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I finally got off my butt and hit the gym this morning. Yep, after what seems like two weeks of playing hooky. If I sit around any longer, I swear I’m going to need diet pills.

Speaking of which, I came across an interesting article today on BBC News. Researchers from the UK and US say if you want to stay slim, you shouldn’t hang out with fat friends because they are going to make you obese too.

I think there’s some truth to that. Case in point, my roomie at college was plump and her boyfriend was not. But over time, I noticed he got fatter and was looking to be her size.

Now between me and my roomie, she was the better cook. So she did most of the cooking while me and her boyfriend did most of the eating. We would sit around the dinner table, chat and eat and eat, a lot.

After a while, I could feel my clothes getting tighter. Living with her was definitely making me fatter. Thankfully it wasn’t as drastic for me as it was for her boyfriend. But even then, I definitely gained weight and noticed a change in my eating habits.

Tam Fry of the UK Obesity Forum says in the article that “it boils down to shared bad habits. If you go to dinner with your friends who are fat, you are liable to eat the same foods that made them fat. Research shows children could also pick up bad habits from their parents.”

When my picky eaters were little, I would say “don’t be picky, this is good for you”, and I’d be happy when they polished up what I served them. Now that they’re teens, I’m insisting they be picky and “you shouldn’t be eating that, that’s bad for you” .

This seems to be the year of birthday party invitations for Raine, my not quite 16-year-old. This latest one sounds like it’s going to be one heckuva party to be held at some club!

Raine and I just got done discussing if she should attend. There are some decisions I encourage my teens to make on their own and there are some I insist on encourage them to discuss with me.

Teen parties these days aren’t anything like the ones we attended back in the dinosaur ages where we danced miles apart and went home before the stroke of midnight lest we turn into Cinderellas. Well, no more of that now! We are the bold and the brazen now and these are the days of no holds barred!

Lots of Raine’s friends will be there and they want her to go. Raine doesn’t know the birthday girl very well, and it looks to be a big party with presumably very little adult supervision. I always check if there are going to be parents around, even if the party is going to be held at someone’s home.

Call me old-fashioned but I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable with the scenario. At any rate, Raine’s not quite the partying type so she doesn’t care either way. Still I leave her to think about what we’ve discussed.

One of Raine’s friends from school spent Mother’s Day. alone. at home. while her parents were out on a date to celebrate Mother’s Day. That’s like a bit of a surprise to Raine since we’ve always celebrated Mother’s Day and other occasions together as a family, no matter how busy we are.

When Raine told me this, she said she feels sorry for her friend whose parents seem to use money as a replacement for parental love. But what’s the point of her parents giving her money, money, money to buy anything she wants but they’re never there to do things with her?

Yes, it’s a sad fact these days, isn’t it? Even my 15-year-old thinks so. Came lunch time on Mother’s Day, her friend found herself home alone (her elder brother had gone out) with nothing to eat. So she called her parents. They bluntly told her to just go find something to eat and not to disturb their day out!

Her father is planning to take up a job overseas. She asks what’s wrong with the job he has right now and why can’t he stay? His reply, he’ll be making even more money if he goes. But she doesn’t want him to.

She’s trying to reach out to her parents. What she needs is love, Raine tells me, not money, but her parents just don’t get it! What good is money if they don’t care about her or how she’s doing in school or that she just wants to be a family?

I met a mommy friend the other day and she was telling me her 12-year-old is such a budding little chef that she’s practically taken over her kitchen. Naturally I thought of my kids when I heard that, none of whom are culinary-ly-inclined (how do you like the new adverb I just coined?).

I felt perhaps the smallest stab of jealousy hearing what she said. Of course, part of me wanted to believe her claim fully but the more down-to-earth part of me kept reminding me that this woman has a tendency to exaggerate, just to make herself look better.

Much as I hate to compare my girls with hers, it still made me wish mine had the patience to stick around and roll out batches of sushi and bake a cake. Oh well, they’re good at craft and math and writing and so many other things so I really should stop comparing!

Raine’s friend has been calling up every week to invite her to some church event. It’s quite clear that this girl will not take no for an answer even though Raine has explained to her several times that we’re Buddhists.

She promises Raine that it will be fun and that she’ll really have a good time. Raine used to rush to the phone whenever it rings. These few weeks, she’s been shunning the phone and getting Skye to screen her calls.

I wish she would just stop calling, Raine said, is it because I don’t sound serious enough, Mom? I told her some people are just plain persistent, she’ll probably make a good salesperson .

So why don’t you just explain to her why you won’t go? Then she won’t call again, I said.

I already did that at school and on the phone the other day but she just won’t take no for an answer, was her reply.

In my mind, I’m thinking this ‘learning to say no’ is great practice for her. In this case, she’s decided she’s not interested in her friend’s proposition. Now she’s standing up for herself and even figuring out how to get out the situation gently.

When the phone rings, it’s likely not for me. These days, my teens hold monopoly over the house phone. I have my handphone, I suppose so most of my calls come through there.

I know most city kids get their own, personal, private handphone at around age 8 which is an awfully young age, if you ask me, but obviously not so to their parents.

My three kids share one handphone, which works out to be “whoever is going out or thinks they might need to call back”, gets to take the phone with them.

So far, it’s worked out great and I haven’t had any complaints so I’m just going to leave things as they are until we see a need for a second handphone to be shared among them three.

Some of the kids at school have been giving my kids a hard time about this arrangement. As you would’ve guessed, these are the ones whose parents have given them their own phone. So they’re teasing my kids about their “underprivileged” status.

My kids tell me these things in our daily chats. So do you think you need your own phone? I ask them. Yes, I want to hear their views on this, and if they’d told me they really need one, I’d have considered buying them one.

But it seems they agree with me that they don’t need a personal phone “to have and to hold” 24 hours a day. They like the present arrangement that we have. So I’m happy and they’re happy. Whew!