Missing: Teen Brains

Part of my job as social media manager for a diabetes nonprofit is to attend and recap educational events featuring medical professionals or other experts on diabetes. Most of the time the information shared is relevant only to people with type 1 diabetes, but many times I come home with pearls of wisdom that apply to anyone.

My latest a-ha moment came during a talk by a clinical psychologist who works with teens with type 1 diabetes. He was talking about getting teens to manage their condition more diligently. He said that teens are pretty much developmentally incapable of thinking about the long-term health consequences of diabetes because part of their brain is missing. That prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that deals with executive function, attention, is not yet fully developed in teens. It won't fully develop until their mid-20’s, and even mid-30’s.

Ten Tips for Surviving Braces

The start of a perfect smile

3Po and Jammy have begun a rite of passage affecting teens and tweens all over the world. No, I'm not talking about their first crush (already happened). I'm not talking about smoking (never going to happen). I'm talking about braces. For the next 18-24 months they'll be visiting the orthodontist, craving popcorn, and slowly but surely, developing a killer smile. It's going to suck, and at times it's going to really suck, but the results will be worth it. I know, because I had braces myself.

Why we travel with our kids (even if they don't remember any of it)

One of our winter break highlights was a family trip to Vegas with Alfie's parents. With teens, tweens, and pensioners coming along, there were no strip clubs, poker, or night clubs on the itinerary, but we had a fabulous time anyway -- Vegas is amazing like that! My in-laws renewed their wedding vows, celebrating their 61st wedding anniversary in the same chapel that they celebrated their 51st anniversary 10 years ago. We also had a great time reintroducing the kids to the lavish hotel displays, decadent buffets, and spectacular shows.

I say "reintroducing the kids" because this is actually the boys' third trip to Vegas, and The Pea's fourth. Our last family trip to Vegas was in 2008, when they were ages 7, 4, and 4. They only remember flashes of that trip, and nothing of the previous trips, so it was like they were seeing Vegas for the first time.

A letter to the parents of the losing soccer team

To the parents of the opposing team,

My sons' soccer team played your sons' soccer team today. It's a game that you might not want to remember, because the score was 12-0.  The gap would have been wider, but our team's coach instructed our players to stop scoring. Possession was 90%-10% in our favor, and 90% of the match was played in your half of the pitch. To put it bluntly, it was a thrashing.

Parenting Advice for parents of grade school kids, from a 5th grade graduating parent

In less than three months, my oldest will be graduating from middle school, and my youngest will be graduating from grade school.  It's the end of an era.  My kids are growing up.

Even scarier is the speed at which everything happened. Those nine years seem to have gone by so quickly, and the four years I have left till The Pea graduates high school will pass even more quickly. It will go by in the blink of an eye, and I'm actually starting to panic.

Aliens have taken over my teen... but she's fighting back

A friend once told me that parenting during the teenage years goes so much easier if parents remember that an alien has taken over their teen.  Eventually the real person will emerge, but when faced with eye-rolling, inattention, attitude, rebellion, or worse, just take a deep breath and keep telling yourself, It's Not My Daughter, It's An Alien. 

So You Athletes Think You Can Dance? Yes, We Can!

When friends and family think of my sons, the first words that come to mind are probably: Identical. Twins. Soccer. Tough. Solid. Maybe Cello and Videogames and Drawing and Athletic. Maybe Dark Haired. I would add Handsome and Brilliant and Imaginative and Loving and a million other complimentary adjectives that make it obvious I'm their parent.

Halloween Costume Watch 2014: Bank Robber

Whew! The Pea's bank robber costume came right down to the wire: I came downstairs today at 7AM and found her furiously making black masks.  I told her there was no way she would be able to make it to school on time without my help at this point, so why didn't she ask for help sooner.  She said she didn't want to stress me out.  Like cutting out felt masks when I'm supposed to be doing a million other things isn't stressful!  Sigh. Kids. I do appreciate her thoughtfulness, though.

The Pea is certainly spreading her wings.  This year, she and her bank robber posse are trick or treating by themselves, without an adult.  The idea freaked me out at first -- four thirteen year-olds, on the craziest night of the year, all by themselves!!  But I consulted my Facebook posse and almost all of them said it would be okay.  And when I think about it, they're right.  The Pea and her friends are good kids, very responsible, not flighty at all.  As long as we set the appropriate boundaries (location and time wise), and ask them to check in every now and then (thank God for mobile phones!), everything will be fine.  I know they'll be fine.  I'm just not sure about me!  But I'm going to be like Elsa and LET IT GO......

Must-have items to take with you while Trick-or-Treating

Costumes? Check. Trick or treat bag? Check.  House keys? Check.  Phone? Check.  You may think you're all ready to go out trick or treating, but consider this: you're going out walking, in the dark, with a group of excited kids who are likely to consume large amounts of candy and get even more hyperactive.  Unless you want the evening to dissolve into tears and tantrums (or an early abandonment of your trick-or-treat plans), you'll want to bring a lot more than that.

This is our 14th year of taking a child trick-or-treating on Halloween night, and over the years, I've amassed a must-have list of items to have with me.  Here's my list of items to pack in your Halloween night purse to make trick-or-treating less stressful and more fun:

How to make the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge more meaningful to your child

When I first heard of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, my initial reaction was one of distaste.  I'm all for raising awareness for causes you care about, but I didn't like the "hey look at me, I'm so cool" part, and I didn't like the "take the challenge or donate" part.  It seemed like a case of empty actions -- if you don't donate, all you have to do is pour a bucket of ice water over your head, and you feel good about yourself because you think you've done something to help the cause?  Instead of buying a bag of ice, why not donate that money to ALS research?  Here in California, we have another issue -- we're in a severe drought, so it's a waste of water.

First Day of School, and the Beginning of the End

Today is the first day of the schoolyear, and I'm feeling all nostalgic.  See, it's 3Po's and Jammy's first day of 5th grade, and The Pea's first day of 8th grade.  Next year they'll be moving on to middle school and high school.  That means it's our last year at the elementary school that we've been going to since 2006, when The Pea first entered kindergarten.

A Mother's Day poem

You are the best mom in the world,

So you are the queen.

If I did not have you as a mom,

I don't know what I could have been!

You are so awesome, you have two jobs,

One job you give us toys and the other makes little kids not sob!

Every day you walk me to school,

All of this is why your (sic) so cool!

Happy Mother's Day!

                                                  -- a poem by Jammy

It doesn't get any better than this.  Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

Exploring STEM careers at the Expanding Your Horizons conference

A few weeks ago I wrote about ways to get girls interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers, and I wrote about how I was keen to make sure that The Pea realizes how many opportunities there are in those fields, should she choose to pursue them.  She loves math, and she thinks she wants to work in a field related to math -- but she says science and engineering are boring. I've tried to tell her that she'll have more than her share of math if she decides to pursue an engineering degree, but she just doesn't believe me because she says her science classes don't use math at all (ahh, the arrogance of youth).

Well, if she won't listen to me, I'm hoping she might listen to other women who have pursued STEM careers.  That's why I signed us up for Expanding Your Horizons, a 1-day conference designed to introduce girls in grades 5-8 to STEM careers.  EYH holds conferences all around the country; the one we attended was held at UC Berkeley this past weekend.  The conference consists of a series of workshops run by volunteers .   Each workshop is related to a specific STEM field, and the volunteers are all professionals in that field. (Check out the full list of EYH 2014 workshops at the bottom of this post!  I copied them all down from the workshop descriptions page on the Berkeley EYH, just in case they take the page down to make way for descriptions of the 2015 workshops).  Girls who attend the workshop get to choose 3 sessions to attend.  Parents can also register for separate workshops.  The cost for girls was just $15, and the parent workshops are free.  EYH is a very popular conference. It fills up quickly, so I signed The Pea up as soon as registration opened.

How to encourage girls to pursue STEM careers

This is a sponsored post

I grew up thinking I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up.  After all, my dad was a doctor, and I was a good student like he was, so of course I wanted to follow in his footsteps!  I was in my senior year of high school before I realized I actually didn't want to be a doctor.  In my junior and senior year of high school, I realized the subject I loved the most was math. I loved how all those quadratic equations and trigonometric expressions lined up so neatly, and I was good at getting them to line up!  I decided to pursue an Industrial Engineering degree, and before my first year was over, I knew I had made the right decision.  Engineering engaged and challenged me, and I loved knowing that I could be helping make the world a better place by solving problems and applying the equations and principles I was learning.

Throughout my decision making process and throughout my college years, my gender was never a factor. Maybe it's because I went to an all-girls' high school.  Maybe it's because I was a good student.  Maybe it's because the females in my family have always been somewhat dominant. Maybe it's because the Philippines is a matriarchal society.  Maybe it's all of those reasons.  Whatever the reason, it never occurred to me that I couldn't be an engineer, or that I wouldn't do as well as the guys.  The females at the college of engineering were definitely in the minority, but we were always the best students.  So when I came to the US, the gender gap in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers was not so surprising -- but the attitude towards girls pursuing STEM careers was.

How to fail at Valentine's Day class valentines

Last year, I scored big points with 3Po and Jammy by making awesome homemade Valentine's Day cards for their classmates.  They received lots of compliments on their Rocky Road Valentines and Yoda Valentines, and I quietly smugly added another notch to my Awesome Mom Cap.  I even took the time to take pretty photos and post instructions and downloadable printables (adding another notch to my Awesome Blogger Cap).

The year my sons fell in love with reading

“Reading one book is like eating one potato chip.” -- Diane Duane

You can't stop at just one.  Unless you don't really care for potato chips.  Strange as it may seem, there are people in this world who don't like potato chips.  Or maybe they just haven't found the right flavor....

My kid got the honors... but our car won't be getting a bumper sticker

Last week we received some exciting news:  The Pea has made the Honor Roll for the first semester of 6th grade!  Truth be told, we have no idea what being on the Honor Roll signifies: whether only the top 1 or 5 or 10 percent of students get it, or whether everyone with an A or A+ or B+ grade average gets it.  "Honor Roll" definitely has an air of distinction about it, but then again, in this day and age where just completing all your homework for a week can earn a kid a certificate, or just entering a tournament can earn him a medal, it's hard to tell whether this award really means something.  On the other hand, The Pea is a pretty good student, and she has been bringing home mostly perfect scores on assignments.  One of these days I'll get around to asking a teacher exactly what it means, but for now we are assuming it is a Big Deal, and acting accordingly.

As a reward for her accomplishment, we ate out last weekend and The Pea got to choose the restaurant, and we're giving her some money to get her a bit closer to that iPhone she's desperately saving up for.  Apparently that is not enough:  she wants us to get The Bumper Sticker.  You know, the one that says "Proud Parent of an Honor Student at XXX Middle School" or "My kid is an honor student at XXX Middle School".

Hmmm.......um.... maybe we should tone the celebrations down?

Happy (Minimalist) Easter!

All day I've been enjoying cute Easter photos of my kids' friends on Facebook -- cuties dressed in adorable pastel outfits, showing off their Easter baskets, hunting for eggs, posing with the Easter Bunny (Doesn't anyone make a CUTE Easter Bunny costume?  They all look kind of freaky!).  Unfortunately, I don't have any cute Easter photos of my own to share.  The last time attended an Easter brunch or egg hunt was 2 or 3 years ago, and it has been even longer than that since we've seen the Easter bunny.

This year even Easter eggs have fallen by the wayside. The kids received just one Cadbury's Creme Egg apiece (two if you count the eggs I bought a couple of days ago).  After Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day, I didn't really want to celebrate with more sugar.  In past years I've filled their Easter baskets with little toys like Lego or Playmobil, but the thought of introducing more toys, stuffed animals and plastic junk to the household made me want to hop away.  So I took what I would have spent on candy and toys, bought iTunes and Google Play Store gift cards, and put those in the plastic eggs.  It's not that I'm trying to be a better parent by doing away with the candy and toys; after all, it just encourages them to buy their noses in apps and videogames.  It's just that Easter is evolving as the kids grow up.

But in  case you're nostalgic for a more traditional Easter, here are a few Easter memories as sweet as a basketful of chocolate bunnies:

What's for lunch? And how much is too much?

 California rolls, dried pineapple, Girl Scout Thin Mints

A reader left a comment on one of my "What's for Lunch" posts that left me thinking.  She had the opinion that I wasn't packing enough lunch to fill my kids up.  She was nice enough to say that she meant no offense, and none was taken, but it's an interesting topic of conversation.

Packing the right amount for lunch is like reliving the story of Goldilocks.  Pack too much, and you've wasted good food (unlike dinner leftovers, these have been out all day so I can't save them for another day.  Pack too little, and the kids come home hungry and cranky.  Pack just the right amount, and everyone is happy!

So how do I figure out how much to pack?

Why don't our public schools have uniforms?

Today was the first day of school, and it's one of those milestone First Days of School, because The Pea is now a 6th grader. I feel like we've entered a whole new world, and in a sense, we have.  Now that she's in middle school, The Pea bikes to school on her own, she'll be moving from class to class, she has her own school locker, and she has to follow a dress code.  

Having to deal with The Pea's dress code has brought about a fresh wave of longing for school uniforms.  I wore uniforms as a schoolgirl, and all schoolchildren in the UK (where we spent 5 weeks of our summer vacation) wear uniforms as well.  Schoolwear in the UK can cost as little as £2 for a top, £3 for a pair of trousers, £4 for a cardigan, and £5 for a pinafore.  I honestly don't understand why US public schools haven't adopted the practice.  I dug out a post I wrote a few years back for the Silicon Valley Moms Blog, and I found that my post is just as relevant today as it was then.  

To celebrate the First Day of Middle School, I'm reprinting my post: