Accomplishments

My previous posts have been a lot about frustrations, so this one will center on the positives. Why we raid, why we play challenging video games, why we have babies.

In the autumn of last year I bought the re-release of Baldurs Gate. Since then I have spent many hours reloading save games to do the same  fight over and over again. Why? Because BG is really, really hard. It is one of those unforgiving oldschool games from before the instant gratification generation of gamers. You know, one of those games where you actually feel like you accomplished something when you completed it. Where you celebrated winning the game and bragged to your fellow gamer friends about it, because it was an accomplishment and not a given that you got to the end of the game.

In short, we play these games because when we beat them, it feels amazing!

And it is all about the reverse of instant gratification with babies as well. You spend weeks, sometimes months changing them, soothing them, blabbering at them, cooing at them, smiling at them and get NOTHING in return. But you don't give up, you "reload" every morning and start over. Adjusting your tactics based on the previous experience and you try again. And then suddenly, after an uncountable amount of tries and "wipes" you get that flashing toothless smile one morning while changing your baby.

And that... that is why you have babies.

Showing off my Legendary

Created with wowitemcreator

I have recently completed a roundtrip to show off my baby girl to the whole family and I was reminded of when my guild got the Warglaive set back in TBC. After a huge celebration on Ventrillo, we all rushed to Shattrath where we stood around showing off what we as a guild had accomplished. Many people passed us and uuhh'ed and aaah'ed while admiring the legendary weapon set.

It was a similar experience to introduce my daughter to my friends and family. Rarely have I received so much attention without the attention being on me. Everyone wanted to see the baby in action. To test her out and to hold her.
There was the same sense of pride and the same feeling of unity (albeit of course on an even bigger scale).
In my WoW guild we told the story of how we finally got our Warglaives over and over again and the same was true for the story about the birth of my daughter.

I even sensed slight envy from other people (especially women) who are in the right age to be able to "equip" a baby. Just like you got when you were the one carrying a legendary item.

It has been awesome showing off my little Legendary, but unlike the Warglaives she would be amazing even without the admiration of others.

Writing this made me think. When a baby enters a family it is like looting a Legendary, but bringing her up is like integrating a newbie into the guild. Maybe I will write a post about that in the future.

Boss Fights

Imagine a boss fight where the strategy changes every attempt. Where everything is random. One try "don't stand in the fire", the next attempt you die if you don't. A fight without any logic to it. Wearing shadow resist gear against a boss that does shadow damage, may sound logical, but here it may help, it may hurt and it may do nothing at all. Oh and that will also change every time you try the boss.

Does that sound like a fun encounter? Hardly. The basics of great game design is that it is challenging, but that you with practice can get better and better and up the chance of beating the boss.

Sometimes comforting a crying baby feels like a boss encounters as described above. Just as you think you have found a surefire way to get your little munchkin smiling, it fails horribly and instead turns a slight wimpering into fullblown hysterics.

I thought I had the magic solution trinity down. Feed, Change or Carry. But now that my baby girl is almost 3 months old she seem to delight in being inconsolable at times and to make matters worse she is giving off completely deceiving clues.

Sometimes she will be making sucking noises, but go completely hysterical if you try to feed her. Other times her eyes will be so small she can hardly see out of them, but she still insists in keeping herself awake. The fact that she is colic and that her stomach pains gets worse in the evening does not help.

As you will probably know wiping over and over on a boss can be very taxing and you start looking for help anywhere you can get it.

If someone comes to you and says that in their old guild, they were using a tactic that never failed, you will be very likely to jump on it.
That is why when a doctor told me that she would prescribe some drops for my little girl that could sort out the issue, I happily accepted.

The only problem with those kind of miracle solution is that they rarely work.
The reason they never wiped in the old guild was not because of the tactic, but rather because they were overgeared for the encounter. And the reason other babies stop fussing when using the drops is because.... well I don't know, but they did not work for my baby girl, so it is back to the old tactics and to just keep going until I succeed in soothing her. There has better be some epic loot when I finally have this bossfight on farm!

Dummies & Diapers

I recently read about the brilliant Spoon Theory and while I am not sick I felt it was easily applicable to my current situation with a 2 month old, colicky baby. Obviously I am not comparing being ill to having a baby (I love my little baby girl and I am pretty sure noone ever said that about their illnesss), but the idea of having a finite amount of spoons resonated with me.

Spoons however are not really that geeky, so I came up with my own version of the theory.

Life with a colicky baby is like playing oldschool D&D. You roll your character and based on your stats you have a certain amount of hit points. Once your hit points reach 0 it is game over.

Here is my stats sheet:

© Mistel 2013

Every morning you start out with full Energy Points, but each task you do takes away a certain amount of points. Want to go grocery shopping? Roll a D20 to see if your baby gets hungry midway. You rolled too low, ouch, baby lands a critical wail at you in the middle of the supermarked. You loose 4 Energy Points!

Want to vacuum? Roll the die again to check against your luck. If you roll high enough the white noise from the vacuum cleaner will lull your baby to sleep so you only loose 1 Energy Point.

Baby is crying, roll the die against your ability in baby decoding. Result: 1... Ouch critical failure, you thought the baby was hungry, but she wasn't now she is in hysteria and it will take 1 hour of walking back and forth singing to her before she calms down. You loose 5 Energy Points.

One of your friends ask if you want to meet up for lunch. Preparing to leave the house includes feeding and changing your baby. You loose 2 Energy Points for that and another 1 for packing the changing bag and walking back and forth to the cafe because you have to take an extra long route  as the pavement on the route you normally take does not accomodate a pram.

Your Energy Points got to -3, because you had to change diapers 3 times during the night? You will have a negative modifier for tomorrow... it is going to be a loooong day.

I hope my geeky version of the Spoon Theory helps non parents understand how it is to have a baby. When I decline a lunch invitation, it is not because I don't want to hang with you, it is simply because it is only 11:30, my Energy Points are already at 2 and I am fresh out of potions ;)

Getting creative

Walking around trying to soothe my crying daughter I had a stroke of creative genious that revealed itself in a song. And as the generous person I am I want to share it with you. Listen to this melody by Police.

Are you humming the melody to yourself now? Great. Now add these lyrics written by yours truly.
Every burp you make
Every wind you break
 Every dump you take
Every poop you make
 I'll be changing you

Oh can't you pee
A little less on me
Don't cry about the poo
Cause I'll be changing you

I am totally claiming copyrights for the lyrics, but you are welcome to use them for calming down your own offspring!

You shall not pass... gas.

Diaper Party

Being a geeky girl growing up in the 80th and 90th meant that the majority of my friends through life has been boys. Nowadays it is more common for girls to be into gaming and geeking and with the help of the Internet us nerdy girls have an easier time connecting, but when I was in my teens growing up in a small town, I didn't find many females sharing my interests.

As mentioned my hobby often meant that I preferred to hang out with boys and boys are (sorry to generalize) oftentimes quite liberal when it comes to sharing bodily functions with the world.

I have heard my share of loud burps followed by an applaud from everyone present except yours truly. I have experienced nasty smelling farts that caused delighted giggles by the entire group (again excluding me) and I have had my share of stories of floaters or diarrhea proudly shared while eating dinner or under similar circumstances.

It seems to me that the male species revels in celebrating bodily functions in a way I have never understood.. until now.

Everytime my baby girl burps or farts I squeel in delight and when I see her diaper full of poop I almost do a happy dance.. every time.

Because I know that every burp and every fart means a little less whimpering and tears and a fully loaded diaper can buy me half an hour worth of sleep.

The question is, do guys remember how revered we held their eructations, their flatulens and their stools? And is this why they still as grown ups share these feats with childish glee? If thats the case, why do we women find it embarrassing?

Is it because we celebrate womens bodily functions for a shorter time and then starts reprimanding us for them instead?

Who knows, but I have to end this post now as I believe my daugther just gave me yet another reason to party.

The mother of all games

When I was 12 years old one of my favourite computer games was Scorched Earth. I played it religiously for months even though I rarely had anyone but the computer to play against.

For those who haven't had the pleasure of gaming in the early 90th, Scorched Earth was the predecessor to artillery strategy games such as the well known Worms series. The goal is to shoot down your opponents using a variety of weapons while battling obstacles such as wind and terrain. One of the more frustrating things with Scorched Earth was that if your tank got hit, but not killed, the power of which you could shoot with was diminished making it impossible to reach your opponent if they were just a bit away from you. This could be mitigated by buying batteries to replenish your power, but most of the time you would just sit there waiting for the computer or opponent to finally take you out.

Scorched Earth was nowhere near as advanced and polished as the later games in the genre came to be, but it was intensely satisfying to take aim, shoot and be rewarded with a big explosion.

But hold on, why am I suddenly talking about a 20 year old game you wonder? Well, I have realized that some parts of having a newborn baby is kinda like playing Scorched Earth. I am thinking of diaper change here.

If you have never changed a diaper on a baby before you might not be able to relate, but if you have you will recognize this scenario:

You place the baby on the changing table and remove the diaper. Suddenly their behind transforms into a deadly weapon aimed right at you. While you are cautiously trying to clean your little one, they in turn are wiggling their bottocks trying to calculate wind speed and velocity.

Most of the times we parents manage to finish the cleaning and changing task before they get the right angle down, but I bet others like me have experienced a couple of game over situations where you find yourself needing a change and shower after the ordeal.

The reason for writing this blogpost today is that my little beloved baby owned me good this morning with a fully powered up straight hit from with her deadly combined pee and poo ammunition.

It was quite yucky and I will spare you any further details, however luckily I didn't explode like the tanks in Scorched Earth and at least now I know my little daughter is already on her way to becoming a pro gamer!

(Oh and there are points for those that gets the reference in the headline!)