How is life different today compared to when you were a child?There's always a temptation to compare one's own childhood and adulthood and to see the world of our youth as simpler and larger than the world we face today. I think the biggest difference between Alice's childhood and mine is that she is almost never bored ( Read more... )

This was written a couple of weeks after Alice’s birth. Reading through it the most surprising thing is how little I remember of any of it…On Sunday afternoon Jason was working with our friend, Jo, to get the last bits of painting done in the bathroom, while I was busy making a huge batch of chicken pot pie as part of my project to fill our new ( Read more... )

For her birthday, Alice's big ask was to go to the Tasting Counter for their nine course menu with non-alcoholic drink pairings. We did that on Friday night and it was a huge success. Alice has gotten extremely good about being willing to try just about anything, but I was still pleased and impressed by how completely she threw herself into the ( Read more... )

Alice's school had a lockdown today. Not a drill ( Read more... )

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Alice and I have some amazing conversations ( Read more... )

While I was in Northern Ireland this summer, I started making a list of all the stories I tell that I'd like to write down. This is one of them.Last year, Alice had a bit of a crisis. She told me that she didn't know what she wanted to be when she grew up. This was news to me--the last time I'd checked in, granted a few years ago, she'd wanted ( Read more... )

Things (friends' comments, a video posted, a blog post) have been bringing up this subject at least weekly for the past month or more, so I thought I'd post about it and solicit others' thoughts on the subject ( Read more... )

Last week Jason had to attend a C++ conference in Hawaii, so Alice and I tagged along. Here are some highlights of the week:

Where we stayed: Royal Kona Resort. It's getting a little shabby, but the location (just off the end of the main drag, easy walking distance to everything, but no street noise to deal with) can't be beat and it's fun to be ( Read more... )

When people compliment me on our parenting, I often say that Alice is an amazing person and we do our best to simply encourage that and stay out of her way. Case in point:

As she reaches for a compact fluorescent lightbulb left at eye-level in the living room...

Daddy: No, Alice, that's not a good thing for you to play with.

Alice: Well, Daddy ( Read more... )