September 2nd, 2009
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Em’s favorite book right now is this little gem from 1974, How Babies Are Made. It has paper cutouts of plants and animals and explains how things go, even showing a cutout man and woman tastefully covered up in bed. It’s extremely straightforward and age-appropriate. She likes for me to read this to her every night and answer questions. She had a lot of questions at first, like “Does having a baby hurt?” I fudged the answer, telling her it is uncomfortable, but there are medicines you can take so it doesn’t hurt. Sayeth Em, “I want those.”
Other questions include “What if the father had the baby,” “What if the baby doesn’t want to be born,” “What if the baby could take the umbilical cord home and play with it,” “Is there a way you can make yourself have twins,” and this classic about sperm coming out: “Like poop?” I feel like we’ve pretty much got everything straightened out as to how reproduction takes place, at least as much as is appropriate for a ten-year-old.
And so, with that background in mind, Em’s take on human reproduction, starring a salt and pepper shaker.
Em had a writing assignment in school today. I think she was supposed to write what she did this weekend. Here’s what she wrote.
We watched TV all day. My mom asked me if I wanted to do anything, but I said no! to evering. I didn’t move around like everybody should. I fell asleep because I got tired. I stayed at home all day.
And now no doubt we look like terrible parents who park our kid in front of the TV all day.
But she didn’t fall asleep during the day, she fell asleep at bedtime. And she did say she wanted to do something, she decided to come with me to a Browncoat video shoot on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, as she put it, “this was not what I was expecting.” It was significantly more waiting around in a hotel lobby than she could be expected to gracefully put up with, so I took her back home to hang out with her father. She also went with him to get doughnuts on Sunday, and to the toy store and several hardware stores while he struggled in vain to fix our leaky sink. She even got popcorn at one of the stores.
Also she did move around. She even had swimming lessons on Saturday morning.
I think she was probably just in a bit of a mopey mood when she was writing, so she just wrote what came to her mind about the weekend without reflecting. Oh well. Hopefully the teacher will get to know us this year and we can correct first impressions.
As for that sink, the plumber is coming tomorrow afternoon to fix it, since it has moved from “slight leak” to “mostly disassembled.” It happens. When the pipes are 40+ years old, they break. No blame to my husband, it’s just time to bring in a professional.
Em: Knock knock!
Me: Who’s there?
Em: Ach!
Me: Ach Who?
Em: Bless you!
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!
She genuinely got me with that one. I may need to be around adults a little more. Fortunately there’s D&D tonight, and those guys are kind of close to adults. I’ll try to get last week’s writeup posted today.
We took Em to Carowinds today. She’s been asking to ride a roller coaster. Don’t be fooled by the picture. While I am genuinely terrified, Em is thrilled. I think she’s a bit of a thrillseeker like her father.
In the past, Em hasn’t wanted to do new things, but this year, she has really branched out. She may only want to stay for a few minutes (although we were at Carowinds for five hours) but she wants to try everything. It’s like she was scared of the water, but this year she wants to put a toe in.
We’ve roller skated (both box skates and inline skates), ice skated, learned to ride a bike, and ridden a roller coaster. She’s enjoyed everything she’s tried.
It’s not just limited to new activities, she’s been wanting to try new foods too, in very small amounts. She’s discovered that she likes brie, cherries, and several other things she’s tried. She’s even asked for tofu.
I love this new phase in her development. She’s really blooming. I think back to the preschooler who had to constantly wear the same outfit and if she couldn’t, there would be an entire day of meltdowns. It’s a great reminder of how far she’s come and how far she still can go.
There’s been a mini-fest going on in Dragonrealms over the last couple of days. It’s a nice little event in a really cool new wedding area. Because of this, I’ve been playing more, just as a regular player. In fact, I even had the joy of dying because the network connection from my laptop to our wireless isn’t working properly. In knew in advance that the connection was shaky, so it’s totally my fault. That’ll teach me to hunt above my level. Well, it’s been a long time since I died, so it was probably something I needed to have happen again, just to keep in touch with the total playing experience. I lost a LOT of field experience, but I got back all my stuff, so I suppose all’s well that ends well.
It’s been really fun to explore new places and connect with new people. We’ve got some talented GMs, and seeing what they’ve done has made me want to get into it a bit more. I identified a few tiny little things I can do, and have sent queries off to the appropriate people to see if they mind me mucking around with their stuff. Everybody who’s responded so far has been enthusiastic. There’s not a lot of territoriality behind the scenes. We’re lucky to have a good staff who recognize that we’re all on the same team.
My husband is on furlough this week, which is an unpaid leave which his business is using to cut costs. Everybody’s having to do them; it’s not a special thing for which he’s been singled out. This marks the first time in 15 years that he hasn’t been tethered to his work by an internet connection. He’s using his time off to go camping and spend some time with his father. Em expressed today how much she misses him. It’s unusual for her to verbalize something like that, so he was able to go off on his adventure today feeling very loved. He won’t be gone long, and then we’ll have him all to ourselves for the rest of the week. His daughter is delighted by that.
As much as I’d like to work on Dragonrealms stuff right now, I have Jayne hat business to attend to first. I’ll be stamping up boxes and shipping things out while my daughter is at dance camp this morning. It’s a very busy time here, with convention season upon us.
I’ll try to get a D&D writeup out in the next few days. Until then, gentle readers!
