My kid is a genius, part 23

"Trust me, kid. I'm from the future."

About three months ago, Max latched onto the concepts of "happy" and "sad." He wants everyone to be happy. If you don't seem happy, he will point to you and exclaim, "BE HAPPY!"But happy is as happy does. If he's crying for any reason, whether he's really hurt himself or just frustrated that we won't give him candy, he quickly gets to the root of the emotional problem:

"Boo hoo, I want candy, boo hoo, I want candy, boo hooooo, I WANT TO BE HAPPY, I WANT TO BE HAPPY!"

"Okay," we tell him at times like this. "Be happy!"

And he will put on a strained smile, tears still streaming down his cheeks, and then… he's done. Problem solved! No more crying, he's ready to move on.

Is this something all kids do, or am I raising a prophet of the new tao?

Max walks!!

Not far--he can go about four steps at a time--but still.




(max 0.9)

No helmet

We don't need the helmet after all!

Max 0.1 thru 0.3

They tell us Max's head is mis-shapen and that we need a special helmet to correct it. He'll have to wear the helmet 23 hours a day for 3 months. And the helmet is $3000.

Oh well, we didn't need that house :)

Judge for yourself, here are 143 new photos of Max and his beautifully asymmetrical skull.

Shouldn't have done that... he's just a boy...

When he was just one week old, we decided to let a doctor cut little Max's frenulum.

Everybody has a frenulum connecting their tongue to the bottom of their mouths. But in some people (including my side of the family), that frenulum is a little short. "Tongue tied," they call it. It can cause speech problems, so Max's mom, the speech pathologist, noticed it right away. My sister and I had no trouble with English sounds, but trying to learn new sounds from other languages later in life turned out to be pretty hard. For example, I can't roll my R's at all.

In my case, it also prevents me from sticking my tongue out very far. And if you can stick your tongue out, you probably think that this is no big deal. But you would be surprised on how many occasions in life those of us who cannot extend our tongues feel that lack, keenly.

In Max's case, it was also causing him to use his gums instead of his tongue when breastfeeding. Very painful for mom. We were worried that he wasn't going to get enough to eat.

So, the doctor cut it. It didn't seem to bother Max much (no more than anything else), but it sure did bother his parents a little.

Did we do the right thing? We modified the boy without his consent. We hope for the better...

Max 0.0

Milestone achieved. Firmware upgraded.
All systems nominal.