When Imaginary Friends Turn Into Imaginary Enemies

Over the past year, Hope has had a number of imaginary friends. But her imaginary friends are all real people. Not members of our immediate family, but friends or people from school who happen to tag along with us everywhere we go.

Hope has been fixating on one of her friends lately, a teacher from school she sees once a week. She will constantly tell us what the teacher is doing. The other day, however Hope shared something new. She came to dinner and said “I don’t like [imaginary friend] anymore. She hurt my feelings.”

At that point, I didn’t know what to think. Had the teacher done something to hurt Hope’s feelings? Was Hope just making this up? Am I ready to start dealing with my daughter’s hurt feelings?

If I had to guess, I would say the teacher did something as a teacher that Hope took the wrong way. To a point, to her, her feelings were hurt. We’ve been talking about feelings with her for a while. But I didn’t know she was aware feelings could be hurt.

I asked Hope about why her feelings were hurt, or what her friend did, but she wouldn’t elaborate. Still, I was ready to console and help her. I’m sure in the future, her feelings will be hurt for concrete reasons by real people. And it won’t get easier to hear or to deal with but it will be okay.

It’s a few days later and things are back to normal for Hope and her imaginary friend, which I guess is good. Hope hasn’t talked about her feelings being hurt. But then again, her imaginary friend is back to doing everything with us.

King Tom

There’s More to Hope Than Meets the Eye

For Hope’s bedtime tonight, we were looking at this book of pictures of animals. She would tell me what kind of animal it was then would ask me it’s name, to which I would reply with some name off the top of my head.

Me: And what are these guys?

Hope: Whales.

Me: Right.

Hope: What are their names?

Me: Um…Bluestreak and Optimus Prime

Hope: Optimus Prime is a robot!

Even though it serves me right, I’m very proud.

And because it’s winter, here’s Hope in the snow:

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What Hope Wants for Christmas

One of Hope’s favorite books is Don’t Get a Gink, a story starring The Cat in the Hat as he tries to convince some kids looking for a pet to not pick the titular creature. The book never says why one shouldn’t get a Gink. Additionally, judging by his actions from his first book, I don’t trust the Cat in the Hat. So each time we finish the book, I tell her that I want a Gink. Lately, I’ve been telling Hope I want a Gink for Christmas, something she always protests.

Recently, we were getting Luke and Hope’s picture taken with Santa. Hope went up, sat in his lap and shouted out “My daddy wants a Gink for Christmas,” to which Santa politely asked her to repeat. But she continued her argument, saying “No! No Gink!”

I don’t know if she ever got to tell him what she wanted for herself. But in between laughing at the situation it felt nice that when she had the chance to speak with the big guy, she thought about me.

Have a great Christmas.

Hope and Luke with Santa

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Thumbs vs. Stars

I’ve been into digital music for a long time.

Back in the days before Napster, I remember getting songs from shifty FTP sites and spending a week ripping my CDs to my computer. I’ve also listened to a lot of streaming music, starting when one of the earliest versions of Windows Media Player featured a directory of radio stations with online feeds.

From the early days, my player of choice was WinAmp. I still use it to listen to my music on my computer and phone. Lately, though, I’ve been branching out- to Google Music (to store my music elsewhere and to buy new music) and services like Spotify and Pandora (to discover new music, or to listen to something I may not own). Each service/player has its own peculiarities, but there’s one thing the three streaming programs have in common that sets them apart from WinAmp how users rate songs.

Years back, WinAmp added a feature allowing users to give star ratings to songs. You give five stars to the songs you really like, zero to the ones you hate. Works great, especially if you have a large collection.

Spotify and Pandora opt for the simple thumbs up, thumbs down approach. For the most part, it makes sense if you’re adding new music to a playlist. Give a song or artist enough thumbs down and you’ll never hear it again. But for songs that are already on the playlist, it’s useless. Google Music also uses this approach, which doesn’t make sense. With Google Music, you’re listening to songs you already own. Why would you give a bunch of songs you own (for non-ironic purposes) thumbs down?

I’d much rather (for songs I’ve already said I wanted to listen to) rate a song with the more specific system. If I give a bunch of songs a thumbs up, that means I like them. But I don’t like them all equally.

If I had it my way, every way I listen to music would allow me to rate songs on a 1-100 scale. But that’s why I don’t write software.

King Tom

Hope’s Law

It’s taken more than a year, but a bill inspired by Hope is now part of Ohio Law.

This evening, Governor John Kasich signed Senate Bill 135, designating September as Craniofacial Acceptance Month. The Civee, Hope, Luke, The Civee’s parents and myself attended the signing with the bill’s sponsor, Senator Eric Kearney and some of the staff from the Cleft Lip and Palate Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. It was an incredible event to be a part of.

After waiting with sponsors and people involved with other bills getting signed, we got our own session with the governor. Luke had fallen asleep in my arms while we were waiting. We were ushered into the governor’s office, introduced and he started to talking to us. We thanked him and right off the bat, The Civee mentioned several of the state agencies and programs that helped us with Hope’s surgeries and therapy. The Governor invited Hope to come sit in his lap, which she did. He was explaining the signing process to her, but I think she really wanted to steal one of his pens.

He looked at me and said “tell me about her.” Even thought I was on the spot, I threw out everything I could think of-I mentioned she was born with a cleft lip and palate, has had two surgeries (but left out that she’ll need more) and has received therapy both at Nationwide and from a county school. He said it looked like she was doing great, which I agreed with.

The Governor then asked me about Luke (who had made it up to my shoulder, still asleep) and said “he’s perfect, isn’t he.” I instinctively replied “yes, they both are,” not trying to correct him, but more proud of both of my children.

Governor Kasich was really nice with us and took a bunch of pictures while signing the bill. He asked Hope to sit in his lap again at the end and pointed out the desk was used once by Abraham Lincoln. Hope seemed to like listening as he told her a bit about the 16th President. I really wanted to say “Hope, we met him at the fair,” but this time I kept my mouth shut.

And just like that it was over. We got one of the 50 pens used during the signing, which I’m going to put away somewhere for Hope. I’m happy we did this for many reasons, but the biggest is to raise awareness and get appreciation for those affected by craniofacial issues and those who help them. I’m also happy we did this for Hope. She’s too young to appreciate it now, but maybe she can use the experience for a civics class or something in the future.

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Hope’s Bill: Progress

A bill inspired by Hope is headed to the governor’s desk (or whatever surface the governor uses to sign acts into law).

Earlier today, the Ohio House passed Senate Bill 135, which designates September as Craniofacial Awareness Month. The Senate passed the bill back in May, during a session in which Hope got a nice round of applause from the lawmakers. This has been an interesting process to watch since The Civee first gave testimony on the bill more than a year ago.

I could go on about how great this is, but I think the Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Cleft Lip and Palate Center’s Facebook post put it best:

(And yes, the Christina referred to in that post is The Civee).

So thanks to The Civee, Senator Kearney (and his staff) and the team at Nationwide.

But that’s not the only cleft-related item. Today, I found out about Smile Trek, a journey undertaken by Marine Winston Fiore, who walked 5,000 miles across Southeast Asia to raise money for cleft surgeries. Fiore took the walk with fewer supplies than I have in my car trunk and used his Android and Google Maps to plan the trip. I don’t see anyone with an iPhone walking 5,000 miles across Asia. It’s an incredible story, check out the video:

And finally, here’s a picture of Hope and Luke:

King Tom