Dragonvile

It is not unknown for me to suffer heart palpitations after opening my credit card bill, but March's statement elicited a near-coronary:

Page after page of charges from Google, more specifically, BACKFLIPSTUDIO and MOBIGAME.  What the fudge* was going on?  Had some astronaut* stolen my credit card information again?  

(* see endnotes) 

The charges ranged from a low of $4.97 to a high of $24.97; frequently, there were four or five transactions the same day.  I tallied them up on my trusty calculator.

805 fudging* dollars??????

I was afraid that I might go postal, using the CZ 805 Bren, natch. ;-)

Let's just revisit that staggering number again -

805 fudging* dollars

Seeing red here...

805 FUDGING* DOLLARS!!!!!!!!

I was pretty certain I knew who was responsible, but I needed confirmation so I googled "Backflip".

Gotcha, Nath!

I had spawned a kid criminal.  What's that saying about the apple not falling far from the tree? 

Nathanimal, that little astronaut*, had been using again.  Let me rephrase.  Nathanimal, that asinine astronaut*, had been using his father's credit card for a virtual spending spree.

Why, you wonder, was he using his father's card? 

BECAUSE I WOULD NEVER BE DENSE ENOUGH TO PROVIDE AN ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD ACCESS TO MY CREDIT CARD.

In fact, - if you're reading this, dear husband, I am not sorry for what I am about to say, and you've already heard it anyway - I believe I busted several veins in my forehead in 2013 when the dynamic duo engaged in their first online debacle.

But now, I seethed as only a true DRAGON LADY could, aggravated by my child, irritated by my husband and peeved by the inane Jabba and Oscar mashup in the centre of the Dragonvale logo:

I was feeling like I was about to go Jabba on Nath.

You wouldn't even believe what just happened while I was writing this.  The child came into my office and asked me to google Blue Spawn Godslayer.  

Seriously?  

I had no words.  I stared him down using my best mean face - take that, sucka! -

and he backed away, hangdog look on his face.    

But then I was curious about the BSG (sounds like a new offering from Roald Dahl, but it's not).  What the eff is it?  I googled "Blue Spawn Godslayer", and was directed to the D & D website, where I read this excerpt from the Monster Manual:

An enormous blue-scaled creature lumbers into view bearing a huge sword and bearing a dragon skull as a shield. Its head looks something like that of a blue dragon, and as it gnashes its teeth and bangs its sword against its shield, electricity sparks from its mouth and weapon.  

Bluespawn Godslayer CR 10

Usually LE Huge monstrous humanoid (dragonblood)
Init -2; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Listen +2, Spot +3
Languages Draconic

AC 23, touch 6, flat-footed 23
(-2 size, -2 Dex, +2 shield, +15 natural)
hp 138 (12 HD); DR 10/chaotic
Immune electricity, paralysis, sleepSR 20
Fort +11, Ref +6, Will +8

Speed 30 ft. (6 squares)
Melee +2 bastard sword +23/+18/+13 (3d8+12/17-20 plus 2d6 electricity) and
bite +15 (2d6+5 plus 2d6 electricity)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Base Atk +12; Grp +30
Atk Options Awesome Blow, Improved Bull Rush, Power Attack, dragon slayer, outsider slayer

Abilities Str 30, Dex 6, Con 25, Int 8, Wis 11, Cha 10
Feats Awesome Blow, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (bastard sword), Power Attack, Weapon Focus (bastard sword)

Bluespawn godslayers live for one purpose: to slay Tiamat's enemies. They delight in combat and take pride in their expertise with weapons. Godslayers guard the lairs of blue dragons and seek out and slaughter good dragons.

Oh of course.  How could I be so stupid?  The BSG is an enormous, blue-scaled, dragon-slaying beast.  The child has no shame.   I am laughing at the BSG's bastard sword though.  I've gotta get myself one of those, stat.

Let me get back to my post proper.

When my darling, dragon-obsessed boy arrived home from school that day, and I presented him with the pernicious credit card statement, Nathoon-baboon suffered a complete and utter breakdown:  "DAD'S GONNA KILL ME!  DAD'S GONNA KILL ME!  DAD'S GONNA KILL ME!,"  this litany of anxiety accompanied by hysterical bawling and sputtering.  

I am not going to lie.  I enjoyed this little scene.  :-)

Payback's hell, kid.  

Nath wasn't the only one who was up shingle* creek.  My husband was the enabler; he might as well have given Nath his very own Mastercard.  I showed my brilliant husband the credit card bill (while smiling a bit of a smug smile).  My husband might have looked a bit like this:  

(That still is from a Twisted Sister video, in case you were wondering).

I will not tell you about the caterwauling, cursing, and begging and pleading that transpired.  I will also not tell you about the ensuing battle between: 

1)  my husband and I versus Nathaniel (What the hell were you thinking?  Don't lie to me!  You knew EXACTLY what you were doing!) 

2)  me versus my husband (Are you retarded?  Who gives an eleven-year-old a credit card?)

3) me versus my husband and my child (You're both morons!)

To make a long, heinous story short, I grounded the kid criminal from screens for two months, and withdrew all the money from his bank account.  

Because Nath was vid-addled, he suffered from withdrawal symptoms.  This meant that I also suffered mightily.  There may have been some rocking in the fetal position from both of us.   

Here are Nathaniel's five stages of (not being allowed to play video games) grief, à la Elisabeth Kubler Ross:  

1)  DENIAL - laughing interspersed with wailing.  Hahahahaahahh!!   I don't need Mindcraft. Hahahahah.  I don't care.   Waaaaaaaaaahhh!  Two months? waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Are you crazy?

2)  ANGER  - You are so mean!  You never let me have any fun!  I am not talking to you anymore!

3)  BARGAINING - If I clean my room, Mumma will let me back on!  

4)  DEPRESSION - There was a lot of laying around on the couch and floor.  I'm bored, Mumma.  What should I do, Mumma?  He also buried his face in pillows and moaned pathetically.  

5)  ACCEPTANCE - Two months isn't forever**.  I don't even like videogames**.  **TOTAL LIE.  He never actually said this.  

He knew better than to bitch about boredom after I snapped at him twice - he was already up shingle's creek and didn't need to dig his paddle in further - but he definitely tried my patience (and I have very little to begin with).  What was I going to do with this kid?

On the first p.d. day after the Dragonvale incident, I signed Nath up for a babysitting course.  I didn't want to deal with him, and I was still pissed.  At $50 for the course, which included pizza lunch and freedom from the hell of entertaining children for 7 hours, it was a no-brainer.  Nath returned from his course, certificate in hand, ready to conquer the child-minding world.

His first gig was that weekend.  He looked after a neighbour's two sons during daylight hours.  He was elated.  He had cash in his hand, he had something to do, and he was away from Dragonlady's talons and piercing cry.  He was hired to babysit several times that week, and then he found other activities to occupy his time, like Magic The Gathering:

Magic - a complex card game with many rules- is Nathanimal's new obsession.  He is constantly sorting his cards, assembling new decks and dreaming of Friday night, which is when he spends his babysitting coin at Magic tournaments.  I am thrilled with this pursuit.  It gets my boy out of the house and interacting with actual human beings - let's hear it for eye contact! - and the game is an intellectually invigorating pursuit.  

When Nathaniel wasn't playing Magic, he was reading.  The library became special again.  Nathaniel read at an early age, and read voraciously.  Once he was exposed to the world of online games, his interest in books waned.  I was dismayed.  When the screens were no longer available to him, !kapow!, just like that, he picked up books again.  I cheered long and loudly.

Besides the rejuvenated interest in Magic and reading, there was something even better that I noticed.  The boy actually exited the house - he's going outside? - to shoot hoops and kick the soccer ball around.  

Physical activity? YES!  

Very sadly, this is something that is missing from the majority of eleven-year-old boys' daily regimens unless they are in organized sports, and it is definitely to their detriment.  

I am not pro-fat, so my kids are enrolled in soccer in the summer, and soccer and skiing in the winter.  We also keep fit by swimming, cycling, walking the dogs, running, jumping on the trampo, and cleaning our own home (gasp!).  I could devote an entire blog entry on why it's vital for kids to have chores and participate in home cleaning, gardening and cooking but I'll write that another day.  

While the renewed interest in athletics made me turn cartwheels, the best thing that happened, post-apocalypse, is that my child is a kinder, more peaceful human being to me, to others and to himself.  We chat more, we play more board games like we used to, and we certainly have a better connection.  Win-win.  

Prior to the blackout, Nathaniel was pure evil whenever he played vid, which was most of his waking hours.  He would shoot me a look of pure hatred if I dared to interrupt his precious screen time, and I thought that maybe if I increased his time (yes, bad Mum of the year here), he might be more inclined to listen to me.  How dumb is that?  BIG FAT HA!  This increase just made him pissier, and it made our problem even worse.  

When Nathaniel wasn't doing homework, eating, sleeping,  or shitting (Damn.  I failed at not swearing.  I can't do it.  Those asterisks * at the beginning of the post denote my attempt to clean up my potty mouth by using euphemisms).    

As I was saying, when Nathaniel wasn't doing homework, eating, sleeping, or shitting, he would slink into the basement to play horrifically violent games (that he was introduced to at a friend's house - sounding completely judgmental and bitchy here, but so what).  I was horrified when I saw him playing this:

I am the first person to rail against conservative, lemming-like Old Boy traditions, and the burbs and Stepford, but even I couldn't bear to see Nath as a first person shooter* mowing down women and children, in addition to his camouflage-clad opponents.  It smacked of Columbine.  

(from Wikipedia:  *First-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre centered on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through a first-person perspective; that is, the player experiences the action through the eyes of the protagonist).  

I was furious with myself.  How had I let my child become a snarky, vitriolic reprobate?  I removed the game system and all of the violent games from the basement.  Problem solved.  Of course, Nathaniel is still exposed to such games when he visits some of his friends.  I am not sure how to navigate this stormy sea.  I think that some of my friends and acquaintances have given up on their children, recognizing technology's steadfast grip and feeling powerless to try to change that, but I refuse to give up on my son.  I will set limits, and I will stick to them even if it makes me a killjoy.  He'll thank me in the long run.  Who am I kidding?  No he won't.

Nathaniel, thank you for being a kid criminal and a vid addict.  Thank you for spending all that cash on that stupid Dragonvale game.  Thank you for using your Dad's card (we got it all the $ back, by the way, but Nathaniel doesn't know that ;-)  

It was the best thing that could have happened to our family.  

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go play Candy Crush.  

Optional music pairing  Twisted Sister's We're Not Gonna Take It

* in an effort to clean up my potty mouth, I have decided to censor my filthy tongue.  Henceforth, fuck, shit and ass shall be referred to as fudge, shingles and astronaut.

Bear with Me

Do you know what this is?

image from http://db.tigsource.com/games/minecraft/screenshots/1478

It's a screenshot from a video game called Minecraft, or as I like to refer to it - Mindcrap.  

Many of you have heard of this game - if you have a kid, chances are he or she is an addict, or on the way to becoming one.  Sorry for those of you who are in denial, but it's true.  My son, who is 10, would rather play Mindcrap than do anything else.  Except maybe watch Mindcrap videos from THE BIGGEST MINDCRAP GEEK EVER, the Bajan Canadian:

This kid clearly spends WAY TOO MUCH time in his basement, eating Da-reets and drinking Sunny D like it's water.  

The amount of time that my kid spends (or would like to spend) on Mindcrap depresses me; however, I am hopeful that he will get over his addiction.  My brother and I played Atari incessantly as kids and I'm no longer jonesing for it.  Confession:  I once permitted N to play Mindcrap for 4 hours in a row.   Contender for bad mother of the year, obviously.  

N would rather play MC than watch TV, hang with friends, chase a soccer ball, go skiing, go to Disney (well maybe not that) et cetera.  I have caught him hunched and squirming at the computer chair, legs crossed tightly, because he has to go PEE so badly, yet still he slays on.  I told him that he should start wearing diapers like they do in the casinos, then he wouldn't even have to get up, making his life THAT MUCH easier.  I am nothing if not efficient.  

Thank god he likes to read.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Actually, I have myself to thank for that:  Brown Bear, Brown Bear

We were at the library recently getting some new books and this one caught my eye -  Let Them Be Eaten By Bears:  A Fearless Guide to Taking Our Kids into the Great Outdoors by Peter Brown Hoffmeister:

Yes, people, I am aware that mid-January is not a traditional time to think about going camping with kiddies; however, the book looked interesting and after it passed my "read the first page test" (I was hooked), I grabbed it.

I LOVE THIS BOOK.  It is full of life lessons, funny stories, kooky lore and ideas to get your family outside.  More on that in a few paragraphs.  And I will make the connection between Mindcrap and the great outdoors too.

But first, a story.  Nathaniel camped for the first time when he was 9 months old.

We had a pack and play (portable playpen) to throw him in during nap time or when he became annoying.  It was mid-June, the nights were cool and I was still nursing, so he slept under a goosedown duvet with me (we're glampers).  I have an awesome 4-6 man dome tent that I bought for around $150 and that's what we slept in.

Until I had a "better" idea.

I thought the pack and play and the double air mattress took up too much real estate in the tent.  It was cramped and stuffy.  I thought it made perfect sense to set up shop in my friend's "food tent":

you can see the playpen in the tent

My husband (voice of reason) said that we would be eaten by animals if we slept in that.  Well, he didn't actually say "eaten" but he did suggest that we would have nocturnal visitors.  I couldn't disagree more.  Never mind that our campsite in Elora was overrun by raccoons, who were an omnipresent threat during all hours of the day.

image from owned.com  - only funny because my kids are obsessed with Carly Rae Jepsen

"We are not going to get eaten by raccoons!  I tree planted for five years... yada yada yada..."

Because my husband is not a smart man, he listened to me.  We put the pack and play in the food tent, and also dragged the air mattress over, turning our "real" tent into a large, walk-in closet.  At bedtime, the three of us fell asleep, the husband on one side, Nathaniel in the middle and me on the other.  I recall being very happy with myself as I nodded off...  this is so lovely and fresh and roomy, and I am going to sleep like the dead... maybe N will even sleep through the night... zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Who was I kidding?  It was not to be.

I woke up in the middle of the night - it was PITCH black - and I was instantly aware that there was something wrong.

FUCKING WRONG because there was something crawling across my torso.  NOT KIDDING.  It must have crawled under the flimsy walls of the tent.  Because the tent has NO FLOOR, animals can crawl in and out willy-nilly.

Keeping in mind that there was a leaden beast crawling across my prone body, I did exactly what anyone would do - I whipped that duvet off my body like a woman possessed, exposing myself and my 9-month old to the elements, and screamed murderously.  Well not that murderously, because who wants to wake a sleeping baby?  Even if they are in danger of being eaten by a killer raccoon / rakunk!

My husband didn't wake up.  Neither did Nathaniel.

I had to poke my husband in the ribs to rouse him (a raccoon just crawled across me!, I hissed).  He was totally annoyed with me: I told you so. Now be quiet!

~~~

While reading Mr. Hoffmeister's book, I was reminded of this and my many other animal adventures.  I will save those for another post.  Today, I want to talk about kids and the great outdoors and what is keeping them from going there.  Hint: it's not bears.

Some quotes from Mr. Hoffmeister:

• "it is not uncommon for a child to play more than a thousand video game hours per year" 

• it took one of Mr. Hoffmeister's computer-addicted high school students a full twelve hours before he realized he was in the actual outside world, before he started to reference non computer material in his conversations.  While he looked across a valley at a snow-covered peak in Oregon, he said:  "oh yeah, I looked at this mountain online, and it looked way prettier on my computer." 

I find this to be alarming.    

I do not think that my children will end up like one of my former library colleagues, who had never camped, hiked or swum in a natural body of water (and had only gone in a pool once or twice!).   I am fortunate because I had a Dad who loved the great outdoors.  He took us skiing, skating, sledding and ice-fishing in the winter, and camping, hiking, and fishing in the warmer months.  I have slept under the stars in the Niagara Escarpment, and caught and cooked my lunch over an open fire.  I guess there isn't really a chance of my kids being outdoorsaphobes, even if Nathaniel is a vidhead and Gwen loves the telly.  

What I do worry about is the subtle and gradual transition to becoming an "indoors" person", described by Mr. Hoffmeister as such:

You like temperatures between 68 and 72 degrees F.  Much colder or warmer, and you might start to complain.  You like a dry environment but not an environment that's arid or dusty.  You are used to urban noise, comfortable with the sounds of computers, music, phones, cars, electronic bells, TVs, YouTube, alarms and large groups of people.  This may sound strange, but you might even like the toxic smells of bleach or other harsh cleaners or, near the street, exhaust, tar, oil, and burned gasoline.  These smells are, at the very least, familiar to you and therefore comfortable even if you don't like them.  

People, we need to wake up!  Our kids are getting fatter and the insidious, pervasive nature of video-gaming is the problem, especially with boys.  I urge you to kick your kids off the screens and into the outdoors.  They won't like it this time of year, as it's coldy-woldy.  Things like skating, skiing, and sledding help, as do snowmen and snow-forting.  If I told my son that he could whap me in the face with a snowball, that might be enough to get him off Mindcrap.  And that, my friends, is a step in the right direction.

I did not intend to write this entry as a review of Mr. Hoffmeister's well written and engaging book but it seems to be turning into that so I'll just go with it.  Bears is full of great information.  You will learn all you need to know to take your kids on a weekend or if you're up to it, a two-week camping adventure.  The how-to guide is full of anecdotes, humour, pop psychology and life lessons, all of which will teach you something about embracing the great outdoors.

I hear a lot of parents talking about how when I was a kid, I spent all day outside.  I walked or rode my bike everywhere.  Parents - it can still be like that!  Times are NOT that different.  Kids are still kids and like to do kid stuff like riding around on their bikes, terrorizing the neighbours and playing nicky-nicky-nine-door.  By letting them explore, your kids will build character and learn to trust their instincts.  This cannot be taught by reading or by playing video games.

I am not a perfect Mum; I'm far from it.  I do not always have the energy to go outside and chase the kids and dog around but I'd like to leave you with some great ideas (and some self-indulgent family photos).  They're good reminders for me too.

1)  Camp in your backyard if you haven't camped before or you're out of practice.  Sleep outdoors on your deck on a warm night.  We did this at my Mom's house when Gwen was one.  I should probably not tell you that in the morning, I went inside for a cup of joe and left Gwen and her father "sleeping" in the tent outside.  I looked out the kitchen window and saw Gwenny toddling alone toward the house (husband was still asleep and didn't even hear Gwen exit).  My parents' backyard is ginormous, unfenced, bordered by farmer's fields, and a highway in front.  It could have gone horribly wrong.  It did not.
Kids love to camp in the backyard and if someone has a freakout, you can always return to the creature comforts of your home.  Here's my son "camping" on the deck outside my bedroom in mid-November of last year (his idea; I did not join him).

2)  If you want your family to spend more time outdoors, consider getting a dog.  The dog needs to be walked at least twice a day.  You will experience more sunrises and sunsets, and family time.

3)  Let your kids climb trees, help with gardening and get filthy.

Some of you reading this may have never had children, or you may be grandparents.  You may wonder how a book about taking your kids outdoors can impact you.  It can.  I would argue that you too can benefit from getting "eaten by bears".  Of particular interest is Work Less, Make Less Money, Play More; Different is Good and There is Never a Better Time.

Now get out there!


Musical pairing:  FURR by Blitzen Trapper (such a foot-tapping, thumping song! I love it!)