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This journal is about raising identical twins.Seventy Eighth Month
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Tuesday, Jan 6, 2004 (6y+5m)
The twins are 77 month old today.The twins went to school as usual. Jasmine called daddy in the afternoon, she said she found the money she lost months ago. She said it was at the bottom of (appropriately) the treasure chest. Mommy had them clean the toy chest and they hit on something heavy. She recovered over $20. Joanne also called daddy a little later. She warned daddy that if daddy cancelled their bedtime story one more time, they would stand next to my bed in the morning to scare me to death.
The twins started their reading after dinner. Joanne stopped after 17 minutes and she logged down her time contentedly. Jasmine just kept on and on. She stopped after 61 minutes, she said she finished 6 chapters in Disney's Classic Storybook.
Wednesday, Jan 7, 2004 (6y+5m+1d)
The twins are 2345 days old today.The twins went to school as usual. The twins went to abacus and piano class after school.
Daddy's car had radiator problem again. The radiator was fixed less than a month ago. This time, the bottom of the expansion tank, i.e. the reservoir that holds the overflown coolant, dropped off and dump the whole load of coolant. The dealer explained that since the parts are made of plastic, they sometime become brittle. I just hope the car will not disintegrate into pieces while I am on the highway. We have already made our decision, this would be our last European car. We have driven Japanese cars all these years with no problems. We learned our lesson with European cars and once is enough.
Since daddy's car was in the shop, mommy and twins picked up daddy from work in the evening. We went out to dinner before returning home.
For bedtime story, Jasmine retold the story about Chinese New Year she heard from school. It was about the monster called Nian (年, same Chinese word for "year").
Thursday, Jan 8, 2004 (6y+5m+2d)
The twins went to school as usual.
Friday, Jan 9, 2004 (6y+5m+3d)
The twins went to school as usual.
Saturday, Jan 10, 2004 (6y+5m+4d)
We stayed home during the day. In the evening, we went out to dinner with a group of old friends, including Evon & Ronald, Siu Ling, Betsy & Kenneth and their baby Cornellius, Lambert & Sandy and their baby Adrienne, Edwin & Jeannie, Ricky and his family et. al.
Sunday, Jan 11, 2004 (6y+5m+5d)
We went to lunch with grandma Chui. When we returned home, the twins wanted to go to the playground. They didn't want the park closed to our home. They said the playground is too small. So daddy drove them to a bigger park further away. Joanne took her bicycle, Jasmine took her scooter and daddy was on roller blades. Jasmine found Lynn, one of her classmates, at the playground. They played together for awhile until Joanne wanted to the another playground at the other end of the park. We stayed in the park for almost three hours.
Monday, Jan 12, 2004 (6y+5m+6d)
The twins went to school as usual. Jasmine went to the eye doctor for a regular checkup. When mommy told the doctor that Jasmine didn't wear her glasses because she didn't see well with them. The doctor checked the glasses and found that the prescription was too strong. We started to doubt if the doctor really knew what Jasmine need when she only look at her a few minutes every half a year.Jasmine complained that her eyes were tired after the doctor gave her some dilation eye drops. Her vision was blurry too. Joanne said she helped Jasmine read her homework. Mommy sent the twins to bed early to give Jasmine's eyes a good rest.
Tuesday, Jan 13, 2004 (6y+5m+7d)
The twins went to school as usual. They learned about the arrival of spring. The Chinese new year will be on next week. Many of the subjects they learned were surrounding the topic.
Wednesday, Jan 14, 2004 (6y+5m+8d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to abacus and piano class after school.
Thursday, Jan 15, 2004 (6y+5m+9d)
The twins went to school as usual.They went to visit Annette after school.
Friday, Jan 16, 2004 (6y+5m+10d)
The twins went to school as usual.Jasmine classmate Sean and his family came to dinner at our home. His father had been out of town for the past two weeks representing his client in court. His mom welcomed the invitation.
Saturday, Jan 17, 2004 (6y+5m+11d)
Joanne was very proud this morning because she did her own pig tails nicely and neatly without anyone's help. The twins often did their hair by themselves, but mommy usually had to do them over again because the hair tangled in a mess.We stayed home all day. Mommy and daddy took down the artificial Christmas tree in our living room. Wrap it up and stowed it above the garage. Deanna came to play with the twins. They played with bicycle, scooter and kart. They also picked a basketful of oranges and lemons from the trees in the backyard. Many of the oranges were still green. Since we didn't usually eat all our harvest, it was not a problem to waste some. Daddy suggested them to stay away from the green oranges before going out to get a haircut.
It was dark when I came home. The kids already moved in-house and played in their rooms. CW, Bonnie and Addison came to our home to join Deanna for dinner. They brought some take-out food. Mommy cooked some dishes to make up a dinner.
After dinner, we watched "Johnny English" and we had a good laugh. They also watched The Animatrix before leaving. The twins went to bed by themselves before the guests left. Joanne came back downstairs to request a bedtime story. When daddy got upstairs, Jasmine was already asleep. Joanne received a reading about different families of musical instruments.
Sunday, Jan 18, 2004 (6y+5m+12d)
The twins woke us up in the morning because we told them they were going to see Cousin Natalie today. We got ready and went to Milpitas to meet Kioko, Miki, Koichi and Minnie. We had dim sum for lunch. After lunch, we walked around the shopping center. We left before 2pm. Then we went to Walnut Creek to see the condo that Aunt Jun bought recently. Her new home was still under remodeling. She had just finished painting and she still need window covering, new carpet and furniture before moving in. Mommy's whole family was there for the debut of Aunt Jun's new home.After we visited the vacant condo, we all went back to grandma Ling's place. Mommy and Aunt Jun went shopping for refrigerator and a new stove. Uncle Ivan, Aunt Tina, Cousin Natalie and grandpa took the twins to Chinatown to see the Chinese street fair. The twins managed to make Aunt Tina to buy them some Hello Kitty stickers and candies. Daddy watched the NFL playoff game between Carolina and Philadelphia. They returned during the half time break. They took over the TV to watch some video tape on Chinese culinary goodies.
We left after a big dinner. We returned home at round 8pm. After the twins took a shower, the came down to the family to do some drawings and played with the new stickers they got today. Joanne made a Chinese new year card for mommy. She wouldn't let me see the card. She said that she could make me once if I promised that I would be very nice to her. I said I don't need one if I could see mommy's. After she got daddy's promise, she made a change in mommy's card before handing to daddy. The following was what I found in the card. The cover says:
happy Holidays [a picture of a house with fire crackers hanging from the roof] happy Chinese New yearOn the inside left page:To: (Mommy crossed out) daddy From: Joanne your babyOn the inside right page:hello mommy I wan't to say happy chinese new year and I like to give you money in a Red Pocket but if you you don't need it you can give it back to me. Thank you dear: JoanneOn the back cover is a picture of a red envelop with a Ham-ham sticker in the middle. There is a caption balloon that says "Red Pocket" at the top. Another caption that says "hong bou" in Chinese writing. We lost count of how many Chinese characters they have learned from school so far. Joanne seems to remember more Chinese than Jasmine. Her writings were more tidy and neat too. Jasmine had very sloppy hand writing both in English and Chinese. Mommy often ordered her to redo parts of her homework again because her handwriting was illegible.
Monday, Jan 19, 2004 (6y+5m+13d)
The twins had no school today. It was the Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday holiday.The twins each worked on a self made coloring book. Joanne was unhappy when Jasmine said her teddy bear look weird. Joanne came to daddy to get a judgment. Without knowing Jasmine's comments, daddy said the teddy bear didn't look real. Joanne ran upstairs. When daddy went upstairs to check on her, her eyes were swollen with tears. As soon as she saw daddy, she sobbed and cried loudly with tears pouring down her cheeks. Daddy explained that though the red, green and blue bear was not real, it was very colorful and pretty. Many care-bear characters don't have real color either. Joanne insisted that teddy bear was not the same as care-bear. When mommy announced dinner was ready, Joanne stopped crying and came downstairs to eat.
The twins weighed themselves before shower. They reported that Jasmine was 41 lb. Joanne was 40 lb. Jasmine had always been a pound lighter than Joanne. It was a reversal worth noting.
Tuesday, Jan 20, 2004 (6y+5m+14d)
The twins returned to school after a 3 day long weekend. The teacher helped them make red envelops for Chinese New Year. Joanne called daddy at work. She wanted me to check under my pillow when I got home. I found the red pocket from Joanne. The red pocket was sealed. It is a tradition not to open the red pocket until after the Chinese new year. Jasmine said Joanne stuffed two twenty dollar bills in it. I said $40 was a lot of money for a red pocket. Joanne said it was okay because she loved daddy very much. Jasmine also made a red pocket for mommy. Her red pocket was not sealed. I peeked inside, it contained one dollar bill.They saved nearly a hundred dollars of gift money from the relatives over the Christmas holiday. They knew about buying things from their school fund raising events. They learned how to spend a couple of dollars at a time at most. When they had close to 100 dollars in their possession, they really didn't have any concept of how to use the money. Mommy planned to set up an accounting system to let the twins keep track of their balance while mommy hold on to their money. Until then, the twins carried the cash in their purse. Mommy had to hurry up before their lost their money.
Wednesday, Jan 21, 2004 (6y+5m+15d)
It was Chinese New Year Eve, the last day of the year of the Ram. The twins went to school as usual. They went to piano and abacus class after school.We went out to a New Year Eve dinner with grandma Chui. The restaurant was packed with people waiting for tables. We were glad that we made a reservation last night. We ordered a pot of snake soup because grandma said she had not had that for many years. The twins fell asleep before they reached home. Mommy put them in bed without waking them.
Thursday, Jan 22, 2004 (6y+5m+16d)
It was Chinese new year. It was the first day of the year of the monkey. The twins went to school as usual.The twins returned home to do their homework after school. Annette asked the twins why they couldn't go to their home to play. She didn't seem to understand what homework meant and was very disappointed after received the answer no repeatedly.
We gathered at Annette's home in the evening for a new year dinner with Nicholas' family. Each family prepared some New Year dishes. We returned home soon after dinner. We went to bed right away because all of us were really tired.
Friday, Jan 23, 2004 (6y+5m+17d)
It was a teacher learning day at school. That meant no school for the twins. Daddy took a day off to make a long weekend for a ski trip.We got up at around 9am. We left home at 10:05 after we had breakfast. We arrived at Sacramento for lunch. Nicholas' family went to their own ski trip too. We met at the restaurant and had lunch together. We went on our own way after lunch. Their family was invited by friend to a vacation home at Squaw Valley. And they obviously would ski at Squaw valley ski resort. We rented a condo in downtown Reno. So we would ski at Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe.
We arrived at the rental condo at around 3:30pm. We checked in and spent the rest of the evening there. Mommy cooked dinner while daddy went across the street to Mel's diner to buy their famous milk shake as dessert. We went to bed early because of the long trip.
Saturday, Jan 24, 2004 (6y+5m+18d)
We got up early. Mommy prepared breakfast before we left for Mt. Rose. We arrived at the ski area shortly after 9am. It was snowing lightly when we arrived. The twins said they didn't want to ski because they remembered the cold experience from last ski trip. We let them play outside the ski school. The ski school people built a tall snow castle for the kids to play on. The twins climbed the stairs on the back and slide down the slope at the front of the castle. They had quite a good time when the sky started to clear up.We bet on weather would only get better later on. We signed up the twins for a private ski lesson. The lesson only last one hour. Daddy got the rental equipment and a ski ticket to go along with the twins. Daddy went up the mountain to find the teacher and the twins. After the twins finished lesson, we had lunch at the cafeteria.
The twins followed daddy up the chair-lift after lunch. Mommy stayed at the bottom of the slope to wait for photo opps. We returned to the same trail so they could practice what the teacher taught. Joanne skied slowly while Jasmine just kept going. Daddy had to yell over long distance to ask her to wait for Joanne. After two runs, Jasmine complained Joanne was too slow and she didn't want to ski anymore. She went with mommy.
Joanne followed daddy to try a different trail which was a little steeper. Daddy asked Joanne to play following-the-leader. I skied a zig-zagging path on the slope. Joanne would follow it like a train on the track. She did it quite well. The frequent turning kept her speed under control. When we arrived near the bottom of the slope, I asked her to go straight as fast as she could because the bottom was flat. She was quite nervous and slowed down with a snow-plough (the teachers called that big pizza for the ski's wedge shaped position). She stopped a few hundred feet too soon. She needed to walked the rest of the way to the chair-lift. We repeat the trail once more. Again, she didn't go fast enough near the bottom which resulted in a long tiring walk.
Mommy and Jasmine were waiting at the bottom. Jasmine already returned her rental equipment. Joanne waited a rest. Daddy asked Jasmine if she wanted to go on the same trail as Joanne's. She wanted to try when Joanne told her it was fun. Daddy repeated all the instructions on the chair-lift. As soon as we were off the lift, Jasmine got nervous when she approached a fenced-off path. She lost control and skied into the net fence. She panicked from that point on. Daddy asked her to follow my track like Joanne did. She failed to follow any instruction at all. She didn't even try to make any turn. She just went straight down the slope and panicked and fell down every time she couldn't slow down. She tumbled on the slope two to three times before she said she did not to ski anymore. When I told her we were not too far from the bottom, she said she wanted to go back to the old trail. It took us quite a while to step sideway to the other trail. Once she was at familiar territory, she just went straight down the trail without stopping or turning. Mommy and Joanne were waiting for us. Jasmine didn't want to do another run. We returned the equipment and headed back to the condo.
We went to a French restaurant for dinner. We read about the native Americans the other day and how they hunted the deers for food. When I told the twins the restaurant offered venison on the menu, the twins wanted to try it. Daddy ordered venison and cut a few pieces for the twins. Joanne said it tasted okay. Jasmine didn't like it at all.
After dinner, mommy took the twins to the midway of Circus Circus Hotel. Daddy stopped at one of the slot machines in the casino. I put in $5 and got absolutely nothing. I put in another $5, winning started to come in. The balance reached $20 and went back down to $10 when it rolled a 7 and two doubles. The combination won me 640 quarters. The machine ran out of coins. While I waited for the attendant to refill the machine, the woman a few machine down pulled a 7 and two 5Xs. She won 3000 quarters. The attendants were busy refilling. When I found the twins at the midway, they already had four stuffed animals in their hands. When I showed them a bucketful of quarters, they grabbed a bunch for more games. After daddy redeemed the coins into money, I found the twins had two more winnings. Daddy helped them won two more before the end of the day. We returned to the condo and lined up all the winnings on the coffee table in a column to do a stuffed animal parade.
We played couple of card games. When Joanne hogged over the deck of cards, Jasmine walked away. She didn't even listened to the bed time story before she went to bed.
Sunday, Jan 25, 2004 (6y+5m+19d)
We took our time in the morning. We checked out of the condo at around 10am. We went to Kingvale and let the twins played in the snow. Nicholas' family joined us there for about 30 minutes. We went to Sacramento for lunch at 1pm. We parted our ways after lunch.We arrived at Aunt Tina's place at around 4pm. Mommy's family gather there for a new year dinner. Daddy hosed off the mud from the car before dinner was ready. We watched some TV and showed the photos of the trip after dinner. We were home at around 9pm. The twins went to bed after a shower and bedtime story.
Monday, Jan 26, 2004 (6y+5m+20d)
The twins went to school as usual.
Tuesday, Jan 27, 2004 (6y+5m+21d)
The twins went to school as usual.We invited Claire and Terence's family to dinner. Claire came over in the afternoon to play with the twins. Terence's family came later.
When the guests arrived, we asked the twins to do the obligatory New Year greeting to the guests. The twins were not very responsive. Daddy reminded them that they could collect the New Year red pockets after the greeting. Jasmine said "Who cares?" right in front of the guests. Even if she was not interested in the handsel, she was too rude to say that in front of the guests. Mommy reprimanded her. She ran upstairs crying. Mommy told her to think about what she did before coming downstairs again.
After dinner, Sharleen performed a puppet show about Chinese new year for the kids. The twins went to bed on their own when they were tired. We watched some TV before the guests left.
Wednesday, Jan 28, 2004 (6y+5m+22d)
The twins went to school as usual. Joanne said her best friend kicked her when she tried to kick Nicholas and missed. They went to piano and abacus class after school.
Thursday, Jan 29, 2004 (6y+5m+23d)
The twins went to school as usual. Half way to school, Jasmine found out she forgot her school bag. Mommy had to do another trip to get her bag. Mommy already trained the twins to take care of their own stuffs so that we don't need to spend much effort to look after them. Occasionally, kids are still forgetful.
Friday, Jan 30, 2004 (6y+5m+24d)
The twins went to school as usual.The twins' classmates Annette, Nicholas, Sean and their family came to our house after school. They played rough and Annette kicked Joanne at the back. Joanne didn't know who kicked her and blamed it on Jasmine.
Saturday, Jan 31, 2004 (6y+5m+25d)
We slept in for the weekend. When we heard the twins playing outside our room, we hollered them to come into our room. Joanne came in. Mommy invited her to jump in our bed to get a hug. Joanne said, "No thanks." That made mommy quite disappointed. The twins usually loved to do that because it felt really good to jump into a warm bed.We visited grandma Chui as the Chinese New Year tradition. We then rushed to the New Year performance by the twins' school-mates. The first graders, including the twins, performed first. They recited several Chinese poems in Mandarin. Each grade level performed a program. Some sang songs, some performed dance, some demonstrated martial art. At the end of the day, a group of young girls from outside the school performed Hula dance. The twins enjoyed it a lot, because the dance was the same as the one they saw in the Lilo and Stitch movie. After the performance, we returned home to prepare for a dinner party.
Mommy's cousins and their families came to visit. Kay and Dave's daughter Megan is now 3 years old. She could talk very well. Ken and Emily's kids Matthew (4) and Alyssa (15 months) enjoyed playing with the twins' toys. Aunt Tina, uncle Ivan and cousin Natalie also joined us for dinner. After dinner, we sat and chatted in front of the fireplace. The twins played with each others.
Sunday, Feb 1, 2004 (6y+5m+26d)
This morning, Jasmine told daddy some words of wisdom. She said, "When people fart, sometimes the poop poop gets on their underwear." When daddy asked whether she learned that by herself, she smiled.It was Superbowl Sunday. We prepared our home for a Superbowl party. Daddy invited some ex-coworkers from 15 years ago for a reunion. The husbands clustered around the TV; the wives gathered at one corner to chat; the kids played the game cube upstairs or watch cartoon on another TV. Several families joined us for the football game. We had CW, Bonnie and two kids Addison and Deanna; CN, Le and three sons; Eric, Cindy and three kids; Wing, Shwu-jane and one of their two daughters; Fred, Vienna and two kids; Poon, Sharleen and Claire. There were 14 adults and 14 kids packed in the house. The Superbowl game was packed with action, no one was bored. The twins summoned daddy to fix their computer several times. As a result, I missed the streaker during the kickoff, I missed Janet Jackson's indecent exposure during the half time show, I even missed the field goal that ended the game.
Monday, Feb 2, 2004 (6y+5m+27d)
The twins went to school as usual. It rained dogs and cats in the morning, the twins said there were water everywhere on the way to school. They said Abraham Lincoln visited the school today. He was almost 200 years old and he told stories about the civil war. We were also reading American history in our bed time stories recently. The twins made the connection with what they learned in school.
Tuesday, Feb 3, 2004 (6y+5m+28d)
The twins went to school as usual. The twins liked that they could write today's date as 02/03/04.
Wednesday, Feb 4, 2004 (6y+5m+29d)
The twins went to school as usual. They went to abacus and piano class in the afternoon. Mommy was thinking about moving the abacus class to a different day because the schedule is too tight on Wednesday.
Thursday, Feb 5, 2004 (6y+5m+30d)
The twins went to school as usual. Daddy took the car to the shop for service. Mommy was not feeling well all day. Yet she had to drive daddy around because the other car was in the shop. Mommy took the twins to Old Navy because of a clearance sale. Some T-shirts were on sale for $1.99 a piece. They bought a load of clothes that hopefully would last another year. She wanted to go to Any Mountain to catch a clearance sales on ski clothings. She felt so sick that she rather cancelled the plan. They had an early dinner before mommy picked up daddy in the evening. The twins were asleep when daddy took over the driving. The twins said later that they didn't see daddy until we were home. We carried them back into their beds. Both woke up and Joanne returned to sleep after daddy change her into her pajama. Mommy was sick, so she went to bed early.Joanne woke up again at around 8pm and joined Jasmine doing their homework. We gave the twins a dictation rehearsal in preparation of the test in school tomorrow. Out of 16 Chinese characters, Jasmine missed 4 and Joanne got all correct. Jasmine's excuse was that when mommy gave her the test earlier, she didn't pronounce it correctly. But when Joanne took the test, Jasmine read the words accurately. Out of 10 English words, both twins got all correct though we were not impressed. California public school was pathetic because the twins could spell those 10 words back in private preschool two years ago. Believe it or not, the words were dad, asked, dog, go, out, balls, sick, rock, some, little. To add insult to injury, these pathetic test was given to the kids ahead of time so that they could practice at home for the test tomorrow. The education standard is set so low that a good grade really doesn't mean much. Yet, many students still dropout from high school. There are reports that some high school graduates cannot read because there is no exit exam, so students can graduate without passing a test. So our twins reading skill may be better than "some" high school kids already. All these are just proofs that the education system is seriously flawed.
We talked about Mount Rushmore and the White House in our bedtime story. Daddy asked the twins if they liked to visit the White House someday. They loved to. I told them that they could live in the White House if people would elect them as the President of the United States. That should not be impossible for a woman to become the president 30 or 40 years from now. Daddy encouraged them to read a lot of books because we read in yesterday's bedtime story that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt all loved to read a lot of books.
Friday, Feb 6, 2004 (6y+6m)
The twins are 6.5 year old today.
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started on Feb 6, 2004