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Loading ...For all you dad’s out there, and mine specifically, Happy Father’s Day.
Thanks for all you’ve taught us, thanks for all the fun we’ve had. Thanks for the trips to the parks, the encouragement, and the discipline. And most of all, thanks for not killing us when we put a hole through the car battery (that may only apply to my Dad…).
Thanks for the support and the love.
And now, a message from the younger generation…
“Can you tie this to my eyebrow?” [referring to a balloon]
After throwing a blanket over her own head: “POOF! She was gone.”
3-yr old: “You can’t tell me that!”
2-yr old: “Why?”
3-yr old: “You’re not a grown-up!”
2-yr old: “YES I AM!”
3-yr old: “NO YOU’RE NOT!”
2-yr old: “YES I AM!“
3-yr old: “YOU’RE NOT A GROWN-UP; YOU’RE IN A BOOSTER SEAT!!“
2-yr old: “What?”
3-yr old: “You’re in a booster seat. Look.”
2-yr old: “Oh.”
I just recently found out that two of my brothers-in-law didn’t know anything about the new Clone Wars movie or the TV series it’s setting up. This post is for them…. but there’s a nice treat at the end for those who know all the rest.
First, the basics: as I said back in August…
As most people know already, there are two Star Wars TV shows in the works, one live action and one computer animated. The latter of those is much closer to completion, and it’s release is still over a year out. But on the official Star Wars website, they’ve released a trailer for the “Clone Wars” show, and it blows me away. This series looks like it will be awesome. It covers, as the name implies, the Clone Wars, which begin at the end of Episode II: Attack of the Clones and end in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. There was a short cartoon series run on the Cartoon Network (approximately 5 minute episodes totalling 2 hours), that covered some of that war, and this series will fill in the gaps.
Here’s the “Sneak Peek” trailer I was referring to:
Then, in February, Lucasfilm announced that they would be releasing an animated theatrical movie to kick-off the animated TV series. At the time, I said:
To be honest, it’ll be a little weird to see an animated Star Wars on the big screen, and it’s a bit of an odd idea to launch a TV show with a theatrical pilot (though there will be a TV pilot, too), but if any franchise can pull that off, it’d be Star Wars.
The theatrical release will be on August 15th, followed by the TV debut on Cartoon Network (and TNT) in the fall.
Here’s the trailer for the movie (notice, some of the shots are the same, but there’s some cool new stuff) [edit: if the video below is "no longer available" click here to see it - embedding is apparently blocked on all versions of this one]:
The thing about Jabba’s son… I’m trying not to think about it… but it looks awesome. The fluidity of the movement is amazing. Those lightsaber battles are going to be great.
The new young girl they focus on in the trailers is called Ahsoka, and she’ll be Anakin’s padawan (apprentice).
The movie premieres on August 15th. It should come as no surprise that I’ll be seeing this in the theater (it’s the last of my “essentials” group this year.)
The best lightsaber battle ever was against Darth Maul in Episode I: The Phantom Menace. (For my money, it was worth sitting through Jar-Jar to get to that.) One of the frequent nitpicks of that sequence, though, is that Obi-Wan didn’t use his force speed power to quickly go through the laser gates, thereby catching up with Qui-Gon and probably preventing his death. Why wouldn’t he do that? The beginning of the movie established that particular power when they escaped from the destroyer droids. Why not use it now in this critical moment battling the Sith?
At last, we know the answer!
That settles it for me. Totally plausible.
Were you paying attention in those psychology classes?
Do you remember the experiments where a rat was trained to press a lever to get food?
It’s amazing how relevant experiments on rats can be to parenting.
In pursuing my psychology degree, I took a lab where I had to perform that experiment myself. I had a rat of my own, which I named - very appropriately, I thought - Rat (hey, if it’s good enough for George of the Jungle, it’s good enough for me).
The first goal of the experiment was to get the rat to understand that pressing a lever meant getting food. There were other goals once that was accomplished, but let’s focus on that goal for now.
Rat was just not getting it. Either that, or he was just really, really stubborn. I spent many nights in that lab until well after midnight faithfully recording him doing nothing of interest (which eventually translated into a graph that crossed enough pages of graph paper to run the length of our dormitory hallway). Eventually, however, he started to get the picture. When he made a move toward the lever, I dropped him a food pellet. If he moved a little closer, he got another pellet. Brushed against the lever? Another pellet. Touched it intentionally? Another pellet. Pressed it completely? More pellets. This process took a long time - but when it worked, it worked. Eventually, getting him to stop pressing the lever (phase 2 of the experiment) was even harder.
That process of rewarding Rat for each progressive step closer to the goal is called “successive approximation.” At first, he didn’t have to press the lever to get food, he just had to look at the lever. Once he got that, he had to make progress toward the larger goal before he’d get his food. Looking at it was no longer enough. He had to move close to it. Eventually, he’s feeding himself by pressing the lever. This teaching method, it has been proven time and time again, works.
Flash-forward almost 20 years. I don’t think about Rat often. But I did today.
My three-year-old daughter has become a very picky eater. It’s gotten to the point that it’s commonplace for my wife to make two different dinners every night - one for “Little Mommy” and one for the rest of us. Last week we decided that would stop. Little Mommy was going to learn to eat what we gave her.
It didn’t go so well for the first 4 days. We had a complete meltdown just getting the compromised 1/8″ square piece of grilled cheese near her mouth. Much drama ensued at that meal. Food flew; screams were loosed. The next day we were visiting friends and despite some earnest attempts at cajoling on all of our parts, no progress was made by us parents (she succeeded in manipulating us, however, which was a setback). The following day we were back at it, though there was much less drama. Finally, today, at lunch, Rat came to mind.
Oddly, it was grilled cheese again. This time, instead of reducing the size of the task, my wife tried something different. She put some soy-butter, Little Mommy’s favorite - on a small part of the top of the sandwich. While that was promptly licked off, I decided to start eating crackers I knew Little Mommy liked. When she asked for one, I said “Sure. Just lick the sandwich - but not on the soy-butter part.” After some whining, she did it, and I gave her a cracker. The next step was to get her to eat just a bite of the sandwich to get another cracker. She couldn’t have gotten a smaller bite if she used a laser scalpel, but she did take a bite, so she got another cracker.
Now we’re at the breaking point. Lots of accolades went along with that last cracker. She’s all proud of herself. Now we push. “Okay, if you take four bites, you can have another cracker.” She likes counting, too, so we all counted the bites, which - without any prompting - got bigger, and bigger, until bite number 4 was actually too much to have in her mouth at once. But as I gave her the cracker, I knew we had finally prevailed. She herself suggested the next goal would be five bites, which she attacked with gusto. With almost nothing left to the sandwich, and praises all around, she had finally eaten the same lunch as everyone else.
I guarantee that without using that successive approximation of licking, to infinitesimally small bites, to larger bites, we’d still have no progress.
Have we won the war? Nope. We’ll probably be able to get her to eat grilled cheese again with minimal effort, but I’m sure that any other “new” food she tries will take at least some degree of that same process. But we now have a strategy that works. After 4 days of failure with alternate strategies (yelling, bribing, punishing, & others), I’m thrilled to be making progress.
Those who know me may assume my own daughter can also do this. She can’t. Yet.
Smart kid. 
What follows is a guest post from my wife, who has had a bit of a difficult week so far.
I have come upstairs to … get AWAY from our 2 and 3 year-olds. They’re eating lunch. Or that’s what they’re supposed to be doing. They’ve been sick for days now. It seems like a very long time. I’ve been up with one or both every night for 4 nights now. And I’m tired. And I must say my patience … um, well, I have none, today. We’ve been to the doctor and to the pharmacy. And I’ve refereed more than my share of fights and arguments.
And just now I was sitting up here trying not to hear what’s going on downstairs in the kitchen. I’m confident that they can’t hurt each other ’cause they’re each in a highchair. But what they can do is argue . And they’ve been doing it well. “Sprite” (to continue on with Jeff’s given pseudonym) starts by saying, “It’s not fair!” (a phrase she’s picked up from a favorite video), and “Little Mommy” gets offended and says: “Yes, it is!” And then it just escalates into yelling: “IT’S NOT FAIR!” and “YES, IT IS!”
Sprite doesn’t really have anything in mind to protest. It’s just a phrase that probably reflects her feelings of wanting to fight. And Little Mommy doesn’t care what isn’t fair, she just needs to defend … whoever it is that needs defending. And so it goes. On and on. Until I call down and tell them that I’ll be down soon (though “soon” is being optimistic).
There are absolutely times that I feel like IT’S NOT FAIR! I love being a Mom. And most days I actually enjoy it. But when I haven’t gotten much sleep in 4 nights and have been tending to sick little people for at least as many days, I seriously want to have some time off.
And I have to say, right now as I’m typing this, Jeff has gone downstairs to forestall any mutinies, in order to allow me time to vent. So, here it is. Hopefully now I’ll be able to return to active duty and not completely lose my cool. I really do want to baby my sick babies and be a caring Mom.
Well … here goes.
Just a couple of examples of life with Little Mommy…
Sometimes I don’t give my kids enough credit
Recently Little Mommy and I were putting together a puzzle on the living room floor as bedtime approached. Mom was out of the house. Little Mommy is pretty good at puzzles for a 3-year old, but she’s not what I would consider a fast worker. I was beginning to wonder if we’d get finished by the time the bedtime rolled around. A few minutes before bedtime, however, we were leisurely, if not stresslessly, finishing up when the 2-year old came in and wanted to do a puzzle as well (to avoid perpetuating her nickname from the last post, let’s call her “Sprite”). I was not ready to start another marathon puzzle session with 2 minutes left before bedtime, so after a small moment of panic on both our parts we agreed to just have her show me how to put back the three pieces that fell out when she came over with the puzzle.
It was Sprite’s turn to shine. She could now show off how well she could do a puzzle. Coming on the heels of her sister’s success, this was a big-girl moment.
Sprite busily got to turning the puzzle piece this way and that, and back again (not because she was trying to fit the piece, but because that’s what you do with puzzle pieces). I gave her a few hints and she started to place a piece… but couldn’t quite get the pieces to lock. She was trying to slide them in, rather than place them down from the top. I gave her a little time to try to figure that out for herself, but Little Mommy couldn’t take the suspense.
Now, I should say here that historically speaking, this should be where Little Mommy grabs the piece out of Sprite’s hand and pushes everyone out of the way saying something to the effect of “I’ll show you how to do it!” She did in fact lean in and start to go for the piece. I was all poised to jump in and defend Sprite’s right to the piece when, in the calmest, most adult-sounding supportive voice I’ve ever heard escape her lips, Little Mommy said “You know, sometimes it helps me if I lift the piece up” while gently guiding Sprite’s hand in doing so.
Sprite’s reaction: no defensive jerking away and screaming… just “Oh! Thanks.” And the piece was successfully placed.
As I sat back in pleasant shock, I heard Little Mommy say “Good job!” and break into applause.
If I was a little faster in reacting on my assumptions at the crucial moment, I would have lost this little moment of happiness. Sometimes it pays to hang back.
English lessons
Sprite, Mom, and I were at the dinner table tonight trying to get Sprite to enunciate her words more — or at least stop using nonsense syllables when she’s trying to communicate. She does have a huge vocabulary, so it’s frustrating when she decides just to start mumbling nonsense while asking us to do something. So with a hint of exasperation we say “Sprite, speak English!”
From the hallway bathroom comes Little Mommy’s voice: “I speak English!”
Mom: “Let me hear you. What can you say?”
“Okay! Uno, dos, tres, quattro…”
It’s a good thing I had finished my Iced Tea.
Hero - it’s a nice boy notion that the real world’s gonna destroy.
- Steve Taylor
In the last couple of days I’ve seen two blog entries from totally unrelated blogs about “heroes”. Not the TV show, actual heroes. Our personal heroes. There’s another blog that brings up heroes too, but in a completely different way.
The first two blogs are beingfrugal.net and cpyu.org (you may have to scroll to the 3/4/2008 entry). The third (Quit Your Day Job) mentions a documentary about the lives of people who are attempting to make a living by dressing as superheroes on the streets of Hollywood for photos.
To quickly deal with the third entry here, it looks like an interesting movie. These people are basically pan-handling and there is something intriguing in seeing how they justify their life to themselves and others. It’s a bit more interesting to see that they’ve chosen superheroes - essentially savior figures - as their method of survival. How much of their character’s persona leak into their real life? Are they happy with their situation (it doesn’t appear so from the trailer)? Are they doing anything to escape that situation? Do they even see any of the options they have? It could be a moving story.
The other two blogs focus on personal heroes. People who inspire us. People whom we respect. I like what Walt says on his CPYU blog:
If you asked me to write down a list of my heroes I’d stumble a bit. I had heroes when I was a kid. … I suppose that as an adult I don’t often use the word hero. Instead, I talk about people that I respect and admire.
I’d agree with that (and actually, Walt is one of those people for me). It’s interesting that both of those blogs move away from the typical definition of a hero as someone to idolize.
Anyone who knows me knows I’m a fan of superhero stories. Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, and others are great reading/viewing, and (as with many fictional characters) can be inspiring and can teach some great lessons. They’re also great escape-ism. But they are fiction and ultimately are simply a figment of imagination. Many kids look to sports figures as their heroes. There is ample evidence (especially with the recent revelations of drugs in sports) of the failure of those athletes to be worthy of the title “hero”.
The lines of a song from the 80’s keep coming to mind: “Hero - it’s a nice boy notion that the real world’s gonna destroy” (Steve Taylor: “Hero” [see below*]). Earthly heroes will always fail.
Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t people to be looked up to - to be respected and admired. It’s just to be aware that people will fail so be sure you aren’t moving from admiration to worship or idolatry. (For what it’s worth, I believe the authors of those two blogs have that concept down.) As a parent, I think it’s extremely important to make that point to my kids. That’s not an issue yet for me — my kids are too young to have to deal with this — but it’s something that will, at some point, need to be taught.
Technorati Tags: heroes, cpyu, steve taylor, parenting
The Players:
So I’m sitting in my office, writing an email, the entire house quiet, when I hear Mom enter the playroom downstairs and stop short. Then an exclamation: “OH! What are you doing?” When that was repeated for the third time with the same mix of shock, wonderment and distress, I started listening closer. I couldn’t make it all out at first. I heard something about “don’t ever do that” and cleaning the chair. It was when I heard the terms “diaper,” “change,” and “don’t ever” all in the same sentence that I quickly went downstairs. Here’s what I saw:
Little Mommy with an eyes-wide look of “what happened? How did this go wrong?” on her face as Mom leads her slowly, carefully, away from her little chair. The chair is sitting next to the changing station, where Stinky is laying, legs splayed, bottom uncovered, except for some brown and white streaks (”I put cream on her!” Little Mommy was heard to say proudly). On the chair is… well… a diaper… and its contents… not at all well contained.
At some point, Stinky had informed Little Mommy that she needed a diaper change. Since Mom was indisposed, they worked together to — the order here is a little fuzzy — take Stinky’s pants off, move the chair to the changing table, climb up (it’s above head level for both of them), take off her diaper, “clean” her off with diaper wipes (also not easy to reach), and apply cream. It’s probably the best teamwork they’ve displayed all day. I’m not sure how the open diaper came to be on the chair. I’m not sure I want to know. I do know that when Mom brought Little Mommy back into the room, the latter was without her shirt, and I heard a lot of hand washing going on.
The diaper’s contents were mercifully solid. There was still a lot of cleanup to be done, on both children and the chair. It should be said that it was an impressive job for a 3-year old. She got almost all the steps covered. She even got the cream. It was the wrong cream, mind you, but she thought of it.
I think we got through to her that she was never allowed to do this again. I think. My poorly hidden laughter may have undermined that message a little…
Technorati Tags: parenting, diapers, growing up, toddlers
Quitting Facebook just got easier - NY Times
In the wake of the recent controversy, including NY Times coverage, Facebook has announced it will delete users permanently upon request.
The request must be made through a form on a revised Help page:
The updated Facebook help page now includes the question “How do I delete my account?” The answer: “If you do not think you will use Facebook again and would like your account deleted, we can take care of this for you. Keep in mind that you will not be able to reactivate your account or retrieve any of the content or information you have added.”
The entry then says, “If you would like your account deleted, please contact us using the form at the bottom of the page and confirm your request in the text box.”
This is a good move. I’m a bit more comfortable now. Though the generic warning to users to be careful what you post still stands (after all, anyone could copy anything you post), it’s good to know that at least the company I’m trusting with my data isn’t going to be the one using it without my permission.
Technorati Tags: Facebook, privacy
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