assorted kid things
Sep. 1st, 2022 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI swear I have also been reading books and maybe I will even post about them someday! But, uh, not today. Instead you get random kid stuff!
-A. has finally FINALLY learned how to swim. He had almost learned before the pandemic hit, so he could sort of swim with a lot of pauses to turn over and float, so he was reasonably safe, but neither he nor we considered that really swimming. And even now that swim lessons have begun again in general, the particular place where we had taken him before (which we love) hasn't started back, and D was supposed to be in charge of his swimming, so... yeah. Then it happened that one of my church acquaintances wanted to make a little extra money and ran swim lessons out of her apartment's pool for a couple of weeks, so it was both relatively cheap and super easy to set up. Well, I suppose it's not surprising that her landlord shut her down after those couple of weeks (wah! but I get it) but he got swim lessons every weekday for two weeks and that's what he needed to go from "kid who can't quite swim" to "kid who can actually swim" even though he has no conception of things like strokes (he does crawl and sort-of-kind-of backstroke) and it would be nice for him to get more lessons. (I would really love if he could do "swim team" with their old swim school, which was low-key, once a week, half an hour of swimming laps and improving their strokes -- E did this and her swimming got really reasonably good. Neither kid, I think, is into hard-core Swim Team that's two hours twice a week or whatever.)
It's rather amazing the difference it makes. Before this time, we'd occasionally be around a pool and he would either stay in a float the entire time or he would sort of creep around in the shallow end. We just went to a friend's house with a pool and I suggested he take a float and he said, "Oh, I don't need it now," and when we got there he just swam around like a little duck and tried diving in the deep end (he dives adorably badly) and he and the other kids played with "lightsaber" pool noodles in the deep end and he was perfectly fine (he would not have done this last year, as he was very hesitant about going in the deep end at all unless he had a float and was not interacting with other kids).
-E is going into 7th grade and we had parent-teacher conferences and her teacher this year is just amazing, full of empathy for these kids who are in general struggling with that transition between being kids and being adolescents, and also empathy for E's social and emotional issues in particular, and I just think E is in such good hands and I'm so grateful we get this teacher. (Especially extremely grateful because she had pancreatic cancer last year! But is apparently in full remission!)
A's parent-teacher conferences for second grade were good too. His new teacher seems to have stuff figured out, and he won't be teaching language arts; he'll trade off with the kindergarten teacher (who is awesome) for that. And I raised my concerns about one classmate who tends to invade A's personal space in a way that A clearly finds kind of offputting (but won't complain about -- but I don't want it to be a thing where he keeps being made uncomfortable because he doesn't want to complain), and New Teacher knew about it already and had made plans for it. And I kind of peeked in their window yesterday morning with another parent and the kids seemed to be totally engaged and doing great.
A's math teacher is different, new this year, and I'm not sure about her. (Heh,conuly, she asked what kind of learner he was, whether he was a visual learner or whatever. I was like, he learns whatever way you teach him...) But she was on board with him doing Beast Academy, so, as long as he gets to do that I'm happy :)
-During the pandemic, E learned about the chat function in Zoom (and often sends me chats while I'm at work and she's at school or at home, it's super cute). A. was too young at the time.
A few weeks ago, E asked to do Habitica again. The last time we played around with Habitica, A. was also too young. But now, at age 7, he is old enough and he is actually pretty excited about doing his tasks (which is great).
...It turns out Habitica also has a chat function. A. is really excited about finally having access to a chat function!
We were doing a "quest" to "kill a monster" (it's sort of a black spheroid with an upside down face) through the purity of our... getting tasks done... thus leading to the following chat conversation, transcribed verbatim. ("horsie" is E, "Flaming Duck" is A., and "raspberry hunter" is me.)
horsie: we will kill you upside down jack-o-lantern
Flaming Duck: Thats black aNd DoSentHAVE a sTeM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Flaming Duck: AlSo ITSSHADOWY on the outside ALSO ITS BAD
raspberry hunter: You guys are funny 😂
Flaming Duck: NOIMNOT
Flaming Duck: WHATEVERRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Flaming Duck: Bibs
Flaming Duck: Wait no bubs
Flaming Duck: Sthcukvukgdfjohfbjhgfgjkpounceonmommykbcjkvgukkhvcxgjk fgkngfgjjgffyjhjbggyuh
Flaming Duck: Pooooooooooooooop poop
horsie: You're weird
horsie: buba
Flaming Duck: HAHA I CAUGHT YOU BEING WEIRD
Flaming Duck: SO WE’RE BoTH WEirD
Flaming Duck: GhnfykjgfbkjffhkysylgscfiudhoudYIKNFSGJ(BCZfggxGGFSZdgjhcxzDdgbngcfjlnhdzgkkhhhk IS NOT NOT WEIRD
(I promise he's a much quieter kid in person! Though possibly still just as quirky :) )
-A. has finally FINALLY learned how to swim. He had almost learned before the pandemic hit, so he could sort of swim with a lot of pauses to turn over and float, so he was reasonably safe, but neither he nor we considered that really swimming. And even now that swim lessons have begun again in general, the particular place where we had taken him before (which we love) hasn't started back, and D was supposed to be in charge of his swimming, so... yeah. Then it happened that one of my church acquaintances wanted to make a little extra money and ran swim lessons out of her apartment's pool for a couple of weeks, so it was both relatively cheap and super easy to set up. Well, I suppose it's not surprising that her landlord shut her down after those couple of weeks (wah! but I get it) but he got swim lessons every weekday for two weeks and that's what he needed to go from "kid who can't quite swim" to "kid who can actually swim" even though he has no conception of things like strokes (he does crawl and sort-of-kind-of backstroke) and it would be nice for him to get more lessons. (I would really love if he could do "swim team" with their old swim school, which was low-key, once a week, half an hour of swimming laps and improving their strokes -- E did this and her swimming got really reasonably good. Neither kid, I think, is into hard-core Swim Team that's two hours twice a week or whatever.)
It's rather amazing the difference it makes. Before this time, we'd occasionally be around a pool and he would either stay in a float the entire time or he would sort of creep around in the shallow end. We just went to a friend's house with a pool and I suggested he take a float and he said, "Oh, I don't need it now," and when we got there he just swam around like a little duck and tried diving in the deep end (he dives adorably badly) and he and the other kids played with "lightsaber" pool noodles in the deep end and he was perfectly fine (he would not have done this last year, as he was very hesitant about going in the deep end at all unless he had a float and was not interacting with other kids).
-E is going into 7th grade and we had parent-teacher conferences and her teacher this year is just amazing, full of empathy for these kids who are in general struggling with that transition between being kids and being adolescents, and also empathy for E's social and emotional issues in particular, and I just think E is in such good hands and I'm so grateful we get this teacher. (Especially extremely grateful because she had pancreatic cancer last year! But is apparently in full remission!)
A's parent-teacher conferences for second grade were good too. His new teacher seems to have stuff figured out, and he won't be teaching language arts; he'll trade off with the kindergarten teacher (who is awesome) for that. And I raised my concerns about one classmate who tends to invade A's personal space in a way that A clearly finds kind of offputting (but won't complain about -- but I don't want it to be a thing where he keeps being made uncomfortable because he doesn't want to complain), and New Teacher knew about it already and had made plans for it. And I kind of peeked in their window yesterday morning with another parent and the kids seemed to be totally engaged and doing great.
A's math teacher is different, new this year, and I'm not sure about her. (Heh,
conuly, she asked what kind of learner he was, whether he was a visual learner or whatever. I was like, he learns whatever way you teach him...) But she was on board with him doing Beast Academy, so, as long as he gets to do that I'm happy :)-During the pandemic, E learned about the chat function in Zoom (and often sends me chats while I'm at work and she's at school or at home, it's super cute). A. was too young at the time.
A few weeks ago, E asked to do Habitica again. The last time we played around with Habitica, A. was also too young. But now, at age 7, he is old enough and he is actually pretty excited about doing his tasks (which is great).
...It turns out Habitica also has a chat function. A. is really excited about finally having access to a chat function!
We were doing a "quest" to "kill a monster" (it's sort of a black spheroid with an upside down face) through the purity of our... getting tasks done... thus leading to the following chat conversation, transcribed verbatim. ("horsie" is E, "Flaming Duck" is A., and "raspberry hunter" is me.)
horsie: we will kill you upside down jack-o-lantern
Flaming Duck: Thats black aNd DoSentHAVE a sTeM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Flaming Duck: AlSo ITSSHADOWY on the outside ALSO ITS BAD
raspberry hunter: You guys are funny 😂
Flaming Duck: NOIMNOT
Flaming Duck: WHATEVERRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Flaming Duck: Bibs
Flaming Duck: Wait no bubs
Flaming Duck: Sthcukvukgdfjohfbjhgfgjkpounceonmommykbcjkvgukkhvcxgjk fgkngfgjjgffyjhjbggyuh
Flaming Duck: Pooooooooooooooop poop
horsie: You're weird
horsie: buba
Flaming Duck: HAHA I CAUGHT YOU BEING WEIRD
Flaming Duck: SO WE’RE BoTH WEirD
Flaming Duck: GhnfykjgfbkjffhkysylgscfiudhoudYIKNFSGJ(BCZfggxGGFSZdgjhcxzDdgbngcfjlnhdzgkkhhhk IS NOT NOT WEIRD
(I promise he's a much quieter kid in person! Though possibly still just as quirky :) )
