Back in time, around when my daughter lost her vision, my daughter had a lot of very large bumps on her butt. (I’m not going to say backside or fanny or fundament or any of those other words because we just call it their ‘butt’ in our house). Every time we’d talk to a doctor they’d ask a lot of questions, one of them being did she have any rashes. And at the time she was wetting her pants because she didn’t want to take a break from what she was doing to go to the bathroom. Doing that frequently gave her a mild rash but mixed in with the rash were these hard, large lumps.
This went on for a while with them getting bigger and then smaller and then new ones appearing. Eventually we went to a pediatric dermatologist who didn’t know what they were, nor did her associate so they sent us to a specialist. Fortunately, we’d already been seen by that specialist when my daughter had her full workup when she was admitted after the initial EUA when we found out her retinas were detached and the host of other mess was going on with her eyes.
Two biopsies later we found out she was having abscesses—deep abscesses—but we still didn’t know why. She was put on an antibiotic to help them resolve because, get this, the abscess material they extracted didn’t culture into anything specific, which might have just been how the sample was handled or a host of other reasons. Since the punch biopsy procedure had been done to her twice, both times with her in terror causing us to need six people in the room to hold her down (mind you, she’d been numbed, but still, trauma is trauma) we all thought going for a third round just wasn’t worth it.
The antibiotics resolved them and since that time we’ve only had one other incident on her leg. One day after weeks of this thing on her leg looking like it needed to be lanced as it was close to the surface, I told my daughter we had to do something. She probably hated me for the rest of the hour (she recovers quickly) and I was able to break through the surface fairly easily with the result being oozing brown liquid coming out. That particular abscess healed but because it was there for so long she has a scar in the spot still.
Since that time over a year ago nothing has happened. Until my husband noticed something, again on her leg, this morning. I woke up to my daughter screaming. I don’t know that she was in pain so much as the fear of pain—of being ‘poinked’ as she calls it. My husband got the spot open and applied a bandaid.
When I got up my daughter told me dad had, “gotten the puff out of my knee”. Hopefully that’s all the ‘puff’ we’ll encounter and there won’t be a return of the abscesses. When she had them all over her butt it was uncomfortable for her to sit and she wouldn’t let any of us get near her to look at them.
The Big Boy Update: My son has been very interested in Mine Craft. My husband has fixed it so my son can turn on the Xbox and talk to the speaker to get Mine Craft started. I’ve got to tell you, he’s pretty creative and has built some interesting things. My father-in-law was visiting over the holiday and was asking my son what he was doing. Papa said, “I don’t know how to do Mine Craft.” My son replied, “c’mon, it’s the same as when you were a kid.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter came into the room this morning and I told her about something—I can’t even remember what it was I told her now. She said, “yeah, that happened to me too…only it didn’t. It was something else.”
Friday, July 7, 2017
Thursday, July 6, 2017
The Candy Stand
The children were running around the house this afternoon dressed up as a ninja, a lego ninja and a candy can girl. And if you’re counting, I have only two children which means we had a neighbor’s child over. The dress up was fine but then they decided to add in an interesting twist—candy.
Specifically, they wanted to have a “Candy Stand”. It’s like a lemonade stand only they were planning on selling candy. Fine, I said, only you can’t eat any of the candy. They were fine with that and assured me they’d only sell, not eat, the candy.
They got everything ready and even improvised ways to flag down passing cars. We helped them with a money collection container and gave them water bottles and some chairs to take to the corner of the street, one house up.
Their candy stand was open and I had to leave, so as I drove by I was their first customer, stopping in to buy a piece of candy and deliver drops to my daughter. As it turned out, I had no change and no bills smaller than a ten so I asked for some change later after they reaped large profits.
I headed off to a meeting and got a phone call an hour-and-a-half later from my husband saying when I got in could I check on them because dinner was long overdue and they were still at the stand. In the meantime our neighbor had helped them with some lemonade and—get this—we found out they’d been eating all the candy. Shocker, right?
They were happy (and sugared up) when they came home for dinner, not to mention full. They had made two dollars each but that success was suddenly tempered when they found out they weren’t getting dessert after dinner because they’d already eaten dessert before their meal.
The Big Boy Update: My son ran over to my husband tonight holding his knee saying, “I got a boo boo that just got boo booed again.” My husband told him sometimes scabs came off and that was okay. A bandaid fixed my son’s concern.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter fled from the deck into the house and headed over to the porch after dinner tonight, trying to escape from her brother. She said, “if my brother comes out here to the porch I do not want to be with him because I’m not a good Greyson fan anymore—he’s a zombie.”
I Ran: Yes, I ran. I know, I thought I’d forgotten how to exercise too. My best friend and I ran five miles this morning before our husbands had to leave and we had to return home to man the children. I survived. Actually, it wasn’t even that bad, but that’s largely due in part to the company.
Specifically, they wanted to have a “Candy Stand”. It’s like a lemonade stand only they were planning on selling candy. Fine, I said, only you can’t eat any of the candy. They were fine with that and assured me they’d only sell, not eat, the candy.
They got everything ready and even improvised ways to flag down passing cars. We helped them with a money collection container and gave them water bottles and some chairs to take to the corner of the street, one house up.
Their candy stand was open and I had to leave, so as I drove by I was their first customer, stopping in to buy a piece of candy and deliver drops to my daughter. As it turned out, I had no change and no bills smaller than a ten so I asked for some change later after they reaped large profits.
I headed off to a meeting and got a phone call an hour-and-a-half later from my husband saying when I got in could I check on them because dinner was long overdue and they were still at the stand. In the meantime our neighbor had helped them with some lemonade and—get this—we found out they’d been eating all the candy. Shocker, right?
They were happy (and sugared up) when they came home for dinner, not to mention full. They had made two dollars each but that success was suddenly tempered when they found out they weren’t getting dessert after dinner because they’d already eaten dessert before their meal.
The Big Boy Update: My son ran over to my husband tonight holding his knee saying, “I got a boo boo that just got boo booed again.” My husband told him sometimes scabs came off and that was okay. A bandaid fixed my son’s concern.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter fled from the deck into the house and headed over to the porch after dinner tonight, trying to escape from her brother. She said, “if my brother comes out here to the porch I do not want to be with him because I’m not a good Greyson fan anymore—he’s a zombie.”
I Ran: Yes, I ran. I know, I thought I’d forgotten how to exercise too. My best friend and I ran five miles this morning before our husbands had to leave and we had to return home to man the children. I survived. Actually, it wasn’t even that bad, but that’s largely due in part to the company.
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Did She Faint?
Let’s talk about fireworks. Last night. Fourth of July. My son was excited. My daughter was sort of excited. I’m not sure if she was fully sighted if the situation would be different because it’s getting hard to know how she would have reacted given the amount of time she’s been visually impaired. But no matter now because he’s a he and she’s a she and they both have very different personalities. She’s cautious and he’s crazy and there were plenty of fireworks my in-laws had purchases for last night to be lit up on the street to entertain both young and old alike.
We started the morning with those pop snap things in the sawdust that you throw on the ground that go bang. My son loved them. Apparently my daughter did too, even though she’s more sensitive to sound. That’s where the similarities ended.
When it got dark we pulled out the sparklers. There were short, medium and long—the long being the ones I got because I thought flame, sparks and fire further away from my daughter might be a good thing but no, she only wanted the short ones as the long ones scared her. My son, you ask? All good. All exciting. Most of this involved him running around yelling in the driveway.
Then my husband got the real fireworks out. And real fireworks involve noise, specifically loud noise. And that’s where my daughter drew the line. She didn’t like it. She couldn’t really see it, even though it was a brightness in the dark, although I did see her tracking the roman candles at one point.
What my husband tried first were her headphones for her iPad. That worked a bit, but she could still hear the noise so I got his noise cancelling headphones and stuck them on her, hoping it would make a difference. Yeah, no go. From the street, while my daughter was backed up against the front door my husband said in a normal voice, “this one says ‘loud and clear'”. My daughter cried out, “I don’t want loud!”
When the bangs and whistles started to happen my daughter opened the door and fled inside. My son, who at this point had gotten concerned about her came up to me and asked (when the lights and sounds were over), “did she faint?”
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Who’s In Charge Story: I was working with my neighbor’s daughter today, teaching her how to make jewelry, showing her how to open jump rings, make wrapped loops, lending jewelry making pliers and helping her select supplies to take home with her. My daughter wanted to be involved but she really couldn’t help so I told her it was a one-on-one type of thing. So she said, “can I be in charge of the boys then?” referring to my son and his friend who were over. I told her certainly, only I wasn’t sure if they’d listen. Fifteen minutes later I came downstairs to find the boys watching something on television they shouldn’t have been watching and eating Pez candy for a snack (at dinner time). When I asked my son what he was thinking he said, “but you said my sister was in charge and she said it was okay.”
We started the morning with those pop snap things in the sawdust that you throw on the ground that go bang. My son loved them. Apparently my daughter did too, even though she’s more sensitive to sound. That’s where the similarities ended.
When it got dark we pulled out the sparklers. There were short, medium and long—the long being the ones I got because I thought flame, sparks and fire further away from my daughter might be a good thing but no, she only wanted the short ones as the long ones scared her. My son, you ask? All good. All exciting. Most of this involved him running around yelling in the driveway.
Then my husband got the real fireworks out. And real fireworks involve noise, specifically loud noise. And that’s where my daughter drew the line. She didn’t like it. She couldn’t really see it, even though it was a brightness in the dark, although I did see her tracking the roman candles at one point.
What my husband tried first were her headphones for her iPad. That worked a bit, but she could still hear the noise so I got his noise cancelling headphones and stuck them on her, hoping it would make a difference. Yeah, no go. From the street, while my daughter was backed up against the front door my husband said in a normal voice, “this one says ‘loud and clear'”. My daughter cried out, “I don’t want loud!”
When the bangs and whistles started to happen my daughter opened the door and fled inside. My son, who at this point had gotten concerned about her came up to me and asked (when the lights and sounds were over), “did she faint?”
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Who’s In Charge Story: I was working with my neighbor’s daughter today, teaching her how to make jewelry, showing her how to open jump rings, make wrapped loops, lending jewelry making pliers and helping her select supplies to take home with her. My daughter wanted to be involved but she really couldn’t help so I told her it was a one-on-one type of thing. So she said, “can I be in charge of the boys then?” referring to my son and his friend who were over. I told her certainly, only I wasn’t sure if they’d listen. Fifteen minutes later I came downstairs to find the boys watching something on television they shouldn’t have been watching and eating Pez candy for a snack (at dinner time). When I asked my son what he was thinking he said, “but you said my sister was in charge and she said it was okay.”
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Out-Energized
Some days I have a lot of energy, hopefully those days coincide with the days my children are out of school like on the weekends. Some days I don’t seem to have the ability to keep up with them. Today has been one of those days.
The title of this post, out-energized, isn’t about my children though because they can always top me when it comes to energy and enthusiasm. Today I’m talking about my in-laws. They seem to have their own fuel cell, battery pack, tank of gas, etc. I don’t know how they do it, but I love it when they come to visit, as without a doubt, do my children.
Fireworks are going off in the front yard now and my daughter is crying so I’ll be back tomorrow, hopefully with more energy, to write about another day.
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Snaps Update: You know those snaps that you throw on the ground around about Fourth of July time that make a bang? This morning my children must have gone through five boxes apiece with my mother-in-law and they had a blast. My daughter tonight with the louder fireworks noises however isn’t so thrilled. Maybe she’ll like the sparklers, sounds take her aback more than other people with her diminished vision.
The title of this post, out-energized, isn’t about my children though because they can always top me when it comes to energy and enthusiasm. Today I’m talking about my in-laws. They seem to have their own fuel cell, battery pack, tank of gas, etc. I don’t know how they do it, but I love it when they come to visit, as without a doubt, do my children.
Fireworks are going off in the front yard now and my daughter is crying so I’ll be back tomorrow, hopefully with more energy, to write about another day.
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Snaps Update: You know those snaps that you throw on the ground around about Fourth of July time that make a bang? This morning my children must have gone through five boxes apiece with my mother-in-law and they had a blast. My daughter tonight with the louder fireworks noises however isn’t so thrilled. Maybe she’ll like the sparklers, sounds take her aback more than other people with her diminished vision.
Monday, July 3, 2017
Travel and Commitment
As a Real Estate agent we work with all kinds of people helping them find or sell their homes. Different people have different expectations of their agents. One of the most common is commission and how much an agent gets paid and where that money comes from in the buying and selling process. That’s a topic for another blog post. This post is about more about time commitment.
Usually clients are respectful of agent’s time, although most people have high expectations that their agent will be available whenever, wherever and for however long they need. And that’s fine, that’s our job—we’re there to help them when we can.
Every now and then there’s a client that’s completely disrespectful of time and it feels like you’re being used more as an agent than actually being there to help. But again, that’s not common and certainly isn’t typical of most clients.
I had a client this weekend that just confused me this weekend though. They were traveling from out of town, a distance that I knew was far and later found out was all the way from Nebraska, taking multiple days to get here. They wanted to look at houses but weren’t particularly responsive in email or text to help me narrow down what to show them.
We thought we’d found some candidates but given the current market, two of the five houses went under contract before we could get to see them. This was in part because they cancelled and rescheduled with me on time and day four times.
Today we were finally going to meet when I got a text saying they were running over an hour late and could we move the showings (for the third time) to a later time. When we finally met I found out they were driving over three hours today to see houses before returning to Nebraska.
I’d been working with the wife, who was very nice. The husband once we met him got more involved and we discovered he had entirely different criteria for what he wanted and the houses we’d set up weren’t anything he was interested in seeing. We stood around for an hour in the first home (which was new construction and had dark hard wood floors—both a no go for him) before we abandoned the remainder of the showings.
They asked me to send them some listings with new criteria (criteria I would have loved to have from the start) and then, apparently, they planned on heading back home in the morning on another two day drive.
They are relocating to the area and do need a home and we’ll continue to work with them to find them something that fits, but it seems to me like they could have saved themselves time and driving hours if they had been more communicative from the start about what they were looking for collectively as a family.
The Big Boy Update: My son is playing Mine Craft this afternoon. He had his headphones on and was talking to himself as he played. I heard him say to whatever creature he’d just created, “that’s so cool you’re blind. I always wanted to be blind.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Nana was singing to my daughter this afternoon. My daughter said to her, “do you know what, Nana? Your voice sounds nice as it can be.”
Usually clients are respectful of agent’s time, although most people have high expectations that their agent will be available whenever, wherever and for however long they need. And that’s fine, that’s our job—we’re there to help them when we can.
Every now and then there’s a client that’s completely disrespectful of time and it feels like you’re being used more as an agent than actually being there to help. But again, that’s not common and certainly isn’t typical of most clients.
I had a client this weekend that just confused me this weekend though. They were traveling from out of town, a distance that I knew was far and later found out was all the way from Nebraska, taking multiple days to get here. They wanted to look at houses but weren’t particularly responsive in email or text to help me narrow down what to show them.
We thought we’d found some candidates but given the current market, two of the five houses went under contract before we could get to see them. This was in part because they cancelled and rescheduled with me on time and day four times.
Today we were finally going to meet when I got a text saying they were running over an hour late and could we move the showings (for the third time) to a later time. When we finally met I found out they were driving over three hours today to see houses before returning to Nebraska.
I’d been working with the wife, who was very nice. The husband once we met him got more involved and we discovered he had entirely different criteria for what he wanted and the houses we’d set up weren’t anything he was interested in seeing. We stood around for an hour in the first home (which was new construction and had dark hard wood floors—both a no go for him) before we abandoned the remainder of the showings.
They asked me to send them some listings with new criteria (criteria I would have loved to have from the start) and then, apparently, they planned on heading back home in the morning on another two day drive.
They are relocating to the area and do need a home and we’ll continue to work with them to find them something that fits, but it seems to me like they could have saved themselves time and driving hours if they had been more communicative from the start about what they were looking for collectively as a family.
The Big Boy Update: My son is playing Mine Craft this afternoon. He had his headphones on and was talking to himself as he played. I heard him say to whatever creature he’d just created, “that’s so cool you’re blind. I always wanted to be blind.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Nana was singing to my daughter this afternoon. My daughter said to her, “do you know what, Nana? Your voice sounds nice as it can be.”
Sunday, July 2, 2017
The Big, Bad, Blackberry Bush
When we were building our house there were only a handful of houses in our neighborhood of over two hundred lots. At the time we were clearing our lot I noticed a small, spindly blackberry bush on the next lot over. I think I got four or five blackberries off it that season and by the time blackberry season came around again the bush was gone due to construction next door.
I like blackberries. I like picking them. I’m not sure why I like picking them because it’s always in hot weather and in order to protect your body from the brambles you need to wear long pants and sleeves. And while cotton only provides minimal protection, it’s better than nothing. Invariably I’d come home with pokes and scrapes but a bowl full of blackberries. And to get to the blackberries I had to travel to a location where I knew there were blackberries growing in a public place and get there before others had gotten all the berries.
So I was fairly happy to notice two years later down the hill in our back yard a blackberry bush growing. I was happy then but today I’m just annoyed by the menace. Blackberry bushes are highly invasive. It grows underground and appears meters away in the middle of the play structure no matter how much we cut it back. The bush is so fast growing my yard guys don’t even catch it in time before someone gets scratched by it, being children and not noticing it as the run and play around the yard.
I have the crew aggressively cut it back once or twice each year but it comes back more fiercely it would seem every time. I might be more amenable to the growth and expansion if there was measurable output of berries during the one month of the year the fruit is available, but this particular bush variety is the most armed and least producing type I’ve ever seem. That, and the few paltry berries we’ve been able to collect aren’t very flavorful.
I would very much like to remove the whole thing, only the bush isn’t on our property. It’s not on mine, or the other two neighbor’s properties that triangularly abut it, the bush being mostly on common property at the back of the neighborhood heading down a steep grade towards a creek. It’s property that won’t ever be maintained by the HOA unless there’s a real need so it’s more or less up to us as homeowners to decide what to do to manage it. At this point the general consensus is to keep it at bay and hope it will have a bigger crop next year. For now, I’m getting my blackberries at the farmer’s market and saving my skin.
The Big Boy Update: My son called me into the living room yesterday and said, “I have ear wax.” This was new. We don’t clean their ears much at all as they’ve never had an issue. I went and got cotton swabs and was told it was his left ear that had the wax. And he was right, it did. I checked his right ear too and it had a bit, but my son knew what he was talking about.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was at our sitter’s house last night. She came home with Tristan and I asked her how the night went (knowing she had had a great time with the other four children who were also over there). She told me though, “it didn’t go planned as life”.
I like blackberries. I like picking them. I’m not sure why I like picking them because it’s always in hot weather and in order to protect your body from the brambles you need to wear long pants and sleeves. And while cotton only provides minimal protection, it’s better than nothing. Invariably I’d come home with pokes and scrapes but a bowl full of blackberries. And to get to the blackberries I had to travel to a location where I knew there were blackberries growing in a public place and get there before others had gotten all the berries.
So I was fairly happy to notice two years later down the hill in our back yard a blackberry bush growing. I was happy then but today I’m just annoyed by the menace. Blackberry bushes are highly invasive. It grows underground and appears meters away in the middle of the play structure no matter how much we cut it back. The bush is so fast growing my yard guys don’t even catch it in time before someone gets scratched by it, being children and not noticing it as the run and play around the yard.
I have the crew aggressively cut it back once or twice each year but it comes back more fiercely it would seem every time. I might be more amenable to the growth and expansion if there was measurable output of berries during the one month of the year the fruit is available, but this particular bush variety is the most armed and least producing type I’ve ever seem. That, and the few paltry berries we’ve been able to collect aren’t very flavorful.
I would very much like to remove the whole thing, only the bush isn’t on our property. It’s not on mine, or the other two neighbor’s properties that triangularly abut it, the bush being mostly on common property at the back of the neighborhood heading down a steep grade towards a creek. It’s property that won’t ever be maintained by the HOA unless there’s a real need so it’s more or less up to us as homeowners to decide what to do to manage it. At this point the general consensus is to keep it at bay and hope it will have a bigger crop next year. For now, I’m getting my blackberries at the farmer’s market and saving my skin.
The Big Boy Update: My son called me into the living room yesterday and said, “I have ear wax.” This was new. We don’t clean their ears much at all as they’ve never had an issue. I went and got cotton swabs and was told it was his left ear that had the wax. And he was right, it did. I checked his right ear too and it had a bit, but my son knew what he was talking about.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was at our sitter’s house last night. She came home with Tristan and I asked her how the night went (knowing she had had a great time with the other four children who were also over there). She told me though, “it didn’t go planned as life”.
Saturday, July 1, 2017
Maturing Beyond Her Age
My daughter’s therapist, Dhruti, recently sent us a forty-five minute audio file of the session she had with my daughter last week. She asked us to listen to it and then she’d call us. I dutifully played the whole file while getting housework done yesterday, wondering when I was going to get to the shocking or interesting bit but it never really happened. But I’ve learned by now and I knew there was more to what’s going on than I had training to understand.
A lot of discussions about food was had and when it was too late to have cookies at night. They played night time and discussions about being asleep and snoring were had and my daughter had them taking turns being the mommy and the child. At one point my daughter did ask Dhruti to cook her up and eat her. She wanted to have various parts of her body eaten up and giggled as it happened—was this the telling part? I really didn’t know.
Then Dhruti and I got on the phone and the good news is my daughter is processing everything she’s going through well. She’s working through it in her mind and in so doing she’s pushing boundaries, but she’s pushing boundaries knowing there will be consequences. The interesting thing is, she’s facing the consequences willingly.
My daughter wants to be nurtured, but she also wants to take care of people too, that’s just in her nature—something we see at home all the time as she does things out of kindness to help her brother or her friends as well as my husband and me.
The bottom line is all she’s going through and having to endure is maturing her beyond her years, but as difficult as that might sound, she’s doing it with grace.
The Big Boy Update: My son was mad. MAD, that we were talking when he was trying to focus on his work. He said out loud to the entire room, “stop talking our I’ll uppercut you.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter found something of mine and brought it to me yesterday. She was so excited about finding it she said after I gratefully accepted the hair band, “I really want to go back in time and do it all again, so could I have your hair bow back?” I gave it back and we reenacted the scene three more times with her being just as excited each iteration.
A lot of discussions about food was had and when it was too late to have cookies at night. They played night time and discussions about being asleep and snoring were had and my daughter had them taking turns being the mommy and the child. At one point my daughter did ask Dhruti to cook her up and eat her. She wanted to have various parts of her body eaten up and giggled as it happened—was this the telling part? I really didn’t know.
Then Dhruti and I got on the phone and the good news is my daughter is processing everything she’s going through well. She’s working through it in her mind and in so doing she’s pushing boundaries, but she’s pushing boundaries knowing there will be consequences. The interesting thing is, she’s facing the consequences willingly.
My daughter wants to be nurtured, but she also wants to take care of people too, that’s just in her nature—something we see at home all the time as she does things out of kindness to help her brother or her friends as well as my husband and me.
The bottom line is all she’s going through and having to endure is maturing her beyond her years, but as difficult as that might sound, she’s doing it with grace.
The Big Boy Update: My son was mad. MAD, that we were talking when he was trying to focus on his work. He said out loud to the entire room, “stop talking our I’ll uppercut you.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter found something of mine and brought it to me yesterday. She was so excited about finding it she said after I gratefully accepted the hair band, “I really want to go back in time and do it all again, so could I have your hair bow back?” I gave it back and we reenacted the scene three more times with her being just as excited each iteration.
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