2022 In A Flash!

I have eight minutes until 2023 so I'd better write quickly.  What a crazy year.  We went from an idea for a social media project that was just figuring out how to make our way in the crazy world that is social media and content creation to being very busy and more successful than we anticipated.   

It's been a rush.  It's been exhausting.   But that isn't anything when I think of what my children have done.   Growing up can be hard and they've navigated life well and I'm so proud of both of them. 

Happy 2023 to everyone.   Love and hugs in fact.   

It's Better! But There's Pressure Now...

It stopped!  Suddenly, for no known reason, the pain between my shoulders just stopped.  It's not back to before, but it's not like it was.   It should continue to calm down for the next several days.   What a relief.  

But now there's pressure.  My website developer decided to put a stake in the ground and pick a day to have the website go live.  We're going from no website to a full-blown one (for us) and I'm very excited about it.  

Here's what I mean about the stake in the ground.  When you go to the site as of the time of this posting, it shows this:  

I have a *lot* of work to get done before those eight-odd days are up.   I have to get the work done.   There isn't an alternative.  Deadlines can be a good thing though; we'll see if I make it.  

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Fighting Uproar:  We have guests in town.  Yes, they are guests who come a lot, but that's no excuse for bickering and being petty with each other.  And stubborn.   And don't forget the foul language under their breath coupled with insults.   I told them I was embarrassed they would act this way.   My son said he was embarrassed I cared about it.  

Shoulders Are Painful

There is this pain between my shoulders.   It won't go away.  It is driving me crazy.  It's not that bad but it's awful at the same time.   

I hate when these annoying things happen.  Sometimes they go on for weeks, sometimes it's for a day or two.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter brought me a guinea pig this evening when I lay down to get away from some of the pain in my back.   Then she brought me a second guinea pig.   Then she brought me some of her dinner of a homemade pizza she and her father had made.   She is very sweet. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son saw the guinea pigs heading back upstairs and said, "Oh, can I have them to snuggle with?"  His father said they hadn't been to the bathroom in a long time and were very antsy.  My son didn't want to get peed on and passed. 

Shoulder Dagger

I am having one of those pains that you can't get away from that is so difficult to deal with mentally.   The pain isn't that bad in and of itself.  It wouldn't rank high on the pain scale, but wow does is drive you crazy when it won't stop for days.  

I've been to the chiropractor three days in a row and given how I'm feeling tonight I'll be back in the morning.  My daughter brought me guinea pigs to spend time with me while I laid on my back on a large icepack.  She is so sweet. 

The Children and Guinea Pigs:  My daughter sees with her hands.  But her hands move SO fast.  We are so worried she's going to hurt the guinea pigs.  She would be devastated if she did, it's just a parent's place to worry.  My son is very laid back about the guinea pigs.  He likes them quite a lot and commonly has one in his late, spending time with him while he's playing this video game or watching a video.  My husband and I like them just as much.   I really wish Matisse liked them and we weren't concerned she was going to eat or hurt one.  

Sugar Detox

I think starting in January when all the cookies and cake and candy has been either consumed or thrown away we're going to have to go through a sugar detox as a family.   We've eaten so much of it in the past few months that our brain thinks about it way more than it should.  

My son can be caught eating candy any time of the day. 

My daughter can be caught eating candy in place of meals if we're not there to coordinate something.

Their mother is no better; she eats far too much candy.

We're going to have to make some changes because this much sugar isn't good for any of us. 

3% of a Second

My son has a very good memory.  He can keep track of every single card in a complex deck of Magic the Gathering, plus all the spells, cards and abilities of the other colored decks.  It is definitely something children do with ease that makes their parents feel their age because we can't keep up with their little minds moving so quickly. 

One of the things my son has been interested in for a long time is "glitches" in games.   Back when I was young we called them 'bugs' and for the most part that is the defacto term for when a piece of software isn't behaving as expected.  My son is interested in when a glitch gives you, the player, the ability to do something you otherwise couldn't do with the game mechanics or rules. 

For instance, there could be a glitch when you ground pound as Mario if you happen to press the L2 button at the point of impact it lets you do another ground pound.   If you can keep this timing up, you can make it over large expanses that you couldn't reach until much later in the game. 

That's a useful glitch, he's moved into the esoteric glitches now.   He demonstrated today a special thing that happened only when the particular creature in the game (It was a lively chomping plant) had gotten wet.  While wet, you could do a double jump and when you land on its head, if you got the timing just right, you would launch into the air.   You could keep doing this, jumping higher and higher.   The only trouble was, the window in which you had to time your reactions was a thirtieth of a second.  

That's correct, 1/30th a second or 33 milliseconds.  My son was practicing.  He was going to master this glitch.   It was hard, but that didn't deter him.   It was a crazy window of time, but that didn't bother him. 

I love that he's interested in how the games work just as much as how the games are played.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter hasn't wanted to take care of our neighbor's dog, Charlotte, today and last night.  I think it's been because it's so frightfully cold outside.   My husband and I did the dog duty today.  My daughter says she'll be up for helping tomorrow again. 

A Beautiful Day

It really was a beautiful Christmas day.   My in-laws and parents were here; we opened present after present and had a great time talking over each other and trying to move along or keep talking about the existing present.  

The children took turns and worked together to be Santa, with my daughter reading the braille labels she's typed up for every present.   There were a lot of presents, but there were presents from grandparents down two levels and grandchildren going up two levels with parents in the middle having presents that went up and down.  

The Guinea pigs were fun to spend time with after the presents were finished, and then it was time to go to Nana and Papa's house for a delightful meal hosted by the champion of dinner parties, my mother-in-law.   She had it all prepared, and my father-in-law was her assistant when it came to the champagne.  

We got to see Aunt Rebecca, Uncle Dale, and cousin Olivia, who just graduated from College!   The exclamation mark is because it is hard to believe the amount of time that's gone by.   

It was a wonderful day on many levels.   I am most grateful that we were able to spend it with Mimi, Gramps, Papa, and Nana.   As well as having a chance to see Olivia.   She is "all grown up".  but so are our children.  Two years distanced in time and children are grown up from how you saw them last.  

Thank you to all the present purchasers, present wrappers, meal cookers, cleaner uppers, and anyone who did something to make today happy and bright.   Christmas 2022 will definitely be one to remember.

It's Christmas (and I'm exhausted)

We're getting a video out late, too late for a "Night Before Christmas" themed video, but we got it out.  We had a lovely dinner with both sets of parents and everyone was happy.   I think I have everything done.  Or enough to pass.  Now I'm going to pass out.

Unlike Other Years...

I am usually more than ready for Christmas at this point.  This year I am as unready and unprepared as I have ever been I am almost certain.   I am tired and need to get to sleep.   No social media has been happening, the house has been getting more orderly and presents have been wrapped, and above all, the guinea pigs have been cared for by all. 

The Children Love Them:  Both children love the Guinea pigs in their own ways.   And they do not agree with each other's way of taking care of them.   There is no lack of attention here though.  We have to tell them to give them a break.   

Oh, and they do eat your hair.  Quickly, and with precision bites.  My daughter had a long piece cut off by an interested Guinea pig in only a few seconds today.  

She Takes It Well

My daughter wants to play with the guinea pigs all day long.   And I am so happy she wants to be involved with them.   But they are tiny.   They fit in a single hand still and my daughter moves around so quickly because she's excited.   So she's getting a lot of negative feedback from us.   We're parents and adults and have seen a lot of things go wrong at this point and we see those worst case scenarios in everything, especially when it comes to something being hurt or killed. 

My daughter is being very good about it, though.  Today I hugged her and kissed the top of her head and said I was sorry her father and I worried so much about what she was and wasn't doing with the two new little boy members of our household.   We just don't want them to be hurt though lack of care or awareness. 

She is good to them, she would bike two miles to get them an orange if she heard that's what they wanted. But she is overcome with excitement and wants to snuggle the little guys all over the place.   I'm saying things like, "he is very tiny, think of how much his body is moving around and he has no control over when the next bump is going to happen.   Treat his little body with respect.  

She does try.  Some things she can't help.  She puts her hand in their faces a lot, but she's trying to find their heads in the first place so she could pet the back side.   That's hard to do when you can't see. 

The Big Boy Update: My son is going to have a lot of screen time as the start of the holiday gets into full swing and as Christmas approaches.   There is going to be a major crash when he has to take some time off soon to do not-online things with his family. 

Two Turtle Doves!

My parents arrived from the mountains this evening, and we got together and had a low-key but very delicious dinner from Q-Doba, a Mexican restaurant we order ahead from to pick up our meals on the way home regularly.   My parents picked up the meal. And after everyone had made it mostly through their burrito, my daughter said she had a plan for us.  

She handed out sheets of paper with the numbers one through twelve on them.  We each got two numbers, all different.  She said those numbers represented which days of the Twelve Days of Christmas you would be singing.  She, of course, would help on all of the verses. 

So we started, and my daughter had number one.   My father had, "Two turtle doves" which he managed to sing/say in a voice and tone that we were already laughing before it was even his turn to sing.   We had a great time going through the whole song.  It was genuine, it was spontaneous, and it was fun.   We need an encore for Christmas Eve now!

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Do Not Argue Over The Pets Or There Will Be Consequences:  The children are so good most of the time, but when they argue over who can hold or gets to put somewhere or carry around the pet, I have a very low tolerance.  You must always think of the pet and if it's good for them or good for you?  Treat the pet with respect, especially a pet that can't explain well back how they are feeling. 

A Bad Day

We all have them.  Today was mine.   It started out well, but after a near three-hour conference call and two days in a row when I'd been very tired, despite sleeping well and for a good number of hours, I gave in and went upstairs to lie down.  

I woke up at five-thirty, was given two guinea pigs to protect while I nodded back off to sleep, and then woke up again after six.  In the evening.  Having gotten not one thing done all day long that I needed to get done. 

Then things happened.  Every single one of them was reasonable in and of itself, but it all kept me from getting the things done I had on my lists.   I got cranky at my husband, who has left for the night.  He didn't deserve it, I just didn't know why he had to ask me something every time when I'd sat down from the last question, for two hours.   I got nothing done.   Well, the one thing he was working on.   But again, it was a frustrating day where the only things that got done were other people's things. 

Aside from this blog post.   I got that done.

Guinea Pigs & Children Update:  My son has a very easy going way that the guinea pigs seem to feel relaxed around.  My daughter is frantic, fast-moving, noise making, hand thrusting (because she can't see, she tries to be careful always) and to them, it's much more stressful with her.  I'm trying to get them comfortable around her and her calm around them.   More work must be done. 

SQUEEEEEEEE!

My daughter made a mistake this afternoon.  She wanted to hold one of the guinea pigs.   She was in the big playpen, and they were running around.  They were climbing on top of her some of the time but they didn't want to be caught.  And they are fast.   They also can squirm if they don't want to be held. 

I went into the craft room to get some work done on the present wrapping.   Shortly I heard my daughter cry out.   She was terrified she'd hurt one of the guines pigs.   Was it Cheerio or was it Kix? She didn't know.  I came in and she was crying terribly.  I got each one in turn and assured her they were okay.   

My daughter was so upset.   She knew she shouldn't have done what she did.   She wanted to hold one, she admitted that.   When she caught one, it tried to get away and she held it—too tightly.   She said she squeezed him to try and keep him and he made a squeak and it scared my daughter so much she immediately let go.   

I've talked to her about her motivations.  Is she doing something for the guinea pig, or is she doing it for her?  It's okay to do some things for you, but you need to keep them in mind all the time.  For instance, unless you picked them up initially, they would never know that being with a human can be comforting or fun or have treats associated with it.  But there needs to be a balance.    She loves them so much, she really does.   I think getting them was the right choice.  Plus, I adore them.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son, calm and collected, comes and gets a guinea pig and takes them downstairs to hang out with him while he watches television (or more specifically, YouTube on the television).  I came in to find Cheerio sitting up on his lap, not wanting to be under the covers, relaxed and looking around.   Or maybe he was sleeping, they frequently sleep with their eyes open. 

Raucous Time

It's over.   I survived.   I don't even have any injuries.   The house is in total disarray, but even with all of that, it was worth it.  My son didn't have a birthday party for the last two years.  He wasn't even that upset about it.   I wanted him to do something this year, though.  I didn't want him to not be able to remember having birthday parties when he was a child. 

It was a small gathering with six boys total, including my son.  Video games were played, screams were screamed, yells we yelled loudly, and swear words were not quite said, but in a way that meant the actual word.  No one was fooled. 

Everyone was nice, outgoing, and respectful.  I don't know them as well as I would in the old neighborhood.  We lost a lot of in-person socialization on account of COVID-19.  And my son had the best time of all from the commotion he was making, yelling and screaming at each other ans

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter technically wasn't invited to the party today, but she joined in.   She did several things that were completely contrary to the video gaming, such as turning off the television.   She got sent to her room for because she was so aggressive at one point.   She wrote me a sincere apology note for insulting me and saying hateful things.   She did have a nice time with the boys.  The problem is, she has hormones involved I think.  

Good or Bad Sounds?

We've been trying to understand the noise the guinea pigs make and if they are a sign of happiness, contentment, excitement, or ones of anger, fear, or frustration.  I decided to watch some videos today to understand more, mostly because I wanted to make sure Cheerio wasn't having seizures.  

It turns out there is something Guinea pigs do that is commonly called "popcorning" or "pogoing" with the technical term being "pronking".  Pronking?  I am definitely using that term.   It is this crazy jump in the air that makes it look like you have something wrong with your brain and it doesn't have it's movement properly coordinated. 

Cheerio has a very distinct pronking that looks worrisome.    It is a sign of happiness and joy.   I had just put him into a very cleaned-up and freshly stocked with hay, playpen.   He was just happy.  I was relieved.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Getting my daughter to not chase the Guinea pigs around to catch them is going to be hard for her.  Not because she's blind, but because she's so excited. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son asked me if I could come to his room after he'd gotten in bed for the night.   He wanted to know if he could have one of the Guinea pigs come snuggle with him in his bed.   We compromised and spent some time sitting in front of their cage and being friendly without picking them up.  They came out and checked us out when they realized we weren't going to immediately grab them.  

They Don't Hate Me

My daughter is just like me.  She wants to love and hug and squeeze and kiss the guinea pigs.   She chases them down in the cage and then changes positions with them every two to five minutes.   She's almost frantic in wanting to love them.  

She's also moving around really fast and we're afraid she's going to hurt one accidentally.   She's blind after all and the little guys move fast.   But there is a bad side to this.   A side we caused, that we of course didn't mean to. 

I listened to what was said to my daughter this afternoon when she got home with Nana and Papa.   She wanted to show them, but she also wanted to put them in her lap, fold over on top of them and have the feeling of their little pattering feet in the space she had made into a body cave.

"

Again and again, my daughter got told to be careful, to watch out, to this and that and on and on it went.   Was it good advice?  Yes.   But it makes my daughter feel like she's doing everything wrong. 

She was talking to her father the other night and he said they would live about as long as it would be before she went to college.   She replied, "no they won't" in a sad voice.   "Why not?" her father asked.  "Because I'll probably accidentally kill them before then."  We need to work on our positivity. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter did sit still long enough today in the little play pen to have them come up to her and start climbing over her legs.  She loved it.  She said they didn't hate her.   I told her of course they didn't/ 

The Big Boy Update:  What was my son up to tonight?  He was hidden in the pantry with his iPad on a stool.   He could have just gone to his room.  I have no idea why he was in there.

Entirely Different

These Guinea pigs are so different.  They are siblings from the same litter.  Their colorations. are different, but they have similarly shaded fur, Cheerio has more black while TBD2 has a only little black. Both Guinea pigs have white, with TBD2's being interspersed in his medium brown salt & pepper styled look;

At this point Cheerio will wait and let us pet him, not running away much because he knows things interesting or delicious will happen if he goes along with things. 

TBD2 is much more skittish.   He really doesn't want to be picked up.   I'm trying to give him meaningful interactions that are positive in the hopes he will relax a bit and we can be close friends. 

 

The Big Boy Update:  My son had us to school for his birthday celebration.  His classmates snapped in time with a silent song in our heads.   It was a very comfortable and casual feeling lunch with his class.  At the end, they pulled up Wordle and together played the day's game.   Then they did a whole number of additional, similar-styled games.   A lot of them were geography-based.   It's no wonder they know so much about the countries of the world!

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter got the Guinea pigs right after six o'clock this morning.   When I came into the bonus room she cried to me, "mom. they hate me!"  I told her that definitely wasn't the case, that we were all getting adjusted to things being different 

TBD2

Well, we have a second guinea pig now, named TBD2, until a name has been selected by my son.  He is a sibling of Cheerio.  Things are going to get crazy here...

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter now knows we helped Santa get the Guinea pig from the local store because it's too cold to have the animals up north.   She said, "It's okay; I think I already knew that." 

The Big Boy Update:  My son now is having trouble coming up with a name for the second Guinea Pig.  He was picking on her for being indecisive.  Now it's his turn to be unsure. 

Well, This Is A First

Two days!  It's been two days now, and I haven't written a blog post.   That is odd for me, indeed.   I don't have a nine-to-five job.   Being a "content creator" takes far, far more time than I would have thought, especially for the length of our daily videos.   

There is so much behind the scenes to get the models to the point they can be filmed.   There is working with the designers and the filament companies and then there are the other content creators and people leaving comments and watching all the videos you can from the 3D printing world so that you're up to speed on the latest everything.  

If we lived in a vacuum and the only thing we had to do was create a video and drop it out to the world, things would be vastly different.   But just like any business, or I suppose "popularity contest" isn't that far off, you get out of it what you put into it. 

Popularity contest sounds about accurate.  As much as I want my fellow content creators to do well, I want to do well also.   The choices we make affect our followers.  Are we targeting the people we want to watch our channel specifically?  Could we grow our audience if we did more sensational content?  I think we could.   We could be more humorous.   Well, I could try, I might fail, probably would fail. 

So back to the title, for two days I just wanted to go to sleep and forget about content and this blog.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son really likes the Guinea pig.  He lets him climb on his shoulder and even sit on his head while he's sitting on the couch playing on his Switch.   They look so cute together. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter loves Cheerio.   Wait, did I mention we have a confirmed name?  Cheerio!  What a relief. 

Website Work

JC and Kelly came to town today to get some images for the website for Filament Stories.   I got up early and haven't sat down much since before seven.  I have to get to sleep so we can do it all again tomorrow.  More when I am not falling asleep at the keyboard.

The Big  Boy Update:   My son isn't panicked about the dog eating the guinea pig.  I think at this point that she would do something harmful to it if she got it in her mouth, but I'm not sure what.   My son is trying to help her to understand he's an important family member.   He's doing tough work with the dog's single-minded focus on the guinea pig. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  The moment my daughter got home from school she dropped her backpack, cane and jacket and ran upstairs to see Peppermint Wiggles Nibbles TBD the Guinea Pig. 

Chirrrrup (and Chomp) and TWELVE!

Okay, this guinea pig, who's name is now Peppermint but my son and I are jokingly calling him TBD because there is just a lot of fluctuation on the name is darned adorable.   He loves being in your lap, specifically wrapped up in a hand cloth or under the fold of a blanket. 

The best part are his noises.  If you pet him or stroke his fur, interestingly in reverse order from his back to his head, he loves it.  He makes this chirrup sound that's like a cat's purr, but with more vibration and sound.  It comes in spurts as you pet him.  

He does bite though.  Not at all to hurt you, but to see what something is.   He is checking out if you or the wall or the thing you're holding is food.   It can hurt, but it's not bad and he immediately lets go. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter loves him.   I'm ever so glad Santa decided to get her a guinea pig. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son is twelve-years-old today.   He is so mature about some things.   And growing up in a fast paced way.   But he's still my little boy, as all boys are to their mothers.   I love him so much. 

Mint? Sir Wiggles the Wise? Big Ounce?

We still don't have a name for this cute little guinea pig.  He really is quite friendly.   The dog has only tried to eat him once, but once was enough.   We're not sure she would really eat him, but none of us want to risk it. 

I wish we had a name for him that seemed fitting because we want to call to him when we come to the cage.   He isn't running out to see us at this point, but he doesn't mind us and in fact absolutely loves being in a pocket in a fuzzy shirt.   My son had one of those that are for your hands in the front of your shirt low down.  It's one pocket that has two entrances. 

He loved it.   He made chirruping sounds and didn't want to leave.  He will nibble your fingers, but only to see if you're food.   He knows you're not food and doesn't even hurt with his pressure. 

My daughter had her winder concert with the CCGC group.   It was a very nice concert with holiday songs from multiple cultures.  My favorite song was with the lights almost out and they started with "One candle" and one candle turned on.   As the song progressed, eventually they had all their lights on in the dim chapel.   I wish my mother and father could have been here, they would have loved it too. 

The Big Boy Update:  Things aren't going well for him right now.  He wants what he wants and he wants to try and get out of doing anything he doesn't want to do.  And he's been caught doing so.   So there will be repercussions.  Tomorrow is his birthday, but the day after tomorrow the hammer shall come down.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is asleep on the floor with the guinea pig.   I must go save him or her or both from each other.  I think he likes nesting in her hair.  I hope he's not chewing on it. 

Early Arrival

My daughter got an early Christmas present today from Santa, who asked her to trust him, because she really wanted a turtle.  I think Santa thought this would be a more cuddly companion (and boy is he cuddly and sweet.). Guinea pig wasn’t even on her list, but I think he will be a very lovable companion. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  my daughter was so incredibly excited when I put a cuddly little ball of fur in her hands.  She is in love with him. Name TBD. Nibbles and Ash are top contenders so far.

The Big Boy Update:  my son surprisingly really likes the Guinea pig. He's loved having him sit quietly in his lap.  

The New Process

We are trying a program with my son to see if he can have more flexible rules around when and how much time he can spend on screens.   At times on holidays or sometimes even weekends, we let him just gorge on screens to see if he has a maximum tolerance for it.   

He has a lot of stamina when it comes to screens.   He does take a break, but not for long before he goes to another flavor of screens.  Tonight my son asked us if we could play his game with him for a bit.   We looked at the clock, and it was five minutes until ten o'clock—which we told him, 

Thus began an epic match of screaming and barring teeth and pulling hair and all manner of things that were fueled by my husband saying, "it's almost ten o'clock and time for bed."   My son was beside himself with anger, and it didn't follow.   I wasn't putting up with his blaming us for things and then admitting he had gotten angry because he didn't know it was that late and that, yes, he was taking it out on us.  

He would admit things and then go back into battle mode.   We finally got him calm enough, and he gave us some good tips on how to interact with him when he's that angry.   Some of them were good, and others weren't practical, but I'm so glad my son is thinking about how we can engage each other in a more productive way.  A lot of tonight's discussions were not productive at all.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My husband finally finished listening to "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir, one of my favorite books of all time. My daughter loved it too.  She sat on the couch with her father as he listened to the last bit of the book.   I listened in, too from around the corner.   I love the audiobook version.   The voice actor makes it so much more.

The Violent Death and The Sock

I had thrown away a sock the other day.  I put it in the trash bin and thought no more about it because I'd thrown it away, and the general expectation when you throw something away is that you don't have to think about it or worry about it anymore.

The next day I was tidying up, and I found a spare sock on the dresser.  Hm, was this the missing mate to the sock I'd thrown away?   I looked at it and decided there wasn't much to be done so I threw the second on in the bin to follow the first. 

It was several days later when I caught on to what was happening. People, upon seeing an article of clothing in the trash would pull it out and put it near the washing, thinking they'd saved a sock from a certain loss of life.  

I've had to throw away things multiple times, trying to hide the article inside something else so it isn't "saved".   Today there was a sock to be thrown away.   So I helped:  I tore down the sock in half along the wear line where the large hole in the sole started from.   

It was fun voliently tearing up clothing, I rather liked it. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter picked out some special little presents for her extended family.  She is quite good at shopping—which is even more interesting knowing she's doing everything.

I Missed Tonight

I fell asleep before dinner.  I had been working for a number of hours and was hurting.  I missed the whole night with the children.   My son came in and said, "are you going to sleep, mom?"  I said no, that I could do something with him.   But he didn't want to.   I think he was worried about me.   I don't want them to worry about me.   I want to be there for them.  I want to play with them.  They will be gone only too soon.  

Santa's Lap

Santa came to our neighborhood tonight.  My husband worked with another one of the board members to help put on the event.  Mostly he helped her.  It was her event but she needed help and my husband is always ready to step in and help.   Tonight. I dropped my son off at the clubhouse, went and got a corporate mailing address for Filament Stories, got my daughter and then brought her back to eat at the clubhouse, mostly hot chocolate and cookies, and then talk to Santa. 

He remembered her because he's seen her for the last several years and knew she was blind.   He couldn't believe how much she'd grown.  We can scarcely believe it ourselves.  

My daughter went into how we had been "arguing" about not letting her have a turtle.  Or a rabbit.  Or a puppy.   We had not been arguing, we'd been telling her that wasn't going to happen. perhaps that constitutes arguing to her.  

Santa suggested a rat and was expecting her to say eww I think, but she said maybe, and I was giving the thumbs up because we've already said she could have a rat (or two, they like companionship).   No decision was reached though so we'll have to keep thinking about things and figure out what we can get her.  I mean Santa can get her.  Surely this will be the last year for Santa.   It is such a sweet thing, though. 

The Not So Big Boy:  My son decided to sit on Santa's lap as well.  Although his conversation with Santa was much briefer.   And secretive!

Where Did the Weekend Go?

It's one in the morning on Sunday, and I'm tired.  I should really write something more but I want to go to sleep.  My daughter was MIA all weekend listening to a podcast her class is listening to.  Secret update: she isn't suppose to be listening ahead—much less listening hours and hours ahead.   But there's a child that's a robot and so many other exciting things. 

My son has been doing better with the new "Trust Points" system he and his father worked out.  If it works for him, I'm supportive because he's had a rough time with us and losing our trust lately.

And I've eaten too many red hots.  No, Cinnamon Imperials.  Same things.   Why do they come in such a large bag?   I cannot resist their goodness

Breaking the Rules

My daughter has been breaking the rules all day long.  Well, since she went upstairs after her brother left for a birthday party.    She was cranky and didn't want us coming in her room.   She even snapped at her father and said she didn't want any food.  What ever could be going on?

I told her I was worried about her and came up after a while and rubbed her back while she listened to her current audiobook.   She paused it after a while and then told me she was breaking the rules.   She was listening to a podcast that her class listened to while they had snack each day.  It was an exciting story broken into lots of six-minute segments.  There were hundreds of these little episodes, and my daughter was not only a few ahead of her class, she was many, many episodes ahead.  

She just wanted to listen to it so badly.   I told her I understood.   She was pretty upset about breaking the rules, but she wanted to find out what happened next so badly she was willing to take the guilt in order to find out what happened next.   And then after that, and then after that...

The Big Boy Update:  My son is doing fairly well with the new points system of "regaining your parent's trust" so far.   He is motivated, which is a good thing.   I do want him to be successful.  

Injection

I have a bump thing on my forehead.  It's been there for a long time.  Perhaps ten years now.  It wasn't much for a long time, but it has gotten larger over the past year or so.  Perhaps this is because I've been futzing with it.   This could be due in part to Dr. Pimple Popper. 

She's said a lot of cysts are the body shedding skin cells into an internal pocket instead of sloughing them off the skin as would normally happen.  I believe, I think (ten years is a long time) that I had some sort of acne that didn't resolve well.  Is what's under the skin the remnants of whatever happened ten years ago?

And why is it getting larger?   The skin sloughing does make sense.  It moves easily under the skin and isn't in a location that would have other, more ominous alternatives.   Today I went to a dermatologist and had a really nice time talking to them about lots of things.   The first step is to inject it with some steroid and see what that does. 

The second step is to excise it out and get it completely removed.  We're all sort of thinking that'll be the route we'll have to go, but since the doctor is having knee replacement surgery next week, that will have to wait until January.   In a way, I'm sort of excited about an excision.   I wonder if she'll let me watch.   That would be really exciting. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son has asked if he can have a points system for earning and maintaining trust.   I'll have to write more about this when we've figured out how we're going to do this.   I'm glad he wants to work on this though. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and I are listening to The Christmas Pig by J.K. Rowling.   It's very cute.  I love listening to books with her. 

Yesterday, Where Did It Go?

We met with some interior designers yesterday.   We don't want or need to have designers help with the whole house, or even a good part of it.   But we do want to get some advice on selecting things that will go with the style of the house, and that won't clash. 

We were hopeful that it wouldn't be an issue, saying that we only wanted help with some things.  The proposal had covered everything, including furniture selection.   I can't blame them though, you don't get if you don't ask a lot of times. 

They were lovely and completely understood.   We will look more into what we need advice on and will get back to them when we know more about when the house will actually start being built.

The best fun though was showing them the 3D printing things.  They thought it was so exciting.  It's fun when someone is excited about what you love.   I was able to send them home with 3D printed things for their children and nieces and nephews.   That's a productive day, if you ask me.  I love sharing the things we've printed. 

The Big Boy Update:  Did my son sneak downstairs and play on his computer after his father and I fell asleep before ten o'clock?  We're not sure, but it looks like he did.   He denies it completely.  We're working on building trust with him.   He needs to work on following the rules. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter finished her Tundra biome diorama.  The animals she put in there didn't color match properly like the polar bear was a brown plastic bear, but since she couldn't see the colors, it was a polar bear to her. 

The Largest Column

Tonight we went to hear the holiday concert at Duke Chapel with our dear friend, Mrs. Aagaard, my daughter's braillist who retired after her Kindergarten year. 

My son had so much to see as far as the chapel goes.  It is a marvel of architecture and a style he has never seen before.   My daughter, on the other hand, had to suffice with sounds more than anything. 

I did have her feel how large one of the columns was.  They are massive, massive, huge.   She got a sense of how big the building was from the column size, I hope. 

Oddly, her stomach was bothering her very much after we picked Mrs. Aagaard up.   I hoped against hope that she didn't have COVID-19 again with sudden symptoms when she had been without any symptoms of any kind.   

She got better, and we made it to our seats and then enjoyed the different carols and songs, some with meanings from other cultures and parts of the world.  We got to walk up to the front and add our canned goods to the collection at one point in the night. 

My son was embarrassed by any and everything his father and I did.  I had no idea how incredibly cringeworthy we were.   We're going to have to up our cool factor. 

We headed home, dropped Mrs. Aagaard off and then got some fast food.   We had been so tight on time there was no time for dinner so we all ate after nine o'clock.  

I'm tired and going to bed now. 

At The End of The Day

Does it count that you got some things done if you didn't get anything done with the one thing you really need to get things done on?  I had a conference call today and got the great advice that I should pick an hour a day to work on that thing that is hard to get done.   He kindly suggested a good time for me to work on it.

He then asked me later how things went.   He asked so he heard all about the things that happened during that time.   He said, "Ah, I forgot,  you have children."

Still, it was a good day on a lot of fronts.  Tomorrow maybe will be a good day on that one other front.

Early Morning Choir:  My daughter and I left early and got her to school in time for early chorus at school.   After school she went to choir.   She loves to sing but Mondays are busy for her. 

The Son Who Is Nearly Twelve:  My son is going to a school visit at the one school he wants to attend.  There aren't many spots available, we'll see how it goes and if he's really interested in going there or if he's up for other schools as a backup plan.

Collab

When you work with someone, you can collaborate on ideas or styles, etc.   When you're a content creator, and you're going to do a video with another content creator, it's called a "collab" because we don't have time to say all those extra syllables.  

Richard and I recorded a potential video we'll put out on our channel about some 3D printing we did together.   He's going to do something on his channel.   Hopefully the videos will work out.   It was fun making them. 

The 3D printing was an evolution though.  The design that was just perfect turned out to be completely useless because of a flaw with printed layer lines and stresses on how the case was attached.   But that's something easy to fix. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is good at negotiating.   She convinced me to let her buy an audiobook with her money.  She was convincing. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son is playing online games with his friends and saying words that are a sleight bit off from swear words.   I'm not sure how to handle this.  

It Is Busy Here

We have lots of people in our house.   It's rather exciting.   I have been working on getting the printers printing and my husband has been working on getting a model designed and it has been a lot of fun.   I am tired and will write more tomorrow.   The printers are now printing so I'm heading to bed. 

The Children: are growing up.  My son is very interested in being social some of the time and my daughter is the same, but only some of the time.

Jolly Time

What a delightful day we had for Thanksgiving today.  I hope everyone had a good day there.  We missed having my parents with us, but we were so glad Uncle Bob and Uncle Brian could be here along with my in-laws.  

The food was all delicious with the winning dish sweet potatoes my mother-in-law made for me but everyone loved them. She said it was the best sweet potatoes she'd ever made.  Uncle Bob's apple pie was delightful.  We always love his pies.  My husband's turkey was juicy and just right.  Even the cranberry thwock (uncle Dale's term for canned cranberry sauce named for the sound it makes coming out of the can) was good.

All around the food was too good and I became uncomfortably stuffed.  Which is just as it should be on thanksgiving.

The Big Boy Update:  my son almost ruined thanksgiving by throwing a fit because he didn’t get an adult knife.  His punishment is delayed.  He will find out about it tomorrow. He ended up having a nice meal and joining in the conversation.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  my daughter let me do her hair today. Well, I said it had to be done, but she was amenable to having it blow dried.  It was starting to head into dreadlocks land with a lack of brushing lately. She looked so nice with her hair clean and brushed.  

Too Much Time In Bed

For two days I've wanted to stay in bed.  I felt bad, pain more than illness.  I don't think I'm sick, I don't know if I overdid it in Frankfurt, I don't think I did, but something was bothering me and I just wasn't functioning well.  This morning I'm up, dressed, and ready to face the Thanksgiving Day joys with family. 

We'll all miss my parents today.  We're hoping we can see them for Christmas this year if it works out. 

Lagged Out

Yesterday I lay down around five o'clock because I was tired.   I fell quickly and the next thing I knew, my husband was asking me if I wanted to come to dinner.   I woke up and headed blearily to the kitchen, where Uncle Bob was standing, having arrived for the Thanksgiving holiday.  

We had a very nice dinner together of meat sauce pasta made by my husband.  Dessert was a bit of a funny surprise from Uncle Bob: gummy body parts Costco had on such a dramatic sale he couldn't pass on the opportunity to bring us a funny present to share together. 

After dinner I went back to the bedroom and fell asleep, rolling over once at two in the morning and then not moving until after six in the morning.   I was tired or jet lagged or both.   Hopefully I've caught up on sleep at this point. 

The Big Boy Update:  my son hates eating at the table with us.  He always wants to eat at the bar seats in the kitchen.   The difference in location is six feet, but he resists every time.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter guessed every single gummy body part without being given any information, including what the options were.   She never ceases to amaze me.

The Last Minute Costume

My son is Ghengis Khan for Mystery History tomorrow.  He's been working on his presentation for a long time.   He needs to be in period costume for the presentation, but when we tried to show him options for available costumes, none of them would do.   We warned him, but he was not satisfied with any of the options. 

We were going out of town, and Nana is a master seamstress (or at least she is to me because there is nothing she can't sew or knit or crochet).  We told him to talk to her about options.   He didn't think to do so, which meant that last night, he remembered and went into a panic because we had one day left to come up with a costume for him. 

He went to sleep, and my husband and I did everything we could to find something that would be "delivered tomorrow."  There was virtually nothing.  Halloween, has passed and there was no costume store in town anymore with all the online ordering.  Party City had almost nothing, perhaps a beard in white.   

My husband found a hat we could modify with some 3D printed adornments and I found a toga (that we neglected to tell my son the name of) and my husband also found a black stole.   I had a furry jacket, and a friend I was on a business call with suggested the fabric store, which my mother-in-law went to and found another fur-like material that we've used to replicate full-length fur boots.  

It came together, but it would have been a lot easier if he'd gone with something less than the perfect image he had in his mind from the start. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got in trouble today in Choir.   She is getting in trouble lately and is upset about it when it happens.   She's starting to stand up for herself when she can't understand something and needs to self-advocate.   She's not doing a good job of handling how she lets people know that and is coming across more as frustrated defiant.   She's standing up for herself though.   It's just going to take time. 

Fighting To The Death

My son loves screens.  This is the one thing we can take away that he cares about deeply.   However it is very frustrating to both him and us that when bad behavior starts, he can get warned and he ignores the warning, he will, for instance, keep bothering his sister with no regard to the warning.  We take away screens at that point, typically for a day and my son goes into a rage of anger. 

But does he stop at that point?  Or does he keep on?  He doesn't stop, because they would be reasonable.  He keeps on and sometimes accelerates his behavior in the negative direction.  So he loses screens for another day.   This sometimes continues until he's lost screens for a week or the whole weekend. 

We had a conversation with him about it tonight.  He's not sure what to suggest other than we not take away screens.   It does work in that he avoids bad behavior because he doesn't want the consequence, but when he's in the middle of things he has almost no impulse control and a whole lot of anger that goes unmanaged. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles; My daughter has a lot of reading to do.  I'm not sure why she has so much because this is in addition to the work she has as a sighted student.  I'm going to ask tomorrow and see why she has so much additional work from her VI teacher.  It is possible I'm not getting the whole story from my daughter.  She does feel like it's not fair that she has extra work.  She told me tonight she hates being blind sometimes. 

Hot and Cool Welcome Home

We're home from our week trip to Germany to attend Formnext 2022.   My daughter missed us very much for some reason.   She wanted us to come home early and even had a difficult week at school she was so our of her normal mental routine.  

She was in the best of hands, which is always the case when our children are with any of their grandparents.  Grandparents are experts with children, and we're so grateful we have them, and they're interested in helping.   

My daughter wanted to come to the airport to pick us up and insisted I hug her the entire way home.   She was so excited when we got in and wanted our attention in many ways, especially to see how the excavation of the dinosaur eggs she got for her birthday from Aunt A.

My son was in the middle of playing a video game whilst watching a YouTube video at the same time.  He didn't come see us when we arrived; he called down and said, "hi, mom and dad."  We had to ask him to pause the game to give us a hug hello.   He has had his times of insecurity, but this trip wasn't one of them.  

I'm tired.   Sitting in a plane all day is, for some reason, completely unrestful.  Travel is nice but I always am glad to be home.   

All Good Things...

It's been a very exciting week here in Frankfurt, Germany.  I've met some really wonderful friends I had from online already and made some new friends I met once I arrived here.   It's so odd to meet someone for the first time that you know well and then feel as though you've known them for much, much longer than four days when it's time to say goodbye to return to our various countries. 

This was a common thread among the attendees I spent time with this week.   That and we all hope to reunite again next year at a maker faire or conference again soon. 

An aside that is related is one of the content creators wants to coordinate a ski trip in Austria next year.   He wants to rent a large villa and have other content creators in 3D printing get together there.   Most of us are older and have children that are grown or aren't in diapers anymore.  Most people have said they want to come if things work out when the date is decided. 

But as much fun as I've had here, I'm ready to go home.  I love being home.  I love my children, and I miss the dog as well.  I'm looking forward to seeing Nana and Papa as well.   And soon, I look forward to seeing my parents as the holidays grow closer.   Hopefully, we will all be together for Christmas.   I have the best family. 

The Snow Child:  My daughter was worried about school and was missing us a little bit, but when I called yesterday, she was just fine.   She had made some snow from a powder she got for her birthday and was much more interested in playing with the snow than talking with me.   Which is good.   I can't blame her; snow is pretty exciting, even when it's faux snow.

I Missed My Son:  I'm not sure if my son misses us, but he was off playing Magic the Gathering with the Code Ninjas group he goes to after school.   He is really getting the hang of MTG.  It's a lot to remember, but that's one of his specialties,   I'm looking forward to playing him soon and seeing how his skill has progressed. 

Windows Galore (and No Keychain)

We had two missions to accomplish today: go see the factory and showroom of a German window company and get a keychain for my daughter.   We accomplished the hard task and were unable to find anything on the second.

The German windows were amazing.   We saw the process from the materials as they came into the facility to the final product at the end.   The windows were impressively made, but what was more interesting to me was how their day's work across the entire factory was organized ahead of time by computer for the most efficient route.  That means that window components weren't built and assembled all at once.  Each part would be made when it would make the best utilisation of materials from a remnant perspective.  Or perhaps it was based on one workstation being overloaded while another had very few things to do.   

Every step of the way, there was optimisation.   It was like our very own How It's Made show.   I love the windows.  My husband is thinking about them as they are different from what he's accustomed to.   

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter missed us a lot.   She said she was having behavioral problems at school and started to cry.   She said she was trying so hard but she would be concentrating and when they asked her something she didn't say, "yes ma'am" and that she was saying yes, but that she was having to ger used to the new addition of ma'am and she was trying and then she just started crying.   I'm not sure what's going on, but she said she wasn't trying to be difficult, it had just been hard.   I told her I would call her again tonight and talk to her.   She was upset we hadn't called her the night before and Nana said she couldn't call us.   I told her and Nana that she could call us any time.   She seemed to be a lot better today. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son was happy to talk to us last night, but only for about a minute.  He was engaged and gave us a rather nice brush off answer saying he loved us and thanks for calling and he'd see us soon.  His timing and intonation were perfect. 

Without End

There are so many companies exhibiting at Formnext.   We've made it through three of the large halls of exhibitors.  We're actively trying not to go to booths that have interesting things because if you approach them they want to talk to you about their products or process.   We're not customers for almost all of the companies, but they all like to talk to us about their technology. 

I'm glad we decided to stay in the hotel we did.  Some of the content creators we know that have very large followings and are highly respected in the industry are here.  We've been spending time with them.  Some of the time the companies will know one or more of us.   It's always interesting when they know one of us but not the other.   None of us mind that, though, there are so many people working in the industry one way or another that it's not possible for everyone to know everyone.   

None of the people we're with have egos that need to be stroked or are easily bruised.  We're all one happy family, introducing each other when someone new comes over.   

The one downside is that we are being given too much filament.  I like filament, but we only have so much room to take things home.   Companies also want to give us small things with their branding on them, but we don't do giveaways.  Perhaps we will someday but it's not something I want to get into.   Collecting addresses safely, doing polls or determining who would win something isn't without complexity and then there's the mailing and shipping costs and it's just a mess I don't want to get into.

I miss the children and our dog. 

Tiny Tip Of The Iceberg

Okay, imagine everything you know about 3D printing.  Then imagine going and seeing things in one day that make you realize what you know is only the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to additive manufacturing.   The industry side of things is just amazing.  I knew that it was, but you can't understand it until you see company after company doing things so far beyond what you can do or even knew that could be done. 

I met content creators, company owners and so many interesting people today.  We have been fortunate to be with some very large content creators and have as a result had an opportunity to meet people we might otherwise not have had a chance to meet. 

I was recognized by people, some companies, but some had no idea who we were.  Specifically the industry companies, whom we had to explain again and again that we did content creation for consumer-grade printers.  We were known by some very nice filament companies.  Overall it was a great day that went on very long due to a dinner hosted by Prusa that had a lot of great people included. It went way past my bedtime. 

I miss my children. 

Familiar Unfamiliarity

This morning I woke up in Frankfurt saw it was after nine o'clock and realized the breakfast we'd paid for was going to be over shortly if I didn't get downstairs.   I made it in time and tried a little bit of most things with the exception of baked beans.   Baked beans go well with bacon and hot dogs, both things I eat but baked beans just isn't a breakfast food.  Or so my mind tells me. 

My husband joined me in time before they closed, and then we went back to the room.  We weren't ready to go out and do things yet because we were still tired.  Perhaps it was lack of sleep at the proper times or lack of good sleep on the plane, but we both agreed we weren't ready to go exploring or shopping yet. 

My husband fell asleep and I got some messages from friends I knew would be here.  We had all elected on staying in the same hotel.   They were going out and I said I would meet the two brothers in the lobby.    When I saw them I gave them both a hug and then we headed off to get on a train to head to the city center. 

It was when I got on the train that I though of how absurd a thing I'd just done, and yet not one.   I had met two people I'd never met before in a foreign country and went off with them.  And I hadn't even told my husband other than saying so in a text message.   Historically and even potentially today that could be a dangerous thing to do.   

I did know these two people though and more to the point, I knew people who knew them personally.   So it wasn't that much of a risk.   I knew them both fairly well from the past few years, it was just that bit of meeting them actually face to face that had yet to happen. 

Speaking of, I have more people to meet (for the first time in person) in the lobby.  I'd better get my jacket on and head out to dinner. 

I hope the children are having a good time and are behaving for Nana and Papa while we're gone.

Weiner Schnitzel

I'm not sure how to spell Weiner Schnitzel, but I hope it's close enough for you to get a good idea about what we had for dinner.   My husband and I arrived in Frankfurt after an overnight flight.   We slept in bits and pieces, resulting in us neither being rested nor completely awake by the time we arrived at the hotel. 

My husband fell asleep immediately while I unpacked and then fell asleep.   We woke up in time for dinner and had a very nice German meal with the recommended apple wine which is alcoholic.   I don't drink much, but I thought one little glass of apple wine/cider couldn't be that bad—or so I thought. 

The waiter suggested a flagon to share between us as the price was more agreeable.   It was, but the pitcher was huge.  The only thing that saved us from complete and utter intoxication was the fact that it was only mildly alcoholic.  

Dinner was fabulous, served to us at a big picnic table long enough for ten people to sit at it.  They seated us right in the middle.  It was communal dining, but it was delicious.  Tomorrow we'll meet up with some of the other content creators.  For now, I'm going to bed and trying not to wake up too early. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter called us earlier from the park she was at with Papa.   I talked to her about being respectful of Nana and Papa and doing what they said to do, as well as *not* fighting with her brother.  She said she'd try.  We just talked to Nana, and they've already gotten into an argument.  

The Big Boy Cares A Tiny Bit:  My son got on the phone for only a brief moment to make sure we were alive.   Then he said, "Bye" and left.

A Day Late and A Euro Short

Yet again, I'm post-dating this blog post.   Yesterday was a whirlwind of getting ready to go to Germany for Formnext, a large additive manufacturing conference.   We know a lot of people who will be attending, both from Europe as well as the US.  I was behind schedule and barely made it out of the house at 5:30PM when we needed to leave for the airport. 

Surely I would have time to write a blog post at the airport, right?  I forgot.  And when I groggily woke up to change planes in Iceland, we had no time as our connecting flight was already boarding when we got to the gate.   Now we're in Frankfurt at our hotel, and the sun is shining.   It's a beautiful day.  My husband is snoring.   I think I'm going to join him.

Two Children and A Dog:  The children weren't overly upset that we were leaving them for a week, which I think can only be a good thing.   They were a bit worried when it was finally time to go, but they'll be with Nana and Papa all week so they know they'll be fine.   The dog, on the other hand, got wind of the packing and became agitated.  When Nana was packing the bags in the car, the dog got into the back seat and wouldn't get out.   She, too, will have a fine week while we're away.   Grandparents are wonderful things.  We are grateful to them for giving us this opportunity to go to the conference.  

Not Packed

My daughter hopefully had a good birthday today.  She got some presents that she was very happy about, and we had her requested dinner: Boston Market.   She spent most of the day playing with her new ice cream truck (for the American Girl-sized dolls) and watching TV. 

That's right, she watched television all day.   She's been watching the Airbender series with audio descriptions for visually impaired people.   She said as she went to sleep to night that she understands now how her brother feels when he's watched a lot of screens in a day. 

I still haven't packed.  We leave for Germany tomorrow.   I suppose I should start getting ready sometime soon.  Fortunately, our flight isn't until tomorrow evening. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son is having some extreme anger problems.  When he gets mad, he's furious.   Then he loses privileges, and he gets more angry.   He has to calm down and be polite and apologize before we even consider letting him have screens or whatever else back.   It's hard for him but he has got to get his anger under control. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is worried she's fat.   She has gained some weight, but she's also growing up quite a bit.  I'm not sure if she's really overweight or not, but eating less sweets would still be a good thing to do. 

Birthday Dinner Request

My daughter will be eleven in the morning.  And so will my son.   We're leaving on Saturday to go to Germany, and my in-laws are going to stay at our house and manage the brood.   

We have been trying to get prepared for everything and caught up on things, and working ahead and we're sort of caught up and kind of ahead and I hope we can get the rest done in time. 

So, for my daughter's birthday tomorrow, what does she want?  Dinner from Boston Market!  And some ice cream truck thing for the American Girl sized dolls.   The dinner will be inexpensive, the ice cream truck won't be 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I can't believe my little tiny girl is not so little and tiny anymore.  I think she might even be taller than her brother.  We'll get her yearly measurements on the wall in the bedroom closet tomorrow and find out. 

The Big Boy Update:  For a whole month my son and daughter will be eleven together.  He was upset about it a few years ago.  I wonder what he'll think about it this year?

Slept Right Through It

Pretend like it's last night.  Pretend also that I didn't fall asleep at eight o'clock and slept pretty much until morning.   Actually, you don't have to pretend that second bit because it happened.   But I did forget to write a post.  

Forgotten Again

There is a blog post I want to write.  I've been wanting to write it for a while now.  The problem is, I remember during the day and think, "oh, of course, how could I have forgotten again? I'll remember tonight."   And, of course it's tonight again, and I have forgotten yet again. 

Tomorrow I shall try to remember to write it down. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is coming home tomorrow.  I don't know why, but I have missed her quite a lot these past two days.  Maybe it's because she told me about how sad her last five years have been and how anxious she was about the trip because she didn't think there would be much VI support there.   I really hope she had an okay time.

The Big Boy Update:  My son didn't want to go see the big train table my mother-in-law won yesterday that now fills the entire living room at the house over at the new property.   But our architect and his son wanted to see it!  The four of us spent a good bit of time figuring out how the two engines moved around the big tracks.   I'm not a train person, but this set my mother-in-law won is truly amazingly done. 

One of Those Dreams

I lay down this afternoon for "a few minutes" and I think I fell asleep before a single minute had passed.   I then proceeded to have the most surreal dream about, well, I'm not sure what it was about, but it was important or I was important or what had or was about to happen was important.   

As you can tell, I remember a lot about this dream.   I don't know what the dream was about, but I do know that when I woke up it was eight o'clock and I was startled and worried and confused and I didn't even know who I was.   

Sometimes dreams are intense.   I wish I remembered some of the dream, though.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is home with us today and we had a nice time.   He was calm and there were no conflicts.   Sometimes I think about how much simpler things would be with only one child.   But then I can't imagine having only one child.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter headed off happily this morning to camp with her classmates.  If she was nervous, I would have never known.

Anxious About Camp

My daughter goes to camp with her fellow fifth graders tomorrow.  It's at a 4H camp facility just a few hours away that is heavily used by schools around here for bonding activities and lessons working together.  My son's school goes there for multiple years, starting in third grade.  My daughter is going for the first time this year—and she's worried. 

She's worried for two reasons.  The first is very valid and that is that there will be no VI teacher or assistant present for any of the time.  Her teacher this year admits she is not very experienced with VI children.   They will be in the woods.  There are roots and branches and it could be quite dangerous for my daughter and her VI friend in their class. 

The second reason is overnight-related.  My daughter finds comfort in wearing a pull-up to sleep.  Does she need it?  Not really, but she sleeps very soundly and she has wet the bed and after lots of investigation by doctors from pediatric urology to specialists beyond and then on to infectious disease because when they can't figure it out, you take that next step.   And everything was coming back negative.   It wasn't until we got her in with a urological therapist that we found out it was behavioral.  

My daughter hadn't learned some things correctly, which is interesting, but she wasn't emptying her bladder all the way.   She also wasn't going when she needed to go.   Some changes in behavior and it all went away.   But from ,time to time my daughter will still wet the bed because she forgets to go before getting in bed.   And she hates that.   Wearing a pull-up makes her feel safe, and with all that's going on in her life, safe is a good thing to have. 

So camp...how do you keep people from knowing about the pull-up?   My daughter can't even tell when people are looking at her so she can't be sneaky.   We have a plan, though for her to put the pull-up on while she's in the sleeping bag and take it off in the morning.  She has zip-close bags to put the pull-up in if it's wet and an opaque bag to put the closed, clear bag in.   She can keep it all hidden and yet still feel safe.   She went from not wanting to go at all to being ready to go in the morning. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son got so angry at me today.   He was extremely nasty to me when the one thing I was doing was what he asked me to have him do when I picked him up on Friday from school.   I told him he had to write a two-page apology.  And he did.  It was well-thought-out and sincere.   He knows what he's doing, he just can't control his anger. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter took me down a long and winding path of discussion tonight.   I will spare you the details and give you the summary.   She thinks sight is a gift and it is just a gift she wasn't given.  She went through stages starting when she was four and lost her vision.  Each phase was two years.  She was confused, then sad, then mad, and now accepting.   The time before she lost her sight she was happy.   Afterward, it has all been sad.  Her life is a series of sadnesses.   Some days she is very thoughtful on how the blindness has affected her. 

Overly Helpful

I have a new printer that had a very successful Kickstarter.   It's an impressive printer and the people who have had them really love them to the point of reserving a second one before they're even on sale for general purchase.  

They've done a lot of things right, with one of those things being support.  The logs from the printer can be pulled by the manufacturer—similar to how Tesla cars can have logs pulled to help with servicing the cars.   In this case, I had an error the printer was giving and a fan that was making a dying sound.  I was able to easily create a help ticket from the phone app based off the error the printer was giving about the LIDAR. 

I mentioned in the ticket that a fan was making a loud noise as well.   They got back to me quickly and we figured out the situation that was causing the error and thankfully it was a software issue and not the hardware so my printer was working correctly (until they got a patch added).   The loud fan was still not resolved. 

It was a fan and it was loud sometimes, but not always.   They were so diligent about finding out more about this fan and when I couldn't get it to reproduce regularly, they were just going to send me the fan for a potential replacement.   They were so on top of the service.   I felt badly that I wasn't getting back to them fast enough with my problem!

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Today the peach cobbler was made by my daughter and husband.  I love cobbler.  But for some reason, my daughter didn't want any after making it.   I had seconds. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son did a lot of work on his Mystery History project today.   He didn't want to stop watching screens, but he knew he had to work.  And he worked well for several hours in the craft room with some white noise playing in the next room to help him focus.  Tomorrow, he has a lot more work to do to be ready for Monday at school.   This is work he is electing to do, not work that has been assigned by his teachers.   He wants his project to be outstanding. 

Fits and Spurts

Social media is stagnant a lot of the time.  You have people who follow or subscribe to you who may or may not watch your latest videos, then you have people who see one or two of your videos from time to time but don't want to commit to seeing your videos regularly.   Within this regular and incidental audience, your subscribership stays about stagnant.   You get a few more and lose a few but things largely stay the same. 

Then, every so often, something will happen and a video will do well. Maybe you know why, but commonly you have no idea why ,it happens, but when it does, suddenly you get a lot more people interested in what you're doing. 

Two days ago we put up a rather hastily made video on 3D printing on fabric.  And it went crazy on TikTok.  Within twenty-four hours it was over three million views and people were messaging other content creators about "this new thing where you can print on fabric."   

It's not new, people just haven't seen it who are relatively new to 3D printing. It's been around since 2018 at least.  But people got excited about it.  I said the magic word, "cosplay" which always tends to get views, so that was a factor as well.

We gained about thirty thousand new followers from the video we put out two days ago.  Today, we're working on a follow-up video to address some of the over two thousand comments on the video that now has over 3.5 million views.  

I don't know how people deal with millions of views all the time.   I'm really glad people were interested in the fabric printing though, it's definitely exciting.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and husband walked the dog tonight after ten o'clock.  I'm not sure why they decided to walk her, but the dog loved it.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has a lot of work to do this weekend on his Mystery History project.  He asked me on the way home from school to help him schedule his time, set alarms, remind him to take some Adderall as a short-acting for the work he needs to do each day—and to make sure he gets it done.   He said he knew he'd get involved with screens and he wants help to make sure he gets the time he needs to work on his project.  

Printing On Fabric

I met someone at the recent festival that specialized in printing on fabric.  I talked to him about it a lot and it wasn’t that hard. So I came home, got some fabric and printed on it. He said videos showing this go crazy in views.  

And he was right!  I put a quick video together, not even that great a video and TikTok has gone crazy with over three million views in twenty-four hours.  Other content creators I’m friends with are now making videos about it as well, which is great.  I hope more people try it because it's perfect for cosplay. 

The Big Boy Update: I got Risk, the board game, and my son has been reading the instructions and wanting to play.  Tonight he and his father played for a good long while.  My son and I are playing Stratego.  He really loves board games, especially strategy games where you conquer things. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: my daughter wanted to “snuggle” as she calls it, on the bed, but also, could I read more of Coraline to her?  She and I had a nice little time together before she wandered off to do her own things.  

Pachinko

When I was young, my father found a Pachinko machine at a yard sale or flea market.  It worked, but there were almost no balls with it.   To have it work properly, you needed the exact size metal balls or they would get caught.  He found a place to order them from (how did people find out these things prior to the World Wide Web?) and then we had a working machine. 

I'm not sure what the goal was overall because we just played again and again and there was no real win or lose.   It was fun though.   Years later I went to Japan and went into a Pachinko parlor.  I got some tokens or put in some Yen and tried to find a machine that wasn't that expensive, something that was futile because there wasn't a thing I could understand on any of the machines. 

I must have picked poorly though because instead of having an opportunity to understand how the machine worked, my money was gone only a few balls later.   Thus ended my experience with Japanese Pachinko machines. 

The Children and Dinner time: We used to have to eat very early for the children.   These days they can wait until later for dinner or they can eat early.   I remember the days when we had to eat dinner by 5:00 because the children would be in bed two hours later.  

Ladies Can Talk

I was a guest tonight on a podcast with a very nice lady I met who goes by the name of SithLordBrit.   She is not a Sith Lord from Star Wars in an evil or bad way, she is a good sith lord, who uses the light and dark sides of the Force in balance.   In theory of course, this is all from a movie and is fiction.  But it is good fun.   After all, I am someone who tells stories about spools of plastic being printed through little robots who print the plastic into various shapes. 

But we're tired now. It was a successful stream. I think there were a lot more people than usually come to her streams.  There was a gentleman whom I met at ERRF who has known of me since we started FIlament Stories.  He likes us and what we do with the vidoes and he seems to have a soft spot for me because I also work with one of his close friends on his model designs.   I can't explain it I suppose without making it seem inappropriate, which is is not.  

 

It is odd though that there are people who are well known in the community come to a show where I am and want to hear what I have to say.  I know I've said these kinds of things before.  I suppose it isn't any different than what anyone else has ever experienced.   It's the imposter syndrome.  The "This can't be me" feeling.  And I know I keep talking about it, but it's just oddly disconcerting.   You're a place and suddenly people you don't know are happy to see you.   That kind of odd.   It's nice that people are happy to see you, but was that what you expected?  Or wanted? 

And then you remember, "ah yes, I signed up for this and any other strangeness that might happen when I started putting my face, voice, and personality on the Internet."  So there you have it.  People so far have been very friendly and I haven't had any negativity to speak of, but that follows with how I present things for the most part.  I'm not contentious and I try to be as positive and inclusive whenever I can. 

A strange thing happened tonight.  A name I recognized was in the chat.  This was way off-topic from this person being in this particular stream on a platform other than the one I met him on.   He tried to get in contact with me several times on TikTok, which is difficult if you aren't also following the person back: they aren't allowed to send you a private message.  I friended him, one of the first accounts after starting Filament Stories.  He was going through gender reassignment surgery and had had multiple jaw surgeries. He had rather extensive scans of his skull and wanted to know if I could 3D print his skull.   I told him if he could get me printable files I'd be glad to. 

Since then, his videos pop up in my feed from time to time.  He has never done anything related to 3D printing, so when he was in the stream tonight I called out his name and told him I was still up for printing his skull if he could get it in a printable format.   And he remembered me and said he hadn't forgotten, but it had been challenging to get the scans formatted correctly.   What a wild thing to have to happen in a stream.  I do hope he gets me something I can print.  It would be really interesting to print someone's actual skull shape.  

The Children Wrastling:  My children are getting more and more physical lately.  They both like being rough with the each other some of the time.  The rest of the time only one wants to be bounced on or say on or whatever and things end in angry words.   But at least my daughter wants to play rough some of the time, which is better than her zero interest last year. 

Halloween + Okay (I think)

First off, Happy Halloween!  Our family loves Halloween.   The children were a Raven Witch (my daughter) and a Plague Doctor (my son).  I was a farm girl who was handing out inoculations (to the members of our community over twenty-one years of age.  

[assume country girl with southern accent affectation] Do you remember that mad cow disease from a while back?  Well, the cows got mad again.   So on my farm, we have been working to perfect an inoculation.  We did this in a cleanroom environment what with our gloves and masks on so as to keep everyone safe.  I told them they had to put some strawberry flavor in it because people just weren't going to drink any old inoculation.  I have two sizes available in case you think you need a larger dose. [end affectation]

The drink was a bottled strawberry margarita mix from the grocery store.  People like it.  I tasted it, and it was pretty good.  I used all the premade ones up and had to make more in the latter portion of the night.  I also had "some for the little children that are from that Motts Apple Farm down the street," which parents knew meant Motts apple juice.  Those went quickly.  I only made ten of those.

My husband pulled off the Halloween event for the neighborhood with some help, but he does the majority himself with running the competitions, getting the prizes, setting up the tables and tents with some help, and then tallying the results at the end of the night, which is what he's doing while I type this. 

My mother-in-law helped hand out the candy and my father-in-law helped walk around with my daughter. My son disappeared and was off with friends at record speeds.

The dog is walking on her leg again.  I don't know what happened, but if she doesn't have a torn ligament, I am hugely relieved. 

The Big Boy Update:  At the end of the night my son walked into the house and six or seven boys came in after him.   My alarm bells started going off and then I told myself to calm down, we are wanting to have children want to be at our house so we know what's going on in our children's lives.   If we expect that to happen in the future, we need to embrace it starting back up like it used to be pre-COVID-19

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted to go around the neighborhood with Ashley.  I sent a message to Ashley's mother.  Ashley was in a competition with her brother to see who could collect the most candy.   That wasn't going to work with my daughter because speed is not your friend when you're blind.   I told Ashley's mother that we'd tell my daughter Ashley already had plans.   It's not fair to ask Ashley to change her plans.  It worked out though as my daughter and Ashley played a lot before trick-or-treating.

Torn Ligament?

Yesterday we went to the symphony.   When we came home, the dog wasn't putting her back, right leg down.   It persisted and today I called many, many places, trying to get someone to look at my dog to see if she had a dislocated patella.   It presented like that's what it was, and when we arrived at the seventh place I had tried, they thought that was the best guess too.  

Prior to running X-ray on her the doctor palpated her leg.   She looked up and said after a bit of time moving the dog's leg about, something that Matisse tolerated admirably, that she didn't think it was a dislocated patella.  That would have been her first guess and it still could be that, but she may have torn her cruciate ligament.   

There wasn't much to do on Sunday at this point other than pay the bill, take the NSAID/pain medication and take the dog home.   She seems to feel a little bit better, but not a lot.   I need to follow up with her veterinarian tomorrow to have her looked over more thoroughly. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son had no screens today—except for when he lied to my face about having no screens when I was almost certain he had one in his bed because he doesn't mid-day nap.   He needs to build trust back.   We're not getting through right now.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has a tactile pumpkin with a spider nose, golf balls for eyes, gourd halves for ears, spaghetti for hair, carrots for horns,  She is entering the contest for her age group for most creative pumpkin.   Hers is pretty good, I have to admit it's better than my pumpkins at her age.

Angry Child

My husband is currently sitting in a chair in our living room.  He is upset about my son's behavior.  My son is getting in trouble a lot lately for his behavior.   Some of it. a lot of it is for not following basic rules like no eating in the living room or upstairs.   He fully admits he doesn't follow the rules because he thinks they are dumb and unnecessary.  So he gets in trouble a lot, which means negative feedback from us, a lot. 

He doesn't comply with instructions regularly.   "Turn the television off, we have to go." can be said multiple times and then we get angry, take the controller and turn the television off.   And then my son gets extremely angry at us.  More negative feedback from us, but he brought it on himself.   We keep our voices calm, he loses it. 

Then there is the aggressive behavior.   Today we were going to the symphony with my mother-in-law.  My son had been behaving badly before we left and had lost his mind at us because we requested he do something outrageously unfair: put on clothes and turn off the television.   In the car he wouldn't leave his sister alone.  He poked and prodded her.  He pestered her.  My mother-in-law told him multiple times to stop.  She was nice, she tried different options, she used distraction techniques.   It didn't work on him, he just wanted to be mean. 

He's getting lots of negative feedback, which we don't like giving. He's intentionally breaking rules because he doesn't think he needs to follow them.   And when he gets in trouble, he lashes out at whatever he can, which many times is his sister.   What are we doing wrong?   We're worried about the person he's becoming.  Is this a phase?  Is this normal?  He's not nice.   I know he's trying to be independent from us, and that's good, but he's going about it in the complete wrong way.  We would give him more autonomy if he showed he deserved it.  Unfortunately, he's losing it instead of gaining it. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Our builder came over today and brought his young daughter over.   They came to see the 3D printing things and we gave her lots of models to take home.   My daughter really liked meeting Vivi.   My daughter is such a good host and loves to make new friends. 

We Used to Be Tidy

I was the person who never went to sleep without the house being completely "spit spot" as Mary Poppins called it.   Everything had a place and everything was in its place.  

Then, I was on a call.   That call went until midnight.   Then one of the attendees asked if I could help along with another attendee with their website with some feedback.  It is now 1:48am and I have to get to sleep because we have our builder coming over at noon tomorrow and the house is still a wreck.   Or wreck in way I feel like it's a wreck.   It's not bad, but it isn't what I'd like it to be for a first impression. 

They Didn't Want To Clean Their Rooms:  Both children didn't.   They did, though.  I explained that not inviting them into their rooms was not an option.  My children think their parents live only to make their lives hard.