Yoda backpack of deep pressure

So, this is the trifecta of sensory pressure for one of my kiddos:

1.  I'll load it down with paper and that'll provide pressure
2.  It has a belt-strap to distribute the weight and keep the backpack from falling off or slipping down, no matter how he wiggles, crawls, boogies, and generally acts like a monster at play.
3.  It's Yoda.

Normally, Yoda draws a blank stare at this age, but this kiddo comes from a Star Wars rich environment.  And while I think mom has the right idea by saying the violence in the saga is not exactly the best problem-solving model for this kiddo ("SSKTS!  I will strike you down!"  "Mr. Jedi, put the lightsaber away and tell your friend to give you back your puzzle piece, please."), it's hard not to love a kiddo who knows that Han shot first.  Heck, it's hard not to just love this kiddo, period.

So I'll share my Christmas prezzie with him, provisionally, with supervision, for a limited period of time.

...and only if it works the way the therapist promises me it will work...

...and it's still my Yoda backpack.  Mine.

Watch me make a weighted sensory blanket

...and then watch me cheat!

So, there are many fine blogs that teach you how not to spend $100 on a sensory blanket for your child.  They convinced me that I could probably handle this, too.  My budget won't stretch to cover one $40 blanket, much less the 2 I feel I need.

1.  I went out and bought poly-pellets (tiny weighted little spheres of plastic), because then the blankets can be washed and dried.  There is nothing more important than the ability to wash an item a child will (hopefully) use over and over again!

2.  I assembled my dream team of supplies:  two old pillowcases, polypellets, ounce scale.  Not pictured: ancient sewing machine, thread, tape, measuring tape, poker chips, pins

3.  I checked to make sure my fabric had been washed.  If it hadn't been washed, I would have done so at this point.  As both pillows were old and had been washed several times, I just ironed the heck out of them.

4.  I sat down to do maths.  The pillowcases I was working with were both around 19" X 29"- so I rounded down to an even number to make division easier and figured I'd leave some extra room on the edges.  18" x 28" divides nicely into 42 3"x4" squares, so I went with that.  Figuring out the weight of the blanket also involved maths.  In general, the weight of the blanket should be 1/10 the child's weight, plus 1 pound.  I researched the mean weight of children age 4 and, in general, the number was 40 lbs.  So I needed a blanket 5 lbs heavy.  16 ounces in a pound, and I now knew that I needed 80 ounces of pellets in the blanket.  80 ounces divided between 42 squares meant roughly 2 ounces per square.  If you chose to go crazy over exact measurements, that's your bag.  Me, I want a blanket a kiddo can use and I don't want a headache over it.  MATHS COMPLETE.



5.  Because I am EXTREMELY LAZY, I decided to measure and tape the lines I would need to sew.  I probably could have dug up chalk, which would easily wash away, but in the end, I was glad I chose tape, because I used the tape edge as a stiffener in the stuff-and-sew stage.

6.  Now I get to start sewing!  Because the pillowcases have finished seams, I didn't have to worry about reinforcing the outer edges- the whole point of using pillowcases rather than picking out cute fabric and sewing from scratch.  If you're going from scratch, you'll want to reinforce the seams on the outer edge- either serge them, or french finish them, or simply sew them a couple times.  I began by sewing the length-wise lines to make long channels into which I could pour the pellets.

7.  I measured my first cup of pellets- 2 oz. of pellets was 100 on the little scale's cup.  Awesome.  Good to know- I didn't need to weigh each cup!

7.  I poured the pellets into the first corner channel, and immediately discovered how hard it was to sew something so puffy with the pellets trying to escape.  None of the blogs I'd read suggested pinning the pocket closed prior to sewing, and I was determined not to make anything harder on myself than I had to, so I tried to tough this out.  It was very helpful to have the tape on the fabric- the stiffness helped me to push the pellets to the inside of the pocket.  Eventually, I had a single pocket sewn into the blanket.  YAY!

8.  I did 6 more in this fashion before stating, "Okay, that's enough nonsense" and I went to go get my pins.  I began pouring the pellets into each channel, pinning the pocket shut so there was minimal escapage.  Again, the tape helped because I could pin on the edge of the tape and my pressure foot would have plenty of room to do the job.  Using this method, I could sew the entire row at one time, which may or may not have saved me any time, but certainly saved me some frustration.  A few pellets escaped from one or two channels each time, and I didn't sweat it, because, see above, I'm just trying to make a blanket for a kiddo to use, not a precise work of art.

9.  Yay!  Blanket done!  I closed the top seam by rolling it over- after I rolled it over I realized that, because pillowcases come already hemmed, I could have just sewn the opening shut and reinforced it a few times.  Total time:  about 4 hours, from entering my house to finished.  So pretty!

10.  The next blanket, I said, "That took too long."  I finished it in less than an hour by utilizing NEW MATHS.  I divided the same pillowcase area by only 12 squares.  Each square then needed 6 2/3 ounces of pellets, or roughly a full scale cup.  I also added 4 poker chips to each pocket, because I have a kiddo that likes to squish his blanket and I thought he'd like to be able to feel something in there that was different- like a fidget toy hidden within the blanket.  Once again, I taped the channels and the rows, sewed the channels, added the pellets and poker chips, sewed the row, and repeated until I was done.  At the end, I just sewed the opening shut with two lines of stitching and some fancy zigzag stitching in between.  No idea how holdfast that will actually be, but two lines of stitching are bound to hold better than one.

11.  Then I washed the blankets.  BECAUSE I COULD.  And also because that would help me pull up the tape.  But mostly just because it pleased me to be able to wash them.

Reflections: Next time, I think I'll make a blanket that's 24 squares big- 6 long channels and 4 rows.  The second blanket lays flat nicely, but it gets very floppy on a three-dimensional object, like a lap.  I can see spending 2 hours on making another blanket that combines the structure of the first with the shorter production time of the second.  Weighted blankets no longer scare me.  And I'm joining the ranks of those who don't want to pay $100.

Total cost:  I owned the thread, poker chips, and pillow cases, so those were no cost.  I imagine you can buy thread and pillow cases at St. Vincent de Paul or Goodwill for under $10 and you don't actually need the poker chips.  The poly pellets cost me $6.99 a bag at JoAnne's.  I get a teacher discount, which rocks, but still... $35 for 2 5-lb blankets.

Caveat:  If you have a child who is bigger than 40 lbs, you will probably want to follow the 12 square instructions, because the fewer the squares, the more room for pellets.  You'll need 96 oz of pellets for a 6 lb blanket for a 50 lb child, and 112 oz of pellets for a 7 lb blanket for a 60 lb child.  Anything bigger than that, and I'm not even sure you should use a pillowcase anymore, but as I haven't done it myself, I can't be sure.  There are probably advanced math equations designed to come up with the solution to this quandary, but everything on the notebook page above is the limit of my math ability.  If you come up with the equation, awesome, post it below and I'll edit my post to reflect it.

Extra credit:  Tomorrow or the next day, I'm making slipcovers for these.  Yes, they're both washable and that's awesome, but it would also be awesome to just be able to take off a case and wash it while still having the blanket available for use.  If I get super crazy awesome excited, I'll sew on zippers!

Broken foot

Just realized I never came back here and I totally left you (you non-existent audience, you) hanging.  Yes, that munchkin totally broke my foot.  SNAP, broke a bone in it.  Which meant I taught the first three weeks of school on a scooter with no weight on my left foot, which, okay, yeah, sucked a little.  Still, it's December (HOW THE CRAP IS IT ALREADY DECEMBER), and I'm doing fine.

I love my new batch of monsters and would gladly do anything they bid me.  Well, okay, that's not even remotely accurate.  I love my new batch of monsters and would gladly do anything that would help them- really help them.  Like, teach a man to fish kind of help.  Not the "I'll do it for you" kind of help that's not really what help is all about.  I would never do that to any child, much less one of my monsters.

I've always wondered, though, if the man dies of starvation before you teach him to fish, like, if he's fishing-handicapped or unlucky or something, isn't that a crappy metaphor?

"I saw a starving man, and I had a fish, and I didn't give it to him, because I tried to teach him to fish but then he died before he learned how."  HORRIBLE STORY.

I think they've crippled me...

That's totally an unfair accusation.  I half-crippled myself by wearing my normal teaching shoes after a summer of being away.  I should remember next spring to fold a post it note in the right one:  CHELSEY, START WITH CROCS.  Sure, they're ugly and awkward, but even lazy feet can handle an eight-hour shift chasing monsters while wearing crocs.

Although, it could also be because I was in the two-year-old room today.  I don't have any clue how they convince adults to work in an two-year-old environment for a living.  I don't think I was off my knees all day- the minute I'd get above their eye level, something would happen and I'd have to get back down there to sort it out.  Which made setting the table for lunch interesting, let me tell you.  Turns out, hot dogs still roll like anything on a paper plate- technology has not advanced far enough to offer us non-cylindrical hot dogs at an affordable price.

Speaking of tech advancements, Star Trek is playing on our tv tonight.  Holy heck, Wesley is playing with an Ipad.   Starships are right around the corner, people!  And little hypospray things to knock out your foot pain with a wisp of air.   And one assumes the synthesizers will pop out a mean hot dog prism, Chicago-style.

Short musing

I had a busy day, and I'm a little tired, so I don't have much energy to write down anything too insightful today.

I do have this, though:

Preschool teachers:  The only people on the face of the planet who feel so bad for the broken stapler that they can't throw it away.

Guts

Today I wrote a book about Martin Luther King Jr.  It is not a great book.  It belongs to a category of books known as "social stories."  These stories are actually designed to be unimaginative and involve as little actual creativity as possible.  Why would I torture my precious monsters with such a book?

Because race and civil rights are too important for me to mystify the central issues with fluff. 

And people, fluff is often all you get with books dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr.  They tell the story of his life (which, trust me, the kids don't care about or remember in the detail the books provide), or paint this beautiful picture of how race isn't an issue anymore thanks to the good Dr. and his freedom fighters. Well, friends, I live in realityville.  And in realityville, I can read studies which show that racism is actually an evolutionary mechanism of the mind which can be turned to some pretty sick purposes by our modern societies.  You don't get rid of an evolutionary mechanism by keeping quiet about it and pretending no one is experiencing it (in fact, good luck getting rid of it at all- it's at least 1/2 biology).  You ameliorate the negative affects of it by the social processes of education and discussion.



People get squeamish about a lot of stuff- there are topics they simply do. not. want. to discuss with their young.  I get that- such discussions make me nervous, too.  Sex, gender, death, etc.- they all come up (during bad weeks, on a rotating daily basis). I am highly trained to approach these conversations without adding censure (not actually all that hard, if all you do is ask open-ended questions like, "How does that make you feel?" and "What do you think about XYZ?").  That does not mean that I am even a little bit sure of my ability to handle such a loaded issue well.  However, I'm stepping up to the plate, willing to at least try.



So, here is a synopsis of my book:

(Caveat: These aren't the actual words- it's saved on my school computer.)


Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who lived not too long ago.  He lived at a time when some white people were mean to some black people.  He helped black and white people realize this wasn't fair- he talked to a lot of people about kindness and fairness, and a lot of people listened to his words and worked together to try to fix things.  Now that he is dead, we like to think about how he helps us to be friendly even now.


(Pretty boring and basic, right?  And, importantly, talking about the Big Damn Issues.  Four-year-olds can certainly grasp the concept of a bus boycott- but since they won't be engaging in one within the next few years, why not help them tackle something they deal with every day, like interracial relations?)



The next page is a bunch of photographs of all types of people and the words, "Why do you think we call some people black people and some people white people?  How are these people different?  How are they the same?"


Then a page with browns of varying colors (I'll have paint samples for passing around the actual day of)- "What color is your skin?"


And then the summary page- "Can you remember a time when someone was mean to you about how you looked?  How did it make you feel?  Have you ever been mean to someone?  Why were you mean to them?  What can you say if someone is being mean to someone else around you?"


Anyway, I'm hoping the discussion will be a lot more useful to my monsters than the "we're all the same on the inside" drivel I was fed in school.  Uh, no.  First of all, I thought they were talking about my physical guts, which made the next part of the speech really confusing.  And secondly, Jonny and I do not now, nor have we ever, had the same reactions, interests, or motivating life experiences.  We are different people, from different backgrounds.  It's kind of what makes us interesting. 



(Also, I just read an article that praised the MLK Jr. Day teaching practice of making white children feel guilty so that they would lose their race superiority.  Guilty for shit they didn't even do.  I almost threw up a little, because yes, please, let's make those tentative forays into building relationships a little more difficult, could we please?)

Extra energy

Today was the best first-day-back I've ever had.  I walked into the room and felt my heart lift right out of my shoes as I looked into the tiny, wonderful, up-turned shining faces of the little people I have come to feel very strongly for.  Not that my heart was actually in my shoes- I needed an extra dose of energy this morning (meaning, an extra cup of coffee), so it was actually jittering wildly around my ribcage.  Still, seeing those faces was like being plugged back into a charger- yay!  I missed you!  Tell me everything!

After school, I am modeling life-long learning by learning about water aerobics.  So far, what I have learned is that my instructor is a sadist who wants me to pant miserably while falling behind septuagenarians.  Stupid old people, flutter kicking like ninjas.  I think their curly white hair is some kind of buoyancy agent... more on that as I continue to investigate.