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This journal is about raising identical twins.Fifty Fourth month
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Sunday, Jan 6, 2002 (4y+5m)
The twins are 53 months old today.We stayed home in the morning. Daddy cleaned up the garden. Mommy vacuum cleaned the car after the trip. Unlike last trip, we passed through heavy rain for several hours after we dropped below snow level. As a result, the car was quite clean compared to last trip. Daddy would settle with a machine car wash rather than doing the hand cleaning again. The twins helped mommy take down the Christmas tree. Joanne wanted to keep the tree longer, but mommy made the final decision.
In the afternoon, mommy went to the hairdresser. Daddy and twins went to Wal*Mart shopping. The twins saw the Sesame Street version of the UNO cards, they wanted it. They also wanted the "Come Here Blue" toy. Since they got too many toys at home already, I decided not to buy it. We did some grocery shopping before returning home.
We had dinner early. The twins wanted to play the "Elmo UNO" after dinner. This version is simpler than the original version with much fewer cards (only 36). Jasmine was quick to notice that there are no REVERSE, SKIP and DRAW FOUR cards in this set. The twins said they like it better because of the cartoon characters on the cards, they were not bothered by the simpler play. Another difference is that the player can choose the victim for the DRAW TWO cards.
Cousin Natalie and family visited. While the adults watched the video footage of our recent trip, the kids played the new UNO cards. As usual, Jasmine was the most frequent winner. Even 9 year old Natalie didn't get the advantage of age in this game. We also played some snow trip video from two years ago. We all got a good laugh because the then 2.5-year-old twins said a lot of cute things.
Lillian and William also visited. They took a three-week-long vacation in the Far East. They brought the twins some clothing. While we played the video of our recent trip again, the twins played their board games and didn't bother us.
Before their bedtime, they wanted to play Elmo UNO again. Joanne was quite unhappy because she didn't win any game. She kept asking for another game so that she could win. Mommy was not happy because it was getting late even though the twins had already done all their wash up as the prerequisite of starting the game. We quitted as soon as Joanne won her game of the night. The twins had become UNO addicts.
Monday, Jan 7, 2002 (4y+5m+1d)
The twins returned to school after the two-week winter break. They went to the ballet/tap dance class after school. Rachel remained in the Wednesday ballet class because she was not interested in tap dancing. The twins wanted to tap dance, so they signed up for the Monday class, which combined both types of dance in the same hour.When the twins arrived at the dance class, Joanne asked mommy where the teacher was. Mommy said the one in red was the teacher. Joanne was surprised that the teacher was different. Mommy explained to her that she signed up for a different class among other things. Joanne immediately complained that she was tired. Mommy asked if she preferred to go home instead. Joanne said okay without any hesitation. Of course, mommy wouldn't let them waste the fee by skipping class. Once the class started, the twins were okay and they liked the new teacher too.
Mommy said there were four sets of twins in the class including ours. There were 3 sets of identical and one set of fraternal twins. Mommy would bring a camera for some pictures next week.
Jasmine was very quick in her pre-bedtime wash up every night because she wanted to play UNO right away. Joanne, on the other hand, stood in front of the sink looking at the mirror and often took over half an hour to wash her face and brush her teeth. She hurried up only after mommy yelled at her many times. She often got herself all wet and asked for a change of clothes. Such habit made mommy very mad. Mommy predicted that when Joanne grows up, she would spend a lot of time and money in grooming herself.
In comparison, Jasmine is very conforming, obedient, considerate, a nice girl in general. Joanne is more creative and has a mind of her own; she is more self-centered.
Tuesday, Jan 8, 2002 (4y+5m+2d)
The twins went to school as usual. Mommy took the twins to stay overnight at Grandma Ling's place. Grandpa needed mommy to take him to the INS office in the morning. It would be easier to stay overnight than fighting the rush hour traffic in the morning.Mommy said Joanne threw up couple of times in the morning today. When she asked her what happened, Joanne explained that she sniffed her Barbie doll's butt and that made her vomit. We later checked the doll, there was nothing unusual on it. Could this be purely psychological?
The parent company of photopoint.com, the site that hosts our on-line photo albums announced today that they have ceased operations. I am still waiting for further notice on whether we would be able to retrieve all the photos stored at that site. Stay tuned and enjoy the thumbnail pictures for now. :-(
Wednesday, Jan 9, 2002 (4y+5m+3d)
The twins woke up at 7am in the morning. It was rather early compared to their daily routine. Mommy said she didn't sleep well because of the noises in the morning including the twins' and the garbage truck outside.Mommy accompanied grandpa to the INS office in the morning. Grandpa passed his examination today to become a US citizen after 17 years in the country.
Mommy and twins returned home just in time for their school. The twins went to school in the afternoon as usual.
Hing and Lucy invited us to dinner at their home. They just came back from an 18 days adventure in Japan. They took Terence along on the trip. They found that Japan, unlike the US, is not very "parents-friendly". For example, baby stroller is hard to use on stairs because of the lack of ramps in many places. Escalators are not as common as in the US. The train schedule is so precise and punctual that you only got minutes to connect from one train to the other. When you travel with kid in an unfamiliar place, you miss the train if you make a wrong turn. They missed a bullet train one night and had to take a local train instead. It took them six hours to get back to the hotel. Anyway, it was a brave move to travel to a foreign country with a 19 months old kid.
Hing lent us his digital camcorder to try out.
Thursday, Jan 10, 2002 (4y+5m+4d)
The twins went to school as usual.As a trial use of Hing's camcorder, I set it up to tape the twins playing UNO. The twins were making extra noises and danced around between games because they knew they were on camera.
Friday, Jan 11, 2002 (4y+5m+5d)
Mommy took the twins to the Friday gathering at the park with some of their ex-classmates. They went to school as usual afterwards.Thanks to Hing's digital camcorder. I was able to copy and edit some video footage for the web. See links here and here.
Saturday, Jan 12, 2002 (4y+5m+6d)
We dropped off the twins at Aunt Tina's. We went to the Home and Garden show in Santa Clara. We were away from the twins between 11am to 7pm. When we came back, Joanne was asleep. Jasmine cried emotionally when she saw mommy. Later when Joanne woke up, she cried the same way. They said they missed mommy. The poor girls held their tears in mommy's absence. They started pouring only in front of mommy.We were away from the twins for over two weeks with no problem when we took our Far East trip last April. Besides, we always left the twins with Aunt Tina for a short period of time with no problem. We didn't foresee such impact on them today. Under further questioning, they said that Cousin Natalie didn't play UNO with them, she was busy playing her computer games. In conclusion, I believed the twins were bored and felt abandoned. They wouldn't miss us if they were occupied.
On our way home, at around 9:25pm, our car was hit by a low flying object on the highway. When we got home, we noticed some damage on the headlight, the hood and the windshield. Based on the debris reminded on the hood, it seemed to be a rock. Since there was no car in front of us when it happened, it could not be something that was kicked up by a passing car. We suspected someone was throwing rocks into the highway. Just in case it was a criminal activity, we called the Highway Patrol to investigate the area.
Sunday, Jan 13, 2002 (4y+5m+7d)
We went to JR's 6th birthday party at Artmosphere in Pleasant Hill. The store has a studio and a play area. The customers can create their own art in the workshop for a $5.50 admission fee. The store provides the workbench, tools and some material such as glaze, paint etc. Other materials such as pottery are charged per item. The play area is for children to play, climb, run around, paint or make crafts, probably while the adults work in the studio. They have party rooms upstairs, so the play area can be a venue for kid's birthday party.Nine-year-old Miki was glad to see the twins and she spent all her time with them for the rest of the party. Kioko said Miki wanted to become a teacher when she grows up and she was extremely patient with younger kids. I asked the twins if they had sung happy birthday to JR, they said they only sang very softly.
After the party, we went to Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek because it was just a five minutes away. The twins were excited to pat the guinea pig featured at the patting circle near the entrance. When we were inside the museum, they checked out the bald eagle, owls, fox, raccoon and bobcat etc. The twins did not like the mountain lion because of its scary stare through the glass window. The big cat didn't move much, but its stare looked dangerous enough to scare little kids. When we were watching the mountain lion, the twins noticed the public park outside the windows. Since then, they were leading our tour. They eventually led us to the exit to the park outside. Actually, it was an emergency exit that Joanne chose. We were lucky that the alarm didn't go off as the warning sign on the door said.
We let the twins played for a while in the park. Before we left, we passed by the entrance to the museum again. This time, the twins got the chance to pat an albino rabbit. They were amazed by the ultra soft fur and the red eyes of the rabbit.
We then stopped by IKEA because it was too early for a dinner appointment with Jenny and Marianne et al. We had some snacks at the food court there. The twins had asked many times since age 3 to get into the playhouse at the IKEA entrance. They didn't know it was a day-care service for shopping parents, they only knew it as a playhouse. They were not tall enough to use the facility before. We left the twins in the playhouse and went inside to do some shopping.
When it was time, we proceeded to the Yoshi's Japanese restaurant at Jack London Square in Oakland. We had a nice, but overpriced, dinner with Jenny, Marianne, and her husband Ken and her daughter Yun Yun.
When we got home, the twins were soundly asleep. It was understandable because the long list of activities they did today. They played hard. They woke up briefly and fell asleep again. Mommy cleaned them up, changed them and placed them in bed without waking them.
Monday, Jan 14, 2002 (4y+5m+8d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to the dance class after school. Daddy asked them which dance teacher they liked better. They both said the one in the last class. Mommy said the last teacher was more patient with kids and invented many motivating activities and incentive in class for the kids. The teacher this time doesn't seem to know how to deal with small kids. Besides, the new teacher did not take her job seriously because she came to class in T-shirt, sweat pants and sneakers instead of more traditional leotard and dancing shoes. Mommy said this should be the last time she picked this teacher.Joanne had been using a Pooh Bear steps in front of the sink all along. Mommy gave Jasmine a new short footstool we bought at IKEA during the weekend. Jasmine stacked the new one on her original stool to match the height of Joanne's steps. Joanne thinks it is more fun to use the stacked stools instead of the steps she dominated over the months. She just switched hers with Jasmine's. Jasmine, being an easygoing kid, didn't object to the switch at all. I worry that Jasmine's non-resistance would encourage Joanne's dominating personality and makes her more self-centered. On the other hand, too much fighting is also bad.
Joanne was sick with runny nose and sore throat. Jasmine was okay. The twins caught the bugs from their class after school started.
Tuesday, Jan 15, 2002 (4y+5m+9d)
The twins went to school as usual.After school, mommy bought a pound of roast pork. Jasmine grabbed a whole bunch and munched on the meat. Joanne also had some despite her sickness. Mommy and twins finished the whole pound of meat in one afternoon.
Joanne took an extra long nap. Mommy didn't wake her for dinner hoping that she would recover sooner after a lot of rest. Joanne woke up later in the evening and mommy fed her separately.
Wednesday, Jan 16, 2002 (4y+5m+10d)
Mommy took the twins to school as usual. When they arrived at school, Joanne was soundly asleep in her car seat. Since Joanne was sick with runny nose, mommy decided to let her skip school. Jasmine went to school alone.I uploaded more video clips to our web page. See links here and here.
Thursday, Jan 17, 2002 (4y+5m+11d)
The twins went to school as usual. Daddy ran errand during lunch hour near the twins' school. I stopped by to take a peek at the twins in class.
Friday, Jan 18, 2002 (4y+5m+12d)
The twins woke up early in the morning. As I was getting ready to leave for work, I heard the twins talking in their room. I stopped by to kiss the twins goodbye. The twins asked me why the window was orange earlier. They laughed about the name of the fruit and the name of a color was the same. I told them the early morning sun is orange in color. The twins must have waken up much earlier before I saw them.Since the twins woke up earlier, they were tired by the time they went to school. Mommy had to keep them from falling asleep on the way to school. Mommy blamed daddy for the twins' drowsiness because the twins told mommy that daddy woke them up this morning to say goodbye. It was a false accusation from the twins because they were up when I entered their room.
Saturday, Jan 19, 2002 (4y+5m+13d)
We returned the camcorder to Hing. However, since the twins still had the stuffy nose and Terence was sick with a fever, we didn't go in. We found out later that Terence caught the roseola virus. Jasmine caught roseola when she was 14 months old.After lunch, we paid a visit to Wil'n'Lil. We had dinner together before they went off to see a musical show in the evening. We delivered an oak coffee table that we no longer use to Cousin Natalie. It matches perfectly with the oak floor in their family room. The twins had fun playing some computer games with Cousin Natalie.
Sunday, Jan 20, 2002 (4y+5m+14d)
We stayed home all day. The twins watched Blue Clue's Musical movie over and over again.
Monday, Jan 21, 2002 (4y+5m+15d)
Today is Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. It is a school holiday for the twins, but not a holiday for daddy.Mommy had a gathering with the other moms in the park. The twins took their bicycles to ride in the park. They took a long nap after they returned home.
Tuesday, Jan 22, 2002 (4y+5m+16d)
The twins went to school as usual.Mommy bought them some new clothes from Disney's and Gymboree after school. In the evening, the twins were excited to do a fashion show for daddy to show off their new clothes. I was able to convince the twins to switch to another DVD. They picked "Sound of Music" because they like the song "Do-Re-Me". They had been watching the same Blue's Clues DVD over and over again for the past few days. As usual, Jasmine wanted some games of UNO before bedtime. Joanne couldn't care less. She played a game or two and quitted when she didn't win. Sometimes, Joanne rather dealt the cards to us instead of getting involved in the game.
Wednesday, Jan 23, 2002 (4y+5m+17d)
The twins went to school as usual.Joanne spent almost an hour in front of the sink and mirror. When we scolded her for playing with a sinkful of water, she claimed that she was washing her face.
Last time when we visited IKEA, we got some of the paper measuring tapes from the store. The tapes are one meter long with both inch and centimeter markings. The twins like to read the numbers on the tape. They can read from 1 to 100 (cm) without any help. We knew that the school only expected them to count up to 20 even though they were taught beyond 20.
Thursday, Jan 24, 2002 (4y+5m+18d)
The twins went to school as usual.The twins often brought home some small booklets from school. These books had short sentences that practice certain types of phonic rules, such as pronunciation of double vowels etc. Occasionally, these books contain long and complex word such as brontosaurus etc. Mommy was talking to other moms at school about these books today. She found out that not all students received these books. The other moms went to the teacher to ask for them. The teachers said only those who learned how to pronounce them would receive the book for practice at home. We suddenly became so proud of our twins because they had a lot of them while other kids in the same class didn't get any. We also learned that Foti, a Greek classmate of the twins, was rejected by the school to enroll in the kindergarten next fall because he couldn't get the pronunciation correctly. It is kind of sad because Foti is a very active student at school. He had problem because he inherited very strong Greek accents from his parents. I guess this is a drawback of attending academically competitive school, the kids got dropped out when failed to keep up. However, no one would expect this to take place at the pre-school level.
Daddy attended a business dinner and didn't return home before the twins went to bed.
Friday, Jan 25, 2002 (4y+5m+19d)
The twins went to school as usual.Daddy left work early to pick up the car from the body shop. The car was damaged by rocks on the highway on Jan 12. The twins were glad to see daddy come home earlier than usual.
Saturday, Jan 26, 2002 (4y+5m+20d)
We got up early today. We had an appointment with a remodeling company to talk about our plan to remodel the kitchen. The twins played on their own and only came to us once in a while for a hug. We were able to talk to the contractor for two hours without much interruption.It was a busy day after lunch because we also applied for a loan at the bank for our remodeling project, visited the library, visited the school campus for the twins' summer school etc. The twins were so tired in the late afternoon that we let them take a long nap. We bought some take-out dinner before returning home.
Sunday, Jan 27, 2002 (4y+5m+21d)
We had lunch with Aunt Jun to celebrate her birthday. We then visited the EXPO store to find out what their kitchen design service offers. Then we went to Grandma Ling's place. The twins asked grandma and grandpa to take them to the park and the Hello Kitty stores. With the grandparents babysitting the twins, we went to see the movie A Beautiful Mind in the afternoon. When we came back, the twins just went to bed for their afternoon nap. We let them sleep while we had dinner. We packed their dinner in a box and carried the twins to the car. They woke up for a while, but then returned to sleep on our way home. After we got home, we let them continue their sleep in the car. When they woke up, we bathed them and fed them dinner. They watched some TV and played some game of UNO before going to bed again.
Monday, Jan 28, 2002 (4y+5m+22d)
The twins went to school as usual. They attended the dance class after school.The news said that the snow level dropped down to 1000 feet elevation due to some Arctic air flowing over California. There were snows in the Santa Cruz Mountain, Petaluma and at higher places within the Bay Area this morning. We could see white caps on the hills surrounding the Silicon Valley. Such weather happens only once every few years.
Daddy and mommy had an appointment with another remodeling company over lunch hours.
Joanne stood in front of the sink for a long time again. Mommy asked her if she was playing with the water again. She ignored mommy. Mommy asked her if she had finished washing her face. Joanne peeked out of the bathroom, made a face then said: "I am not telling you." She came out of the bathroom soon because she knew mommy was checking on her with many questions to follow.
Tuesday, Jan 29, 2002 (4y+5m+23d)
The twins went to school as usual.The weather forecast predicted we would have record breaking low temperature tonight.
Wednesday, Jan 30, 2002 (4y+5m+24d)
The twins went to school as usual. Mommy gave a presentation about China to the twins' class at school. She simply showed and talked about some pictures from the book she borrowed from the library few days ago. The twins hugged mommy later in the day. They seemed to be very proud of mommy for getting involved in their school.There was an open house in one of the public schools in the school district. We dropped off the twins at Lillian's and attended the open house to see what our twins would get next fall.
The presentation was about four special schools in the school district, which run the school in unusual alternative education programs. For example, one school runs a Mandarin Two Way Immersion program, which is bilingual education with students from both end of the spectrum. Half of the students know English and half know Mandarin, the objective is to let the students mingle and learn from each other. The school curriculum would be taught 50/50 in each language. We learned that currently there were over 300 TWI programs running in the US school systems, Most of these programs are bilingual in Spanish and English because Spanish is the most spoken second language in the US. San Francisco has a Cantonese TWI program for many years because of a large Cantonese population in Chinatown. This Mandarin TWI is rather unique, probably the only one in California. It is also rather new; it is in about the fourth year since the program started.
Another school runs the classes as villages where students from different age/grade levels are mixed in the same group to learn the same curriculum. Another school runs a grade-less system where all school reports are narrative instead of a letter grade. We are really interested to put the twins in the Mandarin TWI program because we want them to learn the Chinese language.
Thursday, Jan 31, 2002 (4y+5m+25d)
The twins went to school as usual. It is culture day at school. Mommy dressed the twins and herself in Chinese clothes. The other kids in class also dressed appropriately to reflect their own ethnic culture.
Friday, Feb 1, 2002 (4y+5m+26d)
Mommy took the twins to the Friday ex-classmates gathering at Chuck E. Cheese. The weather was very cold recently due to the arctic air. So they decided not to meet at the park. The twins went to school as usual afterwards.
Saturday, Feb 2, 2002 (4y+5m+27d)
Today is 02/02/02, a very special day in terms of numerology.We went to the remodeling company to pick up a client reference list. We spent sometime in the same area for lunch and shopped around. We were home at around 2pm and we stayed home for the rest of the day.
Apparently, there is no hope that PhotoPoint.com will ever come back. I am in the process of rebuilding our on-line photo album without the defunct web site. It may take a while before everything returns to normal, because I lost a lot of data when the web site went dark.
Sunday, Feb 3, 2002 (4y+5m+28d)
Today is Superbowl Sunday. Daddy stayed home all day to watch the football game. Mommy, the twins, and Aunt Tina's family went to Gilroy shopping. Mommy bought two pairs of sneakers for the twins. They picked their own style and refuse to buy the same model. Both twins decided on sneakers with flashing lights though in totally different colors and styles. As the twins grew, it was hard to dress the twins in identical clothing because they chose to be different. The twins were back around half time show. With the interruption and distraction from the twins, daddy totally missed the two touchdowns by the St. Louis Rams. Since I am not a die-hard football fan, I didn't miss much.
Monday, Feb 4, 2002 (4y+5m+29d)
The twins went to see the doctor in the morning. Since the change of daddy's employer, our medical insurance plan also changed. We had to take the twins to see their new primary care doctor under a different insurance coverage. For insurance reasons, we need the doctor's referral to see Jasmine's eye doctor again. The new doctor confirmed that Jasmine's cross-eye problem was for real. We may also need to change the eye specialist if her existing doctor is not in our insurance plan.Joanne needed to see the doctor too because we found a small hard corn like growth underneath one of her toes. The doctor confirmed that it was a wart. She needed to dress the infected area with medication to kill the virus.
The twins went to school as usual. They went to the dance class after school.
The twins told daddy that they completed all their addition correctly today. They had some trouble doing their math last week. So we practiced with them during the weekend. Looked like the efforts paid off.
Tuesday, Feb 5, 2002 (4y+5m+30d)
The twins went to school as usual. Mommy was mad at Joanne because Joanne was not honest. She used the crayon to draw on the carpet. When mommy asked who did the damage, Joanne lied that she knew nothing about it. After Jasmine sold her out, she changed her testimony and admitted to the crime. So far we have not caught Jasmine lying yet.
Wednesday, Feb 6, 2002 (4y+6m)
The twins are four and a half year old today. The twins went to school as usual.
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started on Feb 12, 2002