Tag: #StayathomeDad

  • The End of Snow Days

    I don’t know if you have heard, but a Nor’easter is headed for the northeast today. If it holds true, then NYC will get hit with 5-10” of snow over the next 12 hours, and New England could get over a foot. Yup, here comes winter.

    My daughter is super excited! She hasn’t seen snow in over two years, and has been asking me if we can build a snowman when the storm hits. We bought new gloves over the weekend, the good kind that are made from Gor-tek that won’t get wet, and are best for throwing snowballs.

    With all of this snow, and the possibility that it just might be enough to shut the City down for a day, there still won’t be a snow day for the schools. With all the kids in NYC remote learning now, school will always be in session. No more checking the news in the morning, watching the scrawl at the bottom of the screen, seeing if your district has been closed. No more playing in snow all day. Now, she will have to wait for the last video meeting of the day, and THEN she will get to go out and play. No more days off.

    Yet again, we are entering a new world thanks to Covid.

  • I Didn’t Write Today, But I Don’t Feel Bad

    That pretty much sums it up.

    Oh, and I had plans today as well. I had worked on the outline, and I was ready to start taking a second crack at working on the narrative. I even started thinking about the tone of the narrator, and the cadence he would have in his sentence structures, and use of receptive phrases. I was thinking about it, and gearin’ to go.

    And I won’t even say that the day went sideways. It just went, and I had to roll with it.

    First of all, the school had a two new assessment tests that they wanted my kid to take to see where she was on her reading and math skills. I know what assessment tests really mean, but for the kid it was just fun, and she enjoyed all the math stuff. In fact, for a kindergartener, I don’t know where she picked up what she knew about fractions! She’s not getting the math skills from me, that’s clear. Once she had finished the assessment, the app we were using offered some math games to play, which she ate up! And I sat next to her, encouraging her to keep going, and it was so exciting and heartwarming to see that spark of learning in her. That feeling that all the world can be discovered and understood. That horizons are being broadened.

    It through my schedule off for the rest of the day, but it was completely worth it.

  • Oops… No Writing Yesterday

    I didn’t meet my goal yesterday, which was writing. I was able to journal, but I didn’t complete a blog, nor did I work on any fiction.

    But I spent a huge amount of time with my kid. We made chicken stock in the morning, and read books together in the afternoon. We were able to go to the playground, and draw pictures together while drinking hot chocolate. In the evening, we made dinner, and watched “Star Wars.” It was a very fulfilling day.

    Being locked at home al the time, I get in my head that I should be making huge strides, and racking up enormous word counts daily. And maybe I should if I want to have a career.

    But I don’t want to miss this time with my daughter. I mean, I’m teaching her to read. Helping her sound out words and become confident with her ability to learn. It really is a gift to be with her at this time, and to learn how learning works.

  • New Ideas to Work On

    I am trying to stick to my plan and just get the work done that I have been journaling and thinking about. Making the time, and even having to say no to kid this afternoon, which I feel awful about. I needed to hold myself to the promise that I had made which was that I was going to work.

    And then all these new ideas popped into my head today, and I have spent the day doing research and trying to figure out when I can get to these ideas.

    The idea is to look into what became of historical locations that have disapeared. Espically around here in the Northeast, progress has bulldozed over building and landscapes in the name of progress, and where history was made, in most cases is a subdivision, or a parking lot. It is an idea that asks the question how we lost our history, and were people aware that history was being lost.

    Not sure when I will get to it, but I like the idea.

  • Note Taking, Not Writing

    Last Friday when I was at the park with the kid, besides keeping an eye on her, I did some journaling with the intent of reminding myself of the story ideas that I needed to work on. Total, I have about four good ideas I want to flesh out.

    And that’s all the work I have done on the for four days. Just notes.

    I am beginning to get very frustrated at myself and my situation. Maybe I’m too ambitious or not enough of a realist when it comes to the world I inhabit. I keep thinking I can get it all done. Each day that goes by and I don’t work on these stories makes me feel like I’m flushing away my creative potential.

    I’m also tired of using COVID or the election as the excuse why I can’t work. I doomscroll and keep checking polls, but I don’t live like they cause an atrophy to my drive.

    It’s not working the way it should, and I feel like I have to go back to the drawing board.