Thursday, April 25, 2002

 
Beating down the IQ.

I have found out why some people just aren’t as bright as you know they should be. I made this discovery last night when I was awoke at 2:30 a.m. by the strangest noise.

Bong . . . . . . . Bong . . . . . . .Bong . . . . . And so on for about 10 minutes, until I could stand no more, and got up to look into this puzzle. After tracking the sound to Zakk’s room I made this realization.

“The IQ of these people was beat out of them as children.”

Now this isn’t what you are thinking, I am not referring to the beating of these children by others, but by themselves. To my astonishment Zakk was not awake, nor aware that I had come into the room. There he was curled up in a fetal position except upright on his hands and knees. Banging his head into the side of his crib! Now he wasn’t hitting the sides very hard, but after a few time of that you would think his head would hurt, and wake him up. Nope. He just kept banging his head into the crib.

I had to stop the noise so I went ahead and rolled him over and covered him up again, at which point he woke up with a really confused look on his face. I could not believe that a child could do that to himself and not wake up. And I can’t believe that this didn’t cause some negative affects on his poor brain.

posted by Jason 6:59 PM |

Thursday, March 07, 2002

 
The Big 2.

Today is Zakks 2nd birthday!

I am waiting on the edge of my seat for him to transform into . . . . “The Terrible Two’s.” I am pretty sure this is an instantaneous transformation that all of a sudden makes children Really bad.

I will keep you posted.

posted by Jason 4:18 PM |

Monday, March 04, 2002

 
Little Helper?

I decided I would actually vacuum my living room this weekend, even as futile as it is. So I break out the vacuum uncoil the cord, and get ready to start. Zakk decided this was a great thing, and that he wanted to help.

He did not let go of the vacuum the entire time I was using it. Even after falling over twice, completely loosing interest, and trying to play with a toy, he still held on.

This wasn’t working so well.

Halfway through he lost complete interest in actually paying attention to the vacuum, but refused to let go. So I am trying to move it around the hallway, and he is looking over his shoulder at something in the kitchen, I almost ran him over once when he kept walking forward after I had changed directions, and was pulling the vacuum backwards. His hand never left the handle so was being pulled backward, but his feet were still moving him forward. At about a 45 degree angle he realized his situation and tried to correct without falling over, which consisted of picking his feet up off the ground so that they would swing back underneath him.

I commend him on his basic understanding of gravity. But only partially, since he hadn’t quite gripped the handle strong enough to over come gravity on the upper part of his body. Thus resulting in him falling flat on his back, and almost getting run over.

Even after that trauma he still insisted on helping making a 15 minute chore take over 30 minutes.

So not only do kids make a huge mess that you have to cleanup, they also make cleaning it up take twice the time it should.

posted by Jason 6:21 PM |

Friday, March 01, 2002

 
Drowning in kisses.

My sister has started a new bedtime tradition for Zakk. Give Uncle Jason a kiss goodnight.

This isn’t so bad, but the kid drools like a water faucet, due to teething or something. And, he hasn’t exactly mastered the art of puckering. So his kiss ends up being . . . an open mouth drooling like mad, leaning ever closer to you.

Not exactly a sight that makes you want to give it a kiss. I have learned to aim for the cheek, but he has caught on, and every once and a while turns at the last minute, and I get slimed.

He always thinks this is very ammusing.

posted by Jason 2:17 PM |

Thursday, February 28, 2002

 
Perfection.

The state of perfection has been sought after for centuries, by the human race.

Well the human race minus all those with kids.

If you have kids and still think that perfection is attainable, you are schizophrenic.

I spent all of Tuesday evening after work cleaning up my living room. I dusted, vacuumed, cleaned the TV, and windows, and picked up all of Zakk’s toy’s. I finished, after Zakk went to bed. I got home last night to find that my living room and been transported from the past! Everything I cleaned or picked up on Tuesday, was back, and just as dirty. The TV was fingerprinted, the floor had crumbs all over it, toys were every where, etc.

I almost lost it, and then decided to just step over the mess, and watched a movie. (“Rat Race” Very Funny movie.)

End result, I felt better, but my living room is still a mess, and I have accepted that this is going to be how it is. (at least for the year he is living with me.)

posted by Jason 5:44 PM |

Wednesday, February 27, 2002

 
Simple Things.

My sister made a comment the other day about my nephew being thoroughly entertained by a very simple thing.

He would hold his sippy-cup an inch from my face, and I would blow in it, and then he would pull it back laughing. My sister was watching this and laughing along. This went on for a while.

Anyway, back to the point of the story, I told her she had a really silly child, and she made the comment, children are fascinated with very simple things. My thought to this was, we both wasted at least 10 minutes being just as fascinated with Zakk’s responses, as Zakk was with this simple game.

So my conclusion, “You never grow out of being amused by even the simplest of things, you just stop taking the time to notice the amusement of those situations.”

posted by Jason 9:22 AM |

Monday, February 18, 2002

 
TV Generation.

I was sitting in my recliner watching TV, when my nephew climbed into my lap with a toy. (Now I am pretty sure he was just imitating me, but.) For the first time ever, he sat there watching TV with me for at least 30 minutes. This being a record for peace in the house, I thought this was great since he wasn’t disturbing my show.

Usually He climbs up, realizes I am not going to play with him and then he climbs down, then up, then down, and so on until I have no option but to play with him, since I can’t watch my show anyways. But this time he just sat there watching TV with me. I didn’t really think about it then, but later it crossed my mind that this may not have been as good as I thought it was.

Mental image --------> the proverbial couch potato child at 28 still living with his parents because he doesn’t want nor has the mental capacity to hold a useful job.

Now I am not one to side with the media on the idea that all our problems with our children stem from the evil root of TV and computer games. That is for a different soapbox though. But this still got me thinking.

I am 24, I had a TV when I was a kid, but I had like 5 channels, on a 13” TV with no remote control. I have grown up with a TV pretty much all my life, and upgrades along the way to bigger and better, and more channels, as much of you have.

New Technology spurred in me more and more time in front of the TV, starting with a minimal amount of time. (With only 5 channels there really isn’t that much entertaining to a 5 year old.) My nephew though is going to be a little different. He is starting on a 56” widescreen TV, with 75 channels at least 5 of which are dedicated to children 24 hours a day.

Some of what I consider my best traits I developed out of sheer boredom. Examples: 1. I learned electronics/computers due to taking them apart after I got bored playing with them, and 2. my ability to illuminate a light bulb with my mouth, after playing with a broken microwave.

Will children nowadays just find TV boring enough to find something else to do, and thus gaining the same attributes we all got, or will they actually become less driven to entertain themselves because they are already entertained by something that requires far less energy, and is always there to please?

posted by Jason 5:41 PM |

Saturday, February 16, 2002

 
The perfect date:

There I was at the end of a perfect date (I put my foot in my mouth, a record low number of times.) I was standing on her porch, just about to give her a goodnight kiss . . . When, she opened her mouth as wide as possible, and started screaming and crying. The world around me disintegrated . . . .

. . . . I open my eyes to starring at my clock with the following un-godly numbers on them. 6:22. It is Saturday, my day off, my day to sleep in. It is 6:22! I didn’t even know this time existed on Saturdays. I thought 10:00 was the time that came about after Midnight Friday night.

So I lay there thinking that he has got to eventually shut-up, or his mother would eventually quite him down. Ah, No, I must have been dreaming again, because I finally gave up hope of getting anymore sleep around 9:30. I wander out into the living room to discover that Zakk is making sooo much noise, because he is overly irritated that the balloon we got him last night from the restaurant will no longer float on its own.

I get in the shower, get dressed, and then start making breakfast, when I realize that I can’t hear Zakk anymore. I look around and he isn’t in the living room anymore. I ask his mother, where’d Zakk go? “He was being fussy, since he didn’t get enough sleep this morning, so I put him down for a nap.”

“A NAP!?!?!?!”

As soon as I am up after 3 hours of him making non-stop noise, he decides its time to take a Nap?!?

posted by Jason 2:49 PM |

Friday, February 15, 2002

 
If a tree fell in the forest . . . .

There I was looking over peoples weblogs all week debating starting my own, and now that I have setup my own, my mind is blank!

From now on when I want to calm myself and enlighten my mind, I will no longer think of what “One hand Clapping sounds like”, or “If a Tree falls in the forest . . .” and so on, I will just try to think of what to type on my brand new spanking WebLog.
posted by Jason 6:37 PM |

 
Deception:

It is amazing how early in life we pick up the talent of deception.

I was watching my nephew while my sister was out shopping. He sees a toy on my desk, a Square 1 puzzle (Great twist on a Rubix Cube), he likes the color so he picks it up.

“Put it Back” I say, so he does. Exactly 5 seconds later, to a hundredth of a second, he has it back in his hand.

“Zakk! Put it back,” Hand goes up to the desk to put it back I assume he has. I look in 5 seconds to make sure, and wow there is no Cube? I look at Zakk, Still no Cube?

“Zakk, Put it back, I know you have it.” He immediately gets a look on his face of confusion and innocence. So I walk over to find out where the Cube went, and low and behold, he has it in his left hand hidden behind his body!

He isn’t even two yet, and he has the whole process of
1. Hide it while their not looking and
2. Deny everything.
posted by Jason 5:31 PM |

 
First Post.

I am new to this, but am not so new to computers or the internet. I am a software engineer, but this blog is not about my job. I will not be posting much if anything about my work. (Mainly because my job is really boring to most people that arent me.)

What this blog will be about is the rest of my life, now that it has changed so much. I talk to some of my freinds about these things, but thought it would be interesting to post it for others to read, or not read. I hope you find it entertaining, and if I get good response with it, I will upgrade to my own domain and hosting, but for now I am in test mode.

The Reason: (background)

I am 24 and I lived by myself in a 3 bedroom house for about a year, when my sister decided to move down from Seattle, WA and wanted a place to live. Since I had some extra rooms, and for some masochistic(sp?) reason said "you could live with me for a year or so". Well I have made it a month as of today living with her and my almost 2 year old nephew. (He'll turn 2 next month)

Being a bachelor, and never having lived with younger people around, I have made some rather interesting observations, about everything from human behavior, the learning process, to asking life questions like "Is it better to have a really fingerprinted, dirty big-screen TV in the Living room, or a clean big-screen in the bedroom sitting 4 feet away from it?"

So Here it is, my weblog. I will do my best to keep it updated on a regular basis, and I will try not to be boring. Fell free to let me know how I am doing. i can take it I promise.
posted by Jason 4:36 PM |