Archive for » 2013 «

Dec

Christmas had come and gone. I hope you enjoyed the holiday as much as we did.

As I look forward to the big New Year’s celebration, it didn’t seemed right to not write a blog to pay tribute to my favorite time of the year.

So, here is a picture blog of our Christmas merry making…

On Christmas Eve, we feverishly ate, ate, and ate…

Cheese Tray

Home made Veg Tray

Kids tray

Surf & Turf Christmas Eve dinner

After dinner, the kids got busy with making cookies for Santa just before we left to go to church for the Christmas Eve service.

Home made cookies for Santa!

Christmas Eve service at our church

We got home well past midnight, and got cookies and milk for Santa.

Cookies are baked!

Then promptly went to bed, so Santa could tip toe into our home.

Slient night

The next day, the kids tore open their many, many gifts, and spent hours test driving their new toys.

New rolling toys to ride on

Then we got right back into the business of feasting.

Fondue and Tri-tip

Oh, did I say that Christmas had come and GONE?! Silly me. That would be incorrect. Because there are twelve days of Christmas!!

On the second day of Christmas, we visited Christmas in the Park, in downtown San Jose. This is a family tradition of ours. We liked going there to watch professional Christmas decorations and eat the best Churros from our favorite event vendor there.

Annual Christmas in the Park tradition

On the fifth day of Christmas, we went to the beach.

Monterey Bay

I know much of the rest of the country made front page news with their subzero temperatures and unforgiving winter storms that knocked out power for its residents during Christmas, but here in California, we are enjoying beautiful sunny weather. The temperature in Monterey Bay were in the 70’s.

Beautiful sunny day on Dec 29th by the sea

Monterey Coastline

We unleashed our kids and let them skate away on their new skate boards all along the glorious Monterey Bay Coastline. Lots of people had the same idea.

Skating along a coastal path

Sea bird dining on fresh sashimi (he caught a whole fish!)

Kids on top of sea cliff

Monterey Bay was popular with tourists and locals that day. We found this sandy beach packed with people, some were braving the cold water without wetsuits, swimming and boogie boarding.

Beach day in December!

Enjoy the rest of your Christmas, and Happy 2014 to all of you.

Category: Parents One Comment

Dec

Cousin Itt

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Last Saturday was my children’s music school’s Christmas recital, which is their biggest recital of the year.

The kids had spent several months practicing their recital pieces to perfection. I even purchased beautiful dresses for them for the occasion.

As soon as we sat down, I saw from the program guide that my two kids happened to be the last two piano performers.

I have a confession to make here…I was a terrible audience.

As the other young musicians (who undoubtedly worked very hard on them) performed their pieces, I was obsessively fussing over my camera.

I busied away with my camera settings, changing the aperture, iso setting, zoomed in and out, and I used the other performers as models to frame my shots and snapped test shots.

My head grew excited with the prospect of gorgeous pictures of my children playing on a grand piano up on a beautifully decorated stage.

Finally!! My kids’ turn.

I snapped,

Recital photo

and snapped,

No face!!

and snapped,

still no face...

Arrgh….!!!

NO....

This is where I failed to evolve smarter than an orangutan. All that hair, I got no face!! But I kept snapping, and snapping, and snapping….. I WAS MAD.

Cousin Itt playing piano

Category: Humor, Parents Leave a Comment

Dec

This Is Being Helpful…

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I have been crazy busy these past few days. So, when I saw my 13-year-old coming down the stairs with a small load of laundry, I made a rare request.

“Hey, do you think you can do my laundry too? With your load?” me.

“Sure.” 13-year-old, and promptly walked back upstairs to gather my laundry basket.

I started to have my 13-year-old do her own laundry just about a year ago, and that has worked out splendidly well. This is the first time I sought her help with mine.

Late Sunday night, I finally walked back upstairs for some well-deserved rest, and saw this theatrical display of our clothes in front of my bedroom.

The laundry

When I provided laundry service to the family, the clean clothes were always nicely hung in their closets or neatly put away in their drawers.

What’s up with teenage brains?! And she only chose to wash 5 shirts out of our basket!! I actually had a good laugh out of this.

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The Time Has Come…

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Nov

Anything for Extra Credit!!!

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“Mom, I need to cook you guys something.” 13-year-old announced to me out of the blue.

“That sounds good…..but why?” me.

“My Life Skills teacher told us that for extra credit, we can cook something for our families over Thanksgiving break.” 13-year-old.

“Great. You can cook the turkey.” me.

“No!” the kid laughed, “I have to cook one of the recipes we got from class.”

After reviewing all our options, we decided on garlic bread.

“All you have to do is to wait to be served, eat, and grade me on the grading paper my Life Skills teacher gave me.” 13-year-old.

Extra credit cooking grading sheet

But before I got back down to the couch, I was handed a piece of paper, with a short list of ingredients, and was immediately dispatched to the grocery story to fetch a sourdough bread, Parmesan cheese, and garlic salt.

Oh well, it is for extra credit, and we are suckers for extra credit. I went off to this unexpected shopping trip thinking happy thoughts.

When I returned, my 13-year-old took the ingredients, and ordered me out of the kitchen. Apparently, this extra credit was strictly against parental interference. I watched my young teen dropped the sourdough bread on the cutting board, and hacked at the sourdough bread, sending little pieces of bread crumbs flying in all directions.

Next, she took the butter out of our refrigerator. The butter was ice cold and unspreadable. So, the butter was butchered into ugly lumpy pieces, and roughly laid on the bread.

Then, she sprinkled garlic salt and Parmesan cheese to the bread, and put it in the oven to broil until it turned brown.

When the oven dinged, the entire kitchen and family room were filled with the delicious smell of garlic and hot butter.

The butter and the cheese had melted beautifully, leaving no evidence that they had previously looked hideous.

The garlic bread was served with a deliberate big smile, and presented with the kind of sophistication atypical with garlic bread.

The Garlic Bread presentation

As the rest of the family admired the unusual presentation, and savored the taste, the 13-year-old scrubbed the entire kitchen clean!

Kid scrubbing the kitchen clean, down to the sink!

Mrs S., THANK YOU for this brilliant idea!

All this took about 30 – 45 minutes and the kid was exhausted. That’s when I decided to read the grading sheet. At the top, I noticed something extremely depressing.

EXTRA CREDIT RECIPE
Each recipe worth 2 extra credit points

Two Points?!!

…All that work, for two extra credit points!! This poor child is still wanting to make two other recipes. Somebody need to teach this kid a thing or two about “bang for your buck.”

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Nov

Lunch is not for profit

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“Do you have lunch money today?” I asked casually as I drove my 13-year-old to school this morning.

“…Give me a twenty.” the kid held out an open hand.

“Do you still have lunch money left?” me.

“You said that you will give me $20 a week.” 13-year-old.

Fishy….the kid is not answering my question.

“I could give you $20, but I noticed that you are eating very cheaply these days.” me.

“I still want my $20 a week!” the young teen demanded.

“Yesterday you had flatbread and some grapes…is that like a dollar fifty?” me.

“$2.25!! But that was more than what I usually spend.” kid. My 13-year-old is rather honest.

“Just look into your bag, and tell me how much money you have?” me.

Kid reached into her school bag, and counted her money.

“Thirteen dollars.” kid.

“Ha, ha, ha, that’s plenty money to buy yourself lunch for the rest of the week. Come to me when you run out of lunch money.” me.

“No! I purposely eat cheap to save my lunch money. So I can buy stuff.” 13-year-old stuck out her open hand further into my face.

School lunch tray

I pushed her hand aside.

“The lunch money is meant for you to eat a healthy and balanced lunch. You can not make money from your lunch money. Your lunch is a non-profit!” I lay down this necessary new rule.

“Oh.” kid.

Many hours later…

After school I asked her, “So what did you eat for lunch today?”

“Pizza, fries, cookie, beef jerky, apple, water, yogurt.” kid.

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Category: Humor, Kids 2 Comments

Oct

When You Do Business with Kids…

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“Mom! Can you buy one hundred items this year?” the baby asked with an unusual amount of excitement and anticipation.

Eying the familiar Christmas catalog, I shoot back, “Don’t be crazy! I can’t use 100 rolls of Christmas wrapping paper.”

Every year around this time, my kids come home from school with their holiday shopping catalogs, and approach me as if I am an ATM for their schools’ fall fund-raising events.

I do participate in these events every year, but I just buy a few items. This year was different. The baby had an all purposeful self-imposed goal of selling 100 items.

“Look!” the baby pointed to the award sheet, “If I can sell 100 items, I will win a portable refrigerator!!”

Fundraising catalog featuring SUPER prizes

“Cool.” 13-year-old, “We WANT a portable refrigerator!!”

The kids have long fantasized about owning a portable refrigerator. They think if they have their own refrigerator, they will be able to declare their independence on me.

“I will take your catalog to my school, and sell it to all my friends.” 13-year-old.

Good riddance! I am tired of buying Christmas wrapping paper and Christmas cookies from their catalog every year. I am happy that they are planning to find new customers.

A week went by, the 13-year-old sold a whopping 6 items. I refused the baby’s request to buy 94 more items.

Since our PTA required one check payment for all the items sold, I wrote the check for the total payment due, and told my 13 year-old to turn in all the cash payments to me.

I was dismayed to receive all the cash in the form of a messy stack of wrinkly one dollar bills, and a plastic bag of heavy quarters. (They also short changed me a dollar and fifty. I wasn’t disappointed. I feared worse.)

Dollar bills and coins payment

When you do business with kids, you get paid with piggy bank money.

The baby won 6 fake mustaches for selling 6 items.

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Category: Humor, Kids 2 Comments

Oct

Will, the family taboo

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“So happy! We can have two lunches and two dinners together!! We must eat breakfast on Monday morning before you leave.” Dad.

Dad sounded thrilled as he measured my impending weekend visit with meals. His favorite hobby is eating.

I flew into Burbank airport last weekend. As promised, I was immediately whisked away, and driven to a restaurant in Monterey Park. Monterey Park better resembles a small city in China rather than an American city nested in the greater Los Angeles area.

Dad recruited family to join our lunch. At the table, there sat my 98 year-old grandmother, my parents, my uncle, two aunts, and Will.

Whenever I see my youngest aunt, I see my cousin Will. Whenever I sit down for a meal with Will, there will be roast duck or roast chicken, or both.

Cousin Will is in his early thirties, with a slightly stocky medium stature. He is blessed with a pair of enviable deep dimples, which makes his smiles quite handsome. Will smiles often.

If you sit down to chat with Will, you will first take note of Will’s strange accent, then rightly diagnose Will’s limited mental capacity.

Will was just two years old when he immigrated to America with his parents, along with my family.

Will’s father was a tyrant, and uncommonly foolish. He feared that his 2-year-old son wouldn’t master English with all of us Chinese speakers living under one roof. He forbid my aunt speaking to Will in Chinese, and only spoke to the young boy using English, HIS English. Will’s father spoke horrific English.

Poor Will never recovered from his father’s English. He speaks with a peculiar accent mixed in with odd speech patterns.

Will’s Chinese is even worse. He seems to understand the language, but speaks it with obvious difficulty, in broken and childish sentences. His Chinese accent is as if God had assigned him a Chinese face by mistake.

I am very fond of Will.

I can easily recall Will as a young boy. Our extended family had all lived together when we first arrived in America. He was a bright and happy child, full of energy and mischief.

Will, the smiling little boy looking at the camera. I am holding a baby.

I don’t think Will was born mentally challenged. I held a strong suspicion that Will’s retardation was the fault of his abusive father’s powerful hands.

Some cultures permit physical discipline against a child. But the practice of spanking typically lands on the buttocks. Will’s father’s thick hands landed on the back of his head frequently, with unchecked force.

I never shared this opinion with any of the family elders. The subject of Will’s condition is taboo among the family. No one talks about Will’s inability to meet life’s rudimentary mile stones, or how he be gotten such a limiting existence. The family was silenced then, and persisted in its silence today.

Dishes began to arrive at our lunch table. When big plates of duck and chicken arrived at our table, those who knew better will immediately steer clear of the lazy Susan. Will will spin the lazy Susan with dangerous speed, and stop abruptly to settle the duck or chicken in front of him. He will proceed to grab the pieces of meat with both bare hands, and devour them like a starved caveman.

I have only known Will to eat duck and chicken at Chinese restaurants. When my aunt and I tried to coax him into eating some vegetables, he shook his head violently.

As the meal winded down, the family traded in feverish eating for leisurely paced eating and friendly chats.

Just as we chatted happily, Will pushed a hand up in the air, and announced, “Can we get the check? I am done eating. I want to go home now.”

My father looked at him, and teased, “You want the check?Are you paying?”

Will’s face broke into a big smile, his dimples on full display, and sheepishly shook his head

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Mother’s Day Madness

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Oct

A New Experience

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I was really mad with a bottle of ice tea!

For the past two days, I attacked at it like a frantic baboon…it refused to open.

I first took it to a local park with me to watch my kids’ volleyball practice. But instead of sipping tea and enjoying the games, I kept twisting at it with all my might, until my fingers were raw and pink. The cursed cap won’t budge. I grew ever more pissed off (and thirsty) during the volleyball practice.

Last night, just when I opened the fridge to start making dinner, I saw that bottle of ice tea sitting there, and wanted to drink it.

Stubborn fool!! (The bottle, not me.) My fingers turned raw and pink again. I shook my hand to ease the pain.

Then I remembered that I have this special lid opener tool.

Lid Opener

My husband had brought it for me about a year ago to compensate for my weak arms. At the time, I had chided him when he presented it to me. “I don’t need this! I know how to open bottles!” I had said defensively to him.

Well, last evening, I searched desperately for it, opening this and that drawer. I found it.

I strapped the belt on the cap, pulled to tighten it, and twisted the handle. Epic fail.

The cap is too small for the tool. The belt couldn’t fit around the cap tight enough to do the job.

Aaahhh… I stomped my foot and punched the air around my kitchen.

My unsympathetic 10-year-old giggled from the family room, and said, “You still can’t open it, huh.”

Then my 13-year-old just walked into the kitchen to raid the fridge. She took note of the two of us, and said, “What’s happening?”

“She still can’t open that bottle! It has been two days.” 10-year-old laughing.

The 13-year-old closed the fridge door, took the bottle, twisted it OPEN, put it down, said, “Here you go.”

10-year-old exploded into an obnoxious laughter. But I wasn’t laughing. I was in a state of shock.

Opened!

How did this happen? I was the one who always twisted the bottles open for them.

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Category: Kids, Parents One Comment

Sep

Give Me My “A” Back!!!

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A couple of weeks ago, my 10-year-old came home from school visibility upset. The baby got a “B” on a math test.

Since she was already feeling the punch of the “B”, there was no need for me to scream bloody murder and raise more hell. I laid low.

Despite my calmness, my baby suffered a long time under all that gloom. She sheepishly told me that she didn’t deserve this “B”.

I examined the test paper, and said, “It looks like a B to me.”

Last Thursday, my husband and I attended our school’s Back To School night. After the classroom presentation, we went to introduce ourselves to the baby’s teacher. Mrs. D is new to our school this year.

“Oh, so you are the parents. Let me tell you something that just happened yesterday.” Mrs. D said cheerfully.

“Your daughter seemed awfully quiet.” Mrs. D started.

Yes, my 10-year-old is a child of a few words. Unlike my 13-year-old, who can blabber until I grew a headache, my 10-year-old is not doing her fair share of talking. I often worry about the baby being too silent.

Mrs. D continued, “Yesterday, at the end of the school. I noticed her lingering, and she waited until all the kids left the room, then approached my desk.”

I listened intently, nodding and smiling.

“She stood in front of me, with a piece of paper in her hands. So, we looked at each other, then I asked her, ‘do you need something?’” Mrs. D.

“She said, ‘Yes. I got a “B” on this math test. But I got a “A” on the REAL test. I want my “A” back.’” Mrs. D.

Mrs. D broke into a laughter, “So, I asked her, ‘how do you know that you got an “A” on that test?’”

“And she said, ‘because you went over all the answers on that test, then you recycled them.’” Mrs. D.

A couple of weeks ago, the class took a math test. Mrs. D quickly discovered that the kids did very poorly on this test. Out of the kindness of her heart, Mrs. D went over the test answers, offered the kids a new make-up test, and tossed the REAL tests into the recycle bin.

Except not all the kids needed that make-up test. My baby had aced the REAL test.

I was incredibly happy walking out of the school that evening. I sometimes worried about my 10-year-old. If she is too quiet and unable to fend for herself. That night, I felt a sense of relief, that when it comes to things that mattered to her, when push comes to shove, she will shove the “B” back, and demand the “A”.

P.S. Mrs. D and the baby made some kind of deal together with that math test.

Category: Kids Leave a Comment

Sep

Fear No More!

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Everybody suffers from irrational fear, right? I have two of them.

I am deathly afraid of falling off of a blackened rocky cliff, and into a boiling river of hot lava. Seriously. I think I was traumatized by one of the Indiana Jones movies when I was a teen.

I attribute my other irrational fear to a totally random and insignificant chat I had with a co-worker just after college. We had lunch one day, and I discovered that she does not eat chicken.

I felt bad for her, since everything is known to taste like chicken.

She then proceeded to volunteer to me that she and a brother were raised by their single mother. One day, her brother came home from school and declared that he will no longer eat red meat. Since she never ate chicken, their poor mother can only cook fish. She grew so sick of fish!

I could no longer remember her name or what she looked like, but the conversation stuck. Over the years, I grew this deep fear that one or both of my children will return home from school one day a vegetarian! Worse, they will become one of those self righteous vegetarians, who will sit on imaginary high horses, looking down on other people whose diet include animal meat. My head allowed this fear to advance until I will no longer be allowed to eat meat. FREAKING NIGHTMARE! Right?!

I think I could put one of my fears to rest. Last Sunday, we went out to dinner. And this is what my 13-year-old drew on the kids menu:

I love you Future Bacon

Category: Humor, Kids, Parents Leave a Comment

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