Category: Daily Life

Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.

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Use it or loose it. And a question of etiquette

Languages I’ve tasted:

  • Spanish (4 years in High School, a couple of years at college, lived in the Spanish dorm a year)
  • Hungarian (Magyar – felt comfortable enough with the basics that I wanted to travel to Budapest on my own)
  • American Sign Language (some classes in college, hung out at TN school for the Deaf)
  • and I can say "Hello" in Arabic. (I said Arabic online! Alert Homeland Security!)
Sidebar

In college, I used to joke that if I could say "Hello" and "I love you" in every language that I’d never sleep alone. I made a good go of it too. Even that part about learning "hello" and "I love you".

My sign language is weird because I was trying to learn ASL but because I was hearing, the kids at TSD wanted to use signed English with me. Despite my pidgon sign, I was comfortable enough to take orders from the deaf and hard of hearing at a Shoney’s restaurant where I worked right out of college. Now I can’t even talk to my wife (but what does that have to do with sign language?). Through the University and working at The Foreign Language Division of The Learning Company, I also gained exposure to French, Japanese, Russian, German and Italian but not enough to claim any knowledge.

So, My question of etiquette: When I bump into someone Hispanic, I always address them in English. Sometimes I get that blank look that I would give if I were being addressed by someone not speaking English; you know, that agast, expressionless face as your mind reels thorough the relatively small number of words you may have in hopes that something rings a bell. My Spanish is not good enough to strike up a conversation but I can still make some appropriate greetings. What is appropriate? Assume they speak Spanish and say, "¡Buenos días!"? Ask if they speak Spanish, "¿Habla español?" Or just stick to the uncomfortable smile, head nod and hesitant wave?

I don’t hesitate to talk to anyone. My inclination is to speak in Spanish. Perhaps my vocabulary will return!

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Put one foot in front of the other!

At 8:45pm last night Evan took his first 5 steps. When I put him down he was standing and I could tell he was going to try a step so I prompted Cathy to look and with each step I said the word "step" which sounded like a machine gun since he walked so rapidly. After the 5th step he fell forward, caught himself on his arms, rolled to a sitting position with a grin that Gerber would have paid to photograph, and immediately tried to stand up again. He almost made it to standing; left foot extended and on right knee. Then he bounced and I swear he said, "step stepstepstepstepstep!" It was quite the special moment.

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Wrist feeling better

For the past two weeks or so, my left wrist has hurt so bad that I almost could not type. I had problems picking things up or squeezing for a length of time. I did some exercising to try to help but nothing terribly focused.

As I type this I can still feel a twinge of pain but it is mostly out of my wrist. Now the pain is in my upper arm. If I hold a reem of paper and try to extend my left arm out to my side I can’t pick it up much above my waist.

Time to get back to stretching and unpinch what nerve is not happy with me right now.

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Improvised Bed Rails

Evan hasn’t learned to sleep in the crib. He prefers to sleep in his swing. But sometimes he needs to sleep between Cathy and I which is nice. Sometimes he is in the bed when I want to get up and work. It was around his age that Amy fell from the bed to the concrete floor and scared me to death so I will sometimes stay in bed thinking how nice bed rails would be when I should be up working.

This morning I figured it out! The crib is near the bed so when I rose, I simply rolled the crib up against the bed forming a nice wall.

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Could you, would you save a life?

Yesterday a 13 year old girl, Megan, on Sarah’s Bearden Middle School bus fell over with a heart attack. The girl beside the victom screamed. The bus stopped, students evacuated the bus, paramedics brought in a AED, rushed the girl away, and that’s all we know.

Poor Sarah. Bomb threats, lock downs, and possibly death. Too much reality for a 12 year old. The sad thing is Sarah keeps everything locked inside of her and I can’t get anything but stoic, short answers from her. I was the same way at her age and it pains me because I know that keeping things bottled up can only last so long and eventually it all has to come out; the longer she waits, the harder it will be to deal with the bottled up emotions. I bet she thinks she is being strong; strength would be talking. At least she has caught blog fever and perhaps we can communicate that way. She shared more information about the incident in her blog than I could have dragged out of her with any other means.

Taking advantage of the situation we had this dialog:

Dad: "So Sarah, would you have liked to known CPR to be able help?"
Sarah: "They taught us CPR at camp."
Dad: "So did you try to help?"
Sarah: "She didn’t need CPR. She needed those paddle thingys."
Dad: "An AED? A defibrillator?"
Dad takes a moment to explain CPR, the functions of the heart, lungs and brain, and why CPR saves lives until an AED can be brought on the scene.
Sarah glazes over and tunes Dad out.
Dad asks: "Would you like to be trained in CPR?"
Sarah, exasperated: " I don’t want to learn that medical stuff!"
Dad, starts to explain how she could have helped the girl today, or perhaps her grandparents or even parents.
*Ring ring*
Saved by the bell. The phone rings to end the conversation.

I have to say I found the conversation a little disheartening. More people should be trained with the American Red Cross.

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Make Smarter Children

Today MSN has an article by Martha Brockenbrough titled Two Ways to Make a Kid Smarter. My pet peeve is the horrible eating habits my children exhibit and her first point in the article is "The body portion: Feed your child’s brain."

…more protein, which kept them alert, energetic, and less prone to anemia, an iron deficiency that dulls thinking skills…if they’re not eating a lot of fish, or taking fish-oil supplements, then there might be an opportunity for some gains. Foods rich in omega-3 fats–such as salmon, fresh tuna, herring, and sardine–contain something called eicosapentaenoic acid, or EPA, do three things:

  1. boosts blood flow to the brain
  2. helps make hormones that boost brain function
  3. helps boost the immune system by acting as an anti-inflammatory agent

The study on which this article is based showed results all parents would enjoy.

kids who took fish-oil supplements, which contain omega-3, showed huge improvements in spelling, IQ, and reading. Even their behavior got better.

Her second point is "The mind portion"

The second reason their IQs soared was that their parents put more emphasis on schooling and were more literate themselves.

As parents we must encourage school and help our children see school positively. We need to save our complaints about the teachers, the administration, and the failing education system for times when there are no small ears listening. We also need to continue to improve ourselves as adults. Make time in our hectic schedules to read (take a book into the bathroom, wake up 10 minutes early and read a chapter) and do a brain booster everyday. Our improvement does not have to be a solo activity. Play games with our children (chess, memory, chutes and ladders) and grow their minds as well as yours.

especially when there is leisure time to read or do other brain-boosting activities. Also, people who work jobs that challenge their minds get smarter.

Take time to engage your children.

You need to make sure your little ones are engaging in conversations, practicing making observations, and organizing information in their minds, or they won’t be ready to get the most out of school.

And socialize them.

Kids also need to know how to get along with others–everything from sharing toys to taking turns.

In a stressful day, I find nothing more relaxing than to take a few minute to get down on the floor with Evan and stack blocks for him to knock over, to read a book to Amy or figure out together how to build a bristle block house, to build a model engine with Noah, fight with Sarah, or play chess with Tommy. Oh. Yeah. Maybe I haven’t quite figured out how to interact with a 12 year old girl. These activities, minus the joke about fighting, are wonderfully relaxing, take very little time from our day, and mean so much to the children.

Read the full article.