30 min ago

Elliot and my cell phone

I feel like the persistent theme of my writing on this blog is:  Elliot keeps blowing my mind. And he does.

I've been letting him play with my cell phone recently.  No judgments, Luddites: sometimes you need a break, and that cell phone will keep him quiet for almost exactly the amount of time it takes to go to the bathroom.

My cell phone is old-school, by which I mean old.  It's about the size and shape of the old Nokia I used to have in the late 90s:

The reason I bring this is up is to demonstrate that Elliot can easily hold and manipulate my small, light, cheap-ass phone (unlike some selfish parents who care more about their 4G network than their own children.)

So as Elliot's been playing with my phone, he's learned that pushing the buttons causes things to happen on the screen.  I won't go into detail about what he's managed to do when I take my eyes off him.  But if you ever get a text from me that says "xxqwzzqiwn" then you know who sent it.

And so even now, at the tender age of 10 months, he understands this concept of pushing buttons while looking at the space adjacent to it.  This is actually pretty remarkable, if you think about it.  It wasn't so long ago that the only way you could make an object move or ring or jump was by acting on it directly.  Now you can make shapes swirl on a screen.

But that's not the crazy part of the story.  The first few times that Elliot played with the phone, he was fascinated by the buttons.  And he turned the phone so that the buttons were on top (i.e. the phone was upside down in his hands).

Over time he began to draw the connection between the pushing the buttons and seeing changes on screen.  And I assumed that he would start turning the phone the other direction.  In fact, I started handing him the phone right-side up to give him a hint.

Guess what he does?  He turns the phone back upside-down. 

To me the screen belongs above the keypad, but as I watch him play with my phone, I keep forgetting why that design used to seem so obvious and natural.  For Elliot, it's easier to hold the phone with the keys on top, because the phone is actually in his hand rather than jutting off the front of his thumbs.  I don't know about you, but I can relate to the annoying experience of gripping a heavy phone by the bottom edge because that's where the keys are.  

Elliot, unburdened by things like reading words, just grabs the phone the way that makes the most ergonomic sense.  Maybe we could learn something from that.

Tahoe Day # Who the eff cares

Flying home via Reno.  We were delayed, and all we got were these sweet wings:

Afternoon in Tahoe

After our morning in Alameda, we drove to Tahoe.  We were flying out of Reno, which cunningly allowed us an extra day on the lake.

Which meant an extra day on the boat.

I told you Elliot's legs were growing quickly.  You though that last photo was faked, didn't you?

We drove the boat to the beach for a picnic.  Marie warned us this would be difficult, but we didn't listen...ah, the folly of youth.  She was right.  We had to park the boat at the beach next door and hike (I am not making this up) for a hundred yards barefoot through knee-deep water with Elliot in his backpack carrying all of the supplies for the picnic.

I didn't take any photos of that part.

Marie, having heeded her own wise counsel, drove to the beach, set up her chair, poured herself a drink, and sat back and watched the idiots work.

Here's the fun part that followed:

Thanks to grammy Carole for the sweet gator outfit!

Shout out to Aaron, Daria, Carole, Andi (pretty much everyone but us, actually) who made the homemade bread-and-butter pickles you see in the foreground....

Post-bath playtime

Of course he won't actually play if the camera is there.

Happy Birthday Ed!

In tribute to the man who helped mold Hannah into such a wonderful person, here's a retrospective look at his grandparenting genius:

Thanks for everything, Ed.

We have this free-standing air conditioner in Elliot’s room.  It’s a gigantic hulking thing, taking a up a big chunk of the space near the window.  It’s the height of R2D2 with the same girth left-to-right, but slimmer front-to-back.  Anyway, this thing is programmable for a certain temperature, and it makes a loud clicking noise every time the A/C part of the unit turns on and off.  And that clicking sound--- as I write this, sitting here in the living room at 6am, listening to the ebb and flow of the noises Elliot makes--- wakes him up.

The ebb and flow of Elliot's noises is rather beautiful actually.  It goes back and forth between truly upset and vaguely annoyed, and not unhappy at all. At some point, if he gets very upset, they cross a line, the noises do, and become real distress and anger and betrayal at his parents and the universe and the Gods of Fate (all of which are somewhate conflated at this age, if I read my child development theory correctly).

But below that threshold, there’s a certain noodling noise that he makes, that’s kind of like a cry, in that it is high-pitched and sounds like it’s coming from a baby, but is in other ways not a cry at all.  There are characteristics to it.  It can have a sloping quality as he drifts off to sleep, trailing away as he struggles to maintain consciousness.  It can be curious, even interrogatory, the cry of a puzzler who can’t quite figure out where the last few pieces go.  It can be meandering, wandering up and down the scale like he's telling himself a story or conversing with one of the stuffed animals in the crib. 

Of course, I have no idea if he is conversing with a stuffed animal or poking a crib slat or has his face against the mattress.  As my high school physics teacher explained years ago (perhaps he had children), the act of observing a phenomenon changes it.  I cannot open the door and watch Elliot cry without affecting the cry.  This has a lot to do with an old house and a sticky door and a street light that is directly over my shoulder as I crack open the door.

Morning in Alameda

First a visit to the local Donut Shoppe.  It was 17 miles away but worth every mpg.

There was a gang of awesome 70-something dudes there, who I want to be when I am 70-something.  They go there every morning and shoot the sh!t.  On the morning we arrived, much was spoken of a scam email being sent from one of these gentleman's email accounts.  I tried to join in the joviality by pretending to drop my napkin near them.

We brought our donuts home, and then set off on a ride aboard the famed Marr paddleboat.

I guess I should have taken some photos of the boat itself.   You'll have to trust me that we're on a paddle boat.

But Google Maps confirms that my grandma lives on the Alameda lagoon:


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You didn't realize how quickly Elliot's legs were growing, did you?

After that we took off for Tahoe.

A Day in San Francisco

After Pat's party, we had a day or two to hang out in the city.  We discovered an amazing sandwich shop.

It's more hilarious if you know that one of Hannah's nickname is Mr. Pickles.

We hung out with Lee and Julie.

Apparently Elliot's not into the coffee shop scene.  Or maybe this is his performance art.

It happened to be Elliot's 10-month birthday (Aug 22), so we fulfilled one of our sacred traditions and found a bar that had a photo booth.  A nice side benefit, while in the bar, was the opportunity to take this photo:

Pat's 90th birthday: Part 2

When we arrived at the party, Pat was receiving guests in her usual fabulous attire.  Purple boa is her minimum level of flamboyance.

But we discovered that there was a twist:  all the ladies at the party were supposed to dress like Pat!

Hannah and Daria quickly ran off to raid Pat's closet.  This was the result:

The gentlemen were thankfully spared this burden. 

A good time was had by all.  Or at least, no one called the cops.  

Day #5: Pat's 90th birthday

On Sunday we drove to Alameda for Pat's 90th birthday.  I kept the car entertained with showtunes and country western songs.   God Bless America. 

At first Elliot was shocked by my beautiful singing voice. 

But soon he was enthralled.  And began to grow a tooth in support. 

Later we both sang some classic Isaac Hayes hits.

Then conversation turned to the debt ceiling.

Luckily, we arrived at the party just then, right as it was kicking into gear.

Tomorrow:  The surprise twist of Pat's birthday