Relevant History

Tutoring

My son has started tutoring in reading. He's not as strong a reader as we'd like, or as strong as he'd like. So twice a week we take him to a reading expert. She's a former Peninsula teacher, and is actually someone my wife had as a child.

His enthusiasm is striking, because when I was a kid, getting tutored was a Bad Thing. Certainly you didn't look forward to it, or expect it to be fun. I don't know if this is a general change in kids' attitudes, or something specific to this area, or an extension of their general Peninsula-bred love of school. My kids look forward to Monday coming around so they can go back to school, and my daughter and her friends always complain about the end of the school, so those attitudes probably influence their attitudes toward turoring. And my son has known Marion (her tutor) for ages, and that made him more excited to be working with her.

And while I haven't done any surveys, my sense is that a lot more of my kids' friends are doing that in an earlier age might have been seen as remedial, and not talked much about. At least two or three of my son's friends have worked with Marion, which goes a long way to normalizing it. And for kids who already are taking music lessons, are in swimming clubs or little league, or doing lots of other scheduled things, tutoring or speech therapy probably doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary.

So he'd better be reading Tolstoy by September, or I'm going ask for my money back.

Building a labyrinth

We spent this afternoon at the house of some good friends, helping them expand their labyrinth and having a Solstice Day cookout.

First the kids (and a few of the parents) cleared the ground.

Then we laid down rocks in a spiral.

The kids then filled the labyrinth with sand.

It was a very interesting time, and the kids really enjoyed working on it.

Tyrolean zip line

For the kids, one of the high points (no pun intended) of the Spring Fair is the zip line, which runs from the Big Building to a couple hay bales near one of the classrooms.

my daughter on the line, via flickr

The first year we came to the Spring Faire, my daughter was interested in the zip line, but didn't feel ready to try it herself. The next year, though, she went on it, and every year since. This year, she eve won a free second ride.

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.

Introducing my daughter to chai latte

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.

Happy birthday, Elizabeth

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

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.

flickr

Good study habits start early!

But the DVDs of Ikiru, 2001, and The Kingdom are mine. So are the Duran Duran CDs

Among her people

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.

Me and my son out biking

This is from last weekend, but I just got the pictures downloaded off my camera. And we were biking today, too.

via flickr

Daughter in motion

Another picture from last night's trip to Cafe Barrone.

I've been taking a larger than usual number of good but fuzzy pictures of my daughter recently, thanks to the latency on my iPhone.

via flickr

Or maybe it has something to do with the sweatshirt....

At Cafe Barrone. We'll go home soon!

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.

Out late with the kids at Keplers

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.

Out with my son for an afternoon ride

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.

Kids photographing the race

They were done drawing with the yellow Lance Armstrong chalk.

At the Tour de California

Working from home

I'm at home today, as my daughter came down with strep. When I picked her up from school yesterday afternoon, she was on the couch in child care, looking pretty drained. We spent part of last night at the pediatrician's, getting her and her brother swabbed, and dosed up with amoxicillin.

She woke up today and was pretty out of it. Her brother insisted that he was at death's door, until he remembered that his class was going ice skating today. Then all of a sudden: Miracle Recovery!

He tested negative last night, seemed no worse than usual. Since I know Elizabeth will rest better if she's alone (obviously I'm here; she's alone in the same way nobility are alone when servants are still in the room), I decided to take him into school.

Elizabeth is now on the couch. She watched Nausicaä: Valley of the West Wind this morning, and is now on to The Cat Returns. She likes Hayao Miyazaki under normal times, but for some reason, when she's under the weather, escapist movies featuring young female heroines especially appeal to her. Just one of those inexplicable girl things.

Fortunately, she's old enough, and independent enough, and also not sick enough, for me to actually be able to work.

My son, samurai in training

This year my son started taking fencing lessons. So far he really enjoys it. After a few weeks working on footwork, parries, and attacks, they're now finally fencing each other.

He's the one in the blue shorts. Anyone who knows how I dress will not be in the least surprised

I realized this morning that fencing is pretty much the perfect sport for a 7 year-old boy. It teaches grace and quick thinking, which are good. But it also has lots of equipment, which makes it even more interesting. Finally, of course, there's the whole point (as it were) of fencing, which is to hit other people. The first day, the instructor asked if anyone knew what you did in fencing. My son raised his hand and said, "It's poking people with swords!"

En garde!

I think I'm going to insist he learn archery, riding, and flower arranging. Then he'll be a samurai.

Attack! Or possibly parry!

B side

Tonight my daughter asked me to make a CD for her. Her school band is planning to do Green Day's "Holiday" at the rock concert, but they need a second song, and she wanted to bring in some prospects. She had me burn:

• Bari Koral, "Midnight Train to Georgia"
• The Coors, "Little Wing"
• Fleetwood Mac, "Sara"
• Rolling Stones, "Sway"
• Train, "Drops of Jupiter"
• Peter Gabriel, "Down to Earth"
• Sarah McLachlan, "Fallen"
• Smashmouth, "Walkin' on the Sun"

Personally, I think this an interesting cross-section of songs, from several decades, and nothing that's particularly questionable (Amy Winehouse's "You Know I'm No Good," for example). I tried to get her to put on some Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone, or at least Sharon Jones, but so far she's resisting my attempts to get her to listen to soul.

Earlier this evening I was trying to figure out where some unfamiliar music was coming from; I finally realized that my daughter was singing along to "Midnight Train to Georgia." The Bari Koral version, by the way, is a lot less soulful than the Gladys Knight-- how could it be otherwise?-- but is a good choice for her, as it's a much simpler arrangement. The Coors' "Little Wing" is beautiful, but is more of an ensemble piece. I don't think she knows who Stevie Nicks is or what she looks like; 30 years ago she would have wanted to perform Fleetwood Mac in order to be Stevie Nicks for five minutes.

For a few minutes I sat down in the hallway between the kids' rooms, listening to her sing on one side, and my son listen to one of the Harry Potter books on the other. My life as a parent, summed up.

This is very similar to what I did when I was her age. I had a lousy stereo system that we bought at K-Mart, a bunch of 45s, and a couple albums-- Frampton Comes Alive, Elton John's greatest hits (volumes 1 and 2), and a handful of others. (An aside: the quality of audio that young kids have today is probably a thousand time better than what I had when I was their age. I still remember the first time I heard a CD in college-- it was Peter Gabriel's So-- and I was shocked to tears at the purity of the experience.) I was starting to sing in the school choir, and would spend hours in my room, playing my records, singing along, or doing air guitar (the Guitar Hero designers are evil geniuses for taking the private embarrassment of millions and turning it into a game). Along with my telescope and books, music was a tool for building a world of my own construction-- a world that was extremely simple, equally cerebral and romantic, and entirely mine. (I continue to strongly associate certain songs or albums with particular periods in my life, and I'm still amazed at how vivid my musical memories are.)

That's not to say that my normal world was one that I needed to escape from: quite the contrary. This was when I was living with Pop in Nashville, going to a school I loved, and had tons of friends who like me were faculty kids. Unlike when I was with my mother in rural Virginia, I was among my own people. Still, I liked being able to conjure up Planet Alex. But.... I'm beginning to suspect that for kids, imagination is an important form of power. You don't need to want to escape from something to find creating your own world an attractive prospect. The ability to create an imaginary, private world is desirable no matter what your regular life is like; it's desirable as an end in itself. It's an essential prelude to creating yourself.

Most of what my daughter does in her room is jealously protected: she doesn't want me to know what she's doing, and she keeps her door closed all the time. By and large I'm content with her having her privacy: she's too young to be doing anything destructive or illegal, and when she's out of her room she's a good kid. So if she wants her own world, let her have it. I figure it's good for her to be able to create her own space.

But it's nice to have this little musical window into her world, even if I have to sit in the hallway to hear it.

Sleepover fun

The boys were awake between 3 and 5 last night. I was woken up by my son knocking around in his room-- I was sure someone had broken into the house-- and then two more times when they got too loud. Apparently the idea of whispering was a little too advanced for them.

It'll be interesting to see how my son does today. They're fine so far this morning. Will he crash in the afternoon? Will he melt down? Time will tell.

My son, pool shark

Move over, Paul Newman.... My son playing pool at the Dutch Goose tonight.

Nimitz Way, Tilden Regional Park

When I was a postdoc at Berkeley, most weekends I would take about half a day, and ride up to Tilden Regional Park. Usually I'd start with a couple espressos at Cafe Milano (a beginning to strenuous activity that would probably kill me now, but this is the kind of thing you can do when you're 28), then ride through the Berkeley hills, to Grizzly Peak Road, and thence to Wildcat Canyon. Tilden is a huge park, and the section I usually went to was the northern end, which has a terrific botanical garden, and a road with one of the best views of the entire Bay: Nimitz Way.

via flickr

Pop tells the story that when the Oakland town fathers were talking about naming part of 880 the Nimitz freeway (for those of you who don't know who Chester Nimitz was, go find out), his widow objected, on the grounds that she didn't want people hearing about her late husband's name in the context of traffic jams and car crashes. She couldn't have objected to Nimitz Way, which is a great paved trail that runs from Tilden Park in to Wildcat Canyon.

Today, the kids got to ride Nimitz Way, and they had a great time.

via flickr

Nimitz Way starts at Inspiration Point, on Wildcat Canyon Road.

via flickr

From Inspiration Point you can see the San Pablo Reservoir, but Nimitz Way takes you in the other direction, to the west.

via flickr

The path is paved, and reasonably smooth, so it's popular with joggers, bicyclists, parents with strollers, etc.. There's a pretty healthy proportion of groups of older hikers or bicyclists.

via flickr

The path runs uphill and down, but none of it is really strenuous, and it goes through some redwoods and eucalyptus groves (all planted, it seems, by one or another local group). For me, the real payoff is Peace Grove, which is about a mile and half from the trail head. You leave your bike at the bottom of the hill, and take a short hike, past the Peace Grove trees (one might sense a theme here), and up to a circular stone monument-- more like a really big conversation pit-- finished in the early 1960s.

via flickr

The view is spectacular. The pictures I took today-- on an overcast day, with a camera that's rapidly dying-- don't do it justice, but even on a day like today, the place is phenomenal. I don't know if there's anywhere else where you can see Marin, the Golden Gate and San Francisco, south to Palo Alto, then north to Orinda.

via flickr

It's been about fifteen years since I was last there-- maybe thirteen-- and I wonder why in the world it's taken me so long to get back there. It's one of those places that mentally seems far away, but really isn't, and richly rewards the time required to get there. There are lots of places, or people, like that: closer than you think, and well worth spending time with.

The kids complained occasionally about the inclines, but I think even they enjoyed the view. And they didn't even get to visit the botanical garden or steam trains. Next time.

At the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Watching the sea otters.

Watching Avatar on our way to Monterey Bay Aquarium

We gave the kids one of their presents early, because we're taking a long car trip today and to keep these particular gifts from getting buried in tomorrow's craziness.

In exchange for cleaning out about 80% of the junk in their rooms, I promised them iPods. They delivered, so it was my turn. I put on their favorite music, "Finding Nemo" (perfect for the aquarium), and some episodes of "Avatar: The Last Airbender," a show we've really come to love.

Turns out we missed about half of season 3, so the kids are now in the back seat with me, getting back story and seeing how fast the video will reorient itself if they flip the iPod over. Well, for once, the box isn't more interesting than the present itself! (And given Apple's awesome packaging, that says a lot.)

Of course I'm doing some work, but I still have Miami Vice on my iPhone....

Lego exhibit at MOAH

The Bay Area Lego Users Group winter exhibit at the Palo Alto Muse of American Heritage. Very popular with the local kids, or parents looking to get the kids out of the house!

Moral hazards and school lunches

A few weeks ago, I stopped making the kids' lunches. I make the sandwiches and make sure they have milk, but I have them assemble it and choose their side dishes. It's been interesting. Before, they were very picky about what went I'm their lunches, and tended to want different things; now, they put in simple things, and not very much if it, either. They'll grab an apple, or a handful of banana chips, rather than insist on having their persimmon cut in a specific way.

It's an illustration of the moral hazard problem. When the costs to them were slight, they were eager for complexity; when they bear the cost, suddenly an apple is fine.

Wunderlich Park, Woodside

Today we went with some friends to Wunderlich Park (here's a map), just outside the town of Woodside. A century ago the land was owned by James Folger, the founder of Folger's Coffee (like Levi Strauss, Folger had come to California during the gold rush, but made his money not by extracting wealth from the mines, but by extracting wealth from the miners).

via flickr

The park was a pretty big hit with the kids. We took a roughly two-mile hike that took us through coast redwoods, eucalyptus, and oak. (I'm a complete pushover for redwoods, especially when the paths-- like the one in Wunderlich-- has lots of switchbacks and curves.)

via flickr

The terrain is hilly, but not outrageous, and trails are pretty well-kept and -marked.

via flickr

Of course, most of the kids enjoyed themselves mainly because they had company (if there's one essential piece of equipment to keep kids happy on a hike, it's not water or snacks or good shoes, but other kids). But my son, who likes to complain about hikes, even enjoyed himself. I caught up with him walking by himself on the trail-- the girls had run ahead-- and he seemed self-contained and perfectly content. Which is unusual for a 6 year-old.

via flickr

Skating party

The kids spent the afternoon at a skating birthday party. They love skating.

Japanese Garden, San Francisco

My daughter is cold

It's not THAT cold here at the grandparent's house!

Being Dad

We spent the last couple days in Disneyland. One of my main responsibilities there, after keeping the kids from getting abducted, is to go on the wet and/or scary rides. The kids' favorite is the California Grizzly, a white water rafting ride.

Somehow I was the one who seemed to get the wettest.

I was really glad I remembered by waterproof camera bag-- it saved my electronics from a watery death. (My small Moleskine notebook, however, was not so lucky; it's still drying out.)

Working on a story

Both my son and daughter are writing stories (in my son's case, a two-page book with about eight words, but still).

Where does this literary ambition come from, I wonder?

It could be worse. One of Charles Darwin's sons, so accustomed to his father raising and studying barnacles (Darwin's barnacle work was very good), supposedly once asked a playmate where his father kept his barnacles.

My future creative director

She's sorting her M&Ms by color.

Taking inventory

The obligatory post-trick-or-treat sorting and counting. Now comes the trading between the children, which has to happen before they're too full of sugar and incapable of thinking rationally.

Greeters

My daughter set out "her minions" to watch the door. Not sure who is guarding her room, though.

Happy Halloween!

My daughter is Laura Ingalls Wilder, my son is a garbage can.

More proof of why these kids love school

Yesterday before the kids' school day started, I went to the dentist. I didn't think it would take that long, and so the kids opted to come with me, rather than go to early morning child care.

My crown, via flickr

Long and short, we ended up leaving there about 9:30, and by the time we got out the door, my daughter was pretty upset. I walked her to her class; they were having a meeting, and everybody was in the main room. She put her guitar and lunchbox down in the back room, but couldn't go out; she was too weepy, and even though she hadn't missed the activity she thought they'd already be doing, didn't want to have everyone looking at her when she went back out.

We spent a few minutes talking about it; finally, when it seemed clear that I couldn't get her to go out, I offered to take her to Starbucks with me for a quick drink, and bring her back before her activity started. So we left, went to Starbucks, and came back about twenty minutes later. By now, she was fine, and went running off to activities (in this case, sculpture class), no problem.

front porch, via flickr

Right as she was heading to class, my phone rang. The school office was calling: Elizabeth's female classmates wanted to make sure Elizabeth was all right, and encourage her to come back.

This is a crew that's been together for the last three years, and include several girls who've been together since nursery school. Now, it was touching that her girlfriends wanted to make sure Elizabeth was all right. But the other thing that struck me was that they'd go en masse to the office and ask that someone call me. When I was in fourth grade, the office was definitely someplace you did NOT want to go; certainly you didn't go there with your friends and ask for a favor.

leaf spiral, via flickr

It's not that the girls assume that they can go anywhere, or are unsupervised: Peninsula is unstructured in the same way that a medieval village is unstructured, which is to say it has a minimum of formal regulation but a ton of custom, and its residents are guided by an awareness that they have to get along because they're going to be living together for a long time. (There are also all kinds of rules about boundaries, what trees you can climb and which ones you can't-- apparently there are marks on the ones you can't climb, but I've never seen them.) But they took for granted that they could use the office to check on their friend, and that no one would find that strange.

It says a lot about how the kids view teachers and staff, and how they see their own place at the school.

children, Peninsula School

My daughter is going through a privacy phase

She was especially proud of the blood on the spear. Apparently it makes the stuffie look REALLY ferocious. I hope I don't need to take her to a psychologist....

Political commentary

I turned on the VP debate, and Sarah Palin was on. My son looked up and shouted, "Hey! She is evil!"

Strong words, even for us. "Why is that?"

My daughter said, "Because she hunts moose!" She then pouted for emphasis.

politics

The obligatory giant clam picture

At Monterey Bay Aquarium.

This place is packed!

Not a surprise, I suppose.

Watching the otters

At Monterey Bay Aquarium.

At the Monterey Bay Aquarium

The Real Cost Cafe is the kids' favorite exhibit.

Picture from Hamburg

I discovered this picture that my son took with my camera while we were at a cafe in Hamburg.

via flickr

After he took the picture, he went to the bathroom and managed to get himself locked in a stall. The manager had to get him out.

I fully intend to tell that story again at his wedding.

Germany, Hamburg, self-portrait

The best picture from vacation

Written on the wall of Brasenose College, Oxford:

via flickr

children, England, Oxford, Oxford University, signage

Turned off troublesome Twitter notification

It turns out that my blog about my kids was sending notifications to my Twitter feed. Since the kids' blog is password protected, this was causing some consternation. I think I've got it fixed.

Encore performance

Tonight after dinner we realized that there was a second performance of the pyrotechnic performance art piece that I stumbled upon last night. The dads took several of the kids out, despite worries that they (the kids, not the dads) would be used as fireworks, drowned, or simply left outside a bar to be gang-pressed into some passing merchant marine vessel.

The kids quite enjoyed the show. On the way back home, one of them paid it the ultimate compliment: "That was even worth missing World of Warcraft for!"

art, children, Germany, hafencity, Hamburg, Travel

My daughter stealing a taste of my dessert

She thought she was being subtle.

via flickr

Germany, Travel, Hamburg

Going home

Single dad Saturday

I took the kids and their aunt to the Redwood City theatre this afternoon to see Wall-E today. It was terrific, though I admit I nodded off during a crucial scene (I skipped the coffee this morning). It's a bit depressing that you can make such a good movie around the premise that the planet has been made uninhabitable; I'm afraid that while my generation grew up with the idea of nuclear war hanging over us, my kids are growing up with the reality of serious climate change-- and they know it.

The one down side to the outing was that I lost my wallet. We realized it on the way to the car; I ran back and checked around the seats, looked in the bathroom, and retraced my steps, but nothing. (The people cleaning the theatre were concerned that someone had come in, but after I explained why I had returned, they adopted an attitude of Olympian detachment. Not that I expected them to mount a search party, but what happens if a kid wanders off? Is the theatre staff as disinterested? Something tells me they're not very good with emergencies.)

So of course I called the bank and credit card company as soon as I got home. I'll have to go to the DMV on Monday and try to get a new drivers' license. Then there are insurance cards, Costco, etc.. The one thing I didn't have much of in there was money: ironically, though, the most valuable bill in there was a 20 pound note from my trip. It's also interesting to discover how poorly designed these services are to handle problems like lost cards: even the credit card company didn't do a very good job of explaining the procedure for getting a new card, telling me when the new one would arrive, etc.. They were mainly concerned with making sure that I knew it was okay to keep sending them money.

My daughter's at a friend's house on a sleepover, and my son is now out for the night. I think I'm going to have a couple beer.

Single dad

My wife left tonight for a week-long course in Williamburg, Virginia, so I'm playing single dad for the next few days.

I confess I haven't really thought very far about what I'd do with the kids, other than let them watch movies that Mom wouldn't allow (or that I've convinced them Mom wouldn't allow), and take them to Wall-E during the weekend.

Actually, they do pretty well with just one of us, though they tend not to stop talking. They generally talk a lot, but for some reason they do more of it when there's only one of us to listen.

parenting