Dear Jason,

When I wrote to you a year ago, I said that you didn't know what birthdays were yet. I think you have an inkling now, since you've been to six birthday parties in the last month alone, including your own. You tell people "Happy birthday!" when you get to the party, and you know to expect cake. At your birthday party you ate two cupcakes, and you had a third after dinner.

It's been a full year for you, and for me. You had your first trip to the hospital in September, for your ear tubes, and I learned that I could worry more than I thought possible. In October you had your first trip to the dentist, but only because you almost knocked one of your teeth out when you fell on your face. And in May you had your first stomach flu, which I think may have been almost as upsetting for me and your mom as it was for you.

It hasn't been all bad stuff, of course. You had your first Christmas in Big Sur with your Nana and Abba. You had your first trip to Virginia to see your Grandma and Grandpa. You went to your first baseball game, which you liked. You went to soccer class for the first time, which you didn't (and don't) like. You've really started to love the pool, and you're almost swimming on your own now. You're so brave that it takes my breath away.

You've always been independent and full of energy. You've only become more so this year. Sometimes that means you're squealing with joy as you play with me or your mom, or your friends. Sometimes it means you're screaming at the top of your lungs and kicking your heels against the floor in a full-on temper tantrum. It's given your mom and me the opportunity to really learn how to be patient. You've made us better parents. You make us better people.

As I write this, you're off at SeaWorld with your mom and your Nana. I wish I could be there with you—I know you're going to have a great day. I can't wait to see you when I get home.

I love you.

I seem to be unusual among men my age—at least, among men my age that I know—in that I rarely button this button if I'm not wearing a tie. My stepdad told me once when I was a kid that it made me look nerdy, which has stuck with me ever since.

What am I waiting for? A good photo to come along, most likely.

Just so you know, I didn't paint that graffiti. But it's caught my eye on the drive home from work every day for the past month or two.

"Your grandma gave us those bowls?"

"Yeah. I remember because she didn't usually like to buy new things to give as gifts."

"Huh. Yeah, they don't seem like her style. It's a good thing I have you around, otherwise I'd never remember anything. The only thing I can remember your grandma giving us is that blue pitcher/vase thing from Pinecroft."

"What are you talking about? You mean the one that says 'Sandam' on it?"

"No that one is gray. You know, the blue pitcher. It has a handle, and it's from Pinecroft."

"We don't have a blue pitcher from Pinecroft."

"Yes, we do. I know we do."

"I think you're remembering a bunch of other things and putting it all together in your head."

"No, I have a really specific memory of this pitcher."

"We have a blue pitcher that we got for our wedding, but it's not from Pinecroft. And we have the 'Sandam' vase that my grandma got us, and that's from Pinecroft, but it's not blue."

"Let me look for it. Is it down here? No..."

"Is this the one you're talking about?"

"No, I know that's the one we got for our wedding. No, it's like the 'Sandam' one, but blue. And with a handle. Where is it?"

"You're remembering wrong again."

"No, it's here somewhere. Aha! This one!"

"Oh, yeah."

"See? It's blue and it has a handle."

"Yeah."

"And it's from Pinecroft."

"Yeah."

"And your grandma gave it to us."

"Yeah."

"'Oh, Mike never remembers anything. You're just remembering a bunch of other things and making it up in your head.' Ha ha! I feel like I could do a little dance."

"OK, fine, sometimes you're right."

I didn't actually do a dance, mind you. This is way more obnoxious.

I love you, honey!

This summer, Monday is Water Day at Jason's day care. As you can see, he is all set.

We ate dinner out on the patio on Saturday evening, the weather being nice and Juliette's family—in town for his birthday party—being partial to al fresco dining. The menu was pretty simple: grilled steaks, steamed broccoli, corn on the cob, and salad. We cleared the plates as usual afterwards, then brought out some leftover cupcakes from the party.

Jason was, as you might imagine, pleased to have more sweets, though he took and then rejected three different cupcakes before settling on the one he actually wanted. "Want red!" he'd say. Then, when presented with a red-frosted cupcake: "No. Blue one." Then, "That one," pointing at the yellow cupcake.

Finally settling on, I think, a blue one, Jason only took a couple of bites before something else caught his attention. "Dip! Dip! That one!" he shouted, pointing insistently. It happened that we had left the little bowl of what Juliette's dad calls "Sakasegawa Sauce"—a mixture of mayonnaise and soy sauce that we sometimes use for dipping with steamed vegetables. Her dad likes it a lot, so he mixed up a little batch for the meal, and had a lot of fun introducing it to Jason, calling it "dippedy doodle" and laughing.

"Jason," we tried to explain, "that doesn't go on cupcakes."

He was, of course, having none of that. "Dip! Dip!"

"No, that's yucky! Not on the cupcakes. Yuck!"

"Diiiiip! That one!"

We went back and forth for a while, but eventually we just gave up and dipped the cupcake into the mayo mixture for him. After all, it's not like it would actually hurt him, and finding out for himself that the two tastes were gross when put together would be much more convincing than anything we could say.

Jason took a bite of the mayo-and-soy-covered corner of the cupcake. We waited for the reaction. He chewed, swallowed, then turned to us and held out the cupcake. "More?" he asked.

Well, who were we to argue with that? He happily ate the rest of his vanilla cupcake with each bite dipped in mayo and soy sauce. He didn't know it was supposed to taste bad, so it didn't.

The rest of us kept our own council, though, and just stuck with the normal frosting.

Last night I went out for dinner with Juliette, Jason, and her parents and brother. It was a pretty nice restaurant, not particularly fancy and not outrageously expensive, but with pleasant, dark-wood decor; a relaxed, sophisticated ambience; and a menu that neither pedestrian nor pretentious. Most importantly for me, the ambient noise level was high enough that Jason's outbursts went mostly (but not completely) unnoticed by the tables around us. (They were all very understanding and forgiving, thankfully.)

So there we are, conversing and trying to keep Jason entertained while we wait for the food to arrive, when from the next table, I overhear someone loudly declare "Democrat means you want to pay people to sit around and do nothing." I look up, and I see this teenager—probably 18 or 19—passionately denouncing Democrats, unemployment, and the lazy people that rely on the welfare system instead of getting jobs like they ought to.

The first thought that popped into my head was "Has this kid ever even met a Democrat?" Because, honestly, I've never met anyone who actually wants to pay people to sit around and do nothing. But it's really none of my business what some kid says to his parents about welfare and I don't like to be nosy. Aside from which, right about then Jason was demanding that he be allowed to have all of the bread at the table, so I had more pressing things to occupy my attention.

I really wanted to mind my own business, but the kid had a strong voice and he was pointed right at me. So after he was done telling his parents and grandmother all of his thoughts on what was wrong with the unemployment system, he went on to talk about how awesome it is to have a fridge in his dorm room and how much fun he's having this summer and so on, and I found myself getting angry at him.

Now, look, that kid—whoever he is—is just as entitled to his opinion about unemployment benefits (or anything else, for that matter) as every other person is. If he wants to shout in a crowded restaurant about how Democrats facilitate laziness, it's certainly his right to be able to do so. Furthermore, I agree that the system as it exists now has flaws, and I've heard a lot of sound arguments from some very intelligent people that were substantively not much different from what this kid was saying.

Even so, sitting there in that nice restaurant in that nice strip mall in that nice, upper-middle-class neighborhood, listening to that nice-looking, clean-cut college freshman rant about Democrats and welfare, making his parents laugh about the misguided liberals, it just rubbed me the wrong way. I don't know that kid; I don't know what the sum of his life experience has been and how that's colored his opinions. But from where I was sitting, it didn't look like that kid had ever been poor, or had ever even known someone in any meaningful way who was poor. Or who was a Democrat, for that matter. He almost certainly has never had to financially support himself or anyone else. And I highly doubt he's ever had a family to support or a mortgage to pay, and it didn't sound like he knew anyone who'd ever been laid off.

Do you have to have been poor to be allowed an opinion on welfare? Is it required that you be financially responsible for others before you can talk about unemployment benefits? Of course not. Poor (or formerly poor) people do not and should not have the monopoly on discourse about that aspect of public policy. Nor does that having that kind of experience mean that your opinions are more valid, or that your ideas and observations are necessarily more astute.

In fact, there is no limitation on ignorance or insensitivity at all before we are qualified and entitled to our opinions. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try not to be ignorant or insensitive when we're spouting off about something, especially if we're doing so in public. And I've just known too many intelligent, hard-working, honest people who have had to deal with hard times through no fault of their own to be able to paint unemployment recipients as lazy or useless.

One of my best friends, for example, is a highly skilled and talented engineer who puts in long hours and genuinely enjoys the challenge and technical knowledge involved in his job. The company he was working for happened to be losing money in certain areas, and decided to cut its losses by closing down his division. So he found himself with a mortgage and a baby on the way, and short the major portion of his household income. What would you do in that situation? I'll tell you what he did: he spent eight hours every day finding companies with open hiring reqs, sending out applications, and lining up interviews, and he did that for weeks until he landed another job. And he collected unemployment benefits to help tide him over until he got that job. Is that irresponsible or lazy? Try telling him that to his face.

Fortunately, my friend and his wife are sensible about money and between their savings, unemployment, and tightening their belts a little, they were able to get through that rough patch. Even more fortunately, there were actually jobs to be had. Not everybody is that fortunate.

The point here isn't to say that we do or don't need unemployment benefits or other kinds of social welfare programs, nor to say what forms those benefits should take. There is a lot of room for discussion there, and I'm certain that there are many valid points of view and many good solutions to the underlying problems. No, the point is that I'm sick and tired of hearing ignorant people say things like "Democrats want people to be lazy" and "Republicans hate black people."

We're all entitled to our opinions. But sometimes your opinion makes you an asshole, damn it.

One of the things I love about photographing kids is how honest they are. Every little thing they are thinking or feeling is right there out in the open. This shot is from the kids' 4th of July parade in Del Mar. Clearly, she's having a good time.

Comic-Con is this weekend, and being the nerdy kind of guy I am, I feel like I ought to write about that. Maybe something about how despite living in San Diego for five years, I still haven't been. Or something about the opportunity to take interesting pictures of cosplayers. Or at least some local's grumbling about 100,000 extra tourists clogging the roads.

I'm not going to write about that, though. No, today I want to write about The Little Mermaid.

I've seen The Little Mermaid—or parts of it—at least thirty times over the past year. This would be considered odd for a normal, rational adult, but since a toddler is the one calling the shots with respect to the DVD player these days, I don't really have the luxury of being a normal, rational adult. Instead, I get to go days on end with "Part of Your World" stuck in my head. (It happens to be right in my vocal range, too, which used to entertain Jason and now causes him to shout "NO SINGING, DADDY!" Which is both hilarious and a little heartbreaking for me. But I digress.)

Anyway, you can't watch The Little Mermaid thirty times without noticing certain interesting little tidbits. Well, you can't if you're me. (I may also be playing a little fast and loose with the word "interesting.") If you're me, you start thinking about plot holes and imposing an actual adult perspective on the characters.

For example, when Sebastian discovers that Ariel has been turned into a human and decides to go back and tell the Sea King all about it, saying:

I'm gonna march meself home and tell him right this minute  and don't you shake your head at me, young lady! Maybe there's still time. If we could get that witch to give you back your voice, you could go home with all the normal fish and just be... just be... just be miserable for the rest of your life.

I find myself turning to Juliette and saying, "No she wouldn't. She's sixteen. Realistically, she'd be mooning all over some other mer-teen before she turned seventeen."

Or, when King Triton, discovering that his daughter has made a Bad Deal with Ursula, tries to remedy the situation by shooting the contract with his trident, I recently wondered why he didn't just shoot Ursula instead. I mean, it's clear that the contract would be undone by the Sea Witch's death, which we see not ten minutes later when Prince Eric kills her by stabbing her with a sunken ship. And that's after she's become a gigantic sea-goddess, having stolen Triton's power. Presumably she would have been even more vulnerable at the point when she was face-to-face with Triton.

But, no, it doesn't even occur to Triton to shoot the witch. He shoots the scroll, instead, which is impervious to his might. Which brings me to an interesting observation: in the entire course of the movie, only two characters are ever seen killing anyone. Ursula, of course; she not only accidentally fries her two pet eels, but also pops a live shrimp-looking creature into her mouth as a snack in her first scene. The other is Eric, who, as mentioned, kills Ursula in the climactic scene.

Looking a little closer, we see that two other characters attempt to kill: the shark that chases Flounder and Ariel around the sunken ship, and Louis, the French chef who tries to cook Sebastian. They don't succeed, but not for lack of trying. So we have a sum total of four characters who attempt fatal violence toward other characters.

It's interesting that three of them are bad guys. We have the shark, which is less a real character than a sort of embodiment of mindless, chaotic evil. Then there's Ursula, the calculating, power-hungry schemer. And finally Louis, who while only really there for comic relief, is nonetheless cast in a villainous (if mildly so) role. What, then, does it say about Eric that he's in the same company as the other three?

This is a pretty recurrent theme in our cultural mythology about heroic figures, actually. We are presented with the two central male figures in a girl's life: the father and the husband. (To be clear, I'm describing the mythology here, not the way I think it is, must be, or should be in real life.) Both appear powerful, but the former is ultimately shown to be impotent, while the latter conquers his foes. And it's the latter who eventually carries off the girl. These are the kinds of stories we tell ourselves. And that we tell our kids, I guess.

OK, OK, yes, I did just spend over 400 words examining cultural mythologies and archetypes as presented in a Disney movie. I know. But you watch the same kid's movie thirty times and see what happens to you.

Jason got a new toy from his Grandma for his birthday: a kitchen set. He loves it, and has been super excited to play with it ever since it magically appeared by the dining table one morning. This is him on that morning, putting two cups, a salt shaker, and two bowls into the oven. He's not doing that anymore, but for whatever reason, he thinks the phone goes in the microwave, and his wind-up dolphin toy ("MY NEW DOLPHIN!") goes in the fridge. He refuses to entertain any notions to the contrary.