It's time to build (a time capsule)

Howdy, friends! Happy end-of-the-school year to all who celebrate. A quick reminder to find those last-minute Father’s Day gifts that’ll (hopefully) get there in time. If you need to distract the dad in your life while you hunt for that gift, just have your kid ask him to learn a dance so they can post it on TikTok.

@bnrevell

Just taught my dad how to hit the quan at 65 years young 🙌🏼 #hitthequan #fatherdaughter #fatherdaughterdance

No promises that the quality of the dance will warrant an upload though…

Activity of the week

It’s the end of the school year and the start of summer for a lot of kiddos. It’s the perfect moment to build a time capsule to capture some highlights from the year. At the very least, it’ll be a great artifact for our future AI overlords when they erect a museum paying homage to human parenting.

Step 1: Grab a shoe box, Tupperware, or any container to store all your kid’s time capsule keepsakes. Then pull together 7 index cards, 2 sheets of blank paper, one long string (ribbon for gift wrapping also works), some pens or crayons, and a pair of scissors.

Step 2: Print a picture of your kiddo from the past school year.

Step 3: Write one of each of the following on one of the index cards: 1) My best friend is, 2) My favorite activity is, 3) My favorite book is, 4) My favorite food is, 5) My favorite place is, and 6) I am most proud of.

Step 4: On the seventh index card, write the following: “This time capsule belongs to [your kid’s name]. It was filled by [your kid’s name] on [today’s date].”

Step 5: Ask your child to fill in the blank for each of the index card prompts you wrote in Step 3. Listen to each of their answers and write down their responses if they’re not old enough to write them down.

Remember not to interrupt them if they’re on a roll. When they’re done responding, ask simple follow ups like, “Could you tell me more about what you liked about that?”, “Who did you do that activity with?”, “What did you like about that experience?”, or “Tell me more!”

Step 6: With one of the sheets of paper, trace your child’s right or left hand. Then cut out the outline.

Step 7: With the second sheet of paper, trace your child’s right or left foot. Then cut out the outline.

Step 8: With the string or ribbon, measure their height. Pinch the string or crease the ribbon so you can cut the string at the fold/crease so the string is the length of their height.

Step 9: Put your kid’s picture, the 7 index cards, the handprint cut out, the footprint cut out, and the string in the container. Store the container away for safe keeping in a location that’s easy to remember, but hard to access.

Step 10: Add an invite to your online calendar scheduled for a year from today as a reminder to you and your kiddo to open the time capsule and see what’s stayed the same and what’s changed.

That’s it!

Activity notes: After writing the list of what to include, it unfortunately looks a lot like a list of every security question someone is asked to answer whenever they forget their password for something 🤔 So store that time capsule somewhere secure!

Book of the week

“Grief is love's souvenir. It's our proof that we once loved. Grief is the receipt we wave in the air that says to the world: Look! Love was once mine. I love well. Here is my proof that I paid the price.” -Glennon Doyle

When you’re a kid, there’s nothing tougher than having your best friend move away. And with school out, “a moving truck with its mouth wide open” might be the most confusing and scariest sight for many kids this time of year.

In childhood, the world is vast yet dominated by a few foundational relationships. When one of those relationships ends or when you don’t know when you’ll see your best friend again, emotions are even more difficult to articulate. It’s an especially challenging experience for young kids when the concepts of seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, and years are all meaningless and often interchangeable.

Evelyn Del Rey is Moving Away by Meg Medina is a thoughtful meditation on saying goodbye to and deeply appreciating a meaningful friendship. That’s something anyone at any age can relate to.

Evelyn Del Rey is Moving Away doesn’t make losing a friend who’s moving away any easier, but it might make the experience a little less lonely for kids and adults alike.

Not for tots

Here is this week’s not for tots segment where we share some internet finds/treats/toys exclusively for the adults in the room.

• If you’ve just eaten, go ahead and stare at these rotating sandwiches. If you haven’t eaten yet, you can still watch the sandwiches while ordering some delivery—you might end up over-ordering though.

• If you’re the academic type, use Google’s Illuminate to turn your academic paper into a NPR-style radio interview.

• Here’s a living collection of internet dreams. You can add yours, too.

• What type of sea creatures live 4000 meters below sea level? Start the decent into the ocean to find out.

• Here’s an impractical shade map you can use whenever you’re looking for somewhere shaded to sit during hot summer days.

Kidult of the week

As remote work has become increasingly commonplace since the pandemic, people have found more adventurous ways to leverage their increased flexibility. Some people started doing laundry during work meetings and others even started a side hustle or two.

What did Saurabh Netravalkar, this week’s kidult of the week, do? While working remotely as a principle engineer at Oracle, Saurabh has been moonlighting as a bowler for the United States cricket team. And, yes, the United States has a national cricket team.

Last week, Saurabh helped the United States team upset Pakistan, the 6th ranked U20 team, in a Super Over tiebreaker for one of the biggest upsets ever at a T20 World Cup. As a result of the match, cricket in the United States might be as popular as it’s ever been. Just look at this Google Trends chart for the term “cricket”. People hadn’t searched the term “cricket” this much since 2019.

The upset over Pakistan also couldn’t have come at a better time for the sport in the US. In 2023, Major League Cricket launched its inaugural draft and season. The second season of the MLC will begin on July 5, 2024, just four days after the conclusion of the T20 World Cup.

Besides helping lead the US in an upset win, Saurabh represents what the combination of persistence and dedication can accomplish. While living in India, Saurabh saw limited opportunities to play nationally for Mumbai, so putting those dreams aside, he instead moved to the US and pursued a masters degree in computer science at Cornell.

While working full time in the San Francisco Bay Area, Saurabh revisited his passion for cricket and joined the US national team in 2018, training during nights and weekends. He’d even use his office gym to stay in shape. All that hard work has culminated in putting cricket back on the map in the US.

While we don’t yet know the outcome of the upcoming match between the US and India on Wednesday night, we do know that Saurabh and the US team have already had a huge impact in promoting a relatively unknown sport on US soil. In a crowded sports and entertainment market, that’s no small feat.

Besides, if the US loses to India, Saurabh can always go back to Oracle to ship more product. If that doesn’t scratch his itch, he can invest in his side side project and grow his growing ukulele fanbase.

What can’t Saurabh do well?

Stat of the week

If you have a child under the age of 6 and they’re in daycare or attending school, it’s likely that one out of five classmates will be moving households this year. This week’s stat is a reminder that kids are often dealing with constant change. Changing routines, different people, unknown places, and new experiences dominate their day-to-day.

So, when an unexpected tantrum or silent spell happens, try to give them some grace. Growing up is tough when the ground beneath their (still growing) feet is constantly moving.

Thinking about tomorrow, today

It’s true that children are predisposed to prefer high-energy, high-sugar, and high-salt foods. It’s also true that once they hit pre-school age, they start to reject new foods. So how and when can those general preferences change?

The development of food preferences start in the womb. While genetically determined individual differences exist, repeated offering of foods can modify innate preferences.

According to a study from the National Library of Medicine, “Starting in the prenatal period, a varied exposure through amniotic fluid and repeated experiences with novel flavors during breastfeeding and complementary feeding increase children’s willingness to try new foods within a positive social environment.”

What an amazing excuse to take the family to a buffet this Father’s Day weekend.

Parenting-ish Headlines

• “Scrapping smartphones is like taking the batteries out of the smoke alarm instead of putting out the fire.” Read a thoughtful 16 year old’s take on phone bans. (The Guardian)

• One generation’s Car Talk (RIP) is another generation’s CarTok. This is how Gen Z and Gen Alpha are getting into cars. (Axios)

• “In 2023, roughly 1 student out of 4 was chronically absent across the school year.” Chronic absenteeism is on the rise. (NPR)

• Three young kids stumbled upon the remains of a juvenile T. rex in North Dakota while they were hiking. When you’re an 8 year old, stories like this are what dreams are made of. (Yahoo)

• Apple is getting an AI makeover, including Siri who’ll be integrating with ChatGPT. With these AI-powered updates, kids will have the sudden desire to do math on their iPad at dinner instead of watching Cocomelon. (The Verge)

We’ll google it for you

Summer trips with the family are on the horizon as you patch together child care options and many unfortunately timed work meetings will be scheduled last minute, right before you have to put more sunscreen on your kids or when the attendant wants to check in your luggage. The nerve of your engaged coworkers.

In those moments, know that being half there mentally sometimes counts as being fully present. Take solace in knowing that most remote workers have at one point or another engaged in “pretendence”, signing into an online meeting in order to appear in attendance and engaged, when in fact they are doing other things. Pretendence just more prominent in the summer, according to research we just made up.

Remember, for caretakers, it’s always a summer Friday if you want it to be.

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