Keep Your Calm

My children are outside right now, in the rain, swinging on the swings and jumping in the trampoline.    The sun has gone down and it's growing dark, but that doesn't bother them.  They're having the best time and the fact that they're wet and it's growing dark only adds to the enjoyment.

I remember being outside in twilight when I was young.  I would watch for the fireflies as they came out when it had grown dark enough.   They always seemed closer than they were and I spent much more time chasing them down, only to have them fly just high enough so that I couldn't reach them.

My daughter has been spending much of her day when she's not in Google Meet with her classmates and the different subject teachers.   She's been building calluses from all the time she's spent standing on the swing base, standing, and pumping. 

My daughter's school has gotten complex.   The first two weeks were simple and easy going.   Now, my daughter has multiple meetings with her main class as well as resource and VI classes.   There are materials the students fill out online and things they can read online.   I've been printing things out as they're sent.   Mts. B has been super busy it would seem as she's uploaded weeks of materials for us.   

So things are on a roll here with school at home.   I did get frustrated once today because I couldn't find the particular work my daughter needed for one of her classes.   My daughter told me, "Mom, keep your calm."  My husand said so too, although with different words.   As my daughter's teacher likes to say, "we'll all get through this together."  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter had her first meeting with her VI teacher today and got to see one of the VI teachers who will be my daughter's brailist when she goes back on campus.   It should have been a lovely meeting, but my daughter was flippant and rude.   When Mrs. Sample told her to put a piece of paper in her braillweiter, she gor upser and said, "I didn't think we were going to do work on the first meeting back."   She told them how much she hated online school and they told her how much they hated it too.   Mrs. Sample told my daughter what they hoped the schedule for coming back to school would be and if we could all hold on a little longer, they would get to see each other.  Then, Mrs. Sample deftly navigated my daughter's mood and they were able to get the work done while honoring my daughter's feelings. 

The Big Boy Update: My son's class has been enjoying getting back to the school work in their classroom, working with the materials, and doing purposeful work.  They've enjoyed it so much, the students who wanted an extension to keep worknig rang the class bell ask asked the rest of the class if they could work for longer.   The other students agreed.  

Treasure Hunt

We went on a treasure hunt today.  It was a special day, prepared by my children, my husband, and me for several weeks now.  My in-laws had prepared for this day for several weeks, starting with a hand-made invitation of the "real" kind which we recieved in the mail.   It listed the day, time, and location and requested that we RSVP if we could make it via their phone number.

We showed the invitation to the children and called to accept and then today, at two-thirty on the dot, we left to meet them.   We had to be there on time because the treasure hunt was in a park on and around a path around a lake.  We arrived, donned masks and applied bug spray, and then followed my in-laws to the bridge going over the creek at the entrance to the walking path from the parking lot.  

We each had a job with the children being seekers and finders.   My husband would be reading the clues as we found them, directing us to the next step of the treasure hunt.   Because the event was happening in a public park, the clues were on pieces of laminated paper to protect them from the rain.   The treasures were three golden rocks, which we would find as we progressed through the adventure of the hunt. 

My son was loving it as we found the first two clues.   He eagerly bounded ahead and went to the locations to see if he could spy the small piece of paper before being told the specific details of the location.   And this annoyed my daughter.   She was angry, petulant, whiny, and just unhappy about everything.   There was a good underlying psychological reason for this as evidenced by the single line she said: "I wish I wasn't blind so I could find the clues before Greyson does."

So we took stock of the situation and revamped the rules: my husband and son would look for one of the clues and then my daughter and I would look for the next clue.   There were three special prizes hidden along the way, which turned out to be rocks my mother-in-law had painted in the most beautiful shade of coppery gold.   It just happened to be my favorite color of late because it matches my favorite 3D printing filament because it just makes any model printed in it look fabulous.  

My son would still run ahead, which still bothered his sister, but my husband got smart and didn't read the full clue until we got to the location to search.   That solved a lot of the complaining part on my daughter's side.   I also did some running ahead with her, in the hopes that would make her feel better about not being in the lead some of the time. 

One of the stops was to each take a turn skipping rocks into the lake.   My in-laws had brought special skipping rocks to the lake and had left them there for us to find.   What a fun surprise to find rocks just for us to skip.

After finding the last painted rock, which was a "luck" find with me being the one who spied it first, we went back to the house for prizes.   Everyone got a prize and we even had a prize for the whole family (a bag of mini KitKat's).  I think I got the best prize of two pairs of socks that said Wheaton Terrier on them with a picture of a dog that looked like our dog.   I'm looking forward to cooler weather so I can wear them. 

We had appetizers and dinner and then special ice cream pie my mother-in-law made with three flavors of ice cream in it including peppermint ice cream which she made herself.  Thank you so much to Nana and Papa for making what has to be one of the most creative treasure hunts I've ever been on.   Next up: we're going to make a treasure hunt here for Nana and Papa.   I'm going to see what ideas the children come up with and we'll see what surprises we want to have them find.   It's fun to be in a treasure hunt, but I bet the children will have fun making up one for their grandparents just as much. 

The Big Boy Update:  Morgan sent me this yesterday with a message that my son said this a few years ago and she'd forgotten to tell me about it.   It is so my son...

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been helping me with some 3D printed braille puzzles we're going to send to her school for some of the other VI students.  She's done the puzzles herself as I've gotten through printing them and now, we're going to pass them on.   Because there is some tetchiness to 3D printing and I'm still learning the best settings based on the model and filament I'm using, there have been some adjustments to the models as they've completed printing.  Today, I had my daughter check them each over and make sure connections weren't too loose or too tight so I could make adjustments by filing away material or adding in additional material with a 3D printing pen that adds bits of melted filament where needed.   She checked that all the braille dots and letters were readable and then told me if it got her, "seal of approval" as she told me.   After doing the puzzles only twice, I was able to give her three at a time, pieces all jumbled together, and she could quickly figure them out.   It's been the better part of a week printing twenty-seven alphabet braille puzzles, but my daughter is ready for another challenge now so we'll pass them on to the school and after being quarantined for a bit, they can hopefully be shared with other students.  Here are what some of the puzzles look like:

Sick Dog?

Our dog doesn't feel well.   She's done this before, where she goes outside and eats grass, which dogs can do for multiple reasons.   She has what I'd call a "sensitive stomach" because things just seem to bother all the way through the digestive tract.   We've tried multiple foods, including ones recommended by her veterinarian.   I think we have a good food option now and it typically works fine.   Something is up today, though. 

I've given her a small bit of antacid before and that's also helped.   Today though, nothing seems to work.   She's trying to get as close to me as she possibly can, following me around the house and looking very sad.   She's looking at me to fix the problem because that's what we do as owners and that's all she knows. 

I feel bad I can't diagnose what's going on and I can't make her feel better.   I got distracted after that last sentence when the "Contactless Delivery" pizza arrived at the front door and the doorbell was rung.   The dog is eating now.   I gave her the alternate food that we used before the current food to see if it would make a difference.   She's also not right up against my side, so that's a good sign as well. 

If I went upstairs to find the dog under the bed, with her hind legs partway out and under my husband's nightstand, then I'd know she was fine.   That's her go-to spot.   Or, alternately, keeping my husband's pillows warm that he prefers cool.   He doesn't mind her there, though.

The Big Boy Update:  My son had a birthday party Google Meet call today.   It was a collection of boys who were all bouncing around the room and shouting various things about what was going on in their lives, how they're bored with COVID-19, and what video games each was currently playing.   One of them mentioned the dreaded words, "my YouTube channel."  My son would love a YouTube channel.   I don't know what he wants to put up there, most likely Minecraft.  I think the thought of other people looking at what he's doing is exciting to him. 

The TIny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter proudly showed me today some calluses she's acquired (built?) over the past several months of aggressive swinging in the back yard.   Today she got on top of the A-Frame, much to the dismay of our new neighbors, so she could adjust the height of one of the swings so Nora, their daughter, could reach the ground with her feet.   A few minutes later, she wanted to swap out swings and was back on top of the set, dropping the one swing down and asking me to hand her up the new chain.   I told the neighbors she was probably more careful than most children because of her situation (I used the word "situation" because my daughter was in earshot).   I said her proprioception was better than most children.   The father said, "oh, I would have been up there when I was a child too."   I agreed, so would I. 

First Week Ends

The Big Boy Update: My son started school on Wednesday this week.   He has ten students in his class that are in the twenty-five student classroom.  There are two students in addition that are learning remotely, due to conditions that make is necessary to do so.   This isn't an elective option, but something that would make it necessary for the child to learn remotely.   The reasons are not discussed with the students or parents, rightly so. 

My son thinks both of his teachers are wonderful.  The assistant teacher, Allison, can kick the soccer ball farther than anyone and Michelle, his main teacher, is funny, but also very serious.   He likes all the students in his class, many of whom he's been in a class with at some time over the past seven years.  

Of the ten students, six of them are, "Fourth Years" meaning they're just starting out in Upper Elementary, a Montessori classroom that spans fourth through sixth grade.   It's a heavily weighted class for his level, due to many circumstances this year, COVID-19 being one of them.   It's nice to have upper classmen to look up to and take guidance from on work habits, maturity, etc.  Those four students will provide good role models for him.  I'm hoping to see a change in maturity at home as a result.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter's school last week was minimal, to say the least.   This week the students have more meetings online and more homework to turn in via Google Classroom.  She has three to four online meetings every day for instruction and asynchronous learning for the time between Google Meets.  

Aside from not being able to find and start meetings on the complexity that is a computer screen, my daughter is the master of her schedule and work.   She will set alarms so she's ready to go back to her desk just before the next meet and will alert us to get her in the meeting.   If her assigned work is on her desk when she gets there, she will complete it and let us know it's ready to be submitted.  

There is a lot of positivity from my daughter about this school year.   Last year things went well, but it was me in the room with her helping all day.   The scheduling and plan this year has been worked on very hard by teachers and administration, and it shows.   It's not designed for blind students, but my daughter doesn't seem to have a problem with things.   That and her VI teachers are getting us everything we need so she can be just like her peers.   I think that's important to her—being like her friends.

Not a Temperature…Again

This morning after breakfast we tested my son's temperature before departing for school.  He answered the five family health questions in the wellness app we must fill out before heading to school every morning.   We arrived a few minutes early because I had a prescription for my son to be kept on file in the office and I wanted to get there early as opposed to late.   At eight-thirty on the dot, my son's two teachers came out of the classroom, picked up the thermometer from the basket they'd laid outside the door in preparation for the arrival of students and waited as the Upper Elementary students exited their cars, one at a time, and began to approach the classroom.   

My son now out of the car, I start to inch forward, looking for the admin staff member I'd seen up ahead only moments ago.   Michelle, my son's teacher, said to me in a tone that told me she had something important to tell me to please wait before driving off.   I nodded and waited.   About ten seconds, later the car in front of me drove off so I inched forward, looking for Rachel so I could hand off the prescription. 

Michelle said again, this time in a tone that sounded both serious and dire, "could you please wait?"   I responded in a chipper tone, "I wouldn't leave you!"   Right after that she walked over and told me, "he's got a fever of 100.2".  Now I understood why she was so upset.   I responded with a blurt in a confident, not defensive or upset way, "I know he doesn't have a temperature."   

This was bad, just like the other time this happened.   I suggested they let him stand to the side and recheck it in a few minutes.    I was confused though because this time, unlike the last time,  the car wasn't hot and it wasn't beating down late summer rays.   I wasn't worried about my son having COVID-19 so much as I was worried it would cause us to take him out of school, get a COVID-19 test, and then he would (I think) still have to stay home for two weeks.    

I was thinking about asking for a secondary thermometer to be tested on him when I heard the assistant teacher say, "she's got a fever too."   Michelle was not looking happy.   Was COVID-19 on campus the second day of school after all the preparations and precautions?   

Then Allison called out, "and this student too.  That's three in a row."   By now, the backup thermometer for the class was outside and my son's temperature was being tested via his ear canal.   Michelle looked at him and said, "you're fine, go on in" with a look of total relief on her face. 

It was then that they realized what they'd done: they'd left the thermometer outside the door to the classroom and it had been affected by the hot weather and possibly the sun on it.   Everyone was relieved and now we all knew a good tip for thermometer storage.    Stressful lesson learned.   

The Big Boy Update:  Yesterday my son ate almost none of his food.   I had expected him to eat a large amount given it was the first day back to school.   Then we remembered: the Adderall, which he hasn't taken all summer, sometimes causes him to lose his appetite.   I wondered if it would be a while for him to adjust, but today he ate a good bit, which is good because he's doing a lot of thinking and work at school. They are also walking over to the state art museum for lunch every day in addition to playing non-contact, non-proximity games on the playground. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter created the most darling hedgehog today during breaks between her online classes with Blake.   The hedgehog is bound for Aagaard's Animal Emporium (otherwise known as Mrs. Aagaard's house) in exchange for a pet my daughter has asked her to make and send our way.   I showed Blake where some of the supplies he might need would be in the craft room and that was all he needed to guide my daughter into making the spiky little hedgehog using red and blue felt, crystal stickers for his claws, and slices from a tiny coffee stirrer straw for all the spikes.  

That Pesky Printer Clog:  I took apart the extruder three full times last night with the last time being even more of a dismantling so I could get to the stepper motor.   The stepper motor is a little thing that advances the filament down to the extruder nozzle.   The nozzle heats up and melts the material but before it gets there, it passes through a little constriction that grabs and pushes the filament forward or backward.   A small piece remained in there from a filament color change that was too high up to melt and too low down to be pushed forward by the stepper motor.   Once we got deep inside the extruder head (my husband helped hold things in the end so wires didn't have undue pressure placed on them) we could easily see the blockage and just tap it out.   It was a long way in to get a five-millimeter piece of filament.   It's all it took to seize the printer head up and render it useless.   Now that the clog has been cleared, it's happily printing again and has been doing so all day.  

Clog

I have a clog in my 3D printer.   It's been clogged for half the day and at this point I'm nearly an expert at taking the printing head apart and putting it back toghther.  I still don't have the problem solved though, which is highly, I repeat, highly annoying.   So this is a short post on account of I have the printer all in pieces and I'm not sure what my husband's going to think of things, or my ability to do surgery on it when he comes downstairs. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son had his first day of school today.  He's in a classroom that had twenty-five students last year, the largest class ever for that level.   Today, there were nine students in the classroom with two remote for health reasons.  I believe two more will be starting in a few months, but I'm not sure when that'll be. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter finds out if her brailist is having a boy or a girl on Friday.   She is very excited that her friend is going to have a baby. 

So Much Labeling

My son goes to school tomorrow.   We've been meaning to get everything together for the start of school for a few weeks now.  There was a long list of supplies, just like there is every year for parents all around the world.   I told my husband I'd go through the list first because after all the organization of the craft room in recent weeks, there was no way he was going to know where I'd stored all the things that might be on the list. 

The job of just simply reading the list beforehand was something either or both of us should have done before two days ago.   We didn't expect there to be much we didn't already have or couldn't get at the drug store or Target in a fast errand.   My husband didn't read the list because I said I'd go over it first, but I got delayed with other things that demanded my attention (or that I gave priority) for days.   So when I did sit down to look the list over, I realized we had a bit of work ahead of us. 

We did have. most of the things, the others, I was to send my husband in a text message list while he was out with my son yesterday getting a plant because one of the items on the list to bring was a plant.   It's a Montessori school, for some reason a plant doesn't seem that unexpected in that light.   They were plant shopping and I started sending item after specific item, blowing up my husband's phone, as the saying goes. 

They were able to get it all but it took a few more stops.   The next job was unpackaging things and labeling them—because every single thing has to be labeled.   Historically this was for younger children who would lose their items or not know which items were theirs when something was found by a teacher in the classroom.  My son and his classmates know what things belong to each other these days.   In this case, though, some of the labeling was to keep people's belongings separate due to COVID-19

Or at least that's what I suspect it's for.   There are other labelings that seem ridiculous, but as a substitute teacher at the school before, I know it's for good reason.   They all have number two pencils and a full collection of colored pencils.   Those pencils can get mixed up as children move from place to place during the day.   Perhaps it won't be so bad this year as every student will have a single location they remain in, distanced from their peers, each day they are in school.   In prior years students would move to different locations such as the floor for large map work then to a small table for single person work and then a group table for a project with multiple students.   This year, you're all alone all day.

I still got to label forty-eight colored pencils and twenty-four number two pencils, highlighters, scissors, notebooks, binders, folders, water bottle, lunch box, cloth napkin, rain boots, rain pants.   Let's see...I didn't label the plant though.   

The Big Boy Update:  My son named his plant "Bud".   It is a lovely variety of holly and about two feet tall.  They transplanted it into a pot he named "Granite" with the bottom section he dubbed "Plate".

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter is doing so well with distanced learning so far this year.  She loves her teacher and the students are having fun with the classes.   They have two Google Meets each day and some very light work in between.  Next week it's going to increase in total workload, but for now she's enjoying it all. 

 

The Big Boy Update:  When we were over having dinner with our now, "virtual neighbors" who moved away recently, my son wanted to leave the table as soon as he'd finished his meal.   Getting him to sit for the meal was a feat in and of itself because, on that particular night, he didn't even want to sit down.   I gave him the eye, followed by a minimal hand gesture that indicated he should sit down and then watched him pretend to put the barest amount of his backside on the edge of the seat.   

The feigned sitting lasted for only a few seconds; my son was too excited to be at their new house and wanted to look around.   The house had the same possessions as their prior one and he'd seen them countless times before.   This was different though because they were in a different arrangement and he wanted to go around and play hide and seek or other games. 

I gave him a more stern eye, followed by a, "you need to sit down now" hand motion but I got little more by way of actual sitting that time either.  He was bouncing around and just didn't have the ability to sit right then.   That didn't change the fact that the rest of us were sitting, eating, and talking together.   

I tried a third time, this time giving him a serious glare coupled with actual words, instructing him to put his butt in the seat.   It didn't work.  He was too excited.   By this time, my daughter was finished eating as well and had the same lack of interest in being with us not to mention an aversion to adult conversation, so I released the two of them and said the classic parent line of, "don't break anything."

They didn't break anything and we had a nice half-hour to continue our conversations finishing dinner and then retiring to the living room as a group.   Our ex-neighbors, virtual neighbors, the neighbors that got away, are the kind of friends we could talk with for hours, and be disappointed when we had to stop.   My son rounded the corner into the living room for probably the eighth time as he went from the ground floor up the stairs to the second floor and took a detour to come over and ask us something.  "Why do talk so much?"   We told him it was what adults did and he'd understand when he was older. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son built his first PowerPoint presentation today.   I had to help him a good bit, but he did it.   Creating a presentation is a whole different thing from writing a formalized book report where you read word-for-word what you've written.   I explained how the slides were the talking points about a thing and when you got to the slide, you didn't read the slide, you talked about what was on the slide.  He got the concept, but it's a new way of thinking about things.   Several times he told me, "I'm so overwhelmed." so we'd take a break.   He's going to practice tomorrow to figure out what to say and then he'll present his slide show to his classmates on the first day back to school to tell everyone about a book he read over the summer. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is going to have a lot more online classes until she is able to go back to in-person school.   She's been doing fairly well with it so far.   Today, she had art class, which was a lot of discussion about anything the students had created since they last saw her art teacher.   When I asked my daughter what she wanted to talk about, she pointed way up high to what would have been the top edge of her corkboard over her desk and said, "I want to show them Crabby."  Woah.   I pinned that model up there months ago when she made it for a VI meeting.   She hasn't seen it since because she doesn't go hunting around on that board, I mostly use it for putting things up there for safe keeping or to have a spot for things she doesn't want to throw away.   She remembered about Crabby and she also knew exactly where he was.   She is fascinating to me.  

Fire Pit

I've never had a fire pit before.   We've had many friends who've had one, including our friends at the lake yesterday.   Their fire pit was more of the full pit variety with them having dug into the slope in their yard heading down to the lake and then adding a retaining wall with stone pavers.   In the middle was a fire pit surrounded by chairs that faced out towards the lake. 

Last night, after a dinner of tacos eaten by everyone once the boat had come in from the lake, we headed down to the fire pit which had been lit and stoked a short while earlier.   In addition to enjoying the view of the lake and sky, we were serenaded by a few cicadas that saw fit to arrive a year before the main seventeen-year swarm next year.   Zivy, their dog, dispatched of them in short order with some deft leaps and snaps. 

We selected one of a collection of natural sticks, taken from the surrounding trees and loaded up a marshmallow.  Once the marshmallow was deemed "done", which varied from soft and white all the way to fully charred and barely marshmallow-like anymore, it was sandwiched between two graham crackers with some chocolate.  My children tried to eat as many as they could manage while the adults thought about calories and waistlines and unable to resist, joined in.

I like fire pits but they seem like a lot of work.   Only now we have one of our own.  Our neighbors gave us theirs when they moved.  Blake was over here today because my son asked if he could please come to play Minecraft with him and could I tell him he missed him,  I had a thought: this was Blake's fire pit before he moved and he knew how to make it work.   Maybe we could have our own marshmallow roasting tonight?

I asked my husband to pick up some supplies when he went to get groceries and asked Blake if he could start the fire in a bit.   Both were amenable.   My children were more than happy about s'mores in their own back yard. 

So tonight, for the first time, we had a fire pit at our house.   The smoke was a bit messy with a wind that couldn't make up its mind on direction but otherwise, the weather was nice.  Next time, I'm going to have to ask Blake to show me what he did to get things started because the fire pit had two inches of water in it this afternoon and yet he seemed to have no trouble starting a fire tonight.   

The Big Boy Update:  Blake sent my son on a stick collection mission.   The reward: a fire for making s'mores.   My son looked all around the house and down the hill and found lots of sticks to kindle the fire with.   Now that he knows it's a necessary job in the whole process, I'm going to send him off for fire sticks in the future. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter asked me if she could give out the materials for the s'mores tonight.  I didn't realize it, but she's always been given the chocolate, marshmallow, and graham crackers for a single serving at a time.  She wanted to be the one to break the crackers, open the chocolate, and divide it up and let people get the marshmallows out of the bag she was holding.   It seems like a trivial job to an adult, but it was nice to do something for others, instead of having things done for her this time. 

Chiggers?

My daughter has these bumps on her leg that have been hard to diagnose.  They were in patches on one leg only and were both persistent and numerous.  They were bothering her in that they itched, but when we considered chiggers as the culprit after a good bit of internet picture and symptom recon, it didn’t seem to be as itchy as we would have expected them to be.  But we didn’t have many other candidates.

There was a possibility it was scabies, but the symptoms and visual appearance didn’t match.   Two things that confused us was that she was having acne-like behavior in a few of them, but only a few.   Another thing that didn’t make sense was that some were also in her upper leg, perhaps as if she'd contact transferred them when the back of her lower leg contacted her upper leg.    

But the locations didn’t match up well, which left us only with Chiggers as a guess.   We had been putting steroid cream on them for two days and they were getting better possibly. But not necessarily.  We eventually took caare of the situation in two ways: first, my husband called the yard company who manages our pest control and asked if they could come do a chigger service, which they did in Friday,  Second, we did the standard treatment of putting clear fingernail polish on the spots that looked active.

My daughter couldn’t wait for us to get home so we could put nail polish on her, “pore molecules”. And so far, it seems to be working.  We're hoping it keeps working.  So far, so good. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son was so excited to see both of his former sitters, Morgan and Tristan, today at the lake.  He was near manic to play with Tristan, who sadly could only stay for half the day.   He also had a great time with my best friend's four girls as well as all the adults.   He is a very social little guy. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter said to my son yesterday, “Greyson, try to make me laugh, I’m in a really giddy mood.”

The Lake House

I think that's the name of a movie with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, but that's not what this post is about.   Tomorrow morning we're driving to the lake house of the children's sitters, Morgan and Tristan who live in our neighborhood.   They and their parents have been spending most of the COVID-19 time there to keep secluded from other people.   They invited us up for a day to visit them and swim in the lake at their vacation home.

It's always a tough decision to decide to see people while we're in the middle of COVID-19.   We weigh every encounter carefully.   There is a conversational dance it seems we do of late.   It feels important to let people know, offer the information up without being asked, about how you're personally handling interactions with others.   At the same time, it feels rude to directly ask people, "so, who have you been seeing and how careful are you being?" 

The good news is most people offer up the information directly.   My son starts school on Wednesday and will be socially distanced around other students.   He will only be entering and remaining in his one classroom, which has been prepared as best as possible including extensive safety protocols they will be following. 

Still, though, we have to get food and one of us goes to the grocery store.   Doctors can't always be seen virtually, for example, I had a steriod injection in my spine today (something that horrified my children when I explained where I was going due to the needle, not the human contact.)  

People are seeing each other from a distance outside, such as my children socially distanced playing with one family two houses over.   I go for walks at a safe distance with a neighbor, and we also spent a weekend with my parents.    

The hope is we are all making good decisions.   Only there is still risk.   We are trying to make good decisions with people we believe we can trust, who also believe they can trust the decisions we've made as well.   

The Big Boy Update:  My son has a volume problem.   When there is noise and he's listening to something on the television, he turns the volume up...and up.   When the noise stops he doesn't think to turn it down.   It's been constant reminding him this summer to turn the volume down.   He doesn't even seem to mind the requests, I'm just surprised he doesn't realize how loud the volume is.   Why is it as we get older our eyesight gets worse but our hearing for loud noises somehow gets more sensitive?

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been on a Google Meet with her new teacher and classmates three days this week.   She's been excited to participate and see her friends.   I am so relieved.   She was so over virtual at the end of the school year in June.   It helps a lot that she likes her third-grade teacher a lot.  

Conflict Transformation

My son starts school next Wednesday and this evening his teacher, to prepare us, had a meeting with all the parents.   There weren't many parents on the call as my son's class is rather small due to multiple factors related to the pandemic.   Considering my son is one of the students in the class who will actually be having in-person school this year, we're happy about it. 

This call, just like all the other Google Meets and Zoom meetings, has a large portion taken up with a discussion of all the safety protocols the students, faculty, staff, and families will be doing to keep the spread of COVID-19 at as low a risk as possible. 

I looked at all the faces on the call and there wasn't a single parent I didn't know.   My son's lead teacher will have one of her three children in the class as well as three administrators who will also have their children in the class too.   Of the twelve of thirteen students in the room which would typically have twenty-five students, one-third of them are children who have parents ar the school.   The other parents are ones we've gotten to know over the years with my son being in class with each child at least one year of all the years he's been at the school.   My son is happy about being back in class with some of his friends he hasn't gotten to see much in several years. 

Michelle, the teacher, started the call by asking if anyone wanted to share a, "joy" they discovered they had during COVID-19.   There are a lot of negatives, to be sure, but there have been some good things, such as the realization by so many of us that we should thank our teachers more—because they do a job that is difficult and aren't appreciated nearly enough.   

One mother talked about how her two boys had gotten a much better understanding of what she did on a daily basis for work, in particular, how busy her work was and how long she worked each day.   They were at school usually and had no idea.   They understood more how difficult it was for her to run her business out of her home while getting all the laundry and other house maintenance things done, all while her children were at school.   As a result, they started offering to help do things to help her.   That, she said, was an unexpected joy for her, to see her children wanting and offering to help. 

My husband had been listening off-screen and working on his computer but about this time he leaned over to me and said, "what's our joy going to be?"  I replied, "I'll come up with something" with the confidence that I would indeed figure out something.  I'm rarely, if ever, at a loss for words.   I was mulling over our time at home since March as the other parents talked and had just about formulated my answer when my husband asked me.

Then he said, "We could talk about how the children are playing together more in more involved, creative ways and aren't arguing nearly as much."   I laughed and said he was reading my mind because that was exactly what I was thinking about.  

When he and I took our turn, we explained that they still got into tussles and verbal parlays but that the amount of time they spent together on positive, in-depth play had increased dramatically.   Michelle had an interesting answer.   She said the joy was both in the positive time they spent together but also in the conflict transformation they were going through as they learned how to resolve conflicts more deftly over time through their social interactions. 

'Conflict transformation' was a new phrase for me.   Typically we think of 'conflict resolution' in the sense that the conflict should end or cease.    In the case of our children though, they were transforming how they managed conflict together.   As she explained it, I agreed that it was definitely part of that joy we'd experienced.

My children still get angry at each other, yell, scream, tattle, get physical and do all the sorts of things siblings do with and to each other in the course of being brother and sister, but it's transformed over time.   Some day they'll be adults.   I wonder if this extra time alone together will elevate their relationship years from now in a way we wouldn't have ever imagined?

The Big Boy Update:  My son has a book report of sorts to do before school starts on Wednesday.   He has to do something to talk about a book he read over the summer.   This is a book report in the broadest sense of the phrase.  He could make a poster or do a puppet show or draw a comic book or do a magic show or write a traditional book report.  He can do whatever he wants and then present it to his fellow students on the first day of school.   I told him to figure out what book he wanted to do the report on tomorrow and then he could figure out what he wanted to do on Saturday.   I'm interested in what he comes up with. 

The Tiny Gitl Chronicles:  My daughter was fiddling with one of those little puzzles where you have the numbers one through fifteen in a square and you slide them around until you get them in order.   She couldn't feel any difference on the tiles because they weren't raised.   I asked her if she wanted me to see if I could find a braille version to 3D print for her and she said yes.   Luckily, there was just such a version online I could download for free.  Several hours print time later and I have the sliding puzzle ready for her in the morning.

Well, That Was Scary

We've been checking our temperatures here regularly.   We've been doing so because the new thermometer is fun—you point it at your forehead, press the button and one second later, have a result.   We've discovered what our baseline temperatures are and none of us are anywhere close to having a temperature even over ninety-nine degrees. 

My son had his first day at school today.   It was largely a ceremony to welcome him to his new classroom and to have the students get to know their teachers in a short, one-hour session.   The procedure we will be doing every day this year will be different.   First, we check temperatures at home.  Second, we fill out an online form in an app that answers four questions about where we've been, how we've been feeling and if anyone has had a temperature.   Once submitted and all is well, you can bring your child to school. 

When. you arrive at school, you take your child to the external door to their classroom.   They meet their teacher there and have their temperature checked again, as long as you don't have a fever, you sanitize your hands with the hand sanitizer attached to the wall just outside the classroom door and the child can enter and proceed with school.

My son's classroom door is in bright sunlight and today, he and I waited there for the door to be opened at two o'clock.   His teachers opened the door, with him being only one of two rising fourth years that would be in their class today.   My son was their first student of the year.   They checked his temperature...and he was 100.5 degrees. 

His two teachers went white and looked at each other.   I sputtered that he was fine right before we left for school when we checked his temperature.   They suggested he wait in the shade for a minute or two and come back.   We had the dog in the car so we returned to the car and I tried to explain to my son the implications if he had a fever. 

Even if he tested negative for COVID-19, he wouldn't be allowed in school for fourteen days.   This was serious.   I told him he was not allowed to put his forehead against the cool air blowing out of the vents and we would try again in a few minutes because we knew he didn't have a fever.   He said he felt fine.  I knew he did. 

I told him when we left the car to put his hand over his forehead, shading it from the bright and hot sun.   He did so and upon retest, came in with a temperature of 98.8 degrees.   All was well, but it was a scary few minutes. 

I had a chance to talk to one of the administrators from a distance when I picked him up and she said they'd done reading and higher than normal temperatures were common when children were in direct sunlight.   Well, that was a relief, I wish I'd known before we scared my son, me and his teachers.   Whew.  

My son starts school in a week and will be in a very large classroom, capable of supporting twenty-five students in normal conditions.   There will be twelve students to start, with two more coming in in a few months.   There should be social distancing to spare and loads upon loads of precautions that will slow down the education process but will hopefully keep everyone safe. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl At The Front Door Sleepover:  My daughter set up blankets and pillows at the front door, nearly blocking it from opening, yesterday afternoon.   She wanted to "camp out" and sleep there last night.  Initially, my son thought it was silly, but when it was time for lights out, he brought his sleeping bag down and joined her.   The "four-poster bed" as my daughter is calling it, is still there and may be the location for another night's "camp in."  This is what it looked like from the bridge above the foyer.

Always The Exception

We had a Google Meet today with my daughter's third grade teacher.   The meeting was for parents to talk about the plans for the upcoming school year.   My daughter attends public school, where she receives excellent support and education as a visually impaired student.  The school is a for lack of a better term, "regular" public school in which students without any disabilities make up the majority of the classroom.   

This year is starting with a level of complexity I'm guessing has never been seen in the history of public schools.   There are "Virtual Academy" students who's parent's have elected to keep them home in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.   This is an elective choice by parents and for my daughter's elementary school, was selected by parents of over half the attendees. 

The balance of the students will be rotating in and out of the classroom, some weeks with in-person education and some weeks distance learning.   This is to keep the classroom sizes down.  This means teachers will have some students at school, other students not at school but will have the benefit of in-person education for the period they're at home and then other students who will need all of their education delivered remotely. 

My daughter was going to be one of the students who would be rotating in and out of school.   We know how important it is for her to be with her teachers as they can deliver education specific to her, as a blind student, that can't possibly be done remotely. 

But there was a change: the county isn't yet prepared to have special needs students and those with IEPs back on campus yet.   They're working on it, and I hope a path for safety of the teachers and students will be worked out soon, but for now, my daughter is distanced learning only.   I'd like to say I'm upset about it, but I think I'm numb to the whole situation now.   I emailed my daughter's VI teacher and she said I was taking it better than she was.   I don't blame her for being angry, she understands the impact to her students far more than I ever could.   

Back to the Google Meet today.   My husband and I were on the call, reading the PowerPoint slides and listening to my daughter's new teacher.   The amount of work that has been put in place over the summer is tremendous.   I was impressed by all the online web sites put in place, procedures created and things  teachers will be doing to create/record lessons as well as deliver online lessons.   There are processes for submitting work, attendance expectations, a standard daily schedule and even office hours where students or parents can connect with the teacher.  

My husband turned to me after making sure we were muted and said, "None of this applies to Reese."   And he was right.   Or almost right.   The essence of what needs to happen for my daughter is the same.   She needs to attend the lessons and do the follow-on work.   But all the process around almost everything else is different for her. 

The supply list her teacher sent out last week doesn't include things my daughter can use because they have to do with writing, not braille.   There is a packet pickup this week for parents which I asked about, because I thought we didn't even have a packet to pick up.   Our packet, it turns out, which contained the materials the students will be using over the first part of the year, was handed over to my daughter's VI teachers so they can prepare it for my daughter in braille. 

I like my daughter's new teacher and am so happy we still have my daughter's Braillist and VI teachers this year.  I sent an email to my daughter's teacher and echoed to her what she said to all of us, "we'll get through this together."   We'll figure it out, even if things will be different for my daughter.   And hopefully it won't be that long before she can get back to the classroom and see her favorite teachers.

The Big Boy Update: I've printed several things for my son on the 3D printer and he's been mildly interested in most of them.   He asked me if I could print him Tony Stark's heart.   That, he said, would be cool.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked if I could print something for her on the 3D printer today.   When I asked her what, she said she wanted a stool for a doll—about an inch in size.   I printed one, but at that size, it wasn't overly stable in the filament I used, so we printed it four times as large in candy apple red filament.   She is happy with the new stool.   Even though she can't see colors, she has strong feelings about which ones she likes where.

It’s Hard On Everyone

We're home from a long weekend visiting my parents in their mountain home.  Everyone had a good time in their own way.   I think my son loved spending time with Gramps, looking at his magic wand collection and running around the house, trying various wand effects on his family members.   He particularly loved a wand the produced little flowers out of the tip onto people's clothing. 

My daughter had a good time with Mimi, wanting to spend every minute with her and wanting Mimi's undivided attention.   My husband and I slept late, which is always a rare treat.   My mother worked very hard to have nice meals for us but we also ordered in and had some local barbecue we've enjoyed for many years. 

The weather was rainy, but we did catch a break and were able to go to the playground at the local elementary school.  It's a recent construction and has a lot of very exciting elements for children around the age of my two.   They could have stayed for hours at the playground.   We did go out for one meal where we were able to sit at one of the four outside tables of the restaurant in the back corner where no one was near us save for our masked waiter.   

We had all wanted to make the trip for some time and I'm glad we made it.   It was nice to see Gramps on his birthday and celebrate with him.   It was also good to be able to do some of the tech support things my husband and I like to help out with that are infernally hard to do if you're not there in person.  My husband and father worked for some time today on a dimmer switch in a hard to reach location between the refrigerator and the wall.   They got it working in the end, even if the rest of us had finished lunch by the time they were done. 

On the way home, we all got quiet for a while, some of us nodding off (me) and others of the family doing things like listening to audiobooks (my daughter), writing secret codes (my son) or driving (my husband). My husband said he liked the quiet time he got for that brief bit in the car. 

We're not an easy family to get along with.   There is a lot of high energy, high emotion, and conflict.   We try to get them to have good manners, speak politely, listen, don't resort to physical antagonization or fighting, and don't yell.   Unfortunately, that is my family.   My husband and I try to instill all the characteristics in the children we think are important to help them be successful adults.   My children push so hard back at us.   So hard that I lose my temper.   They don't listen, they intentionally do the opposite of what you're asking.   Our children are experts at pushing buttons.   

I lost my temper while we were there—several times—and my husband lost his temper once during the night when the children were having an all-and-all-out row over something that to an outsider, was silly but to them, was a crucial thing worth fighting over.   

Is it nature or is it nurture?  Do we have a chicken and the egg situation going on, or is it something that would happen regardless?   I get the distinct sense that the belief is that the children have learned how to behave from me, and therefore they are little hellions.  If only I were a kinder person, or, as my mother-in-law explained several times at length after taking care of the children recently, that talking in a calm, quiet voice made all the difference.   

Yes, it does.  I've done that and I've tried it all.   So has my husband.   It works to a point.   My husband and I have a much lower tolerance threshold for their behavior.  They are in the middle of some very challenging years.    I'm going to continue to do my best, regardless of what other people think.

This post got off track, which wasn't my complete intention, but has been something that's been on my mind lately.   Seeing our family dynamic is hard to some people.   We have a blind child who is exceptionally sweet but can be the most inflexible, angry, spiteful, and rude person you've ever met.   My son is quite smart but only wants to do what he wants to do and gets completely enraged when things don't go the way he envisioned them.   When both children get in a mood at the same time and the situation is compounded because we're wanting them to be on their best behavior, well, things just snap.  

To my parents, I'm sorry we had some challenges this weekend.   We all had a very good time but I know there were some stressful moments.   Children can be hard on everyone.   I think our children will be strong, self-motivated adults based on their personalities to date.   Getting them to become the adults I believe they have the capacity to be is going to be a decade more years of work here.   

I don't know how to end this post other than the children had a great time this weekend and want to go back as soon as they can.   They would each love to have a special trip to visit Mimi and Gramps by themselves.   They have wonderful memories of being with their grandparents.   My son, in particular, wants to go learn more magic with Gramps.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son is now all excited about magic again after this weekend. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter thinks Mimi plays the best games of anyone on the planet.

Chlorine with Pizza Iguanas, Snakes and Chandeliers

 If you're wondering what in the world that is, it's the dessert we were having after dinner last night.  I didn't realize the full extent of the "dish" the children had concocted with my husband until later, after the surprises from yesterday's birthday celebration was no longer something that had to be kept a secret.  

I knew, for example, that my husband and daughter were downstairs baking a cake because I could smell it.   The scent suffused the whole house so I didn't think it was something that needed to be kept secret, but my daughter was adamant they had been working on some chlorine downstairs.  

After the cake had been revealed and eaten, we got a full explanation of the name.   They had made Chlorine with Pizza Iguanas and Snakes.  They also had Chandeliers ready.  Follow the first letters, they had made Gramps: Cake with Purple Icing and Sprinkles.  On top of the cake were Chandeliers.  

Gramps blew out the Chandeliers with a hand fan, to protect us all in the case of cross-contamination.   We all had more of the cake today it was so good.   

The Big Boy Update: At dinner tonight my son was coming up with words that described people at the table.  Dad was 'bulky',  mom was 'thin', Gramps was 'wise', Mimi was optomistic and his sister was 'confident'

The Tiny Girl Chronicle:  My daughter had a difficult day behaviorally.   She's completely fine as long as Mimi is catering to every whim *or at least as many as possible.   My mother is very good at taking care of my daughter.   Patience and time-sharing are skills my daughter needs to work on heavily.  

Lost and Found

Today is my father's eighty-fourth birthday and we're glad to be with him and my mother in the mountains.   There has been a long-standing tradition of the weather turning to rain when I arrive in the mountains and this weekend is no exception.  It's been raining since we arrived.   I don't mind the rain, but it has put a damper on walks around the block with the dog and exploring my father's extensive array of plant life and yard art around their house. 

The weekend isn't over yet; we still have time to explore.   When we arrived though, my father was taking an unexpected side trip to the optometrist's office to place an order for a pair of glasses.  Why he needed to do so in the middle of COVID-19 is an interesting story. 

My parents own the lot across from their home in the mountains.   This gives them an unobstructed view of the mountains beyond them, all the way to a distant mountain which can only be seen well in clear skies.   Over the years, my parents have worked on that lot to build a small knee wall and flatten out the area closest to the road for additional parking.  

Before we arrived, my father had been working on the edge of the lot which consisted of a steep slope and dense underbrush.   My father moved some branches around and one tendril moved suddenly and whipped his glasses right off his face. 

It sounds easy to say, "look around and find the glasses" because that's what I thought when I heard the story.  I went over to the area in question, fully intending to find his glasses, but two minutes later I was back at the house.  It had been looking at a jungle of vegetation on a steep and muddy incline.  There wasn't anything to hold on to as you descended to look for his glasses and there was nothing to stand on for support.   

I now understood why my father was going to order more glasses.   He came home and we all looked up other options to order the glasses online because his glasses were expensive—far more expensive than anyone expected. 

After a bit, we forgot about the glasses and got on with other things, but my father hadn't.  A short while later he had brought up from somewhere a metal detector.   I recognized this metal detector—it was one he had from when I was a child.   I would guess the unit was at least forty-years-old.   My father has kept it and was looking into what batteries it needed.  I couldn't believe he still had that metal detector after so many years. 

After lunch out on the porch today in which my daughter burst into the happy birthday song to my father not once, but twice, we were all splitting up to do different things.  My husband and daughter were going to get a cake mix to make a cake for Gramps tonight.  My mother was going to relax and have a nap and Gramps was going to take the metal detector across the street to look for his glasses.

That's what he'd brought out the metal detector.  It had been raining over a day straight now, making that challenging terrain a big hazard now with soft, wet dirt under the foliage.   He wasn't going far, my father said, but I wanted to see what he's doing.  

He brushed the metal detector back and forth, slowly inching down as far as he could while holding on to the sole tree or the fire hydrant.   It didn't take him long before he gave up and came back.  As I saw him walking across the street I realized he was holding something in his hand—he had found his glasses!  I ran downstairs to meet him.   

I told him I bet he would have never have guessed saving that metal detector for forty years would someday save him hundreds of dollars.  It wasn't your typical treasure, but in this case it was about the best treasure you could have found, 

The Big Boy Update;  My son isn't playing video games nearly as much as he used to or even as much as he once wanted to.   He's listening to audiobooks instead.  Today at lunch, my son wanted to play twenty questions.  He picked the item to be guessed several times.   He picked some excellent items that challenged even the adults.  He's been paying attention to the audiobook and retaining a good bit of it.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter would really like to be played with one hundred percent of the time.   It became clear today that when you're helping her with something, like getting her food or helping her set up some work she'll be doing herself, she doesn't count that as time you've actually, "played" with her.   To her, quality time only counts when it's a game or other activity she wants to do with you.  I tried to help her understand.  Mimi is wonderful, spending lots of time with my daughter this weekend. 

The Gold Standard

We left for the mountains this morning over an hour after our targeted departure time.   I dislike being late but some of the reason was my fault.   It was one of those mornings when nothing goes your way but we made the best of things and left as soon as we could.  One of the problems was my car wasn't charged to 100%

This was odd because I'd set it to charge the prior day with my husband using the Tesla phone app.   My husband figured out the problem—I had charged his car instead of mine.   It's not good to let a car sit at full charge as it degrades the battery quickly.   We needed to burn some range miles off my husband's car and the fastest way to do that was to drive around a bit.  

My husband took care of the rest of our issues at the house while I drove to Starbucks to get the children kids drinks, the dog a puppcchino, and me a chai latte.  I drove the entire way there and back with the heat on high for the sole purpose of draining the battery more quickly. 

We arrived for a late lunch at my parent's house after two excited children got to greet their long lost COVID-19 grandparents.   The dog (who has never been here before) is equally pleased to have a new yard to investigate and the added attention of two of her favorite people. 

After lunch, my children wanted to play and have been doing a lot of creative play with and without Mimi. One of the most exciting things for their play is some guns my father made years ago in Steampunk fashion.  The guns are all different (and of course non-functional) with creative names like the first one in the pictures below, named “The Gold Standard”.

There are several more on the floor below the ones my father mounted.   My son loves them all. 

The Big Boy Update:  We were eating out on the deck for lunch after arriving.   The children were done eating but I told them we were having family time and they needed to stay outside until we were all done.  They were good for a while but then it started to rain and my son wanted to know if, "staying outside" included going downstairs and out into the rain.   Both he and his sister wanted to go run and romp in the rain that had just started.   We released them to the wilds of the mountain and the rain.   The couldn't have possibly been happier in that moment. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter brought a blanket to the mountains that's her new favorite.  It's old and something I sewed close to twenty years ago.   She likes to climb inside via the one-foot opening I never sewed up when I turned the material into a makeshift blanket.   She managed to get completely cocooned while keeping her seatbelt on in the car. 

I Should Be Packing. And Sleeping

I'm supposed to be packing.   I should have been packing yesterday, but I got distracted mightly by the arrival of the 3D printer my husband and I ordered last week.   It came in late afternoon and we told the children we were going to be ordering pizza (after son requested it) and then be holed up in the basement, configuring prints followed by staring at the print head moving inexorably back and forth as it slowly printed very small things for long stretches of time. 

They were great.   They took care of themselves, getting ready for bed with only a reminder to brush their teeth when it was close to bedtime.   They came down several times to see what we'd gotten up to and to find out the results of the printing we'd said we'd be doing. 

My daughter got to feel the first print we did, which failed part-way through due to a hangup in the filament we didn't realized we'd introduced.   It was a good ending though as I got to show her what it looks like inside the things the printer would be building.   She could feel the "wispies" as the melted filament left hair-thin strands as it jumped from one print area to another and the grid-like in-fill pattern inside the model. 

The children went to sleep before the second model (a tolerance test with pegs in holes) was complete.   Then we printed, "Benchy" a boat that was created to stress test the things a 3D filament-based printer has challenges in printing well.   We got that done fairly late and were decently surprised at the results.  

After that it only got later and then earlier after it was so late it wasn't later anymore.   I got some tactile dice printed with braille on a twenty-sided die and a big six-sided one for my daughter.   I printed a fully articulated octopus that is printed all together and then when removed from the print bed, is able to move freely in the hinges of the legs.   I did a few small things and we had to start over once or twice as we learned about settings, material melt temperatures and model layout too.   

When I sent the Mario and Luigi models with moveable limbs to the printer at five-thirty in the morning, I finally went to bed.   Or maybe it was six-thirty.   Suffice it to say, I got a lot more 3D printing done than I got sleep.

Today, I should be packing.  I had queued up models I wanted to print today before we go out of town and even now, I hear very quietly, the servos of the 3D printer in the next room.   The fan is louder than the printer and I frequently look over my shoulder to make sure it's still running.   Once I get this blog post written I promise (myself) I'm going to get started with the packing.   

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Blankets and Pillows Play:   Blankets and pillows are everywhere.   The hardwood floors are, it would seem, lava, and they have some highly evolved game that also includes the bathtub toys from when they were younger.   They aren't fighting.  They're having a great time together.  It's nice to see them playing so well after all his time at home without the regular interaction of friends. 

In Preparation

We have decided to go and visit my parents in the mountains this weekend.  Our plans were to leave in the morning, but it looks like we're going to have to shift our travel plans out by one day due to several real estate things happening with my husband's clients tomorrow.   He had suggested we go on ahead, departing at eight o'clock in the morning and then he would follow in the afternoon on his motorcycle.   This would have been a nice alternative to him as he's been wanting to go for a multi-day drive for some time to the mountains. 

Let me be clear her in that I don't mind him going up on his own.  But I also have to be honest and say I like it when he drives because I can do other things in the car and I don't have to focus on the road for hours on end.   I don't know why he likes to drive for long stretches, it's never appealed to me, but he likes driving.   So, from a selfish perspective, It would be nice to all go up together, my husband driving and me being helpful with the children in the back and doing my own thing when they're occupied.   But I also want him to have the opportunity to ride his motorcycle as well.   Dilemma.  For us both. 

What swung the balance towards leaving a day later all together was the lateness of the day in which some things would be happening tomorrow, causing him to miss most of a day with us.   It also gives my husband the chance to take a real two-day trip on his motorcycle to the locations he wants to go to, irrespective of where my parents live or our travel plans.  He can pick two days and ride in supreme social distanced relaxation for hours on end.   (This seems like anything but fun to me, but then again, he has no interest in organizing a craft room for two weeks and counting.)

I'm packing and preparing for the trip now, but this delay gives us time for something else both my husband and I have been excited about.   We did decide to get a 3D printer, which will arrive this afternoon.   That gives us precious little time to unpack, set up, configure and do test prints before leaving tomorrow.  

3D printing takes time.  Lots of time.  Some models print for over a day or longer.  He and I have been doing preparation of another kind, mostly of the YouTube variety in this case.   We've been looking at tutorial videos on 3D modeling software, 3D printer slicer software, model libraries and models themselves.   The big question is: what will we print first?  

I've fallen asleep for the past three days, lying in bed with my iPad playing a tips and tricks or Ultimaker CURA tutorials for beginners or top ten best calibration models to print type of videos.   I'm no where prepared for what we'll get into when we actually have the printer later today, but it'll be an adventure, that's for sure. 

I'm more interested in selecting already created models to print, of which there are hundreds of thousands, created by others, many of which are free to download.   My husband is more interested in creating models himself to print.   The question I had was what would we need to create?  What would be a model that was actually useful?  My husband already has something in mind, namely a weather shield for the outdoor camera that aims into the back yard, recording everything that happens there.   He had difficulty with the prior camera with the company sending a replacement one under warranty.   He thought a weather shield would be added protection and he says he can model it easily. 

So we have an extra day and hopefully will be able to get a few small prints completed.  For now, I'd better get back to packing so I have time to help when the printer arrives. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son was excited to go see Mimi and Gramps but then this morning when I handed him his backpack and told him to put whatever he wants in it for the trip, he lost his mind.   It was enraged tantrum time with him yelling at me saying we said we weren't going for two weeks.   I told him that was about two weeks ago.   He's excited to go, but sometimes he can't handle the thought of transitions well.   He went to his room for a while (read: was grounded) but came out happy with his bag packed, looking forward to the trip again. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I ordered what are without a doubt the most expensive plastic beads ever.  They are little rectangular beads with braille on one side and the letter on the other.   I put off ordering them because with the small volume they're made in, the cost is so high.  My daughter wants to make bracelets, necklaces and other things with the beads now.   I've packed the up for the trip and when we arrive, I'll let her sort them by letter into a container with lots of little slots.    My plan is to recycle the beads after she's made something that has lost its interest back into the pile.  Hopefully the beads will last for many years, although I equally hope she'll make necklaces or bracelets for friends and family members.   They're quire cute, if you don't mind rainbow plastic beads as a fashion statement. 

Somedays There Is More, Somedays There is Less

There are times I have so much or so many things to write about I have to pick and choose them for what I'm going to write about here.   I push larger topics off to each of the children's update sections when I have something I deem the larger part of the post for the day.   I have good intentions of coming back to the other topics in future days that are "leaner" on interesting content from the world of our family.   Sometimes I do come back to the topics (which I always note in my blog post topic list, lest I forget them completely) but commonly by the time I get back to the topic list, the items are woefully out of date and it doesn't make sense to cover them anymore. 

Today is one of those days which seems to happen rarely here where I just don't have much to write about.   This happens fairly often, but when I sit down to write, "I don't have much to say" suddenly I realize there's something I do want to talk about.   Perhaps this is the curse of being a writer—having the need to write, even if you don't want to.   

I've read about it many times, where a writer, well after they've become either successful enough to not need to write or prolific enough that they don't have any more major stories to tell and yet they still have to write—because they're a writer, and that's what writers do, even if they don't want to anymore. 

Let's get this straight though; first, I'm not "successful" in a financial way from this blog.   It's my diary, which for some reason people find interesting enough to keep coming back and read (and I adore you all.). From a success standpoint, when I see that more than five people actually bother to read my ramblings, I count it as a success beyond measure.  I never expected this to be more than me talking to myself and my future children reading about what they did when they were young. 

From a prolific standpoint, I started using Grammarly one year ago on August 18th.  Since that time I've written over 1.1 million words, most of them here in this blog.   Considering I hated writing when I was in high school, fought to learn how to type, and disliked any class having to do with English or language, I would consider over a million words in a year prolific. 

Where was I going with this?  Ah yes, that I didn't have anything to write about but that usually when I don't, I find out that I do.   It would seem it happened again.   I do like writing something every day, although some stories are more fun to tell than others.   For those of you who stick with me here, reading these little diddies I post on a daily basis, thank you.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son is now obsessed with an audiobook series.  These books are only available on an app on the iPad.  He has carried it around all day—not heeding warnings from us about potentially dropping it.   He's in the backyard right now on a swing with the audiobook playing on the bench.  He's going to be sad when he finishes the series. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got some sandals that surprised me.  She wanted the ones with the fluffy flower on them.   She has been taking care not to get them dirty.   Today, she asked if she could go play golf with her father.  She's in her tennis shoes on the late-day course with her father in the very hot heat.   The pretty sandals are safely at home so they don't get grass stains on them. 

The Prophesy

The children got back into the swing of summer weekdays today with some reading and other work being a requirement before they could lounge about and listen to their audiobooks.  Blake came over and worked with them some while I did what I would have thought would have amounted to an hour or so of housework but ended up taking me until three-thirty instead.   The phrase, "it piles up" comes to mind, along side, "all the little things" as to why there was just more to be done than I anticipated. 

In the middle of the night I felt a wet spot on the bed that was odd.  The dog doesn't go to the bathroom in the house at all anymore.  I can't think of a single time she's had an accident in the past year.   She is in no great hurry to go outside seemingly ever, with me offering to let her out in the middle of the night only to have her stand on the porch and then come back in after a few minutes as though she couldn't be bothered to amble down the steps to get to the yard. 

So, finding a wet spot in the middle of the bed last night was an odd thing.  When I smelled it I got a whiff of dog food, not urine.   The only thing I can figure out is something bothered her stomach (she had been eating grass earlier in the day) and had vomited and then cleaned it up by eating it again. 

The wet area was superficial, mostly being on the fuzzy blanket I like on top of the comforter that my husband dislikes, flipping it off his side every night when he gets in bed.   I didn't really want to be sleeping with any residual biomatter on the bed from the dog so today I washed it all.   It was a good time to do so given that I don't remember how many months it's been since the comforter has been washed and I am always up for changing up for clean sheets. 

Undoing, washing, drying, and then resetting all the bedding sucked up a lot of time today but the bed smells fresh and the sheets are crisp.   I'm looking forward to going to bed already.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted his hair cut and agreed last night to let me cut it today.  Blake, it turns out, has experience cutting hair so the two of us worked together to get my son's hair to a much shorter length and a more easily manageable style.   Blake and I, throwing all humility aside, congratulated ourselves on a job well done.  My son looks great and his hair cut looks like it was done by a professional.  Since it was only my third time cutting hair, ever, I count this as a big win.   He's pretty happy about the haircut as well

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  While visiting with my in-laws, my daughter wrote a poem that their neighbor, Susan, wrote down for her.   My daughter has been listening to lots of books lately about cat warriors.

Virtual Neighbors

We're going over to the new home of our next-door neighbors who moved away last week.   When we moved onto our street, we were the only developed house for a while, so most of the neighbors are the only people we've known to live in that particular house.   We are very happy the new neighbors have children to play with and are very nice.   We're looking forward to getting to know them more, but it doesn't make it any less sad that our friends moved away. 

Tonight is the last night before Shane, our old neighbor's daughter goes to college.   She is able to move into the housing she signed up for and will be doing classes in some form once school starts.  Regardless of how her school will proceed this semester, the thing we do know is she will be away for the semester. 

We've been invited over so she can say goodbye to the children, for dessert tonight at their new home.   Thankfully, they only moved twenty minutes away.   It's not that far and their son, Blake (our Manny) is still coming over during the week to help with things.   

We've said goodbye to Shane before, as she left for her year abroad, which was cut short due to COVID-19.   She did get to have many months of experience travelling the world.  Blake's program for this year was canceled this past week and everyone is sad about it.   He may still be able to do something this year, but for safety's sake, they felt they needed to cancel the planned program. 

It'll be a happy and sad night, with dessert with what I have decided are now our, "virtual neighbors."  They may have moved away, but I'm not willing to let go of the thought of them as our neighbors.   

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Not At Home Update:  My children have been at Nana and Papa's house since Friday.   They've sent some pictures and called a few times, but we haven't talked to the children once.  They're too happy spending time with their grandparents.   This is as it should be.   Grandparents are wonderful things. 

Musk

This is a story I had to work backward to figure out.  It involves a smell.   When we went to New Jersey to visit my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's family we stayed in their guest room and our children stayed in the office on their pull out trundle sofa bed.   Since the office isn't set up as a bedroom, I keep the children's clothes, shoes and toiletries in our room.   One night after we'd been there for several days, my husband came in and said he smelled something unpleasant that was unusual.

I'd been in the room for a while that night so I couldn't smell it but the next day when I came in, I got a whiff of it too.   I checked the laundry basket but it wasn't coming from the soiled laundry.   We were close to the end of the trip at the time so when I started packing up I was checking things, seeing if I could discover what it was. 

When I got to my flip flops of many years I found the cause.   Hrm, how long had it been since they'd been cleaned?  They were weather-resistant and had gotten wet many times so I took them into the shower with me and they got clean along with the rest of me.   I dried them off, put them in a shoe bag, and packed them with the remainder of our things.  By now, I thought I'd figured out what the smell was, and it was only via a strange incident that happened to me in 1991 when I was working at IBM.   

I worked in a large product group and had moved around to different areas within it over the few years I worked there first as a co-op and then later as an employee.   I had moved to a new office in the testing group and was moving my things into the desk drawers when I found a small, plastic-wrapped bundle in the back of one of the drawers. 

I unrolled layer after layer of this strange little packet, hoping there was something inside as it got smaller and smaller with the removed plastic.   When I got to the very center there was a small bit of waxy paper that, upon opening, had the most unusual bad smell to it.   Why would someone keep something that smelled so bad, wrap it up so tightly, and then bring it to work?   

I asked my office mate when he got in and he immediately solved the mystery, telling me it was his and he'd forgotten to take it home.   It was some deer musk a friend had given him for when he went hunting.   Apparently, it helped bring bucks to where you were waiting with your gun, in hopes of having venison for dinner.  

He took it back and since that day, I thankfully haven't had the opportunity to smell the smell again.   Back to the shoes: why did I suspect it was deer musk?   I had gone to a wooded property where my nephew purchased a jet ski.   While he and the owner were talking, I had walked around the property looking at and counting how many jet skis he had.   I was wearing those flip flops at the time.   Had I stepped on something covered in deer musk?   

I told my husband that's what I thought it was and that I'd washed the shoes but I wasn't sure if I'd gotten it all off, because it was strong stuff, intended by nature to last as long as possible so it could do its job well. Sure enough, when we got home, the bag I had the shoes in and the shoes themself still smelled, so I threw them in the laundry with the rest of the clothes to be cleaned. 

The next day I was out getting some prescriptions when I got a call from my husband.   My daughter and he were folding the laundry and she said it smelled bad.   He agreed it did and wasn't sure why.   I realized my mistake in thinking the smell would wash off and not contaminate the rest of the laundry—it was stronger stuff than I had imagined it could be. 

One more wash fixed the laundry, which I was grateful for because at this point I was worried we'd have to wash the items more than once.   The shoes went into the trashcan.   They were old and it was time for a new pair anyway.   

In the end, I'm not completely sure it was deer musk on the shoes but it fits and is the only explanation I have.   I'm just glad it came out of the clothes. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Rock Story:  My mother-in-law sent pictures of my daughter at the park by the lake, squatting down in the dirt with a stick.   She spent a lot of time digging up rocks.   She dug up several and made quite the collection.  She sent a video of my son, who was taking rocks and practicing skipping them on the surface of the water.   He wasn't doing well at first, but kept at it, trying to get the angle and throw just right.  It didn't help that the rocks weren't ideal in shape for rock skipping.   I am wondering, knowing my children, if they will return home tomorrow each with their own collection of rocks. 

New Neighbors

 We have new neighbors.  They moved in yesterday and today we saw them for the first time out on their covered porch.   We know there is a daughter a bit younger than my daughter and a son a few years younger than that.   We saw a small, white dog out in the back yard with the father for a brief few minutes and then they went inside. 

What is the protocol to introduce yourself and welcome new neighbors to the neighborhood/street during COVID-19?  Do we walk to the edge of our property and offer a hello when we see them outside?   Do we wear masks and go over to introduce ourselves?   What's appropriate, or rather, what would be appropriate to them?

There is a wide array of personal preferences when it comes to people's preferred level of safety during COVID-19.  Some people are fine at a distance without a mask.  My children play with their two friends outside only and maintain a distance of six feet or more (although once they got closer accidentally, my daughter told me.)  When I go walking with their mother, neither she nor I wear a mask out in the sun and heat.   We keep six feet apart and have kept each other apprised of our general contact with others.   She's a pharmacist and has given me good advice on the transmission statistics of COVID-19.

Some people seem to not be too concerned about masks or any other kind of protection provided they keep relative distance while others avoid all contact unless absolutely necessary.   There are people who have to remain in contact with large numbers of people daily, such as those that work at grocery stores.   It's complicated, is the bottom line. 

In a less infection-concerned situation, we would make some cookies, go ring the doorbell, introduce ourselves, and likely be invited in.   We might sit and chat and make plans to get the children together.   We don't want to be rude and ignore what might be great friends of ours in the future, but today, we're not sure how to best say hello and welcome them to the neighborhood. 

The Big Boy Update: My son told me the other day, "I find it easier to interact with machines than humans."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had a consequence yesterday she didn't like.  She wasn't sent to her room and she didn't have any privileges removed.   She had to stay in the room I was working in and, since she didn't want to help me with something I was working on that she wanted, she had to just sit in the room and do nothing.   Doing nothing, being bored, was very hard for her.    Not talking was even worse.   I had to put my headphones on and listen to music while I worked so that I didn't let her engage me with her complaints and whining about it all being so unfair.   She had ample warnings.   She had multiple tries.   Next time, we'll see if she's learned her lesson.

Six Inches

My daughter wanted to get her hair cut.   She's wanted to get it cut many times before now but since it grows very slowly with only two or fewer hair cuts each year, I don't jump to scheduling an appointment for her until I know it's really something she wants.   

Her hair has gotten long, very long, in the past two years.   Some time back, after she first lost her sight, we had her hair cut short with bangs.   That was a mistake, I think, as the style didn't frame her face well.  Our neighbor's daughter looks great with the same haircut, but it just didn't suit my daughter.  

My daughter has asked to have her hair colored many times as well and that, too, I have waited out only to find out she was happy with her hair the way it was.   But this time, she was serious.   She asked how much hair she needed in order to donate it and I told her she had enough, but it wouldn't leave much for her, so she decided on an inch. 

Those were the two extremes and her deciding last night she wanted four-and-a-half inches taken off (exactly).   Today, after talking to Sue when we arrived, they went for six inches.   That was about four inches more than I really wanted to see gone, but even I realized it was getting unruly beyond management and needed some removed from the perspective of damaged ends as well. 

As it turns out, six inches was a good amount.   She still has hair, "down to my boobies" as she put it.   She doesn't have hair that long, but after leaning over and making her hair reach her chest, she decided it was, "boobit length" to her.   

She washes her hair, brushes her hair, braids her hair, and puts it up in a ponytail a lot of the time.   I still help with some of all of that, but she is managing her hair a lot more now than she has in the past and it seemed fair to cut it to a length she'd be happy with. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son offered to do his reading today without complaint—to everyone's surprise.   There is a second book in the series he's reading he wanted to start after finishing the first book yesterday. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter, after days of high order rudeness and anger, was a complete lady to Sue as well as the shoe store we went to afterward to get her some much-needed shoes.   All her shoes were tight on her feet, she told me when we got in the car to get her hair cut, she told me—something I hadn't known about until today.  She wanted sandals with flowers on them, crocs for all-weather wear, and some light-up sneakers for everything else.