Starting New Traditions. Finally! A Live Tree!

The first Christmas tree I can remember is the five or six foot artificial one my dad pulled out of the attic space in the garage every year. He kept it stored in a big box and setting it up took hours. The fake trunk had to be bolted into a metal base and every individual branch was color coded to fit into a specific slot on the posts that locked together in two or three different places.

Back then, in the '80s, there was no such thing as a pre-lit tree, as far as I know. After we got the tree put together, my dad spent another dozen hours griping and growling and cussing out the light string, unscrewing every single bulb one at a time and trying to figure out which one was burnt out to replace so that the whole thing would finally work. It was an event that I remember him tackling solo.

My brothers and me, long, long ago. Keith on the left, Mike on the right.

A couple years after my mom died, when my dad remarried, the tradition of the Christmas tree in our house changed greatly. My stepmother much preferred live trees. So for the next seven to eight years of my life, from 1990 to 1998, I remember us driving out to Galehouse Tree Farm to pick out a pre-cut tree. I don't remember ever hiking out to pick our own and cut it down. What I recall is my stepmother investigating every already cut tree available until she found the one with the perfect fullness that she liked. 

Every single year, she picked one out that was much too big to even fit in our living room. I'm sure we tried to talk her down to something shorter, but she wouldn't have it. The fullness and roundness was perfect, so we'd have them bind it and tote it home. My dad spent hours on the porch sawing off the extra three feet from the bottom just so it would stand up in our living room and not be bent at the top. Then we smothered it in boxes upon boxes of ornaments.

After my dad died, I don't recall much in the way of Christmas trees. I moved out of my stepmother's house, and even without him she still managed to get a too big tree into the front living room. I don't remember much of that Christmas. Nor much of the ones that followed. My brother had a fake tree he put up when I lived with him briefly, but I don't recall being much involved. 

Working retail crushed my Christmas spirit quite a lot. When I met my husband in 2002 I don't recall enjoying the season. We got married in 2003, and I'm sure we put up a tree in our first apartment. It started off small, and I'm sure it was a gift from a relative. Something prelit and fake just to have a tree. I bought a couple of boxes of bulbs and did it up in blue and silver. We had to replace that tree for a slightly bigger one at some point. They don't build the fake ones to be durable the way they used to be, like the one my dad fought with every year for the first eight to nine years of my life, and probably some time before I was even born.

Our girls have had to suffer fake trees in the early years of their lives. We started in one apartment, then a townhouse, and couldn't really afford a live tree until this year. For all the bad I might have suffered, those trips out to Galehouse Tree Farm every year is a fond one I wanted to carry forward. So this year, now that we're in a better financial position than we used to be, we took the 30 minute drive trip out to Doylestown to rekindle a tradition I enjoyed and bring it to our own family.

It may look dark and dreary from the outside, but inside that barn is a world of festive color and holiday joy. Of course, I remember the interior being much bigger when I was a kid. That memory had me relating to my own daughters and realizing just how magical it must be to them. Never mind how many times I had to tell them not to touch something because it was fragile. Some things were still pretty kid friendly.

My experiences with my stepmother taught me not to go too overboard and look for a tree that would actually fit in our living room. So we spent the extra energy and took the time to hike to the top of the hill and look for one that would last, smell nice, and look nice. It cost a little less to cut your own tree, so that was an added bonus.

Our little Usurper is a trooper. She didn't complain about the hike one bit. Never asked to be picked up. She doesn't like to be carried and much prefers to walk anywhere we go. For that I am super grateful because I am not a strong person and don't like being a vehicle for my children. Their independence pleases me greatly. 

So we found our tree, cut it down, toted it back down the hill to have it shaken and bound. We shoved it in our car, tied it between the seats, and drove it home. Then the most adorable thing happened. My husband had bought the tree stand the day before and explained to our girls what it was for. To keep them from turning it into a toy, he put it in the office at the back of the house. As soon as we got home, the Usurper ran to the office, picked up the stand, and well... This:

I'm constantly surprised by how much my littlest nerdling understands and remembers. She might not say much, and getting her to give up her pacifier completely is still a struggle at 2 1/2 years of age, but she's one smart cookie. This time last year I wouldn't have dared to bring home a live tree and set it up where she could reach all the ornaments, but she knows now not to touch and that's good. 

She was very happy about our new tree. I almost feel like it was the best Christmas present she could have ever asked for! And she didn't even ask for one! She was so happy that she spent a good ten minutes or so smothering her daddy in hugs.

I tried for another video, but apparently it's too big for blogger.

We got the tree up without any hassle. The girls even helped hold it steady while we screwed it secure to the base. Amusingly, the trunk was almost too small! We got it to work, though, and then the decorating happened.

When it was all said and done, our girls were so happy that the Overlord even made up a song about it. I think it's safe to say that they love our tree this year. I give myself an A+ for creating memories my girls will hopefully remember for all time, and a tradition that we'll continue with from here on out. And I... Well. I'm surprised by how happy this one simple little thing made me. It's been 17 or 18 years since I last had a live tree in a house I called my own. This gives me so much joy... I can't even.

How a Stuffed Giraffe Became an Important Lesson On Loss

Today, the Overlord ran up the stairs from her play room, all the way to my office, to tell me, "Mommy! Giraffey's broken! His music winder thingy doesn't work anymore. Look! Can you fix him?"

Giraffey never had a name before today, by the way. The toy in question is a baby toy that Great-Grandma sent the Usurper when she was born. I think. The whys and the whens and wherefores aren't so very important to this story, though.

Basically, Giraffey is a plush music box. There's a wind-up key attached to its side. You wind it up. It plays a song. Well. No more, unfortunately. Something inside is broken, and neither me nor my husband know how to fix it. So...

Sadly, I told her, "No, honey. I'm sorry, but I can't fix this. There's nothing we can do about it. He's broken."

There was a look of absolute heartache on her face. The pout and the moisture in her eyes was nearly unbearable.

"Honey, I'm sorry, but I think it's time to say good-bye to Giraffey."

Her daddy came in to join us in the talk saying he couldn't fix Giraffey either. He told her she had the choice to keep him as is, broken but still able to be played with, or we could say good-bye. She chose to say good-bye. So I told her we'd send him to a faraway place where broken toys go after they can't be played with anymore.

This seemed kinder to me than telling her we were going to throw the toy in the trash. Little did I know it was going to turn into an elaborate story about Toy Heaven.

Later, I found her playing downstairs with her sister. They were having fun, giggling and make-believing with their My Little Pony toys. Then Lilah looked up with a pout and asked, "Mommy, where's Giraffey?"

"Honey..." The toy was upstairs, still. Her daddy was investigating it and trying to figure out if there really was any way to repair it, but we both knew it was a lost cause. So I told her, "Giraffey went to a faraway place where broken stuffies go when they no longer work, where they can live with other stuffies and be happy even though they can't be played with anymore."

As a nonreligious individual raising my children pretty much atheist, I never thought I'd be making a Heaven analogy to help my daughter deal with loss.

She accepted this story.

Later, upstairs while watching TV, she was pouting about Giraffey still, talking about how much she missed him. There were actual tears. I hugged her and told her, "Oh, honey. It's okay to feel sad when you miss something you love very much."

Wiping the tears off her cheeks broke me.

"Would it make you feel better to see Giraffey one more time, if he came back from the faraway place to say good-bye?"

"Yeah," she said.

So I got him back out of the closet where I'd stashed him to hide so she wouldn't keep asking us to try to fix him. She gathered him up in her arms and held him tight.

Unfortunately, her little sister was right there and wanted to play with Giraffey, too. It was a struggle getting her to let Amelia have the toy, but she relented when I told her to let her say good-bye in her own way. This was a concept that had to be drilled into her head repeatedly by both her father and me.

My husband told her, "You let Amelia say good-bye to Giraffey in her own way. He will stay with us until bedtime, and then he has to go."

Eventually she stopped trying to tell her sister to tell Giraffey good-bye. Some time later, she brought the toy back to me in my office.

"Mom, 'Melia put Giraffey down," she said, handing me the broken toy.

"Do you think Amelia's done saying good-bye to him then, in her own way?" I asked.

"Yeah."

Amelia didn't come running back to my office crying, so I figured it was true enough. Though, I'm also pretty sure she had no idea what was going on. The Usurper is only two and a half to the Overlord's almost five now!

Somehow she got the impression that the faraway place I mentioned was an island. I didn't correct her. I like the idea of it being an island. Somehow I'm sure that makes it seem more soothing and an okay place to be.

"Is the Faraway Island magical?" she asked me.

"Yes, dear. The Faraway Island is a magical place where all stuffies and broken toys can talk to each other and be happy when they can't be played with anymore."

I do not regret expounding upon my lie.

"Oh. I never heard Giraffey talk."

"Well, maybe if you listen very closely you'll hear him talk to you. ... Are you done saying good-bye now?"

"Yeah."

After dinner, we revisited with Giraffey one last time. I brought him out of my office and told Lilah, "Giraffey doesn't want you to be sad when he leaves, Lilah, so he told me he'd like to take a picture with you so you'll always have something to look at and remember him by."

So we took a couple of pictures, both of Lilah with Giraffey and Amelia with Giraffey.

Lilah came back to talk to me a little more about Giraffey and the Faraway Island. She told me she really wanted to see the Island and see all the talking toys. I told her that'd be nice. She asked where it was. "Is it up in the sky?"

"Maybe," I told her. "It's so faraway that even I don't know where it is, honey. I've never seen it. I'm not a toy, so I can't go there."

"Oh," she said. "I hope there's a moon there. The moon is magical. It's like an island."

All I could do was smile as she walked away.

New Year! Old news. (Mostly pictures.)

Well.

Hello, Loyal Fans!

As you can plainly see, I have been very remiss in updating this blog. The last time I wrote an article for this thing was back in August with Hello Not-a-Kitty, in which I talked about the newly created Hello Kitty Convention that I'd some day love to take my girls to.

Since that time, quite a lot has happened! Here's a run-down of everything you missed in 2014 before we get started on 2015:

In September, Your Future Overlord met her very first toad at her friend Addison's house. We were invited to a barbecue and had a very good time. At their old house (they have since moved), there were apparently a lot of toads in the yard and Addison had a habit of collecting them. A very good experience overall.

We started our second year of dance classes! The Usurper is not yet old enough to join a class, but she is learning quite a bit from her sister already. The Overlord is taking traditional ballet again this year as well as tap. It's been a rocky road so far, in which she fluctuates between wanting to participate and not. I'm told this is normal for her age.

Both of my girls have an amazing imagination, but at not even 2-years-old I think the youngest has the eldest beat. Her imaginative play has been amazing these past few months, and continues to astound me. The above picture was taken in September. She and her sister got dressed up and set this up all by themselves.

Which brings me to October. You may remember the article I wrote in July titled "Keep the Shears Away," in which I talked about how I refuse to take my girl to get her haircut until she tells me she wants one. Well, that happened. We turned it into a big birthday event, and I'll write about that later, because it's worthy of it's own individual article.

That's right. Your Future Overlord is now 4 years old! I'm a big slacker for having not covered her birthday like I should have. Not like I can't write about it later, though. It'll give me some material to work with when I'm floundering later on. Your job, Loyal Fans, is to constantly harass me about it until I do. So don't forget to pester.

We found some time to help Daddy rake (and play in) the leaves!

And then Halloween happened.

In November, we joined the Overlord's best friend Addison in celebrating her 4th birthday as well. And then of course all the Thanksgivings happened.

Before that, it snowed. It was the most amazing thing the Usurper had ever seen. I regret that we did not yet have appropriate snow attire so that the girls could go outside and enjoy it. The Overlord had to have asked me a hundred times.

The Usurper has been making quite a lot of discoveries lately. I absolutely love this gleam in her eye that she gets when she finds something new and fascinating, and everything is new and fascinating to her. I hope she never loses this investigative spirit that she has. My little scientist.

We slacked off a lot in December. Didn't put our tree up until a few days before Christmas. Didn't even really put up any other decorations. And to be honest, our tree is still up. We should probably work on tearing it down and putting everything away.

At least I remembered to stash our creepy ass Elf on the Shelf. I'm a terrible person and hardly remember to move that sucker and sure as shit don't do anything fun with it. Except, Fred (our girl elf) does leave a present for the girls on Christmas Eve. That's a tradition I'm sticking with. Fresh PJs every year.

Christmas came and went like it always does. Being a non-religious household, we don't put a lot of emphasis on the holiday other than Santa Claus. Magic, family, and the Winter Solstice are our reasons for the season. Your mileage may vary.

So now here we are in January. The turn of a new year. Your Future Overlord is 4 years old, and in less than a month the Usurper turns 2! I have quite a few stories to fill you in on that I have neglected to tell, so stay tuned. Hopefully another four months doesn't go by before I update again.

Hello Not-a-Kitty!

This is something I think everybody has heard about by now, and apparently has shocked millions of loyal fans worldwide. Honestly, I'm not the least bit surprised by this news. When I first heard about it, I think one of my friends tagged me in a Facebook post saying the tweets for this thing were amusing. I'm not very good at following Twitter, so I had no idea what she was talking abut. Then I saw a link on my Google+ feed from a friend and read about it this morning.

All these discoveries keep falling under the category of Things I Wish I Had Known About Sooner, because I am not made of money and I would love to be a part of this sort of epic celebration. What are you rambling about now, Stacey? Oh. Right. Well.

Newsflash: Hello Kitty has never been a cat.

I am not the least bit blown away by this news as I think so many other people have been, crying in outrage. It probably helps that we own quite a large collection of Hello Kitty cartoon DVDs and that my eldest, Your Future Overlord, watches them constantly. Our love for Hello Kitty in this house is not unknown. At least 40% of my daughters' wardrobes consist of Hello Kitty something-or-other, and every time one particular outfit of Lilah's is washed and available for wearing in her drawer, she immediately picks it out to put on.

The Overlord's current favorite outfit.

Hello Kitty has become such a big thing since I've had children. I fondly remember it from my own childhood, but never knew it quite so well then as I do now. To children everywhere, she is not a kitty in any case. Even to my daughter she has always been "a friend" and "a little girl" just like her. As far as my daughter is concerned, she is Kitty White, and her little sister is Mimmy White, which is conveniently coincidental since we've dubbed the Usurper with the nickname Mimi since as long as Lilah first started trying to say her name. She responds to that more than her actual name.

We have so many Hello Kitty accessories and toys in this house that I don't even think I could ever gather them all together for a "collection" picture. Besides, I don't do collectibles all too well. In my daughters' eyes, these are toys, and to keep them from playing with them would be too cruel for me to bear. Every year around Valentine's Day my husband has traditionally found the Overlord a new TY Beanie Baby, and Santa even put one in her stocking once. We're up to four now, and are likely to eventually end up with a swimming pool full of the things by the time she heads off to college or a trade school or an apprenticeship, whichever she chooses to do with herself.

"Snowman Kitty," "Glasses Kitty," "Kitty," and "Lollipop Kitty."

As for the celebration I mentioned above? Well, it turns out that Hello Kitty is turning 40 this year, and there's a first ever annual Hello Kitty Convention scheduled to take place in Los Angeles, California at the end of October! By the looks of things, tickets are going to run us $60/day for me and my husband to attend. Fortunately, both the Overlord and the Usurper are young enough to get in free. If we went for just one day, that would be all right. All four days add up to more money than we should be willing to spend, but gosh wouldn't it be nice!

Add on top of that figuring out how we're going to get there. I, personally, have never flown on a plane before in my entire life, and admit a little bit of trepidation. It's not really the plane itself that makes me nervous so much as all the security and check points and degrading searches people have to go through these days in America, that I've heard of, just to travel. Flying would be the fastest and probably best way to get there with two small children, I imagine, but I have no idea how much it would cost! Very likely it would exceed our budget.

Traveling by train would be a fun adventure for all of us. Again, I have no idea how much that would cost, but I would not be averse to the idea. With two small children, I'm even reasonable enough to consider only going to one day of the convention and not trying for the couple hundred dollars worth of an entire weekend trip. Seeing more of California on the side would be a bonus, though.

Attending Hello Kitty Con would be a better first convention for my girls than Bronycon, I think, which I still want to go to with them some day. But why does it have to be so far away? This gives me a sad.

I always find myself envious of my sister-in-law and her family going on all these family vacations anywhere. I envy my friends who go on family vacations. We have never been on a family vacation. Ever. Had I known about this sooner, I would have squirreled away so much money so that we could go, if even just for one day to the convention. Factoring in the cost of hotel stays, too, and it's just not something we can afford at all. So, so terribly disappointing.

Oh well. I suppose I can hope that they'll do it again next year. I'm going to start saving now, just in case.

Because we love it.

Back to Zoo

At the beginning of this week my Facebook wall was flooded with photos of all these kids posing for their first day of Back to School. Many of my mom friends rejoice about this time of year with exasperated relief. Finally! I hear them shout, because once again they get to be rid of their children for several hours a day, five days a week.

I have mixed feelings about this phenomenon. On the one hand, I am super envious. I wish I could be free of my children for several hours a day, five days a week. I would love to have more than a couple minutes a day to myself in which I can just sit down to think and don't have to meet the needs of my demanding little monsters, only one of which can form actual sentences and talk to me, whereas the other just points and squeals urgently to get my attention for the things she wants. More aggravatingly often than not, she wants to sit on my lap and keep me from doing anything at all but being her chair.

Don't get me wrong. I love my children. I wish them only the best. I want to do right by them. I want them to have the best education possible. I want to see them succeed in their futures and not be delegated to just another fast food drive-thru attendant. I also super hope that by the time they are adults all this misogyny and gender stereotyping that goes on these days is obliterated from the world entirely.

While I would love to be rid of them for just a little while, to have a vacation to myself, I still find myself frowning at all these bright and smiling faces of children dressed up in the nicest thing they're likely to put on all year in an effort to make a good first impression. I remember those days with a certain sort of eye-rolling bitterness. What you wore the first day of school sealed your fate for the entire year. Either you'd be that kid with the brand new designer jeans that will instantly make you everybody's best friend, or you'd be the kid in your Great Aunt Lucy's hand-me-downs taken in at the waist to better fit you and ridiculed the rest of your life.

These are things I don't have to worry about with my children, yet, and desperately hope I never will. I think the only guarantee that I won't have to put them through that sort of exhausting social ringer is if I stick with my plan to home school. But that also means sacrificing my sanity and me time, and as an introvert this is an extremely difficult need for me to give up.

On the other hand, however, I've noticed that with so many other kids going back to school, everywhere else becomes virtually abandoned for several hours a day, five days a week. This is a bonus for us, with my husband's new work schedule. On the first of September he'll have switched up his week to having Sundays and Mondays off. This is nice because most of the nation goes to church (which we do not) on Sundays and kids are in school most Mondays (except those pesky holidays that always seem to fall on one; I'm looking at you, Labor Day). Therefore, the world is our family outing oyster! Free of crowds! An introvert's dream come true!

Last week was a primary example of the wonders of not being bound to society's expected nine to five grind. We took the opportunity of most of Cleveland going back to school last week and decided to have one last final end of Summer hurrah by visiting the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, just the four of us. The place was wonderfully deserted. Though we were a little sad to see the dinosaur exhibit was no longer operating, it was nice to be able to walk the park (even the Usurper) without having to dodge around the self-important and rude we encounter just about everywhere else.

The girls loved it. My husband and I loved the fact that we could actually enjoy ourselves and not get super cranky from having to deal with so many people. The last time we were at the Cleveland Zoo, we went with his sister and family, and the littlest monster pictured above left was so tiny that she slept in her car seat in the stroller the entire time. The place was packed with people then. We missed out on some of the exhibits both times, but it was nice to sit in the picnic patio and eat overpriced McDonald's for dinner without another living soul around us this time around. We actually got to hear the lions roar when they came out of their cave to bask on the sun rock. 

This time we got to see the timber wolves, too, unlike last time, but neither me nor my husband could get a good picture of them. However, the littlest Usurper was immediately drawn to these statues, so she and her sister stopped to ride on them a little bit. I think, perhaps, she was remembering our temporary dog Lucky who went back to live with his original family before she was even crawling. 

Sadly, the tiger was napping in his cave by the time we got to him. This was more disappointing to me, I think, because I was the only one who knew what we had hoped to see. The Usurper's favorite animal in the world is a tiger. She absolutely loves them. Probably in part thanks to Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. Had she seen the tiger, though, I think she would have tried to climb into the exhibit, like she kept trying to do when we walked through Kangaroo Land and saw the grizzly bears. Regardless of constantly having to battle her with her insistence on walking everywhere (I'm shocked she didn't pass out in the car on the way home), we had a good time. Admittedly, it was nice to be able to unleash her without fear of losing her in a crowd. Though having to pull her down off of everything and keep her from trying to squeeze herself through the bars of certain enclosures was an adventure, let me tell you.

We'll be going back to the zoo in a little over a month, but not the one in Cleveland. Ever since the Overlord was born, we've tried to continue carrying on a tradition with our friends to attend the Akron Zoo's Boo at the Zoo event. Of course, Cleveland does this too, but Akron is much closer for everyone involved. I'm hoping this year to get a bigger group of us together, now that more of my friends are having kids too. So look forward to October when I'll talk all about it!

Move Over, Boys. Girls Game Too. Get Over It.

I'd like to preface this article first by thanking my good friends Matt and Adam for not even knowing about, yet alone believing, the bullshit claim that "girls don't have enough imagination" to play role-playing games. Second, I'd like to thank my friend Stubby for not being a skeevy, perverted, desperate bastard when I met him and he became my first Dungeon Master.

Last night, before I went to bed, I quickly scanned my Facebook wall to see what I had missed while my husband and I watched a couple movies. One of my friends had posted an article that caught my eye, but I didn't really have the time to read. I saved it for this morning, and what I read disturbed me.

The article, #NOTALLROLEPLAYERS: A HISTORY OF RAPEY DUNGEON MASTERS, reinforces a distressing stereotype that I've been reading about with alarming frequency all over the Internet. That stereotype seems to suggest that all men are sex-crazed lunatics who can't keep their fantasies to themselves and that they feel ridiculously threatened when females venture into their games. So much so, in fact, that they feel perfectly entitled to sexually harass and physically threaten the lives of women both in the industry and in the playing field.

More and more articles are being written about this sort of thing, where women are starting to finally speak out about their bad experiences with gaming groups. I've heard about this shit occurring most frequently in video games, particularly MMORPGs and shooter games like Halo, where female gamers are continuously harassed by male gamers the moment they find out the person behind the avatar or controller is in fact a woman.

I've never encountered problems like this before, personally. I think it's because I've almost always played male characters. Or maybe I just got lucky and involved myself in groups where none of the guys were at all interested in me sexually. Of course, it could also be that I also made it abundantly clear I wasn't available, let alone interested in any case, and, as my male friends have never been shy about telling me, that I'm intimidating. This amuses the hell out of me, because I'm all of five feet tall and a hundred fifty pounds at most soaking wet.

My first experience with role-playing came in the form of this game "Battle Masters" that my friend Matt brought over one day when we were 14. We sprawled the giant mat out on the living room floor of my house and played this fantastic geekery for hours. I think the spark that jump-started our delve into RPG-land was the fact that we were both avidly reading Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Death Gate Cycle series at the time. To this day it is still my favorite series and holds a special place of honor up on my desk shelf.

Around this time is when I first started really heavily writing my own stories, too. My friends Matt, Adam, Amanda, and I passed around a spiral bound notebook between classes during our high school career, taking turns writing bits of a greater story together. This, I've said time and again, was my first experience with free-form role-playing, in a sense.

Not long after we started rolling out the mat to play "Battle Masters" on the weekends and after school, Matt came over one day next toting a selection of manuals he had found somewhere. These books started off pretty simply as the TSR 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monstrous Manual. I don't know whose they were originally, but I do know that I still have them in my possession.

I spent hours reading over the material in those books, figuring it out. Matt and Adam were both as eager to play as I was, and they were both unanimously in favor of me, a girl, taking on the role of Dungeon Master. I know. Terribly unheard of, right? Girls can't possibly have "enough imagination" to play D&D let alone enjoy it, let alone be Dungeon Master.

My collection has grown significantly since then, and is nowhere near complete.

Since that time, I have played in several various tabletop adventures. Though D&D remains my top favorite, and I'm a vintage elitist snob who prefers TSR's 2nd Edition to anything Wizards of the Coast has pumped out since it bought the rights, I have also played in a few World of Darkness games such as Mage and Vampire. One of my past boyfriends was really into WoD, so I got a taste for that. I think none of his guy friends ever hit on me because I was his, though he never put me through the sexual fantasy ringer I've been hearing about in articles like the one I read this morning.

The fact that there are so many women and girls who experience sexual harassment online and off in their games really distresses me. Some of the best stories I've ever had to tell have come from my tabletop experiences. Stubby and I once talked about turning his campaign world into a novel, or book series, featuring his DM PC Dusk, our friend Matt's Nera the drow, and my gangly Gammaliel the Great, Master Illusionist! He's still my favorite ever played character in a game.

I also consistently tell people the story of my elven cleric, Hisael the Paladin Slayer. That adventure was probably the only one experience I had that made me uncomfortable, and it was mostly to do with the fact that the DM and 90% of all the other (male, every last one of them) players kept forgetting that my character was male and not female. The one stereotype that has always troubled me with these games is the limited imagination among the male population that seem to think a person should only play characters that match their real life gender, "so as not to confuse the DM."

The only guy present who did not keep thinking my character was female was the only guy present who was playing a female character himself. In retrospect, I realize he was playing a big-breasted stereotypical man-dependent, helpless mage, but... At least he acknowledged and remembered that just because I, the player, had boobs and a vagina did not necessarily mean that my character did as well.

Very rarely do I play female characters. Mostly because I've always been kind of male-minded. I don't like make-up or playing dress-up or the color pink. I like steak. I think the only truly female trait I have is my loathing for sports, but... My husband doesn't like sports either. That's just one of the many reasons why I married him. I am insanely happy to be with a man who doesn't have "The Game" playing in the background all the time on the television. In fact, right now I'm hearing Star Trek: the Next Generation. Awww yeeeah.

The point of all my rambling this morning is that... Some day I hope to share my love of RPGs with my daughters. I have big dreams of getting back together with Stubby and Matt and teaching our kids to play D&D, to run watered down campaigns and stimulate their imaginations. I've had giant foam polyhedral dice on Lilah's Amazon wishlist since even before she was born! And frankly I'm really disappointed that nobody has bought them for her as a birthday present yet.

I fear for my daughters' futures, though. I fear that they are going to suffer the same indignities many other female gamers are still stupidly facing today. I fear their only experiences with gaming are going to be limited to a small, cloistered, pre-arranged group consisting of my friends' kids, and that they won't be able to talk about their joy of role-playing (if they have it) with the larger community for fear of ridicule and scorn, and, worse, sexual harassment.

Amelia first discovers the manuals at 8 months.

Long before all this gender-stereotyping bullshit came to my attention, I was strongly defensive of role-playing, one of my favorite hobbies of all time. In high school, the negative fallacies I was most aware of were the ones claiming D&D was devil worship. I wrote a fiercely defensive essay on the matter, the only paper I ever wrote in which I got an F, because I had started off insulting everybody in the first paragraph. I still have that paper. I save it like a trophy. My grammar and spelling was perfect, but my tone was so aggressive that my teacher gave me an F and stern blue-pen talking to in the margins.

To all the ignorant people out there who spit claims of Dungeons & Dragons being devil worship, I have a few things I would like to say. It is time that your misinformed closed minds be opened up to all the facts. Evangelists and related religious fanatics, just hold your breath. Hear what someone experienced in the field has to say.

There is more to that essay than that. I wrote it in response to a bunch of idiotic propaganda I remember going around at the time, when the Internet was still new. I wish I could find the same video I'm remembering right now, but essentially it claimed D&D was a gateway drug to actual devil worship. As a non-believer and child of limitless imagination, I think you can probably guess how offensive I found that as a teenager. It ranked right up there with the absurd assumption my step-mother made from point A to point R (for ridiculous) that just because I wrote an X-rated note to my boyfriend (which his mother found) that somehow that meant I was planning to elope and get pregnant and drop out of school. I was insulted, to say the least.

I feel all my male geek friends should feel insulted, too, that there still exist skeevy assholes the likes of which are described in the article I linked to in the beginning of my post here. Sleazy, gross bastards who can't take no for an answer and give other male gamers, who are not at all as insecure as the stereotype, a bad name. It's sad, and not quite as funny as I'd like to say, that most of my online role-playing/writing friends are female. Even the ones who write/portray male characters, as I do, are mostly run by women.  I think because even I am uncomfortable playing/writing with men. At least... heterosexual men. My gay friends have never given me cause to feel uncomfortable, and that's sad.

I hope for a brighter future. One in which my daughters can take part in these games and past-times that I have so enjoyed most of my adult life without fear of harassment, without being made to feel uncomfortable. I hope, beyond hope, that they'll be able to log on to the next greatest installment of Halo for the Xbox Gabillionty without some dickwad telling them to "get in the kitchen" and "make me a sandwich."

Your Future Dance Superstar

When the Usurper was born, we received a package from my Uncle Ed who lives now in Pennsylvania. I was very happy to receive a gift from them. Since they live in another state, we don't ever hardly see them. Thankfully there are things like Facebook and I'm kind of sort of in touch with his daughter (my cousin) Heidi. So, word gets around.

In the package was this adorable little outfit that became Lilah's absolute favorite for a while. She called it her "Fancy Dance" outfit, and wore it every chance she got. It came in February, while it was still cold. Long sleeves and leggings did not dissuade her from wearing it in the Summer, though, if she could get away from it.

Around this time, we were also watching a lot of Sesame Street. One episode I remember had a segment on ballet, and Lilah was very interested in it. I asked her, "Lilah, would you like to do ballet? Do you think that's something you'd liked to do?" And she enthusiastically said, "Ye~eah!" She has this really cute, drawn out way of saying "yeah" that I'm going to have to get on video one of these days, but I digress.

My girls were early walkers. Lilah was up on her feet by 10 months old, and she transitioned pretty quickly from toddling to running circles around the coffee table. Singing her ABCs.

Apparently this is video day. I know you're not complaining. There will be a bunch of pictures, too. Where was I?

Ah yes. Dancing. Lilah has always loved to move. She's a mover and a shaker. I even tried to get her on Yo Gabba Gabba when she was a baby, because honestly she was dancing before she was even walking! Here. I have a video of that, too.

As luck would have it, when we moved into our house, we discovered that not only are our neighbors super nice people, but their children are enrolled in a dance studio. We got to talking one day. I don't even remember how it came up, precisely, but I do remember saying, "Oh really?" Perking up. "I've been thinking about putting Lilah in ballet! She really loves to dance!" Next thing I know, a couple days later, my neighbor Lisa was bringing me a brochure from the studio with information on their summer camp.

This is where I'm going to take a minute to do a little free advertising. If you're looking for a school of dance, I highly recommend I'hDe Rather Be Dancing. Looks like they just updated their webpage, too. Not only are the prices very reasonable, but the studio staff is super pleasant and absolutely wonderful with children. Lilah loves it, and can't wait to go back this year. She's super excited about doing tap, which is a new option available to her this fall, too.

ps: It looks like there's an open house August 16th that I'm really going to have to figure out how to get us to, because face painting! That's something Lilah watched a segment on recently and she's been begging to get her face pained. So. Anyone want to check out the studio? I'll be your special tour guide!

Anyway. Lilah loved ballet. There was one month there in which she didn't want to go, but we figured out that it was because she was having embarrassment issues regarding her potty training. One day she watched as all the girls in her class all took a potty break before class started. She stood around toeing the floor, like, "Aw, shucks." Once we got her fully potty trained, wearing panties and not diapers anymore, she took right back to dancing like she was born to it. Maybe she was.

Ready for her first day of ballet class.

I learned a lot of things during our year of ballet. Things I never bothered with when I was a child, such as hair styling and make-up! When I was a little girl, I wore my hair in a short bob or wild and tangled and free. It wasn't until high school that I started pulling it back in a ponytail, when it started bothering me if it was in my face, as far as I can remember.

Up-do's, curling irons, hair spray, bobby pins, barrettes, high ponies, buns, pigtails, braids... All of that? I didn't know the first thing about until I had my daughter enrolled in a dance class. The studio handbook says her hair has to be pinned up during class, and the best I could do was a couple of pigtails in the beginning. But I got a lot of practice in, until I was an expert by the day of her big recital.

First flowers from Grandma Morgan.

Make-up on a three-year-old drives me crazy, but I can deal with it for the sake of recitals, because having worked as the Stage Manager my Junior and Senior years of our high school productions, I understand the importance of cosmetics. As the studio owner and director, Elisabeth Cavallaro, said, "Otherwise they look washed out on stage." I get it. Half the other moms kept insisting they weren't going to do it and cheat the system so their little girls didn't look like... I don't know. They were very adamant against it.

I'm very anti-make-up myself. I don't wear it. As we've already determined, I am just not a girly-girl. That cruel mistress Fate decided that I should give birth to one, though, because ever since the recital Lilah has been asking me for her make-up. I use the eyebrow pencils to paint whiskers and a nose on her sometimes for fun, but . . . child? No. I am not letting you get in the habit of wearing make-up every day just because you want to. That shit's not good for you, and I don't know how to explain it to a three-year-old why!

All of this, for a three-year-old, for one night.

The make-up's sitting in a Dollar Store bag in the linen closet right now, way up high where she can't get to it, yet. I felt gross having to buy it in the first place, but kept reminding myself that at least I wasn't putting her in a stupid beauty pageant. These cosmetics served a real practical purpose, and the Capricorn in me was satisfied with that. The first time I put it on her, I was amazed with how much it made her eyes pop, and how pretty she looked. Not the kind of enticing pretty that sickos and perverts imagine, but a real doll-like beauty that made me just want to cuddle her to pieces. I realized... 

My girl could be a movie star. And I started entertaining dreams of putting together an acting portfolio for her and actively searching for roles to audition her for. Those notions still crawl up to the surface of my thoughts sometimes, but I just don't have the kind of work-motivated energy to get that ball rolling. But I suppose I'm giving her a good start with a background in dance. Who knows? Maybe some day she'll be on Broadway.

Professional photo by Tuesday Photography.