Brl

The letters ‘brl’ in braille mean ‘braille’.   I’m still learning braille, albeit at a slowed pace over the past few months.   I’ve been using the braille I’ve learned fairly regularly to both read and write things a good bit.

For instance, I got my daughter’s teachers gift cards for holiday gifts.   I got them cards and wrote a thank you to them for all they do for my daughter and the students.  The completed envelopes had their names on them, but my daughter didn’t know which card went to which teacher (and she has a lot).   So I typed up on some braille label paper their names and put the stickers on each envelope.   My daughter was very excited about handing them each their cards when she went to school before the break.

This weekend I wanted to go to the dog store to get several things.   I asked my daughter if she wanted to go with me and help me pick out some things.   I told her we had to make a list.   We decided to write the list up in braille so she could help me remember everything we needed to get.   She was totally on the job in the store, letting me know what was next on the list.

She’s in Y-Guides this year.  One of the things each of the girls needs to do is memorize the father’s name, daughter’s name and the name they each picked for their tribe name.  That’s twelve girls, twelve fathers and twenty-four additional tribe names.   So I typed them up in braille and she’s been reviewing them before each meeting.

We’ve written stories together in braille and then there was Battleship and Chutes and Ladders my husband got for her and modified so everything was tactile and written in braille.   I got her a t-shirt with a saying in braille, printed in regular print, which is meant for all the sighted people out there to read and ask her, “what does your t-shirt say?”  I brailled the saying for her when the t-shirt came in and asked her if she knew all the contractions.  She didn’t know them all but she told me she figured it out because of the other words.

I’m still reviewing my daughters large volume of homework from before the holiday break for practice.   I’m about to start the next unit of my online course.   I was feeling rather lost with all the contractions and, beyond that, the collection of rules for when you can and can’t, should and shouldn’t use them.   It must be common at this point to feel a little lost as the supplemental material after my last unit had an entire document about just that—feeling lost in a sea of contractions.   It apparently gets easier going forward.

The Big Boy Update:  I played my son and Connor in the latest Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch on Friday.   He’s been playing for a while and I’d never played with the switch controller before but I’m a veteran of the very first Mario Kart ever and many subsequent versions.   We played multiple games and I beat him in some.   Although he beat me in total points in the end.   A bit of practice and I think I could take him though.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is starting to interact with the dog in a way that works for them both.   She’s not grabbing her and carrying her around everywhere (we had to stop that).   She’s not running and screaming and then getting upset when the dog thinks she’s playing and wants to jump on her and nip.   And she can calmly approach her and pet her normally much of the time.   Matisse likes her a lot.   My daughter fell asleep on the chair in the living room last night and the dog wanted to get on the chair and be with her.   My daughter wasn’t in the mood for it but I think as time goes on she’ll want to have the dog right by her side.