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September 2025
school, playdates, newsletter, EmacsConf infrastructure
2025-09-30-11
Science Centre adventure zone
First day: Grade 4
play group
farmers market
First week of Gr. 4! Celebration ice cream
Biidaasige Park, 9x
Trying the loom at Riverdale; also, Happy Kingdom
Bubbles at the park
KidSpark with friends
composted bitter melon, moved strawberries
A+ donated some clothes to the kids clothing swap; Little Miss Light Rye
reusable wipes dispenser
Turns out I needed a nap.
Sortbot
swimming
catch-up day
a good talk; popsicles at the park
newsletter HTML
magic show
taking a break from fretting
had fun coding
Etherpad 2.x
line art
taxes
towel slide
C-'s hat was stuck
Nature Club: poison ivy (okay so far)
A+ caught up with her homework
emergency kit
drawing icons
School: A+ started virtual grade 4.
After we figured out that we needed to check Google Classroom instead of Brightspace for assignments, she was able to catch up with her homework.
She often complains of boredom, but that's expected. Sometimes she tries the extra math topics I introduce. In general, though, she'd rather have the slack time to explore her own interests instead of doing more of the same. Totally understandable. I'll read through the CEMC math problems anyway so that I can keep some of them in my back pocket.
Play: Most days, we made it out to the playground after school. A+ had lots of fun playing with her closest friends, and she was also fine hanging out with me whenever they were playing a game she wasn't keen on. Sometimes we'd do math while waiting: algebra, binary conversion, geometry.
Independence: For my part, I think I've managed to mostly wrangle my school-related anxiety back to the occasional weekend check-in.
It helps to remind myself that it's a good way for her to practise making her own decisions in a low-stakes environment: what to do when, what kinds of breaks to take in between. Better to try things and possibly run into things she needs to figure out or get help with now than wait until university. The more I step back, the more I can appreciate how she's growing: getting stuff done during class time, stepping outside to self-regulate when a party's getting too noisy for her. Compared to last year, it's much easier for me to say, "All right, you're in charge. I haven't even checked what's due when. What do you want to work on first, and do you want any help from me?" Usually all the help she wants is hugs, although sometimes I still type what she dictates when the assignment is really boring. It's nice that she can tell me what she wants. I also like seeing that carry over into her social life at the playground. She can think ahead about potential reasons for conflict and stick up for herself when her predictions come true. She enjoyed expanding her emergency kit to cover more scenarios, and it was great to see her satisfaction when the pencil and paper she'd packed came in handy.
My own time: An easy way to tone down my fretting is to redirect some of that nervous energy into my own projects. It's good for me and it's good for A+, who likes it better when I treat her as a 9-("and a half!")-year-old instead of a 5-year-old. I went from spending practically all day with A+ in summer to having more focus time. I'm settling into my own rhythms. There's usually one big chunk I can dedicate to something that might take a long time. Monday is Emacs News, Tuesday is for consulting, Wednesday is my own stuff, Thursday is Bike Brigade, and Friday is Bike Brigade feedback or other things as needed. The other chunk of time might be for miscellaneous tasks: writing, tidying, errands, and so on. The long focus time chunk helps me feel like I'm making tangible progress on things that require coherent thought, and having another chunk for odds and ends lets me putter around with things that might not flow as smoothly.
Thanks to this rhythm, I managed to resist the temptation to focus on just the consulting requests. I finally got to implement a few of the Emacs tweaks that have been collecting dust in my inbox. I upgraded the Etherpad we use for EmacsConf. I felt a little more solid about it because I did it via an Ansible playbook I tested in Vagrant instead of doing it ad-hoc.
I also changed my Bike Brigade newsletter workflow to convert the Google Doc draft into a big mass of HTML that I can just dump into one block. I've been using it for the past few weeks. This is difficult for people to squeeze last-minute edits in, but getting rid of all those mouse clicks makes me a lot happier, and nothing has been truly urgent. It's a trade-off, but I'm okay with choosing to increase my happiness (or at least reduce annoyance).
Fun: In addition to these small technical improvements, I've been practising drawing, too: mostly simple little black-and-white icons, sometimes drawn with references. It's a reasonable way to use the time I'd otherwise spend waiting at playdates. I like it, although I'll probably mix more thoughts and colours back in. The icons are like babbling with words. Sometimes I still want to unwind tangled thoughts into sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes I can't think of anything in particular, and working on visual vocabulary at least keeps me moving forward.
I haven't been doing piano as much, so I decided to just stick with the Simply Piano subscription instead of adding Piano Marvel.
I want to get through more of the songs I've marked as favourites. There's still much for me to learn, and it's fun practising with music that we recognize.
I also haven't been playing as much Stardew Valley lately, probably because I'd rather spend that time tweaking Emacs instead. Sometimes A+ likes to interleave homework sessions and Stardew Valley days, so we're still making a little progress on our Stardew Valley Expanded farm. I enjoy playing co-op with her.
The weather's getting colder. I'll be wrapping up our real-life garden soon. Eventually I'll need to shift my playdate time-filler to things I can do outside even with gloves on. Maybe less drawing and more dictation as a way of fleshing out thoughts, or maybe some reading too. Last year, her playmates shifted indoors as the weather cooled down. We might see if this year we'll have more outdoor playdates with new friends, or if the two extracurriculars A+ is in (along with some more bike adventures with us, now that W- is retired) will be enough for us. There's a definite seasonality to my life at the moment, which feels nice.
Next: In October, I probably should record EmacsConf introductions so that I have more space for handling captions once the videos come in. I've scheduled some TODOs for the different e-mails I need to send speakers, too. On the personal side, I want to keep giving A+ space to take ownership of her learning. A+ wants to experiment with gymnastics classes, so we'll try that out.
Like I predicted last month, my days were mostly focused on A+. She enjoyed the half-day pottery wheel summer camp that we experimented with, where she got to practise trimming her pottery and glazing the pieces with a marbled pattern. Aside from the pottery camp, our days were wide open. A+ took the initiative in suggesting places to go, although sometimes I let her know about events or experiences. We went on plenty of adventures.
We went to the temporary Ontario Science Centre pop-ups at Harbourfront and Sherway Gardens. It was fun coming up with more and more things to do at the OSC KidSpark pop-up. We liked pretending to be different Star Wars characters working as supermarket cashiers. We made up a game where I'd tell her "I want to buy a papaya" while holding up something different, like a pineapple. She'd correct me and tell me what to look for ("something a little pointy at both ends"), and I'd go off and find something that matched that description while still being incorrect (like a lemon). We also played another game that involved drawing the items for the grocery list and having the other person figure out what they were. We enjoyed checking out the sensory backpacks, too. (Nice fidget toys!) At the Sherway Gardens pop-up, A+ mostly enjoyed going through the adventure zone and playing with the foam building blocks.
At the CNE, we got caught in a bit of a downpour, but fortunately I had an umbrella and we were wearing Crocs. A+ enjoyed the farm building, and we checked out the kiddie midway after the rain.
A+ liked the spinning rides and the Ferris wheel. She also did a good job of resisting temptations. (Games! Snacks! More rides! More! More!) Thank goodness for math.
We enjoyed petting pretend chickens and throwing snowballs at blazes at the Minecraft Experience. I had fun musing about the tech behind the scenes. We made it out to Biidaasige Park a couple of times, playing with the little dams and the snowy owl stage. We went to the ROM and tried their learning worksheet. A+ biked for an hour to get there one time. We went to the Dragon Festival to watch the lion dance. Some afternoons, we did a bit of swimming, but not much as the weather was starting to cool down.
We also caught a magic show at the library. A+ is now familiar enough with lots of science demonstrations that she can figure out many of the tricks in kid-oriented magic shows, but she's good at not spoiling it for others. I think she might sometimes get a little frustrated by the urge to demonstrate what she can handle so that people can skip ahead to more interesting stuff, which works fine in one-on-one interactions but is harder in a group class. (I remember this feeling! Even now, I'm still figuring out how to drop little signals into a conversation so that people who recognize them can code-switch to higher bandwidth, while trying to avoid overwhelming people…) Maybe this growing awareness of others coupled with the ability to quietly enjoy something more complex inside her head will help her with that.
We spent time with family, and A+ enjoyed playing with her relatives. We had lots of playdates with friends, too.
Indoors, we've been having fun going through the unit lessons in the LEGO Spike Prime kit. At first, A+ just wanted to deliver parts to me. Then she took over some of the coding, and now I've been assigned to the parts department while she builds. "It's not your set anymore, it's our set," she says. Mwahahaha! My evil plan is working.
Looking at what we've enjoyed this summer, I can see that she really likes the things that give us new ways to play with each other, like KidSpark or LEGO Spike Prime. Next would be the places that give her new things to explore even on her own, like Biidaasige's water play features, the pottery camp's lessons, or the CNE's rides. As for me, I appreciate that we can spend on classes where she can take advantage of someone's expertise or specialized equipment, and I wonder what else she might want to explore. A+'s getting more adept at considering a wider palette of places we can go or things we can do, and index cards and sketches help with that. I wonder what else Toronto has along those lines. In terms of play, A+'s drawn to mimicry more than competition, chance, or strong emotion.1 I can see that not just in her role-playing, but also in the way she enters into our activities. I think that's my form of play, too. I like to share her interests, and even with the things I do in the Emacs community, I like to mimic and build on ideas.
Speaking of things I can strew in front of her to encourage mimicry… She occasionally flips through my Noteful notebooks, so it might be interesting to sneak some pedagogical documentation in there, laying out her growth in pictures and sketches so that it's easy for her to comprehend, and maybe sketching out some ideas for things to explore. This can help her see things over time, and it might also help show her the power of taking notes. Next time we go to KidSpark, it could be fun to take pictures of her at the supermarket checkout and then scribble on the images to portray the characters, or maybe we could learn how to draw the interactions as comics.
The summer camp gave me an opportunity to enjoy a lot of focused time. I used it all for consulting, finally finishing some tasks I'd been putting off for weeks. I also had some focus time in the evening. I made a few small improvements to my Emacs News publishing process, tweaking the plain text formatting based on suggestions from readers. I modified my journaling system to be able to see entries from this day across all the different years, copy all the displayed journal entries to the clipboard, and use more consistent CSS. I've been writing a bit more now that I have a Bluetooth keyboard on my bedside table. I've been drawing and doodling a little more, too, and I've been doing colouring sheets at the library.
I finished the Pre-Advanced III course in Simply Piano and started thinking about whether I want to switch to a different app, stop the subscription, or continue with it. I like how Piano Marvel has more advanced lessons, but I'm still getting the hang of timing. Then A+ started exploring the Simply Piano app again, so I guess we'll continue with that. There's still plenty for me to learn before I can fluidly play the Pre-Advanced II arrangements in the Simply Piano library without a lot of practice, so that's fine.
The cherry tomatoes in the garden are doing well. Four tomato plants (Sweet Million variety) give us more cherry tomatoes than we usually eat, so I can either increase my tomato consumption or consider growing three plants next year. Our 11 bitter melon plants are a bit slow, but W- says this is just about the right level of bitter melon production he wants.
Next month will be about settling into virtual grade 4 and figuring out our new rhythms. I'll probably do about 4 hours a week of consulting, saving the rest of the time for writing, drawing, coding, and slowly ramping up EmacsConf (coordination, infrastructure, captions). A+'s becoming more independent and more interesting, thinking about what she wants and using parent-speak to pitch her ideas to me ("We can always buy more [paint sticks]. You wanted to fuel my creativity.") I can't wait to see where this goes.
July 2025
Summer! Park playdates, swimming, exploration
🎇 Swimming, poi, fireworks
🏊 High Park pool
🥖 farmers market bread
🎮 Minecraft at the park
🏊 somersault, somer-pepper
🎮 Stardew Valley Expanded
🏖️ sand restaurant; supermarket sims
🦈 more diving toys
🛍️ errands: clothes, books
🗘 poi
🧺 snacks
🏊 3 breaths while swimming
🂡 card games
🏊 swim checklists, lessons
🏊 deep end test, water slide
🏊 needs more practice to pass
🪄 LEGO Glinda and Elphaba's dorm
🤖 LEGO Mindstorms
⚔️ lightsabers
👕 clothes shopping
🥣 mulberries
🤖 LEGO Spike Prime
🚴 bike playdate
🏊 last swim lesson; Sunnyside party
🏊 doing our own thing at the pool
😃 Biidaasige Park, ziplines; Korean BBQ
🏺 KidSpark; pottery
🥣 Kidspark; wontons
🎨 Perler beads
🫐 more mulberries
🚴 bike playdate
2025-07-31-10
This month was mostly about playdates, swimming, and exploring Toronto. I asked A+ if she wanted summer to be mostly structured time or unstructured time, and she picked unstructured time. Summer break means getting to play with our friends earlier in the afternoon. We usually went to playgrounds with splash pads or wading pools because it was so hot and sunny. Mulberries were in season, so A+ enjoyed foraging for them and crushing them into paste. Whenever A+ was deeply absorbed in playing with her friends, I chatted with other grown-ups, drew thoughts on my iPad, or read a book.
I used to bring two boxes of popsicles in a large cooler, but A+'s usual playgroup tends to be smaller these days because many kids are in summer camps or out travelling. I figured out how to pack a few popsicles into the 2L Zojirushi insulated container instead, so that helped us stay cool even during small playdates. If it's just the two of us, I take the 0.5L one, which is just enough for two pops.
When we didn't have playdates scheduled, A+ and I went to the pool. She had fun figuring out how to move through the water. She likes experimenting with things herself and showing me what she's figured out more than me setting exercises or telling her what to do, and I'm happy to leave that to other people. It turned out that we can register for city-run swimming lessons at the public outdoor pools, so I signed A+ up for one-on-one swimming lessons at our favourite pool. She enjoyed learning from the instructors and breezed through most of the checklists. I sat near the fence and watched her talk to the instructors, trying out their suggestions and getting the hang of new skills. She struggled with the last skill (continuous 25m front crawl) on the Ultra Swim 4 checklist, so that might be something that'll wait for next year. She was able to pass the deep end test once, and had so much fun going down the water slide. She failed it after that, though, and has decided to focus on other things for now. I know all the other things she does (monkey bars, biking, even just the growing she does throughout the months) will help her, so there's no need to drill past the point of frustration at this time. She wants to prioritize hanging out with her friends in the afternoon, and that's fine. This is her learning, and the social skills she picks up from playdates are important too. It's easier to work with the grain than against it. I know she'll learn quickly when she wants to.
We've been exploring other parts of the city: the ziplines at the new Biidaasige Park, the KidSpark area at the Ontario Science Centre fragment that moved downtown, Sunnyside Pool's 100th anniversary celebration. A+ tried out poi at a street festival and remembered that my sister had taught me how to do it a long time ago, so I showed her how to get started. I made another set of poi so that we could do it together. That was nice.
Some days we stayed inside because of rain, heat, or wildfire smoke. A+ enjoyed the LEGO Mindstorms workshop that she did at the library, so we decided to get a LEGO Spike Prime set. W- dusted off his old LEGO Mindstorms sets, too. I've been slowly going through the different lessons in the unit so that I can learn more about robotics. We started a Stardew Valley Expanded / Ridgeside Village playthrough, which was fun. A+ likes to focus on relationships, while I'm happy to do the gruntwork to get the farm up and running.
I enjoyed the Emacs Carnival July theme on the writing experience. It inspired me to tweak my config and write about my workflow. I've also been taking advantage of quiet mornings to do more thinking, coding, and writing. On her own, A+ likes to spend a fair bit of time playing Minecraft, watching videos, and imagining Star Wars stories, which is all right. When she wants to spend time with us, she's keen to help out around the house or go out to interesting places.
Next month, my days will still probably focus on taking A+ to hang out with friends at playgrounds. We'll also experiment with a half-day summer camp focused on the pottery wheel. A+ wants to celebrate her half-birthday since the weather's warmer. If she wants to make cookies, I'm happy to practise decorating them to look like Hutts from Star Wars. (She's got ideas.) I'm working on my annual review. The moment-of-the-day drawings and monthly reviews have been really helpful in revisiting the year. Maybe someday I'll do weekly check-ins or reviews again. More focused work like dusting off and improving EmacsConf infrastructure will probably wait until September or October, when I might have more predictable focus time again. We'll see what the new virtual class is like. A+ will probably find it boring, but at least we'll have more options for our informal field trips thanks to our explorations. At the moment, it's great to be able to go with the flow, seeing where A+ wants to wander. Looking forward to learning more!
June 2025
2025-06-30-04
playdates, splash pads, sewing, Stardew
🖼️ art gallery
💦 splash pad
🪴 jump rope, seedlings
🪡 lots of sewing
🪡 sewed a hat
🙃 upside down with friends
🍦 radishes, ice cream
🚲 biked through rain
🪡 storage bag
🍪 cracker
😴 tough bedtime
🍦 ice cream bar
🚲 friend delivery
🥔 potato print, pizza party
👴 visited grandparents
👰 wedding dress in Stardew
🍓 hulled lots of strawberries
🌧️ rainy day, golden walnuts
🦕 ROM
🌡 sick day for A+
🥧 apple pies
😷 my turn to be sick
🌡 fever, naps
🍓 strawberries, lettuce, report card
🎵 stayed up for music homework
🪡 aprons
🏊 last day of school, first day of wading pool
🏺 pottery, two pies
🐸 hopping with J- & K-
🪡 swim skirt, 23x9= math
A+ finished virtual grade 3 and is now on summer
break. I let her decide between mostly structured
and mostly unstructured time. She picked mostly
unstructured time, with one set of private
swimming lessons at an outdoor pool and one
week-long afternoon summer camp focused on pottery
wheels. The rest of the time is for hanging out at
splash pads, wading pools, and swimming pools,
often with A+'s friends. When it's too hot even
for that, we stay inside. There haven't been as
many "I'm booored!"s as I expected. I think
dealing with school gave her a lot of practice in
managing boredom and coming up with her own
activities, which is fantastic. It's important to
be able to check in with herself and figure out
what she's curious about, what she wants to do,
and to know that she can come up with that instead
of needing someone else to direct her day.
Sometimes A+ uses Claude to help her write
stories, sometimes she builds LEGO, sometimes she
plays Minecraft or Stardew Valley, and sometimes
she watches Clone Wars. Sometimes we tag along on
W-'s Bike Brigade deliveries, so that's nice.
Sometimes she helps me with sewing by doing
straight seams, winding the bobbin, or threading
the needle. She's been cubing again, packing a 3x3
Rubik's cube when she thinks there might be some
waiting time. I still have the timer app on my
phone, so she can check how she's doing. This
feels like a good kind of busy: not externally
imposed, but intrinsically motivated. Not
regimented, but going with the flow.
A+ has lots of ideas for things to sew based on
things she wants to wear or use, and is very much
into having us both wear matching outfits. It
turns out that I fit into kid-sized Crocs, so it's
easy to get matching colours there too. The
pendulum of childhood, I guess. We're currently on
the "let's match" side, and then we'll swing over
to individuation, and then we'll swing back, and
then further out to individuation, and so on. I
love that we can explore this through our clothes,
shoes, and interests. Some days she wants to be
just like me, and almost physically tries to
occupy the same space. (Cuddles are great! I know
this opportunity is time-limited.) Other days she
grumps at me and nothing I say is right. It's
great to be able to not take it personally. It's
all part of healthy development.
We're making quick progress through my fabric
stash. I've been making clothes: mostly training
bras, skorts, and swim skirts out of Spandex so
that we can wear it straight into the pool and out
again. I've even been able to make a few clothes
for me instead of just for her. I used godets to
turn last year's swim skirt for A+ into a swim
skirt for me, and I added in-seam pockets. Pockets
are great for stashing goggles, glasses, and
diving toys. I want pockets in everything now.
It's nice getting the hang of more of these little
techniques, especially since it means I can turn
more scraps and outgrown clothes into new things.
I sewed a large zippered liner for W-'s drawer so
that we could protect out-of-season wool clothes
and blankets from moths. I used the leftover
canvas to make a bag for A+ so that she could shop
for snacks independently, since the reusable bags
from the store dragged on the ground when she held
them in her hand. This one is just the right size.
It's great to be able to make things that fit. I
also made aprons for her and one of her friends,
whom we treated to a pottery class. A+ enjoyed
potato-printing her bag and apron at the Bike
Brigade x Not Far From the Tree pizza party at the
park, which was a lot of fun. It might be
interesting to pick up more paintable/dyeable
fabric and some fabric paint so that we can make
our own designs.
A+ was briefly sick with a fever, and then I had a
sore throat and a fever too. Now no one has a
fever, but I still have a persistent cough. We
think we might have picked something up at the
party. Even though it was outdoors it was a bit
crowded, lots of people were talking, and we
hadn't worn our masks. Oh well, just gotta do
better next time and mask up at big events. At
least I'm still testing negative for COVID. I'm
masking at home so that W- doesn't get sick, and
generally taking it easy. We got a membership for
the ROM, but the annoyance of this cough is making
me extra grumpy about crowds and indoor things, so
it might be a while before we're back. Plenty to
do outdoors now that the weather is warm and her
friends play outside.
I probably should sleep more, but I've been
staying up to play Stardew Valley, which you'd be
able to tell from my time records. I like the
game. Even the kiddo is learning to slow down and
take care of her farm. Sometimes we play co-op,
and sometimes we work on our own playthroughs. I
have a fairly built-up standard farm playthrough
where I let A+ take over Ginger Island. I'm proud
of how I successfully didn't grump when she
decided to rip up most of my starfruit plants
there and then ended up not replacing them with
anything. Not even a blip of grumpiness. I already
had more money than I felt like spending, thanks
to the ancient fruit winery I'd set up. Aside from
cooking and puttering around with the sewing
machine, A+ also liked giving my character
relationship advice. She encouraged me to marry
Emily, pronouncing her the most compatible. (She
married Elliott in her own playthrough.) After I
gave Emily the mermaid pendant and came back to
the farmhouse, A+ had set up a mannequin with a
full wedding outfit as a gift for me. She was
proud of gathering all the materials needed and
sewing the virtual outfit herself. I love that the
sandbox nature of the game lets her come up with
her own ideas and make things happen.
I also have a four corners farm with remixed
bundles where I've just completed the community
centre and I'm now slowly collecting hardwood for
the boat to Ginger Island. I've developed an
appreciation for the fishing minigame that I used
to avoid. It's a great way to get treasure.
Anyway, Stardew is a pleasant enough way to spend
little bits of time here and there, and to relax
after A+'s bedtime. It's encouraging to see that I
could actually find plenty of discretionary time
in my day for playing, and I can use that time for
other things once this hyperfocus passes.
Our real-life garden is doing all right, too. Most
of the remaining radishes have bolted, although
some of the larger ones are still growing well. In
spring I gave A+ a bunch of seed packets and let
her plant entirely at her own discretion. I've
been having fun figuring out how to identify and
manage the results, thinning out the ones that are
definitely not what we're looking for in that
space or that just need a little more spacing. We
get a lot of volunteer tomatoes, perilla,
goosefoot, wood sorrel, and clover. I've been
putting those in the compost to make room for the
marigolds and poppies that I recognize from the
seed packet pictures. I'm learning to identify
other plants as they grow. It's fun letting A+ try
whatever she likes and then figuring out how to
work with that. It's also fun blending the
real-life world and the virtual world. We make the
sound effect from Stardew Valley when we uproot
our radishes and hold them up above our heads.
Taking advantage of those last days of predictable
focus time while virtual school was in session, I
got the ball rolling for EmacsConf 2025 with the
call for participation. I also enjoyed attending
the virtual Emacs Berlin meetup and taking notes.
I wrote a bunch of blog posts, too.
We'll see how my focused time settles down now
that we're on summer schedule. It turns out that I
still have plenty of free time. The daytime part
is just more interruptible now because I want to
be ready to do something with A+ or head out the
door when A+ expresses an interest in going to a
playdate or a pool. I still want to get my own
stuff done instead of feeling like I'm on standby,
so it's great that my notes make it easier for me
to make progress in stop-and-go segments. I want
her to feel like I'm happy to spend time with her
instead of being distracted by an interrupted task. I also want
her to see how I choose things to do with my time
and how I use notes to help me work around the
limitations of my brain and my attention. It's an
interesting challenge balancing between occupation
and flexibility. I want her to enjoy unstructured
time and to be able to shift between solo
interests and shared time according to the rhythms
of her energy.
July is probably going to be about hanging out
with A+ near some kind of water. I like this
approach of trusting her to manage her time and
attention, letting her take the initiative when it
comes to going out and playing with friends or
swimming in the pool. In the meantime, there's
time for me to write and play.
In May, I want to add more plants to our outdoor
garden, sew some swimwear for A+ and me, and see
about volunteering for Bike Brigade.
I volunteered to help with Bike Brigade's e-mail
newsletter, since they were looking for someone to
take over from another volunteer and it might be a
good way to build real-life community. I like the
cause: volunteer cyclists connecting food banks
with people who need those groceries delivered.
W-'s been volunteering for that for a while, and
A+ and I also did a couple of deliveries, and it's
nice to see her enjoy helping out. I also listened
to a virtual panel about bikes and social justice,
and I shared my sketchnotes afterwards. I'm glad
there are people thinking about these issues, and
I'm also glad that there are small, concrete,
on-the-ground ways that we can help.
We made more progress through the Toronto District
School Board's gifted identification process, but
I think we're going to opt for a regular class in
the public virtual school instead of the gifted
placement in an in-person school. A+ gets bored in
class, but I think she'll enjoy having the extra
opportunities to play with her friends and explore
ideas, and she also appreciates the way she can
read and sing in the middle of class. (Hooray for
the mute button!)
A+ took a pottery painting class and another
pottery wheel class at Clay With Me. This time she
did a 2-hour wheel workshop, and the teacher was
able to help her with a couple of pieces. We've
been using the bowls we made in the previous
class. It's nice to have hand-made things. This
seems to be an ongoing interest, so we're going to
experiment with a pottery-related summer camp. I
found one that lets me register for a week-long
afternoon camp that focuses on the pottery wheel.
We like to keep our time pretty flexible, so this
is our first experiment with a camp. I think it'll
be great to be able to build momentum and learn
from a teacher with more experience, using
equipment that we don't have access to at home.
The camp description says kids will learn how to
add attachments and other decorations to their
work, so that could be pretty cool.
I experimented with bringing a portable butane
stove to the park. We were able to make s'mores on
two separate occasions without setting anyone on
fire, hooray! It was a good experience. The kids
had fun.
On nice days when we didn't have any playdates
planned, we I went on bike adventures. We checked
out the flower event in Yorkville. We also
explored the St. James Park playground, which was
included in the recent Doors Open event. A+ liked
the tall slide there. We also went to the Art
Gallery of Ontario so that she could work on her
Group of 7 art assignment while looking at the
actual paintings. She picked Figure with Rays of
Light by Lauren Harris.
There were quite a few rainy days. We got a lot of
sewing done. A+'s getting better at sewing simple
seams, and she can stop the machine when things
sound weird. We made a fancy skirt with an
embroidered mesh layer over satin, a couple of
skorts made of spandex so that she can wear it
into the splash pad or even the swimming pool, a
swim set, and a few tops.
Rainy days were also good for playing together. A+
was curious about playing a farming game, so we
started playing Stardew Valley, and we all got
into it quite a fair bit. A+ likes collecting
eggs, cooking food, and building friendships. I
enjoy farming and mining. It's a lot of fun,
especially when we play co-op. Even W-'s gotten
into it on his phone. This could be a fun way to
learn more about life and parenting. Having my own
solo farm is also nice, too. It helps me be more
patient when we play in co-op because I know I
have a different space where I can try things out.
It does mean I get tempted to stay up late. I can
definitely see the impact of this new interest on
my time graph and sleep totals, but that's fine.
It's good to ride the wave of our interests,
especially when we can do it together.
In our real-life garden, the radishes have been
very happy, and other seeds have sprouted too. The
mini roses, dahlias, and strawberries have come
back, and so has a dianthus. The
daffodils are done with their blooms. Last year's
compost turned out pretty nicely, and I've started
turning this year's trimmings into compost. I love
letting A+ plant seeds wherever she likes, and
I've been enjoying learning how to identify those
sprouts as well as other ones that turn up in our
garden.
A+'s been enjoying the sourdough rye from the
Dufferin Grove farmers market, so I revived the
sourdough starter we got from a trip many years
ago, which we'd revived in 2020 or so and then
re-dehydrated. I thought I got it to be pretty
active again, but I haven't quite figured out
baking a proper loaf yet. On the other hand, W-
has been on a roll (hah) with all the breads and
bagels he's been baking. I put the starter in the
fridge for a week because we had lots of
potato-rosemary bread in the house, and now I
think the starter needs a few days of waking up
again. Oh well, flour is tuition for learning how
to bake. Fortunately, I've discovered I like
sourdough discard pancakes, so at least there's a
way to deal with the excess.
In June, I'd like to take A+ on a few more
informal field trips during the school week, to
take advantage of places before they get swamped
by everyone else on summer break. Maybe
Centreville, and maybe strawberry-picking like
last year. Her friends will probably be more
available for playdates too, so that'll be a nice
shift in our routines. I'm looking forward to more
cooking and sewing and gardening and pottery. We
like making things together and enjoying them
together. As the days get longer and the weather warms, I
shift: less computer time, more outside time. This
is good. I'm looking forward to exploring
more of the city by bike, now that we know we can
make it out to playgrounds on the other side of
town. It's the season for it!
I worked on some personal projects. I finally got
around to adding side notes and footnotes to my
blog. I made space by moving the post navigation
to the left sidebar. Along the way, I figured out
how to add scroll-based highlighting for SVGs, so
I can use a drawing as a table of contents. I
added sketches to my On This Day page, and I wrote
some Emacs Lisp to visualize a specific day or set
of days.
The weather's starting to warm up. More of A+'s
friends are emerging from hibernation and having
outdoor playdates. Yay!
We planted more radishes, lettuce, peas, cilantro,
and spinach. We also started marigolds, petunias,
chrysanthemums, jalapeno peppers, cherry tomatoes
(Sweet Million), and mini bell peppers inside. I
tidied my basement desktop and I cleared out some
more of my old yarn and fabric scraps, and I sewed
a cushion for A+'s chair.
I wrote a few long blog posts. It felt good to
take time to explore a thought.
I continued to practise fretting less about
homework, and A+ managed to catch up with all the
things she needed to do mostly on her own. Things
really work out better when I back off and let her
take responsibility for it.
We played a lot of Minecraft. We set up a 1.20.1
world with Create 6.0 and the Create: Ultimate
Selection modpack. We also figured out how to do
port forwarding so that other people could
theoretically join us.
I finished the intermediate courses in Simply
Piano and worked on more songs. I'm at the point
where I need to play through things a couple of
times at slower speeds in order to get the hang of
them. This is good. It means I'm challenging
myself.
A couple of Sundays had pleasant weather, so we
did Bike Brigade as a family. That was a lot of
fun. A+ and I also went to Ripley's Aquarium.
In May, I want to add more plants to our outdoor
garden, sew some swimwear for A+ and me, and see
about volunteering for Bike Brigade.
I had a few client requests I wanted to work on,
so W- helped me get some more focus time. I feel a
little underslept, so I should get better at going
to bed instead of staying up reading.
decrease fretting, increase experiments, field trips, self-efficacy
🔥 campfire
🎵 Minecraft & singing
🥧 peach pie
🍎 apples & marshmallows
✏️ doodling
⛸️ skating in the wind
📰 RSS, thoughts on reading
😴 tired kids
⏲️ cubing comp
🍕 pizza playdate
🖨️ creeper 3D print
🏝️ quiet day, watched Moana 2
🎮 arcade
📚 bookstore, meds
🎵 music theory
🎮 LEGO Incredibles
🐒 monkey bars
🦷 tooth: UR2
👥 playing with the group
🧁 Sand cakes with A-
🏺 pottery wheel
💭 feelings
📺 TV
🐟 Ripley's Aquarium
🚲 bike playdate
☕ hot chocolate
🧁 chocolate cupcake
🥾 trails
🌧️ freezing rain
📝 homework lap
🛒 proud of buying snacks & cereal
That was actually a pretty full month. I liked the little field trips
we went on, and the way A+'s been so proud of her growing self-efficacy
and her singing, and how we've been getting together with friends, and how
we've been enjoying more produce, and how we've been learning… Nice.
Practise being calmer and more easygoing; get better at thinking in terms of experiments
Progress!
Take A+ on more informal field trips: Royal Ontario Museum, pottery class
Didn't make it to the ROM, made it to pottery and other places
Start digging into the ideas and tasks I've been postponing
Barely any progress on this; I keep coming up with new ideas!
Finish the Simply Piano course and start working on sheet music for the songs A+ wants to sing
I managed to finish the beginner course and now I'm mid-way through the intermediate ones
Practise singing scales while waiting for A+ to catch up with Simply Sing
She caught up and went beyond me, yay! I'm still definitely off-key, but we can sing enough to have fun
Automate the BigBlueButton setup a bit more so that I don't forget about meetups
… forgot to check on my automation, but was able to scramble things together in time for a meetup
The weather's starting to warm up. Skating season
is pretty much over, but now we're moving into
biking season and picnic season, so that's all
good. We had a couple of outdoor playdates and we
hosted one of her friends for backyard
pizza-making. A+'s been biking more, too. Hooray!
I continue to work on fretting less about A+'s
schoolwork. Creativity and playfulness tend to
work better for her anyway. For example, she tends
to respond well if I invite her to do the homework
on my lap, or if I challenge her to dictate her
math answers in Chinese, or if I ask her to answer
while she's upside down. Scheduling my fretting
for one day a week seems to help me not worry too
much the rest of the time. On Saturdays, I make a
checklist of work that still remains, but I'm not
terribly attached to whether it all gets done that
day. I find it easier to back off when I remind
myself of the long-term perspectives:
I want her to figure out how to do things even
without me pushing.
Failure is data. Early failure is useful, too.
It's good to try things out while the stakes are
low.
It might not be a problem. Even if it's a
problem, it might not be her problem.
School is a small part of the picture, and
grades just provide feedback on whether A+ has
demonstrated the skills they're looking for in a
way that they can evaluate. Some things are
easier if you do well in school, but there are
many other paths.
This is her experiment, not mine.
Also, learning how to let her try things out for
herself will help me even more when she becomes
a teenager, so it's good for me to learn while
the stakes are low too
An easy way to distract myself from fretting by
focusing on the things I want to learn and do.
I've added piano practice to my daily routine,
which is an interesting way to check on how
distractible my mind is. There's also writing,
coding, tidying up around the house… Plenty of
things to keep me busy.
I've been going for more walks, too. Finally
started tromping around the paths in the park. I
usually clip my lapel mic on for those walks,
since they're a good opportunity to braindump. I'm
definitely not as coherent as Prot, but maybe with
practice, I'll get the hang of exploring my
thoughts in a linear way. One of the nice things
about thinking out loud this way is realizing
quite quickly where the limits of my thoughts are,
where I trail off into vagueness or tangled words.
I like to draw as a way to help me untangle my
thoughts. I enjoyed drawing more this month,
including some fun experiments with drawing
feelings. I ordered a screen protector and a
pencil grip from Paperlike. With that, I think I'm
fairly comfortable drawing on the iPad now. My
SuperNote A5X has been a bit neglected, but
there's been a system update that added stickers,
so that might be fun to check out. Drawing is one
of the types of homework that A+ regularly
procrastinates, but she responds better if I draw
along with her. It's great. I get a weekly source
of drawing prompts thanks to Grade 3 structured
literary analysis homework. I haven't been
following drawing tutorials as much these days.
Maybe that's something that might be fun to pick
up again.
It's getting easier and easier to talk myself
down from fretting as I watch A+ enjoy the growth
in her self-efficacy. She can do so many more
things for herself now. She figured out how to
swing across the rotating monkey bars that she
couldn't reach before, and connected the idea of
momentum to homework. She was proud of getting to
level 7 in the Simply Sing app, and of her 6+-week
streak. She experimented with different story
ideas. She hiked through freezing rain with her
nature club. She even proudly chose and bought
herself some groceries.
A+ asked for more field trips, so I tried to plan
at least one interesting activity a week,
sometimes pulling her out of virtual school after
afternoon recess. It worked out really well, I
think. We were able to enjoy the sunshine, spend
time exploring the world around us. QUick notes:
cubing comp (A+ did 2x2, 3x3, and Pyraminx):
A+'s been going to an online cubing club, so
she's been practising on and off, but her
current hyperfocus is singing instead of cubing.
Still, she was happy with how she did, and she
enjoyed volunteering as a judge. This was a bit
of a last-minute registration for us, so I've
added a TODO to check for upcoming competitions
at the start of the year.
a public library with 3D printers: A+ wanted to
try printing a model that she made at the
library's Tinkercad workshop. She also wanted to
print a cube stand. Both worked out pretty well.
It was a nice bike trip to the Fort York
library. A+ hasn't come up with more print ideas
yet and neither have I, but it's nice to know
that the resources are available.
a pottery wheel lesson: she's interested in more
pottery wheel practice and also a painting
workshop. She's not interested in hand-building
yet and she still needs my help with the wheel.
Could be fun to explore together.
Ripley's Aquarium: she enjoyed petting the
stingrays and looking at the sharks. I forgot to
take advantage of the Presto discount, whoops!
Anyway, I'll see when A+ wants to go again. If I
think we'll be there frequently, then we can get
a membership.
The homeschoolers' playgroup: It was nice to
reconnect with friends at the park now that
they're coming out of hibernation.
A+'s a little behind on schoolwork, but I think
that's more of a matter of motivation rather than
knowledge, and we'll be able to catch up. I'm
looking forward to exploring more things next
month and seeing what we can get away with.
Thanks to my resolution to fret less, I'm spending
less time on childcare (A+) and more time
exploring my own interests (Discretionary -
Productive). I've even been doing a little less
consulting. It feels good. I'm still around in
case she wants help, but now I get to explore
things I want to do.
Let's break that discretionary/consulting time down:
Category
Previous month %
This month %
Diff %
h/wk
Diff h/wk
Discretionary - Productive - Music
1.6
6.0
4.4
11.2
7.4
Discretionary - Productive - Coding
0.2
1.7
1.6
3.2
2.6
Discretionary - Productive - Emacs
1.6
2.9
1.3
5.4
2.2
Discretionary - Productive - Nonfiction
0.0
0.7
0.7
1.3
1.2
Discretionary - Productive - Drawing
2.9
2.2
-0.7
4.2
-1.2
Discretionary - Productive - Writing
4.5
3.8
-0.7
7.0
-1.2
Business
2.4
1.0
-1.3
1.9
-2.2
Ah, yes, mostly music. We have a Yamaha YDP-113
piano which is finally getting played, yay me (and
yay W-'s decision to get it about two decades
ago). I want to get the hang of at least Simply
Sing's intermediate lessons so I can finally play
those Disney songs at a consistent tempo, which
means A+ will be able to sing instead of having to
stop and restart as I stumble on notes. Plus music
has a way of gently pointing out when my attention
wanders, so there's that. This feels like a
reasonably good use of my time.
Ideas for next month
Get better at enjoying life with A+ and W-
Keep replacing fretting with snuggles and
connection
Look for more field trip possibilities
Explore more recipes, especially as more local
produce becomes available
Convert the rest of the grass into garden and
amend the soil
Direct-sow lettuce, poppies
Sewing:
Might be good to start thinking about sewing
more skirts and dresses for A+ and me, and
probably new swimwear too.
Habits:
Continue with piano, walking/biking, writing, drawing
Ease into some kind of strength thing? Grip
strength might be a good place to start. Maybe
I can learn some hand-strengthening exercises
I can do next time A+'s doing homework on my
lap.
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