Anxious but trying spouse and dad. Trying (and sometimes even succeeding!) to introduce my kid to bikes, games, books, French, and more.

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🍿 movieblog: ❤️🖤🖤🖤🖤 for Firedrake the Silver Dragon



This movie knows that it’s a pale imitation of How to Train Your Dragon, but the lampshading is half-hearted, the story and dialogue are weak, and the performances feel like cash grabs. On top of that, it seems to go out of its way to include some casual racism just to make sure it doesn’t hold together. What a disappointment.



Update: I’ve been a Kentuckian for 20+ years, but my first time watching the Kentucky Derby was just meh. So much wealth invested in a race that I didn’t really find interesting. Looking forward to family Eurovision next Saturday, though!



We signed up for a month of Peacock so that we could watch the Kentucky Derby today and Eurovision next Saturday. I’m sure that says something about our family, but I couldn’t say exactly what.



I was a big fan of Homestar Runner in the early-to-mid 2000s, but I’m still baffled by how into it kiddo has gotten over the past few months.



When I was kiddo’s age, Pokémon didn’t exist yet, so there’s something that breaks my brain about her current enthusiasm for the franchise.



Kiddo last night: “please let me sleep in on Saturday!” Kiddo this morning: wakes up earlier than she does on a school day.



If ClassDojo can send me “hey, check the new content in ClassDojo” emails, it could also send me that content in the email itself, so that I never have to open the app. Too bad it’s too dedicated to walled gardening.



Kiddo has EXTREMELY low standards for a pronouncement of “Best Daddy Ever,” but I’m grateful for it nonetheless.



Kiddo is excited to be signed up for soccer, so we’ve spent time kicking her new ball around the past two nights. I’m surprised by how much is coming back to me, given that I haven’t played in ~15 years and that I’ve never been good.



Kiddo is complicating our errand to buy her soccer stuff by insisting on hugging all the mannequins in the sports store.



I hurt myself on a pizza cutter last night—but not even on the blade? Somehow that last detail is absurd enough that I’m more upset about that than the injury itself.

🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Sky High



By the time this movie came out in 2005, I was already deep into superhero media, and I love using recycled tropes to tell an interesting story. This does an excellent job, and it was a favorite for my whole family when it came out. (In fact, I hadn’t remembered until rewatching it that one of my family’s shared verbal tics comes from a running gag involving Ron Wilson, Bus Driver).



Another Saturday, another bout with guilt and anxiety sparked by my general ignorance of home maintenance.



One of our newest family traditions is kiddo watching a Homestar Runner video during her bedtime snack while I do some dishes and see how many of the lines I still remember verbatim.



I think one of the most endearing nerdy things about our marriage is how in our texts, we still use the Can Haz language from the meme culture of when we first met.



One of kiddo’s library books right now is part comic and part choose your own adventure, all wrapped up in a solo TTRPG adventure. It’s a bit too old for her, but we’re both loving it.

📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for The Handbook to Lazy Parenting, by Guy Delisle



I’m a big fan of Delisle’s comics, but in the past, I’ve skipped his series on parenting. This morning, though, a friend visiting Brussels offered to bring me back a copy of Delisle’s « Chroniques de Jeunesse », so when I went to the library later in the day, I couldn’t help but pick up something else he’s done. His art is great, and his stories are funny and sweet. My only complaint is that I couldn’t read the original French edition (though I should be glad Kentucky libraries carry the English translations!



Jon Sciezka and Julia Rothman’s “The Real Dada Mother Goose” is a real delight. It’s not often that kiddo checks out books that are homages to Dada, Oulipo, and other things I studied as a French major.



The pure joy kiddo showed when getting her first library card was exactly what I needed just now.

🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Strange World



I enjoyed this movie, so I kind of want to give it four hearts. The visuals were interesting, it tackled important themes, and I appreciated its board game love and its leaning in to pulp sci-fi weirdness and just not caring. The more I think about it, though, the more I remember its clunkiness, the way it often moved too quickly, and the lazy bits. I liked it, and I’m glad we watched it as a family, but I doubt it would hold up over time.



I have never needed to write a recursive function in any of my (admittedly quite limited) professional programming, but when messing with kiddo’s robot today, I remembered the concept from a Java class in college and pulled it off in block programming. Pretty happy with that.



Today, kiddo is rediscovering her set of Story Cubes. I had forgotten her insistence that the comedy and tragedy masks on one cube face are actually Grey-style aliens.



Kiddo’s uncle is teaching her the Pokémon TCG, which is pretty delightful.



My reputation as an uncle is increasingly becoming associated with tabletop RPGs, and I’m not upset about that at all.



In the Greenhalgh home, Mommy’s been sick for over a week, which means Daddy’s not gotten a lot of work done recently. Final grades are due tomorrow, though, so kiddo might get a lot of screen time today.

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Lexington & KY reports more than high flu cases this season | Lexington Herald Leader'



Oh, so this is why my family’s gotten rocked by flu the past five days. link to ‘Lexington & KY reports more than high flu cases this season | Lexington Herald Leader’



Our family does NOT have a ’too many books’ problem. We may, however, have a ’not enough bookshelves’ problem.



Boosted kiddo’s motivation to help put away the dishes by convincing her to think of it as a magic trick (making the dishwasher’s contents ‘disappear’). Boosted my own by remembering it’s now legal to play Mannheim Steamroller Christmas music around the house.



Feeling better today, so we’re joining the family Thanksgiving gathering about 20 hours later than planned. Looks like our holiday plans will retain their general shape despite yesterday’s disruption.



Woke up feeling lousy, so now I get to spend the next few hours figuring out if it’s the sort of thing we need to update (i.e., cancel) our Thanksgiving travel plans for.



‘Kiddo, I’m glad you’re a part of our family.’ ‘… the weirdest family?’ I will never tire of her developing sense of humor.



Looking at the haul of new library books in our living room today, I realized that we’re both a family that buys a lot of books and a family that saves huge amounts of money thanks to the library.



Kiddo is coming with me to class this afternoon, which is fun—but complicated by the fact that my lecture today is the most controversial and ‘adult’ of the semester for this class. Still, maybe a kid will have important insight on controversies surrounding content moderation?



Kiddo after waiting and watching patiently while I filled out ballot at early voting: ‘I have to admit, that was pretty fun!’



My parents are hosting (almost) everyone from my big family for Thanksgiving this year. Given growing numbers of food preferences and restrictions among us, I wonder whether we’ll have a big inclusive-but-non-traditional Thursday feast or whether dinner gets balkanized.



Using the Stardew Valley soundtrack as a chores anthem seems to get kiddo more excited (or at least less resentful) about helping out around the house.