Don't Want

This is the story of the day I stopped wanting to play boardgames with our friend Chris.

I always thought it would happen first with his girlfriend Kim; she's not a very good sport when we play boardgames. She doesn't even wait until someone else wins. Often on the first turn if she perceives any slight to her gameplay strategy, it becomes personal.

Settlers of Catan

Carol: I rolled a 6...I get sheep!

Kim: I don't have any settlements with a 6...I hate you.

Power Grid

Carol: I'm going to buy this power plant

Kim: That's the one I was considering buying...I hate you.

Puerto Rico

Carol: Let's play Puerto Rico!

Kim: I always lose in that game...I hate you.

On the other hand, it is usually very enjoyable to play with Chris. There are two reasons for this: 1) he's always excited to play and maintains a happy upbeat mood throughout, and 2) he almost always loses because he's so busy enjoying himself he doesn't pay attention to strategy. He did actually win one time, and we were all very happy for him but I'm not going to lie, I win often and I enjoy that feeling (I should also mention that I once made the mistake of telling him this, as a compliment, and he was greatly offended. He didn't come by to play games with us for months after).

On Saturday, they came over to hang out and play games once the kiddies went to bed. Eric was multi-tasking and deploying some code or missiles or something upstairs on the computer, so we held off playing our current favourite game (Dominion, with multiple expansions) until he could join us. Instead, we opened up Blokus, an easy puzzle-type game with tetris-like pieces. The gameplay was simple, you just had to try to place as many of your pieces on the board as possible while blocking other players from placing theirs.

It turns out that Chris ROCKS at Blokus. It's a spatial visual game, and I guess his testosterone-fueled man mind kicked in and he easily won the first game. Eager and excited to chase that feeling, he readily agreed to a second game since Eric still wasn't ready to join us. The second time around, Kim and I were both better prepared and we blocked Chris far more effectively than before. Chris felt the resistance and became increasingly agitated, anxiety and excitement mingling with the desperate desire to feel that rush of winning again. As he struggled to break through one of my barriers to a wide open playing space, he got way too into it and exploded.

Chris: I WILL PENETRATE YOU!

A silence fell over the kitchen.

And I don't really want to play with Chris anymore.

Lullaby Parenting Fail

Eric can't carry a tune or keep a beat. This doesn't stop him from enjoying music and singing along to anything he likes, but it does pose some challenges when it comes to singing Dylan bedtime songs. He knows part of an Estonian lullaby his mother used to sing to him, but for the past several months he's been softly singing the Wheels on the Bus song to Dylan. He likes it because you can make it as long or as short as you want, and he started inventing verses with animals once all the usual bus verses are done. For example:

The lion on the bus goes "roar roar roar"

The pig on the bus goes "oink oink oink"

Then he made the questionable decision to invent verses with animals whose sounds he doesn't know, animals like giraffes and hippos. Also, elephants, because although we know the trumpeting sound an elephant makes, it's difficult to sing it in a song. How did he deal with this problem?

The giraffe on the bus goes "giraffe giraffe giraffe"

The hippo on the bus goes "hippo hippo hippo"

The elephant on the bus goes "elephant elephant elephant"

I heard him singing these verses once, and I was all "Did you just teach Dylan that a giraffe says 'giraffe giraffe giraffe'"? But these don't compare with what just happened tonight.

Eric and I were both hanging out with Dylan in his bed and reading books since Lee was being a lovely baby and already sleeping. When we finished all the books, Dylan wanted a song, "Daddy sing a song? No Wheels on the Bus?" Eric turned to me, "I don't know any other songs." I joked, "You know the engineer song" referring to the only song Eric can reliably sing while producing a recognizable melody. It's a song lots of engineers sing, and at Queen's it's a big tradition for engineers to scream this song while drunk, and then all the years take turns singing their unique year verses.

Eric said, "That's kind of inappropriate, isn't it?" I said, "Haha, yeah it is." Then Eric happily started singing in a quiet lullaby voice:

(To the melody of the Battle Hymn of the Republic)

We are we are we are we are we are the engineers

We can we can we can we can demolish forty beers

Drink rum drink rum drink rum drink rum and come along with us

For we don't give a damn for any old man who don't give a damn for us!

Not so bad. But before I could say anything, he tenderly launched into his year verse:

We build the fucking shit that keeps the world a-turning round

We're hardcore motherfuckers and we'll pound you to the ground

The Artsci Farts have got no smarts, the Commies never score

We beat the pit, we are the shit, don't fuck with Sci'04!

That's the last time I plan to make that joke.

(And yes, that's Eric in the middle.)

Halloween, Festival of Poison

Sometimes you raise your children with all the best intentions, and despite your efforts you still manage to screw them up in special, mysterious, and inexplicable ways. Then again, sometimes it's crystal clear why your kids are messed up.

We're pretty picky about how we eat nowadays. Almost all of our food is organic, we try to eat a lot of raw foods, and we avoid sugar like it's poison. Our friends find us insufferable. Sometimes we'll give in and cheat and we inevitably feel disgusting and sick afterwards because our bodies aren't used to it anymore. Dylan sticks to the same plan, and whenever he manages to get his mitts on some real cake or cookies, he gets crazy eyes and runs around like a child possessed.

Halloween was going to be difficult. He has never eaten so much as a single Smartie in his life, let alone any kind of candy bar and we weren't planning on letting him start. For several weeks leading up to Halloween, we psyched him up for his costume and the decorations and the pumpkins. And while we didn't want him eating candy, we did want to take him trick-or-treating. So we told him trick-or-treating was when you put on your Halloween costume and went outside to people's houses. You ring the doorbell, ding dong!, and someone will come open the door. Then you say "Trick or treat!" and hold out your bag. This is the important part: that person will then put a piece of yucky poison into your bag. When you get home, you'll take out all the poison and give it to Daddy to take to the people at work.

He was pretty down with it. He agreed with everything we said, but I have to admit he looked suspicious.

Last night was Halloween. Dylan and Lee were dressing up like skeletons, and our friends Luke and Cathy were coming over with their new baby Ryan who was also going to be a skeleton. We invited all the grandparents and my brother came over too. We ordered (non-organic evil) pizza and I made (non-organic evil) garlic bread. Cathy was a doll and made an organic fruit salad, and her mom brought homemade (non-organic evil) pumpkin muffins. There was wine and beer and a general orgy of gorging - a gorgy, if you will. After the eating and picture-taking, Dylan went out with Eric and my brother to canvas the neighbourhood for poison.

He had a pretty good time. Eric said that he got excited to go up to the houses, and he enjoyed seeing all the other kids out in their costumes. He was also very intrigued that people were giving him things. With every treat that went in his bag, his childish wisdom and intuition told him that this was something very good, that the so-called poison in his bag was in fact something delicious that he would very much like to put in his mouth.

At one house he got a candy bracelet. As they walked away, he pulled it out of his bag and inspected it closely.

Dylan: Dylan eat?

Eric: No Dylan, it's not for eating.

Dylan: Dylan eat?

Eric: No Dylan, remember it's yucky. It's yucky poison.

Dylan: (dubiously) It looks tasty.

Eric: Does it? I think it looks yucky. Hey look, here's another house!

When he came back home, his little treat bag was full of chocolate and candies and chips. Dylan was so excited he immediately emptied the bag onto the large storage ottoman in the front hall to show us all his loot. We oohed and aahed over his stash of poison. Eric and I stressed that it was not for eating because it was yucky poison while our guests struggled not to intervene. He was especially interested in a bag of Doritos.

Dylan: (hopefully) This is so yummy.

Eric: Oh yuck, no. That's spicy and yucky, and it makes you sick! It makes you throw up!

Dylan picked up a (delicious looking) sour key and held it up.

Dylan: Dylan eat?

Carol: No baby, it's not for eating.

Dylan: Dylan want to eat it?

Carol: Why would you want to eat it? It's not food.

Dylan: (suspects he's being lied to) Dylan want to try?

Carol: No, that's silly. Hey, I know! Let's throw it on the floor and stomp on it! Let's throw it on the floor and stomp on it with our feet because it's so gross, and we can sing Gross Gross Gross Poison!!

Luke pulled me aside later and expressed his concern that if we keep up this campaign, Dylan may one day go to school and throw the other kids' candy on the floor and stomp on it. He makes a valid point.

Rogers, You're Such a Jackass

Today Eric called Rogers to try to deal with a problem I had:

Rogers: Rogers Customer Service, how may I help you?

Eric: Hi, my son threw my wife's iPhone 3GS on the floor and the screen cracked. Is there anything you can do for me?

Rogers: Let me check...I'm sorry sir, but your wife isn't eligible for a hardware upgrade. I can't help you, but you can purchase a new iPhone 4 for $749.

Eric: No thank you, goodbye.

He then hung up and immediately called back.

Rogers: Rogers Customer Service, how may I help you?

Eric: Can you please put me through to the Cancellation Department?

Rogers: Yes, please hold.

(music music)

Rogers: Rogers Cancellation Department, how may I help you?

Eric: Hi, I would like to cancel my wife's wireless phone plan.

Rogers: What is the reason?

Eric: My son threw my wife's iPhone 3GS on the floor and the screen cracked.

Rogers: All right sir...well, we would like to keep your wife as a customer. You can purchase a new iPhone 4 for a discounted price of $269 to replace the one that's broken.

Eric: Okay.

Spontaneous Haiku:

You hold the power

It doesn't need to make sense

Ha ha ha Rogers

Thanksgiving Parenting Fail: Dylan Doesn't Share

For the last five years, we've been building a tradition of having a Thanksgiving dinner with our friends at our place. It used to be a ridiculously cramped gathering in our little condo. There was always more food than conceivably necessary, and nowhere to sit. People would be forced to sit cross-legged on the floor balancing plates piled dangerously high with food and gravy. We would make the organic turkey, and our friends would bring everything else. One year, there were so many people that we ran out of Thanksgiving-type foods for people to bring so one guy brought butter chicken and naan. But I digress.

This year was a smaller group due to people being on honeymoons and vacations, but Dylan's friend Cameron came with her parents Jordan and Lindsey, and her baby brother Preston. Cameron was born two months before Dylan, so she's one of the closest in age friends he has.

The trouble started early. We were trying to psyche Dylan up for the party early in the day so we told him about how all his favourite grown-ups were going to be coming, and also his friend Cameron! We enthused about how Cameron is so nice and fun, and that he and Cameron were going to have a great time together. He looked at us suspiciously. He knew there was going to be a catch. We told him that when Cameron came, they could play and Dylan would share his toys. Dylan is not good at sharing.

Dylan: "No. No! NO! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Then he ran around like he was having a seizure and had a meltdown screaming fit.

Our friends arrived, people sat around chatting and waiting for dinner. Finally, Cameron got bored and asked if there were any fun toys. Cameron's mom said reasonably and innocuously, "Why don't you ask Dylan where his toys are?"

Dylan: "No. No! NO! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Then he ran around like he was having a seizure and had a meltdown screaming fit. It lasted a really long time. It was highly embarrassing.

I'm a pretty firm believer that there's no such thing as bad children, just bad parents. So it would appear that we suck.

Sorry, friends.

iHate You

I sign up for those group savings sites. So far, I get emails daily from Groupon, WagJag, FabFind, and LivingSocial. I've purchased two deals, one was a voucher for a burger meal at some gourmet burger place downtown that uses non-conventional beef, and one was a $50 voucher for Gap but you paid $25 for it.

Maybe you're already aware of this, but today FabFind posted a HUGE deal: they were offering a limited number of Apple iPads for $10. That's a 98% savings! I got pretty excited when I saw it in my mailbox this morning, and I called Eric at work to tell him to keep an eye on it. I wasn't the only one who got excited because predictably, their server crashed all to hell with all the people scrambling to get on it. Eric and I certainly did our best to maintain the chaos by keeping open four tabs each and refreshing them constantly.

We didn't get an iPad, and I'm not too surprised or disappointed about it. I was running after two kids all day, and Eric was leaving work to come home just as the FabFind site was fixed and ready to go live. This isn't a rant about my sense of self-righteous entitlement to a $10 iPad.

FabFind sold all but one iPad, and that last one they gave away for free in a Facebook contest. You had to go on their Facebook page and write why you felt you deserved the free iPad and the person who got the most votes would win. Here's what I would have written, if I had been able to sit down at the computer for long enough:

"Because I was so excited about this, iPeed."

I thought it was quite clever, and it still makes me giggle. I also voted for Eric's Aunt Sandra who wrote:

"Because an iPad is way more fun than a maxipad."

The leader for a long time was this guy:

"Because I'm having a very hard time uploading apps to my invisible iPad."

I like these responses. They're fun and light and appropriate. Besides, it really comes down to who has the most loser friends sitting around doing nothing but checking Facebook and responding favourably to your begging them to vote for you in this contest.

Some responses were stupid. These were the ones where people complained that they deserved the iPad because they had spent all day refreshing their screens when they should have been working. Which hello, that's what everyone was doing. That's not original or deserving. That's annoying. Some people were boring and talked about how it would help them in school or work, or how they wanted it to give to someone for a gift. Some were really sanctimoniously irritating, and talked about selling it and donating the money to charity. Bleh.

But the worst, THE WORST were the people with sob stories.

"I deserve the iPad because my son was recently diagnosed with juvenile diabetes."

What?! I'm going to guess you're fat. The last thing you or your son needs is an iPad. What you both probably need is some good nutritional counselling and a gym membership.

"I think I deserve an iPad because of the epic run of bad luck that I've had lately. Illness, unemployment, potential homelessness. Yeah. :/"

Are you sure you're having bad luck, or maybe you just suck at life? Either way, it doesn't entitle you to an iPad. And if you're potentially going to be homeless, what are you going to do with the damn thing anyway? Are you going to write "Spare some change, God Bless" on it and be the hippest panhandler in town? By the way, this is the person who's currently in the lead, and it looks like she might win. So keep an eye out for a homeless girl with an iPad. She's probably too ill to fight you if you try to take it from her.

"I'm having major surgery next month and won't see my 3 kids for a few days : ( I want an easy way to stay in touch with them. Please vote."

Why...aren't your kids coming to visit you?

"I deserve an iPad because my 38 year old husband died during a nap about a year ago. I fell asleep with his breath on my neck and his arm around me, and when I woke up he was gone."

This was by far the worst one. It actually wasn't even on the vote list, because this woman couldn't get it to post. I think that was because the instructions said to limit your answer to 140 characters, and hers was so long she posted it in a two-part wall post on FabFind's Facebook Wall page. It went on and on about how her family scammed her out of $300,000 and she couldn't collect her husband's something something because she was collecting unemployment and the government was screwing her and she was suffering from PTSD and now she's living with said family who don't love her...it was really uncomfortable and awkward. And here's my rant: this is inappropriate and gross. Why are people using their horrible life tragedies to try to win an iPad? If all of this is true, then this woman probably deserves my sympathy, but she just gets my appalled disgust. I wonder how her late husband would feel about this? He dies a sad early death, and she tries to leverage his passing to get a free iPad. On Facebook.

All in all, I quite enjoyed today's FabFind diversion. And people are stupid.

For Roslyn

Wow, my last post was last December!

My friend Roslyn very nicely hounded me on Facebook today to blog something. My typing fingers were itching, so I thought why not? I'm going to blog something.

Quick update: We had another baby boy in June. We named him Lee, it's easy for Chinese people to pronounce. I expelled him from my person naturally at home, and it was an amazing transcendent experience. And my vagina suffered no tearing! Which is excellent seeing as I tore about an inch and a half while expelling Dylan. Lee looks nearly identical to Dylan except he's fatter and rounder and more smiley.

We've mostly gotten used to living way way far from the city in our slice of suburban hell, and we've managed not to rip down the house yet.

Dylan started preschool in September and I'm not sure he likes it. At the very least, he's very dramatic about being dropped off and picked up, though the teachers assure me that he has a fine time in between. He better start liking it soon, it's not okay to not like school in this house. We're Asian like that.

Eric and I are the same, we celebrated our 5-year wedding anniversary this summer. Time flies when you're having babies! The difference is we're totally skinny again, Eric especially. I still have wobbly thighs, and my stomach is a sad sagging wrinkly mass of despair. But I'm about 4lbs away from my wedding weight. It rocks, yo. I thought I was going to be a fat tubbelard forever.

And that's the update! I'm going to write an actual post about an actual thing immediately following this. Stay tuned.