The Turtle and The Lizard

We've had events today.   But we're done, and home and I'm sitting on the bed writing a blog post and cooling off.  We first went to my son's school for a play date with the Lower Elementary families.  There are two classrooms of first through third graders, and this was an opportunity to have them play together while the parents of the first years had an initial conference with their child's teacher.

My son initially didn't want his sister to go, because he said we always spend time with her and never do anything with him.   This is interesting because he never wants to do anything with us because he's off with his friends for the duration of any event.  But he was correct, we spend time with his sister.  Firstly, because she doesn't know anyone, but mostly (I suppose that's 'secondly') because she can't see and she needs help navigating the outdoor learning environment at the school.

For this event, there were fewer students, and my son did have something he wanted us to do with him.   He's been playing four square a lot with his classmates.   I remember playing this ball bouncing game of four people a lot when I was a child.   We had him teach us the rules and then played a good bit with him and his friends, all rotating in and out as they were eliminated or rose in rank in the game.

My daughter wanted to play, which was nigh impossible because you have to see a ball to be able to bounce it accurately into another square—or even to hit it in the first place.   We took turns standing behind her, holding her arms and playing as a team.   She became petulant when she wasn't getting to be the King of the square, even though a lot of us weren't either.   I let her play with some other children who worked better because she was less likely to complain to them.

After the school event, we came home for a brief period before going to the Greek festival where we were meeting my daughter's Braillist from kindergarten.   During that short time at home, Madison, our next-door-neighbor, came over with a baby turtle in a container.   She let my daughter hold the turtle, who was a bit bigger than a quarter and very friendly.   It was nice because my daughter could touch it and feel the arms, head, shell, and tail.   My daughter liked knowing what the animal felt like.

We had a lovely time at the Greek festival, as is any time with Mrs. Aagaard.   She bought my daughter a waist scarf with coins sewn into it so she could practice being a belly dancer.   My daughter currently has it on and has been running around the house, jingling all the way.

The doorbell just rang, and I answered to find Jay and Claire with another animal in a box.   This time it was a lizard they'd caught in the woods.   My daughter walked outside, held her hands out in a cupped fashion, and said, "can I see it?"

What she meant was, "can I feel it?" but they didn't understand that.   I told her the lizard, unlike the turtle, moved very fast, and if they pulled it out of the cage, it would dash and be gone.   I told her it was about the size and shape of her finger.

I think my daughter was sad, but she doesn't show it when things like this happen.   I'm sad for her, though.   She wants to experience things, but so many things in life can't be "seen" in a way that she can make sense of them.   She has to listen to descriptions and do with only words to understand what a thing is like.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son really likes Mrs. Aagaard.   He's already made plans to go with her to The International Festival in two months.   He told me about it as we were leaving.   Hopefully he'll take the rest of us along.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got upset today at the end of the play date and said she hated one of the girls.   We were driving this girl home and my daughter didn't know she was standing beside her when she said it.   She further said she was dumb and mean.  So my daughter wrote her an apology note.   Her father thinks it might have been that my daughter ran into his daughter and was embarassed and was reacting that was as a result.   He could be right.   The note my daughter wrote Amelia was very touching.   She does like her and wants to be friends.   Her parents said she wasn't upset and that they all understood.

Sometimes There’s A Craving

Last night I wanted Indian food.  A lot of it.   Fortunately, my husband also wanted Indian food.   We tried to figure out what the children would like, spicy-wise and dish specifics and I headed off to the Indian restaurant with a plan to order a sizeable amount of food and then, while it was being cooked, look for some Gorilla glue in the delicate dispenser format so we could glue in one of my daughters lenses to her glasses.

I came home with a lot of food.   My daughter and son both liked the rice and we all liked one of the dishes we'd never tried before.   I wasn't able to find the glue in time, but my husband made do with some other glue I had in the craft room.   She has two pair of prescription glasses, both of which have issues with the left lens staying in place.

There was a lot of leftover food.   We're eating it tonight, my husband had some for lunch and we'll eat it through the weekend.   I'm not sure I got enough Naan, but they definitely gave me a lot of rice, which is popular with my children.

Today was sunny and nice weather—perfect for the canceled school day my daughter had for the hurricane that wasn't particularly close to us.  She and I got new shoes for her, something she didn't want to do at all until she got to try them on.   Then, she was all about getting new shoes.

The Big Boy Update:  My son had school, unlike the public school which canceled the last two days for potential hurricane weather here (which didn't come to pass).   He's happy about the research he's working on and the Mystery History project he'll be doing for Halloween, in which he presents a figure from history and the parents try to guess who he's dressed up as and reporting on in the first person.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had her hair cut today.   We only do it about twice a year and cut off only an inch each time as it grows quite slowly.   After the haircut, we went to get shoes.   It is interesting getting shoes for a blind child.   The important things to her were the pattern of rubber on the bottom of the shoes and what "maze" it made.   Also, if there had been, "flip" shoes she would have been interested, but there were none so she picked pale pink and blue—neither of which she could see.   She liked the patterns a lot on the bottom though, which was all that mattered to her.

Nickel Tech Support

My father has a nickel slot machine from the 1920s in their house.   It has a long history with our family, starting when I was about the age of my children when my father found it at a yard sale.

The machine was in pieces and a long way from being functional again.  My father worked on it for a long while, figuring out how the pieces all worked together to make the reels spin.  In the end, he got it working.  It's a testament to his skill and ingenuity.  There was no YouTube to look up how to's on.  He had to go it all alone.

I was impressed it worked at all.  It was such a mass of metal, springs, hinges, and grooves and somehow, when everything was just right, it accepted nickels and rolled the reels for you.  But it broke a lot too.  It had a tolerance that could easily be overwhelmed by youths pumping nickels into the top.

Over the years I got so I could fix any problem introduced by playing it.   I suppose these were an early form of software, "bugs". I had to chase down the errors which in this case were nickles run amok in the machine, fallen into the inner workings and causing troubles.

I hadn't thought about debugging the slot machine until today when my mother called and told me about a story of some visitors who got the slot machine stuck.

My father and I talked over the phone as he jangled the machine around, trying to remember common issues and ways we got them working again.   I was surprised how much I remembered about the machine just from talking to my father.   I wanted to be there, to touch the machine.   I'm sure I would have remembered more.   I could almost smell the oil and feel the parts moving in my hands.

My father and I didn't figure it out over the phone.   Hopefully, he got it working after we hung up.   He had remembered more about it than I had.  Next time I go to the mountains I'll have to play the slot machine again.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been into all things Zelda lately.   He's gotten my husband and me into it from a memories standpoint.   We found old Zelda games in the attic and my son brought them up on the console downstairs.   Then, tonight after my son was asleep, I found my husband playing on the Switch, but playing an old game of Zelda they'd recently updated.  

The TIny Gitl ChrocinclesL:  My daughter listened to multiple audio books today on her day off from school while we had hurricane rains (we're on the edge of the hurricane Dorian.). Tomorrow she may well listen to several more books.   I returned books to the library for the blind today in person.   I had them change her preference to uncontracted braille so that she won't be frustrated reading the books they send.

     

Cancelling School

School has been canceled for the public schools here tomorrow.   Hurricane Dorian is coming up from the south, but won't be heading towards us.   And if it did...there would be ample time to cancel school.   Like a half day's notice, maybe more.

If there is snow and some of the areas of the county can't be serviced by school busses I could understand maybe.   I'm just confused by the canceling this early before we know enough.

And perhaps I wouldn't mind at all was it not for the additional notes in the cancellation announcement.   Back when I was in school we had a number of "snow days" built into the calendar.   We could miss a certain number and not have to make anything up.   We always wanted to miss just enough that we didn't have to stay in school longer at the end of the year.

But in this case, my daughter's year-round track will be missing school tomorrow, on account of the threat of possible weather.   The makeup day is Saturday.   This Saturday.   Three days from now.   Unless "September 7th" on the announcement was for another year.

Families have plans on the weekends.   Soccer games, family visiting, playdates, cultural experiences.   Things happen that can't happen during the week.   Some of the things are not something that can be done at another time.

I wrote a note to my daughter's VI teacher about my disappointment—that we are planning on going to the Greek festival with Mrs. Aagaard, my daughter's retired braillist.   I'm planning on still going.

The Big Boy Update:  My son stole money out of his sister's bank in order to get something for himself.  Please don't tell him you read this here, he would be very upset.   The reason I'm writing about it is that I told him enough of the evidence I'd found for him to know he had been found out.   His father was there with me so I also let him know he would not be in trouble and did he steal his sister's money?   He admitted he did.   I told him I was proud of him for telling the truth, especially when he didn't know how much trouble he would get in.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   I came inside tonight to get something my husband and son were asking for in the front yard.   My daughter was sniffling and when she heard me she burst into tears.   Why was she upset?   She was alone in the house, something she didn't realize until she started calling out names and no one answered.   So she got scared and sort of panicked a little.   Her fears are getting the better of her as she's processing the blindness and working through all the fears that go with it.

New Year’s Class Routine

Last week my husband and I attended a parents information session for my son's classroom.   This is his third year in the class and he is quite proud to be one of the class leaders.   Of the over twenty students, there just happens to be only four third-yearss, which means there are more younger students than older, something that is just a happenstance of enrollment and classroom matching.

The first day of school only the four third-year students attended.   They spent the day going over things I suppose that were speficic to them and talking about how they could be helpers to the younger and newest students.

The second day the second-year students joined the third-years.   They were reminded of the routine of the classroom and more expectations were set in preparation for the new students, the first-years, that would be coming on the third day.

As Wednesday started, all the students were in the classroom, but no work was done.   No school work that is.   But, my son's teacher told us, the students were working very hard indeed.   She was setting the stage for the entire school year.   She was giving them her expectations and showing by example, using an older student to help, each of the classroom guidelines.

Some of these things are possibly not typical "lessons" students would recieve in a traditional school.   For example, they don't walk on the rugs in the classroom during certain times.  The three large rugs are areas on which work is done by the students.   You select your work, get a mat or floor desk, lay our your space and then begin to work.  

In order for that workspace to remain minimally interrupted since many things require things to be laid out that could be disturbed by fast-moving feet, walking is always done around the rugs.   If you go in a Montessori classroom later in the school year,you can watch the children effortlessly avoiding the rugs without it looking like they're thinking about it becayse they've been doing it daily.

There were other classroom expectations, such the process to excuse yourself to go to the bathroom, how to wash and dry your hands without leaving a mess for the next person, and how to blow your nose.

My son's teacher said, "they know how to blow their nose, but they also don't.  They get the tissue, wad it up and then blow.   They get mucous all over their hands."   She said they talked about how germs were transmitted, the importance of keeping our friends healthy and how blowing your noce properly could help in that regard.

My son's school—lessons in nose blowing and toilet flushing.   Good stuff, that.

The Big Boy Update:  My son and I had an argument this morning over something trivial, but important to know: don't shove things at peoples eyes.   My eyes.   I didn't like it and reactd viscerally.   We needed to reset in the car so I got him talking about video games again.   He figured out that if it hadn't been for playing video games, his father and I would have never met and that meant he wouldn't exisdt.   He's right.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Aunt Margaret and I picked my daughter up from school this afternoon and went to The Shake Shack, which had only opened un the weekend. We all had shakes and some food while our dog politely waited in the car with the airconditioner on Dog Mode.  They have a Dog Custart Cup on the menu, which I got at the end.   My daughter held the cup on the ride home and Matisse licked it all gone before we made it half-way hime.

French Fried Potatoes

We had a pool date with some friends this morning, stretching into mid-afternoon.   We've been working on having the chidlren understand we each need our own time so when we were on the ride back to the house I explained that their father and I, as well as the two of them, were going to have our own time when we got home.

I explained to my son that this meant he could have some screen time, but to not expect it to be, "all day".   I told my daughter she could listen to her audio book—I've gotten her into the Ramona Quimby series and she was interested in what was happening next.

I, for one, was taking a bath and getting all the sweat and products off my body from being outside at the pool.  I felt gunky.   Then I was going to finish the Royal Institution lecture on the history of our use of fuels, starting with the candle.

I fell asleep when the video got to the Q&A section and woke up to hear my children and husband finishing dinner.   I came into the kitchen and was offered some french fries my daughter had made.   They were well done, as my husband never cuts corners and had fried them to perfection.   Then, I heard the back story of how they came to be with my husband elaborating more when my daughter wasn't around.

He told me (in his proud father voice that my daughter could hear) that he'd come upstairs to find this on the counter:



My daughter told him she had wanted french fries for dinner so she'd gotten them ready.   She told him she didn't know how to used the stove so she didn't keep going beyond the preparation stage.   He had told her she needed to be older and to have a lesson before she was able to use the stove alone and that she'd made a wise choice.

What you don't see in this picture is what happened for her to get to those nicely cut potato wedges.   She had gotten some potatoes out of the refrigerator, pulled out the peeler, peeled the potatoes and put away all the peels in the compost container.  then she'd gotten a knife (an adult knife she's been taught how to use) and cut everything up.

Then she waited for her father to be ready to make dinner and showed him her work.   She asks for help constantly, sometimes making you think she's not capable.   She is very capable, she's just social and frustrated, and lonely sometimes.   She's going to be just fine.   Sometimes I need a reminder like these poratoes to remember it.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was a terror today when we got to the pool.   He was on the verge of being mean to the very nice friends we'd come with.   He didn't want anything for lunch other than ice cream.   My husband and I looked at each other and I made the call.   "Okay, you can have ice cream, but you have to promise to be nice—to everyone—and then eat normal lunch afterwards," I told him.   I made him eat off to the side, where no one in our group could see him, lest we have a child revolt on our hands with everyone wanting ice cream for lunch.   He was low on calories apparently because it worked.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter's pressure was going up.   We thought it was bad.   Her doctor wasn't overly concerned and said sometimes it goes like this with the implant.   For now we're adding one drop in her left eye per day to reduce fluids.   That one drop has put her pressure back in perfect range at nine almost consistently.   Big sigh there.

Thirty-seven Messages

We went out on my best friend and her husband's boat today.   There is a nice-sized lake about a half-hour from where we live where they keep their boat.   The boat is a newer acquisition, something my best friend wasn't keen on initially, but now that they have it, she really likes.

There was some wakeboarding and inner-tubing done by the children.   The adults talked and the children, their younger ones even, took turns at driving the boat as they've taken and passed the boat safety test for the state.  

We had two dogs on board, both with dog life vests, which I don't think were strictly necessary for saving the lives of the dogs as they can swim, but came in handy when we needed to get them back on board as we could just grab the handle on the back and pull them up.   This was particularly helpful as their puppy was fifteen weeks old and wasn't sure what he was doing.   My dog, not having much in the way of large water experience, also benefited from being hauled back onboard a few times.

Both dogs really liked the boat and wanted to hang out almost over the edge of the sides with the wind blowing their fur around when we were underway.   My son liked the whole day, my daughter only liked part of it.   She wasn't happy and I didn't understand why until I asked her what was up.   She said she was bored.  

I had to look at it from her perspective (or think about it rather) and it made sense when I did so.   She couldn't keep up with the dogs, who moved around a lot, and they didn't really want to be cuddled and held—they were interested in everything they could see.   Everyone else was looking around and talking about what was happening. Or they were getting food—food she didn't know the location of and couldn't see what options were available or how to make sandwiches, etc.

She was dependant on us for almost everything.   I got tired of the constant questioning because I couldn't do anything other than answer her queries and stop her from falling over things that covered every surface and walking area of the very packed boat with the ten of us and two dogs.   In short, sitting still, not talking and listening to the music and hum of the boat just wasn't interesting to her.

She complained, "everyone had had a turn but her" on the inner tube, which wasn't the case as only one wakeboarder and one group of two had been on the innertube, but Matt was giving very long turns and we were well into the second hour at that point.   When she got a turn on the innertube she cheered up.   She liked getting in the lake andswimming too.

We got home in time for my husband to run to the store and prepare chicken parmesan for dinner before his parents arrived.   I cleaned up from the day's trip and noticed the answering machine light was blinking.   I pressed the play button to find out we had thirty-seven unplayed messages.  

Our home phone line is largely useless, but I've had the number since 1990 and the home line was included in the bundle we have so we've kept it.   Most of the calls were hang ups.   There were several "computer tech support" phishing messages and some medical services, "call now before your eligibility expires" as well as one that wanted us to call so we could pay down our school loan account with them unless we wanted to press two to be put on their do not call list as it was, in fact, a random solicitation.  

There was one call letting us know about our pest service that was legitimate with a company I really need to update to my cell phone number.   I deleted all thirty-seven messages.   We really need to get rid of that number, but twenty-nine years with the same phone number has been hard to let go of.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was bouncing around after dinner with my in-laws, not wanting to sit in his seat.   He rather randomly said, "Are you talking to me?  About me being an old man?   Becasue then I could say, 'guys could you be quiet here?  I'm trying to nap.'"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Did I mention my daughter did have a bladder infection?   The original screen didn't show anything, but they sent it off to see if it would culture anything and it grew ecoli.   Next step is a referral to infectious diseases, which sounds all kinds of awful, but that's the best group to try and determine why she continues to have the infection either come back or is susceptible to them.