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Well, this was sure a year.
For me it was defined by three (3) things:
1) Kid
2) My dad died
3) Genshin Impact
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) myfyr had been trying to get me into Genshin for a while, and then around when Dad died I needed something to fixate on as a coping mechanism, so I tried it, and I really liked it.
It helps that I've been really lucky with 50/50s and the precise set of characters available in that time, because I'm really enjoying the game with a fantastic set of characters that I like and that work really well together, so that's something. (For anyone who plays Genshin: in no particular order, Mavuika, Chasca, Xilonen, Wriothesley, Escoffier, Furina, Sigewinne, Arlecchino, Yelan, Lauma, Citlali, Navia are my five-stars I use a lot, but special mention goes to Best Boy Ororon. My standard banner characters? Mizuki C1, Qiqi C3, and Mona. That's it. I have had insane luck with 50/50s. I also have Jean but I got her from that event where you could get a free standard banner five star.)
To give a scale of my hyperfixation: I resisted writing Genshin fic for the first couple of months but I've since written something like 700k words of it. Because hyperfixation is a coping mechanism and Genshin apparently specialises in making their characters really interesting.
Truly astonishing amounts of it were written on my phone while holding a sleeping toddler. He still has tummy issues and he sleeps better when being held.
I've really been struggling with Dad's death lately, because the thing about having a birthday two weeks before Christmas is that first birthday without Dad slams hard into first Christmas without Dad into a whirlwind of suck.
It looked like I'd found a good therapist, but personal/health issues of some sort means she's quitting, which is unfortunate, because All The Things but especially Dad stuff.
The thing is?
When I was a kid I had the best dad.
And then around my late teens/twenties he got... frustrating, and our relationship got fraught, and it just struggled and there were ups and downs but a few years ago I decided it must be early onset dementia and I started consciously trying to think of him as my mother's husband because I wanted to remember my Dad better...
... and then he started treatment for his neuroendocrine tumour and he was my dad again and I'm so, so fucking angry about the decades we lost to fucking cancer.
Around mid-year I had my annual surveillance scan to see if my neuroendocrine tumour has come back and the techs were very nice about the way I broke down sobbing on the CT machine tray and were very sympathetic to the explanation that it was my first surveillance scan since my dad died of the same kind of cancer.
So that was a thing.
Anyway.
The kid.
Toby is 21 months old now and amazing. He's putting sentences together - sometimes long chains of them, like: "Rubbish truck comes along. Rubbish truck picks up the bin. Tips into the rubbish truck." (He's very into rubbish trucks right now.) He can recognise every letter in the alphabet and knows what sounds they make and can recognise all the numbers.
He can also recite the numbers in order - usually stops at 20 or 30 - but is only beginning to associate that with actual counting.
He has an excellent collection of animal noises and the best laugh ever.
He's learning to drink from a cup, and loves doing it. His hobbies include tipping things, throwing balls and Duplo.
He loves singing. He will randomly bounce between the songs he knows, which can be a disconcertingly eclectic listening experience because he'll bounce between I Want It That Way (Backstreet Boys), Rainy Days and Mondays (The Carpenters), I'm Blue (whoever did that), One More Time (Daft Punk), We Will Rock You (Queen), Rock-a-bye Baby, Goosey Goosey Gander, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Baa Baa Black Sheep. He also randomly sings the alphabet but that doesn't bounce with other songs.
He's starting to get the hang of melody. Emphasis on starting, but it's absolutely delightful.
No-one has ever loved my singing as much as he does. Rainy Days and Mondays is often his going-to-sleep song when I'm settling him, so if I start singing it before he's sleepy he'll say, "No! Different song!"
(It used to be: "No! Mama sing!")
He's pure joy. I think he got my mother through the first difficult period after she became a widow, because she adores him and delights in him (as a grandmother should). At some point soon we're going to have to cut his fringe to stop it getting in his eyes, but velithya doesn't want to cut all his hair because she finds the curls at the back adorable and is worried they won't grow back. (With good reason, I think.)
Anyway. Happy New Year, everyone.
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