Surgery (sort of)

I'm having surgery on my face tomorrow.  It's likely a cyst or something that's been under my forehead skin for close to ten years now.  Perhaps more, even.   It has grown larger slowly over time and I'm tired of it.   I've had this scheduled for a while, although I would have gladly had it removed the initial day I went in.  Unfortunately, the doctor had just had knee surgery and wasn't back to surgery until this week.  

The Children Love The Guinea Pigs: so much that they almost fought over one physically whilst holding him.   Had that happened, they would have lost guinea pig privileges for some time.  

Hello Luna

Allergic reaction update:  The resin is covered up and things aren't getting worse so far, but I also tried to be exceptionally careful with the hay in the Guinea pigs area.   I slept again for another long time, getting out of bed after 4PM.  Although we were up until 3AM working on a video to release. 

I purchased Emo, the little interactive robot. He's fun, has some cute dances and walks around on tables or counters, and doesn't fall off, mostly.   We now have Luna, who has wheels and rolls around on the floor.  She's much faster and is really darling.  We're trying to get her reactions timed better with voice recognition and then we'll put her in a few videos.   If we can make the videos in just the right way, it might get a lot more views than out 3D printing videos. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son called my daughter a bitch today when she took the guinea pig away from him.   He told her no one liked her when he lost screens for it.   I told him he was lucky it was his father doling out the punishments because I'm not that nice.   He is going to have to suffer before he gets the message, I fear. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was so mad at me for telling her, "a little to the left" so she wouldn't run into a sharp corner going at speed.   She said it was because she was blind!  I didn't say the same thing to her brother, she stated.  (She was mad.)  I told her if her brother was sick and we took him to the doctor and then if she was sick at a different point and we took her to the doctor, should the doctor prescribe the same thing when they each had different reasons for being sick?  As parents we help each of you in the way we think is needed and nothing more.  Maybe she understood.  She was still very mad at me for a while. 

Allergic REACTION

I put reaction in all caps because I have no idea what I'm reacting to.  I thought it was one of the varietals of hay we have for the Guinea pigs, but now I'm not so sure. 

I washed all the bedding because I was having trouble at night.   I've been taking as much allergy over the counter medication as is indicated.   I'm taking Benadryl from time to time when I can, but none of that is touching it.  

Tonight, my face feels like it's on fire and the video we put out is sure to get some comments because I look bad.   My husband thinks it might be the new resin printer which has an open vat with the resin sitting in it.  I do have a bad reaction to resin.   I hope that's it because this is just a mess.  

Anais Anais

When I was in high school I became interested in perfume.   I wasn't interested in makeup so much, although I tried to get on as much of the bright blue eyeshadow as I could when it was de reguir.  My freshman year in gym class there was a girl who was beautiful and in the super popular people group of people.   She and I had very little interaction other than being in the same locker bay for PE. 

When we returned to the lockers at the end of class, she would pull out a perfume and spray it up in the air around her, saying it smelled terrible.   I didn't know what the perfume was, but it smelled so nice.  I watched and was able to eventually see what I thought the name was.   

This is back in time.  There was no internet.   There was no world wide web of pages with anything and everything you'd ever wanted to know.   I had a good idea of the shape of the bottle and a possible name so I went to the mall and found it: Anais Anais.  

I eventually got some.  It was fairly expensive and I wasn't sure I really wanted to wear perfume all the time.   Recently, my daughter wanted some perfume.   I found Anais Anais still being sold and still fairly expensive.  I got a bottle and she and I are having fun with it.  

Four Children:  No, five.  Some days it feels like I have more than just two children.  Sometimes it seems like none of them can get along.  Individually they are all delights, together, trouble seems to find us. 

How Much Have I Slowed Down?

I was always fast at doing things.  I would zip through work or homework or whatever the task at hand was with speed.    If it was something that required accuracy I wasn't the best on that front, but I could shoot the basketball in the general direction of the goal faster than most people.   Making the basket was one of those one-in-a-million chances, mostly due to the aforementioned accuracy.

I feel like I have eleventy twelve individual things that need to be done in the day and somehow I can't seem to get to all of them.   Is this because the things aren't as trivially quick to complete as I think they should be?  Or am I really slowing down in my mental processes?   

I hope it's just complexity.   I don't want my brain to be moving in slow motion.  

Friends Again?  My children can argue over the proverbial "is the sky blue" with each other.   Sometimes.   Then, at other times, they seem to be kind to each other, want to help out and even seem to understand each other.   Just when I think they've grown up, they'll go back to bickering.  I wonder how long this idyl will be?

Children Are Wonderful Little Monsters

My children really are something special—to me.   As I am sure other parent's children are to them.  Mine have gotten to the ages where they really, really, really will make you so infuriated because they're pushing hard to not do a thing they should be doing or are doing a thing they shouldn't be doing at all whatsoever.   But then they do or say something entirely endearing or are just the nicest child you could ever imagine.   

Children.   They are so worth it.    Most days.   

Kidding!  All days.  

Why Am I So Itchy?

I'm having an allergic reaction that's come on slowly, over a day, but that's taking over my face with an odd, something is itchy buy I don't want to scratch  because it's already turning into a rash. 

I have tried to work all day, but I'm so tired I'm going to sleep early.  

The Children and the Babies:  The children take good care of the babies (Guinea pigs) with my son being ultra careful and my daughter overloving, but needing to be more careful.  So far, everything is okay with Kix's recovery.  I hope it will continue to go well.  

In Advance Instead of In Haste

It's typically the end of the night when I sit down to write these posts.  Commonly I'm tired and have just finished the last thing I can manage before going up to sleep.  That's when it hits me, "I haven't written a blog post."   So I sit down and hastily write a post about something that is memorable about the day. 

And memorable is very subjective.   I feel like these posts, and the blog in general, have been suffering.  That seems like a theme with my life right now.   And when I stop to think about it it's ridiculous.   We put out one minute of video content every day, skipping a day here or there when it suits us.   Sixty seconds of content.   How in the hell can I be so busy as a result?

I wrote about having my head in a hole like the story of the ostrich, ignoring as much as I can about the outside world and focusing solely on the internals of our lives here.   But that's not true.  At all, really.   What I do actively avoid is getting sucked into reading the comments and/or obsessing about how something we've posted is doing.   We've made over 515 posts on each platform.   That's a lot of comments to like, questions to respond to, new connections made with people and companies.   Every day. 

In that light I can see how things have snowballed.   I had a fellow content creator tell me when we were approached by the first companies that it would get a lot more hectic.   At this point I'm ignoring a lot of things.   I'm in a Discord chat group with a small subset of 3D printing content creators, many of whom are far larger than us.  Everyone helps each other.  We all want to be successful together, which is why i really enjoy being in the group.   We share our experiences, good and bad, with companies.   It's given me a lot more confidence that it's okay to not respond.   In addition, if I respond, it should never be me that responds.   It's like the car dealership where you have to go ask the pit boss or manager or whatever they're called, to see if you can work that deal.   It's a layer of separation that makes negotiations easier.  

Some days I'm not sure I'm cut out for this.   The 3D printing I love.   Making the videos is hard work, but it's fun.   It's the Producer, Agent, Project Manager type role that I'm not good at.  I hate it so much I ignore things that I should probably not.   I'm going to see how my new plan works for the next month or so.   I love the people I've met and the 3D printing community.   It's been amazing, having people tell you they appreciate what you're doing.  I just want to make sure I'm doing the best I can at every part of this Social Media Content Creator Influencer or whatever you want to call it, "job" I've managed to get myself into. 

The Chess Game:  My daughter and two of "the boys" came up to the bonus room this afternoon.  I was checking on Kix when they came in.  There are a number of, "the boys" that come over.  There is one girl, but she's less often visiting.   Everyone gets along very nicely.  In this case, they had my son's chess set and wanted to play a game.  I mentioned I had a 3D printed set and they wanted to know if they could use it.  People wanting to use my 3D printed things?  I leaped out of the chair to go fetch it, putting Kix up as I headed out. I really liked seeing them playing chess and Scrabble instead of video games.  

Am I An Ostrich?

We worked so hard to release this web site on the world yesterday.   We published the announce video to two platforms yesterday and were going to do the other two main platforms today so that if there was some crazy run on the site (which no one thought would happen) we would be able to see how interest was from each of the platforms. 

So what did I do when we'd gotten it finally finished?   I went to bed and wanted to know nothing about it.   My husband and the site designer were looking at metrics and analytics.   I didn't even want to know.   

I'm about a lot of things like that.   I do like making the social media content.  But a good portion of the time I just want to publish it and then go on to the next thing.    Does this mean I'm like an ostrich hiding my head?

The Children and the Games:  We played Scrabble and Monopoly tonight. My son had a full blown temper tantrum with screaming about having to play Scrabble.   He turned out to be very good at it and made some good word placements and used words I wouldn't have expected.   Then we played Monopoly, but with a twist and my daughter had her own fit because she didn't want to play Monopoly.   We had a deal though.   The parts where we were all having fun together as a family were indeed, fun.  There was a lot of drama, but there was also a lot of good family time. 

Clarity

Last night was a bad night.   But today my daughter said to me in the car she realized something.   She said that God didn't make her blind for a bad reason or that she deserved it or anything at all like that.   She said that she realized that her blindness is a positive thing.   She said it's harder sometimes, but she's okay with it.  That she's made peace with it.   

It was beautiful hearing her say those words.   But I have to take into consideration the other things she tells me, like when we were talking about suicide and parents losing a child (it was relevant to something she was listening to).   I told her I hoped if she ever felt that sad, sad enough that she didn't want to live, that she would let us or someone know.   I said that no child should have to feel that way.    She told me that she had felt like that before, but that she found something that made those feelings go away—guinea pigs.   

That wasn't that long ago.  My point is that she vacillates through emotions like all children do and we need to dig more if we want to find out how she feels overall.

The Big Boy Update:  my son has a bad cough.  I haven't heard of one in several years now.   He can't stop coughing.  

Yesterday Was a Bad Day

It was not a good day.   My children were angry because they didn't get to stay up hours past their bedtime and they were just mean.  They said mean things and were hateful.   I went to bed.  I had work to do and JC was in the basement working, but I couldn't go back down.  

Blast It, Forgot Again!

I seriously forgot to write the blog post yesterday.  I feel like the blog is becoming the wayward child of my life with Filament Stories taking more bandwidth than I expected it to.  I'll try to write more tonight.  We have been making progress with JC here.  He leaves tomorrow.  We will have gotten a lot done over the time he's here.  

This Is Starting to Be A Habit

My son and husband are home now.  I'm so glad they're back.   I worked until the last minute getting things ready for the website release, and when they got in and I updated them on the status of things here, I was too tired to put out a blog post.   This is starting to be a habit.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  my daughter was livid that we didn't wake her up when they got in.   She's nigh impossible to wake when she's sound asleep.

The Big Boy Update: My son had been on screens so much this past week that he didn't even realize he was getting back on them when he had been expressly told not to.  It was the strangest thing to see.  He was engaged with us but in the middle would pick up the screen and get back on it.  He would be told rather forcefully to turn it off.  He did this several times.  He needs some screen detox after this past week, even though he had a lot of outdoor physical exercise time. 

Not Ready For a Guest

It's after one in the morning.  The house mostly is in order.   My desktop is visible again and I'm about to have this blog post written.   I've left the children (guinea pig children) in the middle of a cage cleaning out to come downstairs, "for five minutes" to do "one quick thing" and it's been hours.  

One quick thing always leads to another twelve quick things.   At least they're quick things. 

My website developer is coming tomorrow and we're finishing up the work on the site.   It's not a spectacular site by any stretch of the imagination, in fact, when I look at it I think there's not much there at all.  Which is good.   It shouldn't be complicated and cluttered.   There are only a few reasons people would find their way to our site.  Having a clear navigation path for every use case was something we thought through. 

I've never done website development like this before.  I had a great time.  I'd think we were getting close to being done when I'd get an email saying, "what is your privacy policy, if you don't have one, you need one."  Followed by some information on how to create a valid privacy statement.  

There were lots of things like that that happened.  What surprised me was how things changed multiple times as we went through the development.   I *knew* how someone would do something on our website. What information they'd want and how they'd come to us to find it.  

A week into developing that solution I would realize we'd assumed something that invalidated the whole scenario.   We could make changes quickly.  And by we, I mostly mean Asylum, who did all the hard work for the site.   He's been invaluable in so many ways to Filament Stories.   

So aside from not being quite ready for him to arrive, I'm ready to get this site published!

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is great at helping—until she isn't.   She wanted to do lots of things today, but cleaning up things was not one of them.   

The Big Boy Skiier:  My son and husband survived a week of skiing blacks and now black diamonds together with no injuries.   Hooray for no injuries!  They come home tomorrow.  I've missed them both. 

Special Time

WE had something some years back called, "special time" which was time the children would have with us and we would do whatever they wanted to do during that time.  They loved it.   They were always asking for it.   

What was interesting was if we did things together, if they weren't defined as "special time" at the outset, it didn't count in our children's minds. 

My son has had hopefully what he considers a lot of special time with his father this week.  And I've had a lot of special time with my daughter.  I wondered if she thought it was special time or not.   She said he did think it was special time.   That made me feel a little better.  Then she wanted to do "things together" for the rest of the evening.   

Up Late, Two Nights Now

I'm not well completely, but I'm not as sick as I was.  I moved very slowly today.   I got some motivation tonight because in less than twelve hours our web site goes live and I am so not ready for it but it has to go sometime.   I'm not getting any social media done at all, but I am spending a lot of time with my daughter.  

We've had a lot of fun. 

The Tiny Girl Helper:  My daughter helped me in a lot of things while I was very confused and lying in the bed two days ago.  The next day she helped, but a decent percentage of the helping things needed me to get up to find something she needed or show her how to do something.   But her heart was pure golden love, and I love her very much for it.  

The Fast Boy Update:  My son is doing black diamond ski runs now.   It would appear he takes after his father when it comes to skiing. 

Still Sick But Cared For

My daughter is taking good care of me.  She is wonderful.   

My son and husband are having a great time skiing.  I'm glad they've had this time together.  

I’m sick

 Not sure what I have, but it's definitely not COVID-19.  My daughter is taking care of me. 

Extra Long, Extra Painful

Kix had surgery today to remove an abscess.  It was a big one that wasn't going to be resolved with antibiotics.   We picked hm up and brought him home.  I asked the doctor how it went and if he did an excision.  They had saved what they removed, per my request, and had put it in a little jar with some alcohol. 

What surprised me is he said he made sure he got it all by opening him up further.   This is a nine-week-old baby who fits in our hands, and he has an incision halfway down his main body.  Maybe more than half.   

They can't give them anything for pain relief because not a lot has been researched on these small animals and they don't know what will be dangerous for them.  The antibiotic is supposed to be a pain killer though for them.   Really?  I don't buy it.   That sounds like nice words to tell a worried parent.  

He does seem to be recovering fine, given all he's been through.  

The Boys Are Off; The Books Aren't Read:  My daughter and I are alone together for a whole week.   We're going to do a lot of things (after she finishes reading the huge pile of books she was supposed to be reading the whole time she's been out.  She now has a huge volume to read every day of the short time remaining in her break.  

The Boys Are Leaving Us

I didn't get enough done today, but I'm exhausted so I'm going to give the small boys (Cheerio and Kix) their medicines and crash so I can get up early in the morning to take Kix for surgery for his abscess.   I sort of hate that I'll miss it, I'd love to see what developed.  

 

We're going to look at appliances tomorrow with the designer.  This scares me because appliances are expensive and things tend to add up. 

My daughter:  Hates when the animals are hurt for any reason, even if it's to give them medicine to help them. 

My son: really loves the guinea pigs.  The dog has started to become much more important to him too.   It's nice. 

Woah, This Table is Clean!

My son came home from school today and came down the stairs to the basement.  As he rounded the corner to the main area he said, "woah, this table is clean!"  We have a six person table in the open area of the basement.  It's been used for all sorts of things but in recent years it's mostly my husband's dumping ground.  

We had a meeting today so he had to clean it all off.   I agree with my son, it looked very clean.   I hope it stays that way. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son came home from school with a fresh hair cut look on both him and my husband.  Haircuts were well overdue.  They always look so nice when they have a nice tidy haircut. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got up very early to go to chorus practice at her school.  I was talking to her about when she got home and she said, "mom, I don't have school today."  Oh, you don't that's right, you're just going for chorus.  I forgot."

Alone And Bored

My daughter spends a lot of time in her room.   She listens to a lot of audio books, preferring to escape to another world.   I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.   I loved reading as a child and when I got into a good book, I could be gone for hours at a time.   Ideally she should be reading and not just listening to books, but she does a lot of reading at school and is electing to read some of the time. 

She says she's bored a lot.  She has gifts from friends and family members that she might like to do, but they will require assistance and she doesn't always ask.   This is in part our fault because we've been so busy building a social media brand I suppose is the word.  We are making sure to spend time with each of the children and to do things as a family.

What we don't want is to have either of the children expect to be entertained to the point that they don't know how to find things to entertain and occupy themselves.   I remember playing as a child.  Some of the time I wanted my parents involved, but most of the time I just wanted to play with my things outside or in the den or in my own little world that was my room. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son is in a state of not being trusted at all by my husband.  He's not doing what he says's he'll do and he intentional disobeys.    It's an age and a stage, but it's really annoying his father.   They're going skiing together this week which will give them some good time together. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and I want to go somewhere while the boys are skiing, but we're stuck here with a dog and two guinea pigs, who may be needing medical care.  We're looking into options though. 

Trouble In Guinea Pig Paradise

The guinea pigs are just darling.   They keep growing and are learning more about us and are starting to trust us some.   The love to come to the edge of the cage and ask for pea flakes.   Pea flakes are dehydrated peas that have been smashed flat and for some reason they are the top of the list of delicious to guinea pigs.   

But there is trouble with both of the "children."  Cheerio has what might be fungus on his nose, but we're not sure.  We were debating taking him to see a veterinarian but wanted to give it a few days to see if it wasn't a scrape first.  

Then today my daughter noticed a lump on Kix.   It's not a small lump either.  It's sizeable and I'm assuming is an abscess.  I spoke with several different locations trying to find somewhere that saw "exotics" and ended up on a call at the veterinarian school with a doctor who said as long as he was eating and drinking normally to call their exotics clinic on Monday morning. 

I was glad to find someone who could see them and my daughter was relieved to hear Kix wasn't in danger.

Children Will Be Children;  My children are eleven and ten and yet today what were they doing?  Taking their crib mattresses and sliding down the stairs on them.   Really?   

The Branch That Died

My daughter came inside wailing this evening.   It sounded like anguished or scared or hurt but I wasn't sure.   My husband went to check on her and things quieted down until she walked into the bonus room where I was feeding the guinea pigs some vegetables.   She was unconsolable.   And Angry all at the same time. 

It seems that a very special branch had broken off the climbing tree in our front yard.   This branch was extremely special to my daughter, but her brother (she said with pure hatred in her tone) wanted to cut the branch up and make weapons with it.  

This was a special branch.   There was one very special part, and that's the part he wanted and I had to stop him from taking it!

I tried to honor her feelings while at the same time reassuring her that we wouldn't let him use the branch if it was important to you both.  I said it sounded like we needed a family conference on this.  

We haven't solved things yet, but when I saw the branch I understood.   There was a branch that had a low dip in it.  It was just at a height where the children could grab it and climb up the tree.   As they grew, that branch grew with them.   It was that branch that enabled all the climbing.   And now it was gone.  

The branch had died some time back but hadn't broken off.   We knew this was going to happen, but we didn't know it would be so upsetting to my daughter.   She does tend to cling to things very tightly.  

I Forgot I Forgot!

Last night was getting late and I needed to get to sleep as I had an appointment at seven-forty in the morning.   I had three alarms set and for some reason, the first two didn't go off.  I was sleepy when I set them, but I don't know how I could have gotten two wrong.   

It didn't matter though because the third alarm woke me up and out I dashed, with time to spare to get a chai tea latte at Starbucks on the way.  

My morning went off without a hitch and I came home, arriving at the same time as my husband returned from taking my son to school.   My daughter was still asleep so he and I went upstairs for some time with, "the boys" as the guinea pigs are called from time to time here. 

The Tiny Girl Bored:  My daughter is tracked out and all alone at home this week.  She and I are doing some things, but she wants to be alone some of the time and I have to work some of the time.   We had some good times today.   

The Big Boy Rule Breaker:  My son couldn't sleep last night so he got up to get something to eat.  He took his father's iPad and proceeded to do things on it for some time until he was caught.   He was upset that surprisingly he lost screens for today.   I don't understand how he was so surprised.  

They Are The Best

For as many things in this life as I feel I'm not good at.  For all the things I feel like I fail at daily as a parent, wife, daughter, and friend.   For all the kindnesses people show me and the understanding I receive—that I don't feel I deserve.   For two special children who get frustrated at and by me, but also understand and love me.   And for the best husband I could ever ask for.   Thank you. 

I'm not sure where I'm going with this.   It's another day with progress made, but not nearly enough.  Christmas still isn't all the way back in the attic.  It should have been up a week ago.   There are linens that need to be put away and things children have left here and there and things I've left there and here that need to be put away.  There is a lot to do and no one is upset it isn't done yet.   Everyone understands.  

I do have a very special family.  To me.   I couldn't imagine or want to imagine any of my biological family or those through marriage any differently.   As my neighbor used to say, "I hit the jackpot" when it comes to family. 

There is one thing I would change.   I would wish for my daughter to have sight.   I sometimes try to imagine what she would be like with vision.   She is so tenacious now, I can't imagine what she would be like if she could see. 

My son I will take exactly as he is.   He's the best.  

A Peace Cake

My husband and I were on a conference call today and my daughter kept asking about things for the kitchen like where she could find a nine-inch cake pan and how to line said pan with aluminum foil.   She was making a recipe from her Doctor Seuss cookbook. 

We helped here and there and I missed the end part because she called out on Alexa that she'd lost "him" and to come quick.  Him being a guinea pig. After the call and the found animal, she and her father finished it.   This is what she wanted on it. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son wants to have the guinea pigs and dog get along.   Tonight she saw Matisse get the predator drive take over as she lunged for Kix.   My son was there and caught it in time, but I had been warning him not five minutes before to not leave Kix where Matisse could get to him.   He was rather cavalier about it until later, and now he is going to be much more cautious, he said. 

I Can't Do It

I have a job to do that I can't physically get done in time.  I keep hoping it will get faster and I'll be able to confirm the links and update the database with relevant information, but there are hundreds of links to go and they all take time.   

My web developer has a go live date of the ninth or eleventh.   I just don't think I can possibly do everything in time.  I'm ignoring everything else that I can so I can focus on this one thing.   My husband has tried to help, but he can't work any faster.   

We may have to move the launch date.  I hate that we might have to.  I'm not giving up yet. 

The Waterlogged Children:  My children were outside on January 2nd, playing with neighbors and the garden hose.   They were all wet.   They got towels, but weren't particularly bothered by being wet.   IN JANUARY!   When a week ago it was in the teens.  My word weather this year is wild.  

No One Was Hungover

We worked and spent time as a family on New Year's Eve.  We didn't go to my in-law's house because they weren't feeling well.   So we did our thing, like it was a normal night. Only close to midnight my husband and son and I went out to watch our house. 

You may remember from the past that my husband has a show counting down on the house.  He's masked the whole house out and videos of Christmasy things play for December. Then, on New Year's Eve, the house counts down.  

I would bet we have the only house that counts down to New Years with their family.   We celebrated, danced about (my daughter couldn't wake up, just like most other years) and then forty seconds later we heard the houses on either side counting down. 

What had happened?  Janet Jacksin's nipple I'd venture to guess.   That "Wardrobe Malfunction" caused live television to move to a bit longer than a few seconds delay.   

Our house was two seconds off.   Not bad for a house.  

We went to sleep and no one work up with a hangover because none of use were drinking.  We celebrated with Apple Cider (juice)