Sarah made up a new word, unintentionally, as she tried to say "envelope." Her new word is "empty-lope," referring to an empty envelope.
She is pointing out when things match, sometimes correctly and sometimes not. When we eat she says we have matching forks. She also says "matching pants" which is not true because no one else here has snail shorts.
Sarah is easily allowing almost all of Becky Blake's program for her. The only thing she still doesn't want at all is to be rolled in a blanket but she does let me roll her without the blanket. She does a lot of the brain gym moves herself. With the music and movement component she does some of the moves but mainly just watches me intently. With Sarah-Rise I believe the first level of participation is observation so I'm ok with her just watching. I figure that when she is ready she will get up and move. She does some of the movements in an abbreviated way from her seat on the sofa. Her favorite part seems to be watching me gallop. The great thing about the music and movement is that it gets me moving. It is humbling how challenging it is for me to hop like a frog for more than just 2 or 3 hops.
I had an extremely helpful talk with M. (our Son-Rise advisor and mentor) on Wednesday. We have revised our current SR goals to be flexibility and politeness. This means nudging slightly against Sarah controlling everything in the SR room and asserting our own desires a bit more. We do this gently, playfully, and flexibly. We also now request that she say things in a normal or nice voice instead of a whiney voice. What is lovely is that she can do this! And she does it easily and willingly most of the time. I have also been asking her to change her requests a bit from "making a..." to "I want to make..." During my session yesterday a few moments after my request she then said "I want to look at pictures of baby Sarah." It was so perfect that it took me a moment to register what I had just heard.
Yesterday Sarah and I had the longest and most official session of playing a board game we have ever had. We were playing Chutes and Ladders. Sometimes she wanted to just hop her piece around the board but she was amenable to following my prompts to leave it in place or leave my piece in place and to take turns spinning. I think we took at least 10 turns each. This is really huge progress.
Last night Carl had hist first official session in a long time and he was amazed at Sarah's eye contact, connection, and imagination.
Sarah loves doors and doorways. As I have mentioned, we currently do not allow this play with outside doors or with the SR room door during sessions. Yesterday during my session she said she wanted to play on the sheet porch so we made a porch/deck out of a sheet on the floor and used blue planks to be doorways. She loved it. As she walked over a plank I said "Slam!" and she cracked up. It felt lovely to in some way be able to cater to her love of doors.
Usually I get mad at myself when I get mad at the girls. What I want to notice and celebrate is my fast turn-around time. Yes, I do get mad/grumpy/annoyed. Sometimes I yell. But within 5 minutes I have usually regrouped and can talk about it in a way that I think the girls understand or at least in a way that they enjoy. Sarah loves the story of when I sat on our big blue ball and said "this is not going to work!" She also loves it when we go too far (driving, biking, on a bus, etc). So yesterday after being grumpy and too abrupt with stopping what the girls were doing, resulting in lots of crying on their part, I regrouped and talked about how sometimes I think something is going to work and then realize "this is not going to work! I went too far!" The energy shifted and laughs and snuggles were had. Some day I dream of not getting grumpy and abrupt to begin with, but for now I am endeavoring to notice my recovery and not just berate myself for my grumps.
Another thing I want to notice and remember is that I stay much more focused and energized regarding our SR program when I frequently listen to CDs by Bears or Samahria, listen to webinars by the Son-Rise training staff, listen to parent-testimonials, read any Option or Son-Rise books, and talk to M. on a regular basis. Any complimentary things we are doing are also great but for me, now, immersing myself in Son-Rise is what feels best and most effective.
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