Hellobee

Snowy just turned five, and for the last six months, her biggest challenge, as well as our biggest challenge raising her, has been dealing with her emotions.

Snowy is an amazing kid, and I love being her mom.

But, like all kids, Snowy has her unique challenges. She is a very active, hyper child. She is passionate and outgoing, and her biggest problem is she gets riled up very easily, and has a lot of trouble coming back down. When she is in one of these “wild” moods, she also gets upset very easily. She runs, she screams, she sometimes escalates to hitting and kicking and flailing.

I know these moods are frustrating to Snowy too. She can articulate what’s wrong, but despite it, she really struggles with her emotional regulation and coming down from these moods. She escalates quickly, and calms down very slowly, often getting herself in trouble in the process.

As her parents, along with other adults in our village (grandparents, teachers, etc.) that are helping us raise our little girl, helping her navigate these emotions is our biggest challenge. I don’t just want to punish her for the bad behavior that arises from this lack of emotional regulation. While we want to show her that her behavior is unacceptable, we also want to help her deal with the root cause of the behavior in the first place.

Sometimes Snowy can’t even identify what emotion she is feeling, which I know is hard. She gets hyper and has all these different feelings stirring around, and it is hard for her to pull one from another!

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One of the biggest news stories making the rounds on the internet this week is the Momo suicide game and youtube videos that use popular children’s characters like Peppa Pig to show children how to kill themselves and self harm. What kind of person would do this sort of thing?! My kids don’t have access to the internet or youtube and have never heard of Fortnite, but they are getting older and the days where I can completely limit their internet access are numbered. Please be wary of the videos your kids are watching online as well as the games they’re playing.

H E A L T H

Greener Childhood Associated With Happier Adulthood via NPR

Youtube Bans Adverts on Anti-Vaccination Video Channels via Newsweek

High risk: anti-vaxxers in the delivery ward via The Guardian

A New Treatment Can Relieve Food Allergies, But Few Doctors Offer It via NPR

A Parent-To-Parent Campaign To Get Vaccine Rates Up via NPR

There’s good news about the flu vaccine this year, especially for kids via Vox

E D U C A T I O N

Active-Shooter Drills Are Tragically Misguided via The Atlantic

$773 Million Later, de Blasio Ends Signature Initiative to Improve Failing Schools via New York Times

A Free Children’s Book Narrated by Lily Cole Helps Parents Explain Climate Change via Global Citizen

Why Girls Outpace Boys at School but Not at Work via New York Times

I’m a Neuroscientist. Here’s How Teachers Change Kids’ Brains. via Edsurge

10 Things to Know About Math via NAEYC

US Schools Are Leaving Students Ill-Equipped to Compete with Artificial Intelligence via FEE

New Netflix Show ‘Brainchild’ Makes Science Fun For Kids via NPR

P A R E N T I N G

When Kids Realize Their Whole Life Is Already Online via The Atlantic

Infographic: What Kids Worry About at Different Ages via Deborah Macnamara

18 Signs That Can Help You Understand Your Baby Better via Brightside

I respect the way my Korean mother raised me, but I’m doing these 5 things differently via Motherly

7 Powerful Things My Daughter Needs to Know Before Middle School via Red Tricycle

What Baby Formula Does for Fathers via New York Times

The Lustful Middle School Girl Rises via New York Times

What I Gave My Kid Instead of a Smartphone via Medium

Why safe playgrounds aren’t great for kids via Vox

Sensory Processing Might Look Different Than You Expect via Kids Activities Blog

How to Grant Your Child an Inner Life via New Yorker

How Neuroscience Can Help Your Kid Make Good Choices via Greater Good

This viral comic about working motherhood is so true via Motherly

Gordon Ramsay Changed Everything About How My Kids Eat via Slate

My Child Has Anxiety and I Didn’t Know via The Nerd’s Wife

When I was a kid, I didn’t have many restrictions on sugar. My brother and I ate all the sweet cereals like Super Golden Crisp, Pops, Honeycomb, Cap’n Crunch, and Lucky Charms. We had Hi-C and Capri Suns in our lunches, as well as Fruit Roll ups for a snack, and of course Lunchables or sandwiches on white Wonder Bread. We bought candy and ice cream and grab bags from the ice cream truck almost every day. I grew up on 7-11 slurpees and never met a Coke I didn’t like! That’s not to say that we didn’t eat healthy — almost all our meals were homecooked, healthy Korean food, but my parents just didn’t worry too much about sugar.

Though I always have a twinge of nostalgia for the more carefree good old days, I think it’s good that parents these days are much more mindful about what their kids are eating. I think about this often living in the Philippines, where everyone loves very sweet food, and candy, chocolate, powdered juice drinks and soda flow freely. Cavities are a very serious problem here. I actively think about restricting sugar, whereas in the US we had so many healthy options that we just don’t have here. It’s hard though because sugar is everywhere — sweetened drinks are usually free with every meal!

My Swedish friend here follows a Swedish tradition where kids are allowed pretty much unlimited sugar on Saturdays. That gives the kids something to look forward to after the school week, and they don’t feel deprived of sweets since they can indulge on that one day. When her daughter comes over on a Saturday, she brings a trove of chocolate and candy that she shares with Charlie and Olive because it’s too much for her to eat. I do ascribe to the idea that denying your kids of something too much only makes them want it more, but I can’t get on board with unrestricted sugar, even if it’s just one day a week. My friend’s daughter is a very mellow child however, whereas Charlie was less than mellow for most of his years, so I’ve always thought about the effects of sugar on him.

I control how much sugar my kids eat by keeping it out of the house because I don’t like sweet things myself. Since I buy all the groceries, I have all the power! These are my general rules:

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I was born in a hospital half an hour from the house where I lived for 18 years, where my parents still live. My dad worked for the same company my entire life, which he is now retired from. I went to the same school district my entire life, graduating from the high school two miles from my house. For 18 years of my life, most of my world revolved around a five mile radius.

Sometimes our children’s worlds are very much like our childhoods, and sometimes, they are very different. I hope that Mr. Snowflake and I provide the amazing childhood my parents provided for me. But I also know that in many ways it will look very different. These ways aren’t good or bad, just different.

Snowy is five years old, and she’s lived in four different residences in three different towns. The day I found out I was pregnant with Snowy, less than a month after Mr. Snowflake and I wed, was the day we moved into our one-bedroom apartment on my graduate school’s campus. We did one small move to a two-bedroom on the same campus right around when she started crawling, and a much bigger move for a job that I thought was my dream job, but ended up not working out, in a town about an hour away from my grad school. We stayed there for almost two years, and recently relocated to where we’re hopefully going to be nearby long-term, a city much closer to family and a support system.

I’ve worked practically Snowy’s entire life, but my life as a working mom has taken many different forms. Since Mr. Snowflake was in law school, it made more sense with my schedule, often only having classes one day at week, and the fact I had no commute for me to be the one to work. The fact that I was attending graduate school on a stipend helped tremendously. I also worked several different jobs, from the children’s consignment store I was lucky enough to find a position at that let me bring her in when she was just an infant, to working as a preschool teacher so that I could receive discount tuition.

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Before I was a SAHM, I was a WAHM. I’ve haven’t had a regular 9-5 job for about 6 years, and have never worked outside the home at all as a mom! It’s definitely been quite the transition.

A quick selfie before I take off to work

I officially started to lose steam as a SAHM when Baby Pencil was about 9 months old and Toddler Pencil was home for summer break. Having to care for the whole household, and entertaining a chatty 4-year-old and a 20 lb baby started to make me feel tired on another level I had never experienced. I laugh at the idea that people think being a SAHM is easy – I’m sure for those who are wired that way, it can be. But for me – I was sinking. I was getting more irritated and losing my patience by the day. I tried really hard not to constantly throw the iPad to my 4-year-old, who complained of being bored 800 times a day. My 9-month-old was adorable, but she couldn’t walk or feed herself yet so she needed my physical care. I understand this is just normal life for all moms, but I was not adjusting well to this new SAHM life of two kids at home.

So when Baby Pencil was about 9 months old, I started to apply to all sorts of jobs. I decided that if the right opportunity came, I would only go to a regular 9-5 if it was my dream job. I was interviewing for what seemed like a dream job and when I got the offer, I couldn’t say no! The hours, the benefits, the background just seemed to fit me so well. I had to quickly search all the daycares in my area and was suddenly anxious and excited for this huge change!

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Ever since Snowy was born just over five years ago, my parents have been much more interested in giving us experiences than physical things as gifts. This started out because we were living a as a family of three in a one-bedroom (later two-bedroom) apartment. It has continued because Snowy has so many toys and there is really not much she needs. These gifts have often meant memberships: one year to the zoo, one year to a local science museum, once gift cards towards a family trip we were all going on to Disney World. For this year, my mom got the idea to take us on a train trip.

I drove up to my parents’ house, about two and a half hours from our home, on New Year’s Day. We stayed the night there, and then early the next morning we drove to the train station in Michigan City, Indiana. Snowy had never been on a train trip (unless you count the trains at Cedar Point or Disney World), and the only train trip I had been on before was a field trip in preschool. I hadn’t been to Chicago since I was a kid myself, and all I remember was going to the American Girl store where we didn’t buy anything too expensive, and that we stayed with friends who had rabbits.

When my mom found out how easy and affordable it would be to take the train from Michigan City, Indiana to Chicago, she first did the trip with my dad to see if it would be doable for her disabled daughter and young granddaughter. Having my mom and dad scope out the trip first was very appreciated. Despite the ADA, there are lots of places that are completely inaccessible, and with my mobility and pain issues, that makes going to new places very nerve-wracking to me. I am fortunate that I can still do some walking, but I definitely can’t do full days at places like museums and amusement parks without a wheelchair.

When we got to Chicago, we did a short walk to the Museum of Science and Industry. My mom originally wasn’t sure about it being kid-friendly, but when she scoped it out with my dad she found that there was lots for Snowy to do. She loved pretending to be a pilot in the model airplane, and we spent a lot of time in the children’s area. We ate lunch there as well, and they had a great cafeteria with lots of choices (and for a museum, it was fairly reasonably priced).

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This is a topic I’ve thought about often since having kids, especially since having a daughter. I never told my parents about any of my experiences being sexually harassed as a child, but I never felt like I could talk to them about anything. Asian parents tend to be difficult to open up to, and as first generation immigrants, there was also fear and a cultural divide between us.

My earliest memory of being harassed was in kindergarten, when the naughtiest boy in class would lift up girls’ skirts to expose their underwear during recess and lunch. He was a very troubled boy and I believe he got kicked out of school not too long after kindergarten. When I was in fourth grade, I had a male teacher that would make his favorite female students “flirt” with boys in the class by speaking in a girlish voice and grabbing our hands to wave to a boy. The most popular boy in that class was named Oscar. When determining which lucky female got to sit next to him, the teacher selected five girls, including me, and wrote our names down on small pieces of paper. Oscar was then asked to draw a name and the “winning” girl sat next to him. The girl who “won” as well as Oscar were both so embarrassed they turned bright red. Once when a high school teacher, who regularly harassed me in class, asked me to stay after class, I was terrified that he would make a pass at me, or much worse. Nothing happened, and I believe he was later fired for sexual harassment.

I don’t know if this was unique to my neighborhood growing up in Los Angeles, but it was a regular occurrence for men to sit in a parked car while masturbating and trying to get your attention. This happened to me and all my female friends throughout elementary to high school. The worst experience for me was when I was in 7th grade, walking home alone from the school bus. A man asked me for directions, and because he spoke Korean, I trusted him enough to approach his car. As I got closer, I saw that he was not wearing any pants and you guessed it – masturbating. I ran away from the car as quickly as I could. The following day as I was walking home alone again, I spotted the same car that had approached me the day before. Fear ran through my entire body as I was on a quiet residential street instead of a busy boulevard like the day before, but at that moment my aunt just happened to walk down the street and called my name. I ran towards her and the car sped off.

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