Perfect

"Dad, I don't wa-a-a-nt to play Wii Golf."

This is how it starts. My 9-and-a-half-year-old daughter (the half means "halfway to me buying a shotgun") sits criss-cross-applesauce on the Sumosac in the corner. I've recently lost her into a fathoms-deep angst following her emergence from all 7 "Harry Potter" books in two weeks, only to realize that nobody would arrive on her 11th birthday to whisk her off to Hogwarts. To deal with her depression, she's re-reading "Half-Blood Prince" again. For the 11th time.

Frustrated, I turn off the Wii. "Well, what do you want to play?"

My question falls on deaf ears. She's disappeared back into her book again.

I cross the stained Berber carpet and flop dramatically next to her.

"OK, Jen. If you made the perfect game, what would it be like?"

Unable to resist, Jen puts the book down.

"Well, it wouldn't be a Harry Potter game, although that could be fun," she says.

"Really?" I say, genuinely surprised. "Why not? I figured right about now you'd be begging for a Harry Potter game."

She pauses thoughtfully. "I guess parts could be good, like Quidditch. But I'd already know everything that would happen, like the Lego games. They're boring."

We own all the Lego games: Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Batman. Jen will sit on the couch while her younger brother Peter plays, helping him through tough spots. Generally, however, she's interested just in the cut scenes, looking up from her books, knitting or drawing only to consume the small bits of brick-enabled story.

"So then, what do you do in Jen's game?"

She pauses for a minute, and I let the silence sit. Outside, wild turkeys are pecking at the thyme that's gone to seed in the grass. Jen and I watch for a few moments.

"It starts with just being me," she says hesitantly. "Like I'm a character in Free Realms, or one of your games, where you look at your character on the screen."

"That's called 'third person'," I explain. She stares at me blankly. "So you're playing yourself?"

"Right," she says. "Except the game starts in College."

"That sounds kind of boring," I suggest. "Not even like Wizard College?"

She shoots me a disapproving glance. "No. Just college," she continues archly. "And you start with like a blank game. You have to pick your major, find roommates, get an apartment. You have to buy all your clothes and get furniture for your room and stuff. And the game gives you lists of stuff to do."

This sounds eerily familiar.

"So, what's the point?"

Her eyes drift back out to the turkeys. They've moved to the stream at the bottom of the hill.

"Make money, have kids, get famous, travel the world, write books, make movies. Stuff like that." she says. "You know, to be happy."

She's just invented The Sims. Unprompted, she's stepped outside the boundary of every game she's ever played, or seen me play, and come up with the idea for the best selling PC game franchise in history.

"OK, I think I get it," I demur. "But it sounds totally boring. How is that fun?"

She adopts the voice she uses for talking to small children.

"Well you see, what's my favorite thing to do? Tell stories, write stories, act out stories. Right? Well, in the game, I'd get to make all those stories happen. And I could learn stuff too. Like, how to get a job and how to shop for furniture or whatever. So it would be like trying out being me, just older. I could even get married and have kids without all the gross snogging."

She hides her mouth as she snickers. "Snogging" is her new favorite word, thanks to Harry Potter. But when the smile fades, I see the anxiety of pre-teen insecurity in the corners of her mouth. In the way her eyebrows stay tight just a second too long.

The room is still. The turkeys outside have moved on to better forage. I force myself to let the silence sit again.

In my heart, I say "don't grow up" 10 times fast. A fervent prayer for frozen time.

Her eyes stay focused outside. I hug her tight like a ball.

"And if I mess up, I could just start over again."

--
(Image courtesy Oobinoobie)

Comments

Lex Cayman wrote:
carljetter wrote:

Being small town Nebraska

What part of Nebraska?

There are parts?

What culture sits cross-legged like that, Native Americans or folks from the Asian sub-continent?

mudbunny wrote:
In my heart, I say "don't grow up" 10 times fast. A fervent prayer for frozen time.

My daughter is only 4 and I say this little prayer to myself every night when I tuck her in bed.

Bean just turned 8. I say that prayer every day. It goes by too fast. I can't wait to see how she turns out, but she's so precious right now. I don't want to lose my little girl.

wordsmythe wrote:
Lex Cayman wrote:
carljetter wrote:

Being small town Nebraska

What part of Nebraska?

There are parts?

Of course. We have the flat parts, and the mostly-flat-but-sandy parts, and the cow-poop-smelling parts, and the corn-covered parts, and let's not forget the Great Platte River Road Archway. You need to get out and live a little.

Novocain wrote:
criss-cross-applesauce

OMG, my kids said that the other day and threw me for a loop. I had to ask them to show me what they meant.
Then I thought we were the only insane parents that managed to send our kids to some insanely PC pre-school.

Indian-style FTW.

Julian's patois can be quite folksy What with his "pig piles" and whatnot.

ubrakto wrote:
mudbunny wrote:
In my heart, I say "don't grow up" 10 times fast. A fervent prayer for frozen time.

My daughter is only 4 and I say this little prayer to myself every night when I tuck her in bed.

Seconded. Mine is 5 and about to start Kindergarten in a couple weeks. I'm simultaneously excited and terrified.

I am torn on this. My daughter is a little over a year and a half, and she's amazing to watch right now. She's adorable and brave and simply watching her puzzle out the world is breath taking so I feel like I don't want her to grow out of this stage too quickly. On the other hand, though, I am intensely curious to see the women she's going to become.

Awesome article Rabbit!

killer_b wrote:

Wow, I never realized "Indian Style" was derogatory.

I hadn't really thought of that before. I just grew up (35 now) hearing it called that and carried it into my adult life. I wouldn't have raised an eyebrow to "criss cross applesauce" if I never had a child of my own. Which brings me to the reason I'm posting

Excellt job, Rabbit. My daughter just turned 11 a couple of weeks ago and you hear more and more of those trains of thought the older they get. We had a similar conversation just three days ago during a long car ride and I swear I looked in the rearview mirror to see her as my first grader all over again. Until the iPod came out again.

I had always assumed that "Indian-style" was a reference to the way in which Hindu gods are depicted as sitting:

IMAGE(http://truereligiondebate.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/hindu-god.jpg)

Good article, Julian.

I always used "cross-legged" because "Indian-style" vaguely sounds like a description of something alot more fun than sitting down.

Is "Native American style" still okay? More PC but less catchy.

Awww, that's adorable.

And now this makes me want to play The Sims.

LobsterMobster wrote:

As for "Indian Style," I do feel a little uncomfortable with the racial connotations and find it just as easy to call it "cross-legged." I also find that a lot more descriptive as I'd imagine more recent generations have no idea how the stereotype of an Indian sits.

Which Indian are we talking about here anyway? Not that it takes away any of the racial connotation, but I at least want to know who I may be offending.

Man, you people are making me cry at work, too!

My son told me last night that he didn't want to get under the covers because "There are Dreams in there".

Wikipedia seems to think it's a fashion that tailors and ground-sitting nomads have preferred for centuries, though it's also a yoga position.

Doesn't seem to be sourced, though.

Lex Cayman wrote:
carljetter wrote:

Being small town Nebraska

What part of Nebraska?

I grew up in North Loup Nebraska, Population 350. SALUTE!!

Carl

Wow, just wow.

wordsmythe wrote:
Lex Cayman wrote:

What part of Nebraska?

There are parts?

One liner of the day.

ubrakto wrote:
mudbunny wrote:
In my heart, I say "don't grow up" 10 times fast. A fervent prayer for frozen time.

My daughter is only 4 and I say this little prayer to myself every night when I tuck her in bed.

Seconded. Mine is 5 and about to start Kindergarten in a couple weeks. I'm simultaneously excited and terrified.

8 and a half(Also meaning 'half way to buying a shotgun') and 11 months(as of today, in fact). This one stays in the heart, every time I see them or hear them.

Rabbit, outstandingly written as always. I too, am sitting at my desk with misty eyes and swiftly dampening cheeks. Over the last few months I've gotten to watch my 3 grow up through photos and video, flabbergasted at how different they are now from the way they were in March when I came to TX for school. Mrs AnimeJ has made two trips by car of nearly 2000 miles round trip each(I love my wife, ever the pinnacle of what it is to be a military spouse, dancing backwards in high heels) and was floored each time at how they'd grown, changed and become a little bit more of their own person, and less of the formless clay they were last time. It's greatly more evident in the younger two as opposed to my oldest, but there nonetheless.

Ultimately though, I find these vignettes interesting for many of the reasons others do. It's fascinating to see it from another's perspective. Personally, I read and reread them, wondering how it will be with my youngest, whom I will have influence on for her entire life, excepting the time I'm away for Temporary Duty Assignments, Deployments to the dry, hot sandpit of the world and other sundry locations.

You know what Julian? The brilliance of so much of your writing is that you manage to make me feel nostalgic, depressed, and happy all at the same time when I read these things.

Fyedaddy wrote:
killer_b wrote:

Wow, I never realized "Indian Style" was derogatory.

I hadn't really thought of that before. I just grew up (35 now) hearing it called that and carried it into my adult life. I wouldn't have raised an eyebrow to "criss cross applesauce" if I never had a child of my own. Which brings me to the reason I'm posting

Excellt job, Rabbit. My daughter just turned 11 a couple of weeks ago and you hear more and more of those trains of thought the older they get. We had a similar conversation just three days ago during a long car ride and I swear I looked in the rearview mirror to see her as my first grader all over again. Until the iPod came out again.

Just to hitch along for a ride with Fyedaddy's post, I should note that his daughter and him are as much family to me as my biological family. Every time I visit with them, and my (again, for all practical purposes) niece is just a little bit older, some part of me is really smacked in the face with the passage of time, and the simultaneous joy and sadness of her having grown up just that much more.

It really hammers home the bittersweet joys of parenting for me, and makes me both jealous of him and sympathetic to him at the same time. It makes me wonder if I really would want to be a father or not.

Rabbit thanks once again for capturing some of those perfect parent child moments. My five year old son constantly delights me with his personal takes on gaming and his play with his three year old sister (Lego Star Wars, the only style he knows, in the garden) always sets me back a little. I struggle with how to engage kids with my nerdiness sometimes but its nice to see someone showing us the way a little with such perfectly crystallised moments.

Very nice article Rabbit - a good read.

wow, truly a beautiful article rabbit. One of the few articles that I've read multiple times and it only got better. Thank you, for the great piece.

Awesomeness. I had to forward a link to my gamer buddies with kids, even though now I'll be tagged as the femmy crybabby and get teabagged countless extra times. (Virtually, one hopes...)

You know, you guys could simply call it "sitting cross-legged," like most of the sensible world calls it. The cultures of the world that sit like this is... ...well, every culture as far as I can tell.

HaciendaSquish wrote:

Alright, I understand that it's not really relevant to the piece, and that it would probably hurt the writing if you went into it, but I have to know whether you showed The Sims to her, and, if you did, what she thought of it.

Noooo... don't do it!

It is all part of my plot to make your daughter think I am the coolest visitor... I will bring Sims 3 with me and we will play together... and live happily ever after.

Please don't ruin my dreams, Rabbit.

rabbit wrote:

Sweetheart, she just Pandemic so she can play it with YOU next time you're here. Your position is completely secure.

You missed part of the predicate in the first sentence.

Farscry wrote:

You know what Julian? The brilliance of so much of your writing is that you manage to make me feel nostalgic, depressed, and happy all at the same time when I read these things. ;)

This.

Luckily, I was still in the midst of my morning rituals when I read this the first time so I just hopped in the shower when I got misty.

Sweetheart, she just Bought Pandemic so she can play it with YOU next time you're here. Your position is completely secure.

One lousy typo ...

carljetter wrote:
Lex Cayman wrote:
carljetter wrote:

Being small town Nebraska

What part of Nebraska?

I grew up in North Loup Nebraska, Population 350. SALUTE!!

Carl

Very nice. I grew up in Franklin. 1,100. South Centraaaal! (google map it)

Fantastically well written...

/bows