• Kaizen
  • A- wanted to type on my laptop, so I quickly remapped her favourite key (F1) to show the hello file instead of help-on-help. W- joked that if I set it up to play Ode to Joy, I’d have a real winner. So I did, calling emms-play-file. And then of course it made sense to make F1 toggle playing on and off, and then A- had lots of fun making the music stop and go.
  • We raked the twigs in the garden.
• Us
  • I booked our flights. I initially booked them on one airline, but I cancelled after a few minutes because I realized that another airline’s itinerary not only made more sense for our day but also came out a little cheaper.
  • We decided that spending on seat selection was worth it so that we could pick a row without any particularly bad remarks on the main seat review sites.
• Gross motor
  • We put batteries into a tiny toy penguin I bought a long time ago, and A- had fun watching it waddle toward claps. She imitated the penguin too, holding her arms close to her sides and her hands out.
• Fine motor
  • A- was fascinated by a small, clear hand pump floating in the water table at the drop-in centre. She spent most of the afternoon playing with it, filling the cups and bottles that I held for her. She also had fun stacking small wooden shapes, and got pretty good at building tall, thin towers.
• Sensory
  • A- spent a long time at the water table in the drop-in centre. She liked pretending to give the frog-shaped watering can a drink.
  • A- liked being dropped while riding on my knees.
  • A- liked playing with her new sand toys in a big raised bed in our backyard. That raised bed gets pretty shaded, so we decided that was fine as A-‘s sandbox and “planting” zone.
• Language
  • “Now baby is refreshed and rested.”
  • One of A-‘s long-term goals is to grow long hair. She said, “Someday I’m going to help J- clog up the drain.”
  • A- picked three bedtime stories and read them all to herself.
  • A- wanted to sing Bahay Kubo while reading through the book. She did it several times. Then she fell asleep snuggling the book.
• Music
  • A- sat down at the piano. She started pressing keys and singing, “Bessie the sheep, Bessie the sheep…” I think she was making up a song on the spot.
  • It’s fun watching the progression in the kinds of games we play in music class. This week, the teacher introduced a game with songs that go like: “A- stands up, A- sits down, A- goes dancing all around the town. Tralalalalala tralalala, tralalalala tralalala.” (To the tune of Tommy Thumb Is Up.) We stretched out the last few syllables so each kid could make it back to their place in the circle right on time. When it was A-‘s turn, she stood up and sat down on cue, and then she went all around the circle by herself, even though all the kids before her had been accompanied by their grownups. Neato!
• Self-care and independence
  • A- can put on gloves and mittens by herself.
  • During our bedtime conversation, A- and I talked about what if she had no seeing eyes, about being careful in the sandbox, and about observing other kids.
  • We went to Once Upon a Child to look for shoes. I brought along a paper cutout of her footprint. She preferred shoes that were a bit too big for her, but she’ll probably grow into them in a few months. I also got her sweatpants to match W-. I tried looking for a slightly larger rain jacket and a doll that she identified with, but no luck. I might have to look into repainting dolls if she wants a hard one instead of a soft one.
• Eating
  • A- ate seven breakfast sausages in one sitting.
  • A- is getting quite good at eating cereal and milk by herself. She likes to add just a little cereal. I think it’s mostly an excuse to drink milk.
• Emotion
  • A- had a big tantrum because she wanted phone time so that she could watch videos. We eventually redirected her to reading.
  • A- was in her carrier, slowly calming down from a tantrum. Tearfully, she said, “i want a book on emotional regulation.”
  • A- didn’t want to interrupt reading in order to start dinner. When she saw W- head out the door, though, she started crying for him. We quickly put our coats and boots on and headed out the door. W- was far ahead of us, but A- made a decent effort at walking most of the way to the library. We met W- on his way back. I offered A- a choice: we could all go home, or W- could go home and I could go with her to the library. A- kept asking if she could go with W- to the library. After telling her that wasn’t one of the choices and giving her a warning, I told her that we were going to choose for her. We carried her home in full tantrum mode. Eventually, we were able to help her calm down enough, and she ate dinner with us. She had probably been extra grumpy because of hunger, but at least we finally got that sorted out!
• Social
  • We hadn’t seen Joy and J- for a long time. When they finally made it out to the drop-in centre, A- and J- had lots of fun playing together. A- said, “I love my friend.” They walked home, holding hands part of the way.
• World
  • At the drop-in centre, the librarian did the circle time. She sang a song about weather and asked the kids what the weather was today. A- said, “It was raining.” The librarian thanked her. A- continued, saying, “That’s called precipitation.” Everyone paused for a few seconds trying to make sure they heard her right, and then we had a good laugh about that.

    I guess A- picked something up from all those times she asked us to read “The Sun is Kind of a Big Deal,” even though when I asked her what she liked about the book, she cheerfully told me, “I understand none of the words in it! Zero!” Huh.

    I wonder what else makes sense to casually introduce into our reading… I’m not looking for party-trick memorization or academic front-loading, but she wants to learn, so it might be fun to see what else catches her eye. Nature is probably a good place to start, and maybe simple physics and biology too. Maybe calendars, too?

• Thoughts
  • Parenting reflection from Joyful Toddlers & Preschoolers: assume positive intent. I can see how A- wants so much to do well and be helpful.

Blog posts

• Weekly review: Week ending March 22, 2019
• 2019-03-25 Emacs news

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