What the heck? I recall back in the day, it was all about having to apply to go to a school outside of your catchment zone. Is it cool to stay in your own catchment zone now? Or are there just too many kids nowadays? Pardon my ignorance. :pokerface:

The most ridiculous thing is that you could have one kid in school A, but then the younger sibling has to go to school B because of space issues!

The favourite child gets to go to a private school. :troll:

Just finished kindergarten registration for my kid. What do you guys think about early French immersion? Are you planning on putting your kids in there? If I understand it correctly, it will be 100% French from K-GR3.
Would also love to hear from parents whose kid has already gone through this and their experience.

My daughter is in early French immersion (K) and it's been going pretty well so far. I've dropped in on a bit of the classes and it's not really 100% French but heavily French so my daughter is definitely learning and using French.

The hardest part is what my wife and I do with it - we don't speak any French now and can't read any either. The school does offer some classes for parents but the reality is that there's no way to keep up with what my kid is learning so we can't help with homework or read the same books with her. I suppose for us that the focus is on ensuring her English is good.

So she didn't know a lick of French before she started kindergarten? I'm thinking it's hard enough to start going to school but then for the most part, you have no idea what the teachers are saying. We also want her to learn Chinese (mandarin and cantonese) but we didn't do a great job of that. For 95% of the time, we use English and whenever we remember, we try to use chinese so she can pick that up too.

She knew maybe 20-30 French words when she started - her daycare taught her a song or two I think but otherwise English is her first language and she understands Cantonese reasonably well. We send her to an hour of Cantonese school (WOLO on Kingsway) and have hired one of the teachers to come over once a week for an additional hour. The grandparents mostly speak Cantonese around her (not always to her though).

She's adapted just fine to it all so far - she knows the difference between the 3 languages and has a clear preference right now for English while being too shy to speak French or Cantonese most of the time but she gets it.

I don't think every kid succeeds in French immersion but the couple times I was in the classroom it seemed like all the kids understood what was going on - tbh I was surprised at how quickly the kids are picking up. I guess they really don't know any better and their brains are more malleable at that age.

Both of my kids did the early French immersion route, and they are still in FI (currently Gr 11 and Gr 5). Their English turned out fine (but they did read a lot when they were younger), and they do well academically. I think the class sizes are generally smaller, and because the parents actively chose to put their kids in FI, I would argue that the parents also spend more time "parenting" outside of school (versus parents that didn't consider where they should send their child and just sent their kid to regular school by default). One thing to be mindful of in highschool is that because of the extra required French-related course(s), they may have fewer blocks for electives.

I think one of the main reasons we decided to put them in FI was to open up job opportunities in Eastern Canada. In the near future, I'll take them to Quebec and/or France and make them guide us around. My wife and I learned basic French many years ago back in highschool, so by Grade 1 our kids already knew more French than us, LOL.

My wife and I can get by with Cantonese as well but we failed miserably at teaching that to our kids. I think the older one can understand some Cantonese, but the younger one is terrible at it.

It's also too bad we don't know Mandarin...

It's an uphill battle but you have to try very hard to only speak Chinese to your daughter.

I have a friend who only speaks in Mandarin to his kids, his wife only speaks to them in Cantonese, and the kids are in FI. They've been doing this long enough such that the kids respond accordingly depending on which parent they are talking to.

My sister-in-law and her husband also only speak to their kids in Cantonese, and they forced to watch TV in canto/mandarin LOL. They also attend FI.

I think it also helps a lot when the grandparents don't really know English, so the grandchildren are forced to communicate with them in their native language (alas, my parents were lazy and spoke to my kids in English).

Gumby - So your kids are basically English > French > some weak ass Cantonese? :lol

FI enrolment varies so sometimes classes are smaller but at my kids school they're at capacity and the English classes aren't. It's also only semi-useful in France, the reading works but don't try to speak to anyone with a Canadien accent.

Lol I guess you could say that!

I guess they can order dohng lai cha or dohng ling cha (cold milk/lemon tea) at a HK style cafe?

At least they won't end up like this :lol

French Asians are weird. I have some relatives who were born and raised in Montreal and hearing them with a French accent and crappy English is a big mental block for me. :pokerface:

I'm going to visit them this weekend. Heading out in a bit. :D

The flight to HK was ok. AC fucked us over good because the original 789 we were on had an electrical issue and we had to deplane and wait for a replacement 789. 4.5 hour delay later and we got a worn out POS.

Daughter slept in two stretches on the 14.5h flight. First nap was 2hr long at 8pm, then another 3 hour long nap at 1am. We landed at 7pm PST

My daughter went through a leap while in HK, and the flight back was a bit more hellish as she was way fussier. We took off at 8:30pm HK, we were served dinner an hour in and she refused to sleep until 11pm. It took 3 tries but she finally settled down with me carrying her on the baby carrier. She slept 5 hours until 4am HK. Then it was a slog until an hour before landing when she fell asleep until landing.


There were a few reasons we booked with AC, one was the timing of the flights worked out for us. AC7 to HKG departs at 12pm PST and lands in HKG at 5pm HK. 12pm coincides with my daughter's nap, and we land in time for dinner and then bed.

What ended up happening was napping in the airport, and then landing in HKG at 10pm. With that it meant we didn't get to bed until 2am.

We took AC8 HKG-YVR. The flight itself was fine as it's only 11hrs, but the whole flight's attendant's attitude was terrible except for one older gal.

I think I'm done with AC for the forseeable future. Between the lack of knowledge and inconsistent training across their members, inconsistent service quality, and terrible food, the experience was extremely lacking. When we were booking our flights, we contemplated flying with JAL for $200 more per ticket, and would have if the flight times were better. At the end of the day, it wouldn't have mattered with the delay and we regret choosing AC.

Cathay was $600/ticket more so it was out of the question for flying with 6 people, as it would have added up to almost $3000 more.

end rant.....

Yep, we brought the travel laptop but didn't even use it at all. It was just dead weight.

Yes, we lost out as we were #34 on the waiting list. There were only 2 classes in our catchment, and we pass by 3 schools every morning when I go dropoff in the morning.

Signing up early doesn't seem to make a difference as the lottery is as it says, it's a lottery.

First ER visit of the season after being able to completely avoid it last year.

I am pretty sure we caught RSV 3 weeks ago as everyone was sick but I showed less symptoms like the last 2 times we had it. We survived, and then survived another minor bug that just made everyone dry cough for 3 days.

Something new hit yesterday. Daughter was good and went to daycare, but she threw up at noon and they sent her home with a low fever. She came home and napped. She woke up with lots of energy and in good spirits, but went steadily downhill an hour after she woke. By the time dinner rolled around she was a coughing fussy mess.

After dinner she was running high-ish fever with short shallow breaths. I listened to her breathing with stethoscope and compared to my son's. She was noisy and high heart rate so we sent her in.

At Children's, we skipped the line. They saw us right away within the hour despite a 5 hour avg wait. They drugged her good. We arrived at 7pm, they kept us until 3am when her breathing smoothed out.


Lesson? If you got young kids, a stethoscope at home might be the tipping factor to help you decide if you need to go in.

Good advice. Any particular metrics of interest w/ a stethoscope or just whatever's best rated on Amazon?

---

So on the saga of speech development w/ my toddler: starting coincidentally from the day we came home with our newborn, his expressiveness, affection / social engagement, and vocabulary just went straight exponential.

He started clamoring for books and pointing at everything, insisting on going over every item over and over.

He's 20 months old now and up at around 140 words, and when we're out he's consistently pointing at and saying some letters. He'd point out a "W" on a sign at the supermarket and jabber "dah-bo-yeww, dah-bo-yeww", then tilt his head upside down and go "emmmmmm, emmm, emmmm" lolol.

He even identifies and says a number now (just the number 4 though lol). And some colors.

What a relief. Seems spending a bunch of time with him while on parental leave made a huge difference. I'm actually looking forward to getting him in daycare now; I think the social interaction would be good for him vs the MIL and wife's aunts just taking care of basic needs but not really helping him grow his mind. He didn't get to go outside or anything, he was kind of just cooped up sitting around with them. They spent a lot of the time just making baby noises trying to make him laugh, talking amongst themselves, or on their phones :/.

We just bought whatever. We actually bought it for my son to play doctor with. It came in a pack of two. He got one of them and we kept the other one for ourselves.

----

The kids pick up on conversation that adults have. So if you guys can converse in Chinese it'll be helpful for him to eventually learn it.

It might just be he has it all stored up and not ready to start. Now that he's ready it's all coming out and he's quickly learning how to use his tongue and sounds more.

I'm sure most of us already know this, but I'd say it is worth repeating.

Kids literally copy the things we say, and the way we say them, esp when they are younger. I try to keep my language clean whenever I am around my kid, but in the handful of times when I slipped up and cussed, somehow the little person still managed to pick it up, and would repeat it under the correct or incorrect context. The older they are, the more correct the context in which they use it would be. FailFish



There was a while when work and stuff at home were all really hectic, so I was running with a much shorter fuse than I would normally have. Normally, my kid has always been pretty mild. But some time during that period, I started noticing my kid acting with a much shorter temper as well, and he would lash out at both me and mommy a lot more often than he did before. Eventually I caught on to how he was probably just mirroring his beahviour based on mine, so I had to father up and really watch the things I say and the way I say things. Shortly after that -- maybe a week or 2? -- my kid's behaviour reverted back to his old mild self again.

Those damn kids are really a reflection of ourselves. FailFish I wish they'd only pick up our good habits, and avoid the bad ones...

Good reminder.

Littmann stethoscopes.

The other day, wife says crap and the daughter tries to copy. Then I go and try to correct her by telling her no... Crab!:badpokerface:

Littmanns are nice... but not sure the average person needs a $150 stethoscope that they don't really know how to use sitting in their cupboard.

Alright parents of RS, I need to buy a xmas gift for my 2.5mo old niece and could use some input on what to get.

Reddit wisdom has me narrowed down to the following, but wanted to see what's worked for your kids in the past:

• Fisher Price Glow & Grow Kick & Play Piano Activity Gym
• Bright Starts Oball Shaker Toy

https://media-www.canadiantire.ca/pr...impolicy=gZoom
https://i5.walmartimages.ca/images/E...2&odnBg=FFFFFF

IMO it is best to check with the parents first to see what they already have. At least among my circle of friends, there was a lot of free gifting / passing down of used baby clothing and toys of all kinds between the friends.

I have fond memories of this easy grab ball:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/..._AC_SX522_.jpg

My kid played with it for quite a long time.

But do you want to hear crab or crap when you're auscultating lungs? Average parents can just YouTube certify themselves with lung sounds.

Isn't that the free item from Amazon? I feel like I may have a couple of those from hand me downs. :alonehappy:

Not only checking to see what the parents may already have it but if the parents would tolerate having it at all. As a parent there are definitely certain toys you don't tolerate whether it's something messy like play doh, something loud and annoying, something that creates mad glutter and chaos i.e. legos etc.