Daily life | Hip to be Mom

Saturday Snippets #1

Posted by Clairity Comments Off

Mar 042012

The days go by in a flash most weeks. So many things happen that can quickly be summarized into short snippets. They’re just little things or fleeting thoughts running through my head. I’ve done these lists before and I like how easy they are to put together into a short post. So I’m considering making a series out of them.

1. Rushing around like a wild woman this week. Seems like I accomplish more under pressure. Anyone else?

2. So why am I standing there holding the elevator open as 4 strapping college men file in past me, one by one? And not one has the courtesy to say thank you!

3. Ramped up my workouts this week. Time to get out of my comfort zone. Now I’m sore in muscles I didn’t know I have. No pain, no gain, right?

4. Good to know that there’s one mom out there who is standing her ground and going, who cares what the herd is doing or saying, I’ll do what’s best for MY kid.

5. 41-year-old teacher quits his job, leaves his wife and 3 kids, and moves in with his 18-year-old student who is a friend of his eldest daughter’s aged 17. Following their hearts, oh gimme a break! She just needs a father figure and he’s going through a midlife crisis. My ~~2-second psychoanalysis~~ 2 cents. Mom (hers) is going after Teacher. Good for Mom!

We’ve been trying to eat healthier. Little by little. Whenever we can manage it. I won’t pretend it’s easy because a busy lifestyle like ours isn’t exactly cut out for that. With the convenience of eating out comes high sodium, high sugar, high fat and not so ideal methods of food preparation. But we’re trying and we’ve been pretty good with it so far.

We had Japanese (again!) last weekend and I ordered this scrumptious salmon doused in lemon juice and smothered with wasabi. Just ignore me, I’m raving about wasabi again .

Our home bakery comes alive every weekend. Me and the girls are in there with sleeves rolled up, hair tied back and elbow-deep in bread dough, kneading and rolling. No bread maker. It’s back to basics, the old-fashioned way. If our high metabolic rates won’t allow us to go without carbs, we’ll just have to pile on the wheat, nuts and fruit.

We are recent converts to oatmeal. We (yes, me included) have always balked at the word. But since we chomped down like 100 granola bars in the space of our 1-month winter vacation in Cali last year, I figured that was a darned good start right there. Now I make my own granola bars, so I can control the sugar.

My two salad haters are now salad lovers. So more greens it is. If time permits, I even make my own dressing.

There’s a ton of new (to us) foods that we’ve recently added to our list, like pumpkins and pomegranates. Are you trying to eat healthier? What changes are you making to your diet? What new foods are you trying?

I’ve done it again. Made another boo-boo. I dropped Raine off at her early morning class and took the wrong way home. Don’t ask me how I can get lost on a route that I’m on every single day of the week. Don’t even ask !

But yeah, it happens. I’m not sure if it’s ever happened to you, but if it has, I’d love to hear about it. It would make me feel a whole lot better .

Point is, if I didn’t do silly things like this, where would I even find the occasion to laugh at myself, right? Laughing at other people when bad things happen to them is unacceptable. But laughing at yourself, now that’s different and it’s good for your psyche even.

But I digress. Back to how I turned up a blind ramp onto the highway and there was this oil truck doing some stunts and everyone was swerving to avoid it. With all this confusion going on, I somehow ended up on the wrong lane.

Fine, I was a little distracted and it was only when I made the turn that I noticed the scenery wasn’t quite familiar. Apparently I wasn’t alone though. Seems like the car in front of me made the same boo-boo! What a laugh!

Where’ve I been?

Posted by Clairity Comments Off

Jan 282012

If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, I’ve been, um, under the hood, so to speak. A couple of my blogs broke while I was moving them around so I had to dive in. A return to my geeky past. I manage everything myself so when something, anything breaks, I’m the one to fix it.

If time had permitted, I would’ve used the opportunity to get my girls to get their hands dirty. A little ~~grease~~ geek never hurt, especially if you’re a girl. Well, maybe next time. It’s been a while since I’ve had to get geeky myself. I’ve missed rolling up my sleeves and getting elbow-deep in code, DNS and IPs. It’s hard to describe but how about this?

Between then and now

Posted by Clairity Comments Off

Jan 262012

I was pretty much stuck in this chair all of yesterday. You may have swung by recently and noticed a bit of a mess here. Maybe we were missing a sidebar here, some graphics there. Pretty much the sort of stuff you expect when you’re moving to a new “home”. Been working very long hours with the most patient support guy ever (thanks again, Scott!) to get stuff ironed out.

Apart from that, we’ve just been hanging out. Food is the really big thing this time of year. For us, not so much. We haven’t been out to a restaurant yet. Instead we’ve been feasting on these incredibly scrumptious leftover turkey sandwiches. Never mind that we ran out of tomatoes.

And we got to the gym yesterday which was near-empty. A gym where you can actually make out each piece of equipment instead of seeing a blur of movement – priceless! Great workout yesterday, so happy about that. And planning to hit it again early tomorrow morning .

Got a few more hiccups to sort out, then we’re out of here. Going to make the most of the rest of the holidays and just kick back before the insanity starts all over again Monday.

More and more, I’m observing that moms (not everyone, of course) seem to be leaving kids to their own devices these days and keeping mum when their kids behave badly. And why is that, I wonder?

Last weekend, we were seated at a table next to 2 moms and their 2 daughters aged about 5. We were trying to have lunch (key word trying). But with these 2 little girls singing and shrieking on top of their voices, at a super-shrill super-high pitch, non. stop, it was impossible to have a meal without being driven up the wall.

We would’ve moved to another table further away but since it was lunchtime on a weekend, there was no escaping. All this time, the 2 moms are sitting there, eating and chatting, completely (repeat completely) oblivious to the ear-piercing shrieks and how everyone around them was grimacing.

Pretty soon, those 2 girls who incidentally were dressed like little tarts (hate to say this but are little girls becoming more sl*tty or what?), were yoyo-ing between other tables disturbing the diners (yes, they even climbed in and sat with the other diners) while their moms said and did absolutely nothing. at. all!

After the meal, the 2 very modern, dressed-up mothers got up, gathered their shopping bags and promptly started walking away. The little girls, noticing this, skipped and danced after them.

In another incident the same weekend, a balloon that a toddler of about 3 was holding had gotten away. We picked it up and were about to hand it back to him when his father came up, took the balloon off our hands and gave it back to the kid. No word of thanks. No eye contact. No acknowledgement. I would think this would’ve been the perfect opportunity to train his toddler to ‘thank you’, for instance (no brainer).

At these young ages, parents should be guided and taught simple manners and courtesies. In the case of the 2 girls, they’re old enough to be made to understand that it’s not okay to go around disturbing other people and acting loudly.

I think there’s a fine line between giving your kids the independence and freedom to grow and develop, and allowing them a free hand. And when they overstep that fine line, someone (and hopefully it’ll be their mom, not me!) has to put them in their place.

So why are we so afraid to reprimand our kids if we notice rudeness and other socially unacceptable behaviors? If the moms are not correcting them, who is going to do it? Should we really be surprised when our kids turn out into young adults who have no respect for others?