Category: Children

Posted on

Meet Bruno

Bruno

Bruno is a Lagotto Romagnolo puppy. We brought him home today, and he is my seven-year-old’s daughter’s first dog. In the morning, she told us: “Today is going be the most memorable day of my life!” I believe she is likely right. For me personally, the days of bringing home my first dog and, many years later, our African Grey Parrot named Zorro are right up there in my memory along with the birth day of my daughter herself. Truly, our pets become members of our family. Glad to have met you, Bruno!

I have always been interested in dogs, but I haven’t heard about this breed until earlier this year, when we firmly decided to have puppy. This is ironic, because based on the description it is a perfect intersection of what my daughter, my wife and I were had been looking for in a dog. It is still quite rare in North America, but we were lucky to find Bruno, along with an incredible support from his breeder practically in our backyard. Well, actually, it is a 2-hour drive away, which proved to be no problem whatsoever for Bruno (no, as incredible as Lagotti are, he was not driving).

Posted on

Pizza day

Our daughter’s school is moving in the right direction, in our opinion, by introducing a “hot lunch day” in addition to a “pizza day”, which that already have. We really liked the school lunch menu that was offered in Milan, where we were on sabbatical two years ago. It was one thing we really missed when we came back to Canada. But even two days a week is better than none.

The pizza days are a big hit with the kids, but they don’t start until the third week in the school term. Last week, our daughter was looking forward to it so much that we could not wait and decided to have our own pizza night at home. Helping with cooking made it even more special.

Posted on

Reason for practicing

When I come back from a skiing trip, I typically have mixed feelings. On the one hand, skiing is fun, but on the other hand, I know that I cannot do it often enough to improve my technique substantially. And for me, part of the joy of doing something is learning to do it better. So if I know that progress is not possible, I wonder wha’s the point of doing the thing at all.

After our recent trip to Whistler I feel differently. I am fired up to get on the slope again as soon as possible. I believe that this is entirely thanks to my daughter (well, maybe also partially because I bought new skis, which are great fun). She is seven years old, and it was the first time that we were actually able to ski together. Her progress was so sudden: last time she attempted skiing, she was barely able to keep balance on the flattest surface we could find, but this year, she took two days of instruction at the kids’ skiing school and after that could confidently stop and turn on a legitimate green-level run.

My wife and I also took a lesson, to re-calibrate ourselves after the long break in skiing. The advice our instructors gave me, as we were chatting over hot chocolate during the lunch break, was that the focus of practicing for me should be improving efficiency of my skiing. The reason is that pretty soon our daughter would want to ski more and more, so to keep up with her (and to enjoy it), I need to get better too. I like the idea. It resonates with what Anders Ericsson said in “Peak”: the reason to keep practicing a skill, even knowing that we won’t be able to reach the absolute peak performance (there are so many people better than us ataxy given activity), is to be able to enjoy it alongside our children.

Posted on

Prepared piano

I have never heard of a prepared piano until a couple of months ago. It’s one of the many music-related things I have not heard about until I started learning violin and piano alongside my seven year old daughter. It’s ironic, because my main work area is related to acoustics, and some of the most fundamental works in the field deal with theory of musical instruments. So it is quite exciting to come face-to-face with some of the physics that I have only known in theoretical or applied engineering contexts.

Last Saturday, my daughter tried playing a prepared piano for the first time. She has been looking forward to it ever since she heard about wedging coins and pieces of rubber between piano strings from our teacher, who studied it systematically and actually wrote a book about John Cage’s techniques. As you can see in the video, she was delighted at the transformation of the piano into a percussion instrument. “I don’t recognize the sounds!” she cried.

What I personally learn from this is that music in general, and musical education in particular, is more about excitement of discovery and joy of “flow” than it is about training for performance. My daughter and I have been incredibly lucky to have teachers, who give us these glimpses of optimal experiences, to borrow a term from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, so early in our studies. “Don’t forget to smile!” Is my daughter’s favourite reminder to me during our practice sessions.

Another thing I learned is to remember to switch my camera to manual focus when filming in a dimply-lit room. To my excuse, though, the whole prepared piano demonstration was very spontaneous, so I was shooting from the hip, both literally and figuratively speaking.

Posted on

Risk-taking and fun

Rock climbing is a lot of fun. After our daughter tried it at our university’s climbing gym, my wife and I were compelled to take a belaying course the very next weekend, so that we would be able to assist her. As a lunch-hour workout though, it’s pretty inefficient compared to a run or a weightlifting session. Still, I concede that the fun factor is more important for sustaining a long-term interest in the activity.

On the other hand, there is the risk factor. How does one handle the choice between doing something inherently risky (but fun) and something much less risky (but possibly better for your health)? I think that if one takes the path of avoiding all risks, not only the life would be incredibly dull, but one would end up unprepared for the eventual situation when the risk simply cannot be avoided. So we need to practice taking risks, but do so safely enough to avoid injuring ourselves all the time.

I am very new to climbing, so cannot say anything about it with authority, but take kendo as an example. It is a fairly low-risk activity, as far as martial arts go, but injuries still occur (I am recovering from one right now). Kendo is also a very high-impact activity. I don’t think it is good for one’s health from a cardio perspective either. The exertion level is too uneven to be beneficial. You both overload the cardiovascular system too much (at times), and do not sustain the useful load level long enough. So would one be better off going for an easy run or lifting some weights instead?

“But kendo is more about building character, rather than muscles or stamina!” some say. I agree. There is no argument against this. For this reason alone, it is worth taking risks in general and practicing kendo in particular.

…as long as we can avoid replacing “character” with “ego” somewhere in the process.

Posted on

Orange shirt day

Yesterday was an “orange shirt day” at my daughter’s school. She was supposed to wear something orange to honour indigenous people, who were forced to go through the residential school system in Canada. Incidentally, yesterday was also a Monday, which is a “number one uniform day” in her school. So she was wondering whether she would still have to wear a tie with her orange T-shirt. I did not know what the rule was, so had to rely on my basic fashion sense: T-shirt + tie = bad.

The funny thing is that the incident that gave the orange shirt day its name had to do with a girl, who had her orange shirt taken away because it did not comply with the residential school rules. And nowadays, we are puzzled about how to break dress code in the most socially acceptable way. Oh, the irony…

Posted on

Keep drawing

My daughter’s Grade 2 teacher mentioned an interesting observation: as children grow up, they begin to write more and better. At the same time, they tend to include fewer pictures in their work, because they think it makes their writing look more “grownup“. However, research apparently shows that those kids, who can draw well also become better writers. This is because their visual memory and imagination are more developed, which helps with creating stories and verbal images.

This makes me think, once again, that sketching is a valuable exercise for adults too. The skill of observation, which is arguably the most important skill for scientists, engineers, artists, writers and pretty much anyone involved in creative work, include taking notes. This is the phase where information is converted to knowledge. I read some time ago (I think, in “Smarter Faster Better”) that manipulating the information, engaging with it is the key step. Curiously, it not important how the information is engaged with. As long as we spend time playing with the new data, we are extracting knowledge from it. It is then only logical that sketching complements verbal note-taking by developing our capacity for observing what is going on around us and eventually transmitting what we learn to others.

So here it is, putting theory to practice. This is my daughter amusing herself with a puzzle, while having a snack. The chameleon is imaginary.

Posted on

Star Wars

My six-year-old daughter is the first person I know, who read a Star Wars book (a collection of bedtime stories) before watching any of the movies. She is really into the interconnected storylines of the various characters. The other day, we had a conversation that seemed straight out of James Breackwell’s hilarious Twitter feed. She put aside the book, sat at the table to have breakfast and said, looking quite thoughtful:

– Dad, you look like like Han Solo.

I thought that was not bad. Even considering the very biased source of this opinion, comparison to Harrison Ford based on looks is nothing to be upset about.

– Mom, you look like princess Leia.

Now both my wife and I were quite pleased.
She though some more.

– Wait. This means I have to be Kylo Ren… Sorry, dad.

Perhaps being Han Solo is a mixed blessing after all.

Posted on

Cinderella’s dreams

My six-year-old daughter is going surfing. With a considerable help from her mother, she is putting on a neoprene boot. It’s not an easy task, so she notes:

– You know, it’s just like “Cinderella”…

Then, she becomes lost in thought. My wife asks:

– What are you dreaming about?

– A prince. On a beautiful horse.

– …

I am starting to get a bit worried, so I ask:

– Why are you dreaming of a prince on a horse?

– I just love horses…

I feel better.

Posted on

Screwing up

My wife and I are putting together a shelf for art supplies. It’s a final stage of the assembly – only a few screws are left. Our six-year-old daughter walks in:

— Wow! You guys have done it! The shelf is almost finished. You just need to screwed it up!

It’s good when someone has confidence in you…