Harvey is doing wonderfully.
For a while I was able to keep up with how many words he knew, but as is usually the case his verbal abilities blew past my tracking capabilities and he’s into full-fledged two-word phrases now.
It’s a good time to be a parent, I think, although of course there are the standard sort of hard parts. He’s deeply curious which is fantastic and highly desirable but also a bit hard to cope with. If he could just ignore those shelves, or maybe not play in that cupboard then letting him run around unattended would be much more feasible, and if there’s anything I’m looking forward to with him getting older it’s negligence.
It’s very easy to say long and complicated things to him and expect him to understand but when I remember to reign in my verbosity and he remembers to say (or sign – he’s got a handy little 30-or-so word vocabulary with his hands) what he wants communication is actually quite possible.
He’s approaching a point where physically he can do the core action he wants to do, but that also means that the things he can’t quite do are that much more frustrating. This is the case to some degree with words as well. He can conceive of the action he wants to take or the message he wants to get across, but he is just on the cusp of making his body do or say the right thing.
Round about last August things got simple. I’d started that sentence with the intent of writing “complicated”, but the truth is exactly the opposite.
I left my previous job in the middle of July, 2007. I was unhappy, unfulfilled and now that almost a year has gone by, I can say with some amount of confidence, petulant. The transition from employment, through unemployment, to employment did not go as planned. I ended up being without income until the end of October.
The good points are that I got to spend a lot of time with Jen and Harvey, which is just about my favorite thing in the world to do. I got to talk to a lot of companies to find out what most places in town are doing and what kind of people they’re looking for, and I got to realize that I am generally speaking not that kind of person.
I go through long periods of my life where I coast. Arguably, I’ve been doing it for my entire life, with occasional bursts of exertion to get ahead so I can coast a little longer. I had to figure out how to break that mold and what I decided on was patience.
I have spent a long time envisioning some magic day when someone announces to me that I have all the money I could ever want. Or, in my attempts at moderation, that I have all the money I could ever want for the next year. And unintentionally, and not consciously I had gotten myself into a waiting pattern until that happened.
That waiting pattern is a common thing for me. I decide that my weight will magically some day in the future be ok, and some day in the future I’ll know how to manage the things I eat and the things I do to my body to maintain it and keep it, you know, alive and so I don’t have to worry about the bag of chips I’m eating today because Future Rob will take care of it all.
I put effort off because it is hard to see the results, and it’s impossible to know when they will come. I know better, I know that things don’t magically appear and change in one fell swoop, but it’s a nice cozy fantasy.
I made a decision to learn to make decisions properly. I decided to make the choices that the person I wanted to be would make. As it turns out I’m actually not very good at it, but that’s the point of patience.
At various points in my life, I have been smart enough, lucky enough or exposed to enough related knowledge that when I would try something, occasionally I would be pretty good at it. And to get through life, being pretty good at something is often enough. The problem with it is that the things that you try and you aren’t pretty good at? It’s easier just to drop them and try something else because you’ll probably be pretty good at that thing, and being pretty good at something is pretty satisfying.
What I’m experimenting with now is learning how to be patient enough to get really good at things. Patience.
So, a lot has changed with Harvey since his little morality play.
Today when I got home he climbed up on the couch and laid his head down and pretended to nap, horrible fake snores and everything.
Earlier today Jen put a piece of paper in front of him, and some crayons, and he went to Scribbleville. Switching out colours, big loops, crazy lines all of that.
The other day he started saying “nonononono”, and hasn’t really stopped. He doesn’t actually mean anything by it yet, but it won’t be long until he stops ignoring our requests and starts actively refusing them.
He turned 18 months about a week and a half ago, and doesn’t show any sign of slowing down. At this rate, he’ll be two before next September!
We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses. Wicked, tricksy, false!
No. Not master! 
Yes, precious, false! They will cheat you, hurt you, LIE.
Master is our friend!
You don’t have any friends; nobody likes you!
I’m not listening… I’m not listening…
You’re a liar and a thief.
No!
Murderer.
Go away!
Last night’s trip was mildly less successful than the first. I clocked in at 50 minutes, so instead of knocking 15 off I gained 5.
I think there are a variety of contributing factors:
First, I’m out of shape. Even aside from my general body shape, I haven’t exercised much since Harvey was born and the work I’d done on the stationary bike isn’t going to pop back after one relatively short trip.
Second, I got myself into the middle gear of the pedal set, so the average resistance on my trip was increased. I was able to better take advantage of the flats and some of the favourable inclines (the ones where I go downhill) but I felt the hills in my thighs much sooner than I did last week.
Third, and this is a bit of a stretch, was the wind. The day itself was much nicer, being only 20 degrees instead of 30, but what was a great and refreshing breeze when standing around the office became a fairly forceful headwind at several points along Homer Watson.
Despite the time gain and the earlier presence of burning, several things did go right about the trip.
My recovery time was dramatically reduced. Last week it took about 45 minutes for me to really get back to normal, whereas this week it only took about 15. My physical response to both trips was less exhaustion, though my legs felt rubbery each time, and more something related to, but not exactly, nausea.
I am starting to feel a little more comfortable on the bicycle again. It may be true that you never forget how to ride a bike, but how well you perform certainly does degrade as time passes.
Both weeks my legs recovered admirably. They’ve quite obviously been used, but aside from some very mild stiffness there’s no after effect from the trip.
Thunderstorms appear to be on the way for tomorrow and it appears that rain is likely for the rest of the week so I will probably not get a chance to ride again for a few days.
I am mildly worried that I am doing subtle damage to the frame but carting it around in my trunk every couple of days, so I’m considering skipping the easier training portions I was planning and jumping right into biking in both directions next time the weather plays nice.
So, for the first time yesterday I drove into work with my bike in my car and rode it home.
Overall the trip went really well. Better than I was expecting, though not as smoothly as I was hoping, which probably means my hopes and expectations were pretty much where they should have been.
The trip is approximately 6.6km, according to my car’s odometer. I left the office yesterday sometime after (but not by much) 5:30, and walked in my house sometime before (but not by much) 6:15.
I am reasonably sure I can knock 15 minutes off that trip with a couple of simple improvements: I spent at least 5 minutes fiddling with my seat at various points finding the best height. I got caught off-guard by the sidewalk (more to come on that) disappearing for a while and having to take an unexpected detour. And for some reason, which I am currently figuring is my own incompetence, I was unable to get the left-hand gear shift to go from 1 to 2, meaning I was in the lowest gear set the whole time and at several points wasn’t able to properly take advantage of flat stretches and inclines in my favour.
There are three major hills on the trip, none of which is at a serious grade but all of which are fairly large. I had actually done a bit of reading on bicycle gearing (following a discussion in which I had my highs and lows totally backwards) and so within my limited range was able to take advantage of modern technology to make the hills better.
The worst part of the trip was just after the half-way point, at the end of the second hill. For those that know the area (like my future self) it was where the weird Huron Road interchange off Homer Watson hits.
This is where the sidewalk (yes, still more to come on that) disappears into a residential subdivision and I ended up having to chart a new course through it and the neighbouring industrial park to get back on track.
I don’t know if it was really a wall like the one I hear about runners hitting all the time, but there was a point approaching physical exhaustion that I was able to work through both from some necessary walking stretches and just by pedaling through it. It wasn’t much of a hurdle to overcome, but those are the hurdles I like: High enough to make you jump, but low enough to clear easily.
About the sidewalk thing. I know I should be on the road, and I plan on doing that this summer, but Homer Watson is a 70km/h road, a major in-route into the city, and very heavily trafficked at that time of day especially by 18-wheelers.
This is my first real outing on a non-stationary cycle in… gosh I don’t even know how long, but at least 5 years. And sure, you never forget how but I was wobbly. Really wobbly. At times (especially the really tired points) I was wobbling back and forth across the entire sidewalk.
So, I am sorry fellow cyclists. I betrayed the team and let the automobiles win, but I will eventually get my cycle legs back and let the pedestrians be.
In my defense, I did only cross paths with about 10 other people on the sidewalk. Two of them were also cyclists, and for all the others I got off the sidewalk and passed them on the grass. I know it belongs to foot traffic, and I know I was the interloper.
I was pleasantly surprised with how well I did, and even moreso with how well my legs are doing today. My plans at this point are to do the same thing next week on Monday and Tuesday, drive in bike home and get a ride in the next morning, and I am leaving the door open to a full bidirectional bicycle commute next Friday. Depending on how that goes, perhaps a couple of weeks coming in by bike on Tuesdays and Thursdays, then a switch to a Mon/Wed/Fri schedule for a couple weeks, and then the full five days per week.
The longer term plans (maybe not to occur until next year) include taking a different route, through the network of suburbs between my office and my home which ends up being somewhere between 12 and 13 km. There are several places where I can gradually increase the length of my route as my skill improves so it won’t be a straight jump.
In terms of gear, there are a couple of toys I’d like to buy but I do have the minimum requirements down. The number one thing I am lacking is a water bottle, and I intend on remedying that as soon as possible with a cheap-o one. I also need some bungee cords so I can ditch the backpack and start using the back rack.
Of less importance, but still desirable, is a set of panniers and an odometer so I can carry more stuff and get an accurate measure of how far I’ve gone.
All in all, I’m a very happy person today.
I gave a little presentation today about Web Application for the Communitech Web Developer’s Peer 2 Peer group. I think it went reasonably well, though there were certainly parts that could have used some smoothing over.
More practice next time.
If you’re interested in seeing the slides, I’ve got them online. Web Application Security
Right now, only the php source for the examples is online, and the links page hasn’t been updated with the suggestions given to me at the session. I will be uploading the new links page later tonight but probably won’t host functional versions of the SQL Injection and Cross-site Scripting examples.
This weekend Jen is going on a shopping trip with her mom, my mom and my sister. The obvious result is that Harvey and I are left at home to fend for ourselves.
We’re pretty good fenders though, so there are no worries and in fact I’m really really looking forward to it.
The possible negative is that Harvey has had a fever since early Tuesday (some people might call it Monday night) but that seems to be on the way out. Our ongoing adventures with the Canadian medical system has resulted in him seeing three doctors with slightly different opinions, all of which ultimately boil down to the fact that there’s nothing to worry about and Tempra is Good Stuff.
My excitement is building and revolving largely around the menu I’ve planned for myself, which consists of homemade pizza, nachos (made with Doritos the way my mother taught me), what I’ve taken to mildly offensively calling “Curraut” which is curried Oktoberfest sausage, the sausage and penne dish I used to eat for lunch all the time when I worked from home and my first attempt at making a very simple Pho.
I guarantee you that when she reads this, Jen will be happier than ever to have been out of the house this weekend.
On Wednesday night, Jen and I were stumped for somewhere to eat. My parents watch Harvey every Wednesday, and we try to treat ourselves somewhat nicely, either by eating somewhere good or bringing food home.
After humming and hawing for a while, my wife remembered Christopher’s. It opened in 2004 or so, while we were living in that part of the world (On Weber, between Ottawa and Fairview) so we still consider it new.
We also sometimes think we’re fresh out of high school.
We went without great expectations, but hoping to be pleased. What little I’ve heard has generally been positive, it has a great score at Restaurantica and there’s a solid review in The Record from when it first opened. We left a little disappointed, satiated, and open to coming back to try again.
I was really excited by the menu. There were a lot of great sounding dishes, plenty of thai influence and enough choices to please most anyone. Jen was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a beef entree, only a beef dip sandwich which didn’t appeal to her at the time.
Eventually she settled on the fish and chips, which someone nearby was already eating and had permeated the dining room with a very enticing smell, and a side Caesar. I happily ordered the Wicked Thai Chicken soup of the day, and the stir-fry special of the day, Pineapple Curry Chicken with Asian noodles.
Jen’s salad and my soup came first, and we were introduced to our word for the night which was “subtle”. The Caesar was tasted, and prepared with asiago cheese instead of parmesan which was a nice change of pace, but it was pretty lacking in flavour (read: garlic). The Thai Chicken soup was had a nice base taste but was anything but wicked. I’m pretty sure that something spicy was introduced to the soup at one point, but the two didn’t even shake hands.
Not too long after we finished our entrees came. The breading on the fish and chips was far and away the best part of the meal. It was dark and crispy on the outside with a small bit of fluffiness before the fish. It was what fish batter should be.
The fries were decent but pretty obviously not freshly prepared. I stole a few about halfway through the meal, and if they had started off crispy they weren’t by that point. Jen suggested that it was her copious use of malt vinegar that was the problem, but the fries I stole didn’t taste all that malty, either.
My Pineapple and Curry Stir-fry on Asian noodles was tasty, but uninspiring. The whole dish tasted store bought, like something I could have taken from the freezer and nuked into edibleness for a lazy dinner.
The most shocking thing to me was the chicken. It was fine, but it sure seemed like frozen strips of chicken breast that had been reheated and cut up.
So all in all, it was a decent meal, but not great. It was a Wednesday night, a touch on the busy side and as near as we could tell there was just the one chef and waitress. Any number of things might have contributed to the problems we felt there were. We’d both had long days and we weren’t keen on any particular sort of dinner, so maybe our taste buds were underperforming.
Maybe the chef was new or young, maybe she was having a rough night or had had a long day herself. I don’t know. The food was prepared well, and the flavours were well balanced but they didn’t live up to the promise. I like simple but strong flavours that aren’t afraid of being what they are, and for our meal, everything tasted muted. Not enough garlic in the salad, spice in the soup, crunch in the fries or curry in the sauce.
We didn’t leave with a strong desire to come back, but we both feel that it’s worth going back sometime to make sure that it wasn’t just an off night. We were full and reasonably happy and didn’t have to cook and the meal wasn’t at all expensive (about $10 per entree) so it had a lot going for it.
I was thinking the other day that Harvey is doing all this growing up stuff, and there’s only so much that can be captured through pictures and video and such, and it kind of makes me sad.
There’s a picture of him from when he’s about a month old or so, wearing a fuzzy outfit with ears (I like to say it’s part of a small series) and it just kills me.
It wrenches my heart because no matter what he’s never going to be like that again because I took the month of September off, and that particular confluence of events is entirely unique.
But pretty much every moment with Harvey is pretty unique. Babies learn so astoundingly fast and change so much that what was brand new behaviour yesterday is commonplace today and is old news next week.
At this point, at almost 6 months old, Harvey’s eating several types of mushy food (boy does he love green beans), he can roll over (but most of the time just grabs his feet and rocks side to side), he is really pissed off that when he tries to get to something in front of him he pushes himself backwards (he hasn’t figured out how to get up on his hands and up on his knees at the same time, and alternates between the two) and so much else it’s impossible to track.
The other day I tried helping him out with that crawling thing and I put him up on his hands and got his knees up under him at the same time. He stayed there pretty good for a few seconds and then I let go and he lasted another one or two and then everything splayed out from underneath him and he ate some of his squishy alphabet puzzle mat stuff.
He didn’t like that too much.
We’ve gotten him into a fairly regular routine, with food and nap times happening at approximately the same time most days, and most importantly he’s only getting up once most nights to kill a bottle, belch for a couple of seconds (seriously, the boy has resonance) and fall back asleep.
Not every night, mind. I do still get to curl up with him every now and then in our bed to get him calmed down and sleeping soundly, which is turning into one of my favoritist guilty pleasures.
