Good Moments, June 2010

Hello there Mathbaby,

You have gotten bigger. You are almost 2. You have a huge vocabulary. You communicate effectively. You have started inventing games like "hide and seek". Although others invented them, and you are re-inventing the wheel, it is amazing.

Here is a picture of you trying to write. You see your mathmommy and I writing and you want to. Your "squiggles" are amazingly like a script. You have gone through "your baby can read" and you know some words. You write letters, but you do not understand how they make words.

You are an explorer and a thinker

Some of the better moments with you have been:

• Being a "food friend" and exposing you to new, and wonderful tastes. You have more culinary courage than most 10 or 20 year olds that I know.
• having you show me and you to mathmommy with our hands in our pockets. You are so very delighted to have pockets like your mathdad.

I love your sense of humor. You learned that mathmommy and mathdaddy have different names. You will say "mommy, mommy" then smile with your impish grin, and say "wiife" because you hear your mathdad call her that. That same humor made you call yourself "you" for a while. When asked what your name was instead of saying "mathbaby, mini, or cute" you would get that same grin and semi-pause, then say "yoou".

So we are reading "outliers" by Gladwell. How do we maximize your opportunity? How do we match it to your capabilities? How do we teach you to work, as Gladwell says "very (very) hard"? Where should your 10,000 hours go in order to make you a world-class master? What should you be a master of?

I love you and I hope you have a great June.

Love, Mathdad

Day 43

Here is your current weight-chart.
We have better data on your weight.
When I made a time-step adaptive RLS the averaging improved significantly.
Instead of each data point being averaged with equal weight, points that were very close in time have less weight. They cant artificially load the chart.



So we were talking about abstinence and purity at a bible study this evening.
The idea of some punk kid wanting to use you in that way... grr.
I want to protect you - give you only the best.
The only way to do that is for you to be part of that process. If you dont buy into the idea then its a lost war and the only thing left is the hurting..

So Im thinking that a revisit to the 50's dating game might be useful.
I think the dummies in public policy have poor metrics. They say that if both the boys and the girls pursue then everyone has equal tactics and everyone wins. I think that instead of having what you think you want, when you think you want it... that long term health and wellbeing of the relationship (and the heart) might be an interesting metric. When I was a child I knew what I thought I wanted... but it was not what I really needed. I pursued folly.. thats not profit but loss.

We have some amazing pictures of you. I hope that you find them cute.. whether or not you find them flattering.


You are smiling and laughing now. Look how alive you are.

Your mommy thinks that you are cute in this outfit.





Look at that.
Cuteness that bends space-time.

I love you math-baby!







You look both goofy and happy with your tongue sticking out.
Look at your big blue eyes.
And your goofy smiling face.




Precious and Priceless.

A noble (superheroic) woman is donating milk to help you live well.
Two have.. but currently only one is.

You do not work well with formula.
We tried it ... and you did not poop for 3 days.
You had a lot of abdominal pain, and cried a lot.
You had a lot of gas... you could have been confused for an 85 year old man.
Your mom was only producing about 0.5 fl oz per nursing.

Mom's production is slightly up, but your growth corresponds with the donation.
You were at day 25 and had not reached birth-weight. Now you are growing.

Here is a chart of mommy's estimated production.

You can see that she is having historic highs in production.
You can also see that they are about 1/3 of what you need to live, and grow and stay healthy.

If you ever give me a math-grandbaby girl you should consider naming her Laura or Kim.