Born to be loved

We sold a double jogger stroller that we owned for full 5 years, as our 2nd son AK grew out of its seating height and we plan no more child after our 3rd LM. Releasing it came with a sentiment...I had so much fun and good moment with it while we are going through challenging moment...  We maintained the condition well, no obvious tear-and-wear. Then we noticed in the market the price of the same product soared - our purchase price was $699, then today I see it $849 (amazon.com) , 20% higher. Even used found online are above $500 (google.com)   So we set a competitive price on Facebook market then we concluded a deal in just a few days, with someone who live outside of state drove up to us to pick it up (he was desperate to give it to his wife as a Christmas gift). It was a bit of surprise for getting interest from out-of-state buyer on FB, but I'm glad to meet someone who's really in need. We got the stroller when my wife was in a residency and I had lots of lots of moments

Saturday has always been busy but this day went with 2 major twists. In the morning boys' school held a fundraiser running event. Last year we missed due to family trip  but we came back to it since 2021, this time with our kindergarten boy AK joined 1-miler / 1.6km with mama and 8-yr HG who ran 2 years ago as well, while I ran 5km with a 2-yr old LM in single-stroller. AK is the type of child who seems to feel anxious (or almost fear) in an unfamiliar environment, although once he's used to it he boasts about every single aspect of that situation. Today he was very grumpy before the race according to my wife, but once the run started he didn't stop even once before crossing the goal line in less than 10 minutes! Proud moment #1 of the day. In hindsight of my childhood, first time I ran 1,500+ meters was when I was 4th grade / 10 years old. Today I saw many many kids ran 1-miler or even 5k! Developmentally running such a long distance before body matures might be concernin

 Year 2023 is fast approaching the end. But I just had a chance to review the family health issues back in 2022. Parent's struggle with the children' health problem has been almost at the center of the blog, since t his post in January 2017   where we first wrote about our first child's perpetual respiratory issue. Since then, I've been logging the health issues and events at least date and symptom even briefly in an one-liner if I didn't have time. As I wrote in May 2022   I've been slowing down my career (temporarily) so that kids can get better care even when they're sick. While it takes a little more than trivial effort to keep track of any health events, I feel knowing these is imperative because it's the time and effort I have dedicated for our kids' well-being in exchange. Being meticulous Anecdotally I'm always tempted to say that any one of our kids has always been sick (so I need to take time off from work, otherwise who takes care of t

Lately we noticed 8-yr old HG mood swing may be enhancing. He dislikes much more things than before. He refuses and resists so much. It happens to both my wife and me, but it may be happening much more to me, and often I cannot tolerate and react intensely, which ends up exacerbating things. Here are some things that happened recently: Case-1: He kept asking me to help school's homework while I was multi-tasking on household items so couldn't get to help him. At some point I saw him frustrated as I kept saying "yeah yeah, I'll come to help you once I'm done". Then my wife came back from work, and he asked her to help. She tried to redirect it to me, then he refused saying "daddy doesn't understand this homework". Case-2: I asked him about homework, he started explaining normally, but began to lose momentum, ended up stopped talking. I kept asking to continue then he switched his tone saying he doesn't like me to ask about homework. We kept pi

Almost a month ago, HG came back from his almost 2-month long stay in Japan . For the return flight, his grandma came along with him on her way to work trip in the US, so he didn't have to fly alone again. There's been a palpable change in siblings dynamics - Before HG's return, 5-yr old AK had been happy to be the interim oldest sibling over 2-yr old sister, but he's now back to a younger sibling. Our house is filled with quarrels and even more mess as it was. After a week and a half since he came back, school started. Back to normal. For almost-8-yr old child, staying away from parents in a different country for 2 months must have been such an experience. For the younger siblings, absence of the oldest brother must have also been a significant change.  For the parents, we missed him. Regarding the load of child caring, there wasn't actually much changes, as 5-yr and 2-yr old are more than handful 😅. At my wife m's side of grand parents house, m worried HG wo

 Our third child and the first daughter LM turned 2 years old a while ago. She has been a delightful rug rat. She's very active physically, started walking way before she turned one year old. She seems fascinated to many things, a little too much, so that she can't help but touching, moving those things around, ends up causing the greates mess among our 3 kids. Her two brothers are old enough to understand how incapable she is, so both of them adore her, being very nice to her, trying to help her. In the way we've raised her so far there are some major differences from her brothers -- My wife m is always home at night so that she can stay with LM. For the boys, m wasn't home typically twice a week for her work, and on the days when she's home she was so exhausted (to the level a little inhumane). But LM was born in m's post medical residency job (they call it Fellowship), and in her Fellowship, and the post-Fellowship job require her to neither stay loooong time

Three weeks passed since our oldest child HG went on solo journey to Japan . Here in Georgia home, we've seen some interesting changes with the remaining two, 4-yr old AK and just turned-2 LM, both of whom had never been separated with the oldest brother for this long. Note: Children quickly grow, so we're NOT saying the separation from the oldest son triggered any of  changes. No obvious hysteria for their big brother. AK became so much chattier. Before, he wasn't a quiet one (at least at home) though, now he's dominant in the volume of the chatters/noise in the household, from 8am in the morning to 7pm in the evening, non stop. We aren't sure if LM realized that her oldest brother is not home (Whenever she sees him on the video chat or his pictures, she's delighted). AK and LM play even more together. Before, they did play together when HG wasn't home, which is great. Every weekend, parents are shouting and yelling as much as we've been doing, regardl

  Last year Summer we took an advantage of American schools' longer Summer vacation, taking 2 boys to Japan, stayed there for a month, had them go to the local schools that I went to when I was a child. That worked quite well language/culture-wise, Japanese familiarity of 2 boys was boosted. This year, however, neither of us parents' schedule works well. With much higher airfare combined, we decided to just send one. Our 7-yr old son HG goes by himself. Using Unaccompanied Minor Program (delta.com)    we paid additional of $150 one-way. Thankfully on the way back a grand mother will fly with him on her way to a conference in the east coast in the US. HG will be accompanied by the airline company's associates inside of the airport's gate. With this program, 5-yr old or above can fly without adults technically speaking, and this fee covers up to 4 children. Things to remember for the future. An adult must pick up at the airport of course. Arranging this in our case invol

 Recently our 7 years old HG had to take an entire week off of school as he had persistent fever (which eventually turned out to be flu type B. Fortunately other kids didn't seem to catch it), then the subsequent week he started throwing a tantrum upon waking up for the school in the morning. Also he started resisting often on going to after school lessons that he had never missed. He now takes naps often after he comes back home, which I can recall the last time he did in the past. While we have no idea what's going on, I reviewed how he's been with the extracurricular activities so far. I figured that he's been too busy, and he might have realized that by himself, so we're dropping some activities particularly the ones he has been struggling. Although he keeps showing interests in trying new activities and in excelling everything (both of which are great), now I'm ok to put a pause on responding to him saying "Can you sign me up to this?" see how he&

We want our children to try whatever the activities they get to have interests for. When they involve in something that I as a parent have an experience in, that adds a totally different, joyful contrast, no matter if I was good at it or not. It's the Super Bowl season. American Football is the type of sport I had the least interest in in an area where the close-by colleges, University of Georgia and Auburn in Alabama, is as good as winning the national title and many alumni, young or old, seem to be so proud of the local collegiate teams' achievement. While that is unfortunate that I cannot involve in the neighborhood excitement, fortunately football is not the only sports here. Atlanta Braves won the World Series 2 years ago, so did Atlanta Hawks go to conference final last year(?). And children's sports activities are always joyful subjects to talk about regardless the win or lose (wins work better for sure though). And having my own experience in certain sports often he