Frenzied Daddy

My friend, young raven, asked me whilst enroute to the airport, if I was gaming currently. Sadly, no. However, I am living vicariously through several gaming-related podcasts and other sundry stories. Wil Wheaton just wrapped up his story about sending his son and some friends through the beginnings to their game, and his reflective tips on DMing are also great suggestions for new parents who haven’t yet figured out their game. Or old parents who, like me, sometimes lose track that the goal of this journey is fun.

Whenever you can, say “yes.” I think my first instinct is always to say “no.” No, you can’t have another Popsicle. No, I won’t help you clean your room. No, I won’t read you another book. No, I won’t tell you a story * this topic is actually reserved for another post . What if you tried saying “yes.” What’s the worst that’ll happen, if she has another Popsicle? What are you doing rather than helping him clean his room? Can it wait? Why not read another book? Our kids hear “no,” too often, and we should practice saying “yes.”

Everything is important to the PCs (kids) It’s probably not a big deal to you if you take the blue blanket or the pink one, but she’s throwing an ever-loving fit. If it’s really not important to you; try letting them pick once in a while. With the previous one and this one, I’m not advocating “say yes every time,” kids need to learn that they don’t always get their way. But they can sometimes get their way, can’t they?

Listen to your players (kids). Are you half-listening, singing to the music or reading the recipe for the stroganoff? Focus on what they’re saying, and how they’re saying it. Treat it as important, and since they’re kind of new to the world, you may have to go the extra steps of showing that you’re listening by *gasp* making eye contact and repeating back what they’re saying. You know, “good listening” skills.

Keep it simple, even if you’re just getting started. Kids don’t really care if you arrange a huge fantastic trip, like parachuting into the zoo and enjoying the day. All they really want is simple stuff – especially if they’re infants or toddlers. How many parents have you seen with these incredibly ornate parties for their two-year-old? Ponies? Alligators? What’ll you do next year? Keep it simple

You should go take a look at his post. He’s got several more points, and the only one that I think doesn’t directly translate to parenting is “buy a DM screen.” But even that one? Yeah, the kids don’t need to know everything.

Huh. Post 999? Weird.

The DQ is studying genetics in school. She’s working out how she gets brown eyes when I have blue and Ms B has brown. Also, I can curl my tongue, and so can Ms B and so can the DQ, but not the TT yet. And she’s working out hair color. But there’s an interesting other genetics thing she’s picked up too.

In High School, I helped with the rejuvenation of our literary magazine. I was a fairly prolific writer. What can I say, High School was angsty and paper was cheap. Ms B is no slouch either when it comes to writing; she’s been known to put pen to paper and come up with some pretty good stuff. I’ve written papers on poetry, that’s how geeky I am. I worked my way from structured poetry like sonnets and haiku, through free verse, and back again to structured poetry.

I haven’t written a lot lately because, in a surprising (to me) turn of events, my codewrighting (I spelled that the way I mean it), uses a lot of the same energies that my poetry did. Also, a lot of my poetry was fueled by sadness, depression, the emo pain that a lot of teenagers feel.

Imagine my surprise (and pride, and pleasure) when I found the DQ’s school newspaper, and an entry by her.


As the world goes dark
when the sky turns black
thousands of lights turn on
when they fade
on dawn's return
the sky is once again alone
even though the stars were
mirrored by lights
they will never be caught
ever eternal they shine in the
darkest nights they are
stars


I really couldn’t tell you how impressed, pleased and proud I am of her. Being able to write, and being self-assured enough to place it in the school paper with her name attached. Just like a chip off the old blocks.

Miss B got a big enough giftcard from her grandparents that she was able to buy, basically, the world. She could buy almost any xbox or wii game, or some packs for sim 2 … but what she chose, what she’s been asking about for months … was Spore.

Cute game. I’ve played through the cell stage and the creature stage a few times. Have just barely cracked the tribal stage and entered “civilization.” Both of the girls play it and like it.

The TT was playing it last night. She’s great at the cell stage where she has to drive around eating stuff (generally she plays herbivores). She’s good at the critter stage. However, she has a real problem with the tribal stage. It’s just past her ability to grasp tactics. She’ll be doing something, and some other tribe will annoy her so she’ll go to their town to beat them up and get slaughtered and have to start all over again.

She did that for about three hours last night until I put her to bed (late, cuz I was up working). Build up her tribe, maybe kill off one tribe, go attack another, get slain, start over, build up her tribe… She was very determined.

So determined that when I finally took her upstairs and away from the computer, she screamed at me for twenty minutes, kicking and clawing at the door to the basement. Yeah, she’s lost privileges for the day, but I’m in total awe of her dedication.

Some random thoughts … not everything in my head gets twittered.

I’m amazed that this auction for an extra joke from an Onion writer is going so high. It started at $0.57 to cover postage.

I’m putting “focus” on my calendar as my word-for-the-year.

I’m writing down that next year (this year) I need to request time off during this Christmas Break. I’m not sure yet if I should use half of my vacation during March and half during December or just all during December, but these last two weeks have been embarassing and work-constipated. And the snow days didn’t help any either.

I’m writing a nastygram to Jack Frost for yet another day of snow and ice. Drove the Missus to work this morning and called my moms to see if they needed their walk shoveled.

I guess that covers it. Talk at y’all soon.

I was reading a message board and came across a suggestion that I may have to implement next Christmas. This one woman puts random numbers onto presents to thwart present shakers and counters. There’s no Christmas tradition I hate more than counting presents.

I don’t really know why. It mildly annoyed me when I first met the Divine Ms B and we traveled to her family’s house for the traditional yule, and her sisters participated in this ritual. They had a blackboard with their names and tally marks for the numbers under the tree. Well, no, but we worked hard to make sure they had the same number of presents and close to the same amount spent. As they’ve gotten older we’ve had to worry less about this, thankfully.

However, I caught the DQ making stacks yesterday. Yes, the DQ that reads this blog; she’s sure to read this too. I don’t even know the numbers, but it looked like “Five for the TT, four for the DQ.” I think she’s just having fun, but I hate feeling like one of the girls going to feel like we love her less because she has fewer presents. Maybe I’ll open a pack of dominoes and wrap each one separately. Hmm; I’ll have to buy some dominoes…

Last night was the DQ’s choir recital at the church.

Let me be honest. Her singing is terrific. I can’t imagine from where she got her sense of pitch and her sense of rhythm, both of which contribute also to her clarinet. Her other arts, also fabulous. Her drawings are great and her stories are remarkable. And, frankly, I just recently came around to having her tested for TAG. She’s brilliant.

Yeah, she reads this too. Hi hon. Don’t get too swelled a head, mkay?

So I’m sitting there holding Miss K, listening to the bell choir and then to the other choirs and Miss K is also singing. Singing in the songs, in the response songs, she’s got half the words and most of the song and rhythm. And that’s just from sitting in my lap! At the same time, she’s “drawing a picture” for her sister (to be honest, not one of her more intricate works, but she had some other great pictures that night).

And then my world tilts slightly and I realize- if I want my kids to go to Julliard or to some other art school, it’s going to have to be on a scholarship. While we make “decent” money, there are no reserves and the bills almost exactly match the income. And it’s my responsibility to make sure that my daughters have the education that their talents need. How do I get them what their muses ne in order to help them down the road?

That’s the deal. I (we parents) supply the knowledge and get out of their way.

Right?

FusionFall is out, and Miss B (the DQ, Miss Smart Aleck, The Resident Four Pointer, She-Who-Is-On-The-Honor-Roll), is very excited. It’s not a free game, but it is “inexpensive.” It’s about six bucks a month; it’s less than one rental at the video game rental store, it’s less than half the price of Everquest, it’s one (adult) serving when we eat fast food. She did play it during the free open beta, and enjoyed it.

During the recent budgetary crisis, I discontinued her allowance. It was only $2.00 a week, but it would cover a basic FusionFall subscription.

Something that one of the morning DJs said has kind of stuck with me all day. The station I was listening to is supporting a program that does mentorships for kids from pre-K through high school, getting them out of a cycle of poverty. One of the DJs spoke up and said that when he left home (as a teenager), he had an unofficial mentor who taught him things like how to get the electricity turned on when you rented an apartment, how to balance a checkbook, how to open a checking account. These were something his dad (or mom, but he only mentioned his dad) didn’t teach him.

It’s something my dad didn’t really teach me either. Not directly, anyway- I did see him with a huge ledger sheet doing his budget.

So I was wondering about teaching Miss B “how to open a checking account” and “how to balance it.” When should she learn that? I’ve been mulling over, at her next birthday (Jan 4), that she’ll be 12. I could take her to the credit union and help her open a checking account, and organize a deposit for it once a month for the balance of her allowance, and she could pay for, say, fusionfall, out of it. Is twelve the right age to start that, or should I wait?

And yes, I know that opening the account might take significantly more than her allowance.

It’s the beginning of the last leg of the year, coming around the corner with Halloween and right in to Thanksgiving and then Winter Solstice and the DQ’s birthday ( actually 1/4 ). We were out celebrating Halloween tonight and the girls were fantastic. The TT was dressed as a pretty cute, ok, I’ll say it, adorable, kitty cat and the DQ was dressed as a wizard. Wizardess. Naw, I’m gonna stick with “Wizard.” I’ll post pictures later.

They each got a huge bucket full of candy. We went to about twice as many houses as we usually go to for Halloween, but the girls were extremely excited, and we went down a couple of new streets (one of which had strobe lights, a spectre hanging from the eaves, a spidery tunnel to the door and a live demon in the bushes). Then we drove to Airy and Aleck’s house and trick-r-treated them too. Interrupted their dungeons and dragons game (sorry guys).

One precious highlight was when the girls turned around and came down some steps, and the TT tripped. She caught herself, only tripped down one stair really, and came to us and said “that was an eeeeeevil stair.” She had me in stitches most of the trek.

Hope you all had a great Halloween and that you’re looking forward to a terrific November.

So, the DQ is 11, and in 6th grade. Do you suppose it’d embarrass her too much if I made these cute little “witches on a stick” snacks for her to take in her lunches? I’d offer them to Ms B for her lunches but I suspect she’d consider them a waste of a perfectly good hershey’s kiss.