Category: kids

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kids

How to communicate with adolescent or teenagers

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Disclaimer: 抛砖引玉。There is no one-size-fit-all solutions. If you have multiple kids, you probably already know. Or just for a minute treat your better half as your other kid. I know there is a saying 男人永远是小孩，guys are always like kids, so there you have it.

初衷 Original intent or Intension

Always remember your 初衷 (original intent or intension): for me personally I want my kid growing up to be a good human being most importantly, followed by an independent woman, and as an added bonus: have a meaningful relationship with her as she grows up and tries to figure out herself and the world. That’s the big picture. Always keep the big picture: not the other morning she didn’t take your advice on her apparel/wear, not the one time she was annoyed by your nagging on things and shut her bedroom door. Without that in mind, you may read on.

Shall we talk?

Something I learned recently, and I wrote it in another recent blog, but if you could allow me to paste the content below.

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More on the Beauty of Cantonese language 粤语之美 古汉语之美

您真的聽懂《Shall We Talk》嗎？解讀林夕愛的哲學，聽歌學閱讀理解，現場鋼琴彈奏，20200302（中文字幕）(YT)

Quote a bit of the lyrics of Shall We Talk below.

明月光為何又照地堂?
寧願在公園躲藏 不想喝湯
任由目光留在漫畫一角
為何望母親一眼就如罰留堂?

As explained in the video above, this has a lot of culture stuff behind it. Keep in mind the lyricist: 林夕 is one of the best Cantonese lyricists in HK and in the world. Also, I first listened/watched this song here – Eason 陳奕迅 – Shall we talk 女生版 Acoustic cover (YT video). Btw, recently I started my journey of learning Cantonese – so wish me luck 🙂

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My own teenage years

When I was a teen (12 to 18 to be precise), I was living in the school dormitory (I attended 6 years of boarding school in China, back in 1980s). I guess in a way the 班主任 Ban Zhu Ren (student counselor for the class, maybe I would create an English page for Ban Zhu Ren) acted like father, mother, big brother or sister figure, for many of the kids lived in the school dormitory. I do recall once my counselor had to take me to the hospital because I had high fever. I do see my parents once a month and spend most of my summer and winter breaks with my family (parents, siblings, and my grandmas – here it’s an s because one of my favorite times of the summer is going to my uncle/grandma’s home, and they spoil me 🙂 I would write a piece on my maternal grandma sometime soon – Mothers’ Day is coming up, she probably has a lot influence on my uncles (my mom’s elder brothers) and my mom.

I should add my parents did talk to me when we saw each other. I recall my mom would usually ask “how did you do in the mid term/final?”. I don’t recall my dad ever asked similar question but I think he cares about this sort of thing too. In fact before sending me off to the Zhenhai Middle School, they seek the counsel of my big uncle (I mentioned him below too). Mainly because they were not sure: I was 12 a bit young to go off to the boarding school; the plus side is my big brother is in the same boarding school. But for practical purpose he didn’t help me much. Back to my monthly trip home, I recall at that time we only get Sunday off. So we left the school on Saturday afternoon and leave home on Sunday afternoon. Now I think about it: the separation was hard to my parents especially my mom too. I recall she acknowledged it when her friends asked about it.

Last but not least, I also recall our vice provost Mr. Zheng 副教导主任郑修老师 would tell us kids not to listen to 邓丽君 Teresa Teng‘s 靡靡之音 🙂 Note I was there between Fall 1983 and Summer 1989. Actually my big uncle (my mom’s big brother, who used to be the 1st principal / headmaster of Baifeng Middle School many years ago) would likely say the same thing. I recall he used to say similar things to his son (who is a grown up then, my cousin is 12 years older than me), when my cousin showed up at his home with the bootcut jeans or the jeans with flare. They lived in different cities at the time because my aunt has her job in SH, while my uncle works at NB. Imagine if you are 25 years old guy, see your dad twice a year. And he is going after your colored shirt and bootcut jeans 🥲

Friends and Friends Group

One more point if I may add: I do recall at that age, friends or friends group plays an important if not more role as well. This is true at today age too. To parents: please let your kids try to find their own friends, our main job is Uber driver and so on.

Another thing keep in mind is the friends and friends group tend to change over the years. This is normal and as long as kids are friendly (meaning they don’t hate each other), we are good. The only thing parents may want to take a look is: if your kid doesn’t have any friends. It’s probably a good idea to ask why.

What to wear for girl nowdays???

This seems to be one of the hot buttons (pun intended) issue in our family: I am not going to elaborate in the interest of the privacy. I googled and found this Wiki page: culture views on the midriff and navel

And I talked to people outside home too, once I talked a gentleman who is my Uber passenger, I believe he is probably in his 60s or 70s, and he was a former military person, married a Korean woman. He pointed out the different generations and people from different background have different views on “modesty” (I think it means dress conservatively).

Once a teacher at FGC told me some fifth graders are already showing belly or belly buttons. Personally, I felt they can do it when they are 18 or 21. My wife has somewhat different view or opposite view from me: she thinks it’s okay for younger kids (say 4th or 5th graders) to show the belly or belly buttons. She thinks they are cute. I guess her implied meaning is if high school kids dress like that, she doesn’t approve because she thinks it’s overly revealing. But this is not the fight I am interested. I think I have more important things to worry about. This could be used as an ice breaker or a conversation starter (lighthearted way, no judgement here). For an example, I saw one girl in the band dress like that, while all the other girls covered their midriff and navel. And, you guessed right: the girl shows the belly didn’t perform well in the concert…

(Update 10-24-2025) On past Sunday, I talked to a mom whose view is probably more liberal than mine, and I liked her comments. Here is her comment, not exact word, but I am trying to grasp her meaning – show the belly buttons (or midriff) at your best age. Because one day they may not be as pretty as (15, 25, or 30 – note I make up some random age number here).

That comment hit the nail on my head (meaning, exactly right, link goes to google search).

Carpool

Also, I pick up S8 during afternoon carpool even though technically she can ride the bus home too. My wife thinks S8 is wasting my time this way. I don’t think it totally from efficiency point of view. I think it gives me bond time with my daughter because on rare occasions she would open up and tells me her day. I know I cannot get those kind of moments if she takes bus home. I think more like 30 minutes of my day to bond with her. And honestly if we look forward, she will learn to drive soon, and she passes the driving test, she will likely get a parking permit at HS and start driving to her school.

Last but not least, you may be interested in “It’s a pleasure to be your cool dad” and 你曾是少年。

Next, I may write something on health, for middle aged guy like me: my recent experience is cutting down alcohol and caffeine as much as possible and walk outside a lot during the day. Potentially: change from 3 meals a day to 2 meals a day.

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advice and tips kids

My younger kid’s Roblox AdoptMe account got hacked

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Around November 5 of last year (year 2024), my 10-year-old’s #Robox #AdoptMe account got hacked, and most of all her virtual belongings were gone. My thoughts in Mandarin Chinese via YT.

(Nov 12, 2024) Some random thoughts on the security online including the kid’s Roblox games and adults FB activities. A few weeks ago, I was a bit surprised to find out my younger daughter’s #Roblox account was hacked, and all her virtual goods and points in her AdoptMe game were stolen. I had some responsibility because she used my Gmail as the registration email and I didn’t promptly go to her account shortly after I receive an email alert that morning (someone in Kazakhstan logged into her account).

On Nov 11, I realized one post in one FB private group that I am an admin, was actual spam, about 10 days after I saw it. The scammer was trying to sell some t-shirt (spirit wear), from 1st look, appears to be legit. But after some reasoning, I determined it was a scam. I banned the offender along with 2 more similar offenders.

A few weeks ago, during the winter break, I enabled the two-factor authentication for her Roblox account, after another incident in which someone tries to break into her account when she was playing the game on iPad.

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401k and Personal Finance advice and tips Edu-and-Ladue-School kids

More on 529 plans

Reading Time: 2 minutes

About 14 or 15 years ago when my old daughter was new born, I saved some money and put it into her 529 plan. About a year later, I wrote this blog post Some questions about 529 plan.

I haven’t put in much new money into her 529 plan since the early days, and for our younger daughter I did open an account for her, but I only put in couple hundreds dollars. I know I know: but it’s not because we favorite one daughter over another. It’s mostly because the money is tight, and I think 529 plan had one downside: the money can only be used for higher education (college etc.). For me flexibility is important as I was also thinking about retirement – I mean quitting my 9 to 5 job, and potentially do something else I would enjoy more: and potentially with a smaller paycheck too.

529 plan had some change to the rules recently. This is a big one: You can now transfer some 529 amounts to a Roth IRA.

Note I am late to the Roth IRA party too. Actually I opened a Roth IRA (my first) at Robinhood App last year (after the tax day). So my one year anniversary will come up this April 🙂

College cost, along with healthcare cost and housing are top three most expensive things Americans pay in last 20+ years. If there is anything we can alleviate or do, we should.

Traditionally I am under impression as in America 18 year old is considered adult (or beginning of adulthood), American parents share some college cost with the kids, in general or on average. I have seen two extremes: parents pay all; parents pay nothing. I also saw two kinds of students too: those who work hard and do their best; those who quit and had to drop their classes or get an “F”.

There is no one size fit all for the college cost (sharing cost, or not) among all the families. For me personally, I would try my best to pay off my kids (I have two) college cost (tuition plus living cost). Anything they earn: scholarship, part time job are icing on the cake.

That’s the main motivation factor behind my investing and uber driving (or other side gigs, ideally $500 an hour consulting will work out better 🙂

FAQs

Do I have to open 529 plan in my state (the state I live in)?

No. See this Answers to Questions about 529 Plans in Different States for longer answer.

What state plan do you recommend?

Ohio 529 collegeadvantage plan. Sorry show me state 🙂 Also you may want to look at the answer to the next question.

What are the best 529 plans in 2025?

Forbes thinks those are the best.

What if my kid is already in high school?

Better late than never in terms of saving. However, you do need to think about the investment options, your tolerance for risk and market volatility, etc. I know for my better half (my wife), she is pretty much risk averse, and hates volatility. So in those cases, you may consider the bond investment options vs. stock mutual fund.

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advice and tips Fun kids Life Software development

Reflections and moments in year 2024

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Travel Mishaps

One of the most memorable moments in 2024, for me at least, we already checked out the hotel in HK and got on the taxi to the airport, then our 14-year-old said, “I left my hoodie in the closet”. We already checked out thus cannot go back to the room directly. Had to use a concierge service. It seems took forever when we waited there. The real time is probably 20 to 30 minutes. We tipped the house clean staff who retrieve the hoodie 100 HKD. Same for the taxi driver. Adding them up it’s probably $20: I think we paid that hoodie a bit over $20 at the Plato’s Closet. But it’s not about money. I remember this because my wife was furious (more than anxious) when she and our 10-year-old waited in the taxi. The younger taxi driver drove fast to the airport (we did make sure we have enough time even with this mishap).

Presidential Volunteer Service Award (PVSA)

One of the proud moments as a dad: our 14 year old Serenity received the Presidential Volunteer Service Award 🥇 on December 31, 2024. Pictured below: she is receiving the certificate, the congrats letter from President Biden, and the Gold award pin from Rick Skinner, who represents the United Way of Greater St. Louis, the verifying org for this award. We (my wife and I) are thankful for all her teachers, from toddler program and pre-schools (pre-K), from Kindergarten to high school at the Ladue School District, her coaches and teachers who helped her in her extra curriculum activities: for teaching her the right things. I know sometimes I didn’t teach her or show her the right thing 🙁 . Her friends over the years too. Thank you all! And we hope she keeps up the attitude and efforts 🙂

My Panic Moment

I had my share of moment at work. One evening, I was acting as the technical lead representing the development team during our production deployment (rollout). I noticed an issue after the system engineer made the server configuration changes and restart. I quickly realized why: instead of adding a few parameters in the middle of the server start configuration, the system engineer did a replacement – in other words, he removed all the parameters from the location where we intend to replace until the end. And he repeated for multiple nodes/servers without confirming any node/server change with me 🙁

This could potentially cause longer outage as we planned, and could drag out our change windows from 2 hours to 4 hours or more. Luckily, the junior system engineer called his colleague who is much more experienced, and he came out and fixed the issue in under 20 to 30 minutes and saved the evening 🙂

The lesson for me here is making sure always backup the server configurations – earlier I did make some backups (not all) after my project manager suggested. Always be open minded and listen to colleagues even when I think it’s probably not necessary at the time – because we never know it could be handy down the road!

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Fun kids Life

Watch “Growing Pains” series again

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I watched a bit of “Growing Pains” on Apple TV last night: the 2nd show that has the Bruce Springsteen show tickets. I purchase the series from Apple, probably in year 2016, when Alan Thicke, who acted as the dad in the screen, Dr. Jason Seave, died.

I recall I watched most of the series in early 1990s at my childhood home, mostly during my summer and winter breaks in college years, which seems match the timing 成长的烦恼 showing time in China – “曾在台湾中华电视公司及中国大陆的上海教育电视台从1990年一直播到1994年中播出。”

I recall I didn’t go back much to my childhood home since summer 1993, the year I graduated from college. My parents also moved away a bit from our childhood home.

I have a few thoughts:

  1. in late 1980s and early 1990s, my adolescent and college years, I recall we were very curious about the outside world. I recall seeing movies such as True Lies, Twister (1996 film), Schindler’s List, and many westerns on Shanghai TV channel 2 (the international channel). The society and the country in general were much more open then too, here is some background (in Chinese) how they started to import those TV series – 文汇世纪 | 《成长的烦恼》《神探亨特》…当年上海电视台如何引进第一批美剧？||【话说上海】那些年我们一起追过的剧集 | 海外影视 This is probably my 1st exposure to the American high school (Michael and Carrol). More recently I learned a bit more about American high schools via Gilmore Girls (Netflix).
  2. Now that I have my own teen, I can sympathize better with the parents. This also ties back to my earlier blog post Summer Break 2024 – little moments. I left it in the draft mode for a while 🙂
  3. Some similar shows I watched recently include Gilmore Girls (available on Netflix), and Modern Family (available on Hulu).
Categories
Fun kids Life Software development

Summer Break 2024 – little moments

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Below moment is likely not isolated to summer. Sometime between March and July this year (year 2024). One day I took MacBook on sofa, and sit about 6 ft from my 14 year old. We were at the two ends of the sofa (couch). Her response: dad, you are not going to sitting here for good, right? She was on her computer and wanted privacy. My sweet 9 year old said: dad, I want to sit with you 🙂

This morning (early June): while I was driving to my 14 year old to Clayton HS, and I got distracted, passed Ladue road while driving on Warson south bound. Basically I went to the Ladue Middle School – made turn at Price & past JBS, and my 14 year old said: it’s 1st time I saw JBS 🙂

Since this summer, I started to play some board game with my 10 year old (was 9 year old before this past July), almost everyday. This continued even when she was in the Children’s Hospital for a few days in September. We played “spot it” during those days. Our most recent favorite game is Montessori Trinomial Cube (we played a ton lately, I am pretty sure she outgrew it. There goes my original plan to sell it on eBay 🙂 “Trash Panda” is probably the most complicated game for me. And I am glad some days we got to play table tennis in the basement.

PS: for anyone reading, please don’t share this with your teen kids – I am worry about the I may have the Bruce Springsteen show/tickets moments as shown in one of the Growing Pains series 🙂

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advice and tips kids Life Life Tips

Stay in the hospital in America – 在美国住院

Reading Time: 7 minutes

中文翻译（主要是谷歌翻译的，我做了一点修改）在这里。

This is probably the 3rd time we stayed in a hospital in America – if we count the time we spent in the Mercy for our 2 babies delivery (baby number 1 and number 2). Last week in my blog I talked about our little baby got sick. As she didn’t get better, we end up in the St. Louis Children’s hospital ER on Monday 9/9, and followed by inpatient care between 9/12 and yesterday 9/16. She is better and out of hospital now. The main concern was her fever and pneumonia.

Again it’s not the 1st time I go to hospital in America. I have been to ER once myself in year 2006 when I broke my chin at Stacy park and I drove myself to the Mercy ER shortly after. I recall when I was a teen, after watching some TV or movies, and sometimes I sort of romanticize “staying in hospital” (different TV or movies scene than the ER TV series here in the USA). Also probably I hoped for a break of school because my middle school and high school years are not easy.

In recent years especially last year, during my visit to China, I went to hospital everyday to see my mom (she was in the hospital). Also I saw her in IV infusion this year (note IV infusion is much more common in China than int he USA, even for the kids, separate topic); and I did IV infusion last year and a bunch of tests after falling from the ladder (advice: be careful when climbing ladder, using proper technique and safety cautions). I think my attitude towards hospital stay is more rational now: it’s a necessary evil we have to deal with. I am hoping to be away from hospital as much as practical.

Below is something new I noticed this time around.

Rounds

Doctors, nurses and personal care technicians (tech) kept families in the loop most of the time. Also, there are the morning “rounds” in which all the caregivers including the residents (the doctors in training) will have a discussion on the current status, and ask parents if there are any questions. This is somewhat like the “standup” in the agile world. I think it’s good.

Tablet

In year 2010 I recall the Mercy hospital room has traditional phone.

Fast forward 14 years, at the children’s I do notice the SamSung tablet in the room, and it can be used both for ordering meals as well as watching TVs (we didn’t watch this time). It also has some games similar to what we saw on Boeing 737 Max and 787 – our two kids played a bit together, and our little one played some alone too. I remember in the old days the meal is ordered from phone.

Electronic Medical Records

Another new development is Electronic Medical Records (EMR), and BJC (parent org for the Children’s) implemented Epic/MyChart in recent years. Adding my daughter’s EMR proxy access to my account took a few days: I simply requested for it and wait. I got my own MyChart set up at BJC a few years ago when I went there for the Covid vaccine (the Pfizer version). I received the access in about a week or so (thinking they may have manually looked into my relationship with my daughter).

Personally I like the electronic version of medical records much better than papers. Because I am not the best organized person for paperwork, as you can read from my earlier blog post – I need to better organize things.

I noticed our pediatricians office has a patient portal too. TAUC has a much simpler website but I recall once I downloaded the flu vaccine record for work. I also talked about my personal visit experience here last year – after an unexpected fall. Their wait time is quite long recently – the main reason we didn’t take our baby there this time. But I do have past interactions with doc there and I think he is good. This reminds me another thing: I need to look for a PCP again because the PCP I saw earlier this year moved away.

Customer Service etc.

Concierge (Customer Service Specialist): noticed concierge came to us when we were waiting at the ER waiting area on Monday 9/9, and she offered water, snacks etc. We saw customer service specialist during the hospital stay (inpatient) later as well.

Family Center: it’s at the 3rd floor of children’s hospital. I saw volunteers. They have coffee, drink, snacks and laundry services.

Ronald McDonald House

Education (missing school): the education specialist came on Monday 9/16 asked if we need anything school related.

Therapy Dog: this is probably one of the highlights during our little baby’s stay.

Appointment Helper for PCP (Primary Care Physician, or Pediatrician in this case).

Overall they are trying to make the place nice, welcoming etc. More like a hotel, vs a traditional hospital.

Parking, Meals, and Odds and Ends

Parking is free for the parents. One thing: don’t use the parent badge directly if you go in the 1st time using your car, which is more likely in the case of St. Louis metro area parents. The reason is if you come in using parent badge, you won’t have entry ticket – which is handy when you leave the hospital. Another reason is we need to turn in the parent badge when we leave. Today I had to use #lostTicket feature because I gave my entry ticket to my wife. It’s not a big deal, $16 is the cost of the parking fee. I noticed quite a few people (hospital workers?) parked along the Kingshighway Blvd across the street. Probably to save some parking fees.

Meal is included for the patients and two caregivers: it seems breakfast and dinner at the cafeteria, with some limitations; and lunch is available via a phone call. We didn’t order lunch btw. Our baby ordered her meals via the SamSung tablet.

There are some outdoor areas on the rooftop (8th floor) for kids/families to walk around.

The window view from the 10th floor room is also pretty good: we are facing kings highway blvd and can see forest park and nearby buildings in the area. I will attach couple pictures of the window view shortly. I also walked at the forest park once; and went to the shake shack at Euclid road once (I went there often when I was working at Cortex in year 2019 and 2020 before pandemic).

Bills

I just paid all the urgent care and pediatricians’ bills on myuhc.com via the HSA account (and SSO). Personally, I like this electronic version of dashboard/payments better than the good old paper-based approach. Guess how much I paid so far (note this is before the ER/Inpatient bills from the children’s hospital, which I estimate to be in thousands)? I paid about $900 so far.

Lessons learned

One thing I learned from all this, I think, is that choose urgent care place wisely, or try to see pediatrician 1st. On two occasions, Monday Labor Day 9/2 and Sunday 9/8 I took our little one to two urgent care places, and they cost about $300 per trip, and the 1st trip (9/2) didn’t diagnose the pneumonia (or maybe she didn’t have it at the time, but we didn’t do X-ray on 9/2, and she was diagnosed on 9/5 Thursday at Pediatrician office).

Also not all urgent care places are the same. In my old and current neighborhood, I recommend going to the Total Access Urgent Care (TAUC) at Creve Coeur (next to the Noodles co and Walgreens), and the St. Lukes Urgent Care (next to the CVS). The reason I didn’t go to TAUC 1st this time is mainly the wait time: 1st time it suggested about 7 hours wait time, the second time about 2 hours. But again sometimes, maybe a lot of times good things (and good doctors) are worth to wait.

How much will be overall bill cost? I am making a wild guess: between ER and the inpatient at Children’s Hospital, I am guessing I likely need to pay $5000 to $10,000, after the insurance discount. Over the years the US healthcare cost skyrocketed as well as the insurance premium. I recall back probably in year 2001, more than 20 years ago, I only paid about $10 or $15 for the tonsil removal surgery (for my then significant other). The hospital bills for our two babies are about $1,500 for normal delivery and hospital stay (2 nights, if my memory is correct) at Mercy St. Louis. Regarding ER, I mentioned I went to Mercy ER in year 2006, and the bill was about $800 then. The insurance company initially didn’t want to pay: I called them and they paid eventually.

Last but not least, if you like to read more, I talked about American Healthcare systems and hospitals in the past (here are post one, two, and three in a series, also this one).

(Update 09-19-2024) It appears that I got a scammer call yesterday (luckily, I didn’t give you much information). The number is 763 656 5847 (I just did a google search). Anyone the caller claims to be UnitedHealthCare (that’s also from the Caller ID on my iPhone). And the topic is around nurse line or nurse manager (the caller knows my kid’s name and my employer’s name; this leads to me think they are not total 100% scammers). I did some google around this topic too, and here is some of the reddit thread I found (one and two). I just blocked the phone number. Better to err on the cautious side 🙂

(Update 09-25-2024) The 1st batch of bills arrived at myuhc.com, and I paid them all – 9 bills total, and the total is under $1,000 from my side, the insurance company also paid some (after discount).

(Update 10-01-2024) The total for the hospital stay is $1,228.40 so far, per myChart – I paid all via myuhc.com

(Update 10-02-2024) Got the hospital bill, I paid $175.50 via myuhc while the uhc paid more than $1,579.50.

(Update 10-03-2024) I paid hospital $34.06. I think this is likely the tail end of the bills.

(Update 10-05-2024) I summarized my out of pocket expense for the hospital bills: $2,017.16 and the subtotal of pediatrician (3 visits total) and 2 urgent care visits: $959.49. Total is $2,976.65 so far. I believe most bills are created and paid. Again the most important thing is make sure we are healthy.

(Update 10-07-2024) One more bill from the children’s: Plan Paid $28,460.68; You (I) Paid $481.77 => this makes total hospital bill to $2,498.93; also this makes the total out of pocket pay (adding $959.49) to be $3,458.42. I think we may hit a limit or something like that for out of pocket expense for this year.

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kids Life Life Tips

The 3rd week was tough

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Our 10 year old got sick on the 1st day of Labor Day weekend – 8/31 Saturday. She has violin private lesson and we had to do it over the Zoom. Initially we didn’t think too much of it, but on Monday 9/2, as we didn’t see her getting any better we decided to go to urgent care. And now I look back I think I may have chosen the wrong urgent care. The Total Access Urgent Care Creve Coeur has a long wait time, 1st estimate is 6:17 pm when I looked at it at about 11:30 am. Went to the St. Luke’s UC down the road and was told at least one hour wait. So I decided try the new Mercy Go Health at the Dierbergs plaza. The doctor said it’s some sort of viral respiratory infection but didn’t prescribe any medication, we did ruled out Covid and Streps via the tests. The doctor did listen to her lung as well.

Coming home and she wasn’t doing better. On Thursday 9/5 my wife decided taking her to see her normal pediatrician. It turns out to be pneumonia (google: long does child pneumonia last) and antibiotics were prescribed. My wife thought she may get well very quickly. I was not that confident though.

Thursday was also our 14-year-old first cross country meet and I decided to go and provide some support. Friday evening was 14-year-old first pep band performance for the high school’s 1st home football game. We came home exhausted after the game – we had fun.

Today 14 year old decided get some sleep in the morning instead of go to the 8:30 am cross country practice – which I agree. And 10 year old continues her violin lesson via Zoom once more.

Playing Time

Recently 10 year old and I got into a habit of doing some thing together, mainly around board game or something in the evening. On some of the nights I came back home a bit late: mainly because I was picking up my 14 year old. We still try to play something as simple as “spot it” (the game little kids play). Btw, it’s harder to beat the kids on the “Set game” nowadays – for me it’s almost impossible to beat 14 year old. Nowadays I started to appreciate the time spent with my daughters, as I realized my time with them is getting less as they grow up. This is especially true with 14 year old.

I know nowadays we usually want our kids get well soon when they are sick – but sometimes the virus has its own mind, and we just have to be patient 🙂

Reference

Fever or Chills, Age 11 and Younger 

Pneumonia in Children: Care Instructions (alberta.ca)

Categories
advice and tips kids Life Life Tips math-and-edu

We survived two weeks of High School, so far :-)

Reading Time: 2 minutes

This probably should be the series 2 of Ladue high school, we are coming, series I is here and I wrote it about 9 months ago.

Now it’s real – which means, every morning, I have to be patient about the traffic on Warson road. And I am very proud to announce: so far I didn’t lose my cool ha ha 🙂 Though in one morning, I told my 14 year old it’s probably for her to ride bike when we were stuck near the stop sign at Warson and Conway.

Sports and schedule

This whole actually started in the summer, because my 14 year old took two online classes (health and PE), via Launch. Both are fairly intense courses, and more than once in our China and Hong Kong trip, including in Hong Kong, I had to walk with my 14 year old to make sure she gets enough steps or make the Garmin heart rate monitor happy. We actually started from St. Louis in late June 🙂

We encouraged her to sign up varsity sports. And I quickly realized the Cross Country program is more demanding than I thought. Btw, a little fun during the training (instagram :-).

At the same time, she decided (we ok’ed) her not doing the auditioning for YPOP (YPCO and YPSO) this school year at Webster University Community Music School. We don’t want to or try to hit at every pitch, as the old baseball saying goes (and Warren Buffett likes to say it many times).

What’s next

I can see she definitely has more homework. Also due to the Cross Country practice after school, she would feel tired and tended to do “doom scrolling” (I assume it’s TikTok and YT Shorts) instead of working on the homework right away. That would push her bed time to a time that her mom cannot tolerate.

Odds and Ends

There are a lot more of those in High School. One thing is about the volunteering and tracking hours – because it may help the college application/admission down the road. Also clubs and other extra-curriculum activities – I guess there may be implications to college application too, among other things. It basically create more work and put some more pressure on the kids/family.

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advice and tips Edu-and-Ladue-School kids Life Life Tips

It’s a pleasure to be your cool dad

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Note: I also published this to Medium, and the friend link is here.

Our younger daughter turned to 10 the day before yesterday. And our older daughter is about 4 years older, so basically I have been a dad for a bit over 14 years.

Being dad is not an easy job. Last few years are getting a bit more challenging, as my older one is becoming a teenager, and also with pandemic, we were worried about the lack of social activities etc. Below is some of my observations and thoughts on the topic of “raising kids”, which is my main task or job at this stage of my life. In theory I can do auto pilot too, but I am just not that kind of cool or laid back dad. I was trying to stay away from the other extreme as well: aka the micro-management, or sometimes people call the practice “helicopter parenting”. I am by no means perfect, and I had my setbacks and failures in many aspects, from big to small. I recall in my recent trip to China, we met a dad, and he said he never missed or be late for the morning drop-off for his son (that’s 7 years of no late or tardiness).

I do believe he is a quite dedicated and meticulous dad, for me I tried but I think I failed here and there in terms pickup. Quite a few times: my 14 year old would text – dad, where are you? I would answer: 5 minutes away. And honestly sometimes I don’t know whether it’d going to be 5 or 10 minutes. But for the most part, my 14 year old still thinks I am a cool dad. And sometimes if I am not cool, she would say: chill 🙂

Adolescent / adolescence:

I have some reflections here on this topic, see below

Ankle Injury And Recovery – 从哪里摔倒就从哪里爬起来

Move Families And Kids To Better School Community

My Zhenhai Middle School Days我在镇海中学的日子

PS, corresponding to this Zhenhai Middle School; 镇海中学) piece above: I felt this summer our 14 year old seriously got into the math self-study. She wanted to do the math acceleration even since she got this idea from her 8th grade math teacher, and she was working hard on it since our summer 2024 China trip). From my perspective, I have zero complaints, and the main thing I need to remind her is “don’t sit in your room” for too long, go out and stretch, and “get some sleep” 🙂

(Update 08-09-2024 am) In terms of self motivation, and learn math on her own, I felt our 14 year old is at “friction point of the clutch“. But this morning, the hell broke loose. I think at about 6:10 or 6:20 am, I got up and heard my 14 year old sobbing. I didn’t go and ask why (as I know that alone may make things worse). Turns out she was studying for the math acceleration, and she planned to go to bed at 12 am last night, and again to get up at 2 am and study – except she didn’t woke up to the alarm. She slept through. I know she really could get some more sleep in last month, because she is exhausted studying math most of this time. I went out and was going to walk/jog in the neighborhood – but I had my 2nd thoughts and quickly came back home and went to Bread Co. and get some breakfast. A while later, I asked our 10 year old – did big sis wake you up early morning? Our younger daughter replied: yes, at 6:52 am, because I looked at the clock 🙂

So there is our 14 year old’s growing pain. Not to mention I dropped her off the high school (for test), and came back getting banana/water for her 🙁

I am not complaining actually – I think in terms of I enjoy what I am doing, if I compare myself to an empty nester: a lot of my high school or college mates are empty nester now, because I had my 14 year old when I was 39. But one day if I get lucky enough to be an empty nester, I would try to be happy too – just need to find something meaningful or interesting to fill my day.

(Update 08-09-2024 pm) So our 14 year old didn’t pass the day 2 session of the math acceleration (Advanced Geometry). But I am glad she is not giving up. She said: I am going to get the Algebra 2 book and study this year (aiming for a similar acceleration next summer). We just ordered the used book at eBay.

Each kid is different

What a novel concept or idea. Of course we know everyone is different, and child is no different. But at the same time, may I ask: don’t we used to do things like: for a guy (or a girl) with hammer, everything is a nail. No? Congrats that you already do much better than many other parents.