Relaxing Summer Weekends

In honor of the first official summer weekend, we took the girls to their first swimming lesson at the local park.

Here are the girls in their new swimsuits:

Ready to learn to swim.

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No photos at the pool. Too many safety issues / crying / screaming around the pool. Maybe next week.

This weekend we also had a moon rise early in the evening, giving the girls a chance to "talk" to the moon. It's something they've been doing for the past few weeks. Whenever they see the moon, they'll cry out, "Hi, Moon!" I'm not even sure where they learned what the moon is.

Here is the moon from our living room, plus the girls sharing a laughing moment on the reclining chair:

The moon over the Lim House.
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Katherine & Caroline enjoying a laughing moment together.
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Happy Father's Day

Since it would extremely egocentric to write about myself on Father's Day, today I'll take a moment to digress from telling you about the life and times of Katherine and Caroline, and take this opportunity to say "Happy Father's Day" to their grandfather ("Yeh-Yeh" in Chinese), and my Father, Harry Lim.

Happy Father's Day to Grandpa!

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Anyone who would like to see some photos of Yeh-Yeh before he was "Yeh-Yeh" (in fact before he was a Father!), and was a jet-setting man about town, we collected some photos for his birthday celebration earlier this year. I've posted a few on our family website.

So to see Yeh-Yeh when he looked like this:

Click HERE.
(When prompted, userid = "guest", password = "montebello".)

Random Twin Comic Strip

Today's post comes courtesy of Josh, the blogger at The Comics Curmudgeon. If you have not bookmarked this blog site, I highly recommend it. It is always good for a chuckle.

I thought of what I might write to add to the comic strip and comments below, but I really have nothing to add. I just thought it was funny.

ComicToday’s Hi and Lois takes on the tough issue of twin-on-twin violence. I have to say that I’m actually a little creeped out by the way Ditto is slowly and deliberately rolling up the sleeve on his punchin’ arm, while Dot stands a few feet away, cringing in terror, but not fleeing. Fortunately, mom is on the case, making sure that Ditto merely humiliates and degrades his sister verbally.

Baaaaaad Monkey!

Since the girls have been old enough to climb into normal sized chairs, we have been pretty consistent in enforcing the "sit down" rule. That is: No standing, jumping, or otherwise playing on chairs.

We enforce this rule with two phrases: "Sit down, please", and "Sit down . . . on your butt!"

The second phrase is often used because the girls like to squat in their chairs pretending to sit, but will then use the opportunity to spring in the air like a jumping jack. (Of course in their minds, Mommy or Daddy will always be there to catch them before they crash to the ground!)

So tonight before bed we were reading their favorite books before bedtime, and for the thousandth time, we read their Curious George book, which has this photo on the last page:

Upon seeing this photo, my girls, for the first time, cried out: "Monkey! Sit down . . . on your butt!"

At least I know they've been listening to me all this time.

No Raccoons, Part II

Katherine's fear of raccoons is growing, and we haven't even seen one in over two weeks.

Tonight, I left the shade to one window in the girls' room open, and the window slightly open due to the fact that it is a very warm night.

Katherine absolutely refused to lay down in her bed until I shut the window and lowered the shades. All she kept repeating was, "No raccoots. No raccoots."

I'm wondering if I should buy a stuffed animal raccoon, or if that would just be flinging fuel on the fire.

Tomorrow we learn to do the "Hustle"

Thanks to me, when Katherine holds the "Little People" construction worker, shown here:

she now starts to sing the song "YMCA" by the Village People. She even does the hand spell-out.


Is it child abuse to expose my kids to 70's disco-pop?

Feel free to sing along with us:

YMCA - By The Village People

Daddy's Disco Partner.

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Pet's Welcome -- Kids, Not So Much.

Yesterday I picked the girls up from daycare a little early, and remembered that we needed to buy more cat food for our cat, Tabby.

I thought the girls would have a good time coming to PetSmart with me and seeing the birds, fishes, etc. After all, what kid doesn't like looking at pets in a pet store?

Unfortunately, I forgot about PetSmart's motto, "Pet's Welcome".

As we were waiting in line to buy the cat food, with me holding a 20-pound bag of "Meow Mix", a woman walked up behind us with a very large dog.

The girls screamed bloody murder.

They tried to climb up my leg as if their lives depended on it. And in their minds, their lives probably did depend on it.

What was most amusing was the reaction of the other customers, most of them carrying/walking their pets (mostly dogs) with them.

They looked annoyed, as if my girls had some nerve screaming over their dogs!

Kids not welcome.