First Book

My son Tage (4.5y) is writing on his first book. It might become a manual for life I think. This is what he has written so far (although, as he is not fluent in English, he writes in Swedish):

You are not allowed to destroy 

each others pictures in the sand.

You may ...

Written by Tage

My wife said tonight that her first book was a collection of her impression of people. This person is nice. That person is funny. That really hit a spot in my memory from back in the days. Not of writing books. Not even of a time when I was four. But back in the early days of my computerized life. Lets say it was in 7'th grade (I am really unsure of the correct time, but when I think of the people involved it kind of ends up around there). Back then I wrote a Incredibly complex BASIC program on my C64 that, if you entered a persons name (probably people in my class), wrote on the screen a small tidbit on that person. 

    Enter a name: Kristoffer

    Kristoffer is good at ...

I wonder. I really wonder, if this program is still somewhere in my digital archive. Could it be worth going down to the basement and digging through old boxes, finding old floppys, get a computer to read them and look for that specific program among dozens and dozens of programs and texts and stuff. Is it there to be found? What can I learn of myself as a teenager? 

Or Maybe I should just construct a new such 'program' and enter a sentence or two about each and every person that is part of my social network. In the style of the early teen Mattias of course. And then put it up on a webpage somewhere for the whole world to enjoy. 

Multiverse

I listened to an old episode of the podcast Infinite Monkey Cage today, and they talked about parallel universes. (Basically - there is a strong possibility that there are an infinite number of universes where all possible variations of bloody everything happens...(My brain just says no to the idea, but what does my brain know?)). 

Anyhow, a little while later I had picked up the kids from day care and was walking home when Tage says:

"Dad, are we going to day care tomorrow?"

"Yes"

"Contemplate if I went there and stayed at home, then I would have been at both places simultaneously!"

I started to explain the multiple universe thing, but got interrupted by some sand in his shoe that desperately needed to get out. 

Diary

I think a lot about memories these days.
My childhood memories are very fragmented and I would like that my sons have a better record of their early years than I do. I have only a few photographs of myself back then, and that will not be the case for them. I also try to write stuff down, but I have never been very good at keeping a diary myself (K is better when it comes to that). But I have tried. I know that I did keep some kind of journal on my C64 back in the days. And even if I have always tried to bring all my files when I migrate to a new system I think they have gotten lost some time long ago, even before the double-system crash I experienced some years ago, when both my laptop and stationary machine decided to give up simultaneously (so much for that back-up system). But maybe, just maybe, there might be a copy on a 3.5' floppy down in the cellar. I wounder if I can get the Amiga to work.

(Funny that Tage just came with a tape cassette and asked what the heck that was.)

Tage

Walking home the other day Tage asked me what would happen if you pushed on the man and not on the button on the 'I want to cross the road, please change the lights'-apparatus. 'Does it get green immediately then?'

A long time ago he noticed that you can push on the text at the bottom (on the one that opens our front door at least) to get it to work, so who knows? Maybe he is right. But I can not test it, because then I would have lived a long time - pressing the button (as instructed) and waiting (as a fool), instead of pressing the man and going directly. Do you dare to push the man?

Black spots

A few days ago I hanged a 'prism ball' in the window and Tage sat and looked at the small dots of rainbow that floated around the room. He thought about it for a while and then he said 'During the night there will be no spots. Cause there is no sun during the night. BUT maybe there will be dark spots.'

Do not mess with Tage

I advise you to not mess with my son. You should at least refrain yourselves from scaring him.

He told me today that when He grows old, he will become a man just like [farbror melker] and squirt him (farbror melker red.anm) in the face with water. This since Tage got scared by him whilst riding the train at Astrid Lindgrens värld when he was 2.  My son plans his vengeance ~35 years into the future. I swear, farbror melker will not be expecting it! 

Why me?

Yesterday I went to the library with the kids to return some books. It is a great place to kill an hour or so. Especially since they have a fenced in play area where the smaller kids can play.
I usually read a book or two for Tage there whilst Knut walks around and plays with the toys and books, and almost every time some other kids comes up to me and wants to listen too. Yesterday no less than tree ~15 month olds came and wanted me to read their books, one even wanted to sit in my lap (which made Tage freak out and me a bit uneasy). And I don't mind. But I do wonder why. Do I really look that soft? Are kids not suposed to be scared of men with beards?

20

Any day you can count the number of teeth of one child on the other child's skin is a good day. Or no, wait, that sounds wrong.

I am old

Today I asked Tage if I should crank down the windows in the car, and he immediately retorted that 'No dad, you push a button. There is no crank'. I had to explain to him that back in the day, when I was young, there were no such thing as electrical windows. Damn it, I am old.

A doctors note

I am rather pleased with myself for the brilliant idea I had last week.
If you are about three years old and happen to hurt yourself, you are only allowed to cry if you have a note from your doctor that says that you are actually in pain.
The rule came in to effect after a sudden surge in small accidents that resulted in disproportional amounts of tears and a constant need of the pacifier. No more I said. Do you have a doctors note I said. And it works. The 'test subject' gets distracted and in nine out of ten cases the tears ceases. Now if the tears do keep coming,  I am not really so cruel that I force him to work his way through the healthcare system to actually get affirmation from his doctor (that would only add more pain), I simply take care of the injury the best I can (a hug and to blow a little puff of air in the general direction of the hurt section of his body takes care of most injuries...)

A folded piece of paper

I just took apart my entire laptop, to get direct access to the cd-drive, into which Tage had stuck a folded piece of paper. And managed to put it all back into fully working order.
Savoring the victory with a few cc of Suntory whisky.

Bad parenting - Update

A while ago I wrote about an idea that I had - to teach your kid something that is entirely wrong, just for the fun of it. Now I don't know anymore... Tage still insists that 'turning on the lights' is in fact when you turn them off, and vice versa. Totally without any encouragement from either of us adults, more the opposite. This has led to several fights, e.g. when we visited some friends and he and a girl got into a dark room and played with flashlights. After a while there was some shouting going on, so the other dad went in and turned on the lights and both kids started shouting Turn off the Lights!!! - so he did, and Tage continued to insist that he should turn off the lights, confused he turned the lights on again, and both kids just kept screaming for the lights to be turned off... This continued for some time. The other dad came out looking seriously bumfuzzled.

It is mildly amusing, but I can not help to wonder if maybe it will be dangerous at some point in his life. Maybe there will come a moment when something big depends on a light being turned on or off, and instinctively he will do the wrong thing. Some things are best to have a solid and correct understanding of and that understanding should not be played with by dads who have to much time on their hands.

Quote of the day

During lunch today Tage says:
'Hur säger man på engelska pappa? Tack för maten?'
('How do you say it in english dad? Thank you for the food?')

I was stunned.

Bad parenting #2

Is there someone else than me who has thought of teaching your kid something that is entirely wrong, just for the fun of it. Something fundamental, like: dark is light and light is dark, or up is down (both of which Tage, on his own behalf, insisted on for some time). It would take a real effort to build up the conspiracy needed for the misconception to really take hold, but what a pay-off right?!?

But no, instead we try to force our son into the suit that everyone should wear, in which the room becomes dark if you turn off the light, you travel up with the elevator when in fact the elevator is gaining altitude, girls are girls and boys are boys and so on and so on. But I often contemplate saying that Yes, of course that (red) crayon is blue, just to see where it would take him.

Black quote

"The black train must come and get me", 
my two year old says. Kind of ominous don't you think?

Chef

T's first original recipe. Pancakes with muesli (and jam). I predict a great career as a chef at a Michelin star restaurant in the near future.


(Darn this was hard. I have forgotten how to spell and how to express myself in English. Perhaps it is due to my long absence from this here place, or maybe it is the sleep that eludes me that makes it so difficult. Ill try to come back soon at a more reasonable hour and see if it will be a little easier.)

What a day!!

Today was the first day that I left Tage alone at the daycare. It was only for half an hour, and it went all right. I mean, it wasn't fun to walk out the door and leave my kid crying in the arms of someone else, but he calmed down after a while they told me. But that was not what brought on the title of this post, it was something that happened during this 'free' time that I got.
 
I walked around without a real goal, just staying away and trying to not obsess too much over the fact that my kid was crying. I happened to walk by a grocery store and thought 'maybe I should just pop in and get me a chocolate bar, I deserve that don't I?' even though I am trying to loose those damned extra Christmas pounds that currently flapp around my waist. So I walked in to the store, but when I saw the fruit I actually changed my mind, I was going to have some bananas instead. But they did not have any ecological ones, and since bananas are one of the things that we only by if they are eco, I changed my mind back towards chocolate again ( I do admit that the logic here is not very sound, especially since sweets are not one of those things). Anyway: On my way back from this little detour in the healthy section towards my original goal It happened.

I walked by a cart with some wares that were marked down due to that they were going out of sale. 'Hmm, a bottle of fish sauce. That I do not need.' I thought distractedly at the same time that I, for the hundredth time the last fifteen minutes, checked that I had reception on my phone and that there were no missed calls from the daycare personnel. Just as I was about to walk on something in the back of my mind told me to look down once again, there was something in that cart, something very important.

And my mind has never been more right.

It was a product that I learned to love a couple of years ago. A product that inexplicably vanished from the stores maybe last autumn. A product that I wrote an unanswered mail to the manufacturer requiring about. A product that I have searched for all over the country. A product that I put a Wanted ad for, right here on this very blog. A product that I had lost all hopes of ever owning again. 

There they were, what might possibly be that last two jars of Chipotle paste in the country, in a sales cart, going for 10 SEK each. If they only knew what I gladly would have paid for them they would cry themselves to sleep for a week. You better believe that I bought candy to celebrate!

If you are wondering

If you are wondering why this lille katt video suddenly climbed to the very top of the YouTube charts it is cause we showed it to Tage once, and then he demanded to get control over the 'replay' button. If you are wondering why this is my last post it is cause my computer tripped and fell over the balcony rail in a freak accident that has nothing at all to do with me freaking out over this lille katt video.

A year ago

A year ago my life changed forever.

Abandoned

While on a random walk today we stumbled upon an abandoned flower shop. (Actually I stumbled upon one and deliberately walked past another, but the only nice photos were of the stumbled upon one). The photos could have ended up better I am sure, but Man does Tage hate it when I stop and take out my camera. It is really hard to be creative with groaning kid in the stroller, but I am working on the problem. Any day now either he will realize that groaning is stupid Or I will come to a state were I just do not care. (No, I do not believe any of those things will happen).