Be Excellent To Each Other

You're right.

Russell wins. Obviously. I'm second, because I entered by accident.

I feel like the guy who rocked the boat.

Yeah, don't be that guy.

Curio wins (but obviously my little guy runs in my heart)

Jesus.

Can this year get any more corrupt?!

I resign!!

This is the first time that my untidy desk has worked in my favour!

You're up, Curio!

Can we have a "see who can post a game to TheVision the quickest" challenge?

Take a photo before midnight tonight, post it, and the best will win!

I'm winning!

My submission

Remember that time I ran with the Olympic torches?

Whoa whoa whoa. He said TAKE a picture. I think that makes you and possibly malc DQ no?

Malc took it before midnight tonight.

Technically correct eh?

That's a view for my dining room

Mine is called "Moonlit Tree".

Mine was taken before midnight too!

Mine is called Don't Play With Fireworks

Kirby and his bodyguard.

/throws pokeball

I tried to be a smart ass and take a picture of the alarm clock at 23:59, but it must have changed literally as I was taking the picture (and the phone reckons it was 12:02 anyway)

Devil man wins!

This makes Kirby happy

(Beaker... not so much)

Go, Devilman!

Oh, er, yeah..forgot about this. Ok.. nice open-ended one... take a photo of something scary.

Dire warnings have been issued, Jnr style.

We converted one of the spare bedrooms to a playroom/toyroom for her, at which point she took ownership very seriously.

The first sign was in response to me hanging a towel over the door.

The second sign was in response to her catching Mrs H in there using her mobile phone.

YOU GET TOLD.

Rarrrr.

Ok. I adore your daughter.

This fucking kids mask...

Brrr....

This is from earlier in the year in response to her lunch being provided ten minutes 'late', as she felt it was.

'Too late that lunch won't be taken'.

She has a very early lunch.

Yeah it's a bit of a nightmare TBH. It's a control thing as she has to conform to school lunchtimes when she's at school, so at home she likes to stamp her mark on things.

It basically means that to go out for a family lunch McDonald's is pretty much our only option as nowhere else is serving food at 11am-11:10am.

We've tried very hard to negotiate a change in lunchtimes with her but no success thus far, (explaining all the great places we can go to if she'd eat after 12pm), but it's not something we can force so we'll have to play the long game on it.

Ha ha, I'm learning that you have to pick your battles but wow.

That chart is awesome.

From what I've read if you make a rule, be prepared to have to enforce it for years, as kids don't forget.

I think some people aren't taking their photos in response to the challenge.

Indeed. The challenge does quite clearly state to take a photo.

I did.
I don't usually have an Allosaurus attacking an Allosaurus sized goat while an avatar of death looks on.

They're usually totally peaceful.

haha, that is simply amazing.
Also, Darwin and I shared a curry at 10:30am, Becca should dine with us.

As a parent of children over the age of Hearthly Jnr, I don't think this would be my hill to die on. She drew it, so she also has to be part of implementing it - it works both ways.

The fact she conforms enough for school is a total win, if having a little more control at home over those sort of things is the compromise then it's no bad thing in my book. You can romanticise the amount of control you think you'll have, but kids are people with their own quirks and personalities. Squishing them into little boxes of exemplary behavior over every aspect of yours and their life is not realistic. Invariably, they could be so much worse

Maybe it's a bit hippy but I try to agree terms with my kids before punishment gets doles out. Having a tidy room is such a nonsense if you chose to apply it by your own metric and that shit escalates when you have a child who isn't a meek little angel. The agreement in our house is that it gets tidied to a set standard once a week, they choose the day and the week starts Monday and ends Sunday night. If that doesn't happen, the following week they lose 3 days of internet privileges. They know the rule and they helped negotiate it. Same goes with the time the internet goes off at night, I find it reduces the amount of whinging when the rules are enforced.

I have mentioned this before but just for the record Hearthly Jnr is autistic, albeit 'high functioning' as you're not supposed to call it these days. (She is considered disabled enough for Mrs Hearthly to get Carer's Allowance and we get medium level DLA for Jnr.)

As such there is an extra dimension when it comes to things like lunchtime, which isn't to say that techniques and strategies that one would use with other children are irrelevant or wrong, but the approach often needs/tends to be different.

What we don't want her to do is make her world smaller by creating all these rules and restrictions for herself, the ten minute window in which lunch 'HAS' to be served being a case in point. (And tea has to be ready between 3:30pm and 3:40pm, so you can imagine how limiting that is for planning stuff to do at the weekend.)

Oh, that's a sadder end to what is a wonderful piece of art and planning by clearly a very well thought out, well drawn and well executed piece of work. Hearthly Jnr is very, very well written, too (obviously I don't know her age, but for a child of any age she seems to have a great use of language.)

Can you change all the clocks in your house?

It's not a problem he's trying to fix.

Nobody can change all the clocks in their house. I think it's the one on the oven that people usually forget how to control, or the microwave. Or the thermostat.

And then spend a few seconds wondering if your phone updated automatically or not.