Paul Davidson
Weeknotes 140: You’re the best buddy ever
Hi both of you. It’s been a minute. Now where were we?
Monday
Started the week with the continuation of the “say sorry” saga. Piglet is just too young to fully get that other internal worlds exist and she’s confused why she has to do it, but we’re working on her regardless. Perversely, we’re happy that she shows obvious signs of shame. We’re encouraging her that, by making the apology, the bad feelings will go away. We’re relaxed about it being words, sign or action as long as it’s not a punishment but a repair.
That all said, I failed in my attempts and she went to bed having not apologised and without a story or goodnight song. I was more upset about that than her.
Tuesday
I got my apology in the morning along with the start of a series of unprompted thank yous.
The Wee Free Man is too big now for his baby bath and he shared his first bath with his sister, much to everyone’s delight.
Wednesday
The Wee Free Man has started smiling at The Chef now too. Which is just as well, as his lack of sleep is liable to get him yeeted out of a window one night. It’s time for (limited) sleep training. Blech.
I ran the farewell quiz for a colleague moving sites. His Christmas quizzes have notable quality control issues1 and it was thoroughly enjoyable to make him go through it from the other side.
Apologies have already backfired; we’ve created the small child insincere sorry statement. Still, better than nothing. Right?
This thread about exciting RSS feeds is delightful from top to bottom.
Staying with the delightful, how good is this tune from my overly talented baby cousin? Stream it thousands of times please so she gets to go on the Gen-Z equivalent of TOTP.
Thursday
The Chef picked up a dinosaur Kura tent for Piglet’s bed. Late night while we waited on the endorphins falling back from stratospheric levels. They were already elevated from playing with Oscar (the tortoise, not the make-believe guinea pig) who we’re looking after while my folks are away.
Friday
The fiscal year is over. After too many hours fighting with our invoicing system, everyone got paid. I got to gloat in my annual performance review and received a “you’ve had a tremendous year” in return. To cap it off, the US are off celebrating moving out of home next week. I can feel the release. Tension can be hard to notice before you relax and realise how tightly everything was being held.
While I shouted at people about receipts, The Chef was playing in the park. Piglet in full pirate fancy dress and bossing the boat. The rain was only noticed by the over-4s.
Want to feel angry again? The Verge are picking at old scabs.
Saturday
Four years on from our last visit, we got some fresh hand and footprint baubles. It went significantly more smoothly than our attempts.
While eating bao buns we watched a dad opposite ignore his child as he tried to send a message. He paid the condiment price as the toddler managed to season the entire table. Banished to the buggy while he finished.
The school fair last year was an “oooh isn’t this fun and interesting” experience, whereas this year was spent bumping into friends and having chats. Getting to knock over a traffic cone with a fire-hose was pretty fun too.
Sunday
Return of Dad Club. Trampolining this time. The gentle peer pressure still works and all of the we’ens threw themselves off the highboard into the foam pit. We had no plans after, so everyone barreled back to ours. Manic. And with the inevitable tears from pseudo-sibling fallings out, but nothing lunch couldn’t fix.
Oscar was touted around by an overly proud Piglet. The kids enjoyed it, but it was the dads who went full high-pitched delight.
The Wee Free Man has justified his lack of sleep by playing with the baby gym. Consciously grabbing and holding the musical tags to switch tunes. Tried to eat them too, but that’s just his prerogative.
For 1 point, if a cricket chirps 30 times in 14 seconds, what is the temperature?↩︎