Of course, one big improvement this time around is that I have experience. That is huge. The change in perspective can be summed up by my new parenting motto, uttered every time some little thing goes wrong: “They’ll live.” Another improvement is that we are now able to afford some hired help.

But there is more to it than that, and all the other reasons fall under one heading: Progress. In the five years since Samantha was born, our society has progressed so much that parenting is noticeably easier. It sounds fantastic, but it’s true. Here are some things that seem indispensable to me as a parent now, which did not exist (or were very expensive or rare) five years ago:

• Amazon Prime – I buy almost everything from Amazon, and since shipping is free and fast (Prime is free for new moms for about 6 months), I don’t worry about batching up my orders. The minute I realize I need something, from formula to a new nursing bra, I go to Amazon and order it. It’s on my doorstep within two days. Not needing to bundle up two babies in the middle of winter for a trip to Target each week is incredibly liberating, not to mention the peace of mind I have in knowing that I’m not going to run out critical supplies.
• Online grocery shopping – This is a stretch because we used an online grocery service in Chicago in 2000 and New Yorkers have had groceries delivered forever. But the service we used in Chicago didn’t outlast the dot-com crash, and we did not have anything in Michigan in 2006. I see that Netgrocer now delivers anywhere in the country (although the prices are pretty steep). Our local service here in northern Virginia is good enough and cheap enough so that Zoe and Leo have yet to see the inside of a supermarket. Do you hear me, parents? I have never had to take my babies grocery shopping! Ever!
• Zappos – Again, a bit of a stretch because Zappos existed before Sam was born, but I had never heard of it, and I think they started with just shoes, whereas they have all kinds of clothing now. Zappos (now owned by Amazon) not only offers free shipping, but free return shipping, which means that I buy all of my clothing online too. You have to rewire some brain circuitry to take full advantage of Zappos. Think about it: for the price of one pair of shoes, you can buy twenty pairs of shoes at a time, try them all on at home, and return nineteen pairs. Yes, you can.
• The Kindle – Feeding babies is pretty boring work. After a few minutes of bonding, you need entertainment. I don’t like having the TV on during feedings, and holding a book one-handed, even a paperback, is painfully difficult. With Sam, that left me with magazines, and since a new parent’s brain-power is reduced by about 50%, I couldn’t handle anything more than Us Weekly. The Kindle gets all the credit for all the good books I’ve been able to read since Leo and Zoe were born. I’m not talking high literature – the brain-power problem has yet to be solved by technology – but detective fiction and mysteries…what an improvement!
• The smart phone – Besides reading, during feedings I often use my phone to check e-mail and Facebook. I’ve gotten pretty good at holding it and typing with just one hand. In fact, I take care of almost all my e-mail during feedings. That’s my kind of multitasking!
• The tablet – I’ve finally found a use for my iPad! When I’m not up to reading or e-mailing, I turn to the iPad. It’s too heavy to hold and use with one hand, but I can set it on the table next to me and watch streaming media or listen to audiobooks.
• Streaming media and audiobooks – Okay, these things were probably around five years ago, but the accessibility and selection is so much greater now, that they really count as new developments. How many of you were watching whole TV shows online or regularly listening to audiobooks in 2006?
• Digital cameras that replace camcorders – having just one photo- and video-taking device makes it much more likely that I’ll take video at all, and it’s so much simpler.
• Single-cup coffee brewers – Now affordable for home use. Need I say more?

Of course, there are many, many other incremental improvements. Our double-stroller is not a new concept, but it is much better than those sold in 2006. And our Honda Odyssey is just a new model, but it’s the first minivan to allow three children to be seated in the middle row, all using the Latch system (the safest method of attaching the car seats). I don’t think Zoe and Leo are receiving any vaccines that weren’t available in 2006, but Rotateq was brand new when Sam was born, and the twins are getting Synagis (more important for preemies), which became available about a dozen years ago.

It doesn’t seem possible that so much could change in so little time, but the wider context is even more staggering. Consider Dr. Harry Binswanger’s brilliant exercise in perspective:

The actual living conditions for Americans of 1826 were essentially those that had obtained during most of human history. If you transported Shakespeare from 1600 London to 1826 London or New York City, he’d find little that was strange to him, only improvements on what he already knew. That would be mostly true even of bringing Aristotle to 1826. But if you took Jefferson from 1826 and transported him to contemporary America, he would think that we’ve become a race of gods. He couldn’t even grasp radio, let alone DVDs, Mars rovers, Googling, gene therapy, and 3-D printing. Yet, it takes only two 93-year lifespans to stretch that 186 years.

In the history of mankind, an awful lot has happened in a very short time.

(Quoted, with permission, from Dr. Binswanger’s e-mail list, HBL)

I imagine a not-too-distant future where mothers are making casts of their breasts so that they can manufacture customized nipples for their babies’ bottles using their 3D printers, where there is a device that automatically removes the white part of a baby’s fingernails, no clipping required, and where we finally have the “brain in the sky,” as I like to call it – the computer from Star Trek that holds all the data you’ll ever need, which you access with your voice and which talks back to you if you want it to. We’re getting close to the last development already. We have Google, wireless access, and Siri. All we need now are the implants that allow us to get rid of those clunky input/output devices we call smart phones, and some refinement. That’s when technology will have solved the new parent brain-power problem.

If you, too, look forward to such an amazing time, take note – you’re  living in it now. We are a race of gods.

I’d be feeling even better if I could manage to slow down and get more sleep, but we have been incredibly busy since we returned from our trip. (I have the next installment about half-written – hold tight.)

We’ve been to three movies in the past two weeks. This is just crazy. We usually see one movie a year if we’re lucky. But there was a “parents night out” babysitting thing at Sam’s gym which we took advantage of (we saw Source Code which was ok), then Sam had a friend sleep over (yes, she is at that age already) and we took them to see African Cats (which was also just ok), and that’s when we noticed that Atlas Shrugged was still playing here and there, so we got a babysitter and saw that with some friends. (Too bad that one didn’t even rise to the level of ok.)

On Friday, we bought our new car, the Honda Odyssey! It is so full of technology and good design that I feel privileged to drive it. We got the remote engine starter and a tent that attaches to the back and other accessories to make it even cooler. There are two things I don’t like about it, though. First, it’s hard for me to get in and out of it. This might be partially my big belly, but I think it’s more about being short. I was so used to my RAV4, which is the perfect SUV for short people, and I was spoiled. Also, the Odyssey is really hard to park. I’m sure I’ll get better at it, but nothing will change the fact that it is so wide it takes up almost an entire parking spot. Sure, it has sliding doors for the kids, but I still have to get in, and it is a rare thing when I can open the driver’s door past the first notch. This makes getting in and out even more difficult.

Oh, one other thing I don’t like about my new car – apparently, it is invisible. Twice in the first few days, people came really close to crashing into me. Once someone turned left in front of me, causing me to have to slam on my brakes almost to the point of squealing tires. Then, a taxi came into my lane on the freeway and I had to slow way down to avoid a crash. I honked at him and he followed me until I turned off on a side road. Strange. I’m a very defensive driver and these things don’t happen to me often. But worst yet, yesterday, on my way to the dealership to get the accessories installed, someone actually did hit me. I had pulled over to put the dealership address into my GPS (I was being safe, goddamn it!) and I stopped in a parking lot in the lane so that I was blocking some parked cars. But the lot was very quiet and I figured if someone needed to get out they’d honk. I could have parked in a spot, but, well, you know, parking that car is really hard! Bad call. I put my car in park and put on my hazard lights. Ten seconds later, a woman backed out of her spot and rammed right into the side of my car. I cried for ten minutes. I cried the entire time we were exchanging information, and then pulled into a parking spot and cried some more. The damage isn’t too bad, but my side and front bumpers will need to be replaced. My perfect, shiny, new toy will never be quite the same. Luckily, the woman was honest and her insurance company has already accepted full liability. Now I just have to go through the hassle of getting it repaired. Sigh.

More importantly, buying this expensive vehicle that would be totally useless if we weren’t about to have three children has not made me more paranoid about losing the twins. Maybe the 20 week ultrasound was the real turning point for me.

Besides all of that, we’re also getting our new deck stained (we had to wait through the winter for the wood to dry out), and we planned a quick trip to see the grandparents in early June, and we got rid of a ton of stuff from our basement including a refrigerator, and we attended Jean Moroney’s Thinking Tactics Workshop (which was excellent – I wish I had more time to write about it, but if you have the chance, you MUST go), and Sam started up swim lessons again, and I made a little progress on my homeschooling plans, and I contacted some people about some ideas I have about a new Big Project I’m working on (Montessori-related), and I got my hair done, and had two moles removed, and had my final meeting of the year with Sam’s teacher, and, somewhere in there, I finished unpacking and got caught up on the laundry. Oh, and Adam got a motorcycle!

I am so tired, but now is the only time I have to do all of these things. And they’re all really good things that I want to do. So blogging is taking a backseat, yet again. In fact, I was considering taking an official break from blogging, until someone posted a quote on Facebook that reminded me of how valuable it is to me. The quote was about travel, which made me tune in:

‎”The difference between travel and tourism is simple. A tourist experiences disconnected sights and sounds and enjoys them without drawing meaning. A traveler roams the earth, digests what he sees and hears, and collects them in a framework of understanding, which he both brings to his travels and deepens with travels. The former is a pleasant interlude in your life. The latter is about life itself.”  –George Friedman of STRATFOR (HT: Jason Crawford)

Of course, this reminded me of what I’m trying to do by journaling our Italy trip. But it also reminded me of the purpose of my blog. My blog is my way of integrating my experiences. It’s my way of making everything in my life meaningful, by tying all the Little Things to my greater values. I didn’t even know that this was what I was doing, until Lisa VanDamme helped me to understand it. In her Making Poetry Part of Your Life course from OCON 2010, she taught us how to first understand the words of the poem, then to isolate what is important about it, then to abstract away from the concretes to understand the universal meaning (which, in poetry is often just a particular emotion or type of experience), and finally, to find a moment from our own lives that has the same meaning. She taught us that once we had internalized a poem this way, it would always be there as a concrete reminder of that meaning, so that in the future, when these moments occurred, we could recognize them and bring all the depth and beauty of the poem into the experience. She called it living life “through the artist’s lens.” She taught us that this is how we could find meaning in everyday experiences. And after class, she came to me and told me that that was how she saw my blog.

It was the greatest compliment I’ve ever received about my writing, even though, in some ways, I don’t feel that I live up to it. But she was right – this is what I am trying to do. And so I won’t quit blogging. And, finally, ten months later, I’m ready to reveal The Little Things’ new design and tagline to reflect what I learned in that class. Tune in tomorrow.

Adam’s ARC lecture from November in Chicago is available for free on ARC’s web site. Its full title is:

Why Should Business Leaders Care about Intellectual Property?—Ayn Rand’s Radical Argument

It looks like they have a separate video for the Q&A, so if you don’t have time for the whole thing, you might just check that out. As most people will tell you, Adam is excellent in the Q&A.

This lecture is a modified version of his OCON talk from 2010. This one is geared more towards non-Objectivists, so if you like it and want a fuller version, you’ll have the opportunity to purchase the OCON lecture at some point. Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to let you know when it is available.

What Smartphone Makers Can Learn From the Sewing Machine Patent War

First, check out Adam’s latest publication:  How the ‘New GM’ Can Steal from Toyota. From the abstract:

This essay explains how a 2006 court decision arising from the manufacture of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet paves the way for government-owned General Motors to steal intellectual property. In Zoltek v. U.S., the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that a loophole in the Tucker Act (28 U.S.C. § 1498) prevented owners of patented processes from suing the federal government for certain types of unauthorized uses of their patents. The Zoltek court also held that patents are not secured as constitutional “private property” under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. At the time, many judges and lawyers thought that these statutory and constitutional loopholes for patent-owners were insignificant; at worst, they argued, this benefits only military contractors and the like.

Fast forward four years and the federal government now owns the “new GM.” It was inconceivable in 2006 that Uncle Sam soon would be in the business of making cars, not to mention in the businesses of banking and insurance, setting salaries of CEOs, purchasing mortgages, etc., etc.

The only part of that I would take issue with is the word “inconceivable.”  I do not think that word means what he think it means (heh!).  Ayn Rand certainly conceived of it.  But seriously, if the idea of reading an article in a law journal scares you, give this one a chance – it’s short and easy to read.  (Click “one-click-download” at the top of the screen to get the full article.)

Next, we have Harry Binswanger‘s excellent article on the Tea Party Movement.  This is the best statement I’ve read anywhere about the Tea Party because Dr. Binswanger does the opposite of what most journalists do: he essentializes.  I’ve been struggling to get to the heart of the Tea Party myself, and this article helped to clarify my thinking a great deal.  (It also includes a great list of the best Tea Party demonstration signs!)  I’ve come to agree with Dr. Binswanger that:

… Objectivists should recognize and value what is a startling, unprecedented phenomenon: the rise, in an eyeblink, of a pro-freedom, pro-American, avowedly *individualistic* political movement–a movement friendly to Ayn Rand, favorable to Atlas Shrugged, and popularizing the phrase “Who is John Galt?”