father's day and the adventures of big kitty

[bitterfig]

A little less heavy family stuff.

Before I went to work this morning I called my father in New York to wish him a happy Father’s Day.   It turns out my little brother was visiting from Washington DC for the weekend  so Pa-Daddy actually got to have one of this children with him on Father’s Day which was really nice.  I spoke to my brother,

Comments

[lawless523]

Your interactions with your niece and nephew sound very rewarding.

I never considered myself particularly good with children either and I dreaded getting asked to babysit but it's good you can connect with them at the level of storytelling and illustration.

I've got a 15-year old daughter who's turned out reasonably well (although there are times when I think she thinks it's her job to turn all of my hair gray or to make me want to tear it out). It's amusing how squicked out she is now that Mom is a yaoi fangirl too and writing fanfiction. It only makes me want to needle her more.

[foxfire74]

The adventures of Big Kitty sound wonderful, and hopefully it'll be something your niece will remember happily. (I nursed a crush on a distant cousin for years simply because he would pillow-fight with me at age 5.)

Also, it means my little nephew is writing fan fiction which sort of confirms by belief that retelling stories and fantasizing about familiar characters is a natural part of creativity and should be played with

Hell, I encourage this with my 3-year-old daughter ("Why do you think he did that?" "What do you think she did after the story was over?"). I like that poking-into-corners mindset, even if she's currently making me crazy with the whys. Besides, I caught her making up Cat in the Hat fanfic (about eight lines of surprisingly good rhyme about what the fish thought of the whole situation) and giggled for days.

[redsnake05]

That's an awesome story. It sounds like you had a great time with them, and encouraged their creative spirits into the bargain.

[lookfar]

I’ve never been good with kids (or adults for that matter) Hee hee. So, kids' lit is a good way to communicate with them, I guess.

[bitterfig]

I use my artwork a lot to communicate with the kids, I'll do drawings for them and stuff. I'm a lot better at that than I am a playing games or that sort of thing.

[lookfar]

Oh, and my daughter, too, at age 10 or so, used to sit in the bathtub and act out stories with me about Julia Sparrow, Jack Sparrow's pirate daughter (herself) meeting Hermione Granger at Hogwarts. Crossover fic!

[bitterfig]

That's great. My first fandom was comic books. My sister and I made little paper dolls of all the superheroes and would play with them.