Fruit Cup

I bet you didn’t expect a title like that for a Halloween evening post, but let me get to it, I have to start at the beginning first…

My children were at school later than usual today, getting home at 3:45.   Our neighborhood Halloween celebration started at 5:00 so it felt like we hardly had time to say hello to Nana and Papa, who had arrived for the evening, get dressed and get over to the clubhouse.    We made it, my daughter dressed up as a gum ball machine and my son was the green Lego Ninjago character, Lloyd.

My husband had prepared the front porch with painted signs, beakers and medical supplies and his rolling fog machine.  I had prepared the adult beverages to hand out when I returned from the party, which I left a little early from.   I was dressed up as a pharmacist, my outfit consisting solely of a lab coat but I had to up my game by putting in some contacts before the trick or treaters arrived.    I had one black contact and one solid white one—the latter being startling to look at.

The children started to come shortly and I was ready.   With my friends Darren and Jen handing out candy, I was free to deliver the, “antidotes” to the parents.   I walked like I was drunk or wounded towards the street and said, “excuse me sir, have you been given the antidote?”   Then I’d explain, “the Zika virus has mutated into the Freaka virus.  We have an antidote for adults over twenty-one.”  Then I’d hand them one of these:

I told them it was too late for me, but I hoped our antidote would save some of the neighborhood.   I am here to tell you, it was a hit.  People loved it.   They thought the drink was great.   What parent hasn’t had to give their child medicine in a bottle just like the one above?   The best part was all the reactions.   I got all different kinds, but the most unexpected thing was how much one white contact made a visual impact on people.  All in all, the drinks were a whole lot of fun to hand out. 

In the meantime while this was going on, my husband and in-laws were going around the neighborhood with the children.  They didn’t make it the whole way, but the got a lot of houses in.   My son decided to go off with Keira and Rayan after a bit and my daughter enjoyed being with Nana.   

When they got home my daughter counted her candy and in finding she had thirty-nine pieces, decided she wanted an even number.   She went out front, asked Darren if she could have another piece and then came back in, saying now she had forty pieces. 

My son laid all his candy out.   All that candy in front of him and do you know the thing he picked to eat?   The fruit cup he got from one house in the neighborhood.

The Big Boy Update:  My son removed all the peanut items after trick-or-treating tonight.   He looked over at his sister’s pile and said, “I’ll trade you all my peanut items for that skittles.”   She said sure.    I’m not sure who got the better deal in that situation.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  On the way home from school today we told my daughter she was going to see Nana when she got to the house.   She asked Papa, “does Nana still have her surgery?”   We told her she had had the ‘surgery’ part but she still has the ‘sling’ on her arm.

Rock Paper Lizard Spock

If you’ve watched the show The Big Bang Theory, you might know what the title of this post is about.   There is a point where two of the characters need to determine who will do something and instead of playing the standard, “Rock Paper Scissors” game they play a more complex version called, “Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock”.  

The scene where Sheldon, one of the extreme nerds, explains the rules as if it’s nothing.   It’s definitely laugh-worthy.   At any rate, the rules of “Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock” are valid and if you want to play, you just need to learn the winning/losing combinations.

What surprised me was my son, who has never seen the show, came home the other day and wanted to play, “Rock Paper Lizard Spock” (missing out on the Scissors choice).   It appears one of his friends at school was trying to teach him.  

My husband worked with him on the rules some.   I’m not sure if they got it all, but it was cute watching them practice the game.

The Big Boy Update:  A song came on the radio in the car yesterday and my son announced, “this is a boy song.”  My daughter wasn’t sure he was right about it because she liked the song too.   I asked him how he knew and he told me, “because boys are singing”.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I’m not sure if my daughter has gotten more light sensitive lately or if her right eye might be seeing more but she wants sunglasses any time she’s out in bright sunlight.    We have no evidence to show she’s seeing more, but it’s a change of some sort.   More when we know more.

Why is it Called a Speaker

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Word Interpretation Discussions:
Children have less experience with words and their meanings than we do as adults.   We take for granted that, “hanging up the phone” means to end the conversation, but that meaning is so far out of date that even I only remember one phone in my life that was actually hung upwards to terminate calls.

My son and I were talking about what things were plugged into a power strip he saw under our tall dresser.   He can’t see the top of it so I told him the phone and the speaker were plugged into the strip.   He asked me, “what does ‘speaker’ mean?”  It is at this point where we commonly go to the circular definition in our heads by thinking, “well, speaker means speaker, of course.”  Followed by the thought of, “wait, why is it called a speaker, anyways?”  

I told my son it was because it spoke out sounds.   He was satisfied with that answer.   Then a short time later, my daughter and son were whizzing around on their scooters on the hardwood.   I told them to watch out in the kitchen because the dishes were drying and dad had cracked the dishwasher open.

My daughter came over to the dishwasher and said, “I want to see where it got cracked, mom”.   I realized she thought it had gotten damaged or cracked open like the egg shell she had peeled earlier in the day.   I told her it meant opened a little bit.   She was glad the dishwasher wasn’t broken.

Two more days until Halloween.  You’d better bet we’re counting down at this house.

Guys and Folks

The instructor I had for the real estate pre-licensing class I finished last week had a different teaching style than other teachers I’ve had before.   She rarely drew anything on the white board and used very few presentation slides, instead she just talked to us for eight hours a day.    She was interesting, and always addressed our questions, which made the long days sitting at a desk move at a brisk pace.

She told us stories related to real estate, the champion labs she and her husband raised and how the McDonalds she frequented only got her orders right some of the time.   She also told us many things about the NC Real Estate Commission.   She’s been teaching real estate classes for eighteen years and is involved with the commission from an education side.

She talked about how and why the test was the way it was, the changes made from previous years and the commissions expectations from instructors.    Everything she said made sense, aside from one.    The commission preferred instructors refer to their students as, “folks” and not, “guys”.

The Big Boy Update:  I got two new swing attachments for our playground in the mail today.   I like to try and find different options from the standard swings to attach to the top swing hooks.   Today was music lessons and my son happily went upstairs to work with Chelsea, but on the way he saw my husband and me putting together something he found out was a new lounge swing.   He knew it was about to be put outside on the swing set.   So I wasn’t surprised when he came downstairs early, saying, “Chelsea said it was okay if I ended early so I could go swing.”   If I was his age, I wouldn’t have been able to wait either.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was bringing in the mail yesterday.   She opened the door, called to me and I came and took the mail saying thank you.   She came back a minute later, opened the door and dropped another envelope on the doormat saying, “I missed one.”   I told her thank you again.   Then, again, she called out a minute later, “here’s another one”, but when I came to the door there was nothing.    She laughed and I told her she got me.   For the next ten minutes we had more mail that wasn’t there delivered every so often by my daughter, accompanied by giggles.

Broker

I’ve been saying for about four years now I was going to get my real estate license and begin working with my husband when the children got a little older.   At first my son and daughter were quite young, which involved a large time commitment as any parent who takes care of young children will tell you.   Then, they started school, but it was only until noon and the three hours each day they were in school got sucked up with household management and other tasks I couldn’t easily get done with two little toddlers in tow.

Last year they were both in school from eight-thirty until three o’clock, but I was heavily time-committed with our school’s capital campaign, board and committee duties, substituting and the construction of the new school which didn’t leave much time to dedicate towards a new career in real estate.

So, for quite some time, the question has been when should I get my license?   This year after the first week of school I found myself with the available time needed to take action on my plan.   I signed up for the first pre-licensing class I could get into and prepared to go back to school.

The North Carolina Real Estate Commission has made the requirements much more challenging over recent years.   Past exams was deemed too easy.   One of the commission’s primary jobs is to protect the public from realtors.   The thought is, a realtor is not a lawyer and can’t give legal advice and yet they’re helping people with what is likely one of the largest financial transactions of their lives.   So they made the test harder.

The class I’ve attended for the past month had a teacher that, in kindness, I’m going to say screeched at us all day long.   She treated us in part like we were adults but tempered that by talking to us like we were children.   It sounds like not the kind of teacher you want to have, but by the end of the course, I knew I was going to miss her because she really cared about helping us learn.

Here’s the thing.  The pass rate for the end of class exam is fifty percent.   And the pass rate of the state certification exam is fifty-two percent.   Kim, our instructor, wanted us to know this wasn’t a joke and it was going to be a month of hard work.   And she was right.    She said, “one third of the people in this class are taking the class over because they failed the end of class test.”   There is a requirement by the commission to pass the end of class test by a certain percent or you must retake the course.   If you take the class again and don’t meet the attendance requirement, you’re not eligible to take the end of class test, which means you can’t sit for the state exam.

I thought she was joking, but she wasn’t.  During the month, I met many people who were in the class a second time—people who told me Kim was correct, the test was hard, and to believe her when she said we need to read the material and study every night.

So I read the material, which mainly included a large, small print course book.   Initially I had hoped there would be some, “fluff” in the chapters but no, it was all important.   There is a lot to cover in the field of real estate in a month and every night I’d try to complete the reading for the next class so I could have time to review.   Mostly by the time I was done reading, it was too late and I went to bed.

The Tuesday before our end of class test on Thursday we were still covering new material and I thought there was no way I was going to be able to review and remember everything in two days.   My husband heard me whine and complain endlessly about worrying I'd fail and have to take the class again.

Last Thursday was the day of our class test.  In the morning we had three hours of review by Kim before taking the test after lunch.   At the start of the class she said, “half of you will fail the test today, so pay attention because this review will help you this afternoon.”   She did a thorough job of going through as much of the material as she could in that time.  

I went into the class test fairly confident.   After the test several of us messaged back and forth, all agreeing the test wasn’t as hard as we’d thought.    We had all been studying and were most definitely taking the class seriously.    On Friday I found out I had passed the class test and could finalize my application to the NC Real Estate Commission to take the state test.   I registered for the first slot available, which was this afternoon.

That left me with two-and-a-half days for final review.   My husband was great with the children throughout the entire past month and especially so right at the end.   Today I went in, fairly confident, even though I’d heard the state test was much harder than the class test.

Folks, it was hard.   It was harder than expected.   So much so that I wasn’t sure I was going to pass the national section of the test.   When I got to the state portion I knew I had that half covered, but in the back of my mind I was wondering if I’d failed one part and would have to take it over.

I finished both tests and stared at the PASS grade for both the national and state sections.   I sat there in my seat stunned for a minute before I got up.   I was so anxious about the national portion I couldn’t even be happy yet.  I was just relieved.

Now, later in the evening, I’m not only relieved, I’m excited to be a real estate agent.   I’m looking forward to working with my husband and his team in the future.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was outside, playing with his friends.   I have no idea what the context was but I heard him yell out to them, “I’m growing younger!” as he whizzed off on his scooter.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We were reading a Halloween book tonight before bed.   On each page of the book there is a flap and underneath is a typical Halloween creature (ghost, bat, witch, etc.).   When they lifted the flap on each and every page my daughter said, “too scary!”

The Moon That Can’t Be Seen

There are a lot of things my daughter can’t see.   Some of them make me sad—well, all of them make me sad, but sometimes something just gets me down more than other things do.

I was looking up at the night sky, or rather the twilight sky and trying to decide if it was a full moon or a nearly full moon and if it was waxing or waning.   My son was in the yard at the time and we both took some time to look at how big the moon looked on the low horizon and how bright it looked in the sky.

My daughter wanted to know what we were looking at so I told her we were talking about the moon.   She remembers the moon and knows it’s in the sky, but the small point of light in her whole visual field that is the moon is just not something she can see.    She will try though, and wanted to know where the moon was.   I pointed in the direction, but that didn’t help because she couldn’t follow the angle of my arm so I turned her head so she could see the moon.

I don’t think she saw it, but she said her typical positive, “oh” response that gives us no information on if she did or didn’t see anything.

In any given day I’m reminded at least a dozen times of the things my daughter can’t and may never see.  I try not to let it get to me.   Sometimes it does though.

On the other side, I am constantly surprised by what my son does see.  I’m a little warped in what to expect from vision in a child at this point because my daughter’s lack of vision has made me aware of all the things vision gives us information-wise as people.    So when my son points out something far away or small or hard to see because of high contrast I commonly think, “wow, he’s got great vision coupled with superb observational skills”.   I don’t think it’s really that, but when you’re used to a child who can’t see the tree five feet in front of her, you get a little lopsided in your expectations of vision.

The Big Boy Update:  My daughter brought home some, “gluing work” from school late last week.   To do this work you use a small brush, dip it into a tiny bowl of glue, brush glue onto the back of the attachment paper and then place it on the main sheet.   It’s not so much creating a specific design as much as it is working on fine motor skills.   My daughter’s page was covered in rectangles so much you almost couldn’t see the background paper.   I was asking them where the pieces of paper were from (a cut up tissue box from their classroom).   They weren’t sure so my daughter suggested we look on the back side of the pasted, glued pieces.   My son said, “maybe the ones on the back are the background?”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We’ve been trying to come up with independent work for my daughter to do at home.   She far prefers to do something with other people such as play a game, spend time together outside or do a craft.   One thing she is good at and enjoys is drawing.   I decided to repurpose the “lego table” in the corner of the dining room to a drawing table.   I got a little light, some notebook and coloring book choices, markers and crayons and set the whole table up.   So far she likes working there.   I had to add a second chair so Madison could draw at the same when she comes over to visit.

I Know What You Can Do

My husband and I were talking about a water mark that appeared on the table after snack with my children the other day.    We were going over options on how to get the mark removed and why the table had become more susceptible to water intrusion than it had been when it was originally purchased.

My daughter and her friend, Madison, were in the kitchen at the time had a suggestion as well.   Madison said, “I know what you can do; you can buy a new table.”  We explained how we liked the table and didn’t want to get a new table because of one little mark.   My daughter wasn’t convinced though.   She said, “okay, but if you can’t fix it, you could still get a new table.”

We didn’t get a new table.  Instead, we removed the water mark moisturized the wood for good measure.

The Big Boy Update:  My son and daughter were counting in the car this morning.  I can’t remember how counting came up but my son told me he wanted to make up a new number.  He created “Seph” which is between five and six.   My daughter, not to be outdone, created the letter “Fey” which came before H.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter informed us at dinner last night, “I’m very graceful.”

Tired From Running:   I ran about twelve-and-a-half miles today.   I was doing fine but at the end I started feeling unusually tired.   I got home and was definitely feeling tired.   About an hour later I started eating everything I could find, starting in the fruit bowl.   I’m not sure if it was lack of calories or something else, but it took several hours for me to feel mostly normal again.

Golden Grahams and Popcorn

Sometimes children teach you something…

So it was Friday night, movie night.   The adults were downstairs watching something that sounded loud, or at least came up through the stairwell as loud, but that could have just been the volume my husband had it cranked up to.    Upstairs the children were running amok and I was tidying, cleaning and basically trying to restore and keep order.  What to do, what to do?

It was likely my daughter, but someone asked if we could have a tea party.   The having of the tea party wasn’t why she was asking, it was the, “and could we have real milk in the teapot and cereal?” question that was why I was brought into the situation.  

So we had milk in the teapot and sugar in the sugar bowl (which is a real favorite) and cereal to pass around and eat piece by piece on our tiny little plates.   Dylan told everyone to be sure to drink with our pinkies out.  

There was also popcorn—it being a movie night.   For some reason my daughter decided she wanted to have popcorn and golden grahams on her little tiny plate.   Then, she said she was going to eat the two at the same time.  

She said it tasted good, so I tried it…and it did.   We all came up with different ways to eat the two together (sandwich with popcorn in the middle, sandwich of popcorn with a Golden Graham in the middle, etc.).    And we all thought it tasted good.  

Nothing like sweet and salty together…at a tea party…just before bed.

The Big Boy Update:  My son hit his chin last night as he was about to get out of the tub.   He asked us if it was cut and we weren’t sure at first, but yes, it was cut.   It was borderline needing a stitch or two cut, something my husband and I debated for a few minutes.     It was barely bleeding and was a clean cut so we decided to take advantage of “primary healing” by pressing the severed skin back together and fastening it tightly with some steri-strips.    Can I just tell you my son was the calmest child throughout the whole event?   We painted adhesive liquid onto his chin, placed a small bit of non-sticking bandage on top of the cut and then pulled it together with the steri-strips and some pressure.    Today we took the bandage off and I really don’t think it could have looked any better if he’d had stitches.   It looks a week healed almost.  Here are some pictures, because you know you want to see, right?

  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted to know if the sun had gone down and if it was night yesterday as we were driving home in the twilight.   We told her it was now night time.   She asked if she could roll down her window to check and we asked why she needed to, she could just look out.   She said, “it’s a little tintchy”.  It took us a minute to figure out she was saying “tinted”, which her window was.  

Neither Will She

We were outside on the street two days ago, enjoying the fall-isa weather (otherwise known as ‘warm’) with families on our street.   We have a happy and social street with a good number of children and good weather tends to have us all catching up outside.

Mt daughter is riding her bicycle regularly now and as long as there are some other, older children outside with her and her brother, we let them go riding without us now.   Riding on our street, or rather our cul-de-sac street which happens to be very short.  

I’m still not completely comfortable watching as my small, mostly blind child rides faster than I’m comfortable, zipping up driveways and taking turns with the greatest of confidence.   My neighbor was commenting on how fast she was and we were talking about how quickly she’d taken to it once she’d gotten proficient at it.  

I laughed and said, “I’m going in, I don’t want to see it when she crashes.”  My neighbor laughed back and said, “neither will she!”  and slapped me on the shoulder.   Then, suddenly, he realized I might not have liked that kind of comment and was trying to make apologies while I was laughing at his statement.

I assured him I was not at all offended.   The only way to deal with something as terrible as having your child lose their vision was to laugh when you could.    He told me they did the same thing with their son, who has a heart defect and has had to have a pacemaker put in/changed multiple times in his life.   They’ve always had that urge to protect their son, but were encouraged by doctors to let him live his life and don’t shunt his experiences simply because he has a pacemaker.

We agreed it was the best way we could manage to deal with a saddening situation.    I told my neighbor I was going to remember his saying and to be sure I was going to use it at some point and think of him.

The Big Boy Update:  My son decided to go outside to play the other day.   As he was leaving I said, “bye, I’ll see you later.”   He responded, “I’ll see you in the future.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter launched into angry mode today when she came inside asking to see dad.   I told her she could go find him but she had to close the door first.   She did not want to close the door.   She was petulant.   She laid down on the floor and cried and then tried to go around me to get to the basement where dad was.   I told her we didn’t leave outside doors open when we came in.    She went over, kicked the door shut and then said, “you’re poopie mommie.  Poopie, poopie, poopie!”  Then she came over and punched me.    I grabbed her hand and told her she was going to her room.    She turned into a blob so I picked her up.  She said, “I’m sorry mom!”   I said she was going to her room until she remembered how to be polite to people and that I don’t allow people to hurt me.   She said, “I SAID I’m sorry!”  I then said, “oh, you didn’t seem sorry when you were calling me poopy and hitting me.    And here’s the interesting thing—she didn’t come our of the room for five minutes.   I told her as I deposited her on her bed (bike helmet and all) she could come out whenever she was ready to be polite.    Apparently she wasn’t ready at first.

Fall Wind

I was lying in bed last night, listening to the wind blowing.  You know when you have one of those realizations and you think, “that was obvious, if only I’d bothered to think about it”?  We’ve had a protracted entering into fall this year.   The weather has been indecisive, taking us from chilly mornings to hot afternoons and back into summer-like temperatures.    I think at this point fall has finally arrived, or at least the trees have decided it has.

To sidetrack for a moment with clothing—it’s been hard to know what to wear in the morning, looking at the temperatures upcoming for the remainder of the day.   I have to change the wardrobe my children have available to them because if I don’t, they’ll continue to prefer their summer clothes over the warmer, fall wear I’ve added to their drawers.   Because I thought fall had finally arrived about two weeks ago, I pulled out all their shorts and replaced them with pants.   Short sleeved shirts were mostly removed and long-sleeved shirts added in their place.   Only fall got confused, and so did they.

My son handled it fairly well when we told him, “wear something light, because it’s going to get warm by the time you go outside to play at school.”  My daughter did her best, but her mental image of her wardrobe is a bit different than that of a sighted child, but she did very well considering.    We’ve changed them over from sandals and flip flops to shoes with socks required.  That’s been the toughest for them to remember as they come downstairs without socks on most days.    But as of this weekend, I think fall may finally be here for good (we shall see).

Back to the wind though.   As I was lying in bed I realized I could be placed somewhere out of time, in a nameless house in the southern United States and asked to identify what season of the year it was, simply by listening to the wind.    Fall leaves sound different in the wind.   They’re dry, they’re ready to fall off the trees and you can almost hear them crunching together in the wind.

I have a feeling my daughter would know this fact years before I finally realized it as a middle-aged adult.

The Big Boy Update:  My son comes downstairs every so often in the middle of the night with a hand that’s fallen asleep.   He must roll over against the railing of his bed bunk bed or just on top of his body and his hand loses circulation as a result.   When he comes downstairs I’m usually quite asleep but I wake up enough to rub his hand, shake his arm, jiggle his fingers and wiggle his hand around until it wakes back up.  At that point he goes back to his bed by himself.   Yesterday morning I woke up right as he was coming into the room in the morning and my hand was asleep.   I called him over and asked if he could help me wake my hand up.   I watched him do everything I do to his hand for about a minute.  Then he said, “there’s one more you do, but I can’t remember it.”  I told him he did a fine job and thanked him for helping me.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter does NOT want to be touched when she gets hurt—and she gets huts a lot.  She runs into things, gets hit by people coming at our by her that she doesn’t see or just has accidents all children at her age have.  Only she has a lot more than most people do due to her low vision.  She screams and cries and the one thing we want to do as parents is pick her up and console her, which is exactly what she doesn’t’ want us to do.   As soon as she’s hurt she’ll even cry out, “don’t touch me!”   We’ve learned to let her work through it without saying anything other than, “would you like an ice pack?”   She recovers quickly, but I hate it for her.

The Run I Didn’t Do:  This morning I got up at six o’clock to run with my neighbor.  Our plans were to run for two hours but I felt terrible and she had a migraine so we managed to walk around the neighborhood for two miles and then I went back to bed and slept until nine o’clock (my thanks go to my husband for letting me sleep in).  I found out later she ran five miles after I left—traitor!  She snuck that in on me.  Glad she was feeling better after I left though…

Fair Day

It was a fair day today—that is until it rained.   This isn’t about the weather so much as the state fair, which is happening this week and we went to today.   My children had been talking about the fair.   They each remember different things from the few years they’ve been going, but those memories are strong ones.

Uncle Jonathan came with us, which was helpful because the higher adult to child ratio you have, the easier things are in crowded places.   We arrived at about nine-thirty in the morning, hoping to beat the crowds.   We debated taking the double stroller.   It hasn’t been used in a long time and had been put up in the attic.   My husband said it was a lot of walking so we brought it.  

The children were excited when they saw the stroller come out of the car and immediately hopped in. Rules were made about how often you could get into and then out of the stroller before you were “kicked out” and not allowed to get back in for a while.  

We had, in no particular order:  roasted corn, beef tips, cotton candy, french fries, mini donuts, fried shrimp, smoothies, steak sandwich, fresh orangeade, deep fried cookie dough, deep fried Oreos and ice cream.   We tried each other’s food to see how we liked it.

We took the children to the rides area, which turned out to be my daughter’s favorite part of the whole fair.  She would still be on the rides now if we hadn’t run out of tickets.   She likes the motion, I think.   I went on one of the teacup rides where you spin your car around and around.   There was another mother and daughter in our car and they wanted to spin too.   We were all dizzy when the ride was over, but we all agreed it was a lot of fun.

We left just as the rain was starting.   We’ll be back next year.

The Big Boy Update:  At some point recently the kitchen trash can apparently smelled bad and my son got a good whiff of it.   He’s been unwilling to open or even go near the trash can for about a week because he’s afraid it still smells bad.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked if they could “go up the hill” this afternoon on her bike.   She was with our neighbor, Keira, who was also riding her bike.   The hill is the next street and is about four houses up an incline in the road.   It’s not much of a hill in other words.   But to a four-year-old new on a bike, it’s a hill.   My husband told them they could go once and to have everyone watch out for cars.    They all came back happy with their accomplishment.

Going On A Bear Hunt

My daughter’s Visual Impairment teacher sends home books from time to time.  They’re called, “braille books” even though they’re mostly picture books appropriate for young children.    All words in the book have been translated to braille and overlaid on the page in a clear braille.    It’s the stories that are fun though.

Both children love the books because they’re just fun.   You get to touch what’s on the page, be it textures or dots to follow.  Sometimes there are pieces to move like we had in the missing bear book. We had the classic, Going on a Bear Hunt book come home a few weeks ago.   The author kept to the original story but the story was played out in braille dots and textures.

There were colors and pictures and you didn’t need to be blind or read braille to enjoy the book.   We followed a line of braille dots for our path and felt textures for the stream, tall grass and trees.    When we found the bear we ran back home through the same elements, only faster.

The students in my daughter’s class enjoy the braille books too.   I noticed at Bring Your Parents to School that one of the students had selected a braille book to show to her parents.  

We have a pumpkin patch book this week that’s both textural and interactive.   I’m looking forward to reading (and feeling) the book with my children.

The Big Boy Update:  At dinner tonight my children were thanking dad for making them dinner.   They were coming up with other things they were thankful for including my son saying, “mom, thank you for making me born.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  About that bike riding—my daughter is not only good, she’s scary good.   She’s fast, has the braking down and can mount and dismount with ease.   People who walk by (we have an active neighborhood with a lot of walkers) are amazed, and a some don’t know she has vision issues.  It’s collisions I’m mostly worried about now because I know she can stop in time, it’s the being able to see the thing she needs to avoid that has me worried.

The Bathroom Waterfall

My husband opened the doors under his vanity sink the other day to get something out.   There was a plastic bin with lots of things in it and when he reached in, he found it filled with water.    He pulled that out and then the other containers under the sink, including his trashcan.

Everything was filled with water.   The trashcan was half full and everything else was floating or drenched.    He called me in and we talked about what could have happened.    We remembered my daughter and Madison playing in the bathroom with the door shut the day before.   My daughter was consulted and she had helpful information.

It seems she and Madison were cleaning things in the sink.   They’d pulled the stopper, filled up the sink and then…left, forgetting to turn the water off.   They came back a while later to an overflowing sink—overflowing onto the floor.

They did some sort of cleanup at this point, I’m not sure how or what, but they left the bathroom looking like nothing had happened.   That night, my husband had come in and remarked on how drenched his bath mat was.  

We had a discussion later with the girls, letting them know if anything like that happened again to please let us know so we could help take care of the problem.  

But what was the problem?   It turned out the safety drain hole (not sure of the official name) was clogged.   I didn’t have any official tool to open it with, but I found a long, heavy-duty zip strip and jammed it into the hole repeatedly until it was free flowing again.  

My husband lost some toiletries, but overall it wasn’t that bad considering it could have done damage to the cabined if there had been standing water seeping into the wood for days.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was going over his Pokemon cards tonight.   He likes to lay them out, sort them, talk about them, ask what they say with some of the words and if you have time, he’ll even play a game with you using the cards and his own special rules.   Tonight he told me he’d found a special card and did I know what it was called?   I started naming random things like, “Celeryasaurus” and “Steveieoto”.   He gave me a look and said, “mom, stop guessing.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter rarely makes a mess in her pants.   They might get wet from time to time due to not making it to the potty in time, but she almost always makes it to the bathroom for solids.    Today she came home with what must have been in her pants for a while, aggravating her skin.   By the time we got to the bath part of the day she was in high discomfort.  She was so unhappy with the whole thing I’m wondering if she’ll redouble her efforts to deposit all solids in the toilet.    

I Didn’t Think About Getting Home…

The New York City Marathon is coming up in a few short weeks.  My toe is recovered and we’re ready for the most part.   I was looking forward to having dinner with Uncle Jonathan and Margaret earlier this week for a number of reasons.   We hadn’t seen them in a while and it’s nice to catch up with friends.   But I also wanted to talk to Margaret about the upcoming marathon.

She has a lot of experience with races overall and she knows about the New York marathon from racing it several times.   I asked a lot of questions and am fairly sure I’m going to be tired just from all the commuting and wait times it takes to get to the point where you can run, followed by more waiting and commuting just so you can get back to where you’re staying.

That’s when corral times came up.   Uncle Jonathon is fast folks—he’s starting near the front and will finish hours before we do.    I hadn’t checked buy our corral time was eleven o’clock.   ELEVEN?!  I didn’t expect that at all.   Usually races start early—sometimes very early.   Margaret explained how they needed to let people get into the city (including the over fifty thousand racers) before closing some of the roads so starting time for the first wave wasn’t until nine o’clock.

I did some calculations in my head and realized we might have a problem with our flight home at eight.   Margaret agreed that it would be a frantic rush to get through everything, get back to the hotel, shower and change, grab bags and hope we could get to the airport in time.

I texted my best friend and we decided to look into it the next day.    We agreed leaving Monday at 9:30AM made more sense so she called Delta to see what could be done.   And this is where I don’t know what happened.   She told the very nice lady on the phone how she didn’t even think about the timing and how we’d get home.  

The lady laughed with her and looked at the price delta for the Monday flight.   The cost had gone down and the flight was cheaper than it had been when we booked our other flights but we’d have to pay a change fee—or would we?   The agent was so understanding she waived the change fee and now we each have a seventy-one dollar credit for future travel.  

I’m thankful for several things:  First, to Margaret, who helped us realize we needed to rethink our departure.   Second, for my friend, for trying to change our flights and third, to the very nice lady at Delta who made our marathon weekend just a little bit happier.

The Big Boy Update:  We had Bring Your Parents to School last Friday.   My son stayed with the teachers and volunteers during the annual meeting portion of the evening between the times we were in the classrooms with our children.  The children who could write their names put on name tags.    This is what my son’s looked like:

When I asked him what his name tag said, I was expecting him to tell me about the “G” he had written.  Instead, he told me it was a 61 that looked like a G.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter likes to play “The Egg Game” and “The Rock Game” when she gets out of the tub.   Both games involve curling up in a ball and having the towel put over you.   My husband does the game with them all the time and I’m not really involved.   The big thing right now is to be some sort of egg with an animal inside.   The animal is special though because I always hear my husband saying, “and it has all the powers in the world”.   Once the egg is hatched, the baby <insert powerful animal here> my daughter jumps up, runs around, hops on the bed and jumps and makes animal sounds.  It’s pretty much a requisite to play the egg or rock game during bath time now (in case you plan on watching our children any time soon).

Here, Sort This While I’m Busy

Those are the words I said in my head on Sunday morning.   I had just finished a run with my best friend and we weren’t quite done with a story she was telling.   We had to get back so my husband could go work with a client.  As we came in the house, our idyllic running quiet time was shattered as little children ran all around us.

What could I do to occupy them for a while?   I looked over at the Halloween candy my son and I had bought the day before and the two large candy bowls we’d brought down from the attic and I had an Idea:  I’d have them “organize” the candy.

I put the bags and the bowls in front of my daughter and Madison, who had come over from next door and asked if they wanted to organize our candy.   They couldn’t eat it, but they could help and I really needed some help with our candy.

They were excited and started dumping out candy.   A few minutes later my son and Whitaker, Madison’s brother, came into the dining room and wanted to get involved.   My son went upstairs and came back with something I didn’t see at the time, because I was deep in conversation with my friend.

These four children worked together, not arguing—and not eating the candy—for about ten minutes.    It was just enough time for us to finish our conversation because at that point they told us they wanted us to come see what they’d done.

My son told us he’d gone upstairs to get a third candy bowl because they needed it.    Here’s what they'd done:

They told us they put all the circles in one bowl, all the rectangles in the second and all the squares in the third bowl.    And so they had.   

The Big Boy Update:  We were in the car coming home from dinner with Nana and Papa tonight and my children asked to play The Continents song.   Typically after that song plays, The States song plays next.   It’s a cute, child-based song where the states are sung in alphabetical order.   When they got to Georgia my son suddenly exclaimed, “Georgia?  That’s my favorite place!  Dad, can we go to Georgia some day?”   (My son has never been to Georgia.)

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was up in the middle of the night last night itching.   Her skin has been dry and we’ve been putting lotion and medicine on her but it sometimes wakes her up.   Last night she was complaining about it being too bright.   The room was almost completely dark.   Honestly, I worried about retinal tears because they have sharp stabs of bright light.   She has no indication that she’d have this additional complication, but it didn’t stop me from worrying.    She said the brightness was only when her eyes were open, so I think we’re okay.   I hope we’re okay.   Today she was fine.

Afraid of Her Room

My daughter has become afraid of her room.   It’s been a rather quick progression over the past two weeks.   We’ve been trying to figure out what the trigger or triggers were and how to get her back to being comfortable and feeling her room is a safe place to be.

I wonder if some of it could be Halloween.  We had a lit pumpkin in their room as a night light.   We put up some decorations and I’d been reading Halloween books to them.   Nothing was particularly scary, but it was a change with a theme that she might have associated with scary things.

She also had her vision disrupted this past week with the Healon added to both eyes.   We don’t know how she might be seeing things differently, especially with the detached retina she still has in the left eye.

She’s come downstairs in the middle of the night saying she heard a fly in the room.   There was one time she felt something tap on her back.    She’s said her room looks spooky several times.   Each of these events wasn’t a simple reassurance things were find, it was a big deal to her and she was upset.  

There was the one time she came downstairs and climbed on the bed.   She said, “I’m scared but I forgot what I was scared of.”   I talked to her like Dhruti had told me to.   She’s had a lot of scary things medically related and vision related happen to her.   She may be processing those things and it’s transferring to being scared at night.    We talked and she admitted she had been scared when she went into surgery.    I told her how we were all taking care of her and explained how we made sure she was okay.

She calms down, but there’s still something happening.   Today at nine in the morning she was crying pitifully when I got back from a run.   She said she wanted to get clothes on but her room (in the daylight) was too scary.   I walked her up and she was scared of multiple areas of the room, including the closet.    We went through all the spots and she calmed down.

Is her vision changing and scaring her or is it something else?   When we figure it out, I’ll let you know.

The Big Boy Update:  My mother was here today spending time with the children.   My son took my mother into our closet.   As they entered he said, “don’t get mad at me now.”  My mother asked him why she might get mad?   He said, “here are my mother’s shoes” and pointed to the shelf they were on.    They looked around the closet and counted lots of things.   They both noticed I have more shoes than my husband does.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My daughter was playing with her good friend, Madison today.   They had gotten into the costume bin and were all dressed up.   Instead of playing ‘mom and baby’, they were playing ‘mom and teenager’.   Children grow up so fast, am I right?

I Ran On The Toe:   Remember the yucky big toe?   It’s gotten better and toughened up.   I ran five miles and it didn’t bother me at all.   What a relief.

Pancakes For Lunch

My husband took my daughter to an event for visually impaired children this morning.   She had a good time and he had a chance to talk to some of the people there as well as see how they approached things differently for children with visual deficits.  

My son didn’t get to go so I thought I’d try and make his morning special too.   I came upstairs to find him working on Legos, happy and quiet in the craft room.   When I asked him if he wanted to have pancakes for lunch, he looked up and said excitedly, “yes!”   I told him we’d leave in thirty minutes and to come down when he was finished.

We left and I told him the place I was taking him to was one of my favorite restaurants in the world—Biscuitville.    We live in the south and there are restaurant chains dedicated to food revolving around biscuits.    My son now told me he wanted to have pancakes and a biscuit.  I said I thought we could make that happen.

I don’t go to Biscuitville often and I was hungry, which means I over-ordered.   We got pancakes, bacon, country ham, two biscuits, eggs and white gravy.    My son ate some of everything.   He wanted me to take a picture of him eating, saying “pancakes and biscuits” and send it to dad (which I did).

We brought the food we couldn’t eat back to the car and headed home.   I had forgotten I’d said my son and I could go pick out Halloween candy.   He had not forgotten.    When we got to the drug store he helped me pick out some  candy and was excited to show it to his sister when she came home.  Then…he got distracted by Pokemon cards and completely forgot about the candy.

The Big Boy Update:  My daughter came home from her event with a small bag of candy.   When she offered my son a piece he casually said, “I don’t want candy. I don’t want to get fat.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   We’d heard about a “light box” but hadn’t seen it in action until today.   My daughter was able to go into a room with low lights and sit in front of a light box.   There was a transparency with colors she could see through it.   She added foam stickers to the transparent picture and was able to discern things well with the high light contrast.

What Flag is Madison On?

My son’s been doing new types of work at school over the past two weeks.   Some of this is in part because he’s had a change in main teachers.   The new teacher has introduced him to maps and flags and possibly because of how she’s introduced them, he’s become very interested.

At the end of last week came home with a map of North and South America:

Then yesterday, he brought home a map of the continents:

This afternoon he using my phone to send a text message to Madison, his cousin Kyle's girlfriend.   From the back seat of the car he asked me, “mom, what flag is Madison on?”   I told him she lived in New Jersey which was under the same flag we live under.   He said, “okay, I got it.”   After he sent the message I checked and he sent the US flag to her (along with a lot of hearts).

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Tape Conversation:   This afternoon in the car, my children were talking about their day at school.   My daughter was talking about tape and asked, “do we have gorilla tape, mom?”   I said I wasn’t sure what gorilla tape was.   My son said, “I know what it is; it’s like duct tape only instead of ducks in the middle it has gorillas in the middle.”

Figuring Out Fall

What is it with the change of seasons that gets me so flummoxed about clothes?  I don’t have a particularly large wardrobe of clothes; I have rules that allow no more than a fixed amount of clothing in my closet—specifically no more than I have hangers.   The remainder of my clothes and shoes follow similar quantity restrictions, keeping my overall choices in outfits reasonable.  

But for some reason, every time the season changes I can’t remember what I did the prior year at that time.   I have jeans and other long pants, but did I wear boots or sneakers and which shirts went with which pants?   Sure, I have a few new things and I’ve retired some older things that were worn or not fitting well, but for the most part this should be an easy thing to figure out.  

As it’s turned colder over the past two weeks I’ve had to figure out fall again with my wardrobe.   I dislike putting on something only to look in the mirror and take it off again because those things together make no sense.    

I think some of it is my disinclination to change clothing gears.   I try to hold on to things like wearing sneakers—which makes sense for summer—with clothing that works better with boots.  

It’s two weeks in now and most of it’s come back.   I didn’t think about what to put on this morning in the dark and was out the door to my early meeting without even turning on the light in the closet to get dressed.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was not in the mood to go to the potty the other night but I could tell from what I was hoping was gas that he needed to go.   I told him to go into the toilet room and let me know when he was done.   He looked at me as I stood in front of him as he sat on the potty and said, “when I say buhdongieface that means the poop’s out.”   I didn’t argue, I walked away and waited for his call, which happened about a minute later.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My children were playing the other evening when I heard my daughter call out something.   I said, “did you just say, ‘hey bro’”?    She said, “yeah, I’m talking to my brother.”

Mac Watch Unlock

This is going to be one of those, “I love technology” posts which means if new technology bores you, you can skip ahead to tomorrow’s post (if tomorrow’s already happened).

We’re getting software updates all the time in our lives and typically those updates benefit us by making our lives easier or more fun.  In the case of our Tesla cars, I would say the software updates are both, because who doesn’t love a car that tells you the radio interface is going to be entirely different, new, more exciting, easier to use and of course, more fun, when you wake up in the morning.    I may be taking that a bit far, but the interface was overhauled and the new screens are more feature-packed and easier to use.

My newest favorite software feature though is with my Mac.   There was a big update to the operating system last week and after installing it I was presented with some of the new features.   One of them was “Unlock with Apple Watch”.    What could this be?  I decided to turn it on and see what happened.   Sure, I could read about it, but that would be much less adventuresome.

Typically I sit down to my computer at home or pull it out of my bag when out elsewhere with it.   When the screen opens up I type in my password and begin work.   Only now, I don’t have to.   My Mac knows my Apple Watch is in proximity to it (I don’t know how it knows, I’m going to have to look into that part).   The Mac says, “Unlocking with Apple Watch” and then faster than I could have typed in my password, I’m in.   My watch does a little “ding”, letting me know it’s preformed another service for me, thank you very much.

So.  Much.  Fun.

The Big Boy Update:  My son, after realizing his sister was riding her bicycle all by herself and getting compliments from all the adults on the street, decided he wanted to ride his bicycle too.   Motivation is a strong teacher because in less than a half-hour my son was riding his bicycle unaided too.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My children just went to bed.   My daughter said she heard something, which I’m not sure is true, but she insists there was a beep.   My husband has gone upstairs to see if it’s the smoke detector battery in their room.   We’ve been getting ready for halloween and the children have a pumpkin night light in their room with pumpkin string lights in their hallway and bat lights in their bathroom.    This afternoon they put that spider web stuff on the front porch and hung ghosts on the tree.   Before bed my son wanted to go to bed with a rubber spider so my daughter did as well.    Now that my husband is up in they room I’m wondering if my daughter got overly spooked by halloween, especially since she told him as he was entering the room, “…and something just tapped me on the back…”

No Real Revelations. Talk Later.

That was the text message I got from my husband this morning after he and my daughter left their next day follow-up appointment with Dr. Trese.   We had talked last night on the phone about what questions to ask and what information we needed so we could work on things on our end before our return in seven weeks.

We wanted to know how much the cataract had progressed (clouded) since he last saw her two months ago.   He said it had gotten a little worse, but not dramatically so.   He thought the decrease in her vision was probably more related to the low pressure in her left eye which caused fluid to build up behind her retina and was disrupting her vision more.

My husband asked about timing for lens removal, working with Duke and collaborating with him in Detroit.   He agreed and said when he talked to Dr. Grace this weekend at the conference they were both going to he and she were planning on getting together to discuss my daughter’s case.

Next week I’ll follow up with Dr. Grace and see what we need to do to potentially schedule anything on this end with Duke and find out the results of their conversation.

There was one bit of good news we found out today: Dr. Trese saw no indication of infection or inflammation in either eye.  In the case of my daughter’s eyes, something not going wrong is almost a reason to celebrate, sad as it may be to say.

The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted to help our neighbors find the home of a lost dog.   I’m not sure the dog was truly lost, I think the dog had just gotten out of the back yard.   Regardless, the three children wanted to go around the block looking for the owner.   My son got his helmet on and was ready to head off on his scooter to go around the half-mile block when he realized his two friends had left.   He asked me if I could message their mom, but when I called she didn’t answer.   I went to the end of the street and told him if he stayed on the sidewalk and watched for cars, he could go without me to find his friends.     He wasn’t gone long and he didn’t go around the while block, but he was cautious and was very happy when he came back, telling me how they found the dog’s owner.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I really think this should be its own blog post because I’m really a proud parent.   My daughter, not yet five-years-old, can ride a bike.   She can start from a dead stop, do gradual and sharp turns, go fast or slow, up and down hills and avoid obstacles—something impressive considering her vision.  She has done a few short stints before but today she had it completely figured out.   She was on her bike for forty-five minutes and when we made her come in as it was getting dark, she lay down on the driveway and cried because she didn’t want to stop.  

Where To Begin

There’s so much complexity to my daughter’s eyes, sometimes I don’t even know where to begin…

Today was my daughter’s EUA and possible eye surgery.   Dr. Trese (pronounced “Tracy”) spent time looking at both her eyes to see what the cause of her reduced vision might be.   Bottom line—I’m glad we got in early, because things aren’t looking good.   It doesn’t mean we can’t turn around some of what’s happening, but more is happening that needs to be addressed.

The first thing he talked to us about was the pressure in both eyes.   Initially when we saw him she had near zero pressure in both eyes.   This turned around for a while, which hopefully meant her ciliary bodies were producing fluid and had recovered some.   But since two months ago both eyes have dropped dramatically, with one eye at zero and the other at six.  

His suggestion was to artificially increase the pressure in both eyes to normal levels by adding Healon, a permeable substance he’s added before.    His thought is that perhaps the ciliary bodies didn’t recover, but the Healon didn’t permeate out for a long time, which would make sense given her eye situation.   If that’s the case, she will need regular injections of Healon, perhaps every six months or yearly, to keep her eyes at pressure.

The reduction in pressure is concerning, but fixable.   Dr. Trese said it was hard to see the retina in the left eye because of her cataract, but it looked like it had some fluid behind it (a serous detachment, remember that?) but his hope was the increase in pressure would help remedy that.    The right eye looks good with an attached retina and an optic nerve he could see which looked reasonably healthy.

Next he talked to us about the lenses and what needed to be done.   The left lens is clouding rather quickly (becoming a cataract).   He said it needed to come out and possibly have an artificial lens added, but he wanted to stabilized the eye pressure first.   That would likely be done by Duke as he doesn’t implant lenses.   That would also depend on the availability of a lens that would fit her small eyes.

The right eye has another thing going on which is interesting in that “I wish I wasn’t that interesting” kind of way.  Her lens was removed last December.   Think of the lens as an M&M.   The part removed is the chocolate center.   The lens capsule remains and holes are opened in the front and back so you can see clearly through  the opening.

Sometimes, the remnant parts of the lens, which is a little like an onion with layers, has cell growth occur.   This growth is called Elsching Pearls.   That’s what’s happening to my daughter’s right eye.   So the open area is less open now.   The picture below is not my daughter’s eye, but it shows the lens capsule with cellular growth around the opening some time later.

What happens next?   Dr. Trese wants to give my daughter’s eyes six weeks to adjust to the normal pressure.  The pressure increase should be helpful to her eyes overall.   He is meeting with our pediatric ophthalmologist this weekend at a conference and plans to talk with her about next steps. 

We will need to have the lens removed in the left and the right lens capsule cleaned out at some point.      Hopefully over the next few days things will improve a bit but I don’t expect them to get significantly better until she can see more clearly through the left eye, clouded eye.   

She has a follow-up office visit tomorrow with Dr. Trese at which we’ll learn a bit more about his thoughts for a plan going forward.  

The Big Boy Update: My son wanted to know why all the cars were at our next door neighbor’s house last night.   I told him they were there to watch the debate of our presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.    He immediately laughed and said,  “Donald Trump? That’s crazy funny because trump is like a trumpet and makes funny noises and Donald is like the Duck on Mickey Mouse Club House and he’s crazy.”   Folks, I swear, I don’t make these things up.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter didn’t recover initially from the anesthesia well, saying her head hurt in the forehead area.   Two hours later with her at the mall, throwing her present pennies into the fountain and she was right as rain.   She talked to her brother on the phone for a while, telling him she got him the Lego set he wanted as a present.   

Words of Worry

My husband and daughter are in Detroit.   Tomorrow my daughter will be seen by her retina surgeon. He may or may not take action on her left eye to try and improve her vision.   I’ll have to tell you more about that tomorrow but tonight, I want to talk about how my daughter’s handling her vision situation.

I spoke with her therapist yesterday, asking her for advice on how to prepare my daughter for what might happen and how to handle her potential emotional storm if her vision is changed tomorrow for the worse (temporary) if the lens is removed.

Dhruti gave me some clear guidance on how to present what might happen with my daughter.   She also told us what to do if she wakes up and panics.   She said to let her panic.    Her feelings need to be recognized.   She said let her panic for as long as she needs to panic and to be there for her through it all.   We have some glasses for her and we hope we’ve prepared her for what tomorrow might bring, but since we don’t know what to expect ourselves, it’s hard to prepare.

One thing Dhruti told me was our daughter is beginning to process the permanent loss of her vision.   She understands she’s not going to see like she did before.   She knows her vision is broken and can’t be fixed.    She knows this at a four-year-old’s level of understanding, and I’m simplifying here, but that’s what’s happening.

Last night my husband and I tried to prepare my daughter for what might happen on Monday.   I began by explaining how we had all noticed her vision was getting worse and Dr. Trese was going to look at her eye and see what he could do to help.    Whenever I try to have conversations like this or about anything medically related what I typically get is avoidance by my daughter.   She will just act like you’re not talking to her about that particular topic.   Yesterday though she did something she’s never done before, she asked me, “am I going to die?”

I told her absolutely not, she was going to walk back with the nurse, breathe into the mask and then wake up with dad there in the room with you.    Then she asked another question, “is Dr. Trese going to cut into my eye?”   This is more information, more admittance of understanding than we’ve ever gotten from her before.   I told her if he needed to cut into her eye to make it better, he would and was that all right?   She said yes.

Then, because she was receptive, I asked her if she thought her vision was getting worse.   She always tells you what she thinks you want to hear, but this time she nodded yes.

So she’s worried, and she knows her vision isn’t going to heal completely—something we told her initially when we believed things were only temporary but don’t say now.    I hope tomorrow goes well as far as what can be improved.   She may wake up with decreased vision but without an abnormally shaped and clouded lens.  Tomorrow we’ll know more.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was looking at the iPad this morning and asked me, “what happens if I break open the glass?  Could I hop into the iPad?”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter’s in Detroit.   Four of her friends were around my computer today and wanted to send her text messages.   They would talk and I’d type.   Then, because you don’t need to read to pick emojis, I let them take over the computer.   My daughter called (via my husband) and all took turns talking to her.   It was quite sweet, hearing them say they missed her and loved her.

Hurricane Door Delight

Okay, Matthew (the hurricane) or bits of him are visiting us.   We’re not being pummeled by a hurricane per se, we just have lots of “weather” to content with.  

What does that mean?  Mostly it’s hours and hours of rain with reasonable wind to accompany the downpour.   The rain isn’t bad in and of itself, it’s just the continued deluge that’s causing problems.   We have friends without power.   We still have power but we could lose it soon from the social media updates my husband has been reading.

But this post is about our car—our Tesla Model X car.   I had one of those, “wow, that’s really great” moments today with our Model X I didn’t expect to have.    It’s all about the door and how it’s over engineered and how I initially though it was silly and now I love the feature and miss it in our other car.

When you walk up to the Model X, the driver door opens for you.   If you approach from the front it opens just a bit until you walk past the door and then it opens up more so you can get into the driver’s seat.   Once you get in and get settled the natural thing to do is press the brake pedal, which in the Model X causes the driver door to close.  

So back to today and our weather.   It was doing that “raining buckets” thing when our board retreat let out.   I needed to get to my car getting the least amount drenched I could manage.    I walked towards the car, the door opened, I got in, I pressed the brake immediately and the door closed.   And as a result, I got minimally wet.  

It’s not common I’m stuck in pouring rain, but if it happens again, I want my Model X there with me.

The Big Boy Update:  I was at a board retreat today.   My husband was busy getting ready to go out of town with my daughter.   This meant my son has had a large amount of screen time since this morning.   He hasn’t had access to his iPad or video games in a good while and he’s had a happy day—until you try and talk to him, at which point he becomes a cranky monster.   I wish I understood better why screen time makes children so cranky.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was talking to my son about dinner and I overheard this conversation:  “so do you know what birds make?   They make chicken.”

Sphere of Worry

The world is getting smaller.   It’s getting strangely smaller sometimes when we worry about things that aren’t even remotely close to us simply because they’re close to us from a media perspective.  I’ll give you an example that’s in the middle of happening right now.

There is a hurricane that landed in Florida.   We live in North Carolina.    The projected path for the hurricane was hitting just the south eastern tip of our state.   It wasn’t even projected to get close to where we live.    The weather forecast for our city was rain—not hard rain, not heavy rain, not high winds, just rain.  

We have a board retreat tomorrow.   The retreat is in town, with trustees who all live in town who only need to drive to the campus to attend the retreat.    And yet there was a question if we should cancel the retreat—two days before it was scheduled—because there was a hurricane states away.

There is significant impact from the hurricane, it’s just not near us.   But the media coverage makes it feel closer than it is.    Our sphere of worry is getting smaller as our world is of media is shrinking.

The Big Boy Update:  My son had a dream the other night he wanted to tell me about.   He’s told me about dreams before but this was the first time he was someone else in his dream and realized he had been someone other than himself as he was dreaming.   It was interesting hearing him describe his dream.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and her friend, Madison, apparently ran a bath and may or may not have had a bath this afternoon.   Clothes were changed, towels were wet and re-hung, but no one could confirm if a bath actually happened or not, even though I walked into the bathroom as they were draining the tub.  

Why Can’t I Go To Detroit?

My daughter very much hates some medical things.  Other things, like taking a trip with one or both of us to Detroit to go to an operating room and have her eyes looked at or have surgery preformed doesn’t seem to be on the “bad things” list for her.   She even likes to go.

This is in part because we try to make the trips fun for her.   This upcoming trip she’s already planning to take her pennies from Joan and John for the fountain at the mall.   We’ve only casually mentioned she would be going, not even bothering to say the appointment was moved up a month.   She’s just excited to go.

My son is disappointed.   He complained in the car this morning, “why can’t I go to Detroit?”   It’s hard to explain to a five-year-old but I told him he and I would do some special things together while his sister was visiting her retina surgeon with dad.

My son has been wanting to get his hair cut.   I’m hoping I can work a hair cut and new shoes (which he needs) into part of the special times we’ll have together while his sister and father are in Detroit.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Chore Chart Plan:   We started a chore chart today for both children.   The “chores” are fairly loosely defined right now with completion of anything deemed “chore worthy” meriting a stamp on their paper chart.   When their chart is complete, they will get a small allowance. As we move forward with this they are going to be required to do more of the chores.   For now and for today, they were quite motivated over a little tiny heart stamp on a piece of paper.

Moved Up EUA

My daughter’s vision has been declining lately.  I know, you’re thinking how can it possibly get worse than it already is, right?   It’s the cataract in the left eye—or at least we think that’s what it is.  

Before jumping to conclusions my husband and I watched her behavior carefully.   We talked to other people who were around my daughter a lot.   I spoken with teachers and staff at our school and I’ve had conversations with the two vision impairment teachers who work with my daughter.   We all agree, it’s getting worse.

Aside from things being more difficult to discern in general, she’s having color differentiation difficulties.   This means dark pink and red might get sorted into the same group or something that’s peach might be labeled orange.    Silver, black, brown, grey and some other colors are harder still to tell apart.    These are things she could do in the past, but is struggling with now.    These are also things that would be harder to see through a clouding lens.

So I sent an email.   I always have a plan, but I’m not a doctor and I’m not trained in all things eyes and basically I’m no expert.   I have observational information and a vague idea of what could possibly be the cause, but I need to engage our favorite eye doctors to have them confirm, make plans and take action.   And I need to do all of this by not crying wolf too often, or hopefully never.    It’s a fine line of being a forceful advocate for my daughter’s health and waiting for time to tell and let our doctor’s decisions play out.

This has been brewing for a while but specifically after seeing just how challenging this weekend was for my daughter camping out, it was time to send the email.   As an aside here, my daughter didn’t know this weekend was challenging, we knew it as adults who worried about her mostly the entire time because sometimes in unfamiliar environments, she just doesn’t know how much she can’t see.

Back to the email.   I sent it to our pediatric ophthalmologist.   She thought the concerns were significant enough to contact our retina surgeon in Detroit, who decided it would be good to move her EUA up to, “see if there is a treatable option”.  

So we’re off to Detroit on Monday.    I have no idea what type of good or bad or wait a while news will come out of it but we’ll know more then.

The Big Boy Update:  This morning at breakfast my son said, “I have green eyes and that means I’m sick and can’t go to school.”   My husband told him, “good try”.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was supremely happy coming home from school today.   She and I stopped into the grocery store and she happily helped me select things and then assisted the check out person by putting things on the scale.   Then, no sooner than we’d walked into the door of the house, she turned into “Super Whiny Child” alternating every ten minutes or so with the “Crazy Crying Child” personality.    Food typically helps, but even today she just had to work it out on her own because nothing seemed to help.

The Toe May Live:  I’m not going to post another picture, what with all the, “I almost vomited!” messages I got after the last picture, but at this point I think I’m going to be able to keep the toe.   It’s not happy, but it’s getting better.

Embarrassed As a Factor of Age

Am I getting older and care less or am I more confident because I’m just older?   I don’t know the answer to this but I do know I don’t get embarrassed very often.   Sure, I get embarrassed from time to time, but usually it’s for something I did I should have known better about.   It’s rarely from feeling like I don’t fit in or worrying if people like me or if I’m, “cool”.

I remember high school, junior-high even, where I feel like I was nerve ends all over and the slightest thing was a worry if I was doing the best thing to fit in, or even if I was fitting in.    I think most of us felt that way during our school years.   Maybe you were in the super popular crowd and were prom queen but I fell more in line with the Math Club and Computer Science Geek groups than I did the popular crowd.

I had friends though and my friends were well and true friends.   That doesn’t mean I didn’t spend a reasonable portion of the time feeling embarrassed for things I did, didn’t do, said, didn’t say, wore or didn’t wear.  

This all occurred to me because I got embarrassed about something recently.   Funny thing is, I don’t even remember what it was as I’m writing this, but I know it happened.   Is there some sort of diagram for this?   As you grow older your confidence increases while caring what other people think decreases?

The Big Boy Update:  While we were camping my son was running around on the shore.   He told Papa he was doing T.P.   When Papa asked, my son said it was getting his heart beating.   Papa asked, “do you mean, ‘P.E.’?”   My son said, “yeah, P.E.”.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  One of my favorite readers asked me what happened with my daughter’s bedding change.   He was right, I’d talked about it, ordered the new bedding and then hadn’t reported results back here.  We had ordered a mattress pad that we added to make my daughter more comfortable from below.  She then selected all purple sheets with purple owl motif comforter for the upper parts of her bedding.   It arrived in the mail and she has liked it all so far—especially the owl stuffed animal included in the bedding bag.  We have had nights with less incidents where she arrives downstairs, upset, cold, or scared.   But my daughter’s not okay every night or all through the night yet.   We have flash lights on our night stands so she can walk herself back upstairs.   Last night the flashlight I gave her (which she had selected from the dollar store) was apparently too bright and she started crying immediately upon turning it on and moving it around saying, “it’s too creepy!”   I took her upstairs in my arms the traditional way and put her back in her bed, which she immediately was happy about as she cuddled up to her owl and was warmly wrapped in her purple comforter.   Overall?  The new bedding has been a win.  I like the purple owls.

What, No Pancakes?

We’re home from camping.   My in-laws know what they’re doing, have all the camping gear and know how to run a camp site.   I have no camping things and know nothing about camping.   They made it easy for us though and my children had a good time the entire time.

There were some good comments from each of them over the past few days.  My daughter wanted me to call her “Tiny” and after some thought, decided I should be named, “Biggie”.  

We went to the shore of the lake just across from our camp site multiple times each day.   There was a “climbing tree” that leaned out over the water and provided lots of entertainment for the children.    We did some fishing which consisted mostly of trying to fish and not catching fish.   My son discovered how exciting bobbers could be and figured out how to connect them together.   He was particularly pleased when he found one left on the ground after our fishing neighbors departed.

There was a lot of digging in the sand.   I started digging and proclaimed I was going to dig to China.    My son got a stick, started digging and said, “I’m digging to Indonesia”.

We found a butterfly wing on the ground and discovered butterflies are my daughter’s favorite animal.     Later, when it was getting close to bed time my daughter asked me, “what’s that room that we’re going to be sleeping in called?”   A tent, I told her.

My son was talking to Nana about what would happen in the morning.   She told him about the muffins and cereal she had available for breakfast.   I heard him exclaim from across the camp site, “what, no pancakes?!”   Nana laughed and told him not this camping trip.

The Big Boy Update:  This morning before we left to go home my son said, “I just want to say goodbye to the climbing tree.”   He and I walked back to the shore, using the shortcut he’d discovered, and spent some time at the climbing tree.    When time was up we walked back together to say good bye to Nana and Papa to head home.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter’s vision is worse we’re all thinking.   It’s likely the cataract progressing, but we don’t know for sure.   She had a difficult time at the camp site finding us, things, not falling or running into things, basically most things.   It was low contrast in the woods, but she had to be assisted and monitored to be safe.   It would be really nice if her vision would take a turn for the better at some point.    She wasn’t overly bothered by her vision deficit though—she had a great time.

Still Camping

I'm still camping.  They haven't let me go home.   There are leaves and trees and a fire from time to time.  The only sign of civilization is our daily trip to Wal*Mart for things we forgot or ran out of.  

There was an incident where the pot of pasta all fell in the ground and a leg was scalded but it was deemed okay and we stayed and ate the pasta without noodles.

But so far, no ticks, no broken bones and no bites from snakes.  There are a lot of sounds in the woods at night.  My husband thinks he can hear them crawling on the outside of the tent.  

My children have never been so happy to be so dirty. 

Tomorrow we go home. 

The Big Boy Update:  We were at the edge of the lake, about to leave when my father-in-law said to my son, "don't forget your stick" (which my son had been playing with for some time).  My son replied, "it's not my stick, it's natures"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been wanting me to call her, "Tiny" lately. She told me her favorite part of the day was going to take a shower with me and singing songs in the walk back to the camp site.  

They Made Me Camp

This post is for tomorrow because I won’t be here tomorrow.  I wrote this yesterday and set it for delayed posting since I’ll be without my computer or blog-posting devices.   Why, you ask?

Because my in-laws, my husband and my children are making me camp.   I don’t camp, or rather I didn’t camp or I haven’t camped since I was a youth in summer camp.     I don’t know that I dislike camping, but my impression is I would prefer to be inside in a climate-controlled environment over outside with biting bugs and uncontrolled humidity.

That being said, I am probably having a good time right now.  I’ll let you know when I get back.

The Big Boy Update:  My daughter is telling me, “my brother is on the scooter while daddy is doing the drone.”  (it appears they’re outside in the front yard.)

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked our friend, Tim, why he has his own car.   He told her he needed it to go to work.    She thought that was a good answer.