Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 626
March 20, 2011
Toddler manipulation
When Clara wakes up every morning, I wait about fifteen minutes before extracting her from the crib. Although she often sounds wide awake and quite ready to begin her day, she will often fall back asleep if ignored.
Sort of an fatherly version of the snooze alarm.
Last month she began purposefully lying for the first time when started claiming that there was a "poopy in my diaper."
Knowing that this awareness is the first sign that a child might be ready to potty train, I ran up the stairs upon hearing these words through the baby monitor, only to find a clean diaper and a child who desperately wanted to be removed from her crib.
She lied to me, knowing the claim of poop would send me running.
Since that day, her declarations of poop are now ignored (a girl who cried wolf situation if ever there was one), so she has become more creative.
Yesterday morning she awoke and shouted, "I want some more Mommy Daddy please!"
She seems to have learned that tugging on the heart strings is always effective.
Practicality can also be effective, as it was this morning when she cried out, "Mommy! Daddy! I need some Boogie-Wipes!"
She's been feverish and snot-filled for two days now, and she was indeed in need of a Boogie Wipe.
I expect that this is just the beginning of a long line of attempted manipulation.
March 19, 2011
What is my girl thinking?
Here's the latest scene that my daughter left behind in the living room.
I'm not sure how to interpret it.
It's important to note that Super Grover is Clara's favorite character.
Even so, doesn't it look like he's in trouble here?
The French reverse course after 25 years. Proof that Better late than never is not always true.
In 1986 the US bombed Libya in response to the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing. The bombing killed three people and injured 229. Germany and the United States obtained cable transcripts from Libyan agents in East Germany involved in the attack.
Prior to the berlin bombing, Libya had already been connected to several other terrorist attacks, including the December 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks. In addition, Gaddafi had indicated that he would continue to support the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, and the Irish Republican Army as long as European countries supported anti-Gaddafi Libyans.
The Foreign Minister of Libya called the massacres "heroic acts."
Despite the overwhelming evidence indicting Libya's direct involvement in terrorism, France refused to allow American warplanes to use its airspace during the attack.
I know it's twenty-five years later, but could someone please explain to me why France is now leading the charge in establishing a no fly zone over Libya? France championed the United Nations resolution like no other country and is now the first nation to have warplanes in the air.
Just this afternoon they began firing on Libyan ground units.
What gives?
We knew this guy was bad in 1986.
And had US warplanes not been forced to fly over Malta on their way to their targets (thus warning Gaddafi of their approach), we could have eliminated Gaddafi for good twenty-five years ago.
The result of missing Gaddafi?
Libyan state-sponsored terrorism continued.
In September of 1986, the Libyan government ordered the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Pakistan, which resulted in the deaths of 20 people.
In May 1987, Australia deported diplomats and broke off relations with Libya, claiming Libya sought to fuel violence in Australia and Oceania.
In late 1987 French authorities stopped a merchant vessel that was delivering 150 tons of Soviet arms from Libya to European terrorist groups.
On December 21, 1988, Libyan agents brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people aboard, and 11 people in Lockerbie.
It's now 2011 and I'm pleased to see that France is supporting the no-fly zone and protecting Libyan civilians, but aren't they a little late to the game?
Had they simply allowed American warplanes access to their airspace twenty-five years ago, the world might be watching an entirely different dictator slaughter his people as they wage war for their freedom.
Disabling a natural phenomenon
In the White Mountains of New Hampshire, at the bottom of a beautiful waterfall, you will find The Basin, a granite pothole twenty feet in diameter. It is believed to have been eroded 15,000 years ago while the North American ice sheet was melting. It has been smoothed by small stones and sand whirled around by the Pemigewasset River.
The Basin was a favorite spot of Henry David Thoreau.
In Samuel Eastman's White Mountain Guide, it is described as "One of the beautiful haunts of Nature, a luxurious and delicious bath fit for the ablutions of a goddess."
That is, unless two twelve-year old boys decide to spend the entire day damming up the Penigewasset River and drying The Basin up.
The river, which is more like a wide, slow stream in the summer, meandered its way through our campsite in August of 1984. And since it was hot and humid that day and there was little to keep us occupied, my friend and I spent the majority of the morning and afternoon attempting to dam up the river.
And since we were accomplished Boy Scouts at the time, we took the challenge seriously and were well equipped for the job. We felled trees across the river, moved earth into the riverbed from a nearby campsite, and made use of several large stones and a pair of campfire benches in order to create the most water-tight dam possible.
We didn't stop the river completely, but we reduced the flow by more than half.
When the park rangers who supervised The Basin finally made the three mile trek upriver in order to determine what had caused the roaring waterfall that filled The Basin to dry up to a trickle, they were surprised to find two sweaty, dirty boys shoring up a dam that had already managed to flood three empty campsites and much of the valley behind them.
We denied any knowledge that The Basin was downstream, and because there were no parents present at the encounter, that claim went unchallenged, even though we had spent much of the previous day at The Basin, hatching our scheme.
According to one of the park rangers, there was "barely enough water coming over the falls to fill a tin pot."
Under the rangers' supervision, we disassembled our dam and restored the flow of water downstream, but not before receiving a stern warning about ever doing something like this again.
I learned three important lessons that day.
1. Even twelve year old boys can alter the course of Mother Nature with enough time, determination and wood cutting paraphernalia.
2. Park rangers are like mall cops. They can't do much other than wag a finger, issue a few meaningless warnings and force a couple of boys to take their dam apart.
3. Timing is everything. Had we left an hour earlier to view our handiwork (as my friend had suggested), we would have made it to The Basin in time to see the trickling waterfall and dried-up granite bowl. And while we took some satisfaction in the park ranger's description of the scene, the ability to actually view one's accomplishment is infinitely more satisfying.
March 18, 2011
Wrongheaded teachers, unpalatable kids, and ignorant men
I was quoted again on Twitter this week. From UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO came this quote:
There are no incomprehensible women. Only ignorant men.
And while this is indeed a line from the book (I can actually remember writing it), it is not necessarily a belief that I possess.
Which is odd.
Yes, I'm the author of the line, but in reality (or perhaps not in reality), the real author of the line was a character who does not necessarily share my opinion on the matter.
Tricky. Huh?
But if it gets me into Bartlett's, I don't care.
In my continued effort to attain an entry in Bartlett's comes my latest quote:
The teacher who assumes that students intrinsically want to learn without any kind of convincing has forgotten what it is like to be a kid or was not the kind of kid who I would have wanted as a friend.
Deserving of death
Perhaps my vegan friends can leave the poor, defenseless plants alone and eat this instead, as Slate's Nathan Thornburgh suggests.
Do the world a favor and help eliminate an invasive species of fish and stop devouring the only living beings that are actively engaged in the battle over global warming. By removing and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere, plants help to reduce greenhouse gases as they have been doing for millions of years.
This is more than I can say about most Republican lawmakers.
Yet we continue to kill them at astonishing rates.
The plants, I mean. Not the lawmakers.
With this in mind, I suggested that a vegan friend consider switching from field greens, spinach and broccoli over to a plant like kudzu. If you're going to kill and devour benevolent plant life, at least make it a point to murder an invasive species in the process.
"Is kudzu edible?" you may ask.
Apparently so.
Appalled by how much the government spends fighting kudzu, Juanitta Baldwin, author of Kudzu Cuisine, started looking for culinary solutions to the problem more than a decade ago.
"Kudzu is a hidden goldmine," says Baldwin, whose book includes innovative recipes for kudzu, including breads and jellies.
See? it's practically an all-in-one plant. Throw in some peanut butter and you can use kudzu to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Who would've thought?
Don't get me wrong. As invasive a species as it may be, I still think it's a shame to kill kudzu. It's still a plant, and it's still actively removing carbon from our atmosphere.
But if it's a choice between benevolent broccoli and pacifist parsley or the plant that ate the South, why not try kudzu?
Not that any of this will matter. I fully expect that scientists will one day discover that plants are sentient beings, capable of thoughts and feelings, and all this kindness to living things fortunate enough to have feet and flippers will go right out the door. Vegans and carnivores alike will finally have to accept that no living being is more precious than another.
Either that or a plant-based species of alien life will visit Earth and become enraged upon discovering that there are human beings who have dedicated their entire lives to the consumption of their distant plant cousins.
And you just know that these leafy aliens will be armed with death rays and exploding tree nuts.
March 17, 2011
Daddy and a writer in that order
My daughter has a keen knack for understanding and remembering names and relationships.
When asked to name a child's parents, she can often tell you the parent's first names. She can do this for family, friends and even some of her classmates at school. And she is just as likely to speak about a parent as she is about the child with whom she has been playing.
"Where are we going today, Clara?" I recently asked.
"With Ella's daddy, Jeff," she said, even though Ella was also going to be present.
This evening Elysha was asking Clara about the names of people and their relationships when she asked Clara who her own parents are.
"Clara Mommy Elysha," she said.
And then, "Clara Daddy Matt writing book on computer."
To Clara, I am a daddy first, but writer is a close second.
This parenting stuff is easy
My daughter is now two years and two months old.
I have yet to install a car seat in my car, nor have we ever moved the car seat from my wife's car to mine. We have simply managed to get by with one child-proofed vehicle.
We have yet to install a gate at the top of bottom of our staircase.
We have yet to place a locking mechanism on any cabinet in the house.
I'm either a terrible father or my wife and I are big-pimpin' super-efficient parents with a compliant-as-hell daughter.
Either way I win.
Of course, she's still limping like a wounded vet with shrapnel buried in his leg, but that didn't stop her from sliding for about thirty minutes yesterday.
March 16, 2011
Undies in the mail
I've been working on a blog post dealing with productivity and efficiency for the past several days, but it has grown so long that it might make a better book.
Sort of a side project. Self-help. A new genre for me.
Like I need another side project.
As my wife said, "Is that really the book you should be writing?"
Well… maybe?
Anyway, in the midst of gathering productivity ideas, I was reminded about the genius of Manpacks.
Manpacks is a company that will ship you fresh underwear every three months. Rather than waiting for my wife to throw away enough of my underwear to make staying in underpants throughout the week a challenge, Manpacks will simply send me fresh pairs four times a year without me ever having to remember.
I am always in favoring of outsourcing, and when the outsourcing can be done without any thought or coordination on my part, that's just an added bonus.
And if it stops my wife from having to buy me underwear every Christmas, even better.
I only wish I had thought of this idea first.
