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Previous journal entries:
12/16/2001: Ornaments
12/6/2001: Galpals
9/25/2001: Flags
9/7/2001: BabyBabyBaby
8/9/2001: Moving
6/25/2001: Sleeping through the night
6/21/2001: Why Website?

Riley actually took his first steps alone yesterday, while I was talking to my mom on the phone (it was her birthday, so his timing was good!). He was chewing on a toy and drooling all over with a spaced-out look on his face; I doubt he really realized what he'd done. Casey isn't far behind; they're both "cruising" along the furniture (and drooling a lot what with teething) and getting into lots of trouble reaching for things they aren't supposed to be able to reach.

Babyproofing appears to be a process that occurs in steps; just when you think you've got things safely out of reach the babies discover some new level to explore. The process is more troublesome for us than some since we're both packrats and we have a lot of Stuff everywhere that we're reluctant to put away. Their persistence in trying to noodle around with a forbidden object is amazing, especially together; one discovers something and just when he's starting to lose interest the other comes along to check out what's going on and makes the thing new and exciting all over again for the first one. It's rather like having my very own behavioral experiment going on all the time, though to be honest it's as exasperating at times as it can be fascinating.

Riley discovered yesterday that he can now reach the computer keyboard when he moves the chair out of the way, stands and reaches up. Somehow he managed in the space of about three minutes (while Mom was dealing with his wayward brother) to pound on the keyboard and convince the computer to bring up a Yahoo map with directions to a game company, asking if he'd like to print it out. Hmm. Reminds me of Kirk telling us that his son Kristopher could boot up Windows before he could talk. And maybe it was Steve Mac who was telling us the story of the dad who was listening at the door of his son's room as the boy touched objects, made clicking noises and then moved the things around, talking to himself the whole time. It took dad a while to figure out that the kid was pretending to be a user interface...

What a different world they're growing up in than my generation did, mostly due to computers. At least the kids with parents who are well-off and educated enough to own home computers. What a huge advantage to grow up learning computers from birth, as opposed to trying to catch up with other kids once you're of school age, assuming the school has the resources to be able to buy decent computers, or enough of them, for the kids. What a big gap between the haves and have-nots.

Attitudes about raising babies have changed since my mom's generation. A lot, and not just due to the computer angle. There's so much emphasis now on raising the kids right, with lots of support and attention and working with them to give them a head start on learning and so on. There's so much pressure to "do it right". I've been seeing ads on TV begging parents to actually slow down and spend time talking and playing with their toddlers, which is a good thing, but how single parents or parents who both work and are expected to work long hours as a matter of course are supposed to hold it all together and raise their kids right is a question I haven't heard a good answer to. I'm so incredibly lucky to be able to spend time with my little guys.

Babyproofing is an odd example of how things have changed. Various women of my mom's generation have expressed amazement to me that babies now are allowed to run all over the place, forcing the parents to babyproof all the baby accessible parts of the house, to install baby gates, to constantly chase the toddler all over, to act as kind of a hovering servant waiting to prevent accidents. Her generation used playpens; stuff the baby in a playpen with some toys and it really frees you up to do other things. Playpens are so politically incorrect now that it's hard to even find them, and they're called "playyards" or other euphemistic things.

We bought a large moveable pen called a "superyard" (though we call it The Cage) and for us it acts as a safe zone for the twins when we need to get other stuff done or just need a break from the constant vigilance. Even with cycling toys in it to keep something "new" and interesting in there we still can't use it too much, because the kids _know_ they're being penned up and ignored and they get very vocal about it. And the truth is that we really enjoy being with them and playing with them, so I doubt we'd stick them in The Cage all the time anyway. There's no denying that it can be a real lifesaver, though.

The truth is I get really fed up with all the trends and political correctness about how we're supposed to raise our kids these days. I want to do the very best job I can with the boys; I wish passionately for them to have long happy lives. We try to do the right things. I just wish it was a little clearer what the right things were, and that I had more energy to do them.

We took the boys to a wedding reception for Paul's brother Jim and his wife Didit last weekend. As Riley and Casey were dancing with all the various women (they were very popular), an old friend of Paul's parents told me to just love them and they'd be all right, and to enjoy them every day, because it all goes by much too fast.

I like that advice. I can live by that advice.