• Kaizen
  • I rehemmed W-‘s shorts. The twill I had was heavier than the original fabric, so we’ll just have to see how it works out.
  • I think I fixed my link quoting when generating Emacs News.
  • I notice that when I feel time-stressed, I get scatterbrained, and I leave things unfinished instead of putting things away neatly. But slow is fast, so if I slow down and take the time to put things away, it will work out better for me. When I catch myself feeling hurried, I should breathe and slow down more.
• Us
  • I put together our paperwork for the upcoming trip.
  • I used some babysitter time to do errands on my bicycle. I returned most of the library books, bought some fabric and elastic, and bought toiletries for our upcoming trip. It was pouring when I finished at the pharmacy, so I waited for the rain to lighten a bit before heading home.
• Field trip
  • We went to the science centre today. A- played a lot with the water pipes, even building them up. She was also curious about building arches and rolling balls down ramps.
• Fine motor
  • A- had fun with the playdough extruder.
• Sensory
  • “What’s that funny smell? Is that chocolate?”
• Language
  • W- asked if A- wanted to see the garbage trucks. She said, “I decide not to.”
  • W- asked A- a question a few times. She said, “No answer.”
  • A- wanted to know why we weren’t going to take the cats with us on our trip. I told her stories about bringing Neko to Canada and how Neko climbed on top of my head as we went through security. A- found that very amusing and kept asking questions about it.
  • A- was pretending to be a baby helping W- make coffee. She said, “The baby’s first word is ‘tare!'”
• Art
  • A- wanted bath paint, so I mixed up a small batch of yellow bath paint.
• Self-care and independence
  • A- opened the bathroom lock all by herself.
  • A- hung up her clothes on hangers. She said, “Hey! I’m busy organizing my clothes.”
• Eating
  • W- and I had circumspectly talked about having watermelon after dinner, but we didn’t want to spoil A-‘s appetite, so we had just referred to it as a colourful thing in the fridge during our pre-dinner planning. We focused on our main dinner, and A- ate lightly. J- came home and A- ran to greet her at the door. A- announced, “Come in! Come in! I’m just about to have watermelon.”
• Social
  • A- deliberately poked me. I asked her not to, and we kept playing. Then she said, “Mama say sorry.” I was a little confused about what she wanted me to help her say sorry about, so I asked her why. After some back and forth, she explained, “I pushed your arm.”
  • I used A-‘s Swiss knife to work on the cardboard ATM. She remembered that Lolo gave it to her.
  • We went to the last workshop session. A- wanted to play with me, though, so she stayed close all the time.
  • A- helped me build a helicopter using the Little Engineer set. She handed me the parts I asked for.
  • We made it out to the playground and wading pool. A- had lots of fun sliding down the firepole and also going in and out of the water. She eyed a group of five kids who were playing rIng around the rosy. I showed her how to stand close to the group, and I helped ask for permission to join. She played a few rounds with them, and then one of the kids got tired of the game and decided to run to the wading pool. Another kid from the group (probably his big sister) ran after him and brought him back. Halfway through another round of ring around the rosy, he ran off agan, and she brought him back. That repeated quite a few times.
  • At bedtime, A- asked lots of questions about why a little kid kept running away from the ring-around-the-rosy game they had been playing earlier. It turned into a long discussion about the games people are really playing.
  • I checked in with A- regarding the frequency of babysitting sessions. She prefers once a week instead of twice a week, so we’ll switch to that after we get back. Also, 9 AM might be a bit early, so we might go back to 7 hours.
  • A- and the babysitter improvised stories one line at a time.
• Pretend
  • “Now I’m testing the acidity.”
  • A- was pretending to be a baby. She asked W- to pick her up. When W- carried her, she said, “The grownups have to support my head.”
• Cognition
  • We built on A-‘s familiarity with Baa Baa Black Sheep with a pretend activity where I bought wool (cotton balls) with money (sticks). Lots of counting and fine motor, since she used tongs for the cotton balls.
  • A- remembered the names she gave the notes. We used those names when we tuned the ukulele.
  • I talked to A- about counting by ones and counting by tens.
  • A- counted by tens with just a little help remembering that 30 comes after 20. She remembered on her own that after 90 comes 100. At dinner, she was very interested in words about numbers, talking about ten groups of ten and so on.
• World
  • We made the magnetic switch part of the cardboard ATM.

Blog posts

• 2019-07-08 Emacs news
• Weekly review: Week ending July 5, 2019
• Weekly review: Week ending June 28, 2019
• Weekly review: Week ending June 21, 2019
• Weekly review: Week ending June 14, 2019

Time