Geek in Heels - Page 79

Aug 22, 2011 • In Parenting, Personal

Before I Knew About Sex…

Lately I have been wondering how I will tackle the inevitable question that all parents get asked by their young children:

Where do babies come from?

My parents will be the first to admit that I was an unusual child. Always preferring books over other children, and never having to be reminded to go study, do my homework, practice the piano, etc, I am told that I hardly ever asked my parents or other adults questions about the curiosities of life. Rather, I chose to seek out the answers myself (usually in a book).

And when I could not discover the answer myself…

I went ahead and devised my own theories.

So before being instructed on the birds and the bees by fellow classmates during a traumatizing recess period in the third grade, I believed that pregnancy was a disease that only women can catch.

How did one “catch” this disease?

By eating infected watermelon seeds!

As such, I was very careful about never, ever swallowing watermelon seeds. 🙂

(image source)

I know that as parents, it is J and my job to instruct our children about sex, and that having a healthy and open conversation with them about it will be better for them in the long run.

(That being said, if J has his way our daughters will remain pure and virginal forever, never having to find out a thing about sex or boys. 😉 )

I want to be honest with my kids and not give them a B.S. response when they ask me difficult questions. At the same time, I do know that some truths are inappropriate for young children, i.e., telling them anything more graphic than “When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much…” may be traumatizing.

Luckily, we still have at least a few more years until we need to devise a plan of action.

Before you knew about sex, where did you think (or were told) babies came from?

What do you believe is the best way to tell a young child about sex and the origin of babies?

Paper Dolls from Your Favorite Television Shows

Illustrator Kyle Hilton has been creating a new paper doll based on his favorite TV characters each week. Among the television shows are the likes of Parks and Recreation, Breaking Bad, and one of my all-time favs, Arrested Development!

Be sure to click on over to kylehilton.com to see the paper dolls from his other favorite shows. I know that I’ll be checking often, as The Office and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia are in works!

Via Visual News.

Tattletale

J loves our firstborn with all his heart. It is not unusual for him to spend an entire Saturday playing with her, then stare forlornly at the baby monitor after he has put her to bed and sigh, “I miss my baby.”

That being said, he is much better at saying “no” than I will ever be. He is constantly reminding me that it is better to enforce good habits now than to have to break bad habits long after they have formed.

Not surprisingly, Claire does not like this aspect of her father. 😛

Take tonight, for example. After J put his foot down for what seemed like the millionth time today, and she threw her millionth tantrum as a response, I gathered her sobbing little body into my arms and took her away in order to ready her for bedtime.

And as we sat there, just mother and daughter for the first time in hours today, she launched into a speech…

“BABA blah blah blah gibberish babytalk blah blah! More gibberish BABA blah blah blah! BABA gibberish gibberish gibberish!“

This went on for a few more minutes, with the word “baba” (the Chinese word for “daddy”) inserted every few seconds. I couldn’t help but start cracking up as I responded with the occasional “Oh really?”s and “You don’t say!”s — because it really seemed like she was telling me about all the bad things her baba had done today to make her upset!

In other words…TATTLETALE!

When J appeared as we neared the end of her bedtime routine, she shot him daggers from her eyes and even refused to let him give her her nighttime bottle.

Stubborn, grudge-holding tattletale!

My parents have been declaring Claire a little genius from day one (and I always shook them off because…well, they’re her grandparents), but lately I have been hearing more and more comments from friends, family members, and even strangers who have limited interactions with her that she is one smart baby.

And the downside to having an astute child? You are bound to run into problems with them later on, as they start to talk back, sneak things by you, and even eventually outwit you!

We’re in for one heck of a ride.

How to Get Your Manager to Go Home Early for the Day

Via Reddit.

True or False?

I once read in a book that all humans are born with three innate fears:

The fear of darkness
The fear of heights/falling
The fear of reptiles

Now, this was a fiction title so I cannot verify the validity of the statement. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Because while we may grow out of these fears, but I have not yet come across one person who never feared these things as a young child.

Can any of my readers refute this statement? For instance, can anyone remember ever not being fearful of snakes?

Can anyone who has experience in psychology confirm or disprove this theory?

Engagement Photos of the Year [Zombies]

It is no secret that J and I share a love for the zombie genre — books, movies, video games, and even reenactments. (Also, is it wrong that I totally want to get Pat the Zombie for Claire?)

As such, I couldn’t help but find the engagement photos of Juliana S. Park and Benjamin J. Lee to be hilarious, completely original, and utterly irresistible. And we thought we had a great idea to have our engagement photos taken at the Metropolitan Museum of Art…these are so much better!

Want more? Click on over to Juliana & Benjamin’s wedding website to see the rest!

Via The Daily What.

Do With It What You Will

I checked my blog stats this morning to discover a plethora of traffic from an unfamiliar site. As I am always excited to encounter new readers and see how and why they chose to visit, I excitedly clicked on the source link…

…only to discover the blog of an extremely racist expat who is currently residing in Korea, using one of my various commentaries on Korean society and distorting it convey his belief that Koreans are fat, ugly, good-for-nothing beings whose “kimchi breath” makes him want to hurl.

After taking a deep breath, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Who knows? Maybe he had a bad day.

So I read on, and became disheartened to learn that the rest of his blog was filled with similar hate-filled speech, not only against Koreans but to women as well, consistently referring to the fairer sex as “b*tches” and “c*nts.”

My first instinct after browsing through the first few pages (don’t ask me why I got so far…it was like watching the horrible scene of an accident) was to contact the writer, or at least leave a comment asking him to remove the link to this blog.

But then I realized: what I write here is in plain sight of everyone who has access to the internet. In other words, it is free fodder for all. And just like there will always be readers who misinterpret my often-well-intentioned ramblings to take offense at my thoughts, there will always be those who will use it for malicious purposes as well.

(source)

Similarly, I know that while most people will look at pictures of Claire and see just a baby, a few will find them erotic and have perverted thoughts about my firstborn. :shudder:

As much as I would like to see a stop to actions and thought processes such as these, I can’t. I cannot control how others feel. I cannot control how others act or react. And I have found from experience that if anything, my fighting back usually results in riling anger and unwanted attention.

So I usually just ignore.

What would you do if your content were linked to from an unsavory site? Would you ask to have it removed, or would you just ignore it?

Is this yet another reason why so many bloggers choose not to get so personal on their public spaces on the web?

Three Links

My mother came over today so that I can get some rest (but we all know the real reason she comes over is to see her precious granddaughter), but instead of doing what I was supposed to do — take a nap to relieve my body of the insomnia it has been suffering — I ended up being on my feet the entire day cooking, cleaning, and taking a trip to the Korean grocery store.

The two hours between the time that my mother left and J arrived home from work was torture. Comang was being a brat and wouldn’t stop barking. Claire was overtired and kept throwing mini tantrums. My entire body was aching, I was having painful Braxton Hicks contractions, and all I wanted to do was lie down and close my eyes…

But hey, at least our condo is the cleanest it has been in months! 😀

I still haven’t gotten any proper rest — how could I, knowing that I haven’t checked email or Google Reader for the entire day? (I know, priorities!) So here I am, skipping out on writing a quality blog post by linking to the three most interesting items on my subscribed RSS feeds today. Enjoy!

1. Scripting Language Comparisons

“An extensive side-by-side reference sheet of four scripting languages (PHP, Python, Perl, and Ruby) with which you can compare how the different languages handle variable declarations, concatenations, objects, and hundreds of other things. Great cheatsheet for learning a new language when you’re already familar with one of the others.” (via kottke.org)

2. Capturing NYC’s Day and Night in One Frame

“Photographer Stephen Wilkes has created a project called Day to Night where he merges together beautiful day and night photos of various iconic New York places seamlessly into one. How does he do it? For a minimum of 10 hours, he photographs one scene from the same perspective until he captures day to night within a single frame. His wonderful series will be on display at Chelsea’s Clamp Art Gallery in New York starting September 8 and ending October 29.” (via My Modern Met)

3. Indiana Jones World Map + Creation Video

“Artist Matt Busch has created a Lucasfilm approved world map that shows off all of the locations that Indiana Jones has made all of his archeological discoveries over the years. The map doesn’t just include his discoveries from the movies, but also includes locations visited in the novels, comic books, video games and even the Young Indiana Jones TV series.” (via Geek Tyrant)

Teddy Roosevelt’s Diary on the Day His Wife Died

I confess…this made me shed a tear.

Via Neatorama.

A Short Update on Our 10-Month-Old

In the past 24 hours…

As I took both Claire and Comang for a short stroll, some neighborhood dogs noticed our shy shih tzu and started barking at him. Claire seemed to want to defend him, because she started barking back! (Or at least tried her best to mimic barking sounds.)
When I “attacked” her with a stuffed animal, she grabbed another nearby stuffed animal and used it to fight back.
J was getting ready to leave for work and bent down by the front door to tie his shoes. Claire zoomed on over to him in her walker and started to wave “bye” to him without any prompting from either one of us.
After following me into the bathroom in her walker (I always leave the door open when I’m home alone and need to use the facilities so that Claire doesn’t freak out), she grabbed ahold of the toilet paper and gleefully zipped on out. Of course, by the time I was done peeing and was able to finally catch up to her, toilet paper was everywhere.

Seriously. She is becoming so fun now. The other night I looked down at my growing belly and let out a woeful sigh. “We’re going to have to wait an entire 10 months after this one is born for her to be where Claire is now,” I whined to J. “Can’t we just fast-forward?”

Styling’ it up with daddy’s sunglasses

With all this being said, I am starting to get a wee bit concerned about how Claire will handle BebeDeux. Over the weekend, we visited J’s cousin who had had a baby just two weeks ago. When Claire saw me holding the baby in my arms, she freaked out. Luckily, J was able to calm her down without much of a problem, but I had never seen her lash out in jealousy before.

Everyone tells me that having two girls so close in age will be beneficial to them, that they will be the best of friends. However, my sister and I are less than 2 years apart and we used to fight all the time. Our relationship did not improve until we were both in our 20s.

I can already picture Claire and BebeDeux arguing and bickering. Especially when I am holding Claire and she kicks me in the stomach. Or when I am reading to Claire as she is leaned up against my belly, and BebeDeux kicks up at her older sister, startling and confusing her.

I am now 29 weeks pregnant with BebeDeux. I remember how when I was at this stage with Claire, I couldn’t wait for her to come out. But this time around, despite my ever-increasing physical discomfort, I find myself whispering to my belly, “You stay in there for as loooong as you want, okay?”

Before I Knew About Sex…

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Paper Dolls from Your Favorite Television Shows

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Tattletale

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How to Get Your Manager to Go Home Early for the Day

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True or False?

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Engagement Photos of the Year [Zombies]

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Do With It What You Will

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Three Links

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Teddy Roosevelt’s Diary on the Day His Wife Died

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A Short Update on Our 10-Month-Old

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