World's Longest French Fry

What does a baby know?

2009-08-23T12:05:00.002-04:00

What does a baby know? That's a big question we can't answer. Clearly she's learning by leaps and bounds. She started with nothing, nothing at all, and is constructing her universe solely through experience.

As an infant, she didn't know that that uncomfortable restless achy feeling is tiredness and the cure is to relax and close her eyes, she didn't know that that pain in her eyes is the sun and the cure is close them or turn her head away. She knew was if something was in her mouth, she should suck on it. That was the sum total of her understanding of the world.

Today she knows which button makes the toy light up or get loud, she knows about light switches and drawers and doors, she knows where water comes from and how otot work the stopper in the drain. She loves birds, she likes to touch bees and has so far gotten away with it. She's learning how to feed herself. Banana good, peas good, brocolli bad. Millet bad, but millet cereal good. She knows plenty.

She still has odd weaknesses in the growing storehouse of stuff she knows and can do. She has no depth perception, none, and can't tell if those birds she loves so much are right in front of her or a hundred feet away. She'll strain to grab them either way. She thinks helicopters are birds. She'll try and grab those too. She'll try to open doors she's nowhere near and step on things she can't reach. I feel guilty laughing as I watch her stretch and strain to reach what she wants, with no real concern for her center of balance or even the location of her limbs. Such great, but often futile, effort.

Cthulhu Resurfaces

2009-07-05T09:22:00.010-04:00

Jane has always been a very advanced child. She was born a week early and now at eleven months, she’s already hit her terrible twos. It was like flicking a switch.

One day she’s a good natured kid, she cooperated, helped out, appreciated effort. When she cried with some need and I tried to fill it, she’d stop crying for a bit, even if I guessed wrong, like she was giving me a chance, giving me the benefit of the doubt and wouldn’t start crying again until it was clear I’d guessed wrong and her needs remained unmet. She’d pick up her butt when I picked her up so I could get a hand under her and also on the changing table so it’s easier to change her diaper.

The next day it’s “I want this” and that want was immediate, important, and life and death! Whether she wanted to be picked up, put down, go outside, hold the knife or grab some stranger’s sunglasses, it has to be RIGHT NOW!!!

The changing table is open warfare. Her new job is to press every fiber of her being into the effort of rolling over and standing up, immediately grabbing the left rail with her right hand, a lockdown grip twisting her body with surprising strength. I’d plead with her to cooperate and she’d laugh at me. She knows what she was supposed to do, but, somehow, “supposed to do” has taken on a new meaning. It means “absolutely not!” and she laughs throughout the struggle, never noticing that she’s the only one laughing.

She’s lucky she’s cute.

Banana!

2009-06-19T17:17:00.003-04:00

Baby's First Word!

We think.

It sounded like banana and it made sense in context, so we're taking it.

Banana it is!

Obscure Cargo Cult Reference

2009-05-02T09:52:00.002-04:00

Welcome Daily Kos readers! Welcome! Don't be shy, take a look around, kick your feet up, stay a while. Wow, I'm honored.

Fingers

2009-05-02T09:31:00.005-04:00

Baby fingers. Cute little digits, so bendy, so tiny, so fragile. Like you could break one off without even trying. Surely that’s why we have ten—it’s nature’s way of compensating for the fact that they will break off from time to time. Disposable, almost. Sometimes, looking at Jane’s, I find it inconceivable that anybody could keep them all into adulthood. And yet most of us do. Darndest thing.

Saturday, in the Park, Where Every Day's the Fourth of July

2009-04-28T21:07:00.004-04:00

Back in January, H, Jane and I took a trip to a state park at the far edge of Queens. This was one of the first out of the neighborhood ventures with the little tyke so we didn't really know what we were doing. And the camera was new so I was a bit fumbly with it, and I didn't figure out how to do the editing until a couple weeks ago. But this was Jane's first trip into the wilds so off we went and tried to capture something of it as best we could.

We didn't get too far before H got turned back because we also brought the Maggie-dog. Dogs are not allowed, which we knew, and there are roving park rangers enforcing the rules, which we didn't know. So for much of the time, Jane and I are alone while H brought Maggie back to the car and waited.

As for the clip, this is my first edited video and it isn't bad...considering. Unfortunately, it's only not bad if you consider...

I think I did a surprisingly good job with one exception. I inserted a scene in the wrong place and didn't catch it until the software finalized the video and merged the scenes (which I didn't know it would do and so didn't save an unfinalized version, and so it goes...).

Now the only way to fix it is to start over again, which I won't be doing unless someone who knows what they're talking about takes me aside and says, "hey Tim, I really like that piece you did where you and Jane walk down a path. If you just fixed that one thing, I think I could enter it into the Tribeca Film Festival." Then maybe I'd fix it, but short of that, this will have to do.

So, without further ado, I give you Jane's first trip to the state park, as seen through her eyes (sort of).

Obscure Cargo Cult Reference

2009-04-17T17:35:00.003-04:00

Welcome Instapundit readers! Don't be shy, take a look around, kick your feet up, stay a while. Wow. My very own Instalanche!

The Ballad of Nap Time

2009-04-11T09:18:00.006-04:00

No No No
We won't go to sleep!
No No No
And you can't make us!

No No No
We won't go to sleep!
No No No
And you can't make us!

WHAT DO WE NOT WANT?

SLEEP!

WHEN DO WE NOT WANT IT?

NOW!

WHAT DO WE NOT WANT?

SLEEP!

WHEN DO WE NOT WANT IT?

NOW!

GIVE ME AN "S"!

NO!

GIVE ME AN "L"

NO!

GIVE ME AN "E"!

NO!

GIVE ME AN "E"!

NO!

GIVE ME A "P"!

NO!

WHAT'S THAT SPELL?

WE HATE YOU!

Baby's Museum Trip

2009-04-04T15:54:00.004-04:00

It’s quite remarkable the way a baby can sharpen the mind and improve conversation skills. I first noticed this a few months ago when I found I could talk for 20 minutes about how Little Janey sat up this morning and not once be bored or at a loss for what to say next. I never tire of talking about her.

And it gets better. Jane has hit a number of milestones in the last couple weeks. She’s learning how to crawl, she’s finally able to sit up on her own and can practice walking. Not on her own, of course. You have to stand behind her, bent over a bit holding her hands. Then she will tentatively put one foot in front of the other, shakily put the other foot in front, indicate which direction she wants to go by leaning, occasionally stopping to look up at you as if waiting for a signal on what to do next. It’s slow, it’s sloppy, her legs wobble a bit too much, she sometimes steps on her foot and, in taking the next step, pulls her own sock off. It’s hell on my back, but it is walking of a sort and for an 8-month-old baby, it ain’t bad.

So last Sunday H and I took Little Janey to PS1, a somewhat avant-garde museum in Long Island City in Queens. This was our baby debut, the first time we took her on an adult outing, a place that wasn’t just friends or other parents and their babies, and all the while I’m thinking, “man, this is the cutest little baby anybody’s ever seen. She is just gonna brighten their day.” I looked forward to it, not just because I enjoy this museum, but because I was sharing with the world, for the first time, the cutest little baby any of these people had ever seen. (Did I already mention that? Oh well, it’s worth saying again.) Just seeing her would brighten their day. My gift to the PS1-going public.

At 8 months, she’s a little young for art, but I saw right away she was getting something out of it. (Clever child!) I could tell by the way she started vocalizing with her little pre words “wa wa wa wa ayyyeeeah!” I could only imagine what the people around us were thinking at the sound of her chatter. (“How adorable!” probably.)

There are parents who think this way about their babies even though they’re wrong. Their baby might be special to them, but to the rest of us? Not so much. You know it, I know it, I wonder if they know it. Thank god I’m not one of them! Janey’s the cutest. Everyone who sees her says so. She is one amazing baby. Can you tell I’m a proud father?

Anyway, the theme at the museum turned out to be video art, with loud obnoxious audio. I thought it might hurt Jane’s ears and so I skipped many of the exhibits, annoyed that they didn’t take delicate ears into account. “Why does it have to be so loud?!?”

Jane was getting a little antsy in her carrier and so was I so I found a little out of the way spot to take her out and practice walking. I wanted some space, some privacy, but I was also thinking what a nice treat it would be for people to happen upon us, a father and daughter sharing a milestone, that magic moment when a baby learns to walk. This will be my gift to those lucky souls who walk in the right room at the right moment, an agent of serendipity. What I had in mind was art, my own art, performance art right here in the museum.

I took her out of her carrier and we walked for several minutes but nobody did walk in and accidentally find to their delight. It’s too bad really. In fact, it wasn’t until we were leaving when a young woman in a group of teenagers walked by, she lit up at the sight of Jane and said audibly to nobody, I think, “ohh what a cute baby!” You betcha!

I worry about her growing up, getting precocious, getting a mind of her own and my own responsibility to raise her right. She will be too cute to discipline, I couldn’t bear it. Not that that adorable little girl will ever need or deserve it so this is academic, but still…

Cthulhu, Unfashionably Early

2009-03-08T17:33:00.000-04:00

Around 6:20 on an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday morning, July 9, 2008, a slit opened up in the exact center of the universe, which unsurprisingly turned out to be in New York City, though perhaps a little surprisingly in mid-town east, and through it burst Jane Astrid Wednesday Singer Maguire, also sometimes known under the various names, Jane, Jaws Maguire, Darth Pooper, The Gaping Maw, Little Miss Center of My Universe, and occasionally, when trying to curry favor, the Janers (as in “please Janers, just give me 20 seconds, that’s all I ask, 20 seconds, then I’ll pick you up”).

There was much confusion among the natives (as a wise man once said, “if in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout”). Any hope for the survival the pre-Jane status of the parent-bots was crushed by the all-needing Gaping Maw as they both, one included a milk-giving feature but the other was strangely defective in this vitally important performance area, endured the months that time forgot to please their new god.

She looks peaceful, doesn’t she? Don’t let appearances fool you; her personality, much too large for delivery simultaneous with its earthly physical vessel, arrived about two weeks later, after the villagers let their guard down, lulled into a false sense of security by her teasingly temporary need for almost constant sleep.

Now, eight months later, in what can only be called a variation on the Stockholm Syndrome, the natives have grown fond of their new deity. Apparently she gives off a chemical designed to blind them to reality and make them love serving her and only her.

She seems to be getting bigger.

Remington Rand 5

2007-04-25T22:07:00.000-04:00

I used to classify myself as a Luddite. I have romantic notions of living in Arcadia, some pastoral wonderland where I sit beneath a tree and think about poetry and philosophy all day while the sheep tend to themselves. Or as a member of the idle class, possessor of a low-ranking but well financed fiefdom where I can sit beneath a tree and think about poetry and philosophy all day while someone else tends the sheep.

Certainly, there is no unpleasantness, no starvation, disease or poverty in my romantic past. We're all equal, yet somehow we manage to have servants. Unfortunately, there is no stereo or toothbrush, no hot running water or air conditioner either. I'd miss those. I like my internet, I just don't like car alarms keeping me up at night. I think we'd all be better off without cell phones, unless I'm trying to meet a friend in a crowd.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm a perfectly normal Luddite of convenience. I dream about an idyllic past I'd rather live in if I could take with me every modern invention that I find useful.

One of the ways this tendency has shown itself is my attraction to antiques. Now I also fancy myself a writer (who, unfortunately, for the most part, doesn't write), so my favorite antique is the typewriter. It connects all of my impossible dreams and brings them right into my house, where I can constantly be reminded that I will never have what I really want.

This one here is my first. It was a gift from a friend and it was quite meaningful in two ways. First, that he cared enough to go on eBay and pick this up for me; and second, because he showed me that I could actually have something unusual that I wanted. I didn't have to satisfy myself thinking wistful thoughts about how nice it would be to have...whatever it is I wanted at that moment.

This particular typewriter has an additional attraction--it has an apparent history beyond its obvious age. The "CD" sticker on the side shows that it was a part of my country's civil defense efforts during the cold war. Maybe even before. I've so far been unable to track down its exact purpose, but it pleases me to think that it was used by a journalist in WWII. If it wasn't, I'm not sure I want to know.

Here's the side view with the sticker:

One of the wonders of the internet is that everything has a fan base; no matter what you are looking for, someone out there knows stuff. Relevant stuff. One site I will probably refer to often on this blog is The Classic Typewriter Page maintained by Richard Polt. It shows this model, the Remington Rand Streamlined #5, was made between December 1935 and December 1940. So my WWII hope survived the first piece of investigation. So far it's the only piece.

On the carriage beneath, there is a sticker that has been thoroughly obliterated with a thumbnail or a dime. Too bad. I have not yet located the serial number, even though I followed instructions on where to look. The serial number probably won't get me far, but it is the only next step I can think of.

Daily Quote for Friday, April 6, 2007

2007-04-06T17:53:00.000-04:00

All the blessings which you pray to obtain hereafter could be yours today, if you did not deny them to yourself. You have only to have done with the past altogether, commit the future to providence, and simply seek to direct the present hour aright into the paths of holiness and justice: holiness, by a loving acceptance of your apportioned lot, since Nature produced it for you and you for it: justice, in your speech by a frank and straightforward truthfulness, and in your acts by a respect for law and for every man's rights. Allow yourself, too, no hindrance from the malice, misconceptions or slanders of others, nor yet from any sensations this fleshy frame may feel; its afflicted part will look to itself. The hour for your departure draws near; if you will but forget all else and pay sole regard to the helmsman of your soul and the divine spark within you--if you will but exchange your fear of having to end your life some day for a fear of failing even to begin it on nature's true principles--you can yet become a man, worthy of the universe that gave you birth, instead of a stranger in your own homeland, bewildered by each day's happenings as though by wonders unlooked for, and ever hanging upon this one or the next.

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Daily Quote for Thursday, April 5, 2007

2007-04-05T22:11:00.000-04:00

There is no lantern by which the crank can be distinguished from the reformer when the night is dark. Just as every conviction begins as a whim so does every emancipator serve his apprenticeship as a crank. A fanatic is a great leader who is just entering the room.

--Heywood Braun

Daily Quote for Wednesday, April 4, 2007

2007-04-04T16:39:00.000-04:00

It is hard to even begin to gauge how much a complication of possessions, the notions of “my and mine,” stand between us and a true, clear, liberated way of seeing the world. To live lightly on the earth, to be aware and alive, to be free of egotism, to be in contact with plants and animals, starts with simple concrete acts. The inner principle is the insight that we are interdependent energy fields of great potential wisdom and compassion—expressed in each person as a superb mind, a handsome and complex body, and the almost magical capacity of language. To these potentials and capacities, “owning things” can add nothing of authenticity. “Clad in the sky, with the earth for a pillow.”

--Essential ZEN

Daily Quote for Tuesday, April 3, 2007

2007-04-03T18:21:00.000-04:00

There isn’t a bourgeois alive who, in the ferment of his youth, if only for a day or for a minute, hasn’t thought himself capable of boundless passions and noble exploits. The sorriest little woman-chaser has dreamed of Oriental Queens; in a corner of every notary’s heart lie the moldy remains of a poet.

--Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert