What's Next, Walking?

So after 2 weeks I got my day off with my son again yesterday.  Being home with him now is so much more enjoyable for me than it was just a few months ago.  His personality has developed by leaps and bounds and his activity level has surged intensely as mobility has increased.   It seems that barely a week goes by without our son figuring out something new, either with himself or the world around him.  Yesterday was no different.  I had mentioned last week that our little man started figuring out how to climb stairs.  While still not proficient at it, he seems drawn to the stairs like a moth to a street light.  The stairs aren't all he is interested in obviously, but he seems drawn to them more than anything else besides our cat.  Our cat is the one fixture in the house that he just can't resist.  Regardless of what he is involved in, trying to stack blocks or exploring the nooks and crannies of our house, if the cat walks by, he excitedly follows.  As soon as he spots the cat, he gets all giddy and crawls as fast as his little legs and arms can take him towards the cat.  Once he gets within about a foot of the cat, he slows down and approaches slowly as if he is stalking his prey.  Usually about the time he reaches the cat, she darts away in an attempt to keep her tail and dignity intact.  After a couple attempts to reach the cat, our son's attention usually gets diverted to some other object around him.  Even our large dogs are getting a little wary of him and keep their distance when they see him approaching.  Just yesterday he approached the couch on which our younger dog, Aspen, was laying.  As he got close and grabbed the cushion to pull himself up, Aspen got up and moved to the other side of the couch.  Well, our son decided to follow on the floor and attempt to reach Aspen on the other side.  Grabbing the cushion once more, he started to pull himself up when Aspen decided enough was enough, got up and off the couch and retreated to another room.   Seeing Aspen disappear, our son merely looked for the next closest exciting object that he could get his hands on. 

Despite chasing our animals at almost 8 months old, there is a lot more that our little man has been up to.  In addition to learning how to climb stairs, it seems that anything sturdy enough is now considered by him fair game to use as assistance in pulling himself up.  Besides crawling and exploring, pulling himself up to standing is one of his new favorite things to do.  Each day its getting easier and easier for him to get to a standing position.  It is funny at times to watch him as he does not have complete balance yet.  Occasionally he will try to pull himself up at an angle only to slide back to the floor startled.  Its not just inanimate objects that he uses to pull himself up but he also utilizes my wife and I.  Where once he used to crawl up to us and flail his arms and legs as a sign he wanted to be picked up, he now simply crawls over and climbs into our lap.   One day I swear I will look up and he will be walking towards me.  Speaking of looking up and seeing something new, just yesterday our son was crawling along and the next thing I knew, he randomly figured out how to get himself into a sitting position.  Now that he has figured it out, he gets himself to a sitting position as much as possible.  Another one of his new favorite things to do is attempt to flip through books while sitting or for that matter, while laying on his belly.  He can't quite separate all the pages, even on the larger, cardboard paged books, but at least he is trying.  It seems the dexterity in his fingers is not quite where he wants it to be yet.  Mostly it is just one page or two that he flips back and forth, back and forth, looking at the pictures.  Its amazing to watch him try and figure things out, the little gears in his head turning and turning until that little light bulb goes off and he finally "gets it". 

Now we move to the food, which yesterday, our son wanted a lot of (along with his mother's milk).  Yesterday morning I fed him his bottle after which we sat around letting him digest for about a half hour.  Figuring that he was pretty full after drinking 6 ounces of milk, I fed him some solid food.  He had some leftover apples and carrots (about 2 ounces) and a small amount of prunes.  I started feeding him, got through both servings, and he showed no signs of being full.  Having no other prepared foods for him, I grabbed a banana which is really easy and quick to mash up.  I cut off about a third figuring I would eat the rest, mashed it up and fed it to him.  That wasn't enough so I cut off another third.  Well, two thirds of a banana on top of more solid food wasn't enough either so I gave him the rest of the banana after which he was finally satiated.  I couldn't believe that he ate that much so soon after finishing his milk.  Later in the morning, I cut up some peaches for him and tossed them in the baby brezza to cook and blend.  When he woke up from his afternoon nap, he polished off about 1.5 peaches.  Astonishing.  I would be concerned if all he was eating was cereal and carbs, but it is all pretty much fruit.  Either he is going through a growth spurt or getting chubby.  Personally, I am going to go with the growth spurt.  I can't wait to see what this next week will hold for our son as he turns 8 months old.  One thing is for certain, there is never a dull moment when he is awake and active. 

Is Big Brother Here?

It seems that no matter what you do these days, someone is watching you.  George Orwell was on to something when he wrote his book 1984 back in the 1940's.   The correlations that you can draw between what occurs in that book to events unfolding today are uncanny.  Every year we inch closer and closer to full life disclosure, or in simpler terms, a point where everything we do will come under scrutiny.  As it is, most of us can't go half a day without something we do or say being monitored by someone or something.   Whether it be an influx of public cameras, the monitoring of the Internet, or simply nosy neighbors looking for that ethereal "something", our lives are increasingly becoming not our own.  I know this all may sound a tad bit over the top, but look around you, look at your place of work, look at your devices that keep you connected to the world;  everything is turning into a monitoring device.  Our government just a few years ago tried flying under the radar with their supposed "right" to illegally wire tap any phone line.  Security and traffic cameras are used for more than their intended purposes.  While mostly performing their necessary function, they can also be used to track the whereabouts of individuals.  Even what we write on the Internet can be called into question and used against us.  Just look at companies not hiring individuals due to their Facebook profiles or their online life.   Society, and our government, is moving closer and closer to full surveillance of our lives. 

So why am I writing about this today?  Mostly because I keep on hearing and reading stories about in which people being watched, scrutinized, and having a sense of fear imposed upon them by those in power.   I have specific details that I could disclose about what exactly is making me write this today, but for the sake of those involved, I won't.  There it is again, that fear of what might happen should I say something in a public sphere that is keeping me from going into full detail.  And you know what, it completely pisses me off.  I should be able to say what I want without fear of reprisal for myself or anyone else, yet things don't work that way.  Trust me on this, the details I am talking about are not in regard to anything horrific, nothing illegal, and nothing that could cause physical or emotional harm.   Despite all that, I still can't talk about it because someone might lose their job or their life might be made hard enough in their place of work where they would quit.  If this doesn't sound like big brother, then I don't know what does.  Even more, I am simply talking about my inability to say things, not even about what events are actually transpiring.  But enough, let it suffice to say that it is all because certain people in power want everyone to follow blindly without questioning.  Isn't that what most places of work are becoming?  Follow your leader blindly or lose your job.  Especially in this wavering economy where one day things are good, the next things are bad and no one wants to lose a job;  employees are following their employers blindly because there is a fear instilled in them about what might happen.  How far is too far?  The end always seems just within reach, the point where people will say "I have had enough" and put an end to the madness, yet the end never seems to get here.  Everything gets explained and justified away and in the end people cave in and keep on working. 

Its sometimes frightening when you step back, consider our lives and the possibility for surveillance, and then realize how little privacy we actually have left.  Just look at the incident where a college student spied on his room mate via web cam and broadcast it over the web resulting in that room mates suicide.  If a college student can use a web cam to spy on others, is it too far of a stretch to think that corporations and our government can't do the same?  In my mind, no, but I try not to think about it too much.  It seems like the only way to truly get through life un-scrutinized these days is to walk around with your head down, not talking to much, and not interacting too much.  Even then, though, someone might call you in because you are acting suspiciously.  Enough is enough.  We shouldn't have to fear living our lives or watching what we say because someone could use it against us in the future, but here we are doing that.  Companies already do everything in their power to analyze our buying trends to use for marketing and sales, but does it end there?  I would hope so.  Anyway, I need to stop writing about this mainly because I don't want to sound to apocalyptic or like a maniac fostering all these conspiracy theories.   Just take some time and consider the world around you and how it has changed over the years.  It is drastically different than even ten years ago and in another ten years will probably be unrecognizable.  But here we are, trudging along, seeking only to live our lives in peace.  So watch out for Big Brother, all those cameras, and be careful what you say on the Internet. 

Teenage Suicide

This morning an article caught my eye in the NYTimes about yet another suicide by a young teenage boy who had reportedly been bullied at and around school.  Maybe its just me, but it seems like there has been an influx in recent years of teenage suicides ranging anywhere from 10 years of age to 20 and beyond.   So maybe it isn't strictly confined to the "teenage" years, but regardless, it seems like barely a month goes by where you don't hear about another suicide.  In this most recent case out of New York, it was a 12 year old boy who felt that all that was left for him was to take his own life.  Once again, bullying is being cited as a possible cause of this young boy's suicide.  Outside of the fact that the boy was a little shorter in stature than the other boys around, he was simply another boy in the neighborhood.  He had friends, he wasn't gay, and he tried to keep away from the bullies.  So what ultimately drove this boy to the point of no return?  No one really knows and probably never will at this point, but I am sure that bullying will take the brunt of the blame.  Now don't get me wrong, bullying is never OK, yet I would like someone to explain to me how bullying, which has been around since high schools were invented, has all of a sudden become the catalyst for suicide?  It used to be that bullying was merely something to be endured through school.  Some kids were bullied, others weren't, yet one thing is for certain, bullying has existed for a very long time.

So is the fact that bullying has become more prevalent in schools and has become more ferocious and degrading making an impact?  Or is it because something is lacking in these children's youth that doesn't give them the ability to deal with bullying the way kids in the past used to be able to?  I don't know, but for me, bullying is merely the final straw for most of these kids.  There has to be something besides bullying that is contributing to this influx in suicides.  I remember I used to be made fun of in grammar school.  I wouldn't necessarily call it bullying, yet it could have quickly transformed itself into "bullying".  I used to be made fun of for the shape of my head with other kids calling me light bulb.  I simply ignored them and moved on with my life.  There was also the fact that I had to have braces and as part of that, my upper pallet had to be spread first, creating a large gap between my two front teeth.  My classmates used to make fun of me for it, calling me all sorts of names.  My retaliation was to stick a ruler in between my teeth whenever they said something and most times it would gross them out and make them stop.  Like I said, none of this was especially harmful, but it could have been if I had a weaker self esteem and retreated instead of standing up for myself.  It didn't stop there.  I remember in high school having upper classmen try to get a reaction out of me by making fun of my last name.  They used to draw it out making it sound harsh and diminutive.  Over and over they would screw my name up, goading me on, trying to get me to lash out.  Did I?  Not the way they wanted.  Instead of lashing out with my fists, I merely repeated everything they said to the point where they got frustrated, I laughed, and they gave up.  I can see now how it could have had an effect and if I had lashed out, could have quickly escalated, but it didn't.  So how come kids are becoming so fragile now where they can't handle anything?

I know I have talked about bullying before, yet it seems like we aren't capable of addressing the real issue here; proper parenting at home.   More and more often, parents are deciding to leave the moral and ethical upbringing of their child to teachers and schools when they should be doing the jobs themselves.  If a child has a good foundation, built at home, then suicide wouldn't even be an option.  If children knew how to cope with bullying and were comfortable enough to discuss it with their parents, then we wouldn't see kids hanging themselves from shower curtains or trees, or slicing their wrists to little bits.  When will parents and schools take the blinders off, realize that bullying is merely the last straw, and truly start addressing the issue?  There are more and more initiatives to address bullying in the school, yet school takes up only 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for children.  What about the rest of the time that they are not in school and are still being bullied?  Parents need to start taking responsibility for the upbringing of their children and not rely solely on schools to do the job for them.  If a child is being bullied in one school, is it realistic to think that by switching schools they will stop being bullied?  In my mind no, but then again, my mind isn't normally in sync with what the rest of society deems reasonable or true.  In any case, suicide is a horrible end to any situation and I wouldn't want to have anyone close to me go through with it.  To counteract this surging trend, we need to get back to basics, back to real parenting, and raise kids the way they used to be raised years ago; capable of fending for themselves in the school setting.