Stay at Home Dad: Naps Rock

 Autumn, Board Games, Family, Food, Parenting  2 Responses »
Feb 032011
 

Finally, something light and happy to finish off some thoughts on parenting. I’m writing this while Autumn is napping. She naps 2-3 hours every day. One great thing about staying home with her is that I get all that time to myself.

Below is a list of the things I do with my time.
1. Read. A lot. I’ve read more here than I ever have.

2. Cook. Bread, chocolate covered cream puffs, caramel sauce, popovers, and dinner 4 nights a week.

3. Clean. I’m home the most, so I do a lot of the housework. I’ve never done so much sweeping in my life thanks to our windows being open 24/7/365 .

4. Surf the internet.

5. Board Games. Unfortunately I don’t get to play them while Autumn sleeps. So I do the next best thing. I think about them, read about them, watch videos about them, and join in online discussions about them.

Having the rare privilege of spending so much time with my daughter is pretty amazing when I think about it.  But so is having nap time. Have I squandered much of it away? Yes. But I’ve also read a lot of good books and cooked some tasty treats. Because of all this free time I can now make some pretty great bread, I can recommend to you a board game that you are guaranteed to like, and I can have an intelligent conversation about the science fiction genre and its answers to the question, “What does it mean to be human?”

Autumn isn’t too far away from not needing naps, but I’m going to hold on to them for as long as I can because they are one of the best parts of the day.

And she just woke up. I gotta go.

Haiku Master

 Board Games  Comments Off
Nov 142009
 

HaikuI just found out that I am one of the winners in a haiku contest.

Haiku’s are very short poems. We learned in 8th grade that a haiku has 3 lines. The first line has 5 syllables, the second 7, and the third 5. When I was in 8th grade I wrote many haikus. I remember writing one about spatulas. It probably went something like this.

I like spatulas.
They flip pancakes on griddles
and they’re used to spank.

So when I heard about a haiku contest on Boardgamegeek.com I decided to enter. The contest was put on by Thoughthammer.com, who sells board games.

The rules were that you had to use the words “thought” and/or “hammer” in your haiku. Geek stereotyping was encouraged. So I got to work and 5 minutes later I was finished and submitted my poem.

Then I promptly forgot about it until yesterday when I saw an update on boardgamegeek.com. The winners had been announced. I hadn’t gotten an email, so I figured I hadn’t won. But as I read through the winners I came across a familiar poem.

I was in the second tier of winners, the Haiku Masters. Did I win anything for being a Haiku Master? I couldn’t remember. Apparently I get a game or a gift card or something like that.

Does that matter? Yes.

What mattered more, though, was that it totally made my day to win a little haiku contest. It was like all those awful haikus in 8th grade were redeemed.

I am proud of my win. Seriously. Did I beat out true poets? No. Did I write something profound or true? No. But I hoped it was a little clever. Apparently it was just clever enough. I feel proud of that, even though it is something of no importance at all.

So here is the winning poem and below is a link to the other winners.

Thoughts dwell on games lost
Tears warp cardboard and flow down
To mom’s basement floor

http://www.thoughthammer.com/2009ThoughtHaikuWinners.html

Happy Halloween!

 Autumn, Board Games, Holiday  Comments Off
Nov 012009
 

Halloween_011_thumb.JPGThis year Autumn decided to be a ladybug. She was inspired by her ladybug book with a ladybug rhyme, plastic ladybug toys, and the general cuteness factor. She even convinced her Aunt Mary to give her a ladybug outfit, such was her excitement.

Autumn was able to go trick-or-treating twice this week. On Friday she crashed the preschool’s Halloween party and did “Trunk or Treat” in the parking lot with the big kids. She didn’t really care about the candy but thought the packaging was pretty, and enjoyed everyone’s attention and compliments.

Last night we went to a boardgame party in the middle of the island so had to explore the neighborhoods for trick-or-treat action. Since we were out a little early, 6pm, there weren’t any kids out. Fortunately we happened upon a church “children’s party” and went to that. Autumn “tossed” bean bags, rolled bowling balls, got stamped, and watched match cars racing down tracks. She also pointed at other kids’ outfits and cried when a lady tried to paint a ladybug on her hand.

Returning to the board game party, we were able to lay Autumn down to sleep in a pack-n-play in the other room. Then we ate chili and cookies and played Ghost Stories to be thematic. At 10:30 we decided we should leave because Clayton had to work in the morning and by then we had played 4 games and met a couple of new people. All in all a really good evening and fun Halloween events.

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