sounds familiar Musing on the present. Reminiscing about the past. Posturing for the future.

the new “can i please watch a cartoon?”

Over the past few months Sharaun has more than once offhandedly mentioned to me that, during the days at home, she thinks about setting Keaton loose on the computer to play around. Keaton has an interest in the thing; how could she not? Her dad is practically tethered to one and her mom makes good use of the Facebook and the Tweeter on occasion as well. It’s only natural for her to desire to use this obviously magical machine herself.

So on Saturday I sat down and created a user account on the machine she could call her very own. For her user icon I used a box of crayons and the wallpaper is a huge spread of Princess Ariel (which she picked herself). I made the interface all magnified and simple thanks to the old-people options in Windows 7, and I got rid of all her desktop icons, notifications, and other distractions. She’s got one big icon in the middle of her desktop that launches Chrome and once inside I pre-loaded about ten or so bookmarks on the top ribbon for her to choose from. I installed AdThwart so she will see only content, and gave her a cursory lesson in mousing. And with that, she was off. Bouncing between bookmarks, she spends her time playing games on NickJr, PBS Kids, and a host of other edu-tainment centric kids’ sites.

Over the past few days she’s become quite good at navigating, and has picked up on the interface and controls surprisingly quickly (a child of a the technological age, I suppose). She knows how to repeatedly get to the same place consistently, figures out how to control games just by trial-and-error, and for the most part is self-taught. In fact, Sharaun and I have a rule that we’re not going to come to the call for “help” while using the computer. There are so many things she can do that will either take her away from where she wants to be or get her “stuck” or something that we told her up-front that if she feels like she needs help she can just click the ‘X’ in the top-right corner and start over. Hopefully that way she learns by herself and we don’t have to come running every thirty seconds (we learned fast that this should be our approach).

And now it’s all she wants to do. “Can I please watch a cartoon?” has gone by the wayside and, “Can I please get on my computer?” is the new hotness.

Hopefully we've done a good thing.  (Or at least a benign thing.)

Goodnight.

pointless little pockets

Saturday morning Sharaun had a hair appointment and I was on my own with the brood.

The job is many-fold, and yet ultimately defined by one prime directive: take care of the children.  Sharaun should not come back to find them A) missing, B) broken, or C) disfigured in any way.  As an adult, my brain tells me there are multiple paths to success when it comes to the directive.  In fact, the engineer in me reckons that, statistically, it would be very hard for me to not accomplish my charge.  So I take a nonchalant attitude towards the whole thing.  I'm a two-time dad, father of a four and a half year old girl who I think is pretty OK, I got this.

Anyway, on this day I was successful yet again - maintaining my streak.  And one of the ways I "personalized" my road to success on that particular Saturday was to choose "cute" yet undeniably manly outfit in which to dress baby Cohen.  In the end I went with a solid blue one-piece thing on top and these teeny-tiny little frat-boy khaki pants on bottom.  Oh man did that kid look sharp for a three-week old.

And as I was pulling on Mr. Cohen's miniature Sigma Chi specials I couldn't help but notice the level of "real pants" details, right down to the diminutive little pockets.  I had a moment then, thinking for a minute while looking at those small pants how absurd those pointless little pockets were.  "What's a baby going to keep in his pockets?," I wondered.  A spare pacifier?  Mylicon for those bender days on the boob?  Change for the tollbooth?  Kid's got pockets and no way to use 'em, let alone know they can be useful.  I felt like putting something in his little pockets, just to give them some purpose.  Maybe a baby girl's phone number or a stick of gum for his perpetual case of morning breath (you try staying fresh sleeping twenty hours a day).

In the end I left it as a lark.  But I really do love those pants on him.  One day he's going to be my big boy and in his pockets he'll have stuff like guitar picks and firecrackers and ball markers for the links.  For now I'll let them be empty, symbolic of all the concern he has in God's wide world.

Goodnight.

BPF

Friday.  Watched the Arcade Fire's live show from MSG on the big TV; the YouTube stream was surprisingly solid and high-definition.  Was great.  We should try and see them again when they come around for the new record...

I've written before about the plague the Lord placed on my face during my junior-high years.  Perhaps I was being punished for all the evil things I was doing.  With all my evil friends and all our evil urges and our evil homemade napalm and stolen cartons of smokes.  Whatever the reason for the curse, my previous entry recalls the way those pimples sunk my self confidence.  Sharaun, too, suffered from a particularly nasty attack of the pimples - although her time came much later in life.  Between the two of us then, we're like an acne survivors support group.  We should be able to at least provide some empathy to our kids when their time comes.

I write all this because I was reminded of it by little baby Cohen's "infant acne."  Our poor little man has a pretty ugly case.  Keaton had baby acne too, but I don't recall it being as pronounced as Cohen's is.  Maybe that's because his little-man body is simply bursting with awesome hormones (because his dad is so manly and strong).  I've taken to calling him "baby pizza face," out of love, of course - and Keaton has even picked it up.  BPF, for short.  Oh nevermind you who say I'm mean... it's a nickname and it helps me acknowledge to people who may see him and think, "Dear God, what's wrong with that baby's face," that yes: my little kid has zits.

Don't worry Cohen; don't let the world get you down... that acne's gonna clear up and you'll have perfect newborn skin again until you're twelve or thirteen.  Then, just when every flaw is under 100 social microscopes, it'll come back to test your mettle.  And if it couldn't best you when you were three weeks old, just think how much easier you'll fare with twelve more years under your belt to thicken your skin.

That's my boy; baby pizza face.