If you like this post, subscribe to my RSS feed via reader or via email, or follow me on Twitter for daily updates.

Raine graduates high school at the end of this year. But we’ve not been to any education fairs. We missed the ones they had at the end of last year. Somehow I feel like with these education fairs, you see one and you’re pretty much seen them all.

Steev and I did the runs of education fairs a year before he finished high school. With Raine, we haven’t been to any but I’ve asked her to start thinking about what she wants to be when she grows up. She’s still thinking…

Is it me or are high school proms a rip-off these days? In my day, there were no high school proms so my folks got off lucky . These days, they have a graduation ceremony where we have pay like $50 for our teen to receive a bunch of flowers and scroll on stage.

Then there’s the formal high school prom held at a hotel, no less! Mind you, my kids are not even in private schools. During Steev’s time 3 years ago, we paid $75 for the prom held at a somewhat obscure hotel.

These days, it’s not just high school any more, we’re also leading the high life! The school has ‘moved us up’ to a posh 5-star hotel where we have to fork out $180 for the dinner and dance. Remember we haven’t factored in the cost of that evening gown, purse, shoes, accessories and hairdo yet !!

Not to say that I’m a Scrooge or anything when it comes to one-time events like these. But is it really necessary to have an event this posh for teens who, by the way, aren’t making their own money yet and still have a long ways to go before they should even think to spend half that amount for a night out?

I think they’re doing just fine without being given the impression that they need to live beyond their means to have a good time! The organizers, of all people, should know better! What are they thinking?

So guess what? I’ve decided to go along with Steev to set him up in his new environment. To be honest, it wasn’t an easy decision and if there were a way for a mom to be in two places at one time, I would’ve signed up for it right away.

My girls need me here. I’m their taxi driver and master chef. But sometimes there are other priorities and a mom just has to do what a mom has to do even if it means some of us may have to do without her for a few weeks. I’ll miss my girls, of course and they’ll miss me too but they’ve been very understanding in this respect. They know I’d do the same for them.

Hip2bDad and I would feel much better knowing Steev’s nicely settled into his new place and new schedule. We’re the sort of parents who just need to know where our kids are at and how they’re doing. Besides it’ll be a nice little break for me too from my taxi runs and school lunch deliveries. So yeah, California, here I come!

Sorry for the slow posts. It’s been crazy around here.

We’re at an important family milestone and my head is swirling with mixed emotions. Until now, I’ve only heard other parents talk about their kids leaving home for college. It’s often left me wondering how they could be so brave, so indifferent too, some of them, to watch their kids leave the nest and fly off to faraway lands.

Well, now it’s my turn. Steev, my eldest, is getting ready to leave for California soon. I have no experience dealing with this whole idea of my baby living out there, on his own, for the first time, without us. There is no manual that tells me how I’m supposed to feel. This is all new. Yes, I know, he’s 19. He’s a college sophomore. So I should be okay with that?!

But I’m not! I won’t be there to cook his meals. I won’t be there to pick him up from class every day. I’ll miss our long mother-son chats in the car on the way home. I won’t be there to text and remind him to eat, stay out of the rain, mind his wallet… I won’t even be within driving distance *sobs*.

He’ll be there on his own, living with a bunch of kids his age, all probably away from home for the first time too. A scary thought. While there’s a part of me that’s confident he’ll do just fine, it’s going to take time for him, and us, to adjust to this new arrangement.

So what’s a mom to do? To be continued…

So  here’s the thing, I’m a mom who’s really big on rules. From the time the kids were little, I had lots of house rules which I drummed into their poor li’l heads.

My rules started when they were 1 or 2, yeah, old enough to understand simple logic if I explain it slowly to them. Rules like no sticking your finger in there (pointing at the wall plug sockets), no playing with knives and matches, always hold mommy’s hand when we’re out and stay where I can see you.

When they were older, we had the one about remembering to greet and say ‘hello’ people to friends and family we meet. Then the one about respecting other people’s property like not touching or using their things without permission. If it’s one thing that really irritates me, it’s when kids start running all over people’s homes, upstairs and downstairs, and playing with their things.

These days, the rules (I think we should be somewhere around #302 by now ) are more like advice and reminders. The biggie is Facebook, not something I necessarily approve of. To me, nothing on the internet is ever private no matter what they tell ya. And never mind what settings the radio deejay tells you to click to make things private. ’nuff said!

But I have to be realistic here and expect that, well, peer pressure may occasionally triumph over Mom’s warnings. So House Rule #302 says they’re not to post their real names, pictures or private stuff about themselves. Now let me see, what’s House Rule #303?

Right, so we’ve got another teen at the crossroads now. Raine will be finishing high school this year and she’s trying to figure out what she wants to do next. Not surprising since school is abuzz with this topic lately, compounded by the fact that colleges are making their promotional rounds at high schools to recruit students for their next intake.

Suddenly it’s got the high school seniors thinking and wondering. One of Raine’s friends wants to be a pilot and that’s shocked her parents into going, oh no, you’re NOT! And they’re having big fights over this . Thank goodness Raine has no interest whatsoever in flying, whew!

We’ve all been at the crossroads before at that age and for some of us, it’s not been the easiest thing. I remember being clueless and then ended up being somehow nudged into the world of computers which I quickly grew to love. So mine has a happy ending.

But yeah, if you choose a field you’re passionate about, there’s a bigger chance you will do well and be happier pursuing a career you enjoy rather than having to drag yourself in to work every morning.

And I’m so excited for Raine. She has a variety of interests – writing, food, design, people – and there are so many ways she could go with these. She wants to dabble in a bit of everything, of course, but she knows she has to pick one to major in.

She’s feeling the pressure now because some of her friends have already decided or their parents will be deciding for them. We’ve been having these long chats, researching different options, exploring different combinations. We still have a ways to go but we’re getting there !

And we’re just now discussing last-minute vacation plans which may or may not pan out depending on whether we can secure plane tickets at such short notice. That’s us, the “get up, grab the backpacks and get going” type.

Whenever we’ve gone on vacations, this is exactly what happens. Hip2bDad or I would jump out of bed one morning and suggest we go somewhere. When Steev and Raine were toddlers, we threw a couple of backpacks together and were soon winging our way to California. With only airplane tickets in hand. No hotel reservations. No tour bookings. No plans. Some would call it midsummer madness!

We arrived at LAX late at night, jumped on an airport bus which took us to the car rental place where we signed up for a Pontiac, tossed in the bags and the kids, and went in search of a motel in the middle of the night. Found one nearby and next morning, we were off to Disneyland, Anaheim.

In our 3 weeks there, we drove up and down the coast. When we weren’t visiting theme parks and local sites, we were looking for restaurants and motels at every stop with 2 toddlers in tow. Hip2bDad and I are crazy like that! We’ve been doing stuff like this even before we got married and having kids certainly isn’t going to stop us!!

Yeah, that’s the way we do it play the guitar on the MTV !!

Aaand here we are again, trying to pull off another one of “those”! Steev will be heading off to college in California in the fall and we’re thinking, hmm, maybe it’s a good time to make another impromptu trip to Disneyland and the coast.

Great idea, this time the kids can be their own pack mules, bwahaha but wait… so much left to do, so little time to throw everything together. Oh well, let’s see how it goes. If we don’t do it this year, we’ll definitely do it next year!

Speaking of teens, I hear many high school kids are already pros at the clubbing scene, drinking, smoking, staying out all night and doing stuff that a mother’s darkest nightmares are made of. Sure, many of these things are probably happening behind the backs of busy parents.

But I’m told some of these parents are the very ones who drop their kids off at clubs and feed their expensive spending habits, apparently as some sort of compensation for not spending time with their kids . Aren’t hugs, kisses, picnics and the occasional personalized gift the stuff parents do anymore? Or am I falling behind in the ways of modern parenting here? Just sayin’.