Reverse Snowplow

I didn’t ski today.   My best friend has what is most likely a torn calf muscle.  She and I stayed back with one of her four children who hadn’t been feeling well while the five men and five children went to Solitude to ski.

Our children coincidentally had lessons together based on skill levels.   My daughter had an instructor who worked with her specifically with expertise in visual impairment.   They worked for half the day and then my husband picked her up for lunch with the guys.     Meanwhile, back at the hotel, Eleanor had signed me up for some hot yoga pilates class that I went to with a minimum of grumbling.

I’ve never done “hot yoga” before.   It is indeed hot.   But it wasn’t too taxing physically.   The most challenging part was trying to keep up with the instructor as she shouted out named yoga positions in rapid succession that neither of us knew.   We caught up eventually and left after an hour a pound lighter due to water weight loss I would venture to guess.

Back on the mountain my husband caught up with my son and videoed him going down the mountain.   He was doing well and seemed to be enjoying himself.   My husband went off to find my daughter at the end of her session and after saying farewell to the instructor, he asked my daughter if she wanted to ski with him?

Yes, she did, but she wanted to take the ski lift up—the bigger one—because she had been doing the small ski lift on the bunny slopes all day.    And up they went on the Moonbeam lift.    The top drop-off was blue and green trails down, but the overall experience was a much bigger one for my daughter.   And my daughter was handling it very well for the first half.  

Then, suddenly, there was a much steeper and faster section of the course that was even faster given that the day was almost over.   My husband had to ski backwards doing a reverse snowplow for about four-hundred yards, holding my daughter back.    While my husband’s legs burned, my daughter sang to him, nonplussed by the whole experience.  

When they were at the bottom she said to my husband, “without daddy I wouldn’t survive”.

The Big Boy Update:  My son loved skiing, but he seems to hit an endurance wall at which point he isn’t willing to push on.   This happened twice today and once on Sunday.   The instructor said today after a break and some hot chocolate he was ready to go again just like he wasn’t tired.    But at the end of the day he had tapped out his endurance again and was ready to go home, falling asleep in the car.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter’s instructor said she did very well all day long.   He said he liked how she sang to him all sorts of songs all day long.

Failure

I think I’m a parenting failure.   I think this on a regular basis but I’m having a particularly difficult time with it right now.   This is about my daughter.    She is acting like an ungrateful, spoiled brat a lot of the time.   This isn’t my own impression, my husband agrees with me.    We’re not sure where we went wrong but we’re fairly certain we’ve over or under compensated for something, possibly relating to her visual impairment that’s led her, and us, to this place.

The part that’s the most upsetting is I’m not managing well as an adult.   I’m foisting my own frustrations on my daughter when she’s at the peak of her own frustrations.  I’m saying things that are unfair to her.   Yes, she might need to hear the message about her whining all the time and it not helping her cause.   Yes, she does need to know that all the whining and demanding aren’t helping her, they’re making us want to help her less and they’re making us disappointed in her.    But how much is she really understanding at six-years-old?  

How much of a burden are we putting on her for a level of maturity she just isn’t old enough to have?   And how much of her behavior truly is related to her vision impairment and her dealing with her disability as she learns everyone around her—everyone—can do something significant all day long (seeing) that she can’t do?

I don’t know and I don’t have answers, but I feel like a failure every time I have an adult temper tantrum and tell her she needs to get her act strait and tone down the demands, whining and complaining.    I just don’t know what the line is between all the factors we have in play in her life.   And because of that, I feel like a failure.

But we’ll figure it out.   And every day I redouble my mental efforts to handle it as an adult and not burden her with responsibility beyond her age and ability.   As Dhruti has said, she’s already mature beyond her years because of the vision loss;  I don’t want to force any more than is already there.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has demonstrated a level of maturity and understanding lately that has impressed me.   His sister is coming apart at the seams it would appear from an emotional standpoint but he’s holding steady and even being helpful.   They still get in fights, but he’s egged into it more than anything.   He rarely instigates anything.   I’m pretty proud of him.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Hair brushing isn’t my daughter’s favorite part of the day.   It is one of her least-favorite.   This morning after I got all the tangles out I heard my daughter quietly say to herself, “I’m glad brushing is done.”

Where’s The Blog Post?

I feel sort of special tonight because it would appear I have blog fans.   My mother-in-law was texting my husband and me and mentioned she’d checked and noticed there wasn’t a blog put up yet today for her and Papa to read to find out about our ski trip.    With the time change and the time it seems to take to get large groups moving, especially when it comes to all the gear associated with skiing, I wasn’t sure when I was going to get to this post tonight. 

It’s close to eight o’clock now and we’re waiting on pizza to be delivered.   My daughter had a chocolate donut for lunch and then some granola bars later topped off with oreo cookies.    My food wasn’t much more impressive.   We’ve been so busy since arriving we haven’t had a chance to get to the grocery store to stock the refrigerator.   Thankfully the three guy friends of Matt’s who are staying in the other condo two doors down had the presence of mind to go get food for this morning.     I don’t know if they were expecting to be invaded by six children and four adults for breakfast but they seemed to not mind us cleaning them out.   

Mundane details about getting to the ski mountain, getting skis, lift tickets, finding the location for ski school for the various levels we had across the six children, dealing with different lesson end times and transit to and from was, of course, mood elevating.  But lessons were had and we all managed to get there and back without too much incident.  

My daughter had a lesson with the National Ability Center in Park City.   There were blind people skiing, amputees, people who’s disability wasn’t discernible but seemed to be having a good time in spite of the reason that brought them there.    My husband found out about this and it was a so nice he did.    My daughter had a personal instructor for the first half of the day.   She really liked him.  And she learned a lot from him.   She was rather less impressed with me the second half of the day because my skiing skills are not great.   I haven’t skied in four years and hadn’t had much time to remember how to ski.  

My son was in all-day ski school.   He did quite well and will be in the next level up class on Tuesday.   My daughter has a full day lesson with someone from the National Ability Center on Tuesday at Solitude, the other mountain we’re going to.  

My husband, Matt and his friends are off on black diamonds.   My best friend and I are hoping to ski together without the encumbrance of children only we think she tore her calf muscle at the end of the day today.   She’s asleep now.   We’ll find out more in the morning but I think she may be out for the week.   

The Big Boy Update:  My children separate very easily.   They don’t mind that we’re off doing something and they’re with people they’ve never met before.   I found my son multiple times today while skiing.   I raced him down the mountain and was completely beaten by him.    The other times I saw him I’d call out, he’d look over, wave and then carry on.   

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was completely not bothered by the fact that she couldn’t see  but had these fast-moving skis on.   She left me behind several times when she and I were alone.   She remembered all the things she’d learned from Jared and when I called out to her she listened and did what I told her to do.    I’m interested to see how much better she’ll be after a full day’s lesson on Tuesday. 

Pay Phone

We’ve been traveling today.   We headed across the country to go skiing with my best friend’s family.  It was a long day’s travel with a time change that put us off schedule mentally.   It was a draining day in part because by the time we landed we had to get several things done before we got to the condo.   Everyone is cranky and tired but we all have ski gear, lift tickets and reservations for tomorrow’s classes (for the ones who are taking lessons.)

The most interesting thing about the day was what happened when we got off our first plane in Chicago’s O’Hare airport.   The children were all interested in this wall of phones.   They knew they were phones, but they’d never seen pay phones before.   They wanted to go pick them up, push the buttons, see what it sounded like when they put the handset to their ear.  

The three adults realized what an anachronism these phones were to our children.   So we got out our new-aged cell phones and took pictures of them:

I love how my son is talking into the earpiece.  

The Big Boy Update:  We were driving through the outskirts of Salt Lake City, looking out the window at the snow on the mountains this afternoon.   My son told Juliette, “I want to move here.   Somewhere with nature all around so I can meditate.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Matt rented a fifteen-person passenger van for the group of us this week.   Not everyone had arrived yet so the van was less than full.    My daughter called out unhappily from the back, “nobody’s sitting beside me but luggage.”

Crocodile Art

My daughter has come downstairs the last two mornings in a row asking if she could do iPad time.   I’ve been asleep both mornings so I grumbled something to her groggily saying to go do some work with the paper and art supplies she has in the breakfast room.    Both mornings, somewhat surprisingly, she’s gone off immediately without complaining and returned later with something to show me. 

Two days ago she had made a ‘baby’ out of white paper.   She’d cut some pieces out for the body, legs and arms and had taped them all together.   Then she’d made one more piece of the head and taped that on top after drawing a face.   It was definitely baby-like and there were even fingers on one of the hands (she ran out of time for the other hand she said).  

This morning she came back with another piece of art.   And this is what it looked like:

She told me that colored part was the tub.   It’s green but it’s close to blue enough for her as her colors aren’t true anymore.   She said the other part was a crocodile.   She then said that it was the crocodile we had in the drawer of bath toys—you know, the one with the wheels like I made on my crocodile here.   

And I did know what crocodile she was talking about.   I went to go get him.   Here’s how close she got using her memory and what she can feel for reference:  

In addition to the likeness, she is also becoming adept with tape.   She cut the crocodile parts out, glue sticked some and then taped others.   But the most impressive thing is the tape ball structure behind the crocodile that’s holding him firmly in place at a ninety degree angle.   

The Big Boy Update:  There was a new sign being erected on a building on our way to school.   My son wanted to know what ‘Emerge’ and ‘Ortho’ meant.   After I explained the meaning of the words he said, “so does that mean your bones are coming out?”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My daughter showed me an issue we had with a button on our leather ottoman.   I said oh dear, it was ripping and we needed to not jump on the ottoman anymore.    She grumbled at the new mandate and said in a melancholy tone to my mother who was visiting, “I wish I’d never shown mom that hole.”

Desitin

My daughter had a nightmare last night.   She has them from time to time and while she typically doesn’t want to talk about them, she does want some comfort and an escort back upstairs to her bed.   In atypical fashion though she did want to tell me about the nightmare as I walked up the steps with her and helped her get the fuzzy blanket on her with the fuzzy side up.

I noticed she was scratching her right arm.    And then she pulled up the left pajama sleeve and scratched that arm too—fairly aggressively.    She gets dry skin from time to time, sometimes even eczema and it’s better to keep her moisturized when it happens.  

I went to their bathroom and got out the tube of lotion from the top drawer.   I told her to hold out her arms and I’d put some on her.   I squirted out a good bit and then rubbed my palms together.    And then I realized I didn’t have the tube of lotion but Desitin instead.  

Desitin is far more viscous than lotion but I’d done a good start in smearing it on my hands so I told my daughter to stick her arms up.    I put some on each and then pulled her sleeves down.   Then I went to the bathroom to wash my hands.  

And guess what?  Desitin doesn’t wash off.    But it does spread out and now it was between my fingers and on the back of my hands.    So I got a lot of soap on my hands and discovered soap doesn’t help much more than water in getting Desitin off.    I grabbed a few tissues and tore them to shreds trying to get some of it off.    After that I just held my hands out in front of me and walked back downstairs.

I worked for five minutes with a wash cloth trying to get it all off.    I got most everything but the smell, which isn’t that bad.    I’m still not sure why we still have a tube of Desitin in the sink drawer in my children’s bathroom though.

The Big Boy Update:   My son told me he’s not an old man, he’s an old child.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was the class example today for a commerce project in which students sell a product for three to five cents.   My daughter sold rings for three cents (pretend cents).   She said it went very well and her rings were popular.   She was pretty happy about it I think.

Inherited Traits

My mother spent some time with my son the other day.   She likes to come up with things to do with him or my daughter when she’s with them.   My son is into anything science so I figured this was going to be fun for him.   My husband and I left to go to our company meeting and when we came back hours later my mother told us they had had a good discussion about dominant and recessive traits.

I knew some of the things on the list, but I was surprised at how many my son talked to me about on the ride to school the next morning.   He asked me if, “I could do this…” which I had to wait for a stop light to determine meant ‘roll your tongue’.   My son can do that.  

He told me some people had detached ears.  I asked him if he meant earlobes and he said that’s what he meant.   He told me some people had freckles and they inherited that from their parents and that some people had a cut in their chin (cleft chin).   He also told me some people couldn’t see all the colors and that it was call colorblindness, but that it wasn’t the same thing as what his sister had.

The Big Boy Update:  My mother also did some science experiments with my son from a book he got from Christmas   They discovered oil and water didn’t mix.   He had a good idea to use the chocolate milk mixer to stir up the water and oil with a push of a button.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We got my daughter some new headphones because her current ones have an almost broken power button and have had two applications of duct tape to keep the ear pieces in place.   She’s currently wailing at the new headphones because they’re ‘terrible’.   I think this might be because they’re not broken in and also because she dislikes change.   We’ll find out in a day or two which it really is.  

Reading and Writing

My son and daughter have been making strides in both reading and writing since the beginning of the school year—big Green Giant type of strides.   Here’s the latest with each of them:

The Big Boy Reading Alone Update:  My son has gone from super beginner books ala “see spot run” to reading without a lot of assistance very recently.   He calls out things he reads while we’re in the car all the time.   He’s not afraid of long words, he just wants to know what something says.   He had reading books being sent home from school but within the last month he’s leaped forward and the books are all too easy for him as opposed to something he would struggle over.  

His sister got him a comic book (book, not paperback) at her book fair titled, “Dog Man”.  My son is attacking this book with both excitement and reading stamina.   Last night he was disappointed his sister was throwing a tantrum downstairs and didn’t get to hear him reading the book aloud to me because he wanted her to join in on the exciting story.

Tonight he did something he’s never done before—he read to himself alone.   I was working with his sister on her reading and I realized he was pages ahead and hadn’t skipped anything.   He wanted to comprehend the story, not just finish the assignment.   He asked me about a few words but that was it.    There were easy words, but there were also hard words to pronounce like, “mayor” and “reunited”.   I had to cut him off when he got to the end of the chapter.   He’s half-way through the book and must have read forty pages easily tonight.

The Tiny Girl Phonetic Spelling Chronicles:  My daughter loves to spell words and sound them out.   She doesn’t mind if she’s spelled it wrong, she just accepts the correct spelling when you tell her and factors it into her mental library.   She’s also good at reading and by that I mean she’s getting faster and faster at reading braille and sounding out the words she doesn’t know when she encounters them.    But the phonetic spelling is what’s getting me of late.

I can “see” braille, but I can’t recognize all the letters of the alphabet and lately my daughter has been learning more and more, “secret codes” which are shorthand versions of words.    She’s picking that up faster than we can even keep up.    So I’m never quite sure what she’s got in front of her when it’s braille.   The good thing is, she is.   She knows exactly what’s written.

For Valentine’s Day she had a heart come home with some strips of paper with braille sentences on them.   I didn’t know where they came from or who they were for.   Were they from her teachers to her?   Were they from her to us?  So I asked her.

She said aloud, “I like…mom, what does ‘certis’ spell?”   I didn’t know, I asked her what the rest of the sentence said.    She read more, saying, “because they are…what does, ‘cruchee’ spell?”   And at this point I was completely unhelpful because I didn’t know.   Then she figured it out exclaiming, “oh, I remember what I wrote: ‘I like carrots because they are crunchy’.”

Stuck

I had a throat thing appear a few years ago.   “Thing” is the only name I have for it other than “Stuff Gets Stuck”.   Things go down, but not all the way.   It’s at a point that’s too far down to cough up, but not far enough down that I don’t know it’s stuck and don’t taste what it is that’s stuck if it stays there long enough.

Was it cancer?  A tumor?  A small child’s toy permanently lodged in my throat?  No, it was none of those, it was just an esophagus that wasn’t straight.   One swallow study and a scope later and it was determined there was nothing to be concerned about, it was only an annoyance.    And then after the scope, things got better.   Strangely enough, the doctor who performed the scope said that happened sometimes—that the act of doing the scope would sometimes encourage the esophagus to straighten out somewhat.

I didn’t argue with the results because it was about the simplest way to correct the problem without actually doing anything to correct the problem.   Only it came back.   It appeared slowly and it returned slowly.   I can turn my head as far as I can in one direction and swallow and sometimes that will cause the item lodged to move along, but not always.   Apples are my nemesis when it comes to things being lodged in my throat, which is a shame because I’m fond of apples.

Lately it’s gotten to be more and more of a problem.   I don’t mind so much when it’s something that’s good for “re-tasting” like crystalized ginger, but other things, like the crab cake I had at dinner being there the next morning, not so much.   And vitamins—don’t get me started on vitamins, because they taste awful after three minutes and definitely not for over an hour as they slowly dissolve.

It’s also changed in how much I can tell something’s lodged.   Initially it was very obvious.   Now it’s not something I always notice until I start re-tasting the item.   I’m not sure what can be done about it.   Maybe I’ll work on headstands after eating to see if that helps.   Okay, I’m kidding.    I’ll have to either figure something out or deal with it or only eat things I like to taste more than once.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has an energy scale he worked on with his occupational therapist.   It rates his energy level from one to ten.   The feelings he has at the different levels and colors he decided on himself.    Tonight after dinner he asked me, “mom, what color do you think I am right now?”   It was clear he was in the green (which is good).   He agreed and said, “do you think I’m regulated right now?”  I told him I thought he definitely was.   I’m not sure if this was precipitated by the fact that his sister was decidedly dis-regulated at that time.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  The other morning my daughter was coordinating things.   She had a plan and that plan involved moving things from the dining room to the living room so the game could continue there.   She picked up one of the parts and then said, “Dad, you carry this…and Mom, you can drink coffee”.   I’m not sure if the though me as being unable to help or that my coffee was more important for me at the time.  

Bedroom Piano

I just got in from a girls evening with some of my best girlfriends.   My best friend coordinated it.    We had a lovely time tonight and I enjoyed catching up with everyone, even though the topics of conversation weren’t all that happy if you look at it from an outsider’s perspective…

One of my friend’s husband had a stroke in his forties.   He’s doing well, but it was significant and he’s been out of work for months recovering and may not return to work.    One of my other friends told us about her middle child, who is not as good in academics as her peers and the decision they’re making to send her to public school instead of the high-challenging private school her sister is already attending.

And then my best friend, who told a story of having a seizure when she was about ten and how she had to throw herself down three flights of stairs to get to her parents because her bedroom was on the top floor of their narrow townhome.    She tried banging the keys of the piano—yes, she told us, she had a piano in her room.    Was it any wonder she practiced enough to almost become a concert pianist when she was younger?

The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted Uncle Jonathan and me to help him play the game ‘Plants Versus Zombies’.    As we helped him out with strategies we both couldn’t help but chuckle as he pronounced again and again a word that sounded like, uh-pop-you-lix.    He was trying to say ‘apocalypse’.   We decided not to correct him just yet.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My daughter asked me what time it was the other morning.   I told her it was 8:00AM.   She said, “I love 8:00AM!”

I Don’t Want To Deal With Growing It Out Again

My son wanted to dye his hair a few months ago.   I thought it would be fun.   He thought it would be cool.   We scheduled with Hasan and when we got there my son said he wanted green—major green.   To get the green we had to bleach his hair first and then add the green, which was more of a deep aqua green than a pure green.    When it was done he looked like a little elf.  

I loved it.   My son did too at first, but then he got over it.   He knew it was permanent, but he didn’t realize the full impact of, “permanent” which meant months to fully grow out.   It’s been slowly fading to more light green but it’s still green.   When I ask him from time to time what color he wants next, he always says he wants brown.   Just brown.   I’ve talked about purple, orange, red, blue or even just bleaching it again because it looked pretty nice bleached, but he has been steadfast in his wish to just have brown hair.

Today we went to get his hair cut for the second time since he had it colored.   Hasan and I talked to him about colors, egging him on, and he was considering a mix of red and orange, based on a picture of a woman with pink and purple hair in a magazine we saw while we waited his turn.   But then he  thought about it and said, “I don’t want to deal with growing it out again.”   So I think he’s done with colored hair for now.   Or at least until he gets bored with brown hair.

The Big Boy Update:  We played a new dinner-time game tonight: “Five Things”.   We each list five things we’re grateful for.   I went first and said the standard things.   My son went next and I was pretty impressed with his five:  “I’m thankful for parents who take care of me, that we aren’t poor, that I have a sister who’s nice to me, that we have a happy life and that I have a good family.”  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We got a package from Aunt Jo in the mail today.   I was letting my daughter open it and as is the case with a lot of things, the socks she had sent were inside a bag and then each individually wrapped by the manufacturer.   After a minute my daughter said, “I think all she gave me is a bunch of bags.”

The Odd End Table

I think I wrote about this a while back but I’m not sure and I’m too lazy to go check.   I do this thing where I talk about something and I write about that same thing and sometimes I do both.   And I don’t always remember if I wrote about it and then talked about it in more length as a result after friends read the post or if I didn’t write about it but only talked about it or if I just casually mentioned it as a facet of the day when I was writing about something else.   But seeing as I’m lazy and don’t feel like researching post history, I’m just going to forge on.

We have a bedroom in our basement.   It was an additional bedroom to the number of bedrooms we had in our prior house and therefore we needed to get bedroom furniture.    I looked around for a while and then settled on something that I liked the moment I saw it.    I work that way—I either like it or I don’t.   I either know it’s the thing for me, or it’s definitely not.   Basically, I don’t dither when it comes to decisions.

The bed, nightstand and dresser with mirror were ordered.   I got a mattress.   It all was delivered and I added the necessary bedding and lamps to make the room functional as a guest bedroom.    And then I didn’t think much more about it for seven years.    Then I noticed something.    Why was there only one night stand when there was room for two?   What was I thinking when I bought the set?

I tracked down the manufacturer, found the specific bedroom set and ordered an additional nightstand from a regional company.     Today the nightstand arrived.   Delivery, including putting it in the room, signature on the paper and time for the delivery men to go to the bathroom totaled five minutes.

Now the room is better.   Now two people can stay in the room and one of them doesn’t have to put their phone/book/tablet on the floor before they go to bed.

The Big Boy Update:  My son told my parents, “did you know Q and U are married?   But Qdoba was written before they got married.”   He’s been learning about letters that commonly go together.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My daughter is seeing fairly well, but sometime she has trouble.   Two nights ago as we were about to get into the car my daughter was heading straight into the car door.   I yelled at her to stop, but she clocked her forehead (fortunately not her left, functional eye).   She was very upset.   But by the time we got home she didn’t even want an ice pack.    She was mostly mad at me for not warning her.   I told her I had tried.   Believe me, I tried.   The last thing I want is for her to run until a heavy, metal door.

Are Those Free?

We went to dinner with Uncle Jonathan and Margaret tonight.   My children were with Mimi and Gramps while we went to one of the oldest restaurants in town and one of the best known in the state.   This might possibly be due to age but is probably based on the quality of food as well.  I remember going there as a child for special occasions.

The thing I remember most about the restaurant was getting vanilla ice cream for dessert with Creme de Menthe on the top.   I have no idea what I ordered or ate otherwise, but I remember that special dessert.   The thing was, we had Creme de Menthe at home, and we had vanilla ice cream from time to time; but for some reason we never put the two together very often.  

Back in my childhood and even in my early adulthood there was a strict dress code at the restaurant.   Today there isn’t a dress code that I’m aware of and while most people were dressed for the evening, there were people in jeans and I saw one man in shorts and a t-shirt.   I said shorts.   It’s over seventy degrees here today, which is quite unusual for February.   But we’ve had some cold times as well this winter.

At the end of dinner as we were leaving I reached into one of the barrels near the front door and got a red apple and started eating it.   My husband looked at me and said questioningly, “are those free?”  I realized I’d done it without thinking.   Yes, they were free, they weren’t part of seasonal decorations.   It has always been tradition that apples (these were nice and cold, despite the warm weather) are available to anyone who wants one at the entrance.  

We had a lovely dinner with our friends.   The children were hoping they would get to see them.   Tomorrow I’ll tell them we plan on having Uncle Jonathan and Margaret over soon.  

The Big Boy Update:   Update on my son’s valentines cards.  His lot was the opposite of my daughter’s with only two pre-made cards and one of the pre-made ones had a hand-written note inside it.   There was only a single card with candy, but it was a well-thought out one.   The student had made Tic Tac Toe cards and had put five each of two different colored conversation hearts in a bag.   And just like my daughter, I think he also got one pencil.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My son was at free running class last night.   My children typically take a bath together and usually have a lot of fun in the tub.   I think I could leave them in for hours some days.   Last night though it was just my daughter and she had the entire tub to herself.   She was lying back, relaxing in the tub and told me, “seriously, best resting spot ever.”

It Was All Candy (And a Pencil)

My daughter came home from school, opening the front door saying, “I have bubble gum but I’m going to spit it out because it doesn’t have flavor anymore”.  I had forgotten it was Valentine’s Day at that point.   My daughter was excited about all the cards she’d gotten from her friends at school that were in a white bag she had put on the counter.   But there wasn’t time to show me right then because friends had come over and she wanted to go outside to play with them.

We went to dinner with my husband and son who afterwards went to free running while my daughter and I returned home.   She did some math work with me at lightning speed and then some reading work, which is getting more impressive as she starts to be more proficient at reading braille.    And then it was time to go through the valentines cards.

And when I say, “cards” I mean it in the loosest sense of the word.   Because I think there were only three cards in the bag, including what came from her teachers.   It was all candy.   She and one other student had cards with nothing in them other than a message.   Everything else was candy of some sort, some also including a tattoo.   Oh, and there was one with a pencil (“that has to be sharpened,” my daughter told me).

Was the candy accompanied by a card?  No.  My guess is in years past bought sets of card with included candy had an issue of the card and candy being separated.   So to save time and trouble, the card was eliminated and a spot to write on was added to the wrapper of the candy.   Now all you need to do is write your name on the candy pouch or sucker or gummy bag and your valentines are all done.

For my kindergarten-aged child, that would have been fun work.  I can tell you she was most enthusiastic about all the candy she received from her classmates.    But I like what she did.  I like her cards she helped color on and seal.   Tomorrow her brother’s Montessori class celebrates Valentine’s day (they had a school conflict today).   I wonder what he’ll get by way of Valentine’s cards?

The Big Boy Update:  This morning my son was sitting quietly eating his breakfast.  Everyone had gotten up, gotten dressed, there were no complaints about breakfast and no one was whining or complaining.   When my husband walked into the kitchen my son confirmed the quiet morning by announcing, “we’ve gotten off to a good start today.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter discovered the wonder of the Blow Pop today.   She excitedly told me about this round lollipop that had bubble gum in the middle.   She loved it.   She was a sticky mess.   The bag she put the finished stick into was also a sticky mess.   I loved Blow Pops as a child and still do today.

Less Drops

My husband and daughter did one of those thirteen-hour trips to and back from Detroit today to see Dr. Trese, her retina surgeon, for an in-office check on her eyes.    Dr. Trese can tell a lot in a short office visit with the most amazing thing being how much he can tell from the extremely brief glances he’s able to get into my daughter’s eyes.

My daughter has been afraid of a lot of things when it comes to her eyes, for good reasons on a lot of fronts.   But Dr. Trese she’s never been afraid of.   That doesn’t mean it’s always easy to do what he needs her to do to see into her eyes.   She’s been light sensitive and in post-surgical pain.   She’s had to endure thousands of eye drops that sting and to top it off, she can’t really see straight or normally when asked to look in a certain direction.   All of that makes it hard to get a good look into her eyes.

But Dr. Trese does manage to see into her eyes and get the information he needs somehow.   And my daughter thinks he’s great.   Today he thought everything was looking good in both eyes.   Her right eye hasn’t shown significant re-scarring growth since he opened it up internally several months ago.   Her left eye is looking good as well, meaning it’s maintaining pressure and hasn’t had any negative changes.

And that means no more trips to Detroit until winter is over and spring has firmly begun in twelve weeks.    And there’s more good news.   I wish I could say she can see more, but we’re just happy to not lose any more vision most days.   No, this good news is about drops.   He’s wanting to start decreasing the frequency of drops slowly.    And for that, all of us are happy.

She has four rounds of drops daily, with two different solutions totaling twelve stinging drops a day.   We’re going to get down to only eight drops soon.   At one point we were doing twenty-eight total drops per day.   And that was no fun for anyone.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been working on addition and subtraction memorization.   He does not like this work at all.   He says it’s hard, but it’s mostly anxiety because he knows he’s going to be tested at school.   I won’t go into the issues and battles we’ve had over this in recent days.   You would be hard-pressed to believe he actually can do the math pretty quickly in his head (or has memorized the answer) with all the complaining, whining, moaning and despair he brings to the situation.   But I think we have a solution.   Call out the flash cards and let him and his sister answer.   Don’t make it about who gets it first or count who got the most correct or make it about a reward.   Just have them yell out answers.   The casual and yet competitive environment tonight when I tried this and he was firing off answers.   So was his sister for that matter.   Hopefully a bit more of this and he won’t be so anxious about being tested at school.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter said to her brother the other day while they were eating lunch, “I really love your class name.”   His school gives each classroom a name.   She likes his because it’s Emerald.  Maybe this is because emeralds are green and that’s her favorite color?  Or maybe it’s just because she likes the sound of the word.   I should ask her.

The Fruit’s Where It’s At

Years ago, let’s see, maybe 1981 or 1982 my family was at a restaurant for dinner.   I got done eating early and was restless and there happened to be a Pac-Man game in the bar section of the restaurant.   I went over to watch a boy who was playing, Pac-Man being the hottest thing around at the time.   He was pretty good at the game, getting all the way into the “keys” levels before I had to go.   I don’t remember much about the game other than him informing me, “the fruit’s where it’s at” every time the fruit collectable would come on the screen.

That saying has stuck with me and pops into my head every so often at odd times.    Today I was packing my son’s lunch for tomorrow and looked in the refrigerator.    We were completely out of fruit, and that’s uncommon for us.  I looked over to the fruit bowl and this is what I saw:

The total amount of fresh fruit we had in the house consisted of one lone apple.   And that’s unheard of for us.   And what phrase from decades ago popped into my head?   You guessed it.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has become interested in the makes and models of cars recently.   He recognizes some and is interested in learning more.   Mimi printed out a list of car logos and we talked about the ones he knew at dinner last night.   He was fond of Ferrari and Lamborghini.   We told him he must like fast cars because both of those certainly were.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and husband fly to Detroit in the morning for a day trip to visit her retina surgeon, Dr. Trese.   We don’t even make a big to do about the trips any more to her.   They’re fairly routine.   My husband I think is getting ready to start packing his backpack—the only bag they’ll take—on the trip.  

Altered Carbon

I rarely write about books or television shows but this one is too exciting not to.   Some years ago, I read Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon novel based on a recommendation from a friend.  When I was done with the book I went straight back to page one and read it through a second time.   It’s dense.  That’s the only way I know how to describe it.   There is so much going on it’s intentional confusing for a good part of the first half and then you feel like you’re just hanging on for most of the remainder of the book.  But it’s a tremendous read if you like cyberpunk science fiction—which I do.

At the time I had read up on the author and found out the movie rights had been sold in 2003 but nothing had been done to make a movie.   Then, a few weeks ago I pulled up Netflix and saw a trailer for Altered Carbon, the series, starting on February 2nd.  My sister-in-law wrote a blog post about the series, mentioning how it’s confusing at first to figure out what’s happening.   I’ve read the book twice, I know what the ending is and what all the interleaved side stories are and I would agree with her.   But it’s so well done.

I’m not sure how the story could have been told in a single movie; the ten episodes are packed, there’s just no filler and if you’re not paying attention you’ll miss something important.   I know some of the actors in the series and they do a compelling job of playing their roles.   There’s a lot of nudity, but it plays well with the story.   And who am I kidding, I like looking at attractive naked people, so I don’t mind.

I’ve watched the series twice, starting over once I finished it, just like I did the book.   Richard K. Morgan wrote two more books in the series with the same main character.  Hopefully they’ll make a second on Netflix.

The Big Boy Update:  My husband and I try to back each other up on parenting decisions but sometimes we don’t realize something’s happened.    For instance I might come in and say, “it’s time to get pajamas on now.”   I could get an incensed outcry from the child saying, “but dad said we had ten more minutes!”   So now I try to remember.   I saw my son with the iPad the other day when we were supposed to be getting ready for guests to arrive.   I came up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “do you have an agreement with dad?”  He nodded and said, “five more minutes” very calmly.   And in five minutes he put his iPad away.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is good at math.   She’s in kindergarten but she grasps a lot of the concepts very well.   She asked to be quizzed in the car last night on addition and subtraction problems.   She had gotten over a hundred correct with very little in the way of mistakes on the ride home from a birthday party.    She also seems to get fractions.  We told her she could get a stamp on her stamp chart for every four valentines cards she finished.   She worked with Mimi on Friday and completed ten cards.   She thought about it afterwards and told Mimi, “that means I get two-and-a-half stamps”.

I Like Your Quiet Soul

It’s valentines time again.   Or rather it’s getting close to that time.   The children have been working on theirs and it’s been one of those ups and downs kind of things.   The Montessori approach to Valentine’s Day is a little less commercial and a little more about meaning than it was from my memory in school as a child.

I remember getting the pre-made valentines and putting them in the bags for each student in the class.   There were a few outliers in my day that had something added like a piece of candy or a sticker.   There wasn’t a lot of choices at the drug or grocery store to buy but even so, most children didn’t make their own.   My children’s Montessori school is more about handmade and interesting.   Message and meaning, not commercialism and candy.   That includes a request for no candy by the teachers to the parents.

My daughter is in public school now and I have no idea what she’ll get home on the fourteenth, but I suspect she’ll be thrilled with what’s in her bag from the other students.    She and her brother, who is still at Montessori school, have been working on handmade cards.   I put a picture of them with the words “Happy Valentine’s Day 2018” and their name on a page and printed them.    Then I told them to get to work.

My daughter did some drawing of stick figures, hearts (that are hard to tell are hearts) and scribbles.   She added a sticker or two and then signed her name in print at the bottom.   We folded each sheet and then she selected some sealing wax pellets to seal each card.   I’d gotten a heart stamp for the occasion and my children have had a good time making color combinations to see what they can come up with as a final product.   Here are some examples:

My son has been having some challenges getting motivated to write his cards.   It’s mostly a matter of wanting to sit down and do the writing.   If he can get focused, he can work for a period of time.   But he has twenty-seven to write including main and resource teachers and it’s just going to take him some time.  

Today’s writing wasn’t going well from a motivation and attitude perspective.   I’d tried to be nice but I lost my temper and my son was in a dismal mood to match mine afterwards.  To skip to the end of the story, everything turned out find and he and I are the best of friends again, but for a period of time I didn’t think much was going to get done in the way of Valentine’s writing from him today.

But in came my mother to the rescue as we had a birthday party to take my daughter to.    When I got home my mother told me my son had worked diligently on writing four more of his cards.   She said he had the most interesting things to write, including one note to a student which said, “I like your quiet soul.”

The Big Boy Update:  After my son and I had it out today about the Valentine’s writing we took a break from each other.   A bit later he came to find and we sat down and talked.    We hugged and he said, “finally we’re getting along.”  Neither of us likes to be angry at the other.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My son was so angry at me earlier today he decided to leave the house.   I wasn’t particularly worried about him running away at seven, so I waited him out without saying a word.   But his sister noticed he’d left when she heard the front door open and close.   She was talking out loud, to no one in particular and said, “where in the world is he going?  He’s probably running away.   We can’t let him do that…he’s the only Greyson in the house.”

The Towel Calculation

I’ve mentioned before how we use white hand towels in our house for many things.   I started using them over twenty years ago and since that time I’ve gone through a lot of towels and sourced them from different companies.   I’ve bought in bulk, found them at clearance at Walmart and gotten them at Costco.   Since we use them for so many things they need to be sturdy enough to last many washings, while also being cost-effective enough that they’re not at the, “premium towel” price level.

Costco has had the best price to quality ratio and the latest batch was at an even better price point at fifty cents each.   I was wondering how much value I get out of the towels over time and how it compared to paper towels / napkins as an alternative.   It’s one of those fuzzy logic problems because there’s a lot of play in the numbers, but I can hazard a guess.

I replace the towels about every four years and at that time get about one hundred new towels.   We go through about a hundred towels through loads of wash each week I would guess which means any given towel, should it be used equally among its peers over four years, would receive 208 washings before being, “retired”.   At fifty cents per towel that calculates to 2.4 cents per use.

I did a comparison to the paper towels we rather infrequently use and on bulk sale they’re listed at two cents per foot, which is about the same dimensions as my white cloths, only far less absorbent and possibly not equal for doing the same job.  So from a price point it’s fairly close.  

Our cloths don’t get thrown away when I retire them either.   They are either passed on to our cleaning lady who puts them through another series of uses and washes, or they’re marked for use in the garage for final use purposes like tire cleaning.

All in all, it’s a fair price comparison to paper products.    I don’t have a good gauge on total cost adjustment due to the washing and drying though.   That adds to the 2.4 cents per cloth.    That will remain an exercise for another day though as family just arrived from out of town.

The Big Boy Update:  My husband told my son to get his shoes and jacket on for school.   My son, clearly realized he still had time to dawdle though when he said, “Mom hasn’t even made her tea yet.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was playing some imagination game.   I said to her, “I just heard you say ‘monster’.”  She said, “yeah, I just like to say ‘monster’.”  She didn’t want to tell me what game she was playing it would seem.

High Five

When I was little I got the magazine High Five from Highlights for Children.  I got a subscription for my children a few years back and although now it only is something my son can really see and do, it’s something he hasn’t been interested in.

Today on the way to school I put one of the magazines I’d been collecting in his hands and told him about all the fun things in each magazine.  On the way to school he looked through the pages, looking for the hidden object page until he found it.    He called out to me from the back seat when he’d located the page and said, “I found the toothbrush straight away.”    I told him when we got in drop-off line I would give him a pen and he could circle them as he found each item.

When we were situated in line I handed back my pen and he started telling me all the things he’d found.   I looked back a minuted or two later to see him circling the items not in the picture, but in the list on the preceding page.   I told him typically you’d circle the pictures in the drawing itself, not the list.   “I like doing it this way better” he said.

The Big Boy Update:  My son asked to play one of his favorite songs, “Spectre”,  in the car today.   He said to my husband, “it sounds so much better in the car than on Alexa.  I can hear the beat.”   Dad explained that the car had more than one speaker like Alexa did.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has had the same library books in her backpack on and off since November.   It wasn’t until yesterday that I found out why: she wanted them read to her more.   I told her she couldn’t get more books until we returned the two she had checked out.   That wasn’t a problem, she said.  All I needed to do was take down all the words on the books she had on a piece of paper.   Or wait, on second thought, she said, could I just photocopy the snowman book because she liked it the best?   We compromised and added the book to her Amazon wish list.    When we saw her brainiest at school today I mentioned the story and Mrs. Aagard said she’d been wondering about that because my daughter kept saying we never read the books to her.    Hopefully we’ll have some new library books home in the next week or two.

The Samarth Surprise

My daughter’s school transportation has changed a lot since the beginning of the year.   Different van drivers, different students and different routes to and from school.   Some of this is because of the track system, some of it is driver changeover and some of it is working on best student to route optimization.   Some of the drivers and students my daughter has liked a lot while some of them she hasn’t gotten along with so much, like the “baby” who would steal her cane and cry a lot.

The current ride situation is by far the best.   She gets picked up first but gets to school earlier too.   She also has her visually impaired classmate, Aditi, in the van with her.   This gives the two of them time outside of class both to and from school to talk and play games.   She has another student in the car either to or from school, or maybe both, I’m not sure.  His name is Samarth and she’s been talking about his birthday party for a week or two.

She’s in a school that has autism spectrum and visually impaired students that are brought to her regular elementary school from areas far outside of the school’s normal district.   That means the students in my daughter’s van are autistic spectrum or visually impaired, like her friend Aditi.

The first and second quarter she had some autism spectrum children that were mentally boring to her and we had some issues with anger and frustration from that boredom.   This quarter she has her friend in the van with her and that’s helped a lot.  I don’t know who Samarth is, but I knew he was older and I thought I had met him a few times before.   He was in fifth grade, my daughter had told me, and he wants me to come to his birthday party.    It’s soon, so we need to go to his house.

I didn’t think much of it until today when I was emptying her backpack and found an envelope in the bottom with her name on it.   And guess what?  She had been invited to Samarth’s eleventh birthday party.   Oh dear, how long had the envelope been languishing in her backpack?   I called and left a message with the mother RSVPing.   I got a phone call back a short while later and discovered that the invitation had just come today and she was so glad my daughter could come.

When I asked my daughter about this she told me Samarth had given her the envelope today.  I’m not sure why I didn’t ask her, she always knows these things.   The lack of vision makes memory and everything else come into sharp contrast.

So, party RSVP complete, calendar entry added and now I had to figure out what to get a fifth grader for a present.   I asked my daughter what Samarth might like.   I was hoping she had an idea because I didn’t know what his mental capacity was if he was autism spectrum.   She told me he wanted a clicker.   “A clicker,” I asked?   She said it was so he could find his way around.   Wait, why would he need a clicker?  She told me like the character in one of her shows who couldn’t see, how he has a clicker.   Then she followed up with, “you know, Samarth’s completely blind.”

Oh.   No, I didn’t know.   Well, I did sort of.  I knew there was a fifth grader who was completely blind at her school but I hadn’t made the connection until she told me.

So back to the birthday present.   What do you get for a blind fifth-grader?   I haven’t the faintest idea.   Nothing at all.   She told me, “he already has plenty of paper” so braille paper is out and I’m guessing any braille supplies and books are specially ordered in braille and we don’t know what his reading level is or if he has them.   Anything you can think of that you need to see to do or understand is out for a completely blind child.

So I just went for it and ordered Pie Face the game.   My children love it and even though it’s 5+ in age, the adults have had fun playing it with the children and it’ll be fine coming from a kindergartner to a fifth grader.   Well, that and the pair of clickers I found that my daughter said she’s going to split with Samarth.   Presents ordered, we’re now looking forward to the party on Saturday.

The Big Boy Update:  After the Falcon Heavy rocket launch yesterday where my son saw a car launched into space, he wanted to talk to my husband and me about cars.   He said he’d decided to create his own car company when he grew up named ‘Moro’.   The logo for the car was going to be a fox.  (My son’s middle name is Fox.)   I told him I hoped he’d sell me one when he started making them.    He was quiet for just a second and then said he was going to give me one for free.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  After dinner tonight I told my daughter we had new dessert choices (by way of new Yasso pops in the freezer).   I listed the new choices and she told me she wanted the chocolate chip cookie dough (not surprisingly).   I asked her if she was sure, some of the new flavors sounded interesting.   She replied, “what are you waiting for, I put in an order.”

Falcon Heavy Test Launch

The SpaceX Falcon Heavy Test launch today was an exciting event in our house.   My husband messaged me while my son was in his OT session that it was seven minutes until launch so I got my iPad out and pulled up the live video.    By the time my son was out of his session he, the therapist and I were watching the latter portions of the launch.

SpaceX and Tesla have a good bit of whimsy they apply to the serious work they do.   The Falcon Heavy test launch needed test cargo—expendable cargo—so Elon Musk offered up his Tesla Roadster, the first ever production run Tesla car.    The car was outfitted with a spacesuit from SpaceX with a driver nicknamed, “Starman”.

We talked about what happened today during bath time with the children and asked them if they’d like to see the launch before bedtime as they’d both missed it live.   They did.    My favorite part was watching the two boosters land perfectly on their pads within a second of each other, just like rocket ships have landed in countless science fiction movies.

After watching the launch replay, my husband brought up the live feed of the roadster in space with his passenger, on its way to Mars and then to be gravity boosted around towards the sun where it will orbit, the first car in space, for probably millions of years.

Images of the movie Heavy Metal run through my head as we looked the live feed of the roadster on the way to Mars and the message of “Don’t Panic!” written on the car’s screen makes me smile and think of, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  It was a great day for technology and a fun thing to watch for my children.

The Big Boy Update:  My son and I got on the phone with dad after school.  My son wanted to place an order for dinner:  “a lot of salmon, spinach, mushrooms and zucchini.”   Yes, he wants to eat junk like most children, but he does like some healthy things.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter heard my phone vibrate on the desk the other day (I keep it on silent).   She said, “Mom, your phone's sizzling.”

Bib and Tires

It’s my birthday.   We don’t typically celebrate birthdays of adults in any special way at our house.   This morning was like most other mornings with breakfast being preceded by complaints from the children on how it’s unfair that they have to get dressed before being served, followed by dawdling and not wanting to brush their teeth or get their shoes on.   But the day was sunny and everyone was in a good mood so I’m going to count that as a win overall.

After taking my son to school I talked with my husband about the tire pressure issue we had with one of our tires that had popped up over the weekend.   He planned to have the tire checked (he wanted to do the checking, on account of him having strong feelings about what should be done).   This was fine with me because I didn’t particularly want to deal with the tire.    We were pretty sure the tire was going to need to be replaced considering this was the second incident with that particular tire.

And we were right, the tire had a finishing nail in it close to the rim.   The tires were close to replacement time anyways and the recommendation was to replace both back tires.   So for the second time in my life I got tires for my birthday.   One year, some time ago most likely more than half my life back, I got tires for my birthday.   I had a Honda Accord.   I loved that little silver car with grey interior.   I was in college so it had to be before 1992 and I was in need of new tires.    My mother and father graciously got me a new set of tires for my birthday.   And I was happy.   Nothing like new tires.  

I know, I know, it’s not an exciting birthday present, but the day’s gifts weren’t over yet.  When I got in from hanging out with my best friend at her office where she and I  talked about all manner of topics given that we haven’t had a chance to catch up in a while, there were two wrapped packages on the counter from my husband.   Should I wait to open them until the children got home?  No, he said, they weren’t necessary for the gifts.  Also, I shouldn’t expect too much, because these weren’t those types of gifts either.

The first one was an adult bib.   I laughed.  My husband chuckled.   I am rather a mess and can make the newest of shirts dirty with only a single meal.   And this bib was to protect me from myself.  It was just what I needed, I told him, for when I cleaned up his messy pots and pans after dinner.   The second gift was equally funny: shoe covers that were like mop material so I could clean the crumbs off the floor I regularly complained about.

When the children got home I showed them my gifts.   They loved both and insisted on trying on the shoe mops so they could clean the floor for me.   Hopefully they will continue that enthusiasm going forward, but somehow I doubt it.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son was rude this morning and turned off my song on Alexa right after I started it.   He picked another song and I turned his off.    I went into the kitchen to clean and had the bar stools out ready to sweep.   I turned around and saw him pushing the chairs back in, trying to I think make amends by helping.    He didn’t want to say he was sorry, but I think he didn’t like that he hurt my feelings.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is now trying to climb the door frames with only one leg and two hands.   This started before the badly stubbed toe, but it may have been a good thing to practice given how much her toe is still bothering her.

Compliance

My daughter has to go through a lot of medical things.   She has what our play therapist says is a “feisty” temperament.   She is definitely feisty, but she’s also a very compliant child.   There are things she doesn’t want to do—like eye drops.   They sting, they interrupt her day and they’re not fun.   But she does them and she helps us do them once she stops trying to avoid them.   She will lean her head back and hold her eyelids open for you and calmly wait for the drop to land in her eye.   Once the first drop is in she immediately shifts to holding the second eye open.   We get amazed compliments all the time when she’s somewhere like the hospital for surgery or her eye doctor’s office.  

She also listens to medical advice and try to follow doctor’s orders.   Yesterday at the orthopedist’s office the doctor told her she should wear her shoes in the house for the next two days to give her toe some extra support while it does some healing.   My daughter agreed and then she heard she couldn’t climb the door frames for a few days longer.   And she heard that too.

Yesterday she made sure to keep her shoes on whenever she was walking someplace.   She spent a bit of time on our bed on her iPad and because she knew shoes weren’t allowed on the bed, she took them off just before getting on.   I saw the shoes on the floor and because I didn’t want her to trip on them, I moved them up against the wall.

A while later I heard my name being called.   I came in to find a rather incensed daughter saying her shoes had been moved.   She didn’t want to get off the bed and walk without putting them on.  At bed time she asked me if she needed to sleep with her shoes on and this morning she came downstairs immediately and put them on before getting breakfast.

My daughter sometimes doesn’t like the things she has to do, but she is always careful to follow instructions when its explained to her how important they are.

The Big Boy Update:  Nana called today while we were in the car.   She had been talking about Hawaii and my son had a question for her.  “When we go to Hawaii can we wear those things over our pants and dance?”   Nana told him that yes, we could wear hula skirts and even take lessons.    We don’t have a trip to Hawaii planned at the moment, but it appears my son and Nana are already making initial plans.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We had pizza last night.   My husband got it as soon as it came out of the oven after waiting in line and drove straight home.   My daughter’s pizza was hot for the first few bites and then cooled down while she worked on it over the next ten minutes.   After that she said, “Daddy, I’m freezing.  May you please warm up my pizza?”

The Non-broken Toe

My daughter stubbed her toe last night.   She doesn’t cry for long when something happens that hurts her mostly because of a combination of temperament (feisty) and experience bumping into things all the time.   She’s just used to getting hurt.   But this was different.  I was downstairs at Movie Night with our friends and when I came up an hour later she still wouldn’t put any pressure on it and refused to walk.

We iced it and put her to bed.   I took some pictures and texted them to my chiropractor asking him if he thought her right big toe might be dislocated because it was kilting out a bit and didn’t look completely normal at the second joint.   He said he couldn’t tell from the picture for sure but her bone end caps weren’t fully formed yet and from my description of her behavior both he and I thought it probably wasn’t broken.

If it was dislocated we could ice her foot for two minutes in a bucket of ice and then while we “dried off her foot” tug straight out on the toe to see if we could get the joint back in.    In the morning we did just that.   She didn’t like either and I wasn’t sure if we affected any change.   Her toe might be looking a little straighter, but she still didn’t want to really walk on it.  

So we decided to take her to the orthopedist for an x-ray.   My daughter and I got there late morning and she was limping but doing okay walking.   We had the x-rays done and on the way back to the room she noticed there were green patches in the tile—and she decided to jump up and down on them.  

Every green tile section she would jump three times on with both feet.   So yeah, we really look like we’ve overreacted now.   From the title of this post you can tell that her toe was not broken and at that point wasn’t dislocated, although we don’t know if it had been earlier.  

My daughter and I celebrated with a trip to Golden Corral, a place she’s been asking to be taken to for several weeks now.   She’s wearing shoes for support in the house for two days and isn’t suppose to climb the door frames for several more.   She has her brand new shoes on now in the chair and doesn’t seem phased at all by the purple, swollen toe anymore.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was working with Plus Plus today, making some figures he’s created on his own and likes to make from time to time.   He said to me, “Mom, I’m making a movie.   I just gave you a hint” pointing at the middle, larger character.   He said, “can you guess what movie it is?”

This was pressure on me because I had no idea.   And then I got it.   I told him the middle one was The Hulk, the red one was Iron Man, the blue one was Captain America.   He helped me with Black Widow and I got lucky and guessed Thor for the last one.   But what was the movie, he asked?   Avengers, I told him.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been wanting to go to Golden Corral for a good while now.   We haven’t gone because the last few times my son had an allergic reaction to something there and we’re not sure what it was.   We had planned to have a dinner where I take my daughter and my husband goes somewhere with my son.   With the toe situation today it turned out to be a good time for the two of us to go together.    She loves that place; I had to tell her we had to go finally because dad needed to leave for work and we had to get home to be with her brother.

Search Committee

Our children's Head of School has announced her retirement and has graciously done so with significant lead time so that the board of trustees can pursue finding a replacement for her.   As a trustee, I’ve been impressed with the amount of work that's been done up to this point to evaluate and select a consultant firm to assist with defining the job description, communication with the teachers and community about the process and preparation of timeline so that a replacement will be found in time while also giving the school the best opportunity to find a Head of School that will fit with all that defines our school.   The task is not small and the implications for a school can be significant if the wrong head is hired.

I was asked if I would serve on the search committee today.   My mother was involved with a search committee for the head of a museum and I know from her that the time commitment is not trivial.   The email I received stated the estimated amount of hours, peak involvement months and duration of the committee (approximately one year).

I firmly believe that our school will not be the same once our current head of school retires, but it could be something new, something different, but something that retains the core values of our existing school,   I’m looking forward to being part of the process to help the new head of school.

The Big Boy Update:  my son came downstairs today in one of the new shirts I’d gotten for him at the used clothing store.   He said, “Mom, I don’t mean to insult you, but I think this shirt's too big.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  my daughter has strep throat.  She wasn’t upset about that, she was upset about missing Groundhog Day at school because they'd been preparing for it.   She was crying so pitifully at the doctor's office that he and the doctor couldn’t help but smile when she wasn’t looking.

I don’t Miss the Dog

Wow, that’s a bad blog post title, isn’t it?   Doesn’t it sound terrible to say I don’t miss the dog?   Let me explain first by saying those were words that ran through my head the other day and I thought the same thing about myself just for thinking them.

I do miss our dog.   She was a comfort to have around.   She was a happy dog aside from the aches and pains of being old and having bad knees.    She was sweet and would clean up every crumb of food the children left on the floor.   I think she probably ingested a pound or two of carpet fluff over the years just licking around for any food matter that might have fallen in the course of toddlers trying to get the food in their mouths.

She rode in the car well and was friendly to all adults.   Children, not so much.   She was afraid of being picked up and there were things on her that hurt that we never quite got a handle on.   Children move fast and would scare her sometimes.   But adults she’d gladly spend any amount of time with, including what was basically owner transference if we happened to go away and needed her to be taken care of by someone else (thanks Nana, Uncle Jonathan and Mimi).

She also got along with just about any dog.  She was respectful while not being submissive.   She walked well on a leash and didn’t have any phobias such as thunderstorms, although she got a few of them as she got older and specifically after the broken alarm sensor incident that happened for an entire day while we weren’t home.

And she was always happy to see us when we got home.   I still catch myself doing a few things even though she died over a year-and-a-half ago.   Sometimes when I come home as I’m opening the door I almost say, “hey Lu” in greeting.    I’ve also said more than once, “oops” in a loud voice when dropping food on the floor.   This was a word she picked up on that we didn’t realize she did for a while.   ‘Oops’ is a common thing to say when you drop something and she figured out it typically meant food for her if she got there before we could clean it up.    Once we realized that we just started saying, “OOPS” in a loud voice so we didn’t have to clean up.   We’d even drop things intentionally sometimes.

So yes, I miss our dog.   But life is less complicated with two children who run in and out of the house with their friends, trips that are taken and a dog who was in pain and in congestive heart failure.   So far, the children are fine without a dog replacement.   My husband and I are also fine with this as well.   But I do miss her sometimes even so.

The Big Boy Update:  My son created a lot of crumbs at breakfast.   His sister had created about the same number.   I told them they needed to sweep up and they could work together to get the job done more quickly.   My daughter balked.   My son, who usually does the balking, said to his sister, “I know how we can make this fun.   We can dance.”   And so he swept and danced with his sister.   I think they got about thirty percent of the crumbs while scattering another forty percent to further corners of the kitchen.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My husband told my daughter tonight, “you should practice your patience.”  My daughter said, “but I’m not a patient person.”   When I came down to dinner I sat down and was told this funny little exchange.   I stifled a laugh and went to get my phone so I could write it down to write here.   When I got back to the table my daughter said, “I know what you’re doing mom, you’re writing that down so you can put it in your blog.”   The children are picking up on this more and more lately, even making suggestions themselves on things they think are, “blog-worthy”.