My son has a peanut allergy. It’s not a bad one, but its annoying when it happens (to him). We keep Benadryl and Calagel in the car and from time to time have to use it. But it’s sometimes a mystery why he has a reaction. Sometime it isn’t immediate but whenever he reacts, he gets hives on his face in a few minutes and everything itches.
He has no breathing problems—never has. I asked him again tonight just to be sure. I asked, because he had a rather immediate reaction tonight to dinner dad made that had only a few ingredients. It was fresh red snapper fish from Whole Foods, lemon, salt, pepper and paprika. That’s it. But man did he react.
My son loves all kinds of fish and shellfish. Was it the red snapper? Something affected him for sure. He couldn’t eat dinner for about a half hour until the reaction calmed down. And then we fed him something other than red snapper…
The Big Boy Update: My son never gets upset when he has an allergic reaction. This time he was on the counter in the bathroom looking at his face, waiting to see if it broke out in hives. Then—when it did—he wanted me to take pictures of it so he could see how much better it was ten minutes later.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter came in from school to find me on the phone with my best friend. It’s a good thing I was finishing the call because my daughter came bouncing in to the pool, rolling on her purple yoga ball, saying, “mama, I have no patients!”
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Monday, July 30, 2018
Force of Habit
This morning I left the house before the children were awake for my mammogram appointment. I had to plan for this appointment last night. I was lying in bed, almost asleep, and I realized I’d forgotten something important about this morning so I got up and made sure I had it done.
What had I done? I’d taken the key to my care out of my purse. I did this because if I hadn’t, I probably would have driven off in my car in the morning, forgetting I needed to take my husband’s car so he could drop my car off for service while I was at the dentist’s office (after the mammogram stop).
It’s just a force of habit. That, or I just really like my car. I’ve done it before—left the house, been to school to drop the children off when my husband calls me saying I’ve taken the wrong car. But this time I was going to be prepared. I had plans. If I didn’t have the key to my car in my purse when I walked out to the garage in the morning I would hopefully remember I was suppose to be in the other car.
And it worked too. I walked into the garage, hit my garage door button and started walking towards the car door when I remembered. Creature of habit, or at least with my car I am.
The Big Boy Update: My son is having some screen separation issues. He’s having an opportunity to do more screen time than he typically would have as it’s summer. He’s going to have a few days off to see if he can reset some.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter is over the fear of the eye pressure tool. Which is a big relief since we had to take her to the OR recently to get an accurate pressure. Today I think Dr. Grace must have checked it fifty times in one eye and more in the other. My daughter’s only difficulty was in trying to look forward and not roll her eyes. Her right eye is rolled almost all the time so getting to a spot where you can see pupil is difficult. She didn’t seem to mind the pressure check at all though, which is good as it makes things a lot easier since she’s had and will continue to have pressure issues.
What had I done? I’d taken the key to my care out of my purse. I did this because if I hadn’t, I probably would have driven off in my car in the morning, forgetting I needed to take my husband’s car so he could drop my car off for service while I was at the dentist’s office (after the mammogram stop).
It’s just a force of habit. That, or I just really like my car. I’ve done it before—left the house, been to school to drop the children off when my husband calls me saying I’ve taken the wrong car. But this time I was going to be prepared. I had plans. If I didn’t have the key to my car in my purse when I walked out to the garage in the morning I would hopefully remember I was suppose to be in the other car.
And it worked too. I walked into the garage, hit my garage door button and started walking towards the car door when I remembered. Creature of habit, or at least with my car I am.
The Big Boy Update: My son is having some screen separation issues. He’s having an opportunity to do more screen time than he typically would have as it’s summer. He’s going to have a few days off to see if he can reset some.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter is over the fear of the eye pressure tool. Which is a big relief since we had to take her to the OR recently to get an accurate pressure. Today I think Dr. Grace must have checked it fifty times in one eye and more in the other. My daughter’s only difficulty was in trying to look forward and not roll her eyes. Her right eye is rolled almost all the time so getting to a spot where you can see pupil is difficult. She didn’t seem to mind the pressure check at all though, which is good as it makes things a lot easier since she’s had and will continue to have pressure issues.
Sunday, July 29, 2018
The Wink
My daughter and son fight. Sometimes. Sometimes they get along just fine, but you know what it’s like with siblings. I mean, I don’t know what it’s like on account of being an only child, but I hear fighting is part of the package.
My children sleep in the same room and don’t like it when the other one is away for the night. They get up in the morning and work together, playing different things, using their imagination. But they irritate the mess out of each other. My son is great at irritating his sister and she’s great at provoking him to do so. My daughter has impressive skills in tattling on her brother while he’s good at pretending like he has no idea while she’s so upset.
But on the whole, my son does get more in the way of corrections from us than my daughter does. This is in large part because he can be aggressive when it’s not called for, doesn’t listen when we tell him things and gets distracted and off task and doesn’t get things done when they need to be without repeated reminders.
And he irritates his easily irritable sister. She’s been dealing with trauma after trauma with the repeated loss of vision and the continual medical interventions so we give her a little break on things sometimes, but it’s still not fair to my son if the parenting is out of balance.
But I’ve found a way to give him an advantage sometimes. To let him know he’s special to me and that we have our little secrets together. All it takes is a wink.
There are times when both children are with me and we’re talking about something. My daughter wants to be the first to have a cookie or doesn’t want to tell my son about the plans for going out to dinner. He will get ready to get upset but stops when he sees me wink at him and mouth, “I’ll get you one in a minute” or “I’ll tell you about dinner.”
I smile this big smile at him because it’s a secret he and I are sharing together. And it makes him feel special. He’s started doing it back to me now; little things his sister wouldn’t notice about if we kept quiet about it. It’s very charming. I love it when he gives me that knowing smile and winks at me.
The Big Boy Update: My son has been doing homework every day this summer with the exception of one travel day. That’s seven days a week. He doesn’t really look forward to it, but he’s getting better at writing and reading as a result. I found a mechanical pencil and he’s been enjoying using it, clicking it up, breaking the graphite stick (accidentally) and then explaining how it doesn’t work anymore. I found replacement graphite in the back of a drawer, thankfully, so he could finish his homework tonight.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter found a caterpillar today. She came downstairs with it carefully nestled in her hands. I took some pictures of it for her while my husband drilled holes in the lid of a jar. They made it a little environment of leaves and water in the jar. We’ll see what he’s eaten tomorrow.
My children sleep in the same room and don’t like it when the other one is away for the night. They get up in the morning and work together, playing different things, using their imagination. But they irritate the mess out of each other. My son is great at irritating his sister and she’s great at provoking him to do so. My daughter has impressive skills in tattling on her brother while he’s good at pretending like he has no idea while she’s so upset.
But on the whole, my son does get more in the way of corrections from us than my daughter does. This is in large part because he can be aggressive when it’s not called for, doesn’t listen when we tell him things and gets distracted and off task and doesn’t get things done when they need to be without repeated reminders.
And he irritates his easily irritable sister. She’s been dealing with trauma after trauma with the repeated loss of vision and the continual medical interventions so we give her a little break on things sometimes, but it’s still not fair to my son if the parenting is out of balance.
But I’ve found a way to give him an advantage sometimes. To let him know he’s special to me and that we have our little secrets together. All it takes is a wink.
There are times when both children are with me and we’re talking about something. My daughter wants to be the first to have a cookie or doesn’t want to tell my son about the plans for going out to dinner. He will get ready to get upset but stops when he sees me wink at him and mouth, “I’ll get you one in a minute” or “I’ll tell you about dinner.”
I smile this big smile at him because it’s a secret he and I are sharing together. And it makes him feel special. He’s started doing it back to me now; little things his sister wouldn’t notice about if we kept quiet about it. It’s very charming. I love it when he gives me that knowing smile and winks at me.
The Big Boy Update: My son has been doing homework every day this summer with the exception of one travel day. That’s seven days a week. He doesn’t really look forward to it, but he’s getting better at writing and reading as a result. I found a mechanical pencil and he’s been enjoying using it, clicking it up, breaking the graphite stick (accidentally) and then explaining how it doesn’t work anymore. I found replacement graphite in the back of a drawer, thankfully, so he could finish his homework tonight.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter found a caterpillar today. She came downstairs with it carefully nestled in her hands. I took some pictures of it for her while my husband drilled holes in the lid of a jar. They made it a little environment of leaves and water in the jar. We’ll see what he’s eaten tomorrow.
Saturday, July 28, 2018
A Faint Z
My daughter and I had lunch with her braillest from last year today. We spent a lot of time talking about braille. Mrs. Aagaard had brought a special lesson in binary numbers (because that’s how computers talk to each other, she said). We learned how to represent any number from zero to two-hundred-fifty-five using only zeroes and ones. There were flaps with braille on them we flipped up for zero and down for one. My daughter liked quizzing us on numbers.
I also got a lesson from Mrs. Aagaard. She had written up a long sentence which was, she said, rather nonsensical, but she wanted to use as many contracted single-character words as possible. My daughter wanted to feel the braille because she wanted to help me read it. Unfortunately, we told her, my lesson was printed and she couldn’t feel it.
I told my daughter when we got home from lunch I’d type it up for her. We got home and later, after dinner, I did write it up for her but what happened earlier made me laugh. I was in the kitchen cleaning up from dinner when I heard my daughter call out from her desk area, “Who wrote on my braille writer this morning?” She sounded a little upset that someone had put a piece of paper in and had then typed something and left the sheet in the brailler.
She must have been reading what was there because she said next, “there was the ABC’s and then a faint ‘z’”. I could only think of one person who was learning the ABC’s and might have used her brailler while she and I were at lunch—her father. So we asked him and he confessed. Next time, he’ll work on making his z’s less faint.
The Big Boy Update: My son went to a birthday party at a trampoline park today. The last time he was at one (two weeks ago?) he figured out how to do a roundoff back flip. Today he learned how to do a backflip without the need for a roundoff. He goes to tumbling tomorrow, I wonder what else he’s going to learn>
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter and I had a very nice lunch with her now retired braillest from last school year. Mrs. Aagaard and I also had a lot to talk about with braille and school and. you name it, but mostly braille things. At the end my daughter said in exasperation, “can we end the talking? Because I’m tired of all that.”
I also got a lesson from Mrs. Aagaard. She had written up a long sentence which was, she said, rather nonsensical, but she wanted to use as many contracted single-character words as possible. My daughter wanted to feel the braille because she wanted to help me read it. Unfortunately, we told her, my lesson was printed and she couldn’t feel it.
I told my daughter when we got home from lunch I’d type it up for her. We got home and later, after dinner, I did write it up for her but what happened earlier made me laugh. I was in the kitchen cleaning up from dinner when I heard my daughter call out from her desk area, “Who wrote on my braille writer this morning?” She sounded a little upset that someone had put a piece of paper in and had then typed something and left the sheet in the brailler.
She must have been reading what was there because she said next, “there was the ABC’s and then a faint ‘z’”. I could only think of one person who was learning the ABC’s and might have used her brailler while she and I were at lunch—her father. So we asked him and he confessed. Next time, he’ll work on making his z’s less faint.
The Big Boy Update: My son went to a birthday party at a trampoline park today. The last time he was at one (two weeks ago?) he figured out how to do a roundoff back flip. Today he learned how to do a backflip without the need for a roundoff. He goes to tumbling tomorrow, I wonder what else he’s going to learn>
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter and I had a very nice lunch with her now retired braillest from last school year. Mrs. Aagaard and I also had a lot to talk about with braille and school and. you name it, but mostly braille things. At the end my daughter said in exasperation, “can we end the talking? Because I’m tired of all that.”
Friday, July 27, 2018
Little Texter
My daughter is sending text messages now. She’s doing so in a variety of ways. The first was her telling me what to say and me typing it for her. After that, I let her bang away on the emoji page, letting her know afterwards what pictures she’d sent since she couldn’t see them herself.
The next step, which we’ve only really done once, is her using her Orbit to type a message in braille which is then translated to text within the message. That’s fun, but requires the Orbit to be with us where we are and a few extra steps to get it paired, voice over on and the message chain up.
What happened during the initial excitement with the Orbit is my daughter started a conversation with my mother. They’re playing a “guess what I’m thinking about” game where one person describes the item and then the other person guesses.
The questions aren’t adult-level complicated, but more like, “I’m thinking of a fruit that’s yellow that monkeys like.” My daughter has been making up questions for Mimi as well. They started doing some math problems after that, with my daughter asking what two bananas plus two bananas was. My daughter has been trying to trick Mimi by asking what I think she believes are impossible problems such as, “what’s one minus one million?” But Mimi’s hard to trick when it comes to math.
Then, earlier this week, my daughter realized I was talking into the phone to create a text message. I explained it was voice to text—we talk and it writes out what we said in text. She said, “oh yea, dad and Uncle Bob do that.” And I thought suddenly it would be a very easy way for her to send a message to Mimi to continue their game.
It works easily and well and there’s no setup or hardware I need other than the phone, which is on me most of the time. When she gets a little older I’m going to see if I can get her set up so she can text without me being involved. We have a children’s text message app we’ve used, but it doesn’t have the voice option, but I’m sure there’s something out there we can find.
The Big Boy Update: My son spent the morning with Snap Circuit sets he got for Christmas. He was making all sorts of projects, covering the kitchen table. He’s reading and following the directions, which wouldn’t have been possible at Christmas because his reading ability wasn’t even close.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Today was the first day of kindergarten. She had a new “taxi” driver (school transportation SUV). She was in a new class with a new teacher and a new braillest since hers retired. A lot of changes. She was a little unhappy about getting in the taxi this morning but didn’t cry or say she wasn’t going. She got home unexpectedly early as some of the other students were driven by their parents on the first day—and we weren’t home. Fortunately, Edna, who cleans our house was here. But with all that, when I got home my daughter was excited about school and told me all about it. She’s in such a good mood.
The next step, which we’ve only really done once, is her using her Orbit to type a message in braille which is then translated to text within the message. That’s fun, but requires the Orbit to be with us where we are and a few extra steps to get it paired, voice over on and the message chain up.
What happened during the initial excitement with the Orbit is my daughter started a conversation with my mother. They’re playing a “guess what I’m thinking about” game where one person describes the item and then the other person guesses.
The questions aren’t adult-level complicated, but more like, “I’m thinking of a fruit that’s yellow that monkeys like.” My daughter has been making up questions for Mimi as well. They started doing some math problems after that, with my daughter asking what two bananas plus two bananas was. My daughter has been trying to trick Mimi by asking what I think she believes are impossible problems such as, “what’s one minus one million?” But Mimi’s hard to trick when it comes to math.
Then, earlier this week, my daughter realized I was talking into the phone to create a text message. I explained it was voice to text—we talk and it writes out what we said in text. She said, “oh yea, dad and Uncle Bob do that.” And I thought suddenly it would be a very easy way for her to send a message to Mimi to continue their game.
It works easily and well and there’s no setup or hardware I need other than the phone, which is on me most of the time. When she gets a little older I’m going to see if I can get her set up so she can text without me being involved. We have a children’s text message app we’ve used, but it doesn’t have the voice option, but I’m sure there’s something out there we can find.
The Big Boy Update: My son spent the morning with Snap Circuit sets he got for Christmas. He was making all sorts of projects, covering the kitchen table. He’s reading and following the directions, which wouldn’t have been possible at Christmas because his reading ability wasn’t even close.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Today was the first day of kindergarten. She had a new “taxi” driver (school transportation SUV). She was in a new class with a new teacher and a new braillest since hers retired. A lot of changes. She was a little unhappy about getting in the taxi this morning but didn’t cry or say she wasn’t going. She got home unexpectedly early as some of the other students were driven by their parents on the first day—and we weren’t home. Fortunately, Edna, who cleans our house was here. But with all that, when I got home my daughter was excited about school and told me all about it. She’s in such a good mood.
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Embarrassed
I remember being embarrassed as a child a lot. It wasn’t when I was as young as my children are now, I don’t think I understood the concept well then but by the end of elementary school I could be embarrassed by something as simple as someone pointing out the brand of my jeans was ‘Calamity Jane’ and then laughing.
That’s a true story and one I have no idea why I remember aside from the fact that I had a crush on the guy who said it. It didn’t get any easier in junior high school and high school wasn’t much better. College was less intense as I found a peer group that didn’t care at all about what the other people at the college were doing.
Then I started working as a co-op and was the youngest person around older professionals. Perhaps my inexperience in work and life made me uncomfortably embarrassed on a regular basis. I was well-liked and friends with everyone, but there’s that little bit in your head that says you should have done this thing cooler or you definitely shouldn’t have opened your mouth and said that.
I don’t know when it ended, but I can’t remember the last time I was embarrassed. I regret saying or doing things from time to time, but for the most part, I just don’t care what people think. I’m thinking this is not an uncommon phenomenon which is otherwise known as, “getting old”.
The Big Boy Update: My son is still allergic to some food-based things. We know he has an allergy to peanuts, pecans and walnuts, all of which are not life-treating, just itchy with possible hives. But there are sometimes when he has a reaction and it can’t be pinpointed to one of those as ingredients. Tonight at dinner at a restaurant we’ve been to many, many times before, he ordered several new things. Just at the end of the meal he said his upper lip was itchy. We went to the car where I keep the Benadryl and caladryl and he was fine in a few minutes. It never stopped him from running around in the parking lot. Whatever it was was on his right hand because he scratched behind his right knee and transferred the reaction there.
The Tiny Girl Chronicle: Tonight my parents came over for dinner after being out of town for several months. My father said to my daughter, “you’ve grown a foot since the last time I’ve seen you.” My daughter said in reply, “I guess I need another shoe.”
That’s a true story and one I have no idea why I remember aside from the fact that I had a crush on the guy who said it. It didn’t get any easier in junior high school and high school wasn’t much better. College was less intense as I found a peer group that didn’t care at all about what the other people at the college were doing.
Then I started working as a co-op and was the youngest person around older professionals. Perhaps my inexperience in work and life made me uncomfortably embarrassed on a regular basis. I was well-liked and friends with everyone, but there’s that little bit in your head that says you should have done this thing cooler or you definitely shouldn’t have opened your mouth and said that.
I don’t know when it ended, but I can’t remember the last time I was embarrassed. I regret saying or doing things from time to time, but for the most part, I just don’t care what people think. I’m thinking this is not an uncommon phenomenon which is otherwise known as, “getting old”.
The Big Boy Update: My son is still allergic to some food-based things. We know he has an allergy to peanuts, pecans and walnuts, all of which are not life-treating, just itchy with possible hives. But there are sometimes when he has a reaction and it can’t be pinpointed to one of those as ingredients. Tonight at dinner at a restaurant we’ve been to many, many times before, he ordered several new things. Just at the end of the meal he said his upper lip was itchy. We went to the car where I keep the Benadryl and caladryl and he was fine in a few minutes. It never stopped him from running around in the parking lot. Whatever it was was on his right hand because he scratched behind his right knee and transferred the reaction there.
The Tiny Girl Chronicle: Tonight my parents came over for dinner after being out of town for several months. My father said to my daughter, “you’ve grown a foot since the last time I’ve seen you.” My daughter said in reply, “I guess I need another shoe.”
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
What’s That Great Smell?
We’re driving home today from visiting family in New Jersey. It’s a long day’s travel, starting with a ferry ride early in the morning. Or it was suppose to be, provided we had our alarms set and got up in time to get out of the house to make the ferry’s departure time.
I rolled over and looked at my phone: 8:07AM…when was it we were suppose to leave, I though? I woke up my husband and he said 8:30AM. So we scrambled. We had packed, but we had to get the things off the children’s bed, the children dressed, the car packed, explain to the children we had to hurry (which never seems to be important to them) and say goodbye to our family.
We made it out by 8:35AM. I bought a ticket for the 9:30AM ferry online while my husband drove. We weren’t sure if we were taking the ferry route but we’ve had traffic issues going the other route. So even though the ferry may have been the longer, it was a more relaxed route—that is if we woke up in time to make it.
The ferry departs once an hour, but we stop to change at Tesla supercharger stations and my husband likes to plan our route to stop at optimal times for meals. He’s good at the trip planning. And he’s good with the alarm setting, only we both forgot last night. Still, we made it out, said our goodbyes quickly and got on the ferry.
We ate some breakfast on the ferry, enjoyed some rocky weather on the water with light rain and then ibupwere on our way for the rest of the trip. My children’s backs were bothering them, which is a little unusual. My back was bothering me, which isn’t unusual at all. We stopped in at a RiteAid to get some ibuprofen for them. I waited in the car with my children and saw my husband come out with a bag larger than would be needed for just the bottle of ibuprofen.
My son was looking at his iPad, as was my daughter as we drove off. He pulled out from the bag a package of M&M’s and opened them. Five seconds later my daughter called out, “what’s that great smell? Is there chocolate in here?” My husband and I just laughed, because there’s not much you can get past her if it’s sound or smell related.
She now knows there are M&M’s in the car—and she loves M&M’s. We have to tell her she can’t have any more now, but she doesn’t give up easily. She piped up, “do I hear M&M’s” when my husband had some a while later. And now, as I’m writing this she’s asking, “I’m sure looking forward to having more M&M’s” followed by, “I just can’t wait for M&M’s”. And now she’s singing a song she’s made up about M&M’s.
We have three more hours of this. She’s been warned to pipe down or she won’t get any. She’s tenacious though.
The Big Boy Update: My son has turned into a very good traveller. He used to complain, be noisy and, oh yes, get car sick. We have dramamine now and we give him a half tablet if he thinks he’s not feeling well (which he tells us early on). We can travel with him all day. It’s nice.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter wanted to bring home some seaweed she found on the beach. I told her it might not be that interesting when it was all dried up, but she said she still wanted it. Today as I was packing I found the very small remainder of what’s left of seaweed once all the water has evaporated from it. I put it in her shell and packed it though.
I rolled over and looked at my phone: 8:07AM…when was it we were suppose to leave, I though? I woke up my husband and he said 8:30AM. So we scrambled. We had packed, but we had to get the things off the children’s bed, the children dressed, the car packed, explain to the children we had to hurry (which never seems to be important to them) and say goodbye to our family.
We made it out by 8:35AM. I bought a ticket for the 9:30AM ferry online while my husband drove. We weren’t sure if we were taking the ferry route but we’ve had traffic issues going the other route. So even though the ferry may have been the longer, it was a more relaxed route—that is if we woke up in time to make it.
The ferry departs once an hour, but we stop to change at Tesla supercharger stations and my husband likes to plan our route to stop at optimal times for meals. He’s good at the trip planning. And he’s good with the alarm setting, only we both forgot last night. Still, we made it out, said our goodbyes quickly and got on the ferry.
We ate some breakfast on the ferry, enjoyed some rocky weather on the water with light rain and then ibupwere on our way for the rest of the trip. My children’s backs were bothering them, which is a little unusual. My back was bothering me, which isn’t unusual at all. We stopped in at a RiteAid to get some ibuprofen for them. I waited in the car with my children and saw my husband come out with a bag larger than would be needed for just the bottle of ibuprofen.
My son was looking at his iPad, as was my daughter as we drove off. He pulled out from the bag a package of M&M’s and opened them. Five seconds later my daughter called out, “what’s that great smell? Is there chocolate in here?” My husband and I just laughed, because there’s not much you can get past her if it’s sound or smell related.
She now knows there are M&M’s in the car—and she loves M&M’s. We have to tell her she can’t have any more now, but she doesn’t give up easily. She piped up, “do I hear M&M’s” when my husband had some a while later. And now, as I’m writing this she’s asking, “I’m sure looking forward to having more M&M’s” followed by, “I just can’t wait for M&M’s”. And now she’s singing a song she’s made up about M&M’s.
We have three more hours of this. She’s been warned to pipe down or she won’t get any. She’s tenacious though.
The Big Boy Update: My son has turned into a very good traveller. He used to complain, be noisy and, oh yes, get car sick. We have dramamine now and we give him a half tablet if he thinks he’s not feeling well (which he tells us early on). We can travel with him all day. It’s nice.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter wanted to bring home some seaweed she found on the beach. I told her it might not be that interesting when it was all dried up, but she said she still wanted it. Today as I was packing I found the very small remainder of what’s left of seaweed once all the water has evaporated from it. I put it in her shell and packed it though.
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