stlplace

Category: advice and tips

  • I failed persuade Yoyo go to Gymnastics class

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    And I regret it now, because she appears have a lot energy after getting home. But at pre-school when I picked her up, she was complaining about “lip hurts” (probably due to cold weather, and low moisture indoors), and “fear of doing high beam”. No matter what I offer (snack, chocolate), she was not motivated, and cried while asking for “go home”. I can understand both factors, and I feel the high beam is probably a more important factor, but I chickened out eventually. It’s also one of the coldest day this winter (minus 10 c). And I feel a lack of energy myself, so I “let it slide” (borrowing Steve Job’s word).

    But I quickly regret it as I saw she is full of energy after getting home, esp. when doing the Skype with grand parents and her aunt/cousin back home.

  • Prepare for shipping of Nexus 4 phone

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    I sold it much quickly than I thought (sold right after I posted on Amazon on Nov. 18, 2013), and I did back up photos using 3 approaches.

    1) Dropbox;

    2) Back up to PC using the backup utility on the Phone;

    3) Google+

    After using google+ backup on my Nexus 4 for a while, I liked it and decided to give it a try on my iPhone and iPad. I enabled the auto backup feature. There is a limit for each account, I believe. An interesting thing I found out about google+ in the new year, is it creates a slideshow (about one minute) using the photos in google+, for me it’s mostly about my daughter’s activities. This reminds me of Facebook year in review feature (kind like year book). One thing keep in mind is the privacy, if you decide to share it, the default setting it share to public, so use your judgement when you share.

  • Two good articles on touch screen generation

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    Atlantic

    CS monitor

    My take:
    My daughter is 3 and half years old. My wife had iPhone (3g) before she was born, and I bought iPhone 4 when she was 6 months old. Then comes the iPad (1), and currently I have an iPad mini, and my wife has iPad 4. I spent about $30 buying apps for my daughter (mostly Toca Woca and Sigo Mini; also raywenderlich WildFable; and I see Ewe, I Hear Ewe). I felt the latter is better suitable for toddlers, while the former ones are more like games (which I have some reservations).

    My observations on iPad app and screen time: my daughter also watches Netflix kids TV/Youtube for about half an hour a day. We tried pretty hard to make sure she did not watch too much TV before she was two (again, this is mostly from hearing her teachers’ advice; and from reading the articles about TV’s effect on growing children).

    My thoughts:
    1) Moderation, moderation, moderation. It’s not easy. I know, we all have been there. Grabbing iPad/iPhone from crying toddlers. “5 more minutes”. But we need to be firm. Otherwise the 5 more minutes will means 15 more minutes. And the flood gates started here. I found out, if I’m consistent, and if the child is tired of the silly game/TV, and if we can provide a better alternative (reading books, something more fun), she gives up iPad quickly.

    2) Engagement, engagement, engagement. When she was very young (probably around 2), sometimes we let her watch the “Curious George” on Netflix, together with parents. And she will have a lot of questions. In that sense, watching TV is not purely passive, and that’s a good thing. Same can be said of reading/listening the wild fable, and the I see Ewe/I hear Ewe.

  • Travel in Shanghai

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    I visited China with my family a few weeks ago. Shanghai is the flight stop where we arrive and depart.

    We stayed at the Courtyard Xujiahui, and Four Points by Sheraton at Pudong during our short stay in Shanghai, a few weeks ago. As I have family and esp. little kid nowadays, I prefer western brand hotel (4 stars) so that it has a bit nice and consistent environment. I no longer go to Home Inn or Jinjiang Star. That was when I was single, and just need a clean place to shower and sleep.

    Getting around
    In general Shanghai taxi is very nice, with a few exceptions. For instance, we waited one hour in Shanghai Hongqiao railway station on rainy Friday evening (it was also the first day of Gao Kao, China’s college entrance exam). It’s probably better idea if one travel light (without big luggages). Another instance was we were at People’s square, about 10 pm, basically no taxi will take us to Xujiahui. There were a few illegal taxies pass by and asked us if we want to take it. Finally we decided to take Metro (subway) to get back.

    Tour bus
    We took the double deck tour bus at People’s square, my first time taking it, and was surprised to see a lot of changes in Shanghai, for example, I have not seen Lao Xi Meng for many years (probably not seen it since 1995, 18 years). Big big change. I would like to show my brother the picture some time as I thought he probably have not seen it for 18 years either. Tour bus No. 1 is a good idea for short stay visitors because one can use it for 24 hours, and see many interesting places (bus stops at those places) along the way.

  • Went to tower grove farmers market yesterday

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    It was the first time I brought my wife and my daughter there. The weather was a bit hot, as I went there after 9:30 am. We bought the typical things: ribs and eggs from Bobbi (live spring farm), tomato, beans and cucumber from amish farmer. Serenity enjoyed her bagel and apple at the picnic by the market, it’s just some food we brought in case she wanted to eat.

    I’m hoping to bring them more often to the market on Saturday mornings this Summer.

    Btw, I was thinking about adding a “news feed” to the ToMarket app I recently created. It’s also funny Serenity singing about “ToMarket” couple times yesterday.

  • China trip: some random thoughts

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    We took a 2 weeks China trip and came back last Monday evening. A bit exhausted, and at the end of the trip, our daughter got sick, she said she got tummy ache, and needed to go to restroom (lavatory) every 10 min. The fun part of being parents.

    Some more serious thoughts

    1) My parents are getting older, just as I am getting older. At one morning, my mom asked my dad: did I take the blood pressure medicine. She is not in her 70s yet, but she forgot about it.

    2) Money and money: obviously this is a hot topic and it seems my family can not escape it as well. The thing makes me a bit annoyed is when they ask me how much I make in the states, as one of the very first question. It seems money is an important yard stick to measure if a person is successful or not. Btw, it seems everyone back home has more money than me. Interestingly, I read about this article yesterday, it mentioned something similar to that extent.

    http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/mark-kitto-youll-never-be-chinese-leaving-china/#.Ub54LvmThBH

    3) Environment. Not so good. The air quality, and the noise is obvious. One thing a bit interesting is Serenity was curious why the car/bus beep (honk) at each other, or at pedestrian. The air at my hometown is not good due to all the container trucks (18 wheelers), and heavy industry.

    4) Hard to get coffee, I mean real coffee, not those faked cappuccino ones made by machines gas station here. It’s more easier to find in Shanghai. I got my black/bare ice coffee (Mei Shi Ka Fei 美式咖啡) at Christen bakery 克里斯丁饼屋.

    I will talk more later. Btw, I am seriously thinking about wrote something like my memory.

  • Preschool days

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    Did not want to go in the morning (most days), did not want to leave in the afternoon (sometimes). Positives: she started to call some teachers by name, and some friends by name. She talked quite a bit in English, continuing make progress on language.

    Kindermusik, sit on teachers’ lap. A nice overlap for her as this class is only class she goes this whole semester (with the transition from toddler to preschool).

    Change job
    The tuition goes up again. I need to make more money to support my family. I plan to start new job on April 1 (yes April fool’s day, but hopefully new job works out for me and my family).

    A bit emotional lately as a net friend passed away recently, reminds me of an old friend’s husband passed away years ago at similar age. We all need to balance our life and work at this age.

  • Thoughts from the NPR “Struggling smarts” story

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    I heard this story from NPR a while back, I meant to share it with my daughter’s teacher, did not do it as the New Town incident happened on that day. This is again discussed this morning at Hope Montessori morning presentation. I gave it some thought on this topic from time to time. I think it’s not east vs. west thing, also we need to consider the “brain freeze” when we put a person who usually is shy about public speaking to the blackboard, explain something to the class.

    The most important lesson is, we (both teachers and parents) should encourage “good efforts”. I recall I had a very difficult class in Rolla, and from what I heard, the professor could give some not so good scores in the end. I tried my best, basically take the notes, spend a lot time working on homework problems, sometimes barely get it done before the class starts (I recall we meets 2 or 3 times a week). I did not do well in some of the early tests (3 tests before the final), in one test I did especially poor as I misread the problem as I was trying to finish all the problems in a short time. I explained it to the professor. He obviously understood it. As the semester concludes to my surprise he gave me “A” on the course. I think he gave it mostly because he thought I tried my best.

     

  • Morning meeting at Hope

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    A lot of good points.

    We congrats/celebrate with kids (did something, e.g., potty training), we don’t “reward” them (Sarah).

    The “grit” (persistence) is very important, recent research found American kids are more tend to give up (Susie). Also, toddlers (community) do not have watch, the teachers give toddlers plenty of time to make mistakes and learn. When she saw the infant feed her/himself, or pour milk, she know they are going to succeed in life. The library incident example (toddler want to touch the phone, the mom said if he does, she won’t bring him to library again, the librarian said she will fine him for $100). The lesson: be honest when we communicate with kids. Sarah: the kids knew the first 9 times (parents said) does not count. A parent learned from Mishra (no need to repeat, just remind we already said it).

    Sarah: we make mistakes, just be honest and say sorry to kids (e.g., we shout at kids).

    Another parent: the “salad” video (hope kids video, maybe put Serenity’s video on iPad so that we can watch more often).

    Sarah also mentioned as the older toddler gets more leadership role and feel more confident in the class, it’s also a good preparation for her/him to go pre-school (that self-confidence will help them do well in the new environment).

  • If I could treat everyone like Hope community (family)

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    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 🙂