Logo Reboot

We're reworking our logo.   I love our logo, but for reasons out of our control, we're going to have to redo it.  Or rather we think it would be prudent to redo it.   The trouble is, I really like our logo.  We could keep it, we've already won out in one situation where the logo was in question, but it would be easier if we just moved to a new logo and abandoned the current one. 

We have someone working on options, but it's hard to look at anything and like it as much as our current logo.   We've had some options so far, but nothing we like.   It's a tough situation.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Genes Discussion:  My son wanted to know what percentage of each of our genes he got.   He and his sister talked about who each was more like and they decided mostly that my son was like my husband and my daughter was most like me.   They readily agreed it was mostly gender-based in their decision.  My husband and I aren't sure about the breakdown.  They each are their own person.

Sneaking Away

I love running live streams.   But I can get stuck in them.   They are so fun, but it's two in the morning and I need to get to bed.   I had to sneak away quietly.  So I'm going to write a nice quick blog post and then go to sleep.  Tomorrow I need to put together a video on buying rainbow transition filament.  I've been putting it off. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son had a nightmare early in the morning after it was light.  He came down, got in the bed, and told me about the apocalypse he had dreamed about.   He does the same thing every time: he wants to tell me about the dream and then he says, "I'm going back up to my bed" and then leaves.   By then the dream has faded and he feels safe enough to go back to sleep.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter also had a bad dream, but it was well into the morning when she woke up.   She dreamed I had broken the glass eyes of the dolls and stuffed animals she had.   She didn't know why, but it was scary.     There was a reason I had to do it, but she wasn't sure what it was by the time she had gotten to the basement to find me.  We talked it through with the dog sitting on her until she was calmed down and no longer scared. 

So Many Platforms

YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, Instagram IGTV, TikTok Live, YouTube Live, Instagram Live, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, Patreon, Discord, and more, oh my!

There are so many platforms that are in the realm of social media.  We're publishing on many of them, but not all.  There are just too many to be able to manage and have time in the day to get any real work done.  Perhaps with a team of people or no children, job or life and you could do them all.   But I don't want to do them all.  

We've avoided Twitter for the most part for most of the time Filament Stories has been active.  We knew we needed to post there because odd as it seems, the people and atmospheres of the different platforms does make a difference.  

So tonight, we took pictures and uploaded them to Twitter, posting in advance so that while we're on vacation one or two posts will happen each day.  Twitter is different in that it's mostly pictures with a line or so of text.  It's almost manageable.   Twitter is a good place to make connections and is a positive place to communicate for the most part.  We just avoided it at first until we got the video part of things under control. 

Success is measured one platform at a time, I suppose.   Speaking of time, we need more of it.  It's two-fifteen in the morning again and I haven't even gotten a print started on livestream.   But I don't mind; this evening we got the most heartfelt thanks from a filament company I was actually critical of.  They're changing how they deliver their filament based on our videos and were instead of being unhappy with our videos, were incredibly grateful for the feedback and exposure.  

It was a surprise and a relief as I didn't like saying things that weren't complimentary, even if they were done in the most positive way I could manage. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son asked for me to print him a headphone stand.  I used a filament that came all the way from Turkey.   It's a bright yellow skull and he loves it.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had a very hard time not telling me what was coming up in the books we'd listen to when she had listened ahead.   She just had to give hints.  Now though, she knows to not tell me anything and is even getting good at making me wonder which direction the story is going to go with her vague comments.   It's nice to see her be able to keep a secret and not let on that she knows a secret in the first place

Golden Shoes

Today was the National Braille Challenge competition day.  Or rather it was the regionals for each state.   Students from first grade through high school compete in multiple braille events from proofreading to spelling to speed and accuracy, hoping to score high enough to make the top ten contestants across the United States so that they can go to California in several months to compete in the finals.

Today we had two students who had made it to nationals in prior years, one who won in her age group and one that was a finalist.   Of the two, one had attended my daughter's school a few years ago and made the news when she had won at the fifth-grade level. 

My daughter was excited about today.  In prior years she wasn't as sure about the event, but she knew less people, was younger, and didn't know all of the braille contractions she needed to be a full competitor.   Today, she was ready to get there and had fun the entire day. 

As an unexpected surprise, the mayor of the city the event was being held in was in attendance.  He was there all day, interested in learning about the event and to meet with educators, parents and students.  He stood up on stage in a brown suit and at the bottom of his trousers, a pair of the shiniest, gold high-topped sneakers were on his feet. 

He said the shoes represented fun, and he only wore them to special events.  His shoes just made you smile.  I messaged a friend, who said he could never hope to be that cool in his entire lifetime.   I rather agree, I'm just not that caliber of cool. 

We'll find out the results sooner than I had anticipated.  My daughter will know her scores within the week.  She will know if she made the highest marks in her age/skill group.  From there, the highest scores will be sent to the national group and should the winner be one of the top ten in the country, it's off to California in a few months.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I think my daughter would like to win and to go to California.  She has a reasonable chance to win for her group here, but will that be enough to go to California if so?  I don't know what the competition is like in other states. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son wants to have me print something and have it be printed on a livestream on TikTok.  He's picked out a headphone stand that's a skull by a favorite designer of ours.   I'm trying to get the work done here so I can start a stream and have people watch it while he sleeps.   

Talk to Me

I was oddly tired when I went to get my daughter today at school.   I got to the line a pickup and realized I was about to doze off sitting in the car waiting for the line to start moving.   I blasted the air conditioning to increase my alertness and tried to think of the best thing to do for the drive home.   What would be the most helpful and was I just tired or actually sleepy?

When my daughter got in the car I told her I was tired and instead of playing the audiobook she and I were listening to together, could we play the Alphabet Game we liked to play in the mornings?  She's always asking to play this game so I didn't suspect she'd be opposed.   I told her I was unusually tired and I thought talking would help me out. 

She was more than willing to help, because this is my daughter we're talking about here.  She loves to help.   We played the game of trying to guess the secret letter where you get a helpful sticker with a power, have to fight a monster and can use the stickers you've accumulated or you get the secret letter. 

She and I have evolved the game over time and aside for it having the one downfall of it being rigged to win, what with no one ever having lost a game, it's fairly fun.  It involves a good bit of creativity on the part of the person who's picked the secret letter.  We alternate being the guesser and being the person picking the secret letter. 

She helped a lot and I was fine on the way home but I did lie down for a bit when I got there until dinner.   After checking the prints to make sure nothing was failing and no printers needed tending to. 

The Big Boy Update: My son sometimes runs late to get in the car in the morning.   He brings his socks and shoes and for some reason he cannot remember to get them on before getting to school.   We've reminded him again and again.  Today, he had to get out of the car with his shoes in his hands to walk in. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter competes in the National Braille Challenge tomorrow.  She's exited.  And I'm excited to be there during the event.  I hear I'm going to put braille letters on the cupcakes.  A hundred of them!  My daughter wants me to save a 'Q' for her.

A Better Day?

Yesterday was not a good day with the children.  But sometimes. when we crack down hard on them, they wake up the next day and are in a much better place.   They know they can't get away with the attitude and treating each other meanly.   And that's what happened today. 

The day ended with us needing to tidy up the house for the cleaners who are coming tomorrow.   This is not a task the children enjoy doing.   But we combined it with our family game night activity of Among Us.

You get handed a card.  One of the four is an ace, and if you get it, you're the imposter, "among us".  We all set about doing tasks, two per floor, while the imposter tries to catch people alone and tag them.   If you're tagged, you fall down dead.   When someone finds a dead person they call for a meeting and then we try to vote and pick out the imposter.  If we get it right, the imposter loses, if we get it wrong, the imposter wins. 

The non-imposters can finish all six tasks each and then they win, or the imposter can kill everyone and win as well.   The children absolutely love this game, although it's much more fun with more people.  

The advantage to tonight's game was that tasks were cleaning up your things and putting them away.   So we got two things done at once: tidying the house and playing a game together.    

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  For being blind, my daughter does quite well at being the imposter.   She really wants to be it, although the first time she was the imposter and lost on the first meeting, she said, "it wasn't as fun as I thought it would be."  She's gotten much better at being sneaky. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son is very good at being the imposter and also of not being it.  We've lost to his  games far too many times.   He's really gotten the knack of the psychological side to the game.  

The Hundredth Day Shirt

I had a request to see what my daughter's shirt looked like for the hundredth day of school today.   

The Big Boy Update:  My son tried in vain to throw a massive tantrum to get out of folding his laundry.   He tried so many different psychological tactics.  None worked.  In the end, he folded his laundry and did so rather quickly.
 

Good Parent, Bad Parent

For a while I was the bad parent.  As in bad cop type of bad parent.  Mean parent?  More strict parent?  My children definitely liked their father more in some ways.   But recently I've been the good parent, coming in and saving a bad situation, soothing the child and commiserating after my husband has firmly enforced rules they know and have known for a long time but are deciding not to follow. 

Today, my son was so upset at his father for something he shouldn't have even been surprised about.  My daughter and husband left to go out and suddenly my son wanted to spend time with me.   We had a nice time talking and doing things together until he wanted to go do his own things.   It's nice to be the good parent for a while. 

The Big Boy Update: My son got me to download a golf game on the iPad.  He said I would love it.  I was skeptical, knowing the kinds of games he likes.   But he was right, it was silly and fun and both challenging and easy at the same time.   I said I'd play one level, but I ended up playing a lot more with him. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter went on a motorcycle ride with her father today—the first real ride.  He got her a helmet and riding jacket and a communications walkie talkie like thing so they could talk while riding together.  She absolutely loved it. 

Strike!

We released a video on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok today about a filament I was going to go over to print on TikTok live.   All was well when suddenly, after a very busy half-hour of thirty or forty thousand views and about five hundred people in the livestream with me, TikTok decided to strike and remove the video, stating it violated their guidelines for inappropriateness and involved nudity.  

What?  We, first of all, didn't have any bad content in that or any other videos we post (at all) but second, what could it have been?   My husband appealed it and came downstairs to tell me as I was sitting behind the phone where people were watching the printer print, saying TikTok apparently thought a graphic model of a male Orc, who was dressed, qualified as nudity. 

TikTok restored the video a short while later.   I was impressed that they were on top of things both to watch for inappropriate content and then to restore the video when it turned out the content wasn't bad.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son was losing his mind earlier tonight while I was on the livestream.  I thought he was in trouble with his father.   He wasn't, he was upset he couldn't get past a level in a game he was playing and was complaining loudly and pitifully to either himself or whomever he was talking to in game. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter's one-hundred balloons shirt for the hundredth day of school was a big hit today.   She, I think, had the most creative outfit of anyone in her class.  Her father's fingers and mine were a testament to our dedication to the first hundred days of school for her this year. 

The Hundredth Day

My fingers are sore.  So are my husband's.  Tomorrow is my daughter's hundredth day of school for the calendar year and there is always a celebration.  You put a hundred of something on a shirt to celebrate, typically something interesting.   My daughter wanted to do balloons, which wouldn't be a problem because I have a hot glue gun and a lot of balloons.

Only they don't stay affixed with hot glue.  Or cyanoacrylate glue.  And sewing them in only made a complete mess of the balloons and the shirt.   We tried several other things and my daughter fell asleep in a dejected lump on the floor.  

A long while later and one hundred balloons have been affixed with one hundred brads.   My fingers are so sore.  But my daughter will be happy. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been having the absolute best time with Labo, something like a construction puzzle and video game at the same time.  Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Margaret got it for my son some time back and he liked it, but he never finished all the projects.   He asked me tonight when I got home, "Mom, do you want to fish?"   I used a cardboard made fishing pole with a string on the end and played the most realistic game of fishing.   It's really interesting how they came up with the projects.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter played on a playground today with her mask on with three children she met while I had a parent/teacher conference about some worries my daughter was having at school.   She is doing very well, but she wants to excel at everything.  Her deficit in vision makes her want to be an overachiever in everything else.  All is well at school, but it was nice to catch up with her teacher. 

No Fear For The Young

Children fear things a lot less than adults in some cases.  Sure, they're afraid of what goes bump in the night and we know it's an acorn on the roof, but they're unafraid of other things we shy away from, like new technology.   

My son asked me tonight if he could design himself some things for his desk.   He wants to make a headphones stand, some drawers under his desk, and several other things, all that he would design himself and then we would 3D print them for him.  

I've been wanting to get into CAD design for some time, about the same amount of time as we've had 3D printers.   But it's complex and the things I'd want to design are non-trivial, so I haven't gotten around to starting.   And I really should have by now. 

My son wasn't intimidated by the potential complexity of the problems he wanted to solve, he just wanted to get into Tinkercad and see if he could design something—and he did, in a very short amount of time. 

The Big Boy Update:  The part my son designed for his desk tonight didn't work out.  But he was close.  He got the calipers from the workbench and measured everything without even being told that was the first step he needed to do.   He would have gotten the measurements just right had he not forgotten to allow for the attachment ring he added to the inside of the desk clip.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter gets very emotionally involved in the books she reads and listens to.   She gasping, calling out to the characters and saying, "nooooo!" to the epic fight scene that was happening in her book we were listening to on the way home.  

Breaking Down

When we get older, things start to break or not work the way they used to.  Our bodies aren't meant to last forever, something that's hard to accept when you're young but becomes hopefully an accepted future as we grow older.   It seems of late that so many people I know have someone or mote than one person in their lives who is dealings with the eventualities of living a long life.  

None of the stories are happy.  I don't like getting the texts or seeing friends only to hear about a lost parent or relative who is in a rapid decline of health.   COVID-19 has brought many deaths with it of people across all age ranges, but I'm hearing about more deaths and illnesses unrelated to COVID-19 more than ever now. 

It has been a tough few years on everyone. 

The Big Boy Update:  Did I mention that my son lets me hug him now?   Shh, don't tell him I told you.  If he knew, he surely would stop letting me.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was so upset her friend, Aditi's, eyes were hurting her today.  She is a fellow VI student at her school and their relationship is sometimes rocky.   My daughter is jealous of her vision because Aditi, while blind, can see more than my daughter can.  Still, she was so upset about her eye pain today.   

The Lack of Music

I got my daughter's music packet ready for Choir tonight.   I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing from an information consumption perspective, but what I prepared for her is a shadow of what the other students have. 

They have sheet music, most of which is above their heads.   Likely all of it is because the music is for piano or other instrument and it is quite complex.  There is the music notation and the locations where you sing the various words.  In some places there are multiple parts to the songs.  

All my daughter gets is the bare minimum.   She has a single sheet with just the words she'll be singing with no indication of how they'll be spaced out or the tune in which they'll be sung.   What I try to do for her is give her the most important part of the information she needs: the words, and leave the rest to her ears and her teacher's instruction. 

She can only move so quickly through braille and has only the tips of her fingers to consume the information in a serial fashion.   She can't absorb lots of information at once like we can as sighted individuals.   So for her, even though it's less, for her it's the right amount of data. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son had his Alexa playing an audiobook at eleven tonight.  My husband stopped it remotely five times and then I went up to talk to him and see what was going on.  He wanted to start the book again but I told him we'd be watching and he had two choices: control his want to listen to the audiobook or have me control it for him by taking his device.  He opted for the former. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles. My daughter doesn't seem bothered at all that she has less information than the other choir members.  Her brain is quick and her memory is excellent.  She can answer questions the others can't because she wants to succeed.  Because paying attention and memorizing things is important to her. 

I Would Never Forget About You

I forgot about you.  This blog post.  It's almost three in the morning, but we got two videos completed and a lot of other work done.   I have to get up at six-thirty to take my daughter to early school chorus practice.  I'd better write this up and get to bed. 

We went to a concert today for blind and visually impaired children.  There were so many people that were involved in organizing it considering the number of students who attended the performance.   It was a very nice event and I am so grateful they organized it and took the time to make music accessible for the children. 

My daughter got to play a cello and feel what a cello is like on the inside (there was one that was broken that she could feel).  What impressed me the most was the performers.  There were a few in eighth grade but most were in high school.   There were pianists, violinists, cellists, and violists.   They played in quartets with two pieces each.  

The performers spoke to the audience with confidence as they introduced the pieces and played so well I would have never guessed they weren't already in a symphony.   The skill these students had was impressive.  I wanted to give them all a standing ovation. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son was worried I was falling asleep at the concert.  He would nudge me and I would have to tell him, "I'm listening, I'm not falling asleep, but thank you."  I suppose he has seen me fall asleep in some unusual places before.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got dressed up today for the concert in her long black dress and dress shoes she wears for choir performances.   Well, one performance so far.   She looked so lovely, she even let me do her hair. 

Could You Meet Me On The Sofa?

My son had a bad day with his father yesterday.   He got into trouble and he was upset about it.   I came home from a girls night dinner to find him curled up in a chair in the kitchen.   I told him to come to the couch with me.  

He normally doesn't want to be overly hugged or touched, but last night he curled up on the couch and I rubbed his back, his legs, his head.  I wanted him to know he was loved and that was the important thing.  I didn't say anything, he didn't say anything, he just let me rub his hair and be there with him.   He fell asleep quickly.   

Tonight he asked me rather suddenly if I could meet him over on the sofa later for him to go to sleep, "like last night."   I said sure and after he had a bath and we rambled on together in the bathroom, we did just that.   And he fell asleep just as quickly as he did last night. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son went to a birthday party today.   It was outside in sunny, warm weather.   He ran around for three hours with other children (and lost two masks during that time somehow).   When I picked him up he was in the most amazing mood, telling me and his father how much he loved us on the ride home when I called home.   We really need to get the children some more time with other children.  COVID-19 has so many other side effects other than the virus itself.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had Ashley over this afternoon, and she needed the social time too.   The two ladies have so much fun together and are at an age where they don't need much help.   I would love to have her spend time with a friend every day if I could. 

Four Ladies At Dinner

I had the pleasure of going out to dinner with my three girlfriends tonight.  It's been a very long time.  Although, we don't get a chance to get together in normal times due to our schedules.   We were at the table from five-thirty until well after nine o'clock.   I had one little drink that I nursed for hours.   And yet I'm home now and am so tired I'm not going to be able to get any meaningful work done. 

I think I'm going to go to bed and try to get up early to start work in the morning. 

The Big Boy Update:  I came in tonight after hearing on the phone on the way home that my son had gotten in big trouble with his father.  I came in and he looked quiet and sad.  He let me rub his head.   He let me hug him at length.   He went over to the sofa and he let me lay there with him and rub his back.   He was in need of some love. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter just beat her father at UNO.   I missed family game night.   I wanted to be here for family game night.  I'm glad she won!

Valentines Preparation

My daughter loves giving things to people, preparing presents, being generous.   And any holiday where she can give candy to all the people in her class and her teachers is pretty much up there at the top of the holiday list for her.  She has been talking about her Valentines' cards for over a week now.  

I told her I would go and get some of the candy items she wanted if she would prepare the cards.   She has been so worried she wouldn't get them finished in time that she's prepared in advance, bringing her cards (and by that I mean bags with candy in them and a little note from her) tomorrow.  

I got home and helped her.   She had labels for each bag, so she could get different things to different friends.   We told her it all had to be reasonably equal, and she held to that, but she did manage to do some nice variation within a range.  

She was very specific about who should get what, and one of the students had recently gotten braces, so she needed to have certain things and not others.   My daughter wanted a marshmallow heart on a stick that was chocolate-covered.   She was still pleased with me when I told her I found chocolate-covered marshmallows.  

She wanted to take a break in the middle and go read her homework.  I said oh no, we were finishing this right now and not leaving it all over the table with a dog wandering around.   It is all nicely bagged and ready for school in the morning.   Giving things does make my daughter very happy. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son has one secret valentine.  He's prepared a card for him and then is possibly breaking the spirit of the rules at his school by having the message say to go to his cubby and look for a bag which has something in it for his friend.  

What is in it?  3D printed models.   My son asked about some models we had on Filament Stories some months back and I said sure.   He piled through bins until he found what he was looking for.   I had him look with me so he could tell his classmate those particular models had been seen by almost twenty thousand people.   

I don't know if his friend will care.  It still seems odd to me that so many people have seen things of ours.   I was glad to have the models used, though. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had to have some teeth checked today because they were hurting her.  The good news is they can be pulled along with the upcoming dental work they're doing to correct a situation in her mouth to give some adult teeth room to mature and grow in.  I was worried my daughter would be afraid, but she seemed fine with it.  

A Whole New World

I just never liked social media.   I tried to avoid it.   I didn't check in on friends and I never told people what I was doing.   Now, I seem to be embroiled in social media all the time.   But there's a difference.   In this case, I'm not me, I'm the entity that is Filament Stories.   People think of Filament Stories as me since I'm the person they see in the videos.   But it's just as much my husband as it is me. 

And yet it feels different.  I am going online to talk to people who are talking to the me that only is Filament Stories.   My personal life is what I want to share and most of the time people are only interested in the 3D printing side of things.   It's less me and more the persona that is Filament Stories.   And for some reason, I don't mind as much. 

There is a lot of pressure but that's mostly because I have so much content I want to get out.   The traction and response we're getting is a little crazy, and we're small in comparison to some of the contemporaries in the space.   Some of them have launched into the million or more followers on one or more of the platforms.   In a way, I'm glad we're not attracting that amount of attention.   But also it would be nice if we did.   That's a tricky thing. 

Some of them have lots of followers, but they're almost all people who aren't interested in 3D printing, they're just people who find the videos interesting.   I'm looking at building an audience who (mostly) has 3D printers or wants to get into 3D printing.   There are several things we could do that would likely get us a lot of views and followers, but I, along with other people, are avoiding them because once you have an audience, you can get into a trap of having to cater to the audience to keep them.  

So for now, I'm just continually amazed at how we've attracted the people we have.  We have a video on Instagram that has now been seen over 1.4 million times, which seems crazy.   

The Big Boy Update:  My son came in to find me after school.  He said, "Hi mom, I haven't had a chance to say hi since I got home."  I asked hin how he was doing and that I heard he had a presentation tomorrow and could he tell me what it was about.   He said, "It's on the excretory system.  You can watch the video later."   It makes you proud as a parent, seeing your child all grown u and talking about the excretory system. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is reading to me on the way to and from school.  I'm only catching bits of what she's reading but the best part is the intonation and voicing she uses as she reads.

Heads Down, Thumbs Up

Eric and Kelly, my children's aunt and uncle, came in town this evening for an overnight stay while they picked up some of their things to take to their new retirement home in Florida.   Everyone was in high spirits as we ate dinner and both children had plans for what they wanted to do with Eric and Kelly.   

The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted to show his aunt and uncle the programming he's been doing in Scratch, a visual programming language he learned while at Code Ninjas.   He also wanted them to see us film some video for Filament Stories.   He was very specific about the order.  But first, they had to go outside to the mailbox, because the stars were looking particularly bright and beautiful tonight—prettier than they would be in Florida, I believe he said.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted us to play a game where two people are picked to be the secret taggers.   The other four put their heads down and their thumbs up.   Then the two pickers secretly walked around and tapped one person's thumb each.   Then the people who had been tapped got to try and guess who had tapped them.  If they got it correct, the replaced the person they guessed for the next round.  We played this for a good long while tonight and everyone laughed the entire time.   I didn't expect it to be so much fun.  

1999

After choir today I was taking Grace, the other blind singer, home with my daughter.  We take it in turns to bring each other's children home each week.   As we were getting in the car, Grace asked, "what is 1999?" I thought it was a riddle or a trick question so I guessed, "one less than two thousand?"  She said that they were playing their colors game.   Colors game?

The two blind girls were comparing notes as to what colors things looked like in their heads.  I sat in the front, driving, and listening to them describe numbers not in terms of red, blue, purple or yellow, but "patchwork green with a hint of light blue" or "neon yellow with streaks of dark green around the edges."   Their mental pictures of the numbers were very specific. 

They didn't match on most things but were always happy when they were close.  They got into letters and shapes and what colors they pictured when those forms appeared in the head.   I wanted to jump in, but any color associations I had paled in c.omparison to their vivid imaginations. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is petrified of not getting her homework done.  Her teacher is kindly, but apparently, it is not okay to have unfinished homework.  I needed to go over new chorus materials on the way home but she begged me to please let her read.   We're going to have a conference with her teacher.  I completely support the expectation of homework completion, but I do think she needs to know how scared my daughter is.  It seemed rather unhealthy.   My daughter is so afraid of being called out that even extracurricular activities are no excuse for being delayed for a day with reading. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son was to have no screens today, so when I got in and saw him on his iPad I didn't say anything but I was not happy.  I called my husband and found out the LEGO he was doing had no paper instructions so he was using it only so he could work on the model.  Okay, I can understand that exception.

Failure

I announced a new model on TikTok today, saying I was starting a livestream on it.  I've been in the stream all day and the model isn't printing correctly.  I've restarted it and it still isn't working, even sliced differently and looked at twenty different ways.  We think we know why, but we can't resolve it with the current model and my printer.  He's so nice about it, but it's still stressful. 

The Big Boy Update:  Two days is apparently not enough to finish folding laundry.  My son is nothing but excuses. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter folded and put up her laundry in no time flat when she heard she'd been invited over to Ashley's house.  She walked there and back without assistance.   She is so impressive.

It Was An Ice Cream Day

It's midnight or a bit thereafter and I am still full.  I had so much food today in the form of ice cream.   I don't know why, but I had a hankering for ice cream at what should have been lunchtime so I had far more than I should have, because the container just needed finishing.   

For dessert after dinner tonight we all went to a local ice cream place where you walk up, get the ice cream and then get back in the car to eat it with the heat and seat warmers on because it's freezing outside. But it was delicious and since I hadn't had dinner, what with a nice long birthday nap, it was my dinner. 

That makes two ice cream meals for my birthday.  Is it any wonder my pants are feeling tight-fitting tonight?

The Big Boy Update:  My son was very cross tonight.   He wanted to go get ice cream and then when it was time to go was angry we were going to get ice cream.   Then, magically, when he'd had the ice cream, he was in a fine mood again. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I have to tell about my daughter today.  She planned for my birthday, making a treasure hunt of braille papers that I would read and follow around the house until I got to my present.   She got up when I did and made me breakfast.   She was so sweet.   Then she couldn't bear to wait for her father to wake up to start the clue hunt,   He was needed because he had the main present (a LEGO we'll be doing together) somewhere and she needed him to get it for her.   She would come out and say, "I'm going to do a snore check" to determine if he was still asleep.   She was such a sweet daughter to me today. 

It's That Old Time Again

Tomorrow, well, today given the hour, is my birthday.  I'd say I'm a half-century old, but that happened two years ago.  I don't know if that means everything is downhill from here or uphill.   The older you get the more some things become easier, while other things grow more challenging.   Physically, I am no longer able to do an ariel without putting my hands on the ground.   I remember deciding when I was young that the day I couldn't do an ariel from a standstill, I would be very old indeed.  

That time has long, long passed.  My days of gymnastics are fond memories but much faded at this point.   I loved doing cartwheels and what I learned was the more powerful "round-off" version of the cartwheel.   To do a round-off, you do a cartwheel but the second leg off the ground catches up with the first and both feet land at the same time, giving you more rotational energy to spend with the next move you might want to do.   

When you watch gymnastics competitions, round-off are the first thing the gymnast does before the back handspring and then the power move like a flip with twists or, in Mary Lou Retton's case, a double back layout.  

I never got to that high a level of skill, but I did enjoy doing ariels, a cartwheel where your hands don't touch the ground.  With enough push-off, you can do the cartwheel without even needing to put your hands down.   I would back up and run as fast as I could and launch myself into the cartwheel, trying to go as far over as I could before putting down a hand or two. 

Eventually, I realized it wasn't speed that mattered, it was the launching angle that did.   Along with enough initial push, if you flung your body over in time with the kick over, it was possible to do an ariel from a standing position.  

When I figured that out, I was so pleased with myself.  I didn't need to touch the ground anymore to do a flip.   And boy did I do a lot of them.  As I got older and quit gymnastics, I still kept up the ariel skill for many years, although it grew harder as I got into my late teens and twenties.   

Today, even a cartwheel or round-off is a bit of an accomplishment.   It won't make my back and neck happy, but the sensation is still one that I enjoy.   Tomorrow, when I get up and have had some coffee so I can get my much older body going, maybe I'll try to do a cartwheel and see how it goes.   If there's no blog post tomorrow, you'll know I didn't make it.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter and I play games in the car.  Today, my husband picked her up from school and I told him maybe they'd get to play some of her games.  "Oh," he told me, "she already has a game she plays with me, it's called the 'crazy self-driving car' game."   

The Big Boy Update:  My son came downstairs, unable to sleep at almost one in the morning.   I asked him to help me with the filming I was working on.  Could he push the record button for me as I recorded takes.   It worked perfectly, after two one-minute recordings he said he was going to go back upstairs and go to bed. 

The Game of Life

We played The Game of Life tonight as a family.  There was a lot of high energy, excitement when someone got a large amount of money and dejection when they had their money taken from them with the Revenge space.  

My son was hiding his money, changing large bills out for smaller ones to make it look like he had more money and then pretending he was broke.  

We needed to do this, the game playing as a family, for a long time now.  I think I didn't want to do it in part because I thought my daughter wouldn't be able to enjoy it.  But she is having a very good time, even if we have to manage some of the things for her. 

I'm starting to really look forward to Family Game Night.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son saw me changing money and didn't understand that I was trading up, to get fewer bills so I didn't have so much bulk to deal with.   He was trying to get more money in a stack.  We had to cut him off when he started getting all of one of the smaller bills. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is really starting to stand up for herself about being blind.   I wasn't avoiding her question, I was just in the middle of banker things, finding child pegs to put in cars, handling her and my money, doing payday minus fine math and when she complained that it wasn't fair to her because we could see, I started dialoguing everything I was doing.   I'm glad she's speaking up for herself.  She will have to do so her entire life. 

This Great Idea! (That Isn't)

I've been introduced to someone who has connections with some people that it would be good to get connected with in the blind blind services corporate world.   This person is exceedingly nice and was already planning on doing something with this company and it's very generous to be invited to be a part of it. 

He's tasked me with doing something though that is not a good idea.   He knows 3D printing, and he is knowledgeable about blind people, but not from a direct contact, day-to-day perspective.   The idea is a good one, only it's not practical.   And I think he'll see that, but I'm going to have to have a conversation with him about it and let him come to that conclusion. 

The last time we talked about it on our first introduction call, he mentioned it right at the end (we were meeting for other purposes).  He threw out the collaboration and his idea, I said that sounded great, and then we had to go.   I didn't. have a chance to think through the idea.   

Since then, he's pitched the idea to corporate people, who know all about the visually impaired, but don't know about 3D printing.  It sounded good to them.   And it is a good idea, it's just not a practical idea.  

For instance, let me know what ten flavors of pop corn you think would be most successful at the movie theater.  Let me know when we talk again.   You can come up with ten flavors of pop corn, but the reality is, people are going to get the traditional flavor and candy far more than they're going to get your bacon and broccoli popcorn, even if they are fantastic.  There are just better options.   

It will all be fine, but I hate telling someone their great idea is good, but the context it's in isn't.   Or maybe I'm wrong.  I'm going to ask around and see if there's something I'm missing.  3D printing is great in that you can print all sorts of things.   Some of those things are just more practical to get via more traditional methods.    Like a 3D printed newspaper: Possible? Yes.  Practical? No.

The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted to ask if he could get on the computer tonight.  I was on a call.  I asked him to tell me quickly.   He launched into a very long, well, I could tell it was going to be long, I interrupted and said, "are you asking if you can get on the computer?"  He said, "you don't understand". I said, "if you want to get on the computer, just ask, I'm on a call". He said with an odd look, "can I get on the computer???"  I said yes and he looked confused, like how did he just get away with that?

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter took a walk with Lisa and Charlotte the dog today.   Lisa said she would be glad to spend some time with my daughter and my daughter loved it and loved seeing Charlotte again.   Oh, and she got paid for helping out this past weekend with Charlotte.   She was not expecting money, and was really excited about that part. 

Feed The Woozle

We played the game Feed the Woozle tonight for family game night.   It's a game for children from three to six years of age (suggested) but when you have a blind child, sometimes games have a lifespan of much longer.  

The game is a lot about manual dexterity as you have to carry chips to the Woozle across the room in a spoon.   You have to cross the space doing something silly, like bunny hopping, walking backwards, doing a hula dance, spinning or just going crazy.  

My son was interested in playing too, but to him, he wanted to do everything to an extreme.   We successfully finished and won the game as a team the first time around with my daughter and me dropping some of the food to the woozle.   We decided to increase the difficulty by having to do two and then three moves at once as the game went on. 

The second time around we played with everyone having their eyes closed.   It wasn't that hard, but it gave us an insight into how my daughter did what she does and how she makes it look easy.   Everyone laughed at me because I was so careful I was trying to feed the woozle's head and wouldn't stop to feel with my second hand until I finally got the chips into his mouth. 

The way we knew where the woozle was from across the room (something you needed help with if you had your eyes closed and were spinning around or walking backwards) we tapped on the woozle's cardboard head so we could locate via sound. 

A lot of laughing was had and we got a chance to spend time together.   It didn't matter that the game was for little children at all. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son came home with sticks he's been working on turning into tools and weapons at school during recess.   Weapons at a Montessori school?   "Tools, Mom, and we don't use them," I was informed.  He spent a lot of the night writing up and then printing out some team names and guidelines for the team members for the rest of their work with these "tools" that he put back in his backpack to take to school in the morning. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I got an, "I hate you, Mom" tonight when I took my daughter's Alexa after she was very rude to me because I walked into her room to say goodnight.   She was reading and I think she's had a lot of homework lately.   Still, she can be polite, or at least apologize when she realized the situation.  

In The Dark

We have a therapeutic massage person that comes to the house from time to time.  The children like her and seem to get some benefit from it.  When she arrived today, I had laid down and was asleep, my husband in unusual form, was asleep in the chair in the basement.  My son was in the bonus room and my daughter was in her room, listening to an audio book.   And it was completely black inside the house. 

My daughter came to the door, go the dog to calm down, asked who it was and then let Shelia in, and then fled up the stairs to her room because a good spot was currently happening in her audiobook.  

I groggily got up and found Shelia, who had located some light switches by then.   My daughter didn't need the light to answer the door.  

The Big Boy Update:  I found my son on screens when I woke up tonight.   He said he had permission.  He did, but only for a fraction of the time he took since his parents had both fallen asleep.  Tomorrow there will be a conversation. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  After answering the door tonight, my daughter went up to her room.  I found her sitting on her bed in the dark.  I thought she had been listening to an audiobook but she wasn't.  She was reading, something she doesn't need light to do.