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."