Category: kids

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Edu-and-Ladue-School kids Life

镇海中学石蕴玉老师

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我初中的英语老师。”其实我喜欢石蕴玉老师，她也走了，戴着一圏圈的近视镜，一个个过我们的英式英标” (我的王同学说的）。石老师有可能是解放前在上海的租界教会学校学的英式英语：这本身并不重要。她是我的英语启蒙老师：她是非常好的启蒙老师。万事开头难 –  “The first step is always the hardest“。这也让我想到另外一句“千里之行始于足下”（记得当时周老师常说这句，他会把它刻在讲义里）。对我来说，美式英语大概是高中时在镇中的新的语音实验室里听托福或类似节目才开始的。

我估计我们上初中时，石老师大概有五十岁左右。如果说周国夫老师，我们的班主任/数学老师，是严父，那么我觉得石老师就是慈母。我估计石老师大概比周老师大几岁。周老师对石老师也比较尊重。石老师眼睛高度近视，在我们那个年代80年代初，我的初中是 83 到 86年，她的眼镜也就非常厚。她好像身体不是特别好，印象中有一次好像她有视网膜脱落。我估计在我们那个年代，这种手术可能要去上海或者杭州这样的大城市。

我记得两件小事。有一次，她让我上讲台去背书，我不知道为什么反正那次我背不出来：可能是我没有好好准备，也有可能是我比较紧张。我那时可能是初中二年级，我小时候比较喜欢哭。那次不知道为什么，我背不出来，忍不住，就开始哭。石老师没有批评我，她只是鼓励我好好学习。

还有一次，我不小心把英语作业本的封面给撕开了一道缝，我也没有胶带，或浆糊，直接吧作业本。后来，有点在我意料之中的，石老师把我的作业本给补好了。

我大学毕业四年以后就出国。我记得大概是二十年（具体哪一年我现在记不清了）之前，我的一个老家在镇海的初中同学告诉我，石老师去世了。

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kids math-and-edu Saint Louis

Summer Intern Opportunities

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Engineering Intern – Shape the Streets of Kirkwood! (college)

Teen: Shaw Institute for Field Training, SIFT

Missouri Botanical Garden has other internship opportunities as well.

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advice and tips car kids Life Life Tips

Teach my older kid to drive

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I wrote this one too fast – Some kids not that interested in learning to drive nowadays 🙂 This seems to be confirmed by this Yahoo article – Gen Z is slamming the brakes on getting a driver’s license.

话音未落，I started to teach my old kid to drive. We are already on the road, btw 🙂

We practiced on the parking lot 1st, but she got a bit bored of the parking lot, so last 2 days (I started writing this post in late Dec, FYI) I have taken her to quiet neighborhood, and she was practicing on the road. Note she is new on the road. And understandably sometimes she would get nervous if another car come by both in the front (opposing traffic), or behind. Today she almost panicked at a four way stop sign 🙂 But we survived.

12-31-2025 Today we got honked by people the 1st time, at the Hilltop neighborhood.

1-1-2025 We finally hit the real road, I mean the road with traffic lights (not just Stop sign). We drove at the Lackland near Westport, also from the Walgreens St. Ann (St. Charles rock road and Ashby) to home. Many years ago (confirmed by my wife) I taught her driving, at the industrial compound at Westport.

02-07-2026 We continued practicing on the real road, mostly on weekends.

02-10-2026 S8 drove from the St. Louis Premium Outlet Mall to home, via local obviously. She was fairly proud that she made smooth left turn from Chesterfield parkway to Olive. And re: Olive Road, she said she may miss it when she goes off to college. Other interesting facts she told me is an old story between her mom and her as her mom drove the similar route quite a few years ago – they were going to the mall as well.

Amother longer road (route) we drove recently: Olive west (from Warson), Clarkson, Manchester, and West Country Mall. She got honked when near the west county mall. There were quite a few cars because it was weekend.

Side note – Road Rage

Road rage (lu nu) is prevalent in the USA. Here in STL it’s not extremely bad, but from time to time you will see those impatient drivers or impatient people in general. Recently as I started teaching my older kid to drive, and also as I reflect on my own driving and so on, I felt I have a bit burden or worry when she eventually goes out and drives on her own.

In China people honk, here in STL people may not honk as much, but the road rage is definitely there. And in extreme or rare cases, it could turn out to be deadly (because of firearms aka the guns).

Nowadays I rarely honked at people, and I rarely honked back. I did some of that when I was younger and also when I am lacking sleep.

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Family kids Life

Some reflections on Christmas Eve

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At about 5:30 pm, I got a call from neighbor R: it’s about help them to put together the electric scooter. It was not too bad – mainly I need to put in the handle, and put in the screw. I mentioned the neighbor once here (I didn’t elaborate for the privacy reason).

In general I am willing to help as long as I can. I think the work I did above is mostly just 举手之劳 a small effort. (Update 12-25-2025) This afternoon as I walked by, one of the kids said “thank you”. That made me happy. A few months ago, it was one of the little girls’ b-day. I bought b-day gift for her as my younger daughter used to go to the same elementary school with them, and they took the same school bus. One day the two little girls probably took the advice from their grandma Ms. R, came bye and said “thank you for the gift”. That made my day too.

Some random thoughts: it was probably in Christmas night of 2002 I slided into a ditch when I was driving on highway 270 near 370. Quite a few drivers stopped and tried to help. But they cannot get me (my car) out of snow ditch. I called AAA eventually and I gave the tow truck driver $5 tip.

My two kids wanted to watch the classic Christmas movie Grinch on Peacock but the big TV (LG TV) seems doen’t have the Peacock app. So they are watching on the computer (MacBook Air). Meanwhile, I need to practice both Guitar and Piano.

Last few days I was teaching my older daughter to drive. We were practicing at the parking lot I taught my wife about 16 years ago. And so far so good.

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Fun kids

Visited David Hickman High School in Columbia MO yesterday

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It’s my 1st visit. Here is their wikipedia entry. I went there because I was taking my older daughter and her friend for the Missouri All State Band audition. Please don’t ask me the audition results.

A side note is I found out the Chick Fil A in Columbia MO was extremely busy at about 1:30 pm yesterday (Saturday). And I googled it and found it’s usually that busy on Saturday lunch hours.

For me the main job is to stay awake on the highway, as well as the morning fogs (this is partially due to the snowfall last Monday).

I also learned kewpie, both the doll and the Japanese mayo.

My memory sometimes is not perfect

But I think I am decent. I joke that sometimes I memorized quite a bit useless stuff, e.g., I remember things such as the first lesson in my 1st grade Chinese textbook, and so on.

But apparently, I forgot a few details that my wife remembers (but I forgot 🙂 during our 1st date.

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kids

Some kids not that interested in learning to drive nowadays

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I learned this from my own kid – our older daughter. She got the permit a few months ago, but she was not that motivated or interested in learning to drive. She is not the only kid in her peer group that are not that interested in learning to drive.

I know 2 boys who are a bit older than our older daughter. They are 19 and 16 respectively. They are not interested in to learn to drive either.

Case 1: another friend whose son is a college freshman at SLU (Saint Louis university), and the boy recently had 19th birthday. But he was not that interested in learning to drive until very recently – my friend (his mom) cannot drive him every day due to health issues. So, they have to resort to Ubers. This is actually something I noticed when I drove for Uber too – at least one rider, a young adult (girl) told me she is not that interested to drive on her own. I recall she mentioned once she had a car accident.

Case 2: the boy is a junior in the high school. I offered to his mom that I would teach him to drive if they are interested. But so far, my phone has not rung yet 🙂

Personally, we are okay with S8 our older daughter not learning to drive now. Because also recently, a new friend (a Ph.D. and also assistance professor at Wash U med school), told me that teen’s brains are not fully developed to handle the stress of driving, that’s one reason there are more accidents when teens drive and sometimes the accidents could be serious. Obviously, I don’t what any of that. In other words, as long as I can drive and have free time, I will continue to shuttle my older daughter around although technically she can start to learn, and age-wise she can receive a full fledge driver license as soon as she is 16 – which is a few months away.

But I would probably more stressed out when she actually hits the road – something similar to the feeling I had when she went to the Cub Creek Science Camp, a sleepaway camp in Rolla, Missouri for a week 🙂 I cannot stop checking emails for 3 days until Wednesday evening she sent us the email.

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Fun kids Life

Random thoughts on the holiday season

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One thing I liked about the holiday here is they sell See’s candies in stores. At normal time we can only buy them online or at Kansas City (more below). Macy’s at West County mall has them: the West County mall also has a popup store in the hallway of 1st floor – at the best spot in terms of foot traffic. I remember a few years ago we visited Kansas City during thanksgiving holiday and we stopped by the Nebraska Furniture Mart which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway (so is See’s Candies). I bought a few boxes of See’s candies there including the peanut brittle. We all liked it a lot. Personally I don’t buy much else on holidays – so does my wife. Kids like to buy a bit more than us – which I fully understand and support. The Christmas 🎅 here is equivalent to the lunar new year 🧧 when my wife and I grew up – we always get new clothes and 压岁钱🧧. It seems yesterday when our older daughter was crying (scared by the Santa) at a place like 图三。It was probably only 2 years ago when she asked me: dad, can we stop pretending all these Santa Clauses and elf all these nonsense for our younger daughter S6 (her little sis), because it’s getting harder and harder to make the 4th grader to believe? I said sure 👍. Just on the record, our older daughter S8 figured out herself that we are the real Santa when she was a 2nd grader [捂脸]. I guess my wife and I didn’t try harder enough and S8 is also very smart。

光阴似箭，我查了一下：陈慧娴原唱的港乐经典千千阕歌是我高中毕业去上大学那一年首发的；江珊原唱的梦里水乡是我大学毕业🎓的第二年发行的。今年陈慧娴60岁了- 可以退休了，陈姐，把机会尽量留给年轻人吧 – 当然如果你来北美巡演，说不定我就来给你捧场。江珊到年底就58岁了。我自己有时也在考虑我啥时候退休呢：我现在估计到60岁左右肯定是要退的[捂脸][呲牙]

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Fun kids Life

An interesting story and dads’ feelings

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When their daughter(s) finds someone she loves. I think the right word probably is “mixed emotions”. No, I am not implying anything and our older daughter who is 15 and hasn’t dating someone yet – good to me for now :-).

I also have a friend who strictly forbids her daughters dating even in college. She told me about this rule; they are from India btw. My view is less strict: personally, I feel it’s okay to date in college because I did, and it didn’t turn out to be a disaster (I was lucky in many ways I think :-). But date in the high school is probably too early. This is also considering their schoolwork in the HS, which is a lot in my opinion.

A bit over 10 years ago, before our younger daughter was born some of my colleagues did a baby shower, one of my American colleagues commented: you need to watch out all the guys now you are having a daughter 🙂

In July 26 this summer, I happened to be a similar boat like this. I was going to drop off the girl who is from China (she is 16 years old), and attended the summer camp here at WUSTL, to the STL airport. The time was a bit tight for me, because after dropping her off, I need to come home and drive my older daughter to the Community Music School in Webster University at Webster Groves. So, I arrived at the girl’s place early so that I could have some breath room just in case. I told them about my plan. But the girl would not come out at 8 am, and I was a bit upset, because it could take 15 to 20 minutes to drive from WUSTL to the STL, and I also need to go inside the airport to make sure her can check in luggage and get boarding pass and so on. So, I said in the WeChat group chat to hurry up. And after probably 15 or 20 minutes, the girl came out, with a boy and it’s quite obvious the boy is her (likely new) boyfriend. Then I felt pretty bad.

And also, I was thinking what would I feel if I saw my older daughter in this kind of situation? Keep in mind I never saw that girl before, and I had to guess whenever someone comes out from that building. But her dress reminds me of my daughter. Btw, I talked about the teen girls dress trend here, from my observations, scroll to “What to wear for girl nowdays???“.

Anyway, I did have a small opportunity to make up my dumb (and being rude) mistake. The girl’s luggage is over the weight limit by 6 pounds, and I paid the $100 luggage fees right away. I was not late for my older daughter’s thing either: here is some of the percussion that the students at CMS did in the past school year (YT) including the summer. Can you guess which one is my older daughter? Hint: she was in the way back and she didn’t have a lot of time on the screen.

PS: you may like my other post here Dad daughter moments. As you may be able to predict or perceive, not all moments are happy or light moments though – something I didn’t anticipate or intentionally ignoring before we have our kids. Some moments are quite hard or difficult, honestly speaking.

PS2 (10-24-2025): I wrote more re: “Father’s love, or elder generations love towards the kids” here.

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kids Life Life Tips

离别开出花：送给我的孩子们

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Update 09-26-2025: she is back safe and sound and we asked her this boring question: did you miss us? …… based on the feedback, we think she is ready for some sleep away summer camp next summer 🙂

(Original 09-10-2025) 再过一个礼拜，下礼拜三我们家小宝（潇宝）就要第一次离开爸爸妈妈，和她的六年级小朋友们，老师们，以及Ladue 高中的大哥哥大姐姐counselor 们去大概80公里以外的 Camp Mihaska 宿营两个晚上。The 6th graders camp has been a Ladue Middle School tradition since year 1977 – when I was 6 years old. I believe not many this school year’s LMS 6th graders parents were born yet, my wife included 🙂

我想到我们大女儿在比她妹妹大一岁的时候去100英哩以外的罗拉 Cub Creek Animal Science Camp 住了六个晚上。那一年2022年夏天她的camp 的dorm room 好像都是以前不认识的新朋友。我记得我那几天天天等她的email: 她礼拜三终于轮到了用电脑的机会给我们报了平安。

大女儿现在已经是高二。大概一年前，有一次我开车接她回家的路上说起读大学的事。她很严肃地跟我说：爸爸，我读大学的事我自己来做主。她说这句话时的成熟度让我有点吃惊。其实我知道有一段时间她心里已经蛮想自己一个人出去闯荡了。当然那时她还不到十五岁，读高一，真的准备好没有我是有疑惑的或不确定的。

我又想到老爸我自己18岁高中毕业去武汉上大学：一个人背着行李从上海的十六铺码头走上长江轮，跟我的爸爸和姑父挥手告别。后来又在大学毕业四年以后从上海独自来美留学。我记得来美之前的那个晚上没睡着：因为我不确定美国到底是个怎么样的地方？|| 从父母的角度我常听说”儿（女）行千里母担忧”。我想做父亲也一样：只是我们中国的传统文化里还有”男儿有泪不轻弹”。那父亲也就最好不要表现会外露自己的真实感情了。我自己的经验和观察是有不少父亲也是担忧的或弹眼泪的（或者把眼泪留在眼眶里？）。可怜天下父母心：虽然我现在已年过半百，在我的老母亲那里，我可能还是那个12岁就去镇海中学读书的小孩。比如说她会担心我下午两三点到上海，有地方吃饭吗？找的到旅馆吗？等等。昨天我小女儿就跟我说接送她去学校的事，我跟她开玩笑说：I want to hold you (我要把你抱起来）。她说No, but we can hug. Best of the luck in the road ahead, my baby girl. Dad always loves you.

这里有离别开出花完整的歌词。

PS: if you are looking for summer camp information in the St. Louis area, I have maintained a blog post.

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Fun kids Life

Dad daughter moments

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Okay, it’s Saturday and it’s good time for some chicken soup.

I went to swimming at the JCC indoor pool just now, with my younger daughter because she prefers the indoor pool over the outdoor one, also her tennis lesson got cancelled at the last minute. So I got to hang out with her for a bit: for real it’s just a bit, because she will be 11 in about 3 days, and I usually do my lap swimming. She mostly plays by herself in the recreational pool (the water is slightly warmer there). The temperature at the lap swimming pool is slightly lower, probably at 78 Fahrenheit or 25.6 Celsius, and my younger daughter doesn’t like either lap swimming or cold water. She calls it the cold pool.

When I was doing lap swimming, I noticed at the other end, a little girl who is in green swimming suit, she is probably 5 years old, and she was scared to get into the water. I swam to that end, and hear the young male swimming coach says “you have to go in either today or next time (assume next Saturday). The coach is probably a college student, I guess. The girl didn’t want to go. Eventually the coach gave up. After a while, I noticed the girl’s dad, with mom and her little sister nearby, helped the girl get into the water (the cold pool) the first time 🙂 It’s quite accomplishment. Now I remember the 1st time my older daughter (now 15) got into the cold cool the 1st time, many years ago (probably summer 2017 with the one and only coach Alyssa L).

Now if I can convince the soon to be 11 year old to swim again tomorrow. Btw, I am back to swimming daily after about 7 years break (was doing joggling or walking in last 7 years or so).

(07-13-2025) Was able to play Racquet ball with my younger daughter a bit at the J. A small win. I also swam at the J (both outdoor, and indoor pools). Went to the outdoor pool first, swam 200 yards, it started raining cat and dog, and everyone went inside.

(07-22-2025) Yesterday evening, I was napping and sleeping on my bed in the evening, at about 10 pm or so, I got up, and my older daughter noticed me getting up and asked “dad, can I have your tweezers (link goes to google). I realized she was a bit shy to wake me up. Similarly, probably 2 nights ago, my younger daughter saw I was napping, and because she usually says “good night” to me before her bedtime, she just climbs to my bed, and reach out her hand, and gently said “good night dad” 🙂 Back to my older daughter, it’s hard to get a hug from her nowadays. The other day, before the hug, she said: do you smell (meaning do you have bad body smell 🙂 I fully understand. They are 11 and 15 years old, respectively. We Chinese have a saying: 男女有别 nan nv you bie (link goes to google).

(07-23-2025) S6 suggested I took her to get boba tea at Sharesweet in the afternoon. And I did.

(07-26-2025) Something in my mind: I realized that if I sign up S8 for a math acceleration class and she will probably have better chance to pass the acceleration on 08/08. Now I will probably study a bit algebra 2 and try to poke her around (it’s not an easy job to say the least, because she doesn’t want to share).

(07-27-2025) S6 suggested I took her to the Korean grocery store next to the Tai’ke. And I did.