Science!

I’ve been watching the new Cosmos show, and they’ve been talking about the speed of light.  In a related sort of way, I told Allison about the speed of sound.  How it’s not instantaneous, but actually takes some time to get from here to there.  If we were standing far apart, you can actually see the delay.  I told her this over dinner one night.

The next day, we were driving somewhere, and she remembered our conversation.  She said “That doesn’t seem right.”  I was so proud of her skepticism.  I told her we’d do an experiment after dinner.

So, that night, we got out my binoculars and tripod.  We went out on our street, and I set up the binoc’s pointing as far as they could see down the street.  Then I ran down there (around 100 yards away), next to some trashcans.  I waved at Allison, and she waved back.  I saw her looking through the binoculars.  I banged on the trashcans a few times with exaggerated movement, so that she could see exactly when I hit them.  I waved again, and she waved back.  Then I jogged back to where she was, and I could see her jumping up and down with excitement.  “It worked!  It worked!” she yelled.  She explained how she SAW me hit the trashcans, but didn’t hear the sound until about a second later.

She wanted to switch positions, so we did, and I was able to see what she saw.  About a 3/4 second delay between sight and sound.

It was really fun and rewarding for me, and I hope the lessons learned (not only about sound, but about skepticism and testing ideas and gaining knowledge through evidence and experimentation) stick with her.

Samantha Jane turns 1!

Today is Samantha Jane’s first birthday.

I’ll admit, I was worried about her, ever since before she was born.  Diana was (barely) diagnosed with gestational diabetes, but it turned out to be nothing.  Then there was something where the umbilical cord wasn’t exactly in the center of the placenta, like it should be.  Then the C-section birth less-than-perfect Apgar scores.  Then her sleepiness and lack of weight gain in the first few days of her life.  She was given some tests and even an ultrasound of her brain to check for bleeding, but all came back normal.  She was just a sleepy baby.

But I worried.  I didn’t worry much about Allison, but mostly just out of ignorance, I guess.

I read that babies typically have their first social smile somewhere around 4-7 weeks.  When Sam’s 7 week birthday rolled around without any smiles, I worried.  Then her 8 week birthday.  It was the day after that when Allison and I went to Disneyland.  I remember thinking to myself “It’s going to be a great day...  Allison and I will have a fun day at Disneyland, and Diana will send word that Samantha smiled for the first time.”  And that’s exactly what happened.  And the best part is that she hasn’t stopped smiling since then.

The last two months have really been a huge change for her.  She wasn’t much of a roller, but somewhere around 10 months she started crawling.  And in just a matter of a day or two, she went from totally immobile to cruising all around the house.  Now, she cruises all over everything, and can now easily pull herself to standing.  She’s taken a few wobbly steps, but I wouldn’t really call it walking by herself yet.  More like falling forward with a few steps.  However, with just a couple of fingers for support, she loves to walk everywhere.  One of my favorite things is coming home from work, where she sees me and squeals and crawls over to my leg and tries to climb up them.

She sleeps well.  She recently had a bit of a hunger strike, but is now eating well.  Diana does a fabulous job making and freezing healthy baby food, and she’s starting to drink cow’s milk.  She’s starting to point at things, and seems to be able to respond when we ask her to point at various pictures (as in, “Where’s the dog?”  *point*)  Diana said today that Samantha was very interested in the face on the mug she was using.  Diana showed it to her, and then put it away.  Sam clapped her hands (for “more”) and then pointed at the mug.  Her first sentence (kind of).

All in all, she’s the happiest, calmest, most easy-going baby I’ve ever known. Likewise, Diana and I are much more calm and relaxed as parents the second time around.  In spite of my worries above, with a bit of experience under our belt, we no longer stress out so much about how much she’s eating or how well she’s napping.

She’s a good little baby, and we love her.

Time travel, chain reactions, and the Butterfly Effect

I just had the most amazing conversation with Allison since... perhaps ever.

She was about to leave on a playdate.  On occasions on playdates, she's really had a hard time getting along with the other kid.  She wants to be the on in charge, and wants to be the one saying "Look what *I* can do!" but doesn't reciprocate, and gets mad or frustrated when the other kid has a mind of their own and doesn't march to her orders.

Anyways, I was saying that if her friend suggests an activity that isn't her favorite thing to do, she should do it anyways, and then suggest the next activity, take turns, etc.  She then started talking about how if you do something nice for someone, it makes them feel good, and they they'll be happy, and they might do something nice for someone else, and so on and so forth.  Likewise, if you are mean to someone, or do something that makes them feel bad, they in turn might feel bad about themselves, and then might say or do something mean to the next person, and so on and so forth.

Allison can get super frustrated when it's time to turn off the video game we're playing or turn off the TV.  She can start crying pretty good, get frustrated, throw toys, etc.  This, of course, leads to frustrated parents, time outs, trouble, etc.  It was a great opportunity to talk about how one person's behavior affects those around them, both positively and negatively.

I brought up the idea of someone at her school saying something mean to her.  Maybe this makes her feel bad, so then when Diana picks her up, she is mean to her.  Then Diana tells me, and I get disappointed, etc, and how one persons comment can really make a difference.  Then we talked about the opposite... how someone says something nice that makes her feel good.  That means she greets Diana with a smile and a hug after school.  Diana calls me and tells me what a good day Allison had, and therefore I'm feeling happy, and we play well together at night, etc.

Through all this conversation, both of us are talking and saying the same thing, finishing each others sentences.  It was really her bringing up the major point of how our feelings affect other people, and me just building on that foundation with examples and stuff.

I told her about the Butterfly effect.  Somehow we started talking about time travel and causality, and how if you could go back in time and change some event in the past, it would cause the whole future to change.  It was really quite an incredible conversation, and I really hope the ideas stick with her.

I haven't written in a while, so I will include an update about Samantha.  She is the happiest, calmest, most easy-going baby I have ever known.  She's about 10.5 months, and has been crawling for a couple weeks now, and as a result, she's just a completely different baby than she used to be.  She has nailed the trifecta of going from sitting to crawling, crawling around, and then going from crawling back to sitting.  She loves exploring.  She loves scratching at any little dot she finds on the ground, or putting mysterious things in her mouth.  She *loves* her big sister, and laughs and squeals when Allison does various antics to make her laugh.  Allison, likewise, loves to try to make her smile and laugh, sometimes a little too vigorously, but always with good intentions.

Games

Diana sat down with me at the table for some Twilight Struggle the other night.  It's a pretty overwhelming game to look at for a newb, but (as you know) once you get the hang of it, there's not too much you need to remember.  I explained the rules and we got through a couple turns before it started getting too late.  I hope we can give it another shot at some point.  She seemed interested, but I think is mostly put off by the length of time required to play.

I bought Allison "Fairies Rule, Goblins Drool" for Christmas.  It's a silly little game built around one mechanic, but she likes it, and it's not totally dumb.

I also brought out Bohnanza! and played with Diana and Allison together.  The box says ages 13+ on it, but I figured Allison could figure it out.  Turns out I was right!  We played with our hands face up on the table, and played through the entire deck once.  Allison picked up the rules quickly and easily.  It was super cute when she would say in mock anguish "Ugh, no one wants my Blue Beans!" or whatever.  We didn't play a very cutthroat game... there was lots of donating and friendly trading, but everyone had a good time.  That's a fun little game.