Tilting at windmills for a better tomorrow.
Miles: Daddy — Mommy is a robot!
Me: Mmmm hmmm. So if Mommy is a robot, what is Daddy?
Miles: Daddy is a Odd God.
Me: Now we’re getting somewhere. So tell me, what is God?
Miles: Daddy — Mickey Mouse knows God.
Amy: Miles, what does God want?
Miles: God wants milk!
Interesting way to wake up #317:
As I lay sleeping, Miles climbs up on the bed, takes a pacifier from his mouth, and puts it in my eye socket, covering the orb completely, like a patch. “Daddy, you’re a pirate!”
The difference between 7:00 and 7:30 Halloween night is like night and day. Sub-7 is the time for dream princesses and fuzzy bears, Bob the Builders and Thomas trains and kitty cats with penciled whiskers and sweet little Pippi Longstockings. At 7:30, they let all the 12-14 year olds out, and one of two things happen: Either kids show up decked out in elaborate face paint and homemade costumes, or they come with no costume at all.
“And what are you supposed to be?,” I asked a costume-free 13. “I’m myself, man. Just myself.” As tempting as it is to let them have their thang, I don’t succumb to this most lame of all Halloween ploys. “Where’s the effort?,” I ask. “The what?” “The effort. It’s not a free ride. You got to put some of yourself into this thing. Why should I reward you for plain old door-to-door begging, which is what it is when you don’t throw some spirit into it?”
I’ve had this conversation five times already tonight. One kid just stood there, slack-jawed, holding out his gaping, overloaded pillowcase as if I were kidding. Told him to give it some thought, and shut the door.
Woken up this morning by a cardboard robot named “Ow” dancing on my head — a hand-crafted gift from Miles (with help, but it was his idea, executed under his direction) to celebrate my 41st. Nothing like a birthday that starts with dancing robots. Later in the day, learned that he had decided to make his own snack. Got bread out of the refrigerator, applied butter with one of his play-dough knives, then put it in the toaster. The rules of the game change daily.
Papa’s got a brand new vice — and this time, it’s legal! Swivel-head, 5″ jaws, 3″ pipe grip, anvil surface. Bolted to the workbench today, a Gibraltar for the garage. Early birthday present from beautiful wife. Enjoyed being at Home Despot, seeing a mountain of these stacked on the shelves so high you have to get an employee with ladder privileges to get one down for you, imagining The Big One striking at just that moment, dying poetically beneath an avalanche of vices.
Now I just need something to crush. One tool at a time, I’m becoming my father.
Miles turned three recently. It’s been an amazing family year, from all angles. He’s talking non-stop, figuring out his world, delighting us, testing us, teaching us. He’s started preschool, started counting beyond 10, started spelling, in a rudimentary sort of way. But it’s mostly about climbing, building, exploring characters, digging nature, inventing, throwing stones. It’s all about becoming.
It strikes me as I look over this album how many of the images show him being reflective, or seeming pensive. That may just be because those are the moments he’s easiest to catch on camera, or because Amy likes to photograph those moments so much. But we are starting to realize that he’s a very contemplative little guy, fascinated by emotions and the sensual world. But that’s not the whole story — his introspective tendencies are counterbalanced by frequent bouts of physical joy and verbal giddiness. He reminds me of someone.
Amy and I have put up an album of images from his third year on earth.
Miles cuts through the crap, dodging a philosophical bullet:
“Miles, where do you think a balloon goes when it pops?”
“Into the garbage!”
Miles was sick recently, voice went hoarse, started talking like Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront.” In fact, so much so that we couldn’t help ourselves from encouraging him to learn a couple of lines from that famous movie.
This actually made for a nice opportunity to do quality/size comparisons between h.263 and the new h.264 codec in QuickTime 7. With default settings, the h.264 exports definitely looked much better, but also had larger file sizes. But by twitching the quality slider from High to Medium, the file size was chopped dramatically, resulting in simultaneous higher quality and smaller files.
h.264 version (requires QuickTime 7)
h.263 version (everyone else)
The other morning Miles and I awoke to find cat puke on the floor. He promptly slipped in a pile and landed on his can, seemed absolutely delighted. “Daddy, I used the kitty cat throw-up like skis!”
Last week he popped up from his bed and ran into the bathroom saying something about a badger. I came in to help look for said mammal. “Daddy, we have a badger in our house, I saw it, it was in my room but then it went into the bathroom, but I didn’t think we had a badger, but now we do.”
Today he got a toy steam roller named Rolly (from Bob the Builder). Played with it all day, talked to it in the car on our way to the lake. When I was taking him out of the car, he told me, “Daddy, Rolly is my best friend!” So sweet, I thought. Three minutes later, we arrived at the shore of the lake. Without hesitation, Miles hucked Rolly as hard as he could out into the water, where he promptly sank to the bottom of the briney pond. So much for best friends (Rolly was later successfully rescued).
Received the call tonight I’ve been expecting for 15 years: At 103, Grandma Hastings has passed away. My last remaining grandparent, Vada was born in Castena, Iowa more than a century ago, 100 years before my son. A schoolteacher who lived through the Great Depression, the popularization of cars, radio, television, the internet, two world wars, men walking on the moon, and disco, Vada was the mother of seven children, steadfastly unreligious and politically neutral, a good samaritan, a lifelong gardener, a masterful embroiderer, famous for Sunday waffles and the most amazing rhubarb pie you ever tasted (always homegrown and lovingly baked). Wife of a boxer and carpenter, never allowed to get a driver’s license or own a pet, unflinching in the face of adversity, never had a harsh word for anyone. In retrospect, she was a Classic American Grandmother, though I’ve never identified her that way before. She was just plain old Grandma to us.
Vada stayed healthy and alert until her late 90s. Only in recent years did she become bedridden, and begin to lose her eyesight and hearing. Every year for the last two decades, the refrain has been “Better come to Grandma’s birthday – it could be her last.” But it never was. She never seemed to get sick, never suffered any of the ailments common to such advanced age. She just. Slowed. Down. And eventually, inevitably, faded to zero, winked out, as all humans do, in one way or another.
I did a video interview with her in 2000. Now wanting to dig that up, hear her once again reflecting on her amazing century. May we all have such a ride.