The kids didn’t finish their pancakes this morning. I think they view this time as drawing time instead of when they get ready for school.

Yesterday, when Agnes picked up the kids from school, Miranda was starving. She went to our pantry and started rummaging through it for food. On the shelves that she could reach, she found only paper towels, uncooked rice, and bonito flakes.

Miranda grabbed the bonito flakes and said “I want this!”

Agnes told her that she had to eat it with something else, like rice, and Miranda said “I want rice!”

Fortunately, Agnes had started cooking the rice before picking up the kids, and it was ready. She put some rice in a bowl and poured some bonito flakes on it. Miranda said that Agnes hadn’t put enough on. After pouring a little more, she said it was enough.

Miranda ate that bowl, and two other bowls of rice with more bonito flakes for dinner.

We had dim sum with the kids for the first time. Agnes and I don’t have dim sum on our own, and so the kids had never had it. They liked it.

In the last month, the kids have moved to a new house (apartment), started a new school, and are no longer sleeping in their cribs. They moved out of their cribs on the late side (after the age of three) because we didn’t want to buy new beds and get rid of their cribs right before we moved out of our old house. Basically, we just left the cribs in the old house, which is still on the market, and bought new beds for the apartment.

We didn’t have the foresight to buy cribs that converted to toddler beds and my friend Sophia recommended that we just go straight to buying twin beds since it didn’t make sense to buy toddler beds at this point. I was concerned about them falling out their beds since they did move around a lot in their cribs, so we ended up with the cheapest bed they sell at Ikea, the TOLGA, which is like a twin futon frame on which we laid a foam mattress. It’s only nine inches above the ground (i measured it) and with the thin foam mattress, about twelve inches total. The kids picked out their own bedding.

Miranda in her new bed.

Eleanor in her new bed.

The kids loved their beds and slept in them great the first night. They actually stay in their beds until we get them in the morning. One night Bernard heard Eleanor crying and found her tangled in her blanket on the floor. I guess she fell out of the bed, but no harm done. This hasn’t happened again. We still have the same issue we had with the cribs during naptime, which is that they talk and don’t sleep for two hours. One afternoon, we found Eleanor in Miranda’s bed, harassing her so that she couldn’t take a nap. Since then, we’ve had to send Eleanor to the guest room for naps.

Overall, we’re pleased that the crib to bed transition went smoothly. Now, we just need to get rid of the pull-ups at night. Eleanor always has a dry pull-up in the morning. Miranda is about 70% dry, 30% wet.

Agnes showed the kids how to rescue an earthworm on the sidewalk and put it in the dirt. Miranda said, “The worm said thank you to me”.

Eleanor said my leg hair is pretty.

The kids are getting to be quite competitive with each other. So much so that you can’t praise one in front of the other. Basically, praising Miranda is the same as insulting Eleanor and vice versa. Also, they’ve become very jealous of my attention. A few weeks ago, they raced to me after their bath, when all of a sudden Miranda took a chunk out of my thigh. I was completely shocked because she didn’t seem to be upset, and the only thing that came to my mind was to put her in time-out. I then had to go to the bathroom to deal with the bleeding and Bernard carried out her time-out.

[If you can’t see the Flash player above, you can download the video in XviD format: XviD (5MB).]

Miranda’s supposed to be sitting on the stool, but she’s too busy flipping out. She doesn’t want to be in time-out. She wants to read before going to bed, and there is a Barney book on the ground, just off camera. She’s saying, “Want that one! I want–I want–I want this. I want the Barney book! I want the Barney book right now! (???) I need that. I need that. I need that! Get it! Get it! Stand up! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Aaah!”

We ignored her, and she eventually settled down. Later, I realized that she probably bit me because Eleanor had been clinging to me all evening and pushing Miranda out of the way when she tried to get my attention. The same thing happened at school the next day. Miranda took a chunk out of Eleanor’s back. The preschool teachers were quite shocked because she hadn’t bitten anyone in school since she was in the toddler room. One of the teachers said, “Well, she’s been bossed around by Eleanor for the last six months. Eleanor treats her like a baby and tries to feed and dress her. Today she tried to show her the “right” way to play with a toy. I think it was the last straw for Miranda.”

We didn’t tell anyone at the new school about their sibling interaction, but this is the feedback that the new teachers gave us, “Eleanor always wants to be near Miranda. She wants to do projects and puzzles with Miranda. Miranda, on the other hand, wants to do her own thing. During naptime, Miranda tries to sleep by pulling the blanket over her head, but Eleanor tries tickling her arm or her leg. We had to separate them for naptime, and we’re trying to encourage them to do separate activities.”

This twin interaction has turned out to be really complex. It leads me to believe that Eleanor will be traumatized when we separate them for first grade, but that it will probably be the right thing to do for Miranda.

First, I’ll get this out of the way. No, we haven’t sold our house. The economy is crumbling and this has turned out to be the worst time to try and sell a house. Oh well.

Despite no movement on the house, we went ahead and enrolled the kids in a new school near where we eventually want to live. We thought we would be living in our new house by now, or at least be in escrow, but since that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen any time soon, we’re now living in a rented apartment near the kids’ new school.

The new school is different from the old school. I’m not going to make any judgments yet about which is better, only to say that the kids like the new school–but they liked the old school too. Here are some differences I’ve noticed:

1. Enrollment: The old school has a several month long waiting list. It took us a year to get into the old school. But once you’re at the top of the waiting list, you’re in. The new school doesn’t really have a waiting list, but they have an elaborate admissions procedure that involves both parents visiting the school, then the kid needs to spend a full day at the school by him/herself, then they tell you whether they think the school is a good fit for your child.
2. Price: Old school $900/month for two kids. New school $1400. Montessori school in Irvine $2000. Montessori school in San Francisco $3000. I figure we’re still getting a bargain.
3. Student-teacher ratio: Old school 6:1. New school 4:1.
4. School philosophy: Old school–not very clear, but had skills-related curriculum, e.g. language, math, science, arts, physical education, social development. New school–very clear Montessori philosophy with a mission statement and a school motto.
5. School environment: Old school–clean, with some fun toys and materials. Great play structure outside. New school–lots of Montessori materials for hands-on learning. Large yard with lots of grass to run on, a garden, treehouse, live animals–there’s a class goose, chickens, rabbits, turtle, salamander, fish.
6. Socioeconomic status of students: Old school–probably middle class, lower middle class. New school–closer to upper middle class. This probably explains why there were no stay-at-home moms in the old school, and at least a third of the kids in the new school have a stay-at-home mom.
7. Food policy: Old school–none. It wasn’t unusual to see kids sent to school with a McDonalds Big Breakfast and Lunchables for lunch. Also, you could buy school lunch, which we did. New school–Healthy lunches encouraged. No school lunch available. No Lunchables or other processed, pre-packaged foods. This is very difficult on working parents. I get up at 5:30am to prepare the kids’ lunch, and I’m usually stuck doing a PB&J.
8. Distance from grandparents: the reason we changed schools. Old school–40 miles, New school–20 miles. My mom picked up the kids yesterday for the first time, and it went smoothly.
9. Clothing policy: Old school–none. New school–no commercialized clothing or lunch boxes, e.g. no Spiderman, no Dora the Explorer, no Disney princess, no Sponge-Bob, no Nemo, no Nike, basically, nothing with characters or brands. I guess that’s the end of Miranda’s obsession with High School Musical.
10. Halloween and Birthdays: Old school–big costume parade for Halloween and cupcakes etc. for everyone’s birthday. This meant in the month of August where 6 kids turned three in a span of two weeks, the kids were hopped-up on sugar most days. New school–no costumes for Halloween, and all birthdays for the month are celebrated on one day only. Now there’s a debate going on on whether cake and ice cream are okay to serve on that one day. Personally, I’m really glad for these policies because as a working mom, I hated coming up with costumes and having to bring food to school for birthdays.
11. Parent involvement: Old school–nothing formal, New school–parents are expected to volunteer, there’s an active parents group on the web.

Well, most importantly, both schools have really nice teachers that Eleanor and Miranda like. I guess that’s really all that matters.