Mumbling to myself: For the family

A bad word...

Wed, 07 May 2008 05:43:22 GMT

Lately I have been reading "Ramona" books to Isaac and Elizabeth at night. Personally, I do not particularly like these books - but the children seem to enjoy them. More interestingly - as the follow the life of Ramona, who reminds of Elizabeth a lot at times, from age 4 to age 10 - they do provide for some interesting conversations with my children.

Last night I read a section where a 5 year old Ramona was upset at her family and declared that she was going to say a "bad word" and then had her family burst out laughing when the word was "guts". After reading this - I started to say good night to the children, but had Isaac pipe up and say "I know a worse word than 'guts'!"

I immediately had a moments hesitation as I thought to myself: I never swear around the kids, so he shouldn't know any *really* bad words - I wonder what he has heard at school?

Eventually I responded "Really? And what word would that be?".

Much to my relief his response, after a moment of hesitation on his behalf, was "Poop!"

To which I was able to smile and say "Yes, that is not a nice word - I hope you do not say that at school."

Cheers,
Ben

Playing with Puzzles

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:30:51 GMT

Normally when I get home and ask Isaac what he has done that day - I am met by complete confusion from him. He knows that he went to kindergarten - but much beyond that he cannot tell me what he did or what he liked. As such I was very surprised when I got home last night, asked Isaac how his day had been, and he responded that he had played with puzzles at kindergarten - and that he had particularly liked doing the United States puzzle.

It appears that my son is finally starting to develop the ability to be able to talk about his day - hopefully this will make it much easier to find out what is going on inside his head!

Cheers,
Ben

The First Day of Spring

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:50:00 GMT

I will always remember when I was a child, on the first day of Spring, my eldest sister - Sarah - would go swimming in our swimming pool. It did not matter how cold it was, and we would all watch in horror.

This year Werona and I both got it into our heads that the first day of spring meant that it was time to barbeque. So last night I found myself standing by the barbeque in pitch black night, with it so cold that I could see my breath condensating in front of me. Not exactly my idea of spring weather - but the steak sure was nice :-)

Cheers,
Ben

Computers and Communications

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:29:51 GMT

That is the name of one of Isaac's latest books. It is a big book which talks about all different types of technology - and Isaac loves it when I read it to him. There are just two problems with me reading him this book:

It was published in 1998 and there are large sections that are already laughably out of date. I read the sections on tapes and cassette players thinking to myself "Isaac will never use a cassette player in his life".
I have a tendency to get halfway through a page and then to go running off looking for bits and pieces to show Isaac what things look like in the real world.

The upside of the second point here is that Isaac can now successfully differentiate between transistors, resistors, capacitators and ICs on a computer card :-)

Cheers,
Ben

Daddy has the "Pink" version of Pokemon

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:31:41 GMT

It has been a source of frustration for male gamers that the latest round of Pokemon games have been dubbed "Diamond" and "Pearl". I mean - come on - not exactly masculine terms here. Most male gamers when confronted with this choice have gone with "Diamond".

As you need to have both Diamond and Pearl to get all the Pokemon in the game - I decided to get Pearl for myself and let Isaac get Diamond - so he wouldn't have to face ridicule should he ever play Pokemon with his friends at some later point in his life.

For the most part I rationalized this with myself by stating the obvious fact that there is practically no difference between the two games - apart from 10% of the Pokemon that you encounter in the wild.

Note that I said "practically". It turns out that the icon used to identify the game when you first start it has a blue background if you are playing Diamond and a pink background if you are playing Pearl. I discovered this the other day when I went to start Pokemon and had my son blithely inform me that my Pokemon game was pink, while his was blue.

Cheers,
Ben

Respect the books!

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:44:48 GMT

We have been having a lot of fun in our household lately - as both Isaac and Elizabeth have been learning to read and are quite enthusiastic about it. We now have a night time routine where they each get to read a book to either Werona or I, and then they get to choose a book for us to read to them.

The other night when I finished reading Isaac's book and went to grab the bible to read - I heard a small sob come from my boy. I turned to ask him what was wrong, to which he responded "That book was almost new!".

...

I had casually thrown Isaac's book on the pile of books on the floor - and apparently that was not the correct way to treat such a revered object.

I immediately picked it up, showed him that it was okay, apologized profusely and carefully placed it on top of the book shelf - which seemed to appease him.

I guess I am going to need to be more careful in the future :-)

Cheers,
Ben

Multiscreen GameBoys

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:28:42 GMT

When rumors first started about the Nintendo GameBoy DS having two screens a lot of people (myself included) wondered whether this would be a good idea or not. Indeed - even when I saw the final pictures of the GameBoy DS I struggled to believe that it would actually be playable. Thankfully when I finally bought a GameBoy DS I was pleasantly surprised to find out how usable and enjoyable the dual screens were.

My children have a different view on this.

They have played on my GameBoy SP and my GameBoy DS and have concluded that "GameBoy with one screen == good, GameBoy with two screens == better" so recently I have heard Isaac making comments like:

"Maybe there will be a new GameBoy with three screens!"

Because obviously the more screens you have the better things are. Lizzy usually responds to this with a statement like:

"Maybe there will be a new GameBoy with 100 screens!"

You can't get too much of a good thing - right?

Cheers,
Ben

Midnite's Birthday

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:55:44 GMT

Recently I have been reading Midnite (by Randolph Stow) to my children at night. I have been trying to get them to think about the book - so before I read each night I ask "Can you remember what happened last night? Where is Midnite now?" and at the end of each reading I ask "What do you think is going to happen next?"

Isaac has really enjoyed this book - and in particular Midnite's repeated escapes from the great gray goal by the sea. As such Isaac has often made appropriate comments like "I think Midnite will go to jail again and need to escape", or has offered his own creative ideas as to how Midnite was going to escape his current predicament.

Elizabeth's comments have been rather wide ranging - and reflecting whatever her thought of the moment was.

So on the second last night of reading Midnite, when it was apparent that Midnite was gong to marry Miss Laura, I asked my children what they thought was going to happen next night. Isaac proffered "I do not think Midnite is going to go to jail". Elizabeth exclaimed "It will be Midnite's birthday!"... To which I responded "Do you really think it will be his birthday? I think he will be getting married instead."

Well. I had to take back my comment.

The next night I sat down to read the final chapter:

"On his twenty-first birthday, Midnite was married to Miss Laura..."

I nearly bust out laughing on the spot.

Cheers,
Ben

Knowing the schedule

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:12:57 GMT

I have never been very punctual. I have certainly never been someone who remembers what is going to happen when (I rely heavily on Outlook to manage my schedule). Last night, after reading to both of my children it came time to tuck them in and say the final goodnight.

I tucked Isaac in, gave him a hug and a kiss, said goodnight and commented "You need to get a good nights sleep - remember that you have school tomorrow."

I then tucked Elizabeth in, gave her a hug and a kiss, and said goodnight. She then piped up and asked "What do I have on tomorrow?". Uh? "You will be staying home with Mommy..." I responded. "No! I have swimming tomorrow!" Lizzy exclaimed.

Sigh...

Yes, she does have swimming - but if I can't remember my own schedule how can I be expected to remember both my kids schedules?

Cheers,
Ben

What to do in case of a fire...

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 07:26:17 GMT

Today while we were driving back from the shops we got involved in a 'danger safety' discussion with our children (talking about what to do in the case of fire / earthquake / alien invasion / etc...)

After a bit of discussion Werona asked the children "What would you do if you could smell smoke?" To which Isaac responded:

"I would check to see if the door was hot, and if it was hot I would get out my gameboy - as 'special' gameboy - and I would use it to get a Pokemon out to help me escape..."

Before Werona could respond with the appropriate clarification that Isaac was playing "make-believe" I had to pipe up and say "Yes! I would get an Abra out and get him to teleport me to safety!"

Cheers,
Ben

Happy Christmas and all that...

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 01:19:00 GMT

Gah! I have been slack about posting over my short Christmas break. Well - I am back a work now so my little outlook task list is telling me to do a blog post...

Christmas was lots of fun this year round. The kids were super excited and it seems that everyone in my family was very happy with the presents they got.

Highlights from my presents would be:

Seasons one and two of Danger Mouse
A refurbished XBOX (to replace the old XBOX that Werona gave me three Christmases ago - and I blew up about a year ago - seriously - smoke and sparks were involved)
A 7 DVD Hayao Miyazaki box set (woo hoo!)

Anyway - have to run, hope to ramble more later.

Cheers,
Ben

Making Sushi

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:57:39 GMT

For a while now I have been happily eating sushi - but over the thanksgiving day long weekend I took my first shot at making sushi myself. With a couple of books, http://www.imakesushi.com/ and supplies from Uwajimaya (http://www.uwajimaya.com/) I felt well armed to get going.

The first time I made a couple of simple sushi and cucumber maki rolls, which Werona and I ate as I was making them (Werona only ate the cucumber ones). While the results were not perfect - they were good enough to make me believe that I could do it again. It also show me that I needed some new knives :-)

Two nights later Werona and I buckled down and made 80 pieces of sushi and the whole family had sushi for dinner. For the kids we made sushi with hotdog and egg - which they happily ate up - though they were not too fond of the nori (toasted seaweed).

We have had Sushi for dinner a second time now, where I took my first shot at making nigiri, which I did a terrible job of - but the kids loved it.

Cheers,
Ben

Thanksgiving day

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 07:57:37 GMT

This is a bit of a belated post, however we had a great Thanksgiving day this year. Though Werona and I are both Australians we really like the idea of Thanksgiving and enjoy celebrating it, both for ourselves and for our American children.

This year we went for the full traditional approach with turkey, beans, sweet potato and pumpkin pie. Normally when we do this I lead the family in "amount eaten". Werona usually has some breast meat and serves the children similarly. I, on the other hand, usually have a turkey leg and wing (if you have eaten turkey - you will know that this is a) a sizeable amount b) the least healthy part of the turkey). This means that when the plate of turkey meat comes out to the table it is divided into two parts. My side and the side for the rest of the family.

Well - this year Isaac made me proud.

We served all the food options to the children, and Isaac immediately ate his turkey and dinner roll, but did not touch his beans / potato. Normally Isaac would be told to eat everything on his plate before getting extras - but this time I pointed out that as this was a special day he could ask for more turkey even though he had not eaten everything on his plate.

He immediately starting asking for more turkey - and asking for the biggest slice available. After having a couple of more slices he eventually pointed out that what he really wanted was the turkey thigh that I had yet to get to. Restraining my laughter I happily gave it to him.

I am so proud - my son has taken a step into manhood with his first display of 'eating meat off the bone' :-)

Cheers,
Ben

Fear of Allergies

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:52:55 GMT

The other night I was performing some major reconfiguration on some of my servers, but due to general timing I decided that I would help Isaac play Pokémon while I was doing this. Isaac was happy enough to do this – but freaked out completely when I pulled apart one of my older servers and commented ‘watch out for the dust’. It took me a moment but I soon figured out that Isaac knew that he had a dust allergy and was equating that to his (potentially fatal) nut allergy. I stopped to explain that while eating cashews would require that we inject him with medicine, call an ambulance and do other unpleasant things – that is dust allergy would just make him sneeze a bit. Despite my explanation Isaac still seemed very concerned – but I eventually managed to convince him that daddy had a dust allergy just like him – and I was not dead yet – so everything should be okay, right?

Cheers,
Ben

Kids and Sushi

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:28:02 GMT

I have been a fan of sushi for a while now. I never ate it in Australia but soon after moving to Seattle I tried it one day and discovered that I loved it. Since then sushi has become a regular part of my diet (sushi is great for gluten intolerant people like me :-). However, Werona cannot stand the thought of eating sushi. She has only just recently started eating cooked fish like halibut and salmon on a moderately regular basis.

This has meant that most of my sushi eating has been with colleagues from work. But there is one place where I can eat sushi with my family, and that is down at the local “Cross-roads Mall” food court. They have a large number of restaurants there, including a passable sushi place (not my favorite – but it does well when I am craving sushi). Because of this my kids have been able to get a fair grasp on the fact that “Daddy likes sushi”.

Every now and then, one of them (usually Elizabeth) asks to have sushi too – and are told that they can’t because we don’t not want to feed them raw fish (plus, we suspect that they would not like it). Well, last Sunday when we were having lunch out – and I was having sushi – we decided to let them have a try. As it turns out both of my children happily ate pieces of my shrimp and salmon sushi. This has just further increased my personal desire to learn how to make sushi myself – as now I can feed the family with it :-)

Cheers,

Ben

P.S. On a side note – Lizzy still pronounces sushi as ‘Dudi’ which cracks me up every time.

Tripped up by day-light savings

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:56:14 GMT

It seems that I (and my family) have not yet adjusted to the concept of day-light savings. Sunday morning rolled around and we had all slept in – so we were rushing to get ready for church. With the deadline for getting out the door looming, I slumped down in front of my computer to check my email while eating my breakfast. After reading some email I glanced at the computer clock to make sure I was not out of time – and saw “9:18” (church starts at 10:30).

After doing a double take – I went and told Werona that it was fine that Isaac was still in his pajamas.

We then had a very relaxing morning taking our time to finish breakfast and get to church :-)

Cheers,
Ben

Isaac's Combat Instincts

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:54:24 GMT

I discovered the other day that my son certainly has the right combat instincts.

You see, he was watching "Return of the Jedi" for the first time. We had got to the scene where Luke Skywalker had refused to kill Darth Vader and was being "lightning bolted" into oblivion by the Emperor while Darth has a crisis of conscience.

The moment Darth Vader went to pickup the Emperor (to through him down the shaft) my son leapt up and yelled "Quick! Get the sword!"

At which stage I had to pause and think - "Ya know, the kids right. Luke should not be dazedly staring at this and wondering what is happening, he should grab his light saber and run the Emperor through while he has a chance!".

I just smiled and ruffled Isaac's hair :-)

Cheers,
Ben

My American Children

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 01:03:17 GMT

For a while now Werona and I have had to try hard not to tease our own children when they say things with an obviously American accent. Usually this happens when they say words like "can't" or "fast", however we have come across an interesting problem recently.

Australians pronounce the name "Isaac" as "Eye - Zack". Americans pronounce it "Eye - Zick".

Guess which pronunciation our son has started using for his own name... Yup, the American one.

Cheers,
Ben

A boy full of secrets

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:49:11 GMT

A while ago I came to the conclusion that Isaac is very adept at not revealing what he does and doesn’t know. In the last couple of weeks there have been a couple of times when I have been reminded of this. We have started having Isaac and Elizabeth read simple story books to us at night time – before Werona and I read the traditional bed time stories to them.

Occasionally while Isaac is reading he will get to a work, pause, and declare “This is a tricky word!” – only to say the correct word without hesitation one second later.

The other night when Isaac was reading a book to me he read a sentence that finished with the word “wall”. After reading “wall” he proclaimed “Wall! Two l’s together!”. To which I stopped and asked “Have you been learning about words with two l’s together in them at kindergarten?”

Isaac gave me an odd look and answered “Yellow has two l’s together in it”.

And that is the last I heard of that topic.

Cheers,
Ben

The cat can play chess

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:03:35 GMT

Ever since getting my nice new chessboard and chess piece set for my birthday I have been worried about them getting damaged. I have been searching for a nice box to store the pieces in, and a felt cover for the board, but I have yet to find the appropriate items for the job.

My biggest concern has been that my relatively inelegant cat would cause damage to the board. From time to time Cleo (might cat) will walk over the board to get from point A to point B, under my steely eye, but for the most part she has been well behaved.

The other night, however, Cleo came over to my chessboard and sat down right in the middle of it. Werona and I watched patiently – waiting for the inevitable ‘batting’ of the chess piece with a paw. Cleo proceeded to investigate the piece closely and then tried to pick up the king… with her teeth.

Yikes!

Really need to get a box for those chess pieces before they are permanently damaged :-)

Cheers,
Ben

Happy (belated) birthday to me!

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:52:17 GMT

A couple of weeks ago it was my birthday. It was actually quite a lovely day all in all, however I do believe that I've never felt more like a father than I did on that day. It all started with the preparations for the birthday. After debating with the different options of going out to restaurants, I ended up deciding that I would rather have a dinner at home for my birthday. A large driver behind this decision was that I knew that it would be a more relaxed environment when my two children were involved.

The next decision was what to have for my birthday dinner. I ended up deciding on having a lamb pizza, as this is something I love and something that the children would enjoy eating too.

The day before my birthday Isaac started asking what "theme" I was going to have for my birthday. Werona was obliging enough to duck down to the party store the day and get a set of balloons with a Star Wars balloon in the middle-thus establishing the theme for my birthday.

On the day of my birthday I got up early in order to walk Isaac to school. After going to work I came home to my breakfast dinner (of pizza) and spent most of dinner talking to my children about their days of school. As I said, I was surprised by how fatherly this all was.

But it was still a very nice day. I got a couple of cool music CDs, a very nice chessboard and chess set, and a Lego Star Wars AT Walker.

Cheers,
Ben

Whose hair is longer...

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 23:18:07 GMT

As we were putting the children to bed the other night - Werona asked me if I had noticed that Isaac had had a hair cut. Fortunately I had noticed and was able to quickly respond with a compliment on how nice he looked. Next I asked Isaac who had longer hair - Isaac or Elizabeth?

Elizabeth was standing nearby and they both happily responded that her hair was longer.

Next I asked whose hair was longer of Daddy or Elizabeth.

Now I have not cut my hair recently - so it was a close call - but we figured out that Elizabeth was just longer.

This whole discussion prompted comments from Werona that maybe Daddy should think about getting his hair cut. When I moped about this and asked Isaac if he thought I should get my hair cut he responded:

"You should have your hair what ever way you want it"

:-)

Cheers,
Ben

Pokemon Fever

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:28:03 GMT

Isaac and I have been playing (and watching) Pokemon for a while now - and while it is still a very common topic for discussion with my little boy - his level of obsession has clearly dropped down a little. I am no longer greeted at the door when I get home from work by a boy who wants to play Pokemon straight away - and some days we do not even play Pokemon (opting to use our computer time on other noble endeavors - like playing Cars on the Wii).

But now it appears that Elizabeth has caught the Pokemon obsession bug. Recently she bought herself a little stuffed buneary with her pocket money, and she has been watching the cartoons and talking about Pokemon all the time. Werona and I suspect that a lot of this is because of 'bigger brother worship' - but it is amusing that at times Elizabeth's Pokemon enthusiasm surpasses that of Isaac's.

You may remember that I decided that Isaac was old enough to play Pokemon when he turned 5. This is a line that we have always held fast to.

The other day Elizabeth (who turns four in November) walks into my computer room and asks:

"How old do you have to be play Pokemon?"

I start to answer "5", but Lizzy quickly blurts out "4!" before I can say it. I respond with:

"No, Elizabeth, you need to be 5 before you can play Pokemon" to which she responded with "How about 4?".

This is going to be interesting.

Cheers,
Ben

Preparing for Halloween…

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:13:10 GMT

Well it is coming close to that time of year, so we're beginning to prepare for Halloween. Any parents with children know that this is quite a tricky dance to do. On one hand, you can't leave the decision of what your children are going to dress up as until the last minute, otherwise you may have a rather hard time getting a costume together in time. On the other hand, young children can be very fickle and may decide at the last moment they do not want their current costume, but want to be dressed up as something else.

As such we have already started talking to our children about what they want to dress up as for Halloween this year. I haven't heard much about Isaac's preferences (and he has been somewhat of a wild card in the past when it comes to choosing costumes) however Elizabeth is rather emphatic.

She wants to be cooking mama: http://www.cookingmamacookoff.com/

As a computer nerd it warms the cockles of my heart to think that my little girl wants to dress up as a computer game character :-)

Werona's main concern with this choice has been whether anyone would actually recognize her costume (Elizabeth is currently particular sensitive about the response of people to whatever she is wearing or doing). My response has been to reassure her that I will ensure that several of my colleagues at work will be prepared to say "look! Its cooking mama!" When they come into work for candy.

Cheers,
Ben

In the middle

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 23:55:38 GMT

Recently, much to our surprise, Werona and I have discovered that we quite like listening To John Denver. Today as I was standing in the kitchen and listening to some of his music, I asked Isaac if he liked this music. His response was "in the middle".

To understand what he means by this I have to give you some background. At times Isaac is very recalcitrant in answering questions, so to help him with this we often prompt and with appropriate answers. I might ask him "How is that food you are eating, yummy or yucky?"

Normally he would then answer "yummy" or "yucky", however lately he's been responding "in the middle" for food which doesn't fall into either of these categories, but is just so-so.

Clearly this is what he thinks of John Denver's music.

Cheers,
Ben

How not to make breakfast potatoes…

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 20:53:12 GMT

For the benefit of the non American readers of my blog (who are the majority) I'm going to explain what breakfast potatoes are. It is a dish that Americans seem to be somewhat fond of, where you take potatoes, capsicum, onion and sometimes mushroom and fry it all up with some paprika or cajun powder.

I've encountered this meal most often when traveling for business purposes and having breakfast in hotels around America. At first I thought it was rather odd, but now the taste has grown on me. So the other morning when I was making myself breakfast at home I thought it would be nice to have some breakfast potatoes.

Unfortunately, rather than grabbing the cajun powder I grabbed the cayenne pepper. Whoops.

While this did make the meal a lot more spicy than I expected, I did persist and eat the whole meal (much to the protestations of my stomach later in the day). Hopefully next time I'll do a better job of making breakfast potatoes.

Cheers,
Ben

On being punctual

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 07:09:59 GMT

Personally - I am not a very punctual person. I always prefer getting somewhere a little late - but taking my time and being relaxed - to rushing to arrive on time. So, this morning when conflicting schedules required that Werona and I head to church in separate cars (Werona took the kids to church, but I bought them home as she was helping out with a seniors luncheon) I took the opportunity to dawdle a little and have a pleasant snack before heading to church myself.

When it came time to leave after the service - Isaac was whining about my car being hot. So I turned on the car engine, and the air conditioning, and took the kids for a short walk around the car park. Returning to the car, Isaac was suitably happy with the now cooler car.

As we were driving out of the car park I was happily chatting to Isaac and commenting on what a good idea it had been to let the car cool down by running the air conditioning - when he retorted "Yes, but if you had got to church on time you would have been able to park under the trees".

Huh...

I couldn't help but ask "Did mummy tell you that?"

To which he calmly responded "No, I was just saying it".

I guess my son has different priorities in life to me :-)

Cheers,
Ben

Speaking of Mii...

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 21:34:18 GMT

The Wii has become a vary popular computer in our house. However, Elizabeth is definitely the one who plays it the most. As well as playing the various games she spends an inordinate amount of time making, deleting and customizing her Mii's.

So yesterday morning as I was preparing to leave for work I had Elizabeth run over to me and declare "I have made a big fat Mii! Do you want to make a big fat you?"

Indeed she had made a new mii, which was as tall and as fat as it possibly could be. Nonetheless, I politely declined from the opportunity to make a big fat me.

Cheers,
Ben

The Pretend Wii

Sat, 26 May 2007 14:49:43 GMT

This morning in the play room, Elizabeth got out our kids T-Ball set and started hitting the ball with the bat. After a couple of hits she turned to me and said "I am playing the pretend Wii!".

Ah... The perspective of a child...

Cheers,
Ben

Random updates on the state of Ben...

Wed, 16 May 2007 03:33:24 GMT

I have a bunch of small updates - so I am going to through them into one non-coherent post. Enjoy!

Medical:

I have been suffering from a fair amount of arthritis 'flare ups' lately - that have been keeping me nice and grumpy. When I saw my doctor on Monday he responded that I had not been looking after myself (guilty) and that he would not change my medication until I:

Start getting 8 hours sleep a day on a regular basis
Start spending 20 minutes a day meditating (to reduce stress)

For someone who is as 'work-aholic' as I am - this is actually quite hard to do. But I must admit that I got 8 hours sleep last night for the first time in a couple of weeks - and have had almost no arthritis pain.

On a more disappointing angle - I found out that my liver is currently 'irritated' by the Methotrexate I am taking, so they are reducing my dosage (and have ordered me to cut out all alcohol). This is a bit bothersome - as I know that if I stop taking the Methotrexate altogether I am in a lot of pain - so here's hoping that the reduced dosage is still effective.

Work:

Things are crazy busy for me at the moment - but I am enjoying myself despite it all. Over the last couple of days I have finally got back on the public newsgroups - and that is a great feeling (yes - I know I am sick and twisted, but I genuinely enjoy helping folk out on the newsgroups).

Family:

I did end up getting Isaac his own copy of Pokemon - and this has become a great 'father-son' bonding event. Isaac can only read a little - so he has to have me around to play it. We spend 30 minutes each day - and at the end of the time playing Pokemon I have to help Isaac give Mummy a summary of what happened ("Today we caught a new Pokemon, Mankey! It's a monkey Pokemon. Also, Clefable grew to level 12 and learned 'Mega Kick' - which is really effective against rattata's" - as you can imagine is Werona "enthused" about all this information).

But now my son is completely obsessed with Pokemon. One of the latest topics has been 'Pokemon jokes' - like 'Why did the Rattata cross the road...'. Sigh...

Lizzy has even started talking Pokemon - though I am 99% certain that this is just because she wants to talk to her brother who is not interested in anything else at the moment :-)

Cheers,
Ben

The girl drinks tea!

Wed, 09 May 2007 05:21:41 GMT

Having grown up in a family where everyone drank some form of hot beverage on a regular basis (tea, coffee, hot Milo), and where a night time hot drink was a great time for family socialization - I was in for quite a surprise when I married Werona. She does not drink anything hot - her drink of choice is actually water (yuck!) :-)

Over the years I have gotten used to solitarily drinking of my tea / coffee (no more Milo for me - as it contains gluten) and have eagerly looked forward to visits with / from family members so that I can 'drink socially' (in the non-alcoholic sense).

So it is with great joy that I inform you that my darling daughter likes drinking tea! She has long stated that she 'likes coffee' - though we have never let her try it. But lately whenever Elizabeth catches me making tea - she asks me for some. We only give her a little - and heavily dilute it with milk - but she happily drinks it all the same.

Which leaves me wondering how old she needs to get before I start trying to teach her how to make daddy a morning cup of tea...

Cheers,
Ben

Eager to learn to read

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 04:46:14 GMT

Tonight as I was reading bed time stories to Isaac, he seemed to be unusually enthusiastic about finding words on the page and spelling them out (after reading a page he would stop me and ask me to point out one of the words so he could learn to read it). I was a bit surprised about this - until he came out and said:

"Tomorrow night can I play the 'walking around game' and can you read the words to me?"

Ahh... Now I get it.

The "walking around game" is actually my copy of Pokemon: Fire Red. Isaac has been intrigued with this game for a while now. When he started playing it - I would bring up my saved game and let him just wander from place to place (he soon learned to avoid areas where he might get into a Pokemon battle - as this was too complex for him). Recently he has been figuring out more and more aspects of the game - and I have even taught him the basics of how to escape from a Pokemon battle - so that he can explore further.

Well - the other day after he had been playing the "walking around game" for a while (which he has started to occasionally refer to as the "Kokemon" game) I commented to him "You know, Isaac, if you learn to read a little bit, I think I will have to teach you how to play this game properly soon".

It would seem that my son has taken this statement to heart - and is determined to do what it takes to play the game properly.

Sigh... Well - any motivation to learn to read is good, I think...

Cheers,
Ben

Moments of Truth...

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 04:27:07 GMT

Tonight while putting Isaac to bed, I was faced with a moral dilemma. Should I tell the truth, or give the 'proper parental guidance'. After reading two books - Isaac turned to me and asked:

"Daddy, do you pick your nose?"

Uhhh... Hmm... I opted for honesty...

"Yes I do, but I probably should not..."

"Would you pick your nose if you had something owie in it?"

"Yes, I would"

"Why?"

"Well, I would not like having something owie in my nose, and I would want it out"

Sigh. I suspect that this conversation is going to haunt me in the future.

Cheers,
Ben

Watching Star Wars with Isaac

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 06:55:28 GMT

Isaac and I have been playing the Star Wars Lego game together for a while now, and recently Werona and I decided that he was old enough to watch an actual Star Wars movie. After a brief debate we ended up deciding that we should show him Phantom Menace first (it was close - but I think we will skip to A New Hope next).

Isaac was absolutely riveted. Especially when he recognized a character or scene from the computer game. It was amusing to see how quickly he lost interest when people stopped fighting and started talking though.

As we got towards the end of the movie - I decided to try and soften the blow of Qui-Gon's death by warning him that one of the good Jedi was going to be killed by the bad Jedi. When this happened - I looked at Isaac and could see that his eyes were sheened with water - but no tears (he has already learned the manly art of "not crying" - none the less I dragged him over to cuddle daddy in this sad moment).

However - I was not prepared for came next. As Obi-Wan was listening to Qui-Gon's dying words - my son turned to me and proclaimed "Boys can't have babies, only girls can have babies".

Umm... Huh... Yes son, you have certainly hit the head on the nail there - now how about we get back to watching the movie.

Sigh...

Cheers,
Ben