Kirk blAug

Tsunami and I like to communicate. He is two months old so he cannot actually talk yet. He also does not have very good control of his hands and arms yet, so no sign language either. Of course he knows how to cry when he needs something, but what about when he just wants to chat? Tsunami has mastered the use of his tongue for chatting. The other day Chris was sticking her tongue out at him and he mimicked it. Ever since then, whenever I walk by him he sticks his tongue out at me. Then I reply by sticking mine out at him. We go back and forth like that for awhile. It is usually a pretty good chat. Some consider sticking a tongue out at someone to be a rude gesture, but when Tsunami does it all I feel is love.

I have been wanting to go up to the top of the Gateway Arch since the first few times I visited St. Louis a few years ago. Unfortunately for me, no one wanted to go with me. Something about a cramped pod experience that they did not care to relive. I would have gone alone once, but on that particular occasion it was a weekend and there were patrons lined up far outside the security gate and I was not going to imposition my wife and in-laws to wait for me to wait in line. I ended up having to wait until I lived here to go. I thought that a Monday morning would be my best chance to get to the top without waiting in too many lines, and I was right. This morning I asked Jupiter if he would go up with me since no one else wanted to. He said he would, perhaps not knowing what I was talking about but excited about going on a ride, and so we went. On our way up Jupiter and I were the only ones in the pod. It was far from cramped for just the two of us. It looked like something from the future

I was recently remembering strange emotions I started going through when Chris and I first found out she was pregnant with Jupiter. The realization that I was going to be responsible for a tiny human was very scary. I think it started with me being in a daze for a couple of months not knowing exactly how I should feel. I was excited, but I was constantly taking note of the fact that I was not feeling quite as excited as I maybe should be. I think I was more scared for the little guy. This human life was going to have me for a father. Me. That did not seem like a good idea at the time. It seemed like I might possibly be subjecting someone to the life long punishment of having me for a father. I did not know what kind of father I would turn out to be and I am sure I over-thought the prospect. There was more than once that I was freaking out. Balling even. I was convinced for a moment or two during those nine months that I was in no way responsible enough for this task. I am always pretty

Historically, Thanksgiving is a day which celebrates the Puritans and the Natives enjoying a meal together. This happens just before the Puritans decide to slaughter a lot of the natives and steal their land. Still, I like to take this day to think about some of the things that I am thankful for. I am most thankful for my family. They give me reason to get up in the morning. They give me reason to better myself. They give me reason to try to make the world a better place to the best of my ability. I love them more than I could possible describe. I am thankful to them for putting up with me every year.

From time to time, my 3-year-old son will whine about how he wants something. Something like, "I want to watch Cars!" or "I want some candy!" or something else he does not really need. My standard response has become, "I want world peace." At first he was taken aback by this response. Now he tends to go bug mom about his want instead. I choose that response because it shows that the words "I want" are not some pair of magic words that can make anything happen. I thought it would help illustrate that we can get what we want, but we have to work for it. Even working at something we want a whole lifetime does not mean we will get what we want. People have been working on world peace in some incarnation or another since there was ever the realization that there is a world that we all have to find a way to exist on without killing each other off. Sure, some ideas of attaining that goal have often been, and continue to be killing off anyone who does no

According to a new study coming out of the University of Notre Dame, spacing out the birth of children is positively associated with test scores in the older sibling. The younger sibling seemed to be unaffected by the spacing of birth, however. The abstract: OLS results suggest that greater spacing is positively associated with test scores for older siblings, but not for younger siblings. However, because we are concerned that spacing may be correlated with unobservable characteristics, we also use an instrumental variables strategy that exploits variation in spacing driven by miscarriages that occur between two live births. The IV results indicate that a one-year increase in spacing increases test scores for older siblings by about 0.17 standard deviations—an effect comparable to estimates of the effect of birth order. Especially close spacing (less than two years) decreases scores by 0.65 SD. These results are larger than the OLS estimates, suggesting that estimates that fail to acc

Since getting moved, we have been doing a little bit of exploring around our new community. It has been keeping us very busy the past few days and my posting frequency has suffered a bit as a result. Sorry about that. When we found out the house that we rented was so close to an Amtrak stop, we told Jupiter that we would ride trains when we live at the new home. On Wednesday we fulfilled that promise with a short trip down to the nearest stop in Washington, Missouri. Jupiter had gotten sick over night and seemed to be tired Wednesday morning, but we decided that he would still enjoy the ride and went anyway. We could tell that he was indeed very excited, but he lacked the energy to express it. He wanted very badly to watch out the windows while the towns and other trains were going by, but had eyelids to heavy to stay open. When we arrived in Washington, we walked up the street a bit to a place which served food and pie. The owners had a sign up that stated "Pie Fixes Everything&q