Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

While I don't miss more dirty diapers and angry tantrums, there are things I feel like I miss out on while I'm at work and Matthew spends the days with Benji. One of those things is the many times they go to storytime each week. To counter that, we've taken swimming lessons on Saturday mornings at the YMCA for two sessions. Clearly I don't expect him to become a champion swimmer from this, but it's great Mommy and Benji special time.

(And bonus points to those who can identify the title quote.)


Hi Daddy!


Benji is not destined to be a champion backstroker.


He definitely prefers swimming on his tummy, much like he prefers sleeping on his tummy.


Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall...


We're learning a bit how to climb out of the pool.


Ducks are still a favorite part of swim class.


After class we sometimes play with just Mommy and Benji in the small shallow section. Benji particularly loves the lane markers and tries to swim towards them.

Libellés : Benji

Who needs Baby Einstein?

So maybe Benji isn't a genius, but this is very impressive.

Libellés : Benji

Let's go fly a kite!

Throughout this past week we've had absolutely gorgeous weather and Benji has been taking full advantage — going to the park, playing in the yard, etc.. The Saturday before last kicked off the beautiful weather and was definitely the best of these gorgeous outdoor days, both in weather and in activity. At the large park on the other side of the county they were having an annual kite festival and it was fantastic! It was free, including a free kite for Benji, and simple but fun. We expected to spend under an hour there, but all three of us liked it so much we spent over two hours!

Admittedly Daddy did way more kite flying than Benji, but Daddy had a great time kite flying (almost got it stuck around a light pole, too). Benji loved running around, watching the kites, and playing with a row of flags or banners right at his height. Partway through the afternoon we walked across the kite flying field to see what else was there and Benji found a small hill that excited him. He climbed up the hill, and back down again, over and over and with minimal help. He's getting to be such a big boy!


Hmm... Let's see what's going on here.


Benji flies his first kite, with a bit of help from Daddy.





Benji just loves wind in his face, and the wind was just perfect for a kite festival.


Benji was particularly fond of the kite tails flapping in the wind.


Daddy, can I help again?





Mommy, please get rid of the dirt on my hand!


Up the hill...


... and back down again.


That's Benji's kite over his shoulder. Pretty nice and flies well for a free kite.


It's kind of weird that we can let Benji run around while we sit on the grass, not needing to chase after him as closely as we once did. He's not nearly as likely to fall, and if he does it's not like I'm going to effectively catch him. So it's nice to find safe locations where we can let him run around a bit on his own.


I just thought this was a nice artsy picture.


Benji walked right up to Daddy and kissed him on the lips with no prompting. How sweet!

Libellés : Benji

Benji's new favorite animal?

As you all know, Benji's first word and favorite animal is "duck" but I think the yellow bird now has some competition. Two weeks ago I wrote about Benji's first instance of the word "dog" when he heard a bark and his interest in dogs has continued to grow. Last Sunday we were at the park and he heard barking and I caught the response on video. Admittedly it's missing the end consonant, but the meaning is unmistakable.

Why he's so excited by dogs I have no idea, especially since we don't have a dog. But he loves hearing the neighbors' dogs bark, he likes his stuffed dog (he used to call it "hahahaha", like a dog panting, but has now moved on to "daw"), and he runs after dogs at the park or the outdoor mall that allows dogs. So, we shall try to expose him to his second favorite animal but we are not getting a pet dog.

As a side note, he also calls the car a "daw" when he hears it honk. If you use the remote keyless entry to make the car honk he'll run towards it saying "daw!" Apparently Daddy uses this tactic to get him to the car after playing for a few minutes in the front yard. We need to work on this word a bit more.

I'm only allowed one great idea a year, and this is it?

(Much logical thinking ahoy; please ignore if you're not that type.)

Like all sports fans who are also mathematically inclined, I've on occasion considered building my own computer rankings model -- for, say, NCAA basketball. (Like Ed did.) My main objection to the current college basketball computer models are that they do a very poor job of comparing a 24-5 small conference team with a 18-11 ACC team, since there's little overlap in quality of teams played; it's basically the programmers' whims that choose which team is better. (Don't even get me started with the RPI, which is as arbitrary as computer "models" get.) The better rankings try to approximate the comparison by using some sort of point differential, but that's problematic in any sport where the only goal is to outscore the either team, whether by 1 or 50. (Unfortunately, point differential almost has to be used in any decent college football model, due to the paucity of games played.) Unfortunately, I never came up with a good idea how to achieve the goal of evenhandedness until this morning, when I had a probabilistic revelation. Here's a step-by-step process to building a (nearly) perfect computer model (and I simplify a couple steps slightly):

a) Take the end-of-year rankings from a decent computer model, grab 5 or 6 years of data (both said rankings and teams' wins and losses), and build about 700 regressions — two for each ranking spot (home and away). The regression formulas would attempt to predict how likely it would be for each ranking spot to beat each other ranking spot. (e.g. For the no. 10 home regression, it might be 44% for no. 2, 58% for no. 15, 75% for no. 25, 99.6% for no. 100, etc. The away regression would be slightly lower.)

b) Now, to the current season. Come up with some reasonable base rankings (winning percentage, RPI, whatever). For each team, do the following:

b') Pretend that team is no. 1. Use the no. 1 regression models to come up with the chances of winning for each game that team has won and the chances of losing for each game the team has lost. Multiply those chances together to come up with the probablity that a team ranked no. 1 would win and lose those exact games.

b'') Repeat for nos. 2 through 350.

b''') Pick the ranking with the highest probability. That's the team's score.

c) Re-rank the teams using the scores in b''' and redo steps 2 and 3 about 100 times.

The beauty of this system is that it's the perfect equalizer between mid-major and major conference schools (for reasons I'll be happy to expand on if anyone is interested). The only downfall is that teams that are undefeated are automatically at the top and teams that have no wins are automatically at the bottom (due to there not being a per-se strength of schedule component), but by the end of the season that's likely a moot point. Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the mad programming skillz to build these rankings — nor use this insight to win $1,000,000 — but hey, it's still a great idea.

New words Benji knows.

"Neck." "Shoulders." "Arm." "Toes." "Larry" (i.e. the Cucumber). "Cookie Monster." "Apple." "Shirt." "Pants." "Hat." "Ball" (which he's also started saying). "Nap." "Pillow." "Elephant." And I'm sure many, many more than we haven't bothered to test him on yet, such as probably "interlocutory" and "chiaroscurist".

Also, Benji checked out his first library book today, the non-narrative board book Opposites by Yasuko Ito.

Competing interests, so to speak.

At noon this Saturday, ESPN2 will be showing two women's NCAA Tournament games simultaneously, with the available game depending on where one is in the country. One of those two games is Iowa State v. Washington. The other of those two games is SEMO v. Oklahoma. On the plus side, whichever game they're showing in Virginia is probably early enough that it'll only be competing against two men's NCAA Tournament games, so we might actually be able to watch either SEMO or ISU at a sports grill.

I am guessing Benjamin is cheering for the Old Dominion women based on who he clapped for when we were at this game. (He also cheered for Columbia when we saw them play the University of Richmond in women's lacrosse earlier today; I need to teach him that we don't clap for the team we're not cheering for.)

Head, shoulders, knees, and toes

Well, maybe not quite. But Benji does know many of his body part words, including ear, nose, mouth, eye, hair, hand, foot, and belly. Daddy says they always sing a body parts song at one of the story times they go to each week. Repetition and singing work!

We also learned Sunday night that Benji knows the meaning of the word "dance" and gets very excited to play "Super baby!"

And tonight we quizzed Benji on a wide variety of words. He knew most of them including all the body parts from above, pants, bib, water, cracker, high chair, spoon, flowers, plate, cup, pizza, and table. He didn't get shirt, floor, or cart. From past experience we already know he knows mama, dada, duck, dog, shoe, boat, your room, diaper, book, frog, letter, sock, banana, sweep, dance, phone, call (on the phone), bye-bye, fish, bell, stairs, outside/out, coat, and door. We still think he doesn't know the simple word ball yet, but it's clear Benji has quite the vocabulary of receptive language (almost 40 words!).

A museum just for Benji

Yesterday we decided to check out the local children's museum for the first time. We pretty much let Benji lead us through the museum, picking out what interested him and wandering from one exhibit to the next. The exhibit that excited him the most was of a fake Ukrop's grocery store with a giant banana outside. We were halfway across the museum when he took off running (he spends most of his time running after something we don't yet see, like a far off water fountain). He ended up at the banana and proudly announced "nana!"

We had been trying for a while to practice banana and occasionally would get a "nana" response but I wasn't really convinced it was more than an accident or just mimicry. It turns out Benji really does know banana! Tonight I brought a banana home from work and I was holding it when I hugged him. He wasn't so interested in the hug, but again clearly stated "nana" with no prompting or special attention to the banana. Earlier today he had a banana for lunch and Daddy kept asking him "What's this?" but he refused to answer; instead he "asked" Mommy for her banana. Apparently Benji knows more words than we think he does but only uses them to his advantage or whim.

"Nana!"








Such a healthy shopper! He happily picks out produce like pears and tomatoes.











Benji currently loves playing in the sink at home so it's no wonder we spent a long time at the water exhibit.


What a fun place to climb! He liked climbing up and down the giant tongue, but had no interest whatsoever in going further into the digestive tract; I think that's probably for the best.

Libellés : Benji

Kids do the darndest things

Every day we learn more about what Benji knows and understands. Today alone we learned:

Benji knows he needs a coat to go out, even without prompting. The weather was very nice today (almost 70) so I hadn't planned on having Benji wear a jacket. After I put his shoes on I expected him to go straight to the door. Instead he wandered off into our bedroom. He emerged carrying one of his coats and proudly handed it to me. I didn't even know that coat was in our bedroom!

Benji knows that dogs bark. We were walking to our car after dinner and we heard a dog barking in someone's apartment but couldn't see the dog. Benji heard it, too, and turned toward the barks. And then he said something like "daw" or "dah." It was hard to hear quite the articulation, but the intention was clear and he repeated it several times while looking for the dog.

Benji can be strong and industrious when he wants something. I was in the bathroom when he decided he wanted to wash his hands at the sink. I couldn't get to him immediately to give him a boost so he went over to the small plastic stool we have in the bathroom and figured out how to carry it across the whole room to the sink.

Benji can walk on tiptoes and stand on one foot briefly. As he's gotten taller he's figured out that he can reach so many things on tiptoes. Today for some unknown reason he walked around the kitchen on tiptoes. And when I was getting him undressed for his bath he stood on one foot (not holding on to me or the tub, which I really would have preferred) for me to take off his sock.

Benji can drive his ride-on car forwards. He didn't make it very far before he decided to get off, but this was the first time I saw him go any direction other than backwards without help.

Go, Indians Redhawks, go!

A big yay to the women basketballers at Kim's and my undergraduate university of choice, Southeast Mo. State, for their second straight NCAA bid.

Benji stars in Michel Gondry video

OK, not really. But Benji is really fond of my gloves. When I come home from work wearing them, he'll whine at me to put my gloves on him. He looks so funny with these enormous hands. Matthew thinks he belongs in a Michel Gondry video with out of proportion body parts. He'll have to elaborate on that; my specialty is just the Benji photos and stories.