Epiphanies

http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/tips/mobile.htm:

“Pocket PC: Some sources say to put the ringtones in the root folder of \Storage Card . If you don’t have a storage card then some say to put the ringtones in \Windows\Rings . Or you can put it in My Documents or My Ringtones. In one of those locations they should show up as available ringtones for the phone. If they don’t show up as available ringtones you can always use a file explorer on the phone, navigate to the ringtone, and then with your stylus hold down on the audio file until a menu pops up. One of the options should be set as ringtone.

Making Ringtones: You can use Windows Media Player to rip songs from a CD to MP3 files. You can also use a free program called CDEX located at http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/ to rip songs from a CD to MP3 or Wav. Afterward you can use a free program called Audacity located at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ to edit the mp3 audio file and take just the clip of the song that you want to use as the ringtone. Note: Audacity requires LAME MP3 encoder in order to export to MP3 located here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&i=lame-mp3”

Update: 4/19/08

It worked like a charm but I encountered an irritating issue with the sch i760, I couldn’t drag and drop the ringtones (with activesync) into my phone.  I actually had to copy and paste in order to copy the ringtones. Super annoying.

Another helpful tutorial: Lifehacker’s tips to making ringtones

Today was C’s last swimming lesson. I’m going to try hard to take him swimming though. We bought a Body Glove water baby carrier so that I or Dh could hold J in it while in the water. That way C won’t drown since I’ll be in the pool with him. I want Dh to try it first though before I do.

Anyway, J decided to gift me with a poo diaper at the swimming lesson for the first time. I’ve made it these last three months without having to change his diaper so I thought I was home free. Sadly not. And they were fixing the women’s bathroom so I had to change him in the men’s room. The diaper changing station was made for giants (slight exaggeration) but it was seriously hard for me to reach. It was placed way too high for me. Wth is that about? Do men really need the table to be that high? I’m seriously considering buying the diaperbridge except I think it’s for smaller babies and J is getting bigger by the day. It’s a great idea. I don’t know if we’d use it much. I can really just go change him in the car. I think if it worked in a plane, it would be awesome. Planes are a pain and a half for changing diapers.

We made up for Sunday night’s lack of family night by playing cadoo tonight. I also solved the mystery of those random cadoo boxes that were lying around. Apparently we got them as a Burger King kid’s meal promotion. We ended up buying cadoo ($7.99 price cut at Target) since my SIL thought it was a good game. We had fun. C still needs a little help (4 yo) but I think with practice he will get the hang of it. I think he’s not exactly familiar with it and so feels trepidation about doing things. I think it’s not that he can’t do it but that he’s afraid to do the wrong thing for fear of looking stupid. I need to train him out of that. B was nice tonight. He was very helpful in trying to figure out for everyone their best move. He wasn’t a cutthroat about it – hope he stays like that. It’s a good trait to have not to be so hung up on winning. It’s still disappointing to lose but letting it go and moving on leads to inner peace *cough*.

Dh has this thing about leaving the heads on the shrimp. Not sure if he’s trying to divest the kids of their fear of shrimp heads or simply scare the bejesus out of them. Think C didn’t want to have to hurt these little animals that still have heads. Anyway, they’re finally getting used to it and have managed to behead the shrimps all by themselves. Not eat the heads, just behead them. Just goes to show you: tough love works with beheading shrimp heads. They didn’t like the taste of the heads so doubt they’ll ever eat the heads (me included).

I also learned something new. Dh taught me how to eat the meat inside the shelled part next to the shrimp tails. It’s all in the way you hold the tail. You hold one part of the tail (don’t squeeze), and pull it out. It comes out easily.

C: “One day I’ll be a professional.”

Me: “A professional what?”

C: “A professional.”

Me: “Do you know what a professional is?”

C: “A professional is someone who eats mushrooms, shrimp heads and shrimp tails.”

Me: “Ah.” Too cute.

I guess I was getting overly frustrated with C the other day with the worksheets. I always thought he was a bit advanced for his age and teachers led me to believe so too since he was able to write his name right around 2 1/2. This led me to have higher expectations for him and I guess I felt I was letting him down because I didn’t focus on encouraging his abilities. So last week, I figured I would try to work on it with him. I do make time for that albeit sporadically. Even though he was learning to put together words “b” with “ig” to make “big” or other three letter words, it didn’t seem to be the light bulb going on the way that I thought it would. It’s a much slower process.  I happened upon this article warning parents to “Don’t start too Early”.

Basic points from the article that I will try to keep in mind:

1) Keep it fun and within reach. Positive experiences to build confidence. Don’t be too regimented.

2) Identify surroundings beginning with a certain letter. Point out letters and numbers – street names, house numbers, billboards, road signs, shop signs, advertising logos, food items.

3) Keep it short. No longer than 20-3o minutes. “Research has shown that young children are naturally far-sighted as their eyes have not fully matured to function like that of an older person. For this reason, to avoid eye-strain, a child should not focus on a book or a page for more than 15-20 minutes at a time. When they write, encourage your children to make big letters at this stage. Later on (when they start Grade 1) they can learn to write neatly between lines!”

4) Don’t be critical, just encourage him to keep improving.

I wonder what they mean by young children. I consider B young but he’s 8.

I found it while surfing.  Just rip it out and insert them into clear non glare  non vinyl plastic sleeves.  You can put them in a binder. Use different colors of dry erase markers.  Wish I had learned of this earlier.  C and B have written all over many many worksheets.

ROOT CANALS

Yesterday was the continuation of my root canal on my lower right side. It didn’t feel as bad this time, probably because Duc used a thing to keep my jaw open. Doing that helped me “doze” off instead of concentrating on keeping my mouth open. He also put my permanent crown on my upper left tooth. It was disturbing hearing Duc talk with his assistant Stephanie about dentisrty. He’s been coaching her, a good guy imo to talk her through everything he’s doing although it makes me a little too conscious of what he’s doing. I feel more comfortable with him as my dentist than I have ever felt in my life. He really puts me at ease. I don’t know if it’s because he’s a friend and I feel more trust in him or just his bedside manner. She spoke about how easy root canals were and he told her all the procedures in dentistry are easy on paper but a lot of factors can make it trickier, i.e. placement of teeth, patient reaction, how far back the teeth are, how many canals there are, how many roots there are, etc. Fun stuff

MOVIES AND GROWING UP

C had swimming as usual yesterday. I saw P there again. I remarked on how damn cold it was and that it was probably due to global warming. She suggested I watch “Who Killed the Electric Car?” Maybe we should sign up for Netflix. I seem to be spending more and more time in front of the tv. J has a sixth sense for when I’m on the computer these days and wakes up as soon as I get online now. He’s growing such a personality too. Yesterday, when I wanted him to nurse, he wasn’t having it and pushed me away. He’s never refused milk before. He also refused the bottle at my mil. He also has started batting toys on his swing. I’m not ready for him to grow up yet. Ahhhhh…

B has to do a computer timeline at school now. We had to submit two photos. One of when he was a baby. One more recent. I used a photo I took of him at the Corona Del Mar Castle building contest. He looks so happy at the beach. I looked through the baby photos and since Easter was coming up, I asked him if I could submit the one of him in his spring outfit, sitting in the easter basket wearing bunny ears. Think he was 5-6 months old. Soooo cute. His answer was, “No way, that’s so embarrassing.” I asked him again 5 minutes later. He said, “MO-OOOOOM-MMM.” Oh well, it was worth a try.

ACTIVITIES TO DO WITH THE KIDS

I met this woman Sulan at the park today. I met her last time as well. She had a few good suggestions for occupying kids during the summer. I told her I didn’t want them to spend all their time playing video games. She has theme days i.e. making a movie day, arts and crafts day (draw a flower in the garden day) , math/worksheet day, write an article day and science day (google cool science projects). She has a website which she runs where she programmed cool free educational software – free math/chemistry games (sort of like teaching tools) for kids to play and along the side are google ads where she gets $/click. I may try to find it.

EASTER BASKETS

I popped by Target this morning. It was great. They open at 8am so after I dropped B and C at school, I swung by there via Irvine Center Drive. I wanted to get all the goodies for their Easter Baskets or in this case bucket (bought that at Big Lots in Laguna Woods). I didn’t want to concentrate on just easter wrapped candy (i.e. candy that just has a different wrapper) but candy that they don’t often have or at leaast has some significance with the “Easter Basket” tradition. I bought jellybeans, malted choco balls, bunny-shaped chocolate, easter animal pez dispensers and also some egg shaped gum because C seems to have a thing for gum. I also bought some goodies like hot wheels truck combo that has a car inside, pokemon card packs, some crayola goodies for C. I also bought some clothes for a portrait sitting later on. I want the kids to have a photo taken together professionally, maybe at Kiddie Kandids since that seems to be the place to go by all my friends.

FINANCIAL ADVICE

The pokemon cards rang up at $13.99 but on the rack they were $9.99. Normally, I would never have noticed because I don’t really pay attention when cashiers ring up things but it just so happened that yesterday I read Common Billing Errors that can Cause You Money – most notably “With the computer age, many people assume the bill is automatically correct and don’t review what the actual charges are. While computers can make errors in calculations less likely, they are far from foolproof. The result is that consumers lose billions of dollars by making unnecessary overpayments each year.” It stuck in my head and I had resolved to be more proactive when it comes to finances since budgeting may play a bigger role in the near future. It’s good to make it a habit of being aware of your money and where it is going.

Id theft is a scary thing too. I think I may do 1-888-5-OPT-OUT and buy a cross shredder. I’ve always wondered what would happen if you submitted a taped up cc application and now I know.