September 29

We had a lovely visit with my mom (aka Mom-Mom) this past week. When she arrived, the girls were in the family room and it was blocked off because that is how I do Becky's music movement time. Sarah ran to the gate and looked at Mom-Mom and said "hello. I love you, Sarah." Amy was so excited she hopped on her red bouncy horse and galloped several laps. Then Sarah went to the piano and Amy joined briefly, both of them plunking away enthusiastically. Then Mom-Mom sat where Amy had been and Sarah pointed to the music and said "music notes." Both seemed so excited to see Mom-Mom and show her what they could do.

I forgot to mention Sarah's joyful connection to Carl when he arrived over a week ago. She also had a sparkly, present welcome for Sonia, hugging her and saying "miss you. love you." For all of these recent greetings, Sarah has seemed very present and connected. Amy continues with her exuberant galloping as her expression of welcome. 

We bid farewell to Sc. this week. She has been an absolutely amazing gift to our program for over a year and we are sad to see her go. She is off on a new adventure, continuing to make the world a better place through her love, presence, and creativity. We were so blessed to have her for the time we did!

Mom-Mom and I took the girls to the National Aviary (where Carl and I got married 11 years ago!) for our field trip on Wednesday. Sarah walked up to the woman at the counter and said "hi" and then when asked a question gave a quiet "yes." !!! Have you found my socks? Because they have been knocked off by this girl. I think the most remarkable thing about that interaction was that it was so calm and normal that it probably didn't seem remarkable to the woman at the counter. The rest of the visit was slightly more challenging, mainly because there are lots of interesting tunnels, ramps, and doors, all of which Sarah loved, but some of which needed to be kept closed to keep the birds in their designated area. She asked to leave a handful of times but was ok staying as long as we did. We took 3 snack breaks, one of which was before we even got out of the car, and overall it was a great trip.

Sarah continues to looooove the vanilla pudding I make with cashew butter. She used to whine for it throughout the day. I realized that was because I hadn't decided on a limit so I was always evaluating with each request. I decided she can have 4 servings a day. Mom-Mom suggested making a chart and that seemed to help Sarah understand when I first implemented the new limits. She usually eats all 4 servings for breakfast and usually doesn't ask too much the rest of the day.

Sarah continues to attempt hopping on the trampoline on just one leg. She has also decided that instead of doing some of the variations in the musical movements she will just spin in a circle. It is hilarious to see her spin and then attempt to start galloping or running; she usually gallops at quite an angle across the room because she is still dizzy. Right now she spins clockwise 98% of the time and only counterclockwise very briefly when I tell her to or steer her. I am trusting that somehow this is just what her body and brain need at this time.

I have added in a handful of new foods to Sarah's diet and we have already run into a snag of skin irritation so backwards we go, off of most of the new foods until we reach equilibrium again. It is tricky to get in all of Sarah's supplements right now since she now eschews some of her favorite foods of old because they are not vanilla pudding. Always keeping me on my toes. 

Overall lately I have been feeling very happy and relaxed. Or so I thought. I have been feeling rather stiff and uncomfortable in my neck and shoulders. At my Alexander Technique (AT) class yesterday (it is a class for teachers so I am a student in the class), I realized that perhaps I was tightening against feeling any sadness or frustration. It is great to feel good, but it is also ok to not feel good and to allow space for all the feelings. I am so frustrated to have to back off new foods!! So sad! So pissed!  @^&%#%^&#&*^%$*&((*)!!! I so much want to throw in the towel and give up. I know it is good to have new information and have a chance to clarify what Sarah's body can't process, but I want to be able to give her foods that she likes that are healthy. I hate needing to take them away again. The foods I have to take away for the moment: sprouted raw pumpkin seeds with sea salt, bananas, almond flour, 1 bite of cheese. I know I am supposed to go slowly with adding new foods but it is hard for me. Perhaps if i had gone more slowly and done each of these things more individually then the culprit would be easier to determine. I am pretty sure we can keep the lima bean hummus. 

For the AT class we are reading Indirect Procedures by Pedro de Alacantara. One line, taken slightly out of context, struck me as being perfect for me as a parent: "Opposition can be extremely pleasurable in all its manifestations." I so often get annoyed at the opposition of my children. What a lovely challenge to see it as pleasurable. I crack up just considering it, which does help to lighten things and keep me feeling creative. I recognize that it is a wonderful thing for my kids to know what they want and be passionate and determined as they try to get it.

I feel like Sarah has been making great strides this month (as she does every month), and it is a month in which I really backed off of my ambitions and beliefs about what needed to happen. I focused a lot on making sure I had enough help to be relaxed and letting go of my scheduling agenda more than usual. Perhaps the way to really best help Sarah is to really put on my oxygen mask first. Really solidly. This is my new frontier. Sarah's eating regimen, SR time, Becky's program, and outdoor playtime all happened, but maybe not every day and with much fewer official SR hours. I think that is ok (ack!!! is it really???). If I am truly more relaxed then I can do more lifestyle SR whenever the opportunity is there. 

Amy seems to have inherited my strong love of stuffed animals. She likes tucking them into bed under blankets on the floor. Last night she arranged them sitting on a basement step. So cute!!

I hope you are all having weekends. No pressure for them to be anything other than what they are.

September 22

My "marathon" of being on my own (with Sonia and Carl out of town simultaneously) is at a close. I was very much not on my own and the whole thing went incredibly smoothly. (Luckily the nights went well.) I have such wonderful people surrounding and helping me. This past week my dad came out to help and it was absolutely wonderful. The girls loved having him here, as did I. Tomorrow my mom arrives so my cup runneth over with a bounty of loving and helpful parents! I am deeply blessed in so many ways!!

Preschool went well both days, with my attending to Sarah occasionally. Sometimes she told me to move away. She seems less resistant to prompts from her teachers than to prompts from me. She waited very patiently for her turn with a painting project on Thursday. She also helps with the clean-up and I have learned from watching her teachers that the way to get her help is to ask her to do a very specific task, rather than asking for her general help. I tried this at home on Friday and she did both things that I requested.

One of the things Sarah loves to do at school is to pretend to be Ms. C. After circle time, when the kids are dismissed to free play, Sarah usually seizes the opportunity to sit in C's rocking chair and do what she can to sing the weather song and the days of the week song, with movements. Though no one is near her I usually hear her squeak out, "pretending to be Ms. C!" She then plays with the calendar and velcro number pieces. Because her teachers are just so awesome, they created a velcro alphabet board because of how Sarah was playing with the calendar board.

At school on Thursday the snack for the other kids was vanilla pudding. Sarah usually handles her food restrictions very well, and she even handled this limitation well but she made it clear that she wished she had some. I told her we would make some at home (having no clue how I would make this happen). Total success! Here is my recipe for Sarah's vanilla pudding:

large dollop of raw cashew butter

1 small spoonful of coconut butter

coconut milk, enough to thin the mixture to desired consistency

tiny sploosh of vanilla extract

Stir. Serve.

Sarah looooves this. I have to make sure she eats other foods throughout the day and gets enough water because if left to her own devices I think she would eat nothing but vanilla pudding. Luckily it is high in protein and calories, both of which are still very good for our little pipsqueak. 

Sarah's movements to the music routine are getting stronger. She is at her most focused and active when it is just the two of us in the room. When Amy participates too then Sarah needs more prompting and is clearly interested in watching Amy move. Sarah's tip-toeing is getting quite solid. Sometimes she even does it backwards. As I watched her on Friday I marveled at her strong legs and beautiful foot alignment. When she was very young and learning to walk she pronated her feet to a severe degree in her effort to gain stability. We used AFO's a little bit (a plastic brace of sorts to keep her foot lined up with her ankle). In theory we were supposed to use them all the time, but there were conflicting theories with the Anat Baniel Method, which suggested letting her feet be free so she could explore her movements and get feedback. We did some of both. Looking at her walking and tip-toeing now, I don't think anyone would ever guess how pronated she used to be. Hurray for growth and development and strength.

When Sarah jumps on the trampoline she has been starting to attempt a one-legged jump. This is completely her own idea and it is adorable to see her trying to figure it out. Sometimes she lifts one leg entirely (while holding the support bar) and other times she puts one leg behind her on the edge of the trampoline.

Sarah's pronoun use is getting much better. So is Amy's. They are also asking for things more sweetly and I think I've caught an occasional spontaneous "thanks" from Sarah. Part of the reason for all of this is that I have been asking for all of it directly and explicitly. To help with pronouns I tell them how to say what they mean to say and they repeat. 

I have been feeling a tiny bit less irritated by some of the girls' upsets lately. I think this is because of my recent talk with M. and realizing that the girls are just in stages of development and that it is where they are supposed to be and my role is to help them through, but that I don't need to take it personally. Asking them for more kindness and less whining also helps tremendously. 

The snail shorts are now only for bedtime and naps! This is a huge change from Sarah wearing them 24/7. I decided on the change because of the cooler temperature and because they are really falling apart. I had been wondering how on earth I would deal with taking them away and then suddenly the solution seemed obvious. She has adjusted well and I am really enjoying seeing her in other clothes!

I mentioned that we were starting to move away from GAPS. It is official. We are moving into a whole, healthy food diet, following the Westin A Price Foundation guidelines. If you want to see what these are, go here: http://www.westonaprice.org/basics/dietary-guidelines 

This change is at the suggestion of our GAPS advisor. I feel liberated, and excited, and also like I have come unmoored. I still need to go slowly with introducing new foods, but it feels very odd to be so unlimited with what those are. The first few things I am excited to reintroduce are lima bean hummus (yes, really, it is totally scrumptious), my GAPS banana bread, and GAPS snowball cookies. 

Yesterday was Sonia's birthday and we called to sing to her. Sarah sang her best happy birthday ever!! (though the recipient of her song was apparently herself). Amy got phone shy and didn't sing at all, even though I had heard her singing to herself earlier in the day. Carl and I were passably in tune (I hope!)

My love and appreciation to all of you!! Every time I think of this large team of people rooting for us I am moved to tears.

September 14

A good problem to have is... 

Sarah not getting around to brushing her teeth because she is busy talking about how the sink is empty, pronouncing each word perfectly.

Sarah delaying brushing her teeth because she is busy pretending that the toothbrush is a melting popsicle. 

Sarah getting up from breakfast because she must put pretend lemon juice on Carl's food (she loves people making sour faces)

Sarah helping herself to food from the freezer, fridge, and counter

Sarah wanting to help with almost everything I do in the kitchen (and being in the way and underfoot)

Sarah not wanting me to do the music movement while she does it (she is doing it!!)

Needing to spot Sarah and Amy on the trampoline because they like hanging and swinging from the bar

Not knowing what to do with myself when Sarah barely needs my help at preschool

-------------------------

I've been thinking a lot lately about these good problems and remembering that any difficulty now is one I probably would have paid to have when Sarah was less able.

I've been thinking about how different flowers benefit from different kids of care and we don't fault them for it. What if we extended the same understanding to care for different kinds of people without thinking that different needs meant anything was amiss?

This thinking was largely in response to my 2 visits to preschool this week. On Tuesday Sarah was impressively focused, responsive, and attentive. I did basically nothing and the teachers did almost all the redirecting or encouraging needed. When we left I was considering talking to the teachers about Sarah being there on her own. And then there was Thursday. On Thursday, Sarah seemed much less focused and attentive and needed lots more redirection. She did much more exclusive play. I joined her a couple of times thinking that might help her reconnect in general. Instead, while we were building with some tiles and having a semi-interactive time, she somehow pinched her finger in a way that I didn't see and was very upset for many minutes. Since she had been asking to go home before this happened and asked again after, and since it didn't seem like a stellar day anyway, I decided to take us all home early. This had the side benefit that we weren't out in the torrential thunderstorm that started when we otherwise would have been leaving preschool/daycare. 

I think this preschool is the absolute best place for Sarah at this moment for her school muscles to get going. And I think it is a challenge for her and that going two days a week is her limit and perhaps even over the limit sometimes. I'll see what this next week brings. Noticing how she doesn't do the music movements if I do them and sometimes stops if Amy does them, I can see why in school she doesn't always participate in things. Sometimes she does and it is amazing and other times I think it is just too much to do anything other than pay attention to whatever fascinating thing another person is doing. The exciting thing with seeing this is that I realize her abilities in many areas may be stronger than we think; it is up to us to design the right environment to bring those abilities forth. And once her muscles and abilities get stronger in these different areas then she can participate more and more. Being at home and one-on-one most of the time will help her muscles and abilities get stronger, as has already been happening.

Sarah's greetings and farewells are really getting good. When L. arrived, Sarah spontaneously said "hell-o" and today she said "bye" to some friends at the appropriate moment all of her own accord.

Puzzles remain a huge challenge for Sarah. Watching Amy sort them out so quickly is a miracle (for me). I very much appreciate G.'s work with Sarah yesterday when she was playing with a puzzle. He let her be. He let her fiddle with it and make mistakes and put things together wrong. That is something I don't really do because I have been so concerned with teaching her to "get it." I am reminded by G.'s time that perhaps the best thing I can do to help her get it is to get out of the way and give her time.

There seems to be a lot recently about my helping most by getting out of the way. Yes. And... first I set the groundwork, the goals, the modeling, the environment, and then I can get out of the way. Knowing when to get out of the way and when to interact is perhaps the whole ball game.

A few nights ago as Sarah finished her bath, I looked over and realized it was yet another time to let her be. I could see those cognitive wheels turning as she stacked and unstacked cups by size, noticing and correcting all on her own. 

Wednesday we went on a field trip to the zoo (with the lovely C. as our assistant). It went super well. We were there for 2 hours and we took at least 4 snack breaks. Sarah was interested in the animals (as was Amy, but that is more of a given). In the evening when Carl was talking to the girls he asked what they saw and Sarah gave a few answers! When things like this happen it is easy to take them for granted, but they are really noteworthy and amazing.  

September 8

I think the biggest thing from this week was my learning how to get out of Sarah's way and effectively invite her to do more physical movement. For two months I have been doing Becky's program with Sarah and for the movement-to-music parts it has been mostly me moving around while Sarah sat on the sofa. I would model and invite and sometimes physically move her around. She would participate in tiny ways but the main thing she did was watch me. While this may have had immense value as a model, it wasn't getting Sarah up and moving. When I spoke with M. she suggested pausing and telling Sarah it was her turn. Rather inadvertently, I decided to take this to an extreme. I sat on the couch (to block it) and told her it was her turn. The first day I only did so for one song... and she did every movement! The second day I sat out, beaming and telling Sarah it was her turn for 4 songs. She did almost everything. Clapping, stomping, arm-swinging, spinning, walking, galloping, running, jumping, skating, pretending to be an elephant/cat/frog/bird/snake/monkey, and dancing. Absolutely amazing. Her awkward earnestness is almost unbearably adorable. 

Wednesday was our first official Field Trip. Sonia, Sarah, Amy, and I went pear picking. It was beautiful and peaceful and we were the only ones there. Absolutely perfect. 

At the suggestion of our GAPS advisor we are departing from GAPS somewhat. We are still going slow and being stringent about what Sarah eats but we are adding some non-GAPS items in small quantities (potatoes, sweet potatoes, brown rice, and quinoa). We had already done the quinoa but she isn't really a big quinoa eater. She is excited to have rice again. I soak it for about 12 hours first. 

I bought some new jigsaw puzzles today and Sarah worked on them diligently for several minutes. She needs a lot of guidance but her stamina for trying is impressive.

September 2

Sarah started preschool this week. She goes two mornings a week from 9-12 to a neighborhood preschool that is very welcoming and flexible. Sonia goes as her attendant, but she doesn't need much attending. Except when she does, and then she really does. She has always enjoyed school and this year is no exception. Tuesday was her fifth first day of preschool. While at the sand table, Sarah said that the sand was soft and another kid responded, having understood her! I am noticing that more and more people understand her without needing assistance. YAY! She also drew a self portrait when that was the assigned activity. 

Tuesday morning when I opened the fridge, something was clearly amiss. Tuesday night we went shopping for a new refrigerator and Sarah loooooved it. What heaven for someone who loves opening and closing doors. I am thrilled with our new refrigerator. It is beautiful and large. We move through a lot of fresh food in this house and in the past we had to go shopping multiple times per week because we simply couldn't store all that we were going to use. I think now that might change. Tonight I bought 6 dozen eggs and enough greens to hopefully do the week of juicing, among lots of other things. Sarah also tried brussels sprouts tonight! One of her favorite books has Elmo mentioning them and she has been mentioning them frequently. Normally she doesn't pay any heed to the cooked veggies on her plate, but tonight she boldly picked up the sprout and took a bite. And spit it out. Hooray for trying it!

On Thursday night just before going to sleep, Sarah started going through the bodywork routine from Becky's program that I do with her in the afternoons. She was doing it on herself and saying all the corresponding words. When Carl offered her his foot she did the foot routine on him! My jaw dropped repeatedly.

We had a wonderful visit this weekend with Carl's cousin and her family. As Sarah said, we had feasts. The night before they arrived we were telling our girls about what was going to happen. Amy got confused because one of her cousins is called Z. and Amy thought we meant that her friend Z. (who recently moved) was coming to visit. Amy was very upset when she realized her friend was not coming. I suggested that Amy could write a letter to her friend. I asked if she wanted me to write various things and she said yes to each one and then she drew in the empty space. We had to explain that it was best not to draw over the writing. I gave Sarah some paper to write a letter and she didn't respond to my questions about what I could write for her. Instead she started making the marks that are her letters and signature. She was clearly writing a letter, even if no one can read it. 

I have been attempting to more often prioritize the use of myself. In all ways. The first thing this usually means when I think of it is in terms of the Alexander Technique and my own ease and connection within myself, freeing my neck, leading with my head, and the rest of Alexander's directions. 

I have also been feeling very burned out at times and worrying that if I took a break I wouldn't want to resume the program. I had an excellent consultation with M. and she suggested that I give myself some time each week that is just for me. Not for me to improve myself so I will be a better team leader, but for me just to rest or read something unrelated to the things I am doing to help Sarah.  I will be revising my schedule to include a time for me when I am not permitted to do anything I'm "supposed" to do. When I start feeling more freedom for myself I have a lot more creative energy and love for Sarah.

I hope you all had wonderful weekends. When I was little, I thought Labor Day was for pregnant women.