It totally freaked me out this morning when M. came walking around the corner on her own.
Month: August 2005
Being married to a pediatrician, I’ve learned that developmental milestones for infants/toddlers are very fluid. For every kid that does something right on schedule, there are two who do it early and two that do it late. Despite my knowledge of this, it has still been a little disappointing that M. hadn’t started walking yet. After all, her boyfriend Big Sam Beardslee was walking at what, nine months? Seven months? Six months? Something ridiculous. That frustration ended Wednesday.
I was picking her up at my in-laws after class and we tried to get her to walk to her grammy. M. marched 4-5 steps, which she had done a couple times before, right to her. So we backed her up. Despite never having done it before, she walked a full five feet! Then she went nuts, walking all over the place. Walking in circles, walking to specific objects. Squatting to catch her balance then standing to walk again. For about ten minutes, she was all over the place, pausing only to applaud herself or catch her balance against a supporting object. It was hilarious to watch her body going three different directions at once, yet she still had enough strength and focus to keep moving forward. They really do look like little drunk people when they’re taking their first steps! Naturally, both the camcorder and camera were at home, so I had to get some video of some steps later in the night, when she was much more tired and less willing to jet around the room. But my girl is walking, and that’s all that matters tonight!
We’ve been trying to take M. for long walks in the morning. It started one morning when she got up at 5:00 AM, took a nap from 7:30 until 9:00 and I was faced with a long, hot day in the house with little to do. I put her in the stroller and took off for a 45 minute walk. It worked so well we went for another 50 minute walk that night, and an hour walk the next morning. When your wife is working for 24 hours, you find little ways to shorten the day!
M. seems to love these walks, sitting back silently, more often than not, and taking in all the details. When she sees a dog or cat, she’ll point and jabber about it until it is out of her sight. She keeps a sippy cup in her hands or lap for periodic drinks. I like to think the fresh air, the smells of trees and grass and flowers, the views of nature are stimulating the little parts of her mind that Baby Einstein DVDs, books, and CDs can never reach.
Today was an especially nice morning for a walk. It was dark, foggy, and misty here. Dark enough that the nighttime crickets were still chirping away happily in the trees and grass. The mist was light enough that you only felt it from your forward motion. One of M.’s favorite summer games is to run through sprinklers with us. Periodically, she would open her palms to the sky and say something in M.ese which I believe can be translated to, “Now where is that sprinkler I keep feeling and when is daddy going to run me through it?” We walked along two rather busy streets for part of our journey. I think a lot of people smile whenever they see a baby out for a walk with its parents. But for some reason I think the smiles are a little bigger when they see a baby alone with its dad. It’s unexpected, a little unusual, and extra cute, I guess. Or maybe that’s just me imagining that. It does seem like pretty much everyone is smiling at us when we can see people driving past us, though.
The walks are great for me, too. Since I’ve become lazy in fatherhood, they get me off my ass and on my feet for a little while. I point things out to M. that I think should be of interest, but often let her take things in on her own. I slip into a state not dissimilar from when I was training for a marathon four years ago. I think about things I need to do, things I’d like to write about, things I need to research. I also like to wonder about how these walks will affect M.’s development. Years later, will she love taking long, quiet walks to clear her mind? Will she become a nature lover because of the mornings she spent in her stroller rolling through the neighborhood?
One last detail. It was the first day of school for the Carmel district today. As we approached a corner in our neighborhood I could hear a kid screaming. When we reached the corner, I saw the flash of a camera and a five -year-old dressed in a nice shirt and corduroy pants running from his parents. Looks like someone was getting shipped off to school for the first time and he wasn’t quite ready to give up lazy summer days around the house.
I’ve got some thoughts on the NCAA’s ban on schools using Native American mascots in post-season events. In a word, dumb. Not because I don’t think Native American mascots are offensive, or at least, inappropriate, because I do. But the NCAA’s ruling makes little sense.
Basically, it’s wildly inconsistent and unenforceable. What college sports get, by far, the most attention? Football and men’s basketball. So, realistically, the ban affects only those sports to the general public. But the NCAA doesn’t control the post-season in football, so the ban pretty much covers men’s basketball. If it’s not a blanket ban, it’s immediately a bad thing. Then, let’s say the ban stands up in court and is in place this coming NCAA tournament. What does CBS do? Can their announcers make no references to mascots like Illini, Seminoles, and Utes? Can they not show crowd shots of groups of fans wearing clothes with Native American references? Does CBS have to edit the audio feed to ensure that no cheers containing Native American references make it through the the viewers at home? Silly. The NCAA tried to make a bold stand, but knowing that they have no justification to do so or enforcement to carry out the policy, they watered it down into something that embarrasses them rather than the schools in question.
As I said, though, I do think Native American mascots are inappropriate. The general argument for them is that it is a way of honoring the fierceness and resolve of Native Americans. I must roll my eyes at that suggestion. Not to go all <a href=”http://howardzinn.org/default/”>Howard Zinn</a> on you, but it seems like we spent roughly 200 years using psychological, crude biological, and traditional war methods to get the Natives off land we wanted. We (We being all of us of white, European ancestry) broke pretty much every good faith treaty the Natives ever signed with us. When we had decimated them to the point they could no longer offer resistance, we forced them to either turn their back on their culture and assimilate into the new American culture, or we moved them off to isolated reservations where they were locked into lives of poverty and want. And then we want to “honor their spirit” by naming sports teams after them? Seems more than a little ironic to me.
People often use the Notre Dame example to counter bleeding heart, pinko liberals like me who have the nerve to suggest dropping Native American mascots. I believe Notre Dame was set up to educate Irish Catholic orphans from the Chicago area, making Fighting Irish a perfectly appropriate choice to identify ND’s athletic teams. Was Florida State set-up to educate Seminoles? How many Utes are enrolled at Utah? Is the faculty and administration of Illinois made up primarily of descendants of the Illini tribes?
Quite frankly, I don’t care if any of these schools change their mascots. I don’t find teams that have names of particular tribes to be offensive, just inappropriate and archaic. There have been many schools that have changed their mascots over the years, whether it was to drop Native American references (St. John’s and Marquette being two examples) or to quietly de-emphasize a school’s agricultural roots (Nebraska and Wichita State dropping the “corn” and “wheat” references from everyday mascot usage). College sports are full of colorful mascots based on interesting local history (Jayhawks, Hoosiers, Sooners to name three). If the schools that use Native references believe those mascots best sum up what their state is all about, they should be free to continue to use them. But suggesting that using those mascots is an attempt to honor the people we booted off the lands to build the universities is garbage. At least it is in the 21st Century.
Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star had an excellent <a href=”http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050810/COLUMNISTS01/508100430/1034″>column</a> on this subject earlier this week as well. I had no idea about the origination of the term redskins and find it even more offensive now.
…to all who posted comments or sent me e-mails after my big news on Tuesday. I’ve been very excited about this turn of events, so have had some trouble focusing on the things that get me through the day like reading, writing, and eating. I’m starting to feel normal again, though. Of course, when I order my shiny, new <a href=”http://www.apple.com/powerbook/”>PowerBook</a> that I feel is necessary for success as graduate student, I’ll probably start freaking out again until the FedEx truck pulls up in a couple days. (Why order on-line when I’ve got an Apple Store five minutes away? Well, I can avoid the sales push to add the AppleCare plan or any other peripherals to my purchase. Although I am going into the Store today to play around with a Book a little more and who knows what can happen while I’m in there.)
A few comments on your comments:
I’m struggling with mascot loyalty. Technically, I will be a Hoosier. Then again, I’ll be taking classes at IUPUI which is the Jaguars. But my degree will say Indiana University. And, of course, unless you went to a small school for undergrad, you really shouldn’t have any mascot loyalty to your graduate school. I know a few people who spend four years in Lawrence, KS followed by three years in Columbia, MO and they for sure are not Tiger fans. I guess I’m secretly hoping the stars align and <a href=”http://www.kusports.com/news/mens_basketball/story/114938″>Brandon Rush</a> decides to go to UMKC for a year so I can interview him and ask inappropriate questions about his oldest brother when they come to play IUPUI.
And it is Indiana University, not the University of Indiana. I guess many state schools used to be named in this manner, KU notably and the Lawrence paper has never adjusted, and IU has never decided to switch letters around. Native Hoosiers get quite defensive when you refer to their school by the wrong name. See also: Ohio State alums.
I believe the commute to Marquette would be a killer, but knowing a fine journalist like Chris Farley was an alum is tempting.
I do start classes in two weeks, but I was already enrolled under the non-degree program umbrella. I’m supposed to talk to the associate dean at IU next week to get everything squared away. I’m not sure how it works exactly with balancing contact between the faculty in Bloomington vs. Indy.
It’s very gratifying to have other people review what you’ve done in your career and find value in it. That’s really what I thought would get me into graduate school, the fact I did a very good job for 6 1/2 years doing things that in no way matched my strongest abilities. Still, I was nervous they would overlook those accomplishments and focus on the fact I rarely went to class some semesters as an undergrad and have one of the most horrible transcripts ever as a result. If I ever make it famous and get interviewed on national TV (Even C-SPAN’s Book TV would be fine), I can look in the camera and say, “Kids, this is what you can accomplish with a GPA somewhere in the barrio of the <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendoza_Line”>Mendoza Line</a>.
I’ve got lots of projects in some state of readiness. I’ll try to get you caught up over the next couple days.
(Please note my excellent grammar in the subject line.)
So much for thinking it would be several weeks, if not months before I heard back regarding my graduate school application. I was informed a few minutes ago, via e-mail, that I have been accepted into the Indiana University Master’s in Journalism program. Holy shit, this is actually going to happen! I’m going to go run around the block ten times to celebrate, then probably puke from excitement.
I’ve been watching afternoon episodes of Being Bobby Brown the last couple of weeks. We assumed it for the last decade, but Bobby and Whitney are officially insane, aren’t they? You don’t act like that on national TV if that’s not who you really are, right? When the cameras turn off, they don’t magically transform into the black Cleavers, do they?
There’s a part of me that feels dirty about watching it, since you’re seeing the basis for years and years of therapy for their kids in each episode. But that is what reality TV is all about, right? Trainwrecks? Seeing other people in completely ridiculous, demeaning situations that are generally the result of their own actions and choices so we feel better about our own lives? But the fact that the Browns/Houstons agreed to share their lives with the world removes some of that reluctance to watch. They want us to know they’re crazy. They’re proud of the fact that they’re nutso. They want us to see them fuck their kids up for life. If nothing else, it’s a good primer on how not to act as a parent and proof that just because you have some money, you’re kids still have even odds of having messed up childhoods. It bums me out, yet I can’t stop watching. The producers have me right where they want me.
Now Playing: <strong>I Like</strong> from the album “Guy” by <a href=”http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Guy%22″>Guy</a>
I just realized the error of the stats I shared with you earlier this week. M’s head is 48 centimeters around, not 48 inches. I’m sure some of you caught and laughed at my error. It’s still a big head, but it’s not four feet around. S. thought my error was very funny.
M. had her 12 month check-up today. 27 3/4″, 10-25th percentile. 22 lbs, 12 oz., 75th percentile. Head circumference, 48″, 95th percentile! To quote our pediatrician, “Do big heads run in either of your families?”