Redesigned the pages for Dao and Dan. Made it responsive with the minimal amount of CSS. I also added a handful of new photos in their Google album.

The other night around 10pm Dana kept yelling at Dao to tell him to hurry up with his milk so he could go to bed. He responded, “Mẹ, tomorrow is going to be a better day.” Dana and I looked at each other and just laughed.

Last Friday when we came to pick up Dan at daycare, he ran out of the playroom as soon as he saw us. It was hilarious watching him waving and saying goodbye to his friends and teachers as he dashed to the door.

Dan is now approaching his terrible-two phase and he is much worst than Dao. He is fearless and full of energy. He jumped off the bed and stairs. He busted his head several times and he had yet to learn to be careful. Looking after him is exhausting. He even started to hit Dao and smiled. No matter how hard I try to tell him that hitting is inappropriate, he always responded with a smile. Poor Dao just let his little brother hit him. Dao used to hit Dan, but now it’s the other way around. I told him to protect himself and do not let Dan hit him.

In term of speaking development, Dan is much slower than Dao. At two, Dao spoke very clearly. Dan talks a lot too nowadays, but mostly babbling. For instance, he would say “tuties” instead of smoothie. The other day he kept saying the four syllables that I could not understand until he pointed to the “water fountain.” The words he could speak clearly are: daddy, mommy, Dao and sữa (milk).

As much as I love seeing my kids grow, I can’t wait to see them get past the terrible-two period.

Tuần rồi ngồi nhậu với ông chú vợ, chú nhắc nhở là cho tụi nhỏ nó ngủ riêng chớ không là phải ngủ với tụi nó đến 18 tuổi. Bây giờ thì thằng Đạo bám sát mẹ nó không rời tay. Tối ngủ phải có mẹ ôm mới ngủ. Còn tôi thì ngủ với thằng Đán.

Hôm tối Chủ Nhật sau khi ru cho thằng Đán ngủ tôi qua phòng kế bên ngủ một mình. Giữa khuya thức giấc tôi cứ tưởng như nó đang khóc. Chạy vội qua phòng thì thấy nó vẫn ngủ ngon lành. Định quây về phòng bên kia nhưng nhớ nó quá nên nán lại ngủ với nó.

Thì ra tôi không thể thiếu nó chứ không phải nó không thể thiếu tôi. Thôi thì chừng nào nó muốn ngủ một mình thì để nó tự quyết định.

I asked Dao if he would like to have a baby sister and he replied, “Yes, I want a baby girl.” Then he asked his mom, “Mommy, can we have a baby girl tomorrow?” Not so sure how to response to that other than laughed out loud. Looking around our family, the chance of us having a baby girl is probably less than 10%. Still adding one more boy to the family is the merrier. The first kid was tough, especially a boy.

True, things do get a bit crazy sometimes with two boys, but they are quite enjoyable. Or maybe after the second kid, you realize that there’s no denial. You either enjoy the time with them or they’ll make you miserable. If you choose to go with the former, you might get to live your life. As a result, a third boy is not going to be any worse than what we have now.

As they always say, you’re already on the tiger’s back. Just ride her out. No pun intended. Tiger mom.

We managed to miss Dan’s 18-month checkup. He’s 19 months now. With his good appetite, Dan is in the 75 percentile. He’s 34 inches tall, 27 pounds and 13 ounces with 19 1/4 HC. The poor kid got four shots today in both thighs. He cried for a bit.

He is outgrowing some allergies including whole milk, avocado and some seafood. He’s still not into certain things like Dao, but does seem to have some musical talent. He can jam when he hears the beat. He plays the keyboard with both hands and reaches out to every keys. Last night, he hummed the melody of “Con Chim Non” several times before going to bed.

His daycare is going well. He’s adjusting much quicker than Dao in the new environment. Dao started daycare at one and it took him almost a year to stop crying every time we dropped him off. Dan started at 18-month and he’s still crying when I dropped him off, but it only lasted for a minute.

Dan’s talking skill is good, but nowhere near Dao. It seems like Dao started to talk a very long time ago and has not been able to stop. Dao picked things up really fast and now he applies new words as much as he can. Before, he always told me that he saw a car with “no roof.” After I taught him the word “convertible,” he’s now saying, “Daddy, I saw a convertible.” Whenever we’re in the car, he would describe to me what he’s watching. For instance, he told me, “Daddy, Tom hits Jerry with a pan. Tom is not nice.”

I am sure Dan will pick up his communication skills as well very soon. I can’t wait to hear him talk in longer sentences.

Mới đó mà Đán đi nhà trẻ đã được ba tuần. Bây giờ nó cũng hơi quen quen. Sáng vô lớp khóc đúng một phút. Được cô đặt vào lòng ngồi thì nín liền. Chiều qua khi thấy ba và anh đến đón, nó mếu máo chạy ra cửa, vẫy tay chào các cô và bạn, nhặt đôi giầy mang vào, chạy đi lấy cập rồi cùng anh Đạo tung tăng ra về.

Trên xe Đán la lên không rỏ lý do gì. Anh Đạo bảo, “Baby don’t cry. Big brother’s here.” Rồi anh Đạo cho em ăn cereal. Hai anh em ngồi nhai nhai cho đến nhà. Phải chi lúc nào anh Đạo cũng dễ thương như thế thì đâu có gây gổ.

Sáng thì tôi đứa Đán đến trường trước vì cu Đạo ngủ trể. Ngày nào hai mẹ con cũng gần mười giờ sáng mới đến. Cũng mai là hai vợ chồng không có làm hãng xưởng. Vì nếu như cần phải đến đúng giờ mỗi ngày thì chắc mất công việc từ lây rồi. Sáng nay khi đặt Đán vào ghế nó chỉ qua ghế của anh nó rồi nói, “Anh Đạo.”

Đán không nói nhiều như anh Đạo lúc xưa như nói rỏ từng chữ một. Bây giờ chữ nó thường nói nhất là, “Daddy, ẩm.”

We’re in the process of readjusting our lives. Up until last week, we had grandma to relied on. After work we could go over to my sister-in-law’s place for dinner, went back home and called it the day. Now I pick up both kids, go home, give them a bath (bathing with them is more like it) and then feed them. On Monday, Dana told me to take them out to dinner, but I rather go to Whole Food to get something healthy. Going out to eat is such a pain and I can’t figure out where to take them. Fast food is obviously not a good choice, although Dao could be eat healthy at McDonald’s. He usual eats the entire side salad in addition to fries and two pieces of chicken nuggets. Dan, on the other hand, doesn’t like raw vegetables, but he enjoys drinking them.

Our weekdays are pretty much set in a routine. Get up go to work. Go home, eat, play a bit and go to bed. Dan goes out about 9 to 9:30pm. Dao goes out about 10 to 11pm. After Dan goes out, I go downstairs to wash the dishes and prep lunch boxes for the next day. After that I would do some freelance work, watch some NetFlix or read until about midnight.

With such a tight schedule, we hardly have the time to do things around the house. Our grass is growing wild. Our deck is deteriorating and needed paint. Our basement is in serious need of reorganization. I used to work from home on Fridays. The time that I spent commuting, which is one and a half our each way, I can use to mow the grass. Another advantage of working from home is that I could take a break, run down the basement and throw in some clothes in the washer or reorganize things around the house a bit.

Now I have to do things around the house on the weekend, which is very hard because the kids would run all over the place. Besides, I rather spend time with them then doing all these chores. Here are my choices: mowing the grass under 90 something degrees or taking the kids out to have some pho and hanging out in the mall with cool air conditioning? The choice is obvious. Some weekends we’re just out of town either visiting Lancaster or New Jersey. That’s how our little family rolls. We hardly stay home on the weekend, especially in the summer.

I might need to take vacation time from work to do work at home. Better yet, just enjoy the summer and get things done in the winter. We’ll see.

One loves Pho and one loves Mustang. You could probably figure out which boy likes which. Lil Dan loves Pho. We took him to Pho 50 two times and he ate like we haven’t fed him for a week. He also prefers to spoon feed himself; therefore, he made such a huge mess. As I was at the counter paying the bill, I overheard the bus lady told the owner in Vietnamese, “Look at the way Vietnamese kid eats. Isn’t that cute?” She was being sarcastic of course. Now whenever we go out for Pho, I just request a huge empty bowl for him to scoop. He did a very good job last night when we were at Pho Today. Dan doesn’t like eating vegetables, but he likes it when I juiced them. At dinner, I made a glass of juice contained kale, baby spinach, baby carrots, celery, orange and banana. He drank half of the glass.

Dao, only the other hand, likes eating vegetables. Just dip into ketchup and he would eat it. Dao is also making a transition from train to car. His latest obsession is convertible Mustang. Every time we’re on the road, he would spot out a convertible Mustang miles away. He recognizes the shape of Mustang as well as the horse logo.

Daycare wise, Dao is already fit in. He enjoys his time in there with his friends and teachers. Dan, on the other hand, is having a tough time making the transition. After the four-day weekend, I took him to daycare this morning and he started to cry as soon as I made a turn into the daycare. Then he would clung on to me the whole time. Even though I had been through this experience with Dao, it still feels awful hearing hi screamed. I really hope he’ll get past this stage soon.

Only three days into his daycare life and Dan is already losing his voice. I took him in this morning and he cried as soon as we stepped into his classroom. It was painful once again to hear him cry. Dao took quite a long time to settled in even though he started daycare when he was one. Dan is going to be even harder because he started at 19 months.

When I came to pick him up this evening he could hardly talk. Ms. Ester said he cried every time someone comes in or out the door. He was expecting his parents to pick him up. As soon as he saw me, he stopped crying. As we walked to our car he said hi and smiled at everyone he saw.

Dao was out sick today. His fever shot up to 103 degrees. It looks like he’ll be home for the rest of the week as well. Daycare is such a crazy place.

Although Dan seemed to be having fun playing ball with his teacher when I picked him up yesterday, Ms. Ester told me that he was having a rough first day. He was happy to see me, but didn’t stop what he was playing to greet me like Dao. He was still carrying on with his game. When he spoke to me, I noticed the scratchiness in his voice. He must had cried a lot. Then he felt warm.

After we went home, I checked his temperature and it was up to 103 degrees. The good thing was that he was still very active. We gave him some Tylenol and he slept well, but the fever was still high this morning so we let him stayed home with grandma. I was teasing his cousin Khoi who started daycare last week that he got sick just after three days in daycare. Now Dan got sick for just one day. He broke all the records.

Dao, on the other hand, is probably already getting used to the environment. He enjoys playing with water and other activities in daycare.