Thursday, August 31, 2006

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Gamer's Life For Me

"Mashed goblin heads." (<-- My older son's answer to my question, "How was game? What did you do?") That's what my kids did last night - they mashed goblin heads. Here in the Bible Belt, Wednesday nights are sacred fellowship time. Sports practices and school assignments are arranged to leave the night open. Most of my neighbors gather with their church families and pray. My family? We do gather. We gather our kids and their like-minded friends. We usually feast. And then we get down to serious family activities like goblin head mashing. (Praying is entirely optional.) I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating. I am raising a herd of gamer geeks. RPG's R Us. I love it. My kids know how to follow a cross-referenced index; they have to use diplomacy to gather the party together and develop strategies; they have to write character backstory; they learn to speak up in a group; and they are whizzes at adding/manipulating the numbers on thrown dice. But there are times when I realize how sweetly not-normal my kids really are.

For example:
This summer when we helped VBGF move, she treated my crew to dinner out at the Chinese Buffet. My children LOVE the Chinese Buffet. They were dashing around, happily babbling, comparing choices, and racing each other to the best stuff. Did I mention that they LOVE the Chinese Buffet? Me? Not so much. I was sitting at the table waiting for the whole thing to be over when my youngest, Havoc, rushes to me holding one hand up with the other, blowing on his bright red finger tips.
"Lovey, what happened?!" I asked, as I scooped him up into my lap. With tiny tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, he said, "I encounterd a steaming hot plate and suffered one HP damage." Then he held his fingers up for me to kiss it all better. I gave him extra squeezes and didn't let him see me chuckling. He is definitely sweeter and geekier than the average bear.
Peace.

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