March 2020

Because of all the quarantine restrictions this month, we've been able to spend more time at home together than usual. Consequently we have a lot of photos and videos you can see in our March 2020 album here. Becky has been doing amazing work with different aspects of his therapy, and there are a lot of video clips of that this month.

Social Distancing (Rob)

Although coronavirus has been afflicting humanity all year, March was the month when the U.S. really began to respond. At the beginning of the month, there was one known case of it in NYC. By the end of the month, New York City became the global epicenter of the pandemic with more than 1000 deaths. So every day this month has been in question as quarantine measures quickly became more restrictive. In a matter of days, everything shut down except grocery stores. Since the middle of the month, Becky's work has been on hold, and I have been working from home. Surprisingly, we have had AirBnB guests using the house, and Alex's therapy clinic is still operating with some limitations. So we have mostly been in the Hudson Valley, which is unfortunately closer to the epicenter of the pandemic. Actually, Alex hasn't been at the clinic much this month because he has been sick twice (respiratory the first time, gastrointestinal the second) and that meant 14 days of home quarantine, followed by another 7. With no malls or libraries to visit, most of our outings have been outdoors to get sun and fresh air on days when the weather is nice, and some days even when it is not.

Outings (Rob)

Last summer, Becky discovered a lot of great parks in the area that she wanted to show me. We've visited a few that you'll see in the photos, mostly in the Cold Spring area that is along the Hudson River and a bit closer to NYC although still considered "upstate." There are some really great playgrounds you'll see, although those are now closed. Sometimes, just to get out of the house, we'll go on a walk with the stroller to a field, park, or open space where Alex can run around, or just get fast food. As shown in a photo above, he also loves to just hang out in the front seat of the car and push the buttons.

Salamander Migration (Rob)

The campus where I work has a marshy area that is protected and known as the Nature Preserve. Each Spring, salamanders emerge from hibernation (brumation, technically), and migrate from the forest to the marshes where they were born, where they mate and perpetuate the cycle. This migration takes them across a road that gets closed for them, and has some ramps installed to help them get over the curb. In a video below, you'll see a salamander that makes his way over the curb through a crack instead of the ramps. If the weather conditions are just right, the salamanders all come out in droves. We didn't have those conditions this year though, so their migration was more of a trickle. So I went out for a walk at the preserve one night when I thought I might still see a few, and I did. You'll see some photos and videos of spotted salamanders and newts I found. I ran into the guy who is in charge of the nature preserve and showed him where I spotted salamanders. His job is to stay up all night and count them and measure them.

Going Down the Toddler YouTube Rabbit Hole (Rob)

I've noticed that most of Alex's favorite YouTube videos have music, and I've been curious about the people who produce these videos. This curiosity has taken me down some interesting and twisted rabbit holes. 

Caspar Babypants (aka, Chris Ballew) has written many albums of kids music, and some songs have videos too. I'm a fan of those songs in general; I think they are catchy. Alex particularly likes the videos for Stompy the Bear, Butterfly Driving a Truck, and Pretty Crabby. The vocals, and even the style of the songs has a certain familiarity to it, and that is because prior to doing kids music, Mr. Ballew was the lead singer of a band that was very popular in the mid-90s: The Presidents of the United State of America. You know, "millions of peaches, peaches for me," -- those guys. It makes sense because those songs from the 90s had a lot of simple, repetitive-but-catchy, nursery rhyme-like chord progressions that made them short-lived hits. But it's hard to be a rock star and age gracefully, so I'm glad to see that Mr. Ballew has found new fame in the genre of toddler music.

Twenty Trucks is a series of song videos devoted to various anthropomorphized trucks, including Alex's favorite, Monster Truck; and my favorite, Excavator. Oddly, most of the songs don't sound like children's music at all. They are more of an electronic new wave style inspired by bands like Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, or Hot Chip (bands I  also happen to like). So obviously I was curious enough to do some research, and I learned that the videos are by Jim Gardner from the Phoenix area (this also explains the familiar landmarks I see in some of the videos). He does the video editing, and his brother Rob Gardner does the music. Rob Gardner is a name that is familiar to me, because he is a well known LDS composer and musician who was involved in a lot of orchestral religious and theatrical productions in the Phoenix area and beyond. I think I even attended one once. His music for toddler videos though is an unexpected departure from his prior work.

And finally, there is Blippi (aka, Stevin John), who is a YouTube character with several videos that include songs that Alex likes, including the tractor song, the excavator song, the airplane song, and the monster truck song. These songs are all originals, and admittedly catchy. They are written and performed by Blippi's musical partner, Nicky Note (aka Kyle Bain).  Mr. Bain has a checkered past, as it turns out. In his pre-Blippi years, he apparently robbed a few churches to steal musical instruments and got busted. Perhaps with those same stolen instruments, he recorded some non-children's music under his real name and released it on Bandcamp in 2013. I've listened to it and honestly I think it's  outstanding - similar to Sufjan Stevens and a lot of the other indie-folk music I liked to listen to around that time. It's too bad he never scored a record deal, but I guess crime sometimes doesn't pay. Blippi's past is also not very kid-friendly. Prior to becoming a toddler YouTube star, he did shock comedy that involved doing gross things on stage. Despite their history, somehow these two managed to get their acts together and produce a lot of content that Alex, and probably many other kids, really enjoy. Good for them, because everyone deserves a chance to grow from their past. Unfortunately though, Blippi and Nicki Note seem to have parted ways. The music on the videos without Nicky Note isn't nearly as good. Anyway I'm convinced there's a deeper story to tell here about the history of these two characters that would make for a great podcast series.

I should add that as much as Alex loves tractors, he has not been able to say that word. But recently, he started to sing the word "traaaac-tor" as it is sung on the Blippi tractor song, instead of saying it, and it comes out a lot better. Thanks Blippi!

Reporting on Coronavirus (Rob)

Since I have five years of prior experience working in a coronavirus lab and almost another year doing clinical testing at the state lab, I have been as interested as anyone in the coronavirus developments this year. I wanted to channel some of that experience into an article for KSL that would attempt to explain to people what a coronavirus is in the most basic terms. I hope I achieved that to some extent. You can read that article here if you'd like.