Category Archives: no manual for parenting

Sarah Connor I ain’t. Ay, there’s the rub.

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I tell my kids frequently that when the dinosaurs come, RUN. Don’t wait for mommy. Because mommy will be the first one that gets eaten.

They always reply, after they are done rolling their eyes, It will not be dinosaurs in the end of the world scenario, mom. Don’t you watch any movies?

Well, dinosaur or no dinosaur, that’s not the point. The point is: Survival of the fittest, ergo, death to the weakling, y’all.

Me.

I hate reinforcing stereotypes. But I was, by the book, your stereotypical dorky coke-bottle-wearing no-extra-curricular-activity-whatsoever studying-till-dawn excelling-at-test-taking kid. I have no physical, practical skills to speak of. No physical strength. No kinetic memories of any sports. No agility. None. Nada. Nil. Null.

This lack of physical strength had not been an issue until I became a parent. When you became a parent, movies of a certain sorts ceased to be enjoyable: I sill cannot bring myself to watch “The Other End of the Ocean” and “The Changeling”. I was so distraught by the scene at the swimming pool that I failed to comprehend what happened later in the movie “Minority Report”. I freaked out over “Mystic River” because WTF if you cannot trust people who claim to be policemen. More than any other kinds of movies, I can no longer whole-heartedly enjoy disaster movies, the end-of-the-world mega blockbusters. Instead of being caught up by the actions, intrigued by the plot and storylines, and mesmerized by the big-budget special effects, my brain cells are busy calculating the chance of my children surviving the same event happening on the screen. My stomach churns at the thought of my children having to endure endless darkness and starvation, which is the least horrifying scenario of them all.

When the kids were younger, it was a lot more agonizing. I worried about what to feed them should we ever be trapped in the basement for a long period of time. How about if the baby would not stop crying and risk being discovered? What about diapers?

Now that they are older, I sense that I am becoming a liability when the world is being attacked by dinosaurs, brain-sucking Zombies, or aliens. For starters, I seriously cannot run. When I run for the train in the morning, it takes me the entire commute to get back to my normal breathing rhythm. I am such a slow runner that my husband can walk beside me while I attempt to jog. Running and I do not mix.

On top of that, I am as blind as a bat. Without my contact lenses or my coke-bottle-thick glasses, I cannot even locate the chart on the wall of my optometrist’s office. As soon as my glasses fall, as we all know, one of the dinosaurs is going to step on it and crush it like a peanut. That’s it. The end of me.

I just want my children to move on without me so I can buy them more time…

I don’t like watching disaster movies any more. It sucks.

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We are on our annual family beach vacation with the in-laws this week. It is probably not a surprise that I cannot swim. In fact, I failed gym class in high school because I could not hold my breath long enough to swim the passing length of 15 feet. In contrast, Mr. Monk, my 7-year-old boy, has come a long way from being dastardly afraid of water, i.e. screaming bloody murder when his hair was being washed, to braving the waves with his boogie board all day long.

I gladly accompany him when Mr. Monk wants to swim in the ocean. I make sure that we do not get too far from the shore and that the water reaches no higher than my waist. I am not worried about the fact that I cannot friggin’ swim since my feet can always touch the bottom.

Well, they could always touch the bottom until the time when I almost drowned.

It happened so fast. One minute we were safely playing in the waves near the shore: Mr. Monk was happily swimming around me and under the waves while I screamed and jumped to keep my head above the water with each wave, the next minute I found myself under the water, my feet not being able to reach the bottom. I panicked. I swallowed water. I struggled to get my head above while sensing the impending arrival of the next wave. I could see the shore and it now seemed so far away.

What happened? How did we end up here?

The second wave submerged me under the water. I had braced for it and waited for it to subside. My head was above the water again. I could see a man no more than 30 feet away from us. And the water was at his waist. I saw Mr. Monk swimming along and he did not seem scared.

I started to peddle. To move myself closer to the shore. Inching my way. By this time I was painfully aware of my uselessness and I had determined that I needed to save myself first.

Remember the instruction the flight attendants give on the airplane for the oxygen masks?

“Make sure to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before attempting to help someone else put on theirs.”

I often wonder about that statement. How could a parent ever think of themselves first? It was an agonizing, yet split-second decision.

At that moment, I deliberately abandoned my own child, left him to his own device. I needed to save myself first so I could secure him. That realization panged me; it still does.

All I wanted was for my feet to be able to reach the bottom so I could regain control, goddamnit! I was furious at myself.

How could you have let this happen?

The third wave was coming. I knew if I let it, the wave would push me closer to the shore, and we could have been saved. So I swallowed some more water and let the pounding wave carry me in further. When the ocean retreated, YES, I felt the bottom with my tiptoes.

I stood up on my tiptoes and turned around to look for Mr. Monk. He was swimming behind me, leisurely.

“Hurry up. Come over here!” I yelled as I inched further forward by bouncing along.

He smiled at me.

“NO! We have to get back to the shore. RIGHT NOW!”

He was not listening. Now I was yelling and pleading at the same time.

“Please. COME HERE NOW!! Mommy cannot reach the bottom and I cannot help you at all!”

The man looked in our direction with a puzzled look, probably because he heard me yelling. He soon turned his gaze in some other direction since there was no clear sign that we were in any imminent danger.

As soon as Mr. Monk was within my reach, I pulled him in. We trudged onto the sandy beach.

“Hey, we need to be more careful. We have lost track of where we were headed while we were jumping in the waves. The waves carried us too far away. We got too deep. IMy feet could not touch the bottom and mommy almost drowned.”

“You almost got me killed!” Mr. Monk commented. “You were pulling me down! You should let go my hand next time. I can swim and you can’t! Mom, you should try not to be responsible for your child’s death.”

God only knows. That is one of my biggest fears ever since I became a parent.

Do not fuck up.

All of a sudden I remembered Linda Hamilton doing chin-ups in Terminator 2. I became envious of her ability to protect her child, deeply disturbed by the lack in me, and simply, straightforwardly, exhausted.

Sarah Connor, Baddest-Ass Mama

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After all the soul searching and self-condemnation, I am grateful that I seem to be the only person traumatized by this event. The very next day Mr. Monk pleaded,

“Can we please please please go swimming again?”

“Ok honey. But this time we will stay where the water does not go above my knees.”

Nonchalant Parenting. It’s legit.

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Many of the things that we do or don’t do can be legitimized if only we could find a proper name for it, in conjunction with a cool, catchy definition.

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Once you settle on a name, remember to capitalize it to make it into a Thing. Like so.

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To further reinforce the legitimacy of your parenting style, google and see whether you can find books written based on a similar premise. And of course there it is, out of the 16,562 books listed on Amazon.com under “Parenting (paperback)”.

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“The Idle Parent: Why Less Means More When Raising Kids” in the UK; curiously, "Why Laid-Back Parents Raise Happier and Healthier Kids" in the US with a less inspiring cover...

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Voilà! You’ve got yourself a legitimate school of thoughts to follow (or continue to do or not do what you have been doing or not doing)…

As this article in The New York Times says, “[Y]ou can turn guilt on its head and call it a parenting philosophy.”

“The one constant over the past century has been parents’ determination to find the right answers when it comes to raising their children. In this latest chapter, we have replaced the experts who told us what a good parent worries about with experts who tell us that a good parent doesn’t worry so much. We may even see parents stop aiming to prove how perfect they are and start trying to prove how nonchalant they are.”

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A week before Father’s Day, I asked Mr. Monk to sign the card for my father-in-law. (Let’s for now park the burning question of WHY as soon as you entered into a committed, heterosexual relationship, all remembering and gift giving for miscellaneous dates and holidays became the woman’s job… Yes, let’s shelf it for now until we have some free time…)

“You should put lipstick on and put kisses all over the card to go with the big hug.” I said, without thinking. I was being witty.

“Can I? Oh, can I?” There were stars in his eyes. This kid has been dying to try on my makeup if it were not for the death threat issued by his father.

“Sure. Why not!” I grabbed the camera, thinking, “Honey, this is what happens when you are not around to sign your own father’s Father’s Day card!”

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The Joker

Image 1 of 3

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The Joker
Kissy Face
Father\'s Day Card

WTF Wednesday: A Minor Setback

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What am I?

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Can you guess what this is?

A view of ancient Aztec tombs from the satellite?

An aerial view of Scientologist Compounds?

Newly discovered evidence of alien civilization in Cambodia?

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This is a computer keyboard after I took the caps off.

But why? You ask.

Can you see a hint of pink in the picture? That’s not because of lighting or exposure, THAT, my friend, is the remnant of strawberry smoothie that my 7 year-old spilled all over my laptop.

You know why? Hubris.

He has been using regular glasses (instead of plastic cups with lids that we kept from numerous family-friendly chain restaurants) without incidents. What can go wrong this time?

Oh my goodness, I thought to myself when ThinkPad made a big to-do about their new and improved spill-proof keyboard, what kind of slob will be making big enough a mess to warrant a spill-proof keyboard? Sheesh!

He is watching cartoons on YouTube now, I am just going to do something for myself and go work out. He’ll be ok for 30 minutes without having to yell for me.

Life is indeed better now that the kids are old enough to take care of themselves and I can start enjoying my evenings.

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Guess what's going to be my evening and weekend project for a while?

Last Day of Innocence

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He may not know it but today marked an important milestone in my oldest’s life, and also in our life as parents.

My husband walked the boys to the bus stop this morning and he even took some pictures of them together waiting for the bus albeit with his phone*. This will be the last time they do this. My children will no longer attend the same school at the same time. It is kind of strange to realize this.

Today is the last day of grade school for my oldest child. After the summer, he will be a 7th grader, going on to junior high. I am dreading seeing it more and more as the end, or the beginning of the end, of childhood innocence for him. For us.

I am terrified. To me, junior high is alien territory. A murky space between child and teens.  Where the physiological development of your child propels them across the threshold of adulthood when they are still babies.

My baby.

I did not grow up here and all my education of the American high school experience and culture came from watching high school movies produced in Hollywood, starting with Porky’s. It suffices to say that Porky’s is not very helpful, nor is it reassuring, in preparing me for junior high because, well, all these movies are about senior high schools. Junior high schools are way under-represented in Hollywood. The only movie about junior high school in my recollection is The diary of a Wimpy Kid. A movie so unsettled me that I repeatedly asked my husband, “Is it really that bad? These kids are only 12?! How can they be so mean?” until he lied and said, “No, it’s just a movie. Now stop being so crazy,” and forced my children to promise me that, yes, they WILL tell me if they are being bullied in school because “I WILL GO KICK SOMEBODY’S ASS!”

Oh, yes. I am on full-patrol bully alert. I am sharpening my shuriken and start my 12-step training as a ninja assassin because God forbid if I make it worse for my children by giving those bullies a chance to retaliate.*

I went to an “Introducing New Parents to What Junior High School is All About” meeting a few months back. The principal gave us a rundown of the curriculum, the classes offered, the extra-curricular activities available, the amount of homework expected – “Two hours minimum, and more if they take a foreign language class”, and the rules especially regarding electronics – “NONE allowed. Don’t even bring them to school.” There was a walk-through of the school property, which I missed because my son did not inform me of the meeting until that afternoon, and from what I was told, an attempt to explain how the kids will be divided into two groups because there are too many of them, the Switch and Swap between classes, and something about the homeroom not being really important since the kids are based off of their lockers.

Lockers? You mean lockers from which things inadvertently fall out and the owner of the said locker will be ridiculed and thus be relegated to the Purgatory of the Uncool? You mean lockers where the smaller kids get shoved into by the bullies all the fucking time and nobody ever stops them or at least alerts the authorities?  Is it just me? Nobody else sees these lockers as potential hazards and should be purged from high schools? Or are the movies completely made up?

Good. Now I feel better. I should also stop remembering each and every high school torture scene I have seen.

Then there was the cafeteria. The pièce de résistance in every high school movie.  Although I mocked myself for taking the movies too literally, I soon realized, much to my dismay, that the significance of the cafeteria is not an exaggeration by Hollywood. I spent half an hour listening to moms rehashing and reviewing the cafeteria seating assignment process and policy shared with us new parents.

The kids will have a few weeks to sit wherever they want. The day before the designated day, an announcement will be made. “Tomorrow is the day!” On the designated day, wherever the kids are sitting and whomever they are sitting with, THIS IS IT. They have to remain in that seat for the next 3 months.

The moms seemed to be satisfied that there will be quarterly rotations. So I was too. After I made this mental note…

Note to Self: Child MUST attend school on THOSE FOUR days. Even if he is coughing up blood.

All this pressure to be COOL. To NOT be uncool.

I seriously admire all of you who have grown up this way, who have gone through and survived this unscathed. Just sitting here thinking about it, the pressure is getting to me so much that I want to slit my throat.  Because the boundary between COOLNESS and UNCOOLNESS seems so… fickle and arbitrary. One has no control over it. You become the hostage of your peers who are just as confused as you are.

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As I watched the children at their 6th grade party having the time of their life, I wondered whether these kids knew that their carefree days were naught:  Did they know that this might be the last time all of them would be hanging out as a group and stay in such proximity to each other (for 100% innocent fun), no cliques in sight?  That this would be the last time the D.J. did not need Bill Pullman’s speech at the end of Independence Day to rouse everybody to participate equally, more or less?

My heart ached.

For almost all of them this was probably the first “dancing” party they have been to. They were excited. And awkward at the same time, not sure what to do with their long limbs when the music started pounding. While I wearily noted down a few kids that could be easily pegged as “future jocks and queen bees in the making” and I mentally gave them the Robert De Niro “I’m Watching You” hand sign, short and tall, small and big, boys and girls, they all acknowledged each other’s existence. They were all hanging out and being uncool together. Crossing that mile marker. And that made it totally cool.

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*I started out wanting to write a sentimental piece about how my baby is all growing up and no longer a child. Apparently, my school of parenting is Unsentimental Parenting. Somehow this turned into an exercise in mental anguish and pre-battle prep and I am psyching myself up like Mr.  “I Pity the Fool” T.

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*Correction: I forwarded my husband the email version that Feedburner sent me and he would like it to be known that he actually remembered to bring an ACTUAL camera with him that morning to the bus stop. That’s more than I can say, honey. You know how I only take pictures with my iNotPhone now.

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* Yes, I email my husband selective blog posts of mine to 1. inform him what’s going on in this household because chances are he has no idea (and this may or may not have something to do with him being a road warrior). 2. prevent him from reading posts that I don’t want need him to read.

Teaching Kids Simple Words: Bees

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So we have to worry about our kids learning about Bees now?!

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Here is a translation if you have trouble reading the handwriting…

The question was: If you were a bee, would you be a worker, a drone or a queen? Why?

My 7 year-old child’s answer: If I were a bee, I would be a worker because I get to collect pollen and nectar.

He could have stopped there. But of course, Noooooooooo.

He went on to explain: I do not want to be a drone because it is kind of disgusting in a way. You help her by helping her lay eggs. The end.

The kid’s right though. A drone’s life is something you do not want to wish upon your worst enemies. (Oh who am I kidding? I am the exact kind of person that WILL wish these things upon my worst enemies)

“Should a drone succeed in mating it will soon die because the penis and associated abdominal tissues are ripped from the drone’s body at sexual intercourse.” Wikipedia (where lazy people come to find answers)

So die a horrible death or lead a long, sexless life. Which one would you choose?

Mother’s Day Double Feature: Why I don’t deserve a holiday in my name

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This is the second part of a rare Double Feature, in celebration of Mother’s Day.

No, my dear readers, Chef Ping’s was sadly not on my itinerary… Not that I haven’t tried though. I decided at around 4 pm that yes, we are going to go to Chef Ping’s because It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to. We didn’t manage to get out the door until 5 pm because my kids kept on saying, “Ok. Mom. Ok. Just until I finish this episode, this game, this chat…”

We drove to Chef Ping’s, not without a passionate discussion on WHY. The wait was to be 30 minutes.

My dear readers, I lied in my previous post when I said “No expectations. No disappointment.” Apparently though I had no expectations for my children to behave differently from any other day, I did expect to be able to go to my favorite Chinese restaurant at 5 pm on a Sunday! I was devastated.

I forgot that today is Mother’s Day aka The Bane of My Existence.

Choking back tears that surprised even myself, I resigned, “Let’s just go home.  I will make you guys food, and I will have ramen noodles.”

“Mom. Let’s just go to some other restaurant! Because now you are just guilt tripping us!” My 12-year-old said with keen perception.

I kept an eerie silence as I drove aimlessly home. But not before I yelled at the boys for the 258th time to please shut their mouths if they could not stop bickering. The passive aggression was so thick inside the car I could practically lick it.

But I did still need to feed them. Taco Bell! A 90-degree emergency left turn brought me to the drive-through window.

“Do you want any sauce with that?”

“Yes. Medium and mild please.”

“Ok. Mild and Hot. Here you go. Happy Mother’s Day!”

“Wow. That lady’s hearing was not very good.” My 12-year-old made another keen observation.

” *sigh* I am too tired to correct her. Sometimes I am so tired of living here.”

“Do you prefer to live in Taiwan?”

“To be honest with you, I don’t know what it is like to live in Taiwan. I have never had ‘lived’ in Taiwan for real… I don’t know. I was going to school, living with my parents, then I came here. I don’t think I know what it is like to live in Taiwan…  It is confusing. I don’t know.”

“Yeah. It is confusing alright…  Do you remember when you were a kid?”

“Yes. I do of course.”

“I don’t want to grow up.” My 12-year-old concluded after a pause.

“I hear you, honey.” Strike one, mom. Way to motivate your child!

“Being a grown-up sucks!” Interjected my 7-year-old.

“Being a grown-up is 99% of your life!” His older brother admonished him.

“Mom. Doesn’t being a grown-up suck?” My 7-year-old continued.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I think the sucky part of being a grown-up is mainly associated with being a parent…” Strike two. Good job, mom.

“HEY! Your life is going to be so boring and miserable if you didn’t have us!” My 12-year-old protested.

“Ha ha. You are right honey.”

“Have you ever wished that you didn’t have children?” My youngest pursued.

Beat.

Beat.

Beat.

I could not bring myself to answer this question. Strike three, mom. Let’s hope they turn out to be writers so they can use this episode in a positive way.

“I am sure she did when we really really pissed her off!”

So here I am. Making three different kinds of ramen noodles. But not before we went to Blockbuster, my youngest had a meltdown because he absolutely had to watch The Karate Kid III TODAY and his brother absolutely did NOT want to watch it, and my oldest and I had a passionate discussion on why we couldn’t rent Ninja Assassin…

What’s the point if I have to clean on the Monday AFTER Mother’s Day?

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Sure I can take a rest today. Sure I can go out and have fun and enjoy myself. (Well, I actually can’t since my husband left for Canada this morning… So I am single-parenting for the next ten days…) But really, if things are not taken care of at home TODAY, I know I have to do it TOMORROW.

What is the point?

I hate Mother’s Day.

I am celebrating it by allowing my children to be on the computer all day.

Ok. I don’t really hate Mother’s Day. Over the years I have learned to treat today just like every other Sunday. No expectations. No disappointment.

THIS is also the motto of how I live my life.

Although it kind of became worse when Mr. Monk threw a tantrum because he didn’t like the restaurant I suggested for dinner.

“I don’t want to go to Chef Ping’s!!”

“But today is MOTHER’S DAY!” I guess I can guilt-trip with the best of them.

“I hate Chef Ping’s!”

“Would you like a grilled cheese sandwich instead?”

“I WANT TO GO TO A RESTAURANT FOR MOTHER’S DAY! BUT I DON’T WANT TO GO TO CHEF PING’S!”

“You don’t eat anything else but white rice honey when we go to a Chinese restaurant!”

“NO! I DON’T! Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah…”

Oh lord. Will this day never end?

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Flowers for me from my 7 yo. He took the picture also. This is one of the hundreds of pictures he took of the same subject

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If only patience could be bought

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I suspect that some of you are tired of me criticizing myself for not being a good mother. Self-deprecating humor can only go this far when you are not a stand-up comedian.  I admit that it does sound like I am fishing for compliments. Or at least, some sort of desperate reach for affirmation. If these were true, or at least intentional, I would not have even brought this up to the light of day. It is easy to keep a perfect facade on the Internet; I could have simply NOT talked about my fear and insecurities.

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"I feel happy when my mom is in a good mood" Oh boy...

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Is it just me? On some days, I get so aggravated by blog posts where the parents seem so perfect: patient, wise, kind, steadfast, consistent, and… Now where is my fucking thesaurus?!… always in a good mood, with “a cheery disposition…. never be cross or cruel”, never raising their voices… Who took my BLEEP thesaurus and didn’t put it away?!

Mr. Monk once told me in amidst of sobs, after a shouting match, “I want Mary Poppins to be my mom!”

*sigh* We all do. Baby. We all do.

“Why can’t you be like the other moms?” He has said that more than once.

The other day he joked, “You don’t have enough patience and you should go buy more patience in the Patience Store!”

I hope this post helps some of you that are reading because like me, you have feared that somehow you have traumatized your child because you are not patient enough and you do raise your voice, nay, you actually do YELL. Unlike “the other” mothers…

Teaching Kids Simple Words: Egg

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7 Year Old: Mom, what’s the yoky part of the egg?

Me: You mean the Yolk?

7 Year Old: No, I mean, which part does the baby chick come from?

Me: Ok, honey, the eggs you are eating? These are not the kind that baby chicks come from.

7 Year Old: Why?

Me: These are eggs that have not been… (Oh fuck!)  Sigh.  Ok.  You know how in order to make a baby? … You need a mommy and a daddy together to make a baby?  Well, the eggs you are eating only came from the mommy hen.  There is no daddy involved.

7 Year Old: How come there are single mommies with children?

Me: *Inserting foot in mouth*  There are daddies.  It’s just that the daddy for some reason is not living with them any more…

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Hind sight is 20-20. Why did I go into unnecessary details? I was all of a sudden caught in a panic that he might decide to not eat eggs due to the baby chick situation, he who only eats 5 kinds of food. I needed to reassure him that he’s not endangering any baby chics by eating eggs. I could not run the risk of eggs being off the menu.

Up next: Why honey was almost off the list.