Family Matters, Week of 11-13-05

Each week I do a family rundown. Welcome to it.

Annie

Yesterday we tried our hand at playing a boardgame with Annie. The boardgame in question was the ubiquitous Candy Land, which lives up to its name when you have a little sister trying to steal all of the pieces. Meanwhile the big sister is concerned only with having the pieces talk to one another “You wanna be my friend Mr. Green? Hi friend…”

The worst was not explaining the simple mechanics of the game, but rather trying to explain which direction the pieces were going in, why they were going there, and why Annie had to almost start over when she flipped up the Candy Cane icon when she was nearing the end. She wasn’t focused so much on winning but rather making her way to the Candy Castle.

Which is ironic because apparently King Kandy rules Candy Land. Not that we want to actually teach correct spellings, or anything. Dear Milton Bradley: The complexity of christian names and their derivatives really isn’t needed here.

Anyway, after all was said and done more was said than done and Ericka finally pulled a sly piece-swap trick to get Annie to the finish line sometime before the night was over. With the amount of spaces, cards, and time it takes to actually make your way to King Kandy and his Krazy Kastle, you could potentially play the damn game forever in some sort of terrible cosmic loop.

“So,” a random guy wonders, “what happened to John?” The other man puts his head in his hands.  “Ooooh, right. Candy Land. I’ll miss him.”

Ahem.

Abby

Abby is suffering from Little Sister Syndrome. Annie recently…

– Stole Abby’s toy for the 400th time
– Stole Abby’s blanket for the 1000th time (she even steals it when they’re going to sleep.)
– Pushed Abby down
– Pushed Abby into a wall (and caused a sizable pump knot)
– Tries to get Abby in trouble for thing’s she didn’t do.

That last item is more significant than you think. Annie has taken DVDs off the shelf (a big no-no), carried them to the center of the room while we weren’t looking, dumped them, and then just as Abby gets around to picking one up…

“Abby’s playing with the DVDs!”

I fell for this once, punishing Abby for something she didn’t do. The second time Ericka told me what Annie did, and so a spanking ensued. You think this would refrain the big sister from sabotaging the other one, but nooOOoo. The blame game doesn’t stop in the Erwin household. It just keeps on…truckin.

Abby, meanwhile, has learned to say “Sister” and “Mean” very well and uses them in conjunction quite a bit.

At least she’s broadening her vocabulary.

Ericka (her blog)

Good news! Ericka sent off those cheesecake samples to the local restaurant my Father in law works and…they liked one of them! She sent four samples, but one out of four isn’t bad, particularly when she can use this as a starting point for bigger and better things. Ericka and I are (of course) thrilled, and I hope they can agree on a price point that benefits everyone.

Ericka’s worrying about pricing, but I’m nothing but proud. She has wanted to make and bake desserts for a living, and this is step number one. History in the making here folks. One day soon I fully expect her to shed her part time job woes and explode onto the baking scene. Rachel Ray may be hot, but this momma is hotter!

Etc

Here’s neat stuff I found on the web this week. Use and abuse accordingly:

– Threadless – The best T-Shirt site I have ever found. Period. My favorites so far: Jesus Jedi and Dark Side of the Garden. Note, these are just Star Wars themed ones, but there is a HUGE selection of cool, interesting, and ironic shirts. My wife loves this one too, so it’s not all geek. Wow this site is amazing.

– Put Geeksquad Out of Business – Run your own VNC listen server. What does that mean in english? That you can click on a link, run a program, then I can see your desktop and fix your computer problems.

– Blue Ball Machine – Be careful, you could just lose yourself watching this one.

– Live Skeleton Drawing (Flash) – From blank canvas to skeleton to person…just brilliant.

– Map Sex Offenders – The most interesting use of Google Maps I’ve seen in quite a while. And creepy, too.

– 10-4 Good Buddy – Someone connected to the kid featured on this site asked me to call attention to this one, and I’m no stranger to helping out folks in need. If you feel the urge to help out, buy a book or give them some cash.

And…that’s all for me. See you tomorrow.

Old school Hollywood
Washed up Hollywood