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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.
This month, A+ asked me if we could do a field
trip. Since her virtual grade 3 class was doing a
unit on drawing landscapes, I thought I'd take her
to the Art Gallery of Ontario so that she could
practise digital painting surrounded by lots of
great examples. I enjoyed that enough to get my
own iPad for drawing on. She asked for another
field trip the following week to check out the
Moments in Modernism exhibit, so we got to
practise digital painting together. (We ended up
back in the landscape gallery.) I wonder what
we'll explore next month.
Being able to do iPad things together also nudged
us to explore music and art. I experimented with
paying for the Simply family subscription. A+ and
I have been practising singing and piano, and W-
has been practising patience. I've been going
through the art tutorials too. A+ has run out of
colourful drawings to work on and is not
particularly interested in the pencil courses, so
maybe that'll be for later.
It was A+'s birthday this month. She wanted to
have a skating party with just her closest friends
and their families. We made and decorated cupcakes
and cookies, and then we brought her and the party
supplies over to the park in our cargo bikes. W-
brought over pizza and hot chocolate. I enjoyed
drawing a one-page summary of A+'s 8th year, and
that also helped other people get a sense of what
we've been up to the rest of the year. I used
parts of that drawing for little thank-you cards
for her friends, too.
Lots and lots of snow this month. It's amazing how
much some guerilla shovelling can make a
difference. We cleared the entrance to the Martin
Goodman Trail closest to our house, and W- also
cleared some things in our neighbourhood and on
our bike ride home.
Checking in with myself
I noticed I've been a little more fretful than I'd
like to be. I think I've been letting myself get
all tangled up in worries about A+ and school fit,
and I've also been staying up late exploring
sketching. My current plan is:
schedule fretting for Saturdays so that I don't
fret too much at A+ during the week
remind myself of counterexamples: A+ does
actually get her work done, and she's pretty
good at making decisions; even if she messes up,
failure is feedback
externalize my anxiety by calling her "Gumamelon" (long story),
and thank her for showing up and trying to
protect us and make life easier
try to get better at detecting when Gumamelon is
sneaking up on me, write down her concerns, and
remind her that she can come back on Saturday.
distract Gumamelon with other things I can do
sleep better
It's weird, but maybe it'll help. =)
Also, trying out this approach of answering
reflection questions in order to think more
deeply.
Where did I feel most energized this month? What activities drained me?
I liked figuring things out with W- and A+,
whether it was breaking up the ice on the walkway
or redoing the galaxy icing on the cupcakes. I
also liked the calmness of going through the music
and art tutorials, even if they felt quite slow at
times. I'm not too keen on the frazzled feeling of
fretting at A+, but I'm glad I'm getting better at
recognizing the irrationality of it, and that both
W- and A+ are good at reminding me to back off.
I'm looking forward to finding ways to redirect
that. This might be the time to get back into
exploring the things I want to learn. That'll keep
me plenty busy.
What moments made me say "aha!" this month?
It's interesting to see how both A+ and I respond
well to impersonal feedback from a computer and to
breaking things down into bite-sized, gamified
learning. The pitch visualizations in the singing
app have been helping her pay more attention to
melody. I like the way the notes in the piano app
don't let me move forward until I get them right.
I'm going to experiment with pitch detection to
practise singing scales. I want to see if I can
get Claude AI to give me reasonably-useful writing
feedback, too.
Emoji summary
Nudged by Gina Trapani's My Life in Weeks (found
via HN) and the Life in Weeks app (also discussed
on HN), I'm noodling around the idea of having a
quick but expressive overview. I have a journal
covering most of the days since 2016, somewhat
spotty coverage of weekly/monthly notes before
then, and yearly reviews going back to 2005. If I
wanted to summarize each day with an emoji,
February would be:
This month, I experimented with doing my daily
drawings on a calendar grid. Since that meant I
had a nice neat one-page summary of the month
right there, I figured I might as well resume
writing these monthly reviews.
We still had plenty of time to get outside to the
playground, go for walks and bike adventures, go
skating, and make wontons. On indoor days, we
mostly played Minecraft, Ni No Kuni, and
Supermarket Together. Now that her usual
playgroup's shifting mostly indoors (and tend to
be pretty cough-y when they're outdoors), we've
been going to the ice rink instead, and have even
had a couple of playdates with new friends.
A+ definitely craves more stimulation during
virtual school. The teacher suggested micro:bit
programming, and we've been having fun making
simple programs to run on actual hardware. A+ has
also been learning turtle graphics via Python
programming, and she's quite proud of programming
by typing instead of using blocks. She passed the
first stage of the gifted identifaction process in
the public school board, so we had a couple of
meetings and I scrambled to do some research. I
don't think it'll change much. The Toronto
District School Board doesn't offer virtual
placements for gifted students even if they do
identify an exceptionality, and there probably
isn't anything in their budget for extra resources
for the self-contained virtual school they're
setting up next year. Ah well. We're planning to
take a very chill, non-tiger-parenting approach to
the whole thing, and we'll just have to see how
things work out.
We set up a new desk for A+ near the window, which
let her enjoy more sunlight during the day. In
return, I got to have her old desk setup, so now I
can sometimes get computer time with an extra
monitor (at least when I'm not helping her stave
off boredom).
It was the last month before W- retired, so we
squeezed in a few dental and medical appointments
to take advantage of the remaining coverage. Now
we get to figure out what our days could be like!
cavity - lost tooth - booster seat - bike - Realms - splash - sewing - garden
June: More of everything! Dealing with the heat, playing outside.
Growing bigger: A- bravely got a cavity filled under nitrous oxide. She also lost her first tooth the regular way. She grew big enough to a use a booster seat in the car. She got a 20" bike with gears, and started getting used to it. Still a little wobbly and we walk up and down slopes, but she'll get there.
Having fun: We set up Minecraft Realms Plus so that we could all
play with my sister and her kids. Fun! Adventure & creativity.
Splash pads! I replaced the top of A-'s splash gown and it's good
for another year. Lots of play dates! Popsicle season.
Making time for my own hobbies: I started hand-sewing during playdates. It's slow, but at least I'm making progress! I sewed on some lace that A- asked for. and now I'm working on a hat.
Moved the plants into the garden. Whee! It's lots of fun watching things grow and learning how to eat them.
