Dirt is yummy, have some. Revised.
I made some changes to the following entry:
Dirt is yummy, have some.
http://newordergames.com/blog/?p=9
Forced Cleanup Time
Last night Olya and I were in Damien’s room and we decided that it was time for Damien to start picking up his toys so we don’t trip and kill ourselves when we come into his room in the middle of the night. Now usually or I should say previously Damien was fine with the idea of picking up his toys and books. But this time he wanted a battle of wills, and that is what he got.
I asked him to pick up his blocks and put them in the box.
Damien, totaly knows this command and has complied with it in the past, so there is no reason for him not to do it, espicially since it only takes him about two minuets to put them all away.
When he continued to read his book, is demonstrated what I wanted and repeated the command. Damien contiues to ignore me and read on.
So I ask him if he would like Daddy to “help” him pick up the blocks.
He knows what this means. Daddy “helps” by dragging Damien around the room and making Damien pick up the object, then draggin Damien across the room to make him put the object away. Essentially I use Damien as a giant limp set of pliers. He does not like this so usually Damien declines my offers of “help”, and that is the idea Daddy want to reinforce, so it is win win.
Not today, Damien pretends it is a game, and laffs and smiles and acts cute, and tries to keep reading his book. “Do you want a time out?” I ask. “No.” says Damien, then he goes back to the cute routein. So Damien gets a time out.
Well according to the supper nanny show, they give time outs for one minute per year, and them make them sit down. OK, so Damien is two so he gets a two minute time out. and of corse he won’t sit still so Daddy will “help” him sit still. This time Daddy “helps” by sitting down with his back to the wall (for support), and placing Damien directly in front on the floor. Then I wrap one of my legs aroun Damien’s waist, this helps to pin his legs to the floor and protects my balls (very important if you are a guy), and becuase I love him so I also give Damien a hug at the same time, by reaching over his sholder and wrapping my arm around his opposite waist (this also lets me position my face to the side of his head, so he doesn’t smach my nose with the back of my head if he decided to thrash). Damien si gently restrained in this way, he is not crushed, nor is he in any physical pain or even discomfort, but you wouldn’t know that from listening to him scream, and wail, and thrash, and gnash. Then we watch the clock for the next two minutes all the time explaining why he is getting a time out, and what he needs to do when the time out is over.
So the time out is over (Yeah!) and Damien says he will be nice and pick up (double Yeah!), but he lied.
Grrrrr…
He goes back to ignoring and reading and taking more toys off the shelf instead of putting them back on.
So he gets another time out, as stated above.
And another time out.
And another time out.
And I think even another time out, all as listed above.
I did mention battle of wills right.
Ok so Damien is starting to clean up (Whew!) and things are looking up, but after two minutes he starts throwing blocks around the room rather than putting them in the box where they belong, he is not even trying to throw them into the box, unless he is using some riccochette trajectory that I am unable to comprehend.
That is when I grab him and hold him so I so I cn give him a very stern talking to.
“Look!” I said, “Picking things up is NOT a game, it’s what you will be doing the rest of your life!”
Then Olya laughed and so did I. shortly after that Damien became a cleaning machine, he even went under the bed to get the errent blocks that lurked there.
I think that means that I won this round, but I am sure there will be others.
Possibly in the very near future.
Probably tonight. 
18. Tip Toe Walk
Sometimes Damien will walk on Tip Toe, like a ballerina. At least he does not try to go on point, so he is a male ballerina, that is some thing I guess. Maybe he likes the added height since he is a bit on the short side.
17. Shuffle Stomp Walk
3. Shuffle Walk
Damien will some times zip around shuffeling his feet, like a small psycotic Charlie Capplen.
he does not like to shuffle slow, no, no, no, because speed is Damien’s friend, or so he believes.
The only sound you will here is the soft voom voom of his socks rubbing on the carpet.
9. Hulk Smash Walk
This walk is usually done with his arms half curled as if he was a body builder posing for a contest. Damien then proceeds to stomp along at a slow pace, like some type of angry pagon god, crushing the unbelievers. It is not uncomin for him to say “Hulk Mash (Smash)” with every other stomp.
17. Shuffle Stomp Walk
This walk some how combines the two previous walks.
Damiens is shuffling along, his feet are not leaving the carpet from what I can tell, there is the soft “voom” , “voom” of the socks on the carpet. But at the end of every short little step there is a noticible “Thump”, I am not sure if he is just diggin his feet into the carpet at the last moment or what. This walk might be some type of mobile victory dance, when he is going where he wanted to go, and has got the parent of choice in tow, and they are presumadly going to do what it is that Damien wants, becuase he has so commanded it.
Dirt is yummy, have some.
Yesterday was nice out, so the kids at daycare went out to play in the yard. Most rooms have there own fenced in yard, and Damien’s was newly soded last fall so there is no dirt showing or little guys tp play in.
Well they all had fun running around, and screaming and laffing and playing on the slide.
When the kids are rounded up to come back inside, Damien has brown on his hands and around his mouth. Now the teacher is thinking, “I know they didn’t have any chocolate, or cookies or cake, so what could it be. Hmmm.” It turns out, other kids also have little patches of brown around their mouths. On a close inspection of the play area, all of the dirt was covered by the new sod. Except for one small strip off to the side. in the mud you could clearly see Damien’s hand and foot prints.
Apparently what happened is that Damien the Explorere had found some dirt / mud, and ate some, then he dicided to share it with his friends, so they ate some too.
we were told to expect some extra dark poops from Damien.
———————————————————-
Olya pointed out that her original story to me, was much shorter than what I posted.
I said Iwas just filling in the gaps by reading (listening) between the lines.
So for your enjoyment I will post Olya’s version of the story so you can judge for yourself if you think I embelished too much.
The Olya Version:
Someone saw Damien playing in the mud.
The End
As you can see they are basicly the same story but mine is more funny.
16. Backwards Walk
16. Backwards Walk
Damien will often come to a sudden stop, then reverse his walking direction without changing his orientation. This occurs most often when he is pretending to go along with your wishes, only to try a sneaky escape at the last minute.
Example: I am walking Damien down the hall to the stairs so I can get him to the kitchen to feed him breakfast. Now it’s his idea to have breakfast, he was the one saying things like “breakfast” and “cereal”, and he knows these things happen in the kitchen, which is down stiars. But upon shuffeling up to the top of the stairs, he cries out “NO!”, then reverses his shuffel and speeds past me in a hasty retreat. apparently he simply wanted to teleport to the kitchen, or possibly phase through the floor and float into the kitchen, either way he was very against stairs for some reason. maybe it was because he did not have an alternate mode of going down the stairs.
Walk walk night night
It was such a nice night last night (too many nights, maybe I should call it a nights tale) that we took the boys for a second walk around 8:30. The warm breeze was very relaxing and the boys were both looking at the moon. Haflway through our first loop, Olya noticed Damien squirming trying to get comfortable, so I lowered the seat back to he could snooze off to slumber land. Good thing we preped the boys for bed before the walk, so we could just lay them in bed when we got home.
Gaming
Well I ran my game last Friday, and was very happy in how well it went.
It is nice to finally be making good progress in what has become a “Lifes” work.
To bad the cure for cancer did not intreague me as much as gamming, I may of solved that years ago, instead I give to the world a really cool miniture gamy system that probably fewer than 100 people will ever play. The important thing is I am happy.
Thanks to all my friends who put up with my constant changing of the rules.
The Damien Walk
Damien can walk as well as run, but that is NOT enough for him.
Normal walking is not good enough, for him so he has gone to the trouble of makeing up alternate modes of bipedial transportation.
Let me try to list the ways, though this post will need to be updated as he is still in the creative process.
1. Normal Walk
Walk like a normal person, this is probably the way you walk, and the way most people would wakl in every day life if they had a choice. For Damien this is an alternate form of walking it is rare to se him actually walk, there have been whole weeks in which I never once noticed Damien using the Normal Walk to get about.
2. Sumo Walk
Damien will stand with his legs as wide as posible and while still able to keep the soles of his feet on the floor, with his legs bowed in a rough semi circle. Damien will then walk by raising his foot but maintaining the arch of his legs, essentially his whole body is pivoting on his ankle. He will then hold hi foot briefly in the air as if deciding where it shall come crashing down. Finally he falls onto the foot with his full weight, creating a very satifying (to him anyway) WHAM!
As with most of Damiens walks this is followed by much giggiling and smiling.
more later.
3. Shuffle Walk
4. Pitter Patter Walk
5. Splits Walk
6. Sea Saw (back and forth) Walk
7. Ice Skate Walk
8. Serpentine Walk
9 Hulk Smash Walk
10. Kick/Slip Forward Walk
11. Kick/Slip Sideways Walk
12. Skip Walk
13. Single Peg Leg Walk
14. Double Peg Leg Walk
15. Drag the Foot Walk
16. Backwards Walk
Damien will often come to a sudden stop, then reverse his walking direction without changing his orientation. This occurs most often when he is pretending to go along with your wishes, only to try a sneaky escape at the last minute.
Example: I am walking Damien down the hall to the stairs so I can get him to the kitchen to feed him breakfast. Now it’s his idea to have breakfast, he was the one saying things like “breakfast” and “cereal”, and he knows these things happen in the kitchen, which is down stiars. But upon shuffeling up to the top of the stairs, he cries out “NO!”, then reverses his shuffel and speeds past me in a hasty retreat. apparently he simply wanted to teleport to the kitchen, or possibly phase through the floor and float into the kitchen, either way he was very against stairs for some reason. maybe it was because he did not have an alternate mode of going down the stairs.
Quick Walk
Last night we went for quick walk around the blocks.
Sergey was freaking me out, he just kept staring at me intently.
And he didnt move, I didn’t even notice him blink.
So like any good parent, I thought he was dead.
But when I tickled his chin, he giggled, showing that he can breath and smile, and yes even blink.
Well with that tragedy narrowly averted, I turned my attention to my other son Damie.
He was busy trying to get his fingers caught in the strollers spokes. We have a two seater and Damien was in front, playing with the front wheels. Olya assured me it was fine, perhaps she has some secret knowledge of fingers and tires. Hmm….
As we are walking Damien reaches out and latches onto Olya’s hand, and snuggles to it a bit. It is cute to watch him hold hands while he is in the stroller. I just thought I would mention it so I don’t forget it.
There is one pine tree that Damien has a special bond with, so we always stop so he can say “Hi” to the tree. This time while running his fingers (he still had all ten even after the whieel) he decided to take a momento, a little rotting seed pod from a helicopter tree that had landed in the tree some months before. I immediatly move to confiscate the item, because I am mean and like dominating my children. but I am shushed away by Olya, “He is just going to play with it” she says. “No.” I say, “He is going to eat it.” becaus he is an adventurer. Sure enough Damien plays all nice with the rotting seed, then he decides that is enough lets chew on it. Olya swoops in and rescues the little seed pod from destruction, yeah team.
Going to bed
Since we had company over the guys (me, Eric, and Damien) were watching the Tick cartoon.
When Eric had to leave, it was well after Damiens bed time, and with the cartoons off he was a double unhappy boy. Eric mentioned that it must get old having to fight to get him to bed every night. But it’s not I said. He is only like this because it is past his bed time, and he was watching TV too late, usually there is a routine and Damien has been going down much better, so I assured him, that when his son is two next year it really isn’t that hard to put them down.
This Morning
Damien woke up at 6 AM and I wanted to sleep until 6:30, what else is new. He was asking for Mommy but she had had a hard night with Sergey wanting 2 hour feedings, so I went to check on Damien. Damien was saying “Mommy” over and over again, until I siad “Good morning Damien.” Then he switched to saying “No” over and over again. At least he is smart enough to know that I am NOT the mommy. After I tol him mommy was still asleep, he did consent to my suggestion that he go back to sleep. YEAH! If only I had that power all the time.
Well it’s time for you to go back to work.