A while back
Shirt.Woot had an
awesomely nerdy shirt I couldn't resist.
It came in the mail yesterday and I proudly wore it today. Eliana was quite interested in the shirt and kept asking questions about the details of it. It was hard to explain why the turtles were doing those things and how they were painting a cloud on the sky.
I figured the easiest way to explain it was to show her. So we fired up the Wii, downloaded Super Mario Brothers, and set to playing. I played a few levels to show her the ropes and then turned over the controller. She laughed gleefully at being able to make Mario jump and run and so forth.
She definitely lacks the motor skills to play well, but it doesn't matter. It was still a fantastic moment. I've been looking forward to playing the classic video games with my kid for a long time. It's right up there with teaching my kid to ski and bike.
On the topic of biking, we went out riding again tonight. Given a sufficient slope, Eliana can now get started on her own. The best slopes around are found in the park across from our house, pointing straight down into the pond. She's better than I expected at translating that momentum
into forward motion around the pond when she rolls down to the trail.
As last night, she was quite resistant to heading home when I told her it was time, despite obviously tired legs, cold hands, banged up shins, and flushed cheeks. I love the spark of drivenness that I see in her.
In another sign of her growing up, when we got home, I told her she needed to take a bath or a shower. She picked a shower. She even managed to get out of the shower in a timely fashion when I told her to keep it short. I was proud of her.
