Gametes In Love

Last year, for Thanksgiving my sister and her husband came up for a visit. Both are Pokemon Go players, and they asked for a day trip to Pier 39 so they can play. Shane and Griffin had played for a little bit, and knowing that Griffin was into the game I figured it’s a good way to spend the day. Unfortunately, Shane couldn’t come with us that day, so Pokemon Go ended up on my phone for that adventure.

Since that day, Griffin asked me to spin poke-stops, and catch pokemon as I walk between my car and the office.
This expanded to me progressively reading up more about the game, and strategies of play.
It also has grown to the two of us taking occasional drives out so he can fight gyms (and now Raids).

All this has given me an opportunity to interact with him at a lever other than homework nagging and screen-time negotiations. It’s been good for us. Shane and he have sports. I won’t catch up there, but Griffin and I, for now, have this.
En route to gyms we get to talk. It’s been nice! Yesterday, for example, we talked about storming out of the house when he’s angry.

I never imagined a video game can be an “in” to relationship building, but I’ll take it. Before Storm was born, I was Griffin’s “person”. Once his brother was born though, Griffin’s world became mostly about Daddy. I love that Shane and he are so close; but I want to know he can and would come to me too.

So yeah, judge my Pokemon Go playing — I’ve got something making it worth-while.

If the kids wake up before Shane and I, they run into our room, straight to the office where they proceed to entertain themselves with the ipad (taking advantage of us still being asleep and unable to say ‘No!’). This morning, however, the two decided to entertain themselves by making balls out of rubber bands. Cuz’ you know… why not???

At one point though, after I woke up, I over-heard the following conversation:

Griffin: Who’s your favorite? Mom or Dad?
Storm: Mom!
Griffin: I like them both.
Storm: Yeah, I like them both, too.
Storm: …
Storm: We’re tweensies!

Side note: I’m “in” with Griffin! For me this is HUUUGE. I feel like it’s taken years to be viewed as equal to Daddy in his eyes. Like, no joke, years. Feels like 6-and-a-half, to be exact. But I’ll take it as long as it lasts.

Participating in Science Fair is a requirement for the 2nd grade class of our elementary school.

Griffin had long-decided that he wanted to do his project on crystal growth. Unfortunately growing crystals on their own isn’t much of a project, since there’s no hypothesis there. So he ultimately called out that he wanted to grow crystals in various temperatures to see which will grow faster.
We had some good, dinner-time conversations refining his hypothesis and experiment design, to make sure he was controlling for the right variables.
He grew his crystals in the fridge, room temperature and heating pad. The room temp and hot sample we kept in the downstairs bathroom, because there’s no natural light in that room: this was so that light didn’t become a factor in the experiment.
We had to keep Zoe out of the bathroom too — 1) so she wouldn’t get too curious and want to drink the crystal solution; 2) so that she didn’t decide to play with the sample containers. In revenge, she DID play/break one of the samples AFTER it was done, and thankfully AFTER I had photographed it for the fair poster. Life with pets and kids, man — it’s why you can never have nice stuff.

Oh — in case you’re curious, hot sample grew the fastest.

I’m raising tea lovers.

Growing up, my parents weren’t keen on allowing my sister and I to drink coffee. It was an “adult” drink, and I remember secretly ordering coffee at McDonalds with my Sausage Muffin in High School. Joke was on me though: after all the time, coffee just tastes too bitter to enjoy. To this day, no matter what I’ve tried coffee is yucky. The amount of creme and sugar it required to be palatable doesn’t make it worth it. With that said, I greatly enjoy coffee ice cream, and a few drops of coffee in my milk. Oh… and Turkish Coffee — the way my mom makes it. That is delicious (on account of the pound of sugar, I’m certain goes in it). But it’s also a rare treat I’m exposed to every few years.
Shane similarly doesn’t have a taste for coffee, which is why you won’t find coffee in our house. We DO have a coffee maker, and will go out and purchase coffee when we have relatives coming to down (we’re not tyrants! ;p)

So, tea is has mostly been for me.

A few years back, for my friend Molly’s baby-shower we went to Lisa’s Tea Treasures (in Campbell), where one of the teas served was a Butter Truffle. I found myself yearning for it, only to discover that a tea house a block away from my office sold it. Here is where Tea Time entered my world. Butter Truffle was my gateway tea into high-quality, loose-leaf teas. As I progressively went back over time to refill my stash, I would take Griffin with me. One day we sat down for high tea there. Griffin became an instant fan, and has drank tea since.
And he’s kept asking me to do high tea again… with his brother.

The week-end after Mother’s Day, on (somewhat) of a whim, we went.

Now I have two kids at home that enjoy tea. Their favorites are: Lychee, Butter Truffle, Ceylon, and White Peach Pomegranate.

We’re slowly working on Shane.

A few random memories from our tea excursion:

• Storm discovered sugar cubes. No, I didn’t let him eat any straight… though he asked… multiple times
• A lady next to us broke a tea set. Can’t say I wasn’t relived it wasn’t MY kids
• Storm also discovered Bagel Bites. He’s a fan.