Time to tackle all driving distractions

Column originally published Feb. 28, 2012.

My problem with Illinois House Bill 3972 is not that it would make it illegal for me to talk on my cell phone while driving. My problem is the proposed law doesn't go far enough.

If we're going to get serious about cracking down on distracted driving, then let's really get serious, and let's not wait.

The first domino has fallen with the ban on texting while driving, and it already is illegal to talk on a handset phone while in a school zone, highway construction zone or the entire city of Chicago.

Yet near as I can tell, you're still allowed to drink from a travel mug full of steaming hot tea, eat a chicken sandwich and break up back-seat fights between your children. This is to say nothing of vigorous dashboard drumming to "Fool in the Rain" by Led Zeppelin.

Those are just the things I do while driving, all of which admittedly take some of my attention from the road — perhaps more attention than required to confirm a grocery list in a quick phone chat with my wife. Yet for some reason, lawmakers seem perfectly content to grandfather in the driving distractions we've had since shortly after the invention of the automobile.

And don't get me started on smoking in the car. There's a full column to be written on subjecting your passengers (especially children) to second-hand smoke and the propensity of driving smokers to flick still-lit butts out the window of a moving vehicle. But as long as we're just focusing on the notion of distracted driving, well, at least my chicken sandwich isn't on fire.

Here's the problem most lawmakers have on this issue: You can say you think using a cell phone while driving is bad for public safety, and you're probably right. But can you stand there with a straight face and say a driver with a screaming baby in the back seat is no less distracted? All right, fine, using the phone is a choice while taking babies in the car often is not optional. But how about listening to the radio? Wolfing down drive-through fare? Letting your eyes wander to the GPS screen?

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Playing catch up

A picture of Charlie on his actual first birthday, plus two videos of a Valentine's Day bowling outing and then two of Max and Charlie playing together. At the end of the second, Max begins discussing nipple sizes.

From Hollands at Home 2012

Charlie's birthday party

And now, nearly two weeks later, photos and three videos from Charlie's first birthday party. He had lots of help opening (and playing with) his presents. We had a more than full house and lots of great food. Owing to his supposed food allergies, Charlie had a slice of apple pie instead of a finger cake, and while he did enjoy it, he did not make nearly the mess Max did at his party. (On the upside, he did not scream because he was scared of the cake, as Jack did...). We are so happy everyone was able to make it and thrilled so many friends and family chose to celebrate a special day. It's our third time around with a first birthday, but each kid deserves to have their own special day. Enjoy the photos!

What is the real meaning of Riverfest?

Column originally published Feb. 21, 2012.

Why are we doing this?

This is one of those questions that at first glance seems so absurdly simple as to be useless, yet in reality is essential because it leads to fundamental understanding of purpose. It's a safe bet pretty much any working person with a boss has questioned his employer's intended purpose — or, more pointedly, if the boss understands their own motivation.

You can apply it to your own life, too. Why do I own this car? Why do we go to church on Sunday? Why are we driving to Florida for spring break? You get the picture. If you just do something because you've always done it, or perhaps you had a good reason when you started but you've never bothered to examine if the activity remains worthwhile, there's a good chance it's just a big waste of time.

All of which brings us to last week's public meeting about Ottawa's Riverfest, at which Ottawa Visitors Center Executive Director Julie Johnson asked the important question: "What is the reason for the event?"

She expounded, of course, and positive discussion ensued. All thanks to one fundamental question: Why are we doing this?

Ottawa's other public festivals — the ones the city sponsors and those run by the downtown merchants association — are benefiting from a sense of identity and purpose. The wine and jazz weekend, the ice sculpture and scarecrow festivals, the morel mushroom bonanza and so forth are clearly defined events. None on its own is bigger than Riverfest in budget or ambition, but together they are forming a robust calendar that slowly is building the idea of Ottawa as an occasional destination point for people looking for a nice way to spend a weekend.

But Riverfest, as Johnson pointed out, has seemingly lost its way in recent years. To be fair, there has been lots of fluctuation in festival length, makeup and budget, some of it due to economic factors beyond the city's control. But now is as good a time as any to go back to the drawing board and figure out how the event will look going forward. And step one is figuring out why it exists at all.

Continue reading "What is the real meaning of Riverfest?"

Downtown image problems must be addressed

Column originally published Feb. 14, 2012.

The last thing downtown Streator needs — especially as the city's new Walmart gains momentum — is an image problem.

Yet that's exactly what city leaders are dealing with as they struggle to resolve two pressing issues: parking and residential spaces, both of which must be addressed if the district has any chance to survive as a retail incubator.

On the parking issue, Councilman Willy Williamson put it best at a committee-of-the-whole session last week when he said, "This has been an ongoing complaint for 50 years. When the city had parking meters in the '70s, the argument was to get rid of the meters. I don't see how you're going to make an ordinance that's enforceable."

In this way, Streator is like many towns of its size. The downtown shopping district is not, and never will be again, what it was decades ago, yet there are plenty of folks in town who remember fondly the days of yore and think a revitalization is just around the corner. And while certain retail operations can be very successful in such locations — which should be encouraged — it's difficult to imagine a return to a time when every storefront is occupied by a booming business that can put a dollar value on each nearby parking space.

I was a city government reporter in Clinton, Iowa, for about four years, and downtown parking was a hot potato the entire time. For every retail business who dearly wanted free parking for customers, there seemed to be another professional business (say a lawyer or accountant) who had no problem leaving his car outside the front door from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Then there was the call center that scheduled regular employee breaks so everyone could dart outside to trade parking places and skirt the two-hour limits.

Heck, the Clinton City Council once passed a much-debated parking ordinance and, within a month, was arguing with itself and its residents over what rules actually were enacted. I'm not saying Streator's elected officials could be that dumb, only issuing a cautionary tale that parking rules must be as simple and enforceable as possible.

The same is true of the issue of residential space downtown. As Times staffer Derek Barichello reported last week, the city apparently has been lax in enforcing a 2004 ordinance regarding special use permits for people living in the Central Business District. Now that there are complaints about people living in first-floor storefronts — there's that image problem — the ordinance is being called into question.

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At the table

Two videos recorded last week capturing the insanity that is our dining area.

MaxSpeak

(In the bathtub tonight.)

"Dad! Charlie's nipples are the same size as mine!"

I will spare you his comments on other members of our family.

Father — not Uncle Sam — knows best

Column originally published Feb. 7, 2012.

America seems to be coming to a crossroads in terms of education. Pretty much everyone agrees a solid education is important, yet there is great disagreement on the best way to prepare students for real-world success.

The topics are abundant: teacher evaluations; standardized tests; charter schools; yearlong calendars; the cost of public and private college tuition and the related issues of student loans and grants and the rise of community colleges as an affordable alternative; the cost-benefit factors of early childhood education and what it takes for American students to succeed in a global economy.

In Illinois we may soon face a drastic change in the funding for school buses and, in turn, which students are eligible for free rides to class. Other pressing issues are the future of regional offices of education and the looming potential for forced consolidation of the state's many independent school districts.

As politicians struggle to claim identities, it's no longer enough just to support public education. The candidate seeking votes must have a vision for education reform, and it must be measurably different from everyone else who wants to reform education ... but it probably shouldn't anger the teachers, known for not missing the ballot box, and it also shouldn't cost a whole bunch of money because, in case you haven't noticed, we're all pretty much broke.

And while it's a good rule to pay lip service to the notion of local authority in public education, the truth is every new education law at the state or federal level strips away another layer of control for your friendly neighborhood school board. Eventually, the only thing they'll be left to decide is how to pay for all the mandates.

The newest volley in the battle over who can make kids a bigger priority is President Obama's suggestion in last week's State of the Union that Congress enact a federal law setting 18 as the nationwide compulsory-attendance age. The only way to get out earlier would be graduation. Again, a national standard that would have to be dealt with locally.

The National Center for Education Statistics has state-by-state data as of 2010
(http://nces.ed.gov/programs/statereform/tab5_1.asp) showing most states have 16 or 17 as the age of required school attendance, though many make exceptions for valid employment or parental consent. Some already set the limit at 18. In some the age is as young as 14 with parental consent and gainful employment.

Continue reading "Father — not Uncle Sam — knows best."

Fifty-two weeks in

And so Charlie has been with us for 52 weeks. A full year. The weather of late is nothing like we experienced at the end of January 2011, but darn it if they didn’t play the Super Bowl on the first Sunday of February again this year, and it was pretty easy to remember being in the recovery room at the hospital with Kristie, an hours-old Charlie and not nearly enough food for me.

Having been through this twice before, I expected Charlie’s first birthday to be somehow less exciting (for me) than the same milestone for Jack and Max. Yet I find myself with emotions more like what I would associate with a first-time parent. When Jack turned one — which, in light of how much has changed for us in the seven years since, seems like ancient history — I was either trying too hard to not get excited or I simply was not at all caught up in the moment. After all, it’s not like the kid has any idea why the birthday is any more special than the day before or after. Well, apart from being able to eat raw honey without getting botulism.

And as I have written before, my whole “the third baby is more like a first” can be traced back to the delivery room the day Charlie was born. All along the 12 months since then, I feel I’ve been able to see Charlie’s developments (or lack thereof, in one case) in a different light primarily because I already experienced them with his brothers. With Charlie’s actual birth, a lot of my emotion was tied directly to Max’s less than ideal birth experience, but all along the way I find myself growing closer to Charlie because of the experiences with Jack and Max, but I also find Charlie’s presence as a baby has helped enrich my relationship with the other two and, more importantly, the five of us as one family.

Also, I am very much in favor of Charlie remaining a baby. I encourage him to walk and I simply cannot wait for him to begin talking (even though there’s entirely too much noise in our world already, I really do want to be able to verbally communicate with the little guy), yet I also would settle for life being frozen at this precise moment in time. I have no experience parenting a third-grader, no desire to begin serious homework assignments and navigating complicated grade-school friendships. I could do without some of Max’s tantrums and tendencies, but overall living with him at this time is nothing in light of our experiences parenting Jack at the cusp of four. And Charlie is Charlie — finally growing, flashing an at-times voracious appetite, remarkably affectionate with his parents and slowly but surely building up trust in his siblings and grandparents.

I suppose this is the kind of thing that leads the youngest child to being babied longer than usual. Some kids, I presume, put up no resistance and willingly stunt typical development. I have no fear of that with Charlie. He very clearly wants to join with his older brothers, especially when they are making mischief. He far prefers people food to baby food. He does his best to test his own physical abilities.

Further, I imagine reaching such milestones are more affecting for parents who have committed to no more babies. Having made no real decision either way, Kristie and I are not awash in sentiments such as “this will be the last time one of our boys wears this onesie” or “we’ll never have another first birthday party.” Such things very well may be true, but without knowing definitively (even if we may have strong leanings), well, what’s the point in worrying about a maybe? We’ve got enough real irons in the fire, there’s no time to bother with the hypothetical ones.

As Charlie begins his second year, I do still worry about his place in the family long-term — specifically how he will fit in with Jack and Max once he is able to somewhat keep up with them physically. The older two have been buddies on this level for at least two years, if not more. They have a pretty good head start, and Jack may simply be too old to want to bother with the little guy when the time comes. He’s very good with him now, and I suppose if this is my biggest fear I should county every last one of my blessings. But you never quite know how these things play out. And what of Max — does the middle one necessarily gravitate toward an older or younger sibling? He’s already started school and that’s only going to increase. He simply won’t be around the house as much as he ages, and I wonder how that effects the relationships with the others.

But again, we have three happy, mostly healthy little boys. So much is going to change between now and the time they all grow up and (hopefully) leave the house, I’ll probably be able to look back at these paragraphs and laugh at my own youthful ignorance.. In a good way, naturally.

I am looking forward to Max and Jack’s upcoming birthdays, if only to collect the best photos of them since last year and see how much they have changed while we were busy dealing with a baby. The evolution from 3 to 4 and from 7 to 8 can be pretty subtle by comparison, but I imagine if I look closely at some year-old pictures or, more so, watch older video, I will be struck with the ways they have grown. Even Max, who has been talking for just about as long as I can remember, has I am sure developed a remarkable amount. Yet seeing him several hours every day probably robs me of some of that long-range perspective.

Such truths are part of the reason I try to blog as regularly as possible. I desperately want to have a record of these moments in time, both for myself and for the boys, so our family history can be more rich than what photographs and video can capture. I don’t trust my own memory — especially given my irregular sleep patterns dating back most of a decade — and I also feel the best parts of our lives as a young family are the everyday experiences. Birthday parties and holidays and school concerts are great, but sometimes nothing sums up the essence of “us” more than a van ride to Libertyville or a group trip to the grocery store.

We are a family, and we are unique and special just because of how we connect to each other. Not special as in better than any other family, but we share things that only the five of us (or the two adults as parents or, increasingly, only the boys as siblings) will ever truly appreciate. It is a wonderful gift and writing about it (and obsessively photographing and rolling video) is my way of both expressing my thanks at receiving the gift and also somewhat selfishly trying to savor every last drop.

Of course, I’ll never catch everything. I already know much has been lost to the busyness of life. But it happened and it was real and it made us all who we are today and laid foundations for who we all will become. We the parents are growing and changing, too, even if the developments aren’t as remarkable as cutting a tooth or taking a step. But we are always different today than we were yesterday and, naturally, will be slightly different tomorrow as well. Such is life for everyone. But kids certainly do speed the process along, don’t they?

Charlie's First Year

I plan to write later, but for now, here is the slideshow:

January photos

A few of the photos from January I did not have a chance to post until now:

From Hollands at Home 2012

From Hollands at Home 2012

From Hollands at Home 2012

From Hollands at Home 2012

From Hollands at Home 2012

From Hollands at Home 2012

From Hollands at Home 2012

From Hollands at Home 2012