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for the love of the game

mae's entry:

Aiden's fine motor skills have improved recently, thanks to his love for gaming.

I don't mean using the game console (although I'm sure that has helped) but his writing and drawing skills.

Aiden is in full-day kindy now, and doesn't get a peep of gaming in school, but they do channel his interest in Playstation/Wii/PSP games into "offline" activities that are, shall we say, healthier (I'm not going to go into the benefits or hazards of gaming). The daily arts and crafts sessions in school are normally a free-for-all, where kids are allowed to create anything they like, and so Aiden has begun to 'write' his own game-inspired stories in little hand-bound pages that form a 'book'.

Until recently, the stories that he's been 'writing' in school have been pages of rainbow-coloured squiggles. But lately, perhaps in the last couple of weeks, he's been coming home with more legible titles/words.

It started out amusingly enough with brand names, like Sony (our client will be proud), PSP, PS3, XBox, Wii. I joked to Andy, 'What ever happened to regular words in a kid's vocabulary, like "cat", "dog" or "cow"?'

From brand names, it progressed to "Loco Roco Part 2" (side note: there was a non-gaming drawing for me that he titled "Lipstik" that melted my heart.)

And just last week, he had written "Katamari" as one of the titles of his books and despite the naysayers that pooh-pooh gaming, I'm really proud that he can spell and write such a long word.

I'm not sure if it's because of the industry we work in, or that we love gaming ourselves, but we were more amused than disdainful when Aiden announced this evening that he wants to be a "Katamari-roller" when he grows up. (About a month ago, Aiden said he wanted to be "a game designer, like Daddy." Cue stirring music with rising crescendo in the background, with the proud father beaming.)

Next step: To have the boys move up from playing "Cooking Mama" (cooking simulation game) to actually cooking us some meals.

a laptop drawing

mae's entry:

Aiden has been drawing more and more lately. No surprise that most of his drawings feature an electronic gadget ever so often.

He drew a laptop last week - half the page had tiny boxes like a keyboard, and the other half (the screen) was quite plain except for some squiggles in the centre.

So I asked what was on the screen, expecting a fantastic story of an elephant, or some adventure since he's quite fond of making up rather imaginative stories. But instead, he explained, "Oh it says: 'Webpage cannot be loaded'. There's an error, Mummy. Perhaps we might need to close Chrome and try another browser."

It had me in stitches. It's not just the lingo (that he probably picked up from Andy & I) but that he did a drawing of an error with troubleshooting advice. I'm sure some other parent would find this incredibly tragic, but we love the inclination toward geekdom. Welcome to the club, Aiden.

the power of two

mae's entry:

Elliot loves telling people that he's 2 years old, accompanied by holding up his fingers in a peace sign, but it sometimes requires some thought. He alternates organising his fingers between 2 & 3 and peers with a mixture of concentration and confusion, as though he has one finger too many and that his fingers have conjoured up a hide-and-seek dance.

All in all, pretty cute for this indulgent parent.

elliot's new phrase

This weekend Elliot has Mae and I in stitches with his new catchphrase... he'll bring something (like a piece of bread or his cloth) to his nose, inhale deeply then say: "It smells like GOOD!"

sharing is good...most of the time

mae's entry:

I was putting Elliot to bed tonight and I could just barely see in the dark that he had most of his hand in his mouth - it looked like he was sucking on all 4 fingers, and I'm sure if there were space for his thumb, he would have included it too.

So I gently removed his hand and said not to suck on his fingers.

Before I knew what hit me, I had a couple of wet fingers halfway in my mouth, with Elliot exclaiming "You try!"

Blech. Not surprisingly, he found my disgust amusing (I attribute this to his being male) and tried his luck again. Ah, wet fingers with germs. The gift that keeps on giving!

getting air

I love this photo of Elliot in mid-jump. He was kind enough to oblige me in repeated jumps until I managed to catch him in mid-air.

mom, interrupted.

mae's entry:

As Aiden wolfed down a muffin today, I saw a sleeve-ful of crumbs.

He has recently started a habit in the last month of wiping his mouth on his sleeve, to my chagrin.

So I start with my Parent Voice That is Firm:
"Your sleeve is not a napkin. Please use a tissue to wipe your mouth. There are heaps of crumbs on your sleeves when I do the laundry. Clearly, you are..."

"...HUGGABLE!" Aiden interrupts with a wide crumb-encrusted grin.

I stop in mid-sentence. We sometimes play a game called "You are huggable" but this clearly wasn't playtime and I was using my Firm Voice no less.

And yet, I feel...myself...smile.

Aaarrghs. Parenting Mistake #392 is smiling when you're supposed to be disciplining.

Sheesh. Thrown for a loop by a 4-yr-old.

the wordsmith

mae's entry:

Aiden loves using big words to the point where Andy & I sometimes wonder where he picks them up since we don't use the words in everyday conversation (and we can't take credit for teaching him those words either.)

He sometimes doesn't use the words correctly (he's just 4 after all), but it does make for interesting conversation with him.

Here are some words which he's used recently:

1. Voyage

When we went on the Singapore Flyer (it's like the London Eye), Aiden said, "We're going on a voyage! We're going to the top of the world!"

2. Discard

He has a collection of CDs, and as he thumbed through the folder he picked one out, "It's scratched and I should discard it. But I still want it in my collection."

Ok - this one got me. If Andy or I need to throw something out, we'd say "ditch it", "bin it", "chuck it"...anything colloquial really. But we sure don't say "discard".

3. Betray

As we were heading out of the house yesterday, Aiden wanted to take some of his craft work to the car, but Andy asked him to leave it at home.

Aiden replied: "Daddy, I don't mean to betray you, but I just thought you might want to look at it in the car."

I guess he meant "disobey" but he got the essence of it I think. Andy and I definitely don't use "betray" in everyday conversation, so we have no idea where he picked this up from.

4. App

Short form for "Application" (i.e. software), and used in the context of apps for my iPhone.

Aiden saw the Apple/Mac logo as a decal on a car and said, "Look, there's an app on the car"!

I guess it would make sense that he thought App was short for Apple instead.

5. A synonym for big

We were in a toy store and of course the boys gravitate toward the large toys with bells and whistles and in this case, a pseudo laptop with a voice prompt and a microphone.

The friendly American female voice said: "Now say the biggest word you can think of!"

And Aiden gleefully responds: "ENORMOUS! GIGANTIC!"

So we explain that the question is asking for hardest, longest word one can think of, not a synonym for big.

And Aiden thinks a while before offering: "Circulatory system? Respiratory system?"

As he's been learning about the human body in school, it wasn't so surprising. But what did amuse me is that he had to add at the end that his favourite system is the urinary system, because he likes the kidneys (well, someone's gotta love them kidneys).

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And now for not so big words, but ones that surprise us nonetheless:

1. "Gimme some skiiin"

He put his hand out too (for some skin, dude), so I reciprocated and it had me in stitches.

I have no idea who replaced him with an American teen for those moments, but thankfully it just happened once last week and we haven't had a repeat performance since.

2. Of course

Aiden uses this in lieu of a plain "yes", most of the time as a way to launch into a lengthy response.

3. Loyal

There has been a lot of pretend play where Aiden rolls around a large inflatable ball around, like his favourite Playstation game, Katamari (the aim of the game is that the player roll up items in the path of the katamari ball, and these items stick to the ball).

So Aiden rolls up to Andy and says, "I'm stuck on you, I'm loyal."

We did explain the right meaning of loyal, but I did enjoy seeing the word 'loyal' in a new way, as though someone's stuck on you.

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And lest we forget Elliot, we do delight in the babytalk and mispronounced words that we know won't last for long.

1. Constable - i.e. Comfortable

2. "L" is pronounced as "W" in most words:

Eh- yut - Elliot

Gowilla -Gorilla

Pway-gwoun - Playground

3. "R" is pronounced as "W" most times:

Gwandma, Gwandpa, Gwanny Eh-yee - last one is Granny Ally

Bea-tuhs Wock Band - Beatles Rock Band

Can't weech it - a favourite phrase when he can't reach something that's intentionally put up high.

spot the sleeping child

When I went to wake the boys this morning, it took me a while to find Aiden... he was well camouflaged.

birthday suggestion

I was chatting to the boys a couple of days ago,

actually, mostly to Aiden, but Elliot was there

we were talking about it being the end of October, and soon it would be November.

And I said "Hey, Mummy's birthday is coming up...

"what do you think we should get for her present?"

"what would she like?"

and elliot piped up "COFFEE"

I said "you think we should get coffee for Mummy for her birthday?" and they both thought that was a good idea.

Sweet boys.

writing

Recently Aiden has learnt to write his name. He takes great care to get the shapes right - joining up the little parts of letters that didn't get closed properly.

a&e, b&w