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My kids love air-conditioning. They can’t stand the heat. In fact, we’re so warm-blooded we sleep with both the fan and air-conditioner going full blast every night. We wear short-sleeved pajamas, and our blankets are only for decoration, we never use them!

People think we’re either nuts or shameless show-offs but this is the normal practice in our household and we’ve been doing it since the kids were a few years old. Many of our relatives and friends have air-conditioned their living rooms, their entire house even… and I agree, it’s so nice to be greeted by a blast of cool air when you walk in from the blazing heat.

When we visit, I can see my kids beaming from ear to ear. They’re so cute! And I know what they’re thinking. They’re wishing we had this cool luxury at home too but dh and I believe in giving our sweat glands a little exercise and our sweat pores a chance to breathe, and a little lesson in the school of hard knocks for the kids .

We have the air-conditioning on at night to cool down the bedrooms before we go to bed. The timer switches it off a few hours later. But the fans stay on till morning and they’re on 24 hours a day. That’s it, we’re cool !

During the 2-hour wait for dinner to be served, I had time to remind the kids about our family’s eating-with-strangers policy. When the food comes, take what you want and do NOT go back for seconds, no matter how good the food tastes.

The common practice of everyone diving in with their chopsticks is pretty horrifying. At weddings, the table is mostly made up of complete strangers, people we don’t know from Adam (or Eve) which makes this whole business of saliva-mixing all the more disgusting.

There’s a common spoon which everyone is supposed to use but no one does. It’s faster to just dive in with your chopsticks. God forbid the people who like to lick or suck their chopsticks before plunging them back into the common plate again and again! YUCK!

When the kids were younger, it was even more stressful for me as I had to fill their plates and my own before everyone else dives in for seconds .

Well, we don’t end up eating a lot. Which is okay we’re there to celebrate someone’s wedding, not to stuff our faces like we’ve never eaten good food before and certainly not to embarrass ourselves.

These days, I shout a lot. Not because I’m angry with my kids but because they can’t hear me with that mp3 player perpetually blasting in their ear. I’m sure my neighbors can hear me better.

3 teens = 3 mp3s stuck in 3 pairs of ears

Apparently if you’re a teen and you don’t have some wire hanging out of your ears, you ain’t cool! I guess that’s a good way to shut out mom and rock to your own tune, eh?

Kids: You don’t have to shout, Mom, we’re not deaf.

Mom: How else can you hear me with that thing blasting in your ear?!! I said, pick up your clothes, you haven’t done it yet!

Silence.

Mom: Did you hear me??!!

No, you didn’t, that mp3 is too loud!! Grrr!!