Perfect Day

Friday was a lovely and busy day, most of it unplanned.

In the morning we had a swimming lesson as usual. I teach on Tuesdays and Wednesdays which is a bit tiring, so I usually have a nice big nap on Thursday. This Thursday my nap was too good and I couldn't fall asleep for a long time. So  I had to do my usual morning routine with Blake and the dogs and head out to the swimming lesson with a little over three hours of sleep. 

Once we got to the school I opened the door to take Blake out of the car as well as the bag with all our stuff, only to find out that while I packed everything we needed, I left the bag at home. D'oh! I glanced at the school across the street and I looked at Blake. He was ready to hop out of his seat and get some action. What was I to do? If we drive back home to get the bag, by the time we'll get back the lesson will be finished. So no lesson this week? That meant that instead of one week between lessons, it'll be two. In baby time two weeks is like two years. I couldn't possibly be that cruel to him. How bad was it? We were both ready under our clothes: I wore swimming trunks and Blake had his disposable Swimmers on. So we didn't have a towel, we could dry ourselves with my t-shirt. I don't have underwear, but I can always go commando (shh... Don't tell anyone). It only left the problem of Blake's diaper change for after the swim.

Then I realized that wasn't a problem after all. I suddenly remembered that exactly for that reason I used to stick diapers everywhere, just in case. And indeed I did find a couple of diapers tucked away behind one of the seats and they were still big enough even though Blake has recently moved from stage +4 to 5.

So off we went in. I don't know if the moms have been reading my blog, but I felt an even colder shoulder from some (maybe they think that the fact that I choose to spend the time playing with my son rather than chat to them about shopping means that I'm a snob). Just my imagination, I'm sure. The second group had two dads this time, though one of them had something on his skin, I think the medical term is "weird yucky stuff", so I'm glad I didn't have to share a pool with him. Having three dads in one day meant that this time the boys' changing room was indeed the boys' and I didn't have to worry too much about being walked in on. We rinsed quickly, towelled with my t-shirt, got dressed, rushed to the car, drove quickly home and had a proper shower. By the way, when my husband read my original swimming lessons post he said I came across as a bitch. Nice! I don't do that nearly enough. If you don't let your inner bitch out once in a while, she's going to shred your innards.

We have Sam staying with us right now. He's Miron's Godson and Blake's Godfather. Yeah, it's a bit of Godinbreeding, especially when you consider that Blake's bio-mom is also his Godmother. Since the day was nice I suggested we'll go to the London Eye (a massive Ferris wheel in the heart of London),  something I haven't done in a while. Blake loved it, but was a bit overwhelmed as you can see.

 

Looking out at the views was interesting, but he was far more interested in exploring the inside of the capsule. There was a nice bench in the middle to climb over, a cute six year old blonde with a pink bag and some very interesting women to ogle. He flirted with them and even got an Italian lady to pick him up and give him a long cuddle. I was tiny bit embarrassed by his forwardness (I wouldn't go as far as calling him a cuddle slut - oops, I just did), but she insisted it was fine. Who wouldn't want to cuddle with Blakey?

 

Miron waited below and suggested we should visit the aquarium right next door. Why not? We already took Blake to the zoo once, but not an aquarium. It was quite exciting even for us with plenty of things to see. In fact, by the end of it we were rushing by most of the displays stopping only at the really interesting ones. Blake enjoyed the sea life, but showed equal interest in the flooring, lighting and various decorations. He rushed busily all over the place, but was eventually picked up when he showed signs of tiredness. A great time to go for dinner, right? Wrong. As soon as we got into a nearby Chinese restaurant he got his second wind and I had to run after him the entire time with the exception of the few short moments when he chewed yummy food. Fortunately Sam was there to chase after Blake for a while to give me a few precious moments to wolf down my food.

On the way back home in the car Blake zonked out as expected. He woke up just long enough to drink his bottle and watch a bit of Baby Einstein before retiring for the night without any protest.

What a wonderful day it was full of simple pleasures. The kind of day that reminds you why we do what we do. Why we put up with all the crap in life: for those few rare moments of genuine happiness.

Life is good.

--Mickey

Love Hurts

Loving Great Dane hurts. There is no doubt about it. Even if your dogs are the most obedient canines on the planet, you might still be on the receiving end of an (unintentional) head butt, an (unintentional) elbow or (unintentional) tail whip.

My dogs are not the worst dogs in the world, they do know and obey the commands "sit" and "eat this yummy snack", but not much more. I could argue that I'm simply letting them be free spirits as I don't like to program living creatures to do my bidding like slaves, but I'll be lying. If I could, I'll make the entire planet my slave. From tiny little ants to sperm whales, everyone will dedicate their lives to serve me. But I digress (happens a lot to me recently, must be an age thing). The real reason my dogs are wild animals is because I'm just too lazy to train them properly.

Now it's one thing to have a disobedient little pooch. Now imagine a wild beast weighing 80 kilos. Now imagine two of them. Now stop imaging, we're done. Both my husband and I paid the price for our laziness by being dragged around by the dogs, smashed into the ground or just break a finger or crack a rib. The most fun was being dragged across a road by the two hounds to say hello to a boxer across the street. It was fun because we were lucky enough not to be run over by any car.

We had Kato and Leo together for several years. Kato and Leo completed each other: Kato was old and relaxed and Leo was crazy and young. They balanced each other. When Kato passed away we got Leo a new puppy and suddenly we had two crazy and young dogs. Leo is already four and a half, but you wouldn't know it from his puppy-like behaviour and Dexter would probably diagnosed as insane by any dog psychologist. He is utterly mad. Whatever part of his mind is not mad is just stupid.

Needless to say we broke down and got a dog trainer to spend the day with the dogs. I can't say I got a lot from her, but at least she recommended this magic product, Gentle Leader headcollars. The website offer this fantastic description:

Millions of dog owners today enjoy the benefits of stress-free walks thanks to the Gentle Leader Headcollar. Designed so that owners can communicate with their pet in a way they instinctively understand, the Gentle Leader painlessly and effectively removes the dog’s natural tendency to pull by placing gentle pressure on calming points and eliminating uncomfortable pressure on the throat. In addition to reducing a dog’s desire to pull away, the Gentle Leader is also a very effective tool in combating lunging, jumping, excessive barking and helping to calm an aggressive and/or anxious animal.

That's not a headcollar! It's magic!

I've been using the Gentle Leaders on both my dogs for a while now, enough to form my own opinion. Today, for example, I took the woofers for a morning walk and they suddenly saw two little dogs they wanted to play with. They started pulling and I pulled back. The Gentle Leader worked! I was yanked off my feet and dragged around, but it was a very smooth ride. I was gently led by the dogs through the mud with no real injuries to show for it.

So, not only is it useless in helping you to subdue your dogs, it also fails in other areas. Calm an anxious animal? The requirement to wear a Gentle Leader makes Dexter anxious more than anything else. He's been wearing a Gentle Leader now for most of his short life and it's still a struggle to put it on him before every walk. I think I might stop.

It's my dogs' fault, really. They just don't know how to respond to the Gentle Leader because they haven't read the product description. You think Google Translate is going to add a canine option to the languages?

--Mickey

Swimming Lessons

I don't like mothers.

No, wait. That's a terrible opening. Right away many mothers I do like, let alone love, pop into mind: my mother, my sister, Blake's bio-mom and Mrs. Walsh from Beverly Hills 90210 (just kidding with that last one). Let me get that outrageous attention grabbing opening line in context.

Blake started swimming lessons this term, right when snow storms were very atypically ravaging London. His first lesson was cancelled as the school the class was taking place at was shut.

To get there I need to drive, something that I'm not very keen on. I passed my test after five attempts, but I'm still a nervous driver. To make things worse I have to make a right turn on the Apex Corner roundabout, which I came to refer to as my nemesis. That's actually a good thing, as being forced to do it on a weekly basis is helping me become a better driver. Still, the first couple of times I had to do it alone were nerve wracking since I wasn't alone, I had Blakey-pie with me. But this post isn't about my driving, it's about swimming lessons for babies (and apparently mother hating), so I should probably get back on track. 

On the first lesson I was a bit lost and got in halfway through the lesson. I had to quickly change and walk into the pool with Blake. He was very confused and worried. As I mentioned before, his first encounter with a large body of water was the Caribbean Sea, so a big bathtub full of treated water must have been fairly unattractive in comparison. Still, Blake loves his bath-time and once he realized this was a giant bathtub he really got into it. The instructor lady was kind enough to let us stay half of the next lesson with the older group because we were late.

I'm the only male parent in my group (I once saw another guy in the second group) which is why the ladies have decided to take over both changing rooms. There is some logic in that: each group leaves a lot of clutter and when the 10pm group arrives to change there'll be complete chaos if they dumped their coats, bags and clothes on top of the ones from the 9.30pm group. This means that I have to change in the 10pm group's changing room once all those ladies have gone to the pool with their little ones. Now my greatest fear is that a late arrival will walk in on me soaping my naked body. Well, actually I really don't care personally who sees me naked. I really do have no shame, really. I just try to spare them the embarrassment.

This is NOT the pool the lessons take place in. Though it's not much bigger.

Yeah, yeah. I'm getting to the part about mothers and disliking them. I just don't get it. Being gay I'm supposed to get along with girls and gossip about boys and shopping, but only if I was a gay American TV character. In reality all gays aren't alike and some of us do not thrive on a symbiotic relationship with a fag-hug. I can totally get along with a woman if we share interests like movies, TV shows, videogames... But not because we're both attracted to men. It doesn't play any factor, which is why I also don't have a disproportionate number of gay friends. I know many gay people who surround themselves with a gay circle of friends, but I don't get it personally.

At the beginning of each lesson I go into the water right away and start having fun with Blake. Sometimes even 15 minutes before the start time. I could hear the women taking their time, chatting away in their changing room. They would then go into the water, holding their toddler to their side and carry on yacking. While I swoosh a giggling Blake around, their bored babies cling to them with only their toes in the water. What do they talk about? I really can't remember as my brain switches off as soon as catch a snippet of conversation. I ignore them and carry on playing with Blake. He loves when I help him jump into the water and he's already very good at holding on to the metal bar surrounding the pool with his feet against the wall.

It's usually talk about skinny jeans, how they have their hair done every Friday after the swimming lesson because the pool water is so nasty, about their latest or upcoming holiday and so on. 

During the lesson there are breaks in between exercises in which the ladies immediately resume chattering while holding their babies to their sides. Isn't this supposed to be the babies' time? Shouldn't their attention be almost entirely focused on the little ones? The most uncomfortable moment was when one mother was completely ignoring her baby's pleas as she was trying to get a purple ducky that was just a little out of reach. From behind the mother's back I nudged the duck a bit to make it float nearer.

I would occasionally try to strike a conversation with a random woman, but it never develops into  natural banter. One mother smiled at us  and said something about Blake that I don't remember. Then he stuck his thumb in his mouth and she immediately said to her baby "What is he doing? We don't do that. We don't do that." My reply was immensely rude. Just as well it never left my lips and remained in my head.

At least two of the mothers were Israeli and spoke Hebrew, so I refrained from using Hebrew with Blake in front of them. The last thing I wanted was to start a conversation about that. Sharing a nationality with someone is also not something that makes me feel instantly close to someone.

I don't like the swimming lessons. Not the drive over, not the pathetic water pressure in the shower or most of the mothers there. But Blake loves it and it's all about him. So I'm really looking forward to going there with him tomorrow morning.

--Mickey

P.S

Just like I said that not all gays are alike, obviously not all mothers are the same. Many are totally awesome.  Peace.

Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore.

I stumbled across this article in Kotaku today. Scrolling quickly through it I was turned off by its epic length and decided it wasn't worth reading. But then a couple of paragraphs caught my eye and I found myself reading it all the way from the beginning. It was truly fascinating.

Japan is a weird country and I was always curious about it. I'm by no means a Japanophile. I'm not into Manga or Anime with very few exceptions (The Battle Royale Manga is sublime), I love Japanese food, but not as much as Mexican and while I enjoy Japanese videogames, I can't say I like them more than western videogames. 

Still, I was curious enough about Japan to learn the language  for four years before (temporarily?) giving up. The plan was for me to visit Japan on my 30th birthday, but Blake's birth threw a wrench in the works. My real dream was to live in Japan for a year or more, but with a baby, husband and two dogs that's impossible to do now, unless we all move together which is even less likely than Miley Cyrus still having a career in twenty years.

But after reading Tim Roger's article I suspect that a two weeks visit would've been more than enough. I always thought Japanese culture was quirky, but reading this makes me suspect it's leaning more towards creepy. I wouldn't know for sure until I lived there myself, but the Japanese people I met outside of Japan were all lovely and adorable.

Kotaku's editors could put a bit more effort into proofreading and the attempt to link every singe category to videogames is a bit unnecessary, but it's still a fantastic read.

So yeah, this column is long, but you kinda wish it went on for longer. Could even be the foundation for a very interesting book.

--Mickey

P.S

I lied. I haven't read it all. It's too long. I got as far as the hostess bars. I'll read the rest tomorrow.

Parent of the Year Award Part 2

I posted the first part back in November, so part 2 is long overdue. Incidently, since then there are a couple of fairly fresh anecdotes to join the pile. It's a listing of various dumb mistakes, some dumber than others, that I have made as a parent. Those delicious "what the hell was I thinking" moments that make you beat yourself up, often more than you deserve. Fortunately I haven't managed to top my running-on-slippery-floor-while-holding-a-baby story, so I guess I'm fairly successful at undumbing.

After Blake started walking days before his first birthday, as expected, he also started falling. We babyproofed the housed as best as we could, including plastic corners for the coffee table, but Blake would just bite those plastic corners until they fell off. Then he'd trip and manage to aim his face directly at the corners, resulting in bruises and one cut that bled a bit and caused us to rush to the hospital for the first time only to have some medical glue applied to the tiny cut. It may have been tiny, but even months later there's still a tiny pink scar left. My mother tells me that I was worse and that as a toddler I was so banged up she could never take any photos of me. I kinda wish I did have banged up baby pictures.

We installed a baby gate only at the top of the stairs as placing one at the bottom made for a far worse tripping hazard for us, especially when we carried Blake. We did a very good job keeping it shut most of the time. Yeah, most. One day I came up with hot porridge and reached the gate. I placed the porridge on the a post while I opened the gate. A big loud "Nooo!" Came from Miron's study. I rushed in to see Blake escape the room the way he always did after being confronted with a crime he commited. Turns out he grabbed a mug full of tea and swung it around, getting tea on the table and leather sofas. I quickly started dabbing the wet areas for some damage control when Miron looked back over my shoulder and said in panic "the stairs!" I looked back and saw that I left the gate open, but Blake wasn't anywhere near it.

"Where is Blake?" I asked, confused by Miron's overreaction. Then I got it. He was already tumbling down the stairs. I ran to the gate and watched him tumble down the rest of the way until he reached the floor and lay there crying. I ran down the stairs screaming his name. I picked him up and rocked him to calm him down. I immediately realized he was OK. The stairs were carpetered and soft and he was tumbling down quite slowly, trying to stop himself several times along the way.

Since then he developed a very careful technique to crawl up the stairs which he then upgraded to crawling down the stairs in reverse. He's now extra careful when approaching not only stairs, but also curbs. I guess they have to get hurt once in a while to understand the concqeunces of being careless in the real world. At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

The next incident up for nomination happened in June when we went to Barbados. We got a lovely house on the beach for a week as a birthday present for Miron and we decided to fill it with our friends, including Blake's biological mother and his half brother, which was great fun. Blake's first encounter with a body of water bigger than his bath was the Caribbean Sea. Smooth, beautiful and clear. I stuck his floating wings on and dashed into the water as soon as we got to the house. I was so excited for him. The water felt nice and we were just standing there, enjoying it. Well, at least I did. Blake looked a bit confused. He was stripped out of his clothes, been put in a swimming diaper and was taken into this massive bathtube without edges. It was a lot to take in.

Though he wasn't just confused, he was also uncomfortable. Suddenly I noticed that his fingers were getting a bit blue. That didn't make any sense, the water wasn't cold at all. How could... My eyes widened in terror when I realized what happened. I waded out of the water as fast as I could. As soon as we were on dry land I yanked off his floating wings. They were  on too tight and stopped his blood circulation. As soon as I took them off he was fine. Phew. His arms falling off on the first day would've totally ruined the holiday. Blake did manage to trip a few days later and chip one of his front teeth though. A really small bit broke off and that was it. He'll have to wait a few years before getting a new one!

There's more, but that will have to wait for part 3. Hopefully by the time I get around to writing part 3 I won't already have enough material for part 4.

--Mickey

Plants VS Zombies VS Mickey

I don't often write movie and game reviews, and I'm not going to start now. This is not really a review as much as a list of suggestions for improvements. The sort of suggestions I would make for internal projects in development the way I did when working in the games industry. Being a designer I almost always think "I wish they did x and didn't do y" when playing videogames, but rarely am I bothered to write it down. I don't expect the people at Popcap to read this and/or implement it. It's more of a cathartic excercise for myself after I've gone cold turkey from game design for nearly two years now. Obviously some of my suggestions won't make much sense to people who haven't played the game.

I'll start by saying that I adore Plants VS Zombies. Even Miron, who usually wouldn't play anything other than Zuma, got hooked and finished it. The game is adorable and addictive. Blake loves the end credits song with the dancing zombies and even attempted to say "Sunflower" as his first word (came out more like safa, but still a good effort). I finished every single challenge in the game on the Mac and recently got and beat the iPhone version. If you have an iPhone get it right now. It is hands down the best game on the apps store right now even with all of its imperfections. It's also great on PC and Mac.

And now come the suggestions. Firstly, aimed specifically at the iPhone version. Considering the game has been so faithfully recreated on the iPhone, why have they removed the mini-games and trophies? The mini-games still appear in the main story mode, but not in their own category with extra levels. Maybe there was a good reason to cut them out, but they were still sorely missed. The prices of plants in the shop haven't been adjusted, so now you have to grind for money in story mode levels which is slow and dull. One quick fix would be to just lower the prices of plants. I finished story mode twice and I'm still a few plants short. The zen garden is missing too, but I can see why it won't work very well on the iPhone.

The achievements are a nice addition, but I wish there were more of them and that they were a bit more sophisticated. A few of them are nice (finish a night level without mushrooms or a roof level without catapults), but there aren't enough of them. There is also no achievement for finishing the game for a second time, oddly enough.

Another problem is the fact that even though there's a huge variety of plants, some of them are overpowered and once you figure out which ones, you won't touch any of the others and the game will become ridiculously easy. It's still quite fun playing with each new plant and find out on your own which plants are more effective, but once you figured it out, it really hurts replayability. I wish there was a hard mode with more aggressive attack patterns and less plants slots so you would have to be far more careful in choosing which plants to pick. The endless mode on the PC/Mac provided this kind of frenzy in the later levels, but I wish the main game also had a bit of that. As it is now I rarely lose a level or even get close to that. As a result it's a fairly relaxing experience rather than an adrenaline rush.

Another problem is the lack of scoring. It doesn't matter if you conquer the level or just about scrape through, your efforts won't be recognized. A ranking system would be nice and will encourage people to replay levels for a better ranking. Ranking score will depend on how much sun you have left in the bank, how many of the plants you planted have survived, how many lawnmowers you still have left and how fast you cleared the level. Using the rake to kill the first zombie will hurt your score. Maybe add a special bonus objective for each level that goes towards the main score. Suddenly it's not about surviving the level, it's about mastering it. Obviously the ranking will also affect the cash reward for beating the level.

It could be argued that this would make the game too hardcore, but I disagree. A separate hard mode is optional, no one is forced to play it. And a ranking system can also be disregarded by people who just want to plough through the game.

Damn it. I almost managed to get through without any gardening puns. Sorry.

Anyway, it's a great game. I just want it to last longer and have features that will keep me coming back for more.


Bring on the sequel!

--Mickey

3/3 Update: I posted a link to this blog post on the PvZ Facebook group. This was the reply from whoever runs the page:

"Thank you for sharing! We did indeed read your suggestions/thoughts regarding the game - and we hope to be able to update the iPhone version in the future!"

 Cool!

10/3 Update: It looks like some people find my blog by googling a solution for the night level without mushrooms achievement. So here's a short guide. Don't bother with it before you finished the game once and unlocked lots of plants. Then from the quick play menu select the first and easiest night time level. Don't use any mushrooms, obviously. Use sunflower (and double sunflower) to pick up sun and use a combo of cheap and expensive plants. Corn is useful to slow down enemies. Use the squash on tougher enemies and those who get too close. You may want to use the garlic in the middle so then you only need to worry about defending four lanes instead of five. Lastly, make sure you buy the garden rake to give you more time to plant sunflowers. I always go for two lines of sunflowers at the very end (ten in total). Good luck!

Videogames portrayal in TV shows.

Some people will argue that watching too much TV will make you stupid. That's partly accurate. If you use prime-time TV shows to learn about the real world, you will irreparably damage your brain. Then again, the dumber you get, the more enjoyable TV shows become. If you know nothing about medicine, law and basic science, shows like CSI, Grey's Anatomy and Ally McBeal feel believable. But as soon as TV shows start dealing with something you know a lot about, the believability crumbles away.

In my case it's videogames. Almost every time a videogame is portrayed in a TV show I cringe and find myself filing many mental notes, including a note about what a nerd I am.

Even when it's close enough, such as the World of Warcraft episode of South Park, "Make Love, Not Warcraft". The episode was created in collaboration with WoW's creators Blizzard Entertainment, but as someone who played the game quite a bit in the past (I know, don't go there) I could spot places where the game wasn't portrayed correctly. You can't level up by killing weak creatures in the same area forever!  Not even slowly. At some point they'll be too low level for you to gain any experience from. (See? Nerd.) At least Trey and Matt got the social commentary aspect spot on, as they often do.

Then you have guilty pleasures like Ghost Whisperer where the bad portrayal of videogames and virtual worlds is consistent with the show's apparent dedication to be perfectly dim in every possible way. When Melinda enters a 3D social network as a 3D avatar and gets into a super hero fight with a 3D avatar controlled  by a ghost in the episode "Ghost in the Machine" you don't find yourself thinking that this is the most annoyingly idiotic thing you have ever seen in your entire life, because if you did you would've stopped watching Ghost Whisperer after a couple of episodes. Jennifer Love-Hewitt gets to show some cleavage, wear a funny wig and indulge in cheap special effects that make Smallville look slick, so not all is lost.

 Intelligent and witty shows like House also can't avoid having a videogame episode. The same formula repeats every episode: a patient is diagnosed with a weird condition. The team keeps diagnosing it wrong until near the end House has an epiphany when he talks about something completely different, usually with Wilson. Still, you ignore that fact and enjoys the show because it is so well written and acted. When the overall writing is good you find yourself to be much more forgiving about unrealistic aspects. That's why I overlooked the terrible portrayal of a virtual reality videogame in the episode "Epic Fail". Pre-rendered 3D animation that didn't look at all videogamey and VR controls that didn't make any sense. Considering the atrocities out there in TV land, this was actually not that bad.

The most annoying portrayal of videogames I have ever seen, though, must be CSI Miami's "Urban Hellraisers". The show features a GTA-like game that players then emulate in real life as the thrills of killing virtual characters just weren't enough for them anymore. Wolfe plays the game to find out where the criminals will strike next. Each time he unlocks a new level they get a clue where the attackers will go next. I guess CSI's advanced computers don't have access to websites like gamefaqs.com where you can read the solutions for practically ever game out there. Fortunately for the crime scene investigators, the game is super linear. Any time you play the game, exactly the same chain of events takes place. I watched the episode and tried imagining playing the game in my head and I just couldn't. Seems to be a co-operative 3D shooter that is also competitive based on score. The game, both the virtual and the real life equivalent, make no sense whatsoever.

Then again, this is CSI. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know when they are being ridiculous. For example, zooming into a grainy security footage to get the reflection from someone's eyeball or scanning a 2D image straight into a 3D model. You must turn a blind eye to the occasional bad science if you're to survive more than two consecutive episodes. Often there's a fun mystery in the heart of the episode that makes it worth it.

But what really got to me was the vilifying of videogames as murder simulators.  The players get massive bonus points for killing innocent civilians and they are happy to do to that in real life because videogames have numbed their moral compass blah blah blah. This comes from a show that uses murders on a tri-weekly base as a source for slick entertainment, including the occasional murder of children. That's without mentioning the many CSI games out there. If the CSI games are anything like the game portrayed in the CSI episode, I think I'll steer clear.

This is just from the top of my head. I'm sure there are lots of other cringingly great examples. Got any?

--Mickey

Gay Dad

The main reason for this blog was to write about the unique experiences of a gay father. So far, fortunately, we've had very few of those. Looking back at all the significant experiences, there was nothing gay about them. We mentioned we were gay parents wherever we took our son (like nursery) just to make sure we got it out of the way at the start to avoid any nasty surprises later and so far absolutely everyone was OK with it.

Probably just dumb luck, but regardless, we have encountered zero homophobia as parents. So far anyway. It's all fine and dandy. I'm all for fighting for gay rights and breaking down doors, I just don't want to use my own son as a battering ram. Some shit will hit some fan at some point, I guess, but  for now I enjoy our family's peaceful existence.

There was also no homophobic comments on my blog yet either.  Not even one. Maybe that's more to do with the fact that my blog get less visitors than a Texas science museum.

Again, not complaining.  Just observing.

--Mickey

Teach Your Baby to Read

Blake isn’t quite speaking yet, which is quite natural for babies growing up in a bilingual household. Additionally, we talk to him mostly in English which isn’t a mother tongue for either of us. When Miron was chatting about it to a friend in New Zealand she suggested the book How To Teach Your Baby To Read as a way to stimulate him and encourage development that will also help with talking.

 

My initial thought was “Whatever”. Some new age crap that belongs on the same bookshelf as “Cleanse Your Baby’s Aura” and “Teach Your Baby To Read Minds”. Babies reading? Pfft, give me a break.

Miron got Teach Your Baby To Read and Teach Your Baby Math and I started reading the reading book just out of curiosity.

I was hooked right away. The book was approaching things from a purely neurological point of view and was very convincing. Take that statement with a grain of salt as all my knowledge in the field comes from watching McDreamy perform brain surgeries on Grey’s Anatomy. Still, it's very well argued and explained very clearly.

I can’t quite summarize the book in one blog post, especially since I’ll butcher it all up and make it sound crap, but the gist of it is quite simple. Glenn Doman explains that the brain develops at its most rapid pace from the inception of the baby until the age six. In the year between five to six alone the brain will develop more than it will from six onwards for the rest of his life. With that logic, it’s best to start teaching babies to read as soon as possible when their brains are information sponges and they are utterly and totally committed to learn whatever they can. I can’t really disagree. I studied Japanese for four years and I bet I can’t keep up with the average four year old Japanese boy. My parents spoke Russian to me exclusively in the first few years of my life and while I can’t speak it very well, I still understand it fairly fluently.

The chapter about teaching your child to read isn’t that long. Most of the book includes lots of fascinating information about the brain development of children with many interesting anecdotes.  There is plenty of repetition of information and ideas, but in a good way, that makes sure anyone can understand it; even me, someone who needs an Idiot’s Guide to the Idiot’s Guides. It’s the most interesting baby-related book I have ever read (I read two including this one, but that’s not the point).

A quick Google search brought up a Wikipedia article in which Doman’s approach has been disputed by other experts. The book is updated, but it is still an aging program from over forty years ago. I also found out that Glenn Doman looks like the KFC Colonel Sanders (which made me like him more).

Still, since someone who used it on her own children personally recommended it to us (and her children, now adults, are high achievers),  I decided to give it a go.  I’m not really recommending the programme myself, at least not yet. To genuinely recommend this book I’ll need to work with Blake for months, or even years, before I can say for sure that it works, but then it might be a bit too late for your kids who’ll be older than they are now. Oh, and if your kids are over six already, my condolences. They might end up collecting shopping carts at a supermarket car park, but they’re still your kids and you should love them anyway.

I bought my copy from Amazon, but I also shopped for various materials at the official site in the US which delivers internationally.
http://www.gentlerevolution.com/

You’re told to work with massive cards which you are meant to create at home, but for the life of Kara Dioguardi I didn’t even know where to start, not to mention that the materials were quite costly and I was meant to make hundreds of these cards. Thankfully you can buy ready made cards from the official website, which I did. It did cost a bundle to deliver to the UK from the US, but I don't regret it. I also got the DVD of the book which is mostly a filmed lecture by Glenn’s daughter, Janet, with lots of tips and visual guides on how to follow the programme.

The guidelines for the cards are a bit too much for me. You're supposed to have five set of five words each to be shown to the baby three times each (a total of fifteen, if you need help with the math). Additionally, each day a word from each set should be replaced by another word and the words should go through a complete cycle which is why it is recommended to write on the back with a pencil the date the last time this word was used. No thank you! A tad too complicated for me. I have five sets, I show them as many times as I can during the day (often less than 15) and I change one word here and there very randomly. I'm just not organized enough to do it properly. The good news? You can't really go wrong with the programme, Glenn Doman explains in the book, as long as you follow it closely enough, there should be results. Maybe with time I'll get a tiny bit more organized. Heh, as I was typing the previous sentence I actually believed it for a second.

I also got lots of materials and created a book with words and pictures taken directly from Blake’s world: himself, daddy, papa, our dogs, his toys and various objects in the house he’s obsessed with like the wireless telephone he likes stealing, chewing and using to call the police.  It took a while to find the right scrap book, printing setting and paper for good quality images and finding a way to make it all stick together (regular glue stick wasn't good enough, so I got the extra strength one).

After a couple of weeks I can’t tell if it’s working yet, but Blake certainly enjoys it and shows a lot of interest in the big red words. He utterly adores the book I made him, but I can’t let him play with it on his own or it will suffer the fate of his many other books – and that’s one book I can’t order again from Amazon! We’re having fun and that alone makes the whole thing worth it.

So get the book, read it and make up your own mind. If you already used it for a while or a long time ago, please let me know!

--Mickey

That's Not My Book!

Often you'd buy a toy for a baby or young toddler and be disappointed to see that not only does he not play with it "the way he's supposed to", he'd often show no interest in it at all. Blake had books from the day he was born, but his early interest in them was to simply turn the pages as fast as possible. It made it an exercise in speed reading for me as I'd try to read the story fast enough, managing only the first 3-4 words.

And then during our trip to Israel in December Blake, seemingly out of nowhere, started bringing a book to us and placed it on our lap in the expectation that we would read it for him. He would turn the pages joyfully, waiting for us to read the entire phrase. Obviously at almost twenty months he couldn't read along yet, but he remembered the length and musical pace of each phrase. He would never turn the page too early and often stop to touch the different textures in the book: fuzzy, smooth, furry, scratchy etc.. That book was That's Not My Bear, a book we got him months before.

That book was used so much during these two weeks that near the end of our trip it completely fell apart. First thing we did when we came back to London was order another That's Not My Bear book together with That's Not My Monster and That's Not My Car. Then I saw in Tesco a boxset of That's Not My Teddy Bear, Puppy and Monkey for only £5 and I still regret not taking a couple more. They were all gone very quickly (usually these books cost £5 each, £3ish on Amazon). I also bought a Peppa Pig boxset which was thoroughly ignored like any other book that didn't belong to the series. B

lake was delighted with his expanded collection and would carry around one of these books with him at all times, often two at a time. After Blake decided to marinade the second Bear book in the dogs' water for three hours, a third one was ordered along with That's Not My Baby and another That's Not My Car as the original Car book is already almost obliterated. We also ordered three of those books as a present for Blake's brother in Canada.

I think on average these books are read to him about 10-20 times per day, almost exclusively on his request and initiative. Thankfully they are quite short. Then again Blake has figured out a trick to make them last longer: he would stop before the last page, knowing that it will conclude the story, and start flipping the pages back. 

I don't get the magic my son sees in these books. I don't know how Fiona Watts and Rachel Wells came with this concept and if they knew it'll be so successful. Buying so many of these books, I bet the royalties from us alone paid for their next vacation. 

                       

But you know what? They earned it.

--Mickey

Baby Gaga

Blake is a big fan of Baby Einstein videos. He worked his way towards the more advanced ones for older kids and is already bored with some of them. He gets to watch one or two a day after a meal. It is a delight to hear him giggle from downstairs or see him get excited over a musical segment.

Since he started walking he'd often walk into my room and show interest in what I'm watching on my computer. He instantly fell in love with the end credits music video from  the game Plants Vs Zombies.  Since the song is sang by a Sunflower, that was Blake's first word, only it came out sounding more like "safa". I also made him a seven minutes video based on videos of him that I filmed during his first year set to Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah. He watches one of these two every night just before going to bed, sitting on my lap in front of my Mac.

A couple of weeks ago two new clips entered his list: Poker Face and Bad Romance by Lady Gaga. He would often come to me while I'm doing something entirely different on the computer and slap my knees. He knows that I know exactly what he means: put me on your knees and give me some Gaga! Can't blame him, I think Bad Romance is a great song with a fantastic music video.

 Walk walk, fashion baby. Work it, move that bitch ka-razy!

The other day he was playing in daddy's study. I opened the TV on a music channel showing the top twenty singles knowing that Bad Romance should be there somewhere. As expected he pretty much ignored the TV until Bad Romance started playing. He immediately dropped everything and walked to the screen in fascination and excitement. He never saw that on a big screen. I tried putting him on my knees, but he wriggled away and walked closer to the screen. As soon as the song ended he lost all interest and resumed playing with his toys on the coffee table. That Lady Gaga knows what she's doing, getting them while they're young.

He's still not really talking, but I won't be surprised if he'd start saying Gaga a lot soon. Too bad he's too young to go see Lady Gaga at the O2 Arena in February next year!

--Mickey

Night of the Living Dead Papa

As I mentioned before (as the millions of followers of this blog clearly remember after memorizing every instant cult classic quotable post) Blake is an easy Baby. He sleeps through the night from two months and the bad nights are very rare and often results in a disturbance of no more than an hour or two. So I shouldn't really whine and complain about it, but then again if I didn't what am I going to write about?

We had a bad night on Tuesday night this week. Since I teach on Tuesdays and Wednesdays it means early mornings and long days with no nap opportunities, so I value my six hours of sleep those nights.

So just as my head hit the pillow the cries started. Sometimes Blake cries in his sleep or wakes up for a second unhappy after banging his head as a result of performing somersaults in his sleep. So I waited for a few long seconds, knowing better than to run into his bedroom and pick him up. As expected (otherwise, that would be a really short and dull anecdote, while instead it's a long and dull one) the cries didn't stop. Oh, another one of those nights.

I went to Blake's bed and picked him up in the dark. Immediately the cries stopped. I took him to his daddy's study and we sat down on the sofa. He gazed up at me in the dark as I sang to him Wheels on the Bus and I'm the Music Man with my mesmerizing, beautiful and haunting voice (I'm thinking of starting a new career as a pop singer with the stage name Lady Papa). Actually I can barely hold on to the right note with a lot of considerable effort, but looking at Blake's response to my singing you'd think I was Edith Piaf. If I want Blake to come I can call his name until I am blue in the face, but if I sing he'd beeline towards me from the other side of the house. So as I was going through these two songs for the millionth time he just lay there and smiled sweetly having the time of his life.

Usually when Blake wakes up in the middle of the night, giving him the benefit of the doubt, I used to assume that he was in actual pain from teething, gas or something else he couldn't communicate to me. That would usually result in giving him Calpol and sitting him in the kitchen in front of the laptop to watch Baby Einstein while waiting for the medicine to kick in. Since that worked like a charm it was easy to assume that the medicine took the pain away, but it was more likely that it just knocked him out as a side effect, giving him just the right nudge needed to go back to sleep. The thing was, he only cried in his bed. As soon as I picked him up or took him to our bed, he'd quiet down. Obviously he wasn't in real pain.

It was then very clear that he simply woke up in the middle of the night wide awake and bored to death. He didn't like lying alone in the dark cooped up in his cot so he'd scream and scream knowing that he will be eventually rescued. I took him back to his bed and decided to let him cry it out. I shouldn't help him develop bad habits. There was still some light in his room from the night light and he had a few toys in his bed. It's not as if I buried him alive in a coffin - though you might think that hearing his screams. I waited until his screams subsided and he fell asleep - only to be woken up several times each time his screams started again. Like many other parents I decided to postpone the development of my child's habits to a different unspecified time and took him into our bed.

I stuck him in the middle between Miron and me. He lay there happily for a few seconds, enjoying his triumph. I enjoyed the lack of screaming, so I thought it was a fair deal all around and dozed off into sweet bliss - only to be woken up with a swift kick to the head. Again and again. At some point Miron tried to grab Blake and hold him close which was party done out of sheer affection and partly as a sweet attempt to protect me from the little ninja. It was no good. For the next fifty minutes I kept falling asleep only to be woken up by kicks, slaps and bumps as Blake was having the time of his life. This must be against the Geneva convention: Letting an exhausted prisoner fall asleep only to wake him up abruptly again and again is a despicable form of torture. Eventually I had enough and decided to take Blake back to his bed as suddenly listening to his screams seemed like a great idea.

I carried him to bed and placed him on the mattress and... Nothing. He silently rolled onto his side. I rushed to bed and fell asleep before anything else happened. Four hours were still better than none. Blake woke up extra early the following morning, costing me additional fifteen minutes on the other end  of the night, but who's counting?

Seasoned parents probably expect a twist that takes this to the next level. What, that's it? That's what I'm whining about? Well, yes. Being woken up from deep sleep physically was an immensely unpleasant experience. I guess being so lucky with Blake means that when those bad nights happen they have a more significant effect since I'm no longer used to them.

So I'm not really sure if I'm seeking sympathy or showing off...

--Mickey

Super Awesomeness!!!

I just wrote a long blog post for about thirty minutes and then comes lovely little Dexter with a dirty toy and dropped it on the keyboard just after I marked all the text in order to format it. All the text disappeared and before I could do anything Blogger's helpful feature kicked in: Auto-save! Yay! It's all gone.

All gone!!!

Gah.

Little bugger is very lucky that he's so cute and beautiful..!

--Mickey

Parent of the Year Award Part 1

Having a baby is scary. You have this fragile creature in your hands and you are so terrified that you’ll make some stupid mistake that will hurt him or worse. You try your best, but no matter what there will always be brief lapses of judgement, oversights or a combination of circumstances outside your control that will make you a nominee for parent of year award. Maybe some parents are so careful and so lucky that their babies grow up all the way to old age without a scratch. I am not one of those parents.

Just before Blake turned one month old, days before his second visit to our local paediatrician in Toronto, a red mark appeared on his left armpit. It looked red and nasty. Immediately we started panicking and wondering what might have caused it. What kind of stupid thing have we done to our tiny little baby? Was it from the one time I pulled him up from the front of his onesie? Did we leave some object in his bed? Theories were flying around and soon so were accusations. Oh God, the embarrassment facing the paediatrician with this injury. They were right all along: Gay people shouldn't be parents!

It turned out to be a perfectly normal birthmark that should disappear in a few years. Maybe Blake won’t be able to model sleeveless shirts any time soon, but that was all it was. We did nothing wrong after all.

The next scare, I’m afraid, was entirely my fault. Probably one of the dumbest things I have ever done in my entire life, and boy I have done dumb things. Even now, almost a year later, thinking about it gives me chills. It was December and Blake was only six months. We came back from a visit to friends out of the city and we just drove back and parked outside of our house. The dogs were in the very back of the car and I was sitting with Blake in the back seat. It was cold and drizzly outside and I had to take Blake out of car seat, put him in his little snuggly snowsuit and go home. Then again it was literally a twenty seconds walk. Should I really bother dressing him up and then undress him back inside for twenty seconds? Less if I walked faster. I suspect you see where this story is going.

Ignoring my husband’s request to dress my son up, I was very clever and simply took him out of the car and walked home fast. No, not walked. I think I actually dashed. Then happened something that has never happened to me in the six years I lived in that house in Finchley. I slipped. There were wet winters before, there was even ice and snow. But I never actually slipped and fell crashing into the ground. And this time I was moving fast and holding the dearest cargo in the entire world in my hands. The entire world shook and WHAM. There I was on my knees with a screaming baby in my hands.

I wobbled up to my feet mumbling “on no” again and again. Miron came out of the car and was entirely calm.

“What happened?” He said quietly. “Shall we go back into the car and drive to the hospital?”

Miron usually freaks out if a glass of juice spills on the carpet or if I forget to take the wet washing to hang and it get all wrinkly. So when he’s cool as ice I know he’s beyond freaking out. Complete and utter shock, you might say. There we were standing in the cold, dark and wet driveway outside our house completely helpless.

“He’s crying, I guess that’s good.” I was saying without convincing myself. I looked the screaming boy all over, especially his head. No bumps, no bruises, no bleeding. He looked fine.

Then I looked down and realized why. My nice trousers were torn at the knees and my knees were all bloodied. Falling down I grabbed Blake close to my chest and broke the fall with my knees. What I lacked in common sense I made up for with paternal instincts. 

We walked inside and I put Blake in front of Baby Einstein. He immediately calmed down and stared and the screen with wet eyes. I looked him all over very careful. He must have got a bit of a jolt and a scare, but he was fine. But what if I didn’t break the fall with my knees, what if… Too awful to even think about. That night we checked on him every thirty minutes or so. For the next week I had a difficult time climbing the steps and couldn’t go down on my knees to change diapers, instead having to get down and up in an awkward and uncomfortable manner. I totally deserved these little reminders of how stupid I was.

I was just lucky. Some parents pay the ultimate price for the tiniest mistake, the briefest lack of judgement. It was the dumbest mistake I have done as a parent, probably as a human being, but unfortunately not the last…

To Be Continued!  (Go to part 2)

--Mickey

I'll Get You The Moon and the Stars

Blake loves bath time. He also loves the bathroom in general. The door must be closed otherwise Blake will wander in and throw anything that's not nailed down into the bathtub. Or he might walk out sucking on some shampoo bottle before spilling it in my room. Or decide to run around with my shaving razor.

A couple of days ago we were having a very lovely bath-time. Papa (that would be me) and Blake in the bath and daddy was sitting outside. In the bath Blake likes to play with a set of three squeaky toys, purple octopus, green frog and blue whale. There's also a small squeaky pirate captain, among other floating bits. The highlight is a set of foam shapes that were a gift from a good friend who also designed the illustrations on them.

When wet you can stick them to the tiles and they'll stay attached fairly firmly. At first Blake's only interest in them was to stick them in his mouth and leave little bite marks on them. I'd stick them to the tiles and he'd watch with interest. Later he'd reach out and pluck them off the wall... And stick them in his mouth. As long as he wasn't biting me, I was content.

Then one day Blake decided to attempt sticking them on the tiles himself. The problem was that he had a finger between the sponge and the tile, so it never made full contact with the wall and fell to the water when he let go. Blake wasn't visibly disappointed or annoyed, he simply studied the results of his careful lab experiment. Eventually there were several successful attachments.

So two days ago as we were having our bath, I was inside with Blake helping him stick sponges to tiles. He then took the squeaky purple octopus and tried sticking it to the tiles. Needless to say, the big heavy lump of rubber dropped immediately.

'Oh, Blake. There's nothing I want more than for that piece of rubber to stick to the tiles, but it's not going to happen.'

'There are far more important things in the world than this toy sticking to the tiles.' Daddy said with a smile that was both forgiving and patronizing.

It was a somewhat silly statement on my part and it was certainly not true that wishing a rubber toy to stick to the wall was in fact what I wanted more than anything else. But then I looked at Blake as he attempted to stick to the wall another toy and I realized that I felt that way regardless of how pointless it was. It made me finally understand what it means to promise someone the moon and the stars. This unrealistic desire to fulfil a loved one's most impossible wishes.

Because at that moment the world ceased to exist for Blake. It was just him and his experiment. The only thing on his mind was whether the toy will stick to the wall or not. The toy falling into the water was surely a disappointment and a failed experiment, but a necessary part of growing up. For babies and toddlers pretty much any action they take is an experiment in which they learn basic physics and the world around them. Sometimes these experiments could be painful and sometimes just disappointing.

So seeing Blake fail at something, even if it's something as simple as sticking things on the wall, breaks my heart just a tiny little bit. I want him to have a magic touch and defy the law of physics to his own delight. I know it's not going to happen, but I still feel that way.

This utterly ridiculous anecdote is a good example to just how weird people get once they become parents. Or maybe it's just me... Apologies if you expected a funnier payoff to this anecdote like Blake maybe taking a dump in the bath or something.

--Mickey