Bummer

The other day, I was talking on the phone and got another incoming call. I pressed the wrong button and managed to hang up on both calls. I told her what I did. She looked at me very seriously and said, "You pressed the wrong button and hung up on Daddy? Bummer."

My daughter the engineer

Two things happened recently that convinced me that Alana might well be an engineer in the future.

First thing happened when we were out at lunch with the whole family. Alana was sitting in a high chair with the straps buckled. She put on her vest and was trying to zip it up around the straps and I was trying to tell her that it wouldn't work because she was in the way. Of course, she wouldn't listen to me and kept trying and trying and getting more and more frustrated. Andrew turned to her and said, "Alana, you can't zip it up that way, it's physics. Two things can't occupy the same space at the same time." Alana looked at her A-goo, then turned to me and said, "Oh, physics. OK." and stopped trying until we got everything sorted out.

The second thing happened a couple of days ago. Alana built a bridge between the couch and the coffee table with one of the couch cushions. She spent some time playing underneath the bridge. After a while, she came out to stand next to me and leaned on the bridge. It collapsed under her weight. When she stood up, she looked at me and said, "Mama, the bridge... it's not very stable."

Good thing I don't have anything against engineers. *g*

I wish my days could go like this

Alana told us today, "I'm going to work, bye-bye." and went into the mudroom. A minute or so later, she came back in. Keith and I asked her how her day was and she replied, "It was fine, my problems disappeared."

I wish that would happen to me!

Getting an early start

So Alana got her first credit card offer yesterday! We signed her up for an airline mileage program and that must have put her name right onto the mailing lists. Sometimes, the efficiency of the marketing world is a little frightening.

Budding Red Sox Fan

Alana came home tonight and asked her father to play "Red Sox" with her. We found a soft baseball but she insisted that she needed a glove in order to really play.

What a Beautiful Day

This morning turned out to be grey and foggy but Alana and I had to run some errands. As she's riding in her car seat, she tells me, "What a beautiful day!" I said, "Really?" She says, "Yes, that's what Auntie Tricia says, 'What a beautiful day!'"

That's not the way you do it!

Alana's friend, Shen-He, was banging on Alana's toy piano. When she heard the ruckus, she quickly ran over to him and said, "That's not right." He wandered over to play with another toy and she sat down on the piano bench and pressed the keys and sang a song. She turned to Shen-He and said, "That's the way to do it."

Thank you Larry & Jess for giving Alana the toy piano! She plays with it every day. If she's not playing notes on the keyboard, she's dancing to the demo music. It's been a wonderful toy!

Writing an email

I just told Alana it was time to get changed for bed and she told to wait, she just had to finish an email. I have no idea where she got that from! Yeah, right! *raises an eyebrow in Keith's direction*

AST 2005

AST 2005 went off without a hitch! About 60 people came to the party and enjoyed the pool and the pond. This seemed to be the year for kids at the party! Everyone played outside until it started to get dark and then moved the party inside. Everyone brought yummy food and we got to see a short movie called Candy Bar, by Daniel C. Amazing work for a 10 year old!

MIT Stuff

I was just given an article called "MIT Nerds" from the June 2005 issue of Discover. It captures the spirit of the place very well, and brought back lots of fond memories (with 10 semesters across 11 years at the place, I've got a few!). My buddy Eric Vesper refers to MIT as "a place for the terminally curious", and that sums it up in a nutshell. The aforementioned Discover article mentions a bunch of famous MIT alums (Hugh Lofting, author of Dr. Doolittle...I had no idea!), and notes that "At a guess, none of them were normal, either. No one seems to be normal at MIT." Nice to know some things never change.
Personally, I think this is one of the great strengths of the place. There's such acceptance of intellectual and personal exploration (to the beat of one's own drum) that folks can really push the limits.
As another example of why I love the place, I attended a musical performance a few weeks ago that included some works by Prof. Peter Child. He played some piano works in which each hand was playing in a different key. Challenging stuff, but it really worked. It was interesting to hear the implied mode change within a couple of notes... Peter wrote some of the pieces for his daughter, who at 11 or 12 played them in one of the best renditions of the piece Peter has ever heard. Shortly after playing them, she quit piano (though he said he's not willing to attribute any causal relationship between the two events). I'll do another post at some point with my thoughts on MIT, both good and bad. I'm actually President-Elect for the MIT Club of Boston this next year, so I'm spending a fair bit of time thinking about it.

AlanaCakes

So AC came down and addressed Alana as "BabyCakes" yesterday. Alana was quick to correct her... "No, Mommy, it's AlanaCakes, actually." Love the 'actually'. She's got a bunch of Taiwanese and English, and a smattering of Mandarin (from visiting Jo-ai, Olivia-poh-poh, and Andy-dee-dee).

DOINGS:
We had a great Christmas in NH at Keith's parents' place. AC made many of our gifts, including Kitchen-Aid covers for Kim and Mom, round and straight knitting needles cases for Kim (still in progress), and calendars for the grandparents/uncle/auntie (through Sony ImageStation). Keith and Alana were sick, and unfortunately, one of us gave the violent stomach flu that we thought we'd just recovered from to Keith's Mom... We spent several hours in the middle of the day at the emergency room with Alana (second time in the emergency room, both times out of town. This time, it was the right arm. Last time it was the left...) She was sitting in the middle of my parents' living room, rolled onto her arm, and started crying...perhaps a dislocated shoulder. I manipulated it gently, and felt her shoulder 'POP'. X-rays showed nothing, and emergency room docs said to just watch her. She has started using it more and more over subsequent days, so we think it is OK.

ALANA STUFF:
On our annual post-Xmas trip to the Dartmouth Book Store, Alana looked down the stairway at Keith, who was browsing and lagging behind, and called "Honey? Huhhhney?" Keith's just happy that AC doesn't call him something even more cutesie !

She's talking up a storm now, in both Taiwanese and English. She copies everything, and loves to get other people involved (watching her drag all of her grandparents' generation onto their feet to do "Itsy-Bitsy-Spider" or "Head, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes" is hysterical...she's not happy until everyone's participating--COMPLETELY and CORRECTLY. I anticipate trouble...)

SIMPLIFYING:
Monday, while taking two breaks from what turned into an all-nighter work session (about 20 hours, but very productive), Keith re-organized the tupperware and one of the kitchen gadget drawers. Doesn't sound exciting, but the stuff fits better, you can see everything when you open the drawers, and we recycled a bunch of lids that don't have corresponding containers. Simplify, simplify! We also cleaned out some kitchen gadgets that we never use, putting them away for the town yardsale when it comes next year.

After meeting with Ford & Robyn on Tuesday, Keith also picked up some shelving at Home Depot and came home and installed it in one of the hobby room closets. Much better for our crafty stuff!

ANNOYANCES:
Last night Keith waited for three hours on the Mass Pike on his way back from a trip to NY--there was a head-on between two 18-wheelers when one of them swerved to avoid a cow on the highway. Crazy stuff. He did some work in the car while sitting there.

Our Christmas calendars look great (very good printouts), though they screwed up our order TWICE, and we're still waiting for the right calendars for Keith's family.

READING:
The E-Myth, by Michael E. Gerber (boy, do I see myself in this book...recommended as a whack on the head to help think about what's important in your small business)

Guns, Germs, and Steel (recommended to me by Ziploc. It's fascinating...gives a compelling argument that environmental factors were much more important than any genetic factors regarding which cultures were conquerors and which were conquerees. World history in a nutshell.)

David McCarter's VB Tips and Tricks (some good shortcuts for projects we're working on at the office)

(on tape, recent road trips) The Professor and the Madman (sad and fascinating story behind aspects of creation of the Oxford English Dictionary)

(on tape, recent road trips) The Comfort Trap (Talks about learning how to stretch beyond your comfort zone to get where you want to go. Several approaches presented, pretty good set of ideas to motivate yourself when you need to surmount a psychological obstacle).

(on tape, recent road trips) The Moral Intelligence of Children by Robert Coles (He argues that parents influence their children's behavior, and that kids are very smart at detecting when it's genuine as opposed to when it's all a facade...I don't think I learned anything about child-rearing, but definitely agree with the premise).

(on tape, recent road trips) Change Your Life In 30 Days by Ronda McIntyre (seems a good approach...I listen to these self-help and pop psychology ones as much to think about helping keep employees motivated as to keep myself motivated. Not sure it works, but there's often a nugget that's useful).