Two Boyfriends

My daughter told me in the car today she had two boyfriends.   I sort of had an idea who one of them was going to be because, for a blind child, my daughter can be fairly transparent about some things.

She had casually said early in the spring she knew that Whitaker had a crush on her.   She was okay with it, she said, but I shouldn't say anything.   And from one adult to another, you know darn well I wasn't getting in the middle of neighborhood child romances—not at seven and five years of age.

About two days later, Whitaker came into our house and was heading for the basement after finding out from me that's where my son was.  My daughter rounded the corner under speeds achieved only when you're looking for someone and don't want to miss them when they arrive.   She said, "I know you have a crush on me, Whit," and then, message delivered, she left.

Would she have stayed to see the look on Whitaker's face had she been sighted?   I think she might have.   Since she couldn't get feedback from observing him though, she just left.   I saw the look of surprise followed by confusion and then possibly embarrassment flash across Whitaker's face in the two seconds that followed before he ducked downstairs to meet up with my son.

After that exchange, I wasn't sure who it was that had the crush on whom.   So today, when my daughter informed me she had two boyfriends, I asked some questions.  First and foremost, I asked who these young men were that my daughter was dating?   I wasn't surprised to hear one was Jay, who lives a few doors down from our house. Jay is very nice but typically doesn't spend time with my daughter as he's a bit older and mostly does things with the other boys.   My daughter does spend time with Jay's sister, Claire, though, who always looks out for my daughter.   The possible transitive property of sibling kindness could be in play, but regardless of how he was selected, my daughter said Jay was one of her two boyfriends.

The second boyfriend was Sawyer.   She told me Sawyer was one of the three triplets around the corner.   I knew of these boys.   They had moved to the neighborhood not that long ago.  They were the ones who had come to inform my son that some children were talking badly about his sister being blind behind her back.   They wanted my son to know because they thought it was a mean thing to say.   So sight unseen,  I already liked these boys.

I made the mistake of asking my daughter if they were fraternal or identical triplets.   Not that my daughter couldn't know the answer to that question, but you can't ask, "do they look the same?"  She was interested in what the difference was so we had a conversation about splitting eggs and multiple eggs, and how if she and her brother had been in my womb at the same time they would be fraternal and, oh, yes, that's the type of triplets they were, she interrupted when I had gotten to that point in the explanation.

We'd almost gotten home by this time, so I circled back around and asked if she liked one of her boyfriends more than the other one.   "I like Sawyer more," she said, "I think I'm going to ask Sawyer if he'll let me marry him."

The Big Boy Update:  After a glass of milk in the kitchen to help my not-sleepy daughter hopefully get to sleep, we walked into the bedroom to have my son announce from the top bunk in the dark, "Mom, my penis is all red."  Things just don't phase you when you're a parent of young children.  I said, "I'll get the eczema cream."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  No getting excited about this.   Don't do it.   Because there is never good news.   Okay, promise?   Fine, I'll tell you.   My daughter was using her iPad today.  Not listening to it, using it.   She couldn't see much if anything on it.   But she was trying to do something on it.   It was an app she had to touch something on the screen.   Not much, but something.  Normally she wouldn't even try and would go straight for audiobooks.   She had lost most colors but Chelsea said today she thought she was able to discern some of the colors more easily.   And she's been riding her bike.   That one still scares the bejeezus out of me, but it's an important freedom.   Is there something more or better or not as bad?   Do not even think it, be prepared to think it if I get more evidence in the coming weeks.   For now, just hope to possibly be able to think it.   A teeny tiny bit better would be big.   Any improvement would be huge for her.  To her.

Service to Others

My goal tonight is to get to the point in this blog post where I explain what the title means.   This might not seem particularly challenging, but I  keep falling asleep while I'm writing.   I don't know what's happening.   I'm not particularly tired or behind on sleep.   I haven't taken a muscle relaxant or Benadryl or any other medication I would expect to make me groggy, and yet it keeps happening.

I try and keep awake.   I do things that should perk me up like walking around the room or getting something cold to drink.   Then as soon as I start writing again, in just a few sentences, I'm back to nodding off.   And this is particularly frustrating because I'm trying to write a blog post that hangs together on a single topic thread.   Sometimes, depending on what I'm writing about, I start in one direction as an initial tangent with plans to converge on a second topic towards the end of the post and I need to be alert if I'm planning on writing anything that makes sense.

This post tonight is just that kind of post.   I'm writing about falling asleep while writing, which is completely unrelated to "service to others."   For two days I've been wondering if I had started associated sleeping while sitting on my bed writing a blog post.   This has happened to me before.  For instance, I can't stay awake for a plane to take off.  I am always asleep just before we accelerate and take off.   I fall asleep just before and wake up just after we take off.   And while that's all well and good as it doesn't interfere with anything, I can't start connecting writing this blog post with sleep in my mind.

For the last two days the urge to sleep was so strong I ended up just trying to get something, anything, whatever it was I thought I might be writing about down, so I could press Publish and go to sleep.  I didn't proofread.   I just hoped it made some sort of sense.   I hoped it didn't sound like I was drunk.  I wasn't.  I don't drink much anymore.   Used to, but I managed to escape from that vice.

But guess what?  Right after I published the post I wasn't sleepy anymore.   Hence my concern.   This is good though,  I've been rambling on with the preamble to this post, making it more wordy and longer than I otherwise might, because I'm waiting to see if I get sleepy.   I'm not tired.   This means I'm going to keep typing.   I suppose I should go ahead and get to the service post topic.   I've alluded to it enough.  I'm a bit concerned it's going to be a bit anti-climactic, but as long as I make it to the end of the post without falling asleep writing, mission accomplished for the night.

Today my daughter and I were doing some food labeling.   I really need to do this more often because there are so many things in this house and in her life she just has no idea about without asking for help.   Today was one of those steps to help her be more independent.

My daughter is responsible for putting a snack in her backpack every evening before school the next morning.   It is easier for her and for her school if we just send in something pre-packaged.  She doesn't have dietary restrictions, she likes junk food, doesn't have a hyperactivity problem with sugar intake, and she goes to public school where pre-packaged food that doesn't need to be refrigerated and can stay in her backpack for several days, is ideal.

The problem is, all the little packages look, I mean feel alike.  My daughter was holding them up to Alexa and asking, "Alexa, what product am I holding?"   Alexa would ask her to turn the package around and then would tell her, "You have Golden Oreo Minis."  She would put that package with the others of that kind together and then move on to the next packet.

After the Bunny Grahams, Goldfish, Chips Ahoy cookies, Nutella dipping sticks, and raisins had been sorted she was going to put some braille letter stickers on the package so she would be able to tell later what was what when looking through the big bin of snacks.

There were at the bottom of the bin four fortune cookies from some Chinese delivery meals most likely.   My son, daughter, and I decided we could get rid of them right then and there and not have to worry about how to label them in braille.

We each opened our cookies and took a different path through the cookie/fortune process.   My daughter ate the cookie and ignored the fortune.   I opened my cookie, ate the cookie, and would probably have thrown the little strip of paper away if my son hadn't asked about what mine said.   My son, opened his cookie, at a bit of the cookie, gave the rest of the cookie to me to eat, read the fortune and then handed it to me, saying it was a good fortune for me, he thought.

The fortune read, "Your career is moving more and more towards service to others."  I read it and laughed.   I laughed because my son didn't mean for it to be funny, but it was.   He and his sister have heard a good bit recently, "your father and I are not your servants; if you want more water in your water bottle, you can get it yourself."   That, or any number of other similar statements.   Maybe my son really thinks my career is in service to others.   It sure feels like I'm in service to my children some days.   I am betting all parents feel like this at times.

Hey, I'm still awake!

The Big Boy Update:  There are some things you just don't ask a lady.   You all, as adults, know that list of no-no questions without even thinking about them.   My son, however, does not.   For example, just the other day my son said: "Nana, are you pregnant?"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and I were walking the dog around the block a few days ago.   There was a house we drive by frequently that has a lawnmower robot.   If you know what a Roomba is and can imagine one mating with a lawnmower, the thing it would spit out is what grooms our neighbor's yard several days a week.   I mentioned it to my daughter and she got rather stiff, saying, "I'm afraid of lawnmowers."  I told her, "me too."   She said, "yeah, but we have different reasons."  I didn't get a chance to ask what her reasons were, and I have all ideas I wouldn't get a fully clarified reason, but I can imagine that to her, lawnmowers are a big unknown and could be very scary.

Drive Shack

Today was my husband's birthday.   He's something-or-other old. We're not focusing on the number this year on account of it not being a big number.   It's over forty and that's all that needs to be said about that.   What was important was the cookie cake my husband wanted for Movie Night for his birthday.

Movie Night birthday celebrations are just about as basic as you can get: after the first movie is over or at a breaking point if the movie is a long one, we come upstairs, stand around the island in the kitchen, sing the birthday song, eat cake and chat and then return downstairs to finish the movie.

That was last night though.   Today, for my husband's birthday, we were going to The Drive Shack.   This is an indoor/outdoor golf bar.   I don't know if that's how to explain it.   You have a "lane" a lot like you do in bowling.  There is a large area of grass out in front of you with circles of different colors indicating distances.  

We were on the third floor which meant people below us and on both sides were hitting balls towards the targets.   There were six of us: my husband and Aunt Margaret who was celebrating a bit of a belated birthday out.   My in-laws and their good friend Dottie.   Of the six adults, Margaret and I knew the least about golf, but they made us feel good for the shots we made.

It was a bit like bowling, this way of playing golf.   I didn't mind it.   There was no short game at all.   You hit the ball a few times.  Once you're close enough to the actual hole the computer estimates your score.   You don't have to put or chip up at all.   That's why it's called The Drive Shack  

The Bit Boy Update:  My son has started reading and preparing for Mystery History.   He read twenty-five pages of the book aloud tonight and reviewed facts he might put in his report afterward

The TIny Girl Chronicles: My daughter enjoyed having two friends over tonight with her sitter.   There were four children and two adults at the house while we were going. I heard they all played well together, but that everyone was (thankfully) tired by the time we got home.

Bobbing For Reese

My daughter is with Nana and Papa right now.   Today was her last day of the first quarter of second grade.   We sent her off to school in her cab, with Renee, the driver she's not as friendly with mostly because Renee doesn't engage the children like some of her other teachers have.

It's been a tough quarter for my daughter, but I thought we were making progress with two sessions per week for Dhruti, one session each week for play therapy and a second one for what I suppose is regular therapy?  I'm. Not altogether sure what's happening across the two sessions my daughter has with Dhruti, but it seems to be whatever my daughter needs that Dhruti can be there for.

Today turned out to be a tough day for my daughter.   We got independent, private messages from each of her primary teacher and her VI teacher.   Both emails came from very concerned teachers who were seeing unexpected and negative behavior in my daughter.   

Nana and Papa picked up my daughter from school and didn't know anything about the challenging behavior she'd had earlier in the day.  Hopefully, some healing has gone on or at least some calming.   This picture came from Nana labeled, "Bobbing for apples turned into Bobbing for Reese."

The Big Boy Update:  My son came home today knowing he had to do a nice project for his father in penance for sneaking playing video games when he wasn't allowed earlier this week.  He had a mission when he got home to do something special and nice for his father's birthday tomorrow.   He came to find me a while later.   I was impressed.   I told him to hide it until tomorrow to surprise his father.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  It hurts my heart to know my daughter is so upset mentally, so traumatized that it's affecting her mental state so seriously.   I don't know what to do.   At all.   I thought we were getting someplace, but it seems like maybe we're not.

Not Ready Yet

I lost my temper last night.   It was both serious and tactical.   Serious because I was just that upset.   But tactical in that I wanted my daughter to get an understanding or hear a perspective different than her own.  I got through but it was at a price.

My son was wanting to mediate or change the subject.   We told him to go on upstairs to bed.   My husband ended up taking the two of them upstairs while I worked on things that needed finishing up downstairs.

About five minutes later I went up, opened the door to find them talking about being respectful with their father in what looked to be a parent-led discussion.   I waited for a break and then explained that I didn't like how the night ended.   My daughter came out from under her tent-like bed, all covered in blankets hanging down from the bunk above.

She gave me a hug and we cried together.   My son came over and joined in the hug and then they said Dad had to get in on it.   It was a full family hug.   As I disentangled myself from my daughter I told them I was sorry for losing my temper.   My son said, "Mom, I'm not trying to be mean, but I don't think you were ready to be a parent."

The Big Boy Update: My son likes getting up and ready for school early these days/.   He will ask if we can go ahead and leave.   Now that he's discovered what a steamer is at Starbucks, he wants to go a lot of mornings.   He finishes the drink in the short ride from coffee to campus.   He might branch out and try another flavor eventually.   For now, he likes caramel steamed milk.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has wanted to have a pet store when she grows up for several years now.   Today she told her brother and me, "when I grow up, all my stores are going to be pet-free.   My son and I were confused until we realized she meant it was free to have or bring pets.   I told her I thought the wording was a bit strange,  We said we thought she meant pet-friendly."

Long-distance Shopping

I was getting the children ready to go to school this morning when I noticed a text on my phone from my brother-in-law, Uncle Bob.   A few years ago Bob was visiting and I told him how much I liked the fleece he was wearing.   Nice fit, good quality stylish yet tailored and just the right amount of fuzzy.  

He told me he had gotten it in Europe on one of the trips he and Uncle Brian had been on.   Christmas came around and I opened a box with not one,  but two fleeces for me from the same shop they had gotten Bob's fleeces from, on a subsequent trip.  

There was a green one that was large enough to wear a shirt under and a grey and peach one that was just snug enough to wear alone.   I've worn both fleeces all throughout the cold months, taking them on trips when we've traveled.   They're, as my mother would say, "go-to" items in my wardrobe.

So today when I looked at my phone this morning while I was reminding my son to get his lunch box from the refrigerator and telling my daughter the cab should be here any minute, the text from Uncle Bob, saying he was in Paris shopping and was I interested in another one of the fleeces?  

How quickly could I type yes?  We confirmed sizes with the other two I had and then he sent me color options.   I told him to decide as the choices all sounded good to me. Nothing like a little long-distance shopping in September.   I told him I was looking forward to my Christmas present already!

The Big Boy Update:  After school today my son told me he was tired, his stomach hurt and he wanted to go to bed.   He was coy about it and something was amiss.   I asked him if he knew where his Switch was?  He told me he didn't know, that Dad had it somewhere.   I was doubly questioning things because I had heard him going from the bonus room to his bedroom far later than bedtime last night.   Short story: he was lying.   He had the Switch and was playing video games in his closet.   I took it away and told him there would be a consequence, I would have to think about something appropriate.   Hopefully he's fretting over what it might be.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter's first day of the Girls Run Club was today.   She had a very good time running with some of her classmates in the eighty-six degree weather.   She scraped her knee badly, but it was at the end and she didn't seem overly upset about it, she was more interested in the sleepover she and Brooklynn had been planning while running.

You Need to Calm Down

There is a Taylor Swift song out right now titled, "You Need to Calm Down" that is running through my head.   The message in the song is entirely different than why I'm using it as a title for this blog post, however.   Today was a hard day for my daughter.  It's her that I'm thinking about with the song and hoping she can calm down soon enough.

My daughter isn't coping well lately at school and at home.   Dhruti says there are multiple things in play, but that her blindness is affecting her mentally.   She's not accepting that she's blind and as a result, there are a lot of behaviors manifesting.

Today, for instance, we went to Dhruti for a session.   I came in for the last twenty minutes and was greeted by a still-manic child.   She couldn't calm down even though Dhruti was going through lots of "games" that should have helped.   She was able to stay still and quiet for the length of time it was necessary to get an M&M, but as soon as she was told it was okay (we had left the imaginary island of the sleeping penguins) my daughter bounded up in the air and was back to full-on mental chaos.

Even when we did the blanket swing, something my daughter and almost all children love because the movement is soothing as two adults swing you back and forth in a blanket they're holding, she couldn't relax.   Instead of waiting for us to sing a calm song to her, she launched into a song of her own.   She also couldn't stop moving around, causing the blanket to be put back on the ground, "until she was safe and still again".

At the very end of the swinging, my daughter rolled over and stretched out, something most children might do naturally.   My daughter spends a lot of time in the fetal position face down.   She listens that way, but it's very primal and protective of herself as well.   Dhruti said that was, at least, one good sign.   What she didn't do, and what she normally has done, is calm down and start to breathe normally.

We left and my daughter asked if we could go to a park so she could get some energy out.   As I drove to the park she called my mother on her watch phone and stayed on the call with her for the majority of the twenty minutes we were in the park.   Mimi is a very kind grandmother indeed to listen to my daughter detail everything she's doing on the playground.

My daughter knew everything, had already done it or didn't want to know about or do something.   That was the general theme of the day.   Other people, non-blind people, know and do things she can't, and she doesn't want to accept her blindness.   It was a tough day with her from that perspective.   She is highly inflexible right now too and gets upset and almost anything.   Tonight at bedtime she was nearly hysterical.   Some of it I can put down to juvenile behavior in general, but some of it didn't make sense.   It just seemed like she was far more upset about little things than it made sense to be.  

I don't know how long it will be, this phase in her life, but I hope for her she can move through it with as much grace as possible.   We're trying to help her as best we can.  Again, I don't know what we'd do without the advice of professionals and friends.  I hate to see her so unhappy.   This is on a far deeper level than I've seen before.

To give you an idea of the thoughts going through my daughter's head, I was able to get written down some of the words she was singing to Mimi in the car today.   She is far more expressive in song than she is in any other way.   She's mostly stream of consciousness with rhymes here and there.   Some of the phrases she said included, "when you're blind, seeing is difficult.  You see in your brain.   You gotta figure things out.  It's not always your fault.   It's called see with your brains.   When you're bored you just write a story or think of something in your mind's eye."

There was more, maybe Mimi got some of it down.  It came out as factual the way she sang it, but it wasn't easy to hear as a parent.

The Big Boy Update:  My son played basketball today after school.   We have a basketball net but he hasn't been overly interested in it.   He's got some friends who want to play now, which is always helpful.   We couldn't find him when it was time to get ready for bed.   We discovered him in the dwindling light out front with Rayan, still playing basketball.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Tomorrow is Wacky Wednesday.   My daughter say still for me to make small spiral twists of hair all over her head this evening while she read her book aloud to me.   It looks fun already, but in the morning we're spraying it with brightly colored hair sprays, adding pink, green, blue and purple to the twists.   If she sits still long enough she wants me to curl each up into a mini-bun.   I don't know if we'll have time and I think the hanging twirls look more wacky.  We'll see what we have time for in the morning.   The twists she could sleep on tonight, which is good because it took me a good while to get them all done; we wouldn't have time to do it all in the morning.

Hair Styling

Remember the creepy head?  The hair styling mannequin I got to practice on that my son and husband thought was creepy?   It turns out my daughter thinks it's creepy too.

It's made the rounds around the house for various reasons and people think it's either interesting or strange that I'd have it.   I've been having a good time with it though.   I have it attached to the top of the dog's cage, on account of it's a good height to work with, being not too high and not too low.   I have it facing the window, so my son and husband don't have to look at the "creepy" face.   Fortunately, the dog doesn't seem to care about it and hasn't minded hair dangling down on the edge of her cage.

I found a YouTube channel where a mother and daugher demonstrate all kinds of what looks like highly complex hair styles that turn out to be quite doable when broken down into steps.   Every day I try something new.

My hope was to learn how to more quickly be able to do things with hair so I could put my daughter's now long hair up in different styles.   She doesn't want me to do things much now because I'm slow and the results aren't always able to stay in place well.   I'm also not good at working with her hair without making her uncomfortable.  

I've learned a lot though, most notably some tips on how to work with her hair in a way that I think will be more comfortable to her.   For the past several days I've been trying to get her to feel the hairstyles and she's balked.   Today, her friend next door, Madison, wanted to do a braided style with me.   When we got done I thought my daughter would want to feel it, but again, she asked if I would please stop talking about it.

Tonight I found out why.   She doesn't want to have to touch the head—because she heard it was creepy from her brother and father.   She is actually fine with me styling her hair, she just wants me to describe the style to her instead.

The Big Boy Update:  My son had a three-day weekend that's just ending.   He and I talked about no screens during week days and he wasn't upset about it at all.   He had a good bit of screen time this weekend and I told him he it was a balance, having more screens on the weekend, meaning none on weekdays.   I'm glad he was fine with it.  He did well last week with no screens.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has preferred to eat cafeteria food since going to her current school two years ago.   Tonight she asked if she could bring her lunch in since we had extra fruit from the Y Guides campout this weekend we were suggesting her brother take in his lunch box.   She wanted to make sure we were able to eat it before it went bad.

Tiny Aliens

My husband and I were out at different events last night, and we asked Aunt Margaret if she was able to watch my son for a few hours.   She brought him his favorite (well, only) Qdoba order shortly before I left for the party.

I came home to find my son and Uncle Jonathan (who had decided to come over later) playing one of the Zelda games.   Margaret and I got tired and told the boys it was time to hang it up for the night and reconvene another time to continue their game.

This morning Margaret texted me that she enjoyed spending time with our, "Tiny Aliens".   I couldn't help but laugh at the very understandable label for them.  Children do seem so alien sometimes.   They do things that don't make any sense to adults and yet when you talk to other adults, recounting a story about something your child did, you invariably get unexpected confirmation that your children are just like other children with a, "they all do that."

Aunt Margaret was so very complimentary of my son, saying he listened, followed directions without complaining and was self-motivated, not needing multiple reminders to get things done like putting on his pajamas.

She said he always said thank you and gave her a hug goodbys whenever they parted. She said my daughter was equally well-behaved.   She said she didn't prefer to spend time with just any "tiny aliens," but that mine were the exception.

I made sure to tell the children tonight I was so proud of them, sharing what Aunt Margaret had told me.   We talked about when we would get to see her again.   They each want to do different things with her.  My son wants to play pinball with her because they didn't get a chance to last night.   And my daughter wants to get a pedicure and/or go shopping.   Perhaps both.  She wouldn't mind both.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Allowance Results:  The first week is over and the results have been tallied.   My children both, coincidentally, got eleven dollars and fifty cents.   I had exact change but they opted for something we came up with on the fly we titled, "Daddy Bank".  My husband got app for children's allowance tracking.

We're starting a new chart tomorrow.   Aunt Margaret had a great suggestion for my daughter's chart when I mentioned I needed to come up with something tactile: an abacus.   Could we tally the allowance that way, adding or removing as necessary to keep her total?   Tonight I put this together for my daughter.   She felt it and got it immediately, including how she could turn one square bead dollar in for four round quarter beads.   In the picture below, the week has started and she has ten dollars credited by which beads are on the left side of the "allowance abacus" for lack of a better term.   It's on the refrigerator now and we'll have her remove or add as necessary throughout the week.  

Indian Princesses

My daughter and husband went off to an Indian Princesses camp out today.   I suppose I should call it by its updated, more politically correct name, Y Guides, but I remember it as Indian Princesses from when I was a child.

They're doing a camp out at a local park with a large lake.   The location was selected primarily because one of the families has a boat (my best friend's family) and they were able to combine going out on the boat, swimming and inner-tubing with the additional things they'll be doing tonight and tomorrow as a tribe.

I'm not privy to some of it as this is a special time with fathers and their daughters, but most of it I hear about.   I didn't do Indian Princesses when I was a child.   It certainly didn't bother me and I never felt left out.  I did a year of Girl Scouts but that wasn't for me either.  I never felt like I missed anything in that respect as a child.   My father and I had lots of fun in our own ways.

It must be a special time, those three years together as a tribe of fathers and daughters, for some.   My best friend from childhood got married many years after we'd grown up and had moved to different cities.  But Jenny will always be my first best friend though.  The childhood memories we had together are some of my most memorable from growing up.

My parents and I went to Charleston to attend Jenny's wedding.   The day of the wedding John, Jenny's father, took her out on the beach and they went back in time to their Indian Princesses days together to remember and close that chapter as daughter and father as she moved on to be a wife and later mother.

I don't know what they did that day, but I've always thought it was a special thing, remembering, and celebrating their father/daughter relationship on Jenny's wedding day.

Some day I hope both of my children will get married.   Maybe my husband and daughter will remember their times together in Y Guides as he sends her off to get married.

The Big Boy Update:  Aunt Margaret watched my son tonight while I went to his school's back to school social.   When I got home something happened that's never happened before: the dog wanted to be with Margaret, up against her on the couch, instead of being with me.   I said something like, "I leave for a few hours and Matisse likes you better" to which my son replied, "it's because you're lousy, mom."  Ouch.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter couldn't get to sleep last night.   She was a little anxious in their bedroom even though her brother was there too.   I suggested she make up a story in her head while she was lying there and then she could type it up today.   I'm not sure if that's what was happening when I got in from running mid-morning, but she was going through pages of braille paper and was very occupied.   If that works—coming up with stories to occupy her mind—it will help.   Dhruti said part of what's happening is she is afraid of silence, because that means she has to think, and she's not ready to accept the things she needs to think about, namely addressing the blindness so she can accept it.

Mini Shopping Spree

I had the best time yesterday.  Well, not entirely, there was a lot of stress happening yesterday, but it was surrounding other facets of my life as a parent of two children requiring a lot of driving to coordinate schedules and appointments.   This post isn't about that though, it's about the fun part of my day yesterday .

One of my good friend's birthday is today.   I am not going to mention her name on account of her not wanting to make a big deal of her birthday (which I completely understand).   She didn't want to celebrate and I had to honor her request in that, but her day got a bit complicated yesterday (and by extension, today) as a result as well.   Different complexities than mine, but that happens in life, doesn't it?  Complications?

At any rate, I couldn't let her birthday go completely by without doing something to wish her well.   I had, by accident, found out what her Starbucks order was and that she liked coffee in the morning.   I asked my son if he would be up for leaving early for school in the morning, stopping at Starbucks and then delivering a morning birthday coffee.   He was up for it—getting ready and leaving early—which is saying a lot. 

Coffee delivery now organized, I had to execute the second part of my secret birthday plans.  My friend loves to shop.  I went to a collection of stores and got her a small gift card from each.   I got a little card wallet and put all the cards in it with the guidance of my son who helped me organize them.   Then we put the little wallet in an envelope with a card saying happy birthday from all of us and we hope she enjoyed her mini shopping spree.   I put a P.S. telling her my daughter and I wanted to join her when she went shopping!

So this morning while I held the birthday card, my son knocked on the door.   Our friend opened the door and my son held out the coffee and shyly said, "happy birthday."  He got a big hug from her and then we went off to school.

The Big Boy Update:  Today is International Peace Day which is always a big celebration at my son's Montessori school.   He came home and told us all about it, including singing for us the very quaint song the entire school sang together as part of the celebration.   So that was sweet.   On the opposite end of the spectrum, I explained to him how our friend was getting out of prison and would have an opportunity to be tried again.   We don't shelter the children, but I had to explain to my son at a very high level what had happened.   What he understood was that someone had accused our friend of something illegal that our friend says he did not do.   My son asked me after asking several follow-on questions and then, even though he'd never met our friend, he asked me, "mom, can I swear?"  I told him, "yes, but don't tell your father.  What do you want to say?"  He let off a very well-formed sentence filled with swear words stating exactly what he thought about the man who had accused our friend of doing illegal things."     

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got home from school and said immediately, "can someone come to help me find my helmet?"  She had found her bicycle in the garage and wanted to go outside, by herself, and ride on the street.   She's done this several times lately and has been successfully riding around.   I don't think she can see that much more or better, but she can see enough.   I was afraid she'd never be able to ride her bicycle again.   I'm very, very happy she c

The Alleged Victim

We have a friend who was convicted of a crime three years ago.   The situation was complicated and boiled down to more in the way of testimony than evidence.  No one thought it would truly happen—that he would be convcted—because some of the circumstances surrounding the situation seemed very far-fetched.  

But there was a judge that said they wanted to make an example of this case and so gave the maximum sentence possible, sending our friend to jail, leaving the rest of us in shock.   His case wasn't handled by experienced lawyers due to cost constraints.   Since his incarceration, his family has been working to try and move for a retrial.

It's taken three years to get to today and the hearing they'd all been hoping for.   More experienced lawyers had been engaged who discovered two counts of his constitutional rights being violated by the state, including withholding of evidence in his favor.  They also built a strong evidentiary case should they be granted a retrial.

The hearing with the judge went quickly with a brief section in chambers.   When they  came out, the lawyers mouthed, "he's granting our motion."   Which is almost as good as it gets.   Yes, there will be a retrial, but judges typically don't grant a retrial for frivolous reasons or ones that aren't compelling.  Signs are good from the retrial standpoint.

What it also means is the first judgment has been thrown out.   After over three years he is free.   He can't travel internationally but he's free and he's not a felon.  It's hard to explain the emotion that overcomes you when you hear about something that immediate and life-changing happening.   I can't imagine how he and his family members, all present, felt.  

The judge made a change once he'd made the decision too.   He had used the term, "the victim" up until the point he granted the motion for a retrial.   After that, he used the phrase, "the alleged victim".

Tomorrow our friend comes home.  Tonight will hopefully be the last day he'll ever be in prison.

The Big Boy Update:  My son, after three days with no screens today said, "I am so into outdoors" but I do want to go back to screens.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I saw Dhruti today before bringing my daughter to see her. My daughter is dealing with a lot of pressure to get things "right" and done/complete.   This is at home and at school.   Dhruti told me in the kindest of ways that my daughter gets more stress from me than my husband.   I'm more of the authoritarian, but she's going to work with me in ways I can help with my daughter's pushback so that it doesn't make her look like she's failing or not getting things right.  

The Yelling Charts

We created our "yelling charts" two days ago and have them taped up on the refrigerator.  I had two purposes in talking to them about this and letting them help decide what should be on the chart.  The first one was to try and foster kindness in our family.   We all get frustrated, but for some reason we seem to be communicating with loud voices when we're angry, frustrated or don't like something.   The second reason was to start the children on allowences.

They start the week out with ten dollars.   If they yell at someone, not just family members, they lose twenty-five cents.  That sounds like they can get away with a lot of yelling before they'd go into negative dollars for the following week, but I'm wanting them to be successful and get money at the close of the week.   I want them to get money but realize they could have gotten more money if they'd behaved differently.

My daughter can (and has) lost fifty cents in a short span several times already.  This is in part because she's been insulting people and calling them names.   That offense is worth fifty cents.

The children are also doing things to unpack their backpacks each day, put in a snack or make their lunch and getting things ready for the morning since we're tight on time in the mornings.  They are getting one dollar in allowence every day for doing these things.   It's not an option, they're required to do them, but there is the reward of additional allowence for doing so.

My son came up with additional things to add on his list.  He suggested we add 'Violence' at $1.00 and swearing at $.50.   Then he wanted to add "etc." because I think he's learned that word lately.   He thought $999,999,999 was appropriate for acts of etcetera.

We need to make my daughter's sheet tactile so that she has a physical representation of the amount she will be getting and the amount she has lost due to behavior.   I've been thinking about this one for a few days and haven't come up with a straightforward, simple to understand solution we can reuse week after week.  I think I'll ask her and see if she has any suggestions.

And on the final front, there's me.   I've lost money to swearing and/or yelling six times so far.   I certainly have room for improvement.

The Big Boy Update:  My daughter's cab honked today when she arrived home.  My son, atypically, ran to the door and said, "I want to be mature and go get her from the cab."  I stayed at the door and waved at the driver as my son got my daughter out and helped her with her backpack as she came inside.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter came home from school and asked me, "do you know what thlantropy is?"  I asked her if she meant philanthropy.  She said that was it and, "it’s when you give money to people in need."

Four Dog Miles

I went running again today with Aunt Margaret.   Let me tell you something—it is nice to be able to run and breathe.   It was a simple fix, shifting the medication by three hours.   Now I just need to train.

We took Matisse with us and decided to push her a little further than we did the last two times.   She has to heel on my leg and doesn't have a good way to explain when she's overly tired and shouldn't run further, so we're taking her training slowly.

The weather was warm, but not too terribly hot.   We got to the water station in the park and I doused her with water to cool her down and let her drink a lot.   We went a bit further and then came home.   I run slowly, so my running is a sort of trot for the dog with her four legs and size, but she's still moving and panting the whole time with her long tongue hanging out.

We had multiple groups of dogs we had to pass that might have been aggressive on their side based on the owner's response in restraining them.   I made a mistake and didn't have her actual leash, only the e-collar remote.   I almost didn't need it though, she listens and was safe, stuck by us and sat when we stopped and waited for others to pass.

The Big Boy Update:  Margaret and I picked up my son from school today.   He almost never wants to tell me about school but he launched into what he was doing at school to tell her.   I was jealous.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My mother talks to my daughter on her watch a lot after school.  They are planning a visit for her to go to the mountains to stay with them.    My daughter asked Mimi, ”what do you think will be the first thing I do when I go to your house?” My mother said she didn’t know.  My daughter said she was going to the M&M bowl by the front door.    My daughter does so love candy.

Family Album Submission Frustration

Each year my son's school puts out a family album.   Each student submits a picture of them with their family and writes something about themselves like interests, things they've done as well as introducing their family members.   It's a reference book we use during the year and a good keepsake for the future.

This year I told my son he had to write his own submission.   He's been putting it off for a while.   I've been telling him to think about what he wants to say.  Yesterday I said it was the day he needed to do the writing.   I suggested he go and get the prior year's book to get some ideas and to get an idea of how much he'd need to write. 

He balked and fought me.   He wrote the two most pitiful sentences—embarassing honestly—and told me he was done.   I won't repeat them here because he would be very upset.   I asked him about the prior year's book and he lied to me and told me he'd looked through it.   

I suggested he could use my laptop to type up what he was thinking, that typing might be easier for him.   He needs to learn to type, so this wasn't that much easier, but he tried, arguing and complaining the whole time.   He wrote another two sentences that were indicative of not trying.

While this was going on, his sister was on her braille writer.   She wrote up a full page on each of her family members, including the dog.  When she was done, she read it aloud to me and I typed it up.   I don't think she realized she wasn't going to be part of the family album.   

I don't know if it was demoralizing to my son to have his younger sister so effortlessly write a comprehensive, clear, grammatically correct submission, without misspelled words.  My son didn't even spell my or my husband's names correctly (because he was intentionally not trying).   

It was about this time that I lost my temper—badly.   His sister was trying to put her feet on the coffee table where the laptop was, intentionally, even though I'd told her to move well away.   She was interrupting us and calling us mean because she wasn't getting all the attention.   And my son was fighting with all his might to do nothing and make me feel like I was a bad parent for even asking him to do the writing in the first place. 

After I calmed down I sat at the computer and asked him to talk—just talk—about him and his family, what he liked and what things he wanted to share with his school mates.   And he wrote a beautiful submission.   He's slowed down with the writing, it's hard for him with the hyperactivity and inattentiveness.   I made a deal with him that he would be done with the submission, but that screens were going away for the week during weekdays.    He wasn't happy, still wasn't when I reminded him this morning, but I think it's the right decision for now.   

The Big Boy Update:  This is what my son said for his submission that I typed up:

Hello, my name is Greyson and I am nine-years-old and I try to be as happy as I can be. I like playing video games and sports. I have many friends, but I have one best friend, Rayan. We never get in arguments. He is very kind to everyone.

 My dad’s name is Chris and he and my mom are real estate agents. My dad is forty-one. My mom is named Courtney and she is forty-nine and she likes arts and crafts and coffee. The things she needs to survive are food, water and coffee. I have a dog and her name is Matisse. She is a Wheaton Terrier. When my mom goes to Starbucks, she brings Matisse and she gets her a Puppichino which is a cup of whipped cream. It’s so cute! :D 

My sister’s name is Reese. She is eight. She is visually impaired and is in second grade. She used to go to my school.

This summer we went on a sailing trip with our friends for ten days straight. We started at St. Thomas, then we went to St. John and went to a floating restaurant named Lime Out we had to swim up to. Then we went to St. Croix where there was really warm water. Then we went to back to St. Thomas and had dolphins swimming beside our sailboat. Living on a boat is very exciting because you get to go on adventures in the ocean. 

I’m looking forward to being a third year. I hope I get to learn about math, language and history.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  This is what my daughter wrote about her and her family:

I am seven-years-old and almost eight-years-old. I’m in second grade. I am very flexible. I like to sing and run around. I like to swing and my friends are nice. I have a dog named Matisse. I love her so much. I like to climb trees. I like to bike and play on my scooter and I also like to play with my friends almost everywhere I go! 

My dad is forty-one. His job is a real estate agent. He likes to play video games. He likes to build things. He is the best to me. He has a good job. He likes to have fun! He plays and watches things around him. He goes for runs and walks around the block or park full of trails. He plays with me on the swings. He likes to go slow on the swings a lot when I am outside. 

My dog, Matisse, likes treats, bones and toys too. She is super cute. She gets groomed. She likes to run around too. She likes to go for walks and runs around the block with me and friends and my mom. She has fun. She eats dog food, people food and drinks raw milk for dogs and water. She has a dog bed in her dog cage. She has frozen dog cheese to eat when she is good. Also, when she’s good we give her doggie ice cream. She is the best to me. She loves to play with my grandma and eats lots of cool ice. She is one years old. 

My mom is forty-nine. She is the best. Her job is a real estate agent. She has a room full of art because she likes art. She likes to help me and play games. She likes to go places. She loves coffee. She is small for her age. She is a fair person and she is silly. She is really active. And she likes to sing like Reese.

Greyson is eight and he is my brother. He likes to play video games. He likes to watch T.V. He loves his toys and friends. He doesn’t have bangs. He likes our next-door-neighbors. He is big for his age. Sometimes he is happy and sometimes he is not happy. He likes our dog. He doesn’t want to learn braille.

The William I Met

I didn't post this last night.   I fell asleep after having a very rough time with my children.   My husband and I are trying to figure out some things because we're getting behaviors consistently we don't like.   The reasons they're showing up with my son and daughter are different, but they need to be addressed.   I lost my temper badly at them and did a good bit of yelling.   Strange to say it, but it was productive yelling—they heard me finally, they understood why I'm so frustrated and get so angry—and they want to do better.   We're working on how we can, as a family, foster better behavior, more kindness, less bickering, less defiance, and basically better relationships between all of us.

That being said, I was so mentally frustrated when my husband got home from work. I told him he was up and I lay down on the bed—and promptly fell asleep around six o'clock.  He gave them baths after dinner and got them to bed without me waking up, which must have meant I was tired because it happened all around me.

Let me back up to earlier in the day though.   I had posted that I was hypotensive because of a medication I'm taking and wasn't able to run.    I planned on doing an experiment to see if I could have a few hours window when the drug wasn't active to run and hopefully have normal blood pressure.

Yesterday was the test, and the good news is within that short running window, I can run unimpeeded.   I was able to run six miles yesterday without much tiredness or effort.   It's a huge relief.   I can train for the half marathon in November and not only that, I'm about half-way there in my training, meaning I haven't lost all my cardiovascular health and my muscles remembered how to run.   This is excellent news since I think I've only run twice since November of last year.

I was out with Aunt Margaret, who is training for the full marathon in November.   She and I ran in the large wooded park across from my neighborhood up until the point I needed to turn back and head home.   She continued towards "The Hateful Route," a very hilly part of the trails with switchbacks and rapid elevation changes (otherwise known as hills) while I went back the other direction, which also has hills, they're just kinder ones.

I had gotten almost back to the water station when I saw a gentleman walking with a blind cane.   I stopped and introduced myself, saying my seven-year-old was blind and did he find walking in the park safe and did he think my daughter would like it.

It was mostly a way to begin a conversation with someone who is blind, I wasn't entirely sure what my motivation was in talking to him other than here was a blind person, walking alone with his cane in the park with bicycles, runners, dog walkers and horses passing all around him.   I was interested in his experience and if he had any advice.

He said he thought walking in the park was not only doable, but it was also cathartic to him, the sounds of nature all around him.   He not only walked the larger bike and bridle paths, he took the more difficult and narrow trails as well, although he said as his vision continued to decline (he has a three degree angle of fuzzy sight left in one eye only) he had done a good bit of falling and had to learn to be more cautious.

He said he would love to meet my daughter and me one day and walk together.    I got my phone out and messaged William with my contact information.   I got home and told my daughter about the new friend I had made.   I had mentioned to him how she was in denial that she was blind.   He has retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive disease that has slowly robbed him of his vision since his twenties.   He said he understood that, even though he's retired now and has been dealing with the vision loss for decades, he's still in denial that he's blind.

We messaged later about a walking date in early October when my daughter is tracked out of school.  I told her he was blind but loved to do art and perhaps we could walk and talk about the art they each like to do.   I have to approach things carefully with her, so she doesn't think we're doing something simply because she's blind.   Fortunately, she was receptive to the idea.   We'll be walking with our new friend William in October.  I'll let you know how it goes and what we learn.  I am so glad I stopped to say hello.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has had a lot of screen time this weekend.   We've had things we did, but my husband and I have been busy, and it's easy to let him watch television (YouTube) or play games so we can get things done and do things with his sister.   We don't like it when we let this happen.  He loves it, but he needs to do other things.  His friends are back now so this week he'll be outside a lot more.  Hopefully, it won't be so hot.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is all about books.  Audiobooks, braille books, books being read to her.   I think she's in the middle of three books at once right now.  I'm so glad she's gotten interested in books given that her vision is so minimal she can't use the iPad for anything other than an audio source.

Wipe Your Hands On My Dress

We went to the Sensory Symphony today with my in-laws.  The state symphony was putting on the event and went all out.   We were fairly certin they were targeting all kinds of disabilities as the information on it mentioned multiple times how if the noise was too much, there was a "quiet room".   And indeed, we saw many children wearing sound-muffling headphones on from the point we entered the building.

There were activities to do beforehand like making a conductor's baton with streamers and many instruments to play and touch.   My daughter loved the mini harp and was fastinated by the huge horn a la the Ricolla commercials.  I didn't get a chance to get close to the instrument, but my daughter touched it up and dowm several times.   

She played a trombone and had to be told her turn was up she enjoyed the sounds it was making so much.   We were approached by one of the staff, asking if we wanted assistive audio for the experience.   This is a transmitter with an earpiece that has someone commenting about what's happening on stage while the concert is underway. She suggested we have one for my daughter and an adult so we'd know what they were saying. 

We got some snacks, a print copy of the program as well as a braille version for my daughter and headed in to find some seats.   The event was general admission so we were half-way back by the time we found six seats across two rows for our group.  There were a lot of people at the concert extending all the way into the balconies.

I was approached almost immediately by the lady who had offered the assistive audio sets to me, saying blind attendees had space reserved for them down front and did we want to go there.   My daughter had already said she'd wanted to sit up front so she and I got our things together and followed her to the front row.    

I don't know about the reserfed seats situation because I saw her ask something to some people and then they got up and left their seats.   She ushered us into the front row and asked if we needed anything else. 

As the concert started my daughter wanted some food.   I had got both sweet and salty things from the snack and drink area where the very nice ladies serving thought I was twenty-two.   I don't look anywhere near twenty-two, but if this makeup I'm putting on makes me look younger, I'm all for it.  

What I realizxed at the point I was handing food over to my daughter was that I had absolutely nothing for either of us to wipe our hands on after eating potato chips and candy.   And that was bad.   My daughter was wearing a very special dress brought to us from our friends in Indonesia—a dress their daughter had worn for a special event herself.   It was white with read flowers and bows, and it was beautiful.   

I couldn't have my daughter wipe her mouth or hands on the dress.   I wasn't sure if even dry cleaning might get out rust-colored stains from barbecue chips.  So I did the only thing I could think of: I told her to wipe her hands on my dress.   Sacrificial dress for the day, my cotton, mostly black patterened dress would survive the food and could be washed in the washing machine.

It was an odd thing, having my daughter reach out for me, only to find she was looking for a section of my dress for her dirty hands.   She didn't once mess up her dress, including afterwards when we went to eat Chinese food after the show.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Clothing Differences:  My daughter was getting her dress on for the symphony and my son was simultaneously unhappy about dressing up.   I told him to just pick out a collared shirt.   This was odd to my daughter, who didn't know what a collared shirt was.   I got her an example that she put over her dress to see what the "collar" was like.   My son said, "guys wear collared shirts, girls wear dresses."  I explained that wasn't a hard and fast rule, but that yes, more commonly than not, girls wore dresses and boys wore more dressy shirts.  

I Can’t Run

I tried to go for a run two days ago.   I got started running, ran for a bit with my friend and then couldn't breathe.   Not like a bad, health thing.   I was just out of breath.   I've run a lot and this was a different kind of out of breath.   There is the, "I'm not warmed up yet and I'm breathing harder while my heart and lungs get up to speed," but it wasn't that.

It wasn't the, "I'm pushing the edge of my pace running and I'm at the edge of my cardio level" kind of thing.   And it wasn't the, "I've run past the edge of training for too many miles, I'm overly tired and/or dehydrated and/or need electrolytes kind of thing either.

It was a, "I can't get enough oxygen no matter how hard I breathe."   It started right as we began running, only a few minutes in.   I would have been alarmed if it didn't immediately subside as soon as we stopped running.   We tried running several times, making sure I was well-hydrated, but the out of breath symptom didn't go away.

If I hadn't seen this exact behavior one time before—and diagnosed it at the time—I would have been a little concerned.   I felt fairly certain though that I was hypotensive.  I'm not typically hypotensive.   I get my blood pressure checked at least once a month and I almost always come in right in the middle of the normal range.

The one time before when this happened we were running eighteen miles and it took us a long time to diagnose it.   I remembered I was taking an antibiotic prophylactically for some dental work I'd had.  When we looked up side-effects of the medication, hypotension was one of them.   I stopped the antibiotics and I was fine.

The hypotension doesn't appear in normal activity, but it shows up during times of high activity, like running.   I did some reading and found out the medication we'd switched me to some time back had hypotension as a side effect.   I've been on the medication for a good while, but not as long as it's been since I've run.

And this presents a problem because I just signed up for a half marathon.   It's hard to train for a half marathon when you can't run.  There is a solution I think though.   I will change the time I take the medication each day and offset the following dose by three additional hours.   If I time it right, I'll have a three-hour window in which I won't be affected by the hypotension.

I've talked to my PA about offsetting the medication and a doctor about the hypotension and there is no negative impact by changing the medication in that way.   So I have a plan.   I need to see if it works though.   Hopefully, I can run.   I don't want to miss the half marathon.

The Big Boy Update:  My son made a homemade candle at school today.   Apparently, he went back in time in order to make it.   He told Margaret and me about the time travel and candle making process while we drove home from school this afternoon.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got her latest book home today.   I said I was going to read it with her.  I told her braillist I was going to.   Now that the book is home I'm scared.   This is a lot of braille!   My daughter is looking forward to it.



There are eight volumes of 11.5"x12" paper.   This is significantly larger than it would be if she were fully up to speed on braille.   First, she doesn't know all the contractions, meaning some words are completely spelled out, taking up more space.   But more impactful is that she reads braille double spaced on only the front side of the paper.   Eventually, she'll read single-spaced, double-sided paper.

Creepy Head

I've been watching videos on different hairstyles I can do on my daughter.  Some of them are simple and quick while others I can't help but watch because they look so beautiful and complex.  I tried one on her yesterday that was fairly easy, but her hair wasn't clean and the type of hair she has is fine and stick to itself so I had to do a rush job with it in the morning while she ate breakfast.

What I need is practice.   And I had an Idea.   I'd been watching some of these videos and the hair/head/person didn't look real.   When the stylist was finished they'd turn the model around and it turned out to be a mannequin head.   I'd heard stylists had practice heads they could use to color, cut and style but I'd never looked into them before.  

I was really surprised.  At two things.  First, the model heads were very inexpensive.  I read a lot of reviews because I remember the hair on the Barbie and other dolls from when I was a child.  The hair was sewn into the scalp in large chunks and while the hair looked okay and voluminous down, if you put it up in a ponytail it was obvious it was three patches sewn into the crown.

But the reviews were good on most of the models.   The other thing I was surprised at was how many of them advertised, "100% human hair".   A full head of 24" hair, including the head, the box, "styling tools" (a comb and a clip), mounting bracket to fix it to a table and shipping for $17.99 was not real human hair.   No way, no how.   But at that price, I was willing to take the risk.

Today I got the head in with blonde hair similar to my daughters in color and it's nice. Really nice for that price.   I showed my daughter and son.   My son wanted to attack it.   My daughter compared the hair length and said it was similar to mine.   My husband said, "that thing is just creepy."   I think my son agrees.

Maybe I'll get better at braiding the hair on this mannequin head so I can be more quick and accurate with my daughter, who does like her hair done, but doesn't like to sit still for it.

The Big Boy Update:  My son had a day off from school today and mostly off from screens.  He did a lot of reading and then went over to Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Margaret's house for some late afternoon gaming and dinner.  He's been doing a lot of reading lately.  My husband got him several books today so we can encourage his reading.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has also been reading a lot.  He braillest told me today the book she's requested (one of the Ramona Quimby series longer books) is over 340 pages when embossed in braille.   She said she's hoping that will last her through the three-week track out coming up.   I think I'm going to try and read some of it as well so I get some more practice with braille.

Good News Bad News

My husband and I are working with two investment properties.   There have been lots of ups and downs as we've dealt with buyers, sellers, renters, rezoning, unhappy neighbors and all the issues associated with 1950's circa homes in disrepair, renters and hoarders.

That's a random list of a few of the things involved with these two very special properties we've been involved with in some way or another since 2014.  Why have we wanted to deal with all the people, personalities and issues with these particular two pieces of land?   It's been for one simple reason: school expansion.  

They are the only two pieces of property that could possibly be used to expand the school.   They are the only two properties adjacent to the school that aren't otherwise developed.   Only just recently we were able to coordinate a contract in which the school has the exclusive right to purchase the properties at any time over the next five years at a pre-determined price.  This gives the school assurance the properties won't be sold to anyone else within that time and and purchase conditions favorable to the owners.

The school wants to be a good neighbor and tonight they hosted the neighborhood meeting of the community around the school.   There have been some times in the past when the school was initially being built where some of the neighborhood wasn't supportive of the school building there.   We think our school has been good neighbors and they hope to continue to be.   Tonight we had an opportunity, along with the new head of school, to let the neighbors know about the potential plans.

We had hoped they would be supportive of the school expanding, but we weren't sure. It turned out to be a happy meeting with the neighbors clapping and cheering.   After all the challenges over the years, tonight was a nice surprise when the neighbors clapped and cheered and are pleased the school will be hopefully expanding in the future.

So that's the good news.   The bad news is in having the fuel oil tank removed from one of the properties we found a second tank that is both underground and leaking.   It has to be reported to the city and it will cause the property to be marked high risk and have a land use restriction placed on it.  

It will need to be cleaned up, but it will involve the demolition of the house and additional excavation in order to remdeiate the petroleum contamination.   It's another bump, and not as bad as it sounds as the house was going to be demolished eventually as it was uninhabitable, but it adds urgency and cost to the process.   We'll get there though.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son is back from three days camping.   He had a very good time.   Tonight he needed a bath.   He didn't want us to make a big deal of him being home.   Tomorrow he's staying home from school, per the advice of his teacher, as the students were very tired from their time camping.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter didn't want to get out of the tub tonight.   She said, "just a moment".   Her father said, "I think it's been a moment..."  She said, "a moment is never-ending."

Playbills

My mother read my blog post from yesterday about my memories of the trip I took when I was in college to Egypt and Turkey.   I told her I wasn't altogether certain the college trip had been the most memorable or most influential in my life because it rivaled my memories of the ten-week trip we took to England and Scotland the summer I was eight.

It's hard to compare a fourteen-day trip with ten weeks of travel and the age difference from eight to nineteen was also a significant factor.   When I was eight, going on my first international flight, to spend weeks in a foreign country on a summer abroad program was at that age, the trip of a lifetime. Indeed of a lifetime that spanned only eight years.

At the time, my parents were college professors.  They were two of the teachers who went with a collection of college students on the "London Abroad" program.   As it turned out, years later, I would attend the same college and would go on my Egypt and Turkey trip, but that was years in the future.   At the time, I was a child in Europe, experiencing a different culture and country.

There are so many memories I have of that time.   So many good memories.   I have a special place in my heart for England probably because of that very trip.   I've told my husband if he ever wanted to relocate out of the United States, and wanted to go to England, he need only say the word and I'd start packing.

We did a lot of things while we were there.   I have my memories but something I didn't realize until my mother told me today was how many plays my parents went to while we were on that trip.   She said my father likes to tell people how they saw thirty-five shows in ten weeks.  She said he also has the Playbills for each one.

I had seen the stacks of Playbills at some point or another, and I knew as a child they got them when they went to see a play or show, but it had no meaning to me other than that.   I spoke with my father this afternoon and mentioned the trip to England and Scotland, the shows and the Playbills, and he told me something even more interesting:  my father has the Playbill for every show he's ever seen, starting from when he was fourteen.

Our lives are each complex and intriguing in our own ways.   There is much we don't know about each other, even though we've known each other for decades.   I had no idea about the Playbills.   I told my father I'd like to see the collection.   I'd be interested in what show's he's seen.   I remember a few of them, mostly Marcel Marceau, the mime they took me to while on that trip to England.

That was a show that went horribly wrong for both of them and me.   I was what was termed, "hyperactive" back then.   Put me in a show that's silent with a single man on the stage, and I couldn't stay still, I was bored.   I needed to move.   I unintentionally annoyed the people around us so much my mother had to take me out of the theater.

I was upset and embarrassed, but I don't think I could have stayed still if I'd tried.   I guess I did try very hard, but I just couldn't do it.   Back to the Playbills, I'm going to have to check his collection out the next time I go to the mountains to visit my parents.   My father told me tonight he's still trying to get the slot machine working.   Maybe we can get that going and reminisce about our trip to England and Scotland when I was eight-years-old.

The Big Boy Update:  Thinking of the Marcel Marceau story, I should remember that my son is like me in that way and sometimes he just can't stay still or sit at the table or listen to you without wiggling or doing flips over the sofa.   He's probably trying, just like I was, only his body can't.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Shane heard my daughter wrote her a touching send-off  letter.   She messaged me and asked if she could take my daughter out to get ice cream before she leaves to go traveling tomorrow.   My daughter put on her unique necklace that says "Munchkin" in braille Shane had custom made for her and was ready at the door when she arrived.   I told them to have a good time and not hurry back, that it was a special night.

Letters to Shane

Our sitter, Shane, is taking a gap year before college to do some travelling.   She's leaving this week to head to Indonesia for three months.  She returns for a bit and then heads to Africa for much of the spring.   Her mother is collecting letters to her with any thoughts we might have and will present the letters to her before she leaves later this week.  Tonight my daughter and I wrote our letters.   My daughter's is far better than mine, I'm pretty sure you'll agree.

Dear Shane,

Your mother asked us to write a “secret” letter to you to send you off on your gap year travels. What to say? What advice to give? What words of wisdom do I have to impart? I suppose I should first start off saying we shall all miss you. My daughter has only just finished writing her letter to you in which she unequivocally states exactly how much she is going to miss you. On the advice front, make wise choices, although you already do that. Which leaves only words of wisdom.

I’ve thought about what I’d say and I kept coming back to when I took a trip abroad during my college years. My parents told me I could take one trip while I was in college, so choose wisely. Given that I hadn’t expected to take any trips abroad while in college I was fairly excited about the prospect. When an opportunity came up to travel to both Egypt and Turkey I had my choice. I’ve been fairly obsessed with ancient Egypt since childhood and this was a chance to go to Egypt, see the great pyramid of Khufu, travel down the Nile in a boat, explore the Valley of the Kings, including King Tutankhamen’s tomb, see the temples at Abu Simbel plus many other things I didn’t know at the time would be important or interesting but turned out to be.

Also, I got to go to Turkey.

You might note that the second half of the trip didn’t factor in much in my excitement. I had no expectations of Turkey, it was just the other part of the trip after we’d visited Egypt. I didn’t think it would be interesting really, I mean how could it possibly compare with mummies, tombs and pyramids? But I was wrong, it was fascinating. I enjoyed the entire trip.

I didn’t know any of the people I would be traveling with, but we became friends. We had good times and bad—and there were definitely bad. Some of us got a stomach bug while we were on that boat going down the river Nile. It was no joke, it was one of those, “I can’t stop vomiting and I think I’m going to die” kinds of things. I remember when the doctor was eventually called for those of us with the worst cases. He came into the tiny boat cabin and explained he needed to give me a shot in my butt. I couldn’t stand, much less get on all fours with my pants down. I managed it just long enough for him to give me the shot before passing out. But then I was better. And it never felt so good being well—and being on a boat traveling down the Nile.

In Turkey we were on a bus a lot and one of the places we went was Troy. The original, the real, Troy. We saw some of the most beautiful sights and had food that was incredibly delicious. There were bazaars and then, because it was a ways into the trip, we saw a McDonalds. We hadn’t seen anything other than local cultural food since we’d left the United States. We needed that taste of home. And let me tell you something: McDonalds fries have never tasted so good in all my life.

Those are just a handful of the memories I have from my trip abroad while I was in college. Why am I telling you all of this given that you’re going to entirely different places? Because it’s stuck with me. The memories. That single trip I remember more than any of the other places I’ve ever been in my life. I hope your travels are equally meaningful and memorable. From hearing about them when we talked earlier tonight, I can’t imagine they won’t be.

Have fun, make friends, learn things, and of course, make wise choices.

The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted both his father and me to take him to school today to send him off on his three-day field trip with the third-year students.   It will be a small trip, with only twelve or so students.   He's known about this trip for two years and seen his older classmates go.   He's excited about being able to go this year, but it was nice he wanted us to go and give him a hug goodbye this morning.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter's letter to Shane

Connect Four

I loved playing Connect Four when I was a child.   I don't know how old I was when I got the game but I believe it was when it was rather new.  It came out in 1974 and I got it fairly young (I was born in 1970) and I'm guessing I had it by eight or so.  The cardboard box the game was in got more and more worn over the years, with tape bolstering the corners and edges.  Eventually, the box was lost to time and the game was kept in a ziplock bag.

That bag, along with other games I kept through the years, moved with me from house to house.   Sometimes it was in the attic, sometimes it was in a closet with other games and cards.  When we had children it went back in the attic.   It came out a few years ago and I'd been planning on introducing it to the children but somehow it never came up.

I was at Five Below's grand opening the other day, putting too many things in my cart because the price point of $5 or below is just too enticing for me to have much in the way of consumer self-control when I saw a small version of Connect Four.   The chips looked like they were a good size where I could add tactile elements to one of the colors so my daughter could learn and play with me.

This morning I added fuzzy stickers to the red chips and took the game over to our friend's house along with the dog and my daughter.   Everyone was going to have a play date hopefully.   Juliette saw the game in my hands and immediately wanted to play.   My daughter said, "Connect Four?  I want to play."  

It turns out she's learned how to play in the VI room at school.   She played with Juliette once and didn't win, something that makes her unhappy, so she didn't want to play again.   Tonight I brought the game back out while her father was drying her hair and played with her.

It was a bit in when I realized she wasn't playing with diagonals as a winning option.   It's harder for her because she either has to review the entire playing field every move or remember what the layout of chips is as it goes along.   It's hard when you can't look at the board as a whole to plan your moves.

We finished the game with me blocking her from winning three times while I never got three in a row.   She was unhappy she didn't win.   She needs to work on her sportsmanship.   I wasn't letting her win, but I wasn't trying to win very hard either.   She played quite well, considering.

We're going to rematch tomorrow.   I think she'll do well with the game when she has some more games down in practice.   I'm hoping we can take turns winning too so she can get some practice being both a gracious winner and a fair sportsman as a loser.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is off tomorrow on a three-day field trip with the third-year students from both lower elementary classrooms.  He's pretty excited about it.  He wants to read the book his father got for him to read tonight, instead of going to sleep.   I told him he had to wait until tomorrow.   I'm glad he wants to read through.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had a Y-Guides meeting tonight at a house with a pool.   My husband showed me pictures of their pool.  There is a curving slide, a grotto and you can jump or dive off from the decorative rocky area above.   They have a hot tub...and a basketball court in their basement.   I would have liked to see a basketball court in a basement that's fully underground.  

The Turtle and The Lizard

We've had events today.   But we're done, and home and I'm sitting on the bed writing a blog post and cooling off.  We first went to my son's school for a play date with the Lower Elementary families.  There are two classrooms of first through third graders, and this was an opportunity to have them play together while the parents of the first years had an initial conference with their child's teacher.

My son initially didn't want his sister to go, because he said we always spend time with her and never do anything with him.   This is interesting because he never wants to do anything with us because he's off with his friends for the duration of any event.  But he was correct, we spend time with his sister.  Firstly, because she doesn't know anyone, but mostly (I suppose that's 'secondly') because she can't see and she needs help navigating the outdoor learning environment at the school.

For this event, there were fewer students, and my son did have something he wanted us to do with him.   He's been playing four square a lot with his classmates.   I remember playing this ball bouncing game of four people a lot when I was a child.   We had him teach us the rules and then played a good bit with him and his friends, all rotating in and out as they were eliminated or rose in rank in the game.

My daughter wanted to play, which was nigh impossible because you have to see a ball to be able to bounce it accurately into another square—or even to hit it in the first place.   We took turns standing behind her, holding her arms and playing as a team.   She became petulant when she wasn't getting to be the King of the square, even though a lot of us weren't either.   I let her play with some other children who worked better because she was less likely to complain to them.

After the school event, we came home for a brief period before going to the Greek festival where we were meeting my daughter's Braillist from kindergarten.   During that short time at home, Madison, our next-door-neighbor, came over with a baby turtle in a container.   She let my daughter hold the turtle, who was a bit bigger than a quarter and very friendly.   It was nice because my daughter could touch it and feel the arms, head, shell, and tail.   My daughter liked knowing what the animal felt like.

We had a lovely time at the Greek festival, as is any time with Mrs. Aagaard.   She bought my daughter a waist scarf with coins sewn into it so she could practice being a belly dancer.   My daughter currently has it on and has been running around the house, jingling all the way.

The doorbell just rang, and I answered to find Jay and Claire with another animal in a box.   This time it was a lizard they'd caught in the woods.   My daughter walked outside, held her hands out in a cupped fashion, and said, "can I see it?"

What she meant was, "can I feel it?" but they didn't understand that.   I told her the lizard, unlike the turtle, moved very fast, and if they pulled it out of the cage, it would dash and be gone.   I told her it was about the size and shape of her finger.

I think my daughter was sad, but she doesn't show it when things like this happen.   I'm sad for her, though.   She wants to experience things, but so many things in life can't be "seen" in a way that she can make sense of them.   She has to listen to descriptions and do with only words to understand what a thing is like.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son really likes Mrs. Aagaard.   He's already made plans to go with her to The International Festival in two months.   He told me about it as we were leaving.   Hopefully he'll take the rest of us along.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got upset today at the end of the play date and said she hated one of the girls.   We were driving this girl home and my daughter didn't know she was standing beside her when she said it.   She further said she was dumb and mean.  So my daughter wrote her an apology note.   Her father thinks it might have been that my daughter ran into his daughter and was embarassed and was reacting that was as a result.   He could be right.   The note my daughter wrote Amelia was very touching.   She does like her and wants to be friends.   Her parents said she wasn't upset and that they all understood.

Sometimes There’s A Craving

Last night I wanted Indian food.  A lot of it.   Fortunately, my husband also wanted Indian food.   We tried to figure out what the children would like, spicy-wise and dish specifics and I headed off to the Indian restaurant with a plan to order a sizeable amount of food and then, while it was being cooked, look for some Gorilla glue in the delicate dispenser format so we could glue in one of my daughters lenses to her glasses.

I came home with a lot of food.   My daughter and son both liked the rice and we all liked one of the dishes we'd never tried before.   I wasn't able to find the glue in time, but my husband made do with some other glue I had in the craft room.   She has two pair of prescription glasses, both of which have issues with the left lens staying in place.

There was a lot of leftover food.   We're eating it tonight, my husband had some for lunch and we'll eat it through the weekend.   I'm not sure I got enough Naan, but they definitely gave me a lot of rice, which is popular with my children.

Today was sunny and nice weather—perfect for the canceled school day my daughter had for the hurricane that wasn't particularly close to us.  She and I got new shoes for her, something she didn't want to do at all until she got to try them on.   Then, she was all about getting new shoes.

The Big Boy Update:  My son had school, unlike the public school which canceled the last two days for potential hurricane weather here (which didn't come to pass).   He's happy about the research he's working on and the Mystery History project he'll be doing for Halloween, in which he presents a figure from history and the parents try to guess who he's dressed up as and reporting on in the first person.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had her hair cut today.   We only do it about twice a year and cut off only an inch each time as it grows quite slowly.   After the haircut, we went to get shoes.   It is interesting getting shoes for a blind child.   The important things to her were the pattern of rubber on the bottom of the shoes and what "maze" it made.   Also, if there had been, "flip" shoes she would have been interested, but there were none so she picked pale pink and blue—neither of which she could see.   She liked the patterns a lot on the bottom though, which was all that mattered to her.

Nickel Tech Support

My father has a nickel slot machine from the 1920s in their house.   It has a long history with our family, starting when I was about the age of my children when my father found it at a yard sale.

The machine was in pieces and a long way from being functional again.  My father worked on it for a long while, figuring out how the pieces all worked together to make the reels spin.  In the end, he got it working.  It's a testament to his skill and ingenuity.  There was no YouTube to look up how to's on.  He had to go it all alone.

I was impressed it worked at all.  It was such a mass of metal, springs, hinges, and grooves and somehow, when everything was just right, it accepted nickels and rolled the reels for you.  But it broke a lot too.  It had a tolerance that could easily be overwhelmed by youths pumping nickels into the top.

Over the years I got so I could fix any problem introduced by playing it.   I suppose these were an early form of software, "bugs". I had to chase down the errors which in this case were nickles run amok in the machine, fallen into the inner workings and causing troubles.

I hadn't thought about debugging the slot machine until today when my mother called and told me about a story of some visitors who got the slot machine stuck.

My father and I talked over the phone as he jangled the machine around, trying to remember common issues and ways we got them working again.   I was surprised how much I remembered about the machine just from talking to my father.   I wanted to be there, to touch the machine.   I'm sure I would have remembered more.   I could almost smell the oil and feel the parts moving in my hands.

My father and I didn't figure it out over the phone.   Hopefully, he got it working after we hung up.   He had remembered more about it than I had.  Next time I go to the mountains I'll have to play the slot machine again.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been into all things Zelda lately.   He's gotten my husband and me into it from a memories standpoint.   We found old Zelda games in the attic and my son brought them up on the console downstairs.   Then, tonight after my son was asleep, I found my husband playing on the Switch, but playing an old game of Zelda they'd recently updated.  

The TIny Gitl ChrocinclesL:  My daughter listened to multiple audio books today on her day off from school while we had hurricane rains (we're on the edge of the hurricane Dorian.). Tomorrow she may well listen to several more books.   I returned books to the library for the blind today in person.   I had them change her preference to uncontracted braille so that she won't be frustrated reading the books they send.