bflynn

Happy birthday Frodo and Bilbo Baggins

Today is the day that ought to have been my birthday, by all rights. Today is the first day of fall. More importantly, to my young self, today is Frodo and Bilbo Baggin’s collective birthday. Do you have any idea how much it would’ve mattered to me to be the SAME as those two notable halflings in such an important event? I used to try to work out with the time zones and Zaire (my place of birth) whether I had REALLY been born on the 22nd and this incontrovertible FACT was masked by my impossibly-distant place of birth. Or maybe bad record keeping. Or SOMETHING.

Of course now, thinking about it, I’m pretty sure my mom wouldn’t have minded. I was three weeks later than expected. My due date was Labor Day. I used to think this just meant my mom was bad at counting, until I myself went a verifiable two weeks late with Grey. Sorry about that, mom.

Frodo, Fall and I all twine together for a brief period this time of year. If you’re unfamiliar with the Lord of the Rings, this birthday on September 22nd is a critical milestone throughout the books. It’s during a grand birthday that Bilbo disappears in a puff of smoke from Hobbiton. Years later, on that birthday, Frodo grabs his walking stick and three best friends and heads off on desperate, epic quests that make dragons look like child’s play.

Um, it’s possible that these books were just a TOUCH influential on my growing self, ok?

But this time of year brings out the itching in my feet, too. My drive in apparently got the memo about it being the first day of fall. The low places – the mist-covered swamps by the sides of the freeway – have already put out their scarlet and vermilion banners, in anticipation of hordes of tourists coming to admire. The trees are heavy with their fruits. Apples and pears weigh heavily on pregnant limbs, hoping for eventual homes in pies and pastries. The boundaries of my mind get less definite, and I’m mindful of Bilbo’s warning: the road in front of your door connects to all other places in the world. Who knows, by stepping on it, where you will end up?

I admit to inflicting Tolkien on my son at the youngest possible opportunity. His fourth birthday is still eagerly anticipated, but already you can hear him sing, if you listen carefully:

The greatest adventure is what lies ahead
Today and tomorrow are yet to be said
The chances the changes are all yours to make
The mold of your life is in your hands to break.

The greatest adventure is there if you are bold
Let go of the moment that life makes you hold
To measure the meaning can make you delay
It’s time you stop thinking and wasting the day.

Taking Strides Towards Walking

My camera is out of charge so here's a pic from my phone

Today I’m home with Thane. It’s actually going remarkably well. I have focused very intently on some worky work stuff and gotten quite a bit done. I transported Grey to preschool. I’ll go pick him up in the not-too-distant future and then get my MIL from the airport. I knew that this day was coming – the day when Thane would non-stop sleep in order to finish healing up from his cold. Two and a half hours this morning — hoo yeah!

In not unrelated news, my living room currently looks like a bomb hit it. It did. A drooly, cheerful 11-month old bomb, to be exact.

It’s been fun to spend some one-on-one time with Mr. Thane-pants. He’s pushing through one of his top incisors, and he has the cutest snaggle-tooth expression. His curls are excessively long and usually covered in food. The front of his face is a melange of snot, drool and stuff he’s found on the carpet. I know that doesn’t sound enchanting. You’ll have to trust me on it. Part of the fun has been watching just how he’s using his feet these days. He’s standing much more, and taking a step or two where he wants to go before dropping to the safety of crawling. He’s less ambitious than I recall his brother being. I think this is entirely behind why Thane will walk a month or two behind his brother. It’s been quite a while since those first steps, and Thane hasn’t been all that eager to keep going with them. Why, when he can crawl perfectly well? Grey was DYING to be one of the big boys from day #1. Thane seems a little happier to be a baby, assuming babies know how to read books.

We had a great weekend: hiking, doing aikido (Grey was HILARIOUS at aikido – I’ll blog more later), destroying and undestroying the house, lunch at church, Stoneham Town day… good times. We had a terrible night’s sleep last night. Adam went to bed at 8 pm last night and it was still a wretched night! Grey had nightmares (quality nightmares including zombies and ghosts. What? It wasn’t MY idea to let him watch Young Frankenstein! It was his!) Thane woke up every two hours due to excessive snottage. With the aid of penicillin, Adam was finally well enough to go back to work.

I wonder when Thane will finally figure out its faster to walk? Maybe I should put shoes on him in addition to socks. Or maybe I should let him go barefoot. Cute little baby feet!

Daycare woes

Sometimes I really, really wish I was the kind of person whose mom lived down the street and mother-in-law lived two blocks over. Back when I was seventeen, I decided I was going to be Adventurous when picking my college. Although raised in Washington State, I flew to the Nutmeg State to be educated. At the time, not counting Great Uncle Walter, my nearest relative was my sister who was attending college in Minnesota.

Brilliant.

I’ve been trying with no success to get home ever since. But you see, college was good. Great, even. And I met this GUY. And then he proposed to me, and got a job (as a programmer in 1999! Ah, 1999. What good times.) in Massachusetts. And somehow we just never left. And now my nearest relative (of the kind who’s good for babysitting duties) is my brother in grad school in Princeton. An improvement, but….

My daycare provider has had terrible luck. The most memorable period was the calendar year when she had breast cancer, knee replacement surgery and her mother died. I feel like I’m missing one there. And then there was the (completely unfounded) accusation that she’d hurt a kid, which kept her closed for two weeks. It’s not all on her side — when I go on a business trip or get sick, just how are the kids supposed to get to daycare in the opposite direction from my husband’s employment?

Anyway, at the end of September, she explained that she was going to the Dominican to push through some immigration paperwork for her niece, whom she’s sponsoring. (She’s a citizen.) This was going to take a few weeks. I froze up in fear as she announced this. But not to worry! Her niece Lisa, who had been helping out all summer, was going to keep daycare open for the private clients (eg: me). Phew. And maybe she’d be home sooner than expected, if all went well. I should mention that in Grey’s entire lifetime, she’s never taken a single DAY’S vacation, if you don’t count chemo as vacation, which I don’t.

LAST week, it wasn’t Lisa who was there in the morning, but Titi. Lisa works a night shift job and the combination of the two jobs plus the long commute was too much. So Titi was taking the last week off before my daycare provider comes home.

Then. Oh then. Word comes in that Abuela is hung up on immigration issues for another week (they’re immigration issues — God only knows how long they’ll take!). And Lisa is out of the picture. And Titi doesn’t have any more vacation. So couldn’t I find someone else….

Gah. No. That’s the problem with my life. There isn’t someone else. I gulped.

Have I ever mentioned I have the best mother-in-law in the world? I called up. “I need a big favor.” I said. “Sure!” she replied, injudiciously not asking WHAT first.

Four hours later, she had tickets to come up for two weeks (in case immigration issues taken even longer than the week extra). I’m sure we would’ve made it work without this. I would’ve put Grey in preschool full time and found SOMEONE who could take an infant. I would’ve flown my dad out. Something. But this situation means that I get a kitchen renovation, babysitting AND fashion consulting all at once!

Crisis averted… until next time!

Hope shes getting some beach time in while shes down there — Hope she's getting some beach time in while she's down there

Placebo effect

The snot-plague is lingering, watching, just outside my peripheral vision. While Grey seems pretty ok (apparently he was fine yesterday – I overreacted. It’s hard to gauge when your kid throws up at the drop of a hat), Adam is not. No, he has a very sore throat. With white spots. And a fever. Alex, I’ll take “Strep Throat” for $200, please. He sees the doctor today.

But Thane is snotty and coughing. Grey is snotty and coughing. I… well, my throat just started hurting. Hmmmmm….

Now this is important. If you think taking Vitamin C, or Cold-eez, or Airborne is effective for helping prevent or diminish a cold, STOP READING NOW. Just stop.

Have you stopped? Good.

Anyway, the plague afflicting my house got me thinking about an article I read recently. Right here:
Placebos are Getting More Effective. Go read it. I’ll wait.

It’s a great discussion on how the positive effects of placebos are getting bigger — really significant!

I really, really wish that I could have a placebo right about now. Just one problem, of course. I’m too skeptical/over-educated to get one. I’m pretty sure that those cold prevention items: Airborne, Vitamin C, Cold-eez (although maybe NOT zicam) are placebos. Which is to say that if they’re your thing and you trust ’em, they’re actually very effective against the cold. Quite possibly, they’re the most effective thing we HAVE against that wily virus. And I can’t take them, because I really don’t believe they’re effective except as a placebo. Which, I’m pretty sure, means that the placebo effect will be at best muted and at worst non-existent.

Wouldn’t it be great – and true! – if they actually sold a pill that was a well-marketed, universal placebo? One that was shown to reduce colds and flu by XXX%. FDA approved. Look it up on the internet and check out the active ingredients. Basically, a big ol’ benevolent scam so that people like me could take a placebo and not know it was a placebo. That got me to wondering how I would know that exists if it already does. And that got me thinking about the cold remedies that have been all the rage lately. What are they if not well-marketed placebos? Right. Well done, self. Way to talk yourself out of a whole therapy option.

Well, I totally plan on using the placebo effect for the gullible young people in my control. They’re actually not bothered by much, but if a sick day ensues I’m sure a few of these here pills (Pez) will fix it right up. Trouble sleeping? Here’s a nice glass of milk that has been scientifically proven to assist in sleep! And thanks to big pharma, I won’t be telling my sons lies. I’ll be telling them truths made so by their own minds.

I’m also planning on doing a complete cease and desist on expressing skepticism about anyone’s little wacky remedies. You think that what you’re doing makes you feel better and makes you healthier? You’re right. It does. Glad you’ve found something that works so well for you!

What wondrous things our bodies are!

(Hmmmm I wonder if the semi-magical aura I’ve applied to coffee counts. Darn it! Stop thinking about it! Ooooooohmmmmm…. coffffeeeee……. oooooooohhhhmmmmm)

I aspire to be the sort of mom who doesn’t talk about vomit

My sons are generally healthy, fit, bonny little boys. I’m very, very blessed by their general health and fitness. But Grey has …. a quirk. When he was about seven months old (wee little Grey!) he got a cold. And with the mucous, he started throwing up. I was concerned, but figured it would pass.

It didn’t.

For about 6 weeks, Grey threw up several times a day. The worst day he threw up nine times. We took him to his doctor. We took him to a gastroenterologist at Children’s Hospital, who looked wistfully at him and commented on how healthy he was. The constant vomit never seemed to, you know, BOTHER him. We have reports that he smiled while throwing up. Because he was thriving despite it all, the doctors just sort of shrugged and said that anything further they did to figure it out had possible bad side effects, so it wasn’t worth doing. It was a grim period. You would not BELIEVE the laundry. Finally, we discovered that Prevacid stopped him from throwing up. He stayed on Prevacid until he was about 13 months old. The barfing did not resume the same way.

But… Grey has always thrown up at the drop of a hat. Potty training is an accomplishment. But I have my son VOMIT trained. He seems to have quite a bit of warning — usually — that he’s going to throw up and makes sure he has a bowl or a bag or a toilet or something. He actually does a great job of it.

But right now Grey is in the throes of an incredibly mucousy cold. And once he starts coughing, it seems to end up in vomit pretty often, and too quickly for him to take appropriate measures.

Yesterday coming home was AWFUL. He pitched a fit coming out of daycare (despite my best, best efforts to wheedle and amuse instead of order). It was a full-on tantrum of a type that’s become blessedly rare. Then he spit at me for two blocks (his aim has much improved — he hit me, which he wasn’t able to do previously). I informed him he would be going directly to his room when we got home. Then, as I was driving, he took off his shoe, threw it at me, and hit me in the head with it.

Images of Bush in Iraq flashed through my head. I pulled the car over and gave him about the third spanking of his life. I reserve corporal punishment for times he’s put his safety or the safety of others at risk. Throwing shoes at a driver counts for that. But when I say spanking, I do mean a few light swats on the butt, nothing more.

This did have the outcome of having him cry. And the crying led to coughing. Which lead to him throwing up all over the back seat of the car. Again.

I have had better commutes home.

The evening got a bit better with him. He did spend his timeout in his room and nicely apologized. He had some dinner. He went to bed.

This morning, he didn’t want to leave Spongebob and cried bitter tears. I got him into the car by reminding him just how unhappy the “sad” way had been yesterday.

We weren’t two blocks out of the house when he coughed and threw up AGAIN in the car. I turned around and drove back. My husband is home sick today. It seems unfair to put childcare duties on the sick, but welcome to 21st century parenting.

All this is to say: my car is at the detailers. It’s pricey, but there are some things you just have to ante up for. My husband is home sick with a sick kid. Thane is at daycare with an unexpected provider (Abuela has been in the Dominican Republic since August) and when I left he was pitching a fit.

I feel really, really tired but otherwise fine. There’s this sense of impending doom about that. There is no way I can be surrounded by this many sick, snotty people and not succumb. Even for a fantastic immune system (which I have) the onslaught is just too overwhelming. I can only pray that the boys are better by then.

Ah, parenting. Is it the glamour? The riches? The appreciation of our hard work? What keeps us coming back for more? Humanity is a wondrous thing, to choose to do this.

Which brings me to a thought I had last night. I was looking at the curly head of my baby boy, nursing in our remnant night nursing in the soft light from the hallway. And I realized WHY it is that parents hope their children also have children. Sure, there’s the vengeful belief that they should suffer as they have caused us to suffer. But mostly, we hope our children have children because there is no other way they will ever understand how much they are loved. It’s an impossible amount of love and invisible, I fear, to the recipient. Feeling that themselves, looking down at their own curly-haired snot-monsters, is the only way they’ll ever understand.

A green Mario DS

Last Christmas, everyone Grey knew got a Nintendo DS from Santa. At daycare Pablo (junior to Grey by nearly a year!), Jordan, Ivan and Isaiah ALL got DSes. At church, Kasper, Thomas and Susan carry them around — that I know of.

Grey, at three years old, did NOT get a video game system for Christmas.

I figured at first that this was the latest passing fad and he’d forget about it and move on to Moon Sand followed by GI Joe action figures. Three year olds are not known for their persistence and patience. I murmured something about maybe if he still wanted it and was good, perhaps one would be forthcoming for his birthday. Christmas to an October birthday is 10 months. That’s like a third to a quarter of his ENTIRE LIFE. In ten months, he went from a newborn to a small walking person. No way was he going to remember come his birthday.

Boy, was I ever wrong. Every. Single. Day. since Christmas, Grey has begged for a DS.

Scene:
Soft light, snuggles on the bed. Mommy is telling Grey a fantastical story about Grey and the Magic, Magic, Magic, Magic Door, which involves a genii in a bottle. The genii appears in a puff of fragrant smoke and offers Grey a wish. What does Grey wish for? (Thoughtful look on an amazingly perfect, sweet face) “A green Super Mario DS”.

Scene:
A rainy morning drive in, with windshield wipers rhythmically passing across a drizzly sky. NPR, talking about the latest financial indicators, is nearly drowned out by the thump of raindrops on the roof and the swish of water from semi tires. Grey sighs wistfully in the backseat. “Mommy? Do you know what I wish? I wish, I wish (oh, if you could hear the wistfulness in that small voice!) I wish I had a DS.”

Scene:
Grey was led into malfeasance by an older child. Specifically, running away and hiding when it’s time to leave daycare. The wrath of MOM is called down upon his head, and great sadness and woe ensue. After the tears are dried, a post-mortem occurs. Mom carefully leads her golden-haired child through the thought process about whether someone who asks you to do something wrong is being a good friend. We’re almost there. “So Grey, would you want to be friends with someone who did something that made you feel badly?” (Grey ponders, seriously, having followed his cues this far.) “If they had a DS, yes.”

If Grey could have anything ANYTHING in the whole world, it would be a DS. I’ve started using the DS as a touchstone for money. “Mommy, can we fly to Grandma Johnstone’s RIGHT NOW?” “No, that takes a lot of money.” “How much money?” “About three DSes”.

Grey has learned truly astonishing social skills in pursuit of the DS. I have seen Grey walk up to a completely unknown child and in less than one minute con them into loaning him their DS so he can play.

All this is to say: Grey is getting a Nintendo DS for his 4th birthday. His Grandma Flynn begged the privilege of being the one to grant him his heart’s desire. His father and I are providing the games (Kirby and Super Mario Bros)

I have extremely mixed feelings about it. I don’t fundamentally object to a child playing video games. We let him play Wii. Last night I let him play video games after preschool because I was tired, and he’d gotten very little screen time over the weekend. But I am very concerned that video games and tv not crowd out both real experiences and reading. I KNOW how addictive video games are. Will he play games instead of building block towers? Instead of learning to read? I also know that the answer to this is good parenting and rules.

Guess what, folks? Good parenting takes ENERGY. Sometimes it’s much easier to avoid a point you know will be contentious. The phrase, “No, you cannot play the DS now” will probably come out of my lips a thousand times in the next two years. I’m tired just THINKING about it. I think the DS will be reserved for car rides and times where he has to wait (drs. office, etc). Maybe exceptions can be made when he is sick (or I am). I suspect this will not delight him.

But in the final analysis, I cannot deny my son something he wants so desperately that is in my power to permit. A three year old can’t get a job and earn enough money to buy his own. In the ways available to him, my son HAS worked extremely hard and diligently in obtaining his goals.

I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he opens that gift from his Grandma. I don’t think I’ve ever held such a dream so hard and had it come true.

Will the excitement never cease?

I had a tiring weekend. Adam spent the weekend at a jQuery conference in Boston — basically “working” longer hours than he usually works. Friday night I spent an exciting evening doing bills (I know I know! The hedonistic lifestyle!) Saturday morning I didn’t get much sleepinginage due to aforementioned conference. But that’s ok! Stoneham Town Day! Bouncy houses! Funnel cake! Fun times! I piled Thane in a stroller and shod Grey, then went to knock on my neighbors’ doors. One neighbor wasn’t ready yet. The other neighbor had a house-wide cold, so we walked down the street by ourselves.

There was a man singing outside the Honeydew donuts. Dressed in a clown suit. Exciting!

Then the common appeared in our sights. The green, barren, empty common.

You know, they could at least have had someone there with an umbrella explaining what had gone on. I finally tracked down the guy disassembling the fair rides to ask what was going on. Postponed, he said, due to rain.

Ok, ok, I understand the postponement. What I totally DON’T understand is how the rest of Stoneham knew not to come!. I mean, neighbor #1 looked online and there was no mention. There were no signs. The paper is a weekly. I really like my town. But sometimes I feel like there’s this vast network of people named “Rotondi” who know what’s going on and who are REALLY from Stoneham and then there’s the rest of us.

As a consolation prize, I took my sons to Angelo’s pizza. There was a table of men sitting in the back gossiping in Italian, with succulent looking appetizers on a plate in front of them. This is a tip, people. The best pizza in town is likely to be found in a place where old Italian men gather to complain about the weather.

The rest of the day was in the same vein. Grey had a complete and total meltdown at aikido. Thane squirmed. I attempted an overly complicated dinner. Adam came home two hours later than I thought he would. Then I went to Target, failed to get sufficient formula, and spent an unconscionable amount on stuff, which included a steam cleaner. I can’t remember the other things. I think Target doubles it’s bills and I never actually noticed.

But Sunday would be better, right? My neighbors were coming to church with us. Look at that! Actual outreach! You’d think I was the chair of hospitality or something. (Oh wait….) But I was running solo. And when I went to drop Thane off in the nursery, a desperate-eyed fellow parent looked at the 7 one year olds bitterly crying and mentioned she could use a hand. I’m pretty sure it’s NOT in the membership handbook to leave your three year old with your friends (even if it includes his best friend) to “show them the ropes” while you do nursery duty. Also, I fail Fall Luncheon Planning 101 due to complete lack of knowledge of “who usually does this”. The guy who knows all that died of a heart attack this summer, and his loss is felt on a thousand levels. Anyway, I hope they felt welcomed and had a good time anyway. Also, does anyone want to sign up for a beverage for the Fall Luncheon?

We got home. Grey refused to eat the delicious meal I prepared for him. (Really. No sarcasm.) Grey didn’t nap. Thane was desperately weary and I had to keep waking him up to: get my coffee, get in the house, etc.

Also, I would like to mention that if your friend has a child who is learning how to walk, and you never see the child but there’s a new egg on his head, scratch on his face, and oatmeal stuck in his hair, it’s not because the parents are abusive. Or that they don’t love their children. No. It’s because 10 month olds attempt to commit suicide by stupidity ALL THE TIME. Thane loves: standing up in the bathtub and jumping (he can’t jump), climbing on to things he doesn’t know how to get down from, playing with the dishwasher, falling, hitting his head, and trying to play with his brother’s toys. All of these can lead to injuries on a regular basis, try as I will to wrap him in bubble wrap in the morning.

Then Sunday night I did yoga. Yay! And ouch! Aaaaaaand I lost in St. Petersburg by 29 points. Adam says he’s sick of playing with me. I say I’m playing until I figure out why I’m so terrible at the game, and that if he prefers I’d be happy to play Agricola instead.

Finally, I had terrible insomnia last night and despite going to bed at 10:20, didn’t get to sleep until well after midnight.

Now I’m at work and daycare apparently has NO formula (how did I spend that much at Target and not even get formula?). Grey informed me this morning that he’s “A little shy with girls” and refused to explain. Also, I’ve tried really hard not to write the “and after my Honey Nut Cheerios I let Thane clean the kitchen floor (lacking a dog) and stacked the dishwasher for the 34th time this weekend” posts. But I didn’t have any better ideas today, so you’re stuck.

Completely unrelated! The put-together bedroom for your lilac viewing pleasure!

I steamed the curtains after this, so now they're less wrinkly

The view from the door (a lie - our bed is never made)

Cloud change

I am here to tell you that the second age of personal computing is over, and the third has begun. This week, we bought a netbook. (Pauses for gasping intakes of breath!) (Is disappointed by heckler in the imaginary crowd shouting out “So what?!”)

“So glad you asked. Let me explain.”

My family got our first personal computer in 1982 or 1983. I was four. Mom and dad took the plunge in a very financially hard time, I believe because it was good for dad professionally. Also because my father is the earliest of early adapters (let us discuss the LD player, shall we?). That was the first breaker of the first wave of personal computing. That computer had a word processor (was it Wordstar 2000?). It booted from a 5 1/4 floppy. It hooked up to an electric typewriter as a printer. (We called them Doc and Olive — Olive was an Olivetti whose usefulness far outlasted Doc’s.) I remember a banner spelling out my name in huge letters, with each letter made up of smaller letters. We got this computer before I could read.

That first wave of personal computing involved dumb machines. There were no connections to anything. Files were moved (rarely) by floppy disk. Computer games were played by yourself at the computer. This went from 1982 until, in my world, 1995.

In 1995 we got a modem and AOL. It was a long distance call. I got an hour a week. I would carefully craft a bunch of emails, connect, send them out and get new ones in, and then spend the rest of my time in (relatively tame) AOL chatrooms. All this was still done on the big tower computers that dominated backrooms and offices — nests of cables slung heavy against dusty backboards.

This second age of computing — the connected but dedicated machine — is the one now passing.

We have an office. We’ve had an office since we first got married. This office has always had two big computers. (We share our finances completely, but we DEFINITELY have his and hers computers!) One of the computers always has a big monitor, a cutting-edge (read: extremely costly) video card and a lot of processing power. The other had these things five years ago (that would be mine). Lately, though, we haven’t been spending a lot of time in the office. It’s ALL THE WAY UPSTAIRS. It’s also not a very kid-friendly room. While Grey is entertained on his own computer (err… what?) Thane thinks the room is delicious. It is not a Thane-ok room. So the upshot is that when we go upstairs, it’s usually late at night and when we feel like hiding.

This poses lots of problems. There are now a bunch of things we can’t do without internet access. “What are we doing this weekend?” “Where is the party?” “Just what does ‘Onogaeshi imasu’ mean anyway?” “What can you do with kohlrabi?” These are all questions that we reflexively turn to the internet to answer. Google docs has most of our documents. Picasa has most of our pictures. Google calendar has the master data about our schedule. Gmail usually has several things in it that require action. Mapping is online. We do not have an encyclopedia set. So either we tromp upstairs, we wait, or sometimes we’ve brought our work laptops home.

Enter the netbook. It’s small. It’s light. It’s portable. It was relatively inexpensive. (If it gets damaged, we will be sad but not devastated.) It connects to that great googly cloud of information we need. It can run games. It has more hard drive space than my current tower.

I have a sneaking suspicion we will never buy another tower. Their day is over. We’re both programmers. But you know what? Both of our work computers are LAPTOPS. My laptop has enough power to run Eclipse and Flexbuilder and Coldfusion server and SQL Server Management Studio and WinCVS simultaneously without breaking a sweat. It’s not even specially tricked out — it’s the same laptop specs that our business folks have. Why would I want an immobile tower? I’ll turn our office into a peaceful craft space — a real retreat. Maybe I’ll even get an armchair for reading up there. I’ll banish the cables.

There was really only one reason we were hanging on as long as we did: gaming. My husband likes to play video games. But the video card on his last computer cost, I think, $600. The monitor wasn’t cheap, either. If our only reason to do this is games, we could probably buy TWO game consoles for what buffing up his computer cost.

Thus begins the third age of computing. This age will be small and mobile. Many devices will be able to access that part of the cloud they need. Instead of one big device intended to serve all purposes, we’ll have many smaller application-specific devices. We won’t have “my computer”. We’ll have the netbook, the laptop, the gaming console (which, if we aren’t there already, will handle your MMORPG too), the phone (which, God willing, will have our calendars and to-do lists on it). Many of our devices will do more than one of these. The netbook, for example, has a built in webcam and does Skype far better than the hard-to-reach upstairs tower.

Have you made the switch from the second to the third age? Do you see it coming? Is there a compelling reason for that tower that I’m not seeing? What do you think?

Board Games

My husband and I have always played a lot of games. In the gravy days, back when we had TIME, we mostly played games in group setting — with friends. But lately, board games have become one of our primary date activities. That’s what we do when we want to spend time together.

Board games (and I’m not talking Monopoly here, people) fall into various categories. There are epic ones, quick ones, medium ones. There are hand-builder games (Dominion), resource games (Agricola – I first played this while in labor with Thane), spatial reasoning games (Richochet Robots), screw-your-neighbor games (You’ll probably disagree with me, but screw-your-neighbor is usually a defining feature of our games of Catan), strategy games (Memoir ’44) and party games (Werewolf).

There are games that play best with 6 or more people, and there are games perfectly balanced for 2. (Although it seems like most of MY favorite games are best with 3 – 4 players.)

Lately, Adam and I have been playing lots of Dominion, Roll Through the Ages and St. Petersburg. We’ve been playing so many games lately, that I’ve started to see and perceive patterns in what makes a game fun for us, and how we’re different in our makeup.

For example, Adam has a slight edge in Dominion, I dominate Roll Through the Ages, and he completely trounces me in St. Petersburg. Reliably. I have a slight edge in Memoir ’44, but that one takes so long to set up we rarely play it. All four of those are games we both enjoy playing.

What’s the difference? Adam is a perfectionist – an optimizer. He will take as long as he needs to figure out the absolute optimum strategy and apply it. I’m more of a good-enough-er; an executive decision maker. I go with what seems like a pretty good idea, make my decisions quickly and change my strategy midstream if it seems appropriate.

Neither one of our personalities is better, not even for game playing. I enjoy games that overwhelm him, like Race for the Galaxy and Agricola. He doesn’t like these games because he can’t really map out all possible outcomes and plan accordingly — there are too many and the fellow players at the table get impatient. He hates Catan because his careful planning usually gets spiked by the moves of other players in a way that feel malicious.

It’s been fascinating to watch how RELIABLY he beats me in St. Petersburg, even though I’m really trying my best, haven’t made huge mistakes, and have a competent strategy. In that game, night before last, the difference between competent and not making mistakes vs. perfectly optimized was a mammoth 30 points.

We’ve played a lot (a LOT) of games together to notice the differences between our decision making styles. I’m glad we have, though, because the styles hold true whether it’s in a board game or in life. I would (for example) win many more games if the scoring included the speed with which decisions were made. It always takes him a lot longer to decide what he wants to do, because he’s weighing all his options carefully. The same holds true for, for example, buying a computer. He’ll investigate all the options. I’ll find one that seems pretty good. Sometimes the difference between the third one on Amazon that seems reasonably priced and has high ratings and his careful research is nil — I end up with the same computer he finds after weeks of investigation. Sometimes it’s terribly significant. I begin to wonder if he should be in charge of some of our more major financial decisions. Or if, alternately, choosing a mutual fund for our IRAs might paralyze him with choice.

What about you? What kind of decision making process do you use? Have you discovered truths about yourself by playing board games?

So many changes

Sometimes it seems like life goes more or less the same for a long time. Then suddenly you look down and your baby is enrolled in college. (Or, you know, going to his first day at preschool. 20 minutes until I can pick him up!)

This weekend was one of those abrupt-changes weekend. Since I’m now down to 19 minutes, let me sum up:

1) The boys switched places. For months, we’ve had one easy and one hard kid. Thane was easy — just drag him along and periodically boop him in the nose with a stuffed bunny while making a funny sound. Grey was hard — he has been known to be quixotic, investigative and opinionated at times. In like the last week they switched places. Thane is utterly frustrated, opinionated, thwarted and messy (we’re at the throwing everything phase of eating). Grey, meanwhile, can entertain himself for 10 or 20 minutes at a time! Amazing.

2) We debated a long time about Grey’s “Saturday activity” — something we’ve done since last summer. After a year of not-wildly-successful dance classes, we weren’t doing that anymore. I was interested in gymnastics but ugh. I did the math and they would cost between $16 and $19 per 1/2 hour session. That’s a lot of loot. Finally, building on Grey’s interest, we’re sending him to aikido classes at the same dojo my husband practices at. He had his first class on Wednesday. He loves being like his daddy, and I think aikido will teach him a lot of the body and self-control things I hope for. Also, it comes to like $6 per 3/4 hour class — assuming he never makes it to the Wednesday classes. I think this is a win.

3) We discovered that Grey really likes music. Duh. There was a MOMENT. In the tent two weeks ago during Hurricane Bill’s driving rain, I pulled out a Calloiu song-book with color coding and an attached keyboard. I was bored. I showed Grey how it worked and how to break the code. I played through the entire songbook.

He was entranced. Not a day has passed since then that he hasn’t supremely carefully sounded out “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and sung “Six Little Ducks”. (The wiggle waggle still slays me.) He has, for a three-nearly-four year old, quite a bit of patience with this. He has a really lovely singing voice. He’s very interested.

I got a mediocre “teach your preschooler piano” curriculum. Which, of course, starts with “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.

So here I present to you my young Mozart:

From Grey playing piano

(Let’s see if this is working … I’m skeptical. Hey! It does! But the quality is pretty bad. Picasa is not doing it for me video-wise. Still, that’s what you get because it’s time to pick Grey up from preschool!!!! Woot!)