Flushing

There's an interesting page in the NY Times section on Flushing.

back home

I got back today around the time I usually come home from work. It's a full house with Ashton, Aida, Natasia, AJ, Venus and Emma. The boys are very excited to see me. It's good to see them.

poopie in your face

I spent about 10 minutes saying, "no, poopie in your face," to Andrew over Skype. Zane joined us too, joining in. Diana didn't so much like poopie in her face, but she was busy with Ashton.

She told me William pooped in the pottie and earned his last Land Before Time movie. Now he's got the complete set. Now the reinforcement schedule will go to 5 "balloons" (since he didn't want stars) before he gets a present and go up 5 each cycle. Andrew still flounders learning to urinate in the potty, though I think concentrated attention will get that.

Diana was upset someone put on youtube that they thought William was too old to be in a diaper. Then someone else said it was OK because he is autistic. He's neither. He's OK. Relax people.

Reminds me of the time I was changing William in a public bathroom. A guy told me I shouldn't talk to William in baby talk. As if it's an either/or thing. You can do both people. Baby talk has been shown to be appropriate. Not sure where people get these ideas. But the capper was that he said he knew this because he talked to his dog in "real" words and it worked. Some people. I think children provoke a lot from people, we're all trying to figure life out. But come on. Support parents, don't criticize them.

I'm very sad at seeing Andrew sad that I'm not there. Diana says William asks if we're going to pick up daddy today. It's hard to be away from the boys. I feel selfish. But I know this is the right thing to do.

Skype

I watched the boys for about an hour, while they ran around, jumped on Carmen when she came, jumped on Diana. I saw Ashton, and Victor came to pick him up. They got to see Grandpa Zane. I was more watching them, then them watching me smile or do silly stuff to the camera. It's pretty cool stuff. With the camera on Zane's computer and the one built into my laptop, we have a video phone call for free. It's really awesome. Megan and Gretchen supposedly can do it, so we're going to maybe check in on them sometime.

Andrew has been throwing up, but he seemed OK when I saw him. Diana has a cold but she's still watching her brother's children. William continues to struggle with #2 in the potty, but he's mastered #1, and he usually has a dry diaper in the morning--once they are used up, we're going to go without one.

William is going to summer school, and I like that. I think school should be year round, with big breaks. He had a 2 week break between sessions. Andrew starts in September, which will be here very fast.

Zane and Bridget are taking me out to lovely restaurants. I appreciate their kind hospitality.

William and Airana

A playing B ball

Jose, Eric, Hector

Diana and Veronica

Luisa, Carmen, Eric, Victor holding Andrew

Jose Antonio, Kathy and Ariana

shower

Eric and Luisa are having a baby. More cousins for William and Andrew. They are cousin rich. Claudia is in from Ecuador. Jessica is pregnant too, she's going to have a girl.

Here are the names left to right: Veronica, Alba, Jessica, Claudia, Luisa, Diana, Shirley, Alba, Aida.

William in the water

Rickles Joke

My father taught me everything I know about cars.

Pay someone else to fix it.

photography

I was interested in photography in high school, I took pictures which I developed in a dark room. I'm the kind of person that is interested in almost everything and it's hard in a way because you can't do everything. I'm quickly overwhelmed, and forget I'm interested.

Having children, I have have an obsession with recording their childhood, it's a kind of duty. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy photography. There are great museums in NYC. I had a high school friend who went to SVA, did a masters in photography. I went to his exhibition and it was just snow piled high on roads in Wisconsin, after a plow had gone through a rural road. They were interesting, though I'd seen it before growing up in Wisconsin. Seemed a bit common place. But it was beautiful in a way. I'm sure there was more to it than I saw. But it's also my experience in modern art--I don't have time to figure out why someone thinks it's significant. I prefer less conceptual, beautiful art. Photography is more like that.

I heard a brief case presentation by a psychotherapist of an expert on conceptual art, who looked down his nose at the expressive paintings in his therapist's office. She responded empathetically. I'm not sure I could have, I feel to look down your nose, about conceptual art in a way, what is wrong with modern art. I'm not against conceptual art, I'm against elevating it as the best.

Photography luckily is easily not conceptual. The content in the photo is what's interesting. Love of a child make photography easy. Click away. Modern digital photography has made taking millions of pictures easy. You can delete them, but better yet you can just store them all. With free storage on line, the sky is the limit.

I like Sally Mann. She's controversial for photographing her children nude. They are not naked. John Berger in his book, Ways of Seeing, distinguished beteen naked and nude. Nuke is exploitative. Nude is natural. I love nude art. And I don't think it's a fancy distinction. It's the difference pornography and art. To be excited by art does not make it pornography.

Ovation had a interesting program called The Genius of Photography. One critique of the series is that it doesn't include some women.

Fatherhood is an opportunity to develop my interest in photography and capture the beauty of my children.

One note, while cheap digital cameras are wonderful, I find that the delay between pressing the button and the photo being taken is very frustrating. To compensate, I just click away and edit by deleting bad ones, and cropping them on the camera.

At times I feel a loss in parenting, the all consuming aspect of it, the loss of free time. But there are many opportunities in fatherhood. In Thich Nhat Hahn's book The Miracle of Mindfulness, he talks about a friend who broke time up into my time, and their time. He changed his experience of time by making it all his time. It's a good way of looking at things, but it doesn't remove the problem. My life as I know it is over. Of course I think that's not a bad thing, but I'm not going to pretend there isn't some loss, that there are not some negative experiences. The challenge of transforming my experience, of opening up to my experience, is the opportunity of parenthood.

To make good photos of my family is a joy. I hope that shows some in the photos here on this blog. Photography is democratic, everyone can do it. Whether you're in a museum or not, getting paid for it, or paying to do it, it's creation, beautiful and wonderful.

So my boys are in Tennessee, visiting in-law family, so I have some more time to meditate, think, write and upload videos.

BTW, my cousin has a lovely photo blog.

I also appreciate the photography of An Xiao.

Another friend is Gabriel Branbury. He has some awesome photos.

My high school and college and NYC -> Chicago friend is Peter Barraras.

And, here are some of my favorite links with photos:

Astronomy picture of the day.

The National Geographic Photo of The Day.

not sure what this is

I think it's a story about dinosaurs.

pt3 officer george

Officer George pt. 2

v7: Officer George visits Pre-K class.

vid6: Sebastian drinks from a cup!

vid5

another vid

vid: last one of a "race"

972. Video: a race

971. Video: a race