Friday, June 1, 2007

Granddaughter Ally

Since I was a step-grandfather I didn't think too much of the idea, there was a reason I never had kids of my own. But Ally was such a neat kid from the very beginning she quickly won me over and I've been trying to impart my many years of wisdom to her. Since she is only 6 and half that has met with limited success, I've told myself to be patient, but that isn't one of my strong suits. The main thing I wanted to do was teach her a love of learning and hopefully, a love of science. I've had help from her mother on that, she enrolled her in 2 weeks of science camp last year and is doing it again this summer. Ally is also in a small private school so I'm hoping she is having more fun that I did when I was her age. But when that new Planet Earth Discovery series came out she didn't want to see it. I recorded all the shows for her, thinking they were great and she'd be interested, but she was bored and wanted to change the channel. Sigh. I did get her to watch about 10 minutes on an older such series to show her the weird alien animals living at the bottom of the ocean.

Yesterday we were babysitting and Ally asked me if I had that alien fish show, unfortunately I hadn't
saved it. We only have DVR with limited space and I can't record anything off the cable box. But as luck would have it there was a show just starting on the science channel about the Great Coral Reef in Australia so I put it on. She sat and watched the entire hour, totally absorbed, even during the commercials, I was amazed. And delighted. Of course, I had to add my own comments, like when this woman put on a diving suit and went down to study the reef I said: "She's a marine biologist, isn't that a cool job where you can go out and dive in the ocean for your work day? No stuffy office every day for her!"

I don't know if it will take but I'm very please with her interest. Marine biologist would be a great career for her, her mom got her swimming very early and she's really good already and this year Summer wants to teach her how to surf. I told her to get her mom to teach her how to scuba dive.

Ally,the marine biologist - very cool!

1 comment:

Village Green said...

When I was a kid, my Uncle Ted had every expectation that I'd become a librarian. He always gave me great books for presents. But though I love books and libraries, becoming a librarian was not on the agenda! I think there's only so far that influence can go on a kid. Don't be disappointed if she takes on something else later in life. The important lesson is that of studying nature -- learning to be observant, etc. All can be applied to any career.