Paul Davidson
Weeknotes 143: Did you type letters to make it happen?
School’s out for summer. School’s out forever. School’s been blown to pieces. Etc, etc.
I’ve not mentioned them much here, but they’re a lovely lot. Teachers, parents, kids. The lot of them. It’s lucky to be in the tiny catchment area. Piglet went in for water fight day wearing head-to-toe purple because she’s (still) a kraken. That evening was all about Mr Hulkman’s1 30 minutes of fun.
Grandma took the first day of the holidays. In recounting the neenaw noise from the fire alarm at the pool, we got an impression that needn’t have been as long as it was. It was less cacophonous when she joined The Chef to play Little Astronaut on the piano.
I eventually got round to repairing my puncture just in time for a wet commute. Neglected to clean the inside of the tire and I get to repair the puncture for a second time.
After a year of suggesting in vain to a colleague how to structure a project I reformatted everything my way the week after he left. I spent time with some bona fide experts, forced them to make a few simplifying choices and we deleted a few hundred duplicate or near-duplicate algorithms. Finished the week finding silent bugs because everything was side-by-side and could actually be compared. Left work feeling inordinately pleased with myself.
The Chef took the Wee Free Man to a baby meetup with all her maternity colleagues. While the chonk wasn’t the oldest there, he was certainly the heaviest. We’ve got him in the 6-9 months clothes. It’ll shed when he starts moving. The boy is desperate to sit up and start crawling.
He’s bang in the middle of a sunny period these last few weeks. Delighted virtually every time he wakes up and starting on proper belly laughs. A new round of jabs wasn’t enough to depress him. He’s too young for treats, so I got a ham and pease pudding stottie in lieu. Not as good as Greggs’ discontinued range, but comforting nevertheless.
Likely as a result of the jabs, he treated us to his first continuous 6-hour stretch of sleep. The Chef needed it: her turn for DOMS after running late for buggy fit in the rain.
Rain that hung around all weekend. We knew it was coming and got in good supplies of food. Lamb and wine for Friday, pancakes—crêpe-style and fluffy—for breaskfasts, Lǎolaode jiǎozi. Thankfully the Fun Zone was cancelled and we could go full weekend goblin mode:
- Hiding in the toy basket.
- Painting a dinosaur.
- Colouring on the tablet2.
- Building a couch den.
- Recording slo mo videos for more convincing monster roars.
- Hearing, “You’re not invited to my party” at any minor inconvenience
- Reading with a child on each knee.
- Listening to Yallah Beibe
- Braving the weather to meet Auntie L for Dim Sum.
- Bumping into a long-time old colleague to trade small, fierce child stories.
- Chasing mirror girl and Shaun the Sheep around the shops.
- Painting nails in 10 different colours.
- Reading these great websites (via Sara)
- Meeting the 4 month sleep regression exactly where we expected to. #PrayForUs
We’re not sure of his real name.↩︎
Piglet has taken to the tablet in the way I imagine a young me would have. I forlornly think a blank canvas and pen might be the most fun, but she already has pens and paper and her brain hasn’t been rotted by productivity YouTube. Stickers and special effect paint are what the tablet’s for. At some point she’ll learn that she can play games on it and all hope is lost.↩︎