April was a bit of a blur of late nights and continued chaos. When the budget cycle rolled around we did manage a zoo trip. 16yo refused to wake up, and 14yo, 12yo and 14yo's SO and I were literally just about to walk out of the house when the outlaws arrived with my 4yo nephew. We told them we were just heading out to the zoo and they were welcome to come along if they wanted, so we all ended up piling back into their car and heading on over.
We used to have zoo passes so our trips to the zoo always started off with deciding what each person wanted to study and then checking out the map to work out the most efficient paths between what everyone wanted and then make up anything else in between or afterwards, so there was an automatic gravitation to the map to do this.
We went to look at the penguins and it didn't take long for the teenagers to vanish as 14yo had seen a spider and run away from it. I got a text saying they were going to just wander around on their own and could meet us somewhere later which I had assumed would happen sooner or later and said that was fine. 14yo sent me a few photos from the other side of the zoo where they ended up.
Meanwhile 4yo apparently really wanted to see snakes so we went and looked at snakes.
There were also cute lizards (and the slightly more terrifying but still cute perentie that I didn't get a photo of).
As he had last trip, 12yo had a great time reading and showing things to 4yo. 12yo seems to have also hit the age where he wants to take a bit more time to investigate things that he's interested in and I think was starting to feel that 4yo was moving a bit too fast and not looking at things properly (he put up with it with gentle good humour when I reminded him that he was probably worse at the same age).
12yo wanted to go on the Australian Bushwalk so we did that next.
4yo was getting a bit tired and needing to be carried at intervals by this point (I had offered at various points to get a cart for him but I think the outlaws wanted to wear him out as they kept saying to let him walk and were making him walk as much as possible) so 12yo had a bit more time to read whatever it was he wanted to read. He was really interested in the rhino at the African Savannah and eagerly summarised the sign for me, and we thought it "hiding" behind its block was cute (I'm pretty sure it was just gearing up to knock the block over as it did that shortly after I took the photo but I like my head-canon better).
Then we went to see the meerkats as that's father in law's favourite, and well how cute are they really.
12yo was so busy clucking over them that I don't think he realised there was a sign, and as time was getting on (our excursion days were originally picked because it was an extremely rare day where no one had anything...and then I started working on those days) we had to move along quickly.
We did the nocturnal house (I didn't attempt photos this time) and then 12yo and 4yo gawked at the Galapagos tortoises. 4yo was amazed at the size of them and 12yo knew they were big but it has been quite a while since our last zoo trip and he had a different level of appreciation for them, as well as much more inclination to actually read the sign.
After that I had to head back home so I could go to work, so gathered up my children and after bidding the outlaws and nephew farewell, we caught the ferry back to the cbd. The teenagers left us at that point as they were going to 14yo's partner's house via the museum, and 12yo and I headed home.
12yo has been vaguely interested in my bass guitar for a little while and we occasionally joked that all we needed was a drum kit and enough interest and the kids could form a band (we also have a keyboard in the house). After getting interested in a bass player's channel on Youtube, he got more interested in playing and so I pulled out my bass for him and told him it could live in his room, but he had to be extremely careful with it and for the love of anything stop walking around the house with it (I've had this thing for 21 years and there's nary a scratch on it and I was going to be very annoyed with him if he took chips out of it because he wanted to carry it around the house, he stopped carrying it around after I told him I'd take it off him if he kept that up).
I taught him how to tune the thing and we went through my old books (the notebook and the folder are both from when I was doing bass lessons, the actual lesson stuff was written by the guitar teacher and I had also written some notes for myself and done the usual rookie mistake of assuming I would never forget what I was doing at the time). Told him to keep practising scales daily (I think he's at a stage where we may need to figure out the rest of the scales so he can do them all the way up and down) and to do the exercises until he could do them easily, and if he kept up with the interest we would buy him an amp (I did have an amp with the guitar but one of my old cats went really senile and mistook it for a litter tray and that obviously ended badly, and as I had gone from not playing regularly to not playing at all at that stage I didn't bother replacing it).
I'm really trying hard to get him to vlog his practices but he's gotten stuck in his head that he needs to be good before he can record and me trying very hard to impress upon him that it's record keeping for homeschooling purposes among other things is either falling on deaf ears or going in one and out the other or some combination thereof. I might have to make it a requirement that he vlog each practice session and send it to me.
We have since gotten him an amp and he's been through all my lessons and asked for another book. Told him to learn off Youtube until I could source a book for him.
Skwirk with the smalls and KA with the big is going slowly and painfully (they're more open to it than bookwork but it's still a struggle because there isn't much in the way of relevance or interest). The bigs are in the process of looking for jobs and exploring tertiary possibilities. 16yo is still trying to figure out how to write a resume (he's trying very hard to find a resume example or template that doesn't require gmail or try to make him sign up for some job search website) so that he can put in an expression of an interest at a place where a friend is working (said friend recommended this route as apparently it's the one that they took to get their job). I also mentioned that perhaps we could go to one of the IT repair places in the general area and see if any of them are willing to give him some work experience and see if he really wants a job playing with hardware, and he was quite interested so that will be a task for next week. 14yo (who is not old enough to apply at the place the friend is working at and 16yo is looking at) has applied for jobs at the local Coles and Macca's and was rejected for the former and is still "in review" for the latter. She wanted to apply for KMart as well but they apparently don't have an online application so I guess they're either not hiring or we have to walk into a store and fill in a form. I've checked in with her to see if she is still interested in starting an early learning course at TAFE next year as she has dropped out completely of helping out with her beloved "babies" (actually ~3-6yos) at gymnastics and got a non-commital "I donno" in response. As I think at least some of this may be as much to do with the nonsense that was happening as much as it could just be general uncertainty about what she might want to do so I'm not sure how much I should push anything at this point.
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Awww I missed these updates! It's like watching your kids grow virtually haha! They've all grown so much. Homeschooling really won out especially when the lockdown hit, didn't it? Just like how remote work had almost zero adjustments in terms of work schedules.
How did you guys adjust when the pandemic initially hit? Gymnastics took a step back, I imagine. Glad to see Gorc taking up an instrument! And, wow! I didn't know you played bass. That's so cool! I've been know to slap da bass back in the day, but I'm more of a drum guy like our bro Boomer.
^_^
I guess technically that's what's happening right XD
Yes and no really, I mean when we first went into "self isolation" last year a lot of my friends were contacting me for homeschooling advice and I was able to give them some but I did tell them that the school-at-home approach that was expected for the schoolkids was pretty much the polar opposite of what I did and I was just as screwed as the rest of them.
I think we ended up mostly coasting that entire time, and occasionally learning about virii (do you think I could get youngest to be looking up videos from channels that were slightly more informational than his favourite Youtubers ranting about things?)
Yep both gymnastics and homeschool group shut down which really, really sucked especially in the case of homeschool group as pixie had finally started going after refusing for a while and was really into her acro class. A bit more and she might have even started making friends (which was another thing she was refusing to do). Both are back up and running, gymnastics is nuts (had to put on new classes to try to get people in off the waiting lists, and I've been working there a lot more, homeschool group was less fortunate and hasn't fully recovered, the classes are severely limited as there weren't enough numbers to run a lot of them >_<
I don't play bass anymore sadly x_x it was one of the last things I dropped. And that's shadowlioncub not gorc :D
Boomy drums as well as guitars? That's a man of many talents.
You played bass too? Think you'll ever pick it up again? :D
I keep forgetting that you guys down under went back to normal life way before most of the others. I'm glad to see things were mostly normal!
Ahh shoot! Sorry about that! I keep swapping their aliases. In my head the youngest is gorc, but then I think hmm cub..
Boomster is truly a scholar and a gentleman!
I never owned one, but it kind of became a natural progression after I learned guitars and drums. I kept going off-beat because I always get excited hitting the drums, so I switched over to bass where I can never really steer the whole set away from the tempo hahaha!
We're doing better on my end of the country. Might have something to do with the overeagerness of the premier to slam the borders shut at the slightest provocation.
LoL steering the whole set away from the tempo XD Indirectly reminded me of one time where my guitar teacher for whatever reason had no junior bass players on the entire island and when I came back for a holiday he offered me free lessons if I would play in the concert with one of his junior groups (I was technically an adult but closer in age to these kids than the adults). I agreed and learned to play what I needed to play and after a few practises with the group it became apparent that the rhythm guitarist kind of lost concentration and wandered off doing his own thing. After a few reminders and a few more practises we eventually got to the concert date and we were up there playing away when...something sounded wrong. I looked at the drummer (whom I was following closely because I'm the bass player) and he looked at me, we were tuned fine, so we looked at the lead guitarist who was also looking at us in some confusion, all of us turned to glare at the rhythm guitarist who immediately sheepishly realised what was going on and quickly got back in time XD
I can actually imagine your excited face merrily banging away on drums XD
Oh huh... political will to protect their own people. What a refreshing foreign concept. I wonder what that's like.
That rhythm guitarist = me every single damn time hahahaha! It got so bad that I wasn't invited to jamming anymore. Oh well... I'll always have Garageband...
Annoying apparently. Everyone is mad about something (either over government mishandling resulting in rolling lockdowns or because it's all a giant conspiracy theory). My side of the country is actually doing a lot better but we also don't exist :)
Bahahhaahaaaa it's not a race ;D
!ENGAGE 25
ENGAGEtokens.I really like your family experience with the kids at the zoo, it is impressive that you managed to get the 14 year old to go with them, usually at that age they don't like to go with us on outings because they stay with their friends ha ha ha. I don't like zoos very much because I am a defender of nature and the free life of animals but that zoo is beautiful and well cared for. Excellent choice plus a lot to learn I could love the galapagos and the meerkats my favorites very cute little animals.
Bring their friends ;D
The 14yo was the one that wanted to go to the zoo. If they have any particular interests or excursion preferences that's what we do if I can afford it.
I think any zoo or aquarium worth their salt has to be a centre for education and conservation these days. Having a horrible past doesn't mean they can't have a useful present and future, and I think anything that helps improve understanding and education for future generations of everything is good :)
Who doesn't love meerkats ;D
I'm sure there are some people that don't love meerkats but so far everyone seems to think they're cute XD
Meerkats are just sooo cute! Did you watch Meerkat Manor? I loaned the series from the library when the girls were younger as part of their homeschooling experience.
It must have been interesting to be reminded of the differences between their interests and attention spans from when they were younger.
I remember watching Meerkat Manor, though I can't remember if it was just with the bigs or if the small has seen it as well. So cute XD
Whenever I point out to my kids how they used to do anything when they were younger they love hamming up pretending that they never and were never that little XD
You can tell they had a fun day. The zoos and nature reserves are ideal places to enjoy and share with the family, of course as long as the animals are well cared for. It is also a place where we as parents can take advantage of to develop our children's ecological awareness and respect for nature. Thank you for sharing your family experience
They usually enjoy the outing and the learning experiences at the zoo and the aquarium when we go :) We haven't been for a few years so was nice to get out there again.
As well as learning about whatever animals they were interested in at the time, developing ecological awareness and respect for nature is precisely one of the reasons I was bringing them, to try to expand their spheres as much as possible seeing as we don't have the time or budget to travel :D
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