa)", "�r (gaa)" etc. At one point they added a "�� (maa)" at almost every sentence. Mommy ordered them not to use "�� (maa)" in their speech. Then they started to challenge daddy whenever they hear a "�� (maa)" at any of my sentences.
The twins like to do what other people do. They will say they want it just like that. So ���j�j (like big sis) ���f�f (like little sis) or ��D�H (like the other guy) become favorite phrases in their vocabulary.
Monday, Dec 25, 2000 (3y+4m+19d)
It is Christmas day. The twins got up and went downstairs to open all their gifts under the Christmas tree. I guess Boxing Day is a British tradition. We Americans open our gifts on the 25th.We were invited to Kioko's Christmas party in Martinez. On our way, we stopped by Amy's restaurant in San Ramon. This is the first Christmas for their restaurant. They wanted to see if there are customers at all. Since many restaurants are closed, they got a lot of business today.
We arrived at Kioko's party when the twins took their nap. I stayed in the car and read some magazines while mommy helped out Kioko. When dinner was about ready, we woke up the twins to let them warm up with other kids in the party.
Jim and Kioko raise a big dog called MohMoh. She is of a Japanese breed that I forgot the name of (probably an Akita). She is just one year old and she is more than two feet tall at the shoulder. Jim said the dog's father was three feet tall at the shoulder when fully grown. That breed of dog is bred for bear hunting hence the huge size. After the dinner, I saw MohMoh stood up to the kitchen sink to lick the dishes. Gosh! She was taller than me standing up. I was in no position to stop her from her licking.
The dog was fenced off inside the kitchen. One of the 3.5-year-old girls among the guests went in the kitchen but ran out screaming in horror. Though the dog did not attack, its size was intimidating enough to scare even an adult when it approached. Joanne wanted to touch the dog. Jasmine followed suit reluctantly. The dog was actually taller than the twins at its head level. The twins touched the dog very cautiously over the fence. They rubbed her behind the ears. But both complained afterwards that their hands were stuck with shed dog hair. Both commented that they like Rick's pug E.T. much better than MohMoh.
Tuesday, Dec 26, 2000 (3y+4m+20d)
We departed for Reno in the morning. We arrived at the Eldorado hotel around 3pm. We let the twins took a nap in the hotel room. They got up at 6pm. We went to the Wood Meadow Mall in Reno. We let the twins run around for a while. The mall had not taken down the Christmas decoration. We didn't buy anything despite the After-Christmas Sales.We went back to the hotel and rendezvoused with the twins' classmate Sebastian and his parents Daisy and Michael. We were late and they had dinner already. We chatted a little bit and arranged for the snow tubing for the next morning. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant in the Circus Circus hotel.
Wednesday, Dec 27, 2000 (3y+4m+21d)
We had a big breakfast and then went to Northstar ski area for snow tubing. The tubing area was on mid-mountain. We took the gondola up the mountain. The twins were excited on the gondola.The twins rode with daddy and mommy on the inner tubes down the slope. They screamed for joy. The line was long and we skipped lunch to max out on the tubing time. On the contrary, Sebastian lost interest in the snow tubing early on and they left early. One good thing about Northstar was that kids under 5 play free of charge.
We returned to Eldorado Hotel and had a great French dinner with Sebastian's family at Bistro Roxy.
Thursday, Dec 28, 2000 (3y+4m+22d)
We had a big breakfast in the morning. We decided to try the sno-park one more time since Michael and Daisy had never been to a sno-park before. We arrived at the Yuba-gap sno-park before noon. We let the twins and Sebastian build a snowman before doing some sledding. The slope was quite crowded. Kids and adults were speeding down the slope regardless people downhill. Daisy sat at a hay bale and was collided by two adults at full speed. She was glad that no one was hurt. We decided not to subject our kids to this kind of hazard and left for Boreal Ski Area.When we arrived at Boreal, we saw the sledding slopes were packed with people. It is a much safer place, because there are attendee's at the top of the slope to let one sledder down at a time. Chance of a crash was minimal at the expense of long waiting lines. We decided not to pay for the admission. We picked a 10 feet long slope near the parking lot and let the twin slide down repeatedly. They had a great time and we saved some money. The kids were tired after a while and they played with the snow under the trees. We skipped lunch and we enjoyed some snacks while the kids played. We left when the place got chilly after the sun went behind the mountain.
On the way back, we stopped by Donna Lake to look at the scenery. The twins took a nap before we got back to the hotel. We went to the Atlantis hotel to meet with Daisy and Michael for dinner. They had made reservation at 8pm. Since we didn't eat lunch, we decided to leave them and had an early dinner. It was appropriate to leave them alone after all because it was Daisy and Michael's wedding anniversary today.
Friday, Dec 29, 2000 (3y+4m+23d)
We went to Soda Springs ski area for snow tubing. Unlike Northstar, each person including kids must buy a ticket, and the adults were not allowed to ride with the kids in their laps. We started with some double tube where one kid rides in the front and the adult rides at the back. When the line was getting too long, we moved to the sledding area and let the kids sled down the slope on their own. After the solo sledding, the kids became brave enough and demanded to ride the single snow tube all on their own. Kids and adults all had fun except Daisy who refrained from the thrill rides. We parted our way with Sebastian's family at 4:30pm. We returned to Bay Area before 8pm. We had dinner at ABC restaurant, we saw Andrew L. et al in the restaurant.When we returned home, we found that Grandma Chui had an eye surgery for a detached retina while we were gone. Aunt Elaine stayed to take care of grandma since the doctor prescribed an upright sitting position for the next four days.
Saturday, Dec 30, 2000 (3y+4m+24d)
Aunt Elaine took Grandma Chui to have a post-surgery checkup. The doctor on duty said grandma didn't have to sit up all the time. She could lie down in a face down position.Lucy got a discount coupon for us, so we went to take some studio pictures. We had lunch with Lucy and Hing in Sunnyvale afterwards. Mommy went to Costco to buy some fruits for tomorrow party when the twins took their nap in the car. We returned to the studio to pick up the picture. I bought some take out dinner for grandma before returning home.
Daddy stayed home to take care of grandma. Mommy and twins went out to dinner with Elizabeth and family. On the way out, Joanne nagged and cried for daddy. Mommy was mad at her tantrum so she left Joanne behind with daddy.
The twins seldom went their separate way. This was a rare occasion that the twins were not together. When I asked Joanne, she said she missed Jasmine. When Jasmine returned, she said she missed Joanne too.
Sunday, Dec 31, 2000 (3y+4m+25d)
It is New Year eve. We stayed home in the morning and early afternoon. We went to Bonnie's house for the New Year eve party. The twins took a long nap in the car before going in the house.Bonnie invited over ten families with a total head count of almost 50 including kids. At one point of time, the twins stuck to Bonnie, chased her around the house and didn't bother us a bit. All the kids were in the bedroom playing toys and video games. The adults played casino games in the living room. After the New Year count down, we counted all our chips and the night's winner received a prize.
The twins were extremely tired but they last past midnight. They fell asleep on the way home.
Monday, Jan 1, 2001 (3y+4m+26d)
It is New Year day. Daddy stayed home so that I could take care of Grandma Chui. Mommy went out to the mall with Aunt June after the twins fell asleep in the afternoon. We later went out to dinner with Aunt Tina and we bought takeout dinner for grandma.
Tuesday, Jan 2, 2001 (3y+4m+27d)
Daddy returned to work after a ten-day holiday. The twins returned to school after the winter break.In the evening, I heard the twins arguing in English. They speak to us in Cantonese at home, and the teachers teach English at school. They are supposed to know both, but it is the first time I heard them use English at home.
Mommy had a sore throat and wasn't too nice to daddy or the twins. We understood.
Wednesday, Jan 3, 2001 (3y+4m+28d)
Mommy said the twins had a very good appetite today. They gobbled everything that mommy offered them. I expect they would have a spur of growth soon.The twins measured 36.5 inches tall. Joanne caught up on the quarter inch difference earlier. They both weighed roughly 26 pounds.
Thursday, Jan 4, 2001 (3y+4m+29d)
Mommy dropped off the twins at Grandma Ling's early in the morning. The twins had to skip school because daddy and mommy were going out of town.In the afternoon, daddy headed to Boston on a business trip. Mommy traveled with daddy so that she can do some sightseeing after daddy's business meeting. We arrived at Logan Airport at around 9:30pm. It was quite late after we got our rental car. We went into Boston Chinatown looking for restaurant. Most of the stores were closed. We found a Malaysian restaurant called Penang that was still open. We had a very nice meal before heading to the hotel. In my opinion, this restaurant was much better than our favorite BananaLeaf in the Bay Area. We arrived at the hotel in Waltham, MA just past midnight.
Friday, Jan 5, 2001 (3y+4m+30d)
Daddy had the business meeting in Waltham starting at 10am. Mommy drove daddy to the meeting site and then she went to the Riverside mass transit station. She parked the car and took the Boston streetcar into town.At the end of the day, daddy got a ride to the subway station and took the subway into town. Daddy rendezvoused with mommy at Copley Place. We had a big dinner at Legal seafoods restaurant. The meal was really great. We sat by the window and noticed the snow started to fall around the middle of our dinner. We took the streetcar (Green Line) back to Riverside. The rental car was covered with almost an inch of snow.
When we were back to the hotel, we called the twins on the phone. They didn't seem to miss us too much. But mommy missed them.
Saturday, Jan 6, 2001 (3y+5m)
The twins are 41 month old today.
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started on Jan 12, 2001