Preparing the kids for an emergency

Me: If something happened to me and I was unconscious, what would you do?
Joanna: Call 9-1-1
Me: If I weren't home and there was a fire, what would you do?
Joanna: Do we have a fire extinguisher?
Me: Wrong answer.
Joanna: Stop-drop-and roll to the phone and call 9-1-1
Me:Wrong. Just stop-drop-and-roll out of the house and call 9-1-1 at a neighbor's.... If there were a burglar in the house what would you do?
Joanna: I'd kick him and punch him and tell Jacob to call 9-1-1
Me: Wrong.
Jacob: I'd hit him with a bat and tell Joanna to call 9-1-1
Me: You guys. There are FIVE exits in our house. Just get out of the house and run for help.

Jacob: And let him take all our stuff?

Me: Yes!  And let him take all our stuf.

..... Anyway,at least they got the 9-1-1 part down.

This is the email I sent to my friends when our group was sold to Magnum Semiconductor in 2007 and I hadn't yet decided to join them

I can’t believe today is my last day at LSI.  It’s been 11.5 years, almost a 1/3 of my life!

This is just a short list of all the great things I'm going to remember you guys for:

Dee - for organizing all the wonderful events and activities, the cookies, and for being Dr. Dee
Mark - a great director, showing great strength and wisdom technically and in leadership
Paul - organizing my bridal shower, baby showers, being a great listener and devil's advocate
Kevin - being a great manager , fun and accommodating
Dave - introducing me to sardines, almost buying one of my visors, and writing great specs
Keith - helping me debug waveforms when I'm totally stuck.  being lots of fun
Shinya - bringing zevio to life, my favorite project at LSI
Tim - for your funny comments, nice postcards, and smart answers to all my technical questions
Avinash - great conversationalist,  making the lab a better place to be in and helping me a lot in there,
Ben - being my legal counselor
Chester - $4000, being lots of fun to work with and talk with
Hongjian - pearl milk tea, Chinese lessons
Karen - giving me nice hugs, being a girlfriend
Stefanie - being cool and collected, inspiring me with your marathon training and your style
Marlyn - getting together all the nice cards, organizing some nice parties.
Kerry - getting me up to speed on Maiko validation. splitting that Jamba Juice coupon w/ me.
Sunny - always being so pleasant to be around
Rene - wonderful warm personality, caring and considerate.  stroopwafels, pool parties,
Tzong - being a nice guy underneath that tough exterior!  Never letting me forget to read the manual
Frank - being a reliable source of worldly wisdom and entertaining emails.

Thanks for all the memories!  It was really nice working with you all! 

I will keep in touch w/ you!

Jacob's 1st double blind oral challenge to peanuts

Hi Dr. Rubinstein,

Just wanted to thank you for all your support in getting Jacob into the Peanut Patch study by providing all the paperwork that he needed.

I wanted to let you know that Jacob had his 2nd visit to the Packard Hospital for the Peanut Patch study today.  It was one of two double blind oral challenges, and it was quite eventful.
Jacob ended up needing epinephrine, and it was administered while Dr. Hugh Sampson was in the room.

I am still in shock myself that Jacob deteriorated so quickly, and I feel bad that I ignored the symptoms.  In fact, even the nurse onsite didn't seem to think Jacob needed epinephrine.  It wasn't until the Dr. Nadeau and Dr. Sampson stepped into a room "for a picture" that Dr.  Nadeau told the nurse he needed it.  I am so glad they were in the room. I worry about how far Jacob would have deteriorated if we didn't give the epipen any earlier.

This is what the challenge looked like in case you are interested.
10:30 , we start the appointment and we overhear a nurse discussing with a doctor that a previous candidate had to leave the study because he vomited over the placebo.  Jacob makes a mental note that reacting to a placebo would be a bad thing.  I tell the nurse that his symptoms are usually coughing, and a red dot on his face.  I make a note that he has no cough and looks very healthy right now.

11:00 :  1mg of peanut protein/placebo in a chocolate pudding with orange flavor.  Jacob thinks he feels a tingle in his throat, but it goes away.  He also starts getting a feeling of "hunger pains" in his stomach.

11:30 : 5mg ...  throat tingle and tummy is hurting.  But Jacob doesn't want to "jump the gun" if it's a placebo.  Throat always seems to get less tingly after the initial tingly feeling.

12:00 : 10mg...  pudding starting to taste really bad.  I notice one sniffle, but that's it.  I notice left eye turning a little red.  Stomach still hurts, but we're still worried it's psycho-somatic.  I assure Jacob that if his stomach really hurts, he's probably having a real reaction.  Throat feels tingly and maybe a little lumpy.  I ask nurse who looks in the throat and notices a "tiny bit" of redness.  The tingly feeling seems to go away quickly.

12:30  : 30mg.   Jacob is really hating the taste of the pudding.  after eating half of it, he says he can't eat it anymore because it tastes bad.  I tell him that's not enough reason to stop eating it unless he feels like he is having a reaction.   He continues to eat it.   Doesn't notice anymore symptoms.  I start wondering if he has the placebo.

12:40 : coughing begins.  starts off slow but progresses in frequency.  We are becoming sure this is the real reaction.  Tummy hurts, and left eye is red, his body is itching.

12:50 : nurse comes in , hears the cough, and calls the oral challenge finished.   They give him Zyrtec and take his vitals.  vitals are okay.  Lungs sound fine despite cough.  Throat has no edema.

1:15   :  zyrtec doesn't seem to help.  Jacob starts asking me for more medicine.  I suggest Benadryl, and after consulting with the doctor, they agree to give Benadryl since we asked for it.

1:30   : Jacob is still miserable.   I tell him to wait till Bendaryl kicks in.  His condition seems the same to me.  The nurse listens to his lungs and hears wheezing.  She decides to initiate a breathing treatment.   Just at this time, I notice Dr. Sampson and Dr. Nadeau poke their heads into the room.  I run into the hallway to ask if I could get a picture with Dr. Sampson.  After the picture, they watch the nurse give the breathing treatment.  Dr. Nadeau starts talking about epinephrine.  She says Jacob needs it, so Dr. Nadeau holds the breathing treatment up while the nurse gets the epipen.  The nurse finally administers the epipen.  Jacob tells me he is so glad they did.  He feels better instantly.   Dr. Sampson and Dr. Nadeau thank Jacob for participating in the study and Dr. Sampson reminds me of the importance of giving the epi-pen because the symptoms have a snowball effect.   He pointed out that Jacob was wheezing and his eye was very red, and he was scratching all over his body.  They then leave the room to continue with the  original purpose of Dr. Sampson's site visit.

1:45 :  all vital signs are normal.  Dr. Nadeau steps back in to check on Jacob. Nurse confesses that it was the first time she ever had to administer the real epipen to someone (even though Jacob was probably her 21st double blind oral challenge).

2:00 :  all vital signs are normal.  Jacob gets his appetite back and eats a hamburger.  Dr. Wilson gives Jacob prednisolone and gives me a prescription for two more days of prednisolone for Jacob, which I am very reluctant to give.


Day 3 should be the placebo, which is next Monday.

Regards,
Elaine

Bubbles From Your Eyes

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

 

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.

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?"

 

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.