Surprising Anniversary

On 2/16/2010, we have been married for 5 years. Both of us cannot believe that it's already 5 years. But, we have a proof - our son, who born 1 year after our marriage, is going to be 4 years old. In these 5 years, we have experienced many different things, good and bad, happy and sad. Warren's important relatives passed away and we have seen changes of relationships. Somehow, it is very sad that people do not act like the same and they stopped to pretend to be friendly and nice. No more family gathering, no more talking...instead, there are argument on money, bad-mouthing, no trust. We saw how these happened and we sort of knew why. I hope that it won't happen to our family.

We have arguments, we fought, we cursed, we made up, we forgave, we tried to forget and we learned to love more. I could not know if we could be together until we die but I believe that we would not let our marriage die without trying to rescue. We have seen friends divorced or screwed up and we just learned from their lessons. Hopefully, we would repeat their mistakes.

With the current economy and uncertainty at work, I canceled the Valentine's dinner (I made it a Chinese New Year family dinner). But on our anniversary day, we went out for a dinner without the kids. When I am outside the door of home, Warren told me that he had left something downstairs and I believed that it would be either his phone or mails. Then, I heard that my mom brought the kids downstairs. When I opened the door, my daughter gave me a bunch of red roses which was the stuff that Warren left downstairs. He bought me the red roses. As a tradition, I made it into dry flowers and it would stay in the vase in the house kitchen for one year.

Honey, I love you!

Chinese New Year Parade

Warren used to perform Lion Dancing since he's in high school. He practiced and performed in Chinese New Year parade every year until around 10 years ago. In the past few years, he did not bring us to the parade as he thought that the kids were too young. This year, he felt like to reconnect with his old team friends. I asked him if he could connect with his old team and have a performance in Spencer's school. He called his friends and then lined up the participation in the parade this year.

Yesterday, he took Spencer to Tony's house to help out making the float. Then, after we put the 2 kids to sleep for an hour. We headed down to downtown and looked for his friends. Both Spencer and Amanda were so excited to see the drum and the lion heads. They wanted to play the drum and I think that they could be good players in the future if we can train them well. Amanda seems to be quite aggressive and determined, she is stubborn and fearless. Spencer is passionate and learn fast but he needs a lot of encouragement and confidence.

The parade started at 5pm and we stood in the float truck. The kids were so happy to see people around and the lions performance. There're at least 20 lions in Warren's troupe. He said that his team members earned these lions from different competitions and all the major players are the 2nd generation of the troupe. Tony's son is 6 or 7 and he played in the parade, pairing up with another older boy to play the lion. I took a lot of pictures and videos. Although the standard of performance is no comparison with the professional or amateur players in Hong Kong and China, Warren's troupe members are pretty good.

My whole family had good times in the parade and the 2 kids are actually asking to go again. But one bad thing is that Amanda caught a cold and has been having high fever of nearly 103 degree since yesterday night. We need to give her half dose of the adult Tylenol to lower her temperature. Hope that she can break it tomorrow.

General Hospital of ABC

I have been watching General Hospital of ABC for a while. The story itself is quite complicated with a lot of characters. It's about Charles Port which is a city where mobsters and a big wealthy family control the daily activities and economy. But, it does not mean that there's no good cop. Interestingly, one of the cop, Dante, is actually the son of the major mobster Sonny who is a passionate family man who would try his very best to protect his family. But, Sonny does not know about Dante and his mother. In fact, he is a good guy that many of the people die for protection.

I specially love the story on the relationship amongst the nurses and doctors in General Hospital. There're some sweet nurses/doctors such as Elizabeth, Epiphany, Robin, Patrick, etc.

General Hospital is full of passion and love about life and most of the parents in the story do their best to protect and love their children. As a mom, I am fully identical with any of them and I can understand why they make their decisions in the show. I sincerely recommend this TV series and hope the other people would enjoy the show like I do.

The exciting General Hospital sweepstakes that’s currently being run on Mom Central website. One lucky winner will be randomly selected to receive a trip to Los Angeles to visit the set of General Hospital and have a walk-on role. The sweepstakes is open until February 28th. Here is a link to the sign-up survey for this sweepstakes: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22A5X5XEZD9

http://abc.go.com/shows/general-hospital

Disclosure: I am a participant in a Mom Central campaign for ABC Daytime and will receive a tote bag or other General Hospital branded items to facilitate my review.

Public School? Private School? Part 2

After 1 year of discussion, excuse me, I would say 20 years of debates, the education system in here is still not promising. With the new student assignment redesign, I don't see the improvement or attempt to improve of the school quality. There's only a lie that the school district superintendents would like to fool us parents or fool themselves on giving a solution to the current problems.

Racial diversity? What is the business of it to the school district? USA is a country with different races and we have total freedom to choose where we live. Why it matters for us to choose to live in a community of the same races? It does not matter me, why you concern about mattering me?

Equity of access to high quality schools? If the under-performed groups do not concern about that, why you think that it bothers them? Does it just like us forcing some people to go to college when they don't want to? But, the ones who want to attend colleges get no chance because they are not poor enough or rich enough.

It's not a game of the superintendents to test. They are real children! We are real parents! It's not like a chess game. If you fail, just start another one. It's a real life game! If the child fails, would he or she able to start again? We parents already have so much stresses and pressures and this stupid student assignment system already draw so many people crazy. Why so many parents fraud to get their children in good schools? Why middle class parents cut their other spending to send their kids to private schools? It's because the current system "persuade" and "stimulate" them to do that.

Some nuts raised silly questions and ideas on cutting yellow bus services and making more restrictions, etc. to "protect" the system being gamed. Why don't you guys think about improving the quality of the schools? The teacher quality, the principal quality, the curriculum quality...all these matters, not the student assignment itself can benefit the students. I can understand that the federal budget and state budget had been cut and the school district needs to find the ways to trim down their expenses. However, I can see the biggest expense of school district is salary: 700 people costs $80.5 million a year and we will be having a deficit of $113 million in a year or two. How the school district is going to cut this deficit? The answer is the benefit of the students: yellow buses, teachers, extra-curriculum funding, support, after-school activities...

I'm getting tired to see or know that. Private school may not be a real solution but I would not want my kids to go through those. Our financial situation is another story. If I lose my job, I may have no choice.

To learn writing

Husband worries about how Spencer would learn his ABC and 123. He has problem on concentration and it is a problem to almost all the members of my husband's family. What we concern is how to persuade Spencer to learn. He's smart on learning by touching. He knew how to put the screws in the right positions after seeing daddy to fix the safety gate one time. My son is also good at copying what we do and what we say. Teachers in school noticed that he is pretty good at picking up small stuff and playing constructive toys. He is a great helper in school; he helps to put away other kids' blankets and he helps out to clean the tables after lunch.

Today, when we are on the way to pick up Spencer, my husband said to me that he would like to start teaching him writing numbers. He would like to show him how to write and hopefully he will follow. So, after dinner time, we started our writing project. I pulled out paper and pens. Daddy showed him how to write a number 1. At the beginning, Spencer was not cooperative. He kept saying that he did not know how. Instead of drawing a vertical straight line, he drew a horizontal one. Daddy got mad after continuously showing Spencer how to draw a "1". He complained to me that Spencer's not concentrating. I took him to put him on my laps, holding his right hand to teach him how to write a "1". He was so happy and asked me to help him more. I gradually reduced the control on his hand, just slightly supported his hand and guided him to draw the line from top to bottom. Spencer was so happy to see that he could do that by himself. I think that my son may be slower in learning on that particular skills and he definitely need a lot of encouragement and patience. But, my husband is not good at providing that. I feel that there are more weights added on my shoulders.

I'm here listening

These days, my 3 years old son Spencer has learned a lot of new words and he sometimes really talks like his father. He picked up what we said really quick. It's so embarrassed that the teacher and one of the parents have told me that he said the F word. It's all because of my husband's language. He gets mad easily and once he's mad, particularly when he's driving or talking to his friends on the cell phone, he forgets that the children are around listening to what he says. I have to periodically remind him to mind his language.

I have invented the concept of bad words. Any word that I don't want the kids to say, I would tell them that it's a bad word. They are not supposed to say it. If they say it, I would give them a warning. The 2nd time of using this word would lead to a time-out, standing at the corner. They don't like being punished and they try to avoid using the "bad words". They will help out to catch their daddy's language. Sometimes, it can turn this into a fun game.

How much is enough?

How much money do you need to consider enough?
I have seen so many families ended up split into pieces because of money.
Brothers and sisters, uncles and nephews...fight for money after the parents passed away.
Husbands and wives argued on how to split the processions after they divorced.
Money is lovely when you need it and you will be happy that you don't have to earn it the hard way.
Money is devil when you are controlled by it; if you don't know why you want more money but just try to grab some more, it is the most stupidest thing in your life.

Recently, I have seen some good examples of money being a devil. It's so sad to hear these stories.

1st story: relatives fighting for money after the grandmother passed away

The grandmother had 2 sons and 5 daughters. The 2 sons used to take care of the mother (actually lived next door of her home) and her properties. Her husband worked hard to buy 2-3 apartment buildings, he died young and left all the processions to his wife. This grandmother gave the apartment buildings to the 2 sons who appeared to be close to their sisters when their mother was still alive. They had gathering all the times and everyone seemed to be so caring and friendly to the others. After the grandmother died, the 1st son was given the rights as the executor of her will. There was $200,000 cash left to be divided amongst 13 people, namely the 2 sons, the 4 daughters (one of the daughters died young), 3 son-in-laws (1 son-in-law passed away and 1 daughter had divorced) and the 4 grand-daughters (the daughters of the 2 sons). This grandmother had many many grandsons and granddaughters but the grandchildren of the daughters were not included in her will. She preferred the 2 sons because of old thinking that only the sons carry the family name.

The 1st son had spent one whole year to decide what much each person would get. In this one year, this family was not the same any more. There was no more gathering. The brothers and sisters argued on how to split the money for so many times. Eventually, some of the children of this grandmother have bigger shares because they "watched" their mother. Someone found out that the will had been rewritten one year before the death of this grandmother and she was already 95 years ago at that time. Her ability to judge was queried.

After one year, one of the son-in-laws, whose wife (the grandmother's daughter) died 40 years ago, was given $25,000. He has 4 children and a 2nd wife that he married for 39 years. This man decided to split the whole amount into 6 shares and each child and his wife received a bit more than $4,000. His step-wife complained about that and she believes that she should have 50% of the $25,000 that her husband received. She folded a feet, screamed at the husband, refused to cook and complained to the other relatives how mean her husband treated her. To me, I consider that she should have nothing because she has no relationship to this grandmother. She is not her daughter and the money was given to her husband because of his ex-wife.

2nd story: husband and wife argued after divorce

My husband's best friend cheated on his wife several times. Finally, his wife kicked him out from the house and asked for divorce. The husband felt guilty and decided to give everything to his wife. However, the husband's family got involved and made the case very complicated. First of all, the mother of the husband talked to the wife and asked her to return the jewelry that she gave to the daughter-in-law when she married her son. They have been married for 13 years. Secondly, the husband's sister said to the wife that she must have done something bad that made her brother cheat on her. On the other hand, the wife's family also interfered. The wife's father refused to return the money that the husband has invested through him. Then, he promised to buy the husband's share of the house but then he said that he's talking about the original price of the house regardless of the inflation and increase of property value.

Finally, the husband and wife promised to split everything in half and they also split the expenses for raising their son such as tuition. They keep seeing each other every week but they argue on everything about how to share the bills. I know that they still love each other but they both admitted that it's impossible for them to be husband and wife again. With all the argument in a roll, it is hard for them to realize that there's still love in their eyes. I feel sorry for their son who will never able to celebrate his birthday or Christmas with the presence of both parents because the extended families hate each other.

Wedding banquets

I have recently attended 2 wedding banquets, one was my cousin's party and the latest one was that of my friend's son. They are both at their late 20's or early 30's. There's nothing to do with age but their maturity of thinking. The 2 parties have some common things:

1) No respects to the parents or the older generation
2) Very self-centered
3) Little consideration of the guests

First of all, the parents were not arranged in the head tables. Only the bridesmaids and friends were sitting together with the new couples. Secondly, the seat arrangements were not well considered. I believe that everybody prefers to sit together with someone they know, not strangers or at least not someone not speaking the same language. Thirdly, all the arrangements were so messy. For example, the cake was not big enough to feed all the guests; the speeches were too long; the hosts could not even pronounce the names right when they introduced the relatives of the couples; no consideration of the volume of the AV facilities, etc.

Maybe I'm too old-fashioned and actually too old to understand the thoughts of the younger generation. Wedding banquet is a party of the new wed couples but also a special dinner to celebrate with their parents. Other than the couple, the ones who would be very happy will be their parents. For me, I would rather to make my parents happy and consider from their points of view. My wedding banquet was not perfect, and I could say not a happy one because there're too many people involved. I and my husband had planned out fine but just too many other people being so enthusiastic to offer help which made it too overwhelming. But overall, it was a memorable night.