Category: Alphabet Magic

After an hour of climbing the new play structure in an outdoor atrium, they raced around the small berms at Downtown Summerlin after the holiday light parade.

,
 

,
 

,
 

,
 

,
 

,
 

This was our first holiday season (almost) fully out of our shell. We’re still masked and not dining out, but rubbed lots of elbows these past few months.

We attended the Downtown Summerlin Halloween parade, trick and treated at Calstock Court, visited the Clark County Museum Heritage Holiday, stood in line for the illuminated cactus garden at Ethel M (overrated), and came back to the outdoor mall for their Christmas parade. I forgot how busy the holidays can be!

With time, I wonder how we will judge this four year hibernation¹.

It wasn’t all bad — before the pandemic we had tired of the dining scene, so we saved a ton of cash and learned how to cook white-people cuisine. We also successfully avoided COVID (so far).

But it wasn’t cheap. We worry how this long time might affect the kids. They seem fine, but are we deluding ourselves? Like everything else parenting, I guess we’re making shit up before we reap the whirlwind.

Best not to worry and just run some hills.

,
 

1. Check out Ayano Imai’s gorgeous book, While He was Sleeping. ↩︎

.

The boy is notorious at not doing his part of cleaning up. One Sunday, the girl figured out a hack, enticing him to help. They took videos of each other cleaning up — and played it backwards on the iPad to great hilarity. Viola! A clean playroom!

,
 

,
 

,
 

,
 

,
 

,
 

Our daughter had jaundice that kept us in the hospital an extra night after her birth.

Late into that third night, I walked around the ward in a sleep deprived haze. I suddenly realized that my parents were just making shit up as they went. I also realized that this was now my fate for the coming decades.

Maybe some parents know the answers; do they figure it out after the 3rd or fourth kid?

But I ain’t got no epiphany to share after almost ten years in this parenting game.

I’d love to think that I might have something to do with raising them right. But I suspect that our main job is to avoid traumatizing them and to avoid spoiling them. And to share cool stuff along the way.

Between those two wide bounds with that fuzzy directive, I wonder if we actually exert all that much influence over our kids.

Who knows, I’ve been making shit up all along the way.

.
 

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we went to the park to so they could ride their bikes. He proudly said knew how to ride a bike. I said, not really — I had taken the training wheels off his bike. He was unhappy about the change but made a go at it. Not perfect and couldn’t keep it up for a sustained period…but he did it!

In the month since, his skill has jumped with each trip to the park. He needs to learn how to brake, but it’s remarkable how quickly they pick things up!

,
 

,
 

,
 

,
 

,
  

,
 

I finished grad school in time to get slammed by the Great Recession. I avoided being laid off but dropped to 30 hours a week. I spent some of those extra 10 hours as regular at Cafe Brasil.

When things picked up, I still showed up on Friday mornings to sip an espresso before heading out to the office. I’d ponder the week that was almost complete and consider the coming weekend.

Normally these sessions wouldn’t result in any insight. I’d often just chat with another regular. But occasionally something would pop up. Once in a blue moon the “brilliant” idea might surprisingly turn out to actionable.

Unfortunately, adulting means outgrowing a loving parent who can disappear training wheels at the right moment. A distant second best may be regular semi-contemplative practice to reset the mind.

.

A few nights ago, kids brought Mommy Bear, Daddy Bear, and Adventure for my bedtime. They also gave me an old sweater to dress Daddy Bear. I put it on him this morning, brought in Bear Bear and took a family portrait.

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

,

This post is an example of why I am such a huge proponent of sharing your work online, again and again over time.

Can you see it? (Clue: I’ll keep original formatting on the previous alphabet.)

As I was setting this post up for this next round of images, I accidentally hit a comma instead of a period.

Of course! I always wanted an non-intrusive spacer, and what’s smaller than a period? But a period is a touch too insubstantial and carries weight as an ending. A comma is a tad bigger and actually means “pause”.

It took me six posts to figure this out….or sixty-one posts including my OPM letters, which used a ~ tilde. I could have never thought this up in the abstract.

A digital space of your own gives you the space to grow. It lets you experiment one step at a time. Just start! With something imperfect! Now!

And one day, the gods may grant you a flash of insight, possibly the perfect typo at the right time. But you gotta show up, again and again.

.

She balanced the spoon on the edge of her bowl and had me record it for posterity. In the meanwhile he snuck away from the table, most likely to google Pokémon while she read her ebook.

.

.

.

.

.

In the theme of “E”, shout out to Everyday Magic thread on Notes. Every Saturday Charlene Story starts a thread for people to share their beautiful mundane worlds. Here’s the one from last week.

Every few weeks, I collect my recent contributions for this blog series. While there, I wander through all the entries. It’s a great mental reset to walk the world through others’ eyes (and be jealous of everyone else’s luscious green landscapes!)

Starting a thread once a week might not seem like a big effort. But having blogged on a schedule, I know how hard it is to act consistently without fail over months, which is why I don’t blog on a schedule now!

So thanks again Charlene, for being our wonderful Everyday Magic host!

Ever since the got a Pikachu stuffie from the claw machine at the Primm Mural Gallery (formerly an outlet mall), they’ve been into Pokemon. He wanted a Pikachu and she drew an Eevee with a witches hat. Their lights from the jack-o-lanterns left a bold mark on the ceiling.

The unseasonably warm autumn meant that these poor pumpkins went mold in a couple of days. But still, it was a day of carving and a few good photos.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

That Pikachu might have been the most impactful dollar that we’ve spent (for good or ill). It’s turned into a costume, a change in TV habits. Pokemon Go has me walking in circles around the house to hatch eggs and the kids just forced me to try out the Pokemon Sleep tracking app. They’re constantly drawing different Pokemon when they aren’t playing. He’ll walk up and start talking about random creatures and evolutions, without no explanation or context (of course!)

I recently heard on the Cortex podcast that Pokemon may be the most successful IP of all time. It’s hard to argue from this household. Lord help us if we get into the TCG card game, or if we ever get a Nintendo.

I used up the last of the Waterman blue my dad gave me years ago. My guess is that this ink is half a century old. The boy helped me fill the cartridge so there’s three generations in this pen.

.

.

.

.

.

.

In my recent search for pens, I’ve tried up a bunch of cheap pens. It’s fun to explore each assemblage of plastic and steel.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, if I could only pick two it would be the Pilot Kakuno and Pilot Parallel. The Kakuno with an extra fine nib is a tight writing instrument, and the Parallel is a unique tool that is creates an expressive line and suited for calligraphy.

If I could to create a second pairing, the Sailor Fude Nib Pen is a similarly wide pen that goes great with the Sailor Compass. At $30, its twice as expensive as the other pens, but the build quality is noticeably better than cheaper pens.

After graduating college, I treated myself to a Pelikan M600 which now sells for about half a grand. Even accounting for the piston mechanism (that has survived two decades of neglect) and the butter smooth gold nib, I don’t see how the M600 is $470 better than the Compass.

As with many things in this world, the first few bucks makes a huge difference in quality. After that, the extra dollars only temporarily mollifies the ravenous criticism of a connoisseur.

We went to hallOVeen at the Magical Forest, a little amusement park that the non-profit Opportunity Village opens up for fundraising during the Halloween and Christmas holidays.

The kids enjoyed the Blizzard. Mama and I only lasted once each. So we let them sit together for another spin around and around and around and around and around…

.

.

.

.

.

The kids are growing up fast. Only yesterday, they needed us to play with them. Now they keep each other amused (when they aren’t arguing!). And she’s got books. The whole world on her Kobo with a Libby account. She’s read through the Harry Potter series at least twice and was Hermione this Halloween (he was Pikachu).

Right now they’re watching Harry Potter #2 downstairs. I can’t do it. I don’t have anything against the series. I was just old enough to miss the excitement over the series as it came out. We watched the first movie and it did nothing for me. And the thought of spending 283 minutes on the second film pains my soul.

I’ve never been good at entertainment if I wasn’t in the mood for it. I wish I could be a little less judgemental when watching TV, but instead I’m up here writing notes about my finicky media habits.

The kids helped Pikachu make a little candy shack, turned off the lights, and lit the room with a red plastic cup over a flashlight.

.

.

.

.

.

As the first letter of the alphabet I have a lot of A’s. There won’t be as many for future letters, and even less when I hit the numbers. But hey, let’s start with a bAng!

.

One of the best firm names I’ve come across is “Atelier One”, a British structural engineering company. Why? Cause I still remember it nineteen years after I saw them give a lecture at Rice. Can I remember anything they did? Nope. But what a sticky name to stay in my consciousness after all these years.