Yang sends me a text message that reads My son just told me while sitting in the field: life is like a mirror, if you laugh, it laughs, if you cry, it cries, if you worry, it worries, if you angry, it angry. Since he said this in Chinese I’m sure it sounds even cooler than the English translation. Yang took the kids to Cui Ayi’s home town, about a five hour drive from Beijing. The idea was to show them another way of life, one that Yang has fond memories of from her childhood, while also giving me some peace and quiet at home. ...

I am deep in thought trying to solve a programming problem which looks very similar to 1000 or so such problems I’ve solved in the past and countless programmers have solved before me. I then hear Lydia wailing from the back bedroom. Aidan sneaks out as I walk past. I asked Lydia what happened and she said “Aidan hit me.” I asked what for and she shook her “I don’t know head” so I said there must be a reason – not that it’s justified – because Aidan is not psychotic, a role exclusively Elisa’s until she turns three next month. Lydia told me what started the fight and it really was nothing. So then I went to the room Aidan was in and asked him for his side of things. I told him it was never ok to hit his sister even if, well, she deserved it. I mean, even if she makes you really mad you can’t hit her. Walk away. Count to 100 in disparaging terms, just don’t hit. He wasn’t a big fan of the message and closed the door on me when I left so I had to go back and whack him upside the head (kidding). ...

A few weeks back Lydia was working on her homework and she was clearly overwhelmed with the task. Not the individual questions which she could mostly handle but by the sheer volume of work and repetition. She was passing the three hour mark in the night’s session. I try to support her best I can, guiding with the English homework and some of the math but there isn’t much I can do to help with Chinese. Most of the time I just surf the net and act as a calming factor when she gets upset. On this night I was reading a NYTimes article about parents revolting against the Tiger Mom phenomenon by pressing their schools for less homework, not more. In Pleasanton, the article said, there was a measure in front of the school board to limit the amount of homework in primary school to the grade the student was in. For first grade, Lydia’s grade, it would be 10 minutes. 2nd grade, 20 minutes and so on. ...

Lydia and I have baked a cake a half dozen or so times and each time when I take the baking pan out she notices the cupcake pan and asks if we can make cupcakes instead. Each time I tell her no, that we need to make a cake because..well..there is no reason really outside of lack of spontaneity on my part. So for this Sunday we agreed ahead of time that we would make cupcakes. ...

It is 1:3om pm on a Sunday and Elisa hasn’t napped yet so I ask her if she wants to go to “the big playground”. She says yes and after the routine of asking he if she needs to pee and putting on her fake crocs we are out the door. By the time the elevator reaches the first floor Elisa’s eyes are closed and by the time we reach the street she is out. I walk her over to Lido Park and find a shading tree where I listen to podcasts, do some stretching, and watch her nap. After a little more than and hour she wakes up and wants to continue our trek to the big playground which is just down the road at Side Park. We get there and she plays on the jumpy jump, the slides, the swings, the climbing stuff. After not so long she wants to leave so we head out to explore the rest of the park. We stop at a kids amusement park monkey as a horse type ride and she goes round and round. Then we are off to the metal exercise equipment which she climbs and explores. I ask her if she wants to go home and she says “no” and we explore more of the park. We stop at the pond where people are fishing and talk with a little boy practicing his English. We wander up the hills, run down them, and hunt for flowers. Eventfully she’s ready to leave Side but not for home, she wants to stop and explore Lido Park. ...

I’m walking through our complex with Elisa to our local market where I plan to buy Elisa an ice cream and my weekly lunch supplies. Lydia is in the playground, holding court. I ask her if she wants and ice cream which wasn’t meant as a rhetorical question but of course was. She says yes and asks if her best friend Naomi can have one too. I say sure and she asks if her other friends can. I say sure. 10 minutes later Lydia is streaming back into the playground, eight ice creams bundled in her arms. She is the hero of the moment. ...

The droplets started slow, barely noticeable but landing with a thud as if condensation from a street light. Soon the players on the next tennis court over were jogging to shelter which seemed like an overreaction. A minute later we were drenched, the storm coming in from the west. We made our way to the pro shop and waited out the lighting storm. An hour later Yang was back on the court warming up for her first match of the day. It was 4pm when we learned her opponent had left when the rain began and Yang won by forfeit. ...

I once read somewhere that when kids dream a lot of the time they dream of animals. I’m not sure if that’s what leads to us fathers walking around carrying animal balloons and making monkey faces or not. Or perhaps it is the other way around. In any case, on Dragon Boat festival day yesterday Yang and I took the kids to the Beijing Zoo. It was Aidan’s and Lydia’s second trip and Elisa’s first. ...

Aidan wakes me up at 6:15am and I am a bit groggy but not as groggy as some mornings. He wants to read me his English homework. Good morning class. Today I want to tell you about father. He is my father. His name is Vince Allio. He is a writer. He writes books. He goes to work by taxi. My father is tall and strong. He has short hair. He can play football and basketball. I love my father. Thank you. ...

It is Saturday morning, early, and I am sitting on the coach because the kids always get up early. I hear the piddle paddle of little feat as Elisa is running from the back bedroom into the living room. She emerges, wide awake, with a huge smile on her face. In her hand is Aidan’s old toy again which she is relentlessly firing apparently practicing for the Al Zawahiri kill. She is giddy as she points the gun and hears the toy gun’s fire and then sees me pretend to be shot. She runs out of the room looking for more victims and after dispatching the rest of the household returns to the living room to make sure I’m dead dead. Apparently watching CNN doesn’t count as dead enough so she fires some more shots and I splay across the coach. ...