Parenthood – Seeking Balance While Laughing Out Loud

My step-daughter is currently obsessed with the online game Roblox. Even when she’s not playing, I can see her envisioning what she’s going to do when she gets back online, like a chess player planning their next move. I find it interesting that when I ask about Roblox, she immediately lights up and tells me about all of the drama that is going on in the game.

I love video games but when I first saw the game Roblox, I immediately thought of the game Minecraft. If you don’t know Minecraft, it’s a game designed to look very pixelated and if you want a visual, Google “Minecraft” then Google “Roblox”. Roblox is the catfish version of Minecraft. It’s like back in the day when you asked your Mom for Oreos and she brought back a box of Hydrox cookies instead.

Remember Hydrox cookies??? Looks like Oreos but didn’t quite taste the same. I don’t think I’ve seen a box of Hydrox since the mid 90’s.

Roblox gives you the impression that the game is incomplete and not very challenging. I decided to give it a try and figure out the appeal of playing this game. I also wanted to get involved in the drama! I needed to see what these little punks are up to so I took the time out on a Saturday night to play the game with her. This is what my Saturday nights have become, playing Roblox with a bunch of pre-teens!

And It Starts…

I created my own account and avatar. My screen name is LittleJK41 which is a play on her screen name, LittleOG14. I wanted to secretly surprise her in the game, just to see what type of player she would be in this Roblox world. Unfortunately, even with my impeccable research skills, I could not find her. My wife even tried to help me out but we both couldn’t find a way to sneak into her game. So like loser adults, we had to tell her what we were doing and she helped me get to the game she was playing in.

Now to give you a little bit of background on the game, once you sign up, you have the option to set up your avatar. You’re avatar is very plain but you can change his or her features. There are free items to choose from but if you want anything unique to your character, you have to buy it with Roblox money called Robux. I didn’t really care to make my character unique because I definitely wanted it to look like a new player. I wanted my character to be considered a “noob“, another term for a new player, usually associated with a lack of skills for the game as well.

robloxnoob — This is what my character looked like but I gave him a spiky hair dew!

In the Club! WHAT! WHAT!

Once I created my “noob” character, off I went trying to find her in a game called Club Red V4. Club Red V4 is a game where you go to a club listening to the latest beats while socializing with other players. I joined her and immediately chatted her in the text box which all the players can read. She was hanging out on the poolside of the club, which was funny to me. I jumped into the water and of course, I couldn’t seem to figure out how to get out. My step-daughter sent someone in to get me out because I couldn’t figure out how to use the ladder. Turns out my step-daughter is the ring leader of the group and all of her friends welcomed me. I asked her, how do you dance, and she showed me the list of dance moves that came up. So I did the dab, the robot, the sizzle, and whatever other dance moves I was able to choose from. She was annoyed that I was dancing in the middle of her circle of friends. She was like, “Dad stop!!!”. What amazed me is that all of her friends believed I was her dad. My guess, the kids believe the phrase, “If it’s on the internet, then it must be true!” So I would say things like, “I am your father LittleOG14!“, “Help your Dad! LittleOG14!“, “I’m the coolest LittleOG14!“, or “Hello, I’m a Noob.” I would have thought that her friends would have thought that we were being sarcastic but they believed us. Her friends let me be part of her circle. It was amazing to watch and see her lead her group of friends in and out of the club.

robloxclubred — “He just ran off” “lol” “YOLO” – A little bit of what to expect in Club Red V4.

The club was interesting because I found it was very depressing like a real club. But to a pre-teen or teen, this is fun stuff. Most people were not on the dance floor and some characters were just trying to talk to each other in private, off in some dark corner of the club. I would interrupt their conversations. I would say hello and tell them how new I was to the game. I thought it was funny but my step-daughter was annoyed with my antics. Eventually, we moved on to Prison Life.

Things get real in Prison Life!

Now Prison Life was a much better game because unlike the club game, there are guns, tasers, and other weapons involved with the socializing. Before you start playing, you get a choice of joining the prison guard team or the prisoner team. We joined the prisoner team and my step-daughter lead the revolution. I kind of watched and followed her for 2 seconds then I decided to punch her out and as well as the other inmates. I had fun punching random players but then the officers would shoot me dead. My character crumbles to the ground and then re-spawns in a prison cell. I then started talking smack to all the prison guards and of course they would kill me or handcuff me. My step-daughter seemed so embarrassed by my gameplay that she would often say “STOP DAD!” “WTH DAD!” but I continued. Eventually she and her friends escaped the prison and became “criminals“. Apparently, they get better guns as a criminal. When she became a criminal, she tried to get me to come out to the prison yard to help me escape. I was so busy punching everyone inside the prison, I stopped paying attention to the text box. They were waiting for me to come to the yard to play so they could shoot me but I never came out to the yard. I was too busy trying to get a gun from the prison guard home base. I kept getting killed but I was having fun.

Her friends found me to be cool, just like my step-daughter. They all said that she likes to bark orders to her crew but they liked helping a “noob” like me out. One of her friends helped me escape the jail only to be killed by someone else. I saw one player was constantly chatting with my step-daughter and told him that if he wants to date my step-daughter, he needed to buy her a ring. He immediately logged off and unfriended her. What a wuss! I had fun playing with her but after an hour, I was getting tired of getting killed and quite frankly, I felt odd talking smack to a bunch of pre-teens. I’m too old for this.

Online Games = Old Online Chat Rooms

I now understand why my step-daughter loves this game. It reminded me of the old chat rooms on AOL or CompuServe. Remember CompuServe??? That was for the people who couldn’t afford AOL, the gold standard of the internet in the late 90’s early 2000’s. Just like the chat room, you can see who’s there, pick and choose the theme of the room you want to go into and socialize. In Roblox, same thing except you get to play games one another. You choose different games with different rooms, and you get to socialize. This game appeals to pre-teens as the game play is very simple and honestly, for someone who immediately thought the game was stupid, it’s easy to ignore your kid playing it because you don’t immediately see the inappropriateness of the game right away. As a parent, I saw some games that were not appropriate for a child to play and were very adult themed. With online bullying increasing, I can see this game as another way for kids to gang up on others. So after a lengthy discussion with my wife, we both talked to my step-daughter on the do’s and don’ts of playing this game or anything else she does online.

By playing with her, she has opened up to me more, specifically about the game but she talks to me about her friends. She tells me what goes on in the game and I’m glad we are able to have something to talk about it and I don’t feel like there’s a wall between us. Hopefully, she’ll continue to chat it up with me and eventually move on from Roblox but only time will tell.

Oh and about that seizure? That’s some good ole’ fashion use of click bait.

My son was born last year and of course, my life changed forever. When my son was born, I honestly couldn’t believe it. I was thinking, here is this little being who is going to call me “Dad” one day. What is this going to be like? I didn’t even know what to do when I physically saw him for the first time. I just touched him with my finger to see if he’s real! It was just too surreal and for some reason, the first 24 hours with Nik felt like a dream.

The first couple of days, the first few weeks were memorable. He was so tiny, he took a lot of cat naps, and seemed to be curious about his surroundings whenever his eyes were open. I was learning everything I could about taking care of a newborn baby. My friends and family were always asking me, “What’s it like being a Dad?” “How do you feel now that you are a Dad?” Honestly, I didn’t feel anything Dad-like during this time. I was expecting it to hit me right away but I was consumed by making sure I was there for my family. I wanted to make sure my wife and I were doing everything right in taking care of Nik. We were learning what works best for Nik and following the outline of things to do and look out for from our pediatrician. A part of me felt like I was learning to babysit a new child. I wasn’t panicking that I didn’t feel like a Dad but I figured it would hit me in time. In the first couple of weeks of having Nik in the house, I thought about it whenever someone asked me that question otherwise it really wasn’t on the forefront of my mind.

I would say about 3 months or 4 months in, it finally happened. I wish I would have recorded the date now looking back but the memory is still there. It was early on a Saturday morning, around 4 or 5am when Nik started to cry. Jennifer faintly said, “It’s your turn now.” and I was reluctant to get up. I knew Jennifer was tired and had been up with him earlier so I had no choice but to get up. I remember being so annoyed with Nik and I was like, “Alright, let’s do this.” I knew he wasn’t hungry as Jennifer had given him a bottle when she was up with him. So I figured he either had to be lulled back to sleep or needed a diaper change. His diaper was full so I picked him up and took him to the changing table in the other room. I turned on the light and put him on the changing table. I was the only one that really used the changing table. Jennifer and her mother would change him on the fly on the couch or on the bed. I just needed to have all the diapers, wipes, and the Peepee Teepee around me so that I wouldn’t mess things up on the couch or the bed. My fear was to have Nik pee all over me or all over the bed or couch. If you don’t know what the Peepee Teepee is, it’s a cone shaped cloth that basically absorbs the pee in case your baby starts going while your changing them. I only ended up using once, so I guess I got lucky. lol

Nik had calmed down when we got into the other room. He was very calm when I put him on the changing table. I remember taking off the soiled diaper and began grabbing the new diaper when all of a sudden a loud fart emerged. He farts loud and I wake up instantly. Up until that moment, I thought baby farts were supposed to be a soft noise, a cute noise, something associated with adorable and the phrase “awwwww”. This was not adorable whatsoever. This sounded like a man fart. The type of fart you hear in a public men’s bathroom. I was shocked and looked at Nik with astonishment. I was very awake now. I looked at Nik and was like, “Only a baby but farts like a grown man! I’m so proud of you!” and I start laughing uncontrollably. My laugh was contagious that Nik starts laughing uncontrollably as well. It was the first time that we had a moment like that. I connected with him more than ever and it was the first time I had him laughing like that. I wasn’t into making silly faces or silly noises. Jennifer would make him laugh like that and she would tease me for not trying to do that with Nik. I would get a smile from him from time to time but not a giggle.

After changing his diaper, I held him for a long time. I remember looking directly at him and saying, “I love you son!” I had woke up with an attitude and now I’m looking at my son and saying, “Every single moment I spend time with you is worth it!” with a giant grin on my face. I remember not wanting to go back to sleep in that moment, I even wanted to wake up Jennifer for that moment but quickly realized she was too tired to be bothered.

I put Nik back to sleep in the bassinet and remember crawling back to bed. I remember not falling asleep right away as I was so happy to have that moment with Nik. I couldn’t wait to tell Jennifer about it. I remember being excited that I can finally answer my friends and family with a sincere response that made me feel proud to be a father.

Category: Parenthood

The Dad Moment