Thằng con trai lớn dạo này nói được 60% tiếng Việt. Hôm qua nó khoe ở trường nó “build puzzle all by Đạo self. Đạo hông need help.” Còn đường rầy xe lửa thì “đi up, đi xuống, đi up đi xuống.” Lúc đi tắm nó nói cái bông sen bắn lên như “fountain.” Tôi hỏi nó “Fountain tiếng Việt là gì?” Nó trả lời, “Waterfall.”

Mấy bửa nay cu Đán mọc răng cùng nên suốt rất cao. Hôm nay ở nhà với nó thấy nó ăn, uống, phá như thường. Nhiệt độ thì cũng giảm. Đang như trưa say sưa. Chúc nửa dậy đưa ổng đi chơi.

Hôm qua lúc thay đồ cho cu Đạo thấy nó ốm nhôm nên tôi nói, “Con nhìn giống Phi Châu quá.” Nó trả lời, “No, you are trâu.” Tôi cũng phải khâm phục tiếng Việt của thằng con trai luôn.

Em Đán nhà ta còn ngầu hơn nữa. Lúc trước thì dùng tiếng Anh (“What’s that? What’s that?”). Dạo này sổ tiếng Ấn Độ hay tiếng Miên gì đó nghe chả hiểu. Con hơn ba nhà có phúc.

Dạo này lại bị áp lực trong công việc và bài vở. Thế mà tham vọng nhận thêm ba projects riêng và hai cái proposals. Tuy những projects này nhỏ nhưng cũng phải bỏ thời gian để làm. Chiều nay đi gặp khách hàng người Việt. Đang làm trang web cho một họa sĩ Việt Nam cũng khá nổi tiếng. Chừng nào xong sẽ chia sẻ đến mọi người.

Cuối tuần tôi cố gắn dành thời gian với vợ con vì ngày thường bận rộn quá. Hôm qua quanh vẫn ở nhà mà thấy vui. Chỉ ăn, ngủ rồi chơi với hai đứa nhỏ. Bay giờ thằng Đán bú sáu bình sửa nhỏ và thay ba cái tả mỗi đêm. Trông khi thằng anh nó không chịu ăn gì thì nó ăn hết. Ăn luôn phần của thằng anh.

Sáng nay hai cha con giậy sớm nên dắt nhau ra Dunkin’ Donut uống cafe ăn oatmeal. Đán ăn oatmeal với nho khô thật ngon lành. Hồi nảy trước khi đi ngủ thay tả cho ổng thì thấy những cục nho khô còn y nguyên tôi liền nghỉ đến nếu cho nó ăn cafe rồi lấy lại thì có lẻ sẻ ngon hơn cafe chồn.

Còn thằng Đạo thì càn ngày càn tiếu. Dạo này hôn nó thì nó bảo “gross.” Nó nói tiếng Việt nghe muốn nổ lổ tai luôn. Hồi nảy no nói, “Đạo không muốn xuống basement by Đạo self.” Sáng hôm qua nó mở hai cái bàn chải đánh răng mẹ nó mua cho em. Nó hỏi mẹ nó, “Em share với Đạo được không?” Mẹ nó bảo nó hỏi em. Nó quây qua nói hỏi thằng Đán. Dỉ nhiên là em không biết trả lời nhưng nó nói với mẹ nó rằng, “Em said yes.”

Đúng là mổi đứa con mổi tánh.

Dan spends most of his daytime with grandma and his cousin who is four months younger than him. His cousin has a very soft cry. Even when he screams the loudest, his volume is quite modest. On the other hand, Dan cries crazy loud and his tone is quite piercing like Mariah Carey reaching her high notes. It’s unbelievably uncomfortable, especially in the wee hour.

Even Dao is nothing in comparison. When Dao screams, I can tell that he uses tremendous strength. Dan’s scream is effortless. At night when he wakes up, I stick the bottle into his mouth as quick as I can to prevent his scream. One time he screamed in my ear, I almost dropped him off my arms. Just kidding. He’s still my sweet baboo.

Man, that kid is growing fast and I am starting to see see his personality. He likes to take toys from Dao and his cousin rather than picking out his own. Yesterday, Dao sneezed so I pulled a tissue and wiped his nose. Dan did the same thing that I did. Whenever I tell him to go to bed, he would head toward the stairs.

Not sure what he’s saying yet, but sounds like he either says “Wuzzup” or “What’s that?” We enrolled him into the Jewish Community Center as well in June. It’s gonna be at least $2,500 a month for both kids. If we have a third child, one of us would have to quit our job. It ain’t gonna be me though. I definitely can’t take on that challenge.

Lately Dao wears nothing but his one-piece pajamas to sleep. The good thing is that he has four identical ones to change daily.

Every time he goes pee-pee I always warn him about zipping up and down. I don’t want him to have that There’s Something About Mary‘s zipper moment. Unfortunately his mom didn’t alert him about it last night. The zipper caught his thing when he zipped up. Ouch! Poor thang. See? Only daddy pays attention of those kind of things.

Later on he asked her, “Mommy, can you make my cu feel better?” I splat out my juice when she told me that. He took the words out of my mouth. I have always wanted to ask her the same question, but I never have the audacity to.

Last weekend, our little family hit the mall and my wife complained that shopping for boys is so boring. Girls have tons of clothes. She was right indeed. There are many cute outfits for girls. Our family is now dominated with testosterones and trains. We need to balance things out. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a daddy’s little girl?

Parenting is not easy, at least not for me. It’s a lifelong commitment. Obviously I can’t ship them back to Russia. There are tradeoffs, however, and time goes by so fast. Other than some discipline issues, Dao is now doing good on his own. We can enjoy a decent meal in a restaurant with him. Dan is already passing one, but still waking up and screaming on top of his lung every night. Taking him to a restaurant now is a nightmare, especially for the servers.

By the time Dan hits two, we could potentially have a third one. After having two boys, I admittedly prefer a girl although we have about 5% of a chance. A quick look and my wife’s and my family, we are male dominated, especially in our kids’ generation. Sure the chance is quite slim, but we have nothing to lose (other than sleep) if we would have a third boy. We’re still going to love him just as much. In fact, another boy would just make the house more fun.

Dealing with two boys with two opposite personality is quite a challenge. Whereas Dao is very careful and meticulous, Dan is careless and incautious. Dan walked right into the wall simply because he turned his head sideway instead of looking straight ahead. He banged his head against the exercise bike yesterday for the same reason.

When they play together, Dao takes his time to coupling the trains together. He makes sure the wheels align perfectly on the rails. Even I have to ask him to help me with it. When coupling the trains, I did the most obvious: connected the hooks together. One time I watched Dao did it. He pushes the train together and the hooks connected automatically. No wonder he calls himself the “engineer.” Then comes Dan pushing the trains and wrecking the track. Dao gets furious every time that happens. I have to calm down Dao and restrict Dan from messing up the trains.

Once Dao is into something, he stayed really focused. Dan just roams free all over the place, specially now that he is capable of walking. If I don’t hear him in a minute around the house, I better check the stairs. He’s probably climbing upstairs. He used to go downstairs facing in. Now he just tries to walk straight down. This guy is fearless. I am hoping that he’ll learn to be more careful soon.

Dan visited the allergist yesterday and unfortunately the result is not so good. He needs to avoid peanut, milk, egg, sesame and shell fish. His mom who is still nursing him needs to avoid those as well. Poor babes.

Dao went to the clinic last Friday and he’s still highly allergic to peanut and cashew. Speaking of Dao, he said some funny things today. When he was done eating, he said, “Đạo xong ăn.” He literally translated from English to Vietnamese.

The last few nights, he prefers one-piece pajama. The only problem is that when he needs to poop he has to unzip the entire suite. Last night when he needed to go, he called me, “Daddy, I need to go poo-poo. The poops wake up.” Really, the poops wake up?

Seeing his mom coming home from work, Dao opened the door and greeted, “Hello mommy! I miss you very much.” He went on, “Do you have something special for me?”

As we walked to our car yesterday from the daycare another Asian kid, probably a bit younger than Dao, was screaming while walking with his mom. I asked Dao, “Why is he screaming?” He replied, “Because he’s not listening. Bạn hông có ngoan.”

At dinner time last night, Dan fell and hit the chair. he had a deep cut in his upper eye right above his upper eyelid like he has a blepharoplasty. We knew that he was alright when he took toys from Dao and ran toward me. It’s always painful to see your kids getting hurt. The playground accident with Dao still haunts me. The good thing is that Dao’s head is very hard. My mother compares his head to a coconut.

I know I always whine about how hard it is to have kids, but they do changed my life. I am thankful everyday to see them play and grow.

I am no scientist nor psychologist, but being a father who witnesses his kids grow everyday allows me to conclude that kids are born with personality. What do I mean by that? Let’s get back to the beginning.

When my wife and I were married, we knew we wanted to have kids, but not right away. We want to enjoy our time before diving into the parent thing. At the same time, we had no obligation not to. Well, Dao didn’t let us wait. He didn’t let us decide when he should be born. He decided to come out on his own term. We were a bit unexpected, but very joyful nevertheless. So now everything he wants to do, he does it on his own. One day he decided to sleep overnight. One day he suddenly decided to walk. No matter how many times we tried to get him off his diaper, one day he just did it on his own. We fought everyday trying to brush his teeth. Now he just does it all by himself. The hardest part about this personality is that he is very hard to control.

With Dan, we had a clearer plan because we knew that we wanted a younger sibling that is close enough for Dao to play with. As a result, Dan is much more cooperative (at least for now). He doesn’t fight back when I brush his teeth. He just bites my finger. He doesn’t refuse food when we feed him. He doesn’t demand much like his older brother, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a badass. Still I predict that we won’t have as much time with Dan than Dao. Let’s see when he reaches his terrible-two stage.