Young Grasshoppers Have Much To Learn

It's been a week of judo classes! This weekend I observed Liam trying to instigate fights with Emilia by grabbing her arm/shirt and tugging or pushing her. I have also seen Emilia call Liam over for some judo/bjj play, then do a take down with a shirt/arm grab and a leg sweep. Emilia seems to like doing the take downs. Liam seems to like the grappling aspect more.. aka sit on Emilia.

Emilia's attention span in class is decent. She has above average grip strength for a newbie 5-yr-old and can follow instruction well. Liam.. oh my Liam, is just the opposite. He has been called out by the sensei numerous times, has been picked up by the belt and put back into line, put in front of the class for something only to start making faces, sticking out his tongue, rolling his eyes, and having the whole class laugh.

Can you spot the kiddos? (The little kid running back to the L-line just finished doing a demo with the instructor.) Most of the kids are paying attention.. most.

While sensei is teaching/demonstrating, Liam can be found laying down and rolling on the mat, or poking the kid next to him in the head, or turned 180 degrees in the opposite direction of sensei, watching the MMA boxers. Another kid even tried to get Liam to pay attention only to cause a disruption in the class. Luckily the senseis at this dojo are VERY good with kids, but also somewhat strict. The senseis will usually call out the kid, but they will also discipline the kids, put them on time out, have their belts or stripes taken away from them if necessary.

These young grasshoppers have much to learn!

Bad Photo Scavenger Game

If you haven't heard from me in a while, I hope you'd accept my apology for missing my friends birthdays, phone calls, messages.. etc. I am naturally a lazy slacker when it comes to keeping in touch, and even more so when combined with singular focus on trying to win the "Crying Photo Scavenger Game". What is this new game, you ask?

Ryan had a great idea that we should take a photo of Emilia every time she had a fit of rage. It is sort of like musical chairs combined with a photo scavenger hunt. You never know when the music stops and you have to sit in a chair.. or in this case, when the crying starts and you have to grab a camera! This game didn't last long. I think I got tired of running for the camera each time, but for the duration it lasted... we got a lot of photos!


And to top it off with one of Liam's tantrums. =)


Drats.. this guy beat me to it!

Way toooo long....

It has been wayyyyy too long from updating this blog and keeping in touch with friends/family. We have, as you probably figured, been overly swamped with lots of work and never enough time to fully balance and get as much done as we'd like. Balancing life has not been happening and it's been frustration, lots of compromising, crying and tears, and sacrificing certain aspects to find an equilibrium medium point for Ryan, the kiddies, and I. Are we there yet? Nope, but I think we're starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Ryan's been very very busy dual managing his work work and trying to progress with the deck, while picking up slack for my work schedule. While my work is not demanding of an 80-hour work week anymore, the workload and project schedules are aggressive and high-profiled. Definitely stress in getting things done under a finite amount of time that I can be at work, and also exciting to see the ultimate end result of what I work on.



Yup. The world's fastest microprocessor. It's great to see the Sun logo on Oracle's new announcement and the look ahead to hardware development and growth.

So while work is super busy in a good kind of way, the work toll definitely has taken an effect on the kiddies the past 1-2 months as well as been much more difficult in managing and compromising Ryan's and my schedule. Remember a post back when I was talking about the difficulties of disciplining in a constructive way? While there has been a few occurrences of successful disciple, there has been more failures than not. For a while, Emilia and I were spiraling down a not so good path. The kids (and parents) with tantrums that you see on the TV show, Nanny 911 or SuperNanny...kicking, screaming, hitting, biting, a danger to themselves while in fits of rage... the parents completely exhausted and cannot re-gain control... yup. That was us. February and March were tough months. I feel very very fortunate that our nanny is really Mary Poppins in disguise, and that Ryan is the most patient husband/dad.

Long story short, we have had a breakthrough with understanding what was going on and working towards better relationship and discipline with Emilia and Liam. At first I thought it was bad influences from other kids at school. Ryan thought maybe it was jealousy toward Liam for the more attention Liam gets from me. Or that the two kids are playing off of each other's tantrums. Those may play a little factor, by the main thing is that Emilia is a 3-year old that is figuring out the world she lives in, and regardless of what goes on, she needs us to stop the busy and provide her quality attention and a sense of her own security of where she fits and belongs. Quality time with just mom or dad have been key, and extra time spent in re-enforcing positive behaviors, even in exaggerated praises, have also helped. Also, I had to recognize that it was not just the kids. It was me too. I needed to find a way so that I can maintain strict and patient disciplining... which is hard to do when you're stressed, tired, and frustrated. Eating healthy, getting sleep, and getting daily exercise ends up being more crucial when I have no time for those. So, regardless of how crazy it is, I try to get those in every day. And if I skip a day, then I make sure I do extra the next day. It may come in the form of doing a quick set of max burpees in the women's shower room at work, or a power "rest" at my desk.

Disciplining is slowly, but surely not so violent now and a sense of well-being is slowly coming around. =P For Liam, he is learning through observation and developing his own sense of independence. So it is also key that he sees positive and consistent disciplining with Emilia. Yup. Slowly, but surely.

Oh, and here's a good article about Kiddies and their tantrums.

So.... it's been way too long.. but I have a back long of the good (and some bad and ugly) of happenings these past two months to post up on the blog. Hopefully I can get to a consistent roll again on here. =)