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This journal is about raising identical twins.Seventy Fourth 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.
Saturday, Sep 6, 2003 (6y+1m)
The twins are 2222 days old. They are 73 months old.We picked up great grandma on the way and went to San Francisco to have lunch with Winnie's family. Her sister visited from Hong Kong, we wanted to have a gathering before she left. The twins sat next to Samantha, but they didn't talk to each other. The twins received two gifts from Aunt Winnie. One was a tracing projector with many slides for Disney princesses. The other one was a doll house for ham hams.
After lunch, we stopped by grandma Ling's place to drop of some stuff, Jasmine fell asleep when we arrived. Daddy and the twins decided to stay in the car while mommy went in the house. We dropped off great grandma at her home. We then went to Aunt Tina's place after we stopped by Krispy Kream for some donuts. Joanne fell asleep on the way. Daddy and the sleeping twins stayed in the car while mommy went inside to pick up something. Jasmine woke up. I asked her if she wanted to go in to play with cousin Natalie. She didn't respond because she was still dazed.
We were surprised to find a few green sprouts growing out of a flower pot. One of them grew pretty fast and it opened up as a mushroom the next day. We quickly removed it fearing that the spores might cause allergy or a fungi infestation. After some research on the Internet, we confirmed it was Lepiota lutea.
The twins had different personalities. One anecdote took place in a Japanese restaurant. We usually ordered tamago (egg) and unagi (eel) sushi and udon (noodle) for the twins when we had Japanese dinner. The twins were always curious about the sashimi (raw fish) we ate. One day, they asked if they could try some. Mommy told them that kids should not eat sashimi because of the possibility of parasite. The twins asked what parasite was. Mommy explained they were worms that grow inside the tummy. Jasmine didn't want to try anymore. Joanne then asked if she could try half a piece. Jasmine sternly warned Joanne, "Don't eat it, the worms will come out from your poop-poop!" Joanne went ahead to try a piece. Jasmine would not touch it. Joanne was more care-free, fearless. Jasmine was more rigid, she might grow up to be a law-binding model citizen.
Sunday, Sep 7, 2003 (6y+1m+1d)
We went out to lunch with grandma Chui and Aunt Elaine. Grandma gave the twins some fruits and lanterns for the upcoming mid-Autumn festival. After we parted with grandma, we went window shopping in the afternoon. We didn't buy anything. We returned home to rest. At dinnertime, Jasmine said she didn't want to eat because she felt like she wanted to throw up. Mommy checked her and she looked perfectly fine. Mommy didn't believe her. Jasmine had to try her best to eat as much as she could. Mommy said Jasmine just made up an excuse when she didn't have appetite. Given what happened a few days ago, I wanted to play it safe and asked Jasmine to carry a bucket to catch her puke wherever she went. She got through the night without utilizing the bucket. Mommy might be right, but Jasmine indeed look tired.
Monday, Sep 8, 2003 (6y+1m+2d)
The twins returned to school as usual.When we were watching a Taiwanese drama series on TV, the characters were riding a car without wearing their seatbelts. Jasmine pointed that out and asked why. Daddy explained that the policemen in Taiwan didn't care if people wear seatbelt or not. But if the kids didn't wear seat belt in California, daddy and mommy would go to jail (exaggeration). Jasmine asked, "locked up in a dungeon?" Daddy replied seriously, "Yes."
We were done with Beauty and the Beast. We started Snow White and Seven Dwarfs for bedtime story.
Tuesday, Sep 9, 2003 (6y+1m+3d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to the dentist after school. The dentist didn't find any cavity. However, Jasmine had more black stains on her teeth than Joanne. As usual, they got a bagful of goodie from George, the receptionist. The twins made sure that they picked the tooth-saver treasure boxes in preparation for their upcoming loose teeth.The twins had been using the projector to trace many, many princess pictures. They colored each one of them too. Joanne wanted to make all the pictures into a book, but she complained that the book was getting too thick for the stapler to work. Jasmine suggested her to use a paper clip (actually she meant the binder clip).
Wednesday, Sep 10, 2003 (6y+1m+4d)
The twins went to school as usual. Joanne said she went to the school office to do homework. We knew she represented her class to take a test to check on the class progress. We tried to find out how she did. She said everything went well. They went to abacus class after school.They did more projection tracing. Jasmine complained that Joanne was tracing more pictures than she could color.
Before bedtime, I pointed to the bright moon and asked the twins to take a look at the bright point of light next to it. Jasmine widened her eyes and asked, "Second star to the right?" Daddy said, "No, that is Mars." The twins were disappointed. They thought that was the Neverland in Peter Pan's story. They knew Mars is a planet from what they learned in preschool. But I didn't think they knew what planet was.
Joanne weighed 39 lb. Jasmine weighed only 37 lb. Jasmine lost her appetite last week when she puked several times. She didn't gain weight while Joanne kept on growing.
Thursday, Sep 11, 2003 (6y+1m+5d)
It was the 2nd anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attack in New York. Everything went on as usual except there were many memorial programming on TV. The twins were not aware of what 9/11 meant to the world.It was a hot day today. The twins went to school as usual. They went to piano class after school. The teacher allowed parents to sit in today. Mommy discovered that the twins were practicing with the wrong key in the past few days. Mommy and daddy had limited music knowledge, if the twins told us they were right, we had to take their words for it. The rare opportunity to sit in their class let mommy find out if the twins were doing it right.
Julia left Michelle in our house so that she could go to the back-to-school-night event at Michelle's school. The twins enjoyed playing with Michelle in the backyard. Julia picked up Michelle around dinnertime.
It was the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. It was the Chinese Mid-Autumn festival. Chinese celebrated the Harvest Moon today. I found out that Japanese celebrates their moon festival a month later than the Chinese does (the Hunter Moon). We invited Hing, Lucy and their son Terence over for dinner. They were doing some repair in the kitchen. They could not prepare dinner. Since we bothered them all the time when we remodeled our kitchen, it was our turn to help them out.
After dinner, we sat outside in the backyard to enjoy the full moon. We had fruits, moon cakes and tea under the moonlight. The twins and Terence walked around the backyard with the lanterns in their hands. Joanne let Terence use her electric lantern. She herself wanted to use a paper lantern with real candle-fire inside.
Friday, Sep 12, 2003 (6y+1m+6d)
It was another hot day today. The twins went to school as usual. They joined Michelle to swim in the afternoon. Michelle's family had a membership to a nearby swimming pool. They took the twins in as guests.We invited Bonnie's family over to dinner. CW was in China on a business trip. The twins played with Addison and Deana in the backyard before dinner. They played inside the house after dinner. After they were tired, the twins showed them Disney's "Stitch the movie" on TV.
Saturday, Sep 13, 2003 (6y+1m+7d)
It was another hot day. We stayed home until late afternoon. We then went to Annette's house for a dinner party. They invited several families too. Nicholas', Sean's and the kids' ex-teacher Ms. Mao's family were among the guests. There were 4 boys and 6 girls in total. They had great time playing in the backyard and watching video in the living room. Annette's dad rented the newly released Sleeping Beauty. All the kids were disappointed to find that the DVD was not Sleeping Beauty II. The twins brought their "Stitch, the movie" and The Lizzie McGuire Movie. Annette asked the twins to lend her the Lizzie McGuire Movie. The twins agreed reluctantly. The twins later complained to daddy that they would not have anything to watch. Mommy reminded them that they still had a few dozen DVDs at home.We left before 11pm. The twins fell asleep on the way home. We had to wake them to take a shower and shampoo because they sweated heavily when they played. Jasmine was pretty moody, she cried and threw a tantrum for no apparent reason. Waking up in the middle of her sleep was bad enough to upset her.
Sunday, Sep 14, 2003 (6y+1m+8d)
It was another hot day. We decided to stay home to avoid the heat. The twins got more time to do their homework and practice piano.The twins invited daddy to play the Princess Enchanted Dream Ball game with them. They picked to be Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty, because their name Ariel and Aurora both started with A so they could start the game first. Daddy being Snow White started last but daddy won the first game. In the second game, they fought to be the first to start. Daddy tried to mediate and suggested that we use rock, paper, scissors to decide who to start first. It turned out that Jasmine lost and had to start last. She got upset and threw all the pieces up in the air and walked away. Mommy scolded her for her lack of sportsmanship.
Monday, Sep 15, 2003 (6y+1m+9d)
The twins returned to school as usual.Daddy's brother Ronnie came from Hong Kong. He was here just in time for grandma Chui's birthday. Uncle Ronnie bought some cartoon video and stickers for the twins. We went out to dinner to celebrate. It was 10pm by the time we returned home.
Tuesday, Sep 16, 2003 (6y+1m+10d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to swim at YMCA in the afternoon. Annette, Nicholas and Sean's family went to the pool. Four moms watched over the kids at the pool side. The twins were tired when they returned home. After they took the shower, they ran to bed. Mommy had to blow dry their hair in their beds. They fell asleep before mommy finished.We invited Hing's family over for dinner. After dinner we watched some video that Uncle Ronnie bought for the twins. Terence was very attentive because the cartoon was in Cantonese. Jasmine gave Terence her micro-pet Siren from Uncle Ronnie. Uncle Ronnie gave her the same toy that Lucy gave her last October. She really didn't need two of the same toy. Joanne got another Micro Pet Chumsly. But since she ruined the electronics in her toy by leaving it in water, Uncle Ronnie gift came as an exact replacement.
Wednesday, Sep 17, 2003 (6y+1m+11d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to abacus class after school.We were reaching the last chapter of Snow White during bedtime story. This was the last unread story in the book. Before daddy could finish the story, Joanne ran downstairs to fetch another book preparing for tomorrow. The twins fought for the book to pick the next story. Daddy was really upset because the twins were not listening to the end of the current story. I stopped the reading and took all the books away. I told them the new story will not start tomorrow, because we didn't finish Snow White today. The twins were upset and cried. Daddy threw them a box of tissue and told them to dry the eyes when they were done crying. They needed to learn to accept the consequence of their actions.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2003 (6y+1m+12d)
The twins went to school as usual.Daddy's company had a picnic starting in late morning to celebrate a major software release. Daddy spent the afternoon playing frisbee and volleyball with coworkers.
The twins were doing their homework and were very surprised to see daddy came home early. Daddy took them to their piano class. I was surprised that the other kids in the class were at least a year younger than the twins were. It was okay because the twins would be promoted to a more advanced class starting next week.
After the class, we went out to dinner at a tappanyaki restaurant. The twins still hated the clanking sound the chef made with his spatula. They covered their ears when the chef performed his tricks. The twins liked the volcano the chef built with stacked up onion rings. They were a little disappointed when the oil and wine inside the "volcano" didn't catch on fire, but the blowing steam alone was an interesting sight. They saw two other "volcanoes" spit fire on the tables next to us, so they were not too upset.
We finished the last story in the book Disney's Princess Treasury. They picked a much simpler book Disney's Classic Storybook. Daddy asked the twins to read the bedtime story to daddy instead. They took turn to read three pages each from the story of Dumbo.
Friday, Sep 19, 2003 (6y+1m+13d)
The twins went to school as usual.Daddy's office gave everyone a day off today because of the recent software release. Daddy and mommy went out to lunch with Uncle Ronnie and grandma Chui. After lunch we went to pick up the twins from school. They were again surprised that daddy did not go to work.
Uncle Ronnie and grandma came to our place. We watched some TV and played in the backyard before dinner. It was a calm day, but Uncle Ronnie taught the twins how to fly a kite by running really fast. It was not a very efficient technique, but it was quite an exercise for Uncle Ronnie and the twins.
Aunt Elaine joined us for dinner. They watched some TV before leaving.
The twins read 3 pages each to daddy for bedtime story. Jasmine wanted to switch bed with daddy. Daddy slept in Jasmine's bed.
Saturday, Sep 20, 2003 (6y+1m+14d)
Joanne woke me up at 3am with a nose bleed. Mommy said it was because she didn't replenish enough water after she ran with the kite in the yard yesterday. She sweated a lot, but she only drank a small bottle of water. Joanne had a weak nose. Whenever the weather was too dry or when she was dehydrated, her nose bled. Daddy told Joanne that she needed to drink a lot of water after each exercise. If she needed to go to pee pee, then she had enough water.In the morning, when Jasmine came back to her bed. Joanne told Jasmine that she enjoyed sleeping next to daddy. She said that daddy's snoring sounded nice. I wish mommy thought the same way :-)
In the morning, the twins played two pieces of music their Cousin Amanda showed them before. Daddy recorded Amanda's performance on the computer via the MIDI interface. The music "Indian Dance" and "Little Mermaid" were then tidied up and printed on paper as sheet music.
After the twins played Amanda's music, daddy asked Joanne if she liked Amanda. To my surprise, she said no. When I inquired further, Joanne explained that she didn't like Amanda because when Jasmine went to their home last time, Jasmine didn't let Joanne kiss her anymore. Joanne said Jasmine pushed her away and wiped her cheek where Joanne kissed. As she was explaining how Jasmine rejected her kiss, she broke into tears and cried emotionally. She also said she didn't like Andric neither because Jasmine played with Andric all the time. She recalled that when Jasmine and Andric were playing together on the motorized 4 wheel toy vehicle outside their house, Amanda and Joanne was watching from the garage. Amanda commented that it looked like Jasmine and Andric were in love. Joanne didn't like that. She was jealous.
Jasmine came over to ask why Joanne wept. Daddy repeated the story and explained to Jasmine how Joanne's feeling was hurt when her kiss was wiped off. Daddy suggested Jasmine to kiss Joanne and let Joanne kiss her too. Jasmine felt guilty and did what daddy suggested. That brought back the smile on Joanne's face.
Mommy decided to stay home. Daddy and twins went out to lunch with grandma Chui and Uncle Ronnie. Aunt Elaine also joined us at the restaurant. After lunch, we all went shopping at Costco. The twins managed to make daddy buy the Disney's "Kim Possible" movie on DVD. They also wanted the Disney's "Sleeping Beauty, Special Edition" too. But daddy argued that we had a Laser Disc version of the same movie. Joanne argued that the DVD could be played on our SUV and some games came with the DVD. She was very upset when daddy insisted not to buy it. It didn't help despite daddy promised to buy "Barbie of Swan Lake" as soon as it came out next week.
Grandma and Aunt Elaine went home when we continued shopping at Fry's electronics. Uncle Ronnie was interested to compare the electronic products with those in Hong Kong. The twins and daddy enjoyed milk shake, smoothie and cookie at the Cafe inside the store when Ronnie zig-zag'ed the aisles.
In the late afternoon, we dropped off Uncle Ronnie. We rendezvoused with mommy at Nicholas' home for a BBQ party. Several parents in the group all had birthday within this month. We got together for a group birthday party. The kids had a great time playing in the backyard. The adults ate and ate and ate many types of homemade Taiwanese dishes in addition to the BBQ'ed meat.
One low-light of the night was Sean's bloody nose. The kids turned off the lights when they played in the bedroom. Sean's nose got bumped in the dark and blood dripped all over his face and arms. The dads were asked to stay away because too many adults crowding the scene might scare the kids for something that was not as serious as it seemed. The other kids stood around to watch as the moms helped Sean to clean up the mess. The bloody nose scenario was not unfamiliar with the twins. Jasmine had helped to take care of Joanne's bloody nose many times before.
Sean was trained in classical guitar by his father. He promised his mom to perform a piece in front of everyone. But he changed his mind at the last minute. Patricia performed on the piano as a bait to Sean. All the kids begged him, but Sean still insisted he wouldn't perform. The kids left the party disappointed.
On the way home, Jasmine leaned on Joanne's shoulder to rest. Joanne pushed her away. Jasmine cried in a tantrum. She put the blame on daddy because daddy agreed with Joanne that the shoulder didn't belong to Jasmine. Kids become unreasonable when they are tired. After they took the shower, Jasmine wanted daddy to sleep in Joanne's bed. Joanne was glad to sleep with mommy.
Sunday, Sep 21, 2003 (6y+1m+15d)
We slept in until the kids woke us up. It was a hot day and mommy decided to stay home. We went to San Francisco with grandma Chui and Uncle Ronnie. The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate park reopened this weekend after closing for over 8 years. The greenhouse was closed after it was damaged in a storm almost a decade ago.It was close to 100°F in San Francisco when we arrived. The twins thought daddy lied to them because daddy told them to bring their sweaters for San Francisco was a cold place. We circled around the park for over two hours before we could find a parking space. The twins sarcastically asked daddy how many more hours they would stay in their car seats. Despite the long hours going nowhere, the twins had fun with themselves playing and laughing in their car seats.
When we got to the conservatory, we found out that the tickets were sold out until 5:30pm. We then went to Stow Lake in the park for a boat ride. Due to the delay in finding the parking, we arrived at the lake after 4pm. The boat rental place was already closed. Daddy totally lost credibility today. The temperature, the conservatory, the boat ride were all false promises. However, daddy bought them McDonald's happy meals, pushup popsicles, rice krispies etc. They were happy babies despite daddy's failure to fulfill the promises.
We let them take a nap in their car seats on our way back. We picked up mommy on our way to rendezvous with Aunt Elaine for dinner. We woke up the twins at the restaurant. Joanne was a sweet kid but Jasmine threw a tantrum when their sleep was disrupted.
We all returned to our home to chat after dinner. The twins soaked in the bathtub for awhile. Joanne told daddy they were in the tub for 3 minutes, but I thought they were actually in there for 30. Though the twins knew how to read digital clock, they have poor concept of time. They did a page of abacus homework before going to bed. Grandma et. al. left at 10pm. Daddy asked the twins to read just one page of bedtime story because we didn't want them to stay up too late. The twins were still awake in bed when we checked on them an hour later. The extra nap time in the afternoon kept them up at night.
Monday, Sep 22, 2003 (6y+1m+16d)
The twins returned to school as usual.Daddy picked up uncle Ronnie after work. Daddy had dinner with grandma before returning home. Uncle Ronnie stayed overnight with us.
The twins read their bedtime story as usual except uncle Ronnie was among the audience tonight. They read Peter Pan.
Tuesday, Sep 23, 2003 (6y+1m+17d)
The twins went to school as usual. They said goodbye to uncle Ronnie before leaving. After mommy dropped off the twins at school, she took uncle Ronnie to the airport. He returned to Hong Kong on a 1pm flight.Joanne said she missed uncle Ronnie already. The twins did their homework and practiced piano. Mommy also give them a dictation test on English words and Chinese characters and pinyin. The teacher said the kids will be tested this week, so mommy gave the twins a mocked test. The twins read bedtime story to mommy and daddy before going to bed.
Wednesday, Sep 24, 2003 (6y+1m+18d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to abacus class and piano class after school. The twins are assigned to a more advanced class this week. Their homework today was in D major. Daddy and mommy needed to catch up on the music theory for the homework is getting harder.
Thursday, Sep 25, 2003 (6y+1m+19d)
The twins went to school as usual.After dinner, the twins played instead of doing homework. Daddy puzzled, mommy explained that the twins already did their homework and practiced piano in the afternoon. They were allowed to play until bedtime.
Joanne was making a scene when she could not find her Hamtaro toy figure. She demanded daddy and mommy to find the toy for her. Mommy said no way because Joanne must learn to remember she put her own stuff. Joanne was absent-minded and lazy. Whenever she misplaced something, she wanted someone else to find it for her. Daddy offered to help her. I followed her around the house to places she had been earlier. Within a minute after she started to look, she found her toy. She just said, "Oh! I remember now." So her problem was not failing to find her stuff, her problem was that she didn't start to look.
Friday, Sep 26, 2003 (6y+1m+20d)
The twins went to school as usual.The moms gathered at our home when the kids were at school. The twins told daddy that they performed a Hamtaro puppet show for mommy before daddy came home. Daddy asked if they could repeat the show for daddy. Joanne said no. Daddy had to come home early if daddy didn't want to miss the show.
Saturday, Sep 27, 2003 (6y+1m+21d)
Jasmine woke up before 7:30am. We ignored her noise and slept in. The twins invaded our room at 8:30am asking about Great America. Mommy promised to take them to the amusement park today. They were motivated and got themselves ready immediately. We went to a bakery and had some pastry as breakfast. We arrived at Great America slightly after 10am. Daddy were disappointed that a roller coaster that we wanted to try had been dismantled for the construction of a new one. We spent almost 3 hours in the amusement park. Then we left for lunch. Jasmine said she was tired, but she refused to take a nap when we got home. We really wanted her to take a nap because she got up really early this morning. She joined us to watch a movie on TV instead.We rented some movies on DVD. The twins picked "Pokemon 4ever". They didn't like the movie. They said it was too scary. I asked them which part was scary because children cartoon was not supposed to be scary. They were scared of a scene where one of the Pokemon Celebi withered and dried up. The twins understood what death meant. It was the reason why they didn't like Disney's "Bambi". They said it was scary because Bambi's mommy was killed by the hunters.
The twins did some abacus homework and practiced piano before we went out to dinner. Jasmine fell asleep at the table after she finished her dinner. We carried her back to the car when we left. She woke up again when we reached home. They took a shower and got ready for bed. Joanne wanted to play a game she made in the car. She created a rhyming card game. She wrote words on many cards. Then we played the cards like the game of "go fish". In the 'go fish' game, the players collect cards that match. In Joanne's card game, the players collect cards that rhyme. Then they played the "I spy' game by naming items they saw in the bedroom and another player identify which object was spied. The games were in lieu of the bedtime story today.
Sunday, Sep 28, 2003 (6y+1m+22d)
We went to Oakland for breakfast with Amy, mommy's high school buddy. Amy and her husband opened a restaurant 4 years ago and her business were in good shape after she established a stable clientele. Her daughter is a month older than ours. She was 80 pound, heavier than our two twins added up. Amy needed to rush back to her restaurant after breakfast.We went to grandma Ling's place. Mommy and Aunt Tina went shopping. The rest of us stayed behind to watch DVDs.
We left after dinner. Before we left, we asked the twins to go pee because it was a long drive home. Both twins said they just did and they had no more pee. Daddy asked them to go one more time and mommy asked them to go one more time. Their response to both requests was no. On the way home, Joanne asked where we were going. Daddy replied that we were going home. Then later mommy wanted to stop by the bakery to buy some bread for tomorrow's breakfast. Daddy told them that mommy changed her mind and we would make a stop before going home. Joanne complained that daddy lied to her.
It was dusk when we stopped the car. There were a few flocks of birds circling the sky. They landed and perched on the roof close to the bakery. The whole roof was darkened with the flock. When they took off again, it looks like a blanket covering the sky. I estimated there were over 500 birds. The twins said there were a hundred because one hundred was a very big number to them.
We all came out to take a stretch when mommy went into the bakery. Joanne said she needed to pee. I asked her to go into a restaurant and ask if she could use their bathroom. Joanne wanted daddy to ask for her. I told her that she could have gone to the bathroom before we started the trip. She had to hold until we arrived home because it was her fault for not listening to daddy and mommy. She threatened that she would pee in her pants and wet the car. I counter-threatened that if she wet the car, she wouldn't be allowed to ride on the car again. We arrived home with no leaky incident. The twins fell asleep on the way. We rushed Joanne into the toilet as soon as we arrived home. She didn't have a lot of pee, so her threat earlier was just a bluff. They woke up and washed and brushed before going to bed early.
Monday, Sep 29, 2003 (6y+1m+23d)
The twins had no school today. It was a teacher meeting day at school. Mommy joined a few moms and took the kids to a mini-golf place. She then dropped off the twins at the home of one of the moms. They played with the other kids while mommy went home to meet the house-keepers. Mommy and daddy went out to dinner without the twins. We took them home after dinner. The twins were extremely excited and told daddy every bit about their mini-golf experience.The twins stacked some pillows on top of themselves in bed. When daddy asked what the pillows were for, they said they were for blocking the ghosts. They said the ghosts came at midnight. But they were always asleep at midnight. That was spooky.
Tuesday, Sep 30, 2003 (6y+1m+24d)
The twins returned to school as usual.Jasmine called daddy at work. She asked daddy to buy "Barbie of Swan Lake" for them. They learned of the DVD release from barbie.com. They had been waiting for this for weeks. The teacher told them the date at the start of each school day. They wanted to call daddy as soon as them come out from school.
When Joanne practiced piano today, she wanted to take a nap. Mommy insisted she had to play through the exercise with no mistake before she could stop. Joanne finished her practice in tears.
They ran to daddy as daddy came home. They were more interested in the DVD than daddy. They watched "Barbie of Swan Lake" after dinner.
Wednesday, Oct 1, 2003 (6y+1m+25d)
The twins went to school as usual. They had abacus and piano class in the afternoon.Daddy attended a business dinner. When daddy came home at 9pm, everyone was in bed already. Joanne ran downstairs to greet daddy. She asked daddy to be quiet because mommy was asleep. She said they already read their bedtime story to mommy. Daddy sent her back to her bed to wait for daddy's goodnight kiss after daddy took a piss stop. After I kissed Joanne, I walked around to Jasmine's bed and as I bent down, Jasmine gave a loud "Boo!" I was really startled because I thought Jasmine was already asleep. They interrogated about daddy's whereabout, what daddy ate for dinner etc. They reported that they had udon noodle for dinner and eggs too.
Thursday, Oct 2, 2003 (6y+1m+26d)
The twins went to school as usual.The twins mentioned the ghost that they were scared of. Daddy took the opportunity to find out what they meant. Joanne said it was something like a white cloud. It came in to the room from the window at midnight. Jasmine said it was like many specks of white light. Joanne said it was not. They disagreed even when they both claimed they saw the ghost. I asked them to wake daddy and mommy when the ghost came again. Mommy told them only bad kids would see ghosts. Hopefully the "ghost" would motive the twins to behave.
Friday, Oct 3, 2003 (6y+1m+27d)
The twins went to school as usual.In the evening, Joanne wanted to draw all the planets. She asked daddy how each planet looks like. Daddy showed Joanne how to search google.com for the images of the planets. With the help of daddy, Joanne completed her research. She drew the planets in full color based on the photos she found on the Internet. She posted her planet chart on the wall and asked daddy and Jasmine to be her students. She played the role of teacher to go through the names of all the planets. We had to take a test afterwards. She graded our test paper too. Daddy got all the spelling right. Jasmine misspelled Neptune because Joanne read it wrong as "nip-tune".
At bedtime the twins asked daddy to stay in their room to see the ghost. They said the ghost shaped and moved like a tornado. Daddy said they might have seen a fairy. They said it was not Tinker Bell because it was about 3 feet tall and it was white. Tinker Bell should be tiny and green. Jasmine said when she saw it last time, she closed her eyes. But when she opened her eyes again, it was gone. As far as I am concerned, they were dreaming.
Saturday, Oct 4, 2003 (6y+1m+28d)
Mommy invited several families to our home for a BBQ party around noon. Before the guests arrived, the twins helped daddy bring plates to the backyard. They played the Lizzie McGuire movie on TV so that they could sing along with their favorite songs.Three families brought their infants along. Cindy & Ray, Betsy & Kenny, Sandy & Lambert were all proud new parents. They enjoyed exchanging parenting experience because their kids were all at the same age. Jane & Denis, Lucy and Hing, Sharleen & Poon's kids were older, but they were all younger than our twins. Evon & Ronald, Shiu Ling had no kid, but they too mixed in with the other parents. The twins played with the other four kids. They didn't bother the three babies though.
The guests started to leave after 4pm. Hing & Lucy left Terence behind and went to a banquet. Denis and Poon's family stayed behind for dinner. We reheated the left-over from the lunch. The rest of the guests left at around 10pm. We put the kids in bed. They read their bedtime story to Terence too. We tried to convince Terence to sleep with the twins. But he wanted his mom. We were able to quiet him down by showing his favorite Blue's Clues on TV. He fell asleep on the sofa within a few minutes. Hing & Lucy came back from the banquet after 11pm. They transferred their sleeping kid to their car. It was a long day for us, but the twins had a great time playing with the other kids.
Joanne made mommy mad today. She asked mommy if she could put on nail polish. Mommy said no. But Joanne didn't listen. The worst part was that when she put on the nail polish against mommy's objection, she spilled the nail polish on the carpet. Mommy threw away Joanne's bottle of nail polish as a punishment. Mommy would not buy them nail polish, but they received a pack of toy cosmetics as a gift sometime ago.
Sunday, Oct 5, 2003 (6y+1m+29d)
We went to Half Moon Bay with Annette's family. We were in one of the shops window shopping. Mommy felt a sharp painful sting at her lower calf. When she shook the leg of the pants, a bee fell out. We were worried because mommy was never stung by a bee before. She didn't know if she had allergic reaction to the bee sting. We later found out that about 1 in 200 persons would have allergic reaction at the second sting. So we didn't need to worry until the next sting.We then went to a stable for horseback riding. Arthur stayed with Alex because he was too young to ride. The rest of us rented 6 horses and a guide. None of us had ridden a horse before. The workers there helped us mount the horses then they left us alone. The trouble was that the horses had a mind of their own, they just wandered in all directions. Fortunately all of them eventually gathered at the hay stack for a snack. The guide came later and sent all the horses away from the food. All the horses went down the trail except Jasmine's. Daddy tried to use the reins like the cowboys in the movie. I was able to force the horse to turn around to look for Jasmine. The guide has already turned Jasmine's horse around when we got to her.
The guide let our horses go on their own pace. He was busy teaching his own son to ride. Our horses were scattered apart because the guide was not doing his job. He yelled commands aloud like hold back, turn around etc. When we turned around, we found that he was just yelling at his son. Our horses were wandering in different directions. When Jasmine's horse saw the other horses turned around, it turned around and galloped away. We yelled to the distracted guide for help, then he stopped tending his son to chase after Jasmine's horse. The other guides on the trail used two-way radio to call for help from each other. He was able to catch up after more than a quarter mile away. The trail was in the open. We were able to keep an eye on the chase though we felt very helpless from so far away especially when we were unable to control our own horses very well.
We asked if Jasmine was scared, she said she was not. However, she had a dazed look on her face. I believed she was scared, but she did not want to admit it. She loved horses ever since she loved the movie Spirit. We were really scared because we worried Jasmine might fall off the horse. The kids were not really controlling the horses. Even though they were holding the rein, they didn't have enough strength to pull on it to make a difference. Their horses were just following the group. When the horses wandered off, the kids were at the mercy of the horses.
We were really glad when a different guide took over. He was upset to find that the stirrups were not even adjusted properly for the kids. Since it was our first time on the horse, we would never have known the difference. He also held on to a rope to Jasmine's horse so that it could not run away again. We took the trip around the trail and down onto the beach. The horses strolled along with the ocean waves. It was a pleasant ride. The rest of the ride was uneventful.
When we returned to the stable, we found that Alex didn't have his pony ride yet because he took a nap in the car. We then went to the pony ride. The twins and Annette still wanted to ride the pony after almost two hours on the big horses. They said ponies were different because they were smaller and cuter. We bought two tickets and let the four kids share two ponies for 10 minutes each. The adults had to hold a rope to lead the ponies around a track of dirt. The ponies were quite strong, they didn't move until they were willing to. They stopped for water and hay at their own will. They even stopped to pee and poop right on the track. Daddy asked Joanne if she knew what we were doing. Joanne said she was riding the pony. I said we were strolling in the pony's toilet. (pictures)
We later talked to the twins about their experience. They enjoyed the ride very much. We avoided discussing the scary moments because only we were scared, Jasmine was not. I joked with Jasmine that her horse was the most interesting one because it galloped for half a mile. On the contrary, daddy's horse was too boring, it just walked slowly all the way. Joanne & Annette added that their horses only ran a little bit. I down-played the scary runaway incident as a fun excursion so that it wouldn't leave a bad memory for Jasmine.
We then drove our cars along the shoreline of the Half Moon Bay. We stopped at a beach this was inside the Princeton harbor. Since the harbor was enclosed in storm jetties, the water was pretty calm. The kids played with the sand on the beach. We then went to the historical Miramar Beach Restaurant for dinner. We watched a beautiful sunset over the horizon in the middle of dinner. Toward the end of dinner, the twins started to lie on their seats using daddy's thighs as pillow. I suggested to mommy that I would take the twins back to the car so that they could take a nap in their car seat while mommy took care of the bill. We left for home before the twins felt asleep. We woke them up again when we got home. Mommy couldn't let them go to bed without a shower first because the trail was dusty and the stable and the horses were stinky. Mommy showered the twins while they were half asleep. We put them in bed after we blow-dried their hair.
Monday, Oct 6, 2003 (6y+2m)
The twins are 74 months old.
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started on Oct 6, 2003