Get Ready to Wiggle

I'm not quite certain how I managed to pull this off, but I somehow managed to avoid contracting the flu that had afflicted MLW and the mini-BG. After my last post, our nanny also came down with the bug, so it's not like it wasn't contagious. I did have some persistent indigestion in the form of gas for a couple days, but that was the extent of anything untoward.

Mind you, me being the only person in the household not coming down with an illness never happens. MLW has an immune system like a...like a...well, something both healthy and sexy. So I'm counting myself extremely lucky.

In other news on the family front, the beach ghostlette has been going through an interesting stage the past few days of requesting that I adopt the persona of "Daddy Wiggle." This despite the fact that she really doesn't watch the Wiggles much anymore (although she did ask if she could see them in person this week). So in order to adopt this persona, all I have to do is attempt an Australian accent (which, while pretty bad to begin with, usually slips into an even worse attempts at Cockney) throw in the occasional "beauty, mate," and add the word "wiggle" to pretty much every noun in existence: wiggle toddler, wiggle cat, wiggle bet, and so on, ad infinitum.

What's particularly interesting about this phenomenon is that she's being much more reasonable about everyday requests when Daddy Wiggle makes them. Usually, dinnertime is a series of unending (and increasingly forceful) reminders about eating the food in her bowl. However, Daddy Wiggle only needs make these requests once.

So, the way I figure it, this is because she either:

--Likes the Wiggles
--Likes Australians
--Prefers Daddy Wiggle to my actual personality
--Wants to make certain her father keeps his role-playing chops up to par
--Is preparing for her own entry into the gaming world

Alternate theories being accepted in the comments.

Surfacing

Ding, dong, the New Beast is dead. Well, okay, not dead, but delivered. Under word count slightly, but on time. This project was without question the most difficult one I've ever undertaken. So much so, in fact, that I don't think I'll ever work on one like it again. I'd not realized at the start that the process would be quite so painstaking, and that having to remain stringently faithful to the setting on which the game was based would prove so difficult. But it was.

Truth be told, it would not have been possible to finish on time with a manuscript that was even vaguely coherent if it weren't for the willingness of MLW to make time for me to write. If I were to calculate an hourly rate for the work that I generated over the life of this particular project, I'd probably weep. MLW has always allowed me plenty of space to devote to this hobby, oftentime to the detriment of her work life and our home life. This time, I'm not proud to say I demanded more from her than was fair. And although I've said as much in private, I think a "public" statement is also in order: Thank you, honey--I'm sorry.

Almost two weeks after I sent in my piece of the puzzle, I still feel like I'm slowly emerging from the morass of the last few months. A gradual re-awakening, if you will, made more ironic presently because of the fact that I'm so, so tired.

Trouble

My increasingly infrequent posts seem to be adopting a practically Seinfeldian tone of late ("Hey, d'ya ever notice..."). Eventually I'll be able to get back to full-on blather mode, but Work / Child / Other has dropped posting pretty far down on the list of things to do.

So, for now, another anecdote of bite-size length:

Last week, the mini-Beach Ghost was sitting in her high chair, playing contentedly with a few amorphous blobs of Play-Doh. Since I'd just gotten home, I was on my way upstairs to get into casual clothes. Here's the exchange that followed:

Me: "Daddy has to go upstairs to get changed. Do you want to come with me?"

Mini-BG: "No."

Me (two seconds later): "How 'bout now?"

Mini-BG (immediately): "How 'bout no?"

Yup, the wife and I are in for a world of hurt 10 years from now.