Author: omaha

I am Serenity and Sophia's daddy.

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advice and tips

If I could treat everyone like Hope community (family)

Did not get much sleep last night, as I had to go to airport to pick up my in-laws at 2 am. This morning, after drop off my daughter and I was trying to change lane to get to Panera Bread, the car behind me was not happy, and honked. I honked in revenge. Not good. Later on at Panera I gave up better nice to a few older people as good well gesture.

This evening when I was picking up my daughter, I waved at the car waited for me in parking lot. My wife asked “do you know the person?” I replied I don’t. But it’s good to behave good in Hope community, because I feel we are like a family. But outside Hope, my feeling was different 🙂

Categories
advice and tips

My thoughts and prayer on today’s event

(Update 01-23-13) This morning I talked to my daughter school director about this.  He is older and wiser (like my uncle). We talked various topics from teaching kids to the new town incident, and yesterday’s incident. His thought was some people will do anything for fame (name recognition). I agree. The best way is probably just ignore those people, while get prepared by ourselves. Pray a bit for us and for them. Don’t lose cool.

(Original 01-22-13) It was quite eventual day today, as the place I worked has some protest, and at one point, the fire alarm went off (turned out to be false alarm, trigged by the saw cutting the chain of protesters). To be honest, I had a lot emotions today, from the initial surprise, to excitement (as some protesters doing some singing and chanting downstairs), to angry (why did they invade my work place, and disrupt my work, my co-workers and all the other tenants’ work), to more angry as I saw pregnant woman also had to came out in this cold due to false alarm. By the way, she took it better than me as she joked she could use the ambulance on the site if she delivers. I talked to my wife and one of my daughter’s teacher about this (as I was picking up Serenity after work).

Now as I read a bit more on protesters’ background, and our daughter Serenity goes to bed, I do the normal prayer, I think forgiving is the right approach. I was very much blessed with my parents, my siblings and my relatives, friends, teachers, co-workers in my upbringing, from growing up in a rural village in Ningbo (Zhejiang, southeast China), attending Zhenhai Middle School (a top high school in Zhejiang province and in China), doing the farm work while in summer, and seeing the rapid opening and development of China (esp. costal) in 1980s and 1990s. I also was very fortunate attending Huazhong University of Science and Technology, a leading engineering school in China, then University of Missouri at Rolla (a leading engineering school here). Again the people I met in both places are just amazing.

Continue reading “My thoughts and prayer on today’s event”
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Uncategorized

Who is doing the dishes at school: lessons learned from teachers :-)

I (actually we both my wife and myself) learned quite a bit from our daughters’ teachers. A few months ago Serenity does not like to leave when we picked her up in the late afternoon. I recall one evening we were the last car to leave the parking lot 🙁

One evening, she said she wants to get a drink (water). Thought it’s a benign request, I took her back to classroom. She used 3 cups, obviously did not finish them all. I did not thought too much that day (evening) as eventually she leaves with me. Another evening, she’s doing the same in the classroom, and would not leave. Luckily the teacher was there, and talked to her about “just use one cup”, at that time I realized who is doing the dishes, not my mom, not me, not my wife, it’s our teachers 🙂

We should teach our child to be respectful of others. Another example is in the restaurant, initially I did not what to say when my daughter makes large noise, after a while I came up with this answer: we are here as guests, we should be respectful of other guests (not making noises). This is better than “don’t do that”. From negative to positive.

Categories
fun

18 rules on iPhone

From a Massachusetts mother to her 13 old son.

NPR Talk of the Nation has a discussion on this today.

Very much applicable to myself (though not a teenager).

So in summary, no TV, limited iPhone, happy parenting 🙂

Categories
fun

Funny things about Yoyo

Hair cut

Mommy just cut Yoyo’s hair.

Mommy: wo yao kan kan wo de cheng guo. In english: I would like to see my fruits (results).

Yoyo: cheng guo ke yi chi ma? (Can I eat the results 🙂

Reading

Also, these days she just likes to be teacher, “reading” books to us. Sometimes she insists we sit on the carpet (that’s how it’s done ins her school).

Laptop

Seeing both my wife and myself are using laptop on bed, she got her VTech laptop and laughed at us 🙂

Categories
fun

Let Serenity Surrender with Dignity

Same applies to Ruixian (my wife). Note for Ruixian I need to respect her authority as well (sometimes she lost patience when discipline our daughter).

Saw this from Saturday’s Kindermusik class, Serenity was a bit hyper that day (due to chocolate lollipop?). When the teacher asked the kids to put the sand blocks back, Serenity did not follow the instructions (she usually does follow instructions well). So the teacher asked “Serenity, could you put the sand blocks back”? Youyou hesitated for a few seconds, and walked toward the teacher. I was a bit relieved.

Another fun story from the Montessori teacher, on Friday, when the teacher read a story about a truck got stuck, Serenity suggested unload some of the lumbers, which surprised the teachers a bit (in a good way). That morning was also her first dental appointment, her routine was a bit off, and she played with food (run around) when they set up for the lunch. Of course she was disciplined. Serenity was a bit shocked (as I speculated) because she thought that teacher was the “nicer” one (more easy going).

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Uncategorized

Simplify, simplify, simplify

Our daughter has been a bit fussy lately in school (daycare/toddler program). In talking to the teacher, we agreed “too late to go to bed” is probably one reason. So we started to adjust our schedule, trying to put her to bed at around 8:30 to 9 PM. In the past, it could be 10 or 10:30 PM, due to my wife’s evening work load and my laziness. A lot of times I was just doing net surfing while our daughter was watching Netflix, or play her own toys (books).

I gave it more thought after reading our teacher’s article on the TV thing (see Hope Academy toddler home page, titled “How TV watching harms young children”). One comment kinda resonate with me is why the baby diaper needs to have some sort of cartoon figure on it. We are increasingly living in a commercial, multi-tasking, run-run-run type of society, sometimes without our own noticing. This of course has effect on young kids, and on us. From my personal perspective, I had an iPhone 4 from 2 years ago, and I have been addicted to facebook, twitter, and other apps since. I decided to unload a few apps (CNBC, LinkedIn and facebook) after re-reading the TV watching article. Let’s see how it goes.

Categories
kids

The most important thing in parenting

is the “not give up” attitude. I learned a few things from Dave’s yearly breakfast seminar, last year was Dave talking about the Montessori “explore” approach, this year was about digital media by Dr. Sucre (a parent of Hope Montessori student). The topic is related to the “no TV watching” as shown in the Hope Infant Toddler web page (written by my daughter’s teacher). To be honest I have not read all the materials and have not followed all these good advice strictly, but I was trying my best for the most part 🙂

This reminds me of couple things: I remember Woody Allen once said 80% of the work is to show up. I also recall the CIO of the company I work for recently said: show the customers you care (IT is very customer focused in my company).

Yesterday in the parenting work day, our daughter started crying for some reason, which is a big embarrassment for my wife, she has a thin skin by the way. They wanted to go home. So we started driving while I was hoping they can change their mind. On a red light we saw a friend’s car, I know they are coming to the event as their son is in the same class as my daughter. So I tried to drive back. Things turn out ok eventually.

 

Categories
fun

Montessori Dad

My daughter has been to the Montessori Toddler program (Hope Academy in Creve Coeur) for over a year, and I think I am becoming a Montessori dad. This is a bit abstract, but I like to list a few examples about the school and teachers, and show why they are great.

This is the first US pre-school I have first hand experience. I never went to pre-school when I was young, I was raised primarily by my grandmas. There was an old saying “it takes a village to raise a child”. Hope Montessori was pretty much organized this way. We increasingly live in a consumerism society, but that I mean we run around for work and material things, and lose family time and equally important, quite time for reflection and time with friends. Hope has a few interesting activities each semester to bring kids, teachers and parents together. In the fall there is the parent work day. Today is the second parent work day we attended, while I had to admit I didn’t contribute much building the wooden slide. Our daughter did have fun painting the climber. Last year we helped out in the kitchen.

There are 4 fields trips each year: farm field trip in fall, magic house in winter, botanical garden in spring, and a state park trip in summer. Dave (the director) always makes sure the food are good in those field trips. Now when I think about it, the activity fits the season very well 🙂

Now a few words about the teachers. The most important thing is they love/care the kids very much. I am 100% sure my baby is in good hands when I drop her off in the morning. We also learned some parenting lessons from the teachers, tell the truth (be honest) to the kids, encourage her use the words, and recently, how to deal the emotion problem with the kid. One interesting thing is the teacher told my daughter we all have moms and we all miss mom (when my daughter cries for mom during nap time). Kinda cute, isn’t it?

Categories
fun

Some thoughts on work, election, and faith

I changed my job this Jan. I started working for a coal company as mobile app developer. Coal and mobile app (iPhone, iPad) do usually go together in the same sentence, I think. As coal is described as “dirty” in the media, especially by the environmentalists, the “green” people both in and outside government (think Al Gore, president Obama and his EPA commissioner Lisa Jackson). On the other hand, Apple the forerunner of smartphone, tablet revolution is famous for its environment friendly too, just recently they announced initiatives to replace coal powered datacenter by natural gas (they are like tube and box like, think those as natural gas modules). Those are developed by Silicon Valley based start-ups.

Back to topic, for me the rationale of working for coal company goes like this. I am a pragmatist (a pragmatic programmer 🙂 Coal is not the cleanest energy source and not renewable source. But before this year, Coal made up more than 40% if the US power generation (this year the number dropped to lower 30s). So, if one person really wants to make a stand on the issue (instead of just talking like the former vice president does, he got a huge mansion and uses a lot of electricity), the person can simple use 1/3 less of the electricity. That means, uses less light, AC, heat,…in her/his daily life. I am trying to be energy conscious on my life but won’t go as far as cut 1/3 of usage. At the same time, working for a coal company (5 minutes commute time), will help me be a part of the solution (less gasoline for commute for sure). I will be a stake holder in coal mining, as I recently learned, coal mining uses a lot of energy too (diesels, electricity etc.)

I have worked for my new employer for about 9 months, and so far I like what I see. Most recently I went on 2 mines, and met some down-to-earth miners. Since I went to Rolla (the former Missouri School of Mines, miner), now I became a real miner.

Presidential election will play a part in the coal industry too, as the current administration is very coal-unfriendly. I think green (renewable) energy is fine, but the traditional energy source (oil, gas, coal) got to be a part of the solution.

Last but not least, I have 2 scene kinda imprinted in my mind during the mine visit: when I eat the lunch comfortably in the office, I recall the miners eat their lunch in the tunnel. The devotion during lunch time from a few surface miners. In the HQ we sometimes lost touch of the toughness of the front line work. Now I do. At the same time, the company continues to do good things around the community, in all the locations. Here in HQ, we have the united way campaign. In a sense, we are all in one community.