Cool Mommy Product Reviews

My 8 year old son is what you would call a “high maintenance” child. Alot of behaviorial issues, argumentative, competitive, you name it. Luckily for him, he is bright. He is very good with numbers, great chess player and musically talented. His biggest problem – comprehension. He can read extremely well (well above 5th grade) -good with phonics & but his level of comprehension is slightly below grade level. So, we have been striving to narrow the gap & it has been a big challenge. Thankfully, his homeroom teacher has been a great help & we are working closely to monitor his progress. I even hired a tutor 2 months ago. My husband and I are hoping that early intervention would help. I would like to share the tips & advice that were given to us :

1. Read aloud to him. Start with books that he likes – fiction or non fiction, it also has to be something easy for him to understand. In another words, start from the beginning. We actually started Harry Potter and he is now hooked onto reading.

2. Re-telling the story. Even if the words are simple for him to read, he tends to have difficulty re-telling the story. This is a crucial part of comprehension – if you can re-tell a story, you understand the story.

3. Creating pictures in your head. As you read, you have to start forming pictures in your head. If the picture becomes fuzzy, back up, read the last page or paragraph again.

4. For a comprehension assessment, read through the questions before you read the passage.
(For 1st graders, the teachers will do a “picture walk” before reading the words)

5. Always check your answers again when you finish the assessment.

6. The previous Instructional Support teacher also gave some daily exercises where he practice his listening & inferring skills. It’s important to do it daily as it helps to instill self-discipline.

7. Last but no least – I always have to resort to the “carrot & stick” style to get him to focus. I will take away his privileges (no Wii play on weekends) if I hear that he is having difficulty staying focus. Somehow, it always helps. I taught him that we should work hard & play even harder. Hopefully, he COMPREHENDS the meaning of my advice.

Kids

I admit I am not very clued in on the entertainment scene. I only heard about “High School Musical” when I was home last Summer & it was on TV at my mom’s. My nieces (whom I haven’t not seen for 2 years) were going ga-ga over it and I watched a little.

Recently, my daughter’s friends (4 year olds) were talking about it. At christmas, I was educated by my friends about this & the Hannah Montana craze that is sweeping Amercia. When we were at Disneyworld over the recent christmas & new year, I saw the commercial side of it. Luckily for me, my daughter only got into it after we returned from Disneyworld so we didn’t get caught up with the merchandise.

One afternoon (2 weeks ago) – my little princess came home from her playdate & exclaimed : “Mommy – I saw High School Musical 2 & I looooove it ! Please please can you get me the DVD ?” She is only 4 & a half ! The next few days, she kept humming the songs & when her best friend comes over – she too was singing & oh you should see her expression ! She closed her eyes, all mesmerized as she is singing away. My daughter even teaches me a “new kiss”. Put your index finger on your tongue & let both your index fingers touch. Honestly, I was so stunned and I am wondering how this will impact her “growing up”. God help us !

Here is the real shocker : 9 months ago, we were just sitting in front of the TV after lunch. I usually fold the laundry while watching reruns of Matlock. She turned to me & said :”Mommy. If Daddy loves you very much this is how he kisses you”. She proceeded to kiss me very hard on my lips. I was hysterical. Did anyone do it to you ? I was shocked & questioned her thinking that some pervert got to her. She said : “no – I saw it on TV”. She doesn’t get alot of TV time, usually Angelina Ballerina & there is definitely not alot of kissing on Matlock. I asked her to show me the kiss again. She said I didn’t do it properly. I have to move my head from side to side ! My goodness gracious – she has not even turn 4 yet. I stopped watching those reruns.

My husband & I shared this incident with many of our close friends for a good laugh. Then one parent told me that he thinks girls are so aggressive nowadays & they start young. His kindergartener who is a boy will come home & tell them that girls are chasing him around the playground wanting to kiss him ! What has the world become ?

Kids

I love taking my little princess to her ballet lessons every Saturday mornings. After drop off, me & a few other moms will go to Wawa – 1 block away, get coffee & return to the studio and chat. It’s one of the highlights of my week. We will talk about the behavior of our girls, share our joys & frustrations, discuss school stuff, etc etc.

Mom K, Mom A & Mom S are all working moms. Mom A is a speech therapist, Mom S is a scientist & adopted a chinese girl. Their girls are in the ballet/tap dance class so they stay a little longer while mine just do ballet. There are a other moms too – but they are not as regular as us.

Mom S has been struggling with her daughter for a while now – and I remember her saying 2 weeks ago that she is that close to seeing a shrink. This morning, Mom K shared her experience of seeing a psychiatrist when she needed help with her oldest child who is eight a while ago. She found it very helpful & Mom S is interested to visit the same psychiatrist.

What I like about this group is we’re not afraid of sharing our troubles & frustrations. We are all just trying to be a good mom & impart the best values to our kids. We only know each other by names but the other 3 moms are closer. However, there is special kind of friendship among us and meeting them every Saturday is such a great start to my weekend !

Kids

I was very excited when I bought Wii without any difficulty in October 2007. We gave it to the kids at Thanksgiving because we were going away for xmas. They were thrilled of course & agreed to abide by my conditions – they can only play on Friday after school & Saturday & Sunday.

Due to a busy weekend schedule, they become “very focused” on the games when they play. However, my oldest son – who is 8 is very competitive & a perfectionist. So, he gets upset about losing, anxious about beating the level and he gets all upset whenever I ask him to stop. He will argue, whine, blame his brother & everybody for distracting and it drove me insane.

I thought buying Wii will make everyone very happy – my husband & I will get some peace on weekends, the kids get to enjoy it (our 1st electronic game device, we don’t even have DS lite). But it turned out the other way for me. My middle child is so normal & he will never kick up a big fuss over Wii and it is so unfair for me to sell it away because my 8 yr old messes all of us up.

It became too much of a pain for me that I had to ban my oldest son from playing it because I don’t even want to deal with him whining. I don’t even want to hear him ask “can I play Wii ? ” I sometimes dread weekends because I know he is going to start his nonsense & I just don’t want to deal with it.

Kids

Finally, a 24 hour day of a mom condensed into 2 minutes & 55 seconds – in a song. Anita Renfroe sang it to the tune of William Tell Overture. I am sure many of you (if not all) can identify yourselves in this amazing song . I think it deserves an Oscar Award ! If you are looking for a song to sum up your life as a mom, this is the song. I am so surprised that there is only more than 220,000 hits on www.youtube.com. Go ahead, share it with your preschooler, independent-minded elementary school age kids, defiant teenagers, fun seeking college kids. Let me know if it changes your day.

Introduction

Today is an exciting day because you’ll see that the site is up ! It’s going to get real intensive now as we have to learn to “build the site”.

Last night, our dearest RB & Jonanthan installed Joomla into our sites and today we will learn how to install & change templates, move modules around & much more.

It is really exciting to see that the site is a “real site” instead of just codes. We learnt how to download templates from Rocketthemes.com & it is amazing to see the the different choices available.

Introduction

Being a full time mom to 3 wonderful kids, I was very very hesitant about attending this Internet Boot Camp. You know how it is - getting ready for school, eating mac n cheese or pizzas every night, forgetting homework, choir & violin practice etc….. How can I expect my husband to manage all that plus his daytime job ?

Luckily, I got my 2 neighbors & a very capable part time babysitter to help for Thursday & Friday. Then daddy duty goes full time on Saturday, Sunday & Monday. I think he will go bonkers by Monday night as the kids have no school due to Martin Luther King Day. Then I found out on the way to the workshop that my travelling companion & I have booked separate return dates. I thought we were coming home on Monday & he booked Tuesday ! My dear friend is recovering from a brain injury & he is starting a new website – see www.mailboxchief.com  So, I ended up changing my return date to Tuesday because I really want to travel with him.

Fortunately, my husband is the one who pushed me to sign up for this & he is OK about me coming home later. He said : “Enjoy youselves!” 

There was so much preparation to ensure that I leave with a peace of mind. Preparing for the workshop was much easier – only 2 steps that took me half an hour. I even typed the routine from Thursday to Monday, spent the whole Wednesday afternoon cooking chicken stew, spareribs with blackbean sauce & Bolognese sauce.

Then, I have to show my husband the kids closet & how to match the outfits for church. (and it’s going to be very cold this weekend) I think he will have problems finding the kids underwear & socks by Sunday.

Actually,  I have to give him alot of credit. He has been a great daddy : takes them to their favorite restaurant, plays baseball with them, bath them, reads to them, make wonderful breakfast for them on weekends, goes trick or treating with them, showers them with their favorite book or toys, goes on fun roller coaster rides, you get the point.

Thank you, pie (I know you will read this) – thank you for this wonderful opportunity for me to learn how to set up a website & a chance to do something that I never thought I could ever do. I love you – my super daddy husband. 

Husbands

Yes – the school cafeteria food really bothers me. I cannot understand why it is so hard to offer chicken noodle soup & beef stew as a winter food. I posted the question to the food coordinator in our school district &  her answers were : “we will certainly take your suggestions into considerations.”

How hard can it be ? First of all, I notice that most of the menus has such minimal preparation that the kitchen helpers are usually required to “heat & serve”. Granted that it takes a little more effort to prepare chicken noodle soup & beef stew, there are so many vendors supplying cut-up vegetables, beef & chicken & ready made chicken broth that will make prepartion minimal too.

As part of the Chinese New Year Celebration that I am helping to organise, the school district food service has agreed to serve noodles in broth as food tasting. That’s a start.  I’ll let you know how it went.   

School Cafeteria Food

Have you ever visited your child’s cafeteria to see what they serve ? Or even looked at their menu ? In my son’s elementary school, there is only two choices each day. Pizza day is Wednesday. On top of the terribly unappetizing food (like the chewy hotdogs), the choice of drink that comes with the lunch is milk. Bottled water is charged at 50 cents. I learnt recently that is because of the subsidies that these “big corporations” give to the federal government. Isn’t that outrageous ? And the milk isn’t even organic. So, your child is getting their chicken nuggets, cheeseburger & milk with unnecessary “antibiotics”.

I like what Jamie Oliver (celebrity chef of UK, sort of like our Rachel Ray) did to the UK school cafeteria. He revolutionized it by showing the kids what goes into the chicken nuggets that they love & showed them what is eating natural foods. The kids were absolutely disgusted !

 We need to REVOLUTIONIZE the cafeteria food here in the US ! And it be good if celebrity chefs like Rachel Ray & Wolfgang Puck could help in this worthy cause.

School Cafeteria Food

Today – Jan 18, 2008, my first day at an Internet Boot Camp, I created my website www.mycoolmommy.com and set up my blog – all in less than 1/2 a day.

Dori Friend, her partner Jill & team of helpers – RB & Jonathan were GREAT ! I am having a great time learning – hands on style setting up my website.

We have an excellent group. Friendly, helpful, eager to learn and a funny group. There is alot of typing & laughing. And did I mention the food & wine. Yes. Our cost of the workshop included lodging in Dori’s wonderful ranch and all the food (& alcohol). This is apparently Dori’s last workshop for beginners and I am soooooooo glad I came. Like my husband said, I hope to walk in a newbie, and come out a master !

The world of Internet Marketing – watch out, here I come !!!!!!!!

Introduction