Links from the Intertubes!

First up, an explanation of how tech support really works via XKCD.

What Does the Internet Think - get an answer about what the internet thinks about anything you care to ask it. A cool rough polling system.

20 Reasons to Ditch Soda - they had me at "a 21-year-old woman, drank up to three liters of cola a day and complained of 'fatigue, appetite loss and persistent vomiting.'”

Someone’s gone and hacked a “don’t worry be happy” Billy Bass fish to read out tweets…

Five Reasons Parents Need to Stop Saying "Good job" to Their Kids - can you say "praise junkie?", I thought you could.


10 hot news items you might've missed: Damned atheists, quivering seamen, perverted iPod

Stand Up for Health Care Reform - via the LiveStrong Foundation. The campaign centers around two main tenets:
No American should be denied health insurance coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

No American should lose their insurance due to changes in health or employment.

A Walk in the Woods

Today has been a really fun and different kind of day. No pressing deadlines, no heavy work to take care of and some autonomy about what we wanted to do. So I suggested we go for a hike in Nisene Marks State Park, the same woods that I go biking in pretty regularly (but not often enough).

It is always good to slow down, look around and really enjoy the pretty spectacular world that we are lucky enough to inhabit.

It took a while to get everyone ready to go, with the exception of Nande who was ready by the time she'd stood up. We packed a bunch of snacks, drinks and camera gear. Got dressed, hunted for shoes and socks for the boys since they've been in sandals most of the summer. Grady wanted to wear his red rubber rain boots but I talked him out of it as he'd have ended up with nasty blisters and super stinky feet.

We parked at the Safeway as I normally do and held hands across the street leading to the trail head. The boys were excited, Nande was thrilled to be out and it just felt good to be out doing fun stuff with my family. And, oh yeah, the weather had gone from cloudy and overcast to bright, sunny and beautiful which never hurts.

Here's Nande at the end of the hike, still playing, still full of energy and having a great time splashing around in the water. I think she's going to be a perpetual puppy even when she's ten. I actually picked up this rock and heaved it for her, Nande ran under it and glanced off the side of her head. Didn't make her miss a step, I commented that her head is probably harder than the rock.

There weren't too many people out in the forest today but enough so that my boys got to interact with some other kids, Nande got to sniff some dog butt and I had ample time to take some photos and enjoy my wife's company along with my kid's.

It really was a great day and I'm looking forward to more of the same.

The Immediacy of Children

This may sound odd to the childless folks out there but children are alot like dogs. They have little to no sense of the future and live almost exclusively in the right now. When they are hungry, they need to eat this instant. When they need to use the bathroom, they need to go RIGHT NOW or risk peeing their pants. When they get hurt, they need immediate consoling by the nearest available parent.

Also, note, availability has nothing to do with the parent doing something or otherwise being occupied. It has everything to do with being near enough for shouts for aid being hearable.

We joined a number of people from Grady's preschool class at a program today called Together in the Park. Its a semi-organized gathering in area parks and includes activities, storytime and socialization for both the kids and the parents. It also does a pretty solid job of wearing out the wee one's batteries so that naps are more likely to occur.

Towards the end of the couple of hours we spent there this morning, Grady scrapped his thumb. Enough to remove a bit of skin off his knuckle and cause him to start screaming in pain. This is a kid with a pretty high tolerance for pain so I was pretty sure it hurt like a bugger. And he pretty much demanded all of my attention in trying to make him feel better. Luckily (or just good planning), we had a tube of Neosporin in the car and I was actually able to put a dab on his thumb. This is actually indicative of how much it hurt because Grady is usually very, very strongly against any sort of medicine to help him feel better, no band aids either.

It took a few minutes for the pain killer in the ointment to take away the stinging pain but it eventually did its job and Grady calmed down enough for the ride home. He did ask several times to make sure the band aid was the first thing we were doing when we got home.

No epiphanies here, just a day in the life with a couple of kids and how they sometimes require everything else to take a backseat so that their ouchies can get the attention they deserve.

Five Years Ago Today

It was five years ago today that our lives changed forever. Today is the day that Graydon was born. I have a hard time believing my little dude is five already but he is and he's an amazing and wonderful guy.

Our birthday plans are pretty low key since its also the 4th of July weekend and there are all kinds of other festivities in the works. But we will be having a birthday party for him soon.

In the meantime, we're playing, we're making messes (and learning that cleaning them up is important) and enjoying each other's boisterous company as much as possible.

This afternoon there will be cake baking and a small celebration just for our little family. And I like to tell Grady that all the fireworks being blown up tomorrow are all in celebration for him as well.

Blue-Eyed Choco-Monster

'nuff said.

Hold Back or Push Ahead?

We, my wife and I, are currently making the decision on whether or not Grady will start kindergarten in the fall. There are several factors in play that are affecting our thoughts.

Intellectually he's very ready. He's started reading now and knows his numbers quite well. He has made some rather poignant observations about things around us, can comprehend abstract concepts and loves making up jokes. He also has a really fun scientific curiosity streak (he's taken it upon himself to see how freezing things work, he checks his little pots with plants in them every morning, etc.). He is, as every parent will tell you, smart as a whip.

Emotionally though, he may not be ready for the structure. He's a bit wild still, has a hard time staying focused on tasks at hand, has a difficult time listening to and following instructions and sometimes just wants to be contrary for being contrary's sake.

Physically, he's a very high energy little guy who will have no problems keeping up with anyone. He's fast, he's got very good eye hand coordination and he's got a pretty good arm for throwing balls.

His birthday is in July and he'll be turning five so he'd be about the right age. Our thinking is that we will hold him back a year, let him mature a little more while we keep teaching him at home and he can start kindergarten next year. I'd rather he have every opportunity to excel and feel good about himself than push him into school before he's really ready to go.

I'd be interested to hear from other parents or educators about their thoughts on when to start a child in school and how you knew it was the right or wrong time.

Ninja Hands

Tonight, as I was reading a story to an overly tired and amped up Sullivan, he caught himself a case of the hiccups. After the story was finished and I'd turned out the light, I lay down with him to see if maybe he'd fall asleep between the body jerking hiccups. After a few minutes I realized that he was not going to be able to get to sleep without a little fatherly trickery.

I told him that I was going to snatch the hiccups out of him the next time he hiccuped. I rested my hand on the corner of his mouth and waited. When he next hiccuped I snapped my hand and tried to catch it. I told him I missed the first time but would try extra hard on the next one.

And when he hiccuped, I grabbed it, told him that I think I'd gotten it and then threw the hiccups away.

And Sully's hiccups were gone. And, about two minutes later, he was fast asleep.

So be careful, I've totally got ninja hands that are fast enough to snatch a flying hiccup!

My 3 Year Old Demands His Independence

Sullivan, in stark contrast to Graydon, is a do-it-himself kind of guy. He wants to pour his own juice, he wants to get his own Pop Tarts, he wants to wipe his own butt, he wants to turn on Dora or Diego all by himself.

In fact, his most often used expression these days is "I do it myself, poppa!" followed closely by "I win!"

And he's gotten astonishingly good at manipulating the Tivo to get his programs on. It might be time to turn on the Kid Controls to protect our recordings because, while he may think he knows what he's doing, he sometimes just keeps pressing buttons until the right thing happens.

But boy, oh boy is he a proud little boy when he does succeed.

Short Tour Wrap Before Bed

Grady and I, along with thousands of others, braved the cold, wind and rain today to enjoy the Amgen Tour of California as it made its way from Sausalito down to Santa Cruz. Fearing missing the excitement, we got out onto Empire Grade above UCSC by around 11:30 this morning.

And waited. It rained for an hour or so. Then stopped and we waited some more. And then it rained some more.

Every once in a while an Amgen festooned vehicle would come tearing by, lights flashing, horn honking and everyone along our little stretch of the road, all twenty or thirty of us, would get up, get ready and then get disappointed.

The cyclists ended up starting to come through at about a quarter to two. We were smart and I'd turned the Escape around to face the oncoming riders so that we could effectively camp out in the back hatch with it open to avoid most of the rain. And Grady and I played games together, ate snacks, told jokes and took pictures of other stuff while we waited. Grady also had fun kicking gravel into the rain runoff, so much so that he's probably ruined his new(ish) shoes.

When the cyclists did come ripping through, they were proceeded by support cars, police cars, motorcycle cops and photographers on the backs of other motorcycles. And they blazed through even though we were at the top of a pretty good sized hill.

As they tore by, I snapped pictures, shot video from a tripod on the deck in the back of the car and made sure Grady didn't go wandering out into traffic. I had both my big-boy camera, the Canon XTi, and my new SX110. I think I may have ended up opting for the 110 to replace my SD1100 because of today and the desire to zoom in.

Either way, I got some good photos, including Lance!, shot some good video footage and had a good time spending so much time alone with Grady.

My favorite (and recorded) moment occurred after the first big peleton can ripping through with all of its support cars and excitement. Grady appears on the far right of the video, watching, smiling and digging it. After the last car goes by, he turns towards the camera and says, not once but twice, "That was awesome, poppa!"

And it was awesome.

Here's my photo set from the day. I'll probably add a few more as we move forward. I'm currently working on getting the videos converted into a more usable format.

Your Mildly Odd Visual of the Day

I took a shower with Sully earlier this morning and one of his things he likes to do in the shower is fill a bathfoam container cap with water to pour it into a larger container.

But, because I was in the shower with him and obstructing the water flow, he had to look for a place where the water was running off of me. And, being a man, one of the natural places for this to happen is my cock.

So, Sully kept holding his cap up under my penis to collect the water.

Further Processing of Positive Discipline

I'm still working through everything I heard and saw the other night at the Positive Discipline seminar in Santa Cruz.

Not necessarily in order of importance, here are some additional thoughts.

Parents talk at their kids too much rather than engage in a conversation with their children. And the kids learn to tune it out very quickly and just wait for the yapping to stop. It is unproductive to just talk at a child, especially a young child (under the age of 3 or so). For one, they don't have the capacity to "get it" and for two, you are training them to pretend to pay attention when they are not. And for three, put yourself in their shoes, would you take the lecture to heart or would you tune it out?

The use of the "Naughty Chair" is detrimental to the development of self-esteem and should be thrown on the trash heap of failed child raising concepts. What do you think a child forced to sit on the naughty chair is thinking about? What got them there? Or whether they are a bad child?

Finger wagging has never been effective.

One important thing to do is to mean what you say and follow through. If you tell your warring children in the car that you're going to pull over and wait for them to stop and you do not do it then you are teaching them that you are either a liar or weak, neither of which will help them.

The basic tenets of the concepts are Don't Tell, Ask and Be Kind and Firm. Also add no rewards, no punishments and that every instance of acting out is an opportunity for you both to learn how to effectively address, deal with and resolve the problem.

The same concepts of Positive Discipline for children can be applied to other social interactions in your life. Such as, oh I don't know, your husband or wife, your boss, your sales team and your neighbors. The concepts do not, however, work on animals.

An Evening of Positive Discipline

We just got home from a couple of hours of Positive Discipline taught by Jane Nelsen. I went in tired and cranky but ended up enjoying myself and learning quite alot about how to make positive changes in how I approach interactions with my children to help them build up self-esteem, a sense of their capabilities and to foster happier, healthier and more complete little human beings.

If I had to sum up the evening in just a single short sentence it would be: Don't Tell, Ask. Meaning that we, as parents, spend far, far, far too much time telling our kids what to do, what they've done wrong, what's going to happen to them and why they need to eat, sleep, sit-up, don't touch, don't hit, don't this, don't that.

Positive interaction with a child can be easily achieved by empowering them, by asking them questions and making them think for themselves. Little Johnny got sent to the principal's office? Ask him what he could do to not have it happen again.

The guiding principle isn't lack of discipline, its a lack of punishment and rewards. The reasoning is that, while punishments and rewards do work in the short term they teach a child to avoid punishment and seek greater and greater rewards. It is short term win but long term fail.

There was some role playing to demonstrate how and why some methods of interaction push the child away and how to convert those interactions into opportunities to build up self-esteem.

I am still processing an awful lot of the information and we bought a book to read about it. But the overall gist of the program resonated quite well with me and the rest of the sold out crowd.

As a parent, we are faced with heading down a road without a roadmap, without signs and without AAA. Positive Discipline offers some quality guidance in helping to raise strong, smart and empowered people. And the world really needs more empowered people.

I will be writing more about the seminar and about the implementation of the practices as we move forward. The first up will be the creation of a Bedtime Routine board that will give us a visual roadmap of the steps we (the boys) need to do to get ready for bed.

I would highly recommend any parent having trouble or just wanting some extra help to look into Positive Discipline (yes, Lujza, this means you!).

What IS Normal Anyway?

After reading this Ask Metafilter question: Can I give my kids back? and the resultant storm of comments, my own included, it got me to thinking.

The poster in this case has two teenaged daughters, 17 and 13, and they are both kind of mean and nasty to her a good chunk of the time right now. She is wondering whether it is normal to have moments of hating your own children.

My answer, and many others, is that yes, its normal. It isn't normal to hate your children all the time or stay up late plotting their public humiliation and downfall but yes, there are moments when they are being such horrible, horrible creatures that hate can surface.

I know my two boys aren't spiteful or malicious, yet. I know that they are having fun when they are being terrible little buggers. But the combination of tiredness, of feeling taken for granted, of waiting on them day and night, of wiping their dirty butts and dripping noses and their hyena-like laughter after dumping an entire glass of soda on the table, chair and floor can just momentarily overwhelm you. Or me.

It doesn't make you a bad parent, it makes you human.

And, I like to think, for every bad moment there are dozens of deeply endearing and wonderful beyond awesome with ecstasy whipped cream and jubiliation cherries on top moments. Like when Grady snuggles up to me on the couch and whispers "I love you, Poppa" or when he'll bring me something I've been looking for and say "Here you go, Poppa." Or when Sully runs up to me when I pick him up at daycare and throws his arms around me, wrapping his hands around my neck and nuzzling his face into me. And he will not let go.

Raising children is an exhausting rollercoaster of emotions with soaring highs and four-drink inducing lows. And it is, without a doubt, the hardest thing I've ever done or will do.

Kids and Wild Horses

I sometimes think of the effort it takes to get Sully or Grady down for a nap to quite like a cowboy breaking in a wild horse. They fight and kick and stomp around and have a strong, strong will until that will is finally broken and they fall in line and fall asleep.

Sully can be a handful to put down until he reaches that point and then he's as sweet as can be, all snuggly and asleep.

Until he wakes up and can't find his tete (pacifier) then he does a rather impressive imitation of an ambulance siren.

Thwarted

Today's word of the day is thwarted.

As in, I was thwarted from a good night's sleep by the rain pounding on the house and some stuffed up sinuses.
Or, I was thwarted from sleeping until my alarm clock went off because Sullivan woke up extra early and was downstairs helping himself to some breakfast (he's two and a half years old).
Or, I was thwarted from a peaceful start to the day because Sully had an enormous and nasty shit in his diaper (which is why he was awake so early).
Or, I was thwarted from staying out of the rain and cold this morning because I'd forgotten to take the trash up last night though it was raining harder then).
Or, I was thwarted from feeling decent about humanity when I heard the news that the scumfucks at AIG are going to give huge executive bonuses on yours and my bailout money. But, instead of calling them bonuses, they are calling them, "retention payments", I wish I were making that up.
I am tempted to thwart the rest of my day and go back home and get back in bed.

Isn't the word of the day fun?

No, not really. I think I'll make up for it by saying squat out loud a few times.

Normal Left A Couple of Years Ago

How bizarre is my life? I got up this morning with Sullivan who was running a bit of a fever and was just not thrilled with the universe.

While he was laying on the couch and I was getting coffee, he coughed a bit, sat up and looked like he was going to puke. Having nothing to catch the impending mess with, he vomited into my hand.

Normal and I used to know each other (not real well but well enough) but he hasn't come around in a long, long time. His younger siblings, Chaos, Mayhem and Nasty spend far too much time here.

My Little Button Pushing Monkey Gets to Two

During my long day of complaining, my wife mentioned that she had a stomachache around this time two years ago. If you can call being nine months pregnant a stomachache.

Sullivan was born the next day and will turn two friggin' years old tomorrow. To say that the kid is a pistol is an understatement.

The delight he takes in baiting his big brother and the twinkle he gets in his eye when he grabs the centerpiece toy from Grady and runs like only he can run. His grin gets even bigger when Grady chases him screaming. This happens pretty regularly but we are working on teaching Grady how to not react which will, hopefully, convince Sully to find another way to have fun.

Happy Birthday, Sullivan. May your next year see you find a wee bit of restraint and some way to take just the top edge off your scream (or you can choose to employ your scream less often, that would be alright too). Either way, you never fail to make me smile even when you're being a wicked little bugger.

In the Butt

** Warning, NSFW but really funny **
You get little lead-in except the title: Girl In Trouble (Brother Caught Everything on Cam), which pretty much says it all. It made me laugh out loud, it made my wife laugh out loud and it might make you laugh out loud too. In the butt.

Can I say that I'm glad I have boys but I'm sure they'll be they're on special brand of hell when they hit their teens. In the butt.

Beach Day in March

Grady Runs on the Beach

We took advantage of a sunny Sunday and packed up the crew to head out to the beach. Yes, including Nande who can't seem to grasp that her high-pitched yelping doesn't make everything more fun for everyone. But anyway.

If ever there were a day to have a skim board, this was it. The beach seemed to go on for miles and miles. But the water was outrageously cold and not fun to be in at all. Even Grady wasn't into spending much time in it.

A good time was had by all, I think. I got to play with Nande and Graydon in the surf, Paula walked with Sully and they're all asleep now so I think I did my job reasonably well.

Conversations with Grady

The other night I was tucking Grady into bed (for the second or third time) and we had this short conversation.

Me: I want to sleep well and you know that Mommy and Daddy love you very, very much.

Grady: Thanks!

Nice to be appreciated!