Happy mid-mornin’ all. A day here of high clouds, no rain expected, and presently 68/20 on the way up to 72/22. No wind now, but that’s supposed to pick up as the temps do. So is nice but looks bleh.
Awoke a bit pre-sunrise and now 3 hours later have been caffinatin’ & do-nothin’-ing ever since.
Trying to imagine having the gumption to do something useful with the day. But not much feelin’ it. Again. Sigh.
Fedex: When it absolutely positively has to be … somewhere useless … overnight.
Two-niner up here. We have about two or three inches of snow, with snow expected to continue until about 18 o’clock; then cloudy until we get more snow at 1100 until 1400 tomorrow.
The rent check came today. It usually takes a week to get here from San Diego, but it takes longer if there’s a holiday. I was going to take it to the bank today, assuming we’d get a dusting of snow and then it will melt. I’ll get the Jeep out later.
Good morning. A balmy 6F here and school was cancelled due to windchills of -15 to -20F. This is the coldest it’s gotten so far this year. I told my husband I was kind of relieved to see some snow on the ground. We got nothing in December which is highly unusual. However, it’s going to be a challenge working with a kid at home for most of the day.
We had an 8AM meeting with Wee Weasel’s BCBA (his ABA therapy supervisor.) They love our kid. He said that he blew through the initial battery of tests so he is devising harder ones (tests like, group these objects according to type, repeat back three different gestures in a row, stuff that tells them where his limitations are.) And he’s learning about synonyms which I didn’t know about. He’s obsessed with opposites right now and keeps wanting to know the opposite of everything. He does not like that there isn’t an opposite to everything. He routinely stumps adults with his questions. “What’s the opposite of alligator?” We were trying to figure out a reasonable answer. I suggested platypus. But whatever it was, it would probably have wings. A platypus with wings.
I asked Steve (BCBA) if Wee Weasel’s main mode of play at ABA is the same as it is at home. He will dictate to you what to do, with very specific requirements, and closely analyze your results to ensure they are perfect. He said, yeah, that’s definitely what we’ve observed too. He has a plan for that too, switching (visually) between “Wee Weasel way” and “my way.”) He said he’s such a loveable, charismatic kid, you just like him so much even while he’s telling you what to do. I said he’s probably got a nice future career in middle management. We also met with the new speech therapist as he will be resuming tomorrow. He’s had speech therapy in the past but they didn’t really understand that there’s more to communication than expressive and receptive language. This speech therapist gets it.
Now I just have to figure out how to get some work done today with a kid. We have tentatively planned to park him in front of the TV and take turns providing breaks. But I need to do some shoveling too.
My relationship with caffeine is not great. It stresses me out and interferes with my sleep so I try to avoid it. But if I need it in the middle of the day, I’ll take it. Incidentally, yesterday afternoon was not so bad. I got a little bit of the confusions but it was manageable. I stepped away from screens per my plan. And I did eat a small amount of chocolate once the symptoms started.
I can’t say Amazon is doing much better with UPS. I increasingly question the point of a Prime membership when they can’t even get my stuff here reliably any more. I’ve had more lost packages and late deliveries in the last year than ever before. Though of course this is a volume problem and ultimately a consumerism problem.
Absolute truth. Don’t feel bad for taking care of you.
FCM I’m glad your Mom is home safe. I didn’t realize it, but my MIL was in Boston when she fell (she lives in Florida) so she had to fly home yesterday. She sounds better, anyhow (for whatever value of “sounds” you can interpret from a text message.)
Also good luck on your trip! I’m sure you made a comprehensive list. I think it’s normal to feel anxious before a big trip.
Is this typical weather for Alabama? I’m guessing not…?
KING5 has someone standing in the snow in Bellingham (Iowa St). There are people noping out of getting onto the freeway. They just showed a Mustang with an ice-covered rear window backing down the onramp… and two other vehicles veering into the offramp to get around him.
Already packed - for both of us. I’d be in serious trouble without my specs.
Furnace filter is changed. FCD is taking the garbage and recycling and cat poop to be disposed of. I’m about to sit down with my lists and do some thinking.
Definitely not normal weather for here; we get appreciable snowfall about once every two years and bad roads about once every three-four years. The cold is not too drastic, although it usually shows up in February.
Well, I did manage to change the air filter (it was my last one on-hand so when I can get out again will have to buy some more), change keyboards (the new one has flat keys instead of raised ones, so might take a little getting used to) and fix first Meal, so that is enough activity for the morning.
Spicy, ‘opposite of an alligator’ Hmmmm…can you ask him what he thinks it would be, cause I haven’t a clue what to tell him. Hope all the therapy pays off for the Wee one.
Flyboy, presume KING5 is the local station out your way, haven’t watched much TV locally during the weather, but suspect we have a few sahots like that too.
Seems to me this is actually an opening to discuss the nature of oppositeness and that even simple things in the real world don’t have opposites. And especially not nouns. Certainly any complicated idea (“the Roman empire”) doesn’t have opposites. “What’s the opposite of [everything and anything]” is (unsurprisingly) a very numerical POV.
As I’ve said umpteen times, IANA parent, and especially not a special needs parent. But ISTM as a general matter parents have two somewhat conflicting goals: encourage the kid to flourish wherever their native talent lies, and also encourage them not to become monomaniacally one-dimensional around their talent. The more stand-out that talent vs the rest of the kid, the more pulling in the opposite direction will be needed.
In Wee Weasel’s case that means supporting his number fascination while gently but continuously pulling him to explore that which is not numbers.
So, normally Midnight has 1 small or 1 large cart of Left In Building stuff(LIB). When I got to work, they had 20+. For Preload, SSLAW #2 crapped out at the start, so The Gangster of Love came up to the dumping station to micromanage. Shaggy, slacker that he is, asked TGoL to help him with bags. That boy ain’t right. I got home, took Ace out, came in, showed, took Ace to the dogpark, where he got loose. I did actually retrieve him, since leaving an unhinged dingo racing around the Raleigh park system is frowned upon. And when we got home, the World’s Most Excitable Dog got loose and attacked Ace. No damage, and Ace did not counterattack. I guess he’s not vicious, just a vandalizing Antichrist.
That’s because you don’t come from a family that tries to stubborn their crisis level to 11 at every opportunity.
Higgs?
For a moment, I was wondering how you got a tetrapod to stick on your scone.
He’s not a fan of the fact that perfection isn’t possible, either. (I thought I was bad.)
I think he understands what I’m saying, but I can’t be sure. Sometimes I worry he thinks I’m just arbitrarily denying him some kind of certainty rather than understanding that it’s out of our control. It’s hard because he doesn’t have the expressive language skills to truly reflect what’s going on in his head. The only hint I have are the kinds of questions he asks.
The Spousal Unit went to get the snow off of her canopy shed and the canopy garage. She knew I use a broom to knock the snow off of the roof of the garage from the inside. Unfortunately, she A) Used a sweep broom instead of a push broom; and B) Used the handle to push up on the roof. So now there’s a hole in the canopy garage. I tried Amazon for replacement tarps, and then tried the company. Nothing on Amazon, and the company had an invalid phone number. They had another number, bur no one was available and the recording said to leave a message and they’ll get back when they get around to it. I found another, different brand, canopy garage on Amazon for $300. The construction looks the same, and it has windows. Can’t do anything about it now though, so I’ll hold off on ordering.
I’ll go out and clear off the snow, and do the Car-Car Shuffle in a little while.
As expected of a 4yo. Even a precocious and neurotypical one like I was. Yes, it is eternally disappointing to me that the world is far less regular and neat than 4yo me had assumed it was. Learning that is just part of growing up and I’m sure it took a lot of patience by parents and others to slowly let reality sink into my original and very simple model of the world. But it did sink in, accompanied by lots of frustrated “If I was King things would not be so screwed up!!” fussing.
Just wait until he notices that words do not have one pure perfectly clear meaning that has no overlap with any other. And that there is a word for absolutely everything and everyone agrees on which word it is.
I still deal with this sometimes with BtY, though more with actions and consequences. Don’t do your homework? Phone gets taken away. But in his mind, I’m taking away his phone for no reason at all, I’m being mean, unreasonable and arbitrary. It’s a little easier because BtY has over a decade on WeeWeasel and has gotten a little better at being able to verbalize. But we still have the occasional tunnel vision. hugs
Fucking SUCCESS y’all!! For a brief moment, I felt like I was 16 years old again. (“I have a car!! I can go anywhere!!!”)
… until I remembered that “anywhere” is pretty much just “work” and “grocery store.” { sad trombone noise }
Still!
My car fought him at first. I had a moment of, “Aw, crap, this isn’t gonna work…” then I actually felt him really SHOVE into it.
He has some personal stuff going on (that frankly, he brings upon himself … can you say “codependent enabler?”) and he confided as we were driving off that it felt really good.
He’s … milquetoast would be a good term. Doormat would be less kind, but not inaccurate. He has these people in his life that use him to an extraordinary degree.
Guess he had some aggression to work out. Put it to good use un-sticking my car. Win-win?
Anyway, I drove friend-o on a cpl of brief local errands, then dropped him off at the Taco Hell right by work, since man cannot live on bread pizza alone.
Got back, Monkey starts howling at the side door. (“You got to go outside!! Why can’t IIIIIIII go ooouuuuut, oh gawd it’s so unfair!” { flops over, still meowing } )
Fine. Clicked off the heat, let him out. Didn’t even bother with his jingle-bell collar.
I saw the hole in the canopy garage’s roof. Mrs. L.A. said she just wanted to poke the roof up, and the handle went right through. The roof didn’t even move. She said, ‘I never thought it would go through!’ Anyway…
I swapped the RAV4 and the Jeep. The RAV4’s 4WD is funky. The car makes all of the decisions once you push the button… and will turn it off on a whim. I much prefer the Jeep’s system. Pull a lever and it stays there. (Had to use 4WD Low Range, so I had to shift into neutral and then pull the lever.)
I used the push broom to get the snow off of the canopy garage and her tent shed. The canopy garage company called me back, and then sent a link to replacement tarps. They’re the same one – and the same brand – as I was looking at for $300 for the whole thing, frame and all. $215. A neighbour used to have one a canopy garage, and he said it lasted three years. (He’s long since replaced it with a metal garage.) Our canopy garage has lasted five anna quatah years.
I laughed at this. Such is the tragedy of adulthood.
I’m glad you got unstuck.
I went out to shovel and found the 4 or so inches that fell (that I should have shoveled earlier this week) was basically a sheet of ice. We can get in and out of our driveways, but I’m worried about future snowfalls (like tomorrow.) It’s gonna be a lot more work in the long run.
I dunno, but at that hour, the western mitten state was warmer than the greater Nashville area (a frigid -6 overnight and 3F when I left the house at 0830).
Unfortunately, they don’t consider that 4WD isn’t four wheel stop.
I’m glad that your mom got home Mooooom. Bon Voyage!
Feel better soonest taters!
We had an 0930 start today. My street was ok, but when I got out to the main drag, it was terrible. It was marginally better this afternoon.
I would up doing a job that I’ve only done once because both of the operators were out. Fortunately, it was a slow volume day.
When I had learned to read one of my favorite things was learning new words, at least ones that had two or three syllables. “Ferocious, or halcyon, or egregious.” were fun.
That boy ain’t right. I got home, took Ace out, came in, showed, took Ace to the dogpark, where he got loose. I did actually retrieve him, since leaving an unhinged dingo racing around the Raleigh park system is frowned upon. And when we got home, the World’s Most Excitable Dog got loose and attacked Ace. No damage, and Ace did not counterattack. I guess he’s not vicious, just a vandalizing Antichrist.
For a brief moment, I felt like I was 16 years old again. (“I have a car!! I can go anywhere!!!”)