They're Not So Bad

The squirrels keep coming but they have not been as successful as before. We've put up squirrel-proof feeders and /or super baffles that prohibit the squirrels from getting to the seed.

This is our super-duper cone baffle that is awesome! The squirrels can't hang on to any part of it so it slips off when it tries to grab hold of it.

This dome one isn't wide enough so I double-baffled it and it worked. Unfortunately Emily wanted to use the wider baffle on another feeder so this one was not as protected as it could have been. We eventually moved it to a weaker branch which can't hold the weight of our fat squirrels.

This is our squirrel-proof feeder. The ledge clamps shut once the lever is pressed by the squirrel.

Emily got some cute sunflower feeders which the squirrels just love. It even uses the corn (which is supposed to be the squirrel food) as a stepstool to his sunflowers seeds.

We removed the sunflowers and it finally got the hint that the corn was for him!

This one found the bark butter... it has peanut butter in it.

A new predator.. this is a sharp-shinned hawk. Whenever it comes, all the birds disappear. Although it's pretty cool looking, Emily says it's not good to get hawks frequently in our backyard. They'll figure out it's a good birding backyard thus easy food for them. It depresses her when she has to think that in order to prevent the predators from coming she has to take down her feeders.

So squirrels aren't that bad!

Bird Aviary

It's been awhile since I've updated you on our growing bird aviary. Emily has been switching around her feeders. Taking some down; putting new ones up. She has around eight feeders up at a time all trying to attract different bird species. She spreads seed out on the ground for the ground feeders such as the scrub jay and mourning doves. The finches have a growing domination of the feeders.

Finches (american gold finch, lesser goldfinch, and house finch) at the water cooler.

And more finches

More Finches

And more finches

Emily sweeps the backyard regularly to keep the ground clean.

And more finches

House finch on Matthew's home-made bark butter feeder

Chickadee on the suet feeder

Chickadee on the cattail feeder with shelled peanuts

White Crown Sparrows checking out the bark butter Emily put on the tree

"How you doin'?"

 We got two new birds to our brood:

Bushtit

Yellow Rumped Warbler

The Orthodontist

I never had braces. It's not because I didn't need them. I just didn't want them. Since I was a big thumb-sucker when I was little, my mom wanted me to get braces. She told my dentist. He said I didn't need them. So I listened to my dentist and told my mom, I didn't need them.

Fast forward to today, my mom continues to remind me that I should have gotten braces but oh.. c'est-la-vie. I didn't want them because I was scared to get them. I did not want to deal with the uncomfortableness/pain of wearing them for long months on end and how it would make me look. Yes, I was a chicken. When I was little, getting braces was not the norm. Now kids and adults are getting them all the time.

Emily saw the orthodontist at age 8. Apparently that is the age when your child should start seeing the orthodontist. Something about checking their bite, jaw and how their teeth are coming in. Thankfully, she doesn't need anything done until all her permanent teeth come in. Then if she does get braces, it'll be for cosmetic purposes only. (Like me.)

Getting braces seems like the 'in' thing to do now for kids. They all have braces. It's rare to see a kid without braces. My 8-year old nephew just got braces. Apparently he has a cross bite and under bite. The braces will fix all of that supposedly. 

Hannah is 8 years old and her dentist told me, "It's time for Hannah to see the orthodontist."  He's concerned with her two front teeth which are coming straight down on top of her bottom two teeth and that her unseen permanent teeth are humongous which concerns him in regards to spacing in her mouth. Plus she has a huge gap in between her two front teeth. Now mind you, she has only 'lost' 6 baby teeth. I say 'lost' because she really has never lost any teeth. They were all extracted by the dentist.

Check out Hannah's panoramic x-ray of her mouth. She still has tons of baby teeth still there and her permanents are enormous.

Hannah's visit to the orthodontist was very worrisome... for me. You see, I was afraid of all the work that she will need to endure to fix the teeth problems. She already gets hysterical whenever we go get her teeth cleaned at the dentist. How will she react when she has to get all this serious, painful, uncomfortable orthodontic work done in her tiny mouth? (You can see where she gets her anxiety from.) Knowing her, I know that she will be traumatized by the experience. That's just who she is right now.

So we go and get our first consultation and I brace for the worst. I guess God knew how much Hannah could handle and He answered our prayers. Our orthodontist, Dr. Chun, said that she doesn't need any work done right now. In fact, her two front teeth are not coming directly on top of her bottom teeth. If she relaxes her jaw, the teeth come right over it. And when she loses the rest of her baby teeth, the permanent teeth will come right it. Apparently she has a lot of spacing between her baby teeth (never really needed to floss really) so it'll work itself out. Now if she had had baby teeth that were very close together, then it would be a problem. So Yay! Nothing to be done until she goes back in one-year for another 'consultation'! Dr. Chun is THE best orthodontist out there, in my opinion. She explained to us, in laymen terms, what was happening with Hannah's teeth.

Whew... what a relief. But now since Emily has all her permanent teeth, she'll see Dr. Chun this summer. We'll see what she says for her!

Little Pieces of Heaven

My grandmother is visiting from Lima, Peru. She is my grandfather's (my mom's dad) second wife. She is  Peruvian Chinese so she speaks Spanish and minimal Chinese. She understands more Chinese than she can speak. (Like me! But I don't speak Spanish.) Whenever anyone comes to visit, it gives our whole family a good reason to go out to eat!

My Grandma Amelia with her great-grandchildren (minus Zachy)

Food is important to my family. Since my parents were in the Chinese restaurant business, they are pretty picky about restaurant food. We went for dim sum. I think dim sum is 'little bite size pieces of heaven'. Literally it means 'point of the heart'. It's not meant to 'fill you up' (the size of each piece can give you that impression). It's meant as a snack and therefore only meant to 'touch the heart'. But if you add up all those little pieces, you can get full fast.

It was my first time at this particular restaurant, Champagne Seafood Restaurant (one that my dad picked) and I was very impressed. I was impressed with the amount of pieces in each dish. It's usually 3-4 pieces depending on the item. They had 4-5 pieces per plate. Of course, their prices were up there with the elite dim sum restaurants like Koi Palace and Yang Sing.

The first dishes you have to order have to be these two dishes:

Shui Mai (steamed shrimp & pork dumplings)

Har Gaw (steamed shrimp dumplings)

This is one of my favorites: Fun Guo (steamed Chiu Chou dumplings)

Pan Fried Daikon (Turnip) cake (Matthew's cat was named after this dish)

Shrimp Rice Noodles

This was especially delicious and very tender: Steamed Chicken Feet with Black Bean sauce (You're not 'real' Chinese if you don't eat this!)

Steamed Pork Ribs with Black Bean Sauce (another one of my must-haves!)

We had other dishes too but I didn't want to take pictures of every dish.

 And for Dessert, my favorite...

Egg Custard Tart (I was not impressed with theirs. I like the crust flaky not crunchy.)

Below are the entree dishes we ordered. Typically you don't need any entrees when you are dim summing. There is just so much to eat but if you have some picky kids that don't like the variety of dim sum, these dishes will satisfy their hunger.

One of our favorite entrees: Scrambled Egg and Shrimp Chow Fun

Chicken Chow Mein Hong Kong Style (crispy noodles)

Finally, some food that my father-in-law can appreciate! (He always comments that my 'sweet-tooth' foods that I blog about are too tempting for him and unfortunately he cannot indulge in them due to health reasons.)

No Pain No Gain

I have a bad back. I've had back pain ever since I was in my late 20's. It all happened when I bent over (not using my legs in a squatting position) to pick up a piece of kleenex that I had thrown into the trash can but missed. Then BAM! Something happened and I was in debilitating pain. And my back hasn't been the same ever since.

I've seen doctors, gotten cortisone shots, got poked and assessed by sports therapists and physical therapists. Eventually I got insoles for my shoes (for alignment), a lumbar cushion for my lower back for where ever I sat and regularly did my back strengthening exercises (aka my 'mermaid' push-ups).

As I got older, I had to be more conscious of my back and how I use it. For the past few years, my back has been okay (knock on wood). It's been okay even through two pregnancies. I think it's because of the conscious investment I put into it that it is pretty much pain free for now. That investment is called: massage.

Now I know that it's a 'splurge' to get a massage. But hear me out. I know money doesn't come easy. So we have to spend it wisely. Some just spend and don't think about the debt they've incurred; others save save save (usually the asian way). But no matter how much or little we have, there is always something that we need to spend on that is 'luxurious' or 'self-satisfying'. It may be an investment in supping-up your car, purchasing high quality sports equipment, going golfing or skiing, receiving spa treatments and/or regular mani/pedis, or ordering your weekly/daily 'Grande Hot Chocolate 2 pumps mocha 1 pump vanilla Extra Hot with Whip No Drizzle' at Starbucks. Nevertheless, there may be one thing that we do 'splurge' on that we just need to make us feel good.

I have discovered that a regular massage for me keeps me physically and mentally healthy. It really does. It helps take away my back aches, prevents future back pain and de-stresses me at the same time. Now for many a massage is a time of relaxation and provides that 'calgon take-me away' type feeling. My cousin seems to always fall asleep when she gets a massage. She is that relaxed.

Not me. Nope. That is not my kind of massage. The massage I need is the deep tissue kind. My kind is the 'screaming-in-my-head' kind because it's that painful. Yep. No pain, no gain I say. If I can't feel pain, I don't feel the tightness and tension going away. I don't feel the muscles getting loosened. Those 'sleep-induced' massages are what I call 'wimpy' massages for me.

My massage therapist, Shelley, is an incredible masseuse. I-Love-Her! Her massages are so painful sometimes that when I haven't seen her for months and go to her, I still have the ache from the massage for days. Her focus is muscle therapy which specializes on pain relief.  (I know.. it's really not relief until you go a couple of times.) Deep tissue massage is her expertise. Each time I go, the less pain I feel. Bottom-line, I feel that she's really doing her job well and I can feel it. And it feels good. I feel like my upper body is getting a huge workout and thankfully, I'm not the one sweating and tired.

Recently, I was diagnosed with plantar fascilitis in my foot (inflammation of the tissue in my heel). I've been getting physical therapy for it. Denise, my PT is also awesome. Been seeing her since I've had my back pain. Denise heats, massages and ices the inflamed area. While seeing Shelley for my regular back massage, I told her to massage my foot too. She did and boy, did it hurt since she tried to deknot all the tiny knots in my foot. I iced it when I got home and it's feeling better. Much less painful when I walk.

Massage, I believe, is essential in our lives when we age. Have you not checked out all the electrical massage gadgets at Brookstone or Sharper Image? How about those massage chairs in the middle of the malls? They are all on to something. There is a need. And an important one at that.

Tutti Frutti

A big craze are yogurt stores. They are popping up everywhere.

Tutti Frutti is at a big south bay mall. This self-serve yogurt shop allows you to fill your cup to the max with all the goodies they offer. They offer so many flavors to choose from too.

My favorite is plain ol' vanilla (as long as it isn't tart.. I don't like tart) and my favorite toppings are toasted almonds or peanuts and mochi. The mochi cubes are delicious!

Mochi cubes are to the bottom right corner.

Emily likes chocolate and strawberry flavors.

My three nephews all shared one cup. Guess who ended up holding the cup? (aka who ends up eating most of it)

One Kid... Done.

I have my impressions of China. Unfortunately, it's mostly negative. Sorry but with the news about dishonesty, contaminated baby formula, toys with lead paint, censorship of free speech, unacceptable labor laws, low quality construction, the obsession with making money, money, and more money, and the list goes on. Sometimes, I do feel ashamed to be Chinese.

One law in particular, the One-Child Limit, really gets to me. Basically, this 30+ year rule is that each family is only allowed to have one child. That's it. Only one kid. It's supposed to 'control' population growth.

If we and our friends lived in China we would look like this:

Can't imagine life without our 'MuiMui'

And what about our 'Big Fella'? Munchkin would be all alone

How about theses families.. neither would have any brothers (1 for the left; 2 for the right)

CorCor would be missing his brother and sister

My 'Big Man' would not have his 2 brothers to boss around.

What about this 'Brady Bunch'? Their big house would be pretty empty without their additional 5 running around.

Chellie-Bellie would be missing her 'best-ies'

It's actually quite sad... and lonely.

Actually a growing number of parents are defying the law to have another child in China. Not because they want a son but because they want another child to love. In a news article I read, a mother hides her pregnancy when she's out in public and fears that Family Planning Officials would see her and drag her to the hospital for a forced abortion. Many risk losing their jobs, savings and physical safety to have this 'forbidden second child'. Heavy fines are imposed on violators. They must pay a 'social compensation fee' which can be four to nine times a family's annual income depending on where they live (province) and their local family planning bureau.

But these families are representing the changing ideas of individual rights. They do not want to have the government dictate how many children they should have. They have formed 'private' blogs and chat rooms to discuss ways to get around the one-child policy.

This group also feels that the Chinese have been brainwashed to think that it is beneficial and a blessing to have a small family. But unknowingly they are influencing not only the population growth but rapid population aging and young people not wanting to have children. A Director for Public Policy in China worries that as the baby boom generation of the 1960's heads into retirement and old age, their labor force, sharply reduced by the one-child policy, will struggle to support them.

Funny thing is that a long time ago, our Chinese grandparents had a ton of kids. My paternal grandmother had probably 6-7 kids (she lost 2-3 as young children; 1 also died giving birth) and my husband's maternal grandmother had 10 kids! I guess that's where the population boomed a little too much!

Now if you travel to China, you will see many parents with just one child .. and it's probably a boy. A very doted-upon spoiled little kid probably. Curious to see what the boy-girl ratio is there now.

Why Do They Do Stupid Things and Make Us Mad?

One afternoon my sister called and complained about one of her boys. He was purposefully disobeying her. She told him to do his homework. He said 'ok' as he was on the computer surfing the internet. She again told him to do his homework. He said 'ok'... and continued to surf the web. She proceeds to yell reiterate again, go do your homework. He begrudgingly gets off the computer and proceeds to roll his chair to block the doorway so his brothers cannot get pass him. They in turn complain to my sister that their big brother is bothering them. My sister again yells says, why are you making your brothers mad? He says, "I don't know."

Sound familiar? Has this happened in your family?

Funny thing is.. he really doesn't know why he's doing these stupid things to make us, parents, mad. Really! My husband was the one who told me why he was acting this way. You see, his men's bible study was just talking about the very same problem recently.

His group was studying the book: The Five Love Languages of Children/Teenagers by Gary Chapman . Chapter Ten focuses on Anger and Love. Both emotions are usually felt at the same time. It is anger that leads to marital conflict and to verbal and physical abuse of children. It's the emotion that is the most misunderstood and mishandled.

Many people mishandle their anger. Road rage anyone? Borderline abuse? If we adults do not learn to handle our anger as we respond to our children, they in turn will not learn to handle theirs.

When our kids yell, we tend to yell back, "why are you yelling?" or "don't you dare talk that way to me!". Kids will get angry. It's a known fact. We all do. It's how we handle their anger that's important. We need to teach our children appropriate ways of handling their anger. If we don't do that, we have failed (in this one way) to guide them to be responsible mature adults. The mishandling of anger can be related to every present and future problem your child may have from getting bad grades to being in unhealthy relationships in their personal and professional life. Anger Management anyone?

The good news is that if we help them learn to handle their anger it'll be to their advantage as they grow up to be productive adults.

My sister's son was displaying passive-aggressive behavior. "Passive-aggressive behavior is an expression of anger that gets back at a person or group indirectly or 'passively'. It is a subconscious determination to do exactly opposite of what an authority figure (usually a parent or teacher) wants."

How do you know it was passive-aggressive behavior?  One, P-A behavior does not make sense. Two, you'll know it's P-A behavior when nothing you do or say can correct the bad behavior. Because his whole intent was to upset you no matter what you say or do to him.

Now I say that my 14 year old nephew does not really know why he's doing what he's doing. You see, there is only one period of time in one's life called early adolescence (when a child is 13-15 years old) where this behavior is considered 'normal'. Now to clarify, it's considered normal when this behavior causes no harm to anyone. Harmless ways can be not cleaning up a their room or teepeeing someone else's house. They are all normal teenage antics. There are also more dangerous ways of expressing P-A behavior which is more action oriented than verbal such as dabbling in drugs, violence, complete disregard for school  etc..

My nephew probably knows what he did but probably not why he did what he did. It takes a lot of reflection and mulling over to determine what his problem 'deep down' was. And usually Mr. Chapman says, it's because of an empty love tank. If you, as the parent, are regularly filling up his love tank (in the language that speaks most strongly to him whether it's words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service or touch) he would not have the need to act out in this manner. Of course an empty love tank is not the only cause of misbehavior or anger but it is the most common.

Another important teaching lesson is to understand that your child has no defense against your anger towards them. When you dump your anger onto them, it goes right inside the child especially when you also say "don't you ever speak to me that way again' or 'don't talk when i'm talking to you.' You just yell at them and then send them into their room without giving them an opportunity to respond. Their anger can eventually become so bottled up inside themselves that it comes out as passive-aggressive behavior.

Our goal as parents is to help our child move from P-A behavior and verbal abuse to a calm rational way of discussing the problem and solution. This is not easy especially if they are pushing your buttons. I have had many times exploded at my girls when they do not obey or display P-A behavior. Thankfully my husband is quite the opposite and uses his calm soft spoken voice and patiently instructs our children to calm down to find out what is really wrong. Mind you, it's not easy for him either but he's much better at it than me.

Overall, this is a long process that involves modeling (when they are yelling, you can't yell back, it just teaches them that they can yell back at someone who yells at them), training and lots and lots of patience. Let them express their anger verbally. That is healthy. We need to do that too sometimes. It's called venting!! The more anger that is expressed verbally, the less it would come out in other more serious behaviors such as lying, stealing, violence etc..

When your child speaks in anger, it does not necessarily mean that he is being disrespectful. You just have to find out what is the problem. Now some children misbehave to manipulate their parents and get their own way; now that is unacceptable.  Angry verbal expressions motivated by a desire to upset and hurt others are inappropriate and must be corrected right away. There is usually a deep seeded problem festering in that child when the behavior gets so out of hand. It is our job to never or not have it get that bad.

Communication is key to knowing what and who are kids are. They may be sweet and cuddly when they were infants to preschoolers; cute and entertaining when they are in their elementary years but when they get to their teenage years.. BAM! Where did they come from? Who is this kid that I raised for the past 14 years? What is wrong with you? Well.. it's all a part of growing up and figuring out who they are. They want to be treated like adults but their minds are still too immature to handle the true responsibility of adulthood. Hey, sometimes I totally get what Hannah goes through. When I wake up in the morning, I don't want to go to work, I don't want to go anywhere. I want to stay home and just watch TV.

If you want step-by-step instruction on how to train your child out of displaying passive-aggressive behavior, I would highly recommend reading Chapter 10 of The Five Love Languages of Children or Teenagers by Gary Chapman. It's two different books, one is geared more about elementary-aged children and the other is about teenagers. Both have essentially the same instruction but the examples he uses is geared for that specfic age group.

I also highly recommend building friendships with other parents who have older children than yours. I so value and respect my friends as parents and use them as my role model and 'advise hot-line' whenever I need help on how to handle situations with my children. It definitely takes a village to raise a child.

We've Got A Winner!

My randomly chosen winner for my 100th Blog Post Contest is...Valerie Clubb!

Congratulations my dear friend! Valerie posted the most comments of everyone during the month-long contest! She must have really wanted to win! And she did!

Thank you everyone for reading and commenting. I so enjoyed the comments and tried to respond to many of them.

Keep on reading and look for another future contest!

Oh.. what did she win? She won a $50 gift card to a store of her choosing!

Don't know about you but I always prefer to get a gift card to a store that I actually like shopping at. So my philosophy is if I'm getting you a gift, I want to get it at a place that you want to spend it at.  And most retailers almost always have a website where you can purchase a gift card online and have it either mailed or emailed to your address. Super convenient!

Hannah picked the name out of the bag. She was excited to read it was Valerie. You see, Valerie is actually her classmate, Laneya's, grandma. She only knows her as Laneya's Grandma. Laneya's mommy is Ariel who is Valerie's daughter.  Ariel was Emily and Hannah's preschool teacher when they were each 5 and 4 respectively. What a small world huh?

Their last Sunday at FCC 2005.

I, on the other hand, know Valerie as a precious mentor, and wife to one of our favorite former pastors at FCC, Pastor Daniel, who was our Adults Pastor. Both of them led an awesome FCC Marriage Conference in Santa Cruz many moons ago that we were privileged to attend. The Clubbs are still very special people in our lives.

So Congratulations again Valerie and I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon!

Five Top Regrets People Make

Life gets so busy and goes by so fast that sometimes we don't take time to stop and reflect on if we really did the best living our lives.

I came across an article "Nurse Reveals the Top 5 Regrets People make on their Deathbed." Actually the info came from a songwriter, Bronnie Ware, who wrote a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departed. But it doesn't matter who it came from.. the important part is that it was enlightening information. Something to really think about.

Top Five Regrets People Make on their Deathbed

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
They said this was the most common regret of all.  I may have to agree. Many of us want to please others, have others like us, and or just want to keep the peace. We all have dreams; when you lose your health it's kind of too late. That's why we travel now with the kids cuz when they get older they won't want to travel with you or can't due to scheduling conflicts and when you have an empty nest, you may not be as physically fit to go around the world in eighty days.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
Ah... ain't that the truth. This came from every male patient the nurse cared for. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Work-o-holics... I know that in this day and age especially in this economy, our jobs are very precious to us. But precious enough that we miss out on time with our family? Especially our kids? Will you need to write a book for your kids explaining the reasons why you worked so much (aka Mr. Jobs) after you die?  I personally feel that one's childhood experiences has a huge life-changing impact on who they become as an adult. How well do you know your child?

3. I'd wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
Sometimes we really don't have the guts to say how we really feel or what we really want to say to others.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I so value my relationships with others. Whenever we spend time with others either through sharing a meal or on a trip, the time and conversation we share is priceless. Personally, I feel it's not what we do but who we are with that is important. We get so caught up in our own lives that we don't invest ourselves with others from our past or present.

Who can say that they still keep in touch with friends from grade school, high school, college, graduate school, every job that they had post college, all the guys they seriously dated, all the churches they've attended and served in and extracurricular organizations such as MOPS, Gymboree etc..? Yep.. that's moi!! I most proudly have!

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Happiness is a choice. Life is a choice. Choose consciously, choose wisely, and choose honestly. Choose to be happy.

I would like to add one more important one:

6. I wish I had listened to God, loved Jesus as my Lord and Savior and did my best to make a difference in other people's lives by sharing God's love to others.

Investing in others is so much more satisfying than building our own self up. It is more meaningful and fulfilling knowing you made a difference in someone else's life, by caring, sharing and loving them as Jesus does.

I'd like to go out on a limb now to say, my dear readers, if you do not know Jesus as your personal Savior I hope you'd consider the decision to accept Him in your heart. Life can be too hard to live without a living God who knows all and loves us because He created us. I'm not saying that life will be a breeze when we become a Christian. Not at all, life will go on but you don't have to live it alone. God will be with you always. And when it's your time on earth to go, we'll all meet up in heaven to live in eternity together.

ONGOING CONTEST... remember I will enter your name with each comment you post on anything I've written through February 9 . Random winner will receive a BIG prize!