thedeadone.net » Alice

My daughter wants to be a Ninja!

Mark Cunningham — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:12:10 +0000

(I tried to avoid doing cross-post, but I think this is too cute to not share and it gives me an excuse to put Ninja legitimately in a post title!)

My seven year old daughter Alice announced she wants to be a ninja when she grows up. She’s already formed a secret ninja club (girls only) in her class. And after homework I was press ganged into making ninja stars from tin-foil and cardboard and my wife made braces from black velvet so she could start her ninja training. She plans to train every day.

Of course she is young, she has much to learn and she had many questions, like, how do ninjas train? What do they actually do? What weapons do ninjas use besides ninja stars (toilet roll nun-chucks are planned)? Hmm she is wise.

(Someone has already kindly pointed to the Ninja-shirt-technique. This will be tomorrow’s Ninja training!)

Cthulhu by my six year old!

Mark Cunningham — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:35:45 +0000

My six year old daughter watched me get the images ready for the previous post and went off with her pens and did her own version of Cthulhu:

(My original:

)

She also did her own version of the plus symbol for the dice design as well:

(My original:

)

Now to get her programming and gaming…

Extermalade, Extermalade, Extermalade!

Mark Cunningham — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:02:55 +0000

“Daddy…” my four year old daughter started to declare in the back of the car on the way home from work, “… in Dr. Zeus the robots say…”. I’m thinking right now, who the hell is Dr. Zeus? She then does the next bit in her best robot-like voice, “‘Extermalade. Extermalade. Extermalade…’“.

Ah, my wonderful daughter!

For those unfamiliar with Dr. Who, this is a loose translation from the mind of a four-year-old to father-geek level…

“In Dr. Who, the Darleks say ‘Exterminate. Exterminate. Exterminate.’”

Nightmares and Comics: reasons I didn’t write last night

Mark Cunningham — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:33:00 +0000

I think I’m going to have to start a new section of my website: “Reasons why I didn’t write last night“. This week there was three pretty good reasons. The first was Alice, our four year old, got sick in school so I had to take her home early and work the rest of the day from home. (She’s fine night after a full nights sleep). Which meant I was tapping away on my laptop till late enough and seeing I use my laptop to write, it wasn’t looking like it would be enjoyable to spend the rest of the evening, tapping away on my laptop, writing instead of coding.

The second was that our main desktop computer stopped working. There is a light on the motherboard, but the fan doesn’t start, it doesn’t boot, no lights on the front etc. Now I normally write using my laptop, but the desktop computer is used a lot by my wife and with out last night, she was left restless. So ended up catching up on lots of our recorded TV.

But the best (and final) reason is that I got two new books. A gift from an anonymous Internet person for my free WordPress plugin: tdomf. Both Alan Moore Graphic Novels: V for Vendetta and Watchmen. I’m not a comic person at all, but I have a few graphic novels (including all the sandman volumes). And Watchmen is good, so I ended up spending the evening getting completely engrossed in it.

I needed a short break from writing anyway. The bit I’m working on for Lost Heroes RPG currently was digging into my brain a bit and there was one night last week I couldn’t fall asleep, because I knew I’d have nightmares and I kept waking myself up (I lucid dream occasionally and can pull myself out of a dream when I need to… the really scare dreams are those that won’t let you wake up… but then there are other techniques to use). Is that a good thing that I have scary dreams about what I’m writing? Not even sure the writing in Lost Heroes is that good even. I’m desperate to get it finished and put it online. It seems to keep growing, the more I cut out, the bigger the rest of it gets.

Hmm… I just watched the trailer for the Watchmen movie. I haven’t finished reading Watchmen but I was able to recognise each scene that was shown in the trailer. What I found odd about the trailer was the feel of the presented scenes and the order they decided to present them in: it made Watchmen look more “action-packed” and “classic superhero saving the world” than how I’m actually find Watchmen which is more like “Taxidriver” for the superhero genre. But then trailers are made to sell a movie to people who may know very little about the original source… so it probably is misrepresenting it a bit. Not that I’m too pushed, chances of me seeing it in the cinema? Slim to none.

Alice the Rabbit goes into the Farmer’s House

Mark Cunningham — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:39:05 +0000

Instead of the usual bed-time story with Alice, our four year old daughter, I decided to run a “Adventure-Story” (at least that’s how I phrased it to her). At first she wasn’t bothered, but when I told her she could play a “rabbit”, she lit up!

It’s the first time I’ve tried roleplaying with Alice. She enjoys stories but as long as they came from books (especially with pictures). But to see her react to the story was brilliant! I didn’t use dice, just played by ear and told her a story where the rabbit’s carrots were taken and Alice the Rabbit had to find out where they went. But it was all the little touches she brought to it that made it.

When the “King and Queen” rabbit asked her to go outside of the burrow to see what had happen to the carrots, Alice hopped out of the bed and hopped around her room grabbing anything that might look like a carrot and threw them onto the bed (where the other rabbits were).

When she sneaked into the Farmer’s house and into the kitchen where the Farmer was a sleep, I asked her what she wanted to do next, she whispered to me “I can’t talk Daddy, the Farmer might wake up!”

It was full of those little moments where she brought her own touches to it! I was surprised it went so well. The only thing is, it’s not a replacement for a bedtime story. She was so awake afterwards, I had to read her a normal story as well to get her to calm down!

Kids Lesson 345: What not to do in a public park

Mark Cunningham — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 07:00:48 +0000

Children cannot cease but find new ways to embarrass their parents. Alice, our 4-year-old, actually is not that bad but there was certainly, shall we say, a public incident, while on holidays. We were staying in this lovely old country house and we had got this great big inflatable pool out the back. The kids were hopping in and out all day long and we had allowed them to take up the habit of peeing on the grass behind a tree (rather than run across the hard stone floors inside while wet). Alice’s older cousin, who is a boy, stayed for a week and she started copying him, learning that she could pee standing up if she was wearing just her swimsuit.

Anyway, on the last day of the holidays we drove for 6 hours straight back to Paris. The kids were wrecked from being couped up all day in the car so I took Alice and Tristan, our 1 year old, out to the little park beside the apartment block. There was a small playground, too big for Tristan, too small for Alice but they still played there. As Alice was climbing up the ladder to the slide, she froze, clenching her legs together. “Daddy. I need to go to the toilet.” She looked like she was about to pee right there and then. Okay, okay, I thought. I lifted her down and said “we just have to go out of the park and up the lift. You can hold it that long can’t you?” She nodded her head while biting her lip. I picked up Tristan and started strapping him into the buggy when Alice called out “Daddy, I can pee her!”. She was pointing to a small patch of grass, outside the little playground, beside the very public pavement through the park.

“No Alice. We just have to walk over there and go up the lift.” So I went back to strapping Tristan in and then I looked again over at Alice. She had pulled her trousers and panties down to her feet and was about to try peeing standing up. Two mothers, who were sitting on a bench while their own children played, were in fits of laughter. Of course, I couldn’t pass it off with a witty comment because my pidgin French is awful. I had to finish with Tristan and then pull up Alice’s trousers and walk off with my bright red cheeks. Arg.

From Dinosaurs to Bat Girl!

Mark Cunningham — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 05:00:44 +0000

My four year old daughter, Alice, is going through a “Batgirl” phase. Normally she’s big into her Dora, Princess and more recently Barbies. But she’s always had a thing about cars and trains (her oldest cousin was also big into them) and also dinosaurs, which is just as cool.

The Bat Girl thing, I think comes from her male peers in her school talking about Superman and Batman and also more than occasionally we’d sit and watch cartoons together, such as Avatar: the Last Airbender (Alice thought she was the female waterbender), Ben 10 (Ben is actually Alice’s cousin) and obviously Batman. There was an evening when we were talking about Batman, Robin and Batgirl and I looked up Batgirl on Wikipedia to find her real name. Now we have a little game she plays sometimes where she says “Hi Commissioner Gordon” and I reply with “Hi Barbara Gordon”. (If you didn’t know, the most common incarnation of Batgirl is as Commissioner Gordon’s daughter). We’ve even had to buy her a graphic novel (of the cartoon of course), and I’ve read from it every night for the last few weeks. I’ve got my hands on season 3 of “The Batman” cartoon that features the arrival of Batgirl. She now knows most of the major Batman super-villains. I’ve even done some images for her, ones that she can colour herself (the colour example is actually mine, not hers…).

The thing is, before I had kids, I never really liked Robin, Batgirl or any of the other “sidekick” characters. They always detracted from, what I thought Batman was all about. It’s perhaps unsurprising now that as an parent, I appreciate the kid friendly nature of sidekicks. Alice sees Batman as a family: Batman as father, Catwoman as mother (?), Robin as brother and Batgirl as sister (herself). (I don’t know where Alfred fits into it!)

More Alice quotes

Mark Cunningham — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:23:16 +0000

Some more gems from my three year old daughter:

“You wouldn’t eat me Daddy. My head is too big to fit in your mouth.”

To her Maman:

“You’re my Best Mummy”

(Does she have more than one mummy?)

More Wisdom from a Toddler

Mark Cunningham — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:30:18 +0000

Alice (our 3-year old daughter) offers us her great wisdom:

Don’t say “Bloody Hell”, say “Oh My God”.

(last time)

The Dinosaur Teaparty

Mark Cunningham — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 05:30:23 +0000

Alice (our three year old daughter) has recently developed a love of dinosaurs and this is the result:

(Sorry about the low quality, I snapped this with my mobile phone camera)

thedeadone.net » Alice

My daughter wants to be a Ninja!

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