Two kids and a remodel, Still together, A big anniversary. (Another quiet day)
I worked at the office. Rushed to the community center. The girl checked out a theater class. (The boy quickly lost interest)
Crossed the street, Passed through a skate park, The four of us ran around. (Inside the bowl)
At the playground, He swung slowly, She crossed the monkey bars. (I did a couple pull-ups)
Heading home, Watched teens at the skate park. Backflips on scooters! (Dangerous)
She cooked a late dinner. Penne and sauce, Sardines, cucumbers, onions, and artichoke hearts. (I stole most of a celebratory soda)
The kids pressured mom, “Make a cake!” Too late. (9:00)
They ran off, I cleared the table, Celebrated again. (We split a surreptitious popsicle)
We outlasted: The reception venue (Firefly now Nacho Daddy) The wedding venue (Bonnie Springs, demolished) The rehearsal dinner venue (HK Star and its many replacements)
Nothing is guaranteed, I’m grateful things have worked out. On to the next decade. (Hoping for more quiet days)
It started innocently, pushing the boy around the house on the tricycle. To mix it up, I counted down from ten and took off like a rocket.
The girl heard him laughing and wanted to join the fun.
The boy didn’t want to share but learned that half is better nothing when we stopped playing with him.
We started zooming across the floor, again and again.
While waiting for her turns, my daughter started riding their plasma car. She wove between the scattered trampoline, tent, and slide. With this spark, we pushed and pulled the furniture to create a second ride that weaved through the living room and kitchen.
Disneyland at Home.
The Plasma Boat Cruise was a figure-8 circuit. It started with a leisurely River of Animals, passed the Drawing Station and slid underneath the (dining) Table Mountain, next to the Aladdin’s Cave (tent). It rolled through the Cooking Zone and Frozen Land, looped through the Furniture Alley (with the trampoline, slide, reading chair, and ottoman), baked through the Sun Canyon next to the patio door, flowed through the Gorge of Chairs, dug under the Snow Tunnel and we were back at the beginning.
In the meantime, the Rocket would take off. When the Cruise had ended, the tricycle would be ready to go again. The riders would switch and do it all over again.
This wasn’t the real thing. But the kids had fun, and I ate a tastier (and much cheaper) home-cooked breakfast before heading upstairs for work.
My daughter was playing hospital with all their stuffed animals lined up on the bed.
She wrote up a check-in form and asked me to make a few copies, assuming we’d do it by hand.
I told her I was going to do it on the computer. So she sat next to me as I fired up the machine and laid it out in Bluebeam. Bluebeam isn’t really a desktop publishing platform, but it works well enough.
After we were happy with the layout, we printed out a draft copy.
That’s when her mind was blown.
She just entered the age of mechanical reproduction.
After a couple drafts and we were happy with the layout, we took a break to watch the first half hour of The Penguins of Madagascar and eat dinner.
After dinner, she wanted to get back to her hospital check-in forms. At the bottom of the form was a clipart illustration of kids standing on a rainbow. She wanted to color each of the forms.
So the kids and I spent the rest of the evening coloring these forms. We finished the forms but not the movie. That’s fine. It will be here tomorrow.
It’s a little strange. She’s seen me use the printer countless times for all kinds of uses for home and work. I guess it just never registered as a tool for her life until it became her own project (she’s seen me use it many times for her schoolwork). It was amusing to listen to her marvel about the magic of the printer. I can’t remember when my dad bought a dot-matrix printer. I wonder if it blew my mind.
Parenting gives you a sparkles of magic amidst a background of drudgery. This site let’s me record those moments.
Last year, the kids invented a game. They would crouch behind a half-deflated yoga ball while I tried to land a couple of mini-frisbees on top of their heads from across the room.
The boy calls it 妖怪 游戏 (Yāoguài Yóuxì).
Ghost Game. (More accurately translated “monster” game but we like the English alliteration).
The four-inch frisbees were cheap party favors. One was from Peter Piper Pizza, a birthday party at a pizzeria arcade with one of our first friends in Las Vegas; it’s translucent red with white printed texts. The other was from a birthday party at the skating rink with our daughter’s first friend in kindergarten; it’s black with an NHL logo.
Two plastic mementos from a life before the world was turned upside down. Beyond memories, they also represent the birthday parties that we’ve missed these past two years. Globally speaking a small loss, but it still stings a little.
Fortunately, the kids have grown up to give each other company. Like the sock and buskin, they constantly alternate between laughing and fighting. Time keeps pressing forward, with moments outside replaced by moments inside.
And occasionally, a red and black plastic disc will spontaneously create a strangely named game.
On a brighter note, our daughter just got her second shot the other day. Now it’s the boy’s turn, whenever it becomes available. It has been a long wait, but there is light at the end of this tunnel.
It is impossible to play Dixit with a child. They don’t understand the balancing act of giving away just enough information so that only some people will correctly guess your clue.
But beautiful cards must be played.
So we invented a variant called Cute War. As the name implies, this is a variant of the old card game War.
Pull out a Dixit deck and twelve poker chips (six for each player). Split the deck in half for each player.
Every round, flip a card over. Instead of comparing numbers, discuss who flipped the cuter card. The winner takes both cards.
If there is a stalemate, a player may offer a chip to buy both cards. The other player may ante their own chip. They may raise each other. If neither player offers a chip or they stalemate at a tie, then flip over the next card and judge accordingly (winner take all, of course).
After someone has won a match, the losing player may offer a chip to buy one of the cards from the winning player. The winning player may accept the chip and give up the card. Otherwise, they must counteroffer with an equal quantity of chips. The losing player may take the counteroffer or up the bid, back and forth until someone acquiesces.
We never go through the deck more than once so there isn’t ever truly a “winner”. This is more of an activity than a game – the chips add a gamey patina but are really just a way to crystallize someone’s valuations.
One day, we’ll get around to playing “real” Dixit. Until then, we have fun with this opportunity to plumb the aesthetic preferences of my daughter.
We’re still staying home from the pandemic, but the girl still wanted to make a costume for Halloween.
She was so excited about the idea, she took the initiative by sketching her rabbit costume. Once there was a plan, we just had to execute.
We started with the mask. It took a few iterations to get it right, but we eventually landed on a template that fit her well.
Yes, these masks are basic. A piece of paper with punched holes for the eyes, nose, and mouth, using a headband of folded paper. All held together with staples and tape.
It would have been a lot faster to buy something more sophisticated, but once you make something yourself, it’s truly yours.
The boy saw his sister’s mask and wanted his own. Turns out their faces are close enough in size, so I used her mask as a template (sans ears) and we shortly had the Monkey King running around the house.
The kids loved their masks. They spent all week running around as their alter egos.
This early victory led to further successes. We moved on to paper gloves and then paper shoes (I learned why moccasins have developed their distinctive shape).
None of the final results are spectacular. The costumes wouldn’t get any likes on social media, but we made something real, together. We weren’t just consumers; we were makers.
The world will constantly sell you on the satisfaction of owning excellence, the German sports car and the Swiss watch. But I’m starting to wonder if there is deeper satisfaction found in making something yourself, even if it’s mediocre.
Seven Years, Eight Years, and Twelve Days after she arrived, we finally slept in our own room.
There are a couple of caveats to this impressive streak. When the pandemic first settled in America, I was exiled to my in-law’s empty rental house so I’ve spent a good several months sleeping by lonesome. When the boy showed up, our daughter had to sleep in my mother-in-law’s bedroom while we stayed at the hospital. But of course, he was with us.
Like most events in parenting, the kids had no idea this was a “big deal”.
The night before the momentous occasion, I was chatting with a friend who mentioned his kids (the same ages as ours) had started sleeping in the same room, without mom to lulling them to sleep.
The next morning, I proposed the idea to my kids. They enthusiastically agreed to the idea.
My daughter had previously talked a big game about sleeping in her own room but always reneged in the afternoon. This time she had a partner in crime, and this time they stuck.
We moved the beds in the afternoon, and I could see their excitement building up.
At bedtime, my wife offered to join them in the rearranged bedroom while they fell asleep.
No need.
The next evening, our boy decided to go to bed before his sister. Again, my wife offered to sit with him.
No need.
He fell asleep by himself. Twenty minutes later, our daughter did the same.
How quickly time flies! Every day moves ponderously; then the kids suddenly cross another threshold.
If I knew they would so quickly acclimate to their new normal, I would have savored our last couple of nights sharing a small bedroom.
But that was yesterday. Now I need to avoid missing everything else.
Who knew a little chalk could reshape your morning routine!?
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Labryinth Lessons
My daughter and I drew a labyrinth on the backyard patio. Unlike a modern maze, the classical labyrinth is a single continuous path that continually loops upon itself until you reach the center.
I started to walk the labyrinth every morning as the kids played in the yard. A week into this new routine, I noticed that my mind was craving its morning roundabout on the patio – I had unconsciously slipped into the practice of a daily walking meditation.
What other rituals should we instill for ourselves and our teams? It may seem daunting, but our fears could be overblown. Our psyches might quickly adopt the new routine.
~
It rained as I wrote the first draft of this post. The morning after, we redrew the labyrinth. As I retraced the lines, my daughter added little drawings inside the path. She designated special powers to these sketches, sending us to various parts of the yard if we stepped on them. This simple path became the armature for a new outdoor game.
Don’t be afraid to take the first, imperfect step. The new endeavor could be the foundation for future continual improvements.
~
After further rainstorms, we are now on iteration #4. The game is gone, the labyrinth rotated 90 degrees, and the path has been widened to fill the entire patio. Even so, we are at least one version away from perfection. The impermanence of the chalk has been a feature, not a bug. Indeed, the impermanence of the chalk is why we drew the labyrinth in the first place.
Don’t fear temporary changes. A collection of minor tweaks could lead to something bigger. Our buildings may be permanent, but our processes are ephemeral. We should constantly experiment and try something else tomorrow.
~
One Question
What big problem needs to be tackled with a series of small steps? How are you gonna take the first step?
Hit reply and let’s chat!
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Three Links
This labyrinth experience was an unintended example of creating a Tiny Habit. Even though I have not been successful at manufacturing new tiny habits on command, BJ Fogg’s book is still worth reading.
A few weeks ago, Arnaud Marthouret shared a few lessons from racing motorcycles. He recently followed up with three more lessons. They remind me of lessons I learned from a much slower activity – Tai Chi.
Check out the Laughlin Labyrinths, created by Wes Dufek. Park safely and find your center in the desert and enjoy views of the backside of some cheesy casinos. It’s a moment of pure Nevada.
… and a drawing.
Maze, Landscape 103, 2000 I was first introduced to the classical labyrinth in a studio taught by Chip Sullivan. It’s interesting to see what stray errata have stuck from my time in undergrad. Two decades ago, labyrinths wouldn’t have been on that list, but here we are.
~
Thanks for reading the OPM letter! I’d love to have a conversation if you have any feedback. I hope you found some prompts to stretch your craft and relationships as a curious Owner PM. See you next week!
Stay humble, be kind, and keep experimenting! Justus Pang, RA
