This week, A- was interested in telling time and following routines. She's getting pretty good at it, and it makes household routines smoother.

Keeping a book in the bathroom seems to be working out well. I managed to finish a book over several sessions of waiting for A-.

I've been playing a game late at night since it's easy to do on my phone when A- insists on lying on my arm. I think I'll step back a little and shift that time towards writing or reading instead.

• Kaizen
  • We borrowed lots of origami books from the library. I learned how to make a hen and a cat finger puppet.
  • I worked on making the tablet more comfortable for typing notes and syncing with my phone.
  • I mended a small rip in my pajamas. No sense in throwing them out when I can make them last longer, and that lets me show A- thrift.
  • I dusted off the Sony Vaio U1 and considered setting it up for A-, who's interested in letters at the moment.
  • We donated lots of books and clothes.
• Us
  • We swapped Japanese curry for embutido.
  • Ran into Mike Fletcher while walking to school. Chatted about parenting, people, machine learning.
• Gross motor
  • A- walked all the way to the subway station while wearing her own backpack.
  • A- loved building tall houses with foam blocks and then knocking them down.
  • A- liked tossing a beanbag into a plastic bag.
• Sensory
  • We had fun banging wooden blocks in different ways.
• Language
  • "The downstairs sink is friendly."
  • "I'm building a problem," A- said while making things with her Little Engineer kit.
  • A- playfully knocked down the house I made for her with foam blocks. She said, "Accidents happen. Mama, build me a house again."
• Self-care and independence
  • I'm working on slowing down dental erosion by brushing our teeth at least thirty minutes after eating, despite my occasional urge to brush earlier. We're trying out brushing after dinner and then after snack, which might make it easier to deal with days when A- decides not to nap.
  • A-'s pediatrician suddenly closed her practice, so I'm scrambling to find another doctor.
  • "I want another blanket to support my head."
  • I think A- is probably teething.
• Eating
  • A- liked licking the leftover tomato sauce when we made pizza.
• Sleep
  • A- resisted napping, and I remembered not to try to insist. Instead, I declared it was quiet cleaning up time. After I tidied up, we read and snuggled. She had a few tantrums that sounded like she was overtired, but she did actually make it all the way to a reasonably smooth bedtime.
• Emotion
  • A- had a big tantrum in the stroller because she wanted to get out in order to push buttons and to walk, but it was too windy for me to let her do that, and then she was too upset for me to let her walk. I pushed the stroller home and snuggled her on the porch.
• Household
  • A- helped us rake and bag leaves. She liked jumping in the pile.
• Social
  • We didn't get to chat with Lola in the morning, so A- asked me to try again. She chatted with Lola for an hour in the evening. Lots of interaction!
  • A- wanted to show the teacher the new toy car she got from the ocularist.
  • "I have something for you." "What could it be? A beanbag!" We roleplayed giving and receiving presents.
  • A- enjoyed sort-of chasing another kid at the drop-in centre.
  • When A- woke up, she asked me to turn on the lights and call Lola.
  • A- had so much fun playing hide and seek with all of us. She loved running around and looking for us.
• Pretend
  • A- was playing pretend hospital, with her as the patient. I asked her how she was feeling. She said, "Overwhelmed."
  • A- pretended to cook for Lola. She also read part of a book to her.
• Cognition
  • A- is learning how to tell the time. She can usually tell the time if it's close to the hour and a number she's familiar with (1-9). She's also slowly learning to say things like "half past eight." A- looked at the clock and correctly said "It's 9 o'clock." A few minutes before 8 PM, A- started singing, "We've come to the end of another day…"
  • A- missed W- and J- while they were at the dental surgeon for a consultation, so she asked me to print out a new copy of our little book on dental surgery at the hospital and read it to her several times.
• World
  • A- loves watching garbage trucks. I was still in my pajamas, so W- and A- followed the garbage truck around. Later in the morning, we saw a garbage truck followed by another.
• Oops
  • A- accidentally knocked my glasses off, and they chipped near the bottom. Fortunately, the chips don't interfere with my vision.
• Thoughts
  • Things I'm working on: letting go of the desire for external validation and visible progress; being present; equanimity; switching perspectives; sharing my thoughts; listening
  • Parenting is pretty good training for letting go of the desire for external validation and focusing on processes instead of outcomes.
  • I like to feel competent and I like to improve.
  • Both "Mommy Burnout" and "Time to Parent" emphasize the important of modeling friendship in front of kids, so I'm working on being more social.

Blog posts

• Making a simple clock webpage for A-
• Weekly review: Week ending November 2, 2018
• 2018-11-05 Emacs news

Sketches

• 2018-11-04a Adjusting time use #time #balance #parenting #growth #kaizen
• 2018-11-04b Considering greater independence #parenting #independence
• 2018-11-04c Imagining childcare #parenting #childcare

Time

Category	The other week	Last week	Diff	h/wk	Diff h/wk
Discretionary – Productive	0.9	5.2	4.3	8.7	7.2
A-	43.4	45.6	2.2	77.1	3.7
Personal	5.7	7.8	2.0	13.1	3.4
Discretionary – Play	4.3	5.6	1.3	9.4	2.2
Discretionary – Social	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Business	0.2	0.0	-0.1	0.0	-0.2
Discretionary – Family	1.1	0.7	-0.4	1.2	-0.7
Unpaid work	9.4	6.7	-2.7	11.3	-4.5
Sleep	35.1	28.5	-6.6	48.1	-11.1