He's mainly into painting and the iPhone these days, but David Hockney took time to do a Polariod collage of my daughter at Cafe Barrone this morning:
(via Hockeyizer)
For years I made my kids' lunches. Usually I'd put together their sandwiches the night before school, then assemble the rest of it-- some fruit, milk, maybe something else-- that morning. (Sometimes they'd choose their sides.) Truth be told, I liked doing it: I wasn't crazy about the time it took, especially in the morning when there never seems to be enough time, but it's one of those things you do as a parent that's grounding and not at all about you.
This year, with them going into fifth and second grades, I decided, enough. They can make their own sandwiches. Last year I backed away from making breakfast every morning, with results to warm the hearts of believers in the deep influence of moral hazards on human behavior. Gone were the cravings for eggs, bacon and toast (made by me); in was a preference for cold cereal, toast, or at most instant oatmeal.
So this week, as they've returned to Peninsula for a couple weeks of child care, they're making their own lunches. Some of the results are hilarious. My son turns out to make sandwiches that I can only describe as Dagwood Goes Cubist: absurd amounts of cheese cut into oblongs that immediately start to roll out of the sandwich, with layers of salami to hold the cheese in place until he can get the bread on. My daughter likewise seems to view peanut butter the way a bricklayer sees mortar, as the thing that can bind together elements that don't want to get along-- and in a pinch, cover over mistakes.
It's also led to some renegotiating of what they can pack, and what they have to eat. For whatever reason my daughter doesn't like carrying drinks to school, so she's agreed to consume the USDA recommended quota of milk at breakfast and dinner; both kids are getting an education in what counts as "healthy" food (i.e., the things you have to have to balance out the piece of chocolate you always want to sneak in); and if current trends continue, neither child will eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich again as long as they live.
The other interesting thing is that so far they're squabbling less in the mornings. When they're sitting on the couch watching TV, they can have pointless and unresolvable fights over anything: whether the remote is more on her side of the couch than his, whether this episode of Kim Possible is one they've seen ten times before or only nine, who slept more soundly the night before. If I keep them busy, particularly with things they have to eat, they focus on that.
Maybe when the novelty of making their lunches wears off we'll have to start them on something else, like making their own clothes.
Yesterday we spent the day fetching my daughter from Camp Winnarainbow, where she's spent the last two weeks. She spent a week there last year, and quite enjoyed it. This year she was there long enough to write us letters, which basically said, "Hello, I don't miss any of you, and now I must go and walk on stilts." (And here she is...)
This week the children are between Peninsula summer school and their respective camps, so we're doing things with them. Today we took the kids to Great America. I've been tempted on my last couple visits by something called the Xtreme Skyrider, a ride that basically involves being suspended from a cable, dragged 150 feet up into the air, and then released. You free fall for a couple second, then you swing.
I decided I finally wanted to do it, and Daniel immediately said he wanted to try it too. So he came along.
The first thing they do is put you in this thing that's a combination of a harness and one of those long bibs that, say, radiologists wear. Not the most fetching outfit-- it doesn't allow a flight suit-like swagger-- but since there's nothing else attaching you to the cable, I was all right with that.
Continue reading "Xtreme Skyflyer, and learning new and unusual sports" »
After the California Academy of Sciences and the DeYoung, we took the kids to Crissy Field and the beach. They spent the rest of the afternoon playing the sand, while I watched the kiteboarders.
Today we took the kids to Fort Funston, an old fort and beach in San Francisco. It's very popular with hang-gliders, so while playing in the freezing cold waves was the main attraction, the kids also enjoyed watching hang-gliding up close.
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I'd never been this close to them either, and was impressed at how long they could stay in the air.
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The beach is at the bottom of a fairly steep trail, and it's too dangerous to actually swim in the water; but that's hardly unusual for beaches in this area. Unlike southern California, our beaches are mainly for walking along.
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The kids are all running around, and the parents are all hanging out, chatting. At this age each group more or less amiably ignores the other. I love the kids getting older.
Camping is a big part of Peninsula education. I was skeptical of it at first-- I've not done a lot of camping, to tell the truth-- but the kids love it, and they DO learn a lot. By the time they're in 8th grade, they're planning the entire thing.
Taken while I was grilling. Kids and their aunt playing on the grass. Sometimes, briefly, life offers perfect contentment.
Taking my kids and friends to the new Star Trek. I saw Star Wars on opening weekend in 1977, and wanted them to have the same experience.
my daughter on the line, via flickr
me on the zip line, via flickr
My son's bolder: he went on it at a younger age than his sister, and this year went on it half a dozen times (not cheap, but this is a once-a-year thing.
Recently I've been thinking about how parents and children are connected, and how watching children can illuminate aspects of ourselves, let us see capabilities that we don't normally pay attention to. I see myself as more of an athlete than I used to, after watching them in the pool at the Y; I also suspect I'm a more social animal than I believed myself to be (or in the immortal words of one of my daughter's friends, "I'm not an introvert. I'm very extroverted. I just don't like you very much"). It's not all positive stuff: when I deal with my son's outbursts, I know exactly where he's coming from, because I recognize his temper in myself, and the only difference is that I've managed to discipline it, but not eliminate it.
However, it's good to see your kids do something brave or impressive, and to believe that they might have inherited that talent from you. Of course, it's just as likely that they inherited it from their mother, or that equal measure of environmental and genetic factors shape their personalities. Still, it's a useful way to think about your own interests and capabilities, to give yourself the freedom to try out (and succeed at) new things, and to assume that you have a natural ability to this new thing. After all, if the kids can do it, so can you.
I realized tonight that we've been going to the Fair for a number of years now.
me and my son in 2003
my son in 2005
from 2006 (hmm, does this extra weight make me look fat?)
The school spends a lot of time talking about its distinctive culture, and arguing about how much we can (or should try to) describe it; however, what's missing from these discussions is a recognition of the basic fact that while the parents (and adults more generally) are indispensable to the running of the school, we may not actually be central to its culture. It's the kids who really own it. That's a slightly radical idea, especially for a bunch of intelligent of often pretty egocentric grownups who are used to creating and controlling things (welcome to Silicon Valley, where pride is our favorite of the Seven Deadly Sins). Certainly if you take an active, performative view of culture, we're but the chorus; and factor in the tacit knowledge that circulates among and is shared by the kids but never makes it to the grownups, and parents become rather peripheral.
Sunday morning my kids got me up before 7 to... go to school.
The day before, we had been at Peninsula (at their insistence), setting up for the Spring Fair. My daughter was invited to come back the next morning to set out "no parking " signs around the neighborhood.
This is actually a nontrivial thing. One of the most important things any private school in the area has to do, from what I can tell, is not alienate the neighbors over parking. Every school seems to go to great lengths to make sure that clueless parents don't park in the neighbors during back to school night.
So the next morning I drove the kids over to school at 7:30. I had visions of dropping them off, making sure they were fine, then heading to a Starbucks. I didn't have any coffee before we left.
Of course, it didn't work out that way. First, we got the signs loaded into the truck, a battered old Toyota that looks like it's served the school about as long as internal combustion has been in existence. Then the kids climbed into the back, and after getting some friendly but very clear safety instruction, we were on our way.
via flickr
We drove up and down the streets, stopping occasionally to set out signs. The kids would hand them over to the parents, who'd then set them up.
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The kids really enjoyed being in the truck, of course: they don't often get to ride around in vehicles like this, and when they weren't working, they were trying to touch the trees as they passed.
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At some point, jogging behind the truck, it occurred to me that I probably looked like the personal security detail for the first family of a Third World dictatorship, or a "freedom fighter" on my way to liberate a radio station in my nation's second-largest city. Though I left my AK-47 at home.
via flickr
Of course, the kids had a fantastic time. Not only was it cool for them to drive around and throw things out of a truck; it was cool for me to see how readily and willingly they gave up their Sunday morning to work. I don't think they're motivated by loyalty, or the kind of impulse that sometimes moves me to do alumni interviews for my alma mater; it's something deeper, that doesn't involve as much calculation. With luck, they'll find other places in their lives that deserve this kind of investment, and reward it.
And I never made it to Starbucks, but it was okay. They had coffee at the Big Building.
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Last week my daughter's class held its annual Penny Carnival. The Penny Carnival is one of the cooler things that Peninsula does, and is a great example of how school events bring together the older and younger kids.
In the penny carnival, kids from the lower school come to the fourth grade class to do activities, like face painting and petting animals. They also bring their stuffies, and leave them in stuffie day care.
I noticed that one of the stuffie day care areas was something she had made at home a few days before: a little stuffie-sized cafe.
I asked how she chose a cafe. She explained that they wanted something global. "We had the London Eye, and an Eiffel tower from Paris," she explained. "But we also wanted something American. So I made a cafe."
When I was growing up, cafes were things we read about in travel books. Now, they're so ubiquitous my daughter (who's spent plenty of time in them, thanks to me) can consider them quintessentially American.
She later added that this particular stuffie cafe is located in New Jersey.
I lost precious sleep getting them here at 7:30, but I guarantee they'll never forget doing this. And now they'll want to do it again next year.
Just before the Bell Brothers concert. I ordered a small chai latte, and each of the kids wanted a taste. They ended up drinking about 2/3 of it.
So I bought myself another one, and they drank a lot of that, too.
Nonetheless, I figure that even with buying them dinner there, dessert, and drinks, it was less expensive than going to the movies or Great America or any other place we normally go that doesn't have a family membership.
Today we took the kids to the Jikoji Zen Center, in the hills above Silicon Valley. They were holding a celebration of the Buddha's birthday (today was just a red letter day for religion, I guess), and I thought it would be interesting for the kids to see it.
via flickr
I was interested in going for a couple reasons. I've recently been reading about Buddhism (I find it alternately appealing and alien-- a combination of ideas that seem intuitively correct, but very far from my own experience and instinct), and wanted to see the ceremony myself.
via flickr
The Center is also on the site of the old Pacific High School, which in the late 1960s became famous for its student-built geodesic domes. I've read a lot about PHS, but had never seen the site itself; so when a friend from Peninsula sent around a note about today's event, I thought I had to go.
via flickr
It's still a beautiful site.
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After the ceremony we hiked up to the ridge over the school. On a clear day you can see the Pacific Ocean from the summit, but today the fog was coming in.
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This mashup of Pat the Bunny and a physics textbook is really brilliant. I've finally found the perfect children's gift for all my friends! (Though it doesn't look like it comes with an Enrico Fermi stuffie, alas.)
At dinner at the Dutch Goose.
This evening we went to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, in downtown Palo Alto. While we were waiting for our friends to arrive, Elizabeth went behind a tree.
"Look!" she said. "I'm in stealth mode!"
She only ate about a third of it, by the way.
My daughter turns ten today. No more single-digit birthdays. For the next 90 years, it's double digits for you, girl!
In 2003
In 2009
I can't really quite believe it. It doesn't feel like it's been ten years.
It also doesn't feel like I've been blogging about her (and her brother) for six years.
And no, she didn't have a perm when she was four. Her hair has straightened out. She also tends not to dress like a Grateful Dead fan these days.
My daughter is in Bear Valley this weekend, cross-country skiing with her Girl Scout troop. She was in the car, waiting to leave, when I took a last picture.
This weekend my son and I spent two night at Hidden Villa. It was a trip organized by the parent of a classmate of my son's, and it was us and about half a dozen other families. Hidden Villa was founded by the same people who started Peninsula School (the Duvenecks were amazingly entrepreneurial-- they also were involved in the creation of the Pacific Arts League, and they've immortalized by having a Palo Alto neighborhood named after them), so it has something of a special resonance with Peninsula families.
Hidden Villa is still a working farm, and there are a couple farm stands just to the left of the entrance. There's a pretty large organic garden, chickens (the eggs are excellent, I'm told), and a number of cows, goats and sheep.
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While the kids were all excited about going camping at Hidden Villa-- they'd all been there on field trips at least once-- we were actually staying at the hostel, which consists of several heated cabins near a terrific lodge. (Basically, any time you get ready for a weekend by going to Costco rather than REI, you can tell it's not going to be real camping.) The lodge is a wonderful building, large and spacious, not particularly luxurious, but incredibly comfortable to be in.
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And it's one of those spaces that, because of where it's situated, manages to feel wonderfully luxurious. I especially liked the screened-in porch, which for some ancient reason I'm drawn to.
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We did a potluck dinner the first night, then various of us took charge of the remaining meals. We didn't have a complicated schedule for cleanup, but somehow it all worked out: I think when you're a group of parents of small kids, cleaning up is kind of automatic. The idea of either leaving the dishes for tomorrow, or not doing anything while other people were working, were both kind of unthinkable.
Besides, the lodge has a fabulous kitchen. Propane rather than gas for the stove, which means it heats up more slowly than normal, but otherwise it was a fantastic workspace.
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Saturday morning we went for a hike, which led (after a refreshing uphill climb) to a stream that the kids found very diverting. It also reminded me that for kids, the most important thing you can bring to keep them happy and uncomplaining isn't lots of water, or good shoes, but other kids. If you're with your parents, everything quickly becomes a drag; if you're with classmates, it's all cool.
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After the hike and lunch, we went on a tour of the farm. Needless to say, the kids loved the chance to interact with the animals-- pet the goats and sheep, feed the chickens, that sort of thing.
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I realized at a certain point that, in addition to the obvious appeal of a beautiful natural location, there were two things I really liked about the weekend, and it got me thinking.
The first was the very unforced combination of quiet and company. I was with a dozen other adults and a lot of kids, but I never had the feeling that it was a strain: everyone got along very well, but things were unstructured enough-- and there were always enough parents around who could keep an eye on the kids, who paid us essentially no mind whatsoever and formed their own self-regulating tribe-- to allow you to wander off on your own. I enjoyed spending time with them because they're really nice people, but also because I didn't have the sense that anyone had to be entertained.
The kids were also really easy to deal with. They're generally a very well-behaved bunch, but you put them together, and they essentially seal themselves off from adults, lose any real interest in any of us adults, and take care of themselves until dinner. In the evening, they'd play games, or cluster around whatever parents were reading (everyone, and I mean every single child, brought a couple Bone books, so it was a virtual Bone-reading marathon all weekend). Very different from how things can be at home: my kids are pretty independent, but I felt like I spent less time interacting with ten kids there than I do with my own at home.
It was an interesting experience, and it made me wonder: why in the world don't we do this all the time? If kids are easier to deal with in larger numbers (a counterintuitive proposition, but maybe not that inaccurate), why do we insist on (or default to) taking care of them ourselves? Maybe the cohousing movement is onto something....
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The second thing that made me really think was the realization that part of what I liked about the weekend was that it offered some of the same rewards of traveling: it offered a chance to strip away life to a few essentials, and to live with a degree of thoughtfulness and enforced simplicity-- but without the frantic, focused edge than I have to maintain when I'm on the road. At one point, when I was sitting in the lodge and playing Go (the parents include a number of really serious Go players, and I got my ass kicked all weekend), it struck me that for these two days at least, I had effectively traded dealing with stuff for interacting with people. It was a good deal.
A few months ago I went through a phase of throwing out old stuff, and as I've lost weight I've been shedding clothes that are too large for me. But I now wonder: could I get rid of another 95% of what I own, keep a core of essential stuff, and have a better life? Do I need all those books from graduate school? Am I really any more likely to finish Barbara Stafford's Body Criticism than I am to get through the rest of Normal Cantor's the Civilization of the Middle Ages? Of course not. So why am I keeping them? Things like travel and this past weekend suggest that it would be possible for me to radically reduce the number of objects I have in my life, and not really miss them.
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I'm not about to renounce all worldly goods, and I don't want to sound like a cross between Thoreau and Wigan Ludgate (the hacker-turned-recluse in William Gibson's Count Zero). But would I be happier with a much smaller, thoughtfully designed, and ruthlessly efficient personal infrastructure?
Could one live like that all the time? Out of the equivalent of a couple, say, a couple large suitcases? At what point does owning less make you richer? Can you, in essence, trade things for more friends? I'm not sure, but it's worth trying to figure out. Like I said, a monastic renunciation of worldly goods isn't in my future; but maybe a lighter life would be more worth living.
My daughter on her way to the library this morning.
I'm taking the weekend off and going camping with my son. There's no cell phone reception where we'll be, so I'll be completely unwired. More removed from my digital self than I am when I go to London or Singapore. A weird idea. I've packed clothes, food, sleeping gear, and Fagels' translation of the Iliad for myself and several Bone graphic novels for my son.
Back on Sunday.
But the DVDs of Ikiru, 2001, and The Kingdom are mine. So are the Duran Duran CDs
My daughter has to do a report on sea turtles. I found it striking, and encouraging, that she wanted to go to the library rather than just Google.
He lost at tooth at REI today, and had to show it to me. He was pretty proud of it!
via flickr
This is from last weekend, but I just got the pictures downloaded off my camera. And we were biking today, too.
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Once again with feeling!
After the library, we stopped at Keplers to get Elizabeth some bookmarks (it's a long story, but the sad thing is, she earned them), then to Cafe Barrone for a late dessert.
There were LOTS of people there, so we ended up at a table in the very far corner. But it worked out.
I had to explain to my son the difference between a bookstore and a library. Fortunately he now seems like both, and the idea of being able to check out LOTS and LOTS of books is just as cool as buying a few.
Practicing riding his new, big bike.
We first went to Peninsula. "It's good to be back at school," he said. (He was here yesterday.)
Next stop: the park.
The only kid I know who would even try to do a cartwheel on muddy ground. The kid loves to cartwheel. I don't really get it.
The kids in the background, she later explained, are "part of her fan club." Apparently she often goes over to the nursery school child care-- in the classroom next door to where she spends her afternoons-- and reads to the little kids. A great example of how the school manages to mix kids from various grades, to everyone's benefit.
For the last couple days the cats have been inside, as it's been raining like crazy and their usual outdoor hangouts have been flooded. This morning I saw this.
One of the cats had a pipe-cleaner mouse on his bed. I think my daughter made it.
And does anyone use pipe cleaners to clean pipes any longer? Or to put it another way, what percentage of pipe cleaner sales are to people who actually have pipes, rather than children?
I'm an Associate Fellow at Oxford University's Saïd Business School, where I work with students on projects related to the future technology and strategy, and a visiting scholar in Stanford's HPST program. Previously I was a research director at the Institute for the Future, a think tank in Silicon Valley; managing editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica; and an academic. More professional details are available in my c.v.
I have a new venture in stealth mode; I'll be writing a lot about it late this fall. I'm also finishing on a book on the end of cyberspace, tentatively titled The End of Cyberspace. (My first book, Empire and the Sun: Victorian Solar Eclipse Expeditions, was published by Stanford University Press in 2002.)
The banner is from a picture taken at Hidden Villa, a farm and conference center in the hills above Silicon Valley, March 2009.
Click to leave me a voice message using Grand Central.
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