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No, duck!
Little E and I went to eat at the park again the other day, and as usual, the regulars were hanging out, waiting for us. In case maybe we wanted to share our lunch.
Category: …And Little E Makes 3
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Patience, my young padawan
It took a while, but Little E finally watched Star Wars all the way through over the weekend, over a meal of a homemade cheeseburger and some fries. He’s about the same age I was when I first saw it: four-going-on-five.
He now “gets” what’s up with his two lightsaber flashlights and wants to play Star Wars with me all the time. For unspecified reasons that will become clear to him later, I’ve always got the one with the red lights. (Spoilers, sweetie.)
One thing does seem to have struck a chord with him, though (literally): he loved the music. At naptime on Sunday, he curled up next to his mother and asked her to hum Star Wars music to him. She found this a daunting request. Now, I could go into how silly it is for a former music major and a lifelong Star Wars fan to not know the best-selling soundtrack of all time backward and forward (who’s the music major here?), but I’ll spare her the embarrassment. (Oh… wait. There was probably a more graceful way to mention that.)
He asked me on Monday night, “Dad, do you have any Star Wars music?”
Who, moi? A guy who can’t read sheet music to save his life but still geeks out over what the woodwind section is doing at any given moment in any given soundtrack?
Why… yes. Yes I do. My dear boy, I thought you’d never ask.
I have a feeling my room is going to suddenly be a lot more interesting to him.
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Performance review
One of Little E’s chores that he can earn money for around the house is feeding kitties and doggies. Cat feeding is normally a bit chaotic – you don’t have to feed again for two days because he usually spills as much in the floor as he gets in the bowls. But tonight? Spotless. I was shocked. The following conversation took place:
- Me: Wow, buddy. You did a very good job of feeding kitties. You didn’t spill any cat food in the floor!
- E: . . . (awkward pause)
- Me: You did a great job! I’m very proud of you!
- E: Dad… I just tooted.
- Me: And you get to toot on the job! That’s a perk!
If he’s getting the kind of on-the-job perk package where he can fart on the job, do I really need to pay him?… Read more
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Duck & Cover
Today was a beautiful day, and Little E and I were running some errands in Fort Smith, so we grabbed a bite to eat and took our food to one of the covered picnic tables at Carol Ann Cross Park. Almost as soon as we got there and started to dig in, we had company.
Evidently, folks ignore the “don’t feed the geese and ducks” rule with regularity, because these freeloaders showed up expecting some free lunch. They stuck around the whole time we ate, politely waiting. They really quacked me up.
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Fishin’ reaction
Mrs. G didn’t spend Mother’s Day laying around the house being pampered by the cats. (If nothing else, she knows better than to think the cats will cease their inter-cat hostilities long enough to pamper any mere humans.) She wanted to do something that didn’t quite work out last week: go fishing! She and Little E went fishing and picking blackberries.
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The secret of classic video game enemies
Once you see this, it cannot be unseen. … Read more
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Little E loves Big Z and Big G
Little E checks on Gabby Dog… … Read more
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Everybody walked the dinosaur
In the spring, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of extinct giant reptiles who would’ve happily eaten him without a second thought.
Little E and I ventured out to the opening day of Discover the Dinosaurs at the recently-reworked Phoenix Village Expo Center (formerly Phoenix Village Mall) and spent an hour examining the giant lizards of yesteryear. Well, okay, I was examining them. They made a lot of noise, they moved, snapping their jaws and flexing their talons, and a lot of dry ice was pumped in. Little E was hiding from the more animated exhibits, and after just a few minutes he really didn’t care too much for the static ones either.
Basically, it’s an unguided tour with animatronic dinosaurs and models that are more like nicely done statues. There are informational placards about each species, and the animatronic exhibits have a lot of pulsating colorful lights (hence some of my photos being a bit blown out), sound effects, and dry ice “fog”. I suppose, if you’re four years old, it’s probably pretty darn scary. … Read more
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A (pac) man of letters
I’ve made little secret of the fact that I’ve pretty much bred a duplicate of myself. Little E loves daddy’s video game collection. He’s inherited my GBA and many of its cartridges. But sometimes this isn’t such a great thing: what do I do when he’s not interested in his homeschool lessons because he’s got Super Mario on the brain? … Read more
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…and THAT’S how important video games are in this house.
Video games are a pretty big deal in our house. Even though I’ve liquidated large chunks of my formerly sizeable collection, I still think it’s a bigger deal that I’ve been a writer for various video game publications and web sites, sometimes even on a paid basis, and even when I’ve been a stay-at-home dad, the PDF DVDs have brought in the bacon. My interest in this particular field of entertainment has helped the family out quite a bit. (I’m hoping that my equally-obsessive interest in other things can have a similar effect, but we’ll talk about the June release date for VWORP!1 another time.) Video games have also inspired my son to keep striving to learn how to read, because all of the little on-screen descriptions in Super Mario World aren’t going to read themselves. Video games are a force for good in this family.
But just how important are they? … Read more
