Careful what you ask for …
posted in General |Whoops, I ended the title with a participle. Sorry about that, GJ 
So this weekend, again I forgot this cardinal rule of daddydom. First, on Saturday, I took Miss B to the swimming pool. I didn’t get in, on the one hand because I wanted to read my book, and on the other, because I didn’t feel up to stripping down and getting in the pool. So I make her get in the water and go play… I read my book, and as I watch her, I reflect on the opportunity I’m giving her, which I’ve mentioned before I think– a chance to make friends. You see, if I get in the water with her, it becomes Daddy and Daughter play. But this way, she has to go introduce herself somehow, and come up with a game. Negotiate. Mingle. And, self assured, I go back to my book.
Fast forward about an hour. It’s getting to be time to go, and I’m restless. I give her a warning– ten minutes. Just then a group of about ten kids shows up, so she begs another five. Ok, fine, I’m not in that much of a hurry. Five becomes ten more minutes. And now I’m getting annoyed. Just how much am I going to let her go?
Then her new friend comes over to me and begs me to let Miss B stay and play. Another ten minutes, she pouts cutely at me. She tells me that all the other kids in the pool are weird. Not like Miss B. I’m a softie- ok, Miss B can stay.
Fifteen minutes later, Miss B tells me that I have to go into the pool to get her out of it. There’s a contest in the making; Miss B doesn’t want to lose face in front of her new friend, I don’t want to look like an ogre, and I don’t want to be jerked around. Oh, and I don’t want to go into the pool. I waste ten minutes telling her to get out of the pool, she’s laughing at me. One mother tells me I’m never getting her out of there. Other kids are obviously on Miss B’s side. So I let her go, and strategically retreat to plan my next move.
When I go back to her, I make her choose. I let her stay in the pool yet another five minutes, but for every minute she stays in the pool past that, she will be grounded for one day. No playing outside, no computer games.
It works. She gets out, right on time. As she passes me to get her stuff for the shower, she asks if she can have some candy. “Let’s see how long it takes you to rinse off” I tell her.
Sunday we went to PDX Bot. I had to kick Miss B off the computer (Look, honey F10 pauses Warcraft!) and drag her out of the house, but by the time we got to the car, she was reminding me about the sumobot competitions. We drove downtown to PSU, parked, found it. I told Ms B that we wouldn’t be gone long; it was in a ballroom in PSU, and I imagined maybe two rows of tables, some chairs, some sort of ring where the sumobots played; pretty small area, and we’d cruise in, look it over, Miss B might be mildly interested, we’d leave.
I wasn’t surprised. It was small. We strode in, got our program, and five feet into the ballroom, we were stopped dead in our tracks. The Flaming Chickens had set up a display with two robots taller than your average eight year old, which were controlled with an assortment of joysticks, rheostats and mind waves. A young lady in a flaming red shirt came over and asked Miss B if she wanted to drive. Apparently the robots sped all about collecting these large quadrahedrons. Miss B politely turned her down, her big eyes reflecting the lights from the LEDs. But she stood there and watched for a good five minutes. I finally dragged her away to look at some of the other displays to see. We saw line-following robots, sonar and light distance finders, speaking robots, an “arachnobot” which was very computerized and walked with a remarkably flat gait.
At the back of the hall was a display of “Art Bots.” Basically, a controller like a radio-controller, but wired, two little joysticky things that lead to two motors, which were taped to a paper cup with markers on it- so as you moved a lever, one motor would spin rapidly, forcing the cup around in circles. It was… cute.
Next to this display was a display of art bots “in progress” being created by groups of 3rd and 4th grade girls. Which was perfect, because it showed me that I need to get crackin on this whole Robot thing if I’m going to convert Miss B even more over to the Geek side.
