Happy Birthday Jacob
14 years ago
Saturday, August 2, 2008
The Tech Gap
It's funny, and a bit disorienting, to think about technological and economic change over time, rather than at fixed moments. Consider this: when Katie and I were toddlers, there were no cellphones (or possibly, at least, the only non-landline phones that existed were lumbering car phones), and while the personal computer had been developed, they were quite sparse and decidedly second-tier behind big mainframe computers. (Apple and Microsoft were still in their corporate childhoods at the time.)Now, our two-year-old, Liam, takes my cell phone (tiny compared to its predecessors) and pretends that it is a computer. Let me repeat: a two year old pretends that one technology is another technology, neither of which existed or were widespread when his parents were two! And Michelle Obama thinks this country is getting worse . . .
Meanwhile, Liam became frustrated the other night when our Skype connection with Gram and Poppo was not good and we resorted to talking to them on our landline. Again, let me repeat: a two-year-old was frustrated that our web-based video phone was not working and refused to talk on the "ancient" technology of the telephone.
So imagine what technological and economic change will occur in the next two decades of Liam and Gavin's lives: we can't even fathom it, really. And, as an aside, imagine the different wiring of their brains this will result in--in a good way. They will be x orders of magnitude smarter and cognitively advanced than their parents.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Days with Daddy Dane
Since Katie worked yesterday (Thursday) and is working tomorrow, I've had a lot of time with the boys before I leave for Skaneateles on Monday. Yesterday, I took Liam and Gavin in the double jogging stroller down to the Tomahawk Creek Trail with Monona. After heavy rains the day before, the trail was extremely muddy. If you ask Liam what we'll look for on our walks, he'll name several creatures: hawks, cardinals (recently spoken as 'cardinal birds'), owls, ducks, baby geese, chipmunks, and, lately, snakes, after a sighting along the creek. Liam has always loved walks and now enjoys them even more with all the things we can see along the trail. Gavin has quickly taken to them as well and just stares at the flora and fauna.
After our walk, I took the boys to the Farmstead, an Overland Park recreational area with walking paths and, well, farm animals. There are goats, rabbits, chickens, geese, ducks, goats, horses, a red-tailed hawk, an owl, a bald eagle, goats, bobcats, a single bison, goats, a solitary Texas longhorn, and goats. (There are a lot of goats. This is the very place where Liam had part of his pinky torn off by a goat. Perhaps the preponderance of goats at the Farmstead creates some sort of aggression: it's basically a goat farm with a playground and some other animals. Rest assured: Liam seems to have forgotten the trauma of the goat bite.)
Liam loves the Farmstead and gets excited for every single animal and plant and slide. He's getting adventurous on playgrounds and climbs around them heedless of whether a parent is with him or not. His height threshold for slides also seems to keep increasing.
After the Farmstead, we went to our grocery store, Hen House. By now, saying "grocery store" to Liam has become code for "doughnut." (Courtesy of third grandmother, Aunt Lynnie.)
After lunch and naps, I took Liam and Gavin to the pool at "the J," the Jewish Community Center. Both boys love the pool. Gavin will sit and stand in the water and experiment with the size of splashes his hands make. He is also completely fascinated (or perplexed, or both) by the ten-foot buckets that continuously fill up and dump water on unsuspecting swimmers. We think Gavin will be our water boy: he will kick and kick when you hold him out in the water and simply loves to be in water. Liam is becoming increasingly bold in the pool: he will venture into the water until it is up to his neck, and only then will he reach out and grab your hand. Yesterday, he was up to his shoulders, and jumped up, but pulled up his knees so he executed a completely submersed landing. He was under for about a second and a half before I pulled him up, yet he simply blew water off his mouth and continued swimming as if nothing had happened.
It was a fantastic day and I look forward to tomorrow.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Gavin is 7 months
It is hard to believe that baby gavin is already 7 months. It seems to have gone even faster that it did with Liam. He has such a funny personality. We couldn't have gotten any luckier to have an equally laid back baby as Liam was. Their mannerisms are so similar. What makes it so much more fun this time around is not being stressed about whether we are doing things right or not. Dane and I always worried about our parenting skills with Liam...so far he is turning out Ok so we must be doing something right.
Today I picked the boys up from daycare. They had me laughing so hard in the car on the way home. We just put Gavin in his big carseat and he is loving the fact that he can see everything around him, out the window, and most importantly that he can interact with Liam. Today, Liam was being generally silly in the car. He was dancing and laughing in the general direction of Gavin and that baby was cracking up! First Liam would laugh at Gavin, then Gavin would start kicking and laugh back at him. I was laughing so hard listening to the soundtrack of little laughter all the way home!
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Our Busy Summer
Since I have not been in class this summer, we have been traveling as much as possible. We kicked off the summer with a Weber family trip to the Riviera Maya in Mexico in the beginning of June. It was a Christmas present to our family and my brothers from our parents. It was a fantastic week. The boys did well with the long days of travel and were completely spoiled by constant attention for an entire week. It was great to be together, as that it something that rarely happens since Terry and Andrea lived in PA (although they have since moved to Springfield, MO!!) In the beginning of the week, Tommy proposed to his girlfriend Jen! Liam and Gavin loved swimming in the pool and getting to build sandcastles on the beach. There was a lot of Catch Phrase in the evenings. (Tom: you better Maury on out of here) Liam even picked up a few spanish words and asked for leche (milk) for several weeks after we returned.
The following week we went to Chicago. This was a special trip for Dane as we got to spend some time with his host family from Ireland from studying abroad in college. Pat, Dolores and Conor visited the US for a month of traveling in California and worked their way through Vegas, the Grand Canyon and ended up in the Windy City. We stayed with our friends Colleen and Eileen (who Dane also studied abroad with) in their apartment. We spent our first night at the house of some friends of Pat and Dolores for a BBQ. It was nice to have some time to sit and catch up with our old friends Col and Eileen. Plus, Dane's host family are such wonderful people to spend an evening with. We wished we had had more time to see them. As much fun as I had with everyone, I know that seeing his host parents and brother was special for Dane. It is always a lot of laughs to sit around and hear stories of Dane's trip 9 years ago. We also went to Shedd Aquarium and took the water taxi over to Navy Pier. We packed a lot into one weekend with lots of time on planes, trains, automobiles (buses and also a boat :), but it was a great time.
A couple of weeks ago, Dane and I had to opportunity to go to Dana Point, CA. He had a conference at the Ritz Carlton and I decided to tag along. Gram (my mom) came to KC to stay with Liam and Gavin for the 4 days. It was so nice to get away. I did miss the kids terribly by the end, but it is a rare treat for Dane and I to get to spend quality time together. We got to enjoy lots of beach time and delicious food without two kids at our feet. But after all of the our other travels, it was nice to come back home.
