Unexpected Death

My husband got a call this morning that his mother's sister, his Aunt Betty, had died unexpectedly in the night.  She was not in good health and in a home, but she had recently made it through COVID-19 and there wasn't any expectation that she was in distress.  

My mother-in-law was understandably very upset.  It is a shock to hear your only sister has suddenly died, even if she wasn't in the best of health.   Nancy took the news well considering and was on and off the phone all day I am sure talking to people.  

I met Aunt Betty once when I was pregnant with my son.  She was friendly and laughed a lot while we were there with my sister-in-law.  She and I talked on the phone today and remembered that trip together. 

My daughter burst into tears when she heard about Aunt Betty's death.  She had never met her, but she'd talked to her on the phone.  My daughter never likes there to be an end to anything. 

Even though we didn't know her well, she was a member of the family and we will miss her. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl About To Be Grounded Forever Fighting:  I won't go into it, but I told the children they had a choice: get along with no more fighting or stay in their room until the long weekend (in which there might be some sprinkling of snow) is over.   They opted for getting along.

LEGOs Everywhere

My husband loves LEGOs, my son is back into loving LEGOs and my daughter loves to build LEGO models with her father.  My husband said to me yesterday, "You shouldn't have left the new LEGO catalog out, we've been making lists.  

Both he and my son had listed out their favorite sets from the newest catalog with my son easily having twenty sets on is "I'd like to do that one" list.  My husband had three on his list consisting of some of the biggest builds.  

I even looked over and happened to see one model about a hotel that I had happened to see a YouTube video on that was suggested to me and for some reason, I clicked it.  The model had all sorts of rooms in the hotel and each room had just the right things in it to be a perfect mini version of the essence of hotel life. 

So are we getting any new LEGO sets?  You never know with my husband.  I did tell him for my birthday maybe that hotel set would be nice and the birthday present would be my daughter offering to help me make it (something I think she would very much enjoy and a large part of the reason I picked the model.)

The Big Boy Update:  My son went to the attic and brought down some LEGO sets that were in bags.  He had pieces all over the bonus room from the sets and also from the big bins of color-sorted LEGOs.  He was trying to find the pieces so he could get one of the old Mario Bros. sets complete.   The bonus room is a mess, but he is having a great time. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Two audiobooks in two days.   My daughter can binge for hours when it's a new book or series she is interested in.  The two-book series on a candy shop with magicians and magical candy she says is her favorite stories of all time.  She's started the books over so she can listen to them a second time. 

Reworked

I had a Filament Story "Story" video planned out for tonight.   I'd been printing for two days and I had everything planned out in my mind.  And then something odd happened that completely took me off guard: two of the three members of my family didn't want me to do it.  I don't understand why.  One of them I thought would be excited about it and the other one is being concerned for reasons that don't make a lot of logical sense to me.   

But I came up with something else to do with the video and it's not out.   Maybe another time, although  I'm sad because this was the perfect situation for it.   There will always be more filament I'm pretty sure what with the pace companies continue to come out with new variations.  Or at least until 3D printing is replaced with the next rage: 4D Printing.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Manners:  Some days I don't think they have any.  My daughter railroaded me in a conversation today with an adult.  She does this out of excitement a lot of times, but in this case it seemed intentional and the timing was tough because I was talking about someone who had been very ill.  My son was angry and rude to me when I was telling him about something nice I thought I'd done for him.  Maybe he wasn't interested, but he didn't have to snap at me and be rude.   We don't teach them this but it appears we're going to have to unteach it. 

The Lost Polish

My daughter uncharacteristically asked if we could go get a pedicure or a manicure together.  I've asked her to go before but she usually says no, even if she's currently bored.  Today, she wanted to go and since my fingernails were a mess and I had a bandaid keeping a toenail from snagging and tearing.  

We got there and the ladies all knew my daughter from when she came one time with my probably two years ago.   She and I will both never forget the time she went to sit in the pedicure chair and not realizing there was a tub of water there, she sat straight into it.  

She and I got to play games and we talked to the people about what was happening to her legs, feet and toes.   I had more to get done since I had gel polish to take off and change, so I let her get an upgraded pedicure that included getting her feet wrapped in paraffin.   

She loved it all.  When we were leaving she wanted to wear out those incredibly cheap and awkward to walk in foam flip flops.   She was talking and didn't catch that I said to step down so she stumbled down the curb, scraped the polish off one small toe and broke the little sandal flip flops.

She cried and was upset.   She was mollified by knowing we had almost the exact same polish at home and I would get her a smoothie on the way home.   We had a nice day together. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been tearing through some KiwiCo crates recently.  They pile up sometimes with the children not doing anything for several months and then there is a flurry of KiwiCo building.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  When picking a new book series today it was no wonder my daughter picked the one about a candy store that had candies with magical powers.

Off The Floors!

Tomorrow is the day when the very nice ladies come to clean our house again.  My children do not like cleaning things up in preparation, because why clean when people are coming to clean.  The age old answer of, "you can't clean if you can't get to the things that need to be cleaned" was used.  The word, "surfaces" and "covered" were discussed.  And the children reluctantly decided they would help. 

Typically, I would have to go through lots of parental discussions, bordering on arguments possibly, to get them to tidy their things but today for some reason, they were in not only a willing mood but a helpful one.  

My son cleaned his whole room and then tackled more of the bonus room than was strictly necessary.  In the middle of that he also got two KiwiCo crates completed and had started on a third.   Not only that, he was also helpful with his sister, piling all her things together that needed to be cleaned up, or just dumping them in her room in piles.   He was in rare form, as my mother would say.  

The house really looks quite nice tonight.  And I didn't have to do as much as I did for years when they were younger.   It's rather nice. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son piled over five hundred stuffed animals and blankets onto his bed that had hitherto been on the floor of his room.  Perhaps I am exaggerating on the number but when I walked into his now clean room, the area in which he sleeps was piled so high it was almost touching the underside of the top bunk.  He insisted he wanted to sleep that way.   I don't know how he'll sleep at all. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was a little upset that her brother was dumping things into her room tonight when they were cleaning the house.  I don't think she realized he was trying to help her locate things that were strewn all over the place.  She was a little indignant until I explained.  She didn't like feeling as though she needed help, but I think she realized it wasn't being done in a mean way when she thought about it more. 

The Doctor is In

We have made more progress with the needle fear here.  I hope.   At least my daughter has jumped happily into scrubs and started playing doctor, pharmacist, nurse and patient (if the medicine involved candy). 

What I did that was hard for her was to talk her through the process of how an IV is inserted into your arm, including. letting her hold the little cannula that goes into your arm along with the needle.   I let her see how after the IV was in, you could put in medication via a syringe or then afterwards how fluids could be connected via an IV bag.   

I have a lot of these medical type things from years of collecting.  I gave her lots of supplies in our bathroom and told her how samples were taken on a cotton swab and then cut off, to be dropped into a centrifuge vial.  How test indicators were added and then how things were spun up (which we simulated with shaking.)

She performed tests to find out which of her stuffed animals were sick.  She prepared medications in test tubes, she made medications to put in medicine bottles.  She was playing all the roles and seemed much less worried about the needle than she had been at first.   

She's not over it, but things are getting better.   Here's a picture of her workspace from today:

The Tiny Girl Specimin:  Look at the words on the note at the bottom of that picture.   Yes, my daughter actually gave a urine specimin in the name of pretend science.   I moved it out of the way and she, too, agreed it wasn't necessary to do any more than that with it.   

The Big Boy Update:  My sone had to take the standardized test again for middle school entrance today.   My husband worked hard to get him the documentation necessary to allow him extra time due to the need for Adderall.   After all of his work, my son was finished early.  He understood how the test worked and was able to go through it more quickly than the first time.  I don't think he even used any of the accommodation time. 

Who’s Toy Is It?

The children sometimes feel that certain toys are theirs and theirs alone.   This is true for some things, such as a stuffed animal, but other things, like a scooter or bounce shoes or a cotton candy machine are more blurred lines of who's they belong to.  

Sure, one child was given the present to start, but the YoNana machine my daughter got for Christmas is available should anyone want to make banana or banana and fruit-based treats with it.  Or the Icee machine that Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Margaret sent for Christmas (which is definitely being enjoyed by everyone) does not have a single child's name exclusively on it.  

Sometimes the children get proprietorial about things like chairs too.   The office chairs they have at their desks in the bonus room are assigned to a child in general, but it does not mean the other child can never sit in it.   If it's available and someone needs to sit, the chair can be used. 

Helping them navigate through what is shared and what is theirs and theirs alone is sometimes hard.  What we see as reasonable and obvious as adults is not always clear to them.  

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Bouncy Shoes Clash:  My son got some bouncing shoes from Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Margaret for Christmas.  These things are pretty fun and if I could get my feet in them, I'd have already tried them out.   My son isn't bouncing all the time, which means his sister can have a turn.   This is all well and good until he feels like she's annoying him.  And then she isn't allowed to use them in his mind, even though he hadn't even thought about using them at the time.  Once we told them some updated rules, they seemed okay with it, especially because it meant they got to use other things that "belonged" to their sibling.   I was surprised how well they did and how quickly the bickering stopped as soon as we explained how things, "worked in this house."