Pumpkins and Prizes

There was an event today called, “Pumpkins and Prizes” hosted at the state school for the blind.   My daughter’s VI teachers let us know about it and we just need to say RSVP to attend.   Sighted siblings welcome as well.   My daughter remembers this event from two years ago.   She played in the darkened, “light box” room and was able to see things placed on what looked like an overhead projector type of box and made a pumpkin face on a clear sheet of plastic.

She did other events including painting a pumpkin, decorating a cupcake and not eating the pizza because she was full of cupcake.   This year’s event was similar, including pumpkin decorating,  cupcake and the not wanting to eat pizza due to the aforementioned cupcake.

My son had a good time as well.   He made a nice pumpkin with some skull stickers and drawing work.  He also balked at the pizza because there was only cheese and he preferred pepperoni.   There was a play doh table that captured my son’s attention for a good while due to all the tools they had available.

The event wasn’t a huge one; it filled up a portion of the moderately-sized cafeteria.   There were people at tables representing a company or a charity organization for something related to blindness.   We were pleased to run into my daughter’s classmate, Aditi, and her parents.   They happily hugged each other and were inseparable for the rest of the time.   Inseparable being my daughter asking where Aditi was and us sending her in the right direction as Aditi as more vision and was moving around a lot.

The piñata was whacked, my children had candy being contained by making a basket of their shirt bottom and holding it with their two hands while my husband went to the car to get a bag.    We were close to leaving when we heard my daughter’s name being called.

She had won the door prize and her friend Aditi had won second place.    It was a nice door prize too, especially considering we came free to the event and everything was donated or done by volunteers.   The basket contained a speaking digital watch—which my daughter now has on.   It was far too big for her wrist but another hole further up the band wasn’t too much of a problem to add on.   There were chocolates and there was also an Amazon Alexa Dot.  

I’ve talked about Alexa a lot here.   We use it to play music, add things to the shopping list, answer questions, find out the weather, send voice messages to other Alexa users and make phone calls to other Alexa users.   Oh, and to tell jokes.   My daughter uses Alexa to do every single one of those things.   The children have asked for one in their room and now they have one—with rules, lest it be removed.   Rules like volume, not using it after bedtime, not calling anyone without confirming timing is okay with us.

But there’s another feature we haven’t used before but plan to now.   You can “drop in” on another Echo device.  For instance we have the kitchen, master bedroom and now my children’s room.    We can say, “Alexa, drop in on the children’s room” and it will open what’s like an intercom line between the two devices.   We can tell them it’s time to get up.   We can tell them we’re hearing them still talking and it’s after bedtime.

So we’ll see how it goes.   It was a great event and we’re very grateful for the prizes and fun for the day.

The Big Boy Update:  My son asked, “why does Star Wars have to be so violent?  Couldn’t it be Star Peace?”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has gotten back interested in the tricycle again.   She’s way too big for it but she really likes it inside the house.   This afternoon she rode it into the master bedroom and then had to work to get it over the carpet to the bathroom where I heard her say to herself, “I’m going to hear what it sounds like in the bathroom.”   Apparently she’d been listening to how the wheels sounded on different surfaces.