Sasha and Coco's new tricks.

As taught by Fei.  Honestly, you guys, I would have said they couldn't be taught tricks.  Bit of a miracle in my opinion.  

Coco shakes a paw. 

https://youtu.be/cnVrEkbIUQc

Sasha and Coco sit together.

https://youtu.be/_T08XzCmFdk

Sasha shakes a paw.

https://youtu.be/2BdTXCBctpM

Isabel shows off.

https://youtu.be/gciqcPl6hGY

An Outing with Luk

I told the family if was time for an outing.  Luk was the only one interested in going with Eric and I.  Kai wanted to watch a Pokemon marathon.  Lili had a tutoring session and work to do.  Fei and Jia wanted to sleep in and hang out at home.  So, a special day with our little guy it was.  We started with breakfast out.  Total decadence.  Breakfast included pie!  Double decadence.  Luk didn't care for the pie.  He doesn't like fruit flavors.  More for us.  

Next we went to check out the Hand of Man museum.  It's definitely worth a visit.  We met Jim Shockey many years ago. Interesting man for sure.  The museum is his personal collection.  My TV stand is one of his art pieces.  It's still my favorite piece of furniture.  Of course to him it was art...to me it was furniture.  

The museum is in the old Maple Bay School.  Every inch is full.  They give you an iPad that is interactive with the whole museum.  It works really well however we're just not interested in more screens right now so only used it sparingly when the curiosity got too big to walk by without answers.  Pretty sure Eric could spend hours and hours in there.  

This is a juvenile mapusaurus from Argentina.

Definitely too many dead animals.

Then to Walmart for the mundane provision shopping.  Rare for Luk though. He's such a great kid. So polite and well mannered. Easy to be with. He's such a little gentleman. I was grateful for our special time with him today.  

Snuffle Mat

Coco is a very busy, intense little dog.  She needs to be entertained.  We have some problem times.  Like...in my bathroom...in the middle of the night.  The second I get on the potty, she poops, then goes nuts going through a routine of bad behavior while she knows I won't/can't leap up to stop her.  I've tried treats and toys to amuse her but it's short lived.  Her routine now is to go from one bad thing to another.  Chasing Esmei,  zoomies, going into the litter box, opening my closet and jumping up and biting at clothing, pulling clothing through the tiny holes on the clothing hamper, biting and pulling on the fabric curtain on a closet, eating the cardboard on a box of books in the same closet.  It's exhausting.  And a little nuts.  So, look what I ordered just now.  A snuffle mat to amuse the baby in the bathroom.  Fei and I think it will take me longer to hide kibble on the mat than it will take her to find it.  

Little Miss falling asleep.

Going.

Going.

Out.  

I like her best asleep.  Kidding.  Not kidding.

Fei has taught both Sasha and Coco to sit in unison.  Super cute.  I have video but I have no clue how to load it here.  Then she taught them both to shake a paw.  Awe.  Coco can sit and then shake.  Sasha can do one or the other but not both and not every time.  But she looks so intently at Fei while she's trying to figure it out.  Isabel can totally do it all and has always been able to.  

The Lego Dinosaur

The missing part of the story.  

Michelle, the brailist working with Kai at school, emailed me.  She attached a photo of a dinosaur that Kai built himself.  He wanted me to see it.  So he took the picture for Michelle.  She is blind.  I had a good chuckle at her message because she hoped there was a picture since she had no idea if he'd managed to get the photo.  Love it.  

Also the two of them are using a beeper ball to play catch together.  Kai can not catch a ball.  I'd pay money to see them play catch.  

Good things happening for Kai this school year.

Tomorrow he's building another lego dinosaur with audio instructions.  

Pink Shirts

Stopping bullies one pink shirt at a time.

Sasha followed Kai and asked for cuddles.  She's training her boy.  Luk went and got the camera and took this one.

I said Kai could have 15 minutes on his tablet since he was ready. But he didn't want to disturb Sasha so Luk got his tablet for him.  Then there were no hands left to pet her so Luk is helping.  Swoon.  The dream team.  😍

This is the nightly position while we cook dinner.  Just waiting for the hand outs.  

My sweet boys.

Starting the day out right with puppy cuddles.

On the way to school today Jia said "Mom, I had growing pains again last night I'm clearly turning into a giraffe".  I've been laughing all morning about that one.  On the Jia front, she was asked to submit her writing to a writers conference and this would normally not interest her but she's oddly keen.  Lots of fun conversation about it.  A story idea formulating that she's excited about.  Now...do I worry that she's all about scary stories?  Or should we just have expected that from our thrill seeker.  

Fei submitted an essay assignment that she let me read yesterday.  A pretty powerful piece I wish I was allowed to share.  Another writer in the family.  I think she'll be able to use it for the district write and scholarship applications.  

Lili puts in sooooo much time on her school work.  This term is going better.  She is clearly enjoying the business course more.  So is now looking at changing to Bachelor of Business and Administration, BBA.  She kept one science course, Chemistry and it's a struggle again.  It's tough trying to figure out who you are.

I drove into town an hour ago.  The sun was shining.  I left my coat at work.  Had my eyes checked and did a field vision test. Pressure at 14 and 12.  Yay.  Still no second eye surgery any time soon.  Suck it glaucoma.  Then drove back in a weird sudden freak snow storm.  The power was out here at work and there was crazy strong wind.  Can't trust the weather.  We had power but not enough to run the mill so we all went home early.  

Now to talk about Kai for a bit.  He is such a genuinely nice kid.  It's hard to hear about how he is treated sometimes.  On a fairly regular basis we hear about how Kai is treated by other kids. Yesterday a note came home from a classmate apologizing for touching him with a sharp object.  Part of me wants to definitely get in the bullies faces and make threats.  Obviously we don't do that.  As with most everything, we just lead by example.  Be the change we want to see.  Continue being kind, ignore as much as possible. Remind our kids constantly to have grace we don't know their stories.  There is almost always a story.  Our kids have been mean too, to each other, their friends none of us are perfect.  But Kai might be closer to the goal than most of us. He is happier.  He has less of an agenda.  He can be a good friend.  You know as long as we respect toddler law and don't expect him to share what is in his hands.  Haha.  Anyways, Luk, Jia and Max report to us.  We check in with Kai.  He usually didn't notice.  Most of it goes over his head.  I like to think the vast majority of kids are being kind to him. Kai has never tattled. 

Now once again, Kai is unaware anything happened.  Doesn't even know what the sharp item was and Luk has no clue.  Eric took his shirt off and searched him for puncture marks, there were none.  The kid in question has issues.  This is part of the flaw of your non verbal kid being in school away from us. For the most part we get it.  He's an easy target.  His filter doesn't work so he presents lots of moments to make fun of.  But wouldn't it be so much nicer if they could try to reach his level.  He's the nicer kid.  The report card is dismal but he excels at getting along.  I just can't imagine him making it in the high school level.  

Non verbal...Kai can talk.  He is difficult to understand.  A stranger would NEVER be able to decipher.  He doesn't always know his full name.  He rarely remembers my cell number.  We only try teaching him the one phone number.  He doesn't know our address and when asked our names he only ever responds Mom and Dad.  He doesn't always know how to ask for help. Or when to ask for help.  He still makes noises versus words when he needs help.  We call it the Kai alarm.  He doesn't tell stories or ask questions aside from 'id my birday?' 'id kool morrow?' 'what por beakfat, lunn, nack, didder, nack?".  I have people question the non-verbal label.  If he was separated from us in any way he would not be able to find us or seek help.

Just tonight at bedtime, the boys were sitting with their snack, I had my back to them doing supper dishes.  Kai set up his alarm.  The squawking was getting louder.  I turned around and tried to decipher.  He was cleary saying tablet.  I asked "tablet?", he repeated tablet, so not tablet, but twice more it was still clearly tablet that was the problem.  Luk then said "he dropped his vitamin on the floor".  Arg. I said "ohmygawd did the dogs get it?" At which point Luk leaped up to get it off the floor.  Shocking the dogs missed it.  Likely would have been fine it was calcium with vitamin d drop on it.  But seriously, why didn't Kai just pick it up? Why didn't Luk pick it up?  Why didn't Luk tell me right away?  Instead of the whole tablet conversation.  Oy.  

Flex Day

Fei, Jia and I ran a couple errands after school.  Banking first.  Jia got her first debit card.

Then for hair cuts.  Didn't take a picture of Fei.  She took 6"s off.  Prepping to have her hair colored.

Radical little change. It's so cute on her.

We did a dollarstore stop, picked up dinner and back home.  Jia's 1st debit card purchase was pink foamy slime. Haha.  When do they outgrow slime?  Fei snuck this picture.  

This is a picture from the Braille Challenge.  There were rows of words, items, shapes.  He had to circle the one that didn't belong.  I met a lady today from the district for the 1st time who was telling me about his work and how great he did and she was so excited about it all she was almost crying.  We're so removed from this part of his world.  Damn covid.  The whole time we talked today Kai was screeching repeatedly about a lego dinosaur.  ?  Then when I got home and told Eric about the conversation Kai was once again screeching about a lego dinosaur.  Somehow, someway him doing Braille is about a lego dinosaur.  Clearly we're missing part of the story.  Haha.  

Braille Challenge

Kai had fun with the challenge.  He's proud of the shirt and liked all his swag gifts.  Right now at school he has been working on building a wooden train.  He's pretty happy about that too.  

More quiet days...more naps.

Modeling their carrier for Mary to see.

Attempting to get picky eaters to enjoy green beans.  They still said yuk.  The rest of us loved them though.  

A bi-monthly outing ;)  Taking care of mental health.  

More naps.

So.  I've been avoiding Zooms.  Today I agreed to go to one.  For my oldest friend.  We bonded in grade 3 when we were 8.  Eric took Jia to an hpv booster appt so I would be on time.  I cleaned the kitchen so I could sit at the table. Then went to get my lap top and it was missing.  Life with kids.  Lili has the cold now and she was napping but I woke her.  She set me up on her laptop because mine was dead in her basement room.  Sigh.  Then right as we were to log in, Jia came home and immediately started baking at the kitchen table behind me.  Sigh.  So Lili and I ran me upstairs to the pink room. Where Esmei was a complete fool through the whole thing.  At least she's cute.  Haha.  And although nice to see Denise and her whole family it was weird chaos and I still don't love Zoom.

Back to napping.  Haha.

Sold

Mom's house was listed yesterday.  There was one viewing.  Later while she was over for dinner she got a call.  She was offered significantly over asking with no conditions. 

Papers were signed.

Celebrating happened.

The sold sign was up today.

Wow.  

This Bull Crap

Just got this email.  Yikes.  What the frick is wrong with people.  The world is nuts.  We can not gather. CAN NOT.  Flat out.  NO.  This is not important, not necessary, not at this time.   

Head bonk.  To raise money for another shite show graduation like Lili's last year?!  Yes the kids deserve to celebrate and maybe they could if everyone would stay the frick fracken home!  

I do realize things can be done safely.  But they aren't.  It wouldn't be.  There would be socializing and it is gathering. 

While I'm gripping, can I just say that for the families having the time of your lives with projects and crafts and blessed family togetherness.  Really??!!  I adore my family.  AND I would love some time with other people.  AND the kids would all love some time with other people.  

Ok, Shelley, tell us all how you really feel.  And that's how I'm feeling about things today.  

Fei is 18!!

Eric and I are up getting ready.  We set the table with her gold dishes.  That was fun.  It did require washing first.  I've gathered all her paperwork and I.D. for the ceremonial handing over of responsibility.  

How is she an adult already?!

Waiting for her to get up now ;)

Eric shopped yesterday for fancy dinner and he was instructed to get an ice cream cake at DQ for her.  He went off list.  He went off list! A wee Birthday snafu.  Bit of a panic here.  He found a pretty yellow cake and bought it.  What?!  Yikes.  She doesn't eat cake.  Or icing.  I think the cake should go in the freezer and he should head down and get an ice cream cake. He thinks we should just eat the cake he bought. So now we've made another cake that she might like.  A fat free peach cake with melted sugar topping.  

Oh how I wish the kids could celebrate with their friends.  Stuck here with us is just getting so sad.  Trying to think of something fun and different to do later.  I thought maybe learning a country line dance and doing a tik tok.  She didn't reject that idea.  Next idea was a make over photo session, she did reject that idea.  Last suggestion was a poker night.  That seems the likely scenario.  I understand poker hands (video poker) but not betting, rules, game play. A quick YouTube video has me ready.  How did we learn crap before YouTube?  

Dinner was great.  Fancy restaurant quality but in sweat pants and pajamas.  

The store bought cake was ok.  We put half in the freezer, will eat the peach cake tomorrow.  

Poker was fun.  Not a favorite game but good for a laugh.

A little puppy entertainment today.