I am still alive
Sep. 9th, 2014 08:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI did kind of take a break from participating in life in general for the last month or so. I am trying to claw myself back to actually doing anything. Various things that have happened since then:
-I went on a business trip, in the course of which I sawjulianyap and we discussed trying to figure out an even remotely plausible future history for Divergent. Our best guess is that after the apocalypse, the person in charge of building back up civilization really, really liked the Harry Potter books.
-We went to Legoland the week before school started and saw the San Diego Maritime Museum and USS Midway and it all went really, really well. Legoland is, as I told D, an amusement park for people who aren't really into amusement parks. It has, well, Legos! and playground-like areas! It's for younger kids, which also appeals to me. And the week before school started it was relatively uncrowded compared to earlier in the summer.
As for the ships, it turns out that E doesn't like museums very much but does like climbing through things, and both the ships in the Maritime Museum and the Midway were very obliging on that score. The Midway especially had lots of tours of the insides that equated in E's head to lovely maze/obstacle courses with ladders!
-We went to Santa Cruz and Monterey over Labor Day to meet up with D's sister's family and while I think the cousin-bonding went well, it was... sort of the opposite of Legoland. The Santa Cruz boardwalk and the Monterey aquarium were both super-crowded, and it turns out I just don't like being around that many people. The boardwalk was clearly designed to appeal to teenagers, with a lot of rides that E either wasn't tall enough to ride or didn't want to ride. I mean... it was mostly fun? But I don't think I'd do it again. Except for E seeing sea otters, which was completely adorable; they'd studied sea otters at her old preschool and so she thought they were interesting and actually stayed still while watching them. The rest of the aquarium suffered from E's aforementioned-tendencies of seeing museums as obstacle courses. E and a parent ran (literally) through the "Jellies" and "Tentacles" exhibits about ten times while the other parent actually looked at the exhibit (which were great!) -- only occasionally could we slow her down to actually look at something.
-E started at a new preschool, which is going really, really well. Up until the very last minute I was super-conflicted about moving her, and now I'm feeling like a bad parent for not moving her before now. The teacher is on exactly the same page with us about discipline... E frequently bursts into tears when things don't go Her Way (a tendency she may get from both sides, given my childhood and D's sister's child's tendencies), and figuring out how to communicate What Her Way Is and what might work for her in terms of fixing it is about three thousand percent more effective than her previous teacher's rule-based methods of trying to get her to go along with everyone else already. I wasn't entirely happy with that teacher (who had a lot of other good points, mind you), but I had no idea how much better this would be when we were doing the same thing at home and school. I have some issues with the school (they do more gender division than I'm comfortable with, for instance), but wow.
-I am going to get a niece SOON. Like, today! (My baby sister is getting induced even as I type this!) *bounces*
-I went on a business trip, in the course of which I saw
julianyap and we discussed trying to figure out an even remotely plausible future history for Divergent. Our best guess is that after the apocalypse, the person in charge of building back up civilization really, really liked the Harry Potter books.-We went to Legoland the week before school started and saw the San Diego Maritime Museum and USS Midway and it all went really, really well. Legoland is, as I told D, an amusement park for people who aren't really into amusement parks. It has, well, Legos! and playground-like areas! It's for younger kids, which also appeals to me. And the week before school started it was relatively uncrowded compared to earlier in the summer.
As for the ships, it turns out that E doesn't like museums very much but does like climbing through things, and both the ships in the Maritime Museum and the Midway were very obliging on that score. The Midway especially had lots of tours of the insides that equated in E's head to lovely maze/obstacle courses with ladders!
-We went to Santa Cruz and Monterey over Labor Day to meet up with D's sister's family and while I think the cousin-bonding went well, it was... sort of the opposite of Legoland. The Santa Cruz boardwalk and the Monterey aquarium were both super-crowded, and it turns out I just don't like being around that many people. The boardwalk was clearly designed to appeal to teenagers, with a lot of rides that E either wasn't tall enough to ride or didn't want to ride. I mean... it was mostly fun? But I don't think I'd do it again. Except for E seeing sea otters, which was completely adorable; they'd studied sea otters at her old preschool and so she thought they were interesting and actually stayed still while watching them. The rest of the aquarium suffered from E's aforementioned-tendencies of seeing museums as obstacle courses. E and a parent ran (literally) through the "Jellies" and "Tentacles" exhibits about ten times while the other parent actually looked at the exhibit (which were great!) -- only occasionally could we slow her down to actually look at something.
-E started at a new preschool, which is going really, really well. Up until the very last minute I was super-conflicted about moving her, and now I'm feeling like a bad parent for not moving her before now. The teacher is on exactly the same page with us about discipline... E frequently bursts into tears when things don't go Her Way (a tendency she may get from both sides, given my childhood and D's sister's child's tendencies), and figuring out how to communicate What Her Way Is and what might work for her in terms of fixing it is about three thousand percent more effective than her previous teacher's rule-based methods of trying to get her to go along with everyone else already. I wasn't entirely happy with that teacher (who had a lot of other good points, mind you), but I had no idea how much better this would be when we were doing the same thing at home and school. I have some issues with the school (they do more gender division than I'm comfortable with, for instance), but wow.
-I am going to get a niece SOON. Like, today! (My baby sister is getting induced even as I type this!) *bounces*
no subject
Date: 2014-09-09 07:31 pm (UTC)Glad to hear E's new preschool is working out. Family anecdotes suggest repeated exposure to museums might induce sporadic tolerance over time.
...an even remotely plausible future history for Divergent. Our best guess is that after the apocalypse, the person in charge of building back up civilization really, really liked the Harry Potter books.
This is hilarious and rings true to me. I haven't read the novels, but did make it through the movie.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-10 04:00 pm (UTC)Hee. Yes, we'll have to try to expose her to more museums. Anything involving airplanes seems to be a winner, judging by how much she liked climbing into the airplanes on the Midway :)
I read the first novel, haven't watched the movie, although I did watch the "Honest Trailer" which I enjoyed :)