My Kids

I am trying to cut it down to one post a day so that I can do that guest writing thing (actually need to get some work done as/well).

I have a daughter and a son. And today for the first time in their lives they played in the snow. I wish their mom was there to see it.

It was beautiful. It actually took awhile to settle in. At first we went outside and played in the snow. Then we had to bring the horse in (damnit!), so we did that and the horse was happy to be in her warm stall with a bit of feed for the night. But on the trip down my son thought she would get the joke if he balled up a great big snowball and ... bang! hit her right in the head.

I lit the fire and made them soup and sandwiches; the difference between little girls and little boys gets pretty apparent after that. Girl: nice warm soup, gets into the film (we don't have cable , so I'm always hunting for films - "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" .. good film (cheesy version but I am very proud of her to look beyond it to the writing..)) .. and Boy: woofs down his soup, runs out into the dark with food coloring and cookie cutters. Brings back six snowballs. Two of them are blue. His tongue is blue. The stairs are blue. The leather sofa is blue.

My son has been into "potions" ever since he started playing WoW. I sort of make sure he stays in the n00b areas but his first profession is alchemist. As was mine. When he saw me making potions (which in WoW really only amounts to collecting ingredients and combining them. There's not titration, centrifuge, separating solid from liquid - any of that..) he immediately jumped all over me to teach him that. The line between alternate reality and real life can be blurred for a six year old. I had collected alot of herbs (through a technique I use to uplevel known as corpse crawling... i just go into an area where the wildlife is uplevel above me and kill everything in sight and then collect after I am done.. trust me it helps to relieve tension to kill a Worgen and then pick up flowers afterward..). So I told the kids , who actually don't get to +play+ all that much (maybe , 20 minutes to an hour a week) that I would have a "potions festival" (because I don't get to play that much either, these days).

My son said "wow dad my mind just lit up when you said potions festival". =) Almost everything in the house has been a part of a potion these past two months. Betadine and mouthwash? You bet. Earache remedy, a junior chemistry set bottle of sodium bicarbonate and toothpaste. You got it. And the dye. The... dyes...

So the snow was a new reagent for him. Nevermind a roaring fire and semi-decent repast. The kid. is out. in the snow.

I finally reel him back in at almost 7:45 and he's nearly frozen. We have a freezer full of snowmen , a year's supply of snowballs. And of course. They're blue.

And so is my son. In more ways than one. Um. I have learned at this point that food dye can be washed out . It takes time, but...

Meanwhile my daughter is busy with a critique of someone's adaptation of "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader". "Dad, you can tell that hedgehog is someone in a suit." .. "still the story is fun". It was ice cream for desert. And then for some reason my daughter wanted to read scary stories for bedtime ...

My daughter (who is also now a level 21 'lock) has been on a scary story kick lately .. she is miffed that her best friend is going to take the AR reading award this year and ever since her mom left the new rules are that she doesn't get to quit. So she's hefting on the books. For some reason she speed reads horror novels. The little girl has also discovered music. I catch her in her (clean) room dancing every now and then. (Radio Disney , AM 590. I give my kids a chance to grow up, ok?) (you can make fun of her for not listening to punk rock but I say - screw it. she develops her own interests. so what if I like husker du. or beethoven. this is her radio.)

So . At any rate. Its going to be a wild week. Work is tough. I am a developer and - I can work at any workstation, however I need .. quiet... in order to work. So I am guessing I will not get much work done tomorrow... or the next. I haven't been in Second Life since their mom left. I will admit to forum posting more than I should. But that ends today. And I am +going+ to get work done before the kids blow away my workday tomorrow. Which is why I wrote this at 3 am. So I have a question - because damnit I really +really+ need to work. This is my son's first snow.. my daughters second . We went as a family skiing one year before my son was born.

And yes I direct this question to any human being or .. in the case of my wife... spirit.. that can spare the electrons. Because honestly damnit, I don't know what to do. I need to work. And even if I'm up at 3 AM trying to catch up. You can bet I will not be able to get much done the next day. Anywho. here it is.

If its not an official snow day, but its their first snow you make them go to school?