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.