Preferential Voting

This is a post for the Canadians. The Australians should already know about preferential voting. If any Australian wants to correct me on this, feel free. This is just how I perceived it when I was in Australia.

Preferential voting is where each voter can list out their 'preferred' representatives in order. For example, assume there is an election and a voter has a choice between John, Jack, and Mary. The voter may list out their preferences with Mary first, John second, and Jack third.

Determining the winner in a 'preferential voting' scheme is a simple process of elimination:
 1. Tally up the number of 'first preference' votes for each candidate.
 2. Eliminate the candidate with the lowest number of votes so far.
 3. Redistribute those votes to the surviving candidates, based on preference.
 4. Eliminate the candidate with the lowest number of votes so far.
 5. Redistribute those votes to the surviving candidates, based on preference.
 ... repeat until only one candidate is left standing ...

So how does this produce good government?

Each candidate tends to recommend a 'preference ordering' that their supporters should follow. For example, Mary may recommend that her supporters vote Mary first, Jack second, John last. Similarly Jack may recommend that his supporters vote Jack first, Mary second, John last. In this case Mary and Jack are said to have "exchanged preferences". If Mary were to lose in the first round then her votes would go to Jack, and vice-versa. They only "exchange preferences" if their policy platforms are similar enough. And if they can't "exchange preferences", they may be willing to negotiate on their policy platforms until they can...

The advantages to this scheme are:

• Niche political parties are allowed to participate in pre-election debate, they can present their views, and you can vote for them. These niche parties often only have policies on a few specific issues, but those views need to be represented. Common examples are the environmentalists, socialists, liberalists, etc.
• Mainstream political parties try to "exchange preferences" with as many niche parties as possible. They do this by producing a complete and coherent "policy platform" with the widest possible appeal. Lunatic niche parties with completely unrealistic policies are just ignored.
• Mainstream political parties win most seats. You get a functional majority government, but their "policy platform" has been swayed by the niche parties. The party which 'wins' the election was, by definition, the party which could produce the optimal compromise between all viewpoints. You get governments which are very 'centrist'.
• Inidividual voters don't have to vote "strategically". They can just list out what they really prefer, which means you get a more accurate tally of what people want. And ultimately every single vote is counted, so there is less disillusionment.

It frustrates me to no end that Canada doesn't do this.

Not On The Same Page

Emily just posted a blog about the things which are stressing her (and us). There was one thing which she missed, which is that we're struggling to get everyone in this family on the "same page" and staying there...

When you're living in a household with 2 small kids and 1 adult dependent, it's important that everyone is striving toward the same thing. If people are pulling in opposite or contradictory directions then you'll never succeed. Particularly in regards to Timothy, we've been struggling to make a coordinated change and improvement in his life. Some examples:

1. We want others to be more involved in Tim's life and support. When Emily is struggling and someone offers to help Tim with his shoes, Grandma replies "Oh no, Emily should do that". Opportunity lost.
2. We want Timothy to have more control over his life, and despite repeated efforts we can't seem to stop family members shoving drinks and food into his hands and saying "eat" or "drink".
3. We want Timothy to be treated with respect and addressed as you would an adult or a child. However, there is still a pattern of one or two word instructions: "Tim! Come! Come here! Tim! Come! Sit!". It's somewhere about the level that you'd talk to a dog.
4. We want Timothy to verbalise his desires, which means that we need to ask him questions and not do anything until he replies. This worked well when he visited in Vancouver but we just can't seem to maintain it here in Edmonton.
5. We want to introduce Timothy to more people, but without solid supports in place we just can't manage it.
6. We want Timothy to be more capable on his own, and more helpful to people around him. There's simple stuff like opening and closing doors on his own (or *gasp* holding it for someone else). Similarly, we want Tim to be able to put on his jacket or even his own shoes. But when there's a time pressure of any sort, we forget to do this.

It feels that we're striving to improve Timothy's life and abilities, but without the necessary supports around us we just can't maintain any consistency and so can't make any progress. Every attempt to improve his life by training him in new skills (yes, verbalising your desires is a skill) is undermined by the fact that we can't maintain that consistency. When we need to run out of the house we don't always have time for Tim to put on his own jacket. When we can't get a word out of Timothy it is very tempting to just make a guess at his desires. When we can't get Tim to follow directions it is oh so tempting to use one-word commands. The lack of consistency is incredibly frustrating, because you know that any 'good' work that you do with Tim is being erased by the 'bad' habits that follows later.

But if we force ourselves to work hard and consistently on improving Timothy's situation, we run the risk of making Tim upset/angry. Here's an example:

If Tim is bored and grumpy in the evening, I know with 90% certainty that he would enjoy watching reruns of the Lawrence Welk Show. He might enjoy other things too, but the Lawrence Welk Show is almost guaranteed to entertain. 

I could just turn it on for him, but that wouldn't encourage him to speak or to exercise control over his environment. To do it correctly I should grab his Android tablet (where is it by the way? upstairs? downstairs? in a cubby hole?), open a page of movies/TV shows, and ask him "Do you want to watch anything?".

If he says "Yes" then I hand him the tablet and let him choose. If he says "No" or makes no effort to choose then I open the image of the Lawrence Welk Show and ask "Would you like to watch the Lawrence Welk Show?". Note the use of complete sentences...

If he says "No" to the show then I have to try something else, even if I'm certain that he'd enjoy it. If he says "Yes" to the show then he might want to watch it. I still have to ask him other questions until I get a "No" from him, just to verify that he understands the choice. He's been conditioned to say "Yes" a lot, and so a simple "Yes" doesn't really represent a choice... 

During all the above Tim could just get more frustrated. People have been 'reading his mind' for years with moderate success, and it's harder on him in the short-term to verbalise or communicate his desires.

Tim can't understand that, in the long-run, the ability to use the Android tablet to choose exactly which TV show or movie he wants to watch will improve his overall happiness. In the long-run, we don't want Tim to be supervised all the time - we hope that he'll eventually come to us of his own initiative whenever he needs help. Sometimes we forget this long-term goal when dealing with the immediate situation.

Getting back to why I started this blog entry... We're struggling to stay on the "same page" because it's hard. It's hard to break old habits, it's hard to get everyone to pull in the same direction, and it's hard to stay consistent when reality is this complicated. The lack of supports makes it harder because we can't spend as much time with Tim as he needs to attain the skills he should have. Right now I'm just crossing my fingers that we can get some good staff, and then maintain the necessary consistency within ourselves.

More Thoughts on Inclusion

My last post was on inclusion for people with disabilities, with a strong emphasis on service provision. There is another area where "inclusion" needs to be considered and is perhaps harder to execute - personal interaction.

First, I'll give a broader definition of "inclusion". The definition doesn't focus so much on service provision, but is a more general philosophy:

A person is "included" when you don't (unnecessarily) treat them in a special way. In this definition, we assume that you have some default way to treat most people and 'special way' is defined as anything other than that.

This definition prompts that ugly question again - what is "necessary"? You can even argue that there are different levels of "necessary", such as safety, development, happiness, etc. There's also the question of what happens when you don't have a "default way". I will get to that later. The key point is:

"Inclusion" is all about trying to remove unnecessary special treatment of individuals.

It is fairly obvious how this applies to service provision. It means adding wheelchair ramps to regular buses, and getting rid of the special bus for people with wheelchairs. It means not having a separate room where children with disabilities go to learn. Canada seems to have tackled most of these issues already, and been quite successful from what I've seen and heard.

It is less obvious how this applies to personal interaction. We interact with our mothers, our siblings, our workmates, our neighbours, our children, etc in quite different ways. There is no well-defined "default way" to interact with other people because our relationships are all different. Is it acceptable to have a "special way" for interacting with a person with developmental disabilities? Perhaps it is, and I would assume there will always be some interactions which are unique to that individual.

But, as a society, we have some standard conventions for interacting with other adults. If we want to "include" a person with a developmental disability, these rules should still be followed unless we feel it is really "necessary". Off the top of my head, some of these conventions are:

• Avoid one-word command sentences (eg. "Come" vs "Come here please.")
• Avoid person-specific rote phrases (phrases which trigger behaviour)
• Provide a choice (eg. "Drink this milk" vs "Would you like milk?")
• Allow time to respond (the length of time varies per person)
• Follow their focus (observe their interests before pointing out yours)
• Avoid prompting (key phrases that supplement a normal conversation)

The sad thing is I see these rules being suspended a lot of the time in Timothy's life. All of us, as caregivers, rely on rote phrases like "Tim, buckle up" and "Tim, sit down". I could even hear Adelaide mimicking me this morning with "Tim, what're you up to?".

It's cute, but also indicates that I'm perhaps not doing enough to interact with Timothy in a normal manner. I say that same phrase every single time I see him in the morning. That single phrase by itself is fine, but using it every time does not represent anything close to the normal range of human interaction. I'm failing to interact with Timothy in a manner that I would use for a 29-year-old brother-in-law.

Why is this important? The idea behind "inclusion" is that a person with a disability will benefit when we (at least try to) treat them the same as others. They deserve a richer life, not a dumbed-down set of command sentences and rote interactions. Limiting his interactions with other people is no different to placing him in a separate classroom. We, particularly those of us who are deemed caregivers, must be critical and question our own interactions to ensure we're not falling into a trap of command sentences, rote phrases, prompting, and just generally "managing the individual".

P.S. I feel that some people will respond and say "rote interactions are normal", like saying "Hi, how're you doing?". That is true, but for Timothy to develop further we need to avoid rote interactions like the plague. His disability lends itself to rote interactions, and so his life is full of them. If we want to go beyond his disability we need to avoid frequent rote interactions.

Thoughts on Inclusion

We recently went to a disabilities conference as a family (Emily, Stella, and me). It's technically called a "leadership conference" because they're training us to be advocates and leaders in the field. When someone is being discriminated against and excluded by a system (school, workplace, etc), we should be prepared to help.

Much of the discussion revolved around the term "inclusion", defining what it is, seeing how we can make it happen, etc. Perhaps the simplest way to describe "inclusion" is as the opposite of what we see in many of today's systems.

• Today we tend to automatically place people with disabilities in a different stream of life. Special classroom, special bus service, special workplace, etc. This is mostly done under the belief that it is better for the people with disabilities. They get access to more specialist support services. It also has the side-effect of making our systems simpler to manage, more predictable, etc.
• 'Inclusion' is the idea of broadening/stretching existing services to accommodate people with disabilities. Same classroom, same bus service, same workplace, etc. This is mostly done because we believe that social interaction provides a greater benefit to people with disabilities, even if it sacrifices things like 1-on-1 time.

While it may seem a pretty clear concept, there are a lot of subtleties and differing opinions around 'inclusion'. Imagine a child with a disability who is seated at the back of the class, with their own 1-on-1 support aide, never interacting with the other students. Is that 'inclusion'? Well, it's a step in the right direction but is failing in many other aspects. Why are they at the back of the room and not randomly placed like other children? Why do the other children not interact with them (there can be many reasons, often tied to the skill of the support aide and the nature of the disability)? Should we just get rid of the support aide and ask the children in the class to work as a group and help each other, including the child with a disability? There are many, many opinions and just as many corner cases where there are no good answers.

Similarly, we know that there are going to be times when 'inclusion' is just not possible. Some people may need additional supports simply due to the nature of their disability. People who are blind cannot drive a regular car. People in a wheelchair require a toilet stall with more space and lower sinks. Some of these things are unavoidable, and we have to accept that. But is there some kind of a rule we can use to decide what we will accept.

I wrote up these three questions during the conference. Try answering them in order. I think they fairly capture when we should accept 'exclusion' or 'segregation' of any group of people:

1. Is it by choice? If yes, then it's okay. It's a special case, but someone may choose to be segregated from others. The elderly who want to spend time with others of their generation. The blind who find they can only really connect with other blind people. The developmentally delayed who are overly-anxious when outside their home environment. We have to allow choice for these people. That said, it must be a clear personal choice on their part - not something forced on them by a society that does not accept them.
2. Is it unnecessary? If yes, then it's not okay. This is by far the hardest question to answer, and there will always be varying opinions on what is necessary. I cannot provide an answer to that, except to say that 'unnecessary' exclusion or segregation is just not okay. Excluding by default because that's how it's always been done is not okay. Every time we feel that someone should be excluded, pushed to the back table at a fancy dinner, placed in a separate room during church, we need to ask ourselves why and whether it is truly necessary.
3. Is it temporary? If no, then it's not okay. This is by far the most important criteria. Assuming the segregation is not by choice, then it must be very temporary (eg. a trip to the toilet, an extra class to help catch-up, etc) or there must be an actively-pursued plan to end it (eg. aiming to get a job in a regular workplace). Planning to segregate someone indefinitely is not okay. Also note that a special bus, special toilet, special classes, special workplace, etc may be temporary and okay on their own, but the combination is a problem. From an outside perspective, this can result in seemingly irrational demands like "my child must ride the regular school bus". If the child's life is otherwise segregated, then that bus ride may be their only chance to really socialise. This is the rationale for such demands.

One curious thing is that the above rules can be applied to other situations. I hinted that it can work for the elderly, but it also applies to prisons, male/female toilets, and the legal drinking age. Are these segregations or exclusions by choice/necessary/temporary? It's a pretty universal set of questions.

Anyway, I've run out of time and things to write at the moment. I am sure I will have more in a week or so.

Representing Timothy

Every so often, we as a family need to write an application or a blog or some kind of communiqué as Timothy. Whenever we do this, we are representing Timothy to the world and must be very careful about making sure that representation is accurate.

We've been challenged a few times on the things that we write as Timothy. It generally comes down to "how do you know this?" or "has Timothy said this to you?". These challenges are very useful because they force us to re-assess what we're saying and really check if they represent Timothy. I enjoy every challenge we get because it can be a tough mental exercise, verifying and justifying the content of what we're writing. It also gives us some confidence that we're representing him correctly, because we can justify it.

Here's a few examples:

• "I enjoy photography." How can we verify this? Well, we imagine a hypothetical ordinary man who can verbalise his interests, and what his behaviour would be like if he enjoyed photography. We then observe Timothy and see if his behaviour matches. In the case of photography, we feel it does. On his last outing with a camera, he held the camera up, pointed it at something of interest, and took a photo an average of once every 22 seconds.
• "I enjoy going to McDonalds." Same basic process, but a lot easier to judge. Timothy is happier at McDonalds than when he's not at McDonalds. :)
• "I think McChickens are the best burger." Much trickier for us to verify. Before we could write this we want to observe that, given (almost) any other food choice, he would choose a McChicken. Fact is, he probably wouldn't prefer a McChicken as it doesn't contain a pickle.
• "I want to learn more about photography." This is tricky. What does it look like when someone wants to learn about something? Timothy tends to learn by mimicking and/or exploration. Timothy does not always mimic our behaviour, so when he does it is a good sign he is interested in doing the same thing as you are. When he explores on his own (eg. playing with camera settings, taking photos of objects you never even tried to photograph), you can be fairly sure he is trying to learn.
• "I hate that root beer looks like Coke. I always get tricked by it." Hehe, actual fact. He is not happy when he grabs a glass of root beer, drinks it, and finds out it's not Coke. Coke seems to be the only pop he actually enjoys.
• "I dream of being an artist." Yeesh, tough one. What does Timothy dream of being? Well, we'd probably look at how he tries to see himself. Does he prefer photos where he's holding a camera, or where he's learning to cook, or where he's playing with his niece, or... I don't think we've gathered enough information to know what Timothy dreams of being, and so we can't really write such things.

Anyway, this blog was primarily just to say thankyou to the people who challenge us to be as authentic and true in our representation of Timothy as possible. As you can read above, we are trying our hardest. At times we can slip-up and inject our own views or beliefs, and it is good to have someone there to call us out on that.

P.S. Sometimes we get suggestions to prefix statements with "My family believes..." For example, replacing "I will be happier in my new home" with "My family believes I will be happier in my new house". That kind of prefix doesn't really solve the underlying issue. It's actually easier to verify "Timothy believes he will be happier in the new home" than it is to verify "Timothy understands that his family believes he will be happier in the new home". We can observe Timothy smiling when he enters his new bedroom. We can't observe Timothy understanding our conversations.

Adelaide's (Almost) Talking

For the last few months we've been trying to teach Adelaide to sign using her hands. We've tried words like "Daddy" (make a sign like a rooster on your forehead), "Mummy" (same thing but on your chin), and "Poh Poh" (Grandma in Cantonese, and looks like the rooster is running away). But the easiest word to learn has been "Nai Nai" (which is Milk in Cantonese, and looks like you're milking a cow).

Adelaide is now regularly signing "Nai Nai" with her hands whenever she wants to feed. There's no prompting from us, she just starts signing. We look at her and ask "Do you want Nai Nai?" and she smiles and signs again. Often with both hands, which isn't technically correct, but we give it to her. :)

But in the last few days she's started saying "Nai Nai" aloud herself in combination with the hand signs. Is this her first word? We're not 100% sure, but we'll probably know by the end of the month. She signs for "Nai Nai" so often it's become a bit of a joke at times. If "Nai Nai" is her first word, she's got plenty of opportunity to say it.

And this leads into the funny thing that happened yesterday. Adelaide was rolling around in bed (supposed quiet time while we try to get her to sleep), heaved a sigh and said something like "mamamia". She then made the sign for "Nai Nai", prompting Emily and I to sing...

Mama-mia
Here we go again
Nai nai
How can I resist ya?

Sorry, just had to share that. :)

Body Pains

Last night, I rolled over in bed and left shoulder had a brief 'pop' with a matching burst of pain. Joint weakness and pains aren't unusual for me, but the left shoulder is kind of new. My comment was something like "Argh, my left shoulder just started hurting." to which Emily replied something like "If I had a dime for every time you said 'Argh, my [x] just started hurting"...

This got us thinking. I do say things like that a lot, just because of random joint problems I have. The following is a list of a few common phrases in our house. They apply to pretty much any joint (hip, knee, elbow, shoulder, fingers, wrists) because I've had problems with all of them at some times. I've even woken up to find my fingertips 'popped out' because I'd slept on them. Twice.

• Hmm, I think I just did something to my [x]. It doesn't feel right.
• Hmm, my [x] just started hurting. I think that's new.
• My [x] is playing up again. Can you do [y] for me?
• My [x] feels odd. I'll try not to use it for a bit.
• Heh. I stood up, and something went wrong. I should sit back down.

I used to fear that I won't be able to play with my kids the way I want to. Tow Adelaide around in the snow, carry her on my back, etc. Luckily, my body seems 'resilient'. No matter how often I get these pains, they'll go away with time and stretches.

On any given day I can never be sure of what my body will be able to do. But I can be sure that some day my joints and the planets will be aligned in their proper positions. If only for a little while.

Scanning With A Camera

We recently came across a bunch of old blueprints for the current house. They are too big to be scanned, but I wanted to be able to look at them on the computer. Taking a photo didn't help very much as the images were grey, uneven, and unclear:

The most obvious solution is to play with "levels" or "curves" and make the lines dark and the paper white. This works well when using a flatbed scanner, but I'm using a digital camera in uneven lighting. The paper corners were darker than the centre lines. I could not find a way to adjust the image contrast that wouldn't lose detail or create dark splotches:

It was then I discovered a neat ability of Gimp, and this is presumably available in Photoshop as well. You can follow these steps to brighten different parts of an image differently, and in proportion to how dark it is. Here's the procedure:

1. Create a duplicate "layer" of your image. We're going to use this layer as a "light map", showing which parts of the image are bright and which are dark.
2. Blur this duplicate layer. The amount you blur is up to you, but you basically want to remove all the sharp lines and details. You want the layer just to show where the bright regions of your image are, and where the dark regions are, without details.
3. Set the blurred layer to "Divide" mode. Technically, this is taking the colour of your "original" image and dividing it by your "blurred" light map. Practically, this is taking every pixel of your "original" image and brightening it by looking at the average pixel colour in that area of the image. We have successfully brightened each pixel in proportion to how dark that area was.
4. Finally adjust "levels", "curves", "contrast", "brightness", whatever you want to call it. The normal kinds of adjustments you would do to a scanned document which doesn't have enough contrast.

As you can see, the resulting image is much clearer. It isn't perfect and I'm sure some adjustment of these instructions would fix that. But it's a lot better than what we started with, and is more than sufficient for my purposes.

The next step is to try using similar steps for regular photos where one part is way too dark and another part is way too light. Will see what I come up with. :)

UPDATE: I found this photo of me presenting a workshop on Hornby island. I applied a slight variation of the above technique (I had to desaturate and then adjust the levels in the blurred image to avoid division by zero). The end result brightens everything in the image except the projector screen. This way I don't lose that incredibly important screen text, but can still see that I'm wearing a yellow shirt with green shorts...

What was I thinking?!?

Bedtime Routine

We've been getting into a rhythm with Adelaide at bedtime. The times can vary by up to an hour, but the basic routine is:

• 8:00pm - change from her regular clothes into a sleeper
• 8:00pm to 8:30pm - she's very chatty and enjoys some attention
• 8:30pm to 9:00pm - a bit of feeding to help her get to sleep
• 9:00pm to 10:00pm - she naps while Emily and I play the Wii
• 10:00pm - she wakes up, has another feed, then everyone sleeps until about 1am

Of course this never goes as smoothly as we would want. Tonight, it's past midnight and she's strapped to me because she couldn't seem to fall asleep in her own bed. Emily is exhausted because Adelaide is waking every two hours to feed, so I'm going to write this blog and do some coding.

But whatever happens, Adelaide does know when the bedtime routine is meant to start. A few days ago it was 8:15pm and I was changing Adelaide's diaper. She was happy and still in her regular clothes, so rather than change her into a sleeper I decided to dress her back up. After the first button she was in tears! She got this horrified look on her face and just bawled!

Similar thing again today. Emily and I took her out to see 10pm fireworks, and all is going fine until about 8:45pm. Suddenly Adelaide realises that the sun is going down and she's not in her sleeper. A happy and content baby suddenly turns to tears and sad, sad cries.

I've been told that parents can distinguish between their child's cries. In this case, we definitely can. This crying is not a "I have tummy problems!" scream or a "I'm bored!" protest. It is more like the cry when you realise you left your toddler's favourite teddy bear at the last petrol station. Or when your child is lost in a department store and can't find anyone they know. It's a "They forgot me!" kind of cry. Absolutely adorable, but it also gets you moving quickly. :)

Anyway, I'll get some coding done while Adelaide is still sleeping. I expect her to wake up within the hour for her next feed. Seems like she's not teething as we thought - it's just another growth spurt.

Our Camping Challenge

We recently took Adelaide on her first camping trip. We mention to this to people afterwards and we get told "That was brave!". I was always told that bravery is "doing something stupid but surviving". :P Maybe if we'd known in advance we wouldn't have tried! :)

The ideal room temp for baby to sleep in is 21c, but the overnight tent temp was 11c (Emily will tell you all about my tent, which is an Australian design and has a lot of mesh walls). A lot of co-sleeping (bed-sharing) was necessary to try and keep everyone warm enough overnight.

We had hesitated to do co-sleeping because Adelaide was so tiny, and I have a tendency to roll with my elbows outwards. In the tent we had no choice, and honestly it worked out far better than I'd hoped. We both got a much better handle on Adelaide's sleeping habits, and I think we all feel a lot more connected as a family. Sharing every waking and sleeping moment does help to feel that connection.

To keep ourselves sane over the course of the trip, we alternated between camping and motels. At one point we ended up at Sunpeaks Resort, a ski-resort which turns into a hiking destination in the summer. Emily just told me that Sunpeaks saved the trip. Without that break, we probably would have given up and headed home. A proper bed, with TV and a microwave, is a very nice break from cold nights and mosquitoes.

And oh yes, there were a lot of mosquitoes no matter where we camped or walked. Emily breaks out in swollen itchy patches after a mosquito bite, but I just bleed from the holes. We couldn't dare to put mosquito repellent on Adelaide, and by proxy we couldn't put any on Emily. So Emily spent a lot of her time inside the tent or car, while I spent a lot of time setting up the tent or lighting a campfire. Not complaining, but it's these little role restrictions that make camping with an infant a little bit harder.

Halfway through the trip we met up with Stella and Timothy at a motel in Clearwater. We spent a few days in Wells Gray Park (awesome waterfalls!), and then made our first attempt to camp as a unified family. Stella had brought a tent and a big outdoor mesh. The mesh was big enough to cover a picnic table with extra chairs, which meant that Emily and Adelaide could spend a lot more time outside. Unfortunately Stella's tent leaked during our first camping night and she and Tim had to head home too soon.

Once Stella and Timothy left, the three of us headed to Kamloops and spent a few nights camping there. The temperature rocketed up to 36c in the daytime, and so we spent parts of our days in malls, the cinema (we were almost the only ones seeing Toy Story 3 in 2D!), or hiking up and down mountains. We will have to return to Kamloops another time. The entire area reminds me of Muswellbrook, except they have sub-alpine meadows nearby... :)

Was it worth it? Well, it was always going to be a challenge. We managed to take Adelaide camping, hiking, to waterfalls, to the movies, to the zoo, with family, in the cold, and in the heat. It was not a comfortable trip, but we got it all done. And that's what made it worth it. :)

Adelaide's Birth

Emily's just written up her blog about the birth, so I figured I'd write up my experience. I'll only note down the things she didn't mention much. I remember a few more things as I wasn't the one in all the pain.

• First, my embarrassment. I don't have a driver's license in Canada, and I had just organised all my paperwork to let me do the multiple-choice Knowledge Test. So after we got Emily into hospital, where did I go? Off to do my knowledge test, coming back some time after she was hooked up to all the baby monitoring stuff. That's when my memories start.
• We had to kill time in the hospital somehow. Labour is a long process. We had brought a laptop and started marathoning the modern series of Doctor Who (starting from Season 2). Who knew that we'd look back at those episodes and think "damn, Season 5 is so much better"? Kill Doctor Who and we're back to just talking rubbish to burn up the hours.
• At one point, Emily had setup a tiny portable stereo system to listen to Glee music while having her cucumber-salad lunch. That was early on in the day. It's weird thinking that the same day contained "Emily being excited about cucumber-salad" and "Emily screaming and crying and pushing a baby out". A baby's birth will be a strange day.
• Originally, Emily's mum (Stella) was at the hospital with us. Having her there really helped in the early hours when I wasn't around as much, but with labour approaching we knew things would be getting emotional and stressful soon. We sent Stella home somewhere around lunchtime, though she would drop in every few hours after that with very welcome food relief. :)
• The hospital staff wanted the baby out, and rightfully so. Adelaide had pooped inside and there was a risk of her inhaling some of that. However, Emily was dilating quite quickly on her own. We didn't want to use induction if we could avoid it, so we delayed. In the end, Emily's dilation slowed down and she had to be induced. She was not happy about the IV, but I think she was happy to get labour moving again.
• Labour is enormously painful. And induced labour comes up on the mother very fast. Once you're induced, know that this is going to hurt, and it's going to hurt fast. I'm not sure that I fully understood this, but I did at the end when the hospital staff said "you know, the vast vast majority of women get an epidural when they're induced, you're just incredible".
• As a father and husband, there were a few things that ran through my head during the birth:
  • I will never leave her. There is nothing quite like watching a woman go through labour to make your insides shrivel up and make you think "seriously? this woman loves me?".
  • Baby's head is showing? Umbilical cord needs cutting? Whoop-dee-doo. Excuse me while I tend to my wife here, ok? And no, I don't want to grab my camera. She's in pain, and I'm not a tourist.
  • I wanted to cry at many points through the birth, just watching and hearing how much pain she is in. Absolutely everything is secondary to her pain. If she needs to break a bone to distract herself from the pain, so be it. Bone injures will heal. Birthing pain trumps all concerns today. Yes, seriously, it is that bad.
  • I know her better than the staff and can better translate how she's feeling, what she wants, etc. Perhaps that is the most useful thing the husband can do - translating her needs to the hospital staff, and their directions back to her. For example: "Yes, I know a heat-pack makes the most sense for labour pains. But screw that - my wife needs a soothing ice-pack down her back to make her feel better. I don't care if you need to use frozen popsicles, we need something very cold down her back right now." That is your job as husband.
• Adelaide came out in full Hollywood style. Bright pink, breathing, seemingly happy to be out. She had a bit of poop on her but otherwise was all good. Emily was completely wiped out, but happy it was all over.
• Adelaide has been breastfeeding just fine, almost since the very first attempt. She has strong neck muscles, breathes just fine, and has a relatively gentle cry. We could not be happier. In fact, Adelaide and Emily were doing so well they sent us home within 16 hours of the birth.

The whole thing went very very fast. I still can't believe we now have a baby, but I am extremely eager to play with her and watch her grow up. When she opens her eyes and just stares at you, it's beautiful.

Note to Timothy: I know you can't read this, and I know you can't respond, but I want to write this down. You are an uncle now, mate. Maybe you know this because you seemed to know there was a baby in Emily's tummy. We will be bringing the whole family to you soon. I am really looking forward to it. Love you mate. We'll see you soon.

Bullsh*tt*ng

Emily and I have been discussing parenting styles recently. The standard stuff like discipline, how to encourage, etc. We won't need any of this for a year or so, but it's best to plan a bit beforehand. And that brings me to the value of bullshitting.

I don't know if anyone has heard of the card game called "Cheat", but I think it's a good and safe intro to the concept of bullshitting. The rules are:

• Split the deck evenly between all players, and keep your cards hidden.
• On your turn, choose some of your cards and place them face down on the table. Describe what those cards are, like "4 aces" or "3 kings".
• You do not have to tell the truth. There are some rules for how you can describe those cards.... but truth is not one of the rules.
• If someone calls out "Cheat" when you're lying, then you have to pick up all the cards that were put down so far.
• If someone call out "Cheat" and you're NOT lying, then they have to pick up all the cards that were put down so far.
• The first person to get rid of all their cards wins the game.

I feel this game teaches us:

• not to believe the first thing you hear (a good strategy is to lie unnecessarily on your first turn and tell the truth on your second turn, as it can really confuse people)
• it is always safer to tell the truth, as there's a high probability of the truth coming out
• you cannot make unbelievable claims and expect people to accept it easily
• test the truth of what someone says by looking at what you know for sure (if someone claims to put down 2 aces, but you have 3 aces in your hand, you know they are bullshitting)
• pay attention to what is going on and where the cards are, because that information can help identify any lies
• you must tell the truth at the end (everyone will call "Cheat" on your winning turn, so you better be telling the truth)

Not all of the above are positive lessons, I know. But some are very useful in a world where you can't trust information. How do you know that your friend is not stranded in Spain without a credit card and needs you to wire money immediately? Because if they needed money that badly, they could have made a collect call. How do you know that combining your chequing and mortgage will save you money? Run the numbers yourself. How do you know that Microsoft won't donate $1 to AIDS research for every time you forward an email? Because you have never heard of a service that lets you track emails like that. How much should you trust a person online? Only as far as you can independently verify what they say.

But can/should you incorporate bullshitting as a parenting skill? Before I even knew how to play a game like "Cheat", I was exposed to the concept of bullshitting. My Dad loved to do it, with statements like "I can remember being born" being one of his favourites. If you left your McDonalds fries unwatched, someone would steal them and try to convince you that you ate them all. It was up to you to spot who had two sets of fries in front of them.

The main difference between "bullshitting" and outright "lying" was that you can always identify the bullshit by looking at your surroundings. And you would be congratulated for successfully separating the bullshit from the truth.

I honestly think this has helped me. I accept what people say, but do not rely too heavily on it. I try to pick out information that sounds odd or incorrect or misphrased, and take the time to verify those facts. I always try to correlate what I hear with what I see and what I can deduce. It has been a valuable lesson to me.

So when our child asks "Has the sky always been blue?", I may just answer "Well they have to repaint it every year, and this year they chose blue. Last year it was green." And I will be very happy when they call "bullshit" on me, because all our photos have nice blue skies.

Means-Tested Disability Benefits

From what I understand of the Albertan welfare system, many disability benefits are cut once you start earning money from other sources. I can't speak for the rest of Canada or even my home Australia as I have never been involved there. However, I'm not sure if this should be considered a "fair go" for disabled citizens.

As I understand it, the idea of "social security" is that we guarantee all citizens a minimum level of living. The premise is that all individuals deserve a decent life, though circumstances may make it difficult or impossible for them to achieve it on their own. In some cases these circumstances are transient (eg. unemployment, pregnancy, illness) while other times they are permanent (eg. disability). In either case, society feels that we should offset the individual's circumstance by providing them with some kind of benefits.

Now it makes sense that an individual's "unemployment benefits" would be cut if they become employed. The individual's circumstances have changed, and the benefits are no longer appropriate.

But what should happen when a person overcomes their circumstances. That is, when their circumstances do not change, but the person pushes themselves to improve their own life? For example, should a new mother have her maternity benefits cut because she pushed herself to grow vegetables? Should we cut her maternity benefits as they are not necessary to feed her child? Or should we maintain her benefits, and applaud the improved life she can now offer her child?

Should benefits be means-tested? Or should they be based purely on how circumstances have impacted that individual?

The following describes how the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) benefit is cut when a disabled person overcomes their circumstances to enter the workforce at a low-paying job:

Currently, an individual’s employment income is only partially exempt from AISH adjustment. For example, single adults can keep the first $200 they earn each month, plus 25% of any amount over $200. This means an individual who works 20 hours/week for $10.00/hour would only be able to retain $366.67 of the $866.67 he/she would earn [per month]. When the cost (transportation, clothing, and/or childcare for example) and energy involved in joining the work force are considered, the motivation for seeking and obtaining employment is negligible.

-- Alberta Committee of Citizens with Disabilities Response to Low-Income Programs Review

Imagine a severely handicapped man who cleans tables at McDonalds. He has overcome his disability to find work in a fast-food restaurant. While this is simplistic work for most of us, it has presumably taken great effort on his part to achieve this. He will earn only a basic wage despite it taking all of his energy.

His disability has not changed, and society would pay him full benefits if he stayed at home. So should we applaud his effort to overcome his disability, or should we cut his benefits?

P.S. The AISH cut-off rates have increased significantly. In the above example, the individual would now keep around $633.37. However, once an individual goes over $1500/month in earnings, their benefits will be cut dollar for dollar. A person on AISH benefits would see no improvement in their life if they moved from a $1500/month job to a $2000/month job, because their AISH benefits would be cut exactly $500.

P.P.S. This blogpost is really more about how we think of social security and whether it is fair, not demanding changes to AISH.

House Selections

We just finished our first round of interior house selections, so I thought I'd post a short description of what we picked. All of this is subject to the total price quote we get soon. :)

Colours

• Most of the house uses a good quality "soft brown wood" laminate floor. This includes the kitchen, stairs, bedrooms, etc. See image or link.
• The kitchen cupboards are slightly darker and slightly redder than the floor. We want to keep the kitchen warm-feeling. See image to the right.
• The kitchen counter is laminate with a sandstone appearance. The edges will be squared and pointy. This is because we have a sink in a corner, and you cannot get a seamless laminate countertop with a rolled or bevelled edge. See image or link.
• Wet areas of the house use a slightly textured beige tile. This includes the entry area, the laundry/pantry/mudroom, and all bathrooms. We still need to finalise some bathroom selections.

Faucets and Sinks

• All kitchen faucets (three in total) are Kohler brand with pull-out head and a top-mounted lever handle. You can switch between a hose-like and a shower-like stream by using a simple mechanical switch located on the faucet head. See link.
• Most bathrooms have simple, practical, self-rimming sinks. I don't remember the brand. The master ensuite has the same brand and series of sink, but are more stylish with higher rims and a smaller area.
• Most bathroom sink faucets are Kohler brand and look like a scaled down version of the kitchen faucets. They are angled so the water should shoot towards the centre of the sink, something Emily was keen to have. See link.
• Most bathroom shower/tubs use Kohler faucets from the same series. The exact configuration depends on whether it is a shower or a shower/tub combination. See link.
• The master ensuite faucets are all Moen, but are not terribly different to the Kohler ones. The Moen faucets shoot more directly down which is better for the smaller ensuite sinks. See link.
• The master ensuite does not have a shower, but it will still have a hand-held shower head on the bath. We're trying to keep the ensuite nice and open-feeling. See link.
• The kids bathroom doubles as an upstairs laundry, with both a regular sink and a laundry sink on the one countertop. Normally the bathroom counter is 33 inches high and fairly shallow, and all other counters are 36 inches high and deeper. As a result, we'll have a neat little "step" where we transition from the bathroom half of the counter to the laundry half of the counter.

Baths and Toilets

• We have four bath/showers in the house, but almost every one is unique. The master ensuite has an acrylic 6 foot bath. The downstairs bathroom has a 5 foot fibreglass shower unit. The kid's bathroom is a 5 foot fibreglass shower/bath unit, and Timothy's is the same design but 5.5 foot long.
• We are unsure whether fibreglass or acrylic is the better way to go. We're also chasing up alternative brands and things. All we know for sure is that Timothy, the kids, and Grandma will have single-piece moulded units.
• We found a Caroma Caravelle dual-flush toilet. I always thought that Caroma was French for "flush" or something, because I grew up seeing "Caroma" on all the toilet buttons. I don't think I saw anything else until I traveled overseas. :)

Handles and Railings

• Most door handles will be levers. They will mostly be a brushed nickel or similar finish. Kitchen cabinets will have a nice-looking brushed silver straight handle. The bathrooms will have matching knobs.
• The stairs and upstairs areas will have simple metal poles (what are those called again), nice-looking wooden pillars at all the corners, and a simple wood railing. The pillars and railing will be painted, but we might need to reassess once all the pricing comes in. A lot of the rest of the house uses stained wood.
• Interior doors will look a little like the kitchen cabinets with a classic grooved appearance.

Lessons Learned

• Faucets cost a lot. Much more than you expect.
• Plumbing in Edmonton cannot go along an exterior wall. Makes sense to stop them from bursting.
• If you visit a hotel it seems they all have those single-handle controls for the showers. You just turn the handle until it changes from cold water to hot water, and they don't let you control the pressure. It turns out that is because they use a special "anti-scald" valve that prevents sudden temperature changes caused by changes in pipe pressures. The salesperson hinted that they are close to being a legal requirement nowadays.
• Democratic selection of house colours does work. Just make sure you have 3 people voting. :)

Not Missing Meat

One of my co-workers is a strict vegetarian, which means I've ended up with the occasional shared vegetarian meal. A lot of the time his food actually tastes better than mine. Just recently I realised that: I don't actually enjoy the taste of meat very much

I mean, I love some Chicken Teriyaki or Curry Beef, but you could switch it with Tofu Teriyaki or Curry Vegetables and I would not notice. The meat adds nothing for me. Sauces and flavours are much more important.

Now during our recent vacation, Emily found us a free all-day buffet deal. The meat offerings at buffets always feel like a brick in your stomach, so I trialled a new diet:

• Vegetables, fruit, dairy, eggs, etc
• Seafood, excluding crab, lobster, oyster, etc
• Coffee and chocolate :)

This has been going quite well and I think I'll stick with this diet for a few weeks at least. The only exception is when Emily can't finish something, because I don't want to waste food. I'm not against eating meat, but it's just wasted if I order any for my meal.

Oh, and the exception to the exception is melons. I hate melons and won't eat them. :)

Las Vegas Trip

Emily and I just finished a quick trip down to Vegas. This is our last vacation before the baby arrives, so we went to see a bunch of shows that you probably don't want to take an infant to. Here's what we saw:

• The Lion King by Disney - Quite good, but the story is (naturally) the same as the movie so there's no surprises. The costumes are amazing, but some are mere skeletons which makes them a little freaky. Overall pretty good, but I wouldn't see it again.
• O by Cirque du Soleil - A water-based Cirque du Soleil show. We got front-row balcony seats so could look straight down in to the pool most of the time. Some of the show was very cool, but a lot was just synchronised swimming. Fewer circus acts than I expected, and our angle meant I spent a lot of time watching the "hidden" scuba divers at the bottom of the pool.
• Penn and Teller - A last-minute decision, and a very good one. Half the show is talking and comedy, but it's a lot more entertaining than the classic "magic" show. No magic capes or levitating girls, just very smooth magic tricks and a lot of humour. Well worth it.
• Zumanity by Cirque du Soleil - By far the most risque show that we saw (or will admit to!). This is an adults-only "sensual" Cirque in a small theatre. If the F-word, a cross-dressing presenter, partial nudity and the (brief) mention of various fetishes is too much for you, do NOT go to this show. But if you are awed by Cirque-level physique and skill, then this is very worth seeing. I think I saw more skill in Zumanity than I did in the more expensive O!
  Just to be clear, the vast majority of the audience were couples. And the grand climax was a slow dance and kiss by a 48-year-married couple, to absolutely massive applause. That should give some idea of how broad the show is.

Anyway, it was a good 5 nights in Vegas. No gambling, no drinking, just a lot of walking around taking it all in. :)

Family Life

Emily's family (brother, mother, and grandmother) will head back to Edmonton tomorrow. I'm not sure Emily and I will know how to live on our own after they've left! I consider it a very good test of how our family will operate once we move to Edmonton.

For the record, our apartment has 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, and is a little over 500 square feet or 47 square metres. So the five of us have been living together for almost a month in very close quarters. Our "regular" routine has been quite thoroughly destroyed. But overall, life together has been quite good.

Probably the biggest challenge has been sharing a living space with Timothy for a month. For example, he picks up on emotions from the TV so anything remotely exciting or scary can make him agitated. For the last month we've only used the lounge area sleeping or really safe media like Wii games and Chinese opera.

But we've had no major personality clashes, and no-one has been really upset or emotional after spending a month together. That's really quite surprising, all things considered. I actually think this is going to work. :)

Project Edmonton Committed

Well, we're (virtually) committed now. We're placing a hold on a lot in Griesbach, and then organising our down payment. You could try and look us up in Google Maps but you won't even find our street because it hasn't been built yet. :)

We've been working on the design a fair bit, and the builder says it looks pretty good. It has been tricky to balance our needs while taking advantage of the lot shape, but we think we've succeeded. Our new home will look something like this video.

Project Edmonton Continues

We've seriously narrowed our housing options down, and are now just creating different designs. We even have fly-through videos of our latest designs, all made with MyVirtualHouse.

We're focusing our efforts on a pie-shaped lot that has a lot of south-eastern exposure. We like it because the house won't be crammed in amongst other enormous houses.

We've also talked with friends and family, and used their feedback to guide us with even more designs. We're also speaking with a builder, and we took some of his ideas to produce the following:

If you can't see videos above, watch them here and here on YouTube. And if you have any opinions, feel free to leave them on Facebook or here. :)

Woodwick Candles for Timothy

So Timothy loves candles. Like really loves candles. Light a candle and he's happy. The same for campfires, and basically anything that burns. (It seems to run in the family, based on my experience with Emily...). So for Christmas, I bought him a few novel Woodwick Candles off eBay.

Woodwick Candles use a thin piece of wood instead of string as the wick. This results in a unique crackling sound while burning. The marketing claims it sounds like a "real fire". To be honest it sounds like a roaring bonfire.... heard through a mobile phone. Or perhaps a big pile of dry kindling going up. It's loud enough to be heard across a quiet room, but it's missing the deep sound of a real fire.

In any case, I was very happy with it and so was Tim. I'm writing this because he just came in to the room holding the one Woodwick and saying "tick-tock". That is Tim-speak for "candle" - it takes too much effort for him to pronounce "candle" properly. We're encouraging him to vocalise, and so if he asks for something we try to give it to him. And we have more than one Woodwick Candle, but if he knew he'd ask us to light all of them together... then blow them out and ask us to light them again. :)

On the topic of pronunciation... he has no problem with other words like dinosaur, ball, bubble, computer, ketchup, mein mein, and fan fan. "Candle" just seems to be one of the few words that he struggles with.