Wednesday

• Dan went into town via bus and spent the afternoon with new friend Pippa. Fell down stairs at Franklin Square (due to adjustment difficulties with new glasses) and hurt their knee, unable to start back at roller derby this week.
• had a discussion in the car about ethics of eating, I suggested remaining open-minded about their potential for change in the future, and not locking themselves into anything based on the choices they are making for themselves right now. Building on previous conversation where I suggested reframing “picky eater” to “someone who is currently dealing with sensory and taste issues which make it hard to eat a lot of things even though they know they would be healthier if they could”. Their job is to think holistically about what health means, balance everything up and make the best choices for themselves in the moment when they can, and if things change in future they can reassess.

Thursday

• Dan sent me short (very short!) story based on a historical vignette they had read about: they refer to it as an AmRev fanfic, which I think is funny.
• looked for audiobooks on John Adams. Found one which Dan could potentially access with my Kobo account if I sign up to a free trial of their audiobook subscription service, need to do more research and see what I’m signing up to and if it’s likely to be worth it.
• had long discussion with Hugh about our family history of gluten/wheat-intolerance, and his potentially elevated predisposition to developing Type-2 diabetes due to me probably having undiagnosed gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with him, etc. Long explanation about Type-2 diabetes, insulin resistance/ metabolic syndrome etc ensued. Discussed strategies for healthy eating, also potential strategies for saving some of his pocket money rather than spending all of it on junkfood.

Friday

• went for a walk up the hill with Hugh. He’s suggesting we walk at 11am every day when his computer break starts.
• showed Hugh the TFS fire alert map and explained the rating system, talked about a couple of fires (continuing discussion over the past few days)
• Hugh and Dan cooked themselves pasta for lunch.
• Hugh downloaded and has been playing a new game.
• Hugh helped make tofu “fish” fingers for dinner.
• we looked up the origin of the song “Do your ears hang low?” and were very amused to read the variants. Then I used the word “niggle” and both kids went “You’re too white to say that!” and I had to look up the etymology before they could be convinced it’s not derived from the n-word slur (apparently it’s from Norwegian).
• Dan and Hugh playing snakes and ladders, and then checkers, together before bed.