Here are some scans from his work. They're in chronological order, and span the first 3 months of the school year.

Elvis
George
Jingle
Martha
Perry
Cyclops
Wolverine
Batman
Spoiler
Twinkle
Kitty
Cutie
Fiancee
Lady Gaga
Obama
Superman
Hobbes
Calvin
Whitey
Loopy

Happy Thanksgiving!

We stopped at Mt Baker Beach to play in the sand, and again at the hydroplane pits to watch some people pull their lasers out of the water.

The ride home had a big hill. Even though we weren't able to ride up the whole thing, I was impressed by the boys' positive attitudes as we pushed our bikes up the steepest parts.

Isaac was reading the book "The Lost and Found Puppy" and he gets towards the end of the book. He looked like he was ready to cry. I asked him what was wrong. He says "Awwww, this book is so cute" and he showed me the last page. It said "At last the warm, dry puppy felt his worries disappear. The mother cat had offered him some food from her own dish." Isaac said "If I was in that story, I would give the cat a kiss."

We had just driven up to the beauty shop and when I turned off the car we heard some loud music from a nearby car. Isaac and Aaron both said "I know that song." I, of course, did not so I asked what song it was. Isaac said, "It's Single Ladies by Beyonce", with a tone meaning Mom-Mom, don't you know that song!

When we went to the park yesterday, Isaac and Aaron rode ahead and got there before I did. They met [their friend] Gus and his mom, Sarah. When I finally showed up, Sarah asked me how far apart in age the boys were. I told her one minute. She chuckled and said that Aaron had told her he was 6 months older - and she wanted to know how that happened since they obviously look like brothers!

A few days ago, Aaron fell off his bike and landed pretty hard on his head. He passed out for a short while, and was acting funny afterwords so I took him to the ER. He had a concussion, but otherwise checked out OK. His helmet took the brunt of the impact, fortunately. Today he was recounting the event and referred to it as, "That time I fell off my bike and was obnoxious..." I was too busy holding in laughter to correct him.

Other funny sayings:

Aaron told me he got "caught red-handed" (I'm not sure what he was doing). Isaac said "Where?" and started looking at Aaron's hands.

Aaron got in the car with my mom and said "What is our next destination?" My mom asked him where he learned the word "destination". Aaron said he learned it from my parents' talking GPS device.

The party was at Chuck E Cheese. There was pizza, video games, skee ball, and a visit from Chuck himself.

Pictures from the party can be found here

Before the party, we went to Mom-mom and Pop's house, where the boys were given a pair of real rollerskates (to replace the cheapo Fisher-Price ones that broke). They got some roller practice on the back deck.

Here's how they got the part:

The ad is for Guarenteed Education Tuition (you can see Aaron on the home page there). My folks have been buying GET credits for the boys in the past. The GET people just looked in their records for twins and the boys went to an audition and got the part.

One thing we constantly battle with is leaving lights on around the house. After watching the inauguration, Isaac liked the song Simple Gifts that was played. He told me that I should whistle that song when there's a light left on around the house, and he would go find it. He calls himself the "Electric Ranger". I haven't had to nag about lights since. Instead we have a fun game to share between the two of us, and Isaac is learning responsibility and stewardship for the Earth. The most amazing part of this is that I wouldn't ever have thought of a solution like that in a million years!

The boys are doing a lot better now that we're almost half way though the school year (that went by fast), but we still consented to letting the school psychologist give them an evaluation.

We just got the results back yesterday, and while the findings aren't much of a surprise, there are a few interesting things. Both boys tested very high in cognitive and academic areas, and very low in social and emotional areas. I knew this would be the case, but I had no idea how strong their strengths are and how weak their weaknesses are. They are probably academically advanced enough for a gifted program (we find this out later*), and certainly socio-emotionally delayed enough to qualify for special services and instruction. Two chips off the old block, really.

A couple gems from the evaluations:

"Isaac engaged easily in conversation. When he told the examiner that he held his eyes open the whole time without blinking while watching a Charlie Brown movie the examiner said she didn't believe him. He said it was true with a smile on his face. The examiner laughed and said she still didn't believe him. He smiled. When prodded he said it was not true."

Aaron's scores for Basic Reading and Reading Comprehension are in the >99.9 percentile, or "off the charts" as the psychologist called them.

The next step is for all involved to develop an IEP for each boy, which will probably include stuff like more 1-on-1 time with staff (counselors, teachers) to work on socio-emotional skills, and ways to harness their strengths in reading towards improvements in social skills.

* Update (3 Feb 2009): Both boys were accepted into the gifted program.

Dad: Today is Friday, Shabbat starts tonight, [etc]
Isaac: I'm feeling lucky!
Dad: You are lucky! It's the last school day of the week, we get to see Mom-Mom and Pop for dinner, [etc]
Isaac: No, it says that on your shirt.

I was wearing a google shirt.

We had enough snow to snowboard down the street!

Mom-mom was scheduled to take care of Isaac and Aaron on Monday since YMCA Winter Camp would probably be closed due to the large amounts of snow over the past few days.
Pop was going to drive Mom-mom to the city, to Rainier Avenue and she was going to walk up the hill to Joseph's house, spend the day with the boys and get a ride back to Bellevue at the end of the day with Pop. Mom-mom was not driving yet due to the recovery from her back surgery and the snow storm.
Mom-mom and Pop woke up early on Monday morning to find out that Pop's office was closed due to the snow storm. Consequently, he wasn't driving into the city. What was Mom-mom to do?
Mom-mom knew that Joseph was counting on her. She had to find a way to get into the city. The buses were not coming up the hill to her house, if they were even running at all.
So, Mom-mom made got warmly dressed, made a "Seattle" sign and at 5:50 a.m. walked two blocks away to the main street, carrying her sign. She had plans to walk to the either walk to the Park and Ride, about 2 miles away, all down hill - or hitch a ride with someone going into the city.
The second vehicle stopped when the driver saw the sign and asked if he could help. Mom-mom explained that she wanted to get to Rainier Avenue at I-90. He said he could take her there. The driving was slow but the 4 wheel drive SUV did well in the snow. The driver's job was to drive patients for treatment such as dialysis in a small bus. Mom-mom felt comfortable with his driving and safe in his car. He took Mom-mom to her requested stop, about 6 blocks down the hill from Joseph's house. Joseph's neighbor was blocked off due to the hills and the large amount of snow.
When Mom-mom arrived at Joseph's house at 6:50 a.m. he was just getting dressed. Mom-mom thought that it would be better to take the boys back to Bellevue since Pop was not in the city to drive her back home at the end of the day. The boys were still asleep and Venessa was getting ready for work. The boys woke up shortly after, got dressed, had breakfast and put on their snow clothes to walk to the bus stop back on Rainier Avenue. At least it was all downhill this time, though the going was slow. The first few busses that drove by were completely full and could not stop for us. Eventually we all got onto a bus and we went downtown near Joseph's office. Joseph walked on the work and Mom-mom and the boys walked to a bus stop for a bus back to Bellevue. She had enough money for cab fare if a bus did not come, but that could have ranged from $50 - $60. Luckily, a Bellevue bus showed up before an empty cab. The boys were very patient waiting for the bus, talking to the other people waiting for the bus to Bellevue.
The bus took us all the way to Bellevue, even using the freeway exit just down the hill from Mom-mom's house. The only problem was that there was no bus stop there and the driver was not allowed to drop off riders at an unsafe intersection. Mom-mom and the boys stayed on the bus for several blocks further and then were able to get off of the bus.
Now the walk continued, with the occasional stop to fix socks that kept creeping down into snow boots, to put mitten back on that came off to touch the snow or to adjust heavy backpacks that didn't seem to stay put on little backs. They walked for about 6 blocks and then the boys plopped down in the snow and were too tired to continue. Mom-mom was pretty tired too, but we were one mile from the house. What to do now? There weren't any busses going up the hill in the snow. Pop wasn't able to drive down the hill to pick them up. Even the Baskin and Robbins was closed so no stopping for treats.
Mom-mom decided the only way to get back home was to find another 4 wheel drive SUV to drive them all up the hill. The boys had seen the "no hitch-hiking" sign on the walk as they crossed the freeway. Mom-mom told them that since they weren't going on the freeway, it was OK to put out their thumbs and hitch a ride for the last mile home. They tired of holding out their thumbs after a few minutes and found it more entertaining to throw snowballs into the street. This time may cars drove by without stopping, most of them not heading up the hill but turning at the intersection to head to the shopping area. After about 15 minutes, a driver stopped to drive the tired three-some up the hill. The SUV even had some toys in the back seat to play with for the short drive home. When we arrived in front of the house, Pop was there shoveling the snow. The boys were having so much fun with the toys in the car, they were reluctant to get out of the car. Seeing Pop in the snow helped to entice them out of the SUV. We thanked the driver and he went on his way. It was now 11:00 a.m., 5 hours after Mom-mom had left home that morning.
What an adventure! The boys mustered up some energy to play in the snow a bit and sled down the little hill in front of the house. Mom-mom was totally exhausted and went into the house to rest before the day of playing with two 5 year old bundles of energy. The boys were snowed in at Mom-mom's and Pop's house for 3 days. They played in the snow, celebrated Chanukah and even had a virtual candle lighting with Joseph and Venessa via webcam. That was a wonderful experience.
All in all, it was a fun week, a bit tiring for Mom-mom even if it did take her mind off of her recovery for a while.
She hopes that the boys will remember this adventure with their "hitch-hiking Mom-mom". She won't forget it for some time!

A couple days ago, Mom-mom, Isaac and Aaron were delivering holiday cookies and candies to Mom-mom's neighbors. One neighbor had a gate at the beginning of the path. Aaron noticed a spring closure on the gate. As we walked through the gate Aaron touched the spring on the gate, then with a smile Aaron said, "Mom-mom, 'summer' [he meant 'winter'] is over and 'spring' is here!"

It sounds terribly cheesy but the teacher kept stressing how much it helps families run smoothly, handle issues, etc. So I figured it couldn't hurt.

Last night was our first family meeting. We tried it over dinner, but Aaron suddenly got "full" and left the table (and thus the meeting). After dinner, I decided to lure everyone back by having the meeting over dessert.

We started by thanking or complimenting everyone at the table, including ourselves. Isaac thanked Aaron for offering a piece of gum, even though he didn't take Aaron up on the offer. Complimenting one's self is actually very difficult...a few of us couldn't think of anything, so we decided we'd try again next week.

We also planned a "fun activity", and it was interesting to hear what the boys thought was "fun". My favorite suggestion was "take a bath!" We decided on having one boy play on the computer with one adult, while the other boy takes a bath (with the other adult keeping him company in the bathroom), and then switching activities.

All in all, the meeting took about 5 minutes (about as long as it takes a 5 year old to savor a Peppermint Jo Jo cookie).

Here's a photo of Aaron and me at the Proposition 8 Protest in Seattle. Aaron made that poster himself. It says "NO 8" and it has a crossed-out letter 8. In the upper-right is a guy shaking his head no.