Info AquaScape

It’s summertime and your 6-year-old kid is growing up, no longer content to share a birthday party with his younger sister whose birthday is a mere 2 weeks later. What do you do? The thought of planning a full-blown Pinterest-perfect party with themed Transformers (his favorite) decorations, games, and foods was just exhausting. Sorry, I work part-time, my parents are in town, and my kids are out of school. Ain’t nobody got time for that. So here are the steps I took to plan a low key celebration that my son claimed was “the best birthday party ever!” Step 1: Request Form I had my son fill out a request sheet. Kinda like when you plan a baby shower, you ask the mom-to-be what their favorite color is, who they want to invite, their favorite foods, and so on. That way my son gave me a bunch of ideas as a starting point and he got to practice his writing skills over the summer. Bonus points! Extra hint: ask him to limit the number of guests because fewer kids means less mess and l...

Do you have an adorable two- or three-year-old who is simultaneously the love of your life and the bane of your existence? Yeah, got one of those, too. Keep reading to find out how we survived the terrible twos and threes. Now, my son is like me, super chill and compliant by nature, so we hardly experienced the terrible twos with him. My daughter, on the other hand, is like her father, a strong-willed force of nature who has to do everything herself. Her “terrible twos” started when she was 18 months old and lasted until now when she’s about to turn 4. That first year was intolerable because we could not figure out what made her tick! She didn’t seem to respond to any kind of correction or training. Corrective Methods We Tried First We tried positive reinforcement, but she didn’t care about our approval or rewards. She cared more about getting that lollipop into her mouth now! We tried swatting her on the hand or butt, and… it would only add fuel to the fire. Instead of instill...

So you wanna teach your kid another language, but you’re kinda intimidated because you don’t think you have the skills. Well, I’m no a right-brained linguist and English is definitely my native tongue, so keep reading to find out how I’m casually raising my kids to be bilingual. How I Heard About Bilingualism Okay, full disclosure: I learned Chinese from my parents growing up. But they were pretty lax about making me speak it, and once I started school, it wasn’t really a priority. Speaking Chinese to them was super slow and cumbersome, so I just used English with them. Fast-forward to adulthood: I’m married with no kids. I have a conference call with a coworker who happened to be working from home that day. Suddenly she says, “Hold on a second” and then proceeds to yell across the house at her children in rapid fire Spanish. What the… my coworker is a white, blonde woman and her Spanish has a definite, heavy American accent. Still, I’m impressed. What’s going on here? How to Tea...