Posts (page 2)

Yesterday morning, the Guv suggested that he take Petunia to see Madagascar 2 in the late afternoon.  The kids both attended a mid-day birthday party at Pump It Up -- a totally crazy but awesome venue for a party -- and we figured they'd both be worn out afterward.  They were!

I looked up the movie and saw that it was only an hour and a half long, so the wheels started churning... Dash loves movies.  Maybe, just maybe, we could all go... of course, we didn't take Petunia to her first movie until after she was 4, and she was the well-behaved one!  But if I stocked enough M&Ms and offered the reward of a Fresh Choice dinner afterward for good behavior -- maybe a trip to the Barnes & Noble too -- then I thought he could do it.

We bravely forged ahead, to the most immense and gorgeous movie theater I've ever seen.

Tickets for family of 4: $35.

Snacks for family of 4: $20.

Sitting through a movie in which Dash's behavior exceeded our expectations*: Priceless.

*Except when any of the characters said, "Butt."  He had a repeat that, loudly and with raucous laughter, every time.  Funny, I never noticed how often the word "butt" comes up in a G-movie before...

While his grandmother and aunt were visiting, Dash informed Grammy that "Mama bought me at a yard sale for seventeen dollars."   We all had a laugh over this one, especially because the only thing in my house that's ever come from a yard sale is the pink flamingo in the back yard -- courtesy of Petunia and Grandpa hitting a yard sale right after we moved here.  The thing is just so ridiculously tacky that I leave it staked in the back yard.  I'm thinking of buying it a Santa hat and giving it a a name, even.

In any event, Dash thinking that babies come from yard sales was funny to me until last night, when we were sitting in a booth for some fine Mexican food.  Several times lately, Dash has asked for a sibling.  First, he wanted a "brudder."  Then he wanted another sister, as he's rather enamored of an almost-two year old that comes to his preschool with her big sister and bigger brother.  Last night, he asked -- deadpan -- "Mama, can we go to a yard sale and buy another baby?  For $17?  Because then you could have TWO baby 'brudders' -- and that would be totally, totally cool!" 

"It's not that simple, Dash," I replied.  "Babies take a long time to come into being.  Nine months, actually.  You can't just go to a yard sale and get a new one."

"Okay, we can go later," he replied.

My fear is that he's so smart, he'll remember nine months from now!  We'd better adopt the dog by then...

One of Dash's least endearing qualities is his sleep -- or, more like, the lack thereof.  Though Petunia would still nap today if she could, Dash gave up naps over the summertime.  At age 3, he apparently has better things to do with his time; after all, he might miss an opportunity to run really fast or squash a bug or some such thing if he slept too much!

Case in point, on the way home from San Francisco yesterday, around 4:30 pm, he took an hour-long nap.  Bedtime, usually 8 pm, was pushed back until around 8:30 pm... but by 10, he still wasn't asleep.  The Guv, who had been trying to put him to sleep, came into the room where I was working just after 10, saying, "Your turn!"

When I entered the bedroom, Dash was sitting straight up in the bed.  "Mama," he sighed with great exasperation, "Daddy is being rude about my sleeping!"  (This was especially funny, as Dash pronounces "rude" as "whooooed.")

"Dash, it's very dark outside," I replied.  "It's way past your bedtime.  It's time for you to sleep, right now."

"But I don't want Daddy to be in here anymore," Dash replied, "I amn't [am not] going to sleep if Daddy's being rude."

"Well, Daddy's gone, and I'm here now, so sleep, m'k?" I answered.

A few minutes pass, and Dash demands another sippy cup of soy milk.  He sucks on it for about twenty mintues before telling me that he's all done, rolling over, and falling asleep.

The story is cute, but the problem is far from it... We need to take steps to get Dash to sleep on his own, all night, without us and without his milk.  It's much easier to put up with things as they are -- and much harder to fix them.  So, as soon as visiting Grammy and TiTi (his aunt) leave, we'll start at square one again with refusing to give him milk in the bed.  [Side note for the judgmental: giving Dash milk at night used to be a necessity when he was grossly underweight and required supplementation at night, and he's not that far out of the woods for us to curtail his milk consumption yet.  We can, however, alter the time frame -- and will.]  The remaining steps -- sleeping all night, then transitioning (again) to his own bed, will be hard.  Those will happen after we visit Vermont for Christmas.  They have too -- I'm just too tired to do it anymore.  So, wish us luck -- and wish that it's not all a "rude" experience!

Check out Wolfgang's Vault!  There are FREE live music downloads from concerts long past and totally awesome vintage concert memorabilia.  I could spend hours on this thing... where to start?  Led Zepp?  Dylan?  Hendrix?  Devo?  Modern English? So many choices, I may just be on-line all day...

Thanks to my brother, Wonder Boy, for the heads-up!

Well, then, check WikiHow, especially the article titled "How to Deal with an Existential Crisis" -- including my favorite tip: #10, Problem Solve.  In other words, if you have an existential crisis, fix it.  If that doesn't work, there are 15 other steps, a handful of tips, and several warnings.

If your problem is not the furniture of the mind but, rather, party decor, you can learn how to make an origami balloon.

If my dairy-allergic son is coming to your party, you can make him some dairy free ice cream.

If you stain your shirt with that ice cream, you can make your own laundry detergent.

My God, what did we do before the internet???

Airstream

Instead of getting up super-early and engaging in the Black Friday shopping rush, we slept in a little before heading up to AT&T Ball Park for a fun media event with Nintendo.  (This seemed especially appropriate, as the Guv spent the wee hours of Black Friday morning last year waiting in line to score a Wii.)  The event piqued my interest when I heard that it was to be held in an Airstream trailer, which was super cool!  It was tricked out with black leather sofas against the chrome walls, which were sparsely stickered with Mario, Kirby and the like.  Petunia (age 8) and I were the designated testers, though the Guv and Dash tagged along to check out the trailer and to launch stomp rockets in the parking lot.  

The first game we checked out was Personal Trainer: Cooking for the Nintendo DS Lite.  This “game” is actually a cookbook that lets you enter ingredients on-hand, then gives you recipes from which to choose.  Further, it offers step-by-step video instruction – good for folks like me who aren’t really sure of the difference between mince and dice, for example.  (I can bake anything, but cooking… not so much my skill set!)  It can also rattle off an ingredient list for you to keep handy (on the DS of course) at the grocery store.  My favorite part of this software, though, was the search by country for recipes.  I pulled up the U.K., not known for its food, and one of my very favorite dishes – Welsh Rarebit – appeared.  I checked the ingredients, and it’s spot-on.   Pretty cool – and lots of variety.  The down-side is that I’m not sure how I’d use this, as a mom who doesn’t have (or need) her own DS… I could borrow Petunia’s while she was in school, I guess, but then I’d forget it in my handbag and be accused of running down the charge, and where was that power cord again?  Oh well – this game’s probably not for me, a cookbook collector and ’net recipe aficionado, but I will recommend it to my bachelor brother and bachelorette sister.

The rest of the games we tried were on the Wii, starting with Wii Music.  I expected Petunia to be very excited about this one, since she’s asked about Guitar Hero and like games a few times.  She played the sax to my drums for a set, and we learned how we could’ve recorded a video of our jam session.  I figured out how to make my maraca-player jump, but to what end, I wasn’t sure… We then conducted for a bit, which was neat – when the conductor holds notes, the orchestra stares at you.  All in all, though, I wasn’t super-excited about this game, as I thought I would be, and neither was Petunia… it’s a little tricky for an eight year-old (and a mom) to figure out, but, again, I could imagine my twenty-something brother having a ball with it with his friends.  

Next, we launched Wii Fit.  I’ve heard the hype about Wii Fit, but I’d never seen nor tried it.  Petunia was the first to step on the Fit board, and here’s where we hit a real glitch: the super-nice guy helping us to test out the demo calculated her BMI, which is a huge no-no for children.  (Nintendo has heard about this from parents before.)  I didn’t see it coming, and, fortunately, Petunia didn’t really catch that her BMI exceeded their standards – but I had goofed, too, being short on her height by a good two inches.  (What can I say; the kid won’t stop growing!)  I didn’t want to lose the teachable moment, so, back at home, the Guv and I showed her how a BMI is calculated, showed her that hers is perfectly within normal range for her age – and just to make sure she believed us, pulled out the data from her recent 8 year-old well visit to show her that her doctor feels she’s tall and healthily proportional for her age.   Her response: “What’s the big deal?  I know I’m just right.”  Well, then – we’ve done a great job in making sure she’s self-confident!  

In any event, snafu aside, I wonder if Nintendo will ever sell a version of Wii Fit for kids that leaves out the BMI option (and “fitness age” for that matter).  Mainly, I think it’s up to parents and doctors – not a machine – to tell me if my kid has a weight issue.  I really, really loved the Wii Fit for myself (more on that in a second), but I’m a little bit hesitant to purchase it now because I wonder if Petunia will fixate on that BMI/fitness calculation part of it.  She’s not the type to do so, but one never knows as adolescence approaches…

With regard to the Wii Fit as a game, I thought it was totally awesome.  We tried a balancing activity, a soccer game (heading a ball, avoiding shoes and panda heads), and hula-hooping.  Petunia decided she’s not that excited about it, but I think that’s because she wasn’t very good at it (or maybe that BMI threw her, who knows); then again, she’s 8.  I, on the other hand, want to see if I can do four hula-hoops at once in real life, because I was rockin’ them on the game.  If we had more time, I’d have loved to try the yoga.  Meanwhile, I'm thinking about putting the Fit on my “Santa list” – concerns aside, I could keep it tucked away someplace and use it when the kids are at school or after bedtime.  I like to try new fitness activities, so this fits that interest and my Wii-love well.

Lastly, we tried (and dashed out to buy) Animal Crossing: City Folk.  It’s sort of like Sim City but much more interesting for kids (and, I think, for the whole family).  The best part about it, though, was something we didn’t try, which is using the internet connection and the Wii Speak microphone to play with other households.  (By the way, the Wii Speak has to be purchased separately from the game for about $30 – my husband didn’t buy the bundle, which would’ve saved us $10 – whoops!  There is a texting option for the mike-less.)  I envision trying to talk my former neighbors the Cleavers into adding this to their Santa list, or even working on my brother to grab up a bundle; they all live far from us now, and it’s be cool to have the kids game with them in a way that allows for conversation, too.  That said, only one controller/one character at a time can be used – so it really is only a one-player game, though the mike will pick up all the conversation in the room.  I’m wondering if my kids will someday be fighting over it… In any event, I can imagine Petunia inviting her former neighbor Wally to come over to her town and go fishing!  Positive interaction with neighbors, keeping a clean environment, and working to pay down your mortgage (with bells serving as money in the game) are among the things that are important to the smooth functioning of the town – a great message for kids!  Also of note, I was highly impressed by the security in the game; they have to obtain a code from a friend in order to invite that friend into their town and vice versa – so no strangers can happen upon the kids’ town and start texting them.  Beyond that, I can’t even describe this complex game in more detail (especially since Dash is asleep on my arm, and Petunia’s been playing it in the basement for two hours already), but I can say that value-wise, I think that this is the best game I’ve ever seen.  You could play it for thousands of hours and never run out of fun, seriously. That’s why we stopped at Best Buy on the way home to pick it up.  The Guv and I will be playing it after the kids go to bed at night.  Wheeee!!!!  I mean, Wiiiii!

Last note: Thanks to Nintendo for hosting such an awesome event in a super-cool Airstream.  Readers should know that I was not asked to provide a review of their games or products.  I am writing this only because I feel like it, as our family really enjoys our Wii and finds game reviews valuable.  We also did not receive the games we played in exchange for our participation.   We just did it for the fun, and fun, Wiiiii had!

*****
Update: Since writing this post initially, we've played Animal Crossing: City Folk off and on for a few days.  We are still amazed at this game and can't recommend it highly enough!  Some highlights: When my character unearthed a fossil, I was able to donate it to our town's museum.  The curator told me some facts about the fossil ("Peking Man," so a real fossil!), and it's on display in the museum along with subsequent ones.  When I donated a fish to the museum's aquarium, I learned the difference between two kinds of carp.  Neat!  Petunia and I visited the museum cafe on Saturday night at 8 p.m., at which time every week (the game runs in real time) online musician K.K. Slider plays.  He gifts your character with a song that can then be stored on the boombox in your character's virtual house to be replayed at any time.  We're still discovering lots more, and this is only day four!  Happy gaming!

It was a privilege to grow up in the greater Pittsburgh area in the 70s-80s.  These were the years of the Steelers' strength (Greene, Swann, Bradshaw, Harris), the Pirates' predominance (Clemente, Stargell) and the Penguins' greatness (Lemieux, Coffey).  It was especially my love of ice hockey, Lemieux-style, that led to my directiing WESU Sports radio in college.  While my play-by-play probably left a lot to be desired, the camaraderie (and the Div 3 status) made my years with WESU a total blast.

I eventually married a Yankees fan, and who wouldn't be a Yankees fan in the late-90s/early part of this century?  I always kept an eye on my Pittsburgh teams, though, and watched as their light flashed and faded in recent years...

Today, though, I think I have to formally terminate my affinity for the Pirates.  Today, they signed two athletes from India who have never played baseball in their lives.  Seriously -- they signed two dudes based on the outcome of a reality TV contest in India.  I'm thinking of returning to the work force myself, and I've never played baseball either... so perhaps I, too, can become a Pirate!  I can hit a mean tennis ball after all -- there must be some relevance in that. 

I'll hold on to my Terrible Towel, since the Steelers still bring it periodically, but, from now on, my pinstripes will be blue and white, thanks.  Pittsburgh... WTF?

P.S. The Guv's comment on this story?  Imagine the merchandising revenue they'll make in a country of a billion people.  If anyone in India buys a baseball jersey, it'll be a Pirates one.  Wow... I didn't even think of that, but I have to think that's about as far from "for the love of the game" as it gets.

I've spent the past few days trolling Etsy for a new bag -- a large purse/tote bag that's not quite a diaper bag but big enough to hold a preschooler's necessities along with mine.  My friend "P" is an Etsy addict, and now I see why -- there are about 49,000 of everything, and 80% of it is awesome and not findable in a traditional store.  I love supporting Indie merchants (so does P) -- so I've been glued to my laptop.  So glued, in fact, that this is what happened at 2 pm today when I heard Dash thumping around across the room from me and looked up:

Mama: Dash, why are you naked?

Dash: Because I am.

Mama: Dash, you cannot be butt naked in the house, at least not until you're potty trained.  Put your pull-up back on.

Dash: Mama, I am.  I am putting a clean pull-up on, and I am changing into my pajamas.

(Insert brief moment of panic in which Mama thinks she may have been on the computer so long that night has actually fallen.  Phew, only 2 pm.)

Mama: Why are you changing into your pajamas?

Dash: Because I feel like wearing my pajamas.

Mama: Okay then.  (And I watch while he dresses himself fully and correctly for perhaps the first time ever.)  All better now?

Dash: Now I need my bedtime snack.  An Almond Joy, please.

Mama: Dude, it's not actually bedtime.

Dash: Yes it is.  I have my pajamas on.

Mama: So let me get this straight... if I give you an Almond Joy, you'll go to bed?

Dash, laughing: No, Mama, if you give me an Almond Joy, I'll eat it!

Mama: And then you'll go to bed?

Dash: No, Mama, it's not my bedtime until later.

Mama: Then you don't need your bedtime snack, right?

Dash (blank stare...): I need my Almond Joy.  And milk.  And a movie.

And Mama caves, so that she can go back to Etsy...

I haven't posted for a while, and this isn't going to be a post either.  It's been around 80 degrees and gorgeous for about a week now, and, quite frankly, I don't want to be anywhere near inside or a computer!  I did spend some time inside on Sunday at San Francisco's Green Festival, and I'll be writing a post on that within the next few days.

Until then... party on, dudes.

Dash and I have been playing intensely all morning.  We've built with blocks, played doctor, attempted Wii Golf, made PlayDoh taquitos, read with My First Leap Pad, praticed writing his name... I'm pooped already, and it's only 10:30 am!  Dash just decided he'd like a cereal and TV break, which I obliged.  But first:

Dash: "Mama, I want some cerealealealealeal... and some movie?"

Mama: "I think you can have a little TV, sure."

Dash: "Mama, I love you, fool."

Mama: "I love you, too, but please don't call me fool.  Fool isn't a nice word.  You could say, Mama, I love you so much for giving me life, catering to my every need and whim, taking such good care of me..."

Dash: "How about: Mama, I love you, butt-butt?"

Mama, trying not to laugh: "Do you think butt-butt's nice?"

Dash, giggling: "No.  Okay, Mama, okay.  I LOVE YOU, NOW TURN ON THE TV!  PLEEEEEASE!"

And with that phrase, I realized how fine a line there is between boys and men... I'm fairly sure that the Guv has given me that same line about 93 times in the past.  Oh well... I guess it's better than "I love you butt-butt!"