On Sunday, I took Katie to see the US Figure Skating Championship Spectacular. Minda wanted to go with me. I told her that the show was not for a kid as little as her. "Then you have to come back in one minute," she said. "I will come back soon." I told her.
At 10:30 PM, I opened the garage door and stepped out of car. Minda opened the door and asked, "What time did you come back? （你几点回来的呀？）" After a while, she added, "I told you to come back in one minute!"
Monday, January 28, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Katie's Work Plan
As I am going back to school in Fall, Katie complained, "I won't be able to see you as much."
"I will be at home." I said.
"Yeah, if I am sick, I will be at home with you."
"No, during the day I will be working."
"Why you need to work?"
"Otherwise, who will pay for your skating lesson, piano lessons, and so on?"
"I can baby sit, mow the lawn for others to earn money."
"Well, you may earn $20 for those service each week. Your skating lessons cost close to $300 per month, and piano lessons cost close to $200."
"OK, I can open a Chinese school and teach little kids, like Minda and Minkai, Chinese. Of course, I won't charge Minda and Minkai but I will charge other kids. I can also offer tutoring for math, ...." Katie proudly announces her plan.
"I will be at home." I said.
"Yeah, if I am sick, I will be at home with you."
"No, during the day I will be working."
"Why you need to work?"
"Otherwise, who will pay for your skating lesson, piano lessons, and so on?"
"I can baby sit, mow the lawn for others to earn money."
"Well, you may earn $20 for those service each week. Your skating lessons cost close to $300 per month, and piano lessons cost close to $200."
"OK, I can open a Chinese school and teach little kids, like Minda and Minkai, Chinese. Of course, I won't charge Minda and Minkai but I will charge other kids. I can also offer tutoring for math, ...." Katie proudly announces her plan.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
爱漂亮的小姑娘
这个星期天，我一早送Katie去学画画和跳舞。 旻达旻恺还没起床。我中午回来时，发现旻达穿了一件白底小熊的毛衣，一条黑裙子，一双黑长袜。她过来问我，‘今天我们去别人家，还是别人来我们家？’怪不得小姑娘打扮得那么漂亮。
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
旻恺的自我意识
旻恺的自我意识比霭琳与旻达都来得早。他近来时常提出不同意见，让我很是头痛。
“你要给我买一个东西，否则我不把饭吃完。"
"你早上要叫我起来一起吃早饭，否则我不亲你。”
“你要把所有的字都写一遍，否则我不去睡觉。”经过一番讨价还价，我把二十六个字母的大小写和十个数字都写了一遍，勉强交了差。偏偏有他的好朋友，他爸爸的同事，John, 在一张纸上为他写了从1到350，令我汗颜。
Growing Up – Kate, Minkai, and Minda in 2006
January
One day at 10:30 PM, Minkai and Minda finally sat down on the floor together and start eating crackers. It has way passed their bed time, but they were not sleepy. They made some funny sound, and mimicked each other, then started to giggle.
Minda and Minkai can use "I and You" properly.
Minda and Minkai become the movers in the house. They moved their clothes to another room. They moved all bottles of water from the main floor to second floor. They moved all their toys from one room to another. They moved the comforter (King Size comforter) and pillows to Kate's bedroom.
They can watch Barney for 45 minutes, probably everyday. Minkai will say "Barney is found" at certain place in the movie. Then I found that he just needs Barney to be visible. He will be sad/mad when Barney is not in the scene.
February
Minkai drinks out of a bottle and says "I am having a cold." means that Minda shall not drink out of the same bottle.
March
We went to Orlando. Kids love it. Parents tired of the crowd. Minkai is the copy cat, copying every word that Kate said.
Kate is one of the winners of Minnesota Music Teacher Association contest in her age group. We are very excited and happy for her. It takes her a lot of effort and she certainly does not enjoy the whole process for re-working and fine-tuning her piece for a million times.
April
The twins chatted with each other and laughed with each other a lot. They do not need Barney any more when I am cooking.
When Kate heard that I am going to have a three days two nights business trip in May, she commented, "this is your shortest business trip in my life." Her life?
May
I taught another session in Kelly Management School and Kate complained not being able to see me until 10:30 PM on Wednesday nights. She could not control herself and cried at school at the end of May and her teacher asked to write little poem to express herself such as "Roses are red vilots are blue and I'm so glad to be here with you. Mommy, I will love you when your near and when your far. XoXo means love". She is a sweet girl and I decide not to teach any more until they are older.
June
Kate performed in the Northrop theater in the University of Minnesota with the other MMTA contest winners. She is wearing a white dress and she is fairly confident.
Minda said that she is a little bunny. Minkai admitted that he is a little doggy.
Minkai and Minda are three years old!
August
Minda rides on tricycle! She is paddling happily and energetically. Minkai uses his feet to move the tricycle instead of paddling.
With the Barney movie, Minda wiggles and Minkai shakes his head. Minda and Minkai started to say: "Mom, listen to me...." with a short song or some interesting sound.
At the end of Aug, Kate's drawing is showing in the Minnesota State Fair as first prize winner.
September
Minda and Minkai started to use scissors.
October
Katie is learning how to solve conflicts with her friends by talking out. Her teacher sensed that she has some kind of possessor feeling toward friendship and it is typical for her age. Of course, it smells familiar to me.
One Sunday after I came back from Katie's drawing class, I found that Katie's room looks like after a disaster. There is card snippets, beads, hangers, and clothes everywhere. Minkai and Minda must be very busy for a couple hours! Katie spent about one hour to clean up the mess. I helped her to hang the clothes. It is time to set up a stationary for Minda and Minkai to freely explore crayons and pencils, scissors, papers, tapes, and beads, just like in their day care. So I put out a three drawl box with one for crayon, one for paper, one for scissor. The second day, our little Minda broke every crayon into two.
Halloween! We visited the fire station at the Halloween night. However, Minda and Minkai can not eat most of the candies that have soy, corn syrup, nuts, etc.
November
Minkai and Minda do not want to miss any field trip! They are very excited for visits of apple orchard, horse barn; Pump it up, and many more. They also started to write letters, such as T for Tucker, H for Henry, A for Angela, and etc. Their favorite place to stay in the classroom is the Construction. With paper, scissors, pen, tapes, they have exercised their fine motor skills.
We bought a doll house bunk bed for the girls, as Katie loves it. I hope that the girls have sweet dreams in the doll house. Katie wants to be a little mother to take care of Minda to go to bed. She has been successful for two nights with lots of tears and sweats.
One Sunday, Minda decided to go with her dad to send Katie to drawing class and Minkai stayed with me. Half of an hour later, Minkai complained, "no one played with me." when I am in the laundry room. After ten minutes, Minkai asked, "where is Minda?" Another ten minutes later, Minkai asked, "when will Minda be back?" And he wanted to talk to Minda on the phone. It was a great pleasure for him to see Minda when she came back!
Minkai Putting Earring on Minda
December
Kate passed Gamma and Delta lesson in skating and felt ready to be more involved in figure skating. I am trying to move the responsibility of practicing piano, skating, doing homework back to Kate. It is somewhat un-successful and will be on-going.
We have some fun classes in parents night at my twins daycare about being successful with each one's personality. Their teacher rated both of them slow to adapt (need time to warm up) and being mild (for Minda?!). This is very very interesting for the outgoing and loud girl Minda at home but behaving soft and following direction at school.
Minkai talked about "People at school" (学校人). "People at school" shall not put back food if they take it because there is germ. "People at school" shall say "Excuse me" if they burp. "People at school" shall wash hand after going to restroom. He is trying to figure out the meaning of "nice". Sharing things is nice.
Christmas is the favorite time of the year. Katie, Minkai, and Minda are all looking forward to Santa to come, well, with their wish lists.
One day at 10:30 PM, Minkai and Minda finally sat down on the floor together and start eating crackers. It has way passed their bed time, but they were not sleepy. They made some funny sound, and mimicked each other, then started to giggle.
Minda and Minkai can use "I and You" properly.
Minda and Minkai become the movers in the house. They moved their clothes to another room. They moved all bottles of water from the main floor to second floor. They moved all their toys from one room to another. They moved the comforter (King Size comforter) and pillows to Kate's bedroom.
They can watch Barney for 45 minutes, probably everyday. Minkai will say "Barney is found" at certain place in the movie. Then I found that he just needs Barney to be visible. He will be sad/mad when Barney is not in the scene.
February
Minkai drinks out of a bottle and says "I am having a cold." means that Minda shall not drink out of the same bottle.
March
We went to Orlando. Kids love it. Parents tired of the crowd. Minkai is the copy cat, copying every word that Kate said.
Kate is one of the winners of Minnesota Music Teacher Association contest in her age group. We are very excited and happy for her. It takes her a lot of effort and she certainly does not enjoy the whole process for re-working and fine-tuning her piece for a million times.
April
The twins chatted with each other and laughed with each other a lot. They do not need Barney any more when I am cooking.
When Kate heard that I am going to have a three days two nights business trip in May, she commented, "this is your shortest business trip in my life." Her life?
May
I taught another session in Kelly Management School and Kate complained not being able to see me until 10:30 PM on Wednesday nights. She could not control herself and cried at school at the end of May and her teacher asked to write little poem to express herself such as "Roses are red vilots are blue and I'm so glad to be here with you. Mommy, I will love you when your near and when your far. XoXo means love". She is a sweet girl and I decide not to teach any more until they are older.
June
Kate performed in the Northrop theater in the University of Minnesota with the other MMTA contest winners. She is wearing a white dress and she is fairly confident.
Minda said that she is a little bunny. Minkai admitted that he is a little doggy.
Minkai and Minda are three years old!
August
Minda rides on tricycle! She is paddling happily and energetically. Minkai uses his feet to move the tricycle instead of paddling.
With the Barney movie, Minda wiggles and Minkai shakes his head. Minda and Minkai started to say: "Mom, listen to me...." with a short song or some interesting sound.
At the end of Aug, Kate's drawing is showing in the Minnesota State Fair as first prize winner.
September
Minda and Minkai started to use scissors.
October
Katie is learning how to solve conflicts with her friends by talking out. Her teacher sensed that she has some kind of possessor feeling toward friendship and it is typical for her age. Of course, it smells familiar to me.
One Sunday after I came back from Katie's drawing class, I found that Katie's room looks like after a disaster. There is card snippets, beads, hangers, and clothes everywhere. Minkai and Minda must be very busy for a couple hours! Katie spent about one hour to clean up the mess. I helped her to hang the clothes. It is time to set up a stationary for Minda and Minkai to freely explore crayons and pencils, scissors, papers, tapes, and beads, just like in their day care. So I put out a three drawl box with one for crayon, one for paper, one for scissor. The second day, our little Minda broke every crayon into two.
Halloween! We visited the fire station at the Halloween night. However, Minda and Minkai can not eat most of the candies that have soy, corn syrup, nuts, etc.
November
Minkai and Minda do not want to miss any field trip! They are very excited for visits of apple orchard, horse barn; Pump it up, and many more. They also started to write letters, such as T for Tucker, H for Henry, A for Angela, and etc. Their favorite place to stay in the classroom is the Construction. With paper, scissors, pen, tapes, they have exercised their fine motor skills.
We bought a doll house bunk bed for the girls, as Katie loves it. I hope that the girls have sweet dreams in the doll house. Katie wants to be a little mother to take care of Minda to go to bed. She has been successful for two nights with lots of tears and sweats.
One Sunday, Minda decided to go with her dad to send Katie to drawing class and Minkai stayed with me. Half of an hour later, Minkai complained, "no one played with me." when I am in the laundry room. After ten minutes, Minkai asked, "where is Minda?" Another ten minutes later, Minkai asked, "when will Minda be back?" And he wanted to talk to Minda on the phone. It was a great pleasure for him to see Minda when she came back!
Minkai Putting Earring on Minda
December
Kate passed Gamma and Delta lesson in skating and felt ready to be more involved in figure skating. I am trying to move the responsibility of practicing piano, skating, doing homework back to Kate. It is somewhat un-successful and will be on-going.
We have some fun classes in parents night at my twins daycare about being successful with each one's personality. Their teacher rated both of them slow to adapt (need time to warm up) and being mild (for Minda?!). This is very very interesting for the outgoing and loud girl Minda at home but behaving soft and following direction at school.
Minkai talked about "People at school" (学校人). "People at school" shall not put back food if they take it because there is germ. "People at school" shall say "Excuse me" if they burp. "People at school" shall wash hand after going to restroom. He is trying to figure out the meaning of "nice". Sharing things is nice.
Christmas is the favorite time of the year. Katie, Minkai, and Minda are all looking forward to Santa to come, well, with their wish lists.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
The Year of 2005
My dear friends, The bell of 2006 is coming. I recall what happened this year ...
Kate, she prefers to this name as she is older, becomes a leader in the small team of three. She will say firmly to her younger sister or brother, "You can not push/hit/bite." Just like me. She can give her brother and sister breakfast, pick their clothes, and put Vaseline on them. She is a strong learner in all academic areas in her regular school and she is working above grade level. She completes from learning the phoenix to chapter book reading within one year. She wants to write chapter book by herself now. I am glad that she does not have fear in trying new things. For improvement, she is working on selecting a suitable place to study so that no being interrupted :-) "She has really taken on leadership role this year.", as a first grader in the K/1 group, commented by her teacher. I do not push her in learning because I believe that knowledge and ability are different. She likes Chinese school now as she becomes more comfortable in studying it. The effort in being bilingual is tremendous both for kids and parents. But it worth the effort. She has good potential in piano because she has big hands and she is quick in memorizing pieces of music. On the sport side, it was funny to see such a tall girl not moving much in the soccer field in the first session. However, in the second session, her coach distinguished her as the girl who covered the whole ground, from back to front, and still remembered to say, 'Coach, tie my shoe please!' Where, the later part is the slipping portion of busy parents. She is planning to play soccer again next year. Kate's teacher told us that she is such a delight to have in class, and we are very proud of her.
Minkai and Minda are in daycare now. They love their teachers and make many new friends. Two weeks after being there, they started to clean up their toys with the ever-famous Barney song. Minkai is the whining baby and Minda is still the loud girl. Minkai expresses himself very well in both Chinese and English. He is very curious and often asks 'what is this?' （这是什么呀？）. On the first snowing day, he fell on ground. He got up and pointed to the ground madly, "Milk!" (牛奶！） He loves to watch airplanes on the sky. Then one day when we are driving on the highway, he said, 'there are lots of airplanes in front of us', pointing to the street lights at the sides. He likes pointing out things that he knows. Minda has her favorite nuks/pacifiers and blanket. Her blanket is embarrassingly dirty and she still wants the only one. She likes to sing and she starts to talk when Minkai is quiet. She will hug Minkai, hold his hands, and pat him when he cries in the daycare. They are very close to each other. Minda will reach for Minkai's hands if she did something purposely wrong. She is fairly athletic -- she probably can climb up to the ceiling if we let her. She can climb the robes of the ladder in the playground all by herself, while I need to put Minkai to the last two steps and push his bottom when he working on those two steps. The twins' job is to test the limit and my job is to define the limit. I started the discipline part, and made progress slowly.
Their allergy is still bad and literlerly they are allergic to every protein including wheat except milk is marginal. They are still itchy at night so parents are still sleep-depressed. When they will grow out of it? We do not know.
Fuming likes to keep busy. He painted the house from outside to inside, and remodeled the kitchen by changing to hard wood floor, upgrade the counter top, and etc. The consequence is that we have a ten years new house. He has agreed to terminate the house projects and focus on raising the kids.
Xiao/I has rejected an offer from Target Corporation and decided to stay in 3M, so that our family is really stable. However, I am into the mood of adventuring. I will teach in the Keller Management School on eight-week section basis as a part time hobby.
Happy holidays! Happy New Year to every one of you and your family!
Be well, do good work and keep in touch! I have put some pictures on http://home.comcast.net/~xhuang4420/Album/PictureAlbum.htm.This server does not have big capacity. So if the link fails, please try again later.
Xiao
Kate, she prefers to this name as she is older, becomes a leader in the small team of three. She will say firmly to her younger sister or brother, "You can not push/hit/bite." Just like me. She can give her brother and sister breakfast, pick their clothes, and put Vaseline on them. She is a strong learner in all academic areas in her regular school and she is working above grade level. She completes from learning the phoenix to chapter book reading within one year. She wants to write chapter book by herself now. I am glad that she does not have fear in trying new things. For improvement, she is working on selecting a suitable place to study so that no being interrupted :-) "She has really taken on leadership role this year.", as a first grader in the K/1 group, commented by her teacher. I do not push her in learning because I believe that knowledge and ability are different. She likes Chinese school now as she becomes more comfortable in studying it. The effort in being bilingual is tremendous both for kids and parents. But it worth the effort. She has good potential in piano because she has big hands and she is quick in memorizing pieces of music. On the sport side, it was funny to see such a tall girl not moving much in the soccer field in the first session. However, in the second session, her coach distinguished her as the girl who covered the whole ground, from back to front, and still remembered to say, 'Coach, tie my shoe please!' Where, the later part is the slipping portion of busy parents. She is planning to play soccer again next year. Kate's teacher told us that she is such a delight to have in class, and we are very proud of her.
Minkai and Minda are in daycare now. They love their teachers and make many new friends. Two weeks after being there, they started to clean up their toys with the ever-famous Barney song. Minkai is the whining baby and Minda is still the loud girl. Minkai expresses himself very well in both Chinese and English. He is very curious and often asks 'what is this?' （这是什么呀？）. On the first snowing day, he fell on ground. He got up and pointed to the ground madly, "Milk!" (牛奶！） He loves to watch airplanes on the sky. Then one day when we are driving on the highway, he said, 'there are lots of airplanes in front of us', pointing to the street lights at the sides. He likes pointing out things that he knows. Minda has her favorite nuks/pacifiers and blanket. Her blanket is embarrassingly dirty and she still wants the only one. She likes to sing and she starts to talk when Minkai is quiet. She will hug Minkai, hold his hands, and pat him when he cries in the daycare. They are very close to each other. Minda will reach for Minkai's hands if she did something purposely wrong. She is fairly athletic -- she probably can climb up to the ceiling if we let her. She can climb the robes of the ladder in the playground all by herself, while I need to put Minkai to the last two steps and push his bottom when he working on those two steps. The twins' job is to test the limit and my job is to define the limit. I started the discipline part, and made progress slowly.
Their allergy is still bad and literlerly they are allergic to every protein including wheat except milk is marginal. They are still itchy at night so parents are still sleep-depressed. When they will grow out of it? We do not know.
Fuming likes to keep busy. He painted the house from outside to inside, and remodeled the kitchen by changing to hard wood floor, upgrade the counter top, and etc. The consequence is that we have a ten years new house. He has agreed to terminate the house projects and focus on raising the kids.
Xiao/I has rejected an offer from Target Corporation and decided to stay in 3M, so that our family is really stable. However, I am into the mood of adventuring. I will teach in the Keller Management School on eight-week section basis as a part time hobby.
Happy holidays! Happy New Year to every one of you and your family!
Be well, do good work and keep in touch! I have put some pictures on http://home.comcast.net/~xhuang4420/Album/PictureAlbum.htm.This server does not have big capacity. So if the link fails, please try again later.
Xiao
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
The Year of 2007
The year of 2007 is an eventful year. For more little stories, please visit my blog: http://xchuang.blogspot.com/, and family album: http://photoshow.comcast.net/xchuang/2007.
Katie starts to take private lessons in figure skating and completes her ISI (Ice Skating Institute) Free Style I as a first place winner for her age group, luckily. Her painting of blue jay was awarded First Place in State Fair in August. Into her forth years' of study in piano, she has greatly improved control of her fingers and is able to express herself with music. Her favorite songs are Beethoven Symphony V, Fur Elise, Allegro in Eine Kleine Nachtmusi by Mozart, and Sonata in F Major by Anton Diabelli. Her school teacher has identified leadership as one of things that she is good at. We are working on clarifying her responsibility.
Minkai is a great example of learning for fun. Drawing and writing are his hobby. He takes some old Kumon exercises that we got several years ago and starts to play with numbers. He will take his workbooks and pens everywhere he is going – bed, floor, friends' house, and restaurants. He is a perfectionist, that is, he will ask older kids to color his precious wax paper sea animals instead of himself and he will ask others to draw dots for him to write letters because he is afraid of screwing up. He is a good listener, so he remembers that both his teacher and I encourage him to try new things and to practice to reach perfection. On the other side, no longer a shy boy, he is growing into a great speaker with a lot of hand gestures and voice changes, however, fairly exaggerating. I wonder if he learns that from Disney channel.
Minda is a quick action and fast thinking young lady. She runs not only on ground but also on ice. She likes playing puzzles and has a good sense of it. In gymnastic class, she can hold herself on a bar and swing a little bit. She can swim like a little fish for three feet. When we were praising Minda's performance and Minkai told us that he IS swimming very well too, with floaters. Minda experienced teacher changes in the summer and she cried when she saw her former teacher in another classroom. She is sweet and sits on every one's lap comfortably. She sits on every teacher's lap in her classroom, in her gym class, even a two-years old girl's father's lap until the girl pushed her off.
Katie and I went back to China for two and a half weeks in March. Everything was working out well or even better as Minda and Minkai were listening to their father very well. Besides one day, Minda cried and repeatedly told me to come back for five minutes and I had to hang up the phone. After I came back, the biggest change for the twins was that they can entertain themselves. All of sudden, they do not need my involvement and I have to ask them to play with me. We are very lucky that Katie, Minkai, and Minda are good friends. They care about each other. When Minda cries, Katie will hold her and Minkai may pat her back. Katie has a lot of ideas for games, and Minda and Minkai have to listen to her if they want to be part of the game. Minkai and Minda have many silly baby talks that do not make sense to me but they laugh together loudly.
We went to Washington DC, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania for a two weeks' vacation. We rented an eight bedroom house at Outer Bank in NC with three other families. It is really relaxing. With the energy getting back from vacation, I prepared LSAT (Law School Admission Test) and applied for William Mitchell College of Law. Just before Christmas, I got the admission letter with full scholarship. It looks like that life is changing in 2008.
Fuming is doing very well on his projects and his systems are possibly going into production lines in 2008. This will have impact on millions of dollars. Other than that, he starts exercising regularly and is working hard to live healthily.
Wish everyone a joyful, memorable, prosperous, and peaceful New Year!
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