Headphones

My husband and I had a conference with my son’s teachers today.   Without even discussing it in advance we all knew what the topic would be: my son’s inability to focus.    His occupational therapist has said she doesn’t think he’s doing it intentionally, he’s doing the best he can.

We’re very fortunate to have my son’s teachers.   They both expressed their concerns, which we share and echo, as we’re seeing the same behavior at home.   If he’s doing a preferred activity, he has an ability to focus for long periods of time, but on things he’s not excited about—or sometimes even if he is interested in the subject, he just can’t seem to maintain any level of concentration.

It’s affecting his ability to complete work and keep up with the remainder of the class.   What I was impressed with with his teachers is they want to find out what they can do to best help him be successful.   They genuinely care about his progress and his emotional state as he faces the challenge of his daily classroom routine and work.  

Constant redirection tells him results in a negative self-image, which we’re seeing in him both at school and home.   So the question is: how can we facilitate him so that he can be successful in a positive way?  

One thing we’re going to try is sending him in with his father’s noise-cancelling headphones tomorrow.   He loves wearing his headphones at home, even when he’s not using them.   With the noise-cancelling feature he may be less distracted (one of his biggest problems to staying focused).

I’m going to have a conversation with his occupational therapist tomorrow to see if she has any other suggestions.   His teachers have said her work with him has been beneficial.   We agree and are seeing changes as a result at home.   We’ll find out in the coming weeks if the headphones help him concentrate.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Combination Session:  Tomorrow we’re bringing my daughter to my son’s occupational therapist appointment.   His therapist is more of a, “life coach” as she calls herself, helping my son understand himself and what’s happening in his brain.   She helps by giving him clearly defined explanations of things in a way he can understand.   My son writes or draws up the work they do at each session and takes it home for us to put on the refrigerator so he can refer to them.   One thing that’s come up is the sibling rivalry between with his sister so tomorrow we’re bringing him to his session so Liz can meet Reese and see them interact.    We may bring them in together in the future if she thinks it will help him, her or both of them.

It Was Mother’s Day And…

…I was going to sleep in.   But you know how that goes with young children—it doesn’t happen.   Although, in this case it was my alarm that woke me up.   I had pressed the snooze button and was trying to maximize those nine minutes with more sleep while at the same time trying to wake up because I’d told my best friend I was available to run.  

About that time my daughter came to the edge of the bed and sweetly told me she had made me a Mother’s Day card.   I wasn’t fully awake and told her if I could have just a few more minutes to sleep I would come find her so she could read (or translate) her drawing/writing to me.

I did get up and made it to the run, which turned out to be a walk because my best friend had injured her ankle.   Just before I left I asked my daughter to read her card to me.   It included cake, which looked delicious in grey sharpie.

After the run, er, walk, we went as a family to get smoothies and then to get vegetables and herbs for the garden my husband is working on creating with the children on our deck.  My daughter wanted to grow carrots while my son wanted jalapeño and poblano peppers.   My son doesn’t like jalapeño peppers, but that’s what he wanted.   We picked out some things for me to plant for my Mother’s Day present from the children.   The real present will be when my husband gets the drip system set up so we don’t have to water things every day.

This afternoon Nana and Papa came to town and took the children to the pool while my husband prepared to make Butter Chicken for dinner.  When they got back we all sat down to dinner and then spent a good bit of time as my children explained all the Mother’s Day things they’d made for me in their classes (plus any other crafts they’d made recently).   Then they presented Nana with their cards, reading or braille-reading what they’d written and describing what they’d drawn in the pictures.

As we finished dinner, cousin Kyle, on his way from Florida heading home to home in New Jersey after finishing his year of college, stopped in to spend the night before the second half of his drive tomorrow.   Everyone was happy to see Kyle, including Nana and Papa, who left to drive home soon after.

All around it was a nice Mother’s Day with sun, family, a little bit of exercise, and fun.

The Big Boy Update:  For Mother’s Day my son wanted to play a new song he’d created on the piano.  He played a very slow, discordant and yet positionally symmetrical song.   After his sister played something he wanted to do a second song.   This time he sang as he played and although he was quiet I could hear the words which were all about a child who didn’t have parents and was sad.   After he finished playing he wanted us to know the names of his songs were, “Oh No” and “No More Mother”.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:    My daughter is finished with her bladder infection antibiotics and is having no more itching or other issues.   When I was giving her the medicine the other day she remarked, “‘bladder’ is a very interesting word.   Maybe a little inappropriate.  I bet it wold hurt if someone stepped on your bladder.”

Didi Seven

I have a new shirt I like a lot.  It’s relatively new, has orange stripes and a hood.   It’s sort of t-shirt material and it is both comfortable and versatile.   But I got a stain on it.   I don’t know how I got the stain; had I noticed it at the time I would have done something about it quickly before whatever it was set in.    And it wasn’t one stain, it was three, as though I dropped something down the front of my shirt as I ate.

Knowing me, that’s exactly what happened but since I didn’t notice it, it wasn’t until it came out of the laundry, was hung back up in my closet and then put on again one morning that I noticed the clean yet stained shirt.   So I washed it again.   No luck though, the stains remained.

So I got serious.    We have a collection of stain removing things in our laundry room but I wasn’t concerned as the first option I usually tried fixed most things.   I treated the stain and came back in an hour to find it the exact same, not even lightened.   So I went for round two.  

I didn’t know if it was food-based with some sort of oil or something else non-food related.   So I tried two more stain options to clean certain types of stains.   No go.  I used some OxyClean at full strength and a dry cleaning stick and a new stain cleaner I’d gotten a while back but hadn’t had need to use yet.   But the stain remained, steadfast, not even lightening in the slightest.

The three little stains were on the white part of the striped shirt.   Or at least I think the shirt was white.   But if I put pure bleach on the spots with a cotton swab I was fairly sure I’d find out the shirt wasn’t actually white but something more like ecru.  So I passed on the bleach.  

I counted six different stain removing options with no success when I remember up in my craft room, in the back of a drawer, was a tube of Didi Seven from back in the late 1980’s.   I don’t know why I kept it all this time, save for the possibility I’d need it someday.  

Two minutes with the Didi Seven and the stain was completely gone.   Not a trace.  Didi Seven production was stopped in 2017, which is about fifteen years longer than I realized it was around.   The only memory I have of it was the infomercial when I was in college.   Apparently there’s no expiration date on the product based on the results I got.

The Big Boy Update:  I was putting together a birthday gift for Madison, our neighbor, this afternoon in the craft room, which has no door lock.   I told my son if his sister and Madison came back to the house to come let me know so I could keep her present a surprise.   I told him to not tell them they couldn’t go into the room. because that would arouse suspicion.   Sure enough, not ten minutes later I hear the girls come inside.   My son, who is more concerned about, “modesty” now that he’s older, ran up and opened the door, shutting it quickly behind him.   “They’re here!” he told me breathlessly. He was completely naked, apparently about to put his bathing suit on.   He opened the door to find the girls standing just outside.   He put one hand in front of his crotch and one hand on his butt and said to them, “you can’t go in there right now” and then fled.   I gave him extra stamps for being such a trooper.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter came downstairs last night, saying she had a scary dream.   Hey, did I tell you (aside here) that she’s not wetting the bed anymore?  Darn us for not believing she could have a bladder infection.   So my daughter came downstairs, said she had had a scary dream and got in the bed per my invitation.   She was there about two minutes and then said, “I think I’m going back upstairs now.”   I gave her a kiss and off she went.

Why Does Everyone Want To Say Hi To Me?

My son’s school had their Spring Expo this evening.   My husband and I went with him and his sister to the event.   It’s a nice time to catch up with parents we don’t get an opportunity to see often with children running amok around the outdoor learning environment as we chatted.   There were activity stations, a drum circle and food from a local restaurant.  

My son was looking forward to the performances he would be doing with the Lower Elementary students, in particular the “solo” he had with five other students in his class.  The songs were cute with hand motions and dance moves.   The “solo” was a few lines spoken into a microphone with his classmates, but he was proud to be selected—which is the important thing.

My daughter was mostly interested in finding the two horizontal bars and playing on them for as long as we’d let her.   The bars are held in place by three large tree trunks into which the bars are inserted. The children enjoy playing on the bars and climbing onto the tops of the sawed-off tree trunks which allows them to stand far taller than the adults.

My daughter was interested in listening to the performances, sitting quietly and paying attention to what was being sung.   She liked listening to Tea’s performance on the violin and she had fun participating in the drum circle.

What was surprising to her was why everyone wanted to say hello to her.   She was at my son’s school for four years, attending less than a year ago.   That’s a long time in the mind and memory of a child however.   As teacher after teacher and old classmate one after another came to greet her and say hello she said to us, “why does everyone want to say hi to me?”  

She’s an anomaly, walking around with a colorful blind cane.   People want to know how she is and say hello because they miss her.   There were parents and teachers who didn’t really know her, but know her story and came over to ask how she’s doing.   These are adults who genuinely care and are interested.   I would give my elevator speech and then answer any additional questions they had.   But it wasn’t the bars and tree trunks, so it wasn’t that interesting to my daughter.

The Big Boy Update:  My son did very well in the performances at Spring Expo tonight.   He knows all the words of the songs, but he still gets a little dazzled by the size of the audience and forgets to sing a lot of the time.   He did do a great job of his solo though.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had a field trip with her class today to the local hands-on children’s museum.   My husband was one of the chaperones.   She liked having dad there and liked that she was paired up with Layla, one of her favorite classmates.   Hopefully she and Layla will be in the same class next year.

I Love You Because

Today I was invited to my daughter’s class, along with the other mothers, to join in a Mother’s Day celebration with the children.   I didn’t know what to expect save that my daughter was very excited about it.

When I arrived I got hug after hug from my daughter—which is a little atypical of her, she’s more of a drive by hugger, moving on to the next thing at a rapid pace.   She had two things in front of her that she’d worked very hard on.   One was a poem each of the children had written out for their mother.  My daughter had braille hers and then had made a hand print flower arrangement on a large sheet behind it.  

She read the whole poem to me, including many words that were tricky for her due to length and composition.   Her braille teacher told me some of the words were fourth grade words.   After that she presented me with a paper purse.   Inside the purse (which was more of a booklet in the shape of a purse) there was a story about me.   It was things she thought about me and things I did and how much I meant to my daughter.   It was very sweet.

Next there was a performance by the class.   They stood in the front of the class and all danced and sang to. You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful” by One Direction.   There were dance moves that were cute and the children loved doing the song so much they did a second round at the end of the celebration.

We had tea and cookies next with the tea being sprite with rainbow sherbet in it.   And then Mrs. Wentz, their teacher, invited her own mother up to the rocking chair in the front of the class and told her, “I love you because” and gave some beautiful reasons she loved her mother.   Mrs. Wentz asked if any other children wanted to have their mom sit in the chair and tell them why they loved their mother.

The first child stood there for a second, looked dazed and then said, “My mom dropped her phone in the toilet.”   Everyone laughed and they sat down.   That pretty much set the tone for why children loved their mothers in the class.   One boy, who’s father had come in his mother’s stead as she was traveling and couldn’t make it, said, “my mom dropped my sister into the washing machine.”   That one went untopped”.

My daughter was almost last and she said what I was almost expecting by now, “my mother dropped her phone into the toilet.   And mommy, I love you because you take care of me.”   The second part I hadn’t expected.  All the parents in the room did a simultaneous, “aww”.  

The last person in the room to go was Mrs. Wentz’s daughter who is in high school.  She came up and read from her phone a very moving speech.   She said she had to write it out in advance so she wouldn’t cry.   Mrs. Wentz and she cried a bit anyways.

As we were wrapping up my daughter asked if I could take her home with me, and since it was forty-five minutes until dismissal I told her we could go home together and skip the “taxi” for the day.  Tonight she reread me the things she wrote about me.   We’re going to put them on the refrigerator for Mother’s Day.

The Big Boy Update:  As I was drying my hair today my son said, “you’re getting wrinkles.”  I explained it happened as you got older.   He then asked, “is it because you’re getting smaller and you have extra skin?”  I told him we could look up why adults get wrinkles and see if his theory was correct.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   After Mrs. Wentz’s daughter, Cassidy, gave her, “why I love you” speech to her mother today my daughter leaned over to me and said, “Cassidy sounded different than I thought she would.”   Which is interesting.   She knew Cassidy was visiting the classroom and she knew she’d arrived.   She knew she was serving the punch to us but she couldn’t see any of that.   The first time she experienced Cassidy herself was when she heard her talk.   I suppose it’s not unlike when we say someone didn’t look the way we expected when we meet them for the first time.

I’m Sure Dad Has It Covered

I picked my son up from school today and asked him if he wanted to run a fun errand with me.   We had the last scheduled meeting at our house this afternoon for the Head of School search committee for a while.   We needed to meet off campus and needed a location we could Skype as a group.   Our basement worked well for the Skyping and proved to be convenient in location to the school so we kept convening here.

For my husband and me it was easy; we like entertaining.   We had someone handle the food which left drinks and snacks all we needed to coordinate.   Before each event we would set up some things to eat and drink in the basement and be ready for people to arrive.    After about the fifth time we had it down.  

So this afternoon when I picked up my son from school I asked him if he’d like to help me out by going to Whole Foods to select some cookies to get for the meeting.   And get this—he said he didn’t like cookies.   That’s right, cookies.   I think he just wanted to get home and play with his friends but since the cookies needed to be bought, he went along somewhat reluctantly with me.

When we got into the store I thought he’d be excited by the cookies but instead wanted to know what the gelato was behind the glass display.   Since he didn’t want a cookie I told him he could have some gelato instead.   He picked lemon sorbet and cookies and cream—together.   Which sounded like a flavor clash to me but he liked it quite a lot.

After eating his gelato we got into the car and I realized people were arriving at our home in forty-five minutes.   I must have sounded worried but my son wasn’t.   He said, “don’t worry, mom, I’m sure dad has it covered.”   And sure enough, dad did.

The Big Boy Update:   Tonight my daughter was distraught after lights were out for bed.   She wanted a story from Alexa but was told it was too late by dad.   She was so upset.   Instead of lashing out at her like my son has done in the past he opened the door and called down to me saying, “mom, I think you need to come up, Reese really needs you.”  I gave him a big hug and thanked him for making sure his sister was okay.   I sat on the bed to talk to her and he got on the bed too, giving her a hug while she cried.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been telling me I get to go to her class tomorrow for a Mother’s Day celebration.   It’s a good thing she’s always correct with information because not only was she correct, she told us where to look to find the information on one of the online resource spots for parents.   Tomorrow I’ll find out what she and her class have planned.

The Fastest Way To Write A Blog Post...

...is to be too tired to go downstairs and sit at the computer.  Couple that with the lack of usability of the iPad keyboard and the post is sure to be brief.   Guess where I am right now?  If you guessed not at my computer, you’d be correct.

It’s been a long day. I got up at 4:00am to fly to Detroit with my daughter to have an in-office visit with her retina surgeon.  He was running very late.  Four hours after arriving at his office and we had to rush back to the airport, unable to get any food for lunch, now 3:15pm and board the plane as the gates were shutting.

My daighters eyes are stable with an EUA to be scheduled locally with her doctors here and a follow-up in Detroit in four months.   We arrived home to rush-hour traffic to attend a meeting already ongoing at my house that we were hosting for the school.  I jumped into the meeting which went until after seven o'clock.

Somehow things needed to be done and I find myself at ten-thirty writing this post on my iPad, sitting on the bed, hoping to sleep shortly.

The Big Boy Update:  more on this later, but my son is in need of lots of positive reinforcement.  We spoke with his ocupational therapist yesterday and have a plan.  She gives us such confidence in how to best help him; we're very grateful to have her.

The Tiy Girl Chronicles:  The only thing I had to give my daughter for late lunch once we boarded the plane was Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  She wanted McDonalds but decided a special lunch of chocolate wasn’t all that bad.