Big Adventures

Ruby and I are spending every Tuesday this summer down at the Green Lake pool, taking a half-hour swim class. While Mama is off playing racquetball, we get to bob and bond among the splashing toddlers.

Ruby can’t swim, of course, but she’s getting more comfortable in the water.  She generally hangs onto me as we wander around the pool (Ruby occasionally shouting “Ride the Papa!”).  On the second day, though, something incredible happened: she let go!

She was hanging on to a water noodle at the time, her arms draped over the top for buoyancy. For just a second or two she panicked as she drifted away, kicking madly, but then she realized that she could do it by herself! A light went on and she broke out in a big grin. She was swimming by herself!  She spun around a few times, getting the hang of things, and then, legs thrashing under the water, started making some progress towards her destination.
I was incredibly proud and happy. Not just proud of the physical feat, but happy to have gotten a chance to see that moment of doubt turn into a moment of triumph.

During and after the swim class I told Ruby how proud I was.  It was also gratifying to see that she responded to my statements of pride as well — that she was happy to hear how proud I was.

Since then she’s continued to swim around on the noodle by herself. Every time she climbs on her legs start kicking wildly and she turns away from me to explore the pool on her own. Of course, she doesn’t get very far — she’s not very fast. We have also done a class with a lifejacket and had a similar, but better result: now, Ruby could use her hands as well as her legs to slowly thrash around the pool.

As an added bonus, now that she’s on the noodle I can use it to give her some gentle dunks in the water. I lift her up slightly, just a few inches, and her momentum then carries her down under the water. But she kicks her legs and hangs onto the noodle, and quickly comes bobbing to the surface, a big grin on her face.

FIRST

Tweetgeist (n) [from “zeitgeist”, german, the intellectual and cultural climate of an era; and “tweet”, to post a message on twitter.com]: The collected and distilled wisdom of one’s circle of advisors, as compiled via the “twitter” internet application.

Example: I’m not sure if that restaurant is any good; let me check the tweetgeist.

As of the time of this post, Google returns 0 hits for tweetgeist. Let’s see what happens…

[update 11:15am]: 1 hour later, there is 1 hit (this page).

[update 11:18am]: Tweetgeist.com was taken back in January. Hmph.

Earlier this month, the NY Sun published an article by Lenore Skenazy, a woman who let her nine-year-old son ride the bus home from Manhattan, unaccompanied, as an exercise in building confidence and independence. She was subsequently labeled the worst mom in the world.

I’m totally in support of her goal to break us out of the deer-in-headlights state of fear that so many parents fall into: “Children are precious. The world is scary. We must protect them at all costs…”

Except, of course, that we shouldn’t protect them at all costs. That’s a conscious choice I made when Ruby was born: that I would not do everything in my power to make her happy, comfortable, and safe. She will, for the most part, be given a relatively luxurious life (globally and historically speaking) but she’ll also be given the opportunity to fall off the monkey bars, trip on the sidewalk, embarrass herself, fail, and have her heart broken a few times.

I don’t wish these on her, and my heart will be broken every time hers is. But I also understand the importance of letting her choose and take her own risks so that she can truly appreciate the consequences of her failure and her successes. When she wants to, and when we think she’s ready, we’ll let her take the bus home too. And of course we’ll sit anxiously on the porch awaiting her arrival. But that anxiousness is the price we pay for the joy of parenting the best way we can.

[Ms. Skenazy now has a blog devoted to this subject: Free Range Kids]

A friendly tip to all the restaurant workers out there: do not congratulate me on my ability to eat your restaurant’s food.

This is a rare occurrence, thankfully, but it’s still a pet peeve of mine.  I’m a fast and thorough eater, and once in a while a waiter while make some “clever” off-handed comment about how I cleaned the plate.  “Good job”, or “you must have enjoyed that” or something similar.

My reaction to these kinds of comments is not to flush with pride; I am not a four-year-old beaming at his parents’ attention.  No, I’m an adult who is now embarrassed by your comment.  Yes, literally embarrassed to have enjoyed your restaurant’s food.  Should I have eaten less?  Left a token half-potato for the kitchen staff to marvel at?

Do your customers usually leave their plates half full?

Jazz Hands!
Originally uploaded by Espressobuzz

Kate and I both performed at the Salon of Shame last Tuesday. I sang a song I wrote in 11th grade for a girl I had a crush on. I did sing this song to the girl in question, and she thought it was nice, but claims she didn’t realize it was about her.

Loneliness is a state of mind
Where you can’t see nothing ‘Cause your heart is blind
And all it is that I can see
Is the way that sometimes she smiles at me

In that smile is there a longin’
Does she wish to someone else she was belongin’
Does she wish she was here with me?
Does she know that I can set her free?

Sometimes I wonder if she really knows
And I wish that there was more that I could show
But I have to keep it all inside
Cause you are with… that other guy

A college student wrote in to Picnik asking for general advice about how to create a similar project for school.  After reminding him that we’ve had a team of people working on Picnik for several years, and tossing a few book recommendations his way, I closed with this advice:

Overall I think the best way to start is to have an interesting, compelling vision for what you want to create, and then throw away as much as possible until you’re down to the absolute smallest thing you can deliver that would make sense.  It’s easy (too easy!) to add features, but removing unnecessary complexity after the fact can be nearly impossible. Think small! Version 2 (or 3) is usually a complete rewrite anyway. 

Every weekday morning, around 9:30am, most of the office gets up and walks down the block to our usual espresso joint for coffee and tea. We pass through several doors on the way out, and again on the way in, and being the mature, courteous men that we are, we’ll hold the doors open for each other. The first person to reach the door will generally hold it for the rest of us to walk through.

You can imagine, then, what was passing through my mind yesterday morning as we filed out the building, nodding our thanks to the door-holder, after reading this about Ken Hutcherson, pastor at Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland:

[One Sunday] Hutcherson was preaching on gender roles. During his sermon, Hutcherson stated, “God hates soft men” and “God hates effeminate men.” Hutcherson went on to say, “If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I’d rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end.”

Hutcherson’s arrogant, opportunistic bigotry is well-known and I’m saddened, but not surprised, by his hatefulness. What is shocking, though, is that he preaches such violence at church. His message is so counter to my understanding of Christianity it borders on blasphemy. How is he tolerated in the Christian community?

I’m an atheist. I have thought long and hard, and with as much humility as I can muster, about religion and its place in my life and the world around me. I’ve also considered the place of religion in the lives of my family and friends. I have been inspired by the passionate joy of my friends’ faith and the quiet humility of their service. My views about faith are continually challenged by the compassionate, intelligent beliefs of my family and friends. Their diverse beliefs motivate my quest for understanding, keep me asking questions, and keep me humble.

When I hear about someone like Ken Hutcherson, though, I’m filled with smug righteousness. Thank god I’m not a believer like him.

My back is injured again.

After a week of on-and-off back pain, I played soccer Thursday night. Turns out that was a dumb idea. Despite taking lots of breaks, and being pretty careful overall, I did some major damage and I’ve spent the last two days flat on my back — and probably have a few more horizontal days ahead of me.

I’ve decided I’m going to sit out the rest of this soccer season (3 or 4 games) and all of next season. That’ll give me four months away from the activity that is most aggravating to my back. My goal is to not return until I can run onto the field completely pain free.

I went to the doctor on Thursday (before the latest serious injury) to have my back evaluated. He basically said, “you need to stretch your hamstrings”. I’ve been hearing this advice for the past 10 years, and I’ve followed it at times, but it doesn’t seem to help. But, I’m going to try it again. I think my problem is that I’ve haven’t had all aspects of my fitness (weight, flexibility, core strength, conditioning) firing at the same time since, oh, 1996.

The past six months (since I hurt my back in August) have been pretty lame. (Pun! Sorry.) I hope things turn around soon.

I’m starting off another work week with a sore back. It’s now been six months that I’ve had constant lower back pain. I’ve tried both resting and exercising, and neither has seemed to work — although I’m still working hard on the latter and have only recently started making decent progress towards some of my fitness goals.

It’s no coincidence that my back is worse on Monday — I spend all weekend carrying Ruby around. I do it because I love to hold her, whisper in her ear, nuzzle against her cheek, and see the world with her. But I think the sad truth is that as she’s gotten heavier, the strain on my back has gotten to be too much. I generally carry her just on one side, which doesn’t help things.

I’m going to try spending a week consciously avoiding carrying Ruby. It will be difficult, and I don’t know how many exceptions I’ll need to make to get through the week. And in the end, I’m not even sure if it’ll be worth it.

Last night Kate and I became the first married couple to read at the Salon of Shame, a literary event where people expunge the demons and dorkiness of their childhoods by reading from their diaries.

I read selections from 1984, 6th grade, about a doomed software development project that was supposed to be a gift for my sister’s birthday; about “Lasers & Lords”, a Dungeons & Dragons-style game I was creating; and about trying to impress the mother of my current crush to show that I’d “make good boyfriend material”.

Kate read some pieces about a crush she had in her early teenage years. Her reading was hilarious. The mind of a 15-year-old girl is a scary place to be.

Not only are the Salon of Shame events fun events to attend (and participate in), but I feel like I’m learning invaluable insights for when Ruby hits her awkward goth/swoon phase.

Some pictures from the event can be found here:

http://flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/2180347934/in/photostream/
http://flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/2180350800/in/photostream/