Tia, Mago Elf Liam, Nem-nem Niamh, Lil' Bug, and I. (kid names are aliases)
//I lay by Lil’ Bug to help her fall asleep. She clasped my thumb snug in her fingers and I her wrist in mine.
As she seemed to doze off and loosen her grip I let go my grip to leave. She redoubled her grasp.
This repeated a few times and the next time I pulled away she said in her sleep “Squeeze tight.” I obeyed and suppressed a laugh. “What’s funny? What are you laughing at Dad?” she said in her sleep.
//Me, ruining the end of “SWING KIDS:” “I know who my friends are, and they’re none of you Nazi party poopers!”
Lil’ Bug (@ 3.75yo) : “Don’t call anyone party poopers. That’s a very rude word.”
//These are digital paintings done by Lil’ Bug with my help.
I couldn’t get the concept across to a toddler of a computer tablet corresponding to anything on the screen (for a PC). Instead she just used the digital pen on the screen as if it were an ordinary paintbrush painting immediately (or as if the screen were a touch screen). So I do this:
– give her a chopstick or something else long and pointy like a brush
– ask her what color she wants and take any color dictation she makes (which she does)
– pick that color and follow her “painting” motion on the screen with my own approximation
These were done in ArtRage.
ArtRage is available on iPad via touch or tablet digital pen, and this works much better on iPad if you disable controls a toddler would accidentally mess with via the Guided Access feature. (Dunno if ArtRage is on Android devices and if Android can disable controls that way too.) But even then she expects multiple touch gestures to make multiple paint strokes, and instead it zooms or shrinks or moves the screen beyond usability, and I spend half the time correcting zoom or pan, ha.