The new family: a moment in time

Update: I have also uploaded this video to Youtube just in case you wanted to watch in full screen mode (don't know why I didn't do this in the first place!)



Some more pictures of the family - this time in a funky video format!



Some notes:
1) If you listened to the entire video, then my apologies (and condolences) for the assault on your ears!
2) In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have chosen Bad Day by Daniel Powter. I'm more of a bass/baritone myself and this song is just a bit too high in tone for me. You can tell that I'm really struggling.
3) The reason I did choose this song is because of the message of hope and love despite all the shit that happens (eg dirty nappy changing, lack of sleep, time spent in hospital, lack of time playing video games! etc.)
4) If you have never heard this song before and don't understand point 3 above, then I highly recommend you go watch the music video. Its a beautiful song and you can find the music video here.

At last - an update!

Wow - its been a hectic couple of weeks.

As expected, Gordon and the missus left the hospital on 13 January. However, he was cruelly struck with an attack of jaundice and we spent a week popping in and out of hospital so that he could be closely monitored and bathed in UV light. Nothing too serious though (which was why we were popping in and out of hospital - his case was serious enough that he had to be closely monitored but not so serious as to warrant staying overnight in the hospital!). Not a fun way to pass the week.


Here is a picture of Gordon relaxing at home (check out that hat!!).


As with Gerry, Gordon really enjoys sleeping in his Red Castle U mat.


For comparison purpose, here is a picture of Gerry on the same mat. Its scary how similar they look at this stage.


Gerry is still adjusting to having a little brother. From his point of view, he keeps wanting to see the little crying thing. In case you are wondering, he is wearing a cowboy hat (at least, that is what he told me!).


A lot of the time, Gerry is very jealous of his little brother. I can understand this - after all, he is no longer the focus of attention. Having said that, sometimes, he really shows his loving older brother side. Here you can see him patting the baby and saying, "that's okay - don't cry!"
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Say hello to Gordon

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I am a new daddy.

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The newest addition to the Empire family arrived at 11:59pm on 10 January 2009 and weighed 3kg at birth. He was so eager to take his rightful place by my side that he couldn't even wait until 11 Jan!

Below are the world premiere pictures of Gordon, right here on this blog!! Remember folks, you saw it here first!

Here is Gordon - sleeping peacefully after his ordeal, aka SPS (Stork Postal Service) delivery.

This is a picture of Gordon with his eyes open. You can't really tell from this picture but he has big eyes - just like mummy and Gerry.

As you can see from this picture, mummy is doing well. As with Gerry, Gordon came via natural stork.

Here is a picture of Gordon just after birth. You can tell I'm grinning like a maniac from the crinkle in my eyes! You will also note that Gordon very quickly settled down to sleep after a very short cry to let us know that the nurse had indeed slapped him.

For comparison, this is a picture of Gerry taken just after birth. Unlike little brother, Gerry was nowhere near as calm!


One last point - the new baby comes home from the hospital tomorrow. As such, I'm going to be pretty busy over the next month. I'll try my best to upload photos when I can but don't expect regular updates (not for the next month anyway).

RPGs for kids

I've been talking a lot about RPGs lately mainly because the topic has been on my mind due to thinking about whether Gerry can play RPGs (also, listening to the podcast really brought back some fond memories). However, up till now, I've not actually talked about what resources are available for parents looking to play RPGs with yound kids - which is very remiss of me!

Anyway, before I get started, I should mention that I haven't read all of the stuff in the following links. However, from the stuff which I have managed to read, the site itself seems like a good site and worth bookmarking if you are interesting in introducing children to RPGs. They also provide links to other articles and websites where you can get even more info!

One of the below links also mentions a profound truth which applies to everything related to children - you can't force children to play RPGs (although you can try to encourage them). The best way to get children to play is to play yourself and let your kids see how much fun you are having. This is so true - children copy what they see adults doing (the best way to teach your child to be a good person is to be a good person yourself!). Unfortunately for me, I don't have an opportunity to play RPGs either...

geekdad
A good introduction to the topic can be found on geekdad. In particular, there were two blog entries where they talked about role-playing games for children.

The first blog post talks about how it is natural for kids to role play. This post is useful because it gives some tips on the types of RPG to play and how to run those games depending on the age of the children. It was this post which first got me thinking about Gerry and RPGs (although it was a while before I actually took action in terms of research).

The second blog post lists some online resources to help parents prepare for playing an RPG with their kids.

the escapist
This is a website linked to by geekdad and gives a lot of great information and resources aimed towards "the betterment of role-playing games". In particular, it hosts the Young Persons Adventure League which contains a lot of material targeted towards young role-players.

btw - If you remember the slagging that DnD used to get in the press for being a bastion of the occult, then you will love reading this article.

RPGs for kids
Another great site for introducing RPGs to kids. This site is setup by a photographer and environmental engineer (according to the bio anyway!) who have a side hobby of playing RPGs. In particular, the page I linked to gives some suggestions on which RPGs, some of which are free to download, you can play with kids.

It also has links to some articles discussing playing RPGs with kids. I haven't read all of the articles yet, but I really liked this article which gives a pretty detailed description of how the author introduced his 4 year old son to RPGs.

D&D 4e

Happy New Year!!

I've mentioned before that Dungeons & Dragons was the main RPG that I played as a kid. When I started playing, it was with the very first version of D&D. In those days, when creating your character, you could choose from Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Mage, Dwarf or Elf (in those days, dwarves and elves were a character class in themselves).

It didn't take long before a new iteration of D&D came out which was called Advanced D&D and which tightened up the rules a bit (and also allowing players to choose their race as well as class separately). After various iterations, the fourth edition of D&D was released in June 2008 (almost said "this year" there!).

In order to promote the new D&D 4e, Wizards of the Coast got together with the people behind two of my favourite webcomics - Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade and Scott Kurtz of PvP. Tycho was a regular D&D player, Scott had played D&D many years ago (kinda like myself) and Gabe had never played before in his life. They recorded the session and made the recording available as a downloadable podcast here (you will need to scroll down and find Penny Arcade/PvP Podcast Episode 1). The character sheets were also uploaded to the Penny Arcade site here.

The recording is really long (they had to split it out over 8 podcasts!). However, if you have any interest into what goes on during a typical D&D session, the podcasts give you a very good indication of how much fun playing an RPG can be.