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 started helping Bike Brigade with their e-mail newsletter. I read through their Slack history and a couple of years of newsletters to build up a library of newsletter blocks. I made a collage of the Jane's Walk photos. I didn't get around to editing the photos and posting them on Facebook. Maybe next week. We also did some more deliveries.
We biked to the Stockyards so that we could buy clover seeds, flower seeds, plants, and other gardening supplies from Canadian Tire and Rona. A+ also took the opportunity to have har gow and some quick playtime at the arcade. I moved the strawberries into pots. I potted the dahlias (including the new ones) and scattered many of the flower seeds we bought. I also pruned the mini roses.
We attended an IPRC meeting to confirm A+'s exceptionality.
We went to the dentist. So far so good.
A+ improved the organization of the bathroom by putting away less-used things.
I dropped my phone and damaged the screen protector. Fortunately, the screen was fine. I found the other screen protector and applied it.
“The truth is I still put a lot of pride into being Very Good At Ruby. I
cling to that pride, sometimes. I want to show that I've “still got it”.
In a life drowned in caregiving and homemaking and survival, I often
feel like I'm vanishing. Like I have so much still to offer, if
only—and then there is screaming from another room, and I must defuse
a meltdown, or mediate an argument, or make a belated dinner, or chase
down a meds prescription, or or or…”
This is something I remember struggling with. I
think I've come to terms with it now, mostly by
giving up the idea of being good at stuff. I've
been making peace with the fact that I make
silly errors, and that's okay. I've come to
realize that it's not even entirely due to the
distraction and time constraints of parenting,
and that I like how I'm growing even if it feels
less certain.
‘This morning, as I wrote my morning pages, I felt a little fearful. All
my life I've yearned to be creative. I frequently think, “If I only had
more time, I'd…” All those things I've said I wished I had more time
to do — write, draw, learn French, exercise, meditate — now it's
time to see if I really do want to do them. What if time was just an
excuse? I guess that would be okay. I'd learn what really does matter to
me. Maybe it turns out I like the idea of being creative more than I
actually am creative. Maybe what I really love is long walks and sitting
in the garden reading books.'
This feels like a related thought. I'm glad I
did my experiment with semi-retirement. That
period of having plenty of time autonomy showed
me that I tend to be more of a slacker than a
hustler, and that's also okay.
A+ enjoyed the pottery painting class at Clay
with Me. She painted a small bowl, a tiny dish,
and a rainbow.
I let A+ scoot ahead to her class. I didn't even
see her when I got there, but I did find her
scooter and her helmet neatly put away, so I
assume that she made it there safely. Another
big step towards independence!
We did a few Bike Brigade deliveries as a
family, and I decided to help with their
newsletter.
We visited Popo and helped her with tech.
I wrote some code to visualize a specific day or
set of days, and I added that to my blog post
about time.
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.
The weather was often warm and sunny, so we spent
more time biking and walking. We brought bubbles,
sand toys, and popsicles to the playgrounds. That
was nice.
A+ has been practising crossing the street by
herself. She's quite proud of being able to go
ahead of me. She was also proud of making her own
choices at the farmers market, carefully counting
out $5 and a collection of coins that all together
summed up to $12 for a bottle of very dark maple
syrup, and choosing a sourdough loaf after some
discussion with the baker.
A+ enjoyed doing an Easter Monster Math Hunt, as
is apparently now our tradition. I drew lots of
Minecraft mobs on brightly-coloured sticky notes,
labelled the front sides with letters and wrote
equations on the back sides. A+ wanted to practise
solving for variables, so I wrote two-step
equations of the form 2 * n + 3 = 7. As she
found each sticky note, she brought it to me and
figured out the answer in her head, and I wrote
her answer down. When she collected all of them,
she sorted them by number and then figured out the
phrase using the letters in the front (CHOCOLATE
EGGS), whereupon she received the chocolate egg
I'd brought along for snack.
In Minecraft, we switched from Create: Perfect
World to the Create: Ultimate Selection modpack
because A+ wanted to use Create 6.0. Fortunately,
this didn't mean restarting our world from
scratch, since it was an upgrade. After we got
everyone on board, I built a full enchanting table
setup, got myself a Fortune 3 pickaxe, and started
caving. We also experimented with a Minecraft
Create Mod club on Outschool, but it wasn't really
A+'s thing between the lag and the overwhelming
experience of stepping into a world that's already
quite built up. We'll probably just keep playing
ourselves. If A+'s cousins or friends from the
playgroup want to join in, we figured out how to
set up port forwarding, so we can set up a server.
