3D Printer Contemplations

For a long time, my husband has been interested in 3D printing technology.  It's definitely interesting, but when he would talk about it I was never that keen on getting one.   To be sure, the prices some years ago were prohibitive for the casual, home hobbyist but in recent years technology has done what it always does: gets better for less money. 

There was another factor that made a home 3D printer impracticable in my opinion: what would we use it for?  We wouldn't be on the International Space Station in need of a replacement widget to get us home safely.   And even if we were, we lacked the skills to build a CAD model of the needed widget.   So good news all around we're not astronauts with a need to save the day...because we would fail. 

I argued with my husband, challenging him to come up with a single thing we could print that would actually be useful and if we could make such a part—after lots of time creating an accurate software model, followed by the slow process of building it on the 3D printer—couldn't I have just ordered it from Amazon and gotten it in by then?  I thought it was a sound argument, and at the time it probably was, 

Back then, if you wanted to print something you mostly had to create the model yourself.   Today, there are libraries of models created by people who commonly let you have the file for free.   If you have the printer, you can just download the specifications and print them.   There was one YouTube video I saw where a call went out to all the people with 3D printers in their area in Alabama to print a component of needed face shields.   Hundreds of people with all different makes and models of 3D printers downloaded the same specification file and printed the parts.  They dropped them off and a stringent procedure of sanitization and preparation was done so the shields could be safely delivered to hospital workers in need during COVID-19.  If there was ever a more important use to put a home 3D printer, this was it. 

What suddenly got me interested in the possibility of a 3D printer at home was another YouTube video from someone who's content typically has nothing to do with 3D printers.  He had decided to get one and became so enthusiastic about it, his channel has featured nothing but since.   His first video very clearly explained some of the pros and cons but also the joy of being able to create something useful. 

I was interested enough at that point to send a link of the video to my husband, but not to purchase a 3D printer myself but then another thing happened.  On a fluke, I searched for models available to be printed on a 3D printer that had braille on them.   Lots of things popped up.   The first thing I saw was some dice better than the tactile version my daughter uses now.  The second was a map of the United States done in such a way that each state was a different height and state abbreviations were done in braille on then.

My daughter, of course!  We could use a 3D printer to print all kinds of things for her.   We could print a model of a bumblebee and let her feel the wings and where the stinger is—and she could understand more than she ever could with words.  It was at this point that I became a pest to my husband, saying I wanted to get one and asking him all about his thoughts on the matter. 

And at this point, we're considering getting one.  The price point starts as low as a few hundred dollars.  The software is much more developed for hobbyist users such as we would be.  But that doesn't make the decision a straightforward one.   The number of available printers is huge.  There are considerations like what materials you're going to print using which will necessitate a heated tray or hooded enclosure.   What slicing software will you be using? (Slicing software is what you use to prepare the model to be printed by your specific printer and is a complex step before actually sending the model to the printer that has a bit of a learning curve.)   How big a "thing" do you want to print?  The size of the bed limits how much you can print at once and if you need to divide up the model into parts.

There are lots more questions to be asked and things to consider, but as of today, 3D printing has gone from costly and useless in mind to affordable and useful.   I don't know if we'll get one, but it's definitely fun to look at the advances in technology and the ways in which people have used it.

The Big Boy Update:  Blake was over today and my son wanted to play Minecraft with him.   I came downstairs later to what was definitely not Fortnite.  My son was giggling and saying, "press X to exit!"  Blake was piloting a jet on the screen, straight into the sky.   When he pressed X, he jumped out of the jet and started freefalling down towards the ground—as a cow.   My son had loaded Just Cause 3 and put in the cow mod or something.   Blake's cow was definitely female because of the udders underneath her.   Her hair was flapping in the wind.   Apparently, there is a competition to see how far you can fall and the points you can make.  Blake beat my son's high score. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had a rough middle of the day.  She and Blake started playing a new version of Monopoly that has an Alexa-like thing that manages the game for you.   This game had different rules and she got very angry when Blake was able to trade his property for her Boardwalk (she loves Park Place and Boardwalk). Things got very bad for a while and Blake went downstairs to play with my son because my daughter tried to get violent with him.  There had to be more at play here than just the taking of the property.   It appeared that Blake was moving her piece for her and she took it as him thinking she wasn't capable on her own.   There are loads of other factors in play such as it wasn't a standard Monopoly board and I hadn't had time to make it fully tactile.  Plus, I had upset her with some requests to try on other glasses earlier and had asked if any made it easier for her to see.   Perhaps that raisded some hope and when they were all just as bad, it upset her.   Regardless, she was livid for a long time and her throat has got to be sore from all the screaming.   In the end, she wrote Blake a letter of apology on her braillewriter,  I delivered it to the basement and he wrote a letter back to her that I went upstairs to read to her, telling her he would like to talk to her if she wanted to later.   I thought she was going to have none of him for the rest of the day but no, she wanted to go downstairs and happily talk to him right then.  She even wanted to play Monopoly again.  I warned against it but she said, "it's okay Mom, I've learned my lesson."

Getting Rid of Us

Blake was scheduled to come over this afternoon at 2:30 to take the children to the pool.   They were reading from one to two and had both been looking forward to time at the pool when we talked about it earlier in the day, but like all things with children and even us as adults, our thoughts can change on something as time passes. 

There was resistance to the reading, but they both got into it after a few rounds of firm encouragement.   Both of my children like reading, but it seems like work when it's assigned and they like to object in various ways.   My daughter doesn't like the particular book or wants to read something we don't have in braille format.   My son starts books but then doesn't want to finish them, preferring to move on to another book.  My son can't sit still—at all—and would probably devour seven books a week if he could wiggle around, flip and bounce off sofas at the same time. 

The plan was to read until 2:00, then get into their swimsuits and when Blake arrived, they would go to the pool for the two-hour slot my husband had reserved earlier in the day.  I went upstairs to help my daughter, who wasn't so sure she wanted to go to the pool now that she was done reading.   When Blake arrived she told him—hostilely—that she was only going to the pool for the sortest amount of time possible because she wanted to get back to her audiobook.   

My son had for some reason thought it was a good idea to go to the basement and start playing Minecraft at 2:00, even though he had to be ready at 2:10 when Blake arrived.   Disengaging him from the game was, for once, not that hard, making me think the groundings of late had made a positive impression on him.   He had certainly been polite and used respectful words with me all day. 

His sister had been the same, not using angry words when I paused Alexa and saying thank you and please a lot.   She was the sweet child I know she can be all morning.  But now that her bathing suit was on, she was angry, rude, and threatening, saying we couldn't make her go to the pool.   I had tried to help her with several things and put up with it to a point, but then I snapped.  Blake, realizing he'd better get the three of them out of the house and to the pool said he'd take over right after I grounded my daughter for an hour when she returned (with no Alexa). 

My son was mad suddenly too.  Why is it they want to go to the pool and then when it's time to go they lose their minds?   My husband came in earshot and starting asking the children what was going on?  I shit the door to the craft room (yes, I'm still working on the craft room) and thought they'd gone when my son flung open the door and said to me, "mom, I know you're only sending us to the pool because you want to get rid of us so you can have your own time, but..."

I don't remember what the 'but' was, but it wasn't the part I cared about.   I realized my son thought we were trying to get rid of them.   We weren't.   I mean, yes, I can get a lot more done when they're not around because I got virtually nothing done in the morning and I had things to do for the day.   I told him that wasn't it.  I didn't want him thinking we didn't want them around or that we were pawning them off on a sitter.   We were sending them to the pool to have fun and to get some physical activity.   I think he believed me, but at that moment, he just wanted to try one last thing to see if he could get out of going to the pool.  

They went to the pool and had fun like they always do with Blake.   It's this strange pattern of wanting to go, hating going, and then loving swimming.   It baffles me.  

The Grounding Again Update:  Upon returning home from the pool the children came in and I heard loud voices.   They were both so angry and my son was doing the best he could do to insult Blake without actually insulting him because that would be another consequence.   My daughter sweetly apologized for her pre-pool behavior but was deflated, mad even, that the apology didn't get her out of her hour in her room.   My son was so furious at Blake, saying he was never going to listen to him again and he had no authority over him, yelling back at his father and refusing to go in his room, that he was grounded until dinner.    They hate being grounded and losing Alexa.   It's been a rough few days for them, but they're learning valuable lessons and it's starting to pay off. 

Grounding

We have new leverage, and it turned out we needed it, or have been needing it recently.   I don't know about other children, but I've been very disappointed and upset that my children seem to think it's okay to be outright rude to people, including, but not limited to family members and sitters.   Perhaps it's COVID-19 and the amount of time we've all been spending alone together or perhaps it's poor parenting on our part.  I don't know the cause but I'm putting an end to it because it is absolutely, positively not okay.

I've heard stories about when my son or daughter spends time with friends or grandparents that they are nothing but polite little beings.   For that, I am grateful.  Hopefully, it means we've gotten something right in that respect.  At home, there are two key things that seem to trigger this poor behavior.

The first is Alexa.   It doesn't matter what they're doing, whenever we ask them to stop or if we stop Alexa, they get angry.   We have had discussions with them letting them know any time we need or ask to stop Alexa, it is because we have something to say or it is time to just stop.  Period.  We don't do this to annoy or frustrate them, we do it for a reason.   Everything they do (with a few small exceptions) can be resumed on Alexa once it is appropriate.   Negative reactions and or verbal abuse when we stop Alexa (which we do when we ask them to themselves and are sometimes ignored) will be cause for a consequence.

The second would be what I was calling rudeness or disrespect.   I changed it around this morning and told them what we expect all the time from them is politeness and respect.   This goes for anything that might happen such as, "it's time to get your pajamas on and brush your teeth for bed".  They never want to go to bed and sometimes they react very negatively when this happens.   In any situation where they're not polite or respectful is cause for a consequence.

What are the consequences?  There are two new ones.  The first is the removal of the Alexa in their rooms.   They end the night with music or an audiobook reading to them until a sleep timer goes off.   They go to their rooms during the day sometimes and use their Alexa for a variety of things as well.  Taking Alexa away is the first consequence.  The second consequence is grounded them to their respective rooms.

Both of these consequences are newly afforded to us now that my daughter has moved into her own room.   It's powerful and they both definitely don't want it to happen.   If the situation merits it, they can be grounded and also have their Alexa removed.   Yesterday's chain of events was severe enough that my daughter is in her room all day today with no Alexa.   She came down for ten minutes to eat lunch and has asked to have dinner early because she's hungry what with no snacks and the banana and muffins I brought up to her for breakfast long gone.

Does this mean they can't get mad?  Absolutely not.   I get mad.  I yell.   But what I do when I get mad is tell them why I'm frustrated at them.  I explain my feelings, I don't insult them, tell them they're boring and I don't want to listen to them, and call them names.   Yelling is okay too, provided it expresses feelings.  We all get angry.  It's how we handle that anger that matters.

We shall see if the new consequences will make a difference in their behavior.  Already today my daughter's continued poor behavior has caused me to leave her room three times, saying, "it sounds like you're not ready to listen."   She yelled out of the door after the third time, saying, "I didn't mean it, come back, I didn't mean it."

The Big Boy Update:  My son was sent to his room around lunchtime today.   I went up a half-hour later to talk to him about the updates to our expectations and consequences.  He played a game pretending he wasn't listening to me.  I left and told his father to cancel lunch for my son, he wasn't ready.   My son changed his attitude immediately, asking me to come back and then listened to me very carefully until he understood what I was saying.  He had questions, which were good ones, and explained why he did certain things like talking like a baby when he was upset, saying it made him feel better.   I told him thank you for explaining that because now I know he's not trying to be rude, he's just coping.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter, when she finally was ready, listened to our changes in expectations and consequences.   Then she asked if they could have a grace period of a few days, "in case we forget."  I told her I thought that was a great idea and that we would certainly do that; we were all going to need time getting up to speed on this.

Swimming in Statistics

I saw a YouTube video last night in which the presenter gave some statistics about blindness and people who are blind.   It was a good video, but the statistics listed didn't match or were even close to some of the information I've heard before, so today I set aside some time to do research using the World Wide Web to find out if I was out of date or just plain wrong.

I am frequently reminded of a quote by Robert Heinlein from, "Assignment in Eternity" about facts.   It's a long passage so I cut out the bit in the middle.   The reason I remember this particular passage which is a fairly negative evaluation of humans, is to remind me not to fall prey to assuming I know something as fact, simply from hearing someone say something is so.

If the average man thinks at all, he does silly things like generalizing from a single datum. He uses one-valued logics. If he is exceptionally bright, he may use two-valued, either-or, logic to arrive at his wrong answers. ... .Far from aspiring to higher reasoning, he is not even aware that higher reasoning exists. He classes his own mental process as being of the same sort as the genius of an Einstein. Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.

This is why today I went to do some research on blindness and vision impairment so I could have confidence I knew what I was talking about.   I thought it would be easier than it is however and after lots of searches, articles read, charts, and graphs reviewed, I still don't have the answers I want to know for myself personally and to write here with reasonable confidence.  

Here are some of the questions and definitions I discovered I needed to know in order to find the particular statistics I was looking for:

• What does it mean to be blind?   Is it total blindness or the inability to be able to have vision corrected with lenses so.  How blind do you have to be to be blind?  One site stated, "we encourage people to consider themselves blind if their sight is bad enough—even with corrective lenses—that they must have alternative methods to engage in any activity that people with normal vision would do so using their eyes."   
• What does it mean to be "legally blind?"   This question was easier.  If you have 20/200 or worse in your best eye with best corrective lenses you are considered legally blind. 
• What does it mean to be "visually impaired?"   In this case, if your best-corrected vision is 2040 or worse, you are considered visually impaired. 
• Some statistics referred to children with "vision difficulty" which I haven't found a consistent definition for. 
• Data is collected from many agencies and organizations (which is great) but the data doesn't always agree.  They all state confidence intervals and sample sizes, but the data collected don't sync up.  For instance, one reports data on populations aged fifty and older while another uses forty and older.  Some studies class children as eighteen and under while others use twenty-one and under. 
• Is blindness or vision impairment defined by what you can see currently, or what your best vision would be?  In many developing countries some students are treated as blind simply because they have no funds to get corrective lenses while would otherwise allow them to see normally or near normal.
• I found some data for the United States but there is also information on North America that seems strikingly different.
• I found one site which has maps and data from a comprehensive database of eye studies.  I thought that synthesized data would be what I was looking for but the summary information was less specific than what I was looking for.  \\

The thing I read, again and again, that could factor into the statistical results was that data was based on self-reporting of individuals.  Numbers might vary significantly.  Or they might not.   When I was in college as a Freshma I took a course in statistics and I learned about confidence intervals.   It seemed like magic at the time when I first figured them out but once I understood it, I thought it was about the coolest thing and I've never forgotten it.   So even though there may be a lack of self-reporting, the variance isn't huge. 

At the end of my research today, I have lots of notes with all sorts of numbers, each of them interesting individually but together it's not the overall statistics I'm looking for.   So I have more work to do.   To be continued...

The Big Boy Update:  For some reason, my son is really has been wearing long pants and a sweatshirt lately.   It's not that cold inside, in fact the second floor is even having a hard time keeping pace with the close to one-hundred degree weather we're having here.   He seems happy in his warm weather gear though.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had music therapy today outside to provide for extra social distancing with Chelsea.   Chelsea had her guitar on the grass in the back yard when I looked out to see my daughter straggled on the top of the A-frame of the swing set, reaching over and down to adjust a swing.  I called out from the deck, "is that something you all have been doing?" with some alarm in my voice.  Apparently it is something they've been doing and they've been careful about it, my daughter told me.   After she got the swing to the height she wanted, music therapy in the outdoors commenced without incident.

97.7

If you haven't been overly worried about your temperature of late, you might not have been paying attention to COVID-19, the Coronavirus, the pandemic, or as it's un-lovingly called, "these challenging times."   If you go to a doctor's office or other office locations you may have your temperature checked upon arrival.   If you or your children are in any way, shape, or form feeling anything other than one hundred percent, you might have taken their temperature.   Just in case.  Just to be sure.

I liked the "point and shoot" thermometers that have been all the rage lately which manage to get accurate temperature measurements in two seconds.   Children typically don't like having their temperature taken when they're feeling unwell and while there have been vast improvements over the vaseline and rectal thermometer option from when I was a child, these new trigger gun instant temperature thermometers are a parent's best friend.

When I ordered the thermometer online during lockdown I read reviews and made a decision on what looked like a good quality thermometer.   It arrived and I was excited to test my temperature, only to see 97.7 come up.   I checked my temperature on my temples, under my arm and got varying results within a few tenths of a degree surrounding 97.7.

It was broken.  No, not broken, but certainly not calibrated, and what I absolutely didn't need was a thermometer that gave a non-febrile reading when I needed to be concerned about a fever in one of my family members.   And if there is anything I hate, it's returning something, especially when it's repackaging it and going to mail it back to Amazon.

So I hunted down my children to test them before packaging it back up.   And surprisingly, they tested in the normal temperature range.   So did my husband.   So what was up with me?   I hadn't been eating ice cream or had a cool cloth on my head.   It must have been a fluke.

But it turns out, it wasn't.   We have been all testing our temperature regularly recently.   Mostly, because the little gun thermometer is on the dresser when the children come into our room and consistently, I'm sub-normal.   Which is interesting.  And sort of cool.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl KiwiCo Crate Update:  I signed my son up for some KiwiCo crates for Christmas and once per month, a little cardboard box would come in the mail and he would have a fun, educational project to do.   My daughter became interested and so I looked into what I could order piecemeal that my daughter could be successful doing given her vision impairment—and she loved them.   She and her brother would do some of the crates together and he was a good helper to her and he liked doing the activities as well.   So I ordered more crates and when we got home there was a big box in the foyer Blake had brought in with our mail.  My daughter went through all the "crates" as they're called them and stacked them into three piles, for her, for her brother and for them to do together.   The children were so excited about them they wanted to dive right in so I had to put a  "one per day" limit on them so they would be sure to not only do the project, but read all the associated material and stories included.   It's day two now and they are ready for their next crate tomorrow with anticipation.

Insulting Progress

The words "see" and "look" are so overloaded in our language.  We don't even realize we say them they're so entrenched in our vocabulary.   When my daughter first lost her sight, I started paying attention to all the things I said that had, in some way, a reference to seeing, even if in many cases we didn't mean actual vision but more so as perception.  It was staggering how much of my vocabulary I was going to have to change to be a parent to my daughter.

It turned out that I've had to change far less of my standard speech patterns than I initially expected.  If I bothered to count the number of times I used words indicating "seeing" in a day, I wouldn't be surprised if it topped out over a hundred.   Try it sometime for an hour when you're interacting with someone—or better yet, count the number of times something's said on a Zoom call or Google Meet in an hour's call.

My daughter is adaptable, as are most blind people by necessity, and while those closest to her may be more aware of the words we use and modify what we say based on the situation, most people around her for her entire life won't have that viewpoint.   I just said "viewpoint," which is the perfect example of a sight-based word in our language with an indication of vision without really meaning seeing.  The term wasn't even a plant in this post, they just happen, and they're everywhere.

Back to adaptability.   My daughter mostly interprets seeing-based words to mean perception.   She even uses them herself, like when she says, "I'll see you in a little bit."  There are a few times though that what's been said might indicate she can't see while other people can.   This has been happening for a long time, and my daughter rarely says anything.   Yesterday she did though—and it surprised me.

My children were in the hot tub with one hour left before we were departing for the long drive home. They didn't want to get out.  It was after three, and they hadn't had lunch, so they were not the most reasonable about doing what those adults were telling them they had to do.   The fun had been had, showers were needed, clothes put on, lunch had and then with a full car, driving home for nine hours. None of that sounded fun at all, and they were balking.

My daughter didn't want to get out because she said she would be cold.   My husband said she could eat her lunch on the deck and had gone in to make it while I manned the hot tub since we're still not comfortable leaving them alone in the hot tub.   Uncle Eric was there, and he tried a different tactic, saying they could eat on the deck in the warm air and look at the nice view of the sky.

I didn't catch it, my son didn't catch it, and Uncle Eric didn't realize it.   But my daughter did.   She yelled at him, saying, "you insulted me!"  We still didn't catch what had happened as she reluctantly got out of the hot tub and then went towards his voice and found his legs and beat on them as she said, "I'm blind, I can't see the view!"

Oh my goodness, Uncle Eric felt so bad.  Honestly, I could have just as easily said the same thing with a slight higher probability I might realize views were a no go and say something like feeling the sun on their bodies to make them warm.  He apologized to her, and I didn't know what to say right at that moment because she was one angry little girl.  But like she always does, she got over it quickly.  

When I got her in the shower, I told her that Uncle Eric loved her and would never intentionally insult her, that that kind of thing happened to us as adults and we said things without realizing it because she was so capable we sometimes forget she's blind.   She wasn't mad at that point at Uncle Eric; I think pummeling his legs got her anger out.

The reason I'm telling this story  is not because of what Eric said, but because of what my daughter said.  In the past, admitting she was blind—even saying she was blind—was not something she did.   The fact that she stood up for herself shows she's moving forward at accepting that she's blind.

The best thing we can hope for is in the future she'll turn it around into a joke and put it back on the person in a fun way, showing that comments like that don't bother her at all and she knows it wasn't meant as an insult.  Hopefully, she'll be able to say something like, "the good thing about being blind is you don't have to look at all the bad views you sighted people have to endure all the time."  Or something more clever than that.   My clever button is broken this evening, and I can't come up with something witty as an example response.

So progress—hopefully—on accepting her blindness is happening.   We've been on some Zoom calls recently with other blind children, and the ones who totally own their blindness and are comfortable with who they are are a lot of fun to be around.   I think that's who my daughter will be in a few years once the anger of losing her sight has been processed.   She likes who she is, not being able to see is hard on anyone though,

The Big Boy Update:  Random statement in the car on the way home from my son yesterday, "Was Frankenstein a monster made up of a guy named Frank and a guy named Einstein?"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  As we were getting in the car yesterday my daughter was suddenly frantic to find something in her backpack she wanted to give to Nicole, her cousin.   She had me look for the small Marshall character from Paw Patrol and ran back into the house to give it to Nicole.  She came out and said Nicole had said she didn't have to give it to her, but she was glad she had.   Nicole was going to have a single dorm room in college this year because of COVID-19 and she wouldn't have a lot of things in it.   She said she could put Marshall on the shelf and he'd be there with her.   She said she had wanted to give her Marshall because "Marshall is her favorite Paw Patrol character."

Spider-Man Went On It!

Our original plans were to leave my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's house tomorrow morning, with today being a day of packing up (mostly my self-appointed job) and doing our final bit of relaxing before an early-morning departure tomorrow.  I got to thinking about what their Sunday was going to look like, namely getting their entire house ready for a party, including a band.   What they really didn't need was us departing early morning with two bedrooms and bathrooms needing to be cleaned and reset for company.

We discussed it and all agreed it made more sense for us to leave today so this morning we slept in and then leisurely got ready to leave at four o'clock.   Some people still went out on jet skis and there was swimming in the lagoon followed by a rinse off and then finishing up in the hot tub.  I spent the time doing what I would normally be doing the day before departure from a trip: packing and cleaning up.

I added to the list getting all linens washed and then put back on the beds as well as cleaning both bathrooms we'd been using.   We all made sure the house was tidied up with surfaces cleaned and crumbs, dirt and dust vacuumed.   Their version of Kevo did the vacuuming.   At this point when I see a Roomba, I automatically think of it as, "Kevo" even though that's just the name of ours.  Even so, as the little guy got underfoot, doing his own part in the cleanup, I invariably called him Kevo, anthropomorphizing him, apologizing and telling him salient points about where he should skip for now because I had packing all over the floor.  He completely ignored me.

There were really only two downsides to leaving today.  First, it was a day early, and we never want to go when our vacation with them is over.  And second, it puts us driving into the night which is harder on my husband, who prefers to drive the entire time. I felt good about things though, being able to do our part in getting ready for the party.   There's something nice about leaving a place in the same state you arrived to find it.

Another advantage is the travel.   We had virtually no traffic to speak of which is in part due to COVID-19 but is significantly due to the day and time of travel.   In this case, the car decided to navigate us right through Washington, D.C.  My husband pointed the Washington Monument out to my son when it appeared off to the right of the car.   My son was scheduled to go on a five-day field trip to Washington D. C. with the third-year Lower Elementary students at his school.   It would have been ten students across two classrooms with two teachers and is something the students look forward to for three years, from the time they start their three-year stint in Lower Elementary.

This year, my son's trip, along with uncountable things across the world, didn't happen.   My son has learned about our capital though so when his father pointed out the Washington Monument my son looked excitedly to where his father was pointing and then said, "Spider-Man went on it!"   I had a flashback to the movie and could picture Spider-Man on the monument.

While we drove past our capital, we talked about going to Washington D.C. sometime on a trip just for him.   Perhaps a trip where we split off, one parent one child each with my son going there with one of us.   My son was definitely interested in going, claiming his father should be the one to go because "dad likes Washington D;C." So as not to disappoint him and to be sure he knew the difference between a new idea and a fully committed plan, he could remind us he wanted to go but that this wasn't a definite at this time.  We told him we thought it was a worthwhile trip to consider taking at some point.

The conversation died down after that and I thought my son had put his headphones back on to listen to his audiobook but he was still thinking of the things he might see should we take him to visit our nation's capital.   He asked, "do you know which column is Abraham Lincoln's favorite?"  We were confused, explaining he had died long before the Lincoln Memorial was built.   No, my son told us, he distinctly remembered them talking about him having a favorite column.   I told him they might have meant a newspaper column,   That's a mystery that's going to have to wait until my son goes back to school and can ask his teacher from last year.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son decided yesterday he wanted to watch the Harry Potter movies again.   He has Disney+ as an app on his iPad and had gone to find them.   Today my husband downloaded them for offline watching in the car.   He's giggling and calling out spells in the seat in front of me as I write this.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter loved going on the jet skis at the beginning of our trip.  Sometimes a single bad incident will affect you in a dramatic way.   The "grounding" in the muck she and Nicole went through the other day has her swearing off jet skis for the remainder of her life.  We explained to her that it was an uncommon thing and two factors contributed to it: it was only Nicole's second time on the new jet ski and we pushed it from a tide perspective, going out later than we probably should have.   None of this mattered though, she was not about to get on a jet ski.  Hopefully, next year when we come to visit she'll remember how much she loves them and won't focus on the ten minutes that she very much hated that scared her.

Straight Ahead

Today's weather fluctuated from rainy, cloudy, sunny, and then back to rainy.   The period of sunshine coincided with medium-high tide and so it was decided everyone would go out on jet skis, venturing into the trails just beyond the channels in which my brother-in-law and sister-in-law have their home on the sound.

I was told we were going.   It was assumed I would be joining everyone.  My nephew would be riding on his self graduation present—a small jet ski he hoped would afford him the ability to do more tricks.  My niece would be on her new jet ski.  Neither of the new jet skis was actually new, one being over twenty-five years old, they were new here, and trying them out was in order.  My daughter would be riding with Nicole while my son would be with his father.   Uncle Eric would be on his stand up, that being the most difficult for him, the most accomplished of the group.   I would be riding with Aunt Kelly.

Only I wasn't sure I wanted to go.   I'd had some bad experiences in the past.   Of highest order, my concern was for the greenhead files, who are of the vicious variety, hunting to bite into you with their razor teeth, injecting anticoagulant into your skin, causing a ferocious itch that for me, recurred regularly over the next ten days.   No bug protectant known will stop them as they are visual hunters and aren't deterred by smell or taste.   I hate them.

My other reservation had to do with my neck and spine.  When I was young, riding over the waves, bouncing up and down in a small watercraft topping out at sixty miles per hour would have sounded like a summer dream come true.  Only I'm fifty with a crummy back and one bad bounce might potentially cause me days of pain.   So while fun it might be to ride around on the trails in a fast-moving jet ski, I wasn't sure it would be worth it.  I was skeptical—and I was afraid.

Then something happened and I ended up going without even thinking about it.   My husband got on an unexpected phone call he needed to take with a client when I text came from Aunt Kelly on the dock at the back of their house: were we coming?   Everyone was already leaving.

My son was ready to go so he and I went downstairs and out to the dock.  My son absolutely, positively didn't want to go without his father but since we didn't know when my husband would be off the phone we convinced my son to go with Aunt Kelly and me.   He wasn't happy.  He wanted to go with his father.   We convinced him though and headed off to meet up with the other three jet skis groups.

It was about ten minutes later that I changed my mind.   I yelled at Kelly over the whipping wind in that she was my favorite person to ride with on a jet ski.  Her experience was so far advanced from my meager time driving a jet ski.   She deftly avoided the jarring wakes of the other riders and never slowed down to a speed that would have made us a target to the greenhead flies.   I was safe—in more ways than one.

My son wanted to keep going back to look for his father but soon enough, off in the distance, we saw him coming.   It was then that the phrase, "I'm an excellent driver" from the movie Rain Man came to mind as I watched Kelly perfectly circle my husband's jet ski to let my son hop off ours to get behind his father.

My daughter was with her cousin, Nicole, who we saw off in the distance several times.   Nicole, unaccustomed to the new jet ski, got mired in the mud on one of the smaller trails.  My daughter was not pleased, upset even.   Nicole was so kind, carrying her to Uncle Eric, waist-high herself in the muck while keeping my daughter safe with crabs all around her legs just so she could then free her own jet ski.    Fortunately, that was the only mishap of the day.

I watched my daughter as they rode around and noticed something specific to her:  she looked straight forward the entire time, directly into Nicole's back.   She didn't look left or right to see us or the landscape—because there was nothing to see for her.   She was loving the ride, only to her, it was all a feeling and sound thing.   Later, she asked to come onto the jet ski with Aunt Kelly and me because she was worried about more mud and muck.  The three of us as well as the remainder of our crew.  We were all lined up in a group at one point.  Aunt Kelly commented that we looked like a "boatercycle gang."

It was getting overcast in the distance and the tide was getting lower all the time so we headed back in before the rain got us.   I didn't want to go out today, but I'm glad I did.   I'd ride with Kelly any time.  She truly is an excellent driver.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was itchy all over before we went out on the jet skis today.  I scratched him in as many places as I could and then promised to get him Benadryl when we got in.  I don't know what caused him to be so itchy: the saltwater, the sunscreen, or something else unknown.   After the jet ski rides and a round in the hot tub, he seems fine.  Sometimes you never know the cause.  I'm just glad he's no longer itchy.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My brother- and sister-in-law put on the Disney Music station on Alexa and my daughter came into the room and started singing all the songs.   They both said she was really good at singing.   She's certainly had lots of practice.  Some days it seems she won't ever stop singing.  She loves to sing.   It is nice to hear her little voice singing the Disney songs.   She's on key and sounds very sweet singing.

The Yard and the Workshop

My nephew decided what he wanted to spend his graduation money on this week.   He and his father are avid jet ski fans.   His sister and mother are into jet skis as well—it's a family affair to be sure—but perhaps not with as much enthusiasm as he and his father have.   Kyle decided to buy a small, single-person jet ski on which he planned to be able to do more tricks.   He and his father have been looking around for used jet skis and yesterday he found just what he was looking for.

He showed me pictures of it today, but not so much to look the jet ski in question, instead, it was to see all the things behind the jet ski itself.   There were multiple pictures from different angles and in each picture, there were jet skis in rows backed up to the trees.   The seller turned out to be someone who had purchased one of their jet skis just a few weeks before.   This seller/buyer was into jet skis on a whole other level.   My nephew asked if I wanted to go with them to pick up his new jet ski in a bit.  Curiosity piqued, I said absolutely.

My nephew, his girlfriend Madison (my son's ex-girlfriend from years back), and Uncle Eric all piled into the car and rode a half-hour offshore to the home of the seller.   When we got there I felt like I was back in time in my mind, remembering trips to, "the country" to visit my father's family for family reunions.

There were indeed jet skis everywhere.   I walked around and counted forty-four, although Madison said she got a number closer to sixty.   There were ATV's and trailers, plus a small bus and several small food truck-type vehicles.   Besides that, there was a lot of yard art everywhere, of the type someone makes themself with materials on hand.   There was a large fire pit with a platform stage including many plastic chairs for gatherings.

The house was modest but in the back was a small fish pond including waterfall and other decorative elements.   Everywhere you looked there were little signs hammered onto trees, saying where not to park or that the premises were under surveillance.   There was something interesting everywhere you looked.   In the middle of things was a large workshop from which the seller came out, shirtless and tanned, to greet us.   I couldn't help myself, telling him my father would have loved to be here to see everything.

My father isn't into jet skis or ATVs, but he loves a good workshop with tools and anything you might need to make any project you might take a notion to work on.  My nephew looked the jet ski over and after negotiating with the owner, loaded it up on their trailer.  They talked technical specs on many of the jet skis around us and then we went into his workshop to finish the paperwork.

I had been hoping to go into this man's workshop but didn't want to be presumptuous and walk in while they were talking.  My father, as well as my husband, would have loved it.  He had tools everywhere.   It was large enough to house a few ATV's and had fans all over the ceiling keeping the air flowing so the hot day would be more comfortable inside.

It was a dream of a workshop with not only tools all over the place, but drawers and drawers containing various things, all neatly labeled with masking tape.   Again, I told him my father would have loved seeing everything he had here.   He said everything he needed to be happy was right here. He had a monitor hanging down from the ceiling with a rotating display of security screens, making sure that even though he was in a quiet neighborhood, no one would consider shopping for free when he wasn't around.

I grew up in a city on a half-acre lot in a modest house, but when I was a child we would go to the rural part of our state to visit close relatives of my father.   He had uncles and aunts who lived on farms with land to spare.   The ground was similar in that flat, sandy way.   I remember being at one house specifically for family reunions that reminded me so much of this man's land and layout.   We would go every year or two to full family gatherings.  I would know very few people, although my mother and father would tell me about all the people I had met or that knew me.   As a young child, I didn't remember most of them.   It didn't matter though because as children, we made fast friends and spent the day running around the property making up games and having fun.

I don't know how many of my father's relatives still live in the country area of our state—it's been decades since we went there for a gathering—but today it all flooded back, memories as though they happened only a year or two ago.   I spent the ride home remembering and thinking about the good times we had visiting "the country" when I was a child.

The Big Boy Update:  My son loves pretzels.  When we arrived my son found a large bucket of pretzels in the pantry and commandeered it to the seat he eats at at the bar.  He was going through them so quickly I wasn't surprised when a second bucket arrived from someone's shopping trip to the store.   My son proudly showed me that his initial was written in sharpie on the lid, indicating the bucket was all his.   I found out later he had been noticed eating pretzels, licking his fingers and then putting his hand back in the container so it was decided he needed to have his own container.  My son doesn't know the underlying reason, he's just glad he has so many pretzels.   There is a chance he might eat the entire bucket before we head home later this week.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter, after a week or two of not wanting new audiobooks and taking a bit of a break, decided to get a new book yesterday.   She was disappointed there weren't any more books similar to Percy Jackson that she was very interested in.   I suggested she try something new and now she's onto a series about a girl who has telepathic powers.   She was very busy yesterday and it wasn't until this morning when she asked to buy the second book in the series that I realized she listened to a full twelve-hour audiobook yesterday in between all the things we did out.   I suspect she fell asleep and it played for some time last night, but regardless, she's on to book two today and has been happily lazy listening to the book all day.   It's vacation, sometimes you just need to have a few days of doing nothing.   She is very happy and is in a much better mood now.  

Missing School

There has been much discussion, conversation, moaning, complaining and wistful wishing done by the parents of children who have been out of school.   Parents want their children back in school for many reasons with educational value not necessarily being the top reason in many cases.   For some, it's financial, needing children back in school so they can make money for the family to live.  There is the social-emotional side of things, wanting your children back in school so they can be with their peers.  But there's also been a lot plain wanting the children back in school so they're out of the house.

I fit in all three categories, plus the one where I can't do the same quality of education at home that a trained teacher can do.  Suffice it to say, for whatever reason, we as parents want our children back in school.   What's been surprising is finding out that children really want to go back to school too. 

I've heard stories from parents at both of my children's schools, saying how their child misses their friends and teacher and wants to get back to the routine of the classroom and school day.  I wouldn't have thought children would be upset to find out their summer vacation had been extended into the fall with more school at home.   Distanced learning isn't the same as school in the classroom, taking up fewer hours of the day, leaving potentially more time for leisure activities, or playing, or fun, or lounging around.  But children are tired of being at home, learning across a computer screen and at this point, would rather go to school than have less school time at home. 

Older students are hit even harder.  My niece, whom I wrote about yesterday and today turned twenty, is a swimmer, competing in international events including Olympic trials.   With college remote and athletic events canceled, it has been disappointing on multiple levels.  I can't imagine how difficult it must be, knowing you're losing time and training while COVID-19 is ongoing.

My other niece, whom I'm visiting with today, is understandably upset at the changes for the upcoming semester for her college.  One of her favorite places to go and study was the library, which is now closed.   And my nephew's girlfriend (and my son's ex-girlfriend,) Madison, found out just hours ago her fall semester will be all remote learning—for her senior year of college. 

No school, no library, campuses closed: things historically you would think children and students would be happy to hear about.   But in this case, it's been too long, too isolated, and too disconnected.   We all want schools to be back in session, parents and students alike. 

The Big Boy Update:  My nephew, Kyle, played a game of hide and seek with my son when we were at Dog/Kyle Island today.  He won in epic fashion, hiding around the underside of the boat for so long my son gave up on him and believed he'd swam home (it's a twenty-minute boat ride and not even remotely swimmable.).  My son rode back on a jet ski with his father and when he returned, Kyle walked out of the house, having gone inside just before he got back.  My son was amazed.   We did feel a little badly about it after the game had gone on for a good while when my son asked in a concerned voice, "Eric, is this something Kyle has done before?"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has not wanted to listen to any audiobooks for the last week because she's listened to her favorite one's several times.   Today, after running down a list of many books similar to the other recent book series she's been enjoying, I suggested she try something different.  There was a book about a girl who could read minds but didn't understand her powers until she met a boy who could do the same thing.   I would ask her about the book only we can't get her to stop listening long enougn to tell us anything about it. 

Time Doesn’t Fly, It Rockets

Two days ago we loaded the car up and headed north for our annual visit with my husband's brother's family.  We hopefully will also get to see Uncle Bob and Uncle Brian for a day before we leave, but I believe that's not a guarantee as they're still deciding on travel plans.   It would have been more people, more family, and a lot of partying to celebrate my nephew's graduation from college.   But due to COVID-19, plans are not what they would have been.

My nephew graduated without a ceremony, came home, and has a diploma in the mail somewhere that will eventually get to him.   We had planned to all gather in celebration in May, but that didn't happen either.   But we're here, even if we're the only ones here, for now, we're glad to see him and congratulate him in person.

I have a calendar reminder as well that tomorrow is my niece, Olivia's birthday.   She's turning twenty, which is honestly hard to believe.  My mother and I were just texting each other about it, reminiscing about times in the past where Olivia was a child or even a baby and how it doesn't seem that long ago.   Time, I told my mother, doesn't fly, it rockets.

I have clear memories of Olivia with her beautiful light blond hair smiling and toddling around our house.   There was a time she and her parents came over for dinner where I had the places set at the table, understanding just about nothing when it came to children as I had none myself and lacked much in the way of babysitting or sibling experience.   I had set the table with a glass, spoon, fork, and knife.   Olivia's mother removed those and replaced them with a plastic cup, fork, and spoon.

Then there was the time Olivia was early toddler age and wouldn't settle down to go to sleep so the adults could continue our adult conversations, catching up and socializing.  Her father said he would put her in the car seat and drive her around a bit so she'd fall asleep.   I'd never heard of this trick but later took advantage of it when our children were tired but couldn't get to sleep on their own.

There are many more memories of the past.   I'm looking forward to twenty years of more memories to come.   Happy Birthday, Olivia and Congratulations Kyle.

The Big Boy Update:  When Kyle came downstairs this morning my son, sitting at the kitchen bar eating some pretzels said, "Kyle, your nose looks bigger than it did yesterday."  Kyle laughed and we joked about it for a bit.   Then my son had an idea that might explain the size difference in his mind as he said, "did you get bitten by a bug?"  Uncle Eric came back from working on something outside in the back yard about that time.  When he came into the house my son said, "Eric, you were gone so long I almost missed you."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Later in the morning Eric and Kyle were out refueling the jet skis for when we'd be using them later today.   When we head out to the inlet, we go under a large bridge that connects the mainland to the island.   The children have ridden over it in the car many times and have gone under it on the boat or on a jet ski a lot as well.   That doesn't necessarily mean they understand the where and to what that bridge goes.   When my son asked where Uncle Eric was this morning my daughter helpfully offered, "I think he's at the bridge" (The location they refuel the jet skis is right by the bridge.)  Her brother asked, "Which bridge?"   She told him, "I think the bridge that leads from New Jersey to Miami."

Dog Island

My son was quite angry at us today because we were going to, "dog island."   We had planned to take my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's boat out from their home on the bay in New Jersey, through the channels and out into the inlet.   My husband took my daughter on a jet ski with the understanding between the children that my son would ride back with his father.   Jet ski rides are high value to my children and it's a positive thing a heated argument didn't break out deciding who got to go first. 

The location we were planning on going to was very specific.  There are sections of the beach that are closed at this point.  We had to time our trip to coincide with low tide.  At that point, a sandbar appears out of the water near the edge of the inlet into the ocean.   Many years ago, my nephew, Kyle, discovered this "island" and they decided to name it, "Kyle Island."

In subsequent years other people have made similar discoveries and on a typical day there are five to ten boats and jet skis pulled up on the shore of this disappearing island.  One of the common themes is for people to bring their dogs to the island.   There are very few locations dogs are allowed and this is one of the last holdouts.  

My son's point of contention was us calling it, "dog island" as it has more commonly been called of late since getting their two-year-old dog, Daisy.  My son was incensed every time someone mistakenly called it Dog Island and corrected us forcefully.   The dogs, however, couldn't care less what it was called—they loved it. 

Daisy is a consummate boat rider and knew just want to do, where to stand, and how to behave on an idling or fast-moving boat.  Matisse got into it fairly quickly, remembering from last year and another boat trip she was on last summer to a lake with our friends.  When we arrived at Dog (or Kyle) Island, the two of them couldn't get off fast enough.  

It's safe to run for both the dogs and the children (something my daughter doesn't get much chance to do with true freedom and safety.)  The dogs would run around and then get into the water to cool off.  Matisse would get up to half her leg height and then lay down in the water delicately, having the gently lapping water wash over her back. 

There were other dogs our dogs met and people we saw, mostly from a significant distance, ten times over the social distancing requirement in most cases (the island lends itself to plenty of space for everyone.)  On the edge of the island up against a rock bulkhead near a road there was a nice current that you could float down not unlike a lazy river.   

The dogs ran, and ran, and ran.   Matisse rolled in the sand and was a total mess.   When we got home she got rinsed off for a long time by me in the outside shower, making sure all the sand was off her and cooling her down in the process.   She was tired, asking for dinner early and eating an extra portion.   I think we're going back to this disappearing low tide island of controversial name later in the week.   The children but most especially the dogs certainly are hopeful we will. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son is in the middle of an audiobook—hardcore.   He is, against rules, carrying the iPad around with him wherever he goes in the house.   Tonight, after dinner, we were going to go pick up ice cream at a store three block away.   We wondered what he was doing when he asked where his backpack was.   He had put on his earphones, placed his iPad in his backpack and wanted to keep listening on the way to get ice cream.   We had to kibosh that. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is playing games with anyone who will play with her.  She is currently beating Aunt Kelly at Othello while I type this.   I fixed Stone Soup this morning so the tactile cards I'd made wouldn't slide around on the board with velcro dots.   I am a bulk consumer of velcro dots. In years past I've packed loads of toys for the children.  This year my son is content with his iPad and Nintendo Switch.   My daughter has her card games, board games including the Monopoly game updated to play "fast mode" shortening the game from a week (possibly) to just an hour or two—making it more attractive to those of us who don't want to make the supreme time commitment involved in playing the full game.   My daughter would be happy to play for a month, I think.   She loves Monopoly.  

Three Percent

My husband's laptop is perpetually in battery dead mode.   This is because he spends most of his time at his desktop machine so when he goes to use his laptop, the battery has discharged.   I have only one machine, my laptop, and even though sometimes it's plugged into my large monitor, external keyboard, and touchpad, making it feel like a desktop, I still only operate from one location.

I keep it charged with the exception for some reason of board calls.   I have a blind spot mentally that I need to bring the charger with me to the location I'm taking the board call from.   About two-thirds through the call, which of late has gone longer than our typical calls, I realize I'm not going to make it.   At this point I text my husband, asking him to bring me my charger from wherever I left it so I don't drop off before the meeting is over.

Excepting that, I keep on top of charging the laptop.   Today, early this morning, we got in the car and headed north to spend a week with family.   This was a much-debated decision we decided on going forward with a little over a week ago.   My plans were to work on emails (I am terribly behind) during the ride.   Instead, I fell asleep multiple times in the third row of the car and never opened the laptop up.

Something must have been running on it because I opened it up just now, after arriving and unpacking everyone, making beds and having dinner, to write this blog post to find the battery drained symbol on the laptop for a few seconds announcing there was only three percent battery left before it shut off.   So now I'm sitting on the floor with the laptop plugged in with the brightness at a very dim level so there will be enough power for me to write a post.

The ride up was without incident.   The dog did very well in the front seat.   The back of the car is hotter than the front and there wasn't much room for her to lie down.   Since I sit up and don't get overheated like she does it made sense for me to sit in the back.  Also, I can help out with all the "mommy" requests.

We had a slightly shorter trip than normal due to lower than typical traffic load on the roads.   We stopped to charge the car multiple times and at every location saw people masked with requirements to be masked to enter the building.  Where possible, people social distanced.   Passing in tight spots was done as distanced and respectful as possible.  People seemed to be taking things seriously from what I could tell.   I've heard stories about people not wearing masks but in this case, we saw far more compliance than I had expected.

We're here for a week.   The game playing has already started.   I hear Nicole playing Hoot Owl Hoot with my daughter in the next room as I write this.

The Big Boy Update:  My son got me playing a game I got him playing a long time ago.   I had stopped playing but he brought it up again today because he had no wifi access in the car.   The game had been updated and now he and I are talking about strategies and who's done what in the game.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I got my daughter playing an "audio game" today.   We're so used to the phrase, "video game" that we don't even notice the word 'video' in it.   In this case, the game is entirely based on sound.  It's an adventure game and is quite well done and reasonably large.   The premise is you're a blind knight, assisted by your sighted daughter.  You fight dragons and help the townspeople.  We're not that far into the game yet.  I'm playing it too so I can help her if she has questions.  I have to play on my own device because you need headphones to locate the directions sounds are coming from.  It's beautifully done sound-wise.   I hope she gets more interested and wants to keep playing it without me.

We’re A Go

We've decided to take a trip to visit family.   It's our typical summer vacation to my husband's brother's family.   We've been talking about it for a while now and made the decision to go based on several factors we weighed with safety in mind.

First, we don't typically do much in the way of being around other people when we're at their home.  They live on the sound and have a dock with jet skis and a boat which is sort of your own private access to the ocean in a way.

We don't go out to eat when we're there.  We go out for one meal usually each summer.   The rest of the time we eat in or order delivery.  We do go to the local ice cream shop which is only three blocks away, but this year we can eat ice cream at home.

We do go to the beach, but not that much.   If the beach isn't packed it is fairly easy to stake out your own space away from other people.   We'll have to figure that out when we get there.

I'm packing tactile games, card games, and board games we can all play together.   My nephew graduated from college this spring and we're going up to celebrate with him.   And to catch some rays and swim in the ocean.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was furious this morning that Blake would make him fold blankets from the fort deconstruction.   He just wasn't going to do it.   Blake didn't let him get away with the tantrum.  My son folded the blankets.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was upset many times this morning for little things, but when it came to putting the fort materials away, she jumped right in and helped with no complaints.

The Tattoo

I didn't get a tattoo.   Let's just start this off with that so there is no confusion.   I'm not against tattoos.  People love them and they have deeply personal meanings to most people who get them.  I've just never had a what or a where on me that I wanted to put something permanently.  Perhaps someday I will.  This story is about a tattoo I saw on someone else.

From time to time, I have to mail things that require me to go to a package shipping store or the post office.   I've mailed all sorts of things but one of the most common things has been letters and creations from my daughter or packages that have a typewritten letter added in from my daughter.

The first time I brought something in it must have been unpackaged and when Ke'Von, the clerk at the store, saw it was in braille, he started up a conversation with me about my daughter and her learning braille.   He was personally fascinated in braille and although he had no specific place to apply his knowledge, he had taken it upon himself to begin learning braille online.

Since that time, whenever I drop a package off to be mailed with something my daughter has typed up, I'd show it to him and we talk about braille.   We'd talk about all sorts of other things too, like how it's important to have things tactile for my daughter so she can discern them.   A few weeks ago I mailed an anteater my daughter made out of bubble packing from an envelope, some string for a tongue, and lots of other tactile elements on the body.   He thought it was great.

Yesterday, I took another thing to be mailed to my parents which included a letter to them in braille and another creation my daughter had made with tactile stickers in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and types.   We talked about how she could tell some things but not others and what color meant to her.

Then Ke'Von said he had something he wondered if she'd be able to read.  He showed me his forearm, where he had a tattoo.  In the middle of the tattoo was his girlfriend, and mother of his children's name—in braille.    And here's the exciting part: he had the tattoo artist raise up the dots so the cells could be read just like regular braille would be.  He had matched the size so the characters were only slightly larger than a standard braille cell.

I've seen a lot of tattoos in my life, but that one word in braille has got to be one of my favorites.   I told my daughter about it and she and I are going to go and check it out when things with COVID-19 have settled down.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Terrible Driver Update:  The spaceship crashed.   Twice.  This means they've had to rebuild the spaceship fort twice already.   My daughter spent the night in the fort last night and they decided there needed to be more sleeping space for her brother which somehow involved not only crashing the spaceship but salvaging parts from other spaceships (blankets and pillows from around the house) resulting in version 3.0 of their fort.

The Tri-Puter

I was working in the craft room this afternoon when I got a text from Blake next door, asking if we needed him today.   I went into the Bonus Room, which is right across from where I'm working, and asked my children if they'd like to have Blake come over.   My son immediately said, "Yes!  Blake would be an excellent servant."   My daughter also responded in the affirmative so I sent a text to Blake and said come on over.

Both children were excited when he came in.   I know this because I heard through the closed door from the craft room my daughter greeting Blake with her customary, "Blakeie!"   My son very matter of factly said to him, "you're going to be our humble servant."

Thus started something I was not privy to, other than hearing the excited cries and runnings about from the children while I worked.   After a while, my son stuck his head in and said they wanted me to come see their fort, only, wait, did I know where dad was?   They went to find their father in the basement and told me it would be another five minutes, so hold tight.

When my husband came upstairs we were ushered into the bonus room which had been turned into the largest fort I've seen them make.   My son excitedly told me it was a spaceship and its name was the Tri-puter.  My daughter was inside, yelling in an effort to get some attention, telling me, "this is my room!"   My son was slapping his arms on a bed pillow, exclaiming, "this is my keyboard!"  

They had a secret compartment, accessible by pulling out a stuffed chair and then stuffing my daughter inside.   It wasn't a big secret compartment, but she fit.   My son was pointing out how they had a robot to help them manage all things on the ship and they each had their own living quarters.

As a parent, I was so pleased with their creativity.   As a person who likes order, I cringed internally at the cleanup job that was to come later.  I didn't say anything, I just listened and was impressed by all the features of their Tri-puter.

I left to go back to work in the craft room.   I don't know if they're playing in what they created or are adding to it, but they're both very happy.   Blake, their humble servant, did a good job helping them out.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been screaming for two hours.   He is so excited about the fort he's been completely unable to control his volume.   And when I say screaming, I mean it.   It's loud in here, even though the closed door.   It's an excited scream though.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter's mentally mapped out the fort while they were building it.   She could bound around inside it without running into anything.   Maybe she's got some residual vision that helps her with object avoidance in the dim light of the fort.  When I left, she had found her way to the cockpit and was piloting the ship using the special navigational pillow.

Handy Men

Thank goodness for handy men.   And by that, I mean "handymen" as well as men who are handy with tools and mechanical things.   My parents have had an issue with their air conditioner that has been multiple days in resolving.  I spent some time over at their house the other day, working with a very nice gentleman named Patrick, who not old fixed the problem, he made suggestions that would help in other ways with moisture in their basement.

The problem started when the air conditioner stopped working.   Whenever this happens the immediate and prevailing concern is the unit or something expensive in the unit has gone bad and will be costly in both time and money to replace.   In this case, the unit itself was new and still under warranty.  My husband and I both turned our inexperienced eyes to the situation, flipped some breakers, fiddled with things, and came up with nothing—so we called the company that installed the unit.

Patrick looked at the situation over and diagnosed the condensate pump as the culprit.   At this, I was annoyed—at myself.   My husband and I are veterans of condensate pump issues and I was surprised we hadn't caught it.   Patrick then showed me the specifics of the particular pump and I realized it was of a type I'd never seen before and didn't realize how the separated parts of the version worked together.   At least that was the rationalization for the failure of observation on my part.

Good news, the part was easily and quickly replaced.   Bad news, it was legacy to the system and not replaced with the newer installation of the full unit so it wasn't under warranty.   But no matter, it was fixable and quickly fixable at that.  Also, it wasn't one of the more expensive parts.

Patrick made the change and then called me to the basement because he'd made some observations.  The condensate pump had failed in part because it was filled with mud.  Mud isn't something normally found in a condensate pump but since this one was sitting on the floor of their crawl space and since there had been a flood some time back as a result of poorly managed silt fence installation from the property up the hill from my parents during construction (another long and sordid tale,)  it was likely the pump had been inundated at that time and had limped along since then, pumping as best it could until it failed.

What Patrick was suggesting was to attach the condensate pump to the side of the air conditioning unit.   That would prevent problems in case there was ever water in the basement again.   But he hadn't done so because my father had a home dehumidifier running in the basement main area with a drainage hose heading out via the same channels.   Water has to flow downward and unless the dehumidifier was elevated, mounting the condensate pump up higher would back up and stop the lovely, cool air from coming out of the unit until things had been manually corrected.  

Patrick could have left at that point, but he had more suggestions.   We moved the dehumidifier up higher and put a large rubber mat under it so it wouldn't roll on its wheels.   The output hose he had already tried to put down the drain for the washing machine but there wasn't ample room in the pipe.  Elevating the machine would do for now, but his next suggestion was even better.  Why not let the condensate pump also pump out the water from the dehumidifier?  This is common practice with an installed humidifier but it would work just as well for a portable one.   The current hose was too short, but if we got a longer hose we could connect it to one of the input ports of the condensate pump and then the water from the air conditioner as well as the dehumidifier would be pumped out together.

I gave Patrick my sincere thanks (as evidenced by a nice tip, something I believe strongly in for good service) and then told my husband there was more work to be done to finish the job.   Today, my very handy husband is working at my parent's house right now, putting that hose in place.  

I am grateful for all the handy men as well as the handy women in the world, who keep our homes and businesses working properly.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Blanket Drop Incident:  My children were playing in my daughter's closet this morning.  All was sunshine and light until I heard my daughter screaming and crying, running down from upstairs saying, "I need to go to the chiropractor, my brother just dropped a blanket on my head!"   It sounded laughable, I know, but then I heard the details.   My daughter had her brother's weighted blanket up on a high shelf in her closet.   While they were playing, either by intention or by accident (it depends on who's telling the story) the blanket came down on her head and wrenched her neck to the side.   This isn't a light blanket.   It's filled with small glass beads and is a lovely feeling to have on you if you like weight.   We got it for my son in the hopes that it would help if he was having sensory issues.   I'm not sure if he ever did or does, but he loves the blanket regardless.   The drop from high up onto my daughter's head hurt and her neck was immediately bothering her.   I thrust them both into the car and sure enough, her neck was subluxated.   I had my son checked as well because we're going on a car trip for many house in a few days and his back invariably hurts him.   I'm glad I got her in quickly so her neck didn't have time to become too inflamed.   She's much better now and they both have been warned about using the weighted blanket as a "weapon" in the future.

Blanching

There are things I've heard about over the years that I've never tried.   Typically it's because I'm lazy and don't want to bother to take the time—even if the thing is supposedly a time saver.   With our neighbors moving and cleaning out their house, we've acquired some additional "stuff."   One thing they brought over were two single-serve ice cream makers by the brand Zoku.

Zoku is sort of the Ikea of the frozen treats market.   Their products work well, are stylishly made and people who have them like to talk about them.   I've never had any Zoku products before but when these two little bowls arrived in our kitchen with a, "would you want these?" my answer was a definite "yes."

They work in the same way the larger ice cream makers do in that there is a central area you freeze beforehand.   You then add the ice cream ingredients and churn for some time until the ice cream is made.   The little bowls were similar in shape inside to that of a wok or wide cone.   You keep the bowl in the freezer and when you're ready to make some ice cream you mix up 5.5 ounces from the recipe of your choice, add it in and then scrape the sides of the bowl with the included spoon/scraper tool for five to ten minutes until your ice cream is ready to eat.

That is if you can wait that long before eating it.   When I make it there is constant attrition as I stir, sample, scrape, sample, etc.   The suggestion is to make a larger batch of vanilla base up ahead of time and then each time you can choose to add other ingredients such as chocolate, strawberries, peaches, etc.

I'd been craving peach ice cream for a while now so I got some peaches at the store.   The very minimal instruction and recipe manual made the point of explaining how to prepare the peaches as opposed to saying to add mashed up peaches to the mixture.   For some reason, it clicked with me if the manual writer thought it was that important enough to explain how I could blanch the peaches by putting them in a boiling pot of water for thirty seconds and then drop them into an ice bath so the peels would slide right off, then it was good advice.

This morning I got up and wanted peach ice cream—at seven o'clock—so I started boiling some water.   I put the peaches in the ice bath and was amazed that yes, the skins not only slid right off but that it left the peach so perfect looking you couldn't even tell the skin had been removed.   I carried a slimy peach into the bedroom and woke my husband up to show him.  He feigned interest.   Then, while I was peeling the remaining peaches, I heard my daughter up in the room above the kitchen.   I called up to her via Alexa Drop In and told her to come down and we'd do something special for breakfast.

She hadn't made ice cream in the Zoku bowl yet but was interested.  I had her chop up a few slices of peach while I prepared the remainder that I'd cut up for general snacks.   Then, we started to make a bowl of vanilla ice cream from the vanilla base I'd made the day before.   She, like her mother, wanted to sample as we went along, but we had enough to add the peaches when we were five minutes in and the mixture had reached the soft serve state.

We finished off our bowl of breakfast ice cream as our secret, planning what flavors we'd make next time (albeit not for breakfast, I told her.)

The Big Boy Update: My son and I don't typically play the same games but recently there have been two we've overlapped on.   It's been nice to have a common ground of something we're both interested in.   He suggested one of the games to me and I suggested one to him.  The second game we can play together as a team, which we're planning on doing this weekend.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter worked on a letter for her grandparents today using some nen tactile stickers I got at the dollar store.   They have a lot of good choices that rival much of what I've seen as far as being able to tell what the item is.   Puffy stickers are easy to find, but they're just outlines to my daughter if it's not an easily discernable shape like an ice cream con.  These stickers had depth within them.   I also found some other fun things she could put on her picture letter.   She likes doing this kind of thing.  Initially, she wasn't going to write an accompanying letter but when she got into some of the stickers, she wanted to write a note explaining what some of the things meant.

The Pirate

Sydney, my children's cousin, and one of my daughter's favorite people in the world wrote a letter to my daughter.   The two of them are pen pals and write back and forth to each other from time to time.   My daughter decided for her "summer work" today to write Sydney back and then to make her a collage to send along with her letter.   

When my son heard there were collages being made (I was going to make one too) he ran up the stairs and asked if he could make a collage too.  He had some maths work the finish but I told him as soon as he was finished, he could meet us in the craft room and join us, making whatever he wanted. 

I had high hopes my daughter would want to use some of the new tactile, textured papers I'd recently gotten after seeing all the things I could use them for while we had our at-home learning during COVID-19.   She had very little interest in the new things I had gotten, instead of wanting to glue stick down things on her paper that were tactile in a very three-dimensional way.   The glue stick I'd gotten out for her just wasn't going to do the job so I got out the very tacky glue and tried my best to get as much affixed to the paper as we could.   She had to abandon some of her more creative suggestions which didn't upset her overly much because that meant she got to open more drawers to find other options. 

My daughter had a good time opening drawers and finding what was available for her project.  The new, more organized craft room worked out well.   My daughter hasn't explored all the drawers yet, which has her excited about coming back and doing another project soon.  

My son, finished with his math work, came upstairs with a different idea: he didn't want to do a collage.  Instead, he wanted to get a blank page and use the cornstarch pellets to make a "scene" he said.    My son has always made interesting works of art with these little squishy rolls and this time he didn't disappoint.  

When I've worked in this medium before I simply lay them down on the paper and make a flat, albeit raised, picture of something.   My son sees the potential to build upwards and makes things in three-dimensions.  Here's what he made this morning:

My son told me this was the shore of an island.   It was a tropical island because of the palm tree with coconuts.   He put a pirate on the beach with his treasure chest (you can't see the multiple colors of gems inside the open lidded crate.). The pirate was bald and if I looked, he told me, I could see he has a patch over one eye.  His pirate also has a hook on his left hand and a peg leg below it.  

My son has a great imagination and even better execution of ideas he has.  I love to see what he comes up with when he does artwork.  His art teacher at school has said the same thing.

The Big Boy Update:  I have a large bin of the cornstarch pellets that my son was using to make his creation today.   He must have thought it looked fun because I looked over to see him putting his head into the pile, as deep as he could get, spilling pellets all over the place.   He came out, smiling.   It was so much fun he did it a few more times. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We had a part replaced in our attic today for our solar.   My daughter was being her most outgoing and social self and stayed up in the attic with him the whole time, talking to him while he worked. 

The Shower Taker

The children went to an evening slot at the pool yesterday, swimming with Blake from five to seven.  They returned home hungry and tired, which works well for getting them to bed at a reasonable weekend hour.  I was working away in the craft room, still ambitiously aiming for complete and total organizational nirvana when I heard a sound coming from my daughter's new bedroom.

I went in to find her wrapped in a towel, sitting on the floor, hairdryer in hand, drying her hair.   I looked at her and then asked, "did you take a shower?"   She said she had.   I was amazed,   She and her brother for all of their lives have taken baths in our larger master bathroom tub.   On occasion, we've had them take showers either by mandate or request on their part, but showers were few and far between because it's much more fun to get in a tub full of water, splash around and play with tub toys.

The room my daughter moved into was the room we planned for my in-laws to stay in when they came to visit.  Now that they live in town, they have little need to use the room unless we're out of town and they're staying with the children.  There are some things about the room that we did just for them with one of those being a shower and no tub so that my mother-in-law didn't have to step in and out of a tub with her knee replacement.

My daughter has used our shower before, but the controls for ours is different from the one in her new bathroom.  She had decided all on her own that she wanted to take a shower, had figured out the controls, and then looked for a hairdryer in the drawers and upon finding Nana's, had sat down on the floor to dry her hair.

We've dried her hair standing up at the vanity in front of the mirror many times, but we found it was easier to sit on the floor together and dry it.   This started because she hated to have her hair dried and things went more smoothly if we gave her something to play with while the drying happened.  She took that knowledge, had found an outlet along the wall by hunting along until she located one and then figured out how to plug the dryer in.   She even toggled the GFI buttons on the dryer before she got started.   This wasn't strictly necessary, but she's heard us do it before when the button has accidentally gotten pushed.   She might have thought it was a necessary step.

I don't know what shampoo or conditioner is in the shower but she used what she found.   She didn't complain, she didn't ask for help.   She wanted to do it all by herself.   Her desire to be independent and self-sufficient like this is one of the reason's I'm not worried about her future success as an adult. She's got this.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is carrying his iPad around with him.   For a long while he wasn't interested in anything on the iPad but recently he's gone back to it and has been playing some games. This morning I saw him come downstairs with the iPad, put it on the seat at the bar, and then go get the charging cable from where his father charges his iPad on the other side of the kitchen.   He then got up on the counter to use a plug he had seen.   That particular plug was much too far away to reach his iPad.   I called his name out and put my hand out for the charger.   I think he thought he was in trouble for a second.   I took the charger and pointed to an outlet right over the edge of the bar that was six inches away from where he had placed his iPad.   As I plugged the charger in, he uncharacteristically  said, "I love you, Mom."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I went back over to our neighbor's yard sale today to peruse for things I might have missed that I couldn't possibly do without.   Bryna told me that "Bob" the check-writing machine wasn't intended to be in the sale and they'd put it back inside.   Yes, my daughter could use it any time she came to visit.  Also, they would like to give Bob to my daughter as a birthday or Hanukkah present, if that was all right with us.  I told them she would be beyond thrilled.   We talked about what a special piece it was and I told them if they decided to keep it, my daughter would always be happy to come and visit both them and Bob at their new house.

The Check Writer

Our favorite neighbors are moving.   We've tried to get them to stay, but there was some nonsense about being under contract and the house was already sold or something trivial and we were just going to have to get used to the fact that they won't be thirty seconds walk across grass anymore in a month.   They softened the blow by saying they would remain in town, which I suppose is something.   So now we have a month's time to make peace with the news and prepare for the arrival of the new owners. 

Today they had a free/non-free garage sale.   Many of the smaller things were free for the taking.  I got a very large wine glass into which I plan to store wine corks.   This might take a while as we don't do a lot of wine drinking here, but it looks nice, even empty, on the bar.   I picked up a few odds and ends and dropped off even more from our attic which we hoped would be taken for free by neighbors.  

The potential audience wasn't large as mostly our neighborhood and a few other places.   People arrived donned in masks and either took things for free or looked through the furniture and other things in the more-than-free side of the garage.   My daughter was there to help.   She had set her alarm for seven-thirty and was waiting for their garage doors to open at eight o'clock.   She had been their first customer the night before, running home and asking if she could please, please, please have this orange stool Bryna said she could have. 

I was skeptical because first off, did she need it and second, where was she going to put it?  She had answers to both of these with the location being in the small area beside the bathroom entrance.   We went to go look at the stool and I loved it.   It was re-covered by Bryna in a soft, dark orange material.   Bryna said there was a chip in the wood (we wouldn't have noticed) and the recovering wasn't perfect (we wouldn't have seen that either) but if my daughter wanted to have it, it was hers.   It is now in her bedroom and is a great place for her to sit to put on clothes.   My daughter has a good eye for things, it would seem. 

The morning's sale was moving along when I showed my daughter an old typewriter they had for sale.   She got to feel the ribbon and how the keys worked, popping up from inside the center of the unit.  She knew where the letters were from learning typing earlier this year and tried typing something on an envelope.   She liked the typewriter and we made comparisons to her braillewriter, which in many ways looked a lot like the antique typewriter.  

There was another machine though that my daughter became entranced by—an old check writer.  It was owned by Stephen's father and used for many years in his dentistry office.  My daughter adjusted the sliders to make a dollar amount and then pulled down the heavy handle to impint "Pay to the order of" and the amount.   She could feel the information imprinted, which was different than the typewriter and I think was part of why she liked it so. 

She came home and told me she wanted to buy it.   It is an antique and is quite valuable and I told her it wasn't something that made sense for her to spend her money on.   If she did, I told her, she would have no money left for audiobooks.  She didn't care.   She wanted it and that was that.   She appealed to her father but got the same message: it was an antique and didn't make sense for her.

We thought she had forgotten about it but not unlike the rock in Hawaii, she became obsessed and fixated on buying the check writing machine.   In the meantime, I hoped someone—a collector—would come and buy the item.   It was beautiful and would be something a collector would enjoy having.  

A while later in typical fashion for my daughter, she came in from next door wailing and said in the most pitiful voice, "Bob is gone!  I can't bear it!"  She had named the machine Bob after Stephen's father, the dentist, who had owned it.   She continued, "Bob is the only thing that mattered to me.   I will never see Bob again.   I will never live a happy life.  My life is over.  Why do you control me so?  Why won't you let me spend my money!"   

I took notes on this for the post here and after saying a few things, none of which calmed her down in the slightest, I went to get something from the bedroom.   I heard her singing a sad Bob song from the other room.  My husband came in about this time and we talked about how they were going to keep it if it didn't sell and that when she went to visit she could use it then.   Guess what?  That didn't help.   She said to us, "I can't bear it; I'm leaving."   We asked what she meant and she said, "I don't know but I'm never going to see your face again."   Then the anger was gone and she was back to the piteous voice, saying, "if only I could have my best friend with me.  Oh, Bob!  No! No!!"  My husband tried to console her but she lashed out at him saying, "We are arch enemies now.  You never help me so I'm never helping you again."

My husband and I had to leave at this point to go check on something at my parent's house so I told her to talk to Blake about visiting the check writing machine when she went to his new house.   While we were at my parent's, she called and was even more upset, wailing and saying Blake told her the machine was too delicate and she couldn't use it.   I tried to calm her down but to no avail.   I told her I had to hang up because I had to call Gramps now that I was at their house.   She begged me not to leave her and didn't want me to hang up.   I told her I had to, but that I promised I'd call her back.   Then, suddenly and without any transition, her voice was completely back to normal.   She said, "actually, don't call me back, Blake and I are going to make cookies."

And that's the last we've heard about Bob.   Hopefully, Bob found a nice home with a collector.   We have delicious cookies here to enjoy. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son typically prefers to watch YouTube content that's not that educational (at all) but today I came in to find him watching a creator I'm subscribed to.   He was watching all sorts of educational videos all morning and kept telling me how much he liked, "this guy's stuff."   He learned so much this morning and has already told me things about our planets and how ants that I never knew. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter will tell you her best friend is Blake, our sitter from next door.   Blake is so good with her, cooking with her, playing games with her, and basically doing things with her.   She loves to have someone spend time with her.