friends crack scarves choir
May. 13th, 2005 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojIt's a miscellaneous kind of day.
Took kids to choir and swimming and there was much drama at both. At choir, Anne's son Garry having a bad day and being himself around Justin, which is never a good thing. Basically, he and Daniel get along great, but Garry is a total *&$# with Justin. Snatches toys out of his hands, makes fun of him, tells him he can't play with them, the works. Justin responds by being annoying and getting upset. Daniel sides with Garry. Today this caused several meltdowns, and resulted in Justin wailing for about a third of the rehearsal.
Had a long, long talk with Daniel and Justin about it afterwards. To wit: Garry is a good friend to Daniel, but he has some problems being nice to Justin and this is a problem. We cannot change Garry's behaviour. We can, however, change our own. Justin will henceforth stay away from Garry as much as possible. I will entertain Justin when Garry is visiting. And Daniel will, on pain of ending the friendship, not side with Garry against his little brother. And hopefully, some day in the (probably very distant) future, the three will be able to coexist peacefully.
I don't envy Anne. She's a wonderful parent, but Garry has a lot of problems. Whenever I think she's letting him get away with too much, I remind myself of all she's had to do to get him to this stage of social acceptability. And she's not helped much by the homeschooling community, many of whom see Garry as a little troublemaker and shun them both, without stopping to consider that Garry (and Anne) have many positive traits, and that shunning will certainly not help either one of them improve Garry's behaviour.
I might understand if Anne were the sort of parent who feels their bratty little terror can do no wrong, but she's not. She's quite aware of the fact that he has problems, and dedicated to helping him deal with them.
Oh well.
***
At swimming, Justin learned the hard way that when the teachers say "dont' run on deck", they mean it. Because if you do, and you slip and crack your head, you will cry a whole lot. And Mama will come and cuddle you and you will get ice to put on your head and people in bathing suits will ask you to follow their finger and ask if you feel like throwing up and fill out some accident forms. And except for the cuddling, none of it is terribly pleasant. And the cuddling in no way makes up for any of the rest of it.
***
In other news, I'm trying out a brand new writing technique called "write a story from beginning to end." Brand new to me, anyway. It's quite fascinating.
See, Leslie and I once compared our writing styles and she came up with the "knit scarf/quilt" analogy. Basically, if you write from beginning to end, with or without a definite plot in mind, as she did, you're a Scarf Knitter. If you write random little scenes, maybe with an overarching plot in mind, maybe just fiddling around, then one day you take your scenelets and try to figure out what your plot should look like and in what order the scenelets should be plugged in, then move them around, stitch them together, fill in the blanks, then finish them off with some fancy topstitching (formatting, spellchecks, etc), you are a Quilter.
From asking around, I've found that most people are Scarf Knitters. I'm a Quilter, and have been since (checking ff.n profile) January 2002 :) And yet I've currently got a 62-page scarf on my hard drive. It's such a bizarre way of writing. How on earth do you Knitters do it?
***
Two choir concerts this weekend; one two-song blip on Parliament Hill tomorrow morning with HBLN (homeschool choir) for the Peace Song Circle, the other on Sunday with Harmonia.
Took kids to choir and swimming and there was much drama at both. At choir, Anne's son Garry having a bad day and being himself around Justin, which is never a good thing. Basically, he and Daniel get along great, but Garry is a total *&$# with Justin. Snatches toys out of his hands, makes fun of him, tells him he can't play with them, the works. Justin responds by being annoying and getting upset. Daniel sides with Garry. Today this caused several meltdowns, and resulted in Justin wailing for about a third of the rehearsal.
Had a long, long talk with Daniel and Justin about it afterwards. To wit: Garry is a good friend to Daniel, but he has some problems being nice to Justin and this is a problem. We cannot change Garry's behaviour. We can, however, change our own. Justin will henceforth stay away from Garry as much as possible. I will entertain Justin when Garry is visiting. And Daniel will, on pain of ending the friendship, not side with Garry against his little brother. And hopefully, some day in the (probably very distant) future, the three will be able to coexist peacefully.
I don't envy Anne. She's a wonderful parent, but Garry has a lot of problems. Whenever I think she's letting him get away with too much, I remind myself of all she's had to do to get him to this stage of social acceptability. And she's not helped much by the homeschooling community, many of whom see Garry as a little troublemaker and shun them both, without stopping to consider that Garry (and Anne) have many positive traits, and that shunning will certainly not help either one of them improve Garry's behaviour.
I might understand if Anne were the sort of parent who feels their bratty little terror can do no wrong, but she's not. She's quite aware of the fact that he has problems, and dedicated to helping him deal with them.
Oh well.
At swimming, Justin learned the hard way that when the teachers say "dont' run on deck", they mean it. Because if you do, and you slip and crack your head, you will cry a whole lot. And Mama will come and cuddle you and you will get ice to put on your head and people in bathing suits will ask you to follow their finger and ask if you feel like throwing up and fill out some accident forms. And except for the cuddling, none of it is terribly pleasant. And the cuddling in no way makes up for any of the rest of it.
In other news, I'm trying out a brand new writing technique called "write a story from beginning to end." Brand new to me, anyway. It's quite fascinating.
See, Leslie and I once compared our writing styles and she came up with the "knit scarf/quilt" analogy. Basically, if you write from beginning to end, with or without a definite plot in mind, as she did, you're a Scarf Knitter. If you write random little scenes, maybe with an overarching plot in mind, maybe just fiddling around, then one day you take your scenelets and try to figure out what your plot should look like and in what order the scenelets should be plugged in, then move them around, stitch them together, fill in the blanks, then finish them off with some fancy topstitching (formatting, spellchecks, etc), you are a Quilter.
From asking around, I've found that most people are Scarf Knitters. I'm a Quilter, and have been since (checking ff.n profile) January 2002 :) And yet I've currently got a 62-page scarf on my hard drive. It's such a bizarre way of writing. How on earth do you Knitters do it?
Two choir concerts this weekend; one two-song blip on Parliament Hill tomorrow morning with HBLN (homeschool choir) for the Peace Song Circle, the other on Sunday with Harmonia.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-14 01:24 am (UTC)