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Transition nutrition

This study caught my eye because we struggled with Fleur voraciously eating after daycare and after-school care. She’d eat a meal’s worth transitioning from care to home. It made dinner trickier because she’d not be hungry at dinner time. It made me wonder about whether or not she was getting fed.*

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The study found children tended to eat far better than average in the hour after getting to care and worse than average in the hour after leaving care. Of course, the problem with the study is the child-care centers were federally subsidized and were required to feed along specific guidelines that are better than what most parents provide in terms of snacks.

Fleur’s care environments, I think, haven’t faced the requirements of meeting any of these standards, and so they haven’t. She gets better dietary intake at home than in care. Not that she got terrible food, but she’s definitely gotten more along the lines of sugary and salty snacks in care than at home. I kind of think KNOWING the food she got in that environment was not ideal, when we picked her up, we made sure to balance by providing fruits and veggies. I’d really like to know if care facilities not getting money to ensure nutrition saw the same unhealthy behaviors from parents.

Knowing her school gets USDA money, her breakfast and lunch are healthy-ish. Not great, but better than it was in daycare. The snacks aren’t covered and come from parental donations. They show this study *

* I think, when she’s with her bestie, she plays instead of eats. They talk, pretend, observe, and pretty much do ANYTHING other than eat when together. And then when separated: I’m HUNGRY! At best, we can get Fleur to eat the bare minimum.

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Real-life Wild Thornberrys

I found an interesting New York Times essay, “A Simple Act of Defiance Can Improve Science for Women” by Dr. Toby Kiers, where the mother is a biologist studying fungi who needs to do fieldwork. Her whole family went. Her poet husband watched the kids while she did science.

This concept reminded me of a cartoon called The Wild Thornberrys. In the cartoon, the parents are nature show hosts. The daughter can talk to animals, which leads to hijinks.

Elephant at Zoo Atlanta in 2017

Taking children into the field certainly sounds interesting. Their presence would make it more challenging as they bring distraction and chaos. However, I liked how Dr. Kiers admits engagement with the children challenged and altered her creative thinking. That’s the energy my daughter brings to my life. Explaining things to a toddler makes me a better communicator and technologist. And, I enjoyed interacting with coworkers’ children even before I was a parent, teaching them things they probably wouldn’t learn at home or school.

I am thankful that I can work from anywhere, but we don’t take well enough advantage. My work doesn’t really include fieldwork. My fields are virtual.

Kids need exposure to interesting things, so visiting zoos, museums, and state parks tops our lists. They spur conversations about how things work and why. These challenge my ability to explain, which improves my own understanding.

Fortuitously, we stopped at a national park about a month ago. There was a corvid hanging out on the ground scavenging. We see them at home, but they shy away from people. This one saw enough people and had been emboldened to get close-ish. I fed it some cashews, which excited Fleur. She got too close, so the bird got some distance from us. She’s talked about it for weeks. We need to keep some crow snacks on hand just in case.

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Hearing loss

Fleur is enjoying LeVar Burton’s Sound Detectives podcast. [SPOILER] In episode 7, they play some sounds at different frequencies to demonstrate high-pitched hearing loss. For the first time in my life, I didn’t hear something at the upper end. I heard the 8,000 kHz, 12,000 kHz (which is lost at around 50), 15,000 kHz (lost around 40), and I didn’t hear the 17,400 kHz.

It surprised me that I could still hear the 15,000 kHz, which typically is. Though, I must admit it seemed right at the edge. It might be gone in a few years.

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When I first learned about this in high school physics, my teacher made the mistake of leaving the machine out in his classroom the next day and not being there. We set it to that 15K range and left it on. When he came in, he was oblivious to the sound, which made us laugh so hard.

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Weekend mornings

Sometimes, Ada sleeps later than Fleur on weekend mornings. Fleur will call me, so I get up with her. She plays with her Barbies.

Listening to this reveals some insights into her recent experiences. She uses it to process her thoughts about sibling, friends, cousins, teachers, and even parents.

Working through conflict is an important skill. Pretend play gives her a safe space to figure out a solution. She takes on the problem for next time.

Up until recently, she required me to participate. And told me what I had to say. It made it harder to soak in her processing.

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New friends

We enjoy our time on the playgrounds around town. It’s not just one, but several. If the weather is nice, then we try to find time to spend it at one. I breathe easier when I see other kids there because it takes me off the hook of running around the playground.

Photo by Norma Mortenson on Pexels.com

Fleur does have a cadre of new friends she’s made over the past several months. She asks for specific parks in hopes of seeing these kids. These new friends are ones she’s seen many times.

She’s quick to meet other kids and play with them. Sometimes it works out, and then we see them again, and she’s getting excited about running into this kid again. Maybe, eventually, the other dad will give me his number so we can meet up.

More often we never see the kids again. So, I am glad that she keeps making the effort.

The thing that makes me sad at times are the kids who ignore her. Usually they are older, have a friend, and are highly invested in that play. They are so into their thing they don’t realize she is wanting to join. She doesn’t do this to younger kids who want to join her with another kid.

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Back hole sun

Fleur told me she was worried about a black hole.

We had an amazing conversation about black holes, types of black holes, our place in the galaxy, rockets, astronauts, and exploration. Like, THIS is the conversation to have with me. Something about which I am passionate, she has the knowledge to absorb, and she has enough interest to ask good questions.

She didn’t shut me down for talking too much on arguably my favorite area. And, that makes me happy.

She said she was worried about getting eaten by a black hole. I assured her we were safe from them. A little bit of a lie. I don’t absolutely know if we are safe, but we are reasonably safe. We’d know if one capable of tearing apart the earth was coming this way. Its gravity would perturb nearby stars and definitely other planets. We can make micro-sized ones, but they evaporate in milliseconds. With enough energy, maybe we could make bigger ones, but I think all the energy we produce in the world today might not be enough to make could take in matter faster than it evaporates. Maybe one day?

I hope to foster an interest in science to have more of these conversations.

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Dementia residents with a preschool

An English assisted living facility seems to now also have a preschool. The residents help with care of the kids as part of their living experience. They get to engage with the children by helping them eat, reading, arts & crafts, and play. It seems like the kinds of activities that would help dementia by being engaged. So, I can see the positives of the concept.

My mother lives in an assisted living facility, and I am grateful Fleur can visit with to get experiences with her grandmother. The other residents always light up when they see her. Really, I’ve seen them light up when they see other kids as well, but it seems more so the younger Fleur was. (I haven’t really seen other kids around who were younger, which I wish every time we visit we were not mostly the only ones there with a kid.)

My grandmother with dementia loved babies. She always wanted to hold them, look at their faces, and talk to them. I learned from the best… Helping her have experiences with them, I didn’t have a fear of my friends’ children.

Several of Fleur’s daycare teachers were retirees or changed careers to do this after decades of doing something else. They loved the babies and children and wanted to spend more time doing that.

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Songs

I sang much to Fleur as a baby and toddler. When she was fussy baby at night, I sang. When she was bored toddler in bed not falling asleep, I sang. I learned a couple songs super well. They were long, followed patterns, and challenged me to remember the story.

She is taking a bath and singing one of her favorites: the ants go marching. She stumbles on the rhymes, but I did too my first 100 times.

I made up my own new favorite lyric:

The ants go marching zero by zero. Hurrah. Hurrah.

The ants go marching zero by zero. Hurrah. Hurrah.

The little one stops to become the hero.

Ada has a singing routine with Fleur. I miss singing to her pretty much every night. Of course, I prefer sleep.

It makes me feel… loved she is taking to singing the songs herself.

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Wag the dog

I ran across an opinion piece in The Royal Society asking why dogs wag their tails. Their thought experiment went to where I would think: domestication selected for the wagging trait. But, they added a nuance that excited me: humans prefer rhythms, and dogs wag in a way pleasing to our preference.

Fleur with Lexi who belongs to my aunt and uncle

They noted that hunting and shepherding dogs tend to have different amounts of wagging. Hunting dogs are geared primarily to working with humans so they wag more. Shepherding dogs split between their other animal charges and the humans, giving overall direction. so they wag less.

Interesting observation!

I like the idea.