Sleeping Beauty

I love getting pictures from Harper's teachers at baby school. It's so nice to see what she does all day. Here are two that absolutely crack me up. She fell asleep at the table during lunch! The kids usually take a nap right after lunch. I guess she just wanted to get a head start.

Cable TV Makes You A Better Person

Ok. Finally getting around to the post for today. I spent the morning having my brain fried by some tricky statistical analyses at work. Hate it when that happens. Anyway, today I would like to put forth the notion that cable TV makes you a better person. While this idea may seem a little counter intuitive, I assure you that it's correct. Because Rob has to get up at an ungodly hour and Harper is, well, a baby, the two of them are usually in bed by 8:30 or 9 at the latest. This means that after they go to bed, I get to watch what ever I want on TV - no Disney Channel, no cop shows. Now while I will agree that there is a lot of stupid stuff on cable TV (some of which I thoroughly enjoy), there are also some really good, enlightening, character building shows too. Here are a two of my recent favorites with links so you can watch them.

• MTVs 16 and Pregnant Catelynn episode - This is probably the best thing I've seen on TV in a long time. These kids blow my mind with their wisdom and strength.

• 30 Days Minimum Wage episode - I love this series. Every episode tackles a difficult issue and is very thought provoking. To watch this clip, you have to have a hulu account (it's free).

What have you seen on TV lately that really made you think?

Bit-N-Spin

A couple things for today. First, Harper got bit AGAIN at baby school yesterday! It was the same kid that did it last time. I figured out who it was, by the way. I counted teeth. Only one little boy had enough bottom teeth to leave the mark on Harper's arm. Forensics wins again!

Secondly, Harper is only 17 months old and she can do the Sit-N-Spin all by herself. I was pretty impressed. I know the quality of this video is horrible. I took it with my cell phone (and I don't have a fancy-schmancy cell phone). But, you get the gist.

Bye Bye

Just when I think I'm starting to get the hang of this whole baby thing, Harper throws me a curveball covered in bodily fluids. On Saturday, she had a massive poopy diaper blowout that required a bath for both baby and mommy. On Sunday during a routine visit to Sam's Club, I got a free sample of bacon and gave Harper a tiny piece to try. She started to choke on it, coughed a lot, and threw up in my hands. To my credit, not a speck of poop or vomit got on anything except me and her. Who knew I had this hidden talent of poop manager/ vomit catcher? Anyway, on a cuter note, Harper loves to say goodbye to Sage the cat in the morning. This morning, not only did she say goodbye, she also decided to give Sage a kiss. (PS - Don't mind the mess. We're moving in 2 weeks and packing has commenced.)

Melted and Busted

So, last night I started the dishwasher and about 30 minutes later I smelled burning plastic. Never good. When I opened the dishwasher to investigate, I found this.

It's a piece from one of Harper's bottles. It fell down to the bottom of the dishwasher and landed on the heating element that heats everything up during the drying cycle. Oh well. Good thing Harper doesn't use bottles anymore. Kind of.

I am in the process of uploading all of my old videos to Vimeo (It's way better than youtube. You should check it out.) While it's taking a long time to upload everything, I am having so much fun watching all of the old videos I took when Harper was little. Here's one of my absolute favorites. Basically, I found that I could get Harper to instantly stop crying if I just sang the theme from Ghostbusters. It seriously worked every time. I blogged about it here if you want to revisit the original post.

Question of the Day

What animal would you be if you could pick? I would be a jellyfish. I am fascinated with jellyfish. There are over 200 species and all of them are incredibly interesting and beautiful.

This is one of the largest species of jellyfish, the Nomura's jellyfish. It's a gentle giant, however it's infesting the coast of Japan right now and wreaking havoc on fishing nets.

This is the Irukandji jellyfish, the smallest species in the world. However, it's also considered to be one of the most deadly.

Jellyfish are beautiful in still pictures, but to truly appreciate them you have to watch them swim.

What animal would you be?

Taking A Bite Out Of Crime

The details are as follows. Yesterday at approximately 3:10pm, Harper was bitten by one of the boys in her class. As is the policy of her baby school, her teachers would not reveal the name of the biter. Harper is not a rat and has also chosen to conceal the identity of the boy. Her teachers did tell me that she did not cry. She just whimpered, pointed at her arm, and then pointed to the culprit - an amazing feat because as of 9:15 this morning, she still has teeth marks on her arm. The video that follows is my attempt to get to the bottom of this heinous crime. The names have not been changed to protect the innocent (it's ok, their moms don't read this blog).

Baby School Reports

I love picking Harper up from baby school. Her teachers are really good about giving me the rundown of everything she did that day. Most of it is good, some of it is a little bad, and all of it is funny to me. Here are a couple comments from the past few days:

• Harper is the best cleaner-upper in the class. She loves to help put the toys away. I'm so proud about that one. We have been trying to teach her to clean up her toys when she's done playing with them at home. Looks like it's rubbing off.
• We had to change Harper into her emergency outfit today because she painted on her clothes with her applesauce at lunch. Again. Ummm...what can I say? Sometimes inspiration strikes at inconvenient times.
• Harper had to sit in time out today because she got impatient waiting in line to climb up the ladder to the sliding board and started kicking the other kids' feet to make them go faster. Where does this kind of thing come from? It's interesting to me that even at the age of 1, she experiences the feeling of impatience. I love discovering things about her personality that seem to be hardwired. Although, we will work on the kicking part...

Can I just tell you how much I love this kid? She is the best part of everyday.

Monday Morning Can of Worms

Today, I would like to put forth some ideas about global climate change (a fun and light topic for a Monday). In the spirit of full disclosure, this is NOT meant to be a political post. This is just the opinions I have formed after evaluating the data (I am a scientist after all. I like data.). Below are some of the conclusions that I have come to (my personal commentary is in blue). Please leave a comment so that we can have a conversation about this issue.

1. The temperature of the earth is affected by 3 things: solar output (changes in how much heat the sun gives off), the earth's orbit, and greenhouse gas levels. Nearly everyone regardless of which side of the issue they fall on agrees with this observation.

2. Solar output and earth's orbit are not impacted by man. However, greenhouse gas levels can be influenced by human actions. Again, not really a point of contention.

3. Evidence to support a warming trend for earth's climate include the fact that sea level has risen 6.7 inches in the last century (and in the last decade, the rate of rise has almost doubled), global surface air temperatures rose 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the last century with the steepest increase in temperature coming in the past 50 years, 11 of the last 12 years ( from 1995-2006) are the warmest since accurate recordkeeping began in 1850, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have shrunk in both area and mass, mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined in both hemispheres and in places like the Himalayas, the snow cover may disappear all together by 2030, many species of plants and animals are responding to temperature changes by changing their migration patterns and permanently moving to higher elevations or closer to the poles. Lots of people disagree with some or all of these statements. There are independent studies to both support and discount all of this information. In my opinion, each individual study has to be examined carefully to see how they did the experiment and who funded the work. As a scientist, I know that just about any piece of data can be manipulated.

4. The earth's climate has changed throughout history (there are 7 documented cycles of climate change measured by glacial advance and retreat). Not very controversial. Most people who discount human induced climate change use the argument of cyclical climate change to support their opinion.

5. The rate of current climate change is progressing much faster than any of the previous warming cycles. Again, different studies have different findings. The majority of respectable studies (a judgement call made by me) agrees that the temperature began increasing at a faster rate beginning at a time point that corresponds to the start of the Industrial Revolution.

6. The levels of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) are higher now than they have ever been in the last 650,000 years as measured by atmospheric evidence preserved in tree rings, coral reefs, and ice cores. Same deal. Different studies say different things, but this is a general consensus. A source of carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere comes from burning fossil fuels (something that we humans have control over).

So...what does all of this mean? Well, to me this means that yes, climate change is cyclical, but humans are doing a pretty good job of speeding things up. Why should we care about this? Well, for several reasons. First, climate change affects a wide variety of things including agricultural yield, species extinction, flooding, availability of fresh water, etc. Secondly, I think that we have a divine responsibility to tend to the earth in a responsible way. God gave us this beautiful garden to live in and instructed us to be good caretakers of it. I'm pretty sure we are dropping the ball on that one. I have no idea what the correct solution to this problem is. However, I take issue with people who contend that global warming is a myth because they disagree with policies and strategies that have been put forth as solutions. To me, the evidence is clear. Global climate change exists and is being sped up by increased production of greenhouse gases. While this is my conclusion, I would encourage everyone to dig and come to their own conclusion.

To end this ridiculously long post, I would like to borrow something my friend Katie said regarding this issue. "As with many other issues, we all allow man-induced conflict and controversy to divert our attention from God’s desires for us; to let man’s interpretation warp a kingdom issue." It's my belief that climate change is a kingdom issue. God wants us to be good stewards of this planet and to do so we must acknowledge and find a solution to the problem of global warming. I will now be stepping down from my soap box.

Baby Torture

My mom is not going to like this video. She thinks it's torture to tickle a baby (and she keeps reminding me of the old wives' tale about tickling causing a baby to stutter). But I'm posting it anyway. If Harper starts to stutter, you can blame me.

Man Vs. Dog

Rob is loving the police academy. Here is a video of him squaring off against a police dog.

Quick Study

You may remember that Harper likes to help her dad shine his police boots. She has now moved on to polishing any shoes that she finds laying around. I am thinking of ways to harness this new skill of hers...

Dr. Doolittle

Sometimes I think I should spend more time teaching Harper real words instead of animal sounds. But it's just so darn cute that I can't help it.

Eye Eye Matey!

Do you ever have to get up at 3am to tend to a crying baby and then after you get her back to sleep realize that you have to go to the bathroom and completely blind yourself when you turn the bathroom light on which then renders you blind again when you try to navigate your way back into your dark bedroom? Anyone? No, just me? Well, if you ever do find yourself in this situation, here's a trick that really works. When leaving a dark room and entering a light room (or vice versa), keep one eye closed. The open eye will adjust to the light and then when you return to the dark room, the eye that was closed will sill be used to the dark conditions.

I didn't make this technique up. It's based on the pirate eye patch principle. Pirates who often went above and below deck, used eye patches to have one eye adjusted for the top deck and the other eye already adjusted for the darkness below deck. The strong sunlight that a pirate experienced above deck could require minutes of adjustment to the dim lighting below deck. In the critical moments of modifying the rigging, navigating, and especially during battle, every second counted. A simple switch of the patch from one eye to the other saved time and was more convenient than being temporarily blinded when going between decks.

Breathe

I love this video. This is the only full length version that I could find online. Watch it. Seriously.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Am I the Only One Who Thinks Like This?

I was listening to NPR this morning and they were doing a story about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. It was a great piece. You can listen to it here. As I was listening, I kept thinking, man, she really made something of her life. I wish I could have done more with my life. And then it struck me that I was talking to myself like my life was already over and I had missed my chance. The reality is that I can do something great with my life (and I've done a couple pretty good things already). I just have to recognize opportunities and capitalize on them. I don't know why my first instinct is to think that I'm not special enough to do something great. Can anybody relate?

Name Game

It occurred to me last night that Harper doesn't know what my name is. I asked her "Where's Elaine? Where's Elaine?". She just looked around the room. Then I asked her "Where's Momma?" and she pointed right to me. For some reason, I think that's funny.

On a side note, did you happen to see the beautiful Harper's moon last night? It was pretty cool. If you missed it last night, check it out tonight.

When the Science Hits the Fan - Memory Test

My dad told me about this cool BBC sleep related memory test. It measures two aspects of your memory: recognition and temporal memory. The first part of the test will show you 12 pictures of people's faces. Next, they show you 12 more pictures of people's faces. Finally, they show you 48 pictures of people's faces and you have to decide whether you saw them in the first group, the second group, or not at all. The score they give you is broken down into 2 components. The first score is your recognition score - this measures your ability to recognize that you have seen the face regardless of which group it was in. Recognition memory is unaffected by lack of sleep. The other score is your temporal memory score - this measures your ability to decide which group you saw the face in. Recognition memory can be affected by lack of sleep and aging. Here's my score from this morning.

I slept well last night and I'm kind of good at remembering things which probably explains why I did pretty well. Take the test yourself and see how well you can do. Here's the link to the site. Despite my rather complicated explanation, the actual website does a good job of explaining what to do and what your results mean. Have fun!

A Few of Our Favorite Things

We had a great 4th of July weekend. Harper did 2 of her most favorite things in the whole world - looked at animals and went swimming. On Friday, we went to the Nashville Zoo. It was really nice (not Cincinnati Zoo nice, but still nice). Harper had a lot of fun. She loved the meerkats. She kept pointing to them and saying "Sagie" (our cat's name). It was actually her second visit to the Nashville Zoo. She was about 5 months old the last time we brought her. How time flies.

Then...

...and now

On Saturday and Sunday, we spent most of our time at the swimming pool. There's nothing better than a sunny day, good friends, a warm pool, and delicious food. All in all, a great weekend.

Changing My M.O.

The other day, my friend Jamie and I were reminiscing about high school. I made the comment that I feel like I could have been a nicer person during that time. I don't remember ever being out and out mean to anyone (maybe I was and just selectively blocked it out of my memory), but I rarely went out of my way to be super nice to people who weren't in my immediate circle of friends. I used to live by the motto "Live and let die." If a situation didn't directly impact me in some way, I didn't care about it. Like I said, I wasn't outwardly mean, I just didn't care that much about the welfare of others. As I grew up a little, I started to realize that this was not the way it was supposed to be. I adopted a new M.O. - "Live and let live." At the time, this seemed like the right way to operate. I would try to live my life the best I could and I would encourage others to do the same. My frame of mind was getting closer to correct, but it was still a very passive way of living. Now, I think there is an even better way. "Live and help live." Or maybe even "Thrive and help thrive." Not only should I try to live my life the best I can, I want to actively help others to do the same. I am still working on putting this into practice. My default mode is still "Live and let die" and if I'm not careful, I can slip into that mindset easier than I would like to admit. However, I am really starting to think about the people around me (friends and strangers) and how I can positively impact their lives. To be honest, it's a stretch for me. I'm glad I have people around me who can model this for me and inspire me to do what they do.

I know that this is a personal subject, but where do you guys come down on this? What is your default mode? How are you impacting the lives of those around you?

Random Ohio Thoughts

Going back to my home town as an adult is always a great but strange experience. I feel like I'm in a time warp. Everything looks relatively the same, but I am a completely different person than the 18 year old who left 11 years ago. Going away and then coming back provides a nice perspective on things. Here are some things (mostly trivial and random) that I thought about while I was home.

• I love pedicures, but I'm always conflicted about the fact that it's another human's job to wash my feet and paint my toe nails.
• Hands down - white bread tastes way better than wheat bread. If you don't agree, you are just fooling yourself.
• The farm country of Northeast Ohio is some of the most beautiful landscape in the world.
• It's vitally important to keep in touch with your extended family even if they live far away. You share experiences and have an understanding that no one else in the world can match.
• Not being able to just fix my baby when she is sick is the hardest thing about being a parent for me.
• Having a beer with an old friend from high school is good for your heart.