The Trixie Update

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Last night Trixie choose a large Valentine lollipop for dessert. She tore into it and I watched her working on it for a little while before she wandered off. Shortly thereafter she approached me with a bag of sweethearts in hand.

I didn’t want to talk about the sweethearts request because the lollipop was a BIG one, and there was no way she had finished it.

“Where’s the lollipop, Trixie?”
“I don’t know.”

When sticky candy is involved, an answer like that will not go far. After explaining that she’s not getting any more candy until we find the sucker, she backpedals and says it’s in the trash.

I look in the trash and don’t see anything there. She insists it’s there. “But there’s nothing on top, Trixie. It’s not there.”

At that point, much to my dismay, Trixie digs into the full (overflowing) garbage can — through coffee grounds, dinner scraps and wet junk mail — and pulls her lollipop out.

“You hid it in the bottom of the garbage?”
“Yes.”

That’s pretty interesting behavior. I explained that she doesn’t need to hide stuff, not just because Mommy and Daddy will always find out, but because we can talk about anything.

The cool part to me is that Trixie is forming and implementing a mental model of how the world works. In this case she decided that if you get rid of the evidence, you get rid of the problem. Not the best idea, but certainly testable. I also think it puts her on par with many adults, except adults are not usually as forthcoming. Interesting stuff.

I didn’t even look at the new blog software today, so it’s not really going to at 100% on Monday morning. The blog will probably be a weekend project. Here’s the game plan though in case anyone is keeping score at home:

1) Move all the functionality of the old Trixie Update to the new WordPress blog software. Right now the TPODs are still running in Movable Type. I need to move that next.

2) I’m using the Cutline theme right now. I like it a lot, but since I’m a designer I probably oughta skin my own I was anxious to get moved first, so I’m not really sure if I’m going to replicate the old TTU design (doubtful) or make up something new (likely). Haven’t thought about it too much. I’m just so glad to have a clean, standards-compliant document structure. Getting rid of the old code is like stripping off a festering cocoon. It’s a goood feeling.

P.S. Awesome. I just checked my google reader and I’m getting full feeds! Way to go Wordpress and .htaccess! (if you don’t know, you don’t want to ask.)

Thanks for your patience as I migrate to new blogging software. My guess is that things should be working by Monday morning. I would check back then!

I am switching the Trixie Update from my ancient MovableType install to a breath of fresh Wordpress this weekend. This is a good thing, but there’s a chance I may mess up the code that moves the site feed (RSS). If you don’t see any more posts in the next few days, please come visit the new Trixie Update and grab the new feed. thanks!

I had an interesting conversation with my Mom earlier today about the flickr account I recently set up. She was very excited about all the new pictures. And to my surprise she wanted to learn more about the other web stuff I had mentioned recently. In particular, the feed reader. She didn’t quite understand what it was, but I’m super excited that my mom wants a feed reader, so this post is to help her (and anyone else) out.

What does a feed reader do and why do I want one?
There is too much information in world. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it means that we need new coping strategies for managing the data deluge.

This is where feeds come in. Every website has the ability to wrap up a portion of its content, label it and tell the world, “hey, here’s my latest content. Check it out.” This is a called a syndication feed and it’s a very powerful thing for a couple of reasons:

1) You don’t have to spend energy searching for new content. It comes to you. You don’t have to visit 50 blogs on a daily basis. You visit one place — your feed reader — to see which blogs have been updated.

2) Syndication feeds can be sliced and diced like you wouldn’t believe. For example, do you check the Trixie Update because you like to read all the new comments? I could (should) set up a feed that syndicates user comments. That way you don’t have to come to the Trixie Update and visually scan the site to see what story has a new comment. You could simply add a “Trixie Update Recent Comments” feed to your reader. Pretty cool idea, right?

How do I get a feed reader?
Again, I’m going to strongly recommend Google reader. Go to google.com/reader. If you don’t have a google account, you’ll need to create one.

Once you are on your Google Reader page, it will be empty — but not for long. Click “Add subscription” on the top left. Paste ‘trixieupdate.com’ to the field and click ‘add’. You’ll then see the latest 10 articles from the Trixie Update marked as ‘New’ in your reader. As you click through each one you’ll notice that number of ‘New’ articles decreases until you’ve seen them all. Congrats! You’re all done. You’ve read all your feeds.

Add a few more blogs in there and you’ll soon start checking your feed reader before you spend time visiting actual site around the web. Mom, I hope this helps. Good luck!

PS. If someone says RSS, they are talking about feeds.

Welcome Baltimore and Memphis! We’re changing up the format a little bit, and no longer exclusively talking about babies. However, you can check out our New Visitor page for a list of the best baby-related stories from the archives.

And if you’d like to learn more about your own baby’s patterns, why not give Trixie Tracker software a try?

There’s a lot of new stuff coming to the Trixie Update, but it’s taking me longer than expected (as always). I’m working on a new install of WordPress right now. It’s dang refreshing! I’m definitely going to write more about that later.

In the meantime, I created a new flickr account to share. I’m a little torn about whether I’m going to keep up the TPODs. I like the idea of just choosing one and sticking it on my blog, but you can’t beat flickr’s ease of use. I am playing it by ear.

This is like 60 new TPODs all in one day. Except about 5 of them have actually been TPODs…. so it’s more like 55.

Thanks for visiting! We’re changing up the format a little bit, and no longer exclusively talking about babies. However, you can check out our New Visitor page for a list of the best baby-related stories from the archives.

And if you’d like to learn more about your own baby’s patterns, why not give Trixie Tracker software a try?

There were a million reasons I quit the blog 4 months ago. Here’s a handful.

I had grown completely tired of the site. I wasn’t interested in writing about baby data anymore. I was interested in writing my baby data software and working as an User Interface (UI) designer. I had different creative needs and I felt completely trapped by the scope of the blog. That kept me from being excited about working on it.

I worried about diluting existing content. As a blogger, I didn’t post every little thing that popped in my head and I certainly didn’t post on a daily basis (except photos). I was lucky to write a 2-3 stories a month. But I was very happy with the quality of the stories I wrote. Many had accompanying graphics, and almost all turned over in my head for a while before posting. They were all refined pieces (except some of the really early stuff) and that high standard became a disincentive for me to write more stories (unless I thought the story was going to be really, really, really good). It was hard to overcome that feeling.

I wasn’t able to experiment anymore. The stories on the Trixie Update had become so finished and tied to a very specific narrative (new parents raising a human baby) that I couldn’t try new writing or directions.

Trixie started fighting me tooth and nail on the photography. It was probably a stage and had nothing to do with the site, but without the TPODs there wasn’t anything new on the site. Trying to get a photo became a coercive activity and I really didn’t enjoy being in that position, so I quit. After I stopped the blog, I didn’t take any pictures for 2 months and enjoyed the break immensely. Now, however, the bug is back. I’m looking to sell my current camera and upgrade.

There was too much of a disconnect between the way I felt and what I posted on the site. I’ve gone to great lengths to avoid writing anything personal on the site. My goal had always be to simply observe. There’s plenty of hard data which some many consider personal (diaper counts, anyone?), but there’s not any emotional revelations. I got to the point that I was tired of posting and tired of not being able to say I was tired of posting.

Some old RSI (repetitive stress injury) issues started to flare up again. This was a show-stopper. The last thing I wanted to do was spend extra time photoshopping a TPOD if my arms were hurting at the end of the day. This is a completely manageable condition, and I’m doing 99% better now. Of course I wish I didn’t have it at all, but I will say that it’s forced me to work smarter over the years. It also helped me kick the Starcraft habit back in 2002.

A lot of these reasons are now resolved. My goal is to have fun writing and stop worrying. I also feel recharged to a certain degree. I add that qualifier because I’m also exhausted from my job, parenting and running my own business, but I feel pretty good about everything and glad to be back in the saddle. Incidentally, all of the above issues can be bullet-pointed as impediments to creativity. I want to flesh out some of these ideas here the future.