Some Days Are Not Like Others

These naps have got to stop.   My daughter even can tell when I'm flagging and I'm heading up to lie down for a "bit".   The problem is, sometimes, like today, she got on the bed with me and was chatting to me and the next thing I know, it's after nine o'clock, I've missed dinner and even worse, I fell asleep with my purse beside me and never took the nerve medication I should have taken around lunch that would have made me feel a whole lot better. 

My husband tried to wake me up but I have no recollection of that.  I missed our neighbor's new dog, something he's been excited about for months that came to fruition today after many attempts that didn't quite work out.  

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Pet Assistants:  Our neighbor works during the day and wanted to know if we could help with their new dog.  He was originally going to get a puppy, but decided the puppy stage was going to be too difficult with his work schedule and being a single parent, even with their nanny.   He decided to get an eight-month-old dog and wanted to know if we could help if needed.  The children are very excited about helping with a puppy, even if it's a dog taller than our dog is full grown.  Hopefully we'll get to help out a lot.  The one that was by far the most excited about the new puppy was our dog, who was mad with excitement and wanted to play when she met the new, "Roxi" next door. 

Two Livestreams at Once

Am I crazy?  Two different livestreams on two different platforms in two different rooms using two different printers and a complex add-on product?  I think my husband thinks I am.  I might be.  It's close to 3AM and I'm beat. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter appeared at 12:30AM and wanted chocolate.  We sent her to bed. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son was allowed to buy *another* mouse for his computer, what with it being the best mouse ever, again, he said.   He promised to go straight to bed after we let him spend his money on another gaming mouse.  He uses them all, too.   They each do something different, he says. 

Monetized and 50K

Today was an interesting day for Filament Stories on YouTube.  My husband wanted to monetize from the start as a goal, but by putting out Shorts format videos, we weren't going to get credit towards watch hours, and we knew it would take a long time.   Things ramped up at different times, but mostly in the last month things have gone a little crazy, for reasons we're not sure of, which is the YouTube algorithm for you. 

I did some livestream videos which counted for watch time and we put some other long format videos that, with the added subscribers and newly suggesting that YouTube was doing, suddenly got us over fifty percent of the watch hours we needed to be able to monetize.    Two days ago we were eligible to apply for the program, which takes a month for a reply to be sent back as YouTube has a real person review your content.  

Only in less than forty-eight hours we were approved.  Which took us completely by surprise.  Then, to add on to that, we hit fifty-thousand subscribers while my daughter was at choir tonight.   I was watching the number tick up and got a screen shot when it happened.  

I've been moving over all the subscriptions I have for different YouTube Content Creators in the 3D Printing space (my word, am I subscribed to a lot) and what surprised me even more is that a good number of the people I've been watching and respect for a good while now, have not that many more subscribers than we have and in many cases have half to a quarter of our numbers.   

So I'm a little gobsmacked.   We're just these two people making content in the basement on 3D printing.  I know most of the other folks are doing the same thing, but it feels different.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is sad he can't take his PC to visit Nana and Papa in Florida.  We talked about maybe being able to put Minecraft on the laptop for the trip.   That cheered him up a lot.  He was going to miss his friends over the break. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter loves to climb in the big Magnolia trees in front of the college administration building before going in to choir.   Those two large trees were ones I climbed myself when I was a young girl.  I'm sure they're larger, but they seem just the same now as they did over forty years ago.

The Fibonacci House

We went to go see a house today that our architect spent the last three years working on.  The focus of the house was all about the Fibonacci sequence.  Every single thing in this house was thought out in detail.  It was one of those houses that should really be in a magazine.  Multiple magazines.   It was so impressive.  

Keith had so much to tell us, we went around and the simplest thing that seemed like a wall, turned out to be a door.  There was purpose and design in every aspect of everything.  The artwork in the house was the windows, which were looking outward towards a lake.  Here, let me show you one picture of the deck.   

There are no supports underneath the deck, it is fully supported with one major steel beam that runs diagonally across the space.   There are about ten more things I could tell you about this deck, all of them impressive, and all well-thought out.  

We're excited to have an architect and to be thinking about a house we'll put on the land we bought last year, but we're not going to be this fancy.   It was a real pleasure to be there and to see their home.  We were there on a 3D printing related task, helping the architect finish one final piece for his client, a Fibonacci sequence fountain for the entrance to the home.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted to "snuggle" tonight.   I didn't argue.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I had to talk to my daughter about going ahead and putting me out of my misery in the game of Monopoly we were playing, so that we could start a new game that might have more interesting gameplay as the current one was me barely not going bankrupt every other turn.

My Sweet Little Girl

My daughter can be the orneriest person when she's not wanting something or wanting something or angry about something.   But she is also the sweetest person.   Sometimes I feel like I've done a terrible job being her mother.  I worry I'm not there enough for her and that I don't play Monopoly enough or read to her enough and I'm so busy that even though other parents have jobs and are away from their children, that I should be there for her more, all the time, I don't know.   

Maybe I worry about her because she's blind.  I'm not sure what it is, but today she was just so kind and understanding and then she crawled onto the bed, asked if she could have a blanket and fell asleep.   I am going to miss her so when she's grown and gone to build a life of her own. 

The Big Boy Update:  Today my son tried very hard not to have his anger flare when I told him he had to do fifteen minutes of typing work on the typing program.   Insisted, he knew how to type.  He did the fifteen minutes.   I'm going to challenge him to a typing duel.   Or some competition that will be somewhat fair.   

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has a bandage over her eyebrow from the cut yesterday.   It doesn't look too bad, but her eyebrows are almost white, so any scar won't be hidden.  I hope it doesn't scar too badly, she has enough going on that looks different with her eyes and She's so pretty otherwise. 

Numbers That I Can't Comprehend

YouTube has finally figured out what types of people are interested in our content.   And they're recommending our videos at a pace I can't quite wrap my head around.  At the point of this writing, we have over forty-seven thousand subscribers.   We've had a huge surge in the past month of both views and subscribers.  

We have some videos that are getting suggested a lot.  One video has over 3.7 million views.  It's a fifty-six-second video that has over forty-two thousand watch hours of time.  There's a realtime update of what's happening on your channel that I looked at yesterday and realized it was updating every ten seconds.  

In that time, YouTube is suggesting the video I'm not sure how many times.  Those are called "Impressions" It's where you see something over on the side or bottom that YouTube thinks you'd like.  If you click on it, it's considered one view of the video.   Every ten seconds the number of views is updating by twenty to one hundred.  It's hard to tell, because the current views is for the last forty-eight hours, so if it goes up by fifty, there are a number of views that are dropping off from the oldest ten seconds.  

That one video has been seen 430K times in the last two days.   These are numbers I just can't wrap my head around.   I don't know ten thousand people, let alone millions of people that have seen the videos.  It's mind-boggling. 

We wanted to share information about filaments from around the world, and we're being successful in that endeavor.  There are other statistics that are interesting, but for now, I'm just trying to understand that we're more of a success than I ever thought we'd be.   I've been in communication with filament manufacturers who want to work with us.  I've had to create a document stating what we are willing to do and what we make no commitments to do.   

Mostly, it's in the vein of what we won't do.  Companies will ask you to do lots of things, but in this case, we're being solicited by them.  So we're calling the shots.   We're offering sponsorships to the channel, in which they would pay us to feature their product (typically a spool of filament).  Not everyone is going to take us up on this, but some will.   If we continue to do what we're doing, we'll hopefully have more subscribers and therefore reach.   We've been told we have something companies can't buy, and we should charge for what we're doing.   With the uptick in our reach, I'm starting to act on that.  I'm interested in how things will change in the future as a result 

The Big Boy Update:  My son is so happy after school some days.  He goes on about how he loves me and what a good mom I am.   I'm glad he's happy after school.  Even today, he had had a bad day, but he was just happy to be heading home in the car with me. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter smashed heads together in the trampoline today.  My husband and she were heading out to get some stitches at urgent care when they ran into Matt on the way out of the neighborhood.  Matt thought the cut was superficial and didn't need stitches.  My daughter was very relieved. 

Messages I Don't Want To Send

I worked for a good while today crafting a message to someone who is trying to start a business in the 3D printing space.  I could go into details, but I did eventually agree to help out by showing model of theirs on our social media after he got enough up to show that he had something people could actually purchase and use.   He's been a bit of a pest, is the best way I can put it, imposing in places in a way that was more pushy than anything, even though he had a lot of enthusiasm with his requests. 

For some reason, a friend and I just got a slimy feeling, which is not very kind to say about someone, I know.   He's doing something hard, starting a business and going up against larger competitors, trying to vie for the dollars from 3D printing people around the world.   But something was off.  

It was two days ago that I noticed another model on his site that was very clearly one from a known designer.   I messaged the designer, with a sinking feeling that I knew the answer.   It was not his design.   Can you take a model, make a few changes and sell it or publish it as your own?  It's not good practice and you'll get a negative response from a lot of the community.  But these models aren't worth dramatic amounts of money and protecting them isn't feasible with a worldwide population across country lines. 

So I had to collect evidence today, working with two of the designers, and write up what I was seeing and that I can no longer publish a video with his model in it given what I'm seeing.  I'm taking the tact that he needs to be careful what he publishes from his designers, acting like I don't think he's involved.   But the evidence shows that he knows exactly who the designers are and is a paid member of one of the creators Patreon so has access to all his models. 

I don't want to send it to him, because I don't like this kind of negativity.  But it has to be done because as it stands, I've committed to showing his model in a video and I don't want to renege on that without an explanation.  

I'm not looking forward to the resulting conversation.   I would rather I didn't agree to post a design at all, but I do like helping people out and he was trying to do something positive for the community.  That is until other creator's models started showing up on their site. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son went to see my daughter at her concert tonight.  He looked reproachfully at us and said, "I'm just her brother and I'm clapping a lot louder than you all are."  He was in his most protective mood tonight.   It was quite sweet to see him so.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter stood on stage after not eating a lot today because she said she was nervous about the two school concerts and the family concert tonight.   I thought she was hot in her sweater.   I asked her about it afterwards and she said she got sweaty when she was nervous.   She sang just beautifully.  

Weary Time of Year

Maybe it's changes I’m going through with age, but I've had that happen and I think this is just the strangeness of the month's temperature swings.  I get hot, way too hot.  And then later I get cold, so I put on a jacket.  It's so humid and hot and then it cools down at night and I’m wishing is would be cooler so it would necessitate either heat or air conditioning. Something that would change the moisture level in the air would be nice.

Do we get more sensitive to environmental changes as we get older?  I thought our senses dulled, but in this case I seem to be getting more particular.  

The Big Boy Update:  my son has created a new game. This time he says it's a gambling game.  It involves the little add-ones to the armor or clothing that the LEGO mini figures wear.   My son spent ten minutes telling me about all the different levels of accessories.  He has it all mapped out.  He said as I was leaving the room for the night: “I haven’t actually figured out any rules yet though, so…”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter let me dry her hair tonight and style it.  She hates having her hair done but it looked so beautiful when it was done. I asked if she would let me do it before so goes out on a date someday.   She said, “probably not.”

Cleaning Up To Be Cleaned Up

The cleaners are coming in the morning and our house was a wreck.   Or at least our house was a wreck by our standards of wreck.   My daughter and I got home and she diligently set off to clean her room.  She prefers it to be a mess, but I think some of that is because she can't see the room as a whole, she might feel otherwise. 

I shouldn't make that judgment though, she usually knows exactly where everything is.   She didn't want me bothering her and later when I came to check on things at the end of the night, she had done a very good job of going through things and putting away all sorts of items.  The only problem was, she had missed lots of things. 

Without dragging her legs or hands across all the space on her floor, she didn't notice the little bits of things that had rolled this way or that.   She had also neglected to do the entire area on the far side of her bed.   Her father came in and in just a few short minutes we were able to get the rest of her room cleaned up since she had gotten the large bulk of items that needed to be put away in their spots. 

My son, on the other hand, has been keeping his room quite orderly.   With one exception, and that would be any surface he can put anything on.  He's building layers on top of layers now.   I don't think he likes cleaning up his room before the cleaners come so he'd rather go the dresser piling option instead. 

The Children's Bonus Room Disaster:  After thinking we had everything cleaned up, I went into the bonus room.  My son had brought out a massive number of lego parts and my daughter had playdoh things strewn across more spots than I would think you'd need to make models out of salty, colored dough.   We managed to get it all cleaned up before bedtime.   It is nice to have the house cleaned again. 

Sorry Blogger

I just got off a five-and-a-half-hour live stream and my brain is fried.  I owe you a much better blog post about how today went and the children, but I can't think right now.   I'll catch you up tomorrow on things. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter didn't want to go to her second chorus of the day today, saying Mondays were hard with early morning chorus for school, school, and choir after school.  It was try outs for solos tonight and she has been shy about trying for one so it was probably best as she would have had to listen a lot and not participate. 

The Big Game Boy Update:  Last day of a five-day weekend of parent-teacher conferences and teacher workday.  He played games, but not as much as he would have liked to.  At least he's playing with friends from school and the neighborhood online. 

2PM

I slept until 2PM today.  I don't even know what all the tiredness is about, but I think I'm feeling better later today.   I filmed for five hours today (which will translate to not that much actual time when we publish) and after doing the bare minimum of things I need to do tonight, I'm trying to get to bed. 

Which is now.   When I finish this post.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Bathtub: They washed their hair.   And played a lot in the tub.   My daughter did wash her hair three times, which it needed, but she forgot to put conditioner in.  And she forgot to brush her hair.  She told me she got out several mats today so that was good.   My son I don't think has ever brushed his hair.  He thinks brushing hair is a terrible thing to have to do. 

Ick

I feel sick.   I fell asleep in my chair three times today and then, when we were coming home from dinner with the children I fell asleep in the car.   They left me sleeping in the car.  I woke up and stumbled into the house.   I went to the bed, fell down on it with my purse on my shoulder and my shoes on.   I woke up like that hours later. 

The Children Did Things:  I know they did things, I'm not sure what they were.  My daughter played the piano and my son played video games.  Madison was around and played with my daughter and some other friends came out back and everyone jumped on the trampoline and swinging was done.

The Calm Before the Dental Storm

 Tomorrow my daughter will have four teeth removed.  The last time, six months ago, they tried to do the extractions (so her adult teeth will come in unobstructed) she panicked and they couldn’t see her. 

This time she will have some calming medication and nitrous oxide.   Hopefully that will help and she won’t need to be fully sedated.  If she panics again, they will have to additionally sedate her.  

Hopefully, she will take things calmly.  She knows how to work herself up like no one else, though.  

The Big Boy Update:  my son is out of school and was granted screens for the day.  He is so contented and busy when he has screens 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter isn’t happy she can’t eat after midnight but doesn’t have the surgery until noon.  

Forced AllergyΩΩ

I'm working on a 3D printing project with a friend.  We're printing in a different kind of polymer medium: resin printing.   My husband has a resin printer and I'm using it to help him test the new models.  The problem is, I have an allergy to the resin. 

The question is then, can I work with the resin and not have the allergy?  I had to clean out the resin vats of the two printers we have and that was a bit messy, although I had our air purifier on full blast the entire time, sitting right beside the large printer.  

The air purifier pulls out VOC's and UFP's and is very good at what it does.   But will it be enough?   I'm now just working with mostly pulling prints off the printer and trying to never, ever get any on me.  We may have to move the printer into the guest room in the basement for the duration of the tests.

We have guests on occasion.  When guests are imminent we'll move the printer and air purifier back into the print room.   So that's the plan.   More when I know more.  Hopefully all will go well. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son and his friend are practicing for their YouTube channels.   This has been something my son has wanted to do for a while now.   We got him some equipment for Christmas a while back.   So far, he's just preparing though. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  There are boys on the trampoline.  And they're punching each other.  My daughter has come in to tell on then.  She doesn't want to be punched, but the boys seem fine with the while thing.   What's that saying?  Boys will be boys?  So true. 

The Single Violin

We went downtown tonight to hear my daughter, her school's chorus, and four other school chorus' sing at the hall that is the home of our state symphony.   The venus is used for many things, but it is a nice location with beautiful acoustics.  

All five schools sang interesting songs and the children were exceptionally orderly coming on and off stage.   There was a pianist playing the music for them to sing along with and on some of the songs there was a student in high school who played the violin so wonderfully.  

My father has always loved the violin.  He's played one since before I was born.  He admits he's no virtuoso, but that matters not as it's his love for the instrument that matters.  He's refurbished violins and has used them as art, but mostly he just respects them.  And loves music played by them. 

As much as I was looking forward to hearing my daughter's school sing after the other four schools had had their turn,  I wanted more to have the violinist come back out and play along with more songs.   She did several times and I was transfixed, watching her play flawlessly, turning the songs into so much more just with a single stringed instrument.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter's chorus, we thought, was the best.  She looked so nice up on stage, singing and standing so proud.  She really loves being in not one but two choruses.  She does love to sing so.  We knew the songs because she'd been singing them non-stop it seemed for the last several weeks.  It was a beautiful night with her.  

The Big Boy Update:  We have a new sitter!  Well, we have one sitter.  We went from having a lot to zero. We now, as of tonight, have a new sitter from two houses over who recently moved in.  My son didn't join us tonight as seats were limited, had a very nice time with Maisie.   She said she'd be glad to come back any time.   What a relief it is to have a sitter again. 

FOMO

Shelia was massaging my daughter tonight, something she really enjoys and seems to help with her stress. She has gotten a bit bossy, telling her to do this and not to forget that and could she please work on this other thing.  Shelia said, "You're a FOMO, you know that?"   

I'd never heard of that before and my daughter hadn't either.   It stands for someone who has a Fear Of Missing Out.  And boy is that my daughter. 

Shelia said that there was also JOMO, which is someone who feels a Joy Of Missing Out.  I called out from over in the kitchen, "that's me, I'm a JOMO."  Shelia laughed and said she was a complete JOMO herself too. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son somehow got it in his head that he could manipulate the situation of my husband not feeling well tonight and ended up on the computer all evening, explaining one thing or another and thinking they were all good reasons.  None of them were.  He lost future privileges when he got off the computer.   We were waiting to see if he would stop or keep pushing things.   He was mad, but he said he could see how it looked that way to us. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter really does seem to enjoy having her body massaged.  Her hands and feet are interesting ones what with the use of her hands for typing and her feet never having shoes on them for one second longer than necessary.   She also likes her belly rubbed, something Shelia said is a sign of children who are processing stress in their lives.  

Not Fitting In

My daughter's TVI called todat.  She had read one of the recent writings she had done as an assignment from class and it worried her   She had my daughter read it to her no she stopped before the end, not wanting to read the last part   After asking her about it, my daughter did read it to her, and then they talked about it   Here's what she wrote:

Blind people

If you are blind you are much different than a normal person. You may be able to read print and mat not. You may need a cane or even need a Visiobook to make letters and words larger.

Blind people are noticed by the public if they have a cane or a sighted guide dog with them. Some people were born blind while others were not.

There are different kinds of blind.  Some people are color blind but to me that doesn’t count  some people are partly blind and others are completely blind.  There are different kinds of cases.  But think about someone who is blind.  How would you feel to be like that.  Would you like it?  Just think about the people who are blind and about how hard some struggle to fit in   How I can’t fit in.

My daughter told Brady how after she lost her initial vision that from ages three to four she was confused   Then from five to six she was frustrated, then from sis to seven, when she lost most of the rest of her vision, she was mad,  From seven to eight she was still mad. And then from nine to ten she's just sad.  

That all correlates with what happened and the behavior we saw   I know she's sad  I know she hates being blind   Brady said most blind children go through this   I just hate to see her suffering   Brady did say that at the end of their conversation my daughter said she was happy a lot of the time, but frustrated because she had to wait for something she wanted a lot of the time   Brady said we all want to have the things we want right now, and that it's tough for everyone to have to wait or noT get everything they want.

My daughter seemed okay, fine even about the writing.  She is very insightful, and sometimes is in a deep, dark place   It's not all of the time, and it is something she will have to work through to accept her life as a blind person and come out on the other side as well-adjusted and hopefully not bitter at the world.

The Big Boy Update: my son is texting me now   He's on Discord and will send me little messages that are funny and cute   

 

 

Back To Late

Well, it only took one day back home to end up way later than we should be, working on Filament Stories.   We're posting a video now, at 2:40 in the morning.  So I'm going to bed. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Audiobook Question:  Do the children listen to too many audio books?  They read more than I did at their age.   But they listen to a lot of audiobooks.   My daughter watches no television or screens of any kind.  Audiobooks are her outlet.  My son reads for school, but not a lot for leisure.   He also does a lot of screens, but he's not allowed to watch during the week.   So, I'm torn.  Is it too much?  I just don't know given the state of our technological lives. 

Travel Is Tiring

Okay, so we went to sleep after midnight and had to get up at five in the morning.  Yes, we had to tote heavy bags and carry overfilled backpacks on our backs, but it was to the car, to the check-in counter, through security, to the gate, and then the short walk down the walkway to board the plane.  Then we sat in a chair for hours and hours as we crossed the country.  

Perhaps, "hours and hours" is an exaggeration, but it was definitely hours.   We got off the plane, waited a short while in a chair to board the same plane again for a quick hop across the state to our city.  Then it was all the above in reverse until we got to our garage and then into the house. 

And we're all exhausted.  We've gotten to the age with the children that they can take care of themselves for a lot of things.  In this case, we all walked in, dropped our bags on the ground, and left to do our own things.   I ran off to pick up the dog, something I had initially planned to to tomorrow, but we all wanted to see her, my daughter and I the most without question.  

And boy was our dog happy to see us.   She had a good time, spending the week with her prior trainer and the other dog she has as well as a very rambunctious puppy.  I hope we can have her stat with Sammy again in the future.  For now, we're all glad to be home. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son heard my daughter start to listen to a five book series before leaving to come home.  He asked if I could download it onto his iPad so he could listen while travelling home.  My daughter complained but I told her in this case, because there would be no internet access while we were travelling, they wouldn't step on each other's position in the book from Audible.   He hasn't listened to this series before.  In true Princess Bride style, I told him, "it's a kissing book" and as predicted, he mad "eww" face.  He's the perfect age for that reaction.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter listened to her audio book on the way home and when we got here, she was so tired she went straight upstairs to her bedroom, continuing to listen to the book and falling asleep without any dinner.

The Unspent Tickets

Today was the day.  My daughter was going to redeem all the tickets she had collected on the card she had and the one she was given by Stevie.  Only it didn't happen.   When they went down to the arcade after getting back from skiing it was out of service.   

The main computer brain of the operation, the one that controlled the information about how much money was on each card and how many tickets were earned, stored, and redeemed as well as the controller for the ticket redemption robot was down. 

With the brain out of commission—and we suspect it was the absolute dreadful connection here, even though the arcade would have been connected via a landline.   But for whatever reason, the system was down and no prizes could be redeemed. 

She had been waiting for this moment all week.  I thought she would be upset.   She was, but even a call to the hotel management couldn't help.  They were very nice.  They came to the arcade and looked in the back closet, but they only found the tiny prizes, not the big ones she was hoping for.  

She didn't cry, she just looked sad.  She's going to keep her tickets for next year when we come back.  Are we coming back next year?

The Big Boy Update: My son was skiing blues at the end of the week.  I was really impressed with him. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and I had a nice time skiing today.  It was the last day of the trip and the weather was cold but sunny so it didn't feel nearly as cold.   My daughter has a special skiing method called "Doggie Skiing" as she called it, but it was really more like Crab Skiing.  She would sit down and then put her hands behind her on the very ends of her skis.   She was up off the ground just enough to be able to slide down the mountain that way.    

Nipple Nip

It has been very candy-focused here over the last two days.  We had a "Candy Party" last night with the remaining children while the adult men went out to dinner.   We had far too much candy and yet a lot of it was eaten.  The girls did some pretend YouTube videoing as they reviewed the various types of candy.  

Everyone had fun and thankfully most of the candy was eaten so it wasn't left for me to stare at it and eat too much of it today.   My daughter and I stayed back today as the mountain wasn't ideal for her and my husband thought it might not be best for me either since I haven't had much chance to ski this week due to various situations that made it better for me to stay back or pick up the children or take one child in who was tired. 

So today we didn't do much here other than clean up the massive amount of candy crumbs under the table where the party took place.  My daughter didn't want to go out at all, but I got her to do a bit of a walk around with me.  There aren't many stores on the mountain resort here that would interest her.  There were some clothing stores and restaurants, but none of the clothing was really for her. 

I knew of the hot chocolate and ice cream store and said we could stop in there if she did the shopping investigation with me.  Well, lo and behold if there wasn't an amazing candy store right here, not five minutes walk from our rooms.   The selection was extensive including candy from my childhood and some from overseas.  

We got some special candy that we'd talked about the night before but hadn't seen.  Odd things from years back.   When my husband and son got in she wanted to show them the candy.  She would reach into the plastic bag, bring out something and explain that these were wax lips, for instance.  

The second to last one was a long package.  She felt it and got a look on her face as she tried to remember the name of the wax-shaped flat bottles that had colored liquid in various flavors in them.   Then she said, "These are Nipple Nips".  I said, "They're named after how much they originally cost and are called, "Nickle Nip"

The Big Boy Update:  My son was fiercely angry that he had to get up and go skiing this morning.  When he got there he was happy he went.  He's just not a morning person.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Tomorrow is the last day.  It's the time when my daughter is going to spend all the tickets she's worked so hard to collect on her arcade card.  She has far too many because she's been given other people's cards.  I have no idea how much she's going to try and fit in her backpack of little tiny things from the prize vending machine.  She is excited about it, though. 

Too Much Candy

The men went out to dinner together tonight.  Two of the mothers had gone home early for different reasons so the last remaining mother and I decided to have a Candy Party with the six girls and my son.   It was an odd reason we got to that as our night's plan, but we stuck with it and we did indeed have a candy party to remember. 

There was so much candy.  Jen brought all of theirs and we put all of ours in.   We got extra today from two stores.   We had a lot of candy.  

My Daughter's Section:  My daughter tried to jump in and organize some of the girls as they were "filming" a video using a box of Sweet Tarts as a camera.   She was bossy but firm.  We gave her the title of Director of Photography for the candy reviewers show they were pretending to film. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son got along with everyone but he seems to want to jump into people's personal space and make the loudest noises.  I think he's trying to connect in some way but it just comes off as neanderthal

Robot Skiing

We're done with ski lessons now.  My son skied with the group today and is now completely passed out asleep.  I went to the spa with my girlfriends and one of their daughters who is on crutches and hasn't been able to ski this trip.   My daughter was unhappy she couldn't join us.   I told her when she gets older she can join the adult ladies on the spa day. 

My daughter got to ski with an instructor today who is certified to teach visually impaired students.  They got their helmets ready with walkie-talkie-type communicators attached to the earmuff area.   Before they started out she said, "You're going to be skiing with a robot today.   Do you want to see my robot leg?" 

She had an amputated leg from just below the knee and had a high-tech prosthesis she used for walking and skiing among other things.   My daughter was very interested in her leg, asking questions about how she lost it and if it hurt.   If I hadn't known she had an artificial leg, I would have never known.   

The Big Boy Update:  My son is exhausted.  He was skiing on blues today and has gotten so much better since the beginning of the week.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter, likewise, has gotten a lot of experience skiing, although the recommendation from her instructor today is that she really needs communication so you can talk to her and tell her what's coming.  Without a connection strap between you and her, it's very easy for her to go off the side of the trail, and yelling back and forth can be hard to do when you get further apart.   

The Tooth

My daughter had a half-day of skiing lessons today and my son had a full day.  I was up very late working on emails and decided it would make more sense to let me husband ski and I would pick up the children.  My daughter's lesson was over all too soon, with it being on a few hours, ending before lunch.   My son was done at three-fifteen.

When I went to pick up my son he pointed to his instructor so I could go over to give her a tip.   While I was waiting to talk to her he came over, said, "Mom, here's my tooth" handed me a tooth, and walked away.   

He had just had a tooth fall out that has been loose for two weeks.   He neglected to tell either my husband or me this, not that it would have made much difference.   I looked at the tooth in my now cold hand and wondered what to do with it.   My son wasn't overly worried about it, other than saying if I lost it, I would have to owe him some money for it.  

I made sure not to lose it.  

The Big Boy Tiny Girl What Will They Spend It On Question:  My mother called and talked to my daughter for a while.   She said she and Gramps wanted to do something to congratulate her.   They also wanted to get some money to my son for the hard work he did to take the standardized tests to apply for middle school.   The question is: will they both spend their newfound money all at the arcade?  I suspect my daughter would like to.   Did I mention how much she loves the arcade?   It is a lot.   She knows all about each of the different genes and how they work. 

The Arcade

The first day of skiing went well.   This is a much more interesting thing to write about though, so I'll give any updates on that after tomorrow.  

My daughter loves the arcade here.   She wants to go exploring by herself, with the key, and go all over this very large place that is the resort.   My son worries about her, but every single door has a braille plate on it saying what it is.   Those plates are rarely used, but when they're needed, they're vital. 

It's not needed that much for my daughter though because she memorizes how to get places.  We make her take her cane, but that's mostly for other people who see her.  It says, "BLIND PERSON!" very loudly.  In a shouting voice in your head.  You wouldn't believe how people who are in general not paying attention will come to focus and get out of the way for a blind person. 

My daughter wants to go to the arcade.   But this is interesting.  Picture this: the games are all played with rechargeable cards.   The card has a magnetic strip on it and save for a very small, barely discernible spot on one side, you can't feel where the magnetic strip is.   I showed that one little tell to my daughter and she then knew where the strip was.   

She navigates to the arcade, which is games mostly that give out tickets—tickets that are shown on a screen she cannot see that are then added back to your card.  Without a sighted person there, she has no idea if she's won two tickets or five hundred.  Most of the winnings are small, especially for someone who has no skill because they're randomly pressing a button or pulling a lever. 

So she gets to the arcade and I explained, in the room, how the card readers are positioned differently.  Sometimes they want the magnetic strip to the left, sometimes to the right.  Sometimes, if the reader is rotated, they want the strip facing up, sometimes facing down.   If she can get the magnetic strip positioned correctly, she gets to play the "game".  She knows when this happens, because the game makes a different sound.  

And I'm calling them "games" because most of these games are pressing a single button.  Maybe a ball is dropped or a spinner is spun or something happens on a large monitor that is based upon when you pressed the button, pulled a lever or spun a spinner.   Once you get the card read and the, "you get to play now" sound happens, you have to find the start button to start the game.  Or you don't.   It's different on every game.  Then you pull the lever or launch the ball or do whatever you do to try and win the tickets.   You do a thing that is away from where you can touch what's actually happening, because if you could touch it, you might be able to beat the system and win the jackpot every time. 

My daughter plays these games (and she loves doing this, she would spend a hundred dollars there if I let her) and at the end, the card has an unknown number of additional tickets on it.   These tickets can be used to buy little dinky prizes that children seem to love trying to earn with their parent's money.  

The arcade isn't very popular as most people are busy skiing or eating or at the pool.   If someone was there, I feel sure my daughter would ask them how much she won.   Not knowing doesn't deter her, she's madly in love with the arcade, just as I was at her age.  Only I could see.   

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She came home after one trip.  The card was empty, she told me, "of the twenty dollars I just put on it?"  She told me, "but mom, I think I got a hundred tickets!"

The Big Boy Update:  My son was almost in tears tonight because he had to be in a group photo.  He's never been averse to having pictures of him taken before, but he really, really didn't want to be in these.  He asked me if he could give the camera the middle finger he was so upset about it.   That surprised me.  I told him the pictures weren't for him, they were for the adults who were taking them and to please be kind and just stand there for the picture and it would be over soon.   He asked if he could sneakily give only a wee bit of the middle finger on the side of his face like he had an itch.   I said no.  Not in the slightest could he even pretend to be accidentally giving anyone or any cameras the middle finger.  It was over soon and he went back and fell to sleep extra early for him because he was so tired from the day of skiing. 

That Nightmare Situation You Always Feared Would Happen

We're in Utah, after getting up at 3:00AM to get to the airport for a 5:12 flight.   Everything went fairly smoothly.  My back was cranky, to use a polite term, but I made it.  One of the things that helped was I fell asleep as soon as I sat down in the chair for the second flight.  I woke up when people were disembarking. 

We got all the luggage, which was a lot as winter trips and more so ski trips involve lots of bulky things.   We had made it to the rental car location and my husband had gotten the car keys when he got a call.   He missed it but checked the message.   My iPad was left on the plane, but not to worry, they were taking it to the lost baggage claim for the airline and it should be there by an hour's time. 

I left my iPad?  This is a case I assiduously guard against.  I fear leaving something on a plane.   Apparently, I didn't realize how tired I was, sat down in the seat, pulled the iPad out, and fell asleep.   When I woke up I didn't realize I'd gotten it out.  I don't even know where it was.  Behind me, in the seatback pocket?  It's black so who knows. 

It would have been more straightforward except it wasn't an hour, it was over two.  My husband got food for the children, then went and got groceries at a store close and called from time to time.   There was more to the finding of the iPad because they didn't know who had called it in.  We didn't want to leave for the resort, because it was some distance away.   We had finally given up and were heading out.  I got in the car and we were driving off when they called that the iPad had arrived.  

I ran back in, collected it and everything else has gone to plan.   I'm so glad it worked out the way it did.  If I'd left it on the first flight, things would have been much more complicated. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Rudeness:  What is up with my children being so rude to each other and my husband and me lately?  They are perfect little angles and then they turn into these mean little beings.   I don't know what we've done wrong, but I hope we can figure out what to do to improve their behavior.   I may have to follow through on the threat I made the other day and find a military school to send them to if they keep this intermittent dreadful behavior up.  

Well That Was Unexpected

We heard from the private school my son applied to today.  Everyone who had applied was informed if they were accepted or not.   My son was not accepted, although he has been put on the waitlist.   We don't know if everyone who wasn't accepted (they had a very large pool of applicants) is waitlisted or if it's only some students that would be selected next if spots should become available.

Coincidentally, the school admissions person at my son's current school called today.   We told her about my son being waitlisted and she said they typically have a lot of change and many on the waitlist get in because some of the families that were accepted don't end up deciding to confirm the acceptance.   Other things happen as well that cause their school to pull from the waitlist. 

We don't have any information though, and we know this was an important thing to my son.  This was the one school he wanted to go to.   We told him what we hope will be the truth, that it would have been nice had he gotten in with the first round, but now we just wait for the next round of admissions. 

He didn't seem upset.   I hope he's not.  He wouldn't be overly unhappy to stay at his existing school another year.  Doing so will make it harder to get into one of the private schools, but it's what he wants to do.   Perhaps he'll get in in a few weeks and we'll all be very glad to be spending money on tuition next year.   Wait, why am I celebrating paying tuition?  Ah yes, education. 

The Big Boy Update:  I called the school and left a message for one of the people in Admissions.   I wanted to find out if there was little chance my son would get in so we could help him process the situation now.  They must have had a very busy day with the announcement so I left a message.   

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is working to get everything ready for the morning, including making sure her cow blanket/jacket/fuzzy hoodie will work with her ski jacket and backpack so she can wear it for the plane ride tomorrow

Busy Day Tomorrow

Our potential architect is stopping by in the morning and I hope to be back in time to see him.   My daughter is so excited that the ski trip is almost upon us and my son finds out if he gets into the school he's applied to for middle and high school. 

I still have lots of packing to do, but much has been finished today and the visit of the architect means we cleaned the house up early.  

And, I didn't have a nap today.  I'm always happy when I make it through a day without needing to lie down.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son is very aware tomorrow is the day he finds out if he's accepted to the middle school he wants very badly to attend.   He isn't saying much, but he knows he'll find out tomorrow. I think he's nervous.   

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is in counting down the hours mode for vacation.   I'm counting down the hours of preparation I need to do before I can relax because it's all done. 

Top Scorer

My daughter won her age group for the Braille Challenge.   We had expected there was a good possibility she would win.   She's very quick at brailling and likes to be accurate and get things correct.   The event coordinator sent the following in an email to us:

"Reese did great on the Braille Challenge! She was the Top Scorer in her category! She did incredible in Reading Comprehension and Proofreading and very well in Spelling! Way to go, Reese!"

The next thing we'll hear (if we hear anything at all) will be if she is one of the top ten scorers in the nation.  That won't be until April or May.   If she happens to be in the top ten, she'll be invited to compete in the National Braille Challenge in Las Angeles.   

We have no idea what the competition is like.  We don't know anything about scores for prior years and if she might have a chance.   We hear each year that she's done very well and for the past two years due to COVID-19 and how she was signed up the year before, we didn't get a chance to find out if she would have been in the top.   This year, we'll find out more. 

Knowing my daughter, if she doesn't make it, she'll want to try even harder next year. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son has decided to learn how to play the piano, the drums, and another instrument for a school talent event.  He can record his performance, doing each of the parts, and then show the final version to his classmates.  He sat in front of the keyboard all night with an iPad, playing notes as they progressed upwards on a piano lesson app.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has a project due tomorrow.  She was going to work on it at home, but she's been doing it all at school.   She seemed ready for the presentation yesterday, she said all she needed to do was practice a little more.

Fifteen Thousand Subscribers

YouTube was the platform we had originally thought we'd put content on when we started Filament Stories.   It has been the slowest and least active platform to the point that I've ignored it most of the time. We still post there and sometimes people see the videos.  

On one other occasion, we had a video that went viral (for us).  That video is close today to hitting 1.5 million views.   The video was something I did out of the blue, just to show a model, and it didn't represent the type of work we typically do.   The latest video(s) that have taken off are this time some of our "story" videos.  They've been ticking up over the past week, almost doubling the number of subscribers we have. 

We've amassed over thirty thousand hours of watch time on the channel, but we're still not to the magic four thousand hours we need to be able to monetize the channel.   Those hours would be watch time by going directly to our channel.  If you click on our videos to watch them, those single minutes count towards the monetization hours.  We're halfway to four thousand hours and will hopefully make it eventually.  

We're releasing some new videos that will be longer in length on YouTube.  Maybe we'll make it a bit faster than the eight months it's taken us to get the first halfway there.  Regardless, it's exciting to have made it to fifteen thousand followers.   I remember when it felt like forever before we got to the first thousand followers.  But we made it.   Who knows where we'll get to next.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son asked if he could please do some programming on the computer tonight after Code Ninjas.  He really is getting interested in programming. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter told me I was not allowed to listen to my audio book when she left the car this morning.  I asked if I could listen but then have it back up when she got in the car after school.   She said that was okay.  I couldn't wait to find out what happened.  I had to keep listening! 

Logo Finished (I think)

The logo has been rebooted.   The new logo is very similar to the old logo, which was by intention.   We had brand recognition with our current logo and I didn't want to change that up if possible.   What we had for our logo was this colorful capital F with a lowercase s inset into it.   The majority of the time people see our logo is in a small little circle beside our name for comments and posts.   Rarely are people seeing the full-sized logo. 

So tonight, I replaced the old logo with the new one in one of the social media platforms I spend time responding to people on and I wondered if anyone would notice.   An hour later I realized I didn't even notice anymore.   So I think the transition will largely be one that will go by without many people even realizing there was a change at all, which is a good thing. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter walked into the room for music theory tonight after choir practice.  They were all to come up to the piano to feel the hammers.  She knows what the hammers are because she's felt them on our piano, but I didn't realize she'd never seen a grand piano before.   She was impressed by how large it was as she walked around it.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was the birthday card maker for his teacher's class card.   The students alternate writing thank you cards or any other card that the whole class is involved with.  Then each student signs the card.  My son was very proud that he was getting to make his teacher's card and spent a good bit of time on it making it just so.