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thanate*Meditations for panicky people in confluence between reading the beginning of Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics and spotting a nasty panic attack. I worked down to call and response counting to 100... we find that unlike with toddler counting, where it goes most smoothly when the adult takes the even numbers to smooth the transition between tens, an easily distracted adult tends to stall out after completing an even 10. I still need to work on a good method for teaching the "begin again" aspect of "the point of meditation is to practice noticing when your brain has gone off topic and bringing it back" with the Megatherium, tho.
*"Birthday party in a bag" swap... I made up bags of magic-themed party favors/activities, and traded them to a bunch of M's friends in exchange for doll clothes and bubble gum and clip-on earrings, which seemed to work well for everyone, tho the other seven and eight year olds seemed a lot more excited about the spellbook writing bits than my (still deeply writing-averse) child, sadly.
*I went and picked up two plaster cicadas for the Cicada Parade-a public art project! And now I am making them excessively complicated, with fabric patchwork and ridiculous amounts of machine embroidery instead of just painting them & moving on....
*The ongoing saga of plumbing excitement. (The original terra-cotta sewer pipe was falling to pieces, much to the delight of the elm tree and the decreasing usefulness of our plumbing. It is now replaced, but part of the house-side sidewalk had to be torn up, as well as a large section of elm roots. And it turns out that that bit of sidewalk, as well as being instrumental in keeping water out of the basement (which we knew) was also two eras of sidewalk poured on top of each other, and thus a solid 6" thick in places and while it broke nicely into blocks when they pulled it up, the backhoe was unable to break the large chunks by slamming it with the digger bucket. And there were various problems with jackhammers (ie, neither adult here trusted themself to be safe running one, & hiring someone in to run one involved Dealing With People, plus I see no reason to pay to send all this concrete to the landfill when we have plenty of uses for gravel and garden rocks) so we (by which I mean mostly I) have been breaking the old sidewalk bits apart with a 16 pound sledge and a smaller hammer & cold chisel. 2/3 done, but the biggest most stubborn section is still to go, and I want to get more of my shortgrass prairie seed down before it warms up for the summer.)
*We all got assigned to team Phizer here; my mother got through her waiting period by the beginning of April and has been coming up on weekends since then; Grauwulf got his second shot on Friday, and I'm in the wait between. Which happened a great deal faster than I was expecting, but hurrah for Kaiser, I guess, since I logged in to confirm the Megatherium's 8 yr appointment (delayed because her doctor only has one in-person day per week) and they said my number had come up & did I want to click here & get scheduled, and suddenly I had a vaccination appointment and a couple days of mental/emotional whiplash.
*Meanwhile, the Megatherium got shuffled teachers when a bunch of families opted to send their kids back in for hybrid school (2 days a week, stay in little boxes in the classroom with masks on all day, lots of sanitizing, no mention of ventilation. We went with "um, no.") So far our school has had 4 letters to parents about Covid cases at her school specifically. (two confirmed kid cases, one suspected kid case, one confirmed adult... but they basically say that much & that if you need to know you've already been notified, so we don't even know what grades these were in.) At least at this point the CDC has got it's head out of the sand about the ventilation thing, so who knows what might improve by next year?
*We had a mockingbird briefly who included both car alarms and seagulls in his repertoire. Otherwise I am mostly noticing the white-throated sparrows this year, but that may just be that I've only recently learned to associate them with their call. I am trying not to whistle it back to them, since that seems not exactly polite in Bird. The fish crows are back, and there's a rumor that one of the neighbors saw a great white egret nest along the stream somewhere. (Others have definitely seen an egret.)
*Her Megatheriosity has befriended the kids down the street and suddenly there are children wandering through my yard with their dog and/or visiting chickens at odd moments. Being 8, she is now technically allowed to "free-range" in Maryland, so we've been expanding the parental texting network for keeping track of the kids without following them about everywhere. We're still working out the balance, and she still needs to work on the bit where she doesn't get mad at us or despairing any time she has to come home and hang out with us "boring" adults.
*Probably some other stuff, darned if I remember what at the moment.
*"Birthday party in a bag" swap... I made up bags of magic-themed party favors/activities, and traded them to a bunch of M's friends in exchange for doll clothes and bubble gum and clip-on earrings, which seemed to work well for everyone, tho the other seven and eight year olds seemed a lot more excited about the spellbook writing bits than my (still deeply writing-averse) child, sadly.
*I went and picked up two plaster cicadas for the Cicada Parade-a public art project! And now I am making them excessively complicated, with fabric patchwork and ridiculous amounts of machine embroidery instead of just painting them & moving on....
*The ongoing saga of plumbing excitement. (The original terra-cotta sewer pipe was falling to pieces, much to the delight of the elm tree and the decreasing usefulness of our plumbing. It is now replaced, but part of the house-side sidewalk had to be torn up, as well as a large section of elm roots. And it turns out that that bit of sidewalk, as well as being instrumental in keeping water out of the basement (which we knew) was also two eras of sidewalk poured on top of each other, and thus a solid 6" thick in places and while it broke nicely into blocks when they pulled it up, the backhoe was unable to break the large chunks by slamming it with the digger bucket. And there were various problems with jackhammers (ie, neither adult here trusted themself to be safe running one, & hiring someone in to run one involved Dealing With People, plus I see no reason to pay to send all this concrete to the landfill when we have plenty of uses for gravel and garden rocks) so we (by which I mean mostly I) have been breaking the old sidewalk bits apart with a 16 pound sledge and a smaller hammer & cold chisel. 2/3 done, but the biggest most stubborn section is still to go, and I want to get more of my shortgrass prairie seed down before it warms up for the summer.)
*We all got assigned to team Phizer here; my mother got through her waiting period by the beginning of April and has been coming up on weekends since then; Grauwulf got his second shot on Friday, and I'm in the wait between. Which happened a great deal faster than I was expecting, but hurrah for Kaiser, I guess, since I logged in to confirm the Megatherium's 8 yr appointment (delayed because her doctor only has one in-person day per week) and they said my number had come up & did I want to click here & get scheduled, and suddenly I had a vaccination appointment and a couple days of mental/emotional whiplash.
*Meanwhile, the Megatherium got shuffled teachers when a bunch of families opted to send their kids back in for hybrid school (2 days a week, stay in little boxes in the classroom with masks on all day, lots of sanitizing, no mention of ventilation. We went with "um, no.") So far our school has had 4 letters to parents about Covid cases at her school specifically. (two confirmed kid cases, one suspected kid case, one confirmed adult... but they basically say that much & that if you need to know you've already been notified, so we don't even know what grades these were in.) At least at this point the CDC has got it's head out of the sand about the ventilation thing, so who knows what might improve by next year?
*We had a mockingbird briefly who included both car alarms and seagulls in his repertoire. Otherwise I am mostly noticing the white-throated sparrows this year, but that may just be that I've only recently learned to associate them with their call. I am trying not to whistle it back to them, since that seems not exactly polite in Bird. The fish crows are back, and there's a rumor that one of the neighbors saw a great white egret nest along the stream somewhere. (Others have definitely seen an egret.)
*Her Megatheriosity has befriended the kids down the street and suddenly there are children wandering through my yard with their dog and/or visiting chickens at odd moments. Being 8, she is now technically allowed to "free-range" in Maryland, so we've been expanding the parental texting network for keeping track of the kids without following them about everywhere. We're still working out the balance, and she still needs to work on the bit where she doesn't get mad at us or despairing any time she has to come home and hang out with us "boring" adults.
*Probably some other stuff, darned if I remember what at the moment.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-21 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-22 03:42 pm (UTC)I approve of the existence of the growing child posse, but it was also pretty sudden. (also Chicken Mom still has her 2020 Tr*mp flag up on the side of the coop, now covered with a "don't tread on me." Plus the conversation with the girl who asked why my child had to wear a helmet while scootering, and when I explained about protecting from head injuries she told me about the time she had a concussion & threw up in the car on the way to the doctor's office... So that could get interesting at some point.)
no subject
Date: 2021-04-22 10:19 pm (UTC)