BayDad

Mr. Busy (in his ultimate busyness) is frequently asking to draw, and I’m always looking for ways to make things fun for me, so I found some old Pastello chalks and colored construction paper.

The amazing thing is how great of a toddler drawing set this makes.  For some reason, he has much more control when using the chalks than any other media.  I think its because of the pressure needed — crayons take too much pressure, so he loses control, and markers take too little, so he just scribbles back and forth.  With the chalks, he likes to sort of wander around the page making interesting shapes and colors.  The colored paper means that he can draw “white” and it actually becomes meaningful.

Oh, and the nice box that the chalks come in means that he can (almost) take them out and put them back my himself without making a total mess.  (Crayons and markers on the other hand are troublesome — marker lids are too hard to replace, and crayons are too difficult to get in the box)

Another great benefit is that the chalk won’t mark up our tabletop (which is quartz) like markers and crayon do, so it’s easy cleanup.  Similarly for his hands — the chalk is an easy wipe when compared to markers.  Oh, and you don’t have to worry about staining clothes as well, since the chalk will wash right out.  I’m just amazed that I haven’t seen a kids-branded version of art chalk as nice as the ones made for adults.

Anyway, if you’ve got a toddler around the house, I’d strongly recommend going to a local art supply store and picking up some of this chalk.  It’s awesome.  Oh, and while you’re there, get some “art tape” and you can tape the paper right to the table so it doesn’t move around, for drawing par excellance.

Prang Pastellos

By the way, make sure not to get “oil chalks”.  They’ll make a huge mess.  Oh, and the nice case isn’t shown in that picture above.

I just keep thinking about great things about this chalk — they’re great for learning colors, since they’re so bright and pure, easy to hold and use (no paper labels to get in the way), they only need a very light touch to draw, they’re non-toxic, they wash easily.  Wow, even I impress myself with how much I love these.   Go get some now!  They’re great for all ages!

Here’s a link to Prang’s page about the Pastello chalks — and has a better picture of the nice box that they come in.

I had the kids to myself all day on Monday (on account of the holiday), so we met up with some friends of mine who live up on the peninsula, and their two kids. We ended up going over to Coyote Point, and it was a lot of fun. There is a huge play area with a very large slide and a dragon theme and many smaller slides and swings and assorted play equipment stuff. We liked it a lot. We also walked over to the bay for a while, and threw rocks into the water. The rocks aren’t very flat, so not so good for teaching the kids to skip stones, but just throwing rocks is good fun in its own right. You can also watch the planes coming in for a landing at SFO, and the park is off to the side of the flight path enough that they weren’t too loud. It was only a 20 minute drive from Mountain View, and well worth the trip.

In theory admission is $5, but there wasn’t anyone there to collect the money, and no other way to pay, so it was free on Monday anyway. It was really warm there yesterday, but it is right on the bay so I bet it is windy and possibly foggy up there pretty often. 

The park is right at the Peninsula Ave exit off 101, but that exit is all torn up with construction right now. You have to get off at the exit before it, Dore Ave, and use the frontage road. There are signs saying as much, and it isn’t hard to figure out.

I forgot to bring a camera, but I borrowed my son’s and took a quick picture of the playground with him and his sister standing there looking hungry. I should have taken a picture before everybody needed to go get lunch, now!

Update: I seem to have inserted the picture at full size, and now I can’t get it to resize. If you open the picture in its own tab you can see the whole thing, but otherwise you are stuck with just seeing the left edge, which isn’t really all that great. I’ll work on that.

With a newborn in the house, I’m brimming with things to say here, but have very little time, so I’ll keep it short and sweet:

• Having a smart phone (T-Mo G1, in my case) is a huge change to child rearing.  I can read e-mail and blogs while sitting, shusshing, and rocking.  It’s awesome.
• The 2nd kid isn’t as hard as people sort of made it seem. At least not yet.
• Doing dishes is impossible. Having a toddler around creates a huge mess of dishes and gunk, and I’ve got very little time to clean it up.
• Our cats are now completely neglected (vs. half neglected before the new one).  They clamor at every opportunity for a pet or snuggle.  Too bad for kitties.
• We’re much more relaxed the second time around.  Our little Ms. is sleeping in our bed pretty much all the time, which is something we were far too paranoid to do the first time around.
• Thanks everyone for bringing food, and this wouldn’t have been possible without the help of my mom.  Thanks!
• I have about 30 minutes of free time each evening — I usually choose to vegitate on the couch before falling asleep at about 8:30pm.

El Camino Hospital has WiFi, but it seems to have a transparent web proxy that’s interfering with several sites working properly.  For example, picasaweb.google.com and  friendfeed.com both seem to black hole.

The unfortunate part is that I’m trying to post & retrieve photos from Picasa, but I can’t seem to access it at all from here.   Sigh.

At least I can see baydad.com!

Welcome Maya Klein Lacy, born 1/13/09 at 6:25am, 9lb3oz

A friend pointed me at Go City Kids, a meetup-esque calendar of kid-friendly and kid-focused events.  They have several metro areas, one of which is San Francisco, and most of the events listed there are in the city proper, although there are a few in San Jose and the bay area.  Some look like they may even be worth a trip up to the city, so check it out!

Here’s a great summary list of kid-friendly train rides in the Bay Area and beyond:

Roaring Camp (In Felton): http://www.roaringcamp.com/
Tilden Park (Berkeley) http://www.ebparks.org/parks/tilden/
San Mateo Central Park: http://www.cityofsanmateo.org/index.asp?NID=718
Billy Jones RR in Los Gatos: http://www.bjwrr.org/
Niles Canyon Railway in Fremont: http://www.ncry.org/
Little Puffer in SF Zoo: http://www.sfzoo.org/openrosters/ViewOrgPageLink.asp?LinkKey=14106&orgkey=1900#littlepuffer
Train Town in Sonoma http://www.traintown.com/
Sacramento Rail Museum: http://www.csrmf.org/default.asp
Gilroy Gardens: http://gilroygardens.com

And of course, CalTrain, BART, and the VTA Light Rail.

I took Mr. Busy to the Comptuer History Museum this Saturday to see a demonstration of the Babbage Difference Engine they have there.

Granted, I wasn’t expecting his 19 month old brain to really absorb anything from the experience, I mostly wanted to go by myself.  So, we hopped on the bike, and rode down Stevens Creek Trail, got off on La Avenida, and made it to the museum by 1pm.

When we got there, Mr. Busy was pretty zonked out from the ride, so I put him up on my shoulders and listened to the first 20 minutes of the presentation and demonstration.  Then, I started to hear whispers from him saying “outside” and “down” and I knew that he was getting a bit antsy and bored up there.  So, he and I went out to the patio area right in the front of the museum. We sat, ate Goldfish Crackers & Apples, played in the leaves, ran around, and had a fun time.

We were scheduled to see a demonstration of the PDP-1 at 2:30, so we had a bit of time to walk around the “General Collection” that they have there (old computers). He actually had a really fun time walking around and looking at all the different hardware. The railings are low enough so that he couldn’t easily get through and accidentally touch things.

When it came time for the PDP-1 demonstration, he was getting a bit tired, and didn’t want to go into the conference room that had the machinery. He was antsy, it was hot & crowded, and there wasn’t anything interesting for him to look at, so he started to make some trouble, and we left the demonstration early, unfortunately.

All in all, we had a great time. I’d really recommend it as a kid-friendly way to spend the afternoon. There’s no entrance fee, which means that you can be in-and-out several times without worrying about cost or stamps, or whatever. The outside patio & garden area is beautiful, had some nice chairs, and was very pleasant, and has a great view of the traffic on Shoreline, so Mr. Busy was happy!

I was at the book store a couple of months ago with Mr. Busy, where he picked out a copy of “My Little Word Book” (amazon.com link).  It’s a fine book, but really just follows the formula of picture-vocabulary books.

When I was there, I noticked a book called Saffy that I had never seen before.  It had a cute style, simple story, and seemed pretty accessible.  Mr. Busy didn’t care for it at the store, but I bought it anyway because I thought it was cute.

Well, it turns out that after a couple of readings, it’s become one of his absolute favorite books.  He loves the pictures, he loves the tone, and he loves the way it’s participatory in that each page has something for him to do or say along with the story.  As a parent, I get a kick out of how the story really captures the Toddler Nature with phrasing that really reminds me of how it seems like he sees the world, which boils down to “I want to do it on my own!”.

So, pick up a copy of Saffy!

Saffy

Palo Alto Duck Pond

Mr. Busy loves this place!
Airplanes!
Duck! Quack quack quack!
Bird!
Copter!
Agua!

What more could you want?

Copter!

Thanks for the recommendation!

Seriously.

Mr. Busy was always so good with food.  He’d eat anything.  Our “lazy parenting” mealtime style meant that we’d basically give him little bits of whatever we were eating, and that’s what he would have for dinner, no questions asked.  This means he’d be eating Palak Paneer from the Indian place, bagels and lox for breakfast on Sunday, Dim Sum, Chow Fun from the chinese place, Miso soup and Edamame from the Japanese place, and everything inbetween.

Life was good, and dinnertime was generally fun and easy.  If he didn’t like what he was given, we would try anything else that we had, and that would be it.  If he didn’t want to eat it, then he didn’t have to, but he usually would.

That is, until someone flipped the picky switch.  In a matter of about 3 weeks, he’s gone from “Mr. Eats Anything” to “Mr. I want my favorite familiar items only PLEASE!”   Additionally, for foods that he doesn’t like, aren’t familiar, or isn’t in the mood for, he now protests, arches his back, turns the other way, and does all those things that are so particularly “toddler”.

It’s not a surprise, and I was somewhat expecting this to happen someday, but I’m still surprised at the speed at which the change has happened.  I thought that if we just kept giving him all kinds of stuff, that he’d continue to eat it.

So, we’re going to continue on this plan — he gets what we’re having, and we’ll see how it goes.  Both of us are on the same page: If he doesn’t want his dinner, then he can have nothing.  It’s sort of harsh, but there’s always plenty of options for him to try, and usually we’re just giving him things that he’s had at least once before and liked (i.e. spaghetti).

The problem is that I’m afraid he’s going to start “filling up on milk” or just taking what he likes and leaving the rest.  I’ve seen this happen a little already, and I’m wondering how to nip it in the bud.  One thing we’ve thought of is that he’ll only get water with dinner, so there’s not much to fill up on.

Really, this is just one more part of the “big experiment” that is raising a child. Do any of the more experienced dad’s out there have any advice? How can we foster a love for lots of different types of food?

P.S.: Japanese is actually his favorite. Miso! Yum! Tofu! Yum! Seaweed Salad! Yum! Chicken Teriyaki! Yum! Tempura! Yum! (I’m so impressed!)