My son turned 2 this week!

This past Tuesday, my son turned two. I thought it would be fun, given that our blog post this week is open, to jot down some thoughts on parenthood. And, yes, this is another avenue to show off some picture of my kid.

In the beginning, infants are very small. Yes, yes, you say. We know that. But you don't *really* know that until you see yours for the first time. Chances are, you are in a hospital. You have been there for a few hours, and you are exhausted. And suddenly you have this little purple cone headed... thing. And you panic, just for a second. "Is it supposed to be purple? Yes, they taught us that in the birthing classes. Is it always going to have a funky pointy hillbilly head? No, no, that rounds up in a few weeks. Come on, you know this stuff. Relax. Oh yeah, but WTF do I do now? Beats me, me. Relax and smile like everyone else is, and we will figure it out along the way."

Turns out, what you do next is sleep for a few hours while everyone else come in to see what you have made. And when you wake up, the kid is no longer an "it." He's pink, and healthy if still cone headed. At the hospital they teach you all manners of blanket origami, run lots of tests, and boot you out the door just as fast as they can. But home really is where the heart is.

Theo and Dad, three days old - first day at home.

As time passes, you figure out that somewhere deep down you kinda know what is required to keep an infant alive. Diapers (and the various fluids and semi-fluids that fill them) cease to be a disgusting mystery. Swaddling, feeding, cuddling and all the other things that need to happen on a regular basis become routine. You learn that infants are equipped with raptor claws - and I am SO not kidding about that. Somehow the liquid poo fountain that your child just shot several feet across the room (that you now need to clean up and will make you late for work) will be found to be amusing, and not the cause for summary execution that a similar act would have been before parenthood.

Buy the time they are 2 months old, kids have about doubled in size from when they were born. Cone heads are mostly gone, and they fit into their skin much better. As a parent, you find yourself excited over really basic steps. I was totally stoked that Theo was able to hold up his head "early." At this point they are looking at you, and maybe smiling at you, and melting your heart.

Theo, ~2 months old.

They keep growing more everyday, and the parents learn what the kids need at the same pace. By about 6 months old, they are learning and using new skills everyday. They are not infants any more. They still need lots of sleep, but not as much as before. And, oh my do they ever want to move. Theo was slow to figure out crawling but he started trying to crawl at about 6 months. He would be almost 9 months old before he finally got it.

6 months old
They are also very expressive.

Halloween - just starting to get his first teeth in.

1 Year. Nice!
Kids are learning so much at this point that it can be hard to keep up. They are transitioning from crawling to walking to running. My experience so far has been that once kids figure out how to run, they forget everything else. By 1 year, they also look more like little people and less like babies.


As they move through the 18 month period, words start to form. Not anything that can be discerned, mostly, but they are pointing and vocalizing and trying to communicate. They have definite personalities. By 18 months, Theo was captivated by Thomas the Tank Engine - though he ignored all the other TV bits. He had favorite foods, and was starting to demand that we not help him eat. I must admit, I was quite pleased when the little man began showing a large interest in Daddies old cars - primarily the old truck, which he has claimed as his personal jungle gym...

18 months old


He always runs here as soon as he gets out the front door.

As we got nearer to the big 24 months, his eagerness to speak and sing showed up more and more. He understands many more words then he can say, but is learning daily how to better communicate with us. He sings all the time - and more often then not we can recognize the tune. He is even starting to add in some of the words to his favorite songs.

A few days before his second birthday.

Two has been great so far, if only because we don't need to keep counting in months. I never understood the need to count age in months before I was a parent, but it makes sense - especially when they are under a year old. But ~ 18 months it starts being a challenge to remember off hand how many months old he is, and it takes a second to do the math when someone asks: "awwwww, how old is he?" And then I look like a dummy for not knowing right off the top of my head that he is 20 months old - but I know that I am not alone, as I have seen many other toddler parents frantically adding up months. Some parents keep up the age in months thing for a bit longer - but I am happy to be past it.

Parenthood has been a constant challenge. Sickness happens. They take headers into all manner of things that you are not supposed to smack your head into. You have to give yourself an extra hour to go anywhere, and packing for an overnighter can just about fill the car. All of that is balanced out when you see them learning new things on a daily basis. Fatherhood, though at times bewildering and frustrating, has been the most fulfilling challenge that I have met.

Online classes

I have taken online classes, in two formats.

GB704 was taken as the "online" session - meaning that we met in class 1/2 as often as regular, but had to make several posts each week on assigned topics via the Blackboard forums. I would not have taken the class had I known it was the "online" session. Well, maybe I would have. The alternate session was being taught by the prior CIO for my University. I did not want to take him as a professor as that could have caused tensions with the current CIO with whom I work with closely on my current project. So, I signed up for the "online" 704, discovering the nature of the course on the first day of classes.

My impression of the course was this: while it was nice to have the extra sessions off, which allowed me to spend a lot more time with my family that semester, I never formed any sort of bond with the other people in the class. In fact, I had a difficult time getting into the class at all as there seemed to be little time to develop a continuity from session to session. The class struck me as being perfect for the student that was just grinding through and did not much care about the subject (as I have done through say - oh - finance...) but was not good for someone interested in the subject.

The other type of online classes I have done have been the webinar type classes. They have usually run from 3 to 6 sessions, and have been usually for training at work or some other work related function. They are good for what they are. I think that they will only be beneficial for the person taking the class if the student is interested and cares about what is going on during the webinar. Otherwise, it is simply too easy to be checking email, eating dinner, playing with your kids, whatever else may be more interesting and right at hand then the webinar. None of the webinar based classes that I have taken have been graded, though fo some I have had to fill out a web based form at the end.

On the whole, I think that online classes have their place. But I think that unless you have the kind of personality that is not easily distracted, you are going to get a lot more from a traditional class setting then you would an online class. For the webinar type classes, they are great for learning software, as they can often show you real time where the different functions are. But for other types of study - like the GMATS or the PMP exam, I do not think that kind of class would be very helpful for most people.

Travelling for work

This post will be less of a blog post and more of an open ended question. I have worked for the University for nearly 13 years, and during those years I have had to travel all of 6 times for work. 4 of those time have been this semester, and Monday I will be booking airfare to Kansas City for a conference that I have been instructed to attend (by the way, I won't be in class Monday the 26th.)

I have to say, I am not really a fan. I am a person who likes a routine. To be honest, right now my schedule would probably crush me if I did not rigidly stick to a set routine, at least looking at it in broad scope. Parenthood, work, my graduate school, my wife's graduate school, and now an increasing amount of kid activities pretty much dictates planning each week out well in advance, and giving lots of notice if my wife or I have to deviate from the set schedule. I go so far as to budget myself time for failure and corrective action if I am trying something new or testing something that might not work as expected. I don't mean to say that I plan my day down to the minute, but if I am testing a new engine or looking at a trip through TSA at BWI, I make sure that I have lots of room for error in case things go awry.

I am curious as to how people work travel into their job/home/class lives. Do you travel a lot for your jobs, if at all? How do you manage to finagle your travel schedule around classes or important family activities? Or do you just head out for the wild blue yonder, and pick up the pieces when you get home?