Huh

Sofia: Do you want to have fun, Zara?
Zara: No thank you.
Sofia: Come on, Zara, do you want to have fun?
Zara: No thank you.
Sofia: You *don't* want to have fun?
Zara: I don't like fun.

Chocolate Pancakes

Sofia said she wanted pancakes with chocolate milk instead of regular milk, so I said how about chocolate pancakes, and mixed some recipes together to get the "Fristrom Blend" -

2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa (I'll increase this next time - I would have liked them a bit more chocolatey)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cup whole milk
2 eggs
2 tbsp butter melted & slightly cooled

Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, mix the eggs & wet in another, combine, wooden spoon, batter will be lumpy, etc.
Might consider adding some vanilla next time too.

Anyway, I was a freakin' hero.

Role-playing with kids part X

Ok, more advice on how to role-play with kids, using my sample-size of one:
Role-playing & collaborative storytelling with Sofi is such a crapshoot. Sometimes, she's incredibly creative. And just recently, on Saturday, we played That's Drama, and it went pretty well, with Hedwig & Sirius Black rescuing the Weasley family from some dark wizards. "That's Drama is the best game ever," Sofia said after. Aw. She couldn't wait to play again.

Then, yesterday,
Me: "Okay, so Hermoine is surrounded by three dark wizards - 'We have you now,' they say."
Sofia (shaking): "Try a different way."
Me: "Too scary? Okay - um - she notices somebody's following her ... she's not sure who it is."
Sofia: "Who is it?"
Me: "It's Draco Malfoy. But Hermoine doesn't know that."
Sofia: "Try a different way."
Me: "Ugh. Okay. Um. Hermoine sneezes. She thinks she's catching a cold."
Sofia: "Try a different way."
Me: "What? Why?"
Sofia: "I don't want her to get a cold."
Me: "Okay, what do you want to happen?"
Sofia: "I don't know."
Me: (Exasperated.) "I have to cook dinner now."
Obviously not her fault, but it burns me out. In hindsight, she wasn't using TADW as it's supposed to be used - you're supposed to use it to stop the game from being ruined, not on a whim - and simply asking her, "Really? It'll ruin the game for you if Hermoine catches a cold?" might have saved things.

What I don't know is how to tap into that incredible creativity consistently - sometimes the muse strikes her, I guess. But usually she's got her internal critic turned to 11.

Something that works sometimes, when she's in "I don't know" mode, is giving her choices, like a Choose Your Own Adventure:
"Well, do you want to fight, do you want to talk, or do you want to run away?"
"Well, do you want to investigate inside, or do you want to go back?"

Another thing that works sometimes is asking her, Otherkindish, "What's something bad that could happen?" If she picks the bad thing it's usually not going to upset her.

Let's Face It, This Is Really Just A Diary I Keep Online

We've been doing a thing for a while now. "Hands up who loves mama?" "Hands up who loves dada" because everyone, even Zara can raise their hands.
This morning, a first:
Mama: Hands up who loves mama.
(Everyone puts their hands up.)
Dada: Hands up who loves Sofi.
(Everyone puts their hands up.)
Zara: Wah wah wuv dada.
(She puts her hand up.)

A first

Last night While changing z's diaper:
z: I love mommy.
That's possibly her first sentence.
Me: you love mommy?
Z raises hand.

Zara-English Dictionary

Thank you: Ank oo
Sofi: Pofie
Waffle: Wahwah
Tinkerbell: Inkbell
Wall-E: Wall-E

Collaborative Storytelling Elsewhere

It's been a while since I've done the collaborative storytelling thing with Sofia - just read a story that inspires me to start again. It's my bad! - the sequels to our stories about our cats got complicated with a new character every night... - and I got storyteller burnout or something.

The last collaborative stories I did with Sofi were story games...we played several sessions of Archipelago II, which is great for playing with kids (it's probably great for adults, too, but I haven't tried it yet) about a teen witch and her knight friend living in Toledo in medieval times. Again, after a while I got burned out and wanted to play with different characters, and our next couple of games (a mixture of Archipelago II and Once Upon A Time that I hacked together) were fun but Sofi didn't want to come back for more - maybe because we created new characters each time.

I am weak. When I have something that works, I should stick with it longer, until Sofi gets bored, not me. I should find ways to make it interesting for myself, instead of starting over from scratch.

Anyhow, links:

The article

Archipelago II

Once Upon A Time + Archipelago

The Adventures of Zoe and Zippy

I'm the Worst Dad

Sofia just said so. This is for giving her a timeout after she made Zara cry.
"Zara started it!"

Wise beyond her years

Sofia: how many days until Christmas?
Dad: about fifty
Sofia: I wish...I wish it was thirty days.
Dad: as long as you're wishing, why not make *every* day Christmas?
Sofia: Because then I'd get sick of Christmas.

Not so broken anymore

We've been sleeping. Yay!

We're Broken

Well, in the long run, it did work - Zara sleeps through the night now. This is probably because we let her cry it out, not because we put her in Sofia's room. But who knows.

The bad news is WE can't sleep through the night. Both of us keep waking up at strange hours. Broken. Broken. Broken.

Kids In The Same Room?

I read somewhere, in one of those many how to make your kids actually sleep books, that they sleep better if they're in the same room. So, at my wit's end last week, I moved Zara's crib into Sofi's room. (Took all evening - disassembling and reassembling.)

Did it work?

Hell no. Such a mistake.

She cried more than ever. Well, maybe not *ever*, but a lot.

The next few days were torture. Sometimes one of us would even sleep in Sofi's bed so Zara would stop crying. And eventually we did what we should have done in the first place, let her cry it out, sleep train her.

And...we've gotten two good nights of sleep since then. Touch wood. (And when Zara did cry, Sofia didn't wake up, so that was good too.) So maybe this is going to work out after all. But if I had it to do all over again...

Collaborative Bedtime Story Prime

Sofi: What's that thing you like in stories?
Jamie: You mean conflict?
Sofi: Yeah, make conflict!

So tonight's bedtime story had all the family pets (there are like a dozen of them now because Sofi insists on adding a new one every time) arguing over who would get to eat the last of the food (watermelon & cheese) - Harta the cat nearly ate Glitter the girl mouse.

But Hearts the spider had the most fiendish plan - while Mama & Dada were off buying gorceries she wanted to siphon their bank accounts into her own. She asked Sofia to open the filing cabinet to see if she could find Dada's password to his computer. Sofia was pretty excited about this. (Hearts said, "All the watermelon you can eat!") Then they started hacking Dada's computer. But he came home and caught them in the act. "Sofia, what are you doing?" Dada said in a stern voice.

Sofi: I don't like this story.
Dada: You didn't like getting caught?
Sofi: Erase. Erase it. Erase the plan.
(We hadn't written anything down.)
Dada: I've got an idea for a good ending.
Sofi: Erase.
Dada: How about Sofia says, "We were trying to steal all your money, Dada." And he says, "I'm so proud of you for telling the truth! You're just like George Washington."
Sofi: Erase.
Dada: Ok.

So - actually - instead - when Hearts the spider asks Sofia to open the filing cabinet, Sofia says "No way!"
"Really?" Hearts asks. "You could get all the watermelon you could eat!"
Sofia says "No way!"
And they all lived happily ever after.

Collaborative Bedtime Story

Once upon a time, in our home, at night, Zippy the Half-Siamese Girl Cat wanted a nice, soft place to sleep. But Cathy the Mommy and Jamie the Daddy and Sofia the Little Girl wouldn't let Zippy sleep on their beds. So Zippy looked around and saw that someone had left the door to Zara the Baby's room open. She went inside and saw Zara the Baby asleep in her crib. It looked so soft and nice, so Zippy the Half-Siamese Girl Cat jumped up on the bookshelf and then into the crib.

But she woke up Zara the Baby, who started to cry, and Cathy the Mommy got up and went into Zara's room.

"What the heck?" Cathy the Mommy said. "Zippy, get out of Zara's crib."

And Zippy said, "No way. This is my crib now."

And Cathy the Mommy picked Zippy up and threw her outside in the rain.

Zippy meowed at the door. Jamie the Daddy said, "The cat's outside. Should I let her in?"

And Cathy the Mommy said, "No, let's watch an episode of Lost instead."

So they did.

Zippy the Half-Siamese Girl Cat realized nobody was going to let her in, so she climbed up the maple tree, jumped on the roof, and crawled onto the skylight and tried to scratch through it. But it wouldn't budge.

Cathy the Mommy went to the kitchen to get a snack, and heard the scratching on the roof. "Jamie, it sounds like some branches fell on the roof, can you go get them off?"

So Jamie the Daddy went out in the rain, put up a ladder, climbed up on the roof, and when he saw Zippy he was so shocked he fell off the roof and landed with a thud on the ground.

Sofia the Little Girl heard the thump and ran outside. "Daddy, what the heck?" She said.

"Can you tell mommy to call a hospital?" Jamie the Daddy asked.

So she did, and Cathy the mommy called the hospital, and an ambulance came, and Zoe the Calico Girl Cat and Glitter the Girl Mouse came out to watch. Jamie the Daddy said from his stretcher, as they put him in the ambulance, "Hey Zoe and Glitter, can you watch the kids?" And the ambulance took Jamie the Daddy and Cathy the Mommy to the hospital.

"This is my big chance," Glitter the Girl Mouse said. She got some cheese from the refrigerator and sat down to watch TV.

"This is my big chance," Zippy the Half-Siamese Girl Cat said. She crawled across the roof to the chimney and jumped in, and crawled out of the fireplace, covered in soot. Then she went back into Zara's room and jumped back into Zara's crib.

But Zoe saw her. "Hey Glitter," Zoe said. "Zippy's in Zara's bed! We've got to stop that bad cat."

But Glitter said, "No way. I just want to eat cheese and watch TV."

So Zoe went into Zara's room by herself and said to Zippy -you better get out of Zara's bed you bad cat. In cat language that sounds like "meow meow meow."

And Zippy said -No way, this is the best bed. Which in cat language sounds like "Meow meow meow." And she tried to curl up and go to sleep.

And Zoe meowed and meowed and hissed and meowed.

Zippy opened her eyes and said -Do you mind? Trying to sleep here. Which in cat language sounds like "Meow meow."

And Zoe said -You can sleep in my bed. Which in cat language sounds like "Meow meow."

And Zippy said -Your bed? That little folded up bit of blanket on the hard floor of the living room? It's so uncomfortable! Which in cat language sounds like "Meow meow meow."

And Zoe said -You know what? I'll make you a bed.

And she went and got some pillows and blankets and brought them back into Zara's room and arranged them on the floor to make a nice bed. Zippy watched and thought it did look like a nice bed. -All right, I'll give it a try.

And she did, and it was a nice bed, and she fell asleep.

And the doctor said that Jamie the Daddy's arm was broken and he put it in a cast and sent Jamie and Cathy home. And they made Glitter turn off the TV and thanked Zoe for watching the kids.


Coming soon: what happens when Glitter decides she wants a mouse hole the day before they throw a big birthday party for Zara?

Need vs want

Mom: don't you want to go potty?
Sofia: no
mom: you look like you need to go
Sofia: I need to go but I don't want to go

And up til there I thought needs were a subset of wants.

RPG for five year olds

One of those posts that's so nerdy I'm almost embarrassed to put it up.

I was looking for something to replace or at least spice up Sofia & my Warhammer Quest games (getting bored of fighting the same orcs & minotaurs over and over) and seem to have hit upon it. I was looking for something both simple enough for a 5 year old and DMless. Although Sofia and I used to play a diet Universalis when she was younger she stopped liking it, but googling around I seem to have discovered close to the perfect solution: Mythic.

Although the rulebook is pretty long (and it has some lame cheesecakeish artwork) the core rules really could be boiled down to: ask yes/no questions and roll on a table. Someone into tactical or power gaming (wait, that's usually me) wouldn't be satisfied--in fact, I was really skeptical that it would work--but for collaborative storytelling where each of us gets to "be" a character, and we can play in any genre we want (it ended up being Last Airbender fan fiction, but that's ok), and play fast, it was great. After dinner and before bedtime we beat the giant spider, rescued the avatar and his companions from its webs, and saved an earthbender town from a fire nation sniper. Sofi's character ended up badly burned and Saka's still missing - a hook for a later game session. We used some of the maps and minis from other games, including WHQ, just for show and tell. I have to admit I mostly drove (I'd keep asking Sofi, "What do you think should happen now?" "I don't know! I have no idea!") but occasionally she stepped up (Jamie: "How many fire nation soldiers should there be? An army? A squad?" Sofia: "ONE! Just one!" ...she found the exploit...)

Afterwards I was, of course, tempted to "improve" the rules - I hate tables and if I can find some cool system of die-rolling against a threshold or opposed roll to get away from using a table then I'm usually much happier. (When Sofi & I play WHQ it's modded so I don't have to look at the creature's stat cards all the time.) But after dicking around with some experiments I decided I was wasting my time - it's just one table, after all, which one can keep a printout of handy...and would a different die-rolling system really make it any more fun?

Butter

Sofia likes a big pat (or "chunk" as we call it) of butter on her waffle, like in the picture on the syrup bottle. She eats around it until its the only part left and then eats it in one bite. (Got to admit, sounds pretty good. Mmm, butter.) Today I was making her waffle before I had my coffee and spread her butter chunk out of habit.

Sofia (squeals): Why did you spread my butter?

Dad: Oh! I'm sorry. Here, you can have another chunk of butter.

Sofia: That's just a waste of butter!

Dad: I bet it's delicious. Extra butter.

Sofia: But why?

Dad: I forgot. Years of habit. I'm sorry.

Sofia: I don't want to look at you right now.

I know you're not supposed to laugh when your kids say something but I couldn't help it.

Some Nights Nothing Works

Things I tried to soothe Zara tonight:

- the "treatment" - swaddle with one arm free (to bite on), put in the car seat, put in the bathroom with the lights on and the water running. This usually works. Zara enjoys her treatments. It worked for a while tonight but then...it didn't.

- walking around with her. Usually works. My back usually gets tired before she starts crying again, but this time - no.

- giving her her first solid food! Cathy suggested this, in case Z. got hungry before she got back from her girls night out. It seemed to work for a while - she enjoyed each mouthful and lunged for the spoon when I brought her more. (Organic brown rice cereal - we're being a little more health conscious with Z. than with S.) I taped it so Cathy could watch. But, eventually, no mas.

- tried a second treatment. No dice.

- Baby Einstein - this used to work great with Sofi, and it seemed to work with Z for a good solid ten minutes or so, but then...

- playing her videos of her mama on the Flip. Also interesting for a minute or two.

Finally, I gave up. She's crying in the bedroom now...

I've been blogging a lot less about Z than about Sofi - I think a big part of that things are a lot less eventful. Things are so much easier this time around, usually. We know what we're doing and Z's a pretty easy baby. No more blogging about all our experiments, what works and what doesn't....

Sofia's constant

Sofi likes the number guessing game I taught her which is supposed to teach her the value of log n searches but she hasn't quite figured that out yet. "Is it 1?" "Higher" "Is it 2?"

Every now and then I pick pi just to mess with her.

Today it was my turn to guess:

Jamie: is it 13?

Sofia: lower

Jamie: is it 9?

Sofia: higher

Jamie: is it 11?

Sofia: higher

Jamie: is it 12?

Sofia: higher

Jamie: are you sure? more than 12 and less than 13? 12 and a half?

Sofia: it's pi!

Jamie: it can't be pi, pi is between 3 and 4

Sofia: it's cupcake!

4-year old reading level

Damn! I've been making Sofi read me her bedtime story the last few nights. (Negotiation goes like this: Sofi: I'm too tired, I don't wanna. Jamie: How about I read you first story and you read me second? Sofi: Ok. Later: Jamie: Ok, what are you going to read me? Sofi: I don't wanna. Jamie: But you promised! Etc.) Anyhow, she just made it through Go, Dog, Go! with very little help. Jamie: You know the word for water?! Sofi: There's water in the picture! That's what gave me the clue.