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發表於 09-2-27 14:04 |只看該作者

nillie,

i was also a breastfeeding mom until my son was 16 months old, so i totally understood the "no-sleeping" nights. now i don't think i can do it again and that's why we still don't plan to have any more kids.

c .... i always said u're such a super-mom - working full time, commuting far and the whole family still be able to go to bed by 8:00/8:30.

our whole family always go to bed late. even after my son was borned, things still haven't changed much. before, i slept from 2am to 9am (when i still had a job). now from 1am to 7am.
even my son never wanna goes to bed. he always wanna plays with his dad after dinner.

since you can handle your work/kids' schools/home schedules, u can definitely keep "whatever as is" going as long as you don't feel stressful and you don't miss quality of family life during the week.

don't forget your own health is important too as your kids still need you to take care of them.
when our son was borned, my husband wanna move to a place (with good schools) where is about an hour commuting to his workplace. i rejected as i don't want him to stress out and affect his health and quality time with the family.

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發表於 09-2-27 14:45 |只看該作者

rose-mag,

i also heard about the lottery system of public schools in SF.
my dad's relative just sent their son to the closest public elementary and middle schools. those school are so-so (maybe be in the 700s for API). the parents are just high-school grads from china and didn't send their son to any tutoring centers or anything. i don't think they had even sent their son to preschool when he was little. however, surprisingly their son got into Lowell high school after taken the entrance exam. now it's his 3rd yr at Lowell.

i also know a lot of friends who went to the so-so public high schools in SF but most of them went to UC Berkeley for their undergraduate degrees. however, one of them sent his son to the pricy top private schools from elementary til high school but ended up he wasn't even accepted by Berkeley. i think becoz the top colleges usually only accept the top 1% graduate of the high schools, but it's hard to be the top 1% at a top high school.

anyway, i know a friend in SF just sent her son to a christian preschool and another christian school for kindergarten. if u're interested, i can pm u the names of the school.

btw, i just found out San Mateo/Foster City also offer public preschool programs and it's not for low-income families. price is reasonable (about same price as most christian preschools). also their public elementary schools are not bad. so maybe u can consider moving to San Mateo where is not too far from SF too.

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rose-mag

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2803^#

發表於 09-2-27 16:09 |只看該作者

原帖由 bunnymonkey 於 09-2-27 08:44 發表
Rose-mag...
Yeah, I heard of the lottery in SF public school. That's not good. Have you think of moving somewhere else (like to the cities next to SF)? Are those districts have better schools (or at ...

Hi bunnymonkey,
Yes, the concept of lottery is really crazy, just like when I was in primary school in HK, the scheme used to determine which secondary school students should be placed to was of the same concept. I chose 10 schools in the sequence of perference and the education dept would use the computer to randomly pick the school for me. So, I and my classmates were the only 2 who could go to a good school in the same district. All the other students in the same primary school were placed to the sec schools where they had to take a bus. I lived in Kwai Chung and all my classmates came from the same estate. It turned out that some of them had to take buses or MTR to attend the schools in Kowloon.

I and my hubby are thinking about buying a house out of SF for a while and are still searching. We want to have a house with 3 bedroom so that the kids can have their own room in the future. They love to room in with us now. It may be a good timing as the price is lower now but we are just not sure if our jobs are steady and well-paid enough to own a house.

What you said are true facts. Many people I know did not send their kids to some nice and pricey schools and they finally end up in Berkeley, Stanford. The parents do not really know English. On the other hand, I see someone who send their kids to those expensive schools but the kids are not really that smart. I believe that other than the school, the parents and the 本質 of a person also play very important role on her success. I don't know what type of parent I would turn out to be. But, I want them to have independent thinking, strong will and positive mind.

Luckily, the preschool that I choose for my son now is the midway of my commute to my workplace from home. I just need to drop him off in the school and then pop back to the same bus. I know that it may take a few months to see if the school is suitable for a kid or not and I hope that my son would be fine there. He's a sensitive kid who needs a lot of attention and security. These days, he shows his jealousy to his sister a lot and he starts to attach to me. He will be 3 years old in a few weeks and a lot of my friends told me that kid will be terrific when he turns 3. I'm not sure if it's true or not.

花旗太太生活在花旗國，留意時差，你問我未必即時答到。

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rose-mag

王國長老

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2804^#

發表於 09-2-27 16:19 |只看該作者

原帖由 SY_Mom 於 09-2-27 14:45 發表
rose-mag,
i also heard about the lottery system of public schools in SF.
my dad's relative just sent their son to the closest public elementary and middle schools. those school are so-so (maybe be ...

SY_Mom,

I think that lottery system is crazy and these education administrator have not considered about commuting for a young kids. Now, when the city has to cut budget, the # of school buses has to be cut and possibly a few schools would not be closed. Can you imagine a little child needs to wake up early to catch the school bus and would have to sit in the bus for a long time before he can reach his school? I heard that max. ridding time is 1.5 hours!

For the name of the preschool and kindergarten, please PM me if it does not be too troublesome to you. Thanks.

My hubby knows the Bay Area quite well as he needs to travel for fieldwork. He said that Sunnyvale has the best public schools and then Foster City the second best. However, the houses in these 2 cities are still very high which is out of our limit. We are searching for house in mainly Daly City and San Mateo. Some of the prices are really not bad but we are waiting for a good deal. Also, the union contract of my hubby's company will expire in May this year. He needs to check out how it would be before we can decide.

花旗太太生活在花旗國，留意時差，你問我未必即時答到。

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發表於 09-2-27 21:53 |只看該作者

same as in NY... they said the same thing to us as well... crab educational system..
they don't even offer us the school bus, which left us no choice, I have to send Amanda to school everyday.

原帖由 rose-mag 於 09-2-26 06:34 PM 發表
Nillie, SY_Mom,

Agree that sleeping is an luxuary for breastfeeding mom, hehe... I used to sleep so little when I was in HK, usually 6-7 hours. When I moved to here and married my fat guy, I follow ...

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2806^#

發表於 09-2-27 22:03 |只看該作者

I do our laundry before bed, Eric cooks dinner, I wash kids when I have my shower at the same time, eric takes care of the trash, so we can go to bed all together at 8-8:30pm.
in the morning, I woke up at 5:45am. then I will put the laundry into the dryer.
dress myself up, make breakfast for kids. clean up the toys which left over last night, get the kids up, give Gabriel bottle at the same time to help Amanda dress up.
after breakfast, we leave home by 6:45am. drop off Gabriel at 7am, leave his day care by 7:08am, then go straight to Manhattan, after drop off Amanda, then I will go to work..
schedule fixed everyday.. at the beginning, I feel like I was in the hell.. but after a few months... now I get used to it..
you guys have better lives than me... I am so admir..
Amanda loves this school so much, we don't dare to tell her if we plan to switch her back to staten island to the regular public school with the special program.. she may be very upset.. we still have to think... do it worth to swicth her back to staten island, just to make myself to sleep more.. and save some gas?? seems ---doesn't worth to try at all... rose-mag, you can read my mind

原帖由 SY_Mom 於 09-2-27 01:04 AM 發表
nillie,

i was also a breastfeeding mom until my son was 16 months old, so i totally understood the "no-sleeping" nights. now i don't think i can do it again and that's why we still don't plan to hav ...

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2807^#

發表於 09-2-27 22:04 |只看該作者

a bk mami here in New york, work with the same organization with me, she is a licensed acupuncturist.. so she is going to give me treatment. to keep me healthier. I should be fine.. thanks SY_mom...

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2808^#

發表於 09-2-28 01:18 |只看該作者

rose-mag,

in fact, Sunnyvale does not offer the "best" public schools in the bay area. Saratoga, Palo Alto and Cupertino would be the best (from k to 12). so only the Cupertino district part of the Sunnyvale is good (i.e. part of the zip code 94087). however, a couple public elementary schools of the sunnyvale school district are considered good (but middle and high school are so-so). probably the high schools in san mateo and foster city are so-so but their elementary schools are good.

so if u only consider good elementary and/or middle schools only at this time, there're a lot more good choices of houses in different areas.

i'll pm u the names of the private schools that i know in SF.

[ 本帖最後由 SY_Mom 於 09-2-28 01:35 編輯 ]

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發表於 09-2-28 01:43 |只看該作者

nillie,

u made me feel guilty ... i feel like my husband and i are the laziest parents on the planet. we always think how could we have one more kid if we can barely be able to handle one, although sometimes i feel a bit guilty that we don't give our son a sibling.

btw, if your kids are not treating you well when they grow up, i'll help u to "give them a lesson". just kidding ... i think they will.

don't forget to drive safe on the road too!

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發表於 09-2-28 03:44 |只看該作者

bunnymonkey,

when i heard abt yr high school's case, i thought about my sister-in-law as my 99 always mentioned about her. she's a very smart person and always good at everything - u can name it: academics, music, arts and sports, etc. initially my 99 planned to hire a driver to take her to Maryknoll school every day while they lived in N.T. and she was working. eventually she let her just go to a good local public high school in N.T. then she got her scholarship going to Stanford for her graduate study.
on the other hand, another sister-in-law who went to Maryknoll is not doing better than her.
so my 99 always said that we don't have to always send the kids to the best schools as long as the school is a good/above average one (but not necessarily be the best one).
i agree but it all depends on the kid's character too. so recently my husband kept say that he wanna just send our kid to a good public school as the character building is more important. we realized that most private schools just care about academics instead of the social emotional growth of the kids. having a good EQ is better than having a good IQ in order to survive at work (which we learned from our another relative's story).

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2811^#

發表於 09-2-28 05:04 |只看該作者

haha... I am sure that Amanda will not take care of me when I get older.. she loves her father only....
I love her and care about her, not because I want them to take care of me when I get older.
I give them all I can have, because I brought them to the world.. which they did not choose for. If I chose to have them, I can give up whatever I had.. if not, I better not to have them.. that's why I told every one... Gabriel will be the last one.. as I know.. I can't give anymore...
I love them just like my grandma loves me.. but I can not compare myself with my grandma..if she still alive.. I will feel so guilty.. as she loves me even more than I love my children..

原帖由 SY_Mom 於 09-2-27 12:43 PM 發表
nillie,

u made me feel guilty ... i feel like my husband and i are the laziest parents on the planet. we always think how could we have one more kid if we can barely be able to handle one, although ...

[ 本帖最後由 Nillie_Mami 於 09-2-27 16:06 編輯 ]

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rose-mag

王國長老

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2812^#

發表於 09-2-28 07:42 |只看該作者

原帖由 SY_Mom 於 09-2-28 01:18 發表
rose-mag,

in fact, Sunnyvale does not offer the "best" public schools in the bay area. Saratoga, Palo Alto and Cupertino would be the best (from k to 12). so only the Cupertino district part of the ...

SY_Mom,
It's hard to find a place with a combination of good schools from K to 12, middle shcools and high schools. One of my coworkers keeps moving to meet the needs of her kid. She lived in Hayward when her son's in preschool and now she's living in Dublin and her son's in K. Luckily, the middle schools and high schools in Dublin are not too bad. Otherwise, she may need to move again.

I agree that character development is more important for the kid to survive in these days. High EQ and a strong are of high priority. I have seen a friend's kid who cannot accepted loss in playing card game with his cousins. Instead of telling the kid to learn from failure and try harder, my friend scolded his nephew and niece being so mean to their cousins. According to my friend, they should pretend to lose to prevent hurting his son's feeling. It don't know how to comment but I definitely have a different way to handle. I would tell my son that it's okay to lose and he should be more careful and learn the rules. Eventually, I may want to play together with them and help my son out.

花旗太太生活在花旗國，留意時差，你問我未必即時答到。

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發表於 09-2-28 10:21 |只看該作者

rose-mag,

u know what?! my son's reaction was like yr friend's son's when playing board games. even if i told him it's ok to lose, he still said that it's not ok and that's not fair ... a few weeks ago, he went to his classmate's place to play monopoly game together. his classmate also had the same reaction. his classmate already got upset at the beginning becoz he got less dots on the dice that he rolled and he couldn't go first. i think most strong-will kids (esp. boys) are like that. they like to compete and always wanna be the winner.

back to the good school districts all the way from k to 12, you can definitely move into those areas. for $1.1-1.3m, you could get a tiny little old house in those areas. if you're willing to pay more, of course u can get bigger houses la.

btw, if u decided to send yr kids to the public elementary schools, you'd better move like at least a year before your older one starts kindergarten. otherwise, space is not guaranteed at your home school (usually closest one). then you might be assigned to a school where is a bit far and more importantly it might not be as good as your home school although it's still within the same school district. if you move after yr son started kindergarten somewhere else, it's even harder to get a space starting from 1st grade. usually only a couple to a few spots available afterwards. we are exactly that case.

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發表於 09-2-28 10:39 |只看該作者

nillie,

i'm totally with u ... as my son is also a daddy's boy and actually he always said he hates me. so my husband always told me to take care of myself first and not to sacrifice too much for my son, as we both expect that he won't take care of me when i get old. again, especially boys ...
however, for girls, they will understand and love their mothers more when they have their own kids.
so far i haven't sacrificed much for my son except that i haven't worked since he's borned. sometimes i'm not even sure if it's worth it to do so when i looked back. that's quite a lot of money if i had worked for 5-6 years, and more importantly it's kinda hard to get back to my career as technologies change so quickly.
i don't think my son and even my husband would appreciate it. my mom kept saying her friends and relatives said what a waste that i don't go to work since i'd studied for so many years.

so, that's good for you if u can handle both work and family lives at the same time.

[ 本帖最後由 SY_Mom 於 09-2-28 10:53 編輯 ]

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bunnymonkey

別墅

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2815^#

發表於 09-2-28 11:52 |只看該作者

rose-mag,

I see. I didn't know the details about the SF lottery. So it's more like our HK primrary -> Sec school type of lottery huh... Back when I was P.6, I also applied for sec school on our own so I actually got accepted from the school of my choice and didn't go through the lottery. That year, we could applied different schools (even in different school district) but only able to go to one of the applied school for the exam (kinda like the early admission). I lived in Eastern District in HK Island and my sec school was in the Western District up on the hill. It was a commute from one end of the island to the other end. Actually I had classmates who live in TsingYi (no MTR there back then) and Tsuen Wan etc. A lot of us commuted from different areas.

Yeah, I agree with you. I'd like my kid to have independent thinking and strong will... with good moral character.

When will your son's preschool start? My son will be 3 this June and his 3yo preschool class will start this September. Right now, I am in the process of potty training him. Usually it's too late to get him up on the toliet seat on time if he tells me he needs to poo. I got the potty ring (to put in adult's toliet seat) and he sat there fine but he usually needs help to step on the step stool, turned around his body to sit there. My mom complaining that I should get a small potty seat to put on the floor so he can help himself. I don't know how long he really need a potty chair but I guess I need to buy one soon before my mom get more frustrated...

原帖由 rose-mag 於 09-2-27 16:09 發表

Hi bunnymonkey,
Yes, the concept of lottery is really crazy, just like when I was in primary school in HK, the scheme used to determine which secondary school students should be placed to was of the ...

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發表於 09-2-28 22:29 |只看該作者

be honest.. I feel the same way just like your mom and friends...
it is a waste, to stay at home.. as he is schooling.
hum.. but many mom would say.. to stay with young children now, better than when they are in junior high. because "bonding" is the issue.
relationship must set up at the early stage with kids, so they will rely on you.
I feel so sorry to both of them, as I can not give up my job as I am the breadmaker. if I stop working, Gabriel will not able to go to daycare, and Amanda had to go back to staten island and studies in the regular PS.
we may have to sell our house as well to maintain the monthly expense.
it is so lucky for your son and husband to have you, to manage the family.
again.. as I said.. once you have too much roles at the same time.. 只會張張刀, 冇張利..
I used to clean my house twice a day, wipe floor every day, wash all toys 1-2 a week.
at least 2 dishes and fresh soup every night.
wash all children laundry by hands.
now.. don't even think about it.
Amanda's clothes even the towels, I hand wash them until she turns 2 years old, because I don't want the washing machine damage her clothes, also, she has skin problem, I don't want her to suffer from ezcema. hand wash is the only way.
For Gabriel.. I feel so guilty for him.. this little one.. what I can do, just breast feed him until he was 21 months. then we sent him to daycare.
glad that, both amanda and gabriel are happy children.
for the strong mind child..
Amanda was one of those.. even when she practices her piano, and she presses the wrong keys, she was quite upset. So, I play the same note and mean to make some mistake on it.. and pretend I am upset.. then, she learnt, and comes to me, and say" mami, it is ok.. don't get upset, everybody makes mistake".
hum.. for gabriel.. he is the same, but he is too young to educate him.. and I have to find the way which is good for him to learn from the lose

原帖由 SY_Mom 於 09-2-27 09:39 PM 發表
nillie,

i'm totally with u ... as my son is also a daddy's boy and actually he always said he hates me. so my husband always told me to take care of myself first and not to sacrifice too much for my ...

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2817^#

發表於 09-3-2 19:31 |只看該作者

NYC schools closed today

Dear all moms in NYC, NJ, CI (some states in eastern coast)
Deal to the snow storm today, school closed.
今日因暴風雪關係, 學校停課
for more detail please go to
http://www.myfoxny.com

http://schools.nyc.gov/Home/Spotlight/20090302_weather.htm
New York City public schools are closed today due to snow and wind conditions. Department of Education offices are open.

[ 本帖最後由 Nillie_Mami 於 09-3-2 07:00 編輯 ]

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ndw

子爵府

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2818^#

發表於 09-3-3 13:12 |只看該作者

Hi Nillie,
Thank you for your sharing:
"for the strong mind child..
Amanda was one of those.. "
My daughter #1 is this way too. I think she is even more, she could upset and tell the dead object "Don't do that" with engry voice.

She is not yong, she is 5 now.
I told my husband that may be he let her watches too much Toy Story, Finding Nimo...

Did Amanda stopped being upset? or She tells you it's okay but she does not control herself being upset?

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