They whispered melodies so loudly

[sovay]

I just explained my high school radio telescope to the friend of my niece's who came over after their half-day to run around screaming in the snow of my parents' side yard. She wanted to know what the dish was for. I had to correct my own assumption that all seven-year-olds know the shape of our galaxy, but otherwise it went all right. She seemed interested in the idea of being able to map something that couldn't be seen with the eye. It finally struck me as hilarious that for more than twenty years I have been explaining the distribution of neutral hydrogen throughout the rotating spiral of the Milky Way with the simile of cream in stirred coffee when I never drank the latter in my life.

In other news, I am at my parents' house, tied up in the pleasant work of niece-care. Yesterday after school was spent almost entirely in playing cats, which was a lot like calisthenics with more purring. She has learned about headbutts and delivers them enthusiastically. She hunted a leftover dreidel all through the house, singing to it exactly as Hestia does with our socks. "String is really tricky," I have found myself saying solemnly. "String is really cunning prey." I convinced her to eat enough protein at dinner by ventriloquizing said protein in the act of traversing a plate blithely fearless in the knowledge that no cat was going to come along and NO WE WERE WRONG ABORT ABORT CHAOS HELL NIGHT DEATH AND THE DEVIL ALL IS LOST and the little cat licks her chops and giggles and waits for the next foolhardy bite. This routine worked until we ran out of protein and then it worked on the starch. I know children enjoy repetition, but I'm still entertained. She loved the dragon stickers sent her by minoanmiss and the book of mythological stickers that arrived today from my godchild. She likes it, by which I mean she is insistent that I not stop even when it's her bedtime, when I read to her.

My physical state is just not acceptable, but my niece is a delight.

Comments

[sovay]

I'm incredibly scared. Yet charmed. This is how you get "people with two kids."

Kids . . . like me? I have no idea why. They didn't when I was a kid.

Shall I just brace you in the corner with a mug of hot beverage, some smoked eels and a shock blanket?

You might want to save the shock blanket for the Skating Event. If we add gaudior and rushthatspeaks' Fox, the boom might be visible from space.

[selkie]

*throws a box of handwarmers in the back of the car, too, in case they're any good at absorbing kinetic energy*

I have been pondering this on some level for a few weeks, clearly, before myself told me I was; and I can only speak as a nominal adult, but I think it's to do with your, I don't know, you're like a lodestone. You're steady and you do what you do and you let them be and you expect no more or less than that from them in return. Kids trust what doesn't dissemble, whether you are prickly or in pain or whatever is shifting situationally; trust very often leads to liking. If you were flashy with performative affection or dismissive when you talked to them, I imagine you'd remain Eccentric Cool Aunt Who Sends Books, but you made your decision so they made theirs.

[sovay]

Kids trust what doesn't dissemble, whether you are prickly or in pain or whatever is shifting situationally; trust very often leads to liking. If you were flashy with performative affection or dismissive when you talked to them, I imagine you'd remain Eccentric Cool Aunt Who Sends Books, but you made your decision so they made theirs.

I am not used to thinking of myself as a lodestone, either, but it is true that performative affection is something in which I have absolutely no interest on either side.

*hugs*

[selkie]

*hugs*

...Just to be clear, you are allowed to demand basic courtesy from Adolescent Sulkfaced Monster of the Year. You don't need to take the coparent freight! But it behooves them to learn no one has to perform nice, but people who love one another coexist.