Mom, I Don’t Get You

My daughter said that to me this evening as I asked her what she wanted to put on her fingernails for tomorrow.  She's had picked up on how my enthusiasm for things progresses.   She said, "first it was the makeup and then the hair stuff and now the nails."   And she's exactly right, let me explain...

When I get interested in something, I get really interested in it.   For instance, when the craze for the Rainbow Looms was going on, I got multiple looms and about every color band I couild find.  I was watching YouTube videos and making all sorts of creations.   This was when my children were quite young so I shelved the supplies when my interest waned for some time in the future when I'd be interested in them again.

As it turned out, my daughter was the one who got into making rubber band jewelry.   Given my expansive selection of supplies, she could jump right in—and did so, for weeks on end.   We were drowning in rubber band bracelets for a while here.

I'm like that with things:  I get interested, and by interested, I mean obsessed.   I dive deep into the thing for a while and then move on to the next thing.  In recent months this has included makeup, which I have learned how to apply reasonably, hair styling, including three dummy heads and styling tools and now, fingernail polish & decorations.

I got the idea for the fingernail (I'm going to call it decorations because it's more than just polish) from recent fads in which copious amounts of crystals adorn very long nails.  It looks entirely untenable—hugely long nails with what seemed like delicately applied crystals—but I thought I'd look into it more.  

I started watching a YouTube channel and it looked much easier than I had thought.   Some newer products helped affix large things like pearls and crystals to the nails firmly.   So I ordered some supplies on Amazon.  Supplies weren't even expensive for the most part.   And then I started messing around with my nails.  I couldn't believe it, but things stuck—and I'm notoriously rough with my fingernails.

My thought was that this was something my daughter might like.  She can't tell one color from another when it comes to fingernail polish, but she could feel different things on her fingers.   I had lots of options my daughter could select from the "bag of surprises" as she called it.

I'd collected most of the contents of this bag over many years and had just dumped anything small enough to fit on top of her fingernail into one container.   My daughter picked the largest things and I didn't have much hope they'd stay on, but they did.  Here are her hands after the first day's choices:

A few things fell off but we added more back.   Tonight she let me put on a large iridescent diamond and a pink owl on the two fingers that had come off.   Her fingers look crazy to me, but she can feel each item.  She knows she has yellow sunglasses on her pinky, a bunny rabbit, red flower and lemon. She knows every finger by feel.   It's tactile fingernail decoration, thanks to a polymer and a UV curing light.

It takes about two minutes to affix something to her fingernail and have it completely dry.  It takes longer for her to pick out things than it does to put them on.  We ran into bedtime tonight but tomorrow she's decided she wants two bears on her thumbs.

The Big Boy Update:  My son got some magnetic ball tracks for Christmas.   I don't remember the name of them but when I got home tonight the entire dining room table was covered with tracks he and Whitaker had made.   I got to modify it a bit before he came over and took over and finished the work for me, doing it his way.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wants the dog to go to bed with her.   Matisse loves getting in bed with her but doesn't want to stay the whole night so we compromise and the dog and I stay for a bit until my daughter is falling asleep.

Loving Democracy

My daughter and I went upstairs this evening before her brother did.   She and I were in the dark in her bed with the dog.   We were trying to fend off the dog's attempts to lick our faces while keeping her between us on the bed.   This proved to be difficult_not keeping her between us, that was easy, stopping her from licking our faces was hard.

The dog hopped off the bed and laid down on the bathroom tile floor to cool down.   My daughter got up and was getting the dog a bowl of water when my son bounded into the bedroom.   He, upon seeing me lying in his sister's bed, came over and whispered emphatically, "Reese loves democracy."

His father came into the room a minute or two later, told him to get into bed, told my daughter she'd given the dog enough water and to get in bed herself, discovered I was in the room and then left so I could finish the job of getting them settled for the night.

After a few minutes of chatter from the children, I asked my son, "do you like democracy too?"  He said, "well, dad really likes democracy.   I don't like it.   That's because I don't really understand it.  Dad tried to explain it."

He finished off the conversation by saying, "Palpatine loves democracy though..."  Leave it to my son to have a Star Wars reference.

The Big Boy Update:  I got a small Lego of a coffee shop from China today.   It wasn't LEGO brand but it was hard to tell otherwise, even the instruction manual followed the same diagramming style and the pieces fitted and felt the same.   My son wasn't interested until after dinner when he came over to see what I was doing.   He was suddenly back into LEGO mode and positively took over the model construction.   I started handing him pieces as fast as I could find them for one step ahead of where he was working.   I went to help his sister with some homework and came back to the room as he finished and he proudly showed me how the large coffee cup tipped on the top of the building.   I'm glad we got to do some of it together.   He gave up watching part of a movie, he was so engrossed in the model.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and I were on her bed in the dark when the dog jumped off the bed and wend underneath.   I asked her what the dog was doing?  I'd seen the behavior before where the dog roots around, moving stored blankets around under the large trundle-bed sized opening under her bed.  She had also heard (and apparently felt) what the dog was doing from before.   She said, "Oh, she's playing a little game.   She pushes up on the mattress and growls at the blankets."   That's pretty much what she does.  My daughter had figured it out mostly from sound alone.

On Getting Sick

My son's class has been talking about how germs can be spread recently.   During the season of colds and flu, his class is reminded of the measures they always take throughout the year to minimize the spread of germs.

They always wash their hands, with soap, and put the paper towels into a trash can for the paper products that are later collected and either used as bedding for some of the rodent class pets around the school or composted or are used in a way other than being sent to the dump.   Prior to eating they all wash their hands as well.

After they come inside from recess they pass around a bottle of hand sanitizer as they sit in group circle.   I think they use hand sanitizer at some other point(s) in the day but I can't remember when.  They bring hand sanitizer on field trips and in general, do what they can to protect both themselves as well as others from unneeded germ exposure.

The coughing is different from when I was a child: we used to cover our mouths with our hands.  Today, research has shown a better way to stifle germs from a sneeze is to sneeze into your elbow, letting your clothing absorb the brunt of the expelled air.

My son had thought about all of these measures and knew germs were transmitted by contact, such as on doorknobs, chairs, tables, etc.   And after thinking about all of this he asked me if his sister was more prone to getting sick—because she had to touch everything to see it.    I told him it was a good thought and I didn't know the answer.  I told him it was definitely possible, but to think about his hands and how he used them all the time.   It's hard to think of a time when our hands aren't touching anything.

The Big Boy Update:  My husband, son and I watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last night.  My son will be at the Harry Potter world in Disney soon and we thought it might be good for him to watch a few more of the movies beforehand.   He loved the movie and wants to see the next one tonight.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is currently walking the dog.   She has a backpack on with snacks, her cane and a dog on a leash.   I had to let her go.   She needs to know she can do things without help and the fact that she wanted to do this alone is a very good thing.   She's called me once already—and she's only four houses away—but she's not crying or giving up.   She just asked me if I knew where she was for direction's sake.   Also, she's in her pajamas.  

Bored

My daughter is bored, she tells me.  She had a sleepover with her best friend, Madison, last night.   She and Madison did all kinds of fun and different things from directly after school until about noon today when Madison went home.   Not five minutes later my daughter was flopping down on our bed, saying she was bored.  

I tried to come up with some suggestions but she wasn't in a good mood, didn't want to hear it and told me to, "go away."   This unkind comment got her ejected from our room.   I checked in on her ten minutes later where I found her eating a container of peaches and listening to The Neverending Story on the Alexa in the kitchen.

I tried to talk to her about finding things to do that would be fun or entertaining to her alone.   I said it must be no fun to need to have someone to do something with to be entertained.   I made some suggestions, including saying she could create her own blog that I would help her with, but nothing interested her right then.

She fell down our stairs yesterday, got a knot on her head and then later hurt her foot or ankle.   She wanted to jump on the trampoline but we talked her out of that and into some Advil to help with the inflammation.   Her father is trying to get her interested in watching (listening to) Cinderella since she was Cinderella for the special dinner at Disney.   That may work later but for now she's watching some cartoon on Disney +.

Keeping her entertained is hard.   Her brother has the opposite situation—doing things with him is something we have to ask to do.   My daughter is going to have to learn how to find meaningful things to do.  Yes, they may be harder to find because she's blind, but blind people around the globe manage this task and she will learn to do so too.

The Big Boy Update:  My husband and I have been on my son's case about watching meaningful things when he's allowed screen time.   He doesn't like this infringement on what he deems his personal free time, but we're making headway, helping him find things that are interesting to him that aren't junk YouTube videos.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and Madison created a Carnival in the back yard today.  They wanted to invite the entire neighborhood over, they were so proud of what they'd set up.  Rain and crummy weather and we weren't able to put their plan into action.   They are going to try again tomorrow.

The Wellness Check

We had the children's wellness checks today.  I got my son from school early while my husband picked up my daughter a bit before normal dismissal time.  When I got to the office they had already arrived and my daughter was in a cranky mood.   She wasn't thrilled because she'd been taken out of school early—which was a surprise all around.   She hadn't had to ride home in the stifling hot cab.  But who knows the reasons for children's moods—I certainly haven't figured them out as of yet.

The amount of commotion my family made while at the pediatrician's office seemed, well, a lot.   I asked the doctor when she was in the room with us after a while if we were anomalous in our behavior, which seemed all over the place.   She assured us it depended a lot on when in the day the appointment was and how keyed up the children were, if they needed to burn energy, were anxious or, and we had this one as a bonus: if there were siblings in the room together.

Everything went well with lots of questions asked by the doctor to both us and the children.   She checked them out and then the very most important thing that my daughter wouldn't stop asking about was when my son was going to get the flu vaccination?   It was as if we were on a long car ride in which your child repeatedly asks, "are we there yet?" and you keep saying, "not yet, but soon."

My daughter was very excited about her brother getting this flu vaccination.  She didn't know how it was going to be done, guessed it was going to hurt some but not too much.   She wasn't anxious at all about it, she was almost eager to have her brother experience some medical procedure while she had nothing done to her.   So much has happened to her medical-wise that I formulated this theory after her persistent interest.

It was finally time for the vaccination.  My son was completely fine with it beforehand.   We had talked about it hurting just a bit and then being over.  Should he look at or away from the needle?   He decided to look away on advice from his father.  After it happened, which was very quick indeed, my son said, "oh, I've experienced something like this before.  I give it a one out of ten for pain."

The Big Boy Coolness:  My son tries to play it cool a lot of times.   He wants to be cool in the eyes of his friends, peers, relatives and other adults.   But today at the pediatrician he wasn't trying to be cool about the flu shot, he really was laid back about it and not worried at all.  I was very impressed with him.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and Madison are having a sleepover in "The Secret Hideout" which is a closet in a bedroom upstairs.   I've given them the whole room as well as the bathroom and closet.   They had the dog, but she came downstairs just now, which I'm glad for, because I would miss a night without the dog in the room here with me.

Running Out Of Money

My mother picked my son up after school today to go to the mall.  My children love going to the mall with my mother.   They each do different things with her while there're there.  My daughter is eight, but she still likes to ride the little quarter rides.   They both like to eat with her in the food court and then they each have different things they like to buy.

My daughter typically comes home with a bag of candy from the store where you select candy from rows and rows of bins and pay by weight.  She eats some of the candy there, brings a piece or so home for her brother, father or me and then promptly forgets about it the next day.   She comes back to it later after I've put it in the candy bowl hidden up high, remembering every single piece she bought.

My son likes to buy a Lego set.   Something not too big, although he convinced Mimi to get him a pretty big one one time.   He loves Legos, only lately he's been into different things.  Today he came home with some Pokemon cards.   Tonight he has covered our entire island and the bar with cards in a grid pattern, separated by importance or category or color or something he deemed important.

My mother told me about a conversation she had with him on the way to the mall today.   She picked him up from school and he asked her, "Mimi, what do retired people do when they have no money?"  She wasn't sure where my son was coming from with this question so she said, "There are a lot of things they can do, first of all, they can get a job.  They could also sell some things."  My son was concerned they might sell their red truck.   He was referring to my father's "Lowes Mobile," an old Jeep he's had for a long time.  She told him she didn't think they would sell it.

My son then said, "or they could go bankrupt," referring to what retired people could do when they ran our of money.   My mother didn't know where he heard about bankruptcy but she talked to him about how retired people usually had prepared for retirement with investments or retirement plans from their jobs or the government also had something called Social Security that gave retired people money after many years of paying taxes.  

My mother said she and Gramps had prepared for retirement and would not be going bankrupt and did that help with his question?  That seemed to be what my son was looking for.   I'm glad the youngest generation in our family is thinking about the financial security of his elders.

The Big Boy Update:  After the bankruptcy and retirement conversation in the car with my mother today, my son asked her if she'd heard about the basketball player who had died.   My mother said she did.   She said my son was an interesting conversationalist.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was up at four-something-AM this morning.   Her brother was up too.  I. have no idea why, but they were making a great racket.   She fell asleep early tonight as a result.  I'm hoping we don't have another super early night/morning for tomorrow.

Some Days

Some days are good days in life.  Some days are bad days.   Some days are busy days and some days are relaxing days.   There are happy days and sad days and painful days and blissful days.   I remember Charlie Brown from when I was a child.   Lucy had figured out in a calendar year of 365 days she could have a certain number of different types of days.   I don't remember what the categories were bot they ranged from mediocre to really angry.

She had three of the worst days available for the year.   Realizing she had three of the worst days available, she decided to have one of them for today.

If I could divide the days of the year into certain types, I'm not sure what the distribution would be.   I hope it would be more good days than bad days.   But like Lucy, I'm going to take one of the negative days right now.   It's just how I feel.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been doing a lot of drawing lately.  He asked if we wanted BB8 or R2D2   Easy question, I'm droid generation one, I told him, R2d2 for the win.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  For two days my daughter has been engaged completely for the cab ride to and from school with her headphones and Junie B. Jones stories.   I've overheard some of them and I have to admit, they're pretty cute.