30 days

We have been, we just haven't been here. 

In the last 30 days or so, starting with gym and eyes... 

Boo has competed 2 inner squad meets and one soft landing season icebreaker (36.87 All Around, the judging tends to be nicer than in season). Sadly, her dad has been out of town missing all 3. Settling for phone calls about how it went. 

Her skills for getting her contacts in are vastly improved. But the quality of her vision in them is pretty poor so school work has been on the thin side. Today is the first day she has put on her glasses in over a month. She couldn't believe how well she see with them verses the contacts. And yet she continues to do well at gym. She now has a clear-hip to double giant flyaway on set! Big coach D takes every chance he gets to tease me about how worried I was about that giant. 

I had also been worried about her front tumbling. That was needless too. It is so BIG and beautiful. 

Boo is requesting a change in her back tumbling pass on floor because she is bored. Big coach D is allowing her to work the new pass in practice but whether he allows her to compete we will have to wait and see. Next meet is Lady Luck in Las Vegas, Nevada in mid January.

From the parent bench I have seen her working on a beam dismount that includes a half twist. So much for my request she do her beam routine then turn to the judges and explain that her mother does not like her running and flinging herself full force off the end of a beam so she is just going to salute and climb down nicely. 

 

Which brings us back to eyes. We have ordered the next step in the contacts transition, which turns out to be a series of 3 sets of trial lenses. Each can correct for a few of Boo's vision issues but none of them correct for everything. That wasn't in the plan. On top of the horrible timing we love her doctor but dealing with Walmart is a nightmare! 

 Soft Landing December 6, 2014 

Link to her Floor Routine (9.3) 

Every thing else is just life. Mostly relying on our friends to keep us sane, busy, and happy. 

Having Boo's papa working out of town is hard. But there is also strange blessings that show up. Like really appreciating the time we do have together.

 The last topic is school work going forward from here. I am taking the weekend to pull us back together and despite that our life barely looks familiar to me we plan to return to the books on Monday. 

ready or not contacts

 Sooooo, there has been a little bit of eye drama around here ever since Boo broke her glasses at practice on Friday. For a while now Boo has expressed the desire to try contacts again >shutter at the thought<. To put it politely the first time didn't not go well. That was a few years ago. With the discovery that Boo's narrow 119 width frames had been discontinued and the realization that glasses and gymnastics at this level aren't the best pairing I agreed we could try again. 

Or I should say her doctor agreed she could try again. Here is the downside: the lenses she needs to correct all her vision issues are HUGE. That was part of the failure last time around. This time her Dr. is having her use a smaller lens for the first 30 days or until she is comfortable enough putting them in and out. Then we can upgrade to the bigger, better ones. It means while she is in the lenses she has now her vision isn't fully corrected for- in fact she can't read with these. We are officially in unschool mode until further notice. Perfect time of year for it too <3

Day one didn't go so well but its in the past now.

Day two a little better. First day doing gymnastics without glasses!!!!!!!!! Although Boo came off beam crying. When she can't see as well she gets frustrated easier- makes sense. Something about a flick-flick and her standing tucks. Her coach said she is just too hard on herself. That Boo warmed up all the hardest moves she could think of and tried to do them all together in a single pass. Boo's version of taking it easy. 

I thought it was worth noting that one of the other moms commented that Boo doesn't know what to do with her hands now, she was so used to pushing up her glasses after tumbling, lol. 


At the end of Day 2 she wasn't able to get one of her contacts out and managed to leave a finger nail mark on her eyeball. Yep, she cut her eye. I can admit I am starting to (calmly on the outside, panic on the inside) run through worse cases about eye health and all the horrible things that could wrong. I will leave it at I am a bit stressed.

Here we are on day 3. After sleeping in her one contact (totally fine thing to do in the type she has) she put the other contact in rather quickly (under 20 minutes) and we are headed riding because nothing helps hard times feel better like sitting on a horse does.

looking

With the summer crowds safely tucked back into their school schedules Boo and I took our first visit to the new Living Planet Aquarium. Thick glass, low lightening, and tiny, moving beams of life- oh the aquarium. For a kid with poor vision it can be quite a challenge.  So we go very slow (and very early).

With a little "seeing" finger to the glass she makes her way through.

Slowly, carefully seeing it all.

    What a beautiful way to spend half a day.

lit notes

I love being surprised by Boo when it comes to likes and dislikes with literature. I adore having a front row seat to seeing how she reacts to exploring with words and stories. 

Take The Giving Tree. We are huge Shel Silverstein fans but after reading her The Giving Tree Boo made me promise to NEVER read her that horrible book again. Of course the issue was the strong emotional response she had to the book not her dislike, although she couldn't express that at the time. She understood and related to the message so clearly even now she still refuses to read it.

Just as equally telling Boo, the self proclamation history hater has once again picked a historical based book as her favorite book EVER. The first one she fell in love with was last year. It was the Freedom Train, the story of Harriet Tubman. This time it is Helen Keller's Teacher, the story of Annie Sullivan. And what else beside history do they have in common? The central character is a strong woman overcoming both physical and social barriers for themselves. Then they use their success to help others.

 As for independent reading, Nate The Great has come to our rescue! As Boo gets older her desire to read more complex story lines is increasing. She doesn't want her visual disability to confine her to "baby" readers. But most chapter books have too small of font or print too close together or both for her to read them. The Kindle helps a little but not as much as we had hoped it would. There just isn't enough large print options out there. 

Turns out the answer (for now) has been on our bookshelf just waiting to be discovered. The reading level of most of the Nate The Great books is about 2.2 which is a bit lower than where Boo reads but the humor is winning her over. And reading at any level is reading!!!! The humor is probably why the interest level of the books is rated for grades 3-5. Best of all there are tons of these books around we happen to have 6 already. I am sure more are in our new future. 

seeing the zoo

Going to the zoo or the museum or aquamarine when they are crowded has been a big challenge for Boo.  She has a hard time navigating crowds and an even harder time seeing the exhibits.  Today we took a different approach than we have in the past; rather than shy away we embraced the challenge head on.      

 She did really well.  There were a few collisions but she didn't let them upset her.  One kid told her to 'watch out' after she walked into him as he ran pass her on her bad side.   She just laughed saying 'school kids are so random.' 

There was the occasional mom who looked at her and decided she is too old to stand that close to the glass and push their little ones in front of her.  Mostly though Boo with her hand sewn stuffed frog and gentle manners gained smiles.  Even a few 'thank you's' from moms after helping them out in someway- picking up something they dropped, redirecting a crying toddler, or giving a small kid a good spot to stand, etc.  She is a pretty good kid :)              

  Being at the zoo before nap time meant it was evenly packed with toddlers and school field trips.  What I found interesting was how much Boo (yes, amazing gymnast Boo) moves like a toddler.  She uses her fingers to see things.  She steps carefully but slightly off balance over uneven surfaces. 

 It was a beautiful spring day at the zoo.  

A beautiful day to be part of the crowd.  

 (and to bring home a stuffed animal sloth named Bob)