Life

Being a more light-hearted parent

/ hsoi

There’s a lot about the HuffPo that doesn’t jive with me, but this article by Gretchen Rubin about 10 ways to be a more light-hearted parent is a pretty spot-on piece.

While I understand and agree with the point of #6, I would say it’s more important to phrase things in terms of what you want them to do. Sometimes negative phrasing might be the right way to phrase it. Still, Ms. Rubin’s point is generally solid. You can read this for further elaboration on what I mean.

Still, a pretty decent list.

Quiet

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Sorry for the lack of posting… 

Mired in stuff at work. Working through creating a generic data-driven generic object model mini-framework to drive NSRuleEditor. Didn’t even get to the dojang today. 😦

Lots of child-based crises today. Not with our own children, but with neighbor and friend children. One side-effect of being at home all the time is we often get called upon to help out, babysit, or other such things. Comes with the territory. Someone asks you for help, you don’t say no.

Today’s also a milestone date with my wife. I love you.

So, just many other things going on… doesn’t leave much time for posting.

50 things everyone should know

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

While the article is titled “50 Things Every 18-Year-Old Should Know“, I think they are 50 things that everyone should know… perhaps should know by the time they’re 18, but if you don’t know it yet, now is a good time to learn it.

Daughter stuff

/ hsoi

Daughter has been growing her hair out for some time now, and today she finally got to get it cut.

All for Locks of Love.

It’s a bit shocking to see her go from long hair to rather short hair, but the stylist Wife goes to is very good and Daughter looks great. All is good.

So… now I get to take her to see The Hannah Montana Movie this afternoon. It’s good time with Daughter, but I just hope my ears don’t bleed. 😉

Update: I survived the movie. Truth be told, it’s not that bad. Not some great cinematic tour de force, but it was OK. Certainly there’s no need to see this movie unless there’s a Hannah Montana fan that needs her Hannah-fix. Plot was predictable and cookie cutter, but it served the purpose (i.e., making lots of money for Disney, including cross-promoting their latest teen-star du jour). No real character development, and honestly I was hoping for more laughs. I was annoyed at how some “new song” would be whipped out but somehow everyone else knew the song well enough to sing, harmonize, dance, play the instruments… but hey, gotta suspend reality, right? 

I will say, while at first I didn’t get the whole Hannah Montana thing, now that it’s infiltrated our household I have to admit it’s not that bad. I actually do enjoy watching the show (Jason Earles is a funny guy). If Daughter is going to be listening to music, Hannah/Miley music isn’t all that bad. Sure it’s got typical “teenage girl chasing boys” type of songs, but that is a fact of life and believe me there’s far worse ways of presenting such topics. Off the new movie, the song “The Climb” has a pretty good message to it (cliché but acceptable). There are some other songs of hers that I’ve also felt had a pretty decent message too, but don’t ask me to name them because I don’t know them.

But for me, the bottom line is spending time with Daughter. Now we just need to go to the gun range together. 😀

tolerate != approve

/ hsoi / 11 Comments

Shoothouse Barbie has a nice (and growing) piece worth reading.

A good quote:

The word “tolerate” has been hijacked and misused for so very long that few people are really using it appropriately any more. Suffice to say that “toleration != approval”. 

She’s quite right. When you live in a state with 24,000,000 people, a country with over 300,000,000, a world with over 6,000,000,000, or just in your own household with maybe 3-5 people, people are going to do things you do not approve of. No one says you have to approve of it, but we do have to tolerate it. Rather, we do have to tolerate it if we wish to call ourselves a free society. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to support it, but you have to tolerate it… else someday someone’s going to not tolerate things you like and do. Treat others as you want to be treated, and all that good stuff.

A positive message for kids and everyone

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Kuk Sool Won of St. Paul keeps a blog, and they just posted an entry about “A homeschooling perspective.” The posting, IMHO, doesn’t have much to do with homeschooling or martial arts, but it has a lot to present about life and good things to teach your kids (or even yourself).

Such a simple exchange, but I found it so moving. I’m so glad my son is getting these messages early from strong, compassionate teachers. You can keep going after you make a mistake. You can ask for help. You just have to keep practicing.

It reminds me a little of a story I read once about a famous modern-dance choreographer-I can’t remember which one now. Maybe Martha Graham? One of her dancers fell flat on her butt during a rehearsal and sat there with a stunned expression on her face, not moving, not getting up. The choreographer swooped over to the dancer and exhorted her, “Don’t stop now! Make it into something beautiful!”