Weird Little Things They Do and Say

Or have done and have said. This post is a retrospective, going back to when I was pregnant with Lizzy (about four years now) and some of the strange things our kids have done and/or said in that time. If Cute Kids Sayings bore you - or you don't want to read/hear these ever again - skip this post. I'm trying to catch those who don't know us in person up here...

Abby at 4:

• Mama, why can't I have two dads and a birth mom? 
• It's just what I always wanted! Um... what is it?
• Mom, would you please turn up the TV? Or put your breast back in the baby's mouth? Please?

Leanna at 6:

• That's us! We're the "family"! (this was said sotto voce during our wedding ceremony, while digging Abby in the ribs with her elbow)
• Jenn, I'm really sorry, but I won't be able to come over and stay the weekend after you have the baby. Call me if you need me!
• I'm not jumping on the bed; I'm just bouncing. See? See? My feet aren't leaving the bed. See? 

Abby at 5 and 6:

• Mom! The baby said my name! Well, she kinda said it, like "Ah-EE", but do you think she meant it like my name?! (Um, sure, yes, of COURSE she did)

• When I grow up, I want to be a barista, a chef who wears makeup, a ballerina-fairy-princess, a gardener, a vet, a mom, a farmer, and an astronaut because it starts with A

•  A: Mom, are we always trying to stay alive?
  Me: Um... yes. Why do you ask?
  A: I guess <heavy sigh> that's why we have to wear coats and eat healthy food and stuff.
  Me: I suppose so.
  A: But it's good to stay alive. I wouldn't want to be died, because then you only get to wear one dress forever like in the died box. And you can't sing and dance anymore. That would be boring.
  Me: Uh, yes.

Leanna at 7 and 8:

•  Really? The picture says it all. Leanna, so excited and a little smug to be holding the baby, and Lizzy with this expression on her face like "OMG!!111!!! Mom, put down the camera! And stop laughing!"

So there you have it, folks. Some of the stranger things our older girls have said and done during my pregnancy with their youngest half-sister and the first year of her life. Tomorrow, back to our usual programming of random randomness.

Favorites for the Whole Family

So, I'm a gamer. And I game many many different games. But here I've listed a few favorites, old and new, from all electronic categories. Some of them my kids love to either watch me play, or "help" me play. Fun.

• Final Fantasy series
• Mystic Quest (when I bought myself an old SNES last year, this came with it. Abby stopped me from heading to GameFAQs when I forgot one could jump gaps of one square wide)
• IV (I sold my PSX version when I got the DS version, which I love. This is one I can't wait for Abby to be a quick enough reader to do on her own. This must be how my dad felt when I first read A Princess of Mars at nine or so.)
• VI (it's a favorite. I totally want it on the DS if it ever comes out)
• IX (ah, old skool on the PSX. I heart it)
• X (I'm replaying this now, and Abby's assistance is invaluable ("um, maybe you should hit the thing that isn't inside the clamshell") and her comments unintentionally hilarious ("wow, that Wakka guy has really big balls, huh?")
• X-2 (replaying that next. Abby can't wait; a game where you can fight bad guys, find the lost good guy from the first game, and dress up the girls in different costumes? What could be better?)
• Wii games
• Mario Party 8 (at last, a game they can play themselves, and even the little one can manage some of it)
• Epic Mickey (I got this for Christmas and Leanna especially was so pumped that I only play it when she's here, so she can see)
• Zelda: Twilight Princess (I wanted this game when we got the Wii. I tried so hard to like it, but it's just not doing it for me.)
• Wii Fit Plus (Fun, fun fun! For me, it's especially the boxing and the hula hoop, Laston's great at the tightrope, Abby likes the marching band drum major one, and Leanna is tops at the meditative/yoga stuff. Lizzy tries but can't hold still long enough to do more than weigh in (35-ish pounds, for the record))
• Online/download games
• Wedding Street, What to Wear, MyShops, and Frontierville on Facebook (I play them for a quick casual games, but I've been known to use them for reading and budget practice for Abby and color & shape matching for Lizzy)
• Assorted games - usually hidden object puzzle adventures - from Big Fish Games (Abby and I sometimes use these in addition to reading together before bed; it's good cuddle time for us)

Anyway, there are a lot of electronic games I like, but these are favorites. And favorites I can share with my girls, which is more important to me. And this does not even begin to cover the board, card, pencil-and-zillions-of-dice, etc. games. But that's another post...

Well, Pass Me the Stupid Hat

You ever do one of those face-palms because you were just stupid? Doing something you know you shouldn't, but it does not occur to you until well after the fact that oh yeah, that might be it, huh? Gather round, children, and let me tell you a little story...

I have a mild allergy to cows' milk. I'm not talking about lactose intolerance - although that holds too - I'm talking about a nose-sniffly and eye-itchy allergy to whey and casein, the two biggest proteins in milk. I know this. I've known it for years. Many times over these years it's been okay to the point where I can manage a serving a day, so I can get my calcium, filling in with supplements and/or dairy substitutes. But often this serving-a-day is not okay, especially when other allergies - like dust, or dog dander, or alder pollen - are in force. In other words, I can manage one, maybe two minor allergens, but not more than that.

I've had a dry, tickly cough for more than a month - since just before Christmas, in fact. (I know you can see this coming, Gentle Reader). And it did not occur to me until this weekend (that's right, I've been coughing for more than 45 days, been to the doctor for it (and was treated at the time for sinus infection, and during this treatment the cough went away), tried getting more sleep, drinking more water, etc.) that it might, in fact, be all the dairy I've been eating. You see, tickly cough is caused by post-nasal drip, which is in turn caused by sinusitis, head cold, or allergies.

It likely started with Christmas stuff - French Toast, fudge, assorted fancy cheeses, green bean casserole - and it went away during sinusitis treatment because I wasn't eating yogurt or cheese while I had a sinus infection. So when the light bulb came on this last Saturday around lunchtime, I decided not to eat any dairy (with dairy proteins - butter is okay) for a week and see whether that fixed things. And that's right, 24 hours later I was able to stop taking cough syrup, stop sucking on cough drops, and not cough. Amazing.

I think I'll just say that the dairy was stopping up my brain as well as my sinuses. And reserve my dairy experiments for summer and fall, when the dust of winter and the pollen of spring are not exacerbating matters.

Update: Weight Watchers leader says that while eating an allergen will neither make me gain weight, nor stop me from losing, that the resultant feeling-icky from eating said allergen could have the indirect effect of making me want to eat more comfort food. Thereby sabotaging my weight loss efforts. Makes sense, in a roundabout, issues-with-food sort of way.

And given that I lost 1.2 pounds this week, where I've been holding steady since the holidays, I think she's got a point.

Kids' Shows and Adults' Sanity

Our kids watch too much TV. I'm not really going to apologize for that; it is what it is. We have several categories of shows the various kids enjoy, some of which the parents like too. Trouble is of course that the kids - being kids - thrive on repetition and the adults - being adults - just don't want to watch the same things over and over. This is mitigated somewhat by the fact that the kids have a TV (DVD and VHS only, no reception) in their room, but complicated by the age and interest spread.

Baby Shows - these are the shows Lizzy likes, and considers to be hers. There are others, but these are at the top of her little list (in no particular order):

• Busytown Mysteries (on Netflix Instant Play)
• Blue's Clues (she has no opinion of the Steve vs. Joe issue)
• Dora the Explorer (but never Diego; she thinks it's for bigger kids)
• Ni Hau Kai Lan (yeah, Dora in Chinese, with whinier Companions to the Heroine. I know)
• Super Why (but not Word World)
• Sid the Science Kid (animated Muppets in a science-based Montessori school? Rock on!)
• Wow Wow Wubbzy ("it's so funny, mama!")

Big Kid Shows - these are shows that Abby likes. Again, there are more, but these are the big ones (in no special order):

• iCarly (and due to iCarly, we let her watch Fred the Movie. It was awful and we're not watching that again. Totoally not appropriate; thankfully most of it went over her head)
• Wizards of Waverly Place (and pretty much anything with Selena Gomez)
• Teen Titans (especially Raven)
• Powerpuff Girls (especially Blossom)
• Jackie Chan Adventures (especially Jade)
• Assorted other shows - Danny Phantom, Ben 10, Fairly Oddparents, Spongebob Squarepants, Samurai Jack, Ninja Warrior, et al - that spend a month or so on the Hit Parade and then drop off. Does anyone else sense a Girl Power theme in the five shows she really likes?

Everyone Shows: most of these are shows that all of us like, but those on Animal Planet and a movie or two, are those that Leanna introduces to the younger two on the weekends she's here:

• Phineas and Ferb (because Laston practically is Phineas grown up!)
•  Dragon Hunters (French anime-style cartoon)
• Assorted Disney, Pixar, or Dreamworks movies
• Animal Planet shows, Born Free, etc (Leanna is our wild animal SME)

Grownup Shows: these are mostly shows we like that the kids will sometimes watch:

• Sesame Street (yes, I do like it better than the kids do. So what?)
• Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (yay Marvel!)
• Young Justice (yay DC!)
• Wheel of Fortune (Abby: "it's like hangman, mom!")
• Food Network Challenge (Abby: "that's the one with the cool cakes!")

This list makes it sound like the TV is on all the time. It's not. It's on a lot on weekends, but only an hour or so on weekdays as a rule. If someone is home sick all bets are off of course, but generally speaking it's 60-90 minutes on weekdays, and more on weekends. We are finally getting to the stage where the youngest can play with minimal adult supervision though, so the adults can reclaim the living room TV. I'm ready.

Poor kid - earaches are the pits

My stepdaughter, Leanna, is prone to ear infections. Even at ten she's still getting them more frequently than usual. They're not life-threatening, or even hearing-threatening, but they are seriously painful in a child that old, like most things (remember how chicken pox or tonsillectomies are always worse the older you are? Like that).

And this time? The oral antibiotics weren't working, so they got some topical drops to go with. Those didn't make a dent either; her ear is still all swollen and pus-y and not draining. And it hurts. So much so that they ended up in the ER tonight. And her mom called to give me an update and Leanna's crying because it hurts so much... but they've just given her some serious pain medication (Vicodin, I think) and numbed her skin up so they can inject antibiotics, because the orals and topicals (and Tylenol for pain) are not doing the trick. And on top of feeling awful and hurting, the poor kid is afraid of needles.

So, anyone out there reading? Please send best wishes to ten-year-old Leanna. She could use the support, even if she's unaware it's happening. And I know her mom and her dad (and her stepmom!) could use a good virtual hug too. Thanks.

Character creation and music

I love writing character sketches for our assorted games. At the moment we're playing GURPS, and my character is a skinny, blonde, shy young gryphon-rider with no self-esteem to speak of because her mother is emotionally abusive and her father is emotionally and physically absent. This is a challenge for me to write - much less play - because while I have my moments, shy is not an adjective I'd use to describe myself under most circumstances. The rest of it does not apply either; about the only thing this character and I have in common is bookishness. So it's a stretch, and that's fun.

But to do the stretch, I need music to get me in the appropriate mood. In other games this has been simple; I've played a Life Mage (Rhiannon and a number of other "witchy" tunes), a vampire (Died in Your Arms Tonight, People Are Strange, etc.) and a Spirit Mage (Riders in the Sky was a particular favorite). But these were all characters in a modern setting, so contemporary music was appropriate to get me there. Or old folk tunes that were appropriate on a topical level. But this game is set in what amounts to a medieval European city. And while my character is complex and has a number of neuroses (Disadvantages like Shyness and Low Self-Image and Nightmares), she's not crazy enough to use, say, Bedlam Boys as inspiration. A puzzlement.

So I had musical themes on the brain while driving Abby to her dad's this weekend. And I realized afresh how eclectic her musical tastes are. We listened to, sang along with, and danced as well as possible on the freeway at 60MPH to such varied genres as ballet, punk, rock, pop, disco, filk, folk, children's, Broadway, hip-hop, and J-pop. Abby can segue straight from Swan Lake to Dead Man's Party without missing a beat. Chubby Checker to ABBA to Puffy Ami-Yumi? No problem. Her latest craze is Yuna's dance to The Hymn of the Fayth from Final Fantasy X. Sometime this weekend I'll have to write down the lyrics (they can be found on the web in Romanji) in "words I can read" (aka "phonetically") so she can "pretend to be a Summoner".

What else are gamer moms for, if it's not transliteration of Japanese lyrics (written in Romanji) to a video game theme into American English phonetics?