Category Archives: Education

My daughter brought home the following book yesterday. The premise is that the cat doesn’t want to be cuddled…until he does. Then he goes back to not wanting cuddles. My daughter, who loves cats, is very un-cat-like in her desire for affection. Today she was flummoxed by a game she was playing. Her melodramatic-the-world-is-crumbling reactionContinue reading “Cuddles”

My daughter’s getting started early. Yesterday, she steered a golf cart around her great uncle’s property for twenty minutes while I worked the gas pedal. I was impressed with her skills, and we laughed a lot. Here’s hoping that we do enough of these sessions over the next decade that I’ll be properly inoculated whenContinue reading “Test Drive”

On our weekly trek to the library, my daughter’s desired book–Saving Winslow–was not available in codex form. It wasn’t available in audio CD form either. All the library had was an Mp3 Playaway, a tiny box the size of a back of cards. The listener can listen to an entire book with just a AAAContinue reading “Playaway Audiobooks”

My daughter attended an Easter Egg party at her cousins’ house this afternoon. By hour two, she was sugar-laden and tired. The party culminated with an egg-fetti fight. Each attendee received a carton of eighteen egg-fetti eggs with which to bombard the party’s other attendees. Soon, the egg-fetti war reached a stalemate. Teams were perchedContinue reading “Recovery”

Tonight, we entertained my wife’s college friend and his wife. My daughter was enchanted with the wife and played hostess the entire night, showering this guest with art, affection, and relentless attention. At times, my daughter’s attention was excessive. It made me wonder which was preferable: my daughter never coming out of her room whenContinue reading “Hostess”

My wife’s cousin gave us three boxes of books, including what seems like the entire Berenstain Bears series. It has been a true delight to see my daughter consuming book after book over the past 24 hours. All this reading culminated with her bringing two books to school and reading them–out loud–on the way homeContinue reading “Boxes of Books”

Each day, my daughter engages in some kind of imaginative play that leaves me wondering, “Where did that come from?” It’s probably naive to think that I could find the source of every wackadoodle game she comes up with, but I’ve had too many epiphanies when catching a cartoon snippet or reading a book toContinue reading “Reverse Engineering”

I make a podcast about the TV show Perry Mason. This afternoon, I was doing some “research” (i.e., I was watching one of the Perry Mason made-for-TV movies), and I got my daughter to show some interest in television’s greatest defense attorney. My daughter was game. She guessed who the real culprit was, joined meContinue reading “Three Cheers for Perry!”

“I’m so glad you joined us for Game Night!” said my daughter as I stepped outside. Though the weather was overcast, the temperature was perfect. I had on my work clothes–a button-down dress shirt and dress pants–with some grungy tennis shoes. I was ready for sport. Game 1: Cats and Mice. This game was basicallyContinue reading “Game Night”