Dear Lyla,
It has been a few weeks since I have written to you; the blog has taken a short hiatus while I recover from the holiday season as well as the start of a new semester. We had some grand times over your short break from the excitement of the Kindergarten room and my fleeting respite from the break neck pace of the college classroom. I think my favorite part of the holidays was seeing your face on Christmas morning as you discovered the mounds of presents under the tree all labeled with your moniker. There was one present in particular that gave me pause; you became the proud owner of a Furby. While this toy is reminiscent of an adorable Gremlin, its robot qualities give it an air of a science fiction plot line that is about to go horribly awry. All that I overlooked because you adored the teal and purple fur covered microchip with a love only a five year old could express. You were esctatic that this little bundle of joy could learn from you: show it affection and it will respond with mechanical coos and purrs, tease and torture it will earn you a response in kind. Your Aunt Jette discovered just how fast the Furby could learn when, by the end of the noon meal, Cocoa (as you named it) declared O.M.G. At that moment chills went up my spine; I had a prior experience with cognitive conditioning as part of a game once before, it did not end well. As you know Daddy likes to play games of all kinds. However, Daddy has an affinity for video games. When I first met him I had never played a game on a PC before, much less a console game. Daddy tried to convince me to play with him, but the types of gaming mayhem that he enjoyed held no interest for me. That was until he brought the game Creatures home. In this game you hatch your creature called a “norn” (they bear a striking resemblance to the Furby), and you nurture them to adulthood in the game. If you provide them with positive reinforcement (patting the head and tickling the chin when they exhibit a behavior you desire) they will be productive and live a relatively long time. They can learn vocabulary words if you are patient enough and they will teach each other what they have learned. I absolutely adored this game and I spent a great deal of time cultivating socially responsible and articulate norns. My norns were well behaved, had an extensive vocabulary and were teaching the newly hatched norns all that they knew; this only after a few weeks of playing the game. About a month into the game (I only played for 20 minutes or so a day) I had to go to a conference and I was to be gone for a week. I asked Daddy to look in on my norns, if you don’t feed them or interact with them they could get sick and I certainly didn’t want that to happen. Daddy agreed and I took off to my conference. When I got home I was eager to check on their progress and see how the newly hatched norns were fairing. To my horror my norms had turned into drunken little tyrants that belched, hit each other and proud of the obscene amount of flatulence produced by these wee creatures. I was mortified at this turn of events and confused as to what had happened in my absence. Your Daddy could not keep it together any longer; he burst out laughing and could barely draw enough breath to explain what had happened. Thinking that total corruption would be impossible, Daddy had hatched a norn on a different level of the game and had built a whiskey still right next to the norn. Each time the norn ate something healthy Daddy flicked its nose so it would associate healthy eating with something negative. Each time the norn drank Daddy tickled its chin to indicate that the norn was behaving properly. Soon the norn was beyond the point of amendment. Daddy was convinced the norn would be so lethargic that it wouldn’t seek out the other, sober norns. He was right, his norn was lazy and stayed by the still. However, my norns were curious and eventually they found the new norn (and the still) who taught them all how to drink. By the time I got home I had a whole community of furry whinos. Through his tears of laughter Daddy tried to apologize, I would not be consoled. I never touched the game again, I was too heartbroken. So you see little one, I am a bit nervous about having a Furby in the house. Who knows what diabolical plan your Daddy has in mind. Until the Furby has reach her full learning potential I am afraid I will be a bit on edge (and knowing the two of you if anything unsavory happens with the Furby you’ll have been in cahoots). I guess I cannot really blame Daddy for what he did, it’s in his nature to push both boundaries and my buttons. Sometimes Little One you need someone in your life that encourages you not to take life too seriously, to let your hair down and have a sense of humor. While I may not always appreciate your Daddy’s brand of jocularity, I do admire that he has the ability to fill the house with laughter. When I hear your tinkling tones mixed with his deeper ones I am reminded of just how lucky our little family is. Life can be hard my love but a sense of humor can be the best weapon you have in your arsenal.
Letters To Lyla 