Potty Training

They told us if we really wanted to potty train we should let her go around the house without her diaper. So we started that yesterday. And...she put a diaper on herself. (They're pull ups.)
Tonight we were playing "chess" and Sofi suddenly said, "I need a diaper!"
So I said, "Why don't you use the potty?"
And she did. So They were right, looks like.

Warms My Heart

I come out to the living room to see Sofi putting colored squares of paper on the floor in a pattern.
Sofi: Will you play this game with me dada?
Jamie: How do you play?
Sofi: You go like this. (Adds another square.) Your turn.
Jamie: What's this game called?
Sofi: "Road"
My daughter, the game designer.

ESRB uber MPAA

Sofi doesn't know what G, PG, and R are, but today, when she asked me if she could put a certain "cawwidge" in the Nintendo DS - it was Castlevania: Symphony of SomethingOrOther - I said, "No, you see, it has a 'T' on it, which means it's not for kids. You can play games that have 'E' on them."

Later she came into my office with a handful of cartridges. "These all have E on them."

So, there I am, already shirking my parental responsibility and letting the ESRB decide which games Sofi can play.

You Better Blog About That!

-sayeth Cathy.

Sofi just watched *Finding Nemo* all the way to the end (though we skipped the bit in the abyss and one in the dirty fishtank - not sure why that latter one bothered her) - she nearly lost interest a couple times but I said, "Don't you want to know if Nemo's dad is going to find him?". When Marlin and Nemo were reunited she hugged me and said, "I love you." Awwwwww. I love that movie. Seriously. Not just in a "It's good for kids" way - it's probably in my top 100 movies of all time. But so's Lilo & Stitch.

So, haven't blogged in ages, might as well catch up:

Sofi's learned to curse, the f-word, Cathy tells me. Probably got it from me. So Cathy told her, "When mommy or daddy say bad words they should get time outs too." Cathy and I have both done a time out at this point.

Showed Sofi how to use mama's cell phone to take photos last night, so now she likes running around the house taking pictures of everything. Cathy'll probably put some up on her blog.

With a little (ok, a lot) of help from me, she made it to the Ember Isle in Phantom Hourglass. It's not a "sword" - I tell her it's a "Go Away Monster Stick". And it isn't Link. I tell her it's Sofi. And she doesn't die. She naps. "Nap-time Sofi," Sofi says, when the Game Over screen comes up. Tore the house up a few days ago looking for Animal Crossing - I figure she's ready - but couldn't find it. It's at the top of our Gamefly queue now.

Other gaming: Bendominos - they're curvy dominoes with pictures instead of numbers - she likes this one. Tier Auf Tier - not so much, she doesn't have the manual dexterity or patience yet. Go Away Monster - she likes this one too. She no longer likes Orchard - she'll ask to play it but get bored before we've even finished setting up.

She always wants to play grown-up games - she likes the components. So we let her play with the Carcassone pieces and the Tigris & Euphrates blocks - we do a version of Cranium where she rolls the die, moves to any spot on the board, and then I take a card and make up a question for her. I hate that game, btw, and yet at the same time wonder why Hasbro hasn't released a competitive, branded product that combines Trivial Pursuit, Play-Doh, and Pictionary.

The other night Cathy said to her, to distract her, "Hey, you want to watch Uncle Danny playing a racing game?" And then it turned out he was playing Crysis. "Sofi can't watch this," I said. "I want to play a racing game," Sofi said, so I quickly made up a game where you roll a die to move along a track. The simplest possible expression of a board game. She loved it, wanted to play it again and again.

She's good on planes, now. "My ears hurt," she says. "Drink some water," I say. "Did that help?" "Yes."

She was scared of New York Grandma's dog, and I was glad, because I don't like dogs and am not looking forward to her begging me to get a dog. But she got used to the dog and ended up liking her. Oh well. I'm getting ready for the "If you want a dog you have to take care of it" conversation, but I had that same conversation about Cathy's cats and ended up being the predominant kitty-litter-changer guy. I took over when she got pregnant and somehow never got relieved of duty...

Birthday

Sofi's birthday was last month and I never blogged since I figured Cathy had it covered, but one thing:

Dada: How old are you today?

Sofi: Three!

Dada: Very good! You get it. How old will you be tomorrow?

Sofi: Four!

Sofi's Already Starting To Fetishize Money

Left some money on the desk after paying the housecleaners.

Sofi started playing with it this morning.

Sofi: What does money mean?

Dada: It can be traded for goods and services.

Sofi: Yeah. But what does it mean?

Sofi later gathers up the money and runs out the door.

Sofi: I have a lot of money and I'm going to play now.

Blitzkrieg Bop

Thanks to Rockband, Sofi's singing Blitzkrieg Bop around the house. This is her interpretation of the lyrics:
"Hey ho, let's go. Shooting in the backpack."
Repeat.

Sims 2 & Potty Training; Hot Chocolate; Coffee;

We're potty-training Sim Sofi and real Sofi at the same time, and they've made about the same amount of progress - neither of them are potty trained yet, but they're on their way. Sofi digs it: "I want to play Sims 2. I want to finish potty training Sofi." Don't tell her, but while she was napping I had to delete our entire family (where Sofi was a girl) and rebuild it with Sofi as a toddler to make the potty training work.

Skaff turned me on to making hot chocolate from scratch, using Hershey's cocoa - I use the recipe on the side of the box, but mix the vanilla in early (adding the vanilla late seems nuts to me, unless you want that alcohol kick...), a little less sugar, a little more vanilla & salt. Sometimes a hint of cayenne. Sofi & I used to make it together at night, but it seemed like it made her hyper, so we stopped. I'll make it by myself at night now as a comfort food and then have a lot left over the next day - Sofi can have some (she insists on it cold) and I can add it to coffee for a high-quality mocha. So that's where my disposable calories are going lately.

Sofi helps me make coffee in the morning, too - I'll measure the coffee grounds, she'll put it in the filter, put the filter in the basket, and turn on the machine. She gets really upset if I make it without her. Hmm...if only she could measure the water and coffee, she could make the coffee for me before I even get up...

My brother got me a South Park Stickyforms book for Christmas once upon a time - we were going to throw it out but then I figured I'd just remove all the really offensive stickers (Kenny dead, Mr. Hanky, the five-assed monkey) and give it to Sofi. She ignored it up until last night, and then discovered it on her bookshelf - stickers you can pick up and put down over and over? Rock! We'll have to take it away from her before she can read, though...

Energy: 60% (8 hours of sleep, interrupted once at 5 AM by Sofi needing a snack, plus 2 mochas)
Fun: 100%, Social: 100% (playing Sims 2 with Sofi before work)
Hygiene: 25% (haven't showered yet. Hey, something's got to give.)
Hunger: 10% (haven't eaten yet, either)
Bladder: 75%
Environment: 80% (clutter's starting to accumulate in the office, though it's a nice overcast day out so I've got the blinds open wide)
Comfort: 80%

Baby With Hearts

by Sofia

(Mama & I took dictation.)

Once upon a time, a baby with hearts.
I love you. I play under the blanket.
I can't play under the bed.
A baby with hearts.


I love you best, but I didn't want to
play with you. The words so high.
Okay. But Olivia can't find her best toy.

Nobody.
Nobody.
Nobody.
Today.
When I was a little girl me.

Diaper.

Whistle time. Hi!

The top of the beginning.
I can't. The play dough's so high
as the beginning of the book.
Today.

The flattened dough means
one in everything is so high.
Dough dough.
Double dough.

Pages so hard to best to read.

Underwear of try today.
Toothpaste is dough today.
The words go so wide today.

The penguin said, "Hi."

The End

The Verdict

She doesn't actually come into our bedroom - she opens the door, sees how dark it is in the rest of the house, and then wails on the threshhold.

Energy 50% anyway, Cathy took care of her this morning and let me go back to sleep...and coffee's kicking in.

Sofi English Dictionary

Nilla: Vanilla
Bwock: Block
Sindiler: Cylinder

In other news, she was in the bath with her bath letters the other day and said, "I'm going to spell DOG" and did! She got the D & the G upside down, but still. Mama has photographic proof. Of course, mama was the only witness...it could be a hoax.

Energy - 1% (fixing TCRs sucks my will to live)
Bladder - 60%
Environment - 90% (Cathy's been slowly and steadily organizing the house)
Social - 50% (I already miss all the people I saw in San Francisco & Oakland)
Comfort - 80%
Fun - 1% (did I mention the TCRs?)
Hunger - 80%
...what am I missing? Too tired to figure it out.

My Morning In Sims Terms

Environment: 95% (Just cleaned my office for the first time evar.)
Hygiene: 30% (Skipped my shower this morning - don't tell anyone.)
Energy: 30% (Stayed up late coding with Greg Taylor, our man in Tokyo...and playing Guitar Hero 3...waiting for coffee to kick in...)
Fun: 80% (See aforementioned GH3.)
Bladder: 90% (The coffee is starting to get there.)
Comfort: 80% (Decent chair, flatscreen monitors...)
Hunger: 60% (Haven't eaten yet today, but feeling fine so far...)
Social: 90% (Yay family, yay GH3 co-op, yay Skype.)

Not bad! Always room for improvement, but not bad.

Halloween

[08:46] brett_douville: This was you and Sofi, right? http://www.gloob.tv/games/2_dad_reenacts_bioshock_girl
[11:16] jdfristrom: Now how'd that get on the internet
[11:16] brett_douville: I figure it was Cathy. Who was probably a slicer.
[11:19] jdfristrom: Sofi had her first halloween candy last night
[11:19] jdfristrom: About 100 calories worth
[11:20] jdfristrom: She threw up on her pillow around 11
[11:20] brett_douville: Oh man
[11:20] jdfristrom: I said, "I hope this doesn't put you off candy." Think my reverse psychology will work, there?
[11:21] brett_douville: LOL
[11:21] brett_douville: Good luck with that

Favorite Color?

Sofi: Is this your favorite color, dada?
Dada: Which one? The green? Ok.
Mama: If that's not your favorite color, tell her.
Sofi: Is this your favorite color, dada?
Dada: No, my favorite color is black or silver or something.
Sofi: No, your favorite color is green.

Bedroom Door

Sofi just learned how to open the bedroom door, repeatedly and consistently.

Her bedroom-door-opening kung fu is strong.

So we enter into a new era of parenting. Will she come into mama & dada's room while we're asleep now? I'm guessing not - she usually doesn't even get out of bed when she has a nightmare, she just wails. But we'll see.

Dinner Conversation

Mama: There's a famous skunk named Pepe Le Peu. Get it? Peeee yuuuu.
Sofi: Two letters.
Mama: That's right! It's two letters. P. U.
Dada: Another word that's two letters is OK.
Sofi: I clicked on it.

Geek Gene

Sofi: (Looking at clock.) Where's the O come from?
Dada: Um...Zanzibar.
Sofi: (No idea what association led to this.) I want to play Dungeons & Dragons with you.
Dada: Maybe when you're older.
Sofi: I'm two years old.
Dada: Maybe when you're ten years old.
Sofi: Okay.

Product Recalls

Looking into the possibility of doing some Hasbro games got me thinking about the Easy Bake Oven recall. Cathy still resents her parents for not getting her an Easy Bake Oven as a child, and has repeatedly said, "Sofi's going to have an Easy Bake Oven, damn it!" (Well, not in those words.) Up until the recall, anyway.
So I started browsing various toy recalls online and am just damn thankful that Sofi never seemed to have an oral phase. She hardly ever put things in her mouth. Which is great, because if she did, she might be dead by now. We were very negligent in making sure she stayed away from small objects. (Our big collection of not-for-children-under 3 legos, for example.) Of course, if she did put things in her mouth, we would have been less negligent, but still.
Makes me worry about having a second child. What if the second one isn't so easy? And it just doubles our chances of something going horribly wrong.
Imagine being the inventor of the Hasbro Play Workbench thing, which has killed two with its cute little toy "nails". Ugh.

Cathy Didn't Get It

That last post, by the way, was about something that Sofi does regularly -
I ask her, "Do you know such-and-such"
and she always says, "Yes"
and then I ask her, "Oh yeah? What is it?"
and then she makes something up.

I've got a new plan - instead of asking "Do you know?" I'm going to ask "Do you want to know?"

Roman Numerals

The Winnie The Pooh books use roman numerals for chapters.

Sofi: There's two I's!
Dada: That's right. That's roman for two. And look, there's three I's. That's roman for three. Do you know what roman for four is?
Sofi: Yes.
Dada: Oh, you do? What is it?
Sofi: Snuggle.

Lego Vikings

Lego Vikings
by Sofi

"There's a little guy and he has a stick for poking a hole."
"It's not a boat."
"It has a shield."
"It's not a boat yet."
"It's not a boat yet."
"It's a boat!"
"And they made a little dragon."
"And they're still making it."
"The End."

(That's the story Sofi says when she reads the instructions for building the little Lego Viking set.)

Useful Sims 2 Cheats For Toddlers

Just came across this - Sofi wanted to move our sim-family into a new house that we couldn't afford.
So: Ctrl-Shift-C opens up the cheat window, and then "Kaching" gets you $1000, "Motherlode" gets you $50000.
There's also the aging problem - although it was cute the first time sim-Sofi grew up and I asked her what she wanted her aspiration to be -
Dada: "Do you want to be...popular...or...rich...or...smart-"
Sofi: "Smart!"
(I told mama later and she wasn't impressed. "She doesn't know what popular or rich means." Still, I was impressed by the snappiness of her decision.)
But we don't want our sim-Sofi grown up, so I haven't been saving the game after we play, to prevent sim-Sofi from aging, but turns out there's a no-aging cheat: "aging off"

Time Telling

Seemed like a lost cause, even though all we really care about is that she not get up before 7 AM. I'd say to her, "It's not seven yet," and point to her digital clock, but then a seven would show up in the minute place and she'd say, "It's seven!" And I'd say, "It has to be a seven on the left side," but though she can tell her left hand from her right hand I don't think she can generalize.
But this morning, at seven-twenty-something, we heard her shout from her bedroom: "It's seven o'cwock! It's seven o'cwock!"
I suppose we might still get the false positives...

I want the ol back

Sofi (crying): I want the ol back!
Dada: You want the old back?
Sofi: I made one with my hand. (Holds up 'O' shape.)
Dada: Oh, you want the O back? Where'd you leave it? Does mama know where it is?
Sofi: There's an O! (Points to digital clock: it's now 9:10.)

English - Sofi Dictionary

Friend -> Sriend
Farm -> Sarm
Funny -> Sunny
Disco Ball -> Dikso Ball
Chocolate Souffle -> Yummy Pessert

The Sims 2

Sofi's really getting into the Sims 2, it's her favorite thing to do with me now.

We got the idea because we were playing with legos and trying to build our house but we didn't have enough pieces. Then I remembered The Sims. We've made our family, including our cats - Cathy, Nermil & myself are totally recognizable as us - Sofi & Zoe not so much. And then I play, getting direction from her. A couple days ago the social worker came to take sim-Sofi away because she was failing school - and the quit button was disabled - so I ended the process and managed to save her. We started doing her homework then - and then real-life Sofi wanted to do real-life homework. So we gave her a sheet of paper and crayons and she made her Best Art Yet - she's gotten pretty good at filling large areas with color. She can also color inside the lines, when we get crayons at restaurants.

This is pretty awesome: most play I do with Sofi is somewhat mind-numbing for me--stacking blocks, playing very simple games, hide-and-seek, etc--but The Sims is a pretty challenging game, so trying to keep the family going and entertain Sofi with it at the same time is totally engaging.

But one thing we haven't done yet is make our own house - the starting family couldn't quite afford it. We'll have to work our way up to that.

Diaper

Sofi sometimes insists that I be the one to change her diaper
"Ask mama", I said
"No, you"
"I don't want to"
"You have to"
"You have to" is a new one, today's the first day she said that

It takes a village...?

I hear it takes a village to raise a child.

Anybody know where we can find a village?

With our parents and friends scattered all over the continental US . . . you might as well tell me it takes a luxury yacht to raise a child.

Grr - any help?

Not sure how to look this up.

I feel like my tax accountant is overcharging me.

They screwed up, so they've already lost my business. So I can't exactly say something like, "If you want to keep my business, lower your bill."

I'd happily pay them, oh, 2/3 of what they're charging. Which isn't a big delta. It's the principle of the thing.

I never agreed to pay this much for their services...

What happens if I threaten not to pay them at all?

I gather they'd send it to "Collections", whatever that is. And then my credit rating would be impacted.

But how badly? I've owned a home, I've paid all my bills, although sometimes a month or two late, (except for one $20 bill to Blockbuster for a late video...)...would I have trouble getting a home loan because once in my life I stiffed somebody?

S-h-y?

Sofi always avoided people, who would then say, "Oh, is she shy?" (And we could at that point give a lecture about how we don't like to use the s-h-y word because we're afraid she'll get a complex about it but we never do.)

Today, when running into one of our neighbors at the mall, Sofi cowered behind me and said, "I don't like people! I don't like people!"

That's right, looks like Sofi's inherited our misanthropy. Maybe it's genetic.

(Although, with one of our neighbors who turned out to be a stealth bitch, I have to wonder if maybe Sofi's just a good judge of character.)

It Doesn't Work That Way

I just showed Cathy & Sofi the Microsoft keynote speech where Bill & I were talking. Sofi said, "Where's mama?" and then, when it was done, she said, "I want to see mama at the dentist!"

I guess the logic is since there's video footage of what happens when I go off and do my thing, there must be video footage of when mama went off to do her thing?

Another Notch Smarter

We were playing with dice today and she started dictating the rules of the game - I had rolled a two: "You take two dice," she said.
I did, rolled them and got two three's. She then counted "One, two, three, four, five, six" dice out for me. Her first addition!

And she's getting more clever in her machinations to avoid bedtime. (Of course, there's the not eating dinner and then when it's time to go to bed saying she's hungry - but she's been doing that for a while.) Tonight, when I employed my standard trick - "Do you want to turn the light off or do you want dada to do it?" A tough question to answer - for a while she was turning them out herself - probably because she at least felt empowered that way. Later she realized she could say, "I want mama to turn the light off," because then I have to go get mama and that'll give her a few-minute reprieve. But tonight she said, "I want nobody to turn the light off."

I'm Old

Putting on a suit for Max's wedding I look in the mirror and realize I've turned into an adult somewhere along the way. What was it that give it away? The lost hair?

Jamie: I'm old.

Cathy: Daddy's old.

Sofi: Daddy's new!

Jobs

Dada: What's dada's job?
Sofi: Work!
Dada: What's mama's job?
Sofi: Scrapbook! (Or, sometimes, "Check e-mail!")
Dada: What's Sofi's job?
Sofi: Paz and airport!

Clearly, "job" means "what you do on a computer."

Swing Vote

Sofi: I want a new baby.
Dada: You want a new baby?
Sofi: Yes. Let's go get her.

The thing is, we're torn on whether to have another or not, and this'll probably push us over the edge into the "have another" camp.

I did try to talk her out of it, though:
Dada: You know we won't be able to pay as much attention to you if we have another baby?
Sofi: Yes.
Dada: You know a new baby will cry all the time?
Sofi: Yes.

Nightmare

Sofi: Ahh! Go away, dada! I want mama! (This is fairly typical Jamie-goes-to-Sofi-when-she-cries scenario.)
Dada: What's the matter?
Sofi: (Backing away.) I want the flower!
Dada: You want the flower?
Sofi: I want to eat it.
Dada: You want to eat the flower?
Sofi: Yes.
Dada: What flower?
Sofi: The sundaisy. (This is what she calls daisies.)
Dada: What sundaisy?
Sofi: The *other* sundaisy.
Dada: Where is it?
Sofi: I don't know!

But after that she calmed down and we snuggled.

Catch-Up

Did I mention that three or four posts ago the number of posts on "Fatherjamie" exceeded the number of posts on "Gamedevleague"? So that's a milestone.

Another milestone - Sofi figured out how the back button on the browser works, just from watching us. She got bored with the web-game she was playing on the fisher-price site and used the back button. I ran out and asked Cathy, "Did you teach her that?" No.

And this is weird - Sofi likes playing Warhammer Quest. Mimetic desire, I expect - she sees daddy playing with the "dada game" and wants to play too. So we just build the dungeon and move guys through it, we don't actually fight anything. I tell her the models' axes are for chopping wood.

She likes playing legos with me, and it practically degenerates into parallel play, I'll get so wrapped up building something myself. Guess I'm missing the point, there.

Jump Out Like Ninjas! Sofi And Games

Is a new game Sofi and play. We hide in the closet and then "Jump out like injas." Am I teaching her bad things? I'm sure she still has no idea what a "Inja" is.

Another game Sofi likes is concentration - she can't play it with a full deck, but we used QuickCards from www.plaincards.com to make a deck of cards with various shapes on them. That was a fun process of me asking her: "What shape do you want on the next card?" And then either letting her choose an image from Google or drawing it in Gimp.

Tried to see if she could play a "Go Fish" variant with the same deck, and she sort of could, with much hand-holding (and revealed cards), but it seemed like it was stressing her out. She was biting her thumb and looking worried when I'd say to her, "Do you want to ask me if I have any squares?"

Now that she's talking in complete sentences and saying new constructions every day it's hard to tell what concepts well be too advanced for her. Frequently she'll say, "I want to play a new game!" And we'll try to make something up out of components from other games and it will almost always fall flat - she doesn't get the idea of rolling a die and moving that many spaces along a track (although she does love to roll dice just for the sake of rolling dice...hmm...maybe some kind of one-die craps?); she doesn't get the idea of "winning". One succesful game was just to pull Fisher-Price animals out of a bucket and put them in a "zoo."

I didn't realize how brilliant the "Melissa & Doug" wooden jigsaw puzzles really were until we got Sofi some other wooden jigsaw puzzles that were more photorealistic. The Melissa & Doug ones have big tabs and the things in the puzzle are carefully placed to overlap clearly across multiple pieces, so it's more obvious which pieces go together. Sofi can do Melissa & Doug ones but not the less abstract ones we got at the Seattle Zoo.

We ordered "Go Away Monster" and then decided not to play it with her - she doesn't even know what a monster is yet, as far as we know, so why ruin that?

I Really Need To Chew My Food More

Warning - probably Too Much Information:
Kind of a nightmare, a couple nights ago, some food not going down, but I'm like, "Hey, I can still breathe, so I must not be choking." But it's really bad, and a swig of juice doesn't seem to help. So I sort of give myself the Heimlich and retch into the sink - that brings Cathy running. But there's still some food in there. Then, after another swig of juice, suddenly I can't breathe. Cathy sort of ineffectually tried to give me the Heimlich but I had more luck just sort of punching myself in the diaphraghm - so now I can breathe again, but there's still food in there. And I'm panicking. Hyperventilating. Freaking out. Finally, I throw up everything, and then things are okay.
These episodes have been getting worse and worse as I get older - but no learning is occurring. You'd think I'd slow down and pay attention.

We Have Spelling

Last night Sofi said, "C. T. A. Is cat!"

Bad Father, Father's Day

Yesterday, at the park, Sofi was reluctant to go on the slide by herself, something she used to do happily. ("Bye bye daddy," she'd say, and slide on down.) This time she insisted on going together - so I admit it, I tricked her, and put her on the slide in front of me and let go. She clutched at my leg and screamed, "I'm falling! I'm falling!" So I rescued her and we went down together but it was too late, the damage had been done, trust had been sundered. She cried and I tried to comfort her and she said she wanted mama so I said great, let's go home and see mama. But she wouldn't let me put her in the stroller. "Do you want to walk?" I asked. No. "What do you want?" "Mama." I didn't have my cell on me, so even if I wanted to call Cathy and make her drive out it wasn't an option. I know, this usually works: "I'm going to go home and see mama," I said. "You can come if you want." And I walked out of sight around the corner with the stroller.
She didn't follow; she just stayed in the park and cried.
Great. Now what? If I go back that's just negotiating with terrorists. If I don't go back I'm an ass$#@! I choose to be an ass%$#@ for several excruciating minutes but then she finally comes after me.
"You want to go home to see mama now?"
"Yes."
"You want to go in the stroller?"
"Yes."
Thank God. I start to put her in the stroller and she suddenly changes her mind, arching her back and screaming "No!"
I freak out. "Okay, now I'm angry! You've made me angry! Good job!" I force her down and buckle her up and push her home as fast as I can, with her crying most of the way.
Later, once she calmed down and seemed to love me again, I tried to apologize: "I'm sorry I put you on the slide by yourself." She seemed to get misty eyed and said, "No." I guess she didn't want to be reminded. Maybe when she's older she'll read this blog and forgive me then. (Or maybe she'll take it as symbolic of our entire relationship.)

So, had a great father's day, anyhow! Whether I deserved it or not! Breakfast in bed (poached eggs); fish tacos at Coho's; and Nishino's for dinner, which was a big surprise, since last time Cathy ate there she got sick, so I figured we'd never go back again. Best sushi I've found so far in Seattle, IMO, but I guess you should avoid the bivalves.
Sofi's now old enough to say, "Happy Sather's Day."
And Cathy gave me vouchers redeemable to play boardgames with her. And we're talking geek games like Emperor's Treasure and Battlelore. That's love.

Tag-Team Snuggling

Since Sofi prefers to sleep on the mattress on the floor of her bedroom, we can both snuggle her at the same time at bedtime, but she usually prefers to send me away. "Go away daddy!" And then she asks for me later when she's done with mama.
Just found out at a party last weekend that we're not the only parents who do this, who get the "Go away daddy" and do the tag-team snuggling thing.

Uh-Oh

Today Sofi learned to say, "I want to go somewhere new."

Boardgame geek in training

Since Sofi likes to play with my Tigris & Euphrates and Carcassonne sets we figured it was time to get her her own boardgame - boardgamegeek.com steered us away from Sorry and to Orchard. She does seem to dig it - she knows how to roll the die and take the right color fruit, but she gets confused if she rolls basket ("Shoe!") and can choose any two fruit - we've had trouble explaining to her what to do then.

Important New Words

Sofi learned "pretend" the other day when she was eating pretend milk and pretend cookies with mama. Sometimes she prefers pretend milk.

This morning I taught her "cub", "psade", "king", and "joker" - she already knows "heart" and "diamond" - now we just need "queen" and "jack". Maybe we'll skip Candyland and go straight to Bridge.

Tired

Sofi freaked out last night at 3 AM so we brought her into our bed where she woke us up every hour or so because mom wasn't snuggling her correctly.

This morning she saw me slumped on a stool in the kitchen:

Sofi: "Daddy's tired."

Jamie: "That's right, Daddy's tired."

Sofi: "Go back to bed, daddy."

My Math Must Be Wrong

So, if the Calorie Restriction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction) people are right - or even partly right - let's say someone who would ordinarily live to 70 on a 2500 calorie diet would make it to 90 on a 2000 calorie diet. (This is actually a pretty tame claim compared to what some CR people say.) That means those 70 years of 500 surplus calories a day took 20 years off of Scenario A's life. 70 years * 365 days/year * 500 surplus calories/day = 12,775,000 calories. Cost him 20 years. 12,775,000 calories / 20 years = 638,700 surplus calories / year lost. 638,700 calories/year / 365 days/year = 1750 surplus calories / day lost. 1750 calories/day / 24 hours/day = 70 surplus calories per hour lost.

WHAT? That extra slice of bread just cost me an hour of my life? That's worse than smoking! (They say a cigarette takes anywhere from 3 - 20 minutes off, depending on who you ask.) Here's an idea - smoke that cigarette to keep your appetite down so you don't eat that highly toxic slice of bread - you just added forty minutes to your life.

Did I forget a divide in there somewhere?


In a side note, Kurt Vonnegut died of an accident despite smoking all his life. One of those guys where smoking turned out to be the right choice all along - it didn't take a minute off his life (although maybe it gave him a nasty cough or something)! He got to enjoy that nicotine rush for all those years and didn't have to pay for it. Kind of like the guy who goes for the inside straight and actually wins - Kurt got a bad beat over on us all.

Catching up...

Sofi thinks the potty is where you sit to read magazines. Her magazine is actually the instruction manual for Cathy's camera.

We solved our nap issues by taking a page from Bill & Marlene with Kyra - Sofi has to have some "quiet time in her room" in the afternoons...if she bangs on the door and wants to be let out 45 minutes later, well, ok. 9 times out of 10 she naps.

Milestones: Sofi's succesfully ridden in the big-girl swing although she still prefers the baby swings when they're available. "Wanna go sast!"

Lately she pretends to read stories - (usually with that camera book) - she moves her hand over the page and babbles, occasionally throwing a recognizable word in there like Mama, Dadda, Baby, Nermal (the cat), dragon ("gagon")...she's doing it right now...sitting on the bed in the guest room (where I also have this computer set up.)

She makes me do dragons for her all the time. Dragons are like hand puppets...without the puppet.

She can count to ten, knows her alphabet (but doesn't seem to know those cool little letter things combine together to make words)...she seems to know all the words that are useful to her...but she keeps surprising me with new ones. She's gotten the hang of gerunds. She can say, "I'm dancing!" and "Dance, dada!" This morning she said, "Jus' kidding."

She loves wearing dresses! Don't know where she got that - mom almost never wears a dress. She'd rather be cold and wear a dress than wear a sweater.

Sometimes she calls us Mom, Dad, Mommy, Daddy - not sure where she got that.

She stopped reading, now she's singing the "Roly Poly" song to herself.

"I wanna draw," she just said. Must find the Nintendo DS for her...

Memorize, No Crying, Puddles

Sofi has memorized the words to "Run, Mouse Run" by Petr Horacek. It's pretty crazy - when she turns the pages and says the words it creates the illusion that she can read.

She no longer has a giant entourage of stuffed animals - she's settled on two favorites: "Mama Cat" and "Mouseykins" - both puppets.

Lately she's started doing something strange: when she gets upset, instead of crying, she starts saying "No crying, no crying" over and over again. If she gets more upset she actually will start crying, and then she'll start to scream "No crying! No crying!"

I don't think *we've* ever told her "no crying" - so where'd she pick it up from? Maybe she just doesn't like to cry? Sometimes when she starts saying "No crying" I'll say "It's ok to cry" and then she'll just say, louder, "No crying!" Or maybe she doesn't mean "Don't cry" - maybe she means, "No! If this condition persists, I'm going to start crying!"

One of her favorite things to do is splash in puddles. If she discovers a puddle she'll run and jump in it and she'll get upset if we try to take her out before she's done. Good thing we moved to Seattle.

And yesterday she learned how to use the Wii remote: they have a little drawing program built in the dashboard in the photo channel. I just handed her the remote and left the room - later, when I came back, I discovered she'd painted a lot of scribbles and heart stamps. Something that took me forever to figure out about the program - moving the remote closer to the screen makes the pen / shape bigger and vice-versa. I was spending many minutes mashing buttons trying to figure out how to change the pen-size while Sofi was yelling, "Too big! Too big!"

Lately naps have been challenging. She doesn't get tired until around 3 or 4 PM - if we let her nap then, she'll nap for an hour or two, and then we won't be able to get her to bed at night until 10 PM! On the other hand, if we skip her nap, she'll get tired twelve hours after she woke up in the morning. She'll then sleep eleven hours. So each day she goes to sleep and wakes up one hour earlier. So we've been giving her a nap every three or four days. I think the books say we're not supposed to do this, because kids like structure...and she's supposed to be getting more than eleven hours of sleep a night anyway...but when I was a kid my parents stopped giving me naps at an early age and I turned out ok. I think.

Cutest Voice Mail Evar

Cathy: Hello, it's your wife. Sofi, you want to say hi say hi daddy?
Sofi: Hi daddy.
Cathy: Say 'I love you.'
Sofi: I uv oo.
Cathy: Say 'I love you daddy.'
Sofi: Bye bye.
Cathy: Oh, ok, say bye bye.
Sofi: Bye bye I uv oo.

Unfortunately, Cingular (now AT&T) deletes the message after ten days whether you want them to or not. I even tried holding my computer microphone up to the phone to see if I could record it but no luck, it was too quiet to pick up. Sigh.

Moving Up

Cathy is moving up in the cutthroat world of competitive scrapbooking.
Not only is she on a design team - I guess that's the equivalent of an athlete getting sponsored - she just found out she's going to be in the #1 scrapbooking magazine soon.
Won't be long before she's supporting me.
No doubt she'll blog about it too at http://paper-cat.blogspot.com.

Cream sauce?

I think cream in spaghetti alla carbonara is a crime against humanity. The *New Best Recipe* agrees.
Apparently Sofi doesn't, though - tonight she started dipping her noodles in her milk. "Mak noodle!"
"Looks pretty gross, honey," I said.
She ate it up and liked it enough to keep doing it Then she started doing the same thing with the bacon. "Baton mak!"
She liked that too.
None for me, thanks.

Humpty Dumpty

Why is Humpty Dumpty always depicted as an egg? There's nothing in the nursery rhyme that explicitly says he's an egg.

Sofi was fairly disturbed by the picture of the fallen, cracked open Humpty. She kept turning back to that page and saying "Oh no" and looking sad.

I give up on citysearch

For the third time now, I've tried a top-ranking restaurant on citysearch and been immensely disappointed. How does one find good restaurants, anyhow? Zagat's, I suppose.

Stocks; "Wahvu"

A year ago I pretended to invest in some stocks - if I had really done it, I would have beat the S&P by a factor of two, because one of the stocks was Merck. So suddenly I find myself being one of those guys who thinks they have a system...who think they're smarter than the mutual fund managers and big computers on Wall Street...when really I was just lucky - I had a 50% shot at beating the S&P, right?

Still, nagging voice. Did I have a 50% shot at beating it 2x? I shouldn't have played this game. That's how Vegas gets you.

Something Sofi's been saying a lot, insistently, is "Wahvu" - and she gets more and more upset as we try to decode it. "You love us? You want something? You want food? You want to go driving? You want to be picked up? WHAT?" Any ideas what it means? She won't tell us.

Sofi To English Dictionary, Volume 2

"why" - water
"dan" - dragon
"bobo" - diaper (no idea where she gets this one)
"doggie" - doggie
"woof" - sound a doggie makes
"mow" - sound a cat makes
"moo" - sound a cow makes
"beeeee" - sound a bee makes
"beh" - bear
"guy" - guy
"pee" - pig
"no" - nose
"no beess" - nose beast
"buh-bye" - bye bye
"go" - go
"uh-oh" - uh-oh
"okay" - okay

Not a comprehensive list, just some of the highlights.

Latest Art

Cathy bought Sofi new markers the other day and she took her art to the next level!

"Autumn"

"Surface"


"El Pollo Diablo Surveys the Void From His Parapet"

Hobo Spider (or - I'm Going To Hell)

I heard that hobo spiders were the Washington equivalent of scorpions - so recently when I saw a spider crawling around our home I looked up just enough on the internet to get kind of anxious. This morning the spider was just hanging out on the wall and it looked just like the photos of hobo spiders on the internet. Oh my. But how to be sure?

I captured it under a glass and went to a website on spider identification and it turns out that the differences between the more common "large house spider" and the hobo are barely visible to the naked eye. They recommend a magnifying glass. I tried to tell the difference anyway and couldn't. Then the pdf recommended submerging the spider in alcohol to kill it and make the differences more obvious.

So I did. And, yikes, it thrashed around in there for a while. It was not a pleasant, quick death. It was a knuckle-biting sort of death.

Oh - and - not a hobo spider as it turns out.

So, yeah, going to hell.

Cutest Thing

I make little 'dragon' hand puppets to entertain Sofi - just my bare hand with the forefinger and pinky sticking up - a habit I got from Ed Del Castillo back in college. I open my hand, say, "Where'd he go?" and then make the dragon again - "There he is!" Much delight.

Then Sofi started doing it too! She makes tiny baby dragons with her little hands, and she can't stick her fingers up, and she says, "Wha go?" and "Dereeih!" So cute!

"My kid could do that in five minutes"

Sofi's discovered abstract expressionism:


She quickly moved into pontillism:
These are from her purple period:
Later, her work went in new directions:

More words

"Ein" - onion. I didn't start liking onions until I was in college - although I suppose mom snuck them into our spaghetti sauce and we didn't mind. Tonight she made me hunt for bits of onion in the chili and give them to her, one by one.

She's learned the sign for "I love you", sort of - she can't do the pinky finger. Still, awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! And she's not just mirroring us, I found out tonight. "I love you," I said, without doing the sign, and she did the sign back.

"If you didn't blog about it, it didn't happen."

-Cathy Pascual

Thought we jumped the gun on buying Sofi legos - we went for the 2-and-up recommended Duplo instead of the Quatro - seemed like they'd fit her hands better. She couldn't actually snap them together at first, but she liked arranging them and carrying them around. But just now I saw her succesfully connect one. Woo! Legoized.

She's got a technique, by the way - I don't think she has the strength to snap two together by themselves - she has to set one on the floor, put the other on top, and then press with both hands.

More Sofi Words

"E" - any letter of the alphabet. We can impress our friends by pointing to the letter E in a given word and saying "What letter is this, Sofi?" "E!" Pointing to any other letter ruins the illusion.

"Ashoo" - bless you. She uses it when we burp, too.

We're down to one nursing a day. Almost completely weaned! I'm handling naptime and most of bedtime: there was a while there where I actually had to physically hold her down, or she'd stand up and do her damnedest not to fall asleep. She didn't like it much - she'd fall asleep crying, and then sniffle in her sleep. After a couple days of it she caught on. "You mean if I just lie here I'll fall asleep? Ok." She used to run to mom when I'd say, "Story time!" because she knew it really meant bedtime. Now she's into it, running into the nursery ahead of me. Things are good!

Sofi To English Dictionary

Mama -> Mama
Dada -> Dada
No -> No
Dadee -> Thank You
Ba -> Ball
Mobo -> Motorboat
Duck -> Duck
Cat -> Cat
Nermal -> Nermal (one of our cats)
Bubbo -> Bubble (and maybe also yogurt and apple)
Ey -> Egg
Ishish -> Fish
Shoes -> Shoes
Go -> Go
Mo -> More
A or E -> Letter

No User Servicable Parts Inside

The Dugans gave Sofi one of those ball-popper-walker things a while go. Balls are Sofi's favorite thing in the world (imagine my joy when she was watching me play Kirby's Canvas Curse on my DS and she said, "Ba!") and today she rolled the ball popper up to me and started clawing at the plastic housing, saying, "Ba! Ba! Ba!"
"You want me to roll it around for you?" I asked, and started to, but no, she picked it up and handed it to me again. "Ba! Ba! Ba!"
I knew what she wanted. "You can't have those, they're inside."
"Ba! Ba! Ba!"
So I found a screwdriver and opened the thing up and gave her the little balls.
She was very happy.

Momobo

Sofi really likes the "motorboat" song, where you bicycle her legs faster and faster. She calls it "Momobo" or "Mobo" and laughs and laughs and kicks her legs. Sometimes she'll do momobo on her stuffed animals; today was the first day she tried to do momobo on me, grabbing my toes and saying, "Momobo!" Too cute, it kills me.

Scrapbook Published

Cathy and Sofi are, like, famous: Cathy just got a scrapbook page published in *Scrapbook Answers* latest issue - it's on page 47. She's big time! Well on her way to going pro! More on her blog.

How Sofi eats an orange slice:
* take one small bite
* mash rest in hands, getting juice everywhere
* put mashed slice in garbage
* ask "More?"

Once I've seen Sofi be selfish: our neighbors grandchild wanted to play with Sofi's pushcart-scooter thingy and Sofi took it away from her. But just the other day she wasn't: we were at the children's museum at the mall and she loved the ball machine, but even though it took her a long time of standing in line before she got her own balls, she started giving them to the other kids.

A couple times in a row last week I heard someone say that you're a bad parent if you nurse/rock your baby to sleep and then put them in the crib. You're tricking your baby, they'll be upset when they wake up in the dark, blah blah blah. Screw you people! It works. And I think babies are smarter than you give them credit for: sure, the first night they wake up and cry. Maybe the second night. But after a while they figure it out - "Hmmm...if I'm given a bath and put in my PJ's and fed in the nursery it means I'm going to end up in the crib."

Also, one of the books on sleeping, the one that says "Make sure your baby naps plenty during the day if you want them to sleep well at night", is a crock! My anecdotal evidence is that lots of napping during the day => trouble sleeping at night and little napping => good, long night's sleep. Mark Nau: "The only way to get something published is to say something wrong." Case in point.

Babysitter?

People act like it's easy to find a babysitter. I find it kind of intimidating to find that person you're going to trust your daughter with.
Anybody reading this from Seattle know a good one? jdfristrom@gmail.com

Entertaining Sofi, Part 2

 
She demanded I give her the guitar. But I'm afraid she's just not old enough.

We did get her a new keyboard that she likes, though. Unlike her previous one, which stopped the rhythm track when she pressed a key - it was like it was punishing her for trying to play! - this one keeps right on going. And it can play two note chords! All for $20! Science marches on. 

Entertaining Sofi, Part 1

 
Trying to wean Sofi means I've got to find ways to entertain/distract her when she wants to "snack". I got this idea because I thought I heard her say "bubble." We've gotten her down to four feedings a day. I know, that's not very impressive. 

Just Realized

I never put up a link to my wife's blog. Well, there it is now, on the right. paper-cat.blogspot.com, not to be confused with papercat.blogspot.com, which is something else.

Just Realized

I never put up a link to my wife's blog. Well, there it is now, on the right.

Grass

Jesus grass grows fast - we've only been here two weeks and our lawn's already a jungle. Is that just a thing up here or is it like that everywhere? I've never taken care of a lawn before, really.

Vomit

Twice now we've tried to let Sofi cry it out in the crib and she did to the point of throwing up. None of the books on sleep training say what to do about this. I'm thinking she just wins. We're her puppets. From here on out she sets her own bedtime and gets to sleep in our bed if she wants and there's not a damn thing we can do about it.

Sitting

 
Sofi likes to sit - I guess so she can imitate grown ups - but it's not often you find something just the right height. When we do, she likes to sit on it, stand up, sit again, stand up, sit again, over and over.
This little herb garden outside our house is perfect. 

Aptitude

We're already wondering what Sofi's going to be when she grows up. An artist? When we draw with her she hands the crayons to us and makes us draw. An engineer? When we play on the computer she puts our hand on the mouse and makes us do the interacting. A musician or dancer? Maybe! She loves pressing the buttons on her musical toys and then bouncing and stomping and spinning and waving her arms while the music plays. She's been dancing since before she started to walk, I think I mentioned in an earlier post. I've set up her musical toys in a sort of baby-Rick-Wakemanish horseshoe; she usually only plays one at a time, although just now, this morning, she had two going at once. Very avant garde.
So now I'm imagining that we'll push Sofi into becoming a rock star and then live vicariously through her. You've heard of soccer parents? We'll be rock star parents. Or something.

New Stuff

Sofi's sitting in a half-lotus on the couch in her pj's right now; first time we've seen her sit like that. It's very cute, trust me, but I'm too lazy to take a photo and upload it.

Lately she's gotten pretty good at crawling off the couch - turning around and letting her legs dangle and then sliding off.

She loves to ride in the car: whenever I take her out for a walk she walks straight to the car and pushes against the passenger door. Sometimes I'll give in and drive her around, but she wants mama to come too: if we don't bring mama she'll start saying "mama" "mama" "mama" and get upset.

Sometimes she doesn't want to get out when we arrive at our destination. "No." "No." "No."

"No" is probably the word that she can articulate the most clearly and perfectly. It would be annoying if it wasn't so freaking cute!

Babble

Lately Sofi's babble sounds like a tape recorder in reverse. I'm tempted to record it and play it backwards just to make sure she's not saying "here's to my sweet Satan"...

On My Head Be It

Zoe's become an outdoor cat whether we wanted her to or not; she keeps darting out any open door. We need to get her collared and microchipped, I guess.

Bill told me something like a million songbirds a year get killed by outdoor cats. "On your head be it," he said.

I didn't think Zoe had it in her to kill a bird anymore - she's too old and lethargic, I figured. But while we were eating our chinese food in the backyard today, we noticed that Zoe was playing with a dead canary-like bird, tossing it in the air and then batting it around.

My reaction: Awww...Zoe's first kill in the wild. She's not totally ruined by domesticity.

Cathy's reaction: Aaauuggggh! I can't watch! Get her away from me! Bird killer!

We moved to the front porch and continued eating our cripsy duck.

Deception

We haven't really lied to Sofi much yet. But just today, as she was angling for our ice blended mochas, I thought - hey, since we're trying to wean her (we've started trying again...we tried a few months ago and gave up), maybe we should give her some ice blended "mocha".

Blended her the milk and ice, added just one tablespoon of chocolate (you can barely taste it) and, of course, no coffee. Brought it in, "Mmm...this ice blended mocha sure is good."

"Can I have some?" Cathy asked. And then we gave it to Sofi and Sofi started drinking it up.

"We lied to our baby," Cathy said. "Hey, Sofi, you know that's a 'baby' mocha, right? There, now we aren't lying to you."

Nursery

It required destroying the rest of the house as we frantically upended boxes looking for key items, but we got the nursery to feature complete last night. Key items included a lamp (always did her bedtime feeding with that lamp on), a portable stereo (always listened to "Bedtime With The Beatles" during her bedtime feeding), and a humidifier (we don't even put water in it anymore, we just use it for white noise). They're always in the last place you look.

Happy Baby

Sofi seems to really like it here. More space to play/spin around in. And she likes to walk out into the street, and it's not a problem! Because cars almost never drive on this dead end street. So as long as I'm with her she's safe. Stepping into the street wasn't an option in LA; I frequently had to play defense to prevent her from making a move in that direction. Still, even though I know it's safe up here, I get a tense feeling when we're in the street together...

Ghost

Even though Tony died over a decade ago - he's been dead longer than I've known him - his voice still nags at me, particularly in the supermarket. Old arguments about which pasta or salsa to buy come to the surface. Also when I get up in the morning. "Why don't you just get up?" he used to say, infuriated that I would sleep through class...not because he cared about me missing class; I think he used to lie awake wondering if I'd get out of bed after I shut off my alarm or if I'd just fall back asleep again.

Zen

I used to think I was fairly Zen - mellow, easygoing, patient. It seems that compared to the average Washingtonian that's not the case - the traffic lights take longer to turn here, people in line muse over which coupon in their coupon book to use, everyone drives slower, and my patience is tried. I've gone from being Mr. Zen to Mr. whatever the opposite of Zen is.

The Move Is Done

I don't know what's worse: the stress of moving yourself or the stress of wondering if your mover is going to screw you. Compared to horror stories on the internet we got off light; one of the doors in the old place had the paint scratched to shit ("See? I told you I could get your couch through the door without taking it off its hinges.") and the mover more or less extorted us for money on this end ("Well, I dunno if my truck can make it around this tight turn. It'll be a risk, and if we get stuck it'll cost a lot of money, but tell you what, for $200 we'll give it a shot, and that way you won't have to pay the $780 for the shuttle.") I talked him down to $150. Woo. Bill said, "I can't believe you paid him! You're part of the problem!" Well, I didn't want to get into an adversarial relationship with the guy who had ALL OUR STUFF. I was pretty sure if I called him on it, or called my rep at Allied it would just piss the guy off and then he'd "accidentally" damage all our crap. End result was, as far as we can tell, none of our stuff is lost, and it looks like we've gotten away with under $100 worth of damaged stuff. The way I figure it, the movers just prenegotiated themselves a nice tip, and then did a pretty good job earning it.

Now we just have to unpack.

View From Our House

 
This is the view from the house we just moved into. An "across the water view", Bill calls it. We liked it so much we don't mind that the interior of the house is totally seventies.
In fact, after living there for a day, I've got to say, the seventies feel is actually nostalgic and heartwarming; it reminds me of visiting friends' houses as a kid.
The whole place feels unreal; going from my condo located between a picturesque airport, refinery, and sewage treatment plant, suddenly being surrounded by this - this place looks like one of the "utopia planet" matte paintings from Star Trek or some other science fiction tv show. And looking across the street just looks Brady Bunch or something.
So. So pretty. But so cold! We went for a walk this morning and our ears froze off. A storm blew by, dropped gallons of water on us - right at the moment the trucking company came by with our cars - and then cleared up five minutes later.
Rather than wait for our furniture to arrive (T minus 4 days, still) we just went and bought a mattress, one of these "memory foam" things. Felt really good in the store - we did the "fifteen minute test" that Consumer Reports recommended - but had trouble sleeping. Maybe it was because Sofi was kicking me in the head, maybe it was because we left a light on for her, maybe it was because it's just too darn quiet - used to sleeping next to an airport! And then in the morning achey as all hell. And no coffee - the coffee maker is en route. And from the time I woke up (at 6) and now, when I'm finally drinking my latte (5 PM), it was one thing after another - tried walking to the coffee shop but Sofi got too upset and we retreated; Cathy needed to take a shower; Sofi needed milk; the trucking company said they were going to arrive in fortyfive minutes; had to ferry both cars from the freeway exit to our place; by this time it was Sofi's nap time; she napped for three hours, some kind of record! And finally, here we are.
One last thing: Seattle and Bellevue are a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. Fortunately, all the streets are named after famous numbers, otherwise I might get really lost. 

Blocks

Sofi has a toy where you slide blocks of different shapes into a box with holes of different shapes - you're supposed to match the blocks with the holes. It used to be the only ones she could get in where the cylinders - because it didn't matter which orientation you tried to stuff them through the holes.
Yesterday I was watching her play with it and she clearly Got It - I'm not sure when she figured it out, but now she knows which block goes through which hole, and if she has trouble getting the orientation right, she'll pull back, adjust her grip, and then try again.
I suppose non-parents think, "Yeah, great Jamie, she can put blocks in holes." There's something about seeing your baby do something - anything for the first time that's just so awesome.

History of Game Time

The latest issue of WIRED (still no idea how we ended up with a subscription to this, but now it's provided meat for two blog posts - maybe we should keep the subscription...) has a cool little "Brief History of Game Time" chart. Now, reading the chart, you notice something interesting. Since D&D came out in 1973, a groundbreaking worth-mentioning game came out almost every year--and some years got two or three great games--up until 2002 gave us America's Army. And since then, nothing but new hardware. That's right, America's Army was the last, great innovative game. Before that it was Halo. Makes it look like Greg Costikyan's right and innovation is dead.
On closer inspection, it's just an off-the-cuff chart that someone threw together. World of Warcraft deserved to make the list. If Halo gets to make the cut why not WoW? And where's Nintendogs? The original GTA makes the list with GTA3's artwork, but it's the N64 Zelda that was considered the groundbreaking Zelda?
Out of curiosity, which designer wins? Richard Garriot and Will Wright have two entries each. The winner is Shigeru Miyamoto with Donkey Kong, Mario, and Zelda. Unless you'd give it to Carmack for Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake - he doesn't bill himself a designer but I'd argue that he's pretty much the guy.

Came Across This

An article on attention, which should be of value to you, since if you're reading this you're probably one of those people who scatter their attention too widely (or you're a good friend and I love you for it.)

http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/essay51.htm

Ironic that the only reason I came across this article is because I do the exact thing it warns against…I was talking to Cathy on the phone while browsing the web.

If I was already the man-of-undivided-attention, I may never have come across it. But if I was the man-of-undivided-attention, I wouldn’t have needed to come across it.

I think it’s very important. To say it was like icewater on my spine would be an exaggeration, but I definitely felt *something*. I’ve been living my life like it’s *The Sims* - watching TV, eating dinner, and talking to Cathy at the same time in order to optimize my happiness - but maybe he's right, maybe that really is suboptimal. Instead of extracting full value from any of those interactions I’m extracting a shallow value from each.

This essay deserves more attention. Pun intended.

Mmm...salsa

Sofi learned how to dip chips in salsa just now. She looks so cute; she concentrates/focuses so hard on dipping the chip, and then she puts the chip into her mouth and gets a sort of faraway look in her eyes...
Blue corn chips and mango salsa, btw.

Random Stuff

Seems like Sofi's starting to be social...in fits and starts...a few weeks ago, she was going up to strangers and handing them her stuffed animals - but that only lasted a day, and she snapped back to being fearful of strangers the next day. But at the playground recently, we rode the spinny thing with some girls, and Sofi crawled over to one of the other girls and touched her shoe. Progress.

At the same park with the playground, I showed her how "pill bugs" or whatever-you-call-them roll up in a ball when you touch them. She immediately picked it up and walked off with it - "No!" we cried, afraid she would eat it or crush it or something. But we managed to pry the pillbug from her fingers and save its life.

Brush Teeth

We weren't sure how we were going to brush Sofi's teeth - she pulled away and resisted whenever we got a toothbrush close to her face.
Just handing her a toothbrush seems to work, though - she likes sucking on the bristly end. That's good enough, right? I mean, she's going to lose the teeth anyway.

Whoops

So we took Sofi to McDonald's today, and were peeling the fried stuff off the chicken and giving it to her. She loved it; ate a lot. And drank a lot of milk. And threw up. A lot. Of undigested chicken and milk. "Never coming here again," Cathy said. Sofi seemed unfazed by the vomiting; then I bumped her head when putting her in the car. That upset her. I don't know what happened - I've put her in the car many, many times without bumping her head...so I've been feeling guilty all evening.
Side note - we discovered that dipping the baked apple pie into the sunday makes for instant apple pie a la mode. A taste treat. Too bad we're never going back there.

The word for the day is...

"Smart". Whenever Sofi does something smart, we say, "You're so smart!" and make the sign for smart. In the elevator just now, she parrotted it back to us. "Marrrrrr." She said. And then later, in the bedroom, I noticed her do it out of the corner of my eye. "Marrrrr."

Sign language waste of time?

Sofi just learned how to say "more" yesterday. She's only been signing "more" for a month or two (guess I never wrote in the blog when she learned that one), so it almost seems like trying to teach her sign language was a waste. But it's not, really...the way she says "more" sounds like "mohhhhh" so it's good that she's got the hand gesture to make it clear.

Big Day

Today:

I sucked some food off my finger this morning with a popping sound - Sofi imitated me, right afterwards.

At lunch, she walked down steps while mom held her hands - then she went down a step by herself using the rail post.

I think something 'clicked' re: mouse usage. Reader Rabbit For Toddler up until today, has been pretty much a TV show for her where we click on stuff and she watches. Today she started using the mouse herself and really getting it - she was able to paint the screen and find the animals and move the shapes. Definitely lacking in fine motor control but she gets the idea!

Good Taste

I made the spaghetti alla carbonara extra garlicky / peppery tonight, and Sofi just ate it right on up and wanted more.

Again, she doesn't get it from me! I was a very picky eater at her age.

Already Fashion Conscious At Fifteen Months

Sofi's having a tantrum right now - she found a moccasin that doesn't fit her anymore and when we put her normal shoes on instead she threw a fit.

Also, sometimes she'll bring me a sweatshirt to put on her. And then she'll change her mind and bring me a different sweatshirt.

February In Review

Just noticed I haven't posted in a month.

So -

Sofi is WALKING.

She was taking tentative steps around Christmas, but she didn't really start to walk until later, and now she's toddling at a brisk pace. Every now and then she likes to crawl just for fun, with a smile on her face that says, "I know I'm not supposed to be doing this anymore but I like the variety."

On our morning walk I'll usually take her out of the stroller in the park and let her explore. She also likes to explore on our floor and the garage of our condo, but doesn't like the first floor, even though it has the cool gardens and water features and whatnot.

Sometimes she'll find her shoes and bring them to us and try to put them on her feet. What could she be implying?

She didn't used to notice stuffed animals. Around Christmas that changed - she started getting attached to her Peter rabbit. Now she's fully attached, usually whining unless we give her one or two to play with. Her favorites:
- the Siamese cat she's had since birth
- a tiny bear
- a bright pink pig
- a Pooh she picked out herself at Disneyland
The cutest thing she does with the animals is she'll try to feed them and give them milk from her sippy cup. Then she'll hand the sippy cup and the animal to us, as if to say, "You feed him now." And when we do, she'll laugh.

Speaking of Disneyland - we're planning on moving to Seattle soon so we thought we should take Sofi before we left - VERY crowded, even though it was a Wednesday. Was it Spring Break or something? Maybe we needed this. She didn't have a terrible time, but she didn't really appreciate it, either. We took her on the carousel and the teacup ride and both times she just looked puzzled. "What is this? I don't get it." She has more fun when I toss her in the air. (You know the toss, the you-throw-her-up-in-the-air-but-you-don't-really-let-go toss. I'm not a bad father, really.) She seemed to be really fascinated by the outside of It's A Small World, though, and various other stuff.

On the we're-bad-parents front... Cathy and I make them for ourselves almost every day, and the first time Sofi put mom's straw in her mouth and took a sip we thought it was very cute! "Oh, how cute, she's drinking your mocha!"
And that led down a slippery slope, and now Sofi's a mocha junkie. If she sees mom has a mocha she'll start to bleat until mom breaks down and lets her drink. Chocolate and coffee, great for babies. Mom now has to stealth drink the mocha - wait for me to take Sofi on her walk or whatever and then make one for herself in secret.