Sleep

I think my husband and I have been working a lot and some of it, well okay, a lot of it has taken us into the late night.  We haven't been wanting to stay us late, but things take a good while to do well.   And my husband and I each have our own ways in which we want to put out quality content.   On the balance, I think it's been a good thing as what we've been releasing seems to be considered fairly professionally done. 

And that surprises me, because the last thing my husband and I are is professionals at this.  We don't know what we're doing it seems.  Although we have figured out a lot of things by muddling through things over time.  

It has been at a cost of sleep on may nights.  My husband is pretty amazing and doesn't seem to need as much sleep as I do.  I have had to take naps some days, which help a lot.  Getting things done when the children are asleep is easier because we can focus on the work.  We do want to be parents when the children are awake.  It's a balance, that's for sure. 

This week my husband has slept very late two days and been surprised he did.  I think he must have needed it because he's been working very hard.  I've been tired too and right now, I just want to go to sleep and sleep in in the morning.   I tend to wake up though, so we'll see if that actually happens.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son is very happy it's Friday and he can have some screen time.  He has none during the school week now that the holidays are over. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter found out today that she will be going through, with me, the scenario she'll have at the dentist's office for removing her teeth.   She wants to know if there will be a needle.   I told her the fear is in her mind and that we'll be talking about needles and what will happen that day.   Just the thought of going through this with me caused her to flee the room.   I think we have a lot of work to do to get her more calm about it. 

Panic Attack

My daughter's dental work did not happen yesterday.   Everything was planned, she was fine with it, she calmly went there and then when it came time for the IV, she lost it.  I haven't heard all the details, but it was bad.  So bad that they wouldn't do the procedure to remove her two baby teeth that are preventing her permanent teeth from developing.

My daughter has developed a fear of needles that ramped steadily with the two vaccination doses, but this was unexpected.   There was the possibility of using Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas) but in my daughter's case, they didn't want to use it because it affects ocular pressure and we've already got enough to do managing that as it is. 

So they went home.  My husband in very untypical fashion was so angry about it that he wasn't talking to her.  When I got in he told me to, "play good cop" and I went to talk to my daughter.   She is upset.  And I understand and neither of us want her to hurt and know this was far more traumatic to her than it was frustrating to us.   We just need to figure out how to help her through it.  

I could not for the life of me find a meaningful audiobook or book that could be read aloud to her (we read to her, but she likes to be alone and listen in her room a lot).  But I did find a six hour adult book which was how to help your child with anxiety.   

I talked to my daughter and told her she could use the information in the book to think about what she would do if she were being given the advice.   She listened to a lot of it yesterday and initially said it wasn't very helpful.   Then, out of the blue last night, she said, "you were wrong mom."  I didn't know what she meant.  I had said, "well, the book might not be that useful to you.  I'm sorry if it isn't, it was the closest thing I could find."

She said she wasn't completely honest with me earlier in the day and that she was learning a lot from the book.  She even gave me good advice for how to calm the dog when someone comes to the door and she goes all bark, jump and more bark. 

Not only is it helping her, I said, but she was helping me.   

The Big Boy Update:  There have only been seven students in my son's class the first week back to school.   There were strict requirements on eligibility to return and some of the students are waiting for test results or are staying home because they were exposed to someone.   He and his teachers have said it's been a nice week with the small group.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter doesn't know it yet, but I have a final test for her when she thinks she's mastered her fears.   I'll have to let you know how it goes when we get to that point. 

Oral Surgery

Tomorrow morning my daughter is having dental surgery.  She has some baby teeth that have in no way even begun to think about considering getting out of the way for her permanent teeth.  I'm glad my husband has been pursuing the dental needs for the children because this might not have been caught otherwise.  

The last time my daughter had anything done she was very upset and it was hard on her and the dentist.   She gets like this, probably because of all the medical that's happened to her over the years.   And yet she seems almost serene about tomorrow's impending teeth pulling.  They are going to do several things and she will be getting braces at some point in the reasonably near future, and this is the first step.  

I hope it is easy for her and she doesn't panic.   We'll find out tomorrow. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son was worried that his father slept a lot today and wanted to tell the teachers at school and let them decide if he should go to school.   I agreed and disagreed with him.  I said that sometimes the teachers don't have the same amount of information as the parents and it's important for the right person to make the school attendance decision.   I think my husband was just very tired from lots of work staying up late.   He talked to my son about it and I think they both felt better because of it. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had an appointment with her psychiatrist today.  I asked her to think about what to say and that her doctor needed to know, above anyone else, what she was feeling and thinking.  She was very open and honest with him.  I was really proud of her.  I don't think it was easy. 

Cylon

I got a vacuum cleaner for Christmas.  It was the one thing I wanted.  It's one of those little Roomba iRobot things that runs around on our carpets and floors and makes them all clean.   We had one but it had issues and there was a new option I saw that could clean four different areas, meaning we could pick it up and put it in the basement and it would go about cleaning that floor too.

I was sold.  Did I mention it has some sort of advanced not mopping but scrubbing technology as well and could, with a very small amount of water, clean hard-surfaced floors including scrubbing back and forth when it detected a particularly dirt area?   And it has anti-stuck technology so it can get itself out of jams when it gets stuck in places should that happen. 

It talks to you when you do things instead of beeping and booping things that ou have to look up in a manual or online.   And it has a spot it delivers all the dirt to so you don't have to empty it regularly but only with the main bin gets full. 

It doesn't bump into things because it has lidar and can sense something, stopping just before hitting it.  And it maps out each area itself so you don't have to do anything other than plug it in, install the app and say go.   After it maps one area, you pick it up and it knows it's somewhere new so it starts mapping that too.   Then, later when you place it down again it figures out where it is and starts cleaning.  

It is marvelous.   When I saw it going about tonight and watched the little light that moved back and forth across the front I knew there was only one name for it, Cylon, after the armor-clad robotesque creatures from the original Battlestar Galatcia.   

The Goodbye Hugs:  Nana and Papa have left for Florida.  We won't see them for several months.   The children (and the adults) gave them long hugs today.   We will miss them.  

I Didn't Forget

I was so tired last night at two in the morning that I just put off writing my blog post for the next morning. I should know better though.   I'll get up and write it first thing...and first thing definitely doesn't happen.   It's now nearing six at night and I have two posts looming over me.   I have a lot to say sometimes and then other times not so much.  

That's actually not true.  I think I have loads and loads to say.  But I'm dedicating so much mental bandwidth to Filament Stories that by the time I get here, I just want to go to sleep.   Which I don't like.   This journal isn't very interesting if it's just about me working hard and being tired and not much more detail than that.   I need to get a balance in this somehow.

The Big Boy Update:  Tomorrow (well, today since I'm writing this a day late) was(is) my son's first day of school for 2022.  He was supposed to go to bed early and do some reading over the holidays, both of which didn't happen.  His laundry didn't get folded either.   When he gets home tomorrow he will go to his room and finish his laundry.   He was upset, but not overly so.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had no problems doing her laundry.   She can't see and does need some help confirming that she's sorted things correctly, but she knows almost all of her laundry by both shape and texture.   I am amazed, yet again, by how she's adapted to the world. 

Distressed Dermis

My daughter has eczema.   My son had eczema quite badly when he was much younger, but he grew out of it.  My daughter only got it later in life and it has seemed to get worse over time.  She's been avoiding having us put medication on it, which will help quite quickly, resolving the vast majority of the eczema in two days.   Still, it's medication and it stings and she hates it, so she puts it off. 

Tonight you would have thought we were torturing her.   She has a spot that was bothering her so much she asked for medication on that one spot only.   To get her properly medicated all over took a lot of work as she was verbally combative and physically completely unhelpful.   

The things she said to us were mean, hurtful and accusatory.   She hated us, we were awful, she wanted to leave and never come back, we didn't love her, etc.   Not the type of thing you'd expect to hear from a ten-year-old child.   But this ten-year-old has been through so much medical treatment in her life that she will do anything to avoid it.  So I understand. 

After getting her medicated and then lubricated with calming lotion and oils she talked to us.   I'm worried about her sometimes because I think adjusting to her blindness is still a very heavy load on her.  She wants to live in a fantasy world where she's a child of the Greek gods, something that makes sense from some of the book series she's read.   Or, she wants to be a cat and live in the wild in a cat clan.  

We had a nice time with her after she calmed down, but it was certainly an ordeal to get there.  Tomorrow we will have to go through it again.  Hopefully she will have healed some by then and things won't hurt as much. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Monopoly:  The children created a new version of Monopoly today and I rather like the rules.   You don't need a set of one color to build houses or hotels.  The railroads aren't properties but instead let you teleport to any of the other three locations.   It makes for a faster game that has a nice little twist from the traditional rules. 

Live Stream Advice to Self

They will figure out you're in the room if you make noise and then you feel obligated to continue talking and then it will be hours and hours later and you will be ever so tired.  

I'm going to bed. I know interesting things happened today, but I will have to write about them tomorrow