Anxious but trying spouse and dad who's working on (and sometimes even succeeding at!) introducing my kid to bikes, games, books, French, and more.

You can subscribe to this content through this RSS feed or this Mastodon account. You can also subscribe to all of the content on this website through this RSS feed, this Bluesky account, or this newsletter.

I sometimes write in French! To only see the French content (which is also available below, alongside English content), please click on [fr] in the site header.



For the second year in a row, kiddo’s school is launching a fundraiser at the same time the district announces a decrease in local school taxes, and the juxtaposition is driving me crazy.




Kiddo is strong enough of a reader to do her own bedtime stories, but we’ve recently built up a small collection of French kids’ comics. Since she doesn’t read French, we’ve gone back to me (and mom) reading to her, and that’s kind of fun.




Mais comme ça fait pleurer, la chandon « Secret » de Louane.


📚 bookblog: La forêt des âmes perdues (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)



Ça continue à être tout mignon et à faire marrer, cette série ! Je suis bien content de la relire avec ma famille.




Kiddo’s school district has gotten rid of ClassDojo (hooray!) and replaced it with what looks like a homebrew platform (tentative hooray?) that still datafies student behavior (boo!) and frames the whole thing in terms of employability and workforce development (super boo!).




In the name of practicing a growth mindset, I am choosing to pat myself on the back for addressing an issue in the kitchen that I likely created through previous inattention.


📚 bookblog: Le réveil du dragon (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)



Elle est jolie, cette série ! On l’a lue en famille au début de l’année, mais j’ai convaincu ma fille de commencer une relecture. On aime beaucoup les dessins, j’adore le langage (que je n’arrive pas à traduire parfaitement), et j’attends avec impatience le deuxième tôme.


🔗 linkblog: Why A.I. Should Make Parents Rethink Posting Photos of Their Children Online



Look, nothing really new in here (Clearview should have made parents rethink the same ages ago, etc.), but yes, AI should get parents to be a hell of a lot more careful with posting pictures of kids.




This, but for communication platforms the local school district uses.


image from

🔗 linkblog: Un adolescent espagnol accusé de créer des images dénudées de ses camarades de classe par intelligence artificielle et de les vendre



Quel monde pourri qui attend nos enfants.




Current levels of home maintenance confidence: Feeling like a god for taking a pocket door off its track and feeling utterly intimidated by needing to eventually put it back on.




Went to claim kiddo’s prizes for doing library summer reading and walked away with four free admissions to the roller rink, an EXIT-brand puzzle gamebook, and a bunch of other stuff. Libraries are great.




A dehumidifier that we’ve been putting off taking to an appliance disposal dropoff—for months—decided to magically work for us after a late night fridge leak yesterday. Thanks, little guy. Don’t know what kind of karmic advance we had to call in for that, but I’m grateful.




Bien content que ma fille me fasse confiance pour traduire quelques mots fr français dans une épisode de My Little Pony.




Talking in the car about Unicode standards for emojis, like all daddy-daughter pairs.




Every game I bought myself for kiddo’s Switch has really only gotten playtime if kiddo has taken an interest in it.




Once again, ClassDojo shows how much of its business model is built on creating feelings of parental inadequacy.


image from

🔗 linkblog: Quand les vacances scolaires deviennent un casse-tête pour les parents



Cet été, j’ai beaucoup réfléchi sur combien mon travail de prof rend bien plus facile la vie de parent pendant les vacances scolaires.




Playing the Portal series with kiddo is going well, except that she is (understandably, tbh) freaked out by the Valve screen that appears when you first load it.




What kind of children’s performer has three different “no photos” reminders before the show even starts?




Kiddo’s Father’s Day card has been addressed to “Dr. Spencer Greenhalgh,” which is technically accurate but still feels off.




Has anyone ever tried Kagi’s Kid Mode? It sounds like a great idea but also ups the cost significantly, so I’d like to hear about experiences before deciding.




Every time I think my opinion of ClassDojo can’t get any worse, I discover (or am reminded of) another aspect of their grift.


image from



“What am I, made of jokes tonight?” - kiddo, after telling two admittedly good ones




So, uh, is my kid’s dream about a peanut butter fountain a good or a bad omen for all the hours we’re spending in the car today?




Road trip tomorrow, so downloading Portal to kiddo’s Switch to see if she’s old enough to enjoy it.


🍿 movieblog: A Minecraft Movie (❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤)



Man, I really wanted to like this movie. I’m glad kiddo enjoyed it, I did appreciate some of the Jared Hess vibes, and some of the visual design was pretty good, but this was just an excuse to make a bunch of Minecraft references in a movie, and I have never been more aware of green screens in my life.




Kiddo just apologized for being the “baron of bad news,” and that’s how we’re all going to say it from now on, okay?




Kiddo: wonders why I am talking about disabling predictive text on the iPad she’s using spouse: “well, Daddy is a monster who doesn’t even use autocorrect” me: “excuse me, I think you mean I’m a ‘mnoster’”




Kiddo is a wild mix of adventurous and picky when it comes to food. She does not want the unobjectionable ravioli the rest of us are eating, but she is powering through the too-spicy-for-her curry leftovers in the fridge.


🔗 linkblog: Open Letter to the Guy with “Dad” in His LinkedIn Headline



Bookmarking this so I can keep thinking about it.




My dad just now, describing the other guests coming to Easter dinner: “Oh, I’d say they’re about your age. You know, around [lists some ages a full decade younger than me].”




There was a Little Free Library just outside tonight’s restaurant, so kiddo’s working through a new book while we wait for food.




Setting up iMessage on an iPad for kiddo to use has immediately turned into Homestar Runner references, and I’m okay with that.


image from

🔗 linkblog: Parents Gently Explain To Child That Their Money In Heaven Now



This got a dark chuckle from me.




Love a 2:30am tornado warning family huddle in the pantry during a week where I was already not getting enough sleep.