Week 2 – Tangled Results

This second week was much better for both Pegasus and I. We have come to an agreement that he is not allowed to say “I can’t”, because he is capable of more than he realizes. He is allowed to ask for help or for a break, obviously. I am more than happy to allow him those. We have discovered that the mouse we have currently is too big for his hands, and we are going to try one of the smaller mice next week.

Dance

I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted.

Music

This week, we’ve been focussing mostly on him practising his scales on the piano. We have one this time around, and it’s a wonderful activity to distract him with because he enjoys it.

I continued working with him on the names of the keys. We practised both forward and backward.

Crochet

We didn’t work on his shawl this week because I was working on Comiccon projects all week. We’ll pick this up again next week.

Basic Information

We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). For the first few weeks, I’m just letting him listen and passively absorb the information. He attempted singing both songs this week, and needed a lot of assistance, which is a little earlier than I thought he’d want to try.

Printing words

The pencil grip is helping immensely. He didn’t struggle with the printing words and I’m very proud of him for trying so hard.

Counting objects/math-type activities

The colours printed well! Using a pencil to cover up the lines that he hadn’t gotten to yet worked well again. I’ll see if next week, he’s willing to try moving the pencil himself.

He’s very good at writing 4’s.

Storytime

Not much French read this week, as it was such a short week (holiday Monday and comic con on Friday).

Activity

Baking – cookies. Pegasus made multi-chip cookies, with Papa supervising. He did a great job and they taste delicious.

Painting – free-style with Crayola washable paint on paper. We did this outside on possibly the hottest day imaginable and I hated every second of it lol!

Make a paper lantern – need paper bag, stencil (in download material), cardboard, paper towel folded in fourths, and screwdriver (instructions are Number 11). Put the paper bag over the cardboard box, and slide the folded paper towel in between the box and the bag. Place the stencil overtop of the bag/paper towel. Use the screwdriver to punch holes in the stencil/paper bag. Be careful not to move the stencil, or you will mess up your design.

So we used a pushpin instead of a mini screwdriver, and it worked, but the holes are VERY TINY. I forgot the paper towel, so that might have something to do with it? He’s happy with it, and that’s all that matters, right?

We held the stencil down with clips, which worked perfectly.

How I crushed the writing of “Crushing It”

Crushing It

It was 2021, and I had just finished writing Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers with Éric. We’d gotten feedback from the first beta reader, and it was effusive.

I was writing short stories for our Short Story Collection (currently on submission) and I thought, “I’d like to write something about Kennedy’s younger brother, Tommy. I wonder what his story is.”

I decided he had to come to Westmeath, and thought it would be cool to write about the tech side of the city. I already had a built-in friend for Tommy in Carter, from Assassins, and I was looking forward to writing more of his character, especially after some of the short stories I had written. I added Elyse, Rachel’s younger sister, and thus the trio was complete.

Beyond that, my jot notes were the classes during the March Break camp at Door Tech, and that was it.

I started writing during “March” Break, which was in April in 2021. I wrote pretty much the entire thing on my phone, thumb-swiping as I nursed my youngest to sleep. It was taking literal hours for sleep to come, so I had quite a bit of dedicated writing time.

I had told myself, before I started writing, that this wasn’t going to be a romance. The trio would be friends.

Wow did a curveball ever get thrown my way when Tommy’s reactions to Carter were so shy and awkward. I was super confused at first. Why was he reacting like that?

And then I figured out that he had a crush!

I panicked.

I’m not gay. I didn’t know if I should be writing his story since I wasn’t gay!

So I messaged my publisher and asked his opinion. I believe I also talked to a couple other queer authors to ask what they thought as well, but I don’t remember who.

The unanimous response was “Go for it! He’s your character. If he’s gay, then that’s what you should write!”

I went back to add a little bit more obvious reactions, and then continued writing. I got to the end of the camp, sent Tommy home, and added the novella to the collection of completed works.

Halfway through July, I told Éric that I wanted to write fanfic for Tommy. He thought that was hilarious and told me to write actual content.

So I started writing a short story about what happened to Tommy after he got home. At this point, I introduced Faith.

And I got an idea to have them go to a STEM competition. A province-wide competition that would take place in Toronto, so I could have the boys meet up again.

My jot notes expanded to include the competition topics. (If you’re keeping track, that means my jot notes were the sum of a list of classes and a list of competition activities.)

And I wrote. I was still writing at night while nursing, thumb-swiping on my phone. I would guess that 90% of this book was written in this way.

I did research into the science behind things. I got help from Éric, my mom, and my sister for various topics (especially the coding!).

And then one day I did a word count.

I sheepishly went to Éric and told him, “I think I’m writing a book.”

He said, “I know.”

Oops.

And that’s how I accidentally wrote a book!

Cover art by @pinkpiggy93 on Tumblr and @flowerraven93 on Instagram

Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!

Physical from Canadian indie bookstoresphysical from Indigo, electronic version

Mini MSN Chats 6-7

Crushing It

Here follows the accounts of 2003-version MSN chats between Tommy and Carter, set in the middle of Crushing It as they navigate their long-distance relationship.

MSN chat #6.1
MSN chat #6.2
MSN chat #7
Cover art by @pinkpiggy93 on Tumblr and @flowerraven93 on Instagram

Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!

Physical from Canadian indie bookstoresphysical from Indigo, electronic version

Week 3 – Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie

This week, we will be focussing on Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie, released in 2023. This is a new favourite in our house.

Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (I hope this works…please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
BakingWatch movieMake bookmarkFlexDesign superhero

Summary of the week

Dance

Ballet and martial arts on alternate days

Music

Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano, learning guitar

Crochet

The project he is working on (currently he is making himself a poncho)

Basic Information

We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.

Printing words

Download material

Counting objects/math-type activities

Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –(in download material)

Storytime

Activity

Bake bread
Make butterfly (akuma) bookmarks: link to instructions
Design a superhero costume and kwami (in downloadable materials)

Next week: Nimona (2023)

Week 1 – Encanto Results

Pegasus’s first week of school was… interesting. He alternated between being a focussed and attentive student and complaining that he didn’t want to learn French. He would complete half a worksheet so fast and then not want to do anything else. But I’ve learned a lot since I taught my Dragon and when he gets in a mood, I switch the activity to something else. It’s been working well so far.

Dance

I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted.

Music

This week, we’ve been focussing mostly on him practising his scales on the piano. We have one this time around, and it’s a wonderful activity to distract him with because he enjoys it.

I also worked with him on the names of the keys.

Crochet

I started the base of the project because it’s not an easy beginning to teach a child, but he made half a row or so of stitches with a lot of assistance.

Basic Information

We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). For the first few weeks, I’m just letting him listen and passively absorb the information. I’ll start asking him to sing along in a couple weeks and see how that goes.

Printing words

We have a pencil grip thing to help train him to hold his pencil properly (thank you to my kindergarten teacher Ms. Bertrand for dropping those off last spring!) and he seems to be doing fairly well with that. He really struggled with printing the words (tracing was fine), so I think I might skip those worksheets for the next couple weeks. (He wanted me to guide his hand for “La famille”.)

Counting objects/math-type activities

The colours didn’t print very well for this. I’m going to see if the Tangled ones print better and if not, I’ll ask Éric to look at the printer. I explained how to count logically, either side to side, top to bottom, or bottom to top, and we used a pencil to cover up the lines that he hadn’t gotten to yet.

Storytime

NGL, we mostly read English books this week. We did get one French book from the library and read that. Pegasus learned how to read the words “la”, “le”, and “de”.

Activity

Make paper flower – somehow, he managed to flip his triangle around, so that when he cut the petals, they separated into 4 pieces instead of one flower. But we taped them together and it looks great, so woo!

Make empanadas – even though I had Éric look over the recipe I selected and he approved it, after completing this recipe with Pegasus, he says that they should have made arepas instead because the empanadas are a little more complicated than he’d realized. This recipe is great for arepas: https://minimalistbaker.com/how-to-make-arepas.

Pegasus learned how to curl his fingers so that he wouldn’t cut them, he did a lot of mixing, used the food processor to chop (onions, garlic, and others), he made the balls of dough for the shell, he stirred the meat, and he did all the measuring himself (including the spice mix, which was made from scratch).

Make a paper plate toucan – we used the paint sticks (like glue sticks, but paint) to cover the plates. I helped him figure out where the middle was, explaining how to use a ruler to draw the straight line. He did the cutting and followed the line very well. He didn’t want to add the tail.

“Crushing It” Review 4

Crushing It was sent out for reviews in May, and I’ve received some in return. Here’s one from Éric Desmarais:

Cover art by @pinkpiggy93 on Tumblr and @flowerraven93 on Instagram

Crushing It by Jen Desmarais is available now!

Physical from Canadian indie bookstoresphysical from Indigo, electronic version

Week 2 – Tangled

This week, we will be focussing on Tangled, the Disney movie released in 2010. We are starting on September 6, even though it’s a holiday, because Dragon loves to bake as well.

Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (I hope this works…please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
BakingWatch moviePaintingFlexPaper lanterns

Summary of the week

Dance

Ballet and martial arts on alternate days

Music

Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano, learning guitar

Crochet

The project he is working on (currently he is making himself a poncho)

Basic Information

We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.

Printing words

Download material

Counting objects/math-type activities

Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –(in download material)

Storytime

Activity

Baking – cookies

Painting – free-style with Crayola washable paint on paper (please note that this might be a good outdoor activity – check weather in advance and move days if necessary)

Make a paper lantern – need paper bag, stencil (in download material), cardboard box, paper towel folded in fourths, and screwdriver (instructions are Number 11). Put the paper bag over the cardboard box, and slide the folded paper towel in between the box and the bag. Place the stencil overtop of the bag/paper towel. Use the screwdriver to punch holes in the stencil/paper bag. Be careful not to move the stencil, or you will mess up your design.

Next week: Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie (2023)