PAgent’s Progress

The 3-year-old from across the street was over at our house last weekend when I wanted to play video games. This ruled Resident Evil 4 right out. So, on a whim, I dug out ‘Piglet’s Big Game’.

I had originally purchased PBG for my son to play, since at the time he was pre-literate, and having some troubles with games like Mario Kart: Double Dash, and Mario Party. He ended up not getting very far in the game for two fundamental reasons. First, he was perfectly happy to just have his character aimlessly wander around and interact with things, and therefore failing to progress. Second, the confrontations with the Heffalumps and Woozles scared him to death. Poor guy.

My daughter had picked it up and actually played it a bit, but she got stuck at a puzzle early on that required sneaking Tigger past some patrolling Woozles, and gave it up as too frustrating.

So, I sat down and methodically cleared the first two chapters. The 3-year-old loved it, although we’re pretty sure she thought it was a movie. Of course, now I want to finish it. After all, a game is a game, and who wants to quit halfway through a game?

And it’s a really, really cute game. You play mostly as Piglet, who scurries around with a head-bobbing shuffle that makes his ears waggle back and forth adorably. You sometimes play as other Pooh characters in special challenge segments, but the game focuses on Piglet. The shy little pig must enter his friend’s dreams like a diminutive Freddy Kreuger, only he must confront and overcome his own fears in order to help his friends.

Piglet confronts the Heffalumps and Woozles patrolling his friend’s dreams by making scary faces at them during a scary showdown sequence. Making a face involves hitting a specified button sequence before you get scared by the bad guy. New (and scarier) faces can be purchased by redeeming cookies that you collect in the game.

The game design is quite attractive, and each character’s dream is rendered in a style that evokes the dreamer. Pooh’s dreams take place in a candyland of giant cupcakes and peppermint sticks. Roo’s dreams are constructed of cardboard colored with crayons. The 3-D graphics are quite good, surprisingly. Game engines for children’s games typically suck, because, when you are buying a game because it features Barney the Purple Dinosaur, you don’t really care how smooth the movement is, or how much detail is rendered.

So I am taking a bit of a break from RE4 and galumphing through dreams as Piglet. If the people that warn us about violent video games are correct, I should start becoming desensitized to scary faces, and may start knocking people over while singing “the most wonderful thing about PAgents is, I’m the only one!” However, if I start developing a troubling stutter, it will be a clear signal that I should go back to blowing heads off with a shotgun.

Here are the best things about my vacation last week:

• Hearing the white noise of waves crashing every night.

• The rental house had a deck right on the edge of the bluff overlooking the beach. I could step out on the deck with a cup of coffee, or a cold beer, and watch the waves, see seagulls flying by, watch fishing boats going to and fro, and generally relax.

• The weather was beautiful. It was clear enough to see the sunset 5 out of 6 nights — unheard of for the Oregon coast. The highs were in the mid-sixties, a blissful break from the 80’s and 90’s we have been having inland.

• Stars. For the first time in a long time, I could actually see the stars at night. From the deck, the Big Dipper sat front and center over the beach, pointing to Polaris, the North Star. Cassiopeia sat over the house. The faint backbone of the sky, the Milky Way, arched overhead. I saw three satellites, and one shooting star. From our deck I could also see the Yaquina Head lighthouse as it flashed its unique identifying pattern: 2 seconds on, 2 seconds off, 2 seconds on, 14 seconds off.

• Watching the octopus get fed at the Mark Hatfield Marine Science Center. I’ve often stated that there is nothing in any horror or sci-fi special effects extravaganza half as creepy as what Mother Nature cooks up every day. Watching an octopus feel its way around a tank with its boneless tentacles is bad enough, but to watch it pounce on a live crab, to first paralyze it, and then inject it with an enzyme that literally dissolves its living flesh, well, that beats anything Hollywood has ever dreamed up.

• Finally getting to eat at the Canyon Way restaurant and bookstore in Newport. My brother has been telling me to eat there for years. We finally made it. My God, it was good.

• Building a fire in the firepit next to the house. There was a time in my life when I built a fire every single day. I miss it. I miss the artistry of laying out the kindling. I miss the snap and crackle as it catches and the smell of the smoke. I miss the penetrating warmth of it. Cooking hot dogs and s’mores doesn’t suck, either.

• Standing knee deep in the freezing surf, and watching salad plate-sized rock crabs scurrying around my feet. You could actually reach down and grab them by the carapace, and pull them out of the water as they waved all of their segmented legs frantically in the air. If you brought them out to the wet sand, they would promptly bury themselves. Although it took a bit of a gut check to actually reach down and retrieve them, hoisting those huge bugs out of the water was a real Aliens-meets-Marlin-Perkins kind of moment. My kids were impressed.

• Taking my kids to the beach the evening before we left. My daughter scurried from the surf to the high tide line, looking for any type of living critter she could find. She enthusiastically dug for Mole Crabs, prodded jellyfish that had washed ashore, and generally stuck her nose into everything. Meanwhile, my son just sat down on the sand and contentedly dug holes and made piles, humming to himself as he did so. As the sun began to set, they both walked down to the water’s edge and started playing some game together. I was behind them, and for a few moments, all I could see was their silhouettes outlined by the blazing gold of the setting sun as reflected from the water. Two silhouettes holding hands, joyfully jumping up and down, and passing things back and forth. It was almost painfully touching.

Here are the worst things about my vacation last week:

• The rental house was a bit of a wreck. Although maintaining a structure on the ocean is always challenging, it was nonetheless pretty run down, even for the beach. About half of the lights were dysfunctional, either missing bulbs, dangling from the wiring, or entirely missing. There were no outside lights, for example. The freezer portion of the refrigerator smelled strongly (and I mean strongly) of dead fish. The rental agency sent out someone the second day we were there who scrubbed the bejesus out of the thing with bleach, and it gradually faded. We still never used the freezer.

• The house had no direct beach access. The house next to us had a stairway to the beach, as did the one next to it. We, however, had to either walk along the shoulder of Highway 101 for about 100 yards, or drive to a nearby park.

• I caught my daughter in a blatant lie about locking the door to the upper deck. She had told us it was locked, even though she had left unlocked so she could sneak out in the middle of the night. This was the worst example of the battles and skirmishes we had all week. When things were going her way, she was enthusiastic and affectionate. When she wasn’t getting her way, she started picking on her brother, and talking back. Sigh. So much for our fresh start.

• It didn’t last nearly long enough.

They say that life crawled out of the ocean, and that our blood reflects the salinity of those ancient seas. They say that we float for 40 weeks in our mother’s womb in fluid much like our ancestors floated in before they had legs, arms, or lungs.

I don’t know.

I do know that the ocean brings me a sense of peace that is difficult to obtain elsewhere. I sleep more peacefully and more restfully when I can hear surf crashing, and smell the salt breeze. I grew up on a salt water sound, and the smell of tide flats or the screech of a seagull can send me home in an instant.

Tomorrow we are going on vacation for a week. We have rented a house on the Oregon coast, and I am hoping to take the opportunity to refresh, recharge, and rejuvenate. I am bringing a stack of science fiction, my GPS receiver, and my wading shoes. I know we will be keeping busy, and trying to hit some of the local attractions, but I sincerely hope that we budget time to sleep late, walk the beach at sunset, and lay around.

This vacation is perhaps particularly timely. As I have written here previously, we’ve had some difficulties with our children lately. Two days ago, we had yet another incident with them. I won’t go into details, (partially because I really don’t want this to become a parenting blog) but once again boundaries were crossed and warnings were ignored. Notably, this time someone else’s child was placed in some small jeopardy–an adorable 3 year old that loves my kids and spends a lot of time with them. It was, as they say, the last straw. They burned their last bridge.

When I look at the boundaries we have set for them, I honestly don’t feel that we have been particularly permissive. In fact, I had always thought of myself as fairly strict. No, I don’t think we have been too lax, I just think that we have been too permissive for my daughter. All children are different, and she in particular seems to need sharp boundaries and a firm rein.

My wife and I both feel that some undefined boundary has been crossed, that they have taken their behavior beyond some threshold. That we have to assert our parental control now, definitively, as the cost of doing so later would be prohibitive. So, our children are in the equivalent of lock-down, and they will be getting no breaks from us anytime soon. We have agreed that we need to impose a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy. Much like the philosophy that you can decrease homocide rates by cracking down on graffiti, we hope to improve overall behavior by not tolerating any small incidents of disrespect or disobediance. Our daughter is only nine, she will not be allowed to argue with us, make smart comments, or even roll her eyes in our direction. Not anymore. Not for a while. After all, we are not here to be her best friends, we are here to parent, to try to make her the best person that we possibly can.

It will be hard. I think the reason the kids have gotten into the habit of having the freedom that they’ve had, is because it’s far easier to say “don’t get into trouble” as they head outside than it is to actually go outside with them and keep an eye on them. Permissiveness is easy. Discipline is hard.

So we enter yet another phase of parenthood, that of donning big black hats and being the bad guys. It promises to be a bumpy transition, one that I fervently hope will be eased by being at the seashore, hearing the cries of gulls and cormorants, and being lulled to sleep by the gentle crash of waves onto the sands. But whether it is eased or not, it is a change that must occur. And no one ever said it would be easy.

Yesterday I was getting ready for work, and noticed that the computer was on. I assumed my wife forgot to shut it down. I also noticed the toilet in the utility room had been used, but not flushed. Also, not that unusual, as flushing is still something my kids have to be reminded to do.

Then my wife called me at work. “Did you turn the computer on this morning?”

“No, it was on when I got up.”

“…I’m going to get our kids out of bed and find out what they were doing last night.”

Sure enough, they had gotten up at 4:00 am, turned on the computer, surfed the web, and watched some TV. Less than a week after getting their privileges restored from the last time they were wandering at night. Unbelievable.

Of course, our children are still somewhat unsophisticated. They left the computer on, because they didn’t know the Shut Down procedure. They left footprints in the browser history, because they didn’t know it tracked the sites you visit. But as my wife has pointed out “Don’t ever tell them how you know what they were doing, or they won’t ever make that mistake again.”

This is a very real concern. My kids are bright enough to learn from their mistakes. I am beginning to feel like Jean-Luc, trying to battle the Borg. “They’ve adapted their shield harmonics. Phasers have no effect!” “They’ve learned to clear the browser cache, we don’t know where they surfed!”

I have semi-seriously suggested that I put tripwires in our house, connected to bells or some other noisemaker, so we can catch them in the act. My wife was appalled at the suggestion. Her solution? Put some key objects (like the TV remote) in a particular arrangement, and see if they have been moved in the morning.

When I take a step back, I am astounded that we two rational adults are having strategy sessions on how to outwit a 9 year old. And what’s more, I have the sneaking suspicion that we’re losing. Between the two of us, we’re Inspector Clouseau and Kato.

Just don’t ask me which is which.

I caught a banded dragonfly in Animal Crossing today.

It is absurdly ridiculous how happy this makes me.

Several years ago, I woke my daughter up in the middle of the night so she could come outside with me and see the Perseids meteor shower. She thought it was wonderful. Every year when August rolls around, she begs me to let her see the meteor shower again.

Of course, I live in Portland, so it is very often overcast, or flat-out raining, during the Perseids. I usually promise that I will get up at 1:00 am, and if there is anything to see, I will wake her up. It’s been at least three years since there’s been anything to see.

Two nights ago, when I climbed out of bed at one a.m., the sky was cloudless, with no moon. I stood outside until I saw a meteor streak across the sky, then went inside to wake my children. Although my daughter came awake readily, I was not able to rouse my son. I got him out of bed, and even put his bathrobe on him before realizing he was still asleep. I let him crawl back into bed.

And so my daughter and I found ourselves laying on our backs in our little front yard, wrapped in an old blanket. I had my arm under her head, and she was snuggled up against me. We watched for the few meteors bright enough to be seen in a sky washed out by the lights from Portland.

As she sometimes does, she started chattering in my ear. She started out asking some questions about meteors and how the dinosaurs died out, but then she began free-associating. I heard how she couldn’t decide what to do when she grows up, what she wants to name her children, and whether or not she will keep her last name when she gets married. She jabbered on contentedly until she decided she had seen enough meteors and wanted to go back to bed.

All in all, it was the kind of moment that is rare in our relationship. We were sharing a common enthusiasm, sharing companionship. It was a sweet and gentle thing, the kind of father-daughter time any father would be delighted to have. And it was even more welcome in a relationship that has been largely defined by my frustration with her behavior, by her lying to me, by her sneaking behind my back, by my being forced to act as enforcer and authority figure. It was the kind of moment that I fear will become even more rare as she gets older, and we become more adversarial (if that is possible). She is a challenging child, and so much of my interaction with her is negative, that moments like the one we shared on the front lawn are incredibly precious to me.

Today, I called them in for lunch, and noticed my son chewing something. When I asked him what it was, they both looked guilty. It was chewing gum. Where did you get it? I asked. From his sister. Where did she get it? She pried it off the sidewalk along the street in front of our house. Again, I’m astounded at how angry I can get with my own flesh and blood. I can’t believe she did this. My wife and I agree that we will have to contact our pediatrician on Monday to see if we should be concerned about infectious diseases. We’re probably overreacting, I know. After all, surely not many pathogenic organisms could survive being stuck to the sidewalk in a wad of gum.

On the other hand, at least the hepatitis C virus is astonishingly durable, capable of surviving outside the body at least 16 hours, and as long as four days. Hepatitis C can also be transmitted via traces of infected blood in chewing gum. I didn’t need to worry about this.

And they weren’t done for the day. In fact, they both just got sent to their rooms for going down to the edge of a nearby creek, which has always been explicitly not permitted. If it wasn’t enough that parts of the creek are muddy and deep, transients have been known to camp alongside it, adding a dimension of extra concern. Sometimes it seems as if the warnings and cautions, the rules and regulations that we give them, have no impact on their behavior whatsoever, except possibly to give them ideas.

All of the warm fuzzy feelings I had from watching the Perseids with her are gone, swamped and overwhelmed by fresh anger and anxiety. And the complicated tapestry of our relationship continues to be woven, knot by tangled knot.