I Had a Blast

Tonight is the beginning of the festivities for my brother-in-law and his partner’s wedding.   I’ve been pretty excited about the weekend and if tonight is any indication, it’s going to be a weekend to remember.

Relatives and friends are coming from all over.   My husband and his parents hosted a party at our house for all the guests who arrived today, prior to tomorrow’s wedding.   We tried to make our house festive with holiday decorations and had some Italian food brought in.   There was champagne and a dessert I ordered from a pastry chef I loved.

Everyone is departing now and I’ve snuck into the bedroom to write a quick blog post.   Thankfully Aunt A and Uncle Bob’s mother were taking lots of pictures.   Tomorrow is the wedding and Sunday there’s a brunch.  Tonight’s wrapping up, I had a blast.  I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

The Big Boy Chronicles:  At the beginning of the party my son disappeared.   We found out he was standing right outside the front door.   When I opened it to tell him Grandma Leef had a present for him he told me, “not now.   I’m greeting the guests.”

The Getting Bigger Girl Update:  We got my daughter a navy dress for the wedding tomorrow to match the wedding main color of navy.   We also got her a second dress for tonight.   Tonight’s dress had an attached necklace.   She’s never had a necklace to go with an outfit before.   She liked dressing and wearing her red dress shoes.   I didn’t think she liked the necklace until later in the night when it disconnected from her dress.   She came to me upset about it.   I told her it was an easy fix and I’d fix it for her in the morning so she could go back to the party.

Table Manners

I remember as a child learning from my mother how to set a table.   I found out which utensils went on which side of the plate and how the knife should be faced.   There was some confusion on my part because I’m left-handed and while I know where the glass should be placed, it was always the wrong side for me.   But I remembered and it was good to know how to set a table.

My mother also taught me table manners including how to use the utensils to eat: how to hold a fork, use a knife and fork and ladle soup into my mouth.   Later, my father taught me how to use chopsticks and how to eat sushi, which was also a good thing because my love of sushi has only grown since then.

Today, how often do I use those table manners?  I was thinking about this while we were in Las Vegas as the group of friends who went together to run in the race met for brunch at one of the large, casino buffets the next morning.   I was eating, they were all eating, and no one was paying any attention to how people were using their utensils.   To be sure, no one was shoveling food into their mouths with their hands alone, but barring that, it was really anything goes.

I think my generation is a much more casual one than that of my parents.   When we have people for dinner we don’t set the table, we have people get their own utensils out of the drawer and stack the plates on the island.  The food sits on the island or stove, depending on what my husband decided to cook for the day.   Everyone serves themselves and selects what and how much of whatever they want.

If someone wants seconds, they get up from the table and get themselves more most of the time.  Everyone has picked out their own beverage and if they need more or want something different, they typically go get what they’re looking for.  No one minds or thinks a thing of it; everyone is self-sufficient.


We should, but we don’t, adhere more to the, “ask to be excused” model of a group dinner for the children.   This part is something we need to work on.   The children like to get up and down and sitting still is always a challenge for my children.   If it’s a special dinner we ask them to wait with us and wait until everyone is ready for dessert—even though they’re always ready for dessert first.

It seems to work well for my generation.   But I did think about it, wondering if my peers really are using proper utensil usage.   Do they put their elbows on the table?   Are their napkins in their lap?   Do they ask to be excused when they want to get up?  

One thing my peers do is always say thank you.   Everyone is complimentary and generally grateful for a meal served to them at our home (well, that they self-served).   There isn’t a lot of judgement that I’ve noticed, mostly because there are so many less, “rules”.   I have Emily Post’s manners and etiquette book on my bookshelf in the living room.   I haven’t pulled it out in years, maybe I should review it and see how different we are culturally today.  

The Big Boy's Chronicles:  My son is excited about the, “Cap and Map” session he’s going to have next week to map his brain for upcoming Neural Training we’re going to do for him to help with his focus and processing speed.   I told him (truthfully) that the cap Dr. Dan will be putting on him is like what the astronauts have used under their space suits.   He was disappointed he has to wait until next week; he wanted to go today

The Tiny Girl’s Update:  There’s a game on Alexa called,  “Freeze Dancer”.   Alexa plays a song and then says, “freeze”.   Then she tells you what to do for the next song (hop, spin, plod like an elephant, high knees, act lie a monkey, etc.).  One time Alexa said, “close your eyes and dance.”   My daughter told Alexa back, “but I’m blind…”.  Then she offered, “I guess I could close my one eye” (since she has only one eye she can see with.)

The Program Assignment

I’m very excited about this weekend because Uncle Bob and Uncle Brian are getting married.  They’ve been planning the weekend for some time and it’s all coming together.   They’re getting married in town here, which has put us at the hub of everything.   And if you know me, I like to be right in the thick of things, so that suits me just fine.

My children are really looking forward to the wedding.   They have their special attire for the day and know there will be a party at our house for wedding guests on Friday night.  My daughter and son are telling me how many days there are until the wedding and they’re looking forward to having their aunts and uncles in town for the weekend.

Tonight I had a special assignment.   The wedding programs came in the mail today.   I opened the package and pulled out one of the programs.   Both Bob and Brian have been very thoughtful about how my daughter would be able to experience their wedding with her lack of vision.   One of the ideas they had was for her to have her own program printed in braille.

I don’t think it would have even occurred to me to have a program for her to read.   Maybe in part I still think of my children as small little humans who can’t read or who wouldn’t be interested in reading a wedding program.   Only I know my son is going to read through the whole thing and ask questions about it before the wedding begins.   So why wouldn’t my daughter too?

So tonight I went through the program and identified the whole-word or letter group contractions she’s learned so that I could type up her special program using her braille writer.   But I didn’t type it yet.   Because I make a lot of mistakes.   Because the backspace is my best friend on a keyboard.   And when it comes to braille, I’m in dire need of a backspace button.

I’m not bad at typing braille, but I’m trying to convert a letter into a group of one to six dots, rotated ninety degrees from the angle of the keyboard.   And some of the letters I’m converting are letter groups or words and have their own dot pattern.   Hence the mistakes.  Thankfully you can easily erase mistakes in braille using a high-tech erasing tool called your fingernail.   You just push the dots back into the paper and type the correct character.

My daughter is going to be very excited to have very own program in Braille at the wedding on Saturday.

The Big Boy Chronicles:  I came into the bedroom the other day to take a phone call.   I had been on the phone about five minutes when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.   Movement where there shouldn’t have been any at a couch chair in the corner of our bedroom.   I got up and looked down behind the chair in the tiny, corner crevice where my children used to play to find my son with his iPad, without permission.  I didn’t know they still fit back there.

The Tiny Girl Update:  My daughter wanted to tell me the colors of the cars that were passing us when we were in the car the other day.   Her vision is so poor that we’re lucky if she can tell when a car passes, let alone the color.   But she can tell some things and there are a few colors she can discern over others.    As she stared intently out the window she muttered to herself, “don’t blow this for me…"

In My Daughter’s Words

Every week my daughter has a free writing period.   Her work comes home from time to time and it’s always interesting to see what she writes about.   She describes what happened in her life from her perspective.  Here are the past several weeks about the most memorable things that happened in her life.

On Going to the State Fair:

On Picking A Pumpkin:

On Going to a Y Guides Campout:

On Halloween:

On Getting A Dog:

The Big Boy Update:  My son sang me a song on the way home from school yesterday.   He said the song would only be for the day because it wouldn’t work any other day.   The song had several verses, all counting the number of days until an important event happened in his life, like his birthday, Rayan’s birthday and Uncle Bob and Uncle Brian’s wedding.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has her student-led conference in a few hours.   We get to go as parents and have her show us all the work she’s been doing this quarter.   She’s excited we’re coming to meet her and her class after school.

Types of Tears

I can’t remember how it came up, but my children and I were talking about crying the other week.   Considering that the conversation was over a week ago its no wonder I have no memory of the specific details.   I’m getting older and my memory just isn’t what it used to be.   I wrote down the trigger phrase, “types of tears” in my blog post idea list so for now I’m going to have to wing it, synthesizing things from multiple conversations to try and make you believe it was one single conversation.   So here goes…

My daughter made a birthday card for our next-door-neighbor, Bryna.  The card was very sweet.   I know this because when my daughter was done with it she asked me to interline it with text so Bryna would be able to read it.   When she took it over for Bryna to read, Bryna started crying.  Only a little bit, that bit where a tear or two rolls down your cheek.   She told my daughter she was crying and my daughter didn’t believe her, because she wasn’t wailing crying in the way children do when they’re upset.

Bryna took her hand and let her feel the tears on her face so my daughter would believe her.   Bryna saw me later and told me about the card and how touched she was by it and about the crying bit.   My daughter is exasperating, a crybaby, a drama queen and a tattle tale sometimes.   But she’s also a very kind, giving and caring person.   She can touch you in a very special way, perhaps in part because we see her as blind and persevering, or perhaps because that’s just the person she is.

It was the next day though that I was telling my daughter in the car how special her birthday card was to Bryna and that she told me she had cried.   My son was in the car with us and he asked me something that brought back memories from my childhood.   He said, “was Bryna sad?”

I remember when I was young we had neighbors that always had cats.   They were indoor/outdoor cats and it seemed like they had bad luck with them because they had more cats over my childhood than most people do.   And by had more, I mean lost more due to cancer, illness, old age or car accident.   They’d lost a grey cat named, I think, “Fluffy”.   Lola, the mother, had said she wasn’t ready for another cat when her daughter, Veda, asked when they were getting one.

It was Lola’s birthday about a week later.   We were at the dinner party when one of Lola’s best friends came in the door, holding a tiny kitten in her arms.   She handed it to Lola and I watched as tears streamed down her face while she gingerly held the small kitten.

I didn’t understand, I told my mother, “why is Lola sad?”  My mother told me that sometimes you can cry when you’re happy too.   I asked if she was sure Lola was happy?  My mother said she was positive, Lola was very happy.

So I told my children that we can cry if we’re sad or if we’re angry but that sometimes, when something special happens, we can cry when we’re happy.

The Big Boy Chronicles:  My son told me, “Mom, you might not know something.  When we grow up the world might not be what you think it is.”   I told him I thought he was right.

The Tiny Girl Update:  My daughter discovered a funny thing to get Alexa to do.   Or at least get our Alexa’s to do.   Or at least get our Alexa’s to do if you sound like my daughter or me.   She said, “Alexa, how do you spell thought?”   Alexa responds that you spell fart f-a-r-t.   She and I tried every way we could with exaggerated pronunciation to try and get Alexa to spell ‘thought’ but we could only get her to spell fart.

The Tooth That Was Not Quite Out

My daughter has had a tooth that needed to come out.   It was being pushed out by the permanent tooth and had started to looks very strange indeed when she smiled or opened her mouth.   It was bothering her, making it difficult to eat.

She isn’t bothered by the teeth when they get loose; she’ll even work on them, trying to get the tooth out earlier rather than later.   But this tooth was persistent in staying put in her mouth.

This is what she looked like earlier today.   Note that the tooth is actually sideways in her mouth.



She won over the tooth eventually.  Tonight the Tooth Fairy will (hopefully remember to) put a dollar under her pillow to celebrate.

The Big Boy Update:  For some reason my son got interested in the knives in our knife block the other day.   We have a big block with a variety of knives in it.   He pulled each of them out, asking about some and making judgement on how others could be used.   When he pulled out the cleaver he said, “I think you could kill a cow with this.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is now taking a low dose of an antibiotic that is fairly useless to the rest of the body because it gets absorbed into the kidneys and bladder very quickly.   But it is good for bladder infections.   She’ll be on this low dose for some time.   It’s only available in a pill and we weren’t sure how she was going to do with it.   I told her she could try swallowing it with lemonade.   I got her a full glass, thinking this could be a challenging event.   She put the pill in her mouth, took a sip of lemonade and swallowed it easily.   We told her we were proud of her, some adults had difficulty swallowing pills.

Two Bowls Bigger

Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Margaret came over today.   There was some running done (on their part) and some holiday decorations being put up (on my side) and also some Thread Ripper computer assembly being worked on (on my husband’s end).   My children were doing their own things, mostly consisting of my daughter talking to us about anything and everything while my son played Spider Man on the Xbox.

My husband cooked dinner while Margaret and I talked, interspersed with my daughter talking to us and giving the dog treats, while Jonathan was told all about the Spider Man game by my son.   As the adults sat down to dinner, having gotten our bowls full with pasta and meat sauce, my son was already asking for his second bowl full.

A short few minutes later my son, again, asked for another bowl.   When it was time for dessert my daughter was ready (and when isn’t she ready for dessert).   My husband told her, “your brother ate two more bowls of pasta and you’ve only eaten one bowl.”   To which she replied, “but my brother is two bowls of pasta bigger than I am.”

The Big Boy Update:  My son got ice cream cake icing all over him.   All over his face, his hands and even part of his arm.   He wasn’t allowed to leave the eating area until he’d washed his hands.   As he left we noticed he still had icing on his face.   My daughter, always wanting to help out (or maybe to tattle) said, “Alexa, tell everyone, Greyson, you still have icing on your face.”   Alexa dutifully announced to all the Amazon Echos the message.   My son appeared at the top of the stairs, looked at all of us and made an exaggerated swipe of his face with his shirt sleeve, turned and returned downstairs.   It was so outlandish we couldn’t help but laugh.

The Tiny Girl Update as Well:  My daughter is doing well with the dog as far as training her with treats.   She will ask the dog to come and when the treat is taken out of her hand she knows she’s gotten it right.   She can’t tell when the dog is actually sitting or has laid down though, so she’s a little liberal with the treats.   She has, however, come up with her own challenge for the dog—one which the dog excels at.   It’s called, she told me, “find the treat”.   With the puppy in front of her she takes a treat and places it in her radius of reach on the ground.   This is usually about a foot away from the dog, who watches where she puts it down.   She happily says, “find!”  And since the dog knows exactly where it is, she quickly eats it up.   My daughter thinks the dog is a whiz at this new skill.   I hope my son or one of the neighbor children doesn’t ruin it for my daughter.

Decorations Time

I’m putting up holiday decorations today.   I think a lot of families put them up this early.   This is the earliest I’ve ever put mine up.   I think it’s going to be the latest I’ll ever take them down too, as we’ll be traveling over Christmas and into the new year.  

I like the decorations when they’re up but I’m always glad when it’s time to put them away.   It’s strange how the house looks so empty once everything’s back in their boxes.   Right now I’m trying to clear off shelves to figure out where everything goes.   It should, if I remember things correctly, go the same place as last year.   Remembering is the trick, though.

My children are excited about the decorations, but not as much as they are the Halloween decorations, which we have far less of.  If I’m going to get this all done before bed I’d better get back to it.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is still “streaking” his pants.   He just doesn’t want to stop what he’s doing to go to the bathroom.   He’s gone through phases like this before, but this one is an annoyingly long one.   He has to clean what he messes up.   He’s getting to be pretty good at the cleaning; it’s not as much of a deterrent as it used to be.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is working on retraining the dog from biting and tugging on her clothes (something she initially encouraged) to tugging a chew toy instead.  She and the dog are having a lot of good time together this week.

Do I have Something Special To Wear?

Thanksgiving day here was fairly laid back.   My husband and I tried to sleep in with little to no success as my children were in contentious moods and needed to thwart our attempts at sleep every two to five minutes with questions, complaints and whining about this, that or the other thing.  

But the day started out well.   It turns out the Tooth Fairy had remembered to leave my daughter a dollar under her pillow for the tooth she worked at getting out two nights prior.   For some reason we weren’t sure of (dad forgot) no money had been left the night before.   Perhaps there were a lot of children who lost teeth just before Thanksgiving.   Fortunately, my daughter was just as happy to have a dollar on the second night as she would have been on the first.

My husband started cooking around noon for our dinner including my parents and my in-laws.   My daughter decided she wanted to help me wash the dog but after the puppy was out of the tub (they both got in together) she elected to stay in and play games with tub toys for the next two hours.   While I got things ready for dinner, she happily ran bits of hot water to keep the tub warm.  

My daughter got out eventually, after I told her there wasn’t any time left and I suggested she wear a nice dress for the evening.   She said, “can I wear my pretty dress?”   I found out that meant the dress Grandma Shu had mailed to her for her birthday and yes, she could definitely wear that.   My son came in and saw her dressed up and said, “do I have something special to wear?”

I told him I would go get him something and that he definitely had something special to wear.   I didn’t think he’d be interested in dressing up but after a bit of a hunt I found a nice T5 button down shirt for five-year-olds, can you tell we don’t dress up much here?  The sleeves were short but he was happy.   I thought it was sweet he wanted to dress up too.

Dinner was good, as always.   My father made his famous cream top macaroon pie and my mother-in-law cleaned all the dishes with an assist from my mother.   The dog discovered people food for the first time via the crumbs of bread my children left under their chairs.

The house is back in order and tomorrow we start on decorating the house for Christmas, a bit earlier than we typically do, but we have a wedding celebration this coming weekend so we’re gearing up for the holidays early this year.

The Big Boy Chronicles:   My son has been manic, and I mean manic, for the past two days.   We’re not sure why.   We took away screens for the day and thought about blaming too much screens the prior day as the cause, but he’s had screens before, has had many times, and it hasn’t been like this.   He had some Benadryl which usually makes him low-key and sleepy and it only toned him down a tiny bit.   He hasn’t had extra sugar or a change in diet.   Tomorrow I hope he’ll be back to his normal self.

The Tiny Girl Update:  My daughter fell asleep at the dinner table before dessert and then had to be dressed for bed while she complained so she could pass out early.   I think her antibiotic is making her tired.

It’s Almost Like It’s Flying

It’s been ten months.  Ten months with the largest LEGO model ever sold on my dining room table. I like Star Wars. I grew up at the perfect age for the Star Wars era.  And I like LEGOs too,   But ten months with my dining room table being taken over by the LEGO “to scale with the mini figures” Melinnium Falcon was about my limit,

Breaking it down is, apparently, verboten, so a storage system needed to be created,   A box, reinforced, that could entomb the model for all time.   My husband has been using his power tools in the basement and emerged recently to prepare for the transport from the table to the attic,

My son has been interested in the process, following his father around.  As I heard them starting to climb the stairs I heard my husband say to my son, “it’s almost like it’s flying,”. And now, from the attic, my husband is sending me a text and a picture saying, “it made it.”

The Big Boy Update:  My son got in trouble tonight.  Big trouble.  It took a lot to calm him down afterwards, and while he’s fine now, he’s manic.  Seroiusly out of control.  I can’t get him calmed to go to bed.  Although, he got in trouble in part for being out of control.   I don’t really know what’s causing him to be so spastic right now.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is interacting more calmly with the dog now.  She's learning how to give her treats and pet her in a way the dog wants.    She’s carrying her around like a baby doll less (we're not allowing too much) and she has been doing a good job of redirecting when Matisse wants to chew on her clothes.   Im really proud of her for listening and trying.

When Mom and Dad Were Away

My daughter has been working on a book at school.   She worked with her VI teacher to create a story, type it up on the braille writer—pressing hard so she gets a good impression for each character—and then illustrate the story.  I think my daughter could write stories all day at school.   She enjoys writing about real life experiences as well as making up stories.

In the case of her VI class, she also gets to illustrate the story.   This story was about what happened during the time my husband and I went to Las Vegas to run in a half marathon race.  This is the first page of the book:



The, “illustrations” are pretty impressive if you ask me.  I’ve been to Michaels and the scrapbooking section gets more and more extravagant.    My daughter knows exactly what each of those stickers represents.   She thought dad wore a sweatband maybe and it turned out he did, on one wrist, because I found a pink TMobile one and told him he should wear it just in case.   He wears sunglasses any time during daylight hours outside and I have been known to wear a hat.   Those shoes are the best though, with real lacing on the side.  

The thing is, she knows what each feels like, not what it looks like.   She knows that feeling shape represents sunglasses.   But look at the shape of the tennis visor: it as a blob, with no color or shading, doesn’t look anything at all like a hat.   My daughter has to take it on faith that that particular shape in that specific instance represents a hat someone might wear when running.

She remembered all the additions she put in her book.   She talked about the cake she made with Nana and had a page with marshmallow and sprinkle stickers as she talked about decorating the cake.   She had some ice cream representation stickers for the page where she talked about her friends coming over to eat the cake.   She even made herself some playing cards to represent the Old Maid playing cards Aunt Rebecca, Uncle Dale and Olivia had sent to her.   She talked about playing Old Maid with Nana.    She told me they didn’t have good stickers for that so she had to make her own.

And of course there were several pages dedicated to the dog including dog bones and dog toys.   She ended the book with, “We had fun with my dog and me.  Have a grate day.”

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been a lot calmer and honestly more mature lately.   Or so it seems to me.   I feel like I’m talking to a child that’s suddenly several years older.   He still has his moments, but there is some maturity coming out in him.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has said to me twice recently, “…and is that why God made me blind?”  She’s said it in the context of discussion that this isn’t a positive thing, it’s a negative thing that God “did to her”.  This has distressed me because we have never presented her blindness to her in that light.   I don’t know if it’s children from school or where it’s coming from but I did what I could to explain things in a more positive light.   Her blindness is hard for her, I hate for her to think it was a punishment from God.

Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner

We had, without planning, a pre-Thanksgiving dinner tonight.   My parents had just arrived in town and my in-laws were in to do some work on the house they’ll eventually be moving to and we all were hungry so we had dinner together at the house her—which is what we’ll be doing three nights from now for Thanksgiving dinner.

My husband cooked ribs, or rather warmed up some pre-prepared ribs he gets from his, “meat man” as we like to call him.  They’re good.   Darned good.   So good that it almost makes preparing your own ribs not worth the effort.

My mother-in-law cleaned up the dishes (she’s the best) while my mother took my daughter up to bed.   My daughter is having a very rough time lately with the dog injury and other things happening in her life.   We’re trying to be supportive and nurturing in the best ways we can, but she can push and push hard and she knows how to push emotional buttons.   Sometimes it’s very hard to tell if it’s true anxiety/hurt/anger or if (for example) she just doesn’t want to eat the, “disgusting, yucky, slimy” ribs and wants to get to have dessert for free.

She lost out tonight but it still tears at my heart because we have to almost force her to take the antibiotic and do the drops before we can put her to bed.   She has more extra to do than most children, and none of it is fun. Mimi helped, reading to her until she fell asleep though.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son was excited to see a magic video on Papa’s phone.   Gramps showed him some tricks and I tried to be Gramps assistant but failed miserably (and I know how to be a good assistant, I was just uncoordinated and dropped the ball—literally).   Then my son wanted to recreate a disappearing act using his father and a blanket.   He did really well, although we had to do a number of takes videoing him before we got it right.  He was so excited to see the completed video.   We’ll have to show Gramps tomorrow since Gramps is our family magician.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  In the middle of my daughter being upset about dinner and the dog, she wailed to me that we missed the treats with her class.   What treats, I asked her.   Apparently we were supposed to bring in treats for her classmates on her birthday (which was on a weekend) but we didn’t know or hear anything from her teacher.   But none of that matters, we missed it and it’s too late now, she said.   I feel awful.

Birthday Party and That Leg Issue

Today my daughter had her seventh birthday party.  It was at a trampoline place with some of her closest friends.   Two of them, Rayan and Keira, came over beforehand to help put the treat bags together.   As they were leaving, just before we were about to head out for the party I got a message from their mother.

She told me they wouldn’t be coming to the party.   There were some poor choices the children had made as well as some entitlement issues and they had lost the privilege of coming to the birthday party.   I told her we understood completely and sometimes those kinds of lessons were the best, albeit most unhappy, ones.  

Her children had known they wouldn’t be going, but wanted to come over and help with the bags because they had promised to the day before.   They were embarrassed and upset about it, but they didn’t let on.

As we were getting ready to go to the car I told the children about their friends not being able to come.   My daughter cried.  My son said we had to cancel the party if his best friend Rayan couldn’t come.  I understood how they were sad too.   They wanted to know what had happened and I explained we didn’t need to know and I gave examples of why they might not want a reason given if they had done something and lost the privilege of going to a party.

I also explained that we didn’t need to tell friends at the party that they weren’t allowed to come.   That if anyone asked, we could just say they couldn’t make it.   I also told the children that after the party Rayan and Keira had a present for my daughter and could come back over and play.  

And everything went well after that.   The party was fun, the trampolines were bouncy and the cupcakes my husband made were chocolaty.  On the way home I messaged Rayan and Keira’s mother asking if our children could come over for a bit because I was taking the dog to the vet.   She still wasn’t putting down the paw, and while we didn’t think it was broken, she was clearly in discomfort and not her usual self.

Lisa said to send the children over (who went with balloons and cupcakes to share) and I headed to the vet.   X-rays confirmed nothing was broken and she also said she didn’t feel any laxity in the movement of the leg, which means no ligaments are torn.  But she’s still sore, and only putting the leg down a tiny bit.

They gave her some pain medication, which interestingly enough isn’t a pain medication in humans, it’s a nerve medication: gabapentin.   I’ve taken gabapentin for nerve pain before I started taking lyrica.   She said it works well in dogs.   She didn’t want to prescribe an NSAID for her given her young age.

Hopefully she’s bruised and sore and she’ll heal quickly—which is apparently what puppies do.   My daughter is much calmer today and (I think) understands that accidents happen and it’s okay and not to blame herself.   She and Matisse are back to being great friends again.    The dog is low energy and slow moving with the injury though.  I’m looking forward to having her back to her old self.

The Big Boy Update:  My son came home on Friday and said, “mom, say the ‘F’ word.”  I played dumb and said, “Ferdinand?”  He said, “no, I mean F U C K.”  I said, “oh, that word.  That’s an adult word, which you know, and when you’re an adult you can say it.   I’m glad to know you know how it’s spelled.”   I thought we’d heard the end of it until today at my daughter’s birthday party when he mentioned it again.  He protested he didn’t “say” the word.   He has been advised on the use of the word either in spoken or spelled form.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had a good time at her birthday party today.   We always say no presents, but some friends like to get things even so.   She got an envelope with seven dollars, one for each year she was old and another card came with a bag of Reeses Mini Cups—which she loves.   Her favorite card was from her classmate who is also visually impaired.   It’s a singing card with a dog that spins on the page when you open it up.   Aditi wanted to open it with her so they could dance to the music together.

Unhappy To Report

This is not a happy blog post.   First let’s just start off saying that my daughter having so many medical things happen to her is a big, big tear in her psyche.   She struggles and won’t talk about it.   It’s harder for her than we realize sometimes.   And today was a bad day for her.   A bad day.

We’ve suspected for several days that her bladder infection was back.   She wet the bed two nights ago—which hasn’t happened since the killer ten days of super-de-duper antibiotic that was supposed to eradicate everything in her bladder.    One month later and it’s back.   We can’t get in until the beginning of the week so we’ve put her on one of the medications from before that we had left over.   She is very unhappy about this.   But more happened…

She was in her favorite tree in the front yard climbing up to the top.   Madison was underneath her, climbing a few limbs down.  My daughter, with the bladder infection, apparently lost control and some urine came out, and it landed on Madison.    Madison yelled something about it being gross, jumped out of the tree and ran off.

My daughter, highly embarrassed, jumped out of the tree as fast as she could…and landed on the dog.

It was bad.   The dog screamed.  My husband came running.   My son was holding the dog.  My daughter was upset.   Matisse only cried for about fifteen seconds, but she will not, at all, put the leg down and bear weight on it.

And while I’m worried about the puppy,  I’m also worried about my daughter—a lot.   She fell asleep tonight at 6:10pm probably due to all the mental stress on her.  She doesn’t need this.   She told my husband, “I want to die” right after it happened.   She’s never, ever said anything like that.  She doesn’t want to have anything to do with the dog and won’t talk to us at all about anything even related.   She even lost it with me about taking the medicine for the bladder infection, yelling, “I don’t want to have to take medicine!”   And on top of that she has three rounds of five different kinds of drops every day and pressure readings with the ocular pressure machine.   And her vision is only getting worse, less, closer to total blindness.

So yes, I’m worried about her.  Now about the puppy.   We went to Practice Thanksgiving at a our friends house this afternoon.   My husband made the turkey and our friends would all be there and we had no choice but to leave the dog and hope all was well.   But we didn’t do so without some medical advice first.

As timing would have it, Margaret and Uncle Jonathan had come over to run in the park across from our neighborhood.   Margret is both a doctor and has worked in animal research specifically with dogs.   Margaret gave Matisse a thorough examination, checking movement of her leg and looking for other signs of injury.   Matisse’s leg moves completely in a normal fashion.   It can be manipulated to the full range of motion without even a whimper from the dog.   The toes aren’t sore, the muscles aren’t sore.   We can massage her muscles, move her leg and check all around and we get no pain response, not a flinch.   The kneecap doesn’t seem to be dislocated nor does the hip.

Margaret said it was possible her hip dislocated when she was landed on but is now back in, except it’s sore.   When we got home I was hopeful Matisse would put the foot down and realize it wasn’t painful anymore and walk normally again.   Only she isn’t doing so.   We see no bruising, but that doesn’t mean it’s not internally bruised or strained.

If she’s not better by morning we’ll reevaluate.   For both the dog and my daughter’s psyche, I really hope she’s better in the morning.

The Big Boy Update:  We went to our friends house for practice thanksgiving today.   They have a eleventy-twelve cats (or some other high number that my son might make up).   We gave him some Benadryl so he wouldn’t react with his allergy.   I knew it was going to put him to sleep.   When he was on the sofa after dinner he looked groggy.   We asked him if the Benadryl was hitting him and he smiled and nodded a, “yep” answer just before he nodded off to sleep.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted to play with the cats at our friends house today but she was only able to touch the whiskers of one cat before it dashed away.   The dog choice was a good one: she touches Matisse all the time and Matisse likes it.

He Nailed Me

My husband and I met with my son’s play therapist yesterday.   We haven’t had a chance to speak with her in a while, which is mostly because my son has been working with an integrative therapist instead, suggested by Dhruti, his play therapist.   And while Liz has been very helpful in many ways, recently she’s questioned if she was the best fit for his current needs.   She suggested having Dhruti see him for a session or two to get her take on where he was developmentally.

Dhruti hadn’t seen him, or the evaluation results we had from this summer’s testing but she got up to speed quickly, asking after two sessions to have a meeting to discuss.  She said the evaluation made complete sense and explained what was happening in school with him.   She said she’d explain, but first, she wanted to tell us about something that happened with my son that has never happened to her in all her years as a therapist.

She said my son was sitting on the bean bag chair, reclining back, and said to her, “so you just play and figure me out?”  She said, “he nailed me.  A child has never done that before.”  He followed up with, “you use my play to learn about me?”   She told him that was what she did, yes, and that she took what she learned to help the adults help him.   My son said he was okay with that.

So from a conceptual standpoint my son understands things.   He gets the big picture.   His working memory is great.   Scientifically, he’s being held back because his executive decision making is poor and his sensory regulation isn’t high.   Making sense of things is slowing him down, which is incredibly frustrating to him and manifests as a sensory regulation issue.   That’s fancy for is causing it to look like he can’t focus and is distracted and/or actively avoids doing the work, which can also include disrupting his friend’s work.

His work at school isn’t difficult for him—he even told Dhruti he didn’t find the school work hard.   But he can’t get to the work because of the executive functioning issue.   Basically his ability to process things doesn’t match up with his intellect.

So we have a new plan.  One that will rewire his developing brain on two fronts.   The first is Theraplay, which sounds mild-mannered as a word, but is very specific and adds specific skills to the child’s brain without the child even knowing it’s happening.   A parent is present and participates in the sessions and then we have “homework” to continue to build on what’s done in session.   It’s about twenty weeks and then it’s done.

My son has done, “play therapy” before with Dhruti.   This is talk therapy for a child who doesn’t have the words to talk.   The child plays out things and the therapist is trained to understand and interpret the play.   This kind of therapy is completely directed by the child, because the child needs to, “speak” what’s happening in their mind.   Theraplay, consisting of almost all the same letters but rearranged is entirely different.   Each session is directed one-hundred percent by the therapist with specific goals—goals that will help strengthen his brain in the areas he needs.  

The other facet to helping my son will be to add in some neurofeedback, which is like playing video games for your brain, without using your hands to control things.   I’ll write more on this when I know more, because at this point I know very little.   But it’s video games (of a sort) so my son is going to be pretty excited if I’d venture to guess.

The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted to play Fortnite with my husband tonight.   After dinner my son went to the bonus room where the Nintendo Switch is.   My husband was in the basement on his computer.   They were playing together well, with my son sending messages to his father through the Alexas that were in each of their rooms.   I don’t know how well they did, but my son had a great time.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter reminded me we needed to make treat bags for her birthday party.   Fortunately we have lots of candy from Halloween.   I asked her what things she wanted to give away (four pieces of candy is a plenty, I told her).   She selected smarties, Nerds, Milky Way minis and Laffy Taffy.   Tomorrow we’ll stuff the bags and put something else fun in them for her friends before we go to the indoor trampoline park for her party on Sunday.

New Furniture

Well, not new furniture, but new to us.   My husband and I have been working on cleaning and rearranging the attic.   We’ve been doing so so we can fit a bedroom suit in in preparation for a suit from my in-laws they’re giving us when they relocate to their new home.

Are we done with the attic?  No, but we’ve made good progress.   Today was the last day because the furniture is being delivered tomorrow.   My husband and I were both busy all day but managed to do a quick shove job late afternoon.   We’ve blocked lots of things off with furniture pieces, but we have a plan to get things more accessible when we have more time to dedicate to the attic.

For now, I’m just hoping the children are both in school at the same time so we can get some work done during the week days.  That is, when we’re not dealing with a very cute but large time commitment puppy.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was so energetic today.   Spastic.   Hyperactive.   But he was happy and had a good day at school.   He ran down the hall and into bed.  I don’t know if he’s asleep yet.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter went to the planetarium with her class today.   My husband went as a chaperone for the class.   He talked to her and she knew she wasn’t going to be able to see much at all.   But the theme was The Magic Treehouse—which she loves—so she had a great time even though she couldn’t see much.

Integrated Playing

This dog is so flexible and child friendly.   I watch them pick her up, move her from place to place, touch her body all over, tickle her, pet her, shove toys in her face, yell ‘NO’ when she’s doing something she shouldn’t, put a microphone in her face, kiss her, hug her, put her in the cage, pull her out of the cage, move her bed around, put toys on her head…and the dog rolls with it all.

My last dog, Lucy, that was old by the time we had children, was not good at all with anyone, much less children.   The memories the children have of her are positive, but they could interact with her very little.   Matisse, however, is another thing altogether.  From what we’re hoping, the breed and temperament of this particular dog will be a good fit for the children as they grow.   And a good fit for my daughter, who loves that she has a pet she can interact with—that actually likes interacting with her.

We’re not even two weeks into dog ownership but so far, so good.   Now if I could just get the dog to use the bathroom outside 100% of the time…

The Big Boy Update:  My son loves the gambling gifts we got him.   He was using the card shuffler Nana got us a while back and his father was teaching him how to play blackjack.   They were using the pretend casino chips we got my son.   In the car this morning he said to me, “about Las Vegas, is it a tourist place?”  I told him it definitely was, it was one of the biggest I knew.”   My son replied, “Like Haiti?”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Tonight after bath and drying my daughter’s hair she suddenly said, “shh! I’m trying to hear something.”  She moved very slowly in the direction of the bathroom while I stayed perfectly still until she triumphantly said, “there it is!  I smell Jello.”

Parental Presents

Remember when you were a child and your parent or parents went away and you couldn’t wait for them to get home because (in part) they were going to bring you a present from wherever they went? My father did a lot of traveling in our state for work but every now and again he or he and my mother would go someplace different, some place not at all close to where I lived, and they’d typically bring me something from that different place, giving it to me when they got home.

My parents always did a good job of getting something little that typified some aspect of that culture or location.   If it was candy they got double points, although some of the more memorable presents were things that at the time seemed boring or too grown up that I wouldn’t appreciate until I was older.

Now I’m the parent and when my husband and I go on vacation we get something for the children.   We were in Las Vegas and finding something touristy was pretty easy.   My children aren’t old enough to realize or remember about the gifts and aren’t at the pestering age yet, asking us, “what did you bring me?” the moment we walk in the door.

My daughter is easy because she loves all stuffed animals.  It doesn’t matter what it looks like, as long as the feel and shape are interesting she’s happy.   My son we weren’t sure on but since he likes magic tricks I thought a set of rigged dice would be fun—guaranteed to roll seven or eleven.

He loved the dice and made up games with them while we were eating dinner.  We talked about the maximum number you could roll with four dice and the minimum number.   Then we adjusted that maximum and minimum based on the restrictions of the trick dice and found our range of possible outcomes was narrower.  

We guessed what number I’d come up with when I rolled the dice and found out all four of us had “lost our bet”.   We told them that was what gambling was like and how much had they wagered on picking the right number?  My son (even though he knew he had lost) had apparently put a lot of money down.   My daughter, being the more frugal child, said she had bet only one dollar.

The Big Boy Update:  We also got my son some facsimile casino chips from our trip to Las Vegas.   He spread them out on the table and has already started thinking about how he’s going to use them in games with his friends.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We got my daughter a sucker in the shape of a large die.   She could feel the indentation of the pips on the sucker and wanted to know of they went through to the sucker or if it was only on the wrapping cellophane.   It was too late to eat it today but I’d bet tomorrow she’s going to want to eat that pointy, cubed sucker as her dessert after dinner.

I Made It

This is a story about true love.  True love, my mother told me once, “is taking a second semester of statistics because your husband can’t make it through the course without you.”  This story is similar to that.   I’m going to tell the story verbatim.   Telling the actual story as it happened exactly, except I’m going to change some things to make me look better.

My husband and I ran a half marathon last night in Las Vegas.   We first ran the strip out towards the airport until we reached the, “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign.   Everyone turned around and headed back along the strip, passing the towering casinos, heading towards downtown.   Once we got all the way to the old downtown area we circled back again, to return and finish near where we’d started on the strip.

There are a lot of people running in big races like this, which requires a lot of coordination.   There was a staging area set up to house everyone.   The staging area had a stage with a band playing.   It was packed and we had to be there hours before our race start time.   Once our group was called we piled in with a mass of people to walk towards the start line.   Once we got near the start line we waited and inched up for another forty-five minutes before our group crossed the start line to begin the race.

I run with pants that have lots of pockets.  I put my phone in one and have my room key, drivers license, chapstick (it was dry and windy) in another.   I was also holding eight Gu packets for my husband and me to eat along the run, every half-hour or so.   They consist of sugar, caffeine and some other nutrients that help as you run.

As we got in the mass of people I told my husband, “I need to use the restroom and I don’t know if I can hold it until we finish running three-ish hours from now.”   And there was a problem with that because my husband, who was running a half marathon for the first time, was trying to make finish with a certain overall pace.

I knew what the porta potty situation was like on this race: there are none for the first few miles and then there are two or so.   Everyone who’s been holding it since the staging area sees the first chance to go and gets in the long line.   When I ran this race with my best friend she said she couldn’t wait for more options ahead, so we waited.

And indeed in the next few miles there were more options with much shorter or almost no line.  When we got to the first stop on the race I told my husband I’d try and hold it until we got further in.  We were doing well on the pace so far and wanted to keep it up.   As my husband’s trusty Gu mule, I didn’t want to let him down.

We kept going and I told him to not remind me about it because I was focusing on not paying attention to the grumbling complaints from my digestive tract.  I really didn’t think I was going to make it, but every time we got to another set of porta potties I said I’d keep going.   We were making our pace and truthfully, I didn’t want to let my husband down.

As we got closer to the end, the last there miles or so, my husband didn’t really need me, but by now I was committed to making it to the end without stopping.   My husband’s longest run while he was training for this race was 10.5 miles.   He was running his longest run ever by now and the going was getting tough.

But we made it.  He made it.   Apparently on the web site I beat him by a second, although we crossed the finish line together.   He was just glad to be done.   I was just glad to be heading to the hotel room.

It’s just as complicated to get away from the finish line as it is to get to the start line.  There are the people handing out the medals, the food and drink people making sure you’re hydrated and have pretzels or bananas or some brand of something being given out free in the hopes you’ll repeatedly buy the product later.   There are the metallic, plastic reflective sheets to keep you warm and then the rows of UPS trucks with bag check from before the start of the race.   Then, eventually, you can get out of the blocked in race area to head towards your final destination.

And our destination was right at the exit point from the race, which was all my husband’s planning when he reserved our hotel room.   I was proud of my husband, but I left him as soon as I could get away because holding it for four hours was my limit.

The Big Boy Update:  My father-in-law sent a video of my son on the floor with the puppy hopping over his head.   I’ll have to find out about this new trick when we get home.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  The other day my daughter was talking to her friends.   I don’t know what the conversation was about at all, but I heard my daughter say, “I know, a bikini is where you lift up your shirt."

Ready to Rock and Roll

It’s 1:15PM here and we’ll be getting ready for the Rock and Roll half marathon shortly.   We’re coordinating with our friends, meeting up to get the bands for a charity booth one friend is supporting this run.   The weather is clement at sixty degrees, nice for this time of year.   Nice, but it poses a question of how much to wear clothing-wise as we walk the distance over and then wait for the time windows each of our time bocks lines up (or more accurately, piles in) to start.

One of the couples we’re here with will be renewing their vows during the run.   I found out a little about it this morning.  They’ll be running four miles of the half marathon and then waiting with other runners who are also renewing their vows, for everyone to arrive.   Words will be said, rings will have already been exchanged some years in the past, kissing will likely happen and then the runners will continue on, finishing off the remaining nine plus miles of the race.   If you want a nice break in the middle of your race and want to renew your vows, it sounds like a nice way to go.

My husband and I ate a big breakfast at the Paris buffet.   I overate, and I hate overeating.   Three cups of coffee, heavily ladened with cream and I fell straight asleep when I got back to the room.   When.I woke up it was clearly time to see if I could lose some of those gambling winnings I’d made over the past two days—and mission accomplished there, I’m down a bit now, but have had a fun time playing slots and roulette.

Today is my daughter’s seventh birthday.  She and my son are now the same age for a month, which I still find novel.   I called her earlier and FaceTimed her on my mother-in-law’s iPad.   The two of them made a chocolate cake earlier in the morning.   She told me about cracking the eggs, adding in the mix and using the blender.   They made chocolate icing and iced the cake.   Then she, along with her neighbor friend, Keira, added marshmallows and sprinkles on the top.

The Big Boy Update:  It seems to be easier to find presents for one child over the other at different times.   My daughter typically is more challenging because presents need to be something not visual in nature.   This trip, however, we’ve found several things for her but are a bit stumped as to what to bring my son back.   We have all day tomorrow to figure something out for my son.  Maybe some chocolate casino chips or some dice.  He loves to play with dice, coming up with his own games with them.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has invited her neighbor friends to come over to celebrate her birthday and have cake with them around dinner time tonight.   She’s having a great time without us with Nana and Papa taking good care of her and her brother, keeping them entertained and giving them all kinds of attention.   They’re probably going to want us to go away on vacation again at this rate, just so they can spend more time with their grandparents.

Buffet Blah

I woke up early at five-thirty this morning, which makes sense with the East Coast time I’m accustomed to.   I got a coffee downstairs and then lost some of the money I’d gained from slot machines yesterday.   I went back to the room to find my husband just waking up and got a message from Brek, wanting to know if I wanted to go get breakfast with her.

I love breakfast food so we met and looked at several places and decided to go with one of the casino’s buffets.   I ate a lot, as we were crossing over into the lunch food swap out time and I wanted to try a lot of things.   Full, I headed back to the room.

And then I did a whole lot of nothing,  Boring, blah, and in the bed.   It was nice, not having any responsibilities and nothing I had to get done.  I’m still in the hotel room now, waiting for my husband to get back from the Pinball Hall of Fame, which is the largest collection of pinball machines in the world I think.   They’re all functioning and go back to some of the first pinball machines ever made and you can play them all.   All money collected is donated and pinball enthusiasts volunteer to maintain the machines.

My husband loves pinball machines and we have three of them in our basement.   We both agreed I wouldn’t want to stay as long as he would so I skipped going.  I’ve been twice before and it’s always an experience.  He’s just getting in now, after three hours there.

We have tickets to see Daniel Tosh tonight with some of the friends we’re here with for the race.  The show starts at 4:00PM tomorrow so participants can run along the strip and into the old downtown area at night.   It’s the most sights-driven race I’ve ever done and we enjoy coming back to Las Vegas to participate.

Now we're off to grab some dinner before the show.   And as an aside, happy birthday to my mother, who celebrated yesterday with some of their closest friends.   My daughter remembered it was Mimi's birthday yesterday—she has such a good memory.   It might also be because she knows it’s two days before her own birthday.

The Big Boy Update:  My son’s integrative therapist came to our house today for my son’s session bringing her six-month-old Wheaten Terrier, Theo, with her to meet Matisse.   Theo brought some toys for her and then played with her.   Liz says she’s looking forward to our next puppy play date.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I got a notice on my phone that someone was at the front door this afternoon.  I pulled it up to see my daughter and father-in-law on the porch so I used the option to talk through the doorbell via my phone.   My daughter got her face right up to the camera.   She asked how I knew she was there and if I could see her.   Then we caught up on the dog before she went off on for a walk with Papa.

Shoes and Slots

I woke up at 5:30AM this morning, which is 8:30AM East Coast time, well-rested.   I got dressed and went downstairs to see what I could find to eat, which wasn’t much in the way of options at that hour but did manage to get a croissant and latte.   Actually, that was probably the best choice since I’m eating no sugar added for a month.   All the pastries (and there are a lot of pastry options in a French-themed hotel) had sugar added inside, on the top or all around with the one exception of the croissant, which is loaded down with butter instead.  

Latte in hand I went back upstairs and got some things accomplished, including writing last night’s blog post and then messaged the group of friends to see if anyone was going to the expo early to get their race bibs.   I needed to go at opening because I wanted to get a pair of running shoes and I wanted to get there early in case they sold out of my style or size.   There is a particular running shoe that works for me and since it works, I’m not changing to another shoe.

I went downstairs to play some slots and three spins in at $0.75 won $150 unexpectedly—so I cashed out.  I headed over to Bally’s towards the monorail and won another $25 on a Mariah Carey slot machine—so I cashed out, $165 up for the trip.  

Mind you, I don’t expect to win in Las Vegas or gambling anywhere for that matter.   The odds are with the house and I treat gambling as entertainment for a price.  I can be entertained for a low dollar amount and as such, play the cheap slot machines.

I got to the Expo just before it opened, picked up my bib, t-shirt and the shoes I was missing and then talked to the CutCo booth sales people until my husband caught up with me twenty minutes later.   We came back, had lunch at the Paris buffet (our favorite) and I didn’t even care about the panoply of desserts they had to offer.   My cravings for sugar are almost completely gone.

While we ate lunch we got a call from my in-laws and decided to FaceTime the children, who were now home from school and were preparing to go to Gigi’s birthday party.   We didn’t see my daughter really because she had her face close to my mother-in-law’s iPad so she could see us on the screen.   Her proximity caused her to be out of range for the camera on her end.  

My son said hello and then they held the puppy up for us to say hello to.   Matisse I don’t think cared at all about the screen or our voices coming out of it.  We hung up, finished our lunch and then went to gamble.   On the way I showed my husband some boots I was thinking about getting.   I told him he would love them.  He, predictably, didn’t care about them.   Women’s fashion just isn’t his thing.

He and I liked to play roulette together.   I lost $100 fairly quickly, which is how roulette can go sometimes, so I moved to slot machines.   I was on my second machine and was back down to only being five dollars up when I hit some 5X multiplier and won $250 on one spin, putting me back up $270 total—so I cashed out.

I went back to the shoe store, got the boots I liked and another pair of fun sneakers and came back to the room to relax and not gamble, because I’m certain the next bits will be losing back the money I’ve won.   Tonight we have a group dinner at Rose. Rabbit. Lie.  I’m wearing my new boots.   I wonder if my husband will notice?

The Big Boy Update:  When we were FaceTiming with my children today my son was less interested in talking to us than he was at sticking his tongue out and making funny faces at the camera.   I told him about the dessert bar and took the phone with me to show him all the options they had on the four-sided dessert kiosk.   He said he wished he was with us.   I wonder how much of that wish had to do with the desserts?

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My mother-in-law said my daughter wants to walk Matisse on a leash.   She got the dog a more comfortable harness instead of the typical collar.   She said, and it makes total sense, my daughter wants to walk the dog in part because if she has her on a leash, she knows where the dog is.   Most of the time she has no idea if the dog is right beside her or in another room altogether.

Chicken Feet

Yesterday my husband and I left for Las Vegas to run in the Rock and Roll marathon series.   We had a flight first thing in the morning and all was going well with us arriving inside the terminal over an hour before the flight.   We were TSA Pre-check so all we had to do was drop our bags at the bag drop line.   Only the line to drop the bags was long.   Strangely long.  And it was moving slow.

Something must have been amiss because it took us over a half hour to get the bags checked, and we missed the window to get the bags on the plane…so we effectively missed our flight.   I was angry.   My husband was annoyed at me because he didn’t want to check bags in the first place but I’d suggested it.   I told the gate check person the line wait time was unacceptable.   He told me the line had been an hour long earlier.   I told him that was immaterial and that there shouldn’t be that long a wait to drop off checked bags.

He was rebooking us and did admit they didn’t do a good job of announcing the bag check cutoff time.   I didn’t want to be rude and said to my husband, “I have to walk away”.   I turned and headed to security.   When my husband showed up two minutes later he said there was good news at least.   He’d refunded the $50 bag check cost and had booked us first class both to Los Angeles and then Las Vegas.

When we landed in Las Vegas my husband was hungry, having slept through breakfast on the flight.   He suggested the dim sum restaurant in Paris, the hotel and casino we’re staying at.   I know, dim sum in a French-themed hotel, right?   But it’s there, right beside the sushi bar and the Italian restaurant and it’s delicious.  And fast.  The dim sum carts come up to your table right after you sit down, and we were hungry.

Nate, our friend, met us at the table and we caught up while we ate.   When the next cart came by we said yes to a few things but no to most of them.   There was something meaty and brown looking at the back of the cart she didn’t offer.   I asked what that was to which she said, “you don’t want that.”   Which meant I of course wanted it because it was strange or unusual.   When I asked, she said it was chicken feet.   And you know I needed some chicken feet.

As I was eating the first one the table behind us asked me to tell them if it was good.   And it was.   It was flavored very well, albeit mostly skin and cartilage, but I liked it.   I gave them one of the feet and they suggested I try the sticky rice too, which was also delicious.

I wanted to lose some money on slot machines next so we three parted to go gamble.   I got to the second machine and realized I was too tired to do anything other than sleep so I went up to the room and promptly fell asleep in my clothes, not even worrying about posting here as my sister-in-law had told me I could post-date a post to the date and time of my choosing, effectively making it look like I got round to writing this last night, even though I didn’t.   I got into my pajamas sometime later and then slept for over twelve hours.

This morning we’re going to the expo and I’m buying running shoes—because I forgot mine.  I sort of need running shoes to run a half marathon.   More on the losing money tonight when I write my next post.   For now I’m a whole five cents up.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has three math workbooks in his backpack.  He keeps bringing them home, insisting they’re homework, although his teacher says they’re for school and haven’t been assigned.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter loves, loves, loves the new puppy.   She fell asleep a full hour before bedtime last night on the couch with Matisse.   My father-in-law sent us this picture:

Outta Time

Wow, it’s late.   Well, not late, late, but late for me.   We’re boarding a plane at five-twenty-something in the morning to go to Las Vegas with friends and to run in the Rock and Roll Marathon series.   We’re not marathoning this time, we’re doing the half marathon, with this being my husband’s first half marathon.

Remind me later how running a half marathon is a big deal.   It is, I know it is, because when I was training for my first 5K I didn’t think it was possible to run a 5K, much less a marathon.   My husband’s done a good, if sporadic job of training.   I’ve done a poor job of training and by rights I shouldn’t be able to run a half marathon given the few times I’ve actually gone out and run, or done any exercising for that matter.

But I was able to run the distance not that long ago and I’m sure the excitement of the event will give me the added energy to make it through.   Either that or I’ll just run faster to get around the people who are going slower than I am.   And while that’s not many people, there’s nothing like a packed group of slower-paced people in front of you to give you the energy for that burst of speed so you can get to a clear area just to see how much further you have to go before you’re back to the strip and the finish line.

My in-laws are here and have just met the dog.   I think she charmed them into being willing to take care of her for the duration while we’re gone.

The Big Boy Update:  My son told me the dog gave him so many kisses he didn’t have enough room on his hand.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is still at that age where she wants to be pushed around in a cardboard box.   Tonight she said, “can someone push my box into the bathroom so I can brush my teeth?”  Her brother obliged her.

She Hops

We’re having a fairly easy time of things as far as the puppy goes.   As long as we take her outside frequently, she takes care of things outside.   She gets along with the children—and I mean lots of children because the word is out there’s a puppy and we get more each day.  

She is eating well and had a near flawless performance at the vet today, being so nonchalant about the entire experience that she fell asleep on the table.   And that was after having her nails trimmed, fluids dumped into her ears and her body checked all over.   None of it bothered her.

I did wake up at four o’clock in the morning and decided to check to see if she’d made it without wetting her cage.  She can’t hold it for that long so even after my husband letting her out late, she hadn’t gotten to four without losing her bladder in the cage.   Not to worry, she shoved the small blanket over and was sleeping on the other side.

I pulled her out, took her outside and squatted down to her level.   You would have thought she’d won the lottery she was so happy to see me, prancing all around and jumping up to say hello.   I brought her back to the bed with me and he exuberance continued for about three minutes and then she decided she wanted to be on the pillow up against the headboard.  

I took her with me upstairs to get some of my children’s baby blankets to rotate in and out of her cage thinking they’d be a good size.   When I walked into my children’s room my daughter was awake.   She asked about Matisse and I said, “did you want to hold her?”  She said in a wonder-filled voice, “she’s here?”  

I handed the puppy to her and got some blankets and then watched for a bit as the puppy, who wanted to sleep, was hugged and petted by my daughter until it woke her up enough that she no longer wanted to sleep.  My daughter asked Alexa what time it was and I realized we needed to all return to our own beds.

Then, this morning, my daughter taught the dog to hop.   My daughter gets down close to the ground and does a sort of frog hop.   It’s looks like a little girl thing, but there’s a lot of safety in it too.   She is more grounded in an environment she can’t see.   Well, the dog watched this…and started jump hopping too.

I didn’t believe it until my husband sent me a video.   Tonight my daughter and Matisse got into some serious playing with both of them hopping towards and away from each other.   Everyone else standing around was laughing at how cute the dog was and we’d tell my daughter where the puppy had gone and in what direction to hop.

My daughter loved it.   The dog wanted to play with her and she was doing something the rest of us couldn’t do.   And that kind of thing is why we got the dog.

The Big Boy Update:  Uncle Jonathan was over for dinner.   My son had escaped and was upstairs playing Fortnite, although I’m not sure he had permission to.   The next thing we know he’s announcing on all the Alexa devices in the house, “I need 500 Wii bucks.   Can some give me some or get me some?”   My husband announced back, “no”.   We heard my son exclaim from upstairs, “aww”.   It turned out he wanted it to buy a, “make it rain” emote in the game.   It’s a gesture he likes to do from the game.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter’s Halloween candy was all over the table before dinner.   She had sorted it and was wanting to trade things with her brother.   After dinner as she was surveying her collection of candy she called out to her brother asking if he wanted to trade.   He did.   She can tell what a lot of the candy is, but some of them are hard to tell.   She can sort by like kind and then can ask what that item is.   But when its all the same sized mini candy bars she can’t tell one from another.  But she doesn’t mind asking which candies are what.   And she likes to share too.   She’s pretty generous with the candy considering how much she loves it.

What Have We Done?

This dog thing…interesting.   The thought of, “what have we done” has gone through my head several times since we got the puppy yesterday afternoon.   Mostly, almost completely, the thoughts are related to my daughter.  It’s not the house training, which is going well, the puppy knows to go outside and likes spending time in the bushes and the mulch.   It’s not the time it takes, I spent a lot of time with the puppy today feeding her and introducing her to the house as well as holding her since three days ago she was weaned and taken away from her litter mates.  It’s not the overall commitment of a dog—I’ve done that before.   And it’s not the training, I’m looking forward to that aspect.   It’s my daughter.

She is positively manic about the dog (which I need to get used to calling Matisse).  But the situation has been complicated for her.   When we picked up the dog she held her in her lap part-way home, but only for a half-hour, the rest we let her sleep in her dog seat for the remainder of the ride.  

When we got home we were unpacking with a dog who was anxious although calm.   Once she had gone outside for a few minutes my best friend and her four daughters arrived to see Matisse and give her puppy toys.   Everyone had a chance to hold her with my daughter wanting to hold her again and again in a not-sharing type of way.   She wanted to pick up and carry the dog from lap to lap in a bossy, controlling way.   We had to tell my daughter again and again that she needed to let the dog go.

It was hard on her, especially since once everyone left we sent both children to bed.  Matisse whined but fared well overnight in her cage.  In the morning it was more of the same from my daughter: wanting to constantly move around the puppy, not letting her move on her own, exclaiming, “my puppy!” and wanting to exclusively interact with the dog.  

But there are reasons.  I told my son, “you and I can watch Matisse, look at her playing with the toy, wagging her tail and running around and we can see how cute she is.   Your sister can’t see any of that.   The only way she can interact and understand Matisse is to touch her.   So we need to be understand of how you and she will want to spend time with Matisse differently.”  

My son and I talked about how he wanted to play fetch with Matisse.  I told him when she was older she could take her to a tricks class and he said he wanted us to get a frisbee for her.   I agreed, that would be a good idea as Wheaton’s love to jump.  My son is quite empathetic and these types of conversations about how how his sister’s experience of the world will be different and how we can help support her are something he takes very seriously and keeps between us, never making her feel like she’s less than fully capable.

This afternoon my son came home from school and had some time with the puppy before his sister came home.   He was very gentle but boisterous and Matisse was starting to show her true puppy personality.   When my daughter came home she and her brother had decided they wanted to let the neighbor children and their sitter about the puppy.   So our house was invaded by four children and a teenager.   And my daughter got into her manic mode again.

Consider this as well: my small blind child is excited.  She’s bouncing around, she wants to hold the puppy but she’s having to let her friends who are meeting her for the first time hold her—and she’s trying to control that.   Then we say the puppy has to be given a chance to move around freely,   And guess what?  Everyone can see what the dog is doing and where she’s moving—except my daughter.   Constant asking, “where’s the puppy?!” followed by moving to that location only to find out the puppy has moved on.   And when she finds the puppy she wants to grab it (gently) and hold it so she can experience her because she’s missing out on what everyone else is seeing.

Think about this as well: when my daughter moves around, she’s excited and moving quickly and she is in danger of stepping on the dog.   She’s being warned by everyone around her to be careful.   I had to be very firm with her one time to put the dog down after I specifically told her not to pick it up but her need to hold it was stronger.    Then later, when Shane was petting Matisse as she was in a spot under the end table, my daughter came over and tried to grab and pull the dog towards her, expressly after I told her to only pet her.

At which point my daughter did something that regressed her emotionally about three years: she pinched me.   This was a bad sign.   My daughter needed time with the dog and I think she needed it alone.   So we sent everyone home.

I told my daughter it was her turn with Matisse, but she had to be calm and see if she could let the puppy go to sleep in her arms.  I took her into the bedroom, asked to lie down on the bed and put Matisse in her arms.   Within seconds, Matisse put her head down on my daughter’s arm and my daughter enfolded her with her other arm.   I put a blanket on them and said to pet the puppy and keep her warm.

I think this helped.   There are so many factors in play but I think we’ve made the right choice for my daughter.  This dog was for her, because of her and hopefully will be a stalwart companion to her in the years to come.   But today, I have to admit I thought, “what have we done” more than once.

The Big Boy Update: My son would like to play football with the puppy.   He had a full-sized football he was bouncing around, scaring the wits out of the dog.   I told him we needed to wait until she was a little older before she could play football with him.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter, without being told, absolutely believes the dog is hers and hers alone.   We’ve had to explain the dog is for the entire family to enjoy.   I don’t think she’s buying it though.

This is the Best Day of My LifeBut

My husband and I had been talking about it for a while but hadn’t decided to do anything about it yet.    Mostly we hadn’t because we didn’t want to do anything about it.   We were happy just the way things were, but the topic kept coming up.  

My daughter needs a companion or something beyond what we can do for her as parents and playmates on a daily basis.   And the logical thing to do was to get her a dog.   Only we didn’t want a dog.   We were quite happy without a dog.   My husband and I would talk about how it would be such a good thing for my daughter to have a dog to love and hug and spend time with.   We’d say, “I think we’re going to have to get a dog.”   But we didn’t really want a dog.

We had a dog and while I love dogs, things with young children are so much easier without a dog added into the mix.   But we agreed it would be a positive thing for my daughter—and my son too, but mostly this was about her and a need we felt a dog could fulfill for her in her sensory reduced world of vision.

My son’s integrative therapist called me about six weeks ago asking if she could bring her four-month-old puppy to the therapy session that day because she was acclimating Theo to become a therapy dog in the future.   I went to the session and was impressed by the temperament of this fluffy brown and black dog.   At the end of the session I asked Liz what kind of dog Theo was.   She said he was a Wheaten Terrier.  

Terriers haven’t been a category of dogs I was interested in for a personal pet before, but I liked how Theo was with my son.  I’d never heard of Wheaten Terriers before so I looked up some pictures and read a bit about the breed, which was unknown to my husband too.

A month later Theo was back in session and I was taken with him, how easy going, calm and friendly he was.   And particularly that he wanted attention in a passive, non-demanding way.   He came over and sat in my lap on the floor and watched my son and Liz.

Liz said she’d give me the name of her breeder if I was interested and we agreed, a dog would probably be a good thing for my daughter.   My husband and I had a few more of the, “we probably should get a dog, only we don’t want one” conversations and then yesterday morning.I decided on a whim to do a questionnaire online on, “what breed of dog is best for my family?”

The survey ended and I stared at the screen and almost laughed in disbelief.   Wheaten Terrier, it said, was a 98% match for our family.   I texted Liz and asked about her breeder, a few hours away.   I contacted the breeder and found out they had some dogs available just this weekend that had come of age to take home.   I told her about our needs and my daughter and that Liz had suggested asking them if they thought there would be a dog that would be a good fit for us.

And that fit was specific.   We needed a dog that would want to spend a lot of time with us, that would be on the more calm side and that would have the temperament to be trained possibly as a service dog—which requires extensive training in some cases.

She said she and her friend who was also a breeder would watch the puppies that night and pick out the best one for us.   She said she’d been wanting to help get more dogs in the hands of families like ours.   They were both very sincere in wanting to help us.   If there wasn’t a good match with this litter, we would wait.

This morning the breeder called me and said they had a female dog for us.   My husband rolled with the whole thing, protesting that he didn’t realize we were moving this fast and me explaining now was just as good as any time and I was ready to do this thing because we kept agreeing it needed to be done.

So off in the car we went with no one aside from our two children, whom we let know five minutes before we left, know we were getting a dog.   My children were ecstatic.   I was pretty excited too.  We arrived and the breeder had another family there.   We met her friend who told us about the puppy as they brought her out.   My daughter had her sit on her lap and the puppy was happy, very happy to just sit there and be held.  My daughter was perhaps the most happy.

The breeder said they had other dogs if we wanted to look at them but we said we would take their recommendation because they were the experts with twenty-five years of experience with the breed between them.   There is more to the story with all we talked about and the advice they gave us but in the end we were back in the car with the dog on my daughter’s lap for the ride home.

We used the dog car seat for most of the ride so she could sleep (she was tired they’d said).   And now we’re home.   She was a little overwhelmed by all of us and then my best friend and her four daughters coming over to hold the puppy and deliver dog toys.

She didn’t eat or drink but after a while sleeping in her kennel she was awake and both ate and drank and then went to the bathroom outside.   She was playful for a bit but is now back to sleep beside me:

We discussed names for a good while and decided on Matisse.   Although we reserve the right to change our mind if her personality doesn’t fit the name in the next few days.  There were some creative names suggested. My daughter lobbied for ‘Lego' and my husband wanted to name her ‘Pinball'.  

The Big Boy Update: My son is so excited about the new puppy.   He said, “this is the best day of my life!”  But he doesn’t want to hold the puppy that much.  He will be really interested in playing with her when she perks up after the transition in a few days.    On a sad but sweet note, he also said, “the worst day of my life was when Lucy died."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We haven’t told my daughter this is “her” dog.   But she has already decided that on her own.