This post is about my son and hugging. He doesn’t really like being hugged. It’s not so much that he dislikes hugs for hugs sake, I think it’s more that it’s an interruption to what he’s doing or that he’s not in control of his body when you’re hugging him.
He doesn’t run away from hugs, but he doesn’t run to hug you either. So I decided to work on it. I’m thinking, like most things, that as parents we had a big factor in the hug (or lack of hug) stance my son has. We made sure the children were find when we left to go out by not making a large event of our leaving, giving hugs, saying we’ll be back and to not miss us, etc. And on that front we’ve been very successful.
We’ve done the same with bedtime and I’m glad to say our children don’t need a lot of external comfort to go to sleep. They can give self-comfort well and nightmares excepting, they go to sleep easily all by themselves without a big to do.
But I do like to hug my son and with the recent sensorial evaluation and issues at school I’ve been making an effort to come over to him at random times and hug him. Hug just his shoulders or legs if he’s busy, but do so in a way that gives a firm, steady contact with his body.
Initially my son wasn’t so sure about it but he’s gotten interested more and more. He doesn’t even flinch now when I come up to him and he’s busy, I think he even likes it as sometimes just my proximity will start a thoughtful dialog from him.
But he’s still a no way on the kissing. Apparently I would hug and kiss him at the same time, wherever my face was so a hug with a kiss on his shoulder for instance. We had some negotiations in which it took days for him to believe me that I wasn’t going to kiss him, I promised, only hug. Once he was okay with that he let me do the hugging, initially with resistance but now with what I hope is happiness.
But I had to ask. I asked yesterday if I could give him a kiss. I could tell he wanted one, but he had to hold up that air of hating kisses so he begrudgingly said yes. Then tonight I came downstairs and asked if I could give him a kiss—on top of his green hair’d head—and he said yes again. After I kissed him he said, “you can kiss me any time if you want, but only on the top of the head.” I told him I’d take it.
The Big Boy Update: My son is interested in infinity and in a not related to infinity way, dragons. So I had him watch Vi Hart’s dragon doodling on YouTube. It’s high-level math concepts, but it’s done in a way that’s still somehow intriguing and interesting even to a child who’s not quite seven-years-old. He kept watching her and started making math doodles on his notebook while he watched.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter experienced the loss of a stamp today. We debated if it was a bad thing to use stamp loss as a negative motivator or if we were only using the stamps as a positive motivator like we do the pompon bowl. But it worked, she lost a stamp and even though she had loads saved up, that was important enough for her to not want to have it happen again.
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Office Record
I broke an office record today. It wasn’t a record I was looking to break. It wasn’t even a record I knew existed. It also wasn’t my office.
I had an appointment a doctor today. It’s not one I see frequently and his office isn’t close to where I live. The last time I saw him I found out he had a few days a month that he saw patients in an office a single block from my son’s school, which is quite close to where we live. Sign me up, book me in advance and make sure it’s on a day he’s at this much closer location.
Today was the appointment and everything was fine, going well, nothing wrong, glad to see you, etc. We discussed some things and decided to run blood work to make sure everything was still good there too. The doctor left and said his nurse would be right back in to draw blood.
She came in and we kept chatting while she got ready to draw three vials of blood. She complimented me on my veins, saying they looked very easy (I suppose that means they were bulgy). She stuck me with the needle and nothing happened. She moved the needle around and still nothing. Strange, she said, it looked like a good vein.
Not to worry, she’d try the other arm. It might be good at this point to mention I don’t really have a problem with needles, because if you’ve read this far I’m betting you have an idea where the rest of the post is going—it’s needly.
She tried the other arm. I did exactly as told and kept still. But no go. Did the vein roll on her? It looked so good, she said. She said she didn’t miss usually and this was making her look bad. We laughed about it and she went back to the first arm, different vein because the first vein had a nice sized hematoma under he skin from the jiggling around of the needle.
I asked her if she had to throw away the needle assembly every time considering it was the same body she was poking. Apparently she had to. Back to the third try, no go. So back to the second arm, this time trying the first vein because it didn’t look that bad after the first try. Maybe a little bit happened but it was like the veins were avoiding her.
Had I had liquids? Was I dehydrated? I ran through my morning of two large hot teas with excessive amounts of milk and estimated I’d had over thirty ounces of liquid since I’d gotten up. After the fourth try she went to get another nurse from the other side of the office who was an expert. When Lasha came in she said she had this and not to worry.
Back to the, heck, I don’t even remember what arm and vein we’re on at this point but try five was also a failure. And now Lasha is telling me she’s taking me back to her lab because this just doesn’t happen.
Things I’ve said at this point include, “I can go drink a lot of water and come back in a few hours it that will help”. They said I didn’t look dehydrated from the state of my veins. I also offered to come back another day and be sure I was hydrated then. But that caused another issue. Remember how my doctor was only at this location every so often? This blood work had to be drawn today and if they couldn’t get the blood drawn they’d have to send me to the hospital. This sounds extreme, especially for an elective running of blood work I had initially suggested. But processes had ben set in motion. Electronic documents had been completed. Signs had aligned and there were reasons once committed to having my blood drawn, going back to having having it un-drawn was akin to declaring oneself legally not dead.
I didn’t argue because we were sort of having fun and they were trying their best. I said I thought my heart was still beating and if I was patient zero in the zombie apocalypse I was going to be annoyed, because I had holiday plans.
We went down the hall to the other side of the clinic and Lasha got me set up in her chair. We had postulated that their needles were possibly a bad batch because I’ve just never had problems with my blood being drawn before; I’m typically fairly easy. Try six with a different batch of needles and Lasha got exasperated. They weren’t just sticking my arm, they were investigating each time, trying to find the vein. And that was particularly exasperating to them.
Lasha said she’d be back and brought Keshia back. Keshia also never failed and the karma with three nurses who did this every day in the room, the seventh try just had to work. And it finally did. Once they got in the vein there was plenty of flow and the test tubes were filled up quickly.
Lasha said I had beaten the record of most sticks. I don’t think there actually was a record but I said I expected to have my name on the wall going forward and that I hoped no one beat my record because hey, no one enjoys being stuck with a needle.
The Big Boy Update: My son was building in Minecraft this weekend. I came down to the basement to see what looked like a graveyard of three grave plots. Indeed they were graves, my son said. He had even made a little sign and had spelled, “Rest in Pese Steve” on it. I said, “oh, did Steve die?” My son backed up in the game and said, “yes, he’s right here.” My son removed the ground layer in front of the gravestone and sure enough, he’d buried the Minecraft character Steve.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My son had terrible eczema for a long time when he was younger. As my daughter gets older she’s gone from none, to bad bouts of it. She’s got it all over in a minor way and badly in a few spots. She would rather scratch than let me put lotion on her, which isn’t helping her skin heal. I got some steroid cream on the worst spots last night though and she looks better today.
I had an appointment a doctor today. It’s not one I see frequently and his office isn’t close to where I live. The last time I saw him I found out he had a few days a month that he saw patients in an office a single block from my son’s school, which is quite close to where we live. Sign me up, book me in advance and make sure it’s on a day he’s at this much closer location.
Today was the appointment and everything was fine, going well, nothing wrong, glad to see you, etc. We discussed some things and decided to run blood work to make sure everything was still good there too. The doctor left and said his nurse would be right back in to draw blood.
She came in and we kept chatting while she got ready to draw three vials of blood. She complimented me on my veins, saying they looked very easy (I suppose that means they were bulgy). She stuck me with the needle and nothing happened. She moved the needle around and still nothing. Strange, she said, it looked like a good vein.
Not to worry, she’d try the other arm. It might be good at this point to mention I don’t really have a problem with needles, because if you’ve read this far I’m betting you have an idea where the rest of the post is going—it’s needly.
She tried the other arm. I did exactly as told and kept still. But no go. Did the vein roll on her? It looked so good, she said. She said she didn’t miss usually and this was making her look bad. We laughed about it and she went back to the first arm, different vein because the first vein had a nice sized hematoma under he skin from the jiggling around of the needle.
I asked her if she had to throw away the needle assembly every time considering it was the same body she was poking. Apparently she had to. Back to the third try, no go. So back to the second arm, this time trying the first vein because it didn’t look that bad after the first try. Maybe a little bit happened but it was like the veins were avoiding her.
Had I had liquids? Was I dehydrated? I ran through my morning of two large hot teas with excessive amounts of milk and estimated I’d had over thirty ounces of liquid since I’d gotten up. After the fourth try she went to get another nurse from the other side of the office who was an expert. When Lasha came in she said she had this and not to worry.
Back to the, heck, I don’t even remember what arm and vein we’re on at this point but try five was also a failure. And now Lasha is telling me she’s taking me back to her lab because this just doesn’t happen.
Things I’ve said at this point include, “I can go drink a lot of water and come back in a few hours it that will help”. They said I didn’t look dehydrated from the state of my veins. I also offered to come back another day and be sure I was hydrated then. But that caused another issue. Remember how my doctor was only at this location every so often? This blood work had to be drawn today and if they couldn’t get the blood drawn they’d have to send me to the hospital. This sounds extreme, especially for an elective running of blood work I had initially suggested. But processes had ben set in motion. Electronic documents had been completed. Signs had aligned and there were reasons once committed to having my blood drawn, going back to having having it un-drawn was akin to declaring oneself legally not dead.
I didn’t argue because we were sort of having fun and they were trying their best. I said I thought my heart was still beating and if I was patient zero in the zombie apocalypse I was going to be annoyed, because I had holiday plans.
We went down the hall to the other side of the clinic and Lasha got me set up in her chair. We had postulated that their needles were possibly a bad batch because I’ve just never had problems with my blood being drawn before; I’m typically fairly easy. Try six with a different batch of needles and Lasha got exasperated. They weren’t just sticking my arm, they were investigating each time, trying to find the vein. And that was particularly exasperating to them.
Lasha said she’d be back and brought Keshia back. Keshia also never failed and the karma with three nurses who did this every day in the room, the seventh try just had to work. And it finally did. Once they got in the vein there was plenty of flow and the test tubes were filled up quickly.
Lasha said I had beaten the record of most sticks. I don’t think there actually was a record but I said I expected to have my name on the wall going forward and that I hoped no one beat my record because hey, no one enjoys being stuck with a needle.
The Big Boy Update: My son was building in Minecraft this weekend. I came down to the basement to see what looked like a graveyard of three grave plots. Indeed they were graves, my son said. He had even made a little sign and had spelled, “Rest in Pese Steve” on it. I said, “oh, did Steve die?” My son backed up in the game and said, “yes, he’s right here.” My son removed the ground layer in front of the gravestone and sure enough, he’d buried the Minecraft character Steve.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My son had terrible eczema for a long time when he was younger. As my daughter gets older she’s gone from none, to bad bouts of it. She’s got it all over in a minor way and badly in a few spots. She would rather scratch than let me put lotion on her, which isn’t helping her skin heal. I got some steroid cream on the worst spots last night though and she looks better today.
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Who Does the Cooking?
It’s been a day. One of those days that has come to an end and I’m just not sure I’ve got the energy to put forth the effort to write a blog post. But I did hear a conversation that was funny while I was out of the room tonight.
My husband and children had sat down to dinner and I was heading in. My husband likes to cook and has for the time we’ve been married been almost exclusively the one who does the cooking. He told me once, “thanks for letting me cook dinner tonight”. My children know that their father does all the cooking but it wasn’t until tonight that I got their perspective on the matter:
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Does Mom Know How to Cook Conversation: My daughter asked, “has mommy ever cooked dinner? My son replied, “no”. My husband, trying to be helpful said, “she has one dish” and then because I think he thought he’d better revise his statement he said, “she knows how to cook”. My daughter helpfully cried out, “egg salad!”
My husband and children had sat down to dinner and I was heading in. My husband likes to cook and has for the time we’ve been married been almost exclusively the one who does the cooking. He told me once, “thanks for letting me cook dinner tonight”. My children know that their father does all the cooking but it wasn’t until tonight that I got their perspective on the matter:
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Does Mom Know How to Cook Conversation: My daughter asked, “has mommy ever cooked dinner? My son replied, “no”. My husband, trying to be helpful said, “she has one dish” and then because I think he thought he’d better revise his statement he said, “she knows how to cook”. My daughter helpfully cried out, “egg salad!”
Monday, November 27, 2017
The Oldest Scar
I was looking at my leg the other day and I saw a scar on the outside of my left knee. It’s been there for a long time. It’s possibly the oldest scar I have. It’s about one inch long. I have a lot of little scars and marks on my body at this age, indicating maybe a life of hazard or perhaps a life well lived, I don’t know.
This particular scar I remember exactly how I got when I was young. I don’t know how old I was but I was old enough to take out the trash. Back then our trash can was a round, metal bin that sat in the far back of our yard. On trash or was it garbage days, back then they were separate I think, we’d have a man step off the garbage truck and walk through our yard as well as the close neighbor’s yards and collect the trash.
He would walk past the hammock I spent untold hours swinging in in the years to come, open up our metal bin and take out any bags of garbage inside. He would put them into the larger, plastic bin on he propped up on his back and then head to the next house. The garbage truck would pick him up at the end of the street around the corner.
On this particular day my mother asked me if I would take out the full garbage bag and put it into the metal bin. And also, could I make sure the lid was on tightly because there had been a raccoon problem and the lid tightly on would keep out any interlopers.
I wanted to be sure to do a good job. My father had securely fixed the trash can by adding wooden stakes around its perimeter. With this knowledge in hand I put the bag of garbage in, put the lid on, climbed on top and then jumped up and down on the lid to make sure there was no chance it would be pried off. I wasn’t expecting the lid to slip. And I wasn’t expecting to fall.
I fell off and on the way down got a deep scrape in my left leg on a the sharp corner of one of the stakes. I remember looking at my leg and seeing no blood, only the white, fatty tissue underneath—initially. And then it started to bleed. A lot.
I ran in and at that point my memory has faded, but what remains today is the scar line from that day that I made sure no raccoon could possibly tear into our trash.
The Big Boy Update: I had a board meeting tonight. When I returned home the children were in bed but my husband said my son had left me something on my nightstand. My son hasn’t been that interested in writing, it being mostly a chore to him—unlike math, which he finds enjoyable. He had written a full page about when he was born and who his family members were. I’m looking forward to telling him how much I enjoyed reading it when I see him in the morning.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has been using my husband’s Virtual Reality Oculus Rift glasses a lot lately. They turn things three dimensional, but they do so at a fixed focal length—possibly a focal length she can see well in. She can spend hours working on Minecraft with the glasses on.
This particular scar I remember exactly how I got when I was young. I don’t know how old I was but I was old enough to take out the trash. Back then our trash can was a round, metal bin that sat in the far back of our yard. On trash or was it garbage days, back then they were separate I think, we’d have a man step off the garbage truck and walk through our yard as well as the close neighbor’s yards and collect the trash.
He would walk past the hammock I spent untold hours swinging in in the years to come, open up our metal bin and take out any bags of garbage inside. He would put them into the larger, plastic bin on he propped up on his back and then head to the next house. The garbage truck would pick him up at the end of the street around the corner.
On this particular day my mother asked me if I would take out the full garbage bag and put it into the metal bin. And also, could I make sure the lid was on tightly because there had been a raccoon problem and the lid tightly on would keep out any interlopers.
I wanted to be sure to do a good job. My father had securely fixed the trash can by adding wooden stakes around its perimeter. With this knowledge in hand I put the bag of garbage in, put the lid on, climbed on top and then jumped up and down on the lid to make sure there was no chance it would be pried off. I wasn’t expecting the lid to slip. And I wasn’t expecting to fall.
I fell off and on the way down got a deep scrape in my left leg on a the sharp corner of one of the stakes. I remember looking at my leg and seeing no blood, only the white, fatty tissue underneath—initially. And then it started to bleed. A lot.
I ran in and at that point my memory has faded, but what remains today is the scar line from that day that I made sure no raccoon could possibly tear into our trash.
The Big Boy Update: I had a board meeting tonight. When I returned home the children were in bed but my husband said my son had left me something on my nightstand. My son hasn’t been that interested in writing, it being mostly a chore to him—unlike math, which he finds enjoyable. He had written a full page about when he was born and who his family members were. I’m looking forward to telling him how much I enjoyed reading it when I see him in the morning.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has been using my husband’s Virtual Reality Oculus Rift glasses a lot lately. They turn things three dimensional, but they do so at a fixed focal length—possibly a focal length she can see well in. She can spend hours working on Minecraft with the glasses on.
Sunday, November 26, 2017
Free Matter Shipping
I was ordering some braille paper online yesterday. There aren’t too many options so my browsing didn’t last that long. I found some label paper that we can use to put labels on things in the house or on belongings. Or we can translate books to braille and stick them on the pages (one we learn to write contracted braille that is).
When I got to the check out page it asked what type of shipping I wanted and there were options. One of the options was Free Matter Shipping For the Blind. Well heck, I knew we’d gotten some things free, but it hadn’t occurred to me that we could get things ordered online mailed to my daughter for free.
It isn’t everything, it’s reading and print-based things, but it’s nice to have the papers sent without postage. We might have to have my daughter registered with the USPS for official purposes. Maybe my husband wants to look into that—it’s just his kind of thing,
The Big Boy Update: No idea on the background for how this question came about. My son asked today, “Dad, was Zeus the sixteenth president?”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: We were at Panera the other day and had ordered food. We got our drinks and sat down at the table. After about a minute my daughter said, “do we have one of those sizzling things?” My husband said, “you mean vibrating things?” She wanted to hold the “sizzling” thing so that when it vibrated we’d know it was time to go up and get our food.
When I got to the check out page it asked what type of shipping I wanted and there were options. One of the options was Free Matter Shipping For the Blind. Well heck, I knew we’d gotten some things free, but it hadn’t occurred to me that we could get things ordered online mailed to my daughter for free.
It isn’t everything, it’s reading and print-based things, but it’s nice to have the papers sent without postage. We might have to have my daughter registered with the USPS for official purposes. Maybe my husband wants to look into that—it’s just his kind of thing,
The Big Boy Update: No idea on the background for how this question came about. My son asked today, “Dad, was Zeus the sixteenth president?”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: We were at Panera the other day and had ordered food. We got our drinks and sat down at the table. After about a minute my daughter said, “do we have one of those sizzling things?” My husband said, “you mean vibrating things?” She wanted to hold the “sizzling” thing so that when it vibrated we’d know it was time to go up and get our food.
Saturday, November 25, 2017
Blind Spot
This isn’t about my daughter’s vision, it’s about that place in the car where you as a driver can’t see another car. I have a bit of an overactive worry about changing lanes into someone who’s in my blind spot. I’m not sure if this is from excessive warnings from my driver’s education teacher when I was in high school or if it’s from near misses by me.
It’s one of those things that gets negatively reinforced over time. I’ve always become slightly anxious when I’m a passenger in a car and I notice our driver hanging out and not moving out of a car’s blind spot. I’ve even said something on occasion when it looked like the other driver wasn’t the type who really paid attention (as if I could tell across two cars).
The blind spot can be defeated by using your mirrors well in conjunction with turning around. And I always turn around, even though it’s hard for me to do because it’s more of a me turning around instead of my head turning around because with the fused vertebra in my neck I just can’t turn around that far.
But for some reason today I was lulled into complacency. It was probably a combination of two things. First, I was expecting there to be a fast beeping sound indicating I was close to another car. I wasn’t in the car I typically drive so I wasn’t getting that feedback. Secondly, I’d been in my lane for some time and peripherally we sort of keep mental track of what cars are where. I didn’t think there were any cars behind me.
So with my ignorance in tact I turned on the signal and began to change lanes to the right. And I heard a horn honk from that blind spot spot and so I moved back into my lane. Shortly the other driver passed me by and this is what happened: he gave me the thumbs up sign and smiled at me.
No finger, no angry glare—he was friendly. I smiled and did the silent “thanks” word back to him and our cars drifted apart. And I thought about it. I’d just made a mistake. I was expecting to be chided for it by the random person it almost impacted. But instead I got a different message. It was almost like, “we communicated through the horn and just prevented an accident together. Good teamwork”.
I don’t know who that guy is, but next he sort of made my day simply by not being angry at me for making a mistake. I’m going to try and do the same in the future if someone almost lane changes into me.
The Big Boy Update: My son was playing with the remnants of his chocolate pudding pie slice last night. He was smearing it all over his plate, getting full coverage in a circular pattern. Grandpa asked him to stop but he said, “I’m making a chocolate world!”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has been helping me take care of our friend’s cats. One of their cats is very friendly and exceptionally tolerant. She picks him up and carries him around. She told me, “Mr. Cuddles is my best friend cat. I love him.”
It’s one of those things that gets negatively reinforced over time. I’ve always become slightly anxious when I’m a passenger in a car and I notice our driver hanging out and not moving out of a car’s blind spot. I’ve even said something on occasion when it looked like the other driver wasn’t the type who really paid attention (as if I could tell across two cars).
The blind spot can be defeated by using your mirrors well in conjunction with turning around. And I always turn around, even though it’s hard for me to do because it’s more of a me turning around instead of my head turning around because with the fused vertebra in my neck I just can’t turn around that far.
But for some reason today I was lulled into complacency. It was probably a combination of two things. First, I was expecting there to be a fast beeping sound indicating I was close to another car. I wasn’t in the car I typically drive so I wasn’t getting that feedback. Secondly, I’d been in my lane for some time and peripherally we sort of keep mental track of what cars are where. I didn’t think there were any cars behind me.
So with my ignorance in tact I turned on the signal and began to change lanes to the right. And I heard a horn honk from that blind spot spot and so I moved back into my lane. Shortly the other driver passed me by and this is what happened: he gave me the thumbs up sign and smiled at me.
No finger, no angry glare—he was friendly. I smiled and did the silent “thanks” word back to him and our cars drifted apart. And I thought about it. I’d just made a mistake. I was expecting to be chided for it by the random person it almost impacted. But instead I got a different message. It was almost like, “we communicated through the horn and just prevented an accident together. Good teamwork”.
I don’t know who that guy is, but next he sort of made my day simply by not being angry at me for making a mistake. I’m going to try and do the same in the future if someone almost lane changes into me.
The Big Boy Update: My son was playing with the remnants of his chocolate pudding pie slice last night. He was smearing it all over his plate, getting full coverage in a circular pattern. Grandpa asked him to stop but he said, “I’m making a chocolate world!”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has been helping me take care of our friend’s cats. One of their cats is very friendly and exceptionally tolerant. She picks him up and carries him around. She told me, “Mr. Cuddles is my best friend cat. I love him.”
Friday, November 24, 2017
Reading The Cards
My daughter likes to play cards. Nana taught her how to play War and since that time my daughter has modified and changed and invented new ways to play that game. She wants you to play with yer, but if you’re busy, say making lunches for the next day, she’ll gladly say she’ll wait for you. What this means is she’ll be busy cheating by stacking the deck before you get there.
Initially she was able to do this by discerning face cards as they had more color in the middle of the cards. She could get aces as well because they had the least amount of information on the card face. Beyond that she wasn’t able to do a lot of fine-grained cheating but it was enough to win the game as a landslide.
As she played more she learned the card suits. She can’t always tell what suit a card is, but she can get the number on the card. And this part is what’s improved we think. A while back she was having to count the pips on the card to determine the number. Now she’s able to read the number in the top corner and check by counting pips if needed.
She can’t see what my cards are as that’s way far out of focal range but that’s not a problem, she’ll just ask you to tell her what cards you have. This part isn’t cheating, it’s skill, because we play a face-up version of War. There is strategy involved in seeing what cards your player has left, knowing they know what cards you have and that the lead follows the trick winner. As someone with sight, we can take in the opponents hand quickly. My daughter has to ask and then remember all the cards I have as well as what she has.
My mother-in-law is in for the Thanksgiving holiday and she played cards with my daughter on the first day and she came out of the room and whispered to me in an excited voice, “she can see the cards!” I told her we were pretty excited about it.
So good news there. But I always have to temper it with where we really are. I do this probably more for myself than anyone. I have to always keep in mind that she isn’t ever going to have anything remotely close to normal vision. There isn’t much we can do to help her regain her vision but we’re doing what we can to help keep her from losing more vision.
Here are some things from today on how my daughter sees (or doesn’t see) the world. She can see curbs fairly well and only misses one in ten. Steps are hit and miss depending on the light angle. Going down is hard, going up is almost always easy to see. In a store she didn’t run into anything hard, although she found some of the clothes racks quite comfortable when she walked into them. At our friend’s house she found the six metal food bowls in different locations half from memory and half from sight. She wanted to play with the cats but she couldn’t see them even when they were right in front of her unless the light was very bright like in the bathroom. And at Five Below, she can pick out items on the shelves without knocking them down, which is a good improvement in vision.
So things have gotten better, but she’s still quite blind. She can navigate more safely in the world but she’s accommodating more and learning more secondary skills as well. But there is this one niche where she can see. Maybe that will keep improving little by little.
The Big Boy Update: My children were in bed the other night and I was finishing story time. The lights were out and the children were quiet. I said, “are you awake?” My son replied, “we’re holograms, so we can’t talk”.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter’s wanting dessert but she wasn’t eating her meal. She said, “Daddy, I’m more really eating because my heart hurts”. Dad let her know that heartache or not, dessert wasn’t available unless dinner was finished.
Initially she was able to do this by discerning face cards as they had more color in the middle of the cards. She could get aces as well because they had the least amount of information on the card face. Beyond that she wasn’t able to do a lot of fine-grained cheating but it was enough to win the game as a landslide.
As she played more she learned the card suits. She can’t always tell what suit a card is, but she can get the number on the card. And this part is what’s improved we think. A while back she was having to count the pips on the card to determine the number. Now she’s able to read the number in the top corner and check by counting pips if needed.
She can’t see what my cards are as that’s way far out of focal range but that’s not a problem, she’ll just ask you to tell her what cards you have. This part isn’t cheating, it’s skill, because we play a face-up version of War. There is strategy involved in seeing what cards your player has left, knowing they know what cards you have and that the lead follows the trick winner. As someone with sight, we can take in the opponents hand quickly. My daughter has to ask and then remember all the cards I have as well as what she has.
My mother-in-law is in for the Thanksgiving holiday and she played cards with my daughter on the first day and she came out of the room and whispered to me in an excited voice, “she can see the cards!” I told her we were pretty excited about it.
So good news there. But I always have to temper it with where we really are. I do this probably more for myself than anyone. I have to always keep in mind that she isn’t ever going to have anything remotely close to normal vision. There isn’t much we can do to help her regain her vision but we’re doing what we can to help keep her from losing more vision.
Here are some things from today on how my daughter sees (or doesn’t see) the world. She can see curbs fairly well and only misses one in ten. Steps are hit and miss depending on the light angle. Going down is hard, going up is almost always easy to see. In a store she didn’t run into anything hard, although she found some of the clothes racks quite comfortable when she walked into them. At our friend’s house she found the six metal food bowls in different locations half from memory and half from sight. She wanted to play with the cats but she couldn’t see them even when they were right in front of her unless the light was very bright like in the bathroom. And at Five Below, she can pick out items on the shelves without knocking them down, which is a good improvement in vision.
So things have gotten better, but she’s still quite blind. She can navigate more safely in the world but she’s accommodating more and learning more secondary skills as well. But there is this one niche where she can see. Maybe that will keep improving little by little.
The Big Boy Update: My children were in bed the other night and I was finishing story time. The lights were out and the children were quiet. I said, “are you awake?” My son replied, “we’re holograms, so we can’t talk”.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter’s wanting dessert but she wasn’t eating her meal. She said, “Daddy, I’m more really eating because my heart hurts”. Dad let her know that heartache or not, dessert wasn’t available unless dinner was finished.
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Proprioceptive
It’s Thanksgiving day and there is a lot of flurry and activity upstairs while people get ready for our family dinner. We have a small group this year in comparison to some years, but it’s family and I love having family in town and visiting so it’s all good to me. My children are happy to have four grandparents and two uncles visiting them. They’ve been doing all sorts of things with them. Or rather my daughter has been monopolizing the time of any adult that she can find and corner.
My son is interested in screen time (which is something he’s always interested in). The children have been put on a stamp-based system where they have to do things to earn stamps, which they can spend (or waste as they call it) on things like screen time. This has limited the amount of time they can use screens.
My daughter is collecting stamps like mad. She enjoys collecting them but doesn’t have a lot she wants to spend them on, but that hasn’t been a deterrent for earning them for her. My son is on the verge of being out of stamps almost all the time, but this has encouraged him to do things like make our bed and remember to wash his hands after going to the bathroom, so we’re getting good habits reinforced and seeing less screen time for him as a side effect.
My son has been having issues at school and on Tuesday I had a meeting with their play therapist to discuss what she’s seeing. There was a lot she told me and, as always, it was insightful and not at all what I thought was going on. My son has entered another developmental plane and his anxiety is spiking again. His teachers are saying the work he’s doing isn’t more difficult, but Dhruti says that it’s not the difficulty, it’s his ability to process. The work isn’t harder skill-wise, it’s harder cognitively for him. And that means that while his brain is processing what’s going on within and around him he ends up getting out of whack, or disregulated.
He’s seeing what the students two years his senior are doing in his class and that’s adding to his anxiety because he sees them easily able to do what he’s struggling to do. The anxiety is making him hyper sensitive sensorially. And so he spins. And does parkour moves and does other vestibular things to help him, only it’s not helping. His anxiety is causing him to try and control things (negotiating, whining, resisting). In school he’s also not sure where he fits in with the social dynamic which is different in his new class and he’s struggling too find out where he is, “within the pack” as Dhruti called it.
His anxiety is added to because he’s a huge empath and yet he sees things around him constantly that he can’t change. One thing (not the largest though) is his sister’s blindness. In therapy he’s playing out scenarios such as having a “blindness power”. He played through one scenario where he had a weapon that he used to poke a stuffed bear’s eyes out, making it blind so that he could then help the bear. He wants to use the weapons to gain power. He’s been doing imagination games in the classroom because, Dhruti says, children play out things that resonate with them. He’s doing this because he’s trying to protect himself.
He told Dhruti, “I get attacked all day long”. He created one scenario in which he set up a lot of army men and one of them represented him. He said, “nobody is noticing me.” Dhruti asked if he wanted to be noticed, because he’d put himself in the middle of the characters. He said, “that guy is protecting himself and I am this guy not being noticed.” Dhruti asked him more about the character representing him and then she said he surprised her because he articulated how he felt so well. He said, “this guy is going to do more and more until he gets noticed.”
So we have to change some things at home and at school to help him so he can move forward. We have a chart up on the refrigerator now for when my son whines, negotiates or does Parkour/tumbling when he shouldn’t be. This isn’t a punishment, it’s for awareness. We made it very clear to him that it was to help him realize when he was doing these things (because Dhruti says he isn’t realizing how much it’s happening). When he gets three marks on the chart we have a “Time In”.
The time in is three to five minutes only, with a parent, in which we focus on the proprioceptive instead of the vestibular. We go somewhere quiet and do things like squeeze Therapy Putty really hard. He might lie on the floor and be rolled up in a blanket tightly like a hot dog or lie on his stomach and have our hands firmly press on him, pretending to make him into a pizza. He needs tactile, something like a strong, long hug, something to get him in tune with his body so that he can let go of some of the stress.
We’re also going to focus again on the pompoms, rewarding him randomly when we see he isn’t doing things like whining, parkour indoors or negotiating. This will help build his self-esteem back up because he’s in dire need right now of a more positive self-image.
I’ve only done one time in so far but the result was dramatic and immediate. I’ve also been working on coming up to him and giving him firm hugs (no kissing, he hates the kissing part) or putting my hands on his shoulders and squeezing him.
We’ve only been at this two days now but with the few changes alone, I can already notice a difference. I don’t know what we’d do without Dhruti to help guide us in this journey called Parenthood.
The Big Boy Update: Papa walked by my son this afternoon and heard him talking, although no one was around. Papa said to my son, “who were you talking to?” My son said, “I’m talking to myself.” Papa asked him if he was having a good conversation and my son replied, “I’m having a great conversation.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: While my son may have a low self-image, my daughter does not. We were in the car today playing a copying game. She was copying me and I was naming family members I loved. She said after a bit, “you forgot me”. I told her she was coming up and said, “and last but not least is Reese”. She told me, “I don’t like that, say, ‘and last but best is Reese’”. She said she liked her the best. I explained what the phrase, “last but not least” meant but she wasn’t having any of it, saying she liked her way better.
My son is interested in screen time (which is something he’s always interested in). The children have been put on a stamp-based system where they have to do things to earn stamps, which they can spend (or waste as they call it) on things like screen time. This has limited the amount of time they can use screens.
My daughter is collecting stamps like mad. She enjoys collecting them but doesn’t have a lot she wants to spend them on, but that hasn’t been a deterrent for earning them for her. My son is on the verge of being out of stamps almost all the time, but this has encouraged him to do things like make our bed and remember to wash his hands after going to the bathroom, so we’re getting good habits reinforced and seeing less screen time for him as a side effect.
My son has been having issues at school and on Tuesday I had a meeting with their play therapist to discuss what she’s seeing. There was a lot she told me and, as always, it was insightful and not at all what I thought was going on. My son has entered another developmental plane and his anxiety is spiking again. His teachers are saying the work he’s doing isn’t more difficult, but Dhruti says that it’s not the difficulty, it’s his ability to process. The work isn’t harder skill-wise, it’s harder cognitively for him. And that means that while his brain is processing what’s going on within and around him he ends up getting out of whack, or disregulated.
He’s seeing what the students two years his senior are doing in his class and that’s adding to his anxiety because he sees them easily able to do what he’s struggling to do. The anxiety is making him hyper sensitive sensorially. And so he spins. And does parkour moves and does other vestibular things to help him, only it’s not helping. His anxiety is causing him to try and control things (negotiating, whining, resisting). In school he’s also not sure where he fits in with the social dynamic which is different in his new class and he’s struggling too find out where he is, “within the pack” as Dhruti called it.
His anxiety is added to because he’s a huge empath and yet he sees things around him constantly that he can’t change. One thing (not the largest though) is his sister’s blindness. In therapy he’s playing out scenarios such as having a “blindness power”. He played through one scenario where he had a weapon that he used to poke a stuffed bear’s eyes out, making it blind so that he could then help the bear. He wants to use the weapons to gain power. He’s been doing imagination games in the classroom because, Dhruti says, children play out things that resonate with them. He’s doing this because he’s trying to protect himself.
He told Dhruti, “I get attacked all day long”. He created one scenario in which he set up a lot of army men and one of them represented him. He said, “nobody is noticing me.” Dhruti asked if he wanted to be noticed, because he’d put himself in the middle of the characters. He said, “that guy is protecting himself and I am this guy not being noticed.” Dhruti asked him more about the character representing him and then she said he surprised her because he articulated how he felt so well. He said, “this guy is going to do more and more until he gets noticed.”
So we have to change some things at home and at school to help him so he can move forward. We have a chart up on the refrigerator now for when my son whines, negotiates or does Parkour/tumbling when he shouldn’t be. This isn’t a punishment, it’s for awareness. We made it very clear to him that it was to help him realize when he was doing these things (because Dhruti says he isn’t realizing how much it’s happening). When he gets three marks on the chart we have a “Time In”.
The time in is three to five minutes only, with a parent, in which we focus on the proprioceptive instead of the vestibular. We go somewhere quiet and do things like squeeze Therapy Putty really hard. He might lie on the floor and be rolled up in a blanket tightly like a hot dog or lie on his stomach and have our hands firmly press on him, pretending to make him into a pizza. He needs tactile, something like a strong, long hug, something to get him in tune with his body so that he can let go of some of the stress.
We’re also going to focus again on the pompoms, rewarding him randomly when we see he isn’t doing things like whining, parkour indoors or negotiating. This will help build his self-esteem back up because he’s in dire need right now of a more positive self-image.
I’ve only done one time in so far but the result was dramatic and immediate. I’ve also been working on coming up to him and giving him firm hugs (no kissing, he hates the kissing part) or putting my hands on his shoulders and squeezing him.
We’ve only been at this two days now but with the few changes alone, I can already notice a difference. I don’t know what we’d do without Dhruti to help guide us in this journey called Parenthood.
The Big Boy Update: Papa walked by my son this afternoon and heard him talking, although no one was around. Papa said to my son, “who were you talking to?” My son said, “I’m talking to myself.” Papa asked him if he was having a good conversation and my son replied, “I’m having a great conversation.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: While my son may have a low self-image, my daughter does not. We were in the car today playing a copying game. She was copying me and I was naming family members I loved. She said after a bit, “you forgot me”. I told her she was coming up and said, “and last but not least is Reese”. She told me, “I don’t like that, say, ‘and last but best is Reese’”. She said she liked her the best. I explained what the phrase, “last but not least” meant but she wasn’t having any of it, saying she liked her way better.
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Massage Tribe
The Big Boy Entrepreneurial Endeavor:
Over a year ago my daughter discovered she could ask Alexa (our Amazon Echo) to play songs. She would say songs she knew or just random words and see what would come up. One day she asked for ‘moon rise’ and got a song she liked. It was peaceful and we all liked the song and asked for it frequently.
Recently we upgraded to Amazon Unlimited music, which increased the total number of songs Alexa would play. This was good, because the children hated it when they were informed a song would be only, ‘a sample’. But it also changed some of the songs they commonly asked for. It changed because with the expanded available songs to play, Alexa was giving a different resulting song for things like, “play moon rise” than she did previously. We had to figure out who the artist was to the original Moon Rise to make my daughter happy. In the end it worked out because my son liked the new Moon Rise and she liked the old one.
Last Friday when my son was at home having to do work and not attend the class field trip, I came back from errands to the sounds of some very pleasant, almost southwestern instrumental music. I wondered what my husband had put on because it was working—my son was focused on his school work. Later I asked my husband and found out he didn’t put the music on, my son did.
It took me two more days to figure out that my son was asking for music by a group called, “Massage Tribe”. If you’ve ever been to a spa or to get a massage, it’s the kind of music that’s played in the background to instill you with a sense of calm.
Where did he find out about the group Massage Tribe, I asked? It turns out that’s the name of the artists for the new “Moon Rise” song which had started playing once we upgraded the music option. My son figured out he could ask Alexa to play songs by Massage Tribe get a lot more songs like the new version of Moon Rise.
Tonight at our pre-Thanksgiving Dinner with our family who had come in for the holiday, my son asked Alexa to play music by Massage Tribe again and then asked the adults in his room to please talk more quietly so everyone could enjoy the music. After a bit he came around to the two rooms with a very special offer: Massages for one dollar. Free for old people.
There was a lot of laughing about this offer, but he was serious and went around giving the grandparents massages for free. My husband (deemed not free) checked and had a dollar and took my son up on the offer. My son offered a massage to the non-grandparents for the price of one dollar. Uncle Brian negotiated a partial massage with a Qdoba receipt from lunch and Uncle Bob and I missed out on account of we didn’t have any money on us.
After making sure everyone in the family had had a chance for a free or cost-based massage, my son looked at his dollar and receipt, and then over to me and said, “I think I’m going to set up a business.”
The Tiny Girl Very Helpful Thief: While my son was offering free massages to the “old people” and while the “non-old people” were debating if they should give my son a dollar for his new business venture, my daughter decided to get involved. In her most helpful tone she said, “I know where Mom’s purse is if you need to get a dollar.”
Over a year ago my daughter discovered she could ask Alexa (our Amazon Echo) to play songs. She would say songs she knew or just random words and see what would come up. One day she asked for ‘moon rise’ and got a song she liked. It was peaceful and we all liked the song and asked for it frequently.
Recently we upgraded to Amazon Unlimited music, which increased the total number of songs Alexa would play. This was good, because the children hated it when they were informed a song would be only, ‘a sample’. But it also changed some of the songs they commonly asked for. It changed because with the expanded available songs to play, Alexa was giving a different resulting song for things like, “play moon rise” than she did previously. We had to figure out who the artist was to the original Moon Rise to make my daughter happy. In the end it worked out because my son liked the new Moon Rise and she liked the old one.
Last Friday when my son was at home having to do work and not attend the class field trip, I came back from errands to the sounds of some very pleasant, almost southwestern instrumental music. I wondered what my husband had put on because it was working—my son was focused on his school work. Later I asked my husband and found out he didn’t put the music on, my son did.
It took me two more days to figure out that my son was asking for music by a group called, “Massage Tribe”. If you’ve ever been to a spa or to get a massage, it’s the kind of music that’s played in the background to instill you with a sense of calm.
Where did he find out about the group Massage Tribe, I asked? It turns out that’s the name of the artists for the new “Moon Rise” song which had started playing once we upgraded the music option. My son figured out he could ask Alexa to play songs by Massage Tribe get a lot more songs like the new version of Moon Rise.
Tonight at our pre-Thanksgiving Dinner with our family who had come in for the holiday, my son asked Alexa to play music by Massage Tribe again and then asked the adults in his room to please talk more quietly so everyone could enjoy the music. After a bit he came around to the two rooms with a very special offer: Massages for one dollar. Free for old people.
There was a lot of laughing about this offer, but he was serious and went around giving the grandparents massages for free. My husband (deemed not free) checked and had a dollar and took my son up on the offer. My son offered a massage to the non-grandparents for the price of one dollar. Uncle Brian negotiated a partial massage with a Qdoba receipt from lunch and Uncle Bob and I missed out on account of we didn’t have any money on us.
After making sure everyone in the family had had a chance for a free or cost-based massage, my son looked at his dollar and receipt, and then over to me and said, “I think I’m going to set up a business.”
The Tiny Girl Very Helpful Thief: While my son was offering free massages to the “old people” and while the “non-old people” were debating if they should give my son a dollar for his new business venture, my daughter decided to get involved. In her most helpful tone she said, “I know where Mom’s purse is if you need to get a dollar.”
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Not My Son’s Fault
Yesterday morning I went into the bathroom in the basement and noticed there was no water in the toilet. So I flushed it and it stopped up. And it wasn’t clear water. Hrm…
I got the plunger and it didn’t get better, only browner. So I plunged with more determination and called my husband. He’d noticed it too and we both suspected my son, who likes to wait until he can’t possibly hold it any longer. This has caused problems in more than one of our toilets.
I plunged and my husband plunged and then I went and got a snake and we snaked. About this time my husband noticed there was toilet tissue and water coming into the shower beside the toilet. So we called the plumber.
Two men checked out our cleanout valves by the exit of the house, and then the one sixty feet closer to the sewer main and found a clog at almost the edge of our property. They snaked with their much longer snake and we were back in non-clogging business.
That particular toilet and shower were the lowest two points in the house and it had nothing to do with my son. It’s been the only plumbing issue we’ve had in seven years, so I’m not complaining.
The Big Boy Update: Tonight after getting up from the dinner table I couldn’t find my son. I went to the front door and asked, “has a boy with green hair come by here?” (My son’s hair has been dyed green and he looks like a little elf.) They all looked at each other, said no and they were pretty sure they’d have noticed. Sure enough, my son was around the corner instead and I’d just missed him. When he walked by all the people waiting to get seated looked at him—the boy with the literal green hair—and smiled.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: We had a baby come to Practice Thanksgiving. My daughter wanted to touch the baby very badly but since she had a runny nose we told her she couldn’t as the baby’s immune system was still immature. She was sad and made me sad too when she asked, “are you sure I can’t touch the baby? That’s how I see.”
I got the plunger and it didn’t get better, only browner. So I plunged with more determination and called my husband. He’d noticed it too and we both suspected my son, who likes to wait until he can’t possibly hold it any longer. This has caused problems in more than one of our toilets.
I plunged and my husband plunged and then I went and got a snake and we snaked. About this time my husband noticed there was toilet tissue and water coming into the shower beside the toilet. So we called the plumber.
Two men checked out our cleanout valves by the exit of the house, and then the one sixty feet closer to the sewer main and found a clog at almost the edge of our property. They snaked with their much longer snake and we were back in non-clogging business.
That particular toilet and shower were the lowest two points in the house and it had nothing to do with my son. It’s been the only plumbing issue we’ve had in seven years, so I’m not complaining.
The Big Boy Update: Tonight after getting up from the dinner table I couldn’t find my son. I went to the front door and asked, “has a boy with green hair come by here?” (My son’s hair has been dyed green and he looks like a little elf.) They all looked at each other, said no and they were pretty sure they’d have noticed. Sure enough, my son was around the corner instead and I’d just missed him. When he walked by all the people waiting to get seated looked at him—the boy with the literal green hair—and smiled.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: We had a baby come to Practice Thanksgiving. My daughter wanted to touch the baby very badly but since she had a runny nose we told her she couldn’t as the baby’s immune system was still immature. She was sad and made me sad too when she asked, “are you sure I can’t touch the baby? That’s how I see.”
Monday, November 20, 2017
To Bed Without Dinner
My son is in his room, going to bed without dinner. He has been having some behavioral issues lately and has had repercussions both at school and at home. In part it’s been because he’s been defiant about things, but there is a negotiations component that has been consistent and constant with my son. His teachers have commented on how everything needs to be a negotiation with him and we’ve seen it at home as well.
My husband and I talked about it and we wonder if we’ve been part of the problem—if we’re letting him negotiate things, little things, and he’s built up an expectation as a result. Is he pushing to see how much he can negotiate? He wasn’t able to improve his behavior at school so he lost the privilege to go on the field trip. Tonight, he lost the privilege to eat dinner, do his homework, have pajamas and brush his teeth. Also, he had to go to his room at five-thirty instead of eight o’clock.
He asked me at one point (well, screamed at me over the bridge) what he had done. I went through about twelve things he’d either not listened to, was rude about, had been outright defiant to adults and had tried to negotiate through. The list is long and the story isn’t that exciting but he basically lost opportunities to do good things—things he wanted to do—simply because he wasn’t willing to listen to reasonable requests from adults and instead wanted to try and negotiate and or whine instead.
While he was in his room, my husband, daughter and I had dinner and he yelled at us from above. We ignored him. He wanted a second chance. He was willing to listen. He wanted to give us a hug. He hated us. We were going to die. He was going to destroy the wood railing. Could he please have dinner? He was calm now. Could he have dinner and then not have breakfast instead? (You get the picture on how the conversation went.)
He did eventually calm down and no, he did not get dinner. But I came up and he and I had a very nice conversation about nothing in particular and then I helped get him a clipboard and some pencils so he could work on his drawing.
He didn’t ask about dinner. That was put up and the dishes were cleaned up. I hope he remembers this lesson going forward.
The Big Boy Update: In the middle of the evening when my son was upstairs, not allowed to leave his room, my husband and I got into an argument. It was fairly heated and it was about a serious, non-trivial subject: how long the dishes should be left out on the drying rack. It was such an important matter that our voices got raised as we voiced our opinions—specifically our opinions about how the other person was dead wrong. During this my son yelled down, “don’t break up! Don’t break up! Don’t break up!!” We stopped and asked him what he meant and when we realized he was worried we would get divorced we assured him we were most definitely not breaking up and that all was fine. Once he was calmed, my husband and I realized how silly the argument had been in the first place and it was all over.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter snuck upstairs after dinner to the children’s bedroom. She came downstairs and told dad, “I wanted to give my brother something. It wasn’t anything to do with food.” After a few seconds she said, “actually, I want to tell you. I gave him a pumpkin seed because I had two.”
My husband and I talked about it and we wonder if we’ve been part of the problem—if we’re letting him negotiate things, little things, and he’s built up an expectation as a result. Is he pushing to see how much he can negotiate? He wasn’t able to improve his behavior at school so he lost the privilege to go on the field trip. Tonight, he lost the privilege to eat dinner, do his homework, have pajamas and brush his teeth. Also, he had to go to his room at five-thirty instead of eight o’clock.
He asked me at one point (well, screamed at me over the bridge) what he had done. I went through about twelve things he’d either not listened to, was rude about, had been outright defiant to adults and had tried to negotiate through. The list is long and the story isn’t that exciting but he basically lost opportunities to do good things—things he wanted to do—simply because he wasn’t willing to listen to reasonable requests from adults and instead wanted to try and negotiate and or whine instead.
While he was in his room, my husband, daughter and I had dinner and he yelled at us from above. We ignored him. He wanted a second chance. He was willing to listen. He wanted to give us a hug. He hated us. We were going to die. He was going to destroy the wood railing. Could he please have dinner? He was calm now. Could he have dinner and then not have breakfast instead? (You get the picture on how the conversation went.)
He did eventually calm down and no, he did not get dinner. But I came up and he and I had a very nice conversation about nothing in particular and then I helped get him a clipboard and some pencils so he could work on his drawing.
He didn’t ask about dinner. That was put up and the dishes were cleaned up. I hope he remembers this lesson going forward.
The Big Boy Update: In the middle of the evening when my son was upstairs, not allowed to leave his room, my husband and I got into an argument. It was fairly heated and it was about a serious, non-trivial subject: how long the dishes should be left out on the drying rack. It was such an important matter that our voices got raised as we voiced our opinions—specifically our opinions about how the other person was dead wrong. During this my son yelled down, “don’t break up! Don’t break up! Don’t break up!!” We stopped and asked him what he meant and when we realized he was worried we would get divorced we assured him we were most definitely not breaking up and that all was fine. Once he was calmed, my husband and I realized how silly the argument had been in the first place and it was all over.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter snuck upstairs after dinner to the children’s bedroom. She came downstairs and told dad, “I wanted to give my brother something. It wasn’t anything to do with food.” After a few seconds she said, “actually, I want to tell you. I gave him a pumpkin seed because I had two.”
Sunday, November 19, 2017
The Sharpie Table
Let’s see…paperwork: caught up on; inboxes: emptied; Practice Thanksgiving: cleaned up from; long-term projects: reasonably under control; and children: in bed—which means I can get down here and write my blog post of the day. I like this time of day.
We have a new table. Or rather we have an old table that’s been put in a new place, causing an uproar of activity with my children. Sometimes changing just a small thing makes a big difference with children.
They like to draw and their favorite implements for drawing are sharpies. You know, Sharpies—those indelible, permanent under the most strenuous of conditions, markers. And I can’t blame them, they do write so nicely. I had a collection of rainbow colors and any time we had a need for a color for something like the calendar on the refrigerator, they would want to use the markers for other things. So I just left them out.
There was a little table in the corner of the dining room that wasn’t used much by the children, even though markers were there in a bin, so I made it the table for the brailler with the ream of special braille card stock paper and some arts and crafts things from a blind kit that came in the mail. The table was used, but only by my daughter for her braille work for the most part. And then they got interested in using the paper and the sharpies and the only real place to draw was the breakfast nook table.
Children aren’t the best at staying within the bounds of the paper and I found myself using the adhesive remover to remove the sharpie marks from the table on multiple occasions. One time there was even a lot of red on the floor from a very vigorous full-sheet red coloring project my daughter decided to do. Something had to be done.
I thought about it and realized there was another child-sized, infrequently upstairs that had a white, almost white board-ish surface on it that I could put beside the first table. My husband and I shifted the adult table over by a few inches, making the off-center celing light more off-center in yet another direction, so that there was ample walking space around the now double table setup. And then we called the children in.
“From here on out”, I started and then explained that while the nook table, floor and all other surfaces were completely off limits for any sharpie work, this one little white table was completely available for all their coloring needs. I told them it was okay if the sharpie got onto the table and not to worry about it. But would it come off, my daughter asked? Yes, we could clean it off if we wanted to, I told her.
And we left it at that. And for two days my children have monopolized that table, sometimes both working together or more likely both crammed in together working on their own projects. The other very popular item is a pair of scissors available at the table. My son will draw something and then cut it out. My daughter is doing something, although I don’t really know what, but it involves doing a lot of cutting paper into very small pieces, most of which end up on the floor.
I think she had to clean up the floor four times today alone, using the hand sweeper to get the very small pieces into the dustpan before she could eat or do another activity she wanted to do. She kept coming back though, including just a few more cutting things right at bedtime. Hopefully the table, sharpies, scissors and glue stick will keep them occupied a lot in the coming weeks as we move into the holidays.
The Big Boy Update: My son agonized over writing about fifteen short sentences tonight. I should have had him do them earlier in the day but I was working on my own things. He got the Parts of a Volcano project finished though that was sent home for him to work on since he didn’t have the privilege of going on the field trip on Friday. Hopefully he’ll be proud of his work when he brings it in tomorrow to show his teachers.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has been working on her thank you notes for birthday presents she received. She first would take a piece of paper and braille at short message to the person. Then she would draw a picture on the paper. I know her vision is poor, but she was drawing some things that I could easily tell, like a girl with long hair (a princess) and a party with balloons all around. She’s been more interested in multiple colors lately which I hope means she’s able to do better at color recognition. She got done with nine hand-typed and drawn cards over the last two days and was proud of each and every one.
We have a new table. Or rather we have an old table that’s been put in a new place, causing an uproar of activity with my children. Sometimes changing just a small thing makes a big difference with children.
They like to draw and their favorite implements for drawing are sharpies. You know, Sharpies—those indelible, permanent under the most strenuous of conditions, markers. And I can’t blame them, they do write so nicely. I had a collection of rainbow colors and any time we had a need for a color for something like the calendar on the refrigerator, they would want to use the markers for other things. So I just left them out.
There was a little table in the corner of the dining room that wasn’t used much by the children, even though markers were there in a bin, so I made it the table for the brailler with the ream of special braille card stock paper and some arts and crafts things from a blind kit that came in the mail. The table was used, but only by my daughter for her braille work for the most part. And then they got interested in using the paper and the sharpies and the only real place to draw was the breakfast nook table.
Children aren’t the best at staying within the bounds of the paper and I found myself using the adhesive remover to remove the sharpie marks from the table on multiple occasions. One time there was even a lot of red on the floor from a very vigorous full-sheet red coloring project my daughter decided to do. Something had to be done.
I thought about it and realized there was another child-sized, infrequently upstairs that had a white, almost white board-ish surface on it that I could put beside the first table. My husband and I shifted the adult table over by a few inches, making the off-center celing light more off-center in yet another direction, so that there was ample walking space around the now double table setup. And then we called the children in.
“From here on out”, I started and then explained that while the nook table, floor and all other surfaces were completely off limits for any sharpie work, this one little white table was completely available for all their coloring needs. I told them it was okay if the sharpie got onto the table and not to worry about it. But would it come off, my daughter asked? Yes, we could clean it off if we wanted to, I told her.
And we left it at that. And for two days my children have monopolized that table, sometimes both working together or more likely both crammed in together working on their own projects. The other very popular item is a pair of scissors available at the table. My son will draw something and then cut it out. My daughter is doing something, although I don’t really know what, but it involves doing a lot of cutting paper into very small pieces, most of which end up on the floor.
I think she had to clean up the floor four times today alone, using the hand sweeper to get the very small pieces into the dustpan before she could eat or do another activity she wanted to do. She kept coming back though, including just a few more cutting things right at bedtime. Hopefully the table, sharpies, scissors and glue stick will keep them occupied a lot in the coming weeks as we move into the holidays.
The Big Boy Update: My son agonized over writing about fifteen short sentences tonight. I should have had him do them earlier in the day but I was working on my own things. He got the Parts of a Volcano project finished though that was sent home for him to work on since he didn’t have the privilege of going on the field trip on Friday. Hopefully he’ll be proud of his work when he brings it in tomorrow to show his teachers.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has been working on her thank you notes for birthday presents she received. She first would take a piece of paper and braille at short message to the person. Then she would draw a picture on the paper. I know her vision is poor, but she was drawing some things that I could easily tell, like a girl with long hair (a princess) and a party with balloons all around. She’s been more interested in multiple colors lately which I hope means she’s able to do better at color recognition. She got done with nine hand-typed and drawn cards over the last two days and was proud of each and every one.
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Portal
In 2008 a video game was released as an attachment to a larger, high-budget video game. It was an extra, so to speak. But over time it’s eclipsed the game it was bundled with. In fact, I don’t even remember what game it accompanied. The game was called Portal.
In the story, you wake up in a cell and a computer named GLADOS talks to you, telling you you’ve been selected to perform tests on some new technology. The game in essence is a series of puzzles. You walk around and have to figure out how to get to the exit door. But the twist was you had two special “guns”.
The blue gun opened one side of a door while the orange gun opened the other. These “doors” were oval shaped and were called portals because they literally ported you from one to the other. So let’s say you were on one side of a large cavern and you needed to get across. You open a blue portal on the wall behind you and shoot way across the divide to the far side to open an orange portal there. Then you simply walk through the blue portal and walk out the orange one, crossing the cavern in a single stride.
But it gets more fun. What if you put one portal in a wall and the other portal in the ceiling? You step through with gravity in one direction and exit with it in another. There are different twists to each level but the concept is the same, simple one in all of them—use your portals to get to the exit.
My son has heard about Portal for some time because there were references to it in some of the other games he’s played what with Portal becoming the unexpected cult classic that it now is. My son asked if we could play the game today so my husband downloaded it onto the Xbox and he and I started to play, with me doing some explanation as we did the first few levels.
He picked it up very quickly, too quickly almost as he was solving puzzles before I had a chance to explain them. There is another facet to the game that he knew about—the computer, GLADOS, has gone rogue and is actually out to get you. In one of the levels she tells us, “we regret to inform you that this puzzle is impossible. If I were you, I would quit now. My son replied in a defiant tone, “I’ll never quit!”
He’s on level thirteen now and they’re getting harder. Tomorrow maybe we’ll tackle some more levels together.
The Big Boy Update: My son does love screen time. He has to earn stamps now to have any use of them and there are costs for weekend and weekday use, with weekday use being very costly. If he does too much screen time he becomes a ‘monster’ afterwards as he’s cranky and difficult to deal with. Apparently he’s heard us say that one too many times as the other day when we told him his time was up he cried out in an angry voice, “I am not a monster!”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My husband and I have the new iPhone X. It does the facial recognition. It’s great and very quick. It also has something called Animoji, which animates your face and records your words as a cartoon animal (or the ever-present poop emoji). It has no problem seeing my son’s or anyone else’s face but it has difficulty with my daughter. We don’t know if it’s her thick glasses that are causing the problem. But she doesn’t care, it still records her voice. She loves sending animoji’s to friends and family members.
In the story, you wake up in a cell and a computer named GLADOS talks to you, telling you you’ve been selected to perform tests on some new technology. The game in essence is a series of puzzles. You walk around and have to figure out how to get to the exit door. But the twist was you had two special “guns”.
The blue gun opened one side of a door while the orange gun opened the other. These “doors” were oval shaped and were called portals because they literally ported you from one to the other. So let’s say you were on one side of a large cavern and you needed to get across. You open a blue portal on the wall behind you and shoot way across the divide to the far side to open an orange portal there. Then you simply walk through the blue portal and walk out the orange one, crossing the cavern in a single stride.
But it gets more fun. What if you put one portal in a wall and the other portal in the ceiling? You step through with gravity in one direction and exit with it in another. There are different twists to each level but the concept is the same, simple one in all of them—use your portals to get to the exit.
My son has heard about Portal for some time because there were references to it in some of the other games he’s played what with Portal becoming the unexpected cult classic that it now is. My son asked if we could play the game today so my husband downloaded it onto the Xbox and he and I started to play, with me doing some explanation as we did the first few levels.
He picked it up very quickly, too quickly almost as he was solving puzzles before I had a chance to explain them. There is another facet to the game that he knew about—the computer, GLADOS, has gone rogue and is actually out to get you. In one of the levels she tells us, “we regret to inform you that this puzzle is impossible. If I were you, I would quit now. My son replied in a defiant tone, “I’ll never quit!”
He’s on level thirteen now and they’re getting harder. Tomorrow maybe we’ll tackle some more levels together.
The Big Boy Update: My son does love screen time. He has to earn stamps now to have any use of them and there are costs for weekend and weekday use, with weekday use being very costly. If he does too much screen time he becomes a ‘monster’ afterwards as he’s cranky and difficult to deal with. Apparently he’s heard us say that one too many times as the other day when we told him his time was up he cried out in an angry voice, “I am not a monster!”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My husband and I have the new iPhone X. It does the facial recognition. It’s great and very quick. It also has something called Animoji, which animates your face and records your words as a cartoon animal (or the ever-present poop emoji). It has no problem seeing my son’s or anyone else’s face but it has difficulty with my daughter. We don’t know if it’s her thick glasses that are causing the problem. But she doesn’t care, it still records her voice. She loves sending animoji’s to friends and family members.
Friday, November 17, 2017
Tumbling
My son has been taking parkour classes for a few months now. Recently my husband added a tumbling class later in the week because my son moved into a higher level for parkour and he wasn’t enjoying it as much. Tumbling, he loves. I got a video of earlier this week where my son was learning the predecessor to a back handspring. He’s getting quite good very quickly.
I went with him tonight and the instructor was talking about him saying how he was the smallest one in the class (there is a big age range) and yet he could do it, so if he could make his roundoff go across the full length of the mat, the other students should be able to too.
My daughter would love to do the tumbling class with him, only she can’t see well enough to see what the instructor is demonstrating and there are children moving around quickly and it could be dangerous for her. But I thought I’d ask.
The instructor, who I believe is one of the owners, said he thought a private class would make more sense for her. He asked a lot of questions about her vision and was very interested. I asked if we could do a private class and include her brother, who was standing there beside us. He piped up and said, “I could help her!” I told him he was a very helpful brother and that would be so nice of him.
So I’m going to email Zach and see if we can figure out something for an initial trial class to see if he can work with my daughter. My son wanted to tell his sister when we got home but I told him that we wanted to make sure we could schedule something first before we told her. He asked if he could be the one to tell her and I said I thought that was such a nice thing that he wanted to tell her and I would let him know so he could be the first to let her know.
I don’t know if or how it will work, but she will love if I’m betting if we can work something and get her in a physical class where she can do more than just climb the door frames of our house.
The Big Boy Update: My son came into the kitchen before leaving for tumbling class tonight and said, “I can do The Ministry of Silly Walks” and then proceeded to do just that, making me laugh.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I rolled over at sometime after five o’clock this morning to find my daughter in the bed. There must have been a nightmare or something and she talked to dad about it and he told her to climb in. Typically we let them stay for a few minutes and then take them back upstairs—unless we fall back asleep. And I had been asleep this time. When I said hello to my daughter she said, “why are you up here, mommy?” I told her I had been her all along. She was confused and then she said, “oh, I was thinking you were in my bed.” Then she got up, said she needed to blow her nose and after that, went up to bed all on her own. It was nice not to have to carry her up the stairs, she’s getting bigger.
I went with him tonight and the instructor was talking about him saying how he was the smallest one in the class (there is a big age range) and yet he could do it, so if he could make his roundoff go across the full length of the mat, the other students should be able to too.
My daughter would love to do the tumbling class with him, only she can’t see well enough to see what the instructor is demonstrating and there are children moving around quickly and it could be dangerous for her. But I thought I’d ask.
The instructor, who I believe is one of the owners, said he thought a private class would make more sense for her. He asked a lot of questions about her vision and was very interested. I asked if we could do a private class and include her brother, who was standing there beside us. He piped up and said, “I could help her!” I told him he was a very helpful brother and that would be so nice of him.
So I’m going to email Zach and see if we can figure out something for an initial trial class to see if he can work with my daughter. My son wanted to tell his sister when we got home but I told him that we wanted to make sure we could schedule something first before we told her. He asked if he could be the one to tell her and I said I thought that was such a nice thing that he wanted to tell her and I would let him know so he could be the first to let her know.
I don’t know if or how it will work, but she will love if I’m betting if we can work something and get her in a physical class where she can do more than just climb the door frames of our house.
The Big Boy Update: My son came into the kitchen before leaving for tumbling class tonight and said, “I can do The Ministry of Silly Walks” and then proceeded to do just that, making me laugh.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I rolled over at sometime after five o’clock this morning to find my daughter in the bed. There must have been a nightmare or something and she talked to dad about it and he told her to climb in. Typically we let them stay for a few minutes and then take them back upstairs—unless we fall back asleep. And I had been asleep this time. When I said hello to my daughter she said, “why are you up here, mommy?” I told her I had been her all along. She was confused and then she said, “oh, I was thinking you were in my bed.” Then she got up, said she needed to blow her nose and after that, went up to bed all on her own. It was nice not to have to carry her up the stairs, she’s getting bigger.
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Just Trying To Keep My Pants On
My best friend cracks me up. She makes me laugh on a regular basis. Sometimes while we’re out running we talk about trivial things. More commonly though it’s about the challenges we face in life. For instance, I have a child that lost her vision. As you can well imagine, the topic of my daughter and how she’s doing, her education and the way in which it’s changed our lives comes up a lot.
My best friend has four children and as with any child, there are challenges they face that as parents we need to help guide them through. Then there are our jobs. My job situation is fairly easy and low stress. My running buddy’s work is high stress and she has the lives of both adults and babies. On top of that she also has all the complexities of a work environment hierarchy.
The other week there were changes being implemented. One of them was an overall dress code memo that went out. This memo went to everyone in employment in the entire large hospital/university. This particular memo wasn’t targeting her or her office or women specifically. But it irked her.
I think on the day the memo came out she’d had some additional stress with patients and difficult news to deliver, and that would put me on edge any day of the year. But she called me. She called me to vent. She went over the very specific guidelines on what attire wasn’t appropriate for women while working.
One of the things was not wearing shirts that exposed the belly. My very well-dressed best friend has no clothes that even remotely resemble that rule. But there were others. Such as the number of inches a skirt could be above the knee. I don’t remember what the amount was, but it was minimal, and apparently almost all of my best friend’s skirts may or may not be on the verge of that limit.
I told her that her very professional, tailored dresses weren’t the target of the memo. But the venting needed to happen. She exclaimed, “I’m just trying to put my pants on and go to work here!!” I laughed at her and she kept going on about the next thing on the list, which had move into what was appropriate on social media.
With four children and a heavy work schedule my best friend spends very little time on social media. The time she does have goes to her children, remembering to eat, running and sleeping. But it was annoying, these rules, this corporate hand reaching out and telling employees how they had to conduct themselves in their personal time. And she lost it. She said in a piercing tone to me on the phone, “I’m just trying to keep my pants on and work here!” And then I laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
I said, “are you sure that’s what you meant to say?” She mentally rewound her words in her mind and then she laughed too. Her anger was diffused for the moment. She chuckled and told me thanks for hearing her out. I told her to be sure and keep those pants on. She told me to shut up and then we laughed and hung up.
The Big Boy Update: My son brought his work home for tomorrow that he’ll be doing instead of the class field trip to the aquarium. He didn’t want his sister to know why he was staying home. Today he had a contract (and will have every day going forward) on what behavior is appropriate in the classroom. He brought home his contract today and had gotten four out of five checked, which is better than the zero of five he must have been doing in the prior days before the contract was implemented.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has a renewed interest in drawing. She’s got some types of shapes she’s doing, but a lot of it is coloring and scribbling. We’re encouraging her to color the drawings in her braille books created by her teacher that she brings home. What we’re trying to discourage though is all the accidental red sharpie on the floor from a very enthusiastic drawing session before school today.
My best friend has four children and as with any child, there are challenges they face that as parents we need to help guide them through. Then there are our jobs. My job situation is fairly easy and low stress. My running buddy’s work is high stress and she has the lives of both adults and babies. On top of that she also has all the complexities of a work environment hierarchy.
The other week there were changes being implemented. One of them was an overall dress code memo that went out. This memo went to everyone in employment in the entire large hospital/university. This particular memo wasn’t targeting her or her office or women specifically. But it irked her.
I think on the day the memo came out she’d had some additional stress with patients and difficult news to deliver, and that would put me on edge any day of the year. But she called me. She called me to vent. She went over the very specific guidelines on what attire wasn’t appropriate for women while working.
One of the things was not wearing shirts that exposed the belly. My very well-dressed best friend has no clothes that even remotely resemble that rule. But there were others. Such as the number of inches a skirt could be above the knee. I don’t remember what the amount was, but it was minimal, and apparently almost all of my best friend’s skirts may or may not be on the verge of that limit.
I told her that her very professional, tailored dresses weren’t the target of the memo. But the venting needed to happen. She exclaimed, “I’m just trying to put my pants on and go to work here!!” I laughed at her and she kept going on about the next thing on the list, which had move into what was appropriate on social media.
With four children and a heavy work schedule my best friend spends very little time on social media. The time she does have goes to her children, remembering to eat, running and sleeping. But it was annoying, these rules, this corporate hand reaching out and telling employees how they had to conduct themselves in their personal time. And she lost it. She said in a piercing tone to me on the phone, “I’m just trying to keep my pants on and work here!” And then I laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
I said, “are you sure that’s what you meant to say?” She mentally rewound her words in her mind and then she laughed too. Her anger was diffused for the moment. She chuckled and told me thanks for hearing her out. I told her to be sure and keep those pants on. She told me to shut up and then we laughed and hung up.
The Big Boy Update: My son brought his work home for tomorrow that he’ll be doing instead of the class field trip to the aquarium. He didn’t want his sister to know why he was staying home. Today he had a contract (and will have every day going forward) on what behavior is appropriate in the classroom. He brought home his contract today and had gotten four out of five checked, which is better than the zero of five he must have been doing in the prior days before the contract was implemented.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has a renewed interest in drawing. She’s got some types of shapes she’s doing, but a lot of it is coloring and scribbling. We’re encouraging her to color the drawings in her braille books created by her teacher that she brings home. What we’re trying to discourage though is all the accidental red sharpie on the floor from a very enthusiastic drawing session before school today.
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
SERVER ROOM
Braille isn’t everywhere, but it’s in enough places that my daughter is already looking for it. She has an idea where it might be found and is on the lookout when we’re in public places. From talking to some of the VI people we interact with through the school, there are locations braille should be expected—only we don’t know where those places are yet as sighted people. Our daughter is sure to let us know though.
She’s already outpacing us with reading braille. Initially all we needed to do was learn the alphabet and a few additional characters such as punctuation, letter and capital indicators. But there is more to braille than that.
Today we were at my daughter’s Thanksgiving celebration and as the children were talking amongst themselves, my husband and I were talking to Ms. Aagard, our daughter’s braillest. It was singular then that my husband got a text message from a friend, with a picture attached:
Our friend said this sign had just gone up and he was confused because while he could suss out the second word of ‘ROOM’ from a braille perspective, there just weren’t enough letters in the first word to make up ‘SERVER’.
So my husband showed the picture to Ms. Aagard and she said, “ah, that’s because there is a shortened character for ‘er’ that’s used. In this case, the word ‘SERVER’ is being spelled, ’S-ER-V-ER’. So, mystery solved.
She said my daughter was only working on words that had a single letter “secret code” such as the letter ‘L’ representing the word “like”. Next year she’ll get into the letter combinations for partial words.
And while my daughter’s braille reading is still slow, she’s progressing quickly. She’s even found some mistakes in Ms. Aagard’s typing.
The Big Boy Update: My son has been having behavioral issues. We’re trying to get to the bottom of what’s bothering him that’s causing them and we’re working with his teachers and his play therapist. When I know more from Dhruti I’ll give an update here, but today unfortunately my son found out (in a very carefully worded and kindly conference with his teachers) that he won’t be invited to go on the field trip to the aquarium on Friday. It was an all day trip and he was looking forward to it. His peers won’t be told why and he’ll have work to do at home while they’re on the trip. He was good about it, but I do think he understands this was a significant consequence for him. As a side note here, it wasn’t that the teachers are punishing him, he isn’t listening and isn’t willing to stay with the group (among other things). So there were safety concerns the teachers had with having to focus on my son in large aquarium when they had an entire class to manage. The teachers really wanted him to go on the field trip and gave him multiple opportunities to show them he was ready to go, which we appreciate.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter introduced her to her friends at school today at the Thanksgiving celebration. She was very happy about us meeting her classmates. There were a few times she thought it was one student when it was another, but the child just told her who they were, without any animosity, and she said, “oh, it’s Ruben”.
She’s already outpacing us with reading braille. Initially all we needed to do was learn the alphabet and a few additional characters such as punctuation, letter and capital indicators. But there is more to braille than that.
Today we were at my daughter’s Thanksgiving celebration and as the children were talking amongst themselves, my husband and I were talking to Ms. Aagard, our daughter’s braillest. It was singular then that my husband got a text message from a friend, with a picture attached:
Our friend said this sign had just gone up and he was confused because while he could suss out the second word of ‘ROOM’ from a braille perspective, there just weren’t enough letters in the first word to make up ‘SERVER’.
So my husband showed the picture to Ms. Aagard and she said, “ah, that’s because there is a shortened character for ‘er’ that’s used. In this case, the word ‘SERVER’ is being spelled, ’S-ER-V-ER’. So, mystery solved.
She said my daughter was only working on words that had a single letter “secret code” such as the letter ‘L’ representing the word “like”. Next year she’ll get into the letter combinations for partial words.
And while my daughter’s braille reading is still slow, she’s progressing quickly. She’s even found some mistakes in Ms. Aagard’s typing.
The Big Boy Update: My son has been having behavioral issues. We’re trying to get to the bottom of what’s bothering him that’s causing them and we’re working with his teachers and his play therapist. When I know more from Dhruti I’ll give an update here, but today unfortunately my son found out (in a very carefully worded and kindly conference with his teachers) that he won’t be invited to go on the field trip to the aquarium on Friday. It was an all day trip and he was looking forward to it. His peers won’t be told why and he’ll have work to do at home while they’re on the trip. He was good about it, but I do think he understands this was a significant consequence for him. As a side note here, it wasn’t that the teachers are punishing him, he isn’t listening and isn’t willing to stay with the group (among other things). So there were safety concerns the teachers had with having to focus on my son in large aquarium when they had an entire class to manage. The teachers really wanted him to go on the field trip and gave him multiple opportunities to show them he was ready to go, which we appreciate.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter introduced her to her friends at school today at the Thanksgiving celebration. She was very happy about us meeting her classmates. There were a few times she thought it was one student when it was another, but the child just told her who they were, without any animosity, and she said, “oh, it’s Ruben”.
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Phonathon Data
Tonight was our school’s Annual Fund phonathon. I’ve been involved for either five or possibly six years now. Initially I was paralyzed at the though of calling someone and asking them for money over the phone. I sat at a desk and looked at my cell phone and didn’t have the nerve to make the first call.
But it gets easier. I’ve helped coordinate the phonathon for the last three years. Tonight I gave the callers some education on the process, what to say to callers and what to ask. A lot of the information that I discussed with them I’d written up three years ago into a call sheet patter for myself. The consultant we had had a workbook with lots of good information in it but it was too much, too many things and the nuggets of data I needed, specifically the phrases I wanted to use such as, “we hope you will consider a gift that is meaningful and appropriate to your family” was hard to find in her packet.
So I boiled it down. I wrote up a, “do this in this order and you’ll know exactly what to say” sheet with paths for new families, families that had given before, families you didn’t reach by phone, families that weren’t sure and families that did want to make a contribution over the phone. So that part was easy and done. The data part was what took the work.
What families should we call? We couldn’t call every family that had ever attended the school and grandparents. So we selected larger historical donors and all new families. What information do we need to have when we call them, such as names, children’s names and classes, phone numbers, email addresses and past giving history. What amount should we ask them to contribute (typically a larger amount than prior years). And who will be calling whom?
It’s a lot of data to organize and then it needs to be formatted into call sheets so each caller has a sheer for each person they’ll be calling and information to follow-up the next day with an email. I went through eight versions of the spreadsheet, asking for more data from the school multiple times. I think I went through five versions of the mail merge word document getting everything right for the call sheets.
But by this afternoon it was all ready to go and tonight our callers, plied with wine and pizza, made calls. We had a matching challenge from our Annual Fund chairs for new and higher donations and we not only made that goal, we exceeded it. We got a good number of donations and will probably have more coming in from the emails our callers will send out tomorrow.
So it was a good day. Hopefully someone will want to manage the phonathon next year, because three years may be my limit. Although don’t tell anyone, I did have fun working with the spreadsheet though.
The Big Boy Update: My son saw Dhruti today about the behavior issues he’s having at school. Dhruti says she thinks it’s how some things are going at school, possibly a more challenging time with the work he’s doing as he’s getting more difficult work to do. She’s going to explore with his teacher and we’ll have him go back to see her next week.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter can do a pull-up. We knew she had a lot of arm strength but we didn’t realize she could easily do a pull-up until we got her a bar to hang on her door frame and asked her. My son couldn’t do one, but then again he doesn’t spend half his waking hours at home hanging from the door frames.
But it gets easier. I’ve helped coordinate the phonathon for the last three years. Tonight I gave the callers some education on the process, what to say to callers and what to ask. A lot of the information that I discussed with them I’d written up three years ago into a call sheet patter for myself. The consultant we had had a workbook with lots of good information in it but it was too much, too many things and the nuggets of data I needed, specifically the phrases I wanted to use such as, “we hope you will consider a gift that is meaningful and appropriate to your family” was hard to find in her packet.
So I boiled it down. I wrote up a, “do this in this order and you’ll know exactly what to say” sheet with paths for new families, families that had given before, families you didn’t reach by phone, families that weren’t sure and families that did want to make a contribution over the phone. So that part was easy and done. The data part was what took the work.
What families should we call? We couldn’t call every family that had ever attended the school and grandparents. So we selected larger historical donors and all new families. What information do we need to have when we call them, such as names, children’s names and classes, phone numbers, email addresses and past giving history. What amount should we ask them to contribute (typically a larger amount than prior years). And who will be calling whom?
It’s a lot of data to organize and then it needs to be formatted into call sheets so each caller has a sheer for each person they’ll be calling and information to follow-up the next day with an email. I went through eight versions of the spreadsheet, asking for more data from the school multiple times. I think I went through five versions of the mail merge word document getting everything right for the call sheets.
But by this afternoon it was all ready to go and tonight our callers, plied with wine and pizza, made calls. We had a matching challenge from our Annual Fund chairs for new and higher donations and we not only made that goal, we exceeded it. We got a good number of donations and will probably have more coming in from the emails our callers will send out tomorrow.
So it was a good day. Hopefully someone will want to manage the phonathon next year, because three years may be my limit. Although don’t tell anyone, I did have fun working with the spreadsheet though.
The Big Boy Update: My son saw Dhruti today about the behavior issues he’s having at school. Dhruti says she thinks it’s how some things are going at school, possibly a more challenging time with the work he’s doing as he’s getting more difficult work to do. She’s going to explore with his teacher and we’ll have him go back to see her next week.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter can do a pull-up. We knew she had a lot of arm strength but we didn’t realize she could easily do a pull-up until we got her a bar to hang on her door frame and asked her. My son couldn’t do one, but then again he doesn’t spend half his waking hours at home hanging from the door frames.
Monday, November 13, 2017
Not Listening
We’ve hit a spot with my son where we’re going to have an emergency (as in last minute scheduled) appointment with his play therapist. We know he has had a hard time focusing. We’re aware that he wants to bounce around and move all the time. And we also know that children don’t typically put listening or paying attention at the top of their list—but this has gone beyond.
His teacher has told us over the past several weeks that my son is having a hard time focusing in class and getting work done. Today she did something we know she didn’t want to do, but she was left with little choice. She told my husband that if there were problems with listening, paying attention and following rules that my son wouldn’t be able to go on the field trip on Friday.
That news was very upsetting to my son. What his teacher told us was he is unable to take direction from his peers. He is not able to work with the teachers, saying he’s distracted because his sister just turned six or that his friend decided to be a boy instead of a girl (which is true and is another blog post altogether). My son also said the sun is too bright and he can’t work (regardless of where he is in the classroom). It’s excuse after excuse. And we don’t know why.
My son did similar behavior tonight when I was working with him on his homework. He wasn’t able to focus on the one task with a ten minute timer he knew was set of simply brushing his teeth. If he could have coordinated a rave party during that ten minutes and invited everyone he knew over to jump on the bed with his pajamas on his head, he would have. He got his sister involved and was then absolutely distraught when he was told he not only didn’t get a stamp, he wasn’t allowed to brush his teeth and must go straight to bed.
And wouldn’t you know it, he can brush his teeth very quickly and thoroughly when he’s told he’s not allowed. I tried to kick him out of the bathroom saying he couldn’t brush his teeth and he was telling me I couldn’t stop him. It would have been funny if only it hadn’t been so upsetting to him.
Tomorrow we’re taking my son out of school to see his play therapist in the middle of the day. Maybe she’ll given us some insight after tomorrow.
The Big Boy Update: Even though my son can’t focus and is constantly distracted from the post above, tonight he did two days of reading homework with me and did very well. He even sort of say still for some of the time.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was wanting to play a song on Alexa. She said to me, “Mom, do you know the song I’m talking about? I can’t remember what one it is but it has the word, ‘I’ in it.”
His teacher has told us over the past several weeks that my son is having a hard time focusing in class and getting work done. Today she did something we know she didn’t want to do, but she was left with little choice. She told my husband that if there were problems with listening, paying attention and following rules that my son wouldn’t be able to go on the field trip on Friday.
That news was very upsetting to my son. What his teacher told us was he is unable to take direction from his peers. He is not able to work with the teachers, saying he’s distracted because his sister just turned six or that his friend decided to be a boy instead of a girl (which is true and is another blog post altogether). My son also said the sun is too bright and he can’t work (regardless of where he is in the classroom). It’s excuse after excuse. And we don’t know why.
My son did similar behavior tonight when I was working with him on his homework. He wasn’t able to focus on the one task with a ten minute timer he knew was set of simply brushing his teeth. If he could have coordinated a rave party during that ten minutes and invited everyone he knew over to jump on the bed with his pajamas on his head, he would have. He got his sister involved and was then absolutely distraught when he was told he not only didn’t get a stamp, he wasn’t allowed to brush his teeth and must go straight to bed.
And wouldn’t you know it, he can brush his teeth very quickly and thoroughly when he’s told he’s not allowed. I tried to kick him out of the bathroom saying he couldn’t brush his teeth and he was telling me I couldn’t stop him. It would have been funny if only it hadn’t been so upsetting to him.
Tomorrow we’re taking my son out of school to see his play therapist in the middle of the day. Maybe she’ll given us some insight after tomorrow.
The Big Boy Update: Even though my son can’t focus and is constantly distracted from the post above, tonight he did two days of reading homework with me and did very well. He even sort of say still for some of the time.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was wanting to play a song on Alexa. She said to me, “Mom, do you know the song I’m talking about? I can’t remember what one it is but it has the word, ‘I’ in it.”
Sunday, November 12, 2017
Marathon or Half Marathon
My best friend and I ran a marathon today. She was having problems with one of her feet and I had a hip issue. We had said as late as this morning that if there was any doubt, problems or issues, we were going to turn in and run just the half marathon.
The race started in a large parking lot at a shopping mall. We ran around the mall and then onto a greenway trail. This particular trail is almost completely flat for most of the distance. We’re accustomed to running hills so this made things easier in comparison.
We were feeling good at the first turnaround at a little over seven miles and we were both feeling great when we passed the half marathon mark and watched the majority of runners head back into the mall parking lot.
We had a good pace (for us) for the first half but invariably we slowed down for the second half of the race. I didn’t think I was trained up for the run, but I didn’t start having cramping problems until over twenty miles. We were tired at the end of the race, but all in all we thought it wasn’t a difficult race at all.
That’s not bad considering we were planning on only running the half marathon this morning.
The Big Boy Update: My son has a new show he likes—Brain Games. It’s a series of episodes that explain how the brain works. My son can get into some educational television if given the chance.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter is playing with cars. I brought out the bag of toy cars my son used to love playing with. She’s having a great time with them, driving them over to me and asking me which one I like the best. Some of them make noise; those are her favorites.
Marathon(s): I’ve just checked my notes. I’ve run eleven marathon races. I’ve run a marathon distance more than that though because of pre-race training. The total number of marathon distance runs is seventeen. I didn’t realize it was that many. That’s a lot of running.
The race started in a large parking lot at a shopping mall. We ran around the mall and then onto a greenway trail. This particular trail is almost completely flat for most of the distance. We’re accustomed to running hills so this made things easier in comparison.
We were feeling good at the first turnaround at a little over seven miles and we were both feeling great when we passed the half marathon mark and watched the majority of runners head back into the mall parking lot.
We had a good pace (for us) for the first half but invariably we slowed down for the second half of the race. I didn’t think I was trained up for the run, but I didn’t start having cramping problems until over twenty miles. We were tired at the end of the race, but all in all we thought it wasn’t a difficult race at all.
That’s not bad considering we were planning on only running the half marathon this morning.
The Big Boy Update: My son has a new show he likes—Brain Games. It’s a series of episodes that explain how the brain works. My son can get into some educational television if given the chance.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter is playing with cars. I brought out the bag of toy cars my son used to love playing with. She’s having a great time with them, driving them over to me and asking me which one I like the best. Some of them make noise; those are her favorites.
Marathon(s): I’ve just checked my notes. I’ve run eleven marathon races. I’ve run a marathon distance more than that though because of pre-race training. The total number of marathon distance runs is seventeen. I didn’t realize it was that many. That’s a lot of running.
Saturday, November 11, 2017
Climbing the Rocks
My daughter turned six-years-old today. She wanted to have her birthday party at a rock climbing place close to our house and invite some of her friends from the neighborhood and school. I was in charge of getting some of the things ready for the party and my husband was responsible for others.
He held up his half of the planning; I was atypically unprepared on my end. I didn’t get items for the treat bags until late yesterday afternoon, running out of time to get to the grocery store for the food being served at the party. I got up this morning and went to the store, only to realize when we arrived at the rock climbing place that I had forgotten to get beverages. I ran to the closest grocery store, got two aluminum foil turkey roasters, a bag of ice, some children’s drinks, water and seltzer by the time the children had just started climbing.
We had lots of family stop in or call today to wish my daughter a happy birthday. Both sets of grandparents, Aunt Rebecca and also our Uncle Jonathan. She talked on the phone to Uncle Bob and her Aunt A who was on a retreat in Sedona.
My daughter got presents in the mail, has burned her “year candle”, letting the wax melt one more notch down the twenty-one year candle. She’s had her height measured in the playroom to see how she compares to last year and her brother at six. And she’s still not tired.
My son isn’t tired either, for that matter. I have a marathon to run tomorrow so I’m leaving them in the hands of my husband with the house in birthday-day disarray. My husband told me firmly, “I’ve got everything. Don’t clean up. You can’t help it.” He knows me so well.
The Big Boy Update: There are some things my son does to help his sister all the time that I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing. For instance in the morning he’ll get out plates and cups and ask her which color cup she wants. Then he’ll get the drinks and pour either milk or orange juice or water—which ever drink she’s told him she wants. He doesn’t do this all the time, but it’s very sweet when he does.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter and son realize there are certain things they don’t get to do anymore without earning the privilege to. My daughter asked me something today about having some smarties for a stamp (smarties she’d just gotten from her own party). I told her it was her birthday and she could have those smarties for free.
Marathon Tomorrow: I don’t think I’m trained up for this marathon. Certainly not like I have been for prior marathons. But we’re going to run it in the cold. There’s a chance we’ll pull to doing only a half marathon but for now we’re planning on running the full.
He held up his half of the planning; I was atypically unprepared on my end. I didn’t get items for the treat bags until late yesterday afternoon, running out of time to get to the grocery store for the food being served at the party. I got up this morning and went to the store, only to realize when we arrived at the rock climbing place that I had forgotten to get beverages. I ran to the closest grocery store, got two aluminum foil turkey roasters, a bag of ice, some children’s drinks, water and seltzer by the time the children had just started climbing.
We had lots of family stop in or call today to wish my daughter a happy birthday. Both sets of grandparents, Aunt Rebecca and also our Uncle Jonathan. She talked on the phone to Uncle Bob and her Aunt A who was on a retreat in Sedona.
My daughter got presents in the mail, has burned her “year candle”, letting the wax melt one more notch down the twenty-one year candle. She’s had her height measured in the playroom to see how she compares to last year and her brother at six. And she’s still not tired.
My son isn’t tired either, for that matter. I have a marathon to run tomorrow so I’m leaving them in the hands of my husband with the house in birthday-day disarray. My husband told me firmly, “I’ve got everything. Don’t clean up. You can’t help it.” He knows me so well.
The Big Boy Update: There are some things my son does to help his sister all the time that I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing. For instance in the morning he’ll get out plates and cups and ask her which color cup she wants. Then he’ll get the drinks and pour either milk or orange juice or water—which ever drink she’s told him she wants. He doesn’t do this all the time, but it’s very sweet when he does.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter and son realize there are certain things they don’t get to do anymore without earning the privilege to. My daughter asked me something today about having some smarties for a stamp (smarties she’d just gotten from her own party). I told her it was her birthday and she could have those smarties for free.
Marathon Tomorrow: I don’t think I’m trained up for this marathon. Certainly not like I have been for prior marathons. But we’re going to run it in the cold. There’s a chance we’ll pull to doing only a half marathon but for now we’re planning on running the full.
Friday, November 10, 2017
Almost Sixes
Tomorrow my daughter will be six-years-old. For an entire month I’ll have two children that are the same age in years. It’s sort of a fun time for them, knowing they share the same age for a short period of time. Although each year is different; I’m wondering if there will be a lot of, “but I’ll be seven in a month and you’re only just six now” kind of thing.
Today my daughter spent a lot of the day with Mimi, who played all kinds of games my daughter enjoyed playing. Mimi and I also made our traditional “vegetable soup” which has vegetables, but also has meat in it, being largely misleading with the name. Everyone had to eat dinner at different times but we all had at least two bowls of soup at one point or another.
Mimi and Gramps also got my daughter a birthday present—a puppet theater that hangs on a doorframe. While Mimi and I chatted after dinner my father sat behind the puppet theater door and talked in a high, squeaky voice to my daughter with puppets on his hands. My daughter laughed and giggled at him.
Tonight is Movie night and my daughter is looking forward to having cake with our friends and opening some mystery presents that came in the mail for her a few days ago that have been sitting on our table awaiting the arrival of her birthday.
The Big Boy Update: My son wrote out the credits for our sitter, Morgan’s, animated film. Morgan texted me and said the credits got a round of applause from her classmates when she presented them. My son was very excited to see his writing as part of her “Puddle Jumper” film that his sister voiced.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has a rash on her bottom. I was putting A&D ointment on it (that I found from when the children were much younger) and left it in their bedroom. This morning my daughter came down with the ointment and handed it to me saying, “thank you for letting me borrow this. I put some more on because it makes it feel better.”
Today my daughter spent a lot of the day with Mimi, who played all kinds of games my daughter enjoyed playing. Mimi and I also made our traditional “vegetable soup” which has vegetables, but also has meat in it, being largely misleading with the name. Everyone had to eat dinner at different times but we all had at least two bowls of soup at one point or another.
Mimi and Gramps also got my daughter a birthday present—a puppet theater that hangs on a doorframe. While Mimi and I chatted after dinner my father sat behind the puppet theater door and talked in a high, squeaky voice to my daughter with puppets on his hands. My daughter laughed and giggled at him.
Tonight is Movie night and my daughter is looking forward to having cake with our friends and opening some mystery presents that came in the mail for her a few days ago that have been sitting on our table awaiting the arrival of her birthday.
The Big Boy Update: My son wrote out the credits for our sitter, Morgan’s, animated film. Morgan texted me and said the credits got a round of applause from her classmates when she presented them. My son was very excited to see his writing as part of her “Puddle Jumper” film that his sister voiced.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has a rash on her bottom. I was putting A&D ointment on it (that I found from when the children were much younger) and left it in their bedroom. This morning my daughter came down with the ointment and handed it to me saying, “thank you for letting me borrow this. I put some more on because it makes it feel better.”
Thursday, November 9, 2017
Yay For Mimi
Today is my mother’s birthday. We went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant with our family, my parents and Aunt Kelly and our niece, Nicole, who is looking at colleges so they’re in town for two days. We all like Mexican food and there was a restaurant that’s fairly new we hadn’t been to with our niece and the children’s aunt before.
When we arrived they asked if we minded live music, which we said we didn’t. Only the music was so very loud even shouting it was difficult to communicate. But the musicians were good and the food was good and the company was good so it was all, well, good.
My daughter at the end of the meal was so tired she was asking to go so she could go to sleep. But I’d been told by our waitress that they were bringing out a little dessert for my mother, so I delayed by not standing up and we waited.
When the dessert with the single candle came out it came along with every wait staff member and the band. There was a large sombrero they placed on my mother and then they all sang. My mother smiled at every one of them while they finished their song. At the end, everyone clapped. My daughter clapped and said, “yay for Mimi”.’
Happy birthday, mom.
The Big Boy Update: We were very late for bed tonight being out to dinner so I told the children in the car they didn’t have to have a bath. For the first time in ever my son actually wanted to have a bath, saying, “no mom, we didn’t have a bath last night, we have to have one tonight”.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Gramps asked my daughter what time it was. She said, “just a minute” and then pressed the button on her talking watch, which informed them it was 6:20PM. My father asked her if she knew what ‘PM’ meant? She confidently told him, “I don’t care”.
When we arrived they asked if we minded live music, which we said we didn’t. Only the music was so very loud even shouting it was difficult to communicate. But the musicians were good and the food was good and the company was good so it was all, well, good.
My daughter at the end of the meal was so tired she was asking to go so she could go to sleep. But I’d been told by our waitress that they were bringing out a little dessert for my mother, so I delayed by not standing up and we waited.
When the dessert with the single candle came out it came along with every wait staff member and the band. There was a large sombrero they placed on my mother and then they all sang. My mother smiled at every one of them while they finished their song. At the end, everyone clapped. My daughter clapped and said, “yay for Mimi”.’
Happy birthday, mom.
The Big Boy Update: We were very late for bed tonight being out to dinner so I told the children in the car they didn’t have to have a bath. For the first time in ever my son actually wanted to have a bath, saying, “no mom, we didn’t have a bath last night, we have to have one tonight”.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Gramps asked my daughter what time it was. She said, “just a minute” and then pressed the button on her talking watch, which informed them it was 6:20PM. My father asked her if she knew what ‘PM’ meant? She confidently told him, “I don’t care”.
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Marathons Are a Lot Like Birthdays
Good grief, I’m running a marathon on Sunday. Before I ran my first marathon or my first half-marathon or even my first 5K race I was thinking about it, planing for it, worrying about it, checking the weather and talking about it. Maybe marathons are a lot like birthdays, the more you have, the less excited you seem to be.
I may have to set a calendar reminder on Saturday so I’ll remember to eat all day long. I might even put one on for Friday too but I haven’t decided yet. Saturday is also my daughter’s birthday. We have her birthday party with four grandparents in town and then I’ll go to sleep, hopefully full of cake, and get up for the race early on Sunday morning.
Speaking of, I don’t even know where the race is. It’s local and my best friend told me today that packet pickup was on Friday and should we carpool. I suppose I’ll find out more in two days. Hopefully this will be my last marathon for a while. I’d like to do some half-marathons and work on our speed more than doing another marathon.
The Big Boy Update: My son had had a bad dream the other night. He came downstairs and didn’t want to talk about it. But he did want to know, “mom, can I be an astronaut?” After telling him yes, he could, he decided he wanted to go immediately upstairs, back to his bed but would I come with him. He was having the “big numbers” thing going on in his head that’s been happening lately and distressing him. He asked me to tell him The Boy Who Cried Wolf story but stopped me after a few sentences. Then he asked me to sing to him but again, stopped me a few lines in. Finally he asked me to tell him a story about snow. That seemed to calm his mind because he was asleep less than a minute later.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter confidently informed me, “I don’t like daddy, do you know why? Because I love daddy. And myself too.”
I may have to set a calendar reminder on Saturday so I’ll remember to eat all day long. I might even put one on for Friday too but I haven’t decided yet. Saturday is also my daughter’s birthday. We have her birthday party with four grandparents in town and then I’ll go to sleep, hopefully full of cake, and get up for the race early on Sunday morning.
Speaking of, I don’t even know where the race is. It’s local and my best friend told me today that packet pickup was on Friday and should we carpool. I suppose I’ll find out more in two days. Hopefully this will be my last marathon for a while. I’d like to do some half-marathons and work on our speed more than doing another marathon.
The Big Boy Update: My son had had a bad dream the other night. He came downstairs and didn’t want to talk about it. But he did want to know, “mom, can I be an astronaut?” After telling him yes, he could, he decided he wanted to go immediately upstairs, back to his bed but would I come with him. He was having the “big numbers” thing going on in his head that’s been happening lately and distressing him. He asked me to tell him The Boy Who Cried Wolf story but stopped me after a few sentences. Then he asked me to sing to him but again, stopped me a few lines in. Finally he asked me to tell him a story about snow. That seemed to calm his mind because he was asleep less than a minute later.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter confidently informed me, “I don’t like daddy, do you know why? Because I love daddy. And myself too.”
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
Mac Help
My best friend got a new Mac laptop. It’s bothering me that it’s not set up completely, not integrated fully with her iPhone and watch and that everything isn’t talking to each other the way it should be. So I’ve told her I would help.
I think there is a need on my end to make sure she’s configured more so than there’s a need on her end. I went over to her house today and worked on her old Mac and her new one, as well as her phone and watch, getting everything talking, tweaking the user interface and operating systems and updating things. It was fun. Maybe that says something about me, I don’t know, but I like getting things all put in order and having them work the way they’re suppose to.
I had my husband come over too because servers are his area and we need to get them set up so her two machines and her husband’s are backed up to a server and their files and other data are in a shared storage location. He has a plan (even though he’s a PC guy primarily) and we’re going to implement that as soon as we get a chance.
She sent me a thank you text this evening for helping. I told her we weren’t done yet, I’d only started, but that it was a good start. My only hope is that when it’s all finished and working as I conjure it should be that she doesn’t think to thank me by giving me another orchid…
The Big Boy Update: My son was talking about Minecraft when he said this, but I had to laugh because it just sounded wrong when he said, “you shouldn’t spend your diamonds on hoes, because they’re useless.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Edna, who cleans our house, was leaving on Friday. My daughter went out to send her off from the front yard. She came back inside and said, “that was the best game ever. I waved bye bye to Edna and she honked her horn—because she knew what I was saying.”
Gigi Strikes Again: I went with my best friend to pick up her youngest daughter at school today. I asked her what her favorite color was and she told me, “all the colors in the universe except vomit color”.
I think there is a need on my end to make sure she’s configured more so than there’s a need on her end. I went over to her house today and worked on her old Mac and her new one, as well as her phone and watch, getting everything talking, tweaking the user interface and operating systems and updating things. It was fun. Maybe that says something about me, I don’t know, but I like getting things all put in order and having them work the way they’re suppose to.
I had my husband come over too because servers are his area and we need to get them set up so her two machines and her husband’s are backed up to a server and their files and other data are in a shared storage location. He has a plan (even though he’s a PC guy primarily) and we’re going to implement that as soon as we get a chance.
She sent me a thank you text this evening for helping. I told her we weren’t done yet, I’d only started, but that it was a good start. My only hope is that when it’s all finished and working as I conjure it should be that she doesn’t think to thank me by giving me another orchid…
The Big Boy Update: My son was talking about Minecraft when he said this, but I had to laugh because it just sounded wrong when he said, “you shouldn’t spend your diamonds on hoes, because they’re useless.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Edna, who cleans our house, was leaving on Friday. My daughter went out to send her off from the front yard. She came back inside and said, “that was the best game ever. I waved bye bye to Edna and she honked her horn—because she knew what I was saying.”
Gigi Strikes Again: I went with my best friend to pick up her youngest daughter at school today. I asked her what her favorite color was and she told me, “all the colors in the universe except vomit color”.
Monday, November 6, 2017
No Action Taken
My husband and daughter were in Detroit today for an Evaluation Under Anesthesia (EUA) on both her eyes. She hasn’t seen her retina surgeon, Dr. Trese, in three months and has since that time had another EUA with her pediatric ophthalmologist to get a refraction, has had bifocals made to match her actual prescription and has been doing fairly well, or as well as can be expected given the general state of her eyes.
As a general update on what she can and can’t see, here’s a rundown on what we’ve observed over the past several months. She seems to have some form vision in her left eye. She can see and recognize large shapes, including numbers and letters. She isn’t the hazard she once was because she’s got enough general sight and peripheral vision to avoid obstacles. She has no depth perception because her right eye is completely occluded with scar tissue. Her vision fluctuates from day to day, but the fluctuations have seemed less dramatic than in the past. And lastly, her ability to tell colors is fairly poor, and not by just shades, big color differences.
After looking at her eyes Dr. Trese said the left eye looked good. He saw a light pigment change behind the retina, which was likely the cause of her inability to distinguish colors well. This may resolve but might never go away.
The pressure in both eyes was at seventeen, which is good. Very good considering the amount of time it’s been since she’s had Healon injected into her eyes to artificially increase the pressure. He thinks there is improved or healed ciliary body function as a result. This is great, because the only alternative would be to have her eyes artificially brought up to pressure for the rest of her life and low pressure can cause more damage over time.
Her right eye is almost completely occluded. He wasn’t able to do surgery today due to time (he wasn’t planning on surgery this visit) but we’ll come back next time and have him open up her field of vision in the right eye. He was positive about this step now that the left eye seems to be stabilized. They did do an ultrasound on her right eye and he thinks he sees some, “disorganization” which might affect function, but we won’t know until he gets a clear line of sight into the back of her eye on the next visit.
After her next visit he plans to do a procedure called a VEP after opening the eye up to see what amount of light processing she has in the right eye. We’ll try to schedule that before the end of the year and see what she can see, literally.
I get a lot of questions asking if her sight will be “restored” or made better. I tell people the same thing we were told by Dr. Trese back in December of 2015: the goal is to not lose more vision. Given the state of her eyes and the congenital malformations they have in concert with the insults she’s had via infection and injury, we’re just hopeful not to lose more. There is a possibility she will regain some vision, but she’s never going to have normal or even near-normal vision. But we have some vision, and that vision is better than it has been at certain times in the past. And for that, we’re grateful.
The Big Boy Update: This morning my son wanted me to have breakfast with him. He made me a plate of mini muffins but I told him I was in pain and wanted to lie back down. He told me, “mom, you can lie down on these two chairs right here.” He was very sweet, trying to make me feel better.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My husband and I know that when my daughter wakes up from anesthesia she’s really difficult to deal with. She never remembers it because the anesthesia is still in her system and we aren’t particularly bothered by it. This time my husband tried something different, asking her before she went back, “can you do me a favor and not be angry at everyone when you wake up?” They’re on a flight home right now so I haven’t found out if his request made a difference or not yet.
As a general update on what she can and can’t see, here’s a rundown on what we’ve observed over the past several months. She seems to have some form vision in her left eye. She can see and recognize large shapes, including numbers and letters. She isn’t the hazard she once was because she’s got enough general sight and peripheral vision to avoid obstacles. She has no depth perception because her right eye is completely occluded with scar tissue. Her vision fluctuates from day to day, but the fluctuations have seemed less dramatic than in the past. And lastly, her ability to tell colors is fairly poor, and not by just shades, big color differences.
After looking at her eyes Dr. Trese said the left eye looked good. He saw a light pigment change behind the retina, which was likely the cause of her inability to distinguish colors well. This may resolve but might never go away.
The pressure in both eyes was at seventeen, which is good. Very good considering the amount of time it’s been since she’s had Healon injected into her eyes to artificially increase the pressure. He thinks there is improved or healed ciliary body function as a result. This is great, because the only alternative would be to have her eyes artificially brought up to pressure for the rest of her life and low pressure can cause more damage over time.
Her right eye is almost completely occluded. He wasn’t able to do surgery today due to time (he wasn’t planning on surgery this visit) but we’ll come back next time and have him open up her field of vision in the right eye. He was positive about this step now that the left eye seems to be stabilized. They did do an ultrasound on her right eye and he thinks he sees some, “disorganization” which might affect function, but we won’t know until he gets a clear line of sight into the back of her eye on the next visit.
After her next visit he plans to do a procedure called a VEP after opening the eye up to see what amount of light processing she has in the right eye. We’ll try to schedule that before the end of the year and see what she can see, literally.
I get a lot of questions asking if her sight will be “restored” or made better. I tell people the same thing we were told by Dr. Trese back in December of 2015: the goal is to not lose more vision. Given the state of her eyes and the congenital malformations they have in concert with the insults she’s had via infection and injury, we’re just hopeful not to lose more. There is a possibility she will regain some vision, but she’s never going to have normal or even near-normal vision. But we have some vision, and that vision is better than it has been at certain times in the past. And for that, we’re grateful.
The Big Boy Update: This morning my son wanted me to have breakfast with him. He made me a plate of mini muffins but I told him I was in pain and wanted to lie back down. He told me, “mom, you can lie down on these two chairs right here.” He was very sweet, trying to make me feel better.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My husband and I know that when my daughter wakes up from anesthesia she’s really difficult to deal with. She never remembers it because the anesthesia is still in her system and we aren’t particularly bothered by it. This time my husband tried something different, asking her before she went back, “can you do me a favor and not be angry at everyone when you wake up?” They’re on a flight home right now so I haven’t found out if his request made a difference or not yet.
Sunday, November 5, 2017
Peaceful Solution
There was a mess upstairs yesterday. My husband was out and I was responsible for getting the children lunch. They were hungry and had placed their orders—my daughter demanding hers be microwaved first. My son was not happy because I had interrupted him in the middle of something, saying the mess had to be cleaned up.
Obviously there was a lot of blame going back and forth on who it was that had made the mess. If stories were to be believed, neither child had even touched a toy but had merely stood by while the mess appeared on its own.
That wasn’t a problem, I said and told them I knew they would do a good job cleaning up while I got lunch ready. I explained their lunch wouldn’t be ready (meaning available) until everything was put up. There was grumbling, followed by angry words back and forth. I told them I was sure they could work out a peaceful solution and they could come down when everything was cleaned up.
My daughter appeared downstairs first and when asked, confirmed that the mess was now tidied. Her brother yelled down from upstairs that it hadn’t been cleaned up and he wasn’t doing it by himself. When I explained to my daughter she would not be having lunch without helping, she got mad and stormed back upstairs.
As a side note here, my daughter lied to me, knowing her brother would tell on her and that I was going to check anyways. I need to find out what’s going on in her mind because she’s got some interesting behavioral patterns going on, including making demands like her food being microwaved first.
As I was finishing microwaving the requested soups I heard my son say, “how about I hand the toys to you and you put them in the bin?” Wait, did I just hear compromise and cooperation suggested? I think I did. Yes, they had come up with a tenable solution to cleaning up the single pile of dumped toys from the one bin in their bedroom.
Two minutes later they were downstairs without a word said about the now clean room. Their lunches were ready and on the table, which is all they cared about.
The Big Boy Update: My son asked us to call him Michael yesterday. Today he told me he wanted to be Michael in the game we were playing and what name did I want to be. In the car going to dinner I asked him why did he want to be called Michael? He replied, “it’s my favorite name.” He further explained to me that he now had two middle names with Michael being the added, new name.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was having some issues with a puzzle on her iPad. I helped her complete the one and then told her she was on her own for the second puzzle because I had something I had to get done. Mostly I wanted her to apply the information I had told her about lines meaning edge pieces to see if she could finish the next puzzle without help. About ten minutes later after asking for help a few times she said in an exasperated voice, “I’m telling you, I’ve been working for DAYS on this!”
Obviously there was a lot of blame going back and forth on who it was that had made the mess. If stories were to be believed, neither child had even touched a toy but had merely stood by while the mess appeared on its own.
That wasn’t a problem, I said and told them I knew they would do a good job cleaning up while I got lunch ready. I explained their lunch wouldn’t be ready (meaning available) until everything was put up. There was grumbling, followed by angry words back and forth. I told them I was sure they could work out a peaceful solution and they could come down when everything was cleaned up.
My daughter appeared downstairs first and when asked, confirmed that the mess was now tidied. Her brother yelled down from upstairs that it hadn’t been cleaned up and he wasn’t doing it by himself. When I explained to my daughter she would not be having lunch without helping, she got mad and stormed back upstairs.
As a side note here, my daughter lied to me, knowing her brother would tell on her and that I was going to check anyways. I need to find out what’s going on in her mind because she’s got some interesting behavioral patterns going on, including making demands like her food being microwaved first.
As I was finishing microwaving the requested soups I heard my son say, “how about I hand the toys to you and you put them in the bin?” Wait, did I just hear compromise and cooperation suggested? I think I did. Yes, they had come up with a tenable solution to cleaning up the single pile of dumped toys from the one bin in their bedroom.
Two minutes later they were downstairs without a word said about the now clean room. Their lunches were ready and on the table, which is all they cared about.
The Big Boy Update: My son asked us to call him Michael yesterday. Today he told me he wanted to be Michael in the game we were playing and what name did I want to be. In the car going to dinner I asked him why did he want to be called Michael? He replied, “it’s my favorite name.” He further explained to me that he now had two middle names with Michael being the added, new name.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was having some issues with a puzzle on her iPad. I helped her complete the one and then told her she was on her own for the second puzzle because I had something I had to get done. Mostly I wanted her to apply the information I had told her about lines meaning edge pieces to see if she could finish the next puzzle without help. About ten minutes later after asking for help a few times she said in an exasperated voice, “I’m telling you, I’ve been working for DAYS on this!”
Saturday, November 4, 2017
Head to Head Humidity
Seasons are changing, temperatures are dropping, then going back up, then dropping, then going way up in the day and getting cold in the middle of the night. My thermostat strategies have been numerous, which is saying a lot considering we have the NEST, predictive thermostats. But they predict with guidance and if you tell them you want nothing but air conditioning, you’re not getting heat even if there are icicles of the posters of your bed.
Suffice it to say I’ve been going back and forth across the various modes, trying to keep us comfortable inside regardless of what temperature is happening outside. Or weather in general. I was thinking we’d had a lot of rain lately. I was thinking this because I got this smell I didn’t like when I went into the basement. I also got it from time to time in the master bedroom. I’ve got a pretty sensitive nose and I don’t think my husband had noticed it as much but it was bothering me.
It seemed to have started at the beginning of the month, only a few days ago. I was so annoyed by it that on Friday I got my dehumidifier and rolled it into the master bedroom, planning on taking it to the basement next.
The timing of this was just as I’d decided Mother Nature had finally decided to let summer leave for good and I would be able to leave the thermostats on Heat instead of the Heat/Cool range I’d been tweaking for weeks.
I don’t do anything without a calendar entry to remind me. If I tell you, ‘happy birthday’ I assure you, it wasn’t my memory, it was my calendar letting me know. My own birthday has snuck up on me before. On the first of the month I have entries on our calendars to do things like: turn on/off the pilot light, change air filters, empty central vac, plug in winter pipe heaters and open the humidifier damper.
November 1st I had, based on the calendar, changed the humidifier filter in the basement HVAC system and turned the flow damper to open. The other thing I did was turn the thermostats to heat only (which we had needed based on night temperatures).
What I didn’t do was make the connection until mid-day today on what I’d done. First, I’d turned the basement system (which is also the master bedroom system on the main floor) to heat only. Second, I’d turned on the humidifier option at full force for the system. Third, there was a humidity problem in the basement and the master bedroom—one that I decided would be best handled by bringing in a dehumidifier. The only thing to do was to shove the stupid hat firmly on my head, bolt it down, add rivets and then go tell my husband I’d figured out the problem.
The good news is that with the humidifier off on the system the humidity has been dropping quickly. The NEST thermostats display humidity percentages and it’s dropped quickly in only a matter of hours since it was only going on for four days. So at least I’ll sleep more comfortably in my stupid hat tonight.
The Big Boy Update: My son has been asking for the Movie Music station when we’re driving in the car lately. There are a lot of super hero movies out it would seem because the entire way to school we got songs he was pretty excited to hear. He had a few comments to me though. After a piece got particularly loud he asked, “Mom, can you turn the music down? I don’t want the windows to crack.” Then he started listening. He commented to no one in general as he was listening to The Avengers theme, “there are violins in this…hey, there are horns too.” His music teacher would be pleased to know he’s paying attention.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: At dinner tonight my husband challenged the children to see who could say the alphabet backwards. My son was thinking about it fairly intently and he and dad were talking about order. Then my daughter just started saying it backwards, catching herself from time to time but passing the point where my son had gotten in short order. My husband and I looked at each other while she effortlessly made it to …C…B…A. She wasn’t particularly impressed with herself, I think she just thought it was a fun thing to do. My husband and I were impressed though.
Suffice it to say I’ve been going back and forth across the various modes, trying to keep us comfortable inside regardless of what temperature is happening outside. Or weather in general. I was thinking we’d had a lot of rain lately. I was thinking this because I got this smell I didn’t like when I went into the basement. I also got it from time to time in the master bedroom. I’ve got a pretty sensitive nose and I don’t think my husband had noticed it as much but it was bothering me.
It seemed to have started at the beginning of the month, only a few days ago. I was so annoyed by it that on Friday I got my dehumidifier and rolled it into the master bedroom, planning on taking it to the basement next.
The timing of this was just as I’d decided Mother Nature had finally decided to let summer leave for good and I would be able to leave the thermostats on Heat instead of the Heat/Cool range I’d been tweaking for weeks.
I don’t do anything without a calendar entry to remind me. If I tell you, ‘happy birthday’ I assure you, it wasn’t my memory, it was my calendar letting me know. My own birthday has snuck up on me before. On the first of the month I have entries on our calendars to do things like: turn on/off the pilot light, change air filters, empty central vac, plug in winter pipe heaters and open the humidifier damper.
November 1st I had, based on the calendar, changed the humidifier filter in the basement HVAC system and turned the flow damper to open. The other thing I did was turn the thermostats to heat only (which we had needed based on night temperatures).
What I didn’t do was make the connection until mid-day today on what I’d done. First, I’d turned the basement system (which is also the master bedroom system on the main floor) to heat only. Second, I’d turned on the humidifier option at full force for the system. Third, there was a humidity problem in the basement and the master bedroom—one that I decided would be best handled by bringing in a dehumidifier. The only thing to do was to shove the stupid hat firmly on my head, bolt it down, add rivets and then go tell my husband I’d figured out the problem.
The good news is that with the humidifier off on the system the humidity has been dropping quickly. The NEST thermostats display humidity percentages and it’s dropped quickly in only a matter of hours since it was only going on for four days. So at least I’ll sleep more comfortably in my stupid hat tonight.
The Big Boy Update: My son has been asking for the Movie Music station when we’re driving in the car lately. There are a lot of super hero movies out it would seem because the entire way to school we got songs he was pretty excited to hear. He had a few comments to me though. After a piece got particularly loud he asked, “Mom, can you turn the music down? I don’t want the windows to crack.” Then he started listening. He commented to no one in general as he was listening to The Avengers theme, “there are violins in this…hey, there are horns too.” His music teacher would be pleased to know he’s paying attention.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: At dinner tonight my husband challenged the children to see who could say the alphabet backwards. My son was thinking about it fairly intently and he and dad were talking about order. Then my daughter just started saying it backwards, catching herself from time to time but passing the point where my son had gotten in short order. My husband and I looked at each other while she effortlessly made it to …C…B…A. She wasn’t particularly impressed with herself, I think she just thought it was a fun thing to do. My husband and I were impressed though.
Friday, November 3, 2017
You’re Really Good at This
I used to love carving pumpkins. But I got over it. Initially it was carving pumpkins in the typical, old-fashioned way where you make up some pattern on your own, mostly a variation on the standard Jack-o-Lantern style and carving it rather inexpertly.
Then the pumpkin patterns on paper started to come out. I collected the books over a number of years, each booklet coming with another set of the carving-specific tools that made making more intricate patterns much easier to do well. Only I didn’t do them well. I think this was largely due to a lack of patience on my part. I would do the bit where you make punctures around the permitter of the pattern areas to be cut out and then I’d cut out one section, taking my time, and then realize I had a lot longer to go time-wise before I was done.
So I’d hurry and the results weren’t ever that great. Once there was a candle in a dark night in the pumpkin though my lack of precision was mostly unnoticeable. But each year I got less and less interested in carving pumpkins—even though I continued to collect pattern books and printed patterns online.
I changed my interests to roasting the pumpkin seeds, collecting the castoffs from the gutting of our families pumpkins and preparing them for salt (lots of salt) and/or other seasonings. This worked well because around about the time my interest in carving pumpkins was waning, I met my husband, who is an expert in making the most detailed and challenging pattern look perfect when he’s complete.
This season my husband and son decided to carve something my son wanted to carve—a Creeper from Minecraft. This is about one of the most simple patterns and my husband most likely free-handed it. After they had collected the seeds and my husband was helping my son carve I heard my son say to him, “dad, you’re really good at this.” And he’s right, dad is.
So my plan now is to just do the seed roasting, a holiday activity I can eat, which I prefer, and let dad do the carving for our family for Halloween.
The Big Boy Update: My son has decided nudity is bad I think. The other morning I’d just gotten out of the shower and had to come into the kitchen to tell the children something. My son told me, “from now on mommy, before you come out here you have to put your pants on and your shirt on. I do not want you naked.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was asked me, “do you know why I like my sandwich with mustard? Because when I eat it it tastes good.” Sound reasoning, I told her.
Then the pumpkin patterns on paper started to come out. I collected the books over a number of years, each booklet coming with another set of the carving-specific tools that made making more intricate patterns much easier to do well. Only I didn’t do them well. I think this was largely due to a lack of patience on my part. I would do the bit where you make punctures around the permitter of the pattern areas to be cut out and then I’d cut out one section, taking my time, and then realize I had a lot longer to go time-wise before I was done.
So I’d hurry and the results weren’t ever that great. Once there was a candle in a dark night in the pumpkin though my lack of precision was mostly unnoticeable. But each year I got less and less interested in carving pumpkins—even though I continued to collect pattern books and printed patterns online.
I changed my interests to roasting the pumpkin seeds, collecting the castoffs from the gutting of our families pumpkins and preparing them for salt (lots of salt) and/or other seasonings. This worked well because around about the time my interest in carving pumpkins was waning, I met my husband, who is an expert in making the most detailed and challenging pattern look perfect when he’s complete.
This season my husband and son decided to carve something my son wanted to carve—a Creeper from Minecraft. This is about one of the most simple patterns and my husband most likely free-handed it. After they had collected the seeds and my husband was helping my son carve I heard my son say to him, “dad, you’re really good at this.” And he’s right, dad is.
So my plan now is to just do the seed roasting, a holiday activity I can eat, which I prefer, and let dad do the carving for our family for Halloween.
The Big Boy Update: My son has decided nudity is bad I think. The other morning I’d just gotten out of the shower and had to come into the kitchen to tell the children something. My son told me, “from now on mommy, before you come out here you have to put your pants on and your shirt on. I do not want you naked.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was asked me, “do you know why I like my sandwich with mustard? Because when I eat it it tastes good.” Sound reasoning, I told her.
Thursday, November 2, 2017
1/3rd of the Brain
I was watching a show on the brain the other day. There is so much that our brain uses to make decisions on based on vision that our visual cortex takes up nearly one-third of the brain. That’s a huge percentage. After almost two years of blindness (or very poor vision) with my daughter I’ve come to a completely different understanding and level of appreciation for how incredibly important vision is to us.
I stopped counting the number of times each day that I’d see or hear something that specifically references vision (in a song, for instance) or about information gathering (such as what color sign indicates clearance merchandise) or even a closeup of someone’s eyes in a commercial, which is a lot more common than you’d think.
My daughter goes for another EUA on Monday. Her right eye is covered in internal scar tissue and she can’t see out, that is if she can see at all. We’re hoping to have a plan for her right eye after Monday. If it doesn’t function then we’ll likely abandon it for now. But we do want to give it a chance because age six is when amblyopia will have a much larger impact. Meaning that one-third of her brain dedicated to vision will get permanently remapped to other things.
And while its good that the brain is flexible, we’d rather it be used for vision if there is actual functional vision. It’s not a high hope, but it’s a hope I still hold on to in part.
The Big Boy Update: My son wanted to do round offs and cartwheels and back bends and hand stands and a lot of other things with me in the front yard today for special time. I could hang with him on some of them and even taught him a few new tricks but I told him I was going to pull a muscle. He kept telling me he’d help me pull a muscle. It wasn’t until we were back in the house that he finally understood pulling a muscle was bad. He said, “oh, I thought you wanted to do that to exercise.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter explained to us tonight at dinner what a lockdown drill was at school. She knows the entire procedure, including why the bathroom doors should be shut because the echo was making too much noise. She talked about how the principal announces it over the intercom and then said, “you know, the principal I pied in the face”. Putting a cream pie in her teacher’s face was it seems, memorable.
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
First Report Card
We’re new to public schools this year with my daughter in Kindergarten. She was in the Kindergarten-level class at her school last year but Montessori schools are a bit different in classroom makeup and classifications.
One thing we’ve never had before is a report card. Our children have been going to a Montessori school since before they were two-years-old. My son is in Lower Elementary there now as a “first year”. What this means in non-Montessori terms is he’s in a blended classroom of students in first, second and third grades. Approximately one-third of the class is at each “grade” or level.
My son is loving it. He’s seeing what the children one and two years older are doing. He’s seeing how well the can read and write and the research projects they get to do like “Mystery History” that happened in his classroom yesterday where the third-years dressed up and talked about who they were as a famous person in history. The rest of the class and visiting parents got to guess who the student was. My son is also helped at times by these older students who are able to help solidify their knowledge on a subject by helping someone else.
So my son is loving his class and is very motivated to learn because of the environment he’s immersed in. We have always had parent/teacher conferences, even when my children were in a Toddler House classroom and didn’t have words to speak yet. But no report cards.
Montessori doesn’t give report cards. We are made aware if there’s a problem where the child isn’t able to progress reasonably given skill and age, but each child’s education moves at their own pace and not at a standard expected by the whole class.
My daughter is in Kindergarten in public school now. I like every one of her teachers including her kindergarten teacher, two assistant teachers, Braillest, VI room teacher and O&M teacher. They’re all kind and caring and my daughter seems to like them all as well. But what should we expect from progress for the first nine weeks from both my child and this fine team of educators?
It was confusing. The “here’s what we’re working on now and your child should be able to do XYZ” letters that came home didn’t apply to a blind child in some parts and not at all in other parts. My daughter also had her own education plan from the county that was being tracked. Instead of worrying about it I decided to let the experts do their jobs and they’d let us know if we needed to do something.
We did do some homework when needed but other than that, my daughter was in good hands. Her IEP (Individualized Education Plan) from the county had it’s own report which came back that she was meeting and/or exceeding all the goals set. Some of the comments were very warming, hearing how my daughter, once she got braille, sort of attacked it with enthusiasm.
She also got the standard report card in which she got Proficient on everything but one thing, attendance—because we went to the solar eclipse. I think I’ll take the hit on that one for the experience alone.
The Big Boy Update: My son was looking at himself in the mirror tonight, looking under his arm and asked me, “mom, do I have any hair under my arms?”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My son was at a free running class tonight and got in late for bed. I’d put my daughter to bed already but she didn’t want to go to sleep. I dropped in on her via the Alexa in her room and told her her brother would be up shortly and to please try to go to sleep. She said crossly, “but it’s boring up here”.
One thing we’ve never had before is a report card. Our children have been going to a Montessori school since before they were two-years-old. My son is in Lower Elementary there now as a “first year”. What this means in non-Montessori terms is he’s in a blended classroom of students in first, second and third grades. Approximately one-third of the class is at each “grade” or level.
My son is loving it. He’s seeing what the children one and two years older are doing. He’s seeing how well the can read and write and the research projects they get to do like “Mystery History” that happened in his classroom yesterday where the third-years dressed up and talked about who they were as a famous person in history. The rest of the class and visiting parents got to guess who the student was. My son is also helped at times by these older students who are able to help solidify their knowledge on a subject by helping someone else.
So my son is loving his class and is very motivated to learn because of the environment he’s immersed in. We have always had parent/teacher conferences, even when my children were in a Toddler House classroom and didn’t have words to speak yet. But no report cards.
Montessori doesn’t give report cards. We are made aware if there’s a problem where the child isn’t able to progress reasonably given skill and age, but each child’s education moves at their own pace and not at a standard expected by the whole class.
My daughter is in Kindergarten in public school now. I like every one of her teachers including her kindergarten teacher, two assistant teachers, Braillest, VI room teacher and O&M teacher. They’re all kind and caring and my daughter seems to like them all as well. But what should we expect from progress for the first nine weeks from both my child and this fine team of educators?
It was confusing. The “here’s what we’re working on now and your child should be able to do XYZ” letters that came home didn’t apply to a blind child in some parts and not at all in other parts. My daughter also had her own education plan from the county that was being tracked. Instead of worrying about it I decided to let the experts do their jobs and they’d let us know if we needed to do something.
We did do some homework when needed but other than that, my daughter was in good hands. Her IEP (Individualized Education Plan) from the county had it’s own report which came back that she was meeting and/or exceeding all the goals set. Some of the comments were very warming, hearing how my daughter, once she got braille, sort of attacked it with enthusiasm.
She also got the standard report card in which she got Proficient on everything but one thing, attendance—because we went to the solar eclipse. I think I’ll take the hit on that one for the experience alone.
The Big Boy Update: My son was looking at himself in the mirror tonight, looking under his arm and asked me, “mom, do I have any hair under my arms?”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My son was at a free running class tonight and got in late for bed. I’d put my daughter to bed already but she didn’t want to go to sleep. I dropped in on her via the Alexa in her room and told her her brother would be up shortly and to please try to go to sleep. She said crossly, “but it’s boring up here”.
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