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Things that turn
Jul. 2nd, 2008 11:22 pmYesterday I started to teach Andrew how to spin yarn. He's terribly interested in Bill's spinning wheel, but has been told that he has to go through hand spinning and using a drop spindle before he is allowed to use the wheel. He's Bill's kin all right, started to pick it up quick as you please, but then instead of moderating himself and making sure he had it, he got overambitious and tried to spin a piece that I think was 7 ft long, by hand, before making any more short two-plies. He's terribly hard on himself when he doesn't grasp something immediately, it makes him afraid to try to learn new things, and I find it a very frustrating personality trait to deal with. He's nine, though, and I can deal with that with more patience than I can generally muster for adults who haven't learned past that kind of stumbling block.
He's got a really quick mind, for spatial and mathematical things. It didn't take him long to figure out that plying is really multiplying, and today he came to me and showed me a very short 16-ply piece and explained to me how he got it. (It was a piece he'd done with help yesterday, plied more.) Partly to get him out of the middle of the kitchen, and partly to encourage him to not leave the spinning idea by the wayside just because it's hard, I suggested that he go practice making short two-ply yarns while I made supper. He made one, very even, and about 2 feet long. Still ambitious, but now he's getting the muscle memory.
His vocabulary is really interesting. He doesn't have a sturdy grasp on most nouns, though all other parts of speech he both uses and picks up on in conversation, more or less independently from the nouns to which they refer. He learned the word "nocturnal" earlier today from Bill, and used it in a conversation about snakes at the dinner table. I really hope he remembers "potential kinetic energy" from the bike ride home from the co-op.
Having the kid around is really good for me, exercise-wise. Normally I'll come home from work and put the bike away. Today I decided I'd come home, hook up the Trail-A-Bike and pedal up to the Olympia Food Co-op. That's approximately 3.75 miles, mostly uphill. He did pretty well, and I kept thinking, "well damn, if I did this 2, 3 times a week, I'd be in much better shape again!"
I was extremely pleased tonight, also, because Andrew decided that he wanted to try the mild version of the salsa that I usually eat. He dolloped a fair amount onto his burrito, and proclaimed it, mouth full, to be "rmmrry guudh!" It'll be another thing that wigs out his little brother: a bonus.
Shower for me, it's been hot.
He's got a really quick mind, for spatial and mathematical things. It didn't take him long to figure out that plying is really multiplying, and today he came to me and showed me a very short 16-ply piece and explained to me how he got it. (It was a piece he'd done with help yesterday, plied more.) Partly to get him out of the middle of the kitchen, and partly to encourage him to not leave the spinning idea by the wayside just because it's hard, I suggested that he go practice making short two-ply yarns while I made supper. He made one, very even, and about 2 feet long. Still ambitious, but now he's getting the muscle memory.
His vocabulary is really interesting. He doesn't have a sturdy grasp on most nouns, though all other parts of speech he both uses and picks up on in conversation, more or less independently from the nouns to which they refer. He learned the word "nocturnal" earlier today from Bill, and used it in a conversation about snakes at the dinner table. I really hope he remembers "potential kinetic energy" from the bike ride home from the co-op.
Having the kid around is really good for me, exercise-wise. Normally I'll come home from work and put the bike away. Today I decided I'd come home, hook up the Trail-A-Bike and pedal up to the Olympia Food Co-op. That's approximately 3.75 miles, mostly uphill. He did pretty well, and I kept thinking, "well damn, if I did this 2, 3 times a week, I'd be in much better shape again!"
I was extremely pleased tonight, also, because Andrew decided that he wanted to try the mild version of the salsa that I usually eat. He dolloped a fair amount onto his burrito, and proclaimed it, mouth full, to be "rmmrry guudh!" It'll be another thing that wigs out his little brother: a bonus.
Shower for me, it's been hot.
