Choosing Santa over reality

This year again, I think it's time Daughter is on to the Santa ruse. She's now eight. I shouldn't be able to fool her any longer. I'm not even trying to fool her. But I have found her self-sustained Santa myths too amusing to want to bust her bubble. This evening, Christmas eve, she might have caught me red-handed, scissors, gift wrap and tape strewn all over the floor as I wrapped gifts. But no. Instead, she never lowered her gaze to the floor to see what I was doing. She didn't glance at the dining table to see if Santa had indeed stopped by and consumed the cookies she left out for him. She didn't check to see if I kept my word and put out the cup of milk I said I would. She didn't take a peek at the tree to see if gifts had been delivered. She simply delivered her message, with chin up. Her brother had fallen asleep on the floor and she needed me to move him. Quick about-turn, she went back up the stairs.

It struck me as very unusual for a child who is giddy with anticipation about Santa's arrival to show no curiousity whatsoever about the status of his arrival. Then it struck me. She doesn't want the truth. The myth is too much fun and she's going to hold on to it for as long as she can. If it means experiencing selective blindness when she runs into me wrapping gifts, then so be it.

Scientists have shown that one of the major functions of our brain is to rationalize our actions. Research also shows that ability to rationalize is directly correlated with happiness. Which totally makes sense when you consider that the child who ignores evidence to the contrary and takes pure delight in gifts from the north pole will likely be happier than the one who is grappling with the lies told by society and experiencing irritation with those who continue to hold on to the lies.

So I'm happy that my daughter chooses to be happy instead of right this Christmas.

Merry Christmas!!!

Learning and attitude

My 3rd grade daughter has an assignment to turn in tomorrow for her advanced reading class. She needs to use a couple of idioms in sentences, but she is not yet done. This work was assigned two weeks ago, but she didn't feel the pressure of getting it done until I asked about it on the drive home from school. She immediately blamed her teacher. "I finished my work early and asked my teacher if I could do it but she said no." She felt it was unfair.

I thought the teacher could say no for a variety of reason. "But what matters is that you do finish it before tomorrow. Did you bring it home?" She didn't. But she recalls the listed idioms which is great because she could still write her sentences on unofficial paper. Better that than nothing.

I still need to learn how to strike the right balance when it comes to helping my daughter to organize (tracking her homework and due dates for her) versus letting her learn to organize (and suffer the consequences of being disorganized). I think 3rd grade is not a bad place to suffer some poor grades (missed assignments) for the greater good, but I wonder if that's an unreasonable expectation for her age and personality. What I am getting better at is setting up the right attitude, a happy mood, before proceeding with teaching.

My daughter tells me she's having a difficult time coming up with a sentence using the idiom, "egg on your face". I ask her to try something anyhow. She does but I don't think it's good enough. At this point, she has started and stopped a couple of crying sessions and she's now ready to throw in the towel. Her meltdown is interfering with my plan to snuggle on the couch for a few minutes pre dinner prep to recover from my stressful day. All she seems capable of uttering now is "I can't!" or "I don't know!"

I take a deep breath. I ask her to do the same. "I don't want to!" Big sobs.
I worry there's something else going on. She nods and tells me how a football had mistakenly hit her that day in the gym. Globs of tears. My fears are allayed. But I see there will be no headway while she felt crappy. I asked her what good thing happened. She told me her class had met one of their goals and would get a reward. She said that made her happy, but she said it with the most sorrowful face you can imagine.

"We can't do this!" I exclaimed in exasperation. "Your sad face has sent your brain into hiding!" I then explained to her in all seriousness how (1) I could end the drama by giving her a sentence. But I would be robbing her a chance to learn. (2) To figure it out, her brain was required to do some hard work, try, fail, try, get a little better. (3) When her face is sad, her brain goes into hiding because it is afraid there is danger around. (4) When her face is happy, her brain comes out and prances around, thinking it must be sunny and time to play. (5) The active brain plays with difficult problems and finds solutions.

She is all smiles now. She starts to suggest sentences. She eventually comes up with something suitable. I love the brain hide or play analogy because it is sooo true and because it connected with my daughter. Another tool in my parenting kit.

Nuggets of inspiration from Mark Cuban

It's December. As you take stock of the current year and start thinking of goals to create or renew for the new year, there's nothing better than learning from those who have been successful and examining how you can apply their lessons in your own life. So when I was asked to do a blog post about Mark Cuban's new ebook, "How To Win At The Sport Of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It", I immediately grabbed a copy which intended to read it 'later', when less busy. I was only going to take a peek for now, but I ended up reading the entire book. Mark Cuban is a successful business man and owner of Dallas Mavericks and HDNet. 
   
The book is a collection of some of his blog posts and detail his journey to success as well as lessons he learned along the way. If you own your own business, or thinking about it or you're not sure what you want to do, you will find useful advice in the book.   
   
When you're a mom, there are many demands at home that pose a challenge to running a business. You will not have the ability to spend 24 hours focused on that business like single 20-something year old college grad. But Mark advices, "Find something you love to do, can do on your own and doesn’t require any more capital than you can afford to lose personally. The most valuable asset you have is your time, talents and ability to communicate. Focus on those strengths and what you can do rather than what you can’t do."
   
The book will inspire you, make you think and challenge any excuses you have for not starting a business. For example, are you waiting for funding? Don't.
   
Want to learn more? Get your copy on anywhere eBooks are sold: Amazon, BN.com, and sites that support independent bookstores.
   
I will receive two Landmark movie tickets to give to readers for sharing the HDNet Movies Kid Scene link.

The kindle, the library and spontaneity

I let my daughter go to bed with my tablet. She's reading a book on the kindle app, a book we borrowed from the local library. We have bought Daughter a Kindle Fire for her upcoming 8th birthday, but we have 3 weeks to change our minds. By the following morning I'm sold. She will indeed have the kindle.

We rely on the library quite a bit to supply my daughter with the steady feed of chapter books that she consumes. A lot of the kindle versions of these books sell for the same price as the paperbacks (~$3.99). Since she can zip through a couple of these in one day, I was concerned about how much it would cost to keep her device stocked. As such, it was a relief to learn that libraries now offer kindle ebooks.

After dinner, Daughter asked if she could read something on my tablet. I said "sure, let's see what the library has". We browsed the ebook catalog. Her first pick, a Big Nate book was already checked out. We browsed, we searched, looking for that which was both desirable and available. We picked Hungry Plants and A Horn for Louis. She went to bed with my device. She woke up this morning, an authority on Venus fly traps. And lots of sympathy for the boy who needed a horn but had only one dollar. Yay kindle!!

Not a Big deal, right? Big deal! Our local library has offered ebooks pre-kindle. But I don't think the user experience ranked anywhere near what you get with the kindle. What was so obvious, but yet blew me away was the spontaneity that was involved. No getting into the car to go to the library. Or, no sitting at a computer to read an ebook. Daughter could lay back in bed and read minutes after she desired to read a new book.

But all is not perfect. Yet.

• Only a subset of ebooks is available in kindle format. I hope/assume this will be rectified over time.
• Of those, most are already checked out by somebody else. More books in kindle format are checked out than books that are not - evidence that the kindle is encouraging reading.  It seems silly to artificially apply a physical world rule to the digital world. It brings to mind the joke about a secretary who requested an email be returned to her before she sends an amended version. She did not want the recipient to have two copies. Or the joke about the boss who accuses his assistant of not sending some fax because the assistant was still in possession of the originals. I digress. And I know the libraries are not to blame.

Despite the imperfections, I'm excited about getting Daughter a kindle. And I think things can only get better.

Caffeine in my vitamin (2)

This morning I started off my day with a caffeinated vitamin. The only positive outcome was that I seemed to have more energy at the gym. The 'weird' feeling I had lessened my motivation to go, but when I started doing jumping jacks in that boot camp class, the energy came through, and lasted till the end of the class. After which it was replaced with hunger. And that feeling (which I now realize is the same feeling I get from taking certain cold medicines, which is why I don't like to take cold medicines).

Somehow I got some work done in between googling caffeine effects. This webmd article provides a good overview and ends with advice on the best way to get energy. According to the article, energy supplements is a very fast growing sector as everybody....everybody (yay! not just me) is looking for more energy.  But the best solution is the natural way:

Sleep well
Exercise
Eat healthy

Sigh, I better get back to the basics (+ a normal vitamin supplement) because eating healthy just isn't easy.

Now, let's see if I can get to sleep.

HTML view in Blogger android app

I'm not sure what happened with my last post. In the middle of writing, I took a break, my tablet turns off. I turn it back on and my edit view is changed. Now I see all my html tags. I have to insert my own <p> paragraph tags. I have to create my own link. And I can't figure out how to switch to the normal view.

It's really nice to be able to tap out posts on my tablet instead of firing up a computer. But please Blogger Android App, don't switch views on me without warning. If you do (and even if you don't), I want to know how to switch views, after all, I just might want to play with html tags.

I do need to play with html tags because Blogger Android App, you only provide me with text options for bold or italics. No underline. No block text. No bullet points. So I need to play. And stop play when I need to. Do I hear "updated version"?

Caffeine in my vitamin

New blog. Lazy edition.

After months of deliberation and inaction, I finally got around to creating a new blog on Blogger. I know the process takes only a minute or two, but you'll be surprised (or not) by how hard the human mind can justify procastination.
I already decided many many posts before my last post on my old blog that maintaining my own Wordpress app was not for me. Yet, I kept it going. Frustrated whenever I saw that there was an upgrade I needed to install. Even more frustrated whenever the upgrade did not follow the happy path. Fearful whenever I put off the upgrade, for I had been hacked before.
One day, I decided to stop. Just stop. Then I spent hours archiving and backing up my posts in an attempt to migrate them to a Blogger blog.  Then, even more hours trying to decide which posts were worthy of migration, after all, I shouldn't start a new blog crippled with garbage. Hours turned into days before I realized that my old posts were unnecessary baggage (and that's why I'm not including a link). I reflected on how it is difficult for us as humans to get rid of old baggage, so I resolved to do so.
I cleaned out my closet. Sent stuff to Goodwill. There's still stuff that I kept, to decide on later (why?!). But you see, my focus had shifted from my virtual baggage to my physical ones.
Time flew and I deliberated on the persona on my new blog-to-be. Do I maintain anonymity or use my full name? Or do I create a pen name? What name should I pick for my blog? What should my focus be? There were many questions that i idly contemplated. (Note: idle contemplation is not highly productive.)
Today, I have a long weekend ahead of me.
Happy Thanksgiving!
And I have decided to get to it. No pen name - that seems like too much work. No focus either. If I learnt anything from my old blog, it's that I am the primary audience for my blog. (Unless you're willing to work hard at blogging, traffic isn't just going to happen.)  As the sole audience, I will write whatever interests me. As a mom of two kids (ages 8 and 4) parenting is a major focus for the foreseeable future.
Does anyone else find that acquiring a tablet has rendered their laptops or PCs obsolete? So far, I've done all the getting to it from my android tablet. I hit a snag when it came time to write this post and my keypad wouldn't come up. I looked up the android Blogger app and problem solved.