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 🙂
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
Two impressions:
1) It’s not easy to get the coal, both underground (long wall), and surface (excavator, loader, truck). The geological condition (thinner seam) is making the job more difficult. One scene remains in my mind is miners eating lunch in the tunnel, while I was eating lunch in the office.
2) Commercial air travel is changed. No more spare capacity, and if affected by weather, the delay and cancellation will make travel less pleasant. We (travelers) are commodity anyway.
This evening I was talking to my daughter: mommy and daddy will get older, will you help/support (in Chinese, it’s Yang, same words as raise kids in English) mommy and daddy. Because that word “yang” has same sound as “yang” for “itchy”, she started tickle me. But on a more serious note, she did say she will “wei” (feed) us 🙂
I was involved into a car accident in the past weekend. We are all fine, so as the other party. The main thing is both cars got some damage. It’s funny when I drove the broken car on the road, I got quite a few “look back” from other drivers. And yesterday, at McDonald parking lot, the lady who looks after the parking lot, said “what happened to your car”. Not to mention, our daughter Serenity volunteered to repair the car.
Last but not least, my wife insisted I declare “Minjie is the one who got involved in the accident” 🙂
Fun aside, we are truly blessed we were not hurt.
Have not done this for a while. I have changed job again, and in the new year started a developer position very close to home, doing mobile (iOS, iPhone, iPad) development. I love what I am doing now, because I got opportunity to create an app from back end (database, web service) to front end (iOS UI, local database). At the same time, I have set up the source code control system (SVN), and web server (MS IIS).
My wife started as purchase assistant job at a local manufacturing company, the main task is communicate with Chinese suppliers, involves both Chinese language and mechanical engineering. As I was ME major, I got opportunity to talk to my wife about some of her tasks. Back to ME.
Baby is still a very important part of our life. She grew quite a bit, in terms of language (both Chinese and English), and other skills. We think the Hope Montessori Toddler program (Creve Coeur) helped quite a bit. It helped her be more confident as a person.
In my spare time, I still pay attention to the stock market, US politics, and last but not least, volunteer (serve) in Church. I have a change of heart on politics: in the past I think the government should take care of at least two things: health care and education. Now I think the family and individual should take more responsibility. Also I felt some of the welfare program is not necessarily good for the recipients in the long term. As I read from the news one welfare recipient (woman) is alleged helping her husband kill another person (lady) in Maine. On the tax, it seems local tax is always rising as time goes, and the federal deficit cannot sustain if we don’t raise the overall rate for all the tax payers. The buffett rule (have the rich pay a little more) is just a cup of water on the fire.
Last but not least, we bought a new car (Camry, our first), I like the blue booth audio very much, besides its signature smoothness.
More later…