Orthodontist Visit

Meg was supposed to visit Dr. Delliner's office on March 23rd for her orthodontist appointment.  It was an important one as they were to decide if she could stop wearing her rubber bands and also what to do about the gaps in her mouth from the removal of her baby teeth.  When they called on March 20th to cancel the appointment, Meg and I were both disappointed that she was so close to going, but had to wait.  Her orthodontal work had already been delayed a month last summer due to an infection in her gums.

We were impressed, however, that the orthodontist's office called during the stay at home order to follow up with Meg through a virtual appointment.  We had to take pictures of her mouth and send them to the doctor so he could evaluate her progress.  It was a little hard to get the pictures as Meg had to put spoons in her mouth to spread apart her cheeks so he could see if her overbite had been corrected.  Meg was thrilled when they called several days later to let her know that she could stop wearing her rubber bands until her next appointment.

We weren't sure when that would be, but once the governor lifted the restrictions on elective procedures the office called immediately to set up an appointment for Meg.  I was incredibly pleased that they made her orthodontal work a priority and we agreed to get her there today at 3:10.  I was going to go with Meg, but I wasn't allowed in the office and would only be sitting in the car waiting on her.  Thus, Meg drove over on her on.  She did text me to let me know when she was in their parking lot.  I replied to the receptionist's text informing them that she was there.  Within three minutes they texted back to let Meg know that she could come into the office.  Once she walked in they immediately took her temperature.  When that was determined to be normal, she then had to use mouthwash before they worked on her braces.  She told me that everyone was wearing protective facial gear and the chairs were all stationed six feet apart.  Meg was completely comfortable with their response to working under COVID-19 restrictions.

Meg called me as soon as she got out of her appointment.  She was thrilled to be done with rubber bands.  They placed springs where her gaps were in order to close them.  Dr.  Dellinger said that at her next appointment in June they will change the springs and put in a new wire to continue the process of closing the gaps.  From that point on, Meg will be on track to be done with her braces in the two year time frame that they promised her when she started this process in January of 2019.  She was very happy to hear that as was I.

Mario Kart, Pokemon Go & iMovie

Cam had a day off from school today and enjoyed the free time.  Bethany's schedule has been different than most other schools.  They have held class via teleconferencing every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 9-3 with Wednesdays open for time to catch up on homework and teachers available for help sessions.  Doug and I believe that it has been an awesome way for students to stay connected to Bethany and to continue learning.  Lessons have been meaningful and challenging for the most part.  Hank has even held spirit day contests and every Monday has posted a weekly back to learning motivational video.

Overall, Cam has adjusted to the new schedule well and has stayed on top of his workload.  With that being said, he definitely was ready for a break today and made the most out of it.  As the majority of his homework was finished by lunchtime, he decided to spend the first part of the afternoon unlocking race cars.  I was glad to see that he had two new ones for Funky Kong.  After he finished with the Wii, Cam and I decided to drive through town looking for Pokemon.  He had redownloaded the Pokemon Go app several days ago and I had been bugging him to go out looking for new ones with me.  It was fun just to get out of the house for a little while and in the end well worth the effort as he found a Raichu for the first time.

Cam did devote some time this evening to school work.  He had to make a scavenger hunt for Spanish which I helped him film on iMovie.  It was actually a lot of fun.  He included the guinea pigs for part of it complete with footage of them cramming themselves into their house to avoid him.  I was impressed with how well he read and pronounced the clues in Spanish and had a lot of fun working on the project with him.  Only three more weeks of classes and his Freshmen year will be completed.  It will definitely be one long remembered by all of us.

Pop Culture

When Meg chose her classes for the spring semester she included one on the old testament.  It not only fulfilled one of her general ed credits, but also peaked her interest.  Unfortunately, Meg found out the first week of the semester that the class was not as described and ended up being an indepth study of Judaism.  Thus, Meg had to scramble to find another class.  She was excitd at first to see that there was an opening in pop culture.  She had really wanted to take the class as she had heard a lot of good things about it and felt that it would be a great way to learn about pop culture over the decades.  

Meg was surprised when she went to her first class period and found out that it would revolve around science fiction.  That was definitely not in the class description, but she decided to stick it out as she needed the credits and it would at least be easier than the old testament.  During her first month of pop culture they watched the movies Alien and Terminator.  Doug was happy to hear that and enjoyed talking to her about the films.  Meg noticed that the discussions in class revolved around sexism in the films and women empowerment.  Since both movies were filmed in the 1980s with different expectations in screenwriting than today, Meg didn't feel that it was relevant to today.

The class continued with a science fiction theme and Meg got used to the discussions.  She acutally even talked about liking the movie Terminator.  Late in February all of that changed, however, when the topics turned toward lesbian rights.  All of the videos, movies and readings were dominated by that theme as well as the class discussions.  Meg was extremely disappointed as the topic of pop culture seemed to have been pushed aside for media involving vivid sexual encounters in multiple formats.  Meg has had several homosexual friends and has never discrimanted against any of them.  She understood that their feelings and needs in life were the same as hers.  In saying that, however, she was extremely disapponted that the focus of her pop culture class would now be on gay rights.  She wanted a broader study of culture in America, not just one small segment of it.

When Meg first told me of her disappointment in the class, I encouraged her to give it time.  Maybe this would be a small portion of it and soon it would turn to something more interesting.  I also did not completely believe that the videos were quite as bad as she claimed.  Since she has been home I have had time to watch several of them with her and can now verify the strange, sexual content that she has had to endure.  Over the weekend, Doug was even exposed to a video called "Dirty Computer" where lesbians minds were wiped of all memories and songs about vaginas were highlighted.  At that point we just threw our hands up and encouraged her to do her best to finish it the class as well as she could.  Thankfully, since it went to an online learning format it was a lot easier to earn A's on the assignments.  Nevertheless, Meg will be extremely glad to be done with pop culture next week.  

Surprise Visitors

It was a typical "quarantine" afternoon for Meg, Cameron and I.  They were working on their e-learning assignments and I was paying bills.  All of a sudden we heard a knock on the back door.  At first I thought that it was Cameron.  A lot of times he puts his hammock out in the backyard and sits in it while he completes his match assignement.  As I got up to open the door, all I could see was a weeding claw tapping on the window.  I knew it wasn't Cameron, but thought that Roger was in our backyard.  I had been out weeding in the front yard the other day and figured he had an easier way for me to do it.  

Instead, we were all shocked to see Grandpa Cutes standing on the back patio.  He and Grandma Jane had decided to go mushroom hunting in our lot.  Their outcome was the same as in previous years, finding nothing to speak of except for golf balls, but Grandpa did score big, however, locating one of our old bocce balls in the woods.  After they were done, Cam, Meg and I sat at the back table and visited with them from a safe social distance.  It was nice to catch up and Cam and Meg enjoyed telling them all of my crazy "Lysol" stories.  

The Half Blood Prince

When we picked up the book Harry Potter and the Cursed Child several years ago at a midnight release party at Barnes & Noble I made plans to read it once the Heinisch children had finished it.  I told them that I wanted to reread all of the seven books in the Harry Potter series first.  There was so much that I didn't remember from the books and thought that the Cursed Child would be even better if I refreshed my memory.  My goal, unfortunately, kept getting pushed off for other projects.  With all of the down time recently due to the stay at home order, however,  I finally had time to work on my original reading goal from several years ago.  I picked back up where I left off with my second reading of the Harry Potter series and yesterday finished number six, "Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince."

I remember when I first read the book a decade ago that I was completely disappointed in it.  I thought that the first 3/4 of it was boring and a little comfusing.  I was also extremely disappointed that Dumbledore died and was in shock that Professor Snape was the villian that Harry always proclaimed him to be.  Reading it the second time, however, was a completely different experience as I had the knowledge of how the series would end. I was still sad, probably even more so, that Dumbledore died, but knowing that Snape would be vindicated in book seven made the Half Blood Prince so much more enjoyable.  I was also fascinated by the small details throughout the story.  The support characters and their backstory added to the enjoyment of the book.

Tonight Doug and I started the movie that was based upon the 6th Harry Potter book.  Neither of us had seen it in quite some time.  I was especially interested in watching it after just finishing the book. I was surprised at first by how different it was from what I had read.  The plot was the same but the details had been changed greatly.  Characters were removed from the story altogether and the movie-goer was allowed in on the secrets of the death eaters well before the reader ever was.  It didn't ruin the movie for me, but I did find it fascinating that the screenwriter changed so much of the book.  I wasn't sure if it was to shorten it for a film version or to keep the production on budget.  Either way, I really enjoyed both versions of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and can't wait to finish the series with the Deathly Hollows.

You've Got to Watch . . .

Cal sent Brett, Doug and I a text yesterday listing all 52 movies that he had watched since the stay at home order went into place ranking them from best to worst.  Brett instantly replied that he couldn't believe that Monty Python's Holy Grail was at 47 on the list.  Doug was more disappointed that Blazing Sadles was number 51.  I agreed with Brett that the Holy Grail should be higher, but was glad to see the placement of Blazing Sadles.  Much to Doug's dismay I had never liked that movie.

It was fun to read Cal's list and debate his picks versus ours.  He called us later in the evening to talk about his favorite movies.  He had been trying to persuade Doug to watch The Other Guys.  Cal thought it was a funny Will Ferrell movie and felt that Doug would enjoy it as well.  Once Doug finally agreed to watch it this weekend Cal turned to his favorite topic of the week, the Michael Jordan documentary.  He thought that it was fantastic, although he was a little surprised that both Doug and I felt that Jordan was the best player of all time, even over LeBron, albeit not our favorite NBA superstar.  He ended the phone call by exacting another promise.  This one came from Cameron as he finally agreed to watch the Jordan documentary even though he didn't have a lot of interest in it.  He knew nothing about Michael Jordan or the Chicago Bulls of the 1990s.  He promised Cal to watch it tomorrow moring, however.  I figured that Cam would relent in the end, but was more surprised when I found out later that Cal had even talked Brett into watching it.  Meg was the only Heinisch holdout.  She told Cal that she would definitely watch it once Cal finished her favorite musical, Hairspray.  It will be interesting to see who caves first.

Quarantine Crafting

Several years ago Cameron bought a latch hook that he really wanted to make.  He had just finished a panda one that he made into a pillow.  His new lighthouse, however, was triple the size and took a lot more work to complete.  Therefore, after a few rows, he decided to give up on it.  I had gotten it out several other times for him to work on if he wanted to, but he just wasn't interested.  Since I had finished all of my organizing projects in the first two weeks of the stay at home order, I asked him if I could give it a try.

I had not worked on a latch hook since I was in high school except to show Cameron how to do it.  It was as easy as I remembered except for distinguishing the differents shades of green, blue and red yarns.  Once I figured out the key I was able to make a lot of progress.  It was definitely slow going as this was by far the biggest latch hook that I had ever attempted.  I worked on it for several hours a night for three to four weeks and finally completed all of the yarn work Wednesday night.  I loved how it looked, but wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the lighthouse once I finished it.  I searched through several ideas on Pinterest and found one that gave directions for making a latch hook into a wall hanging.  It took longer than I thought that it would to whip stitch the sides, but last night I was finally able to finish the edging.  Meg and I found the perfect place for it on my bedroom wall and I proudly showed it to Doug when he got home from work today.