New Adventure for Little Man

It seems like our son has taken a break from making any bold new advances over the past few weeks.  He is slowly introducing new consonants into his vocabulary, but they are haphazard and I don't think he really knows yet how he gets those sounds out.  There are times during his soliloquies when he gets this look of deep concentration, his brow furrowed, his mouth wide open uttering whatever comes to mind, and normally while holding a block in his hand.  Other times, when he is laid out on the floor getting his tummy time, he will press his face right into the carpet and start talking and singing.  It is quite funny to see, especially when he stops, looks up, and smiles at you as if he wasn't doing anything.  He is definitely one precious, unique, baby and I wouldn't have it any other way.  In terms of his crawling, he hasn't quite gotten there yet.  I know I have been saying for weeks now that it seems like he is on the verge and it is only a few weeks away, but I obviously can't tell when exactly he will start.  It does seem like he is getting closer and closer, it is just in really small increments.  He tries his best with his legs, moving them forward as best he can, he just can't figure out the whole balancing while moving the arms forwards part.  He gets himself up on all fours, arms either bent at the elbow or completely straightened and struggles to figure out how to coordinate all four limbs.  Sometimes he will leave one arm bent, the other straightened, and attempt to scootch himself forward with his legs, however he usually ends up flipping himself onto his back when he does this.  In any case, crawling is not on his list of achievements as of yet, but maybe another week, two, or four will see him moving like a madman. 

So I mentioned in the title that he has a new adventure and I wasn't leading anyone on, I just wanted to drag you in a little before I revealed it.   This adventure that I speak of comes in the way of contraption that you place an infant in.   The official name is the "musical motion activity jumper".  Sounds complicated, but it really is quite simple.  It partly suspends the infant in a chair (allowing their feet to touch the ground), is suspended by bungee cords so it bounces to and fro, and the seat spins 360 degrees with different objects or attached toys for the infant to play with.  So it is probably not the best description, but its the best I got without boring you with excessive details.  Well, our son absolutely loves it.  I placed him in it for the first time yesterday and for a minute he didn't know what to do with himself and all the colorful contraptions surrounding him.  That didn't last long as he started banging on some things, attempting to put others in his mouth, and learning how to spin himself around in the swivel seat.  By far his favorite object on the jumper is a sunflower that is attached to the seat.  It is the only object that is flexible enough to allow him to put it in his mouth and as such he focuses his time there.  He will rotate on occasion and try his hand at something else, but he inevitably returns to the sunflower right now.  I can already see the benefit of this jumper outside the activities attached to it.  The fact that he can partially stand looks like it will aid him in gaining his balance.  It is sometimes funny to watch him as he stands and then tries to start running.  The whole jumper bounces to and fro and he gets this wide mouthed look on his face which soon after erupts into a smile. 

Outside this new adventure, he still remains his normal, happy, cheerful self.  He still loves people, and loves to study anything new that is going on.  I mentioned a while back how he stares at people's lips when they are talking, well, it seems like he is doing that even more in an attempt to figure out how to talk.  One of his favorite songs, sung to him while changing his diaper, is the alphabet song.  He could be getting fussy because of a soaking wet diaper but as soon as I start the alphabet song, he stops his fussing and smiles away, almost giggling.  He is such an amazing little baby that I don't know what I would do without him now.  Just last week, my son and I went on a little road trip to check out a job for me.  I had worked at the place before so I knew the people really well.  When I got there with our son, the lady wondered if she could hold him, and of course I said yes.  Our son didn't mind either, although at first he was skeptical, looked at me to see if it was OK, and when he saw me smiling and telling him it was fine, he smiled and started grabbing for the lady's face as he grabs for any face within reach.  Truly amazing.  Even when we go to church, he smiles at everyone around us and never minds when they ask to hold him, he just grabs for their faces.  So as I begin my second day this week watching our son, I look forward to every aspect of the day and whatever it may bring.  We will continue our adventure in the jumper and probably go for a walk somewhere.  Till tomorrow, enjoy the "abundant sunshine" as the weather channel says. 

The Challenger Deep

About a week and a half ago, a trip was made to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean that hadn't been made for 52 years.  There are a number of remarkable things about this trip in my mind, the first being that it was not spear headed by some government agency but rather by a well known movie director James Cameron.  He did receive some sponsorship from the likes of National Geographic and others in the scientific community, but for the most part, he used his own money for the trip.  Even more remarkable is that he didn't use any conventional submarine for this endeavor, rather, he designed and built his own in an attempt to make the dive and subsequent rise from the bottom quicker.  The major change in the submarine's design?  It was designed and built like a vertical torpedo rather than the horizontal design we most typically think of when we think of submarines.   This just goes to show that if there is a will, there is a way.  For a person known for their movies to design and build a ground breaking submarine capable of withstanding the pressure almost seven miles beneath the ocean surface is incredible.  Even better is that his design actually works, despite a few small problems.   So on his trip down to the Challenger Deep, visited only once before in history, what exactly did he find?  Not much it turns out despite a few small creatures no bigger than an inch long. 

No one knew what would be found seven miles down in the ocean.  The last trip conducted 52 years ago by the U.S. Navy didn't go nearly as well as this latest one did.  On the previous trip, the approach to the bottom stirred up enormous amounts of sediment rendering the landscape outside the submarine practically invisible.   On top of that, the time spent at the bottom was only 20 minutes compared with the 3 hours that James Cameron spent there.   But finding nothing down there doesn't mean some larger creatures don't exist at those depths.  As Cameron put it, he only saw a small portion of an area that is 50 times larger than the Grand Canyon.  They had also planned on setting some bait to hopefully lure some bigger fish at those depths, but due to hydraulic failures, had to postpone that till next time.   (More about his trip here.)  So what does all this mean; this trip down to the bottom of the Pacific, this new groundbreaking submarine.  To me, it means that as time goes on and governments need to focus more on the needs of the people than exploratory missions, we will need to rely more heavily on personally financed endeavors such as this one to perpetually explore the unexplored.   This is the first time where the whole idea of a submarine was upended and reconfigured, all by a person with an idea and a mission.  Perhaps its time for the scientific community to begin relying more heavily on personally financed missions than ones financed by governments or government agencies. 

If James Cameron can figure out a way of designing and building a submarine that can withstand the pressures of the Challenger Deep, than why can't we find someone who can design and build an aircraft capable of sustained outer orbital flight, or space flight.  The oceans have received a vital boost in terms of exploration by James Cameron.  Now its time we gave space a boost.  I read some comments online that people view James Cameron's endeavors as a money making scheme, one driven by profits and future movies down the road.  Well, that may be the case, but if it also opens up the Challenger Deep to continued and regular exploration, than it is worth it.  If one man's personal mission can benefit both himself and the scientific community, than what's the problem.  Even if it benefited only himself and all we got to see was visions of that deep, dark world, than so be it.  But that's not the case.  As James Cameron did for the ocean's, we now need someone to create a re-usable spacecraft capable that can bring us back to space on a regular basis.  With the space shuttle being retired and no new developments on the government side in terms of space exploration, we need to turn to the private sector to get what we need.  But in any case, most of us will never travel to the bottom of the ocean or to vast expanses of space, but at least we can view other's endeavors and their explorations on the big screen. 

The Art of Sleeping In

So you got me, there really isn't an art to sleeping in, it just happens sometimes.  Sometimes, you don't even have to be up till the wee hours of the morning to sleep in, you just wake up late.  Well, that's what I did this morning, slept in, and woke up about an hour after I normally do.  My alarm clock is normally set for 4 A.M., which really means its 3:50 because I have my clock set 10 minutes fast.   The thing is, I remember waking up 5 minutes before my alarm clock was due to start beeping, and I also remember turning off the alarm clock for some reason figuring that I would just get out of bed in a few minutes.  That didn't happen however.  Instead, I got shaken awake an hour later at 4:45 with my wife saying, "you slept late".  Well, that did it for my morning routine.  No half hour walk with the dogs, no leisurely coffee making, no head start on my morning blog.  Some days are like that however, and I could get upset, but you know what, I got an extra hour of sleep and feel pretty good in that respect.  So there will be no self loathing, no depressing cast for what is supposed to be a beautiful day, simply a shorter blog this morning and a little extra coffee to kick me into high gear as quick as possible.  The thing is, I still have to leave at the same time to drop my son off at day care.  My wife still has to leave at the same time to get to work.  The only difference this morning is that I slept in.  Lucky for me, my wife woke up when she did and get us truckin, because if she didn't, I have no clue when I would have woken up. 

What exactly goes through one's mind when they sleep late.   I did wake up and I did turn off my alarm clock, but normally I jump right out of bed.   Obviously there was some part of my brain that said, "Sleep, Alex, Sleep."  OK, maybe my brain didn't say that and maybe I still am a little tired and starting to ramble, but hey, I can blame it on the tiredness today.  So with that in mind and sleeping late luckily not a regular occurrence, I am signing off for today.  I nice, little, short, to the point, quick and easy blog post for your Tuesday morning.  Wow, I need more coffee.  So till tomorrow, enjoy your day and don't sleep in (unless you really need to, then I give you permission.)  Oh, and a quick correction per my wife; I didn't wake up before my alarm clock, it actually did go off, so I guess I just shut it off and passed back out.   In addition, the clock I was looking at was wrong, so I only slept in 45 minutes instead of an hour.  I stand corrected (although I am sitting right now, so how does that work?)