I’m a little at a loss for what to write about. Louisiana decided to dip into the sub freezing levels last night and then—what do you call frozen rain that isn’t snow and is too solid & too clean to be sleet, like literally frozen raindrops as if, or actually probably exactly in such a case where, the snow melted and fully re-froze on its way down. It’s probably called sleet, but this was prettier than what I would call sleet—don’t get me wrong, it was an ugly day, but the falling frozen-melted snowflakes were pretty, and they made the strangest sound as they hit the earth, which i can only describe literally as the sound of thousands of tiny frozen raindrops repeatedly hitting the earth.
Ok, enough about the details of the weather. What does all this mean? Well, it means that Louisiana is completely shutdown—we do not have the infrastructure down here to handling freezing weather & snow like we do in the northern states. Complete shutdown includes schools, daycare, stores (including grocery), and most certainly the majority, if not all, the plants in the area either by foresighted choice or by some valve freezing up or moisture in the pneumatic air freezing up or temps just dropping too low for the process or yikes, for the chilled bugs in the water treatment plant becoming dormant—I’ve seen a handful or two of freezes down here; they aren’t pretty and they cause a frozen state of chaos by which i mean, everyone is excited and ready to make moves, but are simultaneously restricted because they are, well, frozen in place–nothing can be done. But when the weather warms and the ice starts to freeze, well that’s when corporate & the managers get proportionately excited to the excitement of the water molecules breaking free from solid state.
Be ready to flow!
Ok, so schools are down, so the boys are home, which made my day a challenge. Keith was on vacation, but see paragraph above about the plants going down—he had to make emergency runs to try to get food and beds to the ride out crew. Fortunately, our power didn’t go out at all—most of west Baton Rouge was without power for the majority of the day.
Anyway, so yeah, i finally got Leo down for his nap a little after 12, but Rex wasn’t having it. I got him to sit quietly enough so that I could pair with Micah for a few minutes here & there. Then Keith got back and freed me up so that I could focus more on the task at hand with Micah. That was better, and i think we made some progress and I gained more understanding about the poker app. I think I’m getting my head around it now—but I need to read more about reagent & get a headset.
Rex:
Keith came home last week telling me about a co-worker who rewards his daughter with “warm-fuzzies” (pom-poms) for good behavior. Once she collects the target amount, she gets a reward or a treat like ice cream or a cookie or playtime or something. I really liked this idea. I was about to buy some pom-poms when Keith suggested we just use blocks or legos, and so now Rex earns “happy blocks” to build a tower when he shows good behavior like pee-pee in the poddy, eating his dinner, taking his plate to the sink when he’s done, nice play with Leo/sharing, go to bed without fussing, etc. His goal is to earn enough blocks to build a tower taller than Alexa.
The whole concept i think frustrated him at first as I think he initially understood that he would get ice cream every time he earned a block, but today, his tower towered Alexa, and he got ice cream. After that reward, he was suddenly a lot eager to exhibit more of the good behaviors we are looking for. I mean, he walked himself to bed with no fuss and sat on the potty beforehand. I’ll keep y’all posted.
Leo:
Leo is currently infatuated with this little stuff lion that has an assortment of tactile clips, clasps, snaps, & buckles on it. He will put the buckles together over & over again. I then unclassified them for him to do them again.
He’s also been communicating more, both verbally & in sign. He’ll point at what he wants, and make a very cute, but direct 4-5 syllable sound sentence. Like the other day, when I was getting them ready for school, Leo wandered into his room and came back with shoes—sandals no less (remember it’s freezing). He would not let me put on his normal shoes and kept handing me back the sandals that he apparently really wanted to wear.