As a Taco

Halloween was different this year.  Parents wore masks, as did many of the children, depending on if their costume already included a mask, which included both of my children’s outfits, and their personal preferences given that a good bit of social distancing was easily maintained out of doors on the crisp fall evening we had.  

Candy was given out in a far different manner than I’ve ever experienced it before—all due to COVID-19.  Tables were put out towards the street and candy was placed on top in either prepared single-serving bags or just spread out on the table.   In most cases, the tables weren’t even manned by an adult.

The tradition of saying, “trick or treat” was entirely absent as there wasn’t much to do other than collect available candy and move on to the next house.  And while this was quite different, it didn’t dampen the children’s enthusiasm or energy. 

My son left on his own and circled back to catch up with us a few times but eventually left us behind.  My daughter had a twisted ankle she hadn’t told us about so we curtailed the trick-or-treating and came back home after a long loop of the closest streets. 

My in-laws came over and manned the table of candy in the front of the yard while my husband and I walked with my daughter.   We put the fire pit in the driveway with chairs, making it a nice evening outside at a safe distance from everyone else. 

We didn’t get or carve a pumpkin and put up much less in the way of decorations this year.  Halloween was different this year, but it was still a lot of fun for the children. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son got a white unisuit with a strange looking black wraith character on it including long, creepy fingers.  He put orange short over it and was, “an unknown monster in shorts”—a costume created and named by him.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wore the space ship costume she made from one KiwiCo kit and the unicorn head from another kit and was the head unicorn in the alien unicorn invasion fleet.  I was dressed as a large taco (something I found at Target) and was the head unicorn alien’s assistant, holding her candy bag.   

Slept Confusingly Late

I just woke up and was confused in that way where you don’t know what time it is, but you know you must be very late to something indeed because of how groggy you feel.   I wasn’t feeling well before dinner.  My back was screaming at me.   I got in a hot tub of water, hoping it would help and my daughter, wanting to help me, went upstairs and wrote me a note on a sheet of braille paper in print to help. 

She cane downstairs and asked me if I could read what she wrote.   The page was completely blank.  There wasn’t a mark on it.   I told her I thought maybe she’d picked up the wrong sheet after going to get the string she was holding.   She looked confused, went back upstairs and came down ten minutes later with a second sheet, this time with writing on it.   

She had written the sign over again.   I think, well, we both think, the pen she was using was completely dry of ink and it made no marks on the page.   The sign said I wanted some privacy.   She had gotten a string from the craft room so I could hang it around the door on the knob.   She had found string somewhere, I don’t know how she knew where to look, but she always knows, always remembers after learning where something is once. 

The writing was hard to read, but it was legible.   She is getting better over time at writing, which is a lot about not writing on top of what you’ve already written both vertically and horizontally.   I got out of the tub and lay down on the bed and just woke up now, very confused at what time it was and was I late for school, only to find out it was almost midnight.

The Big Boy Update:  My son did his student-led conference with us today.   He’s been doing a huge amount of work at school and he seeing him deliver his conference let me see him in a more mature light than we typically do at home.  He was proud about telling us of all the work he’s done/ 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  More on this later, but tonight while my daughter was giving that sign to me she said, “I really want to see.”  She’s never said this before.  She uncharacteristically talked to me about it for a few minutes before changing the subject off her vision. 

The Favorite Tool

I wrote about our friend Keaton and his family a few days ago.   I’m happy to report that a good portion of the funds for Keaton’s top surgery has been raised, which is good, because the surgery is in less than two weeks.   Tonight, with my daughter in the bath, I decided to tell her a little bit more about what “top surgery” meant. 

I had multiple reasons for bringing this up, one of which was what happens to a female when she reaches puberty.   When I asked her if she knew what top surgery meant, she said, “something to do with the heart?”  So I explained.   

I told her about what happened to girls when they hit puberty and how breasts were a good thing to have, because when I had her, they produced the milk she ate.   I had to do a physical, and yes, this means tactile, comparison.  She actually didn’t know that boys have flat chests and girls have breasts that stick out.   So I showed her. 

And I know, I know, this was a necessary thing and was very important to helping my daughter understand female growth in comparison to male growth, but having your child grope your breasts in great detail is a bit odd.   It was funny when she said, “eww”. I told her I knew that it was different, but some day she might come to appreciate the breasts she would grow into.   

I talked about how visually, women’s breasts stick out and men have flat chests.   I said that for someone who already doesn’t feel like they’re the right gender that having them stick out, advertising themselves, was very hard to bear.   And that, was what Keaton was going to have surgery on: he was going to have the parts of his breasts removed that he didn’t need, so he could have the chest any other male would have. 

She got it in the way a child gets something complicated by looking at it as a whole.   So, two birds killed with one stone as the saying goes: now she knows about the breasts she’ll have and also why Keaton needs to have the ones he has, removed.  

She got out of the tub, hair now washed, and I got out the BandAids to put one over a scrape on her ankle. She accidentally kicked and knocked over my tin of bandages because she was lying face down on the bath mat so I could get to the spot easily.   Without getting up, she started hunting for and picking up the spilled bandages with her toes to hand them to me.  I said, “good job with the toes,” and she said, “they’re my favorite tool."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Tomorrow, my daughter will have a tour of her school with Mr. Adam, her Orientation and Mobility teacher, before returning to campus on Monday.   She hasn’t seen him since March.   She hasn’t even met her third-grade teacher before and will get to see her for the first time on Monday as well as her favorite VI teachers, with the exception of Mrs. B., who is staying home so she can keep growing her baby which will be born in a few months.

The Big Boy Update:  My son did his Mystery History presentation today as Chris Archer, a baseball pitcher from North Carolina.   He did the presentation, as did all his fellow classmates, while standing in the doorway of his classroom so that he could have his mask off.  The weather outside was blustery with hurricane edges passing by, but the rain held off and the students were well-lit in the overcast and yet strangely bright day.  He had a baseball cap and jersey on and I swear, he did the whole presentation with a swagger I’ve never seen before.   I don’t think he realized it looked like an affectation of a ball player, but it did to me.   He seemed relaxed and wasn’t worried about forgetting parts because he had his notes on the table with the computer in case he needed to refer to them.   In comparison to last year when he did this same presentation at the end of October, it was much easier for him I think.  He didn’t even do any work at home like the rehearsal after rehearsals from last year. 

Misunderstood

There are very few things Alexa can’t understand.  Initially, when the Amazon Echo technology was new and my husband had an early release model, she couldn’t understand my small daughter at all and my son only some of the time.   Now, she seems to be able to understand the most garbled of words in a room with other people talking even when the person saying the command immediately continues talking to someone else after giving the command.  I mean seriously folks, it’s impressive. 

I found out there is a word she doesn’t understand though.   My daughter told me she wanted another audiobook and I asked if she’d finished The Dragon Squisher yet.  She said she hadn’t, because she couldn’t get it to play.  

Being the know-it-all parent I thought she was doing something wrong but five minutes later after saying the word, “Squisher” in the most clear and overly enunciated of ways, I gave in and went an alternate route.   The only way we could get her to pick up and play the book was to have her display a list of Audible books on the Echo Show.   We could then pick the book (it was second in the list) and playback would begin.  

My daughter can do all of that except selecting the book in the list—or even knowing if the book is listed in the list.   Once I had that done, that particular book was the active book and my daughter could stop and start it without trouble.   

She was up in her bed past bedtime listening tonight.   

The Big Boy Update:  My son has his Mystery History presentation tomorrow.   We will be watching remotely from home.   He did zero practicing this year because they did all the work at school.   He is Chris Archer, a professional baseball player.   

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  While my husband was preparing dinner my daughter was listening to, and giggling at, “The Dragon Squisher.”  We usually get on the children for shushing us when we have to talk and they’re listening to a book but tonight I was the one shushing my husband—he was talking right over some important and yet funny parts of the story 

Because It Makes Me Happy

I just left the hottest room in our house.   It’s not so much a room as that closet I wrote about the other day that I “found” to store the 3D printing supplies.   It is hot in the room because there is a dehumidifier that, in its mission to keep humidity low for the filaments, also increases the temperature as it pulls moisture from the air. 

Instead of a collection of bins with desiccant at the bottom of each, positioned in different spots around the mechanical, I mean 3D printing room, all the filaments are in one glorious spot.   I can walk into this little closet under the stairs, turn on the light, shut the door behind me and look at the filaments.   And that makes me happy. 

Because there is just so much potential in those spools of plastic.   I can print almost anything.   I stand in the filament room (for I have now named it that) and think about what I want to print next.   Or, maybe I already have a project in mind and I’m deciding what filament would be best for the job.   Either way, it’s good times in that little, cramped, hot, dry room. 

Sometimes I’m not sure what to print next.   I’m looking for something to print that’s useful or interesting or that someone might like.   I was happy therefore, when my mother-in-law suggested napkin holders when she brought the children back from an overnight visit on Sunday.   

She always sets her table to match the season or time of year or event, making her tables festive and fun.   She has a collection of napkin holders and lately, the children go around and collect everyone’s napkin holder before the meal starts, divide them up and then play with them.  My mother-in-law’s suggestion was to print napkin holders for Halloween. 

She and I looked online and today I’ve been printing pumpkin, owl and cauldron napkin holders.  I’m moving on to other options the children will have fun with when there isn’t a specific holiday.   I was standing in the filament room picking out the best color for a unicorn napkin ring just before writing this post.   Next I’m going to try and figure out what filament I have that closest matches narwals.  

I like a good project.  And I love the new filament room.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been late to leave in the morning.   My husband and I had a bit of a heated discussion about it because he just has no natural consequence if he’s not on time.   We’re trying to figure out what a good consequence would be that he would care about that would motivate him to stay focused and not get distracted in the mornings.   He could easily be on time, he just gets distracted on the way.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been wearing her mask this week during the Google Meets in preparation for going to school next week.   She hates it.   I told her we all did at first and even now, we don’t like it.   But it gets easier and you don’t hate it as much. 

$102

We have good friends who have a nineteen-year-old son who, up until three years ago, was a she.  Much went behind that decision being made and much more needed to be done to move forward with his life-changing choice.   As Keaton, he was accepted and supported by family and friends we were happy knowing he was who he believed he was ever since Kindergarten. 

Our friends no longer live here but we keep in touch from time to time.  This past week they put up a Go Fund Me page with a message:  Keaton was scheduled to have his top surgery, a decision supported by his doctors, and they had scheduled for some time.   The family of five, supported by a single working parent, had unfortunately had been hit with COVID-19 cutbacks with the father losing his job.  They had saved up for the costly surgery, a non-trivial cost for them, and they wanted everyone to know they were going through with the surgery regardless, but spending their savings now, while on unemployment and with an unknown future, was a scary thing. 

My husband and I were talking about how much to contribute when my daughter walked in.   I decided to ask her if she wanted to help Keaton out.   I said it was a surgery he needed to have to help him continue to live life as a male.   She thought about it and said she wanted to donate $25 dollars.  

I went upstairs to talk to my son and told him the same, very short, story.   My son didn’t ask why.   He didn’t ask how.   He only asked how much money he had saved.   I looked on the app that lists how much each child has to spend and told my son he had $102 dollars.   He thought very briefly and then said, “then I want to give Keaton a hundred dollars.” 

I burst into tears.   My son hugged me and told me not to cry.   I told him I knew he hated it when I said I was proud of him but I really was so very proud of him for wanting to spend all his saved money to help Keaton.   He said, “it’s important to Keaton and I want to help.”  

My husband and I discussed it and we decided to let me son donate that hundred dollars but that we were only going to take fifty out of his savings and we would match the rest.   We wanted to be sure the children got credit for helping their friend out too, so we have three donations on Keaton’s page: one for each child and one for my husband and me.   

Sometimes children make you want to pull your hair out and scream.   And then other times they go and do something so wonderful—spending their saved money they hoard and count and want to spend on things for themselves—that it reminds you why you wanted to be a parent in the first place. 

The Big Boy Update:  Tonight on the school board meeting call we talked at length about equity.   We talked about so many different facets of what equity means to the school and how we hope to implement it.   At the end of the call after the executive committee session was over I asked if I could close with a story about equity.   I said that as much as it was important for us to believe in equity, define it, implement initiatives to achieve it and espouse it, we also wanted to pass on those beliefs to the children at the school.   Then I told the story about my son.   I said I wasn’t going to cry, but I couldn’t manage it and did so at the end of the story.   I hope we have raised our children to believe that people are equal.   We try to emulate those beliefs and I know the teachers and staff share those values.   My crying aside, they said it was a powerful a story to end the board meeting on.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter now has a yellow cast.   It is an uncommon color to pick, but my daughter is an uncommon little lady.   She wore her new pink heart glasses and her pink hearts mask and only said ouch a few times when the doctor had to squeeze the cast tightly so it would harden up around the break area.   The bones have knitted very well so far.   Four weeks in a cast and she’ll be back to swinging on the swings at full tilt again.  

Thunder Clan

My daughter has been obsessed with a series of book series for months now.   I found a book about cats on Audible and their adventures as clan Thunder Cats.   Then, after she devoured the first book, I found out it was a series of five or six books.   Then—and this part I tried to hide—I found out there were a whole slew of series after the first batch, all about Thunder Clan and their adventures.   

I tried to hide this from my daughter because I wanted her to select other things to listen to, to broaden, and vary the type of books she was consuming.   Alexa was my downfall here because she gladly told my daughter about the next books available. 

My daughter is playing imaginary games about the Thunder Clan cats and is trying to type some of the information up on her braillewriter.   What she wants to type up (and what she was doing prior to breaking her arm) is names of initiates to the clan.   They are all names like Strongwing, Braveheart, Bravewillow, etc.   She is having difficulty doing this because it hurts to use her broken arm fingers.

Typing on a braillewriter isn't like typing on a standard keyboard where you can use one hand and just type more slowly.   To type a braille cell you need to press down one to six keys at the same time.   There are only six keys and those keys each represent one of the six dots in a braille cell.   The six keys are separated by a space key with three left-hand keys on the left and three right-hand keys on right.   

Even an adult's hand would be hard-pressed to use a braillewriter with one hand because even if you managed to get your hand positioned over the right keys, you have to strike down with enough force to press the dots into the cardstock paper.   There is even one word that uses all six dots and not many people have six fingers.   That word is 'for' and that's a heavily used word.  

There is a very specialized braillewriter for people who can only type with one hand should a permanent need arise.   I really hope a permanent need does not arise.   

My daughter did manage to type a few things up over the weekend, enumerating all the names of the kits and initiates she was thinking of for her game of Thunder Clan.   She had me read them out to her tonight in preparation for the initiation ceremony game she wants to have tomorrow where the initiates she's come up with become full members of Thunder Clan.  

If we didn't have multiple people allergic to cats in this family, I would bet my daughter would be lobbying for a cat to join our family. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son got up from his computer this afternoon and told us his 'cult" key was missing.   We had no idea what he was talking about until he showed us.    He said a key had popped off and had fallen on the floor.   When we looked to where he was pointing my husband said, "ah, that's the 'control' key."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was having a bath tonight and keeping her arm out of the water while I washed her hair.   She said, "I just can't get my head around that I actually have a broken arm."  She gets the splint off tomorrow and the cast on.   Her brother had the most difficult time with itching involving unwrapping and rewrapping the bandages.   My daughter hasn't had a single issue with her bandages.   I think her arm has been hurting her more than her brother's though.   She's still quite careful with it.