Aldergies

I've got allergies, or 'aldergies' if you hear me talk about it right now.  My daughter has it too.   The Zyrtec isn't helping much so I'm switching to Claratin for a few days.   My eyes are so itchy as well as my throat and years.   I changed the sheets because I think the dog, who gets on the bed, has brought the outside in with her fur.   

I'm going to bed, this is no fun. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Sitter Update:  One of my sitters, who has both had COVID-19 and is vaccinated, is back from college and available to sit again.  I am so thrilled. 

Lighting

Lighting can be such a tricky thing.  I've been trying to get some videos completed on some 3D printed models as they're in the process of printing as well as pictures of them afterward.   Lighting has been challenging to get true to color and at the same time well-lit. 

We can get the model lit properly, but it's off in color somewhere in the background, looking odd and wrong.   We can get the model looking great, but the shadows are not the idea.   We have multiple lights, just getting things right with them has been complex. 

My husband is helping and he's good at these things, so by tomorrow with his help I will hopefully have a solution that will work for some of the models in some of the filaments on some of the printers at least right at least some of the time.   Hopefully.  

The Big Boy Tin Girl Massage:  My children's therapist thought my daughter, in particular, might benefit from massage, thinking it would be a good way for her to release some of her inner tension.  On Monday we have a massage therapist specifically trained to help support work done with the children's therapist.   They're both looking forward to having a massage.  

New Rules

Children aren't always trying to be mischievous, sometimes they're just having fun.   It is during some of these fun times that adults will tell them their master plan of, say, putting piles of sand from the sandbox onto the trampoline was not a good idea and was from this point going forward, not allowed. 

We had a set of rules for the trampoline, which have worked out well with children respecting them.   What we need now is a list of rules for the backyard.   One of the main ones is the leaving of belongings in the yard, on the ground, not in the cubbies I got specifically for jackets, hats, socks, and shoes.   

I wouldn't mind if it was overnight and then the child would come running back for the things they forgot. Instead, they come with new items on and never take the prior ones home.   It can get to be a rather large collection left out in the rain for weeks. 

Weeks, because we wanted to see if they would ever take things home.  They don't.  So now I'm working om a new list that also includes food and beverages because some children (and mine aren't innocent here either) are leaving food containers and wrappers all around. 

I want to change the rules such that they police each other.   If things are left and litter happens or if they put sand all over the place, then we're closing the backyard for a week.   

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Audiobook Agreement:  The children like to listen to the same book sometimes and when this happens, the other one doesn't want to hear ahead in the book.   This causes arguments and fights with the Amazon Alexa's in the house.  In order to quell the arguments, today on the way to school I asked them to come up with a plan.   They had a good one: the audiobook goes off unless they both want to hear what's on or agree on something else together. 

Five Pounds

Did I mention I've gained five pounds over COVID-19 staying-at-homeness, wearing sweatpants, eating snacks, and general lack of exercise.   I need to get serious and focus on eating better.  I was thinking this was going to be the week, but it turned out to be more like this: 

The Big Boy Update:  My son got in trouble with me tonight.   I told him to end his session on the computer, it was time for bed.  I went back upstairs to continue reading to his sister and when I went to his room to say goodnight I found him downstairs, listening to an audiobook and eating, well past his bedtime.   He was angry at me, threw a fit and wanted me to leave his room but I wasn't budging until he was in bed.   When he'd finally calmed down I asked him what happened and he had a good answer.   He was so upset I had him stop working on his design on the computer that he wasn't really able to listen to what I was saying.   It sounds like a thin excuse, but when he's mad, he's redline mad and in all likelihood he wasn't listening clearly.   We talked about how things could be different the next time.   That's the important thing, I told him, figuring out how we could make things better the next time. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been wanting me to read to her for a week or so now but every time we're about to do so, something comes up.   Today we planned for right after school but she had friends in the back yard when we got home so she opted for going outside instead.   I'm glad we got to read after dinner tonight before bed.   

The Non-RMA

I have an odd product I purchased a while ago.  It's a good product from a good company but this particular one has had problems from the start.  I've replaced three parts on it so far and it still isn't able to work successfully.   It's using up consumable parts that should go for hundreds of hours but in my case are lasting about five hours.   It's an odd mystery what the source of the problem is since each of the things that's gone wrong aren't necessarily related. 

I've been working with support and they've mailed me replacement parts and consumable components, but we still have a barely functioning machine.  What's been interesting to me is that the company hasn't offered to RMA the product yet. 

The latest steps had me opening up the back of the unit and rewiring things to test it in a different configuration.  This step confirmed that the main board running the unit needs to be replaced.   So, surely they would offer to replace the unit at this point, but it appears they're considering sending me the board.   How I'm going to disassemble the whole unit to replace the board into which everything else connects, is a little concerning. 

There is an additional problem I discovered and upon emailing with this information I thought surely this would be the tipping point.   But no, I'm to do some measurements tomorrow and if they're out of a certain tolerance then there is another part that needs replacing. 

It's been an interesting journey.   Fortunately, it's not a product I can't do without, so I'm just going along with all the testing and part replacement and wondering when or if they're going to decide they need to swap the whole unit out.

The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted to play video games today but he had to read to earn time, and he ultimately decided to spend the afternoon in his room.  He did come down after dinner to watch his father play a video game.   He had so many questions.  He had the best time watching and seeing someone else playing a game for once. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked me last night if I could cut her hair.  Her brother's hair I'm less worried about because it's wavy.  Her hair is straighter when we dry it and if I didn't get her bob cut right, it would be noticeable.   She wanted me to cut it though and stood very still.   We think I did an okay job.   It wasn't noticeable this morning, which is a relief. 

The Firepit We Didn't Know We Wanted

There are lots of friends and neighbors we know that have fire pits.  They're nice and it has always been fun to go to their house and enjoy theirs from time to time.   We never considered getting one of our own until suddenly we were given one when our next-door neighbors moved away and didn't have room for theirs in their new home.  

From time to time we'd use it in the evenings for the sole purpose of making s'mores with the children.   Making s'mores is about the highest and best use a fire pit could be used for my children thought, until tonight. 

My husband wanted to know if he could start the fire early enough that there would be coals to make a full meal on it.   Today he prepared things and with the sole exception of pre-microwaving the baked potatoes beforehand, he cooked the entire meal on the fire pit on the grill. 

We had corn on the cob with the shucks pulled down after cooking so they could be rolled in butter and salted.   There were skewers of shrimp, baked potatoes, and steak.  Everything was eaten with zero complaints and a lot of compliments to my husband, their father, and our chef.  After dinner, we of course had to end the night with s'mores.   

The Big Boy Update:  My son is prone to criticizing others, especially his sister, and complimenting himself.  We are working very hard on changing this habit without coming down on him too hard.  We know part of the problem is his self-image, so we don't want to crush his spirit.  Yet we can't allow the behavior to continue. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted to find something in my drawer in the bathroom while I dried her hair tonight.  When she found what she was looking for she handed me the hair cutting scissors and asked me if I could cut some off of her hair.   I was hesitant, but I cut about an inch off, saying if she liked it, I would cut another inch off next Sunday when we did her hair in preparation for school.   She only washes her hair every few days.   Her hair is like mine in that it doesn't need to be washed all that often and stays looking clean and doesn't get greasy looking at all.   This works out for my daughter as she's not overly fond of doing her hair. 

The Military Helicopters

My daughter has been interested in spending long periods of time on the trampoline again now that the weather has warmed up.  She jumps alone, jumps with friends, and sometimes just lies on the surface in the sun while listening to an audiobook on the outdoor speakers. 

She asked me yesterday if I could jump with her, knowing that I don't do a lot of jumping because it hurts my neck with all the compression that comes with bouncing.   I told her to ask me in the morning, when I'm typically feeling better (evenings are much tougher for me) and that we'd see how long I could jump. 

She slept in this morning so after breakfast, she asked if we could jump before it started to rain.   We had a nice time, and because we didn't do any difficult or heavy bouncing, I was fine.   She showed me all the tricks she'd been learning and I tried to give her some suggestions on how she could improve them. 

It's hard to demonstrate what a certain trick looks like because she can't see what you're doing and sometimes words don't explain well.   But we tried and she did get better fairly quickly after listening to the advice I gave her. 

Just before going in I heard a buzzing sound in the distance.   I asked her if she thought that was a drone someone had in the neighborhood.   She very matter-of-factly said, "those are military helicopters, Mom.   They're around a few times a day."   Leave it to her to know exactly what a sound is.   She knew because as they got closer, someone had seen them in the sky and told her before and she remembered the sound.

The Big Boy Update:  My son gave me a tour of the Minecraft world he's been heads down creating today.   It is extensive, complex, and well-thought-out.  It's not just building, it's logic he's programmed into the world to have it behave like a game for the people that enter it.   I was very, very impressed. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter brought her braille Green Eggs and Ham cookbook downstairs today and asked her father if he would help her make the cake listed on one of the pages.   They made icing, cake and a topping all from scratch and we enjoyed her cake for dinner.   I had two pieces.   It was like a fudgy, iced chocolate cake—and it was good.