Chilled

My daughter and I were heading over to walk Charlotte, the neighbor's dog, this morning.  She was in pajamas and a winter jacket with Crocs and no socks.   I was in my ski jacket and a hat and winter gloves. My daughter asked why I was wearing so much because it wasn't *that* cold.  

I told her I was always cold and I easily got chilled.   I tent to set the temperature up here in the basement but wow am I currently chilled.  I'm heading upstairs to get under the covers.  We got seven videos delivered to the company we're working with tonight after a lot of work.  I hope they like them. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted to go ice skating today.  She and her father went and had a good time.  I'm glad he had a chance to spend some time with her. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son showed up way after bedtime with a blanket and collapsed in a pile on the floor.  He had had some nightmare.  After about an hour of him not moving my husband carried him back upstairs.   It was odd for him to have a nightmare like that.  He was so out of it we only think it was a nightmare. 

Walking Charlotte

Our neighbor called and asked if my daughter would be interested in walking and feeding their dog, Charlotte for the next day-and-a-half while they were out of town on short notice.   I said sure, knowing I'd be involved.   

But I'm not sure I really needed to be.   She knew how to get into their garage with the code, she knew the key was in the pot hidden in a certain place and if I showed her how to use the key (she's only used combination door locks in her life I believe) she could have gotten in and out of the door. 

She found Charlotte's leash without me even telling her where it was.   She knew where the food was, played with Charlotte, did the walking of Charlotte and knew when there was poop to be picked up from the smell.   She wouldn't have easily been able to pick it up without the chance of a mess, but with some practice I'm sure we could come up with a plan.  

She pretty much didn't need me, which just goes to show how capable a blind person really can be.   

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I was worried Charlotte would bolt when she was under my daughter's leash control, but she listened to her and followed her requests just by the tone of voice she used.  My daughter wasn't afraid of losing her at all. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son didn't realize he needed to not let the dog out when we went to see Charlotte today because she very much wants to see Charlotte.   We were about to go in their garage door to the house proper when I turned around and our dog was right there, waiting to go inside and meet Charlotte with us.   

Entertaining Guests

We had friends over for dinner tonight.   It's such a rare thing to happen these days that we all had to figure out what to do.  The children were fairly good, although they have the worst time sitting in their chairs.   We talked a lot about 3D printing and they looked at the models, the printers, the filament, and asked questions. 

It was fun talking about the 3D printing, but I felt badly when they left.   Did we ask them enough about what was going on in their lives?  They were interested in what was happening with us, and came over to see the 3D printing.  But should we have been more equal in the conversation?   I always worry about that. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son lost screens today for getting on the screen when he knew he was not yet invited to.   He was miserable, but he turned it around and calmly asked if he could have a little bit of screens after dinner.   He was contrite, apologetic and seemed like he meant it.   His prior tactics have been to demand and state when he was getting screen time and I told him that wasn't working with me.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been disappearing into her room a lot.  She loves audiobooks, but I know she would love to have friends to play with more.  Maybe we'll be able to have friends around more soon.   The social dynamics have changed here with one family moving away, the other family getting a divorce and the children only being here part of the time, a third family not wanting their daughter out because they have an infant and the last family having a daughter who has gotten older and isn't as interested in playing with my daughter anymore.   And that leaves very few to play with even if COVID-19 weren't happening still. 

Early To Bed

I'm trying to get to bed earlier.  And not nap.   It's after midnight now, but it's not two in the morning, so I'm going to call this a win because after this, I'm going up to bed.  I got a lot of things done today sort of. Not the kind of things I would cross off the list of things to do, but things I had to do regardless of if they were on a list or not.  And now I'm tired.  

Not taking a nap or lying down during the day is a win right now, and I'll take it. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son thinks he has something stuck in his throat.   He's worried about it.  I'm concerned he has swollen lymph nodes or other thing related to COVID-19 and he now has it.   He wasn't in pain, just worried.   Tomorrow if he still feels so uncomfortable, we'll decide what we need to do about school.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I gave my daughter the picture I printed for her (3D tactile printed) of the two characters in the book series she's obsessed with.  I don't know which one of us was more excited to show her braillist this afternoon when she got in the car from school.   Her teacher kept one of the two.  They're very interested in applying this way to make things tactile to the needs they have for the children they're working with.  I am too.

Tactile Picturea

I figured out how to take any picture and make a 3D print of it so my daughter can feel it.  It's complicated, involving many steps, but once I got all the details worked out, it's not that complicated.   I've been talking to my daughter's VI teacher about it because if I can get this into an easily repeatable process anyone with a 3D printer can follow, it will be a tool that's accessible to people who have a 3D printer. 

The reason that's interesting is that 3D printers are fairly inexpensive at just over a hundred dollars in some cases.  Filament is inexpensive and the printer is useful for more than just printing pictures.  The comparable technology is easy to use, but it's expensive and requires a medium to raise anything black on the page to a level that a blind person can discern. 

I can take any image and convert it into a thin yet three-dimensional model.   Taking that and compressing it to the right kind of flatness is a bit of a trick.   But I'm getting better at it.  The colors on the pictures need to be eliminated as well as the interior or filled parts of each image.   But I'm getting better at guessing what to do so the final model is what I'm wanting. 

If this works, well, I'm excited about it.   The only tricky part is you're printing on paper.   The paper can easily withstand the quick heat as the nozzle deposits the filament on the page, but it's not something I want to share on social media until I have a better way to print the pictures.  

We thought parchment paper would be a good idea, but nothing sticks to it.  I can't tape or glue the paper onto the build sheet and the melted filament just glides off.   So I need another plan.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Tonight I printed a picture of the two main characters in the book series my daughter is currently obsessed with.   I hope she's as excited as I am when I show it to her tomorrow. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son has moved back into his bedroom.  The mound of stuffed animals is now on the top bunk and he can sleep in his bed with some room for his body to fit.  He insisted he wanted all the stuffed animals in his bed, that he could sleep with them no problem.   It turned out to be a problem.  

Family Game Night

Tonight we had our first in a new series of family game nights.  Unfortunately, my husband couldn't attend because he was on a board meeting call.  Things should have been fun and easy, but there were turns for the worse.

The children picked out three games and wanted to play all three.  We were playing games that were by Peaceable Kingdom, a company that designs games where the players are playing against the game so you're all teammates.   The children like these games and I think they're all quite clever.   The first one was Hoot Owl Hoot, which went well with us beating the game and getting our little hoot owls to the nest before the sun rose. 

The second game is where it all went horribly wrong.  My children were both interested in who goes first and they didn't like not going first.   But my son adjusted to it without a problem and moved on.  For the second game my daughter wanted the board facing her and so as a means of compromise, since my son wanted it facing him, I said we'd let her have it in her direction and then her brother would go first. 

She lost it completely.   She was so angry she refused to play, insulted us, chanted that she hoped we. would lose, tried to come back over to play, which we let her, and then complained because she didn't know what was going on and why were we so mean to not let her play?

There were all sorts of things said that were untrue.   I said on multiple occasions, "this is all over going first—when we're playing as a team."   She tried to destroy the game, attack us.  It was unsettling to see her so angry and I knew there was more to it than just going first.  

Later, after the games were over, she and I talked.   She isn't thinking about how things look from the other person's perspective and she draws conclusions that might not even be close to the truth.   She understands better now (maybe) and hopefully this means our next game night won't be so volatile. 

The Big Boy Update:  I saw my son's perspective for the first time tonight.   He didn't try to attack his sister, he put up with her aggravating behavior and insults and then fought back when she attacked him.   We've thought it was him as the aggressor, but I'm starting to think it's her more than him of late.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got so angry tonight that she tried to attack me.   I had moved away from her so when she launched at me, I wasn't there.   This has to be even more infuriating, knowing someone can evade you easily just by taking a few steps.   She is over being mad, but it was most definitely not a good first game night of the year for her tonight. 

The Models That Never Get Printed

For being around 3D printers all day there are a lot of models that just don't get printed.  For instance, I had all but one printers down today because we needed to film in the room with the printers, and having them up means noise.  They're quite quiet overall, but the camera mic is excellent at picking up things even with noise dampening, which can dampen out things we want in the shot (sound?) so they have to be off. 

Which means I can't start models the night before if they'll still be printing the next day when we want to film, even if that filming we plan on doing at ten in the morning gets derailed by so many things that after midnight tonight we still didn't get all the filming we wanted to get done filmed...so I can't print tonight because of tomorrow.  

It's okay though, a lot of things still get printed.   Many days aren't filming days.   Tomorrow, I hope, will be the last for a few days in a row. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son stayed up late (not intentionally, he couldn't sleep) to help pull off a thirty-hour print on TikTok live stream tonight.   He was very excited to be a part of it. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted more tactile coloring books today, but there aren't many to be had.  Only I may have figured out a way to 3D print her anything she wants to color on paper.   It worked easily tonight and tomorrow I'm going to show her the things I was able to make.  If they work out, I'll be able to easily make her tactile pages to color any time she wants them.