Huili's Last Day

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Early this morning, Adia and Scott took Huili to the airport.  Huili is off to Washington DC to be with a new family for another year.

I have never seen Adia cry when an au pair left.  She cried today.  She is 3 and 1/2 years old.

Every time an au pair leaves, and a new one comes, Adia is one year older...

Huili is an amazing young woman.  She is the 2nd of 4 children - and she really, really took care of not only Adia, but our family.  What amazed me about Huili is her quiet strength - the type that I can only envy because I can never possess that.  Whether she is physically ill, or feeling homesick, or something is troubling her, she never succumbed to her emotions, but kept prodding on, taking care of Adia.  She ALWAYS put others before herself.

Isn't it interesting that this young lady - who never knew of Christ - followed in His steps?  Others before self.

Huili told me before she left that she thinks she believes in God, in Christ.

Of all the au pairs, Huili was the only one who saw the circle of life in our home.  When she arrived in May 2011, I was only about 2.5 months pregnant.  She was one of the first ones who knew.  She went to Florida with us - to Disneyworld.  Then, she moved with us 3 times, to 3 different homes, while we completed the 8-week kitchen remodel when I was 21 weeks pregnant.  She was there when we discovered Raya was a girl!

And, she was the one Adia ran to that morning Adia woke up, came to our bedroom, and realized mama and daddy had gone to the hospital to have baby Raya.

Huili brushed Adia's teeth that morning, and got her dressed to come see mama at the hospital with her new baby sister.

When Huili came, Adia was our only child.  Today, Adia is the best big sister in the world.

When Huili came, Raya was only merely a fetus.  Today, Raya is 5 months old, sleeping through the night, and eating solids.

When Huili came, I was a little jaded about the au pair system.  Today, I have faith that God will send us another au pair from heaven.

Huili was not only our Au Pair of Excellence - she was truly a Godsend.

We will miss you, our dear Huili.  Thank you for being in our lives for a year.  We will miss you dearly!!

My Bi-Lingual Children

This article was forwarded to me by a dear friend.  My daughter Adia (age 3.5 years), is truly bi-lingual.  What I mean by truly is - she can think and speak simultaneously - both Chinese and English.  This is an AMAZING difference.  Most of us who learn Spanish and/or French - we don't THINK in these languages.  Instead, we think in English, and then translate into French.

Two interesting things about Adia: 1) She learned BOTH languages from the outset (different from me, a first generation American.  I learned Taiwanese and Chinese first, then age 6, I learned English); and 2) We have been speaking to her in Chinese and English since birth, but at some point, she stopped speaking Chinese to me (her Chinese mama).  She will only speak Chinese to my parents and the Chinese au pairs.  

Being bi-lingual has not affected Adia's language development.  At 4.5 months, she said, "Bird" pointing at a bird in the backyard, and "moon" at the moon.  I have heard that being bi-lingual can have delays, but this isn't true in both our girls cases.

Raya is still a baby.  She will be 5 months old.  2 weeks ago, she said, "Ma Ma.", while motioning towards me.  We will also be speaking both Chinese and English to her.  It will be interesting to hear the girls speak Chinese to each other.  :)  Enjoy the article!

By Robert Lee Hotz

iStockphoto

The ability to speak two languages can make bilingual people better able to pay attention than those who can only speak one language, a new study suggests.

Scientists have long suspected that some enhanced mental abilities might be tied to structural differences in brain networks shaped by learning more than one language, just as a musician’s brain can be altered by the long hours of practice needed to master an instrument.

Now, in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,researchers at Northwestern University for the first time have documented differences in how the bilingual brain processes the sounds of speech, compared with those who speak a single language, in ways that make it better at picking out a spoken syllable, even when it is buried in a babble of voices.

That biological difference in the auditory nervous system appears to also enhance attention and working memory among those who speak more than one language, they say.

“Because you have two languages going on in your head, you become very good at determining what is and is not relevant,” says Dr. Nina Kraus, a professor of neurobiology and physiology at Northwestern, who was part of the study team. “You are a mental juggler.”

In the new study, Kraus and her colleagues tested the involuntary neural responses to speech sounds by comparing brain signals in 23 high school students who were fluent in English and Spanish to those of 25 teenagers who only spoke English. When it was quiet, both groups could hear the test syllable — “da” — with no trouble, but when there was background noise, the brains of the bilingual students were significantly better at detecting the fundamental frequency of speech sounds.

“We have determined that the nervous system of a bilingual person responds to sound in a way that is distinctive from a person who speaks only one language,” Kraus says.

Through this fine-tuning of the nervous system, people who can master more than one language are building a more resilient brain, one more proficient at multitasking, setting priorities, and, perhaps, better able to withstand the ravages of age, a range of recent studies suggest.

Indeed, some preliminary research suggests that people who speak a second language may have enhanced defenses against the onset of dementia and delay Alzheimer’s disease by an average of four years, as WSJ reported in 2010.

The ability to speak more than one language also may help protect memory, researchers from the Center for Health Studies in Luxembourg reported at last year.

After studying older people who spoke multiple languages, they concluded that the more languages someone could speak, the better: People who spoke three languages were three times less likely to have cognitive problems compared to bilingual people. Those who spoke four or more languages were five times less likely to develop cognitive problems.

Not so long ago, people worried that children who grew up learning two languages at once were at a developmental disadvantage compared with those who focused on only one.

New research suggests that even babies have little trouble developing bilingual skills.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia’s Infant Studies Centre reported that babies being raised in a bilingual family show from birth a preference for each of the native languages they heard while still in the womb and can readily distinguish between them.

Moreover, bilingual infants appear to learn the grammars of their two languages as well as babies learning a single language, even when the two languages are as different from one another as English and Japanese, or English and Punjabi.

Au Pair, Associate and Assistant - I love you!

Bittersweet Motherhood

Part IV

Au Pair, Associate and Assistant

Happy Valentine's Day!! Obviously, I love my husband, and my 2 darling girls, and friends and family.

But in honor of V-Day, I also want to send love to the people in my life that give me a life. Namely: my au pair, my assistant, and my associate. (You know who you are). I cannot live without these people. Not only do I depend on them to survive - I am close to each of them, and I love with with all my heart.

Especially my au pair, who is regrettably leaving in May this year. People always ask me, "Who this delightful girl who helps you cook, clean and play with Adia?" "How does Adia speak such perfect Chinese?"

And I proudly say, "That's my au pair!". What is an au pair? Well, in French - this term means, "equal". It refers to someone who lives with you - that you treat AS AN EQUAL. In exchange for childcare, they receive housing and food, and they live with you for a year.

The au pairs are here on a 1-year Visa (the J Visa) (you can also extend another year, up to 2 years total), and the program is sponsored by the State Department. In addition to providing housing and boarding, you pay a stipend of $195.75 per week, for up to 45 hours of childcare and other related housework. You also pay the agency about $8,000 upfront for the year. Hosting an au pair for a year costs you approximately $17,000 a year. (~1416 a month). Compare this with daycare (1600 - 2400 a month), or a nanny ($15-20 per hour)...and you have a no-brainer.

Huili is our 3rd au pair. Though not every au pair has been exactly as perfect as her, we have been generally pretty happy with our Chinese au pairs.

To me, the best thing about the Au Pair program is the cultural exchange. My daughter Adia (who is 3.5) is completely fluent in Chinese. This means, she can THINK in Chinese (as opposed to thinking in English, and translating to Chinese - the way I do with French.) It's AMAZING when I watch her play with the au pairs, because she only speaks to them in Chinese. I am her MOTHER, and she refuses to speak to me in Chinese. We live in America, obviously ENGLISH is her preferred tongue. But, since we have an extra family member in the house that speaks Chinese, she adapts quickly and is completely fluent. This is better than Chinese School once a week!

That is what I am most thankful for, and we will continue hosting au pairs until Raya (our youngest) is 18. I am not joking.

The other aspect I really love is the bond that the au pairs develop with our children. I have cried BUCKETS every single time they have to leave to go back to China. When Raya was born, I was so afraid I wouldn't be able to give little Adia all my attention. And I wasn't! It's been 2 months, and Raya is on me approximately 23.5 hours a day. I am not sleeping, not working, and not pooping. I am definitely not able to run around with Adia!!! But, since she has Huili - her own special friend - I can still be in the house with Raya without feeling much guilt that Adia has no attention. She has her own special friend.

It's funny because I can tell Adia sometimes view her au pairs as her proprietary material. If her friends come over, and Huili plays with them, Adia will deliberately sit on Huili's lap. She will cling to Huili because that's HER friend. When Raya was born, one day Adia was in our room and I showed her a pre-Raya family picture of me, daddy and Adia. I asked, "Who is missing in this photo?" Without skipping a beat, Adia confidently answers, "Huili".

LOL!

Anyway, since I took up the Au Pair program 3 years ago, I have referred 4 families who also now have au pairs. They all love it. I would encourage all of you to explore this as a good option for childcare. You may end up lucky with an au pair like Huili - who cooks dinner for us every night, and has made the kitchen her second bedroom.

BTW, I used to do EVERYTHING alone. For Adia's entire first year, we relied only on grandmothers' help, and me and Scott. That is ridiculous. It is ridiculous to your clients to have to schedule calls around your baby's naptime. It is ridiculous to even practice LAW when you haven't slept for 6 months. It is absolutely hazardous and a breeding ground for malpractice!!! Raising children isn't just about playing with them, reading to them, singing to them, or feeding them breastmilk.

A mother's life includes housework: cleaning toilets , cleaning dirty dishes, getting groceries, putting away groceries, meal planning, cooking, washing dishes, pots, pans, dirty laundry, folding laundry, etc etc etc. Added up altogether and you have about 40 hours of work PER day, and your children are awake about 12 hours. (6 am to 8 pm, with a maybe 2 hour nap in between) That is 52 hours in a day you need to allot in order to run a perfect home. 52 hours!! There are only 24 hours in a day, and even if you don't sleep, you just have NO TIME TO DO ANYTHING.

Add to that running a law firm: intaking clients, returning phone calls, working on files, trying to make 40 billable hours a week (which I haven't done in ages, usually, I bill only 20 hours a week if I am lucky when i am working), balancing your clients' IOLTA accounts your business accounts, paying corporate taxes, estimate taxes, FUTA taxes, payroll, paying your contractors, paying rent, etc, etc, etc - it takes about 100 hours per week to run a law firm.

Anyway, you get my drift...I used to FEEL GUILTY about having help. In fact, people still stereotype me as a mom with help - as if my life is THAT much easier. HAHA! No, I have help. And because I have help, I am not DEAD. Also, because at home, I have help which I pay approximately $17,000 a year for, I can bill an extra 400 hours a YEAR, which means I can earn an extra $200,000. Do the math - there is nothing to feel guilty about.

So, working moms without in-home help, SERIOUSLY consider it. You may have to let go of a little bit of control. (I am still at home all the time, and I still have my 100 page indexed handbook that I quiz people on), but it's WORTH it.

Same with in the office. Before I had my human babies, I had a law firm - which was my baby. I created my law firm with ZERO clients. I learned how to build a website...from scratch. I learned about Search Engine Optimization. IN addition to keeping up with FAMILY LAW, i had to carve out a zillion hours to build a successful business. But, I had NO help. Which is stupid.

So, now I have an assistant and an associate (I love you guys).

Today, my life is still a massive whirlwind of chores, and tasks, and baby poo. But, because I have help, I am able to go poo now (while writing a blog).

So, today, I want to thank you wonderful people. I could never do it without you. I am NOTHING with you. I love you.