Category: Kids
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Relaxing morning with the kids.
I’m sucking on stray lumps of Red Leicester while stirring the rest of the grated cheese into thickened white sauce, monitoring the macaroni simmering in the other pan (for big kid and me), and checking on sausages in the oven (for little kid).
Big kid is playing Minecraft with a friend and little kid is exploring space on his tablet.
Wife is having her morning nap.
The code of life
Big kid has been learning about WWII at school. He took in a photo of his great grandfather (my Grandpa on my Dad’s side).
Grandpa Fred was a coder. He was in the Royal Signal Corps decoding Morse code messages from the Nazis. When war broke he tried to join the Royal Navy. Because he knew Morse code from his job at the Post Office they sent him to Scotland. If he’d joined the Atlantic and Arctic conveys he’d very likely have ended up at the bottom of the cold, dark sea, and we wouldn’t be here.
As a teenager, I remember spending hours typing in pages of machine code from computer magazines into my Dragon 32 PC hoping not to make a single error and produce a playable game “Bomber” at the end.
We’re all coding - encoding and decoding - stories that give our lives meaning and purpose.
Weaving our own unique patterns in the fabric of space-time, searching for answers and connections in the world wide web, and gazing at the stars in awe and wonder for millennia.
Using threads from the code of life created by and handed down to us by our ancestors and their ancestors before them since time immemorial.
From cave paintings to fossils and footsteps on the moon, from the Pyramids to the Parthenon and the Pentagon, we’re leaving reminders of our existence, building structures that help us to organise, process and understanding information about our world.
Now we’re coding large language models and training them on the whole of human knowledge and history hoping that they can tell us the meaning of life and/or not destroy us in the hands of our new Nazi overlords, or serve us up tasteless slop.
I’m not sure what Fred would have made of it all. Like my great grandfather Frank before him, he was from another time, conservative, happy with his lot. He loved Oldham Athletic (“Latics”), the Telegraph crossword, driving carefully, and Freemasonry. He wrote letters on a typewriter.
He had all his teeth removed at a relatively young age in a “buy one get them all removed free” kind of too-good-to-be-true offer, and spent the rest of his days struggling to eat food that wasn’t tasteless slop with dentures that never fitted properly. Raw egg mixed with milk and Ribena was a particular favourite, if I remember correctly.
Fred would have loved his great grandkids. It’s a shame they never got to meet.
He would probably have said, “Give over, lad!”
You Winchester, you lose some
I was chatting to one of the other parents at school yesterday morning and mentioned how little kid is totally obsessed with space, all day and every day. It’s literally the first thing he talks about when he wakes up, and he falls asleep watching Brian Cox videos. They had a special space day at school yesterday, too.
She helpfully suggested visiting the planetarium at Winchester, about an hour’s drive away.
I hadn’t thought about going anywhere outside of London.
Later yesterday afternoon I picked up my guitar for the first time in months, wiped all the dust off it, and strummed the chords to one of my old band’s songs, written by the singer who, coincidentally, hails from Winchester.
By evening, I’d forgotten all about school mums, planetariums and old mates, and I was more concerned about finishing my book and finding out whodunnit?
On page 306 of my book, right in the middle it said (in all CAPS and bold):
WINCHESTER
I checked out the planetarium and ordered four tickets for a nice family outing during half-term .
This morning I told little kid about it and he said he didn’t want to go.
On yer bike! (Your voice matters)
Last week we had the local cycling group at the school offering free bikes and training to families.
We’d love free bikes, of course.
Two problems for me, though:
- There’s nowhere safe and secure to keep them.
- The roads and drivers around here are downright dangerous, and no dedicated cycle lanes.
I couldn’t help myself imparting this information in no uncertain terms to the two smiley elderly ladies handing out the marketing leaflets.
Afterwards, big kid gave me some feedback.
“Dad, when you shout it makes me want to freeze out of fear.”
Me: “Oh no, sorry, did I shout at those ladies?”
“No, you didn’t shout at them. You used your political voice. Your political voice makes me want to listen.”
Cleaning up
Big kid has been on lunch monitor duty at school for the past couple weeks. He enjoys making sure his little bro is all right, and, it turns out, cleaning up all the mess the little kids make. So much so that the headteacher commended him for his efforts.
Yesterday, on the drive to somewhere near enough to school for them to scoot in from, big kid announced:
“Dad, when I’m older, I’m going to clean up this town!”
I said it’s a big job and suggested he might want to think about starting now, and starting with the streets around the school with some of his friends. Fortunately, there’s a local group who already do just that.
It would be good to get started when the school street starts next month.
Too good to be true
This week at school my proud Digital Leader presented a school assembly on the dangers of the internet, and in particular too-good-too-be true offers.
Last night I got a notification that he’d spent £8.99 on his Kobo, using his £2 a week pocket money account. Which was odd as I could have sworn he was in bed with his kid brother watching space videos at that moment.
A quick investigation found that last month he’d subscribed to a free trial of “READ EVERYTHING YOU WANT!!!” Kobo Plus, and his trial has ended.
We had a little talk and, suitably humbled, I reimbursed his £8.99.
Kids are enjoying scooting into school in the mornings.
I’m like some retired secret service security detail chasing after them shouting “SLOW DOWN!” and “IT’S NOT A RACE!” and (to the big one) “LOOK OVER YOUR SHOULDER BEFORE YOU CROSS THE ROAD!” and “NOT THAT SHOULDER!” and (to the little one) “MIND THAT OLD LADY!” and “USE YOUR BRAKE!” and (to myself) “AAARRRGGGHHH!!!”
All in a day's housework
Busy day so far.
New school street comes into effect next month, so to prepare this morning we parked away from the school and the kids scooted in with me chasing after them on my flat feet.
Need to teach little kid how to use his brake.
Had to pop into the school office to ask for a parents’ evening form.
Went to Tesco to buy the items that Waitrose couldn’t deliver later.
No time for breakfast, instead peeled, chopped and boiled spuds, chopped and fried onions with lentils, prepared carrots and leeks for honey-roasting, cut broccoli florets for steaming, mashed potatoes and spooned on to onions and lentils mixed with gravy and HP sauce in a baking dish, grated Red Leicester to go on top.
Emptied our general waste bin, wet and dry recycling bins, and the food bin.
Unblocked the kitchen sink with the plunger.
Put my laundry away.
Washed up.
Put the groceries away.
Time for a late brunch.
Little kid, arising from his potty:
“Dad, take the wee in the potty and put it in the toilet.”
Talk about taking the pee!
‘Find someone your base already dislikes. Attack them. Make it personal. Make it cruel. Make it loud. Then monetize the outrage- both from your supporters who love the show and your opponents who can’t look away.’
The Cruelty Market joanwestenberg.com