I Wish I’d Never Been Born

There was a brief conversation tonight between my son and daughter that had me holding on to the mop with the strongest grip I could muster, waiting to hear how it came out.   There are things children will tell other people that they won't tell their parents.  There are things in the case of my daughter that she can't actually tell us also because she just doesn't know because she can't see. 

There was an audiobook playing in that cat series my daughter is in love with.  In this case, my son was listening to the book—one about five books behind his sister—when a conversation happened between two cats.  One of the cast, a young initiate was angry because he wasn't doing well as a potential warrior in the cat clan.  He was talking to the healer cat who was cleaning his wounds.   She talked about all the other skills he had, like how he could recognize smells that other cats couldn't.   He was upset and said, "I hate being blind.  I wish I was never born."

My son piped up and asked my daughter, "Do you wish you were never born because you're blind?"  This is the bit where I held on to the mop with near nail breaking force.  My daughter casually replied, "No."  Then she followed up with, "He's completely blind, I'm not."

I took a sigh of relief and was about to think the danger was over when my son helpfully said in a know-it-all voice, "um, I hate to tell you, but you are."   I asked him to come into the bedroom with me shortly after that and had a talk with him about how it looked to everyone that his sister was blind because it didn't seem like she could see anything but that she did have vision.   And that the vision she had was precious to her and it also meant to her that she wasn't completely blind.   I told him he was always supportive of her, something that never failed to impress me and make me proud, and if he could support her feeling that she wasn't completely blind, it would be a nice thing to do. 

I'm glad she wants to be alive.   She was depressed for a good while.  Lately she's been enjoying school, has good friends and has enough things she enjoys doing that she's not bored all the time like she was some time back. .

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Cleaning Helpers:  Our house cleaner, who has been with me since 1997, is taking a break from both COVID-19 rising incidents but also because she has been diagnoses with breast cancer. It was caught early and is treatable but is scary nonetheless.   We love her and miss her and hope her a speedy recovery with complete remission.  In the meantime, we're cleaning our own house and today was major cleaning day.   The children learned how to dust (they loved the dusting), did laundry, swept, cleaned their bathrooms including the toilets.   They weren't keen to help at the beginning but got into it after a while.   Two solid hours of house cleaning helpers was most definitely a lot of help.   We have put off cleaning for so long that the floors were looking more like the outdoors than the indoors at the high-traffic doors. 

Alexa, Stop.

My children have been playing hard these last few days.   The weather has felt like fall, but a fall that's gone south on vacation.  Days have been hot for November, climbing into the sixties with nights cooling off, making my HVAC system all kinds of confused.   We expanded the playability in the backyard with an obstacle course a la Ninja Warrior and there has been a resurgence in the trampoline, which had been out of fashion for a while. 

My daughter plays hard and if you didn't know she was blind, upon arrival at our house, you might not realize it for a while because she just zips about.   Today I saw my daughter very little.   She came in and out and asked me to help with some lunch at one point.   Most of the time she was asking her father if he would please, pretty please and seriously you still can't jump on the trampoline with me?  

My husband is working on a holiday thing that will simplify decorations dramatically when he gets it done.   He has spent a lot of time in the garage doing woodworking things in the spot that used to hold my car.  I jumped in on the wood-related projects and asked if he could get some 2x4's for me at Lowes so I could prop the filament up in the closet.   He finished that unexpected task today and did a far, far better job than I ever would have.   My husband never does anything half-way. 

The children were probably tired at the end of the day, or at least I hoped they would be.   I took some laundry up to my daughter's room at seven-thirty to find her lights out and no audiobook playing.   And that was odd.   The lights are always out, she doesn't need them.   Conversely, she doesn't mind if you turn them on when you come in.   But no audiobook playing?   Now that was odd. 

I went over to talk to her because she loves to act asleep and then shout, "BOO!" at me and then ask if I was scared and did I really think she was asleep?   This time though she was not only asleep, she was sound asleep.   I tried to get her into some pajamas and she was dead weight like she was as a little girl who'd fallen asleep in the car on the way home. 

As I was struggling to get her pajama pants on she woke up enough to say, "Alexa, stop."

The Big Boy Update:  My son played some Zelda today.  That would be one of the Legend of Zelda games.  I played many of them over the years, including the original, as the series began when I was in my youth.   I would come into the room and he would immediately tell me about the hack he had going.  My son loves hacks.   Just being able to do something the game designers didn't intend the game to do for some reason is exciting to my son, regardless of how odd it is.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is very driven.  The obstacle course is fairly tough.  I need to get a picture of it and post it.  Some of the parts are easy, but we've fixed it such that getting from the start to the finish is not easy.   She's shorter than some of the other children who've tried it, but she isn't going to give up until she can successfully make the whole run by herself.   She's practicing starting at each end and seeing how far she can get.   

Ninja Warriors

Now that I've found the cursor I can start this post.  Maybe I should change the cursor to some glaringly hot pink and double it in size.  That, or get some glasses.   Today, though, I spent very little time at the computer.   I told my husband as he and I got up from sleeping in—yes, we got to sleep in, it was blissful—it was time to give our children that early Christmas present we'd told them about. 

In truth, it wasn't a Christmas present to start, it changed into one after my daughter broke her arm.   She loves playing on the swings outside or doing anything outside with her two friends.   She and Keira had been talking about things they wanted to do to expand the backyard's playability which included a zip line among other things.   

I took the drawing and thought about it.   The idea that always got suggested by children was to zip line from the deck.   This definitely couldn't happen because it would involve climbing up on the railing and grabbing hold of a zip line that had no possible anchor point, only to fly downwards at a steep angle into the swingset where they pictured the landing to be. 

As I got to thinking I figured out something that would work, involving 2" slack lines (which aren't well-named as they are anything but slack).  We could get a slackline and loop one end around the brick column that held up the deck and then the other end to the upper railing of the fort part of the playset at about the height where the slide begins.   This would provide some height, but not that much.  It would also give some angle, but not that much either. 

I looked online and found a lot of options for slacklines that were filled with different obstacle-type things like a rope wall, wooden bars, and a collection of hand grips.  They even had swings you could add to the run.  I ordered several different pieces and we were ready to give it to my daughter for her birthday and then she went and broke her arm. 

Thankfully she decided about that time that the only thing she could possibly want for her birthday was a Barbie Dream House, which made finding a replacement present easier.   We decided to hold off until she had her cast off and her arm was healed before giving them the present.   But we wanted to do it now, before it got much colder, so they could maximize time playing on it before winter set in and they just wanted to huddle indoors. 

My husband and I put the run-up today with much excitement from my daughter.   They played on it a lot of the afternoon and into the dark.   My son wasn't as excited, but I hadn't expected he would have been.   We weren't done with the total present, we told them, but we'd save the rest for another day.

I got a second slackline with the idea we could do a tightrope walking course at some point by having the lower line at a walking height below the first line.  We'd unclip the various pieces for this option so it was just two slacklines and some hooks with a red ring to hold on to as they tried to walk across the line.    This is going to be tricky to configure though as there are different heights to consider, so it might not work out. 

What will work out is using the second slackline as a zip line.  My husband had the idea to hook the second slackline up on the middle column of the deck and connect the zipline attachment to that and also have that run over to the swingset.   It won't be a fast zipline, but it'll be a zipline.   And that counts for a whole lot of fun and outdoor playtime, I'm betting. 

The Big Boy Update:  I was over at our next-door neighbor's house this evening, standing around the firepit and when I couldn't take the cold any longer I came home to find my son and see if he needed anything before bedtime.   He was already up in his room, pajamas on, watching something on his iPad in bed.   Like mother like son in this case.   Also, he forgot to brush his teeth.   I will be shocked if they actually remember before they're fourteen.   Telling them they might lose their teeth doesn't matter.   It didn't matter to me when I was a child either. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter absolutely loves playing with her new neighbor, Nora.   They have become very good friends during COVID-19 and I'm glad her family moved in when our beloved neighbors decided to move.  

Obligated

I sort of feel obligated to write about Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving.   As if it perhaps would indicate I am less than thankful if I ignore the importance of family and friends during this day.   For years I have tried to write about one facet of the day or one thing happening in my ever-cluttered mind instead of just reporting on the events as the day marched on. 

Today, though, I don't have anything specifically interesting to write about.   I fell asleep incredibly early for me these days last night at some time well before nine o'clock.  Then I woke up around two-thirty and was in and out of sleep for most of the remainder of the night.   I got up at six-thirty, fed the dog, helped my daughter to some donuts we'd gotten the day before because she wanted to make sure she didn't get the ghost pepper one (they're not that hot) and then went to the basement. 

And this is where my day went longer than I anticipated.   My husband asked me to check on his fifteen-hour print on the SLA (resin) printer because he was concerned about one area.   It wasn't failing, but it was potentially having issues, so I stayed downstairs and watched it for an hour-and-a-half until he got up.   I got into some things on the computer I'd been needing to do, including email, which I have gotten behind on, again.  I swear, I get caught up, and then it just piles back in.   

I hate email.   It's not that one particular email is bad, it's the totality of the emails and the time they require to handle appropriately and well that gets me.   So I avoid them sometimes, which makes it worse. Back to the riveting story of my day, though. 

My plan had been to go downstairs for a short while at seven o'clock and then go back to sleep.   I didn't make it back upstairs to lie down until almost one o'clock and my husband is so kind he didn't wake me after I fell asleep.   I sat up in my pajamas to hear my in-laws had arrived for Thanksgiving dinner at 3:00 and I was neither up nor dressed. 

The meal was good, as always, with specialty items made by my mother-in-law and a turkey made by my husband that was done just right.   Dessert was little cupcakes with different icings and toppings, made by my mother-in-law. 

After dinner, we got on a family Zoom call and saw some of the family members we couldn't be with in person.  My in-laws left and now I'm writing this post.   Hopefully, I can go to bed soon.   I'm tired.  And I didn't even do the cooking.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son loves "glitches" or bugs in games.   He called up from the bonus room, "I've just done the coolest thing."  I came up to see him show off the new hack he'd learned about from a YouTube video in the Zelda game.   I watched him play for a while, listening to him explaining everything while he did it.   He and I also sat at a table together, just the two of us, for Thanksgiving.   He was unhappy until I told him he could tell me all about Minecraft.    He and I had a good day together. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I asked my daughter if she could help set the table for Thanksgiving dinner today.  I had printed some napkin rings she could put out and she would get to select where everyone sat.   She put herself with her father and two grandparents.   She did all the work, so she got to sit with them and have all their attention at the meal.   She does so like to be helpful.

The Missing Cursor

I keep losing the mouse pointer on my computer screen.   I've never had this happen before, but I've never had the same situation that I do now.   It might sound silly that I can't find the cursor, and it is smaller depending on what it's hovering over.   The real problem is screen real estate. 

And when I say 'problem' what I actually mean is 'feature'.  I recently got an extra-wide monitor.   Monitors, like other technology items, have gone down in price dramatically.   The last time I got a monitor upgrade was years ago.   I had been watching my husband with his two monitors move some things out of the way while keeping the item he was working on directly in front of him. 

I was working in a collection of new software products with the 3D printing and had a collection of ancillary windows related to that work.   I was paging back and forth between virtual desktops, hiding and showing windows and kept losing things. 

A new monitor did solve that problem and now I have more screen space than I could have possibly imagined I'd ever use, even a few years ago.   The big monitor is extended to the laptop beside it, meaning if I move the cursor all the way to the left, it leaves the monitor and appears on the laptop screen.   "Super wide" doesn't even describe it.   I think I have "Mega wide" going on here. 

The problem is, when I come back to the computer after getting up to check something on one of the printers or after helping a child or anything else, I can't find where I left the mouse pointer.   I have to do this waggling around behavior until I see where it's gone to.

It's not a problem I'm worried about having.   I'd gladly keep both it and the new monitor. 

The Big Boy Update:   My son threw a ball at his sister's face today in what I think was an attempt to show off to a friend.  My daughter came in very upset.   I talked to her about it and then I brought him in.  I explained he was exhibiting the type of behavior that bully's have and I didn't think he wanted to be seen that way.   I think he was showing off for the neighbor's son, but it could be that my daughter provoked him.   Either way, violence wasn't okay, I told him. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I was taking my daughter to the doctor today (she has a UTI again we believe, but please don't mention this to her as she'd rather people not know.)  She is more interested in all the things associated with driving now that she's been in an accident.   I was describing things as we drove by and she sadly said, "I wish I could see so then I could see all of this."   I told her I wished she could see too.  

Some Prints

I've just finished folding what feels like an epic mound of laundry and I'm tired, so here are some pictures of things I've printed lately.   

Print in place foldable heart box.   The printer beeps in the middle of the print to change filament colors and prints for instance all the red first and then finishes off with the white.   When the print is complete it folds in half to close the box. 

A spiral print vase mode in atomic dark cherry red.   This print is basically done like a slinky print.  If you could unwind the model, it would be one long piece of filament.   There are gaps in the center area because I miscalculated when I sliced the model.  

Coffee cup models designed by one of my favorite creators.   The filament I used changes colors over time.  I printed them one after another and you can tell the order they were printed in by matching the top of one to the bottom of the next.

This is a top and bottom bottle.  The top screws onto the bottom and makes a tight connection closing the two halves together when complete.  I don't know if it's watertight as I didn't check—but it might be.

My mother-in-law's kitchen window.   The tan-colored flower pot includes bendable arms and legs.  She asked if I could print a daisy, which is standing out of the top.  The sticker and the other flowers are not 3D printed.

The Hex Dice Tower I sent to my daughter's school for the VI room to use.   I was very happy to hear they have plans on how to use it with their students. 

Stellated dodecahedron with silver inserts and copper locking rings. 

A Lattice Bowl model made by my favorite model designer, Clockspring, who created all the models pictured in this post other than the flower pot.  His work is a delight to print.   I had the printer prompt me four times to change filament colors during the eleven-hour print of this model.   I like the fall colors. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son's class had a standard lunch today at school instead of a Thanksgiving celebration with shared food and families.  He came home with, instead, a paper chain of links with one message from a classmate on each link saying what they were grateful for about my son.   

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter spent this week in distanced learning at home, studying her standard subjects as well as Thanksgiving traditions.  She and I read a story together today about how our celebration differs dramatically from what the originally pictured Thanksgiving is like and where our traditions are borne from.  I learned a lot I didn't know before about the history of Thanksgiving this week. 

Addict

I am an addict.  I need to let you all know this, because it's getting out of hand.   I thought I could control it, but I just want more and more.   Yes, that's right, I'm talking about gum.   

A while back I wanted to get some bubble gum balls and Amazon had a big bucket of them.   I went through those and then I saw on the next order those chicklet pillow-shaped gum things and I got a five-pound container of those.   

Next, well, next I had to reorder the first two things because I was out of them again.   My children know where the gum stash is.   It's in the closet under the stairs or what we now call, "the filament closet".   Or maybe I just call it that.  Anyways, that's where the gum is.  You can see my children stepping in and then coming right out from the closet after school or any time on the weekends.   I may well have gotten them addicted too.

I have a little cup I keep filled that I refill with the main bin contents.   The cup gets refilled a lot.   I can go through a whole slew of quarter-sized handfuls of gum in a given day.  

And now I've gotten in a container of those large sized blowing gumballs.   

I may need to go into gum rehab. 

Monday Tuesday Taco Night:  Nana came to get the children (and the dog) to go over to their house to have Tuesday Taco Night tonight.   Only it was Monday.   The children and I tried to figure out what exactly Tuesday Taco Night on a Monday was called.   We came up with a lot of variations but ultimately to me it meant, "dinner without the children!"