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This journal is about raising identical twins.Seventy Sixth Month
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Thursday, Nov 6, 2003 (6y+3m)
The twins are 75 months old.Daddy told mommy that the training class didn't provide tea, though some classmate made some coffee in the kitchen. The twins over heard our conversation and started to refer to daddy's class as the coffee class.
The twins went to school as usual. They did their music home work in the afternoon. The twins chanted some Mandarin rhymes they learned from school. They asked daddy to write it down.
城門, 城門, 幾丈高? 三十六丈高 騎白馬,帶把刀, 走進城門滑一交Daddy came home early. The twins asked daddy how many more coffee classes I had to go to. They were glad that daddy finished the class and came home early. Daddy and mommy set up the artificial Christmas tree before dinner. The twins were sent to watch "Finding Nemo" so that wouldn't bother us. The movie was interrupted at dinner time. After dinner, the twins did their reading assignment and we continued working on the Christmas tree. The twins went to bed before the Christmas tree was complete.
Friday, Nov 7, 2003 (6y+3m+1d)
The twins went to school as usual.We went to dinner at applebee restaurant with Annette's and Nicholas' family. We went to Annette's house after dinner. The kids played in the play room while the adults watched TV and chatted. The kids later each performed a number on the piano. Patricia and Annette had taken piano lesson for couple of years. They played some longer pieces from sheet music. Jasmine performed a couple from memory. Joanne only played one piece. Nicholas only played a few notes because he was the shyest.
Saturday, Nov 8, 2003 (6y+3m+2d)
Joanne came into our bed in the morning. Mommy went to the bathroom. And when she came back, Jasmine came along with her. Joanne said she did not like mommy because mommy brought Jasmine over. She then cried sadly. When asked why, she said Jasmine didn't even like her. Jasmine explained because Joanne squeezed her. Apparently, Jasmine didn't want Joanne to get too close to her. That was why Joanne came into our bed in the morning.We went to Costco to shop for tomorrow's party.
Daddy threatened Joanne that if she didn't hurry up in brushing her teeth, I would not wait for her to read the bedtime story. Jasmine and daddy were reading something else while waiting for Joanne. When daddy went to check on her after a long time, I found that she had climbed into mommy's bed sobbing. She must have thought daddy started the bedtime story without her, or she didn't like daddy's threat. She refused to go back to her own bed. Jasmine liked the idea and asked daddy to sleep in Joanne's bed instead. We read the bedtime story without Joanne because she said she didn't want to hear the story.
Lightning and loud thunder woke us up in the middle of the night. Jasmine said the thunder didn't bother her.
Sunday, Nov 9, 2003 (6y+3m+3d)
Daddy invited some coworkers and ex-coworkers to a lunch party. The guests included KK F., Steve C., Peter C. & his guest, George K. and family, Carmen K and Willie, Thomas F., Raymond C. and family. Some ex-coworkers had not seen each others for 3, 4 years. The party provided a venue for reunion. Raymond's 3 year old Jessica, George's 5 year old Michael and 3 year old Michelle were easily entertained by playing Finding Nemo on the TV. After Nemo, Michael picked Bug's Life to be the next movie. The twins liked to play with older kids. Since the guests' kids were all younger than they were, the twins were not good hosts to the other kids. They later said they didn't like to play with the kids because they slammed on the keys when they played the piano. Despite our lecturing, we could not really change what the twins like or dislike. The last group of guests left around 4pm.Mommy's cousin Winnie's family and her sister Janet came to visit us in the evening. The twins were happy to play their Hello Kitty board game with Samantha. They also started Monopoly, but of course didn't finish without spending a few hours on it. We bought some take out food for dinner. We also served some left over food from the lunch party earlier.
Joanne liked sleeping in Daddy's spot. She ran to daddy's bed as soon as we finished the bedtime story. Daddy forcefully carried her back to her own bed several times, she kept running back. Jasmine said she liked daddy sleeping in her room. Daddy's snoring didn't bother her because she didn't hear it once she fell asleep. Daddy gave up because the twins were quite determined.
Monday, Nov 10, 2003 (6y+3m+4d)
The twins didn't have school today because of the veteran's day holiday. Daddy needed to go to work. Daddy overslept and missed a meeting because the alarm clock was not set when Joanne took daddy's spot. Daddy made sure Joanne knew about what she had done. Joanne said sorry with a smile.Daddy took the afternoon off to see the dentist and doctor because of some nerve pain in the ear. Julia left Michelle at our place to play with the twins. They used up all the green chalks to draw Christmas trees on the pathway in the backyard.
Daddy was on some pain medication and fell asleep on the sofa for couple of hours. Daddy showed the twins how to write secret messages by rotating the alphabet by 13 position. I used a website to help them cypher the messages. They spent couple of hours writing secret messages to each others.
During bedtime story, daddy repeated yesterday's chapter for Joanne. Jasmine didn't mind as long as a new chapter was added later. Joanne stayed in her own bed because she didn't want daddy to be late for work again.
Tuesday, Nov 11, 2003 (6y+3m+5d)
It was Veterans day today. The twins had no school. They stayed home all day. Annette's and Nicholas' family came to our house to play with the twins. The kids played hide and seek. The twins climbed into the dryer. When other kids reported that to mommy, the twins got a serious scolding from mommy. The twins soaked in the bathtub before dinner. The twins cyphered and decyphered some secret messages.Mommy awarded the twins a quarter every morning and night if they behaved well. The twins made their effort to earn the quarters. They have saved up quite a lot over time. Jasmine counted the money in her wallet. She had $9.01. Joanne had a very heavy purse. She wanted daddy to count her money for her. She had more than $20 worth of quarters. Daddy offered to change her quarters into paper money. Joanne got a $10, a $5 and a $1 bill, she preferred to keep the rest in coins. She had $29.83 in total. I asked why Joanne had so much more money than Jasmine. She explained that Jasmine lost her purse sometime ago and her money was gone. She told Jasmine that the tooth fairy took her money.
Wednesday, Nov 12, 2003 (6y+3m+6d)
The twins returned to school after a four day long weekend. The twins went to abacus and piano class in the afternoon. When they came out of class, they requested Japanese dinner at Miyake before returning home.
Thursday, Nov 13, 2003 (6y+3m+7d)
The twins went to school as usual. They did their homework and practiced piano as usual. The twins were tired in the afternoon. Jasmine said she would like to take a nap. Mommy asked her to go ahead. But she didn't take it after taking a shower. Mommy sent the twins to bed early because they looked tired. The twins didn't listen to mommy. They didn't earn their quarter for the night. Joanne was really upset because of that.
Friday, Nov 14, 2003 (6y+3m+8d)
The twins went to school as usual. They did their homework and practiced piano as usual. One exception today was that Seline's mom dropped off Seline at our house. Her mom volunteered to help at the Fall Night at school. Many moms decided not to let the kids participate in the school event because it was drizzling, cold and dark. The kids finished their homework before they played together. Seline is Jasmine's classmate, but she likes to play with Joanne too. Seline stayed for dinner. She didn't want to go when her mom came to pick her up later.The twins had been waiting for the weekend to play the Monopoly game. Daddy played the game with them. They learned a new game rule from Nicholas and Patricia. When each player pays the bank, the money goes into a Jackpot. The "free parking" spot wins the Jackpot. Joanne won the jackpot three times, daddy won once, Jasmine none. As a result, Joanne held 5 times as much money as Jasmine after about 90 minutes. We left the game for the night. The twins wanted to continue in the morning.
For bedtime story, the twins chose the Monopoly instruction pamphlet over "Finding Nemo". Joanne wanted to learn more about the rules, but Jasmine only interested in how the game was invented. After daddy finished the introduction, Jasmine said she was not listening to the rules. So we switched back to "Finding Nemo". Again Jasmine said she was not listening because she wanted to play a bedtime game with some Hello Kitty cards she made. Daddy said there would be no game for bedtime. Jasmine was mad at daddy and didn't say goodnight to daddy.
Saturday, Nov 15, 2003 (6y+3m+9d)
We went to brunch with grandma Chui. The twins rented "Thumbelina" on DVD. After we returned home, the twins wanted to continue the game of Monopoly. We played on and off throughout the day while watching the rented movie. In addition to the new lottery rules, we didn't follow the rules on achieving monopoly of the same color before buying houses. With ample supply of cash from the jackpot and the loose restriction, each player built up their properties at a very fast pace. Both Joanne and daddy stepped on the "Free Parking" spots several times and won the cumulative jackpots. Jasmine didn't win even once. At one point of the time, Jasmine ran out of cash because she bought more properties than both of us with less income. She owned 14 properties while daddy and Joanne owned seven each. Jasmine was lucky to land on unoccupied properties, while daddy and Joanne were lucky with the jackpots. Daddy had to show Jasmine on how to mortgage five properties to raise $500 to pay rent to Joanne. But just one round later her properties earned close to $1000 each from Joanne and daddy. She had enough money to pay back the debt and bought more houses. Her properties showed their strong earning power throughout the rest of the game. Not too long after her close call to bankruptcy, Jasmine passed us in her cash balance. Since Jasmine was winning, she wanted to keep playing while Joanne started to lose interest. Joanne agreed to continue after Jasmine begged her several times. We halted the game again at bedtime. Jasmine still wanted to continue tomorrow. Throughout the game, Jasmine paid her money quickly. Joanne had trouble adding her money or making change. Joanne's arithmetics skill was obviously way behind Jasmine'sDaddy was watching the movie "I Sky" on TV, Joanne came over and asked about Disney's "Mulan" because she heard the voice of Mushu the dragon. Daddy pointed to Eddie Murphy and explained he was the actor who played Mushu. Joanne said, "Oh!"
At bedtime, Joanne tried to take Jasmine's Coca Cola polar bear stuffed animal. They fought and caught mommy's attention. Mommy scolded Joanne for taking things that didn't belong to her. Joanne ran upstairs and wept in mommy's bed. Joanne wanted Jasmine to share the polar bear with her, because she shared her Coca Cola frisbee. Jasmine said we already had too many frisbees, Joanne should not have bought another frisbee. Both daddy and mommy agreed that the bear belonged to Jasmine. Jasmine could decide who could play with it. The decision made Joanne cried more. Joanne sobbed through the bedtime story. At the end of the reading, Jasmine felt guilty of making Joanne cry. She shoved the bear into Joanne's arms without saying a word. Joanne stopped crying and went to sleep with a smile.
We always try to be neutral and fair. We don't take side just to stop a fight. It is more important for the kids to learn how to decide what is right.
Sunday, Nov 16, 2003 (6y+3m+10d)
We stayed home most of the day. Jasmine wanted to continue the Monopoly game after lunch. Daddy suggested them to bring out their abacus to help them with the arithmetics. Joanne bankrupted when she had to pay $1400 rent to Jasmine with just $38 cash. After she'd liquidated all her houses, she still couldn't pay off. She lost all her cash and deeds to Jasmine. Joanne was actually happy to leave the game. She wanted to do so since yesterday. Jasmine owned 21 properties after taking over Joanne's assets. Since daddy only owned 7 properties, every trip around the board was like passing through a field of land mines. Daddy bankrupted just a few rounds later. Jasmine was very happy with the result. She wanted daddy to count her money. Daddy helped her do multiplication. She had to use the abacus to add them all up on her own. She worthed over $20000 including the value of the hotels and land.We went out to dinner. The twins did their abacus homework and practiced piano after dinner.
The twins measured 44.25 inch tall. Joanne weighed 39 lb., Jasmine 38.5 lb.
Monday, Nov 17, 2003 (6y+3m+11d)
The twins went to school as usual. Nothing special today. They both did 30 minutes of reading. Joanne picked a book on dogs which was not a children book. She had some trouble with some difficult words, but in general she could read all words though not very fluently. The trouble with phonics was that she could read the sound, but she may not understand half of the sentences.When daddy was ready to read them the bedtime story, the twins wouldn't stop talking with each other. Daddy announced that story time was cancelled because no one was listening. The twins didn't seem to care.
Tuesday, Nov 18, 2003 (6y+3m+12d)
The twins went to school as usual. Ansel and Chap-kay's family came to our house after school. Sharleen also dropped off Claire at our house. Annette had a fever so she did not come. She lost two front teeth last week. She had a fever when the new teeth were budding. The twins also had fever every time they were teething The kids finished their homework before leaving.Jasmine cut her finger when she handled the tin foil on apple cider bottle. When mommy told daddy about that, Jasmine was upset. She didn't want anyone to know about it. Claire's mom picked her up after dinner. Jasmine complained that when Claire was here, Joanne didn't play with her at all.
Wednesday, Nov 19, 2003 (6y+3m+13d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to abacus and piano class in the afternoon.We went out to Japanese dinner with Annette and Nicholas' family. Mommy ordered the kid's bento for the kids. They ate very well even though we didn't order udon for them.
Thursday, Nov 20, 2003 (6y+3m+14d)
The twins went to school as usual. The twins work extra on home work in preparation for a trip next week. The twins made mommy mad when they take a long time to brush their teeth before bed. Mommy told them bedtime story was cancelled because they didn't hurry up. Joanne sneacked downstairs to ask daddy for bedtime story. Daddy read them the story without knowing about their punishment. Mommy scolded daddy for keeping the twins up too late.
Friday, Nov 21, 2003 (6y+3m+15d)
The twins went to school as usual. It was very cold in the past few days. Jasmine wore a ski jacket to school today. Joanne wore several layers instead.
Saturday, Nov 22, 2003 (6y+3m+16d)
The twins went to a makeup session of abacus class in the morning. They would miss next week class when we go on a trip.We went to Clarie's five years old birthday party in the afternoon. We went to Annette's home for a pre-celebration of thanksgiving. Nicholas' family will go on a trip also next week. So we decided to have the gathering a week in advance.
Sunday, Nov 23, 2003 (6y+3m+17d)
We left in the morning heading to Las Vegas, Nevada. We arrived after about 8 hours. We stayed at Aladdin hotel. We rendezvoused with cousin Natalie's family at the hotel.
Monday, Nov 24, 2003 (6y+3m+18d)
We spent the day driving around town. The twins wanted to visit the Coca Cola store. Joanne bought a Polar Bear stuffed toy. She named it Polar Star because Jasmine's polar bear was named "Polari" (pronounced PO-la-ri). We pasted a street called Polaris (pronounced po-LA-ris). I suggested to Joanne that Polaris is the name of the Polar star. Joanne insisted the name was polar star.We also went to the M&M store. When we left the store, Jasmine was very upset because she had not purchased anything. She wanted to spend her own money like Joanne did, though she didn't have much left. When mommy told her to save her money for something else, she cried. Aunt Tina gave her a box of M&M candies to stop her crying.
After dinner, we went to Luxor hotel. Mommy played the metal claw machine and successfully picked a care-bear doll. After several other attempts, we gave up. We saw another group of people playing the same machine. They plied loose a doll. After they gave up, mommy gave it a try again and she got another care-bear for the twins. The polar bear purchased in the afternoon was abandoned when the care-bears arrived.
We watched a 3-D movie about undersea adventure at the Luxor IMAX theater. Jasmine was scared of any kind of 3-D movie, besides she asked about the sharks before we entered the theater. She refused to watch the movie with the 3-D goggle on. The movie was not very watchable without the 3-D goggles when the left and right eye images overlapped to form a messy image. She watched the movie almost half way through with no 3-D effect. Daddy ordered her to look through the goggle at one point of time. She saw what she had missed right away and started reaching out with her hand to touch the fish. She later said she was not scared of the sharks, though she didn't reach out to touch them. Everyone enjoyed the movie except uncle Ivan. He became very ill due to motion sickness. We dropped him off at the hotel before we went to get something to eat.
Tuesday, Nov 25, 2003 (6y+3m+19d)
After breakfast, we went to Hoover Dam. We took the tour to see the generators and saw the dam from the observation deck. We returned to Las Vegas in the afternoon. We spent time visiting various hotels. The twins liked to see white tiger, the erupting volcano at Mirage and the musical fountains at Ballagio.
Wednesday, Nov 26, 2003 (6y+3m+20d)
Cousin Natalie's family left for home in the morning. We packed up and checked out from Aladdin hotel. We drove around town. We had an early dinner in Chinatown on Spring Mountain road. We checked in to the Mandalay Bay hotel. Then we went to Luxor hotel to see the Blue Men Group. The twins enjoyed the show very much. They were especially amused by the part where an audience member was slapped with paint and swung upside down onto a canvas to make art. The music and visuals in the show were very entertaining. It cost almost US$400 for 4 tickets, but the show was quite an experience.
Thursday, Nov 27, 2003 (6y+3m+21d)
It is the Thanksgiving day. We visited the inside of Ballagio hotel. The twins wanted to watch the music fountain again. We started at 5pm to walk around to find a thanksgiving dinner. All restaurants were fully booked, no room for even the early birds. The twins suggested we should go to McDonald's for dinner and we did. Since we already had a turkey dinner in advance last week, we didn't really need a big Thanksgiving dinner. After dinner, we went to the game room in New York, New York hotel. The twins played the games to earn tickets. They were very excited to exchange 340 points for a Hello Kitty toy. The prize they have received probably cost 20 times more than what we would pay at a Sanrio store. I guessed the destination didn't matter, the process was fun.
Friday, Nov 28, 2003 (6y+3m+22d)
We had breakfast and then checked out from the Mandalay Bay hotel. We had lunch with Debbie's friend in Las Vegas. We drove around town before we headed home after 4pm. Along the way, the twins took a long nap and watched 3 movies. We arrived home at around 1:30pm. The twins were quite awake due to a long nap earlier. We asked them to wash their butts and then sent them to bed. After 5 nights in hotel, our own bed felt really good.
Saturday, Nov 29, 2003 (6y+3m+23d)
We slept in until the twins woke us. We spent the day taking care of tasks that piled up in the last week. The twins were busy doing their abacus homework and practiced some piano. We went out to lunch and dinner because the fridge was empty plus mommy didn't feel like cooking after a week long vacation.Joanne wrote something in her notebook today. It said verbatim:
What hapend in November 29 203 ---------------------- In the morning Jasmine & me was talking a little bit & then Joanne told J&J's mommy that can we switch our care bear's but mommy didn't let us switch and our mommy said if we wake up we have to do our abacus.
Sunday, Nov 30, 2003 (6y+3m+24d)
We got up very late in the morning. We went out for lunch with grandma Chui and aunt Elaine. We went shopping at Costco. We shopped for grocery and invited grandma and aunt Elaine to dinner. The twins worked on their abacus homework and did some coloring of care bear pictures. The twins were working on addition and subtraction of 4 digit numbers. They had much trouble because their error rate was at 60-70%. They definitely needed some coaching to correct some systemic error in their abacus skills.
Monday, Dec 1, 2003 (6y+3m+25d)
The twins returned to school after a week-long break. They got 10 pages of homework just for today. Mommy was stressed out because the twins took all afternoon to do their homework. Joanne took three trips to the bathroom while doing her homework. When mommy scolded her for faking in order to take a break. She claimed that it was because of her stupid butt.We had beef steak for dinner. When mommy gave Jasmine a piece, Jasmine cried because she didn't want any. Jasmine got sick some months ago after she ate some medium rare beef steak. She refused to eat beef steak since then include the fully cooked steak.
Tuesday, Dec 2, 2003 (6y+3m+26d)
The twins went to school as usual.
Wednesday, Dec 3, 2003 (6y+3m+27d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to abacus and piano class in the afternoon. We found out why the twins was making 60%+ mistake in their abacus homework. The teacher put the advanced class homework in their bags. The twins were not ready to do 4 digit arithmetics.We had dinner with Annette's and Nicholas family.
Thursday, Dec 4, 2003 (6y+3m+28d)
The twins went to school as usual.
Friday, Dec 5, 2003 (6y+3m+29d)
The twins went to school as usual.
Saturday, Dec 6, 2003 (6y+3m+30d)
The twins are 6 and 1/3 years old.
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started on Dec 6, 2003