The Core Dump

The other night was Family Science Night at Andrea’s school. Since we’re very interested in having her exposed to as much science as possible, and also to show her that we take it seriously, off we went.

The actual presentation was given by a woman from the Arizona Science Center and involved fun and interesting things to do with liquid nitrogen. The children were highly amused by the flash-freezing of various objects like metal, racquet balls, onions, and bananas.

At the start of the presentation, the presenter had seven balloons, and asked the crowd how many of those she could fit into the small liquid nitrogen container. Turns out, she could fit all of them.

At which point it was incredibly hard to not yell, “Burn the witch! Burn her!“

So, I guess I still have some work to do on this “maturity” thing.

One thing you can be sure of when it comes to young children is that they will only need to go potty when it’s inconvenient. Ask a child if she needs to go potty before you go to the store and the answer is invariably “No!”

Then at the store as soon as the cart is loaded, only one thing can happen: “I have to go potty!”

The same thing goes for dinner time. Ask your child to go potty at the same time as she washes her hands for dinner, and the response is a look of utter incomprehension. Of course she doesn’t have to go potty. Duh. What is wrong with you?

So today Andrea had to go potty in the middle of dinner, as is to be expected.

She came back to the table and I asked if she had washed her hands. Nope. And, “Did you wipe yourself?”

“No.”

“You know you have to wipe yourself after you go potty.”

“I forgot, because my brain is nocturnal.”

“Your brain is nocturnal?”

“Yes, ’cause I was born in the night when I was asleep.”

Andrea and I were driving the other day, and I had the excellent Radio Lab podcast about Wagner’s Ring Cycle playing in the car. If you haven’t heard it, it’s a fantastic journey into the Ring Cycle and the people who enjoy it and the reasons they do.

We’re driving along and the podcast starts talking about Wagner the person and how he had his … well, let’s call them issues. One of which was the Jews. The announcer says how Wagner left a letter which said that “Jews are worms.”

And from the backseat I hear: “When we drink juice it’s worms?”

The function of TV news in America these days is to keep parents in a perpetual state of shivering fear.

Child molesters! Guns! Gangs! Drugs! Disease!

And of course it will all become better if you wipe down your entire house with antibiotics, lock the kids in their rooms with educational toys, and take your anti-anxiety pills.

We do take reasonable steps to protect Andrea’s safety, but existing in a miasma of fear and paranoia is no way to live—hence our moratorium on TV news.

In an evil-genius kind of way, you do have to admire an industry that consists of showing you content to increase your anxiety, and then selling ad space for products that will lessen the anxiety just created. Kudos, Madison Avenue.

The other day I got a true taste of parent paranoia. Shopping with Andrea at Albertson’s, I turned my back on her for just a second to pick up some hot dog buns, and when I turned back she was gone. Just gone. No sign.

So I walked through the store looking for her. One circuit: no sign of her. Another, faster, circuit: still no sign.

What if some pervert abducted her? Holy crap. Should I abandon the cart and run to the parking lot? Argh.

At this point sweat was dripping down the small of my back. Some f–ing pervert must have taken her!

Then they paged me on the store speakers. Went to customer service, and she was bawling her eyes out as one of the staff hugged her.

Nobody said anything, but I could tell, oh yes, I could: Bad dad.

We debriefed after we got home, and she had gotten herself lost somehow and asked one of the staff for help, which was the right thing to do.

Still, bad dad.

Having a young child playing on the Internet can be a bit nerve-wracking. Not that a five-year-old is going to do anything wrong, per se, but you never know what chain of events could end up taking her somewhere completely inappropriate.

We’ve implemented the oldest technique in the book for keeping tabs on her when she’s on the computer—keeping the machine she uses in the living room where we can see what’s going on. But if she were to mistype a URL or inadvertently click on an inappropriate link, bad things would still show up before we could react and close the browser.

The solution has been simple: Switching the home network over to use OpenDNS. Their servers are fast and reliable, and they provide enough content filtering that we can feel fairly sure our little innocent won’t inadvertently end up at undesirable Web sites.

Blocking sites through DNS servers will of course not keep any determined hacker from bypassing the filters, and I’ll be very disappointed if by the time she’s a teenager she doesn’t run circles around me when it comes to technology†, but to keep accidents from happening, OpenDNS provides a good, free solution.

Highly recommended.

†Oh, what a sweet, sweet day it will be when I can have her set up the TV for me…

After much wiggling and tongue-poking, the first milk tooth ejected itself from Andrea’s gums last week.

She was all kinds of excited. Not only was she a Big Girl, but the Tooth Fairy was coming, so she was going to get paid.

As with all fictional characters, said Tooth Fairy landed quickly in the parental bat belt of weaponry.

On the evening after the monumental event, we were fighting the usual get-child-to-bed battle, when daddy had a flash of brilliance: “If you don’t go to sleep now, the Tooth Fairy will miss this house.”

Mommy caught on quick: “Yes, the Tooth Fairy has many houses to visit, so if you’re not asleep she won’t be able to wait. Better go to sleep now.”

“OK.”

We tip-toed out of her room high-fiving each other for our cleverness.

So of course she didn’t fall asleep, but instead came to mommy and daddy’s bedroom to further probe the mysteries of the Tooth Fairy.

“You better go to sleep, or the Tooth Fairy will miss our house, and you won’t get any money.”

“How do you know?” Uh-oh.

“Parents know these things.”

“Did the Tooth Fairy come when you were a kid?”

“Yes, sure did.”

“Did you see the Tooth Fairy?”

“No. The Tooth Fairy only comes when kids are asleep.”

“Oh.”

“Parents get to see the Tooth Fairy. But not kids. The Tooth Fairy only comes when kids are sleeping. That’s why you have to go to sleep now, so the Tooth Fairy can come.”

“So how do you know the Tooth Fairy is busy?”

“They tell you these things when you become a parent.”

“Oh. OK.”

And then she passed out on our bed, to wake up to a fresh and crispy dollar bill under her pillow the next morning. She was more excited than Christmas, running around the house with her dollar yelling, “I can buy things now!”

When I was a boy the whole family ended up watching a documentary about gorillas. According to the documentary, the dominant male in the flock was called Silverback because of the gray fur running down his back. He was a big, surly gorilla.

So naturally the comparison with the gray hair down my father’s back made itself, and I tormented him for years by calling him Silverback and making amusing gorilla noises. Naturally.

Today we were talking around the dinner table, and somehow we got on to the subject of monkeys, and I wanted to sneak in a bit of early evolution thinking by pointing out that we humans are part of the great African apes, and that gorillas are in a way of speaking our cousins.

Andrea thinks for a while, then says, “Hey, dad! You’re a gorilla! Because you’re big and fat!”

I just can’t wait until she catches on to the gray back hair…

Anyway, sorry Dad.

Soundtrack: “Fields Of Fire” by Big Country

Our plan for the summer was for Andrea to spend most of it in Summer Camp at the school where I work. Which involves me spending more time with her and getting to see her in the days. A brilliant plan.

So of course today I was informed that due to her rampant throwing of tantrums, refusal to share, and—the last nail in the coffin—running away from her counselor, she will not be attending Summer Camp anymore.

After a panicky phone call we managed to get her enrolled back in the program at the Y, so at least one of us won’t have to take the summer off work, but it’s a major setback.

The current major theory is that she’s used to things being more structured, and in small classrooms, while Summer Camp is spread out over a large campus and is very unstructured. Which can be hard for some children to adapt to. At the same time, the last time she had issues at preschool, it turned out to have been related to another child’s behavior. It’s very hard to get information out of her, so at this point we can just guess, but whatever was really happening will probably leak out of her over time.

I’m certainly not placing any blame on the staff at Summer Camp—they’ve been doing a good job. Guess you just have to accept that certain environments don’t work as well as others.

But yeah, this is certainly stress I don’t need.

Today was a big day for Andrea—her last day at the preschool at the YMCA.

Even though she’s only been there for a year, the place has had a huge effect on her and on her parents. In short, while nothing is perfect, this has been the best pre-school experience we could possibly hope for for our daughter. With a caring staff, a good pedagogical program, and the resources of the YMCA available for “extracurricular” activities like swimming, tumbling, and ballet, it’s been fantastic to have her there.

A cupcake party on Andrea’s last day at the YMCA preschool.
Click for larger version.

The curse of the working couple who are parents is that most childcare places feel like child storage. Just a place where you drop your child off in the morning and pick up in the evening so you can work and actually afford to stay in your house and keep them from sleeping under a bridge. Not so the preschool program at the YMCA in Chandler/Gilbert.

Most of this I think is due to the Reggio Emilia approach the school follows. In short, it’s wonderful. If you’re a parent with a child or children or in a “regular” preschool, and you walk into one that follows the Reggio Emilia method, your jaw will drop. There is no comparison. In a Reggio Emilia school, the lights are muted and the classrooms looks like a home. In short, it’s the way you want your child to spend the day when you can’t spend it with her.

If you’re the parent of a toddler, I can not recommend highly enough that you try to find preschools that follow the Reggio Emilia approach in your area. Use the mighty Google, that’s what it’s there for. If you happen to be living in the Phoenix, AZ area, the preschool at the YMCA in Chandler/Gilbert is something you should definitely look into.

And no, this is not a paid commercial. Lord knows we have paid enough to have her in the program. But it has been absolutely wonderful for her and for her parents. In the words of Ali G, “respek!”

Your child moving from her preschool seems like the kind of thing that wouldn’t really affect you as a parent; after all, you’re the one who picked where she’s going and where she’s going to go. Nevertheless, it’s an emotional sledgehammer.

After this, her first graduation, Andrea will spend the next six weeks at summer camp at her daddy’s job, then two weeks at home with her mommy, and then Kindergarten begins.

Wow, Kindergarten.

Soundtrack: “Perpetual” by VNV Nation

The coolest thing about the Wii is unarguably the controllers. Swish swosh bang hooray. Brilliant.

Imagine my surprise when we bought a (sigh) Fairytopia doll for Andrea’s birthday. Oh, and don’t click on that link if you’re diabetic. Seriously. And turn down the volume if you’re in an office.

So anyway, she gets her Elina doll which includes a DVD Game. Imagine my surprise and fear when it turns out the doll itself can be used to control the included DVD game. (Yes, DVD game. A game you play on a regular DVD player. Don’t ask me. All the rage with the kids these days, apparently.)

Of course this involves teaching the doll your remote, which only took a couple of minutes, and then it was time for Andrea to help Elina find crystals. How does that work, you ask? By turning the doll to the left to go left and right to go right. Like a pink, winged, little Wiimote with plastic boobs.

And it actually works. Andrea was ecstatic after she helped Elina find all the crystals.