Right-sizing Proclivity?

When I was a kid, after big parties at the house, there'd be a load of leftovers to fit into the fridge.  I found that I really enjoyed this activity, specifically, looking at the bowl of food, finding the smallest tupperware that would fit the food, then arranging the items in the fridge in just the right way as to maximize volume usage.  It was rather satisfying to do it just right.  I find that same satisfaction when rock climb and eyeball a crack, find just the right sized nut to fit the nut, then feel that satisfying solidness as the nut slots perfectly jammed against both sides of the crack.

Funny how we get those little anal retentive streaks.  Like when Anya sees shoes lying around and feels compelled to have the owner clean them up.  How funny that Mother Nature should create a way of passing those behaviors in the gene code.

Brother's Grimm

We've started reading Luke stories when we set him in his crib for bedtime. The current set of stories are the Brothers Grimm tales.  Wow, they're fun to read the stories of my youth...Hansel and Gretal, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty.  Even more interesting to read them in their original form (well, they're translated, but close enough).

Most recent tidbit...the original name of Cinderella was AschenPuttel, which her evil step sisters derided her with because they forced her to sleep on the floor, near the hearth which left her covered with its ashes and cinders.

Jogging With My Father

Back Pittsburgh when in my elementary school years, I used to go out jogging with my dad after he got back from work. I remember him telling me one day something to the effect, "You're q stronger runner than me". I remember thinking that was preposterous.

Stood Up!

Last year, another climber actually gave me his number spontaneously after I climbed next to him and B.S.ed with him about climbs.  Since then I've been telling my friends that my handlebar mustache gave me the ability to pick up other climbers.

Well, yesterday I needed to find a climbing partner and I figured I'd give this guy a call.  We exchanged text messages and we planned a rendezvous at 10am in the morning.  10am came and went.  I'd been stood up!  I thought we'd shared a moment.  I did everything I was supposed to - I didn't call him right away.  I played a little hard to get.  I was planning our future climbing career together.

Well, as the Pharcyde says, there are always Otha Fish in the sea.

Fat rings

Oh no! I am afraid to say that I think Luke is losing his fat rings! I looked at his wrist yesterday, and the the distinct line that looked like a rubber band constricting the marshmallow of fat on his forearm had become a discount faint line! I am certainly going to miss that feature. I'm counting the days till the fat roll midway down his thunder thighs disappears. And, god for forbid, the day when his plump cheeks thin out!

It was yesterday too that someone mentioned that Luke looked like a cabbage patch kid, with his plump features. I'm curious what evolutionary programming exists that makes baby fat so endearing. And what programming instructs the baby's skin to allow fat to cover the whole arm, but keep things cleanly bottled up at the wrist, ankles, and other typical baby fat boundaries. Well, whatever it is, it's a crying shame that babies can't stay that way forever.

On Teaching

I've been trying to get Luke to crawl the past week.  Initially, my approach was to get him on his belly and put a whole bunch of toys in front of him just out of his reach.  He'd take a few stabs at them, but once he realized they were out of his reach, he'd start looking around for something else and just kinda stay put.  And no amount of toys or shaking of the toys would produce movement.  If anything, they just induced frustration.  So no real progress.

Yesterday, I ended up taking a new tack.  I just placed him in the middle of the living room floor on his belly.  No toys, no objects of interest.  At first, he seemed somewhat bewildered.  But then he started pushing with his arm and as he had most of his weight on his belly, he'd spin in circles.  Then he start rolling.  First once from belly to back and then maybe reverse that back to belly.  But then he started linking them up.  Soon, he was covering a few feet of distance with consecutive rolls.  He'd arrive at the curtains and start grasping at them with his still awkward motion where all 5 digits clench at the same time from completely open to a tight fist.  Then he discovered the air conditioning vent and start throwing his fingers in that.  And so now I think he started to make some good progress towards locomoting.

And so I think the lesson for me is that it's not my job to pick apart the skills he has to learn.  What I was trying to do with the crawling was to get him to do what I thought was the next logical step in crawling.  And it assumed that I knew what would motivate him. But when I switched to a more hands off approach where I just put him in an interesting environment where he was free to entertain himself as he wished, he naturally started moving around to find stimulus.  And I think that's my lesson as a parent: don't spoon feed the answers.  What I need to do is let Luke figure out what he wants to do and what questions he wants to answer.  I just need to keep the learning environment new, interesting, and safe.