Five Years Later

Five years later
I still look forward to the sound of your key in the door

Five years later
I still love showering with you at the end of the day

Five years later
I still love falling asleep to your video games

Five years later
I still love being nerdy with you

Five years later
I still love the way you play Summertime

Five years later
I still adore your blue eyes and crooked smile

And you're still the best choice I ever made
And the only one I ever want

Five years later
and for many years to come.

All my love, now and always,
Kyra

A Soap by Any Other Name

Kyra and I have this strange superstition. We know it's silly, but we're still adhering to it: We purchased a certain scent of soap, and in the following days or week (I can't remember how long), we were called about a foster care placement for a child with the same name as the scent of soap.

The child has been with us for a few months now, and we still don't know how long they will be with us. So every time we're about to run out of the soap, we think to ourselves, "Maybe if we run out the soap, [the child] will leave...!" Then during Kyra's biweekly grocery shopping, she picks up more just in time to maintain our supply, and the child stays with us a little longer.

I wonder how this will play itself out. Will we run out of soap and then the child will leave? Or will the child leave or stay regardless of our soap supply? In terms used by MythBusters (which we've been watching a lot lately), will our personal myth be busted or confirmed?

Of course, this is all very silly, but it embodies our hopes for the child to stay with us, or at least to keep in touch. We'll have to wait to see.

HALT for Babies

I learned a handy acronym a while back for helping identify the cause of emotional distress. The acronym is HALT, and it stands for Hurt, Angry, Lonely, Tired. I add Hungry, too, because I like many other people get pretty cranky when I'm hungry. Basically, the acronym helps you remember a few key emotionally descriptive words that serve as a starting point for greater emotional awareness during stressful moments. As a start, during an emotionally charged moment, ask yourself, "Am I Hurt, Angry, Lonely, or Tired (or Hungry)?" The answer can help you resolve the issue at hand, even if it's as simply as getting a snack or as complex as asking for an apology.

For babies, however, it's a bit more complicated since they have little capacity for expressing their emotions other than whining/screaming, and another person (you, the parent) has to figure out what their motivating need is. The other night, after the screaming baby woke us very late, I reflected on what might make a good list of possible problems babies are having and how to remember said list. That's when I came up with the perfect acronym, which stands for Sick, Hungry, Tired, and/or Dirty (diaper, that is): SH*TeD.

So next time your baby is whining, ask yourself, "Is my baby SH*TeD?" Testing each answer will likely resolve the crying, and remembering the list should make you smile, hopefully reducing your stress just a bit. Good luck and report any results!

Inside a Ring Cycle

One interesting theme I wanted to report: We seem to be stuck in a Wagner Ring Cycle of sorts. It all started when I bought Valkyrie Profile 2. We decided that it was likely we wouldn't be able to find Valkyrie Profile (the original - it's very rare), so we went ahead and played it anyway. When we finished, we thought it was so good that we just had to find the original, somehow, even if it meant emulating it.

An aside: The Valkyrie Profile games (just 1 and 2, 3 seems to be an oddball) are incredibly interesting because in each the main character is a valkyrie who recruits dead heros for Odin's holy army in a fight against the giants at Ragnarök. The 2nd game takes a different twist on this idea, by encountering spirits of already-dead heros and recruiting them well after their deaths. In the 1st, however, you witness the events that lead up to their deaths and then recruit them. It's quite a unique idea, as well as the gameplay.

Emultation of Valkyrie Profile failed miserably, since there seems to be a perhaps intentional software design that breaks the emulation at the very beginning. So I started a quest to find the game online for cheap (as opposed to eBay's usual $100+ price tag). I eventually found it from someone who may not have known the value of what he was selling, but in the end I got the game for a reasonable $10! We finished that game, and I said to Kyra, "We should really watch Wagner's Ring Cycle [a series of operas], since these games are based on it." Kyra replied, "No, that will be too boring."

Well, to our amazement, a few weeks later, PBS aired the Met's production of the Wagner's Ring Cycle, and we were floored. The stage design is simply amazing, and it really allows for the set to express a great deal of emotion. Seriously, it's incredibly unique, and you just have to see it: here's a sampling of staging designs.

We watched a little of each opera except for the last and were simply entranced. We had to buy the DVDs and watch the whole thing. Since the operas are so long, it wasn't practical for us to start watching before the kids were in bed and stay up so late to finish it. Further, one or the other kid woke up, so one of us missed something on each broadcast. Still, thank you WPT for showing it! We would have never known about it!

Kyra eventually bought the DVD set for my birthday, and we're just getting around to watching it now. We have all but Götterdämmerung ("Twilight of the Gods") left. The series is fantastic. I highly recommend it for not only seasoned opera lovers (who I am not) and people who never thought twice about opera (basically me). It is amazing and possibly a "gateway" opera - Kyra is talking about watching other operas "just to see" if she's entranced by Wagner or the Met's production, or if she really does like opera.

(Oh, and now that I've watched Das Rheingold, the battle cry "Nibelung Valesti" from the Valkyrie Profile games makes a lot more sense. Essentially, it would mean "Worthy of the Nibelung" or "The Nibelung was Worthy" or something like that. Interestingly, Google Translate provides "Nibelung Founded" as the translation - perhaps it meant "Created by the Nibelung". The "Nibelung" is the dwarf Alberich who forged the Ring, and in the first game, Valkyrie is wearing the "Nibelungen Ring", and it is an important plot element to remove it. No, not that Ring. The original Ring.)

Additionally, for Christmas, LP and Nick got me a book called "Mozart in the Jungle" - about classical music and drugs, apparently. On page 2 of the prologue, two guys are doing drugs and talking about Siegfried, the 3rd opera in the Ring Cycle. One of the guys says something like, "They think Star Wars made up this stuff - it's just Siegfried, man!" Further, I started playing a game series called Shadow Hearts, and in game 2, one of the characters oddly enough learns new sword moves by reviewing scenes from Wagner's Ring Cycle that the character finds randomly lying around!

All in all, this is a bizarre series of events all closely related to one monumental cultural touchstone, and it's just strange!

Oh, and one other thing, The Lord of the Rings is all ripped off of The Ring Cycle!!! (More about that later.)

Update in the New Year

Wow, it's been a while since we posted last. A lot has happened since October!

For those of you close to us, you know that the new child in our care has been a great little kid. Other than getting sick a few times, and one time very seriously, it's been very smooth. The child sleeps better than Luca, which is especially surprising given the age! Most of the drama has been about the child rather than from the child.

We had a very good Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year. For Halloween, we had a pumpkin carving party with our friends the weekend before. On the day of, we had a little white bear winter coat for the new kid, Luca wore his Abiyoyo outfit, and we walked around our neighborhood for the first time as a family. This was a happy occasion, not only because we had a new child with us, but because we feel safe enough to walk around at night in our neighborhood.

I completed a multi-week foster care training course between October and December. Kyra and I celebrated our date-iversary in November, and Luca continued his swim lessons. Thanksgiving was upon us before we realized it, and we made lots of food with our friends and family, using a lot of food from our winter CSA share from Crossroads Community Farm (Thank you Mike, Cassie, Zea, and Edie!). I missed the fireplace at our condo, but it was still a warm and joyous holiday.

In December, the integer describing my age increased by 1, and Kyra and I attended a work holiday parties. Then there was Snowmaggedon 2012: We were all stuck inside for a few days, and nearly lost power due to tree branches hanging on our power line. I ended up playing basketball on the tree to knock the snow off of it, and we shoveled 2-3 times just in one day. Luca's holiday party at school was unfortunately cancelled, so we didn't get to see him (not) sing a Christmas tune.

Christmas was at our new home again, but this time we had a different menu. For Christmas Eve, we had some of our friends and family over for presents, along with dinner, with turkey stuffed squash from our CSA (the squash, not the turkey). On Christmas Day, we had friends and family over again for brunch and more presents. At the same time, the new kid was very sick, so it was a mixture of fun and stress that I hope never repeats ever again. The only saving grace was that I didn't have to take a lot of extra time off for the illness.

We attended my mom's side's Christmas party out at Uncle Doug's and Aunt Connie's farm, and it was a lot of fun. Everyone got a kick out of seeing the new child, and like Thanksgiving, we all ate way too much. New Year's was similar to Christmas but much more low key and less stressful, with no one being terribly sick. We got to catch up on much-needed sleep.

All in all, it was a good holiday season, aside from the illness, and we all had fun and received nice presents. But the best present was spending time with our friends and family, and that meant a lot to all of us. We hope everyone else had a great holiday season, and we wish you a happy new year!