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familycareerWhen we moved here from India, we knew that I would be going back to work soon. My husband had won many wagers, betting that I would give up staying at home sooner than later. To me, well, it wasn’t as much the cooking and cleaning that drove me back to work as it was the demands of constantly being with my daughter.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my high-energy, super-enthusiastic, gregarious little daughter, but the introvert in me can only take a few hours of it. Plus, I do like to talk about attrition rates, performance metrics and compensation benchmarking a little more than I like talking about princesses, castles, fairies and magic.

So when I did get a job, and it was time to go back to work, I should have felt elated and relieved. I should have been excited that I was finally going to talk to grownups, or at least people who looked like them. But, strangely, I felt guilty.

I’ve never cried in my life. Ok, that’s not entirely true — I had never cried for a tiny person before DD was born. Now, even when am just thinking of her, tears trickle down my cheeks, and there’s a never-ending song played by the tugging of the heart strings. Flesh-and-blood reasoning aside, the girl does have magical superpowers over me.

We had to make a decision of moving her from her part-time school to a full-time preschool. I wasn’t completely comfortable with a nanny. DD is too social to stay put with one person for an extended duration of time. Staying alone with me was torture enough. So we decided she could make up for all that lost time of not being able to talk nonstop with friends by giving her a lot of face time with other little yappers.

Her new school is great. The staff is very kind, the other parents had great reviews, and even her current school spoke highly of the new school’s curriculum. So we had multiple endorsements. I visited the school three times before deciding. I liked it the first time. But an affirmation from DH and then DD wouldn’t hurt, right? They loved it, too. So it was the right place for her.

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Editor's Note: Teenworthy is a column written by teens for parents and teens. All those times you want to know what's going on with your teen but the conversation isn't as ... robust as you'd like? Check Teenworthy, where teens who want to be listened to will let you into their world. Use the topics you read about here to start conversations with your own friends or kids. If you have a burning question for a teen or know of any brave teens who want to write for this column, let us know!

Hello, parents. My name is Aidan, and I’m a high school sophomore in Seattle. My job as a “teen blogger” for ParentMap is to go behind the scenes in the teen world, to bring parents up to speed on some of the trends and tech that are popular with their tween and teen children. I hope these posts may also give you something fun to talk about together.

Today I will be talking about how kids get their news. We get informed in traditional ways, like hearing the radio in the car or TV news broadcasts, but the Internet is full of other ways teens and tweens learn what’s going on in the world and stay current.

One news source, believe it or not, is Facebook. Besides sharing events in our lives and photos that sometimes display questionable judgment, teens post surprising, often-just-breaking news they see and find interesting. I heard about the death of Steve Jobs from a post someone put up while I was browsing on Facebook. When I told my parents a few hours later, they had no idea that he had died. It was the same with the Osama Bin Laden news.

Popular Internet forums that also have news, such as Reddit, have sections of their website devoted to everything from astronomy to the game Minecraft to country music. On the “front page” of Reddit, major news events show up along with the latest popular memes, GIFs and other trending content.  It can be an odd mashup — teens might see that John Boehner rejected President Obama’s budget in the same screen as a photo of a large ring made out of Pringles potato chips.

Another popular site is 4chan, which is similar to Reddit, but has more content that is explicit and more “haters” posting rude comments. The explicit forums are labeled with a red tag that says NSFW (Not Safe For Work) and can have inappropriate content such as gore or nudity. Reddit has some NSFW areas too, but they aren’t as obviously marked.

Another of part of Reddit is the Today I Learned section (TIL), where people can share cool facts that they have discovered. One interesting TIL factoid I read was that President Roosevelt received letters from army cavalrymen complaining about having to ride 25 miles a day for training, and, in response, Teddy rode horseback for 100 miles, from sunrise to sunset, at the age of 51. Each of these “TIL”s are linked to a source article. Readers can filter items by most recent or by popularity.

Another feature of Reddit is the AmA (Ask me Anything), where an interview subject answers questions people ask about them or their job. A lot are regular people, like a Taco Bell employee, but some famous participants include Bill Gates, Niel deGrasse Tyson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and even Barack Obama. His campaign saw it as a way to reach the younger demographic.

If you want to see some of these websites and check out all the stories your kids are reading, take a look. Let me know what you think in the comments!

208Aidan Weed is a high school sophomore who lives in Seattle. He enjoys drumming, lacrosse and video games, and his favorite subject in school is Latin.

cinderella-header-450hToday, we're giving away a four-pack of tickets to Evergreen City Ballet's Cinderella, the timeless rags-to-riches story of dreams coming true and living happily ever after. The tickets are for June 8 at 7:30 p.m. at the Theatre at Meydenbauer Center.

To enter to win, simply leave a comment on this post, and include your email in Disqus (not publicly) so that we can contact you!

Additional entries will be given for the following (leave an extra comment for each action to let us know):

1. Become a ParentMap e-news subscriber
2. Follow ParentMap on Pinterest
3. Like ParentMap on Facebook
4. Follow ParentMap on Twitter
5. Like Evergreen City Ballet on Facebook
6. Follow Evergreen City Ballet on Twitter
7. Share this post on Facebook
8. Tweet this post on Twitter

The giveaway ends Monday, May 13, at noon. We will leave a comment reply for the winner by the end of the day.

Make sure to check back to see if you've won if you haven't already heard from us by email!


Someone did their chores - sweeping, cooking, mending - and gets to go to the ball. Thanks to all who entered, the lucky winner has been picked and this giveaway is closed.

What's better than humor for Mother's Day? peealonecoverIn honor, we're giving away 3 copies of I Just Want to Pee Alone, a collection of essays from some of the Internet's funniest moms on topics ranging from a “magical” Disneyland trip to the miracle of baby enemas. (Read our review!)

How to enter the giveaway:

It's easy! Just leave a comment on this post about a funny saying (or doing) of your kids recently. Include your email in the comment form so that we can contact you if you are the winner.

Additional entries will be given for the following (leave an extra comment for each action to let us know):

1. Follow ParentMap on Pinterest

2. Like ParentMap on Facebook

3. Follow ParentMap on Twitter

4. Follow Frugalista blog on Facebook.

5. Share this post on Facebook

6. Tweet this post on Twitter

This giveaway ends Monday, May 13, at noon. We will leave a comment reply for the winner by the end of the day.

Make sure to check back to see if you've won if you haven't already heard from us by email!

Peeing alone is awesome. Or at least I've heard. Thanks to all who entered, the winners have been chosen and this giveaway is closed.

Update: Congratulations to 13-year old cellist Olivia Marckx of Bellevue and 18-year old violinist Sarah Hall of Arlington, who were named the 2013 winners of the Young Artist Awards for 2013. Both Hall and Marckx will perform in a special live broadcast on NW Focus Live on Friday, May 24 at 8 p.m. on 98.1 FM. Hall’s performance on the violin and Marckx’s cello performance may be viewed online at KING.org.

Young Artist AwardsWhat if nobody performed the classics anymore? No Shakespeare. No Tennessee Williams. No Bach, Beethoven, or Bernstein. How would we know how wondrous the human spirit can be if no one challenged themselves to learn the skills to keep these great spirits alive?

To nurture the next generation of classical music performers, the team of Seattle Chamber Music Society and 98.1 Classical KING FM are inviting the public to vote this week on the eleven finalists in their second annual Young Artist Awards Competition.

You can vote on the young contestants’ posted YouTube videos now through May 13, thus helping decide which two young Seattle-area talents will win the invitations to perform at the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s 2013 Summer Festival. Winners will also perform in an extended live broadcast on Classical KING FM later this month, and at parks around town all summer long.

Who are these talented young performers? Grade-school-age pianists, in concert gowns or a sober black shirt, toss off fistfuls of notes that make sense in a new way. A pair of young flutists show what close harmony can do. A girl with a glittery headband takes a no-nonsense approach to her cello. And those are just the 6-13 year olds. Among the older kids, there’s an opera singer, a piano trio, violinists, and a bassoon player. Some videos look professional. Some could have used a tripod. All document a brave moment in these lives.

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The giant screen of an IMAX theater is at its best when it's featuring spectacular vistas — often filmed while in flight. I can still recall the sensation of soaring from the first IMAX film I saw when I was 11 years old. Air Racers 3D, a documentary film about the Reno National Championship Air Races now playing at the Pacific Science Center PACCAR IMAX Theater, bypasses the usual IMAX leisurely-helicopter-ride sensation and puts you in the cockpit of a racing plane at 500 miles per hour and 50 feet off the ground.

The Reno Air Races are billed as the world's fastest motorsport and if you're not interested in travelling to the Nevada desert in September Air Racers 3D is the best way to experience the thrill. The documentary follows Steve Hinton, Jr. as he prepares for the race and ultimately competes to be the youngest pilot to win the Unlimited Class Gold Race, the top prize at Reno.