Where's the Stop Button

My 3 year old just doesn't stop. She wakes up before 8 and goes to bed at 9. A 90 minute nap right in the middle. Yet, she's constantly on the move. Always asking questions. Nothing seems to slow her down. The worst is the inane questions that comes out of her mouth. "how do you spell 'bad mushroom'?". "what are you going?". "what are you going to do at the gym?". "how old is the net?". These are just few of her gems today.

I keep telling myself that this is a sign of her intelligence and curiosity. But, darn it, I just want some peace and quiet.

Bribery not working

My little girl is just couple of months away from her 3rd birthday. She has achieved many of her developmental milestones. However, we still can't check off one thing on the list. Potty Training. She knows what the potty is. She has done #1 and #2 in the potty in the past. But she just doesn't seem to be interested to use it since going there would just interrupt her exciting activities.

So, as any amateur economist would do with incentive problem, is to create a new incentive that can elicit the desired result.  Or, in another word, bribe.   I was determine to bribe my little girl to start using the potty regularly.  The bride I chose is Hershey Kisses.  Desired result is to go to the potty and stop using the diaper.

After 2 days, failure.  I gave her an entire Hershey Kiss early in the morning after she went to the potty.  She can do that one pretty good.  I told her, every time she go pee pee in the potty she gets a chocolate.  As the hours ticked by, I watched her.  She looked like she needs to go.  I told her to go to the potty and if she pees, she gets chocolate.  She just looked at me and said, "no potty, no chocolate."

She would rather give up an entire Hershey Kiss instead of going to the potty.  Well, that was a failure.

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ConEd Outage Visualization

My little neck of the woods.

After Hurricane Irene swept through the New York area, many of my neighbors and I lost power for several days. This is my attempt at graphing the number of households who lost power / regain power over time.

As ConEd stated during the power lost, pretty much everyone regained their power by September 1st.



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Pottie Training - Nah

There are certain milestones that every child will reach; solid foods, first word, first steps, saying bye-bye to diapers. My little girl is at the stage where pottie training is the next milestone on the agenda. So far, she still prefer the Pampers. She knows what a toilet is. She tells me that "brown poop going down there". But, she's not using it.

I don't blame her, it's me. I'm not very enthusiastic about getting her pottie trained. I kinda like the convenience of the diaper. Case in point. Our little family took a long weekend trip to Washington DC. The drive was about 5 hours each way. We only had to stop once because I needed to go to the bathroom. My girl was content sitting in her seat looking at the passing scenery or playing with her iPhone. We didn't have to succumb to her nature-call requests. And, on our hours long tours of the museums and monuments in DC, we didn't have to hunt for bathrooms or worry that she will wet herself. It is just so easy.

I know, I know. She and I will have to transition out of the diaper. I am not in too much of a rush. I promise that she will not be wearing a diaper when she starts high school.

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Big Girl Bed

My little girl is not so little anymore. Granted, she's still only 2 and some months, but she has graduated out of her crib. Instead of putting her in a toddler bed, I went ahead and got her a full sized bed. She is tiny compared to the adult-sized bed. Her small body is lost in the pile of pillows and down blanket.

I anticipated difficulty, revolt, nighttime wandering. Instead, she love her bed from day one. She's fully aware that it is her bed, her space. I'm pretty sure she's aware that a bed without bars is a sign that she's not a baby anymore.

I now give her a good night kisses without having to bend over crib railings. She says good night to me and tells me bye-bye to leave her room. She wants to spend alone time on her bed by herself. Looking at her in her own space just shocks me into recognizing how fast my little nugget is growing. Less than 2 years ago, she was barely wiggling on her tummy. Now? Now I have to let her be her own person. Too soon.

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Tech Toys, I Love Them

I have to confess, I love gadgets. It's a different type of love than what I have for my little girl and the Mister. Gadget love is not reciprocal but, I know it's love. I go to bed with one. I can't leave the house without one. Most of the time, I even have one with me in the bathroom. The only place that I'm not attached to some kind of gadget would be in the shower. That will change whenever things are are water proof.

Some examples of the technologies and gadgets I love:

Kindle: Ever since the Kindle and the Kindle app came along, I've read more books in the last year then the 5 years before that. The simplicity and the portability of having something so easy to use.

iPad: I do everything on this little awesome invention. I read, I watch TV, movies, photos, communicate, what do I not do with it? Not much. This is the little electronic lover that I bring with me to bed, the train, the bus, and the toilet.

HTC Aria: That's correct, not an iPhone. It's the Android platform. The phone itself is just more compact and a bit more geek. The Android platform has simpler multi-tasking. I suspect my beloved iPad will have a challenger soon.

Another of my new love is the OverDrive app. It's an app that hooks up with many public libraries. I can use it to read, checkout ebooks from my local library. It's saving me quite a bit of money.

And I just connected a wireless keyboard to the iPad via bluetooth. Now, I can type as fast as I want and not worry about getting good with touch typing. And, I get the entire iPad screen back.

Gadgets, I love you.

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I was a Bad Patient

This is my open letter to the Mister.  "I'm sorry.  I was a terrible patient"

Let me explain why I needed to apologize.   I recently had to undergo oral surgery.  On the scale of 1 - 10 (1 being a paper cut, 10 being a triple bypass) my oral surgery fell around a 5 in my opinion.  I was anaesthetized without needles, just some powder under the tongue.   That was cool.  But it gave me a false sense of lucidity during that time.  (Note to self for next time, do not update Facebook while going under).

Anyway, the Mister had to drive me there, wait around for a few hours, drive me home, put me to bed, help me to the bathroom, pick up my prescription, and take care of whatever I needed while I sleep of the anaesthesia.   During my hours of sleeping, half waking, half mumbling, one of the Mister's duties was make sure I take my med according to schedule.

Of course, I had to be difficult.  Not that I meant to be.  But, in my semi-state of consciousness, I wanted to know what kind of drugs the Mister was giving me.  I wasn't satisfy with his answer "this is what the doctor prescribed."  I wanted to know what it was for, why was I taking it, what was it going to do to me.  Everything someone who was not a doctor or a pharmacist would have no clue.  I did remember the Mister taking out his iPhone to look things up.  Oh, I'm sorry I made him do that.  What's worst, I threw a paper bag with the prescription across the room.  My tantrum at that time matched anything my little girl can muster.   The Mister had the wisdom to walk out and let me sleep it off/pass out.  He did come back later and I did take the meds as I'm suppose to.

In my defense, even in my most lucid state, I hate drugs.  I don't take aspirin or cold medicine or anything that I believe to only mask the symptoms.

In any case.  E: thanks for being patient with me, even though I was such a bad patient myself.

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Are Computers "Blue"?

I just started reading Peggy Orenstein's book, "Cinderella Ate My Daughter". One of the topics she discussed was gender specific toys. Or that boys and girls gravitate toward different types of toys. Boys play with trucks and balls. Girls like dolls and pretend kitchens. My little girl is still too young to gravitate toward any gender specific toys. I'm still the gate-keeper of what toys end up in her toy box.

While reading the book, I remembered a peculiar incidence couple of months back. Several of my fellow agency folks and I volunteered to take a group of 4th graders to the Museum of Moving Image in Queens. We had to wait around for nearly an hour for the pizza that we promised them.  During that time, we had the chance to interact with them. They were attending a charter school so they all seemed like very bright and well-educated kids. The boys and girls were keen to show us their new books and pencils they bought at the school book sale.

However, I noticed something during their free play in the classroom. There was a table with several nice iMacs. A group of heads huddled around the computers watching and commenting on the couple of other heads playing with the computers. One computer had a puzzle game. The other one had Google searches flashing by. When I looked closer, all the heads belonged to boys. There was not one girl in the group. I turned and asked some of the girls flipping through their new books, why are they not playing with the computers? They said, they don't like computers.

Wow, they are self selecting and denying a tool that is integral to their future lives. Why?  How?  At what age did this happened? That just made me sad for my gender.

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Say No to Valentine!

It's that time of the year.  Everywhere I turn, I see red and pink.  Hallmark telling me to send a card.  Party Stores tell to through a party.  Dunkin' Donuts is hawking pink heart-shaped fried fat doughs

The Mister is not allowed to buy anything for Valentines Day.  The little one is still too young to know the difference between one day to another.  So I don't have to worry about her.

There are many many blogs and articles talking about why a specific day set apart for love is a dangerous and insincere.  Me?  I look at it from the point of a amature economist or a frugal mom (same difference).

Roses - those things cost too much on normal days.  On this commercial driven day, they cost double to triple the price.  It's not worth it.  There's no added value from one day to another.

Chocolates - I love chocolates, I love chocolates that are market-priced on a normal transparent market.  Not in a bubble market created by bunch of forgetful husbands/boyfriends who think they need to make up for not appreciating their wives/girlfriends on the 364 days of the year.

Jewerly - Don't get me started on the whole scam that is diamond.  I don't see the point of these decorative baubles.  They don't keep me warm.  They don't fill my empty stomach.  They don't put the roof over my head.  Don't need them.

If we are going to spend money on stuff.  I want those stuff to have value or create value.  Books, educational toys, or even simply, save the money for something that truely has value down the line.

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No "Pink" Please

"Pink" is not just the color. I have no beef with the color pink. It's the state of mind that pink represents. At least the state of mind of putting my little girl in frilly dresses and insisting that she must act like a little girl, whatever that is. I won't do it.

When I was pregnant and was pretty sure that I was having a girl, people told me "it's gonna be great to have a girl, you can dress her up in pretty dresses." It's their perogative to put their little girls in whatever pink lacy dresses with pink bows in their non-existent hair. Me? No thanks. My little girl wears whatever outfit that's on top of the dresser draw that still fits. Most of them are hand-me-downs from wonderful cousins and aunts.

Another "Pink" problem I have are toys. Toys for girls are not just pink, they are generally misogynistic. Take a stroll down the girl toys section of the local Walmart, you'll find pink baby dolls, pink Barbies/Bratz with unrealistic physiques, pink pretend kitchens, pink handbags with makeup kits, and pink pretend princess dresses. Where are the pretend toys for doctors, engineers, race car drivers, and super heroes? In the boys aisles.

Many blame the entire Pink-washing on evil advertising execs and mass marketing schemes. But, as an advertiser/marketing industry grunt, I also know, if the dollars from the consumers don't flow toward "Pink", "Pink" will go away. Normal consumers still have the ultimate power, our wallets.

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When I was your age.....

Okay, I'm not really that old to be allow to say that. As a working mom, living in the 'burbs, on the downside of the 30-something mountain, there are things that I use to do, but don't anymore. See, I work in a big NYC ad agency. The average age of the people sitting around my cubicle is probably 26. I overhear things. These things bring up memories, and my inside voice starts to say "When I was your age...."

1 - Bars
Then: I remember hitting a new bar every night after work. My goal was be a regular in my local watering hole and have at least one drink in a bar south of Union Square. I think I did that. I don't really remember. Side effect of drinking too much??
Now: I don't remember the last time I step foot in a bar. (more side effects??) Honestly, the last time I was in a bar was for dinner at the local bar and grill.

2 - Dating
Then: I had a healthy dating life. Had my share of heartaches and broken my share of hearts. Also had a goal of dating someone from every country Western Hemisphere. I think I got 3 or 4 down. Oh well.
Now: The Mister, end of story. He's of Russian decent and from Long Island. Maybe I can count that as 2 countries.

3 - Traveling
Then: Loading 5 friends in a rental mini-van, driving straight to Vail for a 5-day snowboarding trip. Piling 20+ people into a rental house in Lake Placid for Thanksgiving Ski Trip. Flying to London on a whim to crash at a friend's flat for New Years Eve. Trekking solo from Milan to Samos (small Greek island) for a week-long sailing trip.
Now: Vacation? what vacation? Flying with a baby and everything that goes with it?? You must be joking. Taking the baby and the in-laws to a beach rental in Maine for a week is closest thing to a vacation in the last 2 years.

4 - Living arrangements
Then: Lucky to not have to deal with roommates. But had a Manhattan apartment the size of a closet. Only used it for sleeping and cleaning up.
Now: Mortgage, property taxes, school quality, resell value, fancy kitchen, keeping up with the Joneses. At least I can fit 2 of my old apartments in my kitchen now.

All you city-dwelling young'ens. Enjoy your twenties coz your thirties will catch up with you. Your baby will guide your decisions, not just you.


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What was I Listening to?

So, I created a late '80s early 90's hair band Pandora station (love technology). Now I can listen to the music I grew up with any time I want. No more tapes. No more waiting. I am shocked and aghast at the lyrics of those songs. I was barely into my teens when my friends and I screamed along at the top of our lungs. It never occurred to me at the time to really listen to what these hair bands were singing about. Now, I'm much older and finally got around to really listen. Whoa!!! Warrant's "Cherry Pie", Bulletboys' "Smooth Up" (in ya), and Winger's "17"? Don't need to be a genius to know what those songs were about.

My mom didn't speak much English then, and she worked 10+ hours days to put food on the table. Screening what I was listening to probably wasn't high on her priority list.

Now, I'm the mom of a little girl, I will have to assume the role of censor. Granted, my little girl is only 2. Her song list consists of Wheels on the Bus, Twinkle Twinkle, and ABC. But, it won't be long until she graduates to something a bit more mature. Am I prepared? What will I do? What will I say?

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Marketer Marketed

Gillette, kudos to you!  Yes, I remember from grad school marketing class, Gillette is one of the kings of marketing. But, i still give props when it’s deserved.I’m one of those women who needs to use razors but the last time I bought new ones for myself was probably in the early 2000. Not that I don’t need new ones more often, my stubbly legs would attest to that fact that I should change the near rusted razors more often. But I also know that Schick and Gillette make their money from selling the razor handles cheap and charging gazillion for the razors. Not buying new ones is my misguided way of “sticking it to the Man”.

I’ve been using Schicks’ brand razor that I think has been discontinued. It’s the one with tiny wires over the blades so that klutzes like me don’t slice our legs up and bleed to death. But, about a month ago, I ordered something from drugstore.com, and it came with a free Gillette Venus Breeze. Its one of those 2 in one things. The shave lotion is built into the razor itself.  No fuss no muss.  After using it for a month, the lotion part is gone and the blade is pretty dull.   Instead of going back to my old trusty rusty Schick, i went in search for replacement cartridges for the Breeze.  And I somewhat willingly paid $11 for a pack of 4 cartridges.  Gillette, you got me.  Too bad I’m not going to be in your high-revenue generating category of consumer.

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Saturday Morning Cartoons

I'm way past that age.  I would rather sleep in on Saturday mornings than get up to watch cartoons.  Nowadays, I don't really have a choice.  The kiddo wakes up, I get up.  But, when I look at her, I ponder, will she ever have that anticipation every Saturday morning?  I remember when I was a kid, Saturday morning was a snow day every week.  1 - No school, 2 - cartoons.

I still remember the Smurfs are from 9-10, Pac Man, Snorks, Scooby Doo, Bugs Bunny, and whatever the 5 network channels had to offer.  By 12 noon, cartoons are done and it's time to get back to the real world.  And the anticipation and gratification will begin again after the last class on Friday afternoon.  People in my age group still fondly talk about their Saturday Morning Cartoons experiences.

My little girl probably never will.  Now, she gets all her cartoon fix from her iPhone/Youtube anytime, any day.  There's no waiting for NBC to decide to put the Smurfs on at 9AM on Saturday.  There's no sitting through commercials.  Or knowing that at 12 noon, there will be no more cartoons.  She also will not sit around the kitchen table with other 30-something friends reminiscing about those many hours vegging in front of the TV with only 5 channels that you have to get off the floor to change.

Other things that she won't reminisce about:

• 1st album (those big round plastic things) she bought with her own money


• 1st tape she bought and played in the car


• 1st CD she got (CD was the awesomest thing, until iPod, iPhone, mp3, etc.)

She might reminisce with her friends about:

• The 1st silicon chip she bought and embedded into herself for easy communication.


• The 1st true immersive hologram experience (a real Holodeck)

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Energy draining

Why do I do this to myself? It's one of those things that I, probably many women, do to ourselves. It's nothing dramatic or harmful, but this hobby of mine definitely draining. It's not like I have much energy to drain after working in an office, commuting to said office, and spending time with my little girl. What am I talking about? Sad and sappy books.

Yes, books. I read religiously on my daily 45 minute train ride into NY. So I get through quite many books for someone who has a full-time job and an active toddler.  Instead of picking out fun entertaining book, I pick intense fares like Emma Donoghue's Room: A Novel.  I'm not going to reveal much about the book, but for a new mom with a young child, the book is chilling and scary.   Now I'm onto Nicholas Spark's Dear John.  It will probably end well, but it's definitely a tear jerker.  Granted, I haven't cried on the train yet, but there been times that I came very close.

Maybe the next one will be something light and fluffy.  I hear Snooki is a published author now.

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Google Chrome

I downloaded Google's new brower, Chrome for a test drive.  After four days of using it on my old work computer running XP and home laptop running Vista, I'm impressed.  I really like the lightweight and simple interface.  The browser started within seconds of me double clicking the short-cut on my desktop.  Compared to IE 7 and FF3, Chrome is very speedy on start.  I only encountered couple of problems with Chrome.  It didn't work so well when I tried to use it to log into my work computer from home using logmein.com's tool.  Other than that, all the other sites like facebook, cnn, google, wsj, etc. all worked well.

IE 7 and FF3 have been giving me problems for months now.  FF3 crashes every time I tried to quit the program.  And it bogged down my computer.  FF3 would dragged the entire computer down after about a cuple of hours of usage.  IE is just as bad.  I could get Flash to work after IE recommend that I restart the browser.  I installed and re-installed Flash several times and still nothing.  Very frustrating.  I don't want to spend hours at work trying to fix something as silly as that.

Chrome worked great, lightweight, I have no complaints.

 

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Journey, Heart, and Cheap Trick at Bethel Woods

[album=10,compact]

I finally re-lived my teenage years.  Evan and I went to a concert at Bethel Woods (the original Woodstock concert location).  

My friends and I use to dress up and lip-sync to Heart songs when we were 13 or 14 years old.  We collected magazine articles and stayed up late to watch Heart videos.  It was before the Internet, getting access to information on a band was not that easy.  Heart did all their great stuff, Barracuda, Alone, Never, and more.  They were awesome.  

I wasn't that into Journey when I was younger.  I knew couple of their songs.  But the story of the Journey's new singer is like the movie "Rock Star".  The band found him on YouTube singing Journey songs.  They auditioned him and apparently he was so good that they took him on as the lead singer.  I thought he sounds like Steven Perry.  He didn't quite have the presence, but it was still entertainng.

 

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Unexpected Root Canal

I woke up this morning with a terrible toothache.  I thought I was grinding my teeth durng the night.  As the day wore on, the pain continued.  After couple of hours at work, the pain was unbearable.  I relented and called my dentist, who was on vacation.  Luckily, his replacement can see me today. 

I went, thinking that they'll look, and give me antibiotics and send me on my way.  After some poking and prodding, the dentist informed me that I need a root canal because the nerve is shot.  I thought, root canal?  When will I have time for that.  That question was answer quick, the dentist started prepping me.  An hour later, I had a root canal.  He sent me away with prescriptions for antibiotics and vicadin. 

I guess if I'm going to have to have a root canal, an unexpected and surprise one is better than one that I have to plan for.  I didn't have a chance to worry and stress out about it.  Now that the novacaine is wearing off, my tooth is just slightly uncomfortable.  Otherwise, I think the ordeal will end fine.

 

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Guitar Hero Better

Well, I finally tried Rock Band. It took evan and I about ten minutes to set up the guitar, the drum, and the mike. The songs listed on the box could be interesting to play. After setting up all the instructment, we started the game.

Evan played the drum while I played the guitar. My first gripe is with the guitar pick. It doesn't have the click when I strike a note. I like the feedback from the guitar hero guitar.

The graphic was not as cool. I don't like the thin bars. I prefer the larger graphic bars on GH.

Well maybe I need to give Rock Band a few more try. But, my initial verdict is negative.

 

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WALL-EEEE

First, WALL-E is awesome.  I made Evan go see WALL-E with me on the first day the movie came out.  I read some very good reviews before we went.  I was still amazed at how well done and how much fun the movie was.  We walked out of the movie completely in love with WALL-E.

The next weekend, I insist that we go again.  I know... A bit much.  But I really loved the movie.  WALL-E made me think about love, relationship, excess consumerism, global warming... the usual big stuff.  After I watched WALL-E, I feel so lucky to have Evan to hold hands with every day.  And to have him by my side and be my companion.

I recommend that everyone go see WALL-E.  No one will be disapointed.

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