Category: Kids
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Enjoyed plenty of sun and relatively fresh air in our communal garden today. Kids enjoyed the beach tent, but the paddling pool kept deflating (not that we had access to any water to fill it). Cleaned out our tiny “shed”, and put up wooden blinds in the bedroom as well!
Three year old playing Scrabble for the first time. First word he tries to spell is his brother Zion’s name.
Little kid turned on his Amazon Fire “Kids” tablet.
A game asks him to enter his date of birth to play.
He types in “1234”, et voilà!
Big kid: “Dad! Dad! I killed the Ender Dragon, and I wasn’t even looking!”
Me: “What are you doing?”
Big kid: “Twerking backwards.”
Under poisoned skies
Watched Under Poisoned Skies on BBC iPlayer last night.
It’s the sad and shocking story of children in Iraq dying from leukaemia as a result of toxic air pollution from mega rich oil companies burning off excess natural gas in the open air near their homes.
Benzene (found in the air) and naphthalene (found in the children’s urine samples) are the main carcinogens.
Levels of benzene are between 3 and 9.6 Micrograms per cubic meter or “µg/m3”.
Levels of benzene by the so-called soil “hospital” at Southall Gasworks were between 4 and 12 Micrograms per cubic meter or “µg/m3”.
Southall residents to give blood samples
After six years of campaigning for justice:
“The fact that gas used to be manufactured from coal has been lost to the public consciousness, but the chemical legacy remains.”
“These communities already have multiple disadvantages with air pollution, overcrowding and poor housing. This is another burden being placed on them.”
Via: Scientists to examine health fears at west London luxury development
Reading for pleasure
Two years ago my then six year old took what turned out to be a permanent break from the daily fifteen minute Easyread lessons he’d been doing for six months to catch up on his reading. When he started, he couldn’t and wouldn’t read.
At the weekend he asked to go to the library where he chose a book by his favourite author. The following two mornings he read a chapter to himself before breakfast instead of watching TV.
Tonight he read a few pages out loud to me at bedtime, just to show off.
I’ve noticed a certain anti-intellectualism going around this country, man …
I was in Nashville, Tennessee last week and after the show I went to a Waffle House, right, and I’m sitting there and I’m eating and I’m reading a book. I don’t know anyone, I’m alone.
I’m eating, and I’m reading a book. And this waitress walks over to me: “(tut tut tut) What you readin’ for?”
Wow, I’ve never been asked that! Not what am I reading, but what am I reading FOR?
Well, goddamnit, ya stumped me!
Why do I read?
I guess I read for a lot of reasons and the main one is so I don’t end up being a fucking waffle waitress …
Then this trucker in the next booth gets up, stands over me and goes, “Well, looks like we’ve got ourselves a reader…
Baked bread with my little kid using my pizza dough recipe (substituted wholemeal flour for white flour).
Turned out nice enough that we both ate it.
