Weeknotes 171: The wary vet was very wet

Things said, things read, things heard.

• Oh, I’m a pathetic twerp.
• She’s so kind she makes people glow.
• Do you know, if you went to the Sahara Desert, you’d be absolutely… toasty!
• Drugs tonight. He’s been pulling that ear all day.
• The neighbours have just messaged to say the boys are watching me dance.
• I love school. It’s, it’s, it’s… my favourite.
• Daddy, this is the night you have a good dream!
• I was just unscrewing the dustcap when valve shot across the hallway.
• Can I have a shower instead?
• He’s a bit of a shameless flirt, so just let me know if I need to take him off you.
• It was definitely more push than pat.
• Oaoooeoahhaooeooohh!
• Total window madness
• Ah, I have time to microwave my coffee now.
• For a pure mixture, pH is just the square root of the pKa.
• Do you ever wonder if people, given his size, look at him and think you’ve got a really stupid toddler?
• Can you sleep in my room, Daddy?
• I’m like a catter-pillow, crawling along comfortably.
• (In sign) More, more!
• This kitty has a black sock.
• I’ll hide in the bushes and you be the scary creditor looking to eat me.
• Why is that lady covered in mud?
• I think we’re saying, let’s do it.

Weeknotes 170: Part, part, whole.

I occasional bang on about Morning Pages and their role as an alternative to therapy for me. But they really are. Minor Monday Morning Misgivings™ in the shower nipped in the bud before they could bloom. Settled on four causes; holiday prep, lack of exercise, a new work role and over-tiredness.

1. Holiday Prep

We’re out of practice sorting holidays, but we’ve slowly rediscovered our system. The Chef starts with huge amounts of research for which I’m forever grateful. Then we sit together on the couch with a browser window, OneNote and bottomless cups of tea. OneNote fills up with blue pen for ideas. In between pees¹, the blue changes to black as we get things booked in. And the panic recedes as we remember it’s going to be amazing. This blog has helped immensely.

Related, if you’re a couple I posit one of you files and the other abandons². Unfortunately for our Visa application, I’m the filer and The Chef is the abandoner. I needed to find one (1) passport whereas she needed a nationalisation certificate, three passports, deed poll and birth certificate. So that was a fun week hunting. We have everything now though.

2. Lack of Exercise

Flu and Christmas knocked me out of my jogging habit. And it took writing it down to realise I could just, well, go for a jog. So I did. Chatting with my mate and he’s hit our target and it may have made me head out too fast for a first session back. I was like an accordion full of rocks being dropped down the stairs the next morning.

3. Work Stuff

My half-year review basically said, “You’re fine. This one is a free hit but don’t use it that way. You’re middle management now and have to do management with the technical stuff. Get over yourself, stop whining and JFDI.” Fair feedback. I did have a little soapbox moment about not calling people resources.

4. Tiredness

This really is the section for the kids, bless ’em. Me and The Chef were eyeballing each other one morning, full of recrimination, “why did you get to skive when I was up so much?” before we realised we’d both done the full night and the Wee Free Man’s longest stretch of sleep was 30 minutes. Now he’s got five teeth.

The next night Storm Isha keened outside the window, close enough in sound to the Wee Free Man that we again failed to sleep.

Things improved over the course of the week, but even if they hadn’t, they’re more than worth it. The Wee Free Man has an incredibly cute anticipatory laugh. Belly laughs if he knows cheese is in his future. And a full dictionary of raspberries: Tongue in, displeasure; Tongue out, joy; When eating, spotted something tastier; Pressed against someone else, play to make them laugh.

He did puke in my face during disco in the dark mind.

Piglet has been showing a general dislike of hobbies this week. Four feels too young for us to switch from practical to emotional support? But she’s getting herself dressed and can suddenly reach all of the light switches. More than once before bed she’s asked if I can just lie by her for a bit. The clichés are true: it all happens too fast.

Come the weekend and we were living the middle-aged dream. We’d farmed Piglet out to her grandparents so we could get on with jobs around the house. Oh yeah. Piglet announced on arrival that she wasn’t getting out of her pyjamas for the weekend—a recurring theme—and that they were to watch movies and eat popcorn. It’s good to be clear in what you want. Meanwhile we cracked on fixing the front door, tidying the garden and—shock! horror!—hoovering every room. Felt justified in treating ourselves to an evening of relaxation; games for The Chef and FA Cup with bath beers for me.

We offered to cook Sunday Roast for Grandma and Granddad to say thank you, but Grandma was having none of it, preferring to host to give us a few extra hours on Sunday to do the back garden. There’s a kind of therapy to a Sunday where you do three rounds of dishes too.

The roast was great, capping a week of good food³. Weight loss is input more than output and I’m consistently losing two kilos through the week and putting two back on at the weekend. Through the worst of the Post-Christmas shrinking of our bellies back to accepting the recommended number of calories for a human adult human, rather than bison levels. Piglet didn’t join us. Too ill. We’ve had an email about slapped cheek. Maybe those emotional days were coloured by illness, at least in part.

Not sure where to put my music link this week, so it’s going here: Iechyd Da (via Hicks). And on music, RIP Neil. Your lambasting of Britpop is a constant re-read. Humour, anger and great taste; everything needed for a cricket.

The Wee Free Man is still not crawling, although now we have some reversing and a comfortable line in sitting up from a lie down.

Weeknotes 169: Gigantonormous

The Week started with Piglet offering me one of her vitamins so that I could be nice and strong for a day of pseudo-pat leave with the Wee Free Man. The Chef was off to Wetherby for a spa day with Uni friends. If you thought that meant sticking on Braids while he napped and attempting to setup up a Linux server on top of a kitchen cupboard using an old netbook and a 4 TB hard-drive, you’d be right. Sadly, 32-bit Linux is too old for Jellyfin and I quit that route and spent some vouchers on a Raspberry Pi. Surprisingly easy to sort when it arrived. I’ve now got a steady rip-transcode-share DVD workflow and all our DVD are available on the TV. WITHOUT WIRES. It went so well that I’m looking for other little projects to run through it. Hit me up Rapsberry Pi enthusiasts¹.

The only moment’s sadness we had all day was when I closed the front door. His heart breaks every time we don’t head out. Up there with having his toothbrush taken away as the worst of life’s injustices.

A relaxed Chef opened an impromptu daycare on Tuesday with extra children arriving at our house for reasons. Wee Free Man thrilled to have play buddies.

I took one glance at the frost and snow and decided to work from home. After last week’s mini-rant, I checked out Giles’s archive and nabbed a few things to better articulate my arguments. It worked more than acceptably and I felt compelled to buy him a tree. I’m sticking with a sort-of New Year’s Resolution to watch more nerdy videos and read at least one academic paper a week in the optimisation space too. Trying out ChatGPT to help. It’s been great for summarising abstracts and explaining technical jargon with examples, but it feels the same way as I do about the more gnarly maths in most of the papers. A sassy refusal to remember anything post-GCSE.

This one isn’t a nerdy video (YMMV), but how good is the phrase, “I have no writer’s block, but I have tremendous reader’s block”? That is my writing problem in a nutshell. Prolix in the first draft² and then a blank refusal to go back and edit. There’s a resolution in there if I ever go back to read it.

I’m unsure, but the sound-mixing for Bluey is different on Disney+ versus iPlayer? The treble sounds higher on the Beeb and I can hear the characters without jamming the TV up to 30. I’m hitting middle-age though, so it’s possible I’m imagining all of this.

On the topic of sound mixing, the Wee Free Man has a crocodile xylophone that I’m sure is tuned to the minor key. It’s an achingly wistful row row row your boat.

In Piglet’s world, she did her first colour by numbers to spec this week. She usually chafes against the dogma but this time, as a treat to herself, wanted to see what happened if she followed the rules. We’ve not seen a repeat.

Mid-week, while doing bath penguins³, she stopped singing the Demi Lovato version of Frozen⁴ to inquire, “Does your anus have a ring? You know, like Saturn.”

Friday night ballet has strong, small, pink girl-energy. Drama and ballet are proving more of a hit than rugby.

By close of business for the week we were playing the, “Is it foot and mouth? Is it impetigo? Is it something else?” game. Can hardly wait to find out!

Fellow parents, why is it, after a week of waking them up for school, your kid is standing too close to your sleeping face asking to play before dawn on a Saturday? The extra kicker is her declaration that she has no intention of getting out of her pyjamas for the day. Looking forward to nicer weather and kicking her out of the house more often.

Better itinerary for Sunday. An early swim with her BFF, followed by lunch at theirs. I think she was invited? Then on to a classmate’s party. Before Grandma and Granddad’s for tea. It was all we could do to stick her back into (clean) pyjamas and yeet her into the bed.

Wee Free Man is still not crawling. To encourage we keep leaving things out of reach, but Piglet keeps reflexively moving them closer with a big smile and reassuring noises.

Weeknotes 168: Your singing hurts my tummy

The most saccharine moment of the week came right at the end when settling Piglet for bed.

“Daddy, my favourite bit of today was the big squishy cuddle off you”
“When was that?”
“Just now. Get over here.”

D’awww. And day to the beginning of the week’s night. After a meltdown over being behind in a game of bingo (not losing, just being behind), she demanded no story or song before bed. I’m confident the books will return¹, but the bedtime song is reaching its natural end. We knew this day would come, but it’s sad all the same. With her new hair and starting drama and ballet clubs it’s all a bit my-baby-is-growing-up in the house.

She’s obviously got some way to go. Her strategy of saying “don’t look” when doing something naughty is audacious, if not effective.

The (comparatively) smaller one has had a very up and down week. His fourth tooth is out and he managed to sleep through as a result. Shame my watch chose that night to go mad with fake notifications. We expected a cheerful fella as a result, but he was disgruntled all day. Now that blowing them is fun, he’s replaced the Raspberry of Reproach with the Ning Ning Ning Ning of No-stop-it-now.

It was all an undetected sign of day zero illness. His snot and cough picked up over the week and by Friday he’d given it to The Chef and I was co-sleeping in the daybed in his room. A first for him and a throwback to doing the same with his sister.

All of which is taking it out of The Chef too. While waiting for CommuniKids with the Wee Free Man, some nearby ladies offered a stage whispered, “I’m glad ours aren’t that age any more. It’s so hard. And she looks so tired.”

Little did they know it wasn’t all the Wee Free Man’s fault. We’re booking Ryokan for our stay in Japan and, by God, we’re out of practice. It took us four sittings. We have the asterisk of bookus interuptus as he kept crying out for drugs and cuddles during each session, but still. On the plus side, we’ve booked one! For two nights. Just the remainder of the 5 weeks to book now.

I’m doing moderately better at work. The upshot of being promoted is that I’ve started the new year with a big old pile of “opportunities.” One is to sort out the internal comms strategy for a few related projects. Which was all the opening I need to say WEEKNOTES slightly too quickly and loudly. The two people I’m working it with prefer some kind of AI chatbot automated update piece. But I figure if we can’t be arsed to write them, why should anyone be arsed to read them. It can help us on lazy weeks for a bit of inspiration, but I’m firmly of the opinion that they shouldn’t be writing them. That’s what the human do.²

I’m putting this productive bent down to the fact that, when I got it out of the garage after Christmas, there was still air in the bike tires. The end of that sorry saga. Happily, there was also still air in me when I got to work too. Grain mother in the ears. A nice steady 100-120 bpm heart rate. Crisp sunshine. Perfect.

Football less so. According to my watch I spent 10 minutes of the hour at my limit. Heading home I ruminated on quitting. It’s been too long since I had a good game, even by my own low standards and I’m a liability to whichever team gets lumbered with me. Going to stick it out to the nicer weather, in case it’s just the cold, dark nights talking.

Cycling home in said dark nights without segregated lanes is an ever-evolving experience of dismay. At one point a car was driving towards me on the wrong side of the road and showing no signs of slowing down. Just as I started to make evasive maneuvers and pluck out my most choice French I spotted it was Lǎolao behind the wheel. Her driving is infamous within the family for a reason. She’s one of two teetotalers I know to be erroneously pulled over for drink driving.

We were graced by a visit from my sister at the weekend. Up from Dorset for the weekend and she got to spend an excellent day covered in small child germs while both kids performed for their auntie. Piglet was happy to spend the day playing in pyjamas, whereas the Wee Free Man barked with hope every time he got near a window or the front door. Once he’s mobile we won’t see much of him.

Sunday was the first Dad Club outing of the year. Trampolines. We’re starting to see the boy vs. girl split already. Desiring dodgeball vs. pretending to be bouncy sea animals. Piglet’s girlfriend came round after for continued dress up and make believe play. Not her boyfriend’s scene any more.

We spent the afternoon crafting, cooking, watching telly, reading and singing. The Chef dozed away her cold and everyone was tucked up asleep before 8 pm. How did I spend my rare evening alone? By giving the guinea pig a haircut, doing dishes and mopping. I’m fun at parties, I promise.

He’s still not crawling.

Weeknotes 167: Where is your ball of hair at the moment?

2024 started like 2023 ended—on holiday, ensconced in family and panda-like in our lounging. Albeit with different haircuts than we started the week with, but more on that later.

Piglet got to play up to all her heroes on New Year’s Eve and was so pumped she had to be put to bed four times. More of an endurance feat for the adults. When we woke, Grandma stuck her head in and offered to take the kids so we could both lie in. Golly gosh. Our post-fry up lolling about curtailed by a change in Piglet’s energy to a go-outside-or-murder-her mood. Luckily for her we chose to walk along the seafront. Grandma and Granddad are used to knocking it out in 30 minutes, but Piglet stretched it to a healthy two hours by finding interesting sticks and benches.

We’d have loafed about there all day, but the start of the year is also Lǎolao’s birthday and we weren’t missing out on hot pot. They’ve set the spare room up with beds for both kids. Piglet was beyond excited. Even more so as she put up hundreds of wall stickers. Again, she was too pumped and had to, eventually, be moved to Lǎolao’s room to get any sleep.

We built the next day around a solid core of supine laziness. The intention was to buy tickets for Japan and China, but I’d left the passports at home.

Spent the rest of the week at home with our lovely, lovely, perfect bed. Lying in it we could see the goldfinches feeding on the birch.

Flights got booked that evening. We’re going baby! Bagged the bassinet row for an infant who’s certainly going to be too big for one. To celebrate, I fixed Jellyfin so we can watch Ghibli movies before we go. Piglet tried leaving bed while we were booking and we shut that nonsense down. She generally gets three warnings. The first covers accidents. The second is most likely malice on her part. The third is when the repercussions land. Got her in bed in two.

Like everyone else, I enjoyed the 45 year old face of a 16 year old darts player. For reasons, the Cricket Dads Away Day is likely to feature no cricket this year. I found a trip to combine the arrows and the Euros, but it’s on Piglet’s 5th birthday weekend and I’m not sure she’d appreciate a drunken video-call from a lederhosen-clad dad in lieu of actually being there.

While the girls were at The Three Bears me and the Wee Free Man watched Baby Club. If I want to recreate his delight noise Jurassic Park-style when he’s grown, I’m going to need a budgie and a spaniel. Related, he’s learned how to stick his tongue out while blowing raspberries and it’s fair to say he’s delighted by this development.

He’s also rejoined the polite society and is back on the growth charts. A svelte 98th centile. Not that you’d be able to tell from his weaning. Smashing food without regard to stomach size. He’ll be weaned before we head on holiday.

We donated to Daft as a Brush after a wonderfully over the top fireworks show at their Christmas light switch off. Dark skies are back now. We continue to stay up too late playing games and reading. Daytime naps fill the deficit. I’ve bought a cheap mouse to replace a cheaper mouse that doesn’t work to make things easier. Small wins for the big wins. Of which there’ll be more about in Yearnotes when I get round to them.

As I was off, I got to go to CommuniKids with the Wee Free Man, ably abetted by Piglet. Baby classes are inherently fun. Headed to the play cafe in the late afternoon for grub and accidental booze. We were joined by the neighbours friends¹. The kids all twerking to Britney was fabulous.

Music this week is courtesy of the algorithm. I’d not heard of Khurangbin, but Anh shared them in her Top 5, so I figure they’re real enough.

The final Saturday before work was spent cajoling Piglet out of pyjamas to head out. Reader, it did not work. We ended up doing animal impression photos and drawing the animals on top with the markup tool. Followed that up byindoctrinating her in her first Tyne-Wear derby. It started with, “Wow! He kicked the ball!” and finished with cheering the “good guys” and booing the “bad guys” for cheating. Got told off by The Chef for that. Made up for it with a fillet of beef which was, even if I do say so myself, woof. Earned my chicken drumstick.

Piglet asked me what wise meant while reading one of her stories. I floundered that it’s using your head and your heart together. If doesn’t really work; it’s more using your head for a long time, but it’s led to a series of cute explanations that she’s using this (points to chest) and this (points to head) before she does anything.

Which made her curious decision when we got home from swimming² and the cafe even more curious. A stage that, apparently, all small girls go through. She headed off for an afternoon nap (it’s been the season) and when I popped in to check on her she wasn’t there. A brief search turned her up in our bathroom shouting, “Don’t come in!” When she emerged she had a ball of hair in her hand—her secret treasure—and a big grin. We don’t have scissors in that bathroom, so she’d spent half an hour diligently chopping with cuticle scissors.

I’ve not changed my style in 20+ years. The Chef ummed-and-ahhed for nigh on a month before cutting hers. Piglet told us she was going for a nap, snuck out and chopped with abandon. The Chef helped tidy it up in the evening and she’s got a really rather cute bob now. And the Little Princess Trust get some hair out of it.

The Wee Free Man still isn’t crawling.

Weeknotes 166: You’re a predator

#Backlog

Weeknotes 165: A robot horse body and a human head

#Backlog

Weeknotes 164: He’s my bestest boy

#Backlog