Before starting this thread, I searched and found that the last "parental brag" thread was from almost a year ago, so I hope all your kids are doing well.

Now on to my parental brags.

First, my kids are totally crushing the COVID-19 "stay at home" thing.

They never complain about having to stay at home all the time.
No school? No problem.
No meeting with friends, no partying with friends? No problem.
No sports meets, no training? No problem.
No shopping or eating out? No problem.
They are perfectly content with just their mobile computing devices and a reasonably good connection to the Internet.

Second, they won awards at Science Fairs.

One kid won First Place in the "Environmental Science" category at the local science fair.

The other kid won Second Place in the "Behavior & Social Sciences" category at the local science fair.

Both kids advanced to the regional science fair, where the "Behavior & Social Sciences" kid again won Second Place at the regional fair. The First Place winner for the same category from the local science fair also advanced to the same regional science fair, but I have no idea why that first place kid in the same category did not win anything at the regional fair. Maybe the regional judges looked for different things. Maybe my kid's research topic, one that essentially boils down to asking whether richer people are also bigger assholes, tapped into some social justice zeitgeist that resonated with the judges at the time. It's a mystery. But that regional win came with a monetary award, so we (the parents) found out about the win when we saw a mysterious check coming in through the mail.

Had this been a regular year, we would have known earlier that (1) they have won something at the local science fair, and (2) they have advanced to the regional science fair -- because we would have had to drive them and their tri-fold poster boards to the fair sites. But this being the year of the quarantines, I just vaguely remember they told me at one point that they had to do some video conferencing thing for their science fair stuff. I suppose that was the Q&A with the judges.

It did not dawn on us until we see that award check in the mail that the "Behavior & Social Sciences" kid has won something, then we Googled the regional fair's website to download the list of winners. One day after that, we received emails from their school district inviting us to watch some live streaming event where school district officials will recognize this year's science fair winners. It's only when we looked more closely at the two copies of such email, each referencing a different kid's name, that we realize that the "Environmental Science" kid has also won something too. I had to Google the local science fair to find the award list to figure out exactly how these two kids placed in the local fair.

The WTF, being the wonderfully helpful and intellectually diverse group of people that you are, actually have subject matter experts whom the "Environmental Science" kid had consulted for various aspects of his project. For that, we thank you! The "Behavior & Social Sciences" kid had to do statistical analysis and I told him that, should the need arise, I could hook him up with some highly credentialed people skilled in the art of statistical analyses whom I also know from WTF. But the "Behavior & Social Sciences" kid was insufficiently motivated to take up that offer. I suppose such is the social capital we privileged parents can bestow on our kids that the less privileged parents probably cannot.

I may have to start bragging about nieces and nephews or my pets.

Congratulations!

I have a very limited brag. Rebecca starts business school in the fall. And she took one business school class as an undergrad (it was for both grad and undergrad students, so she was up against grad students who in the were business school, and this was her very first business class), and the professor liked her sufficiently well that she just wrote her this week and asked her whether she'd be willing to serve as a graduate assistant (paid!) for the same class for the upcoming academic year.

Congrats to the braggers and bragees!!!

Fantastic!

Hmm... not sure any of this is brag-worthy... more of an update.

Kid went to college for a well-regarded Game Art program in the fall. Hated it. Realized he didn’t like the way the industry works. Knew he wouldn’t be happy. He’s too “art” and not enough “business”. So he finished the term and came home. He had a good lead on a really good job with a local company that makes ships and boats. They do everything from the initial metal frame building to the fancy woodwork finish. That was supposed to start in April... unsurprisingly, the shop put a hold on bringing in anyone new. I’m hoping that once things really get rolling again here it might be a possibility, but he jumped into the job market at precisely the wrong time. So...

He’s currently living at home (which is totally fine - he only turned 18 in December!) and trying to sort things out. He loves metalwork and was interested in forging. Grandpa to the rescue. He now has a full metalwork shop and forge in our garage. He made me a beautiful feather-shaped hook for my birthday out of forged steel. He’s experimenting with things in his typical all-over-the-place artsy way trying to hit on something he loves making at that he could sell. He’ll figure it out eventually, I’m sure. In the meantime, he occasionally sells his art to folks online (he has this weird little niche following for tattoo designs for gamers) which makes him enough money to keep him in art supplies. He does a bit of voice work for indie video game companies for a bit more cash.

Obviously it’s not ideal, but he’s working hard to piecework his way through things doing what he loves. And in the meantime I have a super handy kid who is helping grandpa redesign and rebuild our deck and who never complains when I ask him to do stuff around the house or run errands. So it could be worse!

Congrats to the kids, and the parents, too!

And dol, special congrats to your kiddo, finding a way to do what he loves, and for being flexible in getting there.

You surely have a lot to brag about!

I got a nice letter / email!

Dol,

As you can imagine, or maybe you did not know me well enough...I am all for artist worth, and exploring it.

I definately support him!

quote:

Originally posted by AdagioM:


And dol, special congrats to your kiddo, finding a way to do what he loves, and for being flexible in getting there.

+1

There isn't just one path.

I will limit my brag about the boys to say that each is now a father. I will add that nothing in my life prepared me for or anticipated the joy of seeing my own kids as parents.

As to Puffin, she starts medical school in August.

JF

I will bask in the Quirtlet's reflected glow. She's really done a good job of deciding her next move and doing what needs to be done to get there, and I think she got that assistantship because her professor noticed her iniative.

Congratulations to all parents and kids for the other accomplishments posted here!

Med school for Puffin and grandkids for jf are both just amazing.

I love reading about Dol, Jr.'s artistic accomplishments, and good for him for realizing that the Game Arts program wasn't for him. Not many people know themselves so well.

Congratulations to the young Axes for their science fair wins, but I'm sorry they missed out on getting their awards in person. I also want to mention the nice note I got from the environmental scientist thanking me for trying to help him--I wasn't much help, unfortunately--and modestly understating how well he did.

It sounds like somebody nice wrote LL, as well.

I remember posting about Muffin's graduation, but I don't think I posted about Muffin's Sister's promotion last month. She's moving into a full-time HR job with the school district, after splitting her time between cafeteria management and HR for a year. I'm happy for her to have the position, with its higher salary and advancement potential, but I'm even happier for her to move into an office where she'll be exposed to a lot fewer people during the pandemic. It was such a relief for me when the semester was over and she was able to stop preparing lunches for thousands of people a week.

quote:

Originally posted by Jack Frost:
I will limit my brag about the boys to say that each is now a father. I will add that nothing in my life prepared me for or anticipated the joy of seeing my own kids as parents.

As to Puffin, she starts medical school in August.

JF

That's Dr. Puffin!

Congrats to all parents and kiddos we've gotten updates on so far. Here's my kiddo brags.

Margaret volunteered for redeployment at Mt Sinai in NYC and during the height of the problems there was working cleaning rooms at the hospital. When her boss caught COVID she pivoted from her full time cleaning gig back to her real job and took over the entire program until her boss recovered enough to take back the reigns. Somewhere in all this, she was infected and has thankfully recovered. In hind-sight, she thinks she may have been infected even before her redeployment when her and her roomies all shared a week of coughs, fever, and generally feeling like crap. Interestingly though, while she now has lots of anti-bodies in her blood, her roommates still test as never having been infected.

Brian continued in his IT role at the VA hospital in San Diego, working to get all the new remote work systems in place. Even with his regular contact with lots of people as this work took place, he has so far managed to avoid being infected.

I'm very proud of both of them!

quote:

Originally posted by Dan:
Congrats to all parents and kiddos we've gotten updates on so far. Here's my kiddo brags.

Margaret volunteered for redeployment at Mt Sinai in NYC and during the height of the problems there was working cleaning rooms at the hospital. When her boss caught COVID she pivoted from her full time cleaning gig back to her real job and took over the entire program until her boss recovered enough to take back the reigns. Somewhere in all this, she was infected and has thankfully recovered. In hind-sight, she thinks she may have been infected even before her redeployment when her and her roomies all shared a week of coughs, fever, and generally feeling like crap. Interestingly though, while she now has lots of anti-bodies in her blood, her roommates still test as never having been infected.

Brian continued in his IT role at the VA hospital in San Diego, working to get all the new remote work systems in place. Even with his regular contact with lots of people as this work took place, he has so far managed to avoid being infected.

I'm very proud of both of them!

I don't what we'd do without people like Margaret willing to risk their own safety to help everyone else. I'd like to think I'd have had that courage at that age, but I'm not sure.