[W]hen you have kids, you kind of expect there are certain things they will inherit: eye color, hair thickness (or thinness), etc. These are all physical characteristics, and our kids have a good mixture from both of us. But I’ve noticed more and more non-physical things that they have inherited from me. The Little Man…
[W]hen I put the kids to bed at night, we listen to about 10 minutes of what they call “rain music.” This is really an album of white-noise tracks of thunderstorms and rain storms. It is very calming, and I often listen to this while writing when there is other noise in the background. The…
[I] was in my office doing some work. Kelly and the Little Miss were at the grocery store. The Little Man wanted to go downstairs. He would have preferred if someone had gone down with him, but he was okay with me just turning on the lights and putting on the TV for him. I…
[L]ast night, while putting the Little Man to bed, I decided to teach him his first Knock-Knock joke. It was such an epic failure that all I can do is attempt to reproduce the transcript of what happened. I felt like I was in a Laurel and Hardy skit, only it was no skit. It…
[L]ast night when I put the Little Man to bed, he asked for an extra hug. While his arms were wrapped around my neck he said, “Daddy, I’m glad everything’s back to normal again, now that you are back from your trip.” Awwwwww. It’s not like things deviated far from normal. Kelly worked like a…
[T]he Little Man needed a haircut, badly. I’d intended to get him one last week and things got busy and I got too tired. As it happens, I needed a haircut, too, so this morning, both the Little Man and I went and got one. The Little Man has had many haircuts and is beyond…
[Y]esterday evening, while Kelly was working out, the kids were playing and I was in my office listening to a new interview with Stephen King on NPR. I enjoy King’s interviews immensely and this one was no different. But while I was listening, the Little Man kept coming in, interrupting and needing all kinds of…
[A] few weeks ago, the Little Man injured his right thumb. It was by no means a serious injury, just one of those things that happens when 4-year-olds play. He didn’t even cry. We noticed that he couldn’t straighten out his thumb afterward. We visited the urgent care, then his pediatrician, who sent him for…
[W]hen I picked up the Little Miss from her daycare today, she had a bloody nose. Not a big deal, just a little bloody nose. She has a wonderful daycare and the caretakers told me what had happened that led to the bloody nose. Perfectly normal stuff. I brought her home. Kelly and the Little…
[T]his evening at dinner, the Little Man managed to illustrate a mathematical concept I first learned of in 12th grade pre-calculus: Zeno’s Paradox. The Little Man had broccoli on his plate, which he generally enjoys. He consumed all of the crowns of broccoli, save one. For the last one he decided to do something different.…
[T]he Little Man knows that I like airplanes. I think that’s probably where he gets his fondness for aircraft. It may very well be an inheritable trait. It’s probably also why, when he did a recent art project in school, he decided to make an airplane for me. This piece is going on my desk at…
[I] am a fan of time-travel stories1 but there is a paradox about time travel that is rarely addressed in these stories. Sure, the stories tackle all sorts of thorny paradoxes (think Back to the Future), but with rare exception, they avoid the biggest paradox of them all: if someone in the future has invented the…