Babies... 2

**This whole series about babies came about from me having a baby, and from having read a lot of material with which I passionately disagree. Some stuff I disagree with on a personal level, other on ethical, and some I consider just inhumane. This is all my opinions, written late at night, often after having a nice glass of Islay. If you don't agree with something, and feel compelled to comment, do it!!!**

all of my ideas are based on my life experience, and conversations with like-minded individuals.

I listen to everyone, but if I deem you to be a moron I quickly tune you out, change topic or just walk away. WHAT??? Well.. why should I listen to marriage advice from someone who's divorced. By the same notion, I would unlikely give more than 20% credence to a marriage advice coming from a devout Mormon. It's complicated but it makes sense to me.

There are some interesting books I've read lately that really spoke to me. They really put down on paper a lot of the thoughts I had floating around in my head.. I am sure there are many others, but these jump out at me as of this moment in time.

How children succeed
Drive
Ted video about 5 dangerous things your kids should play with
Ted video about some indian guy who put a computer in the wall with molecular biology in a slum and 10 year olds with no formal education passed a master level exam after 6 months
Wisdom of psychopaths

What else makes a good dad... well, frankly, I think having a cat throughout my entire childhood until I was 20-something, and having a dog from 24 is very beneficial.

Say what you will, but the first year of childs life, they do half the stuff that cats and dogs do their entire life. In retrospect, I wish I had a chimp growing up.... maybe i'll get one for my kid.

go to youtube and look up "dane cook monkey heist"

So what do I think makes a kid awesome?

* allowing the kid to get hurt (maybe not a whole lot like falling down stairs, but some hurt is a must)
* playing with your kid upside down. (I've done a stupid amount of research on this... my conclusion is that people in general are stupid)
* exposing your kid to fire.
* letting your kid walk and crawl on the grass, outside,... generally spending as much fucking time outside as possible.
* letting your kid touch, feel, bite (when mom's not around) as many things are they can reach. When taking kid outside let them touch everything.
* letting your kid try and fail at something. Just give your kid a toy and move the fuck away. Just cause you cant control your frustration with watching your kid fail, doesn't mean you need show your kid how to fucking stack cubes.
* don't let your kid cry hysterically or generally stress for extended periods of time. I like the take in the 'how children succeed on this'.
* don't do the cry it out method. this is fucking selfish. there are as many theories on what to do as there are assholes writing parenting books. which means no one knows what the fuck to do. which means, pretend you live 2000 years ago.. and now pretend there are big fucking baby eating tigers all over the place... and now go leave your baby in another cave where its crys don't bother you cause you need to be in the office in the morning.
* figure out a way to get your kid to reach their boundaries. .. based on an assertion my buddy made regarding the reason behind going to college. he asserted that college will challenge kids in such a way that'll get them to his their boundaries. While I think that's complete and utter bullshit, and colleges are for the most parts are black hole of wasted time, the general premise is very very awesome.
* figure out a way to give your kid stress in a non fatal fashion. based on wisdom of psychopath. don't have to read very far, this gem of ponderment* is about half way through chapter 1.

Ponderment is currently in the bottom 20% of lookups on Merriam-Webster.com. it's also not in a blogger or google dictionaries. yet another lol for education.