Six months a Dad

I’m thoroughly enjoying Baby Bruce these days. He’s just turned six months old. About six weeks ago he was blowing my mind with how beautiful he was. I’d look at him and feel so damn lucky to be with him. I don’t know what happened during the next six weeks – maybe I only had eyes for the Dragon – but it’s happening again, but this time it’s even better. He’s just as eerily beautiful, but now it’s the interaction which is fascinating me. He’s always been alert and curious, but he’s now actively seeking new experiences. This boy is looking for adventure.

There are so many different expressions on his face now, from frustration and ennui to interest and excitement to full-on joy. (All of this sometimes in a matter of seconds, which is worrisome…)

He gave me my first hug yesterday. Well, it wasn’t like a normal hug – he wasn’t wrapping his arms around me or like that. It was a face hug: we were sitting on the floor together and he leaned over and grabbed my face with his wee hands and pulled me to him. We touched foreheads and noses for a while. He had such a gentle look on his face while he was doing it, his mouth wide open, his eyes both tranquil and excited. It was gorgeous.

Bruce brings life. As simple as that.

He’s now learned my name. Sharon says, “Where’s Daddy?”, and he looks for me. Ok, not every time, but enough to beat the statistical odds. As soon as Sharon hears my bike outside, she starts doing “Da-da! Da-da! Where’s daddy?” By the time I get in she’s wound him so much that it probably doesn’t matter who walks into the room, but the look of recognition and happy greeting is a special moment in my day, and I always look forward to it.

I’m disappointed if he’s still asleep when I’m leaving for work. So sometimes I accidentally let the cats into his room, or stomp around a little louder than I have to, so that I can come in and get a wee good morning. He gives me the biggest smile, kicks his legs a good bit, then follows me around, watching me as I’m getting dressed. If I’m not pressed for time I’ll lie down in the bed with him and let him crawl on me for awhile while we talk about the coming day.

Every day we get more and more entwined. He’s doing a good number on my head.

He’s a great looking baby, there’s really no doubt about that. He’s a long, lean, happy machine. But he doesn’t really seem like a baby to me. More like a little boy with those occasionally annoying baby tendencies, those demands for attention.

Sometimes I get envious of Sharon, that she gets him all day long while I have to go to work. But on the other hand I have had him all to myself for a few hours here and there, and while it’s fun it’s also just non-stop. I want a tea or a smoke or maybe read the paper — there’s no way.

I read to him sometimes, but I’d much rather be reading proper books instead of silly poems and baby babble. He’s way young yet, but pretty soon I’m going to start him on Treasure Island or Lord of the Rings.

One of my favourite games is when I toss him up so high that his fingers brush the ceiling, and on his way back down he does this magnificent double somersault with a triple twist. In the pike position, of course. But really I think my favourite is when he’s just sort of slithering over us as we all sit on the couch. He likes that. He starts saying all these extraordinary things, speaking about his day and the thought-feelings in his wee head.

Sharon is good with the games. I think it’s important to have continual and recognizable games with the wean. This builds on his vocabulary of the familiar and encourages a sense of humor. And he’s already quite funny indeed.

The wonderful and irritating thing about babies is that they’ve not let learnt how to suppress their emotions. The merely amusing is hilarious; a lull in the general action is devastating.

Bruce has all the time he needs to get a handle on what the world is all about. And that has an influence on me. Fathers are supposed to influence their kids. But it’s like we’re doing it the other way around, which I didn’t expect.

The truth is, I’m in love. Twice. Before I met Sharon I didn’t think our kind of love was possible. But here we still are, and our love runs through our lives like a constant current. It’s real and abundant and sexy and admiring. But this boy – I have found a new kind of love with him, and it makes my day.

I guess all parents feel this elation from time to time, to one extent or another. But this boy, this boy is such a charmer, such a work of art. Sometimes just looking at him I feel that our hearts are both speaking the same rhythm, and that somehow the world is a wonderful place after all.

I feel sad sometimes though, knowing he’ll grow up. He’ll learn to suppress, he’ll learn the stilted ways of acceptable behavior in a big fucked up complicated world. At a certain age kids morph from angels into devils, and treat each other with meanness and pettiness. But even then, even then I look forward to being his Dad. I will listen, and help if I can. I’m not worried – kids can usually figure stuff out a lot quicker that adults.

I still don’t really know how I got here, with wife and baby. It’s all of a sudden. But my days now have a lot more laughter in them, and that can only be good.

The Olympics: let the games begin

The Olympics!

There’s so many events, and all at the wrong time! I mentioned in my post about Wimbledon that ideally I’d like to take the whole two weeks off, just in case. There’s nothing like seeing it live: you just never know when there’s going to be that one special moment that will define Beijing 2008. Being there on the edge of my seat when that moment happens is my favourite part of the Olympics. To watch each team or individual struggle through the toughest challenge of their lives and somehow come out shining.

Two other things I love about the Olympics:

Look at those muscles!

The quality

The quality of athleticism is glorious. I watched some of the men’s gymnastics after work, and I was just blown away by the strength, co-ordination, and grace that these athletes can achieve. The amount of work and commitment to get to that level of fitness and focus must be life-consuming.

That look

Nicole Cooke gets Gold for Great Britain in the road race

That look on the athlete’s face, especially your countrymen, when they win the Gold. They’ve performed better both mentally and physically than the best athletes in the world. What a feeling that must be. This picture of Nicole Cooke is all the more memorable for me because I was able to watch it live.

Congratulations to the United States’ Michael Phelps. Now the most decorated Olympian ever. Well done.

There’s still almost two weeks to go – I’m looking forward to witnessing more of these excellent moments.

What the World Eats

I came across this fascinating photo essay via the most excellent Arts & Letters Daily website. It shows fifteen different families from around the world posing with the foodstuffs they consume in a week. Some very unhealthy diets out there…

We’ve been struggling with our own food bill lately. Everything seems to have gotten more expensive. Meanwhile, the UK’s largest food chain, Tesco, made 2.5 billion pounds in profit last year. That’s almost £5,000 profit a minute, every minute of every hour of every day. Record profits at our expense. Why do we continue to spend our money there? Convenience. They have everything right there in one store. I guess we’ve gotten hooked on it. We need to get unhooked.

Mirrors, tears, and motorcycles

I found yet another new road on the way home from work the other day. At one point I was trying to check my mirrors – just a habit I have. But I couldn’t. The bottoms of my eyelids were so pooled with speed-tears that the mirrors were lost in the Atlantic. Instead of glancing, I had to move my head and spend a full second trying to see what might be behind me. But I couldn’t. The first fraction of a second, ok – almost able to see where I’m looking, but then it was “fuck we’re going very fast right now!”, so my eyes were back where they needed to be, back to the apex of that corner that had arrived a lot quicker than expected.

These badly-placed mirrors don’t really matter out on the back roads. These roads are fun and crazy – a short but beautifully undulating straight, then a blind second-gear corner deep into farm country. Could be a tractor. Could be horses. Maybe the farmer moved his cattle to the next pasture (again) and there’s cowshit all over the road. You just never know. But there are some nice bits where vision is un-obscured. This is where I’ve been finding some transcendence.

The mirrors look beautiful, no matter from what angle you are ogling. But they’re not the best. The best mirrors are those directly in your line of sight, giving the widest possible view of your surroundings. One glance to update one’s situational awareness. Not really an issue on these roads, but an important safety measure elsewhere. And cops. Gotta keep an eye out for cops. I’ve upgraded mirrors on my other bikes, but that’s not going to work with the Dragon. Sometimes one has to accept form over function.

One of the many roads home

Yesterday I did this same road in the rain. It was good; it really helped me to understand the bike a bit better. I have yet to lose any traction in the rain, but that’s not surprising. I’m a wuss in the rain. On the corners I tense up and get paranoid. The paranoid part is good. The tensing up isn’t.

I am disappointed though, that as smooth as she is – and she’s smoother than the hair on an angel’s tummy – that sometimes getting a nice easy load on in first gear isn’t easy. She’s very mild mannered down in the low RPMs, but you need to have that clutch fully engaged well before approaching a first-gear apex. Especially in the wet. She’s not as forgiving at lower speeds as other bikes. It’s no problem if it’s dry and you’re committed. You can throw her around. But she doesn’t start handling well until about 12 MPH, making slow wet roundabouts (come on people!) awkward. Loading up the rear brakes helps but doesn’t cure.

The more perfect the bike the more detailed my complaints. This is the best bike yet, but there’ll be more. Hopefully a lot more.

Water on Mars!

This composite photo was created from 400 separate shots

After almost two months of the dull, painful trickle of science from the Phoenix lander, there’s finally some interesting news:

Water on Mars!

The Phoenix lander has confirmed it. Sure, it’s in the form of ice, but it’s water nonetheless.

You might say that this isn’t even news, that telescopes and orbiters have been telling us this for years. But I’m a skeptic: I prefer to hold out for solid evidence, instead of getting in a tizzy based on “indications” or “suggestions”.

But it’s there alright. Good old life-affirming H2O. And the soil contains all those yummy nutrients that are prerequisites for life.

Apparently the majority of experiments on Phoenix are looking for soil “capable of sustaining” life, not life itself. How uninspiring is that? Surely they could have included a couple of experiments looking for actual life?

Wouldn’t it be something? Wouldn’t it be so extraordinarily mind-boggling if life, any life, past or present, was found on another planet?

Yet I am bored by the Phoenix mission, with all its annoying problems trying to get a soil sample into the cookers. How many man hours vs. robot hours, just to scoop some soil into the lander? I bet it’s 1,000 to 1 at least. Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely think we need to continue such missions – but we’ve got a lot of work to do before we consider sending robots to Mars to build a habitat or otherwise prepare for a manned expedition.

We as humans are so limited in our technology. We think we’re so clever with out mobile phones and plasma TV’s. But we’re at such a fragile stage in our very temporary presence here on Earth. We’ve been changing things, and our planet will never be the same. Yet we continue to reach for the stars, but all we can manage is the handful of planets that orbit our own star. And even then we struggle. Half of our missions to Mars have failed.

Something else caught my attention today. Apparently JPL (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory) has some Phoenix findings they want to share with the White House before sharing with the public. Some sources maintain that this is routine, but elsewhere on the internet there is excitement and much speculation. And, the internet being what it is, you can be sure there’s a host of conspiracy theories just to keep things interesting. (A funny place, the internet.) I’ll be very interested to hear the follow-up to this. Maybe they’ve found some clues up there about the JFK assassination.