I’m Tired

It's the end of the school day.  I have one student.   I've been busy since 6:30 when my children got up this morning.   We've been working on school work all day.  And by we, I mean I have been working with my one student.   She is an eager learner and does her work with enthusiasm for the most part and is a joy to work with.  

Now that the day is over, I have to get everything printed (embossed) and prepared for tomorrow.  Mind you, I'm not creating any work, save for a magic square diagram I created for her to do as a fun puzzle break.   Everything she's learning is created and given to me.  It might be material from a web site in the form of videos she listens to, the typing program she loves to work in, printed materials her braillest prepares for us or other content pre-printed by her VI teacher before we went into full-blown lockdown.

We're working with applications in web sites, apps on the iPad, her Orbit refreshable braille display, her braille writer, the draftsman on which she can draw tactile pictures and the embosser that prints things in braille for her.  She gets and creates content from those sources.   I'm mostly the circus conductor, directing her focus to the right thing at the right time.

On the back end, I then take all her work and submit it to her teachers.   My daughter is the exception.  This is something she will contend with her entire life.  So much of the work and work options for her are designed for sighted children.   We are fortunate to have a superb team of teachers making sure everything is available and doable for her, which is no small effort.  From my perspective, I'm sort of bridging the middle ground as I get information designed for the rest of her class and then working with the tactile/braille versions of the same materials so she can do the work.

And it's tiring.  It's not one thing, its everything.   I know our teachers do this day in and day out but its still a lot of work.  I'm almost sorry I gave up drinking because a glass of wine sounds mighty nice when five o'clock rolls around.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  In order to do math work with clocks and time, we needed to create a tactile clock.   My daughter and I made this today.  I'm rather proud of what we were able to turn a paper plate, two straws, a brad, and some stickers into:


The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted to organize his LEGOs again today—right in the middle of our schoolroom.   He had a fit but reluctantly agreed the lovely eight-foot table in the craft room, where he could leave his work out for a whole week instead of repeatedly putting it away and bringing it back out, was a good idea.  He is happily sorting and organizing his LEGOs now, listening to music on Alexa.   Why is it children never think adults have good ideas?