By Julie

I've been home for over two months and blogging less than ever, not that there's nothing to blog about but because blogging was in part stress relief for me, and right now even with all the work-related projects I'm trying to finish over the summer I have little to be stressed about. Plus I've been doing a lot of introspection, which by its very nature is more intimate dinner conversation and less "Hello Internet!"

Maybe that's why I don't get Twitter right now. On the other hand, I've been trying to get Twitter ever since Evan Williams announced his new venture and opened it up to beta testers. I immediately grasped the conversational aspect of the party badge, which displays tweets from you and all your friends - and which I used to document conversations between me and the kids for public amusement - and I loved the update-via-IM feature. But both the party badge and IM updates have been broken for a long time now, and I have no desire to share my cell phone number with Twitter in order to update via SMS. I have updated a couple of times via the Pageflakes Twitter plug-in, but those tweets were never conversational. They were more like mini blog entries in that they linked to whatever I found amusing on the Internet at that moment.

One thing I do know is that the 21st century man of mystery does NOT use Twitter. Imagine James Bond broadcasting his martini preferences to the world... hahaha, so not happening. Even more damning is the fact that everybody I know in real life who uses Twitter has locked up their account. Nobody needs that much transparency.

With all three kids home with me for the summer, simple things like feeding and grooming can easily take up much of the day. I consider myself having gone beyond the call of duty if I manage to get the lunch dishes into the dishwasher before Kevin gets home in the evening. On top of that I've been giving Alex and Ana Chinese homework everyday. So far they've learned numbers (一, 二, 三 ... 十, etc.) and family members (爸爸, 妈妈, 哥哥, 姐姐, etc.) as well as have/don't have and do you have (有没有弟弟? 没有! 有没有妹妹? 有!).

Kevin has been busy too. When he isn't at work, he's going to the store for groceries or doing chores around the house. On weekends he takes Alex to karate and both Alex and Ana to swim at Grandma's house. He's also in charge of taking Alex to percussion lessons. It's just for the summer, a break from piano and possibly early preparation for 4th grade band.

In between all that I've found time to make the most of our Netflix subscription:

Labels: chinese, memes, movies, parenting

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By Julie

School let out for the summer about 2 weeks ago. Alex and Ana have been staying home with me. Every morning they get up astoundingly early, earlier than they would on school days. By the time I get up they've usually been awake for 2 or 3 hours. At first they waited for me to get up to ask for breakfast, but lately Ana has started scavenging for food herself. She rummages through the cabinets that she can reach to find cereal, then eats it dry out of the box. Alex doesn't seem to have much appetite in the mornings, so he still waits until I'm up before eating.


Earlier this week I finally got over the summer cold that Angie recovered from over a week ago and Ana recovered from over 2 weeks ago. It wasn't much, just some sinus congestion. At one point I even forgot that I was sick. But when it started turning into sinusitis I felt totally listless. In the end I successfully fought it off without antibiotics, so I guess all that time spent feeling mentally useless was worthwhile.

Last week, this made me laugh...

Ana: (with a blanket draped over her head) Look Alex! Oooooh! I'm a zombie!

Today, this made me stammer...

Alex: Mom, is it really you and Dad that put the presents under the tree at Christmas?

Labels: kids, parenting

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By Julie

1. Thursday I watched a live webcast of J. K. Rowling at Harvard's commencement. Her speech was so good that when Kevin got home I made him listen to the archived recording with me. He thought Rowling would make a good motivational speaker. I agree.

2. This week I signed up for the drink pouch recycling program at TerraCycle. I designated Alex's school as the beneficiary of the 2 cents per pouch that my efforts will net.

3. Prior to Angie's arrival my only me time consisted of half hour soaks in the jacuzzi tub 2 or 3 times a week - not that I'm complaining, it really was all the me time I needed. But lately I haven't even had that because Angie refuses to be held by anyone else for more than 5 minutes at a time before she starts crying. I miss my soaks. It's not something I can outsource.

4. Legally Blonde: The Musical is looking for their next Elle Woods! Can't wait to watch this show on stage next August at the Pantages.

5. According to this doggy daycare employee, about half of all dogs eat their own poo. Good to know Daisy isn't such a freak after all. Now, if only she weren't incontinent.

6. My 6 week postpartum checkup went well. I'm still carrying 10 extra pounds, but at least my clothes are starting to fit again. I've started exercising to help speed up the process, mainly sit ups and push ups. Here are some desk friendly exercises that I plan to do when I go back to work in September.

7. These awesome travel tips make it seem like anyone can travel with small children. Even so, I don't plan on going anywhere until Angie is a year old.

Labels: books, environment, movies, music, parenting, pets, pregnancy, travel

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By Julie

To Do List:

1. Pack for hospital, including admittance paperwork.
2. Finish remodeling the nursery and move all furniture back in.
3. Wash and put away all 0-3 month baby clothes.
4. Buy car seat and two bases.
5. Early bird registration for Alex's after school care and Ana's preschool.
6. Bring home all work stuff I'll need during my leave.
7. Miscellaneous other work projects.

Things we just crossed off the list:

1. Buy size 1 diapers.
2. Test the breast pump to see if it still works.
3. Take Ana on a tour of the preschool she'll be attending in the fall.
4. Talk to kids about baby proofing the living room.

In addition to the baby proofing talk, we also cleaned the entire living room. It took all four of us over an hour, maybe almost two, to pick up and put away every piece of kid debris off the sofa and the floor so that we could vacuum without sucking up something that would break the machine. I did not take before/after photos because it would scare childless folks into never having kids.

I just finished reading Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone, by Beth Lisick. I almost didn't make it past the first chapter because I found her writing lacking compared to some of the bloggers I read daily. Plus I didn't like her personality. By the end of her year-long odyssey, I felt like I could almost enjoy her as a casual acquaintance, but her relentless cynicism would probably keep us from becoming close friends.

Labels: books, home improvement, parenting, pregnancy

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By Julie

Friday I took the kids to the doctor for their annual checkup. Alex was lucky because he didn't have to get any shots, but Ana had to get a TB test in order to register for preschool in the fall. The doctor also offered to give her the three boosters that she'll need for kindergarten, but seeing as she was already starting to look agitated during the vision test, I figured I'd do all of us a favor and skip those shots until next year. When the nurse came in with the TB test in a gigantic syringe, Ana started crying, and having to hold her down while the nurse pricked her arm broke my heart.

Saturday passed in a haze as I worked from home. Still, it beat having to travel. Even though I was completely occupied all day, I was grateful to be able to hear the kids playing in the other room and kiss them good night.


Today, after Alex got a much needed haircut and we got some groceries, we took the kids to the store to let them pick out toys using the gift cards they got for their birthdays. While Kevin and Alex headed over to the video game section, I accompanied Ana to the toy section. I was curious to see what her interests were these days. As the younger sibling, so often she ends up playing whatever her big brother wants to play. I was very hands-off as she wandered through the aisles aimlessly, stopping once in a while to point out a toy she already had or examine one she didn't have. Finally she picked 3 toys.

Her first pick was a gorgeous wooden box with 9 games that included chess, checkers, Chinese checkers, etc. I think this toy reflects Alex's influence. He's taken chess lessons for the past 3 years and talks about them all the time. She's probably curious to see what the fuss is about.


Her second pick was a medic kit with a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, thermometer, syringe, and bandage. I guess Friday's trip to the doctor's office was still on her mind. When we got home she had me play doctor for all of her stuffed animals. Most of them were healthy, but whenever one was sick and had to get a shot, she gave it lots of comforting.

Her third pick was a Mr. Potato Head set with three characters. It reminded her of a similar toy at daycare. She still has a ton of gift cards left, so Kevin will be taking her back to the store again in a couple of months when I'm home with the baby. I'm curious to see what she will choose then.

Labels: kids, parenting, toys

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By Julie

Like many kids, Alex used to assume that a baby comes out of a mother's belly button. Why kids think that, I don't know, but everytime he's brought it up, we've corrected him. "No, the baby comes out of the birth canal."

A couple of days ago the topic came up again. So I showed Alex a cross-section of a baby being pushed out of the birth canal in the book, What to Expect When You're Expecting. Then he asked something like, "But where does this happen???" That's when it finally dawned on me that Alex had no idea where the mysterious birth canal was located on the human body. So, I drew a picture.

First, I drew two buttocks as viewed from the side, one for the boy, and the other for the girl. This elicited some giggles, but it served a purpose: everybody knows where the buttocks are. Then on each figure I drew the stomach and thigh. Again, for triangulation purposes.

The next part was tricky. As I drew a p*nis on the boy, I did so as matter-of-factly as possible. Ana continued giggling, but Alex just grinned a little with no other reaction, so I continued. I drew a dot to show where the uretha was on the girl to show that hey, look! They both have the parts for peeing and pooing!

And then, on the girl I drew a small line between the urethra and the buttocks. I pointed to the line and explained, that's where the birth canal is. As I watched him furrow his brow in concentration, I said, only girls have this part, that's why boys can't have babies.

I went on talking about what's going to happen in a month and a half when baby#3 comes. I described what contractions felt like, and when Alex expressed concern over my welfare, I assured him that the doctor will give me medicine so I don't hurt too much. I also described the process of pushing the baby out as being similar to having a bowel movement, which made him guffaw, and the need for the mother to rest lots so she'll have enough energy to push, because otherwise the doctor will have to do surgery to get the baby out. This last statement made him nod solemnly.

At that point, it looked like the conversation was coming to an end, so I asked Alex if he had any other questions. He looked down at my diagram once again and said, "The boy's butt is bigger than the girl's butt."

While Ana laughed uproariously at her brother's outburst, I erased the girl's butt and made it a little bigger. Then Ana took the picture and started drawing little lumps of poo beside each figure. Meanwhile, Alex left the room to start up a video game.

I think it went well...

Labels: kids, parenting, pregnancy

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By Julie

At age 4 Ana is all but completely potty trained. She wears her big girl underwear proudly and goes to the bathroom without prompting. Most mornings her Pull-Ups are completely dry, but she needs a little extra encouragement to get to 100 percent, so we're introducing a game we first created back when Alex was her age.

Here are the rules: every morning Ana wakes up, if her Pull-Ups are dry, she can put a sticker on her calendar for that day. Every time she reaches 5 stickers, we draw a circle around the 5th sticker, and she can pick a prize out of a bucket of wrapped toys.

Over the weekend Kevin and Alex went shopping for toys to be prizes. I wrapped them all individually and printed blank calendar pages, which were then pinned to the wall in the kids' room. When we explained the game to Ana, she was so excited she could hardly contain herself. She already has 2 stickers because her Pull-Ups were dry both yesterday and today. Now all she needs to do is stay dry for 3 more days and she gets to pick a prize.

The other things I'm hoping to teach her with this game are to be more self aware ("If I want to be dry in the morning, I'd better go pee before bed."), to motivate herself ("Look! I only have one more sticker to go before I get another prize!"), and to get her into the habit of looking at a calendar regularly.

That last goal sounds almost silly compared to the other two, but frankly I think it's just as important in the long run. Calendaring is the first step to learning how to manage one's time, and to be totally honest, it's something neither Kevin nor I learned until college. I figure I'm giving my kids a huge advantage in life by having them start doing this at age 4.

Curiously, Ana asked if Alex would get to play the game too. I explained that he played this game when he was 4 (it's the reason he's got so many Thomas the Tank Engine train cars) and now he's moved on to the allowance game. It's similar to the potty training game in that there's a certain number of days involved, and if he's a good kid for that number of days, he gets his allowance. We started him on this game at age 5, right after he graduated from the potty training game. If all goes well, Ana will start the allowance game at 5 as well.

Labels: kids, parenting

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By Julie

Even though Alex gets his school picture taken in October and we receive his portraits only a couple of months later, every year it takes forever for the class portrait to get delivered. This year we finally got it on Friday. I've been pondering it curiously ever since. There are 17 kids shown. Alex says there are actually 19 kids in his class, one having enrolled later in the year, so I think the last one must have missed picture day.

The racial breakdown of the class is hard to miss. Kevin chuckled over the fact that there's only one obviously white kid in Alex's entire class. Counting Alex and a few other mixed kids, I guess you can say there are 3.0 white kids in the class. The rest are about 1/3 Hispanic and 2/3 Asian or Pacific Islander. This year there are no black kids in his class.

What I noticed though was the gender breakdown. It's about 50/50 male-female, and as I learned back in January, if you invite all your 2nd grade classmates to your birthday party, you can safely assume no one of the opposite sex will show up. Even though Alex sometimes mentions the girls in his class when he recounts his day, for the most part he plays only with the boys. At age 7 or 8 these kids are already self segregating by gender.

The reason this is on my mind is because they're only 6 months away from becoming 3rd graders. That was the age I found out many of my classmates already knew about the birds and the bees. Here's how it happened: I asked my mom for a box to take to school to turn into a mailbox for my Valentine's Day cards, and when I took the empty tampon box she gave me, several of the kids laughed and made interesting gestures. Despite both knowing very little English and nothing about sex until that point, I quickly figured out what they were talking about.

Kevin thinks there must have been an extraordinarily large number of younger siblings in my 3rd grade class as the only reason he first heard about sex at about the same time was because of his same-aged cousin who had an 11-year-old brother. Either way, time is of the essence. We've got an 8-year-old son whose closest friends all have older siblings, and we want to take advantage of the fact that he's still willing to talk to us about anything, including stories about stuff the girls at school keep doing that have way more subtext than he realizes.

Back when I was a kid I would have loved a book about sex, love, and relationships as I knew no adult was going to tell me anything worth knowing, and fortunately there are plenty of kid-friendly books on these topics now. But frankly, now that I'm a parent, I think it's going to take more than a book to do this right.

For starters, Kevin is wondering whether he should stop skipping over certain parts of the Piers Anthony book he's been reading to Alex at bedtime, stuff like his eyes lingered on her alluring curves -- excuse me while I giggle madly... okay, I'm done -- because including them might draw out questions from Alex. Hmmm.

In other news, I discovered to my great annoyance that someone has stolen our code and posted it on this website: http://senibudaya.blogspot.com. From clues in the source code I'm guessing it's a guy, and he seems to have done it sometime ago as the stolen code resembles Juvin.com circa 2005. So I sent the following message to Blogger, hoping they would contact the user:

Subj: Blogspot user stole our content

The blogger at http://senibudaya.blogspot.com/ is hosting our content on his site without our permission. This includes the Flickr badge as well as other files referenced in his source code.

We have always had a clear copyright notice posted on our site http://juvin.com, i.e. (copyright symbol) 1998-2008. We have allowed individuals to republish our content twice in the past. This was not one of them.

We request that our content be taken off this site immediately.

Blogger replied with a very long and tedious message that began with

Hi there,

Thank you for your note. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the text of which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office website: http://lcWeb.loc.gov/copyright/ ) and other applicable intellectual property laws, which may include removing or disabling access to material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity.

To file a notice of infringement with us, you must provide a written communication (by fax or regular mail, not by email) that sets forth the items specified below. Please note that pursuant to that Act, you may be liable to the alleged infringer for damages (including costs and attorneys' fees) if you materially misrepresent that you own an item when you in fact do not. Indeed, in a recent case (please see
http://www.onlinepolicy.org/action/legpolicy/opg_v_diebold/ for more information), a company that sent an infringement notification seeking removal of online materials that were protected by the fair use doctrine was ordered to pay such costs and attorneys fees. The company agreed to pay over $100,000. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first contact an attorney.

So the burden of proof is on us, and if we can't adequately prove it, we might have to pay the loser attorney fees??? What the hell?!

Incidentally, the two people that I had allowed to use content off our website were both authors. One wrote a book on fortune cookies and cited my fortune cookies page (it's no longer up), and another was writing a college textbook about the Internet with a chapter about blogs. They even showed me how they were going to use the content so that I knew they were going to present it in a professional way.

I guess what bothers me other than the fact that this loser didn't bother asking for permission is that he's totally mangling our content by presenting it on that hideous page. It's as if he was trying to learn HTML and failing very badly. Someone get this guy an HTML for Dummies book, please!

Labels: books, kids, lusers, parenting

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By Julie

This weekend was Ana's birthday party. Friday night when we went to Costco to pick up her birthday cake, we stopped at a Taiwanese cafe called 三年２班 (Class 302) in Rowland Heights for dinner. It's an adorable little place decorated with school paraphernalia, down to the desks and chairs. One of the dishes we ordered even came in a stackable tin lunch box that I recognized from having spent some of my elementary school years in Taiwan. The food, though not the cheapest, was pretty good, but I didn't like sitting in those awkward wooden chairs. Maybe we can go back when I'm not so uncomfortably pregnant.


This year we rented facilities for both of the kids' birthdays because I got tired of worrying about it raining on their winter parties and because I'm too big and tired to host them at home. There are some downsides: the limited menus, the strict time limits, the restrictions on the number of guests, and related to that, the uncertainty over whether the people we do invite will come. I was utterly thrilled about the turnout at Ana's party though, especially when Peg brought Ashlyn and Summer!!! It's been ages since we've hung out with them, and I really appreciated them making the drive up from the OC.

Now we can relax until next year. With baby number 3 slated to show in late April, I wonder if we should have a joint birthday party at home for all three of them next spring, when the chance of rain is next to nil here in So Cal. We'll see...


Here's a picture of Kevin giving Daisy a bath. Being a straight haired dog, Daisy always looks pretty good even when she hasn't had a bath in *mumble mumble* months. What most people don't realize is how much basset hounds shed. Back in the day I used to be the main producer of the hairy tumbleweeds that we find around the house, but ever since Daisy joined the family, she's got me beat. We'd been wondering if she's been shedding even more due to lack of baths, but she proved that theory wrong. Immediately after her bath she shed enough hair to fill a Swiffer Cloth just by doing a few laps around the dining table.

So I'm now 31 weeks pregnant and +18 lbs. Only 9 weeks left, but it feels like an eternity. The bad: I've been sleeping very, very poorly. It's supposed to be normal during the 3rd trimester, but the last two times it didn't start this early. I'm also constantly congested, and my taste buds seem to have a mind of their own. Everything tastes off. The good: I've been keeping the horrid leg cramps at bay just by standing up regularly. Also, at my checkup last week I learned that my 3-hour glucose tolerance test came back negative. Hooray, I'm not diabetic!

Labels: chinese, food, kids, parenting, pets, pregnancy

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By Julie

I came out of that awful weekend 3 pounds lighter. It was the most painful way to lose 3 pounds I've ever experienced. I'm still coughing, and every so often I get a little dizzy and nauseous. But otherwise I'm okay (fingers crossed). As far as the pregnancy goes, I'm now +14 lbs. I hate all my clothes.

The last few evenings I've spent every spare minute lying on the couch, typing on my laptop, trying to help Alex with his science project. It was hard going because the typing made me dizzy. I'm glad to say it's finally done! There's a big foldout poster board with his research question, conclusion, and everything in between, as well as an awesome video. I can't share it here because it's got too much personal identification all over it, but if you want to come to the science fair tomorrow night, it's going to playing on a loop in front of his poster board.

I nagged Kevin more than usual the last few days because I thought as Mr. Science, he should have done more to help Alex on this project. As it were, I set up the experiments, wrote the script, designed the visual aids, and edited the video. All the boys had to do was follow my instructions. Finally it was a confession on my part that made Kevin realize why I thought he should have done more of the work: I've never done a science project before.

This blew Kevin's mind. He had always thought of his wife as Ms. Academia, and it simply never occurred to him that I would have missed out on such a basic staple of the typical American childhood. I didn't know what to tell him. I remember thinking as a kid that I would like to do a science fair project, but I didn't know how, and I didn't have anyone to help me. Over the years it became one of many things that made me feel like an academic fraud. But now that I've done my first science fair project, I can safely put some of those feelings of inadequacy behind me.

Labels: parenting, pregnancy

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By Julie

Last night I finished reading Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping, a chronological series of essays on consumer culture, globalization, and their environmental costs, coupled with the author's personal challenge of not buying anything beyond the necessities for an entire year. I didn't necessarily agree with everything she said in her analyses, but I found her personal journey inspirational. While archiving our blog entries from last year, I came across an entry in which I asked whether it was possible to live within a culture without totally buying into it. I feel like this book is helping me answer that question, at least for myself.


Monday I attended the first awards assembly of the year at Alex's school. This one was just for the Kindergarteners, 1st graders, and 2nd graders. Each teacher picked a handful of students from his/her class, and as the child went up, the teacher would explain which one of three reasons they were receiving the award: high academic achievement, most improvement, or good citizenship.

When Alex went up, his teacher said that she chose him for his award not only because he's a good student, but also because he's always helping classmates when they're working in the computer lab. I was really proud of him. (But I didn't cry!!!)

The assembly also included a presentation about the philanthropic project everyone at Alex's school is undertaking for the next few months -- collecting pennies to help a tiny school in Kenya build a library. I've always wondered about the six degrees aspects of these projects, and this time I wasn't left hanging. Apparently, the son of the school's founder works for our school district!

I appreciate these projects because while I agree parents should have primary responsibility for teaching their kids about morality, kids do spend an awful lot of time at school, and I like the tone they set for how the kids should behave towards each other. I also like the emphasis on pennies vs. checks with lots of zeros because it makes kids feel like no good deed is too small.


That night, Ana took on the herculean task of picking all of the pennies out of Kevin's change bucket. She managed to fill up that entire pickle jar with pennies! But I doubt that would be enough to buy a single book for this library, let alone dry wall and roofing material. I think we'll have to supplement with nickels.

Labels: books, kids, parenting

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By Julie

I'm having a rough week. Somehow I managed to mess up my back. Yesterday I was in so much pain I had to take the afternoon off. After an hour of sitting on the massage chair and a good night's sleep, I've almost recovered, but there's still a huge tender spot on my back. Kevin thinks it's a pulled muscle.


Tuesday was Alex's 8th birthday. The party with family and friends isn't for another week, but we did have a cake for him to make a wish on and a present for him to open. I had to work late, so I didn't get to have dinner with the birthday boy, but I did get home in time to hear all about his day, eat cake with him, and watch his eyes light up when he opened the present.



Wednesday was Alex's first piano lesson. Kevin reported that there are four other kids in his group lessons. Also, the teacher seems to be really good at keeping the kids interested.

I'm thrilled. Music isn't supposed to be punishment, and if Alex told me tomorrow that he'd really rather not take piano lessons, I'd say fine, let's stop and find something better to do. But so far he likes it.

I asked if he'd want to play a band instrument when he hits 4th grade, and he said yes, he'd like to play the drums. (Yay for my wallet! Drumsticks and drum pads are cheap, haha!)

In other news, I'm a Second Life tard. A couple of friends and I got interviewed for an article about SL for a campus magazine, and the photographer wanted to take a picture of us with our avatars. Before we could get shooting, someone asked why my avatar had sticks for arms. I swear, I have no idea how they got that skinny. After much effort I found the setting for fattening up my arms, and in the process I managed to enlarge my hands until they looked like "man hands." By then we had to get going, so I ended up taking pictures with my avatar as is. I must be the only person in SL with an avatar that's uglier than I am in real life. How brilliant is that?

Labels: kids, music, parenting

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By Julie

We finished putting together the last of our Christmas cards today. The one advantage in waiting so long is that we were able to include a family portrait taken in front of our own tree. Ana and I had sent Kevin and Alex off to Home Depot to get "the biggest, prettiest tree they've got," and they chose this gorgeous, 7 foot tall Noble fir. It makes the house smell nice.

Today, while the kids were playing in the living room, we took all the presents into our bedroom and wrapped them there, leaving a few unlabeled, from "Santa." Believing in the chubby bearded guy was Kevin's tradition growing up, not mine, but the kids hear about Santa from school, daycare, and pop culture, and I don't see any harm in it, so we're preserving the tradition as long as the kids keep believing.

So all the prep work is done. The ingredients for our holiday meal are in the kitchen, waiting to be cooked. What's left to do but to start planning for Alex and Ana's birthday parties in January and February? Today I called up a party place and made a reservation for Alex's party. Apparently everybody else too busy with Christmas to think about January birthday parties, because I got my number one choice of date and time, yay!

Tomorrow's our last day at work before a week-long holiday. If you don't hear from us, it's because we'll be eating lots, sleeping late, hanging out with the kids, working just a teensy bit from home, and buying up all the good deals at the after-Christmas sales. See you in the new year!

Labels: kids, parenting, shopping

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By Julie

I must really be in nesting mode. I got an email offer for a new hotel in Vegas that has not one but three LCD TVs in every suite plus a host of other amenities, and my only reaction was, so what? Right now I can think of many other things to do with $200 than to blow it on one night at a luxury hotel. Like open a college savings account for baby number 3.

Today Kevin and I went to the bank and maxed out the contributions for Alex and Ana's college savings accounts for the year. If we max out our contributions every year, which we've been doing since both kids were infants, by the time they hit age 18, we'll have contributed 6-digits towards their college education.

It sounds more impressive than it really is. Seeing how college costs keep rising, that could very well be just one year's tuition. I do take solace in the fact that at least we're saving something though.

The other thing I've been doing is taking fish oil capsules and eating tuna regularly. Eating fish during pregnancy is supposed to help with the baby's brain development. You can always go to college on student loans, but you can't go without a brain.

Labels: parenting, pregnancy

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By Julie

You know that moment in a sci-fi/fantasy movie when the hero/ine grabs their head, crashes to their knees, and experiences a cgi-induced vision that implies they are either 1) psychic, 2) being controlled by unseen forces, or 3) more powerful than they could ever imagine? I had one of those visions on Thursday, except all it told me was that I was 4) suffering from a bad sinus infection. I immediately popped an extra-strength Tylenol, then picked up the phone and scheduled a doctor's appointment for early this morning.

I took Ana along to my appointment because I didn't have time to drop her off at daycare beforehand. In the middle of my appointment, while I was discussing with the PA which antibiotic would best take care of my little problem, Ana calmly informed me that she needed to go to the bathroom. If you know kids, you know that meant I had about 10 seconds to get her on a toilet or else suffer the consequences. As I picked Ana up and ran for the nearest bathroom, the PA called after me and said she would send a prescription for my antibiotic of choice to my pharmacy. I yelled thanks back over my shoulder.

These days Ana's favorite toy is a magnifying glass. She likes to use it to look up my nose. I'm just glad she doesn't use it to torture ants.

Tonight, while Kevin and I discussed our evil plans to take over the world, aka the finances, I told him that on Monday, as I got on the plane for my meeting in San Jose, I suddenly remembered that we still hadn't signed me up for life insurance.

Where's the form? I asked, you were supposed to help me get that done.

It's somewhere around here, he motioned vaguely. Then he told the kids to get ready for their bedtime story.

Months and months of forced conversations, changes in topic, and now missing forms. It was just as hard when we signed him up for life insurance. Neither of us wants to think about the possibility, but I'm not going to be able to avoid plane rides for the rest of my life.

Labels: kids, meds, parenting, pregnancy, toys

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By Julie

I don't know what possessed me to even consider buying clothes during this time of body limbo, but so far this pregnancy I've bought four blouses, a pair of ankle boots, and this dress. I find the collar irresistible. The fit is flattering too, and it isn't even from the maternity section.

I'm at 18 and a half weeks, far enough along for an ultrasound to determine the sex of the baby, so that's what we did today. The kids came along for the show. We all had a good time seeing the baby during the examination, but we couldn't tell if Alex and Ana were getting a brother or sister until the doctor started tilting me this way and that way to make the baby move. Finally we were able to catch a glimpse between the little legs and learn that we're having a GIRL.

I was unprepared for the flood of emotions that hit me as we left the exam room. You would think that this being baby number three, I'd be an old hand at this mothering business, but all the insecurities that I felt when I found out I was pregnant with Ana came rushing back to be revisited. What it all comes down to is this: can I be the role model that this baby needs? Because even if her personality ends up being nothing like mine, she's still going to look to me for clues on how to behave as her same gender parent. I guess after almost four years of mothering a daughter I still don't have it all figured out yet.

Labels: nablopomo, parenting, pregnancy, shopping

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By Kevin

Earlier today I read this paper called "Growing up in a Material World: Age Differences in Materialism in Children and Adolescents" by Deborah Roedder John and Lan Nguyen Chaplin which I found rather provocative (synopsis at physorg.com). I could easily imagine there being an inverse correlation between materialism and self-esteem in adolescents and the authors demonstrated that nicely. What was even more interesting to me was the second study they performed which showed that when individual kids of various ages got a self-esteem boost in a peer-group setting their scores on a materialism test were quite a lot lower than the control group. In the most materialistic and lowest self-esteem age bracket, 12-13 years, the kids that were given an esteem boost had one-third the materialism score of the others.

As a parent of kids getting inexorably closer to this age, this is of great interest to me because I'm concerned with the rampant materialism/consumerism kids are experiencing today. While I can't make other kids say nice things about my kids I can, at least for now, try to ensure that they spend more time with their nicer, more supportive friends. As I told Julie when I sent her the link, we can definitely play a part in deciding who gets invited over to play!

Lately I've been trying to figure out how Julie comes up with so many ideas for conversation and her various blogs. It's the conversation thing, mainly - she's never without something interesting (and deep of course, anyone can gossip about the day's news) to talk about and I'm absolutely jealous. Today I read The Top 20 Ways to Come Up With Amazing Ideas and I started to see a pattern. Read a lot, listen, examine your life, question everything, the list has a whole lot of suggestions that describe my wife perfectly. I began to see exactly how her personality and habits make her such a great conversation starter. There does seem to be some hope for me though. As the article notes, "coming up with ideas is a skill [that becomes] easier with practice."

*I was able to read the entire study thanks to my uni's library. I'd link to the actual study but the University of Chicago Press doesn't see fit to provide even a brief synopsis before login so there's not much point.

Labels: nablopomo, parenting

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By Julie

Is age 3 too young to experience unrequited love? Today Ana burst into tears because Daisy refused to come when called. She sobbed uncontrollably into my shoulder until I made her laugh, I don't even remember how, just one of those things that desperate parents do when they see their child unhappy.

Later Ana played with Daisy while I kept watch, occasionally glaring at the dog, daring her to break Ana's heart again, not that Daisy would even notice my glaring as something out of the ordinary. She already sees me as The Enforcer and tries to stay out of my way, except when I'm cooking. Then she can't help herself but come sniffing around my ankles, looking hopeful.

Other than making Ana cry, Daisy's second day home was uneventful. Kevin took her out for a couple of short walks, and she seems to be reacting well to them. If you've watched The Dog Whisperer or read any of Cesar's books you'd know that taking your dog for regular walks is his prescription for just about everything. During the morning walk Kevin was accompanied by Ana. During the evening walk he was accompanied by Alex, who took along a golf club at my insistence. Alex got a big kick out of that.

Today I did five loads of laundry. At one point I asked Kevin to hang up the stuff that needed to be line dried, and I went back inside to put away some clothes. I found a stray hanger and asked Ana to take it to Kevin.

Ana: Daddy, I have something for you!

Kevin: Oh yeah? What is it?

Ana: (holding up hanger) It's a hooker!

I also cooked a ton of chicken today, with enough garlic to drive away vampires from the entire neighborhood. This family is NOT getting sick this winter.

Labels: books, food, kids, nablopomo, parenting, pets

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By Julie

One of Alex's good friends at school told him about this online game called Pokemon Crater, and now he's hooked on it. They've swapped user names but haven't friended each other yet. I'm sure that's soon to follow.

This is not the first online game Alex has played. There were at least two others before this. It didn't take him long to learn to ignore those flashing banners that pretend to look like video games or say things like, "You have won a _insert video game system here_ !"

Meanwhile, Ana hasn't outgrown our educational CD-ROM collection yet, but she's gotten hooked on a math game site that Alex's teacher introduced to us. No obnoxious banners there, thankfully. She likes to click around randomly and insists on playing 3rd grade level -- she probably thinks the number 3 stands for age 3 -- and I only said yes after she promised not to badger us for help. Her computer doesn't even have Internet access, so she has to switch off with Alex. It's probably best that way at least until we're certain she can ignore flashing banners. I wonder when that will be.

You have to see this adorable short film by Mud Films. It made my day.

Labels: kids, nablopomo, parenting, toys

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By Julie

Today I got one of the limpest, clammiest handshakes ever from a fellow whose reputation had preceded him, and not in a good way. He could have redeemed himself quite a bit in my eyes by giving me a decent handshake, but no, he couldn't even manage that. It's the kind of handshake that reminds me why I married a real man.

See, aside from warm and firm handshakes, another characteristic I admire about real men is they don't hesitate when asked to go to the store to buy pregnancy tests or Maxi-Pads for their significant others. But even I have to admit that among things that I've asked Kevin to get from the store for me, this most recent trip to Target really took the cake. Because Ana had kept her Pull-Ups dry for weeks, I had promised her that she could have new big girl undies, and the guilt of not having made good on my promise was eating at me.

So, yes, I asked Kevin to go to Target to buy underwear for Ana, and the man came through with flying colors. Ana was THRILLED beyond words with her new Hasbro Littlest Pet Shop undies that Daddy picked out for her. She liked the Hello Kitty undies almost as much. Daddy got mucho kisses from the wife and the big girl that evening.

By the way, I updated our front page:

Labels: nablopomo, parenting

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By Kevin

Tonight I learned that the boy has been discarding the sandwich I lovingly pack in his sack lunch. Julie attempted to console me. "I'm sorry hon, it's hard work making those lunches every day." I reassured her that I was fine and that I think it's hard work eating the same thing for lunch every day. I remember what it was like eating the same ham sandwich and red delicious (Why the Red Delicious No Longer Is) apple every single school day for years. For whatever reason, as a kid it made complete sense to me that there was no point in trying to change the contents of my lunch. Eventually I stopped eating at school altogether and had lunch when I got home around 3:30. "No," I told her, "this is just one of many conversations I'll have with him about his lunch. He's really excited about trying a Zone bar tomorrow."

These days I alternate between wanting to try new restaurants or recipes and wanting the same thing over and over. Nobody could be happier than me that Julie has gone into nesting mode with a vengeance. She has been making the most amazing food every weekend in quantities that increase every time. Her beef with daikon soup has surpassed both miso and spicy beef tendon noodle to rest securely at the top of my personal pantheon of soups. I can't get enough of her Taiwanese sausage fried rice. I'm not the only one. Tonight after karate the boy was ravenous and was nearly giddy with delight when he got to feast on mama's fried rice when he got home. Sometimes we get so busy that there's no time to reflect on how outsourced our diet has become. Losing touch with the way food connects a family is a big loss for our emotional well-being.

Labels: food, nablopomo, parenting

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By Julie

Within a few years after Alex was born, I found a great coping mechanism that every parent should develop: I ceased to care what anybody had to say about my parenting decisions with the exception of three people -- my husband, Alex's teacher, and Alex's after school care provider.

Why I would listen to my husband is obvious. He's Alex's dad; of course his opinions are important. The other two people spend more time with Alex than anybody else during the week, including us, and they are most likely to notice things about him that we don't notice.

To me, time is of the essence. I think that adequately explains why no one else made the cut. As for why I think other parents should follow my lead, it's because there is no way to win the parenting game, so you might as well make up your own rules. If you still doubt me, consider this question: should kids take music lessons? How about participating in team sports? What about volunteering for good causes?

If you're anything like me, your head is reeling at this point, wondering what's up with all this over-scheduling and what ever happened to good ol' daydreaming. Yet there are many kids who successfully participate in two or three sports AND take music lessons AND participate in Boy Scouts AND turn out perfectly well adjusted. As their parents would say, the proof is in the pudding.

See, there's no cattier conversation than one between two people with differing parenting philosophies. You just don't want to go there.

Despite my very personal decision not to participate in the parenting game, I've nevertheless found myself on the receiving end of a lot of unwanted cattiness, like the one about which school is better, or the one about piano lessons, or how about the one about Chinese school? Sometimes I get it from people who don't even have kids. It would make no sense for childless people to have opinions about parenting except that they were kids at some point, so one would suppose they're entitled to have their opinions. Still, I resent it when they foist it on me. Last year when I missed a meeting and explained that I was attending an awards ceremony where Alex was receiving the Academic Excellence Award for his class, one childless person snidely commented, "Does that even mean anything in first grade?" In response, I smiled and said, "I don't know."

Labels: chinese, nablopomo, parenting

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By Julie

My current pet peeve is people ranting about retention vs. social promotion in U.S. public schools when they don't even understand the basic underlying issues. There aren't any simple answers, and I wish people would stop acting like there are.

Other than that, I greatly enjoyed my three-day weekend. (Happy Veterans' Day!) Yesterday a couple of Kevin's friends from work came over to hang out. The one who brought his Xbox 360 is now Alex's new best friend.

Today I didn't get out of bed until 10:30. After a leisurely brunch Kevin went to paint our bedroom. I tried to be productive as well. At first I tried to concentrate on a presentation for work tomorrow but after two fruitless hours I gave up and turned my attention to the kitchen, where I spent over four hours cooking enough food to last us all week, starting with dinner tonight.

The awesome thing is both kids ate without complaining about my cooking. It put me in such a good mood that after dinner I went straight back to my presentation and finished it. Yay.

Here's what I cooked: beef and daikon soup (using the slow cooker instead of the stove), potatoes au gratin, Taiwanese sausage fried rice, and chili relleno casserole. I haven't cooked regularly for years and now I've cooked every weekend four weeks straight. Must be something in the air.

Labels: food, home improvement, nablopomo, parenting, toys

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By Kevin

Nobel Laureate and economist Joseph Stiglitz writes about the economic consequences of this administration from a historical perspective. Oil and gold are at their highest prices in decades and the dollar is plummeting. Over two million adjustable rate mortgages are due to reset this year and next. What this country badly needs is a reining in of personal and governmental spending, even though it will almost certainly result in a recession. I hope our next president has the intelligence and the will to do what is needed.

"SimCity is entertainment that's unintentionally educational" says Steve Seabolt of EA Games. EA donated the original SimCity game to the One Laptop Per Child initiative which aims to provide inexpensive laptops to children worldwide. I'm glad more people are getting it - having fun is the best way for kids to learn. I learned basic boolean logic and circuit design when I was nine or ten playing Rocky's Boots on an Apple ][. The author of that software has links to emulators and disk images on his site. I'm downloading Rocky and the sequel, Robot Odyssey for Alex and Ana to play.

Labels: nablopomo, parenting, politics, toys

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By Kevin

I spent about an hour yesterday cutting a mat and framing an enlargement I had printed for my office wall. I am always on the lookout for new ways to make my work environment more pleasant. so when I read Ugly Productivity: 5 Steps to a Distraction-Free Workspace over at Zen Habits today I was horrified. The premise is that the more beautiful your office is, the less time you will spend working and the more time you will spend contemplating the beauty you've surrounded yourself with. "A gorgeous workspace with a view invites longing glances at a sun-drenched lawn, a lingering visual tour across the spines of our book collection, and excessive fiddling with the trinkets and toys co-habiting our desk." Yeah, that's got me written all over it. Sigh.

Tonight I took Alex to Boys' Night Out at his school. It's an annual fund raiser event (along with Girls' Night Out) that gives the boys an opportunity to drag their parents to school for pizza and some educational lectures/experiences. The subjects this year were robots and rockets and the room was packed. Packed beyond overflowing, beyond any hope of finding seating, and very nearly beyond their ability to feed us. The robotics experts were faculty and students from the CS program I attended at the local uni and they brought lots of fun toys. The space exploration history expert was very entertaining and kept the kids captivated as well. Through it all though, I was thinking that they got forty or fifty primary school boys to show up for an evening science symposium and wondering how the same program will play tomorrow with the girls.

Labels: art, nablopomo, parenting

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By Julie

The other day I had a several hours long conversation with an amazing woman that I've admired for some time now. If things go well we'll be working on a project together and this will be only the first of many awesome conversations. Anyway, among other things, we talked about how we raise our daughters, a topic near and dear to my heart.

She began with how long it took for her to convince her daughters that they were good in math -- YEARS!! -- because for whatever reason, getting A's wasn't good enough for them. I shared an interesting talk that I'd recently attended by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the concept of Flow, during which he said that even gifted youth don't study the STEM disciplines* in college unless they experience Flow in these areas during high school. This rang true in what she said about her daughters along with my own experiences, because Csikszentmihalyi also said that girls tend to get stuck on feeling anxious (i.e. getting A's) instead of enjoying the learning experience.

(Boys, on the other hand, are in danger of feeling apathetic, which is the exact opposite of Flow. Ask me nicely and I'll draw the whole spectrum of experiences leading up to Flow for you.)

Somehow we segued into how much more fun it is to buy clothes for little girls compared to little boys and the associated guilt in Being Girly.

I think a lot of educated women experience this guilt, but it begins much earlier, way back when we were the smart girls in school. The dumb girls were the ones spending hours on their hair and makeup while smart girls were not supposed to waste time on such frivolous activities. Many parents encourage this, of course, because they'd rather their daughters keep their noses in their books instead of going out with boys and getting pregnant. (I know that was a leap for some of you, but bear with me, some of them really think this way.) So it's quite a shock for the smart girls when they hit their 20s and 30s to learn that not only is it normal for girls (smart or dumb) to Be Girly, but it's EXPECTED, because their parents want grandkids, dammit. (Yes, another leap, but there you go.)

Talk about mixed messages. I hope to do much better than that by my little girl. For one, I feel absolutely no guilt about how much I spend on skin care products or on some of my more girly hobbies. I think that's a start.

In other news, reading French Women Don't Get Fat has inspired me to cook again. Tonight I made potatoes au gratin (a strangely fattening dish to cook after reading a diet book? not if you've read the book!) and Mexican chicken stew. Dinner reminded me why I had pretty much stopped cooking a few years ago. It was hell trying to get Ana to eat anything, and even the usually agreeable Alex ate only half of what was on his plate. I know it's supposed to take multiple exposures to get kids used to a new dish, but damn if it isn't disheartening to sweat over the stove for two hours only to have to do battle with your kids afterwards. At least Kevin liked the food. Ah well, more potatoes for the grownups, I guess.

Meanwhile, thanks to the potatoes or whatever I'm eating, I've gained the first pound of this pregnancy. I'm definitely showing now, need to unpack the maternity clothes soon. Also, I forgot to mention last week that I felt the baby moving, and so did Kevin. It was awesome.

(Sending happy thoughts to my sis. Maybe they think it's twins?)

*Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. If you work in higher edu you probably already know this is a Really Big Problem for the U.S. It will definitely hit everybody else between the eyes in a few years.

Labels: nablopomo, parenting, pregnancy

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By Julie

Night before Halloween Kevin and I exhausted ourselves in preparation. Around 10 Kevin started carving the pumpkins with his dremel in hopes of speeding up the process. Meanwhile, Alex wanted to wear the same costume that my mom made for him last year, but the belt had become too tight, so I laboriously sewed a replacement belt that would have taken anyone else 5 minutes, maybe less, but being the brilliant seamstress that I am, it took me two hours. We finished our labors around midnight.

The next day, Alex proudly wore his costume to school, and that night we decorated the front steps with the carved jack o' lanterns. A parent's love knows no boundaries.

Getting Ana ready was much simpler. We let her decorate her own mini pumpkin with markers, and she wore the Belle dress I'd bought for her quite prematurely when she was a year old. It's still about two or three inches too long. When Kevin took them out trick-or-treating she had to hitch it up to avoid tripping. It should last another year or five.

For about a month now we've been besieged by crickets. They keep coming inside the house and scaring the kids. For the love of Jiminy or maybe Cri-Kee from Mulan, we keep scooping them up and putting them outside instead of just squashing them. Have any of you also been experiencing an excess of crickets lately?

Labels: kids, nablopomo, parenting

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