March 2025: 🔥🎵🥧🍎✏️⛸️📰😴⏲️🍕🖨️🏝️🎮📚🎵🎮🐒🦷👥🧁🏺💭📺🐟🚲☕🧁🥾🌧️📝🛒
Text from sketch
March 2025:
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.
2025-03-31-05
In February, I wrote I wanted to:
- Practise being calmer and more easygoing; get better at thinking in terms of experiments
- 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.
