Hey you! Yeah, you. The owners of Karate clubs, gymnastic gyms, indoor pools. Yes, the people who own and run the places where you want us to bring our children. The places where you want us to spend our money. I got an idea for You. Wireless. Free WiFi! Tonight I was at Karate with Claire, and there are five networks I can hit from there. They are all locked. At SwimKidsUSA they have a network IN THE BUILDING and NO Access!! Nada. Bummer.

I bet you’d get more business if you had these things set up and turned on. Most businesses have internet now, so add a wireless modem for less than $100.00. Open it to customers (you can password it if you want, and just tell customers the password. Change it monthly if you want.) If I convince one more parent to bring their kid here because they can work while the kid takes classes, I just made you about $100.00 a Month! They do one class at a place like SwimKidsUSA, they’re stupid not to add another for half price, which bumps them to almost $100. This is monthly, guys! Consider it. I know I’d sit there longer and let my kid play more, get her more into your programs so she wants to take more classes, which makes me give you more of my money. Think about it.

On the way to our Easter celebration with out friends and family, Claire asked what the Easter Bunny looked like. I had received a Twit Pic earlier in the day from Jason Avant that he’d shown to his son; I had the photo still open on my phone so I yanked it out. She took one look at the picture, held my phone for a while, handed it back to me, and then simply said, “Oh”.

Later I heard her telling Donna that the Easter Bunny is black and has long ears. Haha!!!

Last summer Claire graduated from survival II swim lessons and entered Bronze Jr level where she began her final training to graduate from survival swim school. She started out really well and excelled by Halloween, but then she began to regress. Her teacher, Miss Maribel, and we were concerned about how she was doing, as she’d have some weeks when she was really on and then weeks where she was a nightmare. Eventually she switched teachers, lesson times, and pools to see if the change would “jump start” whatever was going on. I also stopped sitting in on her lessons. Now I’d go out by the reception area and read, grade or watch TV. Because her lessons were after the regular work day, Donna could come sometimes and would sit in the pool area. She said Claire was doing better in the large pool with Miss Elena at a later time when there weren’t so many students.

Last week Claire was told to wear her shirt, and she did very well going back and forth down the pool. After class Miss Elena told me to have Claire wear pants this week and maybe she could test again. I’d heard this story about half a dozen times since early November but I was still eager because I’d seen her really grow over the last month.

Mama was able to come tonight and we brought the camera and video camera. Claire did the length pretty well for Mr James, the deck manager but she still needed to prove herself a little more. Mr James asked Miss Elena to work with her on some of the basic Silver Jr things (which she’d need to do in the next level), and Claire did very well there. Miss Elena said Claire’s balance in the pool with the new techniques was better than some of her regular students! Eventually Claire convinced Mr James she was ready to move on, and a huge weight was off my shoulders when he finally nodded in agreement that she was safe in the water, could get to the side in a panic situation full dressed, and she was ready to move up to the Silver Jr level where they begin to teach the student proper swimming form, which will eventually lead to the swim team! Donna and I shot several pics on Flickr here, and we also have video to edit and upload later.

Claire and Miss Elena are going to continue on this journey together as Miss Elena agreed to teach Claire Silver Jr as well, at least until summer.

We returned to school on Monday after being off for over two weeks for Spring Break. Before break she always dressed mostly in shorts, jeans or long pants, and whatever shoe fit her fancy. After break she suddenly wanted to wear dresses, have her hair done, and bathe daily.

Mama hates to get up early. This morning Claire announced that she wanted to her hair braided by Mama at about 4:30AM. My wife’s alarm goes off at 7AM. I chuckled and told her to go into our bedroom to ask. I stood quietly by the door to see what my wife’s response would be, because I knew how she’d respond to me! She nicely said “gimme a minute to wake up” and proceeded to get out of bed within minutes. Go figure!

Claire’s taking karate now, which requires her to wear a starched, bleach white karate uniform four days a week. Well, climbing in and out of cars is dirty and so are parking lots. It’s quickly becoming a chore to put on and take off this uniform as we come and go and fit karate in among other things. Today, after karate, we were heading to ASU to pick up a friend. Claire hopped into her car seat and strapped herself in quickly, but as I got on the road she checked with me about where we were going and how we had some errands to run, and then she grabbed a blanket we keep in the back seat and tossed it over her head. I knew she was tired or thought she was playing, but after what seemed like 14 nanoseconds, she tossed off the blanket (almost as if ti cry TADA!) and she was full clothed in a really cute blue plaid short set with pink tank. She smiled at me like she was Helen Slater in that cheesy Supergirl moving from like 1983. Remember the one where Helen Slater was getting a few jobs because her brother was suppose to be the next Jack Nickolson? Anyway, Claire gave me this smile, like “this is how I roll and I’m ready to rock, Dada…”

Helen has her phone booth; Claire has her fleece moose blanket!

Used under (cc) from Mark Owens, 2009.

Disclaimer: No I don’t advocate allowing your 3/4 year old unbuckle her car seat & strip in public.

Claire’s 4 in a few weeks here, but the other day we were forced to give her her own Google Calendar. She’s accumulated enough weekly events that we’ve moved her to her own calendar. Haha yes, with Karate now four times a week, we were both done with her events crowding our own calendar items. Between gymnastics, karate, and swim, this girl’s got it made. Stuff to do all of the time. Our little social butterfly has her fingers in everything, including a brand spanking new own Google Cal. One of her grand mothers with whom we shared it (she’s Google savvy) responded only with “oh yoi”. Now if I can just get Claire to put her own events on the calendar, drive herself there, and get a part time job to pay for it all!

Tonight I headed home early from work so I could work on my English 102 course in WebCT. Of course since I was headed home early today to work, WebCT was down. It’s never bothered me before because I don’t usually use this CMS but this school year I do. This sucked for me. I had 4 out of 20 students emailing me before 3:00PM. So here I was sitting at home, ready to work. Claire was balling because Daddy wanted to watch adult TV instead of her watching some cartoon. I got to a point where I didn’t want to deal anymore, so I told her to get her butt into my bedroom where our small second tv sits. I put in her DVD and hit play. Fifteen minutes later she came out and said she had paused it to go potty and couldn’t turn it back on. She was carrying the remote.

The remote was up on top of the file cabinet where the tv is when I left the room. I asked Claire how she got the remote, and she simply told me “I used my tippy toes”. To her, this was the obvious answer. She couldn’t've been more clear if she just replied with “Doh!” I sat down in the bedroom with her and showed her the play button and the pause button. We put the show back on and I headed back out to the living room. A few minutes later she came back and said she was done watching.

She hung out for a few minutes, and then disappeared. I went in after hearing the tv on. She was in my bed with our blanket pulled up to her chest, chewing on chocolate cookies, and watching a new DVD. I asked what she was doing, and she simply told me that she was watching a new DVD as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

While growing up in Pittsburgh and traveling extensively domestically and internationally public transportation was a given. During grad school I rode the bus and subway daily with my mum to town from the suburbs. When we moved to Phoenix, the paucity of public transportation surprised me. We have a bus system here, but it’s terrible. The Port Authority Transit (PAT) system in Pittsburgh rocked. The buses were on time and went everywhere we wanted to go. In Phoenix, I couldn’t even tell how bad the buses are. Several years ago now, we, Arizona residents, voted in a proposition to raise money for a light rail system (think subways or trolleys above ground). The light rail system opened at the beginning of this month.

Claire and I decided we to take the light rail into Phoenix to go to the downtown farmer’s market Saturday. She’d never been on public transportation (other than the airport shuttle), so it was fun for both of us. We packed our belongings and headed out. The light rail was packed because it’s such a novelty right now, but we found seats.

I think I expected the light rail to move quicker, as it took an hour to get from Apache & 101 to Central Avenue. Along the way there were a ton of cool places to go back to, including restaurants and bars I’ve never seen. The train also passed the AZ Science Center (to where we have a membership!), Chase Field and America West Arena. It also passed two cool breakfast places and then headed up Central Ave towards my destination. There’s a lot of new businesses cropping up along the route, and I expect even more within a year or so.

We’d gotten moving after morning gymnastics, so it was a little later than I’d hoped. As we walked up to the market, a man was pulling down the welcome sign. I glanced down at my watch and saw it was 12:59. I sure wish I’d seen that it closed at 1pm! We moved quickly around and picked up a couple things as they closed up shop. Claire bought some honey, and I bought a carton of dates. We walked down Central just to check out what was around. We came upon Central Station and hopped the train home. Claire slept most of the way home, and I enjoyed the trip but knew if I’d just driven up then it would’ve been way quicker (think about it, I could’ve driven to Payson and back). For commuters, the train’s great because you’re not sitting in rush hour (time to sleep, read, listen to music, or work while someone else drives you to work downtown).

I’ve talked elsewhere about the fact that today’s generation has essentially been born with keyboards & mouses (mice doesn’t sound right here) fused to them. My 21 year old cousin had his hands on a keyboard from the age of 5; he’s now a web designer. Our kids today know a language that didn’t exist when we were young. They don’t know writing on typewriters and mailing letters in odd large metal blue mailboxes. They’ve never needed quarters for payphones.

As for my own child, she enjoys shopping at the Apple store (preferably at Chandler Mall). We’re there often. (Mama says too often.) I will never own PCs again, and we’re quickly becoming a MAC family. Claire loves to play with the Macs at the store. Today she wanted to play the 5-7 year old games, and then she was excited, called me over, and showed me that she’d typed her own name. WOW.

Ok I just don’t get it. I mean the girl has an evening routine. Take medicine, brush teeth, put on pajamas (unless clothes are soft and comfy), read book, give water (optional), say goodnight 3,000 times, etc… So why is it that she won’t let me, her father, brush her teeth? I go in there with her, and she just screams and flails. When she was littler I could just hold her down and that was that. Now she fights me tooth and nail. Now when Mama goes in with her, Claire sits like a good little girl and just lets her brush teeth number one through number 20. Just like that. I don’t push harder. I don’t jam the brush into her gums. I don’t vice grip her to the toilet. Nothing. So what makes me the anti-dental mean daddy who just can’t get it right?