From: Dossy (dossy@panoptic.com)
Date: Sun May 19 2002 - 07:31:13 MDT
On 2002.05.19, Amara Graps <amara@amara.com> wrote:
> Thanks Dossy, Alex Ramonsky, J.W. Harris, and many others for your
> writings on this thread.
Thanks for putting up with my babbling. ;-)
> Putting aside for a moment the difficulties that having kids place in
> our lives, they also can (or might) teach us that:
>
> 1) Life is simple and rather funny,
> 2) Life is to be played in the moment, and with gusto,
This one really hit me when I finally had a kid. For ages, I'd
live "in the tomorrow" -- suffering today for a better tomorrow.
Having a kid who doesn't understand "not now, we'll do it later"
or at least understands it as "okay, it's later already, can we
do it now?" really taught me the value of living "in the today".
Every day, I'm learning to be happier and happier because I'm
doing things to make the next moment better, not the future.
In small, incremental steps, I'm realizing that the future will
already and always be better since the future is already now,
instead of tomorrow.
Looking back, I can't see how I ever justified living the way
I lived. Insane ...
> 3) Curiosity about how the world works is fun,
When you watch a one year old open and close a door, fascinated
by a hinge, it really warms your technophile heart. Or, watching
her take your magnetic-tipped screwdriver to the nails in the
floor threshold and pulling out all the loosely fastened nails with
it at 16 months old ...
> 4) Fresh, naive, and innocent perspectives are valuable,
You learn that we find some problems difficult simply because
we know "too much" ... it's tough to see the forest when you're
busy chopping down trees. My daughter has taught me that even
the most oddly shaped lines can be a "snakey." Or that pyramids
really are just "triangles": just this morning I was making spheres,
cubes and pyramids out of Play-Doh and my daughter kept telling
me that the pyramids were triangles and I started to correct her,
realizing how right she already was ...
> 5) My own philosophies and ethics should be reevaluated constantly,
> 6) My knowledge of my inner world should go alot deeper.
No kidding. I hope people can learn both of these even without
having kids.
> >Call it nostalgia, but she's getting to play with the toys that
> >we actually (literally) grew up with.
>
> I remember those toys. The only thing that I have now from my
> childhood to pass down to my hypothetical toddler is a 40-year-old
> stuffed panda bear named Poki, that is so tattered and stitched up,
> that I'm afraid it wouldn't be very appealing to a youngster today.
> However I will let my kid have my yo-yos, slinky, ukulele, juggling
> balls, crayons, watercolors, microscope, if he/she wants. Maybe
> he/she might even want to go bike riding in the mud with me :-).
Heh. My wife has a teddy-bear named Bruno which is older than I
am. (Yes, my wife is older than I am.) Our daughter used to love
cuddling up to it -- probably scent-related, would be my guess.
She hasn't really been playing with it lately (past 4-6 months)
but she normally cycles through all her toys.
> >Lately, her favorite toy has been her snake -- a 2.5 foot
> >long fuzzy thing with googly eyes attached to the end of a
> >coat-hanger and the other end is bent in a loop and wrapped
> >with a leather cover.
>
> Isn't a child's imagination wonderful? Think of what the Universe
> would be like without that. Horrible thought, isn't it? I think that
> it's the duty of every adult to be able to recapture their innocent
> childish enthusiasm whenever it's needed (to help get through
> difficult times), and whenever it's not needed too (to help the
> Universe be a more enjoyable place).
My wife calls this "having her second childhood." She's loving it.
Except for the fact that neither of us are as energetic as we used
to be and our daughter's unbelievably active. She's incredibly hard
to keep up with -- we dance, we swing, we fly around the house ...
she can't get enough. It usually ends with the grown-ups collapsing
in a heap. :-)
If only we could harness toddler energy ...
> >She also loves
> >her newly acquired Wallace and Grommit stuffed dolls,
>
> Did Chicken Run win any awards last year? It should have received
> them _all_. I saw that movie three times ('Our wings need more thrust...!')
I don't know if it did. She enjoys Chicken Run as well -- "watch
the chickens?" she'll ask, when she wants to watch it.
-- Dossy
--
Dossy Shiobara mail: dossy@panoptic.com
Panoptic Computer Network web: http://www.panoptic.com/
"He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)
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