• Us
  • My back hurt from carrying A- and the swimming gear.
  • W- and I watched Bridget Jones’ Diary again.
• Gross motor
  • We had a full day of gross motor activity. We found an indoor drop-in centre with tricycles, balls, and a slide. After A- had fun there, we went swimming. She napped while I carried her to visit a friend’s house 2 km away.
• Language
  • “I’m imagining myself growing in Mama’s sweater.”
  • “Mama, say, ‘Where did you go?'” “Where did you go?” “I put on my snowsuit.” A- put on her snowsuit all by herself in order to roleplay Merry Christmas, Little Pookie.
  • “Am I driving you crazy?”
• Music
  • E- sang Itsy Bitsy Spider around 6 times, getting progressively louder and louder. Jen and I were very amused. A- started singing it too. We taught them the Great Canadian Spider variation.
• Self-care and independence
  • After snack at the drop-in centre, A- carefully put her plate and cup in the garbage.
• Eating
  • Maple-glazed peameal bacon: Less salty than regular ham.
  • Chicken pot pie with lard crust: We used this crust again, with an egg wash on top. It worked out all right. I thickened the filling with butter and flour.
  • Chicken piccata: Tangy. A- helped dredge the chicken and taste the sauce.
• Sleep
  • A- was overtired, so W- rocked her to sleep.
• Household
  • A- noticed that the brown sugar jar was empty. “We need sugar,” she said. She fetched the bag of brown sugar that I’d completely forgotten about and started refilling the jar.
  • A- helped me make oatmeal cookies.
  • W- bought A- a small red shovel. She loved using it to move snow.
• Social
  • W- played with A- while Lola watched over Facebook chat.
  • “What’s in the bag, A-?” “Luke!” “You managed to get a cat in the cat bag?”
  • At the drop-in centre, A- played beside another kid. They pretended to clean the centre.
  • A- made a Duplo chocolate cake with a candle, and she sang Lola (advanced) happy birthday.
  • Back to music class after a long break. A- spent most of the class clinging to me.
  • We visited Jen and E-. A- was more interested in playing with Jen or with E-‘s toys than with E-, but they’re probably a bit young for that anyway. Both E- and A- were delighted by the squeaky skunk puppet that Jen used. Jen and I chatted about crafts, boundary-testing, and other parenting topics.
  • Jen redirected E- to spray instead of playing in the kitchen sink, and I nudged A- to wipe with a towel. The combination worked pretty well.
  • I asked A- to tell J- and W- that dinner was ready, which she did with great enthusiasm. W- was in the bathroom, so she stood outside the door and kept saying “Dinner is ready!” until he came out.
• Pretend
  • A- really wanted to go outside, so I helped her into her snowsuit and asked her to stay on the deck while I watched her from inside. There was no snow, but she had lots of fun pretending to make snowballs and throw them at me.
  • A- brought a cup, a stick, some tape, and a jingly ball upstairs. W- helped her make a bell, which they taped to the wall and used for some pretend play.
• Cognition
  • A- wanted to go with W- to buy a kid-size shovel after breakfast, but we helped her realize that could mean missing swimming.
• World
  • “Can we try turning it off and on again?”
• Thoughts
  • “Learning Through Play in My Own Way” has a matrix of skills.

Blog posts

• 2019-01-14 Emacs news
• Weekly review: Week ending January 11, 2019

Time

More sleep this week because A- got more sleep too. I wasn’t sure whether she was just settling early for a nap or going for a long sleep, so I slept along with her just in case.