The Scales Top Ten in 2012

The Scales’ Top Ten Happenings in 2012 

No. 10   Despite a year full of mischief and “adventures” by the boys, they each made it to their birthdays, 10 (Ethan) and 4 (Henry) respectively. Here is a picture to prove it.

No. 9   Henry started potty training. While he is entirely in control of his bladder, sometimes playing with an iPad makes him forget about the other. Don may have the same problem…sometimes.

No. 8   Don hit the city bus with Deb’s van. He was fine; the van was totaled.

No. 7   And that’s how Deb got her Mer. (Ladies, guilt trip does work.)

No. 6   Ethan played at Autzen stadium again and his team won again, 30-0 this time.

No. 5   The boys loved their first trip to Kona, Hawaii.

No. 4   Henry didn’t love his flight to Taiwan. Our friends and family in Taiwan loved him.

No. 3   Henry was traumatized at Disneyland. His favorite place in Disneyland was “the HO-TEL.” Every time we invited him to a ride, he told us “No, thanks. I want to go to our HO-TEL”

No. 2   Our first year as season ticket holders for the Ducks football games.

And now, the Scales’ Number 1 happening in 2012 

No. 1   We welcome our newest a family member, a brother and son, Zack! Xan and Zack were married in April. A party in their honor will be hosted in the near future.

Merry Christmas, everyone.  It's been a blessed year for the Scales and we are looking forward to another year of happiness, joy, health and peace.  Love to you all, our dear family and friends.

A beautiful reservoir or 餵魚記

This was the first place we visited when we were in Taiwan.  A beautiful reservoir called Yong-He.  A simply decorated cafe where you can rest and have lunch in serenity.  To avoid ruining the particular calmness of the experience, this post will be pictures, mostly.

苗栗縣的永和山水庫 - the Yong-He Reservoir 

My sweet niece, Elaine.  沂倫和阿姨

Sisters and best friends. 妹妹和我

The Maitreya Buddha (Budai) 峨嵋湖的彌勒佛

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budai

Looking out from the cafe where we took our lunch. 

三灣鄉的大池塘

Mr. Bob and Madeline - our fabulous tour guide and hostess.

After lunch we took a walk around the manmade pond.  Here is Henry taking off...

...because, "Look, mama! A duck!" How could he not want to chase after the duck, right?

The duck is smart... it hid itself under the porch so Henry couldn't get to him.

I think we single-handly provided enough fish food for the entire population of this pond for at least one week.  Who knew feeding fish can be so much fun!

My sister, niece and Henry feeding the koi fish.

And they went wild when the fish food was toss in the pond!  Aren't the colors beautiful?

Ah, more ducks.  Trying their luck with Henry, perhaps?

Run, Duckie, Run!

Time to take a break on the hill.

Henry stood on a suspended bridge and it's a good thing that it's sturdily built because Henry ran and jumped and no one was hurt.

The owner of the cafe knelt next to Henry, together they made sure the fish of this pond was well-fed. 

A few of my favorite things

Lychee - 荔枝

The rumor has it that the major element of my deciding to visit Taiwan in June is the Lychee fruit.  The rumor has it all wrong - - it is the only reason.  I’m kidding of course...or am I ? I do love this gloriously extraordinary fruit.  Here is a Wikipedia link for more information about it.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lychee

  

A Lychee tree - right in front of my nieces' house.

 

These are ripen chilled Lychee.  YUM!

A closer look.  Truly a beauty inside and out... taste awesome, too.  I have made up my mind that I lack the ability to describe the taste of Lychee.  The first adjective comes to mind is "Heavenly!" and it still seems insufficient.  Do not make the mistake of comparing the taste of the fresh Lychee to the canned version of this fruit.  It is borderline sacrileges and I mean it. 

Shoes 鞋子 

I shall admit that I love shoes regardless of where I find them.  The ones I found in the department stores in Taiwan are simply amazing.  The selections, designs, qualities and best of all, the prices are outstanding and so fabulously attractive.  I wish I had more room in my suitcases and a higher credit card limit ;)

Check these out! 

The sound of cicada - 蟬聲


How do I describe the sound of cicada?  Let me try.  If good-bye and hello; friendship and love; memory and loss have a sound and it would be the sound of cicada… screechingly loud, intense, full of longing yet so tender and patient.  I could never tell how many of them together can create such a sound or if just one cicada can make a music so strong, so touching and magical.  It’s a sound I haven’t heard for many years; and when I heard it this time around, I closed my eyes to make sure that it will stay with me always.


I finally found a live cicada on the tree.  It looks like a giant fly on the main branch of the tree closer to the top.

Thanks to Zack, here is a closer look at the cicada.

Shaved ice - 銼冰

Nothing better than a bowl of shaved ice topped with cooked mung beans or peanuts or fruit or milk or all of them in the hot summer afternoon of Taiwan.  This one is sold at Costco (Yes, I did go to Costco...three times.)  The shaved ice is topped with mango chunks, mango jam and vanilla ice cream.  It's a very clever and delicious combination. 

Juicy dumpling - 湯包

Mostly served at breakfast but I could easily have it for lunch and dinner.  The filling is similar to the fillings of dumplings 水餃 or pot stickers 鍋貼 which is a mixtures of chinese cabbages, green onions, ginger roots and ground pork.  It is shaped like a bao (包子). Though I don't know what the trick is to make it so that when you take a bite out of this steamed dumpling, the flavorful juice of the dumpling flowing into your mouth and you are in love instantly.

Rice paddy field - 稻田

I love the view of rice paddy.  The stories that grow from it, the whispering of the crops on windy days and the ever changing color - so many different shades of green - except when it's time to harvest then it's golden.

The two pic above were taken the first few days when I was in Taiwan; the next one was taken the last day I was there.  By the end of July, early August, the rice field will be ready for harvest and the color will be an intensified gold.

Guchol and Talim

Honestly I don’t know what I’ve done to these two to have them shown up on the days we planned to drive to northeastern part of the island. Before the days of our planned trip, the warnings of their upcoming visits to Taiwan were constantly on the news. To avoid any clash with them, we canceled our trip and instead sitting in the house watching them did their usual dances that involved speedy wind and heavy rain.

Just as fast as their presences were known, they left quickly. I looked out of the window and wondered if I’ve dreamt the two days of excessive rain. Until I watched the news I saw the reality of their strength: Lives lost and home destroyed; roads and bridges washed away; many fruit trees were ruined so did the owners’ livelihoods. The pictures on the news spoke more than a thousand words. All of a sudden, my missed opportunity of traveling to a new place, to see the Pacific Ocean from this side of the world, seemed very insignificant.

In the midst of Guchol’s and Talim’s visits, one boy welcomed them with open arms - - literally. He stood outside, faced the sky with his arms wide open and let the rain pouring down on him. He laughed and hollered “Mama, the rain is warm!” While his relatives nervously requesting me to get him back inside the house before he gets sick, I smiled at this adventurous little guy and holler back “Yeah, isn’t it cool!?”

Everyone should have such an experience – at least once – and I forgave Guchol and Talim because of it.

Chubby girl too can run?

One thing I brought with me to Taiwan is my awful habit of jogging/running/shuffling.  It is more preventative than the actual desire to run in this inhumane humidity.  Beside visiting family and friends, I am in Taiwan for one important purpose: eating.  To make sure I don't end up rolling home like a ball, I run in the morning.


There are two places I go for my run: one is this quiet path in the science park where it is like an oasis among the industrial buildings; the other one is the sports park where a standard running track exists and an Olympic-size swimming pool with a fun kids' pool where the boys love to go and we've been there just about every other day.


I love running on the path of the science park because it's much quieter and cooler with the trees lining the path.   To get to the park though, I have to hike up a .8 mile of 12% grade two-lane freeway. ( I know the exact distance because I have my Nike plus with me.)  During morning commute hours, the exhaust from the cars and motorcycles are just too much to bear for the hike.  So on the days I don't get up early enough, I go to the sports park.


There are always people on the track either jogging like I do or walking.  After I've finished my 8 laps, I was doing the stretching and trying to cool down.  A guy walked past me and said: "小姐胖胖也可以跑哦!" (Translation directly: Chubby miss too can run, huh!) I was half amused and half shocked and all I could utter was "WHAT?!" in English.  That startled him because he looked sheepishly and nodded his head with apologies in Chinenglish "So-ree, so-ree."


Later on my way home, I thought his comment is actually a compliment, at least I've decided to make it so.  Yes, chubby girls can run too and I'm the proof of it!  So for breakfast I added another order of juicy dumplings - yum!

I run around this man-made pond.

The path around the pond.

The path lined with trees.

Juicy dumplings (湯 包.）  Will post more about it later.

The best intention

I was convinced of one thing during the 12-hour confinement with Henry:  The way to hell is paved with good intentions; and I hope certain that the MD who "do not recommend sedating your children for purpose of taking a long trip" are on their way there.  Or maybe I should be clear that at least one of them is going to be there considering I've given out her name and phone numbers to the passengers seated around us in the EVA flight #25 from SEA-TEC to TPE.  I would laugh an evil, manic laugh right now if I'd really done it...


The 5-hour layover at SEA-TEC wasn't too bad at all. The boys were entertained by Apple Inc.  I only had to take Henry for a walk around the entire S wing of the airport twice.  While we were walking around, Henry was quite friendly to everyone with his usual comment to me "Who is that guy?" and then his greeting of "Hey, guy! what are you doing?"  Most adults, blessed their hearts, were kind enough to respond with hellos or how's-goings. Some of them were even smiling when they saw him running at full speed through the crowd.  (The logical explanation for their good nature is obviously the I-am-so-glad-I'm-not-his-mother!)

The EB (Energize Bunny) in Henry finally died when we boarded the plane at 1:30 A.M.  "This is way too easy!" I foolishly grinning to myself while settling in for the long flight.  The plane soared into the night sky and Henry let out a blood curling scream "My ears popped!" (Yes, I have taken him to see his doctor before our trip; yes, his doc informed me that it is entirely normal for the wee one to have the ear-popping sensation.)  Looking at his contorted facial feature, I knew he's so tired, so miserable and so irritated that he couldn't stay asleep.  He cried and sobbed sentences like "I don't love airplane!" Or covering his ears and said "Help me, please help me. My ears hurrrrrt!" The most heartbreaking ones were "I WANNA GO HOME!" and "I WANT DADDY!"


I cradled his small noggin, tried message his ears and jaw, offered lollipops and the crying and the fussing continued.  All of a sudden we heard this voice, coming above Henry's seat, yelling "Would you please stop crying?!?" I turned around and faced this not so young woman who obviously had no children of her own (maybe for the best?) and I gave her the evil eye and said "He is tired, his ears HURT and he is only 3. Do you know how tough this is for the little guy???" What I really wanted to say is "F__k off, b___h!!!"  But I didn't - I've complied with one of the ancient requirements of being Chinese - always be polite and never to cause any ruckus. (Figuring this is a good practice since I'm going to be a Chinese again pretty soon.)  On and off we went like this for a while until finally I was so tired that I just put the almost-asleep child down on the floor and, guess what, he slept quietly.


And the time slowly went by with me being not really able to sleep.  Though when I was just about to sink into the dreamland, the cart was pushing towards us - feeding time! - and I turned around from the path to any sleep to be in the mother mode.  Then I watched jealously the boys promptly falling asleep after their bellies were full.

 Yep, like this.

Big Day - a Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Russell

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Russell:

Congratulations on your recent nuptial, Mr. and Mrs. Russell.  Because of this event, I've been elevated to the status of a "mother in law."  Now there is one more person on the list for my mothering - wanted or not - and another son to love and cherish.  The boys already adore their new brother which, I understood, Mrs. Russell was a little annoyed (but secretly she was delighted, I'm sure.)


I’ve always detest unsolicited advice – to give or be given – and here I am trying to convey some thoughts about marriage to you two lovebirds. Most likely I just need to, one last time, be Mrs. Russell’s nagging mother. As I told you on your wedding day, Mr. Russell, from this day on, she is your problem. (After one month of marriage, you don't think I'm joking now, do you?)  What I didn’t tell you is that, from this day on, you are the one she will confide to; your hands are the ones that she wants to hold and that you are the center stage of her life. Me? I will be the audience at the front row seat shouting out encouragements or biting my lips.

To be honest with you, it is still somewhat of a shock to think that my oldest child, not yet 20, is married. Even more shocking is the certainty you both hold onto the decision that you are exactly what each other wants and that you would commit to each other at such tender age. Maybe this is the beauty of being young or the fact that you are courageous enough to follow your hearts’ desire. While everywhere in this world, adults, who could be very much in love, are afraid to make commitment; I watched you signing your names to ensure a lifetime of togetherness. Even though the mother in me worried, fretted and saddened, I am also touched and in awe of the simplicity of your thoughts on marriage and how naturally you embrace being married. You are beautiful together; you understand each other's thoughts, strength and you make each other laugh. If nothing else the wicked sense of humor you share should sustain your relationship for a long time. At least that's my own experience.

Frankly I don't have anything wise to say, to advise you. Every time the word "marriage" was spoken, I would think of this song "Big day" by XTC. Mrs. Russell is familiar with it because her parents love XTC. It might sounded a little bit cynical, a little bit doubtful, and a little bit too cliche though it does offer some advice and some of them you probably won't realize until later...  So get your iPod and find the song... Sing to it and always remember how you felt about each other on your Big Day. 

"It's your big day, your big day
So you want to tie the knot
Tie it tight, don't let it rot, the memory of this day
Are you deafened by the bells
Could be heaven, could be hell
In a cell for two
Big day come and big day go
Life goes on after the show
But will your love have the fire and glow
Like on the big day
Statistics they don't say a lot
But can you keep what you have got forever together
There's a lesson to be learnt
Many fingers have been burnt with the touch of gold
Love can come and love can go
What your chance is I don't know
But if you have love then let it show like on the big day
You're a new recruit
The big day
in your wedding suit today
Like on the big day
yes you're looking fine
The big day
sign on the dotted line
The big day
it's your wedding march today"


Love you both, 


Mom

It wasn't me...

I have a friend (a very good friend, actually) who, like me, also has a three-year-old son who is in the process of potty training.  Like Henry, this little guy is going through the “number 2” phase of the potty training.  My friend and I agreed that it couldn’t be happening any sooner for we are getting very tired of changing smelly diapers and pull-ups.  We exchanged tips and stories about our 3-year-old’s potty training experiences and she shared the following incident that only increased my admiration for her.

“As advised by all potty training experts, parents are supposed to take preemptive strikes; in other words, you don’t wait for the wee ones to tell you that they are ready for number 2.  You need to sit them down on the potty chair BEFORE they are ready to do it.  This particular evening, though, the 3-year-old, entirely on his own, announced that he is going to “drop a poop.”  The announcement was greeted with giggles from his family and of course he was asked, “What do you want to do now?” so we could hear the answer again “I go drop a poop!”

“I was enormously pleased with his taking the initiative and also extremely alarmed at his willingness to go.  As usual, I offered my motherly assistance and the little one was adamant that “I do it myself!”  He is either really in control of his bowel movement or something is up (or down in this case.)  I got closer to him and my suspicion was confirmed.  The odor was unmistakable and the child’s expression was telling.  He insisted again with louder protest “I do it myself!” because he could see his mother’s wrinkled nose and the look of “Really? And just how do you think you’re going to take care of THAT?!”

“Extending my hand to him, the 3-year-old took it with resignation and we marched to the bathroom.  I took his shorts off and pulled his Buzz Lightyear underwear down and there it was, the evidence of his shame.  The child looked down, unbelievingly and, clear as a bell, uttered: ‘HOLY SHIT!’  It’s all I could do to hold myself together so my chest wouldn’t burst from wanting to laugh out loud.  I cast my eyes down and ignored the comment.  The boy repeated the phrase making sure that I heard it and that he really did not know how it happened.”

The aftershock of the story was of course the parents placing blames first on themselves: “Oh, I hope he didn’t get it from me.” “It’s probably me… you know how I have no filters when I’m driving.”  Later blaming each other: “Do you remember that one time (yes, that ONE time) you said…”  Or “I told you it’s not a good idea to watch a PG-13 movie”.  And life goes on.  Eventually my friend was brave enough to relate this incident to a few close friends and everyone who heard the story either LOL or LTAO.  “Why didn’t you put this on your blog?” She was asked.  Even though she’s always been a person with an open mind and very thick skin, it was still a bit difficult to admit to the world that your 3-year-old could use such phrase as “holy s%^&!” so clearly and correctly.

So she asked me to write it.

Unexpected Change and the Brain

What I’ve learned from today’s training.

The Developed Brain	The Ancient Brain
Reason	All/Nothing Thinking
Logic	Knee-Jerk Reactions
Empathy	Irrational Thinking
Compassion	Paranoid
Caring	Speaks Before Thinking
Kindness	Lacks Control
Objectivity	Self Serving
Critical Thinking	Confuses Force for Power
Innovation
Considers Others

The ancient brain is also called the “fight or flight” reaction to changes. During this presentation, I recalled a personal, real life, situation of an incident that wasn’t really appropriate to share with co-workers. But I’m going to share it here at my blog and I think some of my co-workers will appreciate my interpretation of the presentation.

Situation:

Finding a perfectly formed turd (looking like this minus the eyes and smiley face) on the floor of the hallway.

All my ancient brain would tell me to do is "FLIGHT! GET AWAT FROM IT!" I certainly wasn’t going to fight the little turd regardless of how perfectly formed it was. The knee-jerk reaction did happen accompanied by a gagging reflex of dry heaves. The irrational thinking and paranoia materialized in uncontrollable screaming out “Oh, MY GOSH! GROSS!!!” Which could also be included in speaking before thinking “THOMAS HENRY SCALES! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO POOP IN THE POTTY!” I was obviously losing control of my youngest child’s bowl movements. As self serving as I could, I stared down at the 3-year-old who was actually quite mesmerized by his own creation. By confusing force for power, I would grab his arms and sit him down on his “time-out” chair and hopefully remember to wipe his bottom before doing so.

And I went back to the crime scene. Trying not to take a deep breath, my developed brain’s first realization was that, the child was left without a training diaper in hope that he would take the initiative to sit on his potty chair. Obviously it was easier to squat down to make the delivery. Understandable, no? The next step was to focus on the objective: remove the subject and deposit it in an appropriate vessel. Before the small waste could be safely removed, a yellow crime scene tape was placed around it. (Critical thinking, right?!) Ok, ok, it’s not yellow and it’s not a tape; it’s newspaper rolled up into tubes. The 10-year-old had been sternly warned to not come near the crime scene. The 3-year-old watched me curiously and no doubt he was wondering if his punishment would be extended to more than sitting on the timeout chair. I put on the gloves, grabbed the paper towel and faced my child’s handiwork.

The amount of empathy and compassion I had for myself was quite touching. My actions were swift and precise; I bravely picked up the guilty being and flushed it right into the toilet. Unrepentantly sprayed the wooden floor with half a can of Lysol and wiped it with freshly cleaned towels. Used two kinds of antibacterial soaps, I washed my hands and arms. To entirely erase the memory of this incident, I sprayed air freshener in the hallway. I would say that I was kind and caring to my family and that I certainly do have a developed brain.

I think I've gotten this "Unexpected change and the brain" thing down. What do ya think?