You know how when we run into friends we haven’t seen in a while, they always look at our kids and marvel at how much they’ve grown. It’s strange how we never seem to notice how our own kids have grown but it takes someone else to see it.

This morning, as I watched Steev get ready to attend a launch, I was suddenly struck by what a handsome young man he’s grown into. Okay, maybe I’m a little biased here but… wasn’t he that little baby in my arms just yesterday?

Today my 17-year-old is wearing a long-sleeved dark-colored shirt and pants with his spiky hair all gel’d up and looking for all the world like a grown man, and I had to swallow hard and blink back a few tears (of joy).

Steev runs his own business. Today’s the first time he’s been invited to a product launch by a multinational at a five-star hotel. And they said he could bring along a staff member.

That really cracked me and his Dad up! Staff? Since one of us would have to chauffeur our CEO downtown, Dad decided to tag along as his ’staff’! The things we do for our kids!! I guess in many ways, we’re growing up with them.

If you liked this post, please subscribe to my RSS feed for more hip parenting posts. Oh and do leave me a comment, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I ran into a whole bunch of my tai-tai (aka ladies of leisure) friends while out at breakfast with my girl friend (who is not a tai-tai).

I love my tai-tai friends. They’re the ones who can tell me where to get the freshest veggies, how to brew herbal soups,  how to spy on my hubby (think I’ll wait for the book) and they can make the darnest traditional Chinese stuff like bachang (glutinous rice dumplings) and mooncakes, all from scratch.

The thing that really scares me though are their organized home invasions visits when they go through my home inch by inch, flipping every drawer and cupboard, inspecting everything that’s inside, from my crockpot to my underwear, all without a search warrant.

Back to me bumping into them at breakfast. A few of them instantly pounced on me and started interrogating me as to how I’ve managed to stay so slim even after I quit dancing (I used to be in the same dance class). As if I was ever fat before ?

But never mind that, the machine gun fire of questions has started and they’ll never let me off without answers. So I’d better start coughing some up, pronto.

So how come you’re still so slim? Um, exercise. What kind of exercise? Um, I walk. Where? Morning or evening? How many kilometers? With your kids or alone? Bang, bang, bang *shielding my head*

Gimme a break, is this the Spanish Inquisition? So many questions, so much rhetoric! *squirm* Think I should take up jogging or kungfu instead.

When I was living overseas, my nose was on its best behavior. Not a beep sneeze from me. I was strangely quiet.

Unlike when I was working here. Every morning when I walked into the office, everyone knew I’d ‘arrived’. My unstoppable series of sneezes were most effective in announcing what time I got to the office.

The temperature change from getting out of my air-conditioned car into the stifling heat of the basement parking lot and then again into the whirring air-condition of the office was enough to send my poor nose into a frenzy.

What was puzzling was that I never had such problems in all my years living overseas. My friends suggested I saw a specialist to find out if mine was a case of Acute Sinusitis.

Haha, very funny, the doc said the air quality here is bad for me, too much dust and fine particles in the air, and that I should get out of town the country. Hee ha! Thanks a lot, doc!

This announcement was paid for by Epocrates.

Wendy wrote this comment on my previous post, “Your kids are the quiet type? ALL of them? How did you manage that?”

Um, I’m not sure really but yes, I can honestly say my three kids never ran around the store or threw tantrums if they didn’t get what they wanted.

They never asked to buy anything. In fact, it was always DH and me who’d ask if they liked a certain toy or book and offer to buy it for them.

They never fought over things. Maybe it’s because we never told them this is your book or this is your toy, so it’s understood that whatever we buy is meant to be shared.

I’m not a particularly strict disciplinarian, at least not in the sense of brandishing the cane. Practically every Asian household with kids has a cane though.

I had one too, kindly provided by a well-meaning aunt who says if I’m ever to raise good kids, I must have a cane. Well, don’t tell her but I’ve never used it and I can’t even find it now .

I’m not sure how it all worked out so well and I wish I had tips to share. Thing is I didn’t consciously set out to ‘tame’ them but along the way, I probably did something right .

Whoa, this must be the quietest weekend in a long while. True, my kids are the quiet type, even when they were little, they never run around the shopping mall or jump on the furniture or scream and fight with each other.

Still, this is a very quiet weekend even by our standards. All my three kids are in exam mode which means everyone is supposed to be doing their own revision with minimum social interaction. I check in on them periodically but for the most part, they’re on their own.

Kids these days are very different from us in our time. I used to get more panicky as the exam date drew near. But these kids, they’re counting down the days, they just can’t wait for the exams to come and be over and done with.

But just between you and me, I’m the most nervous one of all. My two older ones tell me I’m such a worrier and that it’s all going to be a breeze. Yeah, if I can honestly believe that because when I was preparing for my exams during my time, I was nervous as heck!

I thought I was going shopping today. Jumped out of bed, woke the kids and we were just going to do an hour of gym before heading to the mall.

It sounded like a great idea but by the time we got through the gym and the showers and a quick brunch of bacon and cheese baguettes, it was close to lunch time.

Mmm, these were so-oo good. Recipe is on my food blog if you’re interested.

And frankly there was no way I was going anywhere near the mall at that crazy hour when everyone’s trying to park to go up for lunch.

I was disillusioned. I really want to go shop for my shorts and jeans. We ended up staying home the whole day and I even got to enjoy a nice, long afternoon nap!

I overheard Raine talking to her friend on the phone. These days, it’s a big deal when 15-year-olds don’t see each other online on MSN, so they either call or SMS to find out what’s happening.

Funny, I’m never online and no one bothers calling me! I reckon that immediately qualifies me as someone who belongs to the Dinosaur Age ??

At any rate, I could only hear Raine’s side of the conversation. But it sounded like her friend was seriously concerned about why Raine hasn’t been online.

Is your computer conked? Raine said no. Are you grounded? Raine said no. After a few more ‘no’s to her friend’s guesses, Raine finally told her she’s only allowed limited time online.

Actually I’ve imposed a no-surf curfew on my two girls as the government exams are approaching. They have to get my approval and even then, only if there’s an emergency online, bwahaha.

I may sound harsh but I’m not. I’m actually pretty easy-going as far as pushing them to study. I’d love for them to score A’s, of course, but I don’t believe offering money as a reward is the way to go. And my kids know that.

They know they must work hard because they want to succeed, not because of the money I’m offering to pay them. So far, it’s worked out really well.

Today is the fifteenth day of the seventh moon on the Chinese calendar and it’s vegetarian day again! To me, that’s just it, another fifteenth, just as all other fifteenths are vegetarian days for us.

But I’m seeing lots of bloggers taking advantage of the Month of the Hungry Ghosts for SEO reasons to attract organic traffic from the search engines . How pathetic!

The seventh moon is a Taoist belief, not a Buddhist one, that I’ve been hearing about since I was a kid. Those stories and the huge stages erected along the streets to put up Chinese opera performances for the benefit of the hungry ghosts instilled real fear in us as kids.

But you know what, ghosts are everywhere every day. They don’t have to wait for this month to all come out at once for this big food party to pacify their growling tummies. So really, there’s nothing to fear. Just go on about your daily life as per normal and you’ll be just fine .

I read on CNN yesterday about how kids as young as 6 years of age are being made to walk on their hands in China, all as part of their early training for future Olympics.

Watching the video of that poor little girl crying as she was put through rigorous, almost abusive acrobatic routines turned my heart to stone. The tears streaming from her eyes made me cry inside.

Her father says she doesn’t like the training (are you kiddin’ me?) but that they’re putting her through the grueling routines in the hopes she will be good enough to be in the Olympics, so she’ll have a brighter future? Gah! Yeah but at what cost to her mentally and physically?

I don’t care how much fame, fortune or glory they hope to get out if pushing their little girl that hard, but what they’re doing is inhumane.

We walked past a Tumbletots advertisement the other day and it reminded me of the time when Steev was a wee toddler. Like all eager new parents, we were so excited about his new-found mobility that we thought, hey, why not sign him up with Tumbletots, it would be so cute and he can discover and develop even more mobility skills!!

We couldn’t wait to get started. They gathered the kids to sit in a circle. When the song and dance began, everyone clapped and sang as the kids stood in front of their parent in the circle and wiggled to the music.

Steev stood there for a minute. Unwiggling! Then he started toddling out of the circle. I pulled him back gently. All the other kids were still in their spots, wiggling their cute little bottoms. All except Steev who couldn’t wait to get away!

It was kinda distracting for the other kids and the teacher was starting to give me wierd looks. Something to the effect of ‘hello, can you control your kid please?’. But frankly, no matter how many times I pulled him back, he still tried to break out of that circle!

Finally after I was done singing, we moved to the play structures. Whew! I happily handed Steev over to DH. If DH thought he could do better, well, !

At the play structures, the parents lifted the kids one by one to the structures and ran alongside to cheer them on. Steev was clearly uninterested but because he didn’t want to fall off the structure, he did just one round and couldn’t wait to get off.

He didn’t cry or yell or anything. The poor thing! He just quietly insisted he was happier to be out of this whole bit of nonsense.

Actually a child’s likes and dislikes begins to show quite early in life. I asked him about it after we saw the signboard the other day. He vaguely remembers climbing those structures, and laughs.

Says my almost-17 going on 25 year old, “Aiyoh, Mom, why you all waste your money? Those things are so bo-rring and so childish!”.

Got a Tumbletot or whatever-active-play story to share?