Tall Like Us

"Oh they grow up so fast" is something that people in movies and forums say all the time. I'm not sure if that's true. The first two months with Siiri lasted FOREVER. Like really: sleepless nights, getting used to feeding all the time, still trying to maintain some level of activity at home and also social activity. Siiri was a very calm kid but it was tough with the night-time feedings and I sometimes lived for my daily cup of coffee. It was the best moment of each day. Well of course it was great to observe the early development of a baby and the first smiles and her cute struggles to lift her head, but it was always better after I had had my coffee. I remember being very sleepy. Now with Liisa I don't even notice the night-time feedings most of the time. I fall asleep while feeding and put her in bed when I wake up.

The perception of time has been very different with the second child. Weeks just whooosh past me in a blur of multitasking. I sometimes see social events being announced in Facebook and it feels too inconvenient to actually try to attend them. I did go to the events that I really wanted to go to and I don't have much regrets about other events. I do miss movie nights but there really haven't been many good movies lately so it's not a huge loss. What's important is that I don't feel left out. I kinda miss playing role-playing-games (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons) but I really can't imagine how I could do that at the moment. Maybe in a couple of years. Or maybe just short one-session games that don't demand any weekly commitment.

The perception of child's growth had definitely been different with Liisa. With Siiri, as was expected with a firstborn,  I was constantly observing everything. I mentioned to Erkki when I thought Siiri had grown another centimeter, I observed how Siiri played with toys , I counted how many seconds she can hold her head, I fussed about every time Siiri cried loudly and tried to figure out the cause. With Liisa, I just take it easy and just make sure she looks healthy and seems to enjoy her life. She seemed to be growing quite a lot but we had no idea how much because me or Erkki never bothered to measure or weigh her before her first doctor's visit. The nurse finally weighed her and she had grown 5 cm and 1 kg in her first month. That's a lot. The two-month measurements we had to do ourselves because there are no vaccine shots at that age and there was no reason to take her to the doctor's. During her second month she grow another 5 cm and gained another 1,4-1,5 kg. No wonder Liisa keeps growing out of her clothes. She's as tall as Siiri was at three months. Liisa feels very strong.

While Liisa is getting bigger, I am getting smaller. I lost 8 kg in the first month and another 3 in the second month. Out of the 18 kilos, it's 11 down and 7 to go. I'm currently still on the weight loss trend so I expect to reach my normal weight soon enough. I'm also using some of my free moments to do achievements in the physical games of Xbox Kinect which is quite a workout.

One thing that hasn't changed is my dislike for walking the baby like it's a dog or something. Daily walks shouldn't be a social obligation in a place as cold as Estonia. It easily takes over an hour to coordinate the clothing and feedings and diaper-changing to get two kids outside... so I could carefully walk around with them, making sure no one gets hit by a car or falls in the water or steps on dog poop. I only do it for Siiri's entertainment. I was going to take them outside again today and I was guilt tripping about not having the energy to start getting us ready for the ugly cold and wet outdoors but then I realized it was already close to noon, I had been awake for 4 hours and I still hadn't made it to eating my breakfast (a truly rare occurrance) and according to schedule I was already supposed to start preparing lunch. Soon after lunch it would be Siiri's bedtime. I was relieved I didn't have time to go outside.

Schedule is one thing I didn't have when I was at home with Siiri. I ate whatever I could whenever I wanted. Mostly fruit and fairly healthy snacks and then dinner with Erkki. With Siiri that's not enough. She really does get three warm meals per day: porridge in the morning, last night's leftovers for lunch and a proper dinner all together in the evening. It would be stupid of me not to eat with her so I do get to eat regular healthy meals and it makes a world of difference in how I feel emotionally and physically.

Despite all the hassle of sticking to Siiri's schedule and making sure she's enjoying her life, I really enjoy having her around. I know conversations with a 2.5-year old aren't very complicated but it's still much more fulfilling than checking the messenger every two hours to see if any of my friends has time to chat a little bit and going to an internet forum when all my friends are doing something useful. Besides, it's actually very nice to explain the world to Siiri. I especially enjoy describing which casual-looking household items could kill her and how.

By the way, my paranoia about online Xbox is very much justified. I finished all the missions and all the achievements in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, except for the multiplayer part. I couldn't leave it at that so I made a 3-month purchase to get online access for my Xbox account with Xbox Gold Membership. I got right at it. When the kids were asleep, I logged in to multiplayer and spent 40 minutes getting used to the gameplay. Then Erkki came into the room and I we started preparing dinner so I logged out. The next day Liisa was asleep and Siiri was playing on her own so I logged in. I played a 10-minute match and I was about to start another one but noticed that whenever Siiri says something (and she talks quite a lot), my player's name has a sound icon. I wasn't using any headphones and no one else was using them either! I replied to Siiri, and again there was the sound icon. I frantically started looking for options but then panicked and just turned off the console. As it turns out, Kinect has a built-in microphone and as soon as I logged into multiplayer, it started broadcasting my living room sounds to seven strangers! Oh my God I feel my privacy was so violated. And I feel embarrassed because in AC Brotherhood it's not possible to turn off the sounds of someone else's microphone. Someone had to put up with some casual Estonian conversation between me and Erkki and some Siiri's ranting, but that's about it.

Despite the privacy issue, I still have achievements to get, so I turned off Kinect and joined the multiplayer of the new Assassin's Creed Revelations. Other players there are just as new at the game as I am and it's much more fun this way. Surprisingly, it's so easy to get addicted to the unpredictable nature of online gaming and I have made very little progress with the single player part of the game. Soon I'll have all the achievements of AC Revelations multiplayer and I can get back to the story part of the game.

Porcelain Pony

I've been playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and trying to get more achievement points and right now I totally hate the game. There are still many frustrating parts in the game that I can't complete with high score and I'm starting to think it's impossible for me to get maximum achievement score anyway. I could handle the nasty difficult missions but I just can't handle the pressure of joining multiplayer. I don't like multiplayer games. I've tried at least one and I constantly felt awkward knowing that there is a real person behind every human (and other) that are running around on my computer screen. My computer is almost like my safe haven. I don't want anyone running around in it! The same with the TV. It's a part of my home, my own safe zone. But whenever I turn on Xbox, I start to feel a bit awkward. My subconscious keeps reminding me that Xbox Kinect has a camera and it's connected to the internet. And it's filming ALL THE TIME. I don't even know if that's true but it could be. And there could easily be Xbox viruses out there for the sole purpose of broadcasting the video feed to some pervert's computer. I make sure not to get caught walking around in underwear while Kinect is broadcasting... *khm* I mean turned on ...I mean switched on.

I do understand that my paranoia is unnecessary. Still I'm sure most people who own a a webcam understand it. I actually don't know about other people but when I bought a webcam to talk with forum buddies from across the world, I also developed a habit of always checking if it's switched on. I even got a webcam with a plastic slider that physically covers the camera, so that I can safely keep it closed most of the time. Kinect doesn't have such a slider. I guess Microsoft itself is to blame for the paranoia. Xbox Kinect came with a "free game" that had a habit of making surprise photos of the player. I was really surprised the first time it showed me a picture of my living room and in the middle of living room I was jumping. I was wearing very casual clothes and it was a really bad picture. Ever since then I try to look nice in front of Kinect because I never know when it might start making pictures. Basically it makes me really self-concious whenever I notice that Siiri has accidentally switched on Xbox and the room or myself look messy.

This absurd paranoia wouldn't be helped one bit if the people on the TV screen in our living room were actual people who could really see my character walking around. And I really would feel uneasy about XBox Live Gold membership which would allow video conversations with my Windows Live Messenger contacts. Even if I would never use it, Siiri accidentally might.  So I don't want anything to do with Assassin's Creed Brotherhood multiplayer but then I can't get all the achievements and then the game feels incomplete. And if I can't REALLY complete it, then it feels weird to start playing the next Assassin's Creed game which should be released at the end of the month. So now I'm at a standstill. Assassin's Creed used to be my favorite game but now I really truly don't want to do the multiplayer part of the game and that's alienating me from the entire series.

Actually that's not what I planned to write about. There's another issue that has been on my mind. Many issues really. I have too much time to ponder dumb thoughts. Anyway... There's a fairy tale that's bugging me. Me and Erkki bought a fairy tale book titled, "Fairy Tales for Girls". The entire idea of such a book is annoyingly sexist, but it was the only fairy tale book with so many pictures and so many good classic fairy tales that we still didn't have. Apparently Three Bears is well suited for girls, as well as Little Red Riding Hood, Three Pigs and many other Siiri's favorites. There are a couple of novel fairy tales that I certainly didn't hear when I was a little girl, and a good thing that is. The novel fairy tales lack any logic, thus making them perfect for those young future women (makes sense in the twisted mind of a sexist publisher who would publish such a book in the first place). My favorite is a fairy tale called the Porcelain Pony.

Once upon a time there was a little girl living with her father. A strange lady showed up and introduced herself as her aunt who has come to take care of her. The aunt moved in but she was very mean to the girl. One night the father disappeared. The aunt made the girl work a lot and treated her badly and one day when the girl was out grocery shopping for the woman, she found a porcelain pony on a shelf in the store. The shopkeeper had never seen it before and told the girl to keep it. She took it home and hid it under her pillow. The porcelain pony turned into a real live pony at night. They suddenly found themselves outside together and the pony told the girl that he's there to help her father who is locked up in a tower several-day journey away on top of an unclimbable mountain. A cannibalistic monster is planning to eat her father in the morning. The only way to save the father would be with the help of a golden flower that grows nearby and gives the ability to fly, unfortunately no one has ever seen the flower. The girl and the pony set out to find the flower. They search the entire night with no success, but as the first rays of the sun become visible, the girl sees a golden glimmer in the snow. In the snow they find the golden flower. The pony eats it and the girl sits on the pony and together they fly to save the girl's father, so that the monster can't eat him once the sun is up. They reach the tower that has three floors. Each floor has a chest full of treasure that the girl is warned not to touch. She finds the father, gets the key off the sleeping monster, releases the father, then accidentally touches a piece of treasure and they escape the tower with the monster chasing them. Girl and the father get back on the pony and fly back home. The aunt, who is really an evil sorceress, is waiting for them and sends a big storm to bring them down. The pony kicks thunder with his hoofs, sending it toward the sorceress. The sorceress gets hit with the lightning and disappears in a flash of light. They safely land in front of their home and suddenly the pony turns into a handsome prince. He tells them that he's a prince whom the sorceress enchanted to be a white pony at night and a porcelain pony during the day. Now the sorceress is dead and the enchantment is broken. He then asks the girl to marry him. The girl says yes and they live happily ever after.

As you can see, the fairy tale has everything - a white pony that flies, golden flower, treasure, a girl saving the day, and a prince who wants to marry. Everything except logic. Where to begin. Perhaps at the point where they all plummet to their early death at the exact moment when the sorceress gets hit with that lightning and disappears, thus being effectively dead and breaking the enchantment that made the prince a pony. Or maybe there would have been the awkward moment when a girl and her father sit on the back of a prince who has the ability to fly. Actually that shouldn't have been a pony at all because it was no longer nighttime. The fairy tale should have ended with a scene where the girl notices the golden glimmer in the show and starts cheering with joy and hope, but as she turns around toward the pony, she sees a porcelain toy standing on snow, shining in the early morning sun with sad eyes. 


Okay, but imagining that it was a 12-hours-porcelain and 12-hours-alive kind of an enchantment. Kind of rare, but lets imagine that the fairy tale didn't have a gloomy ending. The monster is supposed to eat the father in the morning. Usually in fairy tales that means dawn, but okay, that monster indeed was a heavy sleeper. The pony later said that  the monster will eat the father when the sun is up. So lets say noon. So they  fly several-day's journey in a few hours. If the sun comes up at 8 a.m. and they have four hours until noon, and lets say the "several" is three days journey to that tower (although it might as well be five or six or more). That means they travel 72 hours worth of distance in only 4 hours. I found in a forum that wild west mail courier Pony Express riders averaged about 120 km per day. That's 360 km in 4 hours, or 90 km per hour. WHOOOOOSSSSSHHHHH!! That is quite some speed. Especially if the girl is in her night gown. (The pony woke her up at night and they "suddenly found themselves outside" so I see no reason for her to be in a winter coat.) Spending the entire night outside in the winter with only a night gown would have left her with frostbites but those 4 hours flying through the air at 90 km per hour is totally icing on the cake. They fly towards the father as the girl gets more and more stiff. When they reach the tower, the pony realizes she is long dead.

That's just the tip of the iceberg (no pun intended). Why could the pony teleport outside and away from under the pillow? The sorceress would have never given him that ability. And if she did, why didn't they just teleport to the tower? How did the pony even know about the father and how did he manage to get to that shelf in the store just in time for the girl to find him? How did he "kick" lightning? What happened to the sorceress's smoking burnt body?

Erkki often warns me not to look for logic where there is none. Perhaps some day I will be wise enough to listen.