Posts Tagged ‘mommy blog’

Round the Dinner Table?

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

As a kid, dinner consisted of three kids sitting around table with only the sound of clinking of chopsticks and spoons against our Corelle dishes to break the silence. Honestly, I can’t remember a single conversation over dinner that was noteworthy, but then again, I tend not to dredge up the past very often. I definitely think that dinnertime at our house was a caricature of what a stereotypical Asian dinner looked like. Kids were seen, but not heard. And much of the conversation was in Korean and, sadly, I don’t speak Korean.

As a teen, it was just my father and I. Stepmother #1 was long gone, my father had started dating and my brother and sister had moved out of the house. I spent a lot of dinners reheating leftovers and eating alone. To this day, I can’t believe I am still fond of spaghetti and burritos.

Nowadays, I am not so insistent about sitting around the dinner table. Paige and I eat at the table about 60% of the time. Sometimes we zone out and watch a movie while we eat. Sometimes I am working late and Paige makes something for herself and eats alone. Sometimes we go out and have someone else cook for us for a change. It’s a total crapshoot. A mixed bag. But it works for just the two of us and I don’t think we would be any closer if we sat around the table every single night while we ate our spaghetti and burritos. It’s inconsequential for us.

So do I think that eating together is sacred? Sure it is. But I also think there are plenty of other ways to be “present” with your kids. In the car, at night when you are snuggling or over an ice cream cone – just listen and you’ll be surprised where the conversation takes you.

Here’s what Heather Armstrong from Dooce, Mindy Roberts from The Mommy Blog and I have to say about eating together as a family:

PS. Thanks for your patience and well wishes. I will get back into regularly posting when my head is on straight. The last three weeks have kicked my ass.

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Poop In My Lettuce

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

Broccoli is good!

But wait, don’t eat too much broccoli!

Too much broccoli causes cancer!

Anytime I think about germs or toxins or product recalls or bird flu or conflicting medical studies, I start to get a bit paranoid. This is especially so since the media tends to gravitate on stories about things that are going to kill me.

Nowadays, I try to take a moderate approach to living. I try to do things that have the least impact on the environment, but I am also human. I make bad choices.

In the great scheme of things, I secretly think that we really have little control over our destiny. Be it God, Allah, Buddha or Ganesh – it may be that we are just hanging on to this life with just a hope and a prayer.

This week on Momversations, Alice Bradley of Finslippy asks Mindy Roberts and I about the terrors of toxins and the things that we can’t see:

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It’s A Family Affair

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

I think I would have just imploded if I was home schooled. First of all, I don’t think that there would be anyone at home to home school me. Secondarily, as a child of Korean immigrants, it was the other way around – I was often home schooling my parents. I can definitely recall quizzing my newly immigrated Korean step-mother on the naturalization questions. Or preparing the tax returns for the household. Or interpreting for my parents when they pretending that they didn’t understand English (even when they really did).  You try arguing with a child who is interpreting for their parents. It shuts people down.

I think that I would make an awful home school teacher, but I applaud those that do. Teaching Paige would be something akin to this:

Me: Math is important.

Paige: Nuh-uh.

Me: Uh-huh.

Paige: Nuh-uh.

Me: Uh-uh.

Paige: Nuh-uh.

Me: Math is important BECAUSE I SAID SO AND I’M THE BOSS.

Dana Loesch from Mamalogues asks Mindy Roberts, The Mommy Blog, and I about home schooling in this episode of Momversation.

Oh yeah, just incase you wanted to get a closer look at segregation in the early 80’s, this is what it looks like:

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