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l33tminion) wrote2021-09-17 07:50 pm
l33tminion) wrote2021-09-17 07:50 pm
Fixed-Rate Time Machine
Eris had her first full week at kindergarten this week. She seems like she's having a lot of fun, but also claims the days get harder and harder. I've been tired organizing so much of the morning and evening logistics. I have been enjoying reading Dealing with Dragons to her as a bedtime story, once she got over her strenuous objection to a book with "no pictures".
One day she fell asleep during story, then was furious that she missed the part of her now-usual routine of marking off the calendar for the day. She demanded I get her a time machine so she could right what went wrong, asking me to "call Target and have them make one". And wouldn't take "aside from all the other reasons why that would probably be a terrible idea, it's literally impossible" as an answer. The time machine bit is my fault in a way, a backfire of an earlier attempt to take one of the How to Talk conversational gambits of "give in fantasy what you cannot give in reality", giving Eris a do-over of some personal tragedy by imagining loading her into "the time catapult" (which launches people over things but also back in time).
Eventually I told her that we all get one time machine that proceeds very reliably along at the rate of one-second-per-second, one-hour-per-hour, etc. and while there are quiet times where it can be nice to look back and reminisce, planting your face on the rear window and shouting "no, go back!" while you crash into whatever's in front of you is just not going to work out well. Not sure she understood any of that.
There were some other big tantrums, too. Eris is not the compromising sort, at least not when it comes to her parents. (Even her usual helpfulness is a double-edged sword. There are a lot of things she wants to help with, and she can be genuinely useful. But she does not want to be left out.)
At least there have been some good times as well.
And the news hasn't been all bad, though the COVID situation is still not great. (Three more cases in the kid's school, and cases locally are going up still, and that growth is accelerating again.) For one thing, California didn't have their governor replaced by a Trumpist with 30% of the vote. And for my town, the mayoral preliminary election had two of three great candidates (Mbah and Ballantyne) make it to the general, with Mr. Tauro coming in a well-deserved distant fourth place. (I favor Ballantyne, though that's not set in stone, I look forward to seeing the candidates really hash out their differences in the run up to the general.)
One day she fell asleep during story, then was furious that she missed the part of her now-usual routine of marking off the calendar for the day. She demanded I get her a time machine so she could right what went wrong, asking me to "call Target and have them make one". And wouldn't take "aside from all the other reasons why that would probably be a terrible idea, it's literally impossible" as an answer. The time machine bit is my fault in a way, a backfire of an earlier attempt to take one of the How to Talk conversational gambits of "give in fantasy what you cannot give in reality", giving Eris a do-over of some personal tragedy by imagining loading her into "the time catapult" (which launches people over things but also back in time).
Eventually I told her that we all get one time machine that proceeds very reliably along at the rate of one-second-per-second, one-hour-per-hour, etc. and while there are quiet times where it can be nice to look back and reminisce, planting your face on the rear window and shouting "no, go back!" while you crash into whatever's in front of you is just not going to work out well. Not sure she understood any of that.
There were some other big tantrums, too. Eris is not the compromising sort, at least not when it comes to her parents. (Even her usual helpfulness is a double-edged sword. There are a lot of things she wants to help with, and she can be genuinely useful. But she does not want to be left out.)
At least there have been some good times as well.
And the news hasn't been all bad, though the COVID situation is still not great. (Three more cases in the kid's school, and cases locally are going up still, and that growth is accelerating again.) For one thing, California didn't have their governor replaced by a Trumpist with 30% of the vote. And for my town, the mayoral preliminary election had two of three great candidates (Mbah and Ballantyne) make it to the general, with Mr. Tauro coming in a well-deserved distant fourth place. (I favor Ballantyne, though that's not set in stone, I look forward to seeing the candidates really hash out their differences in the run up to the general.)