Halloween + Okay (I think)

First off, Happy Halloween!  Our family loves Halloween.   The children were a Raven Witch (my daughter) and a Plague Doctor (my son).  I was a farm girl who was handing out inoculations (to the members of our community over twenty-one years of age.  

[assume country girl with southern accent affectation] Do you remember that mad cow disease from a while back?  Well, the cows got mad again.   So on my farm, we have been working to perfect an inoculation.  We did this in a cleanroom environment what with our gloves and masks on so as to keep everyone safe.  I told them they had to put some strawberry flavor in it because people just weren't going to drink any old inoculation.  I have two sizes available in case you think you need a larger dose. [end affectation]

The drink was a bottled strawberry margarita mix from the grocery store.  People like it.  I tasted it, and it was pretty good.  I used all the premade ones up and had to make more in the latter portion of the night.  I also had "some for the little children that are from that Motts Apple Farm down the street," which parents knew meant Motts apple juice.  Those went quickly.  I only made ten of those.

My husband pulled off the Halloween event for the neighborhood with some help, but he does the majority himself with running the competitions, getting the prizes, setting up the tables and tents with some help, and then tallying the results at the end of the night, which is what he's doing while I type this. 

My mother-in-law helped hand out the candy and my father-in-law helped walk around with my daughter. My son disappeared and was off with friends at record speeds.

The dog is walking on her leg again.  I don't know what happened, but if she doesn't have a torn ligament, I am hugely relieved. 

The Big Boy Update:  At the end of the night my son walked into the house and six or seven boys came in after him.   My alarm bells started going off and then I told myself to calm down, we are wanting to have children want to be at our house so we know what's going on in our children's lives.   If we expect that to happen in the future, we need to embrace it starting back up like it used to be pre-COVID-19

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted to go around the neighborhood with Ashley.  I sent a message to Ashley's mother.  Ashley was in a competition with her brother to see who could collect the most candy.   That wasn't going to work with my daughter because speed is not your friend when you're blind.   I told Ashley's mother that we'd tell my daughter Ashley already had plans.   It's not fair to ask Ashley to change her plans.  It worked out though as my daughter and Ashley played a lot before trick-or-treating.

Torn Ligament?

Yesterday we went to the symphony.   When we came home, the dog wasn't putting her back, right leg down.   It persisted and today I called many, many places, trying to get someone to look at my dog to see if she had a dislocated patella.   It presented like that's what it was, and when we arrived at the seventh place I had tried, they thought that was the best guess too.  

Prior to running X-ray on her the doctor palpated her leg.   She looked up and said after a bit of time moving the dog's leg about, something that Matisse tolerated admirably, that she didn't think it was a dislocated patella.  That would have been her first guess and it still could be that, but she may have torn her cruciate ligament.   

There wasn't much to do on Sunday at this point other than pay the bill, take the NSAID/pain medication and take the dog home.   She seems to feel a little bit better, but not a lot.   I need to follow up with her veterinarian tomorrow to have her looked over more thoroughly. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son had no screens today—except for when he lied to my face about having no screens when I was almost certain he had one in his bed because he doesn't mid-day nap.   He needs to build trust back.   We're not getting through right now.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has a tactile pumpkin with a spider nose, golf balls for eyes, gourd halves for ears, spaghetti for hair, carrots for horns,  She is entering the contest for her age group for most creative pumpkin.   Hers is pretty good, I have to admit it's better than my pumpkins at her age.

Angry Child

My husband is currently sitting in a chair in our living room.  He is upset about my son's behavior.  My son is getting in trouble a lot lately for his behavior.   Some of it. a lot of it is for not following basic rules like no eating in the living room or upstairs.   He fully admits he doesn't follow the rules because he thinks they are dumb and unnecessary.  So he gets in trouble a lot, which means negative feedback from us, a lot. 

He doesn't comply with instructions regularly.   "Turn the television off, we have to go." can be said multiple times and then we get angry, take the controller and turn the television off.   And then my son gets extremely angry at us.  More negative feedback from us, but he brought it on himself.   We keep our voices calm, he loses it. 

Then there is the aggressive behavior.   Today we were going to the symphony with my mother-in-law.  My son had been behaving badly before we left and had lost his mind at us because we requested he do something outrageously unfair: put on clothes and turn off the television.   In the car he wouldn't leave his sister alone.  He poked and prodded her.  He pestered her.  My mother-in-law told him multiple times to stop.  She was nice, she tried different options, she used distraction techniques.   It didn't work on him, he just wanted to be mean. 

He's getting lots of negative feedback, which we don't like giving. He's intentionally breaking rules because he doesn't think he needs to follow them.   And when he gets in trouble, he lashes out at whatever he can, which many times is his sister.   What are we doing wrong?   We're worried about the person he's becoming.  Is this a phase?  Is this normal?  He's not nice.   I know he's trying to be independent from us, and that's good, but he's going about it in the complete wrong way.  We would give him more autonomy if he showed he deserved it.  Unfortunately, he's losing it instead of gaining it. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Our builder came over today and brought his young daughter over.   They came to see the 3D printing things and we gave her lots of models to take home.   My daughter really liked meeting Vivi.   My daughter is such a good host and loves to make new friends. 

We Used to Be Tidy

I was the person who never went to sleep without the house being completely "spit spot" as Mary Poppins called it.   Everything had a place and everything was in its place.  

Then, I was on a call.   That call went until midnight.   Then one of the attendees asked if I could help along with another attendee with their website with some feedback.  It is now 1:48am and I have to get to sleep because we have our builder coming over at noon tomorrow and the house is still a wreck.   Or wreck in way I feel like it's a wreck.   It's not bad, but it isn't what I'd like it to be for a first impression. 

They Didn't Want To Clean Their Rooms:  Both children didn't.   They did, though.  I explained that not inviting them into their rooms was not an option.  My children think their parents live only to make their lives hard.  

Just Say No, More Work

We have another company that wants to hire us to make content for their filament company.  The scope is a little smaller, although in the course of our communication, the scope kept creeping up. 

I'm guilty of that myself.  If I say one hundred dollars is my maximum budget but I see a thing that's $110 that looks so much nicer with greater features, that's the one I'm interested in. 

So do we take the job?  Or do we say no to more work?   We are in pretty deep working now.  

The Big Boy In Trouble Again.  My son broke every rule today or if not a rule, then he wasn't doing things he should have been doing.   We're trying not to correct him, but he just keeps pushing and disobeying things he knows are not at all okay.  

Geography and History

My son is so interested in maps and history right now.  He's been asking us to print out maps, which he redraws in pencil via the tracing method.  He watches historical documentary short videos on YouTube while he does this.   All the while, he's thinking up ways you could play a game with the countries and maps and how it might relate to real history. 

I was very impressed with what he was doing tonight so I had him come to the craft room where I pulled out my collection of map flags (something he knows a lot abut because they use them at school.)  I had another container of short, round ball head pins in different colors that I gave him and then I pulled out a piece of corrugated cardboard that is different from almost all cardboard as the corrugations were an inch thick.

This was perfect for him to put his map on top of as it could hold the pins.   He really wanted me to pick a country and then we were going to have maneuvers with our armed forces.   This was back in the days of the first world war. 

I would have stayed and played with him for an hour or two, but I had to make sure his sister was in bed and not asleep with her clothes from the day on and then my husband was waiting for me to finish a post for Filament Stories downstairs, but I promised I'd come back and play more later. 

The Big Boy Update:  I told my son there were two games I was going to order because I couldn't find mine in the attic.  One was Stratego, and is one of my childhood favorites.   I think he'll love that and I'll play any time with him.   The other is Risk, which is more complex, but my son loves complex games. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has the responsibility of getting me up in the morning.  For two days, I have slept through my loud alarm for some unknown reason.   I need to get them to school—on time.  

Exposed

My son has a member in his class that is positive for COVID-19 (or COVID-22 I suppose).  My son was within six feet of him for more than fifteen minutes yesterday so he has come home and been wearing a mask since leaving school.   

He had a negative test on Sunday because he'd vomited, and we just didn't want to take any chances even though he said it was from being tackled by his sister and then tickled.    We're going to test him tomorrow and see if he's positive.  If he is, then it's likely some or all of us have it as well.   My daughter and husband have already had it so that would leave only me, although they could get it again. 

The thing that impressed me was my son's awareness of six feet.   I was moving around the kitchen cleaning, and he was telling me about some videos he was watching on the history of different countries.   Any time I got near him, he immediately backed up.   He had a lot of practice keeping six feet apart for over a year at school while I stayed at home and didn't interact with many people. 

He's not that concerned, but he does want to do his part to not transfer it to anyone.   My father-in-law currently has COVID-19, but he's doing as well as can be expected.   He's not in the hospital, and he's feeling better I hear.  I hope that trend continues. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son loves video games and loves to watch all things video games and play video games.  But he also likes educational videos.  He can get stuck watching things like geography videos for hours.  Apparently Poland is is favorite country.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is nearing the end portion of Project Hail Mary.   Aside: if you're not listening to the audiobook, stop reading this and go get it.  It's that good.  We listened together in the car this morning, and she got scared a few times.  I had to tell her everything would be okay without telling her what happened so she could find out for herself.