We have an Amazon Echo in our kitchen. If you haven’t heard about it, it’s a black cylinder that does things when you ask it questions starting with the word, “Alexa…” Alexa can do many amazing things and we don’t even begin to take full advantage of her, but she does do a few things we do all the time in our house.
The top three are asking Alexa to play some song or music. My children don’t quite have the vocal range for Alexa to understand them but sometimes they get lucky. I also use Alexa to play my audio book from Audible. I get in the car and play my book over Bluetooth and then come in the house and say, “Alexa, play my audio book.” She knows what my current audio book is, figures out the last location I was listening to and picks up where I left off.
The third thing we use Alexa for is to add things to the shopping list. Anyone—including the children—can ask Alexa to add something to the shopping list. That list is available whenever my husband or I go to the store and as a result, we’re always on top of our shopping needs.
Alexa has become pretty useful as far as I’m concerned. I sometimes even forget where I am and don’t remember that the radio in the car does, in fact, respond to voice commands when I press the button, but isn’t named Alexa. I was driving along with my daughter in the back seat, held down the voice command button in the Tesla and said, “Alexa, play Piano Man by Billy Joel”. The car did nothing, not understanding me. My daughter said from the back seat, “Mom, Alexa isn’t in the car.”
The Big Boy Update: At dinner two nights ago we were asking my son about his day at school. After too many questions he said, “can we just not talk about that right now?”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I reminded my daughter to wipe her mouth after finishing her meal and she could be excused. She wiped and then said, “do I look clean and shiny?”
Monday, February 29, 2016
Sunday, February 28, 2016
The Motor Club Meet-up
There are more Tesla cars sold every month. Before we bought ours I don’t think I’d ever seen one on the road. After we had ours, seeing one a week was about average (and I was looking). Now, only a year-and-a-half later, I commonly see multiple per day. My husband told me there was a local group of Tesla owners that would be meeting after lunch on Saturday and did I want to go?
I called my mother to see if she could watch the children and we planned to go. We didn’t know how many people would show up, but it was an opportunity to talk with other owners and discuss the company and cars.
We arrived and watched as overall about ten Tesla cars pulled up. Every car that arrived was a Model S car. This wasn’t overly surprising: the Roadster only had about two-thousand ever produced and the Model X has probably had only about thousand delivered. So here’s the interesting thing about our little group on Saturday: we all had the same car.
Yes, there were differences in color. But you could see that and the leather color when the car drove up. There were some wheel options also visible from the exterior. The cars have had a variety of battery sizes and performance options, but you can tell that from the number and letter(s) on the back of the car and for the most part it’s just fast versus even-faster. So what did we all do for the next two hours? We stood around and talked.
Several owners popped open their trunks because they had the rear-facing child seats from Tesla Motors which are interesting and different from most car seat configurations. Other than that we talked about when people purchased their cars and if they were pre- or post-autopilot hardware. It was east to tell because you could look at the front of the car and see one of the sensors whereas on our car (pre-autopilot) we have a smooth span of plastic.
The only “driving” of the cars was done via a) the key fob to “summon” the car towards them or b) via the phone app. Oh, and then there were autopilot parking demonstrations: press the park button, select park forwards or backwards and exit the car while your car parks smoothly, cleanly and perfectly accurately between two other cars.
Every person we met was friendly and kind. There were several couples and some with children (who were decidedly not as interested in the cars as the adults were.) I think we’ll go back next meeting to see if anyone has a Model X because I’d love to get a chance to see one.
The Big Boy Update: I don’t know what precipitated it but my son came into the kitchen this morning and said, “mom, I don’t want to move from this house.” I told him we didn’t have any plans to, that we loved our house. He said that was good because he wanted to live here forever. I told him someday he might grow up and want to live somewhere else and had he thought about interesting places he might want to see? He said, “what about the Statue of Liberty?” I told him that was in New York and that would be a great place to see someday.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter played the teacher game with Mimi today. She and Mimi did a lot of pretend play regarding school and teachers. My mother remarked how my daughter has gotten much more interested in imaginative play lately. I think it was about this time last year when my son, eleven months older, exhibited the same burst in his imagination.
I called my mother to see if she could watch the children and we planned to go. We didn’t know how many people would show up, but it was an opportunity to talk with other owners and discuss the company and cars.
We arrived and watched as overall about ten Tesla cars pulled up. Every car that arrived was a Model S car. This wasn’t overly surprising: the Roadster only had about two-thousand ever produced and the Model X has probably had only about thousand delivered. So here’s the interesting thing about our little group on Saturday: we all had the same car.
Yes, there were differences in color. But you could see that and the leather color when the car drove up. There were some wheel options also visible from the exterior. The cars have had a variety of battery sizes and performance options, but you can tell that from the number and letter(s) on the back of the car and for the most part it’s just fast versus even-faster. So what did we all do for the next two hours? We stood around and talked.
Several owners popped open their trunks because they had the rear-facing child seats from Tesla Motors which are interesting and different from most car seat configurations. Other than that we talked about when people purchased their cars and if they were pre- or post-autopilot hardware. It was east to tell because you could look at the front of the car and see one of the sensors whereas on our car (pre-autopilot) we have a smooth span of plastic.
The only “driving” of the cars was done via a) the key fob to “summon” the car towards them or b) via the phone app. Oh, and then there were autopilot parking demonstrations: press the park button, select park forwards or backwards and exit the car while your car parks smoothly, cleanly and perfectly accurately between two other cars.
Every person we met was friendly and kind. There were several couples and some with children (who were decidedly not as interested in the cars as the adults were.) I think we’ll go back next meeting to see if anyone has a Model X because I’d love to get a chance to see one.
The Big Boy Update: I don’t know what precipitated it but my son came into the kitchen this morning and said, “mom, I don’t want to move from this house.” I told him we didn’t have any plans to, that we loved our house. He said that was good because he wanted to live here forever. I told him someday he might grow up and want to live somewhere else and had he thought about interesting places he might want to see? He said, “what about the Statue of Liberty?” I told him that was in New York and that would be a great place to see someday.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter played the teacher game with Mimi today. She and Mimi did a lot of pretend play regarding school and teachers. My mother remarked how my daughter has gotten much more interested in imaginative play lately. I think it was about this time last year when my son, eleven months older, exhibited the same burst in his imagination.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Lunch or Dinner?
My children seem to have acquired a new confusion of late. For some reason they’re not sure if it’s dinner or lunch when we sit down to eat. Historically, we spent time together as a family both at lunch and dinner. Since the summer camps and the start of the school year they both take a lunch to school and have lunch with their teachers and friends on weekdays.
So recently we’ve served dinner and have started eating and one of the children will ask. “is it lunch or dinner?” We let them know its dinner and ask if they remember having lunch at school—a question the consistently ignore. They don’t seem to be overly bothered by their meal confusion in the slightest.
Are the days going too fast or too slowly for them to cause their confusion? I can’t remember how time flowed when I was a child.
The Big Boy Update: My son played with Legos almost the entire day today. He showed them to Mimi when she spent time with him this afternoon and then showed them to Tristan, our sitter, when he arrived just before dinner. You can tell he’s imagining so many things as he plays with the little characters and pieces. Today he asked if he could go into the craft room to get something. It turns out he wanted to get Darth Vader from the Imperial Cruiser and then add a second light saber to him so he could integrate him with the other characters he already had in play downstairs.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I don’t usually post pictures of my children but tonight I’m going to make an exception. This is one of my daughter’s favorite things to do: photocopying her hands on the printer. Usually we get her hands in the picture but today she featured the sleeves of a dress Mimi got her over a year ago. This dress has been through so many paint, marker, dirt and play cycles it’s nearly in tatters, but she loves it still and keeps selecting it to wear when it’s clean. Artistic, no?
So recently we’ve served dinner and have started eating and one of the children will ask. “is it lunch or dinner?” We let them know its dinner and ask if they remember having lunch at school—a question the consistently ignore. They don’t seem to be overly bothered by their meal confusion in the slightest.
Are the days going too fast or too slowly for them to cause their confusion? I can’t remember how time flowed when I was a child.
The Big Boy Update: My son played with Legos almost the entire day today. He showed them to Mimi when she spent time with him this afternoon and then showed them to Tristan, our sitter, when he arrived just before dinner. You can tell he’s imagining so many things as he plays with the little characters and pieces. Today he asked if he could go into the craft room to get something. It turns out he wanted to get Darth Vader from the Imperial Cruiser and then add a second light saber to him so he could integrate him with the other characters he already had in play downstairs.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I don’t usually post pictures of my children but tonight I’m going to make an exception. This is one of my daughter’s favorite things to do: photocopying her hands on the printer. Usually we get her hands in the picture but today she featured the sleeves of a dress Mimi got her over a year ago. This dress has been through so many paint, marker, dirt and play cycles it’s nearly in tatters, but she loves it still and keeps selecting it to wear when it’s clean. Artistic, no?
Friday, February 26, 2016
Out or In?
My cousin and I were talking the other day after we’d been to the fitness room. As we stood in the kitchen talking we realized we had something in common: we’d both rather go out for dinner than eat in. I find going out to dinner so easy: you drive somewhere, place an order, food arrives at your table and then someone else cleans it all up. There are no dishes or pots and pans to wash and the leftovers are minimal if you order the right amount of food.
My husband, on the other hand, prefers to eat in. Eating in, and more to the point, cooking, eating in, cleaning up and storing leftovers is what he prefers. In part, it’s because he likes to cook. He likes to cook and even experiment with cooking new and different things. It just seems like so much work to me. The amount of effort involved in doing all the things associated with getting ingredients at the store, making a recipe, serving it, cleaning up the dishes and cookware and putting the kitchen back to rights is far more effort mentally than driving to some friendly restaurant, or so it seems to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I like my husband’s cooking, it’s just sometimes I want to go out. And sometimes he just doesn’t want to go out. I suppose it’s a good balance: we eat out and in in equal measure.
The Big Boy Update: My son has very little interest in drawing. He’ll doodle zombies on thank you cards, but he doesn’t show much interest in translating something three-dimensional into a two-dimensional representation on paper. He is more interested in three-dimensional things like blocks, Legos or any other building tool.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has been doing a lot of drawing lately. She has a remarkable memory for what things look like. Or at least we think she does since she can’t see anything clearly from more than two inches away. She can tell you exactly what she’s drawn too, and much of it, while crude, does look like what she was aiming to draw.
My husband, on the other hand, prefers to eat in. Eating in, and more to the point, cooking, eating in, cleaning up and storing leftovers is what he prefers. In part, it’s because he likes to cook. He likes to cook and even experiment with cooking new and different things. It just seems like so much work to me. The amount of effort involved in doing all the things associated with getting ingredients at the store, making a recipe, serving it, cleaning up the dishes and cookware and putting the kitchen back to rights is far more effort mentally than driving to some friendly restaurant, or so it seems to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I like my husband’s cooking, it’s just sometimes I want to go out. And sometimes he just doesn’t want to go out. I suppose it’s a good balance: we eat out and in in equal measure.
The Big Boy Update: My son has very little interest in drawing. He’ll doodle zombies on thank you cards, but he doesn’t show much interest in translating something three-dimensional into a two-dimensional representation on paper. He is more interested in three-dimensional things like blocks, Legos or any other building tool.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has been doing a lot of drawing lately. She has a remarkable memory for what things look like. Or at least we think she does since she can’t see anything clearly from more than two inches away. She can tell you exactly what she’s drawn too, and much of it, while crude, does look like what she was aiming to draw.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
When They Say Those Things
I always think of Art Linkletter’s “Kids Say The Darnedest Things” when I do one of my kids-only posts. Tonight I have several things they’ve said lately that have made me laugh (or cringe), so here goes:
The Big Boy Update(s):
My son was eating pasta last week and he was having a challenging time keeping the spaghetti on his fork. He was pretty hungry and not being able to get the food into his mouth fast enough was making him irritable. He complained loudly, “why does nothing listen to me!”
There have been a lot of Legos around over the past several weeks. My son has his own little table downstairs now, covered in Legos. He had been happily working for a long time on something when he came in and told me he’d built something with his Legos. I asked, “can I see it?” He thought about it for a second and then said, “I’ll go repair it” and then left.
I got a replica of the metal spinning top from the movie Inception the other day. My husband and I were spinning it and were busy marveling at how long it would spin before falling. One of us said, “that is the best top ever” My son looked over at the thing on the counter and said, “no, it’s the best bottom ever.”
Before Tae Kwon Do this evening we put on Star Wars for my son. My mother was in the room with him so she started reading the scrolling words out since he can’t yet read. After a bit my son said, “all of those words are just making me exhausted.”
The Tiny Girl Episodic Chronicles:
<Mental Image Warning> My daughter was on the potty this morning. I asked if she was finished (so I could wipe) and she told me no. This went on for several more queries from me. Finally she said, “mom, I think my butt’s empty.”
On the way to school my daughter decided to read a book to us. She “reads” books by telling us a story, usually something currently on her mind. The title of this book was, “I’m In Charge of My Body” (Guess who had just gotten in trouble and this was the reprisal message?)
And on the not so funny side, last night while I read a story to my son my daughter wasn’t paying attention. Normally I’d ask her to sit on the bed with us and listen, but in this case I read on and watched. She was taking a grey stuffed animal and throwing it up in the air and watching where it landed. She is a terrible thrower, having very little control at all over direction and distance. But she was able to find the grey small animal on the cream carpet every time. I hope this is a good sign.
The Big Boy Update(s):
My son was eating pasta last week and he was having a challenging time keeping the spaghetti on his fork. He was pretty hungry and not being able to get the food into his mouth fast enough was making him irritable. He complained loudly, “why does nothing listen to me!”
There have been a lot of Legos around over the past several weeks. My son has his own little table downstairs now, covered in Legos. He had been happily working for a long time on something when he came in and told me he’d built something with his Legos. I asked, “can I see it?” He thought about it for a second and then said, “I’ll go repair it” and then left.
I got a replica of the metal spinning top from the movie Inception the other day. My husband and I were spinning it and were busy marveling at how long it would spin before falling. One of us said, “that is the best top ever” My son looked over at the thing on the counter and said, “no, it’s the best bottom ever.”
Before Tae Kwon Do this evening we put on Star Wars for my son. My mother was in the room with him so she started reading the scrolling words out since he can’t yet read. After a bit my son said, “all of those words are just making me exhausted.”
The Tiny Girl Episodic Chronicles:
<Mental Image Warning> My daughter was on the potty this morning. I asked if she was finished (so I could wipe) and she told me no. This went on for several more queries from me. Finally she said, “mom, I think my butt’s empty.”
On the way to school my daughter decided to read a book to us. She “reads” books by telling us a story, usually something currently on her mind. The title of this book was, “I’m In Charge of My Body” (Guess who had just gotten in trouble and this was the reprisal message?)
And on the not so funny side, last night while I read a story to my son my daughter wasn’t paying attention. Normally I’d ask her to sit on the bed with us and listen, but in this case I read on and watched. She was taking a grey stuffed animal and throwing it up in the air and watching where it landed. She is a terrible thrower, having very little control at all over direction and distance. But she was able to find the grey small animal on the cream carpet every time. I hope this is a good sign.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Messy and Tidy
The Big Boy Messy Update: My son doesn’t care where the food goes, as long as the parts he cars about going into his mouth. He doesn’t like to lean over his plate to eat, preferring to push he plate back from the edge of the table so more food debris can land on the table itself. He leans back while he eats and gets crumbs everywhere. The dog loves him above all others for this reason alone. Only this morning I had a discussion with him about eating the cinnamon toast with the cinnamon side facing up so more got in his stomach and less on the floor.
And let’s talk about napkins. Shirts are not napkins—but my son can’t seem to remember this. Pants are not napkins—only my son seems to insist they are. He has been threatened, reminded, cajoled bribed and punished in the hopes that napkin use might become a habit but we have so far met with failure.
The Tiny Girl Tidy Chronicles: My daughter likes to eat very carefully over her plate. She leans forward and tries to get the food into her mouth. There is a bit of a visual issue going on but since the food is necessarily close to her face in order to be eaten, she is usually able to see it quite well. She can eat spaghetti with a fork and get large amounts easily into her mouth. She is good with ice cream too, losing very little down the sides of her mouth.
But let’s talk about napkins. She has an obsession with them. She has a need to keep her hands clean between bites. If the food is messy or is finger food, she’s even more aware of the need for napkins—and this means needing a lot of napkins. She will go through several cloths or a collection of paper napkins in a meal if you let her.
Fitness Update: I ran with my cousin today in our fitness room. School was let out early due to high winds, thunderstorms and possible tornados. We got some rain, very little wind and some nice sunshine for what was predicted as a terrible, awful day. It was highly localized so there was bad weather, it just wasn’t where I was. At any rate, to be safe from the drizzle and partly cloudy weather my cousin and I ran on the treadmills in the fitness room. It was fun because we could run at different paces and we sped up and slowed down at different times.
And let’s talk about napkins. Shirts are not napkins—but my son can’t seem to remember this. Pants are not napkins—only my son seems to insist they are. He has been threatened, reminded, cajoled bribed and punished in the hopes that napkin use might become a habit but we have so far met with failure.
The Tiny Girl Tidy Chronicles: My daughter likes to eat very carefully over her plate. She leans forward and tries to get the food into her mouth. There is a bit of a visual issue going on but since the food is necessarily close to her face in order to be eaten, she is usually able to see it quite well. She can eat spaghetti with a fork and get large amounts easily into her mouth. She is good with ice cream too, losing very little down the sides of her mouth.
But let’s talk about napkins. She has an obsession with them. She has a need to keep her hands clean between bites. If the food is messy or is finger food, she’s even more aware of the need for napkins—and this means needing a lot of napkins. She will go through several cloths or a collection of paper napkins in a meal if you let her.
Fitness Update: I ran with my cousin today in our fitness room. School was let out early due to high winds, thunderstorms and possible tornados. We got some rain, very little wind and some nice sunshine for what was predicted as a terrible, awful day. It was highly localized so there was bad weather, it just wasn’t where I was. At any rate, to be safe from the drizzle and partly cloudy weather my cousin and I ran on the treadmills in the fitness room. It was fun because we could run at different paces and we sped up and slowed down at different times.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
The Oreo Experiment
I found a puzzle we’d been given by some friends a few years ago called Oreo Matching’ Middles. They were fairly easy for my children to do so I’d put them away, saving them for kitchen play at some point in the future but when I saw them this afternoon I realized they might be good for my daughter to try to do with her vision. Here’s what they look like:
You find the two matching halves and put the shapes together. Finding the shapes is the first thing a child can do, then figuring out how to rotationally align them is the second thing they master. For my daughter what makes them challenging is the lack of contrast on the non-filling side. I was wondering how she’d do with them because while she seems to have abysmal vision in some aspects, there are other things she seems to do quite well with.
For example, if she lost something on the floor, several months ago she was completely unable to find it unless she happened upon it. Now, she seems to be able to visually see things in some cases, although she also uses her hands only to find things other times. That goes with the “rapidly fluctuating vision” we’ve all noticed though.
With the Oreo puzzle pieces, she would pick up one of the pieces like the brown-side moon and bring it about one-and-a-half inches from her left eye and just below the eye. She’d say, “moon!” and then try and find the matching moon in the white and brown pieces. She was able to do this with great success, even though it was necessarily slow because she couldn’t see anything from a distance and had to bring every single piece to her eye to check.
What was surprising was her ability to see the shapes at all on the brown only sides. What has been noticed by the visually impaired specialists and her play therapist is high contrast is easier for her to see. Perhaps something is getting slightly better in her left eye.
What has not changed (that I can tell) is her ability to see anything as a whole, such as a complete picture. She does best with small items up close or very large things such as people and rooms for navigating around. I’ll take any improvement though over her current vision.
The Big Boy Update: Spider-Man got killed today in our house. My son got an inflatable Spider-Man during the week of the state fair and he’s been around and about the house ever since that week last October. He’s about the height of my son and for some reason (don’t ask me why) there’s a squeaker inside him. I was tidying up their play room today and the dog heard him squeak and got excited about him. I laughed as she tried to attack him (and failed) and then I put him in the bonus room so I could keep cleaning up. Later in the afternoon Whittaker came over and my son and he were busy doing something with swords. After getting kicked out of the room with my daughter and Whittaker’s sister, they decided to attack Spider-Man. I came around the corner to see them body slamming Spider-Man and taking turns seeing who could pummel him the most. Not surprisingly, Spider-Man didn’t make it. My son and Whittaker were rather proud of their victory over “good” I’m pretty sure.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter isn’t the most helpful when you ask her how her vision is. Today I asked her if she was able to see things better when she was lying on her back watching the iPad. We have to keep it at a certain distance away from her face (meaning a certain distance close to her face) for her to see things. Typically it’s between one and three inches. Today I thought she might have had me adjust it a little further away. When I asked if she could see better she told me, “yes” but that may have been her telling me what she thinks I want to hear.
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