Octopus Overlords

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Tue Sep 11, 2018 12:44 pm You can tell he's a second kid. I'm pretty sure with the girl the wife and I both went, said goodbye a dozen times, and I even stopped by for lunch.

By the third, I was like "go make me a grilled cheese sandwich". Now it's "please stop making me grilled cheese sandwiches, for the love of all that is holy"

Which is weird, because I can't get the other two (older, boys) to do anything without heavy supervision.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Tue Sep 11, 2018 1:01 pm Which is weird, because I can't get the other two (older, boys) to do anything without heavy supervision.

Children are, in fact, individuals. I only have two, both boys, and they are completely different. Basically the only thing they have in common is their love of reading... and Terraria.

My youngest had his birthday party this weekend. Father-in-law couldn't make it and asks if we had any pictures. I said, "No, he's the second kid."

Is that a cute kid story? I wouldn't call my kids cute, they kind of look like me minus the ginger.

Lies.

Older son turns 18 next week and just started his senior year in HS. Dealing with the college applications now. Just crazy how fast it goes. Glad he takes after his very smart mom and not his not so smart dad

Edit: His school's Twitter just posted this today, he got National Merit along with 5 other seniors in his grade. He's the tall one.

Texted him to ask why he's covering his nuts. He said "U don't get to the top without sacrifice."

My kids are attempting to level up in the extra-curricular stage. Son is competing in a Taekwondo tournament Saturday, and my daughter just signed up to be in a stage production of 101 Dalmatians, with performances in November and December.

Jag wrote: ↑Tue Sep 11, 2018 5:09 pm Older son turns 18 next week and just started his senior year in HS. Dealing with the college applications now. Just crazy how fast it goes. Glad he takes after his very smart mom and not his not so smart dad

Edit: His school's Twitter just posted this today, he got National Merit along with 5 other seniors in his grade. He's the tall one.

Texted him to ask why he's covering his nuts. He said "U don't get to the top without sacrifice."

Guy on the right looks like the pain meds didn't kick in.

I overheard my son (10) talking to one of this friends on Xbox the other night: "My dad is my best gaming buddy, and he's crack at Fortnite."

Spoiler alert: I'm not *actually* "crack" at Fortnite.

My son (23) got hired on by EPB (Chattanooga Public Utilities) this month. He's going through training on the internet side of the utilities and has already gotten high praise from some of his superiors on his work ethic. Of course, he says, not sure why, I'm not doing anything special. Of course I tell him, sure that's how you feel because you are doing everything right and the way it's supposed to be done, you'd be surprised how man people don't do that.

He always hoped to move back to Huntsville once his girlfriend graduated cosmetology school, but I told him, she is building up her clientele now in Chattanooga and this job could be a career for you. It's not like Huntsville is that far. It's a 90 minute drive.

Everyone was posting their kids 1st day of school pictures on Facebook, so we posted his first day of work picture.

So today the Winter/spring season of our local arts organization began. My daughter is in a theater class -- they are doing Disney's The Descendants. She is in the "Musical Theater - Kids" group, she did not try out for any lead role (not ready for that), so she will be part of a group. Now, she did this in the fall for 101 Dalmations -- it went well when they did the regular performances and they had an encore number as part of the art's group's Winterfest. Because there was a conflict with my son's taekwondo belt test, wife took the two daughters of a friend (including my daughter's best friend), and I took their son to see my son. All was going well until the performance -- apparently they took my daughter to a room with kids not part of her group, so when they were called, my daughter wasn't, and did not appear. She was devasted, my wife was enraged (and still is). I hoped she would quickly get over it, but she refused to go to a pajama party showing of The Nutcracker (which she was also in) and when winter session resumed this week was reluctant to go to her dance classes on Wednesday (ballet, jazz and tap). I encouraged her to go though, and she said she liked it well enough. Today was the first theater practice -- when we went in, we first saw the theater director. My daughter told him, "you better not leave me behind again!" I hope that afforded her some closure.

My son had a trial piano lesson today (same organization, different location). My daughter wants to take singing lessons (which they also offer) and suggested that if her brother takes piano lessons, they can play songs together -- him on the piano and her singing.

My son, who resisted the free piano lesson for 2 years, loved it today and show his sister what he learned when he got home.

Son had his second Taekwondo tournament last weekend -- won 3 medals, all gold. He beat a higher-ranked opponent in forms, beat 3 other kids in an obstacle course, and broke all of the boards offered in that event. I love that he's taking it much more seriously now. He's on the blackbelt team, prepaid for 2 years now. He can attend class every day if he wishes, first he said he wanted to add a 3rd day. Last week in prep for the tournament, I asked him if he wanted to go 4 days and he immediately said yes. I didn't realize he thought this to be a permanent arrangement, and when I did not come home from work in the afternoon yesterday, he sent me panicked messages on Discord on how he was going to be late (I did not see these until much too late). So now I have to be home every day that my wife isn't (currently, Monday and Thursday).

Today he brought home a letter from school, informing us that due to his superb performance in math, he can take a test that will allow him to skip 4th grade math and go straight to 5th grade math. He will, I think, take the test tomorrow.

I was almost a great week for him...until my daughter told me he would not let her bring a game to school for game day (he was in the room yesterday when we put Sorry! into her backpack). I'm not sure why he decided to assert himself in this situation, and my daughter was sad she couldn't show her game to the class.

Daughter had kindergarten graduation yesterday. Teacher had previously asked them what their favorite part of kindergarten was, and what they wanted to be when they grew up. Most kids said the zoo for the first question. Most of the boys want to be police officers, the girls were more varied, including teacher, hairstylist, and mommy.

My daughter said art was her favorite thing, and she wants to be famous.

She's been saying of late that she wants to give up dancing -- she is currently taking ballet, jazz and tap. She wants to replace it with singing lessons, and remain in music theater. She also wants to get back into taekwondo -- we know from our son that the schedules often overlap, so that could be tough. Also, she had her tonsils and adenoids removed in April -- but she still sounds like a chipmunk. Anyone know if her voice will return to what it used to be?

Son had his first piano recital last Friday. He was the youngest person to perform in the show, and played "Old McDonald" from memory. It's only 30 seconds long -- I encouraged him to play it super-fast after playing it straight, but in practice he tangled his fingers sometimes and so he didn't want to do it (I'm sure the audience would have loved it). My daughter watched the 5 singers closely and really liked two of them.

And 14 years after the OP... She just got into Clemson, her first choice, and with her preferred major!!!! Gushing parent indeed!!

stessier wrote: ↑Thu Feb 15, 2024 7:28 pm And 14 years after the OP... She just got into Clemson, her first choice, and with her preferred major!!!! Gushing parent indeed!!

That's crazy cool.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2010 1:04 pm

YellowKing wrote:I can't wait until my little one is old enough to talk. Or wait, maybe I can!

MY son is closing in on four now and oneof the most commonly heard things in our house is: "Remember when he couldn't talk? Good times."

Mine was just accepted at Texas Tech. They do seems to get older over time.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Thu Feb 15, 2024 8:03 pm Mine was just accepted at Texas Tech. They do seems to get older over time.

I'm so sorry for his (and your) loss.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Thu Feb 15, 2024 8:07 pm

coopasonic wrote: ↑Thu Feb 15, 2024 8:03 pm Mine was just accepted at Texas Tech. They do seems to get older over time.

I'm so sorry for his (and your) loss.

We still have hope for UTD.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Thu Feb 15, 2024 8:09 pm We still have hope for UTD.

Is that a cross between an STD and a UTI?

Knowing Texas, probably.

I don't know about "cute", but my son achieved black belt in Taekwondo this past weekend. He started out ambivalent towards it, seemed to be mostly going through the motions but got really serious after Covid and his work paid off! He's also on the Demo team, a performance group that does choreographed performances incorporating Taekwondo moves, dance, and manipulating various items (such as hand fans, nunchucks, etc.) He is one of only 2 new members invited after the last Demo camp held in January.

Emma is 8, and I've been trying to get my daughter to play music for years, and she's always fought me tooth and nail. Last weekend, I finally mandated that she had to go in the basement for 20 minutes and play drums, just bang around on them. She cried and cried in the kitchen because she didn't want to, and finally she went down and hit the drums a bit. She actually started keeping a beat, and then my son went down there with his trombone, and the two of them were having a great time and she didn't want to stop!

So yesterday, I was going to practice the drums, and she wanted to go down there too, so I showed her some stuff and jokingly suggested that I bring my guitar down, and she was like, "YES DO THAT PLEASE." I hauled my huge-ass amp down and I jammed with my daughter. Kind of all I ever wanted.

My granddaughter (almost 10) is now playing the violin. I got her mom to play for a while but it didn't stick.

My daughter has been taking drum lessons for about a year and loves it. We got her a "real" drum kit for Christmas after we saw she was going to stick with it. She also dabbles on guitar (self-taught). She tried violin for a few weeks but it didn't click with her so she dropped that in favor of focusing on drums. Definitely has some musical talent. I hope she sticks with it.

My almost-10yo son has been taking weekly guitar lessons since the beginning of November...almost five months in and he's still excited to go every week. Getting him to practice is sometimes a struggle, but I'm increasingly confident that he'll be sticking with it long term.

Upside to him taking electric guitar lessons? He's developing a strong liking for rock music, so I can introduce him to all the bands I love, and we've started going to a few concerts together. It's been a lot of fun watching him learn and develop a common interest with me...very rewarding as a parent!

9 year old twins have been taking music lessons since kindergarten. Girl has played the violin the whole time - and she's quite good! She has one lesson a week and also goes to "orchestra" once a week (the group she plays with is two other violinists her age, but they occasionally do concerts with a larger group that meets at a different time).

The boy started on drums, but switched at the beginning of last summer to guitar. He's . . . not as good. The drums were OK, but I don't think he has an easy time with a consistent rhythm. Guitar is hard because his hands are still pretty small, so stretching for chords can be a challenge. Plus, while he really likes his teacher, I'm not convinced he's great at teaching my son. It's kind of ADHD teaching ADHD, and I don't know that they stay on track very well together. (Not being glib here - teacher has mentioned his ADHD before, and the boy has a diagnosis and everything.)

At the next Octocon, I'll help you set up the drums in front of Plaster of Jesus and he can entertain us with some musical interludes!

Sincerely,

A Milk Dribbin' F....well, you know the rest.

Maybe not cute but so far my daughter has got into
Lehigh
William and Mary
The College of NJ

Wait Listed
Laffeyette (For serious? Lehigh is better anyway)

Left
Vassar
Princeton (Might as well try.)

We're stoked.