Cute

Katherine, feeling cabin fever being shut in with the snow, called up (or asked for someone to dial on her behalf) Jackie and Doyce, and then proceeded, in her sweet way, to read them, Uncle Bear in particular, the riot act regarding our recent hobby. To summarize:
“Ever since they got City of Heroes, they play and and don’t play with me, and if you stop playing then they won’t play. And tell Justiin to remember to tell you that if you forget.” Or words to that effect.
As Doyce put it to Margie afterwards, “That was cute … in a gut-wrenching and guilt-inducing way.”
It wasn’t tearful, or angry, more of a “wheedle” manner of speech. If we could spend 24/7 focusing on her, that would probably not be enough for her desires (nor healthy for her, for that matter). The reality is that we’re trying to be careful not to let City of Crack lead us to neglecting Kitten. We go for walks. We worked together on the yardwork on Saturday. We took time out yesterday to, the three of us, play some games with her. We try not to use the TV as a babysitter.
But the fact is that, like other hobbies and interests, it does take time from her — not more than before, I think, but it’s a more readily identifiable chunk (i.e., it’s replaced several other time sinks, rather than creating a new one). And the time it takes tends to be less interruptible and bigger-blocked than reading and gaming and blogging. Hence Katherine’s good-natured reprimand.
That said, it’s worth bearing what she’s saying in mind. And we’ll continue to try to spend quality (as well as quantity) time with Katherine. That’s where the real heroism in our lives comes in, after all.