On Expectant Reactions

So today I let Liam fall off of the bed and caught him really close to the ground instead of stopping him from falling right away.  The theory was that he would learn the sensation of falling, become more aware of his body in space, and be weary of the edge of the bed.  Instead he just thought it was a really great ride.

Here, perhaps, is my first experience with the other side of that parent/child divide where experience clashes with the thrill of discovery.  I was definitively the child who needed to test every rule and find out about things first hand, no matter how many times you told me how it would turn out. Now, just because I did the tests and know that it hurts to fall, doesn't mean that my son gets to skip the step of finding out for himself. 

As he gets older, not everything will be as simple as "hot things burn so don't touch them" and "when you're outside in the rain, you get wet".  We develop more in depth and personalized expectations of our world based on more complex experiments and interactions with it.  These expectations color our opinions, inform our decisions, and even influence our judgement of others.  Then you have to reconcile with the fact that other people have different opinions, decisions, and judgments than you do, and either learn to accept that or perhaps try to influence them.  How we deal with that is the bread and butter of relationships, and there is no richer, creamier butter than that darned parent/child relationship.

As some of you know, we recently found out that we are expecting spawn #2, and we really couldn't be more happy.  Once we are out of this Limbo called New York in May, we are all moving back to sunny California and I will be taking on the responsibilities of live-in care person for my wonderful sweet Grammy, which I am all to happy to do.  This does mean, however, that I am going to have to continue my hiatus from the professional world, as my diploma sits gathering dust.  So we thought, what better time to have another child, while it can still benefit from the complete time and attention of Mama? That way we are well on our way to our large family (the magic number is 4... and I'm shootin' to be done before I'm 30!)  and I won't have to worry about maternity leave and pumping in my workplace bathroom.  Ew. 

Well... that's only one way to look at it.  The other way (my parent's) is that we have no idea what we are getting into and that we are poppin' out a bunch of welfare babies that we can't afford.  They would have us waiting until we were established with no debt, high-paying jobs, and a house before even thinking of children, which would more than likely leave us taking our walkers to our kid's high school graduations.  In my opinion, there is never a good time to have a kid, and if you wait to be able to "afford" one, you'll never be able to.  I was raised on modest means (my mother's constant refrain while shopping was "Is it on sale?") and I know that my folks are just hoping for their daughter not to have to make the sacrifices that they did, but money doesn't make people happy, and I'd much rather be able to enjoy my kid's childhoods then be worried about how I'm going to pay for college and retirement at the same time.  

Admittedly, I do take advantage of the NY WIC program and Liam and I are on Medicaid, but it is ridiculous how expensive healthcare is in this country anyways.  And I'm not making an argument for public vs. private funding of medical centers, or of whether or not Obamacare is constitutional... It seems to me that healthcare debates in this country are trying to work out how to solve problems within our system without acknowledging that our system is broken.  Medical schools, Hospitals, and Doctors are bought and paid for by pharmaceutical and insurance companies, so why do I (As a taxpayer OR an individual) want to feed the beast that profits off of our country's sickness?  But I digress...

Financial issues aside, it simply seems to me that family and community are the most important things in this fleeting life, and the only things that tie you to it once you're gone.  With that in mind, Colin and I are plunging in head-first (as is our way) to that loud, raucous family life where are kids are close enough in age to be friends, enemies, and sparring partners, and in-school body guards, and the more conservative of check-out ladies will look down their long noses at us as I wrangle them through the checkout line.  Variety is the spice of life, and I don't do anything half-assed!!!

Still though, it kinda sucks that my mom's first reaction to the news was a heavy resigned sigh followed by a "You guys are crazy", and that, although we've spoken numerous times, my father hasn't said one word about the new baby.  I've also found that (in general) there is an age divide between super excited congratulatory responses and shocked "you're crazy" responses.  Of course, there is probably a very good reason why the experienced have reservations about young, large families, but I will perpetually be the baby that loves to fall off the bed.  

On That Little Voice

We spend years as poker players (hell, as human beings...) trying to train ourselves to ignore that little Voice in your head that screams "just do it!" when faced with a compelling decision.  Sometimes it feels good to be reckless, but it certainly doesn't pay.  Until recently that is...

I am not the sort of player who mentally stays in the hand long after I've folded and agonizes over every gut-shot I could've made if I had stayed in.  72 offsuit is a great fold even if the flop comes up 777.  But lately those wild urges that hit you every once in awhile, like "let's play K2 just for the hell of it", that I have been resolutely ignoring because to indulge would just be bad poker, have been consistently hitting.  

For instance, the other week I had been playing for just under 40 minutes in our local free poker tourney with the group of regulars that is basically our second family, and had barely played a hand.  The action at my table was pretty even with no real clear leader, and I was feeling like it was time to make a move.  The button hit me and I resolved to control the hand pre-flop no matter what.  Enter 92 offsuit.  Okay... shitty hand but the plan stays.  Play position, work the table image... my standard raise is 3x the big blind, and if you're going to be in with a hand like that you'd better be willing to raise.  Then three people call behind the blinds, including a very tight player who thinks that if he doesn't have AAs he's screwed.  Now potentially 5 people are in the hand (I think there was a pre-flop raise too), and I'm sitting here with rags.  My chances of pushing enough players out of the pot and then praying that they didn't catch their flop and then convincing them that I hit mine aren't looking so good anymore, so even though I have position and the Voice telling me that I should be in this hand, it would really just be a terrible move to call and is simply not worth the pre-flop raise.  I fold.  And mathematically, talkin' shop with buddies over drinks, I will defend that decision every time.

Flop comes J, 9, 2. turn is a 9.  

Son of a bitch.
The pot had gotten pretty fatty with J2 against QQ, and had I listened to that damn little Voice I would have gotten PAID.  

This works the other way too.
A couple of months ago at the Free Poker Network state tournament for New York, I had been running up a nice little stack and was just generally feeling good.  We were down to 4 tables out of over 100 players, and I hadn't lost any significant pots.  After the dinner break we sat down, and even though I had successfully avoided playing with anyone from my local game, the new dealer who sat down was someone I knew, and didn't happen to like very much.  In the end, it doesn't really matter that I don't like him (especially since we get along just fine, he just happens to be kindof a condescending dick), but as soon as he sat down, I just started to feel unlucky.  

Now, at a poker table, as in life, you are going to be sitting down with people you don't like all the time, and you just have to fuckin' deal with it.  A weak and immature person is going to let their feelings towards another person affect them in negative ways and let those feelings bring them down, but really all that does is give whoever you don't like power over you.  These are all things I know, as a person and a poker player.  I don't now if you can tell or not, but I'm an extremely confident individual, and if you've got a problem with me that's your problem, not mine.  Yet still, amidst all this, I just felt the tides start to change.

So I says to myself I says, "Toni.  You're just being stupid.  Whether or not so and so sits down has absolutely  no affect on your play whatsoever.  Your game is tight.  Man up.  Shut up.  And Play."  After that I caught some great hands, A10 suited, AJ, QQ, and I think I was out within 10 minutes.  I lost coinflips, got sucked out on, and even though my play was by the book and I didn't make any stupid decisions,  the cards just weren't there.  

After 3-4 missed Voice related opportunities in this last regional tournament that I just played last week, I think I need to re-evaluate how I define that reckless little Voice and maybe start thinking of it as Intuition.  Gotta strike that balance between knowing the odds and knowing the game, and sometimes just throwing that all to the wind.  Maybe it's 'cuz I'm a Mama now that the Voice got so much more "right"... it used to just lose me a lot of chips!