Lady Bird

I still call it Town Lake. But this morning when I paused to enjoyed the view from the Mopac foot bridge and a flock of doves and cliff swallows exploded into the air in front of my face Lady Bird Lake seemed like an apt name. 

It's finally getting to the outdoor part of the year in Austin. Jo and I took Evan and Vivian to the lake yesterday. They had a good time and Evan wanted to stay. We said "bye" and took off and he showed no signs of getting anxious. I had to walk back and pick him up and put him on my shoulders.

Thinking About It

Vivian and Evan are growing up fast. They challenge my old ways of thinking all the time.

When I often find myself telling Vivian and Evan that they shouldn't believe everything they hear including what their teachers tell them (religious pre-school is interesting in that way), the next logical step is to tell them that they shouldn't believe everything I tell them. I've taken that step long ago.

Which often makes me wonder - how will they know what to believe? Evan can't be an expert on everything that matters. So he must have proxy experts. People and institutions he and Vivian trust as a source of information. For instance I somewhat trust the New York Times. Not to the extent I would trust the Pope if I was a devout catholic. But at least as a first level filter. Here's an article that a friend posted on FB yesterday- a news story about how Big Oil and Coal is funding Romney because Obama isn't as pro-fossil fuel as they are used to. I didn't wonder if NYT made up the numbers. I trust them to that extent. 

Another example. The Shah's don't drink water right before or after meals. Helps the body absorb nutrients from the food they eat, they say. I've made a bit of fun at their expense on this topic before (though I don't usually drink fluids during meals unless it's a half-decent wine). Jo is in the middle of a course on nutrition (Fuel21). The creator of the course is Crystal - a crossfit coach we've known for a few years. Crystal told Jo the same thing about water and meals. Jo is much more likely to believe it when it comes from Crystal.

Then there are things that may have been facts back then but I know to be untrue now. Or approximate. Newtonian physics before Relativity. Speciation and Darwin. Stuff that I assumed Fareed Zakaria wrote. Lance and doping. Being able to change my position isn't a bad thing when there is new evidence. Many things that Vivian and Evan are taught as facts today will change during their lifetimes.

You say be like a compass. Unwavering and true forever. But what of the true north, of which the compass' magnetic north is only an approximation. What of the compass' north changing from place to place and from time to time? What of the occasional complete flipping in the earth's magnetic field? The compass looks more like a wind vane.

I don't want to tell my children what to believe. Teaching them how to think for themselves is good enough for me.

What Are You Reading

I met Marion today. She is trying to clear some stuff from her and Gerhard's palatial home and put the home up for sale. Her husband Gerhard died a few months back. He was ninety. He was actively reading this pile of books.

What's on my bed side table? It took me two fourteen-hour flights to finish "The Orphan Master's Son". An amazing fictional story set in North Korea. Nice but not exactly "Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics and the Production of Entropy".

A Day in the Life of a Dad

We are up to our eyeballs in our children's lives. Here's a day in my life.

I hate mornings. Anything before 8am should be made illegal. Or blasphemous. My kids usually jump on me sometime between seven and 7:30 unless my wife nudges me awake before that with a sharp elbow to the spine - a tactile reminder that it's my turn to wake up with Evan, our early riser. Evan's first words always are "I food hungy". I take them to Upper Crust for a breakfast of cinnamon rolls, black gold cookies and chocolate milk. Or, that's when I retire to the loo and stay there till Vivian runs in and tells me that everyone else is already in the car. Somehow by this time the kids have been dressed, fed, hair braided, water bottles filled, Evan's lunch fixed, Vivian's homework in her backpack, and taekwondo and soccer gear in their bags. Evan's hat on his head. Thank goodness for elves. Or Jo.

We drive to Vivian's school. Eight minutes. Pull up by the front door. "Curly haired man" opens the car door and says more things in Spanish in one second than I will hear during the rest of the day. Vivian has been practicing her "Beunos dias" all morning but is stunned into silence. Curly's finale is something like "Adios Mamma, adios Pappa" and then they are gone.

Drive to Evan school. 7 more minutes. During which Evan asks and makes sure we haven't forgotten that he too needs to go to school. "Daddy, what going now?" What is is his standard question word. Easier than remembering where and who and when and all that stuff. Walk Evan to class. Teachers swoon over him. "Bye bye Dadda. I'ma vuv you".

Home. Wake dad up. Put him in a chair. Hot glass of milk for him. Then breakfast for him and me. It's the only meal he eats easily and I look forward to doing breakfast with him. Between that and noon I do stuff. Sometimes it's related to Vivian's school - like attending their innumerable parent meeting sessions.  Then my pick-up soccer game. Run home and feed dad lunch. Then pick up Vivian unless it's taekwondo day in which case pick her up an hour later.

Meanwhile Evan is back home and napping. Evenings are crazy. So far this week we've had one soccer practice for Vivian, two school events, and date night. While Brendan and I are coaching the older kids, the younger ones have a good time playing in the park. Here's a photo of Evan and Rowan.

Somewhere here kids get ready for bed. Bed time stories. Hugs and kisses. Good night. Then feed dad dinner. Put him to bed. Then I crack open a beer. I haven't done this is decades. I clearly remember the time in my life when I stopped trying to drink all the beer in my fridge in one evening. It was strange to be so grown up. Suddenly I'd have beer in the fridge for days at a time. Then weeks, months. Now it's back down to days. Not good. The other morning I opened the liqueur cabinet to grab a largish shot glass to use as an "egg cup" - to serve my dad a soft-boiled egg for breakfast. Jo walked in  and noticed the liqueur cabinet open. "Arun - you starting early this morning?" I am shocked by the lack of shock in her voice.