Goodbye Sunshine

My husband got his Christmas present today.   I suggested it but initially he wasn't interested.   We have a refrigerator in the garage.   We use it for overflow from the kitchen and store things in the freezer we don't use as regularly.   Or in the case of my husband, for his collection of meats. 

We were always out of space in the refrigerator, which had a lot of room taken up by an icemaker that no longer worked.  And then there was the leaking.   The unit was working, but a dark, crude oil like ooze rolled out from under it regularly, making me question how much longer the unit would be functional. 

I had gotten the refrigerator when I purchased my second home.  It was white, which was the "in" color in 1997.   It was my main refrigerator for that house, sat in the garage for the next house do to size restrictions but then returned as the main kitchen unit when I bought the next house.   When my husband and I built the house we're currently in, we got a stainless steel refrigerator and the white one went for round two in the garage. 

I met my husband out after lunch earlier this week for some refrigerator shopping.   Once we were looking at units he decided it might actually be a good idea to upgrade, and by the end of the day selected and purchased one.   

Today was delivery day.  Last night he pulled out all the contents of the old refrigerator and crammed them into our kitchen one, placing any overage in coolers until the morning.  He was ready when they arrived to take away our old unit and then install/connect the new one.   I was in the kitchen eating breakfast when my husband sent me this picture from the garage saying, "Goodbye sunshine."

The wooden hand-painted sun has been on the refrigerator for the majority of years I've owned it.   It was part of a gift my friend, Harmony, made.   I didn't know what to do with it so I affixed it to the refrigerator.   And I just never took it down.   I haven't seen Harmony in years and years but it always reminded me of her when I saw the sun.

What My Son Did Today:  No food outside of the kitchen.  This has been a long-standing rule that food stays in food areas.   I came in today to find my son sitting on the living room ottomon—that I bought less than a week ago—with an open can of soda sitting on the material, leaving a sweat ring.  I turned off the television and told him no more soda (well, in this case it was a seltzer) for a while. 

What My Daughter Wants to Do Today:  My daughter and her friend want to put hair chalk on.   This would be fine if they did it outside and my daughter didn't do three hundred headstands a day (it's her new thing, she is doing a headstand most of the time she's not engaged in something else.   I'm not exaggerating on the three hundred.).  It's starting to rain.  Maybe they can do it and then okay outside in the rain until it washes out?  Or maybe a warm bath.  

The Turkey Never Stopped Cooking

Did I mention we lost power for most of the day yesterday?  I was in the closet ironing linens for the Thanksgiving dinner we'd be hosting in four hours when my husband came in and said, "did you notice that the power went off?"  I looked at the iron, which was on, and said, "did it flicker?"  He said, "no, it's still off."  I looked at the iron again, and then I remembered the Power Walls.

My husband, through the referral program Tesla held on and off over the years, built up enough referrals to get a Tesla Power Wall for our house.   We had solar already but didn't have the ability to keep a power bank at our home, so even with solar, we didn't have power during power outages because we were technically part of the grid.

Things are different with batteries in the mix, though.  The solar system doesn't integrate directly with the grid, the batteries do the interfacing as well as smart management of where power is coming from and going to.   So yesterday in the middle of prime turkey cooking time when the power went off for our entire neighborhood, we cooked on, had lights, and even internet connectivity.

A large tree had fallen across the road coming towards our neighborhood.   It took hours to clear, and traffic had to be routed entirely around in the other direction, something that took people upwards of twenty minutes to do.   Many of our neighbors weren't happy, given that they, too, had turkeys in the oven, only without power, the cooking mostly stopped.

Unlike a whole house generator that sits ready for situations in which the power is out but otherwise doesn't do much, the Tesla Power Walls manage our energy consumption all day, every day.  On a standard day, we charge the batteries when we're overproducing as opposed to selling excess power back to the electric company at a low rate.  When we're on on-peak hours, we pull from the batteries, using little to no grid power, and in the case of a power outage, the batteries take over and provide us with all the energy we need.

Only interestingly enough, we didn't need all that much power from the batteries yesterday.   Because it was a sunny day, we were producing more electricity than we were using, even with the oven running, so we were both running the house as well as charging the batteries for a while until late afternoon when the sun grew low in the sky.

Fortunately, the power was back on before dinner time.  Fortunate for us but also lucky for our neighbors who were hoping to have power in time for their family holiday meal.

What My Son Said:  My son was playing with Mimi the other day.   She likes to make sure she takes time with each child.  My daughter will gladly suck up any, and all the time Mimi's willing to give, but my son has his own endeavors he wants to pursue.  Hs summed it up the other day when he had had enough and said, "Mimi's tired, and I'm bored" as his reason for it to be time for her to go home.

What My Daughter Did A While Back:  I discovered some hidden Halloween decorations recently.   When my daughter and her friend, Madison, were helping to decorate our house, one of the things they did was make the little plastic ghosts you put a piece of tissue paper in and tie off with a twist tie.   Then you hang them on the branches of a tree outside to have them dangling down.   I knew they had made them, but I'd forgotten all about them.   My daughter, not understanding how they would or wouldn't be seen from a distance, climbed up into the tree in the front yard and tied them in the branches.   Now that fall has arrived, and the leaves have fallen off the tree, we can see the ghosts, which have remained unknown and hidden for over a month.

The Turkey Temperature

Thanksgiving dinner is over, all our family has left and I've been trying to get to this post for an hour, but I've been stuck.   I thought I could escape but the draw was too strong.  My husband put Frozen on the television in the living room for my children to see.  This rarely happens in our house because of my daughter.   That may sound strange, but it's a concatenation of things based on my daughter's lack of vision.

We used to watch television shows together, put on Disney or other children's shows for the children when they both were sighted.   Once my daughter lost a lot of her vision we would still put things on and she'd stand on a bar chair, holding on to the mantle, looking as closely as she could at the television, seeing only parts of the screen, in order to watch something.   Then, when her vision declined more, she could only watch things two inches away on her iPad.   And ultimately, she gave up on vision because it was so minimal, and started listening to things.

The decline in her vision caused the general decline in our family having family movie night.  There is a way we can watch movies that my daughter will be able to understand what's going on using "assistive audio", but she doesn't prefer it usually.   Assistive audio is available in movie theaters and is on many movies on Netflix and other streaming providers.   It's an audio track like you would have a separate language track for movies at home.   During any time in which there is no dialog, a narrator describes what's happening.   It's always impressive to me what they can describe in just a few seconds.

But my daughter usually isn't interested and at this point, my son would rather do his own thing.   So movies as a family rarely happen.   Only tonight, after Thanksgiving dinner, my husband put on Frozen, one of the last movies my daughter ever saw before she lost her sight.  He put on assistive audio and my daughter got her blankets and pillows and was actually interested.  

I walked through the room and got stuck.   I stood there for a while watching the movie.  Then I sat down.  Then I planned on getting up but didn't make it.   Finally, during the dark part of the movie I made it into the bedroom to write this post.   It's a good movie.   We all know the songs and it was charming, hearing my daughter's little tinkling voice singing out from under her fluffy blanket as she lay on the sofa across the room.

But I'm here while the movie winds down, writing up our turkey experience today.   In order to get my son more involved in thanksgiving dinner, my husband had him help with making some of the food, something my son rarely does that we're going to try and nurture more.   I suggested my son make a graph of the turkey temperature, seeing if we could predict when the turkey would be ready.

He'd never made a graph before.  I got some graph paper, writing "Temperature" on the Y-axis and "Time" on the X-axis.  Every half hour Alexa would remind them to check the temperature.   My son waited for an hour for the thermometer in the turkey to register more than 105 degrees and then, with excitement, each half-hour he checked the status and noted the increasing temperature on the graph until the turkey reached 165 degrees and was ready to come out of the oven.

It was a good day with our family.  Hopefully, everyone had a happy Thanksgiving with whomever they choose to spend it with.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was banned from YouTube today.  He played with friends and helped his father with the Thanksgiving meal.  He was positively manic at dinner, almost painfully so.  I'm not sure what the cause is.  Some of it is a desperate need for attention and acceptance, although the way he goes about it gets him negative attention because he's too intense.  I'm not sure what to do about that.   He had a happy day though I think. He had a great time with his cousin, Olivia.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is awake still.  She's watching, well listening to, a movie which is almost unheard of for her.  I'd love for her to be interested in watching more movies with the family.  It's something many families do together.   We have very few things we can do as a family together because most things are challenging, like playing board games.   Although we're learning ways over time to accomplish things with her lack of sight.  There isn't anything that's quite the same as sitting together to watch a movie though.

Gonna Hafta Wanna Gotta

I've been listening to an audiobook on English grammar for a while now.   It's been on and off listening because twelve hours on English grammar need to be broken up with other books of the more non-fiction variety.

The author discusses how what is grammatically acceptable changes over time and there are periods of time that something increases in popularity and subsequently becomes seen as more standard and accepted.  Whereas other things in either our written or spoken language fall off in usage as different things become more mainstream.   And that while there are generally accepted standards, there is no one standard for everything.  In fact, many style guides differ in what is accepted.

Something she said in American English that I knew, but hadn't thought about was the acceptance of gonna, hafta, wanna, gotta and several other words in similar formation in our spoken word.   That we speak them without even thinking about it.   We might write, "she's going to call the repairman tomorrow" but if we were to speak it aloud to someone it would naturally come out, "she's gonna call the repairman tomorrow."

I say all of the informal contractions.  Using the non-contracted form sounds stilted and formal.   I wonder if everyone I know says them, or, more to the point, if anyone I know doesn't say them?

What My Son Did Today:  My son has been told tomorrow he may watch a movie or perhaps a show, but no more YouTube.   He's not watching bad stuff but it sure hasn't been good stuff.   Maybe I'll get hin to watch one of my science shows tomorrow.

What My Daughter Did Today:  She and I made some cookies with Mimi and then I went out on some errands.   When I got home she had the slime kit from her birthday and she and Madison had made lots of slime in the dining room.   There was glitter.   I hate glitter.  They were quite happy with their creations though.

The Blue Goose

When I was in college I did several co-ops with companies.   The company I worked for the longest, and subsequently was hired by, was IBM.  I was working towards a degree in software development, or as it was called back then, "programming" because there weren't all the specialties there are now in the field.  Once I started working for IBM I kept on working for them in sort of a continual co-op situation until I was hired upon graduation.

I worked in a large software development lab that had around seven hundred employees working on all sorts of products from IBM.  Most of the work was for mainframe-based products and while we had IBM PCs at our desks, we'd spend a lot of time in green screen terminal windows doing much of our work.   I was fortunate in that I was hired to work on a product being developed for the desktop so I got to work in the newest, latest object-oriented technology and had a more powerful machine than I could have afforded on my own.

This still was back in the day where a lot of things were printed out.   Much of what some of the programmers printed out would come on that paper with the holes on the sides in long, long sheets that folded back and forth.   Some of the developers would have their code printed out to review or would have "dumps" of the error conditions they were trying to debug.   I was lucky again that the product I was developing in, called Smalltalk, was all on my machine and I didn't need to print out anything because the debugging tools were right there on the desktop.

There were people down the hall from me that had stacks of continuous form paper all over their office.  One man I remember had a claustrophobic office from the sheer volume of paper stacked on every surface available.

IBM was particular about confidentiality.   Things were, "IBM Confidential" meaning you couldn't talk about it.   IBM was almost cold war-like in their concerns about information escaping from the confines of the development lab.   For the life of me, I couldn't understand why ninety percent of what we did would be of interest to their competitors, but I was just a co-op and it wasn't my place to decide.

On every floor in an area just off the corridor from the elevators was a large blue container.   This thing was big.   It blocked most of the hallway in width, was about as tall as I was and was probably ten feet deep.   This monstrosity was called "The Blue Goose".  The blue part I got, the goose part I never did.   At the front of it was a two-inch slit at the top into which you would put anything IBM Confidential or higher.   There were more restrictive classifications of confidential, fortunately, I never had to deal with any myself.

The Blue Goose would be taken away every so often to have the materials shredded and possibly, but not necessarily recycled.  This was back in 1990 and recycling wasn't much of a thing at the time.  Provided your paperwork wasn't confidential, you could just put it in your trash can.   BUT...if you weren't sure, and perhaps you had written something like, "I should remember to work on the subroutine for the login page" it was probably confidential.   Such was the advice of my team leader.  He was on the excessively cautious side.

I left that lab in 1994, shortly before it was relocated to the large IBM site in the next city.  This was during the IBM hiring freeze and multiple rounds of "incentive-based reductions" in which people retired early not necessarily of their own choosing, among other reductions in force.   It wasn't the best of economic times for IBM.

I left of my own volition to go work for another company that did consulting work with the same product I had been using to write code for the past several years and for the remainder of my career in software development I worked in and around the IBM products I had initially started working in back in 1990.   IBM was a nice place to work, but it was much nicer working for a consulting company in many ways.

That was the last time though that I ever worked in a large office.   It was nice being in a building with other people all around you.   For the most part after that, I had a home office.   It was a different work experience and one I grew used to, but I have always missed the camaraderie of working with people around me all day.

What My Son Did Today:  My son came in after school with his iPad and asked if I would approve a download of a free game.   He said we could play it together.   I got it downloaded but he ran off.  He reminded me after dinner to download it and then got distracted watching something on television.   I'm going to try and get his attention after writing this post and see if he wants to play together.   He's off for the next five days for Thanksgiving break, hopefully, we can play some together.

What My Daughter Did Today:  My daughter came in from school and wanted to play for me a song she had written on the piano.   She wanted to show it to me before her music therapist got here.   I went to the basement and listened to her piece (her second composition she told me) and then heard the doorbell.   Chelsea arrived with her baby, Ella, who my children adore (because they love all babies unconditionally).   Ella went to the basement with Chelsea to listen to my daughter's piece and have music lesson with her.

Luminaries

It's late and I'm just getting to this now.  My best friend's children were over tonight discussing how we're going to do our neighborhood annual luminaries event, something she and I have coordinated for the past four years.  

This year we decided to have the children do more of the work and tonight was our brainstorming session.   How would we make the event a success?  My son suggested initially bullying people into buying luminaries but he was outvoted by the five girls and then agreed it would be a bad idea.  

We are now having a cookie swap to hand out the materials, something all the children are going to advertise with a video posted on Facebook and a flyer with a handmade cookie we'll put on every door this coming weekend.   The luminary light up night will coincide with the evening Santa and Mrs. Clause will be visiting the clubhouse for families interested in seeing him.  

The children picked a charity to have the funds raised go towards and are enthusiastic about the process.  My children are the youngest of the group, but they want to participate too and will be going around the neighborhood with the older girls to hand out cookies and flyers.

There will be a lot to do but I think they'll get a better feel for what it takes to raise money for a cause going through the process.   When I told them we raised a thousand dollars last year they got excited about helping.   Hopefully, with the children doing a lot more by way of advertising the events, we'll get a lot of participation from the neighborhood.   It's always been lovely seeing the edges of the streets all lit up with luminaries in the crisp December night.

What My Son Said:  My best friend's dog, Remy, was over with the children tonight.  Remy is getting neutered tomorrow and it's about time because all he wanted to do tonight was mount Matisse, who was good-natured about the whole thing.   My son asked partway through, "are you having his sex machine removed tomorrow?"

What My Daughter Did:  My daughter wanted to help with the luminary project but ran out of energy and fell asleep on the ottoman before we finished brainstorming.  She is most excited about the cookie making part of the project so once we were done talking about that she wandered off, got her pajamas on with her father's help getting drops and teeth brushed and then fell asleep with the loud ruckus of children all around her.

Puppy Party

First, Matisse, my puppy, was playing with our friend, Milo.  Milo was a dog.  He loved to play with Matisse.  Matisse loved to play with him so much because she loved to tackle him.  And then somebody from the street over that had a dog named Layla, came over to play with Milo and Matisse.

Milo, Matisse and Layla were having so much fun, no one was noticing that they had gotten loose from their leashes.  More and more and more dogs came from around the neighborhood.  They were having so much fun but everybody didn't notice they were gone.  The owners didn't notice the dogs were gone because they were inside.

The dogs got off their leashes by tugging really hard.  They bited onto their leashes where they were hooked up and then they pushed down and yanked it up.  They didn't leave the neighborhood because they didn't want to get crashed by cars on the big road.  The big road was large with at least five lanes.  There was a lot of cars in every lane and the cars went fast.

There was only one dog that wasn't playing at the puppy party.  Her name was Millie.  She loved to dance and do everything but she didn't know how to get off her leash.  She escaped her house with the leash on and she went to the party.  The other dogs taked her leash off her.  She felt much better with her leash off.

The had fun at the party but soon the grownups found out.  But they just smiled and brought them back home.   And they ALL lived happily ever after.

The End
Story by Reese
-----

What My Son Did Today:  My son got in big trouble last night after coming home from spending a good part of the day with Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Margaret.   He ended up losing screens for the entire day—unless he, "worked very hard to earn it back".   This morning before my husband and I woke up my son was lavishing us with gifts.  He was whispering in our ears how wonderful we were as the best parents on the planet and he loved us oh so much.   He gave us presents from his desk that he'd made over the past few years at school in art class.   When we got up we had to explain the phrase, "sucking up" and how it didn't mean he was getting screens back.   He did end up doing a lot of work folding laundry and putting up things around the house and gained some screen time back based on a positive attitude and overall work completed.

What My Daughter Did Today:  A neighbor friend was having a birthday party today.   Madison was over and was going to Claire's party and got my daughter all interested in making a card and then a present for Claire.   The girls were quite excited about making something and I said I would help, finding a few things from my collection of stuff when I was finished with some work.  My daughter wrote a very sweet card I transcribed into print that clearly showed there had been strained times between them in the past and my daughter hoped they could be closer friends now.  I told the girls they couldn't come into the craft room while I was looking for things (on account of there are too many things they'd want if they saw my crazy collection of stuff) but that I would look for the things they told me Claire liked: unicorns, narwhals and pink things—oh, and a red gel pen—and see what I could find.

I found the gel pen in red, a squishy unicorn pen and a unicorn pencil pouch and then got some hair clips in three shades of pink.   I threw in some Unicorn lollipops and then for fun, asked the girls if they thought Claire would like to open some oysters that had real pearls in them?   These are small little oysters vacuum-sealed in plastic and then heated to kill all bacteria so they don't smell when you open them.   They have a surprisingly large pearl in them when you open them.

My daughter and Madison went down to Claire's in the afternoon because I explained to them what, "crashing the party" was and since my daughter wasn't invited, it would be polite to give Claire her present and then come back home.  About five minutes after they left I got a call from Claire's mother saying they'd love for my daughter to stay and that it wasn't really a party as much as ordering pizza and having cake last minute on her birthday.   My daughter was excited to stay.

When she got home later she told me about Claire opening her present and that her favorite thing was the two oysters.  She took the pearls and put them in her "fancy jewelry box".

Should I Be Worried About This?

There is too much to write about today since yesterday I had to cut my post short.   I will be invaded shortly so I'll see how much I can get done before I'm out of bandwidth here.

First, the thing this blog post is about.   The field trip to the coast yesterday involved a lot of hours on a bus.   When I got in last night one of the mothers had sent a picture of my son's face, as drawn by her son.   It was fairly straightforward and had I not known it was my son by the title, it would have been hard to tell because drawing at that age isn't that detailed typically.  Today, I opened up my son's notebook and found some pictures.

I have no idea what they're about but I sure as heck am curious.   One scene is possibly in a club with a DJ spinning tunes on the right while a muscular, tank-topped guy is surrounded by women who want to dance with him, thoughts of love shown by the hearts above their heads.  Surely this is not what my son was drawing?  There is a picture that seems to be some boy/girl attraction with two kissing while another boy vomits in disgust.   Then there is the drawing of a man with a pencil-thin mustache and stubble looking at a girl blowing him a kiss.   Who is the man with the facial hair?  And then there is the depiction of a girl receiving a gift and then saying 'yes' beside more kissing people.   What does all this mean?  And do I want to know?  My son has never said anything remotely indicating he has any idea about any of this.  He's eight.  Well, he's almost nine.   I suppose I'll find out soon enough...





But on to more innocent things...  Remember when I mentioned my daughter was approached by a fifth-grader on the playground who wanted to know if she had a Perkins Brailler and if so, did she know she could make pictures with it?  Well, I emailed his parents telling them the story from the playground earlier in the day.  I said we'd love to have their son, Theo, over any time if he'd like to do some of those pictures on my daughter's brailler.

I got an almost immediate response from his mother, saying what a wonderful idea, and that yes, Theo would love to come over.   She told me her son was into ciphers and codes and he had a book of them he'd love to show my daughter.   Also, he would like to bring his acoustic guitar to teach her some chords if she would be interested.

Today we got Theo and my daughter together, but beforehand I wanted to make sure we were ready.  I first printed up a collection of braille picture instructions and two pages on the braille symbols.   Then, my daughter typed up a cover sheet in braille for Theo, but we didn't write the print words above the braille because we wanted to let Theo translate the braille later when he got home.   We used our little binder machine to make it all into a booklet and then we were ready for Theo's arrival.

My daughter and Theo didn't know each other, save for that two-minute conversation on the playground.   As a parent, you always hope things go well, but you never really know beforehand.  Theo pulled out his guitar first thing, showing it to my daughter who wanted to sit down and touch it.  He asked his father if they had tuned it recently.  His father said he thought it was in tune but my daughter, now strumming it said, "no, it's not."   I said I wasn't sure how she would know but Theo did, he said he did, that she had perfect pitch.   At that point, my son called for Theo to come upstairs to show him their drum set.   My daughter wanted to go too and grabbed Theo's hand, telling him she loved him.   I need to tell her not to move so quickly with the boys, but I suppose she's still young for that lesson.

Theo's father, Drew, and I followed them upstairs a few minutes later after my son had come downstairs and departed with Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Margaret's for some hardcore gaming.   When Drew and I got upstairs my daughter had already shown Theo the alphabet in braille and how to load paper into her braillewriter.   Drew and I sat back and talked about braille (he wasn't familiar with it).  I demonstrated how you typed on on my daughter's other braillewriter while she and Theo worked on the other one she has on loan from school.

Theo was very excited about the book of braille pictures we'd made for him and he said he was definitely up for translating the cover sheet.   My daughter wanted to show him the next present she had for him.   Imagine a cryptex like the one from The Davinci Code.  Only imagine it in orange plastic and with braille letters on it.   My daughter had won one a while back at a VI event and decided to give it to Theo since she'd heard he loved codes so much. He kept that in his pocket or with him the remainder of the afternoon and clicked it around from time to time between reading out the lines of the braille pictures to my daughter.

They had to work together to make the pictures.  He could read the printed pages but didn't know braille.  She knew braille but had no idea what to type.   They got pretty good at it and even though the picture they selected was large and complicated, once Theo understood about repositioning and erasing (with your fingernail) he and my daughter worked together until they had it finished.

After they'd finished their shamrock picture, my daughter wanted to inflate balloons.  We all headed into the craft room and I pulled out the balloon container and the hand inflaters.   We blew up balloons and let the air escape from them, wondering how different shaped balloons would sound as they deflated and flew across the room.   Then we tied some off and made a crazy balloon sculpture from different sizes and lengths.   I have a varied collection of balloon shapes, including the long, thin ones used to make balloon animals so we had a creative sculpture when Theo was done putting everything together.  

And then, sadly, it was time for Theo to go home.   We had a hard time ending the day because everyone, including the adults, were having such a splendid time.  Hopefully, Theo will be able to come back soon to visit.

What My Son Said Today:  My son is at Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Margaret's house now.   He went over there this afternoon.  My son and Uncle Jonathan are playing Fortnite, a game in which you try to outlive everyone else by killing them with various guns and weapons you find as you run around the game map.  Margaret messaged me saying, "Fortnite marathon in process. I’m sitting in bed, reading, snuggling up with two sleeping kitties, sipping a cup of tea, minding my own business, when I hear Greyson exclaim, 'Say hello to my little friend!' I literally spit tea across the room and laughed so hard that the cats ran under the bed."   He apparently said it in a little eight-year-old Al Pachino voice too.   She texted back a little later saying she'd heard my son exclaim mid-game, "Is it just me or am I really good?"  He and Uncle Jonathan have been doing quite well because we got another message, this time from Uncle Jonathan, saying the two of them had just gotten a "Victory Royale" together, meaning their duo team was the last to survive out of 100 players.

What My Daughter Did Today:  Not ten minutes before Theo arrived this afternoon my daughter decided it would be a good idea to go biking in the rain and wait for him.   She was doing circles in the driveway and ran headlong into the basketball post.   She came in crying in that, "I've injured myself and I'm scared" kind of way.   She had cut open the bottom of her chin with about a centimeter-long cut.   There wasn't much to be done save for a long wait at urgent care for one or two stitches at most, and she had been so excited to see Theo.   I cleaned the wound, put some strong lidocaine on it to make it stop hurting so I could add antibiotic cream and then butterfly it closed tightly.   She was a good sport about things, particularly after I told her we were going to put a Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine bandaid over the butterfly strip.   Fun bandaids always make things feel better.

Down All Around

Our Internet connection is down at the house tonight.   It is apparently something fairly significant as it has taken at least the neighborhood out.   This wouldn't be a problem for this blog except we also have our cellular via the same carrier and the trouble seems to extend to all their connectivity here as though something big got taken down in the general vicinity of our house.  

My connection is spotty as I write this through my cell phons' hot spot so I'll make it quick and write more about something or other tomorrow.

My Son's Day:  My son went to Fort Fisher with his class today.  He'd missed the last two years so I was excited to hear how the trip went when I picked him up.  I got there, parked and when the bus arrived I got out and waited for him to disembark.   I turned around a few minutes later to see him playing with another child on the pavement.  I asked him how he got off the bus without me seeing him.   He looked sad and said, "I didn't get to go, Mom.   I've been here all day."   I swear, he got me. I believed him for half a second, even though it made no sense.   He laughed and I congratulated him on a trick well played.   We got in the car and he told me all about the trip, including the fun he had on the bus with his friends there and back (his favorite part, he said).

My Daughter's Day:  We went to my daughter's class for Friendsgiving today.  All the parents brought lunches in and we had a nice time seeing her friends and the other parents.   She was sad we weren't taking her home after lunch.   It was still several days before Thanksgiving break, we told her, but it would be coming soon enough.

The Most Beautiful Flowers In The World

Today we received a bouquet of flowers from Martin Drake, a company my husband has worked with for many years.  In the past, they've sent chocolates, which were always appreciated and eaten by all the members of our family.   So when I came into the house today to see the lovely, expansive bouquet on our dining room table, I was pleasantly surprised to hear it was from Martin Drake to our family for the holidays.

At dinner tonight my husband had put my daughter's plate in front of her.  She has very little vision remaining in her eyes so he was telling her where each of her food items was located, ("the broccoli is in the top left, the ham is to the right, potatoes are in the front left and green beans are in the right back").   While he was doing this I took a look at the flower arrangement.

When my husband was done describing the food locations to my daughter I said, "after you're done eating, I want you to feel the flowers.   This is the most interesting bouquet I've ever seen."   It was interesting because it was so very tactile.   It wasn't the colors, it was the textures; it was the shapes.

I don't normally post lots of pictures of the same thing, but in this case, I'm going to, because the arrangement was like a treasure hunt of textures.   There were soft things in deeper and harder things further out.  There were dense roses in one spot and little mushroom-shaped things that weren't mushrooms at all.  There were huge Gerber daisies and similar in size but different in feel than the sunflower om the top.   There were things that felt like Queen Ann's Lace but weren't.   And there were twenty other things I had no idea about.

There was treasure after treasure for my daughter in this bouquet.  Not just flowers, there were leaves that were different.   There were stems.   There was mossy stuff and fluffy things.  There was so much more than just flowers in this arrangement.

Aunt Jo and I tried to come up with names of things in the arrangement but many of them we couldn't label.   My daughter didn't mind, we all tried to describe them.   Some things we were able to describe to my daughter in other ways.  For instance, she thought the magnolia leaves felt fake.   I asked her if she knew of the place we parked at school where we went around in a small circle before stopping the car and getting out?   I told her in the center of that circle was a magnolia tree and the next time we were there I'd let her get out and feel a whole tree of those strange feeling leaves.

I had to run off to start the bath but I left my daughter at the table with the arrangement.   My daughter came in later, exuberantly happy like I haven't seen her in a while.   She said, "Mom, those are the most beautiful flowers in the world!"

I have to agree, I think it's my favorite arrangement ever.   So thank you from our whole family to Martin Drake for the lovely holiday gift of the most beautiful flowers in the world.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son has a bit of a cough today.   His teacher said to get rest, eat well and be ready for the trip to Fort Fisher tomorrow.   My son took her advice seriously and went to sleep early tonight, taking some cough medicine so he would get a good night's sleep before his early morning departure tomorrow.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter found one flower she said felt "like wet gummies" in the flower arrangement from Martin Drake.  I didn't know what she was referring to because I couldn't see anything that looked like what she was describing.   And then it hit me—she was feeling that florists foam that's dark green and holds loads of water.   She was reaching in and touching it and wondered what it was.   I told her it felt really neat and went squish and kept water in the plants so they lived longer.

Learning to Write

I've been writing this blog since 2011, which is a bit shocking when I think about it considering I don't consider myself a writer.  In school, I loved math first and foremost because it's so succinct.  There are rules and when followed, you can do amazing things with numbers alone.  Science was my second favorite subject because scientists make our world better every day with discoveries and inventions scientists make.  But writing?

I remember fighting my parents when I was in junior high school about writing papers or doing anything related to writing more than one sentence at a time.  I just hated writing.  I thought English was boring and grammatical rules made no sense.   Also, I refused to learn to type.  At the time there wasn't a real benefit to learning to type in my opinion back in 1980.  There weren't people I could communicate with online (there was no online) if I could type.   There were only boring papers to be written via a typewriter.

And what was all the fuss with being able to type a certain number of words per minute?  That just made me less-inclined to learn touch typing.   I'm a master at making mistakes.  My favorite key on the keyboard for twenty-five years running is the backspace/delete key.   Bar none, hands down.   Take that single key away from me and I'd quit writing.

What confounds me is that for over two thousand nine hundred days I have sat down to write something here.   Or rather I usually sit down.  I'm not sure if I've written any posts standing up, but that's a lot of posts, maybe I have.  That's a lot of words for someone who doesn't like to write.

Only somewhere along the way, I started to like to write.  I became interested in grammar, like should two thousand nine hundred be written out or can it be put in 2900 number form?  If it's at the beginning of a sentence, it needs to be written out I just found out.  I've been stumbling through writing.   I think I'm better at writing now than when I started in 2011, but that's mostly been through sheer brute force of words over time.

I'd like to get better though.  I'm listening to an Audible book right now that was a free book of the month for Audible members about fiction writing.   I write very little fiction here, but a lot of the information from the speaker is good.   I just learned about past perfect tense on the way to a meeting tonight.   And for the first time, I think I understand it.

I also have been talking to a fellow parent at my son's school.   I found out about a year ago that he was writing a children's fiction book.  He and I get together at parent socials and events and I ask how it's going.  He knows I write this blog and we talk about that some.   He invited me to a writer's support group this past week.   I don't know how much I can help or how much help I'll need, but it sounds interesting.

The other three writers are working on fiction projects and all want to get together...only they're all busy so I think the first meeting will be next year.   I feel very under-qualified to be any advice at all on writing advice.  Maybe I'll get some as that will help me too.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has a field trip on Friday that is an annual thing.  He missed the last two years.  It's a big trip that will have him gone for over twelve hours.  His teacher told us when we picked him up today, "he has a little bit of a cough, make sure he gets some rest, we don't want him to miss the field trip on Friday!"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is loving her watch.   She's using it to play audiobooks as well as make phone calls.   I realize I'm being stereotypical here, buy man does she love to talk on the phone.   I can't imagine what her teenage years are going to be like/

Sentry Mode

We're back home todat after spending five very nice days away in Las Vegas with some friends and a race. After doing this for many years both before and after getting married, we've got a system that works the best for us by maximizing time and reducing frustration and hassle.

My husband looks for an overnight flight departing as close to midnight as possible.  This gives us the advantage of time zone changes during the night.  If my husband can upgrade us via points or miles to first class, he does that too.  That takes care of a flight, leaving us open for gonig to shows, dining at restaurantsm gambling or doing anything else in Las Vegas for almost the whole day.

The next thing we do is we don't check out until the day after we've left.   It's hard to get a good late checkout.   Commonly if you ask they'll give you eleven o'clock instead of ten o'clock.  Maybe a few times if we've remembered to ask when we check in they've given us a few more hours, but you're not getting until nine-thirty that night...unless you're checking out the next day.

Usually with whatever deal my husband has worked for the trip, adding on an additional day is something like a hundred dollars.   That's fifty dollars apiece.   That's money we'd consider spenfing on a nice buffet with all our friends including bottomless mixed drinks, wine or beer.   That's not very long on a roulette wheel or slot machine depending on your luck.   It's a fraction of tickets to a nice show.

In perspective, if we were willing to spend fifty dollars on some things we enjoyed, why wouldn't we spend it on keeping the room for one more night so we could leisurely get ready at the end of the day.   We could take showers and leave for the apriort clean,   We wouldn't have to carry around purchases with us all day because we'd checked our bags at the concierge after having to check ou tmid day.  

In shory, it is one of the best things we've done in recent years.   Yesterday afternoon I went back to the hotel after having a very large buffet lunch, followed by going to the Pinball Hall of Fame.  I was tired and I wanted to take a shower.   So I did, and then I fell asleep.  When I woke up I got ready to head to the airport.   Then we just walked out.

I slept some on the first, long flight,   My husband slept some on the second, shorter leg.  I wanted to take a nap when I got home, but I got involved with unpacking and doing loads of other things.   Tonight I'll sleep.

When we got home the dog did her "Sentry Mode" out in the front yard.  The camera my husband installed that lets us know of any activity happening.  It's intelligent enough to ignore the dog almost all the time but sometimes it triggers and I see something that looks like this:



The Big Boy Update:  My son has figured out how to make, "a piercing cacophany" of sound (as he describes it).   It's painfully loud.   He's going to try and tone it down he said.   He's going to be put out to eat alone on the deck otherwise.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter came home with Nana and Papa from school today.  She bounded in the door, happy to see us both and give us hugs each.   I told her we had gotten her a few things.   She liked the metal we had each gotten for completing the race that had a piece that rotated on it.  She liked the flip flops that were, of course, "flip" flip flops with faces of bears on the front area.   Then I let her pull a key chain from a grossgrain bag.   I showed her what the item was so she could feel it.  There was a golden bear done up in pink and white crystals.   It was a girl bear because she had a skirt on.   Her legs and head were partially articulated, making it move some.   Then I showed her the left hand.  Dangling from the left hand was an even tinier bear being toted around by our small bear friend,   After explaining what it was my daughter squeezed it tightly to her chest and swueaked, "how did you know?!"  How did I know what?  She said, "Bears are my favorite!"

The Croissant Imbalance

My husband and I ran a half marathon last night in the Las Vegas Rock & Roll Marathon series.   There were people running marathons, half marathons and 10K races all at the same time.  If you've followed this blog for a number of years, you know this is a race my husband and I go to with friends to have a bit of a vacation and to spend time with friends in Las Vegas.

The race went well.  I was able to run for a lot longer than I had expected given that I didn't train really at all  We walked through the water stations, which helped get some of the feelings back into my toes.  My husband decided he wanted to walk a lot of the last three miles because his heart was higher than he liked it.   

So we finished and it was fun and not as bad as I had feared it would be without training.  We got showers quickly and then went to get some food.   I was sort of bonking at that point because, in my slouched position in the chair at the bar/restaurant, I misread "GREG" as "OREO".  He was pretty understanding about it and brought us out some much-needed food. 

This morning I got a picture for my husband, showing a pricing mystery he had heard about, but needed evidence on.   When I got coffee at the coffee shop in the lobby, there was a display of pastries available.   Every pastry there was under $5.  The Croissant, for some reason, was more than anything else.   My husband said maybe it was more difficult to make or larger.   I didn't think it was, but I hadn't paid that much attention.   Then, this morning, I got evidence of a price gouging operation:

Thc chocolate croissant was the same general size, only had chocolate added—and yet it was one dollar less.   All the other pastries below (I didn't get a picture of them) were all more ingredients like a cheese danish or big muffins—and they were all under five dollars.   Is the croissant the most popular so they charge more?  It can't be more difficult to make since the chocolate croissant is the same, only has chocolate.   If you have a reason other than for-profit padding for the upcharge of the croissant, let me know.

The Big Boy Update:  My son didn't realize he took his Adderall this morning because he was watching a show before school.   He took it, he was just occupied mentally.  We have gone back and forth between letting them watch shows in the morning.   I'm not sure they should be allowed, but I'm not sure it should be prohibited either.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter called and told me her brother was getting the Alexa seat every time, and she's being kicked out of it by nana and papa.   I don't know if this is true or if they think he needs to be there to see or what, but it's upset her.   Even if she can't see, she wants to have equal rights to the chair closest to Alexa.   This story also could be completely different than reality but is how my daughter sees the situation in her mind. 

Bloated

The weather, or climate, or environment here in Las Vegas is confusing my body.   It's much drier, making my skin, face and even nostrils aware of the change.   But for some strange reason I've never encountered before, I keep feeling bloated every time I eat.

I've been in this city many times before.  I even got married here.   I've visited during all different times of the year.   It's been hot, or cold or even (and this was a surprise at the time) rainy.  In all those trips I've never felt bloated every time I ate or drank something.   Every time.

I'm not trying to undereat this trip, because I'm running a half marathon in a few hours.  I'm not trying to overeat either though.  I don't need to pack in food of a specific type or amount.  I've had two or three drinks total since arriving, so it's not alcohol.   I would think it was me, except my husband says it's happening to him too.

It's that uncomfortable feeling that you've eaten far too much.   It's the feeling you get after going to a buffet and eating more than you should have, but enjoying it all, knowing you were going to pay for it in discomfort later.   It's like that, but for no reason.

We'll be heading over to the race start area soon.   I've stopped eating and drinking so hopefully I'll feel less bloated before then...I hope.

Oh, this was a funny story from early this morning around seven a.m.  I had gotten my coffee and had put some money in a slot machine when a man came up to me and started talking to me.  He was drinking beer and was clearly intoxicated but since his questions were about the game I was playing I answered back, mostly saying I didn't know since I'd just started.

Then he asked me where I was from and what I was drinking in the coffee cup.   I think at that point he got exasperated with me giving him the minimum information in response to each question so he said.   "I'm really trying to see if you have a ring on."  I showed him my ring and said that yes, I was married.   He said, "I can respect that" and then wandered off to find someone else.

What I don't understand is why he didn't walk around to the other side of me so he was facing my left hand.   He would have seen the ring straight away.   Alcohol probably.

The Big Boy Update:  My son vomited yesterday for some reason I heard.  I'm not sure if Nana and Papa figured out why, but today he seems fine after a good night's sleep.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is staying with Nana and Papa but my daughter isn't neglecting Mimi, whom she's calling regularly on her watch.  My daughter loves all of her grandparents.

R.U.N.

You might think this post is about the race we're running in that happens tomorrow in Las Vegas what with the title or "R.U.N."  And while we are in Las Vegas and we are thinking about what we should be doing to prepare for the race we'll be running in tomorrow evening, that's not what the title of this post is about.

It is, instead, about a new Cirque show that opened only two weeks ago here.   It's styled as a graphic novel come to life.   It was definitely different than other Cirque shows I've seen before, but I liked it.  My husband did too, although I could have predicted his approval as soon as the motorcyclists came on stage and started doing stunts and tricks with their motorcycles.

The way the story was told was different and yet interesting.   There was one scene in which there was a car chase—with a real car on stage the entire scene.   Logistically it's hard to explain how they were able to manage this and have people clambering over and in the underway car not to mention those motorcycles coming back and getting in on the action as well.

Hopefully, this new show named "R.U.N" will do well.

The Big Boy Update:  My son and the dog played a game chasing a stick today for a good long while.   The dog was happy to have him to play with her.  Nana sent pictures of the two of them and the battle of the stick.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter called me twice today about her audiobook.   We had to get it on her iPad and have her listen there now that the main book is over on her watch.  Or at least we'll have to do so until I get home and can move her next book onto the watch.  

There Should Be Cup Holders

My husband and I are on a flight this morning. My children are in the very capable hands of Nana and Papa while he and I head to Las Vegas to participate in the Rock and Roll Marathon series of races. We’re signed up for the half marathon this year. We’re not as trained as we’ve been in the past for races, so we’ll see how much we run and what we’ll need to walk. Regardless of how we do in the race, it’s going to be a fun few days together with each other and friends.

I’m writing this blog post with my laptop on the seatback tray. Besides the laptop, at a distance of three-quarters of an inch, is a full cup of water. I keep looking at the water and thinking about how clumsy I am. My anxiety is high because one false move and the cup of water could get knocked on my laptop. Turbulence, someone walking by that knocks my laptop, the person in front pf me. Too many scenarios in which my water cup could end up on and then inside my laptop.

I had to stop to drink the water before going on, it wasn’t worth the risk. It got me thinking though, why don’t airplane armrests have cup holders in them? Don’t mean like in first class, I mean like in a car where it’s not a little round divot like on the seatback tray, I’m talking about a fully formed cup-shaped spot that fits most beverages.

There are challenges because the armrests in coach are thin, but could pop-out version be added like you find in cars? Maybe they would snap and break. What about using that polymer they use in children’s glasses that the optometrist demonstrates by twisting them all around. There must be a reason because in all the years I’ve been traveling, I haven’t seen cup older.

The Big Boy Update: My son came over and gave me a hug goodbye last night since they weren’t going to see us this morning due to vert early flight. He didn’t even tell me I couldn’t kiss him.
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The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter happened to be able to catch me on the phone this morning as we were rushing to make our connection. She said her audiobook wasn’t working. I told her to ask the driver web she was stopped. The entire time we were on the phone both today and the last several days, there is very loud dispatch talking going on. Just from that little sample, I can understand why my daughter wouldn’t want to ride in the cab without something to occupy her. Hopefully, she got the audiobook working after we hung up.

Getting Scary

My daughter has been listening to an audio book on the way to and from school in the cab for the past two days.   It may have helped her be in a better mood when she got to school as two days ago she had a better morning than she'd had in a long time.   It could be her reaching a saturation level with the medication she's taking.   We're not sure, but she did say the audiobook helped her start the day out in a better mood.

Today on the way home from school she called me.  I answered and asked if everything was all right. She had called because she said the book had gotten to a scary part.  She was listening to The Neverending Story.  I was in the car with my son at that point, having gotten him from school.   He and I had watched the movie so I asked her what the part was and maybe we could help her out.   She said, "It's the part where Atreau gets poisoned."

My son and I told her we knew the part and I said the good news was he was going to be okay.   He wouldn't die?  No, he would be just fine, I explained.  I told her he was going to be in the story all the way to the end and he and Bastion were going to work together to save the world of Fantasia.  She said in a much more positive and hopeful voice, "he does? Okay, I want to keep listening now."  Then she hung up and that was that.

Tonight she asked me about another scary part and I told her again that things would be fine, giving away tension in the plot by telling her what was going to happen.   She doesn't seem to mind this at all.   She'd rather know what was going to happen and then can listen to the book worry free.

The Big Boy Update:  Last night as my husband was getting the children ready for bed my son told him, "hey dad, you're getting thinner.  It seems like you're transferring your fat to mom."  Neither my husband nor I have changed weight, but it's always nice to get an unbiased opinion from your child on how you look.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughger loves the dog.   We have arguments over who the dog loves more, who's dog it is (She's my dog.  No, she's my dog!) and who loves the dog more.   They're always lighthearted discussions with my daughter.  She believes, I think, that the dog absolutely loves her the most.   And that's the way it should be, right?

The Wrong Food

Two nights ago the dog woke mu up in the middle of the night.  She was on the bed sitting between my husband and me and she was looking at me.   She gets on and off the bed during the night.  She has this charming way of lighting on the bed soundlessly almost.  She's light on her feet and, as one dog trainer said, was one of those dogs with light bones.   She's delicate in a way.  Until she flops.

She comes on the bed or goes into her cage and then just flops down.  She likes to come up on the bed in the middle of the night to spend a few minutes with us.  She never stays for long.  I haven't figured out what exactly she wants.  It's not attention, she gets that.  It's not that you've stopped petting her head or rubbing her belly, because that doesn't seem to be cause for her to leave.   She just wants to be with people for a few minutes and then, her need for companionship filled for the time being, she's off and under the bed or back in her cage or into the bathroom on the cool tile floor for the next stage in her rounds of the room for the night.

So two nights ago when I woke up to find her just looking at me, I knew something was wrong.  She doesn't ask to go out in the middle of the night—something I work hard at when I've had dogs, building that bladder stamina to hold it all night.  She's fine even as we sleep a little late on the weekends.   This was something different so I got up and asked her if she needed to go out.   She headed to the door but seemed unsure.  

I reached down to move a dog bone out of the way in the dark she'd left near the door—only to find it wasn't a dog bone at all but a cold, wet, not well formed pile she'd left for us earlier in the night.  She hadn't been feeling well and had gone to the bathroom, unable to control herself.   This wasn't like her.   First in the control aspect.  Now that she's housetrained, she's housetrained.  She hasn't gone in the house in a good while that I can remember.  And second in the consistency of the pile she'd left.   This was a dog that wasn't feeling well.

I opened the door, let her out and didn't even say, "don't run off" or bother to hook her up.  I did a first pass cleaning of the carpet, covering the spot for better cleaning with the carpet cleaner in the morning, washed my hands thoroughly, called her back inside and went back to sleep.

In the morning we found a second spot in the closet that was worse.  She really had been feeling badlt.   All was better though, or so I thought.   It could have been a new treat I gave her or some food the children dropped she got to.  I was glad it was over and thankful my husband did the carpet cleaning.

Last night I had a scratchy throat so I took a small swig of children's Bendryl around midnight.   This morning I woke up to find the dog locked in her cage, leaning against the door.   And there was a smell.   She had lost control in the closet again and my husband had locked her in the cage to prevent more accidents—only she'd had another one in the back of the cage.   She was unthrilled, and so was my husband.   With the Benadryl I had slept through the whole thing.

I got to thinking and I realized I had gotten her the super amazing, better than gold standard, must have dog food from the fancy pet store down the road.  I'd just switched her over to it when this started.   We pulled the food bowl up and while my husband was out today he picked up a bag of the brand ofdog food the breeder had given us when we got her over a year ago.

I was in the kitchen with a pair of scissors, just cracking open a corner of the bag when the dog came into the kitchen, looking expectantly.   She knew I had dog food.   She was interested.   She looked hungry even.   This is a dog who's never in a real hurry to eat and gets around to food at some point in the day.   She'll eat people food if you give it to her, but only some things and even the highest dog valued items like ham or bacon she'll smell and gingerly take from your hand.   But this bag of dog food barely opened had her in the kitchen in seconds.

I poured the entire bag into a large bin and stood back to let her approach.   She stuck her head in and started to eat.   I let her eat until she was full, interrupting her only to fill her food bowl and stick it across the room beside her water.  

She seems much happier now, less uncomfortable perhaps.  Maybe I'm reaching here, but she refused to come inside today she was having so much fun outside.   That migth be just because it's suddenly turned very cold.   She really loves the cold.  

The Big Boy Update;  My husband said before bed tonight to my daughter it was time to trim both his and her nails.   My son called out, "you don't have to trim mine!"  Following that up with, "sometimes it pays to have bad habits."  He chews his nails, a habit we've been talking to him about quitting.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughters main teacher and VI teacher both independently sent emails that today had been a very good day at school with much less anxiety from my daughter than they'd seen in a long time.  We're not certain what it was.  One change was sending her to school with an audio book to listen to in the cab, time she very much does not enjoy.   If keeping her mind occupied and entertained is helpful, I'll keep her in audio books for the remainder of the school year.

Pro Gamer Me

My son has made some bad choices.   He's made a series of them and each time we thought he'd learned his lesson but it would appear he's not that smart, or he's hardheaded, or he's stubborn, or all of the above.   The rule is he can have screens on the weekend, within reason—that reason being at our discression—but none during the week.

'Screens' means no shows on the Alexa Show, no television, no video games and no iPad.   We make some exceptions like he is allowed to watch cooking recipes on Alexa while he's in the kitchen with my husband.   There are other times we let them watch a show before bed together because they've gotten everything done and haven't caused mischief.   But for the most part we try to stick to no screens because my son will start to think about ways he can get screens if he thinks we're easily swayed.

Three times recently we've found his Nintendo Switch in his bed during the week.  Two of those times we foolishly forgot to remove it from the cradle at the end of the weekend.  It was too much of a temptation for him we found out and he agreed it was better to be elsewhere and not relatively close at hand.

This is where the not so smart part comes in.   His level of deviousness is very low.  He's using the switch and not even bothering to cover his tracks, double back and returning the switch later so we wouldn't be any the wiser.  Each time before he lost screen privileges and was told he had betrayed our confidence in him and that had lost our trust.   So tonight when I found the Switch, yet again, in his bed as I was putting things up at the end of the day, I had a bigger talk with him.

This time, we hadn't left the Switch out.   This time I had put it away, in a spot he shouldn't have known about, which means he went looking for it and took it intentionally from a spot he shouldn't have been in.   This time, there was going to be a bigger consequence.

Initially, I told him he lost screens for all of Friday.   He asked if I wouldn't tell his father but I told him I had to.   Then, he reminded me we would be out of town on Friday, so I thought about it and decided on another consequence: no more Switch.  Period.   I would decide when he could have it back.   It definitely wouldn't be for the time his father and I were away.   He would have to make do with his iPad or television.

He wasn't happy so we brought evidence to bear on him.  My husband showed him for the first time exactly when and for how long he'd been using the Switch—because parental controls showed us that information.  And yes, we'd be checking in the future.   He didn't like that.   At all.

He was okay with losing the Switch at that point until I explained it meant he wouldn't get it back, for any reason, until he proved to me we could trust him, and that included playing games with Uncle Jonathan.   That's when it hit him this was serious.   He told me something like his life was over.

My husband and I got on with the homework and other things the end of night in our family entails when my son came downstairs with an interesting piece of art he had made using tape and paper.   He thinks in three dimensions and a lot of his art involves things like this.   This is him, sitting with his legs crossed, playing on his Switch with the title, "Pro Gamer Me"

It was a fair piece of work he created in about ten minutes.   He was over the loss of the Switch by then but wanted to talk about how he was a "Pro Gamer".  We agreed, he was quite a good gamer for an eight-year-old.   That ended the night I thought but I was wrong as he came down not ten minutes after he'd gone to bed.

He said he had a scary thought.  He was worried that we might not love him someday.   I wrapped my arms around him as he curled into a ball against me nestled amongst the pillows of my bed and told him I would always love him until the day I died.   Parents, don't say, "until I die" to your child unless you want to start another discussion and possibly add to their worry.   Fortunately, my son was easily thrown off this line of thinking by some deft explaining in a tangential direction and was laughing moments later and feeling better. 

I've hidden the Switch in a wholly new location.   It's such a good location I'm afraid I'm going to forget where I put it so I messaged my husband letting him know.   Ideally, my son will forget about the Switch and do more productive things with his time than trying to figure out when and how he can get screen time. 

The Big Boy Update:  When my son isn't focused on screens or getting screen time (he does really like playing games and watching videos about playing games) he has a lot of fun.   He plays with his friends and comes up with all sorts of things to do.   It's why the weekdays are (ideally) screen-free.  He gets a lot more physical activity when he's bouncing around, running in and out of the house, playing basketball and other non-screen things.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter called me from her cab today.  She does not like the cab ride.   The driver keeps the cab too hot, the students in the cab right now aren't interesting and the driver has not much in the way of personality or interactivity.   Starting tomorrow I've loaded a long audiobook on her watch and we'll be sending her to school with headphones so she can tune everything out and get lost in a book.   I hope this will help because she doesn't like the cab ride at all.   Today she called me and asked why I wouldn't pick her up at school.   She didn't like the answer that her brother and she had to be picked up in two different cities at the same time, making getting both of them impossible.   

Honored Guest

My daughter did something today that I am so very proud about.   It was hard for her and she was anxious about it, but she did it and by the end, she was having a great time.   Let me back up and start at the beginning.

My son's class was reading Helen Keller's story not so long ago and as a follow-on discussion on what it must have been like to be blind and deaf, my son offered that maybe his sister could come to their class and talk about what it's like to be blind.   Everyone thought it would be a great idea, including my husband and me.   The one person we had to convince was my daughter herself.  Would she be willing to come in front of an entire class and talk about her vision loss and how her life was different?

Surprisingly, she said yes.   We positioned it by saying she would be an honored guest in the class and that didn't just happen to anyone.   In order to make it easier for her, we agreed to have the students write up some questions in advance so she could write out the answers in braille and read them as a warm-up when she first got there.  Only time got away from us, her teacher and the class and we didn't get around to getting questions from the students.   So we helped her write something up in advance this morning to read.   This is what we came up with:

Hi, I'm Reese, Greyson’s sister. I’m blind. I’m just like everyone else, but I do some things differently than other people.   Some of my favorite things to do are: climb trees, ride my bike, listen to audio books, and play with my friends on the playground I could see when I was younger. I went to this school first and now I go to a regular elementary school. There are 22 people in my class, and I have one friend, Aditi, in my class who also is visually impaired. I do everything in school my friends do, I just do them a little differently. Instead of print, I use Braille. I brought some of my schoolwork to show you. I use a cane to help tell what's in front and around me. Some day when I’m old enough I may get a guide dog.

The students were so intrigued to see her reading the words on the paper.   We pulled out her braillewriter and had her demonstrate how fast she could type on it.   Then I passed around some of the work she does at school and how things are made, "tactile" so she can feel shapes or times on a clock or shapes of continents among other things.

We also brought a book she was reading in braille and showed how it was only one in eight volumes that represented the same text in a regular paperback young reader chapter book.   Then we brought out games.   I showed them card games and how different decks had the names or denominations printed in the corners in braille.

We had the Chutes and Ladders game her father had made tactile for a present to her last Christmas and the entire Monopoly game with all the properties, bills and cards embossed in braille along with the board that we'd modified to go with it.

My daughter handled all of this well.   Quite well in fact.   There were times where she would say, "does anyone know..." and read something from one of her school worksheets, for example, "What shape does this represent?"  She would say, "It starts with a 'T', who knows the answer?"   Then her brother would call on one of his classmates who had their hand up and upon hearing the answer of 'triangle' would show the card with a foam shape of a triangle glued on it.

We also showed and passed around her draftsman, saying that not everything could be easily cut out in foam or printed ahead of time.   We had the plastic film sheets of the islands we had sailed around this summer with the path laid out in a path of gems.   I showed them how the plastic film became raised when you pressed down on it with a stylus (instead of sinking in like you would expect) and said we'd leave the draftsman with the class to try out with some extra sheets.

Then it was time for questions.   Some of them were interesting like, "what's your favorite color?" (blue) or "what's your favorite leaf" (yellow fall leaves).  I was expecting, "what can you see?"   One of the questions was, "what is harder or better about being blind?"   She said some things were harder, but being blind made it easier to tell her left from her right, because she can't see anything out of her right eye.   They did ask how long ago she became blind and there were discussions about if she could remember seeing.   Some of that was hard for her I could tell because she started to roll around and curl up in a ball.

At one point when my son was talking to the class about what it was like to be a brother to a blind sister she jumped up and whispered something to him.  He looked sheepish but explained while she lay on the floor, face down (her listening position).  He said that when his sister was upset and crying, he had a thing he did that always made her laugh.   I was surprised she mentioned this.  He said he did this thing called, "nosey wosey" where he put his finger on her nose and said that when she was upset and for some reason, it always made her laugh and made things better.   He demonstrated and, of course, she laughed.

She recovered quickly from the emotions of having to think about difficult times though, saying next she wanted to show them about her cane and everyone should follow her outside so she could show them on the playground.  When she was confident, she was almost bossy, leading the class as though she were in charge—which was fine by the teacher as she knew this was challenging for my daughter to work through.

While they were outside I put the braillewriter on a desk and loaded it with a piece of paper.   As they filed back in some of the students got a chance to type on it.   We ran out of time but we're going to have the class borrow it for a day later when she's out of school.

At the end, she read sheets of paper with each student's names typed in braille on them and my son passed them out, ones for them as well as for their siblings we'd prepared in advance.  People giggled as she mispronounced difficult last names as she read through them quickly.  And then it was time for us to leave as the school day was ending.

We said they could look for her at future school family events and my husband said one thing people could do that would help her is to walk up and say, "hello, Reese, this is <your name>" because she can't see you and doesn't always recognize voices.   I said they would most likely find her on the monkey bars on the playground—her favorite place.

As we went out, she went to those very monkey bars and was doing a pullover when I noticed a child two years above my son walk directly towards her.   What he said surprised me.   He asked her, "do you have a Perkins Brailler?"  She said she did and he then said, "did you know you can make pictures on them using braille characters?"   She did indeed and talked to him about it until we had to leave a few minutes later.  How did Theo know about this and specifically, to ask about a Perkins Brailler?  I was really impressed.   I emailed his parents tonight saying any time Theo wanted to get together with my daughter and make Braille pictures, to let us know.

Overall, it was an empowering day for my daughter.   It was challenging and there were a few times she was uncomfortable as evidenced by her body language.   I asked her about it later and she admitted some questions were hard to respond to.   But she was my little champion today.   Her brother was a gracious host to his classroom.  And the students were kind, interested and so polite to her.   Hopefully she's proud of going today.  I know I'm proud of her.

The Big Boy Update:  The most poignant thing about my daughter's classroom visit today was my son explaining to his classmates how it was hard sometimes to be the brother of a blind sister.  He talked about how he tried to help her, but sometimes she hurt herself and he felt bad when that happened.   We had tried to make the whole experience positive for her, but you could tell it affected her when he said that because she balled up on the floor and said she didn't want to talk for a minute or two afterward so I took over until she was ready to join back in.   His words were honest, but it demonstrated how she is helpless sometimes, needs help and isn't as capable as other people, and that's hard for her.   He was kind to her and excited about the whole visit.  I was quite proud of him

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Today my daughter is eight-years-old.   She hopefully had a good day spending time with her cousin, who sadly had to leave mid-day.   There were presents and phone calls from family.   She, for an entire month, will be eight just as her brother is until he turns nine in December.

A Young Stud

My son likes to listen to comedians and has a few on his list he's allowed to listen to because they don't use bad language typically and their content doesn't include adult topics my son wouldn't understand.  For the past two days, he's been saying, "Brian Regan, Brian Regan!" when we got in the car, only to be told it wasn't a good time to listen to comedy as we wanted to do something called, "talking to each other".  

Today, after a long and late lunch and then a visit to the children's museum where we stayed until they closed and we were all ready for some quiet time once we got in the car.  My son had repeated his request for Brian Regan to be played and since the car is pretty good about playing anything you ask for, we queued up some Brian Regan tracks.

The first one reminded me of my father.  Or rather reminded me of something about my father.   Brian was talking about sports and said Raquetball was the only sport where you could be looking at the ball while having it hit you in the back of the head at the same time.  I never played racquetball, but my father did for many years and I went a few times to watch him.   You can see into the courts from the back and I can vouch for that ball speed comment by Brian Regan.  The ball moved so fast sometimes I couldn't follow it.

My father got a lot of his exercise for years playing racquetball.   He was good, no very good at the sport.   He played using logic and strategy as opposed to force and skill alone and in so doing, won quite a lot.   My mother said many a time that he'd come home and upon asking him how he did, he'd say, "I beat a young stud today."

That was my dad, beating young studs well into his grey hair years.  I'm sure it irritated some of them.  I'm betting, knowing my father, he'd be back the following week for a rematch if they'd been willing to risk a second defeat.

The Big Boy Update: My son is SO physical.  He wants to be in your face about lots of things.  This kind of behavior would be perfectly acceptable if he had a male, sighted sibling I would bet at least a hundred dollars on with confidence.  His sister, however, is startled by his unexpected and sudden bursts of sound and physical contact—and she resents it, getting upset and angry.   He gets in trouble for it, even though he's just being himself.   I don't mean to be sexist at all by the above, I've talked to other parents and they agree if they have sons, saying he'd fit right in in their house.  I even asked my son about it and he told me, "I get along with the boys on the street, they do the same thing."   I hate for him that he's got a sister dealing with the trauma of vision loss and he's the one that has to adapt his personality to match her needs.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Sydney has been here since Thursday night and since that time she and my daughter have been better than best friends.   They want to do everything together and they want to do the same thing as the other one, including having the same number of meatballs.  Sydney leaves tomorrow, and we're all going to be sad to have her and her parents head back home.   It's been such a nice visit.  My daughter is going to be the saddest, it's been like having a sister.   She is going to miss Sydney very much.

Eight is Great

My daughter isn't eight-years-old yet, but we celebrated her birthday today with some of her friends.  The planning of her party was something my husband and I did a lot of talking about.   The conversations went like this, "we really need to decide what kind of party she wants to have."   Followed by, "yeah, we should get on that."  And then we did nothing.

We put things off for so long it was less than a week ago when we sent out an invitation to a few of her classmates and some friends on the street here, hoping people didn't have the morning already booked.   Luckily, most of her friends were able to make it giving us eleven children running around gleefully all morning.

My daughter wanted to do a game called, "Pass the Parcel."  It was a game she heard about somewhere, possibly from a book given how she described it.   Similar to musical chairs, you pass a package around until the music stops and the person left holding it gets to unwrap the package and have whatever is inside.

The catch though is that the package is in layers and once the first layer is opened, inside there is both an item for the opener, and a smaller package, also wrapped, that starts the game all over again.  Ideally, there are lots of packages nested inside each other.

My daughter really wanted to do this as a game at her party but we needed a realistic way to accomplish it.  What I came up with was a set of twelve nesting boxes I'd had for many years.  I stacked them all on top of each other, affixed together with sticky dots.   We now had a tower of boxes but they were empty.   Instead of trying to get things that fit inside each box given that some were quite small, I put a brailled little sheets with the numbers one through twelve and randomly put them in the boxes.

Then I went shopping.  Five Below and The Dollar Tree being my go-to stores for things like this.   I'd like to tell you I got healthful choices or educational toys to stimulate the children's minds—but I didn't.  I got the craziest candy I could find.  There was a gummy pizza, a gummy cupcake and a gummy donut, all large and made of lots of individual gummy pieces.   There was a box of Dots, a Hershey's chocolate bar, some M&Ms, a candy fidget spinner, a giant roll of Smarties and a box of Sour Patch Kids.

The children stood in a circle and passed the stack of boxes around and then handed my daughter or her VI friend Aditi the cards to read the number.   Then they picked the matching numbered bag to find out what they got.   A few times the boxes stopped on a person who already had an item.   At this point they got to open another bag and pick the new prize or keep their old prize.  From that point on, any extra items were available for trade when any bag was opened.   In the end, everyone had a chance to trade and I think most children got something they were excited about.  All in all, the game went fairly well, even though it wasn't quite what my daughter had envisioned originally.

After that there were cupcakes my husband made into faces followed by a pinata, filled with more candy.   I gave them their goodie bags, which also had some candy in them, to collect the candy in from the pinata.   I'm serious here, I really failed when it came to sugar content at the party here.  It was way too much.   I was hungry when I went to the store to shop.   Next time I'm going to get toys and pass on the candy and sugary items.

That being said, the children had a wonderful time.  My favorite thing was when my husband asked if they wanted him to finish off the pinata for them, thinking he could do it with one hit.   Everyone agreed.  When my husband hit the pinata it came off the line, splitting fully open and in two.  The biggest section flew at and into Brooklyn, who had the most surprised look on her face.  She caught the pinata part and, upon realizing she had a half-full container of candy no one else had noticed because they were all searching the ground, started running around the yard doing a victory lap.

Brooklynn was nice and shared candy with everyone.   About that time parents arrived and took their children, now well sugared up, took their children home.   It was a happy day for my daughter I think.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was very unhappy at the beginning of my daughter's birthday party this morning because Whit had come over with a big Nerf gun.  I thought my son would be excited to play nerf guns with him and Rayan but he just wanted to hide.  He said Whit always shot him and it hurt.   I thought this was what Nerf guns were about and the whole Nerf part was that they didn't really hurt.   But my son was in a sensitive mood so we said no shooting at each other.   After that things went well and the three boys, surrounded by mostly girls, got along well with everyone for the rest of the party.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted to open her presents after some of the party guests had left today.   She got some really thoughtful gifts and was thankful to everyone who gave her something.   She is hard to buy for because it's not always certain what she'll be able to do successfully or be interested in.   Everything she got today she not only likes, but will be able to do.