Alexa, Stop.

My children have been playing hard these last few days.   The weather has felt like fall, but a fall that's gone south on vacation.  Days have been hot for November, climbing into the sixties with nights cooling off, making my HVAC system all kinds of confused.   We expanded the playability in the backyard with an obstacle course a la Ninja Warrior and there has been a resurgence in the trampoline, which had been out of fashion for a while. 

My daughter plays hard and if you didn't know she was blind, upon arrival at our house, you might not realize it for a while because she just zips about.   Today I saw my daughter very little.   She came in and out and asked me to help with some lunch at one point.   Most of the time she was asking her father if he would please, pretty please and seriously you still can't jump on the trampoline with me?  

My husband is working on a holiday thing that will simplify decorations dramatically when he gets it done.   He has spent a lot of time in the garage doing woodworking things in the spot that used to hold my car.  I jumped in on the wood-related projects and asked if he could get some 2x4's for me at Lowes so I could prop the filament up in the closet.   He finished that unexpected task today and did a far, far better job than I ever would have.   My husband never does anything half-way. 

The children were probably tired at the end of the day, or at least I hoped they would be.   I took some laundry up to my daughter's room at seven-thirty to find her lights out and no audiobook playing.   And that was odd.   The lights are always out, she doesn't need them.   Conversely, she doesn't mind if you turn them on when you come in.   But no audiobook playing?   Now that was odd. 

I went over to talk to her because she loves to act asleep and then shout, "BOO!" at me and then ask if I was scared and did I really think she was asleep?   This time though she was not only asleep, she was sound asleep.   I tried to get her into some pajamas and she was dead weight like she was as a little girl who'd fallen asleep in the car on the way home. 

As I was struggling to get her pajama pants on she woke up enough to say, "Alexa, stop."

The Big Boy Update:  My son played some Zelda today.  That would be one of the Legend of Zelda games.  I played many of them over the years, including the original, as the series began when I was in my youth.   I would come into the room and he would immediately tell me about the hack he had going.  My son loves hacks.   Just being able to do something the game designers didn't intend the game to do for some reason is exciting to my son, regardless of how odd it is.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is very driven.  The obstacle course is fairly tough.  I need to get a picture of it and post it.  Some of the parts are easy, but we've fixed it such that getting from the start to the finish is not easy.   She's shorter than some of the other children who've tried it, but she isn't going to give up until she can successfully make the whole run by herself.   She's practicing starting at each end and seeing how far she can get.