Last week, Mr. A gave a Chinese New Year presentation to M’s 1st grade class.  I had mixed feelings about it initially, but after M came home from another parent’s Hanukkah presentation saying “Mama!  We learned about Hanukkah today! We at latkes!  It was sooooo cool.  I wish I was Jewish!!”, I changed my mind.  I decided first graders are probably pretty positive about new things if it is presented in a fun (and delicious) way.

So Mr. A went to school and did a presentation (I was there as a crowd control helper).   As the teacher introduced us, she said “This is Mr. A and Ms. AmFam.  They are Chinese New Year EXPERTS!”

At that point, M piped up: “My MOM isn’t an expert in Chinese New Year because her ancestors are from EUROPE!”

Mr. A read a couple books, made the kids kowtow for a chocolate coin filled red envelope, used a puppet to demonstrate a lion dance and taught them to use chopsticks to eat a big marshmallow.  We also gave them a cup of Mr. A’s famous noodles (aka long life noodles) and a M’s beloved Taiwanese shortbread cake. For the most part, the kids were great.  A few of them balked at eating unusual things, but the majority tried and liked the snacks.

My favorite comment of the class was made in response to one boy’s grimace and statement that he was NOT going to try that cake and it looked gross.   Another little boy said “Evan, you should try it!  I thought it would be DISGUSTING, but when I tasted it, it was DELICIOUS!”

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Yesterday, we went to China Day, which is a big festival of Chinese culture put on by a variety of Chinese organizations in our state.  In previous years, M performed her Chinese dance at that event, but since we are Chinese School drop outs, we could all relax this year.   After a thousand hours of incredibly boring speeches, proclamations, banner presentations, the girls enjoyed a lion dance and dance performances.

There were a lot of different cultural activities on the schedule.  My personal favorite was “How to guide your kids to study math.”   I pointed it out to Mr. A because I thought it was funny.  He failed to see the humor and was disappointed we weren’t going to be able to attend that session due to a scheduling conflict.

When we went to get a snack.  Mr. A saw the college students who performed the lion dance and went to talk to them.  He was hoping they might want to perform at a big fancypants  Asian Lawyer function later this year.   It turns out the lion dancer guys were members of a new Asian fraternity.   Mr. A asked several of them who he should contact to book them and they all just mumbled and shrugged.  Finally someone told him to ask Everett.

When he tracked Everett down, Mr. A introduced himself.  Everett did a typical frat-boy head nod to say hello.  Mr. A went on to explain about the fancypants Asian lawyer event, which caught Everett’s attention.

“Asian Lawyers?  Here in our city?” he said.

Mr. A said yes.

“You a lawyer?” Everett asked.

When Mr. A said yes, Everett immediately dropped his eye contact (which according to Mr. A is a sign of respect in Asian cultures).

Then Everett smacked his hand on his chest (kind of gang-symbol like), nodded his head again and said   “Respect, yo.”

Mr. A thought that interaction was seriously hilarious and repeatedly said “Respect, yo!” to me all evening.

A friend of mine is quoted in this article.  I wonder what ended up happening with this baby?

We have been taking L to vision therapy since early January.  All the anti-vision therapy comments I received on the post about vision therapy had me mighty freaked out about wasting thousands of dollars on quackery.  Mr. A and I decided to go ahead with the first block of 7 sessions to see if we thought they were at all effective.

This morning, L had her first vision therapy progress evaluation.  The results were good.  Very good.  Even the doctor seemed surprised by the progress L has made in only one block of therapy  (a block is 7 sessions with a vision therapist, followed by one evaluation by the doctor).

When she was first evaluated, L had a very difficult time scanning her eyes from side to side.  Her eyes would involuntarily pause in the middle, then jerk over to the object she was supposed to be following.  She  had difficulties tracking an object as it moved in her field of vision.  She also flunked the visual-motor portion of the exam.

This first block of sessions focused primarily on tracking and moving her eyes.  The therapy involves practicing shifting her eyes from one object to another, scanning a field of shapes or letters to find a specific one, and wearing special red/green glasses and red/green plastic sheets over the pages to force her eyes and brain to learn to work together more effectively.

In the past few weeks, we have noticed L really beginning to use her eyes in a way she hadn’t before.  She had always been disinterested in the pictures in books (probably because what she was seeing didn’t make sense), but now she is starting to notice them and see how they are related to the story.  She was frustrated with me last week and she resorted to a big sigh and eye roll to show me.  She couldn’t control her eyes like that before.  She can follow moving objects using her eyes without budging her head.  It may not sound like a lot, but it is a huge accomplishment.

We didn’t follow the doctor’s suggestions 100%: we cut back from two appointments a week to only one because they are so freaking expensive.  One appointment a week brings the monthly cost to about $300, which is much more manageable than $600.  We also began the process of having L evaluated by an occupational therapist.  If she qualifies for therapy, we are hopeful our insurance will actually cover those sessions.  Already, the therapist has mentioned that L has issues with her vestibulo-ocular reflex, which goes hand in hand with the vision issues we already knew about.  There are also some other areas where L might benefit from additional OT work.

So far, I am really pleased with the progress L has made.  I am so glad we started this work now, while her brain is so plastic.  It seems like she is just soaking up the skills we are asking her to learn.  I am glad we caught this problem early, before it caused her problems in school (which it most certainly would have, because she couldn’t track across a page).  I have even made my peace with the cost of the therapy.  It is better to pay it now, rather than spending tons of money on tutors later.

Oh my god.  The Snow.  Will it never stop?  If we have a snow day tomorrow, I may lose my ever-loving mind.

This last week kicked my ass.  One 7th birthday, two snow days, one Chinese New Year party, two valentine’s day celebrations, one bowling alley birthday party with 10 kids, and President’s day off school today.

Needless to say, we haven’t celebrated Chinese New Year yet.  We are going to do our celebrating and jiaozi-making next weekend. Even without the main festivities, we had New Years stuff that couldn’t wait.   Mr. A and I gave the house a good cleaning and we unpacked the remaining items from the move.  I took L for  very adorable (much needed) haircut and we hung our red banners over the door to scare away the Nian monster.  Even without the jiaozi, I think we have covered most of the superstition-related activities.

I am worn out.  I need a vacation!  Or Spring.  Someone send me some Spring, please!

This week has been rough.  I hope we never have another year in which M’s birthday, Valentines day and Chinese New Year are in the same week.  Add two snow days to the mix and I am one worn out mama.

But let’s get down to business anyway. This week Mr. A and I started our Dave Ramsey online classes. As we watched the first video, the differences between Mr. A and myself could not have been more obvious.   Mr. A* sat up straight in his chair and attentively filled in all the dumb blanks in the workbook.  I, on the other hand, played with the IPOD, posted on Twitter and fidgeted in my chair.   (The only other class I can remember taking was a swing dancing class oh so many years ago.  Mr. A took notes in that class too…NERD.)

We have watched three videos and so far, we are pretty familiar with the material that has been covered (use cash, don’t use credit, have an emergency fund that is never used).  Even though we know that the principles are right, both Mr. A and I have balked a little at the implementation.

We are people who use our credit card for almost EVERY SINGLE PURCHASE we make. This has worked for us, because it lets us track all our expenses.  We pay the card off in full pretty much every month too.  We don’t carry a balance.  Mr. A particularly likes the points we get for our card which put money into my retirement account.

In other ways, though, using the card for everything doesn’t work for us.   We admit that the credit card allows us to cheat on our budget.  Our worst areas for cheating are groceries and restaurants.  In theory, we have a $50 a week family restaurant budget, but one good sushi dinner or dim sum brunch blows through that without a second thought.  We also are susceptible to the slippery slope of lunches out.  Both Mr. A and I are supposed to get $10 a week, but we regularly go over that too (especially Mr. A with business lunches).   And Target?  Target is like a money black hole.  Can anyone get out of there spending less than $100??  (Obviously, a lot of people can, but *I* have a hard time doing it on a regular basis.)

One of the first baby steps in the Dave Ramsey program is to create Basic Quickie Budget.  I am assuming this will be used soon to figure out our 3-6 months of living expenses for our emergency fund, but for now it was just a good tool to get our conversation started.

You know me, always willing to share a little TMI, so I am going to post our Quickie Budget here (with Mr. A’s permission).   This isn’t what we spend every month, but it is a pretty good approximation of what we think will be an average month without cutting back.

If TMI makes you uncomfortable, look away now.  Also, please refrain from criticizing our line items.  I know there is a lot of fat that can be trimmed from this budget, but we are trying to get a good starting point to work from.

AmFam and Mr. AmFam’s Quickie Monthly Budget

School Loan Debt                       $ 667

Rent                                                 $1100

Utilities

• Electric                              $  131
• Water                                  $   40
• Gas                                       $   91
• Cellphone                          $ 116
• Cable**                               $ 135

Food

• Groceries                           $ 495
• M’s school lunches         $  40
• Mr. A’s work lunches    $  80
• AmFam’s lunches           $  60
• Restaurants                      $ 250

Transportation

• Gas & Oil                             $ 175
• Repairs & Tires                $ 200
• Car Insurance                  $ 115

Shopping

• Clothing                             $ 200
• Target                                 $ 200

Other

• Life Insurance                 $  75
• Preschool Tuition          $ 135
• Entertainment                 $ 120
• Chinese lessons               $ 120
• Other lessons                   $   40
• Medical***                        $  400

Minimum Total Monthly EXPENSES:     $4,985

I know, I know.  OMG, we spend so effing much MONEY. And this would be our beginner GOAL budget.  Sometimes we spend even MORE.  GACK!   It stresses me out just looking at this list.

After we worked out our budget last night, Mr. A and I decided we are going to begin the transition to using cash for the items we know we cheat on: Groceries, Lunches, Restaurants, Target, and Entertainment.   We are going to make the transition a little at a time, though, because we usually budget Mr. A’s paychecks to pay these bills after the fact rather than pulling the cash out before hand.

To get a little more cash on hand, we are going to start out with a month of radical no-spending.  I usually do that every January and June, but we didn’t do it last month because of the move.

So there it is.  Our beginning point.  We want to get started staying on a regular budget before we start cutting things out and feeling deprived.  Getting used to cash is going to be HARD.   I never, ever have cash on hand.  Not even a few dollars.

I know this will be good for us, even if it is challenging at first.   It is in my nature to be a money hoarder, but it is easy to ignore those impulses when the plastic is so readily available and I rarely see the final bill (because Mr. A handles that end of our finances).

Here we go.

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*who I must admit is more than a little skeptical that he can learn anything from Dave Ramsey

**Cable/internet/landline/tivo

*** L’s beautiful but very expensive eyes.