Evie Update

EcoFrenzy – The Pollination Game!

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Fresh off of her win at the YEA Investor Panel last month, Evelyn is proud to announce that her website is now live, and her game is officially available for purchase!

Buy Now

($29.99 plus tax, shipping, and handling)

EcoFrenzy is a card-based, family, strategy game for all ages, combining elements of set collection and resource management to teach about pollinators and the environment. Build your garden with annuals and perennials, attracting different types of pollinators and even stealing them from opponents. But don’t make them too angry, or you might find a Heat Wave or Cold Front headed your way! Plant enough flowers or attract enough pollinators and you might get a biodiversity bonus.

For friends and family, or those local to Chicago, Evelyn is planning on having a stock of games on hand this summer and might be able to save you some shipping and handling. But if you can’t wait, you can order now! (Just be aware it does take a while to manufacture and ship, until Evelyn can build up her stock.)

As longtime readers of this blog know, Evelyn has long been a Butterfly Girl, hatching Eastern Black Swallowtails on the back porch (and sometimes catching more than butterflies in her net!).

Therefore it should come as no surprise, Evelyn’s company, EcoFrenzy Games, is committed to sustainability. The game is printed with soy-based toner, uses recycled paper banding, rather than plastic, to hold the cards together, and the game is manufactured in the U.S., limiting the environmental effects of transportation. Additionally, Evelyn donates a portion of each sale to pollinator conservation.

Quote Monday is a teenager

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Evelyn, 4 days before her birthday: “Only 4 days left of being a kid!”

Nice try, but 13 is still a kid.

Me: “Let me see the picture.”
Me: “Kissy lips? KISSY LIPS??”
Evelyn, exasperated: “That’s how you take a selfie!”

Alex: “Are dragons real?”
Sara: “What do you think?”
Alex: “I don’t know.”
Me: “Well, I think people saw dinosaur bones and imagined dragons.”
Alex: “Well I’m thinking of REAL dragons, not maaaagical dragons!”

Alex: “What did that sign say?”
Sara: “Deaf.”
Alex: “What does deaf mean?”
Sara: “Can’t hear.”
Alex: “What does deaf mean!?”
Sara: “Can’t hear.”
Alex: “What does deaf mean?!!!!!”
Sara: “Can’t hear.
Alex: “WHAT DOES DEAF MEAN?!?!”
Sara: “Evie, can you tell him what it means?”
Evelyn: “It means you can’t hear.”
Alex: “OHHHHH!”

Reflections on Turning 13

/ Shane / 1 Comment

As a person who was thirteen once, surely, I have advice to give:
Don’t invite strangers when you’re alone.
Always carry a quarter so you can call home.
Be home by dark if you must roam.
Use proper etiquette when answering the house phone.

Alas, as a once-thirteen-years-old
(It’s been a bit since ’93)
The world’s moved on, it’s not the same
So my advice is rusty.

I must therefore learn what it is to be thirteen today
by watching you, my daughter dear.
After careful observation I have to say,
A certain view appears:

To be thirteen is Hunger Games discussions ‘round the clock,
And using Zoom in closets so your friends and you can talk,
And making plans and hopes and dreams and D&D campaigns,
And helping little brothers with cooking, books, and games,
And singing songs, even after we’ve asked you to stop (twice),
And being a responsible PTA mom, always ready with advice,
And ears that reject earrings, unless you wear them back to front.
All these things and more, in fact I’ll just be blunt:
Pretty and strong, successful and kind, good at everything you do,
A singer, dancer, book-worm, and perfectioniser too.

And now at last there comes the day,
Your count is down to zero.
You’re finally a teenager – hooray!
Love, your big old daddy-weirdo.

Hero Daddy

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Sometimes the heroic thing is not what you do, but what you choose not to do.

So tonight I was putting the kids to bed, and while they were getting ready, I was working on laundry. I came back and tucked Ollie in, and Evelyn was in the bathroom. So I did what anybody would do in that situation: I sprinted into her room and dove behind her bed, the better to jump-scare her.

Now, this all happened in a split second, so I didn’t really have time to formulate a plan: when you see an opportunity, you have to seize it! As I crouched there, hiding, I vaguely thought maybe I would wait until she got into bed and then reach up under her covers and grab her leg.

Except the minute she came in the room and tentatively called, “Daddy…?” I realized I had made a terrible mistake. Grabbing her leg after she was in bed would be TERRIFYING! What was I thinking? Who would even do that?? She would never be able to sleep again! I was hiding on the side where the closet is, which is already terrifying enough on its own; even to jump out and say, “boo!” would probably scar her for life.

She was already coming into the room, and now I was trapped. It was getting to the point that if I moved, or even so much as breathed, it was going to be just as scary. I wracked my brain for any kind of non-threatening way to notify her of my presence, crouched on the other side of her bed. Not even to explain why I was there — that train had left the station — but even to just get over the initial, “Hey, it’s me crouching over here on the side of your bed trying to scare you, not some axe murderer or monster or anything!”

And apparently what my brain came up with was to make a high-pitched, “merp!” (Evelyn later said, “Were you trying to make a guinea pig noise??”)

And it was so ridiculous and non-threatening that it totally worked, and we both had a good laugh over it, and nobody peed their pants, and nobody got scarred for life, so basically I am a hero who single-handedly saved my daughter from a lifetime of PTSD and therapy YOU’RE WELCOME EVELYN.

Tap Recital 2018

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Evelyn and Oliver had their tap recital over the weekend, the second for Evelyn and the first for Oliver. They did great! In fact, as a special surprise, Evelyn received an award from the dance school for “hardest worker”! It was a total surprise for all of us, including Evelyn. (In retrospect, it said her name in the program, but we hadn’t read that far.)

I am so proud of them, especially Oliver because he adamantly does not like to perform and he worked *so hard* on this, especially going into the final week.

So, without further ado:

(In case you just can’t get enough, last year’s video can be found here.)