April started with 19yo and 17yo's first concert. 17yo had found out about a Stardew Valley concert and as she loves the game she asked if we could go. 19yo was interested in coming along for the ride but 15yo refused. However the system wouldn't let me buy three tickets and forced the purchase of four, so 17yo invited one of her besties (who has not played Stardew Valley and knows nothing about it) along. Bestie came along because she likes classical instruments and is in a school ensemble (I call them baby orchestras).
Unlike my phone camera focus our seats were halfway decent.
The concert was quite magical, and even though the three of us had to get explanations from 17yo for some of the in-jokes that the conductor was sharing with the audience, the music was thoroughly enjoyable and the conductor's delivery was still entertaining even if we had precious little idea what was going on.
April is also the month of the Kalamunda Show and the Tumblers (which 19yo and 17yo are in) once more performed. (link to a video; one day I might actually get around to requesting video tag support on PeakD because this annoys the ever living hell out of me the few times I want to do it)
We had a minor issue with the clown makeup as we weren't doing full face (with the white base coat) this year, and probably because of that one of the coaches decided that the clown faces "needed more colour". We couldn't really add anything more without it looking awful. Fortunately an easy fix was just adding adjacent or complementary coloured outlines to the existing shapes.
15yo asked if I would buy him a basketball and as they're pretty cheap (think this one was $10 ffrom KMart) I had no problem with that.
He would mostly take himself out to one of the nearby parks with hoops to play but every now and again one of us would tag along. He wasn't interested enough to join even the casual groups (there were some basketball workshops being run by youth workers in the area where the idea was more hanging out and having fun as well as learning basketball tricks over actually full on learning how to be a basketball superstar) and apparently didn't want to play with anyone at all til he felt like he was good, and refused to accept the logic that playing with other people would accelerate that process.
He didn't seem to mind mucking around at youth group when they were playing so there was that.
In May, 15yo became interested in Kill Team, which is some variant of Warhammer with quicker gameplay. He bought a starter set and roped his brother into helping assemble and paint.
They had a few games and he also roped J and I into at least one game each. There is a bit too much strategy and tactics in there for my meagre brain.
Mother's Day happens in May and we pay some token attention to Hallmark Holidays. 19yo got me a box of chocolates, 17yo made me a flower (after she'd failed at making what she actually wanted which was some complicated sounding popup card which happened because she learned that sometimes you do actually have to measure things) and 15yo totally did not last second throw together a candle.
15yo also made me an interesting dessert after dinner.
Probably too much energy for that time of night but it was pretty good.
in the background is something I was finishing off for my mum, she loves her cut flowers but I can't send her any because nothing ever goes to Christmas Island, so this year I drew her a bunch and now she wants one every year
Due to belligerence (not unexpected as the big two had done exactly the same thing at the same age) it has been really hard to get 15yo to do much of anything, but he did sign up for a Warhammer tournament being run by the local Good Games. The rounds were drawn up by the organisers but the competitors had to organise meeting up at the shop to play their round out between themselves.
Also at some point (not precisely sure when), 17yo decided to defer her bridging course to next year as she realised that between her own competition training and taking a group to comps for the first time as a group coach as well as learning to navigate a new education system might be a bit much.
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My daughter has me playing Stardew with her. I'm still not entirely sure how this would work as a concert, though. Sounds like you all enjoyed it, so I'm guessing it worked well.
They played a bunch of music from the game mostly as medleys vaguely in the same narrative order as the game progresses. I remember the seasons and the character themes as medleys and I think they played most if not all of the jellyfish one. The conductor kind of did mini explanations/storytelling and told many in-jokes that had the audience cracking up in between some of the pieces which I guess let the ensemble take quick breathers as well.
I thought it was quite well done as someone whose entire knowledge of the game is that it exists and a couple of short instances of watching middle child playing it :)
My daughter just reminded me that Genshin put on some concerts at one point. I'm not sure if any were outside of China, though. Do you still play that with your middle child? My daughter has given up on it.
I stopped playing it ages ago because time x_x and I don't know if she still plays, I do know that she moved on to Honkai Star Rail.
I want to take my son to a classical music event he’s a little too young still. It’s really good for the brain though! It stimulates the vagus nerve which is pretty wild. We’ve learned a lot about that ourselves and it’s really fascinating stuff!
Have you already done the finding something you want him to see/think he might be interested in on Youtube and see how long he can sit still for? I remember when middle child was a toddler (somewhere between 2 and 4) she got really interested in the sugar plum fairy somehow so I sat her down to watch The Nutcracker. Not expecting her to sit through the whole ass ballet she just sat on my lap in front of my computer.
And that was my error.
And it got compounded by me thinking surely she'll get bored soon and not just moving to the tv as that's a pain to do anything on XD
Otherwise are there classical concerts aimed at kids in his age range? I seem to vaguely remember some being around from ages ago but I don't remember if we didn't get into it because it clashed or just from straight up lack of money.
I vaguely remember something about music and brain development. Brains and bodies are so weird and fascinating and I always wonder how we can know so much about them and yet it still feels like nothing at all XD
I think the make up looked quite cool with the outlines. Stardew Valley just reminds me that there are more and more things coming after whatever current craze. I can't keep up as it is!
It did turn out quite alright :D I remember stressing about the instruction to put more colour on (like how?!), coming up with that and being genuinely astonished that that ended up being the solution XD
It will probably never stop until they're adults and even then XD
eldest is still coming in to spout off random stuff at me but it's at least things I vaguely understand as a lot of his interest area is now body and brain development, we're hoping he gets into some health and nutrition course at TAFE that he applied for after completely failing at navigating apprenticeships to try to become a tradie, so he's pivoted towards becoming a PT or something along those lines instead which seems to fit a lot better anyway
Yes indeed, iam resigned to it never stopping. That is the hope, that like your eldest it morphs into things you can at least have an interest in instead of trying to fathom through some inpenetrable lore!
LoL admittedly that's me with Warhammer lore right now, I have a lot of appreciation for the sheer volume of it but no matter how simply youngest tries to explain it I have no idea what's going on XD
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