Ugh.
It's been a very ... mixed ... day.
On the positive side:
Lemon buttermilk pound cake. OMG, SO GOOD.
Five hour visit with a family from MiniPlu's adoptive group this afternoon. The mom is a caterer and fed us yummy foods. Also, after we realized that we'd left our bag of swimsuits and towels at home by mistake, they were able to lend my kids some, so they could enjoy the pool after all.
News that the weather lady on our local CBS station (which we watch most mornings) had her twin daughters yesterday!
On the negative side:
Because we're having a contractor (who happens to also be a TKD master) come look at our roof and Two's ceiling tomorrow, and because our German friends will be coming by so their boys can meet our dogs, I wanted the house to be a bit cleaner. Besides, it was getting pretty awful. And Two dug his heels in and argued over every. single. request. I made. Complained, refused, and argued, argued, argued. After probably about 90 mins of this, I finally had enough, took away his screen privileges for the rest of the day, and - after he refused to go to HIS room in punishment - I went up to MY room to get away from him and calm down. (MiniPlu was cleaning her room, now that the painting is mostly done and she can mostly move back into it again.)
Of course, as soon as we got into the car to drive down to the aforementioned friend's house (they're only 15 mins from where Two gets gender therapy, so we decided to combine trips ahead of his 6pm appointment), she commenced bitching to me about the whole bike-riding thing, making it clear I was the worst mother ever for making her do something she didn't want to do. (My response: Do you like unloading the dishwasher? Doing your math homework? Getting up in the morning? Parents often make their kids do something they don't like, if you haven't noticed.) And how she didn't understand what the POINT was of riding a bike, and how she was just going to start driving in 3 years anyway, at which point she was going to throw her bike away and never ride again so why bother having her ride and how she could just refuse to leave the house and on and on and ON. And it's not like she was saying anything I hadn't heard from her fifty times already, over the span of her lifetime - on any subject she didn't feel like facing. So, yeah, that was a really fun hour+ trip down, listening to her bitch and fume and sulk, doubly so after the time I'd just had with Two back at home.
Then, once we were home and Two was getting ready for bed shortly afterwards, he bitched about having to come along to the meeting - to which he has been expressly invited - with his new teachers and counselor tomorrow, regarding protecting him at school and helping him with any gender-related issues he might have. In one breath he accused me of "making him" do something and not giving him any choice, while simultaneously refuting my point of "we WANT your opinion here - you can CHOOSE what you'd like them to say or do/not say or do". So, he wants choice but doesn't want choice, at the same time. *headdesk* The focus of tonight's gender therapy session was trying to get him to take an appropriate, pro-active approach with people who say or do the wrong things, either deliberately or out of ignorance. Plan A: Cry and get upset (which he doesn't do, never did). Plan B: Publicly laugh it off (while silently hating it), which makes people think that it's fine to continue to keep saying or doing whatever. This is what he has often done, and it doesn't work. Plan C: Politely but firmly say, "Do you know that's offensive?" or something along similar lines, which is what the therapist was trying to get him to do. Does he have any real intention of trying it? No. Does he want to approach anyone at school at all, ever? No. He just wants to blame everyone else for not doing anything to help him.
I just want to throw both of them to wolves right about now.
Ok, so, I mentioned the German friends who are coming by tomorrow. Back when our kids were toddlers/preschoolers, I met a woman from Germany (Latvia, actually, but had married a German man and lived in Germany) and her toddler boy. They were in the US for about six months or something like that, while the husband worked here. This was the source of the Baby UN playgroup we participated in for awhile. A year or so later, they were back for a month or thereabouts, and we haven't seen them since. In the intervening time, they had a second boy, and are currently back in the area, visiting people and places they miss, before visiting a few other places along the East Coast and heading home again.
So, anyway, we met up to visit at the old playground where we met, on Monday, then ended up having a late lunch together at Panera. They asked us to join them for a late lunch at the local Italian place I love (they have a GF menu!) on Fri, and we also suggested they could visit our dogs before or after said meal, since the younger son is an animal lover. (He was very disappointed not to see bunnies at the playground; clearly his parents told him about our generally rampant bunny population!)
And on a completely different note, I finished reading Shadow Scales (sequel to Seraphina) aloud to Two the other day. Short, non-spoilery version: I know reviews have been mixed, but I, personally, liked it. It had some twists I did not expect, as well as a failure to fully resolve some plot points I had expected to see resolved (does that count as a twist?). Some things were a little predictable, but I didn't really mind. And it was interesting to learn the backstory of why Seraphina locked Jannoula in her Wee Cottage.
I confess, I had the same hope and dream as Seraphina, when she set out to find the other ityasaari: that they would all be glad to find each other and work together, sort of as Dame Okra and Lars and Abdo had been, to various extents. But the attitudes about ityasaari varied so widely, and the sorts of lives the others had created varied so widely, that many resisted, and I was saddened by that. I was also horrified by the ever-widening net Jannoula had cast on all of them.
Two was absolutely DELIGHTED to learn that Camba was transgender - indeed, it was a nice side-point. I had trouble sometimes keeping some of the lesser ityasaari straight, I confess, but I did like the way they each manifested in real life, after only seeing and hearing about them via Seraphina's garden. Also, I liked seeing how Comonot was learning to expand his emotional horizons and find that he could still be a dragon that way.
Orma's theory did come as a big surprise to me, although it made a strange sense. I'm still puzzling out how Pandowdy survived 700 years; Seraphina had wondered if the slug shape was more of a cocoon or chrysalis than his true form, but the answer was never made clear. Why did only he survive under the fen, and not any of the other "saints" - who surely were buried at SOME point?
Also a twist I hadn't expected: whom Glisselda truly loved. I had been partially spoiled for how things ended with Kiggs and Seraphina, insofar as they didn't get married and live happily ever after, so I had braced myself for disappointment and found that, once the true solution was revealed, that I was perfectly content. Must be all the H/H/Hr fic I've read over the years. ;-)
As awful as Jannoula was, there was no denying she had every right to hate both humans and dragons, given what had been done to her. Not that I liked her even the tiniest bit, mind, but I could definitely understand why she had felt the way she did.
So, yes, while this book had a different feel than the first one, especially as a good half of the story takes place in other locations, I did still enjoy it, never felt bogged down, and definitely looked forward to picking it back up again. And I can tell that Two felt the same.
On the positive side:
Lemon buttermilk pound cake. OMG, SO GOOD.
Five hour visit with a family from MiniPlu's adoptive group this afternoon. The mom is a caterer and fed us yummy foods. Also, after we realized that we'd left our bag of swimsuits and towels at home by mistake, they were able to lend my kids some, so they could enjoy the pool after all.
News that the weather lady on our local CBS station (which we watch most mornings) had her twin daughters yesterday!
On the negative side:
Because we're having a contractor (who happens to also be a TKD master) come look at our roof and Two's ceiling tomorrow, and because our German friends will be coming by so their boys can meet our dogs, I wanted the house to be a bit cleaner. Besides, it was getting pretty awful. And Two dug his heels in and argued over every. single. request. I made. Complained, refused, and argued, argued, argued. After probably about 90 mins of this, I finally had enough, took away his screen privileges for the rest of the day, and - after he refused to go to HIS room in punishment - I went up to MY room to get away from him and calm down. (MiniPlu was cleaning her room, now that the painting is mostly done and she can mostly move back into it again.)
Of course, as soon as we got into the car to drive down to the aforementioned friend's house (they're only 15 mins from where Two gets gender therapy, so we decided to combine trips ahead of his 6pm appointment), she commenced bitching to me about the whole bike-riding thing, making it clear I was the worst mother ever for making her do something she didn't want to do. (My response: Do you like unloading the dishwasher? Doing your math homework? Getting up in the morning? Parents often make their kids do something they don't like, if you haven't noticed.) And how she didn't understand what the POINT was of riding a bike, and how she was just going to start driving in 3 years anyway, at which point she was going to throw her bike away and never ride again so why bother having her ride and how she could just refuse to leave the house and on and on and ON. And it's not like she was saying anything I hadn't heard from her fifty times already, over the span of her lifetime - on any subject she didn't feel like facing. So, yeah, that was a really fun hour+ trip down, listening to her bitch and fume and sulk, doubly so after the time I'd just had with Two back at home.
Then, once we were home and Two was getting ready for bed shortly afterwards, he bitched about having to come along to the meeting - to which he has been expressly invited - with his new teachers and counselor tomorrow, regarding protecting him at school and helping him with any gender-related issues he might have. In one breath he accused me of "making him" do something and not giving him any choice, while simultaneously refuting my point of "we WANT your opinion here - you can CHOOSE what you'd like them to say or do/not say or do". So, he wants choice but doesn't want choice, at the same time. *headdesk* The focus of tonight's gender therapy session was trying to get him to take an appropriate, pro-active approach with people who say or do the wrong things, either deliberately or out of ignorance. Plan A: Cry and get upset (which he doesn't do, never did). Plan B: Publicly laugh it off (while silently hating it), which makes people think that it's fine to continue to keep saying or doing whatever. This is what he has often done, and it doesn't work. Plan C: Politely but firmly say, "Do you know that's offensive?" or something along similar lines, which is what the therapist was trying to get him to do. Does he have any real intention of trying it? No. Does he want to approach anyone at school at all, ever? No. He just wants to blame everyone else for not doing anything to help him.
I just want to throw both of them to wolves right about now.
Ok, so, I mentioned the German friends who are coming by tomorrow. Back when our kids were toddlers/preschoolers, I met a woman from Germany (Latvia, actually, but had married a German man and lived in Germany) and her toddler boy. They were in the US for about six months or something like that, while the husband worked here. This was the source of the Baby UN playgroup we participated in for awhile. A year or so later, they were back for a month or thereabouts, and we haven't seen them since. In the intervening time, they had a second boy, and are currently back in the area, visiting people and places they miss, before visiting a few other places along the East Coast and heading home again.
So, anyway, we met up to visit at the old playground where we met, on Monday, then ended up having a late lunch together at Panera. They asked us to join them for a late lunch at the local Italian place I love (they have a GF menu!) on Fri, and we also suggested they could visit our dogs before or after said meal, since the younger son is an animal lover. (He was very disappointed not to see bunnies at the playground; clearly his parents told him about our generally rampant bunny population!)
And on a completely different note, I finished reading Shadow Scales (sequel to Seraphina) aloud to Two the other day. Short, non-spoilery version: I know reviews have been mixed, but I, personally, liked it. It had some twists I did not expect, as well as a failure to fully resolve some plot points I had expected to see resolved (does that count as a twist?). Some things were a little predictable, but I didn't really mind. And it was interesting to learn the backstory of why Seraphina locked Jannoula in her Wee Cottage.
I confess, I had the same hope and dream as Seraphina, when she set out to find the other ityasaari: that they would all be glad to find each other and work together, sort of as Dame Okra and Lars and Abdo had been, to various extents. But the attitudes about ityasaari varied so widely, and the sorts of lives the others had created varied so widely, that many resisted, and I was saddened by that. I was also horrified by the ever-widening net Jannoula had cast on all of them.
Two was absolutely DELIGHTED to learn that Camba was transgender - indeed, it was a nice side-point. I had trouble sometimes keeping some of the lesser ityasaari straight, I confess, but I did like the way they each manifested in real life, after only seeing and hearing about them via Seraphina's garden. Also, I liked seeing how Comonot was learning to expand his emotional horizons and find that he could still be a dragon that way.
Orma's theory did come as a big surprise to me, although it made a strange sense. I'm still puzzling out how Pandowdy survived 700 years; Seraphina had wondered if the slug shape was more of a cocoon or chrysalis than his true form, but the answer was never made clear. Why did only he survive under the fen, and not any of the other "saints" - who surely were buried at SOME point?
Also a twist I hadn't expected: whom Glisselda truly loved. I had been partially spoiled for how things ended with Kiggs and Seraphina, insofar as they didn't get married and live happily ever after, so I had braced myself for disappointment and found that, once the true solution was revealed, that I was perfectly content. Must be all the H/H/Hr fic I've read over the years. ;-)
As awful as Jannoula was, there was no denying she had every right to hate both humans and dragons, given what had been done to her. Not that I liked her even the tiniest bit, mind, but I could definitely understand why she had felt the way she did.
So, yes, while this book had a different feel than the first one, especially as a good half of the story takes place in other locations, I did still enjoy it, never felt bogged down, and definitely looked forward to picking it back up again. And I can tell that Two felt the same.