Live and learn

Just read something like this in a magazine: a child who is constantly making negative comments is not necessarily unhappy, he/she may be a deep thinker who is taking a highly analytical approach to understand the world around him/her.

I have to say that I am quite far from achieving this Zen-like state of mind.

Learning about money is hard (not just for kids)

Recently David is getting very good with counting and some simple math. We thought that this may be a good indication that he is ready to learn about handling money and started giving him allowance last month. The little dude has been watching his sisters buying their own toys for quite some time now and is quick to grasp the idea. Not surprisingly, he requested to spend some money to buy his recent favorites: Matchbox cars.

I thought that this is a perfectly reasonable request and the $1/toy price tag works great for our purpose of teaching him money management. So I took the kids to the store last night and allowed him to find some cars that he wants to buy with his own allowance. As expected, the pile quickly grew to more than what he can afford so I suggested him to pick maybe 3 cars that he likes the best. He happily accepted my suggestion and made the decision. What surprised me was that, as we were on the way to check out, Alyssa pulled me aside and asked if she can buy a car for David with her money, "because I want to make him happy".

Understandably, I was thrilled to hear about that. After learning to manage her allowance for about 2.5 years now (we started back in July 2007), she has a pretty good idea about what this is about. She learned to spend money to make herself happy (certainly not as easy as it sounds), save up so that she can make bigger purchases, delay her decision to buy something so that she would be less likely to regret about it, and resist the urge to buy something just because her sister is doing that. Without a doubt, all these are pretty important lessons to learn. However, figuring out that money is a tool that can influence not only oneself but also others around you apparently is another big step.

So we went back to the toy aisle again and I got the second surprise. Alyssa didn't just get one, she ended up getting three cars for David, "because I think he will like all these".

My dilemma with these pleasant surprises is how to reward her decision for positive reinforcement in an appropriate way (still have no good answer after thinking about it for a day). After we got home, Ann and I both praised her and told her that we are very proud of her decision. However, I tried not to make too big a deal out it because I don't want to make her feel like she need to do this to gain our approval. Also I have to resist the urge of compensating her in material (money or other things), otherwise it will teach her the wrong lesson. Although I have to say that the temptation of doing so is quite strong for an overjoyed father.

Walking the fine line of financial education is indeed a tough business. It's not just the kids, the parents have a lot to learn along the way too.

Alyssa's TV contract

There is one thing that we really like about Alyssa's school: they teach kids how to manage their time in a very effective way. At the beginning of every week, each kid will get a contract that lists everything they need to learn for the week. The kids get to decided when and how to get the jobs done before the end of the week. Being an impatient kid, Alyssa always managed to finish her contract early, sometime as early as Tuesday, so she can arrange the rest of the week how ever she want.

We thought that this is a very good system and encouraged Alyssa to do this at home as well. So when she comes home, she makes up her own to-do list, sometimes for the evening and sometimes for an entire weekend. Because this is not school, we let her have complete control about what she wants to put on the list and how soon she want to finish the things. Usually she just put down things such as doing workbooks, practice violin, and other things like that. So I was quite surprised when she used the reason "I have this on my contract" to ask for some TV time this evening. Ann and I had a good laugh. Guess we still need to teach her the difference between to-do list and wish list.

Happy Father's Day to myself, part 7

I am still kind of shocked that I have been in this tough business for so long (even more so for surviving it). It certainly didn't get any easier with time, in fact, it has gotten harder and harder over the past seven years. But I guess I should "enjoy" it while I can, considering that a guy at the post office just reminded us this yesterday: "Your kids are really cute! Too bad that they are going to turn into teenagers some day".

Anyway, I had a very enjoyable Sunday. Kids were behaving pretty well the whole day, even made me some nice cards and crafts. I spend a fun and eye-opening afternoon visiting the Total Wine, which turned out to be a crazy super-doper-big store; I mean, holy moley! How can someone pick a bottle out of that store without going nuts is totally incomprehensible to me. Knowing my recently developed interest in wine, Ann got me a very nice set of wine accessories; I look forward to putting them to use soon. After the kids went to bed, Ann also told me a surprising secret. The kids consulted her several days ago about getting me a fountain pen for the Father's Day, because "We think that's daddy's favorite thing". They then decided not to get one because they figured a nice one is way beyond what they can afford on their allowance.

I was deeply moved. My daughters know me so well and have the thought and full intent to make me happy. I am so happy and don't even know how to express that.

Chess tournament and parenting thoughts

I took Alyssa to her second chess tournament this afternoon. Despite the fact that she didn't win any game this time (first two were a tie and she lost the last one), we had a great time going out together. She enjoy the games and the chance to play with her classmates outside of the school, and I simply enjoy being with her.



I can't exactly describe what I experienced today, but somehow I got a deep feeling of pride watching her. It seems like a blink of eye, and she is almost full grown. I always have some self-doubts about whether I have been doing a good job as a father. Seeing that all three of them turn out to be such great kids seems like a perfect verdict for our success. More importantly, by being close with them, I feel that I somehow made up the regret of having a distant relationship with my dad.

Good parenting advise

From Miss Cellania (where else?):

Enjoy your kids, but remember that your job is to make yourself unnecessary to them eventually.

The beginning of the end

This may sound strange, but the first item on my winter break to-do list is to potty train David. Hopefully we'll wrap this up before I return to work next year, then we can say goodbye to diapers.

Bacteria genome and breast feeding

Unlike my earlier post, the two things in the title are actually quite tightly linked.

Read a paper about the genome sequence of Bifidobacterium longum infantis. Basically this is a bacterial species that dominates the gastrointestinal tract of breast-fed infants. By cracking the genome sequence, the scientists found that it has a whole battery of genes for utilizing human milk oligosaccharides that lack a nutritive value to human infants. In other words, this little critter is specialized in growing on breast milk (oh boy do the infants consume a lot of that, just ask my wife, a proud mother of 3 breast-fed babies) and thus out-compete other potentially harmful bacteria in infants' gut, all the while without taking up the nutrients that infants need.

Very cool science story about human-bacteria co-evolution indeed.

Being a proud dad

Alyssa had her first parent's conference at the new school today. I used to go to all these in her old school (while Ann takes care of the kids) and thought it might be interesting for Ann to go this time. It ended up to be a very good choice. The teachers couldn't say enough good things about Alyssa and the praises are basically off the chart. This made a quite a pleasant day for Ann, being the first time to hear someone talks about her kid like that and all. I'm really happy to hear her excited voice after the meeting.

I always know from my heart that all the sacrifices we made for the kids are totally worth it, but I guess it still feels great to see some solid evidences. What made me really happy is that Alyssa doesn't just do well in the academic stuffs (like I did) but she excel in every aspects of her school life and genuinely enjoying the process of learning new things and making friends all the time.

The 2-year old masters of life

On my brother's blog, he describes his 2-year old son as a "master of life". The reason? "He always speaks of his mind and acts by his words", and thus, truthful.

Reading this got me to think, what about my kids? David, who is also 2 , certainly always does that; Vivian, who is 4 now, almost always; Alyssa, who is 6 now, certainly has a higher level of "sophistication". For example, when she wants something that she expects us to say no, she always manage to send her sister or brother to make the request. That way, she does not get rejected if we say no, or if it was a lucky day, she gets a free ride.

It really makes me wonder, what exactly was involved in the process of learning all these intricacies (or the loss of innocence if you will)? It is truly amazing that kids can learn complex social interactions at such an early age.

Life is not fair

I got upset this evening when I heard Alyssa complained that "I am sad because daddy and mommy get to watch a lot of TV after we go to bed and we don't". I was so mad that I can't even tuck her into bed like what I do every day. Is this what we get for spending all our time and attention on our kids? Should I just do whatever I want whenever I want (and let them do the same) so my first-born would think that life is fair?

Of course life isn't fair, it never was and will never be.

David's thesaurus

We were watching the "Sound of Music" this evening. At the end of the "So Long, Farewell" song when Gretl pretends to fall asleep and Liesl comes down to carry her upstairs, David get really excited and stood up to shout "Her Alyssa picked her up!". We all laughed about this newest entry into David's thesaurus.

The other one he likes to use is to call all dogs "Nina". A good sample sentence from him would be "Our neighbor's Nina is barking at our Nina".

It's so cute to see kids exploring the magic of languages.

The long and hard lesson of allowance management

After almost a year of having fun with their own money, the two girls seemed to be getting the hang of it. This has been a long (and hard at times) lessons for everyone. But looking back we are really happy about putting in the effort to help them learn one of the most important things in life. I think that in a way Ann and I are both re-learning the lessons ourselves. Watching the girls to go from having no clue about what was going on, discovering the power of money, having to deal with the anxiety of spending (or not spending), to finally sort of be being able to enjoy managing money with some planning is indeed quite inspiring.

Handyman in training

Following Alyssa's footsteps, David becomes very interested in helping me with fixing various things in the house. Maybe it has something to do with being a boy, he is not satisfied with just watching me (as Alyssa does), he is always eager to get his hands on my tools and "help" in some way. In sharp contrast to Alyssa and David, Vivian does not show much interest to these sort of things. She is content with simply being with us, often just sit there, singing some cute little songs to entertain herself (and me), and looks super sweet all the time.

It is funny that each of out kids turned out to be so different, yet so similar at the same time.

Verbs and nouns

I read an interesting article today about the difference between Asian and Western-way of teaching children language. Several studies have found that Asian moms use more verbs while English-speaking moms use more nouns. This subtle difference leads to some interesting differences later in their children's life.

I discussed this with Ann and we both came to the same conclusion. We use a mix of Mandarin and English at home when talking to our kids, and indeed mostly we use Mandarin for verbs and English for nouns. Hopefully our kids can get the best of both worlds this way.

However, I do have one gripe about these studies. How come they only look at moms? Don't dads talk to their kids too?

Fun time with Barbie

Growing up without a sister, my two daughters really opened my eyes to a whole new world that I didn't know before. That said, I NEVER thought that this sort of things can happen to me.

This afternoon, while the two girls are busy with their games, David got the whole Barbie set from Vivian's room and insisted that I play with him. So there I was, sitting in my daughter's room and playing Barbie with my son. It's a REALLY strange experience for me.

Well, maybe I can blackmail David about this when he goes to high school.

Great songs

Maybe I am enjoying my kids too much, today I almost cried when I heard the song "希望" that 李宗盛 wrote for his 3 daughters. I couldn't agree more about the part that kids give us the strength to move on. It is very very rare to find a pop song that's so moving.

Another great example is the song "Tears in Heaven" by Eric Clapton, but that one is too sad and I can't bear to listen to it.

Kids as ourselves

Sometime ago I started to have this feeling that Alyssa is more like me and Vivian is more like Ann. These feelings often makes me unconsciously see the kids as myself or Ann and affect my interactions with them. Maybe it is not "fair" to treat them differently because my feelings like these. But come to think of it, is it really possible to be "fair"?

They are different individuals, have different personalities, and are of different ages. All the factors make it impossible to deal with them in exactly the same way. Maybe the "fairness" can be measured in how much I love them, but the problem is that I simply love them in different ways and it is impossible to measure love. My mom always likes to say how she is being "fair" about my brother and I. Now that I am a father of three I don't think that makes much sense.

When I go to pick up Vivian at school, I often have the feeling that I'm going to take Ann out for a date and I have this unexplainable happiness and excitement. In contrast, when Alyssa is back from school and eager to show me what she has learned I share her pride as if I have learned something great myself. I am more aware of these projections of image now but I still can't stop doing that (not that I wanted to). Anyway, I think this is kind of interesting. I don't have a strong feeling like these about David yet, it'll be interesting to find out what he'll be like when he grows up. Right now he's just a very happy boy that is capable of being silly at a very young age.

The hunt for new watches

It has been a week since Vivian started her school. So far she seemed to be adapting very well. She really enjoyed learning all the new things at school (and enjoy the snack time too).

We decided to get both girls a watch so that they can learn a better concept of time and know what to expect at school. They both have an analog type that we got for them last year but that's still difficult for Vivian. So this time we decided to get them a digital one. To my surprise, this task turned out to be much more complicated than we expected. We want to find something that's not too expensive, not too big, not too fancy, does not have princess or other cartoon characters on it. I thought these are not unreasonable criteria but finding something that's acceptable to all of us turned out to be tricky. Alyssa is old enough now that she wants to have the Dora or princess one and Vivian just followed her sister's lead. Ann and I couldn't tolerate those toy-like things because they are so ugly (to us) and probably will stop working soon. We both feel like buying things like that is a waste of money, even though those cartoon watches are really cheap compared to the ones we liked better. Anyway I think this is a good lesson for kids to learn and I am very glad that Alyssa and Vivian happily accepted our explanations of why we want them to choose from the ones that we picked out from the shelf.

Rich kids part 2.5

Five days after Alyssa made her decision, Vivian, our little zoo keeper, decided to get a duck with her allowance this month.



Now that's a new species added to the collection.