When I get an original drawing tailor to my favorite Teen Titans character from my talented artist daughter.
Category: parenting
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As Cate and I explore the forest area behind our house, we saw these blue leaves growing out of eucalyptus trees. Investment thesis
Is this business going to be stronger 10 years from now?
Is this business dominant and unique in the industry?
For every dollar it earns, how much of it does it keep for itself?
Do you love the product?
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This life is your experience, you have control over it, no one else.
Meet people, students, faculty! Find your people.
Be wrong often.
Ask for help
Worthy of your time
Be Nice
Shower your world with the best of you can offer.
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Happy mother’s day.
Today, my sister and I told my mom things she never knew.
We hung out with kids who had a bad influence on us. Teaching us to smoke elementary school in China. Getting into fights in middle school with kids who bullied me. I bullied kids and was angry. I shoplifted with kids of her good friend.
I am 48 years old now, and I learned my mistakes. I know who I do not want to be.
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It’s a fact, we will all die. What is important for you?
learn more about the app www.wecroak.com
Or listen to the co founder on Recode Decode podcast. You can find it.
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I am a cat person. My personality matches a cat. I like people watching and lazying in the sun. I move slowly, only pouncing when there is something that intensely interests me. I have a deep-seated fear of dogs biting me randomly.
I also raised a cat person and now she is 18!
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One my favorite movie scenes is when Sydney P., in the movie”Guess who is coming to dinner?” said to his father, something like “It’s your job to raise me, you brought me into this world”. “When it’s my time, I will do the same for my children”.
There is no need for children to thank their parents. If they choose to, that’s great. But, I don’t think they really understand how much parents give up until the children turn 30 or when they have their own children.
The children will realize that
- For 18 years, the children are truly the *most* important priority that drives where the parents chose to live in order for the best possible safety, community, schools.
- Parents make decision on the type of jobs they take in order to spend enough time with their children.
- They even make sacrifices to give up their careers for 10+ years in order to just be present and to be care givers in the early years.
- They are not given instructions manuals to raise another human being, they figure it out and along they way they learn and hope they don’t make long lasting mistakes.
- They deal with fears for their children, but have to control it for the sake of letting their children grow and learn.
- They have to grow as humans in order to not fall into the trap of projecting what they want for their kids vs. letting the children decide and make their own mistakes.
- They realize that they are flaw humans and they pray they can improve along the way, so their children will still respect them and their choices when the children grow up to be an audult at 18.
Well, I don’t need my child to thank me now, they will thank me when they are 30 years old.
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Dear daughter,
For your 18th birthday, and on my 48th year, I wish to write down something for you to refer back to in the next 30 years.
I wish to tell you a few simple thoughts to help you to build a life for yourself that 30 years later, you would look back and be proud of the person you have become at 48 years old.
- Don’t be scared that you don’t know your exact future, life cannot be planned exactly.
- Make decisions based on a long term view, it’s okay to have fears and doubts, but frame a decision based on whether this is the right decision 5, 10 or even 20 years later.
- We all have only one life, live your life on your own terms, but do seek advice from several people you trust. Then make the decision and trust your gut. You have made several big decisions that way and it has worked!
- Live your life with no regrets. Sure you might have made a different decision looking back. If there is something you wanted to correct, do it now. If you cannot change the past, forgive yourself.
- You will always be your worst critic, make sure to be kind to yourself.
- Always be creating, art, writing, or something else. This is you!
- Lastly, you never know who will say YES, until you ask. Everyone has fears. I know you have fears. I live with fears all the time.
Dad
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For the last 18 years, my identity is primarily a father and a software engineer. My daughter is going to be 18 years old in a few days and I wanted to remind myself that a large part of my identity is not lost, but changed.
In order for her to be a fully formed adult, I have to learn to let go. Let her find her own path, be her own person without being in the shadows of her parents and her adult guardians.
My opinions should have some weight, but it maybe should weight less than her good friends, her teachers and her future co-workers.
Her mistakes are no longer wrong, it might be just a learning experience. Maybe her father doesn’t need to rescue every single one, until she ask for help?
In the next few months before she is off to college, I still want to spend as much time with her. Just to be with each other. To remember, recall 18 years of traveling, day to day interactions, ways we learn to communicate with each other and the times we each said something that we regretted.
On the one hand, I mourn the lost of this part of my identity. On the other hand, I am so proud of this caring, talented adult who knows exactly who she is, who her friends should be and such a loving person.
Thank you C8. I love you. Onward and upwards.
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Dear future self:
Today, you were frustrated at your teenage daughter that she was 10 minutes later in leaving the house for high school. Even though she is the only one affected, you felt that it reflected on your personal value to be early or on time.
You expressed to your daughter that you were mad at her for being late and you are getting over it soon.
She told you we are now even for the other time that she was angry at you for telling her grandparents something important that she wanted to not disclose.
When you dropped her off and you told her you are all over the issue and she actually arrived 8 minutes early for school. You told her she is the most wonderful daughter, gave her a hug. She remarked that ‘now I am your wonderful daughter!’
Future self, talk about your frustrations. It is not easy and not natural. But keep on practicing it!
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This week I learned something new about myself. I learned that what I’m thinking in my head, when not explicitly told to those I love, is not necessarily known to those love ones.
This seems like a very obviously point, but I often make this mistake. I think this could be that I am an introvert by nature and I like to bounce thoughts in my own head. Also I assume my love ones can feel what I am thinking because of my actions. Actions speak louder than words right?
Wrong.
Sometimes words are more powerful than simple action.
- I am reminded to tell my child that I accept her no matter what path she chooses for herself.
- I am reminded to tell my child that I think about her future. That as a parent, I have obvious biases. That I worry about her future. I worry that if she doesn’t choose the obvious path to success, that she will struggle in life. I tell her that I don’t know the right path for another human being to take. It is up to her to decide on her future. Success is not guaranteed, happiness is not necessarily the end goal. Fulfilling work, self expression and realization of your own talents is a worthy goal of life as well.
Sometimes random conversations with a child in a car leads to interesting learnings about myself and my child.
I love you.
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My daughter is taking up writing and publishing her stories publicly on WattPad. Her current series is based on the seven sins and she is trying to take on seven different writing styles.
Give it a try and support her efforts in putting her writing out there :) You will have to sign up for WattPad to read the entire story, give it a read and like or comment on it :)
‘Happy birthday’ is a very dark but engaging story from the first person and present time perspective
https://www.wattpad.com/232371235-seven-happy-birthday
‘Good to be queen‘ is a 3rd person, almost fair tale like voice.
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(old post from 2007)
Kate loves watching Blue’s Clues and especially one episode, “Steve goes to college”. So tonight, instead of reading she wanting me to tell her all about college. I used this perfect timing to tell her about learning and doing well in school.
Kate: “Is there a pink college? I want to go there.”
Me: “Sure I’m sure there are pink colleges. There is a Brown college. If you study really well in school, you can go to any college you want”
Kate: “I hope I study well”
Me: “Yeah, or else you may end up going to a gray and boring college, that won’t be fun”
Kate: “yeah….”
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The original post was in 2005 when C. was 5 years old.
A few days ago, C asked “Dad, will I hate you as a teenager?”
I was a bit caught off guard. I told C that it’s possible that when kids grow into their teenage years, their hormones could change, and they will be testing the boundaries of being independent. There will be a lot more conflicts between the parent and child.
However, if we continue to communicate, if I spend quality time with her and we genuinely enjoy each other’s company, I don’t see why it has to be the case that my teenage daughter will hate me.
I did tell her that she might be embarrassed by me since I am very geeky and uncool. This she did laugh at and agreed.
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This article reminds me of how I felt as a single parent with C.. Scared, protective and constantly worried. As she is heading to high school, I wish to teach her to be independent, free thinker, know to fail and recover. For other parents, this article is a great read amd a reminder that being a parent is a thankless job, but that is circle of life.
NYTimes: All Parents Are Cowards
http://nyti.ms/1z9WMJd -
My daughter C. designed the logo, intro video and the entire app screen for this fun math game. Try it out and let me know what you think.
download on
The 24 Game is an arithmetical card game in which the object is to find a way to manipulate four numbers so that the end result is 24. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division are used.
The game has been played in Shanghai since the 1960s, using ordinary playing cards, but now it comes to your iPhone.
You can play by yourself or head to head with another player for a unique 2 player challenge.
Example:
If you get 3, 5, 5, 6 then a correct answer would be 3 * (5 + 5) – 6.Other easier 3*8, 4*6 combinations are (2+1) * (4+4) or (2+2) * (1+5)
Difficult ones are the ones where division comes in 6*8/(7-5)
3 Levels for all age groups
Easy for 6-8 : 1 point
Medium 9-12 : 2 points
Hard 12-99+ : 3 piontsFather Daughter team
– Designed by C.
– Music by Will – featured on https://www.youtube.com/user/thesecuritycame
– Engineered by Tony
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Many aspects of my life are based on 2 simple concepts: consistency and persistence.
I have been working for Yahoo! as a software engineer for over 11 years now. I have consistently delivered results regardless of what project I work on. My co-workers and management can trust me with the most important projects. Without fail, the Yahoo! News site has stayed running on my watch. Undergoing the boundless needs of huge news events including: September 11th, 3 presidential elections, Katrina, celebrity deaths, Iraq war. The rewards of being consistent at work is that when re-organizations happen, the most consistent employees are called upon to deal with the most challenging work.
Persistence goes hand in hand with consistency.
I have a long term goal of living in France. With my 9 year old daughter, without fail, I have taken her to Paris every single year for the 9 years of her life. Every year, it’s a magical two weeks. She and I spend time in Paris just soaking in the life of a local Parisan. We stay in the same neighborhood, we visit the same shops. Last year, a few months after we came back, she told me that Paris feels like home to her and she already misses it. For the rest of her life she will remember this special time she spent with me. This gift to her is priceless. I make decisions to not spend money on TV, cable, car, fancy electronics in order to make this annual trip.
I believe anything worthwhile must entail consistency and persistence.
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For the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that C. says self-deprecating comments about herself. When I notice it, I would tell her there is no need to put herself down.
In the dictionary “self-deprecating” is defined as “belittling or undervaluing oneself; excessively modest”.
It’s ok to be modest, but not at the expense of one’s self worth. I am known to be the same way. Often telling people I am an underachiever, even though I went to one of the best high school and universities. I am often put on the most challenging projects at work and often called on to solve the difficult problems.
I will work on not being self-deprecating toward myself and help C. to also recognize it when she does this to herself. I will still be modest, but not undervalue myself. The easiest way to do that is to ask oneself whether we would say the same thing to someone we love. Be kind to ourselves, that is my message.
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I spent Christmas night and the day after Christmas with my parents and my sister’s 2 kids. A 2 year old girl “C”. and 4 year old boy “M”. We all spent the morning filled with sounds of the TV and the new Nintendo games the kids got for Christmas.
Thirty minutes before we are suppose to leave for San Francisco, I told the kids we will spend 30 minutes of writing time where all electronics will be turned off. I set a timer so everyone can see it count down.
The 4 year old “M” is drawing, 2 year old “C” is playing with her abacus, my 9 year old is writing her fictional story, and I am writing this blog entry. The room was quiet, with the occasional question. I find that this type of focus and silence is rare and very important for children to learn to focus.
Electronics like the iPhone and iPad are all about short attention span and trying to fill every free moment with some distraction. We can give our kids an iPad, DS,or Wii and they will leave us alone. Then we might put a DVD on the tube and that’ll consume another 2 hours. I use electronics as a babysitting tool myself. I remind myself to have reasonable limits to screen time, maybe only 30 minutes a day.
When Cate and I play catch with her new baseball glove, or we build electronic circuits, I know Cate appreciates this time I spent with her. She forms a stronger relationship with me. We talk about how to catch a baseball backhand, where to have the ball land on the glove. We talk about how to trouble shoot a circuit that isn’t working and what experiments we can try on an existing circuit. This interaction back and forth is what will make a bigger impact in our relationship. It will build up trust and strengthen our relationship for the future.
Last night, after playing catch, Cate said that she realizes how much more fun things are when I do them with her. I jumped in too early and said “I am not your playmate though”. Later on I realize that she is telling me how much she appreciates me spending time with her, teaching her card tricks, catching balls, badminton, swimming and probably even our 30 minutes of focus time where we both just sit and write.
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I loved these 5 stories from the Chronicle this morning and I read them to C. for her bedtime reading
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C. is truly a blessed child.
I have been taking C. to Paris once a year in order for both of us to spend some quality time together during her vacation. Also I want her to have a special place that I consistently bring her to so that when she grows up, it will be a special memory for her. And of course, it’s Paris!, I love the city almost as much as San Francisco.
We came back from Paris this year in April, but in November, C. already misses Paris and want to know when we will be going back. I have solid plans now to go back in June 2011!
Can’t wait!
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Haiku: ‘If’
Haiku from my 9 year old daughter, C.
If
If you gotta use the kitchen,
that’s just fine with me.If you wanna sit in the living room,
help yourself to the sofa.If you gotta use the outhouse,
Well… Once I get out, come in and use it.You gotta go bad?
Well, sorry I don’t take guests.End
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‘Unless’ Haiku
My 9 Year Old Daughter’s Haiku
Unless
Roses red, larkspurs blue,
Daisys white and this paper too.
( Unless you have dirty hands, that is!!! )
Boring (Haiku) -
Haiku: Boring
Haiku by my 9 year old daughter C.
Boring
Boring,boring,boring,boring.
That’s what this poem is.
Boring…”Bor” Yawn… -
Cate loves loves ice cream. In order to balance her craving against the saturated fats of ice cream, I make her popsicles out of strawberries, raspberries and apples.
Her favorite is lady pink apple ones.
1) Take 6 lady pinks, wash and juice them
2) Take a cheese cloth and filter the juice 3 times to remove all the pulp
3) pour into ice cube makers and freeze for 3 hours.Very sweet and healthy ice popsicles!! I let her eat has much as she wants.
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This year for mother’s day, I thought I would just spend a full day with her alone (the day before the actual day). No other family members, just mom and son. I hadn’t made any special plans ahead so in morning, I booked a ZipCar just in case we needed it, and walked 20 minutes to pick my mom up from BART.
We first walked along the Ferry Building and since it was Saturday, the farmer’s market was fill with people and the place was alive with food and energy. She was impressed with how lively it was (I’m secretly she’ll want to come over to the city more often). Then she mentioned she wanted to take the ferry to Sausalito, so we did. The weather was gorgeous, and we both enjoyed the ferry ride. She then wanted to show me a house of her friend’s in Sausalito and we wanted for 20 minutes to find the place and then walked back to to take the ferry back to the city.
I had booked a 30 minutes massage in Japantown for both of us. I enjoyed mine so much, I fell asleep 5 minutes into it. We then had noodles and drove back to her home in Dublin and had a grand seafood feast of abalone, fresh caught fish from my brother-in-law, boiled live shrimp.
During the whole day she and I shared openly about our lives, our thoughts and parts of ourselves that normally don’t come out when there are others around. She told me that it seems like I’m fully satisfied with my life right now and I seem to have everything I want. We talked about religion, spirituality, kindness, life after children, dating, her marriage to my dad. We held hands, which in our family, we seldom do. It was a completely sweet day for me.
She imparted her own critic of what I can do better.
1) always try to see the good points of other people
2) don’t let my goals ruin the experience of getting there.
3) she ask me to not apologize for being focused and obsessive, it’s a good trait. ( thanks mom)My mom thanked me and I think she was extremely happy we had this day together. My dad said I haven’t spend this much alone time with my mom in 15 years.
Happy Mother’s Day to all moms out there!
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I’m usually not good at resolving conflicts. In the dating environment, I would just run away. At work, we’ll try to figure out the ‘right’ way and usually, the ‘right’ way wins.With Cate, usually, the only way that wins is to compromise
Last night I was trying to convince Cate to fall asleep sooner as she complains that she can’t fall asleep.
Tony: “If you fall asleep, tomorrow we’ll head to the trampoline right after breakfast” and..
Cate: 5 minutes later she is asleep.Tony: After the trampoline, I want to head to my favorite French restaurant, Petite Pontoise but
Cate wants to head home and rest afterwardTony wants to walk around Sacre Cour but
Cate wants to help Tony cook and film the entire session and pretend the moose and kitty finger puppets are actually cookingA long day..
Cate will be meeting her babysitter in Paris tomorrow, she falls asleep in 5 minutes after her head hits the pillows and..
Tony sitting in bed and staring out at the beautiful night view of Sacre Cour, I am the luckiest guy in the world! Perspectives!
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Cate’s 7th birthday is today. We played with creating art with light and a 15 second manual exposure. The result was pretty impressive.
Check out the slideshow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonytam/sets/72157604433266710/show/
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C. wants to cook more with her Dad for 2008 New Year’s resolution
First attempt at making pizza dough at home. Pretty simple recipe.
10 minutes of working the dough for both C. and I. let it rise for 1 hour. Pop it into the oven for 10 minutes. She gets cheese pizza, I get spicy sausage.
Things to improve:
Need to let dough rise longer
don’t over bake it
dough was too thing for C’s small pizza, it got hard
C. needs to work the dough harder :-) -
I have this fantasy of playing badminton with C. as a mixed doubles team. The C.+Tony dynamic duo! She is 12 years old, flying at the birdie in front of the net. Father Tony jumping and smashing from the back. We are both enjoying executing what we’ve been training to do during our weekly badminton training sessions. Father and daughter filling in the gaps for each other as any good doubles team should be doing.
Now back to reality. C. is 6 1/2 years old and we are hanging out at the local badminton club :-)
This morning is the first step to that fantasy as I bring C. to the GGBC badminton club this Sunday morning. She refused to play for the first 2 hours, citing that she would rather play in the basketball courts close to my apartment. I spend the first 2 hours practicing serving 100 birdies into a bucket across the court. Then when her battery ran out for her MacBook, she came over and said she was bored.
She brought over her racket and I started to practice with her, by throwing birdies over the net and she was hitting them nicely across the net as I clown around bouncing the birdies on my head and my foot. She was loving it!!!
There was a badminton class that was going to start in 15 minutes but the coach was late. So I substituted for the coach and I helped coached 3 other kids along with C.. The other kids were 10-12 years old and I had C. return drop shots from the kids as I trained the older ones and made them run, swing the racket and sweat… Kate had a wonderful time and when we got home, she asked for more badminton training..
I think my fantasy will become reality one day. C. was coming up with our team name already. C&T badminton team
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You see it everywhere. People smiling a kids, commenting on how cute they are. I do the same thing on the metro here in Paris. Even when I look at Kate, I sometimes can’t help but smile at her. I imagine what will become of this wonderful human being.
When do kids stop being cute and become the self conscious adults who don’t smile at random strangers, don’t laugh hysterically? Why don’t we look at other random adults and think what a beautiful human being they are ? We do that constantly with small children. Wondering what they would become. We hope they will be happy and grow up being wonderful people.
I look at Kate now, with her cackling laughter and wonder when this society or even myself will squash that wonderful sense of wonder and carefree out of her and she will just be another jaded adult? I hope she won’t get there any time soon.
For me personally, I’m trying to revert myself back to being a child. I feel like I’m back to about 21 right now. I feel naive to the world, I’m open to change, open to new things. I’ve got a few more years to go before I’ll be 10 years old again.
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Kate turned 6 today. Happy birthday my little girl. It’s so wonderful to have you in my life.
Having a child has taught me to look at life with a fresh pair of eyes. To look at life in a positive angle. She shows her feelings and her love without reservation and this is still something I’m learning how to do.
I look at Kate and I’m just amazed to watch a wonderful human being grow up into a little girl who has a great sense of self worth, self love and boundless love for her family.
Happy 6th my wonderful baby girl
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Recently I started asking Kate if she would like to say a nightly prayer of love. I told her it’s when we just say thanks for our health and our good fortune and then we pray for health and happiness for everyone we love. This way it will magically keep the people we love healthy and safe.
It goes something like this
“Thank you to giving me such a happy and healthy life. Please bring happiness and health to Kate, my mom, my dad, my dad, my sister…etc” and count out everyone who is currently on our love list.
She was happy to say it.. and then she asked me how this works. I told her that if she says it often enough, then it will actually come true. Her love will just start flowing out from her heart and will magically help those people she loves. She then asked if this will work for people who are dead as well. I believe it will.
I’m not religious, but I believe in this magic power of prayer.
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(photo is Kate’s. Happy Chinese New Years on the right bubble, “Dad” 爸 on the left red envelope, “Maternal grandfather” 公 on the right red envelope, the rest of the yellow I think are currencies?)
I can’t recall how the conversation started, but I asked what Kate wants to be when she grew up. She just said “I want to be rich” Hmm.. ok. not a bad thing.
Me: “Why do you want to be rich?”
K: “Buy lots of good food, buy anything I want”My first gut reaction is to say something about not thinking about money and what we can buy. But I can’t really come up with anything wrong with her line of thinking. Isn’t this what most of us are doing now? So I just shut up and smiled.
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I had a craving for fresh Chinese dumplings on Friday and got my parents to pick up the ingredients from Chinatown. Friday my gf and I made a small batch enough to satisfy ourselves. Then this Sunday Kate and I finished up the entire batch. It really did hit the spot. Here is a recipe from Lucy’s Kitchen Notebook
I do my version
Kate tries her hand at dumpling
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In Chinese we have a term 貼心 which literally translates to “close to the heart” and it’s usually used to describe daughters who are very close to their parents and especially their mothers.
Ever since my foot injury, Kate has needed to make huge adjustments. Opening and holding doors for me, bringing her dinners to the table, helping me put things away in the fridge. All this extra work have added friction between us. She finally got pretty tired of doing things for me and we got into a little fight (yes a fight with a 5 year old)
When I was tucking her away for bed, she asked for 3 pillows, and I was on a pretty short fuse, but I entertained her idea. And finally she told me that I could rest my foot on top because she saw that once at her grandparents that it helped with a bad foot.
I was a bit speechless and told her that she “sticks close to my heart” 小慧，你很貼心
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Kate and I got into an argument Monday morning, I think it was about wearing clothes or maybe I was slow in getting up in the morning.
She wrote me a note
“No Coffee For You Dad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
I asked her why I don’t get any coffee and she said
K : “Because when you are mad, your favorite things get taken away”
Me: “What about you? When you are mad, what favorite things can I take away?”(I was expecting a toy or dessert or a doll)
K: “You! you are my favorite, you can’t take yourself away! haaa. You won’t ever leave me.. isn’t that funny dad?”
Me: “That was pretty sweet kate” (kids are pretty damn funny and they really know how to make you feel good huh?)
I was pretty speechless, I kept on laughing and gave her a hug.
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Some random bits of conversation between Kate and me
K: “Dad, are you going to die before me?”
me: “uhhh, I think so.”K: “but not for a long long long long time right?”
me: “I hope so.”K: “Dad, even when you are angry, you still love me right?”
me: “I’ll always love you”K: “You won’t love me when you die…”
me: “As long as I’m in your heart, you’ll feel my love”
K: “ok…”(this is during the freezing morning in SF visit to Patite Patisserie)
K: “I don’t want to put on my jacket, I’m never cold”
me: “you don’t want to catch the cold that I have, just wear the jacket until you are inside”K: “no no no, why do you have to be mean dad all the time”
me: “because I love you” -
Fill in the caption :-)
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Me:
(as I lay a cushion for her on the chair)
You are my little princess.Kate:
I’m not a princess, I don’t have a prince yet!
It’s just you, dad.Me:
chuckle.. That is very true, that almost makes perfect sense
I love your logic KateKate:
Why is that funny, Dad?Me:
I just love the way you look at things, it’s very refreshing.Kate:
What is refreshing ?Me:
hee -
I make crepes for Kate in the mornings whenever she asks. It usually takes me about 15 minutes or so to get some fresh hot nutella crepes in her hands. I usually make then without any butter as I’m a oil/fat freak.
Today I read an article on crepes on KQED Food Blog and I love this quote: Crepes are fabulous for breakfast. But only if you really love the people you’re making them for, or you love watching the sunrise.
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commented
11/27/2006 12:13 pm
for those who can’t wait to get started :”-)I have a very simple crepe pan (12″) and I recently bought the wooden rake as well from Sur La Table. They recently started carrying it.
This $14.95 crepe pan and rake are available.. get the largest pan you can.
http://surlatable.com/common/google/search.cfm?query=crepeTell you the truth, if the batter is of the right consistency and your stove top is not too hot, I usually just swirl the batter around to get it to spread correctly. The wooden rake is seldom useful.. This morning I used it maybe once.
I use a flat crepe pan with this spatula at the very bottom to flip
http://surlatable.com/common/products/product_details.cfm?PRRFNBR=20036Report abuseDeleteComment
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Yahoo! User Yahoo! User
commented
11/27/2006 12:08 pm
The recipe here is very similar to mine, but you have to also go by eye as well since eggs are of different sizes. I usually eyeball things and check the consistency.http://www.kqed.org/weblog/food/2006/11/crepes-day-off-activity.jsp
1 1/4 CUPS WHOLE MILK
3 EACH LARGE EGGS, room temperature
3/4 CUP ALL PURPOSE FLOUR
3 ounces MELTED UNSALTED BUTTER,
+ more for the making of the crepes
1/2 teaspoon KOSHER SALT
3 TABLESPOONS SUGAR
1 TABLESPOON VANILLA EXTRACTReport abuseDeleteComment
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Yahoo! User Yahoo! User
commented
11/27/2006 11:46 am
i meant i’ve never had them ready from start to finish in 15 minutes. we’d LOVE them in 15 minutes!!
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Yahoo! User Yahoo! User
commented
11/27/2006 11:44 am
we love crepes too. but never in as fast at 15 minutes! don’t you have to let the batter sit a bit?? please pass on a recipe if you have one.
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Yahoo! User Yahoo! User
commented
11/27/2006 09:51 am
hee, I made some for her today right before school. A few strawberry jam ones and some nutella ones
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commented
11/27/2006 07:20 am
Nutella crepes???? That sounds sooooo good! -
It doesn’t matter what you are passionate about, as long as you have the passion in your eyes and your heart. For many years in my life, I was passionless. If I had a weekend free, I would not know what to do with that time.
My recent passion is all about latte art, good coffee and the third wave of coffee. My second passion is about Yahoo! and especially Yahoo! News. The last passion is about my daughter. Recently someone said my eyes jump alive whenever I talk about these 3 things in my life. The passions may change, but I know that I must have some passion in order to feel alive.
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C. wanted to play with me this morning while she was sick at home. And when I said I needed to work, she came up with a bunch of choice words for me.
1. King of boring
2. King of making fun of me
3. King of making my wish not completeThe girl can express herself.
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Today I met with C’s French teachers. Some cool highlights
- Kate is the leader in the advance French group
- Kate is well liked by all her classmates
- Kate is like a flower while the others are bees around her. She doesn’t seek out friends, others seek her out
- She was very shy before, but she is now very vocal and we sometimes have to tell her to calm down
- She is tentative during PE time, but has improved a lot
- This kinder garden class is one of the best classes the teachers have had
- She adjusts well when her French is corrected
Overall, I’m glad she is loving school, last week during Fall break. She said she missed school after the first day of vacation
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Today I met with Kate’s French teachers. Some cool highlights
- Kate is the leader in the advance French group
- Kate is well liked by all her classmates
- Kate is like a flower while the others are bees around her. She doesn’t seek out friends, others seek her out
- She was very shy before, but she is now very vocal and we sometimes have to tell her to calm down
- She is tentative during PE time, but has improved a lot
- This kinder garden class is one of the best classes the teachers have had
- She adjusts well when her French is corrected
Overall, I’m glad she is loving school, last week during Fall break. She said she missed school after the first day of vacation
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C. decided that she liked the name ‘K.’ and she wants her alias to be ‘clara’ so we actually changed her name officially in school to ‘C.’. She had me write out this story for her and she supplied the drawings and the words.
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Weekend with mom was very fun, my mom just turned 65 this year.
- Pick her up from SF and drove to Oakland to have a facial together. Had a very nice nap.
- Mom: “my friends would like to go to Europe next year.. pause”
- Me: “Do you guys enjoy tour packages?”
- Mom: “No we hate it but we can’t get around Europe.. pause”
- Me: “Ok, I’ll take you guys to Paris and Italy”
- Mom: “That would be best, heh..”
- Drive back to SF to Esperpentos for Tapas, checkout my apartment at the Beacon
- Spent time chatting in the car about my life
- Mom: “Why do you need to see a psychologist?”
- Me: “figure out how I got to where I am. Also to figure out why I instinctively always repeat the same mistakes in my life. It’s sort of looking backwards and figuring out the bad stuff.”
- Me: “Also a psychologist is pay to listen to whatever you want to talk about, there are things I would not tell my parents, things I would not tell my closest friends, but my shrink will have to listen to everything and will keep the secret. It’s very liberating”
- Mom: “Then why do you need to see a life coach?”
- Me: “figure out where I want to go from here, sort of looking forward and figuring out what I want for my future.”
- pause
- Me: “Pretty cool huh? I get to see both directions at the same time?”
I realized a few things after that day with my mom
- I’m very lucky that I get talk with my mom about almost anything and she cares to listen
- I’m lucky that I can afford a psychologist and a life coach
- I’m glad I am open minded enough to try to peek into this brain of mine and see what makes it tick
- My mom’s friends love me like a son and they have been in my life since I was 10, I’m very very lucky.
- Pick her up from SF and drove to Oakland to have a facial together. Had a very nice nap.
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I dropped off Kate at school and her teacher came up and we chatted a bit. She was telling me that Kate is expressing herself well in French and she wanted to find out how ‘deep’ Kate’s vocabulary was. Since I don’t know French, I couldn’t tell her :-) But I’m sure it’s good enough.
Then the teacher said, “You should have 10 more Kate, she is so wonderful” I was really touched and proud of my daughter. Little does she know that I’ve decided to not have kids anymore. More on that later
I’ve lay out my plans (I’m sure they might change)
1) no more kids and focus on raising Kate
2) this will give me time to focus on work and continue to be slave for Yahoo!
3) also focus on friends and family
4) focus on myself and spending time running, reading, learning, getting certified as a barista
5) travel
6) when I’m 48, when Kate is 18, I’ll be in Europe.that’s the life plan all lay out in front of me. whether everything works out as plan? Who cares, but at least I know the path now.
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The flight back from Paris with Kate was very pleasant and we both looked forward to the end of the 2 week vacation. We came up with a few games to keep us entertained. The most fun one was a made up game of ask the 8-ballI wrote up 3 pieces of paper with yes, no, maybe and put it into a container. Then we took turns asking questions of the magic 8-ball and shake out one of the pieces of paper
1) Are we going to stay in Paris forever?
yes
2) Am I 2 feet tall?
maybe
3) Is 15 plus 3 equals to 17?
noOther variations:
1) put 20 numbers in there and shake out 2 of them and do arithmetic
2) put country names in there and shake out and find the country on a globe
3) put prefix and suffix of words in there and shake out two and prouncing them together, a good way to learn prounciation and have a laugh at the new words created -
Kate Asleep On Paris Metro Line #1
Nice break for me! -
Kate loves crepes, almost every weekend she helps me make them and we talk about lumps <br>
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http://www.youtube.com/v/avZdr8UxMA4 -
Eiffel Tower, Seine River, Louvre Museum: from 5 year old’s perpective, she can care less.
Where’s the ice cream place, crepes? tired of walking, not the metro again, are we there yet? Kate is a pretty good traveler, but thinking from her perspective, I can understand.
My days with her here in Paris is not ambitious. We hit the pastries shop early AM, sit at the cafe for an espresso and a glass of rosé. Plan for only one outing for her like a park or amusement park and a boat ride. Then lunch at a cool place we should both like. By the time we are done, it’s time to plan a healthy dinner at home to make up for all the sweets during the day. No one seems to bring their kids out for dinner here.
The days are long, with only about 1 hour of break when I play a Japanese show for her. Today I really appreciate the 40 min nap she got on the metro line #1 as we ride from the depot from one end to the other while the conductor and passenger eye me curiously when we are the only ones on the metro while he switches directions in the repair dock.
We will be at the amusement park in 20 mins, kate would have gotten an hour long nap, I’m exprecting a Kate in much better mood.
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warning Dad!
Apparently Kate has learned the meaning of warning from one of the poems in Where the Sidewalk Ends. Then she saw the warning signs about not putting your fingers between the doors in the Paris metro.
The entire week, I’m getting warning drawings as I deny her a 2nd helping of ice cream. Another warning when I won’t let her bounce on the bed. Another warning when I refuse to carry her after she just bounced on the trampoline for 30 mins and says she is tired.
I lean down and tell her I love her, thanks for the warning, but the answer is still no.
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- Another video I edited here in Paris
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Kate arrived yesterday, her mom brought her over to Paris while traveling towards eastern Europe. Kate was excited as was I to be reunited after a month. The good.
We spent the day visiting a few food places around Rue Lepic, and I was introducing Kate to the vendors. The good
The vendor selling tarts asked wheter Kate is going to the French school in Paris, nope. Is her mom French? Nope. Do I speak French? No. I think he told Kate to teach her old man some French.. Doh! Ok, I’ll start to learn the language soon, very soon. The so so
Then Kate wanted me to play cooking with her by cutting up paper and pretend we are cooking mac N cheese. That almost put me to sleep. The so so.
Kate and I are staying in a small studio, so I had to sleep at the same time as she does, we both went to bed at 10:30pm and woke up at 8:45am, the longest sleep I’ve gotten in months. The good
I’m now moving at a snail’s pace in Paris, no more biking, no more running and trying to convince the 5 year old to walk in the burning heat. The so soSlowing down and being in the moment. The good
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Kate is coming to visit me for 2 weeks in Paris. This will be her 3rd time in Paris, hopefully we’ll get to chill and soak up summertime in Paris my silly Kate last summer dancing to a her own parade. I’m actually getting a bit nervous, I haven’t seen her for 6 weeks now.Now this video is when she gets into her let’s play silly things mode, she is pretending we are in a parade, I”m the guest as well as the person playing the percussions
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another favorite pass time.. falling into a bed of soft pillows.. it’s ka-ploooyee time!Set to the music of Cecilia Bartoli
http://www.youtube.com/v/0SjtVVCfcbQ
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Kate is a very lucky girl indee in her exposure to different languages, especially in a country like the US where we are very mono-language focused. It’s rare for a child to grow up being able to speak another language like a native
- She grew up with Chinese-mandarin as her first language because we didn’t speak English to her until 1 1/2 years old.
- Then of course English here in the states.
- She had a French speaking babysitter ever since she was 1 1/2 years old and now attends the Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley French American school.
- She also has a Japanese speaking sitter now and she just loves Japanese songs and children video
- my parents and I speak Chinese-cantonese to her. when she is willing to listen and she understand 90% of what we say, but she is not into it.. and I’m not as consistent.
So.. here is Kate singing Coccinelle in French (original singer) while waiting for BART, the only song I ever got her to agree singing because it’s my all time favorite French children’s song
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I’m beginning to seriously miss Kate, so I’m revisiting her videos on my little 17″ powerbook.Everyone loves the San Francisco Exploratorium. There are hundreds of science experiments here. Kate’s favorite the first time she was there is this “water surface tension” experiment. You try to make as much water stay on top and not leak through a porous filter.
Since I work for Yahoo!, can you tell me which embedded player plays better? You Tube or Yahoo! Video? Tell me your OS type, your connection speed, your browser. Take the poll at the bottom.
For me, FireFox, OS X, T1: The Yahoo! one always pauses 3 times.
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Ok, I’m easily amused by my daughter. But when we speak Chinese, it’s even funnier (at least to me). One day I asked her why she won’t play with this boy at school, here is our conversation while she was making crepes
highlight here to the end for the transcript:
Kate: Because his voice is a little fake
Kate: also ..when he talks with other people
Tony: how is he when he talks with you?
Kate: putt.. putt.
Tony: spitting? Not intentionally?
Kate: he is.. nods
Tony: Oh, I see, intentionally
the end of transcript -
I’ve been listening to an audio book, Stumbling on Happiness
The author Daniel Gilbert is really funny and convincing in the thoroughness of his research. He believes that humans are the only animals who can think about the future and have an imagination.I still do not know the secret to happiness, but after listening to him, I do believe happiness is not that elusive. I do not have to pursue happiness. There is no formula for happiness. I have to remember to be smart about the choices I make in life and be aware of why I’m making these choices. Accept that life is not under my full control and whatever happens in the future is just that simple, it’s part of life.
His latest blog post about why fatherhood does not bring you happiness
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Excerpts from his blog
Psychologists have measured how people feel as they go about their daily activities, and have found that people are less happy when they are interacting with their children than when they are eating, exercising, shopping or watching television. Indeed, an act of parenting makes most people about as happy as an act of housework. Economists have modeled the impact of many variables on people’s overall happiness and have consistently found that children have only a small impact. A small negative impact.
Those findings are hard to swallow because they fly in the face of our most compelling intuitions. We love our children! We talk about them to anyone who will listen, show their photographs to anyone who will look and hide our refrigerators behind vast collages of their drawings, notes, pictures and report cards. We feel confident that we are happy with our kids, about our kids, for our kids and because of our kids—so why is our personal experience at odds with the scientific data?
Three reasons.
First, when something makes us happy we are willing to pay a lot for it, which is why the worst Belgian chocolate is more expensive than the best Belgian tofu. But that process can work in reverse: when we pay a lot for something, we assume it makes us happy, which is why we swear to the wonders of bottled water and Armani socks. The compulsion to care for our children was long ago written into our DNA, so we toil and sweat, lose sleep and hair, play nurse, housekeeper, chauffeur and cook, and we do all that because nature just won’t have it any other way. Given the high price we pay, it isn’t surprising that we rationalize those costs and conclude that our children must be repaying us with happiness.
Second, if the Red Sox and the Yankees were scoreless until Manny Ramirez hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth, you can be sure that Boston fans would remember it as the best game of the season. Memories are dominated by their most powerful—and not their most typical—instances. Just as a glorious game-winning homer can erase our memory of 8 1/2 dull innings, the sublime moment when our 3-year-old looks up from the mess she is making with her mashed potatoes and says, “I wub you, Daddy,” can erase eight hours of no, not yet, not now and stop asking. Children may not make us happy very often, but when they do, that happiness is both transcendent and amnesic.
Third, although most of us think of heroin as a source of human misery, shooting heroin doesn’t actually make people feel miserable. It makes them feel really, really good—so good, in fact, that it crowds out every other source of pleasure. Family, friends, work, play, food, sex—none can compete with the narcotic experience; hence all fall by the wayside. The analogy to children is all too clear. Even if their company were an unremitting pleasure, the fact that they require so much company means that other sources of pleasure will all but disappear. Movies, theater, parties, travel—those are just a few of the English nouns that parents of young children quickly forget how to pronounce. We believe our children are our greatest joy, and we’re absolutely right. When you have one joy, it’s bound to be the greatest.
Our children give us many things, but an increase in our average daily happiness is probably not among them. Rather than deny that fact, we should celebrate it. Our ability to love beyond all measure those who try our patience and weary our bones is at once our most noble and most human quality. The fact that children don’t always make us happy—and that we’re happy to have them nonetheless—is the fact for which Sonora Smart Dodd was so grateful. She thought we would all do well to remember it, every third Sunday in June.
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I’m moving out of the house I bought and lived in for over 12 years. It’s been through 2-3 remodels but until recently it’s been the perfect house for me. Life of course always change and I want and need to live in San Francisco now.
So it’s good bye to suburb living and hello to urban life style.
Slight sad, but what can beat SF living?
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For all the moms and dads out there, really take the time to enjoy the first 5 years of your child’s life. After they start school and learn how to reason with you, the relationship becomes very different. I miss the days when Kate didn’t question anything. I enjoy her current age, but I often go back to her earlier photos and smile at how naive she was :-)
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It’s been the same answer for the past few weeks. She wants fresh pasta, she helps make it. Gather the ingredient, stir in water, break the eggs, measure the flour, mix, help roll the dough, cut into fettuccine or pappardelle, cook the pasta, wash the basil, mix with olive oil, add salt.
I’m just the executive chef making sure she doesn’t burn herself :-)
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Kate got mad at me for some reason and went back to her table to write me a warning note.
She first said I was in trouble :-(
“From Kate For Tony”
“Yes Kate, No Dad”
“I am getting mad at you”
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For Kate’s Fifth Birthday Party At http://mocha.org/
We had 23 kids, probably 18 parents packed into a 2 hour
birthday party for Kate. I got up at 6:30am to cut up 3 cantelopes, 2
melons, 1 4lb papaya, 10 apples, 6 pears, 8 bell peppers.The dish I’m most proud of is this big bowl of finely chopped pear, fuji
apple, bell peppers. It was a very refreshing salad, the pear gave it
the sweetness, the bell pepper made it taste like a grown up salad, the
apple gave it the crunch. -
Kate: Do you know who I love the most?
Tony: Mom?
K: nope
T: Me?
K: nope
T: Gandmom? Grandpa? Auntie Liana? Your best friend Olivia? You sister
Lauren?
K: nope, nope. I love all my family the same. This way no one would feel sad.It’s Kate’s 5th birthday this week., how she has grown. :)
Kate: Dad, how much do I love you?
Kate: More than ice cream! More than the heavens! -
Cate has been watching Cinderella and other Disney movies which mention the subject of death of a family member. So she has been mentioning that subject to me. Does everyone die? Kids who are 5 years old don’t die for a long long time right? What does it mean to die? Dad, when are you going to die?
I tell her that a human being has a physical form and a spiritual form. The spirit is how we think and what we feel in our hearts. The spirit defines who we are, not the physical form. When someone dies, the body can no longer hold the spirit and the spirit will go far away but it still lives in the hearts of everyone who love him/her. So the person never really dies. We may miss that person, but we just have to close our eyes, and imagine that person next to us and it’s as if she is right there.
This week I visited my grandmother’s grave like all Chinese people this time of the year. It reminds me again what a great person my grandmom was, living until 100 years old and lived a life of no regrets. I was at her grave and I wept for her, I wept for myself and this past year of my life and how hard it was. I told her about my life so far and told her I’ll be strong. It helped me to think back to what I said to Cate and I thank god that I have my daughter to make me think honestly about my life.
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From Kate To Laren
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I have been taking Kate to her dance lessons ever since she was 2 1/2. When she first started, she refused to participate and we spend nearly 2 months just sitting and watching.
How time has flown. She was in a dance performance 2 years before and she frozed on stage. She skipped last year’s performance and this year she also wanted to skip. No big deal to me.
Until she turned 5 years old in April, she came up to me and said now that she is 5 years old, she is no longer scared and wanted to be in this year’s performance.
Wish me luck and wish her luck. It will be a long long day of rehersals and a 4 hour wait until the performance. I’m volunteering just so I can be backstage with her. As always, I expect the worst and hope for the best.
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Kate came up with the phrase for a birthday card for her friend Pauline -
Kate did a wonderful drawing and I forget which princess was which.Snow White, Cinderella?? , Auora?
Jasmine (jumping out of a bottle), Sleeping Beauty, Ariel
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Kate’s drawing of me and her, after she translated my shirt from Paris .
I had a big laugh when she wanted to write down what was on my shirt. -
Kate had me open up TextEdit on my mac and asked me to type out these words.
“please give me a pink sparkly pajamas”Now where do I find these “pink sparkly pajamas?”
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Kate and I had a day full of good food.
Fresh fettuccini pasta, french string beans, basil
Chocolate fondue with organic fuji apple slices
fresh lemon scones with all 7 color sprinklesEvery color sprinkle is put on top of the scone for good measure
Kate, the cook, trying out the chocolateMelting Dark Chocolate In A Make Shift Double Boiler
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Kids are born artists but somehow when we grow up, we lose most of that creativity.
These are each child’s self portrait cut out with paper. Absolutely amazing!
Check out the flickr photos set
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It’s been a while, Kate finally agreed to take a photo with me for my birthday . She still refused to be photographed.
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My little girl is going through a phase where she doesn’t want her picture to be taken anymore. So sad for the paparazzi dad. I end up sneaking photos when she is not watching, but I can only do that on my Treo when I pretent I’m just checking email.
I hope she gets out of this phase soon, I miss taking photos of her with a real camera.
These were all photos taken without her knowing
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My little girl is going through a phase where she doesn’t want her picture to be taken anymore. So sad for the paparazzi dad. I end up sneaking photos when she is not watching, but I can only do that on my Treo when I pretent I’m just checking email.
I hope she gets out of this phase soon, I miss taking photos of her with a real camera.
These were all photos taken without her knowing
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Just wanted to document my very long but leisurely day with my little girl so I don’t forget.
Saturday morning started at 6:30 when Kate bounced up and asked me whether she could make crepes. Of course, I love crepes. She ran into the kitchen and got all the ingredients ready. She measured the flour, broke the eggs, pour the milk, the orange blosom, salt, sugar, olive oil. Then she poured the batter and flipped crepe. When she was done she had 2 nutella crepes, one lavender honey and one maple syrup.
After crepes, we headed over to her ballet/tap dance at the Center For the Dance .
At noon, I drove to SF Ferry Building, ran with her jogger stroller and picked up 2 jars of honey yorgurt from Sant Benoit. Turn the corner into Delica RF1 (menu here ) for Kobe beef over rice, salmon rice balls and butternut squash soup.
We had a spontaneous thought to take the ferry boat to the Sausalito, the ferry was leaving in 10 mins.
Came back to SF in an hour and jogged with Kate in the $50 jogger stroller I bought from craigslist along the Embarcadero.
Time to drive back, little Kate without a nap is getting weird on me. On my way back to Castro Valley a long time friend called to see if they could see me since they just had a little baby. I dropped by Hayward and hung out until 5:30, then headed home.
Kate and I had a plate of veggies, noodles followed by a ginger snap cookie and wrapped up the long day at 8:30. I actually slept at 8:30!
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Just got this email from Kate’s school, it doesn’t sound like the next few weeks will be fun.
Time to give Kate a good scrub down just in case.Unfortunately, there have been some lice found in MK so we’re asking
everyone to please stay aware so we can minimize any spreading. If you’re
not sure what to look for, please come up to my office and I can give you
some pointers. For information about treating lice, please check your parent
handbooks, and check with me if you have additional questions. -
I usually drive Kate to school on the day I work from home. But this last time I was late by 10 minutes. I had to fill out a little tardy slip for Kate with the reason of ‘traffic’ as an excuse.
I strolled leisurely to class with Kate and as I stepped in, 5 other girls came over and said hi to Kate, showing her their morning projects, trying to get her attention. One other girl even leaned the top of her head on Kate’s back and rubbed her head up and down Kate’s back. Kate was firm and held out her arms to me, took my face and gave me a goodbye kiss and sent me on my way. I tried to not cry and not take too much time since I was disrupting the class. It was one of the sweetest moment of my life!
I’m very proud of my daughter for taking the initiative to make friends at school. I’m happy for her that she so obviously love to learn and love being school so much. From this point of her life until she is 18, school is going to be the biggest part of her life. It’s going to be where she will meet most of her friends, where she will find her place in the world, where she might fall in love for the first time. School will be the constant force in her life no matter what else happens around her.
(but when she turns 18, her father will be off to Europe, there is no doubt about that, sorry Kate)
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I usually drive Kate to school on the day I work from home. But this last time I was late by 10 minutes. I had to fill out a little tardy slip for Kate with the reason of ‘traffic’ as an excuse.
I strolled leisurely to class with Kate and as I stepped in, 5 other girls came over and said hi to Kate, showing her their morning projects, trying to get her attention. One other girl even leaned the top of her head on Kate’s back and rubbed her head up and down Kate’s back. Kate was firm and held out her arms to me, took my face and gave me a goodbye kiss and sent me on my way. I tried to not cry and not take too much time since I was disrupting the class. It was one of the sweetest moment of my life!
I’m very proud of my daughter for taking the initiative to make friends at school. I’m happy for her that she so obviously love to learn and love being school so much. From this point of her life until she is 18, school is going to be the biggest part of her life. It’s going to be where she will meet most of her friends, where she will find her place in the world, where she might fall in love for the first time. School will be the constant force in her life no matter what else happens around her.(but when she turns 18, her father will be off to Europe, there is no doubt about that, sorry Kate)
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Kate since she was a baby, we’ve come across many books that she loves. I thought
I’ll start sharing those. I would love to hear suggestions as well from other
parents on what books they love. Anywhere from 0-6 years old reading material.Grace Lin illustrated many books on the Chinese culture. It’s really fun for Kate and I to read them mostly because the words and pictures are fun to look at. Our favorites from Grace Lin:
Round Is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes
Red Is a Dragon: A Book of Colors
Dim Sum for Everyone
Fortune Cookie FortunesHer books really gives a authentic feeling of being Chinese American. Her “Dim Sum” books has all the various dim sum dish in both languages and it’s fun to read about them and talk about how each one is made. They also bring in the various family relationships such as mother side’s grandparents, or uncles from the father side. These books are a fun way to talk about the Chinese Culture with your kids. Even if you are not Chinese, you can have fun learning about our culture
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The “First Discovery Books” are the best designed children’s books I’ve ever seen.
These books are very hard to find brand new in the US. I’m not sure why. Do a search on Amazon and give all the books a try. These are very detailed illustrations of various topics like The Egg , Penguins, Weather, The Earth and Sky. The best part about these books are the attention to , the depth that it covers on each subject (I even learn from these books) and the very very best part is that the book make use of transparent pages to show you more details or show you before and after, or very creative use of a white background to show you xray and how it works. It’s hard to describe it, you need to really pick one up to know that these books are in a class by themselves
They are also translated in French, Japanese, Chinese if you could find them. Click on the image belong to check on Amazon’s reviews, or simple pick up one of the used books for dirt cheap
MyWeb > Children Book Reviews
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Kate doesn’t like paparazzi Dad
I finally figured out the immunization stuff for Kate, she is back in school and her teachers love her! She is speaking French to her teachers, doodling, playing with the seesaw, eating lunch with her classmates, pretending to nap, and building sand castles.
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Kate’s teachers tell me that it so nice having Kate at school, she is really happy there.
Today Yahoo! let some of us leave work at 2:00pm to get started on the long weekend. So I decided to pick up Kate from Berkeley and take her to get her shots so she won’t be kicked out of school.
From Sunnyvale to Berkeley took me 1 hr 20 mins, then it took me 1 hr 30 mins to Livermore. I was 40 mins late for my appointment. I called the medical office twice and they made me feel like such an incompetent dad. Then when I got there, three people told me there was no way I could see the doctor for Kate to get her shots. Nothing I could say except to apologize then beg for the soonest possible apointment.
Now Kate will have to miss the entire week of school until she gets her shots next Saturday.
Kate, I’m so sorry, I felt lousy for about 3 hours. Now I’m back as happy dad.
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Happy parents, happy kids, crying kids whose parents left too fast,
socializing with teachers, proud parents, excited Kate.The first day school for Kate, I’m so proud of her. She will enjoy
learning at the French American school so much. But I think she will love
the corn meal sandbox the most -
4 year old Kate is way smarter than I am
- She spots every little detail in her story books, facial expressions of all the characters in the page
- She remembers that there are 6 strings on the guitar without looking at it, I thought there were 7
- She learns foreign languages so much better than I can, today was the first time in a long while that I was there with her French sitter and when I heard her speak French completely, I was shocked
- She remembers every promise that I made and reminds me to fulfill them. Like giving her a pull up bar at her height. Buying her some extra VCR tapes of Miffy in Japanese
- She can sense when I’m trying to tell a small lie, so I never try now
- She remembers all the ingredients to an apple pie in the order that was spelled out.
- She knows when someone truely likes her or are just faking it. I still need to learn this.
- She understands the idea of working for money (She knows who Jeff Boulter is :-D), being lucky to have a home, feeling sorry for the homeless
- She understands that commercials are bad and are just people trying to get us to buy things, “forward the commercial please dad”
- She already knows how to use the Treo better than I can and has managed to shut me out of the Sprint network
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4 year old Cate is way smarter than I am
- She spots every little detail in her story books, facial expressions of all the characters in the page
- She remembers that there are 6 strings on the guitar without looking at it, I thought there were 7
- She learns foreign languages so much better than I can, today was the first time in a long while that I was there with her French sitter and when I heard her speak French completely, I was shocked
- She remembers every promise that I made and reminds me to fulfill them. Like giving her a pull up bar at her height. Buying her some extra VCR tapes of Miffy in Japanese
- She can sense when I’m trying to tell a small lie, so I never try now
- She remembers all the ingredients to an apple pie in the order that was spelled out.
- She knows when someone truely likes her or are just faking it. I still need to learn this.
- She understands the idea of working for money (She knows who Jeff Boulter is :-D), being lucky to have a home, feeling sorry for the homeless
- She understands that commercials are bad and are just people trying to get us to buy things, “forward the commercial please dad”
- She already knows how to use the Treo better than I can and has managed to shut me out of the Sprint network
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This kid is hooked. She doesn’t get ice cream when she is with me.
But when my sister, Liana is with us, somehow cate usually works in ice cream
after a nice meal with veggies.Here is us enjoying a nice break from the heat at the local Loard’s ice
cream parlor -
Neat game to teach addition and subtraction
We agree on difference of 2.
Kate: (hides a certain number of fingers)
Me: It’s less than how many fingers?
Kate: 6
Me: you’ve got 4 fingers!
Kate: yupMe: ( I hide my fingers )
Kate: It’s more than how many fingers?
Me: 7
Kate: You’ve got 9 fingers!
Me: Yeah!As they get better, increase the difference.
We can play this for 30 mintues. Good way to kill time on BART. -
First, we agree on difference of 2.
Kate: (hides a certain number of fingers)
Me: It’s less than how many fingers?
Kate: 6
Me: you’ve got 4 fingers!
Kate: yupMe: ( I hide my fingers )
Kate: It’s more than how many fingers?
Me: 7
Kate: You’ve got 9 fingers!
Me: Yeah!As they get better, increase the difference.
We can play this for 30 mintues. Good way to kill time on BART. -
I love Saturdays at the SF Ferry Building, afterwards, we hit the farmer’s market in Castro Valley for some live electric guitar.
Food, coffee, flowers, live music, suntan, people :-) Life is good on Saturdays.
Kate enjoying a piece of bread from The Acme Bread Company while running circles around me
Kate and I take pics of each other
Chocolates from Recchiuti Confections
Fresh steam chicken bun from “Out The Door” of Slanted Door
Best morning pastries and coffee from Fog Hollow Farms We got one pastries right out of the oven, it was heavenly -
Why the squid face? Pissed off at Dad
Kate used to do Tai Chi with me, just the first 9 movements, when she was 2 years old. Recently I think I haven’t kept it up so she’s given up on me. Time for me to brush up on my 24 movements and get her interested again
< Images removed >
Image Ready Stance
Image Starting Posture
Image Strike with one handImage Hold the ball with left hand
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Father’s day turned out be to more than just Kate and Me at the Broadwalk. My entire family came along and I’m glad they did. My bro-in law rented a van and the 6 of us hopped in and off we went. We got there at 9:45 and Kate and headed immediately to the beach, especially when Kate saw the sand.
Kate: I want to do go the sand
(we are coming up to the broad walk)My Mom: Should we head over to breakfast?
Kate: Now, I want sand now!
Me: Uhh, I’m not hungry, drop us off here and pick us up later. BTW, my Treo is out of batteries, please try to find us.
9:45 am, I get a pager message from Yahoo! News that we had 404’s on the site, my Treo runs out of batteries. ARGGG, my parents already drove off.
I digged 5 inches down into the dry sand and open up a 8 foot wet sand pit for Kate. She and I built sand castles for 3 hours. The sun was nice but the beach was actually quite cold. I did a 200 sand push ups to keep warm. I tried looking for Aurora playing sand volleyball, didn’t see her but she was out there today.
I get found by my parents at 12:30pm and I ran over to the car to get my Treo charged and dial into work via bluetooth. I figured out the problem was with the MYSQL database and suggested a fix to my trusted comrad Glen and told him that I trusted him and I loved him (I didn’t really say that).
Thank god we hired some bad asses for Y! News.
After Kate had 6 turns at the Merry-go-around and a nice big ice cream cone, we head back home and had ourselves a kick ass BBQ. I let my sister play with Kate for the entire day (what a nice father’s day present) and I watched some DVD’s (Hoosiers) on my 17″ powerbook, had tons of Korean short ribs.
On a more personal note:
I also connected with a family friend who suffered from depression for several years and was reluctant to take drugs. But when she finally started taking drugs, her whole outlook on life changed. I think I’ll start taking meds for me to relieve my depression for a period of time. I’m a little sick of my mood swings.
Tony Tam 