• Us
  • W- broke the pop-up stopper in the process of replacing the aerator, so he ended up replacing it too. I need to learn all these things!
  • We made applesauce from scratch. It was a good opportunity to compare different types of apples.
• Language
  • I wanted to help A- learn how to write “a” and “b”. She likes saying “Boo!” and she enjoys it even more if I say “Aah!”, so I came up with a game where she had to write “boo” and “a” on paper to make tickets. When she handed me the appropriate tickets, I hammed it up and pretended to be terrified of her. It worked pretty well! We went through a lot of paper because she wanted to write so much.
  • We checked out 22 books from the library. I requested quite a few books from the library’s new Vox collection, which are books with attached readers. The speaker is small, so audio quality is a bit meh. I wonder what it would be like with a bigger speaker plugged in.
  • We played the ticket game again. A- wrote “boo” and “aaa” tickets, which we acted out. She also wrote a couple of “go” tickets, so I ran quick loops.
• Art
  • “We are building a robot.” – A- and JW- playing with blocks.
• Self-care and independence
  • We put faces on A-‘s shoes to help her make sure they were on the right feet.
  • A- asked me to walk on her right side so that she can see me. She’s blind on her left side, so she prefers to have the wall or the houses there.
  • I took A- to the dentist because she reported that her teeth were itchy. The dentist said that her teeth are still okay, and the tooth decay we’ve been monitoring is also stable. Might be due to mouth breathing because of congestion, or maybe allergies.
• Eating
  • We had finished all of our snacks and A- was still hungry, so she chose to try a taco. (“Yummy!”) She was still hungry after that, so we had a muffin. In the evening, she happily talked about going out for lunch.
• Sleep
  • A- stayed up so late. She wanted to sleep in a pretend bassinet, and then she wanted to snuggle, and then she wanted to talk, and then she wanted to sleep on the crib mattress… She just needed a limit. When I was firm, she cried for a little while and then fell asleep.
  • A- had a rough day. She pushed another kid at school because she wanted to sit on the letter A and the other kid didn’t want to move, so she had to spend some time on the cool down couch. She’s been staying up late these past few nights, so I think that’s part of it. She wanted to spend the afternoon with me instead of being dropped off at the flexible childcare program. At home, she had a few meltdowns about not wanting to go to school because she was tired. She still resisted going to bed, wanting me to read lots of books and talking about how she missed W-. She fell asleep at 6:40pm. I think it might be worth nudging her more firmly to bed in the evening. We had experimented with doing productive things like getting groceries or cooking in the time between dinner and sleep because she had kept resisting bedtime, but the old approach seemed to have worked better.
  • A- only went to sleep when I got mildly grumpy with her.
• Emotion
  • I was going to read Where the Wild Things Are to A-, but she was terrified of the monster on the cover and wanted me to return the book to the library. As we were talking about her feelings, she took the opportunity to tell me that she was also scared by Little Robot and by Journey. Little Robot had a scary robot chase as well as a locked-up situation. I asked her what she found scary in Journey, and she said it was the cage. She fell asleep in my arms after lots of reassurance from me. Being scared is tiring! I’m putting those books away for now, and we might ease into them again when she’s older. I’m glad we can talk about these things!
• Household
  • A- still wasn’t sleepy, so we made a batch of macaroons while W- prepared a few meals for the week.
  • A- helped me make duck pot pie.
• Social
  • A- said, “I want to have a long talk.” She shared her discomfort with one of the kids who often wanted to play with her when she wanted to play by herself, and we talked about some things she could try. I want to work on helping her come up with ideas for solving problems.
• Cognition
  • I was surprised by how well A- did at the subtraction, reading, and general question flashcards JW- had. The two of them patiently went through one side of a Brain Quest deck with me, answering practically all the questions. A- recognized a number of words by looking at the letters or listening to me sound them out, and she solved problems like “If you have 8 keys and lose 2, how many do you have left?” She might have been silently using the visual cues on the flashcard (counting the number of un-crossed-out objects), but even if she was, that’s still cool.
• World
  • A-‘s kindergarten readiness program had a workshop at the library. The librarian did some songs and rhymes, read a few books, and gave us a tour of the library’s section for children’s books. One of the books that the librarian read was one we had also borrowed, so A- perked up and said, “We have that one at home!”
  • “I only have six dollars. Can I please order [a LEGO set] online?”
• Other
  • A- walked back home from the organic food store without gloves or a jacket. I had them. She just didn’t want to wear them.
  • We tried looking for extra-small gloves at MEC, but they didn’t have any.
• Oops
  • I almost lost A-‘s shoes because they fell off her feet while she was asleep. Fortunately, I found them when we doubled back: one on the sidewalk, and one at the bus stop!

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• 2019-11-18 Emacs news

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