Now with more detail and split into National Curriculum subject areas as best I can manage (because I fail at reductionism and bureaucracy seems to fail at holism; with some luck perhaps we shall collide in a catalystic rather than confrontational manner somewhere in the middle, and bonus if this helps someone somewhere in some way). The players are an 8 year old boy, a 6 year old girl and a 4 year old boy. Bookwork (which includes using the computer programs) is officially done weekly and is tied to their pocket money, they can do extra for fun and profit, and they don’t get paid if they don’t do the work. The 4yo doesn’t get pocket money and isn’t required to do the bookwork though he will usually do some if everyone else is.

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] Last week and a bit have been slack and uncoordinated partially due to Easter and mostly due to the sleeping pattern going seriously out of whack resulting in myself and the kids going to bed way too late (me because I was staying up late to finish stuff off and also to make sure the bigs were asleep before turning out their light, and them because I have no idea).

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] Bit of a short week this week due to Labour Day public holiday, and also (or perhaps because of that) a little bit disorganised. We did the zoo on the weekend, spent Monday cleaning the house which was rather festy. We didn’t get around to doing maths bookwork but did some Minecraft related spatial stuff. 8yo’s writing is getting neater and he is growing in confidence writing lowercase. We’re getting less freakouts about inability to form letters and other such things. He’s been having nightmares again so I’ve suggested he turn them into stories. He’s not so sure about writing horror but he has started thinking about stories he might like to write, including a self-insert Pokemon fanfic. I’m hoping to develop him out of the Mary Sue stage while he’s still young, he seems to be starting to grasp the concept of balancing characters.

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] 8yo 8yo decided to do Khan Academy for maths, and happily worked through a few addition/subtraction stacks. After he giggled at me a few times for taking longer than he had to work out the problems, I told JJ that he could supervise at least 8yo’s maths from hereon (it won’t happen as I’ve said that a few times from about two thirds of the way through last year, and I’m still supervising everything except when I’ve asked JJ to supervise due to work). He didn’t watch any of the videos as he understood the basics behind the stacks and just needed some assistance with the 4 digit stuff.

Apparently there was a bit of a kerfuffle in the moderator department, which meant I completely forgot about the moderation until the new moderator rocked up on my door towards the end of my work period. Oops. Fortunately I work from home and can make up hours easy, and I hadn’t gone out to pick up my shiny new computer yet, though I had gotten dressed to do so. So all she saw was that my place is a mess, which is about normal and I don’t clean up for anyone!

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] 4yo likes experimenting in all media. Recently I let her have a go with Pixelmator and my Cintiq. This is what she came up with. Now I have to go to Carousel to get her more paints and a canbus.

Rapture and armageddon and all that are upon us, and as per usual JJ has taken the kids to 6yo’s Auskick game and I stayed home, trained the dogs (could have gone for another 5mins on top of what I did do but I got defeated by the cold) and ripped through an Anki session with a Lojban gismu deck. We know we’re not going anywhere.

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] I’ve been lusting after one of these since shortly after they first came out. This year, I finally had to retire my beloved Intuos3, partly because it was getting laggy and jittery in its old age after much use (it was a wedding present, wedding was 6 years ago), and partly because my toddler walked off with the pen and I haven’t seen it since. Following was angst over whether I should take the cheap simple upgrade to the Intuos4 or splash out and be broke for a while getting a Cintiq.

We hit up the Perth Zoo today, and I finally got around to getting the zoo membership passes. So now we can visit regularly without it costing an arm and a leg! We inadvertantly stayed there the whole day too. Maybe it was the cart. I’ve been avoiding going on the “adult and kids’ prices” days because it’s always packed out, on the other days it’s fine and we can always get a cart. Then the kids can hitch rides whenever they’re feeling a bit tired and we don’t end up walking over half the zoo before they’re complaining of being tired.

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] I recently hit three decades. I spent most of the actual day finishing up the coding for the site that’s going on the kiosk Sprat and I are doing for the Christmas Island Tourism Association and cleaning for the party on the following day. 4yo requested the whiteboard so I took it down for her, and little arty girl knocked herself out drawing on it. 6yo came in to me at one point asking how to write an F. I explained it as like an E but without the bottom line (and previously I’ve described the E as a backward 3 as that’s how he was writing it, just straighter). Later he very excitedly came out and asked me to come look at something he’d done for me.