Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “parenting”
- kudos:
On one hand, doing replacing snow days with “non-traditional instruction” feels performative and inequitable, and I don’t think I like it. On the other, if kiddo isn’t going to have school tomorrow, I don’t necessarily mind her having things to keep her occupied while I do some work.
- kudos:
Two minutes into her first experience with a main-series Pokémon game, kiddo realized she could name her rival “Chicken,” so I’d say we’re off too a good start.
- kudos:
Update: Kiddo’s learning binary led to bedtime stories being partially replaced by a discussion on how number systems work, binary and hex, and how Daddy used to pass notes encoded in base 3 to his best friend in middle school.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Adventuregame Comics 2: The Beyond, by Jason Shiga
- kudos:I’ve been meaning to read (play?) this for months, ever since we bought it for kiddo after she recovered from being sick. Today, she’s sick again, so we went through it together. This continues to be a great series by Shiga! I might like the first one more, but only slightly. The Beyond is surprisingly thinky for a kid’s book, has interesting puzzles, and there’s a hidden ending that I know exists but need to figure out.
- kudos:
I love knowing that there’s a webcomic-to-children’s-book IP pipeline out there. Gives me some hope for humanity.
- kudos:
Kiddo’s awesome “advent calendar of magic” is prominently advertised as a STEM toy, and that’s been bugging me. Not because it isn’t true, but because things don’t need to be STEM to be valuable.
- kudos:
Spouse and I have been using French to talk about Christmas presents in front of kiddo. Tonight, I got to hear spouse refer to “monsters of the pocket” so that kiddo wouldn’t recognize “Pokémon” in the middle of an otherwise incomprehensible-to-her sentence.
- kudos:
For orthodontic reasoms, kiddo has to brush teeth after eating basically anything, and we usually double check after each brushing. This just happened while I was making myself some chai, so she complained my fingers tasted like tea when I was poking them in her mouth.
- kudos:
Kiddo gets scared by even the mildest of spooky things, but she also loves the “jibblies” monster from Homestar Runner and does imitations of it where she says legitimately creepy things, and I don’t know how to reconcile those.
- kudos:
Did early voting on Saturday, so I guess my civic contribution for today is giving kiddo extra screen time while her school is being used as a polling place.
in praise of 'dad friends'
- kudos:I have a “dad friend” I see most afternoons as we’re waiting for our kiddos to get out of school. He walks his kid home every day, and I either walk home or bike home with kiddo (a lot of walking recently because weather and a broken bike have been getting in our way). So, we hang out where all the walking parents hang out and chat for a few minutes before heading home.
- kudos:
Kiddo has reached the “I want to read while you buy a few groceries, please steer me so I don’t walk into anyone” stage of bookwormdom.
- kudos:
It’s one of those Saturdays where I step out of the shower, and kiddo has left me a secret message in hieroglyphics to decipher.
- kudos:
When my sister was in town last week, kiddo insisted on drawing her a surprisingly accurate diagram of how data gets transferred over the internet, so I brought it into the office for the next time I have to teach it.
- kudos:
Because we have a library science program, my dept. often gets sample books from publishers that faculty can take for free. Today, kiddo is with me at work, and one of the new sample books just happens to be a long graphic novel from an author she likes. Serendipity is great.
- kudos:
Someone let us go to our local indie bookstore the week that kiddo is recovering from a rough semi-allergic reaction, so now she has a bunch of new stuff to read, and we have a lot more loyalty points.
- kudos:
Kiddo just responded to an instance of sexism in the past with a sarcastic “thanks, history!” and I think this should become a standard answer.
🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 pour Le Petit Nicolas
- kudos:Je dis pas que c’est un chef d’oeuvre, mais ça faisait plusieurs années depuis la dernière fois que j’ai regardé ce film, et on s’est bien amusé, ma fille et moi. Ça donne envie de lire les livres.
- kudos:
Je regrette ne pas avoir réussi (pour le moment) à enseigner le français à ma fille, mais ça reste utile pour parler en secret avec mon épouse.
- kudos:
This is apparently the second August in a row I’ve complained on here that I’d much rather pay higher taxes than deal with another school fundraiser.
how is this more preferable than taxes?
- kudos:Kiddo’s school is contracting with a company called Booster to raise $78,000 for new technology for the school. U.S. schools are, of course, underfunded, and I’m generally in favor of getting more money into their bank accounts. I have a number of concerns about this fundraiser, though, and it’s making me grumpy. what “technology”? I have a PhD in educational technology, which means two things in this context. First, I’m very aware of the fundamental—and often useful—role that technology plays in learning, so I’m not opposed to updating the tech in kiddo’s school.
caffeine
- kudos:I grew up not drinking tea or coffee because of religious convictions—a habit that ultimately stayed with me longer than those convictions! Over the course of the two years I spent as a Mormon missionary, I taught a number of people that (among other things) they should adopt the same convictions and also give up tea and coffee. One of the most interesting lessons on this subject I had was with Jonathan.
- kudos:
Last day of kiddo’s summer, so no matter how behind I am on course prep, we are unapologetically going to the zoo.
- kudos:
Does anyone have experience arranging for language lessons for kids? I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m reasonably competent as a French teacher and as a dad, but not the combination of the two.
des crêpes proustiennes
- kudos:Ma fille aime bien les crêpes au Nutella, et ça fait un petit moment qu’on n’en a pas fait. Comme elle est malade depuis quelques jours, c’était le bon moment ce soir de reprendre cette petite tradition. En mangeant ma première crêpe, j’ai été rempli d’un tas de souvenirs, comme si c’était la madeleine de Proust. Je n’ai pas envie d’écrire sept tomes sur le sujet, mais pourquoi pas un petit blog ?
- kudos:
I don’t like the card game War as a game, but I’m increasingly appreciative of it as a way to spend time with kiddo.
- kudos:
We decided to stuff this weekend full (early anniversary dinner and movie, then visit to friends across the state, then family visit to water park) so naturally kiddo tested positive for COVID-19 tonight.
- kudos:
I don’t want to contribute to the misconception that professors don’t work during the summer (which is hilariously false), but I’m really glad I took advantage of my nine month contract by prioritizing time with kiddo these last few months.
- kudos:
Quand ma fille demande du pain grillé pour le petit-déjeuner, je pense souvent à une affiche publicitaire Migros des années 2000 où un papa un peu crétin fait des courses en se demandant « Des toasts et quoi encore ? »
how does a churchgoing agnostic talk about religion with his kid?
- kudos:This summer, I’ve taken advantage of my 9-month contract with the University of Kentucky to have lots of adventures with kiddo while my spouse (who has a 12-month contract) continues at her job. It’s been a real delight! A couple of Fridays ago, we drove to Danville, a town in Central Kentucky where I spent a summer as a high schooler but haven’t been back to since. We bought her a book, me some amazing chocolate mint tea, and had a great time exploring fun shops and public art in adorable downtown Danville.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Adventuregame Comics 1: Leviathan, by Jason Shiga
- kudos:I don’t remember how I first discovered Jason Shiga, but I do remember working my way through his interactive puzzle comic Meanwhile one summer, some of it while purportedly completing an internship. Meanwhile is one of the first comics I added to my collection and one of the few of my early acquisitions that I still have. Anyway, all of that is to say that when I saw this comic in the new children’s books area at a local library, I immediately grabbed it.
- kudos:
In further proof that stereotypical plots in children’s media often have some truth to them, kiddo was dreading going to summer camp this morning but wished this afternoon that she didn’t have to leave.
- kudos:
Grateful to have a spouse who thinks I like ginger way more than a person should but still buys dark chocolate ginger cookies because she knows I’ll like them. She and kiddo tried them, but I’m the only one who appreciates the burn.