Jacob: Mom, I met this boy at camp who can make bubbles come out of his eyes
Me: Ewwww. gross!
Jacob: Actually, it's more like froth coming out of his eyes right here. (pointing to his tear duct)
Me: Ewwww!!!! GROSS!!!!!! REALLY GROSS!
Jacob: I thought it was cool. Auntie Linda thought so too when I told
her. She doesn't get grossed out so easily. But she likes hiking, so she
doesn't mind bugs and stuff
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Monday, July 9, 2012
Like My New Haircut?
April 5, 2007
I cut it myself! I cut it really fast and I cut it all off while
Mommy and Daddy were downstairs entertaining out-of-town guests,
thinking that I was playing quietly with Belle. They didn't seem as
happy when they saw my new look. I tried to help Belle cut her hair,
too, but her thick braids only allowed me to give her a nice jagged
trim on the ends.
Mom's pretty upset and keeps on calling it the "Chinese boy cut" she
had never wanted me to have. Another auntie called it "Last year's layered
cut from China". I was pretty upset when my first preschool teacher
found out I cut my own hair and told me I could have poked my eye out,
so I told all the other teachers the rest of the day that my mom cut
my hair. That left them nice and speechless. My Auntie Melissa came
over and figured out how to hide the damage and said the bangs remind
her of Audrey Hepburn in a famous movie, so now I can still be a
film-star.
I'm sure my hair will grow out by tomorrow!
P.S Mommy says she's working on your thank you cards! Thank you for
coming to my party . She's glad I still had hair at that time.
Mommy and Daddy were downstairs entertaining out-of-town guests,
thinking that I was playing quietly with Belle. They didn't seem as
happy when they saw my new look. I tried to help Belle cut her hair,
too, but her thick braids only allowed me to give her a nice jagged
trim on the ends.
Mom's pretty upset and keeps on calling it the "Chinese boy cut" she
had never wanted me to have. Another auntie called it "Last year's layered
cut from China". I was pretty upset when my first preschool teacher
found out I cut my own hair and told me I could have poked my eye out,
so I told all the other teachers the rest of the day that my mom cut
my hair. That left them nice and speechless. My Auntie Melissa came
over and figured out how to hide the damage and said the bangs remind
her of Audrey Hepburn in a famous movie, so now I can still be a
film-star.
I'm sure my hair will grow out by tomorrow!
P.S Mommy says she's working on your thank you cards! Thank you for
coming to my party . She's glad I still had hair at that time.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Funny thing overheard on carpool
This past year, I've had the pleasure of driving my son and daughter and their friends around, and it's always so funny to hear stories from their perspective. They always make us parents sound so unreasonable and tyrannical and I'm hoping they realize their exaggeration. Anyway, I thought I could share the most recent story.
Jacob's friend W: Whenever my mom is mad at my brother, she always takes it out on me, too, even though *I* didn't do anything.
Jacob: yeah, me too! My dad's worse. He even gets mad at me just because his team is losing! Like, yesterday, I was walking up the stairs to go to bed [while OKC was getting trashed by the Spurs] and he yells at me, "WHY AREN'T YOU IN BED YET?" and then I told him I was walking to my bed right now and then he goes, "WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS ARGUING BACK?"
Jacob's friend W: Whenever my mom is mad at my brother, she always takes it out on me, too, even though *I* didn't do anything.
Jacob: yeah, me too! My dad's worse. He even gets mad at me just because his team is losing! Like, yesterday, I was walking up the stairs to go to bed [while OKC was getting trashed by the Spurs] and he yells at me, "WHY AREN'T YOU IN BED YET?" and then I told him I was walking to my bed right now and then he goes, "WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS ARGUING BACK?"
Thursday, May 31, 2012
School is for learning!
Last year, after a very disappointing 5th grade in which Jacob did not acheive honor roll because of his half-hearted effort, I had an incredible revelation. Jacob did not understand that school was for learning!
It happened like this. After shouting at him for a long time about why he shouldn't try to talk over his teacher while she was teaching, why he shouldn't be folding ninja stars for friends during computer lab, why his backpack should be filled with his homework instead of his Pokemon cards, I said, "Didn't you know that school is for LEARNING?"
Suddenly,he gave me this shocked and sheepish look. It was like he realized for the first time that he had been off base for so long. I think this incorrect mindset started in Kindergarten. He entered already knowing how to read and write and add and subtract. So Kindergarten, in which they spend a good amount of time introducing letters and numbers, was completely a review for him. However, the socialization aspect of Kindergarten was very rich, and he grasped onto the concept very quickly.
Fast forward to this morning, the last day of 6th grade, and alas, as he stormed out of the house to his carpool angry at me, I realize that he still has not learned the concept that school is for LEARNING. Granted that I am not able to reprimand him with a sweet and gentle voice, which according to him, is the problem he had with me, but his reaction proves to me that there still is some wiring missing in his brain.
The events that brought me to this conclusion today is best captured in dialogue form.
05-23-12 I glanced at Jacob's preAlgebra test results and notice a glaring 60% on his Formulas Test among a list of test scores that are decent.
me: Jacob! Why did you get a D minus on a test?
Jacob: I forgot about the test.
me: What was on the test?
Jacob: I had to write down formulas for stuff, like volume and surface area for a cylinders and I didn't know we were going to have a test so I didn't study for it.
me: Oh my gosh! You couldn't DERIVE the formula for the volume and surface area of a cylinder? There must be a gap in your understanding!!!
Jacob: I know the cylinder one. There were shapes like cone and triangular pyramid.
me: You couldn't DERIVE the formula for the pyramid?
Jacob: I could, but I was supposed to state the formula exactly the way she wanted it, not just add up all the sides.
me: All you had to do was review it ONCE before the test! I bet when the teacher told you about the test, you weren't paying attention! Tell me, what IS the formula for the volume and surface area of a cone and triangular pyramid?
Jacob: I don't know,that's why I got it wrong.
me: Well, LOOK IT UP! And you better tell me!
Then I get distracted by something.
5-30-12
me: Jacob, what is the formula for the surface area and volume of a triangular pyramid and cone?
Jacob: I don't know.
me: What??? I thought I told you to look it up! Get a piece of paper , right now ,and draw a cone, a sphere, and a triangular pyramid and write down the formula for getting the volume and surface area next to each picture.
Jacob: <GROWL,WHINE, JERKING > You are so mean! I bet no other mom is making their kid do this right now.
me: That's because all the other kids already KNOW IT! Do it NOW!
Jacob < GROWL, WHINE, JERKING> Why do you make me do this? It's not going to be on the Final!
me: JACOB! WHY CAN'T YOU JUST DO WHAT I SAY??? Do it! Or you lose your birthday party this weekend!
Jacob : You are SO MEAN!!! Why are you always threatening to take away my birthday party!!!
10 minutes later he digs out some notes from class and writes the formulas down on a piece of paper. I am too busy to review it, but I see the first one on the list,the sphere, looks right.
5-31-12 It is just before his final, and we are waiting for his carpool I refer to the sheet of paper that had Jacob's formulas from last night.
me: Jacob,what is the formula for the volume of a triangular pyramid?
Jacob: One third base area times height.
me: Good! And what is the volume of a cone?
Jacob: I don't know.
me: What do you mean you don't know, you just wrote it last night. WAIT A MINUTE!!! YOU WROTE IT WRONG ON YOUR SHEET OF PAPER! YOU PUT THE VOLUME OFTHE TRIANGULAR PYRAMID FOR THE VOLUME OF THE CONE!!!! ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS COPY THE FORMULA DOWN CORRECTLY. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO KNOWTHE ANSWER IF YOU CANT EVEN COPY IT DOWN CORRECTLY??
Jacob: IT'S NOT GOING TO BE ON THE FINAL! WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS YELLING AT ME?
me: I'm yelling because I am frustrated. I gave you a simple task to copy down the formulas. I DON'T CARE if it's not going to be on the final! You need to know this as a PERSON.
< meanwhile, as I am yelling, Jacob is walking away, filtering me out>
me: You get over here right NOW and tell me what the formula for the volume of a cone is. How do you think I KNOW that you had the wrong formula for the volume of a cone? Get over here right now or else I'm taking away your birthday party.
Jacob: Because it was exactly the same as the other one.
me: No! How ELSE did I know?
Jacob: I don't know!!!!
me: one third base area times height ,for the volume of a cone? Tell me how I know it's WRONG!!!
Jacob: Because it was missing pi ?
me: YES!!! How could you not notice that you didn't even have pi in the formula when there was something circular? There should always be a pi!!!
Jacob: Why are you ALWAYS YELLING?
me: Because you don't listen to me!!! Don't you even care that you got this wrong? I am trying to help you!
Jacob: You are such a MEAN MOM! You make such a big deal about something so SMALL! It was just a careless mistake. It's not even going to be on the final.
me: You are such a MEAN KID! Jacob, this is the last day of school! You are responsible for understanding all the concepts taught this year.
Jacob: And why are you always talking about taking away my birthday party?
me: Because it's the only thing that you care about!
Carpool comes. There was more dialogue than the above, but that was the general idea. Jacob is furious with me and accusing me of being the most unreasonable mom in the world. As his carpool drives away I shake my head in frustration.
------------------------------------------------------------
June 1st,
Hi Everyone,
I just realized I was the one that over-reacted! Now I am embarassed! It's just that Jacob does so many careless things, (like today, as I cleaned out his binder I found a one hundred point quiz he forgot to turn in!) so I thought this was another example.
When he said the volume of the cone was 1/3 BA * height , he was actually copying exactly from his notes. I realized that BA meant area of the base, where as I thought B and A were the lengths of the base rectangle. Except that a triangular pyramid has a triangle on the bottom, so i should have known B and A weren't the two lengths.
So what he was supposed to tell me in the next step was A = pi R-squared for the base area of a cone, which of course he knows. But I started yelling at him before he could tell me that. =(
Interestingly enough, when I was mad yesterday and wrote the blog entry, I wrote base area instead of B A as I was quoting him, because he said "base area" but all I saw was "BA" on his cheat sheet.
Thankfully, I didn't cancel the birthday party. I just gave him a big hug right now and apologized. Thankfully also that he is a very sweet and forgiving boy.
Interestingly, I asked Jacob why he didn't explain himself. He thought he did something wrong,because he though adults were always right.
It happened like this. After shouting at him for a long time about why he shouldn't try to talk over his teacher while she was teaching, why he shouldn't be folding ninja stars for friends during computer lab, why his backpack should be filled with his homework instead of his Pokemon cards, I said, "Didn't you know that school is for LEARNING?"
Suddenly,he gave me this shocked and sheepish look. It was like he realized for the first time that he had been off base for so long. I think this incorrect mindset started in Kindergarten. He entered already knowing how to read and write and add and subtract. So Kindergarten, in which they spend a good amount of time introducing letters and numbers, was completely a review for him. However, the socialization aspect of Kindergarten was very rich, and he grasped onto the concept very quickly.
Fast forward to this morning, the last day of 6th grade, and alas, as he stormed out of the house to his carpool angry at me, I realize that he still has not learned the concept that school is for LEARNING. Granted that I am not able to reprimand him with a sweet and gentle voice, which according to him, is the problem he had with me, but his reaction proves to me that there still is some wiring missing in his brain.
The events that brought me to this conclusion today is best captured in dialogue form.
05-23-12 I glanced at Jacob's preAlgebra test results and notice a glaring 60% on his Formulas Test among a list of test scores that are decent.
me: Jacob! Why did you get a D minus on a test?
Jacob: I forgot about the test.
me: What was on the test?
Jacob: I had to write down formulas for stuff, like volume and surface area for a cylinders and I didn't know we were going to have a test so I didn't study for it.
me: Oh my gosh! You couldn't DERIVE the formula for the volume and surface area of a cylinder? There must be a gap in your understanding!!!
Jacob: I know the cylinder one. There were shapes like cone and triangular pyramid.
me: You couldn't DERIVE the formula for the pyramid?
Jacob: I could, but I was supposed to state the formula exactly the way she wanted it, not just add up all the sides.
me: All you had to do was review it ONCE before the test! I bet when the teacher told you about the test, you weren't paying attention! Tell me, what IS the formula for the volume and surface area of a cone and triangular pyramid?
Jacob: I don't know,that's why I got it wrong.
me: Well, LOOK IT UP! And you better tell me!
Then I get distracted by something.
5-30-12
me: Jacob, what is the formula for the surface area and volume of a triangular pyramid and cone?
Jacob: I don't know.
me: What??? I thought I told you to look it up! Get a piece of paper , right now ,and draw a cone, a sphere, and a triangular pyramid and write down the formula for getting the volume and surface area next to each picture.
Jacob: <GROWL,WHINE, JERKING > You are so mean! I bet no other mom is making their kid do this right now.
me: That's because all the other kids already KNOW IT! Do it NOW!
Jacob < GROWL, WHINE, JERKING> Why do you make me do this? It's not going to be on the Final!
me: JACOB! WHY CAN'T YOU JUST DO WHAT I SAY??? Do it! Or you lose your birthday party this weekend!
Jacob : You are SO MEAN!!! Why are you always threatening to take away my birthday party!!!
10 minutes later he digs out some notes from class and writes the formulas down on a piece of paper. I am too busy to review it, but I see the first one on the list,the sphere, looks right.
5-31-12 It is just before his final, and we are waiting for his carpool I refer to the sheet of paper that had Jacob's formulas from last night.
me: Jacob,what is the formula for the volume of a triangular pyramid?
Jacob: One third base area times height.
me: Good! And what is the volume of a cone?
Jacob: I don't know.
me: What do you mean you don't know, you just wrote it last night. WAIT A MINUTE!!! YOU WROTE IT WRONG ON YOUR SHEET OF PAPER! YOU PUT THE VOLUME OFTHE TRIANGULAR PYRAMID FOR THE VOLUME OF THE CONE!!!! ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS COPY THE FORMULA DOWN CORRECTLY. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO KNOWTHE ANSWER IF YOU CANT EVEN COPY IT DOWN CORRECTLY??
Jacob: IT'S NOT GOING TO BE ON THE FINAL! WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS YELLING AT ME?
me: I'm yelling because I am frustrated. I gave you a simple task to copy down the formulas. I DON'T CARE if it's not going to be on the final! You need to know this as a PERSON.
< meanwhile, as I am yelling, Jacob is walking away, filtering me out>
me: You get over here right NOW and tell me what the formula for the volume of a cone is. How do you think I KNOW that you had the wrong formula for the volume of a cone? Get over here right now or else I'm taking away your birthday party.
Jacob: Because it was exactly the same as the other one.
me: No! How ELSE did I know?
Jacob: I don't know!!!!
me: one third base area times height ,for the volume of a cone? Tell me how I know it's WRONG!!!
Jacob: Because it was missing pi ?
me: YES!!! How could you not notice that you didn't even have pi in the formula when there was something circular? There should always be a pi!!!
Jacob: Why are you ALWAYS YELLING?
me: Because you don't listen to me!!! Don't you even care that you got this wrong? I am trying to help you!
Jacob: You are such a MEAN MOM! You make such a big deal about something so SMALL! It was just a careless mistake. It's not even going to be on the final.
me: You are such a MEAN KID! Jacob, this is the last day of school! You are responsible for understanding all the concepts taught this year.
Jacob: And why are you always talking about taking away my birthday party?
me: Because it's the only thing that you care about!
Carpool comes. There was more dialogue than the above, but that was the general idea. Jacob is furious with me and accusing me of being the most unreasonable mom in the world. As his carpool drives away I shake my head in frustration.
------------------------------------------------------------
June 1st,
Hi Everyone,
I just realized I was the one that over-reacted! Now I am embarassed! It's just that Jacob does so many careless things, (like today, as I cleaned out his binder I found a one hundred point quiz he forgot to turn in!) so I thought this was another example.
When he said the volume of the cone was 1/3 BA * height , he was actually copying exactly from his notes. I realized that BA meant area of the base, where as I thought B and A were the lengths of the base rectangle. Except that a triangular pyramid has a triangle on the bottom, so i should have known B and A weren't the two lengths.
So what he was supposed to tell me in the next step was A = pi R-squared for the base area of a cone, which of course he knows. But I started yelling at him before he could tell me that. =(
Interestingly enough, when I was mad yesterday and wrote the blog entry, I wrote base area instead of B A as I was quoting him, because he said "base area" but all I saw was "BA" on his cheat sheet.
Thankfully, I didn't cancel the birthday party. I just gave him a big hug right now and apologized. Thankfully also that he is a very sweet and forgiving boy.
Interestingly, I asked Jacob why he didn't explain himself. He thought he did something wrong,because he though adults were always right.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Joanna's Dr. Seuss Poem
The Lorax Comes Back
There I stood, I look at my hand, and gazed among the rocks and sand.
In search of soil or dirt and stuff, in search of a place with no muff.
Then there I spotted a patch of light, and planted my seed there, I waited for a sight,.
Immediately a sprout began to grow, I waited a while longer, it was no larger than my toe.
I watched every day for an improvement, but the sprout showed no movement.
A week later the sprout shot up, and there grew some Truffula tuff.
"A Truffula tree!" I cried with glee as Truffula fruits gave a tinglee-dee.
Then the Truffula forest came to my brain, and I gathered the seeds as fast as rain.
A forest I made! As the sky opened up, grass grewto a grassy glade. Then from a distance, I spotted something lining up. It was the Brown-Bar-Ba-Looks, all wearing a hack, and the Lorax and all his friends came back.
There I stood, I look at my hand, and gazed among the rocks and sand.
In search of soil or dirt and stuff, in search of a place with no muff.
Then there I spotted a patch of light, and planted my seed there, I waited for a sight,.
Immediately a sprout began to grow, I waited a while longer, it was no larger than my toe.
I watched every day for an improvement, but the sprout showed no movement.
A week later the sprout shot up, and there grew some Truffula tuff.
"A Truffula tree!" I cried with glee as Truffula fruits gave a tinglee-dee.
Then the Truffula forest came to my brain, and I gathered the seeds as fast as rain.
A forest I made! As the sky opened up, grass grewto a grassy glade. Then from a distance, I spotted something lining up. It was the Brown-Bar-Ba-Looks, all wearing a hack, and the Lorax and all his friends came back.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Prayer For a Lost Item
When I was in college, a Christian friend of mine taught me that God cares about us so much that He even answers our prayers to help us locate a misplaced item. Since I frequently misplaced my items, this was one habit I practiced, and I was amazed many times that God would care about helping me with something that seemed so trite. On one occassion, I remember fiddling with my engagement at work when it flew oof my finger, and I spent about 10 minutes looking for my ring. I decided to stop and pray and immediately, I thought to look under a rolling file cabinet, and there was my ring calling out to me.
Since I've had kids who also misplaced things, I have also taught this to my kids, though there were times when I was afraid that God would disappoint us. Instead, God has often delighted our kids that they were able to recover something they have misplaced, and it's been a good teaching point to them of God's grace.
Yesterday, we had another answered prayer. Jacob had discovered his i-Touch missing, and the 4 of us combed the house looking for it. We had all remembered seeing it lying on the shelf before the housecleaners came, so we decided either the housecleaners placed it somewhere for us (which is unusual), or they stole it (which is also unusual). Out of desperation, I called them on Wednesday morning, but they said they didn't know what I was talking about and offerred to swing by our house that afternoon to help us locate it.
Then at 11:00 , I receive an excited phone call from Jacob ( He had been home sick that day). He had found his i-touch. He said after looking for it in futility, he decided to pray, and the instant he finished praying, he looked up and saw it in a bin. The housecleaners had put it there. Since we had looked so many times there for his itouch but couldn't find it, we knew this was the work of God's grace. What a great lesson for our family!
Since I've had kids who also misplaced things, I have also taught this to my kids, though there were times when I was afraid that God would disappoint us. Instead, God has often delighted our kids that they were able to recover something they have misplaced, and it's been a good teaching point to them of God's grace.
Yesterday, we had another answered prayer. Jacob had discovered his i-Touch missing, and the 4 of us combed the house looking for it. We had all remembered seeing it lying on the shelf before the housecleaners came, so we decided either the housecleaners placed it somewhere for us (which is unusual), or they stole it (which is also unusual). Out of desperation, I called them on Wednesday morning, but they said they didn't know what I was talking about and offerred to swing by our house that afternoon to help us locate it.
Then at 11:00 , I receive an excited phone call from Jacob ( He had been home sick that day). He had found his i-touch. He said after looking for it in futility, he decided to pray, and the instant he finished praying, he looked up and saw it in a bin. The housecleaners had put it there. Since we had looked so many times there for his itouch but couldn't find it, we knew this was the work of God's grace. What a great lesson for our family!
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