March 19, 2012  |  11:55am
Link: The First Sex Talk

I know this conversation is coming soon for Luke, so I am both amused and terrified by this report from discoballdad:

He’s only 8…the sex conversation(s) should be years away…right? Nope, sorry pops…this is 2012, where even in our perfect little town in the green mountains the kids are growing up too damn fast. (In grumpy old man voice) Hell, when I was a kid…(no, I kid..I actually DID grow up too damn fast). 

I’ve been thinking about having our first sex talk for a couple months now. I’ve heard a few stories from other parents - of kids both Finn’s age and a bit older - about how their kids come home from school telling them these absurd/comical/scary retellings of overheard sex conversations, usually from/between older schoolmates. I just wanted to make sure that if and when he does start to be part of these conversations in the near or distant future, he has good info to go on.  That said, I will say I was a combination of a typical stumbling over my words “How the hell do I talk about this kinda stuff dad,” coupled with “I’m a groovy 21st century dad with donor kids and we are going to not only talk about every possible (and not too hetro-centric) way that people have children nowadays, but also about how sex is a thing adults do even when not trying to make babies.

So the conversation went something like this (it was about a 20 minute talk, lots of paraphrasing and left out tangents)…

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January 13, 2012  |  11:00am

“You know, if we were birds, we wouldn’t have a rock collection.” — Luke [age 7]

We have a pretty extensive rock collection. I’ve only posted a fraction of the images here (the penny is for visual scale). We have several large boxes full of rocks, some even larger than these, though most a lot smaller. Many of them have been identified and labeled. We’ve been to our local rock shop several times for assistance in identifying rocks, and attended regional rock/mineral/gem shows. Luke is really into geology and is always picking up rocks when we go to new places, then bringing them home and trying to identify them with the various books we have. We’re looking into taking trips to retired gem mines that may still be open to interested rock hounds.

Rocks ain’t just for throwing!

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October 26, 2011  |  8:31am
Stop fighting!
[Scene: Beth, age 3, is engaged in a mock sword battle with Luke, age 7, against me]
Beth: "Everybody needs to stop fighting right now!"
Me: "What?"
Beth: [shouting] "STOP FIGHTING NOW!!!"
[Luke and I stop]
Me: "What's wrong?"
Beth: [gestures around at the trees and sky] "It is time to stop fighting so we can look at the birds and the sunshine!"
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July 27, 2011  |  2:40pm
Blue-footed boobies
[Scene: Luke, age 6, is waiting for a bus]
Luke: “Dad, did you know there was a bird called the blue-footed booby?”
Me: “Yes.”
Luke: “Why did they name a bird after women’s breasts? Breasts don’t have feet.”
Me: “I don’t know.”
Luke: “Or are breasts named after the bird? Like, 'Look, I’ve got two birds on my chest!'”
Me: “Look! Here comes the bus.”
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July 25, 2011  |  9:04pm

HUMMINGBIRDS: original video from Andimthedad.com

In June, after seeing a hummingbird in the yard one day, Luke and his grandmother set up a hummingbird feeder just outside our kitchen window. We noticed that it would get several visits every day. Only one or two hummingbirds seem to show up, but they came frequently. Unfortunately, the birds are very skittish, and we could rarely get a good look at them.

A few years ago, I’d received a Kodak Zi6 digital video camera as a Christmas present, but hardly used it. It’s capable of 720p HD video recording and includes a macro switch for close-ups.  Add in my $20 camera tripod and voila! — we’ve got a makeshift recording solution. We set the camera at various angles, turned it on, and just recorded for an hour here and there.

After we had 20 hours of video, we sorted through the footage in iMovie. Much of the video was useless.  In many cases, the birds avoided the camera entirely; its focal length is rather short (in macro) and so we had to place it in rather intrusive locations around the feeder.  Or we had angled the camera badly and the birds were too out of focus. Or there was a truly horrible background noise from a neighbor. In any case, we ended up with about 15 minutes of usable footage, which we trimmed down to this one-minute summary.

Enjoy!

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