We gave in to the Wolvog’s running monologue and allowed him to buy himself Plants vs. Zombies.  For long time readers who have known the Wolvog since he was a binky-sucking, just walking toddler, you know this is a far cry from the halcyon no-violence days of babyhood.  Remember back then when we said no violence in books, movies, or video games?  We patted ourselves on the back a lot when the twins were in nursery school.  Look at us: our kids watch no television!  They’ve never played with a water gun!  They’re mini pacifists who eschew Peter Pan because that Captain Hook and his sword are too damn violent!

Oh, and then the kids started school.

And they met other kids.  And other kids met them.  And other kids said, “whoa, you seriously don’t even have a water gun?”

When the kids were in kindergarten, we started rethinking the no-violence rule.  It wasn’t because we wanted the twins to fit in — I mean, we did, but there was only so far we were willing to go on that end — but we realized that we didn’t have a firm reason for the rule.  We couldn’t explain it to others because we couldn’t explain it to ourselves.  It wasn’t enough to ban violence in all forms simply because we didn’t like violence — I mean, truly, who likes violence?  We needed a reason for why we lumped all violence into one big pile and stamped a NO across it.

I realized the rule mostly came from an inability to know what the kids could handle mixed with the idea that it’s impossible to dial it back once they’ve been exposed.  You can’t un-see or un-learn things.  My biggest fear was that we’d expose them to something before they were ready, and it would negatively shape their personality, turning them into violence-obsessed playground jerks.

Then again, not exposing them to any violence could also negatively shape their personality, making them quake with fear over fear itself.  Plus, they would never be prepared for the zombie apocalypse if we coddled them completely.

So we started with violent books, and we started with Harry Potter.  Starting with books is obvious: the page gives the reader the most distance from the violence.  It exists only in description, and the story unfolds so slowly that it can be easily stopped if I sense the kids are getting scared.  Harry Potter seemed like a soft landing into the world of violence.  For the most part, the violence in the first few books is either in the past, or is crunched up in the last few chapters of the book.

In first grade, we moved on to movies.  Again, the violence is at arm’s length — movies turns us into passive viewers — but the addition of visuals makes it feel all the more real.  The twins watched arrows fly in Brave and Harry Potter fight Quirrell, and then this year, they watched all three Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.  Now, at the end of second grade, we’ve layered in video games — namely, Minecraft and as of this week, Plants vs. Zombies.  Video games place the viewer in the action, and this is where we’ve had the most misgivings.  Would fighting zombie pigmen or eating brains turn them into carjacking thugs… I mean… once they’re big enough to see over a steering wheel?

Our once all-violence ban has been amended to a no-realistic-violence rule.  The twins are too young to see violence depicted in real life situations — even military movies or the nightly news — but we’re okay with battling Lego-block-like Endermen and chopping the heads off of Orcs.  Fantasy-based violence gives them a chance to confront the concept of violence while simultaneously keeping it at arm’s length.  I mean, it can’t happen here.  At least, not until the zombie apocalypse.

Which brings us to Star Trek or not to Star Trek, at least, in the theater.  They’ve already seen the first Star Trek at home, with plenty of explanation thrown in beforehand and during in order to process all that goes down on the Starship Enterprise.  Are they ready to see it in the theater?  In the dark?  At a loud volume?  Without some sort of parental preview so we can prep them for when something scary is about to go down?  I saw the Empire Strikes Back in the theater when I was their age, and I turned out mostly fine.  I want them to have stories to share in the future (“Dude, I remember seeing the second Star Trek movie in the theater…“) but not at the expense of exposing them to ideas on Hollywood’s time schedule instead of their internal one.

I posed the question at a party recently, and I realized just how much we’re all fumbling around in the dark when it comes to figuring out what kids are ready to see.  Maybe there’s something a little Vulcan about me in that I want a logical system for determining the best age for exposure.  I know it’s impossible; every person is different and the level of violence they can tolerate can differ from movie to movie or game to game.  Still, any barometer would be helpful as we try to figure out how to walk that line between keeping their brain in the Zeitgeist and their heart in the right place.

How do you determine what you expose (or will expose in the future) your child to in terms of violence in books, movies, and games?  At what age were you allowed to start seeing violence in movies, or watch the nightly news?

Cross-posted, mostly, on GeekDad

So one thing social media did for communication was turn up the volume.  And I mean that both positively and negatively.  Silence on the Internet is a lot louder than silence in the face-to-face world.  Before the Internet, when we were struggling, if no one came by with a supportive word, it stung but we also reasoned that maybe no one knew.  Whereas now, when we post our struggles online, when they are ignored or passed over or our needs aren’t met… it’s loud.  It’s really loud.  It’s like a thousand decibels of static loud.

And then there’s the good, happy noise.  You have your birthday, and suddenly, you are not hearing “happy birthday” from a select few friends and family members who remember and contact you.  You are having birthday day wishes screamed at you all day.  It’s really overwhelming.  A good kind of overwhelming, but overwhelming nonetheless for someone who is sensitive to… bigness.  Big crowds, big noise.  It’s a happy, messy kind of overwhelmed.  It’s the best kind of overwhelmed to have.

By which I mean thank you for all of the birthday wishes: on Twitter, on Facebook, on the blog, in text messages, emails, phone calls.  It was a big happy noisy weekend full of words.

I really don’t want people to misunderstand when I talk about the volume being turned up.  Sometimes I want the music loud — like this weekend when I was rockin’ out, celebrating my birthday and having a good time.  Sometimes I like the world quiet, and those are the times I need to step away from the Internet, mostly because of its tendency to amplify — the silences and the noise.  But this weekend, I was on the Internet, enjoying being overwhelmed.  Thank you.

It’s my birthday, and I’m practically 194 years old.  I told the twins that I’m now an old crone, with shriveled up ovaries that don’t work.  Josh pointed out that my ovaries didn’t work back when I was 27, so this isn’t a new development.  “Fine, then my hands are gnarled and liver spotted.  And my hair is grey.”  They didn’t even look up from their nutella-slathered challah.  That’s how old I am.  No one even looks up from their challah when I talk because my voice is so frail that my words just crumble to dust in the air.

We went to this odd beach yesterday.  Usually, when we’re in Chincoteague, you look out at the ocean and feel so insignificant in this vast world.  It feels like you’re standing on the edge of the planet, the last bit of land.  This beach was right before you cross the Bay Bridge.  So you’re sitting on the sand, watching all the cars crossing the water, going to other places.  It makes you think about other places.  But the beach was also only 45 minutes from home, so it won when we were looking for something to do on a Saturday.

I didn’t feel that vastness until we tried to park in downtown Annapolis, inching forward in a long line of cars until I told Josh that we needed to leave.  There were just too many people.  There is no ice cream in the world worth navigating that many people.

I have no clue what we’re doing today.

I am funny about my birthday.  I know it’s supposed to be a happy day; I mean, the universe gives you a freakin’ wish on your birthday and you can use it on anything you want.  And it has to come true, just because it’s the day of your birth.  But I always feel this strange sadness, a combination of perhaps too much cake and the lethargy that comes from any excitement.  The quietness of a balloon deflating.  I don’t love getting older.  I’ve been a big fan of my thirties, and I’m not exactly thrilled to be on my final year.

I’m 39.

Happy birthday to me.

Our Little League season is drawing to a close, and it makes me profoundly sad.  I love our team.  I love our coach.  I love the way the kids interact with one another, especially when they chant each other’s names while they’re up at bat.  I love sitting in my beach chair near the dugout, watching the team.  I love standing up and doing my sympathetic running with the team as they really round the bases.  I love it when the Wolvog gets a hit.  I love it more when he gets on first.  I love it the most when he crosses home plate and runs to give me a high five.  I love talking with the other parents.  I love watching the siblings playing together while they ignore their brothers.  I love the drive to the field not knowing if we’ll win, and I even love the drive home after we lose, thinking about how there is always another game.

Until you hit that final game.

I am never good with goodbyes; I am especially terrible with goodbyes when we are having fun.

It’s partly about the people, and it’s partly about the activity, and it’s mostly about being part of something.  Belonging to the team.

There will be another team to root for in the fall, and in the meantime, I am still a superfan for the Nationals.  But I am really having a hard time saying goodbye to the end of Little League season.

Facebook sent me a note on Thursday congratulating me on hitting 700 likes on Facebook. (I’m well aware that by writing this, most of you will quickly unlike me, sending that number plummeting.  But I got to risk it.)  That rocked, but I did nothing.  I mean, I literally did nothing.  Other people clicked a button.  Shouldn’t they get the congratulations?  Why do we only congratulate the person who got the button clicks?  Why don’t I receive a similar note from Facebook saying, “congratulations, Melissa, you’ve now liked x-many things!  You rock in your liking.  You’re a great liker.”

I do think of myself as a good liker.  I’m a passionate liker.  The things I like, I like a lot.  I care about ice cream flavours and books and people and islands.  I like things with my whole heart… no… with my whole BODY.  I may only click a button on Facebook to show that like, but what I mean by that click of the button is that I LIKE it.  Shrieking it, rolling around with it, hugging it to my body.  That’s what my like means.

Where is the congratulations letter for that?

*******

Too Many Fish to Fry has a really cool idea, especially for summer.  Trying to reach a goal and have no idea how to make a dream a reality?  Join along because there is strength in numbers.

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I just discovered Candy Crush.  I mean, I heard other people talk about Candy Crush, I saw it pop up in my Facebook feed as other people played it, but I hadn’t actually seen it myself.  And then… and then… I downloaded the app.  And now… I’m candy crushing.  I am crushing my work so I can get back to Candy Crush.  Every time I complete 30 minutes of editing, I allow myself one level.  Oh my G-d, I love this game so hardcore.  Help meeeeeeeeee.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “A Very Special Visit” (Life in the Last Frontier)
• “Hear Me, That’s All I Ask” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “The Important Thing about Yelling” (Hands Free Mama)
• “What Does Society Have in Store for My Mixed Race Daughters” (The Blessed Barrenness)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Bereaved and Blessed as a photo that is worth 1000 words.

Pepibebe has a post about being labeled infertile.  After worrying that the doctor would put up a fight because the normal number of insemination cycles is 12 and the author has only done 11, she is stunned to get her referral with the label of primary infertility.  She has a conversation with her wife on the ride home: “I commented to Toku on the drive home that I wasn’t very happy seeing that written in black and white. She asked what I would have preferred, and I said for him to write ‘Unlucky so far.’ She drily remarked that diagnosis wasn’t very likely to get us any publicly funded IVF.”  What can I say?  I like her label better too.

Unconceivably Blessed has a post about holidays serving as a reminder of who isn’t here yet.  She writes, “It made me realize how many holidays, family functions, vacations, or other occasions I have not fully enjoyed because of where I thought we would be in our family building journey at that time. How many times and ways I have imagined telling my husband or family and friends that we are expecting.”  I love the last two paragraphs; that idea of turning off your brain and trying not to see the world this way.  It’s difficult.

Lastly, The Bickerstaff Blog has a post about having to give up a dream position due to reality.  When the opportunity finally rolls around to grade the AP exam — a longtime goal — she’s unable to take it because she’s finally achieved her other long-standing goal: parenthood.  It’s the bittersweetness of living in a world where we’re told we can have it all, and then having reality step in.

The roundup to the Roundup: I’m a great liker.  Project Dreamcatcher.  I am being candy crushed.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 24th and May 31st) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.