Touchscreen evolution

My dad sent me the two photos below. In the 1980s, he was the programmer in a startup called Microtouch Systems Inc. (later sold to 3M), helping develop a product whose potential applications no one could fully imagine at the time: the touch-sensitive computer screen. So here is a scanned photo of my brother (a.k.a. Uncle Aaron) in 1984, playing with the touchscreen on my dad's IBM PC.  Aaron would have been nearly three at the time.
(My dad says: "Notice the 5-1/4" floppy disks next to the computer.  Remember those?")

Little did we know. Here is my mom, the family's current fan of new technology, letting Henry and Esti play a physics game (something about cutting ropes and feeding frogs?) on her iPad. Need I tell you they were fascinated?

"Invented spelling" and independent songwriting

This happened while I was at yoga this morning.

This happened, completely spontaneously and without my help (except scribal) while Ken and Esti were napping (see below).

Happy Father's Day!

Weekend at the grandparents'

This pic was taken by my mom - in my absence! Hurray for free grandparental babysitting: the ability to go out to dinner (or sleep in on a Saturday!) knowing the kids are in good hands.

Then this afternoon we showed up and planted some cucumber plants (well, Ken did) alongside the tomatoes, while the kids kept cool as best they could.

I gather they behaved themselves. Esti even pitched in with some yard work to help get the picnic table ready for summer.

Spy Pond last Friday night

Henry: Now that I'm five, a lot of things are opening up for me.
Me: Like what?

Esti: Mommy push me! And Daddy push me!

Henry: Like, when I was four I would have been scared to climb all the way up here.

Esti: More more swing!

And that's all the blogging for tonight, folks!

Cambridge ukulele jam

Only in Cambridge? Harvard Square. About 50 ukuleles and one blue guitar. Yes, this actually happened.

Henry was pretty excited to participate.

He could handle the first couple of songs - then they got into chords he didn't know.

The fan club.

Accessories (hot day)

Henry's fifth birthday party

Finally, some pix of Henry's fifth birthday party held on June 4. Fortunately, the weather was beautiful, not like the week of rain we had immediately afterwards. Everyone got together in Waldo Park. Please note the well-behaved children, non-bored parents (we have nice friends! So does Henry!), and Star Wars-themed paper plates. You may also notice that a majority (but not an unseemly majority) of Henry's friends are girls. You won't see pictures of the swinging on swings and climbing and running around that took place, but there was a lot of that too.

This is Ada, one of Henry's love interests. To clarify: she is interested in him. There has been a lot of discussion between Ada and another little girl named Emilia about who gets to marry Henry. Emilia's recent pronouncement (to her mom, not to me): "Henry will marry Ada and me, but he won't marry Isa." Her mom explained that you could only be married to one person at a time. Emilia said: "Okay, so he will marry Ada, and then he will unmarry Ada and marry me and stay with me." (Henry apparently knows but doesn't much care about all this.) As our friend Sean put it: "Wow, these kids are so organized they're already planning their divorces!"

This was that half-inch-tall chocolate cake I mentioned. Julie, Ada's mom, helps Ken get the candle lit. It was quite a saga: we had neglected to bring matches, assuming that one of the 15 or so adults would be a smoker and have some. WRONG. Our friend Elias' heroic attempts with the cigarette lighter on his car (yes, it still has one) didn't quite work. Quick jog for Ken: four blocks home and back to the park.

And all worth it.

Against protecting our kids' feelings

What do people think of Lori Gottleib's article on self-esteem and "helicopter parenting" in this month's Atlantic?  I haven't finished it yet (only able to read snatches here and there in the stolen moments between spoonfeeding my kids their pre-masticated dinners and crowing over their abilities to fit together two Lego blocks) but am finding it oddly compelling.


In general, have you noticed the little backlash against self-esteem and even against "positive thinking" that seems to be hitting the parenting and teachering world?  Suddenly our vast overprotection efforts are threatening to produce kids who are fragile and dependent and ultimately unhappy! Ruin their character! Destroy their thinking abilities!  Let Asian tiger cubs eat their (organic, peanut-free) lunch!  I am enjoying all of this hand-wringing mightily.  I'll admit it has not yet much affected my own parenting style, which may be "tough love" by East Arlington standards but certainly looks more indulgent than some members of the older generation might be comfortable with.  (But why should everyone always be comfortable?)  Then again, I also mightily enjoyed the anti-breastfeeding backlash of a few years ago, eagerly reading the latest screed by Jill Lepore or Hanna Rosin as I pumped.  It's just nice to have someone question the pieties.



I should tell you one thing about Henry, though.  It's not that he can't take criticism. It's that he doesn't have a sense of context for criticism: doesn't understand why two similar observations can can be "teasing" or "not a very nice comment" or "something that could hurt someone's feelings" in school (where they work very hard on these things) but a constructive and actually necessary piece of feedback when, for instance, you are practicing ukulele and your mom would like to tell you that at a particular place in the song you are playing the wrong chord.  We waste a huge amount of practicing time in temper tantrums this way.  Yet I see the teachers at his school correct the kids (without being perceived as criticizing them) all the time.  Is it only with me that Henry takes it so personally?  And am I supposed to take that as some sick and perverse type of compliment?

Tonight.
Me: Henry, can I tell you something about the song you just played?
Henry: Is it going to make me unhappy?
Me: It shouldn't. It's just something to help you play the song better next time.
H: Then it's going to make me unhappy.
M: But why?  (Pause. Should I do this?) You know, I happen to be reading an article right now that says parents should be honest with kids about things like that.  It says that actually kids are strong.  And smart.  And they can figure out what to do with it.
H: I'm not strong.
M: So they don't have to get worried when someone makes a comment to help them do something better.
H: I know what you're going to say: that I shouldn't be so "sensitive to every little thing."  But I'm not.  It's just you.  You say all this really bad stuff.
M: Really? Okay.  Well.  The article also says it's okay for kids to get mad at their mommies and daddies sometimes.  So... do you want to play the song again? (He eventually does. By now it is almost bedtime.)

Would love to hear what my friends and relatives with younger and older kids think about all this.  Just please, no one say anything critical about my parenting -- I'm not sure I could take it!  :)

Mastering new technologies

My mom has acquired a Droid and an iPad2. Unlike me (a hopeless textophile -- I finally got a smartphone and use it only to send the same old dumb emails) she enjoys using them. Here are some photos she has sent me from these devices.

The one below was taken at "Clown Town," where she and my dad took Henry and Esti while babysitting on a recent weekend so Ken and I could make a 24-hour dash to New York to see Robin Williams impersonate a dead tiger. (The play wasn't great. Really nice to see the few friends we were able to squeeze in, though.)
Hopefully the example of being comfortable with new technologies will transfer to my kids. As you can see, they are learning to drive already.

(A candy apple at Clown Town.)

And Esti is well on the way (thanks to her ever-helpful big brother) to mastering the bicycle.

Not to mention new forms of pedestrian locomotion!

Can you believe she can climb all the way up this thing by herself?

Little girl behaviors (nurturing and otherwise)

I want to share two other "can you believe this" stories about Esti.

1) Procrastinating going to bed (and actually needing to go, it turned out), she asked after the whole bedtime routine tonight to go sit on the toilet.  So I brought her there and brought "Baby," a rag doll she is fond of.  Normally Esti would seat Baby (or Bunny or whomever) on her lap and show her how to use the toilet.  Then she would say proudly, pointing to the doll's bottom: "Baby pooped!"  But tonight she started rocking Baby in her arms, then propped her up against her shoulder and began patting her back.  "Baby tired," she said.  Then, in a whisper: "Shh.  Tiet [Quiet].  Baby sleeping."

2) Earlier tonight, but already at bedtime, I was trying to lure Esti into the big blue armchair for her bottle.  Ken and Henry came into the room.  Ken started teasing Esti: "Hey, so you don't want that bottle?  Maybe it's for me?  Should I go lie in Mommy's lap and drink some milk?"  Esti, of course, immediately got interested in the bedtime routine.  Ran over to me in the chair, grabbed the bottle, and said (Ken and I couldn't believe our ears, but we both heard this): "Ha-ha! Me-ee!"

Feisty girl

Esti will turn 2 in three months. She has become extremely articulate, feisty, and bossy. She's also pretty coordinated: can sit on Henry's old bike (which he rode at about 2 and 3 months), grasps the concepts of holding the handlebars and steering. She can pedal down the driveway. A couple of weekends ago my mom was away and we went up to Andover to visit my dad. While Ken cleared out a part (not shown) of that weedy sunny patch beside the front steps to plant a dozen tomato plants, Henry decided to take a spin on his baby bike for old times' sake.

Esti: "Henry, stop riding my bicycle! Go get your own bicycle, Henry!" (Luckily, he thought this was hilarious.)

Ready to roll.

But where do you think she gets all that bossiness?

The Egg

Uncle Aaron won an eleven pound easter egg in a raffle at an Italian Restaurant












It stood nearly as tall as Esti.
















 She could easliy have fit inside.












 And there was a doll in the plastic base.
















Henry would not have fit inside, but we tried to give him a sense of what the world looks like seen from inside an enormous chocolate egg.