Until we let the scary clown scream.

Beatrice has such a mellow disposition. She plays well by herself, with other kids, with other adults, with small woodland animals -- she's an all around honey and butter on the table sitting in the soft light of the sun's morning glory.

Until we let the scary clown scream.

If you haven't seen it, there's a Walmart commercial with a clown at a kids' party who steps on a toy unicorn and screams, scaring the children and scattering them while the mom's sit calmly acknowledging the disaster.

Both Mama and I knew what would come to pass, and we simultaneously thought "mute" and/or "change channel" - but the thought didn't fire quickly enough down the arms to hands to remote.

Bea collapsed in a wailing heap of tortured misery. Recovery time took at least 10-15 minutes.

Turn off the TV and read books to her you say? Screw reading -- there's too much stuff to watch on TV! Plus, scary clowns build character, right?

[Tongue in cheek, you know. We love our little Bea...and TV. Oh yes, and books.]

Mercy, there's the toy clown from Poltergeist, Pennywise the clown from Stephen King's It, Flunky the Clown from Letterman, the Walmart clown, and so many more unspeakable horrors since (including the wooden puppet cow flying over the moon in one of the Baby Einstein DVD's).

It's a wonder kids still love the circus and crazy clowns piling into and spilling out from a tiny clown car.

Now, if we could only bring back the Town Clown from back in my day when childhood was all around honey and butter on the table sitting in the soft light of the sun's morning glory...

If we were no longer here: the elasticity of God-empowered DNA

At 16 months old, will she remember our Martian family vacashun?

Will she remember holding hands walking on the beach, bare feet treading the chilly Pacific?

Will she remember the animals at the San Diego Zoo and Sea World?

Will she remember going on her first amusement park ride with Daddy?

Will she remember Mama nursing her through her cold last week in the middle of the night?

My lifelong fascination with how the human brain works and how if plays out in our everyday behavior has been rekindled through the developmental "wonder fire" burning inside Beatrice.

The sheer number of neurons at birth -- firing, wiring and re-wiring -- and by 8 months of age a baby may have an astounding 1,000 trillion synapses in her brain!

Between reading How We Decide to the website Zero to Three to other brain development content candy bars, I'm seeking the knowledge of how and why.

Why, for example, don't I have any memories before the age of 5-6 years old, but my sister claims she does from as early as 2-3?

Most child development experts believe that short-term memory isn't fully developed until age 3, so the ability to store occurrences at any given moment with regularity is hobbled by biological development.

Barring any other predisposed genetic disability or physical defect, a loving and nurturing family environment helps to spur the healthy wiring and re-wiring.

Trauma hampers the circuitry to no end.

According to Zero to Three's Starting Smart:

At the Developmental Traumatology Laboratory at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinics in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, researchers are conducting studies in traumatized children using the most up-to-date methods to study their stress circuits and brain development. In a recent report, they described their findings on maltreated children with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) who they compared to healthy, normal children and to children with clinical anxiety disorders who had not been maltreated. Many of the maltreated children had been sexually abused beginning between the ages of 18 months and 7 years. They had also witnessed domestic violence beginning early in life, and some had been battered by family members. For most of the children with PTSD, the trauma was chronic, lasting for several years before the children were rescued.

Unlike non-maltreated comparison children, the children with PTSD had elevated levels of the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol, even on a normal day when nothing especially stressful was happening (DeBellis, Baum, et al., 1999). Thus, these children’s stress systems seemed to be turned on even when they didn’t need to be. Especially high stress hormone levels were found among the children who had been abused for longer and/or had more severe PTSD. Very similar results have been found for children rescued from Romanian orphanages, even though for the most part these children had been severely neglected rather than physically or sexually abused.

Not surprising then on how PTSD played an unfortunate role in my development and my sister's, and the teenage/adult struggles that ensued. As I've said many times before, we need a helluva lot more purple elevate patches out there.

However, the elasticity of God-empowered DNA gives those of us who fight back a semblance of sanity, and in turn, the opportunity to break the cycle of trauma -- whether that's domestic violence, extreme neglect, even genocidal warfare.

And it favors the nurtured offspring.

This morning we woke Beatrice together as we usually do, talking with her and giving her hugs and kisses, singing her our morning song, and pointing out different icons in her room -- Pooh, Piglet and the flying bees that Amy's sister made.

This morning Beatrice pointed out my ears, mouth, eyes and nose, and then honked my nose. I asked her if her nose felt better ('cause here and Mama shared a cold this last week). She squeezed it and said, "Doe, doe, doe, doe, doe..."

Not that I focus on morbidity with any frequency these days, but this morning I also wondered if suddenly we were no longer here, would Bea remember us? Would even Bryce at this stage?

I'm going to buck the expert scientific trends and say, yes -- yes they would.

I'm crazy like that. I told you before it's the dope.

Family Vacashun Lessons: We've all had them. We all need more LAMEness.

When developing ourselves as leaders -- both as parents and captains of industry -- unfortunately there are learning moments we miss like peripheral wisps of smoke.

And then came Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 10:47 a.m.

That's when I first wrote about awakening to a recent work failure and hopefully learning from it -- weeks of meticulous planning, promotion and preaching a new way to deliver on behalf of a client, and then poof -- technical failure and poor contingency planning that called for an immediate decision.

Kill the project or forge ahead -- a split-second decision that has to be made, for better or for worse. A semi-rational decision that's emotionally driven made from the "gut" because of the situational duress (I'm reading How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer, fascinating book).

Decision made. Consequences dealt with. But was I really listening for the ill-prepared warning signs that were there?

At this point I'm convinced I wasn't. Hubris had any insight of failure licked.

But my learning didn't end there. Oh no, my Martian family vacashun this week has proven to be a big blip on the stumble-bumble daddiness radar. For all my chatter about listening and mindful presence, this wasn't a banner week for me.

We can't learn without making mistakes -- every failure is needed to foster learning and triumphant successes.

I say needed because I'm a big believer in the fact that, without it -- failure -- as parents (and leaders in other capacities) we'd never develop the capacity to:

L - Listen and Learn
A - Adapt for Adeptness
M - Modify your Melody
E - Exercise to Elevate

You know, the LAME moments of leadership development for parents and professional folk working towards personal responsibility.

We've all had them. We all need more LAMEness.

The bigger the fail the bigger the lesson -- especially when you're paying attention.

Paying attention is so important. Like the brief Libran horoscope that popped up on the TV monitor in Subway while we waited for sandwiches:

You're viewing with a magnifying glass when you should be using a microscope.

Allowing myself to be sidetracked by work issues and social media, it took half a week of vacation to acclimate to family focus.

And then there was the great article I found on Facebook yesterday (of course) by Rachel Dretzin at PBS Parents titled Asking Questions is the Key to Parenting in the Digital Age.

Definitely a broader topic for a future GOTG post, but the sentence that stuck me upside the head (but really wasn't surprising) was:

I'm much more concerned about all of our dwindling capacity to pay attention.

Wait, what?

Sigh.

Thank God I have such a loving (forgiving) wife and daughter.

And for those of you keeping score at home, we had lots of fun while daddy learned to listen!

Wait, what?

Martian Family Vacashun: I blame the dope. Let it try to load the damn car.

Man, am I learning valuable daddy lessons on this Martian family vacashun.

"Hey you, lift the heavy stuff and yes, it's your fault."

Sigh.

Here's another one -- when you decide to share a family vacation bed with your 16-month-old, be prepared for the kickboxing bedroll boogie and the toddler-WWF head-scissor lock. Also, since Mama's pregnant, the new baby keeps us all her in a hormonal head-scissor lock.

Yes, it's my fault. I'll load the car.

Don't get me wrong -- we had a psychotically different great time visiting Mama's family in Yuma before arriving back in San Diego today for tons of animal kingdom fun, and Nonna (mother-in-law) has been an invaluable travel companion -- it's just that this daddy feels like an infant, even acting like one.

The work cord regenerates and reconnects like a James Cameron special effect and simultaneously dumbs down my already stumble-bumble daddiness.

What the hell? I'm really not this useless, especially when my hand is right in front of my face.

Right?

Front of my face. Hand. Face. Wait, what?

It's not that I'd rather be channeling Kerouac like in the old days when me and Mama traveled the world together (although it was coolsville, Daddy-O), it's just that I need to better practice what I preach -- mindful presence of family when with family.

Work is hell. Or was that war? Family is fun. Or was that the red wine in Rome? Anyway, the fact is the trenches will be there when you return -- I'm talking about work now, not family, so pay attention -- particularly when you have such a great team as I do.

Leaders develop dependable autonomous teams. Families need dependable autonomous daddies.

Don't fail to learn. Learn from failing. That's what well-regulated dopamine production is supposed to help you do.

I blame the dope. Let it try to load the damn car.

Learning to Love Life on Mars. While Skipping.

It's difficult for me to fathom dialing up or down a career over time to focus on career/life fit like in the article I recently read in the latest Workforce Management print magazine. It was all about Deloitte's Mass Career Customization program, which lets employees tailor their jobs to suit their lifestyles (the article isn't online yet).

Fascinating. Reading the article remind me that there is always room for exploration, for a new ways to work effectively and productively beyond the work/life balance cliché while embracing personal prefer. For me, it's like training to be an family-friendly astronaut while tethered to the gravity of my firm's leadership laptop and iPhone via 24/7/365 umbilical customer-biz-dev data streams.

To become a family-friendly astronaut to see if there's life on Mars -- the rare opportunity when American Mommies and Daddies take time off for a family trip and explore beyond the backyard (although all things considered including budgets, ain't nothing wrong with a stay-cation).

A family vacashun is supposed to be about shunning the everyday doldrums of home- and work-related responsibilities. It's about seeing the world again through the perceptive lens and innocence of your children, relearning things you'd forgotten for decades.

It's about seeing the world again through your own newly calibrated connection with strangers and friends, extended family visits, volunteering to help, playing for fun, learning, teaching, skipping -- there should always be skipping.

Family daddy time at home or on the road is about learning to love life on Mars.

While skipping.

Mama, cut the cord.

Family Time Love and the George Foreman Grill

Family time is important, particularly when you're strapped to the laptop as I am 23.5/6.5.

Last weekend we had a family picnic at Wilder Ranch State Park. It's such a great place to take kids to because of it's history and the farm animals.

And Bea loves the farm animals.

And getting stuck in the fun bubble bucket.

That's what I mean -- fun family time at the expense of your children! No worries. It's okay until they can talk back.

Today was family brunch day, and now that we've got the universe of Bryce coming, Mama's had a really rough time with cooking.

Cooking anything of the animal variety. In the kitchen. In the house. Anywhere inside (because don't you fry pork rinds in the bedroom like we do?). The smells just kill her.

So, because her nausea has been much worse this time round, I've been cooking meat outside on the George Foreman grill.

Really. The George Foreman grill. Outside.

Like today for brunch. Cooking bacon outside on the porch. In a storm. How exciting is that?

Family time love and the George Foreman grill. Right on.

The vibrant moment of light traveling from a universe birthed in the belly of Mama

The rush of heater air through the house vents. The static white noise from the baby monitor. Random swoosh of cars and trucks passing on Highway 1. The creeking joints of the old cat shuffling past my chair.

It's the comforting stillness of pre-dawn family that links the frantically busy days for me, giving them tinker-toy structure where there otherwise would be none. Allowing me to feel my think after too many mind-numbing synaptical transactions.

The physics of this is even simpler yet more ambiguous than it seems, the fact time is relative from moment to moment, seeping beyond and within the linear construct we give it. So much life in so little space like tidal pools we miss under the rush of seas.

These moments are vibrant, like light traveling from a universe birthed millions of years ago -- and they are cruel, like earthquakes killing tens of thousands of impoverished people (find out how to help here).

And they are loving moments of mindful presence, fossils of the heart -- like the moment we met, the world we've seen, and the Bea we conceived.

We took two pregnancy test before this last Christmas: the first was negative, the second positive. We left the second one out like we did the first time with Beatrice, just to ensure that it wasn't an illusion.

But definitely no illusion with the intense punctuated moments of nausea over the holidays and the past couple of weeks, and that was just me (rim shot, please).

Then the pièce de résistance -- the first prenatal visit and sonogram on Thursday -- the vibrant moment of light traveling from a universe birthed in the belly of Mama.

A new universe call Bryce, arriving on earth August 2010.