Birthday Time Again

Gareth was pretty excited for his birthday this year - now that he's fully aware of what presents are and that he gets them for his birthday and all that good stuff he gets way more excited for things like Christmas and birthdays.

We were debating whether to get him a bike or a small drum set, but the bike won out. We'll save up for a small drum set for him along with saving for Ryan's and buy that at the same time that we get Ryan's. Initially I was thinking he'd be too big for one of those balance bikes, but when we went to their site after everyone kept telling us that was the way to go, we discovered that we could purchase an extra-long seat which will hopefully enable the bike to last almost a year. Hopefully by that point he'll be ready to go to a regular bike (maybe even without training wheels).

We had a playdate/lunch with our friends from the summer a few days before his birthday, which was especially exciting for Gareth since it'd been a while since he'd had a chance to play with other kids. Then on his actual birthday we kept things pretty relaxed.

We gave him his helmet in the morning and helped him find the bike down in the garage. He hopped on and off we went to the park. (Notice the overgrown, nasty-looking grass to the right in the picture. Hopefully it'll be chopped back tomorrow.)

He enjoyed playing at the park with another little boy, who we discovered will be in his preschool class in the fall. After a bit, the boy's parents invited us over to their house for some coffee cake. We enjoyed chatting with them while the boys played. Then it was back home for a late lunch and some playing. Ryan took Gareth out for some more riding while I made dinner.

After chatting with family for a bit, he opened presents and we had some strawberry smoothies for dessert (I was planning on making pound cake, but it didn't happen).

As you can see, a couple of his other gifts were yellow rain boots and Cars. Oh, and he's really into crouching down when you take pictures of him. Gareth's been out riding every day because we've had an unusual entire week of sunshine. We'll pay for it this next week with an entire week of rain (not so unusual). All the good weather means that he's improved rapidly with the bike and can even coast for brief periods now.

The Sun is a 'asma

That was Gareth's initial attempt to say, "the sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma". On the second repetition he managed, "the sun is a miasma 'descent 'asma", so pretty close. It's the first line of a TMBG song from their Here Comes Science album, which Gareth is currently in love with. His favorite song is, somewhat predictably, "I Am a Paleontologist", though he also likes "Speed and Velocity" because he can run around like crazy pretending to be an airplane.

The other day we were at Red Robin and ordered some cheese sticks. Gareth's favorite part of the appetizer? The lettuce leaf. He ate about half a cheese stick, but couldn't get enough of the lettuce and almost broke down in tears when it was all gone. His next favorite part of the meal? The mandarin oranges that came with his burger. He was excited to get a burger, but once it actually came all he noticed were those oranges.

And finally, here's Gareth's version of a classic story, told to me at the dinner table tonight:

The Big Bad Wolf blew down the little pigs' house. And then he eat the little pigs! And then the little pigs were broken into little pieces with the Big Bad Wolf's sharp teeth! And then the Big Bad Wolf blow down the train. And then he get on the train to go to the other grass. And then the Big Bad Wolf eat a duck! And a monkey! And another pig and another pig and another pig and another pig and then a turtle!

Swaddled

Gareth hasn't been swaddled since he was three months old. The other day he was asking to be wrapped up in his orange blanket, but Ryan discovered that it's now far too short to really wrap him in. So we pulled out a blanket that was in the closet here. And it turns out it's big enough that you can swaddle and almost-four-year-old in it!


Gareth did manage to wriggle out of the blanket, but it took quite a bit of work on his part and some encouragement on ours. He thought it was great fun and was begging to be wrapped again before bed. I, not wanting to deal with a mess should he need to use the bathroom during the night, talked him out of that one.

More Detailed Halloween 2010

We seem to get more into Halloween with each passing year, so maybe by the time Gareth starts to lose interest Ryan and I will be super-crazy about it! Or not.

Gareth's first Halloween we didn't dress him up at all. As I recall, both Gareth and I had colds and were pretty miserable. The only reason he had a costume for his second Halloween was because we inherited some hand-me-downs and there happened to be a red rain coat with black trim in the bag. It wasn't too much trouble, even for me, to run out and buy a cheap fireman's hat. The only reason Gareth had a costume last year was because my friend took me to Joann's with her when they had a 99 cent pattern sale. And because she let me use her coupons for the fabric and borrow her sewing machine. And because my mom spent a good portion of every day on the phone with me helping me figure out how to not totally screw the costume up.

That fireman year was when Ryan had the idea for this year. We decided to wait a couple of years until Gareth was old enough to handle face make-up, but young enough still to let us totally decide his costume for him.

This year we started planning early. We refrained from cutting Gareth's hair all summer, even when it kept sticking in his ears and when it poofed out ridiculously, making his head look twice as big. We sent my mom a picture to work from (because, honestly, a boy's shirt is probably beyond my skills at the moment). I'll admit, I got pretty lazy then and didn't do much on this year's costume until a few weeks ago when I made one trip to the local second-hand store and was lucky enough to find some light tan pants and a pair of black shoes. Then I got lazy again while my mom busied herself sewing and buying make-up. I just want it to be clear that I had very little to do with this costume. Thanks to the hard work of my mom and Ryan, Gareth went out this Halloween dressed like this:




Gareth was bouncing off the walls for some reason all morning long, so when it was time to put on his make-up we sent him into the bathroom alone with Ryan, figuring that too many people would work him up too much. Ryan had put quite a lot of time in watching various videos of Joker make-up and staring at pictures of the Joker (Heath Ledger version) and had a good idea of what he wanted to do. We weren't able to replicate the scarring, unfortunately, because the stuff that does that would have taken too long and tried everyone's patience a bit much. But I was very impressed with how quickly he put the make-up on. Gareth was more cooperative than we expected and was quite excited to see his face in the mirror.


It was amusing that just about everyone we saw knew who Gareth was but Gareth had no idea. If asked he'd just say, "I'm Gareth" or "I'm pretty scary". The one exception to recognizing him was a lady who thought he was Beetlejuice.


There's a definite high that comes from having people appreciate the work that went into your kid's costume. Gareth definitely caught most people by surprise as they seemed to be expecting another cute little bear or lion or princess or whatever most store-bought little kid costumes are these days. One guy gave Gareth three handfuls of candy he loved the costume so much. At an older couple's house the husband asked to take a picture - Gareth was the first he'd liked well enough to take a picture of that night. (Granted, we were out pretty early - it was about 6:30 - so there was plenty of time for him to come across a few more impressive costumes.) And just about anyone is impressed when they discover that the costume is homemade (I got several compliments last year because of that).

Oh, yeah, and we actually did jack-o-lanterns this year as well. Which Gareth thought were totally awesome. But somehow the pictures of those didn't make it off the camera. Anyway, I'm glad Gareth had fun with it all, because I'm pretty sure the rest of us adults had fun. Too bad he might want to have some input next year or else we could start planning now!

Halloween 2010

Without further ado: click here (the video should work in recent versions of Firefox or Chrome). Okay apparently the audio doesn't work in Firefox for some reason. I would spend endless amounts of time getting to the bottom of the issue, but you see, there's this distance vector routing protocol that I have to finish for a class...

A Couple Things I Learned Today

I finally figured out that Gareth loves the white part of the hard-boiled egg, but isn’t such a fan of the yolk. I’m not a fan of either and Ryan loves the yolk. I’m pretty certain that Gareth has eaten an entire hard-boiled egg before, yolk and all, but the last couple of times I’ve given him one he’s eaten one piece (usually an end) and left the rest. Today I finally put two and two together and realized that he didn’t want the yolk. Sure enough, once I got rid of the yolk he gobbled the white down.

Patterns are kinda hard to explain to a three-year-old. Much harder than simple addition. Maybe there are some other kids Gareth’s age whose parents have taught them about patterns and who totally understand these already, but I’m not that on top of things. I splurged a bit and purchased this game/toy from a Discovery Toys party (it was on sale for a great price). I debated a bit about buying it since, theoretically, I could make something similar myself using objects from around our house and making my own cards. But, again, I’m not that on top of things or motivated. It’d stay on my list of “things to do” until one day I’d realize Gareth’s in college already. So I decided it was worth it to help encourage myself to start teaching him simple math.

Anyway, they’ve got all these cards that go with the bugs. The cards get progressively more difficult, starting with simple sorting and matching and moving on to patterns and eventually basic addition. Trying to get Gareth to notice the pattern was extremely difficult. I’ve realized that I’m just not sure how to explain the concept to him. But, I’m used to having to find different ways to explain ideas, so hopefully I’ll come up with something helpful for him eventually!

Of course, part of our difficulty figuring out patterns may be because Gareth was showing some similar traits to his Auntie Michaela. He didn’t want to have anything to do with the earlier, easier cards. Nope, no building up from the basics for this kid, start out at the hardest ones for him! (Our childhood pediatrician once commented that my sister wanted to start in graduate school and go from there. I don’t know how accurate she’d say this is now, but I remember there being some instances where it was very accurate growing up.) I’m not sure that that trait combined with the perfectionism he seems to have inherited from me is a great combination.

Oh, and if an insect’s name has the word “dragon” in it, Gareth will never, ever fail to correctly identify said insect (at least when it’s in plastic toy form).

Gareth One-Eye

It all started with our insatiable desire for raspberries, of which there are plenty in the backyard here. Gareth gets excited whenever I ask if he wants to go pick some berries. Partly because he likes to go talk to the chickens as well and tell them that they don't get to eat berries and to stop yelling. But that's beside the point.

On my birthday we all headed out to the raspberry bushes. It seems that no one else has been picking them, so there were plenty around for us to enjoy. Ryan was willing to join us since there were (amazingly) no bees around. We all had a marvelous time and went back inside to enjoy the fruits of our (not very difficult) labor.

Walking in the door I noticed a small welt under Gareth's eye. I assumed it was just another mosquito bite and thought nothing more of it. Until we ate dinner with our neighbors and they commented that his eye was a bit puffy. "Oh, yes, I suppose it is! He got a mosquito bite." And I proceeded to not make a big deal about it. Until he woke up the next morning:

And these were taken later that afternoon, after a couple of doses of Benadryl. He opened our door in the morning, said, "Mommy, I need..." and burst into tears. It took me several minutes to get his head out of my shoulder and realize what was wrong. Thankfully our neighbors lent me their car so that I could get the Benadryl quickly. After I arrived home, we spent the morning with Gareth holding his hand over his eye, laying with his head in my lap, and sucking his thumb while holding his orange blanket. We watched a lot of Gareth's favorite shows on the computer. And I didn't get much of anything done at all.

I was getting a bit worried by the afternoon when the swelling didn't seem to be getting any better and even more so the next morning when it definitely wasn't any better. I had to run to the store Wednesday morning and got plenty of strange looks from people as well as several people asking about it, especially as it started to take on a slight purple-ish hue. Needless to say, both Ryan and I were grateful when Gareth was suddenly able to open his eye fully Wednesday afternoon. It's mostly better now, though slightly swollen still, and has a more bruised look about it. And Gareth's desire for raspberries has not diminished in the least. (Though he has also developed a taste for Benadryl, which he calls "tasty medicine".)

Woodland Park Zoo

Gareth and I went to the zoo today with our upstairs neighbor and her son. Aside from Gareth whining a whole lot, it was a fun trip. I like that this zoo seems to have a lot of outdoor areas for the animals that are nice and large. It's also the most active animals have been when I've been to a zoo (maybe the fact that it's not ridiculously hot helps?).

A large part of Gareth's whining was him wanting to spend the whole time watching the penguins. It's what we saw first and he seemed not all that interested in them initially, but once we tried to move on to something else that's all he wanted to go back to. The jaguars were cool, but Gareth was more interested in watching the schoolkids and other people around him. Due to his unwilling mood, I was only able to get one, slightly blurry, picture of him enjoying himself:

He did finally let himself enjoy watching the gorillas, and even took a picture of them.


Then we saw some pretty amazing birds:


Then on to the zebras, oryx, and giraffes. The giraffes were especially cool because they were moving around and eating (I hadn't remembered how long their tongues are; it was amazing to watch them twist their tongues around branches and pull the leaves off!) I think I've only seen giraffes in indoor space before, so it was fun to see them outside.




We went to see the lions last, but they were sleeping. Gareth's behavior was indicating that he needed some lunch and a nap, so we headed for home. I'm betting we'll make at least one more trip to this zoo while we're here. Hopefully the next time around Gareth will be more amenable to seeing all the animals and less interested in whining!

Just Like Daddy

There have been many benefits to my working a few hours each week. The fact that I'm not committed to an asylum yet being high among them. But, aside from that, I think my favorite has to be that it gives Ryan time to be a stay-at-home-dad. This does, of course, depend on his school schedule, but for three out of four semesters so far it's worked out. I feel that it's definitely had a positive impact on his relationship with Gareth. Gareth thinks Daddy is pretty awesome now and is eager to be doing whatever Daddy is doing. If Daddy's at the computer then Gareth wants to "play Mario" (though that's not exactly what Daddy's doing, obviously). If Daddy's eating peanuts, or cinnamon roll, or apple, Gareth needs some as well. If Daddy's drumming, Gareth must also drum (And with the same object. Which means if Daddy's drumming with a cup coaster then Gareth will run and grab one and join in). And, if Daddy is "sleeping" then Gareth must also "sleep":


I wish any other kids we have could get the same opportunity. I can't help thinking it would be ideal if we could both work part-time, each of us working on the days the other one isn't. How awesome would it be for our kids to have both parents as stay-at-home-parents? So, while I sometimes think longingly of having a decent paycheck again, being in graduate school definitely has its advantages.

If you want to see some more of Gareth check out our neighbor's blog here for some pictures of Gareth with his "little sister". These two, if they get their way, see each other every day, beat up on each other, love each other, and totally want to switch moms (though I'm sure if they did they'd change their minds once they realize the other mom would tell them "no" just as much). Gareth will be devastated when we return from Seattle this summer and he realizes that she's gone.

For those whose hearts melt easily

It's been more than two years since Albuquerque has been graced with Gareth's presence. Luckily, we've been able to acquire a few technical gadgets to capture some of the moments with.

There is a new album (link is also on the side) consisting of videos of Gareth I've taken mostly from my Nexus One phone. Since I always have that on me, it's much more likely nowadays that I'll catch something on video. There is some compression involved when uploading videos to Picasa, so hopefully that doesn't ruin them too much.

For those people who are tired of looking at, reading about, and watching everybody else's kids on all their sappy family blogs, I advise you to skip out on this one.

For those of you who love this kind of thing and will inevitably squeal with all-caps delight, there's more where this came from. Check out the bonus collage in the album. Mom, you can use it as your desktop.

Our Kid is Awesome

Gareth gets to watch movies on Mondays while I do the laundry. (And lately more often as well, but we're going to do better about that this week.) He was sitting there happily watching his movie while I checked some blogs and whatnot on the computer. I went and told him that in fifteen minutes it was time for a nap. Then I proceeded to lose track of time until I heard his door shut. Yes, my child just turned off his movie and went to put himself down for a nap - at exactly the time I previously told him would be nap-time - all on his own. I doubt this will become a habit with him (though I certainly wouldn't mind). Some days he's so exasperating and some days, like today, he's awesome. I love awesome days - and could use a few more of them!

Halloween

I actually managed to put together a real costume for Gareth this year - one that I figured out as much as three weeks ahead of time! A huge thanks to my neighbor who took me along to Joann's with her, which is why I actually purchased a pattern for a costume. And then she let me use her coupons for the fabric and her sewing machine for the sewing. And there's no way it would've been made if it hadn't been for my mom patiently answering my gazillion questions every day about basic sewing things that the pattern assumed I should know. Here it is, Gareth the monkey:

Gareth at the playgroup Halloween party

Excited that we're letting him push the stroller.

Pre-trick-or-treating

I basically took shortcuts wherever possible when making the costume, so I didn't make a lining for the hood (good thing, since it barely fit as it was) and instead of making a tail I used the tail from our monkey leash and just clipped it to the belt loop on his pants. That turned out to be very useful for steering him around the neighborhood.

Overall, it was a fun weekend. Ryan and I made honey popcorn earlier in the day:

I meant to separate all of the unpopped kernels before putting the sticky stuff on, but totally forgot, so later Ryan tried to remove as many as he could find:

This stuff is awesomely delicious. And addicting. It's already gone. Gareth really enjoyed the little bits I gave him on Saturday, but on Sunday he decided it was too sticky or something and refused to eat anymore. Ryan and I certainly didn't mind that!

We went trick-or-treating with our neighbor and her little girl. Unfortunately, the best picture I got of her was from behind - my front one turned out blurry.


She's a bug, as you can probably tell, though it might be hard without seeing her other extra leg I suppose. She and Gareth got "oohed" over an awful lot - I think because there weren't too many other really little kids out. We saw a fair amount of 8-10 year olds and some middle and high schoolers, but not many others as small as our kids.

Gareth, of course, didn't remember anything about Halloween, but it only took him 4 or 5 houses to figure out that he needed to open his bag and the person would put candy in it. He did a pretty good job of saying "trick-or-treat" as well when we prompted him to, though he says it "critch-or-treat". It was slightly disappointing how few houses were participating. If there were eight houses in a cul-de-sac we were lucky if two were passing out candy. It's not like Gareth cared though. He got plenty of candy and had fun - maybe next year he'll remember what Halloween's all about.

Gareth Tidbits

Well, Gareth is still a darn cute kid. Some new words that he's learned: monkey, done, milk, water, and horse. I couldn't figure out where he'd picked up monkey until we started doing the monkey song the other day and realized he must've picked it up in Nursery where we sing that every week. At least he's learning something in there! (I'm afraid his spiritual education isn't as advanced as some other kids his age, but he does at least fold his arms for prayers.)

I'm finally getting him to do some of the hand actions for songs at home, but he still never does them in Nursery. His favorite songs are Eensy, Weensy Spider, Ring around the Rosies (which he calls ashes), and the monkey song. Gareth seems to not like structured activities too well. By the time the lesson in Nursery rolls around he doesn't ever want to participate in what everyone else is doing. Usually a couple other kids will see what he's doing and decide it'd be more fun and join him. The other kids are more easily guided back to the activity. I've given up trying to force Gareth back. As long as he's being quiet and not injuring anything I figure I'd rather have him do his own thing than have to be taken out screaming. He's also taken a dislike to holding my hand if I let him down to walk. Someday I'm sure we'll think it's wonderful for him to be so independent.

You know how some kids really like dogs or cats? Well, Gareth is obsessed with horses. Every time we read Rumpelstiltskin we start out "Once there was a poor miller who had a beautiful daughter... and a horse." Every book that has pictures of horses, Gareth is sure to stop and point them out. I hope this isn't an indication of the type of animal he'll want some day.

Gareth's also learned how to jump without holding onto anything and to do a somersault. It's fun to watch him get so excited about such things. Speaking of him getting excited, he still loves the outdoors. We had a nice (albeit cloudy and windy) day yesterday so we took him out to a trail in the area for a walk. After being cooped up for the past couple of months he thoroughly enjoyed wandering free. He threw a great tantrum when it was time to get back in the car. We happily realize that that's his way of saying, "That was lots of fun. Thanks you guys!"

And, finally, here are some pictures of Gareth downing some strawberry smoothie (after eating a bowl of oatmeal and a whole banana - he eats more than I do half the time!) This was a very happy morning for Gareth.

Drinking every drop.

Happy boy!

Blanket Woes

Well, I think anyway. Gareth is very attached to a certain orange blanket. We'd once previously partially detached him from said blanket, getting him to leave it in his crib all day and only use it to lay his head on while sleeping (he will scream for 2 hours, possibly longer, without falling asleep if he doesn't have the blanket - we've tried before). After tears upon leaving the blanket behind in the crib a few times, it seemed to work. He didn't care that he no longer had it to carry around. And the couple of times we tried to soothe him with it, it didn't work.

Then he mysteriously re-attached to it, apparently stronger than ever. And I just haven't had the will or energy to force him to leave it in the crib (read: I haven't felt like dealing with his crying), so I've let him become re-attached. At least we don't have to take it out of the house with us usually.

But over the past week or two he's become very difficult. For instance, he no longer willingly helps pick up toys in the evening, something he used to love doing. All he wants to do is sit holding his blanket and sucking his thumb. Tonight we had many, many tears trying to get toys picked up. At one point he even wanted to carry his new xylophone to his room, BUT, to do that required both hands. Which meant that even though he was still carrying the blanket over his shoulder, he wasn't sucking his thumb! Disaster! He couldn't even make it from our living room down the hall to his room without bursting out in tears (I could only assume because he wasn't sucking his thumb). He wants his blanket on his lap while he eats. I hate to think what will happen when I throw it in the wash, which needs to happen soon.

So, my question for all of you is, will I be causing my son severe emotional trauma and psychologically damaging him forever more if I force him to not have his "blankey" during the day? Or is it not the blanket at all and he's just exhausted from the pre- and post-holiday bustle? Or perhaps he just needs an earlier bedtime and is too tired by the time I start our usual bedtime rituals? What would you do, if you were me?

Finally!

The last time Gareth received a trim was early July, so he was getting pretty desperate for a haircut (for a "before" picture just check out any recent ones in our photo album of him) . I am not brave enough to cut his hair myself yet since he's so wiggly. He wasn't happy while the hairdresser was cutting his hair, but I think he's enjoying having it out of his eyes and ears now that it's all over.

Things to Come

How Mommy Dresses Gareth

How Gareth Dresses Gareth

One Little Monkey

A few days ago I entered Gareth's bedroom after his nap to the sight of him jumping on his bed. Apparently he suddenly discovered that if he holds onto the sides of the crib he can get some good air and a great bounce. He thinks this new discovery is the most fun ever. Except when he occasionally bangs his head (just like in the nursery rhyme!) against the opposite crib rails. But it sure doesn't stop him from jumping some more.

I've taught Gareth how to give kisses. I'm attempting to get him to give kisses instead of biting (thankfully he only bites me and soft toys, but I wish he wouldn't bite at all). He seemed willing enough to give kisses while I was teaching him, but ever since the lesson he absolutely refuses to give kisses. If I ask for them he grins, shakes his head, and emphatically says, "No!". I knew the day would come when he would be "too old" for kisses, but I didn't think it would come quite so soon.

Happy Halloween!

Although this is technically not Gareth's first Halloween, it's the first he's celebrated. Last Halloween I was not on top of things and he got sick right before, so we decided to skip it. This year I also wasn't on top of things, but it came together better than I expected.

I had been thinking we'd make Gareth into some cute, furry animal, like a lion. But then I asked Ryan his opinion and learned that cute, furry animals were boring and not cool. Ryan wanted Gareth to be the Joker. Which is a great idea except for the fact that it's not possible to find such an outfit for an 18-month-old. At least not one month before Halloween. So I was stuck worrying Gareth would have to skip Halloween again until we received a hand-me-down red raincoat with black trim. Fireman! For a few dollars I was able to purchase a plastic fireman's helmet at Walmart and the costume was complete. Not as cool as the Joker, but better than a furry animal I guess.

We weren't ready in time to go out in the neighborhood, but we did make it to the multi-ward trunk-or-treat. It was very amusing to watch Gareth as I dragged him along to each car. We made it through half the cars (skipping many along the way) before he decided he'd had enough of the parking lot and wanted to run along the sidewalk instead. This was fun for a while until he tripped over another kid and scraped up his fingers. Aside from the fingers, which are now forgotten, I think he had a fun time. And, amazingly enough, he even kept his costume on the whole time we were there.

Winterizing Gareth

Gareth loves playing outside. In all weather. Knowing that winter was coming, a few weeks ago I purchased a nice, warm winter coat for him. Which he then refused to ever let me try on him. If he so much as saw the coat he ran away screaming.

Recently our temperatures have dropped drastically, causing me to pull out my winter coat today. Thinking that Gareth would take more kindly to his coat since it's so cold outside I tried once again to get it on him. With the same writhing and screaming results as previously. However, I finally tricked him into it by putting on his shoes and pointing outside to indicate that he could go out, but only if he put the coat on. Rather reluctantly he allowed me to envelop him in the coat. And outside we went.

It's been really windy here, so I instantly had to put his hood on as well. The result was a shocked Gareth, standing on our steps, wondering how on earth he was supposed to play in such a condition and what he had done to deserve such treatment. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on hand, but I later caught a slightly less surprised child:



All bundled up and toasty warm! The only difficulty (and understandable reason for his not enjoying the coat) is that he's so bulky he can't move well. And it makes him more top heavy. Trying to bend over and pick up pebbles or balls results in him falling onto his nose. I guess he can't move his arms well enough in the coat to prevent the fall in time. So now he has a scraped nose and a bruised forehead. But at least he's warm!

A Little Late

I'm starting to think Gareth was born a few decades too late. He thinks Carole King's Tapestry album is very groovy. And he loves dancing and banging on the washer and dryer to "Jungle Boogie" (you've gotta love those suits). He obviously really wanted to be born in the late 50s/early 60s so that he'd be a teen during all the great 70s music. He took pretty well to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue as well, so I guess coming of age in the late 50s would be his second choice.