I haven’t have a drop of coffee in the past two months. I just stopped because I thought I was depending on coffee way too much. I thought it would be hard, but I was able to get off the hook easily. Instead of drinking coffee in the morning, I switched to coconut water with chia seed. They make a great combo for detox.

As for drinking I still do a bit of cocktail every now and then, especially when I get stressed out. Somehow the buzz of liquor has been making me happier when dealing with the kids. Dan gave me some hell yesterday when he didn’t take a nap time. When he finally was down for a nap, he woke up an hour later because he was coughing. He brought more hell when he woke up. I left the room and let his mom calmed him down.

When it was time for dinner, I made myself a drink. After that I was in such a good mood to give the kids a bath and brushed their teeth. The night ended well with a bit of margarita.

Dan is transitioning from terrible two to terrifying three and it is a stressful phase. He throws tantrum so easily when things don’t go his way. He’s strong, fearless and uncontrollable. He can scream to his lung get sore. If I try to hold him or to calm him down, his action gets worse. My approach is to let him get it all out. Once he’s done, he would come to me, give me hug and apologize.

It breaks my heart every time I see my kid that way, but I can’t give me. I have been through it before with Dao; therefore, I know how the game goes. Three is so terrifying because they can’t control their emotion. I am so glad that Dao has passed that stage. He is now much easier to interact with. Dan will be the same. This is just the phase that he’s going through. If he knows that I give in every time he starts tantrum, he will push it further. I made that mistake with Dao. I am not doing that again. It might seem cold and harsh for a three-year-old, but he needs to learn to control his behavior. The sooner he gets it, the better we’ll be.

I make sure that he understand that I am not ignoring him. I just can’t put up with that. Once he apologizes and gives me hug, I give him my full attention again. Being a parent is hard. I am still learning. I might need one more time to get things right.

Dao’s kindergarden teacher wrote in his report that he had been talking excessively in class. Isn’t that a good thing? He’s vocalizing and sharing whatever on his mind. For example, when he took off his clothes to take a bath yesterday, he pointed to his nipples and said, “Daddy, when I grow up I will have lots of milk for the baby to drink.” I almost fell into the bathtub laughing.

Not only Dao, Dan is also very chatty. When not fighting, the two of them sounded like non-stop firecrackers. Because Dan’s vocabulary is still limited, he stutters quite a bit when he couldn’t find the words to express himself. Two nights ago as we were about to sleep, he suddenly got up and asked me, “Daddy, is … is … is … mommy having a baby?” I replied, “Well, would you like to have a baby brother or baby sister?” He responded, “No, I already have baby Han [his little cousin].”

Even though their non-stop talking could be quite irritating at times, especially when I was sleepy as hell, I am glad that they are talking a lot than not saying a word. As a parent, what I have learned is that you can’t have it both ways.

Jeff Johnson, Designing with the Mind in Mind, (p.69):

• In alphabetic scripts, patterns of characters form morphemes, which we learn to recognize as packets of meaning—for example, “farm,” “tax,” “-ed,” and “-ing” are morphemes in English.
• Morphemes combine to form patterns that we recognize as words—for example, “farm,” “tax,” “-ed,” and “-ing” can be combined to form the words “farm,” “farmed,” “farming,” “tax,” “taxed,” and “taxing.” Even ideographic scripts include symbols that serve as morphemes or modifiers of meaning rather than as words or concepts.

An intriguing psychological introduction to user-interface design. The chapter on how we read alone is worth checking out. Although the design of the book could be better, real-world illustrations and practical guidelines make it an essential read for web and interactive designers.

Dao had his first tooth extracted on Friday. The process went surprising well thanks to the amazing pediatric dentist. She distracted him by talking about Ninjago, one of his current favorite shows. She gave him some numbing medication and yanked the tooth out in less than ten minutes. Dao cooperated the entire time, which was unexpected. His previous visits he wouldn’t even let the dentist look at his teeth. Somehow he trusted this one particular dentist. It was a relief.

He will have another major work on his teeth, in which he will be sedated in the hospital. Before committed to this project, we had gone through two pedestrians and consulted my cousin who is a dentist. They all agreed that it has to be done. He was scheduled to do it two weeks ago, but his pediatrician would’t approved because I have Vonwillebrands, which means that he could have it as well. He had to get his blood test, but the result didn’t come back before the schedule date. He does have a mild case of Vonwillebrands and we had to reschedule it two months later for his dental work.

A couple days before his original schedule, he had abscess in his gum and had to have antibiotic. After his tooth was taken out, I could see a big cavity eating up his tooth.

As a parent, this has been a sign of failure on my part. I have been worried and stressed out the entire time. I let this happened to him even though I have done my best to brush and floss him everyday day and night. I am now being very conscious of Dan’s teeth as well. I don’t want to make the same mistake twice.

The following note is taken from an UIE seminar presented by Steph Hay.

• Users are skeptical: So how do we build trust with them?
• Build Trust First: Trust makes users happy.
• Gaining trust takes time: This is why it’s so valuable
• Building trust isn’t easy: It’s not really free, either.
• Building trust is awesome because it costs time and energy.
• Trust comes from setting realistic expectations, then meeting them: Over and over again to infinite and beyond.

Set real expectations

Using words people actually say

Know yourself

You’re real. People trust real.

4 techniques for writing real-person content

1. Test message in AdWords: Write user-oriented messages to test for clicks (nor conversions)
   • Specific: “Eating out too much? Learn how to budget”
   • Generic: “Know your finances. Save money. Worry less.”
2. Embrace the unsexy words used in organic searches: Being found isn’t about selling or educating or being clever—it’s about being found
   • Toutapp: Write your Sales Email faster & know what happens after you hit “Send.”
3. Look at entry points and top content in Google Analytics: Write more of what visitors are looking at…be proactive
   • Tealet found that its blog posts draws customers.
4. The mom test: Your personal bullshit meter
   • If you’d feel like a tool saying it to your mom, you probably sound like a tool.

4 techniques for meeting expectations

1. Don’t be abrupt: Be helpful even when you fail. After all, you set their expectations in the first place.
2. Make your forms fail-proof: Be explicit in microcopy and specific in validations so the user always “wins” upon submit.
3. Anticipate the gaps: Sweating the details of error messages or 404 pages shows
   you’re there even when stuff goes wrong.
4. Ask users two questions:
   1. Why did you [sign up]?
   2. Why [do] you keep coming back?

This morning when I dropped him off at daycare, Dan gave me a hug before joining his teachers and friends. At 22 months, he has reason for everything. When we walked to our car after I picked him up from daycare yesterday, I asked me to carry him. His reason was that he’ll “fall and hurt himself if he walks.” When grandma asked him to share his jelly beans with his cousin Khoi, he told her that Khoi can’t eat it because “he’ll throw up.” When he doesn’t want to eat his food anymore, he told me that the food will make him throw up. I am so tempting to let my kids starving for a week in order for them to understand how fortunately they are. I haven’t been able to do it yet.

Since kindergarden, Dao has picked up some big words. While we were dining at a restaurant on Saturday, he kept on crying because he wanted his cousin Khoi’s train toy. I commanded him to stop whining and eat his food. He said to his mom, “Daddy is embarrassing me.” In another incident, he called us several times to sanitize him when he was done pooping. When I finally came to him, he said, “I am so disappointed.” Two big words in two days.

My client and I launched Le Mekong Vietnamese Cuisine’s web site almost five years ago. While the design stands the test of time, the codes are outdated. When the client asked me to optimize her site for mobile, I took the opportunity to rewrite HTML and CSS from scratch. The markups are now up-to-date and the layout is now responsive across all devices.

I also made some visual changes. The slideshow and banner images are now taking up the entire browser’s width, which makes the images bigger and more enticing. This site is still a fine example of how a small business owner could have her own brand and design rather than using the same template from Squarespace that millions of other businesses are using. Take a look at the new Le Mekong Vietnamese Cuisine.

Writing web content is hard. Writing clear, useful, and friendly web content is much harder. Fortunately, Nicole Fenton and Kate Kiefer Lee’s Nicely Said, a concise, practical writing guide, will help you to accomplish that with ease. Whether you’re a designer or content strategist, you’ll learn finding your voice and writing how you speak. Required reading for anyone who works with content.