The camera does not make the photographer

These days, with the advent of digital cameras and photo editing software, it seems like anyone can pick up a camera and call themselves a photographer. Just ask a professional what equipment he's using, buy the same thing, and you're all set.

I know better. It's like buying the same typewriter as Hemingway and expecting to write a literary masterpiece, or buying a racecar just like Mario Andretti's and expecting to race around a track as fast as he can . The equipment does not make the artist. We have a digital SLR and a decent macro lens, but I cannot create a decent bokeh effect to save my life. I can take dozens of photos of the same thing and hope that one photo will luck out and turn out halfway decent, while a true photographer can take one photo of the same subject, using a point-and-shoot camera, and end up with a far better result.

Some people just have it, and by some I'm talking about Anna Mayer. She's a fellow writer for the Silicon Valley Moms Blog, and she recently invited some of the SV Moms writers to pose for family portraits. We met for our session in Mountain View's Cuesta Park, but Anna led us away from the park, past the parking lot, and into an abandoned field with wild grasses and a gnarled old tree at the center. Everything looked yellow and dusty, the sun was high in the sky and if I had been taking the photos, they would have all come out with an overexposed background and shadowed faces.

But then, I'm not Anna Mayer.

Under her eye and her lens, the tree turned into something graceful, and the hot, bright sunlight became golden and warm.


I don't remember those grasses looking so green, and I could have sworn we were in a field just beside a parking lot, in the middle of suburban Silicon Valley, not in a lush, green paradise in some untouched countryside . I saw an abandoned field, but Anna saw the perfect photo shoot location.

I would probably have cropped both The Pea's and my faces off in this photo, or enlarged it so that all of our faces were part of it. But an artist knows which elements to include in her work, and which ones to take away, in order to convey the emotion or story that she sees when she captures it. She also knows the perfect words to describe what she has captured: Loved.


As I said, the camera does not make the photographer.


Click here to see more photos from our Anna Mayer session and read more about what I thought of the whole experience!

Greening our lifestyle

With Earth Day coming up next week, everyone is jumping on the green bandwagon -- so it's hard to close your eyes and ignore the small, easy changes you can make to reduce your carbon footprint. I don't remember when it was that I first started making changes to reduce our impact on the planet. I still remember buying (and lifting!) crates of water bottles from Costco when I was pregnant with the twins, so it can't have been that long ago. Maybe it was when we switched from paying for two garbage bin collections down to one, and I had to look more carefully about what can and can't be recycled. Maybe it was when Whole Foods started selling reusable grocery bags.

Whenever it was that we started, I'm happy to report that we've managed to maintain most of the eco-friendly practices we started, and over the years, we've become a much greener family than we used to be. Here are five small changes we made that have been no trouble at all to maintain:

1) Recycling
Our city has made it so easy for us to recycle; we don't even have to segregate our recyclables anymore! Our recycling bin is about twice as big as our garbage bin, and it's surprising how fast it can fill up.

2) Eating less meat
I am such a carnivore, but we've gradually cut down on our meat consumption, and now we have meat or chicken or fish or pork just one or two times a week. Many times it's not even the main part of the dish (such as split pea soup that's been flavored with ham). Eating less meat has a quadruple -whammy of benefits: it's better for your health, for your checkbook, for the earth and for the animals, so this is an easy one. Cut out meat entirely? Ummm.... that's harder. Alfie swears he could go vegetarian tomorrow if I agreed to it, but I'd miss the taste so much. Sorry, I'm celebrating the small victories where I can find them.

3) Washing clothes in cold water
It's true, washing clothes in cold water really don't make too much of a difference, especially when you have a front-loading machine like we do. I just keep the setting on cold and never notice the difference.

4) Buying eco-friendly, natural household cleaning products
There are so many eco-friendly, natural household cleaning products on the shelves these days. They don't cost any more (or much more) than chemical-based products, and they clean just as well so this is another easy change to maintain. And as a blogger, I was lucky enough to be given an Activeion cleaner to review -- it uses only water to clean and disinfect, which of course is as natural and chemical free as you can get!

5) Using cloth grocery bags
This has been a really easy change to maintain, and now I find plastic bags to be irritating waste of space. Even when I forget my bags, I just tell the checkout clerk that I have bags in the car, and put my groceries back into the grocery cart. I do have a small stash of plastic bags that I keep at home to put wet swimsuits in, wrap super-disgusting messes (like spoiled veggies or meat from the fridge, soiled clothes when any of the kids have a little potty accident, etc..), and when the stash gets low I do allow some of my shopping to be packed in plastic bags. And when Safeway delivers groceries to the house, I always unpack my groceries from the plastic bags as fast as the delivery guy carries them into the house, and send the plastic bags back.



But don't congratulate us yet; we're by no means the model green family. There are some green habits that have fallen by the wayside, and some areas we could (and should) probably do more. Here are five of them:

1) Line drying our clothes
Laundry is a tiresome bother even when I use the dryer, so it's all too easy to look at the sky and decide it's looking damp and drizzly. I do a much better job at this in the summer, obviously, and I have to admit my clothesline hasn't seen any use at all in months. Now that the weather is drying and heating up again, I'm running out of excuses.

2) Composting
I just don't like the thought of throwing food scraps and slimy bits into a ceramic pot and leaving them to rot, right beside my kitchen sink.

3) Ditching the plastic
This has been a real toughie. The only plastic habit I can say I've successfully and totally ditched is plastic water bottles (we use reusable water bottles now). I have cloth sandwich bags and reusable sandwich cases and containers, but I still find myself occasionally reaching for a plastic bag to put the kids' goldfish crackers in. And I still sometimes buy individually packaged snacks. What can I say, I get lazy in the mornings!

4) Ditching the paper
My addiction to disposable paper towels is still around. I've started using cloth towels to wipe spills up more and more, but I still buy paper towels and still use them half the time. And I still think disposable baby wipes are God's great gift to parents (I did find some eco-friendly disposable wipes at Walgreens -- they're made from bamboo!). And I will not switch from tampons to the Diva cup.

5) Driving less
Our morning walk to school is a firmly entrenched habit, but I'm ashamed that I can't say the same thing about my pickup routine. The trouble with living less than a mile from the kids' school is that I tend to delay leaving home to pick the kids up until the very last minute, and by then of course it's too late to walk, so I end up taking the car.


See, just like China, we've made a start but we still have a long way to go.


This post was inspired by Earth Day and by the Silicon Valley Moms' book of the month: National Geographic's Green Guide for Families (participating bloggers were given free copies of the book). Read how this book inspired other SV Moms on this month's SV Moms Club Book Club post.

New traditions, new dishes, new experiences

Last Friday we attended our school's Heritage Potluck. It sounded like an interesting event -- each family is supposed to contribute a dish that represents their heritage and traditions -- but honestly, I thought people would bail out and buy apple pies at Whole Foods, maybe bake a lasagna or toss a salad together.

I wasn't too keen on going, but the kids convinced me, so I decided to buy some puto (Filipino rice cake) from Goldilocks, our local Filipino bakery, and make some chicken fried rice (yes, I know it's not strictly Filipino food, but Filipinos eat fried rice all the time so I figured it counted). I was backing up the van, ready to leave, when Alfie pulled up on his motorcycle; I told him where we were going and said I could handle the kids if he wanted some time to himself to work out or watch tv (aren't I a nice person?).

It just goes to show you how stupid I can be and how much I underestimate the generosity of our community in general. When we got to the school, the tables in the multipurpose room were groaning under the weight of all the dishes that people had brought. What a feast! I saw matzoh ball soup, a plate of Swiss cheeses, Indian curry, smoked salmon, Spanish rice, Spanish omelette, English sausage rolls, hot Louisiana sausage, Dutch potatoes, wontons, egg rolls, enchiladas and more. I can't even begin to describe the dessert table because it's going to make me get up from this chair and raid the fridge. Most of the dishes were homemade, and were disappearing quickly -- but were just as quickly being replaced with new dishes brought by arriving families. I quickly put the puto and rice down (thanking my lucky stars that I needn't be too ashamed of our contribution!) and dialed home. I told Alfie to get his butt here pronto, because the food was amazing and he absolutely had to try everything!

The night turned into a taste adventure for the whole family. I was so proud of the way all three kids tried so many strange and unfamiliar dishes! We've had our struggles with picky eating and macaroni-and-cheese phases when they were younger, but we resisted the urge to give in to chicken nuggets and pizza and separate kiddie meals and kept feeding our kids real meat and veggies and rice. Through a combination of luck and the right personalities and parental persistence, I'm happy to say that The Pea, 3Po and Jammy are now open to trying pretty much anything. That's not to say they will like all of it -- we all have our personal food likes and dislikes, after all -- but we've established a family culture that doesn't refuse a taste of food based on how it looks. I saw the payoff last Friday, as 3Po happily shoveled some boiled salmon into his mouth and The Pea slurped up the clear broth and limp veggies in her matzo ball soup. We'll definitely be attending next year's Heritage Potluck; who knows what new and delicious foods we'll get to try next!



This post was inspired by the Silicon Valley Moms Book Club's March book selection: Top 100 Baby Purees and Top 100 Finger Foods , written by Annabel Karmel. Another of Annabel's books, First Meals, was my food bible when the kids were babies; I credit her yummy fruit and vegetable purees with opening my kids' palates and getting them on the right track towards eating healthy, real food.

Fun in the bedroom: Sex or text?

In retrospect, I suppose Valentine's Day was NOT the right time to do what I did. But it started out innocently enough. Our alarm clock broke a couple of days ago and we were planning to go out on a day trip the next day (President's Day), so we needed to get up early. I took my phone upstairs with me and placed it on my bedside table so I could check the time when I woke up the next day. I was first in bed, and I couldn't resist checking my email one last time before going to bed... well, one thing led to another and before you know it Alfie had joined me in bed, all ready to celebrate Valentine's Day -- and there I was, fully immersed in Twitter and Facebook.

It's the first time I've ever taken my phone to bed and Alfie, who has never been a fan of smart phones and 24/7 email access in the first place, was, to say the least, peeved. Luckily, it takes more than an internet-enabled phone to get between Alfie, me and the only V-Day activity we were able to enjoy without the kids, but the (text) message is clear: tweeting in bed is not a turn-on. Who needs an excuse like "honey, I have a headache" when you've got "just one last tweet!"?

Like I said, dumb thing to do on Valentine's -- but I know several couples who take their laptops to bed the way others take books or magazines to bed. Before this little incident our bed was for two things only (okay, three if you count snuggling with the kids on Sunday mornings), and the only kinds of electronic gadgets welcome in our bed do not have internet access.... ;-) Do you tweet in bed? Does your spouse? Do they care? Or do you have rules about the kinds of gadgets that belong in your bed?


This post was inspired by the Silicon Valley Moms Blog's February book club selection: The Mominatrix's Guide to Sex by Kristen Chase. I received a complimentary copy of the book to read; for more SV Moms Book Club posts, click here.

My love affair with pearls

Diamonds may be a Girl's Best Friend, but as far as I'm concerned they'll have to share BFF status with pearls. Forget the old saying; the only kinds of tears I would cry because of pearls would be tears of joy (Besides, the dampness would just ruin the pearls' luster, which is kind of weird because pearls come from the sea). Just like diamonds, I love their elegant simplicity, and how they go with anything. Just like the diamond, it amazes me how something so beautiful and precious started out as a humble substance (sand in the case of the pearl, carbon for the diamond) that people wouldn't hesitate to sweep from their porches.

I've always loved pearls, ever since I was a little girl. Their perfect symmetry fascinated me, their luster seemed like a crystal ball with mysterious lights swirling inside. I didn't know about cultured pearls back then, so perfectly round pearls seemed like the rarest things ever. How in the world did the oyster get it so perfect? How difficult it seemed to collect enough pearls for just one necklace! Other little girls dreamed of being able to wear high heels and nail polish when they grew up, but I wanted to wear a pearl necklace. I loved it when my mother would go out to parties and take out her strand of Mikimoto pearls to wear. They looked so elegant draped around her neck. My dad got them for her on their honeymoon in Tokyo; years later, when I got married, my parents gave me a Mikimoto pearl necklace and bracelet as a wedding present.

There are only two things wrong with pearls, and the first is their price. Unless we win the lottery, that set my parents gave me is likely to be the only expensive set of pearls I own. Fortunately, in the last decade a huge South Sea pearl industry has sprung up in the Philippines. Traders from Mindanao sell huge quantities of South Sea Pearls and freshwater pearls at unbelievable prices. They cost less than costume jewelry in the States -- but here, the pearls are real. The cheaper varieties use pearls that aren't symmetrical, but they're beautiful just the same.


Here's a photo of my sister at one of the pearl stalls at a flea market near my parents house in Manila. The vendors will customize any necklace according to your specifications. One of my sister's co-workers sent her a hundred British pounds to buy whatever pearl jewelry she could find; my sister returned to London with a classic single-strand choker, a double-strand necklace, a longer, flapper-style single strand necklace, a couple of double and triple-strand bracelets, and several pairs of earrings. All of them were custom made with large, round South Sea pearls; I don't think anyone other than an expert jeweler would be able to tell that some of the pearls weren't perfectly round. My mother bought cute pearl necklaces for all her granddaughters (The Pea received hers and promptly declared, "I have pearls! I'm rich!". Yes you are, honey, even if that strand cost only $2.50).

(photo courtesy of Fine Living)


The second "problem" with pearls is that they tend to send out a grandmotherly vibe. Personally I think it's hogwash -- Coco Chanel, for instance, would recoil in horror at the thought of being considered grandmotherly! -- but I'll admit the classic pearls-and-twinset look isn't exactly edgy. Single strand pearl necklaces look nice on kids and the elderly, but they're not the kind of jewelry you wear if you want your man to tear your clothes off (Except with Tea Leoni. For some reason any kind of pearls and Tea Leoni just go together, and she still manages to look hot wearing them. I guess it's because she looks hot no matter what she wears).

So I never wear single-strand pearls (okay, I've worn them once or twice, but they were to family events with parents and grand-aunts and grandparents in attendance). Most of my pearl jewelry has other elements or accents, like silver beads or ribbons or other gems. I love the look of a pearl pendant on a black leather string! I also the sumptuous look of pearls piled upon pearls. I think Michelle Obama looks absolutely fabulous in the photo above, and I love how she's revived interest in pearls and other classic fashions by giving them a modern twist and making them her own. Michelle certainly ain't no-one's grandmamma, and with the right attitude and style I think pearls only add to a woman's sex appeal, not take away from it!



This post was inspired by Coco Chanel, her love for pearls and the latest book about her vivid, passionate life: Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky by Chris Greenlaugh, the topic of this month's Silicon Valley Mom's Blog Book Club. Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of the book to read.

What do you get your child's teacher for Christmas?

Each year since kindergarten, The Pea has declared her current teacher to be "The Best Teacher Ever", and I must admit I've adored all her teachers so far. The fact that they are full of praise for The Pea and her talents probably has a lot to do with it, but they've also been open about areas where she can improve and how we can help her progress at home. I credit her teachers for making classroom learning fun and exciting, and for challenging The Pea to be the best Pea she can possibly be. 3Po and Jammy are having similar experiences with their own teachers and at this point I can safely say our school is blessed to have great teachers, and my kids will have great learning experiences no matter which classroom they end up in.

So when the holidays roll around, I like to think extra-hard about what kinds of presents to get them. We don't have a big budget for holiday presents, but I always like to get my kids' teachers a little something. The eternal question is, what? What would a teacher appreciate? Candy or baked goods is always my first impulse -- but imagine getting 20 boxes of chocolate! The same goes for #1 Teacher mugs, soap-on-a-rope and other useless trinkets. If you've got the same dilemma, here are 4 ideas that work for me:


1) Contribute a small amount of cash along with other parents in the class and get a gift card to Starbucks, Target, a spa or some other . As a room parent I have never advocated specifying a set amount of money since I know different parents can afford different amounts; I think any amount you can give, be it $5 or $25, will be appreciated.

2) My friend and fellow Office Max blog panelist Heather (the Tween Teacher), wised me up about giving school supplies to teachers. I had no idea that so many teachers had to pony up their own cash to buy school supplies for their kids! So ask your teacher if she needs anything for her class -- be it a ream of paper, a couple of ink cartridges or a box of file folders -- and get it for her. Or get a gift card to an office supply store.

3) Who doesn't like flowers? Flowers always make me feel special, and a vase of flowers on the dining room table always makes me feel a wee bit closer to Martha Stewart -- and I can't think that any teacher, male or female, would feel any different.

4) What are we giving teachers this year? Nothing. To be more precise, I'm planning to buy something from Manila and give it to my kids' teachers when we come back in January. I'm sure I can find some native pendants or scarves that won't cost a lot of money but are unique and meaningful because they come from a country that The Pea has ties to.


If anyone has other good teacher gift ideas, I'd love to hear them! Let's work together to make sure no teacher gets a ceramic apple paperweight this holiday season!


This post was inspired by teacher/author Phil Done's experience of receiving a present shaped like a box of candy, freezing it and taking out months later, only to find out that it was actually a tie. It's all chronicled, along with other hilarious and touching stories, in his latest book, Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind. Read my review of this book on Bonggamom Finds, and head on over to the Silicon Valley Moms Blog to read how this book inspired other moms.



Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from Phil Done last summer; the views and opinions expressed in my review are my own.

Getting the Swag Part Right

What do you get when you mix fifty mom bloggers and a holiday party? A lot of fun and a lot of swag! When Jill announced a couple of months before BlogHer that the Silicon Valley Moms group wouldn't be putting together a BlogHer swag bag, I completely understood the validity of doing away with swag in the midst of such a crappy economy. Even when BlogHer '09 turned into the biggest swag fest ever, I was kind of proud that the SV Moms hadn't added even more swag to the mix.


Little did I know that she was saving all the sponsors and swag up for last weekend's Silicon Valley Moms Holiday party. Generous sponsors such as HP's Photosmart Premium, Chevrolet, Nintendo, Bosch, and many more showered us with presents large and small.


But honestly, it wasn't all about grabbing swag and filling up a bag -- really! The brains behind SV Moms came up with a fun, brilliant way to mix swag, networking and fun. Partygoers got "bingo cards", which were stamped by sponsors after the blogger stopped by their table. After their bingo cards were all filled up with stamps, the blogger got to pick up a swag bag at the end of the party.


The great thing about the bingo card system was that bloggers actually got to meet with and talk to the sponsors -- no skulking behind some other blogger, grabbing a piece of swag and slinking off. Not that any SV Moms are like that. Okay, maybe I'm kind of a swag whore, but I would never accuse my fellow SV Moms bloggers of anything so base.



But the point is, the swag was secondary to the opportunity to meet with the sponsors, learn about their products and see whether working together would be a good thing for both parties. The sponsors were very well chosen, with products and services that were truly relevant to this mom (and dad) blogging audience. I really enjoyed discovering new companies like Dillon Rogers and the Astak Mole Camera. I appreciated learning about alternative permanent birth control methods and organic skincare. I was happy to see my friend Rick from Tiny Prints and ooh-and-ahh over their latest designs. And I was overjoyed to meet the designers behind some local children's products that I already know and love -- Wati, Livvie and Luca, Giddy Giddy, and Lucky Jade.


What made it even more fun is that the sponsors provided plenty of opportunities to interact and socialize with the other bloggers. The HP Photosmart booth was crowded with bloggers printing out their holiday photos and admiring each others' beautiful babies. At the Nintendo station, ladies lined up for the chance to beat each other's scores on the Wii Fit. And the Nestle Coffemate table was actually accepting swag -- gently used office and professional clothing, that is -- to donate to Dress for Success.


All those little fun booths were, indeed, fun, but after three years of blogging together, I don't think we need all of the gimmicks to have a great party anymore. Our get-togethers have become true social events, an opportunity to gossip and laugh and tweet together, a chance to get together with some good friends IRL (in real life!).

So congratulations to the organizers of the Silicon Valley Moms Blog Holiday party -- Jill, Beth, Tekla, Akemi and Linsey -- you got the swag part of the party right, along with the rest of the party!


Credits: All photos in this post were taken by Carla Duharte Razura. When I saw Carla that night with her camera I put mine away, knowing she'd get better photos of the event than I ever could. Thanks, Carla for putting the Bongga in Bonggamom that night! For more of Carla's exquisite photographs, head over to her website at babyjidesign.com, and head over to our party Flickr page for more of Carla's photos of the SV Moms Holiday Party.

Disclaimer: I did receive lots of swag (which I will write more about on my review blog, Bonggamom Finds) at the party, which I am enjoying very much, thank you, but I was not required to write this post. I didn't even have time to eat the free food.

Living in a mixed-race world

Last week Alfie sent me an article that made my blood boil. Just think -- if Alfie and I had applied for a marriage license in Lousiana instead of Nevada, we might have gotten stuck with that asswipe, he'd have refused to marry us and we'd still be living together in sin. Thank goodness Elvis is a much more tolerant justice of the peace. And thank goodness the Bay Area isn't like that. It's sad to think that he would deny us marriage because he's taking pity on our three beautiful, intelligent, confident children. And he dares to think he isn't racist.

Photo courtesy of Erinleigh Photography (and BTW Erin's own beautiful daughter is half-Korean!)

Click here to read my Silicon Valley Moms Blog post about Keith Bardell-- and feel free to leave a comment to add your two cents to the discussion!

Not Having a Baby Changes Everything

Today is the Silicon Valley Moms book club discussion day for October, and all I can think about are babies.   Every day I see dozens of babies in strollers when I drop the kids off at school; they're looking particularly adorable these days, all swaddled up in thick coats and hats to protect them from the wind and the rain.  I paid special attention to babies today because my brother and his wife are going into the hospital today to deliver their first baby via C-section.  She's got placenta previa, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything is going to be alright.  They live all the way in far-off Bahrain, which I know next to nothing about, so I have to keep warding off all kinds of stereotypes about the state of development in that part of the world.  I'm pretty sure Bahrain is as modern as Dubai, and if celebrities like George Clooney and Matt Damon can vacation in Dubai, they must have great hospitals that give world-class care.  Still, I think I'll breathe a lot easier once that baby is out of her mama's tummy and all her fingers and toes have been counted.

So what do babies have to do with this book club?  Actually, babies figure prominently in October's book, This is Where I Leave You.   The main character's marriage really begins to unravel following a tragic, late-term miscarriage.  This happened to a friend of ours; at about 30 weeks, his wife went to a prenatal appointment and discovered that the baby's heart had stopped beating.  I remember driving him to the hospital from work and how awful it all was.  A year later, the wife became pregnant again; now they have two healthy boys, and although they mourn their little daughter's passing, they've moved forward and life is good.

Of course, things could easily have gone the other way, as it did in this book.  The tragedy is compounded because at precisely the time a couple should be able to lean on each other and become closer, the couple in the book, Judd and Jen,  drifted apart.   But I can see how that could happen.  In a few of my more paranoid-morbid moments, I've wondered about what Alfie and I would do if, God forbid, anything happened to our children and we were left with just each other.  In a situation like that, it would be all too easy for each of us to retreat into our own shells.  I don't know if I would have the strength to go on living, let alone keep my marriage going.    Would we go the same path as John and Louise?  Or Judd and Jen?

You know that saying, Having a Baby Changes Everything?  Well, not having a baby can also change everything. 

But enough depressing thoughts.  I'm going to be an aunt today, and I'm counting my blessings.

Even kids can Do One Nice Thing

Last week I put my on my repressed little kid artist hat and painted some faces for a good cause. A good friend of The Pea and her mother have put together a wonderful program for residents of a nearby homeless shelter. This kid is a smart and compassionate little cookie, and she realizes that not every child gets to have a fancy birthday party with clowns and cupcakes. So she and her mother organized a Birthday Club where they invite friends to host birthday parties each month for kids at the shelter. Hosts provide cupcakes and pizza and tableware and decorations, and they take donations of gently used books so that each birthday child gets a nicely wrapped book as a present.

When I heard about this program, I knew I wanted to participate. When I was little and my birthday rolled around, my parents would always take us to the local orphanage to distribute ice cream cones to the children, and I always thought it was a wonderful way to teach children that blessings can be shared. I saw this as the perfect way to continue the tradition with my own children -- but quite honestly, we don't have the money to be hosting this kind of thing. So I offered to attend the party and paint children's faces, because I know every kid loves to have their face painted, and even though we don't have as much money as the people living around us, I can still contribute my time and talents and set an example of community service to my kids.

I have to say, I was delighted to find that the party -- and the face painting -- was a huge success. My table was mobbed! I stayed way past the party end time because there were still children asking to have their faces painted. I even painted the faces of some of the children of the party hosts. The children were all so excited, from the moment they began leafing through my books of designs, to sitting still (well, not so still) while I painted their face, to looking in the mirror and seeing the designs on their faces for the very first time. It was wonderful to see, and I was happy to be a part of such a special event. And I was happy that my kids were seeing me and the other moms doing something nice for other kids.

But believe it or not, even though this post is almost over and I've been blathering about myself, this post is not about the One Nice Thing that I did. Almost an hour after I was scheduled to finish up, I finally packed my painting kit up and called my kids to come with me and head for the car. When Jammy, who had been playing soccer with the other kids, heard that we were going home, his face crumpled.

Me: What's wrong, honey? It's really late, and we have to go home!

Jammy: But I don't want to go home yet! I want you to paint my face!

Me: I didn't know you wanted me to paint your face. You should have lined up, just like all the other kids.

Jammy (now crying in earnest): But I wanted to let all the kids who've never had their faces painted go first. I kept looking over to where you were and you were always painting someone else's face.

Me: Honey, I'm really sorry, but it's going to be your bedtime soon, and we have to go.

Jammy (wails): But I wanted my face painted!

Me (holding Jammy close and whispering): That was a very nice thing you did, letting everyone else go first, and I'm sorry I don't have enough time to paint your face today. But you know, Jammy, I can paint your face anytime. These children don't get very many chances to have their faces painted, and so today is for them.

Jammy (after a pause, sniffling and holding back a sob): Okay, mama, you can paint my face some other time.


I'm so proud of my son.


This post was inspired by Debbie Tenzer's Do One Nice Thing, September's choice for the Silicon Valley Moms book club. Click here to see other posts inspired by the book.

Behind the Scenes from A Byte out of Life

The Silicon Valley Moms Group and Yahoo! Video have come up with another Byte out of Life segment. This week's topic is all about Who's Following You on Twitter. It's a hilarious video featuring two of my favorite SV Mom bloggers, Jane and Beth. They look so natural on camera!

Speaking of natural, as you know from my recent Office Max experience, when it comes to the camera, nothing is as it seems. Watching this latest video reminded of me of the one I filmed with Linda and Akemi about twins and kindergarten (it debuted last week; you can still watch it here on A Byte Out of Life). I never did get around to doing posting on that here (I did do a post about it on Bonggamom Finds), so I thought I'd take a cue from my Office Max posts and give everyone a Byte of Out of Life, Behind the Camera.

First up, here's Sheila, Linsey and Myrna dishing up about kids and technology on another Byte out of Life video. When I saw how pretty they looked, I immediately wished I had put on anything other than my pair of jeans (Yes, they are my best pair, but they're still jeans. Oh well, I am a mom and that's what moms wear). They taped their segment immediately before we taped ours, so I was able to catch them on the set. Except in this case, we didn't have an actual set. We filmed at SV Mom co-founder Jill's mother's house, which is so beautiful, indoors and out, that nothing needed to be added to make it camera-ready.

I mean, come on, just look at that bougainvillea! It's like a team of gardeners worked for weeks to get it blooming just in time for the taping. The pink flowers make the perfect accent to the stucco arch, and the perfect frame for Akemi's lovely face.

Just like with Office Max, we didn't have a formal script, but we each had our own talking points and we more or less knew what we were going to say. Occasionally we had to do a retake because we flubbed our lines, or our mikes needed readjusting, or we had to cut taping while a plane flew overhead, but on the whole things moved pretty smoothly.

The series is produced by The Go-To Mom, Kimberley Clayton Blaine, who's an SV Mom herself. Here she is holding up something that looks like a car sunshade (I'm sure anyone who's into photography will have a more technical name for it) to diffuse the afternoon sunshine.

Our final segment was completely impromptu; Kimberly had us talk about anything and everything we wanted. We ended up talking about "twin skin", of all things. That's the bit of loose skin that hangs over our bellybutton -- a souvenir from our twin pregnancy that will never ever go away. Jill took this cute photo of the three of us and posted it on Twitpic. We all look great, especially since our twin skin isn't showing at all. It was a great experience and I feel really lucky that I was selected to be a part of it!

Birth Story, Part Two (and Three)

Reading Mark Sloan's wonderful book, Birth Day (this month's pick for the SV Moms Book Club)reminded me that I still haven't gotten around to writing out 3Po and Jammy's birth story. That's the curse of the younger child, I suppose; I remember giving birth to The Pea in great detail because she was the first, and it was such a life-transforming experience. In my defense, I only posted The Pea's birth story when she turned 6, so I'm actually ahead in posting this second -- and third -- birth story.

I have to admit that my memories are much hazier with my second labor and delivery. Thank goodness I wrote down some brief notes in the boys' baby books, so I do have a timeline:

December 30, 2003
09:00 AM-- Admitted to the hospital for induction of labor. I was 2 cm dilated.
10:00 AM-- Rupture of waters. I was put on a pitocin drip.
01:20 PM-- 3 cm dilated.
02:15 PM-- 4 cm dilated, epidural administered.
03:15 PM-- 5 cm dilated.
04:30 PM-- 10 cm dilated. I was wheeled into an operating room for the delivery.
05:25 PM-- Baby A (Jammy) arrives.
05:45 PM-- Baby B (3Po) arrives.

Beyond that, I have a bag of memories interspersed through different points in that timeline. First and foremost was the impression of how different this labor and delivery was from my first one. I didn't particularly enjoy my first pregnancy, but the were so many other factors. I was exhausted, working full time with a toddler at home and a husband out of work. There were the inherent added risk of a multiple pregnancy and the prospect of premature delivery. And there was the scare of a series of abnormal ultrasounds (that's the subject for another post) and worried of how we would cope with twin boys. So we checked into the hospital for our scheduled induction already pretty exhausted from the last 38 weeks.

With all that, I'm so happy that everything went so much quicker this time around -- 8 hours instead of 27! The labor part was so much more pleasant. Uneventful, even. I basically sat or laid in bed and waited, and as soon as my labor pains started getting bad, they got the epidural in. The decision to have an epidural was an easy one; I decided not to use up my strength getting through labor and save it for all the future sleepless nights. With the pitocin drip and all those fetal monitors strapped to me, it sure wasn't going to be a natural birth anyway. I do remember feeling slightly sad at having to be hooked up to so many machines and having to lie flat on my back, like a sick patient instead of a laboring woman, but I felt it was what I had to do to make sure that my babies were born healthy.

Once I was fully dilated, I was wheeled to an operating room instead of having the delivery right in my room. Instead of just a doctor and nurse, there was a whole team of medical professionals assembled: three labor and delivery nurses, the anethesiologist, two neonatal nurses, and the obstetrician. By the way, that's Alfie in the photo, not the obstetrician. Again, the high-risk twin thing; once Baby A is born, there's no telling what Baby B will do with all that newfound space. Baby B could have suddenly turned breech, or gone into distress halfway thru Baby A's delivery, or whatever. All the extra precautions were there to make sure they could perform an emergency C-section to deliver one or both babies. It's not uncommon; in fact, I'm the only twin mom I know who delivered both babies vaginally.

Looking at that timeline, I'm amazed that there was a whole hour between entering the operating room and actually delivering Jammy. Time seemed to go by so quickly. I remember feeling silly being asked to bear down and push, because that epidural had really deadened me below the waist. I remember lifting my leg with my hands and watching it flop down uselessly. I kept pinching my thigh but couldn't feel a thing. They must not have used as much anesthetic with The Pea, because I could move and feel my legs (and let me tell you, I felt the Pea travelling each and every one of those last few inches of my birth canal, down to the crowning and the tearing). I just pretended I needed to poop, and lo and behold, Jammy came out after 3 pushes.

One down, one to go. 3Po took his sweet time and eventually had to be coaxed out with a vacuum extractor. He came out twenty minutes later, and just like that, we were a family of five.

Isn't it weird how different they looked at birth? 3Po (on the left) was rosy and plump at 7 lb. 5 oz., with very light, wispy brown hair. Jammy (on the right) was tiny (6 lbs. 10 oz.) and wrinkled and pale, with very dark, tufty hair (we nicknamed him Gollum in his first three weeks of life). We thought the ultrasound technicians must have made a mistake when they said these were identical twins.


*Warning*!! Scroll down at your own risk -- the photo you are about to see is Yuccky with a capital Y. If it totally grosses you out and convinces you never to return to this blog again, well, just be glad I didn't post the close-up.







Sorry, guys. It isn't a birth story unless you've got a disgusting birth photo. Alfie took this photo of the placenta while our obstetrician was checking it to confirm zygosity. The boys did share a single placenta, which made it almost certain they were monozygotic (identical), despite the difference in size and appearance. And we did a DNA test later on, which confirmed it.
(On a side note, upon checking the placenta, our obstetrician realized that Jammy's umbilical cord had been attached to the fetal membrane rather than to the placenta itself, which is supposedly a risky thing. I'm sure Mark Sloan, the author of Birth Day, could explain in his clear, humorous way what exactly a fetal membrane is, and why the umbilical cord shouldn't be attaching itself to it, but I like to think of Jammy hanging on by his fingernails for 38 weeks. Maybe that's why Jammy ended up so much smaller and shivelled-looking than 3Po).


Of course, three months later, we realized we could have saved ourselves the $150 for the DNA test. As countless relatives, friends and strangers will attest, they are identical. In fact, to this day I have no idea which boy is which in the photo below.


And I'm happy to say that their looks have improved somewhat in the five years since.


When I look at them today, so robust and healthy, I feel truly blessed that everything went so smoothly and we ended up with two happy, healthy boys. They have truly completed our family and I couldn't imagine life without them.



Click here to read more posts inspired by Birth Day.

Living My Life... Sort Of

Next week I'm leaving Alfie and the kids to go on a business trip. Okay, it's not actually a business trip. I'll be learning and networking and partying at the BlogHer '09 conference in Chicago. But the longest I've been away from my family prior to this was just one night; this time, I'm gone from Wednesday night till Sunday morning. It's going to be just Alfie and the kids, at home together for three days and four nights. He's going to get his first chance to live my life and see what it's like being a stay-at-home parent.

We're pretty lucky that Alfie can work from home whenever he wants to. It's a lifesaver (and moneysaver) when I have to run a solo errand or have a blogging event or a doctor's appointment. But Alfie is the most honest chap I know, and he's careful not to slack off when he works from home (other than occasionally taking a long lunch with me or taking a couple of hours to watch a soccer game, but people do that in the office anyway, and he makes up for it in the evenings). So we've always told the kids to pretend he's still at the office, so he can get work done. Other than leaving the kids playing downstairs and Alfie working upstairs for an hour or so to run said errands, we carry on with our day almost as if Alfie isn't at home.

Which means next week -- working from home and taking care of the kids -- is going to be a bit of a challenge for him, as it would for anyone -- single parents who work from home, I don't know how you do it!

So I'm preparing for my departure with all the deliberation of a general planning an invasion (or in my case, withdrawal). I deliberately avoided scheduling any camps or classes for the time that I'm gone so Alfie wouldn't have to deal with the dropoffs and pickups. I've got some at-home activities and crafts lined up so the kids don't or whine for daddy to take them to the park. I'm considering offering a small bribe reward if they make it to Sunday without any major arguments that Alfie has to mediate. I'm making and freezing a couple of dinner casseroles, and writing up a lunch and dinner menu so he won't have to think about what to feed them (or himself). I'm stocking up the fridge and pantry with food so he won't have to go shopping. I'll probably stay up late on Tuesday night giving the bathroom an extra swipe, and doing laundry so I won't have a huge pile to greet me when I get back on Sunday morning.

Uh, so maybe he won't be living my life exactly. More like a stay-at-home parent who works from home with a full time job but has a great personal assistant, housekeeper and child-activities coordinator.

I'm beyond grateful to Alfie for stepping up and making it possible for me to attend the BlogHer conference -- so of course I want to streamline next week as much as I can for him. But he'd better not say "That wasn't so bad -- you've got it easy!" when I come back on Sunday!

This post was inspired by What Happened to the Girl I Married by Michael Miller, July's featured book on the Silicon Valley Moms Blog book club. Click here to read how this post inspired our other mombloggers.

Wassup for Fall -- A Disney Electronics Sneak Peek

As a blogger, I've been invited by various PR firms to various events, and to tell you the truth, it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes one event memorable and another event forgettable. Sometimes it's the chance to meet some heroes, both real and fantasy. Sometimes it's the awesome food. Or Swag-to-Die-For. And sometimes, all it takes is the chance to say I Saw It First.

Last week I was invited by Disney Consumer Products to get a sneak peek at their lineup of kid tech products coming out in the fall. I joined fellow SV Moms Linsey, Jessica and Nicole for our own private product demo by Thom Richmond, Disney's Director of Consumer Products.

All the toys and gadgets Thom showed us would easily make it on any kid's 2009 holiday wish list, like Mix Lights MP3 player that lights up to the beat of the music, or the Disney Pix Twist, a kid-friendly digital camera with a viewfinder that they can twist around to take pictures of themselves. And it's quite possible that the Ultimate Buzz Lightyear Robot -- with programmable actions, voice recognition, interactive game play, and the coolest animatronic moving mouth ever -- might be the Tickle Me Elmo of 2009.


But the crown jewel of Thom's demo was the Disney Netpal, a full-functioning, Windows-based netbook made exclusively for Disney and marketed to 6-12 year olds. Disney's Consumer Products has really leveraged Disney's knowledge of what kids enjoy, and added in some cool parental controls to make it fun, safe, and easy to use. In fact, the Netpal is loaded with so many features that it deserves a post of its own (so watch out for a separate review sometime this summer on Bonggamom Finds).

The event was simple and low key, but it was so exciting to be shown products that aren't even on the shelves yet. Even occasional glitches during the product demo didn't detract from my positive impression of the products because they just added to the sense that we were true Disney Insiders ("Sorry, that doesn't work quite well yet, it's still in beta but we'll fix that for the final version"). Yes, probably with the other bajillion or so reporters they've given sneak peeks to at trade shows and other demos like this one, but it was a nice feeling anyway. And it sure doesn't hurt with the "Moms Know Everything" mystique -- because now I know what my kids are going to whine for even before they do.

Temptation

It all happened because I wanted.

For months we had flirted. At first was lighthearted, fun, mischievous. We were both in other relationships anyway. Along the way we became friends, and I discovered the perfect companion, debating partner, kindred soul. And I discovered he was single. But he was all wrong for me. And I had a boyfriend.

One night I finally agreed to have dinner with him. No big deal, we're just getting something to eat after work. It's just a dinner between two work colleagues, I told myself. Then he reached over the Chicken Masala and held my hand. Electric sparks shot through me. I didn't admit it to myself, but deep down inside, I wanted. We paid our separate checks and went our separate ways.

I was lonely and I wanted.

No, that's not true. I wasn't lonely. But still I wanted.

Another night we stayed in the office, working late. We ended up talking about this and that until everyone else had gone. It was just him, me and the janitor. Over the hum of the vacuum cleaner, he said, I'd really like to kiss you right now. This time, I admitted it. I wanted. I told him, so would I. But we didn't.

It was obscene, that wanting.

Then we walked out into the parking lot. We went to our separate cars. We looked at each other from across the parking lot. And he walked back to me. I just stood and stared. Again, the electricity. It was as though we were already kissing.

Until we actually did start kissing -- and then the sparks really flew. It was one of the best kisses of my life. I broke up with my boyfriend the next day, and the rest is history.


Italicized text was taken from Anita Shreve's novel, Testimony -- which chronicles one character's moment of temptation, one with much more tragic results than my own. Click here to see what other members of the Silicon Valley Moms Book Club have been inspired to write after reading the novel.

A Day of Science, Fun and Eco-Discoveries wtih Bill Nye the Science Guy

With the schoolyear just about wrapped up and summer around the corner, our weekends seem to be getting crammed with festivals, recitals, lessons, and last-day-of-this-and-that-session-parties. But when you've got the chance -- thanks to the Silicon Valley Moms Blog and the Activeion Cleaning Solutions company -- to visit San Jose's Tech Museum, watch an IMAX movie and meet Bill Nye the Science Guy all in the same day, you find a way to make room in your schedule for it. And all those other events? Insignificant little blips on the calendar that can be rescheduled or forgotten.
After all, who can pass up the chance to meet Bill Nye? Not my kids. It's a scientifically proven fact that kids love Bill Nye. He's On TV. He's funny. He wears a cute bow tie and lab coat. He does cool experiments. Only Bill Nye can make a topic as mundane as housecleaning and soap seem interesting (do you know that if you rub some soap on the edge of a small sliver of wood and place it in water, it'll take off like it was a motorboat? It has something to do with surface tension.). He's the perfect person to lead our budding scientists in some fun science experiments. And only Bill Nye can explain the science behind a product without turning it into a product plug.


The second reason why the event didn't feel like a product plug is that the product in question -- Activeion, a chemical-free, eco-friendly cleaning system -- is actually so cool that I'd still be interested in it even if Bill Nye hadn't been the one to explain to us how it works. Would you believe that they've found a way to make ordinary tap water behave like a cleaning solution? To put it simply, they introduce a tiny electric charge into the water so that dirt and germs attach themselves to the water in the same way that they would attach themselves to soap or detergent.

It's the kind of thing you have to see to believe, so Activeion generously gave each of the SV Mom bloggers that attended an activeion spray bottle to take home. Yup, far-out science has entered my cleaning closet! We tried it out and it looks like a winner -- stay tuned for a review of Activeion on Bonggamom Finds, including a video of Jammy spraying some of activeion's cleaning solution, aka tap water, straight into his mouth.



The fun didn't stop, even after we posed for photos with Bill and reconnected with fellow SV Mom bloggers over lunch. The whole afternoon was devoted to the science of fun as we explored the rest of the San Jose Tech Museum. I came close to tossing the contents of my stomach into Jammy's lap after just 15 minutes of watching astronauts and starts spinning around in space at the IMAX movie. They say the large-screen, surround-sound IMAX experience might be too intense for toddlers, but it looked like all the little kids in the theater were fine; any screams of terror were drowned out by my nausea-induced moans.

Nausea aside, we all enjoyed our first visit to the Tech Museum. I had always heard that this museum was best suited for older kids, so I was pleasantly surprised at how many exhibits could hold the attention of toddlers and preschoolers. I especially loved the exhibits that we could access at home later on, using the barcode on our museum tickets, like this thermal family photograph....

.... and this photo of us voicing our views on transplanting pigs' organs into humans. It's nothing that we couldn't have done at home using the simplest photo editing software, but it's so much more fun when you're doing it at the museum.


Thanks to Activeion and the Silicon Valley Moms blog for making it all happen!

Wordless Wednesday: Maddie

There are truly no words when it comes to the loss of a beautiful child. Heather and Mike, we are all grieving for you. Sweet angel Maddie, you are already making such a big difference in this world because people from all over will be marching and working to help give babies like you a chance.

for more Wordless Wednesday, click here.

In which I freak out about Natasha Richardson's death and kill my kids' ski dreams

Look ma, no helmet!

Everyone's talking about Natasha Richardson's death. What a tragic accident! When you think of skiing accidents, you think of black diamond skiers who run into trees, or fall off cliffs. Who would have thought that a beginner taking a lesson on a beginner's slope could fall hard enough to sustain a fatal injury? Wham! You fall, and Wham! You're dead. Poor Liam Neeson. I feel so awful for him and all her family.

Freaky, that's what it is. And for someone like me, it's especially freaky. And by someone like me, I mean someone who's always wanted to take up skiing but has always been a bit nervous, and someone whose kids enjoyed it on their first try and really really want to do more of it.

Read more of my fears about taking up snow sports here, on my Silicon Valley Moms Blog post -- and please, share your advice!!

Am I a White Trash Mom?

Recently I read the White Trash Mom Handbook, a witty, feel-good, perspective on motherhood written along the lines of Erma Bombeck. Even before I finished chapter one, I could see that the book rails against the unrealistic standards of perfection for moms.

But.... but.....I'm a Type A personality. I like to set the bar high. In fact, that's why I named my blog Finding Bonggamom -- because I'm looking for that bit of Bette Midler, Nicole Kidman and Martha Stewart that exists in all moms. Does that mean I'm striving to be..... gasp! -- a Muffia? A mean, snobby sanctimommy who looks down at people who don't meet some unrealistic standard of perfection?

No, no, no! I had to take the White Trash Mom Quiz in chapter 2. As I suspected, like so many other moms who follow the author's blog, I can totally relate to being a White Trash Mom. For example:

* My kids do think Velveeta is cheese -- along with Cheez Whiz and cheese in a can.
* My kids read People magainze more than oce a year.
* I feign ignorance when my husband points out rips in my jeans (even though I first noticed them two years ago). Ditto on stains.
* I sent the Pea to school without lunch twice in a single week.
* I've forgotten to pick up my kid from school several times (and I'm frequently the last mom there)

And to my delight, on page 21 I found: "WT Moms still hold on to a flicker of that light they had before they had kids. They can still laugh about some of the same things, still remember who they were before they were mothers........ you can't let the kids take over your life and personality".

That is exactly what being a Bongga Mom is about! It's not about being the perfect Martha Stewart, it's about having her creativity and her fighting spirit. It's about being a mom, but keeping that glam, fab, spark -- the outrageousness of Bette Midler, the elegance of Nicole Kidman -- in you.

Yes, I want to be a Bongga Mom, but I'm happy and proud to be a White Trash Mom. Yes, I do wish my house looked like a Real Simple magazine feature spread. And every day you'll find me on my hands and knees picking up crud from the kitchen floor (before my son eats it first), trying to get it that way. But I know it never will, because I have 3 lovable kids who mess up the floor as fast as I can clean it, and I'm not going to beat myself up about it.

So.... are you a White Trash Mom too?

Written by a fellow SV Mom, Michelle Lamar, The White Trash Mom Handbook reminds us all that perfection is a myth and moms everywhere should go a bit easier on themselves. For more info on the White Trash Mom, head on over to the SV Moms Book Club discussion, or read my review over at Bonggamom Finds.

Swag, Glorious Swag

Swag .... according to my fellow blogger Heather, the word is an acronym that stands for Sealed With A Gift. According to Promosapien, it stands for Stuff We All Get. Also known as schwag (which apparently is also a term for low-grade marijuana), promotional items or tchotchkes, it's basically free stuff that company marketing departments send to people to increase awareness of their product or service.

In my case, Swag stands for "Seriously Wicked, Amazing Gifts". And "SVMoms, With (undying) Adoration and Gratitude".

Because I have the Silicon Valley Moms Blog (and PR genius MJ in particular) to thank for all the wonderful swag I received to celebrate BlogHer '08. I love freebies of any sort, so these swag bags are making me pee in my panties. These are high-quality items that hardly deserve the label tchotchke. You won't find me tossing this stuff into the trash. And there is so much stuff that I can actually classify it.

Click here for a closer look at the SV Moms Swag Bag.