Nutty about games!

Well, just a rather short blog post today, as we had the news this morning that our eldest son didn’t get into his first choice of school. It was an out-of-catchment West Berkshire school, but it seems that the ‘Beesley luck’ (or lack of it) has struck again as he is the only child in the past 3 years with a first choice application not to get a place at the school.

I will call and appeal today, and ask for him to be placed on the waiting list.

Also doesn’t bode well for our Reading school applications, as there is likely to be a higher intake this year. We find out on the 28th March, and I can tell you there will be many sleepless nights for me until then!

Why can’t we just emigrate or something?

Not all bad, but not the best of days so far…

Firstly I have to point out that this is the second time I have written this post. For the first time ever I did not select all then copy the text before I hit save as I always do when writing anything, and this is the first time ever that Wordpress did not save my post despite me hitting ‘Save and Continue Editing’. Nor did it save my page automatically. This really sucks. Really it does. Instead I got a blank page and the post I had previously spent half an hour writing had vanished. Honest.

Anyway, I digress. This morning I awoke at a decent hour (i.e. after 7am) to find a lovely card and some very expensive alcoholic choccies waiting for me. I am supposed to be dieting but I have a real penchant for chocolate - none is safe from me in this house - so it was a nice pressie nonetheless.

I then proceeded to make breakfast and do some washing up, and started to blitz the lounge at about 10am before the shopping was due to arrive at around 11am, whilst Steve was doing a spot of gaming. Tesco arrived a little early and I left the boys in the computer room with Steve while I created a huge mountain of bags into the lounge, ready to take through to the kitchen at the back.

Thinking I may get some help carting said bags into the kitchen and perhaps even some help putting it away - it is Mother’s Day after all - I began the task alone and soon found myself surrounded by little boys screaming for ’snacks’ and fighting, emptying food all over the floor; something they always do when the shopping arrives. I looked up to see Steve vanishing upstairs offering to put my phone on charge - it is now after 3pm and he still hasn’t come back down again.

It took me just over an hour to put all the shopping away, then I gave the boys a snack and finished tidying the lounge. I made soup for lunch, but the boys decide that it is far too much fun to keep the soup in a bowl, and instead spread it all over the table, floor and themselves.

I cleaned this all up but was dismayed to hear Nicholas’s shouts of “Gabe’s got poo everywhere” and find that is indeed the case. Gabriel decided that he would yet again delve into his nappy and pull out the contents, and had placed a few ‘malteasers’ in his weeble campervan, and squished the rest into the carpet with his feet. Nicholas also had poo on his jeans and feet. Such is my day so far.

My Mum has had a better day, thankfully; cards from us and the boys, and flowers with a vase that we sent via Interflora. As an extra bit of luck she also received another lovely bunch of flowers, again with a card from us, possibly by mistake but we are not complaining! Here is a piccy of them:

I don’t usually pass on Mother’s Day texts, but one I received was particularly helpful when having a bad day and feeling very neglected:

Motherhood’s a tough 24-hour job. No pay, no days off, often most unappreciated and yet resignation is impossible! So send this to anyone who’s a TERRIFIC Mum and let her know she’s wonderful.

Loving this song right now too - today is a Keane day.

Now to make dinner…

It’s said to be an old wives tale that worry makes your hair go grey, but I beg to differ.

When I had my first son I noticed my very first grey hairs. A year following the birth of our second son, I am getting noticeably grey at the front (and I also am developing crows feet). Ok, so it’s not qute as bad as it may sound, but I definitely notice the difference - and I think my children caused it.

You see, no matter how much a father loves their children, they will never - ever - even begin to understand a mother’s love.

We worry about everything. All the time.

I am terrified when my eldest goes to nursery, and not just because I am leaving him in the hands of a bunch of strangers that don’t really know him as I do. I worry that on the way there someone will drive onto the pavement straight into us; I worry that my eldest will let go of my hand and run into the road or that he will get stuck in the doors of the bus; I worry I’ll accidentally let go of the buggy and it will go straight into the path of an oncoming vehicle.

Once he is there I worry that something will happen to me and I won’t able to pick him up from nursery in time; that he will seriously hurt himself at nursery or another kid will bully him and make him unhappy, or a member of staff will tell him off for something he hasn’t done.

I even worry when we are in the house - every fall, bump, bang or scrape has me fretting that something serious has happened to my children. If they have bruised shins (as boys often do) I imagine social services seeing them and coming to take my babies away. Every cough, sneeze and fever is something more serious in my imagination.

I have to stop myself from checking on them too often when they are asleep. When I do, I go into their room and place my hand on their chest to make sure they are breathing, then I cover them up, and give them a kiss and sometimes a cuddle, often disturbing them in the process. When Nicholas was a baby I would go upstairs every 5 to 10 minutes to see if he was ok. With Gabe I didn’t have to do this - he slept in my bed!

My two greatest fears…well, I simply won’t discuss them here as I will think about them constantly. A slightly lesser fear is me dying and them not having their Mummy around to take care of them. I mean, can I imagine Daddy happily changing nappies, giving them three meals a day plus snacks and reading them nice bedtime stories? Er, I don’t think so.

I think about when they get older and they don’t want to cuddle me any more, and when they can go out alone and something bad might happen to them, or when they leave home and I don’t know what they are up to or if they are safe…

I was just reading the news and saw the headline ‘two year old dies at nursery’ and instantly went into panic mode; wandering around the house crying and hyperventiliating, imagining myself to be the parents of this child and, well, just basically overreacting and freaking out. I don’t know why I even check the news when it upsets me so, but time and again I read such stories that will have be dwelling and moping and thinking far too deeply for sometimes weeks on end. 

Before I had my children, none of these worries existed. Not one.

Now, I do think I worry a little more than most other mothers do - correct me if I’m wrong. But there is nothing I can do about it. I was talking to my Mum the other day and she said that when we were little she was rather like me, and even now she has a moment of panic thinking about us so far away from her. She has one daughter in the states, and I am about a five hour drive from her, and the separation must be dreadful, even though we speak almost every day.

Anyway, if I keep going on like this I’m going to be completely grey by 30 I reckon (yes, and that’s not so far off, I know)!

On the other hand I am catching up with my Nano following a few disturbed nights courtesy of fireworks disturbing the boys, and Steve, who wanted me to game with him. I don’t think he’s too happy that I’m doing this as he doesn’t get to spend any time with me in the evenings now but I try to keep reminding him it’s not forever. It’s just something I have to do; I failed last year, and I don’t want to fail again. I hope it’s worth it.

Yes, I’m fretting again. Although not about Nanowrimo. Well, sort of.

I’m in a panic because I know I am not going to be able to finish the Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion ‘Mask of the Betrayer‘ before Nano starts! Not unless I drop all notion of figuring out a plot and characters for my novel before the Nano start date anyway. I’m not quite sure why I started the expansion having only just got around to finishing vanilla NwN2 after the third time through (I have said it before, but my attention span can be bad unless I find something very interesting or really immerse myself in the storyline). I think it was partly due to my upset at the ending of NwN2 and my hope of finding out what happened to all my comrades, but all I have learned is that the expansion is as brilliant and addictive as the original game - which is a bummer when you are about to write a novel and have no plot to speak of!

I’ve stuck to the advice ‘plan one week before Nano’ like glue, and my time is up tomorrow. Meaning tonight may in fact be my last night of gaming for a whole five weeks! Never in history - alright, since I was around eight years old and Dad purchased our lovely Acorn Electron - have I refrained from playing a game for such a long period! 

How will I cope? Do gaming withdrawal symptoms exist? Am I really going to be able to concentrate soley on my Nano storyline for the next five weeks or so?

I know what you are going to say - get a life! Well, gaming is a lifestyle. I have grown up with games, watched the technology develop, and have seen them evolve into something I could never have imagined possible. I still remember the time I would dream of games being ‘realistic’; literally, at night I would lie in bed and visualise myself living in a game of the future. Playing Unreal for the very first time was a dream come true, it was everything I imagined and more. To this day I am still in awe of modern games.

Would I like to do what many Brits do and waste money going ‘out on the lash’ on a Friday and Saturday night, dressed in a ridiculously short skirt, smothered in makeup and stinking of cheap perfume, surrounded by kebab-reeking letches who accuse you of being a lesbian or insult your appearance when you turn them down? Or crouched in a bunker in the middle of a firefight, explosions sounding all around me, waiting to snipe the enemy when they try to capture my point; going on an epic journey to cure the world of some evil, smiting enemies and hurling fireballs at my foes; navigating the depths of the universe in a spaceship entirely at my command - all from the safety of my own home? I’ll settle for the latter.

Don’t get me wrong - I do go out. I do have some form of social life even if, having had two children in a rather short period, it is at an amoebic stage. In future I will go out more (as long as we can afford the babysitter), but I will make sure that my repertoire of friends consists mainly of avid gamers, those who play games quite often, people who occasionally game, and those who have gamed, in that order.

Okay, so I jest - but it sure would be nice to meet more gamers genuinely interested in friendship once in a while! Also, I have trouble socialising with those of my own age, especially women. I do think I am meeting the wrong people, because I find that I have almost nothing in common with the majority of my acquaintances. They are generally people who, when faced with an adult female who likes nothing more than to climb to the top of a huge climbing frame on a visit to Monkey World and make monkey sounds (pics will be here as soon as my Dad pulls his finger out and sends them), would immediately summon the ‘men in white coats’ to remove me to a padded cell.

Perhaps it is simply time I grew up and started to enjoy talking about the latest anti-wrinkle product, mulling over which curtain patterns go with teracotta furniture, and discussing the finer points of cake decorating?

Anyway, I don’t care if you think I am a gaming geek. I wear the title with pride, and hope to still be ‘geeking it up’ when I am old and grey.

Now, on with the fun…

Browsing the Nanowrimo forum entitled Age Group: 20’s I noticed a distinct lack of those who, like myself, are in their late (very late in my case!) twenties, or those who have children. I decided a new thread was in order and expected no replies. Wrong! Out of the woodwork come a whole host of people; many with children, others with pets who they would like to believe are as demanding as children (I beg to differ!) but all with very busy lives and not very much time at all to write.

This brings me to the question - why are we doing this? I know that 50,000 words may not seem like very much when compared to full size adult novels of 200,000 words (and the rest) but I assure you, to write that amount of words in a mere 30 days is no mean feat when your life is a neverending cycle of mess and chaos!

I currently have an overflowing washbasket of clothes I am now unable to dry thanks to cold, rainy days and lack of a tumble dryer;  you can no longer see our lounge carpet due to the wall to wall toys, and no matter how many times I pick them up they magically reappear on the floor in seconds. From dawn until dusk I am asked neverending questions such as “I want a drink”, “I’m hungry”, “I need a wee”….not to mention my youngest child’s very cute but endless repetition of the word ‘Mummy’.

After the boys are in bed and settled, around 8pm, comes the ultimate obstacle - my boyfriend. He likes nothing more than to sit next to me on his computer with music on full blast, or American dramas complete with horrific murders galore blaring out on his speakers, the ear-piercing gun and bomb blasts when he is playing Battlefield 2142, and worst of all - Skype. I have always said he would make an amazingly good town crier or foghorn because damn he is loud! I also think perhaps slightly deaf as he truly doesn’t believe he is so noisy. When you spend every day with children you truly learn what noise is!

Others hoping to complete Nano this year have full time jobs to contend with as well as children. Some also have the added stress of school, and others personal difficulties. I really wish them all the best because I know I am going to find this difficult and I don’t work or study right now.

But why the struggle for so many? I have to admit, I don’t know. We all have our reasons. I am doing Nano because I have always wanted to write a book and never really got around to doing it properly, and I didn’t manage last time around. I want to prove to myself that I can do it. Okay…and perhaps because I am just a little bit bonkers. Is that a good enough excuse? It is for me.

My eldest boy and I have discovered the joys of Mio and Mao, which can be seen here.

All together now!

Mio Mao…Mio Mao! Lalala la-la! Mio Mao…Mio Mao! Lalala la-la!