Summer School

When I think of summer school I think of remedial work to catch up or redo something that wasn't completed in the course of the main school year.   I have a rather negative connotation of summer school and yet I spent a good bit of time in summer school during my college years.   I took a calculus course the summer before college started so I could be ahead for my freshman year.   I took classes in the summer at Auburn University because I could add those in without interfering with the main school year at the college I was enrolled in.   I didn't once take summer school classes for a negative reason, and yet it still seems like a negative thing.

We have schools in this state that are on the year-round system.  My daughter is in school all but one month in the summer.   This year things might be different though.   Her "track" and all year-round tracks have been put back on traditional calendar schedule for now.  It won't work that way for the start of the next school year.   There are four tracks and only enough room for three tracks to be housed in the school buildings at one time.  We'll find out what the plan is soon enough though.

I'm worried though.  Summer camps are canceled.  The pool has an unknown opening date and our yearly visit north to my brother- and sister-in-law's house for a week may not happen—all dependant on when COVID-19 modeling predicts it's safe for us to reemerge into society again.   Right now we have a little more than a month of school to go before summer break begins.  

What am I going to do with two children for two-plus months at home?  Summer school.   Or at least a bit of work to do each day to keep the children engaged.  I asked my daughter's VI teacher today if she would be up for sending us some bonus work for the summer.     She said she could.  

School is work here, but it's keeping everyone busy.   No one is complaining about being bored, and that's saying a lot considering.

The Big Boy Update:  I don't know what my son did, but he wrote my daughter this note and then asked if I could make a copy of it that could be printed so she could read it.  He took the printed copy to her and she was touched when she read it, asking how he had gotten it in braille.



The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted to spend the night camped out on the trampoline last night.   It was very warm and no prediction of rain or cold weather.   She was out there, zipped inside the trampoline walls, until 4:16 (she knew the exact time) when she heard something.   She played with a little toy that lights up and makes noises she got from Aunt Kelly and family a while back. She thought she might have felt a raindrop at that point so she decided to come in.   She didn't need her brother out there with her, she was fine camping out all by herself.  

No, Thank You.

We have a very busy neighborhood.   The weather has turned into those perfect springtime days.   Mornings are already in the sixties, the sun is up long before you roll over to hit your alarm, and the air is crisp and fresh after the frequent showers that wash away the pollen of the last several weeks.

We hear the word "inclement" used to describe weather with negative characteristics yet we rarely seem to use the opposite word, "clement" to describe mild, beautiful, lovely placid weather.   What we've been having lately has definitely been clement weather.

My daughter has been going on walks with Keira, one of my daughter's friends.   They made a standing 4:00 afternoon walk plan as of yesterday, but this morning my daughter must have been bored and went on a walk earlier.

I found this out because she called me.   She has an Apple Watch so we can keep track of her GPS location and so she can call us if she is lost or if she needs us.   What she hasn't really had access to or realized is that her Apple Watch was paired to a phone—her phone.   There is really no way around this.  The watch is an extension of the phone, even though you don't need to ever move the phone anywhere off the charging stand to have the watch work, you still have to have it.

My daughter has been wanting to use the phone to call her grandparents and other relatives and when she's been at home, I let her put the phone on the play set in the back yard and then swing high in the swings while singing to my mother at the top of her lungs.   The wind noise with the watch might have been unbearable—my daughter is an excellent swinger.

Fearing for the safety of the phone, I got a protect-it-all case that has a belt clip as well as a cord that goes around your neck.   Also, it's orange.   These are characteristics my daughter liked very much and now she's been wanting to use the phone.

If you're thinking an eight-year-old with her own phone and Apple Watch is a little much, I hear you. She can't use the phone or watch in the same way other children would.   She's not sending text messages.   She can't see the screen so she's not playing games.   It's purely a way to call people when she has a need or to socialize.  So for this little eight-year-old who couldn't spend any "screen time" if she tried, because she can't see the screen, the phone is a good thing.

Back to the busy neighborhood.   This morning my daughter put on her shoes, put the phone around her neck over her pajamas, and got her cane.   Then she set off on the navigation assignment from her orientation and mobility teacher and started walking around the neighborhood.

There were people out walking this morning for exercise.   Out of politeness, people cross the street to get out of each other's way.   Isn't it interesting that two months ago that type of overt avoidance would have seemed rude?  My daughter had to let people get out of her way because she's doing a good job if she doesn't bodily run into a mailbox, although with her cane, she has a high chance she will find them first.

Today, people moved out of the way of my daughter.   People who saw the cane and realized she was carefully finding her way—and was blind.   I don't think that many people realize how very blind my daughter is.  We have a large neighborhood and there are many people we don't know.   My daughter was asked if she needed any help to which she said, "no, thank you."   She was also asked if she needed a ride home to which she also said, "no, thank you."

People respected her and let her find her own way.   I found out she was out walking when she called me on the phone and I realized she could use Siri to make a call, but she had no idea how to put the phone on speakerphone.   We fixed that when she got home.   Every day my little unstoppable girl does another thing we, as sighted people, find remarkable.   To her, it's freedom.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is at the age where hugging me isn't cool anymore.   Today, I brought him a caramel steamer (steamed milk with caramel).   He made the love shape with his hands at me and mouthed that he loved me "a whole lot."   Tonight, I'm going for a real hug when he least expects it.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter went on a second neighborhood walk this afternoon with Keira.   She wanted to dress up in her full Cinderella outfit with all the acoutrements including her hair in a bun and makeup.   I was going to the grocery store so Blake did her makeup.   Makeup is not something Blake has a lot of experience with.   My daughter loved it.   Blake said it turned out a little more "Jokerish" than he intended.

They're Too Close

In the scope of my life, we have been isolated for a very small portion of the time.   The imperative to keep personal distance between other humans, not in the immediate circle of your family or those you're co-mingling with during isolation, has become almost ingrained.   It's everywhere.

Conversations between adults invariably have some facet of the discussion on one aspect or another related to COVID-19.   Social media communication is related to Coronavirus or some aspect of life affected by it.  I can't get away from it even here.  It's changed our lives in the short term.   For some people, it will change their lives forever.

At some point, we'll get back to normal.   Today, though, I am stuck in "protect and keep others safe" mode still.   It reminds me of something that happened relatively frequently to me when I was a child. When I was a child.

Perhaps not a child so much as a youth.   I loved swinging in a hammock in the back yard where I grew up.   The hammock was strung up between two trees that were slightly too close together.   If your goal was to lounge in the hammock it didn't work well because the hammock would droop too far down, and you felt like you were in a V formation.

It worked to my advantage, though, because I sat sideways in the hammock at the centermost point.   I could get a nice swing angle going and pump with my upper body while my legs would be crossed in front of me.

I could get up pretty high in that hammock.   I would wear out the S hooks, and it would crash to ground if I didn't replace the hooks every so often.    It is perhaps because of the crashing to the ground that I would think of safety when I got into the hammock.   I would sit down, put on some music on my Sony Walkman cassette player and then remember to put my seatbelt on before beginning to swing—only there was no seat belt.   It was a thing you did to keep safe, though, and I thought it more times than I can count.

Today I was changing the desktop background on my Mac.   I picked a picture from our family reunion.  Thirty-ish people all standing close together on stairs so we could all fit into the picture.   As I selected the image, I thought to myself, "what were we thinking, we're all way too close to each other?"

The Big Boy Update:  My son lost screens at lunch today for behavior.   I missed the incident, but I heard about the consequence.   I had an idea, though, and told my son we could do something if he would be interested.   But we had to not tell his sister, on account of some things she does not like to share, and this would undoubtedly be one of them.  If he would like to ride around the neighborhood for at least two miles, he could wear her Apple Watch to track the distance.   And, perhaps he could redeem himself and get screens back early if he did.   It worked.  He biked all around the neighborhood and found out how much distance different areas of the neighborhood are.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter continues to collect snails for her terrarium.   We put one slug in, but after reading more about slugs she decided she did not want it in with the snails.   The problem was, the one slug was the size of a grain of rice and the second one was an eraser head size.   We looked and found the larger one and removed him.   She brought an earthworm a few minutes ago and accidentally tore him in half as she showed me.   She was very upset (she is always gentle.).  In this case, I told her, it would be find.   She would now have two earthworms.

Lighter By Contrast

My hair is looking lighter recently.  I haven't been putting products in my hair that would have caused it to lighten up.   I haven't been spending loads of time in the sun that might cause it to lighten naturally.   In fact, I'm not sure it's lighter at all.   But it seems like it is.

It's possibly a hair optical illusion.   During the COVID-19 stay at home time I, among millions and millions of ladies out there, have had hair growing in that is not the same color as the balance of the hair on our heads. It's reached the point now that I would have made an appointment and had it topped off so that the roots match the rest of my hair.

I have an appointment.   I made it about a month ago.   I contacted my hairdresser and said I wanted to make a best guess appointment for when the stay at home order would be lifted.   I'm going to message her this week and move the date out by another month I think.

My hair grows slowly but this is about as long as I've gone without getting it colored.   I've colored it for so long, I'm surprised there's not more grey hair than there is.  Why does it look lighter than normal though?

I think it's a contrast thing.  The darker, more "boring brown" roots make the ends look much lighter by comparison.   I was holding the ends up tonight and placing them beside the roots.   There's a decent color difference.  I like the color Sue changes my hair to better than my natural one.   Maybe we should start taking "Inches Bets" on how many inches of grown out hair we ladies will have before COVID-19 is over.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been going through the LEGOs lately.   He has been going through them with extreme attention to detail and organization.   He found the Nexo Nights LEGOs and remembered how he and I used to play together on our iPads.   He asked if I wanted to watch the show with him tonight and we had a nice time talking about what we remembered and then, at just the right moment in the show, pressing pause and holding the app up to the screen to unlock a new feature of the game.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked if I could message Keira's mother to see if she would be interested in going for a social distanced walk together after school today.   The two of them set off at 3:30 and were out for close to two hours.   Our houses are connected via back yards but the two of them haven't had a chance to get together in several weeks.   It was nice to see them chatting and walking together.

The Bottom of the Grand Canyon

I was talking to a friend today and he was asking questions about what my daughter remembers seeing and what her understanding is of sight in general.   She was fully sighted until close to four years of age so I'd think she remembers seeing and has an understanding of what sighted people can see.   Over time we get evidence by way of comments from her that she may remember very little of seeing at all.

Yesterday we were all eating dinner and the word 'canyon' came up in relation to my son's schoolwork.   When my daughter wanted to know what that meant we described how a canyon was between mountains and sometimes canyons can be very, very large, and are carved through the landscape over incredibly long periods of time, like the Grand Canyon.

We explained how very deep it was and my husband said there was an interesting way to get to the bottom of the canyon by riding a donkey down from the top.   My daughter said, "it's so deep you can't see the bottom?"  

She was assuming far away meant it wasn't visible.   When we explained that we could see things far away I think she was both confused and also somewhat sad.   She's still accepting being blind.   When her father said, "even though it's far away, it's still something you can see," my daughter said in a petulant voice, "well how would I know, I'm blind!"

That's anger.  I wanted to ask lots of questions at that point like did she think we could see the moon in the sky even though it was very far away, or the Sun when we traveled to see the solar eclipse.   I wanted to quiz her, but I don't.   We get the information we get when it comes organically.   Pulling information out of her never works and only upsets her.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Hidden Weapon Game:  My son and daughter played a game this morning with lots of weapons from the weapon bin.  We call it that and that sounds dangerous but it mostly contains foam light sabers, nerf guns and other plastic and soft things that technically are categorized as weapons.   Before school this morning they each hid various weapons in different rooms for the other one to find.   School started before the game ended.   I'm typing with hidden weapons under my seat and two katanas in the drawer in front of me.

Stress or Less?

Are my children under extra strain or stress with the COVID-19 Coronavirus situation.  Are they more distressed because they have to deal with us, their parents, as their teachers?   Is being alone, isolated from friends and family, causing them to be sad or lonely?  In short, how are my children faring with all that's happening surrounding the pandemic?

From worrying about getting sick, I don't think either of our children is one bit worried.   We discussed early on with both children that there was a good chance we would get it, but that it would be like a bad cold like we had a few years back.  They have both been sick with fevers, vomiting, aches, and lack of energy.   Both children handle being sick very well and the thought of getting coronavirus doesn't seem to bother them at all.

They know it is important for us to protect those who might have a much more severe response to COVID-19, including death.   They're taking social distancing seriously and all other measures like washing their hands (even though they're staying at home.).  On the stress from COVID-19 side of things, I'd say they are likely low stress.

School is another factor.   My son, I would have said was high stress a few weeks ago.   We're into, what is this, week six now?   Can it possibly have been six weeks?   I must be miscounting.  My son is doing so well in school.  He is largely able to work most of the day himself with a few check-ins.     I think he's low-stress as well.   I don't know how the work he's doing at home compares to what he would have done at school, but he's doing a good bit of work, completing all the items to be turned in.

My daughter is a big question with school thought.  I've talked about how she's a learning machine, which is true.   She devours work, but she also sees me fretting about getting everything ready for her.   She is so sweet, but she does need a lot of help.   I don't ever want to hobble her or "disable" her by doing things for her that she could do or learn to do herself.   That means we're asking an awful lot of her these days.  

She is rising to the challenge.  To pretty much every challenge.   I wonder if it's at a price sometimes.   She has been talking about how her stomach hurts her a lot.   It's not intestinal cramps, this is discomfort in her stomach.   Is it anxiety?  Does she have an ulcer?  Highly doubtful on the ulcer, but it's a thought.  When we give her over the counter medicine it feels better.   I'm going to talk to her psychiatrist tomorrow at our telemedicine call.   Maybe he has some suggestions.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is off right now doing his P.E. challenge of the week.   He's making an obstacle course with chalk on the driveway and sidewalk.  At different intervals you stop and do different exercises like jumping jacks or Frankensteins (I had to ask about that one).  We're going to each take a turn trying out his fitness obstacle course when he's done.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had her first meeting online with her O&M teacher.   She talked to him about how she had done his assignment navigating from our house to the neighborhood entrance and back.  He was impressed she knew all the street names in our neighborhood.   I'm not sure why, but we've talked about the street names many times and have done walks over the years.   It just seemed like a given that she'd know how to get around the streets of our neighborhood.

Red Dragon

I loved the Hanibal Lecter movies.  I remember being awed by the powerful story and acting in The Silence of the Lambs.  I've seen it several more times over the years and it is equally good every time.   I didn't think anything would be able to match in intensity, horror, and fright that The Silence of the Lambs.   Then, m 2002, Red Dragon was released.

Ray Fines and Anthony Hopkins's performances were spot on.   It wasn't a sequel or a prequel per se, It was close enough and yet different enough to be judged on its own merits.   I loved it just as much as the first Hanibal Lecter movie, I think.

One of the main characters was completely blind.   She had lost her sight when she was quite young.   I've thought about a line she says in the movie so many times since my daughter lost her sight.   She says she saw a cougar when she was young before she lost her sight and that she's always tried to hold on to what that cougar looked like, although by now it's probably more like a donkey.

I wonder what my daughter will remember when it comes to the things she saw before she lost her vision.  Today, that same scene came back to me from Red Dragon as I did something I saw there, over a quarter-century ago that I thought would help my daughter today.

Reba has offered to serve some pie.   She gets a toothpick and places it in the center of the pie.   Then she uses the knife to cut slices, based on the toothpick as a reference point.   I thought it was a clever adaptation when I saw it but I had no need to ever try it until this morning when my daughter wanted to cut up the banana bread she and Shane had made in a round cake pan.

It worked perfectly.

The Big Boy Update:  My son worked very hard today to write a beautifully penned letter and envelope to his Spanish teacher.   In one of those stories no one wants to have happen, Phillippe found out he has lung cancer in an advanced state.   He has been receiving aggressive treatments for several months and my son's prior Spanish teacher has stepped back in to teach the students.   My son wrote his entire letter in Spanish, including telling Phillippe that he has a wart on his foot we cut out today (we did).

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter's first-grade teacher joined their class call today as a surprise.   Their first-grade teacher was universally beloved by the students.  Their class was special to her, because it was her last year of teaching before moving into the corporate sector to teach there.  It was very sweet to hear how excited the students were to see and catch up with their teacher from last year.