Steve Jobs was a low tech parent

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-was-a-low-tech-parent.html?_r=1&referrer=

The Growth Mindset

The Growth (vs. fixed) MIndset

It’s late, but this is a cool article about reminding our kids that our brains are a muscle that need to struggle and fail to grow. 

 

“decided to praise my son not when he succeeded at things he was already good at, but when he persevered with things that he found difficult. I stressed to him that by struggling, your brain grows.”

“For instance, praising someone’s process (“I really like how you struggled with that problem”) versus praising an innate trait or talent (“You’re so clever!”) is one way to reinforce a growth ­mindset with someone. Process­ praise acknowledges the effort; talent­ praise reinforces the notion that one only succeeds (or doesn’t) based on a fixed trait.”

From : http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/index1.html: 

How Not to Talk to Your Kids; The inverse power of praise.

“Randomly divided into groups, some were praised for their intelligence. They were told, “You must be smart at this.” Other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.””

“Needleman has learned to say, “I like how you keep trying.” She tries to keep her praise specific, rather than general, so that a child knows exactly what she did to earn the praise (and thus can get more).”

35 Gifts Your Children Will Never Forget

35 Gifts Your Children Will Never Forget

This is a really beautiful article/list that is helpful to read as a growing parent.

As for me, the physical gifts that I remember receiving from my parents were my Gameboy Pocket and any game I ever had on it. My sister and I also got a keyboard, a karaoke machine, and a sega dreamcast. And I remember my Magna green/blue bike.

My parents also gifted me sister and I two beautiful Cotillions filled with so much love and memories. They also gave us mobility by providing two cars and credit cards to gas stations (gosh, we were so spoiled).

My parents also gifted me with love and compassion. They taught me to be patient and honest. To always believe in God and the power of prayer. To always kiss each other on the lips (although I just do that with my sons now). And to give hugs freely to everyone.

My parents taught me to place more value in the convenience of avoiding a higher blood pressure when shopping for anything. They also taught me to value the experience and the memories, and the good food over the fancy new car or new cell phone or nicer home. They taught me to value the vacation and family time over fancy designer clothes as well.

My parents taught me to love my elders, to graciously listen to any of their stories, memories and advice with respect. They taught me to love my cousins, and they taught me to especially love my sister. 

I still miss my mom so much.

 

Hello again! Social media’s many outlet options thru the years

Then, January 1, 2011:

“And to you, 2011 – I’ll see you in the morning.”

Now, August 7, 2014:

Good morning! I suppose I owe you an apology. I left you hanging in the earliest of early mornings of 2011, and now I’ve returned,  3 years, 8 months, and 1 week later. My sincerest apologies; I got caught up in another form of social media called Instagram, which I joined on January twentysomething of 2011, and then onto tumblr, which i joined in March 2011. Both of these instant gratification blogging options sucked me up into a whirlwind of posting photo memories  of my life, my twins, my cooking, my homemaking, and also of my fangirling via tumblr.

IG and tumblr are fun! There is a fascinating anonymity with tumblr- of being able to loudly whisper or quietly yell my inner rants to the void of public social media. Instagram, on the other hand, I decided to make a private account, but after IG went mainstream, and facebook bought them, and now my aunts and cousins and close and not so close friends are asking to follow me and I follow back-it’s now become… cluttered. Almost as cluttered as facebook was and is now. And now I’m left wanting… something else.

You see, I had facebook for college friends and high school friends, and cousins my age in 2011. I used fb to keep up with their post bachelor degree adventures, and sometimes wallow in jealousy of their boundless travel freedom and culinary escapades in fancy restaurants while I stayed home with my twins. I used babycenter group forums to desperately connect with other young parents since I became a mother eons before anyone else my age became a parent. IG was for brides-to-be to bounce off inspiration and share the wedding planning excitement and frustration that only other fellow brides could understand. tumblr became the obsessive, mindless fangirling of all things fun and hilarious and on tv and movies now.

But now, I’ve completely cleaned up my facebook friends list so I am only “friends” with all family and a small handful of actual friends. These exact friends and some family now are also on IG, so now I feel I can’t be as frank or honest or brag as much as I used to when I had “no real life friends” on IG. The brides I knew on IG are no longer brides, but now mothers and wives, who are just beginning their journeys – but we no longer connect so easily. I’ve since been a mother and homemaker for years and they are barely beginning. As for tumblr – it welcomingly hasn’t changed in how it serves it purpose for me. It still lets me fangirl and connect with millions of other fangirls, it lets me post and brag and whine and complain. But what tumblr lacks is depth. I can post paragraphs, a quote, a sentence, and limitless memes, gifs, photos. But I won’t want to clutter someone else’s dashboard with my lengthy posts of my valuable thoughts. No, no, my thoughts are too precious to be flinched at by rando’s just scrolling to look for more hunky pics of their favorite hunk of the moment.

So here I am. I scrolled through babycenter and my profile, trying to find something and I found this instead. Yippee. Are you what I’ve been looking for?

And the big silver ball has dropped

Happy new year!

There is so much to reflect upon for 2010, but also so so so much to look forward to in 2011 and beyond!

This past year my family finally moved into a small apartment of our own and we really saw what it takes to maintain an ‘instant’ family of 4 with just me and darrell calling all the shots. Aizen and Demetri did all their ‘firsts’, from rolling over, to sitting up unsupported, to crawling, standing, walking and now running! They turned 1 this year and got baptized and also got their very first haircuts! My identical suns aren’t babies anymore; now they are rambunctious, curious little toddlers!!

But this year also brought about lots of sadness for we experienced 3 funerals for all three of their remaining great grandmothers which pains my heart so much to know that they will never get to see them grow up with us, but at least they are in our hearts and my memory so I can pass them on to Aizen and demetri when they are old enough.

This year also brought about so much excitement cuz Darrell brought me to hawaii for my first time and proposed with a gorgeous, tiffany lucida engagement diamond, and now we look forward for a year of planning and a potential wedding!

2011 will also, hopefully, bring us our very own house/home of our own ^_^ our lease for this apt if up in april, so we are planning to move into our house of our dreams.

This 2011 also means that I will also be finishing up my very last semester of my undergraduate career..and thus the next chapter of my own life will unfold. Right now, that’s heading towards a job that will pay for our wedding😀

I sit here by myself in our empty living room, eyes drooping, watching the New Years Rockin eve on channel 7 with my sweet, beautiful, breathtakingly cute boys sleeping soundly (miraculously) on the other side of this wall, while their dad is hard at work, earning good time-and-a-half-money to support our family.  I am so blessed. So, so blessed. G’night 2010-you had some rough edges, but also a glorious, sliver lining.

And to you, 2011 – I’ll see you in the morning.

Favorite finger foods

We have difficulty feeding aizen and demetri.

But i just wanted to share that their current favorite finger foods is tofu for Aizen and steamed apples for demetri. Aizen will grab for that piece of tofu i just placed on his plate and stuff it in his mouth even though he still has 2 more other pieces of tofu already in his mouth. It’s like he’s afraid I will take it off his plate if he doesn’t snarf it down right away. Demetri, on the other hand, is much cleaner when he eats. he will swallow every last piece of food in his mouth before he crams in another, and when we spoon feed him and sees the spoon of food coming, he will chew is food with much gesture and take a big swallow and then open his mouth for the next spoonful of food. Aizen would open his mouth even is he hasn’t swallowed anything yet.

And another thing about aizen, he refuses to swallow his food sometimes. It really pisses darrell off.. but that’s for another post.

This evening I gave them chicken nuggets and usually Demetri is much more partial to them compared to aizen (aizen would eat all the tofu and poke at the nugget, and demetri will snarf down the chicken nuggets and squish the tofu to nasty little pieces) but they both equally liked the chicken nuggets! Yay for more protein! :D  I always worry that they aren’t eating enough of the protein.

For this recent thanksgiving, i have found that they love eating lumpia! They can easily eat 4 pieces each of the lumpia shanghai style.🙂 Yay for eating with no fussing!

Mad Dash to Nap

I don’t usually do naptime since I’m in school at this time, but I had a few days off this week for veterans day so i’ve been putting them down for their naps consistently this week.

Darrell is very strict with them, but when naptime comes, I need a nap and I’m just too tired or fed-up to exert to much discipline onto them. Darrell usually makes them calm down on the couch and drink their sippies of milk and watch their video with the curtains drawn, but when I put them on the couch, they absolutely will not sit still. They want to climb everywhere. So I’ve given up and I just do everything Darrell does except I put them on the floor and they have full reign to do anything. And I think it’s so cute.

I usually decide to begin naptime routine when I see they start slowing down, or get more clingy to me or they throw cranky tantrums over absolutely nothing. Today, they were definitely slowing down so I set up the routine and give them their sippies. They drink, and then all of a sudden they have a huge burst of energy and want to play with every little thing because they know they are gonna take a nap and won’t see their toys for a while. And at this time, they are actually nice to each other. They rarely steal toys at this time and usually share pretty well. And I used to fear that they were getting the 2nd-wind of energy due to over-tiredness and I’ve missed the golden opportunity to put them down for a nap fuss free….. but miraculously, when the video ends and I turn off the TV, they both sit down, hug their loveys (that they previously tossed aside) and calmly wait for me to pick them both up to put them to sleep.

And so I do. I place each in their cribs, tuck them in with their loveys and favorite stuffed bear, and their blanket and leave. No crying or fussiness. At all.🙂 Good days.

This is so uplifting

http://nerdyapplebottom.com/2010/11/02/my-son-is-gay/#comments

This seriously made me cry. I hope that one day, if ever I am to meet a situation like this, that I will face it so…so… honorably like this mother had for her son. And I will try very hard to never be like mother A, B and C.

Butt butt butt!

I think my sons have big butts. Like..bigger than the average butt for a baby their size O_O

I’ll explain more later. If I remember to come back to this post to edit.

_______

Every since they were about 5-6 months old, whenever their grandpa (my future FIL) would hold one of them, he would always give them back after a few minutes and proclaim that they “were wet and need a diaper change” but they didn’t poop. I would smell their diapers and look inside and even pat around their diaper to feel for some fullness. I guess it felt kind of full. Whatever- I would change them cuz sure, they’ve been in their diapers for a an hour or two, and sure, it could be full. But every time I would change them, their diapers were barely even peed on. And eventually Dad and I would think “dang, what a waste of a diaper -_-”

So then one day I decided to change them right before I gave one of them to their grandpa. And sure enough, within a few minutes or 1/2 and hour, he would give them back claiming that they were wet and needed a diaper change. So again, I would smell their diapers and look inside and even pat around their diaper to feel for some fullness. And again, I guess it felt kind of full. And then I started thinking about it. So then I changed him into a fresh diaper and started patting around the diaper to feel for some fullness. And sure enough-it kind of felt full. But how? It is a fresh diaper-surely there was not time for him to pee!

And then I thought- it must be their butts! They must have big butts! And consulted with my sister and with Dad and yes. We all skeptically agree-maybe they do indeed, have big butts for their age and that is why their diapers always feel full-because of their big, squishy-apple bottom butts🙂

The one on the floor is when they are 8months old, and the one against a window they are almost 10months. I think both times, Aizen is the one I made show off his butt😛

No More Bottles!

We took away all their expensive a** avent bottles and gave them sippy-straw cups.

Aizen’s doing way better than Demetri.

I’ll explain more later. If I remember to come back to this post to edit.

Aizen is on the left, enjoying his sippy straw cup, and demetri is on the right- showing how hard it is to keep his straw in his mouth.