Man vs. Machine

Parents are generally faster, stronger, smarter than their children for a period of time. These advantages aid many aspects of parenting: feeding, changing, protecting, etc. But one aspect where I have found myself at an immediate disadvantage to my children is in will. For example, Camy is determined to learn about electricity. She sticks fingers in sockets, pulls endlessly at the safety covers put in sockets, puts three-pronged plugs in her mouth, and pulls on every electrical chord found. Usually, I will simply pull on a leg to displace her a foot or two. She crawls back to the point of interest. I pull back. She crawls back. I pull. She crawls. Pull. Crawl. Back. Forth. Pull. Crawl. I'll change tactics by throwing in some fuzzy, plush, or foam distraction with muted effect. We eventually relocate. I lose. Every time.

Macy loves her legs. She kicked when she was "young." She jumps now. When she was about five months old, I counted the number of times she kicked me while changing a diaper: forty-eight times, about once every two seconds. Bath time is like Shamoo at SeaWorld, except the whale jumps every two seconds.

So this evening, I picked her up to see if she wanted to try taking a few supported steps. She took that as another invitation to start jumping. She's done this before - so much so that friends of ours offered us their jumper that hangs in a door frame after taking care of her for a Saturday afternoon. As usual, after 5 or 6 minutes, I have had my fill of jumping, and my mouse-and-keyboard arms are getting tired. But I wonder, "Does she ever really tire of jumping? Surely she must wear out after a while, right?" So I ask Edna to set up the camera.

After another 5 or so minutes that feel a lot longer than the previous 5 minutes, I seriously begin to believe she can do this forever. She is going to kill me.

Mentally, I dig my heels in and my mind bends to how it felt during cross country races when trying to pace, overtake, or break an opposing racer. She starts to lift her feet and hang! But then starts jumping again. Then her knees buckle and she starts arching her back - a definite sign of wanting a change. But then starts jumping again. Would my fate be the same as that of John Henry or Garry Kasparaov?

The time-lapse function shoots a photo every second and then replays 15 of those shots every second. So this video documents the final 9 minutes of our race, which puts the total bout at around 15 minutes. Those are some kickers she has! Can you jump rope for 15 minutes? I can't even comprehend the question.



She eventually crawled off to the kitchen to find stranded goldfish on the floor, as if nothing had happened. But I won. I WON! I just hope I can get out of bed tomorrow to go to work...